–November 20, 2015

As the tides of political correctness engulf the land like a slow building storm surge, it almost seems that people are so dazed by the storm that they can’t see the absurdities coming in with these tides like so much mud riven up from the seabed. People see the actions and hear the words of the politically correct and take them at face value, as though they should be construed as normal. Thus my efforts here to stir that mud and show the absurd detritus within.

This week’s absurdity award goes to Dartmouth College administrators and the Dartmouth “Black Lives Matter” student protesters. The Ivy league college made the news after the protesters stormed the college’s library and disrupted students studying for their exams.

The hyperbole of some right-wing media elevated the “disturbance” almost to the level of a “riot;” however, the protest never got that out of control, nor was anyone physically assaulted as suggested in such news articles. Nevertheless, the protesters were intimidating and very “in-your-face” disruptive (a video of the incident can be seen here).

I fully support the free speech rights of the protesters and believe they have the right to scream “black lives matter,” “fuck your white privilege,” “fuck your comfort,” and “fuck your white asses” (the latter three statements are not heard in the video, but protesters freely admitted to using them). But I don’t believe they had the right to do so in the library, which is not a “public space” per se as proscribed in the First Amendment’s dictates. Nor do I believe that they had the right to break into the personal space of any of those people studying in the library. Where I come from breaking the six-inch personal space and screaming expletives and attendant spit into one’s face is grounds for throwing a punch.

However, the protesters are justifying their actions. “While I don’t think the protest should happen again to the extent where people are being yelled at and making people cry, I think the invasion of space needed to be done,” said one protester. Another one said the students in the library “represented the greater degree of ignorance, apathy and privilege that you see at Dartmouth.”

Privilege? Ah, yes, “white privilege.” The catchword being used by the politically correct to indicate all the many benefits and advantages white folks get for, well, being born white. Apparently it’s our fault that we were born that way and the politically correct believe we need to atone for it, as well as all the privileges enjoyed by our ancestors.

Yes, those students studying in the library are privileged. Anyone going to an ivy league school like Dartmouth is exceptionally privileged, which—hello!—includes those very student protesters.

And what of the numerous white students who protested at the library in fellowship with the black students? What of their white privilege?

Well, they are politically correct, and activist proponents of political correctness believe in “self identification,” so obviously those white “Black Lives Matter” demonstrators identify as “underprivileged black Dartmouth students,” and we just have to accept them as such.

And to compound all the above absurdity, let’s “blame the victim.”

As one protester said, “I have a problem with the protest being made to look like a spectacle by the students who were recording videos of it in the library.”

These right-wing media “allegations of physical assault are lies to make the white students look like victims and students of color to look like the perpetrators,” said another protestor, who added that the white students in the library deserved to feel uncomfortable.

OK, so the students peacefully studying in the library were responsible for this whole incident….

And then we’ve got Dartmouth administrators who are putting their support solidly behind the protestors, while thus far ignoring complaints by students harassed in the library. During a meeting with minority students, vice provost for student affairs, Inge-Lise Ameer, called the protest a “wonderful, beautiful thing,” and issued a public apology to the students who engaged in the protest for the negative responses and media coverage that they received. “There’s a whole conservative world out there that’s not being very nice,” she said.

Un-fucking-real! This woman is undoubtedly of the same politically correct ilk that would apologize to ISIS for being part of the western world’s social and economic construct that is ultimately responsible for fomenting its rise and encouraging its subsequent application of harsh tactics such as torture, beheadings, rape and the like.

What do you think? Do Dartmouth and the protestors deserve the politically correct absurdity of the week award?

Runner Up: Princeton University Administrators who have agreed to consider the removal of President Woodrow Wilson’s name and likeness from the school grounds based on his racist legacy of supporting segregation. Well, if this emerging trend keeps accelerating you can pretty much say goodbye to most U.S. Presidents’ names and likenesses on campuses, because the majority of them carry racist baggage of different sorts. But that’s activist political correctness for you—selective revision of history and language that may be offensive to marginalized groups.