Heaven forfend that books should offend. So I knew that publishers have taken to hiring sensitivity readers. What I didn’t know, but should have guessed, is just how sensitive these sensitivity readers take readers to be. I could regale you… Read More ›
Why My Colleagues Are Idiots
SOCIAL SCIENCE 100
There are five times as many inordinately tall white men as black men in America, and yet there are three times as many blacks in the NBA as whites. Why isn’t this a slam-dunk proof that there’s discrimination against white… Read More ›
STEREOTYPING
It’s a matter of straightforward induction that Great Danes are typically taller than Chihuahuas. So why would it be odd to say that they’re stereotypically taller? Because in normal parlance a stereotype only applies to people. Then why would it… Read More ›
TWO CALLS TO ARMS: GRIEVANCE ACTIVISM AND THE RESISTANCE OF THE PRIVILEGED
There’s a lot of variation within white. I happen to be swarthily white, but I’m white nonetheless. I know that all us whites are privileged, but I’m especially privileged. And yet, though I probably should, I don’t seem to suffer… Read More ›
THE BANALITY OF THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF GENDER
Every now and then we all have one of those wait-a-minute moments. It’s when someone’s been trying to slide one over on us, but all of a sudden we notice. The latest, at least for me, is this mantra that… Read More ›
ON THE THRUSTUPONEDNESS OF GREATNESS
I have a brother who’s retired now, but he spent his career teaching recreation technology, whatever that is, at a community college in the next province over. Sometime mid-career, there was a faculty strike. A couple days into the strike… Read More ›
DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION
If you ask me what’s beauty, or ugliness, or maybe even the distinction between right from wrong, I likely wouldn’t be able to tell you, except to say I know it when I see it. That’s why, as I’ve already… Read More ›
ROADS PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS
Save for recent immigrants, there are no African Americans. Percentages have nothing to do with it. You’re black in America just in case the rest of us think you are. You’re white in America just in case you can pass… Read More ›
DECOLONIZING THE CLASSROOM
Earlier this morning, Thursday, November 19, 2020, the faculty here at the University of Lethbridge received a rather puzzling missive. We’re being told that the University would like us to cooperate in “the decolonization of the classroom.” Not having the… Read More ›
ASKABLES AND UNASKABLES
It’s not a taboo unless it’s also a taboo to question the taboo. I get that. But it’s not a violation of a law or a rule or a policy to question that law or rule or policy. If you… Read More ›
Paulosophical Vimplications 