NYT article about @platanoclassics: "He wants to save the Classics From Whiteness."

White prof responding: "He wants to destroy the classics."

I don't have time to go into all of the things that Prof. Pigliucci's response to Prof. Padilla gets wrong, so I will limit myself to one major thing: he literally changes Padilla's quotes to make it appear that Padilla thinks the classics "should be thrown away"

Since Padilla never says this, Pigliucci must alter one quote and take it out of context so it seems clear that Padilla--one of the only Black scholars in Classics--wants the destruction of "the classics"

The original quote is in response to a white scholar who confronted Padilla at a conference, suggested Padilla got his job bc he's Black, and then stated that the field of Classics should remain unchanged bc "It’s Western civilization. It matters because it’s the West."

Padilla's response: “Here’s what I have to say about the vision of classics that you outlined,” he said. “I want nothing to do with it. I hope the field dies that you’ve outlined, and that it dies as swiftly as possible.”

He wants nothing to do with her "vision of the classics"

This is how Pigliucci reframes what Padilla said:

"At a conference at the Society for Classical Studies in 2019 he said: 'I want nothing to do with [the classics]. I hope the field dies … and that it dies as swiftly as possible.'"

Padilla's rejection of the racist white scholar's "vision of the classics" is now, in Pigliucci's article, a rejection of "the classics".

Likewise, Pigliucci now has Padilla saying "I hope the field dies", not "the field [...] that you've outlined."

Once he's accomplished creating this strawman, Pigliucci can set about slamming Padilla for being an extremist, a hypocrite, etc, while praising white scholars who he states have "a more nuanced take" than Padilla

There's a LOT of problems with Pigliucci's piece, but he simply doesn't represent Padilla's position at all correctly.

Pigliucci even suggests that he is writing his response so that he feels he hasn't "entirely wasted my time" reading the interview with Padilla.

The interview with Padilla, is well worth reading & is large part about his experiences of racism within academia and his work to change both his field & university. That Pigliucci feels reading this was almost entire a waste of time says a lot. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/02/magazine/classics-greece-rome-whiteness.html