James Madison University has been under fire for a controversial video used for diversity and social justice training of employees. The video details groups of privileged and oppressed persons. While employees were reportedly told not to share the material with others, the material became public before the school suddenly pulled it off of its sites. What stood out for me was the inclusion of the term “heteroromantic” as a privileged group juxtaposed with the countervailing oppressed groups of “homoromantic, Aromantic, bi/panromatic” individuals. I had not previously seen those categories in such materials, so I sought out some definitions.
The training identifies various types of people at “agents” of privilege including able-bodied people, people between 30-50, “man, cis-gender people,” heterosexuals, Christians and “heteroromantic” people. Under the chart, many students would fit a type of uber-privileged conglomeration of all of the categories. This has led to many objecting to the implications of being tagged in this way — putting them opposite (and implicitly responsible for) oppressed groups. While half of the chart refers to the “privileged” (rather than the “oppressors”), the other half refers to the “oppressed.”
What was striking is the separation of heterosexuals and heteroromantics as separate categories for privilege. Merriam-Webster defines “heterosexual” as “of, relating to, or characterized by sexual or romantic attraction to or between people of the opposite sex.”
The training was presented by Jennifer Iwerks (assistant director for Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression programming) and Jessica Weed (coordinator of student activities). In her own identity disclosure, Iwerks identifies herself as “”temporarily able-bodied.”
For those who were not familiar with the heteroromantic category, here is how such terms have been defined on other sites:
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Aromantic: individuals who do not experience romantic attraction toward individuals of any gender(s)
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Biromantic: romantic attraction toward males and females
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Heteroromantic: romantic attraction toward person(s) of a different gender
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Homoromantic: romantic attraction towards person(s) of the same gender
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Panromantic: romantic attraction towards persons of every gender(s)
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Polyromantic: romantic attraction toward multiple, but not all genders
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Gray-romantic: individuals who do not often experience romantic attraction
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Demiromantic: an individual who does not experience romantic attraction until after a close emotional bond has been formed. People who refer to themselves as demiromantic may choose to further specify the gender(s) of those they are attracted to (e.g. demi-homoromantic).
The university has now removed the video but has not made any other statements on the training program or underlying categories.
In other news, Austin, Blinken, and Milley SHOULD RESIGN NOW over Afghanistan. It’s appalling they’re still there. If they don’t get that yet, they will when people start dying. Absolute disgrace.
That fraud Les Aspen resigned over Somalia. At least Clinton knew how to handle incompetents.
Scott Adams [ Dilbert ] explained CRT very clearly. In CRT if you are not a victim then your an A**-hole. It’s a binary choice; one or the other with no middle ground. So you’re either one or the other; victim or A**-hole.
And they’ll start saying so to our faces if they ever get control of the military and law enforcement. The CRT apologists are total liars. Marxists, like jihadis, believe lying is virtuous. “The end justifies the means.”
Senecagriggs: Nice reference to Dilbert. I have already admitted to being an A**hole. I would rather wear that badge than the Victim Badge.
Hear hear!!
What a thrill it must be to discover you can get paid large sums of money to make people believe whatever you can fantasize is real.
Welcome to the mindless left that produces fantasies paid for by those that live in the real world.
we should stop paying them. Civil disobedience, if done in droves, cannot be processed by the government effectively.
I tried to view the video because I tend to want to go to the primary source for information. I absolutely trust Professor Turley but still, like to see things for myself. It was not available, removed. Also, the folks who were forced to view it were told not to share. I highlight these points because that is the sort of thing you do when you are ashamed of what you are sharing. Or lack confidence in what you are sharing. If they believed this claptrap and felt confidence in it then they would not only allow it to be shared they would want it to be shared. What an efficient way to get their wisdom spread to the masses.
There is a scandal in a religious organization because those in authority told those without any authority not to tell anyone.
If you are bent you are bent.
You are bent all the way.
From your first cigarette to your last dying day!
-Or:
Glory Glory hallelujah!
Sister hit me with a ruler!
I beaned her in the bean..
With a rotten tangerine!
And school kept marching on!
I think I found the problem. “…assistant director for Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression programming” ….
Exactly Chris! Also remember that there is also a Director for Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression Programming….
Yes, and isn’t that truly amazing. And there are people in the Congress who don’t necessarily want to sponsor a bill for “free” college tuition but want the President to sign another stupid executive order for all taxpayers to pay college tuition.
And a board that created both positions.
I first ran into the term “temporarily able bodied” (TAB) many years ago when working with programs serving people with severe disabilities. It was an ironic and mildly derogatory/dismissive phrase used by physically disabled people to refer to those of us who were not physically disabled. For example, “You TABS will have your day”. As I age I am finding more resonance with the term. TAB is indeed temporal. I never heard it used by non disabled people to refer to themselves. Its use by a non physically disabled person as a self identifier would seem to be cultural appropriation, or at least too cute by half. We are all mortal.
It wasn’t that long ago that liberals of this ilk were telling us how wrong it is to stereotype, profile, or categorize people. Now they are constantly inventing new ways to divide us into groups, and more importantly want us to believe we’re all either oppressors or oppressed based on skin color or other traits we have no control over. How about we go back to looking at everyone as human beings and only judge one another based on their character.
“[I]f I encountered people conveying a message I thought was so dangerous that I could not risk giving it a fair hearing, I would be at least strongly tempted to misrepresent it, to caricature it for the public good. I’d want to make up some good epithets, such as genetic determinist or reductionist or Darwinian Fundamentalist, and then flail those straw men as hard as I could. As the saying goes, it’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it.” — Daniel Dennet
George Mason University, where men are men and sheep are nervous.
Rome is officially on fire with this insidious pap. These artists of fraud mock the language and biology in their quest for power and meaning. And sods in charge give them this….what a load all around these weak minded are !.
In my day we would have simply labeled such individuals “imbeciles” and walked away, end of discussion.
Do you really want to attend a university that panders to imbeciles?
Presumably, Iwerks and Weed will go on to further successes in the future, this is just a tiny bump in their road.
Should both be fired, but ROFLMAO on that one.
And to think these people are getting paid to come up with this stuff.
I have been reading about American institutions failing the American public. Reading this, I can see why.
They can muck around with language, but their idiocy lies in their arbitrary assignment of “oppressor” and “victim” status, and their hubris in assuming they can tell people they are victims. Maybe these “guardians of the oppressed” should actually go into communities not infected with “wokeness” and talk to people. They might see that not all poor or disabled people feel like victims, and most are rather proud of whatever accomplishments they have made. The world isn’t as simple or simplistic as the muddle-headed woke mob wants to believe.
And just what does “temporarily able-bodied” mean? Is she feeling so guilty about being in good health (now considered to be oppressive to others) that she’s planning to cut off a leg or poke her eyes out so she’ll better fit the narrative? Why is society allowing these neurotic and clearly intellectually challenged individuals to sabotage our culture? Every statement they make can be debunked with a few minutes on google — it’s not rocket science. Instead, intelligent people are standing by in fear while the barbarians storm the gates. Rome was sabotaged from within, and only fell because its core was already rotten. Seems like that will be America’s fate also.
“O brave new world that has such people in it”
Perfect irony.
These people have waaay too much time on their hands.
If we asked for lesson plans from the inmates of a lunatic asylum they could hardly be more ridiculous.
Come to think of it, where did this absolute crap originate?
At least somebody was sufficiently tethered to reality to try to hide it before the public found out.
“If we asked for lesson plans from the inmates of a lunatic asylum . . .”
During the Dark Ages, insanity (textbook “insanity”) engulfed entire towns. Now it’s engulfing academia.
Sam– I think that, Dark Ages madness, was down to ergot poisoning in many cases. Today I think society is suffering from Twitter Positioning. There is a sort of hive mind that has gone goofy and mistakes the Twitterverse for reality and the condition is worsened by the extreme contributions of a significant number on Twitter. Thus society is turned Bat S**t Crazy.
Twitter Poisoning.
Didn’t notice the helpful spellcheck change.
There is also the phenomenon of “Mass Psychosis”, such as witch hunts, which occurred during that period but also continues even to today.
https://youtu.be/fdzW-S8MwbI
“Come to think of it, where did this absolute crap originate?”
There’s a terrific book that addresses that question. It explains the remarkable similarities between “modernism” and “madness:”
_Madness And Modernism: Insanity In The Light Of Modern Art, Literature, And Thought_, by Louis Sass (a psych prof at Rutgers)
“The similarities between madness and modernism are striking: defiance of authority and convention; an extreme, often dizzying relativism, which can culminate in paralysis; nihilism and all-embracing irony; a tantalizing, uncanny, but always frustrating sense of revelation; obliteration of standard forms of time and narrative; pervasive dehumanization; and disappearance of external reality in favor of the omnipotent ego or, alternatively, dissolution of all sense of selfhood.”
https://www.amazon.com/Madness-Modernism-Insanity-Literature-Thought/dp/0465043127
It seems like the further we delve into today’s sexuality narrative the more complex our world becomes for our children and grand children. Maybe we all need just to read a good novel, one in which we see ourselves in both the hero and the villain. Whatever the current theory, we all are both.
Some people might be oppressed, Some normal people are going to be depressed.
“Heteroromantic”, what a fancy word for straight.
No wonder academics get the big bucks.
But not enough definitions. What about a sheep lover?
The “school” is being discriminatory in leaving they off the list.
I think it’s high time we embrace the label ‘privileged.’ As in grateful to have the privilege to live our life to the fullest, give back to those in need, treating ourselves and others gently and making the most of this life we’ve been given!
Wonder last comment, Lisa.