If you think our police have problems, take a look at academia. After all, this is where our top-level leaders — presidents, governors, mayors, senators — are trained. It’s where all the trouble starts.

On 11/26/13, Daily Caller.com reported:

“Racial tensions are inflamed at the University of California at Los Angeles following several incidents — most notably, one where a professor corrected the grammar, punctuation and capitalization in minority students’ assignments. The act of correcting a black student was “micro-aggression,” according to the members of the student group, Call 2 Action: Graduate Students of Color which launched a sit-in during a subsequent meeting of the class. ‘A hostile campus climate has been the norm for Students of Color in this class throughout the quarter as our epistemological and methodological commitments have been repeatedly questioned by our classmates and our instructor,’ wrote the group in a statement to the college.

‘[The] barrage of questions by white colleagues and the grammar ‘lessons’ by the professor have contributed to a hostile class climate.’ Some 25 students participated in the sit-in, including five of the 10 members of the class.”

Let’s take a close look at this in psychological terms. Put simply, this is the psychology of victimization taken to ludicrous, yet internally consistent, extremes. The term “micro-aggression,” is, in and of itself, an acknowledgment of the moral puniness of this whole sorry episode. The people who coined the term might as well be saying, “We know we don’t have a real grievance of aggression or wrongdoing here. So we’ll just call it a micro-grievance.”

It could almost be a joke. But sadly it’s not. The people who make these claims are so adrift from reality, and so unwilling to question themselves (or each other) on the subject, that we’ve reached the point in our intellectual discourse where such claims are actually taken seriously, at least by people with power.

You can laugh, but the alarming truth is that these young people are getting their ideas from their professors at esteemed universities – universities that are training our future officials, business and political leaders. Is it any wonder our culture is becoming this absurd and irrational?

These seemingly “wacko” students are in fact its proudest accomplishment, at least by the pseudo-standards of these faux intellectuals who hold positions of esteem and authority in academia (usually the social sciences or humanities).

However, the implications of the students’ accusations go deeper than “micro-aggression,” and even deeper than real or alleged racism. The attack is an objection to the idea that there’s even a right or wrong way to utilize grammar. Really!?

Think about it: To this mentality, the assertion that there is a right or wrong way to punctuate a sentence, utilize tense or modify nouns is “oppressive” and – when done against a person of color – racist.

Imagine the psychological state of such a person who considers it oppressive or burdensome to have to follow objective standards about something such as grammar. Of course, when such a person wishes to get a point across to someone, he or she’s counting on universally accepted rules of grammar to be in operation. Otherwise, how could anyone understand, follow or even obey his orders?

Even the students launching the sit-in are counting on to be understood, particularly by those whom they hope will sympathize with their victimization. How are such people to express such sympathy and empathy without the use of words, strung together by those “oppressive” rules of language and sequences of grammar? Or are these rules acceptable when done by people with their social and political points of view, but not by anybody else?

The basic, underlying idea here is that grammar is “mean.” Why is it mean? Well, for one thing, people of certain colors cannot be expected to utilize grammar the right way. So to mark them down, or even correct them, on their mistaken grammar is an instance of “micro-aggression” or (we might infer) “micro-racism.”

Isn’t this insulting to the people of color whom we’re assuming are unable to abide by the same rules of grammar as everyone else? Of course it is, but that is never acknowledged, not whenever the cries of “racism” are used – successfully, again and again – on college campuses to arrest the thinking and objectivity of any minimally sane, decent person.

Accusations of racism have become a very convenient tool of intimidation employed by the progressive-intellectual left that even average citizens are starting to notice it. I hear this from people all the time, whenever they oppose a policy of the present Obama administration, such as socialized medicine, increasing the debt limit, sending federal FCC “observers” into private newsrooms, excusing ISIS as not being motivated by Islam, or anything else: “You’re racist.” The implication is that there’s no other reason you could possibly oppose the self-evidently reasonable actions or viewpoints of Barack Obama … unless you’re racist.

And the tactic largely works. Most people are too intellectually disarmed by the mentality now permeating our culture to resist the accusation of racism. They bow their heads in silent, albeit resentful compliance. Or some will fight back. But they’ll go on the defensive, attempting to prove that they’re not racist. This, of course, is a logical fallacy – a trap into which they fall, because it is impossible to prove a negative. You cannot prove that you’re not something. The person making the accusation has to prove that you are.

Besides, the person accusing you of racism doesn’t even care about racism, at least not in this context. It’s all about power and control, and intimidation; a means of seeming to acquire power and control (as in a drug-induced state). We might call it intellectual S&M.

Psychologically as well as politically, one does not attain (and maintain) power and control without a policy of effective intimidation. “Racism” is that tool. “Microracism” is merely its awkward, physically disabled cousin.

The story goes on to report: “For all the hype and grandstanding over their professor’s ‘crime’ the only example the protesters could put forth was this: He told a black female student that the word ‘indigenous’ should not be capitalized. The student felt this correction was ‘ideologically motivated.’ Indigenous is an adjective and should not be capitalized unless it’s at the beginning of a sentence like the way I just used it. I learned that in grade school.”

As for the offending professor, he could only claim that he meant no offense to minorities, stating, “I have attempted to be rather thorough on the papers and am particularly concerned that they do a good job with their bibliographies and citations.”

This illustrates what I’m saying.

“Racism” is the new Scarlet Letter. Once you’re tainted with that term, you have two choices. One, give up all argument or opposition to the person who’s claiming you’re racist. (Better yet, don’t dissent in the first place.)

Two, attempt to prove a negative – that you’re not a racist. Logically it cannot be done. Psychologically, it places you in the position of being on the defensive, and in that respect your smug and otherwise intellectually imbalanced opponent has already won.

What people have to do is turn the tables: “You’re saying I’m racist. First, define your term. Second, prove that I am.” Of course, it won’t happen. The person accusing you of being racist for opposing Obamacare, or opposing higher taxes, or supporting the use of correct grammar, isn’t talking about racism at all. He won’t admit this.

But at least you’ll leave the burden of proof where it belongs: On the shoulders of the person making the claim.

We need college professors, principled politicians and “ideas” professionals in the media and elsewhere to take this approach. We all can, and should, be doing this in our own personal circles, whenever political (or related philosophically inclined) debate comes up.

People like this have to be challenged and put on the defensive. Otherwise, the world will just get crazier and crazier.

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