I Am a Dangerous Professor

[Zenaan Harkness]

On Sun, Dec 04, 2016 at 02:28:46PM +0000, Ben Tasker wrote:
> Digging around, it looks like this is the post that lead to him being added
> to that list -
> http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/24/dear-white-america/
> 
> It's quite long, and self-indulgent at times, but worth a read. I can see
> how some would object to it though, a letter saying "If you're white,
> you're racist, even if you've never been racist, check your privilege" is
> something that's just not going to go down well.

But a great dialectic to catalyze. How excellent :)

To be triggered, or to do a double take even and think "huh, am I
understanding what this one's saying?" is a good achievement on his
part.

Trigger a bigot today - put forward a contentious proposition.


>   You may have never used the N-word in your life, you may hate the
>   K.K.K., but that does not mean that you don’t harbor racism and
>   benefit from racism.
> 
> Not sure I agree with the whole idea of  the professor watchlist, but I'm
> not entirely surprised he landed on it. But, good for him in continuing to
> stand and speak up for what he believes.

Ack.

Me thinks those professors might be receiving a greater level of
interest in their ideas at this point. Streissand Effect an all that...
Let's hope this watch list helps to get more folk reading, and we can
hope, even putting some effort into thinking about oneself and ones
views.


Trigger a totalitarian today - disagree with them.


> On Sun, Dec 4, 2016 at 1:59 PM, John Young <jya at pipeline.com> wrote:
> 
> > http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/30/opinion/i-am-a-dangerous-professor.html
> >
> >
> > Those familiar with George Orwell's "1984" will recall that "Newspeak was
> > designed not to extend but to diminish the range of thought." I recently
> > felt the weight of this Orwellian ethos when many of my students sent
> > emails to inform me, and perhaps warn me, that my name appears on the
> > Professor Watchlist, a new website created by a conservative youth group
> > known as Turning Point USA.
> >
> > I could sense the gravity in those email messages, a sense of relaying
> > what is to come. The Professor Watchlist's mission, among other things, is
> > to sound an alarm about those of us within academia who "advance leftist
> > propaganda in the classroom." It names and includes photographs of some 200
> > professors.
> >
> > The Watchlist appears to be consistent with a nostalgic desire "to make
> > America great again" and to expose and oppose those voices in academia that
> > are anti-Republican or express anti-Republican values. For many black
> > people, making America "great again" is especially threatening, as it
> > signals a return to a more explicit and unapologetic racial dystopia. For
> > us, dreaming of yesterday is not a privilege, not a desire, but a nightmare.
> >
> > The new "watchlist" is essentially a new species of McCarthyism,
> > especially in terms of its overtones of "disloyalty" to the American
> > republic. And it is reminiscent of Cointelpro, the secret F.B.I. program
> > that spied on, infiltrated and discredited American political organizations
> > in the '50s and '60s. Its goal of "outing" professors for their views helps
> > to create the appearance of something secretly subversive. It is a form of
> > exposure designed to mark, shame and silence.
> >
> > ...
> >
> >
> > So, in my classrooms, I refuse to remain silent in the face of racism, its
> > subtle and systemic structure. I refuse to remain silent in the face of
> > patriarchal and sexist hegemony and the denigration of women's bodies, or
> > about the ways in which women have internalized male assumptions of how
> > they should look and what they should feel and desire.
> >
> > I refuse to be silent about forms of militarism in which innocent
> > civilians are murdered in the name of "democracy." I refuse to remain
> > silent when it comes to acknowledging the existential and psychic dread and
> > chaos experienced by those who are targets of xenophobia and homophobia.
> >
> > I refuse to remain silent when it comes to transgender women and men who
> > are beaten to death by those who refuse to create conditions of hospitality.
> >
> > I refuse to remain silent in a world where children become targets of
> > sexual violence, and where unarmed black bodies are shot dead by the state
> > and its proxies, where those with disabilities are mocked and still
> > rendered "<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/26/opinion/mental-illness-i
> > s-not-a-horror-show.html>monstrous," and where the earth suffers because
> > some of us refuse to hear its suffering, where my ideas are marked as
> > "un-American," and apparently "dangerous."
> >
> > Well, if it is dangerous to teach my students to love their neighbors, to
> > think and rethink constructively and ethically about who their neighbors
> > are, and how they have been taught to see themselves as disconnected and
> > neoliberal subjects, then, yes, I am dangerous, and what I teach is
> > dangerous.
> >
> >
> >
> 
> 
> -- 
> Ben Tasker
> https://www.bentasker.co.uk

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