College Reserves Month for Shaming Whites

"Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns." -- Matthew 16:23

If you've hung around a college campus in recent decades, you've no doubt heard of Black History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month and maybe a few others.

What you likely have not heard of is anything like a White History Month.

Well, Portland Community College aims to rectify that, but with a twist.

Rather than a month devoted to celebrating the contributions of "white" culture, Whiteness History Month will be committed to the idea of deconstructing the skin color and culture that is apparently the root of all racism.

That's right. A publicly funded educational outlet is going to spend an entire month shaming people for their skin color, in the name of creating "a nationally renowned culture for diversity, equity and inclusion."

That is, unless you're a Honky-American.

On the college's Whiteness History Month website, the college's Cascade Campus Diversity Council states, "Whiteness History Month: Context, Consequences and Change is a multidisciplinary, district-wide, educational project examining race and racism through an exploration of the construction of whiteness, its origins and heritage. Scheduled for the month of April 2016, the project seeks to inspire innovative and practical solutions to community issues and social problems that stem from racism."

The event is needed, according to the council, because "the construction of the white identity is a brilliant piece of social engineering. Its origins and heritage should be examined in order to add a critical layer of complexity to a national conversation sorely lacking in nuance."

In case you missed it, the nuance is that whites cause racism, and everything about "white" culture -- which you can suppose means Western civilization in general -- is racist, designed to keep nonwhites at bay.

The site goes on to state:

"Whiteness is a socially and politically constructed behavior. It has a long history in European imperialism and epistemologies. Whiteness does not simply refer to skin color but an ideology based on beliefs, values, behaviors, habits and attitudes, which result in the unequal distribution of power and privilege based on skin color. Whiteness represents a position of power where the power holder defines social categories and reality—the master narrator. Whiteness originates racism. It is relational. “White” only exists in relation/opposition to other categories in the racial hierarchy produced by whiteness."

So if "whiteness" is an ideology, does that make freckles a denomination?

Wonder if the month will include studying how white liberals created the KKK, supported the Nazis and Communists, and opposed the Civil Rights Movement?

Probably not.

But I'm betting it will include a good deal of talk about racist white conservatives.

I'm hoping they might go so far as to have a booth selling traditional white foods. Like vanilla. Or Wonder Bread. Or bologna sandwiches on Wonder Bread with mayonnaise, and vanilla ice cream for desert. The culinary possibilities boggle the imagination.

At any rate, the program's goals are still being developed, although among the questions listed on the website for students to contemplate are "What are alternatives to a culture of white supremacy?" and "What are approaches and strategies to dismantling whiteness?"

Let's see. Strategies to dismantle whiteness. Hmm ... tanning beds?

As for alternatives to a culture of white supremacy, how about ... a culture in which as many as 850,000 people died in the fight over ending slavery? And where countless more fought to build a country that lived up to the words of its founding document, "that all men are created equal"?

Nah. That would never fly.