Friday, March 13, 2009

Still the Most Racist Thing Ever Posted on the Internet

Despite the passage of over a year this blog post is still the most racist thing ever posted on the Internet. The fact that the poster is a professor at an American university says much about the acceptability of anti-Arab racism among US academics. If the post had been about Jews rather than Palestinians he would have been fired from his job and blacklisted from ever working in a US educational institution again.

5 comments:

Gert said...

Well, perhaps not the most racist thing ever posted on the Internet, but pretty close (I've seen far worse but perhaps not from academics).

Whityflopsy is a conservative academic in the US??? Blind me with a fishfork! This merely reflects the American descent into deep xenophobia and racism toward all things Arab or Muslim.

You'd expect such a blog post from an anonymous Israel-Firster Tinkerwebs troll, not from an American scholar, conservative or otherwise...

A bit further down in the comment section he sets out to try and demolish your own "incursion into Israeli history", something that a person using the phrase "genocidal savages of Gaza" should be prohibited from doing. Quel asshat!

Greg Potemkin said...

That post may not be the most racist thing ever posted on the internet, but reading it, and a sprinkling of the other posts on his site does lead one to ask, "Is he really a professor at an American University?"

I am not asking you to out him, but what freakin' university? Having studied at an engineering school (many years ago) I didn't realize how bad what passes for scholarship had become in the social sciences, at US universities.

Geeze.
.

Farhad said...

I cannot believe this has been posted by a scholar. I attended a debate (Israel vs. Gaza) by two scholars. They both agree that this is exactly what keeps fueling the conflict. Human suffering is after all, suffering. Justice is not about replying to crime with a crime (that is just what Israeli side is doing). I would expect a better understanding of Justice from two people who have been trusted to educated youth like myself!

Greg Potemkin said...

Hey Otto,

I am just sort of curious what self-respecting American university would hire a guy like that as a History Professor. If he really is, that reflects very badly on the state of Academia in the US.

I was not aware of how bad it has apparently gotten - I studied engineering many years ago, and so had no idea about the state of social sciences in US institutes of higher learning.

Anyhow, I also read his critique of your essay about "Socialist Racism", and although I found his arguments totally unconvincing, it made me want to read the essay - I am something of an amateur historian.

If it is available online, i would sure appreciate it if you could point me to a link.

regards,
.

J. Otto Pohl said...

Greg:

Other than the print version I believe the article is only available on EBSCOHOST. However, if you send me an e-mail at pohlcat [the at sign] rocketmail [the dot] com I will send you a PDF copy of "Socialist Racism" by e-mail attachment. I would be interested in your thoughts on it. The article grew out of a paper I delivered to a conference on violence and the Middle East at Lebanese American University (LAU not AUB) in Beirut during 2004.