At most large universities, the position of undergraduate deputy serves as the department's ambassador to the undergraduate student population. He or she is the professor to whom students will come with questions about the department's courses, or rules and regulations, or faculty members.
An ability to deal with all students, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, or belief systems, would seem to be a minimum requirement for the position. For instance, a professor who believed that “many blacks . . . might not ever be persuaded by appeals to reason, to what we ‘know’ and agree to be ‘truth’—that all men/women were created equal, for example,” would be a problematic choice for deputy.
The current director of undergraduate studies of the Duke African-American Studies Department is none other than . . . Wahneema Lubiano, she of the opinion that “many whites . . . might not ever be persuaded by appeals to reason, to what we ‘know’ and agree to be ‘truth’—that all men/women were created equal, for example.”
Well, of course, students treated unfairly could always appeal to the department's fair-minded chair--J. Lorand Matory, the sponsor of the anti-Summers resolution at Harvard.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
19 comments:
And there will be no appeal to reason! Reason left the academy a very long time ago.
Is Matory a Communist?
Is it fair to say the Duke Klan of 88 are in a publishing quagmire?
The answer to your very important question about African and African-American Studies at Duke University is forthcoming.
Speaking Truth,
W. Lubiano
______________
6 months later
______________
My response to your question about my forthcoming response to your earlier question is forthcoming.
Speaking Truth,
W. Lubiano
It appears that the cohort at the Duke Chronicle has decided to rearrange and "update" their website. As part of the new interior design, it appears that most of the comments to many of the Duke Lacrosse articles have been hauled off to the dustbin of the internet. For example, all the responses to Ada Gregory's noxious letter to editor about "cunning" Duke rapists have been deleted. And that's not all.
The Chronicle now requires registration, and they are quite keen about banning commentors or deleting comments that speak truth to Duke power. Sad state of affairs in junior mainstream media world.
I can understand how Skwilli and others would come to the impression of an academy that has abandoned reason. But I would not indict the entire academy in one breath. What we have here is a particular segment of the academy, a perhaps justifiably paranoid humanities and social science fringe, who hide behind their "disparities" status to brow beat the rest of the flock. I find reason generally to prevail among those trained in the natural and more rigorous social sciences, and among many others as well. It is the timidness (cowardice?) of the rational segment that contributes to the impression of an academy without reason. Spoken from a 35 year plus multi-university perspective.
I'm sure Duke undergraduates will be inspired to become significant donors and fundraisers for Duke after their first meeting with Ambassador Wahneema Lubiano.
Hopefully, information sharing about department's courses, rules or faculty members will revert back to the dorms where they were before all the academic pork was hired.
::
GP
The only way at this problem is if some Fortune 500 companies stop treating hiring candidates as certainly qualified just because they have a degree from XXX university ( like themselves ), or more conceivable would be to require Psych testing to determine how much of the leftist brainwashing has stuck (best would be to refuse to hire graduates who took courses from nutty instructors from leftist institutions, then parents who want the higher earning potential for their children would not blindly pay for those kids to attend there).
Just when we thought we had seen enough of Duke's ex BOT Bob Steel makes the news again.
And the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II
of the NAACP entertained everyone in Hickory, NC this weekend. LOL !
They even got to see a special screening of "Blood Done Sign My Name." Another one of Bob Steel's investments.
Despite the many problems in contemporary academia, working within the system is almost always preferable to seeking solutions imposed by legislators.
NoD
To the 12.52:
Very well put.
As we have seen, the two major instances in which legislative efforts have attempted to address bias in the academy (the Ohio and Florida ABOR debates) were hijacked by anti-evolution forces who wanted to use the affairs not to address the real problems in the humanities and social sciences, but instead to mandate instruction of creationism.
Given the religious right's influence in the contemporary GOP, it's hard to imagine any future ABOR's not being similarly hijacked.
Anon at 12:52.
But there is no reason to believe that those in "the system" will change.
Bizarre course offerings proliferate and fees increase.
Anti-intellectuals like Lubiano obtain tenure and administrative posts to appease the herd of pseudo-intellectuals admitted to academia since 1969.
Removing a posturing fraud like Ward Churchill has become the equal of removing a NY or LA union-protected teacher, who never should have been hired.
Academic "conferences" of no apparent utility consume significant resources, along with university subsidized presses, housing benefits and sabbaticals.
True academics have always been valued. Taxpayers have dug deep into their shrinking pockets for years, believing they are doing something valuable by supporting colleges.
Bu things are changing: the yearly academic spectacles and surging tuition are alerting people who took no prior notice that things are amiss. Graduates themselves have seen the waste and PC attitudes blanketing the campuses.
Colleges seem serenely sure that there will be no day of reckoning, and these absurd extravagances can continue forever, or at least until they retire.
I suspect that taxpayers have perceived that colleges have become extravagent, out of touch and to some degree, pernicious. Taxpayers are simply waiting for a way to take action on their newfound feeliings.
In California, the legislature ignored rumbling discontent over taxes and wound up with voter enacted fixes like Prop 13. They ignored irritation over crime and got voter enacted Three strikes.
When the way is found it won't be pretty. But like a seismic shift, it'll come after lots of resisted pressure. No one outside academia will be surprised.
How could you leave up Five O'Clock Charlie's daily "Is s/he a communist?" and not allow my response?
Hmmm. Ok, let's say that Duke Literature professor Michael Hardt is one of the openly communist members of academia. Is that better? And I still want to plug his new book -- published by Harvard! -- that was called "evil" in The Wall Street Journal.
RRH
A quick note:
At this stage of the blog, you'd think nothing new could come along regarding comments, but one did today: a commenter who elected not to leave his/her name simply provided a link, with no description of the link's comment.
I always am on the lookout for phishing and viruses, and since I couldn't confirm the link before clearing it (lest my computer be subjected to viruses), I couldn't clear the comment.
A word of caution about spammers and potential viruses.
Once you find yourself on websites and inside video chatrooms with "subscribers" and "friends" from all over the globe, it's going to be easier to become a victim.
The Diva World has been visited by an irritant who likes to leave comment after comment in Japanese or some other Asian language.
I didn't bother to check whether it's kanji, hiragana, or katakana before deleting them.
No doubt, it's some little under-endowed weasel posting something he thinks is dirty.
And it probably isn't dirty enough.
These conversations and the accompanying relevant literature leave me feeling quite conflicted about Lubiano, Duke, Lacrosse, and the catastrophic spectacle that was the Duke Lacrosse Scandal.
I am a white, Jewish male. I also was a varsity athlete at Duke who happened to take one of Lubiano's courses one semester before the ensuing melee.
KC's blog and the shadow it casts on Lubiano's work would have you believe (quite logically) that my experience with her would be a negative, even oppressed one. But it was much the opposite.
Lubiano was always extremely supportive of my work, displayed no visible bias against athletes (in a predominantly non-athletic environment), and I learned a lot in her class. While the language framing class discussions sometimes seemed so abstract as to not directly address anything at all, it seemed that was the language of Cultural Studies...
Some her work certainly seems unreasonable in its agenda, but I think it'd be unfair to wholly demonize her perspective. There is some truth to every slice of this story. Undoubtedly, unconscious systems of oppression permeate American standards of living. And while using Duke Lacrosse as a sacrificial case study was both unfair and wrong, Duke needed to hold athletes to a higher communal code than they did previously.
Every party involved in this scenario demonstrated some ugly behavior, and I hadn't thought about it for a long time. Rereading and reading many of these stories for the first time conjured some strong memories rife with conflict and serious, nation-changing issues.
"Every party involved in this scenario demonstrated some ugly behavior....."
***************************
What?
There was no apparent "ugly behavior" by the Duke lacrosse players/students.
Only after one of the prostitutes/strippers, Kim Roberts, made a demeaning and racist remark to some of the guys did one of them give it back to her in kind.
The lacrosse players behaved quite generously by even agreeing to allow the women to "dance" since they had not ordered that particular "brand".
Call it what you will, but "bad behavior" is a general phrase which cannot be applied across the board to ameliorate the rabid and damaging effects of what Lubiano did....along with her colleagues.
If you want to get into the realm of "bad behavior", just check out some of the gay pornography and the vast array of "othered" issues that people like Duke's Gang of 88 embrace and attempt to advance as "normal".
It's an insidious agenda which has had a long, if unstable, run.
Wahneema Lubiano's very existence defines "bad behavior".
Those of us who enthusiastically accept the idea that every individual has the right to live a life of autonomy and self-fulfillment do not have to yield to complete destruction.
And the destruction---or at least, the disassembly,---of society's social-cultural-sexual-educational-financial infrastructure is really what people like Lubiano would like.
Her writing is stunning in its turgidity and aesthetic offensiveness.
In short, she makes absolutely no sense at all.
As a student who needs to fill a few hours to receive the obligatory semester credits, you can be forgiven.
At one time or another, we've all willingly put ourselves inside a lecture hall or a classroom with a "professor" who should never have been hired at university level to begin with.
However, when such superfluous individuals ALSO choose to aggressively do great harm for their own ideological agenda, no excuses for such deliberate "bad behavior" will be tolerated.
I have often thought that the fundamental engine driving many of the Gang of 88 is their pursuit to destroy what they deem as the heterosexual lifestyle of wife/husband/kids living in suburbia and their hatred for all that is ultimately sustenance and perpetuation of all from which they partake.
People like Lubiano would love to believe that the lacrosse players lived a life of "bad behavior".
That story line serves to mitigate the grotesque existence of a woman who walks around dressed like a man mouthing racist mantras and doing very little else.
"The lacrosse players behaved quite generously by even agreeing to allow the women to 'dance' since they had not ordered that particular 'brand.'"
Wow. What generous souls.
It's difficult to take any analysis following a bigoted comment like that one seriously.
TO "EXZACTwave7"--
Where to begin?
This blog couldn't host the style of commentary I should deposit here for a response.
Like I once told former Wall Street mover and shaker Maceo Sloan some years ago.....I have complete immunity with regard to matters of "race".
I've got a Ph.D in the subject....and from living it.
The same goes with regard to matters of male-female relationships.
Contrary to what some try to pretend, there is an absolute reality.
Let me break it down for you.
The lacrosse players---a few of the older ones on the team---decided to have a Spring party.
Horrors!
Like Coach K's basketball team had done for years, they called a service for two strippers.
When you pay $400 for two broads to show some flesh for a few minutes, I would think you would at least be entitled to see the "type" of flesh you choose.
It's a business, no? And no one will be able to explain that better than Crystal Mangum and Kim Roberts.
Doing that was their choice.
When two rather unattractive black women showed up at their door for the party, they could have told them to leave.
But being the well-bred and progressive guys that they are, they allowed the women to display their goods without insult or protest.
Even though the women were not the "product" ordered.
If they had been "bigots" or "racists", this scenario would have turned out very differently.
Perhaps 99.9999% of readers might agree that being PC and "diverse" in this case didn't work out well for them.
Finally, what I know and have experienced regarding "race" issues, "male-female" issues, and the omnipotent bolt of lightening---"sex" issues.......
........you have yet to imagine.
Stereotypes exist for a reason.
Usually because someone is willing to describe reality.
Here's a towel.
Wipe behind your ears.
Post a Comment