Posted on 02/28/2016 3:11:14 AM PST by Altura Ct.
A professor at Calvin College in Michigan wrote a column accusing his students and fellow faculty members of being white supremacists for failing to accept the notion of “white privilege.” The professor also says Calvin College itself and the entire state of Michigan only exist because of said white privilege.
In late November, Calvin College endured a small scandal when swastikas and the words “white power” were found written on several cars using snow. Two students confessed to the deed, but their names, motivations and punishments haven’t been revealed, leaving open the possibility the stunt was a hoax or a poorly conceived prank rather than an act of hate.
But according to Joseph Kuilema, a professor in social work, the swastika incident is only one tiny part of the much greater problem of white privilege.
“What occurred was not an isolated incident, a freak occurrence in an otherwise loving and inclusive community,” Kuilema says in a column last Friday in Calvin’s school paper. “While few members of this community openly espouse white supremacy, many members of our community continue to deny white privilege. It must be clearly stated that those who deny white privilege functionally believe in white supremacy, whether they have the courage to write it on a car or not.”
Kuilema goes on to say both Calvin College and the entire state of Michigan are products of white privilege and white supremacy.
“White supremacy created slavery and Jim Crow, but when it was combined with its Calvinist cousin Manifest Destiny … it also created Michigan,” he says. “The land on which Calvin College sits was stolen from what our own Declaration of Independence termed ‘the merciless Indian savages’ by the Treaty of Chicago in 1821 … Calvin College would not exist without racism.”
Kuilema also expresses distress over a recent statement from college president Michael K. Le Roy, who stated all people are racist in some way. But Kuilema says that’s not the case, as only white people can be racist in America.
“I, Joseph Kuilema, am certainly a racist,” he writes. “As a white male, I benefit tremendously from institutions and systems that have been built by and for people like me. This is how the social sciences define racism, not as merely the product of prejudice, explicit or implicit bias, but a system of power based on the invention of the ‘white race’ by people in power.”
Despite Kuilema’s claim, his definition of racism is hardly the consensus definition, and instead is the subject of much debate even within academia. Legitimate or not, though, Kuilema forges ahead to cap his argument that much of Calvin College continues to espouse white supremacy.
“If, as a white person, you refuse to acknowledge [white] privilege, you are asserting that the game of life in America is inherently meritocratic, that it is a fair game, that those who try hardest win,” he says, before claiming this is obviously false due to phenomena such as white families having higher average wealth and and blacks having a higher incarceration rate.
“As a white person, you can choose to believe the game is fair,” he continues. “You can choose to believe that you have no privilege. You can see what happened on November 22 as the splinter in the eye of two misguided students. But if you do so, you ignore the plank. If the game is fair you are assuming that white people are simply better at it … You are assuming white supremacy.”
This professor I assume lives in a housing project in an urban neighborhood with his brothers, no? I rest my case. This professor is a white privileged liberal progressive hypocrite
Those who deny black bigots exist may well be black bigots themselves.
White devils didn't create slavery and this libtard Red seems awfully quiet about all of the Islamist slave trade in the world today.
The halls of higher learning are in desperate need of a through cleansing.
We were told that this was because the 'others' did not hold the positions of power to do anything racist with their bigotries.
Wanda Sykes called it in 2008 when she said that black people would need to find a new excuse if Obama won because you can't go blaming "The Man" when you ARE "The Man".
Actually, the brave defenders of Frogtown know: the Michigander swamp fox were placed there by Sasquatch to harry and consternate the poor people of buckeye land!
/ kidding, but makes more sense than the professor’s dribble
“White privilege” is simply the latest left wing ploy to make white people too ashamed to look out for their own self-interest. The unfortunate thing is they can fill young peoples heads with this nonsense using tax money.
Straw man argument. Especially with set asides and cronyism. Best rarely ever takes the prize.
Was VHS "better" than Beta? The argument against Laserdisc was "you can't record on it", doesn't seem to be a problem cited by DVD buyers today (even though few are recording on them as widely as was the case with videotape).
Ever look at music charts to see who "wins"?
No, "those who try hardest win" is an invalid standard.
If you "try" but get it wrong, you won't succeed (other nations want missile/space technology but aren't succeeding).
The American way is that anyone can take a shot. You don't have to be born into the guild. You don't have to come from royalty. James Brown knew that his level of success and wealth could not have happened elsewhere in this world. He boasted of the POSSIBILITIES available in America. He had hardships. He had obstacles. He still recognized what was offered under the American system.
Spot on; we’ve never had so many blacks so high in government, yet so many fall further behind. For fifty years it hasn’t been “us”; the problem is within “them” themselves. How long can you give away free college, preferential hiring, etc. before you realize there are cultural deficiencies at work?
The family was destroyed by liberals and the unelected community leaders demand that they hamstring themselves (ebonics was pushed in the 1990s as an acceptable dialect).
Consider this, IF there ever was sustainable peace between black and white America, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would no longer receive millions of dollars. They traffic in HATE and shakedowns. Big Music knew this about Al Sharpton in the early 1980s. He’d threaten a protest until he was given money and then his complaints would go away. While he claimed it was to fight the injustices of too few black people being employed, he did nothing to actually boost those numbers. His was a protection racket (give him money or face the consequences).
That’s true; just like the public education racket, the poverty “industry” has become an entity unto itself. Without government employment and set-aside jobs for blacks, their unemployment rate would be 90%; those grifters did nothing to actually raise them out of misery (in terms of education, job skills, etc.). A whole quasi-industry has developed alongside this, in which Anglos make careers as the facilitators/”scribes” for unqualified tokens (compensating for lack of education and English skills).
The NBA offers a fair game, but I don't assume that white people are better at it or that it's a showcase of white supremacy. The numbers suggest the opposite.
“It must be clearly stated that those who deny white privilege functionally believe in white supremacy”
He can clearly state anything he wants to. However, anyone with a healthy skepticism would know better than to believe that kind of BS. Development of a healthy skepticism is critical in the development of critical thinking skills. Somehow, those lessons in preparing for adulthood have fallen by the wayside. Not that some people don’t eventually develop those skills on their own, despite having been indoctrinated away from critical thinking but they are ever-increasingly becoming the rare birds in our society.
Those dependent on welfare are ‘kept in their place’. If they advance in industry and bank the money, they lose the benefits.
Doing for yourself faces punitive penalties. Work harder, ‘earn’ less. That’s Democrats keeping the underclass dumb and dependent. “Vote for me and I’ll see to it that the checks keep on coming.”.
I have long thought that we need to apply the quota system percentages to professional sports, where most of the teams are black. The fans would howl and the black players would be going crazy. However, this is the same racket applied to hiring today and professional sports are specifically exempt. Why is that?
"Calvin College is a top-ranked liberal arts college in Grand Rapids, Mich. that prepares students to be Christ’s agents of renewal in the world. Through rigorous academic study and intentional Christian community, you will learn to think deeply, act justly and live wholeheartedly in everything that you do."
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