Idiotry Marches Ever Onward

Black Ivy League student claims ‘trauma’ after white professor refuses to acknowledge privilege

A black University of Pennsylvania student recently declared that his fall semester at the Ivy League institution was “traumatic” because he had three white professors who refused to acknowledge their privilege, and one scholar in particular who “constantly perpetuated these systems of oppression … [that] led to me mentally breaking down in the classroom.”

Student James Fisher wrote about his experience earlier this month in an op-ed in the Daily Pennsylvanian campus newspaper.

In it, Fisher opens by saying: “Last semester was honestly the worst semester I’ve had at Penn so far. And all because of one thing: the white professors I’ve had at Penn. It appears that the term ‘privilege’ does not apply to them. Nor do they care to learn what it is.”

Fisher wrote about his experience with one professor, noting that there “were countless times that his lack of acknowledgment of his privilege led to some of the trauma that I experienced in class. He would show images of slaves on plantations and even allow students to say ignorant comments in class.”

“… So, because my professor wanted to protect the voices of the white students who benefit from black oppression, the oppression unfortunately continued. It even led to me mentally breaking down in the classroom,” Fisher wrote.

“And while trying to console me, [the professor] said, ‘There is no way that I could acquire the wisdom that you possess.’ That was exactly what I needed to hear! I think he thought that that was a compliment,” Fisher continued.

“I stopped going to his class for a month. With different emotions going through my head from not only this class but from the Trump election, I did not want to step foot into another white space until I made sure that my mental health was restored.”

The column ended by arguing: “The truth is, you as a single person cannot make up for the horrific things that white people have done to us throughout human history. But that does not mean that you do not have the power to stop yourself from oppressing the students that you teach every day. You have to be invested in stopping racism and oppression every day, not just on your free time.”

Reached for comment by The College Fix, Fisher was asked how he thought white people at Penn benefit from oppressing black people.

“Well, the same way white people in general benefit from black oppression,” Fisher told The Fix.

“So, since we’re oppressed, right, we’re not able to perform at our best, so they use that and they take advantage of their privileges of not being the types of people to be looked at by police, right, by not being the types of people that are constantly scrutinized by American society, and they use that to their benefit,” Fisher said in a telephone interview.

Fisher added that he thinks other black students at UPenn “strongly” agree with him, and that colleges and universities could better accommodate black students if they would stop talking and start listening.

“If the majority of people in that classroom, or the majority of voice that we here in a typical class section, is a white male’s voice, maybe it shouldn’t be heard that much,” Fisher told The Fix. “You know there’s something wrong with that narrative if other narratives are not getting sort of more recognition or more clout.”

“I get that you’re always searching for us [minority students] to get the answer,” he said, “when all you have to really do is just shut up and listen.”

UPenn University Communications declined to comment on this story.

Oh my YES. College is all about having the professors shut entirely up, and listen to pain in the ass, crybaby juveniles complain about their privileged IVY LEAGUE education - where the juveniles educate the professors, who are there just to listen to juveniles and not speak. Yes, I think I've got it.

Interesting Takes

...On fragile but onerous Snowflakes, and the "generic 'he'" becoming the "generic 'she'". Ed Driscoll at Instapundit:

"OUR PRECIOUS LITTLE SNOWFLAKES: “This celebration of a child’s every accomplishment, however slight, is something new. By the time a kid reaches 18, she will have accumulated boxes and boxes of diplomas, medals, ribbons, trophies and certificates for just showing up – whether she’s any good at anything or not,” Margaret Wente writes in the Canadian Globe and Mail:

'Sometimes you have to compromise in life, but we don’t want to break this crushing news to our children. Personally, I’ve met far too many young adults who graduate from university with plans to work in development/save the world/find a career in environmental sustainability. There’s nothing wrong with these noble aspirations. What’s amazing is that no adults have ever levelled with them.

Reality will bite soon enough, of course. The idea that your job should be your passion is a misguided romantic notion that only the upper-middle-class can afford to entertain. In fact, most people wind up in areas that nobody ever talks about. “Insurance is a very interesting field,” Mr. Laurie assured me. “But no one says ‘I want to go into insurance.’ ”

The trouble is, snowflakes are not very resilient. They tend to melt when they hit the pavement. How will our snowflake children handle the routine stresses of the grownup world – the obnoxious colleagues, pointless meetings, promotions that don’t come their way? How will they cope when no one thinks they’re special any more?

I’m afraid they could be in for a hard landing.'

And how.

It’s an interesting essay and a great conclusion, but the author’s consistent use of “she” as a pronoun along the way, leapfrogging from the now doubleplus ungood crimethink use of “he” past “he or she” all the way to “she” makes one pause for a double-take. Particularly given, as Dr. Helen has noted, academia’s own war on young men over the past decade or so. In a chapter of his 1995 book The Vision of the Anointed titled “The Crusades of the Anointed,” Thomas Sowell explored the thinking behind the crusade that drove what he called “The Generic ‘He’” out of first academic and then most MSM writing. By 2010, Theodore Dalrymple noted:

I get to review quite a number of books published by academic presses, British and American, and I have found that the use of the impersonal “she” is now almost universal, even when the writer is aged and is most unlikely to have chosen this locution for himself (or herself). It is therefore an imposed locution, and as such sinister.

But then in the 21st century, there are precious little snowflakes of all ages whom we don’t dare offend."