>And to repeat, since the Horowitz ad did not even make a good pretence
>of being a serious argument, to respond to it as if it were would be
>simply to acknowlege the legitimacy of racial harassment and the
>illegitimacy of blacks responding effectively to such harassment.
>
>Carrol
have you ever taken a look at the adverts, the relationship advice columns, etc in a student paper? on your argument, feminists ought to be obliterating them from the college community, rather than engaging in the difficult work of systematically undermining that form of sexual harassment, prejudice, stereotyping and so forth in a myriad of ways. further, adolph reed's article makes a very good case for how Horowitz has lied and i'll bet that the people i forwarded it to, who don't understand how Horowitz lied, might actually be persuaded by Reed's systematic discussion..
see, the problem is that while we'll never reach the people who are outright sexists and racists, we might actually reach the people who are capable of doing better than that and _will_ be persuaded by arguments rather than destructiveness that removes the argument from their view. one has to learn how to see horowitz's lies. one has to learn how to sexism in adverts, advice columns, commercials, and so forth. and you can't learn how if you don't ever encounter it and if no one sits down and tries to help you see it and learn how those clever assertions are made.
finally, there are many things that could have been done that wouldn't have entailed absconding with the campus papers and wouldn't have entailed giving any credence to horowitz's arguments. i understand why activist students might wanted to have remained anonymous on Brown's campus--i'm guessing that despite it's liberal veneer, it isn't a happy place to be if one is black, latina/o, etc.
contrary to Doug, i fail to see how Chris's question was reasonable. "we" are discussing Brown and other campuses where a ruckus was raised because that's what made the media and that's what fit into the media's terms for presenting these issues--they like it simple like that.