So I am struck with a dilemma. My gut instinct tells me to email the head of the ME department and the Dean of Engineering to alert them to this piece, because I don't think a representative of my alma mater should be saying things like
- "Just for background, we now live in a time when in Democrat-run urban environments like Philadelphia and Chicago, packs of wild black youth are rampaging through society looking for white folk to rob or hurt."
On the other hand, of course, is the protection of speech, of which I am an unwavering advocate. Does this supersede his very public position as a professor at a public university? Race, its association with crime, and its portrayal in the media are legitimate debates that we shy away from too much. I think it should be talked about more. But when you use racist language to do so, you're 1) delegitimizing the debate, because the other side can just point out you're a racist, and 2) you are automatically betraying your ulterior motivation, namely that you don't want a debate, you just want to show how rotten blacks are.
Having a tenure track position in a public university is very rare and prestigious for academics these days. When you take one, you should be aware that you're becoming part of the face of the university for which you work. In fact, you are the university, along with the students and administrators. Therefore, engaging in speech like this debases the university, its students and all its alumni, in my opinion. That much I'm convinced of, but that still doesn't help me in deciding whether I should alert OU to this post. What do all of you think? As a citizen he obviously enjoys free speech, but does that give him the right as a public employee to engage in racist speech without consequence? Or is it even racist to begin with? Maybe I'm reading too much into the race side and not enough into the media side, which is really what his blog is about.
I am interested in outsider perspective and fellow OU alumni alike. steve, mk, are you guys offended as former OU students? What about the rest of you?
If you take a step back from using the word "pack," what he's really trying to get at is the dichotomy between the large mobs of young black guys who are committing often brutal crimes and the refusal of media to say that they are black. Is it necessary to say they are black? If they really are targeting white people just for the hell of it, then yes, I say it is completely fair to say they are black. But these stories get a lot less press than one black guy who ends up dead in a fight in Florida. Imagine if white mobs ran through a state fair and beat up mostly black people. Would the media be all over that? Yes! Look at the Trayvon case. People get shot all the time! The only reason it's being reported so heavily is because everyone wants to know if it was racially motivated. I've honestly tried to keep my distance from the case, so I don't know what evidence exists that it was racially motivated. Anyway, the question is: why would the media refuse to say that the mobs are young black guys? Thoughts? As far as the Freedom of Speech stuff, I think he is well within his right to say those things. He didn't say anything that incites violence to go back out and start fighting the mobs. What he said falls under "social commentary," if a less savory and rational subset of social commentary. As far as his position at the University, I thought institutes of higher education were supposed to push the envelope and embrace controversial viewpoints. He didn't have to use the word "pack," and I'm not sure what Obama has to do with any of this. He should probably get chewed out by someone, but at this point, I don't see this as being worthy of getting sacked or anything like that.
But the fact is, he wrote an overtly racial post about blacks targeting whites when there are no data that exist to support his claim. The opposite is true; crime is decreasing. This is why I don't think that it falls under the rubric of "free inquiry" you'd expect out of a university. Controversial viewpoints should be born out of data that don't fit the conventional wisdom; this is just opinion and--apparently false--belief. Just because the main stream media covers race poorly, does he have the right to take the opposite extreme? And, I totally disagree that the word "pack" isn't loaded. This wasn't an off the cuff remark that could be a poor word choice, or taken out of context. This is a well thought out blog post. He knows what he's writing. All that said, your question is very difficult about why it isn't huge news if a black guy kills a white guy for racial reasons. I have no idea. Unfortunately whenever the subject of race is broached by the right, people on the left scream racist, and whenever its broached by the left, the right says that the left is apologizing and making excuses for blacks, so they're the "real" racists. The end result is that its not ok to talk about it, period. It shouldn't be that way.
When the person who commits a crime is black there was a significantly higher chance that the suspects race would be mentioned in print journalism, for television journalism there was a significantly higher chance that a photo of the suspect would be shown. When the perpetrator of a crime was unknown, if that perpetrator was suspected to be black, the print or media source would mention the suspects supposed race. There were several other statistically significant findings that all showed a race bias in the media that if a criminal was black. So much for the timid media bias in my ultra liberal community against discussing race. These findings were assumed to bolster the general perception that crime is mostly a problem foisted off on us good Whites by the degenerate Black community. I have read studies that show first time offenders are handled differently depending on their race. A white arrested for drugs gets a misdemeanor and probation while a black person committing the same offense gets a felony and jail time. This pattern hold true with most first time criminal offenses. Doing time doesn't do much for long term civic participation. Becoming a felon makes it harder to find work, in many cases takes away your right to vote, doing time often hardens and trains people to lead a criminal lifestyle, normalizing an individual to random violence. Many crimes (drugs and domestic violence) are committed by most races at about the same rate, but arrest, conviction, and jail time is the fate more often of blacks then white. It's not surprising that two people commit the same crime, one goes to college, the other goes to jail, one is a successful upstanding member of the community the other becomes a problem. Or society is still extremely racist. While we all disavow racism on an individual basis, discrimination is baked into the underlying fabric. Hosing, jobs, medical care, justice, schooling and sanitation all skew to screw over minorities, be that a function of race, class or whatever else you can push a person into. I don't know why, but once again I will present my own position and bias so I feel like I'm being upfront. I'm White, middle working class, some college, I self identify as progressive but as Leon Russell says the right ones say I'm left and the left ones say I'm wrong. I am a racist, and generally think that if you say your aren't you are probably more racist then I am. I try to figure out and eliminate my racist thoughts and tendencies. I defiantly don't feel any guilt over being white. I casually know lots of Black people (I'll grab a beer and shoot the shit with them if we run into each other on the street but we don't make plans). I don't have any close black friends. I think the idea that the media gives black people a pass is fantastical. Eh, not really what interested me in the post but I'll take a moment to comment on the professor thing. Fuck sending this to the dean, send it to the whatever Black student union their is on campus. If there is such an organization, and there usually is something like this that will fit the bill, they are in the best position to hash out the consequences of this professors position with the administration. I guarantee that the professor will be a way bigger racist on the back side of whatever conflagration ensues. There is a fair chance that black students are treated differently in his classes then White students, and that seems pretty important or it's just as likely that the guy disavows racism personally while holding tight to the racist underpinnings that underlie american culture.
This is a public discussion that he started. If I were in your shoes, I would feel more comfortable widening the public discussion, rather than sending it to the dean, and possibly making it a private one with consequences that reflect the private nature.
I know it sounds like a cowardly way to do it but in my opinion it's not a good idea to attract attention to yourself.
"Yup – pissed off mobs of black youth that have been indoctrinated by liberals into thinking they are victims and thus entitled to simply take what was stolen from them by whites. Welcome to Obama’s America. " Maybe I'm wrong - but President Obama has been in office for.... three years or so? and it's all his fault that some angry people have taken to the streets? oh boy... anyhow, clearly this is an inflammatory article written for the purpose of whipping up other "right-wingers" to be angry too. It is embarrassing. For what it's worth, he's still "only" an associate professor. And as long as he keeps pumping this kind of venom into the world, he may only ever be an associate professor. Do I think it's appropriate for a university representative say these things? Nope - not for a second. In fact, if his department chair isn't careful, this could backlash on the department or school. I agree - this is a tough issue for me. I think Free Speech is of paramount importance. But as a University with a quite multi-cultural student body, I would expect a little (ok - a lot) more tact and discernment when it comes to any public statement or publication. In the end, this kind of thing only hurts. It hurts people of color. It hurts "right-wingers" because the just get dumber and dumber by regurgitating this kind of slurry. And it could end up hurting the University when word gets out the bigots are given position to preach hate. Kids of all colors will vote with their dollars and go somewhere else for higher education. How you ever found this article is beyond me... :-) I'm surprised it came up in the first five pages of a search.
For the record, if I read this from a professor that was teaching my child, I'd be upset.