'Racial Justice as Buddhist Practice' event argues that 'Whiteness is based on delusion'
The speakers did acknowledge that the talk was based on the curriculum of 'White Awake,' a nonprofit organization.
Peking University, Columbia University, Princeton University, Harvard University, the University of British Columbia, Cambridge University, and Oxford University partner on the talk's lecture series.
“Whiteness is based on delusion, produces suffering, and should be relinquished.”
That declaration comes from a collaborative multi-university lecture on why Buddhists have a responsibility to disrupt ”whiteness,” organized by some of the world’s most prestigious institutions of higher education.
The Jan. 24 event titled “Whiteness is a Sankhara: Racial Justice as Buddhist Practice” included speakers who expressed the importance of “waking up from whiteness,” “being liberated from whiteness,” “alleviat[ing] the suffering caused by whiteness,” “undo[ing] whiteness,” and “confronting whiteness.”
Peking University, Columbia University, Princeton University, Harvard University, the University of British Columbia, Cambridge University, and Oxford University partner on the “The Yin-Cheng Distinguished Lecture Series” that included the “Whiteness is a Sankhara” talk in its programming earlier this semester.
[RELATED: Instructor makes Taylor Swift music course about race]
The speakers at the event included Ann Gleig, associate professor of religion and cultural studies at the University of Central Florida, and Joy Brennan, Kenyon College assistant professor of religious studies. Jessica X Zu, assistant professor of religion at the University of Southern California Dornsife, served as the “discussant.”
The speakers did acknowledge that the talk was based on the curriculum of “White Awake,” a nonprofit organization.
“Because people categorized as white are awarded certain types of privileges, and because privileges generally consist of access to things all people should have, white people are not directly confronted with the everyday effects of racism in the ways that people of color are,” the curriculum states on the organization’s website.
[EXCLUSIVE: ‘Under the surface’ of Critical Race Theory is ‘old Marxist language,’ expert warns]
James Lindsay, co-author of the book Cynical Theories, told Campus Reform that “Whiteness is the racial repackaging of Marx’s concept of ‘bourgeois private property.’”
”Marx’s instructions for bourgeois property are clear in the Communist Manifesto, ‘Communism can be summarized in the single sentence: Abolition of private property,’” Lindsay added.
Campus Reform has reached out to Ann Gleig, Joy Brennan, Jessica X Zu, and all schools involved for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
Follow @PeterCordi on Twitter
