A Student Bar Association was going to host a party called “Hawaiian Day,” but after submitting the event idea to the University of South Dakota law school, apparently got told to change the name and ended up going with “Beach Day,” reported Campus Reform. The bar association told partygoers to come dressed in floral shirts and leis, the little flower wreaths, but then scrapped the leis, allegedly because “It was determined that these are culturally insensitive by the administration after doing research based off of the essay written by [a] complainant.”
The law school administration didn’t tell the group not to wear leis, but did suggest not to hand them out on the basis that they’re items of cultural significance. Now, this seems to be a decision that was poorly received across the board. First, USD’s president, Sheila Gestring, put out a press release, saying “Administrative censorship of student speech and expression is a serious matter and not something USD condones without compelling justification consistent with Board policy, such as a genuine threat.”
Sheila said the university would be investigating whether the law school violated the school’s policy on free speech. But to make things even more humiliating for cultural authoritarians, Hawaii state Republican Rep. Bob McDermott bashed the law school in USD’s student newspaper.
He said “Someone in South Dakota has their head stuck in a snowbank. The lei is a symbol of our Aloha spirit in Hawaii, inclusive and welcoming. One individual’s objection to its use at a festive event is both patronizing and an insult to our island tradition. It is also a demonstration of ignorance about the cultural significance of the lei.”
Here’s the thing about all of this cultural appropriation claptrap. It operates from two faulty assumptions. One, that culture operates by some sort of perverse property rights system in which white people are forbidden from embracing trends started by other races, but not the other way around. Remember that Hawaii fits into that paradigm because it has less than 25% whites.
And two, the concept of cultural appropriation mistakes the donning of sombreros and the like as part of a jovial, themed party for contemptuous mockery. I used to think that those two assumptions were simple mistakes, until they happened over and over and over again. It’s high time we stopped treating these guys as wayward children and started recognizing them as entirely self-conscious fraudsters and killjoys.
An individual threw eggs at Dion Thompson and Saleem Juma, the pro-Trump hosts of YouTube channel Operation Cold Front, reported Campus Reform. And one guy who got hit in the head wasn’t even a Trump supporter, but just a student who was talkingwith the duo.
The YouTube hosts got more eggs and a drink thrown at them in other instances.
The violence starts with food and drinks, but once that’s normalized, gets a lot worse. In fact, it already has: Remember Andy Ngo in Portland? How about Hayden Williams at Berkeley?
The YouTubers believe that the individuals who attacked them were linked to Anifa, claiming that Antifa-related accounts had spread their location.
And this isn’t the first time Operation Cold Front has had its events disrupted by left-wing agitators. The two YouTubers were giving a speech to the University of Washington College Republicans when an alleged Antifa member apparently tried to use a chain to lock them in the room.
Police cited that 18-year-old, Ezra Benner, for disorderly conduct, but the prosecuting attorney’s office dropped the charge, saying that it was unlikely it would be able to prove the crime “beyond a reasonable doubt.” So if you stop these guys from committing a crime, there might not be enough evidence to prosecute. And if they do successfully assault you, they stillmight get off the hook without any felonies. How’s that for justice?
Kathy Zhu, a student, pro-Trump political commentator, and Miss Michigan 2019, got a bit of a surprise last week. It looks like the state director of Miss World America texted her, asking her not to post to social media.
A little while later, Kathy apparently got this email, saying “it has been brought to the attention of Miss World America (MWA) that your social media accounts contain offensive, insensitive, and inappropriate content,” claiming Kathy violated its “good character” contest requirement. “Effective immediately, [Miss World America] does not recognize you as a participant of any sort or in any capacity as it relates to any and all events of MWA.”
Now, it doesn’t look like MWA specifically referenced the hijab incident to Kathy, but the state director does seem to have taken issue with a tweet in which Kathy said “Did you know the majority of black deaths are caused by other blacks? Fix problems within your own community first before blaming others.”
Well, that does seem to be statistically accurate. The FBI reported in 2015 that 2,380 out of 2,664 black homicides were done by black people, or around 89%. You can also see that 2,574 of 3,167 white homicides were done by whites, or about 81%.
So the most you could say is that Kathy was right about black-on-black homicide, but could’ve also mentioned that the same is almost as true for whites. The tweet didn’t sit well with the MWA state director, however, who said “that is not a statistic. It’s a comment with no statistics to back it up.”
Well, if the comment’s right, and she simply didn’t include a link or exact figures, doesn’t stripping Kathy of her crown seem like a BIT of an overreaction?
John Krupinsky, coach of the Danbury Hat Tricks, a team in the US Federal Hockey League, told his players that if they were going to disrespect the American or Canadian national anthem, they could “get the f*** out now.”
Now I wanted to discuss this on Campus Unmasked for two reasons. One, this is the first time I’ve really seen cultural pressure in this direction from someone in the sport. Sure, you have President Trump blasting people who disrespect the flag, but when it comes to those who are actually in the athletic community, we only seem to hear about those kneel like Colin Kaepernick or those who refuse to go to the White House like Megan Rapinoe, never someone patriotic.
And two, we’ve covered similar stories here on Campus Unmasked. Speaking of Kaepernick, there was that whole Nike fiasco during which a Georgetown professor compared the Betsy Ross flag to a burning cross and swastika. You’ve also had a Texas student government president covering the American flag with a Black Lives Matter one. And you had the UVA basketball coach who denied a visit to the White House after the circulation of an anti-Trump petition with thousands of signatures.
Back to the hockey coach, he recently spoke to my team over at Campus Reform about what seems to be a growing anti-American sentiment in the education system.
