Cancel culture", "woke": when the American left goes mad SAY lE fIGARO

 

Cancel culture", "woke": when the American left goes mad

INVESTIGATION - The movement, which started out from American campuses, practices aggressive censorship, in the name of the right not to be offended. He worries part of the liberal intelligentsia who would like to defend freedom 

In February 2018, protesters tried to prevent Donald Trump's former adviser, Steve Bannon, from coming to a conference at the University of Chicago. Max Herman / NurPhoto via AFP

The scene, filmed by a cell phone, is surreal. It's spring 2017, and in the halls of Evergreen State University College in Washington, a professor is surrounded by a screaming horde of students. Black T-shirt, salt and pepper goatee, Bret Weinstein, 48, struggles to try to dialogue with the raging crowd. Wasted effort.

While the teacher tries to explain himself, the young people laugh and sing "Hey Hey Ho Ho, Bret Weinstein has to go" ( "Bret Weinstein must resign" ). What did this biology professor do to deserve such a disgrace? A democratic Jew, supporter of Bernie Sanders and the Occupy Wall Street movement, defining himself as "deeply progressive" , Bret Weinstein is not a conservative. He has not shown his support for Trump or slipped on Twitter. He didn't even, like his literary alter ego Coleman Silk, the hero of Philip Roth's La Tache , use a vexing word.