The trouble at Evergreen State College pre-dates the incident reported in the OP.
Apparently, two black students wanted to pack a classroom with non-white students although they made it clear they were not trying to keep white students out. A fellow student took umbrage, which led to public
arguments and allegations of racism. The offended party called the cops after an argument with one of the students, saying he felt threatened. The cops took the two black students into custody and held them for hours in the middle of the night, which caused even more anger on campus.
So, as I'm sure most people suspected, there's a backstory to the incident with the Biology professor. I wonder what else has been happening on that campus. I'm especially curious about the reasons those two black students wanted a non-white majority of students enrolled in one particular class (Mediaworks: Re/Presenting Power and Difference).
ETA: Maybe
this had something to do with it.
Thank you so much for sharing that background information that's quite helpful in contextualizing the video earlier posted.
I went ahead and Googled Kai-Avé Douvia, and I came away with reading an article called "
The Price of Having a Different Opinion on a Left Wing Campus." Kai-Avé Douvia wrote an article called, "
Leftist Alien Among Leftist Peers." I am not sure what to make of it all; so, I'll try to break down my thoughts as best as possible.
From what I understand, Kai-Avé Douvia, a Puerto Rican and Native American, felt that a group of persons of color being invited to join a media class is a call for (reverse) racism: I strongly disagree. As a woman, if I create, say, an online meetup group inviting women to discuss women's issues, I don't mean to create the impression that I am or would be against men joining. It does mean, however, that I want to be in the presence of a like-minded individuals to discuss issues that I think uniquely affect women.
Similarly, I assume Jamil didn't intend any discrimination when he created a May 10th FB post asking minorities to sign up for the class; it seems a given, at least to me, that the intention was not to bar any white persons from signing up for the class especially as Jamil had also subsequently made clear that his call wasn't intended to prevent any interested white persons from joining the class.
Of course, Kai-Avé Douvia has a right to express his objection to the FB post. However, I question his interpretation of Jamil's FB post as being racist against whites. I remember when I was in college hearing about a BSU meeting in which free food (pizza and drinks!) was being offered, and I showed up to the meeting. I am not black. The black students welcomed my presence, and they seemed to appreciate my interest.
In the article Kai-Avé Douvia has authored, he writes, "Claims have now been made that since I spoke out against a black student, I am now racist (regardless of my brown skin)." I don't personally know him: so, I can't say whether he's a racist or not. But I strongly disagree with the implication that being brown inoculates a person from having racist attitudes against other minorities, in this case, blacks. In my own lifetime, I have seen gay people talk disparagingly about transgender people; and that is because a person being gay doesn't mean that a person is automatically given to appreciate a trangender's perspective.
That being said, I do see why black students are upset: two black students were woken up late into the night on May 14th and questioned for approximately three hours by police without having any lawyer being present though they were not placed under arrest, and they did not (at any time) feel they were free to either leave or even use the restroom during this period of interrogation. That's outrageous. No crime had been committed to have inspired this type of highhanded treatment of the black students from the Evergreen police.
Having said that, I understand that Kai-Avé Douvia was threatened both online and in real life due to some zealous verbal attacks from other students. So, since he felt threatened, he called the police.
However, the police should have questioned the two black students at a more appropriate time on May 15th instead in the afternoon and should have made clear that the students are allowed to leave or use the restroom and also have a lawyer present even if they are not under arrest during the questioning. And I do question whether the same treatment would have been meted out should the students in question not have been black but instead white. I do think "whiteness" in our American society undeniably confers some privilege, though of course I think it's very important to remember for all of us that not all whites considered currently "white" are privileged in our society because I do think forgetting this fact specific to poor whites is at least one reason for DP's defeat in the 2016 election.
And from what I understand, in weeks past, there were other incidents on Evergreen that made the other black students wary. Apparently, the College Republicans had erected a "Trump wall" on campus and there had been subsequently a rally organized by others to protest that wall. Somehow, a heated discussion took place that ended up on an edited video at a YouTube channel ridiculing the black students with a line of “I think you should go back to Africa.” At the video's existence, the black students were upset. They felt the unknown individual responsible for creating and posting the YouTube video felt comfortable enough within the space of the college environment to make and edit the video for ridiculing blacks because the campus administrators' allowance of erection of that "Trump wall" worked as at least a tacit encouragement to racists and white nationalists on campus.
Finally, as a non-relevant aside, I am very glad that I'm not attending college in the Trumpian era.
Peace.
