Cornell hosts 'People's School' for an ‘anti-capitalist’ future
Cornell University will soon play host to a “People’s School” where students will have the opportunity to learn techniques on how to “fight back against the current capitalist agenda.”
The upcoming event will feature an afternoon of sessions on the ills of capitalism, calling America’s faith in such an economic system the “stuff of myths.”
“Capitalism depends upon the myth of meritocracy, that we only need to work hard to get ahead,” an advertisement for the event, obtained by Campus Reform, states, suggesting that “not only is this logic the stuff of myths” but it “blames people who ‘fail’ to succeed and disallows any critique of the many structural/historical barriers to liberation.”
Among which, the ad contests, are “anti-blackness, and other forms of racism, ableism, sexism, imperialism/militarism, miss incarceration, political corruption, [and] environmental degradation,” then noting that “political education provides the tools to construct alternatives.”
The People’s School, kicking off on Friday, apparently exists to “fight back against the capitalist agenda,” an agenda that “depends on exploitation, disunity, and acquiescence of the marginalized and oppressed.”
[RELATED: Only whites who hate capitalism are BLM allies]
“We are collectively responsible for our future and must look to one another for understanding and support as we imagine and build that future,” the advertisement continues. “This is a future that is anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-capitalist, and supportive of the oppressed people of the world.”
The flyer for the day-long event explicitly spells out its goal, which is one of “political education,” an aspiration that is apparently “increasingly impossible within the university, the town hall, [and] the union office,” since these “places erect walls” and hold people “back from the conversations, debates, and knowledge that will inspire action and change in our schools, communities, country, and world.”
While the event will not be officially sponsored by the elite university, with the school’s senior director of media relations, John Carberry, telling Campus Reform that the People’s School is “not an official Cornell student group,” several official student groups will be assisting with the event and leading presentations on the topic.
[RELATED: U Buffalo to host ‘capitalism or crapitalism’ workshop]
In fact, it appears that almost all of the professors, students, and student organizations assisting are associated with Cornell, according to a list of “who’s coming” on the event’s official advertisement.
Still, though, Carberry explained that “no space for this event was reserved by any Cornell student group,” but, notably, the event has reserved a total of not just one but nine spaces in the school’s Klarman Hall.
Campus Reform reached out to organizers of the People’s School for comment, but did not receive a response in time for publication.
Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @AGockowski
