Colorblind and hella racist
We need to support Black professors, not restrict them
ProPublica has an excellent story that has my nonexistant hair on fire.
It begins like this: Dr. Jonathon Cox must decide whether or not he wants his family to eat.
As an untenured scholar in a state that has arguably outlawed his area of research, the study of race in society, he has to make a call that goes against his deepest values. He must cancel two courses he was to teach this fall on "Race and Social Media" and the other on "Race and Ethnicity.”
Why?
Because he planned to teach about how race-neutral practices can have discriminatory effects on racial outgroups, in Florida where the Governor has sold the public on anti-Black laws that have been carefully draped in colorblind language.
Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “Stope Woke Act” prevents instructors from making students feel guilty on account of discrimination conducted by their race and bans teaching that one race or gender is above any other morally.
On top of this, it specifically outlaws portraying racial colorblindness - which the law refers to as a virtue - as being racist. This amounts to the state sanctioning free speech for some, but speech restrictions for others.
Talk about government indoctrination.
Cox knew speaking about his ideas would bring consequences to his job. The only Black professor in the sociology department, Cox doesn't officially receive tenure until fall; once again putting his salary at risk, which is currently the only source of income for him and his wife while they take care of their baby.
Black males only make up 2% of full-time professors in degree-granting post-secondary institutions, to begin with, so laws that intentionally limit how thoroughly they can teach about the experience of racial minorities only marginalizes them further.
And it robs us of academic leaders who will bring our research and our voices into the institutions most responsible for creating the knowledge base that informs our country.
We need more Dr. Cox’s in this world. More Black men making it through K-12, through Bachelor and Master and Ph.D. programs who can rationally study the issues that prevent us from achieving all we can as a people. To the extent that American systems have yet to live up to their “liberty and justice for all” marketing, it’s to that extent that we need the Dr. Cox’s of the world to bring light and evidence to the issues.
If you are a person who supports DeSantis’ laws because you see them as a needed check on what feels to you like anti-white bias in DEI orthodoxy, I get it. But, how do you believe the white power you have to outlaw the research and teaching of minority groups’ perspectives isn’t proof that their perspectives are necessary?
You literally control the systems that make the rules all of us have to live by. I’m unaware of any place in the U.S. where Blacks have passed laws that prevent the teaching of white history.
Anti-Blackness has always come in cunning disguises. It has always thrown rocks and hid its hands. It continually couches itself in some abstract universal premise that it doesn’t live up to. And, it always attempts to suppress studies and analyses of discrimination itself.
I have faith that in long run it will fail because it has never succeeded at stopping individuals from working toward justice. You can temporarily silence the revolutionaries, but you can’t stop the revolution.
If you are a good citizen, you can contribute to social progress by speaking out against any state laws that chill academic freedom by limiting what can be taught about historically marginalized people’s experience with unjust systems. Defend ethnic studies and inclusive policies that increase representation for groups that would otherwise go unseen. Use your voice and your vote to defend an inclusive, forward-looking society.