Concordia College, a private college in Moorhead, Minnesota, and affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) is under fire due to events it hosted on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
One event, aimed at overcoming bias, was “for white people only.” One of the objectives of the event is for students to recognize that “there is a nasty little racist inside them.”
The event was led by Concordia professor Ahmed Afzaal, who just wrote an article titled “Free Speech Comes with a Price Tag.” Afzaal also is author of works including “Jihad without violence,” which explores a “realistic contemporary alternative to armed resistance, particularly for Islamic movements.”
Another event, held by professor Karla Knutson, who directs the “Women’s and Gender Studies Department,” sought to challenge white women. “An You Call Yourself an Ally,” ran the event’s title.
Knutson’s event sought to “encourage white women to confront and analyze their participation and/or complicity in racist systems of oppression” and “create a foundational experience of exposure to white women’s microaggressions.”
Another professor, Jason Askvig, led an event meant to “engage in advancing awareness of whiteness, what it means, and how it operates.” Yet another professor, Matthew Lindholm, led an event on “Race and Environmental Justice.”
Yet another professor, Tess Varner, led a session which examined “the appropriate role of anger or of bold behaviors in dismantling racist systems.” The push of this session was to justify aggressive actions to advance leftwing causes.
One wonders what MLK would think of it all. His dream, spoken August 28, 1963, was that his “four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
Willis Krumholz
Willis L. Krumholz is a fellow at Defense Priorities. He holds a JD and MBA degree from the University of St. Thomas, and works in the financial services industry. The views expressed are those of the author only. You can follow Willis on Twitter @WillKrumholz.
