What happens when wokeness meets whiteness? Try this on for size:
A British teacher recently said during a Black Lives Matter debate that a girl didn’t have a right to an opinion because she was white, blonde, and was “born here.”
So reports the student, Kelsey, and her grandmother — and they have at least one recording to support their case.
This would be a phone call in which the teacher admitted her bias to the grandmother, saying, “Kelsey isn’t in a position to know how black girls feel.”
The call (video below) begins with the grandmother stating that Kelsey was crying and hasn’t been to school because of the “BLM c**p.” She then announces that there’s a voice recording of the teacher saying “that Kelsey doesn’t have an opinion ‘cause she’s born here and she’s white and she has blonde hair.” “Is that right?” the grandmother proceeds to ask.
After hemming and hawing a bit, the teacher asks rhetorically, “Did I say this?” and then answers, “Well, I can’t remember, maybe” — as if it’s the kind of thing you’d forget.
SCHOOLS ARE SHITE
“School teacher in the UK tells pupil that her opinion doesn’t matter as she’s white.” pic.twitter.com/iELPastiNM
— ? Josh Lekach ? (@JoshLekach) September 16, 2020
The teacher later stated that the other “girls were telling me their side of the story, and I said, ‘Well, because their privilege isn’t there,’ and there’s…um…. Kelsey would not have lived through what [the black girl] has lived through.”
After a later attempt at denial failed — the grandmother reiterated her claim that she had audio evidence — the teacher returned to tacit admission, saying that at issue was a “divisive” matter and that “Kelsey isn’t in a position to know how black girls feel.”
The grandmother then pointed out that Kelsey is “human,” to which the teacher responded, “She’s human, ma’am, but she’s not black.”
This latter telling exchange gets at a deeper issue. If Kelsey can’t “know how black girls feel,” then, presumably, the black girls can’t know how white girls feel. (This conclusion is inescapable unless you believe white people are defective, relatively speaking, and cannot exhibit the same degree of understanding and insight that blacks do.)
And Ne’er the Twain Shall Meet?
Without realizing it, the teacher is speaking like a racial separatist. If the races are so different that they simply can’t understand each other — if they are irremediably alien to one another — is there hope of harmonious coexistence?
Yet while there is variation among groups, all nonetheless have shared humanity. Sure, cultural differences can cause misunderstanding, but human commonalities allow for understanding.
It’s obvious, for example, that no matter the race, creed, or color, no one wants to be violently attacked, have his property stolen, or be oppressed. We all have the same survival needs; all seek pleasure and avoid pain, as a rule (the ascetics among us notwithstanding!); and all want love. We also all need to be virtuous to live happy, productive lives — and God’s grace to achieve this.
This gets at another deeper issue: It is these and other absolutes that matter most — and that can help unite us — not feelings.
The teacher’s “feelings”-orientation is typical of this time and reflects its prevailing relativism. But feelings can’t unite because they’re often irrational and mutually exclusive. Feelings may tell you to hate another race or that someone else’s property should be yours (feelings can be positive, too, of course); it’s absolutes, Truth, that can tell you these feelings are wrong and that can, over time, change your heart so that the errant feelings disappear.
Absolutes are the only possible yardstick for rightness. Consider: Though ignored by the teacher, Kelsey has feelings, too, just like the black girl she was debating. But whose “feelings” should prevail?
If something can rightly judge one person’s feelings as reflecting “right” and another person’s as reflecting “wrong,” that yardstick must be above the feelings. Only Truth can serve this role. Our sole job then is to accept its “verdict.” Don’t like it?
Too bad. Reality doesn’t care about your feelings.
The only alternative to Truth as mediator is madness: using a third party’s feelings to judge the feelings.
Without realizing it, this is what moderns often do, too. This is what the teacher unknowingly did. She was first prioritizing feelings over facts and then prioritizing one girl’s feelings over another’s, based on her own feelings and the fashions — which themselves are at least largely based on, yeah, you guessed it, feelings.
Oh, the prioritization of feelings over facts has another name.
Prejudice.
Photo: brusinski / E+ / Getty Images Plus
Selwyn Duke (@SelwynDuke) has written for The New American for more than a decade. He has also written for The Hill, Observer, The American Conservative, WorldNetDaily, American Thinker, and many other print and online publications. In addition, he has contributed to college textbooks published by Gale-Cengage Learning, has appeared on television, and is a frequent guest on radio.
