EDITORS' CORNER
OPINION: The ‘hate has no home here’ crowd quickly acts to disperse an HBCU-organized hangout
One rather entertaining aspect of reading college student newspapers is that you’ll be reading a feature article about pro-Palestinian student activists literally crying about the alleged Israel-induced living conditions in the Gaza Strip … and then immediately underneath is a story in which numerous students complain about how the 20-plus lunch options in their dining halls just aren’t enough.
Or, something like this.
Such performativity is even more pronounced in college student publications located in urban areas; next to an “Abolish the Police!” editorial will be a story about student outrage over campus thefts, harassment, and assaults.
Here’s a perfect example of NIMBY performativity from last month in my home state: The ultra-progressive enclave of Rehoboth Beach (also considered an LGBTQ mecca) in the middle of deep-red Sussex County faced controversy after a quartet of Delaware State University (an historically black college) students allegedly organized a so-called “takeover” of the resort.
During the “takeover,” several people were arrested for “disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, underage drinking, and public marijuana consumption,” and ultimately cops charged the four DSU students with intent to incite a riot.
The local NAACP ended up getting involved in the matter, and a student allegedly involved in the planning of the “takeover” invoked race: “I think the problem was … there was a lot of young Black men in one area, to be frank, and for some reason it made people nervous, and that shouldn’t be the case at all,” said DSU business major Angelin Clauvin.
Keep in mind that the area around Rehoboth routinely plays host to anti-Trump protesters along the state’s Route 1. But uh oh — here comes a bunch of black college students! Where’s the tolerance? Empathy? Understanding? All the residents did was exhibit their white and high-class privilege.
Ultimately, the progressive state Department of Justice ended up dropping the incitement charges against Clauvin and his three pals.
A few hundred miles to the north at the “swanky vacation” island of Nantucket, Massachusetts, the progressive Unitarian Universalists church decided this year that after a quarter century it would skip its traditional July 4 readings of the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights.
This is because its lesbian pastor, Erin Splaine, and other church officials are upset the U.S. Supreme Court recently “gutted” the 1965 Voting Rights Act via its decision in Louisiana v. Callais.
Instead, Splaine and her congregation will “focus on the ‘on-going process within the congregation to better understand [their] own whiteness.’”
In a letter, Splaine said the nation’s founding documents “have, for centuries, been tragically, often violently, and unequally applied to fellow citizens who are not white.”
But what are the chances the residents of Nantucket would act like their immediate island neighbors at Martha’s Vineyard (or, now, Rehoboth Beach) if, say, several dozen migrants suddenly appeared in town? You think Splaine’s lectures on historic whiteness would quickly be forgotten … and efforts to remove the migrants would be effected expeditiously?
I’d say the chances are as likely as the Los Angeles Rams making the playoffs this season.
Always remember that the most vocal, lecture-not-listen liberals rarely live by the rules they preach. Those are for others. Nevertheless, their better-than-you moralizing is like a narcotic, and that’s why they never stop.
