College Students In Georgia Burn Latina Author's Book

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If that's how you choose to characterize her book, yes in fact, you are being dishonest and I've grown tired of this game.

If the entirety of your argument is that she offended some white students and therefore must be racist you really don't have an argument worthy of a response. Perhaps you have some quotes from the book or from her discussion to share that might substantiate your point? Maybe something that shows the sweeping and concrete negative assessments she made of all white people everywhere?

She didn't set out to study whites like an anthropologist, she moved. She didn't set out to document a group of people, she wrote about her life experiences which happened to be influenced by a interactions with the majority group in her homeland. Childishly mischaracterizing her work and insisting that I must agree with your conclusions or I'm dishonest when I don't agree with your assessment, let alone the conclusions it allows you to make isn't an honest tactic and I'm not swayed. If this is all you have, I suggest you give up before your feet start to hurt from all the stomping.

Back on topic while burning books in most cases is protected free speech there are legitimate reasons to fear it. It is an intimidating, chilling check on freedom of expression that is often an early step to a lot worse.

Historically it has been the right wing and religious fundamentalist tactic. In recent years it has been the similar ”cancel culture” wing of the left that has predominated. We can argue which has been worse but a situation where both sides are doing it, trying to one up each other is worst of all, the road to hell, an existential threat to free expression and thought and probably personal safety.

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 14 Oct 2019, 2:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Privilege categories overlap and interact with each other. Context matters too. Part of the problem people who argue against the concept seem to always create with them is the idea that they're absolute and that 'white privilege' means all white people have it easier than all non-white people, 'male privilege' means all men have it easier than all non-men, etc. This is part of the reason there's so many (white-, male-, hetereo-, cis-, rich-, Christian-, etc).

There's parts of the country where some of these are less important. Obviously 'Christian privilege' doesn't exist to the same extent in a community where atheists and agnostics are the majority, it doesn't exist at all in Muslim majority nations or in officially atheist nations like China or NK. The concept of white privilege is much more complicated in post-colonial Africa, where the legacy of colonialism means it's still relevant in some contexts yet like in who owns the wealth, but not in others, like ability to influence the current government.

Using your examples from above. The autistic hillbilly and the black celebrity, let's put them in a car crash in Appalachia vs. same scenario in Hollywood, there's a good chance some of those 'privileges' will play out differently. The poor hillbilly cop isn't likely to be as sympathetic to Mr. Bigshot as LAPD might be, supposing he follows Hollywood at all Then again, if LAPD don't recognize him, he might just be viewed as someone flashing illicitly gotten wealth like 7 of the last 10 similar presenting men were. Mr. Hillbilly's accent is the 'correct' one back home and the 'wrong one' in LA. When you zoom down to the micro-level they become exceedingly complicated; at the macro-level they're pretty straightforward though - that's what makes them useful concepts even if they're not 100% perfect; there's no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater so long as their imperfection is considered.

The threat it poses is largely determined by the scale. Burning a handful of copies of a book that's been broadly published and widely distributed is effective for it's symbolism and doesn't really pose a threat to the existence of that specific piece of work (Bible, Quran, Jurassic Park, etc). Attempting to annihilate every single copy of a specific piece of work is much more concerning. When the state is the actor leading or encouraging the book-burning, that's another factor that makes it much more concerning.

This is relevant to 'cancel culture' too. Up and coming artists can be crushed by it, but long established artists really just come off as whiners who can't tolerate people not liking their new work. Times change and sometimes material that might have worked decades ago just isn't funny anymore.

Anyways, I've gotta help with preparing Thanksgiving dinner.

That is right, it is complicated a combination of individual circumstances both on the giving and receiving end so why make make so simple as the group the giver and receiver of unfair treatment were born into? The blame should be on the person or people in the case of institutional discrimination not the group they were born into.

The problem of artists becoming out of date will be solved without intimidating symbolism of book burning or being cancelled, their work won’t sell. Complaining about book burning is always a good thing. A little known artist complaining about it won’t be heard so it kind of has to be the more established known artists that have less to lose that need to take the lead.

Right, you have fun with that.


For those interested, here's the talk



The controversial bit is at he end, 41:00 or so. 13:00-18:00 is some hilarious appeal to...her own authority?
This woman sure loves tooting her own horn.


"this woman had not seen herself in my narrator because my narrator was not white like her". That seems racist and presumptious.

Privilege is a burden.

The more you have, the more you can lose.

The more you have to take care of, the more you have to worry about.

The things you own, end up owning you.

Investments, you're constantly taking risk, and worrying.

My mom would drive me to the inner city, and say, "DONT BECOME LIKE THOSE PEOPLE".

So, family pressure to be great.

Anger, high blood pressure, worries over losing what you have.

It's shorthand, so that the discussion can be had without constantly having to reiterate the nuance.



I hope that's not the best example you had, because it's quite a stretch. I'm sure you have lots of experience growing up as a person of colour in America to discuss that will show how unfairly she's characterized her experience. If not, I'm leaning towards believing she has a better understanding of her life than you do.

I watch a lot of the murder tv shows.

People kill each other over trying to maintain their privileges.

Like, trust fund man-child kills mega-rich father when his allowance was cut back some.

That shows you a psychology of losing a privilege.

When people feel they're losing their "white privilege" or "male privilege" .. that can cause a psychology to strike against those taking said privileges away.

Like, KKK, or skin heads <----- DONT TAKE MY PRIVILEGE

So, privilege is actually a burden to carry.

No, that was just one of very few that were quotable without paragraps. This woman is a narcissistic ball of academic double-think.

"Make Your Home Among Strangers" -- First read: Impressive. The author has to make choices between assuring own future and remaining stuck in a family quagmire. After much struggling back-and-forth, and facing the threat of losing her internship, she finally chooses to return to break off from her family (and its drama), return to college, and earn her degree.

During this time (c.2000), her family seems more concerned about the Ariel Hernandez case, and even seems to resent her focus on her studies when she could be more involved in demonstrating support for Ariel Hernandez.

The author eventually graduated, and is now a manager at a coral reefs studies center in California. Her family is disappointed with her for this.



I'll have to re-read it.

The problem is too complex for shorthand, the people that you want to convince are not getting the the nuance.

To be fair, for the people in the course there's a good chance the nuance has been explained.

Yes, in broader circles that language is sometimes unable to convey what it's intended to because the audience becomes offended, but that really ought not to be the case on a college campus where the background discussions should still be fresh in the minds of the students when they need to discuss those concepts. In this context it sounds like a whole lot of reactionary whining about nothing.

Then my source was wrong.