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Tressie McMillan Cottom Profile picture
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15 Apr, 5 tweets, 1 min read
I have serious decision fatigue. Every time someone asks me ANOTHER DAMN QUESTION I have to breathe so I don't snap. No one is *wrong*, I'm just tired.
Anyway, the absolute kindest thing you could do for me - if we have that kind of relationship - is to just take care of whatever it is yourself and tell me about it later. I would truly appreciate it!
These details on the most efficient and kindest way to get something to me might help! tressiemc.com/contact/
Sometimes it helps me be kind to you too if you accept slightly less direct engagement in exchange for me actually helping you with your request. This helps me do that.
I just spent like 7 hours responding to messages, big and small. Thus this thread.

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More from @tressiemcphd

Tressie McMillan Cottom Profile picture
16 Apr
I wish every educator did this. Being a devil's advocate makes the discourse poorer and thinner and cheaper. You think you are being Robin Williams in Dead Poet's Society with some carbon copy of the socratic method. In reality, you are a Reddit reply-guy soldier an info war.
Learning to evaluate arguments is a skill. Learning to teach other people how to evaluate arguments is a meta-skill. You likely do not have the skill to do that and you certainly are not doing it in the architecture of media/platforms that does not allow that kind of skill.
A few notes on invoking 1) high school debate and 2) OED. 1) Ask any teacher who ACTUALLY teaches high school debate how much prep work and management it takes to establish an environment conducive to "devil's advocate" argumentation. Then ask yourself if you do that.
Read 6 tweets
Tressie McMillan Cottom Profile picture
14 Apr
This is a very generative discussion. So, “social class” is supposed to resolve some of these tensions but it is worth asking if it does that for us in practice. It may have become too flat for a really dynamic process.
I have hoped that sociology would evolve this vocabulary by seriously theorizing platforms and power and race. Not that this other only use case. But I think its the best use case right now.
I won’t shamelessly plug my review article on platform capitalism and racial capitalism here but I can if you make me by behaving badly.
Read 5 tweets
Tressie McMillan Cottom Profile picture
12 Apr
Either I just bombed this lecture on racial extraction, HBCU funding, UNC system expropriation and knowledge production platforms like Elsevier or I just scared the tee-total ish out of everybody. Because it was QUIET. Time will tell.
My shorter point is that debates about big uni systems cancelling Elsevier contracts obscures how even being able to have the debate obscures institutional privileges that necessitate extraction from non-white institutions & OA doesn’t address that, only introduces new politics
And now that I type it out, it’s a lot. Probably should just do this one thing all semester next time
Read 4 tweets
Tressie McMillan Cottom Profile picture
9 Apr
Follow up questions on the internet, lord help me. I said “if you have leads on housing please share in comments”. So far it’s just people asking follow ups that don’t matter: “what do they want? Are they tall? Rent or buy or lease??” Just name the lead & stop pre-vetting
And if you answer the follow up? You almost always find that the person has no info to share. They just wanted to ask a question. Why are humans?
As I have said before, the problem with a mediated public is that people internalize that if they aren’t speaking then they don’t exist. So they just say nonsense.
Read 4 tweets
Tressie McMillan Cottom Profile picture
8 Apr
These are all great. What an assignment! I am honored to be a part of it. And, now, I will read each prompt again:
"I wish I could say I’m from the woods but that came later." is a very fine first sentence. I smiled.
Painting a picture is one thing. Painting an impression of a mood is another! This does that very well:

"The wildlife living in those woods always seemed to be off, just like the rest of the area. It was whimsical and also the furthest thing from it. "
Read 9 tweets
Tressie McMillan Cottom Profile picture
7 Apr
The higher education project is pretty much done anyway but these silly bills to catch liberal commie profs on tape so students can sue for encountering an idea is about what we deserve.
They won’t bother me because I just won’t teach anything lol
More seriously, these ideas just compound the geographic isolation of public institutions that are going to struggle in a polarized higher Ed field. Iowa, Florida etc. those institutions don’t need branding as unserious and yet that’s what they’re angling for
Read 5 tweets

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