Ms. Smith Goes to Laputa
The burger joint had no internet. I got a copy of the New York Times and started with an article about the hate-hoax at Smith College. It was already familiar by now. Considering the source and subject matter a noxious dose of fake news was expected. By the eighth paragraph I thought the iced tea was spiked with a fast acting hallucinogen. The story, “Tensions Simmer Over Race and Class at Smith” (2-25-2021), was damn near dead accurate. Author Michael Powell must know where the bodies are buried.
Oumou Kanoute, a black student, had been approached by security while occupying an unauthorized area of the campus. There is no doubt in my mind she was aware of the room’s off-limits status. I have serially committed the exact same offense in numerous locations on numerous occasions. Many large buildings with food service have vast cordoned off spaces now and then. At lunch when you’d like to dodge the crowd you can often get away with sneaking into the verboten zone. Security might be annoyed if they find out but at worst they ask you to relocate. Countless times I’ve played dumb with full knowledge of trespassing.
People are choosing some strange battles these days. Kanoute insisted that she was the offended party because a security guard told her what she doubtless already knew. This kind of gambit is far from original by now. It is difficult to fathom why anyone—who isn’t in the employ of the Aryan Nation or Richard Spencer—would stoop to it. What’s more dumbfounding is the supposed “anti-racists” in charge pretending there’s a whit of legitimacy in the charges. It’s like treating pneumonia with swims in arctic water.
“It’s outrageous that some people question my being at Smith College and my existence overall as a woman of color,” Ms. Kanoute complained. It’s an odd response to a situation where, normally, a person would prefer their existence went unnoted. Makes you wonder if some kind of confrontation wasn’t the plan all along. As a student employee of Smith she wasn’t even supposed to get lunch in that cafeteria in the first place. She
Article from LewRockwell
