“Our argument will be that space is not real. It’s not real. Science, technology, it’s all fake. It’s a projection of white fantasies that has worked to control our interpretation of how the world works.” That’s the statement of a college debate professor talking with his class. He added, “None of us have had the privilege of going to f**king space to verify that there’s these stars and these galaxies and these planets.”

Part of me would love for this to be a clever hoax but I don’t think it is. Nine months ago this same university student, Michael Moreno, made a splash when he posted a video that showed him losing a debate because he quoted Ben Shapiro. Now he’s back with a lengthy recording of his debate professor preparing for a debate about international cooperation in space, i.e. should nations team up to put solar panels in space? But rather than sticking to the topic, the professor introduces a heavy dose of postmodernism mixed with intersectionality.

“Imagine someone who grew up inner-city, Kansas City for instance, who never left a 20-block radius,” the professor suggested. He continued, “They can’t even fathom that there’s mountains in the world let alone that there’s something outside of that…And so structural inequity, to some degree, because of our lack of privilege in terms of mobility determines what we can understand to be real and falsifiable.

“Whiteness then works and then appropriates science and technology to say ‘This is true while this is not true because it’s not verifiable.’…It’s a hyperfocus on the experiential for those who does not capitulate with whiteness.”

At this point, Moreno asked a couple of simple questions: “So what about telescopes or black astronauts who have been to space?”

“What black astronauts have been to space?” the professor asked.

“There’s been like fourteen. If you just Google ‘black astronauts’ there’s a lot of them,” Moreno replied.

The professor argued that not all astronauts have actually gone to space. Moreno replied by citing this Wikipedia page which includes photos of 14 black astronauts in space suits.

“Did you just use in an academic space, you just cited Wikipedia?” the professor asked. So it’s okay to question the existence of the planets, four of which can be seen in the night sky without a telescope, in an academic setting, but citing Wikipedia is a bridge too far!

When Moreno argued that the experience of these astronauts proves space exists and is real, the professor countered that, since he hadn’t personally been to space, he could verify that it’s not real. “You can verify that space isn’t real because you haven’t been there?” the student said.

“My life is evidence of the fact that space does not exist,” the professor replied.

As the debate goes on, the professor suggested that maybe the black astronauts are participating in whiteness, meaning…actually I’m not sure how that works but he seems to think it made sense.

Moreno eventually compared the claim that space does not exist to another claim: “Paris doesn’t exist because I’ve never been there.”

“Correct,” the professor replied.

When Moreno pointed out there is lots of evidence that Paris exists, the professor began talking about colonialism. And that’s just the first few minutes of the audio below. The segment after this features the professor comparing international cooperation for the purpose of space exploration to “gang-bangs.” And later still, some students suggest sending all white people on a one-way trip into space. It’s a reverse Day of Absence on a global scale.

I think the clip speaks for itself but I’d just say that back when the Evergreen State College meltdown happened, professor Bret Weinstein said that after the push for social justice had triumphed in the humanities departments it would eventually wind up knocking on the door of the sciences.  I think this video suggests he was correct about that. If you’ve put a premium on identity and ‘lived experience’ you’re eventually going to want to discount claims of truth that might contradict or supersede those personal views.

Update: I contacted Michael Moreno for more information about where this happened. He replied “This happened at Weber State University, Utah. The professor is Ryan Wash.” He also pointed out that he’d uploaded a new video offering some additional details: