As Education Secretary Betsy DeVos departed her lecture at Harvard’s Institute of Politics last Thursday, student protesters chanted, “What does white supremacy look like? That’s what white supremacy looks like,” pointing right in the secretary’s direction.
It’s likely these activists believe Devos’ support for school choice programs disadvantages students of color. Proponents of those programs, many of whom happen to be minorities, would point at data that proves otherwise. But even if those advocates are wrong, does their support for school choice amount to white supremacy?
By the definition, that accusation is increasingly en vogue among progressives. Motivations be damned, anyone who takes a position they disagree with qualifies as a white supremacist. Consider that comedian Chelsea Handler recently even referred to House and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson as a “black white supremacist.”
As we’ve noted before, the rest of the country operates with a very different definition of the term, one that primarily implicates those who believe the white race is superior.
By all accounts, Betsy DeVos believes absolutely nothing of the sort. Yet here we are, lumping her into the same category long reserved from neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. One can reasonably believe DeVos is wrong about school choice, but believing her support for those programs springs from the well of white supremacy, from a belief white people are genetically superior to minorities, is baseless.
The most telling detail from DeVos’ lecture last week came from the Harvard Crimson’s report on the question and answer session:
After one questioner said, “I’m going to assume you have good intentions,” someone in the room quipped, “That’s a stretch,” prompting many to break into cheers, applause, and whistles.
Therein lies the problem.
Many radical progressive activists, those increasingly concentrated in the #Resistance, seem to believe Republicans such as DeVos and Carson bear evil intentions and actually believe in the genetic superiority of the white race. When worldviews predicated on notions so divorced from reality are elevated in the national conversation, it makes that conversation pretty difficult to have.
Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
