Wherever Possible, Avoid Mad People
For instance, people such as these:
Stevenson College is apologising to its students for serving Mexican food during [a science fiction event]. In a letter sent out to students, the college apologised for having “a Mexican food buffet,” while also featuring spaceships and aliens.
Wait for it.
The college received complaints saying the combination was racist because of the association between Mexicans and illegal immigrants.
Despite eight years of doing this, I didn’t see that coming. Let’s take a second to check the algebra of umbrage: Science fiction event plus chili and burritos equals racism.
After receiving complaints, Dr Carolyn Golz said that the event “demonstrated a cultural insensitivity on the part of the programme planners and, though it was an unintentional mistake, I recognise that this incident caused harm within our community and negatively impacted students.”
At this point, bear in mind that several students, our fearless intellectuals of tomorrow, have felt a need to publicly articulate some version of the following, rather staggering idea: “Dear Sir or Madam, I have been negatively impacted by your insensitive buffet.”
Naturally, this explosion of WrongThought™ will have to be punished:
As a result, Dr Golz “will require cultural competence training for Programmes staff, in addition to implementing mechanisms for future programme planning that will ensure college programmes are culturally sensitive and inclusive.”
In the wake of this terrifyingly racist punch in the face of decency, expressed via the medium of reheated beans, Dr Golz urges students to report any further incidents of “hate” to the university’s Report Hate website, and thereby “cut down on insensitive events like Intergalactic Night.”
Update, via the comments:
And so, once again, students are being encouraged to cultivate a kind of pretentious racial paranoia, in which almost any innocuous thing can, via mental convolution, be associated with some pretext for grievance, however dishonest and opportunistic. Once some mental association has been discovered or contrived, everyone must act as if the innocuous object or action were in reality malicious and/or wounding, whatever the actual intention and regardless of how absurd and/or dishonest the claim of grievance is. Because whatever association of things is in the accuser’s head is assumed to be in everyone else’s head too.
And lo, grammar and punctuation are deemed racist, and paper coffee cups too. And hair, and genteel gardening programmes. And beards, on white men, are harmful and oppressive, and “glorify behaviours typical of people in white hegemonies.”
Yes, it’s ludicrous and pernicious, and not at all accidental. Dr Golz and her peers are in effect saying to students, “You should want to be the guy who bitches about the rather unobvious racist subtext of party snacks. And if you do choose to behave that way, we’ll reward you and flatter you and make you feel important, while making other people jump through clown hoops to appease the feelings you pretend to have.” And the more implausible and contrived the claim of victimhood is, the more status points accrue, on account of the complainant’s heightened sensitivity and supposed mental prowess. One has fathomed an injustice mere mortals cannot see.
And bewildered onlookers are expected to pretend that this is a high and noble function of an academic institution.
Science fiction event plus chili and burritos equals racism.
It’s a lot to digest.
Do they also have a Report Stupid website?
They should have served a Klingon buffet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoOfjGqo5EY
And then one day a bad war came along and after that ended a bad earthquake shook the ground and broke houses and if that wasn’t bad enough, then a bad tornado swept through town and so all the inhabitants of sleepy little WrongThought™ Ville had to survive all over again and make things and have families and grow food and herd cattle and sheep. Many started to have spiritual thoughts again and they shared them in real conversations.
And soon everybody forgot everything they thought then knew from college and learned instead to work together and cooperate and value what really mattered and read about principles and sacrifice and humanity and listen to the elders and go to Wednesday meetings at the townhall to discuss real issues.
Soon the inhabitants of sleepy little WrongThought™ Ville fired all the tenured town idiots and turned the institutes into groceries and restaurants and bowling alleys and forgot all about Progressivism and whining and acting like a bunch of goddamn fool jackasses.
The End.
Except it never is.
. . . the college apologised for having “a Mexican food buffet,” while also featuring spaceships and aliens.
Actually, for this one, they do have a point. There is indeed an extremely well documented link and it’s been well known for years.
Quite particularly;
Apparently, students are being encouraged to cultivate a kind of pretentious racial paranoia, in which any innocuous thing can, via some mental convolution, be associated with some pretext for grievance, however dishonest and opportunistic. Once some mental association has been discovered or contrived, everyone must act as if the innocuous object or action were in reality malicious and/or wounding, whatever the actual intention and regardless of how absurd and/or dishonest the claim of grievance is. Because whatever association of things is in the accuser’s head is assumed to be in everyone else’s head too.
And everyone else has to pretend that this is a high and noble function of an academic institution.
Well, I dunno, but Lt. Sandoval was kinda hot on Star Trek. Is that racist or sexist? Probably both. Ah well.
This sort of idiocy, BTW, is what the #SadPuppies bunch is on about.
“Well, I dunno, but Lt. Sandoval was kinda hot on Star Trek. Is that racist or sexist? Probably both. Ah well.”
#YesAllKlingons
This sort of nonsense does not arise ex nihilo. To have reached biological adulthood and be so self-important as to feel that putative racial insensitivity, even in the homoeopathic quantities in evidence here, justifies making such a thoroughgoing arse of oneself is behaviour that has to be taught. To ask why faculty and administrators so meekly acquiesce in indulging such impertinence is begging the question. They foster it and enable it quite deliberately. It will be the undoing of them, one day, when the Gods of the Copybook Headings bestir themselves.
This sort of nonsense does not arise ex nihilo.
It’s ludicrous and pernicious, and of course encouraged. The university administrators are in effect saying to students, “You should want to be the guy who bitches about the alleged racist subtext of party snacks. And if you do behave that way, we’ll reward you and flatter you and make you feel important, while making other people jump through clown hoops to appease the feelings you pretend to have.” And the more implausible and contrived the claim of victimhood is, the more status points accrue, supposedly on account of the complainant’s heightened sensitivity and mental prowess. He has fathomed an injustice mere mortals cannot see.
They keep finding new sharks to jump, don’t they?
But what really angers me isn’t the chippy little herberts* themselves – since time immemorial a certain type of adolescent has always thought he* has Everything Figured Out – it’s the idiots who should know better simply giving in to them. “Oh God, yes. How could we not have seen that? We’re so sorry. It won’t happen again.” Grow a goddamn spine, you weasels.
*Yes, masculine normativity. Bite me.
*Yes, masculine normativity. Bite me.
You’re in luck. The correction booth is in for repair. I think heavy use has burnt out the scolding coils.
Many science fiction stories are about aliens.
Many illegal aliens are from Mexico.
ergo: A Mexican buffet at a sci-fi event is about illegal aliens.
Next, sci-fi meetings about faster than light travel that feature fast-food will be targeted by people in wheelchairs. It’s clearly racist!
A display of righteous anger and moral outrage about something you have discerned as oppressive signals that you are virtuous and morally superior. Such moral pride was once generally considered reprehensible, even wicked, and the virtuous were those who did good humbly and gently (helping an elderly neighbour with some shopping, visiting the sick, volunteering) or even anonymously (giving to charity).
We’re doomed.
Godfrey Elfwick should receive an award, and and then have an award named after him, for ‘Excellence in “Indistinguishable from the Real Thing” Parody’.
Godfrey Elfwick
Heh. It’s practically art.
I have, on occasion, staged a “science fiction event plus chili and burritos” for myself and Mrs. Oik and only once was I subjected to vociferous complaint- but that was because I hadn’t bought in sufficient quantities of margarita mix.
It remains difficult for me to fathom that there are people out there who actually spend their time looking for reasons to be offended. If the “War on Racism*” has been reduced to complaining about a buffet at Sci-Fi event, I should think the war has been won.
*Last time I checked, Mexico is a country, not a race.
So whenever I read stories of absurdity, sometimes the story tells you the field of study of the absurdist, sometimes I have to look it up. The wife and I have a little game we play and this story, like 95% of them, fits the pattern. The game in this instance goes like this. I read the above to the wife. I then find Dr. Carolyn Golz of Stevenson College on LinkedIn. I read to my wife her educational background. I says “University of Chicago College of…”. I then point to wifey and she says, “psychology!” Bingo. The lunatics are in charge of the asylums and they’re looking for more brains to feed on. And thus the popularity of the zombie meme.
Ah, my mistake. It’s the Chicago School of Professional….
If the “War on Racism*” has been reduced to complaining about a buffet at Sci-Fi event, I should think the war has been won.
As has been said by many of late, it has and now the SJWs are walking the battlefield shooting the wounded.
At this point I no longer take any of it seriously. I see a room full of ‘students’ high as a kite, crafting this demand while giggling ‘dance, monkey, dance’. I believe on your side of the pond it’s called taking the mickey.
Of course this is an incorrect parallel insofar as monkeys have vertebrae while university administrators demonstrably do not.
We live in a wonderous time where the Will to Power is realized through competing victimhoods.
Ah, my mistake. It’s the Chicago School of Professional….
Auto-Proctology?
this terrifyingly racist punch in the face of decency, expressed via the medium of reheated beans,
*applauds*
*hits tip jar*
Why, thank you. Gratuities always welcome.
If one were an insane right-wing nutjob conspiracy theorist, one might almost think that these things don’t happen by accident.
“There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.”
I guess they won’t be able to show Sigourney Weaver movies anymore, either.
I took advantage of the link to the student complaint page:
On or around the above date Dr Carolyn Golz wrote and emailed the following to a variety of recipients:
“I am writing today to apologize for a mistake in judgement that took place in the planning of last night’s College Night. The theme was “Intergalactic” and the decor included robots and space ships with aliens. Unfortunately, the program planners made a poor decision when choosing to serve a Mexican food buffet during a program that included spaceships and “aliens”, failing to take into account how these choices might be perceived by others. We would never want to make a connection between individuals of Latino heritage or undocumented students and “aliens” and I am so sorry that our College Night appeared to do exactly that.
This incident demonstrated a cultural insensitivity on the part of the program planners and, though it was an unintentional mistake, I recognize that this incident caused harm within our community and negatively impacted students. As a result of this incident, I will require cultural competence training for Programs staff, in addition to implementing mechanisms for future program planning that will ensure college programs are culturally sensitive and inclusive.”
In implying that students and others of Mexican birth or heritage have little to no intelligence, and implying that they are hypersensitive to really, really stupid, contorted rationale for being offended this is deeply offensive to such people. It appears that Dr Golz is trying to humiliate Mexicans and those of Mexican heritage within the student community and, given that this story has been distributed internationally, worldwide.
——————-
Other desired follow up
I think that Dr Golz should issue an apology, both to those of Mexican birth and heritage and to those who arranged the event.
——————-
Please provide your NAME, PHONE and EMAIL if you wish to be contacted:
I wish to remain anonymous, as I believe socialists, racial agitators and others of left-wing political views in the university administration and student body to be vindictive, arrogant and too stupid to understand the issue. As such I fear retribution for this complaint.
—————
You think anything will be done about that?
You think anything will be done about that?
It’s been my experience that when you challenge someone whose position is held in bad faith, their defences of that position, should any be offered, are likely to be in bad faith too. And there’s not much point trying to argue with a bad faith position. All you can do is draw attention to it.
Food and Sci-Fi? Tell me about it… I never got over ‘2001: A Spice Odyssey.’
Watcher in the Dark – can I vote for freedom of speech apart from bad jokes?
David – I know, but I can just sit and imagine that one or more people are furious, embarrassed or even, by a tiny chance, thoughtful.
As a former auditor and quality manager I know how such systems work, and each complaint probably has to be closed in some way, with official paperwork that is subject to audit. That will, perhaps, cause a little consternation in this case.
That will, perhaps, cause a little consternation in this case.
I hope so. I’m certainly not suggesting you shouldn’t do it. Highlighting bad faith can be worthwhile. God knows, I’ve spent enough time trying.
10 gets you a gazillion that whoever compained wasn’t even Hispanic.