We have been discussing the crackdown on free speech on college campuses as administrators punish any speech deemed insensitive or the still ill-defined category of “microaggressions.” One of the greatest concerns is the double standard showed to different speakers based on their content. The University of California at Berkeley is the most recent example of this controversy. In columns for the Daily Californian titled “Speaking Out”, “Fucking White Boys,” and “Choosing Myself Over White People”, Maggie Lam mocks and ridicules white people. A column using such language mocking people of color would instantly trigger demands for expulsion. It is not that I believe that Lam should be punished, to the contrary, I believe that it is far better to have the exchange of such views on campus than to regulate speech, particularly inconsistent regulation.
Lam refers to white people like her roommate as “the white devil” in denouncing “microaggressions” and describes her dorm room as “my oppressor’s bedroom looked like an Urban Outfitter’s catalog and smelled like a skinny white girl.”
Critics have charged that this and other race laden columns would never be tolerated by a white columnist. Given the effort to raise “microaggressions” to the level of sanctionable conduct, the concern is well placed. There has long been a lack of standard articulated in distinguishing race-based speech or conduct. I know little about the writings of Lam (and I have less interest after reading a couple of her columns). However, it does not matter. Race continues to divide society and Lam’s views will likely generate more debate and discussion on the subject. The solution is to return to the concept of a free speech zone for entire campuses and not isolated spaces. Good speech has a way to overcoming bad speech. Yet, many faculty and administrators want to actively silence views that they consider obnoxious or privilege or hateful. The result is uneven and unfair and ultimately self-defeating.
What do you think?
tnash, Liberals only abide the history that they rewrite, not actual history.
I looked up The Southern Strategy on wikipedia etc. Lee Atwater was the lead hedgehog. He first described the dogma by telling Nixon and others that “you don’t have to say N—–, three times anymore. All ya gotta do is say welfare cheat.
Here is a summation:
In American politics, the Southern strategy refers to a strategy by Republican Party candidates of gaining political support in the Southern United States by appealing to racism against African Americans.[1][2][3]
During the 1950s and 1960s, the African-American Civil Rights Movement achieved significant progress in its push for desegregation in the Southern United States. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, in particular, largely dismantled the system of Jim Crow laws that had enforced legal (or de jure) segregation in the South since the end of the Reconstruction Era. During this period, Republican politicians such as Presidential candidate Richard Nixon worked to attract southern white conservative voters, most of whom had traditionally supported the Democratic Party, to the Republican Party,[4] and Senator Barry Goldwater won the five formerly Confederate states of the Deep South (Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina) in the 1964 presidential election. In the 1968 presidential campaign, Nixon won Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee, all former Confederate states, contributing to the electoral realignment that saw many white, southern voters shift allegiance from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party during this period.
In academia, the term “southern strategy” refers primarily to “top down” narratives of the political realignment of the south, which suggest that Republican leaders consciously appealed to many white southerners’ racial resentments in order to gain their support.[5] This top-down narrative of the southern strategy is generally believed to be the primary force that transformed southern politics following the civil rights era.[6][7] This view has been questioned by historians such as Matthew Lassiter, Kevin M. Kruse and Joseph Crespino, who have presented an alternative, “bottom up” narrative, which Lassiter has called the “suburban strategy.” This narrative recognizes the centrality of racial backlash to the political realignment of the South,[8] but suggests that this backlash took the form of a defense of de facto segregation in the suburbs, rather than overt resistance to racial integration, and that the story of this backlash is a national, rather than a strictly southern one.[9][10][11][12]
The perception that the Republican Party had served as the “vehicle of white supremacy in the South,” particularly during the Goldwater campaign and the presidential elections of 1968 and 1972, has made it difficult for the Republican Party to win the support of black voters in the South in later years.[4] In 2005, Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman formally apologized to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a national civil rights organization, for exploiting racial polarization to win elections and ignoring the black vote.[13][14]
Mental Midget….i I don’t know if the Wikipedia article mentioned this, but Nixon carried some of the “1968 states” you mentioned in the 1960 election, well before the passage of the 64-65 civil rights legislation.
So some of those states( Florida, Tennessee, Virginia, the Carolinas) mentioned in the context of a reaction against the civil rights legislation were won before the putative birth of the “GOP Southern Strategy”.
The GOP’s strongholds in the midwest often worked in tandem with their strength in the South.
Did Wikipedia mention Strom Thurmond’s 1948 southern strategy, or George Wallace’s 1968 southern strategy?
That’s when these Democrats temporarily bolted from their party to run on segragationist platforms…..they actually carried states and won electoral votes, and that feat has not since been duplicated.
Anyway, I don’t think the GOP Southern Stategy is as straightward as an appeal to racist voters.
The pre-1964 elections, and the inclusion of southern states among 40+ states won by the GOP in some landslide victories since then, suggests to me that it’s not as clear-cut as a southern reaction against legislation past when LBJ was President.
Just as I don’t think LBJ was entirely motivated by his belief that the Democrats would own to Black votes for the next 100 years….he expressed that belief in somewhat different language.
Mental Midget.. Correction….the quote credited to LBJ was “I’ll have those niggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years”, not 100 years.
And we have a similar kind of quote above, credited to Lee Atwater re the GOP southern strategy.
Hope Wikipedia gave both quotes equal time in their review of political race-baiting.
Mental Midget…PS….do you know when Lee Atwater allegedly made that statement to Nixon?
No David, it is not.
The SPLC,S Southern Poverty Law Center, is an anti-hate organization.
David B. Benson – The SPLC is a hate group. They list groups that are not hate groups only because they do not agree with them politically. Since they list non-hate groups as hate groups, they are a hate group themselves.
RosieS,
Worthless critique.
Show me where I’m wrong.
The passage of that legislation also had something to do with bipartisan/GOP support, Rosie S.
Sorry you were incapable of figuring that out from my previous comment.
But we have learned something entirely new from you, Rosie S.
That “This legislation had something to do with African Americans”.
Are there any other brilliant observations about previously unknown historical gems you have to share?
And Fleming’s assessment of three Democratic presidents and the racial position of the current Democratic Party is about the dumbest thing I have ever read.
Oh for L,ords Sake
This legislation had something to do with African Americans, who had something to do with slavery which had been the economic model and social way of life in the South.
The vote was geographic.
Don’t be stoopid.
Nick, Lars, KCF……it’s interesting to look at the “party line” voting in the landmark 1964 and 1965 civil rights legislation.
GOP leaders like Everett Dirksen and Hugh Scott were among the c. EIGHTY % of GOP Senators and Congressmen who voted FOR this legislation.
Democratic support in Congress was in the 60s % range.
LBJ got (and deserved) much the credit for passage of this legislation, but the very key role of the GOP in getting the legislation passed is largely ignored.
It was “sold” as being solely Democratic legislation, but the historical facts don’t support that.
Democrat President Lyndon Baines Johnson stated, “I’ll have those n***ers voting Democratic for the next 200 years” as he confided with two like-minded governors on Air Force One regarding his underlying intentions for the “Great Society” programs.
You lose.
Lars Vegan- In a number of general elections over the past 50 years, the GOP has indeed “swept the South”.
But there were elections where the GOP not only dominated southern states, but won virtually ALL of the states.
1972, 1980, 1984 and 1988 come to mind, but there may be other years as well.
The Democrats almost always start with support from the most populous states like California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Pennsylvania (in most elections over the past 30 years).
The GOP generally wins Texas, but can’t count on other “big prize” states as far as a very big concentration of electoral votes from a small number of (large) states.
Very generally, I think the “Southern Strategy” is not as
unique or distinctive as it’s often presented.
In many elections, the South has been PART OF a coalition of the 40-45+ states carried by the GOP.
And given the huge concentration of electoral votes in the top (population) 5 or 6 states the Dems start with, even winning 35 or 40 states may not be enough for a GOP victory.
The landslide Republican victories in 1972, 1980, and 1984 were probably the last time the GOP captures CA., NY, NJ, etc.
KCFleming: LBJ? LBJ broke wrists in Congress in 1964 while as President to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and he did the same thing the next year in the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The Republicans “went South” right after that and used it as their calling card to the White bigots in the South. It is called The Southern Strategy as outlined by Lee Atwater to the GOP in his famous address to them. Google it.
And it is the same party but it is enemas that have changed.
Same party, same tactics.
KKK and Woodrow Wilson vs. the blacks.
FDR vs. the Japanese and the blacks.
LBJ vs. the blacks.
Now Democrats hate the whites.
Same party, only their enemies have changed.
Wow to say that Democrats are up to their same old games, from the 1860s is like saying the current version of the GOP is the Party of Lincoln.
from PBS:
“In outright defiance of the Republican-led federal government, Southern Democrats formed organizations that violently intimidated blacks and Republicans who tried to win political power. The most prominent of these, the Ku Klux Klan, was formed in Pulaski, Tennessee, in 1865.”
And now Democrats are up to their same old games, directed against whites.
Lars, that doesn’t explain why it arose.
That’s just a post-hoc description.
Wikipedia:
The Ku Klux Klan (KKK), or simply “the Klan”, is the name of three distinct past and present movements in the United States that have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, anti-immigration, and, especially in later iterations, Nordicism,[6][7] anti-Catholicism,[8][9] and anti-Semitism,[9] historically expressed through terrorism aimed at groups or individuals whom they opposed.[10] All three movements have called for the “purification” of American society, and all are considered right wing extremist organizations.[11][12][13][14]
The first Klan flourished in the Southern United States in the late 1860s, then died out by the early 1870s. It sought to overthrow the Republican state governments in the South during the Reconstruction Era, especially by using violence against African American leaders. With numerous chapters across the South, it was suppressed around 1871, through federal enforcement. Members made their own, often colorful, costumes: robes, masks, and conical hats, designed to be terrifying, and to hide their identities.[15][16]
The second group was founded in 1915, and flourished nationwide in the early and mid-1920s, particularly in urban areas of the Midwest and West. It opposed Catholics and Jews, especially newer immigrants, and stressed opposition to the Catholic Church.[17] This second organization adopted a standard white costume and used similar code words as the first Klan, while adding cross burnings and mass parades.
The third and current manifestation of the KKK emerged after 1950, in the form of small, local, unconnected groups that use the KKK name. They focused on opposition to the Civil Rights Movement, often using violence and murder to suppress activists. It is classified as a hate group by the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center.[18] As of 2016, the Anti-Defamation League puts total Klan membership nationwide at around 3,000 while the Southern Poverty Law Center puts it at 6,000 members total.[19]
The second and third incarnations of the Ku Klux Klan made frequent references to America’s “Anglo-Saxon” blood, hearkening back to 19th-century nativism.[20] Although members of the KKK swear to uphold Christian morality, virtually every Christian denomination has officially denounced the KKK.[21]
Lars Vegan – SPLC is a hate group.
You’re mistaken as to why it arose.
KC, if I’m not mistaken the KKK was formed by Southerners to combat carpet bagging people from the North right after the civil war.
Wasn’t Forrest Gump named after the first Imperial Wizard of the Klan, Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest?
Lam Bam Bo Bam
Banna Fanna Fo Fam
Fee Fi Mo Maham.
Bham Lam!
In one sense, Lam is helping free speech. The PC maniacs know they can win by using their terror tactics on gutless college administrators, politicians and the “liberal” media. So the next time a “non-minority” offends them, they will be forced to compare it with what Lam said, and they’ll have to explain how it’s different. Which of course it’s not.
Famous Confucius Quotes
When anger rises, think of the consequences.
What you do not want others to do to you, do not do to others.
To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must cultivate our personal life; and to cultivate our personal life, we must first set our hearts right.
Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.