Essex County College professor, Lisa Durden, was suspended shortly after appearing on Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight” where she defended the decision of Black Lives Matter to exclude white people from attending their Memorial Day barbecue.
In an extremely one-sided editorial, NJ.com‘s Barry Carter runs to Durden’s defense, insisting the college’s decision to suspend Durden was based on race and her opinions are free speech. Carter quotes Durden’s attorney suggesting that Durden is just simply “too outspoken.” Durden claimed her suspension was done to “humiliate her” in front of her students and called it a “public lynching.” Carter also quotes one of Durden’s colleagues lamenting a lack of “free speech,” and finding it shocking that an “African-American woman” could be so “disrespected.”
Remarkably, nothing in Carter’s piece was devoted to Durden’s controversial and racist viewpoints or her behavior. Durden opens her commentary in response to Carlson’s inquiry about the non-inclusive aspect of the barbecue by proclaiming, in a mockingly whiny tone, “boo hoo hoo! you white people are mad,” unable to use the “white privilege card” to attend a blacks only barbecue. Durden expressly pins the blame on whites for Black Lives Matter’s decision to exclude them, which is a textbook example of racial discrimination.
In an interview where producers had to cut off the unruly Durden’s microphone at one point, she repeatedly refers to whites and Carlson as “you,” and unabashedly proclaims that white people can “stay your asses out.” Her anti-white diatribe came after she compared excluding whites from a barbecue to keeping “bad-ass kids” out of a wedding. Profane language aside, her comparison is absurd because a child belongs to an age group not a distinctive racial group.
Carter quotes a student of Durden’s opining on her suspension saying “this is a college” and that “critical thinking” is the right to have different opinions. It’s still unclear why she was suspended, but an honest editorial should at least mention her bizarre behavior, or racial claims.
Irrespective of addressing Durden’s on air behavior, her “opinions” were less about critical thinking as they were about toxic groupthink in academia. In the rest of America, prejudgments based on one’s racial makeup as opposed to their character is still unacceptable.
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