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from the anything-you-say-will-be-used-against-you dept.
The Facebook messaging group was at one point titled "Harvard memes for horny bourgeois teens."
It began when about 100 members of Harvard College's incoming freshman class contacted each other through the university's official Class of 2021 Facebook group. They created a messaging group where students could share memes about popular culture — a growing trend on the Internet among students at elite colleges.
But then, the exchanges took a dark turn, according to an article published in the Harvard Crimson on Sunday. Some of the group's members decided to form an offshoot group in which students could share obscene, "R-rated" memes, a student told the Crimson. The founders of the messaging group demanded that students post provocative memes in the main group chat to gain admittance to the smaller group.
The students in the spinoff group exchanged memes and images "mocking sexual assault, the Holocaust and the deaths of children," sometimes directing jokes at specific ethnic or racial groups, the Crimson reported. One message "called the hypothetical hanging of a Mexican child 'piñata time'" while other messages quipped that "abusing children was sexually arousing," according to images of the chat described by the Crimson.
Then, university officials caught on. And in mid-April, after administrators discovered the offensive, racially charged meme exchanges, at least 10 incoming students who participated in the chat received letters informing them that their offers of admission had been revoked.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @11:42AM (11 children)
The lesson should be, "don't be an asshole or you will be treated as such". Maybe Harvard doesn't want to be associated with assholes? Imagine that!
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday June 07 2017, @04:17PM (9 children)
Yeah, but while these stupid kids were, IMO, clearly deserving of losing their Harvard acceptance due to the nasty things they wrote, you can easily make enemies no matter what you write if it's political in the slightest.
So to me, the real lesson here is to avoid stupid places like Facebook where people actually know your name and who you are, and stick to pseudo-anonymous forums like this one. Then, if you do manage to post something controversial at some point, your employer, parents, friends, etc. won't all see it.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday June 07 2017, @06:42PM (3 children)
I can certainly agree that speech shouldn't be used to brand someone a terrible person or be cause for expulsion from a uni. If someone randomly posts something offensive on some random board to let off some steam, I personally can understand that (it's an anger release).
But, the thing is you now have a concentration of people feeding off each others anger which begins to foster and normalize those feelings. Perhaps a few posts in bad taste are fine and most of the people will downvote/complain/report/etc. But create an environment where that kind of behaviour flourishes and before you know it, it's now normal. That joke about Obama living in the *white* house and planting watermelon gardens goes from a groaner you share over beer with a few friends to let off some steam is now your daily routine. It degrades into a swamp of hate and anger.
I have a pretty diverse group of friends, most aren't white or are mixed. But we can all have a good laugh at a really offensive joke. And of course, it's every once in awhile. That's fine. Every day and you have a problem.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday June 07 2017, @07:01PM (2 children)
That joke about Obama living in the *white* house and planting watermelon gardens goes from a groaner you share over beer with a few friends to let off some steam is now your daily routine. It degrades into a swamp of hate and anger.
While I agree about this, I have to make a tangential comment about this bit of racism: WTF is the deal with the racist stereotype about watermelon? I know, I know, black slaves brought watermelons from Africa and they planted them in the Southern plantations and enjoyed them since they came over with them. But what kind of moron doesn't like watermelon? Seriously. It would be like some stupid racist stereotype about Latin Americans (or more precisely, ones from Central America) liking chocolate (because cacao plants originate from Central America). Everyone likes chocolate! Both chocolate and watermelon were discovered outside of Europe, brought to Europe, and then became very popular foods there, though watermelon came long, long before chocolate. And watermelon became very popular every place it was brought; it reached China in the 10th century and now China is the world's largest producer of it. I guess the racists' fixation on watermelon is just another sign of how stupid they are.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday June 07 2017, @08:58PM
Pretty much. It's one of the best fruits so why not love it?
There is a little background info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watermelon_stereotype#History [wikipedia.org]
What stands out is this line:
If true, then what better way to stymie their progress than to destroy their symbol?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday June 10 2017, @02:49AM
I dunno about all of that - but most jokes are rather stupid. Think about it. Even the very best joke you've ever heard, starts to sound stupid on the fourth or twentieth telling.
Also, jokes aren't required to make sense, to be funny. No logic required, no facts required, nothing. The very stupidest of observations can be funny, for a moment, in the proper context.
Having read the post above about the history of watermelons, I can imagine good white slaveowners refusing to sample watermelons. "The darkies grow those things in their gardens, I'm not touching them!" Stupid shit is stupid, of course, but some stupid shit survives for generations.
A comparison might be made to various superstitions. How many generations of people avoided crossing paths with a black cat, etc?
(Score: 2) by linuxrocks123 on Wednesday June 07 2017, @11:05PM (3 children)
They don't deserve to be thrown out of Harvard. They're immature, and they deserve to be educated, probably at Harvard or a similar school since they chose to apply to it and Harvard had previously chosen to take them.
What do you think is going to happen to these students now? They'll be stung by the rejection, find it unfair (which it was), believe from their experience that political correctness has run amok and is a huge social problem (there's at least /some/ truth to that), go to whatever school they chose as their backup, graduate, and join the workforce in high-ranking positions of power.
What type of people will they be when they graduate? Well, they'll be individuals, and it's hard to generalize, but, in general, it's a lot harder to learn to empathize with other people when you're fixated on how other people were unfair to you, and what happened to them will sting for a long time. They're probably not going to learn the lesson that "making stupid jokes is evil and wrong" from what happened to them; they're going to learn the lesson that "libtard assholes in universities and elsewhere are evil and wrong".
And they're going to act on that belief as long as they hold it. Their future and past experiences other than this one will shape how long they'll believe that to be true, but Harvard may have just made a few more Trump voters by doing this, and also a few racist/sexist supervisors who will be reluctant to hire anyone who doesn't look like they do, and who also have learned that, when they act on that reluctance, they must to do so in a deniable way.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday June 08 2017, @02:53PM (2 children)
Yes, they do deserve to be thrown out. Harvard admitted them thinking they were people of good character, and they proved that they aren't, so Harvard had every right to revoke that. People who publicly post blatantly racist and misogynistic garbage are not suitable for an esteemed institution like Harvard. I wasn't like that when I was that age, and none of my friends at the time ever did or said stuff like that either, even in private. That isn't normal behavior, even for 18yo boys; it's disgusting.
Letting them stay at Harvard would tarnish Harvard's reputation, and it isn't going to fix these kids either; they're always going to be assholes. But now they'll be prevented from getting a Harvard degree and developing the social networks that come with going to school there which helps them get into positions of power. And no, they're not going to be in high-ranking positions of power later on, not after getting a degree from some lowly state university. They were always going to be misogynists, but at least now they won't be running major companies or in high-ranking political positions.
Harvard did the right thing here. Now they can clear these spots for other kids who might not have these nasty qualities, and are far more deserving of the benefits of a Harvard education.
(Score: 2) by linuxrocks123 on Monday June 12 2017, @03:43AM (1 child)
There are quickly diminishing marginal returns to the name recognition of a college. If they do well in the college they go to, and they will, they'll do well when they enter the workforce ... and they will.
Liberal philosophy is properly based on empathy. The urge to punish those you disagree with is based on sadism. You may wish to engage in some introspection (not being sarcastic; everyone should engage in some introspection).
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday June 12 2017, @05:24PM
If you equate "refusing to associate with" to "punishment", then your version of liberalism is a doomed philosophy, because willfully associating with people who want to destroy your philosophy and way of life is inherently self-destructive.
A private institution has every right to refuse admission to people who do not uphold their values, and who would destroy its reputation. How is a liberal institution going to maintain a reputation for liberal-ness if they're full of non-liberal people?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @11:10PM
What? It's none of Harvard's business. Why are they playing speech police? I don't care how vile what they said was.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday June 07 2017, @05:49PM
These people were perhaps assholes and Harvard spared their existing students a lot of chagrin. But the point is that real-name social media where all official institutions scrutinize whatever people write at any time is not a good idea to express one self. Any communication there should have the flat professional tone of politically grey and neutral speak that don't tell anyone anything that matters but most importantly to never do anything wrong.
The whole idea to mix the private and professional life in a database that continuously feed security services, law enforcement, employers etc. Is just a recipe for serious chagrin. And when the majority of participants are less than insightful it's even worse. It just becomes drama and rumors which then invades all your social spaces.