"White Privilege" Re-education

by Jacob Oslick, Brian Cook, & David Guipe

On Saturday, March 27, the University hosted a workshop on “White Privilege” sponsored by the national anti-racist group Cultural Bridges. “Facilitated” by joan olsson (who requested her name not be capitalized), the seminar focused on examining and correcting the prevalence of racism in society. Participants also discussed other prejudices found in American society, such as sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, abelism, lookism, ageism, adultism, and classism. Ms. olsson said that the conference offered “an interactive experience for white people to look at the historical, political, and social legacies of different forms of oppression in the U.S.” However, the conference defined “white privilege” quite broadly, including everything from classical music to majority rule. In doing so, it also downplayed individual freedom in favor of cultist collectivism.

One of Ms. olsson’s prime objectives for the workshop was to stress the group responsibility shared by white people for racist acts. According to the workshop’s information packet, all white people benefit from “white privilege,” including “committed anti-racists.” Accordingly, all share responsibility for racist acts taken on their behalf, such as the Texas murder of James Byrd by white supremacists. Yet, such an interpretation immediately assigns blame on the basis of group identification. In doing so, it violates Martin Luther King’s core principle that people “not be judged by the color of their skin, but the content of their character.” Hypocritically, Ms. olsson avoided our questions about whether such “group responsibility” applies to non-whites. For example, she refused to directly state whether all Muslims are “guilty” because someone blows up a bus in Israel, or if all blacks are to blame for Louis Farrakhan’s rabid anti-Semitism. In fact, had she made such bigoted claims, it is doubtful that the University would grant Cultural Bridges such generous accommodations in the Pendelton Room of the Union. Thus, rather than dismantling racial stereotypes, the workshop seemed to promote new ones: the white man as the unconscious but all-powerful evil.

Consequently, the workshop degraded several features of American culture as “WHITE SUPREMACIST values” (emphasis in original). Among these are “waiting your turn to speak, “the importance of being on time,” and “classical music.” Again, this thesis promotes, rather than corrects, stereotypes. By classifying universally accepted norms as “WHITE” they imply an insufficient ability of non-whites to meet those mores. Subliminally it promotes stereotypes such as “colored-peoples’ time.” In turn, this perspective promotes a dangerous multiculturalism whereby the skin tone of one’s birth predestines personality, and ignores the melting-pot nature of Society. For instance, modern math owes a great debt to Islamic culture, yet no one would classify “algebra” as a Mecca-centered system of racial oppression.

The workshop also expanded its attack on racist values to include liberal democracy. Its aforementioned list of “WHITE SUPREMACIST” values included the following statement: “Majority rules is the best process for collective decision-making.” Apparently, the workshop organizers consider another, non-democratic system of government equally valid. When combined with their swipe at individualism, one detects a hint of bastardized Marxism as their core ideology. This fits nicely with their theories of oppressor groups (i.e. white, Christian, heterosexual, young, good-looking, wealthy males) and oppressed groups (everybody else). Since most people don’t fall under every “oppressor” category, most people conceivably share a dual role of “oppressor” and “victim.”

However, all their cultural relativism extends only so far. Specifically, they define “heterosexualism” under their cage of oppression. Ms. olsson said that one should dispute people who voice anti-gay opinions, yet, criticism of homosexual behavior extends throughout the world’s religions. If we accept her principal of “group values” and reject the imposition of our own, how can one also support denigrating someone’s religious beliefs? She evidently feels dissident religious views require suppression. Thus, despite her belief in cultural relativism, olsson considers universal egalitarianism infinitely superior to separate religious and cultural traditions. Effectively, this sprouts an “I know what’s best for you” rhetoric.

When combined with an overtly anti-democratic message, this workshop stinks of totalitarianism. Once again, the forces of the far Left are out to convince the world that everybody can have unlimited freedom, provided they swear allegiance to the “white-man bad; everyone else good” multicultural collective. Hopefully, persons of goodwill and common sense of all races will recognize the hypocrisy involved in “workshops” such as this. MR

This article was published in the 31 March 1999 edition of The Michigan Review (Volume 17, Number 9).
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