http://web.archive.org/web/20060522101405/http://www.seattle...
Backstory is interesting, because the girl had bullied her in person at school. GF never identified the girl on Twitter only saying "Some bitch blah blah at school today". But because she mentioned the school name, the dean found out and now wants to talk to her.
There's apparently a policy against certain language at the schools which is enforced by the very highest people.
Fortunately shes defending her right to freedom of expression (as any lawyer-in-training would) and refusing to delete the tweet. But the thought of students having to censor themselves because they are now a member of a school (which they paid $50k+ to join) is scary.
Well, I guess by now we have to prosecute half of the YouTube and Twitter population. After all all those "first" posters are most certainly making a highly discriminatory remark against all those coming "second".
If the graffiti of Pompeii is any indication humans want to be short, crass and coarse and I am okay with that and I think that is something we should accept and embrace as a society and culture. We give too much power to words when in fact it is the listener who derives the negative experience not the speaker.
Quite a feat, I would say.
An institution gains disrepute through many actions over time. This particular action is very small, just as the response is. Hysterical responses as if she were sent the gallows denote a complete inability of so many to discuss a complex topic without instantly jerking to an extreme. But there is no extreme.
And the whole slippery slope thing is simply nonsense. The idea that you represent such institutions when you go out of your way to incant it has been true throughout history.
It's not absurd, or hysterical, to be concerned about people being interrogated for reasonable, completely normal forms of expression.
The slippery slope thing isn't nonsense. Society changes incrementally. Over longer timeframes continual incremental changes in a certain direction become recognizable trends.
How do they prove that a speech is hateful instead of merely being ordinarily contemptuous?
speech is not protected in Canada
Is that better?
Westboro is a hate group, by Canadian law. Their hateful protests are actionable.
We have a new crop of anti-bullying laws -- particularly focused on the online world -- because the speaker can't fallback on the notion that their speech is protected, because it isn't.
PC police will probably getcha for that, too.
Please cite the specific law that would make a single mention of an unnamed "bitch" criminal.
It's worth noting that speech is just speech. There's no objective definition for what constitutes hateful speech, nor should there be.
If there's someone on a street corner shouting that all black people should be killed, you're perfectly free to ignore him and his ideas. You could perhaps even tell him that he's being an idiot.
But someone else might be saying something worth listening to, even if it didn't happen to align with your current views.
I have no doubt you are aware of this.
You are probably also aware that on the issue of laws regulating "hate speech" in Canada, which have generally been upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada, these laws are by Province and Territory. Saskatchewan’s Human Rights Code defines it one way, Alberta has another, B.C. has another, and the Northwest Territories have another.
Lawyers in particular are expected to chose their words carefully and keep decorum. Perhaps it's a teachable moment.
"The Soviet Union is just like the United States. In the US, you can criticize the American President. In the USSR, you can also criticize the American President!"
Give it another year or three and we might get there (particularly if this Syria shit goes Obama's way...).
But in terms of actual criticism, Obama has way more. Everybody is upset with him on health care reform, just for different reasons. Everybody is upset with him on the economy, they just have different remedies in mind. Everybody is upset with him on Libya and Syria.
Someone has a short memory.
Um. This has basically been true throughout the entire history of law schools. The only significant difference is the amount they paid to get in.
When I worked for a tiny companay in the UK our two polish developers where absolutely shocked that our MD would take his turn in making the coffee/tea.
This is called "cultural bias"; it means that, should a student from another culture come into our schools, they should not feel wrong for being raised in an environment that doesn't promote individualism. Stuff like, "Don't be a sheep!" and, "You are your own person. Don't let anyone take that away from you!" can make them feel out of place and other'ed. Notice how the part you quoted says "as opposed to a more collective ideology." That means they want to get rid of pinning individualism against collectivism; they don't want to get rid of individualism.
I'm not sure what the rest of your comment means, though. Even if that specific phrase is a problem, the rest of the document is all great stuff.
That is very stupid.
Those aspects of society that overtly and covertly attribute value and normality to white people and Whiteness, and devalue, stereotype, and label people of color as “other”, different, less than, or render them invisible. Examples of these norms include defining white skin tones as nude or flesh colored, having a future time orientation, emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology, defining one form of English as standard, and identifying only Whites as great writers or composers.
Please also note that schools can hardly be idiologically neutral. That is not possible - they have to find a way to spproach how they depict individualism and collectivism no matter what.
To connect this in any way to the linked situation is downright absurd.
Is there somethig that I as a non-american don't get that makes this newspeak palatable? Have american racists historically been more individualistic or something?
EDIT: this comment from elnate nails it:
"They're conflating racism with enthnocentrism, the idea that one culture (usually yours) is better than others."
Not to my knowledge. As far as I can tell they are doing nothing more than using existing strong negative connotations of racism to slander an unrelated ideology. It doesn't make logical sense, but it doesn't have to; they are counting on the strong emotional response it evokes to be sufficiently persuasive.
Not a chance; I was born and raised in the US in the consolidation period of the Civil Rights struggle (came of political age in the '70s) and it's just as unpalatable to me.
What does that one even mean?
I am not going to pretend to be able to understand it, but this part seems to be the most lucid explaination:
"Just as monochronic and polychronic cultures have different time perspectives, understanding the time orientation of a culture is critical to becoming better able to successfully handle diplomatic situations. Americans, for instance have a future orientation. Hall indicates that for Americans “tomorrow is more important" and that they "are oriented almost entirely toward the future” (Cohen, 2004, p. 35). The future-focused orientation attributes to at least some of the concern that Americans have with “addressing immediate issues and moving on to new challenges” (Cohen, 2004, p. 35)."
So... maybe a "future time orientation" is a "What's done is done."/"Let's do better in the future." attitude? I am guessing that the connection between this and "racism" comes up when discussing reparations.
Here is what I think; the statement:
"saying 'future time orientation is superior' is racist"
"saying 'the ability to drink water from your cupped hands without
drowning yourself is normal' is racist"
In other words, you are implying that some appreciation of the value of planning is something that only some cultures possess. That is racist. Consider the possibility that you simply do not understand their goals, and are thus unable to perceive them.
> In other words, you are implying that some appreciation of the value of planning is something that only some cultures possess.
Actually, it is something only some cultures practice. (Not possess, just practice. Everyone can view time with a perspective in the future, but not all cultures default to that view.) It's just like how some cultures do not distinguish between green and blue colors (or how we do not distinguish between different types of snow.)
But no, you go ahead and claim the real racists are the ones examining racism. I'm sure that's not what people backed into a corner do or anything.
> Consider the possibility that you simply do not understand their goals, and are thus unable to perceive them.
The ability or willingness to inconvenience yourself at the present in order to achieve something in the future is really a very basic thing. Hence my comparison to the absurd "ability to drink water without drowning yourself". You are accusing them of having a ludicrously extreme shortcoming.
This is all nothing more than "mexicans are lazy, germans are great engineers" wrapped up in the trappings of academia.
Interestingly, in the history of our language, a quiver sometimes holds the ammunition for a crossbow, each of which is called a "quarrel."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarrel
Quote: "A quarrel or bolt is the term for the ammunition used in a crossbow."
Just thought you would want to know. :)
Students, parents, and others need to stand up and get in the faces of these immoral leftists.