Author: Grace Risinger

This article was extremely interesting to read. The author discusses her experience with White privilege, and how she came to understand what having White privilege meant. She discusses how she believes that it should be discussed and taught more in schools, and that it is just as important as having discussions and learning about racism. There is clearly privilege and oppression in every society today, whether that has to do with race, class, gender, etc. It is important to acknowledge how people play roles in today’s society in order to correct some of the historical wrongdoings that have occurred. I do not believe this means dropping everything to “save,” or “fix,” these wrongdoings. I do not believe this means that every society is doomed due to the privilege and oppression that exists. I just believe that through doing your part, even just by acknowledging how you play a role, you can make more strides than you realize to redesign social systems. Something interesting about this topic is how much emotion and personal connections have to do with it. There is a lot of personal connection that has to do with privilege and oppression. People everyday will feel and understand their privilege and oppression in different ways, whether they decide to acknowledge it or not. This makes the topic very difficult, and I think that Peggy McIntosh does a great job of explaining why it is important to acknowledge White privilege in a way that keeps the argument academic.

When reading this, I began to wonder how this connects to the intellectual class and wokeism. We have been discussing how the intellectual class is able to speak and be immediately listened to. Frequently, we have seen that they are listened to without research to define if their statements are correct. They are viewed as correct just because of their status as an intellectual. Therefore, this is a privilege that can place harm on others. Other people who are not included in the intellectual class can develop morals or beliefs based on members of the intellectual class and what they have decided to speak on. Through listening and absorbing information that members of the intellectual class publish and not questioning how correct the information is, other people suffer consequences. We have seen how misinformation can affect people, and how wokeism can lead to harm. This is a perfect example of that.

The conversation from last week made me rethink a lot of the concepts we have discussed throughout the class thus far. I think discussing the idea of the 1619 project, and the troublesome false facts that were written brings up a lot of conceptual issues relating to the intellectual class. Something interesting that came up was the idea of someone’s morals being more important than fact. I believe that this is something troubling that happens a lot within the intellectual class. We talked about the moral reasoning behind the 1619 project, and how when intellectuals choose to use their morals in place of following facts it can completely discount their journalism, research, or whatever it is that they are expressing their thoughts through. I talked about the idea that the 1619 project opened the door for a bigger conversation, including allowing Black creators to be able to speak their truths about their ancestry including their experiences with slavery. After discussing this, I realized that even if this was the intention of the 1619 project, a lot of the intellectuals writing for this project stated that their intentions were to completely rewrite history. By stating this, it shifts the narrative, changing the intention of the project whether that is what they intended to do or not. It brings up the point of intellectuals realizing how important what they state is, and the impact it can have. The 1619 project is now being taught in schools, even though a lot of the information that is stated is wrong and incorrect. I think it is teaching younger generations that even if their morals are in the right place, and they want to expose something like the brutality of slavery and how it affected the United States, they are allowed to use false facts to back up their claims. I think this is the downfall of the 1619 project. It is true that there are many false facts taught in schools when younger kids are learning about history. We have seen this in the teachings of Christopher Columbus. This is an entirely different conversation, because there are intellectuals who are creating the textbooks taught to younger kids in schools. When there is false information taught, it allows for misinformation to spread. I believe that the reason why people do not talk about the 1619 project more and how the misinformation in it discounts the idea that more children should be taught about slavery, is because it is about such a sensitive topic. Black intellectuals should be allowed to speak their minds and what they believe on a matter such as slavery. As a country, we should allow for Black people to be able to speak their minds. As a white person, it becomes uncomfortable when having to discount someone on speaking on a matter I know nothing about. Similarly, that is why I believe the conversation was so difficult to have. I am not an intellectual, nor am I knowledgable on the beginnings of slavery, more specifically the factual evidence. This is exactly what harm the 1619 project can do, people like myself who do not know enough about the subject can be influenced easily by such a large news source such as the New York Times deciding to publish and share such an influential piece of information. This also points to another important idea, the fact that the average person trusts what intellectuals say even though the facts may not be correct. It begs the question, how many other sources like this are out there? How can one be sure that they are reading facts? Because this is a subject that people make out to be political, it also creates another problem. There are many people that just because a piece of journalism may suggest it leans a certain way politically automatically deem it incorrect or do not want to continue reading or understanding the work. This is something that has lead to the polarization in our country today. Even if there are certain works of journalism or research that do have some form of politics in them, that does not deem it incorrect. The 1619 project has to do with this. Since Republicans have been deemed racist by some groups of people, more specifically the far left, people do not care to understand if the facts in it are correct. It is just deemed correct because of the moral content that is in it. This is something hard to comprehend in the society we live in today. When reading content, it can be easy to comprehend that the person’s morals are in the right place, such as the 1619 project wanting to expose slavery and allow Black voices to be heard about an issue that is still so prevalent in today’s society. However, it is important to further understand the facts and whether they portray the correct historical evidence. Furthermore, it just goes back to my original point that because of the incorrect nature of the 1619 project, it just completely discounts the entire point of the project, whatever that point may be.

I found the speaker to be extremely interesting. Through the discussion of his book, the Parasitic Mind, he brought up some points that confused me. Specifically, in relation to the class idea of the intellectual class. In his book, there were some sections that focused on applying his ideas of the parasitic mind to modern far-left ideals. He touched on these ideals during the discussion. One that stood out to me, was when he mentioned that he doesn’t believe social situations impact our society in the way that certain intellectual groups believe they do. He explained that believing this has to do with the parasitic mind, since people are not choosing to focus on biological science. He believes that biological science trumps social science in this sense. He gave another example explaining that, “He would not want his children to see a transgender person twerking on TV when they are young,” explaining that it is not because of homophobia, but just because he believes young children should not be exposed to that at a young age. This was something that was hard for me to understand, because I do not really understand how this has anything to do with the intellectual class or the parasitic mind that his book is about. To me, this seemed like more focusing on left ideals and how he believes they are infiltrating society and intellectuals. Especially since he used many more examples in his book such as focusing on the election of Donald Trump and how the intellectual class reacted, as well as Brett Kavanaugh being confirmed for the supreme court. He focused on the reactions of the intellectual class when discussing these national events, explaining that he believed they were uncalled for and further proved his point of the parasitic mind. When I asked about this and expressed my confusion on what he was trying to prove, he said that I had misinterpreted the chapter. This was confusing to me, because when giving many examples of leftist ideas existing and being taken to an extreme level because of the parasitic mind, it would only make sense that the author is trying to express that when discussing the parasitic mind he believes it is applied more heavily in leftist ideals.

The chapter focuses on Fay Stender, known as a left leaning political activist. The chapter goes through her life, focusing on important aspects of her as a person. Her funeral consisted of a lot of confusion and reflection on her life. People discussed her radical behavior, how she was driven by contradictory feelings, and her forceful nature. Fay was known as a “Berkeley person,” referring to the political and cultural liberalism which came from the university, which was also later known as the New Left. She went to law school at the University of Chicago, and when people would visit her she would take them to the Chicago slums. Later she got married to the chairman of a communist group, Marvin Stender. They became invested in a joint venture on behalf of the oppressed. Later, they moved back to Berkeley since they were interested in political affairs. She wanted her life to have meaning, and she was very hungry for a dream. She wanted to get involved through her clients since she was a lawyer, she was searching for meaning that was greater than the legal principles she could establish. She got involved in the civil rights movement, getting involved in organizations which were anti-Semitic and wanted whites to leave. Fay agreed with these organizations. Fay was instrumental in defending the Black Panther Party when the founder Huey Newton killed a policeman John Frey. The political defense became the main radical viewpoint of the time and the model for other trials such as of Angela Davis, the Chicago Seven, and others that followed. After Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated, student rebels had seized certain universities such as Columbia, and lawmen had clashed with demonstrators at the Democratic convention in Chicago, there was a very uncontrolled state and mood of the Left. Fay was too emotional in court and could not handle a jury trial. She got too involved with her clients. Fay continued anyway to work on Huey Newton’s case for killing policeman John Frey. She was very involved in this. She pushed herself extremely hard and worked around the clock, her reputation spreading quickly. She also stayed involved with the Black Panther Party, and wondered if she could be involved heavily in politics as well as in law. She questioned whether her effectiveness would be enhanced or impaired. Fay believed that prisoners were going to be in the vanguard of the social revolution. She became sexually involved with Newton in prison. Fay began to defend George Jackson, and he slowly began to resist that. He wanted to be known as a manly person. He warned her that there was serious friction between the two of them, and she didn’t listen. His brother later went into a courtroom and killed two prisoners and a judge as well as wounded several others in a courtroom. He ended up dying as well. George Jackson continued to act out, wanting to smuggle guns for an insurrection that would coincide with the short-circuiting of the prison’s electricity and the arrival of jeeps to spirit away the prisoners who scaled the walls. Fay did not want to get behind this, she believed she was still going to win in court and prove Jackson’s innocence despite everything that happened. Later, there was an attack between Jackson and Fay, Fay was thinking about leaving the case entirely. The Left was feeling in crisis, of paranoia and despair. The violence rhetorically aimed at the larger society turned inward. Later, Huey Newton and George Jackson turned their backs on Fay. Fay ended up leaving Jackson’s case. Jackson ended up becoming suicidal, and she apposed his suicidal plans. She had to remove herself from the situation, and became extremely scared. Jackson ended up meeting Stephen Bingham, his new lawyer, and he hid bullets in his Afro wig. Jackson ended up with a gun and the bullets, and forced the guards to open the cells and said, “The Black Dragon has come to free you.” He soon realized there was nowhere to go, and everything spiraled out of control. Three guards and two white convicts ended up in Jackson’s cell, lying dead. Jackson ended up being killed by guards. Many people were confused by the events that occurred, asking themselves if Jackson was set up by Bingham since he disappeared after the event. Similarly, people were wondering if the Black Panther Party had set him up as well. Fay wasn’t surprised by the events. People began to wonder that Fay was afraid of the authorities and the people she had helped. Later, the organization that Fay was a part of the Prison Law Project ended up splitting from the radicals. The radicals formed the Prison Law Collective. This caused controversy as Fay tried to get away from the radicals. There was word that an inmate at a prison in California wanted to escape and wanted to visit with her as well as her different organizations, Fay ended up hiding in friends’ houses since she did not want to deal with it. Fay slowly realized that her prison work was not ending well. Time after time she would get somebody paroled or moved from maximum security to the main line, and a month later he would be back. She realized that certain prisoners she was helping get out of prison would end up doing something horrible and get back into prison. Later, Fay closed the Prison Law Project and shortly afterward stopped taking prison clients. She was still extremely driven, taking other legal cases. She began saying “The Left betrayed me,” and became extremely bitter towards the community that had once been her main support. She soon became very interested in feminism. She became involved in the community of gay women lawyers, and joined the board of Lesbian Rights. She became attracted to women, but was scared of what that would do to her career as well as her personal relationships. She ran as the only woman candidate for the board of governors of the State Bar of California and lost, so she decided to go to Europe. She wrote about personal experiences she had there in a journal, including what it was like to be a Jewish woman in Europe. After Fay got back, her son was awoken in the middle of the night by a Black man who was demanding where Fay was. The man had a gun, and was asking whether or not she betrayed George Jackson. Fay ended up being seriously injured after the man shot her multiple times, however she lived. The top suspects for the crime were a prison gang known as the Black Guerrilla Family, because it was co-founded by Jackson. Later, the suspect was found and was arrested. Eventually, Fay ended up being terrified and refused to go out on the streets. She realized that she became a target for getting involved with certain people. She became disabled for her previous injuries. 

My discussion question is: Was Fay wrong in doing what she did, did she really take things too far? When people have the intelligence and means to be able to get involved politically, especially when they believe it is the right thing to do, what are the limitations to that? When are the risks too much?

Something that I found extremely interesting in Paul Hollander’s Political Pilgrims was towards the end when he was discussing the idea of “self-discovery.” I thought this was extremely interesting because he called it “an ego-enhancing activity.” This is an extremely harsh take, especially when considering the fact that most people do have to go on the journey of self-discovery. I was confused by what Hollander was trying to claim. Is he saying that people who are not intellectuals, those who have trouble finding their interests or talents, will be on an endless journey for self-discovery? He states, “Travel is especially irresistible to those – and their numbers may be increasing – who seek instant solutions to personal or social problems.” This is confusing to me, because I believe that intellectuals can also be on this conquest for self-discovery. It seems to me that even though intellectuals have one calling, one line of knowledge that they devote their life to, they may still not have total self-discovery. Intellectuals may be constantly searching for self-discovery, if they have not found the truth that they are looking for. Similarly, if an intellectual cannot find the right company to work for, they will not be able to express their knowledge in a way that is important enough for them. If intellectuals’ knowledge is not verified by others or valid, they may be searching constantly for power or a means of approval. This seems very similar to me to the “self-discovery” that Hollander is discussing here.

I also found it interesting when Hollander was talking about how intellectuals had changes in their attitudes. The growth of individualistic expectations and their unwillingness to, “accept scarcity or deprivations,” led to a lot of criticism. Hollander talks about how because of the greater accessibility of higher education, it led to a large influx of intellectuals or people believing they could become an intellectual easier. It makes me wonder about how intellectuals took this criticism, and if they even cared. With my experience with intellectuals, I feel that usually they do not care about criticism at all, due to the fact that they believe they are so much better than everyone else. Most intellects feel that their field of study is also the best, and it is typical to see there be slight conflict between certain fields of study.