This morning I received a gift, from an anonymous reader, of Dana Goldstein’s The Teacher Wars. I’m super excited to read it over Christmas break, and once again grateful and humbled by the generosity of my readers. I’m afraid I am once again going to test that generosity.
It’s the holidays and I’m broke. There’s several things coming together at once — paying for my plane ticket home to Connecticut to visit my sister, putting my dog up at the kennel which is ludicrously expensive, setting aside money for campus visit plane tickets, a research grant coming to an end this week…. The campus visit costs will eventually be reimbursed, but they’re notoriously slow, and I’m concerned about just not having enough money in my account to buy tickets. I sat down to do the budget for the next couple of months and no matter how I lay it out, the numbers just don’t add up. So I decided that I’m not too proud to beg. I’m asking for you as readers to support me in whatever way you can, if you’re inclined, by kicking in a few bucks to this GoFundMe account. (Full disclosure: GoFundMe will end up taking about 8% from the total for their vig.) I know how tough things are out there and I’m more than grateful just to have you all as readers, and anyone who can’t spare anything is appreciated anyway. I put a $500 goal on there but really that’s just a guideline to fill the space. Any little bit would help.
In the past year, I’ve been attacked by men’s rights activists for saying that traditional masculinity has to die and by those in the Tumblr social justice movement for arguing against the faux politics of social sorting; by libertarians for disputing the notion of meritocracy and by leftists for opposing hate speech laws; by Republicans for criticizing Israel and by Democrats for criticizing Obama. I figure if I’ve made that many people mad, I must have gotten some of it right.
I’m unleashing comments on this post for encouragement and/or derision, so fire away with either. Questions are welcome. I’ve gotten a bunch of requests to turn comments back on full time and I’m going to be experimenting with doing so in the new year. Thanks for the opportunity to lay this out there. You guys are the best.
http://www.gofundme.com/freddiedeboer
Update: This is really incredible generosity, you guys. I’m gonna bump up the goal to make room. It’s going to make life so much easier for me in the months to come. I’m so grateful.
“I figure if I’ve made that many people mad, I must have gotten some of it right.”
Hmmmm. This sounds awfully “No Labels” to me 😉
Best of luck, and warm holiday wishes from one of those white guys who enjoys enraging people on facebook with your posts from time to time even if it doesn’t really make the world a better place. In other words, I guess I’m a pretty bad person, but I enjoy your work nonetheless.
You bet, will throw some capital over on Monday. My only wish is that at some point you unsticky those posts so I don’t have to click December ever time I check for updates.
Happy Christmas,
Nick
Amen.
“I’m not sure how a mass protest movement can emerge in a country that is still 78% white without an outsized presence of white people, but such concerns are gauche.”
Because a potentially united front of 40 million black people (or even half that) isn’t a mass protest movement without white involvement.
It’s strange how, on one hand, you note that white social justice dabbling is uncritical about itself in ways that make it non-analytical/conveniently denialist about its own racism, and, on the other, posit that the participation of whiteness is the panacea that leads social justice to political viability. Given that you make no effort to square this contradiction (or, as I’ve frequently complained, define “the faux politics of social sorting” by its strongest – instead of its weakest – adherents) I wondered if you could possibly elaborate.
Although, I’d prefer it if you explained why what white social justice posers do is more worthy of defining that category of left-leaning thought than largely black/indigenous interpretations of the same. They may have an outsized role in your life, but it’s mistaken to paint them as representative thought leaders and in so doing, you tarnish both non-white and white participants under the pretense of focusing on white ones. I mean, that might be perfectly representative of what you’re curious about, but if you want to meaningfully criticize the forms of social justice that Tumblr and Twitter encourage, it’d be somewhat more interesting (and considerably less irritating) if you stopped insisting on defining a tree by the moss.
Also, the “examples” in your Rolling Stone post were really, really gross. I’m not sure how you think cases that involve black people are representative of how the criminal justice process functions generally, and I’m not sure the history that disparity feeds into applies to any other demographic. At best, your post is an argument for conditionally exempting black people from Maxwell’s preferred posture, it’s not an argument for dismissing her point out of hand (which is commenting on dynamics your post gave not the slightest acknowledgment to).
People like Q here – who ate constitutionally incapable of honestly representing other people’s accrual views – are an argument for why the work must continue.
By the way, putting the word “examples” in scare quotes does not make the examples themselves untrue, no matter how desperately you want your righteousness to be a superpower that enables you to undo reality. Those things happened; real lives were destroyed. If you can’t look that in the eye, that’s your problem, not mine.
I didn’t imply that they were untrue. I implied that they were generally inapplicable and poorly/grossly chosen – which they are. It’s pretty difficult to get a white dude to pick at the same dynamics that led to lynchings. If that’s the case, why use those dynamics as things that can apply generally (instead of things that only crop up with black involvement)? Which part of this do you disagree with and why?
And which part was dishonest?
You write as though you’re not responsible for what your interpretations miss and as though your writing is absent anything that can look like an implication. You’ve written – and more pressingly, argued – long enough to know this isn’t the case. When social justice has direct importance for black politics and your primary examples involve white writers, white journalists, white interpretations and white failings, it’s perfectly legitimate to wonder why black and brown participation in online social justice is absent from your analytical framework.
Ferguson activists provide a direct rebuttal to many of the assertions you’ve given in this space, and yet, I’ve seen no indication that you’re familiar with the twitter organizers that tapped into the very same politics you subject to endless derision. They’re not coming out of nowhere. If social justice isn’t adequately defined by white participation, why does it make up a substantial portion of your conception for what social justice is? It’s remarkable to me that you don’t respond to this like it’s a fair question.
can we turn comments back off
You write this stuff for free – the least we can do is chip in.
It’s not begging when you offer value for money! Have a lovely Christmas and thanks for your thoughts over the years. I much appreciate them.
True story: I was going to chip in $10, read Q’s comments, and upped it to $25. Keep doing what you do.
Thanks for everything you write here. Even (especially) when I disagree with you.
If you’re counting votes, I say turn the comments back on. If nothing else, it’s amusing to read people willfully misread you. Which, Q, thanks for demonstrating! Too bad I have to provide my own popcorn
Freddie, you’re one of my favorite writers on the internet, so I’m more than happy to contribute. Best wishes this holiday season and good luck with the job interviews.
I recommend that you also read the review of Goldstein by Education Realist, a smart, prickly, conservative teacher-blogger.
I’m at work right now, but I’ll make a donation once I get to my home computer (I don’t entirely trust the work computer with my credit card number).
I’m glad to help. Even when I’ve disagreed vehemently with you, you’ve almost always brought a new angle to a lot of on-going discussions in the political blogosphere. That’s incredibly valuable.
Done! Hey, it crossed the $1000 mark.
Freddie,
I love reading your thoughts and comments. It makes me better, I know this. You’re a beacon. It’s too late now, I’m sure, but there is a similar service called Tilt that you can raise money/receive money from friends with for no surcharge. I think it’s worth considering for the future.
Best,
Greg
Hi Freddie,
Been reading you a lot lately, finding you one of the best people that I strongly disagree with who is worth following. Because I think you are open to it, I’m going to suggest one place where I think you could be more charitable to your opponents. In a few posts, most notably “a few notes on Asian Americans and affirmative action”, you express this sentiment:
This interpretation of others views (mine included) is far too strongly based on your own intrinsic collectivist views. Most of those you are disagreeing do not take your collectivist premise, and only accept individual rights as being meaningful.
In this view, your promotion of racial equality looks like the following to us. You have two groups, A = {A1, A2, A3} and B = {B1, B2, B3}. A1, B1 and B2 are disadvantaged, so group B is 66% disadvantaged whereas group A is only 33% disadvantaged. As a result, B3 deserves special privileges not given to A1 or A2.
This isn’t an illogical position. It’s simply a position that does not recognize the particular groupings A and B as morally meaningful.
Or to take the example of criminal justice, I view the fact that the police can shoot people for no reason and get away with it as a fundamental problem. It would be an equally bad problem if all races were proportionally represented among the victims.
(FYI, I am aware that many folks are simply racists in disguise. But that’s a boring position and an uncharitable one to assume.)
Chris Stucchio,
I would go further and say that B3 is more likely to benefit from any advantages given to group B ostensibly to help B1 and B2. Being advantaged to begin with, B3 will start with more wealth/intelligence/social capital, and thus be better positioned to take advantage. It is almost as if “social justice” is a smokescreen for an elitist political alliance between A2, A3 and B3 against A1, B1 and B2.
I generally agree with you more than Q, but your post about that Village Voice article was way, way off. The people interviewed in it were all people of color, but you inexplicably decided to talk about status-jockeying among white social justice types. Also, the article was about New York City, where whites are a minority.
Not EVERYTHING is about status striving white kids. In fact, most things aren’t.
Hi Freddie,
Like many, I’ve followed your comments in the blogosphere over the years and find much to admire. Your recent work on bloggingheads confirms a maturing process sadly absent in many over 25, whose opinions and analytic skills appear to calcify. Congratulations, on your article in the The Week – thought-provoking, balanced, well-researched highly readable! You may have mentioned Richard Bradley elsewhere, so forgive me if I have this wrong. As I understand the chronology of the rare skeptical responses to the RS piece , ’twas Bradley who first publicly braved the knee-jerk barbs with his own thoughtful and well-reasoned essay. http://www.richardbradley.net/shotsinthedark/2014/11/24/is-the-rolling-stone-story-true/#comments
We always choose who to cite, but omitting any reference to Bradley from your now well-received offering seems a curious decision, specially since I fully expect you to enter the big-time. I very much hope to see your work continue to improve and attract a wider readership.
I’ve been reading your blog intensively of late and your topics are fascinating. Please keep it up!
Can you point me to some further reading? Many of the structural complexities to what seem to be straightforward activist solutions surprise me to the point that there must be a canon of sources I’m missing.
Hi Freddie,
I’ve been following you lately and am glad to see another thoughtful voice on the Internet. That seems like such a basic trait in a writer, but with so much glib bullshit surrounding discourse today, whether it is a thin attack by an aggregator like Gawker or a Twitter slacktivist who gets attention for being the first to jump to a conclusion, I just don’t see very many new writers spending the time to actually hash out a whole argument.
Just do me one solid and try to stay away from that whole thing that too many graduate students and columnists do where they try to define an -ism and then argue against it. There are some times when that’s appropriate, but for the most part it just means separating out the most boring parts of one side of a conflict into a great big straw man when there are much more interesting ideas and people to disagree with.
Weren’t you JUST bragging on Facebook not all that long ago about how much money you would soon be making with a new gig? All graduate students need money. Get a loan. Stop whining and leave the funding drives for people in your community who can’t afford to eat let alone drink an IPA.
Huh? When? I haven’t gotten a “new gig” in ages. The only thing remotely like that was guest blogging for Andrew Sullivan, which was indeed well paying but lasted only one week. So I have no clue what you’re referring to.
maybe you should send some of the money to Jackie from UVA, whose rape you denied
Just factually untrue. From the piece you’re referring to: “If the story turns out to be significantly fabricated (and the doubts expressed do not yet amount to proof that it was)”
http://theweek.com/article/index/273514/what-progressives-dont-want-to-talk-about-in-the-rolling-stone-scandal
I’m in the camp that believes that something traumatic happened to Jackie, although it’s hard to say what that was, given all the chaos of the story and Rolling Stone’s total journalistic failures.
If you’re going to come after me, please do so without lying about what I’ve said or believe.