Voices of Uprising: The Long Road toward Racial Justice

The first in a series of conversations centered on uprisings and social justice. This conversation, spurred by the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers and the ensuing worldwide protests, will provide context and insight from panelists whose professional and personal lives are deeply entwined with issues of racism, police brutality, and social justice.

Moderator:
-Dr. Sara Docan-Morgan, Associate Professor of UWL Communication Studies and Chair of UWL Ethnic and Racial Studies

Panelists include:
-Dr. Richard Breaux, Associate Professor of UWL Ethnic and Racial Studies
-Antoiwana Williams, Director of UWL Multicultural Student Services
-Darrell King, Graduate Assistant at the University of Northern Iowa and 2016 UW-La Crosse graduate

[anonymous]

Jordan Peterson’s take on, “White Privilege.”
Taken from an excerpt of his dialogue when he spoke to a audience.
"I think the idea of white privilege is absolutely reprehensible. And it’s not because white people aren’t privileged. You know, we have all sorts of privileges, and most people have privileges of all sorts and you should be greatful for your privileges and work to deserve them, I would say, but the idea that you can target an ethnic group with a collective crime, regardless of the specific innocence or guild of the constituent elements of that group; There is absolutely nothing that is more racist than that. It’s absolutely abhorrent. If you really want to know more about that sort of thing, you should read about the Kulaks, in the Soviet Union in the 1920’s. K-U-L-A-K-S, because they were farmers who were very productive. They were the most productive elements of the agricultural strata in Russia. And they were virtually all killed or raped and robbed by the collectivists who insisted that because they showed signs of wealth they were criminals and robbers. One of the consequences of the prosecution of the Kulaks was the death of 6 million Ukrainians from the famine in the 1930’s. The idea of collectively held guilt, at the level of the individual, as a legal or philosophical principle is dangerous, it’s precisely the sort of danger that people who are really looking for trouble would push. So, and just a cursory glance at 20th century history should teach anyone who wants to know exactly how unacceptable that is. With regards to your first, okay there’s the safe space issue, but you also said something right at the beginning, you announced your sexual preference at the beginning and I understand exactly why you did that, but I have a comment about that. And this is something for people in the audience to think about. I have received at least 25 letters, from um, transsexual people and that’s quite a few because there are not that many transsexual people. So, they are rare, very rare and every single one of them but one was supportive and the one that wasn’t supportive was mildly critical, and they said exactly the same thing that you said, roughly speaking is, that one of the things we want to remember is that just because some noisy activists stand up and say because I am a member of this group, or even worse because I say I am a member of this group, I am therefore an advocate for that groups interests is, we should just dispense with that self-identification as a worthy representation instantaneously because it’s predicated on the idea that one dimension of a person’s identify is sufficiently broad and all –encompassing so that you can infer their political stance, for example which you can’t. And so, the trans people who have written me, they all say the same thing; Those people don’t speak for me; B, we’re not all the same; C, most of us just want to be referred to by the other. That’s the whole point. You know, this has been very reassuring to me because one of the things I presume right from the onset was that there was no evidence whatsoever that this non-sensical legislation and the post-modern idiocy it is in fact demanded by this community or that it will be in any way one’ best interest. No, I don’t buy it. And I think its rotten right to the core. And then the safe space issue, it’s like if you need a safe space, see a therapist. Really. Really. University is not a safe space. If university is done right, it is a radically unsafe space. If you want to go somewhere and get yourself taken apart intellectually, and then hopefully put back together, then you go to university. Everything you believe should be challenged in every possible way, but not in the destructive sense, right, like when you’re renovating a house, you don’t just burn it to the ground and walk away, that’s what the post-modernists do adolescents, by the way, you dismantle it in consultation with its occupant attempting to build something in more beautiful and functional on the foundation. It’s not a safe space. And you know, in my classes, and I tell my students this right at the beginning, I’m trying to get them to understand why they are Nazi’s. Right, there isn’t anything more unsafe than that. And all of them, virtually all of them, write back to me afterwards and say that this is the most worthwhile class I have ever had in my life and it changed my life, it’s like, well, I’m teaching you the worst possible thing about yourself and your response it, oh, that was so useful and I’m way better than I was, you know it’s, but it’s in keeping with the idea that you need to be exposed to things that you fear and hate because that’s where salvation lies, roughly speaking."