I know you can’t wait to find out what “virtue signaling” is. Stanford University accepted Ziad Ahmed after he wrote “#Black Lives Matter” 100 times across his personal application statement to the university. As if that were not enough for him, he also tweeted a picture of his statement and received immediate “applause” (I don’t know what that is, since I don’t tweet–my wisdom is too profound to be encapsulated in 140 characters don’t you know–but from the context of the article about this it sounds like something other denizens of Twitter do to show their approval). He was also accepted by Yale and Princeton.
Admirers called him “bold”, but others complained that his statement was “an insufficient defense of the movement” and an example of……wait for it….”virtue signaling!” My good friend and mentor Gene jokes that satirists are running out of material, then this item comes along. I can’t type fast enough to keep up with all the material to satirize! To be fair, Mr. Ahmed is more than just his statement. Here is a link to his website.the activist
If you don’t have the patience to wade through all his prose about himself, what he stands for is the third sentence of his self-description, “Ziad has resolved to work towards a world safe for all and accepting of everyone.” Sigh. Sure sounds great. However, the universities he is choosing among are not exactly safe for those who express opinions contrary to the current orthodoxy nor are they accepting of diversity of thought. So what does he really mean? Safe for whom? All? Not hardly. Accepting of whom? Everyone? Really?
