Posted on 10/17/2013 5:35:18 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
If Rufus McDonald were white, you'd already know his name, and he'd be on the path to pushing George Zimmerman aside as the most hated man in America. But because he is black, you probably have never heard of him, unless you live in Chicago. You see, Mr. McDonald was cleaning out an attic and discovered some papers. As Kim Janssen of the Chicago Sun-Times reported Tuesday:
Hidden in a dusty trunk in an abandoned and looted Englewood home, the papers of Harvard's first black graduate, Richard T. Greener, had long been thought lost to history. (snip)
Several museums and Harvard University itself expressed a keen interest in the historically significant 140-year-old Greener documents. An excited Gates, who leads Harvard's W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African-American Research, even said the discovery gave him "gooseflesh."
But now McDonald says the irreplaceable collection could go up in flames - literally.
McDonald - who recently sold just two of the documents for $52,000 to the University of South Carolina, where Greener also studied and taught - is threatening to torch the rest unless Harvard offers him more cash.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
“And your views are based on experience? You went to Harvard?”
Yes. No.
Harvard and Yale endowments are exempt from the 5% rule for some reason. They have the cash and I’d say those papers would and should be worth it to them.
Threatening to torch the docs is a sign that this guy is definitely Chicago material.
Harvard is always wrong, that is established fact.
They should pony up the appraised value and these documents are definitely historic enough. I bet this guy was either dumb as a rock or brilliant enough to make today’s schools and not just black students look like morons.
Either way would be racist I guess. Maybe Harvard will buy them and burn them?
So Harvard has been very cheap in its dealings with you? How so?
And you’re pretty sure that the man who buys old abandoned houses and tries to sell the contents is an upright and honest man? You’re taking his word for the value of documents apparently.
Taking a strong stand on right or wrong based on a short news article is a common occurrence around here.
In fairness, Harvard provides financial aid to almost 70% of undergraduates. Of those undergraduates, the median payment for tuition, room and board, books, and travel by families receiving financial aid is a little less than $15,000 per year. Median financial aid from Harvard is currently about $45K per year.
Financial aid at Harvard doesn't phase out completely until family income is nearly a quarter million dollars per year.
Families with income of $65,000 or less, their kids go free, save for the required summer work/term-time work study for each student (each student must work to contribute roughly $5,000 per year to his education, unless his family is very poorly-off, and he must contribute his earnings to his family).
The sticker price of about $60K per year (tuition, room and board, books, travel, misc. expenses) only applies to folks making about $250K per year, or who have substantial financial assets outside of retirement accounts.
sitetest
Harvard should pay the appraised value? LOL
What if they don’t want the papers? What if they view a “Chicago appraisal” as worthless? What if they feel the man is dishonest?
If the papers are so valuable why don’t other universities bid on them?
Maybe, just maybe, there were only two documents that had value. The man sold them and now he’s trying extortion to squeeze money out of Harvard because they have deep pockets.
Just because Harvard has billions in it’s endowment you feel they should pay.
You sound like a Democrat. You have money in your 401k, you should pay for my healthcare.
When I look at the following link:
I read where Harvard offered him $7,500 for one document (the Diploma) that appraised at $65,000. I wouldn’t threaten to burn them, I’d send them to Christie’s for auction and never give Harvard another chance to buy them. Harvard apparently thought he should just give them the papers for almost nothing.
“The FR Way” would be to drill down a little bit before badmouthing your fellow FReepers. Please look at the story I linked in #47, it has a lot more detail.
“Taking a strong stand on right or wrong based on a short news article is a common occurrence around here.”
Yeah. It is amazing what basic priciples does to a person’s ability to see clearly. You should try it.
Where does McDonald live? I’d like to mail him some marshmellows. Go for it, man! Cut off your greedy nose to spite your face. Burn, baby, burn.
“’I’ll roast and burn them,’ an angry McDonald said Tuesday, saying Harvard offered an ‘insulting’ $7,500 for a collection that includes Greener’s 1870 Harvard diploma and was appraised at $65,000.”
No matter for how much they're appraised, they're worth precisely what someone is willing to pay for them.
Nonetheless, there is some reason to wonder whether he's telling the truth. From the same article:
“A Harvard spokesman declined to comment on the ultimatum, but a university source familiar with the negotiation says it offered McDonald ‘significantly more’ than $7,500.”
In any event, if he feels Harvard has made an insufficient offer, he's free to sell them to whomever he wants.
The threat to burn the documents is irrational. If he can get a higher bidder, then he can take that amount and thumb his nose at Harvard, if he so desires. If no one offers more than Harvard did, then he (and his appraiser) were mistaken in the true value of the documents in the first place.
This, though, is egregious bullshit to emotionalize the issue:
“McDonald, an African American whose own education ended at Calumet High School, says he just wants a fair price for what’s left of the collection ‘so my 9-year-old twins can have the chance I didn’t and go to college if they want to.’”
If Mr. McDonald doesn't make much money, there are many programs that will provide financial aid to his children. If they're relatively-average, but college-ready kids when they graduate high school, they may not be able to afford toney private universities that will take them, but they will likely be able to afford, at little or no expense, community college and then state university.
If they're much brighter than average, there will be public and private schools that will offer them affordable scholarship packages.
If they're really, really smart, they will have offers to go to school for free.
If, for example, his kids can get accepted to Harvard (no mean feat), unless he's making more than $65K per year, they're going free. And frankly, that's pretty much the case at most of the elite colleges and universities in the United States. If you can manage to be admitted, and your household income is pretty much right around the median income for families, you're going to go free or nearly so.
At Harvard, financial aid doesn't completely phase out until your family has family income of nearly $250K per year, or you have a bunch of financial assets outside your retirement accounts.
sitetest
Threatening to burn them was wrong. I’m only saying they should be sold to the highest bidder, and offers from Harvard should be rejected (even if they’re the highest) because they insulted him with their offer.
I made no further claims than that, other than FReepers should stop pretending they’re John McQueeg by badmouthing other FReepers.
If you’re looking for bullshit, it’s right there in Harvard’s low-ball offer. I don’t give a rat’s patootie about Harvard’s financial aid policies.
I had already read that article and concluded the man is trying to extort money from Harvard and is playing the race victim card.
If the alleged appraised value of the papers is really valid he’d have no problem getting a legitimate auction house to take them or another university to buy them. OTOH if the ‘appraisal’ is of dubious validity no wonder he has to resort to extortion.
Big deal, Louis Henry Gates (the one who mouthed off to the Cambridge Police and got arrested) is excited about the papers. If the papers are that valuable Christies would be knocking his door down. Harvard is not stupid. If the papers were more than old grocery lists and it filled a need in their museums they’d offer to pay more.
But if you want to believe that a guy from Chicago who buys up abandoned houses is going to burn some papers rather than auctioning them for $60,000 - go right ahead.
Why you are defending Harvard? Harvard almost assuredly low balled him because he is an old black guy and they thought they could get away with it.
Chicago. It’s the Chicago Way.
You are absolutely right. Liberals do think that way.
Dear CincyRichieRich,
In fairness, Harvard provides financial aid to almost 70% of undergraduates. Of those undergraduates, the median payment for tuition, room and board, books, and travel by families receiving financial aid is a little less than $15,000 per year. Median financial aid from Harvard is currently about $45K per year.
I said the papers sound like they have historic value
You believe that because it fits your view of Harvard but there is no evidence that is what happened. In fact Harvard disputes the story of the offer and appraisal.
This man is a junk dealer. He doesn't own the house in which the papers were found. He was hired to clean out the house, found the trunk, took the papers he thought might have value and left the rest of the documents and the trunk behind. You might say he stole the documents - although I don't know what his contract is with the owner of the junk company or the owner of the house.
Harvard made an offer - according to them significantly higher - which is more than Howard University did where Greener worked for a while. South Carolina did cough up some money where Greener worked before his job ended there too. Why didn't they buy the rest of the papers? Probably because they aren't worth $75,000 as claimed by the victim junk man. BTW Greener's children from his marriage didn't speak to him nor did the children he had with his mistress. Some of them are alive but apparently have little interest in the papers.
I believe the value is correct, if it is the genuine artifact of a Diploma of the first black grad of Harvard. I believe it will fetch a lot more than the $65K. As for threatening to burn it, well, I don’t think he was going to do it, and I don’t think he was trying to play “race victim.” He was really pissed off about the offer from Harvard. I would be too. I may have even threatened to burn it, just to piss them off.
I already said that, but go ahead, jump on my, I don’t care. No biggie. I just don’t like the way you were talking about other FReepers. I’m a little sensitive about that, these past couple days. I’ll get over it.
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