And by ‘Progressive Broflakes’, tonight, I mean “Bret Weinstein”.
Although I first encountered the species back in the mid-1970s, on a midwestern state university campus, where an earlier generation of More Feminist Than You Ladies men decided to “liberate” the women’s lounge in the Student Union, a room with some battered couches and tables adjacent to the bathroom, which had for many years been a place where female students could study, talk, or even nap without getting harassed. Like newly-politicized college students, aging “progressive” men attempting to show off their leadership skills are an endlessly renewable resource.
Some context to Cole’s post below, from Inside Higher Ed:
… For many years at Evergreen State, minority students and faculty members have observed a Day of Absence in which they meet off campus to discuss campus issues and how to make the college more supportive of all students. Later a Day of Presence reunites various campus groups. Weinstein said he’s been aware of the tradition for some time, and never objected to it. But this year, organizers said that on the Day of Absence, they wanted white people to stay off campus. Weinstein opposed this shift, and he posted a message on a campus email list in which he objected to the proposal to ask white people to stay off campus.
“There is a huge difference between a group or coalition deciding to voluntarily absent themselves from a shared space in order to highlight their vital and underappreciated roles (the theme of the Douglas Turner Ward play Day of Absence, as well as the recent Women’s Day walkout), and a group encouraging another group to go away,” Weinstein wrote. “The first is a forceful call to consciousness, which is, of course, crippling to the logic of oppression. The second is a show of force, and an act of oppression in and of itself.”
Weinstein went on to say he would be on campus on the Day of Absence and would encourage a similar stance by white people being asked to stay away. People should “put phenotype aside,” he said. “On a college campus, one’s right to speak — or to be — must never be based on skin color.”
That email is one of the reasons Weinstein is being called racist, with students saying his tone belittled the people behind the idea of having a Day of Absence without white people on campus. The other reason cited against Weinstein is that he has come out against a recommendation on faculty hiring by the college’s Equity and Inclusion Council. That recommendation, currently under consideration by college leaders, would require an “equity justification/explanation” for all faculty hires…
In other words, Weinstein was perfectly okay with those pesky “inclusive” groups as long as they stayed on the margins and didn’t affect his daily life in any way, shape or form. The instant the argument went from “We should let some of those people in, if it’s not too much trouble” to “We should proactively demonstrate what actually having a ‘minority’ group as the standard would look like”, Professor Weinstein’s all BUT WHAT ABOUT *MY* RIGHTS?!?
Open Thread: White “Progressive” Broflakes, THEEE <del>WURST</del> WORSTPost + Comments (121)