The Georgia newspaper Red and Black ran the column on the University of Washington's "Tunnel of Oppression" immersion sensitivity training Thursday, February 23. The column debuted on the UGACR blog on February 14.
A personal note from the author:
The column elicited an instant response from left-leaning readers of the paper, bringing criticism and personal attack for many different aspects of the piece. The morning began with a young lady, whom I shall refer to as "Sarah," contacting me and asking both what the point of the column was in the first place, and demanding to know how I could speak on this subject at all, never personally having been through the Tunnel, as she had. I responded by asking her how many editorial writers who commented on Iraq, Korea, and other places had actually been there, and could therefore speak authoritatively on the subject. To this, Sarah replied that it was not necessary to "immerse yourself" in the Iraq war to "understand it" and to be able to speak about it, whereas it was "necessary to immerse yourself in the Tunnel" experience to "understand the oppression" felt by groups all over America. I thanked her for her point of view, and mentioned that, as an Iraq war veteran, I disagreed that people who had never endured that experience could possibly speak authoritatively on the subject, whereas the point of my column had not been to detail my personal experiences in the "Tunnel of Oppression," but to point out that claiming oppression and victimhood takes away from possible achievement, and in the long run ends up hurting a group more than it could ever help it.
--J.P. Emanuel
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