१८ जून, २०१८

"My dissertation chairman was Richard Brandt. Once after I had earned the doctorate and was meeting with him, he stood over me, lifted my chin toward him..."

"... and remarked that I looked like a maid his family once employed. Around the same time, early in the Ronald Reagan administration, an effort was made to rid Washington of the sex trade and shops that flourished along the 14th Street corridor a few blocks from the White House. I worked in nearby McPherson Square at the National Endowment for the Humanities and, as a volunteer at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. One day I was walking near my office with a white male friend, a philosopher at an Ivy League university. We were stopped by the police, who profiled us as a hooker and john. I had to answer questions and show ID."

From "The Pain and Promise of Black Women in Philosophy" (an interview with Anita L. Allen) (NYT).

४६ टिप्पण्या:

David Begley म्हणाले...

Just give the cop a quickie on Immanuel Kant and the problem is solved.

Get over it lady. Times have changed. And the whores have moved to K Street.

rhhardin म्हणाले...

That's profiling. It's how you fill in missing information until further information becomes available. Formally, it's Bayes's theorem.

Life won't work without it.

If you don't like being profiled as black, your argument is with blacks giving the marker its probabilistic behaviors.

The easiest out is don't identify as black. Act white, dress white, and you're under a different marker, and Bayes's theorem works in your favor.

Darrell म्हणाले...

That's why they should tattoo all your academic degree information on your forehead.

rhhardin म्हणाले...

Vicki Hearne is the only woman I know of worth reading on philosophy.

She brings a woman's perspective that adds to, rather than rejecting, the philosophy as men do it.

While you're philosophizing you have to be aware of the context of you philosophizing. By a sort of literary effect, it changes what's under your control.

Philosophers like to be in charge.

"Human philosophers tend to talk strangely when the topic of parrots comes up, as if they believe their stature depends on the diminished stature of parrots. I would tell you some of the bizarre things I have heard otherwise rational philosophers say about parrots, but it would probably be actionable if I did so in print, and they would deny it anyway. A human philosopher thinks that no one notices when he starts putting on airs.

...You know how it is. You go up to a parrot, and probably he's in a cage and you're not, so you feel pretty superior, maybe you even think you can feel sorry for the parrot, and you ask the parrot how he is, and he says something gnomic like, "So's your old man," or "How fine and purple are the swallows of late summer." Then the parrot looks at you in a really interested, expectant way, to see if you're going to keep your end up. At first you think you've been insulted, but a parrot is too cool to throw insults around, unlike a blue jay, and once you notice that, you start trying to figure out what the parrot means by it, and there you are. You haven't a prayer of reintroducing whatever topic you had in mind. That's why philosophers keep denying that parrots can talk, of course, because a philosopher really likes to keep control of a conversation."

Vicki Hearne _Animal Happiness_

Shouting Thomas म्हणाले...

Oh, the horror that people might think you've done manual labor or had a humbling, dirty job.

Like all the white people in my family before me.

Like Althouse and feminists, the assumption among the whiners is always that whites had executive fathers who never got their hands dirty.

rhhardin म्हणाले...

Women have the same problem with philosophy that they do with math. It's abstracting from details rather than heading towards details. They can't keep their interest up.

This one seems to have transferred it to an interest in nagging, where it's more comfortable and interesting for a woman.

Carol म्हणाले...

"lifted my chin" Ugh what a lame move.

One more tired cliché from Hollywood.

Shouting Thomas म्हणाले...

Are there any blacks in academia who don't have a second gig bitching about racism?

Maybe even some who express gratitude over their good fortune?

Likewise, are they are women in academia who don't have a second gig bitching about sexism?

Maybe even some who express gratitude over their good fortune?

chuck म्हणाले...

> who profiled us as a hooker and john.

Philosophy in a nutshell.

Otto म्हणाले...

Not enough info to make a comment - just a vehicle to vent one's spleen. What the hell is an ivy league philosopher?

Big Mike म्हणाले...

If you don't like being profiled as black, your argument is with blacks giving the marker its probabilistic behaviors.

Dead on! Teach inner city blacks to stop breaking the law and perhaps people won’t make the connection between being black and breaking the law. While you’re at it, teach Eric Holder, Loretta Lynch, and Barack Obama.

Big Mike म्हणाले...

At any rate we must have come a long way as a society if she has to reach back almost forty years to find an instance where she was profiled. If she was as intelligent as philosophers think they are, she might contemplate that.

Carol म्हणाले...

Gee, don't these organizations make some woman or minority their figurehead? Like the obligatory female liberals arts department chair?

That way they got someone to handle the administrative bullshit and cover the diversity thing at the same time.

Ann Althouse म्हणाले...

The pathetic thing is that Brandt probably loved the maid and meant to say you remind me of a woman I really loved when I was a little boy. But he was a grown man and should have known not to be that stupid in adult interaction. It's possibly worse as a gender offense than a racial offense. That chin-lifting is an inappropriate touching, that older-man familiarity that some men are just this year learning is wrong, and some men still can't understand.

rhhardin म्हणाले...

That chin-lifting is an inappropriate touching, that older-man familiarity that some men are just this year learning is wrong, and some men still can't understand.

Or it's an estrogen-cloud thing that women are unaware they're doing. A nagging instinct as formal interaction with men.

I'm a woman, take me seriously, effect.

rhhardin म्हणाले...

Men understand fine. Going along with the nonce women's mood is another thing, unless it's about getting laid. Then men go along. Pickup up babes at the NOW meeting.

rhhardin म्हणाले...

Indifference to women's desires has survival value for the species.

Women's desires don't work out in large systems.

Ken B म्हणाले...

I am not a toucher or a hugger, but what counts as “appropriate “ touching is one thing that really IS socially determined. It's not the sort of thing that “is wrong”. It's odd you can mock Page for the p-word yet not see the similarity here. You sound like those upper middle class educated white people who were outraged at the whistles from black men in that video from a couple years ago of a woman trolling black neighborhoods for just that reaction, unaware that different cultures have different standards.

Craig म्हणाले...

rhhardin said...
That's profiling. It's how you fill in missing information until further information becomes available. Formally, it's Bayes's theorem.

Life won't work without it.

If you don't like being profiled as black, your argument is with blacks giving the marker its probabilistic behaviors.

The easiest out is don't identify as black. Act white, dress white, and you're under a different marker, and Bayes's theorem works in your favor.

---

It's like someone had one class with one reference to Bayes, but otherwise has never thought seriously about any of this...

Jeff म्हणाले...

I'm 60. That chin-lifting thing is something Hollywood taught us as kids. How many times in how many movies did Humphrey Bogart, Bing Crosby or Robert Mitchum do it? And these were the good guys. You knew they were the good guys because they always got the girl. And I just don't recall any women at the time disagreeing with any of it.

These were the role models for proper male behavior that women and the culture taught us. And now we're supposed to feel guilty as if we chose what we were taught.

MayBee म्हणाले...

Being profiled as a hooker and john would be awful.
And someone other than a boyfriend lifting your chin? Gross gross gross. I don't know who would think that's ok.

Fernandinande म्हणाले...

Carol said...
"lifted my chin" Ugh what a lame move.
One more tired cliché from Hollywood.


Yet some people seem to believe it actually happened.

William म्हणाले...

I didn't read the article. I'm assuming that she was an attractive woman in her youth. Were the only men who hit on her during those years thesis advisors? Were there other men who hit on her and hit on her in a more blatant sexist way than white men? If so, are her objections here in any way racist? Let's continue the conversation.

Char Char Binks, Esq. म्हणाले...

That problem is easy to solve -- get out of philosophy, and stay out.

William म्हणाले...

I'd like her views on Kathleen Cleaver. Kathleen was married to Eldridge. Eldridge was the rapeiest kind of rapist. He claimed that he tried to overcome the oppressive nature of racism by raping white women. During his time in prison, he grew both intellectually and morally and decided that raping white women was not the way to achieve racial harmony. I believe he then decided that the best way forward was by ambushing policemen. Kathleen gave her love and trust to this man. She followed him into exile. Her child was born in North Korea, a country that had achieved the goals Kathleen and Eldridge sought.......Later Eldridge betrayed her trust by becoming a Republican, and the marriage broke up. Who could blame her? Some views are just too extreme. Kathleen is now a respected and esteemed law professor.....Here's my question: who in her opinion is more violative and hypocritical of the ideals of the academy: Richard Brandt or Kathleen Cleaver? Let the conversation continue.

Howard म्हणाले...

14th Street! Good times in the early 1980's

n.n म्हणाले...

A "john", huh?

The pain and promise of white men in philosophy.

Ann Althouse म्हणाले...

Think about when you would ever touch someone on the face or accept someone touching you on the face.

When do professional associates ever touch each other's face? It really doesn't happen (unless something extraneous to the relationship is going on, like a mosquito has landed).

We really do NOT go around touching other people's faces. Or heads in general. I was once talking with a colleague and he reached out and touched my hair. It's just blatantly wrong. I didn't do anything about it, but I thought he was being very inappropriate.

Putting doctors, nurses, spa personnel, and similar professionals aside (and maybe a baby or 2), I can't think of anyone other than my husband who has touched my face in the last 10 years. It's just not done.

YoungHegelian म्हणाले...

I wish I had a dollar for every story I heard about advisers & graduate students "crossing lines" over the years. I could retire tomorrow.

But, a much more amusing story about 14th St in DC from the early 80's. My employer was one of the first to move into the newly gentrifying 14th St between M & G st corridor back in 1982. It was full of hookers, adult book stores, topless bars, & adult theaters.

One day, two male co-workers & I were walking back from lunch at the Lunch Box at 14th & NY Ave. In front of a topless bar (I can't remember if it was the Gold Rush or This Is It), stood a black barker, working the passerbys. We, being three men, were a perfect target & he started in: "Come on in, boys! Come on in! I've got 'em WHITE. I've got 'em BLACK! I've got 'em OH-REE-ENTLE. I've got a GIRL for (pointing at each of us in turn) you, you, & you!"

We passed as duty called, but, I did admire how he came up with that one to one correspondence on the fly like that.

MadisonMan म्हणाले...

Being profiled as a hooker and john would be awful.

Being on the receiving end of that profiling would make me laugh. The police probably wouldn't appreciate that.

rhhardin म्हणाले...

It's like someone had one class with one reference to Bayes, but otherwise has never thought seriously about any of this...

Short form. Suppose blacks are responsible for 99% of the crime and whites for 1%, and there are hundred blacks and a hundred whites.

Put the criminal-minded into one urn (100 population) and the civic-minded in the second urn (population 100).

I select a random black person. What are the chances he came from the law-abiding urn? 1 in a hundred.

Yet he might be the law abiding black. That's profiling. You fill in information you don't have yet by Bayes's theorem. Knowledge of the population statistics gives you profiling.

It works the same way at lower diffences than a hundred times more likely. If it's enough to make profiling worthwhile, there will be profiling.

Jeff म्हणाले...

Ann, you're reflecting is the culture you grew up in. There are lots of places where people touch other people's faces every day. I knew Spaniards, Greeks and Italians in grad school over 30 years ago who did it all the time.

But even leaving that aside, note that the face-touching Allen mentions took place after she had already obtained her PhD and thus was no longer in a teacher-student relationship with her. It's not clear from what you excerpted whether Brandt, her dissertation committee chairman, was also her adviser or not. I spent a lot of time working with and talking with my adviser in grad school, and I daresay we were friends by the time I was finished. Maybe Brandt thought Allen was a friend as well. Is it so horrible to touch your friend in a nonsexual way? Whatever are we to do about all these people hugging each other at airports and such?

Shouting Thomas no doubt would say this is just another instance of feminists straining to find something to take offense at. I might phrase it a bit more politely than he would, but I'd pretty much agree.

Jupiter म्हणाले...

Shouting Thomas said...
"Are there any blacks in academia who don't have a second gig bitching about racism?".

There are damned few blacks in academia for whom bitching about racism is a second gig.

Jupiter म्हणाले...

"A.L.A.: Philosophy departments can become more inclusive if they take time to learn about emerging and emergent trends, advertise positions for fields people of color specialize in, and expand curricula to incorporate what black philosophers do."

Would that be the pain, or the promise? It sounds like what she is after is "separate but equal".

rhhardin म्हणाले...

Black philosophy might be a way for women to get into the field of philosophy. None of the male conventions hinder them.

rhhardin म्हणाले...

Vicki Hearne, when she's doing philosophy, is interested in the philosophy, but also what its conventions do. She effectively pulls in Cavell, Wittgenstein and Derrida as well, as helping to see the conventions instead of having them only as eyeglass frames you don't notice.

Big Mike म्हणाले...

Forty something years ago full professors felt more privileged than they do today. When we returned from our honeymoon my wife's dissertation advisor demanded to know how she thought she could get married without asking for his permission. Later she overheard him tell another professor that "if you let a woman get a Ph.D., she'll just take a job from some man who needs to feed his wife and children."

Times have changed. Some people don't get that.

Big Mike म्हणाले...

There are numerous things Prof. Brandt could have been saying.

(1) All of you folks look alike.

(2) I wonder what my family's maid could have accomplished if only Civil Rights had happened twenty years ago.

readering म्हणाले...

I've had a family member brush my hair on the fly for a group photo. I lack the skill to reciprocate. Otherwise, just significant other, doctor/nurse/dentist/hygienist, optician and hairdresser have touched my head.

Big Mike म्हणाले...

BTW, yes, my wife did change dissertation advisors. It meant starting over with orals and on a new project, but better that than working for an advisor who didn't thought women getting a STEM Ph.D., would just cost some man a job.

rcocean म्हणाले...

Just trash can the "Humanities" - its turned into a j-o-k-e.

Its nothing more than welfare for smart people with connections and the right politics.

These Dummies produce almost NOTHING that adds to our understanding of art and literature and philosophy. The liberal arts started as a way to transmit the values of Western Civilization - and has devolved into a racket.

Ken B म्हणाले...

Okay, let's swap pussy for head touching. Do professional colleagues use the word pussy (meaning pudenda) ? It doesn’t really happen. It’s inappropriate. Right? Yet you made a great deal of mocking Page for her prissy delicacy. As you did with cock (meaning penis), and fuck (meaning fuck). If you used any of those words with a former student would it be “wrong “?

Now transgressing norms can be done offensively, and if done repeatedly can be seen as a power play, but is an instance which seems not to be either just plain no discussion “wrong”?

Would your answer be different in 1952?

Ken B म्हणाले...

Big Mike 4:57
This is a great pithy summary. The answer is almost certainly closer to b, but everyone just assumes or pretends it’s a because that's how victimology is served.

Lucien म्हणाले...

My guess is that the things she describes didn’t happen. The #metoo movement and all the related movements have lost the benefit of the doubt.

Lucien म्हणाले...

And the fact that Richard Brandt died 20 years ago just underlines the point. Funny how she tells tales now, when he can’t possibly object or defend himself, and probably all of his closest friends, family and work colleagues who might defend him are also gone.

DEEBEE म्हणाले...

Hav9ng been stopped a number of times, 40+ years ago — as A brownie with testosterone streaks, weaving through highway traffic — suck It up. Ones affinity to philosophy is not better than my PhD. But, insulting as I found these stops, looking for drugs, I also found a lot of the “white supremicusts” inivuting to their homes so that I was not alone alone during thanksgiving or Xmas.
So thank you all, youputative Trump voters, this brownie loves your welcome. Even thought a lot of you let me know subtly or not that I could not date your daughters