JaLoni Owens, the student that led the effort to have the
statue of Thomas Jefferson removed from Hofstra University, is throwing an
epic—and mind-bogglingly preposterous—hissy fit because the school’s president
didn’t reflexively cave in to her demands.
In a
recent op-ed she penned for The Hofstra Chronicle (on newsstands now!),
Owens appeared gob-smacked that President Stuart Rabinowitz had the unmitigated
gall to possess an opinion differing from her own.
According to The College Fix, she wondered what might bring him to his senses.
Will it be “[Jefferson’s] repeated rape of multiracial slave Sally Hemmings?”
she asked. Or perhaps his “documented calls for the genocide and mass murder of
enslaved populations?” His role in “sustaining slavery in America and having
owned over 600 slaves over the course of his lifetime?”
Ms.
Owens was utterly unsatisfied when President Rabinowitz stated, at an April 25th
town hall meeting, that “every single student on this campus” mattered to him
in response to Owens asking him what students of color have to do to feel as
“valued” as their white peers. This remark was so offensive to Owens and her
friends, in fact, that they stood up, turned their backs (and butts) to the
university’s president, and held up signs reading “Black Lives Matter! Does
Hofstra agree?”
To
which Rabinowitz replied: “I think it’s a bit of a stretch to say Black
Lives Matter applies to the Jefferson statue. Secondly, of course black lives
matter, and thirdly, this doesn’t add to the conversation. I am certainly
dumbfounded as to what you really want to accomplish. If you really want to
accomplish something, why don’t you talk to us and not turn your back on us and
hold up a sign and remain mute? Free speech is free speech, but on a pragmatic
matter … It’s not gonna get the statue removed.”
At this,
Owens came unhinged. She called the president’s remarks “condescending” and
“invalidating.” She said Rabinowitz “has absolutely no idea what it is like to
be black, a woman and unapologetic about those identities.” She averred that
his comments filled her with such anger she “was unable to process to an extent
that permitted [her] to write about it until this week.”
She
continued, foaming at the mouth/pen/keyboard: “President Rabinowitz has no idea
how traumatizing it has been for me to force myself to abide by respectability
politics because as my pain and its validity is labeled divisive and
misdirected, is the lede of journalism course assignments, is the subject of
academic papers and is the motivation behind social media posts labeling me a
terrorist.”
Huh?!?
And she
continued continuing: “President Rabinowitz has no idea how exhausting it is to
lose sleep and to struggle to eat because even though you know that you are on
the right side of this issue, you have been so conditioned by American society
to feel guilty about being black, about the discomfort your skin color arouses
in white people, about vocalizing distress when racism is too much to handle
that day and about telling your peers or your professors ‘that is not funny’
when your oppression becomes the joke.”
Tragically,
she still wasn’t done: “President Rabinowitz has no idea what it is like to be
chased out of your chosen field of study because of the pervasiveness of racism
and misogyny within that department, to then report these experiences to a dean
of that college and be told that one of the professors who made you feel so
vulnerable and inadequate is going to be promoted rather than disciplined and
to now anxiously await a meeting with Community Standards because my social
media post accusing a professor of racism garnered more attention than my
social media posts about experiencing racism.”
Ms. Owens
eventually concluded her excruciatingly emotive rant, stating that Rabinowitz needs
to “do his job” and rid the campus of Jefferson’s statue.
Thomas
Jefferson did not call for the genocide and mass murder of enslaved
populations. He is on record countless times disparaging slavery and attempting
to find ways to end it. He treated his own slaves comparatively well,
considering them more like extended family members. He did not “rape” Sally
Hemmings, at least not in the context in which the term was used at the time.
If he did father children by her it was from a misplaced form of affection. She
was his “favorite.”
It is,
unquestionably, traditional conservatives who are discriminated against on
college campuses today. They are routinely mocked, shunned and even assaulted.
They are prevented from speaking and blamed for the violence committed by those
who mock, shun and assault them. Conservative groups are banned or shut down.
Their signs or banners are summarily removed or destroyed. Christianity is
openly ridiculed, while “Anal Sex Workshops” are promoted. White males and
masculinity in general are continuously denigrated, yet “transgenders” are
permitted to use the bathrooms and locker rooms of their choice and the LGBTQIA
community is embraced (and feared). There are more women than men on college
campuses today. In matters of potential harassment, women are believed no
matter what, total lack of evidence be damned. Innocent men’s lives are ruined
and they are forced off campus. Women and—especially-- people of color are
given preferential treatment, via
Affirmative Action, quotas, adjusted standards and omnipresent politically
correct pressure.
Thomas
Jefferson did more to free (the vast
majority of) people around the world from
slavery than anyone who has ever lived. Period. He wrote the Declaration of
Independence, proclaiming to all: “We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit
of Happiness.” Natural Law asserts that no person or group of people, i.e.
government, has the right to arbitrarily enslave any other person or group of
people…because the Creator has imbued them with intrinsic worth and freedom, a
Law which supersedes any man can enact. This is the one and only idea that simultaneously
protects every human being from coerced servitude while also attributing to
them divine worth. Slavery was anything but unique to America. Jefferson wanted
to end it in a way that did not rip his country apart or leave the emancipated
in chaos and despair. The United States did end slavery. Nearly 600,000 souls
died in the effort. Billions are still enslaved around the world today, in
various ways.
Jefferson
once said, “I have sworn on the Altar of God, eternal hostility to all forms of
tyranny over the minds of man.”
By contrast,
JaLoni Owens revels in the self-imposed tyranny with which she has victimized
herself. She refuses to be anything but
a victim. She marinates in her own bitterness, wallows in every perceived
slight, and steadfastly, pathetically, refuses to acknowledge the obvious
(self-evident?). By so openly seeking to have the Jefferson statue removed from
her sight, she surreptitiously tries to erect a figurative statue to herself, a
helpless, virtue-signaling, oppressed heroine of the aggrieved. She is the
anti-Frederick Douglas. It is easier to attack Clarence Thomas than to equal
his achievements. It is easier, even, to chastise Kanye West than to admit he
may have a point. The contrast between JaLoni Owens and Candice Owens couldn’t
be clearer.
JaLoni Owens
has tyrannized her own mind. She is a prisoner of her own device. She has
systematically enslaved herself.
Jefferson
also said, “Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that
these people are to be free.”
Jefferson,
Lincoln and many others have done what they could to abolish slavery, both of
the mind and the body.
It is now up
to JaLoni Owens, and those like her, to set themselves free.
