Left-wing professor devises checklist that asks, ‘Are you supporting white supremacy?’ – By Dave Urbanski (theblaze.com) / Jan 15 2018
A left-wing college professor has come out with a checklist for those who might be wondering if they support white supremacy.
Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt — an English professor and co-coordinator of the gender studies program at Oregon’s Linfield College — penned an opinion piece for Inside Higher Ed, titled, “Are you supporting white supremacy?”
Dutt-Ballerstadt — whose writing also includes “When Free Speech Dismantles Diversity Initiatives” and who runs a blog titled On Being Brown and Out/Raged — noted that her list consists of “qualities and attributes of those that overtly or covertly support or contribute to a culture of mundane and everyday white supremacy within our institutions.”
She added, “Such mundane acts manifest themselves in who is hired, who is tenured and promoted, whose scholarship is (de)valued, who receives the campus awards for teaching and service, whose voice is heard, whose ideas are policed, who is tone policed, and who is called out as not being ‘civil’ — a coded word for speaking against the status quo of white privilege.”
Among her list of 15 “troubles” that you can identify in yourself or others included:
“When your colleagues who are marginalized complain to you about their ‘oppressive’ work conditions, you think that they are difficult.”
“When your colleagues and students claim that they experienced microaggressions, your response is ‘I am so sorry. This is unbelievable!’”
“When you are asked to nominate your students and faculty colleagues for awards or leadership positions, your first instinct is to nominate those that are ‘stellar’ (mostly men) and obviously ‘white.’ It doesn’t occur to you that you are implicitly supporting a logic of meritocracy that is built on this racist assumption that everyone has had the same access and opportunities.”
“When it comes to understanding your own white privilege, you get very angry if a faculty member of color points out to you where and how your privilege is operating,” Dutt-Ballerstadt added. “You deem such critiques as ‘uncivil’ and as not supporting a collegial environment.”
“When you are on a hiring committee, you think that the writing samples by your white candidates of choice are stellar, while what is ‘stellar’ about the candidates of color is, of course, their ethnicity.”
Her closing comment? “If you have made it to this point,” Dutt-Ballerstadt wrote, “you are probably feeling quite hypervisible or fragile and have decided to have some hot chamomile tea from a cup that reads ‘White Tears’ or ‘Black Lives Matter.’”
PB/TK –
