by Jonathan Reisman

As the nation writhes under a leftist/media assault charging white privilege and systemic racism and advocating for defunding the police, silencing/deplatforming/canceling anyone who dares to disagree and demanding they kneel and apologize for voting for Trump and more, I’ve watched in horror as a woke leftist Jacobin mob has decided that we need to destroy the village in order to save it.

Black Lives Matter has built a narrative of lies. Six years ago, the BLM movement descended upon Ferguson, Missouri to protest the shooting death of Michael Brown by a white police officer. The rallying cry justifying riots and destruction was “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot”. Mr. Brown did not raise his hands and surrender. He charged the police officer and tried to take his gun, breaking the officer’s facial bones.

Shenna Bellows, the 2014 Democratic Senate candidate running against Susan Collins, ran around Maine repeating “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” incessantly, stating that Michael Brown’s death was clear evidence of systemic racism. Ms. Bellows was the former Executive Director of the Maine ACLU. After losing to Senator Collins, Ms. Bellows ran for the State Senate in 2016 and won. She currently chairs the Labor Committee and sits on the Judiciary Committee as well. She has never apologized for or even acknowledged the outright lies she rose to power on.

Systemic racism is a creation of identity politics and the poisonous ideologies of intersectionalism and Marxism. Group membership (tribalism) trumps individuality, and society is defined by patterns of group oppression/victimization. Further, racism depends on power; members of oppressed victim groups cannot be racist against those who have more power. Thus, there is only white racism against blacks; there can be no black racism against whites because blacks have no power. It may get a little more complicated when you add Hispanics, Asians, LGBTQ, etc.

The best example of institutionalized systemic racism that I know is affirmative action. With a collection of carrots and sticks, the government forces Americans to put people in boxes based on race, gender and sexuality and insists on “voluntary goals” (otherwise known as quotas with unpleasant consequences when unmet). Preferences for “favored” groups mean discrimination against “disfavored” groups. Affirmative action means we decide based on the color of skin, not the content of character; however, to say that is racist, at least according to the left (I know this very well). In addition, of course, racism is a whites-only phenomenon.

The source of much of this poisonous ideology, I am very sorry to say, is the academy. Higher education has been indoctrinating students with this swill for more than 30 years, and it has now infected our broader society. Diversity Deans earning six-figure salaries have sprouted across the academic plane. They are most undiverse lot politically and ideologically speaking, but so is the American higher education professoriate, which is overwhelming left of center and growing more so. The academy, not surprisingly, is no longer interested in robust debate and free inquiry, at least not where race, gender identity and other diversity shibboleths are concerned. (You could add environmental and climate change policy to that as well). Just shut up and kneel.

I have spent every fall since 1973 on a New England college campus. Higher education in America is going to go through a very painful post-pandemic winnowing. It may be that nothing short of an antiseptic firehose will be able to clear out the rot.

In 2016, as the BLM movement continued to lie its way to power and the effort to establish a Maine Woods National Park picked up steam, I had a number of T-shirts made up. They said “Maine Woods National Park/Monument: Because Black Flies Matter”. We even gave one to Governor LePage. I wonder what would happen if I dared to wear it today.

Jon Reisman is an associate professor of economics and public policy at the University of Maine at Machias. His views are his own.Mr. Reisman welcomes comments as letters to the editor here, or to him directly via email at [email protected].