I have been informed that Ms. Rachael Ballard SC '11 has now taken down her Facebook videos. I wonder why if she's not ashamed of what she said. Following Ms. Ballard's permission, I would happily put up the original videos on this blog so that people might see exactly what she said and in the manner in which she said it, lest there be any confusion that what she said was, in fact, racist.
Taken from the comment section of the now infamous Kwanzaa post:
Hello,
For those curious about the side of the story that belongs to the students who attended the Kwanzaa event: I am one of those students.
A few days prior to the event, a couple of the HMC proctors (similar to RA’s) advertised the Kwanzaa event to the student body, encouraging us that all were welcome to join the celebration and learn about Kwanzaa. The proctors had collaborated with Dean Gary and Kim Gadlin from the OBSA to organize this, as an invitation from the event coordinators had been extended to HMC students as a whole. My suitemates and I had never been involved in Kwanzaa celebrations before, and so we immediately RSVP'ed with interest.
We arrived on time at 6:00 and met up with the proctor who invited us. We had been told the event would last for at most a couple hours; surely enough, an 8:30 appointment forced me to leave before the event was over. My fellow students simultaneously decided to follow me out of the room, as they all had considerable amounts of schoolwork for the night. I waited for a gap in the presentations before leaving the room; I was a bit surprised when all my fellow students also rose to leave - there is no way an entire table can leave without being noticeable or disruptive - but knowing how much work they had to do, I understood their actions.
A female student followed us out and politely asked why we had attended. We replied honestly: that our friend (the proctor) had extended an invitation to us, and that we were interested in learning about Kwanzaa. She informed us the event was for black students only and encouraged us to learn about Kwanzaa from other sources. I thanked her for informing us, and we went on our way. As a group, we felt incredibly surprised by this; we were under the impression that we had been invited to this event. Thankfully, none amongst us felt offended or upset - merely confused, worried we had stumbled into a horrible misunderstanding.
We did not intend to offend anybody by our actions. I admit that greater care could have been taken to the nature of our exit from the event, but the reason it happened was simply a misunderstanding regarding the length of the event. We are grateful to the Deans and Kim Gadlin from the OBSA for assuring us we were welcome to the event, and we are thankful for experiencing the event itself.
Stephen Lee
HMC ‘10
12 comments:
As a CMC grad a current CGU student, I'm nauseated by this. One of the reasons I started going to CMC was that Hughes Suffren made it clear that Black students were the priority at OBSA, but that did not mean that students of other races/ethnicities would be turned away from events. I often went in with my black friends and my white friends and received no hostility... Well, almost. Some students from other schools like to maintain the perception that CMC students are somehow sellouts and not worthy of our race cards. Again, let me emphasize that THE STAFF OF OBSA ARE ALWAYS GRACIOUS, at least they've been so to me in my near 10 year relationship with them. I just cannot understand why some of it's other patrons feel as though they have license to make OBSA as their fortress of racial intolerance. It's not.
I hope she does address this herself because it's already getting kind of hysterical and some of the comments on the other post are getting out of hand.
I know her in passing, and she's always been very sweet and very friendly which is why this seems all the more strange.
While I think it's important to discuss, it's probably a good idea to try and maintain some element of control over the simmer. If this blog repeatedly sensationalizes it, who knows how much further it could go.
Take the high road, CJ and just report the facts and not the editorializing opinion on this one -- let Rachel speak for herself and hopefully we'll hear an apology soon.
No sensationalism, just explaining the logical paths of her thought. One could even say we're educating our fellow students about what one of their own thinks.
I getcha... and you're right.
Maybe just keep an eye on the "twat" and "bitch" messages that are being thrown around the other post?
She effed up... big time. And like I said, I hope she addresses it fast because the demonizing really could turn nasty on this one.
CJ is taking the high road, there hasn't been anything he's said sensationalizing this.
When you put up a video as blatantly hostile and angry as that, you're going to have to expect the whiplash and the fallout that comes after it.
You're saying she "effed up" and you hope she addresses it fast...
but does she know that? She looks incredibly bad now, because not only was she shown to be hostile and angry, but over a simple misunderstanding. And the students involved, even though they shouldn't have, wrote an apology. Where does that leave her?
"Sweet and friendly in passing"...well, one shows their true colors eventually.
Such "educating" is particularly charged, and reminds me of the way partisans of all stripes rush to compare their political foes to dictators. To strip any viewpoint down to a caricature the first step is often to compare them to fascists. Obviously this doesn't rise to that level, but it is troubling all the same.
If what you are suggesting is that the past comment in which I said the use of the phrase "cockroach" was very poor, I plead guilty. I wonder if I had compared [insert racial group here] to an animal if you would so easily dismiss that? I never used the Nazi example, though, but I did point to other instances I know of when individuals were compared to cockroaches in particularly menacing circumstances.
I'm just pointing out a fairly incendiary comparison pushes the article away from good journalism and into the realm of sensationalism. Ballard's blatant idiocy/hypocrisy speaks for itself without such editorializing. Further vilifying her with such comparisons only makes it harder for this blog to be taken seriously and distracts from the matter at hand. Saying "Obviously this doesn't rise to that level, but it is troubling all the same." shows that you know the analogy is probably going to far and should just be dialed back in the first place. It is VERY troubling, but it isn't genocidal.
And nor did I say it was genocidal, but I would be remiss if I did not point to the historical similarities of someone calling fellow human beings cockroaches.
As for the editorializing, I plead guilty, but this is, after all, a blog that deals with my opinions. You're welcome to your own opinions on the matter, of course, which was why I provided the transcript so that you might judge accordingly.
You would hardly be remiss for failing to point out that she was using the term "cockroach" as an insult. I mean, it's not like there is any shortage of historical examples of calling people cockroaches to demean them. Choosing to elaborate this point with the two most extreme examples in recent memory is not taking the rhetorical high road. It's argumentum ad Fascisum.
Rachel did not take down her videos. Whoever told you that clearly cannot browse through facebook.
@ Anonymous, She took down her page to study for finals, apparently. A mistake.
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