I’m a social justice warrior.
Students have called me that, insultingly. Fine. That’s what I am. I believe that we need social justice in America and I will fight for it. I have been that way all my life. I was chased with guns, assaulted, insulted, abused by institutions, misunderstood and worse miscast. It’s a whole thing. And I accept that it’s part of who and what I am.
The other day, though, I asked a question on Facebook. I asked my friends– many of which are scholars in rhetoric and writing– if they felt like part of their training was an understanding that our field values and protects/builds social justice.
Interesting things resulted. Nine of the eleven responses basically said yes (we’re scholars, so there were debates if explicit vs. implicit and of course there were name drops of people to read on the topic). Only one actually said “no.”
I expected the responses to skew heavily toward yes because this is the lie that composition and rhetoric tells itself: it claims to be a socially progressive big tent where everyone is welcome and is treated as valuable. That’s a beautiful image, pristine and innocent, hard-charging and soft-hearted, much like the imagery of the ideal Democrat. It’s a crock of shit, though.
It probably looks like I’m claiming my home field is awful. I’m not, but it also isn’t my home field anymore. The English department I worked in didn’t like the idea of having me around because I was a different kind of scholar who tried to do things they either didn’t understand or couldn’t respect for whatever reason. I now work in an Interactive Media Studies program (where I fit in and even though my “department” is all white guys and me; they respect my ideas and let me talk about culture and make moves to do socially just things). I’m not claiming everyone in the field is evil or rotten; I’m claiming the structure that holds it up is an ivory column that cannot be tilted.
I want to offer some examples, with the names redacted. All of the things I’m about to point out DID happen to me at one of three schools where I’ve worked, each time in a writing program. I am not whining, btw. I’ve done all my whining about these things before. I just want to present a scope-of-behavior for those of you who might not have seen such things up close before.
- I had a senior faculty member slam the door of my computer lab–violently– after yelling at a student. Apparently the digital media we were studying was too loud and speaking to us politely was out of the question. I heard the same person say to another employee weeks later that they couldn’t go slam the door because a specific professor was in there (a full professor who happens to be very white). This white professor’s class was at least four times as loud as mine.
- I was told once in a discussion “no, you are not!” over and over as I tried to explain my position on a topic as a Cherokee. It was so blatant that someone other than me said “this is really uncomfortable right now.”
- I was told by a group of peers that I do Native American studies wrong. A group of white (and one black) scholars. S0 they’d know, of course, how Indigenous studies works.
- I was told once that I looked “uneducated” because after being told by two full professors that they had no idea what I was talking about related to gaming I switched-it-up and spoke to them from a position of using scholarship they’d know instead of continuing to talk over their heads. When I tried to explain that it is culturally disrespectful for me to deliberately talk over the head of an elder, I was told to just “learn to act like the rest of us.” Apparently I didn’t look like I knew enough specifics because I stopped using them on a crowd who wouldn’t be able to identify the specific people I might have mentioned.
- When explaining that I was appointed to a minority opportunity position, I was mockingly asked “but European doesn’t count, right?” Because, of course, being Cherokee isn’t a real minority status.
- I was told by a full professor to “just go to a casino” when I expressed that I was having trouble finding a large group of Native American video game players.
- I was told by a supervisor that I needed to “let it go” when I expressed my disapproval for someone outwardly mocking an African-American LGBT cohort. When that person reported me up the chain-of-command and I explained my position to the next person, I was urged to “just let it go.”
- I was accused of being racist because I used a Chuck D quote to talk about race.
- When someone said “community college kids wouldn’t thrive in graduate school” and I pointed out that I was technically from a community college and that many scholars from lower socioeconomic backgrounds were as well, I was told to “stop being combative.”
- I was told by a white male full professor that I should stop feeling the need to fight institutions because everyone was on the same side. This same person had told me a week before that he couldn’t be bothered to help me with my research and that I might need to accept that I wasn’t going to “make it” as a researcher.
- Once, when asking if it was possible that a particular department wasn’t giving diverse candidates consideration I was shut down by a white scholar who told me that if I wanted to talk to a lawyer the person couldn’t speak to me anymore. I was not– on that occasion– talking about myself and I had given no indication that I was going to act in any dramatic way. I was trying to bring up an issue that really mattered to me and should have mattered to everyone else, too.
- After a course evaluation where a student called me out for using Jon Stewart in class– a student who stomped out when he saw Stewart’s face and didn’t even listen to the lesson around the clip to see what I was trying to do– I was told that if the student pushed the complaint I’d have to “hope for the best.” That student failed my class for not attending, but I was told to hope for the best. Lucky for me the student didn’t pursue a complaint.
- I was told I might get further in the field if I dressed better.
- I was told once that my mixed blooded identity wasn’t valid, that I couldn’t be both things (the other one being white).
- I was told once that I wasn’t a proper Indigenous scholar because I care about issues of identity and “real” Indigenous studies is about communities and doesn’t promote the self.
- I was told no one would ever notice me if I didn’t start interrupting people and getting my points in during meetings. That, of course, isn’t how I act (see the note about elders above– Cherokee don’t interrupt people).
- Regularly, it’s assumed I am white and I’m given the “you don’t look Indian” thing, since I don’t have feathers in my hair, I guess. And I have green eyes, and my skin is damaged so it tans slower than it once did.
That’s just a sampling.
And I don’t think I’m unique. I know a number of female scholars, scholars of color, LGBT scholars, etc. who I am sure have far worse stories than this. I offer these up because I’m the person who walks the tightrope that the field — at least as I could see it– tried to pretend was where we belonged. I wasn’t overtly political, and I never told anyone how to think, but I pushed for students to explore issues of social justice and I did things like stopping my class on a dime when someone used the word “gay” as an insult.
I’m the guy who did what we were taught to do. And the result of me doing that– and doing it pretty well, I think– was that the field itself had no use for me. I’ve had editors send back racially dismissive comments. I’ve had people ask awful racist questions in job interviews.
I’m glad the discipline traded me off to the game studies and digital media work that I do now. In a STEMy field, surrounded by white people, I see how people act when they aren’t trying to double-talk and appear to be socially progressive when they’re actually trying to defend a white male dominated tradition that doesn’t need to be defended.
Stop lying to grad students, though. If you want to be an English professor you better learn to act righ… I mean white. If you don’t, you better land in a special place where you’re surrounded by support. Because if you don’t, and you try to be what we were trained to be, someone will come at you and there won’t be people there to help. You’ll be right where a minority expects to be in a white dominated institution– you’ll be all alone to take damage.
I got through it, and I think I’m on the other side. I am grateful to my coworkers and my current program is awesome. But I see more grad students coming out of their PhDs with the look on their face and in their eyes that I had when I first came out. You’re in going into the world they prepared you for. You’re going into the world where we all live. You need to be careful. It’s not nearly as safe as they pretended it would be, and no one is going to stick up for you if you overstep your bounds.
And if you have to choose, don’t ever choose to be like the white guys of the past. But if you want to get ahead, they’ll expect you to. And the less white and male the person asking you to act white and male is, the less sympathy you will get if you tell them you refuse.
That’s just life.
It gets better, though. Trust me. I’m a doctor.