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- iHaveNet.com: Politics
by Leonard Pitts Jr
I have no beef with the student Republicans.
Oh, I disagree with them about affirmative action, and probably a dozen other things as well. But I am not troubled -- amused, but not troubled -- by the way they've expressed their view. Unfortunately, others have been less sanguine.
The story goes as follows: the
If I were going to use baked goods as a metaphor for affirmative action, my price scale would go like this: Black and Native American men would pay
After 350 years, the black, Latino, Asian and Native American men would get a
That said, I'm troubled at the response the
One student protesting the sale told a reporter it was hurtful, "attacking underrepresented communities by reducing their communities to a cheaply priced good."
But even granting the vulnerability felt by such students, would we do them any favors, do we prepare them for the world, by treating them as delicate flowers who must be shielded from all that is hurtful? We might do better teaching them to cope with the hurtful things that will inevitably come.
The contretemps sparked a resolution from the student senate reportedly and ominously noting the power of a separate student
The resolution thus combined politically correct censorship, and short-sighted overreach, laying out a rubric which, writ large, would outlaw the likes of Chris Rock, Mark Twain, Richard Pryor, Norman Lear, Stephen Colbert, and other satirists who have used discrimination to make trenchant political points.
Thankfully, the "racist bake sale" and a counter protest went on last week as planned. There was no violence, just vigorous debate and a visceral reminder of what a messy, dangerous, and powerful tool the founders entrusted to us when they said we had the right to speak our minds.
Let freedom ring.
AMERICAN POLITICS
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