Nothing screams tolerance and diversity like a university workshop designed to target white people.
The State University of New York in Binghamton has a bit of explaining to do after they held a workshop titled, “#StopWhitePeople2K16.”
The workshop was an official part of the residential assistant training program at the taxpayer-funded university.
The Binghamton Review, the university’s conservative newspaper, exposed this nonsense and they deserve a round of applause for their efforts.
It’s not exactly clear how they intend to stop all of us white folks, but the course smacks of blatant bigotry disguised as cultural awareness.
Get a load of the course description:
“The premise of this session is to help others take the next step in understanding diversity, privilege and the society we function within.”
I developed a micro-aggression just reading that nonsense.
“The terrifying implication here is not that students on campus think it is appropriate to call an event by that name, but that the university seems to endorse it as a proper part of a RA training,” Binghamton Review journalist Howard Hecht wrote.
“For a university dedicated to providing an inclusive environment, calling an event ‘#StopWhitePeople2K16’ seems counterproductive at best,” Hecht continued. “The name is divisive.”
Well said, Howard.
You will be relieved to know the grownups at SUNY-Binghamton say they really don’t hate white people.
“We verified that the actual program content was not ‘anti-white’,” said Brian Rose, vice president for student affairs.
Whew! What a relief.
“The program title, ‘#StopWhitePeople2K16’ was drawn from a familiar hashtag in use on Twitter, and was not invented by the program facilitators,” he said in a prepared statement. “It is my understanding that the hashtag is commonly used ironically.”
Ah yes, the old “I’m not a racist, I’m just a plagiarist defense.”
Mr. Rose said as many as 50 RA’s attended the session—which he stressed was voluntary.
The content included discussions on reverse racism, the relationship of communities of color with police, whiteness and so on and so forth.
“What we strive to do from an administrative level is cultivate an environment where our students listen to one another, learn from one another and do so in a manner that doesn’t cause unnecessary harm,” Mr. Rose said. “I have no indication that this particular program was inconsistent with the respectful environment we hope to support and sustain.”
In other words, “#StopWhitePeople2K16” is just another name for “Blame the White Guy 101.”
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