Josie and I go to a college graduation and I get today’s topic. Let’s talk about the dysfunction of today’s colleges.
Celebrating Diversity
Josie, my fiance, and I were heading to her niece’s graduation from Cal State San Marcos. She is graduating with a B.S. in Biology. And she worked her butt off to get it. Josie is very proud of her. So proud that I wore slacks, a nice shirt and shaved. It was raining and I wasn’t looking forward to this. But I love Josie so I just got ready and buried my misery.
On the way to the graduation, Josie brought up something out of the blue. She said, that at Mira Costa, where she goes to school, the graduates who were Black and Hispanic were allowed to have another ceremony. It wasn’t a graduation but it was a celebration of their race. They received a sash that is representative of their “native” land. I put that in quotes because most are actually born in the United States.
Josie was pissed off about it. She thought it should be celebrated how hard she worked to accomplish her goal. Her as an individual. Not her as a Mexican (Josie was born in Mexico and is a legal resident alien). I asked her if she was going to go and she said no. She wanted to be recognized as Josie. When she asked what I thought about it, I let her have it.
Either way, it is racist. And it is racist for a couple of reasons. First, the school is being racist against the race they are supposedly celebrating. Notice that white people do not have these little ceremonies that Blacks and Hispanics are having. White people aren’t wearing sashes that represent whiteness. Is the college system celebrating Hispanics and Blacks graduating because they didn’t think people of color could actually get through college? Were the colleges surprised by their success?
And why not celebrate white people? Are we white people not any more special as the people of color? Did I not work as hard as they did to get my degree? Why is my work being minimized simply because I’m not a person of color? That sounds pretty racist to me.
The reality is, our college system is falling apart. They are becoming indoctrination centers for the Left. They embrace intersectionality and identity politics. They spit on the Constitution by rejecting free speech and dismiss on religion. They teach what we are suppose to believe and use science when it is convenient. They pamper our youth with safe spaces and rejecting speakers that will trigger their stress through violent, hate speech (yet they know nothing of the speakers for the most part).
Hell, they came up with words like “safe spaces,” “triggering,” and “speech is violence.” They also came up with the concepts of intersectionality and identity politics. They push globalization, socialism and reject American identity and exceptionalism. It is not uncommon to see some Lesbian Dance Theory teacher burning an American flag because her half-caf-half-decaf carmel amontillado was served by a barista with an “I Love Babies” pin on his apron.
Let’s break some things down and look how the colleges are dealing with this crazy stuff.
Answering the Demands
One of the biggest problems with today’s colleges is that it is the students that are running them. The patients running the asylum is never a good idea. And there have been some really bazaar demands by the students. The Daily Beast has a list of weird demands like segregated safe spaces and thee abolition of poetry classes the focus on white authors. That’s right. The students basically are looking to eliminate the Western Civilization. You can read the article below.
But the big problem with letting the students control is the lack of discipline. See, the colleges have bitten into the belief that self-esteem is everything. But this leads to near hysterical reaction by the students when they don’t get there way. An example of this can be seen when students confront a professor about his belief that students should be free to choose their Halloween costumes. What school did this temper tantrum occur? Yale University. That’s right, one of the best universities in the world.
Can you believe the disrespect? Can you believe the school did nothing to discipline these spoiled brats? What’s going to happen to these children when they get out of college and need to get a job?
I can tell you what’s going to happen. They’re going to fail. And it will be the fault of the parents and the school system. These children are not prepared for the fact that the world doesn’t give a damn about them. The world is cruel and will not care about their self-esteem. Adversity is exactly something the schools should be teaching them. Because that’s reality.
That will lead us to our next collegiate issue.
The Death of Debate
In recent years, it has been alleged that “speech is violence”. Of course speech is not violence. No matter how hateful it may be, it is not violence. I wouldn’t say calling me a jerk is the same as punching me in the face. But this has lead to bigger problems, especially when it comes to open debate on highly charged topics.
The problem with the speech-is-violence thing is that it has lead to violence countering “violence”. It gives students the justification to commit violent acts against speakers they do not like. After all, we are a country that believes in the right to defend one’s self. But that should not extend to students because they don’t like what I’m saying. But that exactly what’s happening today. Here’s an example of something that happened about a month before. Michael Knowles of the Daily Wire is assaulted while giving lecture about sex and gender. He had the audacity to say that men are men and women are women when he was attacked by a student with a Super-Soaker filled with some liquid:
Now what is really messed up here is not the attack itself. What’s really messed up is the response from school officials. Instead of apologizing to Knowles for the attack, the dean actually took the side of the assailant and blamed Knowles for putting himself in that position by expressing his beliefs. That’s like blaming a woman for getting raped because she wore a revealing dress. Just incredible.
When the schools continue to support this chaotic behavior by these turtle dove students, things can only get worse. And they have. Protesters are getting brazen, loud and violent. All because someone is saying something they don’t like. What’s funny is half the time, the protesters have no idea what the speakers have ever said. They have all the buzz words nailed like misogynist, racist, homophobic and the such. But, when asked what that particular speaker has said that was hateful, they have no idea. He just is.
No one gets more of this garbage than Ben Shapiro. Watch as Austin Fleccas interviews people who are protesting a Ben Shapiro speech at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
I love Austin Fleccas. Follow him on YouTube to see more of his videos. But this just proves the point that college students are out of control. They complain and protest just to complain and protest and feel victimized without actually knowing the stance of the speakers.
Adversity Score and the SATs
Now, you’d think with all the problems in colleges today, someone would do something to help the students grow up and shake off this victim mentality the the students have. After all, these are suppose to be adults and will have to enter the workforce right out of college. But, no. That’s not what are colleges have become. Instead of trying to fix the problem, colleges want fill their classrooms with more “victims”.
The company that runs the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), called the College Board, has decided to add something known as an Adversity Score. What this does is take census data and will apply a 15-point analysis of the area in which the test taker is from. That score will then be attached to the SAT. The idea is that this will allow colleges to weigh supposed adversity a person goes through when making the decision on whether to admit that student into the college.
This is not the first time this stat has been used. The pilot program was released last year. Fifty schools, including Yale University, have used the score last year (the chick screaming in the first video probably got in because of that).
There are problems with this besides the most obvious which is admission is not based on individual merit but where you lived. It also looks at the area based on census data and rates a group. It doesn’t look at the individual adversity. Students do not know what their score will be, how they came up with that score and cannot protest or appeal their score.
This is just terrible. Once again white and Asian students will probably be the losers in this because they live in the better areas with less crime. Asians especially. Asians in this country have a higher income, higher grades in high school and higher SAT scores. But, because colleges have become “woke”, they will have to be left behind no matter how qualified they are.
In Conclusion
I have a college degree. I hardly use it. It is in English Literature and I work as a computer engineer. I use it all the time, though. I’ve written three books (none published yet but I will change that soon) and maintain two blogs. I also read a lot. So I do use it and companies do respect it even if it has nothing really to do with my career.
I am also very proud of my degree. I worked full time and was the bread winner, had three kids and went full time. It was challenging and the teachers did not baby the students like they do today. I would do homework at night when I got home and would spend weekends doing homework and studying. Though I do not use the degree for my career, it prepared me for my career. It toughened me, taught me to take criticism, taught me work ethically and manage my time. Those years in college were the toughest of my life.
Our children don’t go through that anymore. They’re babied and pampered. Their self-esteem is more important than preparing a child to enter adulthood. Kids in colleges are taught about being triggered and being stressed. Colleges teach about violent speech and build safe spaces. They discourage debate that goes against their narratives and encourage the suppression of speech from those that go against those narratives.
What do we get from this? A bunch of kids that get out of college and can’t handle real life. A group of kids who can’t handle rejection or criticism. A group of kids who do not have the skills to be productive because, surprisingly, a Gender Studies degree does not have a lot of career opportunities.
And, what happens in the end? They can’t survive in the real world. That means they have to start depending on the government to support them. I believe this is the goal of the Left in the long run.
You know what also builds self-esteem? Accomplishment through hard work. I don’t need to be told that I’m a person of worth to have my emotional tank filled. My self-esteem is boosted when I complete a project at work, finish reading a book, write a blog post or publish a podcast. I feel good about my life and don’t need the drug of complements and reassurance, which gives self-esteem only a temporary boost, because I have worked at it and I know I can do anything.
I think the world of the college education is on thin ice. I even tell Josie that her kids ought to skip college and go to a trade school. Learn a usable skill. Something that will make them stand out in the world. Because these children coming out of the universities are truly worthless.
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Resources:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-craziest-demands-of-college-kids-in-2016
https://www.dailywire.com/news/47300/sat-adding-adversity-score-judge-students-social-emily-zanotti