According to Davidson College, a private institution in North Carolina, if you are white, you are a racist. If you are a person of color, you can be prejudiced or bigoted, but you can’t be racist. This definition of racism is based on the belief that “systemic racism” exists and is therefore based on power.
The idea that every white person is racist is absurd, yet Davidson believes it so completely that every athlete at the school must attend the class and watch a video titled “I’m Not Racist – Am I?”
Even worse, the athletic department decided to show the film on a Sunday afternoon instead of normal school hours. Students “were disappointed that the Athletic Department would compel them to participate in this event for over three hours on a Sunday afternoon,” College Fix reported.
An alumni-run free speech organization, the Davidsonians for Freedom of Thought and Discourse, exposed the video. According to the College Fix, the group stated, “In one clip of the film that we uncovered is the unequivocal repetition that all white people are racist, and people of color cannot be racist.”
The discussion attempts to differentiate between racism and bigotry. Emphasizing that racial minorities can be guilty of bigotry against whites, expressing “personal meanness” and “hate” but not racism against whites. The discussion defines access to power through state-sanctioned systems that benefit white people as true racism.
According to one facilitator in the video, “We’re saying that, collectively, blacks, Latinos, and other groups do not have the power to collectively oppress white people through the use of our systems.”
“So, are you saying that all white people are racist?”
“Yes.”
“We would also say that it’s only white people that could be racist, that are racist.”
You have to watch this clip from a film Davidson College required all its student-athletes to watch. pic.twitter.com/Q0STbgZNCB
— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) February 27, 2024
The Davidsonians attacked the video’s message, telling the College Fix that:
…the students with whom we have spoken about this film found it offensive, divisive, and personally insulting. It does not object to discussions among teammates or anyone on any topic, including weaponized definitions of racism. Compelling them to do so, guided only by the extremist views of the film producer, is a hazardous way to go about it.
Will those teammates classified as ‘the oppressed’ and ‘the oppressor’ continue to trust and respect each other?” Endorsement of such a film by the Athletic Department could signal to the scholar-athletes what views the institution does, and does not require, and thus have a silencing effect on them.
The group pointed to a survey by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression that indicated that 66% of Davidson students “regularly avoid informed dissent in the classroom.” This means that if you are a white student, remaining silent about being classified as racist is easier than opposing it and enduring the inevitable backlash, even though it is untrue.
The Davidson’s also found syllabus statements such as:
We can only identify how power and privilege play out when we are conscious and committed to understanding how white supremacy, patriarchy, classism, heterosexism, cisgenderism, ableism, and all other systems of oppression affect each of us.
Davidson is one of many entities that’s now attempting to redefine racism and conjoin it with power. The danger in the left’s new definition is that it eliminates personal responsibility. A person can now commit a racist act while deluding himself that it was only prejudice that he expressed because of systemic racism.
This is nothing more than an alibi — justification for individual hatred against whites because of a system they supposedly represent, not for something they did but solely based on skin color.
I’m sorry, but that is straight-up racism. We are all better than this, and teaching it as a fact in any college needs to be loudly condemned.