A law student at Edinburgh University has been accused by a school official of a “hate crime” for poking fun at ISIS on his Facebook page and taking the leader of a minority student organization to task for calling black men “trash.”
Robbie Travers appears to have the right idea on how to deal not only with terrorists, but with the domestic terrorists who collapse in a heap of quivering jello if you say anything untoward about any of them.
Get a load of this.
An official at the university who conducted a preliminary investigation allegedly accused the third-year law student of having committed a “hate crime” even though there has been no criminal investigation by the police.
The law student says that the complaint against him came in retaliation after he highlighted that a former leader of an ethnic minority student group at the university had referred to black men as “trash”.
Robbie Travers, 21, acknowledged that his social media comments were highly opinionated but he denied that they were racist or in any way incited violence.
He said: “I am deeply worried that I am being investigated for comments which are expressions of opinion in a jovial way . . . I do not incite the harassment or racist treatment, nor attack anyone with an illegal suggestion or suggest, indeed, that they be deprived of their human rights.”
Poor Robbie just doesn’t get it. It’s not a question of what you wrote or did. It’s a question of what they can accuse you of thinking. Robbie is dealing with master pretzel makers — people who can bend, twist, fold, spindle, and mutilate the truth until the only thing that’s left is hate.
One of his Facebook postings came after the US air force dropped a “massive ordnance air bomb” on an Isis stronghold in Afghanistan in April.
Mr Travers wrote: “Excellent news that the US administration and Trump ordered an accurate strike on an IS network of tunnels in Afghanistan.
“I’m glad we could bring these barbarians a step closer to collecting their 72 virgins.”
Robbie should be criticized for being trite, not hateful. How many jokes on those 72 virgins have we heard over the years?
Esme Allman, a second-year history student and the former black and ethnic minority convenor of the university’s students’ association, filed a complaint to the university, saying: “Not only do I believe this behaviour to be in breach of the student code of conduct, but his decision to target the BME Liberation Group at the University of Edinburgh, and how he has chosen to do so, puts minority students at risk and in a state of panic and fear while attending the University of Edinburgh.”
In another Facebook post, Mr Travers wrote: “I won’t give elements of Islam or Muslims who hold regressive beliefs a free pass for their assorted poisonous bigotries and regressive values because they face bigotry.
“If you have terrible, oppressive views that seek to attack the rights of others, expect to be called out for those views, regardless of being oppressed yourself . . .”
Mr. Travers’ accuser is a real piece of work:
In her complaint Ms Allman, who describes herself as a feminist and womanist, says: “While I have not met him personally, given my matriculation at the University of Edinburgh, my membership of the Black and Minority Ethnic Liberation Group at the university, and how I identify personally, I take issue with this clear and persistent denigration and disparagement of protected characteristics and blatant Islamophobia.”
A couple of comments is “persistent denigration”? Someone give that woman a dictionary.
Just to be clear: It’s “Islamophobic” to mention that Muslims commit terrorist acts because their interpretation of the Koran is twisted and they aren’t “true” Muslims at all. And it’s also Islamophobic to make fun of terrorists because they are Muslim.
When you untangle that logic, let me know.
The kid sounds a little bewildered and well he should be. When thinking people run into characters like Ms. Allman and the school official who said that Travers committed a “hate crime,” there is no alternative except to shrug your shoulders and continue with your life. They are impervious to logic, to reason, to intelligent debate, to anything and everything that indicates they are in touch with reality.
Since you are not going to change them, it’s best to give them a wide berth.
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