Discussion: Washington University Cancels Classes Over Hate Speech

TPM Article Topics
1

Discussion for article #243176

2

Josh,the Western Washington University where this stuff happened is in Seattle. Washington University, as used in your title, is in St. Louis where none of this stuff happened. As editor, I expect you to get your poeple’s facts at least remotely correct.

4 Likes
3

Well said.

4

Especially, Josh, when you’re from St. Louis.

5

I’ve criticized a few TPM headlines, but this one is innocent of the charge of inaccuracy. Had it not been a headline, “university” would not have been capitalized and the phrase would have distinguished between a Washington university and the Washington University.

I’m struck by the notion that “some student leaders suggested” that a Viking is a racist mascot. I haven’t read the reasoning used by those who find it such, and I am having trouble coming up with some explanation on my own.

3 Likes
6

You’re all wrong. Western Washington University is in Bellingham, just this side of the Canadian border.

http://www.wwu.edu/

3 Likes
7

A horrible caricature of oppressed Norwegians.

3 Likes
8

Maligning of white male Protestants (OK, odinites?)

3 Likes
9

“A horrible caricature of oppressed Norwegians”

Horned Norwegians. They have horns.

You can’t be oppressed and have horns. (Unless you’re a goat, of course)

3 Likes
10

What a fucked up country we live in. Thanks Republicans for creating all this fear and for being blatant racists

4 Likes
11

Washington in general, greater Seattle in particular, is a center of Norwegian-American culture.

You know what they call someone of Norwegian ancestry who lives in Norway? “Missed the boat.”
(Thanks to Fritz Mondale, who undiplomatically told it to an audience in Oslo, for that one.)

You know what they call one who lives in Minnesota (rather than further west)? “Missed the train,” dontcha know.

6 Likes
12

Saw the headline and assumed it referred to Wash U, so it is a little sloppy. But it’s not wrong, it obviously means a university in Washington. And if you’re going to criticize them for identifying the wrong university, you might want to get the actual location right, since it’s right there in the article.

13

Wait…people are claiming that a Viking is racist? SMFH. Shark, ye be jumped.

Also fuck the asslicker posting that racist shit.

2 Likes
14

Vikings are racist? Wow tell that to all the Norwegian residents of Ballard in Seattle or a multitude of other towns around here

This movement is jumping the shark faster than the Fonz.

2 Likes
15

Someone got some bad 'shrooms. WWU is comically known as Shroom-U.

16

[Most of the online comments contained racist language and profanity,
making fun of the mascot debate and the students who proposed it. One
post called black students crying babies and another complimented the
school for having an “overtly Aryan” mascot.]

Is the suggestion that the mascot is offensive to minority students because some see the ‘Viking’ as some sort of Aryan supremacist symbol??
The genesis of the anger over the mascot is puzzling!

In any case, Hagar haz’ a sad.

17

I’ll say.

Racists don’t even have to show up anymore. Just “phone in” some hatred and threats, and viola… instant denial, or, as racists call it, victory.

Thank you, conservative government. May I please have another mass shooting now?

18

Our country has changed ~
With a lot of help from the SupremeCorporation…

1 Like
19

Yes, it’s innocent, but still misleading, therefore a poor choice. Indeed, had it not been a headline, it would have been clearer. The point is: it is a headline, is therefore not clear. Should be WWU.

20

When Barack Obama was elected in 2008, there was a small moment of possibility (and there still IS, if people could only be taught to vote intelligently). In 2009, the percentage of the population identifying as Republican was as small as ever.

What the Republican National Committee and the New York Times is doing NOW with Trump was the furthest thing from their minds in 2009.

Then, the so-called “establishment” Republicans did the best they could to obstruct, knowing that obstruction, while damaging the potential gain for the country, was good for the Party. They stood by as the Tea Party anarchists were funded by Dick Armey and others, supplied, bused and interviewed by as many “journalists” as possible. They tolerated and looked on as the basest, vilest and most hateful racial imagery since “The Birth of a Nation” was spewed out to the public.

Then, the MSM (which the New York Times is a part of) was content to portray this obstruction, advocacy of anarchy and racism as “something that both sides do”. And the False Equivalency Narrative gave cover to the single most visibly racist organization in the last 85 years: The Republican Party.

And it worked.

A vast majority of GOP State Governors. An overwhelming GOP majority of state officials. A crushing GOP majority rule of state legislatures. A control of both houses of U.S. Congress. And, most important for the future (as indicated in a TPM current multipart piece on social inequality) an acceptance by newer Americans, some immigrants and Millennials of the Republican ideals of distrust of government to do good and blame of blacks and other dark-skinned people for “government waste” ***

In 2015/2016, the only reason that establishment Republicans and the New York Times are belatedly “calling out” TeaParty racists like Donald Trump is because establishment Republicans are upset that a Trump candidacy in the General will waylay the etch-a-sketch “move to the center” by a more establishment GOP candidate in the RNC’s perennial push to snooker “Swing Voters”, “Independents” and “Undecideds”.

For the entirety of Barack Obama’s Presidency, neither the RNC nor the NYT gave a damn about the billions of dollars lost, the millions of lives destroyed as the Republicans helped damage race relations among Americans over 50, lessened the income of people who could have been gainfully employed rebuilding America and severely hampered the efforts of one of the most talented and inspirational Presidents we have ever had.

The hell with all the enablers of the Republicans…especially the MSM. This cannot be emphasized enough. Without this moribund, corrupt, clever and conniving corpse of a Fourth Estate, none of this racist bullshit by imbecilic racists would ever have had a chance to replace what should have been headlines touting American progress in needed areas and challenges.

*** The question in the TPM piece was “how can one reconcile the greatest social inequality in decades with the lack of public concern with dealing with it?” And FOX/Talk Radio snookered not only their usual suspects in Granny and Gramps, but also the very same younger and “ethnically diverse” people that Progressives have always counted upon to “take over”, as voters, once the Old Bigots “die out”

1 Like