In a World Net Daily article (linked above) posted October 30, 2007, I discovered that I am a racist. Not because of anything I have ever said or done, but simply as an incontrovertible fact of my birth. So decrees the University of Delaware Office of Resident Life.
Every student at that university living in a residence hall is being subjected to something they like to call "Diversity Education Training". One excerpt from a document used to facilitate this indoctrination of residence hall inmates reads: "A RACIST: A racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. 'The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality. By this definition, people of color cannot be racists, because as peoples within the U.S. system, they do not have the power to back up their prejudices, hostilities, or acts of discrimination….'"
Several practices and incidents are cited, which all boil down to the university encouraging, coercing, and outright compelling students to adopt their approved ideology in order to maintain standing within the campus society.
Chairman Mao may have defined education that way. I have slightly differing opinions on the topic.
A university - ideally any educational institution - should as its foundational mission be teaching students how to think. Not what to think, not what views to hold or denounce, but how to take in data from a wide variety of sources, analyze that information, and arrive at an informed, logical conclusion from which they are able to form, express, and rationally defend their own opinions.
Using a position of authority to browbeat students into submitting to and ultimately adopting a style of thought is unethical, immoral, and illegal. Doing so under the auspices of a government sponsored institution does not make it any more right or proper.
I am not a racist. Not through my thoughts. Not through my actions. Most certainly not as an immutable condition of my birth. I owe no apologies for my white skin, nor do I owe any special concessions or considerations to people of darker skin. I am simply obligated to treat all my fellow human beings with the respect, dignity and consideration that their efforts, actions, and accomplishments deserve. Some of them are black, brown, yellow, and yes, even white. Some have dangly bits while others sport innies. None of that makes them more or less deserving than me or any other of their fellows.
Those who believe the only way they can obtain any personal power in life is by defining half the population as victims and the other half as victimizers deserve nothing but scorn, ridicule, and rejection of the thesis under which they wish to live their lives - and mine. Their ideas and arguments in support of those ideas are flawed, and worthy of rejection on their own merits. Race and gender play no part in that evaluation. Any position with the fallback defense being "if you disagree with me you are wrong and in denial and in need of psychological counseling to overcome your aberrations" (why does that bring to mind one of the positions in the Global Warming "debate"?) defines itself as fundamentally invalid.
Only an idea that can be challenged and successfully defended through reason and fact is worthy of consideration. Playground exchanges of "Is too! Is not! IS TOO!! IS NOT!!!" do not meet that criteria.
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