Luke Weiger wrote:
>It's hardly paradoxical to believe that Churchill shouldn't have been fired
>for his odious post-9/11 comments (thankfully, he's no longer in any real
>danger on that score) and that the US government did really nasty things to
>Native Americans while also believing that it's entirely proper for scholars
>to inquire as to what nasty things the US government actually did (e.g. did
>the US Army intentionally create a smallpox epidemic amongst the Mandan?).
>It's also entirely proper for scholars to castigate other scholars who
>publish bullshit (the most charitable interpretation of Churchill's Mandan
>genocide claim) and sometimes fire those who publish intentional
>fabrications (the least charitable interpretation). I don't really see why
>it's so hard for you to wrap your head around all these seemingly
>uncontroversial notions.
>
All these things happen in a context. In the seventies and eighties, I
remember the unions came under attack for being corrupt. Were they
corrupt? -- sure, some of them. But they weren't in fact attacked for
being corrupt, but for providing leadership to workers. Those who
attacked the unions did not propose they be replaced with uncorrupt
unions but with NO unions. Churchill is not being attacked for bad
scholarship, he's being attacked because he's an easy left target. Your
joining the attackers is not going to improve the situation. Bad
right-wing scholarship will continue to serve the right and will never
get anyone fired. Remember the scholarship and untold amount of money
spent to show that black men had violent genes? Have you any idea how
much bad scholarship surrounds "research" on safe sex or drug use? But
that doesn't matter, does it?
No. It has been noted that there is a scholarly protocol for addressing "bad scholarship." I'm content to let it stay there in Churchill's case -- rather than allowing it to be politicized, and politicized in such a way as to discredit the left, discredit the reality of the genocidal act that created and built this country, and so on.
I'm not about the fold my clothes neatly before marching into the ovens....to prove that I'm a good citizen and that they're wrong to want to kill me. I am somewhat nauseated by Churchill's posturing, but I won't support his attackers, because I know well enough that it is not the scholarship that bothers then, it is Churchill's unrepentatnt left political position. After Churchill, comes me, then you, then pretty much everyone I do respect and would defend without a second thought.
I think you need to wrap your head around the idea that the attack on Churchill is not about replacing him with a good/pure leftists scholar; it's about getting rid of the left in academia. And then in general. Attacking Churchill to prove that there are pure leftists around won't work.
Joanna