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Post by White Men FTW on Aug 23, 2011 21:26:33 GMT -5
Us poor white males sure have it tough! Clearly, it has only taken a measly 50 years to achieve a truly post-racial (and post-gender) society in the United States. The fact that those men of color continue to be incarcerated at higher rates than they go to college is a sign of their racial and cultural inferiority. They have much to learn from the respectable white (and East Asian) male archetype. This applies equally to women (of color and otherwise); after all, they earn 77 cents to the dollar when compared to a man with similar education and experience for a reason. I mean, let us be critical of this. This is not some vestige of gender discrimination. It is merely the cream (white males, naturally) rising to the top. The fact that in this country women need a PhD to earn as much as a male with a bachelor's degree clearly shows they do not use their education as well as the upstanding white males running our country. So what, if globally women do 50% of the labor and only own 1% percent of the wealth? And, those ethnic studies weirdos going on and on about racial inequality and whiteness as a structure of privilege....give me a freaking break! What do all of those race and gender scholars know anyway? As a white male, I know best.
Sociology, created by white males, is a true meritocracy, after all. That is why all the programs that US and News world report tells us are the best always produce the best scholars. UC San Diego will soon find this out and it will hire a candidate from on of those top programs. But, if that person hired is somehow Black or Latino (and a female) they are the most racist/sexist pigs around! I, like every other white male, am more qualified than any AND every ethnic and female applicant for whatever area of research: quantitative and/or qualitative research, ethnic studies, women studies, French literature as sociology, animal behavior, ethnomethodology...ANYTHING! They don't deserve any job that I want for myself! I mean, if they don't give me the job, it will be disgraceful not only to the academy, but to the entire downtrodden white male population of this country (and the entire world)!!!!!! SMH
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Post by how could you on Aug 23, 2011 22:21:21 GMT -5
You really hope people remain unemployed? I don't see how that contributes to this discussion, and I hope that's just Fox-esque bluster that you don't really mean.
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Post by Really on Aug 23, 2011 23:04:44 GMT -5
^ Wow, reading comprehension fail. I, for one, agree that those who advocate for racially tinged racism by invoking faulty meritocratic ideals and/or color blindness have no place in sociology.
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guest
New Member
Posts: 2
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Post by guest on Aug 24, 2011 0:04:17 GMT -5
I learned a lot about urban ethnography from a prof who was kind of sexist; would sociology be better off without him because he doesn't measure up to all of my ideals? Is there anything about you that falls short of perfection? Do you deserve to be unemployed? I'd say it's extremist rhetoric that has no place in sociology.
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Post by apparent extremist on Aug 24, 2011 0:34:52 GMT -5
What is so extreme about valuing a truly egalitarian point of view in the hiring of new sociology professors? I firmly believe we owe it to future sociology students (especially those of color and/or socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds) to invest in individuals who will speak truth to power, not legitimize the status quo and/or structural inequality simply because they might be good/decent urban ethnographers, ethnomethodologists, etc.
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Post by also anony on Aug 24, 2011 9:13:04 GMT -5
^amen. I would rather the jobs go to those who aren't racist, homophobic, sexist, etc. Those racist-apologists who think it's okay to be a "little bit racist" (or a "little bit sexist") just don't get structural oppression or how it's reproduced; ironic in a newly minted sociologist. We are done with you now.
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Post by butwait on Aug 24, 2011 9:31:52 GMT -5
How do we know that a woman/POC/whatever would truly "speak truth to power" etc? Are we to assume that people, just because of the color of their skin or the contents of their underpants are automatically not going to be party to the same socialization patterns that white men are? Those patterns that teach everyone in America that white and male is the default?
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Post by MaybeImwrong4 on Aug 24, 2011 10:15:38 GMT -5
I started this tangent, so I feel bad that it's been read as a 'white guy complaining' thing. I do my best to keep these things in check and, if you read my post in this fashion I'm sorry. (I suspect that by characterizing these calls as 'thinly-veiled attempts' really was an unfortunate choice of words on my part because it gives the impression that I feel something nefarious is at work. And maybe, indeed, there is something 'a little bit racist' there... I need to think about it.) *However,* I hope that you look at the end of my first post, in which I posit concerns over too closely tying race-of-scholar with race-as-subject area, I hope that you'll see a little more nuance than what some are reading here. I think that 'butwait' above gets at the nuance I was reaching for, perhaps, in a more elegant way. Apologies to all.
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Post by butwait on Aug 24, 2011 12:14:02 GMT -5
I hardly thing the use of the word "underpants" qualifies as elegant.
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Post by unless on Aug 24, 2011 13:03:29 GMT -5
we're assuming they're really nice underpants.
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Post by Race Scholar on Aug 24, 2011 17:59:01 GMT -5
I find it deeply troubling the amount of times I browse this board to view such simplistic views of the prevalent inequality caused by both race/ethnicity and gender within and beyond the borders of the United States. As sociologists, we should all be well aware of the fact that race and gender are socially constructed categories that not only matter, but are structuring in nature throughout an individual's life course. To read comments making light of race as simply a "skin color" or of gender as merely defined by what is between our legs (i.e. "the contents of our underpants") is deeply disconcerting. There is extensive race and gender scholarship that has shown that people of color and women, especially those of color, are heavily invested and influenced by a counter-hegemonic discourse that greatly places value on egalitarian points of view. Voting patterns and political leanings of African Americans, for instance, are amazingly stable across gender, geographical, socioeconomic, and age lines in this country. It is no accident that 95% percent of them voted for Barrack Obama in the 2008 presidential election. The way African Americans and other ethno-racial minorities experience their day to day lives, which they constantly describe as being filled with micro aggressions and structural discrimination (including anything from residential segregation and gentrification to school tracking and stereotype threat).
Beyond these egalitarian points of view and telling experiences of ethno-racial minorities, we must look at why exactly it is important to have a diverse academy. Asides from the important questions raised and research carried out by faculty of color, they are also heavily responsible for mentoring students of color, who feel most comfortable approaching them because they feel they have undergone similar struggles ranging from socioeconomic deprivation to self-doubt, stigmas and feelings of alienation in academic settings. To downplay the need for more faculty of color not merely for the crucial research they generally engage in, but likewise because of the important purpose they serve as role models and mentors for students of color/developing scholars is beyond irresponsible and disheartening (especially, when coming from sociologists, who I would have hoped knew/learned better).
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thanks for the enlightenment
Guest
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Post by thanks for the enlightenment on Aug 24, 2011 22:31:31 GMT -5
Thanks for the lecture, Race Scholar. I find it disheartening that you misspelled the President's name -- sounds like you do some careful work.
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Post by typical on Aug 24, 2011 22:42:24 GMT -5
^ So, rather than constructively engaging with the important points Race Scholar brought up, you feel compelled to attack the spelling of his/her noticeably heartfelt and thoughtful response? The more I read some of the ignorant comments in this thread, the more I see why more underrepresented minorities need a place in academia.
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Post by okokok on Aug 25, 2011 1:18:29 GMT -5
well, the prompting poster did assert the values of diversity, but also the harms of closely connecting race positions with the call for diversity and wondered if that does some kind of harm to scholars who are raced but do not do race. i know that i've known african-american scholars who bristle at the expectation of 'doing race' and women who have bristled at the notion that, because they are women, they are expected to conduct scholarship about gender, and first generation students who are expected to study immigration... i think the initial idea of the first post was about the perceived or constructed or assumed tie of identity with scholarship, and what a call like this implies within it.
is Race Scholar is negating his or her offense to MaybeImWrong's initial point, or else he or she is defending the initial post as actually being nuanced? if race is socially constructed, then one of the ways that that social construction is maintained is through particular manifestations of segregating particular scholars in particular categories of research. i also don't see anything in MaybeImWrong's comments that downplay the importance of having scholars of color in the academy. or an attack on the idea of diversity. if anything, i read it as defending the intellectual freedom of raced scholars who don't do race and their place in academia. maybe i'm wrong too.
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Post by realist on Aug 25, 2011 1:51:01 GMT -5
I largely agree with okokok, but I must admit that what Race Scholar seems to be getting at is more than just that race is socially constructed. To me, it seems she or he was claiming that race matters because people make it matter. People can, of course, be racial/ethnic minorities themselves, who only or primarily study race/ethnicity--or, gasp, white folks in academia, who want to pigeon-hole scholars of color to the study of race/ethnicity.
So, what? Well, to me it is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, scholars of color are allowed to develop a niche in which they have a monopoly of academic positions awarded to them. On the other hand, white scholars resent that and/or are just happy they have some color in their department without changing anything structurally regarding hiring practices.
Context or nuance aside, a job is a job. And, in this tough economy, I'm glad people are able to get jobs. Period.
Rather than throwing hissy fits at job postings like this, why aren't people supportive of their peers? I mean, did a bunch of white people really want this job themselves, or is it just so easy for them to scape goat scholars of color when they still remain a rather small percentage of newly hired sociologists at almost every university and department?
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