4 ms·

I, too, read the letter, which was my impetus for doing further research of my own. It seems pretty benign and progressive when read with no surrounding context

I, too, read the letter, which was my impetus for doing further research of my own. It seems pretty benign and progressive when read with no surrounding context, so I found it hard to believe that some of the smartest students in the country would have such a poor reaction towards it. This was the big deal, apparently: "There was so much coded language in that e-mail that is just disrespectful," said Ewurama Okai, a junior. I'm not arguing against free speech, but it seems like many interpreted her comments to be accepting of a pervasive and ingrained culture of racism at Yale. It's unfortunate but understandable that some students got so worked up that they behaved poorly and acted on emotion, rather than rationally, which they later did with the petition and various letters/articles addressing the issue. We should be focusing on the overall themes of the argument rather than the specific anecdotes of what one student said or did which may not be representative of the entire body.

tptacek 11y ago
To me, it sounds like it's a crime to be wrong about something regarding racial issues at Yale. The Genius annotation of the letter makes a lot of totally reasonable arguments, reasonable enough that I would characterize the whole letter as "somewhat wrong-headed" now. But so what?
- roymurdock 11y ago
  So if something is wrong, you fix it! I'm not sure that calling for the Christakis' resignation is the correct remedial action, but if you were being discriminated against, wouldn't you be angry and ready to fight? Especially if you were promised a safe haven from racism and discrimination at one of the country's most elite schools? Most of the stuff I've seen on Facebook from Yale students has been directed towards the frat, so I'm surprised there isn't more of a mention of that whole incident in this story either.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    Well here's "activism" in a nutshell for you. By screaming, spitting on people, and trying to oust them from their jobs, the protesters have assured that virtually nobody who isn't already on their side is going to care about their concerns. If the Chisakises had an actual problem with racial insensitivity, their opponents were given ample opportunities to allow Nicholas and Erika to hang themselves with their own words --- the protesters wrote open letters, had campus debates, &c. Instead, they jumped the gun.
    - roymurdock 11y ago
      The sad thing is that HN is responding in a similar manner, with people quick to judge and condemn the students as spoiled children. I don't have a horse in the race, and I wanted to call out the author's blatant bias, and yet I was immediately downvoted to the bottom of the thread. I am disappointed to see these knee-jerk reactions gaining consensus when we have precious little insight into the issues at hand and how they are actually being dealt with.
- unimpressive 11y ago
  Exactly. If this is really about black people being turned away at parties or a general culture of racism at Yale, that is what should be raged about. Putting up a sacrificial victim in a politics by proxy is pure scapegoating in the theilian sense: http://blakemasters.com/post/24578683805/peter-thiels-cs183-startup-class-18-notes#_=_ http://blakemasters.com/post/24578683805/peter-thiels-cs183-...
- cxseven 11y ago
  Do you mean this annotation? http://genius.com/8083073 http://genius.com/8083073
AnimalMuppet 11y ago
> "There was so much coded language in that e-mail that is just disrespectful," said Ewurama Okai, a junior. What's a code? It's a way for a sender to send a message to a recipient without anybody else being able to understand it. For a racist, say, coded language can be a very useful way of hiding their racism and still communicating. But if you get hyper politically correct, and compile every possible word that you could possibly perceive to be a code word for any possible oppressor in any possible context, well, you get so many words that even a reasonable, thoughtful communication trips your detectors. But for it to be code, the sender has to intend to send the code. For example, if I'm tapping my foot at random, and the Morse Code translation of those taps offends the person in the next cube, well, sorry, but I don't actually know Morse Code, so I wasn't sending a coded message. So: Was the language in that letter "coded language"? Or are the students so hyper-sensitive that everything is "coded language"? My guess is that they're hyper-sensitive.

tptacek 11y ago

To me, it sounds like it's a crime to be wrong about something regarding racial issues at Yale. The Genius annotation of the letter makes a lot of totally reasonable arguments, reasonable enough that I would characterize the whole letter as "somewhat wrong-headed" now. But so what?

roymurdock 11y ago
So if something is wrong, you fix it! I'm not sure that calling for the Christakis' resignation is the correct remedial action, but if you were being discriminated against, wouldn't you be angry and ready to fight? Especially if you were promised a safe haven from racism and discrimination at one of the country's most elite schools? Most of the stuff I've seen on Facebook from Yale students has been directed towards the frat, so I'm surprised there isn't more of a mention of that whole incident in this story either.
- tptacek 11y ago
  Well here's "activism" in a nutshell for you. By screaming, spitting on people, and trying to oust them from their jobs, the protesters have assured that virtually nobody who isn't already on their side is going to care about their concerns. If the Chisakises had an actual problem with racial insensitivity, their opponents were given ample opportunities to allow Nicholas and Erika to hang themselves with their own words --- the protesters wrote open letters, had campus debates, &c. Instead, they jumped the gun.
  - roymurdock 11y ago
    The sad thing is that HN is responding in a similar manner, with people quick to judge and condemn the students as spoiled children. I don't have a horse in the race, and I wanted to call out the author's blatant bias, and yet I was immediately downvoted to the bottom of the thread. I am disappointed to see these knee-jerk reactions gaining consensus when we have precious little insight into the issues at hand and how they are actually being dealt with.
unimpressive 11y ago
Exactly. If this is really about black people being turned away at parties or a general culture of racism at Yale, that is what should be raged about. Putting up a sacrificial victim in a politics by proxy is pure scapegoating in the theilian sense: http://blakemasters.com/post/24578683805/peter-thiels-cs183-startup-class-18-notes#_=_ http://blakemasters.com/post/24578683805/peter-thiels-cs183-...
cxseven 11y ago
Do you mean this annotation? http://genius.com/8083073 http://genius.com/8083073

AnimalMuppet 11y ago

> "There was so much coded language in that e-mail that is just disrespectful," said Ewurama Okai, a junior. What's a code? It's a way for a sender to send a message to a recipient without anybody else being able to understand it. For a racist, say, coded language can be a very useful way of hiding their racism and still communicating. But if you get hyper politically correct, and compile every possible word that you could possibly perceive to be a code word for any possible oppressor in any possible context, well, you get so many words that even a reasonable, thoughtful communication trips your detectors. But for it to be code, the sender has to intend to send the code. For example, if I'm tapping my foot at random, and the Morse Code translation of those taps offends the person in the next cube, well, sorry, but I don't actually know Morse Code, so I wasn't sending a coded message. So: Was the language in that letter "coded language"? Or are the students so hyper-sensitive that everything is "coded language"? My guess is that they're hyper-sensitive.