Educators and students from all over the country flocked to the 17th Annual White Privilege Conference (WPC) in Philadelphia over the weekend. The controversial gathering featured a number of radical ideologies, including those that could only be described as anti-Christian and anti-police.
The annual conference touts itself as an event aimed at fixing a system in which minorities do not enjoy the same privileges that white people have.
EAG News reports that the conference is “championed by a radical sect of educators from the organization Rethinking Schools,” bent on reinforcing the leftist maxim of “white privilege.”
“Our vision is to build a community committed to dismantling white privilege, white supremacy and oppression, every day, everywhere,” wrote Eddie Moore Jr., founder and president of “The Privilege Institute,” which organizes the event.
Metro reports that this year’s conference was the most well-attended yet, with 2,500 teachers, school administrators, and counselors present. White attendees at the event were targeted and asked to brandish merchandise such as T-shirts and wristbands that bore the phrase, “Got Privilege?”
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This year’s conference theme was “Let Freedom Ring, Re-Imagining Equality & Social Justice in the United States,” and focused attention on all that is wrong with America, according to the conference creators.
“Throughout the history of the United States, ‘liberty’ and ‘justice’ have been espoused values, which have only ever applied to a very small minority of people,” read the letter to conference participants. “The Constitution supported the enslavement of Africans; the U.S. government orchestrated the decimation of Native American nations; until 1952 Congress prohibited Asians and Latinos from naturalizing as U.S. citizens because they were not White; the Bill of Rights did not apply to persons who were not White, male and Christian.”
The event focused on national issues as well as local issues, with workshops such as “Adding a De-colonizing Lens to Expand our Vision of Racial Equity and Social Justice” and “What Happened to My Hood? White Supremacy, Gentrification and Displacement in Philadelphia.”
Student workshops included “Racial Literacy Reflections: Youth Buffering Rejection through a Racial Trauma Magazine,” “I’m a Good Person! Isn’t That Enough?” “Nativism 101,” and “Hip Hop and White Privilege.”
The event also hosted breakout sessions and “Institutes” on specific topics such as “The National Constitution Center: An Exploration of the White Racial Frame,” “White Women: Internalized Sexism and White Superiority,” and “White Followership — Centering People of Color and Building Effective White Practices for Racial Justice & Systemic Change.”
This year’s event expanded its focus to include the impact that white privilege allegedly has on LGBTQ issues as well. One workshop, “’But I’m an Ally!’: LGBTQ Youth, Inersectionality & White Privilege,” for example, “help[s] youth-serving professionals unpack how white privilege and white supremacy limit our ability to be effective allies to LGBTQ youth, in particular, LGBTQ youth of color,” the conference program explained.
Another workshop, “White American Islamophobia,” explored the notion that Islamophobia is non-partisan by referencing white conservative pundits such as Bill O’Reilly and white liberal pundits such as Bill Maher, both of whom apparently espouse anti-Islamic ideologies.
According to one lecturer, Christianity’s influence in the United States is to blame for all the world’s social injustices. Lecturer Paul Kivel boldly claimed that nearly every issue in society, ranging from racism to sexism, stems from “Christian hegemony,” and that the core Christian ideas “colonize our mind.” He contnued, “In the United States, there’s seven to ten thousand predominantly white, Christian men, who run the major institutions in our society: The corporations, the political parties, the think tanks, the foundations, universities, [and] cultural institutions.” Of course, many sincere Christians would object to the people who run such institutions being labeled “Christians,” and many of the societal elites do not even profess to be observant Christians.
Kivel blamed Christianity for the world’s wars in the Middle East, the weak economy, and global warming. For example, he insisted that Christianity is to blame for the weak U.S. economy because Christians allegedly claim that God’s “invisible hand” drives market forces within the evil capitalist system (most of them do no such thing): “We live in a society in which it is widely believed that there is a just God, and that he rewards those who work hard and are good people, i.e. the job creators … and that he punishes those who are not good people, i.e. who are poor or slothful. The invisible hand is the hand of God.”
The Daily Caller reports that despite Kivel’s contempt for Christianity, he still touts himself as a spiritual person, embracing the beliefs of the Native Americans because of their respect for the sanctity of the Earth.
In fact, Kivel began his lecture by asking attendees to remember that the event they were attending was taking place on land stolen from the Native Americans, a claim that the Daily Caller disproved.
“The WPC takes place in downtown Philadelphia, and Philadelphia’s land was not seized from Indians. Instead, William Penn amicably purchased the land from the Lenape because he wanted to have good relations with native tribes,” the Daily Caller stated.
This year’s WPC also seemed intent on reinforcing the notion of inherent racism within the police force by inviting the mother of a man killed by police — after he violated a restraining order and shot an officer — to serve as a keynote speaker.
Delphine Matthews, mother of Frank McQueen, alleged her son’s innocence during her address. She admitted that McQueen has violated the restraining order in the past and had a criminal record, but she refused to accept that her son shot an officer. She provoked sympathy from attendees by stating she did not have the financial means to pursue “justice” for her son, which resulted in an outpouring of donations from Moore, who invited attendees to follow his lead.
On the second day of the event, speaker Pam Africa, a member of the activist organization MOVE that is perhaps best known for engaging in a gunfight with police in the 1980s, called upon attendees to rally for Mumia Abu-Jamal, a convicted cop killer.
“He is desperately in need of our help,” she said, adding that he is dying of Hepatitis C.
Africa contends that Abu-Jamal was in fact framed by the government, prompting her to call for revolutionary action to bring down the government.
“Long live revolution, and let’s take this motherf***** down,” Africa concluded to reportedly thundering applause.
Despite the conference’s espousal of anti-government, anti-Christian, anti-American, and anti-white ideologies, the event was vastly underreported in the mainstream media. But then again, that the mainstream media would avoid reporting on a conference that was anti-Christian, anti-American, and ant-white should come as no surprise.
