DartmouthPride.org denounces the hate speech, race

hatred and latent misogyny of certain Dartmouth

#BlackLivesMatter protesters.


We’re disturbed by Vice Provost Ameer’s appeasement of

these practitioners of race-based aggression and hate

speech.  There is no excuse for hate.  There is no

rationalization for hate.


In a time when people are being gunned down in Paris and in

the US, it’s disgraceful that some of the safest and most

privileged people in the world -- certain Ivy League students --

are endeavoring to hijack the spotlight and turn attention to

what they are falsely alleging is their awful plight. 


When we see little tyrannies of bigotry and unfairness, we fight them. 

We don’t flinch when it comes to fighting for equality and justice. 

Not even in those moments when the tyranny of bias is actually being propagated by folks falsely cloaked in the garb of the righteous and oppressed. 


Let’s cut to the chase:


Many of the Dartmouth #BlackLivesMatter protesters in Baker-Berry violated the codes of tolerance.


1. They used offensive hate speech, and that is unacceptable.  We, of all people, believe that free speech is sacrosanct.  But when we see speech used in a hateful way, we denounce it. 


2. They disrespected their fellow students.  The students in Baker-Berry who were studying when #BLM protesters stormed in were not slave-owners or oppressors.  They were young people reading books.  And yet the #BlackLivesMatter marchers disparaged, degraded, and acted belligerently toward them.


  1. 3.The libraries on campus are supposed to be safe places

for women, and yet #BlackLivesMatter violated that campus

safe place and intimidated women based on two criteria: their

skin color and their desire to learn.


  1. 4.It’s shameful to pretend you are oppressed, when you are

in fact privileged.  When you do that, you hurt the real

victims.  And you weaken the efforts of the more legitimate

activisms.


Dartmouth students -- whether black or white -- are some of the most privileged people on the planet.  We’re going to an Ivy League school.  And if we’re ethinc, we’re sometimes the beneficiaries of affirmative action, which gives certain races and ethnicities preferential treatment in admisisons and financial aid. 


As such, it has become clear that the attempt of the #BlackLivesMatter movement on campus to raise its voice has only resulted in cringes of embarrassment and in self-marginalization.  But we believe Dartmouth #BLM members deserve a slightly more robust critique than that: they are elites who are making a mockery out of real suffering, and they are seemingly using the tribulations of others for a) self-aggrandizing reasons and b) in order to secure additional special treatment within their already elite sphere.  These students in the many circulating videos from the Baker-Berry event are the country’s elite.  And yet they scream as if they were the victims.


So, it is with those people that we want to share some of the rules of the game of real social change, in the hopes that it might help them in the future.


  1. 1.When you fight, you do it with dignity.  You march and protest, but you don’t disrespect others if your mission is the acquisition of respect.  Barging into Baker-Berry is just an admission that your cause is somewhat limp and you can’t get attention legitimately, that your message is not interesting enough, and without merit.  If it had merit, you wouldn’t have to yell at quiet library students.  If you can’t get an audience, then you need to re-think what you’re up to.

  2. 2.When you advocate, you speak truth to power.  Speaking truth to 19 year-old college students sitting quietly in a library is a cop-out and shows lack of conviction and lack of courage.

  3. 3.A Dartmouth #BlackLivesMatter protestor apparently wrote on their fb page: “We raised hell, we caused discomfort, and we made our voices heard all throughout this campus in the name of standing up for our brothers and sisters across the country who are staring terrorism and assault directly in the face.”  Not really.  You threw a tantrum in a safe and risk-free environment.  No fear of reprisal.  No skin in the game.  You showed a lack of respect and courage.  You betray the tradition of 50‘s sit-ins and wade-ins for racial justice.


When legitimate advocacy groups stage activisms, they do it based on the strength of their premise, not the weakness of it.  Legitimate groups argue on the merits of their case.  They don’t yell at library students on laptops and then call themselves a success story.


What Dartmouth #BLM has done is damage the cause of

social justice on campus.  It has pulled back the veil on

something we’ve noticed more and more evidence of: the

fact that Inclusiveness and Diversity movements are in

some cases harboring hate-mongers -- people who cloak

themselves in words like “Tolerance”, without actually

believeing in it, or living it.


This episode makes us think of those Americans of African

heritage who were unjustly enslaved in the 19th century. 

They had dignity.  They were the real victims.  They are the

real heroes.


And then today there is this new subset of the elite which

seems to manipulate the memory of the wrongfully

enslaved for their own benefit.  They don’t act to cherish

the memory of the enslaved; it seems that they act more

to exploit it. 


They damage the good people working in the civil rights

space.


We think it’s pretty clear that, if they were alive today,

the dignified and heroic African-Americans who were

enslaved in the 19th century would be deeply saddened by the hate speech of the Dartmouth #BlackLivesMatter movement.

“Fuck you, you filthy white fucks.”*

All racism is wrong.  And it runs counter to the principles of tolerance that are a part of Dartmouth’s DNA.

“Filthy white bitch!”*

Hate speech -- including the degrading and misogynistic “bitch” -- is vile. 

From Dartmouth’s Charter:

“The Reverend Eleazar Wheelock, of Lebanon, in the colony of Connecticut, in New England, aforesaid, now doctor in divinity, did, on or about the year of our Lord 1754, at his own expense, on his own estate and plantation, set on foot an Indian charity school, and for several years, through the assistance of well-disposed persons in America, clothed, maintained

and educated

a number of the

children of the

Indian natives.”

NO

H8

YouTube

NO

H8

DartmouthPride.org - A news site & vehicle of info and opinion.

*We elected to protect the identities of the persons in the photos on this page, as a courtesy, even though two people claiming to be protesters have approached us and provided names of organizers and participants (especially those who displayed disturbing aggression).  The quotes overlaid on the stills above represent language that was reported by many news outlets to have been a part of the Baker-Berry incident.

DartmouthPride.org is independent and not formally a publication of any university or college

Addendum: It was recently Christmas, so we feel it’s worth saying that we condemn the hate, but not the hater.  We trust that the bias and aggression of the #BLM protesters will be dealt with seriously, but at the same time we feel we should try to forgive them, and hope they find the strength and maturity to renounce hate in the future.  NOH8.

#BlackLivesMatter has shown that its real passion is self-interest and PR, not the lives of black citizens.

The lives of Black Americans are precious; they are not tools to be exploited by #BLM activists intent on demonizing cops while ignoring and obscuring core truths about who is killing our fellow black citizens.  Here is an excerpt from the FBI data sheet on 2013 murder victims in America: