#BlackinAmerica

[Arctish]

How do you know she called the cops because she was black? Rather than because a grown-ass woman she did not know was sleeping in the common area of the dorms. You know, instead of in her bed.

Here are the Yale rules and regulations regarding dormitory rooms etc. There is no such rule about having to sleep in your bed. The common area is called a common area because it is as much hers as everyone else there. She "rents" (for lack of a better word) it as much as she rents her room and bed. When I went to college, there were plenty of people who took naps on the grass in front of the student center, never mind in the student center lounge and in dormitory common areas.

It's really no different than common rooms at home, such as a living room where grandpa falls asleep in the recliner or grandma falls asleep knitting or vice versa.

The notion of common spaces extends beyond merely dormitories and everyone knows this.

Your tone of victim blaming is therefore provably unfounded.

That only follows if she knew that the lady was a student in the dorms and she was being called because she fell asleep there. The other possibility is that she thought someone of the street was coming in and laying down in the dorm. I can't find anything that describes either way. To show she isn't racist, she could say I've called cops on X people who I didn't think lived in the dorm that were here.

What made her think the person asleep in the common room was someone off the street and not a student?

If there's a pattern of random people walking in off the street and sleeping in the dorm's common room, fine. That's a reason to think the sleeper might have been one. But if there isn't, then why suppose the sleeper wasn't a student? Why call the cops?

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

How do you know she called the cops because she was black? Rather than because a grown-ass woman she did not know was sleeping in the common area of the dorms. You know, instead of in her bed.

Here are the Yale rules and regulations regarding dormitory rooms etc. There is no such rule about having to sleep in your bed. The common area is called a common area because it is as much hers as everyone else there. She "rents" (for lack of a better word) it as much as she rents her room and bed. When I went to college, there were plenty of people who took naps on the grass in front of the student center, never mind in the student center lounge and in dormitory common areas.

It's really no different than common rooms at home, such as a living room where grandpa falls asleep in the recliner or grandma falls asleep knitting or vice versa.

The notion of common spaces extends beyond merely dormitories and everyone knows this.

Your tone of victim blaming is therefore provably unfounded.

That only follows if she knew that the lady was a student in the dorms and she was being called because she fell asleep there. The other possibility is that she thought someone of the street was coming in and laying down in the dorm. I can't find anything that describes either way. To show she isn't racist, she could say I've called cops on X people who I didn't think lived in the dorm that were here.

The DEFAULT position is that the person sleeping in a secure dormitory belongs there. The young lady sleeping was college age and wearing appropriate clothing and presumably the right gender for the area, unless it was co-ed in which case she was also the right gender. Name any factor at all that would make one think that the young lady sleeping was "off the street." Any.

 

[Derec]

The DEFAULT position is that the person sleeping in a secure dormitory belongs there. The young lady sleeping was college age and wearing appropriate clothing and presumably the right gender for the area, unless it was co-ed in which case she was also the right gender. Name any factor at all that would make one think that the young lady sleeping was "off the street." Any.

I don't know how secure the common areas are at Yale. Probably just a swipe card (with campus id she refused to show), but one can always catch the door when somebody else is leaving. She is not really traditional college age either, being in her 30s.

In any case, showing your campus id is hardly an imposition. Had she showed it right away she could have avoided the whole protracted interaction. Again, why is it ok for campus police to ask somebody white for college id at night but not that black woman?

 

[laughing dog]

I don't know how secure the common areas are at Yale. Probably just a swipe card (with campus id she refused to show), but one can always catch the door when somebody else is leaving. She is not really traditional college age either, being in her 30s.

Is there a point to this babble? There was no reason to call the police in the first place.

In any case, showing your campus id is hardly an imposition. Had she showed it right away she could have avoided the whole protracted interaction. Again, why is it ok for campus police to ask somebody white for college id at night but not that black woman?

From what does this non-sequitur arise?

 

[Derec]

But if there isn't, then why suppose the sleeper wasn't a student? Why call the cops?

I don't know why she called the cops. Perhaps the girl thought she knew everybody there and didn't recognize her. Perhaps the girl assumed she didn't belong because she looked too old. Or perhaps she thought she didn't belong because she was black. The latter is only one of the possibilities, and not the most likely one.
In any case the 34 year old student should have showed her id when asked.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

The DEFAULT position is that the person sleeping in a secure dormitory belongs there. The young lady sleeping was college age and wearing appropriate clothing and presumably the right gender for the area, unless it was co-ed in which case she was also the right gender. Name any factor at all that would make one think that the young lady sleeping was "off the street." Any.

I don't know how secure the common areas are at Yale. Probably just a swipe card (with campus id she refused to show), but one can always catch the door when somebody else is leaving. She is not really traditional college age either, being in her 30s.

In any case, showing your campus id is hardly an imposition. Had she showed it right away she could have avoided the whole protracted interaction. Again, why is it ok for campus police to ask somebody white for college id at night but not that black woman?

Maybe you looked suspicious but she's just black.

 

[Arctish]

But if there isn't, then why suppose the sleeper wasn't a student? Why call the cops?

I don't know why she called the cops. Perhaps the girl thought she knew everybody there and didn't recognize her. Perhaps the girl assumed she didn't belong because she looked too old. Or perhaps she thought she didn't belong because she was black. The latter is only one of the possibilities, and not the most likely one.

I agree her being black isn't the only possible reason but I disagree about it being the least likely.

Yale has a lot of grad students studying medicine, law, languages, theater, and more. It's not at all surprising to see Yalies in their thirties. And besides, it isn't easy to tell the difference between an average looking woman in her mid twenties and one in her early thirties. The sleeper's apparent age was not a reason to think she didn't belong there. But to all too many folks, her race is.

In any case the 34 year old student should have showed her id when asked.

If that's what it says in the Code of Conduct then yes, she should have. But the cops shouldn't have been called. That's the issue I'm discussing.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Apologetics from some of y'all is just bullshit. She looks 20 even if in her 30s. The white woman who called the police is 43 and looks like she is in her 50s. She actually did give her id but police couldn't tell if it was real. Her name was spelled wrong in the database. So she unlocked her dorm room showing she had an id and finally that valid room key.

 

[Axulus]

Apologetics from some of y'all is just bullshit. She looks 20 even if in her 30s. The white woman who called the police is 43 and looks like she is in her 50s. She actually did give her id but police couldn't tell if it was real. Her name was spelled wrong in the database. So she unlocked her dorm room showing she had an id and finally that valid room key.

Is this for real? Who ever makes a fake student ID to get away with randomly sleeping in dorm hall common areas? Once the ID was produced that should've been the end of it.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Apologetics from some of y'all is just bullshit. She looks 20 even if in her 30s. The white woman who called the police is 43 and looks like she is in her 50s. She actually did give her id but police couldn't tell if it was real. Her name was spelled wrong in the database. So she unlocked her dorm room showing she had an id and finally that valid room key.

Is this for real? Who ever makes a fake student ID to get away with randomly sleeping in dorm hall common areas? Once the ID was produced that should've been the end of it.

https://abcn.ws/2Kdm1Xs

 

[laughing dog]

According to the link in Don's post above, this is not the first time that particular white student has over-reacted to the presence of a black person.

- - - Updated - - -

But the cops shouldn't have been called.That's the issue I'm discussing.

You are addressing the core issue - something Derec is evading/avoiding.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

After some time and some hassle, she was eventually left alone.

The so-called "hassle" being having to show her student ID (which she initially refused) to prove that she is a student. I never took a nap in the common areas of the dorms, but I have worked late in computer labs and have on occasion have to show id to campus police. That is not police harassment.

Note two things: she is 34, older than your typical student, even a grad student, and she is a student in "African studies". Is that huge chip on her shoulder a surprise given her major?

Did you go to your safe space before posting your apologia for bigotry?

It's not bigotry to have a problem with [x] studies majors. They're all bogus.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Did you go to your safe space before posting your apologia for bigotry?

It's not bigotry to have a problem with [x] studies majors. They're all bogus.

Your claim is bogus. As already pointed out:

She looks 20 even if in her 30s. The white woman who called the police is 43 and looks like she is in her 50s.

 

[bilby]

Did you go to your safe space before posting your apologia for bigotry?

It's not bigotry to have a problem with [x] studies majors. They're all bogus.

You might think so; but you might be wrong.

Back in the '80s I had a job delivering and installing computer systems for university department accounting. Most of our customers were hard science departments with various research grants that they had to track capital purchases for - Big ticket items like electron microscopes and custom hardware.

One day I was sent to the Department of Interface Studies at a uni on southwest England; but instead of the anticipated bunch of neo-hippy macrame enthusiasts eating artisanal yoghurt, I found it staffed by some very serious people with some very serious vacuum chambers and spectrometers. It turned out to be a spinoff from the physics and engineering departments, that studied the way materials interact at the molecular level when joined together - they were doing research on the welding of dissimilar alloys for use in chemical plants and nuclear reactors.

 

[laughing dog]

Did you go to your safe space before posting your apologia for bigotry?

It's not bigotry to have a problem with [x] studies majors. They're all bogus.

First of all it is bigotry. Second, no one is talking about majors, so what are you babbling about now?

 

[Arctish]

Did you go to your safe space before posting your apologia for bigotry?

It's not bigotry to have a problem with [x] studies majors. They're all bogus.

Which one(s) of these programs of study at Yale are bogus? How are you making that determination?

 

[fast]

Arctish, when you say the police shouldn't have been called, I have some concerns over that.

First, I'm not of the opinion there's never a time when police shouldn't be called. There are most certainly a number of asinine reasons for calling the cops and so we should refrain from calling the cops, but even among some of the times when it's asinine to call, there are nevertheless reasonable exceptions--even if it does so happen to be predjudicial.

If someone's judgement is off and that so happens to be racially based, there is still a sense when it seems acceptable to say the cops shouldn't have been called, but since even a genuine judgement cannot always be self-corrected, it may be better that the judgement not be self questioned in the moment but perhaps to berate the person later.

For instance, if someone has genuine doubts about someone and it's exasperated by racial bias, sure, the police shouldn't be called, but I fear there's ambiguity at play on the word "shouldn't'", as there's another sense where the wrongful basis though sufficient enough to declare "it's wrong to call," there's an alternative sense in which the basis becomes trumped by the genuine doubt.

I'm afraid I'm having difficulty labeling the concept I'm trying to express. Just as there's ambiguity between "wrong" leading one to say something is wrong in one way but not in another, I can't help but think there's a truth behind what you're saying yet at the same time a falsehood to what you're saying.

If people feel they should call the law, then do so. If it unknowingly happens to have been wrong to do so, berate or possibly punish the person if especially egregious, but mighty careful we should be before a bad message is highly misinterpreted. Putting people at even further fear of calling the law can have negative consequences that trump a wrongful basis for calling to begin with.

People will twist the message badly.

 

[Arctish]

Arctish, when you say the police shouldn't have been called, I have some concerns over that.

First, I'm not of the opinion there's never a time when police shouldn't be called. There are most certainly a number of asinine reasons for calling the cops and so we should refrain from calling the cops, but even among some of the times when it's asinine to call, there are nevertheless reasonable exceptions--even if it does so happen to be predjudicial.

If someone's judgement is off and that so happens to be racially based, there is still a sense when it seems acceptable to say the cops shouldn't have been called, but since even a genuine judgement cannot always be self-corrected, it may be better that the judgement not be self questioned in the moment but perhaps to berate the person later.

For instance, if someone has genuine doubts about someone and it's exasperated by racial bias, sure, the police shouldn't be called, but I fear there's ambiguity at play on the word "shouldn't'", as there's another sense where the wrongful basis though sufficient enough to declare "it's wrong to call," there's an alternative sense in which the basis becomes trumped by the genuine doubt.

I'm afraid I'm having difficulty labeling the concept I'm trying to express. Just as there's ambiguity between "wrong" leading one to say something is wrong in one way but not in another, I can't help but think there's a truth behind what you're saying yet at the same time a falsehood to what you're saying.

If people feel they should call the law, then do so. If it unknowingly happens to have been wrong to do so, berate or possibly punish the person if especially egregious, but mighty careful we should be before a bad message is highly misinterpreted. Putting people at even further fear of calling the law can have negative consequences that trump a wrongful basis for calling to begin with.

People will twist the message badly.

I think I understand what you're getting at. "If you see something, say something" is a pretty good means of calling the appropriate attention to suspicious activities. I'm not proposing ignoring something that might be a safety or security issue. Unfortunately, 'something suspicious' is all too often confused with 'there's a black person doing something and it makes me uncomfortable', which itself can simply mean 'I'm uncomfortable around blacks'.

All Things Considered ran a segment yesterday that addressed that point: Why White Americans Call The Police On Black People In Public Spaces, The guest points out that the cops on the scene have a duty to respond appropriately. They can decide the issue they were called to address isn't something that needs police action, as it appears they did at Yale.

My main objection is that the woman who called the campus police could have woken up the sleeper and politely said something along the lines of "I don't know if you realize how late it is, but it's the middle of the night and this isn't a sleeping area....". She could have given the sleeper the benefit of the doubt and been nice to her. But she didn't. She skipped right over all the social niceties and jumped straight to involving the police. One wonders why.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Did you go to your safe space before posting your apologia for bigotry?

It's not bigotry to have a problem with [x] studies majors. They're all bogus.

Which one(s) of these programs of study at Yale are bogus? How are you making that determination?

Archeological Studies. You have to run around with a whip and wearing a hat while stealing artifacts from other cultures.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Arctish, when you say the police shouldn't have been called, I have some concerns over that.

First, I'm not of the opinion there's never a time when police shouldn't be called. There are most certainly a number of asinine reasons for calling the cops and so we should refrain from calling the cops, but even among some of the times when it's asinine to call, there are nevertheless reasonable exceptions--even if it does so happen to be predjudicial.

If someone's judgement is off and that so happens to be racially based, there is still a sense when it seems acceptable to say the cops shouldn't have been called, but since even a genuine judgement cannot always be self-corrected, it may be better that the judgement not be self questioned in the moment but perhaps to berate the person later.

For instance, if someone has genuine doubts about someone and it's exasperated by racial bias, sure, the police shouldn't be called, but I fear there's ambiguity at play on the word "shouldn't'", as there's another sense where the wrongful basis though sufficient enough to declare "it's wrong to call," there's an alternative sense in which the basis becomes trumped by the genuine doubt.

I'm afraid I'm having difficulty labeling the concept I'm trying to express. Just as there's ambiguity between "wrong" leading one to say something is wrong in one way but not in another, I can't help but think there's a truth behind what you're saying yet at the same time a falsehood to what you're saying.

If people feel they should call the law, then do so. If it unknowingly happens to have been wrong to do so, berate or possibly punish the person if especially egregious, but mighty careful we should be before a bad message is highly misinterpreted. Putting people at even further fear of calling the law can have negative consequences that trump a wrongful basis for calling to begin with.

People will twist the message badly.

I think I understand what you're getting at. "If you see something, say something" is a pretty good means of calling the appropriate attention to suspicious activities. I'm not proposing ignoring something that might be a safety or security issue. Unfortunately, 'something suspicious' is all too often confused with 'there's a black person doing something and it makes me uncomfortable', which itself can simply mean 'I'm uncomfortable around blacks'.

All Things Considered ran a segment yesterday that addressed that point: Why White Americans Call The Police On Black People In Public Spaces, The guest points out that the cops on the scene have a duty to respond appropriately. They can decide the issue they were called to address isn't something that needs police action, as it appears they did at Yale.

My main objection is that the woman who called the campus police could have woken up the sleeper and politely said something along the lines of "I don't know if you realize how late it is, but it's the middle of the night and this isn't a sleeping area....". She could have given the sleeper the benefit of the doubt and been nice to her. But she didn't. She skipped right over all the social niceties and jumped straight to involving the police. One wonders why.

It's plausible that she knew her and wanted to call police.