Tentatively, the week will feature a sexuality day, multicultural day, religious diversity day, women’s day and a disability day.The student chair of the Diversity Committee "said she hopes the event would probe students’ minds and make them think about how their own identities are 'compiled.'"
The group also debated how to address “intersectionality” between the different types of diversity.
"We are trying to say to people that you don’t have to be a minority, you don’t have to be an underrepresented group to be able to feel like you’re diverse or that you have a unique identity... This is really for all students."I don't think the word "diverse" should apply to an individual. I think you have to say: This set of individuals is diverse. Not: This individual is diverse. Sorry to be pedantic about words. Now, it's interesting that the Diversity Committee has arrived at the idea that it wants specifically to get the attention of the students who do not belong to "underrepresented groups." The students who were not pursued by the University in its effort to increase "diversity" might, it is thought, respond to the idea that they are part of the diversity too. I'm trying to picture Diversity Week events that would convey that message!
***
Here's some campus graffiti I photographed the other day:
Posts
214 comments:
1 – 200 of 214 Newer› Newest»"Diverse" is the new "urban".
Could a student with multiple personality disorder be considered a diverse individual?
Diversity Week...
zzzzzzzz uh oh what zzzzzzz uh who cares zzzzzz can't they go work like everyone else?
Gad can't students ever STUDY?
WGAF!
If I were a Wisconsin student, and inclined to deface public spaces with spraypaint, I might tag them with "Overcome Diversity".
A studen of color uses a non-color to send his message.
Dear "student of color."
Stop defacing public property.
Wouldn't increasing women/the voice of women on just about any given college campus make it less diverse, not more? Women being, of course, the slight majority of the population in general and over-represented on most college campuses (I'm assuming that includes UW).
My question to the student who put that graffiti in there:
Are you a Mia Love or the Obamaphone lady? Which one would you rather be?
For hetero white men, diversity generally means (1) discrimination against you and (2) less influence for you.
Is this something to celebrate?
Most groups would fight against this.
Diversity = Friction. The more diversity the more friction. It follows that there is much more sand in the gears of a society that "celebrates diversity" than in a homogenous society.
If expressed, all of the above would be damned as hate-speech at Diversity Week.
How about:
Leave Me the Eff Alone Day
"Diverse" should not be used to refer to an individual, and "of color" should not be used.
That, or we should use that ridiculously awkward phrasing all the time.
"It is a day of cold today!"
"Yes, it is the effect of lake. But tomorrow there will be a front of warm coming through."
"What are you, a man of weather?"
I have a stereotype of "students of color." They like to deface property with graffiti. I'm not sure where that stereotype came from.
Shouldn't there be a men's day rather than a women's day, since there are presumably more women than men?
Diverse as to skin color but I'll bet not ideology.
"I'm a student of color: Hear me"
STFU
Who doesn't have color?
They should just be honest about it and say, "anybody but caucasians."
I suggest another message:
I AM NOT A PERSON OF COLOR,
I CAN HEAR YOU JUST FINE,
AND I'M OFFENDED THAT YOU
HAVE SPRAY-PAINTED PUBLIC
PROPERTY.
The message should NOT be spray-painted on the sidewalk, of course.
I just want to thank the diverse for the gifts of Western Civilization and modern technology.
I suggest another message:
I AM NOT A PERSON OF COLOR,
I CAN HEAR YOU JUST FINE,
AND I'M OFFENDED THAT YOU
HAVE SPRAY-PAINTED PUBLIC
PROPERTY.
The message should NOT be spray-painted on the sidewalk, of course.
I hope the students of color have a time of good at the Week of Diversity. I bet it's a change of pace of nice from their routine of usual.
"Sexuality Day"?
It is so hard to keep track of all of the sex-oriented celebrations in Madison. And which ones to go to, or not go to.
Mifflin Street: Go, or don't go? Sex, or no sex?
Freakfest: Go, or don't go? Sex, or no sex?
Sexuality Day: Costume, or not?
The "Diversity Committee" wants to increase its own standing and influence on campus, and subsequently that of its members. That is 100% of what this is about.
What I find troubling is the effort to "engage" people who aren't normally "interested" in these issues.
"Care!"
"Leave me alone."
"Be engaged!"
"Not interested. Go away."
I'm shocked they aren't finding a way to make all this more coercive.
We're told the idea is "to engage students who are not specifically interested in diversity issues to think about the issue on a broader level."
Supposedly, someone with a higher education wrote that sentence.
Althouse: " The students who were not pursued by the University in its effort to increase "diversity" might, it is thought, respond to the idea that they are part of the diversity too."
...or else they might notice the extent to which the diversity racket is institutionalized to their disadvantage.
If they're paying attention, that is.
religious diversity day
Somewhere on campus is a freshman who grew up in an evangelical church who's been trepidatious about how the university treats Christians, who felt relieved when she saw that phrase.
Man, is she going to be disappointed.
If people want to be listened to, they should say something interesting.
I take it Saturday is men's day and Sunday is Christian, native born, heterosexual day.
The Elder said...
I suggest another message:
I AM NOT A PERSON OF COLOR,
I CAN HEAR YOU JUST FINE,
AND I'M OFFENDED THAT YOU
HAVE SPRAY-PAINTED PUBLIC
PROPERTY.
or
I AM ALSO A PERSON OF COLOR.
MY COLOR IS WHITE.
MY COLOR IS JUST AS COLORFUL AS YOURS.
AND, FOR ONCE, YOU'RE GOING TO LISTEN TO ME.
"to engage students who are not specifically interested in diversity issues to think about the issue on a broader level."
Those who wish to keep to themselves seem to be an underrepresented and put-upon minority on campus.
Why do I need to hear you? I can read you.
The funniest graffiti I saw was in NYC. It said "You got a big pussy"
I read that and thought, "Who, me? Thank you!"
What kind of weird inferiority complex does someone have to have to beg for attention and affirmation with graffiti?
Althouse: " The students who were not pursued by the University in its effort to increase "diversity" might, it is thought, respond to the idea that they are part of the diversity too."
Worse still is having to pay $30k a year for this nonsense. By the way isn't white also a color?
I think you have to say: This set of individuals is diverse. Not: This individual is diverse. Sorry to be pedantic about words.
This isn't pedantic, you've merely noticed the terms mean something entirely different to the left than they do in English. Orwellian language manipulation is a staple of the left.
Diversity is an industry, and whereas many might see some good in its promotion while looking the other way, the downsides are legion.
At what cost?
"That, or we should use that ridiculously awkward phrasing all the time. "It is a day of cold today!""
The United States of America... ridiculous? Should be the United American States. Or... you know... how about giving the country an actually name?
"Sorry to be pedantic about words."
You should not be sorry. Words have meanings.
I guess if you are a white, heterosexual man with sexual dysfunction due to prostate cancer, you are just shit out of luck.
This is a sign of progress.
It used to be that only traffic engineers cared about intersectionality.
Hear my color. How synesthetic.
Is UW still feeling guilty about this?
And no.....citing it doesn't get old.
"The United States of America... ridiculous? Should be the United American States. Or... you know... how about giving the country an actually name?"
How about calling it Fred?
Seriously, the left has been trying to rename it for over four years now. Obamaland.
Shouldn't that be: "I'm a person of color, step all over my message!"
Anyone who's ever gone to a mandatory diversity training understands what "celebrate diversity" has come to mean: it's all about bullying everyone into conformity.
The message is always, "If you express disagreement with us about anything substantive then we'll do our best to force you to publicly recant- if you don't, you'll be punished (demoted/terminated/made to take more diversity training).
The Left loves them some diversity when it's the diversity of the meaningless. Skin color, sex, what people do with their junk, etc. are all they care about.
Actual diversity of thought or experience is anathema to their political goals.
How about "I am a Conservative student. Hear me." But then there probably aren't any -- "conservatives don't like to be educated."
Are they going to roll out some Young Republicans in a cage? There's a good chance most UW students haven't seen one before.
Oh yes; this is not about diversity of thought. My mistake.
Diversity and multiculturalism are the processes by which the culture who used to be in charge hands the power over to the culture who is going to be in charge.
Is it possible to be "Double Diverse"?
I suppose "Hispanic Female" qualifies as double diverse.
You should get a seat at the head table for multiple diversity.
I still recall seeing a textbook at Cornell University as few years back. It was titled "Chicano Femenist Lesbian Studies"
I wanted to call her parents and save them $50K a year.
But she would be Triple Diverse.
This is where the wingnuts generally have the better argument: identity politics.
Now if they could only make it in a way that people could hear them.
The United States of America... ridiculous?
More so every day.
So, will they be welcoming conservative and Christians to campus?
"Hear me"
OK, I can hear you just fine. Now say something, preferably something interesting.
If a student wanted diversity at college, would they really have chosen UW? Plenty of good schools in States that aren't 95% white.
I'd like to buy the world a Coke.
But they banned the sale of any container (cups or manufacturer-sealed containers e.g. bottles, cans) containing more than 16 fluid ounces.
Everything but a Conservative Day, huh? Yes, their diversity is really astounding.
Years ago, in a sociology class, we were given a problem to solve over the weekend. I stated the answer. The intstructor looked deflated, admitted that was the answer, and said that what mattered was the reasoning. I gave the reasoning. He admitted that was the reasoning and cancelled the assignment. All future assignments were predicated on getting buy-in on the answer from all the participants. it wasn't right unless we all agreed it was right. The right answer had no connection to reality, only to our votes.
I don't want to fly on the feminist airplane. I don't care about diversity. I care about right answers, and it doesn't matter if 50 people hold firm, wrong opinions, whether they are all 50 wrong the same way, or display a regular rainbow of wrongness.
This seems to me the essence of "diversity." You sever the result from reality (e.g., define reality as either non-existent or inaccessible), and define the answer's validity based only on consensus; diversity is valuable because it is diverse.
I'M A STUDENT OF COLOR
HEAR ME
no offense kid, but if I'm going to listen to anyone expound on chromatics, it will be a graduate.
I hope Elizabeth Warren can make it as the keynote speaker. She should be free by then.
I'M A STUDENT OF COLOR
HEAR ME BORE
IN NUMBERS TOO BIG TO IGNORE
Will they be judging anyone by the content of their character that week?
MagicalPat said...
Is it possible to be "Double Diverse"?
I think that's what Ann meant when she was talking about "'intersectionality' between the different types of diversity".
Which, of course, gives rise to a whole new racket.
What a nasty force feeding of political correctness - glad I'm out of school.
Diversity simply means Communists AND Socialists.
sexuality day = Hetero Guilt Day
multicultural day = White Guilt Day
religious diversity day = Christian Guilt Day
women’s day = Male Guilt Day
disability day = Healthy Guilt Day
Diversity simply means Communists AND Socialists.
Here's the problem IMO. We need to move away from identity politics, but who's going to listen to that?
These types of events are exactly why the rest of the public doesn't feel the need to provide more public funding for higher Ed.
We might change our minds if universities spent money funding more research to departments that do not include the word "studies" in their title, and stopped spending on silly PC themes and hosting Obama on campus.
Anyone who's ever gone to a mandatory diversity training...
...remembers the chill in the room when one asked for the section in the manual about recourse from false accusations.
The student expresses the imperative to listen through the visual medium stencils.
Listen to me now and hear me later.
Stenciled graffiti to command "hear me" is likened to the town crier yelling "lookie, lookie".
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lookie here.
The only lack of diversity at this event will be that of diversity of thought.
I guess Taiwanese-American Republican isn't one of the diversity race?
Will they be judging anyone by the content of their character that week?
If I were in college, I would commence a "Content of Character" week.
It would go over so well, I'm sure.
The individual is not diverse, but there is diversity of individuals. Any other emphasis serves to denigrate individual dignity and should be wholly objectionable.
Actually, this would be a good opportunity for a diversity cookie sale. They're always a good stimulant to non-cowardly discussions about race.
There is the large subgroup which does not give a flying fuck about all this indoctrination. They will do well to lie low during this time. Note particularly that ridicule and parody will not be tolerated. Humor or criticism may go on your permanent record.
Actual Names?
Transgenistan.
What a gigantic crock of excrement.
(Also, aren't women the majority on campus now?
Would not, thus, men be the "diversity" element if we want a gendered diversity day?
Well, that is, if we were being honest about what "diversity" ought to mean, if it wasn't just a code word?)
Government sponsored political indoctrination at a state university.
Althouse, does anybody in your administration have a lick of sense?
Thank God, I don't have to sit through this bullshit.
I am so much more than the sum of my "parts".
I'm disabled, over forty, and a woman. Three distinct employment related "protected" classes. But I'm also of European descent, so I don't count.
What really blows me away are the arbitrary numbers that "they" have decided are proper for diversity.
Some go with the general population demographics, but those aren't necessarily "proper" either. One really needs to look at the big picture and not just require that any particular subunit match the larger unit proportionally.
NBA teams for example. Women make up 1/2 the population but there are no women on NBA team (WNBA but not NBA). If the Black population is approximately 12% then how many members of a team should be Black? How many Hispanic? How many Asian? How many White?
How many people are talented enough for the NBA? How many show interest in being on a team? How many of each population?
What if I need to hire an accountant? What if I can't find someone who is qualified or interested in the job who is part of a subgroup that will ensure "diversity" in my business?
Shouldn't I be able to hire the best qualified person for my position who accepts my offer without regard to externals?
If one can get out of the (Pauline Kael style) bubble, one has diversity. Everybody's different.
"Get-Your-Mind-Right Week" would be more truth-in-advertising...
...but harder to stencil in spray paint.
Religious diversity? Does this mean the UW-Madison is sorry it lost a lawsuit due to anti-Catholic discrimination?
I suppose if we all had a disability stickers on our cars, then the close parking spaces would again be first come first serve. We can't have that!
My DNA is different from all others'. Ergo: I am not loved as I should be!
Kimsch....the left wing Minneapolis Star Tribune ran a column this Sunday on...yes....the Minnesota Timberwolves are racist. Why? Too many white guys on the team. Actually too many white guys from Europe to be specific. The Mpls paper says management is importing white guys from Europe to replace black guys from America.
Back when I was taking an art course, We had a section on color theory. It got pretty technical, what with CMYK, the color wheel, color harmony schemes like complementarity or analogous colors. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was a STUDENT OF COLOR. I didn't feel any urge to BE HEARD or to spray paint things.
The fact that a public university is wasting millions of dollars on bullshit liberal political indoctrination is the proof that the education system is dramatically overfunded.
Obama is dead wrong. We need to take money away from the education system. The system clearly has too much money.
Shout-T...agree. Everytime a public school bitches that they need my taxes raised so we can spend more money on them, I bring that up.
What is the annual budget of your diversity department?
It's proof that academia is overstaffed.
Tentatively, the week will feature a [...] women’s day
52% of UW Madison's students are women. Every day is women's day.
The graffiti makes me want to get a can of white spray paint to add: "White is a Color, too"
Re: "We are trying to say to people that you don’t have to be a minority, you don’t have to be an underrepresented group to be able to feel like you’re diverse or that you have a unique identity... This is really for all students."
Pointing out the application of "diverse" to an individual just scratches the surface of the cognitive mess there.
The whole sentence conflates individuals with groups as though there is no distinction between the two.
"people" = plural
"you" = singular? plural?
"minority" "underrepresented group" = plural (but context appears to elide "member of an")
"feel like you're diverse" = Where to begin?
Is it the underrepresented group that's meant to feel diverse? Is the individual supposed to feel diverse -- or worse, is a homogeneous ethnic group expected to share a single feeling?
Just awful, in all the usual ways.
In one of my sections this semester, I have students who heritages include: Hmong, Vietnamese, Mexican, African American, Chinese, Middle Eastern and European. In discussions on stem cell research and the moral dilemma it poses, they presented religious views as well as secular ones; they bring in experience from other countries that enriches the discussion. I like to tell my students this is one of the few chances they will have in life to engage with such a diverse group, and they should take advantage of it.
I'll be even more pedantic: I'll say that you can't even say diversity is "good" if you take the movement seriously.
Figured this out in college when I was taking philosophy courses and learned the difference between normative and non-normative language (sometimes called "prescriptive v. descriptive".) Basically, your normative language consists of the meanings you pour into words like "good", "right", "justice", "proper", and such. Non-normative/descriptive language just states what something is: hard, soft, tall, heavy, etc. (Note that this ain't quite absolute v. relative--"tall" is a relative term but also a descriptive one.)
So when the diversity/multicultural folks say that we should respect all cultures or subgroups or what have you, they're asking us not to privilege certain worldviews or cultural perspectives over others (like those dead white males). But if that's the case, on what grounds do you base the statement that we should "celebrate" diversity? That entails a moral position about what should be celebrated, and apparently in doing so, you just decided to trump all the other worldviews that might disagree with you.
If you're going to be serious about diversity, all you can do is acknowledge it. All you can say is "diversity is." Anything beyond that, and you're taking sides, which runs counter to your entire purpose. (Unless you're just being dishonest, of course, which seems to be the modus operandi of the actual players in these cases.)
Oh, I can help with that! Back in the 60's at Beloit, we had diversity events. We called them wet t-shirt contests.
Big titties; little titties; pert titties; floppy titties.
All kinds of titties.
It was a great campus learning experience.
--Krumhorn
Y'all are not paying attention. Because of the brilliant concept of "relative privilege" (all of which favors men of pallor) anyone who is NOT a man of pallor is good. Giving such men the weight of their "relative privilege" means they always have been and always will be the majority. Actual percentages mean nothing, nor does the fact that it is now easy to get your message out on any subject. You need to pay more attention to your "critical" classes, fools.
Empty posturing by people of so little character they cannot see themselves beyond the little categories other people (or even sadder, they themselves) put them in.
Chuck66,
Oh man.
It's great if you live in a safe neighborhood, with economic opportunity and a decent standard of living to allow all this rearranging and not think much of it.
Many fewer think through the ideas behind these changes and their consequences.
R-V, but most divesity obsessions have to due more with tearing down someone else.
I think diversity is when I face a white wienie liberal, than someone who satisfies a skin color checkbox.
To diversity people, Patrick Buchanon and Dennis Kusinch (sp..Ohio guy) are one and the same.
you don’t have to be an underrepresented group to be able to feel like you’re diverse or that you have a unique identity
Everyone is special!
This is just the campus grievance industry, mining for a new product line.
R/V, my personal life features working and personal relationships with all you've mentioned.
What in the hell are you talking about?
This individual is diverse
It's the new euphemism for manic-depression.
How integrated has the white race in America become?
It used to be we had the Anglos, the Irish, the Italians, the Germans, the Poles, the Greeks, the Russians, the Nordics, the Hungarians, the Slavs, and the Jews (who were disperesed among some of these groups).
It's a shame that the white race has miscegenated so much among its ethnicities. It really has killed a lot of diversity in this country.
I was a UW-Madison student from 93-97. I thought the PC nonsense was out of control then.
I remember taking a history class regarding immigration patterns into the US because it was the most useful class I could find that fulfilled the "ethnic studies" credit I needed to graduate with a degree in biochemistry.
I recall my roommates, who were also hard science majors, wasting their time and tuition money on some class like "African Storyteller."
The great part living in a neighborhood that is actually diverse, in never having to celebrate diversity.
I will bet $100 that the person who came up with this idea is not an Engineering Professor.
I have no doubt that R/V takes great pleasure handing out the political indoctrination in his class
I'm thinking they overlooked the beer, and the wet T-shirt contest.
A field trip to the city of Chicago on Saturday night would be a great learning experience.
It's time to quit using the racist liberal descriptions of different groups of people. On the color spectrum: Black=the total absence of color; White=the complete presence of every color. This is horribly denigrating to those referred to as "black."
It's not graffiti cuz some fugly white chick used a stencil.
"I'm a student of color. Hear me."
Sounds like one of those persons that everyone hears because they never. shut. up.
Does that religious diversity category include coming to an understanding of Catholic institutions, and their desire to not fund something that they define as tantamount to infanticide?
Or is that too diverse?
What about student organizations who self-define as Buddhist, and would like to limit their leadership to Buddhist students? Or those organizations who self-define as Christian, and would like to limit leadership to Christian students?
Is one of those actions diverse, and the other restrictive? Why, or why not?
Enquiring minds want to know.
"I'm a student of color. Hear me."
Remember when a student of color was someone studying art? Or sensory psychology?
Wait, isn't this the dept head that pulls in $150k/r as Diversity & Environmental head?
Shouting Thomas,
I know, I wonder the students feel insulted by his assumptions. That the ONLY way to experience diversity in through a college course. Sure a lot students from the suburbs, do indeed expereince little diversity. But reading literature from differing point of views is not an 'experience'. It is learning about different authors, from different parts of the world. We're obsessed with experiences. I never traveled, and I never felt a lost of experience.
A diverse individual tried to redistribute my lawn mower out of my garage Sunday morning. Hear him I did and I then raised his awareness.
I'm surprised that this sort of institutionalized PC mau-mau-ing is only now showing up on a campus as reliably lefty as UW-Madison's.
This stuff happened every year at Stanford in my day, and that was over 20 years ago. (Unless you lived in an ethnic-minority(-themed) dorm. I suppose, there, you couldn't go around celebrating diversity, because that would mean celebrating people of pallor.)
Diversity, Diversity!
You know we have a simple aim.
Diversity, Diversity!
Everyone should look different,
But think just exactly the same.
Wait, isn't this the dept head that pulls in $150k/r as Diversity & Environmental head?
More likely a Dean, or Dean-let.
RV: In other words your students are living and working in a diverse environment and thus have no need of a special diversity awareness project. This is good and the way that students actually learn. A bullshit "diversity week" will have the opposite effect, forcing people to wonder what that smell is that is coming from the Hmong's lunch box.
The "lily white suburb" cliché is pretty stale by now. I go back to the suburb I grew up in and there are plenty of Indians, Koreans, Vietnamese, Mexicans, and yes, middle class blacks who are American, Jamaican, Kenyan, et. al.
Academia's attitude is condescending, to say the least, and I've seen the same attitudes from college town alt-weeklies regarding the Evil Suburbs.
Sounds like Party Week for the peg-legged black jewish lesbians.
How about celebrating political diversity?
National Brotherhood Week,
National Brotherhood Week,
It's only for a week so please don't fear.
Be grateful that it doesn't last all year!
"RV: In other words your students are living and working in a diverse environment and thus have no need of a special diversity awareness project."
Exactly, UW-Madison is very diverse, racially and culturally. It was that way when I went there 25 years ago. "Diversity" is likely more about blacks and gays than anyone else.
Also, Madison has a pretty large non-student black population, just in case anyone thinks it's lily-white here. I'm guessing there are a lot of exiles from Chicago.
In the summer of 1970, in Cincinnati, I was encouraged to participate in "sensitivity training" by my employer, as were many other employees. We were a diverse group, black, white, Jewish, Christian, and atheist. We were all pretty okay with that.
Turned out the theme was diversity, and how wonderful it was, and how we should celebrate and promote diversity.
Since then, I've been "diversitied" constantly and relentlessly by every possible organization I've ever been in contact with. We even have CLE courses in diversity. So, after over forty years of diversity concerns, I find I've had a change of heart.
Screw it. I've decided I now no longer like or trust anybody except people who look like me.
Matt: my kid is a taking Cultural Geography for exactly that reason. I told him that if he took anything with a "Studies" in the name that he would be sleeping outside for the duration of the semester.
We need to respect the other fellow's religion in the sense and to the extent that we respect his belief that is wife is beautiful and his children smart
H. L. Mencken
The PC/diversity shtick was explained by Theodore Dalrymple perfectly:
“In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is...in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to."
Why not encourage diversity by having the class taught by someone who has to work for a living?
For example law course should be taught by a ham and egg lawyer who has to hustle writing wills and doing closings which is what most of those nudnicks will be doing.
Show up and let it be known that you are a Christian, conservative, adn believe in traditional marriage and no sex before the wedding night.
Good luck.
On university campii "diversity" means "people of all colors and genders who beleive in leftist ideology."
Sounds like a lot of grim fun.
Those of us who do not think about diversity are merely "post identity"! We just think about character and actions, not labels.
Obama is dead wrong. We need to take money away from the education system. The system clearly has too much money.
Well, yes. It is obvious, isn't it? The more money the federal government puts into education, the more the colleges and universities compete for money instead of competing for students.
Anybody else remember both Obama and Romney promising during their second debate to beef up Pell grants?
Just a photo?! Nobody thought to lift up that slab of concrete and free him?!
I wonder if during Diversity Week they will cover how well the post-apartheid diversity regime in South Africa is working out for the white folks there, who were promised that if they just gave up their control of the country and were ruled by blacks, that everything would be rainbows and joy?
Like for this 18 year old girl, for instance.
Somehow I think South Africa will never be mentioned even once at any event during Diversity Week. It might discourage the white students, who need to be kept calm and brainwashed with the same promises whites in South Africa were given, thus keeping their disposession smooth and easy.
Why do college students need encouragement to embrace diversity? Aren't the exotic particularly attractive at that age? I know that for me the more different from myself the better. Why, I even had a Yankee friend in college! Seriously, who doesn't search for friends in college who are different from what we already know?
I am sick of the institutionalized bias that fosters disparity in senses. Why is it always OK to say "hear me", but not "touch me?"
Yes in some ways I was implying diversity is the environment at UW and to call out a week for this might not be necessary if all classes were as diverse as mine, but unfortunately they are not. And ST why do you constantly make such assinine assumptions about my class. I teach the Toulmin Model for argument that backs up claims with facts because it is widely used in the sciences and has little to nothing PC about it.
n one of my sections this semester, I have students who heritages include: Hmong, Vietnamese, Mexican, African American, Chinese, Middle Eastern and European. In discussions on stem cell research and the moral dilemma it poses, they presented religious views as well as secular ones; they bring in experience from other countries that enriches the discussion. I like to tell my students this is one of the few chances they will have in life to engage with such a diverse group, and they should take advantage of it.
What planet are you living on? Increasingly you can't get AWAY from "engaging" with diversity. What will become rarer and rarer is the chance to live and work among your own people, and to experience what that feeling of belonging and unity, what that feeling of absence of racial/cultural tension, feels like.
This is like when you ask liberals what the "benefits" of diversity for white people are, and they say "oh, there's such a variety of ethnic restaurants!" As if they had never heard of the concept of a "recipe", which actually makes it possible to cook ethnic food without needing to actually import a few million people from that country to cook it.
Here's just the latest news about how "beneficial" diversity really is:
Diversity may be killing older African-Americans and Hispanics, according to a new peer-reviewed study published in the America Journal of Public Health, which shows that people suffer less cancer and heart disease when they live among their racial or ethnic peers.
Notice that the researchers don't dare to mention how diversity affects the lifespans of whites. It's only politically correct to worry about how it might affect non-whites. If the whites die sooner because of it, well, they had it coming I guess.
"... you don’t have to be an underrepresented group to be able to feel like you’re diverse or that you have a unique identity."
I "have an inclination or desire for" liberals to understand and accept my freedom-loving conservative viewpoint. I also feel that my viewpoint should be made part of any and all decisions affecting me as an individual - with no group grope.
Just discussing the ill-named concept of "diversity" eliminates my personal world view. What is needed is less feeling and more empirical measurements to prove that diversity actually changes anything.
"Yes in some ways I was implying diversity is the environment at UW and to call out a week for this might not be necessary if all classes were as diverse as mine..."
What classes aren't as diverse as yours, and why do you think that is?
Only on Planet Lefty can unwavering, inflexible, monotonous, authoritarian thought be called "diversity".
It's a "University" for a reason.
EMD said...
If I were in college, I would commence a "Content of Character" week.
It would go over so well, I'm sure.
Great title.
R/V, the term "diversity," which is indeed hi-falutin' in its pretentions, is in fact entirely a word for liberal propaganda.
I've had to put up courses on "diversity" for several of my corporate clients.
It's empty propaganda meant to pacify the EEOC, and intended to keep the EEOC from filing lawsuits against the company.
The diversity program isn't just propaganda, it's empty nonsense. Employees hate being subjected to it.
I am constantly commanded to deliver a 45 minute online course for my clients. There are, probably, three paragraphs of actual content to the diversity program, and even those three paragraphs are bullshit fluff.
It's a constant challenge to puff up those three paragraphs in a way that fills up 45 minutes.
"Diversity" is a code word for liberal propaganda about race and sex. It's the PC program.
Diversity of opinion,
Diversity of thought,
That can be a dangerous proposition
'Cause sometimes people think
What they should not.
Matt said...
I remember taking a history class regarding immigration patterns into the US because it was the most useful class I could find that fulfilled the "ethnic studies" credit I needed to graduate with a degree in biochemistry. I recall my roommates, who were also hard science majors, wasting their time and tuition money on some class like "African Storyteller."
To satisfy a similar requirement I took Black Politics. I believed I was a liberal - sill me, I was young and accepted the marketing definition. That class disabused me of that notion quickly. The hate, rancor, and racist tripe was simply unbelievable. Even to express an even-handed comment or point out other possibilities rather than condemning 2/3 of Americans as racist was tantamount to supporting explicit Jim Crow discrimination in that environment. Consider that those running the diversity programs now were the most successful students in that environment.
Why not call it SWPLAANZA. Light a candle each day. BTW,what is the diversity breakdown for the faculty and staff at the
U-diversity of Wisconsin??
what is the diversity breakdown for the faculty and staff at the
U-diversity of Wisconsin??
Here's one of the Diversity Programs. One way to increase diversity here would be to fire 8 of the black employees.
Those of us who do not think about diversity are merely "post identity"! We just think about character and actions, not labels.
Helping other people get beyond that is the challenge. IMO it does no good to blame people for thinking that way.
RV: So you imply that diversity is and yet is not in evidence in your academy. How do you weed out those who are not in the path of diversity and compel them to diversify if that is the proper term for the indoctrination? But I have an idea:
How about making all the "peoples of color" take classes that those who are not "peoples of color" take thus ensuring the diversity that could be lacking in classes other than your own? Problem solved.
How about no more White, but "persons of pallor?" no more drunks, but "people of stupor?"
Helping other people get beyond that is the challenge. IMO it does no good to blame people for thinking that way.
They should get the fuck over themselves.
I'm a student who doesn't care about color -- blow me.
MnMark - "There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters. - Daniel Webster
There seems to be little diversity on this blog; I noticed that Althouse over-looked this news item about Kyle Wood who claimed those evil liberals beat him:
A volunteer for Chad Lee's congressional campaign has recanted allegations that he was attacked at his home last week for being a gay Republican.
The volunteer, Kyle Wood, could now face criminal charges that include obstructing police or filing a false police report, Madison Police Capt. Joe Balles said Monday
Read more: http://host.madison.com/news/local/crime_and_courts/volunteer-for-chad-lee-recants-story-of-attack-for-being/article_93cfc308-2220-11e2-8351-001a4bcf887a.html#ixzz2Aojz0UYc
Diversity is just so, you know, diverse!
I think white should be a color, too.
Whiteness makes all the other colors so colorful!!!
I don't think the word "diverse" should apply to an individual.
What a reactionary! "Diverse" is just a euphemism for "black". Of course it applies to an individual. I remember watching a news reporter in a class with 100% black kids gushing about the class's diversity.
Other races try to horn in on the action when there's money involved. But if you're talking about a student body, or a neighborhood, or a group of smelly hippies who took over your local park, you mean "black".
We're going to have to think up a new word when we really want to say "showing a great deal of variety" in the same way we couldn't use "gay" to mean happy anymore. I guess that's the way languages work.
There seems to be little diversity on this blog; I noticed that Althouse over-looked this news item about Kyle Wood who claimed those evil liberals beat him:
As always, I'm mystified when people expect other bloggers to blog about their own personal hobby horses. Why don't you get your own blog?
I've known people of diverse backgrounds. Some of my friends had parents who underwent a contentious divorce in their childhood. One friend had a younger brother with autism. He claimed that he was neglected because his autistic brother required nearly all of his parents' attention. I knew one girl who had been sexually abused by her stepfather. Another girl lost her mother and then her grandmother and had to grow up in a series of foster homes. There are diverse forms of diversity, but only some of them win points in admissions offices.
There seems to be little diversity on this blog;
Sure there is. We have white conservatives in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s.
"Diverse" is just a euphemism for "black"."
Can't disagree. Try applying the 'diverse' label to a group of white people...because liberals do not see INDIVIDUALS of course they would disagree. Because, liberals are obsessed with skin color. And 'groups'.
I'm here to tell you that white people also have colored skin.
Silly liberal idiots.
Only on Planet Lefty can unwavering, inflexible, monotonous, authoritarian thought be called "diversity".
The word, I think, is "Orwellian".
I wonder if Eric Blair was (or would be) upset to learn his pen name is associated primarily with doublespeak.
Diversity like racist is sounding like a nonesense word. The more you hear it used and misapplied the less sense it makes. Soon it will sound like the adults in a Charlie Brown cartoon. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
"There are diverse forms of diversity, but only some of them win points in admissions offices."
Institutional racism in the post-modern era, courtesy of benevolent liberal/'progressives'.
In this case, forward means backward.
"The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants"
10 to 1 it was a white student who spray painted that..heck, probably a white professor or the head of the diversity department.
roesch/voltaire said...
There seems to be little diversity on this blog; I noticed that Althouse over-looked this news item about Kyle Wood who claimed those evil liberals beat him:
It would be quite difficult to "notice" this fact since there are at least two threads on it. "Made up" or "like to pretend" are better substitutes.
"Sure there is. We have white conservatives in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s."
But it seems we don't have Crack Emcee to kick around any more. I guess he was serious about pulling out. He couldn't abide the "diversity" a Mormon president would bring to the polity.
The student chair of the Diversity Committee "said she hopes the event would probe students’ minds and make them think about how their own identities are 'compiled.'"
Yes. Above all else think about yourself.
"I'm shocked they aren't finding a way to make all this more coercive."
Well some people are:
Please Report to Your Resident Assistant to Discuss Your Sexual Identity—It’s Mandatory! Thought Reform at the University of Delaware
The sessions were part of a thorough thought-reform curriculum, designed by the school's Office of Residence Life, to psychologically "treat" and correct the allegedly incorrect thoughts, attitudes, values, beliefs, and habits of the students. The ResLife staff considered students too intolerant of one another, too "consumerist," and in dire need of reeducation to become responsible world citizens who could meet the planet's environmental crisis and the requirements of social and economic "justice."
...
Mandatory group sessions singled out and shamed non-minority students because of their "privilege" in American society. Staff members kept individual files on students and their beliefs—which were to be archived after graduation.
...
RAs were required to report their "best" and "worst" one-on-one sessions to their superiors, including students' names and room numbers. Posters and door decorations provided the ResLife messages everywhere; one could not escape them. One administrator of the program, Sendy Guerrier, wrote that students "should be confronted with this information at every turn." Students with "traditional" beliefs had to become "allies" and "change agents" by their senior year.
After a hue and cry from professors, students, parents, and concerned organizations about the creepiness of the whole thing, the university was forced to withdraw this Orwellian program. But is there any doubt that it's not dead, just sleeping. The people who designed this monstrosity are still in education. They still have important jobs. It seems likely they will try again when the moment is ripe.
roesch/voltaire said...
I noticed that Althouse over-looked this news item about Kyle Wood who claimed those evil liberals beat him:
Roesch/voltaire, like garage mahal, just wants to bludgeon Romney and Romney supporters with that story.
I think the graffiti spray painter of color is confused. "Diversity" ought to apply to different cultures, not different colors of skin.
(Unless one thinks people are different because of skin color.)
While we are on the topic, let's get a good explanation of the goals of diversity.
Sorry, I should have bolded this line.
Students with "traditional" beliefs had to become "allies" and "change agents" by their senior year.
When deversity proponents will realise that their agenda is exceptionally divisive in addition to reducing people to what ever deversity tag they can be put on. People trying to get ahead by riding diversity wave are anything but one or other kind of facsist pigs in "progressive" cloak. Diversity is just another divide and rule option to them.
garage mahal said...
There seems to be little diversity on this blog;
Sure there is. We have white conservatives in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s.
Wait, garage, you neglected to include the fact that we have idiots of indeterminate ethnic origin, too. Or maybe you are just relying on your comment to support that.
"While we are on the topic, let's get a good explanation of the goals of diversity."
The goal of diversity is more liberalism.
This concludes today's lesson.
Diversity? HAH!! what about mandatory quotas for deaf lesbian Eskimo midgets?
From the article kcom links at 4:24:
Mandatory group sessions singled out and shamed non-minority students because of their 'privilege' in American society.
That's appalling. Just gross. I just lost a ton of respect for U of DE if that's all true.
Nice neat lettering for a Wisconsin student. Kudos
Pogo "The PC/diversity shtick was explained by Theodore Dalrymple perfectly: 'In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better...I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.'"
Dalrymple has roesch's number.
After a few years of ignoring us, the company I work for eventually acknowledged men during Diversity Week by bringing in Barbecue Grill distributors and power tool manufacturers. Had any other special interest group been treated in such a stereotypical manner, they would have rioted. However, while all of those special interests wasted company time touring all the different displays, the men of the company continued to work to make the company a profit.
Our uniqueness as individuals comes from standing at the intersection of many, many cultures -- some local, some global, some named, mostly without labels. That form of diversity deserves attention. This stuff, beside the point.
Another thing occurs to me, looking at that graphic.
Shouldn't demands to "hear me" be ... combined with some message which demands being heard?
Got something to say that you think's being ignored?
Okay. Say it. Let's hear it - maybe it's awesome or important and we should care.
But a content-less demand for attention doesn't get much sympathy.
What am I supposed to be hearing from you, generic student with no identity other than "of color"?
The graphic spray-painted onto the concrete is a symptom of the cultural rot that Dalrymple (pst314!) points out in his writing.
"An attitude characterised by gratefulness and having obligations towards others has been replaced – with awful consequences – by an awareness of "rights" and a sense of entitlement, without responsibilities. This leads to resentment as the rights become violated by parents, authorities, bureaucracies and others in general"
What am I supposed to be hearing from you, generic student with no identity other than "of color"?
The primal cry of indeterminate rage. We're talking about children here.
Lynn Maddows admires:
Nice neat lettering for a Wisconsin student. Kudos
It is a unique for a stencil font. But the overspray is a little messy, don't you think?
The one group that has been the most accepting of diversity and the most integrated in history is strangely the only one assumed to be in need of more of it. That group developed its unprecedented diversity before the advent of diversity studies. The basic assumptions behind the university's ideas about diversity or lack of it are based on fallacies, and frankly, racism.
Eric said...
The primal cry of indeterminate rage
FU, I won't do what you tell me!!
"This individual is diverse."
I believe they now have medicine for that.
"I'm a student of color. Hear me." No, bozo, I'd rather see you in a coat and tie standing up when the judge walks into your trial for defacing university property.
Hear what? I don't hear anything.
Graffiti discriminates against the blind.
Graffiti discriminates against the blind.
Not to mention the message is insensitive to the auditorily challenged.
Balkanfest!
Find your victim class! Pick two! Or more!
What a sad place is become academia.
roesch/voltaire,
There seems to be little diversity on this blog; I noticed that Althouse over-looked this news item about Kyle Wood who claimed those evil liberals beat him [.]
And there I thought she'd posted an update to her post of a day or two ago yesterday, far down the page. Silly me.
I'M A STUDENT OF COLOR HEAR ME
What a sad, arrogant, empty demand.
It presumes both oppression and superiority, but provides no evidence of either.
So why would anyone comply?
If you want to be heard, say something. If you want to be heeded, say something interesting.
And stop writing on the fucking sidewalk.
"Intersectionality" = playing nicely with other progressive pets for the Greater Good.
Hahahaha. It's like Spirit Week from junior high. Monday was pajama day. Tuesday was hippie day. I can't recall the other days except Friday, which was Spirit Day. So you came dressed in your school's colors. Blue and green. Yuck.
Maybe non-diverse people need a day. I'm sure once all the fags, spooks, and vaginas are tallied, there's a small minority of people that don't fit into any category. They should get a day. A day of pity, for they are not diverse. The dice are weighted against them. They need special scholarships and lowered standards. How else will they get ahead?
Clearly, this Celebrate Diversity horseshit has made me more tolerant.
sexuality day, multicultural day, religious diversity day, women’s day and a disability day
So this kind of telegraphs the order of priority, no?
1. Gays
2. Blacks and browns
3. Muslims
4. Chix
5. Other
Political Diversity Week
Monday: statist crapweasel day
Tuesday: well-meaning liberal day
Wednesday: inde[cisive]pendent day
(a/k/a "hump" day)
Thursday: RINO day
Friday: Tea bagger day
Parental Reaction to Diversity Week
Get Off My Lawn Day
What is Wrong With You Day
Stop Fucking About and Graduate Day
Get a Real Job Day
Pay Day/Bring Me a Beer Day
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