I first heard about the situation on ESPN. I watch a whole lot of ESPN. I'm pretty senile when it comes to keeping up with current trends in music, sitcoms, dramas, Reality TV, etc. While watching ESPN, I first heard about black football players at Missouri who were going on strike. Going on strike until the University President was taken out of that position. He was supposedly guilty of not doing enough about the racism on campus, or something to that effect. I heard about racial slurs being used, and a Swastika. That president, Tim Wolfe, resigned rather quickly. While watching more ESPN, I heard comments being made that lauded the athletes for taking a political stand, and not going the route that numerous other black athletes do. This came not long after Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said that Michael Jordan chose commerce over conscious. So the issue of athletes taking political stands was already a hot button issue. The problem I had with the story was the lack of details that I was hearing. All these people on ESPN were making very general statements, and not being specific. How could they say that Wolfe ignored the racism that was going on, or say that he didn't respond quick enough? That, in itself is an opinion. Wolfe could have given a decent effort, and some would have still thought it wasn't enough. What was it about his response or lack thereof, that meant that he deserved to be pushed out his presidency? The specifics as to the actual role of Wolfe weren't given, from what I saw on ESPN. I needed to find out. So I did what so many of the people I am around tend not to do. I did some research. In this internet age it doesn't take much to research. I read about a group named Concerned Student 1950, and I look at this article which talks about their demands. http://www.foxsports.com/college-football/story/missouri-protesters-issue-list-of-demands-to-university-110815. I looked at this great video by Thunderf00t https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5MPzQnokMU.
Tim Wolfe wasn't looking so guilty after all. Even a video in which members of the Concerned Student 1950 group try to explain why they wanted him to be removed doesn't provide much of a case for his removal. The way they explain it, the system is fucked up, and he's the leader, so he's got to go. The list of demands of just plain ridiculous. How could the University be expected to ass kiss this group and follow their demands? The group is just asking for too much. Let's look at the different demands from the Fox Sports article. The first demand is maybe the dumbest of all of them. Did they really want this man to hold a press conference explaining his white male privilege? What the fuck do you want? You want him to humiliate himself? What about this driver of his who hit a student? Was this student sent to the hospital? Did they suffer a bad injury? Maybe they were like the woman in the Thuderf00t video, who put her body up against a man, and then told him to stop touching her breasts, despite the fact that she was responsible for the contact. So I looked for some explanation on what happened, and found this article for the Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/tim-wolfe-homecoming-parade_56402cc8e4b0307f2cadea10.
The paragraph about the incident, cut and pasted from the Post
Then the driver of Wolfe's car tried to drive around them. The students moved their line, arms linked, to block the driver, who continued to try to push forward. The driver again tried to get through a moment later, coming in contact with one of the students.
WTF is going on here? The students blocked the driver. He didn't run into anyone on purpose, and that certainly wasn't Wolfe's idea for him to hit someone, and the way it is described leads me to believe that little damage was done. Maybe the side the vehicle brushed up against someone. I can safely put this into the same category of the supposed breast touching incident that I previously mentioned. I would also like to know how did he consent to the physical violence? I guess they must of told him that they were going to fuck those black students up, and he must've said, go right ahead, and have your way with them. (After writing this paragraph I saw the video of the incident, and what I suspected is pretty much what happened)
Demand II does not make sense on so many levels. You really want students to have that big of a hand in electing the University President. For the most part, students are there to get an education, not to dictate shit.
Demand III actually leads to a list of demands that I am not going to get into now. It has to do with demands presented in 1969 for the betterment of the black community.
Demand IV is another one that is just asking too much. How could you expect them to make racial awareness, and inclusion curriculum mandatory. Not just that but mandatory for students, staff, and administration. As if that wasn't asking for enough, the curriculum needs to be overseen by students of color. Sorry the white people can not get in on the overseeing of this curriculum, but the curriculum would be mandatory for those of all races.
Demand number V misses out on a key issue. Before I getting into that, it is worth mentioning that Thunderf00t let us know that blacks make up less than 8% of the University of Missouri's undergrad students. So, going by that figure 10% would be overrepresentation. There is also the key issue of education. The fact is that blacks don't achieve as much in terms of education as whites do. Blacks have lower college graduation rates. When it comes to being part of University staff, and administration, education is very important. That is the logical explanation as to why the staff at the University would have such a small percentage of blacks. As is pointed out in the Thunderf00t video Asians are overrepresented in terms of University staff. Asians also, not coincidentally, achieve greater in terms of academics, and college graduation, than whites. A better way of trying to deal with the issue would be to start at the grass roots level, and coming up with solutions to improve the educational achievement of black kids. How is getting Wolfe to resign going to help with that issue?
Demand VI isn't too specific. It doesn't go into details into why those things are needed.
Demand VII doesn't come with much context. What is the university already doing for mental health? I don't know, and obviously there is no type of explanation given. I guess that isn't important, when your main objective is to fucking cry, and complain until you get your way. I wouldn't expect a university to be a jack of all trades. Their main thing is educating students, there are plenty mental health facilities that deal with the mentally ill. I am mentally ill myself, but that doesn't stop me from knowing that this demand is bullshit. You can, as students and as people do things on your own to increase the awareness of mental health issues. You don't just demand a University to do so. At least give us some in depth analysis, or some statistics that show how bad the University is doing in terms of dealing with mental health. Since we are a it, why don't we also cry to them about how ignore cancer, sexism (against women, and men), height discrimination, bullying, fat shaming? The point is, if you wanted to nitpick problems you can cry all fucking day.
Demand VIII is much like the 7th one. Once again there is no real explanation. There is no data about how much money is actually donated to those programs. No business model for increasing donations, and making it worthwhile for the University.
Yes, these are the fucking demands. Why is it that Tim Wolfe had to resign?
