Black Community News News and Commentary for Christians
I recall something about lunatics and taking over the asylum.
It’s important for the reasonable among us not to give in to a form of leftism that grows more absurd every day. People who oppose the depravity and say so face job loss and fines, but we must refuse to march in lockstep like good little taxpayers. Free speech erodes, and along with it, religious freedom.
Eugene Volokh, a libertarian/conservative blogger who teaches at the University of California, moved his Volokh Conspiracy blog to washingtonpost.com in 2014. He wrote a post about how his taxpayer-supported employer is laying the groundwork for the suppression of unpopular speech. The latest ridiculous thing is the “microagressions” speech code.
This is from the school’s web site:
Microaggressions are the everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership (from Diversity in the Classroom, UCLA Diversity & Faculty Development, 2014).
Because people are reduced to looking for “racism” under rocks these days, liberals have to make up something to be offended about. So-called microaggressions are utterances that liberals have decided are offensive or hostile. Nothing like “Shut up, ni**er!” or something similarly vulgar, but “I don’t see color,” or “There’s no such thing as race.” Now reasonable people know this is dumb. Unfortunately, the unreasonable people are dead serious and wield power.
Individuals don’t have to be colorblind, in my opinion, so conservatives should stop saying it. Laws and policies must be colorblind. Since liberals have to keep the fires of racial resentment raging to retain adherents, any “colorblind” talk is deemed offensive denial. So much for the civil rights movement.
Volokh says (emphasis added):
“Well, I’m happy to say that I’m just going to keep on microaggressing. I like to think that I’m generally polite, so I won’t express these views rudely. And I try not to inject my own irrelevant opinions into classes I teach, so there are many situations in which I won’t bring up these views simply because it’s not my job to express my views in those contexts. But the document that I quote isn’t about keeping classes on-topic or preventing presonal insults — it’s about suppressing particular viewpoints. And what’s tenure for, if not to resist these attempts to stop the expression of unpopular views?”
Opposition to cultural rot must be suppressed, and the offender must be drummed out of his profession and shamed. This is the world we live in now, and again, we have to resist any urge to back down. The last thing we need are apologies and tail-tucking.
It sometimes feels like an episode of “The Twilight Zone.” Think of what the men and women of the World War eras did to secure freedom in this country. Contrast them with the present-day fat, over-fed, and bored among us who keep stirring up fear and loathing. The worst thing we can do is cave to this childish nonsense.
For his part, Volokh says he will not back down. Anybody presently with a forum — blog, radio, TV show, or a literal soap-box — who’s frustrated about the way things are going can say so, resist it, and encourage others to do the same.
In a update to the post, Volokh published a response from a UC Office of the President spokeswoman:
“Given the diverse backgrounds of our students, faculty and staff, UC offered these seminars to make people aware of how their words or actions may be interpreted when used in certain contexts. Deans and department heads were invited, but not required, to attend the seminars,” University of California Office of the President spokeswoman Shelly Meron told FoxNews.com.
She added that the university had not banned the words when it labeled them as examples of micro-aggressions and insisted that the university system is “committed to upholding, encouraging and preserving academic freedom and the free flow of ideas.”
Of course, the school hasn’t “banned…words.” But we’re getting there if we don’t do something about it now.
Photo credit: “Janss Steps, Royce Hall in background, UCLA” by b r e n t – UCLA. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
