Don’t Be a Racist Who Makes Me Crazy: Look Into My Eyes When I Speak!
[guest post by Dana]
On the heels of President Trump sticking his finger in the eye of Big Media, let’s talk about eye contact: Oxford University has taken the position that students who don’t make eye contact might be racist. And you thought you had seen everything…
The university’s Equality and Diversity Unit has advised students that “not speaking directly to people” could be deemed a “racial microaggression” which can lead to “mental ill-health”.
Other examples of “everyday racism” include asking someone where they are “originally” from, students were told.
Oxford University’s Equality and Diversity Unit explains in its Trinity term newsletter that “some people who do these things may be entirely well-meaning, and would be mortified to realise that they had caused offence.
“But this is of little consequence if a possible effect of their words or actions is to suggest to people that they may fulfil a negative stereotype, or do not belong”.
It’s almost has if the university is dangerously close to espousing a particularly ugly brand of hate speech as they dismiss other cultures and various individuals who do not assign the same value to making eye contact. Consider individuals coming from Asia or the Middle East, or any place where making eye contact means something very different than what it does in the West. Why don’t the members of the Equality and Diversity Unit also consider the very real challenges that those on the autism spectrum have with making eye contact? Because, when you really look at it, the exclusion of certain ethnic groups and those with particular spectrum disorders really makes the Equality and Diversity Unit appear to be about anything but equality and diversity.
Clearly, members of the Equality and Diversity Unit are blind to reality and can only stumble their way through the darkness searching for yet another way to confirm their own victimization by giving birth to the ugly authoritarian lurking inside their soul. They are carriers of the worst sort as they continue to weaken a generation in their mission of telling others what to think, what to feel, and what to believe because they alone are the standard bearers of what is morally and culturally acceptable.
In contrast to this blithering madness, Dr Joanna Williams at the University of Kent, put the kibosh on the silly, self-indulgent “hyper-sensitivity” of students, as well as nailing the authoritarianism of the adults supposedly in charge:
“Essentially people are being accused of a thought crime,” Dr Williams told The Telegraph. “They are being accused of thinking incorrect thoughts based on an assumption of where they may or may not be looking.”
…
“Instead of people seeing each other as potential friends, equals, these re-racialise academia, they force people to see each other as a person of colour, they force people to be put into boxes about identity.
“It is really problematic – it means people can’t relate to each other naturally, they have rules in the back of their mind and they can’t be spontaneous as their interactions are all overlaid with the desire to follow all these rules.”
–Dana