Public Reading—A Hate Crime
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But even a hardened veteran like myself was a little taken aback when my friend Michael Brendan Dougherty sent me this report on Keith Sampson, a janitor at Indiana-Purdue who was convicted of “racial harassment” for—publicly reading a book!
The book in question wasn’t exactly the latest by David Duke, it was instead an academic tome lauding Notre Dame for resisting the Klu Klux Klan. {snip}
Here’s the letter from the AA Office in full:
“The Affirmative Action Office has completed its investigation of Ms. Nakea Vincent’s allegation that you racially harassed her by repeatedly reading the book, Notre Dame vs. the Klan: How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Ku Klux Klan by Todd Tucker in the presence of Black employees. In conducting this investigation, we interviewed you, Nakea Vincent, and other employees with information relevant to the mailer.
“Upon review of this matter, we conclude that your conduct constitutes racial harassment in that you demonstrated disdain and insensitivity to your co-workers who repeatedly requested that you refrain from reading the book which has such an inflammatory and offensive topic in their presence. You contend that you weren’t aware of the offensive nature of the topic and were reading the book about the KKK to better understand discrimination. However you used extremely poor judgment by insisting on openly reading the book related to a historically and racially abhorrent subject in the presence of your Black co-workers. Furthermore, employing the legal “reasonable person standard,” a majority of adults are aware of and understand how repugnant the KKK is to African Americans, their reactions to the Klan, and the reasonableness of the request that you not read the book in their presence.
“During your meeting with Marguerite Watkins, Assistant Affirmative Action Officer you were instructed to stop reading the book in the immediate presence of your coworkers and when reading the book to sit apart from the immediate proximity of these co-workers. Please be advised, any future substantiated conduct of a similar nature could result in serious disciplinary action.
“Racial harassment is very serious and can result in serious consequences for all involved. Please be advised that racial harassment and retaliation against any individual for having participated in the investigation of a complaint of this nature is a violation of University policy and will not be tolerated.
“This concludes this matter with the Affirmative Action Office. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.”
In one of my articles for TAC I traced the trickling down of academic PC from the tenured professorate to the middling intellects of the university bureaucracy. Now it seems the university employees have joined in the fun—taking part in the accusations, denouncements, and public floggings—as a good way of bashing those they don’t like and getting “empowered” by the Affirmative Action Office.
(Posted on March 18, 2008)
Comments
In other words, if you’re accused, and you’re White, you’re guilty and you have no chance to speak in your defense. You have lost. You have no defense.
Also, there is no objective standard of harassment. It’s anything that you are accused of, if you’re White.
We’ve lost the country.
And you’ve lost your job.
Posted by at 6:50 PM on March 18
‘Well get used to it folks…cause if the black muslim gets into office….you will have your head lopped off for reading (of all things) THE BIBLE …..IT WILL BE A CRIME TO DO THAT IF HE GETS ELECTED…REMEMBER THIS WARNING!!
Posted by lydia at 6:59 PM on March 18
Please be advised that racial harassment and retaliation against any individual for having participated in the investigation of a complaint of this nature is a violation of University policy and will not be tolerated.
Translation: You better not sue anybody over this.
Recommendation: Go ahead and sue; these PC idiots don’t make the laws. Their boilerplate threat is empty and the courts will tell them so.
Posted by at 7:22 PM on March 18
I can see a book being a hate crime against a particular race. Like for instance, if it was an admissions guide for the college.
Posted by at 7:30 PM on March 18
I always pull the dust covers off of books that I think could be controversial. This only goes to show that I used good judgement.
Posted by Spartan24 at 7:49 PM on March 18
It wasn’t the content of the book that was offensive, but the fact that the white janitor was so obviously expressing his superiority over the blacks by reading without moving his lips.
Posted by ODDL at 8:09 PM on March 18
The ADL/SPLC must be on the scene! Everything that is White is evil and HATE now. Doesn’t anyone see where this is headed and WHY? Whites will NEVER be allowed to have free speech or any thought that goes against the Bolshevik World Regime! WHO are these bolsheviks? Do they consider themselves White now? We will never be able to defend ourselves from crime, let alone defend our families or our race and Nation!
Posted by at 8:11 PM on March 18
I understand their argument. However, it is illegal.
Mr Sampson should sue them for millions of dollars just to make sure they understand that their policies are unimportant when measured against his legal rights.
Further, the not so thinly veiled threats of violent retaliation for simply engaging in his God given right to read whatever he wishes are a criminal matter. Then there is the implication that he will be fired if he sues over it.
I’s say Sampson would benefit greatly from the services of a good lawyer.
Posted by at 8:12 PM on March 18
No good can come from associating with Blacks, except accurate knowledge about them. Once you’ve taken their measure, it’s time to leave.
Posted by Schoolteacher at 8:27 PM on March 18
Why don’t the Affirmative Action people just simply burn all books that they find “insensitive”? What is this? A police state?
Posted by Jackers at 8:35 PM on March 18
This absurd “evaluation” reads like a report out of some ministry deep in Maoist China, or maybe the final paperwork you get before the Soviets send you off to the gulag.
The irony is that the janitor probably got the book from the library of the very university passing judgment on him.
Posted by ZKR at 8:39 PM on March 18
The infantalization of the already emotionally infantile black race continues. And they want it done to them.
Now you can’t read certain books in front of blacks. What’s, or more accurately, “who’s” next?
Posted by proactive at 10:00 PM on March 18
Thoughtcrime. Newspeak. Paging Winston Smith.
Posted by at 10:40 PM on March 18
“However you used extremely poor judgment by insisting on openly reading the book related to a historically and racially abhorrent subject in the presence of your Black co-workers.”
Oh, you have got to be kidding. Were it not for the fact that the person or persons who wrote this is serious, it would be an absurd comedy, a parody of rational thought.
Does that mean you can’t read books about the Holocaust in front of Jews? Does that mean you can’t read books about Wounded Knee in front of Indians?
You have got to be kidding.
Posted by White, Jewish, and Proud at 11:17 PM on March 18
What part of it is a book against the Khan that they are not understanding? Or are pro-Khan books acceptable? Clarification, please.
Posted by flyingtiger at 11:47 PM on March 18
These Reds can’t do anything to you directly, thanks to the First Amendment. But they will get you indirectly, if they can. I once offended a professor, who could not, because my work was obviously better than most, give me a bad grade. But she did make herself unavailable when I came to turn in my final assignment, and refused to accept it afterward because it was late. Fortunately, when I called her home, her son answered and he unwittingly put the lie to her story, so she had to accept, and fairly grade my work.
Posted by Schoolteacher at 11:49 PM on March 18
keep voting democrat
Posted by danjack at 12:09 AM on March 19
This is typical of actions by these left-wing mind-controllers who illegally use laws to stop opinions being openly expressed. I have been (illegally, for I broke no laws or club rules) banned from a small (English expats)classic car club here in sunny Spain where I am retired, for chatting quietly in the earshot of some fool at te same table who claimed he was a British university professor in social studies (with emotional and financial interests?). His middle-aged wife was shaking with the horror of pthe facts about a continent that they have never even visited and we were in a private conversation with a couple of interested new members after a meeting in the public restaurant used as the meeting place about my experiences and thoughts on South Africa where I lived for 25 years. They were invited to join the conversation but they just wanted us to shut up which is typical of the types.
My companions were later shocked when I told them but being true Brits and brainwashed by these people into thinking that any such discussions are illegal they have not objected as they fear the same fate. Lack of moral courage?
Only the three-person committee voted for banning and the club membership was not even told in the club newsletter. But I write weekly articles for two local(in Spain) English newspapers and often subtly get back at them when the editors, who support my open and carefuly expressed views on free speech allow me to, and many other members have since supported me now. But who wants membership of such a club run by a few self-serving hypocrites? The Spanish do not seem to be cursed by this peculiar malaise.
Have you seen how far South Africa has descended now? The national defence force is so riddled with HIV-AIDS, TB,hepatitus and other serious diseases that the Marxist-trained government is considering inviting the whites back to operate the billions of Rands-worth of new arms they have just wasted cash on. After the ANC government came to power, they black affirmative actioned just about everything they could including the armed forces and private companies, the police, technical and senior managements with disastrous results so far. Serious and very sad for the masses of all colours who are now getting poorer every year.
Posted by Brian Deller at 12:15 AM on March 19
I was reading a book on the use of antibiotics against bacteria, and realized how offensive that might be to anyone who might have gotten sick or who knows someone who had been sick, or might have had an ancestor who had gotten sick, or maybe came from a country where people get sick. Embarrassed with shame and guilt I quickly threw the offending book in the trash.
Posted by at 12:17 AM on March 19
What kind of a weenie would report someone to the authorities for reading a book?
Assistant Affirmative Action Officer? Don’t they realize that by employing the legal “reasonable person standard,” a majority of adults are aware of and understand how repugnant that title is to White Americans.
Posted by Jimmy Stubbs at 5:56 AM on March 19
The AA officer who chastized him is a bit stupid and inarticulate. Reading a book is not his sin, displaying the cover was.
The lower 20% of the cover (see Amazon) shows white-robed Klansmen lined up for a group shot in front of two burning crosses.
As you know now, black people have been permitted to feel outrage at slip knots in the end of a piece of twine — if white folks were the last to touch it, anyway. Only if white folks touch it has it been magically changed into a noose.
Given this racial solipsism, the very fact that he holds the book up where black folks can see the cover is a deliberate assault on their sensitivities. Think reading Hustler in Sunday School.
What he should have done was cover the book with brown paper and wait to see if hte university was stupid enough to continue with their complaint.
Posted by big bill at 8:51 AM on March 19
“I’s say Sampson would benefit greatly from the services of a good lawyer.”
A great sentiment, but somewhat naive. Whites have to PAY for their lawyers, many Blacks get ‘pro bono’ services, because it looks good on their resumes to have ‘defended’ a [sic] victim of injustice.
Even the ‘pay as you go’ legal services offered out there have lawyer clients who are merely ‘on the dole’ and who could care less if you, as a white man, wanted to ‘access your rights.’ They steered me away from ANYTHING resembling a white counterpart to all this ‘free lawyering’ that similar cases dealing with Blacks represent.
Posted by Fr. John at 8:51 AM on March 19
I never ride public transport without a copy of Jared’s excellent “A Race Against Time”. I consider it a voodoo talisman that protects against 3rd worlder thuggery. (Of course being a CCW permit holder it’s backed up by a Smith & Wesson .45)
Posted by Zane at 11:44 AM on March 19
Books, The new Nooses
Oh, The horrors.
Posted by Mike at 11:58 AM on March 19
Perhaps, reading a book, is a hate crime against blacks, if they happen to be college educated.
Posted by at 4:32 PM on March 19
Funny how only white people can be accused of “racial harassment.” Blacks can speak, behave, and threaten whites in any manner they so choose without fear of official intervention.
We’ve gone over the cliff and are in free-fall.
Posted by john at 4:33 PM on March 19
“However you used extremely poor judgment by insisting on openly reading the book related to a historically and racially abhorrent subject in the presence of your Black co-workers.”
OK, I am confused. Blacks are CONSTANTLY reminding white Americans of how abhorrent their ancestor’s treatment was and CONTINUALLY harping on the history of black oppression in America, indeed, they even insist on college courses that cover it (Black Studies), but if someone white wants to read about it, it’s racial harassment? What kind of bizarre double-think is this?
Posted by Cliff Yablonski at 5:52 PM on March 19
http://www.amren.com/ar/2004/05/index.html#cover
This is from an American Renaissance article from four years ago. I’m sure the situation is even more extreme now - this is what Affirmative Action reaps:
In at least one government department it was found that none of the top black managers was fit for the job. In a race-neutral environment they would be fired. However, in South Africa blacks are never fired, even for gross incompetence, especially in a bureaucracy. The solution was to a create a series of new posts reserved for whites, who would report to their black heads. The whites would essentially do the jobs of their black bosses, except they would be at a subordinate level, a kind of intellectual slave. They would stay in the background and not detract from the prestige of their black masters. In the same department, the average black academic qualification is a grade ten, two years short of a high school diploma, while the average white has a post-graduate degree. Management tells whites they must get a master’s or doctoral degree if they want to keep their jobs, while they promise blacks a promotion if they manage to get a high school equivalency diploma.
Throughout the country, highly qualified whites often work for blacks with low qualifications and skills. They have to correct their grammar and spelling, and do simple calculations for them, while paying them obeisance and responding to their every whim. Blacks have conquered, not by the sword nor by the intellect, but by the womb, and constantly refer to themselves as “the majority.”
Posted by at 5:58 PM on March 19
Same thing when a White teacher used the book “Nappy Head” in her class, she got racked over the PC coals for being racially insensitive. Never mind the fact that the author was Black or it was highly recommended by Black educators.
I have been listening to The Radio Reader with Dick Estell on NPR (National Propaganda Radio) He is reading Soul Catcher by Michael White.
“In the years before the Civil War, slavery was the law of the land in the South and some slaves risked their lives trying to escape to the North in search of freedom. But there
were men who made their living by bringing them back. Men like Augustus Cain—-a scarred and troubled bounty hunter who could find those who didn’t want to be found.”
http://www.wkar.org/radioreader/
I am beginning to wonder if public listening is also a hate crime?
Posted by Drifter at 6:38 PM on March 19
Next, thinking about race will be a hate crime. The writer of the above reprimand should seek help.
Posted by Frank at 6:36 PM on March 20