Blog for Anthro 104, Fall 08, UMass Amherst

Amongst liberal/left-wingers like myself, there’s a text by Tim Wise that’s making the rounds in e-mail boxes and I feel compelled to post it for two reasons.  First, later in the semester, we’ll be reading a article that’s become a classic in introductory reading for discussing racism, Peggy McIntosh’s “Unpacking White Privilege”, and Wise is using McIntosh’s concept to write a very politically charged and polemical update.   Second, Wise has hit so many nails on the head, it ought to be nailing the coffin on McCain/Palin candidacy.  (Here’s where I lifted Wise’s text from: redroom.com, check it out, you can read the many comments people have made since he published it.)

So, having said this, a caveat:  in my lectures, I have never tried hide my political views.  My hope is that, with a mixture of reassurances about everybody’s right to their position, my encouragement for debate, and my self-effacing comments about long-haired Valley lefties, you can be comfortable with me and my brand of anthropology even if your politics are decidedly conservative.   As I’ve said in lectures – in the classes I’ve taught, I’ve often had the most respect for (and given mostly A’s to) the outspoken conservatives in my classes if they would earnestly engage with anthropological ideas and argue their views.  They would hold me more accountable to my ideas than those who just nodded in agreement.  So, if your supporting McCain/Palin and you see this blog posting, don’t be thinking, “Oh no, I shoulda dropped this class!”  Far from it, you’re welcome to be here.  And your comments are welcome.  Read on:

This is Your Nation on White Privilege  By Tim Wise

For those who still can’t grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because “every family has challenges,” even as black and Latino families with similar “challenges” are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

White privilege is when you can call yourself a “fuckin’ redneck,” like Bristol Palin’s boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you’ll “kick their fuckin’ ass,” and talk about how you like to “shoot shit” for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.

White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.

White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don’t all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you’re “untested.”

White privilege is being able to say that you support the words “under God” in the pledge of allegiance because “if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it’s good enough for me,” and not be immediately disqualified from holding office–since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the “under God” part wasn’t added until the 1950s–while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.

White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you.
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As I write this, we’ve got our first presentations and papers due in exactly a week in Anthro 104.  And, when you look at the syllabus, you’ll see that 20% of the grade for this first paper is noted as style.  By this, I mean grammar, paragraphing, giving yourself enough time to both use spellcheck and doublecheck for typos, not using passive voice in five consecutive sentences, avoiding run-ons, subject-verb agreement, writing consistent in-text citations, etc.  You can write with great ideas, but if you lack style, your grade will go down.

With this in mind, I thought I’d put a link to the Style Guide that I use most of the time, that of the American Anthropology Association (AAA) which is based on The Chicago Manual of Style and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary.  It’s fourteen pages of what-to-do and what-to-don’t and I don’t expect anyone to read it from page one to fourteen.  But, you can use this as a guide if you’ve got questions about something like in-text citations, for example.  Consistency will be most important for us as we grade these papers; that is, you don’t have to use this Style Guide as long as you’re consistent with the style you use.

I have been ordering textbooks through Food for Thought Books in downtown Amherst ever since I was first teaching classes here at UMass and every semester students ask me why.

So here’s my first reason: I really like what they’re trying to do as a non-profit, workers’ collective bookstore.  It’s owned and operated by its workers and specializes in Progressive, Multicultural & Radical Politics, Queer Studies, Women’s Studies, and multicultural & progressive kids’ books.  They do book readings and signings and contribute to the intellectual community that, for me, makes Amherst an enjoyable place to live.  They fit a lot of my political thinking and I’m glad they exist.   And, by me swinging them my book order, I do a little bit to keep them existing and I like to know that the money spent there pretty much stays in Amherst. Yes, I know you can find some things cheaper on-line nowadays, but my hope is that many of you will venture into this really cool indy brick & mortar bookstore.  It’s not like it’s a direct part of what I’m trying to teach undergraduates, but I see there being pedagogical value in asking my students to walk into a store that may expand their horizons a bit.  The inconvenient trek down to Food For Thought is an unofficial part of my course wherein I’m trying to show students, “here, look, this is what a bookstore that cares about its customers looks like”.

I don’t use the bookstore on the UMass campus because their prices are just as high as everywhere and I don’t see them doing anything for the Amherst or UMass community.    They are run by Follett Higher Education Group, a corporate entity that, in case you didn’t notice when you’re in the campus bookstore, is happier to sell you a bottle opener keychain with the UMass logo on it than any truly progressive-thinking book — what do they stock more of? Follett Higher Education Group corporate bookstore at UMass is a business that I never felt supported me or my community, so I never felt like I wanted to support it.   But, I never really wanted to make a big deal about it, didn’t want to be a big leftwing/liberal, yelling and screaming, no, I just wanted to quietly give my support to Food For Thought.

But now, here I am, writing this post.  It’s my little yell/scream.  I am pissed off at Follett.  Ken Kahler, the director of UMass bookstore, e-mailed me in August pretending to be a parent so he could figure out what books I was ordering.  He wanted to set up a shadow stack in the “Textbook Annex” and thus trick away the business from the store I wanted to support.  While I didn’t know it was Kalhler, I didn’t answer the e-mail – something about it didn’t seem right (it was the first e-mail from a “parent” I’d received like, it’s always been the student asking before).   Kalher, in doing this, was trying to undermine one of my unofficial intentions in my teaching of my anthro course, he was trying to undermine my community, and he was most certainly undermining any sense of fairplay.  The story came out as school started (“‘Perfidy’ at Annex” in the Collegian and “UMass Faculty Members Against Bookstore” in the Chronicle of Higher Education) and I can see that Kahler did trick a lot of profs.  One would hope that he’s forced off the UMass campus.  But, will the corporate pressures from Follet that may have pushed Kahler into his subterfuge be elminated? I kind of doubt it.

So, you ask why I support an honest, local business like Food For Thought?

Something that we’ll be reading later in the semester is Tracey Kidder’s book, Mountains Beyond Mountains, about Paul Farmer, doctor and anthropologist.  It’s inspiring stuff – a big reason why I’m assigning it.  It’s available at Food For Thought bookstore in downtown Amherst, but you can probably find used copies in used bookstores and on-line at places like Alibris.   

For more info about Paul Farmer, check out this link on Healthline.come.  Or this video (on RealPlayer).

In the syllabus for our Anthro 104 course you’ll see a reading assigned for September 17th called “April Love” by Pat Boone, a 1950s “teen idol”. It’s kind of a goofy thing to read and it’s meant to be read more as an “artifact” from the past than as any kind of set of “anthropological ideas”. Here’s a link for more info about this Pat Boone person. And another.