Of course in this case oberlin leadership just acted very poorly and there is no excuse.
My point is different: that exaggerating racism harms non-white people. I know other Asians who say stuff like "oh, I wouldn't want to go to the south because people are racist." And they're missing out on good food, warm weather, and friendly people. Trump won my precinct (which weirdly encompasses just my subdivision) 58-34 in 2016 when I moved there. It's a lovely place to live with lots of kids and friendly neighbors. A minority who is told by authority figures that the local bakery in Oberlin Ohio is a hotbed of racism might be too scared to come where I live. And that's not good for anybody.
Interestingly, it was southern states that elected the first two governors of Indian descent: Bobby Jindal in Louisiana (2008-2016)[1] and Nikki Haley in South Carolina (2011-2017)[2].
Red state desis represent a small share of the overall south Asian immigrant population—they mostly come from an earlier wave of migration that has since been vastly outnumbered by post-H1B immigrants to coastal hubs—but have seen outsized success in appointed and elected positions.
Of course it does, but you phrased it in a way that implies that the racist aggressors are always white.
Exaggerating racism & racism itself hurts _everyone_. There are people that are racist to white people, there are non-white people that are racist other non-white people.
It's racism itself, in a general sense that we're fighting. I think especially in a non-white context, as it's so ignored - I've had non-white friends be incredibly racist to other cultures and it's oddly just a weirdly accepted thing. Like before recent events in Hong Kong, a friend of mine from there talking about "mainlanders" and how trashy/uncultured/animals they are.
It turns out that in a world that rewards virtue signaling financially, you can literally major in it!
One of the previous threads here had a link to a pdf somewhere in the comments, that looked like it had excerpts from the court filings. It had quite a few emails saying variants on "my experience with them says these accusations aren't true at all".
So no, I don't think one student pushing back would have helped.
When you gather that many social justice warriors together in a location where there is no actual injustice to prosecute, they will creatively invent some so that they can do the thing they enjoy doing.
You see a similar pattern with firefighters. When there haven't been many recent fires to put out, you start seeing more firefighters getting arrested for arson.
See here:
"It is important to know that most of the fire stations/departments do not pay for the services of a volunteer firefighter. However, they may get reimbursed for attending training and meetings, responding to fires and emergencies, and time spent on shifts. The amount of reimbursement is generally at the discretion of the fire department."
https://www.firesciencedegreeschools.com/how-to-become-a-vol....
This is exactly the kind of cancel culture that Oberlin demonstrated toward the bakery. "They did something unforgivable! Eliminate them!"
Organizations have problems. People are imperfect. Society needs justice. But cancel culture is a mob mentality that goes far beyond justice and is harmful to society.
They claimed it falsely and without evidence though. The same is not true for any action that would be taking against the college.
When someone claims that a random person committed a crime, kidnaps and imprisons them, we call that kidnapping and false imprisonment. But we won't shy away from taking the perpetrator off the street and in turn locking them up so they don't do it again.
https://firstamendmentwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/S...
"This is a RACIST establishment ...": That's a statement of opinion, not actionable.
"... with a LONG ACCOUNT of RACIAL PROFILING and DISCRIMINATION.": That's a statement of fact, and it was therefore actionable and cost Oberlin's insuror millions.
That seems like a reasonable way to split the difference between free speech and libel.
In this case, the two definitions and their purposes would be:
Definition 1. "One not actively working to create equal outcomes for non-white groups (even simply being neutral/disinterested is racist in this definition)". This is the definition of racist in the popular How to Be an Antiracist. This would be used to attach the word to the target.
Definition 2. "One directly and intentionally harming people of non-white races out of conscious and deliberate hatred". Basically the KKK definition. This is the implication that's attached to the target, after definition 1 is used to "stick" the word onto the target.
It's an amazing "stick and stab" tactic that, somehow, we haven't yet developed cultural antibodies against.
But what annoys me is that class is now equated with race. There are millions of poor whites in America who are not nor ever will be privileged.
Nice. I have heard the term motte and bailey used to describe that tactic.
I would be surprised if this reframing is accepted by enough of the population for a court to accept it.
The entire premise is ludicrous but it’s shocking how many just adopt that line of thinking without any critical thought.
“If you’re not actively fighting against illegal rhino poaching, you are a literally a poacher. It’s not enough to simply “not poach”. You must actively go around physically stopping other poachers.”
Point being you can’t just pick one pet issue and proclaim that anyone who isn’t actively involved in irradiating that issue is necessarily complicit in the issue. There are just too many causes one might be interested in.
Some states have them, some don’t, and the US Constitution’s First Amendment puts limits on the laws that do exist.
One problem is they are very civilly focused. How much money did you lose? A corporate execute might be out millions, while the guy at MacDonalds might be out a few thousand.