Free for the first 48 Hours
This week on Dispatches from Clown World we are discussing token black professors. Tyler Austin Harper at The Atlantic wrote a quite interesting story about his time as a professor at a liberal arts college and the process by which it became apparent that they cared little for his skillset but instead only valued his skin color. This is, of course, yet another story where every moderately perceptive person had figured out by now that this was, in broad strokes, the case. Still, the story goes into great depth, is humorous, and Harper is a wonderful writer.
Then, after selecting that topic, the news came out that Jason Arday was found dead. Arday, of course, was billed as the “youngest Black [sic] professor in Cambridge history” and had a truly fantastical bio and had resigned after it coming out all of his work was plagiarized, in what is another scalp for the race science substackers. It provides an incredible contrast to Harper’s story, since Harper was actually doing a job he wanted to do and expected to be treated normally, whereas Arday (who claimed to have been illiterate until age 18) was barely qualified to be a cashier. The real tragedy is it isn’t even clear to what extent he was in on the grift. Incidentally, here Harper again wrote the best essay on Arday’s death. It is true that perhaps people should limit their racist glee at such happenings, but the academic circling of the wagons seems to argue we just can’t expose plagiarism despite that they would throw students out of school without mercy for the same thing.
As ever, there is no shortage of other Clown World topics. We have life in Wisconsin (and Hong’s holiday hating,) the USS Abraham Lincoln, WNBA to define woman, goat herding hedge, pure cow urine for drinking (of course, Indians are now saying this is fake, and the whole thing relates to fertilizer…but this is what they do, deny disgusting regional traditions as soon as the outside world discovers them,) “No Kings” the coloring book, Luigi pleads, Kohberger tries to withdraws plea, and the lonesome death of Beth the vacuum cleaner.
In the Loony Lady Legislators section we have the adventures of AOC, who laughed off “woke 1,” froze her eggs, and broke up with her boyfriend! She has been busy, though I guess not “getting busy” in the way that would cause her to not need to freeze her eggs.
In Clown World History, it has been 5 years since a pivotal moment in Clown World, the Fall of Kabul!
Thank you for listening. That is all for this week. As always, you can find Brad on Twitter at WaywardRabbler.
