“It’s levels to this shit.” ~ Meek Mill So I talked to Jodi Shaw and her supporters. I wasn’t there to attack Jodi or call her or her fans racist. I didn’t look to relitigate the July 2018 incident at Smith College. I made no assumptions about the thoughts or feelings of anyone beyond what they had posted. The reason why I wanted to talk with them was because it was clear that their beef was not just with how racial bias training was being implemented, but with the very idea of anti-racism and Critical Race Theory. They referred to critical race theory as a hurtful ideology, they claimed terms like systemic racism and white privilege were destructively divisive and a dangerous lie. Jodi’s fight wasn’t a personal matter between her and the college, it was a flashpoint in a larger war between right and wrong. Diversity trainings weren’t a clumsy attempt at building some understanding of the experience of marginalized people, they were an attempt at mind control. The beginnings of an authoritarian push to control people's thoughts and actions under threat of coordinated social exclusion.
it took awhile to get through this, but it leads in so many directions. i appreciate how you are so thorough in laying out your arguments but also their context and history and implications in the world we live in now. and of course as i start through the last few sentences, it's like the cliffhanger's coming. after clearing off the muck accrued to these goings-down at smith, you remind us, it's not the fault of people trying to become more aware in a useful way, and people trying to help them with that process, it's about the how. to come next.
"What was more at fault was Black culture and white gatekeepers lowering the standards for minorities, thus setting them up to fail. Poverty was a better predictor of outcomes than race."
Well...from my point of view, race is often a predictor of poverty so doesn't that mean we are set up to fail from the jump. Livin Just Enough for the City
This might be the best one yet (for me, anyway). Also, anyone else have time to read Candace Owens' book? Because I am still just upset trees had to die for that. I agree the processes of diversity training seem very clumsy (at present). I don't think it's a valid request to ask Black people to "tone it down" in order to not shake up a Jodi Shaw - but I do think that if I were a member of the working-class staff at Smith, already terrified of students, already treated like crap by many of them considering they work at an institution that has consistently had both race and class issues, that the last thing I would feel comfortable with is walking into a room of academics and being talked at by them (especially after effectively being canceled, blacklisted for local employment, etc.). I mean, I also say this as a middle-aged, first-gen working class white person who is now also an undergrad & scholarship student at said institution and so find myself in a weird between space. I have more in common here with dining hall staff than I do with many of the students here. Five years ago if you'd asked me what a "microaggression" was, I would have blinked at you and said maybe it was a light slap instead of an uppercut, without that being a metaphor. This is not to say, either, that we working class people are ignorant - a lot of what I came here with was self-taught - but at the same time, I think you nailed it spot on here as a currently "clumsy" process (and to be honest I think some of the students here could stand to take some manners classes when it comes to how they consider people who feed them and clean their houses). I want to ask whether acknowledging the great class divide that also exists here might also make diversity training easier. That being said, Jodi Shaw presenting herself as a victim on the level she's going for is frustrating, to say the least. I've had my ass handed to me more than once in my own clumsy process at figuring this shit out, checked off some textbook white fragility boxes, probably have many more incidents of face-burning humiliation coming my way in the process... dismantling shit isn't easy. But the fact that JS is trying to represent the working class in this makes me want to throw a laptop because she sees that glaring hole and has wormed her way into it and is causing a heck of a lot of damage.
Great article to help folks think with an open mind and teaches us to think for ourselves and delve into what is really being said... I always ask... Why do we fear change? Why do we fear what we do not know about any race, culture, or ideology? How can a person that leads a Country ask folks to lie openly on his or her behalf and still have the adoration of millions? There are too many double standards in this Country... What do we teach our children about lying and getting to the truths if we as adults have little idea of what those truths really are, just because it differs from what we believe... Racial inequality is running amok and some powers that be seem to want to make sure it stays that way... I try to remind myself several times a day that tomorrow is a new beginning... SOLIDARITY FOREVER!!
it took awhile to get through this, but it leads in so many directions. i appreciate how you are so thorough in laying out your arguments but also their context and history and implications in the world we live in now. and of course as i start through the last few sentences, it's like the cliffhanger's coming. after clearing off the muck accrued to these goings-down at smith, you remind us, it's not the fault of people trying to become more aware in a useful way, and people trying to help them with that process, it's about the how. to come next.
"What was more at fault was Black culture and white gatekeepers lowering the standards for minorities, thus setting them up to fail. Poverty was a better predictor of outcomes than race."
Well...from my point of view, race is often a predictor of poverty so doesn't that mean we are set up to fail from the jump. Livin Just Enough for the City
This might be the best one yet (for me, anyway). Also, anyone else have time to read Candace Owens' book? Because I am still just upset trees had to die for that. I agree the processes of diversity training seem very clumsy (at present). I don't think it's a valid request to ask Black people to "tone it down" in order to not shake up a Jodi Shaw - but I do think that if I were a member of the working-class staff at Smith, already terrified of students, already treated like crap by many of them considering they work at an institution that has consistently had both race and class issues, that the last thing I would feel comfortable with is walking into a room of academics and being talked at by them (especially after effectively being canceled, blacklisted for local employment, etc.). I mean, I also say this as a middle-aged, first-gen working class white person who is now also an undergrad & scholarship student at said institution and so find myself in a weird between space. I have more in common here with dining hall staff than I do with many of the students here. Five years ago if you'd asked me what a "microaggression" was, I would have blinked at you and said maybe it was a light slap instead of an uppercut, without that being a metaphor. This is not to say, either, that we working class people are ignorant - a lot of what I came here with was self-taught - but at the same time, I think you nailed it spot on here as a currently "clumsy" process (and to be honest I think some of the students here could stand to take some manners classes when it comes to how they consider people who feed them and clean their houses). I want to ask whether acknowledging the great class divide that also exists here might also make diversity training easier. That being said, Jodi Shaw presenting herself as a victim on the level she's going for is frustrating, to say the least. I've had my ass handed to me more than once in my own clumsy process at figuring this shit out, checked off some textbook white fragility boxes, probably have many more incidents of face-burning humiliation coming my way in the process... dismantling shit isn't easy. But the fact that JS is trying to represent the working class in this makes me want to throw a laptop because she sees that glaring hole and has wormed her way into it and is causing a heck of a lot of damage.
Great article to help folks think with an open mind and teaches us to think for ourselves and delve into what is really being said... I always ask... Why do we fear change? Why do we fear what we do not know about any race, culture, or ideology? How can a person that leads a Country ask folks to lie openly on his or her behalf and still have the adoration of millions? There are too many double standards in this Country... What do we teach our children about lying and getting to the truths if we as adults have little idea of what those truths really are, just because it differs from what we believe... Racial inequality is running amok and some powers that be seem to want to make sure it stays that way... I try to remind myself several times a day that tomorrow is a new beginning... SOLIDARITY FOREVER!!