Mere days after a Bernie Sanders supporter shot Congressman Steve Scalise and two black members of his police detail, a Connecticut professor posted a Medium article on Facebook declaring: “Let Them F*cking Die.” The professor went on to write that white people are “inhuman a**holes” who still prop up a “white supremacy system,” so black people should not help them if their lives are in danger.
“I’m fed the f*ck up with self identified ‘white’s’ [sic] daily violence directed at immigrants, Muslim, and sexual and racially oppressed people,” Johnny Eric Williams, associate professor of sociology at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., posted on Facebook Sunday, Campus Reform reported. “The time is now to confront these inhuman a**holes and end this now.”
How should the allegedly oppressed “end this now”? Another post explained that. “It is past time for the racially oppressed to do what people who believe themselves to be ‘white’ will not do, put end to the vectors of their destructive mythology of whiteness and their white supremacy system,” Williams added in another post, including the hashtag #LetThemF*ckingDie.
On Thursday, Williams also posted a Medium article by that very title, which lamented that black Capitol Police officers who were assigned to Scalise’s detail had acted to protect him. The article, posted under a pseudonym, advocated letting white people die, as a form of combatting white supremacy.
What does it mean, in general, when victims of bigotry save the lives of bigots?
For centuries, black people have been regarded as sub-human workhorses whose entire purpose is to serve white people’s whimsies.
For centuries, queer people have been regarded as sub-human degenerates whose whole existence was an anathema to cisgender heterosexual people’s off-hand sensibilities.
The article attacked even the idea of morality as a tool for the immoral to oppress the moral. “They, these white/cisgender/heterosexuals, have created entire systems, philosophies, and values in which goodness, peace, and benevolence are virtues — but only, always, in other people. In themselves, though, it is only ever pretense.”
“In a battle between the moral and the immoral, the immoral will always win because they have no qualms about not abiding by the rules,” the article declared. It went on to openly advocate one specific type of immorality — which arguably fits the legal definition of involuntary manslaughter — that of letting people in danger die, so long as they are “white.”
The article concluded with a terrifying litany of dangerous situations: “If you see them drowning. If you see them in a burning building. If they are teetering on the edge of a cliff.” In those cases, the author suggested that his fellow “oppressed people” should “Do nothing” (emphasis original).
“Least of all put your life on the line for theirs, and do not dare think doing so, putting your life on the line for theirs, gives you reason or cause to feel celestial,” the author argued. “Saving the life of those that would kill you is the opposite of virtuous” (emphasis added).
“Let. Them. F*cking. Die.” For relish, the author added, “And smile a bit when you do. For you have done the universe a great service. Ashes to ashes. Dust to bigots.”
PJ Media has reported how quickly the Left went from lamenting the Scalise shooting to attacking Scalise. An MSNBC host labeled him an “extremist.” Liberals mocked him for being “anti-gay” when he was “saved” by a black lesbian cop.
Both Left and Right have started to adopt this idea that “all is fair in love and … politics,” that conservatives and liberals need to “fight fire with fire,” and that basic notions of decency and civility are for the other side, or as the pseudonymous medium author put it, “only ever pretense.”
For the sanity of this country — and the safety and lives of its citizens — both sides must utterly reject this kind of tribal warfare mentality. Politics is not about enforcing your worldview or morality on others, but about seeking the peace of the society. But if you not only don’t believe in heaven, but think (like Friedrich Nietzsche, who inspired Adolf Hitler) that morality is a tool for the strong to oppress the weak, this civility is difficult to maintain.
It is an utter travesty that people like Williams — professors, no less! — will advocate something just short of violence because they think members of some external group (white cisgender heterosexuals) are evil and wish to kill them.
It is exactly this kind of rhetoric that inspired the attack on the Family Research Council in 2012, and that inspired the congressional baseball shooting just last week!
By all means, Americans need to voice their opinions, disagree, and engage in civil debate. But if that debate ceases to be civil, it ceases to be profitable for either side. Even more importantly, people of every background need to avoid the kind of echo chamber that makes you think everyone who opposes you is evil.
In wake of the Scalise shooting, people like Williams (and any counterparts on the Right) need to put aside their hatred as soon as possible. The safety of America demands it.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member