Saturday, November 7, 2015

"Yale SJWs screaming at professor...

...because he isn't making the university enough of a "safe space" by denouncing offensive Halloween costumes."


(UPDATE) Here is the email that supposedly got the student panties in a twist... link
Dear Sillimanders:
Nicholas and I have heard from a number of students who were frustrated by the mass email sent to the student body about appropriate Halloween­wear. I’ve always found Halloween an interesting embodiment of more general adult worries about young people. As some of you may be aware, I teach a class on “The Concept of the Problem Child,” and I was speaking with some of my students yesterday about the ways in which Halloween – traditionally a day of subversion for children and young people – is also an occasion for adults to exert their control.
When I was young, adults were freaked out by the specter of Halloween candy poisoned by lunatics, or spiked with razor blades (despite the absence of a single recorded case of such an event). Now, we’ve grown to fear the sugary candy itself. And this year, we seem afraid that college students are unable to decide how to dress themselves on Halloween.
I don’t wish to trivialize genuine concerns about cultural and personal representation, and other challenges to our lived experience in a plural community. I know that many decent people have proposed guidelines on Halloween costumes from a spirit of avoiding hurt and offense. I laud those goals, in theory, as most of us do. But in practice, I wonder if we should reflect more transparently, as a community, on the consequences of an institutional (which is to say: bureaucratic and administrative) exercise of implied control over college students.
It seems to me that we can have this discussion of costumes on many levels: we can talk about complex issues of identify, free speech, cultural appropriation, and virtue “signalling.” But I wanted to share my thoughts with you from a totally different angle, as an educator concerned with the developmental stages of childhood and young adulthood.
As a former preschool teacher, for example, it is hard for me to give credence to a claim that there is something objectionably “appropriative” about a blonde­haired child’s wanting to be Mulan for a day. Pretend play is the foundation of most cognitive tasks, and it seems to me that we want to be in the business of encouraging the exercise of imagination, not constraining it. I suppose we could agree that there is a difference between fantasizing about an individual character vs. appropriating a culture, wholesale, the latter of which could be seen as (tacky)(offensive)(jejeune)(hurtful), take your pick. But, then, I wonder what is the statute of limitations on dreaming of dressing as Tiana the Frog Princess if you aren’t a black girl from New Orleans? Is it okay if you are eight, but not 18? I don’t know the answer to these questions; they seem unanswerable. Or at the least, they put us on slippery terrain that I, for one, prefer not to cross.
Which is my point. I don’t, actually, trust myself to foist my Halloweenish standards and motives on others. I can’t defend them anymore than you could defend yours. Why do we dress up on Halloween, anyway? Should we start explaining that too? I’ve always been a good mimic and I enjoy accents. I love to travel, too, and have been to every continent but Antarctica. When I lived in Bangladesh, I bought a sari because it was beautiful, even though I looked stupid in it and never wore it once. Am I fetishizing and appropriating others’ cultural experiences? Probably. But I really, really like them too.
Even if we could agree on how to avoid offense – and I’ll note that no one around campus seems overly concerned about the offense taken by religiously conservative folks to skin­revealing costumes – I wonder, and I am not trying to be provocative: Is there no room anymore for a child or young person to be a little bit obnoxious… a little bit inappropriate or provocative or, yes, offensive? American universities were once a safe space not only for maturation but also for a certain regressive, or even transgressive, experience;increasingly, it seems, they have become places of censure and prohibition. And the censure and prohibition come from above, not from yourselves! Are we all okay with this transfer of power? Have we lost faith in young people's capacity – in your capacity ­ to exercise self­censure, through social norming, and also in your capacity to ignore or reject things that trouble you? We tend to view this shift from individual to institutional agency as a tradeoff between libertarian vs. liberal values (“liberal” in the American, not European sense of the word).
Nicholas says, if you don’t like a costume someone is wearing, look away, or tell them you are offended. Talk to each other. Free speech and the ability to tolerate offence are the hallmarks of a free and open society.
But – again, speaking as a child development specialist – I think there might be something missing in our discourse about the exercise of free speech (including how we dress ourselves) on campus, and it is this: What does this debate about Halloween costumes say about our view of young adults, of their strength and judgment?
In other words: Whose business is it to control the forms of costumes of young people? It's not mine, I know that.
Happy Halloween.

24 comments:

ndspinelli said...

Yale is out of control. There was a big controversy about blacks being excluded from a fraternity. The woman making the allegations was interviewed by a Daily Beast reporter and the story disintegrated. She was lying. But, like the liar, Rachel Dolezal, the student took solace in that she was "starting a discussion on race." Yes, a discussion BASED ON A FUCKING LIE!!

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Google...

Which university has produced the most presidents?

Yale University has produced five U.S. presidents.

We are so screwed.

chickelit said...

The grownup looks male and white. The loudmouth's goal is to get him canned. The optics say she will succeed. Because children rule.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

A generation of pansies, pussies, snow-flakes, tender delicate uselessness. Thanks, leftwing college. Good going.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I found what is purported to be the email causing the raucous.

I'm posting it up front.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

"It's your job to create comfort for us."

We are doomed.


Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Joyce Carol Oates ‏@JoyceCarolOates 5 minutes ago

"Concept of "safe place" seems to have been taken from vocabulary of battered women's shelters. Now applied generally, has lost meaning."

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

For a more detailed explanation of what this is about go here.

chickelit said...

...costumes such as feathered headdresses, turbans, “war paint,” and blackface as examples of inappropriate “cultural appropriation and/or misrepresentation.”

It's always the same. Get rid of offensive mascots too while you're at it.

chickelit said...

"I'm off to college now mom, and I'm going to devote myself to ridding the place of headdresses, turbans, war paint, and blackface Hallowe'en costumes. And I'm going to look hot doing it too."

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

They are going to be in for a rude awakening when they go to the marketplace.

AllenS said...

Grow the fuck up, kids.

chickelit said...

They are going to be in for a rude awakening when they go to the marketplace.

They are going to try to change the "marketplace" when they get there. It's already started with small businesses: bakeries, photography, etc.

ricpic said...

They really believed it when their parents and all the other adults called them precious snowflakes.

bagoh20 said...

It's a sign of our all encompassing success as a species that this is what occupies our young up and coming minds as a problem needing their full attention. This email plus the idea that it would take an entire class to tackle "The Concept of the Problem Child" shows the bankruptcy of ideas and vision. I would think that either could be hashed out in a single blog post, or Dear Abby letter. Both could be resolved over a couple beers and plate of chili fries.

The truth is that just like the beer and fries would be, the bitching and whining are the objectives, the goals. The so called "problems and solutions" are just excuses for doing it.

It is the height of spoiled cluelessness to think these issues are important. It's like they can't even imagine a world beyond their own emotional need for attention.

edutcher said...

Would a whiff of grapeshot be too severe?

chickelit said...

They are going to be in for a rude awakening when they go to the marketplace.

They are going to try to change the "marketplace" when they get there. It's already started with small businesses: bakeries, photography, etc.


This stuff will fade with the end of the Obamanation.

Witness Kim Davis and KY.

Lem said...

Google...

Which university has produced the most presidents?

Yale University has produced five U.S. presidents.

We are so screwed.


My God, you "We are so screwed" guys are as bad as the snowflakes.

And you can bet it will be a long time before another Eli goes to the Rainbow House.

They'll be afraid to leave their "safe place".

I'm Full of Soup said...

Anyone else notice the name of this part of Yale is Silliman College? You could not make this shit up if you tried.

Methadras said...

That little bitch deserved a fist in the face. The neutered non-man, let him disrespect him and his position. Entitled SJW's need a bullet in the head. I told you that people sending their children to these leftist churches are churning out malformed entitled evil idiots.

Amartel said...

Why would anyone pay to attend this indoctrination factory for gullible, whiny crybabies. Bleh.
I'm a Brown graduate but even in my day - can't believe I just said that - no one actually thought throwing a tantrum was credible argument. Not that that stopped certain people from trying. The other Ivies should use this as an ad for why NOT to attend Yale but they won't because it's all one big cartel feeding on the pretensions of smart middle class strivers.

ndspinelli said...

Amartel, Brown may be the most left wing Ivy School. Was Amy Carter there when you attended? I had friends who went to Providence College. They would get drunk and pimp slap Brown students. Hopefully not you.

Amartel said...

Hah. Never slapped by a Friar. Lucky for the Friars. Never heard about slapping incidents. May be Prov College graduates overcompensating in retrospect? Providence College was where people went if they wanted to be in ROTC. In other words, about 2 people in any given year went over there. Other than that, Brown students couldn't be bothered to acknowledge the place. I went there to take my GRE. RISD was the main attraction for Brown students. Just down the hill and filled with entertaining artsy whackos. URI (You Are High) was an occasional football rival. Brown sucked at football. Brown was very left-wing, even back then. Like, ridiculously, comically, you cannot be serious, left wing. Which was great for me because it was an early education about the pieties, presumptions, privileges, and enormous hypocrisies, of progressivism. Bossy rich twit superiority enabling. Amy was there for a while and Jimmah came to speak. I saw him on campus and he was much tinier than expected.

ndspinelli said...

Amartel, Thanks for telling us about college. I didn't know this. My friends lived in the same dorm as Marvin Barnes. This was the 70's when Providence had great b-ball teams. took a piss in the dorm bathroom next to Marvin. I didn't peak. My friends hung out w/ the hockey team, mostly Canucks back then. Those boys were beer drinkers and they spearheaded the harassing of Brown guys. I would hitch from my school in PA to Providence often. Think of those days, hitching 200 miles just for a weekend of debauchery and then hitching home. We would sometimes head up to girl colleges in Boston looking for poontang. Providence, as you know, is not much. I know little about URI or RISD except that 2 entertainers I like, David Byrne and Martin Mull went there.

ndspinelli said...

LOL! My "peak" instead of "peek" must have been latent Freudian.

Amartel said...

JFK Jr. was the big attraction on campus. Started out a pot-smoking, snobby shlub but finished strong. Jackie and the family showed up for graduation and the place went nuts. Poor Amy was kind of second-rated. I didn't know her at all but my sense is that people were really shitty to her and/or she just wasn't up for the hyper-competitive social-climbing. She dropped out and finished school elsewhere. Unlike Chelsea, she seems to have lived her own life.