Cal Poly Professor Argues Squirrels Are Subjected to Racially-Charged Media Bias

The Coach's Team ^ | 5/14/17 | Tom Ciccotta

[Oldpuppymax]

by Tom Ciccotta

An assistant professor at California State Polytechnic University argues in a recent academic research paper that eastern fox squirrels are subjected to a “gendered, racialized, and speciesist” form of media bias.

Teresa Lloro-Bidart, an associate professor of liberal studies at Cal Poly, argues in a recently published postmodernist research paper that eastern fox squirrels are on the receiving end of racially-charged media bias. Lloro-Bidart claims that she worked towards such a conclusion by analyzing the coverage of eastern fox squirrels through “feminist posthumanist,” and “feminist food studies” lenses.

Lloro-Bidart contends that eastern fox squirrels, which is the most populous species of tree squirrel in North America, are on the receiving end of such bigotry due to several factors, most notably, the “western, modernist,” framework by which humans interpret their behaviors and actions.

Given that the shift in tree squirrel demographics is a relatively recent phenomenon, this case presents a unique opportunity to question and re-theorize the ontological given of ‘otherness’ that manifests, in part, through a politics whereby animal food choices ‘[come] to stand in for both compliance and resistance to the dominant forces in [human] culture.’ I, therefore, juxtapose feminist posthumanist theories and feminist food studies scholarship to demonstrate how eastern fox squirrels are subjected to gendered, racialized, and speciesist thinking in the popular news media as a result of their feeding/eating practices, their unique and unfixed spatial arrangements in the greater Los Angeles region and the western, modernist human frame through which humans interpret these actions.

The paper, which is titled, “When ‘Angelino’ squirrels don’t eat nuts: a feminist posthumanist politics of consumption across southern California,” also argues that humans are responsible for “otherizing” eastern fox squirrels.

Eastern fox squirrels, Lloro-Bidart argues, are facing discrimination as a result of the human tendency to lump the species in with the western gray squirrel, a species which is much less tolerant of human beings.

Lloro-Bidart also evokes the concept of intersectionality, an academic concept popularized by Kimberle Crenshaw, which describes overlapping human identities and their relationship to systems of oppression, to analyze the plight of the eastern fox squirrel in California.

OK.

So you made it through the entire screed. Be honest now…does ANYONE understand what the hell this woman is talking about?

According to the Wictionary, “Otherizing” is defined as “making or regarding (a person, social group, etc.) as alien or different.”

And “intersectionality,” is “The interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.” Systems of “discrimination or disadvantage.” In other words, treated unfairly; doomed.

It isn’t surprising that leftists should manufacture a language all their own to define the hopeless plight of victims and victim classes. You see, even words which no one really understands can tend to make claims look somehow intellectually “deep,” “thought-provoking,” or official. After all, there couldn’t be a word unless the object or state of being it describes reeeeely exists…right?

So, “otherizing?” Yeah, yeah…I’ve heard of that. It means, dissing somebody, doesn’t it? So these eastern fox squirrels are, like, being insulted and, like, compared with western gray squirrels which like don’t like get along with people. Wow! The fox squirrels must be like pissed, man.

Of course, the real victim class here is the parents who are footing the bill for Chad and Buffy attending a “university” pathetic and desperate enough to have hired Teresa Lloro-Bidart. Ed.

[Trillian]

The only reason anyone would agree with this is because they are desperate and want to get laid.

[Nailbiter]

white squirrels in Tenn, can one say white these days- or are they melanin challenged squirrels.

[Elsie]

Then bidart must mean graffiti in the bidet?

[meyer]

White squirrels in TN? Where? I need to see them.

I have seen the black squirrels around Kent, Ohio. Apparently, they were brought in from Canada many years ago to start a colony. Well, it worked.

I have no idea how the various squirrels get along with one another. I often have 4-6 regular brown squirrels in my back yard, hanging around the bird feeder, waiting for the woodpeckers to scatter seed on the ground for them.

[Nailbiter]

northwest dyer are according to my sister

[meyer]

I’ll have to look for them next time I’m in that part of the state. I’m in the SE part of TN. And, its a pretty wide state.

Thanks!

[DPMD]

I believe they’re the same; Cal Poly = California Polytechnic Institute = Cal Tech.

Am I wrong?

[jjotto]

Cal Tech usually means Pasadena (the setting of ‘Big Bang Theory’). Cal Poly is or used to be the ag school, located in San Luis Obispo.

Cal Poly has a horseshoeing school. I’m pretty sure Cal Tech does not.

[2CAVTrooper]

Is her name Veruca Salt?

“Daddy, I want a squirrel. Get me one of those squirrels, I want one!”

“But I don’t want any old squirrel! I want a *trained* squirrel!”

[Sivad]

Yep, you are wrong. The name Cal Poly applies only to
the two state universities, one in San Luis Obispo and
the other in Pomona. I am a second generation CP SLO
alum. There is no such college as California Polytechnic
Institute but there is a Cal Tech (or California Institute of
Technology) which is a high powered private college.
Some people consider it the MIT of the West but I don’t
know about that.