Social Justice

Tales From The Safe Space, Part 5 – Return Of The Sombrero Scandals

Samuel Hooper7 Comments

Sombreros - Cultural Appropriation

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The selective outrage at supposed acts of “cultural appropriation” on university campuses takes proactive offence-seeking to a dismal new level

There is no article of clothing more likely to make a British or American university administrator break out in a cold sweat today than the sight of a sombrero on campus. Because as we all know, wearing a sombrero when not of Mexican origin is a hateful and violent act of cultural oppression, second only to donning the white robe and prancing around a burning cross.

In the UK, sombreros caused a stir last year when the University of East Anglia took it upon itself to ban and confiscate hats handed out to students by an off-campus Mexican themed restaurant. Possessed of an oversensitive racism detector which seems to jerk violently from “OK, I suppose” to “Hitler! Hitler!”, the UEA felt that the sight of non-Mexicans wearing sombreros was “discriminatory” and “stereotypical”, thus justifying their tyrannical dress code.

One might think that sombreros would at least be acceptable at a tequila party, but this too is now quite intolerable for the New Age Censors, as several unfortunate students at Bowdoin College, Maine, recently discovered to their cost.

The Washington Post reports:

Two weeks ago, some students threw a birthday party for a friend. The email invitation read: “the theme is tequila, so do with that what you may. We’re not saying it’s a fiesta, but we’re also not not saying that :).” The invitation — sent by a student of Colombian descent, which may or may not be relevant here — advertised games, music, cups and “other things that are conducive to a fun night.”

Those “other things” included the miniature sombreros, several inches in diameter. And when photos of attendees wearing those mini-sombreros showed up on social media, students and administrators went ballistic.

College administrators sent multiple schoolwide emails notifying the students about an “investigation” into a possible “act of ethnic stereotyping.”

Partygoers ultimately were reprimanded or placed on “social probation,” and the hosts have been kicked out of their dorm, according to friends.

Consider just how fascistic and totalitarian the concept of “social probation” is. And yet this is apparently a routine form of punishment at Bowdoin College, meted out to anybody who transgresses the strict, often post-hoc lines which are drawn to mark out unacceptable speech and behaviour for fully grown adults.

(The college immediately clammed up and refused to answer journalists’ questions in the aftermath of sombrero-gate, so precisely what is involved in “social probation” is not fully clear – but one can reasonably assume that it involves attending the same kind of Identity Politics re-education classes that have sprung up elsewhere. The student handbook makes reference to restrictions on “off-campus study” and the infantilisation of students by informing their parents of any misdeeds).

The Bowdoin Student Government (the student union) released a portentous declaration following the terrible sombrero incident, announcing:

WHEREAS, the Assembly reaffirms its adherence to a definition of cultural appropriation as a power dynamic in which members of a dominant culture take elements from a culture of people who have been systemically oppressed by that dominant group, perpetuates racist stereotypes, and/or misrepresents people’s culture;

WHEREAS, on Friday, February 20th, 2016 members of the student body organized a “tequila party”, during which students appropriated aspects of Mexican culture;

WHEREAS, this act of cultural appropriation is offensive for the previously stated reasons, is disrespectful, creates an environment where students of color, particularly Latino, and especially Mexican, students feel unsafe, and contradicts our goal to refine the education of students in an inclusive residential community;

[etc. etc. – you get the idea]

The statement then goes on to make the predictable list of “recommendations” (underscored by implicit threat of interminable protests in the event of non-capitulation) which we have come to expect, namely:

Recommend, that the administration should more immediately acknowledge incidents of this nature, and it must acknowledge not only their occurrence but also the deep hurt that students may be feeling immediately following such acts.

Further Recommend, 

That the administration must make clear to students, well in advance, their commitment to creating a supportive space for students who have been or feel targeted, for as long as students deem necessary.

Further Recommend,

That the administration must create a space for those students who have been or feel specifically targeted.

Further Recommend,

That the administration must create a separate space open to other students for discussion, support, and processing of the incident.

In other words, it was not enough that their well-trained lapdog university administrators immediately rushed to highlight and condemn the incident, and mete out “social probation” punishments on fully grown adults for engaging in harmless activity at a social event. This is now the bare minimum. What the university should have done additionally is to explicitly acknowledge the deep, searing, life-altering injury sustained by students who felt that their culture was being mocked, belittled and somehow appropriated and marginalised at the same time.

But this pales in comparison to Bowdoin College’s failure to provide multiple safe spaces following the traumatic event – one for students who were (or who felt) “targeted” by the wearing of mini sombreros, and another for students who weren’t affected in the least, but who still might want a well-appointed room with board games and puppy dog videos so that they can have a good, validating cry about the whole thing.

Two safe spaces – the Hierarchy of Oppression works a bit like airline lounges, with one reserved for first class passengers and one for business class and those who purchase day passes. Very important.

And of course:

Further Recommend,

That the Office of Academic Affairs mandate an academic or experience in the classroom for those involved in such incidents.

Further Recommend,

That the College develop processes for punitive measures to be undertaken against those involved in such incidents.

Further Recommend,

That the College remain cognizant of the time and academics of students of color following such incidents and take appropriate measures to ensure their academic, mental, and social wellbeing.

There’s the punishment bit. Of course it is not enough for those whose delicate psyches were injured by encountering something with which they disagreed to be comforted and fawned over in their imaginary distress. No, those who transgress in thought, word and deed must suffer the consequences – in the case of Bowdoin College, an “experience in the classroom” would seem to hint at a form of public shaming ceremony.

And finally we have the cautionary shot across the bows of the college, warning administrators that students should not have their vital social activism curtailed by onerous academic demands, and that the university is on the hook for their “mental and social wellbeing”.

Once upon a time – if the legends are true – people went to college to learn, and not simply to exchange one set of parents back at home for another set of overbearing auxiliary parents in the form of ever-watchful university administrators. And yet increasingly, universities are devoting more time catering to their students pastoral needs than their academic rigours, either reactively (after being bullied and bossed around by student mobs) or proactively (by professors and administrators too craven to stand up to said mobs).

Giving in to these petty campus tyrants only encourages them to come back with even more absurd demands. So if student activists are absolutely insistent that university authorities tend to them as though they were children, then colleges should begin administering tough love and discipline as well as obsequious hand-holding.

There may be a time and a place where people need to be monitored to ensure compliance with a dress code, and placed in detention (or “social probation”) for bad behaviour. But it’s called middle school, not college or university.

And any students who have genuinely failed to master Human Interaction 101 – and still require an external authority figure to mediate their interpersonal affairs by the time they reach the age of eighteen – should seriously stop and consider whether they are cut out for higher education.

 

Safe Space Notice - 2

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Top Image: The Tab – “Sombreros banned from Freshers’ Fair“

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Tales From The Safe Space, Part 3 – Pittsburgh Succumbs To Milo Fever

Samuel Hooper2 Comments

Milo Yiannopoulos - University of Pittsburgh - Free Speech - Safe Space - Identity Politics

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Don’t blame conservatives or free speech advocates for endangering student mental health; blame the modern cult of Identity Politics

Latest to fall victim to the scourge of Milo Fever is the University of Pittsburgh, where a scheduled talk by the touring Milo Yiannopoulos brought some adult student protesters to the point of tears.

The university’s own Pitt News reports:

Pitt police officer Scott DuBrosky said he and the other officers working at the event escorted about 17 people — most of them students — from the event for protesting, but that no protesters gave the Pitt police any problems.

He said Pitt police anticipated the highly tense atmosphere at the event and agreed with Pitt administrators before the event to remove those who disrupted Yiannopoulos’ speech.

Pitt police did not remove about 15 students who silently held signs saying, “My friend who was raped needs a safe space,” and, “My friend who is depressed needs a safe space,” throughout the entire event.

Some students left on their own accord — a few of them sobbing.

While the Daily Caller reports on the aftermath of Yiannopoulos’s speech:

But in the aftermath of Yiannopoulos’ visit, many liberal students found themselves struggling to come to terms with an event they deemed “unsafe” and even “violent.” Hundreds of students attended a meeting of Pitt’s student government to express their distress that the event was allowed to go forward in the first place.

“I felt I was in danger, and I felt so many people in that room were in danger,” student Marcus Robinson said of the non-violent event. “This event erased the great things we’ve done … For the first time, I’m disappointed to be at Pitt.”

Robinson faulted school officials for not providing a room next door staffed with counselors that could provide emotional support for students “traumatized” or “invalidated” by Yiannopoulos’ speech.

Many students argued Yiannopoulos had engaged in “hate speech” and therefore should never have been allowed a public platform in the first place. One even said that despite the lack of any physical attacks, the event was still “real violence” against liberal students.

“This is more than hurt feelings, this is about real violence,” said student Claire Matway. “We know that the violence against marginalized groups happens every day in this country. That so many people walked out of that [event] feeling in literal physical danger is not all right.”

There is so much ridiculous in here to unpack, not least:

1. The fact that any student – and recall, these are grown adults with the right to vote and take up arms in defence of their country – should feel in “literal physical danger” as a result of opinions expressed by a guest speaker who at no point advocated or incited discrimination, let alone violence.

2. The fact that a speaker who expresses ideas which go against the prevailing Social Justice orthodoxy can, with only their words, “erase” any of the tangible things which the students may have done in pursuit of their agenda.

3. The persistent, wheedling call for academic institutions to treat their students like an overbearing parent might treat a child, with the demand for a designated safe space room and trained counsellors on standby to treat the walking wounded – mown down in their seats by a hail of wordfire which contradicted or mocked their own values – much as one might have a field hospital behind the front lines in combat, or a Red Cross tent at a music festival.

4. The notion that anybody can be “invalidated” – essentially made to disappear in a puff of smoke, as though they never existed – by the words of another human being.

5. The hysterical and frankly insulting conflation of “violence against marginalized groups [which] happens every day in this country” with the fact that a group of privileged students chose to attend an event at which they heard ideas and opinions contrary to their own. And the supremely self-regarding notion that having one’s views challenged places one on the same spectrum of suffering and injustice as (say) Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown.

There is a real problem – manifesting mostly on American college campuses but creeping inexorably across the Atlantic to infect British universities, too – of young and impressionable students drinking so deeply from the well of Identity Politics and Social Justice that they are in genuine danger of doing themselves real, self-inflicted mental and emotional damage.

I’ve been reading and researching these phenomena for many months now, and I no longer doubt that in their minds, many of these students genuinely believe that by hearing a contrary opinion or a less-than-affirming remark about their life choices, they are incurring real, physical and mental harm.

(Though it is also plainly apparent that many of the more wily students know this Identity Politics scam and “mental safety” trope to be complete hogwash, but nonetheless embrace it as a means of exercising power over their peers and supposed academic supervisors).

But I’ll now readily concede that for many of these infantilised students who are reduced to tears by a voluntarily-attended, non-violent talk by Milo Yiannopolous, they have indeed incurred a trauma of some kind. Though it may seen completely absurd and hysterical to a normal person, to them it is profoundly real. I will accept that much. We only differ as to the cause of this sudden mass vulnerability, and the proper remedy.

They say ban speakers like Milo Yiannopolous and prohibit the things that they say from being spoken aloud on campus, essentially elevating certain people and ideas above debate and criticism. I say that they need to stop doing the thing which is making them – grown adults! – so vulnerable to speech and writing which contradicts their dogma in the first place.

And what makes them so vulnerable is the incessant and obligatory dividing up of student bodies by race and gender and sexuality, and forcibly separating this group of equal students into an artificial hierarchy of privilege and oppression which exists more in their minds than their lived experience on campus. What makes them vulnerable is the false notion that the social justice causes for which they campaign in wider society are anywhere near as prevalent or serious within their cloistered college campuses, when this is manifestly not true.

Take the example of the students of Silliman College at Yale University who were apparently seriously considering transferring away from one of the best universities in the world because they felt that their college Master was not treating them sufficiently like an overbearing parent by dictating which Halloween costumes were permissible for them to wear and which should be banned for being offensive.

As Conor Friedersdorf noted at The Atlantic, these students were blessed to be studying not only at one of the world’s premier academic institutions, but within surroundings of almost unparalleled luxury – including two Steinway grand pianos, a film editing lab and an art gallery for student use – which are utterly unimaginable for millions of people for whom the chance to study at even the lowest-rated and most ramshackle of higher education institutions is nothing but a distant dream.

That’s not to say that instances of racism, sexism, rape and assault do not take place on college campuses, and that it is terrible when they do. But today’s student activists have lost all sense of perspective. For many of them, hearing any narrative which differs in any way from the progressive Identity Politics interpretation of the world in which they marinate is now just as bad as being the victim of a physical or mental assault.

And we should no longer doubt them at their word. Anybody who is able to work themselves into a tearful tizzy at the sight and sound of Milo Yiannopoulos, perceiving themselves to be in “literal physical danger” at his presence on their university campus, clearly is acutely mentally vulnerable in some way.

But this vulnerability is utterly self-inflicted, and is entirely a consequence of the victim having delved so deep into the cult of Identity Politics now peddled on campus, and Tumblr-style Social Justice culture beyond, that any sense of perspective or capacity for rational thought is completely destroyed.

And for their own sake and ours, these fragile people need to leave their places of academic instruction and return home to their parents, because frankly, they are starting to create a very unproductive – if not yet unsafe – space indeed for those students who went to university naively expecting that they would be attending a place of learning and intellectual debate.

 

Safe Space Notice - 2

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Top Image: The Pitt News – “Conservatism and controversy: Milo Yiannopoulos speaks at Pitt“

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OscarsSoWhite: The Self-Flagellating, Social Justice Academy Awards

Samuel Hooper1 Comment

Chris Rock - Oscars Monologue - OscarsSoWhite

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Chris Rock’s opening monologue was brilliant – but bombarding Oscars viewers with four hours of social justice preaching was too much, and served the messengers far more than the causes they promoted

At the opening of Chris Rock’s excellent hosting of the 88th Academy Awards in Hollywood, the comedian made a joke which sets some very important and much-needed context for the #OscarsSoWhite and social justice-obsessed debate leading up to the star-studded ceremony.

From the New York Times transcript of Chris Rock’s remarks:

It’s the 88th Academy Awards. It’s the 88th Academy Awards, which means this whole no black nominees thing has happened at least 71 other times. O.K.?

You gotta figure that it happened in the 50s, in the 60s — you know, in the 60s, one of those years Sidney didn’t put out a movie. I’m sure there were no black nominees some of those years. Say ‘62 or ‘63, and black people did not protest.

Why? Because we had real things to protest at the time, you know? We had real things to protest; you know, we’re too busy being raped and lynched to care about who won best cinematographer.

You know, when your grandmother’s swinging from a tree, it’s really hard to care about best documentary foreign short.

It is great to see Chris Rock – incidentally, one of the many high profile comedians who now refuse to perform on American college campuses because of the stultifying and censorious climate created by Social Justice Warrior (SJW) activists – making this point, which frequently gets lost in our climate of perpetual outrage.

(Though sadly, because everything and everyone is “problematic” these days – and because Social Justice Warriors ruin everything – the bien pensant criticism of Rock’s monologue is already gathering steam).

Is it perhaps unfortunate that there were no black nominees among the various acting categories? Maybe so – although it was hardly statistically unlikely, given the fact that African Americans make up just thirteen per cent of the US population. But the mere fact that we are now arguing about whether black actors (Hispanics and other minorities seemed to do quite well in terms of winning awards) are being systematically excluded from the ultimate expression of Hollywood elitism shows in itself just how far we have come.

This is not to negate the very real discrimination against black people which still exists, particularly in the criminal justice system and law enforcement – notably several high profile killings of unarmed black suspects by the police. This blog covered the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Missouri and I offered my own sympathetic perspective from having spent many months and years visiting the St. Louis area.

But one has to go back only a few short decades to encounter a time when the threat to “black bodies” (a strange term which is increasingly fetishised in the media – particularly through use by writers such as Ta-Nehisi Coates, whom I greatly admire even when we disagree) was far more universal, and not primarily the concern of black teenagers murdered while committing a minor misdemeanor, or black actors shunned by the movie industry.

What became increasingly concerning as the Oscars wore on, though, was the fact that Chris Rock’s excellent, light-hearted but pointed acknowledgement of the controversy and the shortcomings of Hollywood, was only the first salvo in a barrage of social justice virtue-signalling and white guilt self-flagellation which ultimately consumed the entire ceremony. Every segment between awards seemed to have to involve conspicuous references to the #OscarsSoWhite drama, which became grating and unnecessary after awhile.

Some people were quick to sanctimoniously declare that this was deserved:

https://twitter.com/gmgannon/status/699455425633243137

Because not only does every occasion now have to be a teaching moment for the social justice agenda, the point must be laboured again and again. Not because it does anything to actually improve the availability of good roles for black actors in Hollywood, but because each presenter who touched on the theme was then able to imbue themselves with the same “I’m part of the solution, not the problem aura”.

This reached a heady climax when Vice President Joe Biden made a surprise appearance on stage to introduce Lady Gaga and plug his campaign against sexual assaults at college. While every decent person should be able to get behind the idea that nobody should be raped while studying at university, or indeed at any other time, this was then followed by the pernicious idea that “It’s on us” (i.e. perfectly innocent members of the public) to prevent rape.

The organisation promoted by Vice President Biden, ItsOnUs.org, asks us to take the following actions in our own lives:

To RECOGNIZE that non-consensual sex is sexual assault.

To IDENTIFY situations in which sexual assault may occur.

To INTERVENE in situations where consent has not or cannot be given.

To CREATE an environment in which sexual assault is unacceptable and survivors are supported.

The first pledge seems perfectly reasonable. But the remainder seek to transform us into perpetually vigilant informants and secret police agents, scanning crowds and charging to intervene in situations where we are uncertain that consent has been given, even when we lack critical context.

The idea that the average person will ever have the opportunity to “intervene in situations where consent has not or cannot be given” is particularly ludicrous – but these days, one can quite easily imagine squads of purse-lipped student “consent educators” roaming popular nightspots and breathalysing couples leaving bars and clubs to ensure that sexual relations do not follow the consumption of beer (heaven forfend).

But scroll to the end of the ItsOnUs website and you’ll see the only possible tangible outcome of the campaign – the ability to superimpose the organisation’s logo on to your social media profile picture, thus allowing those who take the pledge to ostentatiously parade their “I, too, am not a rapist” credentials before their equally vapid friends.

It's On Us - Rape Culture - Sexual Consent - Oscars - Joe Biden

The idea that college campus rape can be prevented by mandatory sexual consent workshops, “raising awareness” or taking online pledges in a blaze of self-promotion is utterly ludicrous. Nobody who has been raised since childhood to disrespect women or act in a sexually entitled and bullying way is going to be reformed or turned away from committing rape by being lectured by an earnest Social Justice Warrior. The revolution which must happen is in our homes, our morals and our family life, and will not be accomplished through lectures from the stage of the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

But words are very much the SJW tool of choice, and the extent to which language is being weaponised in furtherance of a certain narrow agenda again became much clear later in the Oscars ceremony.

The BBC reported:

And oh, were there causes! A whole smorgasboard of enlightened liberal issues, as if everyone thought they had to live up to the tone of noble chastisement set by the diversity issue. Lady Gaga, seated at a starkly lit white piano, sang ’Til It Happens to You, the song she wrote for the campus-rape documentary The Hunting Ground, and though it’s a lugubrious number, her goggle-eyed manner seemed like an attack on the audience.

The movement for transgender rights was propped up by several mentions of the forward-thinking phrase “gender confirmation surgery”.

This, of course, is in relation to the film “The Danish Girl”, the biographical portrayal of the life of Lili Elbe, one of the first recipients of sex change surgery, who transitioned from male to female.

Eddie Redmayne’s Oscar nominated performance was by all accounts outstanding, and the issues raised about the prejudice, discrimination and abuse suffered by many transgender people are real and worthy of serious discussion. But this cannot come at the expense of our language and our shared perception of reality, and unfortunately the attempt to shoe-horn the new phrase “gender confirmation surgery” (as opposed to gender reassignment surgery) into the Oscars ceremony does just that.

You may recall attempts in the more conservative, right-wing media over the past decade to re-name suicide bombings as “homicide bombings”. This seemed to stem from the feeling that to focus on the suicide of the perpetrator gave undue prominence to the terrorist and detracted from the victims, which was of particular concern to conservative news outlets covering terrorist attacks against Israel and the West.

Unfortunately, the phrase “homicide bombings” also sows confusion, obfuscates reporting and makes it much harder for people to understand what has taken place. All bombings (or all successful ones, anyway) are homicide bombings by definition, since their purpose is to kill people. But not all bombings also involve the deliberate suicide of the perpetrator in the explosion. This is a characteristic unique to suicide bombing, and is what makes it distinct from, say, the IRA’s bombing of the 1984 Conservative Party conference in Brighton, England, where the bomber set the explosive device a month prior to the attack and was well out of harm’s way when it took place.

Regular bombing versus suicide bombing – an important distinction in terms of terrorist tactics is mirrored and emphasised by a difference in language. In the case of suicide bombing, the language rightly calls our attention to the unique aspect of that style of attack. Calling it “homicide bombing” makes such attacks indistinguishable from any other terrorist attack, and actively decreases our understanding. Some conservatives believe that this mangling of language is nonetheless desirable in order to express our particular disapproval of suicide bombing. Most sensible people would scoff at such a fatuous and superficial idea.

And this is exactly what we saw take place on stage at the Oscars last night. Not a suicide bombing, thank God. But an attempt to forcibly change the language we use, stripping away the most descriptive part of a commonly used phrase like “gender reassignment surgery” by substituting the word “confirming” instead, in order to bestow our further approval on the act.

Prevailing sentiment dictates – quite probably correctly – that transgender people are born into the wrong bodies, and that surgery which physically changes their genitalia and appearance is therefore merely correcting a mismatch between physical reality and mentally experienced reality. But now, it is no longer politically correct to talk about somebody changing their gender through means of surgery, because that sounds too drastic. Now we must say that the surgery merely “confirms” their existing, mentally experienced gender. Surgically removing a penis and creating an artificial vagina can no longer be described truthfully as a medically significant and life-changing physical alteration, but merely a “confirmation” of someone’s inner being.

Regardless of one’s thoughts about transgender issues, there should be no disputing that forcibly mutilating our shared language just to signal our approval or disapproval of an act – at the expense of clear meaning – is not merely an act of wishful thinking, trying to conjure a new reality by stating it loudly enough, but is also a bleakly totalitarian way to approach the issue. And yet this, too, was preached to us during the Oscars ceremony.

All in all, it was quite an evening.

White privilege-shaming in nearly every segment. Sexual consent shaming from no lessa figure than the Vice President. All capped off with a deliberate attempt to wrest control of the English language, bending it away from reality and toward to the will of the Social Justice Warriors and their remarkably intolerant form of tolerance.

And this is just Hollywood – that bastion of progressive opinion – talking to itself, preaching fervently to the choir.

If this is what they are prepared to inflict on themselves, God only knows what forms of indoctrination, shaming and corrective punishment lie in store for the rest of us.

 

OscarsSoWhite - Academy Awards - Social Justice - Virtue Signalling - 2

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