Re: <nettime> thedemands.org: list student protest demands (last updated 11.21.15)

[dan@geer.org]

David Mandl writes:
 | 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?

It's extortion.

And it works.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/brown-universitys-100-million-plan-to-be-more-inclusive/416886/

--dan


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