The irony was lost on many
If tweets can get tenured academics bullied out of their jobs then why can’t they get presidents scolded out of theirs?
The last 12 months have seen one controversy after another over the tweets of George Ciccariello-Maher, an associate professor of politics and global studies at Drexel University. In a series of incidents, he has made statements that led to calls for his dismissal. In several instances, the university has criticized him. Ciccariello-Maher and his supporters have said that his comments have been distorted and that his academic freedom has been attacked.
On Thursday, he announced on Twitter that he was leaving his tenured job at Drexel. “After nearly a year of harassment by right-wing, white supremacist media outlets and internet mobs, after death threats and threats of violence directed against me and my family, my situation has become unsustainable,” he wrote on Twitter. “Staying at Drexel in the eye of this storm has become detrimental to my own writing, speaking and organizing.”
He pointed out that tenure isn’t much protection against that kind of thing.
He added, “In the past year, the forces of resurgent white supremacy have tasted blood and are howling for more. Given the pressure they will continue to apply, university communities must form a common front against the most reprehensible forces in society and refuse to bow to their pressure, intimidation and threats. Only then will universities stand any chance of survival.”
Crap writer though, isn’t he. Way too many stale off-the-shelf phrases in that passage. C minus.
The controversy over the professor started Dec. 24, 2016, when Ciccariello-Maher tweeted, “All I want for Christmas is white genocide.” The tweet went viral, with many conservative websites calling for Drexel to fire Ciccariello-Maher. Drexel condemned the tweet but didn’t fire him.
Ciccariello-Maher and his supporters said that the irony and purpose of his tweet were lost on many. Ciccariello-Maher argues that white genocide doesn’t exist, and is a false image used by the far right to scare white people. So he says he was making a point, not calling for anyone to be hurt.
In April, Ciccariello-Maher was again in the news when he tweeted about his reaction when he saw a passenger in first class give up his seat on a flight. “Some guy in first class gave up his seat for a uniformed soldier. People are thanking him. I’m trying not to vomit or yell about Mosul.”
Not a very thoughtful remark. Mosul was Trump’s doing, not a random soldier’s. Then again I suspect everyone (except perhaps the soldier) was all too quietly self-congratulatory about it, and being on a plane is bad enough as it is – and besides it’s not something that should get him hounded out of his job. Now about that guy in the Oval Office…
I couldn’t help thinking maybe this person shouldn’t be a professor because of this:
Oh, no, not the calmest part of the storm!
Indeed. Although he did say this situation had affected his writing, so maybe it was better before?
Oh, it’s that guy (I’d remembered the incident but not the name). Sorry, but that’s a horrible thing to tweet. His explanation about how he’s making some deep point using irony seems disingenuous to me. What reaction did he expect he would get? If anything other than what he got, he may not be smart enough to be a professor.
The soldier thing thing to me is minor, just some self-righteous posturing, compared to his (ironic!) wish for genocide. I wouldn’t expect a wish for genocide any race to get anything other than a harshly negative reaction.
I certainly don’t advocate death threats though. Hopefully they were ironic.
*All I want for Christmas is white genocide* (Tee-hee!)
Ah…those anti-fa yuletide chestnuts!
After the Charlie massacre 3 years ago, some portrayed the publication as borderline ‘White Supremacist’.
So the slaughter, thus, was kinda OK.
I searched ( albeit only briefly..but with an eye to irony!) to see what George Ciccariello-Maher had to say about that attack, but couldn’t find anything.
Knowing his opinion on that event would be so telling.
Oh, well, I think we can be pretty confident we know what he thought of Charlie Hebdo. The type is nothing if not predictable.
I suppose I see the “white genocide” thing as not so terrible IF – and only if – you already know what he means by it, which of course couldn’t very well be the case in a tweet. But, say, if he had linked to a right-wing fever dream about white genocide and then said it, the sarcasm would have been apparent. Or maybe he would have needed an emoji, in case some readers thought he was posting the link with approval. Aka be careful what you tweet – remember what happened to Justine Sacco.
I’m of two minds on this:
1: If he had said that about any other group, he’d be in the same situation. Yes, even with the explanation he offered afterwards.
Saying all you want for Christmas is the genocide of any group is not acceptable for someone in his position. It is also fairly clear that he’s a bit of a dick in general, with his reaction to the soldier getting a seat in first class.
Now I don’t think US soldiers are anything special, but… Why begrudge somebody being nice to somebody else? Why make a political thing of it?
So I’m pretty much of the opinion that they guy’s a dick but…
2: So much for those rightwingers talking about free speech then.
He has the right to be a dick without being harassed out of his job. I’m sharply critical of the left when they do the same thing.
And while you can say that these rightwingers aren’t the government so his freedom of speech hasn’t been curtailed, I’m sorry but it all ends up the same thing.
The entire point to freedom of speech is protecting political speech, but more than that, in this modern world we’re dealing with worldwide mass communication that just wasn’t there before.
We’ve got to learn how to cope with people who have despicable ideas without resorting to harassment and death threats, because it is kind of getting in the way of getting shit done.
We are bombarded with a constant flow of outrage over what really is small potatoes – and the result is very corrupt practices getting a free pass.
Okay I’m looking at this from a South African perspective, where some racist real estate agent in Durban is used by the ruling party to distract people from the fact that they’ve nicked half the treasury, but it does strike me as just exhausting.
All of that energy going into taking down total randos – they’re not really that much of a problem, they’re not the ones setting policy, they’re just shitty people, and sometimes not even really that.
There has to come some sort of point where people can just stop – and not give a shit about shitty stuff being said by people that they will never have to deal with in their day-to-day lives, whose impact is restricted to being wrong on the internet.
There has to be a point at which we have to be able to say – “That person’s beliefs, are not my problem”.