=giant sigh= STOP BEING MORONS
Anyway who threatened violence against someon is of course wrong. But legitimate outrage over that ridiculous piece of Gale's is completely acceptable. Don't lump the extreme s in with the reasonably concerned.
There's no excuse for idiotic attempts to justify legitimate criticism and critique of race, gender, and other diversity issues within the institution of writer-hood, especially in publishing and AWP. So! Stop acting and asserting otherwise. It's maddeningly ignorant.
Carol Muske-Dukes doesn't think so. So she blathereed some idiotic things on HuffPo.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carol-muskedukes/gale-force_b_8101576.html
The better thing is everyone's exasperated reaction, though. It's dumb and almost Theater of the Absurd at this point. Except for the fact that this mindset has real-world truly detrimental reverberations. =giant sigh=
Follow-up: This EXCELLENT reply in the comments section needs to be preserved for posterity. Thanks Alyss Dixon!
Anyway who threatened violence against someon is of course wrong. But legitimate outrage over that ridiculous piece of Gale's is completely acceptable. Don't lump the extreme s in with the reasonably concerned.
There's no excuse for idiotic attempts to justify legitimate criticism and critique of race, gender, and other diversity issues within the institution of writer-hood, especially in publishing and AWP. So! Stop acting and asserting otherwise. It's maddeningly ignorant.
Carol Muske-Dukes doesn't think so. So she blathereed some idiotic things on HuffPo.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carol-muskedukes/gale-force_b_8101576.html
The better thing is everyone's exasperated reaction, though. It's dumb and almost Theater of the Absurd at this point. Except for the fact that this mindset has real-world truly detrimental reverberations. =giant sigh=
Follow-up: This EXCELLENT reply in the comments section needs to be preserved for posterity. Thanks Alyss Dixon!
Alyss DixsonThis is a hash of ideas regarding what it means to be a member of a dynamic heterogenous community. You've managed to confuse actual adults with a concern about those holding authority in a major professional conference with academic policies enforced in various ways across a diverse pool of universities and colleges. None which have anything to do with Kate Gale who is neither a comedian nor an academic.
1) Free Speech refers to the constitutional right of a press to publish without interference from the State. No one condemning Gale's statement has the Federal or State authority to prevent her from publishing. Making abhorrent statements that are rejected by your intended audience and the people you purport to advocate for, however, can and should be openly discussed by same. It's actually a suppression of freedom of opinion to condemn this.
2) "PC" and many of the other terms and references you use are relics of culture wars propogated by Newt Gingrich, et al. during their battle against progressivism. I'm not going to comment on anyone wanting to align themselves with those particular Republicans, however, it would behoove you to perhaps read some current scholarship and cultural commentary. Even "cute Jewish girls", like Sarah Silverman, for instance, have internal bias against other ethnic, social and gender-orientation groups. Shocking, I know. That isn't to say that there can't be common ground, conflict resolution or understanding, but it is to say that those things aren't going to be found at the end of the barrel of offense. You don't get to shoot first and duck questions later.
3) The Atlantic has its own problematic relationship with diversity and inclusiveness. Please check out their VIDA Count statistics.
4) Please research the diverse strategies people use in rhetorical arguments and civil rights movements. By conflating those who use violent language with ISIS (which is a particular brand of hysterical White fear rampant in the more parochial reaches of the internet) and with the legitimate concerns and critiques of the many other commenters about Gale's statement, you reveal your own lack of nuance and understanding of the issues at play here. This is precisely the sort of unsophisticated response that reinforces group bias and bigotry: by creating a faceless, savage, unreasonable, irrational "them" the in-group can rally around a shared set of values, dismiss critique and devalue the harm that has been done.
The best way to move forward on this issue is to stop debating whether or not Gale had the "right" to freely express herself: she does, did and will continue to enjoy that under our Constitution. As do her detractors. What's at issue is what happens next. How do we create an inclusive community that can recover from these missteps? It's not by sending out agents to strong-arm, threaten or dismiss. That's how you draw battle lines. It's not by tossing out incendiary rhetoric full of hyperbolic jingoism. Those are fighting words. Whatever urge, phone call, emotional appeal or other sense of duty and mission sent you out here on this slender branch of a blog post to malign an entire community response while defending the indefenisble (as evidence by Gale's own retraction and subsequent responses), please redirect that energy to community building. That's the fight we need.
2) "PC" and many of the other terms and references you use are relics of culture wars propogated by Newt Gingrich, et al. during their battle against progressivism. I'm not going to comment on anyone wanting to align themselves with those particular Republicans, however, it would behoove you to perhaps read some current scholarship and cultural commentary. Even "cute Jewish girls", like Sarah Silverman, for instance, have internal bias against other ethnic, social and gender-orientation groups. Shocking, I know. That isn't to say that there can't be common ground, conflict resolution or understanding, but it is to say that those things aren't going to be found at the end of the barrel of offense. You don't get to shoot first and duck questions later.
3) The Atlantic has its own problematic relationship with diversity and inclusiveness. Please check out their VIDA Count statistics.
4) Please research the diverse strategies people use in rhetorical arguments and civil rights movements. By conflating those who use violent language with ISIS (which is a particular brand of hysterical White fear rampant in the more parochial reaches of the internet) and with the legitimate concerns and critiques of the many other commenters about Gale's statement, you reveal your own lack of nuance and understanding of the issues at play here. This is precisely the sort of unsophisticated response that reinforces group bias and bigotry: by creating a faceless, savage, unreasonable, irrational "them" the in-group can rally around a shared set of values, dismiss critique and devalue the harm that has been done.
The best way to move forward on this issue is to stop debating whether or not Gale had the "right" to freely express herself: she does, did and will continue to enjoy that under our Constitution. As do her detractors. What's at issue is what happens next. How do we create an inclusive community that can recover from these missteps? It's not by sending out agents to strong-arm, threaten or dismiss. That's how you draw battle lines. It's not by tossing out incendiary rhetoric full of hyperbolic jingoism. Those are fighting words. Whatever urge, phone call, emotional appeal or other sense of duty and mission sent you out here on this slender branch of a blog post to malign an entire community response while defending the indefenisble (as evidence by Gale's own retraction and subsequent responses), please redirect that energy to community building. That's the fight we need.