The Shocking Speech Wheaton College Doesn’t Want You To Hear

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This is the tale of two lectures at Wheaton College, a Christian evangelical college in the suburbs of Chicago. One was given in September 2017 and the other in November 2018. Though only a year apart, the responses to the two presentations were universes apart. The reaction is very telling and tragic for those who believe that a Christian education is different than a secular one.

The first speech was given by Dr. George Yancy (not to be confused by the professor of sociology and anti-Christian bias researcher, Dr. George Yancey), a philosophy professor at Emory University. (I must give a huge thanks to Jamie Dean at World Magazine for the excellent article on this and uncovering actual audio recording, which was never made public by Wheaton but recorded by an audience member). The lecture was sponsored by Wheaton’s Philosophy department and held in the esteemed Billy Graham Center on campus. It was entitled: “A Post-Racial America? White Gazes and Black Bodies”. It can only be described as an expletive-laced, pornographic, racist, anti-biblical screed. His theme? “To be white is to be racist.” Listen to these shocking excerpts from that speech here or scroll to bottom to hear his entire message.

There was no public backlash from Wheaton’s leadership. There were no campus-wide letters sent out by any staff or student government leaders denouncing his f-bomb laden, racist, pornographic speech. For a public speech, the only public response was internal praise by the school’s own Wheaton Record. (According to Wheaton spokesperson, LaTonya Taylor, who has mischaracterized most of this situation to the public: “Many members of the campus community found some of Dr. Yancy’s comments disturbing. There were some very heated conversations, and there was dissent. The Provost and other faculty members conducted extensive follow-up discussions with students, faculty members and others in the weeks that followed.”)

Then there’s that second speech. Wheaton College Republicans courageously invited me to speak about abortion and race. Keep in mind, there’s never been anyone—ever—to address racism and the abortion industry at Wheaton. In fact, no one has addressed the issue of abortion at their thrice weekly chapels but once (briefly) in many years. Wheaton, founded by slavery abolitionists, doesn’t lead whatsoever on the abolition of abortion. One would think a school that (sort of) espouses a prolife worldview, at least in text on its website (“followers of Jesus Christ will uphold the dignity of human beings, from conception until death…”), would encourage students to put that into action by attending the March for Life Chicago or volunteering at a local pregnancy resource center. 

Needless to say, I did not speak in the center named after the school’s most famous alum. But I did speak to a standing-room only audience in another Wheaton lecture hall. My multimedia talk was entitled “Black Lives Matter In and Out of the Womb”; it was an expletive-free, fact-based, statistics-driven, Biblically-rooted, deeply personal and grace-filled discussion on the systemic racism of the abortion industry and the hypocrisy of the pro-abortion #BlackLivesMatter movement. As an adoptee and adoptive father who was conceived in rape, I challenged students to see the most vulnerable, the most marginalized, and the most powerless among us as having equal intrinsic worth and God-given Purpose.

Six days later, I was severely denounced by a campus-wide email sent out by two Wheaton staff members and signed by three student government leaders (see my response here). My entire message was branded as “offensive rhetoric” that made “many students, staff and faculty of color” feel “unsafe” on their campus. And now, the school has cancelled the College Republicans’ next event, because leadership claims their speaker approval process needs to change so Wheaton students aren’t exposed to such factivism (aka truth) again.

So a biblical worldview that reminds us we’re created in the image of God and that we’re one human race, created out of one blood (Acts 17:26), is not in line with Wheaton’s mission? 

“Given the history of white supremacy, we ought to be the ones who fear white people. I mean sh*t, if you’re black you should be scared as hell here at Wheaton College,” Yancy told students. He also asserted “that in the end, white people are the niggers.” That got zero pushback from Wheaton leadership. Zilch. 

“To be white is to be racist,” Yancy repeated over and over. This is what a Christian institution is peddling. 

Wheaton College denounces Radiance's Ryan Bomberger but pays for racist lecture from George Yancy.Yancy dug up racist diatribes of people from the 1700s like Immanuel Kant, Thomas Jefferson (with a revised f-bomb version of Jefferson’s quote on “Oranootan” which is orangutan) and David Hume. The only modern-day examples he gives are anonymous rants from (alleged) online commenters and white supremacists on obscure and unnamed websites. He never gave any examples of actual racism from modern-day leaders. No stats—just regurgitations of mainstream media propaganda that divisively color the narrative of police brutality. I tackle this dereliction of journalistic duty here. He could have invoked plenty of examples of racists in the 20th century in the American Eugenics movement like Frederick Osborn (founder of the American Eugenics Society), Margaret Sanger (founder of Planned Parenthood), and Henry H. Goddard (psychologist who coined the term “moron”), but he would have had to talk about all those “white bodies” touching and destroying “black bodies” through the undeniable and celebrated form of systemic racism—abortion. But I digress.

There’s a reason why Wheaton never posted Yancy’s speech for the public to hear. It’s easier to do things in darkness. If most Christian parents had any idea some of the vile sludge that’s being force-fed to their children at an alarming and increasing number of Christian colleges, they’d be horrified. So I’ve edited some of the most outrageous clips from Yancy’s speech for parents, students, alumni and the general public to understand how insidious a lie is. You need to hear this short clip. It. Is. Shocking.

We must fight the sin of racism (see OneRaceMovement.com) and work toward understanding and loving one another in intentional and tangible ways. Yancy’s approach isn’t it. He’s stuck in 1860. He admits he has no practical or spiritual solution to offer: “It’s not about leaving white people with hope. That’s not my job. White America sees me as a nigger. White America sees you, if you are black, as a nigger. And I don’t want you to forget that.”

Christ offers a completely different perspective that first requires us to be reconciled to God. It’s called love (a word never mentioned by Yancy). It transforms everything, makes us new creations, compels us toward forgiveness, and creates real and lasting unity. If preaching that message gets me, students, or faculty smeared on a Christian college campus, then smear away. Someone will be set free. 

LISTEN TO ENTIRE LECTURE (IT DOESN’T GET BETTER)

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Showing 3 comments
  • L L

    Thank you for making this available to the general public. I admit I was not prepared enough for just the short clips you offered. I’ll make an attempt to listen to the fuller version. Nevertheless, Wheaton has acted with duplicity in regards to the current situation.

  • Neanderthal 75

    I have been saying for the last two decades that the body of Christ has been infected, severely infected, with the disease of political correctness and now social justice mindsets.

    No one wanted to listen.

    No one wants to listen today, because they do not want to come up against the Brunt of the politically correct and intensively bigoted social justice on-campus power structure, which is also present and everyday Society.

    The same anti-biblical Christian, anti common sense, and anti empirical evidence was and is present in Corporate America. It’s been transitioned to the body of Christ, which I argue was mainlined from public education, K through 12, then Community College, then 4-year institutions, and as this article clearly shows I would argue, it is here to stay.

    The body of Christ could not help but become infected, because there are far too many feel good preachers, too many Prosperity Gospel preachers, and people still look to false preachers like Benny Hinn for scriptural wisdom when mr. Hinn has none to offer.

    This is part of the process of dividing the sheep from the goats, and this process will continue until the time of completion.

    • urbanvrwcmom

      I was chatting with someone and I mentioned some certain seminaries. She wrinkled her nose and said, “I don’t like them, they’re too conservative”, (read: too Biblical). She was a member of the United Methodist Church. Seeing that I’m a black American woman, she patronizingly insisted that I should be a part of the UMC because it didn’t “tolerate gender and racial prejudice”. I told the lady that I had a problem with the UMC’s prejudice against Christ. If He’s not welcome at the UMC, I want NO part of it.

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