We have been discussing the racist tweets of Saida Grundy, an incoming assistant professor of sociology and African-American studies at Boston University, who used twitter to denounce white men as the central problem at universities and described how she tries not to do business with white people. After an outcry from alumni, Boston University president Robert Brown expressed “disappointment” with her statements and Grundy herself apologized for what she called “indelicate” wording. The response has been withering with many saying that few would view the comments “indelicate” if a white professor encouraged people not to buy things from black people or calling black males as the problem on colleges. She now stands accused of a fairly unhinged exchange with a white woman who expressed her personal feelings over an article attacking actress Patricia Arquette for her call at the Oscars for equal pay for women.
Grundy is now accused of a new exchange with a white woman which combined race and rage in a particularly troubling way on Facebook. The other woman was Maghan Chamberlin who is a rape victim and wrote about her personal reaction to a controversial article on race.
First to the context of the article. Chamberlin was reacting to a screed by Grio writer Blue Telusma who found it terribly offensive that Patricia Arquette had given the following words at the Academy Awards in accepting her Oscar in February 2015. Here is what Arquette said (which is news to me because I would rather drink molten lead than watch the Oscars):
To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else’s equal rights! It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women in the United States of America!. . .
It’s time for women. Equal means equal. The truth is the older women get, the less money they make. The highest percentage of children living in poverty are in female-headed households. It’s inexcusable that we go around the world and we talk about equal rights for women in other countries and we don’t. One of those superior court justices said two years ago in a law speech at a university that we don’t have equal rights for women in America, and we don’t because when they wrote Constitution, they didn’t intend it for women. So the truth is even though we sort of feel like we have equal rights in America, right under the surface there are huge issues at play that really do affect women. It’s time for all the women in America, and all the men that love women and all the gay people and all the people of color that we’ve all fought for — to fight for us now!
That triggered a supernova in Telasum who called it another example of “feminism segregation” and “b.s.” Telasum decides herself as someone who spends her time writing “thoughtful op-eds” while resisting white feminism. She insisted the feminists were trying to assert equality as victims of our society and that was unacceptable:
And before you say “But, Blue, she said women not just white women,” let me be blunt: If you say black people need to stand up for you – that means you are asking every person in the room who is both black and a woman to choose her gender over her race in order to suit your agenda. It’s a very subtle form of feminist segregation that I’ve heard about for a few years now. And it’s complete b.s.
Who does she think nursed and looked after all of those white children during the slave era? Did she somehow miss the last 400 years of race relations? Does she not notice who the nannies are when she takes her kids to the park? Society has made it all too clear that not all women are created equal. So to ask the women who are below you on the food chain to once again lift you up is fifty shades of “You got some nerve.” . . .
Black feminists all over the world have written horror stories about how, when dealing with white feminists, they are expected to compartmentalize their blackness and put it away — while fighting on behalf of their womanhood. That ridiculous (and ironically misogynistic) expectation from their white feminist counterparts amounts to what feels like friendly fire; you’re basically being discriminated against by the very person standing next to you in the fight for equality.
Ok, that is the article that led Chamberlin to react in a very personal way. Chamberlin posted the following statement on a Facebook site run by Frank W. Miller, an exchange later taken down according to Fox News: “I LITERALLY cry and lose sleep over this,” Chamberlin wrote, adding she had been raped as a child and felt that: “what this article did was tell me that I’m not aloud (sic) to ask for help… Because I am a WHITE woman… So when I read this article… you do understand what that does to me, right? It kills me . . . ”
As an academic and a blogger, I would view such a posting as helpful and allowing for a passionate but insightful exchange on both sides. This is an interesting social and political and historical question. However, a person who identified herself as “Sai Grundy” responded on Feb. 25th by attacking Chamberlin and mocking her expression of pain:
“’I literally cry’…. While we literally die . . . try this article. A white woman explaining this issue to other white women . . . who manages NOT to cry while doing it!”
Chamberlin responded by writing “No really. I got it. You can take your claws out, thanks.”
That causes Grundy to explode and accuse Chamberlin of playing the victim in response to her insisting that she and others were facing greater victimization:
“^^THIS IS THE S**T I AM TALKING ABOUT. WHY DO YOU GET TO PLAY THE VICTIM EVERY TIME PEOPLE OF COLOR AND OUR ALLIES WANT TO POINT OUT RACISM. my CLAWS?? Do you see how you just took an issue that WASNT about you, MADE it about you, and NOW want to play the victim when I take the time to explain to you some s**t that is literally $82,000 below my pay grade? And then you promote your #whitegirltears like that’s some badge you get to wear… YOU BENEFIT FROM RACISM. WE’RE EXPLAINING THAT TO YOU and you’re vilifying my act of intellectual altruism by saying i stuck my “claws” into you?”
Chamberlin against responds, in a far more measured fashion: “I am choosing to ‘exit’ this conversation, You don’t know me. I don’t know you. It’s really as simple as that.”
Even that does not sit well with Grundy who taunts “go cry somewhere. since that’s what you do”:
YOU DONT HAVE TO KNOW ME. what you SHOULD know is that you don’t know more about this issue than margenalized women. And instead of entering this conversation with an iota of humility about that, you have made it a celebration of your false sense of victimization. no [sic] go cry somewhere. snce that’s what you do.’
Chamberlin responded: “Will do.”
However, Grundy was not done. She then posted: “am I mocking her tears or am I saying that her tears are meaningless displays of emotions because they don’t reflect at ALL an intention to understand the issue from the prospective (sic) of women of color or queer women.” She then adds “my name is *Sai*, but you can call me Dr. Grundy.”
As with her earlier public statements, I find Grundy’s view to be deeply troubling and overtly racist. However, I still believe that they are protected speech. I do believe that such comments could have been considered (and should have been considered) at her hiring. I would have reservations about the intellectual and professional approach of a candidate who responded in such an intolerant fashion. I would certainly want to question the candidate about her approach to students and colleagues in light of such past positions. However, she was hired and I have considerable problem with firing academics because they take controversial positions, even positions with both sexist and racist overtones. As I explained yesterday in the case of the Duke professor, It is a dangerous and slippery slope. The greatest problem is that the uncertain standard creates a chilling effect on academics, particularly untenured academics in what views will be tolerated. In the academic world, such uncertainty can be devastating and strikes at the very heart of the academic mission.
Various sites have been organized to support Grundy like “StandWithSaida.”
What do you think?
Paul, you may be right about HBCs. I was thinking about the race commentator on CNN, Marc LaMont Hill, who spins much of the same racial paranoia as Ms. Grundy. He is a professor at Morehouse. I would hope that HBCs recognize that preparing students to compete in real careers is more important than wallowing in the re-fried racial extremism of the 60s.
TinEar – Morehouse has a reputation for turning out solid graduates. That they change later is not the fault of Morehouse (i.e. Spike Lee).
Paul: Yes, the white suffragette movement agreed to take a backseat to allow black males the right to vote first. And much more recently, many white women abandoned Hillary and voted for Obama because they thought that the symbolism of the first black president would be more important to the country than having the first female president. Well, race relations certainly haven’t improved. And well-meaning acts can backfire if the recipient resents your intentions and interprets your charitable act as condescension. I think some blacks are hostile to everything white, whether white men, women, children or cats. I would hate to be so screwed in the head that I could get to be the First Lady of the United States and still feel angry and resentful towards the people who elected me. But if nothing else, that shows the depth of the failings of affirmative action: the recipient will never, ever, feel fully satisfied with his or her accomplishments.
TinEar – I may be reading too much between the lines, but I think the First Lady is not getting satisfied by the President. There have been a series of pictures of her with very pointed looks at the President, that don’t look loving or even neutral.
Pogo nails it.
This hierarchy of victim hood is just tedious. Which class of people, not which individual people, qualify to be victims. Who is the ‘mostest’ ‘victimisted’ put upon deserving of sympathy and of course our money. It seems to change from day to to day and I just don’t care enough to try to keep up.
I suggest we put them all in a knock down drag out cage match and see who wins. I still won’t care, but at least it would be interesting.
She explained nothing.
How exactly does she benefit from racism? How does it work?
Is it underpants gnomes racism?
One benefit would be that by exposing her self as a disgusting racist Ms. Grundy has given us the opportunity to avoid her odious presence.
Pogo, perhaps Michelle Obama is angry because she majored (at Priceton) in the exact same subject matter that Grundy is teaching: Sociology and African-American Studies. Michelle’s senior thesis was on “The Black Experience at Princeton.” Essentially, she was provided with an opportunity for the best education America has to offer, and she chose to study about herself. I think that kind of insecurity and narcissism might express itself as frustration and anger.
“…don’t antagonize your natural allies.”
It’s what SJWs do.
They can’t help it.
All they know is: Attack and complain and tell your opponents to SHUT UP.
It never ends. Why would it?
I think the overriding issue is: how does a university hire someone like this? Her right to free speech notwithstanding, it’s frightening that people will be charged tuition to spend time with this creature.
Yes Bettykath, she has many reasons to be angry at the disparity in the treatment of black Americans with white Americans. And she does her cause no favors when she indiscriminately strikes out in her rage at white women. We all need each other at certain times and under certain circumstances in this family of (womb)man. My suggestion to her, don’t antagonize your natural allies.
continuing subjugation of African Americans in this country.
Some people are just insane.
I would agree with Beldar that “African-American Studies” lacks sufficient intellectual depth and vigor to be taken seriously as a major, at least in an elite university. But it does serve two purposes. First, it operates as a cocoon for black students who may not be well prepared for college, giving them a support network and serves as a college within a college. In a sense, they’re going to a HBC but getting a degree from a mainstream university. The university benefits by being able to boast that it graduates black students, even if their intellectual development has been somewhat negligible. Hopefully, the black students aren’t going into debt to obtain a degree in AA Studies. I remember a conversation years ago with a co-worker who told me her brother graduated from Stanford. I replied, “Great! What does he do?” (Thinking that he was probably a Silicon Valley engineer.) She replied that he was a mailman. “A mailman? With a degree from Stanford?” Well, she replied, he majored in Mexican-American Studies. Hmmm….okay, I hope the Postal Service at least gave him a route in East L.A.
TinEar – I am not sure that HBCs offer African-American studies. They tend to like to turn out good graduates.
” …the original and continuing subjugation of African Americans in this country.”
What subjugation is that, exactly?
“No wonder she is angry.”
Heck, even Michelle Obama is angry and she has the best of everything that money can buy: food, travel, schools for the kids, clothes, etc.
Are blacks ever NOT angry?
“Come up with a strategy of how to change things, how to get allies and what they should do to effect the change.”
She made it crystal clear: they don’t need you or want you.
She even put it in ALL CAPS.
“Some of those allies should be white women and white men
Ha ha ha.
See above.
http://www.bu.edu/afam/2015/05/18/afam-faculty-welcomes-dr-saida-grundy/
The African American Studies Program continues to support nuanced conversations inside and outside the classroom about the complex issue of race and look forward to Dr. Grundy’s contributions to that dialogue when she begins teaching in the fall.
____
However, most troubling was that among the numerous that were serious expressions of dismay were many vile messages, explicitly racist and obscene, that consider cyber-bullying a substitute for frank discussion and freedom of speech.
She doesn’t seem to be very nuanced. And I find it amazing the BU AA Studies department is supposedly against cyber-bullying but welcomes Grundy. It’s a pretty clear reflection that their only interest is in attacking others and care nothing for Grundy’s role.
part of the walk and then
Yet another evidence the “tribalizing” (that is, dividing society in several colliding clans, here Blacks, Whites, Asians, Latinos, Women, GLBT) prevalent in, and professed by, some progressive factions is yet a longer way to Lebanon or the Balkans, compared to hardcore and fanatical ultra-nationalism.
Well put, Isaac.
I think Grundy is still adjusting to the shock of the reality of things. Aren’t we all? She’ll mature, and in the meantime let’s don’t take her spirit from her. She’s pissed that the overwhelming majority of white folks turn a selectively ignorant eye much like did the Germans at the end of WWII, knowing full well the extent of Nazi atrocities. Is she not human like the rest of us? She’ll learn from this, and perhaps so will the rest of this, that we’re not color blind.
I have more of a problem with Boston University’s elevated crew commenting on this tiff. There’s is an institution of higher learning, not pandering to donors. The place where Zinn taught – naught – apparently isn’t charging enough for its NCAA basketball tickets to feel immune from influence.
Annie, My thought as well. As a student of African American studies, she knows about the original and continuing subjugation of African Americans in this country. No wonder she is angry. Since she is also outspoken, the anger comes through. She needs to think strategically. Come up with a strategy of how to change things, how to get allies and what they should do to effect the change. Some of those allies should be white women and white men, there are many who agree with her. She should remember that many whites walked with MLK on those marches.
bettykath – to take your point further, if it had not been for the whites walking with King (who would only walk part of the part and the be spirited away in a car) there would not have been a Civil Rights Movement that was country-wide.
What do you think?
I think she perfectly represents what African American studies is all about. Usually they’re smarter about hiding it, but it’s difficult to completely hide the truth.
Ultra rich women actors complain about not making enough money. Seeks solidarity. (Possibly) Black woman slams her for not being sensitive to minority women’s right to be black (before being women). White woman goes on tangent and generalizes from seeking pay equality to asking for (psychological) help. Prof loses cool and slams white woman for daring to ask for help – regardless of what the help is for. One really needs a scorecard to keep track of who and how they’ve has been offensive, racist, sexist,and unhelpful. Yawn.
“Indelicate,” is too mild a statement. It’s down right racist! People like this trashy lady shouldn’t be teaching in our universities. She should go open up a black business, so people have a choice of where they want to shop.
Anyone who thinks that getting you MA and PHD makes one a better and refined person is a fool. This woman is a perfect example of Affirmative Action gone wrong.
As the saying goes, “You can take the farmer off the farm, but you can’t take the farm out of the farmer.” This is so true in this woman’s case.
As the Book of Psalms illustrates so elegantly, the message and the delivery system must be both working together. However, all messages can’t be delivered by Bob Dylan, Nina Simone, or Joan Baez. Grundy has an argument, but not unlike most, her emotion or passion obscures the validity with its vitriol. When attacked most people circle the wagons and attempt to keep everything out, regardless of what’s right or wrong.