Bananas

                A Greek Life retreat at the University of Mississippi was immediately cut short recently after a banana peel was found in a tree branch, Campus Reform reported.  

                If you haven’t been on an American college campus in some years- and are reasonably sane- you’ll find yourself asking: “why?”

                Let Makala McNeil, one of the students on the retreat, explain- as she attempted to do when she wrote a letter to the editor of The Daily Mississippian, the school’s newspaper, shortly after the “incident.”

                She stated: “Bananas have historically been used by white people as derogatory to dehumanize and denigrate black people. Even today, bananas remain an intimidation tactic, intended to instill fear in black communities.” Huh?

                She claims that she needed to write the letter to the editor because she and her fellow students of color “understood the potential pitfalls of allowing white journalists to write our story,” and felt it necessary to “contextualize the fear that the incident inspired.”

                It was an effing banana peel.

                McNeil also chronicled the young scholars’ encounter with the demonic outer covering of a soft tropical fruit. She wrote that her “sorority sister was the first to see it” as they and another student were returning to their cabins: “As we approached the cabin, she abruptly stopped. Her eyes widened. Her jaw dropped. She frantically pointed at a tree, exclaiming, ‘Look! Look! In the tree!’ It was a banana, dangling from a limb.” Well, actually it was a banana peel, but she may have a future in the dramatic arts. McNeil said that her “heart dropped instantly” as the group “began to scan the area around us to see if we were in any immediate harm.”

                It was an effing banana peel. As long as it wasn’t on the sidewalk in front of you, Makala, it posed no threat, immediate or otherwise. She also was troubled that, though some white students “seemed receptive” to discuss the incident during a camp-wide meeting, “others appeared apathetic.

                That may have been because it was an effing banana peel.

                Ms. McNeil continued to describe the abject horror that ensued after the discovery of the treed fruit skin: “The overall tone was heavy. I mean, we were talking about race in Mississippi and in the Greek community so there’s a lot involved.” She added that she and her friend were “all just sort of paranoid for a second” after glimpsing the peel, and that they “didn’t feel welcome” or “safe.”

                Interim Director of Fraternity and Sorority Life Alexa Lee Arndt, commenting in an email between Greek leaders, stated: “To be clear, many members of our community were hurt, frightened, and upset. Because of the underlying reality many students of color endure on a daily basis, the conversation manifested into a larger conversation about race relations today at the University of Mississippi.”

                To be clear, it was an effing banana peel. To be clearer, the conversation didn’t manifest itself. It occurred because of the left’s despicably dangerous and insane demand that every single aspect of life- on and off campus- be viewed through the preposterous prism of “race relations.”

                Arndt also said she “felt it was imperative to provide space immediately to students affected by this incident.”

                Comically or tragically enough, depending on your perspective, Ryan Swanson, a student at the university, admitted to discarding the terrifying banana peel after he was unable to locate a garbage can. Even more tragically, Swanson apologized “for the pain that was caused to members of our community.”

                It is unclear what actions the university will take in regard to the sordid episode. Vice Chancellor for Diversity and Community Engagement (really?) Katrina Caldwell proclaimed that she will be talking with fellow leaders to decide “what makes the most sense.” Good luck with that.

Caldwell added, “Right now, we’re just talking to people on campus who have some experience working across diversity to help the students process what happened.”

They saw an effing banana peel.

Ms. Caldwell defended the decision to truncate the retreat, saying: “Whether last weekend’s incident was an honest mistake or a malicious threat,” the response “was valid and authentic, especially given the present state of race relations in our country and at our university.”

In fact, Katie, the “incident” was neither a “mistake” nor a “malicious threat.” It wasn’t even an incident. You saw a discarded banana peel in a tree. And the response was neither valid nor authentic, it was pathetic, a torturously contrived straw man manufactured by those who whose soul goal is to harm America.

A couple of observations are in order here. First, these traumatized teens were on a Greek Life retreat? Is that not appropriation? What hypocrites! And second, what if it had been an empty bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken these snowflakes espied? Would the campus have been locked down?

The social justice warriors on campus would do much more good if they focused on real threats. Like North Korea threatening to nuke American cities. And, rather than attacking the freest, most diverse and tolerant society in the history of the world, they would garner more credibility if they tried to change the attitudes of Islamic extremists who want to convert, enslave or kill those who don’t share their beliefs. Or if they referenced Japan’s mistrust of Gaijin, or foreigners. Etc., etc., etc.

Instead, they obsess over a discarded banana peel lurking in a tree.

That’s crazy. Or, should I say, bananas.