links for 2007-11-06

Comments

  1. hoo_boy wrote:

    I snuck onto Hamline’s Facebook group to catch the pulse of the discussion on this one. The student quoted as a friend of the team in the article has her profile turned off.

    http://www.facebook.com/networks/?nk=16777894

    Yes, standard chatter for those who’ve heard it all before. The news article failed to mention the “flyer” episode with images on campus as well.

    A few points of interest always worth noting especially after diving among the idle rants of our young mid-sized midwestern Methodist population :

    (1) “Free speech” as a defense turning on intent, versus “free speech” presented in the expression itself followed by…

    (2) Inability to articulate purpose for the expression in question supported by…

    (3) Anger at authority and/or society for condemning that expression (the “no one better teach me tolerance, dammit, I’ll learn it myself” appproach) while

    (4) administration swiftly moves to condemn, contain, and control the situation in that order. a/k/a “What they did was wrong/we’re not sure who’s responsible/but everyone involved should’ve known better/maybe they didn’t/but how could they not have/let’s play it safe and comment publicly in advance of proceedings leading to suspension or expulsion to bias the outcome/then educate them on what’s right by forcing them to take a class”.

    That’s how you get a group of willing, receptive, sincere college knuckleheads to truly acknowledge, accept, and understand the consequences of their culturally, racially, or ethnically insenstive/thoughtless acts such that they’ll *never* do it again– and to examine, explore, and reflect upon their attitudes towards people unlike them so they can form healthy diverse relationships throughout and beyond their school careers.

    To be clear: whoever organizes these parties, posts these pictures, etc. can and should be held responsible by the schools in loco parentis. But that raises a larger question no one else amid the hollering: what have the parents been telling the kids before they hit campus?

  2. summer wrote:

    I am so sick this “blackface” thing. And especially the whack apologies that follow. This morning on msnbc (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21645714/from/RS.5) there was yet another account of this at Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement department. This time the guy was awarded first place for his costume “dressed in prison stripes, dreadlocks and dark makeup.”

  3. Thea wrote:

    Aw, thanks for the shout-out!

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