Michigan?s Grand Valley State University to host small graduation ceremonies based on race, sexuality

[Whitmer's Jigs]

Biden should never have happened.

A Michigan university is reportedly being criticized for hosting a handful
of smaller graduation ceremonies — alongside its larger commencement
celebration — for students of different races, sexualities and gender
identities.

Grand Valley State University in Allendale is having separate ceremonies
next month for black, Asian, Hispanic, Native American and LGBTQIA+
students, Fox News said.

This is in addition to the larger ceremony at which degrees are conferred.

But some people have taken exception.

“Ridiculous,” tweeted conservative commentator Matt Walsh. “Grand Valley
State University (@GVSU) is holding five segregated graduation
celebrations, singling out Asian, black, LGBT, Hispanic, and Native
American graduates.

“There will be no special celebrations for straight white people, of
course.”

The university defended its decision, telling Fox News Digital that it’s
holding a unified graduation ceremony for all of its students and that
most who participate in the smaller celebrations will take part in the
larger one as well.

“GVSU is not ‘segregating graduation ceremonies by race,’ as some people
and outlets have said,” the university said.

“Grand Valley also welcomes student organizations and faculty leaders to
hold smaller-scale celebrations designed to honor graduates,” the school
added.

“These more intimate celebrations are a complement to GVSU’s Commencement
and are open to all students and their supporters.”

Several other universities have held similar ceremonies in recent years,
including Columbia University in New York City, which hosts celebrations
for several affinity groups on campus, Fox said.

Harvard University has also held graduation celebrations for black, Asian,
Latino and LGBTQ students.

GVSU first made headlines back in 2020, when football coach Morris Berger
called Adolf Hitler a “great leader” during an interview with its student
newspaper.

Berger was suspended and then resigned three days later.

<https://nypost.com/2023/03/22/grand-valley-state-university-to-hold-
graduation-based-on-race-sexuality/>

[Pill Dickle]

felons should have this right abridged, especially black felons

A visiting professor at Southern Illinois University is advocating for
universities to provide bereavement leave to allow black faculty time to
grieve and process trauma following triggering racist news and
experiences.

Angel Jones, a visiting assistant professor in the department of
educational leadership at the college, questioned why black educators are
expected to return to work and act like nothing is wrong after such
events.

“I am a proud educator who loves what I do,” Jones wrote in a piece
published by Times Higher Education. “But before that, I am a Black woman.
A Black woman who is expected to return to ‘business as usual’ on Monday
after seeing a member of my community murdered on Friday.”

The critical race theory scholar wrote about how she emailed her students
in January following the fatal police beating of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-
old black man, to check on them without allowing herself time to process
the horrific news and trauma.

Angel Jones is a visiting professor at Southern Illinois University
Edwardsville who specializes in critical race theory.
Southern Illinois University
“Although it is customary for employees to receive support and
understanding while grieving the loss of a loved one, the same care is
rarely shown to the Black community when we lose someone in horrific and
traumatic ways,” Jones said. “Where’s our Black bereavement leave?”

The professor said she often puts her students’ needs before her own, but
that universities should do more to support faculty of color — more than
just sending out a campus-wide email in the wake of tragedies — in order
to retain them.

“History has shown us that Black educators often have to exert additional
emotional energy to pick up the slack the academy leaves behind after it
sends its obligatory, and often performative, statement to the campus
community,” she wrote.

In order to help black faculty members, Jones said colleges should do two
things — offer counseling guided in race relations and allow time to
grieve.

She said universities should fund counseling for black faculty to work
through “racial battle fatigue,” or RBF, a term that refers to “the
psychological and physiological consequences of experiencing racism.”

Racial battle fatigue can cause anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts
as well as elevated heart rate, tension headaches, and stomach ulcers,
according to Jones.

“Free counseling services, by culturally competent counselors familiar
with identifying and addressing RBF, should be available at all times, not
just when our trauma has been televised,” she wrote.

In addition, black educators should be provided the space to grieve —
whether that means a day off, the option to work from home, and/or an
extension on deadlines.

“Some may have thought I was joking when I mentioned Black bereavement
leave, but I wasn’t. We need space and time to grieve without having to
explain or defend it,” Jones said.

Since her article garnered attention, the professor said she has received
an influx of hate mail from “racist trolls.”

She posted some of the vulgar, sexist, and racist emails she received on
Twitter, noting that the senders were only proving her point about the
weight of racial trauma.

“Thousands of people are in their feelings because they’ve drawn clickbait
conclusions about an article that I doubt they even read,” Jones tweeted.
“Black bereavement is a mental health day to deal with the psychological
consequences of anti-Black racism. Don’t like it? Then end racism.”

<https://nypost.com/2023/03/05/illinois-professor-angel-jones-urges-
bereavement-for-black-educators-to-process-racism-trauma/>

[Shoot them]

If we had more guns BLM would not exist.

In their 1848 Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels famously
stated communists seek to “rescue education from the influence of the
ruling class” by changing the type of social intervention that informs
instruction — later to be known as “re-education.”

Likewise, the revolutionary Black Lives Matter movement, co-founded by
self-described radical organizers and trained Marxists, has given rise to
a Black Lives Matter at School coalition whose activists seek to alter
public-school curricula under the guise of promoting “racial justice in
education.”

This week’s national BLMAS “Week of Action” aims to recruit educators,
students, families and community members to join the mission of re-
educating American kids, inviting local activism — and New York City has a
particularly active BLMAS chapter.

But though the coalition says its goal is to transform US classrooms into
“incubators for inclusivity, equity, and justice,” a glance at the
curriculum resources it provides teachers gratis makes clear some instead
degrade, discriminate and defame certain groups of people as a means of
elevating others.

A prime example: the offerings in the “Black+Palestinian Solidarity”
section of BLMAS’ Curriculum Resource Guide 2.0. They demonize Zionists
and supporters of Israel with anti-Israel propaganda and anti-Jewish
tropes, encouraging students to become boycott, divestment and sanctions
activists against the Jewish state.

Examples of its resources include:

A statement by a group called Critical Resistance shunning Jewish groups
and calling for their disqualification from criminal-justice-reform
platforms because of their support for a Jewish state.

An anti-Semitic campaign based on stoking political and racial tensions
within America to blame Jews for what it calls “racist policing in the
U.S.” Singling out exchange programs between American police, the FBI,
Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Israeli law-enforcement agencies
(and not similar programs with Mexico, Europe and other countries), the
campaign falsely claims Americans are being schooled in “extrajudicial
executions, shoot to kill tactics, police murder, and attacking human
rights defenders.” The so-called “Deadly Exchange” campaign uses anti-
Semitic tropes in its condemnation of mainstream American Jewish
organizations it accuses of being “complicit” in programs that allegedly
pervert non-Jewish Americans.

Articles and videos promoting the anti-Zionist views of militant black-
power organizations and leaders like Malcolm X, who promoted the
fraudulent anti-Semitic “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”and coined the
slur “Zionist-Dollarism”; Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee under
the leadership of Stokely Carmichael, who notoriously declared, “The only
good Zionist is a dead Zionist”; the Black Panthers, whose co-founder Huey
Newton the material quotes: “Israel was created by Western imperialism and
is maintained by Western firepower.”

Various petitions calling on black American institutions and affiliated
groups to join the BDS campaign against the Jewish state and push to end
US military funding to Israel. These petitions vilify and delegitimize
Israel with outrageous falsehoods like Israeli soldiers “routinely maim”
and “systematically target” disabled Palestinians for murder.

These materials reflect BLM’s long affiliation with the anti-Zionist and
anti-Semitic BDS movement. Many of these resources were contributed by
Brian Ford, a teacher, anti-Zionist propagandist, BDS supporter and
Democratic Socialists of America activist. With BLMAS’ open channel
allowing anyone to post resources for the curriculum, there is little
doubt similarly motivated activists will continue to use it as a platform
for agitprop and hate rhetoric.

New York City’s BLMAS chapter’s website offers additional resources to
develop a curriculum based on BLM’s ideology and mission. It advances its
agenda through local councils governed by the city Department of
Education. Each school district has its own Community Education Council
composed of elected volunteer parents and community leaders tasked with
“promoting student achievement, advising and commenting on educational
policies, and providing input to the chancellor and the Panel for
Educational Policy.” BLMAS is encouraging these councils to distribute its
materials to classrooms during its Week of Action.

Concerned parents can run in the upcoming elections for their district’s
CEC and provide oversight over the re-education of their children. (The
application period closes Feb. 13.)

Local school boards, CECs, educators and parents, meanwhile, should be on
the lookout for curricula that politically indoctrinate children with
defamatory content. Such resources are filled with unjust accusations that
promote hatred and exclusion — a far cry from inclusion, justice and
equity for all.

Ricki Hollander is a senior research analyst for the Committee for
Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis.

<https://nypost.com/2023/02/07/black-lives-matter-is-indoctrinating-kids-
heres-what-you-can-do/>