Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Racial Fabrications

Actual cases of white racism are nowadays so rare and/or so trivial that those anxious to prove that it exists have taken to fabricating stories which the gullible and credulous accept as proof that the problem persists. These examples are usually proven to be not at all what they purport to be, but no matter. The impression created is that racism is ubiquitous and if this or that allegation is shown to be spurious the true believers are nevertheless undeterred. Indeed, it's even claimed that the actual rarity of instances of overt racism only shows that racism is more insidiously covert today than it used to be. This take on things would be amusing were it not so widely accepted and so frequently alleged.

In any case, The Daily Caller offers us a list of a dozen or so of the most egregious examples of hoaxes and just absurd interpretations of perfectly innocent actions that were widely cited as proof of white racism and homophobia in 2015. Here are a couple of the DC's selections:
A Columbia University student pitched a fit and cried racism because she couldn’t get into a Yale frat party. A Halloween party thrown by the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity chapter at Yale University caused a huge fracas after a Columbia student visiting campus claimed she was denied entry because it was “white girls only.” The Columbia student, Sofia Petros-Gouin, said an SAE member repeatedly declared “White girls only” and only permitted white women — specifically blonde white women — to enter. “I was shocked,” Petros-Gouin told gullible Washington Post reporter Susan Svrluga. “I was disgusted.” Later, the fraternity’s president said another Yale student hocked a loogie on him. Also, Yale students insulted black SAE members by calling them “Uncle Toms.” Yale officials opened an official investigation. They conducted scores of interviews. About a month later, school officials concluded that exactly no racism had actually occurred at the frat’s Halloween party. “Before the party became crowded, all students — including men and women of color — were admitted on a first-come, first-served basis,” a Yale dean wrote. Later, when the party was hopping and people started queueing outside to get in, frat members began turning people away with “harsh language” — but no racism.

Students at the University of Delaware freaked out because they thought the remains of lanterns hanging from a tree were nooses. Pandemonium struck students and administrators alike at the University of Delaware in November after students claimed they discovered at least three nooses hanging from trees after a Black Lives Matter rally. The alleged nooses were found dangling from a tree on the quad. A police investigation was rapidly launched. Once police officers actually took a close look at the “nooses,” they “determined that the three noose-like items found outside Mitchell Hall were not instruments of a hate crime, but the remnants of paper lanterns from an event previously held on The Green,” as the president of the public school duly explained. After the “hate crime” was exposed as a total non-event, school officials doubled on the necessity of fighting hate on campus.

A black graduate of Kean University used a school computer to threaten to “shoot every black woman and male” on campus. The 24-year-old graduate, Kayla-Simone McKelvey, was charged with creating a false public alarm after reportedly making death threats and bomb threats against black students and professors. The arrest occurred in December. Police say McKelvey, who is black and a self-described race activist, used Twitter and a computer at the taxpayer-funded New Jersey school. McKelvey reportedly chose the Twitter handle @keanuagainstblk (Kean University against black) to make the threats, which included a promise to “shoot every black woman and male.” Police said McKelvey also tweeted: “kean university twitter against blacks is for everyone who hates blacks people.”
There are more at the link. Maybe we should see it as a sign of progress, of a sort, that those who wish to support their claims of racism in this country are now reduced to having to make up the evidence. It doesn't say much for the character of these individuals, nor the discernment of those who are quick to believe them, but it does say something about how far we've come as a society in the last three generations in casting off the bigotries of the past.