Gender Studies Coordinator’s Checklist Determines Your Level of Support for White Supremacy
“dismantling the master narratives of white supremacy within our colleges and universities”
What does this even have to do with academics? Nothing. Serious study is being replaced with social justice activism.
The College Fix reports:
Gender studies coordinator offers ‘checklist’ to determine if you support white supremacy
An English professor and gender studies program coordinator at Linfield College has come up with a list of fifteen “troubles” to help recognize “(un)conscious contributions to white supremacy.”
Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt says that “for faculty of color, women and particularly those scholars who are outspoken about dismantling the master narratives of white supremacy within our colleges and universities, playing by the rules is neither an option nor an obligation.”
In fact, she says, it’s “a terrible burden.”
The professor writes in Inside Higher Ed that this “oppressive system” of white supremacy merely treats what she dubs “postcolonial scholars” as “mere bodies representing ‘diversity.’”
As such, to assist in its defeat, Dutt-Ballerstadt created a checklist of “qualities and attributes of those that overtly or covertly support or contribute to a culture of mundane and everyday” aspects of white supremacy in colleges and elsewhere.
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Comments
You didn’t include this fascist’s list.
To see the list, click on the “reports” word to see the original article.
“Here then is a list of 15 “troubles” that I have identified to help others in academe recognize your (un)conscious contributions to white supremacy.
You work in a position of power in a predominantly white institution, and while you claim to be working for social justice, you do nothing to change the white supremacist power structures within your departments, committees and institutional decision-making process.
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. You deem such critiques as “uncivil” and as not supporting a collegial environment.
You are aware of the many wrongs that you see your institution is doing to your marginal faculty and students, and while you sympathize with people of color and marginal students and faculty members behind your closed door, you never openly confront your institution.
When a professor of color stands up in your faculty meetings and expresses their frustrations about inequity, you go to your trusted colleagues (the next day) and ask, “Why is s/he or them always so angry?”
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.
You never fail to articulate publicly your commitment for increasing diversity within your institution, but when on a hiring committee you express your strong hesitance to let go of your stellar candidate in exchange for a candidate who you perceive as only adding to your institution’s diversity mission.
When people of color (faculty members and students) complain to you about discrimination and racism, you actively discourage them to report their cases, and often try to convince them that “it must be a misunderstanding.”
You think of yourself as an ally to your faculty of color colleagues, but cannot understand why your white students are so upset when professors of color teach and critique sites of white privilege.
In your institutional reviews for tenure and promotion cases, you advise and critique your faculty of color colleagues to be more sensitive and mindful in respecting the viewpoint of our students. By “our students” you really mean “our white students.”
You benefit so much from the system that you have decided to stay out of all of this “identity politics.”
You have never thought of yourself as an ally to any of the causes of faculty of color and you never have any time to go to any events that they and other marginal folks have organized (where they express their everyday struggles). But you will happily go to an event if Ta-Nehisi Coates is speaking in town.
Claudia Rankine, Frantz Fanon, Aimé Césaire and Teju Cole’s “The White-Savior Industrial Complex” — all rub you the wrong way.”
The list wasn’t worth reading.