The Ugly, Individualism-Erasing Racism Of Campus Anti-Whiteness Initiatives
Steve Salerno writes at Quillette of college courses demonizing white people and the insulting way they portray blacks:
New York's Hunter College promotes coursework for poli-sci majors in "the abolition of whiteness." Stanford examines "abolishing whiteness as a cultural identity." Elsewhere, to cite just a few examples, classes at Grinnell and UW-Madison confront "the problem of whiteness." New Mexico's St. John's College takes on the "depravity" of whiteness. Moreover, academic theorists crusade to purge whiteness from STEM courses, because critical thinking and research are regarded as tools of "white hegemony." Engineering students at Purdue must contend with the school's indictment of "racist and colonialist projects in science," while a UC-Irvine professor condemns even "technical prowess" as a white male construct. A Linfield college Gender Studies professor even condemns her peers for putting "stellar" colleagues in leadership roles, because stellar individuals, she notes, tend to be white and thus have benefited unfairly from "a logic of meritocracy that is built on this racist assumption that everyone has had the same access and opportunities." UCLA pays students a stipend to act as professional social justice activists who will diagnose, expose, and combat "whiteness" and "the patriarchy" in all campus manifestations.Most of these initiatives surfaced within the past few semesters, so a Geiger reading on fallout is premature, but the message and predictable effects are worrisome. Aside from simple issues of fairness, academe's crusade is almost guaranteed to backfire. Today's white college students have little to do with the active bigotry of the past; treating them as if they arrive on campus with some endemic moral deficit is almost certain to foment a stronger sense of racial identity among students who deem the attacks unwarranted. (77 percent of today's freshmen describe themselves as somewhere between liberal and middle-of-the-read.) No matter how erudite the packaging, labeling a race "depraved" is the textbook definition of bigotry (if not, some might argue, an institutionally sanctioned hate crime).
Consider, too, the implications for black self-reliance. It seems unhelpful to suggest to blacks that resolving the gap in minority performance remains a problem that somehow falls to whites; this undercutting of black agency subliminally echoes the very paternalism that colleges decry. For that matter, what is the message to non-whites of identifying such concepts as excellence, prowess, and stellar performance with whiteness?
On the meta level, these campaigns reinforce the legitimacy of racist thinking itself: if it is permissible to link whiteness and depravity, why is it not permissible to link blackness and criminality? This is the antithesis of the mindset that true diversity should foster. All students should be encouraged to conceive themselves as individuals united by some overarching lingua franca.
We're all racists now.
> if it is permissible to link whiteness and
> depravity, why is it not permissible to link
> blackness and criminality?
We're not asking for permission - the stats speak for themselves.
Snoopy at May 11, 2018 4:05 AM
All groups are exactly equal on everything, and that's why you need multiculturalism!
Also, there are no groups, because everyone's the same, and that's why you need diversity!
Snoopy at May 11, 2018 4:08 AM
I was under the impression that race, like sexual identity, was a social construct and was fluid.
Am I wrong?
I R A Darth Aggie at May 11, 2018 6:44 AM
"identifying such concepts as excellence, prowess, and stellar performance with whiteness?" My immigrant friends would be startled by this, since their stellar performance has allowed them to succeed here.
Frontal attacks on excellence, competence, logic, science, and critical thinking make it very clear to non-SJWs that these people are incompetent and jealous. Do you really want people who are not interested in critical thinking being your doctor or even your plumber?
cc at May 11, 2018 10:48 AM
Not so much that they're incompetent per se, but that they think specific minorities are. The "soft bigotry of low expectations" a former president called it. It's racist condescension.
Conan the Grammarian at May 11, 2018 11:00 AM
Sounds like a good way to create new neo-nazis.
NicoleK at May 11, 2018 11:08 AM
I look down at myself, and see white skin and a penis.
So, privileged racist? Oppressive sexist?
Ok, then. If that's the way it's going to be, why hold back? In for a penny, in for a pound!
Jay R at May 11, 2018 11:17 AM
Such people should put their money where their mouth is and be forced to sky dive with chutes designed and fabricated by their students who agree that precision and objective fact are unimportant
lujlp at May 11, 2018 12:01 PM
Sounds like a good way to create new neo-nazis.
Indeed. If one is to be held guilty of a crime that hasn't been committed, then why not go ahead and commit the crime one will be accused?
Ok, then. If that's the way it's going to be, why hold back?
Because they're pretty sure you won't actually move forward and behave that way. This is why they'll confront you, but not, for example, an actual ISIS supporter.
You won't chop their head off and stick it on a pike.
I R A Darth Aggie at May 11, 2018 1:13 PM
Regardless of this article's merits, doesn't Quillette publish this story, or a version of it, about twice a week?
At this point, I'm as weary of articles about SJW outrages as I am of the SJWs themselves. The two groups are beginning to seem symbiotic.
Kevin at May 11, 2018 1:44 PM
Sounds like a good way to create new neo-nazis.
That's the goal. Partisans of all stripes thrive on racial strife. Reconciliation would be very very bad for business.
dee nile at May 11, 2018 4:56 PM
Seems to me that this is just reversing what used to be done routinely (automatically assuming that white people are best). What exactly am I meant to do about my European (white) heritage? Changing my hair colour, easy; skin, um no only Michael Jackson managed that one. Or should I forgo every promotion, extra, etc. that I actually worked hard to achieve on the basis that someone who didn't work (because they were prevented from doing so by their darker skin) should get the prize over me? Maybe I should just slit my wrists now and take one more undeserving white person off the planet!
Robin at May 11, 2018 8:51 PM
How long before advocating for the "abolition of whiteness" becomes advocating for the "abolition of whites?"
Conan the Grammarian at May 12, 2018 6:27 AM
When I was an undergrad at UC Berkeley, my STEM classes were regularly interrupted by various protestors protesting the white hegemony, white exclusionism and white bias of neo colonialist white self privileging technocrats while some how failing to notice that most of the students and instructors were non white Asians (or if they did the Asians were accused of being the craven running dogs of the white rascits system). (BTW, I did not chose to go to UCB, it was a parental dictat; it took, me two additional years of vocational school to repair the Berekley damage to my career path.) These Maoist incursions were tolerated if no encouraged by the campus administration.
I now make a lot of money in a STEM field, I will never donate to the University of California, I tell all my successful friends with children approaching college age, to discouage any interest in the UC system.
Choke the beast, let it founder in its self imposed path to failure.
Fred Mason at May 13, 2018 10:15 PM
"How long before advocating for the "abolition of whiteness" becomes advocating for the "abolition of whites?""
Almost instantly. White isn't a cultural identity people chose. It is one others put on them. Instead people were English, Irish, Italian, yada yada. It was other groups that decided to lump them all in a whites. And the asians are at risk of being put in that same category.
Though that is changing. People are starting to self identify as white. After all if you can't escape it you may as well embrace it.
Ben at May 14, 2018 5:34 PM
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