Butler readers on Smith College’s racial crisis: “Toxic wokeness,” “tone-deaf administrators,” and more
Jesse Kornbluth
Last week, I republished Michael Powell’s New York Times article, Inside a Battle Over Race, Class and Power at Smith College and invited you to weigh in. I have no idea of the gender breakdown of Butler readers; I find it interesting that every response but one came from a reader who identified as a
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Butler readers on Smith College’s racial crisis: “Toxic wokeness,” “tone-deaf administrators,” and more

By Jesse Kornbluth

Published: Mar 07, 2021

Category: Beyond Classification

Last week, I republished Michael Powell’s New York Times article, Inside a Battle Over Race, Class and Power at Smith College and invited you to weigh in. I have no idea of the gender breakdown of Butler readers; I find it interesting that every response but one came from a reader who identified as a woman. Most emailed without knowing of the letter to the Smith community that Smith’s President wrote after Powell’s article raised serious question about the college’s handling of this incident. I publish her letter below the first set of comments. I close with comments from those who had seen the letter. As ever, I’m at HeadButlerNYC@AOL.com.

I graduated from an all-female college but am sympathetic to my sister school Smith. I am also sympathetic to all the players in this drama. That’s the problem. I see both sides, which in this polarized environment gets lost amidst the anger, outrage, and emotion. No one wins in a situation like this. While this occurred at Smith, it could have (and no doubt has) happened on any campus in the US. Right and wrong, black or white, always and never; is there no middle ground for civil dialogue? Punishment, ostracization and shame may be called for but isn’t always the most constructive approach.

On all sides we’re becoming a culture of intolerance that refuses to compete in the “marketplace of ideas” (what an awful, crass phrase: I would prefer “gladiatorial arena”) but insists instead on crushing our opponents. This is true of right-wing voter suppression and it is true of woke purges on campuses and in media. How weak we must think our ideas are if they can’t withstand criticism and opposition and must be hothouse flowers guarded by ranks of heavy armor.

This is a tough one for me. I have many black friends, all professional people and highly educated. Every single one, no matter how respectable or rich or accomplished they are, has had some kind of horrendous racist incident in their lives. I think that black people in America experience something akin to PTSD. In turn, it makes them hypersensitive to anything that even hints at racism, in the same way that returning war veterans will often overreact to the sound of a car backfiring because it triggers something traumatic for them.

Amerika as we know it is toast. Don’t be the one to turn off the lights. They should have offered her a couple of million.

I related the Smith incident to a white, working-class man in his seventies, a Democrat who lives in a conservative, nearly all-white, rural Colorado town. I explained that the cafeteria was reserved for visiting students and that the dorm lounge was closed, that the custodian was following guidelines in summoning campus police, and that Kanoute went ballistic on social media for simply being asked politely to leave. He backed up to the beginning: “Why couldn’t she just finish her breakfast? She’d be gone in — what? — ten minutes?” I was stunned at the obviousness of his solution. This whole incident could have been easily avoided. In the Times piece, Powell writes that the custodian had been “encouraged” to call security if he saw “unauthorized” people on the premises. Points to him, I guess, for following the rules. But why not use his judgment and not call? She wasn’t bothering anyone. If the lounge was off limits, there should have been a sign or the door should have been locked. Why call security?

Years ago, Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested while attempting to enter his own house. I talked about it with a friend of Gates, a normally unflappable black female colleague. She wailed, “People don’t understand! This happens to us every single day!” So, yes, I get it. But Kanoute’s case is not remotely the same; she wasn’t being arrested for allegedly breaking into an expensive house in a good neighborhood in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Entitlement prompted her vile, inexcusable response. But almost as egregious was the Smith president’s self-serving decision to placate Kanoute, while alienating white staffers. This has fed fires that are now beginning to feel out of control, and not just on the Smith campus. There can be no hope of bridging the racial divide in our country without bridging the class divide. As the former Smith janitor, who left after 21 years, says, “I don’t know if I believe in white privilege. I believe in money privilege.” In 2021, he’s right.

Best quote and the crux of the piece: “It is safe to say race is discussed far more often than class at Smith,” said Prof. Marc Lendler, who teaches American history and government at the college. “It’s a feature of elite academic institutions that faculty and students don’t recognize what it means to be elite.” This is so important, and at the root of our unraveling as a country. Yes, yes, race is intersectional, but it’s much more about class divisions.”

And here is President Kathleen McCartney’s letter to the Smith community:

Dear students, staff, faculty and alums:

I suspect many of you had strong reactions to the recent round of media coverage about Smith College. As I read the stories, I was reminded of what a community member shared with me at the time of the July 31, 2018, incident: “We all think we know the story. We only know the perspective we bring to it.” Issues surrounding identity are complex and nuanced; yet, for the most part complexity and nuance have been absent in the recent public conversation. Rest assured we will not allow any newspaper story to define us, especially those that misrepresent the facts or shade the truth.

I am not going to revisit the events of July 31, 2018, in this letter. Instead, I want to share three observations about the context in which we live and work.

First, ample data shows that people of color face discrimination in the areas of education, health care, criminal justice, and housing, among many others. This is why education on structural inequalities matters.

Second, many studies prove how bias, whether explicit or implicit, operates—and can lead to racial profiling. To take just a few examples, a person with a name that résumé screeners associate with Black people is less likely to get a job interview; Black people are more likely to be stopped for traffic violations; and Black people are more likely to be followed by security guards in stores. This is why education on bias matters.

Third, today’s college students came of age witnessing killings or assaults of Black people that onlookers captured on their cell phones. Elizabeth Alexander, poet and president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, wrote a poignant New Yorker essay about the impact of racial violence on young people: “I call the young people who grew up in the past twenty-five years the Trayvon Generation. They always knew these stories. These stories formed their world view. These stories helped instruct young African-Americans about their embodiment and their vulnerability. The stories were primers in fear and futility. The stories were the ground soil of their rage. These stories instructed them that anti-black hatred and violence were never far.” This is why education on racial justice matters.

We are living in a moment of profound division in this country, as the media coverage of the past week has underscored. Smith College is an educational institution that prides itself on being a continuous learning community. As members of this community, we are called to engage with complex issues using rigor and evidence, ensuring every individual feels heard, inside and outside the classroom. This work is hard, but it is the foundation for change.

Let us give one another grace as we seek the courage to have the critical conversations that will move us forward.

Sincerely,

Kathleen McCartney

President

COMMENTS FROM BUTLER READERS WHO READ THE LETTER:

She said absolutely nothing to exonerate the poor guy who lost his job and was vilified as a racist. I kept waiting for the acknowledgment and it never came. Apparently, it passes as “enough” to say that things are complex and nuanced, as if any thinking adult doesn’t already know that. I found this to be a cowardly letter.

The letter reveals that, having misplayed the moment, she still doesn’t know how to make a single, declarative, personal thought. This bullshit won’t even buy her time.

The letter and the coverage show how disassociated power structures are from the reality.

They are called Ivory Towers for a reason. Many academics have never lived in the real world and they know nothing about it. They are like Kimmy Schmidt, prisoners of a cult and locked away in their own sealed container.

Poor Kathleen McCartney. She is not just clueless but cowardly. At $78K a year she knows she can’t afford to lose a single student.

My turn: The President links to an FAQ that asks relevant questions and gives the college’s responses. As some of those responses contradict a few of the experiences cited in Michael Powell’s meticulously reported article, it may be worth your time to click on the link. Then again, news and attention spans being what they are, you may have moved on to Meghan Markle and Andrew Cuomo.