Category Archives: Higher Education

In Defense of Public Writing

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Image: American director Thomas H. Ince using a giant megaphone (Peter Milne, Motion Picture Directing; The Facts and Theories of the Newest Art, 1922)

November 12, 2014

In Defense of Public Writing

David J. Leonard

Hello, my name is David, and I am a scholar who writes for the public. Sometimes I even blog. I offer that mea culpa because, all too often, I am judged for not segregating my work behind the velvet rope of scholarship. I am not alone, as plenty of scholars are refusing to stay in the lane of the ivory tower, taking their talents to the pages of newspapers, websites, and television.

But that still raises eyebrows. I once heard an administrator refer to public writing as a pathology of sorts, akin to video-game addiction. To him, public writing was all about immediate gratification and ego rather than a scholarly advancement of knowledge. It was a sign of weakness, evidence of inadequacy as a scholar, proof that today’s public intellectuals were not realprofessors.

In that view, still held by many, a “peer reviewed” journal article read by 12 people is of great value while a piece written for a website, and read by more than 100,000, is a distraction from legitimate work. I have been told on several occasions that the work of writing for online publication (whether via a blog or for respected outlets like Huffington Post) is “easy” and a “waste of time.” Unlike scholarship, which is about knowledge production and intellectual debate, public writing is said to be about personal gain and pleasure resulting from public fanfare.

To still others, public writing is a form of community service: Some people give blood to the Red Cross, others donate their time at local shelters, and others donate their words to public spaces. Each of those activities is advancing public good, yet none are required or necessary components of academic life.

But instead of being unnecessary or antithetical to academic work, I would argue that public writing is — at its core — what we do as teachers, intellectuals, and scholars. It’s another form of teaching, a public pedagogy that engages “students” outside the classroom, and inside, too.

When I started out in the era of chalkboards and typewriters, I often found it difficult to bridge the gap between course materials and current events. In those moments where course themes and theories connected with public discourse or popular culture, I was often frustrated by the absence of readings that could anchor a classroom conversation. Now I can find such materials in the work of countless scholars and intellectuals. The examples are endless: Jelani Cobb’s writing about police brutality and racism, Salamishah Tillet’s work on partner violence and rape culture, Stacey Patton’s discussions of child abuse, Mark Anthony Neal’s public scholarship on all things popular culture, and Khalil Gibran Muhammad continued discussion of the “violence card.” They, along with Jeff Chang, Brittney Cooper, James Peterson, Imani Perry, and so many others are advancing discourses inside and outside of academia. With historical examples in hand, and an analytical framework seeped in a lifetime of scholarly research, their public writings advance classroom conversation with depth and specificity. The prospect of waiting several years until a journal article is published to discuss some current event in class is unsatisfying.

Public writing is also work that bridges theories, methods, and knowledge that is often locked behind pay walls, or stuck inside books that cost as much as a new pair of Air Jordans. Essays written for a general audience often help to place scholarly research, and break down boundaries between the two. Unable to write dozens of pages on a topic, scholars writing for a mainstream publication unmask what is important in their research and how it matters.

Public writing is also a means to engage other scholars, especially those outside the academy. Professors do not have a monopoly on knowledge production; look no further than Ta-Nehisi Coates, an American writer for The Atlantic whose work on culture and politics is as “scholarly” and intellectually rich as that of any academic. Others, like Gary Younge, Jamilah Lemieux, Mychal Denzel Smith, and Dave Zirin are the forefront of important scholarly debates even if they are not taking place inside the Ivory Tower.

As an assistant professor, I regularly wrote for Popmatters.com, a site dedicated to cultural commentary and reviews. I wrote on politics, sports, video games, and race. That experience enhanced my skills as a writer, and forced me to think about what mattered in my argument and how to write across discipline and method. Thanks to those essays I also developed professional relationships and friendships with several scholars. Writing a review of the videogame, “NBA Ballers,” prompted an email from one of my intellectual heroes, who, to this day remains one of my most trusted mentors. Several opportunities, not to mention significant intellectual growth, came about because of those relationships.

The writing I do in places like Vitae and Gawker advances the work that I’ve produced in journals or within books. It allows me to get feedback from a range of readers and to expand the reach of my ideas. A tweet becomes a Facebook status, and that becomes a piece for an online venue, which may become a journal article, or a book chapter.

I write in a myriad of spaces for a variety of reasons but in the end I write because I have something to say. I write because I hope the work resonates with people I know and people I don’t. I write because it is an expression of my worldview, my work, and my identities. I write because that is what we scholars do: We think, we share, we learn, and we grow. Public writing and scholarly writing do not stand in binary opposition to one another nor are they mutually exclusive.

Dear Tiger Mom: The 1920s Called and They Want Their Racial Theories Back

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Dear Tiger Mom: The 1920s Called and They Want Their Racial Theories Back
David J. Leonard
January 13, 2014
Image via Wiki Commons.

“Tiger Mom: Some Cultural groups are superior” – this headline from the New York Post prompted me to tweet the following:

While partly a snarky reaction to a book that invariably will deliver all-too familiar themes, it was equally a comment on the continuity of American racial ideologies across multiple generations, and multiple centuries.

Amy Chua and her antiquated ideologies are back.

The author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, which celebrated the superiority of Chinese American parenting styles, is set to publish a follow-up book in February. Co-authored with her husband, Jed Rubenfeld, The Triple Package: How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America appears to be more of the same, expanding her cultural determinist argument, which imagined Chinese parenting as both superior and a pathway to inevitable success, to now include seven more groups (Jewish, Indian, Chinese, Iranian, Lebanese-Americans, Nigerian, Cuban exiles, and Mormons), whose success is attributable to their possessing the requisite values and cultural attributes. The selected groups, all of whom are immigrant groups, the selective grouping (only Cuban exiles; Lebanese-American but Nigerians), the lack of intersectional analysis, not too mention the dehistoricizing, reveals a flawed premise at its face.

As reported in the Post, Chua and Rubenfeld argue that “success” is attributable to three distinct cultural traits: superiority complex, inferiority complex, and impulse control. Simply put, Chua and Rubenfeld seem to argue that a sense of superiority — confidence, purpose, and a belief in excellence — alongside a sense of inferiority — humility, modesty, and determination — are two essential ingredients to success. For the sake of brevity, and my focus on historic continuity between Chua and a larger history of scientific racism, it is important to reflect on their understanding of “impulse control” and how it fits within a larger history of white supremacy, notions of civilization, and arguments about fitness, self-control, and self-governance. “As we’ll use the term,” write Chua and Rubenfeld, “impulse control refers to the ability to resist temptation, especially the temptation to give up in the face of hardship or quit instead of persevering at a difficult task.”

This argument is not new. Central to white supremacist discourses and practices, from the representations of minstrelsy and Jim Crow, to Native American bordering schools and contemporary mascots, is the idea that “racial others have impulses that demand a civilizing force in order to rein them in.” The inability to exert control over the “impulses” of racial others has also been cited throughout history as evidence of inferiority, reason for inequality, and the justification of state violence. For example, Anglos rationalized the conquest of California by citing the “lack of self-discipline” and “cultural backwardness” of the Californios. In their minds, Mexicans were “indolent people, whose backwardness reflected their having poor personal habits and collective deficiencies such as laziness or a penchant for extravagances.”

Irrespective of intent, The Triple Package builds on a long history of American racism, faux science, and racial discourses that have sought to normalize and naturalize inequalities. It’s a remix of Herbert Spencer, Charles Davenport, The Bell Curve, and countless other theories that have normalized white supremacy and socially produced injustices. Whereas past theories focused on biological differences that located the physical, psychological, and cultural differences within inheritable traits, Chua and Rubenfeld explain away differences and inequalities, arguing that individual values and cultural traits push certain groups to the top of “success mountain” and others into the pits of failure.

The book’s argument recycles longstanding arguments that governed systems of slavery, imperialism, and colonization. On the eve of the Spanish-American War, Alfred Mahan described Asia as “rich in possibilities,” but seemingly in waste because of “negligence and incompetence of its inhabitants.” The irony of Chua and Rubenfeld identifying Chinese or Indians as having the requisite cultural values, given this history, should give us pause. The cultural deficiencies and the lack of “political fitness” meant that the land and resources were underdeveloped and therefore no one had “natural right to land.” As with the indigenous communities, the lack of development within in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Philippines, and throughout Asia necessitated action and intervention. “Will anyone seriously content that the North American continent should have been left forever in the hands of tribes,” Mahan asked, in justifying U.S. expansion overseas as part of a history of the civilized, anointed by God, conquering “savages who waste land and resources.” Success and failure, civilization and the lack thereof, were tied to culture.

Continue reading at  http://hnn.us/article/154434#sthash.5Lrf6lvt.dpuf

My Life in the Classroom, Where Race Always Matters

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My Life in the Classroom, Where Race Always Matters

By David J. Leonard

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May 20, 2014

When you walk into a classroom, what’s your demeanor? Are you approachable, even casual? Or do you favor authority and formality?

Ever since Katrina Gulliver, a professor at University of New South Wales, lamented a “culture of familiarity” in the lecture hall, I’ve been reading professors’ reflections on these questions. Reflections from professors like Will Miller, who pushed back against Gulliver: “I have been known to occasionally teach in clothes that I could mow the lawn in,” he wrote, “and apparently a student or two have at some point said I was cool. That’s not my goal, however.”

I’m a casual dresser, too, but that’s not what struck me about Miller’s essay. What stood out was this line: I may be a white male, but this has nothing to do with why I am comfortable in a classroom.

There’s a lot to digest here. But let me start with this: I am a white male, and that has everything to do with why I am comfortable in a classroom, why I am respected, and how I’m read by students and others. That is my story, and the story of my career within academe.

Berkeley: Summer 1998

I still remember the excitement I felt when I taught my first class solo. No discussion sections, no grading demands from other professors: This was my syllabus, my approach, my opportunity to develop relationships with students. The course covered the civil-rights movement, and I was thrilled by the opportunity to share my passion for the untold stories of the movement.

As a white, male graduate student, I worried: Would my knowledge and academic background be enough to make students respect me as an authority on civil-rights history? But back then, I figured that my extensive reading list and my preparation were enough. Beyond that initial burst of anxiety, I gave little thought to what my whiteness meant inside the classroom.

About halfway through the class, we prepared to watch Spike Lee’s 4 Little Girls, a powerful documentary that chronicles the trauma and terror of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Ala. Wanting the students to sit with the film, to reflect, and to emotionally connect with it, I encouraged them to bypass the standard practice of detached, academic note-taking. “Sit back,” I said, “and enjoy the film.”

Looking back, I cannot believe I said these words. But I’m not entirely surprised: My privilege needed to be checked. In my mind, I was simply reminding them to watch, listen, learn, and feel. Yet that’s not what came out of my mouth. What I said seemed like an attempt to turn a film about terror into a moment of pleasure and enjoyment.

A few weeks later, two African-American students approached me separately. They each challenged me to think about what I had said, why it was significant, and how my whiteness mattered. They were right. I was blinded by privilege and the belief that “it’s all about the material,” not even questioning how I presented that material. My distance from the history shaped how I talked about the civil-rights movements and white-supremacist violence. When I reached into my pedagogical toolbox, steeped in whiteness and my middle-class Los Angeles upbringing, I grabbed hold of “enjoy the film” with little forethought about how such an insensitive phrase might trigger emotions and anger. It was the first of many lessons on how race always matters in the classroom.

Berkeley: Spring 2002

As I approached the completion of my Ph.D., I was afforded the opportunity to teach an upper-level undergraduate ethnic-studies class with over 200 students. It was daunting. Between wrangling eight teaching assistants (many of whom were my friends), and lecturing to all those undergrads, I was apprehensive—if not scared—for much of the semester.

Over the years, I have been asked over and over again: Did the students—either the legendarily political Berkeley crew or the less-progressive students who just were taking the course for a general-education requirement—ever challenge me, question why I was teaching the class, or simply resist my pedagogical approach? Never. Happened. Even though I lectured about genocide, enslavement, mass incarceration, and persistent white supremacy, students offered little resistance.

This all changed, though, when a fellow graduate student—an African-American man—delivered a couple of guest lectures about the prison-industrial complex. After two mind-blowing and brilliant talks, I was excited to continue the conversation with the class. My students? Not so much. They lamented the guest lecturer’s “attitude.” They described him as “angry,” as “biased” and “sarcastic,” and as “different from me.” Several students seemed more interested in litigating his pedagogical choices than discussing the injustices of the American judicial system.

We (I’m indebted to one of my TA’s for her work here) refused to hold this conversation in his absence, so we brought him back into the classroom. And we pushed the class to reflect on why I was seen as an objective, fair-minded, truth-telling, and lovable “teddy bear,” whereas he was angry, biased, and more interested in a political agenda than the truths of history. The conversations that resulted from these interventions were powerful, spotlighting that race, racism, and privilege didn’t just operate outside the classroom, in history and in culture. They played a role within our learning space as well.

The wages of whiteness were paid inside and outside the classroom. I was seen as an objective authority, I realized, in part because I was a white male.

Continue reading at https://chroniclevitae.com/news/504-my-life-in-the-classroom-where-race-always-matters#sthash.YBDWVF1d.dpuf

Adjuncts Aren’t Slaves. Let’s Stop Saying They Are. | Vitae

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Adjuncts Aren’t Slaves. Let’s Stop Saying They Are.

December 4, 2013

Amid the rightful discussion of our shift toward an entrenched, disposable academic laboring class, some adjunct advocates are making a striking analogy. Adjunct labor, they say, is a form of new slavery.

The comparison has become increasingly visible on blogs and within comment sections. Here’s one more example, from Langston Snodgrass: “It has been said that, ‘Adjuncts are the slave labor of higher education.’ This is factually true beyond doubt. Adjuncts are disrespected as teachers, as individual human beings, and as professionals in terms of what adjuncts are paid.”

So let’s be clear about this: Adjuncts are not slaves, and being an adjunct is not akin to slavery. Exploitation? In many cases, yes. Slavery? Absolutely not.

Slavery was (and continues to be) a system of forced labor, of lifelong servitude, of denied compensation and violence. Those who deploy the term as part of a rhetorical strategy are joining PETA, anti-choice crusaders, the G.O.P., Sarah Palin, Ben Carson, and a myriad of anti-Obamacareites by doing so. They are blinded by their cause, by historic myopia, and often by the privilege of whiteness.

Throughout history, slavery has been embedded within society. It has governed law, economic and political structures, and everyday realities. White supremacy has been a guiding ideology, a way to rationalize the exploitation and violence experienced by enslaved African and African-American people. Daily abuse, torture, sexual violence, and death have all been part of a system of slavery in the United States, and terror and violence were instrumental in maintaining a system of mass enslavement.

“Slavery for Black Americans was traumatic,” noted Patricia Moody Jefferson, a doctoral student in the Ethelyn R. Strong School of Social Work at Norfolk State University, during a recent discussion I participated in on Facebook. “Children and whole families were sold like animals. People, human beings were killed. Africans who were enslaved lost much of their identity.”

It should go without saying that being an adjunct is nothing like this.

It should go without saying that the ideologies and narratives leading to more and more contingent faculty don’t seep into every aspect of life. It should go without saying that violence and terror aren’t part of the adjunct experience, nor is being legally owned as a form of “property.” It should go without saying that being an adjunct isn’t a birth-to-death reality, one passed on to future generations. The analogy falls flat on its face. Not only does it deny and erase the history of enslaved Africans and African Americans within the United States, but it also obscures the real issues facing adjuncts in our contemporary system of higher education.

Continue reading at Adjuncts Aren’t Slaves. Let’s Stop Saying They Are. | Vitae.

Impostor Syndrome: Academic Identity Under Siege? – The Conversation – Blogs – The Chronicle of Higher Education

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Impostor Syndrome: Academic Identity Under Siege?

by David Leonard

Not a day passes without my questioning my abilities: as a writer, a commentator, and—most of all—as an academic. I wonder if I have talent, or am I just faking it?

Despite those insecurities, I don’t feel like an impostor. On paper, I fit the profile of an academic. I am a white male. I trod a typical school-to-university path that—in addition to providing ample opportunities and advantages—normalized becoming an academic. I have been taught over and over again that my identity fits that of a scholar.

From Good Will Hunting to The Paper Chase, representations of professors in popular culture look like me. When I walk into a classroom, no one questions that I’m the professor. When I go to get a book from my office late at night, security doesn’t even blink an eye. My whiteness and maleness matter because I am rarely made to feel like a guest, an impostor, as someone not worthy of inclusion in the academic fabric. Self-doubt aside, my privileges insulate me from impostor syndrome.

The author and impostor-syndrome expert Valerie Young says the condition “refers to people who have a persistent belief in their lack of intelligence, skills, or competence.” She continues: “They are convinced that other people’s praise and recognition of their accomplishments is undeserved, chalking up their achievements to chance, charm, connections, and other external factors.”

While Young’s definition is important, it obscures the centrality of race, gender, and culture. Given the ways that intelligence and competence are defined in and around racial and gender stereotypes, and given the dominant image of the white, male academic, it is impossible to talk about impostor syndrome in universal ways. Impostor syndrome is not just about feeling out of place or unworthy—it is a symptom of a culture that falsely defines success and worthiness through the myth of meritocracy.

“I always feel like I do not belong, or am not supposed to be here,” notes Tamura Lomax, a visiting assistant professor in the department of gender, sexuality, and women’s studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. “I imagine this is felt for a variety of reasons, ranging from my race, sex, class and gender.” In other words, it is impossible to approach issues of belonging or impostor syndrome in a race- or gender-neutral way.

Many of us may feel insecure or unsure of our worth, but that insecurity and unease is not produced equally. Race and gender are crucial to understanding impostor syndrome, but so are ability, body size, sexuality, nationality, and class. Monica J. Casper, a professor and chair of gender and women’s studies at the University of Arizona, writes:

I was a first-generation college student; daughter of a truck mechanic and a steelworker. I had no idea how to prepare for college; many of my friends were going to state schools or not attending college at all. Some joined the military. I joined the student body of the University of Chicago, on a hefty scholarship, and learned to find my way. I loved it; a whole new world opened up. And then I went on to graduate school and am now—23 years later—a full professor. And we know the stats on gender and full-professor status. White privilege is surely part of my story, but class privilege is not, nor is gender privilege. As a small stature person of good humor and a “kind” disposition, it’s been a long battle to secure some measure of respect. Even now, I have moments in the classroom or at conferences where I feel that sense of “I don’t belong.”

It is crucial to note that impostor syndrome stems not just from the mismatch between the representation of an academic and one’s identity, but also from the daily experiences in which faculty, students, and administrators convey that you don’t belong, or that you don’t have what it takes. From the refusal to refer to faculty of color as “Dr.” or “Professors,” to the ubiquitous questioning of “credentials” or knowledge, these messages are endless.

Universities need to address not only the emotional and the psychological realities but the campus climate as well. There is little conversation in graduate school about feelings of persistent insecurity and unworthiness. It is rare for the myths of meritocracy to be challenged; it’s also rare to have conversations about race and gender’s impact on higher education. Instead, we are taught to be insecure faculty members.

Continue reading at Impostor Syndrome: Academic Identity Under Siege? – The Conversation – Blogs – The Chronicle of Higher Education

In Defense of Dirty Laundry | Vitae

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In Defense of Dirty Laundry

By David J. Leonard

January 15, 2014

We lament, vent about, and dissect student interactions all the time. From hallway conversations to conference sessions, from publications to dinner parties, shop talk is commonplace. And it’s generally accepted.

But now, of course, that talk is moving to a new space: Facebook. To some observers, this is a thing to be bemoaned. In a post on The Conversation, Chad Abushanab spells out this view: Facebook, he argues, is not an appropriate place “to air your classroom’s dirty laundry.”

“What makes this approach problematic,” he writes, “is that you are essentially having a conversation about the decisions of a student in your professional care in a public forum without inviting that student to participate.”

Sounds reasonable enough, right? But there are two problems with this line of thinking.

The first is that the technology isn’t the issue; the way we make use of it is. Facebook can be used for good or evil—as a source of power or a source of harm. Irrespective of the technology used, shouldn’t we question the nature of the conversations we have, rather than the tools we use to have them?

Which brings me to the second problem with Abushanab’s denunciation: Why reduce all faculty conversations on Facebook to “airing dirty laundry,” “putting it out there,” and “venting”? Sure, that stuff happens. But there’s more than narcissistic grousing going on here. These social-media spaces exist in response to the very real isolation and individualism that permeates academia. And these online conversations can be helpful, cathartic, and empowering.

To dismiss them as nothing more than cattiness erases the pedagogical importance of discussions around classroom dynamics. Are teaching forums merely spaces for venting? Should we dismiss the deluge of journal articles and books dedicated to real-life classroom scenarios as inappropriate? No, these communities are about self-care, about preservation, and about growth. They are about education and the desire of so many teachers to continue to improve inside and outside the classroom.

Abushanab suggests that it would be more advisable for me to raise student issues with a colleague who may be teaching that same student, rather than chatting with a larger group that has no direct knowledge of the situation. But that presumes that face-to-face conversations and discussions among campus colleagues are possible.

In a world of small and squeezed-together departments, officeless adjuncts, 4-4 loads, “road scholars” teaching on multiple campuses, and growing service and scholarship demands, weekly meetings to discuss classroom dynamics aren’t necessarily possible. The weekly lunch at the faculty club—where professors supposedly gather to process class happenings—seems like something out of the Hollywood imagination, if it ever existed.

Beyond the question of feasibility, there’s another question: Would you actually rather talk about this stuff with your campus colleagues than with your social-media peers?

Within my social-media community I see all sorts of descriptions of student behavior. There are posts about students who miss class, yet come to office hours to ask, “Did I miss anything important?” There’s a status update bemoaning yet another incident of plagiarism. There’s a post lamenting an essay that doesn’t distinguish between the Civil War and the civil-rights movement.

Venting and commiserating aside, though, many more posts seek advice and help: “I have students that are using their computers in class and instead of paying attention, they are on Facebook. What should I do?” This is the type of question for which it may make more sense to seek support and advice from colleagues at campuses across the country, from colleagues who teach at different types of schools and within different disciplines, than from those who share your own classrooms, students, and academic culture.

More importantly, Facebook and other social-media platforms provide a space where academics can discuss issues that might otherwise be dismissed by colleagues. How many faculty of color have turned to Facebook following a conversation with a white colleague that ended with “I think you are reading too much into the fact that students refuse to address you by Dr. or Professor”?

How many female professors have used Twitter to discuss sexual harassment or sexism within the classroom or on their evaluations? Might an audience of friends and social-media peers respond differently than male colleagues on campus, whose privilege and misogyny may preclude them from even hearing these issues? In other words, every faculty member doesn’t have an equal ability to share and process the inequality she or he may encounter inside and outside the classroom.

Continue reading at  In Defense of Dirty Laundry | Vitae.

Johnny Manziel is No Rosa Parks by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan (in Exile)

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Johnny Manziel is No Rosa Parks by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan (in Exile)

Johnny Manziel is No Rosa Parks by David J. Leonard

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan (in Exile)

Johnny Manziel is no Rosa Parks – six words that no one should ever need to type. Yet thanks to Jen Floyd Engel, a FOX Sports columnist, I can now cross this off my bucket list: Johnny Manziel is no Rosa Parks.

Engel, who is clearly a member of the Johnny Football Reclamation project, has gone to great lengths to elevate his importance. With “Manziel case was tipping point,” Engel recast the one time football player by day, partier by night, as a collegiate freedom fighter. That is, his defiance, his refusal to play by the NCAA rules, and his “show me the money” approach to autographs is all part of a plan to bring down the NCAA. Problematic enough, Engel is not content with simply demanding change, that NCAA do it for Johnny.” Manziel is a game changer; a transformative hero within a larger history of struggle.

“Once upon a time in this country, there were ugly, racist, tyrannical rules dictating where a black person could sit on a bus. There were all kinds of these laws, actually, created and defended by the racists who benefited from them,” notes Engel. According to Engel, this chapter in America’s history of racism (notwithstanding subprime loans, stop and frisk, mass incarceration….) ended because an “everyday woman named Rosa Parks, who had grown tired of being tired” said no. She “was merely the tipping point for many Americans long since tired of these immoral laws.” Johnny Manziel, who was also tired, albeit of the NCAA making money off his labor, name, and signature. And according to Engel, he too will lead us to the promise land of reform.

The Parks comparison is so offensive and historically ignorant, I wouldn\’t know where to start (a national reading of Jeanne Theoharis recent book would be a good starting point). Rosa Parks trained, sacrificed, and participated in movement; Johnny is a movement for/about himself. A movement is not Johnny Football, his friend, and his sharpie.

Rather than joining a movement, partnering with a group like National College Players Association (dare I say a modern day sports equivalent of the Highlander Folk School or SCC), or voicing his support for the O’Bannon lawsuit, Manziel followed in the footstep of his capitalism forefathers: he got paid. And now he might get punished for that reported rule violation.

And for that, he is Rosa Parks. He is a tipping point. She writes, “On a much less historically significant scale, so it is with Johnny Football — and no, this is not intended in any way to compare the vast evil of Jim Crow to an incompetent NCAA investigation, or to slings from TV commentators.”

There is so much wrong with the comparison, from the hypocrisy of a writer who chastised Terrelle Pryor for rule’s violations to the historic ignorance about the civil rights movement. Dave Zirin articulates this with great precision and brilliance how misguided and historically myopic the comparison is between Manziel (not yet “an accidental activist”) and Rosa Parks, “the mother of the movement:”

By comparing the two, Engel does more than trivialize the bravery of Parks. She traffics in a myth about who Parks was and why she chose to fight the indignities of the Jim Crow South. In Engel’s telling—and this is the kindest possible interpretation—Manziel, like Parks, is the unconscious activist thrust by circumstance into firing the first shots at an unjust system.

Zirin and several others make clear the many problems of the column. However, as easy as it is to dismiss Engel, her reclamation of Johnny Football, and her denial of the racial implications here (“This has absolutely zero to do with race. What I believe to be true is, after years of watching black kids, white kids and mostly poor kids of all colors villainized for accepting a free sandwich or plane fare to go home and attend a funeral or, God forbid, wanting a cut of the billions of dollars they make for people not doing much in the way of heavy lifting, this was America’s tipping point”) has become commonplace. ESPN might as well start a network dedicated to all things Johnny. This column is a symptom of a larger set issues operating through Manziel.

Race has everything to do with Johnny Manziel. His whiteness matters. It matters when Engel recast this moment as a tipping point; it matters when commentators use this moment to spotlight the hypocrisy of the NCAA; it matters that “he’s just 20” and “he’s behaving like other college students” has become the commonplace defense of his daily transgressions. It matters as we come to grips with fact that he was celebrated as the greatest QB since Tim Tebow Johnny Unitas despite the fact that he lagged statistically behind Oregon’s Marvelous Marcus Mariota in 2012 (who wasn’t even invited to NY for Heisman festivities).

Continue reading at  Johnny Manziel is No Rosa Parks by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan (in Exile).