Hacker News Reader

It's not like black people have been lynched well within living memory or continue to be blatantly murdered by pigs and other thugs with no consequences [1:5].

Oh wait...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lewis_(politician)#Civil_...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Lynching_in_the_United_State...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trayvon_Martin

[4] http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/23/us/cleveland-police-verdict/

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Tamir_Rice

What's your point? We can link statistics and specific cases all day back and forth and neither of us would make it out on top. Shitty things happen to everyone. Doesn't mean I can't say something about it / joke about it.

lynching! good joke

Lynching can be funny. Just like the holocaust and racism can be.

I'm a little skeptical of the motive to 'promote a discussion and debate on racism' when Americans already discuss this subject extensively on an ongoing basis. I don't mean that I think the professor's a racist, but that he's offering this as a weak excuse for a poorly-thought-out publicity grab.

Consider a paralell situation: I gather a vast number of texts condemning Nazism and fascism, and fashion them into the shape of a giant Swastika, which I then install across the street from a Synagogue. The small-scale content (the individual anti-fascist textual works that pattern the surface) are not going to deliver anything like the same impact as the large overall shape, which (like the figure of the Klansman) is still a potent historical symbol of oppression and intimidation. Making a large thing that is guaranteed to elicit a fearful reaction and then complaining that people should have approached the fearful thing for a closer look before complaining about it doesn't strike me as a very effective way to communicate.

Or an even simpler parallel: if I run at you brandishing a knife, you probably won't appreciate any subsequent explanation that it's performance art designed to shake you out of your complacent ways and teach you how to live in the moment, even though it may turn out to have such an effect. I'm not in favor of speech codes, but given the increasingly high cost of university education and the consciousness among students that they are financing a good deal what appears to be a pretty cushy academic environment, I don't find it so surprising that they expect to be offered a comfortable campus. Insofar as we've commoditized education, is it surprising that students exhibit consumer behavior?

Thats a slippery slope. History is full of uncomfortable facts. Should we stop teaching it?

> I don't mean that I think the professor's a racist, but that he's offering this as a weak excuse for a poorly-thought-out publicity grab.

Of course that is what it is but that isn't the same thing as something we should censor as a society. It was pretty clear he wasn't trying to actively intimidate people.

> Consider a paralell situation: I gather a vast number of texts condemning Nazism and fascism, and fashion them into the shape of a giant Swastika, which I then install across the street from a Synagogue. The small-scale content (the individual anti-fascist textual works that pattern the surface) are not going to deliver anything like the same impact as the large overall shape, which (like the figure of the Klansman) is still a potent historical symbol of oppression and intimidation. Making a large thing that is guaranteed to elicit a fearful reaction and then complaining that people should have approached the fearful thing for a closer look before complaining about it doesn't strike me as a very effective way to communicate.

Simply because it wasn't effective isn't the same thing as it should be censored.

The core problem with your argument is you are escalating in both parallel situations. Colleges are intended to be places of learning and for such "social artists" [no matter how shitty they are at it] to put things on display. He didn't go and seek out a Church that primarily services the African American community and put it across the street.

> Or an even simpler parallel: if I run at you brandishing a knife

Once again, you are comparing apples to oranges by escalating.

> However, it is pretty clear the intent of the academic in question was to promote discussion and debate about racism.

There are a lot of people promoting discussion and debate about racism without invoking Klan imagery. There are a lot of people promoting discussion and debate about racism while being respectful and attentive to the concerns of historic targets of racism in their community. If this particular academic could not figure out how do so, it's nobody's responsibility to continue hiring an incompetent teacher (excuse me, "social-political artist"). Hire someone who can do it better. There are thousands of them.

> However, it is pretty clear the intent of the academic in question was to promote discussion and debate about racism.

The Internet - yes, that other one with all the SJWs and their vapid twitterings - has a saying it is wise to take to heart: "Intent is not magic." The particular intent cited has even less magic than most, precisely because it's so often used as a defense by people who are essentially trolling under cover of art.

Art-as-trolling is a cherished tradition among social activist artists of the world. The only difference here is that the "Intent is not magic" crowd didn't like it this time.

They've never liked it. Now they're being listened to.

(I look forward to finding out over the next decade how many plain facts I can quote that I will then hear repeated back to me as a label for "that crowd.")

Oh, I know some who love it... when it carries their message. Situational ethics, basically.

A common disease in any "crowd," yes.

> Words cannot hold guns, knives, or other weapons. Yes, they can be unpleasant. Yes, they can be upsetting. Yes, people who have been abused can be triggered.

He is from a country with a history where minorities such as Alevis and Armenians are commonly (and increasing) subjected to non-physical intimidation techniques, such as having red X arrows drawn on their doors or being tagged as "minority" in public sphere (i.e. government) communiques.

I am going to go so far as suggesting that he either knew what he was doing or should have understood the reaction he was getting once it started pouring down from the students. Intimidation is a fucked up thing to experience for those who have a history of experiencing that intimidation followed by a massacre soon thereafter.

The administrators, bah. Those exist to prevent lawsuits, not to protect the students, as they have demonstrated time and again, so what they did is besides the point.

But I do have higher standards for faculty.

Are you judging a person based on his nationality?

> Words cannot hold guns, knives, or other weapons. Yes, they can be unpleasant. Yes, they can be upsetting. Yes, people who have been abused can be triggered.

Words can't act, but they can compel, coerce, and intimidate. It absolutely _is_ a safety issue. You can argue over the applicability to this particular situation, but to imply that words are harmless is a disservice to rights guaranteed us under the first amendment.

Indeed, there is great power in words. That is both why the First Amendment exists and why some seek to curtail speech they find discomfiting.

> Indeed, there is great power in words. That is both why the First Amendment exists and why some seek to curtail speech they find discomfiting.

But their power is also why the first amendment only applies to the government not being able to persecute you. Why should people have the right to speech without consequence of any sort?

Of any sort? No. Only certain sorts of consequences are permitted. Turning the forces of government against you in punishment is not to be permitted or tolerated. Other forms of reprisal are permitted and accepted.

Which is why the story about a public university is disturbing. Or the story of a statute for equality being abused in an attempt to silence someone.

I (seriously) get triggered when i read arguments like yours. I was just about to come back with insulting retorts and my heart rate went up. Is that not enough to classify your argument as a "trigger", or is it that only certain political views get the privilege to be "triggering"? If we are going to classify all arguing as triggering , then we 'd better all shut up.

> or is it that only certain political views get the privilege to be "triggering?

Yes. Above and beyond things that are horrifically traumatic, those groups who have been marginalized in society ought have that privilege. When you spend decades or centuries having the deck stacked against you, it is a completely appropriate approach to attempt to swing the balance back in the other direction.

> I (seriously) get triggered when i read arguments like yours.

My apologies. It's my mistake, as I forgot who the _real_ marginalized people are in society - Hacker News posters. Please forgive me.

Oh good. I see you have a list already.

The burden should be on the person getting offended. If you are offended, walk away. If you're at a comedy show, and you find a joke offensive, leave. The burden shouldn't rest on everyone else. I know personally I've had to start self censoring in fear of being labelled a misogynist or racist from saying things that are neither. People are capable of incredible mental gymnastics.