Rev. Cwirla's Blogosphere

It took a Claremont McKenna College psychology professor to flush me out of hiding and get back to the table for some talk. I'm speaking of Professor Kerri Dunn, who allegedly committed a hate crime against herself earlier this month, slashing tires, shattering windows, and spray painting anti-black, anti-semitic, and anti-female graffiti on her own car. At least it was an equal opportunity hate crime. Liberals never appear to be terribly happy people, in my estimation. Apparantly, they even commit hate crimes against themselves.

Such an act of self loathing could be fertile fodder for Ms. Dunn's psychology classroom, presuming of course, that she actually has the time to teach psychology when she's not raising awareness of the problem of racism in Claremont. Racism in Claremont is a bit like weapons of mass destruction in Iraq - a hypothetical concern in search of a genuine crisis.

What elevated the angst of the Claremont school of political correctness was a cross burning incident on campus earlier in the year. Apparently four frat boys stole an 11-foot cross from the art department and set it ablaze on the lawn. In their defense, the boys stated that they had been unaware that burning a cross was a symbolic gesture of racism. Given the state of history education on our college campuses these days, I'm inclined to believe their story. They probably never even heard of the Klu Klux Klan, the Civil War, or American slavery. They probably thought burning an 11- foot cross was some kind of slur against Christianity, which is a constitutionally protected form of free speech in this country. Or more likely they were too drunk even to think much about it.

This, and a few other random acts of juvenile behavior by post adolescents spending Daddy's hard earned tuition money with too much time on their hands, caused Claremont's venerable citadel of higher education to go into apoplexy. Following the alleged self-inflicted hate crime on the professor's car, the entire complex of five campuses took a Wednesday off to compose its fragile psyche. The sight of three naughty words spray painted on a car so shorted their synapses that they couldn't crack a book. Back on the playground, we used to say, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me." In Claremont, they apparently get you a day off, even if you aren't black, Jewish, or female.

I can't help but think by analogy. This seems to be a case of social liberal Munchausen-by-Proxy Syndrome. That's the psychological condition in which a parent, usually a mother, secretly inflicts bodily harm on her child in order to be the child's rescuer. Failing to find a genuine racist demon in Claremont to exorcise, Ms. Dunn conjured one of her own, even to the point of referring to herself by a term properly used with reference to breeding females by the American Kennel Association.

When asked about the allegations that the alleged hate crime was self-inflicted, Ms. Dunn replies, "This is like a very big deal if they think I'm a suspect. I didn't want any of this from the beginning. This is so overshadowing the bigger problem on campus, which is that the administration has turned its head regularly on hate speech and hate crimes."

Actually, this is like, you know, so totally liberal group speak. Instead of dealing with the hard business of teaching and learning critical thinking, the principles of logic and objective evidence, and confronting the wonders of mathematics, science, art, literature, and yes, even psychology, responsibly taught, the administration of an institution of higher learning is supposed to focus its attention on naughty words. And we wonder why high tech jobs are being outsourced to India. Last time I checked, they don't take Wednesdays off in New Delhi every time they hear a bad word.

This is not to suggest that hateful speech is a good thing. It's not. Our caustic culture certainly needs to have its collective mouth washed out with soap. But before we try to raise everyone's awareness to what we perceive as "racism," "sexism," and whatever other sort of "-ism" gets our shorts in a tangle, we need to deal with our own pet "-isms". As Jesus put it, before you try to help your brother with the speck stuck in his eye, you need to deal with the two by four that's sticking in yours.

You can't talk about racism without also acknowledging the prejudices of people of every color. The movie Barbershop, initially panned by the NAACP until they actually took the time to see it, is a brilliant exercise of truth telling about black racism. You can't talk about anti-semitism without acknowledging all the other "antis" that have plagued human history since Cain bopped Abel over the head in a fit of religious jealousy. You can't talk about misogyny, the hatred of women by men, without also addressing misandry, the hatred of men by women, of which there is no shortage. The word "misandry" gets flagged by my spell checker and doesn't appear in my dictionary. I wonder why.

Prejudice runs deep in every human heart. Anyone who says otherwise hasn't yet met the object of his or her particular prejudice. The love for one's own and the dislike for those not like us is part and parcel of our self infatuation. Self-esteem taken to the nth power. We prefer those who are like us because they are like us. That's nothing to be proud of. And that demon can't be exorcised by education, government programs, seminars, awareness raising rallies, or a healing holiday. It calls for a good old fashioned dose of repentance, dropping dead to one's self, 'fess up and be forgiven.

We have the same Creator who made all of us. We are all descended from the same set of primordial parents, whether you want to go back to Noah or all the way to Adam. And we have all been embraced in the death of Jesus Christ, the Son of God Incarnate, who embodied the totally of our humanity in His own human body to die and rise in order to rescue our sorry selves from the mess we made. Let's deal with it.

Until the great cosmic death and resurrection at the Grand Finale of all things and the appearing of Jesus, we're going to have to put up with some nasty words and naughty symbols and not go running to off to Mommy every time we see or hear one. And so in the interest of progress and sanity, I offer this little classroom exercise. Repeat after me: "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names can never hurt me."

Now get back to work.

William M. Cwirla - September 13, 2003