University of Chicago Professor Compares Milo Yiannopoulos to Jesus

In this day and age, it is not unusual for a professor to have a blog. In some cases these blogs involve a further exploration of the professor’s area of academic interest, and in other cases they involve a wider breadth of personal interests. Sometimes these blogs allow professors to make their work research by explaining modern happenings in light of the insight provided by their area of expertise. These blogs do not, however, typically include the un-ironic use of the c-word.

And so the bullies came for him. They called him self-hating. Homophobic. Transphobic. Misogynist. Sexist. They mounted protests against his talks. They accused him of spreading hate. Endangering innocents. Inciting violence. They made him out to be the villain because he told the truth. And then they called him a pedophile. Because he had been abused as a young teen-ager and would not swallow the lies.

Shame on all of you. You spineless cunts. The bullies are YOU.

The above is an excerpt from a longer piece posted yesterday on Fencing Bear at Prayer, the blog of University of Chicago Professor Rachel Fulton Brown. The post was, of course, about Milo Yiannopoulos, an ultra-conservative commentator who has this week lost his platform over his comments about pedophilia.

And no, I am not doxxing Brown.

If you look at Brown’s faculty page you will find a link marked “personal website”; this link takes you to a page on the University of Chicago website which she curates, with further information about her research, etc. This page in turn includes a link to her blog, Fencing Bear at Prayer. When Breitbart published a piece Brown wrote about Yiannopoulos back in December, they included a note that the post was “initially published at the blog of Professor Rachel Fulton Brown,” and linked directly to her blog. Finally, the sidebar of Brown’s blog contains a link to her Facebook page.

I don’t have a problem with professors-turned-bloggers or with conservative faculty members. I’m not even sure that Brown should face censure for her words. I suppose I’m just surprised by the extent to which Brown is willing to take this. In addition to her willingness to use blatantly offensive and demeaning language, Brown’s blog has become almost exclusively about Milo. In a post titled Why I Love Milo and published earlier this month Brown wrote these words:

I love Milo because he tells the truth.

He tells the truth about women (for which he is called a misogynist), that some of them quite like the thought of becoming mothers and are willing to make choices about their careers that mean they do not work the same kinds of hours or in the dangerous–and therefore higher-paying–jobs that men do.

He tells the truth about Black Lives Matter (for which he is called a racist), that the movement does not focus on the real problems in the black community like bad schools and the high rate of abortion and the lack of fathers that make it so difficult for black Americans to get out of the cycles of gang-violence and poverty that afflict so many of them, particularly black young men.

He tells the truth about Islam (for which he is called Islamophobic), that in countries under Muslim-majority rule, women and gays do not enjoy the freedoms that they do in the Christian-majority countries of the West; indeed, in many such countries under sharia, women are denied what we consider in the West basic human rights, and gays are legally killed.

He tells the truth about immigration (for which he is called a white nationalist), that America and the U.K. deserve to have borders that are legally enforced so that they can choose who comes into their countries, because preserving their culture and traditions matters.

He tells the truth about being fat (for which he is called hateful), that it is not healthy, that most people do not find it as attractive or pleasurable as being thin, and that encouraging young women to become fat is only to guarantee that they will be miserable and alone.

He tells the truth about young men (for which, again, he called a misogynist, as well as a white supremacist), that they are not served well by our educational system’s focus on women at the expense of the kinds of activities and discipline that would enable boys to become responsible and successful men.

He tells the truth about gays (for which he is called homophobic), that it is vindictive and mean to go after family-owned pizza restaurants simply for standing up for their religious convictions in not supporting gay marriage.

He tells the truth about the gamers (for which he is called, again, a misogynist), that they were right to push back against the politically-correct journalism trying to tell them what games they were allowed to play.

He tells the truth about feminists (for which is he called…you know by now), that those who now call themselves feminists seem more intent on bashing men than in ensuring equality of opportunity for women and men.

He tells the truth about the media (for which they will never forgive him), that they lie and lie and lie and lie all the time about conservative and libertarian values and ideals and the people who hold them.

And he tells the truth about the Left (for which he is called a fascist), that it is they who turn to violence when they do not get their own way.

He is also, of course, devastatingly handsome, to the despair of women and white men everywhere. (Don’t tell me you haven’t heard about his black boyfriends.)

I could respond to these point-by-point, but I honestly don’t feel the need, they’re that off target. It’s the sort of strawman assemblage that renders reasoned conversation practically impossible.

Brown writes about her obsession with Yiannopoulos in a very personal way:

That week in September, I spent three days back-to-back watching the videos of the talks that Milo had given the previous spring.

And fell in love.

Brown compares her response to this introduction to Yiannopoulos with the disciples’ decisions to drop everything and follow Jesus. “Have you ever had an experience like this?” she quotes a teacher in her catechumen class. “Can you imagine simply dropping everything to follow someone in the way that Peter and Andrew did?” Brown, it seems, can—and that man is Milo Yiannopoulos.

Don’t get me wrong. Milo, godlike though he may be, is not God. But he dropped into my life and, to judge from their testimonies, into the lives of his now 1.3 million Facebook followers like the answer to a prayer.

In her most recent post, Brown again compares Yiannopoulos with Jesus, whom she calls “the master troll.” She argues that Yiannopoulos is being rejected and condemned to death by those offended by his words just as Jesus was.

In a post last month, titled Lies of the Left, Brown wrote that:

“White nationalism,” like the patriarchy, is a myth.

The link takes the reader to a Brietbart article by Milo Yiannopoulos.

I’m not surprised that Brown has taken a political position that differs from that of the Left. I am surprised, I suppose, by the way she is doing it. Her decision to use the C-word, her description of Milo as “godlike” and her constant comparison between him and Jesus—it’s strange. Her denial of patriarchy does make me wonder a bit about how she teaches medieval history, at least when it comes to gender relations, and I sincerely hope her grasp on scholarship in that area is not as shallow has her writing here suggests.

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