Quote:
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut
Hey remember that time I said I'd like to see some evidence of institutional racism?
How 'bout a little evidence of one of those racist incidents?
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Given that you've been Internet savvy enough to comb multiple sites to post pieces that agree with aspects of your opinion, you surely can't be unaware of the post/letter written by Dr. Frisby of the Journalism school, as it was carried nationally and even read verbatim on local Columbia radio stations (both sports and right wing).
If she can be called ****er by more than one faculty member, there are probably some structural issues with race afoot at the University. I'll leave alone her comments about her interactions w/ students and the community at large.
If what has become CS1950 can write to the University for more than a year asking for changes of various stripes, then it's probably pretty clear that there wasn't even an attempt to listen to them.
Perhaps CS1950 is completely insane. Maybe Jonathan Butler is nothing but an attention whore. Perhaps Dr. Frisby enjoys making up stories of racism that never happened.
But what if they aren't?
Are you willing to acknowledge a possibility that these events happened?
How can you speak to the authenticity of their experiences and how they should act if you don't have their frame of reference or experiences?
I think what I find most appalling about this entire debacle is the complete lack of empathy that people have shown.
I think it sucks that Loftin lost his job because of this, because after the first incident, he's been largely on top of things when it comes to informing the student body of their occurrence and the zero tolerance policy because of that. I know this because I've gotten the emails.
I don't think he's been especially great, but I do think that he was making an earnest effort in this case, unlike Wolfe. My issues with him stem more from the Schaefers shitshow.
With that said, I can understand why Wolfe froze in his car the way he did, and I can understand him tripping over his own words in public to an extent. I don't think he's a noxious person, and I don't think he let this stuff simmer with malicious intent.
Similarly, you don't have to agree with the list of demands from CS1950 and you don't even have to believe that Tim Wolfe and Loftin were incompetent in addition to being tone deaf.
Why is the immediate reaction one that immediately seeks any and every source to discredit these claims, from calling the protesters batshit to questioning whether the shit swastika happened?
People and groups make mistakes and many groups have idiots attached to them.
For example, it hasn't taken long for the entire media narrative on this story to shift as a result of the actions of an MU staff member and a faculty member.
While their actions are inexcusable and show an ironic contempt for the First Amendment, their odious behavior doesn't mean that terrible things
haven't happened at MU, nor should they define that entire movement.
And guess what, CS1950 may be foolish in their perceptions of and dealings with the media, but that doesn't mean that the incidents they list didn't happen and it doesn't mean that structural problems don't exist at the University.
From moment one you've approached this entire ordeal from the perspective that the protesters have no merit and that the resigned parties were merely caught up in a shitstorm.
Tim Wolfe is a cold guy who approaches with a business-like manner and just got attacked. Maybe that's what he is. Or, maybe like the video suggests, he wasn't really equipped to answer the kinds of questions a university president should and he sat on his hands entirely too long.
R. Bowen Loftin, to you, is a shrewd administrator. Yet, as duncan pointed out, both Wolfe and Loftin have been seen as failures and disappointments in most aspects of their jobs.
For all the hand-wringing you've espoused about Orwellian Dogma and supposedly batshit demands, you've approached this entire event from the perspective of a fanatic, because, ironically, you aren't actually interested in a substantive discussion either, just calling out your preferred boogeymen, whether it be the liberal construction of academia or your dismissive and loaded pejorative "SJW", which is quickly becoming the right-wing's new trump card.
I know that you're capable of a more even-handed analysis than this.