@thestustustudio - Stu Smith
Last week @GlennYoungkin did a media circuit declaring that "DEI is done at the University of Virginia." If that were the case, there wouldn't be a private workshop and seminar on "Decolonizing Your Syllabus" and "Seeing the Unseen: Identifying and Unlearning Colonial Paradigms in Higher Education" which is happening this Friday at UVA. What does Decolonial thought look like? Here are three professors, all from Virginia's Top 3 Public Universities, discussing Decolonial Theory. Meet the University of Virginia's Tiffany King, Virginia Tech's Bikrum Gill, and William & Mary's Stephen Sheehi. Do these professors sound like educators or radicals hellbent on destroying America? "In the moment that you grab the gun like Fanon says, you're no longer oppressed, you're now free. How do we teach that in the class? Just to say that in the class, my students' heads explode. Right? To tell them about violence, you know, as a revolutionary tool, as sometimes a revolutionary essential." "We actually need to crash the US settler state" "We must stand with the armed resistance and work right now to end this impunity by disrupting the flow of weapons to Zionist cause. The armed resistance will defeat Zionism if it was open battlefield." I can't tell you how many times I have heard it, "Decolonialization is not a metaphor." This Trojan Horse ideology has infected campuses all over America and this is what it looks like in Virginia. Stick around as we look at next week's event at UVA, how Decolonization creates Title VI complaints, and national security concerns related to this! 🧵
@thestustustudio - Stu Smith
Next Friday, The Center for Teaching Excellence at UVA is hosting University of Memphis professor and activist Amanda Lee Keikialoha Savage. As you can see, she will be holding at a seminar and doing a workshop as well. Both of these events are not open to the public. As you heard in the intro video, UVA's Professor King said, "Challenge what the settler state, the settlement of, the University of Virginia that we're on, which is still a plantation and has all of its plantation artifice up, right, and artifacts. I'm trying to really ride the wheels off of these institutional resources, and go for broke." Decolonial theorists actually see the university itself as a form of colonization. Frantz Fanon said, "Colonialism is a psychic and epistemological process as much as a material one." These academic activists see the university as a seat of power that continues to perpetuate inequality, exploitation, and colonial legacies. They believe the university doesn't prioritize Indigenous, Black, and marginalized voices and overly values Western epistemologies as the dominant knowledge systems. What do you seriously think is going to happen during this talk at a university founded by Thomas Jefferson? I have this archived just in case UVA deletes it -> https://cte.virginia.edu/programs/cte-speaker-series/upcoming-speakers
@thestustustudio - Stu Smith
If you look at Title VI complaints, Decolonial Theory often pops up. We could be here all day looking at these, but this complaint from Stanford is more than enough to illustrate my point. Decolonial theory in the classroom is pure abuse. "Students in this professor's classes report the professor asking where their ancestors were from and labeled them as a "colonizer" or "colonized." "I feel absolutely dehumanized that someone in charge of students and developing minds could possibly try and justify the massacre of my people. It's like I'm reliving the justification of Nazis 80 years ago on today's college campus." I know this will likely spark a debate on academic freedom, but it’s hard for me to view Decolonial Theory as anything other than a Trojan Horse, allowing radical activists to become professors and cultivate radicalized students. It promotes an ideology that places the burden of guilt on "colonizers," despite colonization being a universal phenomenon throughout human history. In doing so, professors are effectively othering students and fostering resentment. Once again, remember what UVA's Professor King said in the intro. "Some colleagues who are part of my chapter of Faculty for Justice for Palestine help us teach Palestinian liberation, right, to teach about resistance struggles, at this particular phase of Palestinian resistance in our classrooms and how to build community, with not just faculty, but students who are committed to this."
@thestustustudio - Stu Smith
In late September, the Virginia State Senate held a hearing focused on campus protests. Terrence Cole, then Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security (who is now working for the federal government), expressed concerns about the flow of money 'coming in and going out' from groups like Students for Justice in Palestine and American Muslims for Palestine. "Some of this funding is going to Hamas. Some of this funding is going to Hezbollah." The audience, largely composed of naïve activists, laughs off his comments, despite Cole having access to classified intelligence. We’re talking about radical student groups on campus funneling money to terrorist organizations, led by professors advocating for the "crash of the settler state" and urging students to see violence as a "revolutionary essential." It may sound like fiction, but this is Virginia in 2025. And yet, I’m supposed to believe that "DEI is done at the University of Virginia." The reality is, as a nation, we’re done if we don’t address this now.
@thestustustudio - Stu Smith
@TheRivethead @GlennYoungkin LOL, my alma mater called me tonight and I turned them down due to a FOIA request I did on them last year. I am pretty sure the campus events team approved the space and unlimited time for their encampment.
@thestustustudio - Stu Smith
@BienSurLaVerite @GlennYoungkin @SecRubio Here’s a thread where I summarize many other twitter threads I've done about him. This was posted the day after his arrest at the Virginia Tech encampment! https://t.co/zbAkTG0t4z
@thestustustudio - Stu Smith
@Chelsea87883298 @GlennYoungkin Feel free to send me a DM
@thestustustudio - Stu Smith
@renko_is @GlennYoungkin What do you think Thomas Jefferson would think of a professor at the university he founded making such a statement? She also oversees UVA's Black & Indigenous Feminist Futures Institute, an 'intersectional studies collective.'" https://t.co/pvz2EjdI4O
@thestustustudio - Stu Smith
She literally danced to Celebration while announcing Charlie Kirk had been shot. Then pivots into “real talk” about how she’s not celebrating, what a tragedy, sad for his family, etc. Sorry, no. The dance was the truth. The rest is damage control. https://t.co/5Mzl4js5zh
@thestustustudio - Stu Smith
A bit more from Nixie... “I said it’s a tragedy… it just makes me giggle a little bit.” “I think it’s charming that he got a taste of his own medicine.” “I don’t wish that on anyone, but maybe if we had stricter gun laws this wouldn’t have happened.” This isn’t remorse. It’s a smirk wrapped in excuses.
@thestustustudio - Stu Smith
@ChristineDozie9 She is still doubling down on her social media too.
@thestustustudio - Stu
At the George Washington University Gaza Solidarity Encampment today, the protesters held a "People's Tribunal" where they put President Ellen Granberg, Provost Christopher Bracey, the Board of Trustees, @GWPolice, and many others on trial. Is it normal for students to want to hang their provost and chop the heads off of the Board of Trustees? "Guillotine, Guillotine, Guillotine, Guillotine" "Bracey, Bracey, we see you. You assault students too. Off to the motherfucking gallows with you." "As you already know where I am sending her [to the guillotine], her and her fuckass bob." When will @GWtweets finally do something? If the students hurt any of these people in any way, the university will be completely at fault.
@thestustustudio - Stu
I didn't catch every single minute of the People's Tribunal since it was an Instagram Live, but I think we have more than enough to realize how insane this is. https://t.co/3N91R6iaZd