Reply to Has Yale Become a PC Joke?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I do not like the tenor of this thread:  if you are black and/or are FA and something bothers you on an elite campus you should say nothing and just go to the library.  You are spoiled and entitled just because you go to a prestigious university, and therefore have an easy life and should just let go and get back to class if you are denied entrance into a party because you are black. The behavior of these students is very mild compared to the free speech movement  and the black power movement in the 60s. You have no idea what their lives have been like, or are now.
Do I think all their demands are reasonable, not I don't.  But they have every right to articulate them.  I also know from personal experience, that even if you are middle class or wealthy, you are subjected to racism if you are black. It is everywhere in our society.

The intense anger expressed toward these minority students makes me feel uneasy because it seems to be based on the notion that these students have already gotten something they were not qualified for: an ivy league education, and therefore they should be grateful and shut up.  These kids have the right to express themselves. They did not forfeit that by going to Yale.[/quote]

Many white students at Yale by no means discount that racism exists, but question whether the types of racism the protestors identify -- often very subtle, not intentional -- are things which are failings at all of the university and whether the proposed remedies are only going to create more problems, and not fix the ones for which the students have protested.  But it is hard to even get an accurate account of who feels how because the atmosphere has become toxic -- if you express any doubt about what the protestors are doing you are called "racist" -- a term which in our culture carries almost as much stigma as the "N" word.  After that, there is no debate, discussion, nothing.  Erecting a statue declaring Yale stole land from indigenous peoples will not sure discrimination. Mental health workers may help students cope, but will not cure discrimination.  The only way ignorant people learn not to discriminate is to comingle with other people, ask questions, and become comfortable.   More money for cultural centers probably will not achieve this.  Minority students complain about other students feeling they don't deserve to be there and wondering if they got in boosted by affirmative action.   That is a valid observation.  But that one will never stop until affirmative action is ended -- and a belief that ending affirmative action is a good policy at this point is not a "racist" belief.   Affirmative action has always been a racist policy by definition -- one that we tolerated as a society for some perceived greater social good.    But now one must wonder.

[/quote]I will assume that you understand that affirmative action encompasses far more than college àdmission based on ethnicity.  It also includes disability, geographical, and women (it is a documented fact that white women have been the biggest beneficiaries of affirmative action to break the glass ceiling, monetary compensation, etc).  S

So to keep throwing out terms that affirmative action is 'racist', the definition needs to be quantified as equal pay for women is most certainly not racist.[/quote]

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