KSU Student is Racist
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Frankly, they shouldn’t expel him and it may be a First Amendment violation, but if everyone wants to publicly shame him that’s cool too.
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@FarmerJayhawk I’m sure that kid is far from the only KSU student who feels that way. I’m sure there’s plenty of KU students who share that sentiment as well.
The kid didn’t advocate harm to be brought to anyone or promote hate speech. He expressed an opinion that’s currently running contrary to popular opinion and since KSU receives government funding, 1st Amendment rights protect that kid’s right to express himself.
Freedom of speech is freedom of speech and needs to defended regardless of the popularity of that speech. If KSU removes the student from school over that tweet, that would probably open themselves up to a discrimination lawsuit.
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@FarmerJayhawk said in KSU Student is Racist:
Frankly, they shouldn’t expel him and it may be a First Amendment violation, but if everyone wants to publicly shame him that’s cool too.
His black friend defended him on twitter and that thread is an amazing dumpster fire now.
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If he accessed the internet via the university, and if there were clearly delineated Terms and Conditions, and if the T&C required actual consent to them rather than just a link, and if the T&C clearly spelled out penalties for violating the T&C, and if the post violated their T&C, he could conceivably be disciplined by KSU, but most likely only if he was provided proper due process and a right to appeal.
I left out a few other "if"s, but there are so many it is unlikely this goes that far.
Meanwhile, he will no doubt be proud of his fame.
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@mayjay I seriously doubt KSU has any T&C for accessing their WiFi. I know KU didn’t and I’m guessing it’s because that was paid for by the government to set up WiFi across the campus which was still a work in progress when I was there. I believe all of the academic buildings had WiFi when I was there, but not all of the dorms did at that point, at least McCollum didn’t when I lived there.
Since the kid isn’t a football player, I doubt he’s been on KSU’s campus since March so probably a non-issue regardless.
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Thinking about the message of that tweet does bring up an interesting point about being the “flavor of the month” though. Now that we’re seeing massive spike in Covid cases, MSM outside of the sports world is pretty much focusing on Covid and LGBT rights after the Supreme Court ruling and has pushed BLM aside.
The sports world with the Bubba Wallace incident and NBA players deciding whether or not to return to play are pretty much the only embers of BLM still getting attention at a national level.
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Does this surprise anyone?
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@FarmerJayhawk Is that statement even racist? George Floyd had fentanyl and meth in his system according to the autopsy. I know it is a pretty insensitive thing to say, and might be construed as an inference towards black people as a whole, but I don’t think this statement is explicitly racist. If a black person said the same of Layne Staley when he died, or Kurt Cobain, or Elvis or whatever, would anyone bat an eye? (I’m going for “No, and nor should they. Black people are allowed to have opinions about famous white drug addicts, and even crack jokes about their drug habits post-humously.”)
I don’t think the context of this country being in flames should shift the punishment for something that is not definitively racist, and I think it’s dangerous and divisive to start calling anyone who says anything about a person of another race a racist where nothing has been explicitly stated about their race.
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@approxinfinity said in KSU Student is Racist:
@FarmerJayhawk Is that statement even racist? George Floyd had fentanyl and meth in his system according to the autopsy. I know it is a pretty insensitive thing to say, and might be construed as an inference towards black people as a whole, but I don’t think this statement is explicitly racist. If a black person said the same of Layne Staley when he died, or Kurt Cobain, or Elvis or whatever, would anyone bat an eye? (I’m going for “No, and nor should they. Black people are allowed to have opinions about famous white drug addicts, and even crack jokes about their drug habits post-humously.”)
I don’t think the context of this country being in flames should shift the punishment for something that is not definitively racist, and I think it’s dangerous and divisive to start calling anyone who says anything about a person of another race a racist where nothing has been explicitly stated about their race.
His statement isn’t explicitly racist, but it is implicitly racist. The group he’s president of at KSU “America First Students” has some strong alt-right leanings. So when context is added, I would say it’s pretty hard to defend this statement as not being racist in nature.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 I don’t think it’s hard to defend this tweet as not being racist. I think Trump has thoroughly broken our ability to judge a statement in isolation. The kid might be a racist. But you can’t even think about expelling him from school by this statement alone.
If he says something that’s actually racist, let’s talk about that. Not infer what we want to from his insensitive social media posts and the clubs he belongs to.
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It’s not up to white people to determine if it is racist against black people. This goes for any direction of racism like if another group was being racist against white people it’s not for that group to say.
Also, things are about to get wild: https://twitter.com/chrissycarr4/status/1276624260539301890
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@BShark I’m not buying that. If racism warrants a punitive response, then it must be objectively agreed upon that the action was racist.
And yes, that tweet is crazy. We need to avoid our inclination to start policing peoples thoughts in times of anger.
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Insensitive, yeah. Poorly timed, sure. Racist, not unless you have access to the inner workings of this kid’s mind and can somehow prove his intent.
The thought policing and finger-pointing these days is Salem witch-hunt crazy.
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@approxinfinity said in KSU Student is Racist:
@Texas-Hawk-10 I don’t think it’s hard to defend this tweet as not being racist. I think Trump has thoroughly broken our ability to judge a statement in isolation. The kid might be a racist. But you can’t even think about expelling him from school by this statement alone.
If he says something that’s actually racist, let’s talk about that. Not infer what we want to from his insensitive social media posts and the clubs he belongs to.
If I were to take the kid’s statement in isolation, I would be doing a disservice to KU’s History program where I was taught how not to take a statement in isolation and to look for the context of the statement to better understand its meaning and intent. So when you combine that kid’s statement with the fact that he’s president of an organization whose stated values are “Strong borders, traditional families, the American worker, and Christian values,” it becomes very difficult not view his statement as implicitly racist. Implicitly means implied though not plainly expressed.
As I said in my very first post on this thread, which you it appears you didn’t read, I never said the kid didn’t have a right to say what he said and if KSU tries to expell him, they are opening themselves up to a discrimination lawsuit based on violating his first amendment rights.
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@approxinfinity Unfortunately for your argument, you cannot take the words away from the police-murdered victim to whom those words were directed. The comparison to white celeb drug users is silly. He purposely, not accidentally, directly sarcastic language toward the victim of what most of the country saw as a modern lynching. As a symbol of a race-equality movement, George Floyd’s name is not a neutral one, and anyone denigrating his name is begging for the racist label.
If he had an innocent intent, wouldn’t he be apologizing profusely?
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@mayjay maybe, maybe not.
@Texas-Hawk-10 both of you are assuming to know the kid’s mindset. The stated value of that organization that you listed are not specifically racist. EDIT: see @ajvan 's response below. Said more clearly to this point.
What’s wrong with just calling someone an a-hole instead of a racist?
I think throwing around the racist moniker is divisive in ways you aren’t feeling fully atm. I completely understand why people are upset rn.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 “So when you combine that kid’s statement with the fact that he’s president of an organization whose stated values are “Strong borders, traditional families, the American worker, and Christian values,” it becomes very difficult not view his statement as implicitly racist.”
Alternative: maybe not everyone in favor of these things is a racist.
@mayjay “He purposely, not accidentally, directly sarcastic language toward the victim of what most of the country saw as a modern lynching. As a symbol of a race-equality movement”
Many, many people have a problem with the way Floyd’s character has been polished up (after his death) to fit the narrative. Many of them are not racist. Many of them aren’t white. What was done to Floyd was evil, but he’s far from a unifying figure…which is why people are pushing back, often in stupid and caustic ways. But free speech means everyone gets to have an opinion.
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@ajvan well said.
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@approxinfinity said in KSU Student is Racist:
@mayjay maybe, maybe not.
@Texas-Hawk-10 both of you are assuming to know the kid’s mindset. The stated value of that organization that you listed are not specifically racist. EDIT: see @ajvan 's response below. Said more clearly to this point.
What’s wrong with just calling someone an a-hole instead of a racist?
I think throwing around the racist moniker is divisive in ways you aren’t feeling fully atm. I completely understand why people are upset rn.
If the kid was just an asshole, I’d call him an asshole. If you didn’t grow up with people belonging to groups like this and seeing how they talk, what their hearts are, it’d very easy to dismiss those stated values as innocent instead of its implicit racism.
Let me break this down for you since you want to be so dismissive and enabling of racism in this country.
Compare America First’s core values to the core values of Westboro Baptist, and you won’t find much difference.
You and @ajvan are either deliberately ignoring the historical connotations of these phrases and the implicitly racist and prejudiced nature of these specific phrases or ignorant to their connotations. This is exactly why groups like America First state their beliefs the way they do. They sound perfectly innocent until you dig a little deeper and realize strong borders is code for discrimination against Hispanics, traditional families is code for discriminating against the LGBT community, and Christian values is code for segregation because Sunday mornings is the most segregated time in America.
If you doubt my explanations, I would highly recommend you take at least a couple of hours and do some real research on these matters.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 I don’t think either of us want to be enabling and dismissive of racism.
But if you want to tell me about my character, who am I to argue otherwise, right?
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@Texas-Hawk-10 look man. I’ve had some very very tough conversations with a relative of mine. His views about immigrants frustrate the hell out of me. Could I call him a racist? I guess, but I don’t think that would solve anything. Could I call his views racist? Sure, I’ve said that to his face. That is a little more constructive but it still seems to just add to the wall around his views. Could I talk about bias and not make it personal? Sure, he might actually change his mind a little but then he’d go back to watching Fox News and revert any progress.
What’s my point? The less personal you make it, the more likely you have meaningful interaction. Right now people want to burn other people down to the ground and I get why. But is it productive?
Like I said, this kid may be a racist by most people’s standards. But this statement alone isn’t. Does your interpretation of context make sense? Yes, it does. I see where you’re coming from. But even if you label him as implicitly racist and say that doesn’t mean he should be punished, others who are seeking punishment want confirmation that he’s a racist so they can run him out of town.
And frankly, I’ve heard a lot of kids say a lot of insensitive things about a lot of different topics and people. Are jokes about Bill Cosby or Michael Jackson racist? No, not implicitly. I’ve heard many, but I didn’t consider them racist. Just because these figures were black icons does not make jokes about them racist.
I do agree that the timing is awful and saying this right now about Floyd when people are hurting is shitty. But it seems as easily identified as contrarían. It would not be the first time that someone said something on Twitter to get a reaction.
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If everyone reads through his timeline, it’s very, very difficult to come to any other conclusion other than the dude is a raging racist.
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@FarmerJayhawk I looked but just saw a bunch of retweets. I’m not sure what I’m looking for or where to look. I don’t use Twitter much so it may just be my ignorance.
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@approxinfinity Sugar coating racism and calling something other than what it is doesn’t help in making real sustainable change going forward.
This is a lesson I have to teach my students every year about the 1st Amendment and how it works. Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from the consequences of using that right. Legally, KSU doesn’t have a leg to stand on in regards to actions like kicking him out of school without possible repercussions of a discrimination lawsuit because all he did was express his opinion.
The consequences of this kid expressing this opinion and running a group like America First are probably going to be a much more limited job prospects because most companies aren’t going to want someone who publicly expresses beliefs like his working for them. He’s so likely going to have to deactivate his Twitter and other social media accounts because of the amount of hate messages he’s receiving and will continue to receive.
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@ajvan said in KSU Student is Racist:
Many, many people have a problem with the way Floyd’s character has been polished up (after his death) to fit the narrative.
I’m not aware that the character of a victim of murder has anything to do with it. Passing a counterfeit bill, or doing so while being a drug user, is not a capital offense.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 Unfortunately, there are thousands of places he could get warmly welcomed for those same views. A certain law firm comes to mind…
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@mayjay I think you’re getting side tracked with trying to argue against a point of view when @ajvan was not trying to justify the reasoning for that point of view ( why people might have want to express a negative opinion about Floyd because his shortcomings are glossed over). His point, I believe, is just to acknowledge that this is a common point of view.
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Guys. How can we go after a kid here when we’ve got a president saying this shit daily and a major news company saying it as well? I mean isnt that the elephant in the room?
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@approxinfinity said in KSU Student is Racist:
@FarmerJayhawk I looked but just saw a bunch of retweets. I’m not sure what I’m looking for or where to look. I don’t use Twitter much so it may just be my ignorance.
Part of the problem now might be if he has been really active you’d have to scroll down a lot to get to older tweets. I’ve been on twitter too much today already to want to look.
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@approxinfinity Yeah that is the problem. But if you can’t identify that statement as racist it gives cover to all the crap that idiot says too. We know it’s racism even if technically you can’t exactly point to how. Why defend it. Agree he shouldn’t be expelled but could be removed from groups, programs, and other stuff with code of conduct policies.
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@benshawks08 Defending our freedom of speech isn’t about defending only things people say that we like.
But if you can’t identify that statement as racist it gives cover to all the crap that idiot says too.
This reads like “You’re either with us or against us”.
We know it’s racism even if technically you can’t exactly point to how.
You can’t exactly point to how either.
I don’t want this country to be shoot first and ask questions later.
Caution is appropriate here.
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I’m honestly shocked how much press this has gotten.
Breaking news: Asshole kid says asshole thing.
No he shouldn’t be expelled. He should have to show his face every day on that campus. Don’t give him (and he’s already trying to do this) a sap story where he is the victim. Make him explain this tweet in every job interview he will have.
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@approxinfinity We have been through this before. You pretty much seem to want racist statements to be accompanied by a signed affidavit by the person making it that he or she is a racist.
I have not seen a single thing saying he was misunderstood. But we don’t get Kansas news feeds here.
I hope he can get some gentle counseling to assuage his tender self from us name-calling bullies.
Incidentally, no one you are responding to has said anything that would undermine this jerk’s 1st A rights
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@mayjay people are coming out from everywhere defending this kid, offering money for him to sue the school. Also fueling the fire.
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@Crimsonorblue22 Defending the post, his character, or his right to say it?
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@mayjay said in KSU Student is Racist:
@Crimsonorblue22 Defending the post, his character, or his right to say it?
Looking at social media, yes.
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@approxinfinity If it takes someone saying “I hate black people” or wearing a white hood for you to be comfortable identifying it as racism, you are missing about 99% of racism.
@Texas-Hawk-10 did a good job above explaining just how it was racism. It is YOU who is struggling to see it. I do racist stuff all the time unknowingly and without intent. I fail to notice how certain things are actually racist ALL the time. We ALL do. Does that make me racist? Yeah. Sometimes it does. Am I ok with that? No, but I work to learn and do better. Yes it’s uncomfortable, but not nearly as uncomfortable for me as for the people who are on the receiving end of that racism.
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@approxinfinity said in KSU Student is Racist:
@benshawks08 Defending our freedom of speech isn’t about defending only things people say that we like.
But if you can’t identify that statement as racist it gives cover to all the crap that idiot says too.
This reads like “You’re either with us or against us”.
We know it’s racism even if technically you can’t exactly point to how.
You can’t exactly point to how either.
I don’t want this country to be shoot first and ask questions later.
Caution is appropriate here.
Critical Race Theory is explicitly “you’re with us or against us.” From Kendi, “The opposite of “racist” isn’t “not racist.” It is “anti-racist.” What’s the difference? One endorses either the idea of a racial hierarchy as a racist, or racial equality as an antiracist. One either believes problems are rooted in groups of people, as a racist, or locates the roots of problems in power and policies, as an anti-racist. One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an antiracist. There is no in-between safe space of “not racist.” The claim of “not racist” neutrality is a mask for racism. This may seem harsh, but it’s important at the outset that we apply one of the core principles of antiracism, which is to return the word “racist” itself back to its proper usage. “Racist” is not—as Richard Spencer argues—a pejorative. It is not the worst word in the English language; it is not the equivalent of a slur. It is descriptive, and the only way to undo racism is to consistently identify and describe it—and then dismantle it.”
So if you’re any kind of classical liberal who believes individualism > group identity, sorry bout it. You’re a racist unless you buy into every word of the emotional toxic sewage that Kendi and grifters like Robin DeAngelo scribble.
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@FarmerJayhawk I don’t think some nerd in an ivory tower gets to decide what a word means and strip away hundreds of years of connotation. Racist is among the worst perjoratives in this country and that isn’t changing any time soon.
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@FarmerJayhawk furthermore, I am antiracist. But “what is racist?” is what we are debating. And the fact that it is debatable, and I believe it is, makes critical race theory as you’ve defined it, pretty impractical.
I haven’t seen the kids other comments. But I don’t believe this comment is isolation is racist. That is all I am arguing.
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Any sort of dichotomy as it applies to the human condition is artificial. I have an uneasy peace with it when it comes to sports.
The longest paper I wrote at college was about artificial dichotomies : capitalism vs communism, conservative vs liberal, winners and losers, etc. When you look at them closely, they all fall apart. Critical race theory sounds to be no different.
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@mayjay all of it!
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@benshawks08 I think what you define as racist is what I define as unconscious bias. The reason this matters is because I’m not subscribing to the guilt of being a racist. I’m not a racist. Sure, you and I both have unconscious biases. And that’s ok. Some we can live with, some we may actively seek to change when we become aware of them. We aren’t racists as I define it.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 @mayjay @benshawks08 We need to cancel the feel bad culture and find a way to move forward positively. You’re never going to make meaningful change if you’re trying to defeat the other half of this country and make them bend the knee to how you see things. Frankly, what @HighEliteMajor said about “DESTROYING YOU” may have more in common with your approach to this issue than you think. It is a mirror.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 “deliberately ignoring the historical connotations of these phrases…”
If you’re making the argument that America First is a racist organization with a history of racism, that’s fine. I haven’t done the research and don’t intend to. But I’ve met plenty of people who use the phrases “strong borders,” “Christian values,” etc., and there’s no coded message. They’re not in on the joke. When people start claiming to know what another person really meant when he said that, things get ridiculous.
@mayjay “I’m not aware that the character of a victim of murder has anything to do with it. Passing a counterfeit bill, or doing so while being a drug user, is not a capital offense.”
Not sure what I said you’re responding to here.
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@approxinfinity this does make some sense. Hyper policing language doesn’t alleviate hatred, in fact it can make it worse. Super far left types hammering people for wrong think is an effective recruiting tool for the alt right. Moreover if everyone is hating each other ie men vs women, black vs white then most people can’t even focus on really important issues like climate change. I’m obviously liberal but this culture and how to think war isn’t the best.
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THIS IS @approxinfinity ACCIDENTALLY HIJACKING AND MANGLING @benshawks08 'S POST. SORRY.
@benshawks08 said:
I also think the dominate culture in this country has underplayed racist ideologies for so long that a little rocking of that boat is a good and necessary thing.
I don’t think we need more radicalized idealogues in this country to be an opposite (and perpetuating) counterweight to the alt-right stuff we’ve seen under Trump. That will not solve the problem.
I don’t think we need to rock the boat. We need to stabilize the boat. It’s already rocking.
If you mean taking down the statues, reforming police and looking at income equality starting with better public elementary education for all, then by all means let’s rock it.
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@benshawks08 said in KSU Student is Racist:
@benshawks08 said:
I also think the dominate culture in this country has underplayed racist ideologies for so long that a little rocking of that boat is a good and necessary thing.
I don’t think we need more radicalized idealogues in this country to be an opposite (and perpetuating) counterweight to the alt-right stuff we’ve seen under Trump. That will not solve the problem.
I don’t think we need to rock the boat. We need to stabilize the boat. It’s already rocking.
I didn’t write this.
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Crap @benshawks08 I was trying to quote you. Sorry man.
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Figured something weird was happening.
