OPINION:
A couple of Canadian professors say white students shouldn’t travel abroad without first receiving training on their “privileged identity.”
So whites can’t go near blacks without receiving instruction in the proper ways to behave?
Somehow, that suggestion seems — well, racist. It seems to say that blacks need to be handled differently than other people — that they are so different that humans of other races couldn’t possibly relate to them without special training.
That’s not what David Thomas and Zoe Luba, professors at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, meant, of course.
This is what they meant, as put forth in an article noted by Fox News: “Negative and racist stereotypes are often perpetuated and reproduced when uninformed [white] participants travel to the Global South [Africa, Asia] and return to tell others about their experiences.”
In order to avoid “harmful outcomes,” the professors say training to help Caucasians identify their “white fragility” is needed.
What that means in layman’s is that whites, according to the professors, can’t possibly see all the ways racism is inherent — and as such, sometimes underplay the level of racism that blacks experience in foreign countries.
“White fragility and the lack of critical pre-departure training in the areas of race and racism lead students to overlook or minimize racism as an important system of global oppression,” the professors wrote.
And you thought overseas travel was aimed at expanding minds and experiencing different cultures?
No. Apparently, to these two professors, it’s about discovering all the ways racism plays out, and then using that information for partisan politicking — to further the far left idea that whites are automatically bestowed special rights and privileges, simply because they were born white.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.