But all I’m saying is that there are obviously people here in their 20s who, yeah, really don’t know better, and are willing to learn and recognize this. Their education has, up to that, failed them. Their media has failed them. But they’re willing to hear. There was only a minority who seemed determined to defend the use of blackface performance in Korea as “not racist” or “not so bad” or “fine because not intended for non-Korean audiences” or whatever. They were loud, but they were a minority, and one that shrank before my eyes.
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Notably, all of those individuals who did change their view told me they had never discussed it seriously in any class or with any instructor. Some were literature or culture or media majors. So some sympathy and outreach is worthwhile.
But some ppl. are just stubborn/ignorant. Oh, and I should note that there was always a quiet (usually quiet) minority who already recognized that it was racist and spoke out against it, and were sometimes quite frustrated with classmates who argued against the obvious.
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And yeah, the defensive netizen response is revolting. But utterly unsurprising. To be fair, I had students who didn’t get what was wrong with this stuff till we talked about it as part of a class, with readings, discussion, and watching a film (Spike Lee’s Bamboozled). Even after watching it, I had students who insisted (a) that the “yellowface” in Breakfast at Tiffany’s was “wrong and offensive and racist” but who insisted blackface in Korea media was totally fine. Some people will refuse to learn. But lots did come around, once informed.
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Of course, there’s all kinds of unanswered questions: maybe the teacher wanted to object but wouldn’t get support. Maybe teachers don’t get any sensitivity training like what’s insisted on in universities. Maybe the teacher was a passive racist who saw nothing wrong. Who knows? But to me, it seems pretty obvious the school should be reacting more like, “Oh, good grief, this is not appropriate for a school event,” rather than, “Oh golly, this got discussed online, we should do something.”
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Eternally classy, those K-netizens.
I’m exhausted of the blackface show racism and I’m white… imagine how frustrating it must be. Good on Sam Okyere for speaking oit, and on those supporting him. Shame on the bigots attacking him. https://t.co/E3UdUGkGNr For me, though, the bigger issue is that this stuff is allowed to happen in classrooms. Like, where was the teacher? How did the teacher react? The school has said they’ll take action… after reviewing the social media response. Which… really? Why does the SNS response matter?
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@isasv Since that a student was hostile and clearly not well, and someone had bombed a prof’s office over a bad grade a semester or two earlier in another city, I interpreted it as a possible (veiled) death threat, and reported it as such.
I was ignored (of course). @isasv After that, I just decided to put down very clear, hard boundaries. I’d been trying to engage students and also to impart some understanding the cultural-linguistic dimension of all this, but… no support in the face of that? No response at all? Eh, it’s not worth the risk.
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@isasv So I just draw a line now, and say, “We do not discuss these things.” It’s too bad, but, well, I teach TEFL and while I think letting students talk about what they want to discuss is helpful for language acquisition, I have my limits. @isasv Actually, the straw that broke the camel’s back was the time a student handed in a practice exam covered in stuff like, “feminism = Nazism” & “you old man feminists are ruining everything,” & “This country is becoming hell because the people who should die aren’t.” Which, er.
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@isasv (tl;dr: Some Yemeni refugees found a visa-regulations loophole that let them fly to a tourist island in Korea; half the country flew into a panic that they were here to maraud and despoil. To the point where when the refugees were assaulted by locals, it was spun as the opposite. @isasv And since bigoted garbage was totally fine in the internet bubbles they hung out in, some students thought spouting baseless fantasies and panic and nonsense was fine everywhere. I remember trying to use it to teach them to check sources for info, but it was hopeless.
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@isasv (Ask meaning *tell*.) Like, it’s essentially in the behavioral contract for the class. I mean, I’ve just had so many raging bigots spout so much raging bigotry that I finally had to draw the line. The straw that broke the camel’s back was a few semesters ago… @isasv … when suddenly a significant minority of young men all read the same website that declared “feminism = Nazism!” and started spouting it in my class. Though also, the obsessive-compulsive rage-fest against Yemeni refugees in country a few years ago contributed to it.
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@isasv I’ve had to start each semester saying, “The basic rules for MY class are that we respect the fundamental humanity of all people, including people who make us uncomfortable or people we don’t understand: different races, sexualities, political values, religious beliefs…” @isasv “In this classroom, insulting or dehumanizing people will not be tolerated. If you want to use your English class to do this, please drop my class and go find another class with different standards. In this class, if you behave this way, I reserve the right to ask you to leave.”
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@isasv In other words, it had exactly the effect on faculty that Shepard had almost certainly hoped for, but also the opposite? That’s harder to navigate, though one would think the university’s Code of Conduct would be helpful in doing so: “Our university’s Code of Conduct says…” @isasv In my classrooms (here in Korea) there’s a growing backlash against everything progressive from a loud, aggressive minority. I’ve had to basically put certain topics off-limits. But the reactionary minority often does its best find loopholes or workarounds.
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@isasv It’s a pretty pronounced pattern, too: the people most obsessed with free speech often lawyer up to silence others when it suits them. “You’re defaming me by stating your opinions!” (Er… but you’re not insulting people by insisting on gendering them according to your opinion?) @isasv It’s all very simple: don’t be an asshole. The muddle, deep down, isn’t politics: it’s that people who enjoy being assholes know they can’t admit that’s the main point: “I have a right to be a fucking asshole to whoever I disapprove of!”
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@isasv I mean, there’s a difference between free speech and legislation. But the reality is the government’s always had limits on freedom of expression. Peterson was basically bullshitting when he suggested he could end up in jail… unless he was calling for genocide of trans people. @isasv The biggest self-contradiction, though, is how many free speech grifters are censorious themselves. Peterson jabbers about free speech… and then lawyers up to go after people who criticize him in private meetings that were never intended to be aired publicly.(Shepard’s tape)
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@isasv They want to *claim* they’re being silenced, but they’re not. They’re just being told, “You can speak however the fuck you want in private, but when you’re on the job, we have rules and if people say ‘Call me X’ you do them the politeness of doing so.” (ie. Don’t be an asshole.) @isasv I guarantee you if I were to misgender my students this way—say, insisting on using feminine pronouns for cis males who I perceive as feminine (like, who wear makeup and even, once, a skirt to class), I’d be up sh*tcreek too. It’s *very* simple: don’t treat students like shit.
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@isasv Exactly. If you argued, “I can misgender people if I want, it’s my right!”
Well, sure, you have a right to be an asshole—& universities aren’t obligated to keep assholes on faculty: they have codes of conduct that kinda forbid specific assholery like this. @isasv It’s very simple, it’s just a specific flavor of asshole behavior, with career consequences.
Which is the reason for the shifting goalposts, not that Peterson or Lindsay or other free speech grifters will ever admit this.
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@isasv Also, it’s sad that people were scared they were being recorded. The faculty learned the wrong lesson. The right lesson would be that you address the issue directly and neutrally, as in: @isasv “Trying to introduce gender politics into a grammar tutorial is as inappropriate as turning a mathematics tutorial into a sex ed class or turning an ear training lesson into an exploration of genocide or psychopathology. Tutorials are meant to focus on subjects covered in class.”
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An interesting look back to the 1960s in South Korea. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose? Not completely, but certain things felt very familiar as I read it.
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@isasv The free-speech thing is just a popular alt-right grift: “Universities have standards that mandate we treat minorities with respect. They can fire us for flouting them. We can’t win that fight, so… let’s make it a free speech issue! Yeah, it’s about suppressing free speech!” @isasv Which… you can tell by the way they use the term “free speech” instead of “freedom of expression” that it’s all a media stunt aimed at generating buzz among Americans. The whole parlance of the grift (like the parlance of the alt-right) is essentially in American terms.
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@isasv Oh Shepherd’s a clown and I’m convinced she’s always been alt-right, not free-speech. The media handled that horribly, of course. They give way too much air time to ignoramuses. Any sensible academic could have easily explained why she fucked up in her TA job. @isasv (If you’re teaching grammar, then no, sharing debates over alternate pronouns is NOT anywhere near within your job description. You teach standards in academic writing, note what’s in transition, maybe note that this is contested, but you don’t present it as a political debate.)
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@isasv I mean, this is one of those places where quibbling over definitions is psychologically easier than looking at the facts on the ground and saying, “Yes, this is oppression and awful and needs to change, and we’re complicit with it so the onus is on us to face and deal with that.” @isasv Even if it weren’t genocide, it’s not like we can regard the experience of these communities as humane, decent, or anything approaching just or equal. Quibbling over the definition is just a way of deflecting the whole discussion.
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I’ve been thinking a lot about this as I watch the madness unfold in the States (and navigate some COVID-19-related madness here, too, if I’m being totally honest). twitter.com/Medium/status/…
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@isasv Ha, I saw the first of the Tolkien movies in Vancouver a day or two before first flying to Korea; saw the second in Bangkok and the third in a tiny cinema in India. That said, they weren’t dubbed in those places so the only stuff that was opaque to me was the Elvish dialogue… @isasv … because they resubtitled it in the local language. Or, actually, in India the whole thing was resubtitled in nonsense in English. It was not a proper cinema, just a long building with chairs (and no heat, in winter) & a big screen playing probably (certainly!) pirated DVDs.
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@isasv It’s actually not *that* hard to get the gist of a film in a foreign language you don’t understand, without subs. I think it’s more just cultural that this is seen as a no-go. (Understandably, but I mean we assume it’s more uncomfortable and “painful” than it actually is.) @isasv The funny part to me is just his insistence that he DOES understand what they’re saying… though he can’t explain it. (Then again, when I was listening I caught just enough Germanic-rooted words to kinda-sorta guess what they were saying to each other.)
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@isasv Honestly? I kinda do this too. First time was in Montreal, festival with only French subs, which my friends could read but I couldn’t. I went anyway and watched a few movies that only had French subs (a Russian documentary & Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon). @isasv I was less lost than expected. After moving to Korea, I often watched Korean films without subtitles in the cinema, and it helped me with listening (somewhat). I soon was able to mostly follow films except the really dialog-heavy ones. I mean, occasional misunderstandings, but…
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Not my country, but… a lot of people have a LOT to answer for. twitter.com/axios/status/1…
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Our son woke this morning insisting tonight was the night for popcorn and a movie together. Er… okay? His Netflix choice? Findus & Petterson. A German movie, with German audio only. (English subs, but he can’t read yet.)
He insists that he can understand the dialog. And even after an hour and a bit, he’s still rapt and insists he understands the movie, “but I can’t explain it to YOU!”
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Next time someone says, “At least we didn’t have slaves in Canada”: twitter.com/NHenryDixon/st…
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Very understandable. twitter.com/DWUhlfelderLaw…
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@TimAkers @jeremiahtolbert This is where I’ve landed. I mean, I’m writing in theory (though pandemic has killed my productivity) but I don’t follow what’s going on in the scene anymore, and am fine with SFworld scandals registering about the same as other scandals. I mean, I’ll say, “Do I want to know?”
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? And this one… tmblr.co/ZwA1ltYiNTElKu…
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? Not sure why this sprang to mind tonight, but I love this one. Never get tired of it. tmblr.co/ZwA1ltYiNJwXqm…