In recent weeks, a handful of nooses have appeared on college campuses. Diverse recently asked some African-American Studies professors for their interpretations of this disturbing development. Two Group of 88 members were interviewed.
Lee Baker—as often has occurred—offered a thoughtful reply, noting that the anonymity of the internet seemed to encourage hate speech. He pointed to one (non-lacrosse) vile e-mail he had received.
Then there was Mark Anthony ("thugniggaintellectual") Neal:
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal, an associate professor of Black Popular Culture at Duke University, argues that some students are strategically placing these hateful objects on campus to gain an academic advantage. "White students know that Black students have a tendency to be distracted by various forms of hate crimes. Those students seeking to gain a competitive edge figure that as long as African-American student are counter-acting hate crimes, they will not be pursing academic endeavors," Neal says.
The magazine cited two colleges (Maryland and the Coast Guard Academy) where such behavior was directed against a black student. In neither, to my knowledge, has a perpetrator been identified. But that didn't stop Neal from offering his remarkable (and, of course, wholly unsupported) theory.
144 comments:
I think this was probably something you shouldn't have posted. Neal seems fairly reasonable and you come off looking like a bit of a jerk.
I would really enjoy being in the same room when people like Richard Brodhead, James Coleman, Thug Neal, Kathy Rudy, miriam cooke and her trained hubby, and various other members of the Gang are all together for some social occasion.
Their casual interactions would reveal so much about these bizarre alliances at Duke.
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal, an associate professor of Black Popular Culture...
Is a doctorate required to "study" and understand "Black Popular Culture?"
The relevancy of Hip Hop is astounding!
No doubt there are pranks and even attempts to annoy and stir up trouble around people like the Gang of 88 and their ilk on other campuses around the country....however.....
....because there has also been so much exaggeration and situations where things were contrived by those very people complaining, I just don't take much of it seriously anymore.
The crying wolf syndrome is firmly established because of past fabrications.
A few years ago, I remember reading about so-called cross burnings in Durham. The media were all over it, as usual.
Later, it was all but proven that some from the black community had staged it all themselves to whip up yet another victimhood scheme.
Of course, when things began to look shakey for the race hounds, the police department backed off...rather than looking into the possibility of arresting the people who would stage such a "crime".
Just like the lacrosse case, there's little interest for justice in places like Durham when non-blacks might be the victims.
If I were [still] a drunken obnoxious teenager who enjoyed throwing the grownups around me into a tizzy I know what I'd do.
It used to be spray-painting phony "satanist" symbols on a wall somewhere gave you maximum bang for the buck (as measured in TV minutes and newspaper column-inches of supposed adults making fools of themselves).
But now a piece of clothesline can give you even better results, and it's both cheaper and a lot easier to deploy without being caught.
I give it less than a year before hanging nooses becomes a national passtime.
TO Ralph--
LIS!!!
BTW....there's a really strange film called "The Wicker Man" with Nicholas Cage.....from 2006, I think.
It was pummeled by critics and quickly dismissed. Many scenes from the original were left out of the final cut because of the brutality and raw gore.
In it, a cult of women performs rituals on the British Columbian island where they live.
Maiming and then burning a man alive...as a sacrifice is their pasttime.
Extreme, yes; however, on occasion a few of these feminists remind me of the women in that film.
LOL!
It was gruesome.
(Now playing on HBO....check the schedule.)
:>)
Presumably, Neal's comment is an accurate reflection of his experience either as a student or as a professor. Apparently it is part of his world view that some students will do anything to gain an academic advantage. For that reason his comments are interesting and frightening.
It would be helpful if he shared the basis for his comments. There must be more to them than conjecture.
On Neal's personal experience--as Richard Bertrand Spencer pointed out, it appears he has a vivid imagination:
The myth that Neal lives by informs his claim that whenever he “rolls into the classroom on the first day of class,” there is always somebody “in the house quietly utter[ing] ‘who’s the nigger?’” That a professor heard students whispering the N-word at politically correct Duke approaches the outer limits of credibility. What’s more instructive is Neal’s response: “I’m the nigga that gonna intellectually choke the living s- -t out of you.”
"There must be more to them than conjecture."
Are you new to the Wonderland fora?
11:27 am
Maybe Neal has used this guerrilla tactic in the past himself to gain academic advantage in his own studies. Better yet, maybe he employed it at Duke as a way of equaling the playing field between those smarter white kids and the disadvantaged African Americans. The way he looks at things, it would not surprise me if his comment in Diverse was based on personal experience. Good going Neal, best academic guerilla tactic ever invented. Give the MAN a big hand!
W. R. Chambers said...
"Presumably, Neal's comment is an accurate reflection of his experience either as a student or as a professor. "
Why shouldn't I presume that it's neither, and he's just lying through his teeth?
10:35 AM:
Anyone who would describe the self-declared "thugniggaintellectual" as "fairly reasonable" has got to be a charter member of G88, and most likely a "real jerk".
TO 10:40 AM--
Thug Neal feels compelled to bring the streets to Duke University.
Even though many genuinely concerned people like Bill Cosby have been trying to convince many men in the black community to turn away from the streets and the easy BET-50-cent avenue.......
......Duke University hires and enthusiastically supports faculty like Mark Anthony Neal who revels in parroting rap videos while perched inside the cushy gothic walls he supposedly so detests.
Yes, tell us Professor Neal. Tell us what students are thinking.
As if you would have a clue.....unless you're trying to "choke" someone with your "intellect".
LOL!!!
Why then, a decade ago, did two black students put up a noose on the Duke quad? If Neal's distraction theory is right, these kids must have been trying to get one up on their peers. Not very brotherly.
According to their Duke apologists the two students were simply trying to raise racial awareness by agitating the campus and, of course, letting the usual hate groups be blamed before fessing up.
What a great gig, associate professor Black Popular Culture.
Is there a prof for popular white culture? Latino culture? Asian culture?
The way it's going soon every teaching job, will be occupied by a phony pseudo science.
K.C.
I just read the Richard Bertrand Spencer piece you linked to. What amazed me as much as Neal's quoted comments was the following regarding another esteemed Duke professor.
"On Jan. 3, Professor Karla Holloway, chair of the 'subcommittee on race,' resigned from the CCI, protesting the university president’s decision to reinstate the accused players. Holloway complained that, although Brodhead established the CCI and allowed her free reign, he did not protect her from criticism in various blogs and publications."
It is especially telling to read that a fully credited professor would be upset with President Brodhead because "he did not protect her from criticism in various blogs and publications."
What a pitiful statement for a grown adult in any line of work to make let alone someone who earns her living as a thought provoking academic. I cannot think of a single one my professors who would have needed someone to protect him/her from critical reviews by outsiders.
But then again, that was many years ago.
Times sure have changed.
John Leonard
I am appalled to see Professor Coleman's name included in a list with Neal and Brodhead. He is a hero of the hoax. Because he disagrees that his committee report was not a stunning vindication of the Lax team, does not make him a partner in the crime. I, normally do not care what nonsence Debrah writes but this is stupid.
I think this was probably something you shouldn't have posted. Neal seems fairly reasonable and you come off looking like a bit of a jerk.
10/22/07 10:35 AM
Since the vast number of these campus "incidents" are perpetrated by the people who are the alleged targets, I cannot help but view these "noose" incidents as hoaxes. Somehow, Neal's little conspiracy theories do not ring true.
As for the commentator of 10:35, all I can say is that it must have been a Duke faculty member or one of Neal's supporters at Duke. I think K.C.'s post was quite reasonable.
One of the funniest excuses for academic non-performance I've ever encountered.
Priceless.
Neal is a buffoon, clearly. Why would any rational parent think exposure to the "teaching" of Neal might benefit, expand and improve the mind of his or her child? Half the cab drivers in Manhattan could probably provide more edifying and learned discourse than this clown. Why pay tens of thousands of dollars to "learn" something from Neal? Especially when one realizes that Neal is not alone on college campuses. He's a symptom of a trend.
beckett
I hate to cite the loony Ann Coulter (Lord, I apologize!) on such a serious subject, but her facts are clear enough when she cites at least 5 examples (out of plenty) where such apparently racist pranks on college campuses were in fact hoaxes created by the "victims" themselves:
Noose-ances
I hasten to add that when such incidents are "real," they are despicable -- whether as the hateful acts of grown-up racists, or as the thoughtless crulety of adolescent punks.
But I have a VERY strong feeling that the noose-incident at Columbia, at least, was just another hoax perpetrated by the "victim". I wonder if the complaining prof is willing to undergo a lie-detector test? Of course she has no such obligation -- unless she actually cares about being taken seriously. In any event, I feel no moral obligation whatsoever to automatically believe her.
Anonymous said...
I think this was probably something you shouldn't have posted. Neal seems fairly reasonable and you come off looking like a bit of a jerk.
10/22/07 10:35 AM
!!!
Neal comes across looking like a "hate whitey" bigot--and your defense of his comments doesn't speak well of you at all.
I'm guessing it also didn't bother you much when that young man at NCCU said that the Duke 3 should be convicted whether or not a rape had been committed--to make up for the past.
Geez.
KC: any chance you could retitle this thread "A Handful of Nooses"? That's the funniest thing you've written--love it!
" He is a hero of the hoax." (Coleman)
And I am a nun.
I'm pretty sure that on the first day of class, at least one of Neal's students is looking at him and thinking...
"I wonder if this big fat black doofus is the one who fantasizes that he's going to intellectually choke the living sh*t out of me?".
Lets say the noose hangings are real hate crimes and not fabricated.
How about the people who commit hate crimes are just idiots. Yes, there are prejudice idiots in the world, but to think that this is a plan to distract black students from studying?
But Dr Neal argument does help the African-American community propagate the overall big conspiracy theories (e.g Aids, Crack, vacines) that we have all come to enjoy.
KC's post at 11:20 has a link to an interesting article in the American Conservative. The author is a doctoral student at Duke, who is highly critical of, among others, Neal. KC quotes from the article as follows:
The myth that Neal lives by informs his claim that whenever he “rolls into the classroom on the first day of class,” there is always somebody “in the house quietly utter[ing] ‘who’s the nigger?’”
I wonder what Neal's students think to themselves on the first day of class. Given his use of nickname "thugniggaintellectual" it seems he is inviting them, almost requiring them, to wonder
‘who’s the nigger?’
Why?
M E M O R A N D U M
To: Thugniggaintellectual and Your Extremist Friends across the Country
Fr: Mainstream America
Re: Noose et al
Date: October 22, 2007
The desperation of your group is showing when your prattle on about the noose.
Try a different strategy such as self improvement for the groups you claim to represent.
We are not afraid of you any more.
Calling someone who goes by "thugniggaintellectual“ a scholar seems to be a bit of a stretch.
I would tend to ignore his opinions as being juvenile and would double-check any facts he offered to me.
“Gangster" scholarship seems to be more appropriate to those who do not have logic and facts on there side. They need fear and intimidation in order to drive home points emotionally since they have little intellectual support for their arguments.
The myth that Neal lives by informs his claim that whenever he “rolls into the classroom on the first day of class,” there is always somebody “in the house quietly utter[ing] ‘who’s the nigger?’” That a professor heard students whispering the N-word at politically correct Duke approaches the outer limits of credibility. What’s more instructive is Neal’s response: “I’m the nigga that gonna intellectually choke the living s- -t out of you.”
I'm sorry. If I'm the parent (of any color, race, or gender) writing those large checks to send my child to a top-tier Uni like Duke, I don't want my child's English professor speaking Ebonics or teaching with a malicious and decidedly bigoted and hateful attitude, such as Neal's.
Wow!
I tuned in late to a recent NPR story that touched on the use of a hangman's noose on campuses and elsewhere. The gentleman being interviewed, who referred to himself as an African American, offered the idea of just not reacting to them at all -not mentioning them in the press, not protesting against the individuals responsible or the hate they promote.
Frankly, I think it is a great idea. Why argue with people of that mindset? Ignore their ideas and give them no satisfaction.
Neal's response was reasonable? His comment is that of a lunactic. Let's deconstruct:
"White students know that Black students have a tendency to be distracted by various forms of hate crimes. Those students seeking to gain a competitive edge figure that as long as African-American student are counter-acting hate crimes, they will not be pursing academic endeavors,"
1) Note that he doesn't say "some" students and he categorizes the alleged perpetrators of these acts as White. Taking the latter he's assuming that all people who would engage in hanging nooses are White. Hispanics, Asians and other Blacks are given a free pass. The former part of that comment insinuates that "all" Whites know this. So in Neal's bizarro world every Whitey is out to get him.
2) He presumptively states that Black students would have a tendency to see this as a distractment. Glad that Neal speaks for all Black students, this is textbook narcissism.
3) Let's assume that a White person hung the noose (indeed an assumption, as there have been many "hoaxes" in the past), Neal's rationale isn't that the guy is a racist jerk but rather that they seek some sort of competitive advantage? In what bizarro world does he live in where some student would think "I have a tough Physics exam tomorrow, I'm not sure how well I'd do but I bet if I hang a noose on campus all the Black students won't do as well giving me an advantage." ONLY in Neal's &$#%ed up mind would this even begin to be an explanation.
Neal and the other members of the Gang of 88 would be dangerous if their stupidity was not so transparent. How can take him seriously?
What Dr. Neal had said is not really outside the realm of possibility. Just because some blond intellectual-wanna-be cited five examples of noose hoax doesn't mean that white people are incapable of pulling off such acts, whatever their motivations might be. Remember, Tara Levicy once said that she had not met a rape victim who lied; so let's be careful in categorizing each incident in general terms since it would only make lazy people out of all of us.
12:53, Are you Teachers College faculty or a student? Do you know the professor in question? Why would you assert something like that?
Greetings,
I should note that I am no longer an associate professor, but was promoted to Full Professor in July. And contrary to popular opinion in this venue, my reputation as a scholar has not been staked on the study of hip-hop--really a small part of my expertise--but on the study of black popular exression at the intersections of race, gender and sexuality. Perhaps some of you should actually read one of my four books--and in my world scholarly production is the basis for promotion--to talk more credibly about my work.
Lastly the quote that Professor Johnson so gracioulsy posted, is simply one line from what was a half-hour interview. Perhaps some of you should contact the writer for a full transcript of my inetrview with her to capture some of the nuance of my response, that obviously can't be reflected in the quote that was referenced.
Have a blessed day.
Mark Anthony Neal
debrah:
Part of the reason that The Wicker Man (2006) was met with such critical disdain was that it was just a bad remake of a superior film . The original Wicker Man was done in 1975 and is a terrific film. It's available on Amazon and Net Flix.
C. Thomas Kunz
Maybe Ms Levicy has never met a rape victim who never lied, before Crystal. How do we know? In any event, with the bad actors in this show like Nifong and the Judges, why pick on the small potatoes like Gottlieb, Himan and Levicy?
How does one authenticate an event such as those claimed?
I call bull shit. They have no credibility.
One wonders how the press would report evidence that the nooses were placed on purpose?
One wonders how the Duke administration would react if evidence was provided proving either a self-serving student or faculty member placed a noose in order to drive media attention to demons that don't exist?
Remind me, when exactly was the last time someone was lynched?
Please remind me, how many people died over the weekend in race-related crimes?
What was the racial make-up of those murders?
QUESTION: By Federal and/or state law, is the production and hanging of a noose, or other symbol if a noose is not symbolic, an actual Hate Crime?
If so, which symbols are off-limits?
Presumably, hanging a cross or a Star of David, or an electric chair from a branch would not qualify. Or would it?
Help me out here, please.
I think KC's post is on point. It provides yet another example of Group 88 invention of fantasy and presumption of white guilt.
"doesn't mean that white people are incapable of pulling off such acts, whatever their motivations might be"
But it's Neal's proposed motivation that's so hilarious. So now I'm gonna be rude enough to mention the central truth that makes Neal such an obvious dork, the great elephant in the living room of pretty much every campus issue today - affirmative action.
White kids have no reason to disrupt the performance of black students. They're no threat, being already mostly two standard deviations below average in IQ, SAT and all other quantifiable predictors of academic success.
Get real, Neal - if a white kid's gonna perpetrate a hate crime to distract the competition, it'll be against the asians!
Yes 2:28,I suppose these acts aren't outside the realm of possibility, seem kinda improbable. Perhaps K.C. will weigh in after his late night dinner with D.B. Cooper and Amelia Earhart tonight?
What kind of Dr. is "thugnigga", and why can't he cure what ails him?
When I think of clowns like Neal, images of "Wizard of Oz" pop into my head: this obese arch-buffoon standing in front of a camera making big, bad, threatening noises, and scaring the bejeezus out of a little girl, a puppy, a scarecrow and a tin woodsman. And for this, Duke pays Neal a PhD salary? Wish I'd thought of it first! Great Con, professor!!
Theorem:
(A) There exists a parallel universe** in which Mark Anthony Neal and Houston Baker are members of the dominant group, at the pinnacle of social and intellectual hierarchy. That group achieved its dominant status because of (1) actions taken in that parallel universe-A, actions not taken in this universe and (2) actions not taken in the parallel universe-A that were taken here.
(B) There exists an additional parallel universe-B in which A above holds and in which the Group of '88 is revered by all of the academy and the entire blogosphere for their work and their philosophy. That reverence is a function of of (1) actions taken in that parallel universe-B, actions taken in neither this universe nor the other parallel universe-A and (2) actions not taken in the parallel universe-B that were taken both here and in parallel universe-A.
(C) There are an infinite number of parallel universes.
Conclusion:
(D) 2 of those parallel universes are broken beyond repair.
QED
__________________________________
** Parallel Universes, Max Tegmark, Dept. of Physics, Univ. of Pennsylvania, 2003.
Noto Bene -- from that paper: "Abstract: I survey physics theories involving parallel universes, which form a natural four-level hierarchy of multiverses allowing progressively greater diversity." And we thought mathematics and theoretical physics was safe. Ha.
2:28
While Dr. Neal's explanation may well be within the realm of possibility, it seems an odd suggestion. I know of no instances of "noose hanging to reduce academic competition" -- do you? If the perpetrators of these specific acts are white, raw racism would seem a far simpler explanation than academic competition. And I see no reason to assume, as he appears to assume, that black students would be the only ones distracted in such an environment.
It would be just as reasonable (in my opinion, just as unreasonable) to argue with the same amount of evidence (none) that the nooses were hung by a black student, who assumed that other students (both black and white) would be distracted by the resulting fuss...
In other words, we currently know neither the race, nor the motivation, of the perpetrator. Neal seems to be able to divine a very specific combination of race and motivation, based on no specific evidence from these instances, and supported by no precedent from previous noose incidents.
He's welcome to his theory, but I know of no reason that anyone else should consider his theory remotely credible.
If he genuinely believes his theory, I hope he's reaching out to black students at the affected institutions, asking them to ignore the incidents and focus on academics at this point. If he's not doing so, then I'd figure he's just talking to hear himself talk.
Just my opinion, of course. :)
K.C.-Get Up !!
Burness announced his "retirement" a few minutes ago!
"Looking for an academic advantage."
This guy has been indocrinated by too much groupthink. Groups don't work together for an academic advantage, individuals work to improve their own grades. As a student, I don't care that the average GPA of white students goes from 3.0 to 3.1. I care A LOT that my individual GPA goes from 3.0 to 3.1. If I'm going to cheat to advance my grades, I'm not going to target blacks on campus, I'm going to taget the smartest kids in my class (whether they are white, black, asian or hispanic.)
Mike S
Last night my husband mentioned that the request to Columbia University for the surveillance tapes regarding the noose incident was last mentioned in the media on October 12th. Has ANYONE heard anything on THAT investigation?
Texas Mom
Burness is retiring.
A noose is sort of like a swastika, which if smeared on a Jewish tombstone or on a synagogue, would constitute a hate crime, yes? It's the symbolism.
MAN, who deserves great kudos for entering the lion's den, said:
"Perhaps some of you should contact the writer for a full transcript of my inetrview with her to capture some of the nuance of my response, that obviously can't be reflected in the quote that was referenced."
I'm fully aware of the distorting effects of reporters' trimming of a careful interview down to the most titillating soundbites they can find. Reporters rarely go out of their way for random people requesting their notes. Perhaps you could ask for permission to post the entire transcript on your site, especially if you think context will improve the impression people take of your remarks.
The more I hear about the apparent prevalence of self declared "Thugniggas" and those who behave accordingly on campus, the more contemptible of the institution I become.
Is there no interest or will to resist the invasion of these lunatics?
Dear Professor Neal,
Thank you for your gracious posting at 2:31. Congratulations on your promotion. Many will question the extent to which promotions at Duke accurately reflect contributions to scholarship and knowledge. But, nonetheless, parallelograms.
Can you provide a layman's description or, rather, definition of "...black popular exression [sic] at the intersections of race, gender and sexuality."? (You know, kinder of a teaser to whet my appetite for reading.)
And is race or gender or sexuality an "intersection" viewed in isolation or must there be a nexus?
Thank you.
The Easter Bunny
More ridiculous social commentary from TN"I". I don't know if he's a thug (although I suspect that he's not) and only he, I guess, can decide if he's a nigga - but it seems pretty clear that this is no intellectual.
"buy my books" and "read all my nonsense", get "nuanced". well, at least he has the guts to show up over here under his own name. more than 87 of his friends have ever done.
Bravo TNI, Bravo
One time in bandcamp i was ... uh ... like competing with this ... uh ... guy for like first chair ... and i left a playboy magazine ... under his bunk ... and like ... he didn't practice at all.
I believe that Play Station II's "College Basketball 2007" was invented by the Chinese to thwart educational efforts.
Shhhh! I hear someone coming ....
Mark Anthony Neal's blog contains a link to a review of Clarence Thomas' new book which contains the astounding sentence:
"That Thomas could credibly treat Anita Hill as little more than an annoying speed-bump on his current “rehabilitate a negro” book tour, speaks to the extent that black women continue to lack real subjectivity in mainstream American society, whether their names are Anita Hill, Crystal Mangum or the woman who was brutally raped in Dunbar Village in July."
The latest thing in my part of the country is people discovering that Halloween decorations are racist.
Anything with a noose is an automatic -- but there are numerous reports of people having to take other things down. Invariably, the TV crew goes and films the scarecrow that was tied to someone's chimmney or the headless dummy that was dressed in black or something similar and it is well beyond ridiculous.
3:11 Good laugh - he is a dope.
Anonymous 2:52 said...
...QUESTION: By Federal and/or state law, is the production and hanging of a noose, or other symbol if a noose is not symbolic, an actual Hate Crime?
...Help me out here, please.
::
Absolutely. If the noose has a neck in it.
::
GP
4:18, Halloween decorations may be racist. More importantly, they're a ridiculous waste of money. Since adults with too much disposible income have gotten involved, the poor taste displayed on people's front lawns in October has increased exponentially. Down with Halloween decorations except for pumpkins! They're not racist, they're vegetarian!!
2:57 So right. I have a mental picture of obese Neal shuffling into a classroom and students saying or thinking "Thuga - How you doin?"
Thuga's last book is ranked about 620,000 on Amazon's sales list. No wonder he wants us to buy his book.
"I think this was probably something you shouldn't have posted. Neal seems fairly reasonable and you come off looking like a bit of a jerk."
Not really. Neal's theory isn't "fairly reasonable" at all. Are there white idiots who hate blacks and want to terrorize them? Certainly. How plausible is it, however, that the particular idiots who hung up these nooses* were specifically targeting the academic performance of the blacks who would see it? I would like to see Neal produce even one instance where nooses or other hateful objects were placed and the cause was reliably determined to be so that some students could get a competitive advantage over the black students -- for that matter, I would like Neal to produce even one instance where any student at a college of the size of the ones mentioned had done anything with the intention of distracting a large category of other students for "competitive edge". It frankly makes little sense -- even assuming a thoroughly amoral student who would do anything to increase their own ranking, it is obvious that even a very successful "distraction" to a large category of students is not going to produce a substantial advantage to any one student outside that category. Yet Neal makes it sound like this happens on a regular basis.
* Let's not even mention the little fact that sometimes the "idiots" who have hung up nooses have been caught... and discovered to be black students trying to frame white students, or trying to bring "more attention" to hate crimes by ... faking some hate crimes where they did not happen naturally.
Poster #1 has done a great job of trolling. Congrats. This could easily be Polanski. It's such a ridiculous stretch, clearly meant only to antagonize.
The nooses are a godsend to the ThugLoozahIntellectual who needs a new cause.
The nooses are disgusting but probably something very ignorant teenagers are doing to get a rise out of the adults.
I think the Neal hypothesis is crap. Besides, people who are stupid enough to hang nooses would not be clever enough to think through the implications of how someone might react or how it might affect them.
Mark Anthony Neal 2:31 said...
...Greetings,
...Perhaps some of you should actually read one of my four books--and in my world scholarly production is the basis for promotion--to talk more credibly about my work.
::
That is a fair request and I will do so. Thanks for the suggestion.
Before I allow my Blessed Day to be ruined by your suggestion that 'students are strategically placing these hateful objects on campus to gain an academic advantage', I will pause to remember my previous rants that former students still tease me about.
I suggested years ago that normal people will not pay $1 for a bottle of (just) water and they won't pay $2 for a cup of designer coffee.
Seems that I was wrong.
I don't want to make that mistake again Professor Neal.
Normal people just might buy into your suggestion that students place hateful objects (on campus) to gain an academic advantage.
I'll read your work and then decided if you are on the way to receiving an invitation to join the club where people actually pay $1 for a bottle of water and $2 for a cup of coffee
Lord, I hope not.
::
GP
Ah, yes, Neal's famous story about how every year he overhears the same whisper "Who's the nigger?" to which he just happens to have a bold, dramatic comeback.
You know, in the world of fanfiction, there's a term for a particular kind of character, the "Mary Sue". Mary Sues are basically author's-pets: every scene they're in is basically staged to show them in a positive light; all the good characters like the Mary Sue and says how wonderful they are, and all the bad characters are mean and say hateful things, but only so that the Mary Sue can either suffer nobly or retort wittily.
When I read Neal's "overheard whisper" story, the first thing I thought of was some of the awful Mary Sue fanfiction I've read, and how Neal's tale had the exact same ring of non-truth.
The purported TNI post might well be another Polanski hoax. Be careful.
" even assuming a thoroughly amoral student who would do anything to increase their own ranking, it is obvious that even a very successful "distraction" to a large category of students is not going to produce a substantial advantage to any one student outside that category."
I think distracting all the Chinese kids in calculus might be a big enough advantage for some amoral student to try to do it - not a likely scenario, but at least conceivable. The notion that black students are a competitive threat worth distracting is just silly.
If 2:31 really is Mark Anthony Neal then I applaud his decision to come here and speak for himself, calmly and without... well, the word "fronting" is the only appropriate descriptor I can find for the likes of the famed "overheard whisper" story.
However, I would like to ask -- is it really Neal, or is there a possibility that it's a famous French director impersonating him?
Even if Neal is correct in his theory, he must not think much of the victims' intellectual capacity if he thinks it works.
I wonder how Prof. Neal (I can hardly type it without giggling) would respond to the "Mismatch Effect" that was written about recently in the L.A. Times and WSJ Online Opinion Journal.
For the unfamiliar, the Mismatch Effect describes the unintended consequences of Affirmative Action for black law students. Studies have shown that only 1 out of 3 black students pass the bar exam on their first attempt, and less than half ultimately become practicing lawyers. The unescapable conclusion is that when you place disporportionate emphasis on racial quotas...er, I mean, preferences in admissions decisions, then unqualified students get placed into academic settings where they do not belong, are unable to compete and therefore do not learn.
Indeed, the L.A. Times article (authored by two law professors at selective California law schools) notes the only reason that more data is not available is that public institutions like the California Bar and other public institutions like UCLA (the school where one of the two authors teaches) suppress the data under academic privacy concerns. The point of the article is that everyone knows the decision not hide the facts has a lot more to do with shielding a glaring pitfall of this controversial public policy decision (racial preferences), than with any strawman argument about privacy.
Since Neal is clearly begging for more attention, those of you who aren't yet acquinted with the insubstantial, egotistical fop that is Mark Neal, could hear him discoursing on his favorite topic....HIMSELF!
http://www.wpr.org/book/061217b.html
(rather boring actually...)
Neal may be an outsized adolescent self-involated race baiter but on the plus side, at least he isn't an academic fraud like most of the rest of the G88 vigilantes.
Hey Professor Thug:
A few questions to which I eagerly await response.
Are you now, or have you ever been, a "thug"? Does the 'thug' label (not to mention the 'nigga' label) have a place in academics? Is it professional to threaten students on the first day of class?
Can you explain how "Hip Hop" became a field of scholarly research? It seems out of place in an academic environment. What are the prerequisites for this field of study? Can white people become experts? How about racist Mexicans, or left-handed Koreans?
Can you also explain why your noose theory is limited to white people as perpetrators? Can you acknowledge that other racial groups have also exhibited racist attitudes towards blacks (and others)?
When will you have a class on "Gangsta Ethics" ?? I would love to see the reading list.
When will you apologize publicly for your role in prejudging the LAX players? Or explain why you don't need to apologize for nuthin.
What is the solution to fixing Duke's problems?
Thanks for your time.
- Professor Foo
Quite a few posters on the thread seem to take Neal's remarks at face value, as if he's really contending that racist bigots on campus threaten and intentionally upset and distract black students because they hope to gain a competitive advantage academically.
But this is nonsense, completely unsustainable empirically, as he must know, and not Neal's intention at all.
Neal is in the business of examining black culture, making the glaring pathologies of the African-American community an important object of his attention. How does he explain the incarceration rate, the black-on-black crime rate, the poverty rate?
He's given us a strong hint about what his explanations might be by giving us his take on, not a pathology, but a nagging, endemic problem in the black community, i.e., what causes black kids, on average, to perform poorly academically. His answer: Other kids intentionally distract them so they can't keep their minds on their studies!
The noose is just a convenient vehicle. If there wasn't a noose, he'd come up with something else. Anything to avoid coming to terms with racial cognitive differences, which, as James Watson learned just this past month, and as another Nobel laureate, William Shockley, learned several decades ago, must never be mentioned on pain of exile and excommunication from the Land of Enlightened.
Steven Pinker, at the same time an able scientist and a scrupulous observer of all things politically correct -- no mean feat -- wrote in one of his books (can't remember which one), that it may take several more generations for blacks to catch up academically than it did for other groups of Americans who aspired to higher learning because the nature of their social handicaps was greater and more traumatic than any other group. That explained their low test scores. It was a clever intellectual device designed to push off into the future any scientific assessment of the meaning of the scores unrelated to societal issues, e.g., bigotry, oppression, etc.
I'm more than willing to go along with Prof. Pinker. The history of black Americans is rife with a unique and tragic brand of injustice and brutality, and, in an historical sense, we're really not all that far removed from the time in this country when the black man existed with a boot heel on his neck, figuratively and literally.
But the clock is ticking. Two or three generations will pass before you know it. And if at that time blacks lag behind as they do now, no amount of nooses on the door will answer the question: Why?
beckett
Is Neal a Communist?
"Gangsta" scholarship
what an oxymoron! Thugs are thugs. There is no such thing as a black pop culture professor. That's another oxymoron. Then again, there has been sooooooo much moronic "scholarship" imparted by so-called professors at Duke.
Unfortunately, the real scholars are those in the real disciplines (not made up ones like Women's studies, AAAS, cultural anthropology, etc). If these professors were truly scholars, then they would be able to speak or write a coherent sentence and back it up with facts. To date, many statements have been made without support. Or support has been given to supposedly make a statement but a three year old could shoot holes in the theory with a "finger" pistol.
Get a life!
2:28
You are correct. White people COULD have done that. But we are talking about Duhm. Here is where Precious Crystal cried rape, not once but twice. And the Klan declared the innocent 3 LAX players to be rapists. Wrong again. The faculty and administration at Duke supported their students. Oh are we ever in Fantasyland. Angry Studies at Duke are legitimate, scholarly departments (and Mikey will be a model prosecutor capable of mentoring every DA in the land).
Ah yes, another day in Wonderland.......
5:07 I though we were done with trolls, moron and idiots when the groupthink posters cut back on their messages. This is a debate board - not a love in or love out exercise.
ThugNigga seems to be implying that black students are so completely devoid of the ability to focus on their studies, that they are incapable of NOT being distracted by any alleged act of racism.
If a white person said "All you have to do to distract black students from their studies is put up some fake nooses", I'm pretty sure he'd be called a racist. No?
BTW, ThugNigga, welcome to DIW. AS you know, you're quite popular here, hopefully you'll post regularly.
As to your suggestion that the regs here should read your books...
Hmmm.
Not likely.
I suspect "Man" (2:31) is the forbidden poster; his spelling is an indication of this. (The dreaded P. always leaves a clue.)
Otherwise, I might ask the thugga-man: what brand of weed you smoking?
Take a look at this little post from about a year ago.....from "the man".
LOL!
Hip-Hop Studies at Duke
Can anyone believe what these people are getting paid to do?
Too funny.
While googling a few of the 88 mentioned by KC, it does seem that Lee Baker is closer to normal than some of the rest; however, he has the same refrain of race, class, and gender.....and on...and on....and on.....yada.....yada.....yada....as all the others.
Socially, these people would be most boring to be around.
I am astounded by this man who holds the title of Associate Professor at Duke. On his website he never posts where he earned his doctorate or the type of doctorate he received, Ph.D., Ed.D., or whatever. Instead we learn the following:
Astrological Sign: Sagittarius
Zodiac Year: Snake
Industry: Education
Occupation: Public Intellectual
Parents are paying $40,000 a year to send their children to be exposed to this?
P. T. Barnum was right.
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal writes a whole article about Bill Cosby.
People like Neal don’t want to lose their little cottage industry of black victim status.
The excerpts below are representative of the article, but his reasoning is severely flawed.
I never missed the Bill Cosby Show. He was great in a wholesome family show. Why does it have to be dragged into a racial quagmire?
Blacks complained that were not enough blacks in television, and when a hit shows comes along, it is not the right black situation to please them.
Get real Dr. Neal, everything is not about YOU. I am getting real disgusted with this perceived racial message to everything said or done.
Do read the excerpts below for a real jolt of racism.
Popmatters
CRITICAL NOIRE
Cosby Redux
….Coming from the proverbial middle-class professional "flies in the buttermilk" type family, my daughter has had very little interaction with folks who look like her,
……The distinctly upper middle-class world that Cosby and his writers constructed for the show's audiences often clashed with our emerging hip-hop generation nationalism.
If the "conscious" members of the hip-hop generation were looking towards the booming bass of Chuck D and the [stinging anti-white supremacist rhetoric of Louis Farrakhan for vision], then The Cosby Show was often viewed as being out of touch with urban realities.
Truth be told, though I watched the show virtually every week, I often did so out of the chance I'd get to peep that "fine-ass" Lisa Bonet —
The root of hip-hop generation displeasure with The Cosby Show was not simply that the show wasn't "political", but rather the show did in fact serve the political function of diverting attention away from the harsh realities of Reagan-era social policies.
Many of these divergent opinions about The Cosby Show were due to the fact that many saw the show not simply as entertainment but as an ideological tool — largely for the political right.
http://www.popmatters.com/columns/criticalnoire/020918.shtml
Dr. Neal,
You accuse students for hanging nooses, without any facts or evidence to support your accusation. A pattern is developing. Do you dislike all students, or only white students?
You say "White students know that Black students have a tendency to be distracted by various forms of hate crimes." But: 1) Don't Black students also know this? and 2) Go back and look at the pot-banger photos, you will see a lot of non-Black "distracted" students.
To find a more plausible motivation for hanging nooses, "follow the money." Who at Duke, for example, would have the most to gain from the anonymous appearance of symbols of racism on an American campus?
It seems to me a scholar whose reputation is staked "on the study of black popular exression at the intersections of race, gender and sexuality" might benefit from the appearance of such loathsome symbols.
If you think it is unfair to suggest such a motivation, then I'd suggest you consider your own speculations.
-RD
Dr. Thugnigga,
Have you ever been convicted of a felony? Perhaps you left that off your employment application to Duke. Why do you "profess" your "thugness" as if its a badge of honor.
Last I checked, thugs belong in PRISON.
Do you consider yourself a role model for students? Please be honest. The future of Duke is at stake...
If no, please explain your purpose in teaching students, paying $40K a year, expecting to be prepared for the future.
If yes, you are a seriously impaired person who should be incarcerated with your homies.
Good day, sir.
9:45, University of Buffalo, 1996. Right there on his faculty page at Duke.
Very straight forward. And you couldn't find it because????
I hope that the posting from purportedly from Professor Mark Anthony Neal was checked for authenticity before posting. You wouldn't want to have been hoaxed twice.
Hey, Inman, I left you a comment and a song over on the "Reflections on Lisker" comment thread.
RRH, aka "Satan's Archer"
Ralph Phelan said...
Get real, Neal - if a white kid's gonna perpetrate a hate crime to distract the competition, it'll be against the asians!
10/22/07 2:57 PM
No Ralph, Mark Anthugny is right: I remember my classmates saying stuff like, "Man, I have an Econ exam tomorrow, and I know I can best all the Jews and East Asians -- it's the blacks that are the real competition! What can we do to distract them??"
RRH, aka "thugcrackapencillecherable"
"Anonymous said...
I hope that the posting from purportedly from Professor Mark Anthony Neal was checked for authenticity before posting. You wouldn't want to have been hoaxed twice."
Sigh.
Follow the link. His blogger ID dates back to 1995, before the founding of DIW.
You spent more effort raising an alarm than it would have taken to check and confirm that there is no problem.
Yup: it's Professor Neal.
If you click on that little blue blog-thingie, the one that says "Man," you'll see his profile and a link to some commentaries, one of which, "A Thug's Humanity" on the New Black Man blog, is mostly solid. Commentary on Isaiah Thomas is interesting, as well. You don't have to agree with it to see that there he has a brain - despite his nom de plume.
I wish Dr. Neal would have been so considerate of the accused students - (who are human, too) - instead of presenting them as merely an extension of his views on race and gender, a caricature, squeezed to fit into his views on race and gender. One assumes - and observes - that his views on SOME other subjects aren't one-dimensional as his views on the Hoax - (at least until his Noose-nonsense.)
There is at least some consistency in Neal's commentary on sexism and the misuse of women when it applies to the Hip Hop world, and how he's applied it to Duke students - (and unfortunately, to the accused students, who were displaying no such "thuggery" against CGM.)
As far as his commentary about students using nooses to intimidate other students in order to reduce the competition? That one seems like that's a pot-dream, dreamt up in a cannabis haze.
In short, Neal is no Grant Farred, in spite of his self-characterization - (TNI)- and at least he hasn't - as far as I know - attacked DIW and UPI with such incompetent arguments as presented by Charles Piot.
Perhaps the 88 will learn something from Professor Neal, and will attempt to communicate and present themselves as human beings, something that they didn't offer the accused students.
I see Prof. Neal as someone who, as a student, would've dropped pennies during the exam because he thought some loose change would distract his Jewish classmates.
This from Wikipedia:
'What makes Mark Anthony Neal such a unique writer is that he considers himself a black male feminist'
That says a lot...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Anthony_Neal
Is mac a Horowitzian?
Neal may have a Phallic Personality, still trapped in the Phallic stage, hence the disproportionate attention to the sexual theories he ensues. However, assuming the complex he suffers with the feminine twist is accurate, that may explain the confusion. And it may shed some light on the rest of the Group of 88...
mac 10:26 said...
...
...Perhaps the 88 will learn something from Professor Neal, and will attempt to communicate and present themselves as human beings, something that they didn't offer the accused students.
::
You know, that is a good point.
The G88 could easily create their own blog and give us the opportunity to study what they have to say and the rational for their various points of view.
Even if they had no comment section, I would take the time to read and think about what they had to say.
::
GP
Communicate with whom and present themselves as human beings to whom, 10:26? I've never thought of those people--calling them the 88 is hardly humanizing--as non-communicative or non-human.
http://dukeaaas.blogspot.com/2006/10/hip-hop-studies-week-duke.html
“Teach the Bourgeois and Rock the Boulevard”
If the above is what is advertised as a critical theme(element) to AAAS Studies...
Why then do I not buy that below is what is taught?:
"the study of black popular exression at the intersections of race, gender and sexuality."
Surely anthropologists can uncover a richer, more accurately fact based narrative. However, I'm afraid the truth just wouldn't sell.
"A Thug's Humanity" on the New Black Man blog, is mostly solid..."
Aside from gems like:
"In the case of Mr. Jackson such fears are purely the product of the capitalist wet dream that literally feeds upon—consumption as literal practice—the “body” 50 Cent willingly provides."
Literally.
"But in the very next frame, it is the women’s probing hands that exploit the metaphor that exists inside Mr. Jackson’s pants—and it is in that moment that Mr. Jackson is bore naked, capturing for a fleeting moment the very pleasures associated with black masculinity, while rendering said black masculinity flaccid in the aftermath."
Which are somehow different from the pleasures and aftermath of white masculinity?
"You don't have to agree with it to see that there he has a brain - despite his nom de plume."
Unfortunately he uses said brain to produce generic "theory"-laden bafflegab and postmodern faux-shocking sexual imagery.
He does play that game well, so I'll freely admit that he's as good as any other post-Fish Duke liberal arts professor ... but that's rather faint praise.
We have to give "the man" Thug some credit for showing up and making his case.
It's more than little Orin and the other creeps will attempt.
A provocative, yet needlessly groveling, letter in today's N&O:
A question on race
Regarding the Oct. 17 opinion piece "The plague of victimhood":
I admire Bill Cosby for his courage in telling African-Americans that all their problems cannot be attributed to whites and slavery. He is not alone. Senior NPR correspondent Juan Williams has made the same points in his book "Enough," as have African-American intellectuals Thomas Sowell and Shelby Steele in their writings.
Whenever the plight of African-Americans is discussed, ongoing white racism is usually implied as the underlying cause. No matter what damage the hip-hop culture has done or how un-empowering the self-concept of victimization, there is always racism.
Surely no alert person in the 21st century denies that racism exists. But here is a sincere question. I am one of millions of white North Carolinians who do not consider themselves racist and who harbor only good will toward African-American citizens.
The question: What specific actions do some African-Americans want of white citizens? There will never be honest dialogue unless there is a suspension of prejudgment of the motivations of all the people on "the other side."
Virgil Early
Smithfield
Dr. Neal:
Thank you for contributing to this thread.
Some of us have been discussing, a few posts down, whether Associate Professor Charles Piot's article in Transforming Anthropology (Vol. 15, No. 2 (Sep 2007), 158-166) is "representative" of the scholarship conducted in cultural anthropology.
Not asking for an opinion of your colleague, nor even of the article. Just your professional assessment of the article's representativeness of what is published in the field. Your authoritative comment would be invaluable to the discussion, and greatly appreciated.
dave
Anon 10:53:
"Is mac a Horwitzian?"
Nope. But I believe that people who actually wish to engage in civil discussion should be treated civilly. You might've noticed that I have been less-than-civil to certain persons who were themselves less-than-civil. Like Orin Starn, as Debrah points out. He's got a terrible attitude, and appears to be a really horrible person.
As far as Neal goes, I don't hold his literary style against him, any more than I would hold Faulkner's loooong sentences against him, nor does Dreiser's overwritten, overly "vocabularized" prose bother me. However, I agree that some of Neal's IDEAS are disagreeable, even as his writing style and descriptions are sometimes...inventive.
In certain martial arts styles, there are defensive techniques; in others, there is a concerted, controlled escalation (police use the latter tactics and strategy.) With people like Baker and Farred, escalation is the only way to deal with them; with others, dialogue may be possible.
In any case, it could be argued that it is better to respond than to react.
Besides, it's better to have more than one weapon in an arsenal; if someone attacks with a saber, it's a good idea to know how to use a longbow. And sometimes, it's better to use a cannon than a squirt gun - if only for the effect!
I'm not a "Horwitzian," but I appreciate the compliment, anyway!
Perhaps Neal has met his intellectual Augustus in Johnson. It seems so to me.
Debrah calls this:
The question: What specific actions do some African-Americans want of white citizens? There will never be honest dialogue unless there is a suspension of prejudgment of the motivations of all the people on "the other side."
"needlessly groveling"
I disagree.
Despite the politeness of the language, the exasperated question "What if anything will satisfy you people already?!" comes through loud and clear.
This is the sound of a civil, educated, person of good faith who is ready to embrace the presumption that all charges of racism are bogus until proven otherwise.
TO Ralph (2:07 PM)--
It's not the first time someone has disagreed with my opinion....LIS!
I have reached a threshold after a lifetime--since childhood actually--of allowing the black community to effectively hold others hostage to their endless "grievances"........thinking it's ok.
Always damaging other people.
I realize I have better things to do.
There are, after all, other people in the world who want to be productive and contribute to society instead of constantly trying to unravel the positive.
There are bent-over-backward opportunities for the black community in this country.
One has only to talk with those from around the globe who come here.
Most can't believe the largesse and the special treatment enjoyed by the black community.
The pendulum is about to swing back to some degree of sanity, IMO.
This passes as an opinion piece from a Duke scholar?
I am speechless!
---------------------------------
VIBE:
What's the Real Reason for the Sudden Attack on Hip Hop?
By: Mark Anthony Neal
POSTED: 14:13 EST, April 30, 2007
Excerpts:
When Snoop Dogg was asked to weigh in on the Don Imus controversy, his response elicited both humor and disgust.
According to Snoop, when rap artists like himself refer to "hos," they aren't talking about young women college students, but the "hos that's in the 'hood that ain't doing shit, that's trying to get a nigga for his money." In other words, Snoop don't love dem hos.
Yes, descriptive terms like sexist, ignorant and misogynist would be apropos in response to Snoop's comments - but at least he was being honest.
Less honest are the bandwagon critics, who have suddenly become so concerned about what the men in hip hop are saying about black women (they the poets, you know). .....the banning of the "bitch", "ho" and "nigger." (What, no "faggot-ass"?)
The sexism, misogyny, violence, anti-intellectualism and homophobia that rap music traffics in is real - but it is also reflective of where American society is at this moment.
Remove offensive and vulgar lyrics from rap music, and we are still faced with a society that is largely sexist, misogynistic, violent, anti-intellectual and homophobic.
The real story here, is that as the hip hop generation(s) have come to maturity and begun to realize their civic, social and political responsibility, that there are many in the larger society who are disconcerted - and they should be. Such is the reality of social change.
http://www.vibe.com/news/news_headlines/2007/04/rap_attacks_man/
mac said...
Anon 10:53:
"Is mac a Horwitzian?"
Actually he asked "Is mac a Horowitzian?" which is a very different issue.
If you have ever seriously considered the possibility that academia is leftwardly politically biased, then yes, you are by definition a Horowitzian, and thus a tool of the Devil.
On the other hand, if you believe that talking to postmodernists, critical theorists and race/class/gender scholars isn't an a priori total waste of time, then you're a "no-'o'" Horwitzian.
Congratulations. Being both Horwitzian and Horowitzian at the same time is a sign of mental agility.
"I have reached a threshold after a lifetime--since childhood actually--of allowing the black community to effectively hold others hostage to their endless "grievances"........thinking it's ok."
I read that letter as your viewpoint expressed in KC's careful, civil, bend over backwards rhetorical style. .
Ralph (4:41 PM)--
Hilariously correct!
Fake hate crimes are nothing new on campuses. I remember the notorious case of a black professor that painted racist graffiti on her car to incite unrest. Fortunately she got outed.
I think
this was the case.
I put nothing past these radicalized unethical academic victim hustlers.
Ralph,
Some people see junk when they see a yard sale; some people see a yard sale and see potential.
I merely recognize that not all yard sales are the same...and that a priceless painting might be found amidst the junk, while an inordinate amount of time might be spent sifting through the junk trying to find the things of value.
My view is that the free market, lots of disinfectant, lots and lots of sunlight with continued attention by people with diverse perspectives - (such as KC, Horwitz AND Horowitz AND people such as yourself) - will help separate the things of value from the junk.
I guess that's a form of mental gymnastics, and shows some agility.
TO Ralph--
Let me revisit your (2:07 PM).
You chose the quote you liked....and it was, indeed, the focus of the letter.
My focus and very accurate point was that in order to pose such a question, the writer felt insecure enough that he needed this as a preface:
" I am one of millions of white North Carolinians who do not consider themselves racist and who harbor only good will toward African-American citizens."
I call this groveling.
If you've got a question, ask it. No need for this...."Oh please understand that I like you very much. I really, really like you!"....kind of jazz.
People such as some members of the Gang of 88 can smell the hint of over-compensation a mile away.....and that's what they use to get what they want.
They sure have used it on Dicky Brodhead.
IMO.
Re: Hate crimes/?victims
The Truths That Fake Hate Crimes Tell Us
By Sam Francis
As Hate-Crime Concerns Rise, So Does the Threat of Hoaxes, LA Times, also here]
The story dwells on fake hate crimes perpetrated on college campuses, which seem to be a favorite location for fraud (in more ways than one, perhaps). ...
------------------------------
This is a 2004 article, but it is loaded with examples of the victim/hoax syndrome we are witnessing today, minus the recent hoaxes. The Duke lacrosse hoax would be number one now, I would guess. Good stuff-this:
---------------------------------
Excerpts:
Mr. Potok believes that's because people on college campuses are so much more sensitive than those dumbbells and bigots "out in the world at large." In fact, they're just a lot more gullible and perhaps more warped
Hence, hoaxers and fakers of all descriptions flock to the campuses to stage phony "hate crimes" and then parade themselves as victims deserving attention, sympathy and publicity.
Why do the fakers do it? One motivation for faking hate is, as one expert says, "the accuser's sense of victimhood." Another is the personal inadequacy of the faker.
Nor will anyone drilled to think of himself as a victim of hate have any trouble finding it.
(For law types)
These laws are a long step toward the totalitarian manipulation of expression, thought and feeling that George Orwell warned us about.
http://www.vdare.com/francis/fake_hate.htm
IMO, Deborah, you do NOT understand that ethnic North Carolinians have their own way of saying things and that is it NOT groveling to address such matters in a way that is your usual manner of speech.
That is NOT groveling, but local speech, and if you don't like it you can just take your own medicine and zip your lips. The Gang of 88 may use their conniving manners to kiss up to Brodhead, but I doubt that ANY of them are native North Carolians. They have just learned how to use our weapons AGAINST us.
Not everyone has to speak in a New Yorker smart-ass confrontive manner to make oneself known.
A bullet from a NC gun will render you just as dead as one from a NY gun... but the ethnic North Carolinian may shoot from behind the trees... we call that CLEVER.
Give your prejudices a rest. FREE speech means we Southerners can say things any way we want to. Just because you don't appreciate or respect it doesn't render it useless OR groveling.
Lighten up a little. Some pretty smart people speak with a Southern drawl.
TO "Ralph" (4:55 PM)--
What?
If I understand you correctly, you think that was my editorial opinion on KC's style?
LOL!
Listen, I have to be around people like KC. Endless volcanic eruptions would take place daily if I were around people like me all the time.
And yes, it's nice to be civil and kind; however, KC uses dry humor and often becomes short with people when making his points.
I have no doubt that KC harbors lots of negative thoughts about a lot of things. He just doesn't express them here.
(Notice how he ignores my Diva eruptions?)
LOL!!!
Jena 6 compared to Duke LAX case:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1024/p09s01-coop.html?page=1
(Cannot recall if this has been posted before)
Professor Neal:
Quick question that has almost certainly been asked, but fearing only redundancy, and with no time to read all the comments at this time, please bear with me:
If someone refers to you the way you refer to you, is that racist?
MOO! Gregory
TO 10:16 AM--
I am a product of both the North and the South.....
....so I know more about such things than you might imagine.
mac said...
"Ralph,
Some people see junk when they see a yard sale; some people see a yard sale and see potential."
When I see a journal or discipline that accepts the publication of lies about issues of fact(be they Piot's or Bellesiles') as unremarkable and unworthy of notice much less correction, I don't see a yardasle full of junk and the possible "Antiques Roadshow" treasure. I see a city dump full of junk, a possible "Antiques Roadshow" treasure, dirty diapers, medical waste, and the small but non-zero risk of getting stuck with an AIDS-infected needle. The risk just isn't worth it to me, especially as there are places to go for information where the inhabitants do care about holding each other to the truth.
Life is short and the modern liberal-arts academy's signal to noise ratio is low.
Gregory asks:
"If someone refers to you the way you refer to you, is that racist?:
It depends if that person is black or white. If they're white it's racist, if they're black it isn't.
Memorize this principle, it is very widely applicable.
MOO! Gregory @10/24 11:46:
If someone refers to you the way you refer to you, is that racist?
Make sure you pronounce it correctly, and you'd better Smile When You Say That™.
dave
The Great Noose Hoax of '07
Major media YET AGAIN promotes a narrative-based hoax.
Media myths about the Jena 6
Chronological Order of Events
I would add to MOO Gregory's 11:46 question for Professor Neal:
"If someone refers to you the way you refer to you, is that racist?"
My question is this: if someone regards nearly everything they see as "racist" or "sexist," aren't they practicing a form of perceptual racism? Not to mention mind-reading?
Can you read minds? (I can't) Seems as if you interpret a lot of what other people do and say in a manner that only someone with supernatural powers would be capable of: again, can you read minds? Do you have some special gifts that enables you to declare someone a racist or homophobe or sexist?
People do and say the most awful and stupid things when they attempt to interpret someone else's thoughts. Don't you agree?
(I wouldn't pretend to read your mind, BTW.)
Too bad there won't be a "KC of the Jena Hoax" the way there's been one for the Lax Hoax.
Ralph 1:56
I agree. However, I would be inclined to think that there may be something worth keeping, some isolated fragment, however miniscule, in Angry/Silly Studies. Whether it is worth it or not is an open question: every discipline has a responsibility to prove it's worth, it's accuracy, it's competency.
One area of strong agreement: when an educator or intellectual uses lies to back up his arguments, he is not merely wrong: he is a purveyor of evil, and has no credibility. Piot is a fine example of someone who was more than mistaken when he described Professor Johnson's work on DIW and UPI - (mistakes are things you apologize for; lies and deceptions...?)
But as far as examples go of treasures that might be found: an archeologist goes through a lot of gravel just to find one artifact; a gemologist or minerologist goes throuh a lot of rubble just to find one ruby.
Lots of studies began as pseudoscience: metallurgy owed something to alchemy; astronomy probably owes some of it's observations to astrology; the study of anatomy may even owe something to phrenology (indirectly.)
Observation is a form of early-stage science (such as the observation that a certain kind of mold killed bacteria, leading to antibiotics.) There was a time when science poo-poohed the idea that there are microorganisms. Even though Freud has largely been discredited, he helped move the science of psychology and behavior along to a further place of development (and it admittedly needs to go a lot further, frankly.) Angry/silly studies may eventually lead to something worthy. I don't what, but I am open to the possibility.
I'm not willing to dismiss entire disciplines, but I do agree that for a discipline to gain respect, it needs to toss out the liars and frauds, and to be open to rigorous self-examination. So far, Angry Studies considers any outside examination or criticism as hostility from interlopers, racists and homophobes, and has done a piss-poor job of self-examination.
Unless they find a way to become more self-examining, they'll be remnants at a yard sale with the phrenologist, more junk to sift through. For sale, cheap.
mac @10/24 2:44 PM
My question is this: if someone regards nearly everything they see as "racist" or "sexist," aren't they practicing a form of perceptual racism? Not to mention mind-reading?
Lot of comments on Sowell today, so as long as we're at it, read his Vision of the Annointed, although the following is as much C. S. Lewis as Sowell:
Anyone who sees everything as racist and sexist is seeing "through" what you or I see. The whole purpose of an education in deconstructionism (Angry Studies) is to enable you to see what's really going on, never mind what your senses and reason tell you.
It's the same assault on rationality employed by Marxists and hard-core Freudians, and the deconstructionist methodology of Angry Studies combines both. Any argument or observation you make is suspect because its source, ultimately, is irrational: 1) you can't really see the World As It Is because you're a victim of false class consciousness (Marxist); and 2) you don't really Know What's Going On because of your deep, dark sexual repressions (Freud).
The only novelty of the deconstructionists is that they manage to combine both: your point of view is invalid, and everything you (you Western Civilized white Protestant male, you) think, do or say is racist and sexist and classist because you are blinded by false class consciousness combined with sexual repression brought about by the impositions of an Unjust Society and so You're Really Messed Up.
Of course, Marxists, Freudians, deconstructionists, and Angry Students tacitly exempt their own line of thinking from the same critiques, assuming that their arguments are rationality itself.
But what if the rational basis of Marxist-Freudian-deconstructionist argument is itself a product of false class consciousness, sexual repression, and social constructs? Can an irrational cause produce rational results?
That's why they leap straight from facts, evidence, and reason (their own can be challenged on the same grounds as others') to "The Vision." Either you got it, or you don't. You don't, so you're a racist.
But not for that reason, by some weird turn of logic, a "victim." They've got that market cornered, too.
dave
Bobby Jindal -Wins Election- New LA Governor
(Oh No, whites vote for ethic!)
Los Angeles Times Online - October 24, 2007
Ethnicity is no bar to Jindal's dream
Jindal, 36 -- who will become the first Indian American governor of any state, the youngest current governor in the country, and the first nonwhite to lead Louisiana since Reconstruction -- refused to believe that his ethnicity was an obstacle to his political dreams.
Jindal wound up winning all but four of Louisiana's 64 parishes -- nearly the entire state EXCEPT NEW ORLEANS. It was an embarrassing defeat for Democrats, …..
http://rhttp://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-jindal24oct24,0,4931657.story?coll=la-home-center
--------------------------------
The fact that Jindal is of East Indian extraction “apparently didn’t mean anything to the white rural voter.”
-------------------------------
Blacks are celebrating his win, right? They are partying at the Duke Ethnic Studies department. Right?
Now go to the “ The Black Commentator” for a jolt of racism.
-----------------------------------
(Jindal) ”…is still just a “sand nigger” to Bubba.”
The ballot numbers testify that an American-born, converted Catholic scion of an upper caste Hindu family is still just a “sand nigger” to Bubba, who takes the creed of the White Man’s Party seriously.
“A Black Trojan Horse Democratic Mayor offered son-of-immigrants Bobby Jindal the keys to New Orleans, lending deeper color to the deceit. Wine-sipping white suburbanites anxiously anticipated the ascension of their Great Brown Hope, who would cleanse their privilege, purge all vestiges of guilt, and validate once and for all their assertions of color blindness. A harmonious, business-friendly era would commence, and maybe, just maybe, the more recalcitrant and bitter Blacks would finally see the futility of their racial fixations.”
http://www.blackcommentator.com/65/65_cover_louisiana.html
"I'm not willing to dismiss entire disciplines, but I do agree that for a discipline to gain respect, it needs to toss out the liars and frauds, and to be open to rigorous self-examination."
Difference in taste, I guess. If I have any options at all I won't waste time on an information source that I know lies to me.
Meaningless rhetoric and obviously politicized results, like yardsale junk, are useless but harmless aside from the opportunity cost of time spent examining them. But deliberate lies, like infected needles, are actively harmful. I'll let someone else root around through that stuff.
mac @10/24 3:09 PM
You. are. good.
One of the earliest criticisms I recall of the whole Angry Studies thing was, could not these subjects, or their components, be as readily addressed in long-established disciplines? History, pyschology, political science, anthropology, etc. There, at least, they might benefit from the rigor and intellectual traditions of those disciplines.
Instead, they adapted their own unique ideologically-informed methodologies to justify the existence of "studies" based on what their own deconstructionist doctrines argue are the "artificial constructs" of race, class, and gender.
Paradoxically, the methodologies they've developed have now spread back to the traditional ones of history, psychology, political science, anthropology, etc., and to society at large in the form of political correctness.
The traditional disciplines will deal with this as they have with every other intellectual fad that's passed through over the last few centuries (principally, the Old Fogies die out). We don't yet know how a "studies" founded on an intellectual fad survives. Self-examination might prove fatal. Hate speech codes, perhaps.
dave
11:46AM
"If someone refers to you the way you refer to you, is that racist?"
Great question for Professor Neal? I can understand a professor wanting to be identified as an "intellectual" but the "thugnigga" part is very troubling.
Professor Neal, exactly what pot are you trying to stir?
Out of curiosity and respect I've ordered New Black Man by Prof Neal. I look forward to reading the book.
Addendum to my 4:00 -
Continuing to abuse the metaphor, all issues of "Transforming Anthropolgy", all isues of "Social Text", Michael Bellisles' entire CV, and anything Noam Chomsky wrote that's not about linguistics belong, not at a yard sale, but in drums marked "Danger - Toxic Waste."
Anonymous said...
Fake hate crimes are nothing new on campuses. I remember the notorious case of a black professor that painted racist graffiti on her car to incite unrest. Fortunately she got outed.
I think this was the case.
------------------------------------
The notorious case you linked to -- the Kerri Dunn case at Claremont McKenna -- didn't involve a black professor. Ms. Dunn is/was a white lesbian recently converted to Judaism. So there are white crazies who pull such stunts too.
The extent to which one can refer to someone of an obvious other group (which in and of itself means we all "discriminate"), I offer the letter I wrote to Houston Baker circa April 2006. I point to tha final paragraphs. To wit:
"Dear Professor:
Thank you for your reply -- I appreciate the opportunity to learn of other's views.
So that this discourse will be perhaps more productive, may I provide some life stories to provide context.
First, let me answer your question about my behavior while at Duke. I don't recall having ever called a black person "nigger" while at Duke or elsewhere. But, yes, I was a member of a fraternity comprised to a great extent of athletes (including an Olympian and numerous all-Americans). Yes, I probably exhibited boorish behavior. And yes, if I'd been caught, I would have been charged with crimes similar to those that are being used to characterize the lacrosse team. Yes, I am white.
However, my fraternity was one that included among its membership numerous friends who happened to be black. In my second year, I rushed someone who was a wrestler, someone whose demeanor I really liked, a friend who subsequently became my roommate. And the following year, I looked again and realized he was of color. Didn't matter one iota.
Now, I have never considered myself privileged and the juxtaposition of the two words -- white and privilege -- is somewhat offensive to me. In fact, it now provides a basis for discriminating against me and my family. My family -- The Inman Family of Surry and Sussex County Virginia (you can Google that) -- has lived in Virginia for 11 generations. One day, as a child, I asked my Grandpappy if anyone in my family had been wealthy. He answered "Nope, but they were always honorable men." Honor was always more important than money. My heritage is from dirt farmers, people who scraped out a living from land that all too often had given its best to prior generations who had moved on. And like everyone else who lived at the time, slavery was a fact. So was indentured servitude. So were numerous other diseases, both of the flesh and the mind.
Now, my Grandpappy may have been honorable, but he was also a bigot. Oxymoronic, huh? My Grandlady was a bigot, too. (I don't know how we happened to call her 'Grandlady" but that's who she was to us.) My Grandpappy left the farm in 1926 and moved to Richmond where he remained for most of his life. In 1941, he and Grandlady bought a house in a neighborhood where deed restrictions prohibited Jews and Negroes. The notion of "black" did not exist in 1941. My Grandpappy never used the term "nigger". He used the term "nigra" -- short "i" short "a" -- a slurred form of the word "negro".
I remember one day when I was in first grade (circa 1959) and living at my grandparent's house. I had walked home with a friend, someone I wanted to play with. I was met at the front door by Grandlady who chased the little boy away. She then proceeded to tell me to never bring that child to the house again. Six year olds are evidently color blind. My Grandlady had well-developed color codes. Her association with the Mayflower Society and cousin Thomas Jefferson, cousin John Adams and the Colonial Dames and the Virginia Company of London had provided a blinded sight. Genetic background -- yes. Wealth or ease or privilege. No. She worked almost to the day she died in 1968 when she was 65. She made ends meet.
When I was in the fourth through sixth grade, I lived in Bristol, Tennessee. I went to an all-white elementary school and (although I was very small) played on the school football team. It was during that time that I learned that there were schools for black children, too. I learned this because our team was going to play them. Our coach told us of several black kids who were really fast and asked if any of us could catch them. Even then we were learning of racially-assumed athletic prowess.
As my stature became relatively smaller than my peers, I switched to music and learned to play the trumpet. I also (through a series of family moves) found myself in Baton Rouge Louisiana. A great place to play music if you were good enough for the stage band, because we had original scores being written by jazz musicians in New Orleans. I played first chair trumpet. I was a soloist. One spring day (circa 1969), the stage band went on a road trip to play in a festival in Hammond Louisiana. Angelo Michelli, a curly headed, hippie-like French Acadian drummer drove. With Angelo and me was our friend Lloyd Oby. Lloyd was 6 foot tall, skinny as a rail and a very good trombone player. Lloyd was also black. Anyway, we set out and proceeded to enjoy the ride. But I recall specifically the unease, while passing through the Louisiana countryside, when we saw the 6 foot tall letters spray painted in white across the highway -- "KKK". It’s the South's special gift to graffiti. In 2006, investment bankers, both black and white, traveling from Greenwich to Wall Street get a similar feeling when passing through the graffiti-filled walls of the Bronx.
In any event, after a gulp and wipe of the brow, Angelo, Lloyd and I went on and finally got to a crossroads near our destination. We were hungry. There was a roadside diner. We stopped, got out of Angelo's VW van painted with flowers and stuff, and went inside. We sat down and continued to "yuk it up". We were happy and talking and having a good time. Time passed. And then passed again. And then at the same time, we each looked around the diner to see if there was a waiter or waitress. There was a collective realization that we weren't going to be served. Each of us saw a rather remarkable thing -- hate stares boring through our sense of self and safety. Hate stares -- out there. Fear in the eyes of my friends. I suspect I had fear in my eyes, too.. Well, we were reasonably bright kids -- We knew when to leave. We were also pretty darn fast.
Well, now about something that happened a few weeks ago. I was headed to my son's lacrosse game in Bethesda Maryland. I was early so I stopped at a local tavern for an after-work beer. I went to the bar and sat on an empty stool next to two black men on my left and a white couple on my right. I ordered my beer and then listened to the conversation. One of the black men was lively, agitated and talking up a storm ..."that nigger..." this...."the nigger" that..."...that fuckin' nigger ...". I looked at him and asked ..."Why do you use that term when we are told it is so offensive." "You mean nigger -- I use it 'cause I can say it the right way. It don't mean nothin' when I say it. Now, you say it right and it don't mean nothin'. Heck, I gotta white friend and that nigger, he just a nigger like me. It's when it's said wrong. That's when this nigger gets mad." True.
So...what should be done with the oral graffiti?
Again, thank you for your reply.
Tom Inman
_____________________________
Addendum, 10/24/2007
Truth.
Traveler 3:40 pm
The Black Commentator reports were from the 2003 election where the Blanco/Black Community Cabal defeated Bobby Jindal. They crowed and gloated for a while. Then came Katrina and their house of cards came crashing down. Jindal ran essentially unopposed this time around, on a campaign based on competency. He is the person most likely to succeed although he has some real challenges ahead.
Someone's reference to "what their deconstructionist doctrines argue are the 'artificial constructs' of race, class, and gender" convinces me that it's worth saying a few words about what "deconstruction" really means.
At heart, deconstruction is very simple. It is simply the realization that much of what we take as 'the world' is actually a series of social constructions. Genetic heritage is a fact; race is a social construction. The movement of money and its accumulation in the possession of some is a fact; class is a social construction. Sex is a fact; gender is a social construction.
True deconstructionism does not make any value judgments on these social constructions, but what it does say is that we can get a better, more accurate grasp on the facts which underlie our social constructions by choosing to put aside such social constructions for the purposes of such study. To use an example less controversial than race, class or gender, for most of the time since Darwin the social construction of evolution has held organic life forms to be the beneficiaries of the process, and passing on our genes to be the mechanism of the process. However, as perhaps best expressed by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene, the process makes much more sense if we consider genes to be the beneficiaries of the process, and organic life forms to be the mechanism. From this altered perspective, it suddenly is no longer hard to understand why some traits which would seem destructive can be evolutionary advantages -- they are destructive to the individual, but at seeing that those genes get reproduced, they're excellent. These insights might not have been possible without putting aside the existing social constructions.
So, there is a place for true deconstructionism. Unfortunately, the idea was seized upon by people who did not realize that the "deconstructionist perspective" on anything is itself a social construction. They don't see that to be valid, deconstructionism must deconstruct itself, not privilege itself above other approaches.
Anon at 10/25/07 3:53pm --
Good comment.
"Race" is a term that at the same time refers to a biological reality and a social construct. Steve Sailer's offered the biological definition "partly-inbred extended family," and that's a pretty good start.
Biologically, it's easy to answer this question: what race is the child whose mother is race X and whose father is race Y? ("Half X and half Y"). Socially, it's much more fraught; it depends upon the society, the time period, what X and Y are, and the perspective of the speaker. (Readers can think of lots of examples to illustrate this.)
By challenging the various socially-constructed answers and contesting their basis in biological reality, the deconstructionists have done us a big favor--they're right.
Where some have fallen off the rails is to take the next step and deny that "race" has anything other than a socially-constructed meaning. To paraphrase Orwell, only an intellectual could believe something so obviously wrong. Our eyes tell us otherwise, every day (certainly if you live in any sort of "diverse" town or city).
There was a report earlier this year that current, crude DNA analysis techniques can classify a person's race such that it is in accord with that person's self-identification over 98% of the time. The tools are getting better at a blazingly fast rate--once ordinary folks start getting personal-genomics reports from companies like Navigenics and 23andMe, they'll see how laughable the race-as-social-construct belief is. Of course, then the hard-core radical deconstructivists will silently morph the argument into something else; never admit you're wrong and all that...
Your comment on Dawkins raises an interesting history-of-science question: in pursuing "selfish genes", did those thinkers see themselves as deconstructivists? Or were they just acting like scientists in playing with a set of intriguing ideas, some of which turned out to be rather useful and rather true? I'd be pretty sure that Dawkins has answered a question like this already; he's a prolific writer.
Agree, anon @10/25 3:53 PM, last paragraph.
And surely an explanation of water should not itself be wet.
dave
3:53 and AMAC 12:54
There is a parasite called Toxoplasma Gondii, which is spread through cat feces (first good comparison to the Angry Studies curriculum) and it has the ability to make rats less fearful of cats - (even so far as to be attracted to cat urine.) When the rat is eaten by the cat, it spreads it's oocytes, and infects others.
An argument for why deconstructionism can never really deconstruct: it's just passed along, like the parasite.
KC:
I think this editorial by The Chronicle is where you and I will need to parts ways.
While Mr. Burness was busy having one of his many massages, three students were being tarred and feathered by his administration, the faculty and students. He didn't get the communication quite right? He threw a few interceptions? Do you really agree with those statements?
Good God, man. The President refused to even speak to the parents! These students rights were trampled! And this despicable mouthpiece had nothing to say?
There was nothing gracious about The Chronicle's editorial. It was as corrupt and insincere as Brodhead's pseudo apology.
That overblown tub of lard couldn't stop shooting his mouth off even after he was told to. He is a unfortunate reflection of the cesspool that Duke has become.
Ken
Dallas
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