4 ms·

> This was the wrong decision. It seems like it. It seems like the university didn’t even clearly understand that Muslims are divided on this topic before tak

by jnovek 4y ago

> This was the wrong decision. It seems like it. It seems like the university didn’t even clearly understand that Muslims are divided on this topic before taking action. > Liberal institutions in the west have begun to increasingly yield to the demands of extremist minority views and doing so only emboldens them. You are free to insult white people, Christianity, and non transexual heterosexual men in this country but everyone else is a protected class. This, however, is just straight up alt-right talking points.

laserdancepony 4y ago
> This, however, is just straight up alt-right talking points. I beg to differ, this is exactly my impression, too.
wonderwonder 4y ago
Really? If you speak ill of "white people, Christianity, and non transexual heterosexual men" will you lose your job? Will you lose your job in liberal universities if you speak ill of Jews, Muslims, homosexuals, African Americans? In case of perceived bias, I'm a swing voting (95% Dem) Jew.
- ModernMech 4y ago
  Yes, depending on what you say, absolutely. If I stood in my classroom and made blanket disparaging statements about cis men or Christians or white people, I guarantee students in those groups would go to the admin and complain. If what I said was bad enough, I’d likely be fired.
  - rowtheway 4y ago
    You wouldn’t get fired at Rutgers: https://torontosun.com/life/rutgers-professor-calls-white-people-villains-who-need-to-be-taken-out https://torontosun.com/life/rutgers-professor-calls-white-pe... Or Drexel: https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/26/health/drexel-professor-white-genocide-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/26/health/drexel-professor-white... Or Yale: https://news.yahoo.com/psychiatrist-delivered-lecture-yale-described-225341182.html https://news.yahoo.com/psychiatrist-delivered-lecture-yale-d... But say things that are embarrassing yet true of minority students at Georgetown, and you’ll be fired and disowned by the college in under 48 hours: https://news.yahoo.com/georgetown-law-professor-fired-over-131500579.html https://news.yahoo.com/georgetown-law-professor-fired-over-1...
    - ModernMech 4y ago
      To be clear when I wrote my post I had in mind classroom instruction. The first two links are about comments made outside of the classroom, by tenured professors nonetheless. Hard to fire them for almost anything, but it does happen from time to time. The Drexel professor was later placed on administrative leave and then resigned. The Yale link was about a lecture given by someone not affiliated with the University. > you’ll be fired and disowned by the college in under 48 hours: Yes, much easier to do with adjuncts compared to tenured professors.
- charlieyu1 4y ago
  The worst thing is that the white left decides what is offensive or not. I’m Asian and most of the things they claim as racism against Asian are so cringe, literally nobody cares.
  - spacephysics 4y ago
    Same goes with the latinx movement. Actual people from latin America find it stupid and in some cases, ironically, offensive
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Gnob 4y ago
    Yes, it's cringe because it's said as a laughing matter and can have no consequences nowadays or it mostly doesn't. I used to think this way too before and I am still not liberal but the thing with racism is, the start might be jokes but once it's systematic because "nobody cares it's just jokes" those same words might start to hit differently. The liberals can be overreaching about such matters, but I personally think racial slurs shouldn't be tolerated a lot. This is just my 2 cents on the subject.
    - charlieyu1 4y ago
      The point is, banning things does not solve problems. It just complicates things, force people to act in certain ways to make sure they aren't racist, instead of being genuine. When I'm accepted into interviews for jobs that aren't going to hire me anyway... it just wastes my time and their time. The problem isn't much about racism, it is about some people act like jerks. And people can be jerks with or without racism.
      - Gnob 4y ago
        The point of banning racism is so people don't feel comfortable doing it in public Because once that's there, systematic racism is going to be back, things won't stop at the random jerk level. Being a jerk might be because someone had a bad day etc, it's not loaded, you can counter it and it's not organized hate. But racism is different, racism targets anyone who looks like you, and it's usually organized efforts and loaded with ideas about dehumanizing people. sometimes things escalate and this same random jerk might murder you if they think there is a high chance they will escape the justice system because you're basically a subhuman under the new laws that these lighthearted racists passed. You can't make everyone good and decent, but you can for sure punish the racists and limit their access to power and that's what banning does in this case.
- KyeRussell 4y ago
  Modern progressivism does distinguish instances of “punching down”, yes. That’s no secret and is not intended to be. That’s not the point, though. Turning this into a “what about the white men!” whinge is blatantly misrepresenting this scenario as the result of “modern progressivism” when it’s actually something else. I believe that you’re not going to find many proponents of the sort of progressivism that the “white about the white men!?”crowd fight against, that are actually in favour of this decision. Furthermore I believe that you’d find plenty that are against it. Around the proponents of this ideology are concentric circles of people making misguided attempts to “capitulate to this PC culture”, often as an ass-covering tactic. By the time you get to a layperson perceiving ‘the culture’, it’s a xerox of a xerox of a xerox created by various corporate HR, PR, and marketing departments. Then, of course, you’ve got the people revolting against Big Org #836 mandating wearing pronoun pins in the office when that’s clearly not something any trans person would advocate for. The collective facepalming at misguided attempts to pander to “LGBTQIA+” is a big part of the current queer community / culture. This is just the community I am familiar with. I imagine it’s the same elsewhere. I don’t believe that this is much of a ‘no true Scotsman’ fallacy. It’s pretty easy to draw a logical bound between those that believe in the cause, and the rest. I do not believe that this action was taken as a genuine act of modern progressivism. It’s a typical corporate ‘make this go away and don’t upset the minorities with megaphones’ action. But we’ve got some great keywords like “university” and “Muslim” which opportunists obnoxiously use to fuel the culture war.
  - mardifoufs 4y ago
    Wouldn't offending muslims be punching down then?
    - yew 4y ago
      [flagged]
  - yucky 4y ago
    > Modern progressivism does distinguish instances of “punching down” And many would argue the concept of this being "punching down" requires at least a subconscious belief that those groups are somehow beneath other groups in the first place. Furthermore, why support punching at all?
Sakos 4y ago
I'm not alt-right and I'm not white and I'm not religious. I agree completely with that view.
- krainboltgreene 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - piaste 4y ago
    Is it? When non-puppy-kicking people are willing to publicly say "I don't kick puppies, but I agree with the puppy kickers' view that the sky is blue", the correct reaction is not to reevaluate puppy kicking (much less trying to subtly taint those people as crypto-internalized-puppy-dislikers). The correct reaction is to look up.
    - ModernMech 4y ago
      To be clear, the sentiment that is alt-right is > You are free to insult white people, Christianity, and non transexual heterosexual men in this country but everyone else is a protected class. White, cis, hetero, Christian, men as a class are some of the most protected and powerful people in this country. POTUS, Supreme Court Chief Justice, Speaker of the House Representatives, Senate Majority Leader, Attorney General, Director of FBI... all white, all men, all straight, all cis, all but one Christian. All state governors are currently white. This is not to say that a white, cis, hetero, Christian man cannot face hardship or discrimination. But to pretend such people as a class aren't systematically protected in our society, when this class sits on top of most power structures in society, serves to dilute the entire idea of anti-discrimination, which honestly seems to be much of the point in making such claims.
      - yucky 4y ago
        This is a logical fallacy though. Looking at the current makeup of a group doesn't prove systemic discrimination. Look at the NBA for instance, would we assume there are rules favoring black players which would explain their over-representation? It's a common fallacy where people assume equal inputs, so if the output doesn't match something must be amiss. But the assumption was incorrect to begin with. Not everybody is equal, and different demographic cohorts may in fact over/under perform others for any number of reasons.
jimmygrapes 4y ago
> This, however, is just straight up alt-right talking points. Doesn't make it inaccurate. Trying to cudgel GP into submission by casting aspersions of being "alt-right" affiliated is evidence of it being true, even. The gaslighting is unwelcome.
yodsanklai 4y ago
> It seems like the university didn’t even clearly understand that Muslims are divided on this topic before taking action. Of course, I'd assume most muslim don't care about this event, besides a minority of fanatics. But I don't think it even matters. A art history teacher should be free to discuss a painting in their class no matter what "Muslims" think. Clearly the issue is with the school here. Not the teacher, and not the "muslims". This complaining student should have been explained that her demands are not legitimate.
zebnyc 4y ago
I disagree with the alt-right categorization. I am thankful I am not a teacher who has to lead a discussion in a liberal arts school. I am asian(Indian) and while I have heard / seen plenty of offensive content against my ilk, I have never felt threatened / fearsome or the need to play the victim card like the Ms. Wedatalla. >“Who do I call at 8 a.m.,” she asked, when “you see someone disrespecting and offending your religion?” Over the top, much?

by jnovek 4y ago

laserdancepony 4y ago

> This, however, is just straight up alt-right talking points. I beg to differ, this is exactly my impression, too.

wonderwonder 4y ago

Really? If you speak ill of "white people, Christianity, and non transexual heterosexual men" will you lose your job? Will you lose your job in liberal universities if you speak ill of Jews, Muslims, homosexuals, African Americans? In case of perceived bias, I'm a swing voting (95% Dem) Jew.

ModernMech 4y ago
Yes, depending on what you say, absolutely. If I stood in my classroom and made blanket disparaging statements about cis men or Christians or white people, I guarantee students in those groups would go to the admin and complain. If what I said was bad enough, I’d likely be fired.
- rowtheway 4y ago
  You wouldn’t get fired at Rutgers: https://torontosun.com/life/rutgers-professor-calls-white-people-villains-who-need-to-be-taken-out https://torontosun.com/life/rutgers-professor-calls-white-pe... Or Drexel: https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/26/health/drexel-professor-white-genocide-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/26/health/drexel-professor-white... Or Yale: https://news.yahoo.com/psychiatrist-delivered-lecture-yale-described-225341182.html https://news.yahoo.com/psychiatrist-delivered-lecture-yale-d... But say things that are embarrassing yet true of minority students at Georgetown, and you’ll be fired and disowned by the college in under 48 hours: https://news.yahoo.com/georgetown-law-professor-fired-over-131500579.html https://news.yahoo.com/georgetown-law-professor-fired-over-1...
  - ModernMech 4y ago
    To be clear when I wrote my post I had in mind classroom instruction. The first two links are about comments made outside of the classroom, by tenured professors nonetheless. Hard to fire them for almost anything, but it does happen from time to time. The Drexel professor was later placed on administrative leave and then resigned. The Yale link was about a lecture given by someone not affiliated with the University. > you’ll be fired and disowned by the college in under 48 hours: Yes, much easier to do with adjuncts compared to tenured professors.
charlieyu1 4y ago
The worst thing is that the white left decides what is offensive or not. I’m Asian and most of the things they claim as racism against Asian are so cringe, literally nobody cares.
- spacephysics 4y ago
  Same goes with the latinx movement. Actual people from latin America find it stupid and in some cases, ironically, offensive
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Gnob 4y ago
  Yes, it's cringe because it's said as a laughing matter and can have no consequences nowadays or it mostly doesn't. I used to think this way too before and I am still not liberal but the thing with racism is, the start might be jokes but once it's systematic because "nobody cares it's just jokes" those same words might start to hit differently. The liberals can be overreaching about such matters, but I personally think racial slurs shouldn't be tolerated a lot. This is just my 2 cents on the subject.
  - charlieyu1 4y ago
    The point is, banning things does not solve problems. It just complicates things, force people to act in certain ways to make sure they aren't racist, instead of being genuine. When I'm accepted into interviews for jobs that aren't going to hire me anyway... it just wastes my time and their time. The problem isn't much about racism, it is about some people act like jerks. And people can be jerks with or without racism.
    - Gnob 4y ago
      The point of banning racism is so people don't feel comfortable doing it in public Because once that's there, systematic racism is going to be back, things won't stop at the random jerk level. Being a jerk might be because someone had a bad day etc, it's not loaded, you can counter it and it's not organized hate. But racism is different, racism targets anyone who looks like you, and it's usually organized efforts and loaded with ideas about dehumanizing people. sometimes things escalate and this same random jerk might murder you if they think there is a high chance they will escape the justice system because you're basically a subhuman under the new laws that these lighthearted racists passed. You can't make everyone good and decent, but you can for sure punish the racists and limit their access to power and that's what banning does in this case.
KyeRussell 4y ago
Modern progressivism does distinguish instances of “punching down”, yes. That’s no secret and is not intended to be. That’s not the point, though. Turning this into a “what about the white men!” whinge is blatantly misrepresenting this scenario as the result of “modern progressivism” when it’s actually something else. I believe that you’re not going to find many proponents of the sort of progressivism that the “white about the white men!?”crowd fight against, that are actually in favour of this decision. Furthermore I believe that you’d find plenty that are against it. Around the proponents of this ideology are concentric circles of people making misguided attempts to “capitulate to this PC culture”, often as an ass-covering tactic. By the time you get to a layperson perceiving ‘the culture’, it’s a xerox of a xerox of a xerox created by various corporate HR, PR, and marketing departments. Then, of course, you’ve got the people revolting against Big Org #836 mandating wearing pronoun pins in the office when that’s clearly not something any trans person would advocate for. The collective facepalming at misguided attempts to pander to “LGBTQIA+” is a big part of the current queer community / culture. This is just the community I am familiar with. I imagine it’s the same elsewhere. I don’t believe that this is much of a ‘no true Scotsman’ fallacy. It’s pretty easy to draw a logical bound between those that believe in the cause, and the rest. I do not believe that this action was taken as a genuine act of modern progressivism. It’s a typical corporate ‘make this go away and don’t upset the minorities with megaphones’ action. But we’ve got some great keywords like “university” and “Muslim” which opportunists obnoxiously use to fuel the culture war.
- mardifoufs 4y ago
  Wouldn't offending muslims be punching down then?
  - yew 4y ago
    [flagged]
- yucky 4y ago
  > Modern progressivism does distinguish instances of “punching down” And many would argue the concept of this being "punching down" requires at least a subconscious belief that those groups are somehow beneath other groups in the first place. Furthermore, why support punching at all?

Sakos 4y ago

I'm not alt-right and I'm not white and I'm not religious. I agree completely with that view.

krainboltgreene 4y ago
[flagged]
- piaste 4y ago
  Is it? When non-puppy-kicking people are willing to publicly say "I don't kick puppies, but I agree with the puppy kickers' view that the sky is blue", the correct reaction is not to reevaluate puppy kicking (much less trying to subtly taint those people as crypto-internalized-puppy-dislikers). The correct reaction is to look up.
  - ModernMech 4y ago
    To be clear, the sentiment that is alt-right is > You are free to insult white people, Christianity, and non transexual heterosexual men in this country but everyone else is a protected class. White, cis, hetero, Christian, men as a class are some of the most protected and powerful people in this country. POTUS, Supreme Court Chief Justice, Speaker of the House Representatives, Senate Majority Leader, Attorney General, Director of FBI... all white, all men, all straight, all cis, all but one Christian. All state governors are currently white. This is not to say that a white, cis, hetero, Christian man cannot face hardship or discrimination. But to pretend such people as a class aren't systematically protected in our society, when this class sits on top of most power structures in society, serves to dilute the entire idea of anti-discrimination, which honestly seems to be much of the point in making such claims.
    - yucky 4y ago
      This is a logical fallacy though. Looking at the current makeup of a group doesn't prove systemic discrimination. Look at the NBA for instance, would we assume there are rules favoring black players which would explain their over-representation? It's a common fallacy where people assume equal inputs, so if the output doesn't match something must be amiss. But the assumption was incorrect to begin with. Not everybody is equal, and different demographic cohorts may in fact over/under perform others for any number of reasons.

jimmygrapes 4y ago

> This, however, is just straight up alt-right talking points. Doesn't make it inaccurate. Trying to cudgel GP into submission by casting aspersions of being "alt-right" affiliated is evidence of it being true, even. The gaslighting is unwelcome.

yodsanklai 4y ago

> It seems like the university didn’t even clearly understand that Muslims are divided on this topic before taking action. Of course, I'd assume most muslim don't care about this event, besides a minority of fanatics. But I don't think it even matters. A art history teacher should be free to discuss a painting in their class no matter what "Muslims" think. Clearly the issue is with the school here. Not the teacher, and not the "muslims". This complaining student should have been explained that her demands are not legitimate.

zebnyc 4y ago

I disagree with the alt-right categorization. I am thankful I am not a teacher who has to lead a discussion in a liberal arts school. I am asian(Indian) and while I have heard / seen plenty of offensive content against my ilk, I have never felt threatened / fearsome or the need to play the victim card like the Ms. Wedatalla. >“Who do I call at 8 a.m.,” she asked, when “you see someone disrespecting and offending your religion?” Over the top, much?