A Duke University service-abroad program that was initially funded by the Gates Foundation has turned out a group of students who view all whites as morally equivalent to Dylann Roof, accused of murdering nine people in a black church in Charleston.
Writing in The Chronicle, nine participants in the 2015 DukeEngage-Cape Town program (including an editorial member at The Chronicle) want Americans to “acknowledge that racism is alive and well in the United States.”
While they point to government policies going back to the New Deal that have historically disfavored blacks, they don’t exactly know how to build support for their cause:
Being white does not mean that you owned slaves. It does not mean that you bought a house with the G.I. Bill. It does not mean that you benefitted from welfare. But, the minute you set foot on U.S. soil, it does mean that this American history is yours. It does mean that the legacy of these policies is yours. Your whiteness means that you can walk comfortably into a system that forces others to crawl. It means that you have the luxury of being seen as an individual in a society that sees others as a collective, a society that attributes another’s actions to their entire community. Yet, as an individual, you are no less accountable for the history and actions of your race. You cannot deny that our racialized society motivated the Charleston shooter when he presents himself with flags of institutional oppression.
He is not exempt.
You are not exempt.
Confront the reality that you are complicit in a racist system. Acknowledge that your silence is not inaction. It is a choice, and your choice held the church door open for the Charleston shooter.
So, the shorter version is: Failure to write a racially charged op-ed in the Chronicle is the same as murdering nine people in a church.
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