You would really have a hard time making this stuff up, never mind getting someone to believe it. But it’s true.
The University of Florida’s Anthropology department recently sponsored a town hall they specifically told white students not to attend. It was just for so-called “BIPOC” students, meaning students who are black, indigenous, or “people of color”. Here is part of the text from an email sent to all students who were enrolled in an anthropology course:
“We have some amazing graduate students in Anthropology that are holding a virtual Town Hall tomorrow… to discuss future directions and goals for a BIPOC Anthropology Group (open to non-anthro BIPOC majors and minors).
“To ensure this event is a safe space, the organizers are asking that you reach out to them for the Zoom link. An important message from them: ‘We kindly remind all that you respond to this space is only for those who identify as a BIPOC individuals in this department. While we appreciate white students may want to join to learn more about the BIPOC perspective, we ask they respect this space as a chance for BIPOC students to come together as BIPOC. We cannot hide our skin color… We ask white students to respect that this is a space where BIPOC students can come together without the need to perform any emotional or mental labor to explain their experiences as BIPOC. Additionally, we acknowledge colorism exists within our own BIPOC communities, and therefore we kindly ask all BIPOC students to be mindful that we will be a diverse group of BIPOC students, and it is expected we will respect differences in experiences due to colorism.'”
I can look past the bad grammar (barely). But I can’t turn a blind eye to the blatant and disgusting racism — what the organizers euphemistically call “colorism”.
The fact is that nobody can hide their skin color, and everybody is a person of color, whether pink, peach, tan, brown or black. Each and every person has a unique background, perspective and outlook. To pretend that because a person is light-skinned they somehow contribute less to diversity than a darker-skinned person is the epitome of “colorism”, which is, of course, racism.
The racist organizers and complicit attendees of this blatantly discriminatory and overtly racist event need to emerge from their silly “safe space” and experience the “emotional and mental” growth that real diversity engenders.
They are the real racists.