Bahar Mustafa, the Welfare and Diversity officer for Goldsmiths Students’ Union, must have a strong sense of irony. You’d have to, to run an ‘anti-racism’ event which states that ‘if you’re a man and/or white PLEASE DON’T COME. As the student publication the Tab reports, the event claims to be ‘challenging the white-centric culture of occupations’, ‘diversifying our curriculum’ and building a ‘cross campus campaign that puts liberation at the heart of the movement’.
It’s an anti-racism event but men are told to stay away? I don’t even…
She’s the welfare officer at Goldsmiths. Hmm.
Back in February, Mustafa, who describes herself on Twitter as a ‘queer, anti-racist feminist killjoy’, came to my attention when she helped organise a ‘BME ONLY social’ before a screening of the film Dear White People. For those not acquainted with the lingo, this means for Black and Minority Ethnic only.
Come to all the things!, smiley face kiss kiss kiss, except don’t if you’re in the wrong group. Kiss kiss kiss smiley face.
She also lied about why Kate Smurthwaite’s gig at Goldsmiths was canceled at the last minute, lied in a way that’s damaging to Kate and protective of the goons at Goldsmiths who got her gig canceled.
Kiss kiss kiss smiley face.
I do understand (to a *very* limited extent) why people think ‘SJWs’ are such boogeymen at the moment. However it should be blindingly obvious to all that this is a weird exception which makes no sense. Therefore you keep the baby (feminism, equality etc) and throw out the bathwater (people such as this, in the sense that you argue against and reject their non-equality). It’s not too too hard. Or so I thought.
It also goes without saying that there are some fairly obvious cases (eg women’s shelters) where you do have to treat people differently according to a number of factors. University though? Meah, grow up and meet people and discuss matters with them. I
‘IF YOU’VE BEEN INVITED and you’re a man and/or white PLEASE DON’T COME.’
She might have saved on postage my not inviting them in the first place. And how is the ‘Palestine soc’ going to explain to HAMAS and Hezbollah about their ‘non-binary’ feminist policies?
Uh, could I come? Us Irish are a minority ethnicity everywhere but on one rather dank island…
Apparently I’m behind on this stuff. WTF is “BME”?
Trebuchet @ # 4 – I was behind too, until I read the text just above the big Twitter embedment.
BME=black minority ethnic.
I think it’s specific to the UK.
Let me guess – Bahar and Bahar’s pals are going to use their powers of discernment to decide who is genuinely non-binary or non-white and who is doing it for attention. This is going to be a smashing success.
I thought us cis-het-white-men were even invited to women’s conferences, antiracism rallies and gay prides? But I’d say this is mostly harmless, a different kind of “I only want to hang with the cool kids” thing. Perhaps she has experiences of white andormales andormansplaining and suchlike abnoxiousness at events, but either way one shouldn’t be surprised that hotheaded students sometimes take things a little too far – that’s how revolutions get started after all..
BME is a peculiarly British circumlocution that goes back at least 30 years and comes out of the politically-correct desire not to exclude anyone. There were arguments are my uni in the late 80s when a sabbatical BME officer was appointed, not least, pace Pierce. R. Butler @ 3, the issue of whether “Irish” was a minority ethnic identity or part of the privileged majority. That caused a LOT of very heated debate, at least among the tiny minority of students who
(a) cared and
(b) had nothing better to do because they were “studying” applied social science or some other similar 4-hour-a-week course. The rest of us mainly ignored it as the rantings of the usual loonies. It’s nice to see the usual loonies are still in their usual positions.
I’ve always assumed that characters like Mustafa are right-wing plants.
Eh, as a straight white man I really can’t get worked up about this. Maybe it’s a little over zealous, but it’s not exactly like we’re talking about white supremacists trying to stop black people signing up for classes, or something.
As one of those tragically oppressed white men, I’m really finding it hard to care.
It’s a single meeting (or perhaps one of a very few) allowing a doubly-overlooked group to dominate for an hour or so, before going back to a world where they’re often the only one in the room. And it’s quite likely they want white men out of the room because they’re sick of self-appointed allies trying to dominate the conversation, or some ill-informed jerk playing “devil’s advocate”.