To: Burgwell Howard, All Silliman Students and Admin, and Erika Christakis
I support Erika Christakis letter to students of Yale
Find Erika's letter here: http://pastebin.com/egSQGfgK
I agree with the thoughtful and well-intentioned letter Erika wrote in response to an email sent to Yale students providing advice on how not to dress for Halloween. Erica and her husband should not be bullied or berated by the students of Yale.
There are real and fundamental issues of race and equality but this is not one of them.
Why is this important?
"Even if we could agree on how to avoid offense – and I’ll note that no one around campus seems overly concerned about the offense taken by religiously conservative folks to skin-revealing costumes – I wonder, and I am not trying to be provocative: Is there no room anymore for a child or young person to be a little bit obnoxious… a little bit inappropriate or provocative or, yes, offensive? American universities were once a safe space not only for maturation but also for a certain regressive, or even transgressive, experience; increasingly, it seems, they have become places of censure and prohibition. And the censure and prohibition come from above, not from yourselves! Are we all okay with this transfer of power? Have we lost faith in young people's capacity – in your capacity - to exercise self-censure, through social norming, and also in your capacity to ignore or reject things that trouble you? We tend to view this shift from individual to institutional agency as a tradeoff between libertarian vs. liberal values (“liberal” in the American, not European sense of the word)." - Erika Christakis