The poop swastika: real or phantom?
When I wrote my first post on the University of Missouri racism flap, I included these observations:
And if the origins of that [excrement] swastika are anything like many such incidents in the recent past at other universities, the perpetrator could actually have been one of the protesters or a sympathizer. For example:
…Chuck Ross of the Daily Caller News Foundation broke the story that a number of supposed racial incidents at Oberlin College in Ohio this spring [2013] were, in fact, a hoax. Oberlin certainly took the incidents seriously, even canceling classes on March 5 to convene a “day of solidarity.” However, Oberlin city police reports obtained by Ross made it clear that at least some of the material that had Oberlin up in arms, including a large swastika banner that was hung in the science center under cover of night, was in fact done by one or two Oberlin students as a “joke/troll to get an overreaction, in the context of the racist crap that has been going on on campus.”
As an example of joking or “trolling,” the latter of which is loosely defined as “deliberately provoking people in order to get an angry response,” putting up a swastika banner, hanging up anti-Muslim flyers, printing out “niggermania” cards, etc. is in spectacularly bad taste. It’s not funny, it helped put the entire Oberlin community in an uproar, it alarmed many students and faculty members, and it’s morally obtuse…
Oberlin is not the only campus that has suffered in recent times from hate incident hoaxes. New examples seem to pop up every year, sometimes more than once.
The article goes on to describe a number of fake “hate crimes,” not all of them racially tinged. That doesn’t mean the University of Missouri incidents are staged or faked; it means they need to be authenticated in some way, and it could be difficult to do so.
So I considered the idea that the poop swastika was actually an inside job, constructed as an attempt by the activists or their sympathizers to up the ante and spark more outrage. I didn’t, and still don’t, know for sure. But based on past experience and knowledge, as cited in those quotes, it would not have been surprising if was eventually determined to have been that sort of hoax.
However, what I did not consider, but what Sean Davis has devoted this piece in the Federalist to, is that the swastika never even existed in the first place.
I had assumed that the existence of the swastika had been confirmed by someone official and documented in some way: a dorm advisor, the campus police, a person with a cellphone. But apparently not, as Davis writes:
Although Donley did not respond to repeated requests for comment prior to publication, The Federalist spoke with two RHA staffers while trying to get in touch with Donley. Neither had personally witnessed the poop swastika. When asked if there was any photographic evidence of the alleged incident, one staffer replied, “Not to my knowledge.”
Frankie Minor, the director of residential life at Mizzou, did not respond to repeated requests for comment on whether he personally saw the poop swastika or any photographic evidence of it.
The Federalist also attempted to contact Christian Basi, the associate director of the University of Missouri News Bureau, who previously told the Columbia Missourian on Oct. 30 that the incident had been immediately reported to Mizzou police. Basi did not respond to requests for comment prior to the publication of this article.
Calls to the University of Missouri Police Department, which responded to and investigated the alleged poop swastika incident, also failed to yield any evidence of the poopstika.
There’s more in that vein. It’s always possible something will turn up to make it clear the thing did exist. But so far, Davis has tried to locate such evidence, and failed.
But that’s emblematic of every single part of the Missouri “narrative.” Much of it seems to rest on reports by people who are already invested in activist politics. The most credible of these reports is the one where a group said that a single drunken white male (who may or may not have been a student) called them the n-word. How incidents like these could ever be totally prevented or controlled by any college administration, however dedicated it might be to inclusion and diversity and every other liberal principle in the book, remains to be articulated.
But more importantly, as with allegations of sexual harassment, accusers no longer have to prove anything; the court of public opinion is the only court that matters, and it’s controlled by those with an agenda.
[ADDENDUM:Here’s a fairly good summary of the weaknesses of all the evidence, from a commenter at Ace’s. Another commenter there had this to say about the swastika: “I call bullshit.”]
Ben Shapiro at The Daily Wire writes that of the four supposed incidents of racial bias at Missouri, three are lacking evidence. Michelle Malkin has also written at great length in the past on hate-crimes hoaxes perpetrated on various campuses over the years. At the same time, no-one seems to care about the crimes committed by members of the Missouri football team very recently, not to mention the stabbing murder, not many miles away from Columbia, of a young white woman by two black eighth-graders.
99% of what the Left accuses you of doing, they did it first.
@ Ymar, that ‘s an Alinsky rule for radicals *accuse your opponent of what you yourself do *
I have read your posts, Neo, and found them
informative, thought provoking, and disturbing.
Certainly, the Left seems to be more organized and committed.
Why doesn’t the MSM report these VITAL facts?
Cornhead:
Poop swastika: fake, but accurate?
Oh, my chromebook seems to have its on agenda.
I wanted to say that part of that is because most on the right are busy living their lives.
But, we better wake up and understand that we are in a war. Mostly a cold war now, but that is changing
Corn should try calling the MSM crazy. Maybe that’ll work.
I wanted to say that part of that is because most on the right are busy living their lives.
They’re busy patting themselves on the back for falling for Leftist propaganda and claiming Carson is a liar.
Like some people we know.
Thinking through “means, motive, and opportunity” as a baseline for analysis, I’m often quick to suspect fabrications in these incidents that conveniently align with leftist causes. Even admitting that bias, this case in Missouri was exceptionally notable for the lack of reporting and lack of available details about the events that supposedly have caused all this outrage.
Another notable development is the guidance issued today by the University police asking for specific information related to these type of incidents. Most commentators see cause for concern, but I read this as the police pleading for reports adequate to provide a starting point for investigation – which appears to have been totally lacking in at least two of the three incidents at Missouri.
The link to the police statement is: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/11/10/missouri-u-police-call-us-about-harmful-or-hurtful-speech/
As someone who works in facilities: if there is ever biological mess to clean up, it involves a LOT of paperwork. The people cleaning it need to have been trained (it’s not much training) and you gotta wear disposable tyvek, you gotta fill out forms, blah blah, etc., etc., and NO ONE WANTS to clean it — it goes to the person who draws the short straw, and there’s a lot of standing around trying to determine the poor unfortunate who draws the short straw. So if there was poop on a DORM wall — a wall on UNIVERSITY property, even if it was just some idiot with loose bowels, there WOULD be some evidence, some witness.
Lee:
Excellent point. I hadn’t thought of that.
Art project conflated with other events
I just reread your title (again)
what is the world coming to when the concept “Phantom Poop Swastika” is topical?
And just to make it a bit more interesting, given Christianity biblical ideas:
The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
So this cant be the first or last phantom poop swastika
biblically speaking
oy…
Artfldgr:
As I typed the title of this post, I was thinking something like I can’t believe this is what I’m writing about.
Sheee-it if a gram of poop (without regard to species) contaminates a watershed claimed by the bho EPA , their goons dressed in kevlar, totting submachine guns, will break down your door in the middle of the night, stomp your cat to death, and mace/taser you after throwing a flash bang into your bedroom. Show me a photo of the crap swastika or STFU.
Yep, the guy from The Federalist should try to contact someone in housekeeping. If there had been poop on the wall, they WILL know.
Hell, where I work, if anything yucky comes up, like working in the gross anatomy lab, it’s a huge topic of conversation. Of someone scrawled something in excrement, it worked been the topic of a hella lotta meetings.
Though I suspect the RA would’ve known if it had REALLY happened. Can you imagine one college age kid walking into a room with poop smeared on the wall and thinking, “Yuck! That’s disgusting! I’ll just go ahead and clean it up so no one else is discomfited.”
Just the VERY MECHANICS of it — make one sceptical.
Plus, it would contain some extremely incriminating DNA.
I can’t imagine ANY college administration not hounding out the perp — for expulsion.
blert:
You write, “Just the VERY MECHANICS of it – make one sceptical.”
Could you please explain in more detail 🙂 ?
So, it was crap after all.
In terms of Freudian theory of psychosexaul development it appears that the Democrat activists who made up the story about the poop swastika are stuck in the anal stage of development (age 18-36 months). I don’t usually put much stock in Freudian psychology but in the case of the University of Missouri activists the good doctor’s theories seem to be spot on.
Marijuana and other drugs the Left use to help them mind control the masses, allows emotional maturation to be “frozen” when taken before 25 years of age.
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neo-neocon Says: Artfldgr: As I typed the title of this post, I was thinking something like I can’t believe this is what I’m writing about.
and look how good it was to get out of your comfort zone… (how do i put up rolling eyes emoticon or face palm emoticon?)
found it:
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even better, a throwback to the 1970s and 80s
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darn filter took out the spaces… sorry
i will stick with the emoji
Who chiseled the phalluses off the Herms?
Now then: let’s off to Syracuse! We can dispose of that thick squat philosopher later.
So who’s is going to hire University of Missouri radical?
What NFL team is going to jump at the chance to have a Mizzou football player prime and ready to strike?
You get where I’m going with this?
Good luck University of Missouri grads.
Send your kids into an institution filled with Marxists and other fools, what can you expect? Most of them are going to fit into the silly millieu.
College is a racket. Read some of Gary North’s comments on it (e.g. on lewrockwell.com).
Don’t worry, most kids will grow up once they get out of there.
This is a textbook SJW attack. From Vox Day’s SJWs Always lie:
1. Locate or Create a Violation of the Narrative (swastika, uncorroborated and/or biased accounts of racial insults)
2. Point and Shriek (Facebook posts by student body pres)
3. Isolate and Swarm (president of university, create activist group to attack)
4. Reject and Transform (admin acknowledging acts are bad not good enough, now about “institutional racism”)
5. Press for Surrender (demands for firings/resignings, hunger strike)
6. Appeal to Amenable Authority (get football team involved as useful idiots)
7. Show Trial (denunciations about “response”, declare guilty for not overreacting to demands)
8. Victory Parade (“can i get some muscle?”)
And my own addition here:
9. Rinse and Repeat (student body pres tries again with alleged KKK sighting.)
To these folks, it doesn’t really matter how serious the violation of the Narrative is because if they don’t have one, they’ll make one. Because it’s not about race or justice or safety–it’s about power, and this is their script. They’ll stop following it only when it stops working.
Lewrockwell didn’t mention how much of the Left’s propaganda they helped push in 2005.