This week I received an email that had recently gone out to students at Grand
Valley State University in Michigan. The email informed them about the five
upcoming graduation celebrations, which would be held as a “complement” to
the commencement ceremony. Five celebrations might seem a bit excessive, but
there is a reason why this school has decided to have five, as they explained
in their email:
“Dear Laker graduates, Grand Valley hosts five unique graduation celebrations
annually, designed to honor our diverse graduates. These programs complement
the university commencement ceremonies and are an opportunity to come
together and acknowledge Laker accomplishments in the spirit and traditions
of our diverse identities and cultures.”
And here are the five events: “Asian Graduation celebration, April 19. Black
Graduation celebration, April 28. Latino/a/x Graduation celebration, April
28. Lavender Graduation (celebrating LGBTQIA+ graduates), April 20. Native
Graduation Celebration, April 27.”
Side note that ends up being significant: there is a typo here. It actually
says “Lavender Gradation.” Gradation as in, a series of successive changes,
made by degrees, or in phases. Much like you would find on the slippery
slope. This typo is the most insightful thing this university has produced in
its entire history, even if it was by accident.
Anyway, these are the graduation celebrations, or graduation celebrations,
broken up by identity group. Needless to say, there will be no special event
for straight white people. But Grand Valley is far from alone with their
segregation policies. This has become increasingly common. Just a couple of
weeks ago there was controversy over a segregated black graduation ceremony
at the University of Chicago. The Daily Mail had that report:
“A leaked email obtained by University of Chicago Law School student Benjamin
Ogilvie unmasked the previously under-wraps event, with Ogilvie penning a
piece for The College Fix to share the email's contents. 'Black Action in
Public Policy Studies…is hosting a graduation ceremony for all University of
Chicago Black graduate students' on June 1, the email stated, according to
Ogilvie. Leaked on Tuesday, the email reportedly touted the event as the
culmination of the 'black student experience' at the Illinois school, and is
already sparking heated discourse as to whether or not the event serves as
segregation.”
A spokesperson for the school argued that the black graduation, though it is
a ceremony expressly being held for black people, and advertised as such, is
not explicitly “black only.” Anyone can come if they like, technically. The
fact that whites won't be chased away at gunpoint — not as an official policy
anyway — is supposed to make this all okay. And yet I have a sneaking
suspicion that the University of Chicago would not allow a “white graduation
ceremony,” even if blacks were still allowed to attend. The logic, as always,
only goes one way.
The same applies at Harvard, where Harvard's Office of Equity, Diversity,
Inclusion, and Belonging helps to organize graduation ceremonies for “first-
generation, BGLTQ, Black, and Latinx” students. They have also added a
special ceremony for “Asian-American, Pacific Islander, and Desi-American
graduates.” Columbia University, meanwhile, adds another category. That
school has special ceremonies for black, LGBTQ, Native, “Latinx,” and Asian
graduates. But they also throw in a sixth segregated category for “low
income” individuals - because it is of course important to have proper
representation for all of those impoverished people who are graduating from
an Ivy League school. The low income celebration will be very interesting
because there won't be anyone there except the catering staff.
So, this is the country we live in now. Segregation has long since made a
comeback. These policies can be put in place, and advocated for, and most of
the time without even the slightest pushback — that is, as long as you
advocate for them from a socially acceptable angle. Take this recent clip of
“White Fragility” author Robin DiAngelo, claiming that black people need to
“get away” from white people.
twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1637786848331177984?s=20
One racial group needs to “get away” from the other, she says. If this
sentiment sounds familiar, it's probably because Scott Adams, the creator of
Dilbert, said exactly the same thing, almost verbatim but with one slight
difference: he reversed the races. In doing so, Adams lost everything — his
career, his reputation, distribution of his comic strip. Adams had his life
destroyed for saying that, while DiAngelo suffered no repercussions at all.
It's not that DiAngelo has experienced a less intense backlash, or less
severe professional consequences. It's that there has been no backlash, no
consequence. These are the new rules: you can divide the races; you can
segregate and separate; you can certainly call for one group to get away from
another, and you can phrase it just like than — provided that you keep white
people situated in their assigned place as the bad guys, the antagonists.
This is not just a racial double standard, intended to villainize white
people. It is that, but at a deeper level the point is that white people are
not allowed to advocate for themselves as a group. It's assumed that Adams
was canceled because he said something that paints black people in a negative
light, but that's not really it. The reaction would have been just as
intense, or nearly as intense, if he had said that white people need to, say,
have pride and self-esteem, or white people need to be educated, white people
need to work hard and succeed, he would still be condemned. The race hustlers
on the left want other racial groups to have a sense of community and
identity within the group. They want those groups to advocate for themselves
and to be concerned with the flourishing of their groups. But they stridently
oppose any move for whites to do the same, because they do not want whites to
see themselves as a group with a sense of shared racial identity. They will
tell you this directly, and they will defend it by informing you that whites
have no real racial identity, the category is too broad and vague. Thus, they
argue, white pride must really be an expression of hatred towards non-whites.
They will simply expect you not to notice that black and brown are categories
just as broad, just as vague, as white.
This principle doesn't just apply to race, of course. They do the same thing
with sex and the same with sexual orientation. LGBT people can have their own
spaces and advocate for themselves as a group — heterosexuals cannot. Women
can have their own spaces (well, they used to anyway) and advocate for
themselves a group — men cannot. Ultimately, the straight white male is left
as the one category of person on Earth who has no category, no identity group
that he's allowed to belong to, or advocate for. He must subsume himself into
one of these other groups — by identifying as a woman, or as gay — or else he
will be left with no group. That is the real goal.
Of course, the goal can never be finally achieved. And in pursuing the goal,
all of the nightmare scenarios you're allegedly trying to guard against are
only now guaranteed to happen. Pendulums always swing back. By singling out
one group as the antagonist, and insisting that all other groups are allowed
to do and say things that this group is not, you are ensuring that when the
group does start to coalesce, it will do so largely around a shared feeling
of resentment and exclusion. And nothing good comes of that. Unless of course
your goal is the destabilization of society as we know it. In which case,
this is a very good way to achieve it.