What’s causing mask resistance?
A professor at Stanford University has an idea.
As you know, there’s been a fight over forced school masking.
Earlier this month, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed an order allowing “parents to opt their children out of a…mandate if either a school board or health board enacts one…”
Just before, conservative podcaster Matt Walsh protested at a Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools board meeting:
Here is my speech to the Nashville School Board where I spoke out against the cruel and indefensible mask mandate for children pic.twitter.com/Eq5IFsKyja
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) August 12, 2021
Country star Carrie Underwood “liked” that tweet, setting off a storm of denouncement.
Back in May, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued Executive Order 36, prohibiting school mask mandates.
Dallas and Bexar districts vowed they’d defy it, but the Texas Supreme Court sided with Greg.
Meanwhile, one teacher was absolutely distraught:
This Texas teacher is on the verge of tears talking about what it’s like working in a school that isn’t allowed to require masks. pic.twitter.com/hZYPX3z8xQ
— Kolleen (@littlewhitty) August 14, 2021
On the 22nd, MSNBC ran “The Next COVID War…Far-Right Extremists, Anti-Maskers and Now Parents Are Fueling a Rising Pattern of Violence Against Educators.
The provided proof of a “trend,” via the link:
[A] male parent verbally assaulted [a California school’s] principal when his daughter walked out of a school building wearing a mask. When a male teacher stepped in, the situation escalated and a physical altercation happened, resulting in injuries. The teacher was treated at the hospital and released Wednesday night.
Amid the massive mess, Stanford’s Hakeem has identified the evil behind not wanting kids constantly covered.
On the 17th, Hakeem slam-tweeted the “crazy opposition to mask wearing.”
He noted it’s “leading folks to act violently at school board meetings and council meeting and everywhere else.”
The professor also offered a translation:
folks = white people
With emphasis:
“[Y]eah, you can’t disconnect it from whiteness.”
Make no mistake, this crazy opposition to mask wearing that is leading folks (read white ppl) to act violently at school board meetings & council meetings & everywhere else—yeah, you can’t disconnect it from whiteness. And discussions that don’t acknowledge this are incomplete.
— Hakeem Jefferson (@hakeemjefferson) August 17, 2021
If whiteness is activating the aversion, what might be the mechanics?
He reverse-engineered it:
“Ain’t like masks are comfortable for non-white people. But you don’t see a bunch of Black folks storming meetings. And it’s not just cause these white folks are GOP. It’s cause they’re white, & believe whiteness confers upon them a kind of power that places them above [government] action.”
Ain’t like masks are comfortable for non-white people. But you don’t see a bunch of Black folks storming meetings. And it’s not just cause these white folks are GOP. It’s cause they’re white, & believe whiteness confers upon them a kind of power that places them above gov action.
— Hakeem Jefferson (@hakeemjefferson) August 17, 2021
As noted by Campus Reform, the instructor also linked Caucasian calamity to chaos at the Capitol:
“It’s like my reaction to January 6. You don’t have to be an expert in identity to know that whiteness is driving the behavior. The crowds are [overwhelmingly] white. You think this just randomly happened?”
“Nah,” he added, “whiteness be working overtime.”
In conclusion:
“Like we say in the south, the devil is busy!”
It’s like my reaction to jan6. You don’t have to be an expert in identity to know that whiteness is driving the behavior. The crowds are overwhelming white. You think this just randomly happened? Nah, whiteness be working overtime. Like we say in the south, the devil is busy!
— Hakeem Jefferson (@hakeemjefferson) August 17, 2021
The professor’s certainly not alone in his position toward the pale.
Cases in point:
University Professor on ‘Diversity and Inclusion’ Panel Announces She Keeps Away From White People
More Than 160 Minnesota Principals Plot to ‘De-Center Whiteness’
School District Hosts Year-Long Anti-Whiteness Training to Fight ‘Curricular Violence’ in Math
White Woman Who Lectures on Racism Says All White People Should Shut Up
While whiteness fights mask mandates, could it also be instating them?
Isn’t whiteness in control?
If so, the pigmented power will be even more difficult to defeat.
As an assist — elsewhere online — Hakeem deconstructed Satan:
“Whiteness as a construct is not merely about skin color, although those who think of themselves as white are most susceptible to its attractions. When I invoke the language of whiteness, I am interested in whiteness as an ideological force (connected to skin color for sure!), but an ideology that is powerful, in part, because of buy-in from those on the peripheries of whiteness. There have been, throughout the course of American history, people who don’t fit neatly into the category we consider white who have locked arms with those who are committed to the ideology of whiteness. That fact does not undermine the argument that whiteness is a [heck] of a drug that explains events like the January 6 insurrection. To the contrary, it reminds us of how [flipping] powerful whiteness is. It’s so powerful, it is attractive to those it so often oppresses.”
A great scourge, indeed.
The mask wars continue.
So does the fragmenting of America.
The hardest thing about the devil…is that we can’t all agree on who he is.
-ALEX
See more pieces from me:
College Announces Fierce New Mascot: A Sexless Social Justice Warrior Victimized by Climate Change
Baby Featured on Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’ Album Sues — Over ‘Child Pornography’
Find all my RedState work here.
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