[FairfieldLife] Fwd: Oriel College, Oxford

[William Leed wle...@aol.com [FairfieldLife]]

-----Original Message-----
From: bgil7007 <bgil7...@verizon.net>
To: Logan M Cheek <lm...@cornell.edu>
Cc: George Thomas Atwood Ph. D. <gt...@aol.com>; Rick Carrington 
<rcarring...@sbcglobal.net>; James Hodges <jahod...@aol.com>; Keith Alan 
Everett <everet...@msn.com>; William Diller Leed II <wle...@aol.com>; James 
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Cooper <mcjun...@msn.com>; BALL BOB <rw...@cornell.edu>; Tom Helfrich 
<t...@frontiernet.net>; George Weiner <g...@cornell.edu>; Martin Merry 
<merr...@comcast.net>; Chris Barbieri <cgee...@gmail.com>; Kenneth Canfield 
<canfi...@rcn.com>; Robert Andrew Salamida <ras...@cornell.edu>; Jeffrey 
Reinders <jj...@cornell.edu>; Robert J. Forness <bob.forn...@gmail.com>; 
Phillip Randolph Carson <rcar...@pmfohio.com>; West Chute Jacobs III 
<chu...@wi.rr.com>; David Edwin Cook <s...@frontier.com>; John W. Palmroth 
<jwpalmr...@hotmail.com>; Lawrence R. Schlueter <la...@fuse.net>; Margaret 
Adams Colburn Schott <don...@fuse.net>; Emily Cheek Gurry RN 
<egu...@bellsouth.net>; Kimberly Fourman <kim.four...@gmail.com>
Sent: Mon, Oct 2, 2017 1:45 pm
Subject: Re: Oriel College, Oxford



Hallelujah. Kudos to Oriel College say-it-like-is administrator. He would be 
out on his ear in our insanely politically correct USA. Even as a liberal, I am 
sick of our colossal hyper-sensitivity about blacks, women, hispanics, American 
Indians, gays, ad nauseam. What's next? Easter Islanders? 
Barbara Gilmore

Sent from my iPad

On Sep 30, 2017, at 12:34 PM, LOGAN CHEEK III <l...@me.com> wrote:



WOW! A truly mind-blowing refresher.



Begin forwarded message:







Logan:







The following was passed to me by Tom Lee ’67 (ΔKE & HGS).
 
This message came from a Family in South Africa. It appears that some black 
students from South Africa are studying at Oriel College, Oxford, on Rhodes 
Scholarships. They have taken exception to the presence of a bronze bust of 
Cecil John Rhodes, the great imperialist and the one who established the trust 
from which the scholarships that bear his name are funded to this day. They are 
demanding that it be removed. This is the wonderful response by the Dean of the 
College. Students at that College are known as "Scrotties" for some reason.





 Bill


 





Dear Scrotty Students,




 



Cecil Rhodes’s generous bequest has contributed greatly to the comfort



and well being of many generations of Oxford students – a good many of



them, dare we say it, better, brighter and more deserving than you.



 



This does not necessarily mean we approve of everything Rhodes did in



his lifetime – but then we don’t have to. Cecil Rhodes died over a



century ago. Autres temps, autres moeurs 2. If you don’t understand what



this means – and it would not remotely surprise us if that were the case



– then we really think you should ask yourself the question: “Why am I



at Oxford?”



 



Oxford, let us remind you, is the world’s second oldest extant



university. Scholars have been studying here since at least the 11th



century. We’ve played a major part in the invention of Western



civilisation, from the 12th century intellectual renaissance through the



Enlightenment and beyond. Our alumni include William of Ockham, Roger



Bacon, William Tyndale, John Donne, Sir Walter Raleigh, Erasmus, Sir



Christopher Wren, William Penn, Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), Samuel Johnson,



Robert Hooke, William Morris, Oscar Wilde, Emily Davison, Cardinal



Newman. We’re a big deal. And most of the people privileged to come and



study here are conscious of what a big deal we are. Oxford is their alma



mater – their dear mother – and they respect and revere her accordingly.



 



And what were your ancestors doing in that period? Living in mud huts,



mainly. Sure we’ll concede you the short lived Southern African



civilisation of Great Zimbabwe. But let’s be brutally honest here. The



contribution of the Bantu tribes to modern civilisation has been as near



as damn it to zilch.



 



You’ll probably say that’s “racist”. But it’s what we here at Oxford



prefer to call “true.” Perhaps the rules are different at other



universities. In fact, we know things are different at other



universities. We’ve watched with horror at what has been happening



across the pond from the University of Missouri to the University of



Virginia and even to revered institutions like Harvard and Yale: the



“safe spaces”; the ??blacklivesmatter; the creeping cultural relativism;



the stifling political correctness; what Allan Bloom rightly called “the



closing of the American mind”. At Oxford however, we will always prefer



facts and free, open debate to petty grievance-mongering, identity



politics and empty sloganeering. The day we cease to do so is the day we



lose the right to call ourselves the world’s greatest university.



 



Of course, you are perfectly within your rights to squander your time at



Oxford on silly, vexatious, single-issue political campaigns. (Though it



does make us wonder how stringent the vetting procedure is these days



for Rhodes scholarships and even more so, for Mandela Rhodes



scholarships) We are well used to seeing undergraduates – or, in your



case – postgraduates, making idiots of themselves. Just don’t expect us



to indulge your idiocy, let alone genuflect before it. You may be black



– “BME” as the grisly modern terminology has it – but we are colour



blind. We have been educating gifted undergraduates from our former



colonies, our Empire, our Commonwealth and beyond for many generations.



We do not discriminate over sex, race, colour or creed. We do, however,



discriminate according to intellect.



 



That means, inter alia, that when our undergrads or postgrads come up



with fatuous ideas, we don’t pat them on the back, give them a red



rosette and say: “Ooh, you’re black and you come from South Africa. What



a clever chap you are!”  No. We prefer to see the quality of those ideas



tested in the crucible of public debate. That’s another key part of the



Oxford intellectual tradition you see: you can argue any damn thing you



like but you need to be able to justify it with facts and logic –



otherwise your idea is worthless.



 



This ludicrous notion you have that a bronze statue of Cecil Rhodes



should be removed from Oriel College, because it’s symbolic of



“institutional racism” and “white slavery”. Well even if it is – which



we dispute – so bloody what? Any undergraduate so feeble-minded that



they can’t pass a bronze statue without having their “safe space”



violated really does not deserve to be here. And besides, if we were to



remove Rhodes’s statue on the premise that his life wasn’t blemish-free,



where would we stop? As one of our alumni Dan Hannan has pointed out,



Oriel’s other benefactors include two kings so awful – Edward II and



Charles I – that their subjects had them killed. The college opposite –



Christ Church – was built by a murderous, thieving bully who bumped off



two of his wives. Thomas Jefferson kept slaves: does that invalidate the



US Constitution? Winston Churchill had unenlightened views about Muslims



and India: was he then the wrong man to lead Britain in the war?”



 



Actually, we’ll go further than that. Your Rhodes Must Fall campaign is



not merely fatuous but ugly, vandalistic and dangerous. We agree with



Oxford historian RW Johnson that what you are trying to do here is no



different from what ISIS and the Al-Qaeda have been doing to artefacts



in places like Mali and Syria. You are murdering history.



 



And who are you, anyway, to be lecturing Oxford University on how it



should order its affairs? Your ??Rhodes Must Fall campaign, we



understand, originates in South Africa and was initiated by a black



activist who told one of his lecturers “whites have to be killed”. One



of you – Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh – is the privileged son of a rich politician



and a member of a party whose slogan is “Kill the Boer; Kill the



Farmer”; another of you, Ntokozo Qwabe, who is only in Oxford as a



beneficiary of a Rhodes scholarship, has boasted about the need for



“socially conscious black students” to “dominate white universities, and



do so ruthlessly and decisively!”



 



Great. That’s just what Oxford University needs. Some cultural



enrichment from the land of Winnie Mandela, burning tyre necklaces, an



AIDS epidemic almost entirely the result of government indifference and



ignorance, one of the world’s highest per capita murder rates,



institutionalised corruption, tribal politics, anti-white racism and a



collapsing economy. Please name which of the above items you think will



enhance the lives of the 22,000 students studying here at Oxford.



 



And then please explain what it is that makes your attention grabbing



campaign to remove a listed statue from an Oxford college more urgent,



more deserving than the desire of probably at least 20,000 of those



22,000 students to enjoy their time here unencumbered by the irritation



of spoilt, ungrateful little tossers on scholarships they clearly don’t



merit using racial politics and cheap guilt-tripping to ruin the life



and fabric of our beloved university.



 



Understand us and understand this clearly: You have everything to learn



from us; we have nothing to learn from you.



 



Yours, Oriel College, Oxford