Talk:Ward Churchill

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[edit] Some? of the people killed in the WTC attack

Lulu, I thought we discussed this previously: the 2001 essay does not say "some of the people", it says "the people in the WTC". Kanguole (talk) 16:54, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

We had this discussion at least a half-dozen times in the archived talk. I cited the actual text of the article, that had that dependent clause about "those technocrats of empire" (or whatever the exact phrase, I don't have the book in front of me). The editor who recently put in "some of" is much more accurately capturing the Churchill essay itself (admittedly, I had let that wrong insinuation stay given all the other nonsense being inserted; but the edit recently made by Ianmacm is definitely an improvement on the prior text). LotLE×talk 21:11, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Here[1] is the edit where you removed a similar word the last time we discussed this, and that edit was well-founded (albeit cautious). The paragraph in question is quoted in On the Justice of Roosting Chickens, which also has an External Link to the whole essay (though the darknight site seems to have gone).
The essay does not contain anything that corresponds to "some of". There is no dependent clause; the text plainly equates those killed in the WTC with the "technocratic corps". Sure, that may have been a rhetorical trick, as noticing non-technocrat dead would have weakened his argument, but that's what he wrote, and the subject here is circulation of the essay. The article should faithfully describe the text of the essay. Replacing it with a sanitized interpretation will not help readers understand the subject. Kanguole (talk) 00:29, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure that misrepresenting the obvious intent of Churchill in writing the essay really helps readers understand the subject either. Of course this article isn't the first such (deliberate) misrepresentation of what Churchill actually wrote: almost everyone who knows about it knows the misrepresented version. Which I confess makes the right tone tricky; there's what the essay said, and there's what it was imagined to say, both of which have a slightly different relevance. If you can find a nuanced phrase that allows both... that would be great. LotLE×talk 02:16, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
How about: "...he said that people killed in the WTC..."Verklempt (talk) 02:55, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
I've tried edits in two places that I think bridge the gap. If I'm wrong, someone please be bold and revert me. I thought I had a flash of nuanced solution. If it was, rather, a flash of late-night indigestion, so be it. I won't be hurt. David in DC (talk) 04:52, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
At the heart of this issue is the following question: did Ward Churchill intend to say in the Roosting Chickens essay that all of the people who died in the WTC attacks, including the cleaners and caterers, deserve to die because they provoked the attacks? I don't profess to have a perfect answer to this question. Churchill has said that he did not intend this meaning, although he has refused to apologise unreservedly for the essay. Churchill's supporters have argued that the media has twisted his words, but saying "The financial workers deserved to die but the cleaners and caterers did not" would still be offensive in the eyes of many people. What is needed in the article is a form of wording that reflects all of this and avoids oversimplification, which has been a feature of some of the media coverage of the Churchill case. --♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 08:26, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
He has more than once clarified that he was talking about the bond traders and suchlike. See the pacifism as pathology talk/cd (AKPRESS) etc. Why is this still under debate? ----maxrspct ping me 20:24, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
The article ought to discuss what he actually wrote, the way it was used by his critics and what he and his supporters said he really meant. But it is a complicated story, and there's not room for it in the lead. I think the wording "people" (introduced by Lulu last year and now reinstated by David) is a reasonable compromise between "the people", which accurately reports the text but requires a mention of his later explanations, and "some of the people", which is not what he wrote and would also require more explanation. Over the history of this article, people add small positive or negative points to the lead, the other side responds by adding balancing points, which are seen as requiring further balancing additions by the party of the first part, and so on until the lead is a rambling mess. Let's not do that again; there's plenty of room in the body of the article. Kanguole (talk) 10:56, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
I recall a rumor on a FOX news segment 3 or 4 years ago about Ward Churchhill wasn't born in the United States, but in Egypt as his American parents were archaeologists based there. His self-claimed Native American (Cherokee, Choctaw or Creek?) ancestry is dubious if he can't officially proven it to the US census, the Cherokee Nation officials or the University of Colorado he supposedly got affirmative action points for. This is a controversial figure whose past is sketchy, but I don't wanna comment any further. + 71.102.53.48 (talk) 19:25, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
There is no truth to that rumor. Churchill's childhood is well-documented. He's from Elmwood, IL. His birth father was a high school teacher and his mother a housewife.Verklempt (talk) 21:51, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sloppy aspects

I edited a number of sloppy aspects to this entry, namely the citation of an Opinion column from a Colorado newspaper (hardly a legit resource) and several statements that were misleading at best, intentionally biased at worse. Whether one likes Churchill is irrelevant to need for being accurate when representing his position and the nature of said 'controversy' regarding his dismissal from UC. Furthermore, there are a number of references to the same set of newspaper writers in Colorado...a number of whom have been accused to falsifying evidence and exaggerating claims made against Churchill for political purposes. Whether this is indeed true is, again, irrelevant---it is important to at least mention this at some point in the entry Finally, I deleted reference to the 'so-called' blood quantum laws instituted by the US government. 'So-called' is a term used when the terminology or concept is under dispute, not when it is a matter of US policy that is thoroughly documented. Similarly, I think there was a reference to the 'so-called' genocide of Native Americans in the United States. This is hardly disputable and one would have to turn the (sic) 'scholarship' of White Nationalist hate groups to find an argument stating otherwise. Whoever wrote this sh-t needs to do their homework and stop trying to make subtle political points with their shoddy entries. You don't have to agree with people in order to write about them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Speckdog (talk • contribs)

(I hope you don't mind me putting this in a new section, because I think you're starting a new topic.)
On one of the points you've made above, it certainly is relevant whether it's true (or verifiable) that the DP and RMN reporters have been falsifying evidence and exaggerating claims regarding Churchill. Just saying that they've been accused of it (by whom?) is not sufficient justification for removing citations of their articles. Kanguole (talk) 12:46, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I think the point of the "so-called" is that even many mainstream sources that would readily admit that many Native Americans were murdered during US expansion would still not use the term "genocide" for that. Personally, I quite strongly think the word fits. However, reputable enough scholars (e.g. Lewy) disagree. LotLE×talk 04:11, 10 June 2008 (UTC)