KAREN CROW?

You'd expect madness out of Ann Arbor, but apparently it spreads easily enough to the branch campus at Dearborn. There's a "Non-POC (People of Color) Cafe" for "students who do not identify as persons of color to gather and to discuss their experience as students on campus and as non-POC in the world."

Twitchy writers are framing the story as if it's a segregated physical space, in the manner of the cool kids' table in high school or the black students' table in the food court.  It's more accurate to think of these virtual sessions as yet more Zooming, and the deanlets and deanlings of Morale Conditioning issued a clarification.

UM-Dearborn sincerely regrets the terms used to describe the "cafe" events held on September 8. The terms used to describe these virtual events and the descriptions themselves were not clear and not reflective of the university’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.

University of Michigan-Dearborn is committed to fostering and maintaining an inclusive campus environment and encourages ongoing dialogue amongst our students, faculty and staff on challenging issues. As campus activities continue to operate in a predominantly remote capacity due to COVID-19, our Center for Social Justice and Inclusion has looked to develop virtual spaces that allow for these important conversations to continue.

The “cafes” were virtual open conversations developed to allow students the opportunity to connect to process current events, share their experiences related to race, share knowledge and resources and brainstorm solutions. The original intent was to provide students from marginalized communities a space that allowed for them to exist freely without having to normalize their lives and experiences, while also providing students that do not identify as persons of color the opportunity to deepen their understanding of race and racism without harming or relying on students of color to educate them.

To ensure that these spaces were kept safe and respectful, the “cafes” had a faculty/staff member as a facilitator.

The events were never intended to be exclusive or exclusionary for individuals of a certain race. Both events were open to all members of the UM-Dearborn campus community.

Love me some double-speak just before supper.  These were not physically segregated spaces with assigned seating.  These were virtually segregated spaces in which people who did not identify as the type named could look in.  But the People of Color space was a virtual safe space to vent (presumably a non-POC observer could quietly observe) whilst the non-POC space was a virtual hectoring space where the re-education was done by the facilitator.  Got it?