Things sure have changed on college campuses since I was a student. Back when I was a youngster, the craziest thing we ever did was take Pa’s Model T down to the malt shop and see how many of us could fit into the phone booth while shouting, “This is the bee’s knees! 23 skidoo!” But the young people of today have found a much better way to pass the time: Screaming about systemic racism and making ludicrous demands because somebody left graffiti in a public restroom.
Big news from my home state of Indiana. Matt McKinney, WRTV in Indianapolis:
A hateful message was written in a bathroom on DePauw University this week.
The message, which read, “All ******* must die -KKK,” was found at the Inn at DePauw, a public building on campus…
“As a black man, I feel unsafe,” said Kaleb Anderson, a DePauw student and the President of the Association of African American Students at the university.
As a speaker of English, I feel confused. Somebody wrote something stupid on a bathroom stall, and you feel… unsafe?
But that’s the message now. Witness these displays of #wokeness at DePauw last week:
‘We are not safe, meet our demands’: Student protests continue at DePauw after racist incidents on campus, as this video from Xolani shows https://t.co/abd2zzLtiC pic.twitter.com/Wko7bWnmFI
— FOX59 News (@FOX59) April 18, 2018
Well, nobody ever got anywhere by chanting, “WE MAY OR MAY NOT BE SAFE, BUT YELLING IS FUN!!!”
I don’t mean to question or dismiss the intersectional lived experience of these brave students, but… Look. If you’re able to organize a crowd to yell and scream at college administrators in public, and the only possible consequence you’ll ever face is that your targets might not capitulate to your whims as quickly and abjectly as you’d like, you seem pretty safe.
And capitulate they will. DePauw is scrambling to do whatever these students demand, and it still won’t be enough. Nothing is ever enough.
These students even interrupted a talk at DePauw by actress Jenna Fischer (The Office), who has absolutely nothing to do with any of this, and she felt the need to beg for their forgiveness:
Please read. pic.twitter.com/aQjAF5v7yX
— Jenna Fischer (@jennafischer) April 18, 2018
Hey, it’s her money. If that’s what it takes to keep the screaming mob off her back, I suppose she’s doing what she needs to do.
In addition to the horrific hate crime committed by the DePauw restroom graffiti artist, who is still at large, other recent “bias incidents” at the university include “the n-word formed by rocks in the nature park” and a white student with purple glitter on her face. I feel like we’re really lowering the bar on what constitutes a danger to the public here.
If this lunacy reminds you of what happened at Mizzou, that only means you’re able to remember things that happened more than 10 minutes ago. That whole campus plunged into chaos because somebody scrawled a poop swastika in a dorm restroom, and Mizzou is still dealing with the consequences three years later.
Usually, these things end up being hoaxes. But by the time the hoax is revealed, the inevitable protesters have already written up their inevitable list of demands, and they have been, inevitably, coddled.
That’s why students keep doing this stuff. It works!
I’m not going to claim I know what it’s like to be a black person in America. I’m not going to appropriate anybody’s culture. I’m not Shaun King. But kids, if you’ve made it all the way to college and the worst thing you’ve ever had to deal with is some rude restroom graffiti and some sorority girls wearing glitter, I don’t think you’re going to wind up in the history books next to Rosa Parks.
Racism is bad. Wearing out the word “racism” until it becomes meaningless and everybody gets sick of you doesn’t help.
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