Guess We're All Racists Now, Except the Real Racists

In her latest Facebook video, Rachael Ballard SC '11 calls me out for calling her on her racism. She's been walking back from using the language "cockroaches" and for that, I say, good for her, but at no point does she apologize for comparing them cockroaches and even goes so far as to say made up things that I said about her in the comment section of Jeremy Merrill's Port Side post, a post which I think made the Port Side lose a lot of credibility, given its absolute dodge of Occam's Razor -- that the simplest explanation is always the most likely. (Contrary to what she has been suggesting, I never say that she names the students in question, but she certainly disparaged them.)

First rule of holes, though, Ms. Ballard is, when you're in one, stop digging. How easy it would be to say that you lost your cool and that you're sorry. So many of us would give you the benefit of the doubt.

But instead, her facebook profile pic is a reference to black power and she's been quick to point out all the black students that have been supporting her -- as if . Really, does Ms. Ballard really feel this put upon and what responsibility might OBSA's Hughes Suffren share in making her feel that way? He suggests, in his email, that we've been raised to have a lifetime of negative stereotypes of black people, as if he could know how we've all been raised in a community as, well, diverse as ours. Might, as I have been arguing since my very first Claremont Independent article, these racial groups makes students feel put upon?

And where's Dean Wood in all of this? According to an email she sent me, she says she's been in meetings all day and that we can expect a statement tomorrow on why Ms. Ballard's statements do not rise to the level of a bias-related incident. I'll be posting up Dean Wood's response as soon as I get it.

Ms. Ballard continues to play the part of an educator, trying to help us folk learn about racism. But racism, at least as far as this little episode is concerned, is like pornography: We know it when we see it and Ms. Ballard's statements fit the charge nicely.

And yet her Facebook status is as follows:

"I can only explain the difference between ascribing to critical race theory and being racist so many times."

So you either believe in critical race theory, or you don't, huh? Well, I guess that makes me a racist. And pretty much everyone else...

Of course, I suppose by that so-called academic definition of racism, we're only racist if there's a unhappy coincidence, in Ms. Ballard's words, of privilege and power. This is a laughable definition. No one says that a redneck off in the woods hating black people is any less of a racist merely because he lacks the inclination or the ability to act upon his racist thoughts. Forgive me, but I'll stick with the real definition of racism: harboring prejudice against others on the basis of racist. That would, of course, include assuming that white and Asian students have privilege merely because of their skin color.

No, we're all privileged to be at the Claremont Colleges, whether we're the children of billionaires or here on full scholarship, black as well as white. That would, include those white students here, who lack parents, and others, who have been ill with life stricken illnesses.

The question going forward is what we're going to do with that education and sadly, for many of the students, who have been indoctrinated in black studies and media studies classes, it doesn't look to have been much of an education at all. That this episode should occur at a time of year when all men feel good will towards their fellow man is saddening, indeed.