Nikole Hannah-Jones wins tenure

There is a new blog post entitled, “It’s okay to be a rapist as long as you are sufficiently powerful.”


I was planning to wait a couple more days to check on the status of the car I’ve ordered but I could bear it no longer and so did today. The salesman says the production date is now set for July 8, an additional six days delay. That would mean I’ll likely have the car around July 15. Nothing to do but wait, I guess.


Donald Trump

Dominic Rushe, “Trump Organization and financial chief charged in a tax-related investigation,” Guardian, June 30, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/30/trump-organization-allen-weisselberg-charged-tax-crimes

Aaron Blake, “4 takeaways from the Trump Organization and Allen Weisselberg indictments,” Washington Post, July 1, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/07/01/3-takeaways-trump-organization-allen-weisselberg-indictments/

Matt Ford, “The Empire State Strikes Back,” New Republic, July 1, 2021, https://newrepublic.com/article/162890/allen-weisselberg-indicted-trump-organization-tax-fraud

Shayna Jacobs et al., “Trump Organization and CFO Allen Weisselberg arraigned on multiple criminal charges as prosecutors alleged a 15-year tax fraud scheme,” Washington Post, July 1, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-business-weisselberg-indictments/2021/07/01/e2b774a0-da15-11eb-bb9e-70fda8c37057_story.html


Nikole Hannah-Jones

Nikole Hannah-Jones has won tenure after a conservative donor had opposed granting it to her because of her work on the “1619 Project.”[1]

That deeper story, the one [University of North Carolina at] Chapel Hill is going to have to continue to wrestle with, could be heard ahead of the [Board of Trustees] vote in the pleading voice of a young Black student, who swore at the board through a megaphone before she was forced out of the room with her fellow protesters. It could be heard, too, in the softer voice of an older Black woman, who stood with the students in solidarity, recalling how her grandfather, as an employee of the inn, had been called “Boy.” Most viscerally, that story could be heard in the silence of a Black police officer, who, removing students from the room, said nothing as one of them asked, “You enjoy being their slave?”[2]

What needs to be understood here is that whatever one thinks of Hannah-Jones’ work, this is not really about critical race theory,[3] but rather about history and how we interpret the past. Where CRT comes in is in the choice of that lens and in its application. The difference may appear nuanced, but from a scholarly perspective, the conservative misunderstanding puts the cart before the horse.

Conservatives really object instead to being informed that the wealthy white males who have predominated among the ruling class in the U.S. since its founding have much to answer for[4] (and not just on race[5]). The denial of racism is its confirmation.

Jack Stripling, “‘Look Us in the Eye,’” Chronicle of Higher Education, July 1, 2021, https://www.chronicle.com/article/look-us-in-the-eye[/ref]


Afghanistan

Ayaz Gul, “Khan: Pakistan Can Never Again Be US Partner in War,” Global Security, June 30, 2021, https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/pakistan/2021/pakistan-210630-voa01.htm


New York City

Absentee ballots have not yet begun to be counted; these could well alter the sequence in which candidates are eliminated in the ranked-choice vote.[6]

New York Times, “Preliminary Tally Shows Yang and Wiley Voters Breaking for Garcia,” July 1, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/06/30/nyregion/nyc-mayor-election


  1. [1]Jon Allsop, “On NHJ, UNC, and CRT,” Columbia Journalism Review, June 25, 2021, https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/nikole_hannah_jones_unc_tenure.php; Jack Stripling, “‘What the Hell Happened?,’” Chronicle of Higher Education, June 11, 2021, https://www.chronicle.com/article/what-the-hell-happened; Jack Stripling, “‘Look Us in the Eye,’” Chronicle of Higher Education, July 1, 2021, https://www.chronicle.com/article/look-us-in-the-eye
  2. [2]Jack Stripling, “‘Look Us in the Eye,’” Chronicle of Higher Education, July 1, 2021, https://www.chronicle.com/article/look-us-in-the-eye
  3. [3]David Benfell, “Talking about critical theory—and critical race theory,” Not Housebroken, June 11, 2021, https://disunitedstates.org/2021/06/11/talking-about-critical-theory-and-critical-race-theory/
  4. [4]Jon Allsop, “On NHJ, UNC, and CRT,” Columbia Journalism Review, June 25, 2021, https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/nikole_hannah_jones_unc_tenure.php; David Theo Goldberg, “The War on Critical Race Theory,” Boston Review, May 7, 2021, http://bostonreview.net/race-politics/david-theo-goldberg-war-critical-race-theory;Michael Harriot, “Why White People Hate Critical Race Theory, Explained,” The Root, March 30, 2021, https://www.theroot.com/why-white-people-hate-critical-race-theory-explained-1846578811; Michael Harriot, [Twitter thread], Thread Reader App, June 11, 2021, https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1403281202338013184.html; Barbara Sprunt, “The Brewing Political Battle Over Critical Race Theory,” National Public Radio, June 2, 2021, https://www.npr.org/2021/06/02/1001055828/the-brewing-political-battle-over-critical-race-theory; Benjamin Wallace-Wells, “What Do Conservatives Fear About Critical Race Theory?” New Yorker, June 10, 2021, https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/what-do-conservatives-fear-about-critical-race-theory
  5. [5]Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States (New York: HarperPerennial, 2003).
  6. [6]New York Times, “Preliminary Tally Shows Yang and Wiley Voters Breaking for Garcia,” July 1, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/06/30/nyregion/nyc-mayor-election

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