There are so many spoiled rich brats at Yale that it’s scary.
If you go to the link, you’ll see an overwrought article by a bored rich kid who’s getting all self-righteous about Halloween costumes that culturally appropriate. Apparently, there is a huge drama going on at Yale around not even any actual costumes but, rather, an imaginary possibility that somebody might fantasize about wearing some culturally appropriating costumes.
At my current university, we have a significant African-American student population. And I can promise you that if I came to my students with a question about culturally appropriating Halloween costumes, they’d look at me with the compassion reserved for dotty old ladies with very sheltered lives.
All of my students work. Often, they work more than one job. Many have children. Others have young siblings or ailing relatives who depend on them. They would never have the leisure to traipse around campus moaning about how an article about an article (sic!) about Halloween costumes makes them feel unsafe, hurt and traumatized to the point of not being able to eat.
Sadly, all that anybody ever hears about in terms of what is happening on campuses are these pampered drama queens and their imaginary suffering. They are a tiny minority, though. Most of the people on campuses in this country have no time, energy or interest to invest into frittering their lives on this manufactured drama. Most of us are busy doing actual work and addressing real problems.
Clarissa's Blog 
I completely agree, these spoiled rich brats need to get a life. I was going to class at night while working full time in the mornings at a preschool so this crap doesn’t fly with me, this kind of pissing and moaning is for people who never had to work and can waste time on trivial shit.
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Clarissa’s link doesn’t work, reaches a “Server currently undergoing maintenance”
message.
Here’s a link to “Slate.com” that shows how disgusting the students’ behavior really is:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/11/07/yale_students_protest_over_racial_insensitivity_and_free_speech.html
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Ah, thank you so much. The link I gave collapsed in the meanwhile.
It’s at times like these that I really appreciate my current students who are not overwrought drama queens.
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I love the part where students want Erika Christakis’ husband to assume responsibility for his wife’s speech. Instead of treating her like an adult with her own agency, they go to the man whom they view as responsible for her.
I’m sure that all of the snowflakes in that crowd would insist that they are supportive of feminist causes and want a safe space in which women’s voices are respected.
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Alex, According to the Slate article it was Nicholas Christakis who went out to speak to the students and chose to defend his wife’s letter. The students, while infantile and discourteous, were not, so far as I can tell, demeaning his wife’s “agency.” (That said, they were no doubt demeaning their own.) – Bob
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Of course, the wife should have kept quiet. These Yale masters with their trophy wives who think to inflict themselves on the world are the bane of the university. When I first discovered that this degradation existed, I was still a young and idealistic person and observing this kind of thing crushed me.
So yes, the wife should have stayed out of public discourse. But that doesn’t excuse the ridiculous behavior of the students.
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The original email that started the whole thing is so inoffensive.
If you choose to take offense, take offense at the fact that so many people reach the age of being responsible for student loans and voting without having the gumption or empathy to figure this stuff out on their own, and then start crying and whining for in loco parentis protection when people react negatively. I just think like there’s a lot of displaced anger so people pile on administrators’ words rather than their fellow students.
I grew up in a super white school district with immigrant parents and an autism diagnosis and somehow managed to absorb the lessons about which costumes provoke good reactions versus which ones provoke terrible reactions. And yet somehow this escapes masses of spoilt white children. </get off my lawn>
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I agree that Yale students are more privileged than most — most of my students, too, work, and most of them could not care less about racism or discussions of cultural appropriation.
On the other hand, this entire Yale contretemps has been somewhat misrepresented by the Far Right, I fear. Here’s a different source:
View at Medium.com
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Well, what. Let me try posting the link again.
View at Medium.com
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Let’s remember that all of the parents of these students and almost all of the professors vote Republican. Whatever the kids play at today, in a few years, they will all float back to the trust fund and a cushy job at Daddy’s investment bank. So this isn’t being misrepresented by the Right. This is a drama organized on both sides -students and professors – by the Right.
I haven’t met this particular college master but I’ve been to the houses of two other Yale masters. One had a huge portrait of Reagan in his study and another had a collection of photos of himself with George W. Bush.
Let’s remember: Yale is an ultra – conservative place where kids from ultra – conservative families are taught by professors who donate to every Republican political campaign in sight. It’s all a lie that the Ivies are some sort of a bastion of liberalism. These are places where extremely rich people entertain themselves in ways that are confusing to those who are not extremely rich.
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“Slate.com” is hardly a “far right” source — it’s as knee-jerk left-wing as partisan websites come, and its article (linked to above) depicts the involved students as infantile, hate-filled, delicate little crybabies. The students’ own directly quoted words tell their story quite plainly.
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On a related note, another student-administration confrontation at the University of Missouri is about to show whether the university is run by its president, or by privileged football players on athletic scholarships:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/11/08/missouri_football_players_refuse_to_play_until_university_president_is_fired.html
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Kicking out any administrator for any reason is always a good thing.
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But it shouldn’t be up to the students under ANY circumstances.
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Privileged students?
Oh, you mean athletes who play for virtually free, generating millions for their college programs and NCAA, whose coaches make millions per year, running the risk of catastrophic injury that would ruin any chance they have of a professional career?
Jesus christ, Dreidel, can you for once think differently from what rush limbaugh and fox news tell you?
My god.
This is the state of colleges today:
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2015/11/all-aspects-of-the-brand-experience
Highest paid people at this institution in 2012-13 per tax filings:
(Total reported comp rounded to nearest 000)
Former President 677K
Vice President of Legal Affairs and General Counsel 235K
Vice President of Business Affairs and Chief Financial Officer 145K
Interim Provost 246K
Former Provost and Senior Vice President 328K
Vice President of Campus Environment (I swear I’m not making this up) 238K
Associate Assistant Vice President/Dean (Really, I’m not) 204K
Vice President of Student Affairs (Where’s David Lodge when you really need him) 257K
Associate Vice President Information Technology 213K
Vice President of Institutional Advancement 256K
Associate Vice President and Chief of Staff 247K
Dean School of Liberal Arts and Sciences 209K
Dean School of Media Arts 221K
Dean School of Media Arts (Yes they have two) 205K
Dean School of Fine and Performing Arts 247K
This school has an “academic staff” of 2000, for 9400 students. Since the above list is of the institution’s 15 highest-paid employees, apparently the highest paid person on campus who does any teaching is making less than $145K in total compensation (not just salary).
The school’s motto is Esse Quam Videri, which I am informed translates as “To be, rather than to seem.”
All this happening at the same time as stagnant professor salaries, cut benefits, and rising tuition costs. Can you please not discuss academia? It somehow makes you sound even more ignorant than usual.
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Ah, Stringer Boy, thanks for the opportunity!
You believe in the divinity of Christ? That makes you a real minority in India. You’re lucky the Hindus haven’t burned you alive.
I’ve never listened to Rush Limbaugh in my life. Fox News, CNN, and the Sunday morning broadcast political talk shows? Yeah, I listen to them regularly — even MSNBC, on the rare occasions when it’s sane.
Who is your god, Stringer Bell? Spell His name out, that I may follow his star in the East, and bow in worship before Him.
I have my doctor’s degree, and the relevant specialty certificates. Please tell us how high your education was before you ran away from your homeland into the promised land of America?
And as I’ve said before, I’m not going to waste much time communicating with an idiot like you:
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Wow.
You should bottle that idiocy and sell it to arms dealers worldwide. That’s some weapons-grade shit right there.
Everything’s the fault of young college students! Sad old authoritarian dunce ranting about things he doesn’t understand. 🙂
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You didn’t hear me the first time? Deaf at your young age from trying to deal with the constant gab of four wives, or has that dot on your forehead melted into makeup running lateral to your nose and blinding your eyes? Okay, here’s my final answer.
If you still don’t get it, ask Clarissa to make a 3-D print of the above image in braille. Langurs and similar dumb animals are sacred to your kind anyway — so just rub its warm tummy, and everything will be all right.
Then just chill the hell out out, and say, “goodnight!” 🙂 🙂 🙂
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Dreidel, I have to warn you, one more outburst like this, and we’ll have to say goodbye to you. This is neither funny nor dignified.
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Haha, this idiot can’t even get his racism straight.
4 wives = muslim
dot on forehead = hindu
I can’t be both, stupid.
Clarissa, I think I’ll have to withdraw my invitation to dinner with this creature. 🙂
El, you up for it? At least I know you won’t show up in a white robe and pointy hat.
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Oh, this wasn’t a serious post — I know Stringer Bell is neither Muslim nor Hindu. It was intended to show him how it feels/sounds when he loses his cool and makes outrageous, vulgar, racist-tinged insults at me and other commenters whom he dislikes– as he did when he called me a member of the KKK and told me to put on a hood a couple of weeks ago because he knows that I grew up in the American South.
No, it wasn’t an attempt to be dignified or funny, but to show Stringer how his own over-the-top angry, totally inappropriate regional insults come across.
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And this, dear Clarissa is why non white people in America start laughing uproariously when Ashkenazi Jews start going on about oppression. “The Holocaust! Israel! Some angst about country clubs, noses and hair!”
I know it’s hard for Dreidel to understand but there are people who are Jewish who aren’t white. Pretty much every single person I’ve known who is Jewish and non-white has a story about the racism of Ashkenazi Jews. It’s a classic case of white ethnic overcompensation. “They’ll know I’m really white instead of off-white or asterisk white if I’m extra racist!”
Right wingers are only interested in Israel because Israel has to exist so the events of Revelations can take place (which includes the destruction of that state) and the good Christians can be raptured.
Retired doctors who don’t practice and keep up with their CMES are about as stupid as the rest of the population. If Dreidel is as old as Dreidel says s/he is, there’s an excellent chance Dreidel would not be able to gain admission to med school, let alone pass medical boards. Such schande, so much stupid, so much sun in Arizona. And so many, many med students who are Indian.
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@Shakti
This old right winger is an atheist who had said NOTHING about the Ashkenazi Jewish population because, as I told Clarissa earlier, I’m totally unfamiliar with internal Israeli politics or culture.
I don’t believe either in a coming mythical rapture or in a divine right to land by anyone, based on any ancient prophecy.
But I very strongly support the right of the State of Israel to exist as a democratic, Jewish nation, and to be free from constant acts of barbaric terrorism by people with whom Israel has tried to make peace for 67 years, and yet who wish it only destruction. Do you have a problem with that?
My comments were to Stringer Bell, tossing his own racism back at him, not to you.
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That is neither an explanation nor an apology.
Thank you for demonstrating in this thread one reason why many non-white people want absolutely nothing to do with movement atheism.
BTW:
The largest population of Ashkenazim is in the United States.
One can be an atheist and Jewish.
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Please — I dislike “movement atheism” strongly. My atheism has NOTHING to do with my political views, and it doesn’t indicate an antipathy toward any religion on my part; it’s simply a reflection of my lack of belief in any deity. Period.
I’m well aware that since Judaism is a culture as well as a religion, Jewish atheists exist.
You keep mentioning Ashkenazim as if they are an issue with me. I’ve already stated that I’m unfamiliar with their culture, either in Israel or America, so what is it that you want to tell me about them?
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“And this, dear Clarissa is why non white people in America start laughing uproariously when Ashkenazi Jews start going on about oppression. “The Holocaust! Israel! Some angst about country clubs, noses and hair!””
I’m starting to get a feeling that some sort of a practical joke is going on at my expense here. Did you just make fun of Ashkenazi Jews who experienced anti-Semitism? Like myself and my family?
And what, Dreidel is more oppressive than the Holocaust?
Can somebody give me a sign when the moment of shared weirdness ends?
“Pretty much every single person I’ve known who is Jewish and non-white has a story about the racism of Ashkenazi Jews. It’s a classic case of white ethnic overcompensation.”
It’s like I stepped into an alternative reality. What’s next? We’ll share stories about the profound evilness of autistics? Women? Ukrainians? College professors?
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We’ll share stories about the profound evilness of autistics? Women? Ukrainians? College professors?
Autistic Ukrainian female college professors are the new Hitlers. At least that’s what I hear.
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“Autistic Ukrainian female college professors are the new Hitlers.”
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Did you just make fun of Ashkenazi Jews who experienced anti-Semitism? Like myself and my family?
No.
Clarissa, I apologize for responding to Dreidel’s religious and racial insult bingo with insults.
I intended to jab at the hypocrisy of white Jewish people in the US who say and do racist things to non white people, not Jewish people in general or Holocaust survivors. I was also describing the attitudes of some non-white immigrants I’ve known who have no knowledge of Jewish people as well as Hispanic and Filipina Jewish people who’ve shared stories about congregrants who treated them as if they couldn’t be Jewish.
But that didn’t come across at all. I made an assumption about Dreidel based on Dreidel’s name and posts and in doing so insulted you.
I won’t respond further to Dreidel’s posts in this thread. I’m sorry.
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Shakti, you can’t unring the bell. You’ve already showed that you’re an antisemitic racist. You aren’t really sorry, you are just sorry you got caught.
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Clarissa, it is not a practical joke or alternative reality. It is hatred for Jews, plain and simple.
You can keep pretending that you don’t understand that Stringer bell is a raging hater of Jews, no matter how often he shows that.
You can also pretend that you bought Shakti’s explanation and apology for making fun of Holocaust. It is probably too inconvenient for you to realize that two of your readers/commenters are antisemites.
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“It is probably too inconvenient for you to realize that two of your readers/commenters are antisemites.”
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“..KKK and told me to put on a hood a couple of weeks ago because he knows that I grew up in the American South.”
Now now, are you sure you want to add ‘Liar’ to your resume too? Isn’t ‘stupid’ enough for now?
I called you a Klan member because you sound like one, not because of the zip code of the place you were born. Fortunately you keep validating that observation of mine every chance you get. 🙂
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‘It’s so unfair that people call me racist. Let me respond to those allegations by saying racist garbage nonstop. Yeah, that’ll show them!’
-Dreidel’s Logic
Boy, you stupid.
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Ah, you’ll still communicating with me, albeit with non-stop cheap shots.
Do this mean that invitation for a beer is back on? Make it a Heineken.
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Dreidel, why do you keep feeding this troll? Just ignore him and he’ll have to go somewhere else with all his pathetic little anger issues.
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Well, I keep on feeding my pet cat, and it’s got got an I.Q. of about 12, too. 🙂
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