Talk:Water buffalo incident

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Water buffalo incident article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Philadelphia Low‑importance

	Philadelphia portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Philadelphia, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Philadelphia on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PhiladelphiaWikipedia:WikiProject PhiladelphiaTemplate:WikiProject PhiladelphiaPhiladelphia articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

University of Pennsylvania Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject University of Pennsylvania, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of University of Pennsylvania on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.University of PennsylvaniaWikipedia:WikiProject University of PennsylvaniaTemplate:WikiProject University of PennsylvaniaUniversity of Pennsylvania articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Notability Tag

Shouldn't this be folded into the University's article? =David^(talk)_(contribs) 15:33, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, I don't think it should. The incident itself is relatively notable, and received a lot of press attention. I've heard it singled out since then, as a prime example of well-meaning legislation or rulemaking run amok. Although the incident involves the University of Pennsylvania, it's not about the university, and thus should be on a separate page. –Kadin2048 20:01, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What did he actually say?

Did he say beheima, or did he say water buffalo? The way I heard the story is that he said beheima, and they looked it up in the dictionary and found that it meant water buffalo. If that is the case, the article should be corrected in accordance. --Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.123.115.53 (talk) 15:37, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Right, because the first thing black people do when they're upset at being scolded for being noisy is run and grab a Hebrew dictionary -- Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.213.142.170 (talk) 03:36, 26 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

What I remember at the time is that he said it in English.

By the way, one reason why the case ultimately went down in flames was that everybody who lied got off scot-free, while Jacobowitz was put through a whole long excruciating ordeal for telling the truth (not the most inspiring example of the use of campus investigations and proceedings...). AnonMoos (talk) 09:41, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

2021

What did they lie about? -- Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.123.84.97 (talk) 08:49, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

About whether or not they had yelled down at the Black students. AnonMoos (talk) 01:41, 8 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

what has this got to do with anything?

Small town Picayune gossip columns shouldn't be included as standalone main articles in an encyclopaedic work. This is written in a reactionary tone as well, and should either be linked to a larger theme (free speech, PC, etc) or folded into a larger main article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.13.42.100 (talk) 19:03, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As you can see from the footnotes, this event merited a full article in NYTimes and is the subject of a scholarly book from a major publishing house. Definitely more than a nothing event that only mattered in the local tabloids or school papers. DMacks (talk) 19:06, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Shadow University paragraph

I don't have the full facts necessary to clarify the following exchange, but it seems nonsensical to me as stated:

"Was the statement racist?"

"The issue is not whether I have or not..."

Can somebody fix it? 108.1.70.95 (talk) 11:08, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Also noticed that... AnonMoos (talk) 19:37, 28 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the original at http://www.shadowuniv.com/excerpts-wb1.html -- AnonMoos (talk) 20:17, 28 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

On NBC Nightly News, Sara James asked Larry Moneta, "Have you ever heard of 'water buffalo' being used as a racial slur?" He replied: "The issue is not whether I have or not. The issue is also, you know, language in my mind is neutral. It's a question of the context in which is language is used."42 (Two years later, when Penn abolished its speech code, the same Larry Moneta would dutifully go before the media to declare that "At Penn, all speech is free.")

Limbaugh

According to Will Bunch in his book about US tertiary education, Rush Limbaugh fanned the flames of this issue, keeping it a national ïssue. 2600:6C67:1C00:5F7E:71AF:59EB:AAF8:AC69 (talk) 18:59, 8 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If you're trying to imply that only hard-right conservatives had problems with UPenn's handling of the case, then that's quite false. AnonMoos (talk) 20:10, 9 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Refinement of Kafka-esqueness

Should mention that at one point the University imposed a gag order on Jacobowitz and Kors, then publicly denied that it had imposed a gag order. This was kind of symbolic of the University's whole bizarre and inherently rigged approach, which could have given Kafka some pointers... AnonMoos (talk) 18:56, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]