Oracle Online

During a particular two-week period, I taught a book entitled Bread Givers and another entitled Suburban Sahibs. Bread Givers is about Jewish immigration to the United States in the early 20th century, while Suburban Sahibs is about contemporary Indian migration to New Jersey. I devote a week to each.

Regarding Bread Givers, I set up the context of the migration, citing conditions in Russia and the political, social, and cultural context of the United States at the time. I also tell students that, although the book is about a Jewish family, the themes discussed are relevant to many groups, past and present. During the second week, the week we were to discuss Suburban Sahibs, I contracted bronchitis and was out for one class session. The second class session was, of course, about Suburban Sahibs. Previously, my colleague Diane Clayton had provided a separate session on nationalism in India.

Following the second session, Maisue approached me and asked if she could talk to me. I asked what she wanted to talk about, and her response was ... Why is it that I devote a week to a book about white people, Jewish people, and only one session to people of color? She further suggested that I was “oppressing her voice.” Remarks of this nature are bound to put me and any other professor on full alert. I decline to have this sort of discussion with anyone who would preface a conversation by refusing to acknowledge most of the semester’s classes and instead approach me in a manner that clearly advertises that the agenda will hardly resemble a respectful exchange of ideas. But let’s be clear: I meet with students during my office hours and at other times as well.

Subsequently, Ms. Xiong sent me an e-mail. The Oracle published an abridged version of that e-mail. Before the publication of her letter, I had responded to her with an e-mail of my own, suggesting that I was sorry that her expectations for the course were not realized.

Colin Smith and Maisue Xiong met with Margaret Jensen, chair of the sociology department, on Monday, Dec. 6. During the same day, they met with Alzada Tipton, associate dean. I am told that in both meetings they described their reservations about the course that I teach. The very next day, the letter appeared in the Oracle. In other words, it had obviously been submitted at the time they had those meetings. One might ask: Why bother to meet with a department head and a dean when in fact their letter was already primed for publication? Were they truly concerned with having people understand or possibly address their concerns, or did they have another agenda, one designed to hurt?

The Oracle letter is signed by Maisue and Colin. At two different times, the letter says that “he” (a reference to me) was unwilling to meet with “us.” And “we” were “once again” ignored. Colin, in fact, was not in the class. He took Race from me a year ago and, moreover, did not try to meet or even speak with me about these purported concerns either last year or this year.

The letter was twice pasted on my office door after its appearance in the Oracle, once when I was teaching a class and once when I was taking a Spanish class. And never could I see it happening. On the next day, Wednesday, Dec. 8, the letter was pasted on faculty office doors in every building on campus. When Colin was asked by a colleague if he had put the letters on faculty office doors, he demurred, suggesting that someone in a student organization had, although he and Maisue were seen placing the letters on the office doors. This is, at best, another distortion of the truth.

Let me also address the issue of Maisue’s charge that I was “oppressing her voice.” She conveniently fails to acknowledge the many times she participated in class discussions during the semester. She discussed elements of her culture during an extended session when members of the class each talked about something relevant to their own backgrounds. She asked for and received permission to discuss in class matters concerning the Hmong people. Like other members of the class, she was encouraged to voice her concerns, opinions on the readings, comments by other students, etc.

Additionally, Maisue and Colin seem to believe that my Racial and Cultural Minorities class lacks balance: that insufficient attention is paid to contemporary immigration and people of color, and that the course is “too Jewish.” I use Cornel West’s book Race Matters as a primary text. His book is essentially about African American people in the United States. Further, Stephen Steinberg’s work The Ethnic Myth directly and systematically addresses discrimination against people of color and early immigrants as well. Many of the articles and chapters that I use discuss Asians, Mexicans, Blacks, Indians, etc. We discuss issues such as the Asian model minority, Black and white friendships dissolving in high school because of racial pressures, music as the potential savior of future race relations, affirmative action, and so on. As for my course being “too Jewish,” there are approximately 28 sessions in the course. Two of the sessions are about Bread Givers. I also show a documentary on Hasidic Jews in New York as a way to demonstrate the Nationalist perspective in race relations, a perspective appropriate to all racial and ethnic groups. I devote two sessions to the Holocaust. I believe that learning about state-sponsored oppression, the complicity of entire countries, institutions, and populations, and the systematic attempt to eliminate an entire population is critical to our understanding of ethnic relations. We can easily see the relevance of the Holocaust to our discussions of current developments in Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur. I also show a documentary on the resistance of Christians who could not abide the events that unfolded in their countries and lives. What better way to make those in the majority, some with privilege, aware of the possibilities for action that might move us toward equality? And last, one need not look very far to potentially glimpse the underlying anti-Semitism in the charge that the course is “too Jewish.”

In conclusion, the actions of these two students feel like harassment. They were hardly interested in constructive political ends, unless their idea of political ends is to cause personal hurt. Perhaps they wanted to look heroic in some distorted way, but the end result was self-indulgent sloganeering and below-the-belt methods. There are, of course, larger issues to consider. We might, as a university, want to examine a culture in education that may in fact be instrumental in creating, encouraging and sustaining self- righteous and destructive behavior presented in the guise of advocacy. We might want to examine very carefully the obvious satisfaction derived by a sanctimonious few who seem to always know what the university should do regarding, for example, matters of ethnicity, equality, and diversity. Claimed certitude can be and too often is a thin disguise for misguided zealotry.

Martin Markowitz
Department of Sociology