Meanwhile, at Harvard

I just realized they designate specific times for the various permutations. In my day we used to call those “meetings” not “spaces.”

"Overlapping intersectional identities". At Brown we called this the Sex Power God party, aka the nude party.

Why can't everyone just act white?

r1 I hate the overuse of the word "space". Everything is a space now. For some reason, it bothers me and strikes me as lazy. It's a room, an office, a classroom, a designated area, a garden, a gallery, a conference room, etc etc etc. Tell me what it is.

This might be the smallest hill I'm prepared to die on.

R3 So acting like this is what non-white people do? Huh?

In my day we called them “support group meetings.”

Just think - someone gets paid to come up with this shit and ridiculous names: "Overlapping intersectional identities" and " Affinity Spaces."

Why do I get the hunch this is going to eventually blow up in Harvard’s face?

This is the same thing they do at prisons, sanitariums and hospitals.

"Intersectionality" is all over the curricula. No overpaid dean had to scratch "their" head to come up with it.

R8 why just Harvard? This gobbledygook has run amok at many universities. It's a pity to waste all that money, access and brain power on such fetishism.

Harvard has a total undegraduate of about 7200 students which means roughly 1800 per class.

There is something that nags at the brain to realize that its admissions operate such that such spaces are needed if you consider how many students would need to fall into such categories and how things would play out at various numerical membership thesholds.

..................

BGLTQ? I never heard it being called that. I've heard GLBT but never B first. Bisexuals first, bitches

If we’re going to do letters, I’m in favor of BLT GQ.

Is there lube?

You can come and sit in my unfree room, where our skin is as clean as surgeon’s operating table.

Inkfree* but unfree to have tats

This obsession with identity fosters extreme self-absorption. It's a mark of interpersonal maturity to recognize that you're not that interesting, and that other people are fighting their own battles and care little about the minutiae of your identity. I would guess that not much will improve at a societal level until we can look beyond ourselves and our own interior worlds.

Making friends with connected people and building a network of associates is what a Harvard education is all about. Would be a shame to miss out on that.

They have a lot of space between their ears

R15 Why?

Yeah, yeah, I know we can walk and chew gum: that is have various ideas about different issues at the same time.

But:

... democratic ideals and institutions are eroding across the world, dictatorships, ethnic cleansing, instrumentalism of humans is being expanded by mega-data international tech platforms and those who gain profit from them, wars, potential pandemics, widening wealth gaps, environmental degradation and existential threat from global climate change.... etc

.... and Oh, why do these kids want to use new language!!!!! Is what triggers people. Right.

[quote] This obsession with identity fosters extreme self-absorption

And divisiveness.

Do they have a space for students who are sick of this shit?

Can people like R23 be more annoying?

R25 is triggered and declared his limits.

[quote]Why do I get the hunch this is going to eventually blow up in Harvard’s face?

'Woke culture' is just communism redux.

Fear of communism led to the rise of Hitler and Nazism in Germany.

Just you wait.

R27 Anyone who actually uses the word "woke" in any way with serious intent is not, in fact, serious. Just repeating Right Wing Extremist tribal troll language.

Really, "woke" means nothing now.

[quote]Students praised the Office of BGLTQ Student Life’s fall semester “affinity spaces,” which enable queer undergraduates of overlapping intersectional identities to support each other, engage in dialogue, and discuss shared experiences.

Where's the space for pretty fags who just want to get laid?

[quote] If we’re going to do letters, I’m in favor of BLT GQ.

How about "TQLBG"?!

[quote]Where's the space for pretty fags who just want to get laid?

Everywhere.

But we should get our own room r31!

R31 I wouldn’t say that’s exactly true, now is it?

Notice that at Harvard the letters are in alphabetical order.

I guess the advantage of a space is that you can hang out in a creepy basement between meetings of your overlapping intersectional identities. Perhaps meet someone who doesn’t even overlap!

[quote] Fear of communism led to the rise of Hitler and Nazism in Germany.

Well, that and the depressed economy due to the Treaty of Versailles. But yes, I agree. Just wait.

Can we have a non-intersectional online space for gay men, like how DL used to be? That would be nice.

R29 the restrooms at Lamont.

[quote]Notice that at Harvard the letters are in alphabetical order.

Nuh-uh:

[quote]the Office of BGLTQ Student Life

I imagine the actual homos are having sex and not doing whatever this shit is.

Is there a space for a BLT on a hard roll?

So childish.

[quote]“I think having that space to just take up space with people who are just like me is really important,” Malone said.

There is so much wrong with that sentence I don't even know where to begin.

I missed the days when college students spent their time screwing indiscriminately.

[quote]“I think having that space to just take up space with people who are just like me is really important,” Malone said.

Apparently this person hasn't heard about the Diversity trend.

A space = space space like gay bars for gay men.

But I don’t understand the concept behind this besides people wanting to be segregated.

I would bet $$$ all of these intersectional space BLTGQ students are physically unattractive.

The hot homos are all busy having fun and getting laid.

In my day we called it the AV club.

Cock suckers and muff divers are not a huge percentage of the "intersectional" in crowd.

GQBLT sounds classy AND appetizing

As a neurodivergent, ambidextrous queer POC I demand my own space!

^^Ambidextrous? So you can but both hands up your own ass!

[quote]“have more vulnerable conversations”

Be careful around our conversation, it has a weakened immune system and walks with a cane.

FYI: I'll have a BLT with no MSG- ASAP!

Oh Great , the bitch about using woke troll has appeared.

"...and a Dec. 7 event for students who are aromantic or asexual..."

And for the millionth time I will ask: When was the last time someone was denied a job because they don't enjoy having sex? When was the last time someone was denied housing, or medical care, or ANYTHING because they don't enjoy having sex? How would an employer, or a landlord, or any other figure of authority even KNOW this about you, unless you told them?

Granting these allegedly "marginalized" groups the same "oppression points" as groups who endured thousands of years of oppression-- women, gay people, people of color-- is a fucking insult. If you can't see what's going on here-- a corporate / governmental whitewashing to avoid the hard work and financial responsibility of real systemic change-- you're an idiot.

Maybe the college professors should arrange playdates at the jungle gym too.

R56 We regret to inform you that we will be letting you go, you're not getting nearly enough dick.

I'm not strictly a Marxist, r56, but most of our current problems stem from wealth and income inequality. It's affecting quality of life in many areas. Private equity is buying everything.

Academia is ostensibly in favor of creating equal opportunities blah blah blah, but most academics are privileged and don't want to upset the social order in any meaningful way. A recent study found that "when combining national-level data on education, income and university rankings with a 2017–2020 survey of 7,204 US-based tenure-track faculty across eight disciplines in STEM, social science and the humanities ... faculty are up to 25 times more likely to have a parent with a PhD. Moreover, this rate nearly doubles at prestigious universities and is stable across the past 50 years." So, they focus largely on things like race in their quest for diversity, which becomes its own way of maintaining the socioeconomic status quo. In my experience as a college instructor, most racial minorities I've taught have been either international students or second-generation children of immigrants -- very often more economically privileged than their American peers of all races.

By focusing on categories like race and gender identity academia can claim they care about creating a "more just world" without doing any of the heavy lifting or making any of the sacrifices that would bring about real change.

R22

I encourage you to reread the comment.

"Be careful around our conversation, it has a weakened immune system and walks with a cane."

Would our conversation still be useful on garbage detail?

Safe spaces are neither safe nor spaces. Discuss…

The Holy Roman Empire was neither holy nor Roman nor an empire. Discuss....

R59 Your comments about academia have a lot of truth, but are also incomplete...

Increasingly in universities, public and private, the % of tenured professors (the core of your comments) falls year after year. More (most? I'll look it up if challenged) college/university teachers are adjunct. Part-time, paid less. Beginning teachers at the University of California, even in tenure tracks, make @ $60k annually. Grad schools continue to turn out way more PhDs than academia needs - so supply/demand is part of the reason.

So, are all those part-time, adjunct teachers part of the elite class your describe?

I'm so glad I went to college when the three biggest cares we had were getting high, drinking, fucking, and skiing. No particular order.

Apparently, learning to count wasn’t one of them.

[quote]“affinity spaces,” which enable queer undergraduates of overlapping intersectional identities to support each other, engage in dialogue, and discuss shared experiences.

In the olden days, this was called "the Drama Club". But at least they had to do some work to be in it.

In my olden days it was the bathroom in the library basement.

“Well, this space is for people who can… AFFORD IT!”

Is there a space for all American golden boy jocks with big cocks and trust funds?

Do they have a safe space for DLers?

Where’s the 8”+ space for us big guys?

I’d love to really know how Harvard was in the 60s and 70s

Anyone know if The Paper Chase movie is a good depiction

The Paper Chase involved the law school, which is a different beast r73. I'd say it's somewhat accurate, but you should also read Scott Turrow's One L.

The broom closet of love