An unspecified “otherwise silent” class at Cornell University focused on infants’ social development recently took an abrupt turn. The class was discussing how three month old infants, based on their facial preferences, may already be racist.
Yes, three month old infants are racists.
Leona Marie Sharpstene on Friday posted “Social Justice in the Classroom at Cornell.” The problem was “my peers’ inability to separate themselves from their emotions and political correctness long enough to sustain an intellectual discussion in the classroom.”
Many Cornelians, and other college students (particularly Ivy leaguers), have a tendency to be social justice warriors, and so the discussion “incited an entire off-topic tangent into the nuances of what constitutes racism.” The teachers assistant actually made it worse and “fueled the fire, questioning any student who did not agree exactly with her definition of racism and bringing the discussion back to racism when anyone brought up other aspects of the study.”
There’s almost a sad sense of naivety. For it’s “sorely disappointing” that “classmates [would] echo each other’s opinions while throwing around buzzwords and typical concepts such as “media portrayal of minorities.”
Sharpstene notes:
That shouldn’t be too lofty a request. She seems to catch on by questioning if they’re “really better than all the other schools that have caught national news attention for similar ridiculous antics.” Sharpstene points to Brown, where students who are smart enough to get into an Ivy League, demand less classwork so they can focus on social justice.
After speaking to another classmate who asked “the controversial question,” she pointed out “some of us still have the courage to question the status quo and think for ourselves.” That’s what college students already ought to be doing, but less and less have been doing so — and more and more have been trying to shut down opposing views in conversation altogether.
