Law professor's response to BLM shirt complaint.

[Saviolo]

A student at a law school sent an anonymous letter to a professor to complain about his wearing a Black Lives Matter shirt to class one day. The law professor decided to take this as an opportunity for a teachable moment both on Black Lives Matter, as well as effective legal writing.

You can read the whole thing here:

http://imgur.com/a/YkDVQ

Definitely worth taking the time to read the exchange. There's no "He destroys this student!!!!!11one" and no vitriol or hatred, just a very calm and collected teaching moment.

[Glorfindel]

1. Thank you for this post.

Those students are fortunate to have such a thoughtful and thorough professor.

[Saviolo]

4. Indeed!

And it requires a thorough discussion.

As I tweeted this morning in response to everything going on, the situation right now is complicated. If your Hot Take fits in 140 characters, I'm sorry, but it's wrong!

We need more discussion and fewer buzzwords.

[leftofcool]

2. Priceless!

[Agnosticsherbet]

3. That was a great read.

[Shrike47]

5. What a smack down. I trust the students are humiliated.

[Javaman]

6. I believe the Professor did indeed "destroy the student" in the manner of a

sledge hammer in a velvet glove.

[Saviolo]

7. But it was a well-measured and thorough response

Which is what I appreciated about it. Teachable moment and all that. Now it's up to the student. If they take what the teacher said in the spirit of how it was provided, they will be improved, and not destroyed.

[Javaman]

9. oh absolutely.

but a deft hand with words can deliver a much more withering beat down than a physical one.

It was truly a teachable moment. One that made the person writing the anonymous letter, no doubt, feel very meek indeed.

My only hope is that the anonymous writer has the ability of critical thought.

[Saviolo]

10. And there is the crux of it.

If they take it to heart, they will learn something important and be improved.

If they take it personally, they will become defensive and close their minds further.

[1StrongBlackMan]

13. LOL ... How do you suppose the lesson will be taken?

[Saviolo]

17. Well, given I don't know a single thing about the student

I have no way. I refuse to give up hope, though.

Maybe for this student, all it will take is one compassionate and articulate prof to not belittle them, and educate them instead.

The whole story could be invented for all I know, but in light of what's happening right now, I really want to hold on to the hope that this will help.

[malaise]

8. That's called

'schooled' - a response of beauty.

Thanks for this

[groundloop]

11. Those students severely underestimated their professor

That was a fantastic response, I hope the students who complained actually took the time to read and digest his words (though I have a feeling they didn't because of their preexisting biases).

[1StrongBlackMan]

18. I suspect, and would bet, that there are no "those students" ...

just a single student who believes he/she speaks for all students ... though I, also, suspect the missive was shown to others as a, "Put him/her in her/his place" piece ... and it was met with a chorus of "Yup", whether the secondary viewers agreed with the literal message (and/or the intent of the piece) or not ... people love to watch a train-wreck that happened or is occurring.

[forest444]

12. Some Rapepublican no doubt put them up to it.

I really doubt those brats came up with this on their own, such as it is.

[Saviolo]

14. Well, they're already law students

So, I would not be surprised if whoever it is wrote this themselves. Most law students I've ever met have a pretty high written aptitude.

But the prejudice could have come from anywhere. We don't know anything about this student. There's no reason to be ugly, call them brats, call names.

Focus on the response and let's just hope it sinks in. As someone above stated, this student really did get schooled. This could be the teachable moment that breaks one casual racist's cycle of passing racism down through generations. Maybe they got it from parents and family, and this one compassionate and articulate teacher decided not to belittle them, but instead educate them.

Let the ugly go!

[Sentath]

15. I HATE it when large blocks of text are posted as images.

I worry when I cannot find any other reference to this document

And, I wanted to like it, but I understand how to attack it. He violates the principle he sets out with the Confederate flag. People on the inside do not always get to say what their symbol means to people on the outside.

[geardaddy]

16. Great read. Thank you.

[Pluvious]

19. Thank you for sharing this

We can only hope the student actually read it through, and gained some badly needed value and perspective.

[REVOnotTV16]

20. REALLY people?!

Nothing could be further from the truth! BLM is NOT racist and IS NOT anti-law enforcement. Any violence incited is by those who fail to acknowledge that police are in fact killing people of color for no reason, and we are sick and tired of. We will defend ourselves - and pay the normal cost with our lives. Obviously, from the remarks in this thread, you enjoy white privilege or cannot, or will not, admit that racism is alive, well and growing in this country and the police are the main harborer of it – state sanctioned violence against us since the beginning of our time here and zero accountability. Can you not see that the police disproportionally stop, harass, belittle, brutalize, beat up, jail and kill people of color for no reason? There is an entire system of injustice.

Dead for selling loose cigarettes, dead for selling CDs where he had done so for years with the store owners permission and dead for being black and FEARED. Is this reasonable, people? We are tired of living in a society that assumes that we are guilty and dangerous and that we can be killed without reprisal – and that our lives have no value, thus Black Lives Matter.

You too, drank the kool-aid of ‘if your life is not great, it’s because of the black or brown people,’ not the banksters, corporations, disastrous trade policies or bought and paid for congress-critters that have taken your rights, your opportunities and your money and given it to the rich.

It is so sad that you cannot see what is plainly in front of you.

[Saviolo]

21. I think...

I think you may have created this account to post this particular to reply to a different thread, maybe?

I don't think anyone in this thread is implying any of the things you're saying they're implying, here.

Was your target another thread?

[tclambert]

24. Perhaps you only read the student's letter and not the professor's response.

This thread praises the professor's response to the attack on wearing a BLM T-shirt. It calmly takes apart the student's accusations as to what he/she thinks "Black Lives Matter" means. The assertions that BLM is racist and anti-law enforcement comes from the student's letter. The second letter, the professor's response, explains the errors in this interpretation.

[uponit7771]

25. Any organization that goes against oppression will be demonized by the oppressors even those who don

... don't directly demonize it'd be their mindset.

There's nothing BLM has done that warrants any type of negative designation

[pnwmom]

27. Read the SECOND letter at the link. It's the law professors explanation of why

his t-shirt said BLACK LIVES MATTER.

It does not mean "only black lives matter." The word "only" isn't implicit.

What IS implicit is something like:

"Because of the brutalizing and killing of black people at the hands of the police and the indifference of society in general and the criminal justice system in particular, it is important that we say" . . . BLACK LIVES MATTER.

[tclambert]

22. It is an interesting opportunity to discuss differing interpretations of language.

Legal proceedings often stem from different interpretations of the same words. Contract language frequently reads so formally and repetitively that it puts regular people to sleep. Lawyers write this way in order to eliminate as much ambiguity as possible.

If a disagreement as to the meaning of certain language arises, a judge may have to study the circumstances surrounding the statement to rule on which meaning more likely reflects the originator's intent. That's practically all the Supreme Court does.

In the case of the phrase "Black Lives Matter," some detractors have taken to pretending it means "Only Black Lives Matter." Adding that "only" in front makes a profound difference to the meaning. I sometimes think it would have helped if the phrase had not been shortened so much, and included one more word to make the meaning rock solid, perhaps "Black Lives Do Matter," or "Black Lives Matter, Too."since the phrase came about as a response to events that seemed to say, "Black Lives Don't Matter." I haven't heard anyone, not one person, in the BLM movement interpret the phrase as meaning "Only Black Lives Matter." Pretending that they do is what is known in argumentation as a straw man argument.

[Saviolo]

23. Someone started another thread here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027990382

That really nicely sums it all up. This little explanation made the rounds a few months back, I remember, and it's coming back around again, which is great.

[pansypoo53219]

26. maybe in a perfect world & it ain't perfect.

[Hissyspit]

28. I do hope this turns out to be "legit," and the letters are what they are presented to be. I can

find no outside verification of the. Then, too, the professor's response could be real, but the anonymous letter, of course, could be from anyone.

Would be nice to know what school this occurred at.