He goes out with dignity and took the high road with his parting words. He could just as easily have been a petty brat.
No, the entire point is now only one of these view points is acceptable to be held at Mizzou.
Let’s start with the practical. If the goal is to teach a bunch of white people about racism, having a white person involved in designing that curriculum might be helpful.
Then let’s move on to ability to do the job. Designing a curriculum should be based on research, effective teaching techniques, and facts. Lacking melanin does not prevent a person from having this sort of knowledge.
Lastly, believe it or not, white people can have experience with racism in America. They occasionally marry black people, have black children, or have other close relations. To say, for examples, a white man who married a black woman 40 years ago or a white woman who raised adopted black kids wouldn’t have a useful perspective for this committee is ridiculous.
The woman at the end of that video that grabs the camera and calls for “muscle” to “get this guy out”. According to reddit she is a communications professor at Mizzou. I’m going to put my exaggerator hat on and say this is the new reality of college campuses. Commit a micro-agression and make the school not a safe space for someone?/ Total shit storm from the students. Assault a student and physically interfere with their rights? No problem so long as you’re on the “correct” side.
Direct link to the scene in question:
A good list of common-tater comments…
Any other Div. 1 campuses having simmering racial tensions may be the next to follow suit. Otherwise, the next players’ protest/strike threat will be over economic injustices, i.e. players receiving “paltry” scholarships and no 6-figure cash salaries, and/or sports-related health issues, i.e. being forced to play hurt (with or without narcotics), sustaining concussions, etc. There are so many angles to this:
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The Northwestern U. players already have a jump start on it by having sought to unionize, they just hadn’t chosen to strike…yet.
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How will the players organize themselves across conferences, and nationally? Will existing unions be involved outright, or behind the scenes?
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The conferences are no doubt convening emergency meetings on how to deal with the oncoming avalanche. What will they decide?
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How many schools can absorb huge athletic dept. line items for player salaries? How willing will conferences be to retain and support members with considerably less revenue?
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What will the NFL do to support or replace its de facto minor league system?
Just to name a few…
I’ve read some of those columns and a bunch more to boot because college athlete compensation is a really interesting topic to me. What’s puzzling is that, despite a large volume of opinion pieces like those linked, public debate on the newly realized power of the football team is almost unheard. Now I understand that the issues involving the racism and campus administration dwarf those of sports concerns, but surely what happened with the football team is interesting enough in its own right to spark substantial debate.
What would happen if the NCAA suspends Leonard Fournette (currently under investigation for his family’s financial activities involving his celebrity) and SEC teams decide to boycott the next week’s games until the NCAA backs off? Are we all in denial that this or something similar couldn’t happen? The Missouri players just showed everybody what they can do if enough of them want to.
And we’re talking about a crappy Missouri team. Just imagine if players from top ranked teams conspired and said, “we’re not playing until you pay college athletes.” Heads would explode. I doubt the players themselves realized until now (if they do yet) how much power they really have.
Interesting that the crybaby grad student with the hunger strike comes from incredible wealth, father made 8 million dollars last year. I’m sure this crybaby activist is feeling quite oppressed and certainly needs for all white people to ‘check their privilege’
Having money doesn’t ease the sting of racism. What’s your beef with these students trying to make their campus a bit better?
Interesting why?
ETA: yeah, what Procrustus said.
Says the guy who acts like a crybaby every time something draws attention away from his favorite sport.
When people can be bothered to address the issue, comments generally fall along the lines of “revoke their scholarships and kick them out of school!” Similar to what we heard in other instances forty and fifty years ago. Lots of people don’t like authority being challenged, even if authority is fucking people over.
That sounds a lot like the way an employer would deal with an insubordinate employee. I’m not sure that’s a road they really want to go down.
A good point that has been made by other observers as well. But schools have kinda gone down this road anyway, even if they don’t want to admit it to a judge. The Northwestern union organizing effort didn’t occur in a vacuum.
If the players can achieve a reasonable amount of unity – and that’s a big “if;” Mizzou players were reportedly not all in on their action earlier this week – then school administrators are pretty much at their mercy. One pundit opined that schools will be begging players to organize officially so they can get rules worked out instead of having to deal with disruptive strikes.
If they were actual employees, the schools might even have some legal recourse regarding a concerted action like this. But, as the schools and the NCAA keep insisting, they’re not employees, they’re student-athletes.
So a bunch of football players deciding not to play on Saturday is not actually a strike at all; it’s just a bunch of college kids deciding not to show up for a particular extra-curricular activity.
And I believe they’d have every right to do that, but the net result would be an incredible amount of lost revenue. Don’t see it happening.
[I have been an Assistant Dean, and am married member of faculty]
Wolfe failed at his job. The job of the University President is to maintain positive PR, measured by donations & endowments, recruiting of top students, recruiting of top faculty, and a rise in the rankings.
It is a political job. There are a few faculty (around 5% in my experience), who can move from a research position to a Department Chair, to a School Dean, and then potentially a Provost / Chancellor / President role. It is not easy, and it requires a different mindset. This is not the “all publicity is good” world. This is the world where you must learn to walk with the students, mollify the activists with sufficient platitudes, and keep your faculty under as much control as possible.
The University President is NOT the equivalent of the CEO. You can’t fire a student. You typically can’t fire faculty either, if they are tenured. The days of putting someone on double-secret probation, or bringing in the SWAT teams are gone. Get too heavy handed, and your small PR problem just because a big one. Wolfe obviously did not know how to deal with this.
He could have started with a meeting with the players. Have dinner (hah!) with the grad student. Form a bullshit committee of faculty and students to discuss how to address the racism that exists on campus. Hold a few press conferences. Express your deep dismay at the shit swastika, the reports of “nigger,”, etc.
That is how you deal with it. You don’t hide in your limo, and refuse to answer. The Board of Trustees did the right thing.
Something something on their own petard, what?
I am amused by the vision of players indicating that they won’t be showing up for this week’s games and the ensuing phone calls received by school ADs from television execs. “Fix this. Fix this right fucking now.”
The commenters who are calling for the defiant players’ heads are advocating hardline tactics that have rarely worked in the past and won’t work in the future. They’ll just go somewhere else and, if they’re talented, they’ll get other offers. Nothing like getting a reputation as being unfriendly to black athletes for your program to enjoy enormous success in the revenue sports!
This megalomaniac grad student was just obsessed with getting President Tom Wolfe to admit his ‘white privileges.’ Regardless of the fact that the grad student, Jonathan Butler, has his own privileges that he’ll never check.
The racial incidents don’t seem worthy of Mr. Butler’s ego stroking hunger strike. But, Mr. Butler did ultimately succeed in promoting his own brand, perhaps he has a future in reality tv.
Wait . . . is this the same grad student as the crybaby grad student or are there two grad students, one megalomaniac and one crybaby?