Adventures in Illinois Higher Education: Race and Gender are Social Constructs

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By: Shane Radliff

October 1st, 2015

Liberty Under Attack’s roots can be traced back to the social media website, Tumblr. When I started taking an interest in politics, it was where I started my first political blog. The website wasn’t created until about six months later, but nonetheless, my time-spent on Tumblr provided me a little experience with these social justice warriors.

I never gave them the time of day and didn’t consider their movement to be a threat, but nonetheless, they were always a nuisance and their nonsensical, irrational arguments have literally taken over the platform. That was the biggest factor in my decision to stay away from it as much as I possibly could.

When I started listening to Christopher Cantwell a few months back, it was easy to tell that he was on a merciless tirade against those involved with this movement. We shared similar sentiments, but it wasn’t until this semester of classes when I understood the sheer lunacy that encompassed this entire movement.

My prior experiences in Sociology 101 have been discussed previously. I’ve heard my communist sympathizing teacher praise Karl Marx, I’ve witnessed a 30 minute discussion on “Bronies” and the re-defining of gender roles, and today might put the icing on the cake, just over a month into the semester.

This past Tuesday’s class was titled, “What is Race?” My teacher introduced the subject with an eight minute video, going over the history of race in America. I didn’t notice anything too historically incorrect, if at all, so I suppose that’s a positive. My sociologist justice warrior teacher then had the audacity to say, “Race is a socially constructed category. We made it up.”

Let’s be honest for a moment, here. We are certainly all human beings and I’m sure no one would dispute that, other than racialists like the Aryan Brotherhood or Margaret Sanger. Although, there is certainly a distinct difference, and that is color. It’s extremely insignificant but to ignore that basic fact is irrational and goes against basic science. “Race” is just the identifying word that has been chosen. It’s certainly not a social construct, and the fact that we discussed the subject for over an hour basically goes against her statement.

She then went on to discuss a couple of points in regards to the “social construction” of race. The first point being: “Dominant groups define the minority group,” otherwise known as the “victims,” and the final point was, “Minority groups experience prejudice and discrimination due to their [victim] status.”

20 minutes was then allocated towards discussing the Census Bureau’s racial tendencies. Apparently, according to her, the Census Bureau sets a quota on ethnicities to ensure that whites will remain the “master race.” The class thus far was already laughable, but then she had a conniption fit about America being 74% white. Her “white guilt” was pouring out of every orifice.

The collective pronouns entered into the picture, and she said things like, “WE did this to the blacks” and “OUR Founding Fathers were slave-owners.” Now hold on a fucking second. I’ve never done any of these things you speak of and I sure as hell don’t consider anyone my father, except for the biological one.

The class ended with her explanation of the “Four Elements of the Social Construction of Race”:

1. Humans produce races, not social forces or biology.
2. Races constitute a part of socialization, including gender and social class.
3. The definitions of race change quickly.
4. Races are constructed together.

There are a couple of things that I need to rebuke in regards to those statements. I will reiterate this point again: humans didn’t construct “race”, they just selected it as an identifier, since there is clearly a difference, regardless of how insignificant. To conclude, the second point reminds me of cultural Marxism combined with Marx’s conflict theory; not a promising combination, to say the least.

This Thursday touched on the second part of the aforementioned point #2: Gender.

I walked into class about ten minutes early and sat on my normal side of the room. I took a look around and noticed that the males and females had been segregated.

Class began and she told us to pair up. We were instructed to come up with a list of “privileges” that the other gender has. I paired up with a gentleman and started listing “female privileges.” The first two I came up with, were in regards to children and divorce. Women almost always get custody and also get child support, alimony, and most of their husband’s belongings. The final one I’ll mention here is the lower sentencing for the same crimes committed by males.

Class reconvened and she wrote the answers on the board. The “male privilege” list amounted to things like:

• Males don’t have to deal with pregnancy [as if that’s not crucial to the survival of the human race]
• Males aren’t expected to work and raise children
• Males don’t have to deal with catcalling/sexual harassment
• Males aren’t expected to always look in “tip-top” shape
• Males make more money, thanks to the [fallacious] gender wage gap
• Males are able to obtain jobs more easily

And a bunch of other shit, but you get the point. The “female privilege” amounted to things like:

• Females almost always gain custody of the children
• Females almost always obtain the majority of the belongings in divorces and are paid child support/alimony
• Females often get off of basic traffic violations
• Females are always the presumed “victim” in domestic violence cases, regardless of whether she aggressed or not
• Females get free drinks at the bar

You get the point. I don’t intend to sound like a Men’s Rights Activist here, but the only way I could survive this ridiculous exercise was to win the argument, and I did so by highly evidenced statements. It’s easy to tell which side is more severe, and it’s not even close.

So, next time you are told to “Check your male privilege”, you can tell your opponent to kindly fuck off.

The rest of the class was spent playing “Battle of the Sexes” and there is only one more noteworthy thing. After class ended, the biological female who identified as a male (and as such, was on “our” team), was asked by a female classmate what SHE identified as, and what pronouns she prefers; obviously, referring to the “gender-neutral” pronouns. I evacuated the building as quick as I could, so I didn’t hear the response.

That concludes this past week of Sociology.

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American Government and Politics was actually quite bearable so there’s not much to report there. I received my quiz back and surprisingly, there were no remarks about my extensive analysis of democracy. As has been the trend, Professor Statist continued to use collective pronouns (“OUR” government, etc.) and even praised the passing of Obamacare.

That concludes this past week of American Government.

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In the first three installments of AIHE for this semester, I have yet to mention anything regarding Philosophy 101. The class has actually been bearable for the entire semester. There has also been a strange overlap in my own research, with what we have been reading for class. We read works by David Hume and William Paley, who are predecessors to utilitarianism, and John Stuart Mill who was key in the development of the philosophy. I have no negative feedback in regards to this class, and it has assisted me in learning to make philosophically sound arguments and also solidified the definitions of a priori and a posteriori.

Rather than having a negative report, I had an interesting conversation with my teacher. We received our test grades at the end of the class and I was a couple minutes behind on leaving. I walked up and turned my test back in and he inquired about the shirt I was wearing. The shirt was the Liberate RVA one with the bolt cutters, olive branch, and “Liberate the Market” on the sleeve. Attempting to remain as “grey man” as I could, I just told him the symbols that were on the shirt.

He responded with, “It looks an awful lot like an anarchy symbol.”

I quickly said, “It very well may be.” He further inquired about the meaning and I explained the symbolism on the shirt, Liberate RVA, what their goals were, and what my philosophy entails. He responded with, “Hmm, very interesting.” I told him goodbye, and left.

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Conclusion

 

If you would have told me six months ago, that I would be writing weekly/bi-weekly articles discussing my experiences with social justice warriors, I honestly wouldn’t have believed you. It was never something that I felt was worth discussing; that is, until I experienced these lunatics first-hand.

Due to the nature of my experiences, I feel compelled to share them. If this was just some online movement, it may very well be a different story. The issue here is the fact that it is being shoved down a significant number of student’s throats, along with the pushing of a communist agenda. Colleges around the United States are now offering “gender-neutral” options and one university has definitely stepped up the insanity.

In early September, the University of Tennessee released an article discussing their shift towards gender-neutral pronouns. Luckily, soon after that, they removed the post and System President Joe DiPietro said that it was one of the biggest controversies he’s faced since he took that position in 2011. The chart they proposed is below:

As shown in the previous image, these social justice warriors now want to alter the English language so they feel less like an “oppressed minority,” although from their previous actions, it doesn’t seem like it will ever be enough.

As I’ve mentioned many times before, I am a Voluntaryist that holds the twin libertarian axioms of non-aggression and self-ownership as serious as a heart attack. As far as what someone wants to do with their own body, who they wish to associate or contract with, and in whatever manner, is of no concern to me as long as it is voluntary, consensual, and doesn’t infringe on someone’s person or property.

The issue with this entire social justice movement boils down to this: they consistently use government violence to shove their agenda down the throats of everyone. Although, their complete denial of highly successful gender and reproductive roles surely takes the cake.

I’ll end with a quote from Christopher Cantwell. He lays out the social justice movement, quite succinctly, in his article titled, “Social Justice Cannibals”:

“Demanding equality, and diversity in the same breath. Demanding peace, by way of State violence. Building coalitions of “oppressed” classes where each oppressed class is the other’s supposed oppressor. This is what happens when you abandon reason and thrust upon society an incoherent philosophy fraught with contradiction. Blatant inconsistency, factual inaccuracy, and demonstrably false theories dominate the discourse. Shutting down speakers, disrupting events, laws suppressing speech, and all manner of violent and deceptive deeds are not malfunctions, they are features. They become necessary aspects of the belief system, crucial to its very survival, because to allow reason into the discussion, would be the equivalent of pressing an atomic self-destruct button.”