Thread: ‘White Student Union’ challenges Black Lives Matter at University of Illinois

‘White Student Union’ challenges Black Lives Matter at University of Illinois

By Justin Wm. Moyer November 20 at 2:28 AM


Screenshot of a post on the Facebook page of the Illini White Student Union that referenced the film “American History X,” about a violent white supremacist.

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A Facebook page ostensibly created for an audience at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign called “Illini White Students Union” has drawn fire after it characterized the national Black Lives Matter movement as “terrorism.”

Created Wednesday after a protest sympathetic to Black Lives Matter, the page declared itself “for white students of University of Illinois to be able to form a community and discuss our own issues as well as be able to organize against the terrorism we have been facing from Black Lives Matter activists on campus,” as the Daily Illini reported.

The page did not last long in its original incarnation, but was taken down after three hours. It has since been revived here.

“We recognize the right to free speech, and we encourage you to exercise that right when you see examples of racism, discrimination or intimidation on our campus,” Interim Chancellor Barbara Wilson, who called the page “extremely disturbing,” wrote in a message Thursday to the student body.

In an anonymous message to the News-Gazette, the page’s administrator discussed Black Lives Matter.

“We feel they disrupt student daily life and activity far too much,” the message read, saying that movement “marginalizes” white students. “… We are in the United States and not Africa and we don’t desire to have an African flag on campus.”

[Harvard Law has ‘serious’ racism problem, dean says after black professors’ portraits defaced]

The current page is bare bones — just a few links to news stories about the controversy with an image of a statue on campus. The “about” section dedicated the page to “White Pride and a safe place for White students,” according to the News-Gazette, though that page appeared to have changed.

A recent post was a clip from the 1998 film “American History X,” in which Edward Norton plays a white supremacist. In the clip, billed as “revelant to all Ferguson news,” Norton’s character denounces the 1992 riots in Los Angeles.

“It’s a bunch of people grabbing any excuse they can find to go and loot a store, nothing more,” Norton says. “…

Lincoln freed the slaves what, like, 130 years ago. How long does it take you to get your act together?”

[Why some students say Harvard Law School’s crest is ‘a source of shame’]

While this was certainly eyebrow-raising, the original page was even more provocative.

“Feel free to send in pictures you take of any black protestors on the quad so we know who anti-whites are,” one message read, as FOX 55 reported.


A student protest at the University of Illinois. (Charlotte Collins/The Daily Illini)

According to a student reporter, protesters were particularly concerned that they were being targeted.

“One of the parts on the page particularly concerning to students is that they were taking pictures from the rally of the main quad and identifying students in attendance to identify the ‘anti-whites,'” Marijo Enderle, a 20-year-old senior at the university, said in a telephone interview.

Enderle also pointed out that “there hasn’t been any indication that it has been a university student” who created the page.

Student or not, university administrators strongly denounced the effort. Not only was the page offensive — it used the university’s trademark without permission.

[White Americans long for the 1950s, when they didn’t face so much discrimination]

“It is disturbing and cowardly that someone would create an anonymous and senseless social media page specifically designed to intimidate others, including and especially our students. When we became aware of the page, we immediately contacted Facebook and requested that it be removed,” campus spokesman Robin Kaler wrote in an e-mail to the Daily Illini. “Facebook has been responsive to our requests, but the page continues to be reposted. We are continuing to work with Facebook to address this matter. We recognize that passions run deep on all sides of many issues, but actions like this are senseless and hurtful and do nothing to foster meaningful dialogue.”

Commenters’ views of the page differed.

“It is so sad to see that such ignorance still exists in 2015,” one commenter wrote. “The creator and supporters of this page are pathetic. These people are cowards that hide behind an anonymous account. Grow up.”

“As a Mexican American I do not find this page racist or in poor taste,” another wrote. “It’s only fair that you are allowed to have your own page and the same rights to freedom of speech as black Illini students have.”

In a Facebook message to The Washington Post, one man who posted a message in support of the white students union explained his thinking.

“What I do like about it is they are fighting for the rights of the white man which are dwindling faster than a rabbit on meth!” Alan Scroggins, a 37-year-old stay-at-home dad from Rantoul, Ill., wrote. “I’m not racist, but I’m proud of my heritage! You know!”

Asked whether he was concerned the page might be considered racist, Scroggins said “not really.”

“The second a white guy says anything about being proud he’s labelled anyway!” he wrote. “Trust me I don’t hide my pride!”

This is not the first time a white student union has been proposed at a U.S. university. A white student union, for example, cropped up at Towson University in Maryland in 2012.

“Every ethnic group has its own advocacy group but white students don’t,” senior Matthew Heimbach said at the time. He added: “Any time there’s a group with conservative principles and white students standing up for themselves, it’s a battle cry for radical leftists on campus. … There’s nothing I could do or say … to try and get these people on the same page as us.”

And in 1991, the New York Times discussed a similar group at the University of Minnesota.

“I have no desire to harm the non-white races,” senior Thomas A. David, who founded the group, said at the time. “I simply think it would help everyone to separate.”

He added: “I don’t want to be a mud race in this country, and I will fight to the death against that.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...mepage%2Fstory

“I’m not racist, but I’m proud of my heritage! You know!”

There's nothing wrong with white people being proud of their heritage, just as there's nothing wrong with black people fighting for equal rights and justice. I'm sure if white people thought they were being treated unfairly they would react and demand an end to it. Oh wait .... gee, I think that's what they're doing, right? The same thing the black students are doing.

Well, isn't that cute.

Black Lives Matter ‘will join forces’ with Islamic State

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

Black Lives Matter ‘will join forces’ with Islamic State

There is no evidence of this. This is a weird claim by a Milwaukee Sheriff. Not a fact, only a very strange opinion.

Black Muslims

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The phrase Black Muslims may describe any black people who are Muslim, but historically it has been specifically used to refer to African-American Black nationalist organizations that describe themselves as Muslim. Some of these groups are not considered to be Muslim within mainstream Islam.

These include:

• Moorish Science Temple of America
• Nation of Islam
• United Nation of Islam
• Five-Percent Nation
• Nuwaubian Nation
• American Society of Muslims
• ​

In a more general sense it can describe,

• Islam in Africa
• Islam in the African diaspora
• Islam in the United States

• This page was last modified on 10 November 2015, at 08:37.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Muslims

Islam in the United States

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Muhammad Ali Anousheh Ansari André Carson Keith Ellison Louis Farrakhan Asma Gull Hasan Ahmad Jamal Zalmay Khalilzad Nouman Ali Khan Dalia Mogahed Malcolm X Amina Wadud Siraj Wahhaj Rasheed Wallace Alexander Russell Webb Michael Wolfe
Total population
2.77 million (0.9% of the U.S. population, 2010)[1]
Regions with significant populations
New York metropolitan area, Greater Los Angeles Area, Chicago metropolitan area, San Francisco Bay Area, Minneapolis–Saint Paul,Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, Detroit metropolitan area (Dearborn), Northern Virginia, Houston, Texas, Philadelphia, and to a lesser extent Boston
Languages
American English, Arabic, Punjabi, Bengali,Persian, Spanish, Turkish, Bosnian, Russian,Chechen, Urdu, Albanian, Kurdish, Indonesian,Sindhi, Pashto, Malaysian, Chinese, other languages
Religion
Islam (majority Sunni, also Shia, Sufi, non-denominational,Ahmadiyya, Ibadi, Nation of Islam, Five Percenters,Moorish scientists, Quranic Movement, Liberals)

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Islam is the fourth-largest faith in the United States, after Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism.^[1] It was followed by 0.9% of the population in 2010, compared to 78.3% who follow Christianity, 16.4% unaffiliated, 1.8% Judaism and 1.2% Buddhism.^[1][2]

American Muslims come from various backgrounds and, according to a 2009 Gallup poll, are one of the most racially diverse religious groups in the United States.^[3]

Native-born American Muslims are mainly African Americans who make up about a quarter of the total Muslim population. Many of these have converted to Islam during the last seventy years. Conversion to Islam in largeurban areas^[4] has also contributed to its growth over the years.

While an estimated 10 percent^[5][6] of the slaves brought to colonial America from Africa arrived as Muslims,^[7][8] Islam was stringently suppressed on plantations.^[5] Prior to the late 19th century, most documented non-enslaved Muslims in North America were merchants, travelers, and sailors.^[7]

Islamic Center of Washington at Washington, D.C. was opened in 1957.

From the 1880s to 1914, several thousand Muslims immigrated to the United States from the former territories of the Ottoman Empire and the former Mughal Empire.^[9]

The Muslim population of the U.S. increased dramatically in the 20th century, with much of the growth driven by a comparatively high birth rate and immigrant communities of mainly Arab and South Asian descent. About 72% of American Muslims are immigrants or "second generation".^[10][11]

In 2005, more people from Islamic countries became legal permanent United States residents — nearly 96,000 — than there had been in any other year in the previous two decades.^[12][13] In 2009, more than 115,000 Muslims became legal residents of the United States.<sup>[14]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_..._United_States</sup>