How to Harpoon a Liberal
D'Souza, Dinesh
ear Chris, I really enjoyed the details of your "gun debate" with your history professor. When he began to quiver and describe your views as "truly scary"—that's when you know you really got...
...If I were to quote him in context, I would have to quote his entire book...
...You are in possession of stolen goods...
...At the time I was inexperienced in handling protesters, and I didn't know how I could possibly give my talk with all the noise...
...When I first heard this, from a white female professor of education, I was dumbfounded...
...It is threefold: to inspire and invigorate the conservative students, who often feel besieged...
...At more highbrow campuses, the students don't react in this way...
...When he began to quiver and describe your views as "truly scary"—that's when you know you really got through to him...
...Many people's opinions are excluded at the outset...
...More Adolf Hitler...
...I said, "that you have stolen furniture from someone else's house...
...So the premise of your question illustrates one of the ways in which racial preferences harm those of us who are minorities...
...So why don't you resign from this university and make room for a black or a Hispanic person...
...Is...
...D'Souza, I was appalled by your simplistic remarks...
...the head of the ACLU...
...The controversy over my appearance had brought out a huge crowd, and there were students crowding the hallways and standing outside...
...the head of the NAACP...
...What, then, is my objective...
...Nor was anyone from the administration in sight to establish any kind of order...
...No matter what I achieve in life, there will always be someone to snicker and say, 'Well, yes, but he only got there through affirmative action: And, look, it isn't some Ku Klux Klan guy saying that, it's liberals like you...
...Civil Rights Commission...
...D'Souza, has it occurred to you . . ." What follows is a question that I have heard a hundred times before...
...And so it goes...
...But at the same time I am all in favor of laws against theft: Wouldn't this be a ludicrous position to take...
...Recently a student came up to me and said, "Until I heard your lecture, my liberal arts education had not really begun, because my basic assumptions remained unquestioned:' More typically students come up to me and say, "Wow, that was really interesting...
...On more than one occasion I have been asked, "You have made some interesting points, but isn't it true that you can only say these things because you are not white...
...Well, you say that you are a racist and this is probably true...
...And then, as if explaining the situation to the audience, "I realize that diarrhea can be a serious problem...
...These students, who were African American males, had chained themselves to each other, and to their seats...
...And they're being truthful: they haven't...
...he doesn't expect me to do this...
...One tactic that I have lately encountered on campus is students and professors who stand up and say to me, "How can you say that racism has declined...
...I've never heard this stuff before...
...Why not give up your seat...
...These students listen to the facts I present, they are too uninformed and inarticulate to rebut them, and so they experience an inner rage...
...I think I was expected to go into stuttering denial...
...So the organizers decided to move the lecture to a larger hall...
...I discovered this more than a decade ago when Illiberal Education was published...
...I am thinking of campuses like San Jose State or the University of South Florida...
...I am white, and I am a racist...
...On these campuses there is a large contingent that is both radical and dumb, a lethal combination...
...Our campuses have become intellectually quite monolithic...
...In supporting racial preferences, you are happy to sacrifice other people's careers to pay for your misdeeds:' This was enough to answer the female professor, but on another campus an elderly white male who had also proclaimed himself a racist continued the argument in this way...
...I may have benefited from affirmative action...
...A second reason I do so many college lectures is because they are desperately needed...
...The audience chuckled, and I could see even the professor's radical supporters wearing a pained look...
...Even before I started my lecture, the students noisily rattled their chains...
...Now the victim comes to you and says, 'I want my furniture back' You refuse...
...If I can achieve these three goals, then my labors on the campus are fully justified...
...But giving up my seat would be too easy," the cunning rogue said...
...In some cases, right as I begin my speech, a student who is sitting in the front row will slowly and deliberately stand up, stretch out as if in an uncontrollable yawn, and then pick up his backpack and slowly begin to walk out, obviously drawing the attention of everyone in the audience...
...he cried out...
...They try to outsmart the speaker...
...Then I realized why: here was a white person corroborating their belief that America is a racist society...
...I get to speak to large groups of students who, even if they disagree with me, have come voluntarily to hear what I have to say...
...One way to be effective as a conservative is to figure out what annoys and disturbs liberals the most, and to keep doing it...
...How, then, can you criticize it...
...The business groups pay me better and treat me better...
...to flummox and bewilder the radical students, who are for the most part immune to persuasion...
...one fellow yelled out...
...Finally I had to pause and say, "Look, if you keep this up, by the end of this talk you will have given Hitler a good name...
...I decided to take an aggressive approach...
...Every time I said something, no matter how benign, he would yell, "That sounds like Hitler...
...This shows the degree to which the race debate is rigged...
...D'Souza, I appreciate your quotation from Orlando Patterson, but you have quoted him out of context:' To this I reply, "Of course I have quoted him out of context...
...The brighter students don't go the route of the heckler...
...This is a situation in which, as a speaker, I have to completely humiliate this student in order to defeat his distraction strategy and to win back the attention of the audience...
...All quotations are out of context...
...Since then I have become quite a veteran in handling dissent...
...I want to stay at this university so that I can fight for affirmative action and for other forms of social justice...
...Instead, I said, "Of course that is true...
...Recently I heard the following challenge from a law professor at Texas Tech: "Mr...
...Fortunately I was saved by divine intervention...
...I have also had the pleasure of debating a wide range of characters: Jesse Jackson...
...The victim says, 'But it's my furniture:' You answer, 'But for me to give it back would be too easy...
...That's just what Hitler thought...
...Even so, I continue to do college lectures for two reasons...
...Another condescending opener that I have heard several times is: "Mr...
...Some questions are so inane that I find it hard to believe that I am in a university setting...
...I lecture both to college groups and to business groups...
...The first is that I enjoy them...
...As a person of color I enjoy a kind of ethnic immunity, and that allows me to speak with much greater candor...
...Sometimes the students simply cover their ears or shout out obscenities...
...How tragic...
...More than once, I have had a student run shrieking from the room...
...My amazement increased when the black students in the audience began to applaud the self-confessed racist...
...There is a burst of laughter, the focus of the audience returns to me, and now I can go on with my speech...
...I am about to answer your question," I said, "but first I wanted to expose something that is underlying your question, which is pseudo-sophistication?' This was a crusher...
...I am especially fortunate to get paid to do it...
...I guess their point was that my criticisms of affirmative action amounted to a justification of oppression...
...That is the best way for me to make amends?' "Let us imagine...
...In a way I sympathize with them: their worldview has come crashing down, and it is very painful for them to cope with this recognition...
...When the professor expressed reluctance, I continued, "Why are you hesitating...
...You are not answering my question...
...The central arguments that underlie the massive debates around globalization, the role of America, the impact of new technologies, and the issue of cultural decline are utterly unfamiliar to students on our best campuses...
...When I hear a question like this, I rub my chin, as if thinking deeply, before giving my ready answer...
...My speaking is an equivalent of college teaching, without having to grade papers and deal with irascible department chairs and half-witted administrators...
...I am going to keep the furniture...
...My series of debates with Stanley Fish even led to that rarest of outcomes, a genuine friendship...
...Come on, why not put some action behind your convictions...
...I didn't ask for it, but I may have received it...
...I am glad that you recognize it and you want to make amends for it...
...and leading liberal scholars like Cornel West and Michael Eric Dyson...
...Usually I address the student, "Excuse me...
...If a white guy said the things that I say, he would be hounded off the podium...
...Indeed, the caliber of questions I have heard from professors over the years confirms my suspicion that many people in the academy are educated considerably beyond their intelligence...
...I replied, "Professor, let me begin by noting your misuse of the term 'tautological: If I say 'all bachelors are single,' that would be tautological, because the term 'bachelor' means one who is single...
...My goal, therefore, is to use my ethnic immunity to raise the curtain on some of these taboo issues, and to expand the parameters of what it is permissible to say, so that we can have an honest discussion that includes all parties...
...There are several ways to do this...
...I vividly recall a talk I gave at Tufts University, where I was alarmed to see a group of students sitting in the front row in chains...
...Where's the key...
...Their conferences are usually at very nice resorts, and there is typically a limousine to pick me up...
...And then I say something like, "It's the third door on the right...
...You remind me of the humorist who said during the Civil War: I have already given two cousins to the war, and I stand ready to sacrifice my wife's brother...
...That shut him up...
...the head of the U.S...
...Yes, harpooning liberals is a lot of fun...
...How, I asked myself, should I respond to this weird self-incrimination...
...By contrast, college towns are often in the middle of nowhere, the food and accommodations are mediocre, and in some cases there is no one to meet me at the airport, so I end up telephoning my student contact in his dorm...
...The liberals love to talk about diversity and celebrate diversity, but when they get a real dose of it, they often react with horror...
...If I have, then my reaction is not to be pleased but ashamed...
...The reason is that it puts all my accomplishments into question...
...Not long ago,while I was lecturing at UCLA, an American Indian whose body was literally a billboard of buttons began to just shout...
...Hecklers can be intimidating, but the speaker has a great advantage: he has the microphone...
...and to persuade the students in the political middle, who are usually the majority on any campus...
...Your comparison of the United States and other cultures was completely tautological...
...My comparison between America and other cultures may be an inappropriate analogy, but it most definitely isn't tautological:' This was very embarrassing for the professor, so he attempted a salvage operation...
...D'Souza, has it occurred to you that you are a beneficiary of affirmative action...
...You should have compared America to its own ideals...
...He turns around...
...While I relish speaking and debating at left-wing campuses—some people consider it my specialty—I am less enthusiastic about speaking at campuses that are left-wing and lowbrow...
...As the crowd shifted to the new location, the protesters found themselves chained to their seats...
Vol. 36 • January 2003 • No. 1
