History Repeating: Another Hoax College ‘Hate Crime’ Charge in North Carolina
The story, as reported in the local news, was horrific. A University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill student claimed that he was brutally injured in an attack that left third and fourth degree burns on his arm, simply for being gay.
The university community immediately called the alleged attack a “hate crime,” and Chancellor Holden Thorp vowed to “bring the strongest possible charges against the attacker.”
As the UNC student newspaper the Daily Tarheel revealed, freshman Quinn Matney claimed that he:
… ran into an acquaintance on the Craige Residence Hall footbridge. As the two spoke, a man sitting at a nearby picnic table stood up and grabbed him by the wrist, he said.
“Here’s a taste of hell you f***ing fag,” Matney remembered the man saying.
The man branded Matney, who is gay, on the left wrist with an unidentified object, causing third- and fourth-degree burns that damaged three nerves and a tendon, leaving the freshman with no feeling in his thumb and limited mobility in his index finger, he said.
I was, shall we say, less convinced of the story’s veracity. Why?
Matney’s story was rife with improbabilities from the outset. It was highly improbable that he would be attacked by a random stranger as he happened to be conversing with another person. It is improbable that the stranger would know his sexuality, much less attack him for it. It seemed even more unlikely that the alleged attacker would be armed with a weapon that was both extremely portable and capable of causing fourth degree burns in the split-second before a person’s natural reflexes kicked in and caused them to rip their arm away from the searing pain.
Crucially, while Matney claims that the attack happened in front of multiple witnesses, not a single person had corroborated the story.
As a long-time resident of the area, it seemed to me that history was repeating.
UNC-Chapel Hill is but a few short miles from Duke University in Durham, where the overwrought political correctness pervading the area allowed a false hate crimes allegation to rip the campus and the city apart in 2006. A black stripper named Crystal Mangum falsely accused white members of the university lacrosse team of rape. The university community, led by a lynch mob of faculty members known as the “Gang of 88,” found the team members guilty in the court of public opinion long before there was ever a trial, and played up the angle of a racially motivated hate crime.
The entire case was a sham.
Mangum, who has a long criminal history (to which she keeps adding charges), was proven to be a liar. Prosecutor Mike Nifong was found guilty of criminal contempt and disbarred for his behavior. The accused players were declared innocent by state Attorney General Roy Cooper.
Students just a few miles away in Chapel Hill, however, did not want to learn from recent history.
They threw caution to the wind and jumped on the hate crimes bandwagon, uncritically supporting Matney’s claims, despite a raft of obvious questions regarding the allegations. But perhaps as disturbing as the suspect allegations themselves was the instantaneous assumption by Chapel Hill’s university community that Matney’s claims must be believed, and that dissenting views must be silenced. Nowhere was that in evidence more than in comments to the Daily Tarheel article about the allegation. You won’t find much evidence of that now, unfortunately.
By midafternoon Wednesday, skeptics had poked holes in parts of Matney’s story, especially after seeing photos of the wound posted on several news sites. The comment I left below was just one of the responses to the article in the Daily Tarheel questioning Matney’s story:
I just had a good look at the burn, which is posted on several other sites. The commonly available device that would leave such a mark is your average cheap butane grill lighter, used to create two separate but closely spaced burns.
Here’s the problem.
While it is possible to get the tip of one of these lighters very hot, the metal used is both thin and cheap. They lose heat very rapidly (they are designed to as a safety requirement) and to get that severe of a wound, you would have to have the flame going for at least 10 or 15 seconds, and then immediately applied to the skin. But that would only cause one burn or this severity. To create the other burn, it would once again have to burn for 10-15 seconds, and then be reapplied to the flesh. The lines around the burns are very crisp; he never flinched. These have all the hallmarks of self-abuse.
Truth is a middle-class luxury which should never serve as an impediment to revolutionary fervor. Precisely this belief washes away all sins of commission and omission from a leftist’s soul, be he a college newspaper editor or our current president.
Indeed. As we learned in the teachable moments brought to us by Duke’s Gang of 88, it’s the metanarrative that matters. “Facts” are for lesser intellects. (Except for facts like tenure and salary raises, which are curiously exempt from deconstructivist aasault.)
Excellent response!! The university and its controllong beliefs are not really connected to reality and its accompanying property,facts. I remember an Ayn Rand article discussing the student’s revolts of the 1960s. She described the students as helium balloons that had been released from their tethers.
4th degree burns, eh? What body parts were BURNED OFF, and are now missing, never to return? Thats what a ’4th degree’ burn is.
Where are the medical records from an Emergency Department, Hospital, and Burn Center? Evidence of skin grafts, physical therapy, etc?
These class and culture warriors ought to get at least an idea of the facts implicit in what they claim.
Doc,
3rd, 4th…grafts, degrees..
Are you kidding?
Thats MATH and SCIENCE…these kids dont know about that stuff…
its all about emotions and “feelings” and voting “present”
What DIFFERENCE is it to them that were broke as a nation, or this “crime” never happened…
If it conflicts with their view on how things “ought” to be, they need to “do something” about it.
Sheesh, dont you know ANYTHING!
I think you get 4th degree burns from standing to close to amplifiers that go up to 11.
Just to be clear here, the definition of a fourth degree burn is one that encompasses the full thickness of the skin (ie dermis) and extends to a significant degree either into the subcutaneous fat, into a different subcutaneous anatomic structure (ie tendon, bone, whatever), or both.
Third degree would be just full thickness of the skin; second degree partial thickness of the skin, and first degree just epidermis.
So since the injury in question here supposedly involved tendon, it could fairly be classified as a fourth degree burn.
The article said his tendons were involved.
the front of the wrist has thin skin so it doesn’t take much to burn it that deeply.
And tell the guys a curling iron, held by someone on the wrist for many seconds, is hot enough to burn like this.
If the burns could caused by a curling iron and if the victim was outside, where was the curling iron plugged in? Pretty damn long cord if you ask me.
All I know is that when I renewed my CPR and AED training with the Red Cross last November, since I’d read a different article which mentioned 4th degree burns and the First Aid section of our booklet only talked about first, second, and third degree burns (third degree being burning through to the bone), I asked the trainer, who is also an EMT, if fourth degree burns were losing appendages. He said there’s no such thing as a fourth degree burn. Given that the booklet the Red Cross put out for First Aid doesn’t mention them either, I’m inclined to believe him.
Then again, maybe someone else came up with something different. After all, Red Cross trains you to do two rescue breaths after thirty chest compressions, while the American Heart Association says to go without any rescue breaths at all, so there are differences in organizations.
Peter. I believe I can help with that. Just as there are special circumstances for hate crime legislation for victims of hate thoughts, there is also hyper-physical laws of nature that effect victims of physical attack when the attack is induced by volition of bigotry and discrimination. Look it up I believe it is in the President Obama-Eric Holder official Minorities Report Medical Journal published by the Chicago Community Organizers School of Medicine
Yeah, the “vic” is lucky he didn’t get a 5th or 6th degree burn which are caused by Republicans who want to starve children and make old people eat cat food.
You make a good point that because of the passions it stirrs up, falsely alleging a hate crime should itself be a hate crime. Especially since a false allegation like that could result in some innocent person being falsely prosecuted. And the deletion of your comment to the article is an obvious infringement of free speech, but of course leftists only care about free speech if it is THEIR free speech.
Mix self loathing, a pathological need for attention with leftist desperation and you get this. The scary part is the willful denial of fact by the stampeding herd that is the student body, led by faculty and adminstrators.
I’d like to see a Web site that catagories these assaults on sense and decency so employers can decide whether to hire the robots these schools churn out.
They go into government!
Actually, most of them are teaching our kids.
Only if you let them. Thank God for HSLDA (for home schooling) and private schools.
Mix self loathing, a pathological need for attention with leftist desperation and you get this. The scary part is the willful denial of fact by the stampeding herd that is the student body, led by faculty and administrators.
I’d like to see a Web site that categories these assaults on sense and decency so employers can decide whether to hire the robots these schools churn out.
It’s “Crystal Mangum”, no “h” required.
And, as with the lovely, DNA encrusted Ms. Mangum, our latest hoaxer will probably not face charges. Maybe if he keeps escalating his criminality he will be charged, but even that is not a certainty.
It’s all about the narrative, not the facts.
I heard on the radio this AM on the way to work, the mayor of Chapel Hill (who is also a self professed gay), say that they would not be pursuing charges and that the young man had withdrawn, returning home for psych treatments.
See, now all better. He’s getting help. No harm done /s
Not only is higher education getting more expensive, but you get far less learning for your dollar of tuition than just a few short years ago.
You got that right:
EXAMINATION GRADUATION QUESTIONS
OF SALINE COUNTY, KANSAS
April 13, 1895
J.W. Armstrong, County Superintendent.
This test is the original eighth-grade final exam for 1895 from Salina,
GRAMMAR (Time, one hour)
1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.
2. Name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications.
3. Define Verse, Stanza, and Paragraph.
4. What are the principal parts of a verb? Give principal parts of do, lie, lay, and run.
5. Define Case. Illustrate each Case.
6. What is Punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of punctuation.
7 – 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.
ARITHMETIC (Time, one hour)
1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 feet deep, 10 feet long, and 3 feet wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3942 pounds, what is it worth at 50 cts. per bu., deducting 1050 lbs. for tare?
4. District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000.
What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find cost of 6720 lbs. coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at 20 cents per sq. foot?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance around which is 640 rods?
10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt.
U.S. HISTORY (Time, 45 minutes)
1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided.
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus.
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States.
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas.
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates:
1607
1620
1800
1849
1865
ORTHOGRAPHY (Time, one hour)
1. What is meant by the following: Alphabet, phonetic, orthography, etymology, syllabication?
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: Trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals?
4. Give four substitutes for caret ‘u’.
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final ‘e’. Name two exceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: Bi, dis, mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, super.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: Ball, mercy, sir, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9. Use the following correctly in sentences,
cite, site, sight
fane, fain, feign
vane, vain, vein
raze, raise, rays
10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.
GEOGRAPHY (Time, one hour)
1. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas?
3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
4. Describe the mountains of North America.
5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba, Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fermandez, Aspinwall, and Orinoco.
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S.
7. Name all the republics of Europe and give capital of each.
8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.
10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give inclination of the earth.
spot on root83
my mom e-mails examples of these things all the time and what is crystal clear is the realization that 8th graders crammed into a little schoolhouse in the nineteenth century not only had a better education that most undergraduates today but they were expected spend the rest of their time and lives being productive and making something of themselves; they didnt self indulge in a life of academia that plagues the education system today
Bingo for you too. All the computers in the world won’t help a sleepy eyed idiot who can’t be bothered to show up for school compared to a motivated person with nothing but a chalkboard.
This is why I get so frustrated with Obama’s ongoing mantra’s about funding education. Throw all the money you want at it pal – that ain’t the problem.
Sorry to burst you bubble, but there is *no* evidence that the Salina exam was an 8th grade graduation exam. I’ve seen the document..and internal evidence suggests that the exam was intended to test those applying for a license to TEACH in common schools. It’s a classic schoolhouse myth, right up there with the infamous, “rules for teachers.”
I don’t know if it’s for kids or teachers, I’m just glad I don’t have to take it.
I think I’d fail badly.
“9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance around which is 640 rods?”
Beats the heck out of me. I’d have to look it up, along with the answers to a lot of the other questions.
I don’t know about this particular “test” being a “schoolhouse myth,” but it’s pretty close to what would’ve been expected of Sister Alberta’s 8th grade class at St Mary’s Grammar School in Rahway, NJ in 1959. General knowledge & common sense are the advantages we “old folks” have over what’s pouring out of our “universities” today…& both went the way of cursive handwriting. If the big EMP comes, unfortunately it won’t be the “young” who make it…they won’t be able to google “how to survive”.
It’s a cool little test, and I like challenging myself with things like this, but honestly, anyone who can’t manage it shouldn’t feel bad. Back then, many of these items (measuring bushels and writing your own promissory note, for instance) were practical skills you needed to have. However, for a person a hundred years later, even some of the language used in the questions (defining elementary sounds or defining parts of speech that have “no modifications” – or giving four substitutions for caret”u”) is confusing – I am certain I could do it provided someone told me more specifically what they were asking for, but not with the information provided.
Keep in mind that a person from back then would be equally baffled if we asked for the practical methods of changing engine oil or sending an email. Skill sets change, and the necessity for instant recall of specific knowledge changes as well.
All that said, I sure wish kids today were taught language skills like verb declension, how to diagram a sentence, and rudimentary Latin, and practical skills like, well, changing oil and hooking up electronic devices. We would have a much smarter population overall.
The term is homosexual.
Will you call me “Your Highness” simply because I prefer it?
Why does anyone feel obligated to call a homosexual gay just because they prefer it?
It’s funny how university liberals, who claim to be communitarian and for the good of the group over the individual, feel compelled to celebrate individuals when they are members of some minority victim group.
Normally if someone asks to be called something and you don’t have a pressing reason not to do so, it’s common courtesy to describe them as they wish to be described.
Yup.
Of course, you don’t have to. You can stick to “homosexual” if you want to be a bit of a stick-in-the-mud.
The problem is, the result might be that you’d think Mr. Tyson Homosexual had won the 100-meter dash, as a newspaper actually published (http://deadspin.com/#!5020670/apparently-someone-named-tyson-homosexual-is-very-fast).
And dare I mention Homosexual Talese, the writer, or the Enola Homosexual, which dropped the A-bomb on Hiroshima? Damn, I knew those homosexuals were up to no good.
Oops, you forgot the last line of the theme music “Flintstones, meet the Flintstones” would more correctly be “Let’s have a homosexual old time.” Sing it kids!
‘Homosexual’ is a sexual orientation. ‘Gay’ (in your context) is a politics.
There’s good reasons to avoid equivocation.
BTW, what exactly does homophobic mean? Fear of sameness? I just saw two blue BMW’s, so now I am having a panic attack? Or are we referring to a fear of a pejorative?
I cannot remember the last time one of these horrific, high profile “hate crimes” on a college campus turned out to be anything other than a hoax by a member of a formerly-oppressed minority group. Their mundane daily campus routine lacks anything that normal people would consider real racism or sexism or anti-Semitism or homophobia, quite the opposite in fact, but their classes in whiny grievance mongering are filled with stories of heroes who struggled nobly against the white patriarchy in days gone by. If they do poorly in school or suffer some minor social slight, it MUST be the fault of those evil rich white men, and if there’s not enough evidence to prove it, by God they’ll make some up.
Correct. All reported serious campus hate crimes have been hoaxes.
Oh lovely! These criminals (the student newspaper) will be our next generation of truth bearers? Reporting and journalism is DEAD!!!!!
“Reporting and journalism is DEAD!!!!!”
Reporting and journalish ARE…
So are grammar . . .
Did these students become idiots at UNC or is that a requirement for admission? If not, Idiocy must be a very popular major. They should google
“idiot” and they will see their picture.
They can’t google it because they can’t spell it.
This reads like the Middle Eastern Imams that wanted to stir up hate against the Danish cartoons. First they tried using the actual cartoons, when that didn’t work they created one of their own that did manage to rile the “Arab Street”. Of course, they burned some stuff, killed a couple of their fellow citizens and the western press found that the cartoons had caused all this hate.
Come to think of it this reads like some self serving “Pastor” in North Florida being blamed for the deaths of some UN workers in Afghanistan even though CNN is not common in Afghanistan.
Those rotten white people, sheesh.
So much for the liberal major media publicity machine which has for 50 years painted the far left as the open minded, free speech, truth seekers of the US.
Sad to note that Chapel Hill is the elite public university of North Carolina.
“Higher” education is approaching oxymoronic status.
An oxymoron with real morons!
Ahhhh, our universities, citadels of reason and analytical thought and truth.
“…the protesters only real goal is delusions of equality.”
Yes, you got the delusion part right. All these people who do this are deluded. By the politians, by the leftist media, and especially by the academy. It is now clear for all to see the foul results of the leftist takeover and control of our educational institutions. It is way past time we reigned in these people. No tenure, lower wages, more competition, and result-based testing. You would see a quick change.
Is not this the same tactic used against black’s 50 years ago to justify the racist violence implemented against that group of people? False accusations were believed not because of the evidence, rather it was the “higher truth” that black’s were prone criminality. Why is this same bigotry allowable today? Where is the moral outrage by our so-called intellectual superiors?
Could it be time to close all universities? They sure seem to be hell bent on helping the democrats destroy this country by any means possible.Schools at all levels have become too dangerous to allow children near them.
It is a principle of law going back to the Law of Moses that a perjurer should suffer the penalty he thought to impose on the falsely accused.
So branding this (heh) false report a “hate crime” seems in line with longstanding concepts of justice.
The only problem is that I don’t think hate should be a crime. Morally reprehensible in almost all cases, yes. Not a crime. Given all our natures, that would come too close to criminalizing humanity.
Agreed. One of the worst things to happen to modern jurisprudence was the introduction of a hate crime category.
Criticism of any mainstream media assertion is, indeed, a “hate crime”.
For example:
1) During the 2008 elections, criticism of Obama constituted “racism”.
2) The common, visceral objection by most Americans to a mosque @ ground zero amounts to “islamophobia”.
3) Condemnation of the rampant in-your-face sexuality, and resistance to the mockery of family values by the gay lobby is called “homophobia”.
At just 2 to 3% of the general population (last census-self described) how did their influence get so strong? Just heard on the radio this AM someone somewhere wants a “Gay History” course taught. What that could be, I really don’t want to speculate on.
The one and only California school system will be teaching Gay history..
It all has to do with keeping us great unwashed in line.
Legislate unfairness into law, then prosecute the violaters, which of course will be any white, straight, married Christian male. Or female.
All the better to bring on the liberal utopia, don’t you know.
See any signs of it yet? Me neither.
FWIW, UNC police and the Daily Tarheel now admit it is not a hate crime:
http://www.dailytarheel.com/index.php/article/2011/04/police_determine_false_report_in_assault_case_will_not_report_it_as_a_hate_crime
bubber:
Criticism of Obama can not be racism. He is actually white. His coloring comes from all the crap inside.
It seems the core curriculum in North Carolina universities is naivety, stupidity, leftist dogma and hatred of anything running against their desperately held beliefs.
We had a case out here that was more similar than the Duke rape thing (which in my mind wasn’t, on the part of the “victim” accuser, an issue of rape; I think she’s a combination of unstable and opportunist, and just wanted stuff) back about 7-10 years ago. Some woman taught at one of the Claremont colleges (if I remember right) and had her car supposedly vandalized by a “hate group”. She was white, and a member of no racial or ethnic minority (though she had temporarily converted to Judaism in order to “experience anti-Semitism”) and after the initial investigation, suspicions emerged that she’d done it herself. Eventually police charged her with making a false police report, and she wound up being convicted and losing her job (I don’t think jail time was involved) after reporters looked into her past and discovered a history of (I believe) forging prescriptions. Nevertheless, the local college authorities had marches to protest the “climate of hate” that the original attack exposed (or created, or fabricated, or whatever) and everything was carefully swept under the rug, afterward. The woman in question vanished once the trial was over.
You’re thinking of Kerri Dunn.
Convicted for filing a false police report and also for attempted insurance fraud.
Typical lefty, I guess.
The Duke rape case wasn’t an issue of race, I meant to say. And yes, I know race was a component, but my point is that other factors were as important *in her mind* as the race thing, if not more so. The authorities who reacted as they did were completely racist in their reactions; that’s another thing…
And it’s the Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, etal., who NEED it to be a race issue in order for them to keep the tension up and their power base emergized. If it weren’t for 99% of fake rascist accusations, which don’t exist in America today, The good “REVS” would have to work for a living.
I just graduated from UNC last year, so I feel compelled to defend the student body, at least, if not the university as a whole.
I find that the student body is very reflective of two things: One, it is probably 80% white southerners, Two, they are young and impressionable. There are a great many conservatives or moderates (party lines can still get a little hazy in the South, and a lot of people still say they’re Democrats that are really conservatives or moderates). My unscientific poll of all the people I met there in four years says that liberals make up no more than three fifths to two thirds of the student body, as compared to the near 100% at all the other elite schools. And most of that support is really circumstantial and will bleed away as those students age, I predict.
So why does UNC seem as though it is trying to get a reputation as a bastion of liberalism instead of a center of diverse thought and learning? UNC is embarrassed to be a southern University. The faculty don’t like what their peers think of this region and Southerners. Most of them are transplants to the area. So they overcompensate for the fact that we will never be Berkeley, University of Michigan, UCLA, or Colombia.
The faculty basically terrorizes conservatives, and that is where I put the real blame. I can’t tell you how many points I lost just because I believe that cap and tax is stupid, or because my economic, political, and moral philosophy was different from a professor’s or graduate student’s. You would say something conservative, the teacher would look at you like “Did you really just say that in my classroom?” and the students would mostly look bored and/or confused as always. Then everyone just rolls on and ignores you. I took a class supposedly about studying American History through Literature. The class focused EXCLUSIVELY on race and class criticism of the country. As for real American literature, I guess you can go to the library. I will add, however, that the economics and philosophy faculty is much more open minded than Poli Sci or history, though still 100% liberal.
Finally, as for the DTH kids, they deserve all the criticism you can heap on them. What a bunch of whiny morons. You’d think if you took a crap major you’d at least know how to throw a good party, but these guys can’t even do that. They are exactly as insular as you describe. Lack of intellectual curiosity seems to go along with the territory these days. Most want to be a journalist to champion a cause, which just goes to show they don’t actually know what a journalist’s job even is. They are like an entity unto themselves, distant from the student body, like the political class compared to the mainstream class.
Being in the minority, and with their opponents controlling all the positions of power and the mouthpiece of the university, conservatives just pretend not to exist for the most part in the public discourse, and the liberals go ahead and tolerate them. Thus, outsiders get the wrong impression that everyone at UNC is a complete moron.
As for me, I majored in Economics and Mathematics, not everyone is there to waste time and money. And btw, I’m in grad school now and the rates on federal loans are like twice what they used to be on private loans… I guess people studying real subjects are subsidizing loans that will never be repaid (grants really, sounds similar to the housing market, doesn’t it) to the art majors now…
@David Jones
As a senior at UNC, I’d say your analysis of the student body is spot on. One of the administration’s favorite things to do is tout how diverse the student body is, when it really is mostly white southerners, like you said. There are a fair amount of conservative students, but by and large they just get shouted into silence by the extremely liberal students. The liberal-fascist students are only 10% of the whole student body, but they get the most attention and are always demonizing conservatives. And you’re right, conservatives aren’t very outspoken on campus because we know that the minute we open our mouths we will be labeled as bigots, homophobics and white-supremicists. A lot of conservatives just don’t bother trying to enter debates because there’s no point when your views are immediately discounted by those who are more “inclusive and accepting and diverse” than you are.
I’m in the School of Journalism at UNC studying public relations (I want to work in the marketing department in a tech company when I graduate), and I’ve had a mixed experience in my classes. I have had a few classes where the professor was extremely liberal – I took a post-civil war American history class during which the professor focused exclusively on race relations and the despicable behavior of caucasians. I also took a political science class during which the professor constantly championed public sector unions. I’m certain I lost points in that class for writing a paper on the corruption in today’s teacher’s unions, but I had fun writing it.
On the other hand, I’ve had another poli sci grad student instructor who was rather libertarian, and I’d say that about half of my professors have tried to keep politics out of the classroom.
The Daily Tar Heel is another story, however. I wrote for the DTH for two years because I figured that it would be the best place for me to get some experience and exposure as a student studying journalism. I decided not to write for the Carolina Review, UNC’s conservative publication, because it never seemed well organized, and I didn’t think it would be the best way to get my name out there. Writing for the DTH was a struggle for me, as a conservative. Not everyone there is as horrible as you say – two of my friends at the DTH are conservatives – but the paper’s editors and the editorial board are ALWAYS very liberal. In my articles I did my very best just to present the news, as an impartial journalist is supposed to do, while one of my editors couldn’t stop gushing about how much he loved Rahm Emanuel. The average writer isn’t usually very political – the leftist politics get injected when the stories go through editing.
It has also been a theme at the DTH to delete comments that disagree with or poke holes in the leftist propaganda. I’m not sure who monitors the comment boards, but whoever it is needs to take another look at the paper’s comment guidelines: “The comments you read should engage you, not turn you off. These guidelines are designed to preserve a level of discussion that is welcoming of all views while allowing for disagreement.”
Yeah, I know you guys at the DTH aren’t all bad one of my good friends from church growing up used to write for them, but liberals just tend to have that unearned know-it-all disposition, don’t know if it’s the cause of hard left liberalism more than a symptom or what. And I would agree, the number of committed liberals on campus is small, most people just agree with them cause it sounds nice, they don’t care much, and it’s easier and more acceptable.
I still remember one of Nifong’s early press conference’s at the very beginning of the Lacrosse scandal and all the eager black folks in the front row. I asked myself at the time where those folks would be if it had not involved a black woman.
The answer is obvious and sickening: white, straight men are the lowest on America’s pecking order when it comes to morality and yet the people most interested in colorless justice. Conversely, in a group of ‘rainbow’ people that insists on morality doled out according to ‘facts’, the ‘fact’ actually is that both credibility and morality is given out according to skin color, sexual orientation and gender.
The ‘greater good’ is at once worshiped and shunted aside in politically correct America and is also the source of all our immigration problems. If you have the right minority status all is forgiven as a default position and if you are a male, straight European your status is automatically suspect; you are not a ‘comrade’.
Statistics, common sense and debauchery are ignored and that which is the most normal is thought to possess the least sense and worth. Is it any wonder that we live in a nation that is effectively insane with policies that are in turn insane?
What it is that can turn back this zeitgeist of the fascism of the Left is something I don’t know – I only know it must be.
This is slightly off topic but relevant. About an hour ago we got a phone sales pitch from the local newspaper. The salesmans conversation with my wife went something like this:
Daily Blattman: “Good morning, I see you were subscribers to the Blatt in the past.”
Wife: “Yes.”
Daily Blattman: “Can you tell me why you cancelled your subscription? Was it price or problems with delivery?”
Wife: “Neither. It was the content, or more properly the lack of content.”
Daily Blattman: “Well, that’s a curveball! You really got me there. I guess I can’t help you with that one.”
Wife: “No content checkbox on your form huh? Thanks for calling.” Click..Buzzzz.
Point being the managers at a newspaper that “serves” a community of 300,000 people have absolutely no idea (or they don’t want to know) that readers would cancel their subscriptions because the paper is full of pablum.
Sounds like the incident that happened prior to the election of the Great One in 2008. White girl got a big letter B cut into her face by a black guy. Turns out it was a hoax; girl did it to herself.
h t t p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Todd_mugging_hoax
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0l6Xf1Gak4 Here’s one for all the Middle Class Socialist Brats, I hear this song every time I see a story like this.
I swear, raising my kids in this environment to have a modicum of common sense is like rolling Prometheus’ Rock uphill. I lost the battle with my eldest, still hoping I’ve got a chance with my youngest. Maybe Tech school would be better than college……
By the way, Crystal Mangum, the Duke stripper and victim of . . . whatever. . . has been charged with murder. She was recently arrested for stabbing her boyfriend, and he has died.
Two words…Tawana Brawley.
The disenfranchised sure seem to be involved in a lot of lynchings that never took place.
Wonder where they got the idea to invoke white mainstream guilt?
Here’s a hint: I bet every police officer in the country loves Obama for continuing the, “I got lynched, wait, never mind” tradition.
If we wonder why “College Graduates” cannot understand the responsibility of being a citizen or supporting one self and family, we only need to see this type of action. We are creating a whole class of over educated idots.
With no skills for surviving in the economy of the future. None.
Was going to retire in Chapel Hill, NC, but after spending some time in the area, could not wait to sell our property and never return. There is nothing in the world like being around College Professor and their know it all students. Neither having any real life experience.
I’d be happy if the HS and some College grads I hired could do column addition. Or write a simple declarative sentence. And most of it is just being lazy.
I’ve noticed about many of you mentioned what happend five years ago on the Duke University Campus, where the lacrosse team was falsley accused by “The Durham Dirtbag” (I love that phrase that Michael Savage gave to that low-life girl who falsley accused those poor guys), also turns out that girl have been in trouble since that incident and the samething can be said for that moron Mike Nifong. But this faux hate crime is similar to the one a few years ago on Columbia University campus (please correct me if I’ve made a mistake with the institution) where a professor claimed that some students put a “noose” on the door knob of her classroom, etc. Turns out that the professor did all of that all of herself and LIED about what had happened! As the same old says in this country, “You are innocent until proven guilty”, but the stupid left wingers want to put it the other way around for their own selfish agenda, “You are guilty until proven innocent”, that’s how it works in China, not here in the USA!
“A nation is defined by it’s borders, language & culture!”
It was never established who left the noose on Ms. Constantine’s door even though there is apparently security video.
The good news is that that utter racist was fired for plagiarism not all that long afterword.
There is some justice in the world; not much but some.
I forgot who said; America has replaced character with cleverness. Universities are often the petri dish for the activist culture, and students are more than happy to please their doting professors, who reward the product of their admiration with a grade. The activist’s new popular cause is homosexual rights. Where once the homosexual’s behavior was a social taboo, now it’s any critique of that lifestyle. Laws are being created to protect homosexuals from any stigma of questioned abnormalcy. Here, as in Europe and Canada, any person who is caught in violation of law over the right of the homosexual to practice their personal preferences, are branded as having phobias. In California the legislature is entertaining a law that would require schools to put into their History curriculum the study of “gay history”. This is being done under the auspices of protection from “bullying”. To teach children the contribution from homosexuals to society and the problems they faced in a world of discrimination. Restricting speech to protect the rights and feelings of a minority however is the slippery slope of limiting freedoms.
Can I still say ‘ick’ if I see a spider or will men in shiny black helmets swing down from the sky on jet packs and hand me a court document?
Hush children! Its doesn’t matter if the attack happned or not, this case is important eitherway since the press coverage will increase “awareness”!
The criminal content of the story is not in any connection with the leftist students.The author`s pathos is incomprehensible to me.
Haven’t all you conservatives learned from Rigoberta Menchu’s story? It’s tha conceptual truths not the actual facts that matter. How can you be so mean spirited?