Kinja reply list

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AcrobackDouglas Williams
11/24/15 12:15pm
I would love to think that this is the beginning of a sea change in student activism, but unfortunately it required two large pieces to converge: huge amounts of truly overt/oppressive racism, and a football team willing to act. I just don’t see those two events occurring across the country in a way that would spur larger college teams to act.

I DESPERATELY want to be wrong, btw.
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  ClimoNimoAcroback
  11/24/15 12:42pm
  What were the huge amount of racism?
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  AcrobackClimoNimo
  11/24/15 12:49pm
  “Meanwhile, the kind of racism that would lead a pickup truck full of white men to harass the president of the Missouri Students Association, Payton Head, by repeating calling him a nigger or a drunk person to hurl slurs at the LBC homecoming court seemed to go without a vigorous response from the university.”
  
  The link is from two months ago. This is recent history.
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Cam/ronDouglas Williams
11/24/15 12:19pm
Throughout the rest of the Americas—nay, the rest of the world—the spirit of revolt against a model of higher education that devalues the worth of working-class students and the overwhelming population of contingent labor that teaches them has been underway for quite some time.

What does “working-class student” mean these days?

Does it mean the student came from a non-affluent family? Does it mean the student’s parents did not have conventional middle-class jobs? Does it mean the student is enrolled in a vocational training program? Does it mean the student is studying for a job in the industrial, service, or agricultural sectors - jobs that have employees stay on their feet and not trap them in a cubicle? It’s such a broad term.
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  Demon!Cam/ron
  11/24/15 12:47pm
  I don’t see anywhere where these students are working for economic gains. It is a shame.
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  ZippyZippyZippyCam/ron
  11/24/15 1:42pm
  Working class, in the argot of the left, means anyone who works for someone - that is, people who are not corporate owners, the heirs of corporate owners, or similarly wealthy or imbedded in government. You and I are working class.
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Bonzo5000Douglas Williams
11/24/15 12:52pm
(muh free speech)

I understand and share the disappointment with what felt like a hijacked moment when CS1950’s victory was immediately followed by lengthy debate over free speech because of this confrontation. But I’m having a hard time understanding why, all these days later, I’m still seeing people involved in/sympathetic to the movement bringing this up in a way that suggests an indifference to the rights of people to talk, listen and film in public spaces. If you believe in principle that a citizen should be able to film the police in a public space without being threatened or assaulted, why is it such a joke when people use that same principle to criticize the intimidation and shoving of journalists?
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  ScalfinBonzo5000
  11/24/15 1:34pm
  I think what’s going on is that supporters of the protest don’t want to let the discussion move to the incredible dissonance of assualting an Asian student, likely a member of a smaller minority than the black protesters, under the stated mission of “creating a same space.” That would mean risking an admission that their use of “safe space” is just a liberal translation of lebesraum.
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  Bonzo5000Scalfin
  11/24/15 3:25pm
  I also suspected that much of the initial pushback came from a combination of not immediately understanding why this was wrong and an understandable reluctance to admit wrongdoing. But less than a day after this fracas on the quad, the student leaders of CS1950 were distributing flyers asking their supporters to welcome the press and allow them to move and work freely. The protester/press standoff seemed to end after that, but ever since, I keep hearing from people who I consider smart, thoughtful BLM allies who inexplicably dismiss the principle of free speech in this case, when they embrace it in cases of lawful protest and filming the police. As you said, it’s incredible dissonance, but it doesn’t seem to be affecting the student leaders who speak for CS1950. They get it. Why are some of their allies still throwing shade at CS1950’s position on this?
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ReburnsABurningReturnsDouglas Williams
11/24/15 12:13pm
I love how he links to the piece by simpering choad Jonathan Chait, and not Conor Frierdersdorf’s complete dismantling of the arguments of people who tried to shoot holes in his statements about the importance of universities protecting all free speech that isn’t illegal free speech.
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  EvanrudeJohnsonReburnsABurningReturns
  11/24/15 12:21pm
  simpering choad Jonathan Chait
  
  Best description of Little Jon Chait ever.
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CPC_YesDouglas Williams
11/24/15 12:10pm
I’m a huge admirer of your work, Douglas. Keep up the fight, especially with those on/of the Left.
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MizJenkinsDouglas Williams
11/24/15 12:21pm
This is one of the best “it’s about class not race” arguments I’ve ever read. Probably because it omits the “not race” part and instead includes it as part of the larger discussion about the class dynamic, because there is undoubtedly a great deal of overlap.

Everybody who wants to complain about the Mizzou students being “whiners” is clearly ignorant of the broader political context of these protests and more than probably just flat-out racist. Continuing to widen the wealth gap is only benefiting an infinitesimal segment of our society. And making access to education more burdensome benefits no one at all.

I am unfathomably proud of what these students have accomplished (as is Rep. John Lewis, so save the “REAL civil rights activists would be rolling in their graves bullshit). I agree it’s a promising peak at the future, especially when you consider the aggregate economic leverage of all the African-Americans in college and professional sports. I’ve been ready to that power harnessed for meaningful change.

And speaking of meaningful change - and of weak ass responses to campus racism at Mizzou - have we gotten any update on the punishment for the two fools who sent in death threats to Black students over Yik Yak? Have they been bodyslammed yet? Is there anything to suggest that the powers-that-be have learned anything from all this?

Or are we gonna have to get louder?
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  TROYMizJenkins
  11/24/15 12:43pm
  We gonna get louder up in here- #StayWoke.
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PithyTheElderDouglas Williams
11/24/15 12:12pm
From your linked document from #WeDemandUNC, as an apparent example of the demands providing material benefits for students:

“We DEMAND the University stop contracting with Aramark and all other corporate entities.” (emphasis added).

Stop entering into contracts with corporations. Reasonable indeed.
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EvenBaggierTrousersDouglas Williams
11/24/15 12:08pm
The first was that the subsidy would be taxable, which shifted the tax burden from a university that holds an endowment worth over $800 million and expenditures of nearly $600 million onto a graduate student population where nearly a quarter are living below the federal individual poverty line.

Hmph. And here I was thinking University of Phoenix was the for-profit school.

/s
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ArkDouglas Williams
11/24/15 2:08pm
Have we been watching the same protests? Bullying reporters for violating their “safe space” (that doesn’t belong to them) and forcing administrators out for no particular reason and no tangible gain is hardly a blueprint for future protests.

The Missouri protests weren’t even about the real issues in higher education that you’re talking about. They were about yelling at white people for not doing a good enough job of stopping other white people from being racist shitheads.
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TROYDouglas Williams
11/24/15 12:06pm
Going to class and getting an education is not the answer.
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