How to alienate your colleagues and be complicit in white supremacy
As Craccum comes ever closer to its final issue of the year, we begin to reflect upon the issues and notable events of this year. We at Craccum feel that we can sum it up neatly in two words: white supremacy.
Despite it being one of the hottest of takes this year, there is one special guy at UOA who refuses to acknowledge it. Our beloved Vice-Chancellor Stuart McCutcheon has once again decided white boys will be white boys, and there’s nothing to worry about in this latest slew of propaganda trying to aggravate racial tensions.
I know that an era that favoured any middle-class white guy compensating for his own inadequacy really worked for you Stu, but maybe it’s time we shelve those values and tuck them away with the numerous PR fuck-ups that have littered your last 15 years here at UOA. Despite being one of the highest-paid public servants in the country, it’s amazing how you have consistently neglected a substantial part of your job – effective management. To be so out of touch with students and the academic community, to the point where the university’s own Pro Vice-Chancellor of equity has to publicly disagree with you and say ‘hey, let’s not be complicit in racially motivated hostility’ is truly an achievement matched by no other. What a wonderful legacy you will be leaving behind when you depart next year.
If you’re going to preach about a diverse student culture of some of the brightest students, you can’t have it both ways and pretend everything is fine when the very diversity you stake your reputation on is threatened. This is something that the student community and evidently the staff of UOA understand but seems to be lost in your brain. Perhaps it is being drowned out by your belief that students from poor backgrounds shouldn’t get scholarships as “when they’re not going to pass year 11 maths is a complete waste of time,” (yes this is a real thing he said to Craccum last week). Who’s to say?
Big McC’s defence was that the posters “weren’t illegal” and “didn’t incite violence”. While I may disagree with that position, mostly because I have actually bothered to understand the context of the group and their message, I’m sure we will absolutely get you condemnation when comments inciting violence are made. How about that time in May when there were threats of “Asian extermination” that claimed to be from UOA’s O’Rorke Hall of Residence?
Oh wait, that’s right, I remember what you said now. Absolutely fucking nothing.