1) A searching thread on how to advocate for people in less advantaged positions than mine. I.e. I’m asking for *your* thoughts and advice, no matter who you are, not offering mine. The issue that prompted this for me is …
2) I read as approachable in a lot of ways but also as someone with the privilege to stand up to people. [Both are for the most part true.] So I’m a go-to person for a lot of students and contingent colleagues who’ve been ignored by those who are supposed to hep them. …
3) I also have a very particular sense of justice, bordering on pathological, which means I honestly relish righting wrongs. I mean, I wrote a book on Don Quixote and that wasn’t an accident. But here’s a snag:
4) One of the types of advocacy I tend to excel at is what I’d call litigious advocacy, or making arguments to people in charge that force them to concede either that they’re wrong or that they’re unprincipled. This is, among other things, a tone, a voice, and a degree of license
5) that people expect from someone who looks like me, but also that a tenured person can get away with, but also which many of the people I’m advocating for wouldn’t find comfortable to assume. Hence my advice sometimes has those limits. I’ve discussed this at length with …
6) my partner, a first-gen / refugee / WoC PhD student, and her view is essentially ‘yes, but if you hadn’t shown me an email written that way I wouldn’t have had access to that or thought it possible.’ At the same time, I understand that it’s not comfortable for everyone to …
7) Write that way to another person, particularly a person in charge. So I’m curious about what other forms of support people would value in situations in which e.g. a disabled student is being pushed around by their college, or an advisor won’t read their student’s work, etc.?
8) Ie I recognize my first instinct is often to be like ‘I’ll just push them till they break in your favor,’ but that’s not a sustainable solution. /end
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
