s04e67 | Five Years Later: Catching Up With Bret Weinstein

Five years ago, on May 23rd, 2017, a group of students confronted Bret Weinstein outside his classroom at The Evergreen State College. Armed with a script and emails of his which the students believed proved him to be racist, the demanded he apologize and undo the harm he perpetuated by refusing to participate in the college's yearly "Day of Absence" event. Historically, students, staff, and faculty "of color" would meet off campus to speak about their experiences and share solidarity—in 2017, the program coordinators wanted to switch the day, and ask (or strongly encourage) students, staff, and faculty of minimal color to go off campus and meditate on their privilege and white supremacy. Bret took exception to this, and said as much in emails to the program coordinators.

The Evergreen students, with two weeks to go before the end of the school year, had been riled up by an alleged act of racism (which turned out to be fabricated or at least blown out of proportion), and planned a week long protest to demand that TESC, one of the most progressive and explicitly anti-racist colleges in the United States, purge itself of white supremacy. Bret Weinstein's class was their first stop, but over the next few days, with cellphones streaming, they proceeded to terrorize, hold hostage, and submit to struggle sessions all who met their path.

I was on campus at that time, and in the wake of the protests I exhumed and published internal documents and videos showing that The Evergreen State College teachers and administrators indoctrinated the students into such behavior (watch my full documentary at https://bit.ly/evergreenstory) This set me on the path to running this channel, and also sent Bret Weinstein into public intellectualism.

In this discussion, we speak about the intervening years.

Find Bret on twitter @BretWeinstein, and watch/listen to his Darkhorse Podcast (produced with his wife Heather Heying) on youtube and spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/show/4cPXjuF6PtQtliZFBVAGou

https://www.youtube.com/c/BretWeinsteinDarkHorse

Support this channel: https://www.paypal.me/benjaminboyce