The Riley affair is boiling over. Bigger media outlets are getting hold of the story and providing commentary.
Rod Dreher at The American Conservative shoots down claims of Riley’s racism. Riley has long been concerned with the snow job perpetrated by colleges and universities on unsuspecting students (her book on the subject, here). To her, higher education is, in many ways, a scam. And what better way to scam someone than by creating something that is above reproach and is incubated from criticism?
The Atlantic lays out a list of things that people should avoid saying if they don’t want to be perceived as racist. One of their suggestions is “don’t write out Latasha B. Levy as ‘La TaSha B. Levy,’” which Mrs. Riley did do. So a woman has an unorthodox name and it is now incumbent on everyone else work around it? This is what I’ve called “white tropism”.
Kathryn Lopez writes at National Review’s The Corner. Many commenters claim that Lopez’s mentioning Riley’s firing is ironic given the Derbyshire affair. I can’t see how they’re similar. Derbyshire’s piece at Taki’s mag was aimed directly at black people as a group. Riley’s piece was aimed at the academic discipline of Black Studies.
And then a piece at Clutch Magazine:
Ms. Riley seems to believe that Black Republicans, such as Clarence Thomas – who have made a living being step-n-fetchit tokens — are being unfairly maligned by liberals who would rather cry racism than actually solve problems in Black America
…
It is not surprising that Ms. Riley is so oblivious to “the white man’s” role in the prison industrial complex. Apparently she doesn’t realize that disparities in sentencing, especially as it pertains to cocaine vs. crack – which flooded our communities in the ‘80s under the Reagan administration – has played an integral role in the devastation that has plowed through Black America.
Thus bolstering Riley’s point. Perhaps there is a such thing as the “white man’s prison-industrial complex”. Let’s explore it. But let’s also explore a culture to which many blacks gravitate which glorifies violence, sex, drugs, and counterculturalism. Black Studies will address one half of the equation, but they won’t be caught dead mentioning the other.
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Some at NRO have pointed out that Riley was fired for writing an opinion piece, so I get the charges. My own take is that it’s silly for NR to pile on Chronicles of Higher Ed for making a business decision when National Review did the same.
U,
You’re right that both are business decisions, but the decisions were made for different reasons. Derbyshire spoke about individuals and suggested that they be avoided on the basis of their skin color. Just on its face, that’s more harsh (whether sound advice or not) than ragging on leftist claptrap in academia. If you’re a black person, Derbyshire’s comments would/should be much more offensive than Riley’s.
And since many commenters here will defend Derbyshire, I’d then ask which censure is more troubling? If you want to be able to speak what you feel is the truth about race, Riley being silenced is much more ominous. If you want to say what Derbyshire said then you’d definitely take note of what happened to Riley, whereas if you want to say what Riley said you wouldn’t have to really care much about what Derbyshire said.
Chuck – I don’t disagree with your take; I just find NR getting worked up amusing.
Riley is more ominous. Her criticisms were tamer and intended to be helpful. She’s now an unemployed racist. How dare she suggest college students learn something useful!
She’s really stuck to her guns, you gotta admire her greatly for that. Usually, when someone commits a similar thoughtcrime, the steps go like this:
1. Hysterical liberals demand an apology.
2. The guilty party issues an apology.
3. The apology is not accepted and deemed insincere and/or weak.
4. Repeat ad naseum.
I hope her children are ok. You never know what an evil racist like her can do to those Sons (or Daughters) of Obama.
‘So I Could Be Easeful’: Black Women’s Authoritative Knowledge on Childbirth” If that dissertation title does not invite ridicule, I can’t imagine what would.
Making fun of PhD dissertation is old hat. It’s been going on for years, deservedly so. One of my professors said it is the reason we know more and more about less and less. And that was in the 70′s, for goodness sakes.
Dissertations are usually a pretty narrow title anyhow, designed to bring new information into the field. However, it has to have some relevance. One of my peers wrote about the role of black soldiers in the Confederacy. (American History). Think that didn’t cause some issues? But it brought new information to the field of American History, and addressed the lack of knowledge about the role of blacks in the Confederacy. (Hint: many did not like the Yankee invaders.)
Riley was engaged in a time honored academic bashing, but she bashed a sacred cow. Just shows that academics take themselves too serious. As Kissinger once said, “The politics of academia are so vicious, precisely because the outcomes are so small.” Riley unwittingly proved that point as well.
Circling back to the original essay, Riley presented a res ipsa loquitur argument , that the fluffery of the Black Studies program is revealed by the dissertation topics:
–historical black midwifery
–subprime black single family housing
–black Republican assault on civil rights
Riley suggested dissertations of import would include:
–high black incarceration rates
–low black graduation rates
–high black out-of-wedlock birth rates
I disagree with her that the dissertation topics are proof-of-fluffery .
jz,
the fluffery is revealed because the first list of topics are discussed in Black Studies while the second list never is. it is fluffery, unchecked.
@chuck,
Yes, list #2 is suggested, but do you really feel that list #1 is proof-of-fluffery? Those topics are weaker, but straight up fluff?
Accademic Fluffery. Who gets to define it? With what metrics? Who should pay for it?
It must be so rough being so disadvantaged that your major choice is looked upon with score. With scorn! America is such a redneck, uncultured place, hostile to knowledge!
jz,
I think they’re fluffy, but fluff alone isn’t the most important part. Every discipline will have fluff. The larger critique is that they are typical of the discipline. If they were just part of the canon, that would be one thing. But they are typical. The discipline is typified by this type of one-sided fluffery. So Riley’s criticism was partly towards these particular pieces (which the Chronicle put into the limelight and held up as some sort of academic achievement) but also towards the entire discipline which is at such a point in its life cycle that black women’s “easeful midwifery” is considered rigorous research.
Chuck:
I do not disagree that Black Studies has an agenda, so to speak, and that is why few, if any, papers will be written about what Riley suggested. Overall the whole field is a harmful morass of divisive racialism, and quite a bit of it is either fraudulent or scholarly sub-par on top of things. It’s the exact same with “women’s studies” , except that is potentially divisive by gender and sex instead of merely by skin color. If it was up to me I “demote” both fields to sub-fields of history and sex in that order and hold them to much higher standards of accuracy and impartiality, but of course that will never happen in the current political climate.
However, that doesn’t mean Black Studies is all absolute b.s. as scholarship, and certainly Riley’s methodology of attacking the entire field based on scanning dissertation topics,( some of which she apparently doesn’t even understand) leaves much to be desired. I might have fired her for that alone, but then the Journal of Higher Education under Clarence would be for very high standards anyway.
jz,
area studies venture into the fluff zone because they are very subjective, for one. they’re basically a big circle jerk among the aggrieved. they only create value for a handful of people within the field. i think that’s a good starting point for fluffery.
subjective/self-serving/rooted in grievance………..excellent start.
“Many commenters claim that Lopez’s mentioning Riley’s firing is ironic given the Derbyshire affair. I can’t see how they’re similar.”
I took “Dust, Meet Another One” to mean, “first Derbyshire, now Riley.”
I’m actually gathering data on sentencing for convicted felons. I’m looking to see if there is a marked difference between Whites vs. Minorities (blacks) and Females. We often hear about blacks get tougher sentencing, and females get a lesser sentencing for similar crimes. I had an idea that both could be true, but it had to do with previous criminal history. Men tend to have more than women and blacks more than white. Previous convictions/arrests do play a part in time given for offenses.
This is a distinction without a difference. Derbyshire could have just as easily couched his terms in euphemisms so that he’d be writing about avoiding groups that just happen to be nearly 100% black and written about fostering hobbies and interests that would naturally exclude you from having any contact with blacks, but it would amount to the same thing. For people that don’t have a problem with this kind of article are basically lambasting Derbyshire for insufficient glibness.
Riley’s criticism is essentially against all black academics, and students in all fields as basically any coursework written by them follow the African-American Studies model.
Riley’s criticism strikes very nearly ever black student that has ever matriculated and any that have those aspirations and everyone reading her article knows it. Her assault is on “Black Academia” which is its’ own thing, completely separate from ‘Academia’ proper. If it weren’t for “black studies” and the casual acceptance of racially-inspired coursework from black students in every discipline there would be virtually no black students or academics at all.
By calling Black Studies ‘fluffery’ she is implying that black students aren’t held to the same standards as white students; which everyone knows is true, but implying that they should be held to the same standards is racist even to ‘mainstream’ society. Whites have all of that privilege elevating them after all.
Her ‘suggestions’ for improvement are basically advocating what academe would call white supremacy. That the focus of black students and academics should be how best to conform to the standards of white society and convince non-collegiate blacks to do so as well.
It’s “fluffery” if a subject that leads to a degree (black studies) is nothing more than a curriculum that seeks to promote grievance finding and grievance filing.
Kyle,
If that’s a distinction without a difference then every discussion about X versus Y is a distinction w/o a difference to the point that there are no such things as differences.
You gloss over the difference in your response. Riley’s piece isn’t about “black academics”. It’s about Black Studies academics, some of whom (albeit a few) are white.
Point being, Derbyshire himself admitted to a bit of racism in the past, and I’d assume he’d accept that his most recent piece was at least a little bit racist. Riley’s piece is not racist. So if these two pieces are being judged on the spectrum of racism – and they are – Derbyshire’s is much more extreme than Riley’s. We can then discuss whether racism is always and everywhere a bad thing and that racially-realistic pieces should always be avoided, but we can’t consider those two pieces to be cut of the same cloth.
Another distinction to be made would be that Derbyshire’s piece was more substantive than Riley’s. Riley’s was just a knee-jerk blog post whereas Derbyshire’s post was thought out.
“Race-Baiting”…and Its Discontents
http://www.alternativeright.com/main/blogs/district-of-corruption/race-baiting/
Derbyshire’s offending article at Takimag, “The Talk: Non-Black Version,” was, no doubt, a little too frank. People recognized exactly what Derbyshire has in mind—not only regarding the natural behavior of Black people but the lie of “equality” at the heart of contemporary “Conservatism.”
Everybody knows that these “Black Studies” courses are frauds designed solely to get black faces in the yearly catalog among the faculty and student body, attacking them in any way is to attack that lie of equality. Derbyshire’s firing is far worse because it came at the hands of so-called conservatives – it highlighted the decades long quisling nature of establishment conservatism. You won’t conserve a society if you don’t conserve the people, and they haven’t – for profit. Why should a conservative like Derbyshire have to take note of a firing on a lefty blog with a long history of vicious racism toward people like himself? Seeing the CHE firing as more important appears to be simple forelock tugging.
Now I know what W meant by “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” It’s perfectly obvious that department chairs don’t hold black academics to the same standards as everyone else, be it due to bias or fear of a backlash. Result? Naked partisanship and race mongering disguised as scholarship. I’d ask how these doctorates are “marketable,” but I have the same question about philosophy and peace studies.
I actually like Roman Candles breakdown of the political dynamics in these cases.
“Ms. Riley seems to believe that Black Republicans, such as Clarence Thomas – who have made a living being step-n-fetchit tokens — are being unfairly maligned by liberals who would rather cry racism than actually solve problems in Black America.”
This statement has blown my mind.
on the question of who pays for it:
as I understand, undergrads’ tuition subsidises Phd stipends. Many of my neighbor’s kids are /have been Northwestern undergrads, so apparently my neighbors are paying.
I think the firing of both Derbyshire and Riley were deplorable. Yeah Derbyshire could have been a bit more qualified on some of his avoiding provisions but he was plenty qualified in the vast majority of what he wrote. Trouble is, when you provide a few not qualified enough paragraphs the left and the respectable right in preemptive self defense is gonna quote those and sputter racism.
Riley’s criticism of African American studies is well taken.
This sort of censorship by after the fact punishment is appalling. Free speech — hah.
@jz
“Who should pay for it?”
When the student loan bubble bursts it will be the taxpayers who do. What’s the unemployment number amongst “black studies” graduates? And those who aren’t unemployed I would think are mostly working worthless jobs. Outside of the ivory towers of college campuses, a “black studies” degree wont get you much besides a minimum wage job. Sociology, Fem Lit and Black Studies majors are largely buried under a mountain of debt that they wont be able to pay off.