In light of reactions to the cover of the most recent issue of The Dartmouth Review, I feel a word of explanation is in order. The cover was intended to be a hyperbolic, tongue-in-cheek commentary upon the reactions to events this term by the self-styled leadership of Dartmouth’s Native American community. Placed in the context of the articles within the issue itself, the commentary made sense. But placed in the context of the reaction it elicited, the extent of the reaction was wholly unanticipated. However, I regret that the cover may have precipitated further feelings of offense within Dartmouth and overshadowed more thoughtful discussions of these matters presented in the articles within the issue itself.I only have one thing to say because you can probably guess how I feel about the cover's surprisingly benevolent intentions:
I emphasize that I still stand fully behind the editorial content of the issue—which I encourage everyone to read and consider, quite apart from the cover. I also restate The Dartmouth Review’s position that our criticisms are leveled entirely at the actions of the NAD organization, particularly its leadership, and not Native American students at large. The NAD leadership is not beyond reproach simply because it claims to speak for all Dartmouth’s Native Americans, any more than the leadership of any other group should receive immunity from scrutiny. Unanimity of sentiment is an impossibility within any such group; thus, it is only reasonable to criticize the leadership who claimed to act as spokespeople, and not Dartmouth’s Native Americans as a whole. The accusation, then, that this cover was maliciously designed as a wantonly racist attack on upon [sic] Native Americans is patently false. All the same, I regret that it could have been construed as such, to the detriment of discussion of the content of the issue.
If Linsalata can say that the NAD leadership has no right to presume to speak for all Native Americans at Dartmouth, how can he have the right to speak for those silent Native Americans who agree with him or at least disagree with the Native American Council? If he's really committed to starting a dialogue about this issue, it's imperative that he doesn't simply suggest the existence of some Native Americans who are more or less in agreement with him, but that he facilitates a real exposition of these opinions—either in The Review or in some other manner.
In other news, if any of you readers started a blog recently (about three days ago) called "The Granite of New Hampshire," which purports to "offer a response to the liberal bullshit found in campus publications and blogs. Primarily I will be focusing on the Dartmouth Free Press and the Little Green Blog [I get the feeling s/he doesn't like me] as I feel that recently their bullshit has reached new heights, but really anything is fair game. Also if not much has happened recently [where have you been?] then I reserve the right to discuss older issues from the archives of such publications. If I do I will try to limit myself to general issues and stay away from anything that is specifically out of date..."--why did you take it down? Or did you move to a new address? I can't find it, and I'm really interested in seeing you call my bullshit.
I was the one that sarted the blog, and you don't have to keep looking for it, as I deleted it.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I find most of your posts to be be just more libral bullshit, I do respect the fact that you have well thought out and detailed arguments instead of the usual rants I see, and because of this I feel I owe you some sort of explanation.
First of all, I consider myself a moderate Republican, in fact I actually voted for a Democrat for my State Representitive. I hate the religious nutjobs who are destroying the party almost as much as I hate the tree hugging hippies that infest the Democrats. I read both the Free Press and the Review. Although I find some aspects of the Review over the top, as well as some of the articles, in general I agree with it.
As far as the blog goes since it was right before finals I only had time to start it and wright the first post. However I did add your blog to the links in the side bar. I later discovered that my blog could be reached from your blog. Since I was not yet ready to make additional posts and deal with any comments I felt that the best course was to delete the blog. I was planning on alerting you to its existence once I had more than the first post.
Later after thinking more about it I realized that I didn't have the time after finals will conclude to properly maintain the blog and make the posts that I wanted to, so as of now I am not going to restart the blog. If that changes I will let you know so that you can properly respond.
Also, this is the first time I have commented on your blog, although I have read it more or less since I arrived on campus. None of the regular commenters are responsible.
Finally, I know that you are an English major and I apologize for any errors I may have made in this comment.
It's totally cool. I mean, I would be interested to see what someone--anyone--thinks about my posts/articles. I've been really glad that the level of discourse in the comments on a few of these more recent posts of mine has been fairly formal and very reasonable. I do wish to be in dialogue with people about these issues. It has always disappointed me greatly that Joe is not confident enough in the merits of his posts and won't respond whenever I call his bullshit.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I guess I'm just saying (and this goes for anyone reading), please do share your viewpoint if you feel like it--on a separate blog, in a comment, in a letter to the DFP, whatever.