Things I've Learned Over the Past Few Days

The race is not given to the swift...

Last week I “discovered” that the measure of a good professional academic is not the same as the measure of a good student. Being a good academic is about sustained effort; it is about labor.

We’ve been taught to believe there is an inverse relationship between talent and labor; the more talented a person is, the less s/he has to labor. The trick, then, has been to find a way to profit from one’s talents, which come easy. A labor intensive life indicated some failure to profit from one’s certain talents. Said failure may be due to ignorance of one’s talents and how to maximize them, some social impediment (e.g. racism, sexism), or some other barrier.

For me, that errant teaching has produced a great deal of frustration and self-doubt for some time now. There is any number of things that I simply did not pursue because deep-down I believed that if it did not come easy, it was not right. Fortunately, I have always been a very good student. Academia has always come easy to me, and I figured I was lucky federal laws mandating school attendance effectively forced me into my talent-field.

I advanced through high school and college mostly on talent alone. Somewhere in elementary school, I figured out that an 80% effort and a 100% effort earned me the same grade. Giving that extra 20% didn’t make any sense, so I stopped doing it. Now, that has to change. But the shift is not a matter of increasing my work ethic so much as figuring out the rules of the game. The extra 20% isn't in the extra thought like is was in grade school and college.  The extra 20% must go to post-creation labor.

Being a good academic is not about talent, at least not for me. Everyone here is talented. Being good at this is about polish. It is about bearing down and really exhausting every data source. It is about going back over my writing 4 or 5 times, taking others’ criticisms, and reworking every paragraph again to make every thought as clear and potent as possible. It is not about the ease of thought anymore. No one cares how long it took me to think of something or write it. They only care how meaningful and well-supported the thoughts are. My worth as an academic does not depend on my nerd-whit and debating skills; it depends on my humility and willingness to slowly work through every issue.

For years now, I have been increasingly stressed and frustrated because I did not think I measured up. I have honestly considered giving up and finding another line of work. If not for my friend, Daniel Delgado, bluntly defining my alternate plans as “self sabotage,” I would never have confronted this issue. Speed has been a large part of my self esteem. Now I realize that speed is of little use and importance. My career will be largely defined by my level of dedication to perfect each project and my courage to confront and incorporate criticism. Ironically, it seems I am among the last to learn these lessons. “God mocks proud mockers” (Proverbs 3:34).

Pray for me. I really have to a lot of growing to do.

Antiracist Action: Against Tea Party Antics in Minnesota

Below is a link to a piece from Racismreview.com, an anti-racist website run by my friends and colleagues, Drs. Joe R. Feagin and Jessie Daniels.  The story is about anti-racists who lampoon white nativists at a Tea Party rally.  Enjoy...

Antiracist Action: Against Tea Party Antics in Minnesota

Deferential Diplomacy

In my quotidian survey of popular newspapers and political blogs, I was struck by the headline at politico.com declaring President Obama's strategic "diplomacy of deference" and the subsequent critiques (article and image credits available at above link). At first, I assumed the criticisms were based on tacit white supremacist positions, unspoken and generally buried in the subconsciences of the unwitting. I was right about the cause, but wrong about the manifestation. The racial element remains thinly veiled (and I mean thinly), but the supremacist element is bold indeed. Darth Vader himself, Dick Cheney, exemplifies the phenomenon:

But critics call Obama’s outstretched hand a miscalculation. Former vice president Cheney said: "There is no reason for an American president to bow to anyone. Our friends and allies don't expect it, and our enemies see it as a sign of weakness."

Did I miss something? Does every U.S. president pass into deity immediately following his inauguration? I was in Washington this past January, and I can tell you I saw nothing of the sort. Why then should American presidents not have to show respect to other national leaders (and frankly, every human being, in my view) via the cultural symbols dominant in that society?

You will notice that Emperor Akihito and President Obama are both simultaneously bowing and shaking hands. Indeed, the image appears to me to represent exactly the kind of mutual respect for one another and the larger societies each represents that is appropriate in diplomatic contexts.

Frankly, I believe Obama's status as the first Black president plays into the situation in myriad ways. First off, I believe that as a Black man, Obama has had to use a host of symbolic forms of respect and deference to others his entire life. Whites have undoubtedly demanded all sorts of indications of deference from him, especially in this "colorblind" era. Obama has skillfully learned to turn whites' racist demands into an asset for himself, which wheals now as second nature.

But more to the point, I believe Obama's racial status contributed to the development of his general orientation toward the world--one of respect and a sense of communal membership, rather than global domination. Part of the historical development of whiteness is the idea that whites have a manifest destiny; a destiny which has gone global over the years. Although it is taken for granted now that everyone issues handshakes as the common greeting, the handshake is actually a Eurocentric tradition. Whites made it universal through aggressive imperialism. Forcing others to use Western cultural symbols represented, and continues to represent, acquiescence to said imperialism.

Obama's decision to recognize indigenous symbols is a repudiation of America's history of white imperialism and racism. Critics of the president are manifesting deep emotional attachments to white supremacy. The degree of "controversy" and the characterization of Obama's moves as "deferential" (rather than respectful) and indicative of "weakness" illustrate the depth and ubiquity of white supremacy in the United States, among all social strata. The emotionally charged rhetoric indicates just how entrench white supremacy and its defenders are in this country.

This "controversy" is really just the white supremacist version of territorial animals' displays of aggression; white supremacists are basically flashing their teeth at us, hoping to intimidate us into giving into their racist demands. But like animals, their reaction is actually a revelation that they feel very threatened, even by something as simple as a bow. They hope brief displays will save them from an actual fight.

As anti-racists, we must accurately recognize the meanings in critics' reactions and respond accordingly. Now is the time to resist. As the president has modeled, just purposing to demonstrate respect and equality is an effective means of attacking white supremacy. We can all do that. Let us support our president in his effort to reestablish the United States as one of many global players, rather than a resented global bully. Let us think globally and act locally. We should make a special effort to learn and use non-Western/white symbols to demonstrate respect.

[[This final paragraph is largely my first attempt to address an issue in critical race studies, and sociology generally. We diagnose social ills extremely well, but our prescriptions for resolution are very limited and under theorized. Like Marx, I believe the tools of revolution exist within every social structure. We only need to recognize them and be willing to use them. Consequently, I am putting more effort to suggesting a range of options and actions we can take to combat social injustices wherever we find them. Massive social movements are wonderful and necessary for some tasks, but we have waited for the movement too long. Not all issues are best addressed by immediate mobilizations. Let's keep trying whatever we can until we find what we can do now that works. I would greatly appreciate your thoughts and ideas about resistance.]]