[One of my favorite -- and too infrequent -- guest contributors has provided yet another pungent observation of the lunacies that have infested American "institutions of higher learning." Don't imagine what Remus reports below to be an isolated incident. It's notable precisely because the overwhelming majority of such travesties are never reported in any organ you or I might read. Offensive to The Narrative, don't y'know.Courage will also appear in a forthcoming Woodpile Report. -- FWP]
The South Puget Sound Community College offers a Not On Our Campus pledge:
The Office of Diversity and Equity is taking a stand against hate on campus! To raise your voice against bias and intolerance, sign the “Not On Our Campus” pledge. Return your signed pledge to the DEC, or post it on public posting around campus—the more we have, the more we’ll be able to show that the SPSCC Community embraces diversity and rejects intolerance!
Now isn't that just the most heroic thing you've ever seen? SPSCC must be overrun with hooded Klansmen and neo-Nazi thugs, beset with cross burnings, torchlight parades, that sort of thing—the place appears to be in need of an uprising. Our hearts and prayers go out to them. Their desperate struggle is a beacon of hope for the oppressed, not just at SPSCC, but wherever people dare speak up for justice and decency against impossible odds.
But there's a problem. SPSCC doesn't embrace diversity or reject intolerance when it comes to their white staffers or, evidently, to white people generally. As Drew Mikkelsen of KING-TV in Seattle reports in this article, College group cancels diversity 'happy hour' after excluding white staffers:
The "Staff, Faculty and Administrators of Color" encouraged employees to reply to the invitation to find out the confidential date and time of what was being called a "happy hour" to "build support and community" for people of color.The invite made it clear white people were not invited.
The email read: "If you want to create space for white folks to meet and work on racism, white supremacy, and white privilege to better our campus community and yourselves, please feel free to do just that."
Karama Blackhorn, Program Coordinator at SPSCC's Diversity and Equity Center (whew!) "helped" write the invitation. Must be quite the institution if it takes more than one Professionally Trained Professional to write an invitation. Her last snotty remark makes it clear white staffers had better not be meeting to "build support and community" themselves, which of course would be an unspeakable affront sounding the darkest depths of racism, but she graciously grants her permission for a whites-only "unhappy hour" where they can confess and mend their intolerant, racist ways and thereby raise the stature of SPSCC. Such generosity merited tearful gratitude, doubtless, the stature of SPSCC can plainly use some raising.
SPSCC's Dean of College Relations, Kellie Braseth, after having the Diversity group apologize, or claiming they did, and after canceling the event, said diversity includes everyone and makes for a richer conversation. Now there's a safe bet.
But Ms. Blackhorn, still channeling Noel Ignatiev, was having none of it:
She said it could have been worded differently, but she maintains the staff members of color would have a more honest discussion about race without white employees. "When trying to explicitly talking about race it can be a really difficult conversation for a lot of people," said Blackhorn.
Gaw-lee Ms. Blackhorn, perhaps you'll tell us why "explicitly" talking about race would be a really difficult conversation for "a lot of people"—she couldn't bring herself to say "whites", notice. We're probably safe in assuming "a more honest discussion without white employees" meant the usual cowardly White Privilege hate-fest except with insults they don't use when their co-workers are in the room.
SPSCC's website says, "We strive to create a working environment that includes and respects cultural, racial, ethnic, sexual orientations and gender identity diversity." No, they don't. SPSCC has revealed it lacks even the feeble ethical horsepower it takes to repudiate simple race baiting, gussied up with academo-babble or otherwise, unless one of the attack dogs chews an ankle too publicly.
The doings of SPSCC are of little consequence nationally, it's probably a nice little two-year outfit doing yeoman service for the good people of the community. And they may sincerely believe they're doing the Right Thing. Who can be against diversity and equity? But the times they are a-changin'. The train has left the station at Hustler Junction. Only the deeply bush league are still standing there, White Privilege baggage in hand, looking every inch the rube.
This stuff was clever and innovative when Du Bois sprung it eighty years ago, and it had a good run, but now it's gone from merely irrelevant to outright comical. People notice, especially people who matter. Unless SPSCC also notices it's not 1965 any more they're going to endure these embarrassing pratfalls endlessly, and deservedly so.
3 comments:
The irony of all this is that Karama Blackhorn would not and could not ever understand that her actions were horriby racist and her unapologetic comments reinforced her racism. But the irony sadly doesn't end there. No, she is the "Program Coordinator at SPSCC's Diversity and Equity Center". That is she was hired (supposedly) to make sure that no one who works for the university ever does what she did. She is responsible for establishing and maintainng a racist free work environment and yet she is creating a racist environment. No doubt she makes between $60k and $100k a year at this prestigious job and no doubt Washington state has hundreds of similarly paid employees in similar jobs committing similar racist acts at the cost of millions and millions to taxpayers. Seriously can't we stop hiring people to be government racists???
Seriously, it's time to start hanging them from the nearest lamp post, in the name of public hygiene.
I attended SPCC in 1989 for a couple quarters. It was completely uneventful, and not too expensive to afford while delivering pizzas and having housemates. To get a bunch of Anti-White stuff like this, you had to go across town to The Evergreen State College and hang out with the admittedly Communist professors of political economy. Even they didn't exclude Whites, because it was possible to recruit good looking well-spoken fellow travelers from the ranks of guilt-relief seeking youths, who often came with some really useful and needed family money.
The credits allowed me to join the USAF at the rank of E-3 instead of some lower rank. That paid off!
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