Eboo Patel

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Censoring Conversation in the Name of Conversation
Only in Higher Education

“Vituperation? Incoherent?” Haha. With this kind of censorship and this kind of groupthink, perhaps they should change the website to "Inside (the Bubble of) Higher Ed.”

—Timothy Bearly 

When I’m on the hunt for grist, I usually turn to Poets & Writers magazine.  However, Inside Higher Ed is also a great provider (e.g., groupthink inanity and safe blather).  It highlights a handful of blogs.  “Conversations on Diversity,” evidently not a very original subject in academe, is one such blog.   On the contrary, my blog is not highlighted on IHE.  It could be titled, “Conversations on Freedom of Expression… with a Particular Emphasis on the Academic/Literary Establishment.”  Brown privilege accords voice to Eboo Patel, Executive Director of Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC).  As for me, I am not accorded voice because I dare criticize the diverse hands that feed, including IHE.  Over the years, I have been openly critical of editors Scott Jaschik and Doug Lederman (see, for example, https://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2019/04/scott-jaschik-and-doug-lederman-inside.html, https://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2017/08/doug-lederman-and-scott-jaschik.html, and https://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2017/08/scott-jaschik-and-doug-lederman.html). 

Inside Higher Ed is of course a business.  Academe is a business.  Free speech is always a threat to business, which is why it is generally suppressed and/or punished by business.  And of course free speech is not really free at all when it is punished.  In any event, Patel begins his blog essay, “Diversity: A Confrontation,” by quoting one of his favorite black-privileged poets, Gwendolyn Brooks:  “Art hurts. Art urges voyages—”  Yet the art that I see nowadays does not hurt at all and does not at all urge voyage.  No matter.  Brooks’s line is certainly sufficiently general to fall into the establishment safe box of acceptability.  

Patel is clearly a diversity ideologue.  And of course reason and facts that don’t fit the narrative have no place in ideology, be it right-wing or left-wing.  It is always easy to find faults in the ideological pronouncements of ideologues.  Patel’s essay focuses on a small neo-Nazi march (a couple of dozen people) purportedly against immigrants (illegal? wage-lowering? criminal?) in Georgia and the protest response against it:  the hanging of portraits of different racial and ethnic faces around Newnan, the town in question.  

“One of the pieces depicted two young Pakistani American women wearing the Muslim head scarf, and Newnan-area Facebook groups lit up with comments like, ‘I feel like Islam is a threat to the American way of life. There should be no positive portrayals of it’,” writes Patel, “(It should be noted, many Newnan residents pushed back against this racism—a positive sign.)”.  

And yet are not the head scarf and burqa signs of female oppression in, for example, Iran and Qatar?  Patel fails to mention that.  He also fails to mention how Islam benefits democracy (e.g., freedom of expression).  Indeed, where in the world has Islam benefited democracy?  Saudi Arabia?  Africa?  Sweden?  Pakistan?  Do rape epidemics and grooming gangs benefit democracy in England?  Islam might benefit diversity in the short run, but sure as hell does not benefit democracy.  Islam runs counter to freedom of expression, a prime cornerstone of democracy.  Islam is not a religion of peace, despite CAIR and Obama’s attempts to portray it thus.  Also, Patel pushes the false narrative that somehow Islam is a race.  It is not a race!  A person who criticizes Islamic doctrine is not a racist.

“I wonder what it would look like for a college campus to do a similar project [i.e., hanging up portraits of different racial and ethnic people],” suggests Patel.  “Well, I would add a little twist to that suggestion.  What if in addition to portraying the racial, gender, ethnic, religious and sexual diversity, we could portray the worldview diversity as well?”  

Hmm.  I’d rather suggest something far more courageous and advantageous to democracy:  highlighting not skin color, sexual orientation, and religion at a college campus where those things likely constitute the prime monkey-see, monkey-do focus, but rather instances where professors and students actually dared stand up on their hind legs to criticize professors and students and administrators at the very college in question.  Now, how would Inside Higher Ed respond to that?  The silence of the academic editors, of course, would be the likely response.  After citing Brooks’s line (see above), Patel writes:  “Note the dash at the end. I’ll get to the phrase that follows at the end of this piece.”  Well, one would expect something a little bit stirring, but here it is:  

Art hurts. Art urges voyages—

And it is easier to stay at home.

Brilliant, right?  Well, can it get any more innocuous than that?  How would that verse possibly upset (i.e., stir) the art and poetry establishment, not to mention the academic establishment, including Inside Higher Ed?  Patel’s final statement is equally feel-good innocuous:  “Let art show us who we are, in all our complexity, and let the new American conversation begin.”  Now, if Patel really would like to open up the borders of permitted “conversation,” as opposed to simply echoing the diversity monologue, then he ought to confront the editors of Inside Higher Ed and ask them why they reject all criticism (conversation!) with their regard.  He ought to ask them why they censor any comments that I dare make on their website.  Isn’t higher ed supposed to be about freedom of expression?  He ought to also challenge Antifa, Black Lives Matter, the Nation of Islam, and CAIR for their anti-white racist stances and hatred for freedom of expression.  Small groups of Neo-Nazis are certainly not the only threat to freedom of expression.  Ah, but Patel is interested in diversity, not freedom of expression/not “conversation.”  Will he respond to the points made in this counter-essay?   After all, he was once named by US News & World Report as one of America's Best Leaders…

Eleanor Claus

Women in Power

Playing the He-Makes-Me-Feel-Uncomfortable Card

The idea that there is a conflict between free speech and the academic community fundamentally misunderstands both the goals of higher education and the nature and role of free speech.

—George Orwell

Orwell, of course, made some wonderful observations.  The one above is perhaps one of his best and clearly could equally apply to libraries and library directors. 

It is my observation, from several decades of knockng on the doors of public libraries, that public library directors are almost always female, behave as gatekeepers prohibiting certain viewpoints, especially when critical of public librarian behavior, as well as that of the local pillars of the community.  They generally do not celebrate the First Amendment, though do perform little charades during Banned Books Week.  Not all librarians, of course, but certainly the very large majority of them!  And the staff at the American Library Association are as bad as the worst. 

The above cartoon was drawn a year and a half ago regarding Lucy Loomis’ order that I cease leaving flyers at Sturgis Library and not talk to speak to staff about that.  Realizing Loomis could probably no-trespass me from the library if I did not obey the command, I decided to obey it.  I needed and still need the library for the internet.  My job demands it.  So, now I must travel further for it.  Loomis has punished me—the school marm punishing the little refractory school boy.  The marm's mentality is:  If you criticize me, I'll punish you!  Marms seem to be crying "bully," as in wolf, right and left today, then behaving as bullies themselves whenever their power might be threatened.  Loomis' power was threatened because I underscored her flawed sense of reasoning and resultant hypocrisy.  Therefore, she bullied me with the help of three cops. 

And many would consider a loner like me as a little refractory school boy because of my passion for the First Amendment and my taking a stand now and then, as I did with Loomis and her little fascist fiefdom known as Sturgis Library.  And indeed, grownups don’t protest, they conform.   Interestingly, one of the library trustees, Santos, termed my protest as “intellectual masturbation.”  With that regard, Tim Bearly noted with unusual perspicacity: 

I suppose to him, questioning and challenging in public, is essentially the same as masturbating in public… you shouldn't do it. Do your wanking at home by yourself, do your thinking at home by yourself. These acts are considered equally disgusting to him.

Since the permanent no-trespass order issued verbally on June 19^th with my regard in front of no less than three police officers in the library (see previous blog post), I contacted the following with little results: 

-Barnstable Town Manager Thomas K. Lynch = NO RESPONSE

-Eleanor Claus (friend of Loomis), President of the Town Library Committee = NO RESPONSE

                                -American Library Association = NO RESPONSE

-Cape Cod Times = NO RESPONSE

-First Amendment expert, Harvey Silverglate = referred me to the ACLUM

-ACLUM = NO RESPONSE

-Police Station = paid 50 cents for the police report, which only stated:  “harassment, male” (see below)

Since the police incident, I have been obsessing over what occurred.  Loomis has made me feel sincerely depressed, uh, “uncomfortable.” I sketched another cartoon with her fascistic regard, which will be in the current issue of The American Dissident due to be distributed in a month.  If citizens do not take a stand vis-à-vis the bugeoning mob of little caesars in their midst, Freedom of Speech and Due Process will cease to exist in America. 

Perhaps I shall try to create a local First Amendment Club.  Hell, there’s a much publicized Hydrangea Club in the area, not to mention the Writer’s Conference, which is really the same thing (First Amendment apathetic).  I am somewhat desperate to learn if anybody else in the area shares my passion. 

Timothy Bearly