[lbo-talk] The Wanted Man, Smorgasbord, and Student as Customer

[Stephen Philion]

I pointed out in 
my latest post just why the students were probably really upset with the 
smorgasbord thing: not b/c of the food issues, but because the very 
rejection of the smorgasbord approach challenges the way they think about 
rcism to begin with: from a very individualistic perspective where racism 
is something blacks practice on whiates and vice versa and there's no 
structure or logic to it. Thus, equal time for all is what they think is 
right. By dismissing that approach, they read you as dismissing them. But, 
since they don't know any other way to think about it, they latch on to the 
food thing and run with it. They are, themselves, confused as to what's 
bugging them.

--Yes, that's entirely my reading of it actually.  Nicely put.  Hamline and other schools
essentially market themselves as 'diverse' and the whole 'dialogues' approach
is their commodity that is supposed to make students of color/international students, etc.
feel that the school offers something that helps 'raise consciousness'.  In fact it tends to 
kill the capacity of students to link issues of race to problems of economic inequality, capitalism, 
war, etc.  I wrote something about this in a piece for MRzine on 'sustainable' dialogues, an idea
that is very popular with the students that were horrified by my class content, 

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/philion171205.html

In a coming MRzine piece on the 20th anniversary of the Fordham 9 CIA blockade [hopefully coming out soon :-)]
I compare the impact the 'dialogues for diversity' approach limits the scope of 
military recruitment activism at a school like Hamline... 

Steve