When last we wrote about the womyn at Smith College, they were protesting the invitation of Christine Lagarde, a French leftist in good standing and the first woman to head the International Monetary Fund, to be the commencement speaker at the school’s 2014 graduation. The Smithies—both students and faculty—believed that Lagarde was insufficiently radical because she ran an organization that exists as a mere tool for neocolonial oppression. Lagarde withdrew.
This came after a year in which tensions flared between students and the administration over the issue of “transgendered” applicants. The school’s liberal, feminist administrators maintained that high school boys who claimed to be women should not be allowed into the women’s college, because this would be transgressing upon sacred space. The school’s liberal feminist students believed that this position amounts to sexist bigotry.
All of which is to say that Smith College is a charming example of an environment where the liberal grown-ups are always struggling to stay in step with the radical children. Often with amusing—if depressing—results.
So it was no surprise that the Smith campus was thrown into turmoil yet again two weeks ago when the president, Kathleen McCartney, attempted to support protests that had begun to crop up in the community concerning the Ferguson grand jury decision.
As the Daily Hampshire Gazette reported, McCartney sent out a campus-wide email about Ferguson on December 6. She began by proclaiming, “As members of the Smith community we are struggling, and we are hurting. . . . In my conversations with you, I hear discouragement as you share how your lives have been disrupted, how you have lost faith in the quest for racial equality, and how you fear for people of color. . . . We gather in vigil, we raise our voices in protest; yet we wake again to news of violence that reminds us, painfully, of the stark reality of racial injustice.” McCartney then provided a list of activities designed “to hold and heal those who are in pain.”
In truth, McCartney’s prescribed activities were thin gruel—a vigil, a panel discussion, “listening”—you know how these things are. She then closed by saying, “We are united in our insistence that all lives matter.” At which point, all hell broke loose.
The phrase “All Lives Matter” was also the subject header of McCartney’s email, and the Smith community did not like it. Not one bit.
Your first reflex may be to think that the Smithies were offended that McCartney was trying to sneak in a cryptic reference about abortion and the unborn. But that’s inconceivable, of course. No, the womyn of Smith were offended because saying “all lives matter” was an act of racist white privilege. Really.
The phrase “all lives matter” “minimizes the anti-blackness of this the current situation,” wrote one student. Another told the Gazette, “It felt like she was invalidating the experience of black lives.” A third added, “A lot of my news feed was negative remarks about her as a person.” Well, of course.
Within hours, McCartney was groveling for forgiveness. She sent out a follow-up email that should stand for all time as a symbol of what the liberal academy has become:
I am writing as a follow-up to my email from earlier today to reflect what I have already learned from members of the community. Specifically, I regret that I was unaware the phrase/hashtag “all lives matter” has been used by some to draw attention away from the focus on institutional violence against Black people. . . . I thank those of you who shared your wisdom and wise counsel with me today. I am committed to working as a white ally, to learning from the lived experiences of people of color, and to acknowledging mistakes, despite my best intentions.
There’s a lot to marvel at, but perhaps the best detail is McCartney’s capitalization of “Black people” but lowercase “white ally.” We hope this small acknowledgment of the hierarchy of victimology was enough to mitigate some of the harm she did to the tender souls under her charge.