Published: 7/17/2020 10:10:20 PM

Modified: 7/17/2020 10:10:09 PM

Political correctness. Cancel culture. Identity politics. To many on the political right, these buzz phrases seem to be a bigger problem than a vicious, unremitting pandemic. It is the trifecta of conservative whining.

Whether Tucker Carlson calling U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth a moron for wishing to remove offensive statues, or scores of public intellectuals fretting over cancel culture in the now-infamous Harpers letter, the so-called culture wars are boiling hot.

The complaints of the privileged extend to other snowflake issues too. Safe spaces and trigger warnings are ridiculed. Protests over smart-assed provocateurs like white supremacist Richard Spencer are just the mewling of spoiled children who should have been spanked more often. Suck it up!

The Upper Valley is clearly not exempt.

Last month, Dartmouth College removed the Baker Tower weather vane after students complained that it portrayed Native Americans in an offensive, racist manner. Perhaps predictably, the Dartmouth College Republicans called the removal a blatant attempt at pandering to a handful of community members claiming unwarranted offense.

Windsor School Principal Tiffany Riley remains in limbo after the Mount Ascutney School Board suspended her because of social media posts deemed critical of the Black Lives Matter movement. This also drew criticism as cancel culture overreach from many folks, including an organization called National Coalition Against Censorship.

In an instance more personal to me, Vermont Law School announced its intention to paint over a 1993 mural by Sam Kerson, The Underground Railroad, Vermont and the Fugitive Slave. Here, as in the Dartmouth case, students felt the images of African Americans were offensive and inaccurate. Kerson called the removal thuggery. It is personal to me, as I was the VLS administrator who facilitated the approval and painting of the mural. Kerson reached out to me last week to express his deep disappointment.

Indeed there are occasional anecdotes that reinforce the accusations of political correctness or cancel culture. Sometimes bitching really seems silly. But the rare exception does not disprove the rule: People of color, Indigenous peoples, LGBTQ folks and women have every right to define the language and images they find acceptable and unacceptable. After all, they have endured the slings and arrows (oops!) of society for hundreds of years and I think we in the majority can be generous even if they overdo it now and then.

The (mostly) male and (mostly) white folks who complain about political correctness or cancel culture seem perturbed that anyone dare be so sensitive. This is a particularly arrogant manifestation of unexamined privilege the privilege to decide whether or not another person has the right to be offended. If I declare no malicious intent in using tribe, Negro, colored person or Redskin, then you have no moral authority to object. So there!

Among the qualities my wife has worked to extinguish in me, telling her how she should feel is high on the list. Im working on it. The personal can be broadly instructive. We ought to be listening more to others and not be so quick to tell them how they should feel. The National Coalition Against Censorship is in no position to determine how students of color in Windsor are affected by the principals comments. The Dartmouth College Republicans have no moral authority to declare that community members claims of offense are unwarranted. And the opinions of white people, including Sam Kersons and my own, have no standing in a debate about a murals images and their impact on people of color.

It is essentially a matter of power. The targets of offensive speech and degrading images are those who historically lack power; people of color, gay and trans people, immigrants and others. Those who use the offensive speech have the power and privilege. They are generally, not always, white. Which brings me to the final leg of the trifecta: Identity politics.

I am amused that it is nearly always privileged white people who complain about identity politics. They sharply criticize people who band together based on race, gender, sexual identification or another minority trait. They do this while enjoying the one identity that has conferred advantage for the entire existence of our democratic republic. White people have been playing identity politics forever, establishing an exclusive club that includes only those who they say are included.

The irony is deep.

Steve Nelson lives in Boulder, Colo., and Sharon. He can be reached at stevehutnelson@gmail.com.

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Column: The arrogance of unexamined privilege - Valley News