I have a few stories about racism in Economics academe, but one sticks out, and in light of the discussion of racism in our profession, I thought I'd share it today. Buckle up. 1/n #cdnecon #Econtwitter
Many years ago, a friend kindly asked me to chair a session at the ASSA meetings. In it were two notable papers (the third was less controversial): the first posited a genetic explanation for cross-country development differences.... 2/n
The second examined the current regional differences in Anti-Semitism in a certain European country and their relation to pre-1945 patterns of anti-Semitism. The session had a number of the long-run growth/economic growth glitterati in attendance. 3/n #cdnecon
The first paper passed through with much less comment than I expected. No one raised any objections based on the constructions of genetic groupings, or epigenetics. 4/n #cdnecon #econtwitter
There was amazingly no discussion of why this paper was different from the horrific literature tying underdevelopment to "genetic" differences across populations. 5/n #cdnecon #econtwitter
The only discussion of any controversy was a laugh shared by the author and one of the authors of the second paper, in which they ridiculed a denunciation of the first paper as racist (FWIW, the paper was one of those, "just asking questions" type). 6/n #cdnecon #EconTwitter
The second paper was relatively unobjectionable, tbh, until we got to the questions and discussion. One of the audience members questioned the idea of Anti-Semitism as a general measure of racism today, and suggested Islamophobia might be better 7/n #cdnecon #econtwitter
This elicited a heated response from one of the authors, who said Islamophobia in that particular European country was not about racism, but about the "the fear of the introduction of Sharia law, the wearing of the burqa, and the presence of madrasas." 8/n #cdnecon #econtwitter
I am not religious, at all, but I am a Muslim, and a POC, and at this point I was about to blow a gasket. But it got better.... The discussant to the paper then interjected on the need to distinguish between real racism (anti-Semitism , I suppose).... 9/n #cdnecon #econtwitter
... and other forms of prejudice. For example, he would be very upset if his child dated someone from a particular background, but that didn't make him a racist.... I kid you not. 10/n #cdnecon #econtwitter
This man was prepared to judge the individual dating his child based on the perceived characteristics of that person's ethnic group, but oh no, he wasn't a racist. Oh, I forgot to mention, he is one of leading economic historians in the world 11/n #cdnecon #econtwitter
At that point, I wanted to scream at him, "Dude, that's the definition of racism." But I said nothing. No one said anything. We exchanged pleasantries, and went on our way. 12/n
Those of you who know me in IRL, know that I don't back away from fights like these, usually. But I did here, for a number of reasons. The first, I'm embarrassed to say, was that I was intimidated. 12/n #cdnecon #EconTwitter
I was, and still am, a nobody in economics academia. At the time, I still had dreams of being a somebody, and I'd be calling out some of the top people in my field (author of paper 1, authors of paper 2, and the discussant of paper 2. 13/n #cdnecon #EconTwitter
I had also just been through a bruising tenure battle, where I had undoubtedly been targeted for being uppity. I had no energy for the fight. 14/n
And, I didn't want to create an awkward scene for my friend, who had been consistently generous to me, and who worked more closely with these people. 15/n
But I am still upset at myself for not speaking up. There was a group of the most powerful men in the field (yes, they were all men, and all but one was White), the legitimators of knowledge, and they displayed their prejudices callously, even shamelessly. 16/n
I doubt I'd have changed their minds, but they needed to feel uncomfortable, even if it was just for a few minutes. FIN
