Category: bigotry

How do we deal with anti-Semitic philosophers of past centuries?

March 21, 2019 • 11:45 am

Here is a strange but timely article from the New York Times‘s philosophy column, “The Stone.” Laurie Shrage, a professor of philosophy at Florida International University, asks how we should deal with the palpable anti-Semitism of early philosophers. But in the course of her lucubrations, she conflates four distinct questions. Read the piece by clicking on the screenshot:

Here are the four questions conflated in the article which purports to deal with a simple yes or no question: “Should we continue to teach thinkers like Kant, Voltaire, and Hume without mention of the harmful prejudices they helped legitimize?

1.) Do we mention the anti-Semitism of European philosophers as part of their character when we teach their work?

2.) Do we investigate and teach how we think their anti-Semitism permeated their work—if it did?

3.) Do we teach philosophers outside the Western “canon”—people like Maimonides, Philo, or Confucius, rather than adhere to a philosophical “image of the West as racist thinkers have fashioned it?”

And there’s an unspoken question:

4.) Should we marginalize or even not teach the work of Western philosophers who were anti-Semites?

Shrage also spends a bit of time indicting the teaching of philosophy because, in the last hundred years, Jews weren’t hired to teach philosophy because they weren’t really regarded as “Western”. Well, that problem no longer exists, so I’m not sure what this potted history reveals. It certainly sheds no light on the questions above.

My answers are as follows:

1.) We should mention the anti-Semitism of ancient philosophers only insofar as it affected or informed their philosophy. After all, almost everyone in Europe before the 19th century, including (or maybe especially) educated folk, were not only anti-Semitic, but racist, homophobic, and misogynistic. Our change in morality should certainly be studied in history or sociology classes, but something sticks in my craw when people demand that long-dead people who lived in bigoted milieu be constantly indicted for bigotry. I don’t mention Darwin’s own bigotry in my evolution class (he was an abolitionist but also denigrated black people), but I would if I were teaching the parts of his work in which he speculated about racial hierarchies.

2.) As for Kant, Hume, and Voltaire, I’m not sure how much of the philosophy taught as “theirs” is affected by bigotry. That would be up to individual teachers. It’s clear from what Shrage said that these people did publish anti-Semitic stuff, but it’s not clear to me that this is the stuff taught in philosophy classes.

3.) Of course we should teach non-Western philosophers; I’m sure there is a lot of good thought there that deserves airing. Because most academic philosophers are taught the Western canon, and teach it themselves, this may require “non-Western philosophy” courses, but I’m all in favor of that.

As for religious philosophers, I’m a bit more dubious. How much real philosophy is there in religious philosophy, given that lots of it involves assuming gods for which there is no evidence? Do we really want to ask why God would permit the existence of evil if we don’t think there’s a god? This is why, when founding the University of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson stipulated that it would have no theology department or divinity school.

On the other hand, it may be useful to acquaint people with some of the arguments used by religious philosophers, like the First Cause argument, simply because we live in a religious society and those arguments are not only part of history, but are ongoing now. But if we teach those, and the ancient Greeks, we have to be aware that philosophers like Plato, Aquinas, and St. Augustine justified slavery.

4.) No. If we sidelined every academic throughout history who was bigoted, we wouldn’t be teaching anything.

Curiously, Shrage doesn’t “unpack” (to use the argot) these questions, and winds up assuming that their work does reflect their bigotry, with the implicit view that we need to teach that. Here’s her last paragraph, which conflates three questions at once:

With the resurgence of old hatreds in the 21st century, philosophers are challenged to think about the ways we trace the history of our discipline and teach our major figures, and whether our professional habits and pieties have been shaped by religious intolerance and other forms of bigotry. For example, why not emphasize how philosophy emerged from schools of thought around the world? In the fields of history and literature, introductory courses that focus on European studies are being replaced by courses in world history and comparative literature.

There has not been a similar widespread movement to rethink the standard introduction to philosophy in terms of world philosophy. There are philosophers who contend that such projects inappropriately politicize our truth-seeking endeavors, but, as some philosophers of science have shown, objective truth involves the convergence of multiple observations and perspectives. Moreover, the anti-Semitic theories of Hume, Voltaire and Kant show that philosophy has rarely, if ever, been insulated from politics.

But the question is whether the philosophy has been affected by bigotry. 

Maybe students would be better served by teaching them philosophy then by minutely scrutinizing every philosopher in history (and artists and writers and scientists) for ideological impurities.

 

Morris Dees fired from the Southern Poverty Law Center

March 15, 2019 • 1:30 pm

I’ve posted a fair amount about the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which at one time was a great organization fighting segregation and pushing for civil liberties (see my posts here).  But, as civil rights became national law, the organization started changing its mission, which largely became fighting “hate speech.” That is not necessarily bad, but the SPLC became so social justice-y that they started making “hate lists” that included people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Maajid Nawaz who featured on a list of “anti-Muslim extremists” (Nawaz is a Muslim, for crying out loud). Further, they also went after “cultural appropriation” of Cinco de Mayo, pretty close to a victimless crime for these people. Finally, it was revealed by several outlets, including Politico, that the founders and top lawyers of the SPLC made huge and unconscionable salaries, and that they even stashed a lot of the organization’s money in offshore accounts for reasons that aren’t clear.

I was thus pleased when Nawaz sued the SPLC and won a $3.4 million settlement as well as an apology, and when the SPLC removed that “hate list” from their site.  Now, according to the NYT and other venues, the founder and big macher in the whole shebang, Morris Dees, once an effective and admirable civil-right litigator, has been ousted from the organization after nebulous charges of “inappropriate conduct”. That conduct isn’t clear yet, but may include, ironically, poor treatment of women and blacks. The NYT story is below:

From the article:

The group’s president, Richard Cohen, did not give a specific reason for the dismissal of Mr. Dees, 82, on Wednesday. But Mr. Cohen said in a statement that as a civil-rights group, the S.P.L.C. was “committed to ensuring that the conduct of our staff reflects the mission of the organization and the values we hope to instill in the world.”

“When one of our own fails to meet those standards, no matter his or her role in the organization, we take it seriously and must take appropriate action,” Mr. Cohen said.

Mr. Cohen’s statement suggested that Mr. Dees’s firing was linked to workplace conduct. He said the center, which is based in Montgomery, Ala., had requested “a comprehensive assessment of our internal climate and workplace practices” in a bid to ensure that the organization was a place where “all voices are heard and all staff members are respected.”

Note that Dees denies the charges vehemently; the tweets below were posted by Josh Moon, who writes for The Alabama Political Reporter:

Some of the reporting, including the first tweet above, intimates that another factor in Dees’s firing could have been the change in mission of the SPLC from a genuine civil rights group to a social-justice enforcement group:

Mr. Dees and the S.P.L.C. have been credited with undermining the influence of the Ku Klux Klan and extremist groups. But in recent years, the center has come under scrutiny for its classifications of “hate groups,” and whether the organization has abused that label in pursuit of a political agenda or increased donations.

The center has tracked extremist activity and hate groups throughout the country since the 1980s. Its 2018 Intelligence Project reportidentified 1,020 hate groups, its largest number ever. Conservatives have accused the group of unfairly including right-leaning organizations on the list.

. . .“I am glad to see Dees leave S.P.L.C., whatever the reason,” William A. Jacobson, a professor at Cornell Law School and an outspoken critic of the group, said on Thursday.

“S.P.L.C. long ago focused on combating the Ku Klux Klan, but then abused the reputation it earned for those efforts by demonizing political opponents through the use of hate and extremist lists to stifle speech by people who presented no risk of violence,” Mr. Jacobson said.

I’m glad to see hm go, too. It’s time for fresh blood and a rededication to the original mission of the SPLC, fighting genuine oppression and bigotry. As the Montgomery Advertiser reports, an outside group will be examining the group’s direction:

“Today we announced a number of immediate, concrete next steps we’re taking, including bringing in an outside organization to conduct a comprehensive assessment of our internal climate and workplace practices, to ensure that our talented staff is working in the environment that they deserve — one in which all voices are heard and all staff members are respected,” [SPLC President Richard] Cohen said.

This group has about half a BILLION dollars in assets, and that dosh can be used to do real good rather than making up “little lists.”

Farrakhan says that the “wicked Jews” are using him to attack the Women’s March

February 27, 2019 • 12:00 pm

From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency we have a short report and a video showing a recent speech in Chicago by Louis Farrakahan—misogynist, racist, anti-Semite, and leader of the Nation of Islam (NoI). He blames the “wicked Jews” for trying to drive a wedge between him and the Women’s March (WM), presumably referring to the the wicked Jews at Tablet magazine, who wrote the famous exposé about the WM.

The video below shows the relevant part of Farrakhan’s speech.

The “black woman who was the initiator of it” is presumably Tamika Mallory, one of the four co-Presidents of the Women’s March along with Linda Sarsour, Carmen Perez, and Bob Bland.

It’s ironic that Farrakhan comes off here as a feminist, when in reality he’s a misogynist who deems NoI women as strictly subordinate to their husbands. (Remember that women were excluded from Farrakhan’s 1995 “Million Man March,” though it wasn’t about black men’s issues.)  And I find it ironic and distressing that Farrakhan, and the leaders of the Women’s Movement, are driving a wedge between African-Americans and Jews, two groups that were historical allies.

As the article reports, Farrakhan didn’t hesitate to praise Sarsour and Perez as well (Bob Bland is white).

“The most beautiful sight that I could lay eyes on [was] when I saw, the day after Trump was elected, women from all over the world were standing in solidarity, and a black woman is the initiator of it,” said Farrakhan, referring to Tamika Mallory, a leader of the Women’s March who has lionized Farrakhan and refused to condemn his pervasive anti-Semitism.

“The wicked Jews want to use me to break up the women’s movement,” Farrakhan continued on Sunday during his address at the Nation of Islam’s Savior’s Day conference in Chicago. “It ain’t about Farrakhan, it’s about women all over the world (who) have the power to change the world.”

He also praised Mallory’s co-organizers Linda Sarsour, a Palestinian American who has been highly critical of Israel, and Carmen Perez, who reportedly made anti-Semitic comments at Women’s March planning meetings.

Celebrities, activists and community leaders, Jewish and non-Jewish, have distanced themselves from the march and called on the national organizers to step down over claims that they have not done enough to disavow anti-Semitism.

But wait! There’s more!

During his address, Farrakhan returned to anti-Semitic tropes and bashed Israel.

There were several thousand people in attendance at the speech, which also was livestreamed.

Farrakhan was preceded by a known Holocaust denier Michael A. Hoffman II, who suggested that ancient Jewish texts are equivalent to teachings “from the church of Satan,” according to the ADL.

While the main branch of the WM, the WM, Inc., has made tepid statements about not agreeing with all of Farrakhan’s remarks, and paid lip service to their “Jewish sisters”, they have not explicitly disassociated themselves from the virulent anti-Semitism of Farrakhan. Why? Almost certainly because they agree with it—and because Farrakhan’s goons supply security for the March and its leaders.

Here’s a video I posted in January, noting this:

On the television show The View last week, co-heads of the March Tamika Mallory and Bob Bland were grilled about their views by both Whoopi Goldberg and Megan McCain. Mallory, while paying her new lip service against antisemitism, refused to denounce the antisemitism of Louis Farrakhan, the bigoted loon who heads the Nation of Islam.  The WM leaders people are masters of evasion, though they’d condemn racism in an instant.

. . . Note that Mallory also affirms that she won’t step down as head of the Women’s March because some people still want her to serve (yes, and some people still want Theresa May to serve, but a future vote of no confidence, such as Mallory and her co-Presidents have in effect received, would cause May to step down.)

Unless the WM explicitly condemns Farrakhan, and stops using his people as employees of their movement, their movement will continue to fall apart. I can’t say I’d mourn that, for there are plenty of offshoots of the Women’s Movement who are still marching for equality but also disavowing anti-Semitism.

There have already been many calls for Mallory, Perez, Sarsour, and Bland to step down as co-leaders, but they all refuse, as Mallory makes clear above. That’s because virtually all of their public presence and power comes from their association with the Women’s March. Without the WM, all (with the possible exception of Sarsour) would be unknowns.

h/t: BJ

The affair of Jussie Smollett

February 21, 2019 • 10:30 am

UPDATE: Reuters reports that Smollett staged the attack because he was dissatisfied with his salary on Empire. (It must have been substantial, though!). This motive apparently comes not from Smollett, of course, but probably from the two “assailants” he hired.

And it gets even weirder. Smollett wrote a CHECK to pay off his assailants, or so this NBC reporter says. HOW CAN YOU BE THAT DUMB?

____________

I think that almost everyone has heard of what happened with Jussie Smollett, who’s fairly well known for playing a musician in the ongoing Fox drama Empire. As Wikipedia recounts the details, Smollett, who lives in Chicago where the series is filmed, claimed that he was attacked on the night of January 19 by two white men who beat him, put a noose around his neck, and dumped a chemical on him. They also apparently called him a “nigger” and a “faggot” (he’s gay and black), and shouted, “This is MAGA country.” (That, of course, stands for the Trump motto, “Make America Great Again.”)

This seemed fishy from the outset. How could these guys have known who he was unless they were tracking him? The shouted motto and noose seemed stereotypical, a bit over the top. More important, Chicago police couldn’t find any evidence of an attack from video surveillance, and when the cops came several hours later, Smollett was still wearing the noose around his neck. Why didn’t he take it off?

As the police investigation continued, with a dozen officers assigned to the case, Smollett’s story began to unravel. It was found that his assailants were both black; why would they attack another black man and use racist epithets? Moreover, both of the supposed assailants, brothers, had tangential connections to the show Empire, and that was deeply suspicious. They both knew Smollett. Finally, it appeared that both men, who were from Nigeria, told the police that Smollett had hired them to conduct the attack.

Now, as the New York Times reports, Smollett, who turned himself in to police this morning, has been charged with faking an accident report, which is a class 4 felony in Illinois—a crime for which he could face up to three years in prison. There’s also a threatening note that Smollett received, and if he’s complicit in that, as seems likely, he faces federal charges on top of the state charges (he used the U.S. Mail).

The story, as the NYT recounts, was initially taken up widely by the media as an example of not just racism and homophobia, but also bigotry inspired by Donald Trump. There wasn’t much skepticism or withholding of judgment, despite the holes in Smollett’s story.

Why did Smollett, though, who was pretty famous and certainly well off, have to concoct an incident like this? Writing in The Atlantic, John McWhorter, an author and professor of linguistics at Columbia University, and also a black man, has a thoughtful answer. Click on the screenshot below to read it.

Now it’s almost too easy to use this incident—and I’m assuming the police allegations are true—to indict not just the social justice crowd but also the credulous media. After all, it plays into the hands of all of us who hate Trump and his administration, and also to that moiety of the Left that sees racism and homophobia as institutionalized in this country (I see this bigotry as a recurring problem to be solved, but not, in general, as an institutionalized one). But there’s another side of the coin: these incidents of false reporting play into the hands of the Right as well, actually strengthening Trump’s supporters and giving people an excuse to dismiss any claim of violence motivated by bigotry. For these reasons we should maintain skepticism from the outset, trying to be compassionate but also looking hard at the evidence.

Still, the question remains: why did Smollett do this?  And that’s the topic of McWhorter’s essay. While noting that racism is still with us, he raises the tropes of “victimhood chic” and “professional martyrs”:

Until this twist [the Chicago police changing the “trajectory of the investigation” after looking at the evidence], smart people were claiming that the attack on Smollett was the story of Donald Trump’s America writ small—that it revealed the terrible plight of minority groups today. But the Smollett story, if the “trajectory” leads to evidence of fakery, would actually reveal something else modern America is about: victimhood chic. Future historians and anthropologists will find this aspect of early-21st-century America peculiar, intriguing, and sad.

Smollett doesn’t need the money he would get from a court settlement, and he isn’t trying to deny someone higher office. So why in the world would he fake something like that attack—if he did indeed fake it? The reason might be that he has come of age in an era when nothing he could have done or said would have made him look more interesting than being attacked on the basis of his color and sexual orientation.

Racial politics today have become a kind of religion in which whites grapple with the original sin of privilege, converts tar questioners of the orthodoxy as “problematic” blasphemers, and everyone looks forward to a judgment day when America “comes to terms” with race. Smollett—if he really did stage the attack—would have been acting out the black-American component in this eschatological configuration, the role of victim as a form of status. We are, within this hierarchy, persecuted prophets, ever attesting to the harm that white racism does to us and pointing to a future context in which our persecutors will be redeemed of the sin of having leveled that harm upon us. We are noble in our suffering.

Indeed, McWhorter argues later on that the fact that being a victim of racist and homophobic bigotry gives you fame and admiration shows that this country has ascended the moral arc for civil right and gay rights, for in the bad old days you would not be a hero if you were a black or gay man who was attacked.

Certainly, the professional martyr is a race-neutral personality type. However, since the civil-rights victories of the 1960s, when whites became open in a new way to understanding black pain, that personality type has been especially useful to black Americans. With positive racial self-image possibly elusive after hundreds of years of naked abuse, the noble-victim position can seem especially, and understandably, comforting. It can also be handy, in a fashion quite unexpected to anyone who was on the front lines of race activism 50 years ago—as a road to stardom.

“Professional martyr” is a useful term for such cases, and there are many incidents in which people have faked attacks like this to either buttress their cause or claim victim status. (I’m not denigrating, of course, those true reports of attacks based on racism and other forms of bigotry.)

As far as what Smollett had to gain, it was this admiration. He already had it, but presumably craved more:

[Rachel] Dolezal, white, spent years with a spray tan, “identifying” as black and even heading a local NAACP branch, and had fabricated episodes of racist discrimination against herself. As Bryan Cranston’s dentist character on Seinfeld adopted Judaism for the jokes, Dolezal, one might say, took on blackness for the victimhood. She felt that her existence was more meaningful while she was “playing” an oppressed black person than living as a white person despite all the attendant privileges. Few news events more perfectly illustrated that in our moment, a claim of victimhood from a black person is a form of power. Only in an America much further past the old days than many like to admit could a white person eagerly seek to be a put-upon black person out of a sense that it looked “cool.” A Dolezal would have been unimaginable until roughly the late 1990s.

One could imagine that Smollett, if he was playacting, had a similar motivation. For Smollett, being a successful actor and singer might not have been quite as exciting as being a poster child for racist abuse in Trump’s America.

Assuming, again, that the reports are accurate, Smollett’s clumsiness would be an especially poignant indication of how deeply this victimhood chic has taken hold—almost as if he thought this was such an easy score that he didn’t even need to think too hard about the logistics.

Now of course McWhorter is psychologizing Smollett here, and we don’t know what was in Smollett’s mind, but, for a rational person, I can’t think of any other motivation. In his last sentence, McWhorter finds a silver lining in this cloud:

. . . Smollett, if the latest reporting is true, was an eager puppy, jumping with joyous inattention into American social politics as he has encountered it coming of age in the 21st century. He would have known that in this moment, very important people would find him more interesting for having been hurt on the basis of his identity than for his fine performance on an interesting hit television show. He would have known this so well that it didn’t even occur to him that his story would have to be more credible than the dopey one he threw together about being jumped in near-Arctic temperatures by the only two white bullies in America with a mysterious fondness for a black soap hip-hopera. (Yet again, I’m assuming the latest reporting is accurate.)

Only in an America in which matters of race are not as utterly irredeemable as we are often told could things get to the point that someone would pretend to be tortured in this way, acting oppression rather than suffering it, seeking to play a prophet out of a sense that playing a singer on television is not as glamorous as getting beaten up by white guys. That anyone could feel this way and act on it in the public sphere is, in a twisted way, a kind of privilege, and a sign that we have come further on race than we are often comfortable admitting.

I don’t feel any Schadenfreude in this incident. Smollett is a figure to be pitied, and, given that his career is ruined, I don’t see why (if he’s found guilty) he needs to spend much time in jail, except perhaps a modicum of incarceration to deter others from the same kind of behavior. No matter how much time he does, he’ll always be known as the bozo who faked his own attack. The lesson, as everybody has already drawn, is to be skeptical of claims like this, and not bruit about the mantra “believe the victim.”

Empathy yes, credulity no. For it is stuff like this that will help Trump in 2020, and contribute to the division of America.

Should the governor of Virginia resign over racist yearbook photos?

February 3, 2019 • 8:15 am

As many venues report (NYT article here), Ralph Northam, the governor of Virginia, is now the object of gazillions of calls for him to step down, all based on a photo of a person in blackface, accompanied by a person dressed in KKK robes, that appeared on Northam’s page in his medical school yearbook of 1984.

Nobody doubts, including Northam, that the photograph is racist, but although Northam previously admitted he was one of the two people in the picture, he now denies it. But he now adds that he did wear blackface once, when he played Michael Jackson in a skit that same year.

The question is not whether the photo is racist, but whether it depicts Northam. That will eventually come out. But even if it does, should he resign? Both Democrats and Republicans are calling for him to step down, and nobody has said he shouldn’t—except for Northam himself and some readers on a recent thread here.

The more I think about this, the more I think that it isn’t a cut and dried issue—at least with respect to that one photograph. The question centers on whether we should forgive someone who transgressed in this way 35 years ago (assuming it was him in the photograph), or demand their heads and a permanent ban from politics. In other words, the question is whether Northam has reformed, and is not only not a racist, but someone who favors equal rights and opportunities for all.

I don’t know the answer to that question. Northam’s actions in recent years seem to be those of an antiracist liberal. What bothers me is that he’s wobbling on this issue, first saying it was he in the picture and then denying it, while admitting that yes, he wore blackface on other occasion in that same year. Perhaps he forgot, though I’d remember if I posed for a photo like that.

I guess I’m reserving judgment until I learn more about the facts and more about the photos. What worries me are not only the instant calls for banning, which carry the assumption that nobody is capable of reformation, but the fact that they are instant, and leave no time for us to thoughtfully reflect on the issue. Was Northam in the photo? Did he express racist views at the time, or in recent years? We don’t yet know.

The offense culture often comes with an assumption that ideological impurities should carry stiff sentences—often firing, lifetime bans from jobs, and lifetime shaming. Perhaps Northam won’t be an effective governor even if he stays on, since he might be distracted by constant calls to step down or by being ignored or impeded by other lawmakers. But what seems lacking in today’s political climate is any notion of reformation and forgiveness. People can change (that is not a contradiction of determinism!), and we should take that into account in dealing with them. Should we punish a man for what he did 35 years ago if he hasn’t evinced any racism since then?

Let’s take a vote, and I’d appreciate it if you would vote, as well as weigh in if you wish. If you think, for instance, that Northam should resign not just because of the photos, but because of his changing stories about them, which might bespeak a general untrustworthiness, or because he’s lost his ability to function as a governor, put it in the comments.

Professor suspended for using “n word”—as written by James Baldwin

February 1, 2019 • 10:45 am

From Inside Higher Ed (click on screenshot below), we have a white professor being suspended—and going on medical leave because of the resultant stress—because he used the “n-word” in a discussion of James Baldwin’s famous book The Fire Next Time. If you’ve read that 1963 book (I have), you’ll know it as a powerful and antiracist work that had immense influence on many. Baldwin, of course, was black. And the suspended white professor, Philip Adamo of Augsburg College (an Evangelical Lutheran school in Minneapolis), has received an award as “Minnesota Professor of the Year” and asserts that he’s been active in “recruiting and retaining students of color.”

But it didn’t matter. Read the story (it’s at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/02/01/professor-suspended-using-n-word-class-discussion-language-james-baldwin-essay; I forgot the link when I first posted this):

We all know what the “n-word” is, and in fact even saying “n-word” makes you automatically hear the entire word in your head. Nevertheless, I’ll not use the whole thing here because it’s not necessary. When it is necessary, or at least useful, is when you’re quoting a work of literature that uses that word—in this case, Baldwin’s book.  But you can also get into trouble by assigning works of literature that contain the word if written by a white man, or if the word is used by a white character, as in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. On those grounds alone the book has been banned in several places. There are even redacted editions of Twain’s work that replace the n-word with terms like “slave.”

The idea, I guess, is that it’s okay for black people to use the word, as they often do in intra-ethnic discourse or in rap songs, but when the word is uttered by a white person, even as part of literature, it becomes both taboo and a trigger.  I recognize that the n-word is horribly racist and should never be used in a non-academic way by whites; but I also think that if blacks continue to use it in rap or normal discourse, it’s going to make the word harder to eliminate in general. After all, when whites sing along with rap songs containing that word, they’re supposed to shut up rather than sing it. Is that fair?

But academic discourse is different, and to be “triggered” by a word when you’re simply reading the works of James Baldwin or Mark Twain, is a form of hypersensitivity that I can’t get behind. Nor did Augsburg College, for they came down hard on Adamo. Here’s what happened (you can consult the links):

In an honors seminar called the Scholar Citizen, Adamo introduced Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time.In Adamo’s retelling, a student in the class quoted this sentence from early in the book: “You can really only be destroyed by believing that you really are what the white world calls a n—–.” (Baldwin uses the full word, as did the student in class.) Students were shocked, Adamo said, and he asked whether, in an academic context, quoting from an author’s work, “it was appropriate to use the word if the author had used it.” In so doing, he used the word, not the euphemism.

Class discussion lasted about 40 minutes, he said, and ended in consensus that the word was too fraught to use going forward.

A similar discussion happened in a section of the course later in the day, Adamo said. After class, he sent all students a short email with links to two essays that he said pertained to the day’s talk. The first, by Andre Perry, David M. Rubenstein Fellow at the Brookings Institution, says to “choose to only use the N-word judiciously, reminding ourselves of its gravity by not using it loosely.” The second essay, by Ta-Nehisi Coates, formerly of The Atlantic, appeared in The New York Times in 2013, and has what Adamo called a “provocative title” — “In Defense of a Loaded Word.” But it concludes that “N—– the border, the signpost that reminds us that the old crimes don’t disappear. It tells white people that, for all their guns and all their gold, there will always be places they can never go.”

Adamo said some students told him that they interpreted the email as “forcing” his opinion on them. Then, he said, several nonenrolled students attended the next class session, saying they were there to observe, as leaders within the honors program. Students in the class then asked Adamo to leave to discuss the situation. Adamo suggested there was work to do, but he eventually agreed to step outside. One of the nonenrolled students began to film him discussing the word with students. That recording, which is mostly audio, was shared online under the title, “Phil Adamo Justifying Use of N-Word.” Adamo’s tone throughout is deferential to students.

Adamo was forced into a public recantation, which is how these things go. He shouldn’t have had to suffer this kind of public humiliation:

After class, Adamo informed his provost what had happened. She suggested that he write a note to the students in the honors program, he said. That letter says, in part, that the classroom “is a place where any and every topic can be explored, even those topics considered to be taboo. This is how I understand academic freedom, which is a precious thing to me and other professors. It is the currency that allows us to speak truth to power.”

Yet, Adamo continued, “I also understand that this point of view is available to me because of my privileged position. I am now struggling to understand how it may be better not to explore some taboo topics, and to weigh the consequences of absolute academic freedom versus outcomes that lead to hurt, racial trauma, and loss of trust.”

Adamo wrote a separate email to the honors student leaders. Praising them for their defense of the program’s values, he also noted his concern about their “methods,” including showing up to class unannounced and filming him without permission.

It didn’t matter. Adamo was removed from teaching and his work as an honors supervisor at Augsburg. The American Association of University Professors have defended him, while his colleagues have both defended and attacked him (see the Inside Higher Ed piece for links). The University President even issued a statement praising the students for complaining about his use of the n-word:

“We know that the work of fostering an inclusive learning environment is ongoing, and we are fully committed to it,” said President Paul C. Pribbenow. “We are grateful to the students, faculty and staff who have spoken courageously to raise campus awareness, who have engaged in actively listening to the issues being expressed, and who have called for changes that advance our equity work.” He added, “Augsburg will address this important topic like it has many other critical issues in our 150-year history: we will acknowledge and engage the topic, not shrink from it, and work together to make the university better.

Now I am not black, so you can argue that I fail to grasp how hurtful that word is to African-Americans in any context, but my point is that it should not be hurtful in the way Adamo used it. I’m a Jew, and the equivalent words for me are kike, sheenie, hebe, yid, Hymie, and so on. You’d be hard pressed to claim that those words are not, or should not be, as hurtful to Jews as the n-word is to blacks. Yet I read those words all the time, and have no reaction. Arguably, they should be just as triggering to me as the n-word is for blacks. Yes, I would be upset if somebody called me those names, or if I heard somebody use them to refer to Jews. But in literature (I think they appear in Catcher in the Rye but can’t recall), or in academic discourse of the words’ meaning, I cannot cavil.

Some professors quoted in the article say that the student anger is understandable. I suppose that’s so, but I think it’s also unwarranted, for intent must surely count here. But I will quote one academic who says that intent doesn’t matter:

Jelani Cobb, a professor of journalism at Columbia University who has written about the N-word for The New Yorker, where he is a staff writer, said the short answer to the N-word in the classroom question is no.

“I’ve taught courses on hip-hop where the word is ubiquitous, and it’s always a stumbling block,” he said in a Twitter message. “By using the term, even in a quote, you’re essentially asking students, particularly black students, to take it on faith that this is not a vicarious thrill or a kind of ventriloquism that allows access to an otherwise forbidden term.”

In many instances, he said, “it will not be. In some instances it will.” Either way, the student is “almost always going to puzzle over that moment like a Rorschach test.”

So while it’s important question to debate, Cobb added, “the potential downsides of actually saying it are large enough, and the likelihood of derailing conversation high enough, that it’s not worth saying even if you have the most purely pedagogical motives.”

Here Cobb is defending a form of hypersensitivity in which words become equivalent to rocks or bullets. I’ve read Cobb’s piece and I don’t see a good case that the n-word should never be used, even when you’re quoting a black man who wrote it, or an old work of literature in which it appears. There are good pedagogical motives for saying it, and dare I venture to add that blacks and whites might even have a productive discussion about the word? Or is that going too far?

My own position is clear: the word should never be used in a way that could be construed as racist, but there are times, mostly involving academic discourse, when it’s justified. And, at any rate, everyone hears the entire word anyway when you say the “n-word.”

But readers may feel otherwise. Should it never be used by whites? How about by blacks: is it okay to use it in rap music, or in friendly discourse between African-Americans? (I have to add here that I never call my Jewish friends “hebes” or “kikes”.)

 

Should we teach kids to be colorblind?

October 31, 2018 • 1:00 pm

You’ll probably remember this quote from Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech; one of his dreams was this:

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

This seems outmoded now that skin color seems to be the proxy for everything, including viewpoints, degree of oppression or privilege, and so on. In fact, sometimes it seems—especially to regressive Leftists—that people should be judged on the color of their skin. And that’s what this latest piece by Doyin Richards in (Ceiling Cat help me) HuffPo seems to say. (Click on the screenshot).

My first thought was “Yes, of course: everyone should be treated the same.” But then I remembered that many people (and colleges) consider the statement, “I don’t see color” to be an actual microaggression. Such a view presumes that you not only should see color, but that it’s offensive if you don’t, and that you need to be constantly aware of ethnicity, for to be unaware means that you’re not woke and may even be lapsing into bigotry.

Well, sometimes it’s useful to recognize race, as when you’re describing somebody to someone who hasn’t met them, but look at this question and how Richards answered it. (I gave just the first bit.)

My 4-year-old son, who is white, recently started describing some of his friends by their skin color. For example, yesterday he said he played on the swings with “his black friend Andre” at preschool. Shouldn’t he just say that he’s playing with his friend Andre? How do I start this discussion with him?

[Richards’s answer]: This may surprise you, but I have no problem with your son’s labels whatsoever. As a matter of fact, I’ll go as far as to say that your son is on the road to enlightenment (or he’s becoming woke, as the kids say nowadays).

Some white parents get shook when race is brought up and try to change the subject as quickly as possible. But we should talk about race. Kids should be taught to recognize differences ― even if it means calling them out in the beginning.

Your son is in preschool, so you can’t expect him to understand the many nuances of race that, quite frankly, many fully grown-ass adults remain clueless about. As he grows older, your son will stop labeling his friends this way and will become more aware of the unique experiences black kids go through. He’ll learn to empathize with them. And because of that, I’m confident he’ll grow up to be a good human who gets it ― and we need more of those white men in America.

Personally, I’m more worried about the parents who think it’s a good idea to raise their kids to be colorblind and not see race. Those kids are the ones who grow up to post #AllLivesMatter nonsense on Twitter and who question why Megyn Kelly was fired from NBC for her blackface comments. If everyone is viewed as exactly the same, then any cries of racism are dismissed as overblown, we’re told that discrimination never happens, and we hear ridiculous false equivalency stories about how a white kid was a victim of racism that one time a black kid made fun of him.

Here’s the important part of all of this: Your son and Andre are different, but they’re still buddies — and that’s the way it should be.

I agree with Richards that kids of all races should have a talk about race with their parents. But constant labeling is a different issue. Richards, it appears, wants kids to be labeled with their race from the outset. Such a viewpoint can only come from identity politics, and not of the good type. When I hear somebody say “My black friend James,” or “I had lunch with this black woman,” and the racial designation serves no purpose and adds no information to the conversation, then I think that it’s been thrown in for reasons that are not useful: to show how virtuous one is, as a form of subtle bigotry, or so on.

Richards is making a mistake by asking kids to be aware of racial labels from the outset and to add them to descriptions of people. He’s further mistaken in thinking that doing this will in fact reduce racism and that using those labels will disappear as kids age. What is the evidence for these claims? What’s the evidence that “colorblind” kids grow up to be racists, as Richards implies? And isn’t it invidious to say that the experience of all black kids is homogeneous, that there are “unique experiences black kids go through”? What are those experiences, exactly? (I suspect he means racism, but to imply that skin color is a marker for homogeneity of experiences is simply wrong.)

The key to Richards’s identity politics is this sentence:

If everyone is viewed as exactly the same, then any cries of racism are dismissed as overblown, we’re told that discrimination never happens, and we hear ridiculous false equivalency stories about how a white kid was a victim of racism that one time a black kid made fun of him.

No, that’s not the way it works. You can be aware of racial discrimination, and try to ensure that all people are treated equally, without labeling people every time you see them, or being conscious of their race. It seems to me that skin color or other markers of race (note that race is still seen to be a social construct, which I reject) needs to be perceived in the aggregate—in the recognition that there is discrimination against individuals based on their shared physical (and perceived behavioral) characteristics with a group.

Beyond that, what is gained by telling your dad that you’re playing with your black friend, and constantly being aware of race? That kind of mindset will never get rid of racism, for it will never allow people to ignore race. And yet ignoring race, when races have achieved parity of opportunity, is what we want to happen.

But maybe you disagree. Here’s a poll on this article:

I bet I know how Martin Luther King would vote.