Let's talk about the racism by "Vieno Vehko," pseudonymous assistant prof from a USA Midwestern university. This article is not simply about "millennials." It is about Whiteness & how White academics expect to teach students like themselves
https://twitter.com/timeshighered/status/1019825664722178048?s=19 … #marginsci
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What is Louis doing in this White woman's classroom, Vehko wants to know? While White Susie is entitled & is presumed to spend hours on Netflix & social media, Black Louis is failing because he has to work fulltime. MANY students have to work to survive, but
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Class & race intersect: Vehko, who you'll see identifies as an older (White) woman, is incensed that a Black man would work fulltime rather than focus on studies. This bias reflects White privilege: Vehko could focus on study b/c that's life as a middle class White woman
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Louis is also sexualised in a way none of the other students are in this op ed ('handsome Black man') and otherised, in classic Whiteness tactic. He's not a threat to Vehko's whiteness because he's soft spoken.
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Yusef 'a Saudi man' in his 30s with a wife & kids - mentioned to evoke his *backwardness.* He must be cheating. 'In his culture, charm & small chunks of work are enough to gain a degree.' This racist stereotype is ludicrous but Vehko pretends to care about international studentspic.twitter.com/FAKfbd6XXS
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Stephen was presumed the ideal student until he got rude: 'initially someone I looked forward to teaching...he was literate, upper middle class, white, male and studious.' Stephen's whiteness only becomes remarkable because he exerted his male privilege over Vehko, a White womanpic.twitter.com/yy0Czr3cW3
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This is a classic way in which White women participate in White supremacy: White men are their aspirational equal until they enact patriarchy. This is a perfect illustration of why Peggy McIntosh theorised white privilege (her work below) - which was specifically about academia.pic.twitter.com/wHb2o4NgQS
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As the seemingly perfect White specimen let her down (the White man Stephen), Vehko shows her truest colour in her exultation of Linda. Linda is in her 50s & embodies the perfect student because she is Vehko: 'I wonder if we share a kind of generationally kindred brain.'pic.twitter.com/KNtpN7n2gI
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Linda's race us not mentioned but
#POC don't need it to be. Vehko sees herself in Linda, who is not tech savvy but, unlike other 'millennials,' Vehko says Linda is not 'angry, frustrated and confused with my course and with me.' Never mind Vehko's article is about her own angerShow this thread -
Academics reproduce Whiteness in many ways. For White academics & students sharing this because they agree with Vehko, same as for White academics & students sharing this (rightly) put off by poor attitudes towards students, neither group has thought about what this does to
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Some White people are going to great pains to show Vehko exerts conservative generational stereotypes but they will never see themselves in Vehko who lumps all youth into the label 'millennial' yet papering over racism & other discrimination of minorities in academia
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In Vehko's article, a mid-20s Black man is criticised for working too hard (likely due to economic necessity) same as a Saudi man in his 30s is critiqued for having kids (he classifies as a mature age student BTW). Only the White woman mature age student is the ideal.
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Whiteness dominates academia in much the same way it does on Twitter discussions about this article, and other fields. When we ignore whiteness we do so at the peril of the biases we bring to class/ lab/ workplace, writing off the potential of
#POC, whatever their generation.Show this thread -
For those who have avoided reading the piece doing the rounds due to paywall/ registration, here's a free/ open access version: http://world.edu/millennials-the-age-of-entitlement/ …
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End of conversation
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Omg it's not just inner-city schools, it's that they're "his neighborhood"! He must be very black indeed. (I decided not to give THE the money for reading the full thing, thank you doing such a thorough and important critique of it!)
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Yes agreed. Also the description of Louis in a leather jacket and bandana ('he comes to class' wearing INNER CITY clothing
) is peak whiteness. Other than White women who wear 'too much' eye makeup, it's pretty telling Louis' clothes need description to fit her narrative -
I was also struck by how Linda is praised for being a working mother and grandmother.
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But Yusef 'with his wife and kids here in town' is 'ambitious' and just the absolute worst, apparently, because he's an interntional student. His fatherhood is an indictment. Linda's motherhood/grandmother status simply speaks to her triumph as a student worthy of attention.
End of conversation
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