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Matt's avatar

I don’t think I’ve ever read something that so succinctly expresses why I felt so politically alienated from my friends in college and still do with some of my friends now. I'm not conservative but I can’t get on board with my friends’ identity-based worldview either. So often they have an opinion about who is right or wrong in a situation without reading any details based purely on the identities of the people involved. I always want to say, what if that was your brother or your daughter, would you want people to be so quick to cast them as the villain then?

It’s interesting because “color-blindness” has become a bad word, but I think it’s been taken to the point of being blinded by color now. They don’t just use someone’s identities as relevant information, but as the *only* relevant information.

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Virginia Postrel's avatar

Great piece. The tough question is how a university might get itself out of this self-created mess, assuming it wanted to.

This statement from the UCLA Asian American Studies department is a must-read: "As an academic department situated on the ancestral and unceded territory of the Gabrielino/Tongva peoples, we oppose settler-colonialism in all its forms, from Tovaangar to Palestine." https://asianam.ucla.edu/2021/05/21/asian-american-studies-departments-statement-of-solidarity-with-palestine/

How many Tongva do you see here? https://asianam.ucla.edu/faculty/

If you really oppose "settler colonialism" and you are an Asian American, don't you have a responsibility to return to Asia (even if your family came to California in the 19th century)?

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