The Non-White Boy Paper
A few months ago our new College President published a White Paper, sketching out the new direction of the college. Recently, an alum of the college, Steve Cassarino, wrote a rather xenophobic response to this white paper, criticizing in particular the emphasis our President has placed on diversity. His op-ed, The Non-White Paper, is published on the website of our Conservative newspaper.
I must say that Cassarino's op-ed inspired me this morning to write my own little op-ed. You need to read his first before reading mine, or it won't make a whole lot of sense. Once you have read his, you are ready to read mine, which follows.
The Non-White Boy Paper
Not too many years ago (but still before your time) when I was at Gettysburg, someone spraypainted some nasty words, or rather a certain nasty word, on the door of a fraternity house. Immediately, every campus male plagued with male guilt (which is all of them) went into a frenzy. There was an emergency meeting in the CUB to discuss how this “hate crime” should be punished. Hate crime laws are perverse and somewhat silly. I’d laugh at them if they weren’t also so dangerous. But that’s a discussion for another time.
Eventually the conversation turned to “diversity.” At the time I thought it was an overused buzzword among male academics (which is almost all of them). I was never naïve enough to believe the diversitoids would completely disappear from campuses, but I hoped that interest in the subject would at least wane in the coming years.
Indeed, academia’s interest in diversity seems greater than ever, and the incessant chatter about it makes me want to rupture my eardrums so I won’t have to hear it anymore. Imagine being subjected to Everclear’s “Father of Mine” a dozen times a day for the next six freaking years!
Unfortunately, the concept has also spread to the business world. I now hear a lot about companies creating Diversity Councils, and other such hogwash to waste their shareholders’ money. This is, of course, because most executives of large corporations are spineless and easily cowed by militant male employees threatening lawsuits.
But in all this prattling on about diversity, have any of them stopped and asked what’s so great about it?
Now, I’m not a sociologist, but it seems from my perspective that most people don’t really like diversity – and not just femi-nazis from artist colonies. Look at history-- heck, read the newspaper. Look around at the neighborhoods and cities of America.
Have you heard of the high rates of divorce? Look at how many single women are buying their own houses now, forgoing any attempt to commune with the “Other.” Look at the crime rates in cities where idle men, who fail out of school and join gangs. Crime seems to be worse in middle-class suburbs, where you find young, alienated white men shooting down their entire school. The higher crimes rates committed by men cannot be explained by reproducing faster; hell, they can’t even reproduce on their own. The absolute numbers of the two sexes changed drastically. As one moved in, the other moved out.
This isn’t new or exclusive to the United States. Men and women have been at each other’s throats since the beginning of time. Consider Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, wherein the women simply go on a sexual strike with their neanderthal boyfriends. How about Rwanda, where Hutus raped and pillaged Tutsis women. Shi’ite men want to keep their women illiterate and veiled so they no longer get weak in their womanly presence. Muslims in France recently decided to pull their daughters out of school to artificially improve the scores of male students. It is an epidemic. I could go on and on.
In light of these examples, maybe the female flight isn’t so bad. Maybe that kind of self-segregation helps to prevent further violence between the sexes. Many of the examples above are cases of forced diversity, where groups who did not traditionally mingle were lumped together under one state by patriarchal rule. When not forced together, there seems to be less conflict and more old-fashioned ignoring one another. The highest crime rates in the United States are in the areas with the most uneducated men.
So what does this mean? Is everyone a sexist? That depends on how you define it. The bottom line is that women prefer to be around smart people. This includes people who share different religious beliefs, different political philosophies, different tastes in music, and hearty debates, dialogues and discussions about all these matters. This doesn’t mean they hate men, just that they don’t want to be around them all the time. They especially resent being told they must be around them. When forced together like this, their dislike for each other often evolves into hatred.
Clearly, diversity isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Why can’t academics grasp this simple concept? When the Princeton Review says Gettysburg College admits too many unqualified men, maybe we should rethink the cost this has on academic excellence. Maybe Gettysburg would have fewer problems if it just eliminated men all together?
The College ought to forget about this harebrained ideology and concentrate on academic excellence. The President should stop playing social engineer. The biggest problems might not even come from the diversity mixing with the College’s traditionally hardworking, motivated, and ambitious female student body. Has the president stopped to think about what will happen if the diversity don’t get along with each other? If she gets her way, the campus community will include many more jocks, skater punks, Pothead Hacky Sackers, and Science Fiction nerds. Rather than an appetizing melting pot, this could be a recipe for disaster. The last time I checked, many skater punks didn’t much like jocks and strict Pothead Hacky Sackers weren’t too fond of Science Fiction nerds.
UPDATE: Check out Kriscinda's response over at Goldbricker.
Eventually the conversation turned to “diversity.” At the time I thought it was an overused buzzword among male academics (which is almost all of them). I was never naïve enough to believe the diversitoids would completely disappear from campuses, but I hoped that interest in the subject would at least wane in the coming years.
Indeed, academia’s interest in diversity seems greater than ever, and the incessant chatter about it makes me want to rupture my eardrums so I won’t have to hear it anymore. Imagine being subjected to Everclear’s “Father of Mine” a dozen times a day for the next six freaking years!
Unfortunately, the concept has also spread to the business world. I now hear a lot about companies creating Diversity Councils, and other such hogwash to waste their shareholders’ money. This is, of course, because most executives of large corporations are spineless and easily cowed by militant male employees threatening lawsuits.
But in all this prattling on about diversity, have any of them stopped and asked what’s so great about it?
Now, I’m not a sociologist, but it seems from my perspective that most people don’t really like diversity – and not just femi-nazis from artist colonies. Look at history-- heck, read the newspaper. Look around at the neighborhoods and cities of America.
Have you heard of the high rates of divorce? Look at how many single women are buying their own houses now, forgoing any attempt to commune with the “Other.” Look at the crime rates in cities where idle men, who fail out of school and join gangs. Crime seems to be worse in middle-class suburbs, where you find young, alienated white men shooting down their entire school. The higher crimes rates committed by men cannot be explained by reproducing faster; hell, they can’t even reproduce on their own. The absolute numbers of the two sexes changed drastically. As one moved in, the other moved out.
This isn’t new or exclusive to the United States. Men and women have been at each other’s throats since the beginning of time. Consider Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, wherein the women simply go on a sexual strike with their neanderthal boyfriends. How about Rwanda, where Hutus raped and pillaged Tutsis women. Shi’ite men want to keep their women illiterate and veiled so they no longer get weak in their womanly presence. Muslims in France recently decided to pull their daughters out of school to artificially improve the scores of male students. It is an epidemic. I could go on and on.
In light of these examples, maybe the female flight isn’t so bad. Maybe that kind of self-segregation helps to prevent further violence between the sexes. Many of the examples above are cases of forced diversity, where groups who did not traditionally mingle were lumped together under one state by patriarchal rule. When not forced together, there seems to be less conflict and more old-fashioned ignoring one another. The highest crime rates in the United States are in the areas with the most uneducated men.
So what does this mean? Is everyone a sexist? That depends on how you define it. The bottom line is that women prefer to be around smart people. This includes people who share different religious beliefs, different political philosophies, different tastes in music, and hearty debates, dialogues and discussions about all these matters. This doesn’t mean they hate men, just that they don’t want to be around them all the time. They especially resent being told they must be around them. When forced together like this, their dislike for each other often evolves into hatred.
Clearly, diversity isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Why can’t academics grasp this simple concept? When the Princeton Review says Gettysburg College admits too many unqualified men, maybe we should rethink the cost this has on academic excellence. Maybe Gettysburg would have fewer problems if it just eliminated men all together?
The College ought to forget about this harebrained ideology and concentrate on academic excellence. The President should stop playing social engineer. The biggest problems might not even come from the diversity mixing with the College’s traditionally hardworking, motivated, and ambitious female student body. Has the president stopped to think about what will happen if the diversity don’t get along with each other? If she gets her way, the campus community will include many more jocks, skater punks, Pothead Hacky Sackers, and Science Fiction nerds. Rather than an appetizing melting pot, this could be a recipe for disaster. The last time I checked, many skater punks didn’t much like jocks and strict Pothead Hacky Sackers weren’t too fond of Science Fiction nerds.
UPDATE: Check out Kriscinda's response over at Goldbricker.
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