I’m sure Julie W. Sherbinin means well (Link may require subscription. If so, go find her article, “White Professors Can Help Uproot Racism,” in the May 7, 2004, Chronicle of Higher Education.) Good intentions are important, but they’re not everything, and her grim determination to extirpate racism root and branch reminds me of nothing so much as the unappealing zealotry of some of the prohibitionists as they wrapped themselves in the mantle of the Lord and set out to do battle with demon rum. A veneer of 12-step-like self-improvement psychologizing underlies her efforts and presents a more modern, up to date visage, but underneath it’s the same crusading prohibitionism at work.
An associate professor of Russian at Colby College in Maine, Sherbinin says she was always concerned about race but thought she couldn’t do anything about it. After receiving tenure, however, she became really concerned.
Ten years ago I was an assistant professor, and my main concerns were establishing my authority in the classroom and producing the scholarly goods necessary for tenure. Was I aware of the discontentment among students of color on my campus? Yes. Did I think I could do anything about it, other than smiling sympathetically when I passed a black student? Not really. My field is Russian language and literature, and I could not see what that had to do with race in the United States.
But over the years I began to pay more attention to racism. I started attending campus lectures, films, and forums on race. I read extensively about white privilege. I was making up for lost time. As an undergraduate in the late 1970s, I had wanted to take a course in African-American studies but was too frightened to do so, irrationally imagining that black students in the class would humiliate me and make me feel guilty. A group known as United to End Racism (http://www.rc.org/uer) helped me understand that racism and privilege take a devastating emotional toll on white people as well as on people of color.
Sherbinin then chronicles her anti-racist activities that are so extensive one is both shamed (why aren’t we that good?) and exhausted by just reading about them. She admits that her successes, though real, have been limited, and one gets the impression that her greatest success may lie in the area of moral self-improvement.
Uprooting racism happens excruciatingly slowly. But every white faculty member can help accelerate the process by working individually and with others, as academic mentors and through social interactions. Those efforts require a commitment of time and energy, and sometimes they involve discomfort. The issues go home with you, too —
This woman has it exactly backwards. The real problem now is for blacks to extend themselves and the resources of their communities to whites.
Any respectful relationship involves reciprocity. That means each side needs to give and take. I don’t mean this as a negative, but blacks have been taking from the white community for 40 years in the form of quotas, income redistribution, etc. Blacks need to start giving to the white community. Blacks need this for their own spiritual and emotional growth.
The author of this article is just dead wrong, and her actions hurt blacks.
If whites really want to change things, here’s what they can do. Play sports with blacks and demand to be treated fairly. Go to black churches and expect to be valued. If you are a musician or artist, walk into the spaces that blacks want to segregate and demand that they integrate those spaces.
This is really what is needed. The author of this article is lost in the past, she’s dead wrong, and her input is not positive… it’s dead negative.
It’s time for whites to demand from blacks. This is a sign of respect. The one way relationship of blacks demanding from whites, and whites bowing their heads in shame and giving, is now the dilemma.
If you are white, demand real social interaction from blacks and demand something in return. This will produce positive change.
And, yes, blacks do have things to give in return. The ability to combine the spiritual and the sensual so characteristic of the black church is something that whites desparately need. The machismo and athleticism of black men is something that whites men should emulate. (And black men can learn to soften the machismo a bit.)
Don’t patronize blacks. Offer them a positive relationship, and demand something in return. This is the way.
Professor Sherbinin could take an important and concrete step by resigning her tenured position on the conditon that Colby appoint a member of an approved minority in her stead.
That would be real action, not empty posturing. Let us know when she does it.
Excuse me for being blunt, but what kind of psychotic does one have to be to think that COLLEGE LIFE in the USA in the NINETEEN NINETIES was a hotbead of anti-black racism?
Um, now this is Maine… isn’t that state as white as Vermont? Is Colby particularly well-suited for race issues? And do you think people of other races would appreciate being shipped to Maine for the assuaging of faculty guilt there?
This is just odd.
When I was in high school, there was something that came up that made a whole bunch of students claim institutional racism at the school, and just made remarks of the variety about respect and self-esteem. At the time, I made comments about how there were none but white students in the highest-level math classes – well, maybe a few Asian students, but we didn’t have many to begin with – and why shouldn’t we be concentrating on that? ..especially as we were a specialty math & science school. It seemed to me that neither faculty nor students really cared about actual achievement, but more about appearances. I had no time for their bloviating after that.
meep-
God forbid that minorities should actually be asked to ACHIEVE something! Isn’t it enough that their mere presence ‘enriches’ those around them? (/sarcasm off)
Nor do I think it useful disdainfully to dismiss all such approaches as that preached by United to End Racism as nothing more than airheaded psychobabble. Insofar as people are suffering from white guilt, re-evaluation counseling may be as good a way to deal with it as any other.
Well maybe, but Prof. Sherbinin’s description was creepy enough to prompt me to enter “re-evaluation counseling” scientology dianetics” into the Google search engine. The results are interesting, including a site claiming that “Harvey Jackins developed Re-Evaluation Counseling directly from L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics… this information is denied and distorted in Re-evaluation Counseling literature.”
Perhaps “We put the cult in cultural diversity” is a motto that Colby’s tenured faculty and Administration would like to adopt. The enthusiasm of students and parents might be a different story.
Subtle error, or Exactly whose problem are you trying to solve?
On the subtle opposition tip, check this comment to a post at a blog most aptly called Discriminations: This woman has it exactly backwards. The real problem now is for blacks to extend themselves and the resources of their communities…
Weschler is right. Late as hell, but right
They ain’t taking it down. It’s been up there for over a year. That’s as long as I’ve known about it. Question of note: My question is, for whom is this photo gallery intended? Does anybody seriously think blacks are…