WHAT THE FUCK? It’s hard to believe that a regent of the University of Minnesota asked this fucking stupid question, but then you notice that it’s a former speaker of the Minnesota house of representatives, a Republican, and it becomes a little less surprising.
Steve Sviggum asks if my university has become too diverse
, from a marketing standpoint
. Jesus.
This clip doesn’t even need a caption. “Has UMN Morris become too diverse for a student to attend?” How is this an actual question being asked during a Board of Regents meeting??? @BSU_UMN @USGumn @mndailynews @StarTribune @Ilhan @kare11 @AlphaNewsMN @KSTP @FOX9 @RWPUSA #UMNProud pic.twitter.com/Tiz5ZCdLuS
— Watch Dog UMN (@WatchDogUMN) October 14, 2022
His concern, or rather his excuse for his concern, is that two people, two bigots, wrote to him to say that the diversity on the University of Minnesota Morris campus made them uncomfortable and they wouldn’t send their kids here.
Seriously. This is one of the people who controls the pursestrings of my university. He got two letters that he should have instantly shredded, and instead he decided to confront our chancellor with the fact that the Republican bigots of Minnesota have his ear.
Fortunately, Chancellor Ericksen responded calmly and appropriately to such an outrageous assertion.
41% of @UMNMorris is categorized as BIPOC students. Too high of a number for Regent Sviggum, it appears as though he’d rather closely mirror the surrounding area of Morris (86.8% white) or Minnesota at large (83% white). Chancellor Ericksen navigates this question with class: pic.twitter.com/CeJgo6jMh2
— Watch Dog UMN (@WatchDogUMN) October 14, 2022
It’s a good thing she has the job, and not me (not that there’s ever a chance I’d end up in such a position), because I’d have just yelled, “Fuck you, asshole” and scrabbled for something on the desk I could throw at Sviggum.
I have a nice 20 pound hammer you’re welcome to use for that purpose.
I’d equally be happy throwing it for you.
Bill Maher is a jerk, but recently he touched on an issue that may have some merit, which is the over-liberalization of democrats. But I feel the more important factor in the total fuck-up of American politics is the fact that when national and international problems start affecting people, they turn toward authoritarians, strongmen and dictators to save them. In addition to wanting to own the libs, I think this is what’s happening with American conservatives today.
So what if those in power are grifting away most of the resources? As long as the underclasses get their daily portion of gruel, they’ll be more than happy to vote away their rights.
Seriously these are Uni students he is whining about. Surely they are mature enough not to need their bigoted parents to do their thinking for them.
@ 3
I got a feeling their cotch-spawn is just as bigoted, and was hoping that mommy and daddy will tell the university to make the scary darkies and gay-mos go away.
@ 2
<
blockquote>Bill Maher is a jerk, but recently he touched on an issue that may have some merit, which is the over-liberalization of democrats.
Oh, really? So what historically marginalized groups should the Democrats throw under the bus to appease America’s vast population of white trash and get them “voting blue?” The blacks, Latinx, LGBTQ folks, atheists? All those groups a-scare the shitkickers and make them vote Republicans. Who do we fuck over just so we can have the satisfaction of having more politicians with a “D” next to their name?
It’s THIS sort of thinking that leads many on the Left to believe that there is no difference between the Dems and the GOP–that, and sucking off of the capitalist system and the millionaire/billionaire parasites.
Not wearing a mask. Check. Thinks two letters about a subject makes it serious enough to question policy. Check. Doesnt have a fucking clue. Check. Another useless republican getting paid to do nothing useful.
@weylguy #2:
No, it does not have any merit.
Having dug himself a hole, Sviggum continued to dig and proudly proclaim his bigotry by stating that he “had to raise the subject and had the freedom to do so.” Having the freedom to be a bigot doesn’t mean you have to choose to be one.
There’s probably not a really big difference between the two parties when it comes to being good buddies with the oligarchs; but I think I observe that the Dems are significantly less cruel in dealing with marginalized folks…enough that I think it’s a difference in kind, not just a difference in degree.
#5
Conservatives retch when they see gay couples kissing in every other TV commercial and women trying to take control over their own bodies. This is why they would be willing to elect a dog turd for the Senate (e.g., Georgia) if it means getting total and permanent power, which is where things are headed. My advice to Democrats: tone things down and wait for progressive youth to take over from aging conservative assholes, or lose everything now and forever.
Um, so 59% white is perhaps diluting the precious student body bodily fluids at UMM to an “unmarketable” degree? Hmm . . . and he received TWO letters, which he could show, mind you, that TWO (2!) bigots are “uncomfortable” sharing space with, um, all, those them there (probably smelly and scary) people? Sounds reasonable to me; after all, he “had” to ask the question, and he has the “freedom” to do it. So, yeah. Wonder who he voted for in 2020. Mysteries, who knows
At #10:
Okay, weylguy. Great advice Appeasement and surrender have always worked. I mean, just look at history.
I will propose that the letters are fraudulent, in that the students in question didn’t balk at Morris because it was “too diverse,” rather it’s an old writer’s trick of hanging your thesis on “a guy I know.” Two letters, from friends. I’m calling foul on this. Sviggum just wanted to hoist his bigotry flag under the guise of freedom of speech.
To anyone’s knowledge has Sviggum ever visited Morris? Has he even been out of Minnesota?
@ 10
Wow! You don’t even deny it. Maybe we should have told those uppity n*****rs in the 50s and 60s to stop scaring voters away from the polls with their crazy, decisive talk of being about to drink out of the same drinking fountain as the whites. At least, until the older generation of racists die off.
Oh, wait, their kids turned out to be just as racist and shitty and their parents, as will their grandchildren, their great-grandchildren, etc..
PZ: I definitely would not advocate for you to hurriedly grab and chuck a random object at this regent—for one thing, there’s a likely chance your attempted shot would miss him in such a scenario. However, as cogent as the Chancellor’s response was, I would have liked to have seen the regent verbally excoriated for asking such an asinine question.
weylguy’s politics in a nutshell.
Justice delayed is justice when its politically convenient, eh?
@2- weylguy
The actual problems are neoliberalization of Democrats and centrism, trends due largely to Clintonism. Maher is now a cranky old man with a bee in his bonnet for Millennials and Gen Z. He fumes arrogant contempt at young people.
Where Repugs want to quash diversity and progressives want to embrace it, centrists are indifferent. Apathy isn’t better than bigotry, it enables bigotry.
I mean am I only one thinking that this regent’s question was about a half-step away from espousing the “great replacement theory”?
I’m writing a letter to complain that there are too many Americans at Morris. I have been oppressed. I have called the police, they’ll pick me up from the normal spot.
Louis
@10- weylguy
Don’t tone down. Ratchet it up. Don’t let the lowest common denominator, what conservatives think, dictate the direction taken.
Some at the center are drifting right, thinking the civil rights era and election of Obama signaled the end of race. They think the Democrats as a whole are drifting too far left and abhor identity politics. They let themselves get sucked into the reactionary vortex too wanting to appease the right to make nice. That won’t prevent authoritarianism’s slow creep. They are just blaming the victims really, the marginalized who would get thrown under the bus.
How many letters with the thesis “Sviggum is a terrible match for his current responsibilities” do we think it would take for him to resign?
@21 You’re forgetting that one of the qualifications necessary join today’s Republican party is a complete lack of shame.
My read is that the Steve Sviggum is under pressure from done of his (former?) campaign backers to ask and needs something to send back — since one of the “letters” was actually a phone call. Since he doesn’t say there were multiple individuals behind it, there may just be one person who emailed and then called him about it. He seems uncomfortable asking the question so I almost feel bad for him, but that’s what he gets for owing favors.
As for the regent’s response, I thought that was well done. I would add that universities need to prepare students to interact with and be a part of a world that is larger than Morris and the state of Minnesota.
“Concerned parents” is bullshit. It’s like the handful of loudmouths at school board meetings speaking for “concerned parents”.
@5
I realize your question is rhetorical but Maher has already answered this, and it’s trans people.
Of course, once people like him get trans people declared as “other” by democrats, next up would be anyone non-straight, followed by making racial discrimination acceptable. Conservatives (even those like Maher who claim to be liberal) can’t exist unless they have an out-group to vilify.
@ 25
Well, if they can can increase their “electability” by screwing over trans folks, imagine how much more the Dems can win by if they also turn on another group. Maybe not non-whites as they are a vital part of the base, but how about atheists? Nobody likes us and all that church-state separation talk only alienates the theist majority.
I posted comments as #2 and #10, and got totally hammered. Here’s my last comment: the GOP will almost certainly take back the House and Senate, and barring a miracle the hominid-brained, serial adulterer Herschel Walker will be elected senator. The January 6 Commission will be disbanded by the Republicans, and Donald Trump will be re-elected in 2024. When the dust has settled, and abortion has been banned nationally by constitutional fiat, and gays have been declared illegal with NASCAR and rodeos made mandatory viewing, the Democratic Party will finally have its own Lost Cause.
@ 27
Ok, what are LGBTQ people supposed to do while they await the decades or centuries for a mother-may-I-exist from the center-and-further-right? Just shut up and take their oppression stoically like good little children? Enjoy getting dragged behind pickup? Turn the other cheek as they are beaten and murdered?
Wow, #27 is a great example of how entitled white neoliberals react when called out on their bias. Hammer on them a tiny bit, and voila, they start spouting troll talking points.
Sviggum* is another example, as of course his last comment was that he was raising the question because it was ‘his right’ to do so.
White male entitlement truly believes white dominion a valued trait. It’s why he thinks there is such a thing as ‘too much diversity’, and then decided to bring up the racist opinion he pulled from his nethers as if his bigot fears require public input.
I will paraphrase the question “Is enrollment declining because white people are afraid of going to school with anyone except other white people?” The answer is “ Fuck off, racist swine.”
I’m sure there are multiple causes of declining enrollment that involve aging demographics, Covid, and the outrageous cost of college.
His name is perfect. Sviggum = Betray, cheat, swindler.
The relevant question is whether UM Morris has problems attracting students.
If they don’t, then there is no problem.
(It doesn’t, because I checked.)
The other relevant question is whether UM Morris has problems attracting white racists.
If they do, then there is no problem.
As has been noted, two letters isn’t a very large sample size.
Minnesota has a population of 5.6 million and Morris also draws from surrounding states.
There is no evidence the two bigots even have children much less children nearing college age.
During the now usual public school board invasions, where it is looked at, the right wingnuts doing the yelling usually don’t have students in the district schools and are in fact, not even from that school district.
@27
here is a question I hope you can answer. If the democrats move more right / conservative to get elected so as to maintain or increase power should they be doing that by outright lying about their ideals and principles or should they you know actually be more conservative? If they then act more liberal after being elected how will they then campaign for re-election?
If they are conservative and act as such just how is that really any different from actually being a republican ?
The USA is 42.2% nonwhite.
UM Morris is 41% nonwhite.
This means that UM Morris is reflecting the reality of the current US population.
That is a problem for the GOP bigot, Sviggum, and…it is his problem not UM Morris’s problem.
FWIW, …The US will become ‘minority white’ in 2045, Census projects https://www.brookings.edu › the-avenue › 2018/03/14
Mar 14, 2018 — The new census projections indicate that, for youth under 18–the post-millennial population–minorities will outnumber whites in 2020.
Sviggum can spend the rest of his life watching the white majority turn into… a white minority.
What Maher and weylguy’s seems to ignore the fact that the Dems HAVE been moving further and further to the right since Dubbya, and what has it gotten them? They’re still called “communists” even though they actually run on reforming capitalism (HA!) rather than ending it. The right still screams about “Defund the Police” even though Brandon has promised to dump more money into the pig’s budgets. Not one of them is talking about real tax increases or slashing the military as we should. They still lick Israel’s rancid taint?
In what sense have the Dems “over-liberalized?”
I see what Sviggum’s problem is.
He is so blinded by racism that he can’t use Google to look up basic facts about his own state.
33% of Minnesota’s children are nonwhite.
These are the pool that the Minnesota universities will draw from to assemble their student body.
Noting that fact, the 41% nonwhites of Morris is more or less in line with the young people of Minnesota.
Cthulu, that guy is dumb.
It also turns out that UM Twin Cities is also…40.5% nonwhite, almost exactly the same as Morris.
So why is 41% nonwhite at Morris a problem and 40.5% nonwhite at UM Twin Cities not a problem? Guy is an ignorant idiot.
OT
As Sviggum obviously ia a descendant of Scandinavian immigrants, I feel tarnished by his idiocy.
College enrollment has had small drops nationwide. Morris had a 9% increase in its 2021 first-year enrollment, but a 4% decrease in its student body overall.
https://news.morris.umn.edu/news/2021-enrollment
The “over-liberalised” Democrats are in the most right wing of any “left wing” party in any western democracy.
@weylguy #27:
Based on what?
538’s current assessment, which I tend to credit, has Democrats at 2/3rds probability of retaining the Senate. They do predict the Republicans taking the House at a similar percentage… which I hope is wrong.
If the MAGA people running for the house were properly scrutinised I am sure we would find a lot of them making social posts blaming the n*ers and kes for stuff.
The last word was supposed to be k**es. Because a lot of conservatives still hang on to the most discredited form of racism.
Is weylguy a troll? Or does he honestly believe NOT asking for what you need is the best way to achieve your goals.
weylguy in short: the best way to defend against Republican vote suppression and gerrymandering is to further marginalise the minorities they hate.
Back to the OP, what the hell does it even mean to say a place is “too diverse for people to attend” other than “I don’t want to be near black people”?
#27
Back under your rock troll. Puerto Ricans have been sold out time and time again. Progressives and the left are the only ones offering hope.
#27
Back under your rock troll. Puerto Ricans have been sold out time and time again. Progressives and the left are the only ones offering hope.
I wanted to see what the overall enrollment trends are at the Morris Campus. Fall of 2022 enrollment is 1,068 students according to University of Minnesota data https://idr.umn.edu/reports-by-topic-enrollment/enrollments In 2011 there were 1932. Overall University of Minnesota enrollment has been roughly flat over this time period. Clearly something is making Morris less attractive to incoming students, but I rather doubt its “too much diversity”.
weylguy @2, @10, & @27 —
I’m sure I don’t exactly need to join the pile-on, but I will anyway, because there’s a response already out there that I want to share around.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCl33v5969M&w=560&h=315%5D
That should more than cover it.
I’ve started watching Real Time out of morbid curiosity since I got HBO a few months back. Some of the guests are far more interesting than Maher himself and he does the stopped clock thing once in a blue moon when he’s goring someone else’s ox. Mostly it’s a hate watch trying to endure his snarky pseudo-elitist sanctimony. His crap on vaccination and other health issues are cringy enough without the spleen venting on younger generations and “woke”.
My vague memory of what weylguy has posted in the past isn’t bringing any red flags. Maybe he’s gotten pulled in by some of Maher’s or other poseur left rhetoric and had a couple bad takes due to frustration over the coming election.
@47- Jemolk
Thanks for the vid. At 29:05 the part where “fascism exists in a state of permanent conflict” is priceless. Explains every political move Ron Desantis has made.
I first heard of Carl Schmitt reading critical theory. As I learned a little about him I wondered why leftists would be fascinated with a bona fide fascist (one time Nazi actually). Upon learning more about his friend-enemy binary and state of exception concepts the fucking scales fell from my eyes. Holy shit he’s relevant to where we are heading!
I thought this was obvious but I don’t see someone commenting (maybe because it is obvious) but if there are two (count them !2!) letters from potential students (well, their parents– big difference but not relevant to the point I’m going to make) who are uncomfortable with the diversity and of their own choice will choice not to enjoy our fine economic service that’s two bad, we are saddened by our loss of potential business. But if we are to cater to them and the only way to do that is to diversify and the only way to do that is to deny admittance to many (!many!) students and deny them their choice and entrance.
In what universe could that possibly be desirable from a marketing standpoint?
(Okay, maybe someone made that point and I skimmed past it. Sorry if so)
@21. Aachen on the Plains
Let’s find out.
There needs to be a campiagn to remove him based on what he said here. The message needs to be clear that such bigotry is no longer acceptable and that those expressing it be treated with zero tolerance especially whenit comes to holding positions of power.
PS. The American midterm elections will be absolutely critical. You guys need to vote and make sure progressive, letfwing Democratic people vote and win for reason to prevail. (Aussie here so I can’t.) Your democracy is hanging by a slender thread and is sliding rapidly towards open fascism.
@50. woozy : Great point. The bigiots are outnumbered and they are afraid of losing their power and privilege because they know it and thus they want to keep the majority who disagree with them out. Do not let them suceed.
I can’t help but be reminded of my roommate whilst enlisted, who seemed to frequently “remind” me that I was going to be a minority in California in X years.
And, I… Just didn’t care? Like, so what if there are a few more Latinx, Asian, Native, Black people, and a few less White people, what about that should cause me concern?
I guess it’s back to the old projection thing again – if “They” gain power, “They” might treat us like we treated “Them”…
:/
What is over-liberalization of democrats?
And my thing is how is gay people kissing connected to Democrats toning ‘it” down in 10? Individuals with different natural features bigots pick at and political parties are different.
Huh. The presumably straight white cis guy figures that the biggest problem is other people who aren’t him accept a degree of lesser humanity until some unknown point in the future then gets huffy when told that maybe those other people might want to their full humanity today. That’s unusual.
@5 Akira MacKenzie
Well apparently your answer as to which marginalized group to throw under the bus is “White trash”. Hypocritical clown.
No matter how much consolation and empathy given to triggered reactionary bigots and xenophobes or toning it down is done, their handlers and manipulators will continue to manufacture outrage over perceived threats. See the current anti-woke McCarthyite witch-hunt for example. If an enemy didn’t exist it would be created.
In other news, Pepsi Co. disappointed to have sold too many products. Investors deeply concerned. Because that’s totally a common marketing viewpoint.
Some people are not very adept at handling logic. Going to college doesn’t automatically fix that. It takes some work. But fixing this sort of hare-brained lunacy? Yeah, that’s… that’s pretty easy. Just show up and STFU for a bit with the bigoted jackassery and they’ll find it takes real effort to hold onto ideas that bad. Which is precisely what those parents are afraid their kids will learn.
Sorry should have mentioned Pepsi was a random big company that sprung to mind. It’s not based on any particular incident, it’s just sarcasm.
Don’t forget that a lot of fundies are telling their offspring that education is bad and will make them sin. I’ve been hearing this crap since my oldest was in elementary school . He’s now in his 40s and it’s gotten worse.
@ 56
Somehow I think jettisoning the racist, proudly uneducated, inbred, Bible-humping, gun-fucking denizens of the Red State shitholes is anywhere near as bad as screwing over the nonwhites and LGBTQ people who have historically had it far, far worse.
So take your charge of hypocrisy, roll it up, and go fuck yourself to death with it, you Nazi pile of shit.
#61 perfect response to a RWNJ, nazi troll. I have your back.
@ 61
EDIT: …isn’t anywhere near…
Since when are whites a marginalized group?
Most of us, including myself are white.
If we were an oppressed, marginalized group, we would know it by now!!!
We are on the top of the heap and run and own most of it and we all know it.
The marginalized group that belong under the bus are…racist fascist trolls such as Erik333.
They are used to it, since their native habitat is living under rocks. They make occasional forays to drive by and leave stupid, racist comments any where they can.
Yes.. Well, like all typical white trash he seems to think that the term white trash refers to “all whites”, not just the sort that tell liberals that they are not being fascist enough, and its going to lose them elections. This is exactly the sort of reactionary, narrow minded, over the top reaction you see among Evangelicals when they scream about attacks against “all Christians”, when its only them people have a problem with, or “all business owners”, when its actually about billionaires, or… you get the idea. Its not about reality, its about the knee jerk reaction that, if you dare point out that they are supporting scum, and that scum is bad, that somehow this MUST BE an attack on their bullshit white (or insert other useless crap) identity.
And, of course, it hardly matters if this is something they really believe (probably because con artists have pushed the narrative at them for weeks, months, years, or even decades, to the point where its become a delusion, like, “Aliens really are real and crashed at Rosswell!!!”), or if its just part of the massive campaign of lies to try to get more fools and gullible on their side, and bolster their numbers.
At this point its like being forced to deal with an entirely sub-culture of “crazy uncles” that think that not only is Big Foot real, but he is secretly plotting to steal you wifi signals. Only… the shear number of them makes them dangerous, while in isolation they are just sad, and pitiable.
When I use the terms “white trash,” “redneck,” “hick,” etc.. I’m not attacking the income or socio-economic status of lower class whites. As a working class drudge myself, I’m in no position to throw stones. What I am attacking is the vulgar, unsophisticated, jingoistic, paranoid, superstitious, misogynistic, culture of white supremacy and “guns, grits, and God” that drags down our country, making us look like ignoramuses and bigots. While I don’t expect everyone to get a college degree, what I despise are those who willfully wallow in stupidity as if it were something to be proud of.
@62 Akira MacKenzie
So because you can think of a group of people having being worse off than another group of people (“white trash”) who have been living in poverty for generations is a perfectly fine target? And you wonder why i called you a hypocrite…
@63 Bruce Fuentes
Go fuck yourself.
@65 raven
It seems you left out the “trash” part out of “white trash”, as in the slur used to dehumanise a group of people as being poor because they deserve it, so you don’t need to feel bad about them being poor. I’m uncertain if you are being dishonest or just stupid.
@66 Kagehi
Who are you talking to?
@67 razor88
I’m glad you are here to speak for all “white trash” people.
@68 Akira MacKenzie
So you misused the term “white trash” to mean something different, while still implying “white trash” are poor because they deserve it?
Sorry if I missed this as I started skimming the thread, but has anyone yet called directly for the ouster of this bigot from the Board of Regents? Whether the letters are real or not doesn’t make a bit of difference in this context. He has said on the record that he thinks it’s a problem that too many not-white students go to college someplace. He hasn’t got the first or last bit of business on that board for another second. I’m not in MN so I don’t know if you have provisions for recalling Regents (we don’t in Pennsylvania, where I am) so the campaign would have to be a little different, but every minute that guy still has a seat on the Board buffers the consequences of his bigotry.
Being poor doesn’t make you a racist, or a gun fondler, or a fetus fetishist, an anti-LGBTQ bigot, an anti-intellectual, etc..
Once again, fuck you AND your family.
I’m late here. I just wanted to chime in to tell erik333 to take his transparent obtuseness and “reverse-racism” bullshit and shove it up his troll was and, of course, to fuck right off.
*troll ass.
UMN board of regents are volunteer positions, who are elected by the MN legislator. I’ve no doubt that there are many letters of complaint and phone calls coming into the University and Capitol about Mr Sviggum.
Clearly he is going to be resigning, since he can’t figure out why asking if the school is
too diversehas too many people who are not white like him, is offensive.You see, he isn’t racist, he just needs to speak up for that one letter writer(and a phone call) who claimed they weren’t sending their child to Morris because the non-white students are scary.
Those non white students are mostly Native American. Morris is fairly close to reservations in MN, both Dakotas, and Iowa.
@69 Gosh.. If only I could be so obtuse and self deluded as to be unable to follow the thread of a conversation of thus understand, “Who someone is talking too.” Hint – since its text, its not, “talking behind someone’s back”, but if it was in other context it might be. If that doesn’t help you work it out, you racist ass, I can’t help you. Go where ever you go when you are not trolling liberals, and jerk off with the rest of what ever echo chamber you normally haunt.
Since you are obviously stupid, I’ll make this so simple anyone could do it.
Look in a mirror.
What is looking back at you is trash.
You don’t have to be white to be trash.
You don’t have to be poor, dumb, or uneducated to be trash.
You have to be someone like you to be trash. A racist troll wasting people’s time and boring them.
You marginalized yourself by being a racist troll and living under rocks with the other trolls.
BTW, my point which you ignored still stands.
We whites are the majority in the USA and own and control almost everything.
That you can even imply that isn’t true is just a massive obvious lie.
When you look at the faces of the most powerful legislative body in the world, what looks back at you is 77% White and higher in percentage than the US population. QED