Conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart had no sense of the maxim that one should not speak ill of the dead: After the death of Senator Edward M. Kennedy in 2009, he vomited all venom on the grave of the liberal lion via Twitter calling it a "special battery of human excrement," a "bad guy" and other things we cannot reprint in a family website. So I have no qualms about remembering Breitbart, who died suddenly Thursday at 43, as a tyrant and closed-minded blowhard who seemed to think he could win debates by shouting louder than his opponent rather than to have a better argument, a relaxed shameless liar who has destroyed the reputation and a new species of parasite unhappy Internet.
But it's not really what I wanted to write. In 2010, Breitbart told the Times that three events in the 1980's and early 90 galvanized his political consciousness, turning it from an apathetic "playful goofball" into a right-wing extremist. All three candidates seem odd for an epiphany, but one in particular is related to my own life, and this is as good as any indicator of how the mind Breitbart worked - or did not work.
In 1986, while Breitbart was a student at Tulane University, his best friend, Larry Solov, attended Stanford.When Solov mentioned that Stanford had an African American on the theme dorm, Breitbart was outraged.
"He just matter of factly said there was a black dorm, and I was like," What the fucking hell? Are you kidding? "Said Breitbart.”And then when I discovered that it was not segregated in the sense of white people who do, I thought, 'What are you talking about? Why not work towards The ideal color blind? "
This is in brief Breitbart - a man flying in a rage of half-cocked on an explosive issue, he vaguely understood. Later in life, this model is frequently repeated, except that by then he was a contractor of the Internet that could immediately post his screeds online whenever a question is that piqued his anger. Issues of race seemed to incense him more than anything, getting them to provide an outlet for conservative attacks video activist James O'Keefe III of the downtown advocacy group ACORN and assassinate the character of Shirley Sherrod, an African-American official with the Ministry of Agriculture whose comments on race and government assistance have been greatly modified and taken out of context to make him look like a racist, then posted on a site Breitbart.
I was an undergraduate student at Stanford University in the mid-1980s and well familiar with Ujamaa, the dormitory on the black theme, and Okada, a dormitory in Asia, and Casa Zapata, a Latino dorm. These dormitories are controversial then and remain now, but they survived over the years because they offer an important educational and social experience. They are not entirely separated; no more than 50% of each dorm can house individuals setting up the "theme" ethnic. To live in one of them, you must agree to take on an editing project on ethnic theme - Ujamaa and residents of any race may have to write an essay on an aspect of black experience on campus for example. There are also educational and cultural programs within the dorm.
I was an undergraduate student at Stanford University in the mid-1980s and well familiar with Ujamaa, the dormitory on the black theme, and Okada, a dormitory in Asia, and Casa Zapata, a Latino dorm. These dormitories are controversial then and remain now, but they survived over the years because they offer an important educational and social experience. They are not entirely separated; no more than 50% of each dorm can house individuals setting up the "theme" ethnic. To live in one of them, you must agree to take on an editing project on ethnic theme - Ujamaa and residents of any race may have to write an essay on an aspect of black experience on campus for example. There are also educational and cultural programs within the dorm.
Insofar as these were controversial dormitories on campus during my time, it was mainly because they stimulated a tremendous amount of discussion on race - and with this discussion has come to power. In a school populated mostly by privileged white students, it was a bit shocking to hear of resentment and isolation sometimes experienced by black students, or anger simmering beneath the surface in a Latino community in the mid-80s was still arguing about whether to call themselves "Chicanos" and if the struggle for their rights was really as an essential objective to integrate with American society. But amid all the tension, something miraculous happened: learning. White students have learned to step into the shoes of their peers multicolored, and minority students, I think, learned that communication promotes understanding.
I understand why the idea of themed dormitories contempt some people, it seems like an attempt by minority students to isolate themselves; to avoid mixing is supposed to be part of the college experience. And for some white people, it seems unfair: Why do black people go to their own dorm, college dorm when a similar white on the topic would bring liberal rage? The simple answer to these concerns is that white people are not minorities. We did not get out of our way of being surrounded by people like us - they are everywhere. Minority students on campus are overwhelmingly white under constant pressure to "represent" their race; it must be a great relief to come home to a dormitory where they are not the only black person in the room.
Maybe if Tulane had themed dorms, Breitbart would have learned some of these lessons. But I doubt it. Learning, or trying to understand life from the perspective of another person, have never been his strong points.
Sources: Latimes
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