[249] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
oppression vs. "sticks and stones"
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Aimee L Smith)
Fri Apr 27 16:18:43 2001
Message-Id: <200104272017.QAA17620@gold.mit.edu>
To: rax <rax@MIT.EDU>
cc: mit-talk@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 27 Apr 2001 13:31:40 EDT."
<200104271731.NAA07040@department-of-alchemy.mit.edu>
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Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 16:17:30 -0400
From: Aimee L Smith <alsmith@MIT.EDU>
a few points/questions:
SHOULD MIT PROTECT RACIST, SEXIST SPEECH IN MAILINGS, CLASSROOMS?
does MIT have a responsibility in mailings or other official or
even non-official events, etc. to allow speech that creates a hostile
environment to some of its community members? I do believe in
the first amendment, but I also believe in equal access to places such as
MIT, and no matter how much you believe sticks and stones are all
that matter, many women and people of color *are* made to feel that they
are unwelcome in various ways here. Do folks have the right to do that?
I am not sure they do... I think it has to be examined on a case by case
basis and there is a difference between discussing and learning
about sexism, racism, homophobia and classism and rejecting and alienating
folks in these groups (among others.) This has a real impact on the
science/engineering culture here at MIT and insomuch as MIT affects it, the
larger community. Now, the big ugly scary question becomes, how *should*
the institute, the students, the faculty, and whoever else respond to
such attacks on people?
CAN THE INDIVIDUAL CONQUER ALL
Rax is right on in his view that empowerment of the self is the best
response to hostility of the world around you. If you are a woman, a
person of an under-represented ethnic minority, a person of an "over-
represented minority" in the lower rungs of power but not the higher,
a person of who is LBGT, a person from a different country, or a member
of the dominant power group on any of these, it pays to learn a lot about
the history of your community/culture and the history of the dominant
culture. It pays to demystify the rhetoric and hype that tries to
limit the power and autonomy of the "other." Oppression is the process
whereby you soak up the hatred and exclusion of the dominant paradigm and
hold it against your own self! Without this participation, oppression
holds much less POWER! So, by all means, try to become strong in the face of
racism, sexism, ethnocentrism, religious discrimination, etc.
But meanwhile, we need to work to change the *need* to be strong for
these problems, when there are already enough things that require
strength and perseverance in life. We need to learn how we can
reduce our own contribution to these unjust -isms both in our internal
expression and external ones, and we need to learn how to pressure the
greater communities that we are members of to collectively work to
end these unjust -isms. We also need to learn to recognize differences
between -isms without becoming divided and conquered and by the same
token, learn about the commonalities. E.g. I could never decide
to be in the closet about being female. And no one can say if it is
easier or harder on the psyche or level of self-oppression to be faced with the
*choice* to become "out" about the oppression one faces, but it does mean
that the process may look different for women as a group and of course, with
huge variation for all folks as individuals. (I was "out" as a woman long
before I was strong enough to laugh at people's harassment, sexist remarks,
etc.-- can't say it is worse, but different-- on this side of it, though, I
see a lot in common with rax about laughing in the face of such sickness
(like Mr. Salsman, I might add, but nevermind that now... incidently, an
objectivist present at the talk from the community wrote to me and said
he didn't like the speaker and felt he was out of line... I guess all
objectivists don't think alike, which would be expected for any group, I am
just curious which one is the one with the monopoly on "objective Truth" in
such an assembly of folks and who decides? Seems it could get ugly...)
ERROR BARS, HUMILITY?
As far as the admissions process, as with the US presidential selection, if
the differences are SMALLER than the error bars in the measurement
process, you cannot claim there is a difference. Admissions is an
INCREDIBLY inexact science compared to voting, and we can't even get
ballot counting right... (forgetting about the people who were deterred by
police and turned away from polls for not having 2 forms of ID...)
What makes you so sure you can rank people on a linear scale of "Who
deserves to come to MIT"?? The arrogance of even thinking you can is
huge. I think if we all own up to the uncertainty of the process, than
we could all take a rejection letter a lot better and we wouldn't need to be
arguing over who stole whose spot...
LIES, DAMNED LIES...
We all need more statistics exposure, and in case you are interested,
when they study performance of women in *each* major, women do as well
or *better* on average, so perhaps what others judge as lack of motivation
is really just lack of participating in pissing contests... I haven't heard
about if they looked at people of color, but I would damn like to see
the studies and methodology that backs up the claims of these nice extropians.
Without it, such speculation and stereotyping is nothing short of RACISM and
SEXISM. Lies are exactly how oppression is perpetuated. The_ bell curve_
tries to "prove" racist claims and never checks the significance of class over
race in these test scores (tests of arguable relevance, in the first place)...
the _Rape: a Natural History_ makes no end of Pinker-esque claims that are
neither tested, proven or even testable... speculation is fine for bar-stool
chat (late in the evening), but for a supposedly scholarly work? Please! And
yet, these works serve to perpetuate the myths that keep discrimination alive.
I am not suggesting these books should never get printed (although MIT
press certainly didn't need to oblige as I am sure many other manuscripts get
rejected), but we do have to recognize the mechanism by which racism and
sexism and homophobia is perpetuated: LIES. And further, we need to think
carefully about whether and what level of this type of lying should be allowed
if it serves to drive people out of this community. Pinker himself is alleged
to have said in his intro to psych class that "the reason Blondes
are more attractive is that their flowing hair reminds of our prehistory
in the Savannah with its flowing grasses. We have lawns in suburbs for
the same reason." Not only is it racist and ethnocentric and sick to
objectively state that "we" find Blondes "more attractive", the reasoning
if it were a true statement such as we do find lawns in American suburbs
is 100% speculation. This is not science. MIT may allow non-science
to be taught, but is it really ok to teach racism along with your non-science?
And I do advocate for tenure, but can he be asked to increase his
inclusion of all students or else NOT teach the into-level class? (I
know one Prof who is barred from teaching the into-level class of their*
dept b/c of their* anti-corporate politics...but racism might just go
unnoticed!) In short, it is people's LIES about affirmative action that
hurts women and underrepresented minorities, not the actual impact
of these programs... any remedy of anykind for the baseless and complete
exclusion of women and African-Americans from american science for centuries
would be derided and blamed, but when you put it in perspective, you
realize it is less than too little too late, but nevertheless a start...
Many things to think about... it would be nice to pretend that by smiling
and being friendly, these things would end, but it will actually take
long and hard work by all of us to make progress... not fighting, but
definitely struggle, and when people are honest in their struggle with
ideas and hopes, they do tend to treat each other pretty well...
I am not afraid of struggle and I am not afraid of being *no more* important
than anybody else, but I am neither less important...
OK, sorry so damn long...
in hope,
Aimee
* I use the 3rd person pl to denote the gender unspecific 3rd person sing.
