White people are evil
Really, you couldn’t make this stuff up:
“A RACIST: A racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality. By this definition, people of color cannot be racists, because as peoples within the U.S. system, they do not have the power to back up their prejudices, hostilities, or acts of discrimination. (This does not deny the existence of such prejudices, hostilities, acts of rage or discrimination.)" - Page 3
“REVERSE RACISM: A term created and used by white people to deny their white privilege. Those in denial use the term reverse racism to refer to hostile behavior by people of color toward whites, and to affirmative action policies, which allegedly give 'preferential treatment' to people of color over whites. In the U.S., there is no such thing as 'reverse racism.'" - Page 3
“A NON-RACIST: A non-term. The term was created by whites to deny responsibility for systemic racism, to maintain an aura of innocence in the face of racial oppression, and to shift responsibility for that oppression from whites to people of color (called "blaming the victim"). Responsibility for perpetuating and legitimizing a racist system rests both on those who actively maintain it, and on those who refuse to challenge it. Silence is consent." - Page 3
"Have you ever heard a well-meaning white person say, 'I'm not a member of any race except the human race?' What she usually means by this statement is that she doesn't want to perpetuate racial categories by acknowledging that she is white. This is an evasion of responsibility for her participation in a system based on supremacy for white people." - Page 8
These are excerpts from a document used in the University of Delaware sensitivity training program required for its resident students. (Faced with public exposure, the University has terminated the program. More details here.) A particularly Orwellian manifestation of the islands of repression in a sea of freedom problem with contemporary universities.
I have previously discussed racism as a largely C19th development, though with some Arab-Islamic, reconquista Spain and New World colonial precursors.
Accusations of racism have become rhetorical devices, used to elevate the status of the accuser and de-legitimise the accused. The document from which the above paragraphs are taken very much expresses the abstract v concrete politics divide I have also discussed previously. The entire structure of American society-and all who defend it-is de-legitimised in favour of an abstract moral “purity” that only makes sense as an exercise in such de-legitimisation. To be a white American who is not of the radical left is to be “racist”.
The document is merely a revealing reductio ad absurdem of a much wider pattern. For example, if Aborigines riot in Redfern because they are very unhappy about policing, that is an understandable (if perhaps over-enthusiastic) reaction to bad policing. If skippies riot (much less vigorously) on Cronulla beach because they are very unhappy about policing, that’s racism and an indictment of all Australian society. And one can’t complain about a very real Muslim Lebanese youth gang problem because that must be racism: even though youth gangs tend to be ethnically based for obvious reasons. (But complaining about skippies-or Americans, or Israelis-en masse is perfectly OK.) [Meanwhile, the more extensive retaliatory violence by Muslim Lebanese afterwards disappears down the memory hole.]
Similarly, objections to migration-despite high levels of migration being patently not in the interests of the resident working class-are rendered almost impossible because of hyper-sensitivity about “racism”. A “sensitivity” clearly largely driven by a mixture of status-seeking and “concern” over “racism” being the fundamental device whereby voters in general are denied any say in migration policy.
But a migration policy people don’t get any say in-because they are not allowed to say “no”, particularly not to suggest that a particular group are proving bad bets or otherwise problematic-is a migration policy people don’t “own”.
So, yes, the now-defunct University of Delaware racism sensitivity course is absurd. But it is a revealing absurdity. One, after all, adopted by a major institution, full of folk who pride themselves on their (superior) moral and intellectual grasp. Which is precisely the problem, really.
“A RACIST: A racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality. By this definition, people of color cannot be racists, because as peoples within the U.S. system, they do not have the power to back up their prejudices, hostilities, or acts of discrimination. (This does not deny the existence of such prejudices, hostilities, acts of rage or discrimination.)" - Page 3
“REVERSE RACISM: A term created and used by white people to deny their white privilege. Those in denial use the term reverse racism to refer to hostile behavior by people of color toward whites, and to affirmative action policies, which allegedly give 'preferential treatment' to people of color over whites. In the U.S., there is no such thing as 'reverse racism.'" - Page 3
“A NON-RACIST: A non-term. The term was created by whites to deny responsibility for systemic racism, to maintain an aura of innocence in the face of racial oppression, and to shift responsibility for that oppression from whites to people of color (called "blaming the victim"). Responsibility for perpetuating and legitimizing a racist system rests both on those who actively maintain it, and on those who refuse to challenge it. Silence is consent." - Page 3
"Have you ever heard a well-meaning white person say, 'I'm not a member of any race except the human race?' What she usually means by this statement is that she doesn't want to perpetuate racial categories by acknowledging that she is white. This is an evasion of responsibility for her participation in a system based on supremacy for white people." - Page 8
These are excerpts from a document used in the University of Delaware sensitivity training program required for its resident students. (Faced with public exposure, the University has terminated the program. More details here.) A particularly Orwellian manifestation of the islands of repression in a sea of freedom problem with contemporary universities.
I have previously discussed racism as a largely C19th development, though with some Arab-Islamic, reconquista Spain and New World colonial precursors.
Accusations of racism have become rhetorical devices, used to elevate the status of the accuser and de-legitimise the accused. The document from which the above paragraphs are taken very much expresses the abstract v concrete politics divide I have also discussed previously. The entire structure of American society-and all who defend it-is de-legitimised in favour of an abstract moral “purity” that only makes sense as an exercise in such de-legitimisation. To be a white American who is not of the radical left is to be “racist”.
The document is merely a revealing reductio ad absurdem of a much wider pattern. For example, if Aborigines riot in Redfern because they are very unhappy about policing, that is an understandable (if perhaps over-enthusiastic) reaction to bad policing. If skippies riot (much less vigorously) on Cronulla beach because they are very unhappy about policing, that’s racism and an indictment of all Australian society. And one can’t complain about a very real Muslim Lebanese youth gang problem because that must be racism: even though youth gangs tend to be ethnically based for obvious reasons. (But complaining about skippies-or Americans, or Israelis-en masse is perfectly OK.) [Meanwhile, the more extensive retaliatory violence by Muslim Lebanese afterwards disappears down the memory hole.]
Similarly, objections to migration-despite high levels of migration being patently not in the interests of the resident working class-are rendered almost impossible because of hyper-sensitivity about “racism”. A “sensitivity” clearly largely driven by a mixture of status-seeking and “concern” over “racism” being the fundamental device whereby voters in general are denied any say in migration policy.
But a migration policy people don’t get any say in-because they are not allowed to say “no”, particularly not to suggest that a particular group are proving bad bets or otherwise problematic-is a migration policy people don’t “own”.
So, yes, the now-defunct University of Delaware racism sensitivity course is absurd. But it is a revealing absurdity. One, after all, adopted by a major institution, full of folk who pride themselves on their (superior) moral and intellectual grasp. Which is precisely the problem, really.