I wish my life was perfect enough to cry over an email opposing my beliefs in the name of free speech… :’(
no but really guys, this isn’t an issue of whether they’re in the right as much as it’s an issue of spending their time on such an insignificant occurrence. they could be, I don’t know, holding public debates, giving speeches in more conservative areas of their town, etc. this is just bullshit from rich bullshit trust fund-ers who think the every little event in opposition of their rhetoric needs a full amount of attention. THIS isn’t what needs attention. if you don’t like these costumes, petition to stop the manufacturing of them, or better yet, fight the economic system which buys people into picking up these costumes through marketing and tradition (read: capitalism).
this isn’t an issue of Halloween costumes, this is an issue of following tradition without considering certain consequences. people don’t think “X costume = cultural appropriation… phht who cares!” they think “X costume = Halloween.” it’s an issue of marketing by the companies looking to bank on whatever they can… moreover, it causes an issue combined with socialization of blindly following set ideology… which is what these Yale students are doing. how did they get into Yale again??
@okon2122
Please don’t make assumptions about the general student body at Yale. My son will be attending next year and he IS NOT a trust fund kid. We are middle class, as are many Yale students.
@tonymom yes. I apologize for generalizing. I suppose I’m just upset that these kids could be doing a lot more with themselves. they’re not stupid kids… and there are a lot of kids that got into Yale because of their donor status. but that doesn’t mean all students. I’m sorry.
There are only a tiny handful of kids who get into Yale because of donor status, and even they have to be (relatively) qualified. Also, kids at Yale are, in the vast majority of cases, extraordinarily engaged in all sorts of activities, from sports to arts to activism. I think some of them are bit too tightly wound, which is probably an element in this whole thing.
Could we please decide whether the young woman in question is an adult? If so, the next question is whether NC is a member of some sort caste that requires special deference from another adult? She should certainly take responsibility for her tone and decorum, assuming it was inappropriate under the totality of the circumstances. But, if I am cursed at by another adult, I don’t immediately think, “You have no right to curse at me”. I’m too busy restraining myself from cursing back.
Ipso facto, the same person can’t be an adult when it’s convenient to your argument and a child when it’s not.
@okon2122
I appreciate the apology. It’s just an easy stereotype and does nothing to inform the larger discussion.
She is an adult, but in the college setting professors are her superiors and authority figures and therefore are due more respect than she showed them. My children may be grown, but it would still be disrespectful for them to scream and curse at their mother or father, or at one of their grandparents.
I call b.s…
Parents and grandparents are a special relationship (I should hope) and you still haven’t explained what it is about the “college setting” that magically transforms an employee of the school into another adult’s “superior”? Is it because that person has the power to give out bad grades? Fine. I’m willing to bet that millions of adults make similar calculations every day when spouting off against their boss or a cop in the street or some other authority figure. They may or may not suffer certain consequences as a result, but society as a whole pretty much accords an adult the right to take that risk (i.e., “it’s your headache”.)
Is it because professors are members of what was once referred to as a learned profession? If a doctor leaves a sponge in my grandmothers chest cavity or a lawyer over-bills me, I have a right to be angry and I don’t care how many learned societies they may belong to. I would hope my anger would not spill over into cursing. But, that has nothing to do with their professional status - I would have the same hope no matter the person’s occupation.
Anger can boil to the surface once in a while. If the students are adults, then they are inexperienced adults and folks really need to cut them some slack on issues they’re experiencing for the first time.
Yes, some of them are unpleasant and they may be that way all their life, but that shouldn’t detract from the overall message of the entire group.
So has our society degraded to the point where we no longer expect students to respect their teachers? What about expecting adult employees not to scream at their bosses? Would your parents have approved if you had yelled angrily at a teacher, even if you were in college and it was a professor? Mine wouldn’t have, and I sure wouldn’t either. How would they have felt about you not only yelling, but swearing? In general, throwing a temper tantrum in a professional setting or the public square is unseemly. I have no problem cutting a single individual a break, but I don’t cut the recent student movements in general a break, because there has been far too much immaturity and lack of civility evident in their behavior, and too little perspective evident in their choice of issues. I exclude the Mizzou situation, since I haven’t followed that one enough to have an opinion, but on the surface it seems to be different in quality than the others.
And wait, how is it you suggest she is experiencing these issues for the first time? I thought the argument was that blacks live with almost daily discrimination from white society?
Just got back from an investor conference today and we made it clear to our portfolio companies not to hire these kids. We have no time to waste on these students. Easy to weed them out too, which is is a blessing. This goes for Dartmouth, Princeton, Claremmont etc.
I would be afraid to go home if I behaved like that and was on camera to boot. Yikes.
I’m perfectly willing to stipulate that an employee yelling at his boss and a student yelling at his teacher are at just about the same level of societal degradation, but, judging from the amount of bandwith (not to mention paper and ink, Wesleyan) that has been devoted to one and not the other these past couple of months, I don’t think the rest of the world, not to mention the boomer commentariat, would agree with you. In essence, you are trying every which way to make this about an uppity, disrespectful child without actually using the word “child”.
And FWIW, my 97 year old mother still thinks of me as her baby. 
I was referring to being in the limelight. Under the camera’s eye. Involved in an issue of national interest…
@awcntdb Wait. “These students…easy to weed them out.” How and why? Are you tracking down their names and putting them on some kind of no-hire list? Or are you suggesting that it’s easy to weed them out because you won’t hire any black kids from these schools? Hope you’ll clarify; as is, that statement comes off as both racist and an enormous, harmful generalization.
I would like to note that I’ve encountered a number of people who screamed at other adults in business settings. The screamer was usually in a position of authority, though.
Some companies like to hire people who “buck the system.” As a woman, well-placed in corporate America, I’ve been told I was “too considerate for your own good” and to “speak up”/“be a leader” more often than I care to remember. I’ve also been criticized for “speaking out of turn,” “making a mountain out of a molehill” and “leading like a woman” – sometimes by the same people who gave me the former advice.
Agree with Hunt, most of the screamers I’ve witnessed in my 25+ years in business have been people in authority. Not that it matters but since others have already gone there – they have been middle-aged white men, not young uppity, entitled black kids straight out of college. One of them was a 57-year-old white CEO who screamed, “things will not change until we change the color of the white house” post-election in 2008 to a group of stunned executives, some of whom were not white, including me, who crouched in silence.
@awcntdb: I find it hard to believe that a private equity firm would advise its portfolio companies to avoid hiring college students who are “easy to weed out” when, presumably, there are such weightier matters for them to consider. Was this a side conversation, or was it actually part of a formal presentation? Either this firm is really, really small, or just small-minded.
I’ve followed this thread pretty closely since the beginning, and I’ve not found anyone who is praising the Yale studen’ts behavior. There has been thoughtful, lively debate about the Yale student’s views versus the master’s views. But no one has held up the Yale student as a model for others to follow. Can we get past the fact that her behavior is inappropriate? Obsessing over her behavior is a diversion from the real issue, which is far more important to society at large than whether the “shrieking girl” label handicaps this student in future employment. Whether it does or not is of no consequence to most of us.