“Whiteness is the cause of racism” is one of the opening lines from Dr. Hallie Star, the director of the College of Southern Idaho’s Blaine County Center and a recent speaker at a Northwestern State University of Louisiana event.
A concerned student alerted YAF through our Campus Bias Tip Line about an Instagram advertisement for students at NSULA’s Center for Inclusion and Diversity:
According to the university’s website, the session aimed to “examine (1) how White folks maintain systems of oppression and dominance that support White supremacy and exacerbate racism and inequity in higher education and; (2) how autoethnography can support well-meaning White folks (like the presenter) build greater race cognizance, start to see systemic racism at work and gain the understanding needed to take responsibility for complicity in White supremacy.”
The website also stated that the event would “benefit White folks wanting to move past surface reflections of privilege” and help them understand how their actions “perpetuate White supremacy on campus and in the rest of the world.”
During the presentation, Dr. Star shared her family’s story through critical autoethnography, stating “Whiteness was everywhere.”
“If we don’t examine whiteness in higher education, we are looking at the effect of racism but not the cause,” Dr. Star said. “Whiteness is the cause. We need to shift the paradigm and look at the cause. One of the ways we can do that is for white people to look at ourselves.”
Ancestors, regardless of race or background, worked hard to get to the United States of America for a reason: it is the best country in the world. Families should be proud of their generations of growth from immigrants, no matter how long ago. Colleges wasting taxpayer money on programs like these are more focused on dividing their students than uniting them.
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