Poison Ivy League

I know two people who attended Yale. One is an economist I worked with and drank bourbon with in another lifetime. The other is a good friend and cycling buddy who is a physician. However I don’t think either of them attended any lectures like this from last April 6:

A flyer promoting the lecture and posted online revealed the title, “The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind”

That got my attention. I thought being Caucasian doomed me to look hopelessly foolish on the dance floor and the basketball court. I didn’t realize it also came with embedded psychosis.

The lecturer was Dr. Aruna Khilanani, a psychiatrist from New York. Here is part of what she said:

She told a Yale School of Medicine audience that she had fantasies of “unloading a revolver into the head of any White person” that got in her way.

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Dr. Aruna Khilanani made the remarks at the Ivy League institution’s Child Study Center on April 6, adding that she’d walk away from the shooting “with a bounce in my step” and that White people “make my blood boil” and “are out of their minds and have been for a long time”

Undergraduate tuition at Yale runs $55,000 per year, but a quality education doesn’t come cheap. And neither does administrative CYA. The official reaction:

“Yale School of Medicine expects the members of our community to speak respectfully to one another and … does not condone imagery of violence or racism against any group”.

It took a very well compensated public relations specialist to issue such a firm rebuke. Put that tuition money to good use.

Does anyone remember the fable about the emperor’s new clothes? A con man told the emperor that this was a special suit that only very sophisticated people could see and appreciate. Then since no one wanted to look a fool everyone pretended to admire the fine raiment until finally one innocent boy declared ‘but he is wearing nothing at all!’.

I would like to say what I really think about this lecture and lecturer, but I lack the courage of the boy in the tale.