Screenshot of Professor Naima Lowe courtesy YouTube.
Naima Lowe, former Media professor at Evergreen College, (an exit agreement with Evergreen awarded her $240,000) has broken her silence after more than a year by writing about her feelings toward the campus unrest in the late spring of 2017.
A video of Lowe, widely circulated on the Internet, drew much attention as she admonished her white colleagues (Lowe is black), accused them of white racism, and eventually called them motherfuckers who couldn’t see their way out of their own asses as they stood silently listening to her abrasive lecture.
This link is cued up to Lowe’s impromptu speech:
https://youtu.be/Y1QOKs9Pw54?list=PLV8ajpBgPg4hANX8zyqI-sCsjS9rGJ07Z&t=368
Firstly, the circulation of this footage resulted in vile, frightening, graphic and racist messages, emails and voicemails directed at Lowe. There is never, under any circumstance, a world in which this is okay. That part of Lowe’s story is valid and must be condemned by all.
The videotaping continues and a few minutes later in the video (after Lowe’s speech), professors are shown inquiring about whether if they enter the by now occupied library to listen to student demands, they will be allowed to leave. They are told that George (the president of the university) will not be allowed to leave, but that they will allow others to leave. However, if they do leave, it will be interpreted as harmful to the environment.
In her essay, Lowe continually refers to the incident as a “protest,” which is simply not true. Already, while lecturing her colleagues, the “protest” has become an illegal fiasco, far from a protest as defined by the constitution.
For a reminder on protesting, visit ACLU’s Know Your Rights, which carefully lays out your constitutional rights as an American citizen and as an American student. In the video, you can detect that students have piled up furniture against the entries and exits of the library, and will hold President George against his will. In fact, when he says he has to pee, they tell him to hold it. Then they offer to escort him to the bathroom as his only other option. This could result in a felony unlawful imprisonment charge if the law were liberally applied.
Testimony to the board from Bret Weinstein and others described incidences of assaults and batteries; hunting, stalking and impeding; harassment and doxxing; physically blocking police and pressure to not report crimes to police.
Despite these witness reports, Lowe, in her essay, uses the word “protest” in one form or another in excess of twenty times (twenty-two if I counted correctly).
Campus Argument Goes Viral As Evergreen State Is Caught In Racial Turmoil (HBO) published by Vice News on YouTube gives a nice little 7-minute summary of the disagreements:
https://youtu.be/2cMYfxOFBBM
Lowe titles the article, “I fought academia’s cult of civility and all I got was this lousy PTSD diagnosis.” She displays a quote, taken from the WSJ, which reads:
Media professor Naima Lowe urged one of Mr. Weinstein’s defenders to read about how calls for civility are “often used to silence and/or dismiss concerns about racism.” She also said that the “white people making changes in their white supremacist attitudes and behaviors” were those “who do not immediately balk and become defensive,” instead acknowledging that “white supremacy is literally ingrained in everything.” In other words, merely defending oneself against the accusation of “white supremacy” is evidence of guilt.
Clearly, Lowe is very passionate about racial equity, but says that “when faced with the crisis of confronting racism head on, the white liberal tendency (is) to dismiss patterns of structural inequality in favor of avoiding conflict and hard feelings.”
Lowe plays the victim card pretty unashamedly. Examples:
“This is what happens when black women speak up about being harmed within white dominated liberal spaces.”
“I thought that if I could find a way to temper my fear and anger, someone might take me seriously enough to respond to the threats to my life. By the time I finished I’d broken out into hives and spent the night vomiting and sobbing.”
“Authorities dismiss the danger of the threats, and the school does nothing until it isn’t just black people being threatened.”
“At no point did anyone offer me on-campus safety escorts, and if the threats to my life were investigated by the campus or county police, I never heard a word about it.”
“…then being thrown under the bus by white liberal complacency. I was dismissed, disbelieved, and ultimately treated as though my anger in responding to racism was on par with the racism itself that I was trying to address.”
“I spoke out about being tokenized as a black woman… about being repeatedly bullied and targeted on an all-campus email list for speaking out about racism… and about having my tenure case unfairly challenged despite years of glowing reviews by peers, students, and administrators.”
“I received a $240,000 settlement for my trouble, the majority of which I used to pay off the student loans I’d acquired getting the advanced degrees required to be an academic.”
She also notes that during her speech to her colleagues she was “alone, wearing gym clothes, holding my 8 lb. service dog, being black and pissed off.”
She also speaks of a panic attack and the title of the piece indicates she now suffers from PTSD. At the end of her story, she cries to her parents and they comfort her with love and reassurance.
Lowe is extremely critical of the concept of civility because she insists it can be weaponized to stifle speech:
“The dominant discussion about campus speech vilifies and punishes black people for speaking stridently about our experiences of racism and then hides this disdain for our right to free speech and assembly beneath the guise of civility.”
Also, “Civility hasn’t stopped the oncoming train of far right white nationalism in this country, and it doesn’t solve racism on college campuses. The concept is totally subjective, based on the values of those in power, and is consistently weaponized against women, people of color, young people, queers and others marginalized within public discourse.”
Interestingly, Lowe refers to earlier instances where others seem to find her tone abrasive and difficult, even prior to the Evergreen disturbances.
“Various (mostly white) faculty colleagues and members of the administration approached me over my last year at Evergreen to let me know that they were concerned about whether I was being constructive enough in my approach to addressing these issues. They told me that I was alienating people, that I was doing a disservice to my own cause, and that I was making people feel uncomfortable and unwelcome in discussions. They told me to temper my anger so that they could hear what I had to say.”
So is civility really a weapon against the oppressed? I don’t think so and here’s why. As a former teacher, I embraced social justice and racially and culturally diverse lessons. One of my resources was Teaching Tolerance, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
“Teaching Tolerance provides free resources to educators—teachers, administrators, counselors and other practitioners—who work with children from kindergarten through high school. Educators use our materials to supplement the curriculum, to inform their practices, and to create civil and inclusive school communities where children are respected, valued and welcome participants.”
Teaching Tolerance’s sample lesson plans on how to teach civility are among hundreds of lesson plans to lead children to an ability to respect others, to have conversations, to avoid polarization or bullying, and to be prepared to function in society. If we value this enough to teach civility to our children, why would we not expect the same from our adults?
In the end, Lowe does not agree. She ends her comments on this topic with the following sentiment: “Fuck your civility.”
