"If you can’t bear walking past a rock someone called a dirty name 100 years ago, how are you going to deal with life?"

"It surely feels like being on the right side of social justice these days means shielding Black students even from all but nonexistent harms while essentially telling Jewish students, who are being actually assailed verbally, to just grow up. But to train young people, or any people, to think of themselves as weak is a form of abuse.... [A]nyone who has made the mistake of thinking that a healthy Jewish soul must endure ongoing calls for the extermination of Israel might at least consider that a healthy Black soul can endure a sour tweet, a talk by someone who has opposed racial preferences and even the Mandarin expression 'nèi ge.'"

Writes John McWhorter, in "Black Students Are Being Trained to Think They Can’t Handle Discomfort" (NYT).

The rock in question is that boulder the University of Wisconsin removed from Observatory Hill 2 years ago, which I blogged here. I said:

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.”