Impartiality is the crux of academics. College leaves you feeling empowered to decipher between rampant opinion and cold hard fact. Even when dealing with the subjective territory of opinion, college makes you feel well equipped to be the rational voice of reason amidst a sea of bigots and zealots. Unfortunately these same individuals graduate from universities believing that because of their one African studies class and that one time they went to a multi-cultural food festival, they are now equipped to speak about cultural topics unrelated to them. This is especially prominent in white liberals, who believe "I'm not a racist individual, there is no way I'd misrepresent this issue." Furthermore, there exists a need for a "two-sided story", which implicitly creates a narrative that often supports agent identities. Suddenly what we find is that "truth" can only be dispensed from "calm" and "rational" individuals (who typically happen to be white). Minorities who candidly complain are quickly labeled as angry and irrational. The narrative is always "racism is bad, but..." Minorities are tired of the exceptions, we want our narrative of oppression to first be heard without a devil's advocate.
One might not care about the emotional and psychology needs of minorities. Regardless, the normative venues of information and framing of information make it so that racial biases exist in the resources we use to discuss many of these issues. Where Israel has thousands to spend on a reeducation campaign about Palestine, outside institutions often have to speak in lieu of the Palestinians. Where detailed statistics chronicling the academic failures of ELLs exist, we find no alternative searching for what ELLs excel at (hint: maybe it has do with Spanish?). The point is we're all swimming in the water, we're all taking in the smog and it has tainted our knowledge as well. Acknowledging this normative prison is an important first step to dispelling the notion of impartiality.
What's worse is often we make decisions based on these "impartial" voices. A good example is when prominent University of Michigan Professor Victor Lieberman decided to do a small lecture during a University of Michigan student government hearing on the decision to divest from companies that support Israeli military operations. His intentions, while good, were ultimately biased and appropriately criticized by one of his own Graduate Student Instructors who helps him with the course. He responded back in turn, claiming that his lecture is the purpose of historical academia and academia as a whole. He claims that the issue with the critique is that it prevents the realization of "truth", which essentially makes the efforts of all humanities pointless. The reality is that while there is definitely value in attempting an impartial analysis of incredibly political and controversial topics, there is no way to learn from these exercises any definitive and all encompassing "truth," When someone like Professor Lieberman enters that arena and gives his opinion as a "voice of reason" or as an "unbiased observer", it subordinates the target identity and creates a narrative that legitimizes the agent identity for many of the reasons listened in the previous paragraph.
This is not a call to remain at a stand still. Important decisions need to be made and our delegates cannot make these decisions uninformed. Having hearings where both sides get to speak unadulterated can help our representatives decide for themselves what is "truth" and what is "reason." Also, it gives our delegates the impetus to search out the voices of Professor Lieberman in their intended settings: academia. The end result may be the same, but at least we know we can remove our delegates. When we vote, we decide what is reason and truth to us. When we discuss difficult topics acknowledging our own biases is the first step to truth. But far too many white liberals believe their degree entitles them to a transcendent view on issues not germane to them. And when minorities speak vociferously, we are still viewed as irrational and uneducated. It is time we stopped listening to the white liberal about minority issues and asked minorities to speak with a promise not to play devil's advocate immediately (or often times in mid sentence) after they are done speaking.
One might not care about the emotional and psychology needs of minorities. Regardless, the normative venues of information and framing of information make it so that racial biases exist in the resources we use to discuss many of these issues. Where Israel has thousands to spend on a reeducation campaign about Palestine, outside institutions often have to speak in lieu of the Palestinians. Where detailed statistics chronicling the academic failures of ELLs exist, we find no alternative searching for what ELLs excel at (hint: maybe it has do with Spanish?). The point is we're all swimming in the water, we're all taking in the smog and it has tainted our knowledge as well. Acknowledging this normative prison is an important first step to dispelling the notion of impartiality.
What's worse is often we make decisions based on these "impartial" voices. A good example is when prominent University of Michigan Professor Victor Lieberman decided to do a small lecture during a University of Michigan student government hearing on the decision to divest from companies that support Israeli military operations. His intentions, while good, were ultimately biased and appropriately criticized by one of his own Graduate Student Instructors who helps him with the course. He responded back in turn, claiming that his lecture is the purpose of historical academia and academia as a whole. He claims that the issue with the critique is that it prevents the realization of "truth", which essentially makes the efforts of all humanities pointless. The reality is that while there is definitely value in attempting an impartial analysis of incredibly political and controversial topics, there is no way to learn from these exercises any definitive and all encompassing "truth," When someone like Professor Lieberman enters that arena and gives his opinion as a "voice of reason" or as an "unbiased observer", it subordinates the target identity and creates a narrative that legitimizes the agent identity for many of the reasons listened in the previous paragraph.
This is not a call to remain at a stand still. Important decisions need to be made and our delegates cannot make these decisions uninformed. Having hearings where both sides get to speak unadulterated can help our representatives decide for themselves what is "truth" and what is "reason." Also, it gives our delegates the impetus to search out the voices of Professor Lieberman in their intended settings: academia. The end result may be the same, but at least we know we can remove our delegates. When we vote, we decide what is reason and truth to us. When we discuss difficult topics acknowledging our own biases is the first step to truth. But far too many white liberals believe their degree entitles them to a transcendent view on issues not germane to them. And when minorities speak vociferously, we are still viewed as irrational and uneducated. It is time we stopped listening to the white liberal about minority issues and asked minorities to speak with a promise not to play devil's advocate immediately (or often times in mid sentence) after they are done speaking.
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