Posted on 06/25/2003 7:01:20 AM PDT by gdogdaily
Monday we received guidance from the Supreme Court that discrimination against Caucasian-Americans is a perfectly acceptable practice that will continue perhaps indefinitely. You´d think that in this new century there would no longer be a prurient government interest in subjugating Americans based on race.
Meanwhile, we read in the Washington Post about courses in “Whiteness Studies” which exist at thirty of our universities. These courses are an attempt to denigrate white Americans and depict us as being the beneficiaries of a privilege which never in fact existed. The curriculum for whiteness studies alludes to a fictional historical conspiracy to keeps whites on top, which has no rational application to the present other than the creation of hate and resentment amongst pupils. It “studies” whites in an attempt to polarize one group of Americans from another. The suggestion that our country is racist and built upon white privilege seems a cruel joke in light of yesterday´s Supreme Court decisions. The notion of white privilege ignores the vast complexity of our history.
To think whites are privileged in modern America is based on hallucination rather than fact. All indicators point in the other direction. Diane Ravitch in her book, The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn, stated that the only racial group that you can identify on standardized tests are WASPs as to say the names of any other racial group is to be inflammatory [p.60]. In the most recent edition of The American Conservative, the editors note that on the television show “Law & Order”, the races of the two Beltway Sniper killers had to be changed from black to white as their real identities “represent three of the Left´s privileged ‘victim´ groups-[and this] was apparently too much for the tender, politically correct sensibilities of the peacock network.” [p.5]
One of the courses sampled in The Washington Post article showcases a “privilege walk” which is designed to demonstrate what it´s like to be a minority. In this exercise you take a step forward or backward based on whether a statement applies to you. An example is whether you think you´d qualify for a loan or not. Why any college student should be qualifying for additional loans beyond the tremendous tuition ones they already have is beyond me, but white students are supposed to discover how privileged they are as a result.
This is just another example of the noxious fumes being emitted by our universities today. One of my best friends is a Caucasian male who just declared bankruptcy but, under the rules of the “privilege walk”, he should be able to simply go to our government and explain to them that, due to his color, he´d like to have his credit restored. Good luck! We all know of Caucasians with bad credit and their racial identity in no way helps them get a mortgage. However, real world examples have little to do with what is taught in whiteness studies.
One of the professors cited in the piece undermined her own position when she said “Historically, it has been common to see whites as a people who don't have a race, to see racial identity as something others have.” If that´s the case then this country could not have built on a foundation of white supremacy as there would be no way for anyone to identify who the white beneficiaries exactly were. Unfortunately, the discourse at our universities is so dominated by the anti-cultural left that even simple counter-arguments like the one I just mentioned are never actually heard.
A Chinese student in one of the classes told a Caucasian student: “Have you ever considered why you're no longer oppressed here when Asians, blacks and Hispanics still are?" Somebody ought to read to this little harridan the text of Monday´s Grutter v. Bollinger decision. It is Caucasian students who now suffer legal oppression. I wish I could have been the reporter so I could have “discussed” this with her. I would have told her that Asians like herself are the only one of those mentioned minority groups who are discriminated against as their number are artificially limited in our universities. I find it hard to believe that this particular student hadn´t heard that Asians are too successful a group to be championed by today´s left.
To read the words of these deluded students is like reading about the characteristics of Shangri-la. Their perceptions are bizarre. One stated: “White students would never say that we own the campus, but [whites] feel they do." How does he know this? No evidence is given. I´m a financially independent white male who doesn´t even think he owns the car he drives and the reason for my perception is that I don´t own the car I drive. Citibank owns it. How about my home? That´s the property of Fleet Bank. Who´s letting these students manufacture lies about Caucasian-Americans?
One of the professors rejoiced in her deceptions. She stated “The desire to always feel comfortable in their skin is something white people feel entitled to…The dominant group wants to control its environment, to own it.” There is not one truth contained in this quotation. No proofs are offered as, in my thirty-three years, I have never heard nor witnessed anything that would support conjecture that whites feel entitled to be “comfortable in their skin.” Such a statement is so expressionistic and lacking in detail that it could only be made by a utopian college professor who has barricaded herself from the words of actual human beings.
White people do not control the environment in the United States. Otherwise, we would not be allowing millions of illegal immigrants into our country and allowing our courts to give their imprimatur to anti-Caucasian hiring and promotional discrimination.
The students also learn that whiteness is a powerful contaminant in all aspects of life. One stated that “other classes, like economics, politics and history, are about whiteness. They are written by and are about white people." So if I write something it can only be about me I gather. I guess a man like Gibbon couldn´t have written about the Roman Empire since he lived a thousand years after the fact. It´s too bad this moronic observation about race was not shared earlier with the North Koreans, the Tanzanians or the Ethiopians who could have been spared years of Marxist-based starvation because a white man formulated their political and economic theories. Had they only known that economic transactions and theory are based on race. Somebody better tell Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams to get new professions!
>Really, my main argument against whiteness studies is that, even though there´s no question that racism against minorities was a part of this nation´s past, pretending that it has anything to do with the present is absurd. Fostering resentment to white people is the only reason that they teach classes like this in the first place.
One of the professors says that she offers “suppressed history” but what she really offers is history devoid of context. To be contextual when studying racism, it is best to examine the situation in Zimbabwe, which currently is a state that has declared a racist war against its white minority. Bull Conner is dead but Robert Mugabe (the ruler of Zimbabwe) is very much alive.
If you want to study slavery don´t forget to mention that 500,000 American Caucasians died to free blacks — whereas slavery still continues in Africa today. We remain the only country in history to have fought a war to free slaves. To omit facts like these is to indoctrinate, not to educate. These instructors should be ashamed of themselves as opposed being ashamed of their racial background.
If we would just learn to view one another as being flesh and blood – as opposed to being representative of racial subunits, then the unthinkable might happen – we might all get along. But, of course, that´s the last thing that any of these professors want.
To comment on this article or express your opinion directly to the author, you are invited to e-mail Bernard at bchapafl@hotmail.com .
Last time I checked, 8 out of 9 supreme court justices, the president of the United States, 99 out of 100 US senators, and about 370 out of 435 congressmen, 47 out of 50 state governors, and about 70 percent of the population were WHITE.
I'm with you. White people should be killed in sprawling Death Camps, until parity is achieved.
Women make up 53% of the voting population. They are the majority which determine election outcomes.
It's all their fault.
Something to be added to the Women's Studies curriculum perhaps?
This is the most sense you've ever made.
Not to worry, though - it won't go on forever.
Tia
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