Oberlin Prof. who posted antisemitic memes says she’s a victim of racism
Joy Karega: “I cannot accept the way that I have been treated as a Black woman on Oberlin’s faculty.”
You may remember Joy Karega, the Oberlin College Social Justice Writing professor (yes, there is such a position) who, when not helping organize anti-Israel BDS events with Students for a Free Palestine, posted bizarre Jewish conspiracy theories on Facebook.
Like this image of how the Rothschild family controls the world:
Karega also pushed other conspiracy theories, such as that the attacks on a Paris theater and Charlie Hebdo were Israeli false flag operations to distract attention from the Palestinian demands, and that Israel was behind ISIS:
She was concerned that Jewish groups might be making inroads with African-Americans:
In fairness, Karega also posted other batsh*t crazy conspiracy theories not involving Israel and Jews:
It probably will not surprise you that Karega was a supporter of the boycott of Israel and was chosen by Oberlin Students for Free Palestin to host at Oberlin the appearance of a pro-boycott California Professor Robin Kelley, whose work she incorporated into her teaching:
After Karega’s posts about Jews and Israel were exposed in The Tower Magazine, Oberlin was on the defensive after a long-series of anti-Semitic problems on campus centered around an out-of-control anti-Israel movement.
The administration condemned the comments to some extent, the Trustees issued a strong condemnation, and a majority of professors signed a statement against her, though she has a core of faculty and student support.
She was unmoved, proclaiming she was unbothered:
She received support from Prof. Robin Kelley and others, including some students and faculty on campus, and the antisemitic Veterans Today website:
Eventually Karega was placed on paid-leave for the fall semester pending review of her status. Here is the statement released by the college:
For the past several months, Oberlin College has been considering carefully the grave issues surrounding the anti-Semitic postings on social media by Oberlin faculty member Dr. Joy Karega.
In March, in consultation with President Marvin Krislov, the Trustees of Oberlin College asked the administration and faculty to “challenge the assertion that there is any justification for these repugnant postings.” The College initiated its faculty governance process to review Dr. Karega’s professional fitness in light of these postings.
The faculty governance process that began thereafter is ongoing, and the Oberlin administration will continue to respect this process as it plays out. Until that process is complete, Dr. Karega has been placed on paid leave and will not teach at Oberlin.
In recognition of the sensitivity of this review process and the privacy of the individuals involved, we will have no other comment until the conclusion of the process.
Since then, as incredible as it might seem, pro-BDS groups on campus have started rallying around Karega, claiming she is the victim of a witch hunt and condemning an alumni group who complained about Karega.
The stakes just go raised, as Karega returned to campus and her supporters and she are claiming she is the victim of racism and that a pro-Israel alumni group has interfered in her review process. The Oberlin Review reports, Alumni Influenced Governance Process, Karega Says (emphasis added):
Breaking nearly two months of silence, Professor of Composition and Rhetoric Joy Karega returned to campus for a student-organized meeting in Afrikan Heritage House Wednesday night….
“The review process has stalled because many within and beyond the Oberlin community will not be satisfied with anything less than disciplinary action against me that involves my dismissal,” Karega wrote in an email to the Review Thursday. “Since March, I have been subjected to things that have made it clear to me that I am not a valued and respected member of Oberlin’s faculty. And that’s unfortunate.”
Karega claims that ACF targeted her as part of its efforts to overtake legitimate concerns of Jewish students on campus to push its own agenda. According to Karega, ACF targeted her due to her involvement both with ABUSUA’s list of demands and UCLA Professor Robin Kelley’s visit to campus.
In July, ACF wrote a letter to Oberlin’s Board of Trustees demanding an update and questioning the fact that Karega was scheduled to teach this semester. A few days later, President Marvin Krislov announced that the governance process was ongoing and that Karega would remain suspended until the end of the process.
“Professor Karega’s Facebook posts speak for themselves,” Oberlin ACF President Melissa Landa wrote in an email to the Review. “Any professional outcomes that Professor Karega experiences are based on decisions made by Oberlin College.”
Krislov declined to answer questions from the Review regarding the validity of Karega’s allegations, continuing a silent streak from the administration. Instead, he noted that the strictly confidential faculty governance process remains ongoing.
“It’s a fair process, a thorough process — we’re following it to the letter,” Krislov said….
Associate Professor of Theater and Africana Studies Justin Emeka participated in the discussion Wednesday and identified the treatment of Karega as an example of how Black lives are not valued in the Oberlin faculty. Emeka said that as far as he is aware, no one has ever been dismissed for being bigoted at Oberlin, and asked whether the first person would really be a Black woman.
“The fact is, certain ideas and people are dismissed and erased,” Emeka said. “Who has the right to have a voice on this campus? … The extreme antagonism Joy has faced was used as a tool to erase voices challenging power.”
Karega said that while she was initially willing to return to Oberlin, she might reconsider given how the College has treated her.
“I cannot accept being subjected to arbitrary standards and differential treatment,” Karega said. “I cannot accept the way that I have been treated as a Black woman on Oberlin’s faculty. That is another reason why the review process has stalled. I am objecting to the way that I have been treated through the avenues that I have available to me. … You can disagree with the posts and still think I’m being treated this way because I am a Black woman.”
Karega also framed the issue around the concept of academic freedom….
Karega also posted on Facebook on September 20 (emphasis added):
I’m on a Facebook sabbatical. I just needed a break from the constant daily messages (good and bad) in my messages inbox. I’ve got 2 writing projects that are requiring all my attention right now. And of course, I’m dealing with this situation with the College. But I had to post this statement written by Oberlin’s Student Senate in consultation with Oberlin’s ABUSUA, Students For A Free Palestine, and J Street U. Great statement. Much love and gratitude for the words here — on a personal level AND because the statement just touches on so many issues that MUST be explored and vocalized. Bravo to the students for taking that on. 🙂
No matter what is going on between me and the College, I will always love Oberlin students. I MUST defend my rights and challenge the assaults on those rights. I’m glad I’m not standing alone, as the outpouring of support from all over has shown me. But even if I had to stand alone, I would. Because what has happened to me at Oberlin is unfair and wrong. Period. And anyone who can see my case for what it is, in truth and clarity, can see that. I CANNOT accept in any way, shape, or form second-class citizenship. I believe in fairness, academic freedom, Freedom of Speech, all that. I believe that the college/university should be a place where the most conservative AND radical faculty, staff, and students can exist and have a sense of belonging. Also, I am NOT someone who can accept arbitrary standards being applied to anyone or any group. I CANNOT accept differential treatment of anyone or any group as something some folks just have to put up with and deal with. I CANNOT accept any of those things.
No matter how my situation at Oberlin is resolved, I hope the students know that my problem has never been and will never be with them. Oberlin students were the driving factor that solidified my decision to come to Oberlin two years ago. And I had other offers. Good ones. I turned those down to come to Oberlin. And the students were a major part of that decision.
Despite the difficulties I am experiencing right now at Oberlin, despite the anger and disappointment I feel that stays with me daily, when I read statements such as this, I am reminded of why I wanted to come to Oberlin in the first place.
Injecting race into the review process is a strategic move likely to gain Karega even more student support.
When Oberlin Black Students Union issued it’s 14-page list of demands, tenure for Karega was one of the demands:
The Karega review process seems on target to be the next big thing at Oberlin, with all the elements that have been percolating on campus for several years: Antisemitism, anti-Zionism, Black Lives Matter and charges of racial discrimination.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Puuuuuurrr baby…
Not every black accusation of racism is false, but that’s the way to bet.
Joy Karega is a good name for a drink or a bar band.
Not for a perfessor.
Pro-Choice. One small step for chauvinists, transhumans, class diversitists. One giant leap backward for humanity.
“I’ll have a Joy Karega, extra shot of rum, no ice.”
I may license this and make a fortune.
Writing DEMAND in caps is scary stuff. I hope they don’t combine that with Impact font. shiver, shivver
The woman is clearly a nut. What I find seriously disturbing, though, is that, because she is a BLACK lunatic, she will likely get tenure out of all of this.
If this person does receive tenure, it’s 100% because of her race. This kind of crazy should not be teaching students and that should be obvious. Would they tenure a known Klan member that claims “academic freedom” to justify posts about white supremacy? Nope, so there goes her argument about unequal treatment.
So, she’s claiming that it’s okay for a white professor to hate Jews but not a black one. Okay then.
These things don’t happen in a vacuum. Somebody hired this
whackjob. Who? And whom else did they hire? Is there a trend?
You could bet that the BSU demand letter is apretty good short list.
Move her over to the computer science department and have her teach basic programming. We need more black role models in the programming and software arena. I hardly ever see a black person in the IT department of any big company.
This idiot is a Brownshirt, academic division.
But an idiot above all.
Yes, but what should go into a Joy Karega?
I contend, sir, that the Black Russian points the way. Vodka and Kahlua. Both culturally appropriated, in true patriarchal imperialist fashion I’m proud to say. But I do not believe the Black Russian embodies all the fine qualities of the Oberlin perfessor. Hence I suggest rum and mango juice.
Is rum and mango juice, perhaps grapefruit juice, the final answer? Dunno. But let us gird our loins gentlemen and gentle ladies, and pursue the truth where ever the evidence leads us.
Once Oberlin chose convicted cop killer Mumia to be their commencement speaker.
He spoke via video. Anyone left who doesn’t get what this college is all about isn’t paying attention.
Has this crackpot ever met a conspiracy theory she didn’t like?
Should it be a surprise? As a professor of “social justice writing” her whole job is to come up with conspiracy theories to justify statistics she doesn’t like. E.g. more black men in jail, must be because of the whites.
Another problem, as exemplified by the lengthy quotations of her statements, is that she can’t write. A trivial consideration, I know, to her supporters.
To whomever gave me the thumbs down for experimenting with the future cocktail to be called the Joy Karega, and to all observers, yes I noticed she’s black.
But you perhaps must know the circumstances of my youth. I grew up in a city that may not have been then majority black, but was at least close to it. If I didn’t have black friends, I wouldn’t have had friends. I’ve dated black girls, although not exclusively. I don’t have a “thing” for black girls and I don’t have a “thing” for Chinese girls. I have a “thing” for girls.
But getting back to black people and black chicks, they would get offended if you didn’t notice they were black. They would get offended at you playing stupid. Let me illustrate.
Remember when the Cosby show was popular, and Bill Cosby as Dr. Cliff Huxtable was “America’s Dad?” Of course this was before we knew Bill Cosby was a rapist and that Lisa Bonet was, well Lisa Bonet. But I digress. PC has been with us longer than many people imagine. Commentators would twist themselves into unnatural shapes to avoid saying the word black. As in, “I don’t see a black man or a black family when I watch the Cosby show.”
Really? You don’t? What show are you watching? Is something wrong with your eyes? My black friends wanted to know WTF was wrong with white people that we couldn’t see what was right in front of us. It P.O.d them that white people refused to acknowledge the Huxtables were in fact black. It was like we white people were denying them something. I’s assure them that when I watched the Cosby show I did see black people.
It was the same way when I dated black chicks. Yes, I noticed they were black. It was part of the attraction, just like it was part of the attraction that red heads had freckles.
Noticing these things does not make someone racist. Saying it’s a bad thing to be black is racist, but I would never say that. The Song of Solomon, or the Song of Songs, wouldn’t work if you couldn’t notice these things.
“…Dark am I, yet lovely,
daughters of Jerusalem,
dark like the tents of Kedar,
like the tent curtains of Solomon.[c]
6
Do not stare at me because I am dark,
because I am darkened by the sun.
My mother’s sons were angry with me
and made me take care of the vineyards;
my own vineyard I had to neglect.
7
Tell me, you whom I love,
where you graze your flock
and where you rest your sheep at midday.
Why should I be like a veiled woman
beside the flocks of your friends?
…My beloved is radiant and ruddy,
outstanding among ten thousand.
11
His head is purest gold;
his hair is wavy
and black as a raven.
12
His eyes are like doves
by the water streams,
washed in milk,
mounted like jewels.
13
His cheeks are like beds of spice
yielding perfume.
His lips are like lilies
dripping with myrrh.
14
His arms are rods of gold
set with topaz.
His body is like polished ivory
decorated with lapis lazuli.”
The bride would not be praising her groom if she couldn’t describe him.
What makes the Oberlin professor Joy Karega an ugly person is not the fact she has skin like Kahlua. It is what is going on in her head that makes her ugly.
“But getting back to black people and black chicks, they would get offended if you didn’t notice they were black.”
…but they’ll also be offended if you *do* notice that they’re black — see any list of “microaggressions” for numerous examples of “how dare you ‘other’ me by vocalizing your awareness that I’m in any way different from the majority population or that you’re bigoted enough to focus on my race (probably to the exclusion of any other aspect of my personhood) [blah blah blah]”.
I will not let the taint of racism prevent me from perfecting the Joy Karega! To, sorta, make up for the incredibly flawed Joy Karega teaching at Oberlin. Kahlua may be involved. Dunno. Still working out the details.
Maybe with prune juice and a touch of ipecac.
Try to get with the program. The whole point of the Manhattan Project of Cocktail Development is to perfect the Joy Karega. Yes, one that reflects the current Joy Karega would be an undrinkable bilious liquid. I might as well pour diesel into a glass and call it a day.
But did the Americans quit when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? No! Neither will I and my team of top shelf liquors be deterred from producing the Joy Karega that should have been delivered to world, had not the world of higher education tripped on its sword, screwed the pooch, nuked the koala, and given us, this.
There is the Black Narcissus, one recipe for which is:
1/2 oz. Creme de Cassis
1 tsp. Liqueur, artichoke (Cynar)
1 oz. Everclear
2 oz. J�germeister
1 oz. Sloe Gin
which contains a nod to the Germans who bombed Pearl Harbor and the Phillipines. I still think a touch of prune juice and ipecac would be necessary.
“I’s assure them that when I watched the Cosby show I did see black people.”
the d key and the s key are right next to each other. That was supposed to be a d.
I will deal with Joy Karega with all the sobriety and seriousness Oberlin deals with edjumakayshun.
https://popehat.com/2015/04/27/tumult-at-oberlin-in-wake-of-emotional-support-animal-companion-initiative/
“…With that, Oberlin launched an ambitious plan to supply each student and faculty member with an animal companion to support their emotional, spiritual, and socioeconomic needs, drawing from a large population PETA recently liberated from various forms of servitude across the midwest. Excited undergraduates lined up outside the Nifong Student Empowerment Cooperative, waiting their turn to choose and bond with a companion. “We needed this. We needed this to get through this year from hell,” remarked Sophomore False Consciousness Studies major Lauren Haller, as her friends jazzhanded in an affirming manner.
…Unfortunately, ESCAPE has not provided the solace for which it was designed. Problems began the first day when Little Mister Derrida, a wolf hybrid companioned with popular Classism Professor Forrest Moore, savagely attacked senior Pietro Salvador’s emotional support rabbit Che. “It’s unreasonable, and in fact very offensive, to expect Little Mister Derrida to deny his nature in order to confirm to social expectations that make the majority comfortable,” protested Professor Moore, who declines to classify his companion as either wolf or not-wolf. Salvador, who could not be reached for comment, reportedly informed his RA that he had not found the experience emotionally supportive.
… The school hired emergency crisis counselors, but discovered that the students’ anxieties and conflicts merely relocated to the waiting areas of the counselors’ offices. “I can’t reach serenity without Dostoyevsky,” said one student, referring to her emotional support chinchilla. “And Dostoyevsky can’t be serene if there are, like, four coral snakes waiting there with those pretentious assholes from the theater department.”…”
This is parody, but only just barely.
Professor of composition and rhetoric… This is a real thing?
It’s an actual academic position, but it’s not a real thing.
Check out Karega’s academic vitae. She has a PhD from a nowhere college that doesn’t offer PhDs in any subject related to what she’s teaching. There’s no mention of an undergraduate degree or publications. I don’t think Emeka has a PhD either. I don’t think anyone would disagree with the idea that there is affirmative action in graduate programs. Why can’t African-Americans get PhDs from good schools? If you look at the rest of Karega’s department, all have PhDs from top schools – Ivys, Iowa (top writing program), etc.
And how can you get tenure at a university when you have been spouting lunacy and stupidity. The Rothschilds have hundreds of trillions of dollars? One can’t write negative things about Zionism? Has she opened the NYTimes this decade?
I suspect that every professor they are demanding tenure for should be ousted.
“Karega returned to campus and her supporters and she are claiming she is the victim of racism”
She is a victim of racism. Her own.