“As a leading scholar and author in the areas of race, class, gender, culture, and the South, Dr. Zandria Robinson’s comments are sometimes provocative, controversial, and debatable. Dr. Robinson was hired for a faculty position in the Rhodes Anthropology & Sociology Department that calls for expertise in particular areas, specifically gender studies and social movements. Her expertise in these areas, her extensive understanding of the complex problems of race in American society, her deep roots in the Memphis area, and many years of successful teaching experience, made her an attractive candidate for the position.”
—Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee, announcing that it has hired racist Zandria Robinson as a member of the faculty. Robinson had been kicked off the faculty of neighboring University of Memphis after repeatedly condemning whites, writing that “whiteness is most certainly and inevitably terror, ” and tweeting that she did not want her daughter to attend a university with “snotty privileged white'”students.”
Two simple words suffice to describe the ethical, indeed mandatory response to this: WALK OUT. No white student should debase herself or himself by paying a cent of tuition to an institution with this total absence of respect and regard for them as human beings. No black student whose conscience and sense of decency hasn’t been thoroughly rotted through by being taught and indoctrinated by mentors and teachers like Robinson should remain either. This isn’t diversity, and it isn’t academic freedom. It is an endorsement of racism.
Rhodes isn’t a responsible school, though, or a competent one. It is deluded. Here is the rest of its jaw dropping announcement of its new, white-hating scholar:
When Dr. Robinson was previously at Rhodes during the 2008-2009 academic year, she was well received by students who appreciated her ability to challenge them to think about society with fresh eyes.
Dr. Robinson has an extensive and impressive body of scholarship that provides clarity and context to the sound bite world of social media.
Telling students that they should hate and fear whites, or, if they are white, subject themselves to abuse, disrespect and discrimination provides clarity, all right. It makes it very clear that an institution that hires such a professor should be shunned, shuttered and emptied.
This situation ultimately shines a light on Rhodes as a place where intellectual engagement and the exchange of ideas are among our highest priorities.
No, it shines a light on Rhodes as a place led by fools, who hire fools, and will graduate fools and nothing but. For no student who would attend a school that would proudly hire a professor like Zandria Robinson could be anything but a fool, or, of course, a racist.
A degree from Rhodes College should guarantee unemployment. Kudos to the first business owner who says so.
Please, God, don’t let it be Donald Trump!
___________________________
Pointer: Res Ipsa loquitur
Facts: Daily Mail
Ethics Alarms 
A -MEN!!!
You are right, of course, but what about the larger issue of race and gender studies as not just courses but departments at significant universities which students can earn college majors? I am blissfully ignorant for the most part, and I acknowledge that some legitimate things are probably being done in these areas, but it seems to me that for the most part race and gender studies departments serve to deliberately divide us with nonsense like this, and render the students who study it ill-equipped for almost any jobs outside of the grievance industry.
Not to mention, where do you get a job with such a degree? Teaching? In the same field? That seems like a cyclic, losing proposition.
I took a few classes in some of these areas, many of which interdisciplinary with other departments (history, politics, literature, sociology, etc.). For instance, I took an African American course on the civil rights movement which was also listed by the history department (and I think political science, too).
I don’t know anyone who solely majored in women’s studies, Asian studies, Jewish studies, African American studies, etc. Most took it as a minor or had one as part of a double or triple major because it was something in which they are interested.
That being said, I enjoyed most of those classes thoroughly and they helped me develop critical thinking skills that are an invaluable in my career (as were the Russian literature, Spanish language, and economics classes I took). I never had a professor abuse his/her authority by espousing racists or bigoted sentiments to students. Please don’t taint these types of courses and departments because of a few nuts who have no business teaching.
“I don’t know anyone who solely majored in women’s studies, Asian studies, Jewish studies, African American studies, etc.”
Whether you know them or not, they’re out there, and Gender studies in particular is one of the fastest growing majors out there (Both because it started from a relatively low bar and because the courses often amount to basket weaving 101). The people graduating with these majors aren’t bad per se…. But it’s an amazing coincidence that the most toxic of progressive ideologues disproportionately have them. Your argument amounts to a “No True Scotsman” fallacy.
Race and gender studies should be important parts of the larger areas of sociology, psychology, history, political science—but allowing them as majors is pandering, and promoting fanaticism and a narrow perspective.
The history of race relations course I took as part of my American government major in college was one of the very most valuable of all the courses I took in college, also the most depressing and prescient.
Well, this actually feeds into affirmative action in colleges and cries of racism in hiring. Imagine if you are a student admitted largely because of your race, not your academic achievement. Remember the average Asian student admitted to Harvard has an SAT score 450 points higher than an African American. A 1200 is the 18th percentile nationally, a 1650 is the 68th percentile. Those are hugely different. If you are a 1200 SAT person in classes filled with 1650 SAT students and it is graded on a gaussian curve, your chances of even reaching the ‘C’ level are small. So, how do you survive college? You major in an area with only other 1200 SAT people. Then, you are in classes with others of similar academic ability. Then, you can succeed on the curve. Where are these majors? You found them!
Now, what happens when these students try to find jobs? They may be at the top of their field, but they are still at the bottom of their graduating classes. They may be the brightest, most talented student their professors have had that year, but their chances of getting a job are slim. What could be the cause? It can’t be an affirmative action program that just used them for enrollment statistics and didn’t care if they could succeed or achieve their goals, it must be racism.
The only reaction I can manage at this point is hysterical laughter. If some sick comic told this as a joke the only response would be shock and then laughter.
Frankly, I am glad that I’m not raising black children in this society. It would be like trying to raise responsible, decent, humane white children in the Old South.
What’s fresh is the worm has turned. Now there are a ton of black urban mayors, a black AG, and a black President, who see their turn to do to others as was done to them.
What? What exactly was “done to them” and by whom?
You know the laundry list, I don’t need to repeat it for you, and it seems to be their thought that every questionable arrest, every whacko who cuts loose with a gun, etc., etc., keeps the whole chain of crimes that started when the first slaver put out for Africa alive and uncompensated.
Now, I think your second question bears addressing in a wider sense. History is almost too full of wrongs that the original wrongdoers were never punished for or those wronged never got to punish those wrongdoers for. A bitterness frequently sinks in when that’s the case, and it’s profitable to fan that bitterness.
I am personally acquainted with several Irish Americans born here, whose parents were born here, in some cases whose grandparents were BORN HERE, who are STILL carrying a grudge against the English, when they have never been to either Ireland or England themselves, they know no one from either place, they don’t have family over there, and certainly no one from England has done them wrong personally. Yet they still can recite every wrong the English and later British committed against the Emerald Isle including the Famine (which was as much due to fungus and weather as anything else) chapter and verse, and get very angry if you imply they might be anything other than absolutely right. In fact one such person insulted me both as a lawyer and as a man over just such a conversation. I wish I had known then that he would be leaving my department a week later, because I would have punched him right in the mouth, and he would have deserved it.
The same is true of the blacks, who, for 150 years and more have been feeding the next generation stories of what happened in the days of slavery and how the US somehow owes them something for it, despite the fact that slavery ended in 1865. It doesn’t help that institutionalized racism continued for another 99 years in a third of this nation, giving them fresh stories to tell. That said, Brown v. Board of Education was 60 years ago and the Civil Rights Act was 50 years ago. It still doesn’t matter, they’ve been fed the same line of crap all that time that the white man is to blame for all their problems. Now they have managed to get some real power, and they intend to use it to exact some revenge.
“…and it seems to be their thought that every questionable arrest, every whacko who cuts loose with a gun, etc., etc., keeps the whole chain of crimes that started when the first slaver put out for Africa alive and uncompensated.”
Sadly, the first slaver put out for Africa, I’m guessing, 5,000 years ago and probably came from China. Admittedly, evidence for that is sketchy, at best. What is NOT sketchy is historical evidence that every culture since the Egyptians, to include the Greek and the Roman, took slaves from Africa. More recently, the Muslim and pre-Muslim Arabs had a rather lucrative slave-trade going long before slaves were imported into America. Where do you think Swahili came from? It’s a trade language developed by Arab slavers.
Not to mention the black African empires like Ghana and Songhai (although both of these were long gone before America really got going) made use of slaves themselves, and more than a few slave traders were black themselves. But hey, never let the facts get in the way of a good narrative.
My point exactly.
However, if you listen to the narrative, slavery started, the very first time, on July 4, 1776. Oh, and, for the record, it’s all George Bush’s fault.
I hope you guys will get together and persuade some universities to create degree programs for African Peoples’ Intra-continental Persecution Studies. How else will your knowledge of so much truth of history ever have a prayer of being appreciated, let alone preserved?
Maybe that degree should, instead, be called “Roots of Microaggression.”
A degree on Tumblr?
Personally, I intend to write a book……someday. What little I do know, I know because I read several already in print.
Amen!
The college is named for this gentleman:
http://www.rhodes.edu/barret/23374.asp
Who was born in Virginia around 1900 and doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Rhodes of Southern Africa fame.
Jack,
I don’t have a problem with Zandaria Robinson any more than I do with Cornell West or Michael Eric Dyson. Their dialogue is incendiary, but they’re not even remotely outside the Overton window, and they don’t call for violence or even direct discrimination. My only objection stems from the fact that they would never have considered hiring David Duke, Ernst Zundel, or even Quannell X for equally their “provocative” views.
It’s not the message, it’s the limited worldview it imparts that I object to. In other news, I hope you (and your nearest and dearest) are well. Cheers!
Best,
Neil
I have no problem with divergent views, Neil. I have problems with teachers announcing that they are bigoted against tuition-paying students, and thus unworthy of their trust…and colleges who don’t think that is a disqualification for a teacher. Of course it is.
Jack,
Once again we find ourselves in complete agreement, which you apparently missed. My phrase wasn’t combative or even all that suggestive of an alternate point; I merely used extreme examples to illustrate the idiocy of their “provocative” word choice.
If controversy was their only goal, why stop with Zandaria Robinson? Let’s pack entire departments with Black Nationalists, White Supremacists, Zionists, and Holocaust deniers — that’ll REALLY get some heated discussions going. They should invite Charles Manson to debate Roman Polanski on the morality of murder (since they’d agree too much on rape) Maybe even a cage match …
As always, I remain your constant reader and (occasional) dissenter. Cheers!
-Neil