While others may have their own personal favourites, that expression is the one I use to usher its utterer into automatic membership of the Bigot Club.
And, sadly, membership numbers continue to rise....
Vicki Trowler |
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If there is one expression that could vanish forever from the South African vocabulary, please let it be "playing the race card". The mindset embodied by that expression is orders of magnitude more noxious than "I'm not a racist, but..." or even the odious "some of my best friends are [insert type here]".
While others may have their own personal favourites, that expression is the one I use to usher its utterer into automatic membership of the Bigot Club. And, sadly, membership numbers continue to rise....
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Elsewhere on this blogspot, the topic of self-censorship and blogging has been raised.
The task of the intellectual, charged Edward Said, is to speak the truth to power. Is blogging a freedom, or a duty? When should one speak out, and when remain silent? How should one speak out? And does speaking out have a price? The Phantom Prof believes so. She believes that the non-renewal of her contract, and the appointment of a full-time person in her post other than herself, was the direct result of her blogging. An insert in this week's Wednesday Paper (yes, it actually arrived on a Monday...) advises one on how to save electricity, because we're not yet out of the woods. Aside from the fact that some of us quite enjoy woods, mainly because they're remote and peaceful and often have flat spots with no cellphone reception, some of the other points begged engagement.
Like the maths. We're told that a computer left on overnight consumes as much electricity as 800 photocopies. So... do we leave the photocopier on overnight, photocopying 800 copies instead? Nope, because that wastes enough energy to laser print 800 pages. Hmm... I'm starting to spot a trend here. Toner, fuser, and the magic number 800. So... how about the lights story - leaving your light on overnight could power 1000 cups of tea. Oh. Is that filament or fluorescent tube? How many bulbs / tubes? How big are the cups - espresso sized, or beer stein size? And is it ceylon tea, or Rooibos, which needs to brew? And, if I only get 999 cups out of the saving, can I sue for false advertising? And then we have the classic - cut down on office air-conditioning. Excuse me? There are offices with air conditioning?? Where are they, and how did they get that right? When we had people fainting in the heat upstairs one summer, Lillian Campbell arrived and agreed it was infernal, but ruled out aircon as the Registrar had declared it Not To Be Allowed. (They now have ceilling fans, to have hot blizzards instead of hot static air.) Please, spill the beans - we'd love to know where these air-conditioned offices are so that in midsummer, when people start fainting again, they can wander over for a "meeting" or two until they recover. But it gets better. Overfilling a kettle equates with 26hours of TV. Ulp! Have you ever seen anyone survive 26 hours of TV - with their brain intact? Even spreading the pain, so that 26 people each get one hour is not doing the planet a favour - it's causing mass destruction of brain cells. Can the TV - can't we translate that into photocopies instead? (about, say, 800....) And just when you thought it was safe.... Forget all you've been told about saving water! Forget all JZ told you about HIV prevention! Word is out - shower bad, bath good. I still haven't figured that one out - I think everyone agrees that showers consume less water than baths, on average; that water, in its production (filtration, treatment, etc) as well as in its heating, consumes power.... So how could a bath possibly use less water than a shower - unless it's a party affair? Perhaps that's what they mean by the statement at the bottom which says We are all in this together....? Of all the pieces of technology that clutter ones life, the iPod has to be one of the best. One of the least frustrating, least resented, least obnoxious and least invasive. On the Karmic scale, the iPod is up there with the Dalia Lama, bringing peace and goodwill, tuning out the bad vibes and edging us that much closer to Enlightenment. And now, it just got itself another Karmic Noddy badge.... (see below!)
From The Guardian: 999 service offers first aid via iPod Bobbie Johnson Thursday April 20, 2006 The Guardian It has already been heralded as the saviour of the music industry, but now the iPod could help save your life. Sussex ambulance service yesterday launched a series of audio downloads which guide MP3-player-toting members of the public through emergency first-aid situations. The step by step guides, which are available free from the service's website, www.sussexambulance.nhs.uk, offer advice on common conditions and are based on scripts used by 999 operators. The project was the idea of a paramedic, Stuart Rutland, who said that he hoped it might help in an emergency. "I like to go running and listen to music - but what if I turned the corner and somebody had collapsed? I have 11 years of paramedic training, but not everyone will. It's just about what to do in those moments before an ambulance arrives." The Sussex ambulance service was keen to emphasise that the downloads were not intended to replace conventional first-aid assistance. At a recent meeting, the Registrar called upon staff present (and, presumably, the rest) to use jerseys instead of heaters in order to save electricity.
Sartorial concerns aside, this does raise questions about the effective power saving of some "common sense" strategies. How much electricity does it save wearing a jersey rather than, say, using a blanket or a hot water bottle? Hot water bottles require electricity for the initial heating of the water, as well as the indirect power costs of the processing of the water to the point of delivery, but the amount of water involved is quite small - about a litre or so. Jerseys, on the other hand, need to be washed. Or dry cleaned. Either way, energy is consumed in the process - as much, more, or less than that involved in filling a hot water bottle? I've no idea. But it does raise the question of the hidden costs of "obvious" strategies, and the extent to which the desired outcomes are achieved. I'll resist the hand-driers-vs-towels debate, and invest electrons instead on clearer comparisons - like natural vs electric light in offices and passages. Where lights are not required for safety - and these are seldom the ones burning - why have them burning after hours in empty buildings, too? Hydroboils left on over weekends might not individually bring on a blackout, but several per building add up. And, while it's still summer and there are clear skies, why not issue each kitchen with an Anahat, which works at least as efficiently as a hydroboil, and has the added advantage of getting people out into the natural light and saving on artificial lighting in the process? And, with a moratorium on the use of heaters in offices, staff who get drenched waiting for the paltry few Jammie Shuttles to get people to Upper Campus in time for 1st can make bonfires with all those manilla envelopes (preferably unopened) that arrive from Bremner. It would also allow for those shredders that hulk in the corner of every office in Bremner to be traded in for something greener, like hayboxes to stew the communal soup prepared in each department as we all join hands and hug the closest tree. Life at UCT is all about significant groupings. And so it's always interesting to observe who is talking to whom, expecially those deep and meaningless conversations that go on for far longer than idle grumblings about the lack of parking would.
Which was why it was interesting to come across a table next to the coffee outlet occupied by a group of demographically similar people all of whose ID books contain the name David. The discussion was animated and engaging to the extent that the group did not notice that they were being observed, but not to the extent to which the content of the discussion was easily discernible above the ambient noise of the coffee queue. it was not an obvious grouping, nor were these people who were habitually to be found sitting at a table at the coffee outlet. All of which piqued curiosity about the nature of their discussion, the intent of their meeting, the purpose of their grouping. And, given the recent popularity of conspiracies, the opportunities it provided for speculation were gratefully grabbed. And so, coming soon to a grapevine near you - The Truth about The David Cabal. The Cape arbitration court has ruled, according to an article on FIN24, that African people should benefit ahead of other designated groups from affirmative action strategies.
According to the report, the arguments given in support of this ruling (that African people were at a greater disadvantage during apartheid - for example, by virtue of having to carry pass books) would appear to support a view that sets such strategies firmly in the "redress" rather than the "diversity" domain. Interestingly, this case was heard in the Cape, which in the past was subject to a Coloured Labour Preference Act during apartheid. Whether or not a similar judgment would have been reached elsewhere under different circumstances - for example, in the case of an Indian complainant, in the Free State - would be interesting to see. As it stands though, the effects could be "far reaching", as suggested by the trade union Solidarity. Selection committees here at UCT have often sought guidance on a "hierarchy of disadvantage", and such a ruling might indeed pave the way. Racism in the sphere of education popped up in two contexts in the Guardian recently. In one incident, an 11 year old boy was dragged before the court following racial taunting in the school playground. The judge - perhaps more revealingly than he intended - let it be known that the thought that playground racism had no business before the courts, and that the problem should have been addressed with a sound thrashing instead.
In the second incident, an academic at Leeds University was suspended pending an enquiry following his having made remarks to the effect that black people were not as intelligent as white people. An academic from Lancaster University then wrotethat this response was inappropriate; a more appropriate response in an academic context, he felt, would have been to engage with the argument made and to refute it rather than silence it. Both of these incidents raise interesting points to consider in our own context. In the first, much of the debate has centred around the context rather than the content. The fact that the racist taunts were made in the playground where, it has been argued, children routinely fix upon some identified weakness or perceived negative characteristic of each other to generate unflattering nicknames like "fatso" or "four-eyes" is seen as exonerating it from the ambit of societal norms and, indeed, the rule of law. These are children, the argument has been proffered, the response is disproportional. And, as has been pointed out, racism is not illegal - although the usage of racist insults is. In the second, the Lancaster academic falls back on the ethos of Universities, and on notions of academic freedom, to argue for a collegial response of refutation rather than a managerialist response of censure. In his piece, he argues that the racist opinions were expressed in a subject matter outside of the offender's field of expertise, were expressed outside of the classroom, and were manifest verbally as opinion rather than through discriminatory practice, such as marking black students more harshly than white students. Being a University, it was argued, mechanisms other than suspension exist for dealing with matters such as this. Debate and refutation being the preferred one. Different as these two incidents are, they - and the debates around them - demonstrate some notion of educational exceptionalism: that these incidents should not provoke some heavy-handed response, because they took place in contexts of education (albeit not in the classroom). There is an expectation that, because of some proximity to the educational project, the severity of these incidents becomes diluted; or that the presence of braincells nearby somehow causes all in the vicinity to exercise sober, reflexive judgment and realise how inane and unworthy of serious consideration racist opinion (and epithet) is and thus how unworthy of further expense of time or action, in response. As if. As if the impact, and the import, of these incidents begins and ends there. As if the educational sphere exists somehow separately from the Universe in which it finds itself, and as if somehow it does not talk to power outside, or even within, this sphere. Whose interests are protected in not conveying to an 11 year old that their racist actions are serious, and have consequences that reverberate beyond the playground? Whose interests are served by not signalling to the racist lecturer that their racist utterances are serious, and have consequences that reverberate beyond the tearooms of academe? And whose interests are served in maintaining that education is somehow in the world but not of it, above and beyond the reach of mores and laws and systems of recourse? Guardian Online reported the case of a were-rabbit terrorising the Village of Felton in Northumberland. I have no idea where Northumberland is, but given the size of the island, it can't be too far from Wallace and Gromit's home in Preston.
Recently the local press reported on the photographic director of Tsotsi being hijacked in a scene reminiscent of the movie. And of course, other such examples are legion. And while many of us imagine ourselves trapped as extras on a permanent set of One Flew Over The Cookoo's Nest or Steppenwolf, our working lives are perhaps most accurately portrayed as a long Dilbert strip. But in view of the recent initiatives to save power, I can't help but be drawn to the scene in The Triplets of Belleville where the kidnapped Tour de France cyclists are mounted on stationary bicycles and forced to cycle as a film plays in front of them of the cycle route along which they are virtually racing. Attaching these stationary cycles to a dynamo could perhaps alleviate the need for generator solutions to provide back-up power. Offices and entire computer labs could be driven by cycle power. The increased fitness levels would encourage staff and students to use bicycles rather than cars as a primary means of transport to Campus, alleviating the parking problem as an additional benefit. And performance management would be very very easy with simple odometers and heart-rate monitors. And, perhaps, significantly more meaningful than current "systems". Gary Younge, in his article Silence in Class (Guardian Unlimited), discusses the current trend in US academe towards "naming and shaming" lecturers who espouse "unAmerican" sentiments - views critical of the Bush regime, the war in Iraq, or left of the Republican hardline.
In the article, Younge refers to a study by Daniel Klein and Charlotta Stern which revealed a variable bias towards "liberalism" dependent on disciplinary affiliation. According to this study, as cited by Younge, "30 times as many anthropologists and sociologists voted Democrat as Republican, while for those teaching economics the ratio plummeted to three to one." Assuming (reported) voting behaviour to be an accurnate indicator of political outlook, is there something inherently more progressive in anthropology and sociology than economics, that it attracts more liberal voters? Is this pattern - assuming it to be credible research - valid for countries other than the USA? Are there differences between anthropologists and sociologists - lumped together in this description of the study - when it comes to political views? Traditionally, "south of Jammie steps" [with the exception of Commerce] disciplines are held to be more progressive than those to the north - a view echoed by Younge: "Republicans are probably more inclined to find a home in some of these [non-Humanities] disciplines." All of which makes one wonder. Given that the discourse of University management these days reverberates with managerialist and neoliberal underpinnings, few would argue that those occupants of the northernmost offices in Bremner align most comfortably with the ideology south of Jammie steps. And yet, if one examines their disciplinary allegance, we find: a poet, an anthropologist, an archaeologist, a psychologist and a lawyer. All - with the contested exception of archaeology - south of Jammie steps disciplines. Might the political geography on Campus be imploding? |
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