Thread: Princeton University Student’s Bold Response After Allegedly Being Told Repeatedly to

Going Viral: Princeton University Student’s Bold Response After Allegedly Being Told Repeatedly to ‘Check Your Privilege’
Apr. 30, 2014 4:12pm Jason Howerton
Tal Fortgang, a freshman at Princeton University, says he has been ordered to “check your privilege” by his “moral superiors” several times this year because he happens to be a white male. In a column in the Princeton Tory, Fortgang takes on the ideology he says ”assumes that simply because I belong to a certain ethnic group I should be judged collectively with it.”
Tal Fortgang, Princeton University

Tal Fortgang, Princeton University

“There is a phrase that floats around college campuses, Princeton being no exception, that threatens to strike down opinions without regard for their merits, but rather solely on the basis of the person that voiced them. ‘Check your privilege,’ the saying goes, and I have been reprimanded by it several times this year,” the student writes. “The phrase, handed down by my moral superiors, descends recklessly, like an Obama-sanctioned drone, and aims laser-like at my pinkish-peach complexion, my maleness, and the nerve I displayed in offering an opinion rooted in a personal Weltanschauung.”

“‘Check your privilege,’ they tell me in a command that teeters between an imposition to actually explore how I got where I am, and a reminder that I ought to feel personally apologetic because white males seem to pull most of the strings in the world,” he continues.

Fortgang then explores his family’s history to figure out where his “privilege” comes from:

Perhaps it’s the privilege my grandfather and his brother had to flee their home as teenagers when the Nazis invaded Poland, leaving their mother and five younger siblings behind, running and running until they reached a Displaced Persons camp in Siberia, where they would do years of hard labor in the bitter cold until World War II ended. Maybe it was the privilege my grandfather had of taking on the local Rabbi’s work in that DP camp, telling him that the spiritual leader shouldn’t do hard work, but should save his energy to pass Jewish tradition along to those who might survive. Perhaps it was the privilege my great-grandmother and those five great-aunts and uncles I never knew had of being shot into an open grave outside their hometown. Maybe that’s my privilege.

Or maybe it’s the privilege my grandmother had of spending weeks upon weeks on a death march through Polish forests in subzero temperatures, one of just a handful to survive, only to be put in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where she would have died but for the Allied forces who liberated her and helped her regain her health when her weight dwindled to barely 80 pounds.

Perhaps my privilege is that those two resilient individuals came to America with no money and no English, obtained citizenship, learned the language and met each other; that my grandfather started a humble wicker basket business with nothing but long hours, an idea, and an iron will—to paraphrase the man I never met: “I escaped Hitler. Some business troubles are going to ruin me?” Maybe my privilege is that they worked hard enough to raise four children, and to send them to Jewish day school and eventually City College.

Perhaps it was my privilege that my own father worked hard enough in City College to earn a spot at a top graduate school, got a good job, and for 25 years got up well before the crack of dawn, sacrificing precious time he wanted to spend with those he valued most—his wife and kids—to earn that living. I can say with certainty there was no legacy involved in any of his accomplishments. The wicker business just isn’t that influential.Now would you say that we’ve been really privileged? That our success has been gift-wrapped?

The real problem with the notion of automatic “privilege,” he explains, is you have no idea what their struggles have really been or “what they may have gone through to be where they are.”

“Behind every success, large or small, there is a story, and it isn’t always told by sex or skin color. My appearance certainly doesn’t tell the whole story, and to assume that it does and that I should apologize for it is insulting,” Fortgang writes. “While I haven’t done everything for myself up to this point in my life, someone sacrificed themselves so that I can lead a better life. But that is a legacy I am proud of.”

“I have checked my privilege. And I apologize for nothing,” he concludes.

Fortgang is from New Rochelle, N.Y., and plans to major in either history or politics.

His column has received both praise and criticism. One commenter told Fortgang that as a “white male, you are most likely ignorant of the ingrained racism or sexism that lives in society today.”

“You want to play oppression olympics? What about the millions of blacks enslaved in America for 300 years, who then had to deal with segregation and Jim Crow while new immigrants were allowed to assimilate into white culture within one or 2 generations,” another wrote.

One commenter on the College Fix website replied, “From a black guy (although my pic doesn’t show it), good for him. And nicely said.”


http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014...our-privilege/

Sadly our universities are openly socialist/communist/liberals they feel with the current administration no need to hide it's in the open. I have a brother-in-law who is a professor he knows nothing of the real world isolated in world of socialism where they believe high taxes and government hand outs will cure all evil.

Quote from the article below, "You want to play oppression Olympics? What about the millions of blacks enslaved in America for 300 years, who then had to deal with segregation and Jim Crow while new immigrants were allowed to assimilate into white culture within one or 2 generations,” another wrote.

I guarantee if we go one to one with this liberal puke about Black verses White oppression, he will loose. Should we talk about the Black on White "Knock Out" games? About the disproportionally high ratio of White victims of Black violence compared to Black victims of White violence?

Yes lets talk about how "hard" Blacks are supposed to have it. Let's talk about so-called "Affirmative Action" which is nothing but institutionalized anti-White racism; it is a despicable, racially prejudice, government enforced policy, that tells Whites they can't get into colleges or good jobs because they are reserved for non -Whites. Racial discrimination has not ended in America it has simply changed from racism against blacks to racism against Whites. The only difference is that self-righteous, guilt stricken, self-hating White liberals will not ever acknowledge Black privilege or White disadvantages. The problem with honest objectivity about racial status is it takes away the moral superiority high White liberals thrive on.

Notice how fast White liberals come running, tripping over their tongues to denounce another White, never a Black (that, ipso facto, would be racist). The liberal's self-hating, psychotic obsession with not being a racist is troubling. Healthy minds do not concoct excuses to vilify one's own kind or invent fairy tales about problems for others where none exists. Being able to know someone else's secret thoughts (accusations of racism without any solid proof) is one of the signs of paranoia.

I can tell you from my own experience in life, NOBODY EVER GAVE ME A JOB OR ANYTHING BECAUSE I AM WHITE -- NOT EVER. But I have seen non-Whites given jobs for which they were obviously not qualified, jobs never offered to me, or my White friends. This is something that happened to me and my friends, not to our ancestors 50 to 300 years ago. Which situations do you think are more relevant? Indirectly, liberals tell others that we deserved to be screwed over simply because we were White. Our whiteness is all a liberal needs to prove we had unfair privileges denied to a Black.

Liberal dogma is like a religion with the guilt stricken, self-hating White liberal; they are incapable of objective honesty. Notice the instant knee jerk reflux reaction to the article by Tal Fortgang.

Using anybody's race, sex, or beliefs as the basis for refuting what they say or denying their right to say it is not only anti-American, it's also contrary to the very purpose of enrolling in an institution of higher learning.

Making a substantive reply to people who use this tactic is a complete waste of time. Laughing in their faces, on the other hand, works wonderfully - and it feels good, too
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