Bret Weinstein, a biology professor at Evergreen State College, is no racist. Not only is he not a racist, but he is clearly a believer in social justice. Just not quite enough to be on the cutting edge. For that, he is now in fear for his safety.
“I have been told by the Chief of Police it’s not safe for me to be on campus,” said Weinstein, who held his Thursday class in a downtown Olympia park.
An administrator confirmed the police department advised Weinstein it “might be best to stay off campus for a day or so.”
What did he do to deserve such hatred? He objected to racism, but not enough.
The fury was particularly generated by this line:
On a college campus, one’s right to speak—or to be—must never be based on skin color.
If one was to read that line as defending the rights of student of color to speak, and to be, on a college campus, this might be unobjectionable. But that’s not how it was interpreted, given the context of the planned protest. Rather, it was the call for the exclusion of white students and faculty from campus as proof of their dedication to ending racism by ceding the campus to students of color.
There is no challenge, no question, no position that can be asserted that sufficiently embraces the latest craze of social justice. And so, social justice continues to spiral out of control, devouring its own when they aren’t SJW-y enough. Heretics cannot be tolerated.
The students of Evergreen State College have demanded Weinstein’s head, or some other part of the biology prof’s anatomy, on a platter. He must be fired. He must be harmed. He must be burned at the stake for being so racist.
His heresy, ironically, was that he distinguished between protest that would serve to enhance the value of minority students to the campus community as opposed to devaluing non-minority students.
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 under appreciated roles … and a group or coalition encouraging another group to go away.
Is this a fair critique, a sound distinction? It doesn’t matter. One isn’t permitted to question Rashida Love’s methods. After all, Love is the director of the First Peoples Multicultural Advising Services, and Weinstein is merely a professor of biology. What right does he have to erase her lived experiences?
Confronted by the mob of students, Weinstein sought to engage in reason, for which he was repaid with the virtues of social justice.
“I do not believe that anybody on our faculty, with intent, specially targets students of color,” he replied—sparking shrieking outrage from the student protesters.
The professor tried to reason with the students, claiming discussion can bring positive change. “Listen to me … Yes, I know, history could pivot in the direction of the values that you are standing here for,” prompting a student to interrupt him, saying “Yeah, resign.”
“I’m not resigning,” the professor fired back.
As his brother, who twitted about this incident, noted, “the Left eats its own.” The notion of racial equality isn’t the issue, but the orthodoxy of the methods of achieving it has morphed into insufferable authoritarianism. It sailed past the concept of equality into the concept of racial favoritism, and it did so with the help of duly woke academics like Weinstein, for whom the bastardized Herzberg theory would likely represent horrifying and exhausting racism.
Now, Weinstein might be more open to seeing the error of his ways, as there is no line to be drawn, no limit to be allowed, to the downward spiral of social justice correctness. The problem with jumping blindly into an emotional vortex is that there is no way to get out.
While one might well appreciate that Bret Weinstein will not succumb to the infantile insanity of the SJWs he helped to empower, the question now is whether he can continue to fulfill his function as pedagogue when the students despise him as not sufficiently unracist. He may be brilliant in teaching bio, and be otherwise as good and obedient an ally to the cause as any other prof, but after the angry hordes march upon the ivory tower with torches lit, is there any going back?
It’s regrettable that this happened to Weinstein, whose only crime was to question the efficacy of a scheme to exclude white students from campus (and, of course, any student who failed to voluntarily absent himself from campus would immediately be branded a white supremacist). But the question remains whether Weinstein, or any professor who supported the methods of social justice, regrets their participation in a downward spiral doomed to authoritarianism, not to mention eating its own?
It”s too late for Mr. Professor to complain now. It’s sad, regrettable, outrageous … all of these things.
But he can’t say he didn’t ever see this sort of thing coming. Just not to him.
The revolution has already begun in the minds of these folks. To them, you’re either wit ’em or agin’ ’em. And look out if they deem you agin’ ’em and have access to your life, professional or private.
This is not going to end neatly.
The professor is being paid to be there, and it is part of his job duties to be there teaching. Non-black students are paying tuition to be present on campus, and part of that tuition is paying this professor to teach them. So the “demand” from the demented “progressives” in this case was essentially a demand for all non-black students to forfeit the benefit of a day’s tuition, and for either the college or the professor to forfeit the value of his services for the day. This is nuts. People who are paying or being paid money as part of a contractual arrangement for educational services should not be expected by some racist splinter group to absent themselves from campus for purposes unrelated to the college’s educational mission. The students and faculty subjected to these demands should insist that the college guaranty their “safe spaces,” where they can be free of these hostile, racist intimidation campaigns.
There’s nothing progressive about racism and segregation, which is what the protestors are demanding…. a return to segregation. MLK is spinning.
There is nothing liberal about it. It’s extremely progressive.
” Not only is he not a racist, but he is clearly a believer in social justice.” – This statement is self-contradictory. If you are a believer in social justice, you are all kinds of -ist. At its core, social justice requires making decisions about people on the basis of things such as race, sex, religion, etc. Saying someone is not a racist but believes in social justice is a bit like saying someone is an atheist that believes in god.
“At its core, social justice requires making decisions about people on the basis of things such as race, sex, religion, etc. ” Are you insane?! Where does such completely assinine thinking come from?!
Jason’s argument, though perhaps expressed in extreme terms, is fair and obvious. Social justice is grounded in recognition and rules based on identity, whether someone has “white privilege” or is “marginalized,” whether someone has the right to question, challenge, engage in free speech, engage in a business endeavor, is all qualified based on one’s race, gender, religion, etc. While the rules change from moment to moment, dictated by the victim du jour, it is entirely about identity.
Your reply, that it’s “insane” and “asinine,” says nothing. No one cares that you disagree. Why you disagree might have some meaning, but you failed miserably to offer any reason whatsoever. Was your purpose in writing a comment to conclusively prove that Jason was right and there was no rational disagreement with his point? If so, your comment was a spectacular success.
I believe his purpose in writing is known as “humor”. Satire, I would say. Your lack of same gives you something in common with the SJWs.
It would probably help if you made clear which “his” you’re referring to, but either way, you’re very special.
Foolish n00b. You may be sticking the corn up the wrong orifice.
I hold that the reasons I disagree are self-evident… or at least should be. To state that race should be a consideration in “social justice”, other than to ensure that it is administered evenly is a flat contradiction of anti-racism. All this perpetuates and aggravates division and disharmony and pushes our silly contrived “groups” apart. All humans are created equal and have EQUAL rights in the eyes of true social justice. And yes, I believe it to be “insanity” to think otherwise.
Ah. Well then, it’s self-evident to me that SJ is not going to be a good fit for you and you would do well to go elsewhere. Bye.
Sorry LT, but part of being intellectually honest, is accepting the truth of things as they currently are.
Social Justice measures “justice” in terms of history, oppression, group identity etc, it doesn’t measure “justice” on the grounds of truth or universality.
That would be God to you, Sir Jason. Saying someone believes in god is a bit like saying you believe in dog.
We all believe in dog, “man’s best friend”, but not everyone believes in God. Unfortunately for the law-abiding masses of asses, not believing in God does not make you a “bad guy”. It’s perfectly legal, irregardless of what it says in the Pledge of Allegiance. (One Nation under God.) Or did we get it backwards?
Finally, some of us believe in hot dog, especially Nathan’s. They’re the best! Can we move on to hot pants? It’s that time of year.
Interesting how you had to change the subject, there, in order to insert your insult. You would be quite welcome on the campus of Evergreen State, I’m sure.
Remember, insanity is a disability, and you’re creating a hostile blawg environment for Bill.
Hebrew National makes the best. I am hereby calling for a day of absence. Only Hebrew National fans will be permitted to set foot on campus.
You are correct. The social justice movement fosters racial animosities and division. Every good cause eventually morphs into a self-perpetuating business. The movement cannot exist in an environment of equals, an environment of autonomous persons of every race, ethnicity, gender, etc., The closer we approached to such an environment of free and equal individuals, the more frantic the social justice warriors become in their efforts to subjugate individuals to group “identities” and to foster mayhem by driving wedges between those groups. So now social justice warriors subject us to ever more Orwellian public displays of their moral masturbation. Without such displays, they would not exist.
Moral masturbation? An interesting image.
Moral masturbation! You nailed it.
What a great euphemism for virtue signalling!
This is an excellent analysis… they’re going off the rails PRECISELY because they have no legitimate raison d’etre left.
This is no longer surprising, but it doesn’t cease being disturbing.
If Orwell were alive today, he would have at hand all the material he needs for his new backstory novel, 1976.
If Eric Arthur Blair was alive today, he’d be about 113 years old, and not very likely working on any new novel.
Greenfield, Tyre’s being ageist again!
Look up ageist in the dictionary and there’s a huge pic of Tyre. Trigger Warning: It’s a pic of Tyre.
Trust me, SJ readers, if you value your sanity, you do not want to see that pic. (Billy Bob and Barleycorn may want to, they have no sanity to value.)
[Ed. Note: Link added. Because I can.]
Another sad indictment of my generation. Emotional, illogical, and hypocritical conduct is the mark of the millennial
An indictment of a generation, perhaps, but not of any individual. You have free will. You don’t have to conform to any stereotype. You have the power to think, even if no one around you is willing to do so.
Hah. Whole happy little group of future ABA members, right there. What a wonderful video.
From this twit: https://twitter.com/DWD1981/status/867518298581213187
“2 minny hard werdz.”
@DWD1981 nailed it.
Rashida Love is the Director, First Peoples Multicultural Advising Services, Evergreen State College. At that place of higher learning, they don’t have majors. They have Areas of Emphasis. And you get to create your own title for it, too. Examples they give on there website include: Media and Culture, Social Justice, or Somatic and Consciousness Studies.
So? Harvard offers a degree — actually, several degrees — in Theology.
Not a good comparison. Theology has kinda been a thing for a really long time. Having survived the ages, it’s distinguishable from that major in Social Justice.
Plus the theology students generally don’t consider those who ask questions about the flavor of theology they are studying to be an enemy who ought to be eradicated from society. Sometimes they even ask those questions themselves, without making people cry or get violent.
If they were regularly shutting down campus events and hurling abuse at the heathens, it might be a pretty good comparison.
I wouldn’t be so sure. Have you checked out what has become of many a Theology curriculum? On many campuses, the Div School is where you go to learn how to co-opt religion to push SJW agendas.
There is a war going on in divinity school, as was seen with Paul Griffiths at Duke. But that doesn’t make the concept of a course of study of theology any less legitimate.
Theology is a branch of applied mathematics, logical constraints on the concept of Infinity. It’s just that it’s applied to philosophy rather than to, say, mechanical physics.
There’s some truth to that. I majored in Judeo-Christian Religious Philosophy (don’t ask), took Logic through the Philosophy Department. Then I student taught Logic as offered through the Math Department. It wasn’t a big stretch.
Jeez, Tyre. Give you the tiniest crack and it’s straight down the rabbit hole with you.
Now they just need to label the seats “Blankes” & Nie-Blankes” to make Verwoed and Botha roll in their graves with laughter…
Pushing whites off campus to show non-racism is just like the lovely idea of fighting for peace. May many more SJWs burn with him.
Yes, eating their own is a feature, not a bug.
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The students at Evergreen appear to be the same as when I was an undergraduate in the state of Washington. No, I did not attend that school, but ran into them from time to time. I would not expect a lot of developed critical thinking skills amongst them, but they could be fun at a party in an Animal House way.
Good to know they have one virtue, at least.
I watched the video of Bret Weinstein confronting the mob. I was impressed with his reasoning and his ability to stay calm. I can’t believe the school allows the students to scream and cuss at him like that. Some of the students are getting close to actual state criminal harassment, not the Tile IX flavor.
The press conference held by the President of the school regarding the incident is pure insanity and made me laugh out loud. I also thought, forcing (either through passive or active assistance from the school) white people from the school is a good way to get sued. I would think a risk adverse administrator (as they usually are in my experience) would try to stop this before it costs his school serious money in legal fees and damages. I never thought I would see the day where administrators would be so afraid of a section of the student body that they would go down a path that exposes them to needless litigation and possible damages.
I never thought I would see the day where administrators would be so afraid of a section of the student body that they would go down a path that exposes them to needless litigation and possible damages.
The administrators aren’t afraid of the demonstrators. The administrators are themselves Social Justice Warriors, and are in full agreement with the demonstrators’ methods and goals.
The administrators’ actions don’t expose them to litigation. They expose the State of Washington to litigation and possible damages, and any damages will be billed to the taxpayers.
If white extremists had demanded that all black students leave campus to demonstrate the contribution whites have made to the university, would that be racist? If so, and of course the SJW would say so, how do you justify such hypocrisy?
The excuse, of course, is that only the oppressors can be racist, and the marginalized are entitled to latitude that exempts them from otherwise obvious hypocrisy.
I watched the video of Weinstein’s confrontation with the Red Guards, and was baffled by his belief that he could reason with them. How long has it been since we all had the Nicholas Christakis video to clarify the current situation? (“Hungry grizzly bear? Don’t worry, folks, I’m trained in formal logic. Stand back — I’m going in.”) There seems to be a certain limit to the ability of leftist professors to see what they’re facing, which means that no, they don’t regret what they’ve made. They don’t yet know that they’ve made it.
But Stalin purged bolsheviks and murdered Bukharin, the Terror killed lots of Jacobins, and Ernst Röhm died on the Night of the Long Knives. So it goes.
I had the same reaction. Might as well try to reason with a jihadi, that’s what these people are, which is why they make common cause with them.
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Evergreen State College is the enemy of Saint Rachel Corrie of the pancakes.
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