Professor objects to no white people on campus demand — Transcript

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1. 0:00[Music]
2. 0:04time now for campus craziness and
3. 0:06tonight the title is not an
4. 0:08overstatement it really is crazy
5. 0:10consider Evergreen State College in
6. 0:11Washington and Olympia every year the
7. 0:13school holds a day in absence in years
8. 0:15past non one non-white students
9. 0:17symbolically left campus and attended
10. 0:19anti-racism events this year student
11. 0:22activists demanded that all white people
12. 0:24leave campus or else Brett Weinstein
13. 0:27refused he's professor at Evergreen
14. 0:28State and he called the race BAS demand
15. 0:30quote a show of force and an act of
16. 0:32Oppression in response to that here's
17. 0:35what happened this is not about you not
18. 0:39all about on terms of white privilege
19. 0:43this is not a discussion you have lost
20. 0:45that one you said some racist apologize
21. 0:48I did not stop telling people col
22. 0:51useless you're useless get the history
23. 0:53could pivot in the direction of the
24. 0:55values that you are standing here for
25. 0:57yeah resign what resign
26. 1:06wow Professor Brett Weinstein joins us
27. 1:08now Professor first of all thank you for
28. 1:10coming on that looks like something you
29. 1:12know out of nen 1975 was that I mean
30. 1:16what exactly was going on there what
31. 1:19happened well uh what happened is that
32. 1:2250 or so students decided to disrupt the
33. 1:27class that I was holding that morning
34. 1:29and demand my
35. 1:31resignation because you wouldn't leave
36. 1:33campus because you're
37. 1:35white uh well they imagine that I am a
38. 1:39racist and that I am teaching racism in
39. 1:42the classroom and uh that has caused
40. 1:46them to imagine that I have no right to
41. 1:49speak that I am harming students by the
42. 1:51very Act of teaching them what happened
43. 1:53after the video cut
44. 1:56out well that's an interesting story the
45. 1:58um the the campus police apparently
46. 2:01showed up outside of the classroom uh
47. 2:04the protesters then blocked their
48. 2:06entrance they uh I did not call the
49. 2:08police someone else called the police
50. 2:10and they were concerned for my safety
51. 2:12but when they tried to come into the
52. 2:14building to make sure that I was okay
53. 2:16the protesters blocked them and because
54. 2:19um the issue of policing is so sensitive
55. 2:21at the moment the police had to run
56. 2:23around and find another entrance to the
57. 2:24building to get inside and check with me
58. 2:28uh at the point they did that the
59. 2:30protesters moved on and uh coralled the
60. 2:33president of the college uh at his
61. 2:35office they extracted some demands from
62. 2:38him among the demands was that there
63. 2:41would be a uh a meeting well actually
64. 2:44demands is perhaps the wrong word a
65. 2:45concession that there would be a meeting
66. 2:47at 4:00 in uh a large room on top of our
67. 2:51library
68. 2:53building uh so um that meeting took
69. 2:56place at the end of the day and believe
70. 2:57it or not it was far crazier than the
71. 3:01video that you just showed th this whole
72. 3:03story is so over the top that even
73. 3:05though we do a lot of these it's hard
74. 3:07for me to believe it's real so the the
75. 3:09core demand is that all people of your
76. 3:11skin color leave the campus your
77. 3:13president is a guy called George Bridges
78. 3:16where was Bri why isn't there he is
79. 3:19right there why George Bridges is
80. 3:21supposed to be running this school why
81. 3:22is he allowing Mo a mob to threaten one
82. 3:25of his
83. 3:27professors well I must say um I have
84. 3:30some concern that the story is so
85. 3:32strange that it's not even going to make
86. 3:33sense to an audience that isn't local to
87. 3:36the
88. 3:37campus um Dr Bridges is allowing this
89. 3:42mob to effectively control the campus
90. 3:46and uh they have been in control since
91. 3:499:30 on Tuesday Morning uh at this
92. 3:53moment I believe Dr Bridges is
93. 3:57answering a set of Demands put forward
94. 4:00by the
95. 4:01protesters um and they have said that if
96. 4:04he does not uh if he does not accept
97. 4:07their demands that there will be
98. 4:09violence I do not know what his response
99. 4:11to those demands is going to be but I
100. 4:13know that that's taking place at this
101. 4:14hour he has also told the police to
102. 4:18stand down so although the campus police
103. 4:21have a sense of what it is that needs to
104. 4:24happen in a circumstance like this they
105. 4:26have been hobbled by the fact that they
106. 4:29answer to College administration and in
107. 4:32fact for several days have been
108. 4:34barricaded in the campus police station
109. 4:36oh my gosh this is like something out of
110. 4:39another country I I just hard to believe
111. 4:41any of this is real and just our our
112. 4:43viewers should look this up online
113. 4:44because there's there's a lot of pieces
114. 4:46of the story it's hard to convey on
115. 4:47television but you had this I thought
116. 4:49powerful line in your letter and I
117. 4:50assume you're no kind of right-winger if
118. 4:52you teaching Evergreen I'm sure you're
119. 4:53you know a Hillary voter but you had
120. 4:55this you had this no no not a not a
121. 4:57Hillary voter I'm a I'm a I'm a deeply
122. 4:59Progressive person um and I must say I'm
123. 5:02there you go I'm I'm troubled by what
124. 5:05this implies about the current state of
125. 5:07the left well you think you said people
126. 5:10shouldn't be allowed to speak or not on
127. 5:12the basis of their skin color which
128. 5:14seems like a foundational belief of the
129. 5:16left and one that I agree with strongly
130. 5:18and for that they physically threatened
131. 5:20you and are trying to get you
132. 5:22fired this is unb they they are
133. 5:25absolutely trying to get me fired and
134. 5:28they believe that um my words in my
135. 5:31email are transparently racist and I
136. 5:34think we're caught quite off guard when
137. 5:36people who were not at Evergreen read my
138. 5:38letter and couldn't find any racism in
139. 5:40it well yeah just the just the opposite
140. 5:42Professor godp speed to you and I hope
141. 5:45you'll come back with an update on the
142. 5:46story because it's really one of the
143. 5:48most amazing things I've ever seen thank
144. 5:49you