It’s amazing when people write articles about subjects they admittedly know little to nothing about. Why people decide to create narratives about cultures, institutions, and political viewings without first asking the very people they are labeling is one of the biggest issues plaguing America today. Take Thomas Wheatley’s recent article for the Washington Post on Howard University’s political diversity. To summarize, according to Wheatley, Howard University’s staunch liberalism creates an atmosphere were students cannot separate neo-Nazis from teenage Trump supporters.
While the recent news of Howard students confronting teenage girls wearing Trump hats was a bit surprising, this did happen only a week after the Charlottesville protests where, after President Trump’s third speech on the subject, white nationalists thanked the President for his words. It comes as no huge surprise then that a couple of students at a Historically Black College took the Trump “Make America Great Again” hats as a sign of disrespect. In my opinion a bigger question should be asked of the teenagers deciding to wear a political hat during a time when American tensions where at their height. But I digress. In this political climate everyone wants to get respect without giving it first.
Regardless, the idea of Wheatley claiming that this minor (yes minor) incident proved the liberal hypocrisy of Howard is ridiculous. Had the writer done a bit of research he would have found that Howard University has one of the few active HBCU Republican chapters, and were actually supporters of President Trump (or at least where before Charlottesville).
I think the author did a poor job explaining away the issues and tensions of Charlottesville while trying to “unmask” the issues caused by liberalism. While he may have tried to come off as a man trying to shed a light on political demonizing, he comes across as unwise and a bit silly. Had this teenager visited before the protests, who knows what would have happened, but when someone dies due to racial tensions, the President doesn’t say the murdering party were in the wrong, and a little girl shows up supporting that same President, emotions are bound to boil over. This situation had nothing to do with liberalism or conservationism, and Wheatley’s attempt to turn this political is an embarrassment to conservatives everywhere.
