Posted on 11/12/2017 10:10:32 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
“Can my children be friends with white people?”
This bizarre question is the basis of a New York Times op-ed published Sunday, and the author answers it with a “no,” albeit with some exceptions.
“History has provided little reason for people of color to trust white people in this way [of genuine friendship], and these recent months have put in the starkest relief the contempt with which the country measures the value of racial minorities,” writes Ekow N. Yankah, a law professor at Yeshiva University.
According to Yankah, examples of white “contempt” for racial minorities in recent months include concerns over the opioid epidemic, worries over rising unemployment among working-class whites, and criticism of NFL players kneeling for the anthem. Apparently those issues receive far more attention than the woes of African-Americans, thus revealing the secret disdain whites have for non-whites.
With that conclusion assumed, Yankah declares the lesson he will teach his kids.
“As against our gauzy national hopes, I will teach my boys to have profound doubts that friendship with white people is possible,” the law professor argues. “When they ask, I will teach my sons that their beautiful hue is a fault line. Spare me platitudes of how we are all the same on the inside. I first have to keep my boys safe, and so I will teach them before the world shows them this particular brand of rending, violent, often fatal betrayal.”
Throughout the article, Yankah bases this pessimistic attitude not on personal experience — he says his childhood hometown was remarkably free of racial tension — but on Donald Trump being president and the violence in Charlottesville.
A large number of white people voting for Trump is the final push in giving up on Caucasians.
“Of course, the rise of this president has broken bonds on all sides. But for people of color the stakes are different. Imagining we can now be friends across this political line is asking us to ignore our safety and that of our children, to abandon personal regard and self-worth,” the professor asserts. “Only white people can cordon off Mr. Trump’s political meaning, ignore the “unpleasantness” from a position of safety. His election and the year that has followed have fixed the awful thought in my mind too familiar to black Americans: ‘You can’t trust these people.”
He also attacks liberals who don’t protest enough or dare to criticize the excesses of racial activism as marked off from friendship.
While Yankah sounds exceptionally grim in his article on interracial friendship, he admits near the end that he has still lots of white friends and his biracial wife passes as Caucasian. Those facts undermine the seriousness of Yankah’s argument, but his intention is clearly not advocating for the total forsaking of interracial friendship.
It’s just another article attempting to shame whites for being, well, white. Yankah counts on The New York Times’ liberal audience to sympathize with his argument and ask themselves what more can they do for radicals like this law professor.
Voting for Democrats isn’t enough. Being a good neighbor to non-whites isn’t enough. Showing no sign of racism isn’t enough.
You must use all your time and energy protesting Trump and advocating for the Black Lives Matter agenda in order to earn trust from non-whites. Otherwise, you’re in the same league as those irredeemable Trump voters.
The deeper meaning of Yankah’s article is that whiteness is itself the 21st century’s Mark of Cain. Bearing that skin color means one is born with the taint of sin from historical injustices and present election outcomes.
One can only atone for this inherent evil by trying to be the wokest white dude possible, and never criticize the actions of those who don’t bear this awful color.
It’s a crazy concept that undermines the last 60 some years of teaching on race. Race is taught to be a social construct that we’re supposed to be getting over with time. You’re not supposed to judge someone by the color of their skin but by their individual character, according to the old consensus.
Columns like Yankah’s shows the reverse of that, pedestaling race as the chief factor in judging another person. And whites come out the worst in this process.
It’s worth remembering that Yankah is professor, and students are indoctrinated with similar messages on a regular basis as my book, “No Campus for White Men” documents.
When views similar to the Yeshiva law professor’s are the norm, it’s no surprise that such a simple statement as “it’s okay to be white” causes such an uproar on campus.
Spurred on by 4chan, anonymous students have been posting signs declaring it’s okay to be white on campuses across the country. Not that’s it’s better to be white or that it’s great to be white. Simply that it’s okay to be Caucasian.
Those messages, instead of being ignored, have triggered university administrators and campus leftists into seeing the postings as outbursts of dangerous racism.
Marcia L. Sells, Harvard Law School dean, warned in a typical reaction to the messages that they were attempting to divide the university.
“HLS [Harvard Law School] will not let that happen here. We live, work, teach, and learn together in a community that is stronger, better, and deeper because of our diversity and because we encourage open, respectful, and constructive discourse,” Sells wrote in an email to students.
The overreaction to these rather benign posters sends the message that it is not okay to be white. Ignoring them as pranks would mean that schools accept “it’s okay to be white” as so basic that it would be like proudly boasting it’s okay to be left-handed.
But the meltdowns from campus activists and all-too serious concern from school deans means that there is something inherently wrong in stating it’s alright to be white.
With opinions like Yankah’s receiving a platform from America’s paper of record, more people should wake up to how a large percentage of higher education is teaching there’s something inherently wrong with one particular skin color.
Does that sound like an idea that will lead to more harmony in the country?
John Derbyshire was not immediately available for comment.
The largest group of crime victims are blacks and their perpetrators are other blacks. Their kids would be safer befriending white kids.
When I was a kid white was a color. In physics class I learned that white was actually a blend of all visible colors and that black was the absence of color. As a seasoned adult I’m told that white is an adjective applied to some humans and that it means hateful, prejudiced and deceitful. It means that a person exploits others and delights in keeping them down. It refers to slaveowners and colonialists. It designates those individuals who mowed down the native inhabitants and stole their land. I’m none of those things and I resent the implication.
I always say, “Through no fault of my own I was born white.”
This is true for ALL of us. Whatever color we’re born as.
I wonder if latino is white or not and what about mixed whites?
Someone should ask followup questions to nail down how big of a racist she is.
How about Asians? Can we be friends with them? They are just as easy to discriminate against provided you are not blind, and look how The Man has kept them down. All I hear about every day is how Asians cannot get ahead: lacking education, fatherless children, street violence, cannot get into decent colleges, and shut out of good high paying jobs! White people have ruined it for them too because institutional racism and stuff.
Oh, and don’t forget DJT is a racist because he did not bow and lick the shoes of all those leaders. And he grimaced for like a second...so there’s that too!
So he’s hoping to separate his child from others along racial lines....I believe this is defined as racism? But I could be wrong, after all it’s not like I’m a college professor or anything like that
The issue I have is how you came to that conclusion.
Funny, you are upset at selected phrases by Donald Trump. Phrases that YOU have chosen to take out of context. Interesting how you use the "white American" opioid epidemic to justify your conclusion
Yet you seem to exclude your real white slave masters. You know, those white folks over there in congress and elsewhere positioned in the Democratic party. You know them folks who you trusted and voted for the last 45 years. As the man you hate so much said . . . "What has that gotten you so far?
Yeah I know. Aint gonna happen. You would have to admit everything you believed in was wrong! And by God that would be more difficult than to teach your children hate!
The professor is racist.
It appears any hope of integration/assimilation has been lost - probably more due to the millions of imported foreigners passing blacks socio-economically than anything else. At this point they are demanding to be supported like American Indians - just send money, but expect nothing. If some choose to strike out into the world, that’s fine; otherwise, just pay them to lie about all day.
Hate speech? What detestable a Neuse 9f the landuqge, Indoctrination by racism and bigotry? Sure. We should never fall to the Leftist abortion of redefinition.
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