If this is what a Republican club represents these days, what are all those “middle of the road” students going to join?
“That prompted a white privilege popcorn giveaway by the Graduate and Professional Students of Color, in which white males received full bags of popcorn, while women and minorities received partially full bags.”
I’m glad that both sides are using creative ways to support their point of views. No harm in questioning policies, as long as it’s peaceful and sparks a healthy debate.
@doschicos Moderates need a new platform, right and left are leaning to two diffrent extremes.
Probably the females will cozy up to the guys who will share their full bag of popcorn with them?
Or demand two bags.
Somebody will set up a stand with free popcorn for all but ask the student government to fund it.
Somebody else will set up a high end gourmet popcorn stand and sell it to anybody for the same price.
That would mimic real life.
This all just sounds pitifully lame but I guess if it doesn’t hurt anybody then what the heck?
I personally think the students should do their research on the history of affirmative action and the arguments for and against it depending on the context of society instead of doing a bake sale.
I’m sure some of them do serious research and others have a pretty good grip of the issue by following news and experiencing college admission process but these gimmicks get attention of everyone else so not a bad way to raise awareness about the issue. I agree about debate being a more productive platform to discuss any issue.
“these gimmicks get attention of everyone else so not a bad way to raise awareness about the issue”
At what cost? It doesn’t build a cooperative and welcoming tone on campus and in the community.
If people are tolerant and open to discussing issues that make them uncomfortable then they can take on any issue and shake hands after the discussion like mature adults should. To bring change we have to discuss our differences, hiding them under the rug or only discussing them with like minded folks isn’t a way to move forward and find solutions.
I’m not sure you can hold a sale on state property and charge different amounts for the same product based on the buyer’s race. If this is true, it’s creating a hostile environment for all the students the group is insinuating were accepted to the college based on their race or ethnicity. I hope the university steps in before it turns into something uglier than it already is.
Is a bake sale really a discussion though? For me, it is not.
I would think the whole thing would end up being a total “flop.” Can’t imagine that the groups being charged higher prices would purchase anything at all, leaving the baked goods to be sold at the very lowest price. Which in turn raises the least money for the club. Unless raising $ for the club is not even an ancillary objective?
Edited to add: And am thinking the groups paying the lowest prices probably wouldn’t purchase either because they would be helping to prove a point that works against them.
Considering that the campus is only 16% black and latino I am not sure how these students are feeling hard done by.
Turnabout’s fair play? In my observation, the people most histrionic about race and gender issues aren’t the least bit interested in cooperation or community. They just want you to shut up and take every claim (no matter how spurious) at face value and agree with them.
As much as I love an open discussion and fair debate, I’m going with Dos on this one.
A bake sale is not a discussion. It is an invitation to disruption.
It’s a symbolic protest, like marching on streets or going on strike isn’t a debate, boycotting products or leaving auditorium isn’t a discussion but still you make your point.
Whenever someone sets out to “educate” others in this way, it always feels like a slap in the face if you don’t agree with their politics. And even if you do agree, you walk away muttering about what a self-righteous prig they are being.
“Turnabout’s fair play? In my observation, the people most histrionic about race and gender issues aren’t the least bit interested in cooperation or community. They just want you to shut up and take every claim (no matter how spurious) at face value and agree with them.”
Nice. /sarcasm/ Let’s just lump everyone together based on race/ethnicity and say they all act the same. 8-|
What do the words “most histrionic” mean to you?
Well, is that surprising when most politics these days is like hate politics? After all, civil discourse of complex topics tends to require an attention span longer than 140 characters, so it is easy for simplistic hate politics to dominate.
To me it is a kind of stupid protest, given that UIC overall acceptance rate is not exactly exclusive (66%, compare that to HYP at about 6%), it is highly unlikely that a really talented kid was denied admission there so an ‘unqualified’ black or hispanic kid could go there. From reading about the school, they have a huge number of foreign kids, especially from China, which makes me think the real affirmative action is taking full pay foreign students in large numbers, which likely means they are denying kids who otherwise would be acceptable but can’t afford to pay the kind of tuition the foreign kids do (which is like double the in state rate).
I also wonder if they know about what some call ‘white affirmative action’, where elite schools like the ivies, Stanford and so forth, limit the number of Asian kids coming in and admit a lot of white kids who don’t have the stats the Asian kids did. I would bet if you asked them why they thought that black and hispanic kids were there because of affirmative action, they would cite some statistics that show the typical black or hispanic student had lower stats then whites…but if you pointed out that that is what the elite schools were doing to keep the school balanced in various ways, they would say “that is different”, or they would defend legacy admissions and such as being important to the school, when studies of legacy kids show many of them are below the typical admit line for non legacies.