View Full Version : Idealogical Reeducation at the Unviersity of Delaware
Crazed Rabbit
11-01-2007, 07:42
I know some around here are skeptical of claims of idealogical repression of conservative views on universities in the US. There are many examples of it, but what's going on at the University of Delaware is among the most blatant and systemic.
From the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education:
http://s3.amazonaws.com/thefirecache/8555.html?PHPSESSID=d70ca3f91ec83715e89696d61f88ff7e
Essentially, they are forcing all students living in university dorms to under go mandatory "treatment" to coerce them to accept leftist views on a range of issues. Indeed, the goal of the program is to get the students to adapt certain leftist views as their own through various programs, intrusive questioning, evaluations, etc. Students are evaluated in their acceptance of these views.
The RAs, Resident Assistants, students who live in the dorms and enforce regulations, administer this to students after receiving training including:
“A RACIST: A racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality. By this definition, people of color cannot be racists, because as peoples within the U.S. system, they do not have the power to back up their prejudices, hostilities, or acts of discrimination. (This does not deny the existence of such prejudices, hostilities, acts of rage or discrimination.)" - Page 3
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“REVERSE RACISM: A term created and used by white people to deny their white privilege. Those in denial use the term reverse racism to refer to hostile behavior by people of color toward whites, and to affirmative action policies, which allegedly give 'preferential treatment' to people of color over whites. In the U.S., there is no such thing as 'reverse racism.'" - Page 3
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“A NON-RACIST: A non-term. The term was created by whites to deny responsibility for systemic racism, to maintain an aura of innocence in the face of racial oppression, and to shift responsibility for that oppression from whites to people of color (called "blaming the victim"). Responsibility for perpetuating and legitimizing a racist system rests both on those who actively maintain it, and on those who refuse to challenge it. Silence is consent." - Page 3
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"Have you ever heard a well-meaning white person say, 'I'm not a member of any race except the human race?' What she usually means by this statement is that she doesn't want to perpetuate racial categories by acknowledging that she is white. This is an evasion of responsibility for her participation in a system based on supremacy for white people." - Page 8
Basically, if you're white you're racist. That's just a side issue, really, though. The appalling thing is that the university is dictating to its students what they should think, using its power to push one view. What makes it especially disgusting is that a university is supposed to be a place of learning and free thought.
A few words from FIRE's letter to UD:
http://www.thefire.org/index.php/article/8552.html
Somehow, the University of Delaware seems terrifyingly unaware that a state-sponsored institution of higher education in the United States does not have the legal right to engage in a program of systematic thought reform. The First Amendment protects the right to freedom of conscience—the right to keep our innermost thoughts free from governmental intrusion. It also protects the right to be free from compelled speech. As the Supreme Court declared in the landmark case of West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943): “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.” The Court concluded that “the purpose of the First Amendment to our Constitution” was precisely to protect “from all official control” the domain that was “the sphere of intellect and spirit.” The University of Delaware’s residence life education program is an unconscionable and unconstitutional incursion into the private conscience of students whose greatest offense is simply choosing the University of Delaware and living in the dormitories.
The legal problems posed by the residence life education program are abundant and cut to the core of the most essential rights of a free people. Possible claims against the university for operating such a program include violations of the right to privacy as well as federal and state constitutional claims for having and enforcing an unconstitutional speech code, for compelling people to speak against their will (something that has been anathema to free societies since long before the Barnette case), and for violations of the right to freedom of conscience. Simply put, the residence life education program is a legal minefield.
To be clear, however, FIRE is not a litigation organization, and our objection to this program is far more than legalistic. What makes this program so offensive is its brazen disregard for autonomy, dignity, and individual conscience, and the sheer contempt it displays for all of the university’s incoming students.
As aggressive as civil liberties organizations like FIRE may seem, at the heart of all concepts relating to freedom of the mind is a recognition of our own limitations—like us, those in power are neither omniscient nor omnipotent, and therefore have no right to dictate to others what their deepest personal beliefs must be. Concerns for free speech and freedom of conscience are rooted in the wisdom of humility and restraint. The residence life education program, which presumes to show students the specific ideological assumptions they need in order to be better people, crosses the boundary from education into unconscionably arrogant, invasive, and immoral thought reform. We can conceive of no way in which the residence life education program can be maintained consistent with the ideals of a free society.
This doesn't even cover the whole program. A complete examination of this can be found in the link at the beginning, and here:
http://s3.amazonaws.com/thefirecache/8555.html?PHPSESSID=d70ca3f91ec83715e89696d61f88ff7e
Crazed Rabbit
CountArach
11-01-2007, 07:52
Woah, woah, woah. I hope you aren't insinuating that the Left believes that all whites are racist? I certainly don't.
HoreTore
11-01-2007, 10:51
The first part is a good representation of systematical racism though. And the "Reverse Racism" part is :2thumbsup: . Then it gets worse...
Wow, indoctrination at a university. :2thumbsup:
And if that really is their view on racism, that's very nice for them, everybody should be allowed their own definition, right? :sweatdrop:
woad&fangs
11-01-2007, 12:48
I'm not shure if it is exactly a leftist view but it certainly is messed up. I wonder how they would charecterize the Japanese view of other asian cultures in WWII? What about Darfur? So Arabs aren't racist if they kill black people but if a white person says that all black people like Fried chicken he is a racist.:dizzy2:
HoreTore
11-01-2007, 13:03
I'm not shure if it is exactly a leftist view but it certainly is messed up.
Of course it isn't. Our re-education camps are a lot more....industrial...
GeneralHankerchief
11-01-2007, 13:26
Right, thanks for narrowing down my college search CR.
ICantSpellDawg
11-01-2007, 14:22
That is inane. I would bet that it was a joke, but I wouldn't be surprised if is wasn't.
Read some more of CR's link... this stuff is completely unbelievable. I would've been furious if an RA shoved all this crap on me when I was in college.
One student identified in a write-up as an RA’s “worst” one-on-one session was a young woman who stated that she was tired of having “diversity shoved down her throat.”Good for her. :2thumbsup:
Don Corleone
11-01-2007, 17:42
My beloved Alma Matter, the University of Connecticut lost a court case a couple years back where they were forced to reverse their Academic Senate finding that the College Republicans were a hate-group and should be banned from campus. :laugh4:
Does this really surprise anybody? Universities have had Leftist indoctrination as part of their curriculum for 40 years now. When Jillian attends University, I will sit down and have a frank discussion with her telling her that her views are her own, and she should keep them to herself until after she gets her degree. While she's at University: 1) men are evil 2) white people are evil 3) Christians are evil 4) gay people deserve reparation payments for the generations of abuse they've received. The day she graduates is when she can start speaking her mind again.
You all know my views on a level playing field and equal treatment, not equal outcomes. But I wrote my sophomore English Lit final paper on the blatant sexism in modern American literature. I got an "A". I coworker of mine at the computer lab, same class, same section, same TA, wrote a better paper about early 20th century American writers (focusing mainly on Faulkner, Hemmingway and Fitzgerald). He got a "D", because "the subject material was so dated as to have missed the precepts of the course". In a survey course on American Literature!
Look, we own the business world, they own the academic world. Deal with it.
Crazed Rabbit
11-01-2007, 18:10
Woah, woah, woah. I hope you aren't insinuating that the Left believes that all whites are racist? I certainly don't.
No. But we do have a leftist fringe in America that truly does believe this, and they happen to have a lot of control over universities.
The first part is a good representation of systematical racism though.
Now, I'm going to make a big leap here and assume that you're a 'native' Caucasian Norwegian, which would mean, if you believe that, you also think yourself a racist.
I want to stress that what I've posted here is not the extent of this. To get the full view of this, you need to go read the first link, which is a concise but thorough explanation with links to source material should you desire it.
CR
Seamus Fermanagh
11-01-2007, 18:57
Delaware is at the forefront here, but the rationale is simple.
The collective consciousness of that faculty and administration views this assessment of racism as fact. They consider the theory underpinning this assessment of race in the USA as compelling, perhaps even viewing it to be as "proven" as is the Theory of Evolution. Therefore teaching these precepts is, for them, central to a proper education. Many will react to any effort to curtail this program as an attack on the freedom of education. Remember, they arrived at their assessment collegially and after much reflection, therefore it must be correct. If correct, they think to themselves, then the attempts to abolish this component of the curriculum are themselves misguided. This FIRE group may as well tell Catholics not to teach the doctrine of transubstantiation.
Ser Clegane
11-01-2007, 18:58
Quite a shame (I have yet to read the full material that has been posted here, so for the time being my comments refer to the direct quotes) - a university - or school - should never be a place where students are influenced in such a manner, no matter in which political direction.
Ideally a university should rather be a place where young people are encouraged and educated to form their own opinions and views.
EDIT: BTW, I also have some doubts about how "successful" such influencing is in the end. There might be some who are influenced, but OTOH there will certainly be others who will tend to oppose certain views even more if they have the feeling that they are force-fed to them.
Seamus Fermanagh
11-01-2007, 19:10
You all know my views on a level playing field and equal treatment, not equal outcomes. But I wrote my sophomore English Lit final paper on the blatant sexism in modern American literature. I got an "A". I coworker of mine at the computer lab, same class, same section, same TA, wrote a better paper about early 20th century American writers (focusing mainly on Faulkner, Hemmingway and Fitzgerald). He got a "D", because "the subject material was so dated as to have missed the precepts of the course". In a survey course on American Literature!
I once had a survey course on the politics of South America. The prof for the class centered the course on how US imperialism had malfed up everything and had played a key role in the continuing problems in Latin America. :inquisitive:
Well, I thought, it is at least ONE significant component, so I'll address it in my papers. :yes: I Got C- grades. :wall:
One of my fellow students argued in class that the cocaine industry was a major and negative influence on Colombian politics -- this was in 1985 at the height of the Medellin and Cali cartels -- and she dismissed it as "minor at best." :dizzy:
I salvaged a B in the class by arguing during the final and final paper-- purposefully without balance or counterpoint -- that despite some nice intentions, the USA's policies were exploitative and quasi-fascist and that the region would be better served if the USA wrote of Lat-Am debts and funded the OAS but adopted a non-voting stance so that Latin America could call the shots. That essay got a clean "A" of course.
My student response survey was, as you might guess, savage. I spent 30 minutes writing it, citing specific lecture examples and thoroughly questioning her competence as well as her perspective in lecture. And yes, I did bloody well sign that one -- anonymous stuff carries less weight.
HoreTore
11-01-2007, 21:51
Now, I'm going to make a big leap here and assume that you're a 'native' Caucasian Norwegian, which would mean, if you believe that, you also think yourself a racist.
Yes to the native part, no to the second part. What I agree with is that the ruling class is the only one with the ability to oppress. The ruling class are us white people, and as such it doesn't matter if others are racists, as it won't affect us. However, white racists can affect things very much.
Not sure if that was what they meant though, after reading it again... Now it just seems...confused...
AntiochusIII
11-01-2007, 23:14
Yes to the native part, no to the second part. What I agree with is that the ruling class is the only one with the ability to oppress. The ruling class are us white people, and as such it doesn't matter if others are racists, as it won't affect us. However, white racists can affect things very much.Wrong.
A [insert skin here] person shooting a [insert skin here] person doesn't need to be in power to do so. And the latter person is equally dead either way. Racism is racism period and "reverse racism" or other such terms are redundant BS.
As for the topic: This is bullcrap, and I would either move school right away or protest until I'm expelled, whatever's easier. I understand the need to develop students in multicultural awareness -- after all, businesses like adaptable people, they like bilingual people, and people who aren't going to complain that they have to work with black people; and universities these days are about making their students attractive in the job market. But what the hell is all that? This is not about showing students diversity in the world, this is a [bleep] reeducation camp.
Duke of Gloucester
11-01-2007, 23:57
Delaware is at the forefront here, but the rationale is simple.
The collective consciousness of that faculty and administration views this assessment of racism as fact. They consider the theory underpinning this assessment of race in the USA as compelling, perhaps even viewing it to be as "proven" as is the Theory of Evolution. Therefore teaching these precepts is, for them, central to a proper education. Many will react to any effort to curtail this program as an attack on the freedom of education. Remember, they arrived at their assessment collegially and after much reflection, therefore it must be correct. If correct, they think to themselves, then the attempts to abolish this component of the curriculum are themselves misguided. This FIRE group may as well tell Catholics not to teach the doctrine of transubstantiation.
A good analogy because at a Catholic university lectures on transubstantiation would not be compulsory and even in a Catholic High School a lesson on transubstantiation would be prefaced by "Catholics believe that ....". Even Catholics are going to accept that alternative views exist. If the Delware University truly believes that their ideas are on the same footing as the the Theory of Evolution then their intellectual credentials are, shall we say, somewhat undermined.
Papewaio
11-02-2007, 00:11
This is cute. The uni courses we do are run by the school... so if you do Physics all your units bar electives (ones you as a student can choose) are physics based. Only one unit did I do that was mandated across the board and the was a second year communications unit and even then it was scientific communications and run half by the English lecturers and the Science lecturers. I still remember the English lecturers asking the Physics ones how come the students were so rebellious to authority. The Physic prof turned around and said well if they don't start out that way we help them to ask the question 'Why?' and to never assume that something is correct based on someones job title. He was quite proud of a rebellious questioning.
Not a general education by all means but a highly tailored one to the desires of the student.
HoreTore
11-02-2007, 00:45
Wrong.
A [insert skin here] person shooting a [insert skin here] person doesn't need to be in power to do so. And the latter person is equally dead either way. Racism is racism period and "reverse racism" or other such terms are redundant BS.
Uhm... No, but that's not the point. If a member of the ruling class shoots one of another class, he has a much higher chance of getting away with it than a person of a lower class would have.
A racist white judge, for example, can do a lot of damage, more than the black guy who shoots a whie guy and then spends the rest of his life in jail. The same would apply for a black judge, but the point of it all is that there "isn't any" black judges at all, so that point is moot.
GeneralHankerchief
11-02-2007, 00:53
Looks like Delaware backed down (http://www.thefire.org/index.php/torch/?PHPSESSID=1bc09846d6edd23dc87ff395fec588d7).
Victory at University of Delaware
University Dumps Thought Reform Program
Late Thursday, University of Delaware President Patrick Harker released on the school’s website a Message to the University of Delaware Community terminating the university’s ideological reeducation program, which FIRE condemned as an exercise in thought reform. He stated, “I have directed that the program be stopped immediately. No further activities under the current framework will be conducted.” Harker also called for a “full and broad-based review” of the program’s practices and purposes. While concerns remain about the University of Delaware’s commitment to free expression, FIRE commends President Harker for his decision to immediately terminate the Orwellian residence life education program. FIRE will have more on this development tomorrow. President Harker’s message is reproduced in full below.
A Message to the University of Delaware Community
Nov. 1, 2007
The University of Delaware strives for an environment in which all people feel welcome to learn, and which supports intellectual curiosity, critical thinking, free inquiry and respect for the views and values of an increasingly diverse population. The University is committed to the education of students as citizens, scholars and professionals and their preparation to contribute creatively and with integrity to a global society. The purpose of the residence life educational program is to support these commitments.
While I believe that recent press accounts misrepresent the purpose of the residential life program at the University of Delaware, there are questions about its practices that must be addressed and there are reasons for concern that the actual purpose is not being fulfilled. It is not feasible to evaluate these issues without a full and broad-based review.
Upon the recommendation of Vice President for Student Life Michael Gilbert and Director of Residence Life Kathleen Kerr, I have directed that the program be stopped immediately. No further activities under the current framework will be conducted.
Vice President Gilbert will work with the University Faculty Senate and others to determine the proper means by which residence life programs may support the intellectual, cultural and ethical development of our students.
Patrick Harker
President
Thank God.
woad&fangs
11-02-2007, 01:30
I still feel bad for all of the students who spent thousands of dollars to attend the University just to have those crappy ideas force fed down their throats.
Furious Mental
11-02-2007, 02:35
What a stupid institution.
Welcome to college in the 21st century. Here at wonderful and open-minded Knox College all Freshmen(First-years so we don't offend anyone) are required to take Preceptorial, basic college survey and writing course. One of the central texts we use is The Autobiography of Malcolm X we wrote two papers on it. In my first I argued that X, although he helped to mobilize black America and served as a devil's advocate, was handicapped because he was a racist. My professor responded by writing a paper in the margins of mine detailing how X was a visionary and black people would be slaves if not for him. That paper got a B-. Next paper I wrote about how X was a necessary evil. Got an A on that one.
And we are required to see the play Cloud 9. Which includes rampant and overt sexuality, incest, and pedophilia. It's a great exploration of multiculturalism
HoreTore
11-02-2007, 04:21
And we are required to see the play Cloud 9. Which includes rampant and overt sexuality, incest, and pedophilia. It's a great exploration of multiculturalism
Yes, I'm quite sure you were all damaged for life by watching a play....
Tribesman
11-02-2007, 05:04
And we are required to see the play Cloud 9. Which includes rampant and overt sexuality, incest, and pedophilia. It's a great exploration of multiculturalism
Well they could have required that you saw some greek classics instead .
I still feel bad for all of the students who spent thousands of dollars to attend the University just to have those crappy ideas force fed down their throats.
Then it's time for the lawsuit. :smash: :yes:
But it's stuff like this, and my complete and total inability to write an essay (it was a requirement), that kept me out of university.
Cloud 9 is a play about sexual identity. It uses rampant, vulgar, and constant pedophilia and incest to make its point. It is being forced on us to "expand our cultural outlook and understanding of sexual oppression." Pedophilia gets to be culturally repressed. Call me closed-minded I don't care.
Kralizec
11-02-2007, 17:06
I'd have to say it's probably fake. I don't doubt that universities in the US tend to be leftist environments (at my university, I do get the impression that the majority of my proffessors are left-leaning), but that .pdf file is laying it on way to thick to appear authentic.
Don Corleone
11-02-2007, 18:22
I'd have to say it's probably fake. I don't doubt that universities in the US tend to be leftist environments (at my university, I do get the impression that the majority of my proffessors are left-leaning), but that .pdf file is laying it on way to thick to appear authentic.
You have no idea what you're talking about on this one, Kralizec. You're probably thinking that America, in general, tends to have a right-of-center perspective, overall, compared to the Netherlands, and even your university system isn't so lopsided in its ideology. Am I correct?
You've forgotten one incredibly relevant factor: the American predisposition for excess and overreaction in all things. American universities are like most universities, populated by academics, surprise, surprise. But whereas in most parts of the civilized world, where academic life is viewed as paramount and one's ideological views are secondary, here in the US, issue advocacy is everything. Some of the more scientific based schools such as engineering and allied health have managed to avoid this, but even they face encroachment by their peers on the faculty senate. And the vast majority of the liberal arts and sciences world thrives in an environment where issue advocacy is the core reason for higher education in the first place. Things like grades, learning and textbooks are all a distant second.
There's really several views of higher education in America, none aligns itself to the classical 'Western liberal' goal of education. It's either 1) a chance to indoctrinate young minds 2) a glorified trade school that gives you a piece of paper that allows you to earn more money 3) a chance to party it up for 5 to 6 years on your parents money.... but the improvement of the human condition doesn't typically show up on the list.
Kralizec
11-02-2007, 19:00
You have no idea what you're talking about on this one, Kralizec. You're probably thinking that America, in general, tends to have a right-of-center perspective, overall, compared to the Netherlands, and even your university system isn't so lopsided in its ideology. Am I correct?
No, you're not correct.
I did realize that American universities, too, generally are quite leftist and that the US political climate is much more polarised than over here, but even so that .pdf seemed way to outlandish for me to pass the smell test. To me, "A racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system." sounds like a strawman made by a right-wing blogger. Frankly it seems strange to distrust all national TV networks or papers, but instantaniously believe everything you find on the internet.
Before making my post, I did a quick google search and all I got returned were obscure sites I'd never heard of before, and freerepublic.com (big surprise) I just did another one, and I found an article that confirms the story (http://cbs3.com/delawarewire/22.0.html?type=nplocal&state=DE&category=News&filename=DE--University-Ideolo.xml).
Crazed Rabbit
11-02-2007, 20:03
Kralizec, it sure does seem crazy, but the fringe over here really is that crazy. In fact, the assertation that only whites can be racists is remarkably similar to a Seattle Public Schools definition of racism that was changed after public outcry.
Frankly it seems strange to distrust all national TV networks or papers, but instantaniously believe everything you find on the internet.
Who is disputing this? The news seems to agree with FIRE, a very reputable website:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tab=wn&q=u+delaware+program&btnG=Search+News
CR
Goofball
11-02-2007, 22:35
Read some more of CR's link... this stuff is completely unbelievable. I would've been furious if an RA shoved all this crap on me when I was in college.
One student identified in a write-up as an RA’s “worst” one-on-one session was a young woman who stated that she was tired of having “diversity shoved down her throat.”
Better than being a Catholic altar boy and having religion shoved up your arse...
:beam:
Sorry, couldn't resist that one...
Crazed Rabbit
11-02-2007, 23:19
:angry:
That's a bit too far, Goofball.
CR
ajaxfetish
11-07-2007, 03:34
I'm not shure if it is exactly a leftist view but it certainly is messed up. I wonder how they would charecterize the Japanese view of other asian cultures in WWII? What about Darfur? So Arabs aren't racist if they kill black people but if a white person says that all black people like Fried chicken he is a racist.:dizzy2:
You're not reading it quite properly. A white person doesn't have to say that all black people like fried chicken to be racist. He's already racist because he's white. He could say that black people are superior to white people in every way, and he'd still be a friggin' white racist.
I'd have to say it's probably fake. I don't doubt that universities in the US tend to be leftist environments (at my university, I do get the impression that the majority of my proffessors are left-leaning), but that .pdf file is laying it on way to thick to appear authentic.
As a current part of the American College experience, I don't find it at all unconvincing. Although the mindset at my school is not as extreme (for which I am grateful), it is very similar. Sometimes I get the impression that where and to whom I was born makes me inherently evil.
Ajax
It's crap like this that make me happy I went to a scientific school. When the only undergrad degree the school offers is a B.S. (no B.A.s), you can generally avoid the real BS. :2thumbsup:
Louis VI the Fat
11-08-2007, 12:26
Afro-American Math professor paints an entirely different picture about racism in American universities:
When I was a graduate student, one episode seared on to my consciousness the very great difference between British and American academics in terms of how racism is tolerated. Oxford University awarded me the Senior Mathematical Prize and Johnson University Prize, its highest mathematics awards - something that would have been inconceivable in the United States because I am African-American.
[...]
In contrast to what just happened to James Watson in Britain, the losers in America are generally not the racists, but the anti-racists.
Complete article here (http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jonathan_david_farley/2007/11/dna_of_the_kkk.html) and below.
A Nobel laureate's comments about black inferiority speak volumes about racism in American academia.
Jonathan David Farley
When I was a graduate student, one episode seared on to my consciousness the very great difference between British and American academics in terms of how racism is tolerated. Oxford University awarded me the Senior Mathematical Prize and Johnson University Prize, its highest mathematics awards - something that would have been inconceivable in the United States because I am African-American.
Obviously there is racism in Britain too, but I find that there is also an intolerance for intolerance. And that is why I believe James Watson, despite years of espousing his eugenics mush in America, met his El Alamein in Britain. As you probably know, the American biologist and Nobel laureate recently stated that Africans are less intelligent than whites - it's in the genes - and, to its credit, the Science Museum in London cancelled a talk Watson was to give. By contrast, many Americans still defend the man.
Two stories illustrate the difference. In 2001, when I was a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar to the United Kingdom - one of less than half-a-dozen Americans to receive the award that year - I was welcomed as a visiting member of the Senior Common Room at my Oxford college. By contrast, when I visited the Massachusetts Institute of Technology two years later, my greeting was somewhat different.
The first week of my first term there, I was on the underground train at the MIT stop. Outside, on the platform, I could see several policemen looking at me. I sensed what was coming next, so I held up the book I was reading, Enumerative Combinatorics (a book written by MIT professor Richard Stanley; shortly thereafter I would solve a mathematical problem that he had posed in 1981). Soon enough, the doors opened and about six policemen came in, grabbed my arm, and escorted me off the train.
On the platform, I shouted that I was an associate professor of mathematics at MIT, which I kept repeating, so that passengers could hear. I gave the police numbers of MIT personnel whom they could call to confirm that I was a professor, but the police did not release me for about 20 minutes. The reason? The police said I resembled a bank robber.
It's easy to see why they didn't believe me (and not just because Enumerative Combinatorics is the Bible for black bank robbers): in my four years as an undergraduate, I never had a black professor.
The police acted as they did, and MIT has few African-American professors, because of the same underlying reason, the same reason why a professor can assert, on the first day of class, that blacks are genetically suited to play baseball, and no one in the packed room (except me) walks out; the same reason that the late Richard Herrnstein, co-author of The Bell Curve - a pseudo-scientific diatribe that, like Watson, asserts the genetic inferiority of blacks to whites - could teach at Harvard.
(Of course, Herrnstein had a lot of data to back up his theory: I myself could only graduate summa cum laude with the second-highest grade point average in my Harvard graduating class of 1,600 students. The student with the highest average was white, in accordance with the Watson-Herrnstein thesis; the only thing he didn't have was blond hair.)
What's more alarming is that, in America as opposed to Britain, it is more likely that the academic who criticises racism will be dealt the punishing blow and not the academic who promotes it.
For instance, in 2002, I criticised the erection of a statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest in the city where I then lived, Nashville, Tennessee. Forrest was not only a Confederate general who, according to Harper's Weekly and other contemporaneous sources, massacred black prisoners at Fort Pillow during the American Civil War, he was a former slave trader and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
I pointed out in an essay in the local newspaper that Forrest and his fellow night-riders, had they performed these same actions today, would have been convicted of treason and crimes against humanity, and hence would have faced the same penalty as their ideological descendants at Nuremberg. Neo-Confederate organisations with over 30,000 members, and local and national media, said I was advocating genocide against whites.
I received a few dozen death threats, but that didn't stop my employer, Vanderbilt University, from calling me the extremist. As Vanderbilt Chancellor Gordon Gee admits in the book University Presidents As Moral Leaders, "[a]rdent devotees of the Confederate cause demanded Farley's job ..." and, "[e]ventually I had to write an editorial piece ... covering Professor Farley's hellraising" and "clean up in his wake".
Vanderbilt spokesman Michael Schoenfeld wrote that my criticism of the Klan leader was "rightly offensive to, and rejected by, most people" without, however, specifying whether he had found even one black person who was offended by my statements, and without specifying what statements in my essay, if any, were factually incorrect. Vanderbilt and the media, from the Washington Times to Fox News with Brit Hume, with the sole exception of The Nation's John Nichols, failed to criticise in any way Nathan Forrest, slave-owners, the Confederacy, or the groups that had targeted me. (A typical one of the threats sent to me read: "Hey, communist nigger monkey!!! Another worthless jigaboo hasn't killed your worthless ass yet? Too bad. I hope someone rapes and kills your white, race-traitor wife and/or girlfriend as well ... Heil Hitler!!! Hail the Reich!!! Death to all niggers and all other nonwhites!!!")
I learned later through The Chronicle of Higher Education that Princeton historian James McPherson had received similar treatment in 1999 for discussing what he called the "thinly-veiled support for white supremacy" of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. But the point is that, in the United States, this kind of persecution is possible, and can be career-killing when the "offender" is African-American. In contrast to what just happened to James Watson in Britain, the losers in America are generally not the racists, but the anti-racists.
Myrddraal
11-08-2007, 15:14
I read this:
REVERSE RACISM: A term created and used by white people to deny their white privilege.
Jaw dropped, stopped reading.
“A RACIST: A racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality. By this definition, people of color cannot be racists, because as peoples within the U.S. system, they do not have the power to back up their prejudices, hostilities, or acts of discrimination. (This does not deny the existence of such prejudices, hostilities, acts of rage or discrimination.)
That's a racist statement ~:rolleyes:
If this is real (and I'm really, really hoping this is fake), then this university is a racist institution.
I rest my case.
Myrddraal
11-08-2007, 19:01
Exactly, reminds me of the head of an equal opportunities organisation who came on TV to complain about recently passed laws which were supposed to be sexist. She said (and I'm paraphrasing) "This legislation has been passed by cropped haired centurion boys in parliament". Mind boggling... I can't even remember what the laws were, or if there even if they'd actually been passed.
AntiochusIII
11-08-2007, 21:57
Ouch, Louis.
Redneck outrage is scary huh.
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