White College Students Wear Pins To Remind Them To Feel Guilty
February 14, 2017
President Barack Obama spent his time in office dividing people -- white from black, rich from poor, straight from gay, left-handed from right-handed (OK, not that last one, but he would have if it'd've meant votes).
So it's no surprise that America's young people -- high-schoolers have never known a time in their country when there wasn't a divisive black president -- are deeply confused.
Which leads us to Pennsylvania. Students at Elizabethtown College, a small, private liberal arts school southeast of Harrisburg, are donning white puzzle pieces to, you know, remind them they are white.
"The Elizabethtown College Democrats are proud to announce a campaign being launched this weekend!" Called the "Personal Identity Campaign," the project is modeled after a pastor in Wisconsin, who "made a commitment to wear a white puzzle piece pin every day for a year to force herself to think about her white privilege and the impact white privilege has on people of color," the group said on their Facebook page.
The project, say the young Democrats, will force white people "to think about one thing – how race affects their life, whether directly or indirectly. Following the launch of our pin campaign, a sister campaign will be launched where students have the opportunity to anonymously tell personal stories about how race affects their everyday lives."
Now, during Black History Month, it's important for white people to get in on the act. Rather than celebrate the accomplishments of black Americans, far better for whites to be ashamed of the color of the skin they were born with and wallow in their shame (thank God it's not a Leap Year).
The College Fix, a website that covers all things collegiate, got in touch with Aileen Ida, president of the College Democrats. She said: “Discussions about race are often perceived as being only open to people of color, but I think it is just as important for white people to partake in conversations about race."
Ida said white people are continually allowing for a societal system of oppression to occur unless they work against it. The white puzzle piece pin represents racial struggles of all sorts.“No matter how accepting someone is, that doesn’t stop them from being part of a system based on centuries of inequality,” she said, adding the campaign transcends politics.Asked if all white students are privileged, Ida responded “yes,” but clarified that she doesn’t think all whites are socioeconomically privileged. Ida declined to cite specific examples of white privilege.She also clarified that it’s not just white students who can wear the pins, that students of all races should take part to start a campuswide discussion that crosses racial divides.Yet, she notes most people of color already have to live with racism while white people don’t.“I believe that this [inherent white privilege] can be seen in the day-to-day life of people of color versus the day-to-day life of white people,” Ida said. “Most people of color don’t have a choice but to consider how their race affects their life on a daily basis, this is not true for most white people.”
