This past week, racial tensions at the University of
Missouri have reached an all-time high with protests by the football team and
student leader Jonathan Butler forcing President Tim Wolfe and Chancellor
R. Bowen Loftin to resign. African American students have dealt with inaction
by the school leaders when dealing with racism on the mostly white campus.
The protests have been followed by
threats on Yik Yak, declaring “I am going to stand my ground tomorrow and shoot
every black person I see.” 19-year-old Hunter Park from Lake St. Louis has been
arrested in relation to the threats.
However, protests have continued in
full force, dividing the campus further. Controversy has expanded from racism
to issues of free speech and free press. Protesters berated student
photographer Tim Tai yelling “Go, go, go” as he tried to document the protests.
Assistant professor Melissa Click, one of the many protesters, called for
“muscle” to remove him from the protest site. Tai tried to fight back, stating,
“The First Amendment protects your right to be here — and mine.”
In Nicholas Kristof's recent column, he connects the constitutional question at Missouri with the recent events
at Yale. In response to students of color speaking out about marginalization on
campus, the university sent out an email encouraging all students to “take the
time to consider their costumes and the impact it may have," including
costumes such as "feathered headdresses, turbans, wearing 'war paint' or
modifying skin tone or wearing blackface or redface." A faculty member,
Erika Christakis, spoke out against the email saying that her husband made a
good point that “If you don't like a costume someone is wearing, look away, or
tell them you are offended. Talk to each other. Free speech and the ability to
tolerate offense are the hallmarks of a free and open society." Students
then angrily confronted Christakis’ husband Nicholas for not creating an
equally “safe space” for all types of students.
These recent events tied to
institutional racism further prove that it is impossible to turn a blind eye to
the racial tension in American society. Our constitutional rights to free
speech, free press, and the right to assemble pose an interesting problem when
dealing with the opposing sides.
What are your thoughts on the recent
events at Mizzou and Yale? What do you think will happen next? How do these
events relate to free speech and free press? How do we protect those rights for
both sides?
Sources:
12 comments:
The recent events at Mizzou and Yale should be upsetting and surprising to the average American. The problem is that these events are not surprising, mainly due to the frequency of events like these and the almost relaxed nature that we here about them now. I was not surprised to hear about another issue of racism on a college campus after the plethora of hazing incidents and prejudiced that we've heard about in the past year or so. And that's part of the main issue. Universities can just lay low for a while until the media finds a new story to latch onto, and these Universities can go back to the same policies at before. Yale, at the moment, has unveiled one tactic to help with racial tensions on campus. They have allocated fifty million dollars in the next five years to increase diversity in its faculty. This is through recruiting and training of minority faculty. But this begs the questions, will this change anything? Will a more diverse staff pool actually cause the predominantly white students to become less prejudice? Only time will tell, but by then, the media will be far away from Yale University.
http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/11/10/455452623/our-favorite-word-diversity-is-under-the-microscope-at-mizzou-and-yale
I believe something has to be done about this situation. Black students lives are being threatened. Are we supposed to just wait until these threats become real and someone gets hurt? Just because there is "no evidence of anything related to the KKK on campus" and "there is no immediate threat to campus" if nothing is done now, the situation will only escalate. I understand we have the right to freedom of speech, but it is about to be 2016. How much longer are we going to use that as an excuse to protect racism? I don't think there is any easy way of protecting both sides rights. In order for our nation to be peaceful and accepting of all people, there needs to be a change.
I find the events at Yale and Mizzou to be pretty different situations. At Missouri, there were students actually being harassed with racial epithets on campus. This, in addition to the swastika, drawn affectionately on a dorm wall with a material to remain unspecified in this comment, are just the latest chapters in a prominent history of racism in the state of Missouri. I'm also open to the possibility that the swastika was drawn by a very heavily inebriated and/or very immature student, and that it is not wholly indicative of a pervading culture of racism at the university (the other incidents, of course, are clearly that). What is happening at Yale is far less disturbing. Erika Christakis' email, while very long-winded, drew out some good points. You can't expect people to not offend you in life. You can't expect people to not wear black-face to your Halloween party. That's sad. I'm certainly not defending that sort of behavior (it's inexcusable) but people are going to do it. That's reality. If we are truly committed to the freedom of speech in the country, and we should be, we can't prohibit people from being racially insensitive and even racist. We can assert that it offends us. We can tell those participating that it makes us uncomfortable, that we find it racist, insensitive, etc., but we cannot deny these individuals their rights. By marginalizing those with dissenting opinions, such as Mrs. Christakis and her husband (who was encircled by student protesters on campus and met personal attacks with an attempt at discussion) protesters on these campuses are effectively saying that their opinions are the only valid ones, and that individuals like Mr. and Mrs. Christakis do not have, or do not deserve, those rights. This is a disturbing and skewed mentality that has no place on campuses like Yale that are supposed to be bastions of intellectual debate.
I think that although many of these institutions have turned a blind eye to systematic marginalization, there is also some nasty stuff going on within the protests, most notably the denial of freedom of speech that they are calling for. I fully stand by their decision to protest appointed officials not fulfilling their duties, and I believe the change they instigated will be positive to MU. However, the press need to be allowed to document the protests without harassment or threatening. Cat, I don't think anyone is making excuses to protect racism, because I believe the majority of Americans are not racist. I think that the catch with freedom of speech is that a lot of people are going to spew garbage we don't want to, or shouldn't have to hear. Do I want racism to be promoted or voiced? Absolutely not. But once we start defining what people can and can't say, it sets a dangerous precedent. There needs to be institutional, widespread reform, but we can't have every college campus up in arms against their faculty over what has, or hasn't been said.
Hearing about the racism taking place at Mizzou and Yale, has been a true head-scratcher to me in terms of the amount of racism that still exists today. It's very surprising to me mainly because these are the kids from our generation. In the year 2015, incidents like the one occurring at Mizzou should not be an issue anymore. This situation sounds like what was happening back in the Civil Rights movement. Especially, the remarks made by a student on Yik Yak saying “I am going to stand my ground tomorrow and shoot every black person I see.” That is pure hate, and it's unsettling to think such racism still exists today. In response to the incident that occurred at Yale, I couldn't agree more with @rubytuesdays stance on the issue. Halloween is a holiday in which you can dress up as anything you want, some people definitely cross the boundary as to what is appropriate to wear as a costume and what is totally crossing the line. Unfortunately, there's not much anyone can do to stop someone from wearing a racist looking costume. So, if there is a person wearing an offensive costume the best solution would either be to try and ignore it, and if it's overly offensive say something or tell an RA of some sort. As for the last question, I don't see this incident really changing anything regarding freedom of speech/press. It's somewhat of your typical situation where the press are all over the scene, and that has always been the case really.
It's hard to imagine how occurrences such as this even happen in a 21st-Century American society; I don't understand why this should even be an issue. The most important action taking place here is the exercise of some of the basic rights that make us all American; the only thing we have in common is rules by which we abide - The Constitution. In this case, the use of protest, specifically by Mizzou's football team shows effective use of their 1st Amendment rights such as free speech and the right to peacefully assemble. Even though Trump may 'blast' some of the senior staff members that have resigned at Mizzou to be 'weak', the fact of the matter is that they did and that situations like this will arise again if something is not done. At this point the only solution I see is to educate the population on tolerance. It may seem simplistic and ineffective but there is no other way to do it. To give those who are receiving poor treatment extra accommodations would ultimately be unfair, but to treat them as not-equal is equally unfair as well. In addition to this, it's time for the American people to stop blaming the bureaucracy allowing such occurrences and take matters into their own hands. With this however, Without a comprehensive understanding of one another's feelings (as cheesy at it may sound) things like what happened at Mizzou will continue to happen. Exercise those 1st Amendment rights.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/11/mizzous-interim-president-will-address-racism.html
http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/12/politics/university-of-missouri-2016-candidates-react/
I also agree with RubyTuesday on this issue, as it is absolutely unrealistic to expect that you can go through life without being offended. There are stupid people in the world that find racially offensive slurs and costumes to be funny, and no one can expect to be protected from them. Even if colleges were to prohibit these kinds of behaviors, how would students react upon entering the adult world and realizing that everything was not as utopian as it was on their university campus? I d not believe that this is a matter of "freedom of speech" or the circulation of ideas; going out in blackface is not a form of intellectual expression. Rather, the issue with trying to ban these offensive statements is a matter of "where would the line be set for offensive behavior, and how arbitrary would this all be?" It is impossible for students to be protected against everything that offends them, and if colleges make too much of an effort to do so, they are setting a poor precedent for the future- Students will say, "well, if they have a right to not be offended, then so do I." Thus, as unfortunate as it sounds, one cannot be protected from everything that insults them. Though it is a terrible thing when people treat a racially offensive costume or slur as a joke, it is not possible to stop them. As a wise man by the name of Forrest Gump once said, "Stupid is as stupid does," and there's nothing we can do to change that. In a free speech democracy, everyone is entitled to their opinions and their thoughts, and regardless of how offense they may be, little can be done to curb them. That being said, threats are a very different story, as there is obviously a huge difference between being offended and fearing for your life.
After researching further into this issue I believe it is only the beginning of a new era of racial protest and in the end it will result in something greater than people protesting on their college campuses. I agree with King Pash that the students should continue to exercise their 1st amendment rights and not hold back because they have the upper hand right and now and all eyes are on them. In addition I feel that the Missouri protest which finally led to the resignation of President Tim Wolfe and Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin, is just the beginning and I think these protests unlike the ones caused by police brutality, will spread across almost all colleges in the U.S. Who knows, maybe someday it will even make it to the streets of towns. According to the article the racial incidents have been occurring for many years know and that they are just know being brought to the light of the public eye and ear. Their was one incident in particular that caught my eye. When a former wide receiver at the university of Missouri was asked if he encountered any racism while attending the school he pointed to a 2010 incident when white students scattered cotton balls outside the Black Culture Center. He didn't have anything harsh to say about Wolfe after his resignation. However he did in fact the sense that he took "a lackadaisical approach to get things fixed. ... I think just turned a blind eye to it." In conclusion I feel that these protests are only going to grow and spread across the country until some major changes are made. But until then this will not go away and you will be hearing about it for years to come.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/10/us/missouri-football-players-protest-presidents-resigns/
I have to agree with rubytuesday here and the rest of the bloggers on this post who have all done a great job of expressing their opinions on this highly sensitive and important issue. To me the worst part about these events is that I am not surprised in the slightest. Society has come to a point where racism and racial protest seems to be an everyday norm, and it's unacceptable. Unfortunately I believe these kinds of incidents are inevitable and it is sadly just the world we live in. I don't see any amount of legislation or protests really making a difference here and I will explain why. To quote Morgan Freeman "The only way to stop rascism is to the stop talking about it". This quote is something I will always go back to when talking about this topic because I truly believe that racism is a problem deeply rooted within people and is not something that can just be extracted and healed. The only cure for racism is to let time do its work and allow each new generation to slowly move farther away from looking at people by race, but looking at people as people in general.
I'd like to respond to the conversation that was started by @RubyTuesday about the issue of free speech at Yale. I have read a lot of articles about the subject, and I am especially interested because I met Erika and Nicholas Christakis just weeks before the incident. To me, the most unacceptable thing about the way that the student protesters reacted was the demanding that the Christakis family step down as Masters of Silliman College. Though it may sound harsh, demanding punishment and institutional action against speech you don't agree with is one of the hallmarks of fascism. The reason we have a constitutional right to free speech is so we can speak our minds without fear of being punished. Of course people will say terrible things, but it is their right, just as the right to burn the American flag was protected by the Supreme Court.
In terms of race relations, while racism is certainly still an issue, it should be addressed as a wide societal problem, not a struggle unique to people of color that needs to be overcome. Often, this mentality can lead to racism against people based on their views. At Yale, when students later met to discuss this very issue of free speech, they were spat on as they left the building. One protester called an African-American meeting attendant a "traitor to his race." This is certainly not the kind of college environment that should be developing.
I have a lot of things to say about this subject. Firstly, I'd like to respectfully disagree with Brendan's comment that "You can't expect people to not wear black-face to your Halloween party." Not that he is wrong here- especially considering the freedom of expression argument which could be made- but because it is a terrible reality and black students SHOULD NOT have to worry about people wearing black-face to their parties. I also have to say that, at its core, the racism issue at Yale is in fact as serious at the one at Missouri because this is where it all begins. It starts with fraternities turning away black girls at parties, then it escalates to them being physically harmed and verbally abused on campus. It is essential that we do not let SAE get away with its racist traditions for another minute; we cannot afford to entertain the idea that this is just another case of "boys being boys". This is a case of white supremacists being white supremacists, and this cannot stand in the year 2015.
Of course, the incidents occurring at Missouri are even more out of hand. According to the Chancellor at Mizzou, "Racism exists at MU. I want to make it clear that we do not tolerate racism and prejudice on our campus." Unfortunately, racism does more than just "exist" at Mizzou. It thrives there; its fire is fed there.
In my opinion, the best thing we can do to combat racism at colleges and universities is by putting them on blast. Many schools aside from Yale and Missouri have taken up arms in resistance of racism and in solidarity with Mizzou: Claremont McKenna College, Amherst College, Northwestern University, Wesleyan University, and New York University, to name a few. I commend the students who have taken a stand against prejudice over the past couple weeks. I can only hope now that they will actually see the change they are so desperate for.
Source: http://chancellor.missouri.edu/news/racism-at-mizzou/
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/11/02/students-accuse-yale-sae-fraternity-brothers-of-having-a-white-girls-only-policy-at-their-party/
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