UPDATE: I just went over to see the set up for removing the rock. This is my photograph, taken at 6:01 p.m.
ORIGINAL POST:
"Chamberlin Rock, located on top of Observatory Hill, is named in honor of Thomas Crowder Chamberlin, a geologist and former university president. But for some students of color on campus, the rock represents a painful history of discrimination. The boulder was referred to as a 'n-----head' — a commonly used expression in the 1920s to describe any large dark rock — at least once in a 1925 Wisconsin State Journal headline. University historians have not found any other time that the term was used but said the Ku Klux Klan was active on campus at that time. UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca approved the removal of Chamberlin Rock in January but the Wisconsin Historical Society needed to sign off on the rock’s removal because it was located within 15 feet of a Native American burial site. The university announced Thursday that the rock will be removed at 6:30 a.m. Friday."
The Wisconsin State Journal reports.
The Chancellor's name is Rebecca Blank. It's just a dumb error for the State Journal — without which there'd be no evidence of calling the rock the n-word — to call her by her first name alone. Speaking of disrespect for the chancellor, when I wrote about the rock last summer, I included Meade's description of the protest outside her house:
We live a stone’s throw from the Chancellor’s mansion. Last Friday morning around 7AM, I heard chanting outside. Turns out it was coming from a group of 20-30 protesters at her front door chanting, “Wake up, Becky and move the rock! Wake up, Becky and move the rock!”
And let me also quote myself:
What is the cost of moving a 70-ton boulder? What is the value of the beauty of the rock itself, which has nothing to do with racism? The only reason for attacking the rock is that there is no way to do anything to the use of a word 95 years ago. That's an incident in the past. Gone. But the rock is there. You're getting mad at a rock? No, you're asking for something to be done that can be done. A 70-ton rock can be moved, and so the demand is to move the rock. It's theater, and the university should have the sense to say no.
At least, I'm seeing in the article, the cost will be covered by private donations.
Posts
14 comments:
…like a complete unKNOWN…
Ted writes:
"In the newspaper article that refers to Chancellor Rebecca Blank only by her first name, there's a hyperlink immediately following -- so I'm guessing the error occurred when that link was inserted, somehow causing her last name to be deleted. But it's surprising that this embarrassing error hasn't been fixed in the time since the article was posted.
"By the way, when you pointed to your own earlier post on this topic, I noticed that it appeared not long before the controversy about whether it's okay to mention the first lady of the United States, Jill Biden, without using the honorific "Doctor." As you pointed out, here were these (presumably feminist) students, referring to the chancellor of their university -- a former U.S. cabinet member with a doctorate from MIT and a long, distinguished career as an economist -- by her diminutive nickname, "Becky." Disrespect is okay for some and not for others, but who decides?"
Temujin writes:
"I can't wait until those students who found the rock so upsetting and racist, graduate and get out in the world working at a real job. Assuming they will get hired, what sort of misery will they try to impose on their employers? What 'rocks' might be upsetting to them out there. And what if...my God...what if no one responds in a manner they like?
"To find out what happens, watch any 3 year old, because that's the mentality we're dealing with here. Spoiled three year old emotional maturity levels.
"I'll offer up our backyard for the UW rock if it is in need of a home. Although I'll have to get HOA approval first. I'm hoping I can hide it's ugly past."
impresaria writes:
"Removing the rock exemplifies the Jewish value of "shalom babayit", peace in the house. You give in in something even though you are in the right, to avoid unpleasantness with those you care about."
Assistant village Idiot writes:
"I have sad news for Temujin. One can no longer count on the working world and so-called Real World to reinforce reality anymore. I am retired from psych hospital work, but the recent graduates imposed their reality more efficiently than the Olde Guard held them off over the last decade."
And a rock feels no pain...
Ha ha Meade. Part of me wants to see it get away from them. A roll down the hill into Mendota would be legendary.
So what are those students going to do when they find out the city Madison was named after James Madison, slaveowner (albeit also the 4th President of the US)?
They should be encouraged to move away and make a noisy withdrawal. Having the woke geographically self-segregate would seem to make the likelihood of a warm or hot civil war less likely in the short term, while giving us all more time to figure out if we can avoid that fate and how to peacefully dissolve the Union.
How exactly did the rock get there? It appears to be a glacial erratic. Those darn racist glaciers.
I think the compositors took the name "Blank" literally, which also gives us all something to think about. Blank is as blank does, as Forrest Gump might say. Blank by name, blank by nature.
The chancellor... (fill in the blank).
Even the stones will cry out.
It doesn't look like much of a racial caricature. It looks like a large rock, and, aesthetically, there's not much to recommend it in such a setting......The point of a long, rolling lawn is to create a soothing, predator free environment. The lawn will look all the better after the rock's removal. Who knows what dark creatures would lurk in that rock's shadows if it were permitted to dominate the peaceful lawn....I hope it finds a good home in some Japanese rock garden.
Amadeus is on to something. The omission stricks me as Freudian. [BLANK]-[BLANK]-[BLANK]-[BLANK]-[BLANK]-[BLANK]-head Rock. Chancellor Rebecca [BLANK]-[BLANK]-[BLANK]-[BLANK]-[BLANK]-[BLANK], head of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
It is just so absurd. "I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part."
Well done, UW, well done.
Post a Comment