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One of the confusing things about academia, to me, is that the level of willingness to tolerate broken stairs “because they could be worse” or assertions (or assumptions) of virtue on the basis of someone having marginalized trainees or friends.
It doesn’t even have to be an openly stated excuse at this point: some people just present themselves as practitioners of reflexive inclusion due to, for example, being a white woman and then having other white women know that in general they have marginalized friends or trainees
And it’s weird, right, because white women can acquire virtue via their performed proximity to the suffering of others...
...while those others are required to have no voice so that the virtuous white women have someone to speak for.
It’s a bald-faced double standard.
...while those others are required to have no voice so that the virtuous white women have someone to speak for.
It’s a bald-faced double standard.
But in spite of decades of training in critical examination of evidence and careful winnowing of what conclusions can ethically be made...
...academics in general still are 100% just fine with this very obvious and really yick double standard.
...academics in general still are 100% just fine with this very obvious and really yick double standard.
I mean I know why this is. It’s because white supremacy posits that white womanhood is inherently virtuous, and then the liberal cosplay of care about human rights gets overlaid very neatly onto this.
But the dissonance still boggles me sometimes.
But the dissonance still boggles me sometimes.
ICYMI a broken stair is someone treated by their colleagues as though they’re not a danger, but anyone new who relies on those signals to trust the person quickly finds out that it’s a bad plan.
Those who know what step to avoid don’t get injured by a broken step in a staircase.
Those who know what step to avoid don’t get injured by a broken step in a staircase.
And there’s a whole body of literature (really) out there on the functions of allies, so it’s not as though every broken stair is equally dangerous to everyone.
Of course the phenomenon isn’t limited to white women, but those are who is on my mind this evening.
Of course the phenomenon isn’t limited to white women, but those are who is on my mind this evening.
