Mark Paul Responds to Grave Misrepresentation

The Article written by Mark Paul in response to Josh Grave's assembly speech:

Since there is no need to hide my annonimity because well frankly, everyone knows that I, Mark Paul, created the Caucasian Support Group.

Lets start off in the beginning. Back in assembly on October 20, J.C. Thomas told the student body that they had created an African-American Support Group on campus. He stated that the group was not racist, rather was like any other support group that could exist whether it be a male or female support group, alcohol, drugs, etc.

A group that outwardly distinguishes race as its main component is simply promoting racism, whether that's the groups intention ornot. So I knew I had to do something to make my voice heard. I thought at first about just going to certain faculty responsible for the group and simply stating my opinion, but let's be honest, I wouldn't have been heard. We all know I would have been blown off as quick as possible. One voice, generally does not make a difference on its own.

Therefore, I decided that I would use what ability I had to make my voice bigger. So I created the facebook group called the Caucasian Support Group. In no way is the group racist and I basically set the mission statement exactly worded as Thomas did in assembly. Before long there was over 100 people in the group.Obviously some people had a problem with the African-American Support Group as well. I knew that it would not be long after that I would face a group of pissed off people telling me that I'm racist.

First, I was talked to by the President of the Student Action Diversity Council. We talked for about half an hour and ultimately in a nutshell what I was told was that what I did was subversively racist and that if the group was not removed then Claude Huddleston and J.C. Thomas would be contacting me. I was told,"You don't want to have to sit through 4 hours of sensitivity training." said the President of SADC. Ultimately, I was threatened saying to take my group down or sit through hours of meetings where I'd be trained to no longer be a racist.

Now lets get one thing straight, I am no racist. I say neither support groups are positive, however, if one can exist, certainly the other can as well. My reason for creating the group was simply to draw awareness to how wrong the African-American group is. I then decided to call their bluff. I knew I wasn't doing anything wrong, and that I was just exercising my rights of free speech.

A few weeks later I was approached by Josh Graves to set up a meeting. We met Thursday before Friday's assembly and had a great chat. He basically said he wanted my side of the story and I gave it to him. In return he said that his talk would be very objective, approaching the issue from both sides. Does anyone else find it ironic that the word "objective" has turned into such a subjective word?

In the assembly Josh Graves quoted me as saying that I knew my group was wrong, it wasn't positive, and I was just doing it as a knee jerk reaction to the Black Support Group. Total misquote!

What I said was "I don't think either of the support groups are right. I didn't think what I did was positive but it was the only way I knew that I could draw attention to how ridiculous their group was."

Took a lot out of context didn't he! Shortly after he decided that it would be the "objective" thing to do in publicly saying that I was immature for making such a group. Wow, thank you objectivity! I think someone is confusing objectivity with the word,
O-P-I-N-I-O-N.

A lot of the talk had an underlying tone that, "Well they (refering to other members in the group and myself) were wrong for what they did and there was no point to this disgraceful act so if you're a good Christian then you'll get out."

Basically, the school did nothing to address this issue. The only thing that happened was people were verbally flogged for being in this group.

Cheers!

Mark

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What was Swept Under the Rug Months ago

Back in February, during Black History Month, a speaker was allowed to speak in assembly as a special guest of J.C. Thomas. The guest, Mr. McClain, gave a speech that even a number of non-Caucasian students experienced as an "angry attack on white people."

The real problem with the speech however, is when the "facts" in McClain's "inventor's section" was backtracked, it was found to be not only full of innaccuracies and even blatant lies, but the entire "A World Without Black People" section was plagiarized word for word from an anonymous internet email chain letter!

"Dean Cain,

On February 15, in Assembly, the speaker introduced by J.C. Thomas gave a speech in honor of Black History month. Normally assemblies have a spiritual message relevant to all who attend, but in this case it was exactly the opposite. The message had nothing spiritually relevant about it. The section of the speech that is particularly in question is the speaker’s summary of African-American inventions in his “A World without Black People” mini-speech. To be sure, we admire his basic argument: African-Americans have made America a better place to live in for all. However, the “A World without Black People” section of his speech betrays his motives in the most critical way. The original source of this fellow’s information was not his own work, but in fact an anonymous internet e-mail chain letter that has been circulating around the net for years. This letter is riddled with half truths and blatant lies, and much of what our assembly’s speaker said for that section was plagiarized word for word from the letter! Please see Snopes.com here for a critical analysis of his letter, as well as a later variant that has also been floating around the
internet you can find at this address: www.snopes.com/business/origins/blackinv.asp

The speaker in assembly, rather than seeking to create unity, apparently focused his attention only on what divided us as a people, instead of the Gospel that unites us. It seemed almost as if there were some political agenda behind his words. While this aspect of the speech is certainly troubling to us, the fact that a speaker and speech of such low credibility and intellectual honesty was allowed to be presented to us in an academic institution is even more distressing. As students of Rochester College, we are taught to question what we are told and critically analyze messages that are presented to us. Unfortunately, the speaker’s message wholly failed to pass this test. Imagine if we presented an anonymous internet e-mail chain letter as an academic source to our professors! Why then should an assembly speaker, speaking in front of the entire student body, be held to a lesser standard? While the contents of this letter are of grave importance to us, we hope it is understood that this letter has been written not because of hatred or antagonism towards the college, but rather that we are concerned for the direction in which this college is headed. We strongly believe that Rochester College should put academic integrity and intellectual honesty among its highest priorities. With that said, due to the respect we have for this college, we feel that it is only right for the college to apologize to its student body and seek some redressing of these concerns.

Sincerely,

Concerned Students of Rochester College"

This letter was sent to Dean Cain pointing out these difficulties, asking for the student body to be informed and apologized to. Dean Cain, however, responded by saying it was a policy "not to respond to anonymous communication" and any percieved reasons for anonymity were based upon faulty reasoning. That response has been discussed in detail here, and here.

Meanwhile, Calvin Moore had been discussing this situation (to a degree) with Tacitus and I, and gave us his assurance that the issues raised on this blog would not be as he said let off the hook.

Needless to say, it was let off the hook. There was, however an article written in the Shield about the issue, but this article profoundly misrepresented the situation, made blatant evasions, and glossed over the truth. It essentially praised McClain, ignoring the fact that McClain plagiarized the piece without giving any credit at all.

Aquinas