Last week in an article published by the Huffington Post, journalism student Aeman Ansari reported on an incident that occurred in March of this year on the campus of Ryerson University in Toronto Canada that involved an event organized by The Racialised Student's Collective. The RSC is a student organization, that according to their website, is "opposed of all forms of racism and works toward community wellness for students.". Their mission is to " create an anti-racist climate on campus that will foster a healthy and rich working and learning environment for all.". Their focus is to "provide safe spaces, build an anti-racist network through campus wide services, campaigns and events.". They also define racism as "a system of advantages based on race.".
At face value it seems like the basis of a fundamentally sound philosophy that promotes a non-prejudiced viewpoint..... that is,as long as your not white. The aforementioned event was deemed by the RSC as a "safe space" and two journalism students were not allowed to attend because they were Caucasian. To define "safe spaces", according to Miss Ansari (who by the way describes herself as a "person of colour"..... more on that later), these "safe spaces" "are forums where minority groups are protected from mainstream stereotypes and marginalization." Miss Ansari goes on to claim that "these spaces are rare places in the world not controlled by individuals who have power, have privilege.". Pardon me, my fellow Observer, but..... what a pile of complete non-productive, prejudicial denying, steaming, discriminatory dung. C'mon..... Really?...... Who do they think they're fooling? It doesn't take a journalistic civil rights Rhodes scholar to figure out that these "safe spaces" events are just a racial smoke screen for modern segregation. So, let me get this straight. This organization of "people of colour" wants a "safe space" to discuss their persecution by the "people of privilege" (insert white people here) and blackball (that's what my grandfather used to call it) the "people" who they feel may persecute them while they are discussing the hardship of they're persecution by the aforementioned "people of privilege". And if you followed all that and I got what they consider the logic of their concept correct, the RSC is simply discriminating against the people they think are discriminating or will discriminate against them. In other words.... racism. Is someone kidding me?....... Did I fall asleep for a decade or so and missed all this racial role reversal garbage? If so I'm glad I was asleep. When did this become the norm? Here I am walking around, apparently in some kind of social static bubble, thinking that we as a society were making some type of progressive strides (by no means great leaps) but small strides towards decreasing prejudice and hatred when along comes this bigoted bull across my weekly news feed and turns that small glimmer of hope to doubt once again. What I find the most disturbing about this "minority only" homo-sapiens club is that they are students. The very people that we "stuck in a racial hatred revolving door" adults hope would effect the most change on that front are yet again making the same mistakes as the last generation and the one before as well. It questions what we have learned. How have we progressed? When will all this petty bickering over our differences end?
The dismaying facts are, my loyal reader, is that we haven't learned, we haven't progressed and there is no end to the conflict in sight. Especially when the educators and administrators are as bad, if not worse, than the students they teach and lead. At South Puget Sound Community College in Olympia Washington an on campus organization called The Staff, Faculty and Administrators of Color (here we go again..... and notice the different spelling this time) sent out an email inviting staff members to a "diversity happy hour event". The email, generated by Karama Blackhorn, program coordinator for the schools Diversity and Equity Center, caused an outrage because within it's invitation made it clear that white faculty members were decidedly not invited. Sent to over 300 employees, it read in part, "if you want to create a space for white folks to meet and work on racism, white supremacy and white privilege to better our campus, community and yourselves, please feel free to do just that". In other words, Blackhorn insinuated that the event was a forum for just black people to discuss these practices and white people have every right to do the same..... just not in our clubhouse, Spanky!....And take Alfalfa with you!.....Buckwheat and Stimey..... come on in! Blackhorn confirmed that interpretation of her email by stating "that space is not for white people, that space is for people of color" further commenting that "staff members cannot discuss race issues with white people present". And this woman is an administrator at a college? I wonder what she majored in. If the event had not been headed off by upper administrators worried about their jobs being in jeopardy due to the widespread controversy and ultimately cancelled, I wonder if Blackhorn would have been allowed to attend. That's right..... you guessed it.... she's white. The saddest part is that she had a genuine opportunity to create an open forum to discuss issues with all races about diversity and equity but chose to aggravate the situation further instead of promoting the ideals of the department she helps lead.
I'm going to stop here for a moment and address something that has been bothering me for a couple of paragraphs. " Person of colour". "Administrators of color". "People of color". Didn't I hear something a long time ago that black people didn't want to be referred to as colored anymore because it offended them? Even the NAACP, that has the word "colored" in their name, describes themselves as an "African-American" civil rights organization and as an organization the acronym itself is enough for everyone to know who they are. That's how iconic it is. Besides, the NAACP was created in 1909....I'm sure they don't want to change their name now just because a few people have a problem with the reference. But I still don't understand why now it's all the rave for the people who create these groups to use a term in their name that we were told was derogatory over two decades ago? For what?.....nostalgic reasons? To remind us that they still feel discriminated against? Maybe they feel that it's a way to draw attention to their cause. Gain sympathy and empathy for the persecution they believe they experience every day. What these people don't seem to understand is by trying to gain support in such ways creates even more dissension than it curbs. If they are accusing certain groups or individuals of not accepting them, then why do they do everything in their power to distance themselves? It's all very confusing to me. Actions like this have all of us questioning what the rules are now. Am I the only one that needs a refresher course every month? Does anyone else wonder why we are so hung up on the words we use? Questioning why what is commonly accepted today will probably be considered politically incorrect tomorrow? Then, what do we call each other without offending anyone, anyway? Are we White or Caucasian? Black or Colored? Oriental or Asian? Hispanic or Latino? American Indian, Native American or just plain Indian? So many ways to label our races. And within those labels, just as many ways to offend each other. Think of all the time we as a society waste on deciding what is the best way to refer to someone's genetic heritage instead of at least attempting to pursue a more productive goal. Has it occurred to anyone to just describe ourselves as people?..... just people, no matter what the race? Or humans..... that's a good one....I like that. Maybe the idea of considering "humans" as a collective species instead of segregating ourselves according to our races could very well be the first step towards accepting the fact that we are all connected to each other by the common thread of humanity.
In the early 1800's William Hazlitt wrote in an essay that "prejudice is the child of ignorance". A little later that century Dickens wrote in A Christmas Carol that we should fear ignorance over want. Although I agree with these literary greats, I do not believe that ignorance in this day and age is to blame. Just the realization that this philosophy was explored through literature nearly 200 years ago is evidence enough that we know better. We simply choose to judge, discriminate and hate each other based on our individual creed. Some people claim that we are now experiencing the anomaly of "reversed prejudice"... we're not. There is no such thing. Prejudice is prejudice no matter what excuse is being used this week to justify it's practice. That's what we don't seem to comprehend and we have to. Otherwise our children's children will not see the end of racism in their lifetime. And through our children lies the second step of acceptance. How we educate them. If from the start we teach our children that people are people..... just people instead of referring to them as black or white or yellow or brown or red and focus their attention on cultures instead of colors.....I believe that, eventually, the colors we use to label ourselves with will fade in time. Strictly an Observation. If you'll excuse me, The Little Rascals are on.
