The following essay is taken from The East Carolinian, the student newspaper of East Carolina University:
Posted on Jul 6, 2016
by Kai Jones
Ahhh, the Fourth of July. A day where most of us get a day off to celebrate how our country violently rebelled against our mother country Britain, so that wealthy white American men could carry out genocide against the indigenous, build a country on black people’s backs, and force women to be eye candy and servants. Gotta love America!
On Monday, America celebrated its 240th blood drenched birthday. And most of us celebrated with fireworks and consuming all sorts of meat products. We celebrate a day when America proclaimed it’s freedom, as it called an entire group of people “property.” And not much has changed. Muslims are terrorist, Mexicans are “wetbacks”, illegals, blacks are criminals, women are equal yet paid less, and if you have sex with anyone that’s not conventional you don’t deserve rights.
But “Land of the Free, Home of the Brave” right? Wrong. The only people free are wealthy white men, because everyone else faces some sort of oppression. Hardly anyone in America is actually brave, because they don’t want to fight for what’s right. Everyone in America is perfectly fine with what happens, and when someone calls for change, people get afraid and call for them to be knocked off their podium.
Take Jesse Williams for instance. He stands up, calls for equality and accountability, and then someone feels the need to make a petition to call for him to be fired. A half-African-American man calls out the bigoted racist system that oppresses so many black people and he’s the racist. But as Jesse Williams said, ”If you have a critique for the resistance, for our resistance, then you better have an established record of critique of our oppression.”
Moving forward, my beef is not with the Fourth of July, as I enjoy the day off and spending time with my family, and fireworks and food. But plain and simple I have a problem with the attitude of the people who celebrate the Fourth with this patriotic, fake “I love America” attitude.
I understand that this attitude is mainly contributed by the people with white privilege, but celebrating a country that oppresses multiple sections of people is wrong. It’s like celebrating a serial rapist’s birthday. Because America did rape the Native Americans and the African continent and it’s people.
America is a great country…for some. But for people like me, it is a failing country that could use vast improvements.
I was made aware of this essay by the Editorial Team at the Beaufort Observer. The editors made a few very good comments on the essay:
This dude is entitled to his opinion. But he is not entitled to use our tax dollars, nor student fees, to express it. And make no mistake about it, the East Carolinian would not exist without our tax dollars and the authority given by the General Assembly and UNC Board of Governors to confiscate student fees from students at ECU. And don’t try to convince us of this nonsense that the tax payers and students with no choice have an obligation to provide the dude with a platform to spew his hatred.
…The real problem we have with this opinion piece is what it signifies about what this dude has been taught. He did not originate these ideas. He got them from a classroom or library and from professors paid by the hard earned tax dollars of the people of this state. And it is there that the new Chancellor should begin.
The article in the Beaufort Observer makes a few suggestions about how the new Chancellor at ECU might begin to change the culture at the college that produces this sort of thinking.
I, as usual, have a few comments of my own. If this student truly believes that the only people in America that are free and able to get ahead are those with ‘white privilege’, why is he bothering to go to college? If he is so oppressed, how is he able to go to college? How has his free speech been limited if he is able to publish this trash in the college newspaper? There will be no consequences for his horrid essay except that many people who truly love America will disagree with his point of view. No one will disagree with his right to state his opinion (except that it is sad that he is using a forum paid for by the government of the country he so despises). Just a side note, Jesse Williams doesn’t seem to be struggling too much under the yoke of ‘white privilege.’
Students tend to listen to and respect their teachers. They are blank slates, believing what they are told. Teachers have an opportunity to build positive, motivated future citizens who will be assets to society. Instead, many of our teachers are building whiny little self-righteous victims with an entitlement mentality. Maybe we need to clean out our teaching profession along with our government.
