‘White-Informed Civility’ Is the Latest Target in the Campus Wars

Space_Time · Jan 4, 2018

Is everything in public life traceable to white supremacy? What should we have instead of civility? Is this just another attempt by the Left to control public debate?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/white-...e-latest-target-in-the-campus-wars-1514938758

OPINION COMMENTARY
‘White-Informed Civility’ Is the Latest Target in the Campus Wars
The rules of collegiate debate are also coming under attack as racist and patriarchal.
By Steve Salerno
Jan. 2, 2018 7:19 p.m. ET
1674 COMMENTS
From the land that irony forgot—which earlier gave us microaggressions and trigger warnings—comes a new and surprising movement, this time to combat civility. Civility, you see, is a manifestation of the white patriarchy. Spearheading this campaign are a duo of University of Northern Iowa professors, who assert that “civility within higher education is a racialized, rather than universal, norm.”

Their article in the Howard Journal of Communications, “Civility and White Institutional Presence: An Exploration of White Students’ Understanding of Race-Talk at a Traditionally White Institution,” describes a need to stamp out what they call “whiteness-informed civility,” or WIC. The pervasiveness of WIC, it seems, erases “racial identity” and reinforces “white racial power.”

‘White-Informed Civility’ Is the Latest Target in the Campus Wars
PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO
Their thesis can be a tad hard to follow, unfolding as it does in that dense argot for which academia is universally beloved. But their core contention is twofold: One, that civility, as currently practiced in America, is a white construct. Two, that in a campus setting, the “woke” white student’s endeavor to avoid microaggressions against black peers is itself a microaggression—a form of noblesse oblige whereby white students are in fact patronizing students of color. Not only that, but by treating black students with common courtesy and expecting the same in return, white students elide black grievances, bypassing the “race talk” that is supposed to occur in preamble to all other conversations. Got it?

Something similar is happening in collegiate debate, where historically high standards of decorum are under siege as manifestations of white patriarchal thinking. So are the factual and logical proofs that debaters are normally expected to offer in arguing their case. Some participants are challenging the format, goals and ground rules of debate itself, in some cases refusing even to stick to the topic at hand.

Again the driving theory is that all conversations must begin by addressing race. As one top black debater, Elijah J. Smith, writes, debate must, before all else, “acknowledge the reality of the oppressed.” He resists the attempt on the part of white debaters to “distance the conversation from the material reality that black debaters are forced to deal with every day.”

Mr. Smith and his think-alikes seek to transform debate into an ersatz course in Black Studies. In a major 2014 debate finals, two Towson University students sidestepped the nominal resolution, which had to do with restricting a president’s war powers, in order to argue that war “should not be waged against n—as.” Two other students decided that rather than debate aspects of U.S. policy in the Mideast, they’d discuss how the common practices of the debate community itself perpetuate racism. Other recent debates involving black participants have devolved into original rap music.

A few debates have featured profane outbursts and even the hurling of furniture. In one memorable case, when the clock ran out on a student during the championship round, he yelled, “F— the time!”
Click to expand...

Antiduopolist · Jan 4, 2018

Space_Time said: ↑

What should we have instead of civility?
Click to expand...

Look around you.

Belch · Jan 4, 2018

Space_Time said: ↑

Is everything in public life traceable to white supremacy? What should we have instead of civility? Is this just another attempt by the Left to control public debate?
Click to expand...

This is just an unconceded premise. Accept this nonsense and then you'll be pulled very quickly into the rabbit hole of leftist dogma.

VotreAltesse · Jan 4, 2018

Civility exist in every civilizations. Seriously, the guys who launched that campaign must be brain dead or totally mad.

Cigar · Jan 4, 2018

Maybe you should take a Knee

VotreAltesse · Jan 4, 2018

Cigar said: ↑

Maybe you should take a Knee
Click to expand...

I'm not american, I don't get your references. The only time I would concede to bow would be to my future wife, but that's not a real tradition in my country.

Log in or Sign up

‘White-Informed Civility’ Is the Latest Target in the Campus Wars

Space_Time Well-Known Member

Antiduopolist Well-Known Member

Belch Well-Known Member

VotreAltesse Well-Known Member Past Donor

Cigar Well-Known Member Past Donor

VotreAltesse Well-Known Member Past Donor

Share This Page

Log in or Sign up

‘White-Informed Civility’ Is the Latest Target in the Campus Wars

Space_Time Well-Known Member

Antiduopolist Well-Known Member

Belch Well-Known Member

VotreAltesse Well-Known Member Past Donor

Cigar Well-Known Member Past Donor

VotreAltesse Well-Known Member Past Donor

Share This Page

Useful Searches