Monday, November 5, 2007
Get your diverse privilege on!
This is an open thread where you can rant, throw verbal barbs, cry foul, accuse, applaud, admit, criticize, be hypocritical, be hyperbolic, ruminate, revolt, be revolting, make comrades, make enemies, make whoopy, and make nice. Enter at your own risk. Just try not to get your privilege on the furniture.
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18 comments:
Rather than trying to tear down the Berlin Wall with a toothpick, why not focus on issues that you can actually impact?
1. Let's make UNM a better university: This 800 lb gorilla called UNM needs to get in shape! Shouldn't we expect the best from an institution with a budget of $1.85 billion? We have 700 professionals making over $100,000 - but are they national leaders and experts? I can name maybe a handful of superstar professors at UNM - what are we getting from the other 695 making over 100K?
2. Making this not only the best university in New Mexico - but the best university in the Southwest: Poor mentality equals poor results. People often say "well we're not ________" (Phoenix, Denver, pick any other southwest city). This is hogwash. Our city has teh potential to be a better version of Denver or Phoenix once people stop the pity party/victim mentality and actually believe that smart people can overcome sleaze, corruption, kickbacks, and all teh other things that plague our state.
3. Pick your battles wisely: No one listens to picketers, protestors or poems anymore. Gone are the days where the Baby Boomers wasted time and energy on sit-ins and marches. Time is money, and money is power. Rather than trying to tear down the racist society we live in, why not work on making subtle (yet powerful) changes in things around us? Make our local leaders accountable so they can't reach the national level (if Marty Chavez rammed the red light cameras down our throats as Mayor, imagine what he'll try as SENATOR!). Demand that UNM account for all their investments and expenditures - it is our money after all!
Racism is a horrible thing. So is poverty, war, illness, famine, bigotry and many other side effects of the human condition. But the last time I checked, no one solved racism or ended a war with a three hour lecture....
If you really want to fight racism, why not start at UNM, with this professor's fight?
from http://www.dailylobo.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticlePrinterFriendly&uStory_id=2de92846-b410-4f1d-ab37-fd6beb123a0a
Instructor says he lost job due to his beliefs
By: Jeremy Hunt
Posted: 11/6/07
by Jeremy Hunt
Daily Lobo
Instructor Charles Truxillo said the Chicano Studies program won't renew his contract in the spring because of his ideological beliefs.
Truxillo said he is well-known nationally as a Chicano nationalist and has been featured in books by Pat Buchanan.
"I'm supposed to be one of the most dangerous professors in the United States," he said. "This is egregious, what's happening. It has to do with ideas."
Truxillo teaches Chicano history courses. He said he got a letter from the program in September informing him his contract wouldn't be renewed.
"After 25 years of working at UNM, you'd think it'd be a done deal," he said. "I was the founding faculty member offering courses in Chicano Studies."
The chairman of Chicano Studies said the decision to not rehire Truxillo has nothing to do with his
ideology.
"These are tough issues," Enrique Lamadrid said. "Every year, there's someone who doesn't get rehired, and it's just part of surviving at a university."
Truxillo said he may consider taking legal action against the University if he can't keep his position.
This isn't the first time Truxillo was told his contract wouldn't be renewed.
He received a letter in May informing him the program did not have funding to contract him for this semester.
Truxillo said he put pressure on the administration after receiving the letter, and Peter White, dean of University College, got funding for this semester.
Truxillo said he has liver cancer, and if his contract is not renewed, he'll lose his medical insurance.
"I just hope I don't find myself unemployed and out of insurance in the spring," he said.
Lamadrid said the program doesn't have funding to pay Truxillo's salary next semester.
Truxillo said his salary, $24,000 per semester, was allocated for the spring by the Center for Regional Studies.
Lamadrid said Truxillo can teach in another department, but Chicano Studies will not rehire him.
Tobias Duran, director of the Center for Regional Studies, did not return calls Monday.
Truxillo said that even with the funding, he has nowhere else to go.
"No other department wants to take me. I'm in Chicano Studies. That's what my background is," he said. "There's no other department that wants a historian of Latin American history."
Truxillo said he appealed to UNM's administration, but it hasn't done
any good.
Interim Provost Viola Florez said there was no guarantee Truxillo's contract would be renewed.
"He is a part-time faculty," she said. "They are not really on contract."
Florez said the dean of University College and Lamadrid decided not to rehire Truxillo because they wanted to hire a full-time instructor.
"Those decisions were made by them in the nature of how they want to institutionalize and grow the program," she said. "He was notified a year ago that his contract would not be renewed as far as teaching in that program."
Lamadrid said he wants the program's history courses cross-listed, but the history department doesn't accept Truxillo's courses.
"If he teaches a history class here, then a student cannot take it in a history major," he said. "That's one of our goals, to get our history classes cross-listed."
White said Truxillo's ideology did not influence the decision to not renew his contract.
"It's a personnel issue," he said. "There's nothing about his political views that's involved."
Lamadrid said it's not an issue of academic freedom because the program has instructors who teach Chicano nationalism.
Truxillo said no one understands Chicano nationalism like he does.
"They don't have anyone like me," he said. "Nationalism is something that comes from someone like me who grew up formed by the Chicano movement."
Florez said the program needed to consolidate its funding so it could expand.
"The decision was made to grow the program and employ tenure-track faculty," she said.
Truxillo said that since the Center for Regional Studies offered to pay his salary, there should be no problem.
He said Chicano Studies doesn't have a good reason for not renewing his contract.
"Shouldn't they have told me these are some of the problems?" he said. "It's just so unethical to come up with a whole bag of excuses for why they're terminating me."
Student Chad Wilson and about 15 other students are trying to keep Truxillo teaching Chicano Studies.
Wilson said the University has no excuse for not renewing Truxillo's contract.
"They've given us no legitimate reason, which leads us to believe they're just trying to get rid of political opposition or any kind of opposition," he said. "He's more sincere in portraying things as they actually are."
If Truxillo does not return next semester, Chicano Studies will become homogenized, Wilson said.
"Chicano Studies will reflect a growing trend in the University that professors won't be able to present alternative viewpoints," he said.
Lamadrid said he admires students who stand up for their teacher, but the University has to put academics first.
"If those were the rules by which universities operated, it would have nothing to do with discipline," he said. "A university is more than popularity contest."
Bhavana is nothing but a racist....sorry thats the cold hard truth....She feels the world owes her something more because of the injustices she has suffered. She is so ethnocentric she feels that she is ultimately the victim and nobody....especially a white male could have ever suffered as she has.....I guess I would be bitter if I couldn't return to my horribly clasist opressionist socialist society, because if I did I would face punishment under that society....Just because you can no longer see your son does not justify forcing your views and harbored hatred upon those that don't agree with you....This is America if somebody does not agree with your world view that is their right....It is not your right to try and suppress anybody else's viewpoint because you feel picked on.
The fact that you call a women of a color a racist, shows your complete refusal to acknowledge institutional racism in U.S. society. Someone who is oppresed by a racist system cannot be a racist; racism cannot be practiced against those who hold the upper hand and benefit from this system. On the other hand, I believe, by default of living in this society, all white people are racist to some extent and it is our obligation, if we beleive in racial justice, to as Eric Jensen in the article that was sent out to the listserv, so eloquently states, own up to this and work to challenge it.
In my opinion your comments as well as others, simply bring to light your bigotry and sense of entitlement to your white privilege.
Now I am not saying that racism is the only form of oppression in U.S. society. Yes, I too suffer other forms of oppression--sexism, homophobia, YET I understand that I unjustfully benefit in many ways historically from the history of white supremacy and the current practices of instiutionalized racism (not to mention everyday personal racism) and that the oppressions that I do experience are not on that same level.
Anonymous: My son is here with me. So you are someone who knows me from some past time and lives in some other place outside Abq. I would not be surprised if you are from the my Indian community. And I think I know who you are.
I harbor no hatred against any community. I actively speak for men who suffer domestic violence. I know they are deeply marginalized (800,000 men suffer from it in US every year). I actively speak for boys who are forced into prostitution. But I also speak for women, because, yes, I do know what it is to be a woman. And I know what makes a man in an Indian society.
I am not merely a woman of color, but I am also a bramhin, deeply priveleged in my country, elite in every sense. Food was never a problem for me. Education was a given for me. That I can write and speak with confidence comes from being the offspring of many generations of people who could stride in the roads with deep pride and could look at everyone with contempt and a sense of superiority. This is a privlege that I enact every time I speak and write. I am ashamed of participating in inequality within my own culture. I give my voice to stand by the voice of those who cannot be heard.
I fight for justice not for me anymore-- that is a fight I have submitted to Goddess to take care of. I fight for justice for those who do not have the opportunity to speak or know as I do. I fight to unburden the sins of my forefathers and foremothers.
And yes, because of that I accept I am racist and casteist.
Bhavana
I am absolutely not saying that Bhavana is a racist - I do not believe that she is - but I would like to address Lucy's point that only members of the dominant group can be racist. In the sense of historic, systematic, group-level oppression, that is certainly true. At the individual level, however, members of a minority community can harbor hatred toward toward members of the majority based solely on skin color. Is that not a form of racism? I won't use the term "reverse racism," because I question it. But if we are talking about diversity, racial hatred directed toward the majority should be part of the conversation. At the very least, I ask for some recognition that privilege, in whatever form it may take, is not universally spread across the members of any group, and does not negate the right of the majority to join the conversations that pertain to them.
I'm not pointing any fingers here; my goal is to generate discourse.
I'd merely like to pose the suggestion that we critically assess the language that we use and make sure we are using it correctly. Racism is very different from group hatred or phobia. Failure to use terminology/language appropriately leads to maintaining privilege based on ignorance. As Graduate Students entering into professional academia, I would hope that we stop to really think about language critically. The goal of this discussion, I would hope, would be to provide insight into how we use language given our specific educational, cultural, linguistic, class, gender, etc. backgrounds. Focusing on this aspect, rather than divisions of hierarchy and oppression, seeks to actually overturn hierarchy and oppression, which I hope is all of our goal.
Leah makes an excellent point overall, although I'm troubled by the separation of "group hatred" and "racism." It begs the question of who gets to decide what's "appropriate language." Isn't this sort of semantic control just another form of power?
Thank you for engaging and for your question. No, I don't believe its semantic control but rather critical consciousness of language and the value systems and ideology that informs that language. To call someone racist is to buy into and perpetuate the hierarchy that racism is built upon. From my understanding, racism is built upon an ideological value system, embedded in our Western institutions, and carries with it a history of (one-sided)oppression. Group hatred is more localized, more personally driven. These distinctions, in my opinion, are vital, especially when we seek to subvert existing institutional (which leads to personal...or vice versa?) ideologies and power structures. I hope that others are willing to share their opinions about the difference and the value of this discussion.
I believe that it's important for all of us to own up to our privilege. Let's face it, having the wherewithal to write about this issue on this blog is proof of our privilege. That's not to say that some of us here aren't inherently more privileged than others.
And yes, I believe that, all things being equal, being white and male in this society bestows the highest level of privilege. I'm certain this is a harsh pill to swallow for those who haven't seriously looked into their own privilege and a "duh" statement for those who have.
This is a separate and distinct issue from racism - except I see that not owning up to privilege is a necessary but not sufficient condition for racism.
I logged in as "Anonymous" only to skip logging on / having to create an account right now. Frankly, I don't see the value of anonymous discourse.
This is Danny Hernandez.
Yes, I have looked into my privilege and spent more than 15 years seriously examining my own racism. Of course it is present, and I fight it everyday. However, I return to my point that no amount privilege is evenly spread across any groups. There are hierarchies in whiteness, and that is speaking as a mixed a person of mixed but largely European heritage growing up in and around Boston. If you can't trace every one of your ancestors to Ireland or Italy, then you are second class. There are also hierarchies to maleness. And to every other "category" that we can come up with. None of this is to discount anyone's experience with oppression. It is only to say that the discussion goes infinitely beyond skin color.
I see Leah's point about the language difference. But I would submit that the personal experience of being frozen into a racial group and judged as such is excruciating for everyone who goes through it, regardless of whether we call it racism or group hatred.
I also agree with Danny that privilege is a hard pill to swallow for those who have benefited from it. I ask Danny and others to acknowledge that some of us have dealt with it. And we are deeply hurt when we are judged by our skin color simply because we choose to disagree with you on some issues.
Call it racism, call it group hatred, call it whatever you want. It all hurts the same.
Ben, as someone who also grew up around Boston in a very Irish and Italian community, could you clarify what oppression you feel that whites who are not Irish or Italian face? It has always seemed to me, that beyond what ethnicities predominate in any given community, the English culture imposes itself more than any other due to the history of imperialism. Also, I personally don't feel that this kind of ethnic tension can really compare to the racial tension and racism that exists in Massachusetts or in New Mexico for that matter. Does ethnic tension between Irish, Italian, and English peoples, and the many mixes of these, permeate into racialized school experiences (tracking, expectations, academic options or opportunities) or in racial profiling? Did one of these groups benefit disproportionately from the GI bill than the other, like the difference between how blacks and whites were treated (which contributed immensely to the growth of the white middle class)?
My point is that, from my perspective, what you are comparing cannot be compared.
Once again, I am not denying, judging, minimizing, or in any way trivializing historic oppression. Let me say that again. I am not denying, judging, minimizing, or in any way trivializing historic oppression. I am only saying that the blanket label of "white privilege" is oversimplified.
You write very well.
Absolutely casual concurrence
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