Cornell BSU Responds to Stabbing
Justin Davis, president to the Cornell University Black Students United, sent the following response via email. None of the numerous typographical errors or general formatting has been corrected:
I would like to begin this concise email with a thank you for all those concerned students, faculty, staff and administration that have answered the call to engagement induced by the recent incident involving a black student being stabbed under the auspices of hate. The wonderful thing about Cornell’s student body is its propensity to tackle pertinent issues that may threaten this ideal of Ezra Cornell ‘to create a new institution, where any person can find instruction in any study’. As salient as that may seem across racial, class and gender lines it does sort of holistically give * *anyone** the aptitude to defend this right if threatened. However now, in this time, currently it predicates that everyone is still so strikingly unequal and discriminated against and it only pushes people to polarize along issues that need to be tackled as a community. This incident bothers me yes. 1)because I am a black student 2) because I am a Cornell student 3) because I am an American citizen and this threatens my safety and security. With that being said we challenge you all to not make this incident a Black Cornellian issue but an all encompassing one. Yes the urge to hold up the fist of unity propels us to centralize ourselves, however, looking around campus to see the few black students who are acknowledging the incident, thinking about the incident and then following through are quite scanty. BSU condemns all acts of hate, discrimination, violence, sexual assault etc. but we do not condemn them alone. This one dimensional (only black) way of thinking will result in no response from the administration or student body; at least not large enough to subside these issues and rectify the often crumbling rhetoric behind ‘open doors, open hearts, open minds’. BSU will work in systematic meaningful ways to provide a solution to what events have transpired within the days of the 2005-2006 academic year. BSU will not just hold the administration accountable (which to most seem to only consist of Susan Murphy, Kent Hubbell, Biddy Martin and Hunter Rawlings) but we will hold the student body accountable for their actions seeing that it is the student body that commits these heinous acts of violence and hatred not the administration. BSU cannot and will not commit time to one-dimensional logic that will get the black students on this campus half way there or let down as a result of ‘un-supporting’ students whose apathy and callus disregard for their well being eclipses that of those who care. BSU will unify and collaborate with other student groups whose goals are to see a better Cornell. BSU will collaborate with facets of the Africana experience (Ujamaa, Africana, Black Graduate Students and Black Faculty and Staff) in hopes to find mentoring and advice how to grasp the message from all of this and not miss it due to the anger caused by it. In closing, I hope this message finds you all well and pushes us all to engage in meaningful ways not just reactionary ones. Keep hope alive and take care of Black people but never forget that our lives are inextricably bound to the lives of the other 18,000 grads and undergrads on this campus. Take care and God Speed.
Unfortunately, whatever message there might be in BSU’s “press release” is buried below a thick, crusty layer of implausible grammar and unfocused narrative. The very first sentence alone, which attempts to define the scope of the audience, assumes the existence of a yet unverified hate crime, qualifies its introduction to pro-black supporters, and uses two passive verbs! The rest of the “release” reads similarly, and for a well-educated Cornell student, faculty, or staff member must seem overbearingly illiterate and incomprehensible. That it is written for a primarily black audience is no excuse.
From my best gloss–I cannot verify the accuracy of my interpretation, because only Justin Davis knows what these words mean–I will try and summarize BSU’s points:
- Our response must extend beyond the black community
- The administration and student body are both responsible
- We must find an appropriate way to respond to the stabbing
- Don’t offend any white people in response to the stabbing
Unfortunately, I fail to see why BSU has the authority to “to provide a solution to what events have transpired within the days of the 2005-2006 academic year.” It’s my belief that the Ithaca courts will decide justice in the matter of this stabbing, not the Black Students United. Furthermore, it doesn’t make sense to hold either the administration or the student body accountable for the isolated actions of three black men, a white male, and his girlfriend. Dear BSU, there are no “meaningful ways” to engage this stabbing, except to pass it off to law enforcement authorities and forget about it.
If, in the course of the investigation, it becomes clear that this was a racially motivated assault, there’s still nothing worth engaging. There are not 100 Poffenbargers burning Aaliyah CDs on Ho Plaza chanting “Burn black culture.” And therefore, because this issue doesn’t concern a racial community, there’s no need for a “release” from BSU and my own longwinded commentary.
| This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 22nd, 2006 at 8:29 pm and is tagged with ezra cornell, cornell student, open hearts, cornell university, american citizen, justin davis, gender lines, open doors, new institution, black students, bsu, pertinent issues, propensity, aptitude, auspices, sexual assault, safety and security, wonderful thing, way of thinking, typographical errors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback. |
12 Responses to “Cornell BSU Responds to Stabbing”
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For a person that seems to be very interested in ritiquing others, you sure do have a problem reading. That statement was signed “Black Students Untied” not “Black Students Union”. There is no Black Student Union on Cornell’s campus. I would respond to the rest of your rant by I don’t have the time to pick it apart.
This issue doesn’t concern a racial community?
Man I’m not black but if I was this sure would concern me. The apparant racial dimension to this crime has to have a deeper significance to students of color than it does to white students. But even I can acknowledge that as white students, we can not understand that no matter how hard we try.
ugh. what a poorly written email. awkward/needless use of the following words among others: induced, auspices, propensity, salient, holistically, aptitude, predicates, centralize, within the days, etc.
it is unfortunate that because one white kid decides to be a racist jerk that it is assumed all white kids at cornell have the same racist tendencies. Nathan H. Poffenbarger’s activities are not a reflection of the cornell faculty nor other cornell students, they are a reflection of his personality, his upbringing, his ideas. they are not my ideas, nor are they necessarily anyone else’s ideas. it is outrageous to lump in every white cornell student with Poffenbarger simply because of their skin color. making a broad assumption about a group of people based on skin color is racism. i think it is time that *everyone* remember that.
Glad to see people are reading this and analyzing this. First, this email was for the black community at Cornell. It was not meant to be a campus wide email to cater to all. Second, I never said publish this and give me a Pulitzer Prize for it. I composed the email at my computer with the best intentions to provide a response not solution to the recent incident. I am not speaking for all blacks students, I am not assuming that all whites are racist, and I did not ask for a grammar lesson. If I wanted one of those then I would have went and asked for one. I have come to realize that no matter how you phrase racial harmony there are still jerks out there (like the person who responded with that long diatribe at the top) who just will never get the message. Instead they try and pick the writing apart for grammatical errors, instead of getting the meaning. You guys need to come down off of your high horses and realize that while you sit back and critique we stand up and change Cornell. I don’t know any of you on this blogg which means that you probably don’t do anything at Cornell, or even to go further, probably don’t do anything in life accept criticize. There will never be peace as long as we miss the meaning of everything in attempts at trying to seem smart when you really are dumb at heart. Now try and find mistakes in this rebuttal, shows how much of a life you have.
have a good life,
Justin Davis
p.s if any of you are bold enough to call me and we can actually have a normal convo. instead of hiding behind words my number is 607 253-0356
.
I don’t understand why people don’t take grammar seriously. If you want me to read what you wrote and make me think you’re intelligent, take the minute to run a spell check and do a quick revision.
And then to attack someone on his personal blog for sharing his opinions…nobody will take you seriously.
Someone was stabbed on the Cornell campus and you’re worried about the use of two passive verbs? What planet are you from? The stabbing incident would be cause for concern if a white student had stabbed another white student. However, that’s not all that happened Saturday night. If Mr. Poffenbarger hadn’t used racial epithets, then we could speculate that this had no racial motivation at all. He is, after all, a “liberal”. He was just some stupid drunk kid with a knife. But, the facts we have suggest that race was a factor. He had just been thrown out of a fraternity party for the slurs he had used there. If a white student gets drunk, uses racial epithets and stabs a person of color we may not be able to define it as a hate crime, but it certainly is an incident with a racial dimension. If you can’t see that, you’re floating on a raft in a river of denial. No, we don’t have all the facts yet. Yes, the investigation needs to run its course. Yes, the Cornell administration needs to administer disciplinary action against the assailant AFTER they’ve gathered all of the facts and do a better job of managing the climate on campus. Yes, the Tompkins County D.A. needs to do her job and pursue justice in this case. Yes, Cornell’s African American student body, faculty and staff needs to not get swept into a frenzy of panic, emotion and rhetoric. And yes, Cornell’s non-African American students need to ask themselves some tough questions. For starters: is it possible this is a racist institution? All that aside, I think the point Justin was trying to make was that we can’t act as though this was a very random and isolated event. African American students will organize themselves to make that point plain to the powers that be. Just in case you’re just joining us, this is not the first hint we’ve received that something is amiss in Cornell’s campus climate. Was anyone who reads this blog on campus in the fall? Or the year before that? Or before that? Something big, newsworthy and “racial” happens every year. This year has been an exception in the worst way imaginable. The only thing we need now is a race riot and we’ll have a cake, some frosting AND the cherry on top. Did you see the diversity arches being physically attacked by students? (Isn’t this the ivy league? What happened to debate?) Have you read the Cornell American or Review? Do you see the ongoing defamation of African American students and faculty those papers promotes? How would you feel if every aspect of your existence in a place was challened by some person or group? You got in because of affirmative action. The existence of the Ujammaa House reflects the university’s bias and should be dismantled. Why do you African Americans need their “own” fraternities and sororities? Professors are easier on you than on white students because they’re all liberals who don’t want to appear racist. Statistics prove that the majority of you are dangerous and that you should be treated as threats to public safety. Your use of two passive verbs confirms your incompetence and deems your blog posts and emails not worthy of my time. Sadly, these attacks aren’t new. If you think you’re the first person to challenge a person of color with the whole grammar-check test, think again. And, if you think your grammarian sensibilities are unconnected to your racism, you should think some more. These tactics are as old as the ivy-league itself and have evolved to reflect new dimensions of this realm–emails and blogs. Moreover, if you think that any and all of that is unconnected to a drunk White kid stabbing an African American on your campus, you are seriously deluding yourself.
If White students want to exonerate themselves from responsibility for Cornell’s racial climate, please let the rest of us know how you reacted when the Cornell American suggested you arm yourself with a Smith & Wesson to protect yourself from African Americans in Ithaca–many of whom are Cornell students, faculty and staff. If African American students circulated news articles about arming themselves against hostile whites, wouldn’t you be offended? [Sidenote: free speech codes requires the university and Student Assembly to continue to ask you to pay a student activity fee that supports your defamation.] Where were you when students were trampling on the remnants of the diversity arches? And lampooning it on Ho Plaza during Halloween? I know what you’re thinking, “the arches sucked and that’s why they got attacked.” Yes, they did suck. But they represented something much more than some strange diversity plan cooked up in Day Hall. They were intended to represent how inclusive and diverse Cornell actually is. I guess now we now know it isn’t. Good job guys; what a great way to make your point. Perhaps you didn’t go out and get a gun to arm yourself, write a story for the American or help take down the arches, but your silence on all of those issues is complicity. Perhaps you’re shocked by Mr. Poffenbarger’s actions and couldn’t conceive of committing such an act yourself. When the American comes out, you turn away. And, somehow that makes you “not racist”. However, it would behoove Cornell’s White students to place this one incident into the context of all the “racial” incidents that have made the news this year, the thousands of much smaller ones that did not and won’t and your role in the events you’ve been closest to. If you can’t find any, you aren’t paying attention.
jesus christ. why are elliott’s critics so goddamn wordy?
Try and pay attention Anon, I’m critiquing you as well. And, speaking of words, you should know that capitol letters are en vogue this year.
allow me to quote a well known lawyer:
“bla bla bla”
A black friend of mine once got in a fight with a white guy. My friend called the white guy a “dumbass white-trash honky” while they were fighting. Was my friend guilty of a hate crime? Was the fight racially motivated? That is a serious question, by the way, and not just a flip remark. If a white guy calls another white guy a “dumbass white-trash honky” during a fight, does that qualify as a racially motivated hate crime?
All we really know is that some idiot stabbed someone — and he will probably be going to jail for it where he belongs.
Anonymous, I agree with your questions. Everything isn’t a hate crime. A “racial dimension” to the incident doesn’t automatically make it a hate crime. And I actually agree with Eliiott’s alternate theory of the stabbing. It’s possible these three guys who approached Poffenbarger were hotheads who decided to teach him a lesson and got hurt in the process. The reality is that they did outnumber him. It’s quite plausible he was just defending himself–while drunk and exercising his first amendment right to free speech. It’s possible he won’t go to jail (and probably shouldn’t) if that turns out to be the case. All that aside, he should be expelled from Cornell for carrying and using the knife. If he felt that he was being threatened, he should have removed himself from the situation or called the Cornell Police. I hope the discourse about all of this includes this line of thinking in some way.
Anon, I feel sorry for you. What a miserable existence you must have. Most of the posts here (including Eliiott’s) are encouraging debate and you’re saying, “bla, bla, bla”. You only seem to be able to challenge posts on their word counts and usage. If you can, try to understand the ideas and not just the words. If you can’t, stop posting.