At Yale University last
Halloween, a diversity administrator sent around a notice to students to mind
that their costumes didn’t cause offence or encroach on sensibilities of gender,
race or culture. The associate master of a residential college responded with
an email addressed to the students in her college, saying that Halloween was a
time for a lark and everyone should lighten up. Even a decade ago, both the
cautionary letter and the reply would have seemed hilarious for their
condescension and paternalism. In the present climate, it was the reply that
led to an immediate demand by some residents of the college that the associate
master be sacked (and with her the master, her husband, who had failed to keep
her in line)
Who would want to smash a
formed consensus for inoffensive costumes? On the same Halloween of 2015, at
Claremont McKenna College in Southern California, photos of two female students
dressed in sombreros, ponchos and moustaches set off a protest march of
thousands, including activists from neighbouring campuses, and the scandal
prompted the dean of the college to resign.
‘the public issues of social
structure’ that seems pertinent here. If the expectations and exclusions of
every milieu are added up, in the hope that this will lead to a practical grasp
of relevant truths about social structure, honest debate in public will become
a thing of the past. It requires considerable patience and learning to
criticise an unjust social structure.
No comments:
Post a Comment