I didn’t really comment about the snowflake thing, but I am an Hispanic female. Probably technically upper middle class now. I’m older and wasn’t always in that category.
@TurnerT I honestly can’t imagine you being part of a social movement for any type of equality judging by your post history. You deny any discrimination you see, and try to shift the blame as a way to change the conversation. So yeah, i don’t buy it.
Using “Well maybe if black people would just…” to establish an argument just tells me all I need to know.
I’m exiting this thread mainly because I doubt we’re gonna be able to have an open and workable dialogue. Have a nice day. Get over yourself. And maybe try to recognize discrimination going forward…? Though I doubt you’ll do any of the above.
By far the most special snowflakes in America these days are straight white males like me who automatically backlash at any concerns expressed by minorities, women or gays. We are so easily manipulated, it beggars belief.
Guys like that are much more heavily invested in hating the dreaded bogeyman “Social Justice Warriors” than they ever will give a damn about any actual social issue.
Deep down they don’t believe that there are real problems that need addressing (mostly because those problems don’t affect them or people like them). They believe that the only real big problem in America is that minorities (and women and gays) just complain too much and don’t realize how good they have it, and don’t spend all their days thanking straight white males for allowing them to be a part of it.
I am not a straight white male. I have not been held back professionally or socially by women or any racial group. Although I am a minority, I have not been discriminated against except perhaps a few times in my life. Sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t fit any of your criteria.
Let’s suppose you even justify that the President of MIssouri had to resign. Can you say the same about Claremont-McKenna, where the Dean of Students was forced to resign because of a poorly worded email (when she was in fact clearly trying to help). Is a well-intentioned but poorly worded memo deserving of a hunger strike? Really?
Does a college professor suggesting that students are adult enough to make their own choices about Halloween costumes deserve a Yale student yelling “Be Quiet!” and the f* word at the professor’s husband?
Let’s go further. One of the most famous comedians in the USA, Seinfeld, avoids doing shows on college campuses. Why? Because college kids today are too politically correct and ready to find offense even when none exists.
Professors are scared too. Here is a link of a liberal professor who wrote an article saying “I’m a liberal professor, and my liberal students terrify me”: http://www.vox.com/2015/6/3/8706323/college-professor-afraid
So all of these people are wrong, and it’s just straight white males being afraid of a bogeman, right?
So many people were triggered during the filming of this thread.
@ThankYouforHelp said " the most special snowflakes in America these days are straight white males like me"
Maybe your snowflake-ness isn’t quite as special as his.
However, the fact that you haven’t been discriminated against does make you pretty special. And probably not in the best position to judge those who have.
No, there are legitimate concerns sometimes. Very legitimate.
But a lot of times one hears an an anecdote and assume it is the whole story. From what I can tell, the Dean at Clarement McKenna had to resign because she hadn’t done a damn thing about multiple racial problems on campus over the course of several years. That was her job and she was terrible at it. The email was just the final trigger.
“Students demonstrated on Wednesday to repeat demands that administrators address earlier incidents, including photos of slaves in Facebook invitations to a pirate-themed party, complaints by students of color that they were spat at and peed on at parties, vandalism of Queer Resource Center posters with anti-gay language, vandalism of Black Lives Matter posters, and a student activist’s contention he was called a “cockroach” by a professor.”
You would never know any of that from the stories you see circulating around.
There are competing narratives here, and neither of them is completely correct. And there are excesses and abuses that need to be controlled. But it is really easy to buy into the narrative that it is all just SJWs gone amuck.
I followed the HuffPo link and read the article. One CMC student, Casey Garcelon, was offended by a Facebook post of other students dressing up in a sombrero outfit. If being unable to tolerate a Halloween costume doesn’t count as immaturity, I don’t know what does.
Insults happen in the real world, and people just deal with them. A few months ago, I was in a car where two lanes were merging and the other driver didn’t want to let me in (Boston drivers!). He yelled at me “Go back where you came from!” My response was “It’s this direction. Let me in.” (it wasn’t, but that’s irrelevant). The guy didn’t expect that and burst out laughing. I wonder how Casey Garcelon would have handled that situation.
It is interesting to note that not all CMC students agree with the mob. In fact, some are rather embarrassed by it:
Did you read the entire article, including the part I quoted? Stuff adds up over time. Getting urinated on is just a minor insult too?
Is there any possibility in your mind that she was just a lousy dean of students and her resignation does not reflect a horrific wave of cowardly universities caving in to “the mob”? Maybe, just maybe, there was a bit of an ongoing problem at CMC?
I might add that I visited CMC with my daughter a short while back, and CMC had the least politically-correct SJW feel of any of the 17 schools we visited. It didn’t have frats, but the whole place felt kind of like a frat. Only Dartmouth seemed more preppy and pre-professional. Take that for what you will.
Since you have been there and seen it first hand, I will concede that you have a better feel for the campus than I do.
Just read that a number of the schools that have been mentioned on this thread are issuing trigger warnings to students with nut allergies that there are ads for the new “Peanuts” movie in the campus newspaper.
Please provide links–it may influence the rankings.
I have a hard time believing this is even possible. My son has severe nut allergies, but he like every other nut-allergic kid I know, wants to know if foods have nuts and is very good at reading ingredient labels. He doesn’t recoil when he finds out that foods have nuts–knowing is reassuring. He recoils when he doesn’t know if a food has nuts or not and doesn’t know what he can eat.
So colleges take something that is reassuring (“This has nuts–avoid it.”) and somehow think that hearing the term Peanuts requires a trigger warning. @lalalemma, you have provided insightful comments. Can you defend this one?
@hebegebe – Sorry. It’s a joke. But the fact that it might even be credible says something about how absurd the whole trigger warning/microaggression stuff has become.
Well you got me. I wouldn’t have believed that Tufts has a trigger warning for its sexual misconduct policy, but it does, so Peanuts needing a trigger warning is only a small stretch from there.
@hebegebe
What is wrong with the Yale email that you posted is that it is an inaccurate and insulting response to the first email that a coalition of groups sent. That first email did not seek to control anyone’s costume, though the response refers to control and similar words numerous times. The first email sought to remind people that Yale seeks to optimize comfort for all and asked students to consider that. No costumes were banned. People who have a problem with that are the same ones that say “Life isn’t fair”, which implies that they think it shouldn’t be.
The other problem is that she said that people should just turn their head and ignore the offensive. But she seems to have no idea how much oppressed people ignore. (Yes, I am talking microaggressions.) Also, by the way I have no duty to turn my cheek. You (whoever and whatever you are) on the other hand have no right to hit it.
She also says that we should trust the students to dress themselves and we should trust their instincts. Trust is earned. When people stop calling people derisive names from the back of pick up trucks as they did in Mizzou, I will trust more.
There is a small amount of what she wrote that seems right. “Appropriation” is taking something without the owner;'s consent. White people do not own straight hair and Asians don’t own Mulan. I think everyone should be able to wear the regalia of a Native American Chieftain just like everyone can dress as George Washington without offending. When though those images are used and worn to promote the negative images of those cultures and people, they are offensive. No one owns culture, but everyone owns the right to have their culture respected to the extent that its culture acted respectfully. For ex, white Americans have contributed much to life, but I am not giving them a pass on their treatment of Native Americans.
And where the heck would we be in this world without snowflakes? Everyone is needed.
@ThankYouforHelp That is right. Nonfeasance is worse than mal feasance anyday. These administrators are beingput on notice that they cannot choose to keep these issues at the bottom of their in box.
I read the original email, as well as the response. I don’t know how you missed the implied control in the first message, as it was definitely there. Anyone who considers themselves liberal or believes in freedom of expression should have bristled at that email.
I wonder, what Halloween costumes are safe these days? Witches could offend Wiccans. Fortune tellers could upset the gypsies (sorry, I meant the Romanis). Dressing up as a farmer could offend the few Yale students that come from agricultural backgrounds. Guys dressing in drag could be guilty of appropriating transgender students’ clothing. Don’t wear anything fattening as that makes fun of overweight people. Don’t wear anything too revealing as that demeans sex workers. Don’t dress up as an Arab as it’s insulting and may get you killed by police, who are out of control, right?
At some point, the problem is not with the costume wearer who has no intent to offend, but the person who is ready to be offended by everything.
Also, a big newsflash for you. If you are at Yale, you are not oppressed! You are extremely fortunate to be there. There are many talented kids throughout the country who would thrive at a place like Yale but will never attend because they weren’t guided properly by their parents or their schools, or because their parents were unwilling to pay for college (yes, that happens to lots of people). As an example, the single smartest person I have ever met in my life almost went to a community college because that’s what his parents thought was an appropriate education (fortunately he eventually ended up at MIT instead).
So when you talk about “microaggressions”, realize that the world is filled with macro-aggressions that you do not face, and you will never face if you take full advantage of the opportunity before you. I say this as a minority that attended a HYPSM myself. But if you instead take the attitude that the world is against you, it will be, and you will waste your education, just not perhaps as quickly as Jerelyn Luther did.
I am not accepting micro aggressions just because there are macro ones. I judge quality of life by the gold standard, no by the crappy one.
There is either control or no control. There is no such thing as implied control.
I am all for freedom of expression and that includes people who want to alert other people to the concerns of others.
Finally, I have graduated college, am very successful and still can understand and appreciate the complaints of these groups.
@hebegebe how can you not understand the difference between a peanut allergy and rape?? It is not your place to tell rape victims that they should be able to suck up any trauma or damaging emotional responses they experience while reading a policy that describes sexual assault in detail.
But that aside, I still cannot wrap my head around why you have such a problem with the trigger warning. It is there because it helps people (I’ll buy your argument that it hurts more than helps them when you can find an actual victim of sexual assault who wants to be “toughened up” surrounding the subject), and the people who it doesn’t specifically help simply aren’t affected by it at all. I’m sorry, but to me, you (or anyone else) have no legitimate reason to be opposed to it.
I’d also like to reiterate that while your experiences are valid, they cannot and do not reflect the experiences of all minorities. It’s great that you think you’ve never experienced racism or discrimination, but that doesn’t mean that those things don’t exist, and that other people aren’t experiencing them on a daily basis.
Well at least we finally managed to consolidate the insensitivity, complaining about PC culture, ignorance, racism, and more all onto one thread 