By David Gordon, Associate Editor
Divergent definitions of “racism,” “injustice” and related terms – and the importance of those differences – became major themes of a panel discussion this week at the University of Wisconsin-Stout.
The Monday afternoon program kicked off the university’s second annual Free Speech Week, which wound up Thursday afternoon with the last of six panel discussions. It was sponsored and coordinated by the UW-Stout Center for the Study of Institutions and Innovation.
The opening panel was publicized as focusing on free speech and anti-orthodoxy, through the saga of a former Evergreen State College (WA) faculty member who challenged the school’s day of reverse racial segregation, with explosive results.
That’s not quite how it worked out.
Panel Ranged Widely
Instead, the panel evolved into a wide-ranging discussion of power, how societal change comes about (or doesn’t) and to what degree racism is inherent in American society. It also indicated that Evergreen was dealing with broader issues than just the fallout from opposition to a reverse discrimination day.
The panel featured three speakers with widely divergent perspectives: Bret Weinstein, an evolutionary biologist who spent 14 years at Evergreen; John Sharpless, co-director of the Center for the Study of Liberal Democracy at UW-Madison; and Damon Sajnani, a faculty member in African Cultural Studies at UW-Madison.
For a brief video look at highlights from this program, click here.
Weinstein said that Evergreen, which refers to itself on its website as “a progressive, public liberal arts and sciences college,” was founded in the 1960s using innovative approaches to teaching and college administration. Only about half of the founders’ ideas were working by 2016 when a new college president proposed major revisions and sought support for them from campus activists who wanted total and immediate changes that would implement their “equity agenda.”
The push for immediate and sweeping changes produced feelings of intimidation on the campus, along with instances of self-censorship, Weinstein said. He acknowledged that the activists’ efforts were based in an “earnest desire to restructure society” and to overcome long-standing inequities that have disadvantaged nonwhites, but said they would also have resulted in a campus hierarchy for the first time.
Therefore, he said, the basic issue at Evergreen was not racism or racial equity but who would wield the ultimate power to produce change.
“This isn’t about free speech and it has precious little to do with college campuses,” he said.
Click here for a related story that provides background on events at Evergreen that led to protests directed at Weinstein
Weinstein noted that he was prominent among those questioning some of the proposed changes and who preferred change to come gradually and incrementally. This made him “a lightning rod” for the activists pushing for immediate restructuring of the college, he said, and resulted in an organized and eventually successful effort to have him leave the faculty.
Sajnani, who said he would try to be “somewhat provocative,” questioned the usual definitions of “race,” “racism” and “social justice” and said that how such terms are defined determines how we deal with these issues. He criticized “misdirection caused by language in the sphere of social justice” and noted that – from his perspective – current majority views on race are “the images and group identities that were created by and for and through slavery.”
Racism isn’t in the heart
Racism isn’t in the heart and “hate is not a sufficient condition for racism,” he said. Prejudice, unfairness and meanness likewise do not equate to racism, he added.
Racism is “the reinforcement of the status quo” and anything that “reinforces white supremacy,” Sajnani said. Similarly, injustice is “the inequitable distribution of resources,” and of power, he said, and added that “the condition of black people in the United States is colonialism.”
He said that in political discourse, what is regarded as reasonable is limited by what people’s political acculturation permits them to see. Paraphrasing Martin Luther King, he challenged Weinstein and other liberals to be willing to change the system rather than pursuing piecemeal reforms.
Weinstein responded that “the tragedy of the situation is evident in the discussion we’re having,” which indicates the need for simple and agreed-upon definitions of terms. He argued for “race blindness,” which he said was not indifferent to the problems resulting from racism but which would avoid destructive cycles of retribution that would turn “the tables of oppression” rather than ending them.
“We must shoot for a system that is de facto race blind, where bad luck is randomly distributed,” he said.
Sharpless Comments
Sharpless noted that there is a tension between legal rights to speak that are constitutionally protected and speech as a cultural norm. The courts have greatly expanded legal protections for speech since the 1920s, steps he said he totally supports.
Currently, legally protected speech “tests our value – not our right but our value – of speech and dissent,” he added. “Speech in this sense is a matter of faith,” particularly faith that speech will result in steps forward for society.
He said he shares that faith but noted that “there’s reason to believe, in our darkest moments, that it’s not true.” Speech that dissents has a value for society but dissent is difficult in small, tightly-knit communities, he said.
Currently, this seems to hold true within both major political parties, he said, and quipped that among Republicans, “the biggest dissent is how big the gun is going to be.”
Sajnani said that no definition of free speech should be accepted without first examining the material interest inherent in it.
“Free speech always has its limits and therefore the debate, the nuance, is where those limits are” determined, he said.
UW-Stout Chancellor Bob Meyer moderated the 90-minute program, attended by some 30 people.
Note: the video accompanying this article was recorded and edited by Jack Bertelsen, a UW-Eau Claire senior who is interning with the CVPost this semester.
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