Book Burnings

[fourhats]

Has anyone here actually read the book? I have. It's about the culture shock experienced by a young Cuban-American woman from working class Miami who attends a mostly well-to-do college in the Northeast and experiences culture shock: weather, food, deprivation, first-gen, others' sense of what kind of person she must be. She makes white friends. She learns how to be a college student. The author now lives happily in Nebraska, among white people. Her assertion that white students should recognize that they have inherent privilege does not denigrate those of the working class or deny their own struggles. I don't see why you interpret this as saying she's racist against white people.

[polly_mer]

Has anyone here actually read the book? I have. It's about the culture shock experienced by a young Cuban-American woman from working class Miami who attends a mostly well-to-do college in the Northeast and experiences culture shock: weather, food, deprivation, first-gen, others' sense of what kind of person she must be. She makes white friends. She learns how to be a college student. The author now lives happily in Nebraska, among white people. Her assertion that white students should recognize that they have inherent privilege does not denigrate those of the working class or deny their own struggles. I don't see why you interpret this as saying she's racist against white people.

I'm saying what I've read regarding the talk itself indicates a significant tone-deafness to audience, as did assigning the book for the first-year reading in the first place.

The book might have been a touching story about how hard it is to go to college away from one's family into a strange place.  The question that still remains is why was this particular book assigned instead of one of the ones that would resonate with the audience?  It's asking a lot to have people put themselves into her shoes when their own lives are not easy.  It seems as though someone assumed these students already had the skills and mindsets that are supposed to be the outcome of several years of college.

Look at the messages put out by the author and by certain members of the university community in various venues.  I could get behind a message of "we don't burn books on a university campus".  I am with the students, though, on the optics of having mandatory diversity meetings and educational sessions until everyone has come to embrace the author's ideas in exactly the way she intended them. 

I'm not seeing any respect for the students' lives and experiences: many of those students are away from home for the first time in an unfamiliar place with the concomitant culture shock, even if their skin tone doesn't stand out.  Even on this thread, someone wanted to vomit because those students didn't immediately conform to the required actions, if not thoughts.  Those students are being judged wrong, bad, and possibly evil for daring to express their thoughts in an inconvenient way for those who want to gloss over the hard parts of diversity (i.e., actually being different).

I bet the lesson those students learned as a result of this experience is not the lesson anyone wanted them to learn, but it does confirm some of the worst reports about how college is more about indoctrination to specific worldview instead of really being about education that will help people from very modest beginnings move into the middle class.

[RatGuy]

I haven't read the speaker's book, so I can't comment on that so much. The reports I've read only seem to include the back-and-forth from the angry student and the speaker. I'm not sure that soundbite is particularly flattering for either party. I'm reminded of the time that a student complained that Frederick Douglass was "racist against white people," and that by assigning his Narrative in an American Literature survey must mean that I'm similarly anti-white. At the time, there was a billboard at my exit off the interstate that read "Diversity is just a code word for White Genocide," so maybe one slave writer in a survey of 19th-century writers was too many for my students.

[Caracal]

[

The book might have been a touching story about how hard it is to go to college away from one's family into a strange place.  The question that still remains is why was this particular book assigned instead of one of the ones that would resonate with the audience?  It's asking a lot to have people put themselves into her shoes when their own lives are not easy.

It is? I ask my students to put themselves in other people's shoes all the time. If anything, a book like this might resonate well with students, who could see parallels to their own lives, as well as important differences.

I'm a bit skeptical of these common book initiatives, mostly just because I think you'd have to set up a more robust infrastructure around it than colleges generally are willing to do to make it particularly worthwhile. But, do you really think that students need years of college before they can be trusted to read a book about someone from a different background than themselves going to college.

Also, I can't help but notice the way you reflexively put yourself in the position of white students. What about the third or so of Ga. Southern students who are people of color? Nobody needs to worry too much about their experience and someone should have just selected a book about upper middle class white people because that's the average Ga. Southern student?

[nebo113]

polly_mer  ....  Kinda like how an academic elite refers to locating server farms in Podunk!?!?!

I pushed on nebo113 particularly because the problem was indeed some very privileged person by all measures except a couple checkboxes came to tell a bunch of underprivileged people that being white and male is such an advantage that they must feel her pain and ignore any of their own pain that is just as real and just as caused by the system.

[polly_mer]

polly_mer  ....  Kinda like how an academic elite refers to locating server farms in Podunk!?!?!

I pushed on nebo113 particularly because the problem was indeed some very privileged person by all measures except a couple checkboxes came to tell a bunch of underprivileged people that being white and male is such an advantage that they must feel her pain and ignore any of their own pain that is just as real and just as caused by the system.

Yep, academic elite, that's me.  That rural Wisconsin public school education (I remember when the stoplight went in because I was in high school) took me to an engineering school in the big city of 10k people with a total enrollment of 2k people.  I spent much of my 20s in a village of 500 people that was 30 miles from the bustling metropolis of 10k, when the road was open.  I spent much of my thirties teaching in Appalachia and the cornfields. 

I currently live in a booming metropolis of 10k people that is surrounded by tribal lands with as poor as anyone gets in America, even though the city itself is well off because almost everyone is an import.

Thus, I do stand up for the people like me and my family as the poor white folks who don't want that professional life in the city that denigrates our experiences.  Podunk is a mark of honor for some of us as is hillbilly and being called white trash by those who want to eliminate our way of life.  The stark reality doesn't care whether you like it or that, per Caracal's post, the intention in classes designed enforce diversity that neglects our experience in favor of others was good, just poorly executed.

I would like to hear more about how "shut up" is really a better argument than burning books, since we're just academic elites here shooting the breeze.

[marshwiggle]

Yep, academic elite, that's me.  That rural Wisconsin public school education (I remember when the stoplight went in because I was in high school) took me to an engineering school in the big city of 10k people with a total enrollment of 2k people.  I spent much of my 20s in a village of 500 people that was 30 miles from the bustling metropolis of 10k, when the road was open.  I spent much of my thirties teaching in Appalachia and the cornfields. 

You hick. I grew up in a town of 5600, and was bused 20 miles to high school in a town of 12000. Then I attended  university in a different province in a metropolis of 40000.

I currently live in a booming metropolis of 10k people that is surrounded by tribal lands with as poor as anyone gets in America, even though the city itself is well off because almost everyone is an import.

Thus, I do stand up for the people like me and my family as the poor white folks who don't want that professional life in the city that denigrates our experiences.

I have a vacation property in an area where the whole county has about 2500 residents, many of whom are in primary industries. The degree of ignorance of urban dwellers to everyday life for ordinary people in the country is pretty epic.

[Hegemony]

I agree that this was a really ill-conceived approach.  Undoubtedly it would be great if certain groups could read about a marginalized group and put themselves immediately in their shoes and not be irked that some would assume that they themselves are privileged and free of troubles and oppression.  But that's not actually the way it works. Being told "X is racist, Y is classist, those are the primary problems in society" is liable to be unpersuasive unless approached in a very careful, thoughtful way.  Even if it "shouldn't" need to be.  I think these problems were entirely predictable by anyone with perspective.  Pretty much a disaster all round.

[marshwiggle]

I agree that this was a really ill-conceived approach.  Undoubtedly it would be great if certain groups could read about a marginalized group and put themselves immediately in their shoes and not be irked that some would assume that they themselves are privileged and free of troubles and oppression.  But that's not actually the way it works. Being told "X is racist, Y is classist, those are the primary problems in society" is liable to be unpersuasive unless approached in a very careful, thoughtful way.  Even if it "shouldn't" need to be.  I think these problems were entirely predictable by anyone with perspective.  Pretty much a disaster all round.

One of the big problems with identity politics is that it is assumed that people are totally incapable of putting themselves in another's shoes and attempting to do so is condescending and oppressive. Thus "discussion" just amounts to one person speaking and everyone else being expected to shut up.

[Hibush]

If you wish to apply the term "Podunk" to your own environment, you are free to do so.  However, please don't suggest that applying it to others is appropriate.  It, along with hillbilly, redneck, and n***er are pejorative.

You will find plenty of Podunk pride at epodunk.com, on the web since the last century.

[nebo113]

If you wish to apply the term "Podunk" to your own environment, you are free to do so.  However, please don't suggest that applying it to others is appropriate.  It, along with hillbilly, redneck, and n***er are pejorative.

You will find plenty of Podunk pride at epodunk.com, on the web since the last century.

I am proud to have deep hillbilly roots, but I'd prefer that anyone who is not from Appalachia apply that term to me.

[polly_mer]

I'm giving up on the quote function that someone managled and then is clearly missing some posts.

What do you want, Nebo113?

What is the path forward here for those in the rural areas who are often neglected in discussions of underprivileged people because rural poor is different from urban poor?

By path forward, I mean how do we change our institutions of higher learning to accept everyone, not just the ones with the currently popular stories?

How do we get plans in place by politicians and others to support the rural way of life by ensuring that we don't have ghost towns surrounded by people living off the grid as their only choice?

It's hard to ignore people who are burning books while it's easy to ignore those who just quietly shut up and went away.  Do we really want people to quietly go away because they aren't welcome?  Is that really the way to deal with the rural poor problem?

[Caracal]

It's hard to ignore people who are burning books while it's easy to ignore those who just quietly shut up and went away.  Do we really want people to quietly go away because they aren't welcome?  Is that really the way to deal with the rural poor problem?

I really don't think the people burning the books are the rural poor. If you look at the actual demographics of Georgia Southern, that doesn't describe most of the students who go there.

[polly_mer]

It's hard to ignore people who are burning books while it's easy to ignore those who just quietly shut up and went away.  Do we really want people to quietly go away because they aren't welcome?  Is that really the way to deal with the rural poor problem?

I really don't think the people burning the books are the rural poor. If you look at the actual demographics of Georgia Southern, that doesn't describe most of the students who go there.

OK.  Who is burning books and what must be done to address their concerns?

[Hibush]

It's hard to ignore people who are burning books while it's easy to ignore those who just quietly shut up and went away.  Do we really want people to quietly go away because they aren't welcome?  Is that really the way to deal with the rural poor problem?

I really don't think the people burning the books are the rural poor. If you look at the actual demographics of Georgia Southern, that doesn't describe most of the students who go there.

OK.  Who is burning books and what must be done to address their concerns?

The rural poor generally burn cheaper fuel. Some used books are about the same cost per ton as cord wood, but shipping from the warehouses makes that uneconomical.

The demonstrations where people burn books they bought new, are by those who feel offended by the author, but have trouble getting the metaphor right. But the act seems meaningful enough to some reporters and editors to get them in the paper, and the confused message is not a hindrance to coverage.