Racist rock

| November 19, 2020

This symbol of white supremacy must be removed!

In the far left world of finding racism in literally everything, Berkeley is usually leading the nation. Recently though, UW-Madison has told Berkeley, “Hold my beer.” Probably not beer though, they are more likely to ask them to hold their virgin apple-tini. After voting to remove the statue of Abraham Lincoln, world renowned racist white supremacist,

They now set their sights on a rock. Not Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, but an actual freaking rock.

That big rock in the photo is Chamberlain Rock. It’s named after former UW-Madison President Chrowder Chamberlain (1843-1928). He was a geologist and educator who had an illustrious career in the physical sciences. A major proponent of the scientific method he was one of the first to posit that climate change could happen from a build up of atmospheric carbon dioxide (1899 paper). The most offensive and controversial thing the man did in life was co-author a paper on the formation of the solar system. The paper stood as prevailing theory for nearly half a century before being supplanted by newer theories.

So why would Chamberlain Rock be so offensive to the students of UW-Madison? It is just a rock and memorial to a totally uncontroversial figure in history, right? Well, not so fast. When the rock was unearthed and given its position of prominence, a newspaper used a term that is now considered offensive but was common at the time.

From the Wisconsin State Journal;

UW-Madison is moving forward on a plan to remove a boulder from Observatory Hill after calls from students of color who see the rock as a painful reminder of the history of racism on campus.

The 70-ton boulder is officially known as Chamberlin Rock in honor of Thomas Crowder Chamberlin, a geologist and former university president. But the rock was referred to at least once after it was dug out of the hill as a “niggerhead,” a commonly used expression in the 1920s to describe any large dark rock.

The Campus Planning Committee unanimously voted last week to recommend to Chancellor Rebecca Blank that the boulder be removed from Observatory Hill. Blank has previously indicated she supports the rock’s removal, though a timeline for removal has not been established.

The Wisconsin Black Student Union called for the rock’s removal over the summer. President Nalah McWhorter said the rock is a symbol of the daily injustices that students of color face on a predominantly white campus.

“This is a huge accomplishment for us,” she said on Wednesday. “We won’t have that constant reminder, that symbol that we don’t belong here.”

McWhorter also faulted the Wisconsin State Journal for printing the vulgarity in a 1925 news article.

University historians identified the news story as the only known instance of the offensive term being used. [Emphasis original] It’s unclear whether or for how long people on campus referred to the boulder as “Niggerhead Rock.” The term itself appears to have fallen out of common usage by the 1950s.

Kacie Butcher, the university’s public history project director, told the Campus Planning Committee that there may be other records beyond the State Journal story, but locating them is difficult because archived records are not well organized. What is well-documented during that time period, however, is the Klu Klux Klan’s active presence in Madison. Campus satire publications and comedy skits also mocked and dehumanized people of color.

Officials estimate the cost of removal ranges from $30,000 to $75,000.

Money well spent, obviously. Note that this is a public school, so those are tax dollars spent on moving the rock of hurt feelings. There’s some more at the source, including a photo of the original article. The single, solitary, lone source of the offensive phrase. Imagine what offense people can find in the things we write 100 years from now. Historical context is great for learning but not for the feelings. UW-Madison is apparently no longer an institution of learning but of feeling.

Source; Wisconsin State Journal (100 years ago, they may have been racist)

Category: "Teh Stoopid", Dumbass Bullshit, Liberals suck, YGBSM!!

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USAFRetired

My parents were born in the 20s and I didn’t come around until much later. I like to think I’m pretty well read, but I have never heard that term before.

How much effort went into finding something to be offended about?

It might be one upsmanship and hold my beer mentality.

UpNorth

The perpetually offended must have a staff of hundreds, searching the interwebz daily, for something to be offended by.

Hondo

Nah. The Central Committee defines the next item selected to be “offensive”. The Party rank-and-file then acts outraged IAW the mandates of the Central Committee.

UpNorth

Perhaps they have an algorithm that seeks out those offensive items?

David

Never heard that term applied to an object on land. Seen some 19th century references as a snag or a rock in flowing fresh water, but that’s about all.

SFC D

The idiots that have a need to dig that far into the past to create a racial incident today are never going to move forward. They’ve chained themselves to historical racism and become its slave.

Deckie

This ^

Bim

When all you have is a hammer, everything begins to look like a nail.

Skyjumper

“University historians identified the news story as the only known instance of the offensive term being used.”

Apparently the Madison University historians missed a number of history classes.

That term was also used to describe:
1) An inferior kind of tobacco pressed in a twisted form.
2) A rounded boulder or rock; especially, a roundish black rock on the coast of Florida, sometimes covered with only a few inches of water.
3) In swampy land, tufts or clumps of sedge and grass growing up stiffly, and somewhat resembling a black head.
4) A spool or capstan for lifting or hauling, formed on the end of a shaft which is turned by power: so called because it is usually black. Also known as a wildcat.
5) The cone-flower or black-eyed-Susan, Rudbeckia hirta.
6) The common greenbrior or catbrior, Smilax rotundifolia.
7) A towing bitt; an upright timber to which towing hawsers are secured.
8) A fresh-water mussel, Quadrula ebena, of the Mississippi River, used in the manufacture of pearl buttons. It is rather small with a thick shell and a black or dark brown outer skin.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
9) A strong black chewing tobacco, usually in twisted plug form; negro head.

10) A bollard made from an old cannon.
11) A geode.
12) A coneflower.
13) An isolated part of a coral reef.
14) applied to boulders of chromite in the region north of Baltimore, Maryland, and generally, among English-speaking peoples, to any tough black rock in loose boulders.
15)A type of marine rope winch used for nautical applications invented by the Spanish and Portuguese in the 1300s. NOTE: Named 300 years before the word nigger was ever used to describe someone of African descent in any form of literature.

Quote by Roberto Bolaño:
‘People see what they want to see and what people want to see never has anything to do with the truth.’

MI Ranger

We will need to have all of these offensive things removed…especially those coneflowers! (unknown UW-Madison Student)
We need more Towers of Isolation (they can’t be Ivory because that might be construed as racist). We must repent for any offense that one has taken by someone labeling something and another taking that label as offensive!
Remove thee from mine sight, though offends me!

OWB

For the record: I am offended by their being offended. It’s a rock. Just sitting there. It is not possible for the rock to be racist, or even offensive so why should the rock pay a price for whatever it is that someone insists offends them?

However, one burning question appears to be answered. Perceived racism seems to override environmentalism. Again. Must get rid of a rock which honors some old guy because someone else used a bad word.

Whatever.

5JC

Slackers, they are not serious. If they were serious they would set their eyes on Vermont and a certain mountain that shall remain nameless in Groton State Forrest. They had for real names like that.

Go ahead and move that rock. It will cost a lot more than. $75k oh and there is a pond to be drained there as well….

26Limabeans

It’s too round to be used as rip rap in a jetty.
It’s too square to be a rolling stone.
Drill some holes for gelatin and make gravel for the driveway.
And do it all to music:

https://youtu.be/IwOfCgkyEj0

Hack Stone

Can a 70 ton boulder get a table dance?

Billy1214

now thats funny!

Sea Dragon

Let the students fork over $70,000. Until then, it stays.

Hondo

Yep. My suggestion would be to have the cost of moving the stone taken out of the Student Activity Fund. I believe that’s funded from student fees vice appropriated dollars even at state universities.

Cummins

My thoughts, exactly. OR, let them move it themselves, (pulling statues off their mounting pads).

Hondo

Once again, the higher education Progressive indoctrination “education” process has triumphed!

It doesn’t matter that taxpayers, not those “offended” students, are the ones footing the bill. Please ignore that inconvenient truth.

For those incapable of independent recognizing sarcasm reliably: yes, the first sentence is sarcasm.

USAFRetired

I got this in an e-mail from an old friend of mine. Old we describes his age and the length of our friendship.

Its a blue print for socialism and this seems to be an example of #6

There are 8 levels of control; read the following recipe:

1) Healthcare – Control healthcare and you control the people.

2) Poverty – Increase the poverty level as high as possible, poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing everything for them.

3) Debt – Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way you are able to increase taxes, and this will produce more poverty.

4) Gun Control – Remove the ability to defend themselves from the Government That way you are able to create a police state.

5) Welfare – Take control of every aspect (food, housing, income) of their lives because that will make them fully dependent on the government.

6) Education – Take control of what people read and listen to and take control of what children learn in school.

7) Religion – Remove the belief in God from the Government and schools because the people need to believe in ONLY the government knowing what is best for the people

8) Class Warfare – Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. Eliminate the middle class This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to tax the wealthy with the support of the poor

5th/77th FA

USAFRetired, we were being taught this in our High School Civics/State History Class in the 8th grade, that would have been about 1967 for me. My two older brothers and oldest Sister had preceded me (having had the same teacher) so I had heard about it before then. Momma insisted we do our homework together everyday so she and Papa could “Check it.” She actually had a several fold purpose, cramming as much knowledge in ALL her kids heads, and furthering hers and Pops education too. (She only attended thru the 8th grade, he only to about the 4th).

The teacher (and DAAAAAAYYYYYUUUMM she was a HAMMER) told our class that the grubmint was well on the way to accomplishing these goals. They are almost all the way there now. Y’all may recall I have made mention of this a time or 50 here?

Y’all may remember, too, that I made mention that the BS was NOT going to stop with removing all things Confederate and that the other BS was NOT about dumbass, career, doped up criminals getting their damn fool selves killed by dumbass po po?

ninja

KoB commented:

“Y’all may remember, too, that I made mention that the BS was NOT going to stop with removing all things Confederate and that the other BS was NOT about dumbass, career, doped up criminals getting their damn fool selves killed by dumbass po po?”

Yep…KoB NAILED IT!!!

Get Ready For A Civil War….

gabn/hbtd/rtr

😉😎👏👏👏👍👍👍

FuzeVT

When everything is racist, nothing is racist.
When everyone is a NAZI, no one will be a NAZI.
When everyone is literally Hitler, no one is literally Hitler.
When you use literally constantly when the phrase “I think it’s sort of like” is actually what you mean, literally will be meaningless. Literally.
When everything offends you, we will stop giving a shit every time something bothers you delicate sensibilities.

That should have been said about 2 decades or more ago, and I’m sure it was. Because, guess what, we’re there. We no longer care that the racist NAZI guy you don’t like who is literally Hitler has offended you.

The press and the Blue Check Marks might, but they are in the process of rendering themselves meaningless, too.

Wireman611

^This^

George V

It is not the rock that is racist, I say, but the newspaper which saw fit to print this foul term. Yes, the Wisconsin State Journal, who printed the offensive article 95 years ago, is in fact the racist institution that must be eliminated. Close it down, fire it’s workers, remove all editions of this foul example of the scriveners art from libraries and institutions, and let it’s name never again be mentioned by civilized people.

But spare this humble rock, lest we take such symbols for granite.

Commissar

How is Berkeley leading the world in this stuff? They are not the most liberal university in the country, must less the world… Hell, they don’t even have affirmative action. Why all the constant “Berkeley sucks” indoctrination on the right? You know it all started when Reagan tried to vilify Berkeley for having the temerity to claim it was a student’s first Amendment right to criticize our involvement in Vietnam and to add their voice in solidarity to civil rights. And the university itself stood on the same side as Reagan in the whole clusterfuck. Even calling for national guard assistance…to force students critical of the regime to shut the fuck up. And now, more than a half a century later, the right wing commentators still throw Berkeley into their right wing propaganda. You all should be celebrating Berkeley. It fully embraces the whole social darwinistic survival of the fittest mantra you claim you want for our society. They don’t have affirmative action, Unlike like other top schools in the world they don’t have much grade inflation over the last 30 years, they give out “F”s at a rate that should make any aspiring law, medical student, or graduate student tremble. And would literally end the future of most Ivy League schools since Ivy League parents wont tolerate paying a school $50k+ a year while failing their spoiled little brat. Classes are packed, additional resources to help a struggling student are limited or even nonexistent, you have to graduate within a pretty narrow credit limit. If you fail a prerequisite or required course there is little chance you will meet the credit deadline and thus will have to go to another school to pick up that course and transfer back. The school is no joke. It the students are academic trench fighters when they come out of it. Most were fighters before they even got there. I am proud of the school and the students in it, Never in my life have I seen any group anywhere in the world as amazing. Which is why top intellectuals, scientists, Nobel laureates,… Read more »

SFC D

It’s because you and your Berkeley comrades bitch the loudest and most consistently.

Deckie

Bingo.

Commissar

Honestly, after the last four years I think the right has lost its credibility in calling anyone “whiners”.

You all built an entire ideology on it and then elevat3d the biggest fucking snowflake whiner in America to the White House.

Ret_25X

when you are stupid, you should shut up…and you, Dummissar…well, you are stupid. On steroids.

So stop with the pretense that what happened at your precious soy latte gathering had ANYTHING to do with free speech.

You do not want it, your “friends” do not want it, and you are simply too stupid and too scared of them to stand up to them.

Calling you stupid is actually offensive to genuinely stupid people who cannot help their situation.

I’m betting you are a “self made man”. Stupid by choice is worse than fat and lazy.

But here you are. A fine example of the self made man in the stupid zoo.

Hondo

Honestly, after the last four years I think the right has lost its credibility in calling anyone “whiners”.

Commissar, the irony of you making this statement after 4 years of nonstop “Orange Man Bad” is almost certainly beyond your comprehension.

I swear: if Trump had single-handedly and personally found cures for cancer, AIDS, and the common cold I believe you’d complain that he was putting thousands of healthcare specialists out of work. So spare us your hypocritical “pronouncements from on high”.

Skyjumper

“Most professors there, even some of the leading scholars in the world, make less than the campus police.”

Not true at all Lars.
As usual you throw something out with nothing to back it up.

https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/campus-police-officer-salary/berkeley-ca

https://data.chronicle.com/110635/University-of-California-at-Berkeley/faculty-salaries/

MI Ranger

Daaaang, that would appear to show that Berkley Professors start at $120K, but their Police Officers (Mean= $56K, top $80K) would struggle to even afford an apartment near campus!

Does this mean Lars doesn’t always tell the truth?! I so trusted his input 😉

Commissar

I am not using salary.com.

I am using the actual annual salaries that police and professors actually receive which is available publicly due to state disclosure laws,

You can see the most well paid people on campus. Cops tend to do much better than most of the faculty.

Most Berkeley PD make more than $100,000 a year.

Most professors less than $80,000

penguinman000

Wow, so average pay for Berkley professors dropped almost 50% since 2011?

https://www.berkeleyside.com/2011/04/15/uc-berkeley-ranks-13th-nationally-for-professor-salaries

Nah…I’m going to go with you’re full of shit (as usual).

The average last year for Berkeley professors was over $200k.

https://www.dailycal.org/2019/04/11/uc-berkeley-ranks-2nd-for-highest-faculty-pay-among-public-universities/

Aren’t facts a bitch?

penguinman000

And didn’t you make a comment a few days ago looking down your nose at people who make large $$$?

Hondo

Aren’t facts a bitch?

He wouldn’t know, penguinman000. He appears to be unacquainted with same.

Skyjumper

Lars, since as you say, “the actual annual salaries that police and professors actually receive which is available publicly due to state disclosure laws” than why didn’t you post a link to them to prove your statement??

Too lazy or………another convenient fib?

After all, you do have a history of that.

Again, as usual you throw something out with nothing to back it up.

Penguinman000

Ah, post a bunch of data that is listed by individual in no real order that lumps in benefits with take home pay. A bunch of data that is extremely raw and difficult to navigate. Obfuscate much?

Since you went to an academically rigorous college you should know this kind of data is less than useful and by itself. If you submitted garbage like that I support of a thesis by itself you would be fail any college course at just about any university.

This is a pathetic attempt to justify your position predicated upon the mistaken belief you can throw around your appeal to authority argument without being called on your BS.

Typical behavior from an intellectual coward such as yourself.

Go dual your face.

Commissar

That data ii sortable, searchable, and it is what people were actually paid, you asshat.

Commissar

Also, another thing I thought was brutal….

To get a 4.0 at Cal an undergrad needs to maintain a 95% grade average in nearly all their classes?

Below that is a 3.7 GPA.

And 89%? It is a 3.3 GPA

Their classes essentially have a Highlander grading system to get top grades. Most professors simply refuse to give more than 10-15% of the class an A.

This is despite the fact that the vast majority of students are stellar students and extremely competitive. The curve there is brutal.

Poetrooper

My “whine detector” just went off.

Thought you despised whiners, whiner.

Hypocrite, as usual…

UpNorth

Your whole bullshit post about salaries gets debunked, so, quick, change the subject to GPA’s? Lame, but we expect it from you, Kommisar.

Hondo

Yep. Changing the subject is one of Commissar’s favorite tactics when one of his Leftist talking points comments is proven to be BS.

FWIW, it’s also a common technique used by those who know they have a losing argument. Draw your own conclusions from that.

Thunderstixx

Twitter his dumb ass…
NOW !!!!!!

Commissar

It didn’t get debunked.

You all just decide amongst yourselves that I am wrong…

Not the same thing as debunking me.

https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/berkeley/?&s=-gross

Forrest Bondurant

If professors get paid less, that’s probably attributable to one or two reasons – or a combination of both.

First, they chose to be teachers. Tenured ones have probably taught their entire lives, spending their adult lives in the ivory towers of academia while the real world happens around them.

The second reason is related to the first – they’ve never held a real job or have any practical experience outside of academia – teaching only theory and writing about perceptions how the world works (based on their perception/indoctrination) or how they think it should work.

Nothing wrong with having an education, but just because someone holds an advanced degree doesn’t make them smart or deserving to make more money than other positions. I know a lot of idiots who are college professors or have doctorate degrees.

If professors, associate professors, post-doc researchers or anyone else who might teach at UC Berkeley make less than the police chief, fire chief sanitation truck driver or librarian, maybe they should take it up with the school or make a career change that’s more lucrative.

They’re smart enough to do that, I suppose.

UpNorth

Like I said, lame, commie-tsar.

Commissar

Not lame…

You claim i was debunked…

You claim I was debunked, when I wasn’t…

I post indisputable , public record PROOF of what I said….

And you blow it off.

You are one of the more bad faith, no integrity people on here.

SFC D

Your data is deeply flawed. Professors and academics do not get overtime pay. That seriously skews your claims. You’re a fraud.

SFC D

Perhaps if you added in any other additional income professors might receive, income from publishing, speaking fees, etc. Maybe you should read all of your empirical data.

Commie-Tsar

As this blog’s only anti-social socialist, I can tell you, with empiric data to back me up, that I can regurgitate the socialist/communist doctrine that my professors at Berkeley force fed me with the best of them!

Forrest Bondurant

(He holds that view because Army values run counter to what he actually believes. The values he believes in are taught at that school he attends, so he identifies with that place better than the Army.)

rgr1480

I first came upon that word a couple months ago when I was reading the James Bond novels — had to consult Webster Wiki.

The term pops up now and again when Flemming describes the underwater coral reefs in Jamaica.

tommer

So it comes from the old spanish for black(negro) big rock. Run for the hills the racists are coming. I hope these scholars don’t ever encounter any rap-music,their histronics might be fatal. Like a stupidity overdose. Are all our schools run by imbeciles?

UpNorth

“Are all our schools run by imbeciles?” Now that you ask, pretty much.
We had a dem teacher running for state representative who didn’t know that the U.S. was a Constitutional Republic. She had never heard the term, or forgot it when she heard it. She couldn’t wrap her tiny mind around that idea.

Jeff LPH 3, 63-66

That is also the name of a pier bollard that ships tie up to.

Skyjumper

Today the Chamberlain Rock; tomorrow the Plymouth Rock and then the next day the rock called Mount Rushmore.

How long will it be before they realize that Madison was named after the 4th President James Madison, who (gasp)….owned slaves.

Deckie

Then they will rename states as the names will be deemed as reminders of slave states and racism.

rgr769

Well, then let’s bulldoze the entire university and these cretins can all go home.

Skyjumper

Brought to you by the same people who changed the names of:

A. The planet Uranus
From “your-anus” to “urine-us”.

B. Niger bird seed
From “Niger” seed to “Ny-jer” seed, even though the seed of the African yellow daisy, Guizotia abyssinica, was originally called niger in reference to Nigeria and the plant’s geographic origin.

ninja

So…..

All those rocks we painted WHITE while serving in the US Army…(Some of you remember that peculiar ritual…)

Is that Racist?

Asking For A Friend

😉😎

Forrest Bondurant

I thought merely bringing up painting white rocks or discussing the topic in any manner was racist.

Uh oh…

Messkit

Well, won’t they be surprised about the Black Hills, or the Blackfoot tribe, or Black Russians. Can you imagine the calamity, when they hear Dark Side Of The Moon for the first time?

ninja

“..when they hear Dark Side Of The Moon for the first time?”

Am sure there will be some spoiled Brats out there that will demand Pink Floyd quit using that name, because “Pink” is a demeaning term…and don’t get me started on George Floyd…

*sarc on*

SFC D

Meanwhile, in beautiful downtown Benson, AZ, there’s this little gem:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CFOCe1-BkHg/?igshid=b3ugw7rcqhdv

Ex-PH2

Please ‘splain how “pink” is a demeaning term?

ninja

Civil War is just around the corner…

And just our luck. The 1911 Colt 45 is out of stock.

We are on a waiting list…with a lot of other folks.

https://www.colt.com/category/pistols

BTW, next thing you know, some spoiled Brats who have too much time on their hands will start complaining about TAH and demand TAH be shut down…

You watch. (In all fairness, Commissar and LC will NOT do that..it is obvious they both enjoy exchanging thoughts on TAH…no sarcasm in that statement).

😎😉

Poetrooper

Against those twinks, a .22 should suffice…

11B-Mailclerk

(Whips out a copy of the Constitution)

Paper covers rock! We win!

Green Thumb

Save the money.

Let the students put their money where their mouth and vote is.

Carry it off themselves.

Curious to see how that turns out…