Have you witnessed any "micro aggressions"? For those who don't know, these are best described as "insults" frequently with racial, religious or ethnic components. Have you witnessed any "cultural appropriations"? These occur when someone usurps the culture of another group. A European wearing a Japanese kimono would be a good example, but so would a white or black person in Minneapolis eating a taco. After all, that's Mexican. There are also "trigger warnings" which are alarms meant to tell someone that there soon may be something said that may offend the listeners sensibilities. There are also "safe spaces" which are place that are meant to be free of the micro aggressions, cultural appropriations and all the other stuff just described.
If all this sound bizarre to you, then you are not a student on a university campus these days. The language sounds like it is meant to protect delicate college students from hearing anything with which they might disagree. It also sounds like it is meant to protect potential victims from abuse. The funny thing is that the real purpose is exactly the opposite. These are actually methods used by the left to enforce thought control and conformity on today's students. It's a micro aggression to criticize supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement. It's "fighting racism" to criticize the opponents of the Black Lives matter movement. The very idea of trigger warnings is antithetical to the purpose of a university. Students in our institutions are supposed to learn to think for themselves. There is no way to learn that skill if one never actually hears anything that conflicts with one's pre-existing ideas. The point of diversity (which the left loves to extol) is for others to learn and benefit from the culture and ideas of others. There is no way to do that if learning another culture is castigated as cultural expropriation. There cannot be freedom on a campus if only one political thought process is allowed.
This may all sound unimportant. It's not. We cannot survive if an entire generation of Americans is controlled by the campus thought police. It does not take that long for totalitarians to destroy freedom. We should not stand by, we cannot stand by as the effort to do so proceeds apace on our campuses.
If all this sound bizarre to you, then you are not a student on a university campus these days. The language sounds like it is meant to protect delicate college students from hearing anything with which they might disagree. It also sounds like it is meant to protect potential victims from abuse. The funny thing is that the real purpose is exactly the opposite. These are actually methods used by the left to enforce thought control and conformity on today's students. It's a micro aggression to criticize supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement. It's "fighting racism" to criticize the opponents of the Black Lives matter movement. The very idea of trigger warnings is antithetical to the purpose of a university. Students in our institutions are supposed to learn to think for themselves. There is no way to learn that skill if one never actually hears anything that conflicts with one's pre-existing ideas. The point of diversity (which the left loves to extol) is for others to learn and benefit from the culture and ideas of others. There is no way to do that if learning another culture is castigated as cultural expropriation. There cannot be freedom on a campus if only one political thought process is allowed.
This may all sound unimportant. It's not. We cannot survive if an entire generation of Americans is controlled by the campus thought police. It does not take that long for totalitarians to destroy freedom. We should not stand by, we cannot stand by as the effort to do so proceeds apace on our campuses.
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