Questions, comments or a tip? Let us know.
As Hundreds Rally, CU Agrees to Core Reform
PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 14, 2007
University administrators announced Wednesday night that they had agreed to several demands called for by a group of student hunger strikers, capping off an evening filled with rumors of stalled negotiations and a more than 200-person protest on Low plaza.
Among other concessions, a spokesman said the University has committed to pay funds for the expansion of the Office of Multicultural Affairs and to transform the major cultures requirement of the Core Curriculum into a seminar style class, which the coalition said would was a $50 million transformation. Currently, students choose their major cultures course fulfillments from lists of lectures and seminars across several different departments and regions.
As protesters marched between the sundial and the front of Hamilton Hall, where negotiations had been ongoing, leaders of the coalition supporting the hunger strike said that administrators had cut off discussion. But as of 11:00 Wednesday night, both parties had returned to the table for further deliberations.
Students also announced that administrators had told them that the University planned to dismantle the tents where the demonstrators have been camped out for the past week, something which they later recanted. It was not immediately clear where the confusion occurred, but according to University spokeswoman LaVerna Fountain, "there was never any discussion of that," calling the announcement "complete and total inaccuracy."
"We have faith specifically in Vice President Dirks that his intent for arts and sciences is essentially in line with out general views for academic reform," Sam Rennenbohm, GS and a member of the coalition, said.
The reports apparently stemmed in part from rumors that former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan had been invited to speak on campus and would require special security precautions which would require the displacement of the strikers. University spokesman Robert Hornsby confirmed that Annan was coming to campus, but stated that there were no special security measures related to the hunger strike.
Bryan Mercer, CC '07, and Emilie Rosenblatt, CC '08, ended their hunger strike Wednesday after Health Services officials declared them to be in "severe condition." Two additional strikers, April Simpson, CC '11 and Robert Brown, CC '10, joined earlier in the day.
Strikers said at the vigil that two of the protesters had been told they would be put on mandatory medical leave from Columbia if they refused to end their hunger strike, a statement which they later said was untrue.
In response to the vigil, as more than 200 students marched on Low Plaza chanting, "Whose campus? Our campus."
Article Tools:
View Comments ( 43)
Post a Comment
I can't believe this stuff is still going on. It is the equivalent of throwing a fit or holding your breath until mommy gives you a piece of candy. Someone needs to tell these kids to grow up and that if you approach a situation with a reasonable and well thought out alternative, the other side will usually listen.
And as for these these so-called "hunger strikers", are they like the ones that happened when I was there in the early 90s? They strikers took shifts on Furnald lawn. Only the ones in the protest area were fasting. If they got hungry, they could have someone take their place and head down to Koronet and return later.
Id love to hear how these people get along in the real world after Columbia. When something real comes up, they are totally unprepared to handle it themselves.. I guess they hire lawyers and sue whenever something doesn't go their way. Good thing mommy and daddy are rich.
Don't like the core cirriculum? Don't come to Columbia. It is a private institution and there are plenty of other quality schools out there that don't have it. Its not like they surprised you with this; you knew all about the core, and you knew what it was before you arrived. Or better yet, here is a suggestion: go to the bookstore and buy the book you want to read, then tell your friends about it. Removing literature of which you don't approve from everyone by force and dictating what they must read sounds very 1930s.
I'm off campus this term, so this is the first I've heard about this whole issue, but as a former Art Hum instructor, I'm curious as to why no one has brought up the unbalanced nature of that curriculum. The entire curriculum is based on white male artists, mostly European (and two Americans). I'm curious to hear if undergraduates feel that this curriculum needs an overhaul, too. Or is art considered not a serious area of study like Lit Hum or Major Cultures?
I agree whole heartedly with Lioness... Anastrike, I believe you probable need to spend more time learning how to construct a respectful argument and less time worrying about these protests.
The Administration is spineless. You'd think that these leaders of intellectual discourse would realize that a hunger strike does not make a position any more valid. If I hunger strike to get Jews put into concentration camps, it doesn't make my position more valid.
The Administration consistently takes the path of least resistance. That's why we have a professor who teaches kids that Israelis murder innocent little kids, and another professor who tells kids that the only way for a US soldier to be a hero in Iraq is to kill other US soldiers and help the "resistance".
Every other university in the country is giving into the PC nonsense. Teaching kids that everything white and male and capitalist is wrong. That western culture is evil. I'm sorry, but the basis of our culture is Voltaire, Locke, Aristotle and Hume. Columbia's core has been a bastion of history and knowledge and culture in a sea of irrational leftist crusades.
Lee Bollinger created a lot of good will with his performance in front of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It's time for him to cash in on that political capital and make a stand for reason and truth.
the basis of our culture are the dead white men who made statements against women. locke did not want women in politics, same with Aristotle, he told us to keep our mouth shut. correct me if I am wrong, but our culture nowadays are pretty pro-women, no? our culture is not evil. so how can these authors be the only basis of our culture? I am not saying that we should stop reading them, they have be important things to offer. but the authors of color have something to offer to our diverse culture too. you learn by reading them. that's why they should be in the core.
You are way off. The great thinkers like Locke and Hobbes taught us that we should all be treated equal regardless of our sex, skin color or creed. It is the Marxists who are slowly creeping into the core's curriculum who teach us that women are superior, minorities are superior, that laws should be passed to bias in favor of everyone at the expense of whites, males and Jews.
When I took CC, we were all forced to read Katherine McKinnon, which is only a taste of the horror that these hunger strikers want to unleash on us. We were taught that there is no difference between Jenna Jameson and a snuff film. We were taught that women are inherently superior to men, and that laws need to passed to bias in favor of women because otherwise all laws are somehow inherently biased towards women.
If you want to be propagandized by that crap you can go to another college. Go the FIRE website and learn all about what is being forced down the throats of impressionable young people around the country.
Let Columbia remain the one University in America that still glorifies western culture. Kids who want to learn that all whites are racist by definition, and that it's impossible for blacks to be racist, can go somewhere else.
What? Have you actually read Locke and Hobbes or did you do sparknotes? They did not talk about women. Certainly talked about equality, for men that is. Women and minorities are superior at the expense of males and Jews? So there are no Jewish females then? You actually hold the view that women who are still paid less than men, hold lesser jobs at high positions than men, minorities who cannot afford college education are superior? You think you are being oppressed? That's hilarious.
Read again, especially Locke, who believed that women were of equal value to men, though not the same. We are not the same.
The Core Curriculum ought to focus on what will endure. An inclusive core is valueless, as useless as a garbage dump. You might find something of value there, but to shift through the rest in the search is neither fulfilling nor fruitful.
If Columbia does not maintain a high standard, any student might as well go to a community college. What is the point? Your degree has as much value as a silver certificate, suitable for framing as an indication of something that once had value, but is currently valueless.
"poor people in harlem are being displaced from their homes. we are not talking about stopping the expansion, but at least insure that these people have a place, a say. it is their HOME. how would you feel if I went to your home and kicked you out because I wanted to build my five star hotel there?"
Um, first of all, expanding a college AND building a high school for the surrounding area is NO WHERE close to building a five-star hotel. In other words, Columbia is trying to help the community. Columbia picked an area of Harlem that is mostly commercial storage places, trying to displace the least number of people. Not only that, but Columbia is using A LOT of money (I don't remember the exact figure, but it's in the 10s of millions of dollars) to help each and EVERY displaced person find a new home.
Please tell me if I'm misinformed.
you are. you read those off the same brochure I did from the fancy manhattanville openhouse. you should ask the people of harlem for the story to know what is going on. you should visit. unfortunately they cannot hold fancy openhouses to talk about their position.
You should read about Walt Disney's purchase of the land for Disney World in Florida. A major problem for a business is buying a large tract of land for one purpose, knowing that if you can't get every plot of the land you can't build what you want. Walt Disney flew in fake planes and invented fake companies, each to buy parts of the land. He knew that if anybody found out that he was Walt Disney and wanted to buy all of the land for his park, the remaining land owners would jack up their prices to ten times what they were worth, knowing that Disney would have to pay.
Shoot ahead to Manhattanville. Columbia was in the same situation - they tried as hard as they could to not let people know what they were purchasing the land for. They paid good prices and bought most of the land, until the story leaked. Suddenly, all of the landowners in Harlem saw a huge opportunity. They knew that Columbia HAD to buy their land, and had billions of money to bankroll. So, suddenly everyone came up with sad stories - they'd lived in these homes for generations, they couldn't bear to leave. All until Columbia agreed to pay five times what the homes were worth. They were the ones taking advantage of Columbia.
Columbia has done everything right. They have built a free public school, they will clean up the land, they will make the streets safer, they are paying far more than what these homes are worth, picked the piece of land with the least personal homes to dispossess, and they will create thousands of new jobs.
Columbia has been in a constant state of Harlem pandering for years. This all comes back to the political ideology of the most obnoxious protesters at Columbia, which is hatred of everything white and glorification of everything black. Columbia knows that if they ever stop pandering to every little whim of Harlem, they will face the wrath of hunger protesters and angry marches. So, the only question I have is what else can Columbia do? What actions can they do for Harlem that they HAVEN'T done? It's pretty hard to come up with anything.
Perhaps for you. I am not anti-expansion because it is bound to happen anyway. But have some care for the people there, money is not adequate compensation. They did not make up the sad stories, there was such a think as the Harlem Renaissance after freemen came to the north, this is a culture, much like any other. CU is hurting a culture, we need to talk more with the people of Harlem and have a better understanding and compromise. I promise you, I have been following the expansion and the only dialogue we have had is business dialogue.
Manhattanville, the area that Columbia on which Columbia is building, is a primarily commercial area composed of warehouse space with very few residents in comparison to the surrounding areas, including Harlem (which is, incidentally, east of Manhattanville). The Harlem Renaissance has nothing to do with the area Columbia is expanding into. As a Harlem resident, I and my neighbors are concerned about Columbia's expansion plans primarily for the likely effects on property values and people's willingness to move into Harlem. We all recognize, however, that this is part of a broader process of gentrification that will push everyone who is not a wealthy law student or some yuppie working downtown out of Harlem. All you have to do is look at the condos going up on Frederick Douglass for proof of that. The character of Harlem will change (as the character of the rest of Manhattan has changed). There is nothing we can do about it.
Bollinger will dust his wig, address the tent people with some esoteric gibberish, then fold like a lawn chair, as is his custom, costing all the rest of the student population voice in any of these far-reaching implications.
"Leaders of the coalition supporting the hunger strike announced at their vigil Wednesday evening that administrators had cut off negotiations and informed them of several planned actions to disrupt the ongoing protest on South Lawn."
The administration could start by shutting off their Christmas lights.
Unfortunately that prediction came true. Mandatory semester long oppression/colonialism training AKA radical identity politics? Fuck that.
i'm going to go on a hunger strike until conservative profs get brought here. there are 200 college republicans on their facebook thing
if you start to give in prez bo, then everyone deserves a ride on the gravy train
fine, there are already conservative faculty here, not talking about racism professors I hope. if you want to add the numbers, try and do a hunger strike like them. I will support you too. no joke.
Prediction: The Aministration will cave, gutless wonders that they are.
So there is a God. I'm so tired of all this hunger-strike crap. They should just do us all a favor, join the real world, and go back to class.
"They should just do us all a favor, join the real world, and go back to class."
seriously? this is one of the problems. so many people walk around this campus thinking they need not concern themselves with what goes on outside the gates because it's not "the real world." since when is being in the classroom the real world? since when are we not part of an interactive community where what we do on our campus affects what goes on outside the gates? are we not at columbia to learn how to take a role in the real world upon graduation? you've got something else coming if you think that the real world concerns only the classroom.
You don't know what you are talking about. They are going to class. E.g. Aretha Choi has been going to class on all the 4 days that she was on hunger strike.
Expel the protestors. Sic' em Prezbo!
Whoa, whoa, whoa--random ousiders, like Harlem politicians and some reverend, are joining a protest that concerns out curriculum and departments?
Uh...what the hell?
News flash: they are here for the expansion demand.
They are here the same way protesters were here against Ahmedinejad's appearance.
brilliant! i hope these hunger strikers get expelled!
Sorry, flash is not available.
If you can't help them then don't hurt them. Keep your hurtful thoughts to yourself and by all means hold that opinion.
maybe i'm missing the point but
a. are these people still not eating?
b. are they not going to class / going to fail their finals?
c. are they seriously just trying to get more professors hired?
THERE ARE REAL PROBLEMS IN THE WORLD
Here are the REAL PROBLEMS: are you talking about these real problems?
POVERTY - poor people in harlem are being displaced from their homes. we are not talking about stopping the expansion, but at least insure that these people have a place, a say. it is their HOME. how would you feel if I went to your home and kicked you out because I wanted to build my five star hotel there?
EDUCATION - we're only taught about the white Greek and Roman authors. whereas noble prize winner Tagore is not in our core. gandhi is not. martin luther king is not. is it too much to ask that scholars of color be represented in our education in the 21st century
expanding with respect is a demand i could get behind.
but education: "we're only taught about the white greek and roman authors"-- seriously? if you really believe that you must either be a) a first-semester freshman, or b) someone who zoned out after a few weeks of lit hum. there ARE scholars of color represented in the core, even if they're not the ones you mention. and as to your statement "is it too much to ask that scholars of color be represented in our education"--they are indeed very present in our columbia education. they may not be mandatory, but they are present for anyone who wants to learn more about race/ethnicity/gandhi/MLK/comparative lit/human rights/democratization/history etc etc.
PS: if you give me a good reason why these authors should be mandatory for all students, i'll happily switch sides on this issue.
I want to know, WHICH authors of color like the above are represented in the core and how much TIME is given to them as opposed to our dear Sophocles and Aristotle and HOW MUCH of their literature have you read?
What to the authors of color have to offer?
You need to ask why Martin Luther King has to offer? You need to ask what Gandhi has to offer? You need ASK what a noble prize winning Tagore has to offer? That is PRECISELY the problem. You DO NOT KNOW because our IVY LEAGUE EDUCATORS do not TEACH you.
King offers a look at civil rights. You are not against it are you?? Gandhi offers the theory of nonviolence in practice and resistance to oppression/imperialism, he offers love and respect for your opponents. You are not opposed to reading the works of an Oxford barrister who was against imperialism, are you? He knew both his Eastern and Western literature, just like we should. Tagore offers literature, volumes of stories about Eastern and Western moral values, cultural values, hundreds of poems on the same. You are not opposed to learning, are you? How will you have a worldly CORE knowledge if you do not know the great writers of the East and West who are of color?
Then SWITCH sides. I hope I can been able to convince you with reason.
I am glad you were willing to see reason.
PEACE.
are you serious? since when did i say that MLK Jr. and Gandhi and Tagore have NOTHING to offer? And just because I may not believe that a certain author should be mandatory, that means I am automatically AGAINST their beliefs? are you fucking kidding me?
your problem is that you are making value judgments on the relative moral worth of these authors without justification. NO ONE is saying that MLK Jr. and his forms of civil disobedience are not worth studying. i'm a poli sci major with an american politics focus and i have taken, and ENJOYED, mind you, MANY classes that have discussed in-depth MLK jr, the civil rights movement, the role of the afr-am. churches etc. BUT, when someone suggests that it is morally necessary to compel all students to study King, Tagore, Gandhi, I have to ask-- WHY THESE AUTHORS AND NOT OTHER AUTHORS? If we are expanding the core to make these three authors necessary, why should we not also expand the core to make Betty Friedan, Orhan Pamuk, Doris Lessing, Chinua Achebe, Raphael Lemkin mandatory? Why stop at including works of famous civil rights activists, decolonization proponents, and nobel prize winners? Why don't we also make it necessary to read the works of famous and influential feminists, gay rights activists, disabled rights activists, religious rights activists, and human rights activists?? And how about environmental activists? Are you saying that racism and decolonization are the only important historical issues to address? Are human rights not as important? You are not against human rights, are you??
I would personally LOVE IT if more human rights philosophers and activists were added to our Core, and I would also LOVE IT if the university gave more funding to the center for human rights, hired 12 more professors and made it a full major instead of a "special concentration". But that is just MY opinion because the study of human rights is important to me, and I understand that not everyone is going to want to be forced to study human rights. So I am not going to strike until my view of human rights education is imposed onto everyone else.
you see, the big fucking problem is NOT that marginalized voices and minority views should not be studied. the big FUCKING problem is that once you decide to make it MANDATORY, where do you draw the line at who should be mandatory, and who shouldn't? who are you to say that racism is more important than discussing gross human rights violations, or the systematic oppression of women? once you have put in books for every author of worth (there are THOUSANDS), you end up with a hugely inflated core where, realistically, every writer is studied for what, half a class? a quarter of a class?, and then NO ONE ends up with a good comprehension of ANY of the works.
I AGREE with you that King, Gandhi and Tagore have a lot to offer (and it is completely hypocritical for you to assume that I "DO NOT KNOW" just because i question your larger opinion, but that's another matter that I won't bother with in this post). But what I am asking is: how the fuck are you going to decide which authors of worth are going to end up on the core? And again I ask my original question: WHY should THESE three authors be mandatory on the core versus other, also-worthy authors?
Thank you.
First of all, I definitely am more respectable of your opinions then you are of mine. You could have been more civil, not that you need proof, look up the times you used the f-words. furthermore, I have to write on the information you give me. you asked why they should be mandatory, I told you why I think they should in a very basic way. Was I to assume that you were an all-knowing political science student? I treated you just like a layperson who might not have known what gandhi and luther have to offer because they have only studied the core and not taken your special poli sci courses to know more.
If you notice, I said authors of color, and them gave SOME examples. who is to decide? that is a question the CU committee administrators of the core decide. once they are willing to add some authors of color at a greater level, THEN they can get into this discussion of who to add who not to add. right now it is a question on balance, if their are Sophocles, Locke and Aristotle, i.e. the big names of the West, then let us add some big names of the East. plue we have to add people like Luther who are from the west who are inadequately represented in the core. in the core, not the other classes that your poli sci interest took you too, not everyone goes that way you know...
I am a political science major too.
This was your first mistake: assuming that people who disagree with your views on core reformation are "laypeople" who do not know what gandhi and MLK jr have to offer. Even if I were not a political science major, even before I came to Columbia from small-town christian school overseas, I still knew very well the teachings of Gandhi and MLK Jr. My "special poli sci classes" did not introduce me for the first time to G. and MLK Jr, as I'm SURE that yours did not, either. You insinuate with your hasty assumptions that people who "have only studied the core" would not (or "might not) know the basic principles of gandhi and MLK jr, I argue that this is highly unlikely. Gandhi and MLK jr are well-known and widely respected; I seriously doubt that people who got into Columbia in the first place DO NOT already know their causes and their tactics. Again, this is part of what makes me extremely uneasy about the new format of Major Cultures in a seminar style--rather than going in-depth into one civilization, its history and its beliefs, students are going to get a superficial spread (due to lack of time) of numerous, widely disparate authors and works without ever getting to delve deeply into any one issue or movement. (please see frontiers of science for an example of such a superficial albeit well-intentioned course) One semester, or even two semesters, is not enough to cover all the non-western world's great thinkers, let alone discuss their philosophies in a meaningful, probing manner.
Your second mistake in reasoning was to skip over my question of deciding which causes and movements are "important" enough to include as mandatory on the core. In your most recent comment in this thread, you are STILL setting up core reformation in the framework of East vs. West, White vs. Non-white. You are still prioritizing race and color more than any other issue, saying that east vs. west is the most important conflict that we should all study, without having given me any reason why that is worth more study than, say, women's studies. There are crimes against women committed every day, on and off campus, and there are certainly FAR more male authors than female ones on the Core. Why shouldn't we hunger strike to change the Core to include equal numbers of women authors? Homosexuals have also been oppressed. Why shouldn't we also make room in the Core NOW for more gay authors? Human Rights are extremely important in this day and age, with questions about Guantanamo and Darfur and Burma still unresolved--why should a mandatory Human Rights class not be included in the Core?
You argue that people can gain a lot from learning more about non-western, non-white thinkers and I don't disagree. But if you make it mandatory and the core then consists of western and non-western thinkers (set up in that dichotomy), you are ascribing to it a moral value by saying that WHITE VS NONWHITE is the most important oppression issue of ALL. that may be true for YOU, but to some other people, the MALE OPPRESSING FEMALE issue may be more urgent and imperative. would you disagree? would you say that feminist students striking until equal numbers of female writers are added are wrong?
since we seem to be engaging in some back-and-forth self-disclosure, i will say this: i am a minority student--i claim my heritage from two racial minority groups. so don't assume that i haven't at some point in my life felt marginalized or oppressed.
i would write more except i'm tired as hell and i have to be at work and class early tomorrow. lastly though i will say that if you were offended by my usage of curse words, i apologize. i was extremely angry when i composed the response. i thank you for having taken the time to read it, as I trust you will read and think about this comment in its entirety.
I am writing in bold for responses, only so that it is easier for you to read:
This was your first mistake: assuming that people who disagree with your views on core reformation are "laypeople" who do not know what gandhi and MLK jr have to offer. Even if I were not a political science major, even before I came to Columbia from small-town christian school overseas, I still knew very well the teachings of Gandhi and MLK Jr. My "special poli sci classes" did not introduce me for the first time to G. and MLK Jr, as I'm SURE that yours did not, either. You insinuate with your hasty assumptions that people who "have only studied the core" would not (or "might not) know the basic principles of gandhi and MLK jr, I argue that this is highly unlikely. Gandhi and MLK jr are well-known and widely respected; I seriously doubt that people who got into Columbia in the first place DO NOT already know their causes and their tactics. Again, this is part of what makes me extremely uneasy about the new format of Major Cultures in a seminar style--rather than going in-depth into one civilization, its history and its beliefs, students are going to get a superficial spread (due to lack of time) of numerous, widely disparate authors and works without ever getting to delve deeply into any one issue or movement. (please see frontiers of science for an example of such a superficial albeit well-intentioned course) One semester, or even two semesters, is not enough to cover all the non-western world's great thinkers, let alone discuss their philosophies in a meaningful, probing manner.
I GREW UP IN GANDHI'S COUNTRY, SO MY EXPOSURE TO HIS THEORIES IS VERY DIFFERENT. OF COURSE I HEARD ABOUT HIM. EVERYONE IN COLUMBIA KNOWS HIM BY HIS NAME, BUT HOW MANY PEOPLE KNOW HIS ACTUAL THEORIES, NOT MANY. THAT IS MY POINT. WE NEED TO TEACH HIM AND OTHERS BECAUSE WE ARE LARGELY IGNORANT ABOUT THEM. OF COURSE WE HAVE GENERAL KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THESE FAMOUS PEOPLE, BUT THAT IS NOT THE SAME AS STUDYING THEM. I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT COVERING EVERY WESTERN V. NON-WESTERN THINKER, THAT IS IMPRACTICAL. BUT WE SHOULD AT THE VERY LEAST TRY AND KNOW THE IDEOLOGIES OF THE MOST FAMOUS. GANDHI, TAO, AND OTHERS ARE SOME OF THE MOST FAMOUS NAMES IN THE EAST, THEY SHOULD BE TAUGHT IN THE CORE RATHER THEIR POLI SCI CLASSES SOLELY.
Your second mistake in reasoning was to skip over my question of deciding which causes and movements are "important" enough to include as mandatory on the core. In your most recent comment in this thread, you are STILL setting up core reformation in the framework of East vs. West, White vs. Non-white. You are still prioritizing race and color more than any other issue, saying that east vs. west is the most important conflict that we should all study, without having given me any reason why that is worth more study than, say, women's studies. There are crimes against women committed every day, on and off campus, and there are certainly FAR more male authors than female ones on the Core. Why shouldn't we hunger strike to change the Core to include equal numbers of women authors? Homosexuals have also been oppressed. Why shouldn't we also make room in the Core NOW for more gay authors? Human Rights are extremely important in this day and age, with questions about Guantanamo and Darfur and Burma still unresolved--why should a mandatory Human Rights class not be included in the Core?
I NEVER SAID I WAS OPPOSED TO ADDING GAY LITERRATURE, WOMEN'S LITERATURE, OR ANY OTHER MINORITY LITERATURE. WE SHOULD HAVE A SAMPLE OF THE GREATEST WORKS BY ALL. IF YOU PICK AND CHOOSE FROM THE MOST FAMOUS AND BALANCE OUT ALL IDEOLOGIES, IT IS PROBABLE IN TWO SEMESTERS.
You argue that people can gain a lot from learning more about non-western, non-white thinkers and I don't disagree. But if you make it mandatory and the core then consists of western and non-western thinkers (set up in that dichotomy), you are ascribing to it a moral value by saying that WHITE VS NONWHITE is the most important oppression issue of ALL. that may be true for YOU, but to some other people, the MALE OPPRESSING FEMALE issue may be more urgent and imperative. would you disagree? would you say that feminist students striking until equal numbers of female writers are added are wrong?
THIS IS FUNNY, I AM A FEMINIST, SO THERE IS NO JUSTIFICATION FOR THAT CLAIM AGAINST ME. I SUPPORT THE TEACHING OF WOMEN'S LITERATURE, AS I MENTIONED ABOVE. NOW I AM A BARNARD FEMINIST, I AM GIVING YOU THAT INFORMATION TO THAT YOU CAN ACTUALLY BLAME ME FOR SOMETHING...LIKE TELL ME THAT THEY CORE IS NONE OF MY CONCERN OR THAT I DON'T BELONG IN COLUMBIA BECAUSE THERE IS ONLY ONCE COLLEGE AND THAT IS COLUMBIA COLLEGE. BUT YOU SEEM TO BE THE INTELLIGENT TYPE, SO YOU PROBABLY WON'T DO THAT.
since we seem to be engaging in some back-and-forth self-disclosure, i will say this: i am a minority student--i claim my heritage from two racial minority groups. so don't assume that i haven't at some point in my life felt marginalized or oppressed.
I NEVER POINTED TO YOUR MINORITY STATUS OR EVER SAID ANYTHING ABOUT YOU NOT FEELING MARGINALIZED. YOU ARE USING YOUR MINORITY STATUS TO JUSTIFY YOUR ARGUMENTS AGAINST MINORITY THINKERS BECAUSE YOU ARE THINKING THAT YOU COLOR WILL LEGITIMIZE THE DEFENSE MORE. PLEASE DO NOT USE YOUR RACE IN THAT WAY. WHATEVER RACE YOU ARE, YOU WILL HAVE AN OPINION, THAT IS THE ONLY WAY TO LOOK AT IT.
i would write more except i'm tired as hell and i have to be at work and class early tomorrow. lastly though i will say that if you were offended by my usage of curse words, i apologize. i was extremely angry when i composed the response. i thank you for having taken the time to read it, as I trust you will read and think about this comment in its entirety.
APOLOGY ACCEPTED.
i am in the midst of composing a response to your comments, but i feel that there is one point that needs to be immediate addressed:
I have to take issue with your quick assumption that I am “hiding” behind my race as to somehow make my points more valid. If that’s truly what you think, that is a complete pile of steaming crap. I do not believe in manipulating race to silence the opposition; rather, I believe that the disclosure of race can be very useful in defying expectations and breaking stereotypes. And may I remind you, before you jump all over me for supposedly using race the wrong way, there are PLENTY of pro-strike people who have used the race card to end discussions. It's shocking to me just many people (online—the ones who haven’t seen me, obviously) have assumed that I was some privileged Caucasian kid and called me an anti-Harlem, anti-multicultural KKK racist simply because I don’t take the perhaps “expected” stance that a minority student at Columbia might take on these issues. I believe that number would almost be the same as the number of people who did see me and automatically expected me to agree with the strike merely because of my ethnic background.
I chose to disclose my racial heritage in part because I wanted to pre-empt any “YOU MUST BE A RACIST, OR CULTURALLY IGNORANT” accusations, and also because I think it is extremely important to show any pro-strikers, anti-strikers, Columbia readers, wider public reading this (since this IS a public forum) that NOT ALL ANTI-STRIKE VIEWPOINTS are coming from ignorant non-minority folks. Yes, there ARE asshole white supremacist posts out there, which deserve to be roundly condemned. But what seems to have been lost in the drama of the past week is that it is also possible for a person of minority heritage to disagree with the strike—I know I’m not the only one—for reasons that are no less legitimate, and deserve no less consideration than those of the strikers’. Let’s face it, most people here would find it so much easier to write me off if I had said that I was a, say, suburban seventh-generation white American, than if I said that I am a person of color who grew up abroad. I mention race not to end the discussion, but to provoke MORE of it, and MORE thinking.
All the same, I am glad we both agree that using race as a crutch to shut opponents up is a pathetic excuse of an argumentative tactic. Nothing irritates me quite so much as when someone claims that I can never understand the oppression of their ethnic group, and then calls me a white supremacist and completely ignores my concerns, all based on the race they think I am.
Hi ______, thanks for your concern. I am quite aware that MC is to be reformatted as seminars. And I would disagree with your assessment that the current MC requirement inevitably discourages "the depth of intellectual engagement that LitHum or CC offer", thus necessitating a seminar-style survey. This may be true for some people, but in my personal experience (as well as the experience of others I know and have spoken to) my MC classes allowed me to look deeply and critically at the history (which included colonialism), the traditions, and the philosophy of one non-western culture. They were both seminar-sized to begin with. To me, this comprehension--which my professors made sure extended much further than just knowing the names of several famous authors, their works, and one or two applications--was extremely valuable, as it allowed me to compare NUMEROUS aspects of philosophy and historical development with the West. The ability to study one non-western culture in an exhaustive manner holds more educational value than sweeping over a large number of non-western thinkers and historical movements, where none to few will get the class time to reach the level of debate that the current MC format of choosing one culture allows. i also think that unlike lithum, where you study/discuss the work and nothing but the work, culture is far too complicated for each to receive only a week or two of discussion time. i wonder why columbia does not explore improving the current MC classes (such as reducing the size of the more popular lectures to smaller, 20ish classes) rather than rehauling it in the manner of CC, lithum etc.
also, no one has answered my question of why we should not make women's studies or human rights mandatory in the core if race and colonization become mandatory. you can look at the core and say that theres an error in the imbalance of eastern vs western authors, but you can also say that there is an error in the imbalance of male vs. female authors. why not make a women's rights class mandatory in the core? why not human rights? why not gay rights? what makes race a more morally important class to include?
Ohhh shit. Heads are gonna roll. I'm so looking forward to the carnage.
GIVE EM HELL, PREZBO!
your pres bo is not doing anything eitherway. have you read this article, it is about a stalemate.
THANK YOU! Finally.
Post new comment