The Coddling Of The American Mind (Trigger Warning Article In The Atlantic...)

mordy posted this article in the other thread that's the same as this thread and it responds well to that "but what about safe spaces for republicans" line (while otherwise kinda chasing itself to a yes-but-yes standstill)

yale newspaper:

Letter from the editor:

I'm posting this letter here, because the Herald's server is down. We're working hard to resolve this issue.

On Fri., Nov. 6, the Yale Herald published an opinion piece titled “Hurt at home,” which articulated an individual’s feelings of discomfort in the aftermath of an email from Silliman College’s associate master. On Sat., Nov. 7, we removed that article from our website at the author’s request.

I recognize that we published the article with only a Yale audience in mind and that many readers outside of Yale took issue with the article’s perspective. In the following paragraphs, I hope to provide context helpful in understanding the events of the past week and “Hurt at home.”

Many readers interpreted “Hurt at home” as a direct and unreasonable response to Associate Master Erika Christakis’ email to students in the college. In considering this issue, it’s also important to acknowledge that Associate Master Christakis’ email was itself a response. It rebutted an email from Yale’s Intercultural Affairs Committee, which is made up of many of Yale’s religious and cultural group leaders. That email urged students to be culturally sensitive in choosing Halloween costumes.

Associate Master Christakis’ email articulates her faith in the Yale students’ ability to dress themselves without administrative mandates. The IAC, however, threatened no disciplinary measures for cultural insensitivity. In rebutting an email urging simple mindfulness, Associate Master Christakis’ message, intentionally or not, was “don’t be mindful.” It is this aspect of her email that has proven most troubling, especially in light of a master’s unique role at Yale.

The role of master is distinct from that of professor. While each residential college has a dean, who functions as the college’s chief academic advisor, the master’s role is one of community leader. The Yale College website reads, “[ The master] is responsible for the physical well being and safety of students in the residential college, as well as for fostering and shaping the social, cultural, and educational life and character of the college.” The University touts the communal environment enabled by masters as a major draw for prospective students.

Students in Silliman expressed their discomfort and pain at Associate Master Christakis’ decision to write her email. Instead of first trying to understand students' concerns, both Associate Master Christakis and her husband, Silliman Master Nicholas Christakis, took to Twitter, posting articles that they felt justified Associate Master Christakis’ point of view. Master Christakis even went so far as to retweet an article he had posted on his personal account from Silliman College’s own Twitter account, falsely representing it as the position of the college.

Masters are individuals, and as such have a right to voice their opinions. But Associate Master Christakis’ message is tainted by her decision to email it directly to all Silliman students—an email list to which she has access through her administrative role in the college. She could have published these thoughts on a personal blog or in a publication. She chose not to.

This incident has become an issue of free speech. The term was introduced into this conversation when Master and Associate Master Christakis asserted that in opposing the recommendations of the IAC, they were defending a right to free speech. Readers unfamiliar with the nuances of this situation believe that students have censored Master and Associate Master Christakis; they haven’t made that argument themselves.

Nicholas and Erika Christakis have an undisputed right to free speech. No one has argued that they, as individuals, should not. But students have exercised their own free speech in speaking against the way Master and Associate Master Christakis have treated their office. This incident is not analogous to a professor offering an unpopular view, or a controversial speaker coming to campus. “Hurt at home” addresses a failure to perform the duties of a defined role: nurturing the Silliman community.

David Rossler
Editor-in-chief

In rebutting an email urging simple mindfulness, Associate Master Christakis’ message, intentionally or not, was “don’t be mindful.”

ha ha way to define an argument. It could just as easily be said that her email was about free thought and imagination and how institutions can, intentionally or not, stifle such things with their official calls for mindfulness

also this "hurt at home" thing. It's not like her email contained descriptions of rape or violence. Was anyone actually hurt by reading an opinion they didn't agree with?

u could also say her email was about chocolate cake or equatorial guinea but u would be rong tho

well she wrote about that stuff not cake so whatevs cuz

what was wrong w/ the original email that she was responding to exactly?

well she wrote about that stuff not cake so whatevs cuz

― Why because she True and Interesting (President Keyes), Monday, November 9, 2015 4:18 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that's like an opinion

i cant imagine someone actually getting b-hurt about a letter asking students to be mindful on halloween of not wearing racist costumes. ...

You don't have to imagine.

"u could also say her email was about chocolate cake"

Careful now

the pinterest was not just about avoiding racist costumes fyi it also includes advice to avoid katniss costumes, costumes of some mom who got sun tanned, bane from batman costumes, costume of shirtless guy wearing a ball pit, costumes of food items?, costumes that don't give the wearer enough air to breath, etc. ie very nannyish.

costumes of the recently dead - steve jobs, amy winehouse, also honey boo, iphone 5, game of thrones costumes

that's solid advice, though. You don't want to offend eunuchs.

i, defiantly, wore the same filthy (literally, i store it with my spare tire in the trunk of my car) banana costume that has been my go-to for the last several years of halloweens chiefly due to apathy.

take that, yale.

the pinterest was not just about avoiding racist costumes fyi it also includes advice to avoid katniss costumes, costumes of some mom who got sun tanned, bane from batman costumes, costume of shirtless guy wearing a ball pit, costumes of food items?, costumes that don't give the wearer enough air to breath, etc. ie very nannyish.

― Mordy, Monday, November 9, 2015 3:32 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

they werent just mixing in jokes?

the original email didn't really seem very NANNYISH to me

3 of the 8 links in the collage are about appropriating religious/ethnic/racial outfits for costumes, the other 5 seem to be about other transgressions of taste, safety, or personal aesthetics.

so this is all over a pinterest page ? cool

as long as we're airing out all the atlantic stuff we might as well do this:

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/the-tyranny-of-social-justice-warriors/

1. Thank you. My journey away from the radical Left actually began almost 3 years ago, when I found myself 30 years old living in a tent in a friend’s back yard. I’ve realized that it’s around that age where true Leftists have only two options available: They become full time criminals or they become college professors. (I suppose “journalist” is also an option but I roll that in under number two.) Neither appealed to me, so I began withdrawing myself from my former comrades.

she's serious: she capitalized "left"

fuckin' bullshit, not all of us can find full-time work in crime

does that have benefits???

I hear it doesn't pay.

exposure tho!!!

http://www.ew.com/sites/default/files/i/imgs/090417//public-enemies_l.jpg

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/the-new-intolerance-of-student-activism-at-yale/414810/

http://www.mediaite.com/online/university-of-missouri-protesters-clash-with-reporters-declare-no-media-safe-space/

i kinda feel like the most [only?] interesting part of the halloween story is that it's taking place at yale which i always assumed was sorta old-money insulated by this kind of activism thing but that's probably just rooted in stereotypes about the kind of student who goes to yale (and the kind of background their families have)

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f308/sotoalf/Untitled_zpspi8mpwwf.jpg

SMH x10,000 re. this whole "public space safe from media" thing

http://fredrikdeboer.com/2015/11/07/its-my-job-to-take-college-students-seriously/

As I’ve said before, there’s a confusing and frustrating divide on these issues for me. One part of my life, the part that engages with the broader political conversation, is filled with well-meaning liberal and left people who say “oh, there’s no illiberal attitudes among college students — that’s all a conspiracy by the conservative media.” These people, generally, are not on campus. Meanwhile, my extensive connections in the academy, and my continuing friendships with many people who are involved in the world of campus organizing, report that this tendency is true — and often justify it, arguing that this illiberalism is in fact a necessary aspect of achieving social justice. It’s disorienting and frustrating to get arguments of denial in one part of my life and arguments of justification in another.

seasoned journalists on my timeline shaking their heads at this, all saying "yeah, i've covered protestors for years and they've always asked media to occasionally keep cameras out of people's faces and typically it hasn't been a problem and as a journalist its basically your job to work around this and figure out a way to interact that makes people not hate you, otherwise you won't get a good story."

like https://twitter.com/soledadobrien/status/663924143738462208

that's not the issue and (i hope) you know it.

i don't know what issue we're talking about.

the issue i was talking about was the protestors blocking off the area with the tents (where i presume people are camping) from the media.

bear in mind that if yr in a tent camping out then that's just like where you are living, and they were asking the media to not stick their cameras into the middle of people's tents where they were sleeping and living the past week while they were camped out protesting.

if you were camped out in the middle of some lawn protesting for a week maybe you would want some space like say the tent where you slept, where people weren't going to be going up and taking constant photos of you, idk?

in my experience this is actually a really typical thing with people camped out in protests, and the tweets i mentioned sort of validate that.

it seems like a non-story that people are latching onto because they don't know how to cover the story of "the students actually got their demand" because that never happens.

I think the issue is lol

What is the issue, amateurist?

Dod they tell them not to dress up as journalists?

Around 5:45 p.m., as attendees began to leave the conference, students chanted the phrase “Genocide is not a joke” and held up written signs of the same words. Taking Howard’s reminder into account, protesters formed a clear path through which attendants could leave.

A large group of students eventually gathered outside of the building on High Street, where several attendees were spat on, according to Buckley fellows who were present during the conference. One Buckley Fellow added that he was spat on and called a racist. Another, who identifies as a minority himself, said he has been labeled a “traitor” by several.

It's a person's right to refuse to speak to the media; the media have an obligation to get the story in a respectful manner. It's possible to hold both positions.

I feel like there's something missing from this story...? It took cutting the revenue stream to fire the president, but from what I've read he'd lost the confidence of his governing board months ago.

It's laughable that people shaking their heads at the students expect the students to have hired media consultants over the weekend or something

The attempts by conservative blogs to expose and shame the yale student in the video have been disgusting. I really dislike the rhetoric she used, but she is a college student and she didn't think she was speaking to a national audience. Fuck defining people by their worst moments.

In general at this political moment there is too much slippage between 1.) disagreeing with someone and 2.) thinking someone is a garbage human/metaphor for everything wrong with everything

More context: http://chronicle.com/article/Thrust-Into-a-National-Debate/234131?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en&elq=0fd415c0de1d4c8690bc7d7ef0af5ccd&elqCampaignId=1797&elqaid=6828&elqat=1&elqTrackId=a2c66509e54f4a98a8f670bb1c084c8e

Ew. Better.

bear in mind that if yr in a tent camping out then that's just like where you are living, and they were asking the media to not stick their cameras into the middle of people's tents where they were sleeping and living the past week while they were camped out protesting.

"sterling," did you watch the video? the photographer is merely on the quad--a public space--not hovering over their tents. there's also the matter of a media-studies professor calling for the reporter to be forcibly ejected from that public space and the various iterations of "you can't be here"/"you don't have a right to be here" from the students.

in any event, #thereisnoperfectjournalist

Treeship's last two posts OTM

Also worth mentioning that it was a student photographer, not someone from an outside media organization.

1) I really hope it becomes a regular thing for conscientious college sports players to exercise their implicit but rarely exercised power.

2) Not entirely sure what the chancellor did that justified removal, but just looking at the dude (on the right) I can tell he's trouble:
https://chronicle-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/5/img/photos/biz/photo_73970_landscape_650x433.jpg

from the Chronicle story:

Concerns about Mr. Loftin’s leadership expanded beyond his handling of race-related issues. Citing changes in federal health-care laws, the Columbia campus announced in August that it would cut health-care subsidies for graduate students. Amid protest, that move was delayed. Throughout the chancellor’s tenure, he was criticized as slow to act and for insufficiently consulting students and faculty members.

"There were definitely some complaints that the administration sometimes shot from the hip, and therefore they occasionally had to backtrack," said Ben Trachtenberg, chairman of the Missouri Faculty Council on University Policy.

Even as students turned their attention to Mr. Wolfe, who had become the designated lightning rod for racial unrest, administrators on the Columbia campus were working to have Mr. Loftin removed. On Monday the campus’s nine sitting deans wrote to the system’s Board of Curators, the governing board, calling for the "immediate dismissal" of the chancellor.

They cited "failed leadership" regarding graduate student health insurance, along with the "dismissal" of the dean of the medical school, whose resignation was announced in September after less than a year on the job. The deans accused Mr. Loftin of "creating a toxic environment through threat, fear, and intimidation."

xpost

yeah, I don't understand people in the media who lament that it took the involvement of the football team to make things happen at Mizzou. It should be obvious that there's a huge amount of inherent racism when schools profit to the tune of millions off the free labor of mostly black athletes. I think their involvement makes total sense.