2007-04-19

Nikki Giovanni: The Idiocy Of The Contemporary College Education

It's a wonder college graduates can think and reason at all after eduring 4 years or more of this sort of idiocy:

“We are Virginia Tech. We are sad today and we will be sad for quite awhile. WE are not moving on, we are embracing our mourning. We are Virginia Tech. We are strong enough to know when to cry and sad enough to know we must laugh again. We are Virginia Tech. We do not understand this tragedy. We know we did not deserve it but neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS, but neither do the invisible children walking the night to avoid being captured by a rogue army. Neither does the baby elephant watching his community be devastated for ivory; neither does the Appalachian infant in the killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the home his father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized. No one deserves a tragedy. We are Virginia Tech. The Hokier Nation embraces our own with open heart and hands to those who offer their hearts and minds. We are strong and brave and innocent and unafraid. We are better than we think, not quite what we want to be. We are alive to the imagination and the possibility we will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears, through all this sadness. We are the Hokies. We will prevail, we will prevail. We are Virginia Tech. "

Huh? WTF is she smoking? This woman is a college professor, eh? What a complete imbicile. What an insult to the victims and their families to use and twist this occasion into a political statement.

9 comments:

Eric said...

Nikki Giovanni... so, that's what that was. I think I had more respect for her and her work prior to seeing her preformance. If this is what passes for an educated person on a college campus, I am surprised that more students haven't gone nutts. Her comments were out in left field, and totally out of place.

Nadir said...

Six,

I shouldn't be surprised that you have no f**king clue who Nikki Giovanni is.

She is a famous and GREAT poet who has ALWAYS been political. (You definitely wouldn't appreciate her early poetry.) Virginia Tech knew that when they hired her, and they certainly knew that when they asked her to speak with the eyes of the world watching the school.

And what the hell did she say that offended you so much? Do you think babies in Africa deserve tragedy? Did those kids at VA Tech deserve to die?

I'm just curious...

Paul Hue said...

Six: I'm not worked up by this. Giovani of course is an extreme leftist, and thus her view of the world's list of tragedies includes interpretations of some phenomena that you and I refute. However, her list here isn't so bad, and even includes interpretations that coincide with mine, and I assume yours as well. Based on your headline, I expected her to have listed Bush's imperialist invasion and wanton, calculated destruction of Iraq and 100,000 of its people in order to steel oil en route to melting the planet, as well as blaming the massacre on the NRA.

Instead I think that she listed a bunch of horrible things going on in the world everyday, things just as horrible as that poor, sick fellow (read today that he was autistic) acting that way, but which do not come to an end.

I assume you have read about those "night children" who have to walk 20 miles or so every morning and night to avoid being kidnapped into one of those macabre slave armies, where they get raped and transformed into murders, rapists, and kidnappers.... by guys who had this very thing done to them a few years earlier. We are all gnashing our teeth about what some brain-broken guy did at Virginia Tech did. But really, how lucky are the 30,000 students at Virginia Tech compared to most people on this earth?

Tom Philpott said...

Yeah, Six. Who's being stupid? She was there, she taught the kid who went bonkers and tried to get him help. She makes a fair target for right-wing vitriol? Is this what they're flogging on Fox? Has Dan Savage aired his fetid opinion--passed off to the guileless as fact?

Paul Hue said...

I have noticed zero negative comments about Giovanni on Fox.

Tom Philpott said...

If you google Michael Savage and Nikki Giovanni, you'll see that he had a go at her on his show a few nights ago. And I think it reverberated through the right-wing blathersphere. Here is a blog post very similar to Six's attacking her,

Unknown said...

My apologies, I guess I'm simply not as cultured as Messrs. Tom & Nadir (nor as pompous either for that matter).

I'm sure Ms. Giovanni is a fine poet. I'll take both of your words for it. But what the hell does that have to do with anything? How does her abilities as a poet make it acceptable for her taking a horrific event such as this and turn it into a personal politcal statement? Bullsh*t.

By the way, for your information Tom, my opinion on this was based on listening to her diatribe that day LIVE ON THE RADIO, AS IT WAS HAPPENING, not from from anything that was said the "right-wing blathersphere" (Right-wing blathersphere! That's funny! You're so clever! Just ask you.).

Unknown said...

I'll bet you're the life of the party and dinner-parties Tom. I mean, you're such a crackup! Ever think of being a comedian? Didn't think so.

By the way Tom, I, unlike you, form my opinions and come to my conclusions on my own, using independent thought processes, whereas you on the other hand it would seem come to yours based on years of liberal, academic brainwashing. Am I wrong? I didn't think so.

Unknown said...

And speaking of Michael Savage, hell you guys oughta love him. He dislikes George W. Bush as much you do! He's an equal-opportunity hater.