Minnesotan

Nice attitude! When it's white folks who want certain jobs, they should give in to discriminatory practices, like the good little sheep they are. If I was a black woman, there would be public outrage about the easy dismissal I receive as a potential candidate; they tell me to my face that I am white and male, therefore I am not qualiied! This is exactly the kind of behavior any good liberal (like me, not a Rush Limbaugh fan, as you imply) would fight against -- you think it's okay because discrimination is only legal against white males and homosexual couples (in some states). It's amazing how narratives of the "other" are only powerful when we mean "other than white men." These jobs were not created (the ones I and my partner have applied for, anyway). They were preexisting positions reclassified for minority-only employees. They are TAships, RAships, editorships, or administrative/bureaucratic assistantships -- something that most grad students need to survive. You say I have marketable skills, but how am I marketable when I'm already at a disadvantage because of my race and gender. I think the backpack is on the other shoulder, these days. As for bringing race into the situation at issue, it was certainly not white people who thought that one up. Give "credit" where credit is due for relating everything back to race and perceptions of victimhood. I seriously doubt Gates and his team of ravening lawyers were unaware of Gates's rights; it's more likely the broken race record was already playing, so he went with the easy, sensationalist argument. Once again, you're assuming he's a victim when he made the choice to play the race card because he plays the race card for a living. He's used to blaming white folk for his problems, because that absolves him of personal responsibility for his failures and makes his successes look that much more dramatic.

You see, I disagree wholeheartedly with the assumptions people make about white people and privilege. I was born poor, I've been poor my whole life, and I find that I am often limited in my options because of my gender and color (in fact, not only is it legal to discriminate against people like me, the government mandates it in certain hiring situations!). My job prospects on campus, and my ability to earn grants and scholarships is greatly reduced by what I can only surmise is every other white male out there who has the backpack full of privileges I've heard so much about. How I missed out on that freebie, I'll never know. If there's a way to get a replacement backpack, I'd be happy to fill out whatever forms it takes. Long story short, you're right that I won't ever know your challenges; just the same, I would ask for the courtesy of not assuming I have had everything handed to me because of my skin color. You don't know what poor white folks feel like when they are just as bad off as many other poor folks, and yet they are also blamed for every ill of modern society. It might be different if people, every once in a while, stood up and applauded all of the good stuff white males have done, but that would clearly interfere with the political program going on in our English departments. Everyone has a vested interest in identifying a demon to label with their favorite -ism. I guess, since we're all endorsing a spirit of walking in the shoes of others, I would ask that you consider what it's like to wake up in the morning knowing that everyone blames you for every historical wrong that anyone of your skin color (whether related or not, whether within the last 100 years or not) has ever done. Or has been perceived to have done. That you are not allowed to apply for many much-needed services, programs, and career-advancement opportunities because some of the other folks with your skin color have more money than you, so it is assumed you must not need the same opportunities as others. That if you dare say anything good about your own race, it is insinuated that you are a racist; of your gender, a sexist. Basically, being a poor white male is like being blamed for eating the whole cake when you never even got to stick your finger in the icing. This is why I am so insulted by ambiguous phrases like "you're too comfortable in your whiteness," and by assumptions of privilege (and therefore dominance, and therefore oppression). It is completely groundless, yet always assumed. Anyone who cared to ask me about the material circumstances of my life would realize that, but why bother when it's easier to assume! (As for the name-calling comment, I thought you had called me stupid, but you were calling my actions stupid. Which, while offensive, is not the same thing, I'll admit.)

I still haven't heard back about my MFA application to Melbourne. It's been over three years, now. I figure I'll get accepted about the time I gain tenure.

Ooh! We can add UT to the list of schools with their collective head up their ass, along with U Washington and UW-Madison. All sorts of stupidity happens when people can't coordinate their email lists. What? Email individuals personally, after they paid $100 for the grand privilege of applying to your mighty institution? Pshaw!

Yup. I'm older than you, and I'm in grad school. No worries.

One last thing: if this has anything to do with literary study, what book are we talking about? Literary study should be about text first, context second -- not the other way around.

Kfed: Too comfortable in my whiteness? I think you're too comfortable in your role as victim. If you accuse me of whiteness, I accuse you of racism. As for name-calling because of a difference of opinion, I think you need to grow up. So I don't think identity politics and literary studies belong together and you do -- does that mean you get to be a jerk in the comfortable anonymity of these forums? Maybe so, but you're the one who gets to choose what role you play, and you're the one who has to live with that choice. What I meant by "the race card has been burned," for those unfamiliar with card games, is that it has been used to its limit and should be put in the discard pile. As for Yellow's point about old ladies, that's just silly. The prisons in this country aren't disproportionately filled with old white ladies. Black males make up a much larger portion of inmates than population statistics suggest they should, even in areas where most police officers are non-white. If it were the reverse, I am betting old white ladies would get the cops called on them more often than anyone else (which may help to reinforce the preexisting asymmetry). Now, please get off your high horses. I agree that nobody (of ANY color!) should be arrested for breaking into their own homes. My point, and it is not much of a stretch, is that you're blowing things out of proportion because you're buying into the same media hype that you're criticizing -- yes, this should be a 4th Amendment issue, not a race issue. The guy has a right to be pissed off and sue the cops who did this. But is it really necessary to turn it into yet one more O.J. Simpson fiasco, just because he was black? Trauma, indeed!

I guess I can respond to each point. 1) Identity is not literary study, no matter how much you try to force it so. This is a political conversation, not an English Department conversation. Thus I moved it to the appropriate forum. I'm not sure why this is so offensive to you that you need to threaten to take your ball and go home, but you're going to have to deal with the call I make as a moderator. 2) I clearly did not dismiss the argument. I, like belowthree (if I gather correctly his/her interpretation), feel this was a stupid incident that need not have happened. I also feel that words like trauma are inappropriate for such a minor issue. Between this case and the charges of racism when people dared to talk (post mortem) about the utter strangeness of Michael Jackson's lifestyle, I am not sure how any self-respecting intellectual can jump on the identity politics bandwagon anymore. The race card has been burned, and it's about time every single action involving a black person stopped turning into a media-supported race war. If this had happened to a white person, nobody would have given a good god damn! What this says is that if you're looking at every life situation for "traumatic" racist events, you're bound to find them everywhere you look. We see what we want to see. Now, since I only partly engaged in this thread in the first place (just to vent about people who think they're too good to meet their neighbors), it's time you found another target for your righteous indignation. I'm not "The Man" who brings everyone down, so you can redirect your anger at the idiot police officers who arrested the professor.

No wonder you chose psychology.

People who graduate from business school can read English? =)

I'm going to move this over to The Lobby, since it's completely off topic in the English forum. I should have done this before, but I wanted to weigh in before words like "trauma" started getting thrown around. I think we've lost perspective a bit if a night at county is represented as a major trauma in one's life. Maybe this should stay in the rhetoric area, after all.

Take it off a couple of months before you hit the job market (so the hole heals up a bit). Otherwise, you're fine.

There's the thing that troubles me about all of this: it was his neighbor who called the cops. Wouldn't this guy, if he was any sort of responsible community figure, be known by name, face, or reputation by his immediate neighbors, let alone the community as a whole? I guess, if you don't take the time to participate in the community, you shouldn't get all high and mighty with the cops if they drop by to ask you why you're breaking into a house. Nonetheless, this has little bearing on the legal issues. It merely makes me think the professor might want to moderate his indignation, considering he could have avoided this whole fiasco by introducing himself to his neighbors when he moved in.

Nothing is cheap in Toronto.

That's the mindset that got me on the path to an English PhD. Don't trust that urge! =)

They should make a spin-off show!

Good show! Someone brought hard numbers into the discussion, even if they're a bit dusty.

Well, if you can time it right so you don't go to Canada when the union's on strike, you should have decent support. Unfortunately, the union's always on strike, and that means nobody gets paid. And their degrees get held up for a year or so. On second thought, don't go to Canada. It's messed up there. =)

Such as they are. I once saw my freshman year roommate (the nerdiest guy I'd ever met) get in a slap fight with my best friend's roommate (the new nerdiest, once I'd met him) in our dorm laundry room. It was priceless in that they were so earnest, yet so inept.

I wear shorts and a t-shirt, unless I have a big meeting. That's about as dressed up as most English instructors get.

Well, we expect native English speakers to know the bulk of the words that make up their first language, yeah. Maybe that's too much to ask.

I never understood string theory. If she dates five TAs simultaneously, she's into M-theory then, right?

Anything my cat chews up to the point where I can no longer read the essay earns an A. Unfortunately, my students have caught on to this method, so now all of the essays they turn in smell like Meow Mix. Cheeky buggers!

Remember that most departments don't hire their own PhDs (except the inbred Ivies).

I think you're worrying over nothing. The words I saw on my GRE are pretty common in the more difficult works I study in grad school (in English -- our discipline are more inclined to use big words than engineers or scientists). ETS gets a bad rap from the lazy or stupid folks who fail their tests. As is always said in the assessment game, "It aint perfect, but it's all we got." I think the GRE does a fine job of doing what it's supposed to do on the verbal, which is see what kind of vocabulary and reading comprehension you've cultivated over the first 16 years of study.