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Words from Wahneema; by KC 4/11/11
Topic Started: Apr 11 2011, 06:33 PM (1,484 Views)
Quasimodo

Quote:
 
http://www.durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/

MONDAY, APRIL 11, 2011

Words from Wahneema


(snip)

At the time, I pointed out that the author of the Group’s statement, Wahneema Lubiano, had an . . . unusual . . . approach to publishing, in that she had received a tenured position on the Duke faculty without having produced a scholarly monograph. Instead, she listed two monographs as “forthcoming” (which means that a professor has completed the work and has a contract with a press). These manuscripts have now been “forthcoming” for a breathtaking 14 years, and still have yet to see the light of day.

Lubiano has published a handful of articles, though—in a great irony—her career’s most influential work probably is the Group of 88 statement itself. Nonetheless, while Duke appears to have bent its rules to give her tenure, even Lubiano had to produce a dissertation to receive a Ph.D. degree (from Stanford). A reader recently sent me a copy of the document. It’s short for a dissertation (a little over 200 pages of typewritten, double-spaced text, with generous margins), and ideologically exactly what you’d expect from Lubiano. The dissertation, prepared for the Department of English, analyzes a handful of African-American novels, the best-known of which include Ellison’s Invisible Man and Morrison’s Song of Solomon.

(snip)

Lubiano’s dissertation—“Messing with the Machine: Four Afro-American Novels and the Nexus of Vernacular, Historical Constraint, and Narrative Strategy”—features the combination of only-in-academia beliefs and impenetrable prose that would characterize the few publications she would pen over the next quarter century. Here’s an excerpt from the opening paragraph of the dissertation, with the run-on structure as in the original:

And it does seem easy to give into the temptation to think that one “knows” or understands already books about people who live, as the narrator in Invisible Man puts it, a “public life,” and in many ways anyone part of the Afro-American culture does lead a public life, is part of a group “known” (to the public’s gaze) more in the mass than in the particular, the idiosyncratic. Consideration of the “literariness” of these texts might seem, to some readers, almost superfluous because knowledge of the oppression imposed on the culture which forms the (con)text seems to make closer scrutiny of form, of structure, frivolous.


(snip)

For Lubiano, “altering reality within the sphere of influence of a dominant culture instead of simply representing it complicates the discourse.” But, of course, “altering reality” allows the scholar to read into the text whatever preconceptions (about the pervasiveness of racism, in the case of Lubiano’s dissertation) he or she brings. Who needs evidence when you can simply “alter[] reality”? Lubiano isn’t worried about such a problem, in any case, because her dissertation’s approach allows her to move beyond the great enemy of the contemporary academy: “assumptions that hide their dependence upon white, European and American, middle-class contexts.”

(snip)

In her analysis of Song of Solomon, Lubiano writes that among the questions she will examine is, “What is going on?” What, indeed
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MikeZPU

The Group of 88 Listening Statement was Lubiano's most rapid publication, by orders of magnitude.

It was also Lubiano's greatest work of fiction.
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chatham
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applause applause bravo bravo :pu: :Pot: :pu2: :madF: :madF:
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Payback
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MikeZPU
Apr 11 2011, 07:11 PM
The Group of 88 Listening Statement was Lubiano's most rapid publication, by orders of magnitude.

It was also Lubiano's greatest work of fiction.
:crh: :crh:
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kbp

I must admit having to read everything she wrote numerous times just to get to where I thought I understood what she meant. I also recall pasting a few sentences of hers and trying to pick them apart into seperate lines, rewriting what I thought the message was and then reuniting my interpretations to see if they fit together. Quite often I was just left in the dark.

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Mason
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Parts unknown
kbp
Apr 11 2011, 10:03 PM
I must admit having to read everything she wrote numerous times just to get to where I thought I understood what she meant. I also recall pasting a few sentences of hers and trying to pick them apart into seperate lines, rewriting what I thought the message was and then reuniting my interpretations to see if they fit together. Quite often I was just left in the dark.

.
One for the team. Thanks

chalk it up, kbp.

What are you gonna do?



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abb
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kbp
Apr 11 2011, 10:03 PM
I must admit having to read everything she wrote numerous times just to get to where I thought I understood what she meant. I also recall pasting a few sentences of hers and trying to pick them apart into seperate lines, rewriting what I thought the message was and then reuniting my interpretations to see if they fit together. Quite often I was just left in the dark.

By the livin' Gawd that made you,
You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!
Edited by abb, Apr 12 2011, 04:36 AM.
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cks
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abb
Apr 12 2011, 04:19 AM
kbp
Apr 11 2011, 10:03 PM
I must admit having to read everything she wrote numerous times just to get to where I thought I understood what she meant. I also recall pasting a few sentences of hers and trying to pick them apart into seperate lines, rewriting what I thought the message was and then reuniting my interpretations to see if they fit together. Quite often I was just left in the dark.

By the livin' Gawd that made you,
You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!
I tried and gave up. THis is one (of a number) of reasons why I did not major in literature in college.

Had a student of mine handed in such gobbledy-gook, she would have been handed back the paper and told to diagram the sentences at a first step in making what she had written intelligible. After all, if one cannot grasp your point you have a failure to communicate!
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nyesq83
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What we have here is a failure to communicate...

Being from whatever background each Blog Hooligan is from, of course, all of you cannot even begin to understand the brilliant mind at work.

You are a part of the white male dominated world and therefore you are incapable of seeing what Wahneema sees, or of knowing what she knows.

No one has ever acted in a prejudicial way towards you or towards any of your family members or fellow alumni...oh um er never mind.
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Baldo
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She is a horrible writer who does not understand the sentence structure needed to convey a message. A fake & a fraud her only salvation is that she "professes" in a area where incompetence is not weeded out as long as you tow the party line.

Duke's John Hope Franklin Center was home to the Core "88" & pot-bangers back in 2006. It was where the Listening Statement was created, most likely where activist & students created and printed out the "Wanted Poster."

Depose Sam Hummel, he was in executive position at Duke when he help distribute it.
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cks
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The comments at DIW are great. Particularly one from "the English Language".
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LaDukie

:partspin: :partspin: :partspin:
:thud: :thud: :thud:
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foxglove

It makes me wonder if Lubiano is more or less just an instrument of subversion.
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cks
Apr 12 2011, 10:33 AM
The comments at DIW are great. Particularly one from "the English Language".
I especially like the definition of PhD --- Pile it higher Deeper.
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Joan Foster

Mu mother used to say that when you point your finger...please notice that even in your own hand...there now are three fingers pointing back at you. Wahneema pointed her finger at the Lacrosse team...rushed in to get something in print...and now everything about her and these angry studies programs are under scrutiny...at least in some places.

And they MUST be. It's important for people to understand why we stay involved, why we are still angry. And individually, what we are angry about.

ahhh..let me count the ways...

They want it to be just about Nifong. That's the easy door for them to exit.

Not so fast....

I wrote this on that Beau Dure's blog today:


http://www.sportsmyriad.com/2011/04/former-duke-lacrosse-players-win-a-couple-lose-many/#comments

I do believe that in addition to prosecutorial misconduct, the legacy of this Hoax must be to further "The Recitation of Sins." This case is no longer simply about “sympathy” for those abused in this case. That was my intent at the first. In the early days, in my naivete, I did believe that “walk a mile in my shoes” was the path to sanity and reconciliation for both well-intentioned Potbangers and Liestoppers. I saw almost everyone…as “good people” with basically good intentions.

But I’ve had to let go of that fantasy.

There came a point after which no one could believe any longer in good intentions. Like with the NCNAACP.

Some of you will never understand the personal affront and betrayal to those of us who lived and breathed for civil rights in our youth that the despicable part the NCNAACP played in this Hoax had on our souls. Like finding your beloved Grandma, tarted up and spread-eagle in a whore-house.

Likewise, you cannot understand the “education” that Ms. Levicy and Lubiano and the 88 tenured Radicals provided to some of us…that years ago…believed AA studies and Gender studies were designed to increase sensitivity with a goal to bring us TOGETHER. I confess to that naivete.

Instead the goals appear to be to indoctrinate and to segregate…and to perpetuate anger. There seems to be an aura of Victim-based smugness that means never having to “say you are sorry.” And some of the moral by-products appear to be… to so intensify racial identity that insensitivity to the legal jeopardy of white students was reflexive; and to so intensify gender-identity to the point that one devotee would assist a rogue DA in framing three young men because of the Credo…“womyn never lie about rape.”

These revelations at Duke are not exclusive to Duke…but Duke will do as a Exposure vehicle for the uniformed. Many of whom foot the bills to subject their children to these “ideas.”

I do not want to fund the opportunity for the Woman Studies Dept. to evolve my “White” daughter into another Nurse Levicy. Nor my “Black”goddaughter’s empathy be warped by the AA Studies Dept. into the race-selective sort we saw in Lubiano’s “Listening Statement.”

I’m sure there are many “good people” in the administration and on the faculty of Duke. Even among the 88 signatories. Years ago, many of us had to endure years of painful confrontations with “good people” among our friends and families…because these otherwise “good people” had offensive attitudes based on the ridiculousness of skin hue. The Duke Hoax exposed “good people” at Duke who knew, with only an allegation and no evidence…that Mangum’s skin color made her the the truth-teller…Sister Survivor.

And they never stepped back. And, as months passed and so much was uncovered, they let there silence speak into the void of who the REAL VICTIMS were.

Then came Katie Rouse.

Selective empathy.

Protect only ‘your own.”

It’s not any prettier this time around.

It is an historical outrage that this attitude was ignored in the past; it should not be ignored or tolerated as it exists now…at Duke or elsewhere.

These “Good People” should not be entrenched and tenured in our schools and colleges in order to proselytize and perpetuate these skewed and ugly attitudes.

Attitudes exposed throughout the Duke Frame.

The Recitation of Sins is about Education now. These “angry studies” are toxic. Many of us did not know this until we ourselves were educated throughout 2006-7. Once again Duke proved to be an amazing place of “higher education.”

Is it in the political, professional and financial interest of some to keep us angry and separated? Was the possible incarceration of three innocent kids for 30-40 years…seen as a “cash-cow” to some? Is this the underside of “Best for Duke?”

We still have a lot of stuff to fix as a society …and it takes mutual empathy to have the impetus to do so. Lubiano and her radical friends are a real threat to that empathy. On one hand, they rightfully ask we stand with them not to pre-judge their children by skin color…then they push into the LAX frame to prejudge ours.

The Duke Frame is about Prosecutorial abuse, Academic racism, Feminist zealots and the Hucksters that profit from all of that. And it needs to be told and retold till we drive these charlatans of chaos out of our colleges, emergency rooms, etc.

The post racial era most of us claim to want…will never be ushered in by those to whom divisiveness is a career path.

I believe to the core that Discovery will juice up the story even more."

Edited by Joan Foster, Apr 13 2011, 08:18 AM.
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