Here's the link to see some of the comments generated in response to Annie's Black Lives Matter post.
And here's some flava:
And here's some flava:
- They were "with" BLM. Horse shit. That was them attempting to intimidate through false credentials. BLM is just a goddamned hashtag, it's not the NAACP. She's claiming they weren't black students, which is possible, but they were definitely racist SJWs.
- I sorta blame Annie for this. Instead of dismissing the issue outright and refusing to interact, she gave them a platform. She should have said, "I'll take your suggestion under advisement." and left the conversation there. If they continue, have them removed, or continue to dismiss them. Engaging them further is going to do nothing but expose weakness.
Found my favorite comment.
ReplyDelete"Not sure. I tend to reply to posts like this sometimes, as though they did. And yeah, it's funny how they make the position as impartial as possible, and yet these people still have the gull to complain..."
The sheer gull of these guys. CAW CAW!
Gulls are filthy, disgusting, aggressive, garbage eaters. It fits them well.
DeleteThose are just the unmitigated gulls.
DeleteAh, reddit.
ReplyDeleteWhadya mean the comments in a reddit discussion are ridiculous? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you!
I don't think that saying that line would have helped. They came for her and they weren't going to leave until they got what they wanted. Next time, and I hope there isn't a next time, pull out your phones when these kids come hunting for social media gold and record them. Let them know that two can play at that game.
ReplyDelete"I sorta blame Annie for this. Instead of dismissing the issue outright and refusing to interact, she gave them a platform. She should have said, "I'll take your suggestion under advisement." and left the conversation there. If they continue, have them removed, or continue to dismiss them. Engaging them further is going to do nothing but expose weakness."
ReplyDeleteYes. Stop enabling these morons. This is the reason why they pull this shit: they know they will have audience.
How on earth is this Annie's fault? She was completely blindsided by this assault, and her first reaction was the same as it would be for most of us: to defend herself. It's not as if she had lost her temper while her interlocutors remained sweetly reasonable. It takes a lot of practice to be as calm under ambush as Eric is suggesting.
DeleteEric is quoting from the Reddit page. I didn't take his followup as directed at Annie, but rather as a rhetorical imperative for us all. Herein lies the value of our shared war stories: even when encountering something for the first time ourselves, we can act with hindsight and foresight as if we were more practiced.
DeleteYou're right, as usual, OPH, and my apologies to Eric. I guess I was too flabbergasted to read his response to the Reddit comment in the proper tone. I completely agree that the shared war stories can make all of us stronger.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSince Annie is still untenured, she did not have the power to refuse to dismiss the issue, or to refuse to interact. If she’d tried, it may well have inflamed the situation more, since these students could have gone to her higher-ups and complained she “is not approachable to students.” They know that when they do that, the higher-ups will side with them, often uncritically, taking everything they say at face value. I've been there: it sucked.
ReplyDeleteDuring my years on the tenure track, I therefore learned how to dodge confrontations like this. For a relatively minor but very common example, I never accept late work: my classes are all so big, it’s just not humanly possible. I announce this loud and clear many times throughout the semester, indeed, every time I announce any upcoming assignment. Whenever a student still tries to turn in a paper late, I take the paper without saying a word. When the student is out of sight, I write "LATE" in red ink on the paper, and record the grade as a zero. I do NOT stand there arguing with the student about how I don’t accept late work, and how it says so in the syllabus. (Now at 23 pages and counting!) Anything explicitly stated in the syllabus, of course, ends all arguments, and precludes any future attempts at adjudication, and they know it. They get their papers back the next class in an alphabetized accordion folder that I pass around. By this time, they’re sitting amidst a large classroom, and nearly all of them will have forgotten the whole thing or at least stopped caring, anyway. Yes, you can use their apathy and short attention spans to your advantage.
Hindsight can be so cruel, but a better way for Annie to have handled this situation would have been, upon being told, “We’d like you to hire a female POC,” to have asked, “Know any good ones?” and then to write down whatever information they give you. Who knows, maybe she might get some good job candidates this way. She need not act on their requests, of course, and in fact can’t, because of the system her HR has set up.
Still, what they see is her trying to follow their orders. Of course, against a really determined witch hunt, there’s not much you can do: again, hindsight can be so cruel.
(During late WWII, the Luftwaffe was using aviation fuel made from soft, brown coal. The Nazis pointed a pistol to the head of the chief petroleum engineer of Dutch Royal Shell and demanded he find oil. He went on to drill an uninterrupted string of dry holes, but he looked so professional when doing it, they never did pull the trigger. After the war, of course, he made a major strike in the North Sea.)
Having to resort to duplicity like this sucks. Whenever I weasel my way out of confrontations like this, I feel like I need a bath. Academia is supposed to be about seeking the truth, and following it wherever it may lead. That sounds hopelessly naïve these days, doesn’t it?
So hang in there, Annie. Things will be better when you're granted tenure, but all the same, I try not to be too snarky. Sometimes I succeed at it.
DeleteI'm not technically a professor anymore. I'm Senior Fellow/Chair of a small research fellowship the university. Needless to say, it's big improvement over being an adjunct. I was briefly made a full professor just before they made me this offer.
DeleteThat being said I will still be teaching at least one class a semester starting this Spring.
Delete