<p>What qualifies <em>YOU</em> to say what their intent is or was? Did you actively participate in any of this? I don’t understand how you can even try to speak for those who published such nonsense.</p>
<p>The most racist girl in child #8s class this year is Taiwanese. Racism is a funny thing</p>
<p>Some places this wouldn’t even be able to be discussed.
My mothers boyfriend who is Chinese, has made many racist comments- regarding Chinese in other provinces than his own, comparing their stature and less affluent status as evidence of that.
:rolleyes:</p>
<p>I am not a sociologist
But it seems that racism practiced by those who are perceived to be “in power” is always more loaded than that of those who are lashing back.
So racism practiced by urban Chinese against rural Chinese, is fairly potent and “validates” the position.
When Garrett Morris sings about " gonna kill all the whiteys, I see",
are we really threatened or do we laugh?
<a href=“http://www.lipmagazine.org/~timwise/honkywannacracker.html[/url]”>http://www.lipmagazine.org/~timwise/honkywannacracker.html</a></p>
<p>I dont believe in censorship for the most part- there are reasons why my daughters college newspaper is not online.</p>
<p>On the contrary, while I think that it is unfortunate that this was published, I think it is a great opportunity to get things out in the open and talk to each other, rather than treat it as an unexpected, unexplained incident.
However- I also think it is perfectly reasonable to restrict student funding to organizations such as this.</p>
<p>I think the apology seems more along the lines of " I am sorry you didn’t find us humorous and over reacted" rather than, " I realize now how tasteless and offensive we were".</p>
<p>Response to Defender: Because I’ve read the Primary Source for the past four years. I know how they operate. The Primary Source was actually quite good at its satire for the first two years I was at Tufts. Even though I am a vehement liberal, I appeciated the discourse and their reasoned arguments, though I didn’t agree with them When I came back from my third year abroad for my senior year this year, I was disappointed to see that the publication had become whiny and the satire really ridiculous. It seems the people who made the Primary Source somewhat respectable have all graduated or moved on.</p>
<p>Unless this paper has run similar satires about legacy children, wealthy children, women, Latinos and Native Americans this little dittie is nothing but racist. </p>
<p>The fact that they focused on one particular subset (that is <10% of the school population) to vent their HYP rejected frustration upon shows that whether they intended it overtly are not, they are racist. </p>
<p>I find it interesting this occurs right around the time of the CNN article on subtle racism (ignore the cnn-ness, it’s a fairly nice article). It showed about half of all whites and blacks think there are a serious/pretty serious racism problem in the US but a ridiculously small portion admitted that they, indeed, were racists. The problem today is that people use the old definition of racism to find themselves not-guilty of it. Racism today is not waving the confederate flag and screaming how you’re gonna 'kill ‘em all!’ except in some socially ostracized sects. It’s subtle and buried deep into people’s psyches, that all blacks are boisterous, that blacks have bad grades and are unqualified, and that they are the ONLY group worthy of ‘unqualified’ smear attack on a college campus. </p>
<p>Say it’s a joke all you want, but if this had been about pushy Jews who are stingy with money, Pedro the illegal who works part time at MickeyD’s, or TallFeather and his war whoop and casino $$s we would not be discussing whether this is ‘racist’ or not. Most people who say these things are a joke are people who say the exact same thing on the inside themselves and do not want to admit that they are a closet racist.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It has. Often. Every issue! Trust me, the Primary Source leaves no group unscathed. They have a precedent. The only thing without precedent is how this is the first time it’s been blown to these proportions. I believe that may be due to the fact that this was their most ineffective stab at satire.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And for all you non-Tufts people, you have to understand that a big topic on campus this semester is that the yield of accepted black students to the class of 2011 was the lowest ever. This means that although roughly the same amount of black students were accepted as every year before, this year, less accepted black students chose to come to Tufts. The admissions office has been vocal about their attempts to revert the situation for class of 2011; major recruitment efforts targeted at black applicants have been instated. This is why the Primary Source picked black students to target. You have to understand the context.</p>
<p>Again, I think their satire was ineffective and I’m sorry they wrote it. But you have to understand the context.</p>
<p>This incident doesn’t surprise me. We have political figures who make statements like “Macaca,” etc., and so some young people follow suit. One function of a national university is to take ignorant students from narrow backgrounds and immerse them in a wider world where they can meet the kinds of people they have been “protected” from for the previous 18 years and discover that they are, in fact, fully human.</p>
<p>What would surprise me, though, would be for the university to keep funding such behavior, which amounts to tacit condoning of it. The Tufts administration needs to take a stand and educate these students, and that non-apology should not get the Primary Source off the hook. My suggestion would be to withdraw funding and require the students to take a course in African-American history.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Great post aparent!!</p>
<p>better still would be making a course on cultural diversity a graduation requirement regardless of major.</p>
<p>lollabelle:</p>
<p>You keep insisting that saying that ALL (let me say that again … ALL) 52 of Tufts’ entering African American students this fall got Ds, Fs, and Gs and are “boisterous” YET “desirable” is not racist. What, on EARTH, would your definition of “racist” be? How far would it have to go? Lynching? Would even THAT be racist in your mind if someone you know said, “Well, I really didn’t mean it.”</p>
<p>“And for all you non-Tufts people, you have to understand that a big topic on campus this semester is that the yield of accepted black students to the class of 2011 was the lowest ever.”</p>
<p>After reading the tripe put out by the Primary Source, I expect it will drop still further. (Would you think it a welcoming place?)</p>
<p>Read my post where I posted what my friend, a black senior at TUfts wrote about the environment at Tufts.</p>
<p>lolabelle,</p>
<p>I think that many readers of this thread would accept all of your contentions: that the author doesn’t harbor any overt ill-will toward African-Americans; that this is poor satire; that the text was conceived for a particular audience and context; and that some minority members of the Tufts community are comfortable at Tufts and even willing to shrug this incident off.</p>
<p>But it’s possible to accept all of that and still see the poem as deeply offensive and racist. It perpetuates the cruelest sorts of racial sterotypes, and the fact that these characterizations were probably unthinking makes them no less pernicious. It was certainly read as racist by many members of the Tufts community. It would have taken almost no foresight to realize that many readers, both on and off the Tufts campus, would find this objectionable to a degree that no appeals to free speech or satire can excuse. In short, the poem showed a kind of insensitivity that deserves to be identified for what it is and condemned whenever it happens: it was the kind of subtle (actually this was not-so-subtle), internalized racism that’s replaced the more overt racism of the past.</p>
<p>The words speak for themselves and do not require spin to decipher them.</p>
<p>That the information is public is informative, and information has value.</p>
<p>Personally, I find the words extremely insensitive, and would feel hurt if I was a black student on the Tufts campus. To other cc members; would this activity influence your attitude towards Tufts University? I am saddened
by the revelation, but would rather know about it.</p>
<p>Tarhunt, I am disappointed in the way in which you have conducted yourself in the thread. I personally do not think you are conducting yourself with appropriate civility. You denigrated lolabelle for perceived “intellectual superiority to others posting on the board.” Yet you then criticize her in ways that shows your own intellectual superiority. </p>
<p>For example, you say stuff like “lolabelle, would you mind shooting me the e-mail address for the Tufts professor who taught you that this is the way to conduct rational discourse? I’d like to discuss his/her rationale with him/her.” That goes way beyond the scope of the argument and is unfair and personal in my opinion. </p>
<p>Again: “I’m disappointed that Tufts can take someone of your apparent intellect and do practically nothing with his/her mind. Logic is a skill. It has to be acquired. It is most often acquired by working with a teacher that will not let you get away with anything less than application of that skill. Oddly, in your attempt to defend Tufts (which I never attacked in the first place and which was never in question), you have managed to make me think it, like so many other institutions, offers a fifth rate education.”</p>
<p>Tarhunt, these are unfair cheapshots. If she was criticizing you as a person I certainly bet you would feel upset, and this should be no different. Disagreement on an issue is fine, but I think you crossed the line with your personal attacks. I’m not going to speak for lolabelle, but I honestly do feel that a change in the civility of the discussion is in order as well as an apology.</p>
<p>Also, on the topic of discrimination, you repeatedly speak out against it, but then you express a willingness to discriminated against Tufts. For example, “Now, I’m going to have to rethink my goodwill towards Tufts.” I do not go to Tufts, did not apply, but frankly I do think it is discriminatory to rejudge Tufts as a whole because of what a few individuals did. And didn’t you just speak out about lumping people together? Seems hypocritical to me.</p>
<p>“But it’s possible to accept all of that and still see the poem as deeply offensive and racist. It perpetuates the cruelest sorts of racial sterotypes, and the fact that these characterizations were probably unthinking makes them no less pernicious.”</p>
<p>I think that’s exactly right. Yes, there is plenty of racial humor on Saturday Night Live, etc., but I haven’t ever seen a joke based around the idea that lazy/stupid black kids can get whatever they want without working hard for it. Maybe that’s because there aren’t a lot of racists working at Saturday Night Live. The last time I heard that sentiment, it was coming out of the mouth of a white kid making a fool out of himself in the Borat movie. It sounded just as ugly there as it does here.</p>
<p>There are plenty of non-racist reasons to disagree with affirmative action, but the Primary Source didn’t put any of them into its satire. If you compare the kids at BU giving out the whites-only scholarship as an AA protest, I think that satire likewise missed the mark, but they managed to make their point without directing explicit insults at every single black freshman at BU.</p>
<p>
The racist writings of the Primary Source would not alter my perception of Tufts. Every university has a small minority of racist students. My opinion of Tufts is changing based on the reactions and response to the Primary Source by the larger Tufts community. Their attempts to minimize the significance of the re-written Christmas carol and the lack of outrage at the Primary Source, speaks volumes about the majority of Tufts students. If Tufts wants to be viewed as inclusive and accepting of all students, they need to widely distance themselves from the likes of the Primary Source.</p>
<p>This is really interesting as just yesterday my DD got a big envelope from Tufts, indicating that her guidance counselor had nominated her for a “Balfour-Chenault” scholarship (for URMs). The envelope included a fee waiver, an application, and a brochure. I don’t want to sound reactionary, but given all that I have read in this thread I am inclined to tell her about the poem, especially given that she wants to major in English and become a journalist. Obviously, she will make up her own mind about applying (she heard from her one SCEA school today), but this sounds like something that she needs to be aware of.</p>
<p>MSMDAD:</p>
<p>I think the poem is a datum. I don’t know how strong a datum it is in making this kind of decision. The way I look at it, the adminstration has responded very strongly while declining to defund the publication. I think that’s their call. They’re the ones who have to balance freedom of speech and academic freedom with the safety of their African American population. They’re on the scene, and it appears they really care.</p>
<p>Like you, I’m a bit put off by the reaction of at least one other Tufts student who seems to think this sort of thing is perfectly OK. But that’s just one student among 4,000. </p>
<p>A scholarship is scholarship. If I were you, I’d apply and make a decision about Tufts if the scholarship is actually offered.</p>
<p>MSMDad:</p>
<p>I suspect there is a certain amount of racism in most campuses. Some is more overt than others. It is not possible for schools to ascertain the character of admitted students. Additionally, schools pursue diversity (not just ethnic diversity) which means that many different viewpoints will be represented, some more extreme than others. Tufts is an excellent school, and your D should make up her mind without regard to the racist poem in the student’s newspaper.</p>
<p>I think that, by not censoring the paper, Tufts did the right thing. It keeps the focus and the debate on the racist poem rather than shifting it to one of censorship, as is so often the case.</p>
<p>Congrats to your D for the Big envelope and the scholarship!</p>
<p>marite:</p>
<p>That’s a good point about shifting the focus. I’d never thought of it that way. Thanks.</p>
<p>“Chenault” scholarship (for URMs). The envelope included a fee waiver, an application, and a brochure. I don’t want to sound reactionary, but given all that I have read in this thread I am inclined to tell her about the poem, especially given that she wants to major in English and become a journalist."</p>
<p>Doesn’t sound reactionary at all. She needs to know all that she can find out about Tufts: the good and the bad. Indeed, if she really wants to be a journalist, she should already be regularly Googling for info on Tufts.</p>