Color Me Shocked
on 02/13/2020 at 09:04 AM
Are the protesters planning to limit their job opportunities by refusing to work in cities and businesses that have “too many” white people? Will they not want to work in an environment where the majority of customers are white, especially in businesses that have a lot of direct, in-person customer contact?
Formerly, one of the advantages of living away from home, on campus, was to experience a wide range of diverse people — learning to appreciate differences and work together in academic and social settings. If this no longer occurs it further devalues the over-priced college experience.
Ed, back in 1988 I lived off campus in an apartment building. New neighbors temporarily moved in across the hall, a black family. The wife was a nice lady, the kids were great. The husband, a strutting little bantam chock full of attitude, had just been hired by the university to teach Black Liberation Theology. I’d never heard of it, so I asked. O. M. G.
Even then the college had a special Black Student Union suite of offices in the student union building, and special Afro Module housing, an entire dormitory where POC could self segregate. I knew some black people who knew some of the people living there, and they said that some of those residents never spoke to or interacted with white folks. They had an entire curriculum of courses that no white people took. The dorm had it’s own dining area so they didn’t even have to eat with whites. This caused a bit of contention, as the very large Jewish contingent on campus only had their own private dining hall (the “kosher kitchent") and their own Jewish Student Union, but they didn’t get private separate housing. Jealousy.
I was there for the beginning of the PC movement, and the birth of feminazism. Posters went up all over campus with the names of random male students listed: Beware of these (potential) rapists!!! They had midnight candlelight marches to “take back the night” from rapists and muggers who did not exist on campus. Or in town. We had the first hate crime hoaxes that I’d ever seen, when the Jewish Student Union president damaged their own offices and claimed antisemitism. But that was Ok, it was done “to raise awareness”. The whole student body was a bunch of nerdy kids from NYC and Long Island, the place was at least half Jewish, but they went off to school in the middle of bloody frozen nowhere and became instant radicals with axes to grind. The campus newspaper wrote some op-ed that was slightly critical of something that somebody had said or done who happened to be black, so the blacks STOLE every copy of the newspaper and destroyed them, then occupied the university president’s office and had a sit-in, with the help of the other perpetually offended groups on campus. See the link above.
At the time, the Jewish kids were about half of the student population. The black kids - those who survived to Spring Semester - were at most 8% of the population. Yet they had their own student union office, their own housing and dining facility, several special Black Studies degree programs and the courses for them, campus jobs preferences if they wanted to work (ha!!) and extensive EXTENSIVE funding from the student government for every little splinter group they could come up with, including a Gospel Singing club, a Jamaican student group, a Caribbean student group, and several afro dance clubs. They had their own fraternity too of course. They were raking it in, living fat off of everyone else’s funding, getting kid glove treatment every hour of every day. And still it wasn’t enough, and they were full of hate, mistrust, and resentment. Thank God we didn’t have any significant sports teams or it would have been even worse.
It was a horrible experience. I graduated and got the hell out, and have never gone back nor donated a cent to the alumni association.
We thought the 60s was a crazy time.
I’m old enough to remember the struggles/protests to end segregated dorms. This was followed decades later by struggles/protests to establish segregated dorms. This later goal was much easier to achieve because of political correctness. The first goal was a lot harder - supported only by fairness, justice and “We Shall Overcome”.
Sounds like a personal problem: If YOU are ‘uncomfortable’ going somewhere, whatever the reason, maybe YOU shouldn’t go there.
Did not realize that is the University that my grandson has a full ride at (and enough in other scholarships and grants to go to another 4 year college, too). A long time ago (early 80’s while working for what was called the Race Relation/Equal Opportunity office) the first MLK events were held. I had one black soldier come up to me and ask why I was there. Of course, I knew at the time - being a civilian, I stood out dramatically. It was the first time in my life I was confronted by someone of another race about ‘being there’. Since then I’ve seriously avoided that nonsense as much as I could. Never been to the Underground Railroad Museum - for that very reason. I’m too old to explain why I give a damn about people who aren’t ‘like’ me.
Reminds me of a phrase I use often on the net - Bull Connor and George Wallace are laughing in hell (and Rev. Martin L. King is rolling over in his grave) at what many of today’s blacks have become, exactly what their grandparents and great-grandparents fought against – bigots.
Wardmama, I think I understand completely. I was raised with that “content of their character” thing for real. We were all going to Overcome by not seeing race at all. And this worked for a while, but then some groups seemed to spend more time being different purposely and celebrating and being all proud of that. And it’s been steeply downhill ever since. The thing about “we’re all the same” is, it only works if we try to be. And to too many, that means “acting white” ... because this country is majority white and was developed by white people ... even if “acting white” has been the cornerstone to achievement for everyone. “Keepin it real” doesn’t really work and does nothing to help build us as a whole people. Actually it’s a death spiral: insisting on your own group’s negative behavior as “normal” and then resenting the heck out of other non-group people who try to emulate it, perhaps as a way towards mutual acceptance. Trying to be open minded, curious, and inclusive gets you slapped with “cultural appropriation”. There can be no wholeness, no national identity, no real “We The People” if divisiveness is celebrated. And yeah, after being smacked for it a few times, you just stay away. Who needs that BS? And then we get blamed for White Flight.
The overly sensitive, perpetually indignant future leaders of the universe would be shocked, insulted and find yet another reason to protest if they ever fully realized that “Freedom of Speech” includes neither a right to an audience nor a right to be taken seriously.
An additional factor is the acceptability of criticizing peers using terms like “acting white”, “Oreo”, “Uncle Tom”. These terms are promoted by those race hustlers , aka “Community Leaders”, who have defined approved and proper methods for achieving success.
Minorities without bombastic community leaders and not being “aided & assisted” (targeted) by government programs have been able to succeed through both cooperative and individual effort.
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