This Is Not What Strength Looks Like
[guest post by Dana]
Remember when Harvard (and Georgetown and Columbia) law students wanted to delay finals due to grand jury protests? Well, an editor on the Harvard Law Review responded:
Our request for exam extensions is not being made from a position of weakness, but rather from one of strength and critical awareness.
Although over the last few weeks many law students have experienced moments of total despair, minutes of inconsolable tears and hours of utter confusion, many of these same students have also spent days in action—days of protesting, of organizing meetings, of drafting emails and letters, and of starting conversations long overdue. We have been synthesizing decades of police interactions, dissecting problems centuries old, and exposing the hypocrisy of silence.
I have seen the psychological trauma brought on by disillusionment with our justice system send some law students into a period of depression. After all, every death of an unarmed youth at the hands of law enforcement is a tragedy. The hesitancy to recognize the validity of these psychic effects demonstrates that, in addition to conversations on race, gender and class, our nation is starving for a genuine discussion about mental health. But to reduce our calls for exam extensions to mere cries for help exhibits a failure to understand the powerful images of die-ins and the booming chants of protestors disrupting the continuation of business as usual in cities across the country.
Where some commentators see weakness or sensitivity, perhaps they should instead see strength—the strength to know when our cups of endurance have run over and when the time for patience has ended. Perhaps they should instead see courage—the courage to look our peers in the eyes and uncomfortably ask them to bear these burdens of racism and classism that we have together inherited from generations past. We have taken many exams before, but never have we done this. We are scared, but no longer will we be spectators to injustice.
–Dana
Hello.
Dana (8e74ce) — 12/16/2014 @ 7:45 pmDeluded, lying, or both. The NYC police or EMS services may have some answering to do,
but both incidents had to do with criminal resisting arrest, and in one instance assaulting a police officer,
but we all know that.
Years ago I suggested the making of a Duranty Award for dishonest journalism, and someone later did it (and without giving me credit, mind you…),
so, I now suggest this site propose a “Baghdad Bob” award, and the author of this is the first nominee.
It sounds mean, I don’t want it to be, but sometimes the truth is cruel, but allowing people to build their lives on lies is more cruel.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 12/16/2014 @ 8:05 pmReading that traumatized me, so I can not think of a comment that is not -ist in some way.
kishnevi (3719b7) — 12/16/2014 @ 8:07 pmEmo twatwaffle bibble babble.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/16/2014 @ 8:07 pmThe time is long overdue to recognize that an Ivy League degree is way overrated.
kishnevi (3719b7) — 12/16/2014 @ 8:09 pm4
kishnevi (a5d1b9) — 12/16/2014 @ 8:11 pmMore precisely
Emo twitwaffle piddle paddle babble.
KIshnevi,
Apologies. I should’ve put a trigger warning up.
Dana (8e74ce) — 12/16/2014 @ 8:15 pm“We have been synthesizing decades of police interactions, dissecting problems centuries old, and exposing the hypocrisy of silence.”
– Some jackass
Thank goodness. The Harvy Boys and the Case of the Centuries-Old Problem. We’re gonna be okay, everybody! Harvard is here!
Leviticus (9382da) — 12/16/2014 @ 8:17 pmDana, it’s okay. A dose of single malt and listening to Bach’s English Suites has restored me.
kishnevi (294553) — 12/16/2014 @ 8:20 pmHinderacker’s fisking of William Desmond’s poignant letter over at Powerline is a thing of beauty.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/12/law-student-digs-the-hole-deeper.phpthe d
elissa (fb037f) — 12/16/2014 @ 8:20 pm“We have been synthesizing decades of police interactions, dissecting problems centuries old, and exposing the hypocrisy of silence.”
How did that work out? Solve any of those centuries old problems yet?
He should have been focusing on his course work so he would have been ready for exams instead.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/16/2014 @ 8:25 pmAfter reading that garbage I can’t breathe.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/16/2014 @ 8:26 pmDaley, try the medicine I used. Although the music need not be Bach.
kishnevi (a5d1b9) — 12/16/2014 @ 8:30 pmElissa, what that student wrote fisks itself.
Good Allah. That person is a Harvard Law School student, and editor of Law Review? WT effin F
JD (86a5eb) — 12/16/2014 @ 8:36 pmI have seen the psychological trauma brought on by disillusionment with our justice system send some law students into a period of depression. How on earth are these delicate flowers going to survive life?
Dana (8e74ce) — 12/16/2014 @ 8:40 pmI must be way off base–living in a different universe. The recent incidences where I experienced “moments of total despair, minutes of inconsolable tears and hours of utter confusion” involve the Christmas light strings not staying lit, one of the cats horking in the center of the Turkish carpet, and getting baaaad Mapquest directions to a holiday party.
elissa (fb037f) — 12/16/2014 @ 8:41 pmNo guarantee but this might could be him. It explains a lot.
https://www.linkedin.com/pub/william-desmond/36/117/222
elissa (fb037f) — 12/16/2014 @ 8:48 pmIt’s a miracle you can even talk about it, Elissa.
Dana (8e74ce) — 12/16/2014 @ 8:52 pmAnd yet I persevere, Dana.
elissa (fb037f) — 12/16/2014 @ 9:01 pmI don’t think that word “strength” means what he thinks it means.
seeRpea (01f6d3) — 12/16/2014 @ 9:09 pmThat’s easy. By demanding a nanny state that will pad their cells, confiscate all sharp objects, strictly enforce nap times, and put child safety locks on all the cupboards. Petition the nanny state to include regular diaper changes as one of the essential services that Obamacare must cover.
Strength through infantilization! It takes maturity to recognize you’ll never grow up into a functioning adult.
I guess.
Steve57 (600c9e) — 12/16/2014 @ 9:25 pmIs he serious? Is this a Swiftian trolling of the idiots? (Like A Modest Proposal)
The Orwellian Newspeak is too much for my ancient brain. Scotch, bed, and dreams, sounds good.
htom (9b625a) — 12/16/2014 @ 9:39 pmJD (86a5eb) — 12/16/2014 @ 8:36 pm
Isn’t this the sort of thing lawyers do?
Sammy Finkelman (8bd44f) — 12/17/2014 @ 3:43 amNo
JD (86a5eb) — 12/17/2014 @ 3:50 amIt’s obviously satire, as elissa suggested. This is a Harvard Law Review editor. He is having a good laugh at those on the left who don’t get that he’s mocking them, and those on the right who went to some cow college like Yale or Stanford or, the pitiful provincials, UPenn, and are also taking it seriously.
nk (dbc370) — 12/17/2014 @ 5:52 amnk, everybody thought this had to be satire, too.
http://www.thehoya.com/i-was-mugged-and-i-understand-why/
No, these people are serious. They actually think this way.
Steve57 (b0b04b) — 12/17/2014 @ 6:01 ammoments of total despair, minutes of inconsolable tears and hours of utter confusion
???
Either way, it’s LOL funny.
nk (dbc370) — 12/17/2014 @ 6:06 amIf Michael Brown had a brother he’d look (and think) just like William Desmond.
ropelight (fd015f) — 12/17/2014 @ 6:08 amis “emotionally stunted ivy league trash” redundant
happyfeet (a037ad) — 12/17/2014 @ 6:10 amEveryone who’s practiced more than a couple of days in any municipal court, recognizes that Ivy League law degrees are all about “who you know,” NOT what you know.
Many of the most mediocre lawyers hold Ivy degrees. Their schtick was getting into an Ivy through the grind of working on a high GPA and high test scores, relying on the old traditional Ivy method of looking at credentials versus actual merit.
Of course, radical feminism just introduced, accentuated and fanned the flames of emotionalism in these institutions—formerly of higher learning.
Earl T (f4747e) — 12/17/2014 @ 6:19 amAlso not satire:
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/11/25/ucla-grad-students-stage-sit-during-class-protest-what-they-see-racially-hostile
No, these people are serious. They actually think this way.
Steve57 (b0b04b) — 12/17/2014 @ 6:22 amActually, nk, I wish it were, but I’m definitely not suggesting it was satire. The linkedin profile I uh, linked above does not show us a well balanced boy. It lists his employment activity in government circles (DOJ Civil Rights Div. ) and his focused interest in racial and social justice themes (Urban League, government grant writer, investigator) . He’s preparing himself and bucking hard to take over from the Sharptons and Jesses I fear. All hail the new generation of agitators. He’s got the victimhood thing down pat in millennial language, entitlement, and angst.
elissa (ac3f37) — 12/17/2014 @ 6:23 amAlso not satire.
http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-oxy-political-class-20141130-story.html
“Coping well?” Yeah, that sobbing you hear is a sign of strength, not weakness, sez William Desmond.
nk, this isn’t satire. When William Desmond talks about experiencing “moments of total despair, minutes of inconsolable tears and hours of utter confusion” he’s describing the universal reaction of libtard college students when reality bursts into their cocoon.
Steve57 (b0b04b) — 12/17/2014 @ 6:35 amSo, what is social justice?
Michael Ejercito (45f52b) — 12/17/2014 @ 6:50 amMy law school experience included watching my beloved grandfather collapse of a mini-stroke in front of my eyes during Thanksgiving break; rushing to Florida no less than three times in a single semester to be with him when he was near death; losing my grandmother; losing my tutoring student to drowning; and getting a lump in my breast the size of the palm of my hand.
I never moved my finals. Yes, I did leave law school at one point to take a year to hang out in California and decompress, but I managed to take my damn finals.
Grief in law school is watching two teenagers you care about go through hell as they lost their friend of fourteen years. Despair is watching your grandfather spend five months out of nine months in the hospital. Fear is finding a lump in the same place a tumour had been excised seven years prior. Sorry, but “grand jury decision that some people don’t like” isn’t on that list, unless the decedent were a family member.
bridget (3886f0) — 12/17/2014 @ 7:02 amI’m collecting the name of these and other delicate snowflakes. In time I’ll build an online resource for hiring managers to access. The employability of these snowflakes will diminish. Poetic justice, no?
LTMG (21f078) — 12/17/2014 @ 7:29 amRevenge for imaginary offenses.
Steve57 (b0b04b) — 12/17/2014 @ 7:42 amAnd what arte these imaginary offenses?
Michael Ejercito (45f52b) — 12/17/2014 @ 7:44 amAnything said by, thought of, done by, written by, dreamt of or imagined to have been put forth by any member of the following: Caucasians, Christians, Jews, heterosexuals, capitalists, non-immigrants, people in business, men and as of a few weeks ago grand juries and police.
Hoagie (4dfb34) — 12/17/2014 @ 8:18 amYou all saw this, right?
http://twitchy.com/2014/12/16/professors-refusal-to-delay-final-due-to-significant-trauma-of-grand-jury-decisions-is-perfect/
Read the student’s letter. I thought #whitepeoplecondescension as I read it. Also #selfservingnonsense.
I keep wondering what Martin Luther King Jr. would have thought? Or Gandhi?
Anyway, a bit of humor, and a concern.
The student in question actually posted her exchange with her professor on Facebook, with a “CAUTION: TRIGGER WARNING” notice. Jeeeeez. Narcissism is an interesting topic.
The Oberlin professor was a visiting adjunct. Such people are raw meat to administrators and students; I hope he doesn’t get damaged professionally because of his pretty straightforward response.
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 12/17/2014 @ 8:42 amGreetings:
Alternatively, I would just move those students to the top of the “Needing to Be Mugged Very Soon” list.
11B40 (6abb5c) — 12/17/2014 @ 9:00 amOK, you’ve convinced me, it wasn’t a satire (although those who survive to look back at it from 2114 may well think that it was.)
I’ve plugged this before, and I’ll plug it again: Robert Bly, The Sibling Society.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSJGnTWFGH4
The forces that have created a society of rival sibling adolecents and neither adults nor authority.
htom (9b625a) — 12/17/2014 @ 9:06 amI’m sorry, elissa. And you too, htom. It was htom who compared it to a Modest Proposal.
nk (dbc370) — 12/17/2014 @ 9:51 amWhat the heck is gross-sobbing and ugly-crying? I swear these people speak a different language and live in a parallel universe.
rochf (f3fbb0) — 12/17/2014 @ 9:59 amHere’re more elite college millennials addressing yet another of today’s current national problems:
http://campusreform.org/?ID=6151
The survey’s a joke. The responses,unfortunately are real.
elissa (ac3f37) — 12/17/2014 @ 11:08 am