For a moment, the pond thought that Dame Slap was going to bang on about the left yet again, and all would be well ... another day on Planet Janet, or if you will, in school up above the Faraway Tree getting another lesson from Dame Slap ...
It might be muddled up with a lecture about how free speech was vitally important ...which would make this nearby reptile splash laden with irony ...
Yes, free speech is vitally important, but please don't talk about the mad uncle up in the attic tweeting away madly in the midnight hours ...
So bizarrely the pond felt the need to press on, even though Dame Slap - an irrational hysteric entirely without reason (unless you think it reasonable to think climate science is a prelude to world government) should mourn the day that reason absented itself ...
Now the pond has no dog in this fight. It turns out it isn't about the left, it's about race in America and that, as Br'er Rabbit was wont to observe, can lead to all sorts of tricky situations, not least whether one should ever mention Br'er rabbit, or run comical pictures of the Donald ...
There are all sorts of accounts of what went on at Evergreen - Michael Zimmerman wrote his version at HuffPost here, and at the NY Times here and many other places beside - and as the pond thinks anyone who imagined Bernie Saunders was the solution doesn't have a clue about the American question, rather than re-hash arguments which are deeply American, the pond thought it interesting to note that the Bolter immediately leapt on Dame Slap's post ...
Well no, it's a potent mix of race and politics and notions of free speech, and usually the Bolter is exceptionally keen to introduce race into any subject ...
Of course in the Bolter's world, Australians are keen to be Aboriginal because everything's hunky dory if you're black - it's all upside being black and that's why everybody wants to get on board ...
He's so convinced of this that it sometimes distracts him from his noble work as one of the world's leading climate scientists ...
Aah, the pond has been there before ...
(and many more here).
Apparently it never occurs to a dedicated racist like the Bolter that being black, rather like being gay, was once so problematic that no-one wanted to identify, no one wanted to acknowledge any connection to their identity/culture/call it what you will ...
Never mind, it's back to Dame Slap ...
Now as already noted the pond has no dog in this fight, in much the same way that it sighs with relief each day that the Donald isn't the pond's president.
But before we get on to the last Dame Slap gobbet, some might want to read the NY Times, These Campus Inquisitions Must Stop, and A Campus Argument Goes Viral and The Media Brought the Alt-Right to My Campus ...
Weinstein chose to speak to the likes of Tucker Carlson and Fox and other conservative media outlets - perhaps to help calm the situation and not inflame tensions - Fox being well known as a tranquility machine - but the pond wouldn't want the impression to get out that the NY Times didn't look at the story ...
Twenty years ago this didn't happen?
Well it's true Joe McCarthy was at his height in the 1950s, but presumably Dame Slap meant to stay that Joe McCarthy didn't happen. Or the Japanese weren't interned in the second world war ... or slavery didn't happen, or the KKK didn't happen, or the witch trials of Salem didn't happen, even though she mentions witches ...
Or even that Donald Trump didn't happen, though he did, and the amount of persecution of supporters of socialist communist Islamic Kenyan presidents, and rampaging feral right wing witch hunts of the Fox kind are startling to see ...
The fallout from that coverage hit our campus like a hailstorm. It may not have been his intention, but Mr. Weinstein’s many interviews effectively became a call to arms for internet trolls and the alt-right. Online vigilantes from 4chan, Reddit and other forums swarmed to unearth Evergreen students’ contact information. They have harassed us with hundreds of phone calls, anonymous texts and terrifyingly specific threats of violence that show they know where we live and work. After I published an essay on Medium to explain the protesters’ side of the story, my full name, phone number and home address were posted online, and I was bombarded with hate-filled messages. I found my name and personal information on message boards, along with rape threats and discussions about which racial slur fit me best (the consensus was the N-word). It took three days to get my personal information taken down, and for others it took longer. In the past few weeks, the school has been shut down four times because of threats, including one from an anonymous caller who said, “I’m on my way to Evergreen University now with a .44 Magnum. I am gonna execute as many people on that campus as I can get a hold of.”
The pond apologises of course. Dame Slap has every side of the argument covered, and the debate, and nothing more need be said, or even questioned, or the sources of the dispute discussed:
This year, the organizers decided to hold workshops for white people off-campus instead — a reversal of the original concept. The intention was to put the focus on students of color, and highlight their contributions within the Evergreen space. The off-campus event was optional, and students who wanted to participate had to enroll: The workshops could hold only 200 people. Evergreen has about 4,000 students. There was no way the whole school could have been forced to participate. Yet Mr. Weinstein declared that this event structure was “an act of oppression” against white people. (here, as before).
Thankfully, the pond has no dog in that fight, but as soon as Dame Slap becomes involved, and it turned into a matter of black and white, the pond realised that shades of grey would have been wilfully obscured ...
That's the way it goes in the Donald's bitterly divided country, and that's the way it goes up the Faraway Tree, with the Bolter on Dame Janet's planet ...
But at least mentioning the Donald means the pond doesn't have to do a big pivot to note that Rowe has picked up on one recent Twitter storm which erupted in the usual way thanks to the Donald, celebrated in Huff Post here, as well as by Rowe, with more Rowe here ...
The fallout from that coverage hit our campus like a hailstorm. It may not have been his intention, but Mr. Weinstein’s many interviews effectively became a call to arms for internet trolls and the alt-right. Online vigilantes from 4chan, Reddit and other forums swarmed to unearth Evergreen students’ contact information. They have harassed us with hundreds of phone calls, anonymous texts and terrifyingly specific threats of violence that show they know where we live and work. After I published an essay on Medium to explain the protesters’ side of the story, my full name, phone number and home address were posted online, and I was bombarded with hate-filled messages. I found my name and personal information on message boards, along with rape threats and discussions about which racial slur fit me best (the consensus was the N-word). It took three days to get my personal information taken down, and for others it took longer. In the past few weeks, the school has been shut down four times because of threats, including one from an anonymous caller who said, “I’m on my way to Evergreen University now with a .44 Magnum. I am gonna execute as many people on that campus as I can get a hold of.”
The pond apologises of course. Dame Slap has every side of the argument covered, and the debate, and nothing more need be said, or even questioned, or the sources of the dispute discussed:
This year, the organizers decided to hold workshops for white people off-campus instead — a reversal of the original concept. The intention was to put the focus on students of color, and highlight their contributions within the Evergreen space. The off-campus event was optional, and students who wanted to participate had to enroll: The workshops could hold only 200 people. Evergreen has about 4,000 students. There was no way the whole school could have been forced to participate. Yet Mr. Weinstein declared that this event structure was “an act of oppression” against white people. (here, as before).
Thankfully, the pond has no dog in that fight, but as soon as Dame Slap becomes involved, and it turned into a matter of black and white, the pond realised that shades of grey would have been wilfully obscured ...
That's the way it goes in the Donald's bitterly divided country, and that's the way it goes up the Faraway Tree, with the Bolter on Dame Janet's planet ...
But at least mentioning the Donald means the pond doesn't have to do a big pivot to note that Rowe has picked up on one recent Twitter storm which erupted in the usual way thanks to the Donald, celebrated in Huff Post here, as well as by Rowe, with more Rowe here ...
I read this effort by Dame Slap with much puzzlement: just who amongst the Lizard-press readers - apart from our merry little band of dedicated students of aberrant psychology - does she imagine would have any interest whatsoever in Weinstein and Evergreen State College ?
ReplyDeleteBut then Weinstein did retail his tales of woe to Lizard-Press central (aka Faux Noise), so I suppose our Slap had no alternative but to repeat it here - run it up the flagpole to see who salutes.
But did anybody salute ?
The left devours its own?
ReplyDeleteThe alt-right is all about free speech...just ask Milos Yiannopoulus.