Ok, so I keep seeing more and more virtue signaling about the Colgate university incident
(A 4-hour lockdown was triggered after a black student was seen running in the rain with what turned out to be a glue gun, while a white student is patting herself on the back hard enough to crack a scapula for pointing out that she's wandered around campus with a sword for years and nobody has done anything but laugh).
White privilege explained easily!
Gee, let me think.
First off, unless you're the TSA, nobody regards a sword as an actual weapon these days. We have a handful of sword attacks per year, most of whom are from people so high on whatever their preferred chemical substance is that they're knocking into the junk in our orbitals belt.
On a college campus, I've seen everything from cops stopping to ask asking to official requests that they be spoken of as "theatrical props" instead of "weapons" (dangerous and cowardly to my mind, but so long as they're writing the checks, what the fuck ever) to official shrugs. As a government and as a culture, Americans see swords at things swung on TV as opposed to actual, physical weapons.
(And then you run into the wide-eyed waifs babbling about how honorable a class of weapons they are, but that's properly solved with some education).
Second off, This was at a private school in central NY. Making it an environment ripe for a double dose of hoplophobia. It's not as bad as areas south of Westchester, but it's still ugly when it comes to being struck with terror at the mere hint of a firearm being in the vicinity. (GA voted campus carry in just a few weeks ago. The reactions in academia were ugly to say the least).
Add in the fact that mass shootings are the only kind of violence that has experienced growth in this country over the last 20 years (until a small growth in 2015), and that campuses are target-rich environments for such attacks, reacting to a student report of someone running with a handgun with an established protocol like a lockdown makes perfect sense for an institution housing America's privileged young for $50K/yr.
But no, this is a classic case of white privilege in action. Hoplophobia, differing cultural responses to different weapons and modern security theater had fuck-all to do with it.
(A 4-hour lockdown was triggered after a black student was seen running in the rain with what turned out to be a glue gun, while a white student is patting herself on the back hard enough to crack a scapula for pointing out that she's wandered around campus with a sword for years and nobody has done anything but laugh).
White privilege explained easily!
Gee, let me think.
First off, unless you're the TSA, nobody regards a sword as an actual weapon these days. We have a handful of sword attacks per year, most of whom are from people so high on whatever their preferred chemical substance is that they're knocking into the junk in our orbitals belt.
On a college campus, I've seen everything from cops stopping to ask asking to official requests that they be spoken of as "theatrical props" instead of "weapons" (dangerous and cowardly to my mind, but so long as they're writing the checks, what the fuck ever) to official shrugs. As a government and as a culture, Americans see swords at things swung on TV as opposed to actual, physical weapons.
(And then you run into the wide-eyed waifs babbling about how honorable a class of weapons they are, but that's properly solved with some education).
Second off, This was at a private school in central NY. Making it an environment ripe for a double dose of hoplophobia. It's not as bad as areas south of Westchester, but it's still ugly when it comes to being struck with terror at the mere hint of a firearm being in the vicinity. (GA voted campus carry in just a few weeks ago. The reactions in academia were ugly to say the least).
Add in the fact that mass shootings are the only kind of violence that has experienced growth in this country over the last 20 years (until a small growth in 2015), and that campuses are target-rich environments for such attacks, reacting to a student report of someone running with a handgun with an established protocol like a lockdown makes perfect sense for an institution housing America's privileged young for $50K/yr.
But no, this is a classic case of white privilege in action. Hoplophobia, differing cultural responses to different weapons and modern security theater had fuck-all to do with it.
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