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Friday, April 21, 2006

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Satirical Language Risky at Yale

Yale has a satirical student magazine called "Rumpus" and, being young, the editors of it were incautious enough to satirize racism. Given that they must all of their lives have heard racism vigorously condemned, it may never have occurred to them that racist language was anything but ridiculous.

They recently published an issue (PDF) that featured prominently on its front page the term "motherf***ers". That drew no criticism, of course. And the many other uses of the f-word and an article ridiculing strictly observant Jews seem to have been OK too.

What got them into hot water was an article headed: "Me love you long time: Yale's case of yellow fever" -- which said that Asian female students were particularly attractive to white male students. Nothing wrong with that, one would think, but the satirical term "yellow fever" in the heading seems to have been a BIG problem.

There was also a second article along similar lines headed: "Miscegenation station: Interracial dating at Yale". "Miscegenation" is of course an old term of condemnation much favoured by white racists but the article in fact was ridiculing such condemnation by saying it has been defeated at Yale -- in that interracial dating is very common at Yale -- though the article did rather write off Asian male students as "nerds", perhaps with some reason.

Apparently the Yale administration refused to condemn the newspaper (on free speech grounds) but there was a big ruckus nonetheless. Somewhere around the time this post goes up there is to be a "day of silence" put on by the Asian Students Association to protest the articles:

"Throughout the day, participants will dress in black, wear black cloth gags and maintain silence in protest of recent articles in Rumpus and the Yale Herald that they say reflect "racial insensitivity toward Asian Americans and other minority groups," according to the group's statement, which participants will hand out as a substitute for speaking."

Source

The student editors have defended what they published here

(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and DISSECTING LEFTISM. My Home Page. Email me (John Ray) here.)

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posted by JR at 8:06 AM