The guest poster spelled Dr. Seuss wrong.
Indeed. That needs to be changed before I can read the post as it was intended.
I'm such a benevolent front-page poster. Read away.
Maybe the mysterious guest poster thinks Dr. Süß is sweet.
UCSD is about 2% black in it's undergrad population, which may be relevant.
If I ran the Zoo has several illustrations that support the KKK concept.
And, I mean, relevant not only to the presence of racist white guys but also to the hyperventilating tone of that letter from the administration. Any black kid who gets into UCSD has options elsewhere, both in the UC system and out of it, and really, why not just go someplace else. I would! So the University is struggling to hold on to it's tiny black enrollment, which will likely fall even further, and maybe vanish entirely.
How does a school like UCSD become a school with only a 2% black enrollment? That seems pitiful.
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I thought this was an interesting piece on gender equality. Most folks understand why we separate men's and women's sports, but why do we distinguish between men's and women's acting?
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8: They're not allowed to consider race in admissions -- so it's that coupled with what halford said: any kid who gets in certainly has other options, and why go to the place that institutionally mandated dickishness? I remember when it first happened a bunch of African American admittees to Boalt Hall made a big deal of saying they wouldn't attend in 100 years.
How does a school like UCSD become a school with only a 2% black enrollment?
Context: non-Hispanic blacks only make up 5.2% of San Diego County's population.
The general cluelessness doesn't help either: we'll... Have a teach-in!
The race-blind admissions also don't really explain why UCSD has the lowest African-American population among the UCs. I think that may be better explained by San Diego (or at least La Jolla) having a reputation for being lily-white and kinda racist.
9: It's an interesting idea. In general, I think you'll find that Best Actress is the stronger category. One reason it will probably never happen is it would mean fewer total Oscars going to actors every year. Maybe they could split the category into Drama/Comedy awards?
Women are awarded for Best Drama and men for Best Comedy? Sexist.
So now I'm visualizing UCSD as an entire school full of Dick Casablancas-es.
Who or what is Dick Casablancas? Apparently some surfer type from the teevee?
Even more mind-bending: UCSD is less than 30% white.
Women are awarded for Best Drama and men for Best Comedy? Sexist.
"Mr Firth, congratulations. Here's your woman."
Well, now I'm no longer picturing Dick Casablancas U.
15: On the one hand, you'd imagine the Best Acting-Person in a Comedy award would be biased against women. On the other hand, this year it would almost certainly go to Meryl Streep. (Note: Of 20 acting nominations this year, only one role is unambiguously comedic.)
There's a Best Actor/Best Actress justification in that types of roles are still very largely sex-segregated -- it's going to be rare that you've got a man and a woman in roles that are similar enough to be straightforwardly compared. I wouldn't be surprised if a combined Best Actron award, over a couple of decades, went overwhelmingly to one sex or the other (not sure which), because the type of role that the Academy tended to see as demonstrating great acting was either a man's or a woman's role.
On the other hand, there are enough different types of roles that even within each sex, people aren't really competing head to head for Best Actress/or. So mayne it's a good idea.
Who or what is Dick Casablancas?
Julian's boorish, unsuccessful little brother?
18: Yes. Rich, privileged, rohypnol-possessing surfer frat-boy. (From Veronica Mars, which is set someplace very La Jolla-ish.)
You know, I would go with a pretty straightforward left Marxist critique here, that the anxiety around budget cuts and the unlikelihood of making enough to pay your student loan and credit card bills after graduation is manifesting itself among these kids as sophomoric racist antics. Except that this kind of thing seems to be a constant at various campuses around the country. Sometimes it's about gender or sexuality. But basically you have all these folx in a weird, high-tension environment where there's a longstanding mythos about partying as crazily as possible. Plus most of them haven't really thought about politics before, certainly not as something they could participate in.
I wish I could write about some of the stupid shit that's been happening at work lately in the same vein. But it's far too particular to my little corner of things. Suffice it to say that a lot of people are acting the fool right now all over.
21: socially you might not be wrong: the vast majority of students are basically interested in nothing but science, so party/club activities on campus tend to be disproportionately
driven by white surf d00dz (at least the ones advertised in English). And of course the larger environment of college-age San Diego is massively white surf dude, with a side order of Marine.
That letter is a fine example of academic management prose, isn't it? Frankly that could have referred to anything from a campus flasher, through a scurrilous blog post, to an infestation of giant cephalopods.
27.1: there's a weird dynamic at UCSD where I
think some of the non-science-nerd students are actually sort of resentful that it isn't a party school, so standard drunken woo-hooing tends to curdle and turn into something uglier.
But again, the vast majority of students there don't care about anything but becoming molecular biologists.
Is Rosamund Pike nominated for 'best supporting'? Because if not, she should be.
29: you can almost see the flop sweat as they try not to describe anything in any way that offends anybody.
My first semester at Berkeley was a pretty tumultuous one. There was a falling death from a frat, a gunman seized a bar and shot a handful of people, and a bomb scare cleared the campus. They offered us counseling, but it didn't cross my mind to take it. I probably should have, because in my personal life, my childhood dog died, I broke up with my high school boyfriend and my parents divorced. I was glad to go home for winter, except that my sister and I got in a scary car accident (trapped in an on-fire car for a few seconds).
Anyway, I got unusual leniency from my parents for failing chemistry that semester, although they were less amused when I failed alternate semesters of chemistry for another three years, until I finally stopped wanting to be a molecular biologist. I fucking hate chemistry.
So an institution of higher edumacation is telling its non-white students that it thinks they're such delicate flowers that OF COURSE they can't be expected to function on a campus where assholes are being assholes? Nice. But leaving for a real university would seem justified by the quality of the Provost's prose, if nothing else.
34: That seems uncharitable. The email is certainly waffly and lame, but I can't see taking it as an insult to minority students.
34: no, only the black students. The asian students are presumably expected to keep soldiering on.
36: Again, uncharitable. The email doesn't make any such distinction I can see.
35: it's sort of emblematic of the generic nature of the response, though.
Hell yes it's uncharitable. But that email is chickenshit in a way that really is not helpful to students of whatever ethnicity who are trying to learn to function as adults.
...may impact your ability to focus on your academic progress to the full extent of your intentions.
The dean is Donald Sutherland.
Oh, I just kind of hate abusing the administration for what seems like a fairly harmless, if ineffectual, response. I'm not sure of what I think they should be doing -- this stuff is hard -- but the email looks like an attempt to be helpful, and one that's not on its face malicious or obviously counterproductive.
I would like to live in a world where a letter like this contained the word "douchebags" at least once. It would still be so vague that no one could really claim that the word "douchebags" was referring to them personally.
41: Me too, but I'd also like to see the culture move away from making academic administrators be as chickenshit as possible in all circumstances, and taking potshots on the internet is a really painless (and chickenshit!) way for me to express that.
But what did you want them to do that would have been less chickenshit?
Without a doubt, the campus is experiencing a difficult and challenging time. We have all encountered unexpected douchebags in recent weeks, both individually and collectively. Of utmost concern to the Colleges is the well-being of our students, and we are greatly concerned by the number of students who worry for their safety on campus. We also recognize that an impressive number of students, moved by their concern for the campus community, have played an active role in recent events. As Provost, I recognize that the douchebags of the past few weeks may have resulted in a disruption to your studies and may impact your ability to focus on your academic progress to the full extent of your intentions.
We wish to support you in any reasonable and caring way. College and department advisors are ready and willing to work with you to determine the best course of action in getting through this difficult time. Your instructors can also consider with you what appropriate douchebag-related accommodations may be available to meet your specific circumstances. Faculty have been encouraged to think creatively and be responsive in finding fair and equitable solutions to student douchebags.
The asian students are presumably expected to keep soldiering on
Seems fair. They *are* the largest group on campus.
Frankly that could have referred to anything from a campus flasher, through a scurrilous blog post, to an infestation of giant cephalopods.
At my old university, an infestation of giant cephalopods would have been seen as an opportunity, not a crisis. (After a few years, it would probably have become part of the wonderful eccentricity of the place.)
People, the invasion of giant cephalopods is not a joke. Not in San Diego.
Seems fair. They *are* the largest group on campus.
And they don't have feelings, so there's that.
re: 49
Inscrutability has its advantages.
Now wait, I'll bet some of them are only half-Asian, Megan. You know, like Mr. Spock.
True. How conflicted they must be, half the time.
I'm having a hard time reading 34 and 39 as saying something other than that any African American student who would be shaken by the events would be acting weak and childish. But I'm thinking, no, that can't possibly be what NPH meant to imply. That wasn't what you meant to imply, right??
The race-blind admissions also don't really explain why UCSD has the lowest African-American population among the UCs.
Lower than Santa Cruz? Now that surprises me.
But what did you want them to do that would have been less chickenshit?
Openly and forcefully condemn the behavior of the douchebags, of course, per Ned. But that assumes that there haven't been other letters doing just that; the letter included in the post may be specifically intended to do nothing more than outline the school's provisions for supporting students who may wish to leave, and so on. Bravo on that.
I thought Spock was Mexican?
Half.
Update: the frat guys in question appear to have last seen a black person on an episode of Martin from 1991. Seriously, Shenaynay?
Link here.
Link here.
That is indeed some pretty rarefied douchebaggery.
Dear Campus Community,
Sadly, there is a small minority of students who are immature, insecure, ignorant, racist, and pathetic. These few pitiable individuals seek attention and validation through words and deeds intended to frighten or upset others. Unable to stand out on merit or through hard work they are reduced to the most childish forms of attention seeking. Their acts may cause people to genuinely fear for their safety, and the administration is doing everything in its power to ensure that their behavior does not escalate, and to bring the perpetrators of the recent incidents to justice.
What you can do: Do not respond to these individuals with outrage - they are beneath you. If you must respond to a racist act or statement, point out that it is the work of an attention whoring limp-dicked weasel. Always remember that we are right and they are wrong. We are many, they are few.
Fight the Power,
Dean Togolosh
In moderate defense of the provost, I think they were actually addressing students who missed class because they were protesting, rather than those who had just been offended. Not that you can figure that out from the letter.
That does make it make much more sense.
What on earth are douchebags like the fratboys in question thinking when they pull shit like that?
A buncha other weird, hateful stuff seems to be going on, too.
I love Dean Togolosh. That is of course the letter that should be written.
58: Christ. Also, in Maryland, Natty Bo is a lax-y frat boy douche beer. Do they still make Wiedemans?
I wondered about that too, but based on my knowledge of extremely cheap beer from around the nation I think they're referring to Natural Light, not National Bohemian. Yet, I don't think Natural Light is particularly coded as African American.
What's even weirder is that these are 20 year old kids. Where are they getting this stuff?
63: I anticipate a big resurgence of stuff like that, in parallel with surges in hate/militia groups and political violence. This sort of ugliness increases every time the economy heads south, and this downturn is likely to be longer and more severe than anybody except the very elderly have seen. The mostly racially-driven Tea Party "movement" is just the warm-up act.
But what did you want them to do that would have been less chickenshit?
Basically a somewhat toned-down version of 60. More emphasis on what the campus is doing to fix the problem and move on and less on how traumatized people must be by bush-league douchebaggery.
I'm having a hard time reading 34 and 39 as saying something other than that any African American student who would be shaken by the events would be acting weak and childish. But I'm thinking, no, that can't possibly be what NPH meant to imply. That wasn't what you meant to imply, right??
I'm having a hard time reading 54 as something other than a backhanded accusation of racism, but I'm thinking no, that can't possibly be what Di meant to imply.
Less belligerently: there's room to offer support to students who may need it without jumping straight to explaining how the university is going to make it easy to withdraw from school or take incompletes. I wouldn't tell someone who's traumatized that they shouldn't be, but neither would I tell everyone on the campus that they should be. Small children aren't the only people who figure out how badly they've been hurt in part by seeing how people around them are reacting to whatever bad thing has happened. "Suck it up and deal" is very often the right response to adversity. The balancing act is figuring out how to encourage that response while also supporting and helping people who don't respond that way.
I don't have any trouble believing that there are lots of racists out there, and that lots of people who wouldn't think of themselves as racists have a certain amount of racist stuff lurking in their minds. What throws me is that it's apparently easy to find people who believe that stuff like that Compton party is a good idea, rather than something that's going to get you publicly humiliated in a way that can follow you for a long time -- it's not so much the racism I find surprising, as the level of stupid.
What throws me is that it's apparently easy to find people who believe that stuff like that Compton party is a good idea, rather than something that's going to get you publicly humiliated in a way that can follow you for a long time -- it's not so much the racism I find surprising, as the level of stupid.
But it'll impress everyone you care about impressing at the time.
69 to 67, and to 68: doesn't Sifu's reading of the letter as an amnesty for people who already missed a lot of class/work while reacting to the nonsense, and parsimon's point that the commentary on how douchebaggy the nonsense was may have been made in another context, do a lot to make the letter look better?
71: It helps. And I am sympathetic to how tough a spot the administration is in when this sort of stuff happens. But I'd still like to assign some remedial re-reading of "Politics and the English Language".
I'm having a hard time reading 54 as something other than a backhanded accusation of racism, but I'm thinking no, that can't possibly be what Di meant to imply
So very not my intent.
it's not so much the racism I find surprising, as the level of stupid.
I wouldn't call it stupid: I'd call it very deeply embedded in a culture in which it doesn't even occur to anyone involved that this might be problematic, both morally and pragmatically. That's what's sort of frightening.
The problem with the letter provided in the OP, taken on its own, is that it seems to encourage the view that yes, while we may shake our heads sadly about how this behavior marginalizes (seriously marginalizes, we understand that!) some members of the community, we understand how those members might want to leave, and they should rest assured that we're on hand to help them do that. Argh. Wrong answer!
it's not so much the racism I find surprising, as the level of stupid.
There was a town in Florida that, post-Katrina when New Orleans residents were being housed with people in nearby states, ran a big ad in the paper saying "REMINDER! It is illegal in our lily-white town for more than three unrelated adults to share a house!" or somesuch. It was briefly the national embarrassing racist scandal du jour.
I had the same reaction - I knew they were racist, but I didn't know they were this stupidly racist.
My daughter loves "It's a Hard-Knock Life" from Annie. I was just singing it to her, and thanks to this thread, I almost sang the lyrics: "No one cares if you can/ If you are a Mexican".
Further to 74 in response to 69: In other words, the douchebags aren't being resoundingly called out and publicly humiliated, as far as we know, so they were apparently quite right not to think that they would or should be. That makes them provisionally not stupid at all.
Further to 70, we're talking about 19-20 year old college students here...
a culture in which it doesn't even occur to anyone involved that this might be problematic
Oh, I doubt anybody is unaware of it. I used to have the same reaction: "Even if you believe this, surely you're smart enough not to say it out loud in public." What I've come to realize is that the d-bag contingent are often actively looking for opportunities to say that sort of stuff out loud, and high-five each other when somebody does. They somehow feel *genuinely oppressed* by the social rules of the past few decades that discouraged taunting minorities and believe they are striking a blow for free expression.
80: This is why I prefer a point-and-laugh approach. Males that age are especially vulnerable to feelings of emasculation and there are few things more emasculating than open mockery short of actually cutting off the penis. It likely wouldn't change the behavior of those already committed to hardcore douchebaggery, but it'd certainly limit their ability to recruit and to influence others. The downside of this approach is that feelings of emasculation can lead to violence by dim-witted losers.
*genuinely oppressed*
Yeah, and this is a sort of unfair comparison, but I was thinking it was a little like the atmosphere in certain fundie-evangelical-pentecostal circles. If you had just enough like-minded peers to surround yourself with, a little "persecution" was just the thing to get you all fired up. It's like a bonding thing.
True - it's transgressive. I don't know how to combat that impulse. Trying to do so easily leads to charges of sanctimony, so I don't know.
83: This is true! I learned about it when I was a religion major as an undergrad. It is on my list of things to include in my Symbology cult: deviate from the norm enough so cult members can bond over how oppressive the norm is.
85: cult members will be compelled to be easy.
86: and to be deaf. And to genetically engineer their offspring to be able to participate in freak shows.
The worst is people who sew themselves together and then moan about how terrible it is to be conjoined twins.
They somehow feel *genuinely oppressed* by the social rules of the past few decades that discouraged taunting minorities and believe they are striking a blow for free expression.
81 -- See Bernstein, David, and Volokh, Eugene.
It was briefly the national embarrassing racist scandal du jour.
I was really not pleased to hear one of the Republican contenders for governor run an ad blaming all of our fiscal problems on illegal aliens. If we just crack down on all those people stealing our services, then we'll be fine!
67, 90: Way back when I visited the museum at Dachau, this was just about the most chilling part for me -- the section of the museum featuring newspapers from the late 20s, early 30s, and onward. The escalation of subtle to not-so-subtle racism as the economy tanked further and further and politicians whipped the Volk into a frenzy. And when people are all astonished by all the Germans twenty years on who claimed they had no idea what sort of barbarity was going on, I just can't help wondering what barbarities we will be saying we we completely unaware of.
See also the newspaper clippings about Japanese people at Manzanar.
Ugh. One of the comics at the UCB show I saw on Monday had a pitch-perfect Oppression of the Truth-Speaking White Guy. As his unfunny rehashing of stereotypes failed joke after joke, he started resorting to "You don't like it? I'll buy you a plane ticket to somewhere without free speech."
A white female comic later in the evening did a very funny bit called Roles I Could Play in a Tyler Perry Film, which included "Condescending Saleswoman." "Are you sure you wouldn't feel more comfortable shopping somewhere less expensive, ladies?"
So wait, was it pitch-perfect because it was an imitation, or because that's how he really was?
First they came for the frat-boy comedians ... and everyone fucking cheered.
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I just lost a minimum of 50 hours of my life over the next week. Fuck you Popular Science.
I'm particularly looking forward to the home workshop plans from before the edges got rounded off every damn thing. Plus the ads will be fun.
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81 gets it exactly right.
93: I really, really hope you heckled him. Or at least said loudly to your seatmates how lame and obviously insecure he was.
73: Understood. I may have been a little edgy this morning as I was prepping for a combative meeting.
It is the poor and weak who have failed to internalize how hegemonic overt anti-racism has become.
100: It's tough to lose the consolation of having whole ethnic groups who are guaranteed to be lower status than you are.
(Not that that has much to do with fraternity douchebags.)
re: 100
I'm not sure I understand that comment.
What I've come to realize is that the d-bag contingent are often actively looking for opportunities to say that sort of stuff out loud, and high-five each other when somebody does.
Yeah. This kind of thing is bullying, not some sincere expression of deeply held but unpopular beliefs. Which is why the only good responses to it are either mockery or avoidance.
105: I don't know, I'm still not quite buying this. A KKK hood and a noose are, sure, bullying, but toward a specific end, which end should be publicly mocked, nay condemned: the goal is to shame the perpetrators. You want the message to be "Wow, you suck, seriously, no shit," rather than just "Gosh you have a tiny dick."
They somehow feel *genuinely oppressed* by the social rules of the past few decades that discouraged taunting minorities and believe they are striking a blow for free expression.
The corollary to this is that political correctness is genuinely effective in reducing racism and other forms of prejudice both by reducing the safety of saying it to others you don't know well and by banging it into people's heads that they're being assholes. Back in my very politically correct college, if found it to be a mildly annoying phenomenon with some extremely silly and at times repressive elements on its fringes. Then I graduated, moved to Warsaw, and then to DC and grew to love PC. The occasional idiocies it produced were nothing compared to the day to day casual racism, sexism and homophobia.
And having somebody like David Bernstein give anti-PC sermons is one of the more bizarre blogosphere phenemona. Dude! you spend half your posts attempting to enforce political correctness taken to an extreme regarding your own ethno-racial group, and the other half denouncing far, far milder versions of PC for anyone else. Look in a fricking mirror.
You want the message to be "Wow, you suck, seriously, no shit," rather than just "Gosh you have a tiny dick."
Yeah, but the perps don't care if you disapprove of them. They want you to disapprove of them. You want the message to be both, ideally. The former is meant for people who aren't the perps, but who could be tempted by them; the latter for the perps themselves.
108: Okay. Assuming that the only way to get to the perps is to strip away their hangers-on, because the perps themselves are somehow beyond reaching, okay.
107.1: Agree, and your experience tracks mine in this regard to some extent. Without some element of "PCness" you get things like the mainstream face value acceptance of racist crap like the "ACORN tapes".
98: I did not heckle, but I did say to my seatmate (whom I had just met), "Does he suck?" She hesitated, but I think she was on my side.
Espirit d'escalier: "Maybe just a plane ticket to somewhere funny?"
68
I'm having a hard time reading 54 as something other than a backhanded accusation of racism, but I'm thinking no, that can't possibly be what Di meant to imply.
I'm having a hard time reading 68 as something other than a statement of taking accusations of racism more seriously than actual racism, but I'm thinking no, that can't possibly be what NPH meant to imply.
(I'm tempted to leave out the sarcastic last bit - it insinuates too much, I'm well on the way to a mountain out of this molehill - but the parallel, nay recursive, structure is too appealing.) But the point is, of the many problems with the original post, I would rank very low the idea that it is too conciliatory to the targets of the racist threats.
113: If that's what you took from those comments, either I need to work on my writing or you need to work on your reading, or maybe both. See also parsley's 74.2 for a different formulation of the same general thought I was starting from.
114: No, you too need to rumble in the parking lot.
100 is an example of what I think of as the David Blunkett Waltz.
Step one: observe that the Left has succeeded beyond its wildest dreams in making overt racism, misogyny, and homophobia socially unacceptable.
Step two: observe that, however, the Right has done rather well in rolling back our economic and political achievements.
Step three: clearly, the answer is not that we didn't do enough on economics and politics, but that we did too much on society. so the obvious conclusion is that you should go and do whatever the Murdoch press would like you to do anyway. Invade Iraq and incarcerate some refugees, for the white working class.
I hope you're not implying that David Blunkett's a racist. He doesn't even see race, you know.
re: 117
Did his bit for enabling hard working foreigners to come into the UK, too, iirc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Blunkett#First_resignation