Humility requires that we acknowledge our blind spots.
Although, as part of my job serving the PJ Media readership, I keep solid tabs on the cancerous machinations of the world of Social Justice™, I had not previously been privy to so-called “positionality statements” that are now common practice in the field of academia.
Related: KJP vs. English: White House Diversity Hire’s Reading Problem
Via The Equality Institute (emphasis added):
As an academically trained researcher (anthropologist no less; anthropology as a discipline has a lot to answer for in terms of colonisation), one of the (many) ways I can contribute is to reflect on my identity, including my beliefs, attitudes and behaviours, and also my work and practice. In doing so, I acknowledge that my work is shaped by what I know and what I know is shaped by who I am and what I’ve experienced. In academia and research, this is called ‘positionality’ and writing a ‘positionality statement’ is just one simple way to integrate a decolonising approach* to one’s work.
Social Justice™ subculture is so insulated that these people don’t bother defining their jargon for general audiences anymore. They assume that, because all of their colleagues and students (indoctrinees) understand what they mean, so must everyone.
For the record, here’s what “decolonizing” academia means, via Inside Higher Ed (emphasis added):
At its most radical, decolonization means “resisting and actively unlearning the dangerous and harmful legacy of colonization, particularly the racist ideas that Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) people are inferior to White Europeans.” It entails interrogating and dismantling “power structures that carry legacies of racism, imperialism, and colonialism.” But more commonly, it calls on faculty to address a series of curricular, pedagogical and evaluative challenges.
Professors have a responsibility as intellectuals to question established paradigms and hierarchies; combat the erasure (or mere ignorance) of knowledge produced by those outside established institutions; highlight the contributions, ideas and experiences of all people; and recognize the ways that power relations shape the production, dissemination and application of knowledge.
The idea that anywhere in the West academic institutions are teaching that Persons of Color™ “are inferior to White Europeans” is laughable. The exact inverse, from what I can gather, is true in every liberal arts faculty in every institution of higher learning across the reverse-colonized Western world — as evidenced by “positionality statements” meant to undermine the perspectives of white researchers with humiliating Cultural Revolution-esque self-denunciations.
Related: How the Communist Cultural Revolution Destroyed Traditional Chinese Culture
Via University of Michigan Center for Disability Health and Wellness (emphasis added):
Scholars are encouraged to draft a positionality statement that helps clarify how the scholars are positioned regarding the research and the researched. Scholars may choose to include only whatever is most relevant to the specifics of the research topic.
If, for instance, scholars are drawing conclusions about Asian Americans, yet the author list consists exclusively of White Americans, that could be made clear. Or, if gender is being examined, and research participants are members of the LGBTQIA+ community yet the research team consists only of individuals who identify as heterosexual and cisgender, a positionality statement can discuss that.
