March 6, 2021

USA: Another FAKE HATE CRIME. A Wealthy Black Student Attending Elite Smith College FALSELY Accused 2 Cafeteria Workers And A Janitor Of Racism. RUINED THEIR LIVES. It Was ALL A LIE.

Fake Hate Crime against Smith College student 'Oumou Kanoute' exposed by Tucker Carlson.
The Post Millennial
written by Noah David Alter
Thursday February 25, 2021

Smith College president Kathleen McCartney immediately apologized for the incident without conducting an investigation or contacting the accused employees, and put the janitor who called security on leave.

Smith College, an elite college in Northampton, Massachusetts, failed to defend its working-class employees against false and damaging accusations of racism levelled by a teaching assistant, The New York Times reports.

The story began when Oumou Kanoute, a black teaching assistant at the college, was found eating in the Tyler house dormitory cafeteria, which during that summer was off-limits to students as it was being used for a children's summer camp.

Kanoute was approached by a cafeteria employee named Jackie Blair, who informed her that the cafeteria was off-limits to students at the time. This caused Kanoute to go to the dormitory lounge, which was also closed to students for the summer, where she was noticed by a janitor.

The janitor, who has been advised to call campus security if he sees someone trespassing, decided to give them a call. "We have a person sitting there laying down in the living room," he said to dispatchers. He did not mention her race.

When security arrived, the officer recognized Kanoute as a student and had a brief conversation with her. Kanoute expressed her discomfort with the situation, saying she felt threatened, and the security guard apologized for bothering her.

That evening, Kanoute took to Facebook to lambast a number of college employees as racists. "It's outrageous that some people question my being at Smith, and my existence overall as a woman of color," she wrote.

Smith College president Kathleen McCartney immediately apologized for the incident without conducting an investigation or contacting the accused employees, and put the janitor who called security on leave.

The actions of both Kanoute and McCartney stunned the employees. Ms. Blair, who did not call security, had her name, picture, and email included in the post. "This is the racist person," Kanoute wrote.

"Oh my God, I didn’t do this," Blaire said of the incident. "exchanged a hello with that student and now I’m a racist." Blair, who suffers from lupus, also says that the stress of the situation triggered symptoms. She checked into a hospital later that year due to the symptoms.

Blair, who makes a mere $40,000 per year, had notes taped to her car window and mailbox and experienced calls to her home. "You don't deserve to live," one caller told her.

The college released a statement regarding Blair where they confirmed that she was not the one who called security, but refused to absolve her of racism in general. Despite not having done anything, the college attempted to pressure her into joining a "restorative justice" session with Kanoute, which Blair refused to do.

Kanoute similarly accused a janitor, Mark Patenaude, of being a racist and included some of his personal information in the post. As it turns out, Patenaude was not even working at the time of the incident, and had left campus earlier that day.

"To be honest, that just knocked me out," Patenaude said. "I'm a 58-year-old male, we're supposed to be tough. But I suffered anxiety because of things in my past and this brought it to a whole 'nother level."

Two other employees were also accused of racism.

Later that year, the university released a report on the incident which found zero evidence of racial bias on the part of Blair or the janitor. McCartney, however, still refused to rule out that they were motivated by racism. "[It] is impossible to rule out the potential role of implicit racial bias," she wrote. She refused to apologize to any of the four employees, two of whom had worked at the college for over 35 years, for what they were put through.

The ACLU weighed in with a similar statement, saying that "[it's] troubling that people are more offended by being called racist than by the actual racism in our society." They further stated that "[allegations] of being racist, even getting direct mailers in their mailbox, is not on par with the consequences of actual racism." The ACLU provided no evidence of this "actual racism" on the part of the employees.

"We used to joke, don’t let a rich student report you," Patenaude said. "Because if you do, you’re gone."
Reason.com
written by Robby Soave
Thursday February 25, 2021

During the summer of 2018, a Facebook post by a black Smith College student named Oumou Kanoute went viral. Kanoute recounted being harassed by a college janitor and police officer who had accused her of trespassing while eating inside a dormitory lounge. The incident left her shaken and frightened—in Kanoute's telling, she was persecuted for the crime of "eating while black."

The Washington Post and The New York Times both covered her story, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) came to her assistance. As a result of the attention brought to the situation, many of the employees involved—particularly the janitor and a cafeteria worker who had spoken with Kanoute—were publicly branded racists and subjected to extreme opprobrium. Kanoute eventually received a formal apology from Smith College's president, Kathleen McCartney.

"This painful incident reminds us of the ongoing legacy of racism and bias in which people of color are targeted while simply going about the business of their ordinary lives," said McCartney in a public statement.

Yesterday, the Times revisited the story, adding some key details. It turns out that Kanoute was trespassing: The dormitory in which she ate lunch was closed to students for the summer. Only children attending a summer camp were allowed to use the building's cafeteria. The janitor who approached Kanoute—a nearsighted man in his 60s—had every reason to call security, and the officer who showed up apologized for bothering the student. Contrary to Kanoute's claim that she thought her life might be in danger, the officer was quite unarmed.

According to the Times, Smith commissioned a report on the incident, and that report
cleared Ms. Blair altogether and found no sufficient evidence of discrimination by anyone else involved, including the janitor who called campus police.

Still, Ms. McCartney said the report validated Ms. Kanoute's lived experience, notably the fear she felt at the sight of the police officer. "I suspect many of you will conclude, as did I," she wrote, "it is impossible to rule out the potential role of implicit racial bias."

The report said Ms. Kanoute could not point to anything that supported the claim she made on Facebook of a yearlong "pattern of discrimination."

Ms. McCartney offered no public apology to the employees after the report was released. "We were gobsmacked — four people's lives wrecked, two were employees of more than 35 years and no apology," said Tracey Putnam Culver, a Smith graduate who recently retired from the college's facilities management department. "How do you rationalize that?"

Rahsaan Hall, racial justice director for the A.C.L.U. of Massachusetts and Ms. Kanoute's lawyer, cautioned against drawing too much from the investigative report, as subconscious bias is difficult to prove. Nor was he particularly sympathetic to the accused workers.

"It's troubling that people are more offended by being called racist than by the actual racism in our society," he said. "Allegations of being racist, even getting direct mailers in their mailbox, is not on par with the consequences of actual racism."
The revelation that the entire narrative surrounding the incident was a lie has not changed matters one bit at Smith. Employees must now undergo rigorous anti-bias training. Faculty are exempt from these sessions, but they are encouraged to attend "white accountability" Zoom groups, in which they are supposed to interrogate their prejudices.

The Times story is worth reading in full, because it's a welcome instance of the mainstream media giving much-needed attention to the phenomenon of ostensibly progressive (though considerably privileged) college students weaponizing false claims of racism or sexism to punish ordinary, innocent people who irked them. It's a tactic that is spreading from elite college campuses to elite media institutions—like the Times itself—which disproportionately hire graduates of places like Smith. And it's spreading still. As Andrew Sullivan once observed, "We all live on campus now."

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As a private bookseller, Amazon is not required to stock its virtual shelves with any particular tome. But refusing to sell Anderson's book will prompt understandable charges of rank hypocrisy. Prime users can currently order Mein Kampf and have it delivered in 48 hours.

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The White House is still backing former Center for American Progress President Neera Tanden to head the Office of Management and Budget, but Senate Democrats are postponing committee votes on her nomination. According to Reuters:
Biden, a Democrat, still supports Tanden, an Indian American who would be the first woman of color to lead the agency.

"Neera Tanden is a leading policy expert who brings critical qualifications to the table during this time of unprecedented crisis," his press secretary, Jen Psaki, wrote on Twitter.

Asked later at the White House whether Tanden had offered to withdraw her nomination, Psaki said: "That's not the stage we're in."

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