Caliban’s Mirror
Several faculty members at Pitzer College recently discussed launching an “investigation” of a student paper for accurately reporting a student’s public comments about “cultural appropriation.”
These comments here, about the chest-crushing oppression of seeing white people wearing big hooped earrings.
Professors and administrators at the Claremont Colleges took to public Facebook posts to vent their frustrations, proposing free speech limits on campus and an “investigation” to shut down the conservative student journal.
Because that’s what grown-ups do now. At least on campus.
“We have a serious problem with the Claremont Independent bullying young women of colour and illegally posting their emails, exposing them to violence,” Suyapa Portillo, an Assistant Professor of Chicano-Latino Studies at Pitzer College, recently posted to her public Facebook page.
Quoting verbatim public comments – comments that were directed at the entire campus via the Student Talk listserv and sprayed onto a wall - is now “bullying” and “violence,” apparently. At least on campus.
“This is dangerous, irresponsible slander and [is] unacceptable. The minute one of our women of colour students feels unsafe on campus ALL of our students of colour and faculty of colour are unsafe. #STOPBullying #TitleIX #ShutItDown #StopHate.”
“Shut it down,” she hashtags, seated proudly on a pile of non sequitur. Because accurate and undisputed quoting is, via some unspecified mental contortion, now to be regarded as slanderous and hateful, and a mortal threat to every brownish person within a ten-mile radius, and thus something to be stopped.
At least on campus.
Suyapa Portillo, an Assistant Professor of Chicano-Latino Studies
*shocked face*
Man oh man. Parents shelling out mega-bucks in the mistaken belief that college might turn babykins into a semblance of an adult. Suckers!
I found the college approved keyboard!
Surely that keyboard should say Alt Right, not Alt Gr?
These people, the radical academics and their fellow travelers in the media, are seizing control of the language. This has been going on for decades and has gotten to the point where you cannot discuss issues with people who have become intensely politicized. The words have either no meaning or even reversed meanings. This is especially strong in the youth, and much more so amongst those on student loans in the SJW and many other liberal arts domains.
Political correctness is killing western civilization. And it’s all being done with our tax dollars. If those of you who mock the snowflakes and their majors for the huge loans they have taken out, what do you suppose is going to happen when, as has recently been reported, they simply don’t pay them? We have zero collateral. Won’t even be able to repossess that piece of worthless paper.
I liked the jump from “feels unsafe” to “are unsafe.” Perception defines reality.
As WTP notes above, we continue to see marvelous magic with language. In my business, “slander” is, by definition, an untruth. Now, truth is beside the point. It is merely exposing verbatim the words of another, if such is done with less than 100% agreement.
I liked the jump from “feels unsafe” to “are unsafe.”
It’s quite a feat, yet typical of the type.
To recap: Racist brown student says something colossally ignorant and pretentious about white students and addresses it to the entire campus. Said student is subsequently mocked in print as racist, pretentious, ignorant, etc. Student then claims to “feel unsafe,” by which she means embarrassed or insufficiently flattered. And this is seized upon by another airhead – a faculty member, no less – as proving that all students and faculty “of colour” face some oddly unspecified but supposedly serious danger.
And this clown is paid as a professional educator.
And this clown is paid as a professional educator.
Doesn’t surprise me in the least. I have been engaged in direct conversation with such people for about ten years now. You do understand how this “education” thing works? Students, using our money, enroll in “classes “. That money goes to professors, admins, and such. The students attend the occasional class if and when they feel like it. The profs may complain that no one is attending, but so long as the students turn in the boilerplate leftist douchebag rhetoric on papers and tests, the kind of stuff you pick up in conversation and such with other leftist douchebag students over beers and bong hits, the students get a passing grade. After all, the demand for such classes is not in their academic rigor but in their ease and subject matter itself is crap anyway.
The students get 4, 5, 6, 10 years of extended childhood and partying, the profs and such get essentially welfare for minimal work. We get the shaft.
“I liked the jump from “feels unsafe” to “are unsafe.” Perception defines reality.”
This is a hallmark feature of marxist/leninist/stalinist justice. While it may appear to most of us that the word “justice” in “social justice warrior” is comically ironic, it is actually used with consistent precision when viewed from a leftist context.
“Shut it down,” she hashtags, seated proudly on a pile of non sequitur.
She’d do exactly the same thing if the student was white and male, right?
*crickets*
The minute one of our women of colour students feels unsafe
There’ll always be one of ’em. Then all of the babykin sisterhood have blanket approval to join the wailing chorus. (It must be awfully hard to keep thinking up reasons to be affronted — a full-time activity to the exclusion of all else, I suspect.)
She’d do exactly the same thing if the student was white and male, right?
*crickets*
Ah, but we must hold the brown ones to lower standards on account of their inherent mental and emotional fragility. In the name of fighting racism.
In other news, more proof that Chicano-Latino Studies attracts only the finest minds.
…what do you suppose is going to happen when,
Take a goddamn flamethrower to these places and everyone in them.
“seizing control of the language”
Some might say that this is part of a social engineering plan.
“What?! What does that have to do with sneaking into a computer?”
Avast, ye scurvy wenches you’ll not take Blackbeard the Pirate’s hoop.
At some point, one hopes that an executive branch with some sort of interest in free speech might make a point of restricting federal assistance to institutions that are so determined to suppress it. For instance, by possibly denying student loan guarantees to those who attend them.
[ Eyes clock, pours glass of red. ]
Glad you opted for red wine instead of milk.
http://www.daily49er.com/opinion/2017/03/13/milk-new-symbol-of-hate/
The minute one of our women of colour students feels unsafe on campus ALL of our students of colour and faculty of colour are unsafe. #STOPBullying #TitleIX #ShutItDown #StopHate.”
#ItsNotHate #ItsNotBullying #DontMakeShitUp #YouSoundHysterical
#DontMakeShitUp #YouSoundHysterical
Heh. Somebody shake her by the elbows.
Why am I not surprised to read this…
In addition to being regularly active in anti-establishment and anti-Trump protests in the Los Angeles area, Portillo has published blog posts on such topics as the “Queer Contingent and the Politics of Inclusion” for the Huffington Post.
On the other hand, via Blazing Cat Fur:
https://heatst.com/culture-wars/scholars-infect-white-men-with-the-virus-of-feminism/
Cheers
You people don’t understand. Pointing out that liberal SJWs are ridiculous causes them to look ridiculous. That is hateful, slanderous, and bigoted.
And, of course, nobody tell this “professor” that she has confused slander with libel. Not, clearly, that she knows what either word means to begin with.
There’s the alt-right.
And the ctrl-left.
Sounds legit.
by possibly denying student loan guarantees to those who attend them
That’s one of the reasons this boondoggle won’t get fixed until it flat-out collapses: Those doling out the loans appreciate the strings that are attached to the money, and they LURVES them some string-pulling.
If the people who can change the situation are also the people who are benefiting from the current situation, it won’t actually get changed.
Just as an aside: I finished reading Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. (Yes, for the first time. Look, I majored in Spanish—I’m exempt from condemnation for the gaps in my well-readedness.)
Twain was extremely pessimistic about social change. He wrote ACYIKAC in 1889, well after the Civil War and just as the Industrial Revolution was gaining steam (so to speak), so you’d think he’d be more optimistic. He illustrates how deeply the concepts of fealty to nobility and Church are entrenched in people’s minds, to the point that his nifty little technological improvements such as printing presses and telephones and electric lights and wages and human rights don’t stand a chance against the Urge To Revert To Form.
It was also depressing to read the section wherein the Yankee tries to explain to the people in one kingdom that their higher wages don’t actually make them richer than the people in a distant kingdom who get lower wages, because their higher cost of living alters the buying power of their wages. I can well imagine that Twain had that very discussion multiple times in his own lifetime, and he got the same results: beef-headed incomprehension.
It was also nice to read a novel by someone who genuinely believes in Good Old American Values and being a self-made man. He held deep compassion for the oppressed slaves and peasants and did not hesitate to show the brutality of the Arthurian age (assuming it actually existed).
Recommended. Also, some of it’s pretty funny.
The Resort@Pitzer!!! They built new dorms on campus and put a pool in the middle of them like at a resort. The architecture is nicer than most resorts too. My dog likes pooping on their campus.
Bringing the critical theory nutcases to the US from Germany in the 1930s and the French postmodern “philosophers” in the 1970s has really worked wonders for American society and education hasn’t it?
These days, if you apply for a professional level job your employer runs a credit check on you. Good luck with that if you haven’t paid your student loans.
[/i]{/I}(/i). …. that’s all I got….
“These days, if you apply for a professional level job your employer runs a credit check on you. Good luck with that if you haven’t paid your student loans.”
And SJW’s are applying for those kind of jobs? These rules and such that you have such faith in, they only apply to people who live by rules. The inability to pay those loans is becoming a reason for snowflakes not to pay the loans. Sure, engineers, doctors, etc. will get stuck. Lib Arts, SJW and such, not so much.
This post is an attempt to push back the Italicans’ onslaught. Probably makes me a racist.
Take a goddamn flamethrower to these places and everyone in them.
If we advertise a fake Milo Yiannopoulos appearance, the SJWs will do it themselves!
If we advertise a fake Milo Yiannopoulos appearance. . .
Oh. That could be Interesting . . . . .
Oh, and:
“Milo supporters will be wearing ski masks and masquerading as SJWs. This cannot stand!”
This post is an attempt to push back the Italicans’ onslaught.
I’ve fixed the avalanche of italics. And I think we all know who was responsible.
[ Room falls silent. Everyone turns and stares. ]
They built new dorms on campus and put a pool in the middle of them like at a resort.
As noted previously, this is where Dr Portillo wants us to believe that “all… students of colour and faculty of colour are unsafe,” due to the fact that someone was quoted accurately, and where Ms Martinez and Ms Aguilera claim to be oppressed by other people’s earrings:
Why, it’s almost as if these people were narcissists and had no self-awareness.
Completely off-topic, but sad news: Chuck Berry has died.
Good night sweet prince.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLMK9-Ns-TY
this is where Dr Portillo wants us to believe that “all… students of colour and faculty of colour are unsafe,” due to the fact that someone was quoted accurately, and where Ms Martinez and Ms Aguilera claim to be oppressed by other people’s earrings
When you put it like that… 🙂
When you put it like that… 🙂
And yet it’s not an unfair summary. Anything else is either bad faith or vanity, veering into hysteria.
Just what you want for that $60,000 annual tuition.
In other news …
Oh … my … God.
For a moment, I was completely baffled – what possible umbrage could she take from that model of a bi-plane?
Then I saw her explanation.
And then I saw who her employer is:
Consumer affairs reporter for @BuzzFeedNews. Fres-YES. Pet mama. Tell me all your scam and shady biz stories leticia.miranda@buzzfeed.com
I think it says more about the calibre of staff at Buzzed than it does about graduates of Chicano-Latina studies (but hey, po-TAY-to, po-TAR-to).
I was born in the 70s, my parents in the 40s and my grandparents in the teens/20s meaning that World War I and World War II weren’t just things that happened in history classes – they were a very real part of my family’s lived experience.
As a North American woman in her 20s that would forgive her ignorance – it does not – as someone who gets to write ‘journalist’ on her resume and as a reporter into consumer affairs – forgive her gullibility, her lack of caution, and the total absence of the kind of fact-checking that ought to be second nature to someone in her profession. (And given that such facts are literally accessible at her finger-tips, it makes this an inexcusable act of incompetence).
Is it any wonder people have such little faith in journalism these days?
Oh … my … God.
It is rather symbolic of the wider malaise. In that tens of thousands of students, supposed intellectuals, are being encouraged to detect grievance, or to hallucinate grievance, on the slightest pretext, and if this grievance should almost invariably be a result of their own eye-widening ignorance – whether it’s of the provenance of big hooped earrings or defining events of the 20th century – that ignorance doesn’t seem to matter, or prompt any reflection, or in any way impede further gasps of outrage and censorious scolding.
I think you have to wonder just how pathological an environment is when such dramas and spluttering aren’t rare aberrations, but routine events, and reflect a mindset around which entire departments have been built.
Why, it’s almost as if these people were narcissists and had no self-awareness.
Hey, those poolside lounge chairs can be downright dangerous when your hands are full with a Pina colada and your iPhone and they’re not opened properly. It’s no day at the beach for our young Pitzer friends. Danger lurks everywhere.
This post is an attempt to push back the Italicans’ onslaught.
Curious…this appears to have been fixed previously by some of us in the Peanut Gallary and yet the solution eludes me. Less-than-backslash-I-greater-than hasn’t worked for me nor the other thrashes I tried above. Is there a solution those of us in the great unwashed territory can apply?
and yet the solution eludes me.
I suggest making use of the ‘preview’ button immediately to the right of ‘post’. It saves an awful lot of faffing.
Oh, yes. I try to remember to do so, but it seems a couple weeks or months ago one of us was able to fix someone else’s screw up and thus might be able to fix our own in some manner without bothering The Boss.
a couple weeks or months ago one of us was able to fix someone else’s screw up
And a happy day that was.
For reasons that escape me, it seems to depend, at least sometimes, on whereabouts in a comment the error is, whether it’s at the end of the comment or earlier. And sometimes someone will use the wrong, i.e., square, brackets. So sometimes a second comment starting with a correct close-italics tag may work, other times not.
Either way, I’ve ordered a new and much firmer chastising broom.
…this is where Dr Portillo wants us to believe that “all… students of colour and faculty of colour are unsafe,”…
In fairness, though, there doesn’t seem to be a ‘swim-up’ bar. Reminds one of Passchendaele, it does.
there doesn’t seem to be a ‘swim-up’ bar.
See? That’s exactly the kind of hardship that forces students to fund their Spring Break trips to Cabo with student loan money.
. . . Less-than-backslash-I-greater-than . . .
Err, possibly as the emphasis, “Less-than-backslash-i-greater-than” . . . not I, which is a different character and thus not recognized.
I try to remember to do so, but it seems a couple weeks or months ago one of us was able to fix someone else’s screw up and thus might be able to fix our own in some manner without bothering The Boss.
Right. One comment, leading to the next comment, where the actual text of the second comment starts with “Less-than-backslash-i-greater-than” and thus shuts off the italics from the previous comment.
Angry Studies. Just say no.
What’s a desi-Kenyan when it’s at home?
I ended up here somehow.
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It’s nice to know they are looking out for our safety. Stupidity is a micro-aggression (okay, an endless series thereof) too.
“and yet the solution eludes me”
Could this be a consideration?
such dramas and spluttering aren’t rare aberrations, but routine events
Have you seen this open letter from the McMaster’s University President’s Advisory Committee on Building an Inclusive Community (PACBIC) yet?
[T]he concept of freedom of speech has most often been mobilized to protect specifically counter-hegemonic ideas, ideas that actually challenge, rather than reiterate, the status quo. Freedom of speech was also not conceived as a means to protect normative ideas from contestation by marginalized communities, but to protect those whose speech might actually contest normative or nationalist ideals from censure, punishment, or retaliation by state forces. There is nothing rebellious or revolutionary about insisting on the naturalness of the (now long debunked) gender binary or of what Dr. Peterson describes as the “biological fact” of sexual difference neatly categorizable as ‘male’ and ‘female’ (a “fact” subjected to intense critique, questioning and reconsideration by numerous scholars in the humanities, social sciences, and even the biological sciences for several decades now, which demonstrates the limited extent of Dr. Peterson’s knowledge on this subject, since he seems either entirely unaware of this body of literature or else unwilling to engage with the challenge it poses for his own arguments).
Can you credit the gall of it?
I know I can’t. I no longer believe that they think anyone is stupid enough to actually believe this mockery of an argument, this sham justification which permits them alone the right to say what they want, when and where they want, with absolute impunity, while simultaneously demanding that others be forbidden that very same right.
If I had any patience left for this hateful nonsense, I would be embarrassed. The flimsiness of the veil they are trying to cover their obscene grasping at power with is rank with dishonesty.
They are fooling no one with this (except perhaps some naive and idealistic students who sincerely think they are doing the right thing). But while no one is fooled, there are more than a few who are intimidated into silence by them out of fear – a silence which they are choosing to interpret as tacit agreement (but in their heart of hearts they must surely know that this is capitulation, not assent).
Peterson’s highly appropriate response.
except perhaps some naive and idealistic students who sincerely think they are doing the right thing
You give them more credit than I would. Judged by their actions, they are not good people.
Judged by their actions, they are not good people.
No, not good people at all. Sociopaths and psychopaths looking for any excuse to dominate and abuse others. The vile Maoist “Red Guards” were also “students”.
Can you credit the gall of it?
Oh, it’s an awful lot of preening for a short letter. But what else did you expect? It’s who they are.
It’s also worth noting how the McMaster administrators, the ones who trumpet their imagined moral and intellectual superiority, carefully avoid addressing anything remotely approaching Peterson’s actual position on the subject, which isn’t about transgender people per se, but about abusing the force of the state.
Such is their mental heft.
…carefully avoid addressing anything remotely approaching Peterson’s actual position on the subject
— “insisting on the naturalness of the (now long debunked) gender binary…”
“Debunked”? By whom???
— “a “fact” subjected to intense critique, questioning and reconsideration by numerous scholars in the humanities, social sciences…”
Oh, the intensely rigorous “humanities and social sciences”. In other words, less than nothing substantial.
— “and even the biological sciences for several decades now”
[ citation please ]
this sham justification which permits them alone the right to say what they want, when and where they want, with absolute impunity, while simultaneously demanding that others be forbidden that very same right.
Exactly right, Nik.
First world cargo cults, well funded.
Better in the real world. One must learn to the proper phrasing and material handling to create market demand for cheap knockoffs.
And so it goes.
neal,
A classic Iowahawk tweet that never gets old:
https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/761642049254793216
Why for all they tell us how strong and brave these people are they are always so amazingly weak and fragile that even the slightest of slights are enough to destroy their precious psyches?
Let’s all try not to crash the front of the queue. I’m sending a handful of McDonald’s coupons and a voucher for ten percent off a front-end alignment.
R. Sherman,
I agree with one of the commenters: someone needs her diaper changed.
Let’s all try not to crash the front of the queue.
Apparently, mocking the standard of Ms Damasio’s “socio-political discourse” threatens her very existence, albeit in some unspecified way. And if she blocks you or insults you or ignores you, you should be paying for that too. On account of her melanin levels. Because she’s a “femme of colour creative,” and so you owe her just for being.
Again, I wonder which came first – the politics or the personality?
I unapologetically demand that men & white womxn pay me because they consume intellectual, emotional & creative labor 24/7 w/o my consent.
Ms Damasio’s pettishness and near-pathological self-absorption must be a considerable drain on the forebearance and good will of every one who encounters her. So that probably cancels out that debt.
Off topic I know but I just wanted to share…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbuluDBHpfQ
I just wanted to share…
I’m pretty sure I’ve been to that club.
This blog’s down-the-rabbit-hole quotes and links are broadening my education in ways I never imagined! Today, I learned:
femme
A (traditionally) feminine woman. Mainly used to refer to a feminine lesbian, and especially a feminine lesbian who is attracted to masculine, or butch lesbians.
desi
Derived from Sanskrit. Means “one from our country”. Usually refers to people from India, Pakistan, & Bangladesh. For Indians/Pakistanis/Bengalis abroad, it mainly identifies a fellow Indian/Pakistani/Bengali.
Alas, I don’t foresee much use of this new-found enlightenment in real life (i.e. sane) conversations.
I’m pretty sure I’ve been to that club.
I’m pretty sure I’ve been thrown out of that club.
Again, I wonder which came first – the politics or the personality?
Or did her pregnant mother have a crack habit, loath as I am to suggest an excuse for her behaviour?
I’m pretty sure I’ve been to that club.
And I’m quite certain you made a blog post about it. {o_O}
Clang-clang-clang! Clang-clang-clang!
I just wanted to share…
I’m pretty sure I’ve been to that club.
Clive James, Postcard From Paris, starting at 14:50 and going to 17:14 . . .
Alas, I don’t foresee much use of this new-found enlightenment in real life (i.e. sane) conversations.
I live near the part of the Greater Toronto Area that’s been aggressively colonized by immigrants from the Middle East and South Asia (and my girlfriend is an Uzbek who is ethnically Bengali, Arabic and a bit of Chinese).
I find it interesting that despite the massive religious and political conflicts in their countries of origins, here in the GTA they tend to socialize with each other and self-segregate, seeing themselves as a homogeneous group within the larger Canadian culture.
They don’t use the word “desi”, however. That seems to be reserved for white hipsters and the few Westernized young SJW Indian women. The older generation refers to others in their enclave by their specific country of origin; in a shocking display of racism, the younger generations just refer to each other as “brown”.
< /i >
In other news, Stephen Merchant wouldn’t have been my first (or fifth or…) choice to play Caliban, but he does a fine job in Logan.