Race

Harvard Picks The Wrong “Niggardly Principle”

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments
Ah, Lowell House! I lived right under that damn bell tower. Never dreamed that the House Master was a slaveholder....

Ah, Lowell House! I lived right under that damn bell tower. Never dreamed that the House Master was a slaveholder….

I had been waiting with trepidation to see how Harvard would embarrass itself in the current college campus political correctness/ black student extortion/ free speech rejection meltdown. The result is an anti-climax, but, yes, still embarrassing.

Apparently some students have been making a classic “niggardly” complaint, like the infamous D.C. government employees who believed that good old Anglo-Saxon word for cheap was the racial slur it resembles. In the case of Harvard students, the beef was that the term “House Master,” used to describe the Harvard faculty member who oversees, manages and hosts one of the many residential “houses” that serve as mini-campuses for Harvard sophomores, juniors and seniors, was racially insensitive and offensive to black students. Never mind that the word “master” has dozens of applications, almost all of which have nothing to do with slavery. The theory appears to be that if a word has ever been used in a context offensive to blacks, all uses of the word in the future, whatever the context, must be assumed to have racially oppressive intent.

Huh. It’s funny: I attended Harvard with black students, and it was during a period when civil rights protests and upheaval were everywhere, including on campus. Yet somehow, this blatantly racist use of “master” never came up. Why? Well… Continue reading →

Campus Protest Ethics Yin, Yang and Yecchh: Unethical Website Of The Month “The Demands,”Ethics Hero Dr. Everett Piper, And Ethics Dunces, The Occidental Faculty

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments

yin-and-yang-yuck

It’s an interesting question: is a website that approvingly lists nothing but unethical and outrageous demands from student protesters in this current round of progressive campus thuggery itself unethical, or is calling it so a case of killing the messenger? The Demands is certainly a useful website, as it displays the full kaleidoscopic display of where indoctrination on campus and the elevation of victim-mongering as a successful political strategy (Go Redskins!) off campus has brought us. Since the site’s stated objective is to support these pro-apartheid, anti-speech, anti-education totalitarian tots, however, I think unethical is a fair description. Some may disagree.

The loony is powerful here. For example…

...Guilford College students demand that the college must prioritize recruitment and retention of undocumented students. Guilford also takes the prize for the most the most deranged “suggestion” among the lists, which is that  “every week a faculty member come forward and publicly admit their participation in racism inside the classroom via a letter to the editor in the Guilfordian.” 

…Every Dartmouth student “must be taught and made aware that the land they reside on is Abenaki homeland” especially at all major ceremonies, and  the school must “incorporate into each department at least one queer studies class.”

…SMU students demand that all students considering initiation into a fraternity or sorority must be subjected to mandatory cultural intelligence and sensitivity training, a.k.a. brainwashing.

…University of North Carolina student activists go full Orwell, demanding “mandatory programming [on] ways in which racial capitalism, settler colonialism, & cisheteropatriarchy structure our world.”  They also demand that“White professors must be discouraged from leading and teaching departments” studying colonized/enslaved people/societies,” and this gem: “We DEMAND that campus police participate in the University-wide political education….Policing as an institution must be abolished.”

…Vanderbilt students want the university to eliminate its policy against “obstruction or disruption of teaching, administration, & University procedures & activities.”

There is so much more, if you have the stomach for it. Please, please make sure some debate moderator makes a list of the most outrageous demands and asks Bernie and Hillary what they think about them, as well as the campus culture and political cant that gestated this virus. Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: Ann Rice O’Hanlon’s Fresco

/ Jack Marshall / 48 Comments

Fresco

In 1934, under the auspices of the New Deal’s Public Works of Art program, artist Ann Rice O’Hanlon painted a fresco (the largest ever painted by a woman up to that time) in the University of Kentucky’s Memorial Hall. It has become famous and is much admired by art historians, and thousands of Kentucky students have walked past it through the decades. The large, six section artwork depicts many events, industries, traditions and activities that were significant to the state, invented in Kentucky or by Kentuckians, as well as historical events. Among the scenes shown are black slaves picking tobacco and black musicians serenading whites.

Ann Rice O’Hanlon’s masterpiece became the target of choice at Kentucky as the University ‘s black students were seeking to emulate the power plays by their equivalents at the University of Missouri, Yale, Amherst, Harvard Law, Dartmouth and other institutions. The Kentucky students held a meeting with president Eli Capilouto and argued that the fresco was offensive, as it relegated black people to roles as slaves or servants, and did not portray the cruelty of slavery and the later Jim Crow culture that existed in the state.  Capilouto capitulated, agreeing to move the work to “a more appropriate location.” In the meantime, Kentucky will cover up the 45-by-8-foot fresco while adding a sign explaining why the mural is obscured.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is this:

Should a university remove works of art on campus because particular groups of students or individual members of such groups find the artwork upsetting, offensive, or a negative influence on their experience?

Continue reading →

When Race-Sensitivity Becomes A Pathology: The Case Of Kevin Durant’s Shoes

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments
The offensive shoes, and even though they cost $180, the offense is not the shoes...

The offensive shoes, and even though they cost $180, the offense is not the shoes...

NBA star Kevin Durant, who grew up in Maryland’s majority African American Prince George’s County, put both his initials and those of his home community on Nike’s  “KD8 PG County” model basketball shoe. Rather than being grateful or feeling honored, however, many in the community are complaining that Nike, and Durant, has “offended” the area.

“As you can imagine, we are very proud of the success of Prince George’s County native Kevin Durant, and the pride that he has in growing up in the county,” the office of County Executive Rushern L. Baker III (D) said in an e-mail sent to Nike. “We do want to make the Nike corporation aware that ‘P.G.’ is a term that many in Prince George’s County consider pejorative and/or an insult.”

What? I’ve lived in the Washington, D.C. area for decades and heard the county called “P.G.” and “Prince George’s” interchangeably without comment. Now the County’s initials are offensive?

Explains the Washington Post: “Insiders” say the initials could just as easily stand for “Pretty Ghetto” or “Pretty Grim.”

Oh.

Of course, “P.G.” could also just as easily stand for Poor Godzilla, Putrid Gin, Parsimonious Greeks, or Penis Garnish.

Kevin Durant, who is black, decides to give his community a call out and gets slammed for it by activists and race-baiters who are actively searching for ways to elevate themselves, manufacture publicity and influence, and gain the power of the victim.

A group that is perceived—accurately in too many cases—to be so determined to find racial offense that its allies, supporters,  friends and in this case, members must be constantly vigilant and wary to avoid being accused of offense will eventually find their one-time allies sympathy replaced by resentment.

Who in their right mind want to deal with people who are looking for ways to call them bigots? There is a limit to how tolerant society will be of the “microagression” game, and there should be.

Racial sensitivity is edging toward racial super-sensitivity, and that will eventually become a handicap—a self inflicted one—if it hasn’t already.

From Princeton, Something To Be Thankful For: The Princeton Open Campus Coalition

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

woodrow+wilson

If the  plague of students ordering administrators to protect them from the stress of contrary views and unwelcome thoughts on campuses is not to reduce the U.S. academic environment to an apartheid, indoctrinating disgrace, it is obviously going to have to be the rational side of the student populations that staves off disaster. Fortunately, the Princeton Ethics Heroes Allie Burton, Evan Draim, Josh Freeman, Sofia Gallo,  Solveig Gold, Andy Loo, Sebastian Marotta,  Devon Naftzger, Beni Snow, Josh Zuckerman and their colleagues at Princeton Open Campus Coalition are equal to the task.

The students covered their institution in glory by delivering this civil and well-reasoned rebuke to the outrageous demands of the Black Justice League, which occupied Princeton administration building earlier this week. Here is their letter:

Dear President Eisgruber,

We write on behalf of the Princeton Open Campus Coalition to request a meeting with you so that we may present our perspectives on the events of recent weeks. We are concerned mainly with the importance of preserving an intellectual culture in which all members of the Princeton community feel free to engage in civil discussion and to express their convictions without fear of being subjected to intimidation or abuse.

Thanks to recent polls, surveys, and petitions, we have reason to believe that our concerns are shared by a majority of our fellow Princeton undergraduates. Academic discourse consists of reasoned arguments. We simply wish to present our own reasoned arguments and engage you and other senior administrators in dialogue. We will not occupy your office, and, though we respectfully request a minimum of an hour of your time, we will only stay for as long as you wish. We will conduct ourselves in the civil manner that is our hope to maintain and reinforce as the norm at Princeton. Continue reading →

Ethics Observations On “White Student Unions”

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

White-Student-Union

African American students have demanded “safe spaces” on various campuses, to gather and avoid white intrusions and “micro-aggressions.” They have also  held Black Lives Matter  demonstrations expressing hostility to “white privilege,” and have asserted that views opposing  theirs—including support for free speech— should be regarded as hate speech and require institutional discipline. These episodes, still ongoing, have spawned a backlash in the form of “white student union” Facebook pages connected to several universities, and some real world manifestations as well.

Observations: Continue reading →

More Cultural Bulldozing: Political Correctness Gets H.P. Lovecraft, Woodrow Wilson Of The Geeks

/ Jack Marshall / 39 Comments
The bust says it all...

The bust says it all…

Really bad and dangerous ideas take hold and thrive because, like a particularly deadly virus, they pop up in so many places at once, especially dark corners and exotic locals. The current progressive contagion of airbrushing history, toppling icons and cultural bulldozing–one of several  habits of successful totalitarians being embraced by the left these days—is such an idea. As usual, defenders of this thought-inhibiting and unjust practice behave as if it is the epitome of common sense and virtue, when in truth it is the  opposite.

To the credit of the followers of the World Fantasy Award (for literature in the fantasy an horror field), the administrators’ decision to cave to political correctness and retire an H. P. Lovecraft bust (designed by black humor cartoonist Gahan Wilson) as its symbol—H.P. was like, Woodrow Wilson, a white, Western culture supremacist —was not met with universal approval. Nonetheless the Award’s head honchos did it.

They did it to mollify the social justice zealots in the organization’s midst, who insisted on sending the message that currently non-conforming ideas and beliefs should be punished decades or even centuries later by pretending that legitimate and important contributions to art, politics, science and civilization didn’t exist, if the man or woman involved stepped across a political correctness line that didn’t exist when it was stepped over. All it takes to justify eradicating any honor, recognition or symbol of cultural gratitude is for a major historical figure in any field to have been shown to have engaged in, thought about (or consorted with those who engaged in or thought about) practices that the current culture, with assistance of many years of debate and experience that the toppled never had, now finds misguided, objectionable, offensive or wrong.

The proper punishment for this retroactive crime, these spiritual brethren of Stalin believe, is banishment, rejection and shame in the very field where the individual’s positive accomplishments reside. This is necessary to keep future generations from being influenced by ideas that might trigger discomfort among true believers of the official creed.

Thus, reason doctrinaire Princeton kids who have figured out The Great Truths at their tender age, Woodrow Wilson’s major contributions of strengthening and burnishing the name of the college, leading the United States for two terms, including through a world war, and devising the concept of the United Nations, no longer warrant respect and memorial, because he was, like so many other Southerners of his time, an unapologetic white supremacist. Of course, so was Abraham Lincoln and much of the nation, but that cuts no ice with the practitioners of merciless presentism. It isn’t just the views of the long dead that are being punished, you see. It’s a warning to non-conforming thinkers alive yet. Watch out! it says. Your thoughts, inspirations and ideas are impure and wrong, and you are still vulnerable to real punishment, not just the post-mortem fate of being defiled and forgotten. Continue reading →

I Don’t Understand: Why Doesn’t The Life of Donald E. Gates Matter To Black Lives Matter?

/ Jack Marshall / 32 Comments

GATES

This week, a federal jury found that District of Columbia. police framed Donald E. Gates, an innocent man, for a 1981 rape and murder of a 21-year-old Georgetown University student.  Gates, who is African American, was imprisoned for 27 years. Two days after the verdict, the city settled with Gates for $16.65 million in damages.

The trial determined that two D.C. homicide detectives,Ronald S. Taylor and Norman Brooks, both now retired, largely fabricated  the confession Gates was supposed to have made to a police informant. The detectives also withheld other evidence from Gates’ defense attorney. You can read the whole horrible story here.

There are a couple of aspects of this story, and others like it, that I don’t understand at all.

One is this: why aren’t the two detectives going to prison? Their conduct has cost the city’s taxpayers eight figures in damages, it has already cost an innocent man the prime of his life, and what is their penalty? I would support capital punishment for police like these. Destroying a man’s life, breaching a public duty, shredding public trust, using the law for evil— few murders do so much damage. It makes no sense for there not to be life imprisonment, execution, something to announce to the community that police and law enforcement officers will and must be held to the highest standards, and suffer greatly when they fail to meet the lowest. From what I can tell, these evil detectives—that’s a fair description, isn’t it?— aren’t even going to lose their pensions. Continue reading →

Airbrushing History, Again: If Woodrow Wilson Is At Risk, Can George Washington Be Far behind?

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

woodrow-wilson

While Paris was bleeding, the predicted anti-white black student power play spread from its origins at Yale and the University of Missouri to 23 other campuses (so far). None of the new outbreaks of victim-mongering, black-dictated apartheid  and outrageous demands had any more justification than the Mizzou Meltdown, but they all entered the competition. Some highlights:

  • Amherst students demanded a crack-down on any free speech in the form of criticism of Black Lives Matters or the protest goals.
  • Dartmouth’s Black Lives Matters members roamed through the campus library, verbally assaulting white students attempting to study.
  • Smith College held a sit-in, and barred reporters-–the new breed of campus freedom-fighters just don’t like that pesky First Amendment—unless they promised to cover the protest positively. There’s one more school that doesn’t teach basic American rights and values….
  • Occidental College is in the middle of a me-too imitation of the Mizzou stunt, with students occupying a three-story administration building all this week, demanding that a series of actions ranging from racist to just unreasonable to oppressive, in the name of “safety” and “diversity”, of course. They are also insisting that President Jonathan Veitch resign. Predictably, the leftist faculty which helped make the students this way are fully supportive. Read the demands here; my favorites: demanding an increase in tenured black professors and black doctors (a racist demand: there is no mention of ability; color is enough); funding for the student group for black men, which is racist and counter-diverse by definition; and “elimination of military and police rhetoric from all documents and daily discourse.”

Freedom of speech is so passe.

  • The crazy is getting stronger: The University of Vermont-–from the lands where Bernie Sanders roams— hosted a three-day retreat for students who “self-identify as white,” called  “Examining White Privilege: A Retreat for Undergraduate Students Who Self-Identify as White.”  The goal was to give students “the opportunity” to “conceptualize and articulate whiteness from a personal and systemic lens”  and “recognize and understand white privilege from an individual experience.” This, I submit, has absolutely nothing to do with education, and everything to do with self-obsession and narcissism.

Ah, but my favorite is Princeton, which finding itself third among its fellow Ivies (as usual), this time in concocting an embarrassing and offensive student protest, decided to go for broke.This week, members of the Black Justice League walked out of class and occupied the building that houses the Princeton administration’s offices. They demanded that the school reject “the racist legacy of Woodrow Wilson,” formerly president of Princeton before becoming a President of the United States and Democratic Party icon, by removing his name from anything bearing it. They also demanded “cultural competency training” for Princeton professors and assistants (that is, forced re-education and ideological brainwashing, academia style) teaching at Princeton, courses on the “history of marginalized people,” that is, approved leftist narratives, and  the setting aside of public spaceto be  restricted to the use and enjoyment of black students only, which is properly called self-segregation and racist exclusion.

Continue reading →