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| The horror, the horror |
The photo began to circulate on Sunday morning after CMC junior Casey Garcelon ‘17 reposted the picture as her cover photo on Facebook with the message: “Dear Claremont community, For anyone who ever tries to invalidate the experiences of POC at the Claremont Colleges, here is a reminder of why we feel the way we do. Don’t tell me I’m overreacting, don’t tell me I’m being too sensitive. My voice will not be silenced. I’m mentally drained from being a part of this community and I’ve had enough. If you feel uncomfortable by my cover photo, I want you to know I feel uncomfortable as a person of color everyday on this campus.”Okay, we won't tell you you're overreacting. I do think others at Claremont McKenna are overreacting:
Claremont McKenna College’s dean of students resigned Thursday amid protests over racial tensions on the campus, the same day student demonstrations roiled more than 100 colleges and universities nationwide.I have no idea what the CMC mold is. I would not be surprised if Spellman didn't really know, either. It doesn't really matter. She is not allowed to say anything that might cause offense to those whose voices will not be silenced.
Dean Mary Spellman at Claremont McKenna stepped down after she sparked a campus protest and hunger strikes by two students this week over her email to a Latina student saying she would work to serve those who “don’t fit our CMC mold.”
Keep talking, folks. We'll figure out the meaning. By the way, the current cost of attending CMC is north of $60,000 a year.
Update: a dissent from the CMC Independent:
We are disappointed in the fact that your movement has successfully managed to convince its members that anyone who dissents does so not for intelligent reasons, but due to moral failure or maliciousness. We are disappointed that you’ve used phrases like “silence is violence” to not only demonize those who oppose you, but all who are not actively supporting you. We are most disappointed, however, in the rhetoric surrounding “safe spaces.” College is the last place that should be a safe space. We come here to learn about views that differ from our own, and if we aren’t made to feel uncomfortable by these ideas, then perhaps we aren’t venturing far enough outside of our comfort zone. We would be doing ourselves a disservice to ignore viewpoints solely on the grounds that they may make us uncomfortable, and we would not be preparing ourselves to cope well with adversity in the future. Dealing with ideas that make us uncomfortable is an important part of growing as students and as people, and your ideas will inhibit opportunities for that growth.
Someone at CMC is learning. The entire editorial is worth a read.
8 comments:
Is the guy (girl?) on the left trying to be a "sexy Hester Prynne" or something?
And if a black person puts on a coat, tie, and knickers and goes out as Angus Young, do we "honky-Americans" get to complain about "cultural appropriation"? What about Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder joining the band of evil in "Blazing Saddles"?
What about the time in college I dressed up as Elisha and went to Halloween parties with two young ladies wearing fuzzy bear slippers as "Elisha and the Two Bears"?
I guess I need to be stupid with money to be culturally appropriate....
Bubba, I remain eternally grateful that I attended college in an era (a) without ubiquitous phones with built-in cameras, and (b) when people didn't fall to pieces at the slightest provocation. I ran the student newspaper in 1984 and our parody issue alone would have gotten me expelled in today's environment.
this has been going on for yrs. about 10 yrs ago, a group of boys were sent to sensitivity training for attending a halloween party dressed as the jackson 5.
but after seeing just what level of maturity college students (the smarter of our kids, supposedly) are capable off, i move we raise the voting age to 42.
Now there's some cultural appropriation; remembering the days when all the cool kids (I emphatically was not) trying to "moon walk" or break-dance. And those McDonald's commercials for the McRib. Or Weird Al spoofing Michael Jackson....
It's a miracle that I'm not wearing my bedsheets, I tell you, after that.
It ISN'T "sensitivity. It's power. And you should never give power to those who are this immature. At the same time, universities have been run for years by nitwits who have invited this. They don't deserve to wield power either. I used to hope that power could be taken back from these people, but America doesn't seem interested. This is what it looks like when a civilization dies. Can't say I'm really in the mood for popcorn, but it should be a heckuva show.
good point Ben. Somewhere along the line, the adults in charge left the room.
as an aside: i would like to see a break down of what courses of study these over sensitive snowflakes are studying. i'm willing to bet an over whelming supply are coming from liberal arts and not that many from engineering or science majors.
i'm willing to bet an over whelming supply are coming from liberal arts and not that many from engineering or science majors.
That's a good bet. The Claremont colleges are a consortium; they are all more or less next to each other, but they are separate schools with independent governing bodies. CMC is a liberal arts school, while the hard core science and engineering students go to a different school in the consortium, Harvey Mudd College. I gave CMC and the other schools in the consortium a look when I was considering colleges, but it was too far away and my parents wouldn't have been able to swing the cost. Despite the evident silliness of the student body on display here, the Claremont schools are very well regarded in academe. That tells you something about academe, I guess.
Just for kicks, look at the email that kicked off the protests. It was reaching out to a hurting student, and obviously was interpreted as if Spellman had been a new Bull Connor.
So the heck with refusing to hire CMC students because they're a bunch of radicals. Refuse to hire them because they have no command of the English language--and that's coming from a guy who considered Harvey Mudd but rejected it for the same reasons my host rejected CMC.
Or maybe they aren't ignorant of English at all, but are rather grasping at any chance for a coup d'état. They may have noticed that the interim president at Mizzou appears to be one who has drunk the diversity Koolaid.
Either way, this kind of nonsense would be career suicide in a just world.
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