The reaction to my blog post ranged from puerile to vitriolic. The graduate students I mentioned and the senior faculty who advise them at Northwestern University accused me (in guest blogs posted by the Chronicle editors) of bigotry and cowardice. The former wrote that "in a bid to not be 'out-niggered' [their word] by her right-wing cohort, Riley found some black women graduate students to beat up on." (I confess I don't actually know what that means.) One fellow blogger (and hundreds of commenters) called my post "racist."
h/t EBD
" ... black studies is a cause, not a course of study." Nice line.
Her key sentence, that black studies is 'a cause not a course of study' is completely accurate.
There's no critical analysis allowed, no basis of factual data, just assertions and emotional claims of victimhood.
This is exactly similar to other Victimology programs in universities. The most obvious is women's studies, and all such gender and feminist related areas. Then, we have post-colonial, native and immigration areas. All are the same. All set up one population as victim and a totally different population as evil aggressor.
They are tiresome, vicious and malevolent. It's interesting that the reaction to her post was not rational but emotional. That's because these 'study' areas are not rational but are totally emotional. Reason, facts, analysis, are not allowed.
I don't know why people speak out against all these people taking black studies, women issues, etc. etc.
I am sure their has to be a white conspiracy that enables people to take these studies. If it is, then it is a master stroke. Any of these people who have brains to do something concrete in the world will be talking bull-h-t for the rest of their lives as they study why the white man has beaten them down for centuries. If they want to overcome these imagined transgression by the white ruling class, then they could start off by taking some career path that will teach them how to build a building, a bridge or at least how to boost a car.
Taking these studies will ensure forever that the white class will always rule the world.
And I thought I had it tough when I was called a "blocker" at a teacher's workshop supposed to prime the pump for stupid "change". I would need a much tougher carapace to deal with this kind of retaliation.
There are too many people with vested interests in continuing this travesty which passes as education. People pay, are paid, get hired to teach so more people pay and get paid.... It's pretty hard to dig out these colonies of faux-academics. Their tactics of victimhood are well-honed and rational discourse doesn't stand a chance before their lies and shrill voices. I sometimes think that soon the world will require all sensible teachers to take a dose of hemlock for being...well...so inconveniently sensible.
It would be fine if these hive-people simply lived in the colony and dined on their own excretions, but unfortunately they form a legion of "tamperers" whose mission is to re-do history and cover the world with their trompe l'oeil wallpaper.
I will purchase and read this writer's books. It appears to be one of the few small candles I can light rather than spend all my time cursing.
Mike L.: Agreed. When I was at university I recall someone asking me why I hated native Indians. My response was that I didn't hate them, if I did I would give them welfare. Instead I thought that they were grown up to be treated like adults and (the individuals in question in earlier discussion) had failed badly at being adult.
I was accused of being a racist again. Big surprise.
" ... black studies is a cause, not a course of study."
Course studies also take time, far more time than is needed here.
Most everything that conservatives and libertarians complain about are logical outcomes of the education establishment and yet it seems as virtually undisputed that education remain "public" and therefore outsourced to the Institutional Left. We somehow hope to change political outcomes but are content to have our political enemies predominantly teaching our children. How crazy is that?
By allowing the left to define the rules of civil conduct, it is unacceptable to advocate the elimination of (or limit to Grade school) public education in favour of a plethora of market-based alternatives. Does anyone know of a Conservative platform anywhere that crosses that line? Conservatives are victims of their passive obedience to the greater statist thug culture.
Ayn Rand said that if you want to know what is wrong in society, look at what is taught in Universities (reaffirmed by this post).
Ever wonder why the rappers,street thugs, and the other cool black people throw out the n-word with out batting an eye?
A large part of this is because they know their targets,and are aiming well.
Succesful and /or respectable blacks are rarely targeted. They do not use the word,and they do not like it being used in their presence. Perhaps some university should offer a course along those lines. They could start with " Why isn't Obama referred to as the {white) house N.....? "
I have been told that the "racist" Ms Riley has a black husband. If true, the exploding lefty heads will have to find a new insult for Ms Riley.
Black studies are just part & parcel with Marxist politics. It has no relevancy, except as political rhetoric impregnated with Ideology. Particularly for the Jesse Jackson type of race baiter, with the usual gaggle of other race pimps. Making money off of social contention. Usually egged on by them for personnel enrichment.
A way to jump a head in academia without doing any real work by Educational scam artists.
black studies is a cause? this is, um, very niggardly.
I'd bet that Naomi Schaefer Riley was the only columnist worth reading on the Chronicles of Higher Education blog.
John Chittick @ 3:08 p.m. is right.
The abolition of public education is an idea whose time has come.