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THE LIFE OF A BLACK PROFESSOR IN AMERICA-Prof. George Yancy says it’s an ugly nightmare. Is it?
Frontpagemagazine ^ | May 9, 2018 | Jack Kerwick

Posted on 05/09/2018 5:19:03 AM PDT by SJackson

White racism must be everywhere for the Racism-Industrial-Complex to function

George Yancy is a black professor of philosophy at Emory University whose research interests are almost entirely racially-oriented.

Recently, he published an essay in The Chronicle of Higher Education entitled, “The Ugly Truth of Being a Black Professor in America.” 

In response to “Dear White America,” an op-ed that Yancy had published in The New York Times and in which he implored whites—all whites—to accept that they are “racist,” Yancy claims in his most recent editorial to have been besieged by emails, letters, and phone messages filled with “racist hatred.” 

On December 24, 2015, Yancy warned his white audience that being “neither a ‘good’ white person nor a liberal white person will get you off the proverbial hook” for “the ways in which you perpetuate a racist society, the ways in which you are racist.”  Whites must “face” the “racist history which…has formed” their “own racism” and do “battle with” their “white self” by acknowledging “the racist poison that is inside” of them.

A few responses are in order here.

First, assuming that Yancy truthfully reproduced in his most recent essay the messages that he claims to have received in the wake of “Dear White America,” such messages must be condemned by the decent.  They were indeed virulent.

Second, while it is certainly understandable that Yancy should be upset by the ugliness of the messages with which he claims to have been bombarded, he must assume responsibility for angering a good number of white people who, justifiably, take offense at his proclamation that they are all “racist.”  The latter, after all, is among the most serious of charges of which a white person can be convicted today in the court of public opinion. 

Third, the Yancys of the world—leftist “anti-racists” generally, black “anti-racists” specifically—most definitely do not take responsibility for the quality of either race relations or, for that matter, their own lives.   

From Yancy’s vantage point, all that is wrong in black America is the fault of white people and, even when things go not so badly—like when a black man is hired to make a lucrative living teaching philosophy at a prestigious American university and writing tirelessly about the “racism” of the white majority—things could still have been better had it not been for this “racism.”

Fourth, Yancy claims to have written his open letter in a spirit of “love.”  But as is known by anyone and everyone who has ever been in a loving relationship, a relationship in which one party is forever accusing the other of being, in effect, a moral inferior, of being the reason for all of the sufferings and hardships that the accuser has been made to endure, is most emphatically not a loving relationship.

It is an abusive relationship, an oppressive relationship.  One could even argue that it is a hateful relationship. 

Outside of politics, we have no difficulties recognizing this.

Fifth, though my suspicion is that Yancy knows all of this, I can’t be sure.  To be truthful, I am more disposed to pity Professor Yancy than I am to be angry with him.    

A left-leaning, white male colleague of mine said to me that no one has a right to judge Yancy on the emotions that he expresses in “The Ugly Truth of Being a Black Professor in America.” I suggested in return that perhaps we do have such a right. 

Yancy, along with many others (like my colleague), look upon emotions as the products of “triggering” events.  Yet while the latter certainly contribute to some extent to the production of feelings, one of the most influential psychologists of all time, Albert Ellis, is among those who insist that it is actually a person’s beliefs or thoughts about the events that bear directly upon the feelings that ensue. 

Ellis’s approach is certainly not the last word.  There is, though, definitely something to the idea—endorsed by, among others, the classical Stoics, Holocaust survivor and psychiatrist, Victor Frankl, and Cognitive Therapy founder, Aaron T. Beck—that it is our interpretations of events that are productive of the emotions that follow.

And interpretations—thoughts, beliefs—are susceptible to criticism, for they are either rational or irrational.

Professor Yancy, I submit, is at once a product and purveyor of a comprehensive narrative, an ideological creed that serves as the pretext for the Racism-Industrial-Complex (RIC), a sprawling industry, especially salient in academia, with vast psychic, material, and professional rewards for those, like Yancy, who perpetuate it.

Yancy, a black American male, must see and portray himself as a perpetual victim of White Racism.  His professional life and social standing depend upon it.  So, to legitimize the benefits that he reaps from assuming the persona of a victim, Yancy has imbibed an all-encompassing narrative of Black Suffering and White Supremacist Oppression, a conceptual lens through which his experiences are filtered and shaped.

Thus, Yancy sees, and has no option but to see, white “racism” everywhere: Whether it is good white “liberals” like those whom Yancy meant to address in “Dear White America,” those whites who responded angrily and offensively to the latter, or those whites who self-identify as Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi members, every white person is a “racist” to Professor Yancy.

So, George Yancy is not entitled to emote as he does about being a black professor in America, for his emotions are rooted in (and, in turn, reinforce) beliefs regarding race relations and his own station in life that, in addition to serving his professional, economic, and psychic interests, are rationally unwarranted.

His place in the Racism-Industrial-Complex secured, though, I suspect that Yancy will continue to find “racism” in every nook and cranny of the cosmos. 

 

 

 


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: academia; academicbias; culture; education; nuttyprofessor; racism; yancy
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1 posted on 05/09/2018 5:19:03 AM PDT by SJackson
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To: SJackson

I posit that this man is a statistical outlier on the Bell Curve.

His hatred for Western Civilization seems pretty mainstream for his demographic, however.


2 posted on 05/09/2018 5:22:30 AM PDT by T-Bone Texan (Idiocracy is here, and it votes democrat.)
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To: SJackson

People do emigrate from the US, Perfesser

Try it, you’ll like it


3 posted on 05/09/2018 5:24:20 AM PDT by A_Former_Democrat (Hey brainwashed students . . . where's your "outrage" @FBI? @BrowardSheriff? DO SOMETHING!!)
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To: SJackson
On December 24, 2015, Yancy warned his white audience that being “neither a ‘good’ white person nor a liberal white person will get you off the proverbial hook” for “the ways in which you perpetuate a racist society, the ways in which you are racist.” Whites must “face” the “racist history which…has formed” their “own racism” and do “battle with” their “white self” by acknowledging “the racist poison that is inside” of them.

Imagine Yancy being told by some hardcore liberal feminist that even being a liberal male will not get him off the hook, all men are rapists inside, it's a rapist society, they are all benefiting from the fear women have of rape, and they must spend their lives in guilt and shame for their rapist tendencies (and the fact that they never raped anyone matters nought; all men are rapists.)

That collective guilt is far less appealing to black men when it puts them on the wrong side. And men have been raping women way longer than whites have been doing whatever to blacks.

4 posted on 05/09/2018 5:25:42 AM PDT by A_perfect_lady
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To: SJackson

If he thinks he has it tough he should try making it through life on merit.


5 posted on 05/09/2018 5:26:09 AM PDT by utax
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To: A_perfect_lady

The hook?

I am not on any hook.

This is a hook in the clowns mind.

Not in reality.


6 posted on 05/09/2018 5:28:58 AM PDT by Chickensoup (Leftists today are speaking as if they plan to commence to commit genocide against conservatives.)
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To: SJackson

If you look hard enough for sexism, racism, bigotry, etc., you’ll eventually find it—Even if you have to make it up.


7 posted on 05/09/2018 5:29:17 AM PDT by Arm_Bears (Hey, Rocky--Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!)
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To: SJackson

The whole “Racism-Industrial-Complex” rests upon two assertions:
(1) that racism is one of the most evil things in the world, and all people have a duty to oppose it, and
(2) that thinking that there are statistically significant differences in average levels of abilities among different ethnic and racial groups is racist.

What happens when white people say “screw it, I don’t care any more”?


8 posted on 05/09/2018 5:33:53 AM PDT by PapaBear3625 (Big governent is attractive to those who think that THEY will be in control of it.)
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To: SJackson

“professor of philosophy”

I stopped right there. In an age where sex and sexuality are determined by a person’s thoughts at a given moment, a “professor of philosophy” would be hard-pressed to convince me of anything.

Professor: All white people are racist
Me: Maybe there are no white people so therefore no racists


9 posted on 05/09/2018 5:35:20 AM PDT by AppyPappy (Don't mistake your dorm political discussions with the desires of the nation)
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To: SJackson

Life is too short to spend time worrying about the fool.


10 posted on 05/09/2018 5:39:47 AM PDT by subterfuge (RIP T.P.)
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To: SJackson

He’s a Black guy living in Atlanta. He’s got no problems. He needs to shut up.


11 posted on 05/09/2018 5:40:39 AM PDT by TallahasseeConservative (Isaiah 40:31)
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To: SJackson

I would like to see a headline that reads:

The life of a CONSERVATIVE Professor.


12 posted on 05/09/2018 5:41:40 AM PDT by Maris Crane
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To: SJackson
assuming that Yancy truthfully reproduced in his most recent essay the messages that he claims to have received

We can stop right there. I'm willing to make no such assumption since all of these career racist profiteers are inherently dishonest and perpetuate the racist myth for profit.

Blacks are racist. And they get rewarded for it. What percentage of blacks voted for the Great Deceiver for POTUS? What credentials did he have? That's proof that they voted for him simply because he's part black and proof they're racist.

13 posted on 05/09/2018 5:42:41 AM PDT by LouAvul (The most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.)
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To: SJackson

Why is the solution (which was never really discussed in the article) always on the white side of the fence? Do blacks have NO responsibility for their situation or condition?

Now the big question, can a question be racist? Or is it just a question.


14 posted on 05/09/2018 5:44:16 AM PDT by super7man (Madam Defarge, knitting, knitting, always knitting)
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To: SJackson
The guy has a very well-paid, light-work-demand position with exceptional benefits in an academic field of questionable value to society. He complains about racism. Sheesh! He is more well-off in many ways than 99% of the population. Get a life, you privileged jerko.
15 posted on 05/09/2018 5:52:59 AM PDT by hal ogen (First Amendment or Reeducation Camp?)
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To: A_Former_Democrat

People do emigrate from the US, Perfesser

Try it, you’ll like it

Liberia is nice this time of year or perhaps the Congo, if Liberia is too civilized. South Africa is warming up and could present even better opportunities than Zimbabwe or Botswana.


16 posted on 05/09/2018 5:56:59 AM PDT by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now it is your turn ...)
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To: SJackson

If I thought living the US were an ugly nightmare, I’d leave it. Cost of a plane ticket.


17 posted on 05/09/2018 6:00:50 AM PDT by rightwingcrazy
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To: SJackson
Nothing new under the sun.

Booker T. Washington (1865–1915) warned of such people within the black community in his 1911 book My Larger Education. He described them as “problem profiteers”:

“There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs – partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.” (p. 118)

18 posted on 05/09/2018 6:02:25 AM PDT by super7man (Madam Defarge, knitting, knitting, always knitting)
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To: SJackson

Yancy is projecting.

Until these black race hustlers face up to the fact that racism is endemic among blacks little progress can be made in race relations.


19 posted on 05/09/2018 6:07:18 AM PDT by SharpRightTurn (Chuck Schumer--giving pond scum everywhere a bad name.)
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To: T-Bone Texan

Depends on the Bell Curve.


20 posted on 05/09/2018 6:17:58 AM PDT by ealgeone
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