Off-Topic and Low-Effort CW Thread for the Week of July 13, 2020OT/LE

submitted by rwkastenBring on the dancing horses from self.CultureWarRoundup

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[–]WickedWitchOfTheWest 7 insightful - 3 fun7 insightful - 2 fun8 insightful - 3 fun -  (2 children)

Professor: Term ‘low-hanging fruit’ is a microaggression because it reminds blacks of lynching

The official definition of the term low-hanging fruit is “a thing or person that can be won, obtained, or persuaded with little effort,” according to the Oxford dictionary.

But according to one business professor, it’s a racial microaggression.

“For African-Americans, if you say ‘low-hanging fruit,’ we think lynching,” said Mae Hicks-Jones, an adjunct faculty member of Elgin Community College.

The scholar and consultant’s reasoning was that the term reminds her and other people of color of Billie Holiday’s song “Strange Fruit.” In the song, released in the 1950s, Holiday compares the bodies of lynching victims to fruit hanging from trees.

Hicks-Jones made the comments during an online discussion hosted Thursday by the college’s Multicultural and Global Initiatives Committee, or MAGIC.

Hicks-Jones, along with other members of the Elgin community, shared “examples of implicit biases and microaggressions, which happen in our communities,” the college’s Facebook event page states.

The title of the event was “Black Lives Matter: Being ‘Not Racist’ is NOT enough!”

Also objectionable to Hicks-Jones was the phrase “grandfathered in,” because she said it is reminiscent of a grandfather clause, which privileged white people’s right to vote over that of black people during the Jim Crow South.

(Reposting since we moved subs)

[–]BothAfternoon 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Er, "Scholar and consultant"? Is it now mandatory to be actively stupid in order to become an "adjunct faculty member at a community college" (which, the impression I've got of American higher education, is not all that high in fact?)

Let's go out and cut down all fruit trees, currant bushes, and heck even strawberry vines (because you can't get any more low than 'on the ground') in the name of anti-racism!

Can I get one of these soft sinecures? I promise to be performatively aggravated about anything and everything at the drop of a hat 24/7 and willing to fire off long screeds about how a common phrase is not alone a microaggression, it is actively encouraging people to join the Ku Klux Klan. Take that "proverb" about pots and kettles - very suspicious with its mention of blackness in a derogatory manner! Will Rant For Money!

Out of sheer curiosity, I tried looking up who this Professor Mae Hicks-Jones is, and I'm rather confused. There's a Mae Jones in the Elgin directory as "Business Unit Adjunct I Faculty" who is either on a tiny salary or only does this part-time ("Principles of Management" class), and is she the same as Mae Hicks-Jones above and is that the same Dr. Mae Hicks-Jones who does some HR Consulting in Advanced Diversity and Inclusion who is also something in banking and that may well be the same Dr. Mae Hicks-Jones who is also an authoress whilst being the Diversity and Inclusion Consultant for the City of Elgin starting before the pandemic?

Dr. Mae Hicks Jones was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, by a single parent of four children. She has been a Human Resources professional at one of Chicago's premier financial institutions for over twenty-eight years. She is a community activist, mentor, mother, and wife with five college degrees.

Five, you will note. So this is how she gets to invent new words like Inspirmaetions (I'm presuming, in my ignorant effrontery, this is a portmanteau of "inspire", "inspirations" and "affirmations") for her collection of inspirational poetry.

(Actually, it's freaky how much info you can dig up on someone with some minor and very quick searching).

Anyway, my point with all this rambling is that complaining about low-hanging fruit and grandfathers looks like the good old "diversity consultant" grifting, after all she's newly minted consultant for the city of Elgin, she needs to produce something to show they're getting their money's worth!

[–]rwkastenBring on the dancing horses[S] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

(Actually, it's freaky how much info you can dig up on someone with some minor and very quick searching)

That's an artifact of today's "build your personal brand online or die broke and alone" Internet culture. If you're not able to do a quick Google and see that someone is on-side, then their current words are suspicious at best.

On a more local note, I know what Elgin demographics look like, and "large black underclass" doesn't figure in. I wonder if Dr. Hicks-Jones will be able to pivot that DIE cannon away from the actual large Hispanic underclass before it fires.

NB: Not all Elgin underclass are Hispanic and not all Elgin Hispanics are underclass. It's just that there's way more Elgin Hispanic underclass than Elgin Black underclass.