Chauncey DeVega Discusses the Paris Terror Attacks and White Right-Wing Domestic Terrorism on the RT Network

Last night, I was invited to appear on The Big Picture which airs on the RT Network, Free Speech TV, and also online, to discuss the Charlie Hebdo terror attacks and Right-wing terrorism by white Christians.

I said "yes".

Why?

The American media has done the public a great disservice by limiting the frame to a discussion of terrorism by people who happen to be Muslim. Of course, politicized Islam is directly connected to the terror attacks in Paris, the United States, and other parts of the world--the wickedness of Boko Haram's rapine and savage acts in Nigeria are tragic low points that also demand more discussion by the American news media.

But, the Paris terror attacks must be understood within a broader context of geopolitics, the limits of toleration, the challenges of multiculturalism, and other related matters. Bogeymen with Korans make for good copy and TV soundbites; bogeymen with Korans are distracting images that keep us from understanding the systemic forces that urge them on.

Islamic terrorists must be eliminated with all due force. The swamp that creates radicalized religion must be drained. Its believers should be reeducated and retrained.

In all, terrorism is terrorism regardless of the ethnic or racial backgrounds of the perpetrators. To point, white Right-wing Christian domestic terrorists are the biggest threat to public safety and security in post 9-11 America. The American people are unlikely to hear that fact stated plainly and directly by the corporate "mainstream" news media.

I had an opportunity to make a small intervention and corrective in that regard on RT network's show The Big Picture. I felt obligated to take it.

There are a few moments where the editing of the guest spot makes me look like The Wizard of Oz or a gigantic negro (extra points for folks who get the reference). Those are small concerns. I think that Mike Papantonio, the guest host, did a good job and I tried my best to communicate clearly and directly.

As always, do share any thoughts, suggestions, insights, or related thoughts on the segment if you are so inclined.

What No 'MOOC' Could Ever Do: A UCSB Professor Counsels Her Students in Person About the Elliot Rodger Murders

When people hear I’m from UCSB now they pause and look at me as though they can almost see the emotional wounds left by Elliott Rodger, and I feel guilty about that since it’s not anything like the literal wounds that took the lives of our students. We are suffering, but they are gone. 

In the wake of the tragedy, returning to classes was awful. On my way to teach, driving to campus, I suddenly and inexplicably burst into tears, sobbing as I thought the words, “I don’t know what to say to my students.” I held open forums in my classes after having a minute of silence for the murdered. The majority of the students in my two classes either knew some of the fallen students or they were friends of friends. Many were even there. 

When the conversation quieted down in my first class, I let them go but said I would sit in the room for the duration of class time. About half waited to talk to me in private. A student who presents as a tough guy immediately came up to me. He said that he was in a bar a few doors down from IV deli and had to hide under his table. Several hid in their apartments or nearby shops, but they heard the shots. Some vehemently said they did not want to talk about it, but they did not leave class. In that moment, it was so clear that they were just kids and just wanted to sit beside their professor.

I would like to thank those of you who have donated to We Are Respectable Negroes' (WARN) annual fundraiser. I have set a goal for the month. We are slowly marching towards fulfilling it. Given the economy and your other obligations, all donations are appreciated and welcome. Plus, the faster we reach the goal, the sooner I can pull back in the begging bowl.

Here on WARN, I strive to put us ahead of the curve by providing news analysis and commentary about the relationship(s) between race, politics, and popular culture that you will not find elsewhere.

We have discussed the Elliot Rodger case extensively here on WARN.

I have shared those essays over at Alternet (with kind mentions by the excellent and smart Joan Walsh at Salon) and the Daily Kos as well. The Elliot Rodger murder spree is a tragedy. I was one of the first people to detail and explain how it should be understood as the nexus of a crisis in white masculinity, gun culture, and racial identity. The idea is now in the ether. Belatedly, it is finally getting traction.

The work I offer up here on WARN has been borrowed from and echoed many times (often without attribution) by the pundit classes, other websites, the "mainstream news media", etc.

Examples?

Herman Cain? Check. Mitt Romney's racist dog whistle campaign in 2012? Check. Elliot Rodger and aggrieved white male entitlement syndrome? Check.

I would like to share three recent essays/stories about Elliot Rodger, Whiteness, and masculinity that I recently discovered which may be of interest.

These works exist within the framework I have developed here on WARN.

Ultimately, good ideas and truth-telling are often just a matter of calling out and detailing what is already in the social ether. Moreover, triangulation and the chorus are one way that we know that our claims about empirical reality are in fact true and accurate. There is no unattributed borrowing or "shark biting" in the above three examples. No. Those authors/commentators are smart and on point in their analysis of Elliot Rodger.

Most notably, Professor Lalaie Ameeriar has written an essay at the site Social Text Journal that is the wholesale truth, a set of experiences relative to the context provided by Elliot Rodger's madness which are playing out within her classroom at the University of California Santa Barbara.

Some of her students were witnesses to Elliot Rodger's murder spree. The broad subject of their classes together? Asian-American Studies.

More Thoughts on 'Trigger Warnings': At Which Point Some College Students Encounter the Big Bad Right-Wing Bogeyman Named David Horowitz

In yesterday's post on "trigger warnings", I alluded to how some students are encouraged to retreat to intellectual bunkers, safe spaces, and hugs and kisses rooms in order to "process" difficult encounters that may occur in a college or university learning environment.

I would like to briefly follow up on that post.

There, I did not describe or name the bogeyman that sent students into such a distressed emotional state.

Several years ago, I watched students become unhinged and hysterical in response to Right-wing professional bomb thrower David Horowitz. They cried. They shambled about in a confused state. Some of them were taken to special areas for healing and hugs. 

There are religious types who handle snakes, speak in tongues, or have fits of religious ecstasy. As I witnessed it, in the cult of left-leaning political correctness, personal outrage and tear filled histrionics were a sign of being one of "the elect" or "saved" when facing the likes of David Horowitz.

Like the proverbial old man on his lawn cursing the young kids that are tipping over the garbage cans and listening to "race records" while they drive their fancy new horseless carriages, I shook my head at their antics. I even went so far as to tell them that Horowitz has no power over them, save for the power they give to him. Learn his tricks and those of folks like him; expose their intellectual sleight of hand; deny the Horowitzs, Coulters, and Malkins of the world their frat boy and frat girl political antics; or be practical, cut off their money and source of livelihoods.

Sophomore means "learned fool". As sophomores, and other undergraduates too, they deftly recited all manner of rhetoric from their manifesto on "respect" and "safe spaces", as well as how they were "threatened" by "hate speech". I smiled. I too have done the same thing while a college student.

The Left and Higher Education Slouches Towards Self-Parody (Again): Should Lynching Photography be Accompanied by 'Trigger Warnings'?

So many questions...

Is truth-telling not inherently a practice which is dependent on discomfort?

Some on the "left", as well as those others who count themselves among "progressives", are at risk of becoming the very parodies and caricatures that conservatives mock and imagine them to be.

The New York Times' piece on "trigger warnings" offers up a troubling picture of "political correctness" run amok at some colleges and universities:

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — Should students about to read “The Great Gatsby” be forewarned about “a variety of scenes that reference gory, abusive and misogynistic violence,” as one Rutgers student proposed? Would any book that addresses racism — like “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” or “Things Fall Apart” — have to be preceded by a note of caution? Do sexual images from Greek mythology need to come with a viewer-beware label? 

Colleges across the country this spring have been wrestling with student requests for what are known as “trigger warnings,” explicit alerts that the material they are about to read or see in a classroom might upset them or, as some students assert, cause symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in victims of rape or in war veterans. 

The warnings, which have their ideological roots in feminist thought, have gained the most traction at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where the student government formally called for them. But there have been similar requests from students at Oberlin College, Rutgers University,the University of Michigan, George Washington University and other schools. 

In a college and university educational environment where learning has become secondary to pleasing the customer as measured by inaccurate and disingenuous student evaluations, the increasingly ubiquitous trigger warning threatens to stifle learning in the interest of preserving the (emotional and often narcissistic) peace.

The Times continues:

Meredith Raimondo, Oberlin’s associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, said the guide was meant to provide suggestions, not to dictate to professors. An associate professor of comparative American studies and a co-chairwoman of the task force, Ms. Raimondo said providing students with warnings would simply be “responsible pedagogical practice.” 

“I quite object to the argument of ‘Kids today need to toughen up,’ ” she said. “That absolutely misses the reality that we’re dealing with. We have students coming to us with serious issues, and we need to deal with that respectfully and seriously.” 

But Marc Blecher, a professor of politics and East Asian studies at Oberlin and a major critic of trigger warnings at Oberlin, said such a policy would have a chilling effect on faculty members, particularly those without the job security of tenure. 

“If I were a junior faculty member looking at this while putting my syllabus together, I’d be terrified,” Mr. Blecher said. “Any student who felt triggered by something that happened in class could file a complaint with the various procedures and judicial boards, and create a very tortuous process for anyone.”

The classroom ought to be a space of mutual respect where students are taught to dialogue with one another and the instructor in the pursuit of empirical and philosophical Truth. We should also be mindful of the various experiences that all of us bring to a given learning space. On practical grounds this raises some questions and challenges. Do we teach to the weakest or the strongest in the room? Should instructors teach to the "median" student with the hope that the best students are not too bored and the weakest students not discouraged?

And how do those of us who teach "sensitive subjects" (this is a term I have become increasingly familiar with--and one that I think is pretty damn accurate--in the post civil rights era, neoliberal classroom where "diversity" and "multiculturalism" are dealt with as obligations and obligatory requirements and hurdles, akin to getting one's drivers license when a teenager, as opposed to rigorous and potentially transformative topics embedded within serious and established fields of study) perform that balancing act?

I, like many of you who work in higher education, have witnessed how the best intentions which led to "trigger warnings" (in the classroom and online) can do a disservice to students' (and the general public's) emotional and intellectual growth. Instead of dealing with challenging speech, I have seen students retreat to specially prepared "safe rooms". Challenging speakers and guests are not approached on their own terms; rather, they are judged to be dangerous and uncomfortable for the university community, the mere presence of the former is a threat to the "learning community".

This move to protect students from "discomfort" is part of a larger phenomenon.

Modern, Western, "First World" society, is typified by the many ways that the state shields its members from "unpleasantness" and "filth".

For example, death has been taken out of the home and is now handled by funeral homes and the mortician. We go to supermarkets to buy our meat so that the industrialized killing that produces it can be separated from the end result, i.e. our meal. The United States' military apparatus of the United States kills people everyday, and its own soldiers suffer, in order to secure resources under the lying banner of "democracy" and "freedom"--what is really wasteful consumerism in which capitalism and democracy are made the same thing--and the American people are shielded from both the process and the outcome of Imperial Violence. Thus, when blowback arrives, they look on like ignoramuses, complicit in their own suffering, mouths agape, asking "why do they hate us so?" "Why do they hate our way of life and our freedoms?" as the towers fall.

For those individuals who are willing to agree to basic principles of good governance and comportment, civil society should be based on mutual respect among its members. Trigger warnings, when taken to extremes, threaten to be devices of censorship which circumvent the difficult conversations and discomfort that are necessary for citizens to fight and advocate for the Good Society in a proper (communicative) democracy.

Schools are where citizens are socialized into a society's norms and values.

Subsequently, what type of students are being created when difficult conversations are prefaced by a "warning", and then said students can then find a way to remove themselves from that unpleasant interaction?

And are so-called liberals and progressives aware that they are giving conservatives, especially racist reactionary white conservatives, a loaded gun that will inevitably pointed at their foes with the defense that "talking about racism and white privilege makes me upset or uncomfortable and I don't want to be in this class!"

Or in the worst case scenario, what will liberals and progressives do when conservatives, being far better organized on the collegiate level than their peers, conspire to use "trigger warnings" as a way of bullying faculty who they have targeted for dismissal in a moment where too many administrators are cowards, mere cogs in the corporate university?

The Phantom Menace Has Learned the Language of 'Anti-Racism': Is America Ready and Prepared for Angry Young White Men Like Princeton's Tal Fortgang?

I admire Tal Fortgang's hustle. It takes lots of cultivated hubris and myopic whiteness to write such dreck--and then to defend it on national television:

There is a phrase that floats around college campuses, Princeton being no exception, that threatens to strike down opinions without regard for their merits, but rather solely on the basis of the person that voiced them. “Check your privilege,” the saying goes, and I have been reprimanded by it several times this year. The phrase, handed down by my moral superiors, descends recklessly, like an Obama-sanctioned drone, and aims laser-like at my pinkish-peach complexion, my maleness, and the nerve I displayed in offering an opinion rooted in a personal Weltanschauung. 

“Check your privilege,” they tell me in a command that teeters between an imposition to actually explore how I got where I am, and a reminder that I ought to feel personally apologetic because white males seem to pull most of the strings in the world...It was their privilege to come to a country that grants equal protection under the law to its citizens, that cares not about religion or race, but the content of your character... It’s not a matter of white or black, male or female or any other division which we seek, but a matter of the values we pass along, the legacy we leave, that perpetuates “privilege.” And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Social media, a slow news cycle, and being a white victimologist wunderkind in the Age of Obama does have its advantages. Moreover, being a privileged white male victimologist wunderkind at Princeton University, who can use his privilege to get some shine, while also denying the existence of empirical realities such as white racism and white privilege, is some Three-Card Monte 3D Star Trek chess gamesmanship.

There is also a beautiful ugly irony at work in Fortgang's essay: he is denying the existence of white privilege and he is Jewish, a member of a group that recently earned their "whiteness" in the second part of the 20th century. His ancestors in the United States knew a great deal about the realities of white supremacy and white privilege. Many of them were not even be able to gain admission to an Ivy League institution because of a anti-Jewish quota system.

One of the powers of Whiteness is its ability to create amnesia among white folks. Fortgang is an object lesson in that fact.

I am loathe to feed Tal Fortgang's ego by rewarding how he successfully trolled too many folks with his essay in Princeton's student newspaper. But, Fortgang (and those on Fox News and elsewhere who are enabling him) is the future-present of white racism and white supremacy in the post civil rights era.

One of the causes of the Great Recession was how rent-seeking, corrupt, casino capitalists and Wall Street hustlers, were able to game the system with the knowledge that there would no real consequences for their destructive behavior.

Many of them likely went to business school and/or majored in finance or a related discipline while undergraduates. These criminals had a liberal arts education. But somewhere along the way, they may not have taken courses in philosophy or ethics. If so, said financial gangsters did not internalize a sense of justice, a sense of linked fate with other people, or the basic principles of secular humanism and the Common Good.

Allowing for those in the financier and plutocratic classes who are sociopathic (I do not mean this as a mere turn of phrase or fun play on words; I encountered one such person in a classroom who proudly announced that his goal in life was to be fabulously wealthy, he would lie and cheat to that end, and destroy anyone that got in his way. I told this student that the poor have to eat and he would be the meal) it is readily apparent that too many students simply check off the mental boxes to get a grade and do not reflect upon or internalize knowledge as a means towards critical self-reflection. As the university becomes more of a trade school and degree mill those outcomes will be increasingly common.

The inverse of a student who does not learn or internalize material in the best spirit of how it is taught or intended is the person that takes information and uses it for contrary or ethically problematic ends.

Cliven Bundy and His Goons Wish They were So Righteous: A Question. What Do You Know About the Great Railroad Strike of 1877?

It is a wonderful day here in Chicago. Spring is here--if only for a moment. I am going to go take a walk near the lake, feed the squirrels and other animal friends, and then do some reading while eating Popeye's chicken outside. I am a sophisticate that way.

My essay on Cliven Bundy that asked "what if his militia/goon squad was black and running amok in a white community?" is approaching 9,000 shares on Facebook via the Daily Kos. That is good stuff; the challenge is how to translate that back here to We Are Respectable Negroes (any suggestions?).

One of the commenters over at the Daily Kos mentioned the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 and what it could potentially teach the American people about State power and citizens' resistance. I recall hearing about the Great Railroad Strike in high school. Ignorance should create a hunger for knowledge. I need to be fed by learning much more about the Gilded Age with a special emphasis on People's protest and resistance movements against the robber barons and plutocrats during that era.

[If you have any reading suggestions or movies that could be useful to that end please share them.]

The essential Howard Zinn--of course--wrote about the Great Railroad Strike in A People's History of the United States.

Teaching is a Political Act: The Brave Adjunct Lecturer Who Invited the Murderous White Nationalist Frazier Glenn Miller to Speak to His Students

White Nationalist Frazier Glenn Miller shot and murdered 3 people at two Jewish community centers outside of Kansas City.

While the KKK tries to remake itself as a "respectable" organization that is not in fact one of the largest terrorist organizations in the United States, Miller offered no apologies for his hate and violence. Other White Nationalists have disavowed him--of course--as a man whose actions and rhetoric was "embarrassing" and "misrepresented" the movement.

For example, there is a beautiful ugliness in the following comments from a prominent White Supremacist:

Of all the people and organizations decrying the shootings Sunday that killed three people at two Jewish centers outside Kansas City, perhaps the most unlikely is Stormfront.org, one of the oldest and largest white nationalist forums on the internet. 

“We have enough of a problem with how we are portrayed without some homicidal whack job coming along and reinforcing that,” Stormfront founder Don Black told The Daily Beast.

As the folksy truism suggests, you can't put lipstick on a pig or polish a turd.

An Obligatory and Welcome Meta Conversation: What Do You Believe About the Common Good and Questions of Social Justice? What is Your Personal Mission Statement?

I require all of my students to write up a personal self-evaluation. Some have done this before; other students have never been asked to be critically self-reflective about their work. 

In my limited experience, I have found that the personal self-evaluation exercise creates animosity and negative feelings on the part of some students, while also defusing them for (some) others. Mature students welcome the opportunity to reflect on their own performance relative to the standards for the class established by the syllabus. 

In all, we have to deal with the students we have as opposed to the ones we desire.

My experience on these matters is a simple one: if you force someone to confront their sub-par performance, it creates difficulty at their then later justifying the common delusion that all students "deserve" an "A". I am a fool because I live and die based on principle: you earn a grade; it is not a given.

Ultimately, students will retaliate for being forced to confront their own behavior.

Do ask me how that one has worked out for me in a few months. Trust me. It is easier to give all of your students an "A" regardless of the quality of their work.

I have a question, one that is central to the great conversations and sharing of ideas which we have engaged in here on We Are Respectable Negroes. 

Pedagogical Failures: Would You Show a "Satirical" Film as a Way of Encouraging High School Students to Discuss Racism and Slavery?

Satire is the most difficult form of comedy to master. It demands much of the performer's presence and story-telling ability; satire also requires contextual knowledge and information from the viewer which some of them may not have ready access.

Teachers are increasingly being tasked and burdened with the role of entertainer. Under the pressure to be "innovative", as well as orient themselves to a "student centered" classroom, educators across grade levels are forced to abide by increasingly draconian rules regarding testing and "learning outcomes" while facing the surveillance (and harassment) that comes with pleasing the "customers".

The prime directive for the business that is now public education is that parents and students are to be pleased and satisfied at all costs. It would seem that this dynamic is occurring both among public schools as well as elite private institutions as well.

For example:

The Dalton School, one of New York City’s most prestigious private schools, has apologized after screening a satirical movie about a world in which the South won the Civil War.  

The film, titled “C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America,” was shown to sophomores at a presentation of history projects on Monday. Its edgy and comical treatment of slavery quickly led to complaints, and on Wednesday, the school met with students and parents to apologize.

“C.S.A.,” released in 2006 and directed by Kevin Willmott, an associate professor at the University of Kansas, is presented in the style of a documentary, nearly 150 years after Ulysses S. Grant surrenders to Robert E. Lee, following the film’s conceit.

The movie is a hodgepodge of commentary by fake historians and altered footage, including an image of a Confederate flag on the moon. It freely uses racial stereotypes, with the not-so-subtle message that attitudes toward black people in the real world are not so far off from the imagined 21st-century Confederacy...

In interviews, Dalton students said that some felt the film was insensitive to the struggle of blacks and made light of slavery. 

In a statement on Wednesday, Dalton’s leader, Ellen C. Stein, pledged to redouble efforts to speak with students and staff members about race.

“We believe in the highest levels of respect and sensitivity for the diverse nature of our student body and community,” she said in a statement. “Monday’s screening should not have taken place and we sincerely regret that the film was shown.”

If one of the most prestigious private schools in the country is retreating in the face of intellectual cowardice, then matters do not boad well for public schools which have far less latitude and freedom than Dalton.

Pedagogical Dilemmas: Are the "Men's Rights" and "White Rights" Movements Born of the Same Fetid Waters?

Until several months ago, I was unaware that such a thing as the "men's rights" movement existed. The idea that men needed their "rights" protected struck me as a joke, nothing more than silly satire.

Why do the powerful and the in-group need to celebrate and protect their "rights?" Moreover, "rights" are a given and taken for state of being "naturally" granted to men, white people, "citizens", and heterosexuals in the United States during this political moment.

Rights simply "are"--for lack of a better phrase. They only need to be "defended" when the empowered feel challenged or threatened.

I would greatly appreciate your advice.

I have a very nice and intellectually curious student in one of my classes. Youth should be the luxury to hold unfashionable and politically incorrect thoughts and ideas. He has embraced that dictum. He is also a very vocal advocate for "men's rights".

I would not disabuse him of that privilege; however, I have no interest in entertaining opinions which are not substantiated by empirical reality, the facts as we know them, or the standing priors that should be foregrounded in our truth-seeking.

He is also part of a generation that has access to amazing amounts of information, at little to no cost, and with great ease. This generation of young folks are also a product of a media and news environment which elevates foolishness to the level of fact, and is drunk on a logic that "both sides do it". Consequently, our public discourse is a yelling match where mere opinions are made into truths.

As I have highlighted many times, the American people do not understand that politics is professional wrestling. They are marks who believe that the charade is real.

Our smart and curious student is also African-American. He is not a "mark" per se; he is just young and enthusiastic. Nor is the student in question fully possessed by the cult of "black men are an endangered species" meme that still has purchase in some intellectual, religious, and social activist communities.

He has offered up some vocal defense of "men's rights" during class.

Here is a condensed version of our conversations.

Him: Men are oppressed.
Me: Can you define oppression? Men control every major social, political, cultural, and economic institution in the country and quite likely the world.
Him: Patriarchy is a myth and a way of discounting how men are oppressed.
Me: Again. Define patriarchy and oppression. Your life chances are not for the most part negatively impacted by being a man. Moreover, to the degree there may be social consequences which are "negative" for being a man as mediated through norms of "masculinity" in this society, your suffering under institutions as a man in this society, are institutions run and controlled by other men.
Him: What of poor men?
Me: Sure, class and intersectionality matter. We are interested in systems of power.
Him: Men fight wars and don't get their kids in paternity suits. Plus the courts are biased against men in child support cases.
Me: Rich men send other men to fight wars. Men have controlled and structured the norms of domesticity and child-rearing in this society. Men run the courts.
Him: But, men are raped too! And abused by women!
Me: Huh. The first is the exception that proves the rule. What do the FBI stats on domestic violence and gender tell us? Globally, are you suggesting that violence against men by women is comparable, at all, to violence by men against women?
Him: Misandry is real. Men don't have a space to talk about our rights. We are oppressed too.
Me. Smiling. You identify as a man of color, right? You are African-American?
Him: Yes.
Me: What about "white rights?" By your logic are white people "oppressed" in the United States? There are white supremacists who want to fight for "white rights" and would make parallel arguments to your own, using much of the same basic logic.
Him: I never thought about it that way.
Me: You are really bright. Don't waste your time on foolish pursuits such as "men's rights". Go to the library, talk to a reference librarian, and put together a good, solid, reading list on the topics you are curious about.

Some questions for the readers of We Are Respectable Negroes.

Do you think I was fair in comparing "men's rights" to "white rights?"

And how are you all, especially teachers and others who interact with young people, dealing with how the Internet has provided an overwhelming amount of information--most of it poorly sourced and vetted--for your students?

Thinking more broadly, what bizarre ideas and opinions (at least to your eyes and priors) have been given life and nurtured by the Internet and social media?

44 Books and Resources to Help Viewers Understand the History and Context of the Movie "12 Years a Slave"

We have had some great suggestions for the proposed reading list to accompany the movie 12 Years a Slave. I would like to thank all of you who kindly chimed in on that first draft. I have amended the list, and included it below.

The next step is to develop a syllabus to go along with the film. I understand the anxiety about putting one's intellectual property online. But, if you remain so inclined, and after some conversation and editing if necessary, I would be happy to post your proposed syllabus  (of any traditional length) for a college or high school class about the issues raised by the film (and book) 12 Years a Slave here on We Are Respectable Negroes.

Social media is a great way of beginning a conversation in response to the the movie 12 Years a Slave. The next step is to go old school, do some reading, and actually meet in person to talk about the movie--as well as how the centuries-long enslavement of black Americans in the Americas resonates into the present.

Who knows? If you are in Chicago, and organize an event related to the film, perhaps I would attend and participate in your panel or reading group if invited...

1. The Autobiography of Olaudah Equiano
2. Kindred by Octavia Butler
3. Questioning Slavery by James Walvin
4. Many Thousands Gone by Ira Berlin
5. Slavery and Social Death by Orlando Patterson
6. Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market by Walter Johnson
7. The Slave Ship by Marcus Rediker
8. White Over Black by Winthrop Jordan
9. Capitalism and Slavery by Eric Williams
10. A Nation Under Our Feet by Steven Hahn
11. A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies by Bartoleme De Las Casas
12. Stedman's Suriname by John Gabriel Stedman
13. Slavery by Another Name by Douglas Blackmon
14. Negotiating and Transforming the Public Sphere: African American Political Life in the Transition from Slavery to Freedom by Elsa Barkley Brown
15. Roll, Jordan Roll by Eugene Genovese
16. Party/Politics by Michael Hanchard
17. Trouble in Mind by Leon Liftwhack
18. The African Diaspora by Patrick Manning
19. Children of Fire by Tom Holt
20. From Slavery to Freedom by John Hope Franklin
21. The Confederate States of America by Greg Kirsch
22. "Slave Traders" in the anthology movie series Cosmic Slop
23. Sankofa by Alexander Duah
24. Goodbye Uncle Tom by Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi
25. The Mind of the Master Class by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese
26. Black Holocaust for Beginners by S.E. Anderson
27. Caste, Class, and Race by Oliver Cox
28. The Water Brought Us: The Story of the Gullah-Speaking People by Muriel Miller Branch
29. Jubilee by Margaret Walker 
30. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Linda Brent a.k.a Harriet Jacobs
31. When I Was a Slave: Memoirs from the Slave Narrative Collection by Norman Yetman
32. Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill
33. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass
34. The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America, 1638 - 1870 by W.E.B. Dubois
35. Christopher Columbus and the Afrikan Holocaust by John Henrik Clarke
36. Slavery and the Rise of European Capitalism by John Henrik Clarke
37. The Comparative Histories of Slavery in Brazil, Cuba, and the United States by Laird W. Bergad, 

38. "Prices of African Slaves Newly Arrived in the Americas, 1673-1865: New Evidence on Long-Run Trends and Regional Differentials," by David Eltis

39. Slavery in the Development of the Americas by Frank D. Lewis and Kenneth L. Sokoloff

40. The Caribbean Slave: A Biological History by Kenneth F. Kiple
41. Junius P. Rodreiguez, ed., Slavery in the Modern World: A History of Political, Social, and Economic Oppression
42. Slaves and Slavery in Muslim Africa, volume II, The Servile Estate by John Ralph Willis
43. Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves by Adam Hochschild
44. Before the Mayflower by Lerone Bennett Jr.

If You Were Forming a Study Group About the Movie "12 Years a Slave" What Materials Would You Assign?

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The above discussion on Melissa Harris-Perry's MSNBC show about the movie 12 Years a Slave is well-worth watching.

I am going to do a few posts this week about the movie. I shared some preliminary thoughts here. I will be seeing the movie again today. At some point this week, I will offer up something more extensive and cohesive--I know where I want to go; I need to be sure about the destination. This will only come to me after a second or third viewing of the film.

12 Years a Slave is eliciting much praise, emotion, and pain on the part of moviegoers.

My hope is that people will not stop with the feeling of pained emotions and shock at the relative verisimilitude of the violence depicted on black bodies owned as human property in 12 Years a Slave. We/Us must go farther in our efforts to understand the events depicted in that movie.

While I disagree with the suggestion that 12 Years a Slave is "torture porn", I am worried that if viewers treat the movie as the end and not the beginning of learning about the centuries-long institution that was white ownership of black bodies in the Americas, a state of affairs that was a central means for wealth creation in the "New World", then that claim is ultimately proven correct.

Moreover, an emphasis on the pain and suffering shown in the movie 12 Years a Slave without an accompanying exercise in truth-seeking and expanding one's understanding of both the specific facts and context for the American Slavecracy, does in fact reduce the events in the film to a voyeuristic pornography of violence.

After watching 12 Years a Slave, I do hope that folks read the book (at the very least), and then watch documentaries about the global African slave trade--and this is truly wishful thinking--as well as start a study group or reading circle about chattel slavery in the West. Unfortunately, so many people confuse empty Tweets, Facebook "likes", and related acts on social media for the real work necessary to mate personal interest with social change work in the real world.

Ultimately, such a response to 12 Years a Slave would be an example of such processes in practice.

But, we can still introduce a corrective. We have a varied readership here on We Are Respectable Negroes. For those of you who have seen 12 Years a Slave, or alternatively have thought about, read about, and meditated upon American history, African-American slavery, or its many related subjects, what books, articles, songs, or films, would you assign to a study group that wants to truly expand their knowledge about the context and events depicted in the film?

Suggesting such materials can be difficult: I know that if not careful, I will overwhelm readers with books and the like. I am also not a historian. I am however very interested in what a person trained in the specific sub-field of Southern American history during the 18th and 19th centuries, and who studies American slavery, would suggest in terms of reading materials for 12 Years a Slave.

I am eager to learn from them.

My list would begin with the following materials (and excluding the obvious, that the book 12 Years a Slave should be the first assignment for the reading group). These are my personal favorites on the topic of African-American slavery (and its aftermath) in the West. This list is far from comprehensive. But, I would argue that these materials are all excellent and important for those us trying to make sense of the movie 12 Years a Slave.

What would you add to the list?

1. The Autobiography of Olaudah Equiano
2. Kindred by Octavia Butler
3. Questioning Slavery by James Walvin
4. Many Thousands Gone by Ira Berlin
5. Slavery and Social Death by Orlando Patterson
6. Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market by Walter Johnson
7. The Slave Ship by Marcus Rediker
8. White Over Black by Winthrop Jordan
9. Capitalism and Slavery by Eric Williams
10. A Nation Under Our Feet by Steven Hahn
11. A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies by Bartoleme De Las Casas
12. Stedman's Suriname by John Gabriel Stedman
13. Slavery by Another Name by Douglas Blackmon
14. Negotiating and Transforming the Public Sphere: African American Political Life in the Transition from Slavery to Freedom by Elsa Barkley Brown
15. Roll, Jordan Roll by Eugene Genovese
16. Party/Politics by Michael Hanchard
17. Trouble in Mind by Leon Liftwhack
18. The African Diaspora by Patrick Manning
19. Children of Fire by Tom Holt
20. From Slavery to Freedom by John Hope Franklin
21. The Confederate States of America by Greg Kirsch
22. "Slave Traders" in the anthology movie series Cosmic Slop
23. Sankofa by Alexander Duah
24. Goodbye Uncle Tom by Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi
25. The Mind of the Master Class by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese
26. Black Holocaust for Beginners by S.E. Anderson
27. Caste, Class, and Race by Oliver Cox

What Would V.O. Key Do? Why Aren't There More Political Scientists and Historians On TV and Radio Talking about the Tea Party GOP's Shutdown Politics and Their Origins in the Old Confederacy?

The shutdown of the United States government by the Tea Party GOP is a national civics lesson for the American people. This moment is a clear example of the worries expressed by the Framers in the Federalist Papers about the tyranny of the minority, and how a small group of monied interests can sabotage democracy. The Tea Party GOP shutdown is also an opportunity to educate the American people about how a yearning for the Confederacy, and a return to an "idyllic" pre-Civil War America, has possessed the Republican Party in the 21st century.

As such, this is an opportune time for historians and political scientists to serve as expert commentators and guests on the cable news and other media outlets. Unfortunately, very few (if any) of them have been given the chance to relate their specialized training to what is an immediate and critical issue of public concern.

The main reason for their absence is how public pedagogy is greeted with much suspicion by traditionalists inside the academy.

Unfortunately, academia loses its social relevance when those with expert knowledge--as opposed to generalists and the usual suspects who seem to appear on every cable news show--either are not given a broader platform on TV or radio, or choose not to insert themselves into the broader conversation.

The public also loses as they are deprived of the context for understanding the Tea Party GOP's shutdown of the United States government, and the ugly history of State's Rights and Secession of which the contemporary Republican Party is a direct descendent.

To be fair, there have been a few moments during this national debacle when appeals have been made to the work of political scientists such as that of Juan Linz and his research on the American Presidency.

And Michael Lind writing over at Salon has provided some great historical context regarding how the Tea Party GOP's treasonous antics are part of a long term (and old) strategy by Southern elites to resist federal authority in order to maximize the financial gains of the (former planter class) white southern "aristocracy" and its allies in big business.

During the shutdown crisis imposed on the American people by the Tea Party GOP, I have been thinking of V.O. Key. He was/remains one of the most important figures in the field of Political Science, and a familiarity with his work is considered obligatory for professional students of American politics, public opinion, and American political development.

In his seminal book Southern Politics in State and Nation, Key suggested that the Negro was the "glue" that binded together the "Solid South" and detailed the region's "abnormal" one-party politics during the post-Reconstruction Jim and Jane Crow era.

Building upon Key's work, The New Southern Politics makes the following observation, one which is very helpful if we are to understand the Tea Party GOP as a Southern political organization--with all of the history and baggage that comes with said identity:

Political culture refers to the attitudes and evaluations people have toward government. Here, too, the South remains unique. One-party politics, legislative governance, a distinct Christian rhetoric about values, colorful executives with flamboyant leadership styles, a preference for an elitist social system, and a popular resistance to centralized authority made southern politics extraordinary. These attitudes and patterns of life are transmitted from generation to generation through political socialization and participation.

The union of white racism and conservatism in the Age of Obama, along with the open resurrection of the Confederacy by the Tea Party GOP in both its rhetoric and chosen symbols, are V.O. Key's observations about Southern "political culture" (and its actors) moved to the national stage.

The Tea Party GOP's effort to sabotage the United States government is a continuation of an old political struggle that reaches back more than 100 years wherein the plutocrats of the Old South have been replaced by the 1% robber barons of the present.

During the 19th century, the elites of the Confederacy were able to convince hundreds of thousands of poor and working class whites to go off to the slaughter of the Civil War in order to defend chattel slavery and white supremacy. Today, the Koch Brothers and the other plutocrats send off their low information propagandized Fox News viewers, the useful idiots of the Tea Party, to do their bidding.

Faulkner famously wrote that “The past isn't dead. It isn't even past.” Historians and political scientists have an obligation to educate the American public about how the Tea Party GOP's shutdown of the United States is not new: it is just the ghost of the Old Confederacy given life in the present.

"Treason to Whiteness is Loyalty to Humanity": "V for Vendetta" as a Corrective for the White Privilege Collective Action Problem

Here on WARN, we often talk about Whiteness, white privilege, and how white racial identity has been inexorably linked to a sense of who "belongs" to the American political project and those groups deemed by the in-group and the State to be outsiders.

Some folks who comment here, and also on my pieces posted elsewhere, have sincerely asked "what can they do as a white person about white racism and white privilege?"

I can only offer up my thoughts, meditations, and instincts on those questions. I am no sage or oracle.

But, I do have the following advice: practice the Golden Rule; reject white guilt because it is a narcissistic dead end; do not be ashamed of being "white", simply own your own behavior; and locate yourself relative to, and in systems of, privilege, power, history, and the present. No person is an island. We all come with our own credits and debits given to us before our birth--own that fact and move forward. We all can make a choice to live (or not) an ethical and responsible life. It is up to you and me to choose to do so or not.

I also suggest that folks read Noel Ignatiev's interview "Treason to Whiteness is Loyalty to Humanity".

He is down like John Brown, Ignatiev is the real deal. I also smile and laugh at how White Supremacists, the "respectable" White Right, and White victimologists latch onto his famous statement that "loyalty to Whiteness is treason to humanity" like junkyard dogs--even as they are unable and unwilling and incapable of understanding his most basic appeal to a broad understanding of secular humanism, justice, and human equality.

Do read the whole classic piece. The following section is my favorite:

What kinds of relations with people of color are implied when one becomes a race traitor? How does a race traitor act politically with people of color? 

Relations must be based on solidarity. People of color have a wealth of experience with white supremacy, from which others can learn, but the fight against white supremacy is not something to engage in as a favor to anyone. All people who wish to be free have an equal stake—yes, an equal stake—in overturning the system of white supremacy. 

I’m reminded of the old IWW [Industrial Workers of the World, the “Wobblies”] slogan, “An injury to one is an injury to all.” Decades of distortion have reduced the message of those words to the idea that you should oppose injustice against others today because if you don’t it will come your way tomorrow. We believe in the original intent of the slogan. The Bible offers the same instruction: “Remember them that are in bonds as bound with them.” 

Race Traitor does an excellent job of providing examples of individuals rejecting their whiteness and joining the human race, but there is little there of collective resistance. Where is the collective political strategy in a politics of abolition? How do we, collectively, abolish the white race? 

For the white race to be effective, it must be unanimous, or nearly so. The reason is that if the cops and the courts and so forth couldn’t be sure that every person who looked white was loyal to the system, then what would be the point of extending race privileges to whites? And if they stopped extending race privileges, what would happen to the white race? Our strategy seeks to bring together a determined minority, willing to defy white rules so flagrantly they make it impossible to pretend that all those who look white are loyal to the system of racial oppression. 

We wish we could cite more examples of collective resistance. The whites who joined the rebellions in Los Angeles and elsewhere were a good example. The Attica prison rebellion was another. The initiative by Love and Rage to launch a campaign culminating in a day of action against immigration controls and anti-immigrant violence was a good project, but unfortunately it never got off the ground. Collective struggle is crucial, but at some point every white person has to choose, like Huck Finn, between being white and striking out for freedom.

The passage I highlighted is a practical solution to the collective action problem which makes systems of power function. What if all of us who benefit from some type of ascriptive privilege or unearned advantage simply refused to play along? What if we/they chose to wear the mask as in the movie and graphic novel V for Vendetta?

And ultimately, what advice do you have for "white allies" in training who want to join the struggle against White Supremacy?

How Would You Deal With Having an Open and Publicly Known White Supremacist Student in Your Classroom?

I didn't recognize his name at first. It was his writing that caught my attention. An autobiography in 100 words. That was the first assignment, and it was as much for me to get to know my students as to evaluate their writing skills. 

When I scrolled through the submissions, I saw that many of them were “fun-loving,” “ambitious” and “determined to succeed,” but only one was “living on a radical fringe” that put him at risk of being a “societal leper.” 

Only one spoke of being duty-bound to a “right wing resistance,” and asserted that if he didn’t stand up for “European folk” and advocate for his race, the “liberal sheep” would continue to erase his heritage. 

In an act of piousness, I did to him only what I would have had him do to me: I Googled his name. 

I was met with dozens of pictures: grinning in Confederate flag T-shirts, grinning in “Straight Pride” T-shirts, grinning in mid-interview stills excerpted from the evening news. 

He was the founder of the White Student Union. And on Tuesdays and Thursdays, he would be in my fiction writing class. 

Salon has a provocative piece about a college teacher having to deal with an open and public White Supremacist in his classroom. 

How would you deal with such a student? What are the boundaries and limits of respect? How should a teacher deal with a student who a priori has committed to a set of principles which have disdain for those who are not "white?"

On Twitter, I alluded to my go-to move as a lecturer who uses a Socratic approach to teaching in my seminars. 

As is necessary, I channel Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation in my seminars and try to explain how we/I must have a commitment to truth--be it empirical, philosophical, or moral. 

White Supremacy is based on a lie: "white" people by virtue of a connection to a social fiction known as "Whiteness" are not "superior" to other people who may happen to be arbitrarily categorized as members of a different "racial" group.

Students such as Ben Warner's can be "smart," "intelligent," or a welcome change of pace from those who just want to show up, get their gentleman "C's", and complain when they do not receive an "A."

Any basic questions about foundational assumptions and empirical reality would have destroyed Ben Warner's student's arguments and the mystical pull he (may have) had over others...the lecturer included.

Are such students a welcome presence in the classroom? I would suggest that they are not. But, they paid to put their butts in the seat. What to do?

I have no ready answer. However, I would not surrender to White Victimology--especially as channeled by White Supremacists--as Ben Warner does here:

One day, he came in a half-hour after class had started, and then stuck around to apologize. 

“Sorry I was late,” he told me. “I was dealing with the police.” 

“The police?” I said. 

“I might not be in class on Thursday. I got my first death threat.” He lifted his computer to show me his Facebook wall. 

“Usually, they just call me a motherfucker or tell me to suck a dick,” he said. “But this one says they’re going to kill me on Thursday.” 

“That’s terrible,” I said. “What are the police doing?” 

“They’re not doing anything.” 

“You shouldn’t have to deal with that,” I said, while at the same time knowing that — had he not been in my class, had I not seen him furrowing his brow over Carver or O’Connor, asking serious questions about characterization and voice — a more reprehensible me might have muttered he deserved it. 

He stood with his hands clutched in front of his waist, looking down at his chest, very much like a frightened child. 

“It’s been getting worse for you?” I asked. 

“These interviews keep getting it wrong. They take out all the good stuff I say.” 

“It’s a huge price to pay for this kind of celebrity.” 

“I guess I have to double down,” he said. “I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all.” 

This was my moment. I thought maybe I could change something. There he was, after class, a scared kid … and me, in loco parentis. But I wasn’t sure what to say. 

“Or,” I tried, “you can just go silent.” 

He thought about that. “But then they just write whatever they want.” 

“For now,” I said, “and it might get worse before it gets better. But if you don’t feed it, it will eventually starve.” 

“That’s interesting,” he said, looking me in the eye. “I might try that.”

And speaking to a more significant point of personal safety and security, how does a possessive investment in White privilege and masculinity empower a white male college teacher the freedom to indulge a White Supremacist in their classroom?

 

The following class, he arrived wearing a shirt with a Confederate flag. The words “It Ain’t Over” were printed beneath it, but it was subtle — a dark green shirt, the flag a small one over the breast, with a larger version on the back, which was pressed against his chair. As I saw it, I thought, “What are his rights? Are they limited by the level of distraction he poses?” 

When he leaned forward, I thought I saw a student crane her neck suspiciously. But it was only a T-shirt. It was distracting, yes, but not much more so than his camouflaged backpack and crew cut...  

Or am I simply allowing myself to be fooled? Is it just that, as a middle-class white man, it doesn’t come up all that often? The difference between those people and whatever it was that my student was peddling was that with my student, I’d received the memo beforehand. It was out in the open and brazenly so (the Confederate flags on his shirts were getting larger, and he’d adhered a sticker to his laptop that read “The South WILL Rise Again”). 

It was a few weeks later that he stayed after class to alert me to an upcoming absence. He was going to CPAC as a member of the college Republicans. It was decent of him to tell me, but it also seemed like he was bracing for a fight. “It’s an excused absence because the SGA is paying for it,” he said. To my knowledge, there is no such arrangement between the student government and the university. Not that it mattered. I told him it was fine. 

Missing from Ben Warner's narrative is any mention of how those students who are despised and hated by a publicly open White bigot may be made to feel in this classroom. 

Yes, all parties present in the classroom paid the price of admission. 

But, what to do about openly disruptive voices who are committed to anti-intellectualism, in what ought to purportedly be a space of respectful intellectual inquiry, yet do not value such priors because of a path dependency beholden to White Supremacist hate?

Colleges and universities are supposed to be safe spaces full of liberal thought and indoctrination. Yeah right.

Food Stamps Are Not "Fun": Is the "Food Stamp Challenge" Just Live Action Role-playing for the Privileged Classes?

After I wrote about Cory Booker’s decision last month to take the SNAP Challenge – to take “a view of what life can be like for millions of low-income Americans” – I couldn’t get the idea of it out of my head. The challenge is simple in concept but demanding in its execution: see what it’s like to live for one week on a food budget equivalent to your state’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program’s (SNAP) benefits.

Participants can use their existing spices and condiments, but no other foodstuffs, nor they can accept food “from friends, family, or at work.” Because I live in New York, I’d have a slightly more generous allowance than New Jersey’s Booker got – a total of $36.86 for a week of eating.

And because my two daughters are awesome, they said they wanted to do it too as I soon as I mentioned it to them. So for the past week, we’ve been eating on a little over five bucks a person per day.

The emotion of empathy is critical if we are to have a Good Society. If we cannot understand one another's struggles--at least a little bit--and try to reach across the chasm of human experience, how rich and full a life will we have really lived? And what will our world be made into?

Yet, we must also ask what are the limits of understanding?

I understand the various tools in the social justice kit for helping the privileged understand those less so, or for unsettling the standard assumptions often held by those folks who are defined as "normal" or the "in-group" about the Other.

The privilege walks, the "homeless on the quad" exercises, and the be "black/brown/female/fat/disabled" for a day experiences, are common rituals in multicultural, post racial, diverse, post civil rights America. At our colleges, as well as many corporate retreats, these rites are conducted in order to make "us" feel more empathetic and sensitive about "them."

Power can be insidious and tricky: it is slippery and seductive.

These types of exercises often reinforce the very privileges which they are designed to subvert, expose, and call out. The person pretending to be blind for a day will be able to see tomorrow. The woman in the fat suit gets her svelte figure back in a few hours. The homeless coed camping on the quad gets to go back to his or her dorm and their calorie filled food plan along with its "second dinners" and fourth meals of the day.

Save for experiments such as Black Like Me, and Sister Jane Elliot's decades of anti-racism work, these "awareness" raising exercises are (at their worst) a bad live action role-playing game--what is in essence "larpping" for the privileged.