When I joined the Army in the early '80s and reported for in-processing and hence to basic training, I remember the most common question all us young men asked each other as we were being assigned to companies and platoons was "Hey, where you from?" It didn't matter who you were talking to, and the shouting, swearing drill sergeants loudly instructed us that the only color we had better be concerned with was Army green.
I would be willing to bet that this is still a common question that new Army recruits ask each other, although given today's woke, DEI-infested military, I won't hazard a guess about the other part.
These days, though, we find that, according to a required course at Arizona State University's Cronkite School of Journalism, asking someone "Where are you from?" is now a "racial microaggression."
This is, of course, horse squeeze. But they're serious.
The journalism prerequisite course, “Diversity and Civility at Cronkite,” taught within the Cronkite School of Journalism, places a strong emphasis on the “importance of diversity, inclusion, equity and civility,” its online description reads.
The course includes a section focused on microaggressions, and students are asked to review a list of “typical microaggressions.” On that list, questions such as “Where are you from?” and “Where were you born?” are listed as “racial microaggressions.”
Timothy Minella, senior constitutionalism fellow at the Goldwater Institute, said the “course goes through a number of very questionable concepts, and prominent among them, for example, are defining certain microaggressions.”
Questionable is something of an understatement; but then, ASU seems all too anxious to stay in the ranks of the "woke." And in academia, they have plenty of company in their pearl-clutching.
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ASU's list of "Examples of Racial Microaggressions," when supplying what they think (and I use the word "think" in the broadest possible sense) the message is sent by the question, "Where are you from?" lists "You are not American. You are a foreigner."
What utter hogwash, drivel, and goo. "Where are you from?" is a perfectly reasonable question; I've asked tons of people I've bumped into at local events like the Palmer Friday Fling, and been answered with "We're from Chickaloon," or "We're visiting from North Carolina." There is no sane world in which this perfectly harmless and innocent question should be presumed to read, "You're not American."
But Mr. Minella has greater concerns with ASU's complaining about any hypothetical inquiry as to a person's place of origin. And he's right to be concerned.
“What’s concerning,” he told The College Fix in an interview, “is that what they are defining as microaggressions include statements such as ‘I think the most qualified person should get the job.’”
Parse that sentence. There is no racial or any other undertone to that. It is a simple, perfectly rational statement of value: The most qualified person should get the job in any circumstance; this is not a matter that should be subject to debate among reasonable people. The reverse implication would be "the most qualified person should be passed over for a less qualified person from an approved victim group."
And precisely this kind of thinking is why we see the current explosion of victimhood; being a victim is now an attribute upon which you can trade.
Why is this so? It’s simple, and it’s something our academic institutions and governments seem to overlook: Victimhood absolves the “victim” of personal responsibility. Didn’t get a job? It wasn’t your lack of qualifications. It was racism, or sexism, or some other -ism. Tossed in jail for drunk driving? The cops are racist, or sexist, or some other -ist. Received a phony degree in Underwater Ethnic Dog-Polishing and have $100,000 in student loans? Some -ism is to blame!
Welcome to the end game, America.
