1861

Then show us the proof. Show us this pervasive culture of hate. Gives us examples that actually back that up.

Activists make the same claim about rape in this country… but where’s the data?

So, wait, some of you think that this is okay and people should just take it? Some guy went on a hunger strike. I mean, I skip a meal every now and then, but I cant image how painful it would be to go on a hunger strike. Thats not something you do about a minor issue.

This is a generation in search of a cause. They all want their Rosa Parks moment. But the great battles have already been fought. Racism isn’t cool, and everyone cares about the environment. So what do you do? Well … you go on hunger strikes to protest someone microagressions - or you claim that “silence is violence.”

As a former activist… the hunger strike actually set of alarm bells for me. Extreme stands are used to validate positions in the absence of real data. Shouting is the other one I suppose. If a protester can’t articulate a reasoned claim in a person to person setting, then they probably don’t’ have much to go on.

1862

I’m not sure example fighting accomplishes much in a culture war.

Once again I’m left conflicted about these situations. I still think mob rule is playing with fire long-term, but it’s mostly on college campuses and I care so little about bureaucratic administrators and tenured professors.

I’m just surprised that leaders STILL don’t get crisis management. This isn’t that hard, folks.

1863

It’s already shown in the articles and the extremes that people are going to (people don’t go on hunger strikes for fun or profit, because they are horribly painful). Putting your head in the sand doesn’t it make it magically go away or not be real.

Hell the whole football team walked off. I guess you would prefer that we turn the hoses on the kids again?

1864

You’ve provided no real evidence to substantiate your claims, and you refused to respond to any reasoned critiques.

You need a strong leader who’s willing to step into the middle of the crisis to take control. That person doesn’t always exist though.

Hell, UVa knew about the Rolling Stone article months in advance and they still made a mess of the response. And it’s not as if they didn’t take it seriously, they hired a consulting firm to deal with it.

1865

Regarding the protesters who barred access to an ESPN contract photographer because (in their words) the media always get the story wrong, WaPo makes the point that popped in my head immediately: this is just like conservatives’ war on mainstream media.

The intellectual chaos is delicious, but man, does anyone like those guys anymore? Probably not the best long-term career path at this point.

1866

Funny you bring that up. This University of Missouri thing prompted me to go on an addictive TVTropes-style clickfest to see what I’ve missed lately. My favorite was an article at The Atlantic that examined the state of identity politics from a psychotherapy framework, specifically Burns’s Feeling Good. It’s fascinating to me personally because of my own mental health journey. Not that the psychology field is full of all-knowing god-kings, but damn, these kids are screwed if the shrinks are correct.

Speaking of which, oh crap, I have no clue how to raise my two boys in this era. Woo! Could we maybe wrap this up in about 10 years so we’re all chill again before they hit middle school?

1867

I’ve provide several articles, and you say is “Nahahaahaha I can’t hear you, it’s not happening?” and I’m the one that isn’t responding with a reasoned critique? That’s too much.

The protests began after Payton Head, the president of the student government at the Columbia campus, said in September that people in a passing pickup truck shouted racial slurs at him. Head is black. In early October, members of a black student organization said slurs were hurled at them by an apparently drunken white student.

“I’m just wondering what is the next step now that the president has stepped down,” said 24-year-old student Jovan Russell. Russell was a Mizzou freshman in 2009 when two students defaced the Black Culture Center with cotton balls. Russell said he can’t recall school officials doing anything in response to the 2009 incident.

[QUOTE"It’s not always a big issue of someone calling you the n-word," Russell said. “It’s small things too, like someone crossing the street before they get to you because they don’t feel safe. Or when you get on the shuttle and it’s all white people in the front and the black people go to the back.”][/QUOTE]

http://www.kansascity.com/news/state/missouri/article3319431.html

“People were saying, ‘Go back to St. Louis,’ ‘You don’t belong here.’ People were being called the N-word and people were making gun gestures,” said Jakal Burrell-El, an MSU senior and organizer for Homecoming Blackout, Saturday’s demonstration. He said he recognized some of the students verbally attacking the group, but because he was wearing a mask, they did not recognize him.[LEFT]
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/state/missouri/article3319431.html#storylink=cpy
[/LEFT]

These sort of things don’t happen in other places. But I’m under the impression that anything less than a Lynching is just life in the south, right IC? I mean, who cares other wise. It’s not like black lives matter or anything.

1868

The two examples you provided are troubling, but they do not suggest an overarching cultural problem at Mizzou.

We were so caught up our self-righteous rage that we forgot to think. All that mattered was our belief, and the depth of our feeling.

That Atlantic article is great.

Speaking of which, oh crap, I have no clue how to raise my two boys in this era.

Well, we can’t change the world - but we can teach our children to think for themselves.

I hope that’s enough.

1869

No. This is the 21st century. Major college campuses (at least) should be free of this crap by now. The number should be zero.

I don’t blame the president, he is being scapegoated, but he also needed to do a much, much better job of responding to this problem.

1870

The incidents are actually irrelevant. What really happened is that a significant portion of students lost faith in the ability of the president of the university system to lead and to resolve the issues. No matter how piddly the issues, the fact that there was a hunger strike and a bunch of student athletes willing to risk full-ride scholarships to protest this guy indicates that the students had lost faith in him. So, for better or worse, he had to go.

1871

That’s a noble sentiment, but human nature doesn’t change. Fear, hate, all of those inborn feelings - those will always be with us, in one form or another.

You will always find examples of racism. The battle is keeping them to a minimum, which is possible.

And that’s an argument I’m willing to listen to.

1872

Your first paragraph is basically a boilerplate “it shouldn’t be that way and i’ll fix it because i’m Trump.” In a free society you can’t preemptively control the actions of other people to that level. You can’t fault Obama for murder because someone in your state murders someone for example.

Absolutely NOBODY is claiming it should be that way or that it is acceptable.

I just don’t see how the president could have responded better in two out of the three reported events. The other event is questionable and not a slam dunk. This to me is not indication of any pattern of negligence in regards to racism and really that is what rational people should be trying to prove. It isn’t a question of whether there are racists down there, or anywhere, it is, or should be, a question of what the president SHOULD have done better.

1873

And yes, this is a perfect point.

Perception is often more important than reality.

1874

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1875

So, you expel any student that drunkenly uses a racial slur? Can they avoid expulsion if they can demonstrate the slur was intended affectionately and/or ironically? How about people who play uncensored Kanye West songs in the dorms? I think we can assume this latter group is already drunk and/or stoned.

I think this is a fair assessment. But it still raises the question of what he could have done differently – the list of demands that “Concerned Student 1950” presented ranged from stuff that the university already proposed (mandatory racial sensitivity training) to stuff that no college president could unilaterally implement (establishing percentile quotas for minority professors), but I have yet to see any demands for concrete steps that the school didn’t (sometimes belatedly) take already.

1876

Factually, yes, he needed to go.

But in 2015, I’m not sure you can judge the truth of a claim – a culture of racism – by the extremeness of the response. As The Atlantic points out, this is a dangerous psychological error.

With that said, the timeline seems much more reasonable now that I’ve read it. There were “normal” protests, and then there was a few weeks of time when nothing significant was done. Hunger strikes seem extreme for a privileged person such as myself, but I can’t know this person’s inner turmoil. And hey, it worked.

I’m definitely curious about what’s next. I’d love to see the problem eradicated.

1877

By the way, the list of demands:

I. We demand that the University of Missouri System President, Tim Wolfe, writes a handwritten apology to the Concerned Student 1-*9-*5-0 demonstrators and holds a press conference in the Mizzou Student Center reading the letter. In the letter and at the press conference, Tim Wolfe must acknowledge his white male privilege, recognize that systems of oppression exist, and provide a verbal commitment to fulfilling Concerned Student 1-9-5-*0 demands. We want Tim Wolfe to admit to his gross negligence, allowing his driver to hit one of the demonstrators, consenting to the physical violence of bystanders, and lastly refusing to intervene when Columbia Police Department used excessive force with demonstrators.

II. We demand the immediate removal of Tim Wolfe as UM system president. After his removal a new amendment to UM system policies must be established to have all future UM system president and Chancellor positions be selected by a collective of students, staff, and faculty of diverse backgrounds.

III. We demand that the University of Missouri meets the Legion of Black Collegians’ demands that were presented in 1969 for the betterment of the black community.

IV. We demand that the University of Missouri creates and enforces comprehensive racial awareness and inclusion curriculum throughout all campus departments and units, mandatory for all students, faculty, staff, and administration. This curriculum must be vetted, maintained, and overseen by a board comprised of students, staff, and faculty of color.

V. We demand that by the academic year 2017-2018, the University of Missouri increases the percentage of black faculty and staff campus-wide to 10%.

VI. We demand that the University of Missouri composes a strategic 10 year plan by May 1, 2016 that will increase retention rates for marginalized students, sustain diversity curriculum and training, and promote a more safe and inclusive campus.

VII. We demand that the University of Missouri increases funding and resources for the University of Missouri Counseling Center for the purpose of hiring additional mental health professionals — particularly those of color, boosting mental health outreach and programming across campus, increasing campus-*wide awareness and visibility of the counseling center, and reducing lengthy wait times for prospective clients.

VIII. We demand that the University of Missouri increases funding, resources, and personnel for the social justices centers on campus for the purpose of hiring additional professionals, particularly those of color, boosting outreach and programming across campus, and increasing campus-*wide awareness and visibility.

A shift toward inexpensive online/off-campus learning looks really attractive right about now, doesn’t it, Missouri? You sure selling the campus life is a good long-term business proposition?

Oh, and you’ll have to do it with less tax dollars and a clientele near their breaking point for tuition and fees. Have fun with that!

1878

  1. We want Wolfe to grovel like the slime-covered worm that he is and admit to criminal wrongdoing.

  2. Then we want him to quit.

1879

Number 1 is my favorite because there are so many situations in life where that cruel and unusual punishment seems warranted: police brutality, horrific bureaucracy, etc. Cheers for that one.

The rest remind me of how software engineers must feel when feedback tells them how to change something rather than a simple bug report.

I wonder if this guy writes Steam reviews…

1880

Two points.

  1. I’m not running for President. I’m perfectly capable of pointing at a problem and saying it should be fixed without having to actually fix it, or even have any idea of the right way to do so.

  2. Tolerating that behavior by doing nothing is a tacit endorsement of it.

The thing is, those are just the documented events. From the LA Times timeline today, the problem isn’t just those three events, it’s the way the chorus of “me too” echoed throughout the rest of the black student populace in a hurry. Indicating that it is a much larger problem than those three incidents would lead one to believe.