Tony Funchess is an important leader at PSU, and his comments carry a lot of weight that are echoed throughout Portland State University. This is our response to his opinion that a particular flyer is "offensive" and "triggering". We believe that the University setting is where people can and should encounter ideas they may not like or agree with. Here is what Tony Funchess had to say about the flyer PSUSCC posted:
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| OFFENSIVE! TRIGGERING!! Tony Funchess writes |
In a reserved glass case on the first floor in Smith, PSUSCC posted the front cover of the book Negroes and the Gun: The Black Tradition of Arms by NYC law professor Nicholas Johnson.
Here is an excerpt from Amazon about what this book is about:
"Chronicling the underappreciated black tradition of bearing arms for self-defense, this book presents an array of examples reaching back to the pre—Civil War era that demonstrate a willingness of African American men and women to use firearms when necessary to defend their families and communities. From Frederick Douglass’s advice to keep “a good revolver” handy as defense against slave catchers to the armed self-protection of Monroe, North Carolina, blacks against the KKK chronicled in Robert Williams’s Negroes with Guns, it is clear that owning firearms was commonplace in the black community [...] Nicholas Johnson points out that this story has been submerged because it is hard to reconcile with the dominant narrative of nonviolence during the civil rights era".
Why did professor Johnson title his book Negroes and the Gun? He explains this in his book, but also wrote an article on the Washington Post that goes into detail behind his reasoning (emphasis is mine):
"Much of my scholarship over the last two decades has focused on gun issues. Some find this an odd specialty for someone like me. Negroes and the Gun is a sort of answer to people who wonder and often have asked, how is it that a black law professor at a New York City law school comes to write sympathetically about the Second Amendment and gun rights. But Negroes and the Gun also demands its own preliminary explanation.
No one really uses the word Negro anymore. I haven’t said it out loud in decades. So the title of this book is odd in that sense. But in other more important ways the title is entirely apt. Some will recognize the title as a variation on Robert Williams’ memoir, Negroes with Guns (readers will become acquainted with Williams in the first chapter and again in Chapter Seven as he provokes a conflict with the NAACP that captures the central theme of the black tradition of arms). Negroes is also evocative of the deep roots of the black tradition of arms which emerged at a time in the American story when most black people had the legal status of mules and would have been gratified to be called Negroes..."[Continue reading]
The entire two page article was printed and posted directly under the book cover in our reserved glass case (you can see part of the article in Tony Funchess' photo). Anyone who bothered to spend twenty seconds reading would understand why the book is titled the way it is. Our goal by posting this book cover isn't to be offensive or triggering, though we do respect those who feel that way and wish to express their opinion.
Our goal is to bring even greater numbers of PSU African American students into the Second Amendment community. African Americans are, in fact, the second fastest demographic buying firearms and getting Concealed Handgun Licenses behind women of all ethnicities. Many of them feel ashamed to be gun owners or expressing the desire to learn how to shoot. Our goal is to reduce the fragmentation experienced by those who are interested in firearms. We feel that this fragmentation has, to a large extent, been perpetuated by the institutional left because it doesn't fit the dominant narrative of who is a gun owner.
Negroes and the Gun is worth reading for any student of history. Too often black history is erased in our culture, especially about the critical role firearms played and continue to play for black folks in America. Though it is uncertain whether it was Tony Funchess or someone else at PSU, several complaints were sent to University officials regarding this flyer. Perhaps it was an attempt to have PSUSCC forced to take it down. If that was the intention, it is incredibly anti-intellectual and disheartening that some within the academic community dislike the First Amendment. Not only is it a failed attempt to silence PSUSCC, but it is a failed attempt to silence a black law scholar.
Do you want a university that only considers innocuous ideas worth studying? We refuse to take it down and will continue to use it.
Thankfully PSUSCC is on the side of liberty. Welcome to PSU!
----Alex
PSUSCC
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