Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #ourcommonhumanity
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Here is the current, baroque, racial classification system used by the University of California.
universityofcalifornia.edu/sites/default/…
universityofcalifornia.edu/sites/default/…
The arbitrariness of these categories -- including the assignment of people from Djibouti, Sudan, and Somalia to the 'white' category -- should make all involved feel shamed that we have come to this.
And the university imposes a racial hierarchy too! Students can (rightly) indicate that they belong to more than one category, but then: "A student’s primary race/ethnicity is determined by the left-most column in the table above of all the categories selected."
I want to comment on the issue of free expression at art museums. In general, I don’t think art museums should *ever* yield to people demanding that work they find offensive be taken down. 1/
Museums do not have to put anything on display. They can choose what to display or not. There is no right to appear in a museum, and a museum choosing not to show work is not perforce problematic. 2/
But like disinvitations of invited speakers, if a museum yields to a vocal mob demanding something be taken down, it undercuts a crucial principle so necessary to art, artists, and museums. It’s best to defend this principle of freedom of expression. 3/
As someone who is studying ancient art and who loves modern art, this is one of my favorite pieces by @JeffKoons. The connections across millennia of art, sometimes deliberately referential, sometimes not, amaze me, and shed light on #ourcommonhumanity. 1/
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