Sometimes I fear Yale has jumped the shark. As an alum who still wants to love the place (and will always love the experience he had), it makes me profoundly sad.
Today, the Yale Daily News printed a column of breathtaking excrescence. Vile and racist. You can read it yourself here. Written by a senior named Isis Davis-Marks, it starts off, "Everyone knows a white boy with shiny brown hair and a saccharine smile that conceals his great ambitions." It goes on to suppose that the "white boy" grows up and one day Isis will see him at something like a Senate confirmation hearing.
And then. "I'll remember a racist remark that he said, an unintentional utterance that he made when he had one drink too many at a frat party his sophomore year. I'll recall the message that accidentally left open on a computer when he forgot to log out, where he likened a woman's body to a particularly large animal. And, when I'm watching him smile that smile, I'll kick myself thinking I could have stopped it."
She (I'm assuming gender here - probably a microaggression) goes on to concede that not everyone at Yale is evil. At least not those from oppressed, non-privileged classes, anyway. She is still very upset ("indelibly") by the Kavanaugh hearings. She wants all accusations of sexual misconduct at Yale made public.
Then Isis decides the real problem lies with Yale's values:
To be honest, I’m not sure what the solution is. This
expands beyond vocalizing problems about sexual assault: The core of
this problem has to do with our values. The problem isn’t just the Yale
administration; it’s Yale students. We allow things to skate by. We
forget. We say, “No, he couldn’t have done that,” or, “But he’s so
nice.” No questions are asked when our friends accept job offers from
companies that manufacture weapons or contribute to gentrification in
cities. We merely smile at them and wave as we walk across our
residential college courtyards and do nothing. Thirty years later, we
kick ourselves when it’s too late.
Is this where I point out that Yale is probably the most progressive place on the planet? And do many Yalies go into defense contracting? Never met one, myself.
She ends with this haymaker:
But I can’t do that anymore — I can’t let things slip by. I’m watching you, white boy. And this time, I’m taking the screenshot.
Wow. Could you imagine if someone said, "I'm watching you, black boy. I know you're going to (fill in crime here)?" Oh my God, what a shit storm. Without a doubt, people would by tossed out. But as long as racsim/sexism is aimed at non-oppressed classes (read: white males), no biggie. Nothing to see here.
But here's what really gets me going. The Yale Daily News has refused to publish any online comments on the article. Not one. I myself have submitted two, and both were apparently rejected. An article this incendiary, and we are expected to believe there are no comments? My guess is they are surprised, because Yale is an ideological echo chamber, and Isis's piece, within the bubble, is fairly conventional thinking.
That's the way it is in Campusland.
