Geraldo Rivera quits Yale over college name change --"political correctness is lame"

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Changing the names of things to satisfy wants and desires may be meaningful to you, and to those who are superstitious of words.

How is it different from the wants and desires of those that mean to preserve things that don't matter anymore? Seems just as superstitious of you to worry so much about what people worry about. Things change

Bombay is now Mumbai. There are reasons for everything - the world moves on

Around the same time, a pane of stained glass in the college's common room depicting a shackled black man kneeling before Calhoun was altered to depict Calhoun alone.

I can be as nostalgic as the next person, but one has to wonder how needy and insecure a person has to be to insist that things stay the same, and that nobody ever argues for change. Or is it what's being changed that bothers you?

They mulled over this name change for a while - it didn't happen at the end of a gun

But, yeah - sure Les. This is just about unruly youngsters getting their way

Yale to Host 'Black Panther Party' for Black History Month

Things are so messed up.
They are celebrating a group that was violent and supported segregation.
How is this progress?

a reply to: seasonal

You've definitely picked the wrong person for this conversation...

Some of my direct ancestors were staunch abolitionists, before it became a thing. Ran safe house, or way stations, along the Underground Railway, into Maryland and points north, straight up into Canada.

So I can safely say no, I wouldn't have been picketing outside of plantations, I'd have been helping them escape...

I had family on both sides of the War between the States, ain't a one of 'em a slave holder, nor supportive of the institution that I'm aware of...and I've read many a diary that's from that era that has come down from generation to generation.

a reply to: seagull

That's a pretty awesome legacy!

originally posted by: Metallicus
a reply to: seasonal

I fully agree with standing up against the PC movement, however, this might not be the right battle. After reading about John Calhoun I don't much like the guy or what he stood for either.

I don't know, but I do know I am getting really tired of this movement we have of punishing history for not living up to our preferred ideals of the present.

So John C. Calhoun was a racist scumbag who was rich enough to get his name on an entire school at Yale? Guess what? Woodrow Wilson was a racist scumbag who was able to be our president, so we can't scrub him from history. What do we do with that? He was also our first truly progressive president as the term is now understood which further puts the progs in a pickle.

So do they whitewash the less savory things about Wilson or just remove him? I've seen them try to remove him in a few places, but it gets awkward when you consider the role he played in history.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Are the protests peaceful ones? If so, then absolutely they do.

It doesn't matter who, or what, Calhoun was, those students have every right to protest and demand the name be changed. Yale could have, as was their right, too, to tell them to go home and do their homework.

If they don't like the new name, they're within their rights to protest that, too. Just so long as the protests are peaceful, I've no issue with folks voicing their opinions about matters of importance to them.

They are trying to remove the fact his money helped establish the college. Same thing was started at Vanderbilt there 2as a movement to remove the commodore from campus. Let's face it he wasn't a nice guy but it was his money that creared the college in the first place. His beliefs do not in the least bit matter.

a reply to: ketsuko

No one is erasing history. Nor is anyone saying it should be. It's the name of a building belonging to a private institution of (questionably) higher learning.

No one is removing this bigots name from the history books, nor have any advocated such. Not here, anyway. I suppose some idiot somewhere might say such...but not here.

originally posted by: dragonridr

They are trying to remove the fact his money helped establish the college.

So? It is their college, they can rename the building Snowflakey McFlakerstein if they want.

a reply to: BlueAjah

I've always thought so!!

a reply to: seagull

Well with your rich history with this subject, then you should see the changes in the culture, and hats off the your relatives.

And the point of my last post was there was a bunch of things going on in the year 1800 that no one now things was super duper.

We need to be careful of washing the stains out of our history cloth. These things happened, taking names off buildings is not going to solve anything.

Should we consider changing the name of Washington DC? Slaves...

George Washington, the first President of the United States, was a slave owner for virtually all of his life. His will provided for freeing his slaves upon the death of his widow Martha Washington.

a reply to: ketsuko

Very well said.

History is ugly and terrible and true.

originally posted by: seagull
a reply to: ketsuko

No one is erasing history. Nor is anyone saying it should be. It's the name of a building belonging to a private institution of (questionably) higher learning.

No one is removing this bigots name from the history books, nor have any advocated such. Not here, anyway. I suppose some idiot somewhere might say such...but not here.

I get that, but at the same time, let's say you like fuzzy kittens and you donate a bunch of money somewhere and get you name on something and a couple hundred years down the road it becomes a hateful thing for you to like fuzzy kittens. Does that mean your name gets removed all of a sudden?

Basically, they are punishing you for not living up to their standards in a future you never belonged to.

You cannot judge the past and the people in it by the mores and standards of the present. It's the improper context.

That's my point.

Calhoun is long dead and so is the time that produced him. There should be no shame attached to his name anymore. Times have changed. It's not like Calhoun is living and Yale eagerly took his money and then found out he was a bigot by modern standards.

I guess this is the same sort of impulse that has led people to ban the reading of Huckleberry Finn in schools because Mark Twain wrote with colloquial language and used the words of the day including the "n" word and instead of using that to teach about the language and context of Twain's time in history, we would rather not even subject people to the book in the first place, judging it by our modern sensibilities.

a reply to: ketsuko

You are logical and you are trying to convince people who are running on emotions.

This usually ends with you being called a Nazi.

originally posted by: seasonal
a reply to: ketsuko

You are logical and you are trying to convince people who are running on emotions.

This usually ends with you being called a Nazi.

I just remember the MiniTru in 1984 and the memory hole that stuff was flushed down and this is how it gets started.

Not to mention that those who don't learn their history are doomed to repeat it. There is a real desire in some quarters to expunge history or edit it to make it palatable to modern mores and that's not what history is or should be. It's the record of who we are and where we are from in all its "glory."

a reply to: ketsuko

Again you are logical ( and right).

The stripping of all offensive things so people are not hurt is stupid and dangerous. Screw em.

originally posted by: seagull
a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Are the protests peaceful ones? If so, then absolutely they do.

It doesn't matter who, or what, Calhoun was, those students have every right to protest and demand the name be changed. Yale could have, as was their right, too, to tell them to go home and do their homework.

If they don't like the new name, they're within their rights to protest that, too. Just so long as the protests are peaceful, I've no issue with folks voicing their opinions about matters of importance to them.

I think one person was arrested for breaking a window. But on the whole, peaceful, if you consider shaming, chanting, and mob posturing to be peaceful.

In the end, these kids, whom are without experience in society, are taught to get what they want from the adults because they screamed and harangued their business for long enough, and I can only hope that those who advocate for that sort of treatment feel the pressure of that in their lifetimes.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

The best thing they could have did was tell the protestors to leave, call the police and expel them from their over priced college.

originally posted by: Spiramirabilis
a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Changing the names of things to satisfy wants and desires may be meaningful to you, and to those who are superstitious of words.

How is it different from the wants and desires of those that mean to preserve things that don't matter anymore? Seems just as superstitious of you to worry so much about what people worry about. Things change

Bombay is now Mumbai. There are reasons for everything - the world moves on

Around the same time, a pane of stained glass in the college's common room depicting a shackled black man kneeling before Calhoun was altered to depict Calhoun alone.

I can be as nostalgic as the next person, but one has to wonder how needy and insecure a person has to be to insist that things stay the same, and that nobody ever argues for change. Or is it what's being changed that bothers you?

They mulled over this name change for a while - it didn't happen at the end of a gun

But, yeah - sure Les. This is just about unruly youngsters getting their way

Again, to my point, it is the behavior, not whatever symbolic meaning you wish to attribute to it. This isn't an example of critical thought, reason, debate, the enlightenment, nor democracy, the very things these kids should be learning. This is an example of progressivism, activism, disruption, iconoclasm, groupthink and mob threat against history, language and other people's property.

The question no progressive can answer—progressing to what, exactly? To me it looks like we're heralding in a generation of sanctimonious puritans.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

This isn't an example of critical thought, reason, debate, the enlightenment, nor democracy, the very things these kids should be learning. This is an example of progressivism, activism, disruption, iconoclasm, groupthink and mob threat against history, language and other people's property.

Do you think you understand what the word sanctimonious means?

You have an opinion - a point of view

You don't approve of some people's behavior

So what?