JOANNE JACOBS: A black professor leaves academia: ‘Critical thinking became critical feeling.’
Erec Smith, formerly a professor of rhetoric and composition, got tired of colleagues calling him “inauthentically Black” because he embraced “white ways of knowing” such as “argumentation, knowledge of standard English and reason.”
“Critical thinking . . . became critical feeling,” Smith writes. The only acceptable feeling was resentment toward Western Civilization.
“My dedication to the preparation of my students for a free, pluralistic and liberal society induced a rancorous and multiracial tantrum from those dedicated to destroying said society,” he writes. “My desire to empower my students was taken as an apologia for settler colonialism, a manifestation of my internalized anti-Blackness, a preference for White supremacy and a promotion of modern-day fascism.”
There was no place for a Black man who doesn’t identify as a victim, Smith complains. Nor was there any demand for a Black rhetorician who didn’t want to focus on Black rhetoric.
So Smith has left his job at York College for the Cato Institute, where he’ll be a research fellow. He hopes to devote himself to “the life of the mind” — not fending off “middle-school mean girls” with PhDs.
Who are producing students who can only produce macro-aggressions over the teeny-tiniest of microaggressions: The little-known racial slur that landed Kendrick Lamar in hot water.
Rapper Kendrick Lamar is facing backlash after uttering a little-known racial slur in a song on his new album.
The hip-hop star released his seventh studio album, GNX, on Friday and has since faced criticism online for using the slur that refers to Indigenous people.
The new album’s first track, Wacced Out Murals, features the lyrics: ‘Whatever, though, call me crazy, everybody questionable/Turn me to an Eskimo, I drew the lines and decimals.’
Fans of the artist took to social media to blast Lamar’s use of ‘Eskimo,’ a derogatory term aimed at Native American communities.
‘Kendrick using a slur for Inuit and Yupik people during Native American Heritage Month in the US was not on my bingo card,’ one user wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Another posted: ‘Dude I don’t want to be that guy by Kendrick saying Eskimo is racist. Why is it okay for someone of that level to say slanderous names like that? Really upsetting.’
Others have accused to PRIDE rapper for using what they consider ‘colonizer language’ – a term Lamar used during his beef with Canadian hip-hop artist Drake earlier this year.
‘Kendrick calling people colonizers, then uses the colonizer language and puts out a song calling Inuit people Eskimos is so disrespectful,’ another user on X wrote.
Others have backed the 37-year-old artist, widely recognized for his technical artistry and complex songwriting, claiming the term is not widely known as a racial slur.
‘Eskimo is a slur??? Damn why are we now being made aware of this,’ another user on X wrote.
‘What? I’m native and saying Eskimo is not a slur, he just means turned cold.’ commented another.
Still, others said the the lyric offered the chance to educate people on the word’s controversial use and history.
Release a cover album depicting a judge after he was lynched, go on and meet then-President Obama in the White House. Use the word “Eskimo,” and activate the Bat-Signal on Twitter. The 21st century is not turning out as I hoped, to coin an Insta-phrase.