David Mandl on Mon, 23 Nov 2015 18:30:08 +0100 (CET) |
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Re: <nettime> thedemands.org: list student protest demands (last updated 11.21.15) |
Core issues aside (no reasonable person could oppose an anti-racism movement on campuses), I find the trend toward demanding public apologies--a "hand-written apology," no less!--kind of bizarre. There are plenty of reasonable ways to acknowledge and confront racial injustice, but this just seems like some kind of bloodlust and attempt at gratuitous public humiliation. It;s like being forced to write "I will not misbehave in class" ten thousand times, in a public square. I don't know anything about these particular deans and administrators, but how responsible are they personally for systemic racism that has taken shape over two hundred years? (Compare the culpability of someone like Dick Cheney and the Iraq war.) And how will a hand-written apology change that? Why not focus on demands for actual, substantive change and see how that goes before trying to shame these people for lulz? And I don't mean to suggest that it's only students demanding apologies. This seems to have become an accepted tactic in politics as well. But I guess I expect more from students. --Dave. > On Nov 23, 2015, at 12:49 AM, nettime's_occupant <nettime@kein.org> wrote: > > < http://www.thedemands.org/ > <...> -- Dave Mandl dmandl@panix.com davem@wfmu.org Web: http://dmandl.tumblr.com/ Twitter: @dmandl Instagram: dmandl # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org