OT: UConn student terrified by new husky dog logo
Well , it's not exactly the logo itself that "terrifies" Carolyn Luby, but the traits she sees represented by the new logo. As Luby, puts in her open letter to UConn president Susan Herbst,
Instead of giving ... problematic aspects of male athletic peer culture at UConn a second look or a giving the real face of athletics a true makeover, it appears that the focus of your administration is prioritizing the remodeling of the fictional face of the Husky Logo.
. . . .
What terrifies me about the admiration of such traits is that I know what it feels like to have a real life Husky look straight through you and to feel powerless, and to wonder if even the administration cannot “mess with them.”
http://thefeministwire.com/2013/04/an-open-letter-to-uconn-president-susan-herbst/
This is a serious psychologically damaging event. Obviously it shouldn't prejudice a person against an entire group they identify their assailant as a part of, but it will. Pretty much every time. Logic and reason are notoriously terrible at overcoming visceral fear and emotion in situations like this.
I would also argue that in the mind of a victim, the several cases she cites of unethical behavior going unpunished could easily represent evidence that the university essentially sanctioned her assault. To you and I this may seem like a clear misreading of the facts, but (unless you have something you'd like to share) we're not victims of sexual assault.
The main thing I would try to get across to you is that you shouldn't assume that if you were faced with this situation you would be able to handle it any more reasonably than she did. She's just another human being trying to cope with a terrible situation. She's now the laughingstock of the internet, and I don't think she deserves that.
Just found this article about the fallout from the Feminist Wire piece, and it confirms the author is a rape victim.
The news that she is being threatened for expressing her opinion is absolutely disgusting. The responses she received say a lot more about this issue than the contents of her letter.
I called her an idiot in a comment above. I do not think she's an idiot for being raped or for carrying the emotional scars of being raped. She's probably an intelligent woman, but her letter is idiotic on several levels. One, as I stated above, a university's decision to change an athetic department's logo is in no way related to rape. Two, she attacks the university for low APRs and a few criminal incidents involving athletes and assumes that the university is doing nothing about its problems because it created a new husky logo. Three, she is projecting her horrible experience onto all of the male athletes in the athletic department.
I was involved in intercollegiate athletics as a coach of an Olympic/non-revenue sport years ago. I coached men and women. Most of the young men I coached were wonderful young men who would not tolerate a rapist on their team. Although my sport was not an "agressive" sport, some of these young men played "aggressive" sports like football, basketball or hockey in high school and some did not. I did not look at some of my athletes and think, "Look at those potential rapists over there who played football growing up." That would be a generalization, and thus wrong.
Blanket generalizations about any group (athletes, Christians, Jews, Muslims, blacks, whites, etc.) are unproductive and harmful towards members of those groups. See Duke lacrosse.
Also, my background as a prosecutor has showed me that rapists and abusers come from a wide variety of backgrounds. The only thing they have in common is that they are pathetic losers.
If the university covered up this young woman's rape, then that is a huge problem that she should publicly speak out against. However, there are better ways than writing an article filled with innuendo about a husky logo. Regardless, the people who are threatening her are the biggest idiots here.
April 27th, 2013 at 12:55 AM ^
Of course the young lady's letter reveals emotional turmoil. God bless them all, there's too much toxic stress for young people these days.
Probably not exactly a perfectly balanced world for you or I as well.
Goodness knows, when you can find the gumption to write a formal complaint over a university athletics logo because somebody associated with university athletics once committed sexual assault, you're really a tortured soul exposed to the absolute worst times of humanity.
*Students attend school via radio from a bomb shelter in WWII England. They do not bitch about the pilots' decisions on erotic or misogynist aircraft nose art.
April 27th, 2013 at 10:17 PM ^
Your spell check is broken.
April 27th, 2013 at 12:39 PM ^
Stole this from another message board:
April 27th, 2013 at 12:39 PM ^
Stole this from another message board: