FLASHBACK FRIDAY: Here’s a column from an older version of The Congress that still holds up well… in fact, it describes a situation that has only gotten worse. (PS: tune in tomorrow for another edition of THE SATURDAY NIGHT STORY)
Ah College… Those heady days when you spent your time practicing the finer points of grifting… Learning to suck the system dry for your own benefit and with a minimum of effort…. Never having to worry if that degree for which you paid 100K would actually result in a job after graduation…. Because if it didn’t, you’d simply force the University to create a six figure “Diversity Consultant” position for you…
What? You say that wasn’t your experience? Well Things have changed. There’s a new normal on America’s college campi that can best be described as “Everything is offensive and must be removed”… Memory-holed as Orwell would have said. All other considerations are secondary.
First, college age Social Justice Warriors went after current, sitting University Presidents and Professors, not because they were racist, but because… Well, no one is exactly sure why. But having gotten their scalps, most notably at Mizzou and Yale, these SJWs… Terrorists without the beheadings, decided to go after bigger fish.
It started with Woodrow Wilson. I was inclined to let this one go because Wilson was, apparently, an actual racist… And also a Democrat, as most historical racists were, and it’s fun to watch the Left eat its own.
But this monster is insatiable, and it won’t stop with Wilson… in fact, it did NOT stop with him.
At Harvard Law, the venerable School Crest, founder, and the word “Master” have all been declared problematic… They’ve got to go. At Oxford, the most famous scholarship in the world is in danger of losing its name because this Rhodes guy was apparently not a 21st Century Renaissance Man… as is entirely typical of men who lived in the 19th Century of course, but no matter. The movement has no time for such trivialities. Like a shark it must continue relentlessly forward to its next meal or die.
But statues and names are pedestrian pursuits. What these people want is real power, real control, not over College Adminstrators, but over the lives of everyday citizens with different (read: WRONG) ideas about what it means to be free.
And so, having gotten everything they’ve ever asked for with a bare minimum of fuss and muss, these young Alinskys in training have moved on to more practical battlefields, like Dining Halls. At Oberlin, undercooked rice is now “culturally disrespectful.” This guy wants you to know that the fact that there’s no fried chicken on the menu proves Oberlin doesn’t care about honoring black culture… Even though if fried chicken WAS on the menu, somebody, probably this same idiot, would be calling THAT racist too.
Trying to appease these people is like being one of Jigsaw’s victims in the SAW franchise. You can’t win, and anything you try only makes things worse, until your head is crushed by a bladed Rube Goldberg contraption while the discorporated voices of Cloward and Piven cackle on the staticky speaker of an Occupy Campus (TM) bullhorn. But off these college administrators go anyway, somehow believing that if they can only say the right thing, apologize in the right way, offer the perfect ritual sacrifice, they’ll be left alone.
They won’t.
Having won every battle they’ve fought, often without even trying very hard, the smell of blood is in the water. The SJWs are basically trolling these Universities at this point. What else should we ban to appease their insatiable desire to punish the white male Patriarchy? Should we ban the Rolling Stones and The Beatles? If I understand the Rules of Woke correctly, “Run for Your Life” and “Under My Thumb” prove pretty conclusively that both bands had, at best, a problematic view of women’s rights. And don’t even get me started on movies…..
Frankly, It’s a miracle that no one has tried asking for straight up cash payments yet…. Oh wait, they actually have.
If this keeps up, eventually, like Bluto Blutarsky’s sweatshirt, every University in America will simply be called COLLEGE…. since every other potential name will have been declared highly problematic. When a young college man (or person who identifies as a man) asks his gender-fluid date where he should pick Xer up, Xe’ll tell him “Dorm 1138”. And the only thing on the dining hall menu will be locally sourced, culturally respectful, cruelty-free diet Soylent Green.
Magnificent!