Reply to Has Yale Become a PC Joke?

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Has Yale Become a PC Joke?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This kids today are entitled wimps arguments astounds me.  Every generation feels like this about the previous one.  The people writing this kind of crap are the ones who lack self-awareness.  For every entitled rich kid there are tens if not hundreds of young people out there who are working hard.  If you want to be optimistic about the next generation take a look at the kids at Montgomery College:lively minds, working a couple of jobs, taking care of younger siblings, comfortable with diversity of opinion and circumstance.  And as to the screamer at Yale, people are trivializing the black students concerns.  The come from a world where young blacks are being killed by the police, and our first black president is hated by a very vocal minority who oppose his every move because he is black.  They have many advantages because of their accomplishments, but I can tell you that micro-aggressions are not imagined at elite institutions, they are real and have a profound effect on the mental health of the minority student body.  Imagine if everyday some one at your work subtlety implied that you do not deserve to job, etc.  At the same time they are told they should not complain because they, as middle class blacks, they are not subject to racism. If anyone on this board would like some insight into this, try reading, "Young, Black and Gifted."  I applaud Yale for over the past few years, taking these issues seriously, and making some very reasonable proposals toward increasing inclusion on campus. [/quote]

+1. People on this board don't get it. I'm a 48 year old AA woman who went to an elite college where I experienced regularly the discrimination and microaggressions that these kids are railing against. I was in college over 25 year ago - I am ashamed that this crap is still going on.  Look at what happened at Harvard Law school just this morning. Yes I am successful, yes I was able to rise above it all but I don't really get why people think the students should just get over it.  Don't we want our society to be better than that?

[/quote]

I am a caucasian and I truly get what you are saying, no one judges me on the color of my skin.  I fully appreciate that I do not know what it is like to be AA, nor will I have any idea what it is like.  I say this with all sincerity and no snark, I am very sorry that you have experienced racism of any kind and wish that we could eradicate all instances.

I am also a realist and having grown up in the south, I found that yelling at a prejudiced person that their views were racist (which is the tact I have in my youth) did not have any effect except anger the other person. As I got older I learned to engage the person and question their statement.  Sometimes their beliefs were deeply racist but often expressing shock or asking them to explain when they meant, got them to open up and change their perspective.  I know it is easier for a white person to do this than a person of color that but the key to change is to approach it gently and with intelligence.

The problem with the girl at Yale is her foul language, rude demeanor and overly assertive body language.  You don't have a screaming, cursing girl who was insulting a person who had committed a racist act, all the Master did was propose a different way of approaching someone in a hypothetical situation.  A person like this does more to damage a cause than bring attention to it, and honestly she sounds more like a spoiled brat than a crusader for justice.  [/quote]

I am the 48 YO AA who posted above.  I'm not condoning the Yale student's behavior at all - she was way out of line in how she expressed herself - she was basically having a breakdown so I actually feel sorry for her. But by focusing on one person's behavior the overall points are missed.  For many AA's my age who went to similar schools - we can recount similar stories and experiences. It's shocking that folks can be so dismissive of it and what is more shocking is that things have not really progressed at all.  My heart really breaks over this.  It actually makes me afraid for my high school-aged daughters.  [b]They have been raised in a welcoming, integrated community in DC - have never been called the N-word or faced any type of discrimination or bigotry from white friends, teachers or others.  I've done the best I can to prepare them but I would be out of my mind if they had to encounter racism/discrimination/racist name-calling in college.[/b]

[/quote]

This is what I am getting at. Most places in the US are less racist and less elitist than DC, but you seem to have bought into the idea that most of the US is a wasteland of xenophobic white people driving around in pickup trucks shouting insults at black people. AAs (and the affluent, urban whites, who dominate journalism in this country and live in a bubble of groupthink) greatly overestimate the amount of racism in most of the country and then respond by disproportionately vilifying people.

There's about a dozen university presidents that are currently being pressured to resign by black activists, for the vaguest of reasons. I doubt that any of them are racists who deserved to be pilloried in such a manner, but that's OK. They are privileged white people who have never worked or suffered, and possibly have no souls, and you know that they probably say "n-----" all the time in their private lives, so off with their heads.

Just scan the typical threads in places like lipstickalley.com or thecoli.com and see how every other thread is filled endless conspiracy theories and cynical conclusions about the evil things that yt is up to, 99% of which are BS. You might be tempted to say that white people do the same thing, in private. But that's generally not true. Most white people don't drop racial slurs and discuss wacko conspiracy theories about blacks -- at least not nearly to the extent that black folks do.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics