Neofascism: As Robert Penn Warren’s character Willie Stark, Governor of Louisiana, says in All the King’s Men: “There is always sumthin…” I am not sure that is true. I do know that there is always something that can be made to appear true for a while by enough bad actors. Cf.: GamerGate. For me, thus, the question has to be: Despite their flaws, is this the best person we can get for the job?
The big problem with Claudine Gay in her situation is that her occasional practice of copy-and-paste-a-sentence-and-then-change-a-few-words is destructive of some of the core values of the institution she was picked to head. I don’t think anyone, no matter what their gender or ethnicity, could have survived that in that hot seat. Cf.: Larry Summers—what were the objections to him, again, exactly? How did they impact his ability to do his job, which was to try to shake up an organization that wastes truly staggering amounts of money and badly needs a shake-up?:
Baratunde Thurston: A.I. Explosion & D.E.I. Blowback: ‘I do know enough about humans to understand that you can find dirt in anyone’s closet if you’re motivated enough… not to excuse [Gay’s] behavior but humble all who would ride in on a high horse. In the end, she lost the room and key members in it: donors, elected officials, shitposters, and exhausted students and faculty. She may also have simply lost her own will to face this mountain of scandals and hate-infused personal attacks…. Many things can be true at once. She can have made mistakes, and the attacks against her can be bad-faith, racist, sexist, strategically-timed acts of information warfare. Her case is also a microcosm of America’s race story: no matter how high a Black person, and particularly a Black woman, climbs, they will be targeted for destruction…. The Harvard shield could not protect her. If anything, it invited more spears…. If she led the same institution but wasn’t a Black woman, she’d likely still have her job. In moments like these it’s helpful to remember the many chances extended to men like Donald Trump or Elon Musk, people who’ve publicly trafficked in and amplified deeply antisemitic tropes, and who still command empires of influence in public and private… <newsletter.baratunde.co…>
