Patterico's Pontifications

11/13/2015

Developing Story: Attacks in Paris

Filed under: General — JVW @ 3:17 pm



[guest post by JVW]

At least three coordinated attacks in Paris this evening have led to 35 dead thus far and possibly 100 held hostage. There has been a shootout at a restaurant and an explosion at a bar. Fox News has a report here.

I have to step away from my laptop for probably the rest of the evening, so I invite JD, Dana, Patterico or whomever to update this post as more news is released.

– JVW

UPDATE BY PATTERICO: Well, the news as I am reading Allahpundit’s coverage at Hot Air is horrifying. The animals started executing people at the concert hall one by one and people were begging via texts for a police raid. I don’t want to quote developing reports about possible death tolls but the ones I am reading at Hot Air are absolutely horrible.

For what it’s worth, the U.S. claimed today that it had killed Jihadi John, the ISIS scumbag with the British accent seen wielding a knife in many decapitation videos. In a statement that was unfortunate on several levels, Obama said that ISIS has been “contained” but that their leadership has not been “decapitated.” Really?

Our prayers are with the people of Paris and France tonight.

The Claremont Independent Dissents [UPDATED]

Filed under: General — JVW @ 10:42 am



[guest post by JVW]

Our loyal Harvey Mudd alumnus commenter Kevin M has pointed us to an excellent editorial published today in The Claremont Independent, the campus newspaper conservative publication for the Claremont Colleges. It addresses the kerfuffle on campus over the last few days. Really, it is so excellent, so gratifying to see clear-thinking students with the ability to express themselves cogently, that I am going to append it in full:

The student protests that have swept through Claremont McKenna College (CMC) over the past few days—and the ensuing fallout—have made us disappointed in many of those involved.

First, former Dean Mary Spellman. We are sorry that your career had to end this way, as the email in contention was a clear case of good intentions being overlooked because of poor phrasing. However, we are disappointed in you as well. We are disappointed that you allowed a group of angry students to bully you into resignation. We are disappointed that you taught Claremont students that reacting with emotion and anger will force the administration to act. We are disappointed that when two students chose to go on a hunger strike until you resigned, you didn’t simply say, “so what?” If they want to starve themselves, that’s fine—you don’t owe them your job. We are disappointed that you and President Chodosh put up with students yelling and swearing at you for an hour. You could have made this a productive dialogue, but instead you humored the students and allowed them to get caught up in the furor.

Above all, we are disappointed that you and President Chodosh weren’t brave enough to come to the defense of a student who was told she was “derailing” because her opinions regarding racism didn’t align with those of the mob around her. Nor were you brave enough to point out that these protesters were perfectly happy to use this student to further their own agenda, but turned on her as soon as they realized she wasn’t supporting their narrative. These protesters were asking you to protect your students, but you didn’t even defend the one who needed to be protected right in front of you.

Second, President Chodosh. We were disappointed to see you idly stand by and watch students berate, curse at, and attack Dean Spellman for being a “racist.” For someone who preaches about “leadership” and “personal and social responsibility,” your actions are particularly disappointing. You let your colleague, someone who has been helping your administration for the past three years and the college for six years, be publicly mocked and humiliated. Why? Because you were afraid. You were afraid that students would also mock and humiliate you if you defended Dean Spellman, so you let her be thrown under the bus. You were so afraid that it only took you five minutes to flip-flop on their demand for a temporary “safe space” on campus. Your fear-driven action (or lack thereof) only further reinforced the fear among the student body to speak out against this movement. We needed your leadership more than ever this week, and you failed us miserably.

Third, ASCMC President Will Su. As the representative of CMC’s entire student body, we are disappointed in you for the manner in which you called for the resignation of junior class president Kris Brackmann and for so quickly caving in to the demands of a few students without consulting the student body as a whole. If you truly cared about representing all of CMC’s interests, you would have at the very least solicited opinions from outside of the movement and your Executive Board. You have shut down any room for debate among the student body with your full endorsement of this movement and its demands, failing to give concerned students an opportunity to speak. We are disappointed that you did not allow for any time for reflection before making your quick executive decisions to announce a student-wide endorsement of this movement and to grant these students a temporary “safe space” in the ASCMC offices.

To our fellow Claremont students, we are disappointed in you as well. We are ashamed of you for trying to end someone’s career over a poorly worded email. This is not a political statement––this is a person’s livelihood that you so carelessly sought to destroy. We are disappointed that you chose to scream and swear at your administrators. That is not how adults solve problems, and your behavior reflects poorly on all of us here in Claremont. This is not who we are and this is not how we conduct ourselves, but this is the image of us that has now reached the national stage.

We are disappointed in your demands. If you want to take a class in “ethnic, racial, and sexuality theory,” feel free to take one, but don’t force such an ideologically driven course on all CMC students. If the dearth of such courses at CMC bothers you, maybe you should have chosen a different school. If students chose to attend Caltech and then complained about the lack of literature classes, that’s on them. And though it wouldn’t hurt to have a more diverse faculty, the demand that CMC increase the number of minority faculty members either rests on the assumption that CMC has a history of discriminating against qualified professors of color, or, more realistically, it advocates for the hiring of less qualified faculty based simply on the fact that they belong to marginalized groups. A hiring practice of this sort would not benefit any CMC students, yourselves included.

We are disappointed in the fact that your movement has successfully managed to convince its members that anyone who dissents does so not for intelligent reasons, but due to moral failure or maliciousness. We are disappointed that you’ve used phrases like “silence is violence” to not only demonize those who oppose you, but all who are not actively supporting you. We are most disappointed, however, in the rhetoric surrounding “safe spaces.” College is the last place that should be a safe space. We come here to learn about views that differ from our own, and if we aren’t made to feel uncomfortable by these ideas, then perhaps we aren’t venturing far enough outside of our comfort zone. We would be doing ourselves a disservice to ignore viewpoints solely on the grounds that they may make us uncomfortable, and we would not be preparing ourselves to cope well with adversity in the future. Dealing with ideas that make us uncomfortable is an important part of growing as students and as people, and your ideas will inhibit opportunities for that growth.

We are adults, and we need to be mature enough to take ownership of and responsibility for our feelings, rather than demanding that those around us cater to our individual needs. The hypocrisy of advocating for “safe spaces” while creating an incredibly unsafe space for President Chodosh, former Dean Spellman, the student who was “derailing,” and the news media representatives who were verbally abused unfortunately seemed to soar over many of your heads.

Lastly, we are disappointed in students like ourselves, who were scared into silence. We are not racist for having different opinions. We are not immoral because we don’t buy the flawed rhetoric of a spiteful movement. We are not evil because we don’t want this movement to tear across our campuses completely unchecked.

We are no longer afraid to be voices of dissent.

Bravo to these students who will undoubtedly have bright futures ahead of them, free from the sick pathologies of the cry bullies of their generation.

[UPDATE: Commenter Eliot, another Claremont Colleges alum, points out that The Claremont Independent is not in fact the campus newspaper, but the conservative publication for the Claremont schools. I have altered the post accordingly.]

– JVW

Mind-Blowing Concept: Let’s Judge A Person By The Content Of Their Character

Filed under: General — Dana @ 6:24 am



[guest post by Dana]

Following up on JVW’s post about the latest news out of Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, comes this: an Asian student standing in the designated “safe space”, had the unmitigated gall to discuss the need to judge people by the content of their character and suggested that black people, like any other group of people, can be racist, too:

The woman told a story about how she was discriminated upon when she first came to the U.S. for her trouble speaking English. She recalled a moment a black man once told her to “go back to your home.” She said a “white lady” then checked on her to make sure she was OK.

“The point I’m making here is we should not distinguish people by their race or gender or anything. Black people can be racist!” the student said.

Almost immediately, a black female student confronts her and seemingly tries to stop her from talking as audible groans and murmurs are heard in the background.

“I just mean that we have to look at people individually,” the Asian student continues as the students turn against her.

Eventually another student takes the megaphone from the Asian student who leaves the “safe space” appearing a bit distraught.

–Dana


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