I’m exhausted today– ear infection and a 2.5 hour drive both ways for 8 hours on a convention floor. So this might be a shorter post than usual.
Today a friend of mine on Facebook posted about the political capital of outrage. It devolved into someone flogging one specific theorist (as most discussions in Rhetoric do– some person who loves one theorist decides that their one theorist, almost always white, has the key to all knowledge and railroads the conversation).
This was my response to that friend, though:
Well said. I think everyone in America is starting to see what it feels like to be an outsider. This isn’t new at all. That outrage is how racism and misogyny operate (not implying you don’t know this, [radio edit]). During moments of potential social change banking on outrage-as-hate fuels the status quo. That’s why poor poc were lambasted by poor whites during reconstruction. It’s why Reagan was so popular. Now Trump and his ilk took it global. It’s only new if a person was outside the blast radius before. But it’s scary, and it’s a terrible way for society to operate.
I mention this because it weds perfectly to another anecdote from today. Sometimes you see people from your past in places you never thought you’d see them. Today someone who taught at the place where I first started my career as an lowly adjunct with a BA walked up to my table to discuss game theory. This person’s ideas were stilted and showed heavy field bias to the area where the person first worked (trying to be vague on purpose, but this was a social scientist who was trying to treat games as merely a UX without considering the much deeper implications of game spaces). It was an interesting enough talk, though this person did take time to mockingly pretend to not be able to read the REDHAWKS banner next to the table due to bad font choice (even though this person is from the area and knew what the Miami mascot is– also, the font is the same lettering that the university always uses, and it’s a banner I borrowed, not one I designed). Little bits of arrogance and self-entitlement flowed from the person, an old white scholar.
I point this out because I want to tell you a story from 2001, a space odd… no, from the year 2001. I was in my first faculty retreat, and we were broken into small focus groups to discuss major issues. My group was tasked with figuring out how to get more students to visit the tutorial services offices (where I worked along with being an adjunct). This fellow scholar was in my group. When it was time to discuss, I offered to take notes. I almost always offer to take notes, because I always have a device and I can type quickly. This old scholar said “oh, I’m not going to help you with this problem. I know how to fix it. You need to figure it out yourself.”
A few things:
- I got my slight revenge– when the scholar offered its brilliant idea before letting me speak as the note keeper for our group, the brilliance it wouldn’t share wasn’t as good of an idea as what me and the other adjunct came up with (and put into action, leading to a 30% increase in use of the writing lab).
- I pointed out what was said, and while scholar denied it, everyone in the room was aghast, and it was pretty clear from the reactions that the scholar was, in fact, supposed to help the group. Because obviously being a full professor doesn’t mean you’re above collaborating. What the fuck, amirite?
- In another meeting this same person said “don’t you think the adjunct should leave? He can’t vote.” In this particular moment we weren’t discussing anything that would be voted upon, btw. This was just that scholar’s usual reaction to my presence in meetings as an adjunct. This, by the way, would become the theme of my time in the Miami English Department as well, so it was probably good practice. We had to excuse a colleague now from the room for similar reasons this week, and I felt AWFUL.
But today, that scholar didn’t even remember me.
And in my mind, that’s the ultimate revenge.
A person who’s specialty is memory recall and UX couldn’t remember a colleague.
Of course I was never a colleague in this person’s eyes. I was an underlying. A peon.
But now that I’m a doctor, my opinions matter.
Funny world, this one. The adjunct you were outraged to be expected to speak to might be the expert representing the more respected university if you give him enough time.
And white people just have to stop thinking that white thought is the only thought that matters.