Ken Berwitz
I wish there were no reason to continue this series. But that happy situation is not to be.
Black football players at the University of Missouri are threatening to strike, if University President Tim Wolfe remains in his position. They demand that he either resign or be replaced.
Is there a good reason for this? Is Tim Wolfe a stone cold racist whose attitudes about Blacks disqualifies him from that post?
These Tigers startedtheir protest on the heels of increased racial tensions that have bubbled up onMissouri\’s campus, most recently involving an incident on Oct. 24 when a swastika carved with smeared feces was put upon the wall of a new dormitory.
Sophomore defensiveback Anthony Sherrils tweeted out the following statementalong with a picture of Missouri\’s black players standing together, armslinked.
“The athletes ofcolor on the University of Missouri football team truly believe \’InjusticeAnywhere is a threat to Justice Everywhere.\’ We will no longer participate inany football related activities until President Tim Wolfe resigns or is removeddue to his negligence toward marginalized students\’ experiences. WE AREUNITED!!!!!”
SinceSeptember, there have been multiple incidents linked to racism on Missouri\’scampus, and this group is targeting the school president because of whatprotesters see as a lack of appropriate response by Wolfe and the university.
Uh….wait a minute.
Is Mr. Wolfe being accused of racism here? No. Is he being accused of supporting, or looking the other way about, or in any way accommodating racism? No.
Based on this article, Tim Wolfe is being accused of nothing other than not responding appropriately, with no indication of what he has or has not done and no indication of what the Black University of Missouri students want him to do…
…which means that a serious concern – racism on campus – has been trivialized into nothingness.
So why does this qualify for the “Real Racism” series?
The reason is that this protest was mounted by the Black players on U of M\’s team. Only the Black players. They literally segregated themselves from the rest of the team to do it.
Here is the picture one of the players put up, presumably with the consent of the others (who had no problem posing for it):
There is no indication at all that White players were asked to join and refused: I think we can safely assume that, if it happened, the Black players would have said so.
I therefore conclude that this protest, this action against racism, was intended as a “Blacks only” protest – Whites were not welcome to join.
So the bottom line is that we have Black students/football players, no non-Blacks allowed – making demands based on nothing other than an undefined reason to tie the school\’s President to some non-specific number of what we are told were racial incidents (in the absence of specifics there is no way to judge).
That make sense to you?
Real racism. It comes in all forms from all sources. No one is immune to it or from it. Certainly not a group of student/athletes who think that self segregating themselves – i.e. “fighting” racism by creating more of it – does anything but establish them as racists.
Let me end with a quick question for the people in that picture: there is no doubt that racism exists in the United States. Every day we can find racial incidents. When was your protest demanding that President Obama either resign or be removed?
Just curious.
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UPDATE:
We have this from Eric Owens at dailycaller.com:
The focus of the callsfor Wolfe to resign is a hunger strike by Jonathan Butler, a University ofMissouri graduate student.
Butler – who appearsin the photo with the 32 players – wants to force Wolfe\’s resignation becauseof a handful of recent incidents which have occurred on the Columbia, Mo.campus.
In a letter toschool officials posted on his Facebook page, Butler indicated thathe began his hunger strike because someone in a pickup truck allegedly shouteda racist insult at a black student government member, because state lawprevents Planned Parenthood from performing on-campus abortions and becausesomeone drew a swastika with human feces in a dormitory bathroom.
Some observershave suggested that the bathroom swastika may be a hoax.
Butler admits in theletter that none of the incidents he cites are Wolfe\’s fault. Nevertheless,Butler has concluded, “as a collection of incidents at the university, they arehis responsibility to address.”
In other words, this was started by one graduate student, and based on three incidents, only one of which relates to racism against Blacks – and which, in any event, may not have even involved a U of M student (do we know who the person allegedly yelling the slur is, or whether he/she goes to this school?)
Needless to say, my commentary stands as written.
