JASMINE ALI Volume 10, Issue 10 This article is a response to comments underneath last week's De Minimis article, MLS’ “Diversity Problem: It’s Just Not Going Away. I have canvassed response, after response, draft after draft, hoping to find some way to satisfy the ‘critics’. I thought that I needed to display my intellectual prowess, to wave the logicians wand, and dispel blow, by blow, the line of ‘reasoning,’ offered by the nameless and faceless challengers. But so evident in the ‘reasoning’ of the ‘critics’ was an unwillingness to treat the subject of the article, in the same manner, and with the same standards and generosity, as has been given to other articles in De Minimis, that something else is going on. When I looked further into it I found an article recounting an incident of sexual assault at an MLS event printed last year. Tellingly, I did not see the perils of subjectivity, or the poverty of anecdote reprimanded there. I have concluded therefore, you do not warrant a response of the kind that you demand. And so, after searching for tools to make sense of this experience, I found that this extract sums up our interactions well: “When you removed the gag that was keeping these black mouths shut, what were you hoping for? That they would sing your praises? Did you think that when they raised themselves up again, you would read adoration in the eyes of these heads that our fathers had forced to bend down to the very ground? Here are black men standing, looking at us, and I hope that you-like me- will feel the shock of being seen. For three thousand years, the white man has enjoyed the privilege of seeing without being seen…The white man - white because he was man, white like daylight, white like truth, white like virtue- lighted up the creation like a torch and unveiled the secret white essence of beings. Today these black men are looking at us, and our gaze comes back to our own eyes; in their turn, black torches light up the world and our white heads are no more than Chinese lanterns swinging in the wind.” – Black Orpheus, Jean- Paul Sartre And so, with your responses, you have demonstrated not only that the issues of racism persist in the fine corridors of Melbourne Law School, but have also provided a glimpse into the attitudes that Aboriginal people and certain ethnic communities confront within the legal system; perched as it is, on-top of the deep racist foundations of denial and dispossession. I am reminded of this every semester, when I show up to the exam hall in the Royal Exhibition Building, the place where the beginnings of the White Australia Policy was first legislated. I am reminded of it when I see Pauline Hanson, relaxed, smiling in Parliament, and when the Minister for Women wraps her in a warm, gentle embrace; happy, together, in Australia. See you in class. Jasmine Jasmine Ali is a second-year JD student The rest of this week's issue:
Your racist critic
4/10/2016 07:06:22 pm
Sorry for being racist
MM
5/10/2016 12:04:45 am
Hi Jasmine,
Thumbs Up
5/10/2016 09:52:05 am
Great response
Duncan
5/10/2016 10:35:23 am
Lol "do not always respond too kindly to overreach regarding accusations of racism". Jasmine overreached because she was not facing particularly "onerous forms of discrimination"? Seems like you might fit into the definition of 'white moderate' who Martin Luther King invoked in the following passage:
Lol like omg
5/10/2016 11:43:32 am
Neither you nor that quote refutes anything that MM said, it's just a general expression of disdain for 'white moderates' without an explanation of why that approach is wrong.
BBB
5/10/2016 01:03:13 pm
'Lol like OMG'
Improper user of the English language
5/10/2016 01:29:13 pm
"If you can't see the critical significance of the quote in Duncan's post above, there is no point in engaging with you."
MM
5/10/2016 03:40:14 pm
@Duncan
BBB
5/10/2016 06:18:20 pm
@ Improper Use of the English Language
No way im putting my name now.
5/10/2016 11:16:50 am
Want to know why people were posting anonymously last time? It was because they knew any kind of debate on the article would have them blindly labeled a racist as we can see here.
Jasmine Ali
5/10/2016 12:03:04 pm
Dear anonymous commentators,
He who must not be named
5/10/2016 01:22:47 pm
The degree of intellectual soundness, merit and rigour of an argument is inherent in the argument itself and has no relation whatsover with the identity of the individual expressing it.
AAA
5/10/2016 02:04:39 pm
Unfortunately, in the era of identity politics the merits of an argument can ONLY be ascertained from knowledge of the individual expressing it.
MM
5/10/2016 03:02:02 pm
Hi Jasmine,
BBB
5/10/2016 12:27:02 pm
MM
MM
5/10/2016 03:28:52 pm
Hi BBB, I will attempt to clarify my position in accordance with your concerns.
MM
5/10/2016 06:38:41 pm
@MM Comments are closed.
|
Archives
December 2021
|