‘Professor’ Steps in It, Reminds Us That the ‘Smartest People in the Room’ Rarely Are – Opinion

If I had a dime for every time a liberal Democrat asked me what my level of college education was, a question that is usually thrown out there right before they tell me that I’m not smart enough to be weighing in on current events and political/social matters, I’d be able to retire right now and buy my own private island.

Just for the record, I do have a college degree, but it’s not one of those fancy ones our intellectual betters on the left like to brag about in their Twitter profiles and over cocktails at trendy Washington, D.C. establishments.

For whatever reason, a person’s level of education at a “higher ed” institution has for decades been a measuring stick for some in gauging how smart people are. Just to be fair, most come out of college being much smarter than when they walked in, assuming they haven’t been indoctrinated by woke leftist educators.

However, while I respect and admire anyone who goes through the years to obtain law degrees or similar certificates, I don’t have any. precious littleAnyone who considers that degree to be a badge of honor is an elitist. They can treat other people like second-class citizens, who deserve to feel happy to get the same air quality as them.

All of this brings me to today’s story, which is the reaction of a prominent “progressive” novelist and professor to a story she clearly didn’t know anything about.

It all started with a tweet from CNN’s Jake Tapper in which he shared a story out of Washington state about the Mukilteo School District school board voting unanimously Monday to remove the classic book “To Kill a Mockingbird” from a required reading list for ninth graders due to “racial concerns.”

“Another school board removing another heralded book from its curriculum,” Tapper tweeted. “‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ will be removed from the Mukilteo WA School District’s ninth-grade English/Language Arts required reading list.”

Clicking on the link takes you to a video report, where you see one woman – presumably a parent or a teacher – who expressed concern over the book’s use of the “n-word,” the fact that it was written by a white author, and the alleged inability of white teachers to be able to explain the story contextually.

That “concern” was apparently the tone and tenor of other members of the community based on the story filed by the Everett Herald, which reported that one school board member talked about how they had “a visceral reaction to the racism in the book.” It was also noted that the effort to remove the book from the required list was started by three teachers who cited the following reasons: it “celebrates white saviorhood,” “marginalizes characters of color” and “uses the ‘n’ word almost 50 times.”

As you’ve probably guessed at this point, the war against the book was waged by wokesters on the left, a trend we’ve seen over the last couple of decades in response to books like “TKAM,” “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” and similar novels.

A simple click on Tapper’s link and a watching of the video would have given her an idea of where the opposition to the book came from, by that’s note what novelist/professor Joyce Carol Oates did. Here was her reaction to Tapper’s tweet:

Because it is offensive to racists, “To Kill a Mockingbird” has been removed from a school’s curriculum. Whatever the reason, it must be true. https://t.co/x1hiQkMPKR

— Joyce Carol Oates (@JoyceCarolOates) January 28, 2022

And she wasn’t the only one. A similar response was posted by the Pima County Democrats (Arizona).

Fascism. https://t.co/6DeawXOgF5

— Pima County Democratic Party (@PimaDems) January 28, 2022

Brad Slager, a RedState friend and colleague set Oates straight:

Again, Ms. Oates proves she’s a master at reading headlines.
Joyce, don’t spend too much time looking at the story. Your outrage will be stifled by the details of an OOC woman who was offended by racist language used in writings written by white authors.

Joyce refers to this woman as a “racist” for the record. https://t.co/UtbvSqNZXC pic.twitter.com/ulfuFYsg1f

— Brad Slager – Incontinent On Another Continent (@MartiniShark) January 28, 2022

It’s a painful reminder (for Oates and the Pima Dems) that it’s best to click on links BEFORE you knee-jerk react and make yourself look like a complete fool later (though I have ZERO doubt they’ll still try to justify their comments once they realize what they did, because Democrats are never wrong). It’s a good reminder for anyone else who has a tendency to do these things. A great many Twitter “outrages” could be avoided if people would just do this one simple thing:

Click. the. link.