Edinburgh University Hosts 'Equality' Event That Bans White People

P. Gardner Goldsmith | October 2, 2019
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Some “alternative music” fans were excited two years ago to discover the resurgence of British synth-rock band Depeche Mode, who put on the fifth-highest grossing tour in 2017. That’s plenty of fans, and plenty of shows – all equaling lot of people worldwide hearing the members perform their first big hit, “People Are People,” which calls for equal treatment of -- and respect for -- others.

So one wonders how the popularity of that band and the lyrics of that song jibe with the new move by one of Britain’s oldest universities to prejudge people by race.

According to Auslan Cramb, writing for The Telegraph, Edinburgh University, one of Britain’s oldest and most “prestigious” colleges, recently hosted an “anti-racism” event. But, as one might expect, the organizers planned on prejudging and judging people based on…their race.

A blurb for the ‘conference, talks and workshops’ at the city’s Pleasance Theatre, which aim to 'amplify the voices of people of colour,'  says: ‘We will therefore not be giving the microphone to white people during the Q&As, not because we don't think white people have anything to offer to the discussion, but because we want to amplify the voices of people of colour.’

Classy.

Cramb added:

The conference has been organised by the Resisting Whiteness group which opposes racism and describes itself as a QTPOC (queer and trans people of colour) organisation… There will be two “safe spaces” at the event, one of which white people will be barred from entering.

So, par for the course for “Social Justice Warriors, Scotland” -- a division of World Cultural Marxism, Inc. – it’s utter hypocrisy.

Jane McCall, whom Cramb notes is an “anti-racism crusader,” said the event was “blatantly racist," adding:

Imagine if this event was called 'Resisting Blackness' and non-white people were told they could not ask questions, nor access a room because they were the 'wrong' colour.

And Cramb reports that a spokesman for the university said:

We have expressed our concerns to them about certain aspects of the format of the event and they are revising their 'safe space' policy for the conference as a result.

All this at a university that can claim being host to the Scottish Enlightenment from the mid-1600s to the 19th Century.

Then again, Edinburgh University is tax-subsidized, and was actually started in 1582 when granted a charter by Scotland’s James VI, the man who would become Britain’s King James I in 1621, so what can one expect from a “place of higher learning” that has always gotten money forcibly taken from people whether they attend or even approve of what’s being done there?

Unlike a private bookstore that might cater to a certain cultural, racial, religious, or genre-interested milieu, any entity drawing money from taxpayers becomes part of the drive towards dwindling standards, false “care”, virtue-signaling, and the Tragedy of the Commons where everyone argues with each other over how the system will use their tax cash.

If Edinburgh University were entirely private and allowed this kind of thing to occur, upset people could show their displeasure by boycotting and not giving the institution their cash.

But, instead, as the over-the-top “sensitivity” of a group of people supposedly bent on ending racism sees them actually engage in racism, taxpaying folks are even more upset, and have no chance of withholding their tax cash, whether the Edinburgh University authorities change the set-up for the event or they do not.

Often, that’s what gets lost when truly colorblind, respectful people see these kinds of recursively racist stunts pulled on college campuses. They have a justified opportunity to point out the bigoted hypocrisy of the virtue-signaling SJWs, but can miss the larger point, which is that, regardless of how one feels about a particular event being held on a tax-subsidized campus, the act of tax-subsidization is a moral affront – always.

So imagine if SJWs ran the Depeche Mode concerts, and the concerts were subsidized by tax cash. What if the sentiment in favor of equal respect found in their “People Are People” were adjusted by the SJWs. If the SJWs said, “Well, Depeche Mode, you can sing the song, but you need to change the lyrics to exclude this or that racial subset.” Or imagine them saying, “We’ll only allow these racial groups into your concerts.”

If that happened in the market, people would not have made Depeche Mode so popular.

It’s through government that institutional racism – even reverse racism – can go on with very little impact to the financial bottom lines of the perpetrators.

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