From what I can summarize, the point of Dr. Everett’s letter, published in The Lamron on April 11, is that people who are “politically incorrect” are more persecuted on this campus than racial minorities (specifically African Americans). Of course he thought that. He’s a white philosophy professor with tenure.
The student that Dr. Everett wrote about is safe. She feels bad and this will affect her for years (as everything that happens in a person’s life will affect them). However, students of color are never going to feel safe. As a person of color, I will never feel as safe as she did when she made—as Dr. Everett said—a “joking reference.” People of color have to pretend we’re safe or else “we’re oppressing ourselves.” A system built on obscuring the systemic oppression people of color faced in the past that still affect our places in society today is never going to make us feel as safe as our privileged peers.
I doubt that people who disagree with me will read this. I understand that it was “just a joke.” But I do think this is funny: a tenured philosophy professor at a highly ranked state university saying someone apologizing for their actions is equivalent to Stalinism? That’s hilarious.
Hope Artis