Campus Progressives Tout Support For Blacks, But Where's Support For Tidwell?

(Source: Tyler Morning Telegraph)

As I have perused through social media, I have seen many Progressive students at UT-Tyler tweet statements in support of the Black community. They say, “Black Lives Matter” and “support Black businesses” and “amplify Black voices.” Anything Black goes, because Progressives are collectivists. They don’t see John and Terrance, but White and Black. In the collectivist mindset, group identity is more significant than individual identity.

So when it comes to race, it is not business owners, but Black business owners that they want to support. It is not voices, but Black voices. They claim solidarity with a Black collective and aim to elevate a group. Anyone who is Black is a member of this group.

So, if being Black gives one membership to a group and if group membership means you deserve support—solely on the basis of being Black—then where is their support for their African-American University President Michael Tidwell?

Why doesn’t he, as an African-American, get the same support from campus Progressives at UT-Tyler as they claim to give to the rest of the Black community elsewhere?

I say this because campus Progressives vocally call for Black reparations for slavery, to defund the police, for financial and patronage support for Black businesses, but they also very vocal about their lack of support for Dr. Tidwell.

Somehow, when it comes to Dr. Tidwell, he is exempt from any of these other benefits of a group identity. Somehow, as a Black man in what Progressives say is a racists society, in a markedly racist region, he is on his own and deserves to be held accountable as an individual. Somehow he stands on his own merits, rather than the group’s, and deserves accountability by campus Progressives.

Why is this?

What is even more puzzling is how campus Progressives have opposed Tidwell ever since he arrived at the university. Many students have opposed him at every turn. Through their unfair characterizations of his motives and promotion of unwarranted suspicions about his character, campus Progressives placed more obstacles in the way of his success than they removed.

PROGRESSIVE OPPOSITION TO TIDWELL

Consider how they have opposed Tidwell throughout his tenure.

In November 2018, when Tidwell streamlined the university’s brand and changed the school’s mascot, Progressive students publicly derided him and assumed the worst about him. They attacked his reputation and impugned his motives. Where was their support for the Black community then?

Later in January 2019, Tidwell announced his interest to build the campus quad on Admin building parking. Progressive students, in their constant power struggle between students and authority, spread a picture of the president’s reserved parking spot on social media and used it as evidence to smear his character. Progressive students reamed him as pretentious, uncaring and elite.

I imagine the normal Progressive narrative would see Tidwell as a Black man, in a systematically racist society, in a markedly racist region like East Texas who trying, against these odds, to build something significant for the community. Yet what was the Progressive response but to outright oppose him and to project the worst intentions upon him? Where was these students’ regard for Black America then?

DOUBLE STANDARDS

Now just to be clear, I do not see Dr. Tidwell as “a Black man.” I don’t even think Dr. Tidwell would want people to see him as a Black man. From what I observe of him, I think he sees every person as an individual and would want others to see him as the same.

Yet, this is the way Progressives tell us we have to see people. These are the rules Progressives tell us we have to hold. Yet, this cursory review shows that many on social media who tout support for the Black community do not practice this ethic in their own backyard.

Here is one more.

Recently, it became evident that Dr. Tidwell would lose his job as president of the University. UT System announced last month that it would merge two administrative wings into one and unite them under another president who currently serves over the medical wing. Therefore, Tidwell will lose his presidency after four hard years of dedicated work.

So, how did campus Progressive respond to this news? They used the occasion to remind people that Tidwell was a failed administrator and that he didn’t like Swoop. That’s it. No compassion. No appreciation. But don’t worry, they support the Black community, right?

ADDING OBSTACLES TO SUCCESS

Look, here’s the deal. Campus Progressives have been placing unwarranted and unjustified obstacles in front of Tidwell’s success ever since he arrived at the university. They say America is systematically racist and East Texas markedly racist. Yet, even this racist infrastructure didn’t warrant their restraint. With allies like these, who needs enemies?

It appears to me that many campus Progressives refused to accept Tidwell because he could no longer useful to them. So they trashed his reputation. They could not mold him into their own image and he frustrated their attempt to control the university.  So they refused to confer on him their typical recognition of group identity for it would have provided him with a protected status.

He no longer became useful to them, so they regarded him not as a group member, but as an individual who stood on his own, whom they could hold accountable. And this, because it gave them power. This is why they never accepted Dr. Tidwell, even though they now claim to support the Black community.

THE BIGGER PICTURE

The bigger picture is this: Progressive students make for poor life coaches. When Progressives hold to double standards like this, it is hard to see them as able counselors.

If one wants to live well, or to just support their Black neighbors, I recommend they don't let hardened Progressives advise them on how to do it. 

Twitter: @jhescock12