Discuss today what is happening on campus non-athletically; departments, non-athletic facilities, professors, recognitions and issues. No athletics allowed.
I followed some tweets to this article. I'm not posting this to stir anyone up. I honestly don't know what I'm missing here, and would appreciate any insight.
Tulane Canceled a Talk by the Author of an Acclaimed Anti-Racism Book After Students Said the Event Was 'Violent'
That event was supposed to take place tonight, but the university opted to postpone it following blinkered outrage from students who insisted that the event was "not only inappropriate but violent towards the experience of Black people in the Tulane community and our country." Other members of the Tulane community called it "harmful and offensive," and demanded its cancellation. Still others said the university should apologize and take action against whoever approved the event. (I verified that the people who made these kinds of comments were Tulane students, graduates, and employees. I chose not to name most of them in order to prevent individual harassment, though I did identify two student government officials who affixed their names to an appalling demand for censorship.)
One Tulane graduate commented on the Instagram post about the event's postponement that he was disappointed with this decision. An associate director in Tulane's admissions office responded: "Go cry about it."
Canceling the event demonstrates weakness on the part of the administration. Pandering to a small number of vocal students who obviously are ignorant of the book and author, unless they somehow feel demeaning white supremacists is a bad thing, either way the administration was weak kneed.
The money quote
Again, this is a book that NPR called "resonant and important." The New Republic—currently one of the woke-est of the progressive magazines—wrote that Ball "builds a psychological portrait of white supremacy, which then radiates outward and across time, to explain the motives and historical background behind racist violence." Yet leaders of Tulane's student body think it is their solemn duty to prevent anyone from learning about this history.
Using big words is not a personal attack
#cousins don't count
Really bad look and precedent. If they didn't like the author they didn't have to go to the talk. Instead nobody gets to participate. All the while the echo chamber grows more echoey
windywave wrote: ↑Fri Aug 07, 2020 12:02 am
Canceling the event demonstrates weakness on the part of the administration. Pandering to a small number of vocal students who obviously are ignorant of the book and author, unless they somehow feel demeaning white supremacists is a bad thing, either way the administration was weak kneed.
The money quote
Again, this is a book that NPR called "resonant and important." The New Republic—currently one of the woke-est of the progressive magazines—wrote that Ball "builds a psychological portrait of white supremacy, which then radiates outward and across time, to explain the motives and historical background behind racist violence." Yet leaders of Tulane's student body think it is their solemn duty to prevent anyone from learning about this history.
Yup. Tulane screwed the pooch on this one.
After you've been on fire under Arctic pack ice everything else is a walk in the park.
So if I'm reading this right, we've now moved from "we can't have anything in our world that might cause offense" to "we can't even have discussions about how to eliminate offensive things because the simple discussion itself might become uncomfortable"?
I thought about this more after I woke up last night and couldn't go back to sleep. As stated above, it's a bad look, and links to the story were tweeted out by several folks with large followings. So, I tried to consider everyone's role here.
Students - My least concern is with the student's position. While I strongly disagree with them, it's their time at the university. Their time to grow, develop their mind, spread their wings, mature as adults, and so on and so forth. Again, I think that they're wrong, but I would really like to understand their reasoning, because I just don't.
The University - I'm disappointed that they would cave like this, however . . . we're days away from welcoming students back to campus for what will be a very unusual semester, to say the least. I can appreciate postponing and wanting to put off the discussion until later. They shouldn't have done it though.
The Associate Director - Most concerning for a university official to respond to an alum like that. Stepping back though, the story quotes his/her response, but only states that it was a response to an expression of disappointment by an alum. How was that disappointment expressed? Respectfully? Profanity laced? Racist? Somewhere in between? It doesn't say, and it does make some difference. Apparently the statement was not made in official capacity, but in a social media post. Social media - Work - why do people not get it!
TU77CAL82 wrote:
The Associate Director - Most concerning for a university official to respond to an alum like that. Stepping back though, the story quotes his/her response, but only states that it was a response to an expression of disappointment by an alum. How was that disappointment expressed? Respectfully? Profanity laced? Racist? Somewhere in between? It doesn't say, and it does make some difference. Apparently the statement was not made in official capacity, but in a social media post. Social media - Work - why do people not get it!
It doesn't frick matter what the alum said. What matters is the response from the school employee who should be terminated.
Using big words is not a personal attack
#cousins don't count
TU77CAL82 wrote:
The Associate Director - Most concerning for a university official to respond to an alum like that. Stepping back though, the story quotes his/her response, but only states that it was a response to an expression of disappointment by an alum. How was that disappointment expressed? Respectfully? Profanity laced? Racist? Somewhere in between? It doesn't say, and it does make some difference. Apparently the statement was not made in official capacity, but in a social media post. Social media - Work - why do people not get it!
It doesn't frick matter what the alum said. What matters is the response from the school employee who should be terminated.
I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I agree with Windy. Doesn't matter what the alum said; if it was profane or whatever just ignore it. You don't always have to respond, and a response like that is a very serious problem, and almost certainly symptomatic of other rude conduct by the staffer.
As for the underlying event, I also agree that it should not have been cancelled, and the persons clamoring for it to have been are misguided at best. That being said, I can also understand not wanting to invite a protest or even general hassle while dealing with the massive burden of running a school during COVID, so while I don't agree I can understand just deciding that it's not worth the fight.
TU77CAL82 wrote:
The Associate Director - Most concerning for a university official to respond to an alum like that. Stepping back though, the story quotes his/her response, but only states that it was a response to an expression of disappointment by an alum. How was that disappointment expressed? Respectfully? Profanity laced? Racist? Somewhere in between? It doesn't say, and it does make some difference. Apparently the statement was not made in official capacity, but in a social media post. Social media - Work - why do people not get it!
It doesn't frick matter what the alum said. What matters is the response from the school employee who should be terminated.
I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I agree with Windy.
Feels good to be correct doesn't it? :)
Using big words is not a personal attack
#cousins don't count
