Black Mizzou football players go on strike

Probably because: A) these facts really aren't all that relevant to the story that unfolded; and 2) there's no way they could be verified anyway. I think you're barking up the wrong tree here, YF. Campus controversies happen for all sorts of reasons, many of which it'd be impossible to nail down.

As to your first question, from where I sit this whole thing unfolded the way it did because the students were emboldened -- you might even say used -- by a faculty that had its own ax to grind. The UofMo faculty had been pissed a long time about the system president and the campus chancellor, and these protests gave the faculty a way to get done what they couldn't accomplish through normal channels.

 

Ah, the ol' "Rolling Stone Defense."

 

How exactly does the president change this in any way, shape or form?
How do you get people to stop being racist f**ks?
You don't.
I mean, I guess he could have come out when news of this broke and said "U Guise. Srsly. Stops da racism now pease."
But I don't think that would have changed anything.

 

YF, you've now been given *two* perfectly satisfactory answers to your "why?" questions and simply brushed them aside and re-asked the question. These are not the actions of a man who is genuinely asking questions. These are the actions of a concern troll who wants to imply an answer without having actually stated it for whatever silly rhetorical advantage that might afford him.

 

This story doesn't require Sharpton to help write the narrative.

This didn't happen to some random student, who doesn't know how the media and politics work.

It just happened to happen to the Student Body President, with an activist history, and political experience:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/paytonhead

Pretty convenient.

 

How do you keep a president when the perception of the school is being dragged through the racist mud, especially if it seems he has done nothing substantive to try to address the concerns?

What does that do to enrollment, prestige, donations, etc.? (Not to mention the football threat, which probably forced things much sooner than everything else combined.)

 

Why don't they just make the student body president the new system president? Problem solved.

 

What would be substantive?
Awareness classes? A PR campaign? A candlelight vigil? A seminar or two? A weekend of diversity training for all students and staff?
Nothing that guy, or anyone who even thinks about taking that position, does will ever stop a racist in a moving vehicle from shouting racist things if that racist feels like it.

 

Past incidents have no bearing on the facts, or lack thereof, in Head's story.

In fact, like with "rape advocacy" folks who pushed the Jackie story, the fact that previous incidents didn't lead to action could be the very thing that could cause someone like Head to invent his own incident.

Head is an activist.

He's the perfect vehicle for this story, whether it happened or not.

 

And he got someone else to go on a hunger strike. Brilliant!

 

So the president and chancellor of the university were forced to resign because one student made up a story about unknown persons in a pickup truck yelling racial slurs at him.

That's where you're coming from?

 

Rick, I think it's very possible the story is false.

If it's false, that's a big deal.

Even after everything that's happened as a result, no one has gone back and re-reported the original incident.

That strikes me as putting the story above the facts. The media likes this story. They have no motivation to learn if it's true, and every motivation to avoid learning if it is false.

And, so we end up with a "Rolling Stone", who-cares-if-it's-true attitude.