For four days this week (March 26-29), thousands of white people are getting together in downtown Madison, Wis. to talk about how guilty they feel about the color of their skin.
The self-flagellation conclave is called the White Privilege Conference.
A sea of 2,500 (mostly) white people is expected to attend. They will mull over ways to tear down a system of “white supremacy, white privilege and oppression.”
The best part is that taxpayers are footing a big chunk of the bill. At least $20,000 in cash from taxpayers – and possibly much more –will go toward staging the four-day confab, according to Wisconsin Reporter.
Another awesome aspect of the festivities is that participants – including students at public high schools – can earn undergraduate and graduate university credit for attending.
Conference organizers say the event will be a gabfest about how white people have a bunch of privileges and how people with non-pasty skin suffer under the yoke of invisible oppression. But don’t worry, organizers swear, “it is not a conference designed to attack, degrade or beat up on white folks.”
According to conference organizers, examples of white privilege include assuming “your failures will not be attributed to your race, or your gender” and assuming textbooks will feature of “the same race, gender, or sexual orientation as you are.”
Also, white privilege helps you “not have to think about your race, or your gender, or your sexual orientation, or disabilities, on a daily basis.”
The organizers do not explain what gender, sexual orientation or disabilities have to do with skin color. Perhaps that information will be revealed at the conference.
The Janesville Gazette describes in glowing terms how Neil Deupree, a former pastor and current member of a “diversity action team,” believes the conference will be life-changing for local white people.
“The point of the conference is to remind people our society is built on an invisible knapsack of white privilege,” Deupree told the Gazette.
“I personally believe when we have a conference we are saying, ‘No, it’s not over.’ Our society still has many aspects that are built-in to put white people on top. Some people would rather believe that’s not the case,” he added.
All told, 92 students from taxpayer-funded schools and 12 staffers with taxpayer-funded salaries will trek to Madison for the conference.
Janesville School District official Yolanda Cargile noted that local taxpayers won’t be on the hook for costs of attendance. Instead, funding will come from federal taxpayers by way of a Safe and Supportive Schools grant.
Niger Innis, a black civil rights leader and a national spokesman for the Congress of Racial Equality, told the Wisconsin Reporter that he believes the White Privilege Conference is a frivolous misuse of taxpayer funds.
“The First Amendment allows Nazis and white extremists to do what they are going to do, and it allows for black extremists and all other types of extremists to do what they are going to do,” Innis told the Reporter. “I understand that and I’m not opposed to that. But I am opposed to using other people’s money – taxpayer money – for this useless agenda.”
Here’s a link to the White Privilege Conference schedule.
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