I just noticed the following story on a right-wing internet news publication called the Federalist. I will post the parts from the original story in red and my responses to it will be in blue.
http://thefederalist.com/2016/08/04/how-to-fight-black-lives-matter-harassment-in-houston/
Rohini Sethi, the vice president of the Student Government Association at the University of Houston, has been suspended from that position, barred from participating in SGA activities, required to attend various diversity workshops, and must write a letter of reflection on how wrong she was. All this even though she has three stars on the victim meter: a racial minority, an immigrant family background, and a woman. Must be serious!
What’s this about a “victim meter”? I’ve never heard liberals or leftists use that term, so I guess this is something conservatives have recently coined to mock minorities. Bad form! BTW, it was the Student Government Association itself that took those actions, not the management of the university or the city of Houston or any other outside government body. Private entities have always been free to exclude those who make offensive statements that damage their reputation, even with the First Amendment in force.
So what was her grand offense to warrant this punishment? Making the following post on Facebook: “Forget #BlackLivesMatter; more like #AllLivesMatter.” That’s it.
Sethi made that comment in response to five cops in Dallas being killed by a gunman after a Black Lives Matter protest that the cops were actually protecting. She was actually being profoundly insensitive. She could have made a statement of sympathy for the murdered cops themselves, but instead she made an idiotic statement that is already old hat.
Yet predictably, outrage ensued from supporters of Black Lives Matter. The Black Student Union at the University of Houston called not only for Sethi’s suspension from student government, but for her complete removal from that body, using the Twitter hashtag #RemoveRohini to support that cause. The story has gained nationwide attention.
There will always be some that take extreme positions and advocate or even do extreme things, including the moron who killed those five Dallas cops. Most people can ignore or counter the extremists and still advance a social reform movement. But those that want to derail the movement itself refer to the extremists themselves are representative of the entire movement, which is dishonest.
What are we to make of this incident? Let’s start by looking at what’s wrong with Black Lives Matter.
Get a Grip, Black Lives Matter
First, some have compared Black Lives Matter to raising breast cancer awareness, arguing that emphasizing breast cancer does not mean one is slighting other types of cancer. Therefore, goes the argument, saying Black Lives Matter doesn’t mean other lives don’t matter.
However, the problem with this analogy is simply that cancer is not anywhere near the same as race. It does not have the same sensitivity, history, and emotionally charged nature. So the cancer analogy does not even come close to having the same negative connotations and sense of unfairness that focusing on one race to the perceived exclusion of others has. The fact is, the slogan “Black Lives Matter” does sound exclusionary, as does the rhetoric of many of its proponents.
Cancer KILLS people, just as racism often kills people! Saying that cancer is not nearly as serious a problem as racism is bullshit of the highest order. And that something sounds exclusionary is not the fault of the activists, but of the listeners who are not used to hearing minorities speak up for THEIR specific interests and desires, as all people should be encouraged to do. Yes, including white supremacists.
Secondly, Black Lives Matter is not actually focused on saving black lives. Indeed, in Chicago alone, 65 people were killed in July, making it the deadliest July in more than five years. At least three-quarters of those victims were black, and almost all of those poor souls were killed by other black people. Nationwide, black folks kill around 5,500 other black folks every year. Is BLM organizing protests and blocking freeways to combat the epic problem of black crime? Doesn’t look like it.
What about black education underachievement and the thug culture infecting black communities? BLM is silent. What about the massive problem of single motherhood? Seventy percent of black kids are born out of wedlock, even though studies clearly show that children from married, two-parent homes have better outcomes. Why the silence from BLM? If they were truly interested in helping black people, they’d be at the leading edge of fighting for all of these issues. So why aren’t they? Maybe someone can ask George Soros.
How stupid! The BLM movement was created to deal with ONE specific problem, the killing of unarmed black youths by armed white cops. There is NO excuse for that! There are plenty of other organizations, such as the NAACP, that can deal with those other issues. Also what about all the white on white murders and other crimes that are known to happen? What about white teenagers who have babies out of wedlock too? That drop out of high school? That listen to or perform rap music, including one of the most notorious rappers of all time….Eminem, who is WHITE! But let us pretend that only blacks are the thugs, shall we?
Speak Up for Free Speech
So now that we understand what BLM is and is not, what does the hostile reaction to Sethi reveal? Just like the DePaul University banning Ben Shapiro and Twitter banning Milo Yiannopoulos and craftily suppressing conservative content using a technique called shadowbanning, universities, social media sites, and the mainstream media are increasingly shutting out the voices of those who go against left-wing ideology. The standard for acceptable discourse is not truthfulness, but whether certain groups might be offended.
Groups that must not be offended are: racial minorities, women, gays, immigrants, and Muslims. On the other end of the spectrum, groups who do not have the right to be offended are: whites, Christians, men, and conservatives. Almost any amount of abuse against them will go unpunished.
Note that there is no evidence that agencies of GOVERNMENT are involved in these actions. Again, these are private entities, and they are perfectly free to do as they wish to those they see as offensive. Or do you think they should not have that freedom? What irony!
The truth is that many of these entities are indeed controlled by young people of various racial groups who grew up in a society dominated by conservative thinking like that of the writer of that article….and they are SICK of those conservatives controlling the political and social dialogues across America for so long. So now they are fighting back. If you on the right do not like being “discriminated against”, it is nothing compared to how minorities have been treated by you and your political ancestors for CENTURIES! GET OVER IT!
Also, Muslims can be homophobes, anti-feminists, and anti-Semitic. Atheists can be racist, anti-feminist, and Islamophobes. Blacks can be anti-Semitic, homophobic, and conservative. And whites, Christians and men can fight racism, sexism, homophobia, and anti-Semitism. It is as INDIVIDUALS that everyone should be judged, not racial, sexual, or religious groups alone!
My advice to Sethi: Rather than be force-fed diversity training and write an apology letter for a crime you did not commit, tell them you will not do it, and that you did nothing wrong. Document your experiences and share them across the nation. Might you even have a legal case against the university? Use this as an opportunity to advocate for free expression and exchange of ideas—what universities are supposed to be all about in the first place. Oh, and do an interview with Milo, too!
Yeah, let us make things even worse for this woman. I’ve noticed that if you stay silent about something for a few months, people tend to forget about it and move on to the next thing to be upset about.
John Gibbs, you are an idiot. And that is being polite to you.
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