Universities should issue a one-time “trigger warning,” says Jonathan Rauch, author of Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought. At any moment, you may be exposed to ideas you find shocking, offensive, obnoxious, absurd, racist, sexist, homophobic or generally obnoxious. It’s called “education,” he says.
Not “microaggression.”
Amen--and that Universal Trigger Warning should be part of the application procedure to the University. If you don't sign the paper agreeing to face things you don't like, then you forfeit your place to somebody else who is willing to have an actual education.
ReplyDeleteI almost committed a micro aggression last night. I've never cooked collard greens before, and I was about to. I know enough to know that if you cook them incorrectly, they come out tough or neither … and, I'm a pretty good cook, so I had a general idea …but didn't know. I do have a very good friend from college who happens to be black, and whose roots are in Florida, and whose greens I have eaten. (He is also a very good cook, and works in upper echelon food service).
ReplyDeleteBut did I call him? No. Because, why should I assume the black guy knows how to cook greens? I guess the point is … I should have called him. First, just to talk; second to ask his advice, which he would have given freely. But the point? I had to think about that. And I guarantee you, he would have given me some good natured crap before he helped m to -- (He wold have affected an exaggerated slave dialect, and said something along the lines of "Oh Lawsy, Lawsy, Massah…I sure do want your greens to bees tasty. Then, we would have laughed, and he would have told me. but I didn't call him, because I didn't want to be racist. So … I cooked them based on the one time I'd seen I'm do it, and guessed. They were really good, I',m embarrassed, and black people from the south know how to cook greens. I think that's something of a fable.
That you're afraid to call a friend because the question *might* be considered racist by people you *shouldn't* care one iota about, that's pretty bad.
ReplyDeleteI'll take help wherever I can get it, and screw people who don't like it.
No one else would have known. And he would have taken it in good humor. But he also would have given me 10 minutes of crap about asking the black man how to cook greens. I agree with you, tough -- not something we should even need to worry about.
ReplyDelete