Whenever I dare to dream, whenever I think I've found a topic we can all agree on, I’m reminded that this is a risible, childish fantasy, and I’m an idiot to hope for it. Terrorism is evil, bigotry is stupid, Adam Sandler isn’t funny, believe it or not, there are people walking the face of the Earth for whom all of these takes are controversial.
Steve, I agree with almost everything you have written on these issues. Regarding your conversation with Anita, let's point out that bringing in the Israel-Palestine conflict as proof that racism is involved in Gay's firing is itself evidence of bringing only one, simplistic conceptual tool- racism!!!!- to complex situations that require nuance and yes, that dreaded word, context.
Because whatever else the Israel-Palestine conflict is about, it sure as heck is not reducible to Kendi-style racial categorizations. There are black Israelis, and light-skinned Arabs, and Asian migrant workers who were targeted and killed in the Oct 7th attacks. The most right-wing Israelis are often the descendants of refugees from the Arab expulsions in '47 and '48, who are indistinguishable from "people of color."
None of what I'm writing implies support for Bibi and his coalition; I'm simply pointing out at if you look at Israel and Palestine and can only apply weird American ideas about race, you don't understand much if anything about the conflict, even if you're Amnesty International. Why would you think such a person is capable of nuance around something like "black person with important job happens to suck at it and gets fired?" Because the one thing university presidents can never do is piss off the donors, no matter what. If you do that, by definition, you suck at your (real) job.
"Because whatever else the Israel-Palestine conflict is about, it sure as heck is not reducible to Kendi-style racial categorizations"
It's not reducible to Kendi-style categorisations, but there certainly is a Jew/Arab dichotomy. I think Anita is using racism in that very broad sense. It's kind of like when Whoopi Goldberg had to sit on the naughty step because she said Hitler's persecution of the Jews was "not about racism but man's inhumanity to man."
As all of these words get bent and twisted to fit the agendas of whoever is trying to stir up emotional outrage, I think we'll see more and more stuff like this. I find it infuriating.
Yes, I agree. Perhaps what I should have written is something like: the Israel-Palestine conflict isn't at all comprehensible if "racism" is defined as "skin color." But if it's a Jew/Arab (um, and Persian) conflict, then it's not about "race" at all in the modern American usage.
What was particularly weird about the Whoopi Goldberg episode was that for the Nazis, exterminating my relatives in Germany and Ukraine was precisely about <race> as they understood the term.
I don't mean to hijack this thread to make it about something else, so let me validate your comment about plagiarism by noting that earlier this year I finished a professional (not academic) doctoral thesis and I am 100 percent confident that there's no plagiarism in it. Maybe I put a footnote (there were hundreds) in the wrong place, but on no page will you find blocks of text that somebody else wrote. This makes me entirely unsympathetic to the "everybody does it" argument. Had I done what Gay did, the school (which I doubt you've ever heard of) would have tossed me out on my ass.
"I don't mean to hijack this thread to make it about something else"
No, not a hijack at all, I think it's an interesting point. And yes, while we could all debate the specifics of the word "racism," I think you're right that Anita brings Israel Palestine into the conversation because she is only able to look at the world through a single ideological framework. I wrote an article about that actually😄
When you buy into the notion that you're fucked because you were born with darker-than-approved skin you're screwed at birth. This is the damage 'antiracism' is doing to POC, as woke feminism is doing to girls/women, convincing them they're fucked because of the 'wrong' genitals (and it's what's driving a lot of F2M transgenderism too). Being on Medium drove me insane sometimes with just how fucked in the head by third wave feminism these young women were. They talked about how 'exhausting' it was to deal with 'patriarchy and misogyny everywhere' sounding rather a lot like Medium's antiracists who apparently couldn't walk across the street without being crushed by epic white supremacy. I was like, "Where is all the misogyny? Where is all the patriarchy? Am I just not paying attention? How is it worse now than when I grew up in the '80s?" :)
Antiracism is pretty clearly now all about anti-white racism, and I'm waiting for Kendi to demand 400 years of slavery from us if we don't cough up reparations soon ;)
Upon which he's getting an invoice from me for 12,000 years of patriarchy :)
And no, black penises aren't exempt! All penises, including girl penises, have to pay up! YOU TOO, be-penised transmen! You wanted to join Da Patriarchy, now ya gotta pay the price!!! ;)
"Antiracism is pretty clearly now all about anti-white racism"
Antiracism is *pro-black* racism. There's a difference. If we want to look at who antiracism has harmed, it's Asian people by a pretty wide margin.
But yes, I completely agree with you about the psychological damage antiracism does to black people.
And the fact that my penis is black earns me a 40% (three-fifths compromise) discount on any patriarchy related reparations. Then we have to factor in the fact that you're white, and a white woman no less, with your notoriously dangerous tears. And, of course, trans men get a discount for reduced time served as men and the fact that their "penises" are technically just arm flesh.
I meant it as "anti-white" racism, not "anti-white racism" but okay, I can see how that read.
Sorry, we've already calculated the amount black members of The Patriarchy (dun-dun DUNNNNN!!!!) owe and the three-fifths fell victim to the math of the transatlantic slave trade only going on for 400 years (3.3% of The Patriarchy timeline) and was completely negated by the fact that Africans most likely invented female genital mutilation, which is *at least* 2,200 years old (10% of The Patriarchy) and continues to this day (as does slavery in Africa which also suggests how bad was it really, riiiiight?) However, The Committee is offering black males 15% off your Patriarchy reparations invoice for the pain and suffering you've suffered from white men who inflicted most of it (it would have been less but we also factored in White Women's Lies so you gained a few bucks there). We on The Committee are, however, raising reparations an additional 20% for black males who can claim BBD :) There WILL be DNA tests to determine percentage of blackness, and while white male DNA will not count against you due to most likely having been inflicted on your genetic line by evil white slaveowners, white *female* genes may limit your claim due to later behavioral reparations from your more immediate ancestors who may have finally legally availed themselves of white women since 1968 when the miscegenation laws were repealed. Please note: Each black male today loses $100 off his initial claim for every white woman he has slept with. Best of luck to all of you! The invoices will be in the mail around June, just in time to claim your 2023 tax rebates !
Definitely agree with the conclusion of your piece. I disagree, as you seem to, with the narrow phenotypic way in which we treat "diversity" - it's a false god with a light correlation to the things that matter most - differing perspectives. There is a way in which needing x% women or y% "people of color" (whatever that means!) is a reductio ad absurdum as well as we arrive at the conclusion that there is a "female point of view" or "black point of view", etc.. I see the infusion of race or racial stereotyping as pure noise that vitiates anything we might try to do - I haven't seen it lead to better outcomes, long-term, anywhere. I find myself more and more rejecting the idea of "race" (I am "multiracial") itself as the intersubjective fiction it is, rather than the profound truth some people treat it as.
"I haven't seen it lead to better outcomes, long-term, anywhere."
I don't know when some people forgot that this is supposed to be the goal. All the infighting and name-calling does absolutely noting for the people these movements are supposed to be helping.
Pure GOLD! I've tried to find ways of expressing this and not come up with something this clear.
Racist is currently a more incendiary word than bigot, as if bigotry is OK but racism is evil. OK for me, I'm just a bigot, but evil for you, white dude. Racism its own self.
I like a lot of what Anita says. I would go further and say that part of the deep context is that the conservative trolls who exposed Claudine Gay's plagiarism almost certainly began scrutinizing her from the moment she was named president of Harvard because such people would naturally assume that she is "an affirmative action hire" and they would automatically make assumptions about her qualifications that they never would make about a white woman.
But I also agree with your point that ultimately she was fired by the Harvard board solely because the amount of plagiarism that was revealed would have sunk any white person as well. The board had already overlooked her problematic performance before Congress and given her a vote of confidence. The board even tried to finesse the first findings of "carelessness" in her scholarship. She was undone finally by the plagiarism and nothing else.
There is a George Orwell quote I like: "One ought to be able to hold in one's head simultaneously the two facts that Dali is a good draughtsman and a disgusting human being." Two things can both be true: the campaign to bring down Gay was likely tainted by racism throughout and we are allowed to argue that; but the instances of plagiarism that the trolls uncovered was incontrovertible and more than a high-prestige educational institution could excuse. Just because the worst people in the world said she plagiarized does not mean that she didn't.
I should add that there is a whole other discussion to have about what constitutes plagiarism and how serious any particular offense is. Gay is unlucky. My guess is that thousands of professors are hoping that their own work is not scrutinized to the degree that hers has been. But she was ultimately done in by having indubitably crossed a line that is recognized by most of her fellow academics, however we intellectual field workers may feel about it.
"the conservative trolls who exposed Claudine Gay's plagiarism almost certainly began scrutinizing her from the moment she was named president of Harvard because such people would naturally assume that she is "an affirmative action hire""
I think it's very unlikely that this is true. Otherwise, why didn't they find the plagiarism sooner? As they demonstrated, ponce they were looking, it was extremely easy to find. And if they were looking for an excuse, Gay's congressional hearing isn't the first controversy she's been involved in at Harvard.
That said, yes, there was a fair amount of talk about her being a DEI hire after her hearing. I'm torn on this. On the one hand, I think it's quite likely that she *was* a DEI hire. Her academic record appears to be unusually light for somebody holding such a prestigious position. Although I'm far from knowledgeable enough about academia to have a strong position on this.
But on the other hand, I wish DEI operated in such a way that being a DEI hire *wasn't* a source of suspicion or stigma. DEI is viewed negatively because it doesn't do what it's supposed to do. It doesn't help people from disadvantaged backgrounds, people who are just as capable, but perhaps without the means, to thrive. And we know this, because if it did, it would be easy to empirically justify the hiring of any "DEI hire."
Being a DEI hire shouldn't be a source of shame. It should be seen like finding a diamond in the rough. We should feel lucky that a capable person was able to contribute to the best of their ability instead of falling through the cracks. We're a long way from that. And I put a significant part of the blame for that on the lack of transparency in DEI programmes.
In around 1984 I worked for the government in Georgia. A friend, who was a black man received a well-deserved promotion to a supervisory position. He was a natural leader. Near simultaneously there was an announcement in the local newspaper that there were to be X number of promotions to manager, supervisor and journeyman positions for black people.
His comment to me was, "I'll just be got damned. It's hard enough for a black man to get respect around here and now I'll be seen as a token n****r." Sadly, he was right.
The thing is it needed to be done. Deserving black people had been held back and it was the only viable remedy. It was one of the numerous things done to tear down systemic racism. America is the most ethnically diverse country in the world. Name a tribe, we've got um. And we've tried the hardest to fix the system with laws, policies, training programs and such. Are there still "doodoo-heads"? Sure, but we are trying had to reduce, if not eliminate the damage they can do. Should there be an expiration date on DEI to eliminate thought and accusations of tokenism? When?
I think the only way forward is to have a “sub rosa” diversity hire philosophy that is widespread without an “official” one that has the cruel effects on your Black friend.
I have opposed “official” affirmative action programs for decades precisely because I put myself in the shoes of those people who worked their asses off deservedly to get ahead only to be written off as “diversity hires.” I can think of nothing crueler to have that hanging over you.
It tickled me that she said "the power structures and systems in our society still support white people deferentially" in response to a column about how "the power structures and systems" at Harvard (a rather powerful structure indeed) were going above and beyond to support a black woman.
So many people just refuse to look at the world as it actually is. They have an ideological Fram in place and everything will be forced fit into it, even if that means ignoring the obvious.
This is not the crux of the conversation, but.. I remember writing college papers where I read and referenced thirty academic books. I tried hard as hell to not string more than five words together without “quotation” marks and footnotes. Still, I’m sure I’m a plagiarist. Any academic can claim the moniker. Conservative trolls and pro-Israel lobbyists have it in for easy liberal targets. That is what touched off this hearing. Their racism was icing on the cake for them.
"Still, I’m sure I’m a plagiarist. Any academic can claim the moniker."
This perfectly captures what I find so futile about this conversation. First, yes, I agree with you. I think it's likely that many academics would have a few examples of plagiarism in some of their work. But Gay was found with at least 50. And she hasn't *produced* that much work.
I'm a writer. I'm supremely confident that if you went through the hundreds of thousands of words I've published on the internet, you wouldn't find more than a handful, if any, sections of work that weren't appropriately wrapped in quotation marks. And it's not just about quotation marks, it's about minor changes to other people's work that were obviously intended to skirt plagiarism rules without the hassle of doing the original work.
But second, depending on their political leanings, it's been fascinating to see people arguinag about what plagiarism is, or whether it's a big deal. Maybe I'm biased as a writer, but I take plagiarism extremely seriously And so, I remind you, does Harvard. If Gay were a *student* at Harvard, she'd have faced serious consequences and nobody would have batted an eyelid. But as the president of Harvard, she's somehow held to a lower standard.
We also agree that Gay's firing was political. The extremely progressive president of Harvard is a prestigious "scalp" as Rufo put it. The degree to which "pro-Israel lobbying" was involved is anybody's guess. And therefore I'm not really interested in asking about it. The degree to which racism was involved is anybody's guess too. And therefore I feel the same way.
Will AI programs be scraping all scholarly papers to find plagiarism? It could probably do a fine job at that without agenda driven bias if the algorithm is the same for all author's work.
Steve, I agree with almost everything you have written on these issues. Regarding your conversation with Anita, let's point out that bringing in the Israel-Palestine conflict as proof that racism is involved in Gay's firing is itself evidence of bringing only one, simplistic conceptual tool- racism!!!!- to complex situations that require nuance and yes, that dreaded word, context.
Because whatever else the Israel-Palestine conflict is about, it sure as heck is not reducible to Kendi-style racial categorizations. There are black Israelis, and light-skinned Arabs, and Asian migrant workers who were targeted and killed in the Oct 7th attacks. The most right-wing Israelis are often the descendants of refugees from the Arab expulsions in '47 and '48, who are indistinguishable from "people of color."
None of what I'm writing implies support for Bibi and his coalition; I'm simply pointing out at if you look at Israel and Palestine and can only apply weird American ideas about race, you don't understand much if anything about the conflict, even if you're Amnesty International. Why would you think such a person is capable of nuance around something like "black person with important job happens to suck at it and gets fired?" Because the one thing university presidents can never do is piss off the donors, no matter what. If you do that, by definition, you suck at your (real) job.
"Because whatever else the Israel-Palestine conflict is about, it sure as heck is not reducible to Kendi-style racial categorizations"
It's not reducible to Kendi-style categorisations, but there certainly is a Jew/Arab dichotomy. I think Anita is using racism in that very broad sense. It's kind of like when Whoopi Goldberg had to sit on the naughty step because she said Hitler's persecution of the Jews was "not about racism but man's inhumanity to man."
As all of these words get bent and twisted to fit the agendas of whoever is trying to stir up emotional outrage, I think we'll see more and more stuff like this. I find it infuriating.
Yes, I agree. Perhaps what I should have written is something like: the Israel-Palestine conflict isn't at all comprehensible if "racism" is defined as "skin color." But if it's a Jew/Arab (um, and Persian) conflict, then it's not about "race" at all in the modern American usage.
What was particularly weird about the Whoopi Goldberg episode was that for the Nazis, exterminating my relatives in Germany and Ukraine was precisely about <race> as they understood the term.
I don't mean to hijack this thread to make it about something else, so let me validate your comment about plagiarism by noting that earlier this year I finished a professional (not academic) doctoral thesis and I am 100 percent confident that there's no plagiarism in it. Maybe I put a footnote (there were hundreds) in the wrong place, but on no page will you find blocks of text that somebody else wrote. This makes me entirely unsympathetic to the "everybody does it" argument. Had I done what Gay did, the school (which I doubt you've ever heard of) would have tossed me out on my ass.
"I don't mean to hijack this thread to make it about something else"
No, not a hijack at all, I think it's an interesting point. And yes, while we could all debate the specifics of the word "racism," I think you're right that Anita brings Israel Palestine into the conversation because she is only able to look at the world through a single ideological framework. I wrote an article about that actually😄
When you buy into the notion that you're fucked because you were born with darker-than-approved skin you're screwed at birth. This is the damage 'antiracism' is doing to POC, as woke feminism is doing to girls/women, convincing them they're fucked because of the 'wrong' genitals (and it's what's driving a lot of F2M transgenderism too). Being on Medium drove me insane sometimes with just how fucked in the head by third wave feminism these young women were. They talked about how 'exhausting' it was to deal with 'patriarchy and misogyny everywhere' sounding rather a lot like Medium's antiracists who apparently couldn't walk across the street without being crushed by epic white supremacy. I was like, "Where is all the misogyny? Where is all the patriarchy? Am I just not paying attention? How is it worse now than when I grew up in the '80s?" :)
Antiracism is pretty clearly now all about anti-white racism, and I'm waiting for Kendi to demand 400 years of slavery from us if we don't cough up reparations soon ;)
Upon which he's getting an invoice from me for 12,000 years of patriarchy :)
And no, black penises aren't exempt! All penises, including girl penises, have to pay up! YOU TOO, be-penised transmen! You wanted to join Da Patriarchy, now ya gotta pay the price!!! ;)
"Antiracism is pretty clearly now all about anti-white racism"
Antiracism is *pro-black* racism. There's a difference. If we want to look at who antiracism has harmed, it's Asian people by a pretty wide margin.
But yes, I completely agree with you about the psychological damage antiracism does to black people.
And the fact that my penis is black earns me a 40% (three-fifths compromise) discount on any patriarchy related reparations. Then we have to factor in the fact that you're white, and a white woman no less, with your notoriously dangerous tears. And, of course, trans men get a discount for reduced time served as men and the fact that their "penises" are technically just arm flesh.
I meant it as "anti-white" racism, not "anti-white racism" but okay, I can see how that read.
Sorry, we've already calculated the amount black members of The Patriarchy (dun-dun DUNNNNN!!!!) owe and the three-fifths fell victim to the math of the transatlantic slave trade only going on for 400 years (3.3% of The Patriarchy timeline) and was completely negated by the fact that Africans most likely invented female genital mutilation, which is *at least* 2,200 years old (10% of The Patriarchy) and continues to this day (as does slavery in Africa which also suggests how bad was it really, riiiiight?) However, The Committee is offering black males 15% off your Patriarchy reparations invoice for the pain and suffering you've suffered from white men who inflicted most of it (it would have been less but we also factored in White Women's Lies so you gained a few bucks there). We on The Committee are, however, raising reparations an additional 20% for black males who can claim BBD :) There WILL be DNA tests to determine percentage of blackness, and while white male DNA will not count against you due to most likely having been inflicted on your genetic line by evil white slaveowners, white *female* genes may limit your claim due to later behavioral reparations from your more immediate ancestors who may have finally legally availed themselves of white women since 1968 when the miscegenation laws were repealed. Please note: Each black male today loses $100 off his initial claim for every white woman he has slept with. Best of luck to all of you! The invoices will be in the mail around June, just in time to claim your 2023 tax rebates !
Now don't argue or we'll all cry ;)
Signed,
The Matriarchy
Your New Management Coming Shortly! :)
Definitely agree with the conclusion of your piece. I disagree, as you seem to, with the narrow phenotypic way in which we treat "diversity" - it's a false god with a light correlation to the things that matter most - differing perspectives. There is a way in which needing x% women or y% "people of color" (whatever that means!) is a reductio ad absurdum as well as we arrive at the conclusion that there is a "female point of view" or "black point of view", etc.. I see the infusion of race or racial stereotyping as pure noise that vitiates anything we might try to do - I haven't seen it lead to better outcomes, long-term, anywhere. I find myself more and more rejecting the idea of "race" (I am "multiracial") itself as the intersubjective fiction it is, rather than the profound truth some people treat it as.
"I haven't seen it lead to better outcomes, long-term, anywhere."
I don't know when some people forgot that this is supposed to be the goal. All the infighting and name-calling does absolutely noting for the people these movements are supposed to be helping.
"𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵'𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘵. 𝘌𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘵 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘸𝘦 𝘫𝘶𝘥𝘨𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘣𝘢𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘴𝘬𝘪𝘯 𝘰𝘳 𝘪𝘵 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴𝘯’𝘵. 𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘪𝘵 𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘪𝘴𝘮 𝘰𝘳 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘫𝘶𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘰𝘳 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘥𝘰𝘰𝘥𝘰𝘰-𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘷𝘢𝘯𝘵."
Pure GOLD! I've tried to find ways of expressing this and not come up with something this clear.
Racist is currently a more incendiary word than bigot, as if bigotry is OK but racism is evil. OK for me, I'm just a bigot, but evil for you, white dude. Racism its own self.
I like a lot of what Anita says. I would go further and say that part of the deep context is that the conservative trolls who exposed Claudine Gay's plagiarism almost certainly began scrutinizing her from the moment she was named president of Harvard because such people would naturally assume that she is "an affirmative action hire" and they would automatically make assumptions about her qualifications that they never would make about a white woman.
But I also agree with your point that ultimately she was fired by the Harvard board solely because the amount of plagiarism that was revealed would have sunk any white person as well. The board had already overlooked her problematic performance before Congress and given her a vote of confidence. The board even tried to finesse the first findings of "carelessness" in her scholarship. She was undone finally by the plagiarism and nothing else.
There is a George Orwell quote I like: "One ought to be able to hold in one's head simultaneously the two facts that Dali is a good draughtsman and a disgusting human being." Two things can both be true: the campaign to bring down Gay was likely tainted by racism throughout and we are allowed to argue that; but the instances of plagiarism that the trolls uncovered was incontrovertible and more than a high-prestige educational institution could excuse. Just because the worst people in the world said she plagiarized does not mean that she didn't.
I should add that there is a whole other discussion to have about what constitutes plagiarism and how serious any particular offense is. Gay is unlucky. My guess is that thousands of professors are hoping that their own work is not scrutinized to the degree that hers has been. But she was ultimately done in by having indubitably crossed a line that is recognized by most of her fellow academics, however we intellectual field workers may feel about it.
"the conservative trolls who exposed Claudine Gay's plagiarism almost certainly began scrutinizing her from the moment she was named president of Harvard because such people would naturally assume that she is "an affirmative action hire""
I think it's very unlikely that this is true. Otherwise, why didn't they find the plagiarism sooner? As they demonstrated, ponce they were looking, it was extremely easy to find. And if they were looking for an excuse, Gay's congressional hearing isn't the first controversy she's been involved in at Harvard.
That said, yes, there was a fair amount of talk about her being a DEI hire after her hearing. I'm torn on this. On the one hand, I think it's quite likely that she *was* a DEI hire. Her academic record appears to be unusually light for somebody holding such a prestigious position. Although I'm far from knowledgeable enough about academia to have a strong position on this.
But on the other hand, I wish DEI operated in such a way that being a DEI hire *wasn't* a source of suspicion or stigma. DEI is viewed negatively because it doesn't do what it's supposed to do. It doesn't help people from disadvantaged backgrounds, people who are just as capable, but perhaps without the means, to thrive. And we know this, because if it did, it would be easy to empirically justify the hiring of any "DEI hire."
Being a DEI hire shouldn't be a source of shame. It should be seen like finding a diamond in the rough. We should feel lucky that a capable person was able to contribute to the best of their ability instead of falling through the cracks. We're a long way from that. And I put a significant part of the blame for that on the lack of transparency in DEI programmes.
"𝘉𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘋𝘌𝘐 𝘩𝘪𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯'𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘢 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘤𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘮𝘦."
In around 1984 I worked for the government in Georgia. A friend, who was a black man received a well-deserved promotion to a supervisory position. He was a natural leader. Near simultaneously there was an announcement in the local newspaper that there were to be X number of promotions to manager, supervisor and journeyman positions for black people.
His comment to me was, "I'll just be got damned. It's hard enough for a black man to get respect around here and now I'll be seen as a token n****r." Sadly, he was right.
The thing is it needed to be done. Deserving black people had been held back and it was the only viable remedy. It was one of the numerous things done to tear down systemic racism. America is the most ethnically diverse country in the world. Name a tribe, we've got um. And we've tried the hardest to fix the system with laws, policies, training programs and such. Are there still "doodoo-heads"? Sure, but we are trying had to reduce, if not eliminate the damage they can do. Should there be an expiration date on DEI to eliminate thought and accusations of tokenism? When?
I think the only way forward is to have a “sub rosa” diversity hire philosophy that is widespread without an “official” one that has the cruel effects on your Black friend.
I have opposed “official” affirmative action programs for decades precisely because I put myself in the shoes of those people who worked their asses off deservedly to get ahead only to be written off as “diversity hires.” I can think of nothing crueler to have that hanging over you.
It tickled me that she said "the power structures and systems in our society still support white people deferentially" in response to a column about how "the power structures and systems" at Harvard (a rather powerful structure indeed) were going above and beyond to support a black woman.
So many people just refuse to look at the world as it actually is. They have an ideological Fram in place and everything will be forced fit into it, even if that means ignoring the obvious.
This is not the crux of the conversation, but.. I remember writing college papers where I read and referenced thirty academic books. I tried hard as hell to not string more than five words together without “quotation” marks and footnotes. Still, I’m sure I’m a plagiarist. Any academic can claim the moniker. Conservative trolls and pro-Israel lobbyists have it in for easy liberal targets. That is what touched off this hearing. Their racism was icing on the cake for them.
LG
"Still, I’m sure I’m a plagiarist. Any academic can claim the moniker."
This perfectly captures what I find so futile about this conversation. First, yes, I agree with you. I think it's likely that many academics would have a few examples of plagiarism in some of their work. But Gay was found with at least 50. And she hasn't *produced* that much work.
I'm a writer. I'm supremely confident that if you went through the hundreds of thousands of words I've published on the internet, you wouldn't find more than a handful, if any, sections of work that weren't appropriately wrapped in quotation marks. And it's not just about quotation marks, it's about minor changes to other people's work that were obviously intended to skirt plagiarism rules without the hassle of doing the original work.
But second, depending on their political leanings, it's been fascinating to see people arguinag about what plagiarism is, or whether it's a big deal. Maybe I'm biased as a writer, but I take plagiarism extremely seriously And so, I remind you, does Harvard. If Gay were a *student* at Harvard, she'd have faced serious consequences and nobody would have batted an eyelid. But as the president of Harvard, she's somehow held to a lower standard.
We also agree that Gay's firing was political. The extremely progressive president of Harvard is a prestigious "scalp" as Rufo put it. The degree to which "pro-Israel lobbying" was involved is anybody's guess. And therefore I'm not really interested in asking about it. The degree to which racism was involved is anybody's guess too. And therefore I feel the same way.
Will AI programs be scraping all scholarly papers to find plagiarism? It could probably do a fine job at that without agenda driven bias if the algorithm is the same for all author's work.