[PEN-L:11188] Re: On censorship

[zarembka@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

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** Reply to note from pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Mon, 7 Jul 1997 19:42:58 -0700 (PDT)

> ... A few years ago at the
> URPE summer conference I attended a workshop on how to teach race and gender
> cources. A very good friend of mine (a white woman) narrated a story about a
> student in her class who was out and out and quite vocally racist. She had
> to throw this guy out of the class. I told the workshop then that she might
> have reacted that way because of being white. I would have never thrown that
> guy out of my class. You need to engage these people. Some of these people
> are loudly asking for help. They are asking for education in a
> psychologically abnormal manner. By the way, I'm a feminist. Cheers, ajit sinha

Ajit, I think you have misplaced the question.  If the person is a Nazi-
skinhead-type, there is no point to trying to change him/her (the few
pyschological breaks that do occur are not where your energy needs to be
placed).  These people need to be DEFEATED.

Now, leaving the person in the class may be productive as a means of
educating others in the class how to DEFEAT this person (and I don't
mean the "instructor" doing it; the class as a whole will probably do a
much better job).  But sometimes such a person can be so disruptive that
it really is exactly that--a disruption of learning.  So, as my second
point, I wouldn't judge without being there what would have been best to
do. Paul


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Paul Zarembka, supporting the  RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY  Web site at
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka,  and using OS/2 Warp.
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