Instead of cancelling the Diversity Inclusion and Equity position at Andrews University (which continues to sit on stolen land), they have appointed an interim diversity officer, Danielle Pilgrim (great name).
During the Andrews University Convocation ceremony yesterday, the provost— Christon Arthur— announced that Andrews University had a ‘Land Acknowledgment’ statement which recognizes the Potawatomi Indians as the previous and possibly rightful owners of the land that Andrews university sits on.
Mrs. Pilgrim read the Land Acknowledgment during the Convocation. Among other things, she said:
Andrews University recognizes and acknowledges that our Berrien Springs campus sits on land….that was confiscated from land owned by the Potawatomi Indian tribe.
Commentary
This Land Acknowledgement thing comes from Mike Nixon’s November, 2022 diversity blog. The fact that it was read aloud at the AU Convocation suggests two things to me.
One, liberal individuals at Andrews are determined to retain the Diversity, Inclusion and Equity position (this includes the Provost and others). A better way is to cancel the position and turn the office space into something useful, such as a root beer kitchen, machine shop, or laser tag office etc.
Two, doubling down on the Potawatomi Indian ‘stolen land’ thing is an effort to keep class warfare and CRT afloat while harvesting a few virtue signalling points. It is also an effort to legitimize DIE during a time when it is being jettisoned throughout the nation.
We have nothing personally against Mrs. Pilgrim. She may be a nice enough lady. However, we do object to Diversity Inclusion and Equity officers being placed in our Seventh-day Adventist campuses. Here’s why:
In under a decade, equity plans have become widely embedded in American life. And they serve the same function that Communist Party dogma did in the USSR or Communist China. Equity is a political statement of allegiance. It demands that individuals or institutions subscribe to a leftist worldview and repeat its dogma, such as that America is an inherently unfair society and that government regulations are the only remedy, that white people are racist, and that everyone is obligated to engage in a constant process of self-examination, guilt and shame just for existing (if you are white, or have European ancestors).
At the heart of DIE is the rejection of meritocracy, of individualism, and, in a bitter irony—Martin King’s idea that we should be judged not by skin color, but by the content of our character. Even more insidiously, implementing equity plans involves hiring equity specialists, activists who function as political commissars, tasked with conducting indoctrination sessions, forcing ideological changes and purging personnel deemed insufficiently loyal to the Left. Is this the ship that Andrews wants to travel on—just as the whole contraption is beginning to sink?
Andrews is not alone in this agenda. The NAD (North American Division) announced last November (coincidence with Nixon’s blog? I think not) that it was forming a new (CRT) committee to apologize for colonization and oppression. Bettina Krause—PARL, announced their response to Doctrine of Discovery at the NAD Year-end Meeting. It is a mishmash of leftist thought where virtue-signalling replaces Christian sanctification and apologies replace missionary courage.
It is rooted in cultural Marxism and Critical Theory. And it is a complete waste of time. Its coin of the realm is oppression; it works tirelessly to mint a steady supply of victims—a hierarchy of victimhood. And it is based upon a godless view of humanity.
The truth about humanity is that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23), and having offended our Maker, our only hope of redemption is through the gift provided for our salvation, Jesus Christ (Titus 2:13; 2 Corinthians 5:19). Diversity, equity, social Marxism and Critical Race Theory recognize no gospel reality in their quest to create an interlocking web of politically manufactured false religion.
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“For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken” (Psalm 62:1-2).