“The protest was a wonderful, beautiful thing.”
—Dartmouth Vice Provost for Student Affairs Inge-Lise Ameer during a campus student meeting discussion of last week’s Black Lives Matter protest in the student library. Ameer proclaimed her support for the protesters, their conduct and their demands.
The student protest she was so thrilled with is described here and here. Ethics Alarms also referenced the protest, including these memorable statements that black students screamed in the faces of white students:
“Fuck you, you filthy white fucks!”
“Fuck you and your comfort!”
“Fuck you, you racist shit!
When a female student began to cry as a result of the confrontation, the protester shouted, “Fuck your white tears!”
This is what a Dartmouth administrator described as “a wonderful, beautiful thing.”
Of course, she should be summarily fired, and the students responsible for the assault ought to be suspended or expelled. They won’t be.
The kind of speech direct at the students by the racist Black Lives Matter members (I know that’s redundant; indulge me) was what the Supreme Court has called “fighting words,” especially when combined with the conduct of getting into a student’s space in a hostile attitude. It is a miracle there wasn’t a fight; there should have been. Students should not tolerate this kind of unjustified, anti-white conduct while they are studying, or any other time.
Note that the mainstream media doesn’t feel this is worthy of coverage or comment.
Today I will add The College Fix and Campus Reform to the links.
____________________
Sources: The Dartmouth, Tab, The Dartmouth Review.
Ethics Alarms 
I think you meant to say “students should NOT tolerate”
“Fuck you, you filthy black fucks!”
“Fuck you and your whining!”
“Fuck you, you racist shit!”
“And Fuck your black tears!”
And that’s when the fight began.
University life is hopeless.
And then there’s that (Asian?) guy a-tap-tap-tapping on his laptop in the middle distance, left . . . . Self-selected frontline reporter? Nope. Just a regular student crudely interrupted going about his studenting business. Gets up, swivels this way and that in confusion (“am I supposed to be part of this?”), starts to tear his hair out (well, a beginning of anxiety anyway), just like a rational human being. He will have some hard choices to make, but it’s likely educational ambitions, some trepidation, and a permanent rejection of black BLM-type role models (and the white libs who love them) will follow. It’s a small thing, but I take it as a ray of hope.
In the light of some tragedy or other high-emotion event, my brother once said, “Let us all act today in a way that we will be proud of tomorrow.”
This video will be on the Internet forever. I don’t want these young people to face consequences for this for the rest of their lives. Punishment for the act now would be appropriate, but I don’t want this to haunt them forever. I just hope that these young people eventually grow up to the point where they see their participation in this behavior and feel ashamed.
I do want this to haunt them. But, it’s more likely that it will enhance them and their status in the world that they care about.
It’s starting to look a lot like the white Southern racist school integration films so notorious from the 60’s. I hope those people are haunted also.
Perhaps we are looking at two different videos? The one I looked at just had a bunch of people chanting in the library. One girl gives a finger to the camera. Another girl asks someone (off camera) what they think racism is. It doesn’t seem to be too exciting in any way. I’ve seen more strident student protests about the vegan options in the cafeteria.
The kind of speech direct at the students by the racist Black Lives Matter members (I know that’s redundant; indulge me) was what the Supreme Court has called “fighting words,” especially when combined with the conduct of getting into a student’s space in a hostile attitude. It is a miracle there wasn’t a fight; there should have been. Students should tolerate this kind of unjustified, anti-white conduct while they are studying, or any other time.
So students being called “nigger” should be tolerated in the name of free speech. But making a white girl cry is a fighting offense. OK. A prime example of “white woman’s tears”/white fragility could not have been devised if you had tried.
… one of the things I like to ask white people is, “What are the rules for how people of color should give us feedback about our racism? What are the rules, where did you get them, and whom do they serve?” Usually those questions alone make the point.
It’s like if you’re standing on my head and I say, “Get off my head,” and you respond, “Well, you need to tell me nicely.” I’d be like, “No. Fuck you. Get off my fucking head.”
http://www.alternet.org/culture/why-white-people-freak-out-when-theyre-called-out-about-race
Calling someone a nigger is fighting words. I never suggested otherwise. The video didn’t show everything: eye-witness reports fill in the gaps. Why would you be defending this? Someone getting in my face and screaming epithets isn’t protesting; they ae interfering with my education. That’s conduct. You get thrown out of libraries for talking too loud.
Is there any outrageous left wing conduct you won’t defend?? This the perfect example of an unjust and unethical protest, and racist by definition.
Just if you have alleged outrageous conduct, and a link to a video, then I want to see for myself what this outrageous conduct was all about. It definitely did not live up to the hype, to say the least. It’s just strange that they managed to capture the most boring aspects of the protest in detail, yet can only get the actual stuff that might be objectionable in quotes.
Context really does make a difference. If the protesters really actually did say “fuck your white privilege” was this a chant, or were they saying this directly to particular people? As far as white girls crying in the face of chanting about racism: https://abagond.wordpress.com/2010/06/11/white-womens-tears/
derailing any talk of racism, particularly their own racism. It is part of a more general pattern of white people making their feelings matter more than the truth – something you see too in the tone argument, for example.
White women’s tears can come about in different ways, but here is the classic scene:
1.A white woman says something racist.
2.A black woman points it out. (It could be any person of colour but it works best against black women for reasons given below.)
3.The white woman says she is not racist and starts crying.
4.For added effect the white woman can run out of the room.
5.Other whites, particularly white men, come to the aid and comfort not of the wronged black woman but of the racist white woman!
6.The black woman, the wronged party, is made to seem like the mean one in the eyes of whites.
7.The white woman continues to believe she is not racist.
Tables turned! It works so well that it is hard not to see the tears as a cheap trick.
This is more than just a woman using tears to get her way. It is built on a set of White American ideas about race, listed here in no particular order:
It works best when these two stereotypes can be applied: The Sapphire stereotype – black women as mean, angry and disagreeable
The Pure White Woman stereotype – white women as these special, delicate creatures who need to be protected at all costs. It is what drives the Missing White Woman Syndrome – and, in the old days, lynchings.
The r-word: to be called a “racist”, however gently and indirectly, is a terrible, upsetting thing for white people – far worse than, you know, being a racist.
White people and their feelings are the centre of the known universe.
Hearts of stone: meanwhile whites seem to have a very, very hard time putting themselves in the shoes of people of colour.
Moral blindness: white people think they are Basically Good, therefore if someone points out something bad about them it must be out of hatred.
White solidarity: whites are afraid to stand up against racism, particularly when they are with other whites. Also, they do not like it when you call other whites racists – they seem to take it personally for some reason.
All these things work together to help create the scene laid out above. It is why it works best for young, good-looking white women and why black women’s tears have nowhere the same effect in a white setting.
In my own experience White American women are by far the hardest to talk to about racism. Even if you get past all their defences and they believe what you are saying, they act like they are going to cry. So you either stop or you push on and are made to look mean and heartless.
Are you suggesting that women use tears, or histrionics, to emotionally manipulate those around them!?! Well, what to say about that? Except: Fuck your sexism!
Are you suggesting that women use tears, or histrionics, to emotionally manipulate those around them!?! Well, what to say about that? Except: Fuck your sexism!
LOL!
I think the “problem” is that it seems that such displays of emotion only work for women of one race, and become a successful (almost clichéd at this point) derailing tactic.
You’re kidding, right? Only women of one race?
I hope you realize that “LOL” indicates clearly how much of an intellectual pedestal deery sits upon. It is so far above your infantile worldview that all deery can do is laugh at your base stupidity.
Geez. Figure it out.
Keep digging.
If a male or female is stressed or upset to the point of tears, that creates the rebuttable presumption that their tormenter did actual harm. Since the library is supposed to be a safe place to study, this is relevant.
I do not understand why no student chose to slap one of these goons, intervened by standing up and telling them to shut up, or pushed them away. Dartmouth isn’t what it used to be.
Weenies.
This is mysterious to me as well. Weeniedom seems to be the norm on campus.
Hmm, so there should be…”safe spaces” on campus, where one should be insulated from emotional distresses? Do tell.
Everyone meets in the middle eventually I guess.
Oh please. The students “protesting” had every confidence that they would receive no substantial opposition, at the time of the event, or afterwards. This is because they rightly assumed that those students and administrators are a bunch of pussies.
Don’t be asinine.
The “safe place to study” that Jack mentions is absolutely not the “safe places” that censorious left wing petty tyrants mention.
If a male or female is stressed or upset to the point of tears, that creates the rebuttable presumption that their tormenter did actual harm.
Sounds a lot like it. It sounds like he believes in the concept just fine, just quibbles with who gets to receive such consideration, and/or where the safe places should be located.
Further elucidation:
The context Jack speaks of for a “safe place” is a library. Therefore conduct bringing someone’s stress level to a point of tears in this context is quite UNPROTECTED by the 1st Amendment. On the contrary, the “safe places” that your world view wants to create are places safe from disagreement or having to think about different things.
So to expound on why your facile comment really is dumb on it’s face:
The “safe place” Jack mentioned is a place safe from incessant harrassment and disruption when the purpose of *that particular place* is one of quietness and serenity devoted to study.
The “safe place” you and your semi-dictatorial types mention is a place safe from ideas you disagree with when the purpose of *those particular places* are ones of PUBLIC DISCOURSE.
You see, not only do the two “safe places” you conflate DIFFER entirely in their relationship to the function they can handle, the CONDUCT from which to be safe DIFFERS entirely in their nature.
Please tell me you can see the elementary details so you can move past the somewhat juvenile “gotcha” you think you discovered.
Ah, so if the protests were not in a library, you would have had absolutely no problem with it, and students supposedly melting into tears when other students said mean things around them? Ok, good to know I guess.
Though I must admit, from my perspective it looks like this:
-liberal students crying and asking for safe spaces- Conservatives: grow a pair, you pussies!
-conservatives crying and asking for safe spaces- Conservatives: you poor dears, won’t someone think of the children!
*shrugs*
Dartmouth is a private university. Pretty much all of the sturm un drang is out of the purview of the 1st Amendment.
No, deery. I explained to the difference. You’ve doubled down on a juvenile (and false) analogy.
I’m glad to know you can’t have a good faith discussion on this.
I won’t proceed until you can demonstrate you are capable of such.
Have a good day.
Hmm… Shutting down the library. That is interesting. Libraries store books and lots of books contain information which leads to knowledge. So, logically, shutting down a library shuts out knowledge. Is that the idea? If the movement can control information it can control knowledge, and by extension, thought? George Orwell would be proud.
jvb
“Though I must admit, from my perspective it looks like this:
-liberal students crying and asking for safe spaces-
Conservatives: grow a pair, you pussies!
-conservatives crying and asking for safe spaces-
Conservatives: you poor dears, won’t someone think of the children!”
I’m 20 different kinds of confused. Who are the conservatives that are asking for safe spaces? I think you’re saying that College students in Dartmouth are conservatives? In which case, I haven’t chuckled out loud at my monitor in a while. Thank you. The thing is, this shouldn’t be partisan. It ISN’T actually partisan. Liberals want it desperately to be partisan so their slaves don’t leave the vote plantation, but it’s not really. Let’s face it, Democrats haven’t been very good to black people. Oh they’ll say the right thing and throw the odd lucre, but by and large Obama’s administration has been pretty shit for the guys on the ground. From the moment he was crowned, and had his super majority, to now, where he’s basically a veto machine, there hasn’t been a single objective marker for black people that has improved. And yet the messiah complex continues.
@Deery, We have a right to live free of harassment. We have no such right to be free from offense. One can freely express an offensive opinion until the cows come home. The moment they start screaming in someone’s face, it becomes harassment.
A library is meant to be a harassment-free zone. It is not, necessarily, an offense-free zone. It may contain thousands of books full repugnant ideas. A student could pull one off the shelf to learn about the opinion, or leave it on the shelf. A student could not, however, shove pornographic/xenophobic/homophobic/pro-vegan/pro-evolution material onto another student’s study space in the name of free speech.
That is harassment.
The protestors are free to gather in front of the library and chant and sing. They are free to pass out material and approach people to engage in conversation. They cannot, however, corner a student and force him to listen. That is harassment. They cannot gather inside the library without an appointment to chant and sing. The library is a common space, but it has a dedicated purpose that precludes actions that disrupt that purpose.
Students are free to gather in a campus quad to protest. They cannot expect, however, privacy in a public space. They cannot restrict others from entering and using the space, especially for counter protest (though police, etc, may reasonably do so to keep order, provided a comparable space is provided for counter protest).
They cannot set up a literal campsite in the quad indefinitely to convert it into a private residential space. Its public access purpose precludes such action. They could, however, reasonably reserve the space for a few nights and enjoy relative privacy. However, by choosing to sleep in a public quad, even with a proper reservation, they voluntarily waive their right to full privacy. Their “safe space” is necessarily limited to freedom from harassment, but not necessarily from exposure to offense.
Thus, reporters approaching students outside their tents (or outside of the designated perimeter if their is a proper reservation) for a statement is freedom of the press. Passively photographing students outsides their tents/properly reserved space is freedom of the press. Cornering students and forcing a statement would of course be harassment. Peaking inside tents or entering the properly reserved perimeter without invitation would be harassment.
Even if the protesting students are offended by the presence of reporters, the student are only protected from harassment by the reporters.
The definitions of harassment and offense are rapidly becoming blurred (sadly, especially on campus that require veritable vocabulary trivia quizzes – AKA “SAT’s” – for admission). Democracies cannot function under harassment. Indeed, most democracies were founded to protect their residents specifically from harassment by the preceding royal government. Democracy, however, comes to a grinding halt without the freedom to express potentially offensive ideas.
Most royalty would consider Democracy itself to be offensive, after all.
Absolutely. There should be Safe Spaces everywhere.
I’m not even being sarcastic, a safe space where you insulate yourself from dissenting opinions is perhaps enfeebling, but it should be your right to do it. It’s called “Freedom of Association” I’ll just probably laugh at you for doing it.
The other caveat is that there’s a difference between Safe Spaces as a shield, and Safe spaces as a cudgel. If you want to turn your dorm room into a safe space from nasty opinions, or turn your blog into an echo-chamber, or even enforce an already set up space with something like a library’s noise policy, that’s your right. It is not your right however, to declare other people’s space, or existing common space, a Safe Space just because you enter the room or decide to set up shop. Which is why Mizzou was such a clusterfuck. Activists staked out the quad of all things, the place that should be free speech central. The place where ideas and opinions should be heard.
And now, for some South Park:
Yes, but that safe space is entirely enshrouded in the concept of “property rights” and “right to privacy”.
Deery, like a 1st grader, pretends like the distinctions don’t matter.
Deery thinks that places of Public Discourse should be cleaved off as “safe spaces” (they shouldn’t), while claiming that holding to the notion that private locations dedicated to privacy should be treated as “safe spaces” somehow undoes our argument (it doesn’t).
…If you want to turn your dorm room into a safe space from nasty opinions, or turn your blog into an echo-chamber, or even enforce an already set up space with something like a library’s noise policy, that’s your right. It is not your right however, to declare other people’s space, or existing common space, a Safe Space just because you enter the room or decide to set up shop. Which is why Mizzou was such a clusterfuck. Activists staked out the quad of all things, the place that should be free speech central. The place where ideas and opinions should be heard.
Missou is a public university. I do think the calculation is quite different than for Dartmouth, where it is all “private property”, pretty much by definition.
For the record, I tend to think the whole safe space thing more than a bit stupid. I think we have a right to protect ourselves from distressing things, but I tend to look very skeptically at demanding that other people shield you from distressing things, especially if they are a 3rd party. While I can see some situations where that might be called for, they tend to live at the extremes, not as a matter of routine.
The other thing that I find annoying is as opposed to using a safe space as a shield or cudgel, some people use them as bomb shelters. They’ll walk out of their Safe Space, lob some ordinance, and retreat to their Safe Space (or just declare the room they’re in a Safe Space) and then pretend they aren’t accountable somehow.
Let’s look back to Mizzou, two of their demands were non-retaliation. They could be as raucous, racist, rude and inflammatory as they had to be to get their demands catered to, and then not be held accountable. (On a separate note, I believe their time frame was today… and I believe their demands were not met. Hmm)
Do you know why they’re asking for this? And why previous generations of protesters didn’t ask for amnesty? Because aside from being more grounded, previous generations of protesters had nothing to lose, and these kids do. They come from relative affluence, and a criminal record will make the five figure debt they’re racking up worthless. Everyone needs to take a giant step back and shake their heads.
Aren’t there supposed to be libraries on college campuses? You know, places filled with books where you can sit undisturbed and read them and, you know, study?
Classic scene?
Are you kidding me?
You should take a vacation and get away. Maybe out into nature for a while.
Deery has gone completely off the rails here. In every one of your hypothetical, imaginary explanations of the “sort of thing” that leads to these kooky protests, you assume that there must have been some sort of racism that provoked it, where here in the real world, there really hasn’t been any racist provocation by any of the people being cry-bullied; neither by administrators losing their jobs, students being hounded by racists idiots in the library, or the rest of us who are having our time wasted by these preening, selfie-taking trust-fund brats who insist on making the news for no reason because they think being marginalized sounds super sexy.
None of these poor students trying to use the library have done anything racist. They’re being harassed based on a sort of a stupid, general, “there’s totally racism going on somewhere” principle. It is as indefensible and stupid a protest as can ever be devised by man.
Libraries aren’t “safe spaces.” they are “studying spaces.” “Safe spaces” are spaces demanded by Leftists where they can be protected from IDEAS that they don’t like. That is why libraries do not qualify in their minds. Libraries are, however, supposed to be quiet places where people can study without barking mad idiots screaming in their ears. Those are the rules of libraries.
You claim that “context makes a difference” but then you create imaginary scenarios that exist only in your head. The real, actual context of these protests just makes them look even stupider than they look in the video. Millions of reasonable Americans are taking to Google, trying to figure out just what these clowns are whining about, and walking away saying, “Really? That’s it?” Context makes it WORSE. If the Safe-Space cry-bullies of the world have an enemy, it’s perspective.
Blunt and correct.
Dreery, this is a classic, “breach of the peace”, if the reports are substantiated….one cannot become disorderly, using abusive profane language in a public place, because that disturbs the peace. This is the law, so it wasn’t just a protest if the language became abusive towards individuals (New Hampshire TITLE LXII CRIMINAL CODE, CHAPTER 644 -BREACHES OF THE PEACE AND RELATED OFFENSES. Section 644:2). Look under II a). and b). Everyone is protected under this law, not just individuals you want to sympathize with justifying their actions as it appears painfully obvious you are biased. If you want to challenge that accusation, I will cut and paste your own comments from above?Unfortunately, police weren’t involved and probably wouldn’t be because of the political backlash. The administration is like so many others, overly apologetic and useless.
From The Dartmouth (evidently America’s oldest college newspaper):
Comments such as “F*** your white privilege” were not personal or racist attacks on individual white persons in the library, Diakanwa said. Instead, these comments were meant to target the legacy of white supremacy that many students have benefited from and students of color are fighting against, he said.
Demonstrator Kevin Bui ’17 said that the protest called attention to important issues regardless of its use of expletives.
“I do agree that emotions got quite strong, but I think that we as a community should validate their anger and listen to it and not just brush it off,” Bui said. “It is important to look at what causes such emotion and how to support that.”
Authentic frontier gibberish. Incredible.
When do people like me, with school-age kids, start to en masse hold our kids out of colleges which endorse this nonsense? Truth is I’d be awfully proud if one of my kids got in to Dartmouth. On the other hand, it appears nothing will change until sane parents start voting with their wallets.
Don’t worry, natural economics will fix the problem in about 10-15 years when the Big Education bubble bursts (mostly inflated by needless federal involvement and unsupportable left wing pipe dreams). It’s just too bad people will let it get there. It’ll be much more painful than if people started behavign in principled manner again.
Just a note to remind that Dartmouth bans guns on campus.
“Dartmouth bans guns on campus.” Seems like a delicate balancing act on the one hand having armed people in a confrontation like this would be a bad idea. On the other hand having a gun when the situation is more one-on-one and one of the sides is armed would be a good idea.
On balance having a gun and a concealed carry permit sounds like the best option. I would honestly be afraid to have a member of my family on a radicalized campus right now.
Perhaps too blunt, I didn’t mean that people should arm themselves. The possibility just makes for a more nuanced calculation for the person who’s considering getting into someone’s face and screaming.
I remember learning about Dr. King and his insistence on peaceful protests. One of the results were images of peaceful black individuals being harassed and harangued by belligerent authorities and white individuals flooding the media. Public sympathy turned towards them.
Responsible media today would air the grimy truth about these student’s actions. Let the public make up its own mind.
I suppose the biggest difference between protests today, and the era of activism that was the 60’s, was the real possibility of facing consequences for participating. Black students then were routinely arrested for peacefully sitting at soda fountains. It was the juxtaposition that made the protest compelling.
Civil disobedience is essentially meant to embarrass the provoking party, by pushing them to actually enforce laws meant to stifle, scare and oppress. Susan B. Anthony insisted on going to jail when she illegally voted, when the male police wanted to left her off because she was a lady. (Susan B. Anthony did not go to jail be told “vote with her vagina”, but I digress). Civil disobedience is not simply breaking an unjust law; it is goading the other party specifically to punish them, when everybody is watching.
These students are risking nothing personally by participating. They are not sitting in during white only lectures, and insisting they be expelled. They are banging drums in the library, and not even Amanda Bynes will them them “QUIET, THIS IS A LIBRARY!”. They are carelessly threatening harm to themselves, and inflict countless harm on others, and they will still likely graduate in four years without a mark on their records. They harass and cajole baffled white students with racial epitaphs, and no one will draw a negative comparison to the Dr. King era protests.
Breaking the law with no intent of facing the consequences has a name; it is called crime.
Very nice.
I know when I was in college and already struggling with a heavy course load and working too, I would have cried if someone got in my face like that. I never used the N word or yelled at anyone, and couldn’t even afford any of the hallmarks of privilege like a car. Many people just don’t have the confidence, especially as young adult, to give it back to them.
They leave the school.
Now that’s the privilege and cruelty of the protesters. Some people just don’t have the luxury to not do their classwork, this is their ONE chance.
I wonder what James Meredith thinks of the way these young black kids are acting. He was a veteran who wore a suit and tie to class at The University of Mississippi. He obtained his degree. I think he went on to law school. I’m pretty sure he has a son who is a physician.
But I guess he’s just an Uncle Tom, Oreo cracker now.
Reading this series of comments two years after the fact, I am surprised by the unconscious racial bias evident here. The people angered by the protest and advocating for “safe spaces” ignore the everyday subtle and not so subtle harassment endured by people of color – and the no win situation they face in trying to raise awareness. Two years later – there is still no “right” way. As an ethical blog… I am disappointed by Jack Marshall’s blind eye and apparent support of unconscious racial bias.
The protest that is the subject of the post involved black students chanting:
“Fuck you, you filthy white fucks!”
“Fuck you and your comfort!”
“Fuck you, you racist shit!
“Fuck you, you racist shit!
Condemning an administrator that calls this kind of abuse “beautiful” doesn’t require a blind eye; it involves a rudimentary understanding of civility, respect and fairness. The ends don’t justify the means, past bad conduct does not justify present bad conduct in response, and “safe spaces” are per se undemocratic and unethical, regardless of what the alleged justification.
There is no support here for unconscious racial bias. The post is about deliberate racial bias.