Kamala Harris: Enjoy The Long Weekend

[Dill]

(06-15-2021, 11:12 AM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: These aren't soundbites, or a single sentence taken out of context.  These are full paragraphs, 5 of them in fact.  One only needs to look at the title to know this is clearly a theme and not something that is cherry picked. 

That title?  "Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind"

Lady says she has fantasies of shooting white people and wiping the blood off her hands while skipping away gleefully?  Let's hear what she has to say, there could be a larger point here and this could just be for emphasis.  Reasoning: It's so important that colleges allow speech like this.  That's what college is all about.

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.