Critical Race Theory

[Rev. Rye]

For the record, the story of Bret Weinstein at Evergreen is a bit more complicated than IA's recollection of the events. And, indeed, I think his initial reaction to the event is fairly valid, if imperfect (especially given that The Day of Absence was originally meant to highlight the contribution nonwhites make to society, just like its namesake play, and swapping out who gets to be absent kind of misses the whole point.) The real protests happened a bit later, due to an incident where two black students were taken from their dorms by cops, and shit really hit the fan for Weinstein when he made the mistake of trying to confront the protesters:



Frankly, nobody comes across well in this exchange. Nobody really seems to quite get where the other person's coming from, and while I can't co-sign with the protesters running largely on emotion in the exchanges (and when you decide to start dealing only in absolutes, frankly, you look like the Sith to me), not seeing the nuances in Weinstein's arguments, I really can't co-sign with the fact that Weinstein went on Tucker Carlson a few days later. He just went with the bullshit narrative Tucker was pushing about how the protests were all about Weinstein refusing to leave campus when they demanded a day without white people and how he was the bulwark against white people being forced from the college (the Day of Absence was strictly voluntary) and not bothering to fill in the details he was leaving out. And this just led to someone who previously considered himself a progressive allying with far-right figures.

Believe it or not, I'm one of the leftists here that's most likely to call out the legit excesses of the left. It might not seem like it to IA, but that's mostly because I have a far higher standard of what constitutes real Political Correctness Gone Mad than he does. And as frustrating as the more jackasstic parts of the left can be, I know better than to ally myself with groups that are, if not full-blown Nazis, a link or two away from them. Because I know what would happen if they got their way (particularly notable starting 19 minutes in):



And, however much I dislike the excesses of identity politics or wokeness, their hopes for the world are almost certainly a Hell of a lot better than that.