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Notes -
A Black Professor Trapped in Anti-Racist Hell
Very interesting longform article about how a professor had a summer seminar for high school students taken over by his radical TA, in a course focusing primarily on anti-blackness - this despite Dr. Vincent Lloyd's confused self description:
What's striking about this is how miserable it seems to have made everyone involved:
hilariously, two of the asian students ended up being 'expelled' from the program, for reasons that were not shared with the professor.
Finally, about halfway through the seminar, the TA led a struggle session where all the students accused the professor of doing a lot of anti black harm to them, and then they all did their own thing without his involvement.
I have some thoughts on these passages (bolding mine):
This and the ending bit about "believers in democracy, fugitives from democracy" got me thinking: for all the benefits of democracy, it must have safeguards and limits. Imprisonment and policing are bad, but the only remaining alternative to punishing social transgression is mob rule, and I imagine that even a purely-black community that does not police or imprison its members will eventually turn to lynching or exile. Maybe this is how it will be in the world that modern anti-racists want to bring forth--maybe this is how it should be, to put on the Neoreactionary hat for a bit. But this can't possibly make for anywhere nice to live.
I have little sympathy for the professor because he was too complacent; he didn't bother imposing his authority (under the guise of letting it all be student-led learning and democratic and whatnot) because he never imagined a real challenge to it. He has been a male Keisha in his time, running anti-racism workshops and getting used to being deferred to (especially by white liberals) as the authority on what it is all about:
So he's been happily going along teaching about the evils of whiteness (even if he didn't phrase it or even think of it like that). Then the new generation of sharper, greedier Keishas come along, he's a big fat prime target, and he has no idea that he's being marked to be brought down and replaced. So he lets Keisha play her little games and take over under his nose, rather than stepping in and smacking her down about over-reaching her authority, then he's shocked when the mob turns on him.
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