University of Michigan Wants To Help Employees Deal With The HORROR Of Being White

Being white is so icky and uncomfortable, y’all.

If only someone could teach us how to deal with this HORRIFIC BURDEN.

Oh wait… the University of Michigan is stepping up to help with just that!

University teaches white employees how to overcome the ‘discomfort’ of being white https://t.co/m36kSIc9YA via @collegefix

— MAGA News Report (@MagaNewsReport) January 4, 2018

Wow. Heroic. Thank GOD someone stepped in to help us deal with the “discomfort” of whiteness. It was starting to get itchy.

According to this:

A two-day professional development conference held recently at the University of Michigan included a training session that aimed to help white employees deal with their “whiteness” so they could become better equipped to fight for social justice causes, according to organizers.

Participants who took part in the “Conversations on Whiteness” session, held December 5 during the university’s Student Life Professional Development Conference, were taught to “recognize the difficulties they face when talking about social justice issues related to their White identity, explore this discomfort, and devise ways to work through it,” the university’s website states.

The goal was to help participants in “unpacking Whiteness” to support students and staff with issues and efforts “related to identity and social justice,” the website added.

The “Conversations on Whiteness” session was one of more than a dozen workshops offered at the conference, held Dec. 4 and 5. The whiteness session utilized the “Privileged Identity Exploration Model” to help white participants explore the “discomfort” of their “white identity,” according to organizers.

It’s interesting that these people want to “explore the ‘discomfort’ of their ‘white identity,'” when they’re obviously the ones who instilled this discomfort in the first place.

I have something shocking to say, and it may make some lose their minds… IT’S OK TO BE WHITE. YOU DON’T HAVE TO FEEL BAD ABOUT BEING WHITE.

Wow.

Now, if you don’t believe me that many in our current society and higher academia may not agree with that statement, ask yourself… where does the “discomfort” in whiteness begin?

It begins with the notion that white people are bad… and it’s an exceedingly popular one.

Now, I don’t think this workshop was intended to convince people white folks are innately awful… it’s intended to help them deal with their innate awfulness.

First introduced in 2007 by University of Iowa professor Sherry Watt in a College Student Affairs Journal article, the model purports to be a method for understanding how people react to stimuli that alert them of the privilege they hold. The model is to be used by “facilitators” to “engage participants in discussions about diversity,” according to Watt.

Watt states there are eight defenses people use to avoid recognizing their privilege. Examples of defenses include “denial,” where someone simply refuses to admit their privilege, and “minimization,” where someone trivializes the impact of their privilege.

Lovely.