Kamala Harris: Enjoy The Long Weekend

[CarolinaBengalFanGuy]

(06-17-2021, 05:42 PM)Dill Wrote: Thanks for responding, Wes.  Yesterday, I overwrote my first response to you. Today I am going to reply in two abridged posts, first addressing the issue speech in academia.

For the record, I do not hold up universities as “bastions of free speech.” Modern research universities are, rather, supposed to be bastions of academic freedom. This means certain kinds of academic speech should be protected from political religious censure (hence the role of tenure), but not disciplinary*/academic. Because the goal is to foster free inquiry, “offensive” or “divisive” speech is tolerated to different degrees in different venues within academia—in graduate more than undergraduate classrooms, and faculty lectures more than commencement speeches, etc. Fostering that goal includes teaching students to tolerate different/divisive viewpoints and language too. In consequence, such speech is often tolerated to a greater degree in academia than elsewhere. But I have absolutely not asserted that universities “should always be open to any and all discussion.” All political/religious views do not have equal right to place at the table. Astronomy depts. don’t teach Ptolemaic astronomy.

That said, I turn to your examples: there is something unclear about your position regarding them, as all seem to show free speech obstructed on campus by people who, following Hollo, think “hate speech should not get a pass or a second chance”; and who, like you, wonder why the “haters” still have their jobs.   The examples are to establish that I “have not been paying attention these last few decades.” To what?  I guess you are trying to show that U.S. universities are not “bastions of free speech.”

Does the severely reduced Evergreen State example show that? That school had a traditional “Day of Absence/Day of Presence” ritual from the early ‘70s, based on the play in which Black people disappear from a Southern Community leaving a gaping hole in its labor/culture. On the “Evergreen Day of Absence” minorities were invited to off campus workshops to discuss racial issues. White people attended workshops on campus to reflect on the absence of their peers. Participation was voluntary, followed by a “Day of Presence” in which all the community came back together to celebrate unity.

In 2017, after Trump’s election, a student faculty committee of some 200 people decided that that year they would invert the ritual and whites would be invited off campus. Also, there was recognition of multiple identities. E.g., some could identify as both white and black, attend workshops on both sites. (Here is how the change in form was presented to students: http://www.cooperpointjournal.com/2017/04/10/day-of-absence-changes-form/.)

One white professor objected to the proposed racial role reversal in a campus email, saying “phenotype” should never determine who should be allowed to speak or be on a campus. Though the policy only “encouraged” people to follow the reversal, he characterized it as “force.” Some students later disrupted one of his classes shouting “racist,” a video of it went viral, and the professor, in turn, went on Tucker Carlson (bad move for a professor accused of racism).  The amplified protest drew far right groups to campus to protest. Students counter protested, some barricading a building demanding the administration act.

This is one of the few recent campus conflicts which has risen to a level commonly seen in the ‘60s. When the dust settled, some 80 students were disciplined and 6 campus staff resigned, including Rashida Love, “ringleader” of the PC anti-racists. https://crosscut.com/2017/12/evergreen-state-college-racial-protests-professor-resigns-olympia.  Another resigned after accusing colleagues of racism and white supremacy. https://www.foxnews.com/us/evergreen-professor-who-made-anti-white-comments-resigns-gets-240g-settlement. And State Republican lawmakers proposed defunding the school altogether. The “Day of Absence” now appears gone for good, but this does not look like a victory for PC censorship. Other administrators, professors, and students on other campuses are studying this example to see what went wrong, as a model of how NOT to restrict free speech. 

You refer (no link) to a “Harvard professor” allegedly “fired” for suggesting students could think about Halloween costume without paternal guidance from the administration. You might be referring to Erika Kristakis, who resigned a position at Yale’s Silliman residential college after a year of “Halloween costume” controversy. Kristakis’ husband was not “forced to resign.” He stepped down from basically the same post, and stepped up to become the university’s Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science. So both still teach at Yale and hold administrative positions there, Erika in the same program which invited Dr. Khilanani to speak. While I would be more careful about burdening frequently victimized students with their own defense than the Kristakis, their positions on academic freedom align with mine, as stated above. So far as I can tell, the protests against them proved an embarrassment to the university and its program, spawning a range of books on “snowflake” students, as well as policy changes (which I am not clear on yet and so won’t speak on). No one was fired or “forced to resign.”

The "headmaster" controversy, which I find somewhat silly, is all about denying the relevance of context. The controversies around Shapiro are in part security concerns, in part deliberate provocation on Shapiro's part, and in part created by people who think "hate speech" should not be tolerated. Shapiro-style controversies are the daily fare of Fox news, but from my perspective, Academic freedom has been constantly under threat since U.S. universities adopted the research model in the 19th century.  Since WWII, the number one threat to that freedom has been the military industrial complex, in combination with the New Right's push to delegitimize universities, to reduce their funding to open them more to market forces, and to intervene directly in their curricula and hiring practices. A few "leftist" students and faculty challenging the status quo on a relatively few campuses is not a sizeable threat, when one considers "threat" from a longer historical perspective.

*”Disciplinary” as in standards specific to different academic disciplines and fields—Anthropology, Botany, Chemistry, Cultural Studies, Economics, Education, History, Law, Mechanical Engineering, Nursing, Physics, Etc.

(06-17-2021, 07:22 PM)Dill Wrote: Part II   "Full paragraphs" don't create enough context for the statements you selected to quote. 

E.G., when you write "there could be a larger point here and this could just be for emphasis," I can't help but notice you don't say anything at all about that possible larger point, and provide nothing from Khalinani's speech or learning objectives to suggest what it might be. THAT would be putting the quotes in context. But you are not even looking there, because you have supplied all the context you want to.

But your context cannot be the one Khilanani supplies, because hers requires that larger point or points. 

When you just trot out individual statements, or even a bare paragraph, you are inviting people to fill in their own context, what they believe they "already know" about "hate speech" or "institutional racism" and the like. So what they'll hear is not likely what Khilanani is saying. I.e.,

A. someone claiming that the basic work of dealing with negative effects of racism is emotional, not intellectual, and who wants POC to acknowledge and work through anger at whites, while arguing a large part of that anger arises from the fact that whites separate themselves from their own history of racism and deny the legitimacy of POC anger; but rather 

B. just another POC mouthing off white hate and getting away with it. 

When you say, apparently mimicking what you take to be my argument, "It's so important that colleges allow speech like this," it looks like "this" just refers to the decontextualized statements you have quoted, the "B" of your bare quotes, not the "A," of Khalanani's fuller argument and goals as speaker. It IS important that colleges allow A: a lecture on how the process of dealing with rage against white supremacy must, for POC, start with acknowledgement of that rage, however severe and scary, as well as acknowledgement that whites will deny the ground of that rage, or their maintenance/benefit from it (the "psychopathic problem" to which the title refers). 

Same with title. What is the "Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind" according to her? And more importantly, does she establish that that problem is a problem? It sounds to me like you are not asking those questions, not interested in the answers, but rather implying that title already invalidates any argument she might have. 

In any case, so far as I can tell, I am the only one on this thread who has attempted to reconstruct Khilanani's argument before passing judgment.* That seems to be your and Hollo's primary disagreement with me--that I would make the effort to do that, rather than judge immediately on the basis of bits and pieces. 

At this point, I'd like to see how her fellow professionals respond to her argument. I don't know much about child psychiatry and the issues for POC arising from white domination of mental health practice, and so am unable to tell whether Khilanani is breaking new ground, repeating what people already know but with more "colorful" language, or is pushing practice into regions without accountability.  

*However, I am having difficulty understanding the recording of Khilanani's lecture. And I haven't yet found a transcript of it. There are places where I can make nothing of 2-3 sentences in a row. I am forced to rely more on the interview which follows. 

Well good thing you didn't do that again.

[Belsnickel]

How the ever-loving **** has one of the most ridiculously overblown criticisms of a politician that was 100% rooted in a falsehood gone on for 10 pages and has continued for over two weeks? I managed to contain myself and refrain from responding to a Brad thread, but how this inevitable shit show has gone on for this long is baffling. I certainly haven't been keeping up and I'm not going to catch up, but every time this thing pops up with new posts I just don't understand.

[hollodero]

(06-18-2021, 06:59 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: How the ever-loving **** has one of the most ridiculously overblown criticisms of a politician that was 100% rooted in a falsehood gone on for 10 pages and has continued for over two weeks? I managed to contain myself and refrain from responding to a Brad thread, but how this inevitable shit show has gone on for this long is baffling.

Well I am particularly uninclined to post in a fritzy thread either, but this debate has gone far away from Kamala and went to the imho interesting topic whether a professor describing white people as demented, out-of-their-mind predators and sharing fantasies of shooting white people without much guilt needs academical context before being condemned. It is kind of fascinating and has little to do with the OP.

I say that mainly to excuse my own contributions to this thread's length.

[*Nately120*]

(06-18-2021, 06:59 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: How the ever-loving **** has one of the most ridiculously overblown criticisms of a politician that was 100% rooted in a falsehood gone on for 10 pages and has continued for over two weeks? I managed to contain myself and refrain from responding to a Brad thread, but how this inevitable shit show has gone on for this long is baffling. I certainly haven't been keeping up and I'm not going to catch up, but every time this thing pops up with new posts I just don't understand.

I was about to comment on how I clearly had lost track of this thread. 

Trump said windmills kill everything.  Dude needs to be committed. 

[Wes Mantooth]

(06-18-2021, 06:59 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: I certainly haven't been keeping up and I'm not going to catch up, but every time this thing pops up with new posts I just don't understand.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(06-17-2021, 05:42 PM)Dill Wrote: Does the severely reduced Evergreen State example show that? That school had a traditional “Day of Absence/Day of Presence” ritual from the early ‘70s, based on the play in which Black people disappear from a Southern Community leaving a gaping hole in its labor/culture. On the “Evergreen Day of Absence” minorities were invited to off campus workshops to discuss racial issues. White people attended workshops on campus to reflect on the absence of their peers. Participation was voluntary, followed by a “Day of Presence” in which all the community came back together to celebrate unity.

In 2017, after Trump’s election, a student faculty committee of some 200 people decided that that year they would invert the ritual and whites would be invited off campus. Also, there was recognition of multiple identities. E.g., some could identify as both white and black, attend workshops on both sites. (Here is how the change in form was presented to students: http://www.cooperpointjournal.com/2017/04/10/day-of-absence-changes-form/.)

One white professor objected to the proposed racial role reversal in a campus email, saying “phenotype” should never determine who should be allowed to speak or be on a campus. Though the policy only “encouraged” people to follow the reversal, he characterized it as “force.” Some students later disrupted one of his classes shouting “racist,” a video of it went viral, and the professor, in turn, went on Tucker Carlson (bad move for a professor accused of racism).  The amplified protest drew far right groups to campus to protest. Students counter protested, some barricading a building demanding the administration act.

There's a hell of a lot to argue with in both your posts, but in the interest of trying to keep things focused and civil I'm only going to comment on this particularly poor argument.  There is an enormous amount of difference between students who are ethnic minorities choosing to participate in a day of absence and in telling the white students that they are not welcome on campus on a particular day.

One involves a choice being made by a person and the latter involves a condition being forced on a person.  It's honestly like you'll bend over backwards and deploy the most twisted logic to defend racism when it's directed at white people.  A little self examination would tell you why the backlash to your point of view is only growing.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(06-18-2021, 08:50 AM)hollodero Wrote: Well I am particularly uninclined to post in a fritzy thread either, but this debate has gone far away from Kamala and went to the imho interesting topic whether a professor describing white people as demented, out-of-their-mind predators and sharing fantasies of shooting white people without much guilt needs academical context before being condemned. It is kind of fascinating and has little to do with the OP.

I say that mainly to excuse my own contributions to this thread's length.

Pretty much where I'm at as well.

[Dill]

(06-18-2021, 06:59 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: How the ever-loving **** has one of the most ridiculously overblown criticisms of a politician that was 100% rooted in a falsehood gone on for 10 pages and has continued for over two weeks? I managed to contain myself and refrain from responding to a Brad thread, but how this inevitable shit show has gone on for this long is baffling. I certainly haven't been keeping up and I'm not going to catch up, but every time this thing pops up with new posts I just don't understand.

(06-18-2021, 08:50 AM)hollodero Wrote: Well I am particularly uninclined to post in a fritzy thread either, but this debate has gone far away from Kamala and went to the imho interesting topic whether a professor describing white people as demented, out-of-their-mind predators and sharing fantasies of shooting white people without much guilt needs academical context before being condemned. It is kind of fascinating and has little to do with the OP.

I say that mainly to excuse my own contributions to this thread's length.

Agreed. Hollo is largely to blame for extending this thread.  

But he is right. It is no longer about Kamala's terrible snub of our fine military members.
 
Rather, the discussion has turned to negotiating the pitfalls of “hate speech” at a moment people are caught between an old paradigm for understanding racism and a new one still developing with unsuspected repercussions. (Thus this discussion complements the one we were having on the “Fascism” thread about Biden’s “racism.”)
 
This case is complicated by its academic setting: a psychoanalyst’s lecture to an audience presumed to understand repression, projection and transference and other concepts, as used by psychoanalysts. It’s an audience also engaged with effects of white supremacy on mental health curricula, training, students, and practice, and so perhaps better prepared to hear white denial of such effects posed as a professional problem.
 
I have been arguing 1) that when our press presents hate speech “outrages” to us, we ought not to simply react, but to consider how and why the incidents might have been selected and put into circulation, with special attention to how such reporting may de-contextualize such incidents and invite us to substitute our own, pre-given assumptions about hate speech. And
 
2) that the academic setting complicates evaluation. Before rushing to judgment, we ought to at least know the speakers intent and argument, how her statements fit into demonstration. I have tried to supply some of that, though the bad recording means I have only securely grasped about 1/3 of the presentation.
 
Others argue that such contextualization is unnecessary. We get all we need to know by just looking at the statements. 
 
Wes has added another layer by listing assaults on speech at various U.S. campuses by people who, so far as I can tell, also agree that contextualization is unnecessary: you “see” and you condemn, go after people’s jobs, etc.

Now you are up to speed, Bels. (Also, as a budding political scientist, you might find my characterization of "academic freedom" in #179 worth a look/comment.)

[Arturo Bandini]

(06-18-2021, 11:06 AM)Nately120 Wrote: I was about to comment on how I clearly had lost track of this thread. 

Trump said windmills kill everything.  Dude needs to be committed. 

NASA put windlills on the moon and that was over for the whole place ...

Seen the last pictures ?

[Dill]

(06-18-2021, 12:08 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: There's a hell of a lot to argue with in both your posts, but in the interest of trying to keep things focused and civil I'm only going to comment on this particularly poor argument.  There is an enormous amount of difference between students who are ethnic minorities choosing to participate in a day of absence and in telling the white students that they are not welcome on campus on a particular day.

One involves a choice being made by a person and the latter involves a condition being forced on a person.  It's honestly like you'll bend over backwards and deploy the most twisted logic to defend racism when it's directed at white people.  A little self examination would tell you why the backlash to your point of view is only growing.

So after "refuting" an argument I didn't make,

you suggest I address an unspecified problem deep in my "self",  which is

causing a "backlash" against my view we ought to understand arguments before judging them. 

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(06-18-2021, 04:32 PM)Dill Wrote: So after "refuting" an argument I didn't make,

you suggest I address an unspecified problem deep in my "self",  which is

causing a "backlash" against my view we ought to understand arguments before judging them. 

So you didn't attempt to explain how the "day of absence" was no different than the "no white people on campus" incident?  Got it.  Thanks for clarifying.  

[Dill]

(06-18-2021, 06:34 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: So you didn't attempt to explain how the "day of absence" was no different than the "no white people on campus" incident?  Got it.  Thanks for clarifying.  

Nope, didn't. 

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(06-19-2021, 06:15 PM)Dill Wrote: Nope, didn't. 

Maybe Dill doesn't see it?  

[Dill]

(06-20-2021, 12:20 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Maybe Dill doesn't see it?  

Gaslight or demonstration--which will you choose?

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(06-20-2021, 06:05 PM)Dill Wrote: Gaslight or demonstration--which will you choose?

Good question.  Any suggestions?