Word: buffalo
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...staff position ignores the more intriguing question of why so much media space was devoted to the water buffalo incident, why so many people discussed the story with such enthusiasm. Our guess is this...
People take a sick pleasure in finding out that some incidents of alleged racism really are nothing of the sort. People derive collective satisfaction when they learn that water buffalo are from Asia, not Africa. It makes them feel better...
Granted, hypersensitivity is a problem on college campuses, and charges of racism do fly with alarming frequency. Nevertheless, for every "water buffalo" comment that is blown out of proportion by minorities or by the media, there are dozens of "nigger" comments and genuine discriminatory actions that don't make it onto the editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal or The Harvard Crimson...
...student named Eden Jacobowitz shouted at Black sorority women when they made noise outside his dorm one January evening. Among the students who yelled from the dorm that night, Jacobowitz was the only one who admitted he had called to the women. His cry--"Shut up, you water buffalo"--was construed as a racist statement, and he faced an administrative trial on racial harassment charges, brought up by the sorority members and the university. At the eleventh hour, the women dropped their charges against him, and Penn followed suit...
Hackney allowed Robin Read, a Penn administrator at the school's Judicial Inquiry Office, to perpetuate a near witch-hunt--despite the fact that Penn professors and others in the community rushed to Jacobowitz's defense. Read determined herself that Jacobowitz's remark was a racial slur because water buffalo are black animals native to Africa; in fact, they are endemic to South Asia. Regardless, the last time we checked, the rule was "innocent until proven guilty." Then again, this isn't about the Constitution...