What next. It’s up to you.

We had this whole post planned for today about YOU and what you have gone through over the past year, and what it means to get applications submitted for MBA programs… And we’ll post that on Monday.

For now, there is still a lot of processing that needs to happen.

For those of you outside the U.S. (or maybe many of you inside the U.S. also) this may not seem like that big a deal.

After all, America has seen in the past four years a demonstration by white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia (home to UVA Darden) where a man gunned his Dodge Charger into a crowd of anti-racist protestors and was applauded. (link – warning – disturbing video) He killed Heather Heyer, who was there for a peaceful protest.

He had driven from Ohio – around 400 miles away. His mother “thought that her son was attending a D****d T****p rally.”

May as well have been a T****p rally; it was a rally of white supremacists.

* * *

We tried not to be too alarmist about that. We tried to be measured, to not turn this into a political blog.

We offered a reaction, and tied it into your MBA essay strategy.

Offered a muted response on Twitter:

This Charlottesville stuff is just so disturbing. Hope everyone at @DardenSchool and UVA is safe.

— Essay Snark #BLM (@EssaySnark) August 13, 2017

Thank you Dean Beardsley: "You are wanted, welcome and valued here." Thank you @DardenMBA for sharing this. https://t.co/hCvmiNaXwx

— Essay Snark #BLM (@EssaySnark) August 15, 2017

But could not grasp the horror.

* * *

When the 2016 election happened, it was with a sense of foreboding that EssaySnark processed that event, though our public statement were an attempt to be useful to those who coming reading the blahg, with posts like what impact would the election have on international applicants to American MBA programs. We talked about maybe there being an impact on international students’ ability to get visas, which actually turned out to be much more pronounced than we expected (being NaiveSnark at the time, at just how serious this President was about his racism and hatred for people whose skin happens to not be as light as his own).

When this person came into power and acted with SUCH disregard for ethics and any morals and a sense of common decency that the lies were apparently going to become status quo, we published this off-blahg post in January 2017 entitled The Problem with Lying and another one this past March (2020) exhorting you to Please Don’t Succumb to the Hate.

Normalizing lying. How is that OK? How did that become acceptable?

A mobbed insurrection descending on our Capitol with violence, waving symbols of hatred – the Confederate flag – in The People’s House, in the literal institution where democracy happens in this country – where so-called “protestors” who were actually out-of-control deluded thugs were smearing feces on the walls… No.

America has been deluded before, possibly since its very inception, but this is where we are absolutely despondent and frightened.

There are apparently enough people living in this society who are willing to suspend disbelief and go along with the tyranny of a MADMAN who claims to have won the election because he says so — who is willing to trample on the rights of the citizens and piss on the freedoms of every other citizen who is supposed to be living in a free land as equals.

We know that we’re not actually equals.

The murders of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Trayvon Martin, and so many others prove it.

But this week, just no.

There is nothing different from White Supremacy and a T***p rally.

And yet there are apparently half of the American citizenship willing to go along with it or fully support it.

If the side that we are on is not your side, go away.

We are not interested in attempting to engage you in some kind of debate around ideals.

There is no room for what you stand for in this place.

This country is strong but democracy is fragile and it is far too easy to see this happening again. Especially when all these hypocrits are now claiming that they did not really support these ideas, that they were just trying to make sure it was fair elections. Bullshit.

There was no widespread fraud in the 2020 elections. There were a smattering of irregularities, which occurs in every election — and in this election, many of them were committed by people voting for T***p. Yes that is correct. The bulk of the illegal voting were people trying to vote for the current occupant of the White House. Not for Biden.

Biden won. That is a fact.

Everyone trying to raise objections about the fairness and making claims about fraud is colluding with a person who is mentally unstable, who cares NOTHING for this country and is trying to exert as much damage as possible to the institutions and harm our future.

Who is breaking down the environmental protections.

Who is rewarding professional golfers with medals of honor on the day after an insurgent attack on the Capitol THAT HE HIMSELF INSTIGATED.

Who knows nothing about what it means to work for a day’s wage or fight for his family and does not care if you die of a contagious deadly disease.

It is ENOUGH.

There is a new administration coming in. Biden is not going to save America. But at least he is not a crazyperson intent on trying to destroy it.

We’ll be back for bschool-relevant content again soon. For now, we’re just trying to figure out what’s happened to this country.

Stay safe. Take care of those who you love.

And hopefully, maybe, at some point, we’ll agree to start operating in one shared reality again in this country, where respect and values and facts and integrity and decency and caring for others guide our behavior towards one another.

 

This President is racist.

He has incited violence against the people of this country.

The so-called “protestors” were not antifa. They were T***p supporters.

This President’s actions are not just undemocratic, they are authoritarian and fascist.

He has been trying to hang onto power despite having lost the election. He has been willing to go to any length to do that.

Nothing about any of this is good for this country.

It will take all of us to examine what we stand for and come to terms with our willingness to go along with this, before the damage we have allowed to happen can start to be addressed.