Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune (registration required) writes about the race scam at Northwestern University (some details here,here, and here). He amazingly thinks it was good thing.
And if provocateurs seeking to move the cause of tolerance and diversity to the top of the campus agenda are behind the vandalism, they too have been rewarded with what they crave--dramatic demonstrations of solidarity, a formal student-government reprimand of the university for failing to aggressively counter the incidents, the addition to the student handbook of a policy stressing mutual respect and a program for new-student week about the value of diversity.
Either way, "positive things are coming out of this," said [Hillel director] Mishkin. "It's galvanized students to think about how to be more proactive in their activities and their friendships to make sure all students on campus feel comfortable here."
For a crisis that's basically insignificant and built in part if not in whole on lies, that's not bad at all.
Where does he get this sunny optimism? Perhaps it comes from something he noted earlier in his column.
At a large anti-hate rally on campus last week, a student government vice president said the entire Northwestern community is "culpable" for the incidents, according to the Daily Northwestern. "It's our fault, it's all our faults," the newspaper quoted her as saying. "What are we doing, here at NU, to make someone feel comfortable about doing this?"
He does not say whether she withdrew the remark when it turned out to be based on a lie. But suppose her remarks were based on a real incident. On the basis of one person's actions, she accuses the entire campus of racism. This is pretty standard behavior in the race hustler business. And the consequences are ugly. Because if students are going to be declared racists regardless of what they do, there is really very little cost to being a racist.
This makes for a lousy university, and it makes for poor race relations. But it is a good situation for the race hustle business. Their jobs are secure so long as they can claim there are problems, even if they are the ones making them.
Posted by sjostrom on November 21, 2003 06:41 AM
Comments:
It is still a valid question. What are they doing a NU to make someone feel comfortable about filing a false police report?
Posted by: Bill Roule on November 21, 2003 04:07 PM [Permalink]
Making a strawman argument out the student's comment--that she called everybody a racist--is a lie on your own, but for that the entire conservative community is to blame. LOL
And that leads to a slippery slope argument that this improvement in community response towards honoring diversity and preventing similar REAL incidents. I don't see a down side to that, I'm sorry.
But the most repugnant offense I find in this post is that it's premised on this concept of "race hustling;" a the new bete noire (pun intended) for the Right to attack.
"Give a dog a bad name and hang it," goes the old saying for this kind of falasy. If there is a business, rackett, or anything else out there that seeks to exploit racism for venal reasons, I've yet to discover a real case.
But prove me wrong.
Posted by: James W Jordan on June 26, 2004 12:39 AM [Permalink]
