Slate has the latest here. Thanks to a reader for the link. The professor apparently tweeted an obscure reference to Toussaint L’Ouverture. His dean didn’t get the sarcasm, or the First Amendment, so his job is now on the line. The professor’s job that is. Should be an interesting meeting.
We need to be very cognizant of situations like this being taken advantage of by the emerging fascist right. We need to be diligent to make sure that we are recognizing racist dog whistles, and people are not commenting on Volokh’s disdain for Muslims, are downplaying the hurt and anger of the minority population, and are brushing off thoughtless racism from a professor as “a mistake”. Again, the fascist right is going to keep attaching themselves to first amendment rights issues, as they have always done, as a way of normalizing their positions. As a professor, she is a representative of the U of O and in a position of power. It is her responsibility to understand the greater context of her actions, and blackface is racist. Feeling like it can be used casually is racist. Not understanding how she was being racist even if she didn’t mean to be racist is, well, racist. Sometimes bad mistakes have severe consequences, and she should be fired or resign.
So, as a strong liberal, I should stop caring about free speech, because that’s what right-wingers do?
In response to this comment and others I’m now augmenting the “one cuss word per comment” rule with the “one use of fascist or synonyms such as Nazi or Falangist per comment” rule. It’s not that cussing pisses me off, or that I think you shouldn’t call fascists such. I just don’t want to promote an inflationary spiral that will decrease the value of these words when we really need them.
You wouldn’t know from the uom post, but the good professor called for “white genocide.”
Is there no line anywhere to cross? Would it be ok to call for “black genocide”? I won’t go any further with this line of inquiry, it is too disgusting to think about.
Drexel University rightly condemned this pathetic jackass. I’ll bet though that he will be treated with a double standard.
Whatever. This kind of stuff makes academia look both ridiculous and despicable to normal people on the outside.
Is it any wonder that so many of them are deciding we are not worth supporting?