Racism Archives - Steve Salaita

The Inhumanity of Academic Freedom

A transcript of the 2019 TB Davie Memorial Lecture at the University of Cape Town, delivered August 7, 2019.

I begin with a straightforward proposition: academic freedom is inhumane. Its inhumanity isn’t of the physical, legal, or intellectual variety. Even at its best, academic freedom is capable of transforming human beings into instruments of bureaucracy. It is inhumane as an ontological category. It cannot provide the very artifact it promises: freedom. To become practicable, academic freedom requires textual boundaries. Under this sort of regime, freedom is merely academic.

College Administrators Care About Your Speech Rights–If You’re a Nazi

They disapprove of speech favorable to Palestinians, however.

Discussing free speech in the United States is a losing proposition. Every political demographic screams about hypocrisy, but doing so misses the larger point: it’s impossible to lionize speech as understood in this country without also being hypocritical. That’s because civil liberties are indivisible from the needs of power. In many cases, speech isn’t performed as a freedom; it’s an asset exploited by the shrewdest consumers.

Left-Rights

Random thoughts on carting around schoolchildren

Driving is a poor way to learn a place. Walking enables a person to discern the minutia of lawn design, roadside detritus, home disrepair, fraying utilities, and domesticated wildlife. It adjusts perception of civilized habitats. Bicyclists become familiar with grading, pavement conditions, wind patterns, shoulder clearances, and shortcuts inaccessible to cars. Both modes of transport provide an intimacy with physical surroundings precluded by the speed and structure of a vehicle.

Find Me Someone Better

A rant about the stupidity of electoral discourse in the United States.

I’ve long deployed what I consider a simple viewpoint about US elections (congressional and presidential): if leftists choose to participate, they should do it without making certain people disposable. In other words, don’t commit to movements that require the downtrodden anywhere in the world to remain in states of hardship or dispossession. US electoralism, by design, assiduously elides the needs and aspirations of communities whose freedom would disrupt imperial and colonial accumulation. Few groups are more familiar with this culture of disposability than Palestinians.

Absence and Dissent

No amount of charm or persuasiveness will compel reactionaries to forfeit the advantages they derive from racism.

Not a week passes without a new petition appearing in my inbox or Facebook feed urging solidarity with a scholar facing employer recrimination or harassment from rightwing culture warriors. (“Harassment” doesn’t get at the racist, sexist, and homophobic vitriol that victims of these campaigns endure.) The uptick in rightwing bullying many suspected would accompany a Trump presidency has come to fruition.

Certain patterns define these harassment campaigns. Republican operatives prowl social media for provocative comments, with the help of professional snitches and everyday informants (even if your posts are private, they are vulnerable to public consumption—watch your friends list closely). Those operatives then repurpose the quotes with the aim of inflaming white anxieties. The controversies almost always originate in social media, though op-ed pieces and conference programs also come in for scrutiny.