In the aftermath of a social disaster

DURHAM - Last April I added my name to an ad published in the Duke Chronicle. The ad said that we faculty were listening to the anguish of students who felt demeaned by racist and sexist remarks swirling around in the media and on the campus quad in the aftermath of what happened on March 13 in the lacrosse house. The insults, at that time, were rampant. It was as if defending David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann necessitated reverting to pernicious stereotypes about African-Americans, especially poor black women. Many black students at Duke disappeared into humiliation and rage as the lacrosse players were being elevated to the status of martyrs, innocent victims of reverse racism.

As it turned out, 87 other faculty members were alarmed at this distressing side-effect of the lacrosse incident and signed the ad. I am positive I am not the only professor who was and continues to be adamant about the necessity for fair and impartial legal proceedings for David, Collin and Reade while also being dismayed by the glaring social disparities implicit in what we know happened on March 13.

A team of distinguished athletes at an elite and highly respected university hired two local women to strip at a house filled with men (including those underage) who had been drinking too much. That's sleazy, to say the least. That those women were women of color underscores the appalling power dynamics of the situation.

As a professor at Duke, I felt shame when the media's account of the behavior in the lacrosse house came to stand for all Duke students and the institution itself. So many students, faculty and administrators here work hard to live down our unflattering old segregation nickname, "the Plantation." Yet after March 13, Duke again came to symbolize (seemingly for the entire world) the most lurid and sexualized form of race privilege.

The ad we signed explicitly was not addressed to the police investigation or the rape allegations. The ad focused on racial and gender attitudes all too evident in the weeks after March 13. It decried prejudice and inequality in the society at large. "It isn't just Duke, it isn't everybody, and it isn't just individuals making this disaster," the ad insisted.

The lacrosse incident is a textbook example of what Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson calls "social disaster" (a phrase used in the ad). "Social disaster" refers to complex power arrangements that underpin even minor events and give those events symbolic (and disturbing) meaning for society as a whole.

The lacrosse incident became one of the top news stories of 2006 because Americans saw the case as symbolic of many of their deepest social concerns. Race, gender, sexuality, class, athletics, the South, poverty, privilege, the younger generation: those are some features of the brew that captured the world's attention and fed its moral voyeurism.

Like the other faculty members who signed the ad, I constantly receive e-mails asking me to rescind my signature. Some people write out of real misery for their children, Duke students who are distraught that their friends may have been falsely accused and unfairly treated. They believe professors have sided against the lacrosse players, and they are outraged. If we had written what they suppose, we would deserve their anger. But we didn't.

I empathize deeply with these parents and friends. I regret the additional pain they felt when they heard about this ad. However, when I send them the actual ad, they are often surprised that it does not condemn the lacrosse players but focuses on larger campus and national concerns. I was touched, recently, when one mother concluded our thoughtful exchange by noting that she still didn't like the ad, but hoped that her daughter would have the opportunity to take a class with me someday.

On the other hand, most of my e-mail comes from right-wing "blog hooligans." These hateful, ranting and sometimes even threatening folks don't care about Duke or the lacrosse players. Their aim is to make academics and liberals look ridiculous and uncaring. They deliberately misrepresent the faculty and manipulate the feelings of those who care about the lacrosse players in order to foster their own demagogic political agenda. They contribute to the problem, not to the solution.

We are in the midst of a social disaster where 18 percent of the American population lives below the poverty line and a disproportionate number of those are African-American. We live in the midst of a social disaster where 30 percent of our students do not graduate from high school (making the U.S. No. 17 in the world). We live in the midst of a social disaster where women's salaries for similar jobs are substantially less than men's (and, as of this year, starting to go down again, not up). We live in the midst of a social disaster where we do not have national health care or affordable childcare. And we live in a situation where a group of white athletes at a prominent university can get drunk and call out for a stripper the way they would a pizza.

Who is that exotic dancer? A single mother who takes off her clothes for hire partly to pay for tuition at a distinguished historically black college. Of course the lacrosse story makes Americans of conscience cringe.

There is also a different kind of social disaster in this incident, one that we didn't know about in April. I refer to a prosecutor who may well have acted unprofessionally, irresponsibly and unethically, possibly from the most cynical political motives. If it turns out that Mike Nifong has no evidence (as he insisted he did back in the spring), he will have betrayed the trust of an entire community and caused torment to these young men and their families. He will have added greater skepticism at every imaginable level to an already shaky legal system.

Nor is it only the lacrosse players who will be marked forever by this case. Will future rape victims dare to step forward after such a spectacle? Will African-Americans with legitimate grievances be willing to demand justice in the wake of this public debacle? On every level, this has been a social disaster.

That is why I signed the ad. It is an educator's job to bring the lessons of history to bear as we try to understand the full and on-going social implications of what happened long before March 13, 2006, and will continue long after. Studying this social disaster must be on the lesson plan for our future, no matter what happens next in this miserable incident.

From a little bit up in that same thread you just posted from, this one is absolutely HILARIOUS!

"Professor" Davidson commissioned (no doubt funded at least in part by tax and/or tuition dollars) lesbians to TAKE PICTURES OF THEIR UNMADE BEDS and PASS IT OFF AS ART!!

Does it get any more ridiculous than this?

* * * * * * *

"Academic Eye III: Reinserting Myself Into a History"
Duke University Museum of Art, through Nov. 7

"Reinserting Myself Into a History" is an exhibition of large-format photographic prints by former UNC Chapel Hill instructor Tammy Rae Carland, who asserts her lesbianism in her choice of themes. Carland is now on her way to California, where she will be an associate professor at the California College of Arts and Crafts.

As the third show in a series called the "Academic Eye," the Duke museum invited Duke's vice provost and director of interdisciplinary studies, Cathy Davidson, to choose an artist whose work she finds challenging.

"I did not know Carland, personally," Davidson said, "but I thought her work was important." After visiting the artist's studio, Davidson chose photographs from two series, "Lesbian Beds" and "Keeping House."

Lesbian lifestyles have so often been relegated to underground porn that these beds, seen from closely cropped aerial views, empty of their occupants, presents us with a set of complicated layers of meaning.

First of all, Carland writes that they are "formally composed and edited to conceptually resemble abstract expressionist and color field paintings." She emphasizes those who have just vacated the bed with the traces of them and objects that they have left behind.

The beds, which belong to her and to lesbian friends, were photographed as they were found. From across the gallery, formal artistic elements such as curves, straight lines, color and shadow assert themselves as abstract forms within a large frame. Close inspection, however, reveals the abstractions are really mussed and rumpled sheets and comforters with clues to the missing occupants: books, nightclothes, pets and deliberate patterns that suggest the genders of the recent sleepers. In her gallery guide essay, Davidson makes much out of the fact that the bed linen is not fashionably coordinated, but looks more like the odds and ends of a starter household.

Each photograph has some element or touch that makes it hard to believe the photographer didn't change a thing. For example, in "Untitled #10," a turquoise sheet has been bunched in such a way that it looks like the ribbon loop that honors breast cancer victims. In "Untitled #8," a sock lies in a corner like a needless phallic symbol, and in "Untitled #13," a slit in a pillow suggests the vaginal opening.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1762333/posts?page=390#390

Their aim is to make academics and liberals look ridiculous and uncaring.

An excerpt from 'The Chronicle of Higher Education'

From the issue dated February 13, 2004

"A Manifesto for the Humanities in a Technological Age" By CATHY N. DAVIDSON and DAVID THEO GOLDBERG

Diversity is important. The humanities have been the principal (and for the most part the principled) site of diversity and diversification in the academy, both demographically and intellectually. Engineering, the sciences, the social sciences, and, to a lesser extent, the business schools now may be playing catch-up, recruiting increasingly diverse student and faculty populations; but the humanities are still way ahead in facing up to the challenge of understanding diversity in complex and paradigm-changing ways (just consider the contributions of ethnic studies, gender and sexuality studies, and other identity-based programs).

That's a good idea about the courses. Brigitte Gabrielle, a victim of Muslim extremists and author of the book Because they hate, suggested monitoring college classes in general.

She had other suggestions about how citizens can make a difference:

Contact your elected officials: Make an appointment with your legislator and go with a group of friends. (Groups wield more power). Bring documented information (like this post) to your officials and let them know you want to get involved in order to make a difference . Do not leave their office until they agree to look into the matter and get back to you with concrete suggestions on how they plan to initiate changes for the better.

In dealing with Islamic countries, insist on reciprocation or no deal. If they want to build a mosque or Islamic school in our country, we should be able to build a church and a Christian school in theirs.

Sign petitions to change laws. Pass laws that publicly disclose which countries sponsor terror and how much they have invested in American companies and which companies.
Support the Patriot Act and legislators who enact strict legislation that will protect us at this time of war.
Ensure wide presidential powers to protect us during a time of war.

Restrict visas granted to Islamic foreign nationals each year.

Provide for US energy security and reduce the importance of oil.

Support legislators who will create legislation that will lead to developing sources of energy other than oil.
Support legislators who will promote Western ideals and values and dismiss excessive political correctness.
Secure the borders.

Fight legislation that empowers all tax exempt religious organizations with increased abilities for political influence.

Support legislators who enact laws to discourage excessive foreign funding for religious groups within the US.
Pursue all means available to uncover the plots of terror cell members and supporters living among us.

Monitor Your Local College and University: Call the registrar's office and ask if they have a Middle Eastern studies program or a course in Islamic religion. Try to talk with some students taking the course understand the nature and content of the professors' lectures. Monitor courses to see if they have an anti-American or anti-Semitic focus. Make sure you document everything said in class. Present your findings to the school administration, the media, the FBI, the local police, and the ACLU.

Report Suspicious Activity or Behavior.

Join an Activist Organization against Terror.
Join an organization whose mission is to expose and combat the threat of Islamic terrorism. American Congress for Truth (ACT) is one such organization which works to bring change through an organized grassroots movement to oppose the terrorist threat to America.

There is an informative web site which deals with timely issues and legislation relating to our security. The organization inspires activists to get involved and take action. Sign up at www.americancongressfortruth.org.

Lobby for Patriotic Education in America's Schools: Lobby for young people to be taught more in school about our founding documents, civics, American history and its heroes and participants, and America's place in the world.

Hold school systems accountable for providing nonpartisan education. Monitor this by asking your children and grandchildren about what political positions their teachers take and whether they indoctrinate against our country. If so, organize the parents to protest in writing.

Stay informed and Speak Out: Attend seminars in your local community. Many organizations, especially Jewish temples and community centers host speakers on current affairs regularly.

Write letters to your local newspaper expressing your opinion and letting journalists know that people are monitoring what they write.

Speak up in your church, social group and among friends to inform others.

Promote Western Values in Your Home.

Plan family trips to Washington, D.C. and other historical sites to teach them to know and respect our culture and heritage. The White House Historical Society has games, toys, puzzles, and books which teach history in a fun way.

Divest your own portfolio of investments in companies that do business with terrorist-sponsoring states. Go to the DivestTerror.org web site to learn more.

Learn which Muslim organizations have ties to terror (Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Muslim Brotherhood, etc.) and work to allow them no support within the US or around the globe.

Defend and support all movements toward personal freedoms in the Middle East.

Reduce your own gas consumption.

Support our troops.

Contact your library to request that they purchase this or other books dealing with the threats we face.

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