The author Jennine Capó Crucet was invited to Georgia Southern University to speak about her novel Make your Home among Strangers, an account of the difficulties of a first-generation Cuban-American woman at an elite white college, required reading this year for first-year students at Georgia Southern. The issue of white privilege was, of course, prominent in the novel and affected its reception by Georgia Southern students. Some students who, like most Americans, are dimly conscious of color-based privilege, but persist in angry denial, took offense at Ms Capó Crucet’s person, her book, and her discussion of it. This was evident in hostile tweets that were collected by the campus paper, but abruptly deleted, and in the behavior of a group of students who collected around a barbecue grill to burn the frightening novel and, figuratively, its author.

This was a revealing combination! The Spanish inquisition and Nazi mass book burnings re-enacted on a barbecue grill, a symbol of suburban, middle-class America. Of course, many students and the University itself were deeply embarrassed by this outrage. University representatives denounced the burning but asserted that it was protected speech. However, free speech was not protected when the University canceled another scheduled event of Ms Capó Crucet’s visit because it felt it could not guarantee her safety due to open-carry laws.

The commotion began when, after Capó Crucet’s presentation, a student questioned her right to be speaking there and her generalizing about white privilege. Students started shouting against and for the questioner, and of those supporting the questioner some were heard shouting “Trump 2020!”

Three threads stand out here: frantic hostility to exposé of white privilege, abuse of the right to free speech, and open-carry laws preventing free speech. And these are all woven together by “Trump 2020!”