Want a little hint on why America is angry at the system?
Consider these examples.
First, cop killer Jesse Mathews was mistakenly moved to a minimum security facility.
Jay GreesonIt’s fair to question how a cold-blooded murderer could be moved anywhere that is not a maximum security facility.
The only way a cop killer should not be under a full-time watch is when he is 6 feet under.
Next, an appeals court in Pennsylvania has ruled the state university system must honor Jerry Sandusky’s pension, according to news reports.
Yes, the same Jerry Sandusky who was found guilty of sexually abusing 10 children and sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison. The state is pondering an appeal.
But if the decision stands, Sandusky, who was found guilty of more than 45 acts of sexual abuse against children – many of them on the campus of Penn State – will keep his $4,900-a-month pension and be awarded back payments since it was suspended when he was convicted in October 2012. That check – coming from a state government that is in a five-month stalemate trying to figure out its budget – would be, counting this month’s installment, for more than $181,000.
Protests
The story line out of the University of Missouri this week – the protests and the boycotts from part of the football team that led to the president resigning – have been wildly interesting and head-scratchingly confusing in their double standards.
Anyone with anything as much as a question about what happened on the campus – nevermind a dissenting opinion – has been labeled racist.
“What’s that? You are not completely on board with the Missouri protests? Racist.”
Does it matter that Jonathan Brown, the hunger striker who is black, comes from more privilege than 99 percent of the world? (His father is a railroad executive with a net worth of a reported $20 million. That’s a key point since the rallying cry of the Missouri students has hinged on former president Tim Wolfe apologizing for his “white privilege.”)
Does it matter that Brown and several other grad assistants were originally upset that the school was pulling insurance benefits from GAs and there’s a direct link to those upset GAs?
Does it matter that the poop swastika that was the emotional catalyst of the protesters’ main argument is a crazy act more than a racist act? While anyone who would draw a swastika certainly has hateful and bigoted intentions, aren’t we missing the bigger point here? Anyone who would draw anything with human feces is a complete nutbag and should be feared by anyone and everyone taking a breath.
So apparently those questions do not matter, right? All that matters is the rest of us line up and accept that a very small percentage of more than 25,000 students say the campus is filled with racism.
That’s not diversity. That’s a directive.
It’s also worth noting that Brown was on Missouri’s campus for going on eight years as a student and later a teaching assistant. And the accounts of racial scenarios have been so dramatically different in the last two months of his time there that this happened?
OK.
Next wave
The fallout from the protests have been copycat efforts from bored college kids across the country who claim to hunger for diversity.
They do not hunger for true diversity – competing ideas to be exchanged civilly – and in fact are frightened by it.
If the ultimate goal of the groundswell of protests popping up at college campuses across the country is diversity, then explain the following:
Why does the student body at Yale continue to hassle the married professors for offering a dissenting opinion on how offensive Halloween costumes should be?
Why did a student diversity administrator at a Minnesota university this week deny plans for a 9/11 tribute because it could frighten or intimidate non-white students who may be under stress from the stigma of the attacks?
Why did the Missouri student government vice president bad mouth the First Amendment because it violated her personal safe space?
Speaking of acceptance
Here’s another question: Is a perceived religious prejudice not as serious as a perceived racial one?
If Brown’s hunger strike was the catalyst for change, why is a Christian protest of Starbucks a punchline? (Side note: I have long since boycotted Starbucks since they tried to tell me a small coffee is a tall coffee, demanded the coffee jocks be called baristas, and when said barista asked if I wanted my coffee iced or hot. It’s coffee. The default is hot.)
Saturday star
Wednesday was Veterans Day, so this one is easy.
Thanks to everyone out there who has served so we can have these discussions about freedoms and protests and protections.
Thanks to the families who supported those who served.
And a special thanks to Mayor Andy Berke and the folks downtown who made the ceremony Wednesday so special.
Well-played indeed.
Contact Jay Greeson at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6343. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/jgreesontfp.