"Just Sayin" Eliminated from ISU Daily

[CyBer]

I don't get the interperatation of "squintey's" meaning squirrels? Could somebody elaborate one that one for me?

And though I agree that it is sad, but I think it is correct in saying that a ton of the students picking up the paper just look to those. (Again, this doesn't mean I think that's fine). But does it really matter? The students get the paper free anyway. So even if less students pick it up now it's irrelevent.

I call chipmunks squinteys.....

[GrindingAway]

Reminds me of a funny ISU Daily error when I was in school. There was apparently a long standing joke between the writers and editors of the daily where they put funny things in the captions for the editors to catch. One morning I opened up the daily to see a picture of a guy I knew on the front page sitting at a computer with the following caption...

John Smith (name changed) stalks twelve year girls over the internet from a Carver computer lab.

Apparently the editors were supposed to catch that one, but it slipped through.

[Boxerdaddy]

"Just had a staring contest with a ground squirrel. They're fearless."

That makes more sense than if the quote was referencing a person? Having a staring contest with a ground squirrel seems pretty stupid to me.

"Saw a ground squirrel in the building. The invasion has begun."

This one actually makes sense. But it makes just as much sense if it were referencing a person who's not from here.

I haven't read the full story, so those two quotes may make more sense in context. But stand-alone, they still make sense if they were referring to a person.

Have you ever seen a ground squirrel? If not then I can maybe understand. It's a silly quote but one that any student should be able to relate to...assuming that student has ever walked across campus.

This is just dumb imo. The only people that are offended are showing their ignorance. Not saying that they are ignorant but we are championing their lack of understanding...while bashing OUR apparent lack of understanding (false imo). I'm going to go watch Idiocracy and see how close we are to fulfilling that destiny. And that is a movie...don't want anyone mis-interpreting this. and by this I mean the term Idiocracy...which is a movie.

[Ms3r4ISU]

I'm from the farm but we always called ground squirrels 'grennies.' We may have been negatively referring to people from grenada however.

I don't remember calling them anything but "ground squirrels" (except when we were talking about chipmunks, but that's another issue altogether) until one of my friends in high school called them "grinnies." I had to ask what she said several times, and then what she meant.

[benman82]

I've always called baby squirrels squinnies

[4Cyclones]

This all happened while there was a debate in letters to the editor section that featured some, if not racist, then offensive opinions about Asians. That debate itself started with a letter that pointed out some definitely racist memes on that facebook page. And being a student at Iowa State, I can tell you that there are a lot of people that are just casually offensive towards Asians. Not saying there is rampant racism, we're a tolerant community; it's just that there's a problem that goes beyond the "oh, they're just being funny" excuse.

So, in an environment with that debate happening in the paper, it's easy to understand why the Daily experienced such a volatile response. Having grown up in Iowa, I know the term squinny as referring to a ground squirrel. But I would wager that most people here do not, and that the first thing they would assume "squintey" to be is a slur towards Asians. Think if you had never heard the term squinny before.

The Daily is doing what it needs to do, at least for now. Actually, they're going beyond that and trying to start a positive debate about the issue of racism. Maybe a bit of an overreaction on the Just Sayin's, but it says a lot that they're willing to do that - they know that a lot of students like that section.

This and the the fact that someone unfamiliar with the term altogether may interpret squintey as squint eye. No offense intened but non local (alot) of people / students could see that as a racist comment if they are unfamiliar with the ground squirrel "sqinney", with is ironically a smaller version of the squirrel family, which could also be found offensive too. Sorry, I just didn't know if some of you were seeing that relation.

[ZachsterPoke]

I see the relation, but considering the actual meaning is harmless (squirrels/chipmunks), the real issue is that the complaining students/faculty assumed the real meaning was derogatory and took offense at it, causing this whole uproar.

So, it's not that students are racist towards Asians. It's that those students/faculty don't know/understand midwestern terms and can't live with them.

[SenorCy]

Trembling bodies. Quivering lips. Tear-stained cheeks. This is what racism looks like, and it is here at Iowa State.

Racial slurs in Daily reveal racism at Iowa State - Iowa State Daily: News
If people are seriously that upset about that, they must live a pretty sheltered life.

[KFitzy87]

Pardon me, but how is this so bad? If a caucasian male/female got called a "cracker", I'd say 97% or more would just shrug it off. I'm completely against discrimination, but sticks, stones, words and you get the idea

[CycloneNorth]

Pardon me, but how is this so bad? If a caucasian male/female got called a "cracker", I'd say 97% or more would just shrug it off. I'm completely against discrimination, but sticks, stones, words and you get the idea

Think of it more as how everyone acts around cacaus when some people get offended when some national new's guy says Iowa sucks (I'm paraphrashing of course). You could probably search CF and find a few threads about this bothering people.

[agrabes]

I see the relation, but considering the actual meaning is harmless (squirrels/chipmunks), the real issue is that the complaining students/faculty assumed the real meaning was derogatory and took offense at it, causing this whole uproar.

So, it's not that students are racist towards Asians. It's that those students/faculty don't know/understand midwestern terms and can't live with them.

This is not a midwestern term or even an Iowa term. This is an extremely localized term that only a few people from the immediate Des Moines area know. I never heard it spoken even once when I was at ISU and I saw plenty of ground squirrels. The vast majority of ISU students don't know and could not logically associate that word with squirrels by thinking about it. You can't play the game of blaming the listeners, because there is no other logical way they could interpret "squinty." It's basically the equivalent of cracker = squirrel. The "racist" version might not be extremely bad or negative, but it's still the obvious interpretation and it is a racial term.

That said, I agree that if the person did mean to refer to squirrels (and we aren't sure they did) then they did not make a racist comment. However, I frequently heard the same kind of comments being made using a lot clearer language when I was still in school. There are a good number of people out there who do not like the recent influx of Chinese students at ISU (and Iowa for that mater) over the past few years.

[KFitzy87]

Think of it more as how everyone acts around cacaus when some people get offended when some national new's guy says Iowa sucks (I'm paraphrashing of course). You could probably search CF and find a few threads about this bothering people.

I get what you're trying to say, but saying "Iowa sucks" is completely different from saying "Iowa is a bunch of hicks"... In one you're blatantly calling out someone/something and in the other you're making a generalization (though it may not always be true)... I guess it's just my opinion that some people take comments wayyyy too personally and that leads to too much conflict sometimes

[MissouriCyclone]

In my physics recitation today there were about 2-3 girls that apparently didn't get the memo about the Just Sayin's gone. One girl explained that the word "squinty" was making fun of Asians and that it was stupid. They all laughed it off and kept talking about how dumb it was, even if they were talking about the Asian student population. I then noticed that 4 Asian male students sitting next to them not even caring about what they were saying. It was almost like it didn't even phase them. My neighbor is Asian-American and my room mate is Asian American and both of them don't even care. I understand it being a bad thing, but come on. I sometimes get offended by some opinion people on the ISD, but does that mean I'm going to ***** about it? Like many others have stated here, if that's the worst thing that's going to happen to you, I would love that life.

On another note I won't be picking up the ISD. Only reason I used to last semester was to light my charcoal for my tailgate at football games.

[Goothrey]

I don't know about you guys, but I call squirrels, squirrels.

I can easily see both sides. Are people casually offensive to asians here? Yes. Do people overreact to things? Yes. Do I really care? Eh, not really.

I still enjoy the random facts.

[bostrem00]

I just feel like anything that could be possibly said....someone could somehow spin it into something derogatory or racist....