Students, faculty and staff at UC Davis just completed an annual exercise known as Principles of Community Week, sponsored by the Office of Campus Community Relations and featuring all sorts of activities and workshops designed, presumably, to help us all get along better.

At least that’s the official line justifying a week that likely caused more division than unity.

“Inclusiveness is about people, cultures and beliefs,” begins the piece in the UC Davis publication Dateline.

“UC Davis adds another dimension by including separate but related programs in the same week, all in furtherance of ‘Building a More Inclusive Community.’ In Building a More Inclusive Community, the campus relies on the Principles of Community, the 11-year-old document that promotes respectful relationships with other people in the campus community.”

In that spirit of respect, the campus offered several unifying experiences, including Tuesday’s “White Privilege Workshop.” As the title might suggest, participants weren’t likely to leave the session with much respect for white people.

The handout for the White Privilege Workshop included a sheet with a long list of “isms.” You know, things like sexism, racism, ageism and sizism. Fair enough. I think we’re all smart enough to know that discrimination based on sex, race, age, sexual orientation or a person’s size is just plain silly.

The sheet full of “isms” is divided into two categories. First, we have the “Agents” and second we have the “Targets.” The Agents are clearly the oppressors and the Targets are just as clearly the oppressed.

Under “sexism” we learn that the Agents are “male” and the Targets are “female, intersex and transgendered.” There is no possibility here that anyone other than a male can be a sexist.

Moving right along to the next “ism,” in this case “Gender Identity and Expression Oppression,” we learn that the Agent is “traditionally masculine” and the Target is “traditionally feminine, transgendered.” Again, females are not capable of gender identity and expression oppression. Apparently, it’s just not in their nature.

Under “racism,” the definitions get real simple and cut straight to the bone. The Agents are “white” and the Targets are “people of color.” There are no exceptions to the rule and no mitigating circumstances.

Racists are always white and their victims are always people of color.  It says it right here in the official handout from this UC Davis-sponsored workshop promoting “inclusiveness.”

When it comes to “ethnicity/culture oppression,” the Agents are exclusively “American” of “Western European Heritage” and the Targets are “Puerto Rican, Navajo, Mexican, Nigerian, Jewish, Russian, Chinese, Iranian” and the ever-popular “etc.” I am not making this up.

The next “ism” is known as “marital/parental status” oppression, with the Agent being someone who is “married in a heterosexual relationship with children; w/o kids” and the Target being “single parent, single, divorced, lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender/queer parent/domestic partnership.” Again, no exceptions to the rule. Married people with kids tend to oppress single parents. That’s just the way they are. If you reject this notion, you’re in denial.

Agents of “Religion/spirituality oppression” are always “Christian, Protestant and Catholic,” while the Targets are always “Muslim, Jewish, Agnostic, Buddhist, Hindu and Spritual.” It is not possible, say, for a Muslim to oppress a Jew. Or a Buddhist to oppress a Hindu. Or for anyone in the Target group to ever oppress anyone in the Agent group. Just not in the cards, I guess.

What we’re learning here if you connect the dots in this lesson in “inclusivity,” is that a married white Catholic male with children hates just about everybody, including single parents who might actually be white Catholic males.

Having been both a married white Catholic male and a single parent white Catholic male for long periods in my life, I’m not sure if I’m an Agent or a Target.

And I don’t know about you, but for me the notion that Protestants apparently target Buddhists, and married folks target single parents, and Americans of Western European Heritage target Puerto Ricans and Navajos is just plain dumbheaded.

Almost as dumbheaded as UC Davis sponsoring this “White Privilege Workshop” in the first place.

But wait, there’s more.

“Power in the University” oppression takes the form of the “faculty and administration” riding herd over the “staff and students,” while “National origin oppression” features “U.S. born” Agents targeting the “foreign born.”

Which is incredibly interesting considering that the very university sponsoring this nonsense is headed by a chancellor who was born in Greece, while the state in which this university is located elected a foreign-born governor. Twice.

There, now that we have all these “isms” out in the open, I certainly hope the Agents and the Targets are feeling much more unified as they resume their studies at the University of California at Davis.

And if they don’t, we’ll run them all through this boneheaded exercise again next year.

— Reach Bob Dunning at [email protected]

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