The Liberal Bandwagon 

This is insane. It seems like every time I commend SU for not moving as far left as other universities, they do everything possible to make up for it. The Daily Orange has yet again given me something to rant about. This time, it's about racism. I've read sites like Tongue Tied and Critical Mass, so I know that colleges tend to overreact to anything they think is racist, but I didn't think we'd have an incident like this. Here's the story. According to the DO:

"For the third time this semester, the Syracuse University community is responding to a major bias-related incident, this time involving a student who dressed in blackface on Halloween." First of all, those other two "major bias-related incidents" were: 1) a gay student being physically assaulted, and 2) three freshman girls singing along to music with racially offensive lyrics in their dorm room (I believe they were forced to live somewhere else as punishment). I just thought I'd point out that the university places all three of these incidents on an identical moral level. There's your first hint of things to come. The article continues:

"The student had dressed as a 'Pacific Islander' by covering himself in dark body makeup, wearing a grass skirt and carrying a wooden staff...Public Safety officers (some of whom are now allowed to carry firearms -ed.) responded to complaints from students and approached the student...[who] was taken into the Public Safety office, where officers photographed the costume and questioned the student..." Is it just me, or does it seem like they could've just told him to change costumes? Did he actually violate any rules? I agree that this was an incredibly stupid costume, because this guy knew he was going to get in trouble when the Thought Police found him, but I still don't think this reaction is really necessary. However, it gets much better, and you'll see what I mean with this post title. Here comes the tolerance squad:

"SU's black community and other students have mobilized in response to the incident and are calling for action from the administration. More than 60 concerned students, including members of the Student African-American Society, met Monday night in Maxwell Auditorium to discuss the incident." First of all, SU has a student population of about 15,000, so I don't think 60 people can be considered a significant percentage of any community, but in any case, why should one person's actions lead to all this discussion? Just tell the moron not to do it again and move on! Now, we come to the really fun part. As other schools have done, Syracuse has decided that this one person represents the majority of students, and they want to eradicate the pervasive, overwhelming racism and ignorance that permeates student life. Here's a few quotes:

"Some of the students criticized the administration's 'lukewarm' reponse to bias-related incidents and brainstormed ideas they felt would strengthen the university's policy. Among the measures discussed was the establishment of a cultural education core requiring students to take a non-Western history course, the modification of the freshman orientation program to include a cultural sensitivity training session and institution of a zero-tolerance policy (that's ironic, isn't it?) which would expel students involved in bias-related incidents."
Okay, this is just scary. First of all, considering they had a friggin' meeting about the incident, I would hardly consider it a lukewarm response. Second of all, where is the evidence that any of these solutions are necessary? I've never heard anyone on campus use a racial slur in an intentionally offensive way, and the Halloween costumes I saw were fine. Oh, wait a minute, my roommate and his friends dressed up as the guys from Braveheart! That's insensitive to the Scottish community! Here's one more quote, and then I need to start a new post and fisk an editorial about the incident:

"A student in the audience said students need to take a more confrontational approach to tackle the issue of bias. His suggestion that anybody who spots a person dressed in blackface again should 'just whoop his ass' was met with applause..." So, beating up racists is okay, but beating up gays and offending blacks isn't? Wow, you people are so consistent. Anyway, that's the objective article. The editorial is even funnier, and I will be fisking it in a few minutes.