And you’re missing my main point which is that even adults are subjected to “reminders” and even strictly worded “instructions” which may seem downright “infantilizing” and dismissive of their greater maturity and ability to make their own judgment calls without involving those in higher levels of authority.
And if one is even perceived as having a history or exhibiting a strong possibility of making poor judgment calls…that level of “infantilization” of reminders/instructions by one’s supervisors in the workplace or in other areas of one’s adult life will only get worse. There’s a reason why many adults complain of being heavily micromanaged by their supervisors, clients, spouses, etc…etc…etc.
Sometimes it is due to managers stereotyping all employees/reports as incompetents without verifying if that’s the case. However…and this is key…sometimes it may be the more reasonable case that micromanagment and such “infantilizing” reminders/instructions are given because the one doing the micromanaging has good reason due to history of past poor performance or other indications which indicate a possibility that would be the case if said manager opted for a hands-off “let the employees/reports completely handle it themselves” approach.
In short, contrary to the expressed beliefs by some on this thread, adults…including those at elite colleges sometimes DO need those “reminders” because a critical minority of them have had a history of making poorly considered judgment calls which negatively impacted others and by extension, the institution.
@cobrat, understood. But we are talking about the training of young adults on a college campus. At its best, that training should involve giving them the tools to make good choices independent of micromanagement, dictates, lists of do’s and don’ts.
We are talking about Yale here - presumably these kids will be the future bosses, not the ones who need to be micromanaged due to their poor judgment. Shouldn’t we be training these kids how to manage their affairs like highly-skilled adults, not like the boob in the office who needs to be told something over and over?
I get your point but I still think your example was a poor one because you used an example where it was very easy for people to confuse a costume with the threat of violence with costumes for which no threat violence could be assumed i.e. Dressing up as a geisha or with a sombrero.
I think we should be clear about the continuum between “safe place” and physical safety.
I think @boolaHI is only acknowledging a sad truth. Middle class blacks are routinely the target of anti-affirmative action bigots because they are deemed too “white” to qualify as diverse. I wouldn’t be surprised if a large number of the Yale protesters are, indeed, from middle class homes.
Part of the training to be ready for post-college life is also to learn how to deal with being issued “infantilizing” reminders/instructions or otherwise micromanaged whether unjustly or not by supervisors, spouses, and other “bosses” in various areas of one’s adult life without visibly exhibiting a negative complaining attitude about it unless one’s fully prepared to accept the seriously negative consequences of doing so.
Also, I think the presumption that Yale students will be future bosses is a highly presumptuous generalization…pun partially intended.
Not every Yale or Ivy/peer elite graduate will be future bosses or in some cases…even good employees.
One good case in point…the Harvard Engineering graduate who worked incompetently for my uncle as his clerical secretary for more than a decade because he was the “idiot nephew” of a powerful influential senior engineering executive of the firm and the other executives felt that job placement was where he’s less likely to do further serious damage to the firm after disastrous stints as an entry-level engineer and sales/marketing representative/analyst.
Said uncle had to suffer the aggravations of dealing with his secretary’s incompetence for a decade without recourse until that senior executive and a few key allies of his left the firm which enabled the rest of the senior executives of the firm to finally can him as they should have done 2 decades previously.
Not too surprisingly, that experience coupled with his own experience as an Ivy alum himself meant the Ivy pedigree by itself is not only unlikely to impress him, but would actually cause him to scrutinize such potential hires more closely to ensure he doesn’t end up facilitating the hiring of someone like his incompetent secretary or some undergrad/grad school classmates whom he felt lacked good work ethic and common sense. Understandable considering he still considers that Ivy graduate to be the worst employee he’s ever supervised in his 50+ year career as a professional engineer and engineering manager.
He uses his experience with that Ivy graduate to illustrate the point that an Ivy/elite U pedigree by itself doesn’t necessarily denote the prospective candidate would necessarily be a superior or even a satisfactorily competent hire.
Re: post 461,
According to the link posted, the base commanders at Ft. Bragg issued the warning about wearing Halloween costumes "of such a nature and theme " AFTER this idiot tried to get on base wearing the bomber costume, not before. He showed really , REALLY bad judgement, but it does not seem that he disregarded any orders. Disregarding orders can have strong consequences. No evidence of this.
Read more carefully, and don’t embellish.
“Personally, I find it borders on asinine to place a young woman of color, in the position to approach someone on Halloween night, a night where a fair amount of drinks might be assumed to be part of the festivity, and you see someone in an offensive outfit, and you shyly approach to make inquiry whether you can have a meaningful dialogue about the narrative it creates.”
Should Yale (in the first email) have then listed out a list of acceptable costumes, and indicate that there would be official college sanction of some sort if a costume off the list was worn? Seems like that’s what you want. If that’s your opinion, why not just state it? Because nothing in the first email actually prevented an offensive costume - it was just a call to be thoughtful.
@mcat2 - Some Yale alumns will correct me if I am wrong, but Yale seems more insular than most other elite colleges. The undergrads all live on campus in the same house after their freshman year. They are required to eat on campus as part of their meal plan. During our visit, the off campus student retail district was by far the smallest of all the schools we visited. Even tiny W&L had a bigger off campus retail district with a greater variety of shops and restaurants.
If you compared Yale to the University of Chicago which is similar in that it is surrounded by lower income areas, UC has a much more vibrant off campus retail district that is somewhat integrated into the local neighborhood. You don’t get that at Yale, at least from my perspective.
Should the email have said “If you are a white male and think its funny to dress as a pregnant, blackface nun with a Tomahawk and a Geisha fan, think again.”
I don’t think examples were necessary, but it seems some folks would have felt better if there were.
H asked me if this racial tension at Yale means the President’s daughter will cross it off her list. I think she realizes there are jerks everywhere, but the majority of students really do want the experience to be positive for all students.
I hadn’t known about the tea with Lukianoff prior to the email. But had been wondering what possessed someone to fire off such a missive after midnight and before Halloween.
Just to add a few more pieces, Erika Christakis had been promoting Lukianoff’s work since at least 2012 – see this article. http://ideas.time.com/2012/12/04/wither-goes-free-speech-at-harvard/ and she and her husband have been milking this episode for all it’s worth (and a lot more, IMO), while the girl who finally blows up is attacked and ridiculed. Way to protect the kids for whom you’re in loco parentis! Note also that the video of the girl yelling at Nicholas Christakis is edited so her response seems out of proportion, but at that point, NC had been talking with the students for quite a while and a number were already leaving in disgust. Basically, he drew out the conversation until he elicited the angry response which is then presented without context. From what I’ve seen on longer clips, at least three other students had already tried to get him to engage, and all he seemed to want to do was defend himself. Other students had already given up on the dialogue when the outburst happened.
Whether this is a case of crass collective self-promotion or riding an ideological hobbyhorse or both, it’s worth noting that Lukianoff and the Christakises escalated and sustained this conflict and, in the Christakises case, in a way that seems to have been at the expense of the students and the school they were supposed to be serving. As a side note, it’s also a case that shows how power differentials make confrontations over offensive behavior a really bruising ordeal for the person who has been offended and who often has very little chance of success in moving the discourse to a better place without institutional support and/or numerous allies.
Thus far, EC, whose stupid/self-indulgent late night email sets off this shitstorm has emerged as the hero of the piece and the poor kid who feels so betrayed that she finally just loses it is cast as the villain. And not once AFAICT do the Christakises actually try to understand or learn from what the students are telling them. Maybe, as my kid used to say (nervously) as a toddler, “it will all come out right in the end?” and Yale will improve the racial climate on its campus. But if so, credit to the students who weathered the storm and tried to channel its power rather than to the “Masters” who steered them into it.
The problem with the EC response was that she specifically stated that she was doing so due to students that were “frustrated” by the original costume email. She goes on to argue against that email and to suggest that anyone offended should simply confront the costume wearer and engage in a dialogue about why the costume is offensive. How does anyone think that makes sense in the context of Halloween where costumes are worn at parties, not in the classroom? Is a marginalized student going to go up to a popular kid dressed as an Indian warrior and ask him to stop partying so she can explain why this is an inappropriate costume? The popular, powerful kids really don’t care what some less powerful student has to say, certainly not at a frat party.
I have been at adult parties where someone wore something inappropriate or acted like a jerk and guess what, the other adults (myself included) did not confront the person about their costume or behavior. We may have rolled our eyes or left, but people tend to avoid confrontation - even adults. Do adult workers really call out their bosses for slightly sexist or racist comments on a daily basis? I don’t think so - they get annoyed, complain to their spouses, and do their jobs. While it sounds good to say the best way to solve this is with dialogue, it is unrealistic.
It appears that EC (as Cobrat said earlier) was siding with the “boys will be boys” crowd and putting it on those offended to react, while the original email seemed to say (in a somewhat condescending way) that kids should think about what they are trying to say with their costumes. Given that the email was signed by student groups, in addition to administrators, it really seems EC was taking sides, which as RC associate master, she should probably try to avoid.
That being said, EC makes some good points. I am not even sure which Halloween costumes would be truly offensive. Is it OK to wear a gypsy costume but not an American Indian one? Is a witch ok but not a priest? A geisha or samurai but not a Mexican? Is that due to the cultural stereotypes of one group over another? As others have said, while there are still racist and cultural bias in places like Yale, that may pale if compared to the privilege enjoyed by almost every Yale student compared to most of the residents of New Haven. It certainly does not seem to be something that should cause students to lose sleep or stop eating.
So it’s a hostile environment if one even suggests that the way to deal with an offensive hypothetical costume is to talk to the wearer and start a dialogue. But it’s not a hostile environment to shout obscenities at a person. Got it.
^^It’s disturbing to see a sustained effort on this thread to blur the lines between of what is truly offensive and what is not. Such posts promote the idea that the line is blurry or the slope is slippery, so no line should be drawn at all… because ‘free speech.’
Of course, there is a difference.
There is a difference between someone performing the chorus of Bruce Springsteen’s “Fire” and someone yelling “Fire” in a theatre. The same difference applies to the geisha example. The tourists in Japan are taking part in celebrating, not mocking, geishas. Let’s be real: the sorority/fraternity that chooses a Geisha theme party is not going out of its way to celebrate the finer points of Japanese culture.
We may debate whether the line should be drawn - by campus, by workplace rules or whatever. Can we at least agree there is a distinction between celebrating a culture and mocking one for entertainment?
Hmm, if a city that is almost 90% white, is not literally all white, I don’t know what is…lets place the shoe on. Another foot, if any town were almost 90% black, most anyone would call it a black city. Even a city like Detroit, which is barely like 80% black, is known as a black city…
@pragmaticmom Why throw out the sorority party reference? We are talking about Halloween costumes. Where on the not slippery slope do non-Greek residents of Silliman fall if they wear a geisha costume? Are they celebrating or mocking?
Since then, various people appropriated these videos and modified them with their own commentary.
Regarding the Christakises, your characterization of their actions is ridiculous. They should not have to apologize when they did not do anything wrong and the students demands were infantile (i.e. apologize for not for protecting my safe space!). Sadly, the Yale administration has already started to cave. When it is all over, the Christakises will likely get fired and have their academic careers tarnished, student mob will leave satisfied that they won, and future free speech at Yale will be muzzled.