One of the weirdest stories of last year was the mysterious tale of the noose found on the door of a Teachers College professor at Columbia University, an African-American woman who claims to be a scholar of “racial micro-aggression” — which is to say, events like someone hanging a noose on the door of an African-American.
Her name is not Tawana Brawley. It’s Madonna Constantine. But you might be forgiven for confusing the two.
After Constantine revealed the supposedly monstrous crime, Columbia erupted in protests. The administration vowed to find the evildoer. The NYPD got involved. Columbia began acting oddly, refusing to cooperate with the NYPD. The NYPD produced a subpoena for the films from surveillance cameras in the hallway. They came up with nothing.
Then, suddenly, the NYPD announced it was closing the investigation. Columbia University, the parent of Teachers College, went silent. We learned the professor in question, Madonna Constantine, had a history of provocative acts, including a confrontation with a colleague whom she had sued for defamation.
Now, Teachers College has sanctioned Dr. Constantine for plagiarism — the conclusion of an investigation that dates back, it turns out, to 2006:
Teachers College of Columbia University confirmed today that it has sanctioned Professor Madonna Constantine after an internal investigation found numerous instances in which she used others’ work without attribution in papers she published in academic journals over the past five years. The investigation, which began in 2006, was prompted by complaints from students and one former faculty member who said language from materials they wrote was included without attribution in the articles.
Constantine, predictably, responded to this by wondering whether a “white person” would be treated this way. It is difficult not to draw the conclusion that Constantine discovered the writing was on the wall last October, that she was going to be caught out as a plagiarist, and that she dangled the noose from her own office doorknob as a way to make it impossible for Columbia to punish her.
Thus, the parallel with the Tawana Brawley case. Terrified she was going to be punished by her stepfather for a night out with a boy, Brawley staged her own false rape and claimed it had been at the hands of white attackers. It was a monstrous lie. But at least Brawley was seventeen at the time. Madonna Constantine is 44. And will soon be out of a job.
Europe.
Growing up, for me it was the place where educated, wealthy, well-mannered and eminently stylish people supported to the death hateful, genocidal leaders or weak, feckless appeasers who took their societies over a cliff.
After many a World War II film I would lay awake asking myself in horror, over and over again, “How could this happen? How could these people have done that?” And, “Could that happen here, in my country, to my family?”
Day by day we’re seeing the answer to those questions. Yes, Virginia, there is a deranged apologist for genocide working as a “human rights” advocate for the Global Ministry of Peace being quoted unironically in a publication of the Ministry of Truth.
Considering it was Europeans who perpetrated the Holocaust, it doesn’t surprise me that their media are so anxious to prepare the psychological ground for a resumption of the task. What sickens me, as one who was born in the UK and who is proud of (most of) my homeland’s history and the principles for which the country once stood, is how the media and elites there now seem willing to join the maniacs on the Continent in their demonizing of the Jewish state. The mainstream media here in my adopted homeland of Canada are not much better (with an honorable pass for The National Post), but so far I don’t believe — I can’t bring myself to believe — that they yet represent Canadian popular opinion.
gee, max – are you kidding me?
please show me ‘balanced’ coverage from europe on israel anytime since 9/11/01 from the so-called
‘elite media’…?
By the way, if people writing in a financial publication are so out of touch with reality, it doesn’t bode well for the global economy.
Good to see tenure at work. As to European media coverage, if not in general, it is lamenting a lost cause.
You forgot to call Falk and anti-semite. Maybe your anti-Israel is the new anti-semite.
Nevertheless, I agree on one thing. I agree that there are alternative universes, as you say. Your, and this magazine, view and the rest of the world. Of course, you hold a unique perception that makes your opinion immutably true. To you that is.
The only explanation for Europe’s cyncical condemnation of Israel is deep seated anti-Semitism and a ugly resurgence of the medieval blood libel. As David Mamet said, “”The world was told Jews used this blood in the performance of religious ceremonies. Now, it seems, Jews do not require the blood for baking purposes, they merely delight to spill it on the ground.”
Tzvi ben Rachmiel Says:
“The only explanation for Europe’s cyncical condemnation of Israel is deep seated anti-Semitism and a ugly resurgence of the medieval blood libel”.
yes. so it is. but remember, that behind the concept of ” anti-semitism “, lies a hatred. a genuine, down to the roots, in your face, frantic loathing of everything israeli. just now spreading and strangling the debate, athmosphere all over in europe.
this is for real, this time. and it’s really, really ugly, this time ,too !
there’s a great bob dylan-song, called ” neighborhood bully “. take a look at the text. makes you ripe and clean.
shabbat shalom
Israel is actually showing superhuman restraint in the application of firepower
On the contrary, Israel is deliberately targeting civilians, both directly and through the destruction of humanitarian relief efforts. Gaza is a modern-day Warsaw Ghetto. The abused child has become a blood thirsty, genocidal monster.
Is this from the anti-semitic European media?
Open your eyes.
John Hartland;
I didn’t know psychiatric hospitals allow patients to post on the internet. Is it therapeutic for you?
Remember to take your medications. LOL
“Israel is actually showing superhuman restraint in the application of firepower, at least as compared to previous counterinsurgencies waged by the U.S. in Vietnam,” Careful dude, you don’t want to sound like Jonathan Pollard!
“Israel is actually showing superhuman restraint in the application of firepower”
Far too much restraint. And it won’t be appreciated.
Israel couldn’t be called any worse names if it showed
less restraint…
In for a penny, in for a pound.
The firebombing of Tokyo on 10/03/1945
killed 100 thousand people in one night.
FDR was responsible.
If the Israelis did that to Gaza, who would they be
compared to – Roosevelt, McArthur?
And if they did a Hiroshima there, would they be compared to Truman?
That would be an improvement, because they are now compared
to the Nazis – for no reason at all…
Of course, had America lost WWII, Roosevelt would be now
considered a war criminal. But we won – and the Japanese
are our friends now.
The way to win hearts and minds is to win.
Restraint in war is only good if it does not interfere with the one
indispensable imperative: victory.
#13: correction:
I should have typed 03/10/1945: the night from March 9 to March 10, 1945.
Interesting that the Financial Times story discussing Israel’s bombings of mosques and schools didn’t even add the line “which israeli sources claim hid arms dumps.” The writer has to know that the Israelis make such assertions, even if he chooses to disbelieve them. The omission has to be intentional.
The Israelis are being smarter about hasbara this time around so the writer, or anyone else, could go to the internet and see videos of missiles hitting, say, a mosque, producing the primary explosion and then secondary explosions which prove the existence of explosives.
But it doesn’t seem to be doing much good and I hope the Israelis won’t at some point decide “the hell with it” and just do what they have to do without regard to civilian casualties. Of course even the current wave of attacks, we are informed, will do nothing but produce hatred among the Palestinians. Presumably, that would replace the good will and compromising nature they previously displayed.
Golly, all this free Freudianity! Neocomrade M. Boot points out that Prof. Falk [*] is, well, a bit of a nut job, and Neocomrade #11 Jaywhite emulates his _muqallad_ as regards poor Mr. Hartland.
Well, far be that silly parlour game from me. When it comes to Neocomrade #15 A. Bensky, you won’t catch me diagnosing pathology merely because a mind that can forge and utter
“Of course even the current wave of attacks, we are informed, will do nothing but produce hatred among the Palestinians. Presumably, that would replace the good will and compromising nature they previously displayed”
is not instantly congenial. Though I have seem to have mislaid the crackerjack box containing my Leo-Strauss-Brand Magic Decoder Ring, that passage does look like it might possibly come to something like “Clashism Forever!” in plaintext.
Nothing nutty about that message, necessarily, unless wingnutty counts too — which it does not.
However without hearing the neocomrade’s tone of voice, one can not be certain how to understand him. That “we are informed” may or may not be a sarcasm at the expense of outsiders to Wingnut City and Rio Limbaugh. It may even be a sort of intentional anacolouthon, Pilate set out to sneer but got distracted because he does not, after all, think the information is wrong or fantasize that Tel Avîv has in fact been winnin’ native hearts and minds by leaps and bounds over the course of Operation Tin Soldier. [**]
Happy days.
___
[*] Oh, well, Princeton!
[**] Passing over the shoddy but suggestive philology, notice that some neocomrades do seriously believe what I am trying not to accuse #15 A. Bensky of believin’. “Arabs respect nothing but force” is, I think, the way these good folks express themselves most often. Since there has been a higher force-to-Arab ratio during Operation Tin Soldier than ever before, clearly there must — on the hypothesis mentioned — be more respect than ever. Q.E.D.
Of course that is the sort of technically impeccable reasonin’ that invites armchair Freudianisation from the left.
But as I said, you won’t catch *me*.
After 60 years of conflict in the Middle East you would be a fool or liar if you believe that Israel has great intentions of not targeting civilians.
One way to get Arab villagers to leave their homes in 1948 is through terror. Today it’s the same, except that TV cameras are always on, so Israel says, “we hit this UN sanctuary by mistake”.
If they target terrorists exclusively, then the civilian casualties would be much much lower. The high figure is a way to instill fear in the natives.
BIG PICTURE