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February 25, 2011
Cheap Shots All Around
Given the video that Marc posted yesterday, showing a pro-union demonstrator issuing what might be termed homophobic threats, I can't help but wonder whether this story is evidence of additional union rallies on the University of Rhode Island campus:
Angered by a succession of incidents involving hateful epithets and vandalism, University of Rhode Island President David M. Dooley issued a campus-wide memo Wednesday, saying that such acts will not be tolerated.In recent weeks, he said, offenders "have shouted homophobic taunts from cars to individuals on sidewalks and written hateful words on white boards; drawn a swastika on the forehead of a poster of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; vandalized a mezuzah which contains a scroll of Hebrew scripture, and written in permanent marker hateful statements targeted toward URI community members of Latin descent."
According to another report, a spectator at a URI basketball game in the Ryan Center shouted a word offensive to homosexuals at the opposing team.
What actually appears to be happening is that the university, which has recently been lamenting cuts in its revenue from the state budget, has been soliciting reports of incidents through its new Chief Diversity Officer, Kathryn Friedman, and a Bias Response Team Web site. The article isn't clear, but it appears that President Dooley has been culling the reports and will post a list for the purpose of appropriate self-flagellation (or -aggrandizement, as the case may be) on campus.
Personally, I don't get the urge to shout epithets of any kind, and particularly those that mix with identity politics. Still, it doesn't strike me as entirely healthy that a generation of URI students is being trained to respond by rushing back to the dorm and making anonymous reports that cumulatively create the impression that the state's largest public institution of higher education is a hostile environment.
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90% of these incidents are faked by the "victims" to get attention and sympathy.
Posted by: Mike at February 25, 2011 8:15 AMJust google HATE CRIME HOAX for the truth.
The real hate in America is the neo-Stalinist anti white, anti Christian genocidal rage of the "progressives".
Mike, if you actually knew any progressives you'd probably realize how foolish that sounded.
Posted by: Ron at February 25, 2011 10:22 AMIt's just Mike being Mike. Consider the source.
Posted by: bella at February 25, 2011 11:36 AMTrying to equate the reaction to some phobic, anti-Semitic activity to unions strikes me as just a little bit of a reach.
It is a hostile environment, just more condensed than the hostile, intolerant environment we live in outside of academia.
Posted by: riborn at February 25, 2011 12:11 PMIm not seeing the union connection here. What am I missing?
Posted by: Rich at February 25, 2011 1:51 PMThe connection is that, caught on tape, a union stooge, gets violent, assaults and hurls epithets toward an innocent cameraman during a union event on public property.
Substitute the words Tea Party for "union" in my sentence above and it's on Maddow, Matthews, Today, GMA an the View all week next week.
If the connection is weak, apply that fairly to all groups.
Regardless of whether there's a connection between homophobia and unions... there is clear evidence of "true colors"
Posted by: George at February 25, 2011 3:50 PMIts seems someone is grabbing at straws.
Dont substitute "Tea Party" and leave it "union" and its all over Fox News and conservative talk radio.
"Given the video that Marc posted yesterday, showing a pro-union demonstrator issuing what might be termed homophobic threats, I can't help but wonder whether this story is evidence of additional union rallies on the University of Rhode Island campus"
Are you saying Union members as a whole are homophobic because of one persons actions (has anyone proven he was actually a union member and not a intentional disrupter as Former Tea Party leader Mark Williams called for?)
So someone hurls some slurs at URI and its evidence of Union operations at URI?
Posted by: Rich at February 25, 2011 7:32 PMURI's "Bias Response Team":
As Matt Allen asked, "what comprises their practice drills?"
Posted by: Monique at February 27, 2011 7:13 AMsome people are going to be predjudiced and no amount of "bias response" will cure that.What it will do is make the nitwits who leave hateful messages very happy that thir efforts have upset the people they are targeting so much.
Posted by: joe bernstein at February 27, 2011 8:13 AMThey do this stuff precisely for thaat reason.