Review of BingoBoingo's edits of Unpersoning piece

Original

Dean Erwin Chemerinsky(WoT:nonperson) archived, an agent of the propaganda arm of the ruling US regime, has moved to change the name of Boalt Hall from that of its current namesake, John Henry Boalt (archived). Elizabeth Boalt, whose husband was a well known Oakland attorney and served in the USG War on Slavery, had donated a sizeable sum of pre-hyperinflation US dollars to the school after his death in 1901. Mr. Boalt’s magnum opus, entitled “The Chinese Question,” had helped serve to all but stop Chinese colonists, known for their exam taking abilities, from entering the country for over half a century through bolstering support for the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which was not repealed until the Magnuson 1 Act in 1943 by then authoritarian president Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The move comes as the proportion of students with ties to the Communist Party of China, notorious for its ongoing campaign of genocide against China’s Uyghur and Tibetan populations, exceeded 17% of the 2019 University of California Berkeley freshman class, second only to the proportion of white students, which has declined to 21% (archived).

Published Version

Dean Erwin Chemerinsky (WoT:nonperson), a USG propagandist, has moved to change the name of UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall from that of its current namesake, John Henry Boalt (archived, archived). Elizabeth Boalt, whose husband was John Henry Boalt, an Oakland attorney and veteran of the War of Northern Aggression, donated a sizeable sum to the school after his death in 1901. A work by Mr. Boalt’s titled “The Chinese Question,” had helped serve to stop Chinese colonists, known for their exam taking abilities, from entering the US by bolstering support for the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Chinese exclusion in the US survived through Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1943 Magnuson Act.

The move comes as the proportion of students with ties to the Communist Party of China exceeds 17% of the 2019 UC Berkeley freshman class, second only to white students whose population declined to 21% (archived).

Edits

  • “an agent of the propaganda arm of the ruling US regime” -> “a USG propagandist”2
  • added “John Henry Boalt” to clause describing him in relation to his wife.3
  • changed “War on Slavery” -> “War of Northern Aggression”4
  • removed “had” from “had donated”5
  • “from entering the country for over half a century through bolstering support for the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which was not repealed until the Magnuson Act in 1943 by then authoritarian president Franklin D. Roosevelt.” -> “from entering the US by bolstering support for the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Chinese exclusion in the US survived through Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1943 Magnuson Act.”6
  • “notorious for its ongoing campaign of genocide against China’s Uyghur and Tibetan populations” deleted. 7
  • “which has declined” -> “whose population declined”8
  • “magnum opus” -> “A work by Mr. Boalt’s titled”9
  • linked WoT.
  1. I couldn’t figure out how to draw a clearer connection between the WWII era Swedes bringing in the Chinese vs. the current era Swedes bringing in the Somalis, and Al Franken, etc. []
  2. Much shorter and not much lost. []
  3. I do recall at the time I wrote this clause that I was afraid it wouldn’t be entirely clear to whom it referred. []
  4. I LoLed at the name I chose, makes sense to me. I liked it because it mocks the tendency of the USG to wage war on endemic social structures and not people, while also perhaps slipping under the radar of woke leftists enough to illustrate the hypocricy of the unpersoning of someone who put himself at some risk for the sake of a cause by by an anodyne bureaucrat. At the same time I am aware that “they’re the real racists” is weak rhetoric and the title BingoBoingo used (“Increasingly Chinese Berkeley Considering Appeasement By Chiseling Donor Name Off Building”) more aptly serves the purpose of pointing out the hypocricy by referencing appeasement towards national socialism, which is kind of what the Chinese government is, too. []
  5. Use of the pluperfect was not clearly necessary []
  6. Perhaps authoritarian was a pointless adjective, but I’m not clear on this. It may not have been necessary to highlight the length of time exclusion was enforced, given that dates were already included. “was not repealed” vs. “survived through”, BingoBoingo’s edit here is more concise. There may be something more but I’m not sure. []
  7. I knew this was, again, weak “they’re the real racists” rhetoric. As above, Bingo’s title attains the same end aptly. []
  8. No real need for the more wordy present perfect here. Also “whose” is a better relative pronoun in this case. []
  9. Perhaps magnum opus was over the top and judgmental. []

7 Responses to “Review of BingoBoingo's edits of Unpersoning piece”

  1. Diana Coman says:

    It's hypocrisy, not "hipocracy", since it's from a different root really, it's not a sort of demo-cracy only hippo-cracy or something and you supposedly even know Greek!

  2. thimbronion says:

    Diana Coman - I caught it but sadly only after published. In some sort of weird disconnectedness what I came up with would perhaps mean "rule by horse."

  3. BingoBoingo says:

    I'll address the edits as you noted them:

    The connection might not actually be clear enough to establish with a quick reference in a report. I can see space for a case to maybe be made, but it would require quite a bit more fleshing out.
    Yeah, that had to get trimmed. The labeling was rather heavy, and didn't need the precision original construction offered. Can't bury the story inside its own framing.
    Clarity was indeed needed in the other direction.
    This is actually a rather serious namespace issue. Slavery, denoting African captivity, was a side issue in the conflict made prominent later as an extra "fuck you" to the south. Describing the flawed practices of African captivity in the US as slavery collides with the practice which holds the slavery label in the Republic. "War of Northern Aggression" works well as a descriptive label of the conflict and it already enjoys widespread use among folks who care to investigate the conflict beyond the propaganda that followed. It wasn't necessarily wrong for the increasingly productive industrializing North to pick the rural, hookworm afflicted, south up against the wall to establish dominance. It's that the Lincoln asshole and his pantsuit friends broke all of things that made early America a republic to win.
    Indeed not necessary. Underlying issue shared with the second note.
    The problem with "authoritarian" here is that it appeared to be used as a synonym for bad. It's a neutral term.
    My thought was less that and more... If the Tibetians and Uyghurs want to be mentioned at all, they need to do something. Victimhood doesn't get to be sainted on its own. The Chinese are knocking up new hospitals in days while the Uyghurs are... letting themselves get interned in camps?
    This cut was motivated by a bias towards active voice. It's not a much more active presentation, but... declining.
    Definitely over the top. Few people get to have any of their works ever graded as a magnum opus.

    Your original submission has a strong core, and you aren't too far off the mark on the why of the edits. Your fine grained identification of tense is a powerful scholarly tool, but as you continue to grow in reporting try to read yourself with a bit looser filter focusing on active versus passive voice. I too can fall into the passive voice trap. It can feel like I'm being more precise writing in a way that happens to produce passive voiced text, but the result is more burdensome for the reader without actually delivering greater precision.

    The namespace issues are likely going to take a bit of practice and continued reading before they sort out to the point you consistently produce alligned text on your own. Good work, good review. Get me another story and let's repeat this exercise this week.

  4. BingoBoingo says:

    Take 2, this time without ordered list html tags. I'll address the edits as you noted them:

    1. The connection might not actually be clear enough to establish with a quick reference in a report. I can see space for a case to maybe be made, but it would require quite a bit more fleshing out.

    2.Yeah, that had to get trimmed. The labeling was rather heavy, and didn't need the precision original construction offered. Can't bury the story inside its own framing.

    3.Clarity was indeed needed in the other direction.

    4. This is actually a rather serious namespace issue. Slavery, denoting African captivity, was a side issue in the conflict made prominent later as an extra "fuck you" to the south. Describing the flawed practices of African captivity in the US as slavery collides with the practice which holds the slavery label in the Republic. "War of Northern Aggression" works well as a descriptive label of the conflict and it already enjoys widespread use among folks who care to investigate the conflict beyond the propaganda that followed. It wasn't necessarily wrong for the increasingly productive industrializing North to pick the rural, hookworm afflicted, south up against the wall to establish dominance. It's that the Lincoln asshole and his pantsuit friends broke all of things that made early America a republic to win.

    5. Indeed not necessary. Underlying issue shared with the second note.

    6. The problem with "authoritarian" here is that it appeared to be used as a synonym for bad. It's a neutral term.

    7. My thought was less that and more... If the Tibetians and Uyghurs want to be mentioned at all, they need to do something. Victimhood doesn't get to be sainted on its own. The Chinese are knocking up new hospitals in days while the Uyghurs are... letting themselves get interned in camps?

    8.This cut was motivated by a bias towards active voice. It's not a much more active presentation, but... declining.

    9. Definitely over the top. Few people get to have any of their works ever graded as a magnum opus.

    Your original submission has a strong core, and you aren't too far off the mark on the why of the edits. Your fine grained identification of tense is a powerful scholarly tool, but as you continue to grow in reporting try to read yourself with a bit looser filter focusing on active versus passive voice. I too can fall into the passive voice trap. It can feel like I'm being more precise writing in a way that happens to produce passive voiced text, but the result is more burdensome for the reader without actually delivering greater precision.

    The namespace issues are likely going to take a bit of practice and continued reading before they sort out to the point you consistently produce alligned text on your own. Good work, good review. Get me another story and let's repeat this exercise this week.

  5. This was actually a pretty cool read.

  6. thimbronion says:

    Thanks for reading.

Leave a Reply