Well, I generally agree, but I have been assured by some of my black friends that it is okay for an African-American person to call another the n-word, but it is never acceptable for “whitey” to use that term. But that is just part of how complex this issue is, because when you get down to it, context matters.
and @al2simon , while I find your reply post #787 in part humorous, at the same time I respectfully request understanding that this is a very complex issue, even if hypothetical. I am hurt and offended that you discount the possibility of this being a same-sex marriage. But while I may be simultaneously offended, I won’t stoop to shriek “Who the heck hired you?” even if I don’t feel hypothetically safe.
You can’t keep lumping all the ills of society onto this specific incident to justify the student overreaction. It’s intellectually dishonest. Gender issues were not a part of what happened in the Halloween incident.
Gender was not present? Seems most of the parties involved were women. In my first post, I cited the editorial piece by my friendʻs daughter, who specifically mentioned she was uncomfortable confronting people about specific costumes. The masterʻs wife, if Iʻm correct is female, and the young black female who has left school is female…all have a part of the narrative.
To the student who ranted and screamed the f word in the face of a professor, please know no one wants to hire you. Who would want a person that gets in the face of another person and rants and raves like a crazy loon just because you did not like an email or have a different opinion. Life is unfair. Hate to tell you this but people are rude and life is hard. In fact, it is much harder than living in an air-conditioned, privileged dorm that has matching comforters, a meal plan and grand pianos in the lobby. When is someone going to state the obvious? Spitting and screaming and cursing and threatening people is wrong…I do not care about the color of your skin, your gender or your political ilk. You can attend another college if you do not like this. Do not let the door hit you on the bottom as you leave.
“This is one of the more memorable injustices of my life, but from the lady’s point of view, my one little ring was the last straw that made her pop her cork.”
I think that’s fair, but it’s important as well to then be able to articulate this. Yale’s “failure” to suss out and stamp out even the remotest possibility of a potentially offensive costume pales in comparison to, for example, boola’s daughter being the victim of horrible words at a Yale party.
I actually do not discount the possibility of same-sex marriage at all (though I think you really should have written “same-gender” marriage). My company was one of the first in the state to offer benefits to same-sex partners. In fact, that’s why I intentionally went out of my way to number the possibilities in a non-exhaustive list. I assure you my post was written that way deliberately.
But same-sex marriage or same-gender marriage just isn’t my situation, so I couldn’t offer any comment based on my life experience. You could definitely add possibilities 3 and 4.
However, I will plead guilty to blatant gender stereotyping
I am sorry if that read as underestimating the power of students to educate their peers. I absolutely agree that is one way change happens. I am grateful to the student educators and activists. However, I’m not sure this is something we should expect or require of students, especially when those who speak up are sometimes abused in the media nationally and subject of death threats. I have been reading various essays by Yale students, which read to me as educational efforts, and almost invariably the comments after the essays are threatening.
If I think of bullying and harassment as a continuum, rather than isolated incidents,I believe it is possible to lump a lot of societal ills all together.
But that really wasn’t the point of the original e-mail. Its point was to remind people to be nice. It wasn’t really about standing with anybody. And this passage also is unfair when it says what the Christakises’ position is really about. What if it really is about free speech?
Now, I do kind of think the Christakis e-mail was a bad idea, and was somewhat tone-deaf. But when you start claiming that other people are lying about their motives, then you open the door for questioning of your own motives.
Now you’re being ridiculous, boolaHI. People can’t leave their gender behind in their dorm room before they complain, but that doesn’t mean that gender is at all implicated in this situation. Even if you want to suggest that female students might feel less comfortable than male students confronting an offense, that was not actually a point they made or was it? It seemed that their INITIAL complaints were about racial and cultural insensitivity. After that, it became a free-for-all, citing every offense ever committed by Eurocentrics, which was when your D’s friend entered the fray.
Originally I didn’t question the motives of Christakis. On one level, I agree with what she wrote, but don’t think it works for the here and now. It works for the world we are trying to create and we aren’t there yet. imho. I felt badly for her in a way. Now I’m not so sure about motive.
No, it wasn’t the point. But it was the result in the situation. Which is what caused this. Yes, he may have thought the point was something else. But in the situation, that is how others reasonably interpret what he wrote. It is part of his job to be aware of the effects of his words in situations, and his ability to do exactly what he did: undermine the university and a stance with those affected.
I know the person who penned the editorial very well, and yes, it was one of her concerns. The order and hierarchy of these institutions, as has been very well documented, rest heavily on a gender component–accept it or not, but it is the reality.
OTOH, many of the essays are “Here’s how we all must change” speeches or passionate but vague accusations of countless incidents of harassment, rather than specific stories of instances where people have truly felt threatened at Yale. It’s possible that the threatening, nasty comments would happen in either case, but in my experience (I teach writing), specific, concrete narrative will always speak to people in a way that well-meant, passionate polemics will not.
At my son’s high school, students spend the first year and a half writing personal narratives in English. Midway through 10th grade, they branch out to close textual analysis. They end their time at the school with a Senior Meditation in which they narrate, analyze. and reflect on the broader meaning of their experiences. There’s a lot of wisdom embedded in that approach, in my view.
Let’s say Spouse #1, Chris, is furious and rails at Spouse #2, Lee, for five minutes, before Lee can slip in the incontrovertible proof that Lee didn’t go anywhere near the fridge last night. Chris brings up an alleged pattern of carelessness-- Lee doesn’t close the fridge, leaves the back door open, lets their three year old play in the front yard unsupervised even though they live on a busy street, leaves their loaded gun on the coffee table…
The marriage counselor is going to tell Chris that five minute tantrums do not serve a person well, particularly when the precipitating incident isn’t even true. She’s going to tell the couple about better ways to communicate. But then the marriage counselor is going to say, “Let’s talk about letting little Caden play in the front yard and let’s talk about that gun.”
If there is some apparently disproportionate reaction to an incident, it’s might be time to look at the whole situation and see if there is a pattern of legitimate grievances underlying the overreaction. The people in Ferguson were wrong about Michael Brown; he attacked that cop. But they were right about pervasive injustice: the cops used and use the lower income citizens as a cash machine, and there is a system of, essentially, debtor’s prisons.
I recall that there was a to-do about Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” video especially the booty shorts, twerking takes. It was argued by several female talking heads that it stereotyped black women and was demeaning, etc.
I wish everyone would watch it and comment on whether it was offensive and, if so, to what group. I sent a link to my 26 yo son who is a TA (they don’t call it that ) at Berkeley for him to get responses from a cross section of college students. He was the person who informed me of the Yale “safe space” explosion.
I’m betting that there will be no consensus on whether it is offensive, to whom and why. If there is no consensus, is the “correct” thing to do is to ban costumes altogether and expel anyone who disobeys this safe space protective measure?.
I saw that there is now a controversy over a retailer’s OCD Christmas color themed shirt that defines OCD as Excessive Christian Disorder.
So am I to understand, boolaHI, that some Yale women are saying they feel too weak or afraid or vulnerable due to Yale’s history of female oppression to speak for up for themselves face to face with their offenders, and therefore are angry at EC’s insensitivity in suggesting that they consider that, despite the fact she’s a woman at Yale herself?
IMO, which of course will be totally wrong, people need to start seeing that claiming victimhood in such minor scenarios serves to uphold rather than destroy stereotypes. Do people want to be seen as a special group who needs special treatment, or do they want to be considered empowered the same as everyone else? It seems they want it both ways, which is impossible. When I was in college, women would be highly offended at the suggestion they weren’t as strong as men.
Respectfully, I think Hunt’s question about affirmative action misses the mark a bit. For the most part, I think people with a desire to make intentional racist statements will use whatever verbal cudgels they can.
But if we’re allowed to ask provocative questions, here’s what I’d offer -
I don’t believe the racial climate at Yale is any worse than at the average college campus; in fact, I believe it’s a bit better. But even at Yale, anyone who’s been to a college campus has seen what diversity all too often consists of … it’s a group of white students sitting together, a group of black students sitting together, a group of asian students sitting together, etc. I’m not saying it’s rare to find mixed groups, but students definitely tend to cluster by race, ethnicity, etc.
So - what’s going on? Is this just human nature? You could blame it on American culture, but then please give me an example of a country that has racial / ethnic diversity that doesn’t suffer from this.
Why are residential college campuses such as Yale often where these flareups occur? After all, if you look at the demographics of Yale, it’s more racially and ethnically mixed than the US at large. And there’s no doubt that universities like Yale pay far, far more attention to racial and ethnic inclusion than almost any other set of institutions. What’s going on?
My personal observation is that sports teams can be among the groups which are very diverse and where racial boundaries are crossed and genuine friendships are formed. I wonder why this is?
It might be useful for all the posters here to take an honest look at the demographics of their friends. I would suspect there’s a lot more segregation (black vs. white) than people would like to admit.
