Hate Crime at Williams?
Last month, late on the Saturday night of homecoming weekend at elite Williams College, some unknown person scrawled a highly unpleasant and ugly graffito on the wall of an upper floor of a student dormitory. The dreaded “N-word” figured prominently in the message, so written to generate the maximum incendiary impact.
Adam Falk, president of the College, was instantly on the case: “A great deal of harm has been done by this vile act,” he said in a public letter to the grieving Williams Community, which was wracked by this horrible, horrible incident. “Since there is no excuse for behavior so offensive, hateful, and harmful — anywhere, but especially at Williams — we will continue to do all that we can to hold the perpetrator(s) accountable.”
He cancelled classes and athletic practice for the following Monday, using the day as an opportunity for “healing” and to teach about the evils of racism and how such attitudes would not be tolerated on his campus. The Counseling Center, Chaplain’s Office, and Multicultural Center advertised psychological help for students who might feel traumatized by this “shock.” A group of students marched to the local police station to demand that the police aid campus security in investigating this “hate crime.” Eventually, even the FBI — the FBI! — was enlisted to investigate this “horrifying,” “vile,” “hateful,” “offensive,” “harmful” act.
A bit of an overreaction? I think so, which is why I wrote a note about the incident for the December The New Criterion. The hysteria continues unabated in bucolic Williamstown. One student who posted several comments on a student website dilating on the “hypocrisy” of race relations at Williams earned the attention of the Dean’s Office: “The posts that I put up on this thread,” he wrote,
got me noticed by the Dean’s office as a suspicious person and I was brought in for an interrogation by the FBI and Sergeant McGowan explicitly because of them the Sunday before reading period. “You seem to be a fairly vocal poster on the online message boards.” They asked for a polygraph test, DNA test, the works.
Think about it: A student expresses his opinion about something. The administration doesn’t like his opinion. Ergo, the administration turns him over to the FBI for interrogation.
That was the way they did things in Stalin’s Russia, but many of us thought a different tradition regarding freedom of expression prevailed in American colleges.
When the “vile,” “offensive,” “hateful” graffito was discovered, two hypotheses crystalized to account for it. The first hypothesis, quickly embraced by President Falk (a physicist) and the more vocal parts of the administration, was that there exists a racist sub-culture at Williams. The idea was that the message was written by a bigot to intimidate minority students on campus. Indeed, many students claimed that the message amounted to a “death threat” against minority students.
What do you think? Is elite Williams College (all in, it will cost you — or whoever’s paying — more than $55,000 per annum to attend) a seething cauldron of racist, sexist attitudes? Or do you reckon it is, like most elite educational institutions, a farm specializing in coddling a herd of well-fed, complacent, eminently politically correct sheep — that “herd of independent minds” the art critic Harold Rosenberg spoke of, lo, these many years ago?
I incline to the latter option. I think you’d have to look far and wide at Williams to discover anyone harboring or espousing anything so outré as a racist opinion. Which is why, when the story of this vile, harmful, terrible, offensive, violent example of hate speech was first announced and President Adam Falk publicly promised to discover and hold accountable the “perpetrator(s),” I had to wonder whether he was being entirely prudent.
Once again, life imitates art. If the perpetrator is indeed a minority student, then he (?) has merely reenacted the plot of the excellent drama “Spinning Into Butter!”
OH…MY…GOD! Kristallnacht! the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre! A blot on the 21st Century and Sweet Williams is the blotting pad!
What’s happening at Williams is just one rancid corner of a rotten edifice that is poised to collapse.
We can only hope.
The collapse may be the entire country.
My entire website is devoted to the issue that Roger Kimball has raised. For one of many examples, see http://clarespark.com/2011/05/26/who-is-a-racist-now/. The adjustments that elite colleges made in the wake of 1960s urban riots did nothing to stop racism and sexism, but rather shunted the history of minorities and women into separate compartments, although the better scholars integrated them into their courses in the humanities, which may or may not have been a novelty. Once an institution has created separatist departments of study, it is very difficult to get rid of them. More’s the pity.
How do we know Falk did not write it himself? Reichstag fire stuff. Has he an alibi? Has his DNA been tested?
Can someone please explain what the N-word is?
Neutrino?
Well played, sir. Neutrino, indeed!
Noel?
NOPE
For that matter how do we know Roger Kimball himself did not write the message?
Mr. Kimball is apparently so confident in the investigative surety of “common Knowledge” he predicates the article’s headline on its conclusion.
Don’t forget the remarkable case of Jonathan Perkins, the third-year law student at the University of Virginia who fabricated an incident of racial profiling by the police last Spring in Charlottesville. Two UVA law professors, Anne Coughlin and Kim Forde-Mazrui, totally ignorant of what had actually happened, and not waiting to investigate the hoax, immediately came to Perkins’ defense.
Mr. Perkins, who violated the University’s honor code, has graduated with a Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law and is now a Legal Intern at Robinson & Geraldo Attorneys at Law in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Many, if not most of our “best” colleges and universities are rotten through and through. The sooner their bubble bursts, the better.
Every kid should get a “get out of jail” card, at least once. Give the guy a break. He knows he did wrong
Mr. Perkins is not a “kid.” UVa has an honor code, which he signed into when he entered the University.
It’s the latter option, which is to say that a race-baiting, activist student did it, knowing full well what the knee-jerk response would be. It’s as simple as asking cui bono? Even if there was a racist on campus so mindless as to resort to this kind of crude “threat,” what would be the benefit? What would this person or persons possibly hope to accomplish by a lone, random, anonymous act like this? On the other hand, as Roger points out, this act creates a variety of useful opportunities to be exploited by the race-hustlers on campus.
Hmmm. One wonders about the legality of calling the FBI,and their propriety in responding.
What federal matter was involved here?
What in the world can we do to fight this protected status that magnifies any little thing an H-word does and minimizes overt advocacy and even racism by groups with protected status such as the Congressional Black Caucus or National Council of La Raza and now the newly converted DOJ into a branch of the NAACP? The irony there is that such groups feel they are necessary because the racism of people with white skin is considered endemic; itself a clear case of racism.
No doubt there is some kind of black students union at this college, something that would be shouted down were it done by whites. Thankfully this is something that folks outside the protected status groups show little interest in and claiming they have a de facto white union by simple numbers is ignoring that lack of interest in things racial by way of literature that would provide such an argument.
It’s amazing to me how gay folks can have a “Hunky Jesus” contest for 30 years in San Francisco without complaint but if I had an R-rated “Hunky Philandering Martin Luther King” contest I’d be taken to the cleaners and if it was a “Hunky Mohamed” contest probably the morgue.
MLK is a real person who actually did real things, David. That’s the difference….
Really? Jesus has about 2 billion followers. MLK maybe 10 million tops. In a foxhole in Vietnam men were known to ask for the help of God and Jesus. Never heard of anyone asking for MLK’s help when their lives were on the line.
I could go on but you get the picture.
You stay classy JJ.
“Jesus of Nazareth” was referenced by writers of His time (Josephus of course and one other I can’t remember). The man lived; whether you believe He was Lord, liar or lunatic is up to you.
Josephus was both born and wrote after the attributed death of Jesus. His writings came after the first gospels. At best, his evidence is heresay. No one has ever provided any credible evidence Jesus was actually a living person. Copious Roman records from Jerusalem fail to note any Jesus-like character from the period attributed to his life.
John, when you can spell hearsay, you will be more credible.
Jesus was a real person and reportedly didn’t boing women two at a time.
JACKIE O. said “he was a phony” !!!!!
It’s generally open season on Islam. Certainly the Black Muslims are treated as a terrorist group and are probably followed around by drones. But Muslims do take their values seriously, which we believers in free speech don’t.
Muslims DO take their values seriously: the problem is that they take no one else’s values seriously. The idea of the greater good is laughable within Islam. Islamophobia in the U.S. is a canard typical of political correctness because reality is once again completely inverted according to social status within our clueless addiction to Marxist Pedagogy.
Even within the US, no TV show will make fun of Mohamed, not even the most edgy comedy show because they fear for their lives. Their is no other group of which this is true. Even with a relatively small population of muslims they have already delivered a knock-out punch. I’d say be afraid, be very afraid.
Sure, a big fuss was made about the N-word at Williams, but not to worry. They’ve calmed down by now.
Put “honky” or “whitey” on a wall, or slap a swastika up in a dorm, and word will go out, “It’s only a prank.”
No, the swastika would generate just as much heat.
A similar incident occurred at Columbia a few years back.
A noose was hung on the office door of a minority tenured faculty member, Madonna Constantine.
Columbia initially stonewalled releasing the location’s surveillance tapes to the police. The NYPD’s refusal to make the footage public, along with a lack of any other viable suspect, has led some to believe that Constantine placed the noose on her own door in an attempt to fabricate an apparent hate crime.
A year after the noose incident, Columbia fired Constantine for plagiarism, based on an investigation that had begun prior to the noose incident.
It is amazing how one word can inflame so many. It is a good measure of how imbecilic this nation has become.
No, not this nation, but higher education. Most average Americans who have not been educated into a left-wing ideological stupor would never ever respond to this in such a way. The totalitarian impulse of the left is a thing to behold and worthy of mockery. Would that the good people of Saturday Night Live were not blind to liberal lunacy.
Bringing in the FBI to basically intimidate a non-confomist’s student’s right to free speech is indeed chilling. Gestapo tatics by campus cops. Yet our major cities coddled law breaking occupiers in the name of free speech. The hypocrites on the left just have no shame, all for the cause, ends justifies, free speech for them and shout down for you.
And Congress has just given this president the power to take you off the street and detain you without representation or charges being filed. No this response by progressives is totally consistent with their MO.
The future will not be good.
And over at hate speech lite otherwise known as The Root, they are say the “N word” is a slur but “nigga” amongst black men is like calling each other “dear” if you can believe that one. Many in groups use vulgarities; that doesn’t magically transform them into “dear.” In order for clarity to emerge perhaps actually using the word “dear” or “buddy” would be good.
Damn, I can never find my Ebonics translation guide when I need it.
And unfortunately we no longer have Barbara Billingsley to translate for us.
Though not college-related, my favorite “hate crime” hoax happened in Texas about a week before 9/11. A black woman claimed she had been raped by a gang of white men, who then carved “KKK” into her chest with a knife. Police became suspicious when they noticed the K’s were backwards. Sure enough, the peabrain had carved them herself while standing in front of a mirror and then made the whole thing up. Footnote: Even after she fessed up, the local Nazis Appearing As Colored People (NAACP) chapter insisted she was lying about having lied and demanded investigations from everyone short of the UN Security Council.
Ridiculous argument. Because some blacks use the n word it should license white people to use it? So blacks that use the n word speak for all blacks, right? Well I am going to start calling y’all crackers more often now cuz my friend Billy bob does it and he said it was ok. by extension, all white people must want to be called cracker. See how dumb that sounds, David? You should also be cognizant of how language works. You can say certain things to close friends and family members that you can’t say to other people….
I agree that the campus overreacted to the use of the word though,..
In 1975 I was assigned to my first unit(US Army). At home, integration was now law for public schools and at the same time the military began desegregating units. (I suppose it was decided what’s good for the goose). Anyway, the unit was bringing in some white enlisted men (like myself) along with black officers.
The day I arrived the CQ was at his post with some friends. Clearly I was a newbe, standing there like a newbe. The CQ yelled “Hey cracker” to get my attention, (“Come here”!). He asked me “Are you one of the new guys?” with a hint of disgust. I said–”Yeah…and I’m not your average cracker… I’m a Nabisco”.
That exchange turned into laughter, more for them than me, regardless I hadn’t been bothered by words for some time, like middle school. I guess it was different for us, you either developed thicker skin or had a bad day every day.
For a while there my name was Nabisco. I thought it endearing, because at the same time it was acceptance in my case.
2 and a half years I was the minority and I still don’t know what it feels like to be a minority. I imagine it like being locked in a cell and the keys are in your pocket.
I think people are easily manipulated because of their oversensitivity and conditioning.
If you called me a cracker, I’d laugh at you.
The problem is that they’re not doing it in their living rooms only but conspicuously in public and forbidding it to all else. Once again logic within the black community is gerrymandered so they are never wrong and I am never right. I can’t even use the term “black hole” in some circumstances now so let’s not pretend this is some isolated philosophy.
I refer you to the hub-hub 2 black members of a Dallas city council put up over the casual use of the term “black hole” which is up on youtube. Even worse is the recent press conference by the LA chapter of the NAACP denouncing a Hallmark graduation card about science for using the same term, accusing Hallmark of racism and claiming the actual and willful word was “black ho’” This is also on youtube.
Why do you want to say “nigger” or “nigga” so badly? And once again, you are assuming all blacks want the same thing or that the NAACP speaks for all blacks. Point is, it is not reverse racism because you can’t say “nigger.” just like it’s not reverse sexism because I can’t call a woman I don’t know a bitch even though group of her friends call her that all the time. Well I guess I could, but then I would have to deal with a pissed off “bitch.”
Call me cracker if you want to. Doesn’t bother me. On the other hand, I won’t use the N-word because it offends almost everyone if I do.
Jazzy J, you are a frickin baffoon. Nobody here has made any argument for being able to say the “n” word. It is entirely possible, and probable, that people are only pointing out that the usage of “nigga” or “nigger” among blacks would seem to negate it’s literal offense, and, in regards to the article, would not necessitate the FBI being called in. You are assuming a conclusion that was never made, because of your own bias. Why don’t you learn what a cognizant argument is and stop trying to pick a fight?
Before you insult people you should learn the words you are using. I think you were looking for cogent, kb. I should learn to make a cogent argument. My argument was cogent, however. I just think it’s silly when white people get up in arms about black people using the n word and then think all black people use it and call it reverse racism when other WHITE people overreact to it’s use. I know very few black people that would have agreed with the response to the incident at Williams. The use of nigga or nigger doesn’t negate it’s offense because there are still black people who hate it’s use… Which is why I made the point to not lump all black people together.
Ridiculous argument. Because some blacks use the n word it should license white people to use it? So blacks that use the n word speak for all blacks, right? Well I am going to start calling y’all crackers more often now cuz my friend Billy bob does it and he said it was ok. by extension, all white people must want to be called cracker. See how dumb that sounds, David? You should also be cognizant of how language works. You can say certain things to close friends and family members that you can’t say to other people….
I agree that the campus overreacted to the use of the word….
If you called me a “cracker” a second time, I’d be ready with my cell phone and then I’d post your stupidity on YouTube.
Much the same thing happened at my equally elite alma mater. With a student body and administration as gullible.
http://articles.latimes.com/2004/mar/11/local/me-college11
The perpetrator turned out to be the Professor herself, who scripted anti-Jewish and female graffiti. She was a Christian interested in converting to Judaism.. And observed by a Jewish student who tried to make what happened clear in spite of his own incredulity. Authorities were reluctant to let a good race crises go, so it took a week for the drama to be revealed a hoax. As for the malfactor, she was severely dealt with. Nah. just kidding there:
“Claremont McKenna College President Pamela Gann said the idea that Dunn vandalized her own car came as “a shock and a surprise.” Gann said that Dunn’s continued employment at the school was under review but that the college remained committed to “academic freedom and free speech.”
I’d thought to bring this up when I read the article, though my memory of the incident was somewhat different from yours. The LA Times article you referenced has links to other articles dealing with the case, first detailing how the crime was determined to be a hate crime, then focusing on the fact it was a hoax, and finally detailing the professor’s sentencing. She was fired by the school (she didn’t have tenure), they billed her for the extra security they hired during all the anti-racism marches they had, and she was convicted of 2 counts of insurance fraud (she tried to report the damage to her car, which included a shattered windshield and four slashed tires, to her insurance company) and one count of filing a false police report. She was sentenced to a year in prison, which probably means she spent a month or two actually behind bars…but it seems to have destroyed her academic career, more or less.
I seem to remember the officials at the school being suitably chastened and embarassed by the whole thing too. Southern California is overrun with liberals, but a poseur (she reportedly converted to Judaism so she could experience anti-semitism, or so she said) gets little in the way of respect when they’re unmasked, especially if it’s this blatant and comical.
Whew, thanks, David.
My kid just applied to CMK- we actually got the feeling that it was a bit less PC than some of the other schools she looked at. It’s tough being a conservative who wants her lovely daughter coddled for a few more years. I personally am not going to write that kind of a check to a place whose values make my toes curl- and the choices are therefore fairly limited.
George Mason, especially the economics department, is another good place for our kids.
I’d strongly advise waiting a few years before attending college (or paying for someone else to attend college) until the tuition bubble bursts.
Having spent some time (35+ years) on campus, I can confirm that sometimes the answers to questions are well known but are not explicitly acknowledged because they conflict with image or narrative projections.
Wow, Deja Vu!
The snotty liberal arts college I attended as an undergrad did exactly the same thing. Some female faculty member supposedly received an anonymous bigoted note. We had an entire “Woman’s Awareness Day” with nagging lectures instead of classes. Being a 19-year-old man, I was already vividly aware of women.
By the way, the Williams Rugby Club was the craziest group of drinkers I’ve ever met – including British Royal Marines.
I’m a Williams alum. Last month, I received the following e-mail from President Falk:
Dear Alumni,
I am saddened and upset to inform you that a disturbing incident of racist hate speech occurred on campus over the weekend. The details are in the email below, which was sent last night to the campus community from several members of senior administration.
You’ll see in the message that as a result of the incident, we’ve decided to cancel all classes and athletic practices today and gather together as a community on Chapin Lawn at 11 a.m. Today will be an important day for us to unite to begin to heal from this terrible act and reaffirm that such harmful behavior has no place at Williams–or anywhere.
Sincerely,
Adam Falk
To the Williams Community,
We want to report to you the full facts of what took place early Saturday morning. What follows here is very disturbing.
On Saturday at around 12:30 a.m. a student called Campus Safety and Security to report seeing scrawled on a hallway wall on the fourth floor of Prospect Hall the phrase “All Niggers Must Die.” We are horrified by this act and regret needing to repeat such language in a college communication.
CSS launched a college investigation and notified Williamstown Police.
The initial e-mail report to campus went out around 10 a.m. We apologize for the fact that not only what occurred, but our initial report itself, have made a significant number of campus community members feel unsafe.
Dean Sarah Bolton invited a range of student leaders to meet with her and Vice President Mike Reed that evening. We estimate that about 70 students took part. As the evening went on, they were joined by several faculty and staff, including President Adam Falk and Vice President Steve Klass. At one point in the evening, a group of students and others marched to the Williamstown Police Station to encourage the town’s investigation of this hate crime.
Those of us at Saturday evening’s meeting came away with a much deeper understanding of the sense of vulnerability that many members of our campus community live with each day and how it has been made worse by this hate speech and the initial report.
Today at 12:30 p.m. some 200 students, faculty, and staff met in Goodrich to continue the conversation, including a discussion of possible college responses.
We can report that, given the gravity of the situation, those responses include the following:
CSS and the Dean’s Office will continue their investigation into who is responsible for this incident. So far they have talked with everyone who lives in Prospect and everyone who based on card swipes was in the building at the time. A great deal of harm has been done by this vile act. Since there is no excuse for behavior so offensive, hateful, and harmful—anywhere, but especially at Williams—we will continue to do all that we can to hold the perpetrator(s) accountable.
After consulting with the Faculty Steering Committee, we have decided to cancel all classes and athletic practices tomorrow (Monday). We understand how this disrupts important college functions, but in the wake of a shock such as this, the campus community needs to take a pause. An event that we expect all available students, faculty, and staff to attend will take place at 11 a.m. on Chapin Lawn. Details of that will be sent later. We also hope that all those attending will be able to find ways to have lunch together in small groups. To facilitate that, card swipes will not be required for Monday lunch.
Several spaces on campus will be set aside and staffed for those who would like to continue important discussions about these matters. Details on this to follow.
Members of the Counseling Center (x2353), Dean’s Office (x4171), Multicultural Center (x3340), and Chaplains’ Office (x2483) are available for students who would benefit from their support. Anyone wishing to meet with the Counseling Center should call CSS (x4444), who will contact a counselor to arrange for a phone or on-campus consultation. We will report later on extended hours and places at which counselors will be available.
For any students who feel physically unsafe, please contact CSS (x4444), which will contact the Dean’s Office.
The college is forming a committee to produce a protocol for the handling and reporting of any future such incidents.
We encourage faculty, but all of us really, to appreciate that what has occurred here has affected a large number of students so deeply that it will be difficult for them to function normally for some time. We urge sensitivity to their situations.
We also encourage everyone to take care of those you are with tonight.
As we together organize our individual, group, and college-wide responses, may that be with outrage at what has occurred and at what too many members of the campus community are continually burdened by, along with the resolute sense that in the end we will succeed in making this campus, nation, and world a place that is safe for all.
Sincerely,
Adam Falk
President
Sarah Bolton
Dean of the College
Steve Klass
V.P. for Campus Life
Mike Reed
V.P. for Strategic Planning and
Institutional Diversity
For sure, scrawling a racial epithet on the wall of a dorm hallway is repugnant, sociopathic behavior. But the administration’s response was so predictably over the top and politically correct including canceling all classes and athletic practices, setting aside “spaces on campus staffed for those who would like to continue important discussions about these matters” and making available “Members of the Counseling Center (x2353), Dean’s Office (x4171), Multicultural Center (x3340), and Chaplains’ Office (x2483) for students who would benefit from their support.” Perhaps the College will credit each student’s account for the tuition paid for the cancelled classes, as monetarily insignificant that amount might be. Then again, there’s about as much chance of that happening as there is of Obama suddenly embracing Hayek as his economics mentor.
What on earth would the response be if something serious happened, like the shooting at Virginia Tech? They haven’t left much room here. Kind of the equivalent of giving the first mediocre gymnast a “10″ at an Olympics before 2008.
Or, someone wrote something really horrible, like “All Catholics Must Die”? Gosh, I bet that would REALLY get the administration in a tizzy.
hahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Are you sure the university’s response was over the top? You did admit that the behavior was “repugnant” and “sociopathic,” after all. Those are some pretty serious charges.
Also a Williams alumnus. About three years ago, I was there for a leadership meeting and an Arab student had his upside down green and black “Amerika” flag hanging out his dorm window. When I mentioned how offensive this was, I heard the usual drivel about freedom of speech etc. Little double standard here?? The previous WIlliams president is now at Northwestern and pulled an ostrich trick when a “professor” in a sex ed class allowed some “performance artists” to demonstrate how to achieve female orgasm with a dildo and a reciprocating saw in front of 120 students! Maybe I should send my kid to trade school.
Re Williams, the offender, if caught, should be immediately expelled regardless of skin color. Class should not have been cancelled. Discussion groups are fine but how about on a Saturday, or a Friday evening when time-wise, it would be on the students’ dime. Wonder how the attendance would be then?
wow, so if I want to cancel classes or skip practice, all I have to do is spray-paint a racial epithet on the side of a building? What a great idea. Maybe someone should do that every Thursday afternoon (anti-black one week, anti-brown the next, anti-muslim the week after, anti-white…. oh, sorry, anti-white or asian or Jew or Christian wouldn’t count). That way everyone, including professors, get a three day weekend….
Brilliant, David!
Perhaps the perpetrator was simply writing the lyrics of some rap song. That word seems to appear in many of them.
Ha!! Spot on. Enough said.
Yeah, several of my kids learned “the N word” from an African-American man’s car radio. No sympathy here, sorry.
Yeah! I know right! How dare blacks get upset! One of them had on one of dem dare rap songs playin in his car after all!
It was probably a prank/statement by someone who wanted to kick the hornets nest – wanting to watch the fallout because he/she was bored. I certainly doubt it was an authentic racist blast.
In EVERY similar incident on a college campus I’m aware of (and I’m aware of at least half a dozen), the perpetrator turned out to be a member of the “aggrieved” class who deliberately fabricated the racist incident to create sympathy and/or publicity.
That sort of thing is not the exception, its actually the NORM, and you might consider it the academic version of the Munchausen syndrome.
Its the inevitable result of extolling victimhood; you create individuals who want to be victims.
Another day in the lives of the rich white American kids and their overpaid caretakers. University in the American World State is an unfunny joke. America is becoming a land of useless, hapless, undereducated “intellectuals”.
“They asked for a polygraph test, DNA test, the works.”
“Fine, just show me the warrant. Oh, no warrant? F**k off.”
“…one rancid corner of a rotten edifice…” I think it likely you can make a living as a writer. I hope you don’t mind if I steal that.
Does anyone know where Kerri Dunn was when the “racist” writer made his/her mark? This incident has all the hallmarks of one of her “pranks”.
Kerri Dunn was a professor at Claremont/McKenna college in 2004 when she vandalized her own car with racist rants. She was sentenced to a year in prison for filing false police reports etc. The whole thing was front page news as a racist incident at the time.
She was last sighted in Monclair, NJ in 2010 promoting Moveon and the usual left wing rants.
Oh then, she lives in the perfect place to continue her frauds. Montclair has the highest concentration of media people living in it than anywhere in the US, (20 NY times reporters,if you can call them that & Stephen Colbert too).
I spent the 1960s,70s, &80s and a good part of the 1990s staring numbly at all kinds of obscure and inane rantings scrawled about the NYC Subway system the most of which managed to migrate into many a Soho art gallery celebrating both the N-word. (I despise that euphemism) and all the vulgarity the gatekeepers could pour into our eyes and souls. The wretchedness of the hypocrisy would require a Basquiat vomitus moment with the rest of us scurrying about on all fours searching through the detritus finding perhaps the meaning of life in the decomposition of their foul misbegotten brain matter. Question? Do these academics know what their children entertain themselves with?
Let us remember that the word “professor” is a shorting of the phrase “professor of the faith.”
The problem of 21st century education is that the new “faith” is irrational, inconsistent, and divorced from the real world and reality.
Merely a mimic of the national hysteria about 9-11. Nothing to worry about. Little colleges can’t start wars, subject people to airport theatre, hold people indefinitely without trial, dispense with civil liberties, or institute torture.
“Little colleges can’t start wars, subject people to airport theatre, hold people indefinitely without trial, dispense with civil liberties, or institute torture.”
Obviously, if you believe they cannot institute torture, then you did not take PLS 107 Introduction to Comparative Politics. Talk about torture!
And if an affirmative action admit is found to be the culprit the punishment will be? NOTHING! Liberalism is a mental illness.
Actually, the vandal was infuriated with the success of certain knuckle-ball pitchers, but didn’t know how to spell the name right …
We shouldn’t be too hard on the Williams administration. The physicist president has had to turn his hand to alchemy, attempting to squeeze blood from stones to keep the school running, and, what is more difficult still, to squeeze intelligent teaching from members of the academy, whereof he is himself a prime example. Pass the press and screw, please!
How intriguing that the eminent author’s tirade does not digress from its fulminations against political correctness, for even a phrase to object to the racist graffito itself. That of course doesn’t matter to our eminent moralist. But, a community reacting strongly against a term used substantial minority in the U.S. to justify slavery, lynching and bigotry. Well, such a reaction against a blatantly racist graffito…now that is bad, bad, bad.
You are so right, Bert, so right. When somebody calls me a Yank, it hurts so deeply I want to cry, being that Yanks are accused of stealing Indian land and of being, aheh, sob, Protestants.
The people who enabled lynching, slavery and institutional bigotry are dead and there’s no connection by skin color, remember? We need new clocks.
So true, Bert. But let’s not forget the poor poor white males subjected to the stalin-esque pc campaign imposed on them by other white males. That was the authors point after all.
NC is full of this crap too. Fake “hate crimes”.
One gay dude at UNC-CH said he was accosted and burned by an evil gay-hater, only to retract it a week later. It was front page news every day for a week. Then, where did that story go? The dustbin of history of course. http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/9429895/
And who could forget the good ol’ Duke lacrosse case? Fake hate crimery at its best. And I bet NO ONE knows that the rape accuser, one Crystal Mangum, was indicted on first-degree murder charges earlier this year. Good times. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/19/duke-lacrosse-crystal-mangum-charged-murder
Finally, while not a real “fake hate crime” this story is pretty ironic. So, NC State U has a thing they call the “Free Expression Tunnel” where people can, um, freely express themselves with spray paint. Apparently “free expression” ends when you bring up race. The whole “Shoot Obama” thing didn’t really help their cause much either, but still. http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/3913132/
Just found a pic of Williams students collecting items to fuel the College Homecoming Bonfire:
http://ezralevant.com/institute-int-23k.jpg
Similar story at the University of Virginia…except the student ultimately admitted to lying and made all of his defenders in the administration look foolish:
http://abovethelaw.com/2011/05/a-law-student-plays-the-race-card-and-gets-busted-big-time/
Here’s a wonderful little trick to play. Try it and watch it work.
If you ever find yourself in a conversation with the kind of person who is wringing hands and rending garments over the “awful racism” of our society as supposedly demonstrated here, kinda sort agree with them, and then casually maneuver the conversation to our obvious hatred of Muslims, of course, and then ask directly “…. I mean, you remember the backlash against Muslims that happened after 9/11??” I guarantee they will say “of course, perfect example, blah blah blah…” Then, stare ‘em straight in the eye and say “Really? Because there wasn’t one!” And there wasn’t. Period.
In a nation of 300 million, that just suffered it’s worst attack since Pearl Harbor, the number of “hate crimes” against Muslims averaged up to about one or two per state. And that includes petty nonsense like graffiti on a mosque or the like. One Sikh man in Arizona was killed by a couple yahoos, that I would say qualifies. One man. One. In a nation of 300 million, and one under extraordinary circumstances. Let us note that in India, whole trainloads of people have been burned alive over things like the building of a mosque in the wrong place or the like.
One.
And when you ask these people if they remember the “backlash”, they do remember. They do. It never happened, but they remember it clearly. Because there had to be one. There had to. If not, then they might have to acknowledge that their entire paradigm view of American society is wrong, and thus their obvious superiority over it and over so many of their countrymen might be incorrect as well. And they can’t have that!
And that is why such people grab onto incidents like this, real or fabricated (more often the latter), like a drowning man to a lifering. It is entirely about the maintainance of their moral superiority. It is not about true, it is about “what ought to be true”.
And in that ethos is an explanation for a great deal of what is wrong out there, both in academia and beyond.
I think what ends up happening is that people notice things more because we live in such an interconnected and tech savvy world. So it’s not that racism is actually worse, it’s not really, it that people see things more often than they would so the guy that was always racist or islamophobic is more visible and has an outlet. There’s an interesting theory out there that sort of relates to what your saying. It goes something like this: people perceive the world as getting worse when it’s actually getting better. I am not sure the name of the theory or who came up with it but I am sure you can find it on google.
And another one that turned out to be faked… February 26, 2010 San Diego — Discovery of a noose hanging in the University of California San Diego library set off a fresh round of student demands and demonstrations yesterday that climaxed with the takeover of the chancellor’s office for several hours. Addressing about 300 distraught students and others gathered on campus, Chancellor Marye Anne Fox promised to get to the bottom of the “dastardly” crime. “This is truly a dark day in the history of this university,” Fox said through a bullhorn. “It’s abhorrent and untenable.”
Here’s what I want to know. How will the “edifice” collapse? What will the bubble burst look like? I agree that the American education industry is corrrupt and over-funded, but I don’t think we are anywhere close to seeing things change. I hope I’m wrong, but too many people are deeply afflicted with the idea that no amount of money can ever be too much for education. My guess is that we are still at least a generation away from any real change in the status quo, including the exponential inflation.
My kids are all taking full advantage of AP courses, and many area students start at the local community college; Northern Virginia Community College (NoVa) has agreements with state universities and most local colleges, where students who complete a certain number of courses with at least a minimum GPA, are guaranteed admission to the university after two years at NoVa.
The FBI is investigating???? Don’t they have anything better to do, like smuggling guns to drug cartels in Mexico? No wait, that’s the ATF…
This country can not change, and dare I say, will not change, until that day comes when a white male such as myself is called a “cracker”, and the first thing that pops into that white males head such as myself, is not” I wonder who has any cheese” but , ” Oh Lordy, they done and called me the C word!”
Delmar Jackson
I sure hope the kid who was threatened by an FBI interview, etc. can sue, or did the Feds justify this intrusion by citing the Patriot Act?
They probably had the legal right to do it, or at least it would take a flotilla of law professors to prove they didn’t.And the law professors would be on the administration’s side. There’s nothing left of our liberties or our constitution. Instead of suing, a good strategy would be to pass some laws making it CRIMINAL to deny people their civil liberties, and entrap these guys into getting caught and prosecuted. Then they would think twice.
Well, at the very least FIRE will give these guys an “F”.
And then take out a full-page ad in US News & World Report’s College Guide, as they’ve done before.
As others have pointed out, when there is a “racist” incident on a college campus–most especially precious, Northeast liberal arts institutions–the perpetrator invariably turns out to be the “victim.” Because, after all, it is the institutionalized racism and wall of white privilege that a minority student encounters every minute of every day (or so he is told at freshman orientation)that drives him to express his pain in the only way he knows how. This scenario is played out every three semesters or so on many campuses like Williams, and the response is as ritualized as it is predictable. Whether Williams catches the perp (if he is black, he will not be identified, due to the “confidentiality of disciplinary process”) or not, you won’t lose money betting that a task force of students, faculty, and staff will be established to recommend strategies to combat racism on the Williams campus,raise awareness about white privilege, and fund additional positions for minority faculty.
You’re right, moron. If a non-white person is discovered be the perpetrator it will be proof of the effects of “institutional racism” on the poor little innocent. He or she will be a candidate for counseling and nothing more. White society will still be to blame.
I hear ya. If it’s not “whitey did it” then it’s “whitey made me do it.”
What in particular about my comment was moronic? I’d really like to know. Thanks in advance.
Someone needs to step up and help these kids sue the hell out these colleges for this crap. In this case, the kid should sue for what is obviously false arrest and infliction of emotional distress, demanding damages in the amount of free tuitiion, plus a refund of all tuition moneys so far paid, to total a free education, including free room and board until such time as the kid finishes his B.A. (OK, force the kid to finish in 8 years, but no more than that.) and complete suspension of all speech codes and the resignations of all senior university officials, who will then be barred from employment in any capacity by any institution of higher education for three years. A second such offense on the part of the school should require a five-year suspension of all varsity athletic programs, or in the event that the school is snooty and has no such program, then 25% of the schools’ endowment to be placed in escrow for five years, pending any repetition of such behavior on the part of the school. A third offense will result in closure of the university and the seizure of all assets and sale to other institutions, the senior officials barred for life from serving in any capacity–president, dean, provost, janitor, at any school, from daycare to research university.
I believe that Congress specifies the total number of FBI Special Agents (SAs) who will are authorized nationwide as well as how many SAs are to be assigned to the various investigative programs (Organized Crime, Counter-Terrorism, Health Care Fraud, Civil Rights, etc.). The SA assigned to this case was likely from the Civil Rights program. If there was essentially nothing more to the complaint from Williams than the facts presented in this article, then Congress should cut one SA assignment from the Bureau in general and from the Civil Rights program in particular.
Much ado about nothing.
One word? Anywhere else it’s just a misdemeanor graffiti offense not committed in anyone’s presence. It’s a kiddie sh– nickle and dime beef, you can find worse in any public restroom. I hope the student asked, “am I under arrest? No?. Then I’m f—ing outta here, have a nice day. If you want a writing exemplar or a dna sample get a court order.”
Why not install microphones in all student dorms, hallways and bathrooms in order to monitor students’ political and racial thought? If hate crimes are indeed crimes, then this would seem to me to be the least that the school can do.
How about a “Hate Week” or “Two Minutes Hate” to let everyone blow off steam like when people punch pillows at a therapist’s office? Everyone could scream themselves silly and then go marry a tree.
You know, thinking it is just as bad as saying it, so maybe we should categorize them as “thought crimes”….
I would love for an aspiring sociologist to scrawl “All Christians Must Die” on a wall at Williams to see how the response compares.
Well, what would the reaction be like if the dorm room belonged to members of a Christian faith group?
I think anyone who resided in that room would demand that this be taken seriously. They would insist this not be swept under the rug by campus security rent-a-cops. If the campus continued to ignore this, I think it would be well within the rights of Christian groups on campus to pressure the administration into taking action.
Do you think Hillel would walk off a swastika or a similar threat against jewish students? Hell no, B’nai Brith would be all over them.
You don’t get out much, do you?
Ya know, black people can be christians. It’s actually quite normal.
As a current Williams student, I thought it might be beneficial to clarify things slightly. The words “All N****** Must Die” were discovered the night before homecoming, scrawled on a bathroom wall in suite belonging to, among others, several minority students. The administration of the college contacted neither the student body nor the local authorities. However, the next afternoon, a large group of students, many of them minorities, approached the administration and, accusing them of attempting to suppress the incident to avoid blemishing the school’s reputation while so many alumni were in town, demanded they treat the incident as a hate crime, inform the entire student body, and notify the authorities. The group of students then marched down to the local police station and reported the crime.
The administration did send out a campus-wide email and hosted a larger meeting the next day (Sunday). Approximately 200 students attended and many excoriated the administration for its clumsy handling of the situation. In addition, several suggested that the administration cancel classes the next day to demonstrate the gravity of the situation and its solidarity with the affected students. However, the administration is not empowered to cancel classes. Accordingly, President Falk convened representatives of the faculty, who later voted to cancel classes.
Interesting group behavior. So, I wonder what the response would have been, if the bathroom wall had, say, some of the following appear as if by magic marker: Call chi chi for a good time! Same sex marriage, the more deviation the less population. Abortion kills babies, more free choice now. Kill all the whores! Mean people suck an should be aborted, euthanasia now! Psychedelics have more fun, smoke dope an have crack babies. Tricia is a tramp! Sluts forever! Men are dogs!
While I agree the response seems absurdly politically correct, everyone (including Mr. Kimball) are referring to this as simply a “racial epithet.” “All N—rs Must Die” is much more than name calling; it’s a threat of violence and now I see why the FBI was called in.
It’s easy to laugh the response off as wacko “multiculturalism” gone crazy, but if you are a minority (any kind), and you see that message in your small community, I can see it being incredibly damaging. My guess is that many of the posters are not racial minorities, gay/lesbian, etc, although forgive me if I’m wrong. The point is that, while I detest political correctness, no one should presume to know how such a threat impacts a community if you have never been part of a stigmatized group.
Gosh, there are so many of those “stigmatized groups.” I mean there are victims everywhere (not white males, of course). What kind of victim are you?
I think the point is that a psychological response should bear some resemblance to an actual threat of such things rather than mass accusations of people not in minority groups of being “haters.” The reality is that people aren’t beaten by mass groups with torches but by a few people. That can be a few of anyone, including protected groups beating others; overall population has nothing to do with it.
The mass beatings of white people by black kids in Chicago and Wisc. this summer was not grafitti but a real event and drew far less interest from law enforcement and local institutions supposedly devoted to social justice. What they are in fact devoted to is racial and gay advocacy; those beaten who are white need not apply. Fewer overall numbers in America had nothing to do with it.
Wait, you’re saying that no one but a member of a “stigmatized group” can understand how bad it is to be threatened? So, there is no such thing as empathy? Only people of a certain skin color or sexual choice or religion can say anything valid? Really? Is it different if we insisted that only white Christian males could say anything valid? Use your mind and realize that you should pay attention to the value of what people say instead of what they look like.
You are right that empathy exists, and of course should be utilized; more, in my humble opinion. However, my post was in response to Mr. Kimball’s article, as well as the vast majority of the posts, which clearly show a total lack of empathy. There are three themes emerging here:
1) The response by Williams U. was over the top, so the entire incident should be minimized.
2) Because this happens to white people as well, and the press doesn’t cover it as much, we therefore shouldn’t take this incident seriously. We should, instead, make fun of it.
3) The target group(s) of the threat “All N—ers Must Die” are just trying to play the victim card here, and there are too many victims in our society anyway; therefore, let’s presume that the threat is just an excuse to advance an agenda.
Sprinkled throughout several of the replies to my comment are bizarre, non-substantive responses, such as #50 “Fred Beloit’s:” “A nitwit with a felt pen and empty or even comic threat and an even bigger nitwit with a PhD once again reveal the librul turn of mind.” Ummm, okay?
The point is that empathy, with some eloquent exceptions, seems to be lacking both in Mr. Kimball’s article (which is blatantly misleading in that it omits the ACTUAL message, which is the entire point of the article), and in the responses from fellow posters.
Is it possible to “utilize” empathy?
He was not saying that being white or in the majority made one incapable, he was saying that it was a possible causal hypothesis for the the lack of empathy shown in this comment section: that since some people had not experienced or seen such discrimination, that they did not understand it and were therefore not empathizing. Not that it necessarily follows that one is incapable of being empathetic. If you were empathetic and not so eager to jump down other peoples throats, you probably would have gathered as much.
As an alumni, my understanding is that Williams College’s move was not an overreaction. It was a strong show of solidarity with students who felt threatened as a result of this incident. The goal was not to blame white students or to demand conformity, but to open conversation so students could fully understand the ramifications of such a threat on the psyches of their peers. Not to be politically correct, but to emphasize each others humanity through compassion. If that seems like mumbo-jumbo to you, then I’m sorry you’ve never felt the authentic friendship or love of another human being.
You say that Williams wanted “to open conversation so students could fully understand the ramifications of such a threat on the psyches of their peers. Not to be politically correct, but to emphasize each others humanity through compassion. If that seems like mumbo-jumbo to you, then I’m sorry you’ve never felt the authentic friendship or love of another human being.”
What does “ramifications of such a threat on the psyche of there peers” mean? Sounds like mumbo-jumbo to me, as does the notion that we can “emphasize each others [should be one another's] humanity through compassion.” And isn’t all friendship “authentic”? An inauthentic friend would not be a friend.
My point is that you seem not to know what you are talking about. You’re just talking.
[Matthew wrote: "“All N—rs Must Die” is much more than name calling; it’s a threat of violence and now I see why the FBI was called in."]
Matthew’s right: It’s not at all the same as name-calling. And it’s worth taking a moment to re-read Roger Kimball’s first paragraph, just to see how skillfully he avoided acknowledging the perpetrator’s demand that all students of a particular race be killed.
Just imagine being in a similar situation yourself, as a member of a small minority in a community — perhaps as a Christian working on a Kibbutz, or a Jew at a traditionally southern Baptist university, or a white student at Howard. Then imagine coming home to your dorm to find “ALL PEOPLE OF YOUR RACE/RELIGION MUST DIE” written across your front hall’s wall. Not on the wall of a bathroom toilet stall. Across your residence’s hall wall. Adjacent to your bedroom’s front door. Are you so sure now that this wasn’t a serious threat of imminent violence against you?
It bothers me that Roger Kimball knew the wording of the message on the dorm wall, but concealed it from his readers. Indeed, the full wording was reiterated for him in the first comment on his earlier New Criterion article. But he still chooses to miscast it here as a mere “epithet”.
His eagerness to mislead readers in this way — to feed us a distorted version of the event — bothers me a great deal.
It makes me suspect that he is omitting other important parts of the story.
I didnt even know he omitted that until you mentioned it. Which is why you should take everything on this site with a grain of salt. Now that I know that I am not so sure that the school overreacted. Calling the FBI may have been a little much and I certainly don’t agree with detaining people on insufficient evidence.
There was a similar incident in the early 1980′s at Williams’ northern doppelganger, Middlebury College.
The administration acted with similar hysteria, conducting a witch hunter against students from the south, and anyone else who seemed unusual or isolated.
And yes, the vctim was the perpetrator. Here’s the story, but you had to be involved to know just how over the top the reaction of the adminitration (and campus in general) was:
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1983/10/20/middlebury-recovers-from-apparently-racist-incidents/
Ah yes, I remember the John Grace incident. I even remember John Grace was in one of my classes in Monroe.He often did his best to make himself the center of attention just before the beginning of class.
I suspect the administration at Williams is acquainted enough with the routine that they too know the perpetrator is most likely a minority student, but before pursuing any of the most likely leads, they’ll toss one or two white students to the FBI to show…1) they made a good faith white guilt effort; 2) that it never occurred to them that a minority would ever write such a thing…it would just never, ever, possibly enter their minds; 3) to make their “shock” appear a little more believable when the real perpetrator comes to light; 4) and finally, it helps to justify any actions against the minority student if they bring down a few white students with him and then punish the whole school sufficiently first so to quell any cries of injustice.
#48. See? All the written words and expressed common sense make absolutely no impression on our good friend Matthew…water off a duck’s back I think it is called. He has read, he has felt, he has denied the plain truth in front of his face. A nitwit with a felt pen and empty or even comic threat and an even bigger nitwit with a PhD once again reveal the librul turn of mind.
Hysterical reaction is learned at an early age within the education establishment: They go nuts over the picture of a gun or plastic play knife or a six year old committing sexual harrassment by hugging another student. The lesson is: React hysterically and irrationally to the proscribed.
Please see comment #48
My guess: this was an experiment conducted by one or more sociology students.
“Think about it: A student expresses his opinion about something. The administration doesn’t like his opinion. Ergo, the administration turns him over to the FBI for interrogation.”
Of course, RK is taking the student’s word for why he was interrogated.
It is understandable how offensive that word is but clearly, not every offensive word is given the same attention nor seriousness. If someone says something vile or offensive against Christianity, there isn’t the same intensity of objection, if any objection at all. In fact, most times the offender is supported and the “freedom of speech” part of the Constitution is somehow resurrected.
I grew up in the 50′s and 60′s in an outskirt of Detroit, Michigan. My community was multiracial, multicultural, and with all kinds of religions before the terms became popular among the social engineers. My neighborhood was a mishmash of professionals and the working class; white, black, Hispanic, Middle Eastern, Indian. We seemed to get along without the speech and thought police hovering over and around us. But that was a different time altogether. The neighbors watched out for each other. The streets were fairly safe. There wasn’t as much corruption in government or business. A handshake was as good as an expensive legal contract today. People trusted one another.
Now, we need a huge corrupt bureaucracy with millions of laws to try to control our speech and acts. Everyone is the poorer for it.
Do you idiots go to Williams? WERE YOU, KIMBALL, THERE? Well, I was. DON’T WRITE ABOUT SOMETHING YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT YOU KNOB.
I agree that college can be annoyingly politically correct to the point that it ironically preaches conformity. But the argument you used to reach it is ridiculous. They are not based on facts, but rumours and conjectures. You don’t know shit about what happened.
President Falk’s first reaction was a simple email to the community saying that there has been a horrible hate crime graffiti. Then, a bunch of minority students complained that the exact threat was not made known to them – “ALL NIGGERS MUST DIE.” They were outraged that the administration had let them wander around homecoming weekend when there was, what they saw to be, a direct threat made against them. They saw this as racism/discrimination on the part of the administration. President Falk didn’t rush to all these decisions mentioned in the article. He was pushed by a small group of activist students to do so.
Tim, don’t Take this websIte too seriously. It mostly panders to those on the far far fringe right so they will obviously use typically tricks of the trade so that they can present a view that is in line with their beliefs. They are craven, snide, and rude. They bitch about college and yet they all either went to college or want their kids to go to one. They bash the best colleges in the world unless of course they see that a number of conservatives have graduated from there. And of course, those people are heralded as the best of the best because they have somehow escaped the grasp of “Liberalism.”
“They are craven, snide, and rude.”
THEY? Hahahaha.
You’re trippin’ white boy. Everything even remotely racist has been thrown at America-white Americans-for the last 30 years and it is getting tedious. For the last three years, it has been in preparation for Dear Leader’s re-elections. From the non-reporting of white kids and adults being harrassed to the idiot AG suing states for what amounts to the denile of the 5th and 10th Amemdments by the federal government.
The real racism is being practiced by these wimpy, super-progrssive white professors and administrators. They preach all this AA and diversity stuff but how many live in the ghetto or urban jungles? How many at Williams would give up their position to elevate a black to their position; how many go to black areas to tutor kids or help blacks lift themselves out of poverty? None. Zip. This is merely to make themselves feel good-that they have done something for the black.
Blacks are feeling really good about themselves as are the effete white progressives like yourself. But there will come a point at which white America will say enough is enough. Be careful for what you ask for, JJ, because you don’t want a civil war.
I’m no white boy blotto. I’m black
thank god! Don’t you wish you were black so you could get all the benefits? I mean, how else could I have gotten into college without affirmative action. Certainly no black could ever get into college on merit alone. Lol /sarcasm 
>>>I mean, how else could I have gotten into college without affirmative action. Certainly no black could ever get into college on merit alone.
I know you are being sarcastic, but this is precisely what affirmative action did. Which is understandable, considering the fact that its real message is, “blacks are lazy and stupid, they cannot succeed without help from the big white father who passes laws to help them.”
Imagine, if you will, a car company which advertised, proudly: “SOME of our cars have faulty parts, but because of historical unfairness X and the need to combat evil thing Y, we will sell them anyway!”.
Would you buy a car from them?
Ever since affirmative action started, there might be more black college graduates, but every one of them is automatically suspect. After all, affirmative action tells us blacks are, in general, inferior and stupid and need the great white father’s help to succeed, so who are we to argue?
Skeptic, what exactly is the metric you use for determining these so called “suspect” black graduates? This is why I posed my sarcastic question in the first place. It seems like everyone is assuming a lot about black people– and we all know what happens when we assume. I contest your view about aa as well. You should read the strongest arguments for it as well as those arguments against it before making your decision. We already have aa for whites in this country; the official aa is meant to offset that imbalance. Aa also works in favor of women as well so it’s not just blacks benefitting. White aa was barring men of other races and women from college for years; so if you are looking for sympathy from me, I couldn’t care less. White aa is maintaining the racial composition at elite PWIs– because we all know, Asians, Indians, and Jews far outperform “whites” in college and in high school. There is no reason to keep the harvards of the world predominately white because i can guarantee that you could find enough Asians in this country alone to fill the halls of those types of schools. Blacks for that matter too. That’s why elite schools are so darn expensive. It’s to keep non wasps out as best as can be managed. Just take a look at the demographics and cost of these schools. Look at the most expensive neighborhoods in this country– who lives there? Go to a country club or a golf course any given day and you will see that it is mostly rich whites. There is a reason you don’t want to live in a predominately black or Hispanic neighborhood. I know I sort of got off topic, but I was going somewhere with all of that. basically it is to say that if there was no aa there would be even fewer women, Asians, jews, indians, and blacks and hispanics in universities. I don’t see why blacks are the only ones that get criticized for “benefitting” from aa. It’s quiet intriguing.
Skeptic, that’s one of the dumbest analogies I have heard in a while. Comparing machines to humans? Cmon, you can do better, I hope. For one thing, why would anyone need to accept a faulty car or sell a faulty car because of historical unfairness? It just doesn’t make any sense. Cars don’t feel anything. People, on the other hand, do. And people can react to unfairness, whereas cars cannot. Why should anyone accept a broken gadget because of historical unfairness and evil things? The connection is senseless.
Let me give you my interpretation of your analogy with my example, just to make my point more firmly.
People in Sudan have suffered because of colonialism. Because of the past historical injustices, Sudanese people are still being treated unfairly. Racism is evil. Therefore, Apple should sell faulty IPADs.
“I agree that college can be annoyingly politically correct to the point that it ironically preaches conformity.”
How does college, and Williams in particular, “ironically” preach conformity?
The minority students “saw this as racism/discrimination on the part of the administration.” I’ll take your word for that, and will agree that the graffiti is ostensibly racist. But what if a minority student posted the graffiti so that minority students would have an opportunity to play the race card? If the incident turns out to be a hoax will you return here an apologize to the “far, far right,” as Jazzy calls us?
Yours sincerely,
A card carrying member of the ultra, far, far, far Super-Right Wing Conservative something.
>>>How does college, and Williams in particular, “ironically” preach conformity?
By officially talking about “free speech”, “respect for others”, “questioning authority”, “diversity of views”, etc. — while in reality having the professoriate all preach the same left-wing-to-far-left gospel, with anybody who disapproves facing social ostracism.
All very well and good, but that’s not what the original sentence says.
>>>>>>>>Do you idiots go to Williams? WERE YOU, KIMBALL, THERE? Well, I was. DON’T WRITE ABOUT SOMETHING YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT YOU KNOB.
I would take the advice from left-wingers to “not write about things we don’t know about” more seriously if they were not absolutely convinced (see the “occupy wall street” movement) that they know how “the rich” opress “the workers” despite never having earned a cent or worked a day in their lives.
Or how they are dead certain “the right” is “secretly” planning to “turn the USA into a theocracy” despite never meeting any of those dreaded “right-wing extremists” — or going to church — in their entire lives.
Or how “racism” is the sole reason anybody opposes Obama’s policies about anything, and all the worries about laws he supports being unconstitutional, despite not being able to name, say, the ten amendments in the Bill of Rights.
Sorry, but I’m not buying it. The left’s annoying, and constant, suggesting that they are so much smarter and informed than the rest of us is simply nonsense.
@Tim Mitchell.
Even without your admission that you attended Williams, your grammatical errors, the use of your shift-key to express emotion, etc. make it crystal clear where you went to school. I went to Middlebury where the exact same thing happened in 1983 and where Mr. Kimball’s assessment is spot on. But of course there’s nothing remotely similar between Williams and Middlebury.
>>>>Eventually, even the FBI — the FBI! — was enlisted to investigate this “horrifying,” “vile,” “hateful,” “offensive,” “harmful” act.
In related news, FBI agents have made progress in discovering who is at fault for Alexander’s “terrible”, “horrible”, “no good”, “very bad” day:
http://www.amazon.com/Alexander-Terrible-Horrible-Good-Very/dp/0689711735
>>>>>“All N—rs Must Die” is much more than name calling; it’s a threat of violence and now I see why the FBI was called in. It’s easy to laugh the response off as wacko “multiculturalism” gone crazy, but if you are a minority (any kind), and you see that message in your small community, I can see it being incredibly damaging.
No, no. Hanging Jews or Blacks from lampposts is “indredibly damaging”. The college having a numerous clausus for Jews and not accepting blacks at all is damaging (although not “incredibly” so). Having a KKK cell or a Nazi party student’s union in the college would be damaging. But some moron writing a racist, crude grafitti? Which practically nobody in the college supports? That’s not “incredibly damaging”. It’s just a moron acting like morons do. It deserves eye-rolling, not mass hysteria.
You see, when every rude grafitti, or petty incident of someone using the N- or Y-word (“Yid”) in anger, is “incredibly damaging” and “shocking” and “terrible”, etc., etc., etc., then nobody listens any more to such claims, since it is crystal clear the hysteria is totally faked, and nothing but people *pretending* to be shocked and outraged so as to make other people realize they are on the “correct” side.
We’ve seen the same reaction over the death of princess Diana, where numerous people who did not know her or had anything to do with her felt social pressure to pretend to deep grief they did not (and should not) feel (as opposed to sympathy, or a feeling that it’s too bad she died); or — due to a much different level of coersion and fear, of course — people pretending terrible grief at the death of the North Korean dictator (or of Stalin, etc.).
So, no, I don’t think it’s “incredibly damaging”, and I don’t believe for a moment you yourself feel yourself, or anyone, had been “incredibly damaged”. It’s just an hysterical overreaction.
You right-wing hypocrites make me sick. Apparently, you guys are perfectly capable waving the bloody shirt when the animus is directed toward Catholics and Jews (but, of course, they vote reliably Republican, don’t they?):
http://www.nationalreview.com/phi-beta-cons/44455/turning-holocaust-hitler-remembrance
You Left wing doofi make me sick. In the last presidential election about 85% of Jews voted for Obama.
All N—rs Must Die” is much more than name calling; it’s a threat of violence and now I see why the FBI was called in.
when Sandra Bernhart ‘jokes’ that she’d like to see Sarah Palin gang raped by blacks it’s ‘funny’ as was hanging her in effigy – hang Barack Obama in effigy? get a visit from the secret service (and this was before he was elected).
In one ridiculous incident, a swastika was scrawled on a bathroom door in Columbia (hey how do we know it wasn’t a hindu just practicing his religion?) and the FBI was called in… and took the door as ‘evidence’ back to the crime labs. In the same area, a few weeks later, a white kid was beaten by blacks yelling ‘kill whitey’ or something similar.. no hate crime charges. the first thing the police said was ‘no hate crime charges’.
This is 100% political, as everyone who know what was coming thought ‘hate crimes’ would be.
These ‘rituals’ are what the left needs to keep cultural and political dominance. That’s why the footage from selma alabama rolls more more often than the near daily flash mobs and black gang on lone white beatings showing up on youtube.
Wow, the N-scare is more hysterical and crazier than the so-called ‘Red Scare’.
“All n-s must die” is pretty nasty, but hasn’t liberal Jewish-controlled music industry given us tons of “let’s kill all them whiteys” rap music sung by all those peaceful Negroes?
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