Dr. Marrus was seated with three Junior Fellows, graduate or professional students who live in residence at Massey. Hugh Segal, the head of the college, who has – until recently – carried the formal title “Master,” came to join them. As Mr. Segal sat down, Dr. Marrus said to a black student:
“You know this is your master, eh? Do you feel the lash?”
The students have filed a written complaint with the college. They have not spoken about the incident to The Globe and Mail. Mr. Segal could also not be reached.
The petition, which was made public on Thursday, demanded extensive changes and asked Massey to sever its ties with Dr. Marrus.
From the Globe and Mail, 2017-10-02
And Professor Marrus was summarily dismissed. Well, he resigned, clearly under pressure.
When I was in college back in 1975, I had a part-time job in the kitchen, doing the dishes, which consisted of stacking them onto trays and sliding them into a long, automated dish-washing machine. I was from Ontario and had never really known many black people, but at college, I regularly interacted with them. One of them, a girl named Brenda, was working with me in the kitchen one day. It was our custom to circulate among the tables in the cafeteria at a certain point in time to remind everyone to bring their dishes and trays to the kitchen as it was near the end of the dinner hour.
One day, Brenda and I went out to do the reminder. I put my arm around her and as we approached a table, Brenda said, “time to bring your dishes in”, and I said “we’re spelling it out for you in black and white”. Brenda was black.
Some of the students looked stunned. I refused to believe there was anything really offensive about what I said. There truly was not. Not a thing. But sensitivities about race in Chicago were at dangerously high levels.
It passed. Nothing happened.
If that had happened today, I probably would have been suspended from school.
If you start a debate on whether or not Professor Marrus’ comments was racist and offensive you will end up with people thinking it was racist and offensive. If people had any sense at all, they would regard the comment as mildly amusing and perhaps a tiny bit insensitive– which is, after all- what most jokes are: insensitivity as wit– and continue to judge Professor Marrus on his actual behavior and his character. To elevate an off-the-cuff comment to the status of an indictment of man’s entire character and position and attitude is obscene and offensive and repugnant and the students that led the charge should themselves be sanctioned for monstrous behavior unbecoming a human being.
Look at the damn joke? Can you seriously think he meant something like, “you should be a slave” or “slavery was good” or “slavery was funny”? No. It obviously indicates that we are so far removed from slavery and from a slavery mentality that one could refer to it without thinking one was doing harm. And if the black student really thought he was harmed by the joke, he needs to grow up. And that comment of mine would undoubtedly be taken as cause for dismissal right now if I were a professor at Massey.
The petition was signed by 200 students. Every one of them should be suspended for three days for being jack-asses and for bringing disrepute and insult upon the otherwise noble objective of eliminating racism in our society. For every ounce of cure this petition provided, it has cost the ideology ten pounds or more in credibility. You are setting the cause back by years with this kind of idiotic pandering.
This is stupid and vile and should be stopped now.
In a similar vein, I recently read a comment in Reddit about “Blade Runner”. The writer could not “enjoy” the movie at all because there is a scene in it (the original) in which Deckard “pressures” Rachel (a replicant) to have sex with him. He was so concerned about the morality of this scene that he didn’t think he could ever enjoy the movie again.
This is a movie in which Deckard kills replicants. It is a movie in which replicants kill many humans– they want to extend their own lives. This is a movie. It’s a story. It’s not an elementary school lesson in deportment.
The writer has probably seen hundreds of movies and tv shows in which characters bomb, knife, shoot, burn, and beat all manner of victims. But he can’t enjoy “Blade Runner” any more because one of the characters pressures another into having sex.
In the same online venue, Reddit, check out some of the forums of sexuality. You will find there multiple submissions by women who are repelled by male aggression, and multiple submissions by women who welcome it, when it is from someone they are attracted to. Is Rachel attracted to Deckard? Would you like to discuss that, endlessly?
What planet does the writer live on? Does he understand what a movie is? Does he realize that he is not Deckard?
Does anyone have any sense any more?
[whohit]Do You Feel the Lash?[/whohit]