Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) “anti-racists” in the United States, have slammed a black professor for sharing concerns about “hate whitey” indoctrination.
Woke colleagues piled their “stay in your black lane” on Erec Smith, an associate professor of rhetoric at York College, because he questioned curriculum standards.
Smith wanted to know why educators were shifting away from teaching pragmatism to preaching “black dignity, and de-centering whiteness.”
For straying “off the plantation,” the Cultural Safety thought police labelled his wrong-think “racist.”
The associate professor told seasoned journalist, John Stossel, instead of discussing his concerns, colleagues stonewalled him with slurs, and passive-aggressive inuendos.
Smith was told to “check his privilege,” and asked, “Do you enjoy using Western modes of argument to invalidate people of colour?”
“This happened because they see me as a threat,” he said.
Here “is a black person saying it’s okay to teach black students standardized English.”
Triggered, “people piled on.”
He then added, academia has gone insane.
“The last thing they want is logic and reason because you need those things to build. They want to tear things down.”
Sure, Smith said, we need to address racism, and white supremacy, “but that has been dealt with, and is being dealt with.”
“Unfortunately, a lot of what’s going on in my field is more idealist than realist. What I mean by that is it’s easier to change the name of a bridge. It’s easier to tell somebody to check their privilege than it is to actually change things.”
“So, they perform this activism, and call that progress.”
“When in reality it’s really just theatre. Things are getting better,” we had the Obama presidency for instance, he continued.
The grievance industrial complex “doesn’t want conversation, or deliberation because they’re losing victimhood leverage.”
So, now “they’re having to really ramp it up.”
“Anti-racism is a billion-dollar industry,” Smith stated.
“What do you need to justify that industry? You need racism.”
“It’s in [people like Robin DiAngelo and] Ibrahim X. Kendi’s best interest to perpetuate racism.”
“Then there are people who are like, “Wow, well, this is a billion-dollar industry.”
“I’m going to get in on this,” do my training and things like that, and accuse people of racism just to keep it perpetuated,” he explained.
They need to “keep [racism] going so that [racism] never goes away. So that they can “keep making money off of clients.”
“If you can keep this race thing going, then you will always be in business.”
His conclusions stem from both a concern, and close observation of the extremes becoming the norm, such as Ashleigh Shackleford’s racist assertions:
“All white people are racist, and will always be racist because white people are nonhumans.” (For another example, see here)
My issue, Smith said, “is that we’re not doing rhetoric anymore. We’re doing Woke studies, and I think that’s a shame.”
“What’s going on is the perpetuation of a narrative. The narrative is all.”
“That narrative is oppressor, oppressed,” and it’s infecting the whole world.
“The problem is that many students are getting one take.”
On the issue of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Smith described DEI zealots as hypocrites.
They’re actually the ones against DEI. “They’re opposed to anybody asking questions; anyone who wants clarification.”
Recounting a time when he was scolded for asking for clarification, Smith shared, “I was once told that by asking somebody to elaborate, I was trying to silence her!”
The belligerence is stifling education, he went on to say.
“I had a white student come back to my office, after I’d told my class they could speak freely. The white student said, “No, I can’t. And you know I can’t do that.”
Smith said he tried to convince him the classroom was safe, and he was free to engage in conversation, “the white student wasn’t having it. And he had a point.”
Wokeness is a religion, the professor told Stossel.
“In fact, a lot of this comes from what’s called the Frankfurt School – Cultural Marxism, Critical Theory, and things like that.”
When asked what he thinks of Florida’s DEI/CRT replacement, Equality, Merit, and Colourblindness (EMC), Smith replied,
“I like that. I like those things, but they’re being demonised by certain people who see colourblindness as ignorance.”
What colourblindness really is, he inferred, is not measuring a person by the colour of their skin, but by their character.
“It means whether I like you or not, doesn’t depend on your “race.” That’s all it’s ever meant, but it’s spun in order to fit the oppressor/oppressed narrative.”
The good news is these lies are slowly being exposed.
“I stopped being a DEI officer,” Smith concluded, “because I felt like I was preaching to that choir a lot. No one wants to be compelled.”
There’s a better way than enforcing an ideology, and that way is “genuine conversation.”
“Talking and being resilient enough to realize that people aren’t going to always say things in the way you want them to say it.”
“Realizing,” he added, “that if you walk into something with a good faith attitude, right, that you can probably get farther than if you walk in this place thinking that these people are already against me.”
Smith’s experience is similar to that of Tabia Lee.
Lee, also a DEI trainer, was fired for questioning “anti-racist” orthodoxy earlier this year.
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