I wrote 250 pgs of my dissertation on this topic and finally walked away in frustration in 2011 b/c of how difficult it was to get this message across in a way my advisors saw as valid. nytimes.com/2021/02/13/opi…
I remember one prof I particularly don’t care for telling me that if I couldn’t reduce my argument to a linear diagram I didn’t have an argument.
Another, who I thought would be more sympathetic, dismissed me by asking if NGOs and int’l “emergencies” weren’t “very 1990s” and therefore out of fashion to study.
They saw the qualitative data I had amassed after spending months in villages in Malawi as anecdotal and wanted me to do more engagement with the theory. I told them my data showed the theory was shit. I wasn’t their fave student.
There’s so much more that needs to be addressed than this op-ed can begin to touch on. And this conversation has been a long-running one within the field itself.
And it’s been an even longer one on the ground in communities where folks are hyper-aware of exactly how they are seen/used and just how counterproductive and harmful so many of these “aid” programs are.
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Some important new details that raise questions about a) why it took a bunch of teens of privilege to raise the alarm about McNeil and b) why the NYT continues to think Ben Smith is the one who should be reporting on the intersection of race and media
It's not surprising that the guy who dedicated a column to why he wouldn't stop reading Andrew Sullivan despite the man's affinity for race science and his overt bigotry would write this, but it's still surprising that he has this job.
it's wild to me, too, because Ofcr. Deon Joseph chronicled just how low COVID laid him on twitter. there are folks within the dept. that understand how serious the disease is.
LASD recently participated in a SEB tactical medicine training with agencies from around the state. It was a ***medical*** training. The accompanying tweet w/ these photos said "Saving Lives Priority 1". They were proud til I called the masklessness out...
the very first public comment was a #notallwhitepeople statement from Steve Sann who wanted credit for white people helping elect Tom Bradley to mayor back in the day.
folks have *1 minute* to offer comment on how their communities are being impacted by complex historical processes. which meant that Tim Watkins was cut off while talking abt Watts' challenges while white westsiders are calling in to complain about being gentrified by tall bldgs.
a woman calling from Crenshaw was trying to explain some of the ways which folks are being pushed out of the area and was cut off midway through.
South L.A., this is starting now... they just asked listeners to guess how many uses of force there were last year like it was a quiz show. [I'm recording it and only tuning in and out while working on something else, but that caught my ear.]
Now they're quizzing listeners on how many times they used force when dealing with folks having some sort of mental health or nonviolent emergency (e.g. were inebriated).
I get what they're doing - trying to constrast folks' expectations of uses of force with the number of encounters they have and how many times force is actually used to suggest they practice great restraint.
While taking Fox apart in a column last week, the NYT's media columnist Ben Smith snuck in a couple of paragraphs decrying the beating up of "well-intentioned journalists" who inadvertently/naively helped uphold white supremacy. Reader, this does not feel well-intentioned.
Back in the 90s, while prepping to teach World Hist. & Spanish at an "independent" HS in a conservative town, I was explicitly told by staff that using words like "multiculturalism" would result in an avalanche of ☎️ from irate parents. This sh*t isn't new or mysterious.
I am disappointed in myself for having looked at that 1776 doc. But I did appreciate the guffaw I got out of the idea that we'd have a kindler, gentler society if women & BIPOC folks had just been satisfied w/ having rights in theory and not demanded rights in practice.
The head of the commission that put together this 1776 doc, btw, is Larry Arnn who, while testifying against the Common Core complained abt a letter declaring his college to have violated diversity standards & referred to non-white students as "dark ones": huffpost.com/entry/larry-ar…
He didn't apologize for it right away, and doubled down instead.