stdh.txt.
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I think it was from Xeni that I first heard the explanation that thereâs an implied âtooâ at the end of âblack lives matterâ. When I hear âall lives matterâ it makes me a little sad because, like me in the beginning, they are totally missing the point.
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Our next generation of lawyers right there. Good grief. Well done, prof.
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Agreed. I like your example: hereâs another. In the UK, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children ran an advertising campaign for years, centred on the line âCruelty to children must stop. Full stop.â I refuse to believe that anyone ever looked at that and inferred in good faith that the NSPCC thought cruelty to adults to be acceptable.
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My response would have been even shorter - just two words, seven letters. But it also probably would have gotten me fired.
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They think itâs a racist movement, because theyâre continuously indoctrinated to favor that falsehood. This idea â that the BLM movement is a cover for copkillers, and under-bred black scum who should be ducking their heads and saying massa with their every word and gesture â is aggressively promoted by right wing propaganda radio. Support for it is extremely common in the central-southern part of the U.S. It is a trope that was developed nearly immediately (as in 2-3 days) after media recognition of the BLM movement took off.
As a result, there are large numbers of middle American â working to upper middle class white people â who really believe they are horribly shafted by African-Americansâ desire to walk as free as the rest of us. Their radios play Rush 3 hours a day, and they hear only about the allegedly aggressive Brown kid in Ferguson, MO. Their beloved demagogues speak only of the flawed symbols, and say nothing about the many completely blameless people whoâs lives have been blighted (or destroyed) by the authorities they must depend on as citizens. These âPolice Lives Matterâ aficionados refuse to see that Ferguson would not have risen up over the death of a fist-swinging kid if their decent mainstream citizens had not been treated like cattle for a couple of decades.
Rightwing media elites acted very quickly and forcefully to smear BLM, and they continue to do so in every venue they control. My guess is, since 2008, the leaders of the Right have developed a grudging accommodation with the status quo, and accept a smattering of black people in high office. But, they really, really want to keep things on the ground â in the heartland â the way that itâs been for decades. Especially since money is tight now, even for members of regional elites. They do not want to be forced to behave honorably towards their âinferiorsâ, and they are jockeying to see that they donât have to. Hence the seemingly insane reaction to Black Lives Matter. Bullying is a zero-sum endeavor and those who excel at it fight ferociously at the first sign of loss of power.
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I see the problem, and it doesnât trouble me much, but it seems the alternative would be this:
âwho wrote to a prof to object to the profâs choice to wear a Black Lives Matter t-shirt in classâ
Itâs up to you to pick the version thatâs less irritating and go with that one. 
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I donât see the last two lines as contradictory. I think heâs saying you canât change fact.
I think heâs essentially saying that while we all have opinions there are facts and the meanings heâs talking about, while they have a subjective component to them, they also have a core fact to them. It is that core truth that heâs talking about when talking about not being able to change meaning.
So what he is saying is that the history of the intertwining of slavery, the Confederate flag, and current day racism against blacks cannot be disputed (is a fact) and saying that the Confederate flag is âjustâ tradition canât change that fact.
Similarly, while the BLM movement does not sugar coat how upset they are about the lack of progress on racism, and thus they can be abrasive about it, that doesnât mean that they are advocating violence against police and thus it is disingenuous when people characterize it as racist against whites.
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What do you wear?
I wear shorts and a tshirt every day almost.
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Except in some cases, titles do matter - when one has struggled to get that title, often against the odds. Additionally, POC and women are often viewed with much less respect in the classroom, and itâs a nice reminder for the students that they worked to get that title and are in possession of some knowledge that the student would like to have.
My rule of thumb about how to refer to a prof has always been whatever they are comfortable with. If they are cool with me using their first names, then I go with that, but if theyâd like me to keep that formal distance, then Iâm cool with that as well.
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Mine too. Itâs an indoor market and the majority of the employees are from other countries - their name tags also include the languages they speak⌠And the customers are very diverse as well, economically, culturally, racially, etc.
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My willingness to address someone by their title scales directly with how much they had to work for it.
Doctor? Sure. Donât expect me to address a naturopath by Doctor though. They donât do even half the work it takes to be a real doctor, and it cheapens the title.
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[quote=âLDoBe, post:55, topic:81178, full:trueâ]
My willingness to address someone by their title scales directly with how much they had to work for it.[/quote]
Ditto.
Your Majesties and the Right Honourables and Sir Bribesalot can go fuck themselves, along with all the rest of the âhonoraryâ titles.
But a non-honorary academic title is one of the few that is genuinely earned.
âŚand physician training is hard enough that Iâm even willing to go along with their pretensions of being a ârealâ doctor. 
- Dr Wanderfound, PhD
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Reading the paragraph I quoted, I donât hear him making the assertion that people who like the confederate flag are denying that the confederacy fought in furtherance of slavery. If he meant to say that, he didnât get around to typing it out; and that would be rather out of character given his expressed views on clarity. All of which leaves open the very real possibility that his claim is more fundamental: that simply liking the confederate flag entails an advocacy of slavery. Whereas, people are capable of appreciating the flag simply (to name a few examples) because of its colors, or because itâs from a time period that they romanticize for reasons having little to do with slavery, or because they feel they want to honor ancestors who fought in a war regardless of the comprehension those ancestors had of the war or whether those ancestors even had a realistic choice as to whether to fight⌠or other possibilities.
His statement about the confederate flag only make sense if the âmeaningâ of the flag is defined to be âthe range of what the flag means (collectively) to everyoneâ. In other words, his claim that no one can âtake away the flagâs odious meaning just by declaring that it means something elseâ is fine if translated to mean âsome people seeing the flag as a harmless tradition doesnât mean everyone sees it that lightâ⌠whereas his statement falls down hard if translated to mean âas long as anyone sees the flag as symbolizing slavery, every right-thinking person must subscribe to that viewâ.
So if âmeaningâ is âthe collected views of everyoneâ on a given matter, then when some people choose to see something as negative, it most certainly does bring that meaning into being⌠contrary to what he states.
I donât mean to imply that I donât understand the general thrust of what heâs saying. He wants people to stop and think about their rage and their fear obectively, and to listen to each other and to articulate things clearly and without ad hominem undertones⌠all of which Iâm very much in favor of. I think he does a most beautiful job of putting this all together. On the one point I mention, I think he fleetingly falls victim to something he himself would not have wanted: letting rhetorical lyricism gloss over an overly broad point that actually doesnât belong in his thesis.
Usually a button-front shirt, khaki pants and (this being San Francisco) a sweater. So basically the West Coast equivalent of a tailored three-piece suit.
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I just canât get on board with how horribly arbitrary it is which professions we decide are prestigious enough to warrant such treatment. Itâs elitist and wholly unnecessary.
spotted out the bus window just yesterday:
Whatâs the consensus, is a Ph.D. In evil difficult enough to warrant using the title?
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Come to think of it, thereâs a ton of Doctors and Professors on the badguy list of comics. I wonderâŚ
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