By Ashe Schow
Tuesday, April 18, 2017
Do you believe there’s an objective truth? Well, you’re a
white supremacist then, at least according to a small number of black Pomona
College students.
In a letter that strings together words the students no
doubt learned in their Blank-Studies classes in what almost appears to be
social justice Mad Libs (the word “marginalized” appears seven times in the
one-page document), the students claim inviting a speaker critical of Black
Lives Matter and supportive of police amounts to oppression.
Further, the three authors of the letter—freshmen Dray
Denson, Avery Jonas, and sophomore Shanaya Stephenson—explain that “the Truth”
is a concept rooted in racism.
“The idea that there is a single truth–’the Truth’–is a
construct of the Euro-West that is deeply rooted in the Enlightenment, which
was a movement that also described Black and Brown people as both subhuman and
impervious to pain,” the students wrote. “This construction is a myth and white
supremacy, imperialism, colonization, capitalism, and the United States of
America are all of its progeny. The idea
that the truth is an entity for which we must search, in matters that endanger
our abilities to exist in open spaces, is an attempt to silence oppressed
peoples” (emphasis added).
Notice the list of social justice buzzwords: white
supremacy, imperialism, colonization, and capitalism. I’m surprised they didn’t
include authoritarianism and Donald Trump.
The letter is a response to an email sent by Pomona
College president David Oxtoby, who on April 7 criticized those who protested
the Manhattan Institute’s Heather Mac Donald. Mac Donald was invited to speak
by the Rose Institute for State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna
College, Pomona’s sister school, about her book, “The War on Cops.” Some
students called her a “notorious white supremacist fascist,” and proceeded to
chant “Black Lives Matter” while banging on the windows of the building where
Mac Donald was scheduled to speak.
Disagreeing With
Me Makes You a White Supremacist
Oxtoby wrote in his email to students that Pomona opposes
“preventing others from engaging with an invited speaker.” He further stated
that Pomona’s “mission is founded upon the discovery of truth, the
collaborative development of knowledge and the betterment of society.”
Denson, Jonas and Stephenson took offense to Oxtoby’s
defense of the truth.
“The idea that the search for this truth involves
entertaining Heather Mac Donald’s hate speech is illogical,” the students
wrote. “If engaged, Heather Mac Donald would not be debating on mere difference
of opinion, but the right of Black people to exist. Heather Mac Donald is a
fascist, a white supremacist, a warhawk, a transphobe, a queerphobe, a
classist, and ignorant of interlocking systems of domination that produce the
lethal conditions under which oppressed peoples are forced to live.”
Where do they get the idea that Mac Donald doesn’t think
black people have the right to exist? Defending good cops and criticizing the
bad tactics of a politically correct group (that not all black people have
decided to join) doesn’t mean she believes black people don’t have a right to
exist. Also, again notice the string of social-justice-warrior buzzwords to
describe Mac Donald.
Mac Donald wasn’t the only target of the students’ ire.
They also wanted the school to “take action” against the Claremont Independent, a right-leaning campus publication. The
three students, along with nearly a dozen others, signed their names to the
letter, then said if the Independent
publishes those names and they “receive threats and hate mail,” then Pomona
should “take legal action against members of the Claremont Independent involved
with the editing and publication process as well as disciplinary action, such
as expulsion on the grounds of endangering the wellbeing of others.”
Get that? They signed their names, but if they receive
any backlash for their actions they want other
students expelled and sued. How progressive.
Mac Donald
Responds: ‘A Major Embarassment’
In a statement to The
Federalist, Mac Donald called the letter “a major embarrassment to the
Pomona and Claremont faculty.” She cited instances of poor writing and grammar,
but lambasted the content as well.
“The students appear to argue that the ideal of free
speech is based on a mystifying and oppressive concept of unitary truth, and
that such a concept solidifies white supremacy … [yet] They are fully confident
that they possess the truth about me and about their oppressed plight at Pomona
and Claremont,” Mac Donald said.
Mac Donald also defended her work, saying the students
have misread it.
“My entire argument about the necessity of proactive
policing is based on the value of black lives,” she said. “I have decried the
loss of black life to drive-by shootings and other forms of street violence. I
have argued that the fact that blacks die of homicide at six times the rate of
whites and Hispanics combined is a civil rights abomination. And I have tried
to give voice to the thousands of law-abiding residents of high-crime areas who
are desperate for more police protection so that they can enjoy the same
freedom from fear as people in more wealthy areas take for granted.”
Do What We Want Or
Else We’ll Say You’re Racists
The students have also demanded that Oxtoby respond to
them by Tuesday at 4:07 p.m. and send a revised email by Thursday, “apologizing
for the previous patronizing statement, enforcing that Pomona College does not
tolerate hate speech and speech that projects violence onto the bodies of its
marginalized students and oppressed peoples, especially Black students who
straddle the intersection of marginalized identities, and explaining the steps
the institution will take and the resources it will allocate to protect the
aforementioned students.”
So. Many. Buzzwords.
The social justice warrior problem on college campuses
appears to be escalating. The protests are becoming more violent, and the
demands are becoming more absurd. Just last week, the editorial staff of the
Wellesley College student newspaper wrote: “If people are given the resources
to learn and either continue to speak hate speech or refuse to adapt their
beliefs, then hostility may be warranted.”
The phrase “hate speech” has lost all meaning on
campuses, as it now refers simply to speech liberal students don’t agree with.
They claim it is bigoted, dangerous, and “violent,” making it acceptable—in their
minds—to respond with physical violence.
I’d honestly believe this letter was a hoax, like that
ridiculous article on the Huffington Post demanding we take away all white
men’s voting rights, which was taken down because the author was fake—except
you can actually find these students in the campus directory.
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