Apparently some colleges think so. They are requiring white students to take separate classes to educate them about the evils of being white. Here are few quotes justifying one proposed program:
It’s a space for white people to figure out what it means to be an anti-racist white person and challenge racism in all areas of our lives. We cannot expect people of color to have all of the answers for us on how to transform ourselves and other white people. As white people we are well equipped to understand what it means to be a white, as well as a white anti-racist.
Well as long the classes are all about white people reflecting on how ■■■■■■ all white people are, it’s all good. If it’s all-white anything else, then obviously it’s the KKK.
Yes, there seems to be a basic contradiction in a whites-only anti-racism program.
Of course I have see college fliers with the slogan “zero tolerance for intolerance”. A basic theme seems to be tolerance for certain groups, but zero tolerance for others while still under the alleged guise of “tolerance”.
Corporations have been doing mandatory sensitivity trainings for decades around issues of diversity, race and gender issues: this looks like an extension of that.
My only concern sometimes is the languaging of certain aspects of oppression and marginalization. But maybe that’s better for another thread.
My privilege… by joining the military out of high school, learning a language, serving in war, coming home, going to school using my GI Bill… that doesn’t matter. It was all my privilege that got me to where I am today.
Sure. But how does talking about how privileged I am address any of those? What effect does me acknowledging my personal white privilege and how my whole life developed just because I’m white have on anything with any of those problems you listed?
So how do I right those injustices? Attend these meetings and acknowledge my completely privileged upbringing and life up until this point? Stand up in front of everyone and lament that I’ve only been successful because I’m white?
What a crock, I don’t take responsibility for anything some white people have done because I am white, why the hell should I? What the hell does my melanin have to do with what other people have done? Go find the guilty parties and chastise them. I had nothing to do with it.
That’s not really what it means. It’s privilege in the sense that white people will struggle like anyone else. It’s just not because of their skin color. Full stop.
One of the things that might be expressed in a class like the one in the OP is how the GI Bill benefitted white veterans over black ones at the end of WW2 because of institutional racism in the housing market and in college admissions.
Leading to a lag in the building of generational wealth among minorities and helping out while families more.
No one should really have to take a course like that. It’s counterproductive to finding actual solutions and discussion. I can imagine why they’d want whites only, for people with questions to be more open. But let’s get real, Richard Spencer types aren’t going to be found there and in the age of social shaming no one will really have the guts to raise their hand and ask a stupid, borderline racist question.
Are women more likely to be abused by men in co-ed spaces or women only spaces? How about minorities? Are they more likely to experience racism at a HBCU or a normal university?
Therein lies the answer to your question.
