Meet a Rhetoric Professor Who Favors Empowerment and Opposes CRT

America’s colleges and universities are loaded with professors who insist on teaching students various theories that amount to nothing but fringe opinions and who don’t engage intellectually with those who disagree, but merely try to “cancel” them.

One of them is Erec Smith, who teaches rhetoric at York College of Pennsylvania. He recently wrote an article for Newsweek, “Black People Who Oppose Critical Race Theory Are Being Erased.” In it, he attacks the methods that are used to ignore and silence blacks (and others) who don’t accept the mainstream narrative about black victimization.

Smith writes, “We hear endlessly about systemic racism, white supremacy, the black/white income gap, and police brutality. So powerful an ideology has this narrative become that those of us who pose a credible counter-narrative—black anti-woke writers, for example—frequently find our words being misconstrued in an effort to stanch their impact.”

He proceeds to explain how intellectuals who feel the need to uphold that narrative employ an “erase and replace” tactic to brush aside blacks who argue against them. They combine a pair of well-known logical fallacies, the strawman and ad hominem. They target the character of the opponent rather than his actual argument.

An instance that Smith relates involves Angel Eduardo, who wrote an article entitled, “Stop Calling Me White for Having the Wrong Opinions.” Eduardo had declared that he was neither black, nor white, nor brown, but a human being who refused to toe any ideological line.

Smith writes, “A black man who is happy, successful, and fulfilled without embracing victimhood is a formidable threat to the narrative in which systemic racism oppresses all people of color.”

I wonder how this discrimination can be absolutely stopped?

I did not grow up with discrimination and I choose not to adopt it, either. I was raised in the PI until I was 12. I had no idea about even the concept of “discrimination”.

I still don’t have it. I think a person must be very young to get it inculcated and then it is almost impossible to get rid of.

When I did learn about it I was one of those kids who was discriminated against. I am not sure why to this day. I heard it was because I spent WWII in a concentration camp, my parents didn’t love me therefore there must be something wrong with me, my skin gets very dark with constant exposure to sun (it very rarely burns) therefore I must be a foreigner, because I couldn’t read therefore I was mentally retarded, because I like to play baseball...and on and on.

I still have problems with it...primarily because the “Blacks” or “Negroes” I talk with ‘assume’ I have a problem with them. Nay, nay. I don’t see their “color” period.

I do look for every person I talk with to express themselves clearly and with cause, or have a wonderful sense of humor even if self-deprecating, whose eyes crinkle up with laughter, who are empathetic, etc. I expect them to be smart and knowledgeable in their chosen field of work. I really like to talk with them if they share stories from their youth and adulthood, jobs they’ve had or stories from being a parent.

I would probably be kicked out of school in this day and age if I did not promote CRT/BLM. I promote neither of that or any other kind of self-diminuation. And I am happy with that.

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