THOMPSON, blog.
THOMPSON, blog. - Marvel at the mental contortions of our self-imagined betters.

Slide THOMPSON, blog Play nicely.
  • thompson, blog
  • Reheated
  • X
  • Email
Browsing Category
Archive
Academia Shakedowns

Rendered Tearful By The Undertakings Of White People

January 6, 2025 45 Comments

It turns out that the University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent University have much to offer the pretentious and racially neurotic: 

Degree courses focused on the “undertakings of white people” have made universities racist, according to a review by a Russell Group institution. The University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent undertook a joint review of their connections to the slave trade, and set out how these have created a legacy of “racism” at the institutions.

As is the custom, an operatic tone is adopted and victimhood is feigned and deployed as a credential, a basis for deference. Though particulars of any credible harm, any actual modern-day “racism,” are thin on the ground. And the reasoning, such as can be discerned, is just a tad contrived. Quite how those “undertakings of white people” – in the arts and sciences – are crushing the hopes and dreams of students, robbing them of breath, remains somewhat unobvious. Likewise, the logical or moral basis for “reparatory measures.”

Yet those doing the demanding, a group of Nottingham academics, insist that these alleged woes, these “enduring detrimental legacies,” whatever they might be, “are issues that require urgent and sustained attention.”

The report was overseen by a steering group that included six people appointed by the two universities who “identify as black.” 

I’m guessing this is where the applause is supposed to go.

Authors credited their “biological proximity to the historical atrocity of slavery” with raising awareness of “ongoing emotional pain” throughout the project.

Despite the theatre of “ongoing emotional pain,” the proponents of degree-course “decolonisation” seem quite enthused by their scolding and leverage. Their ability to wring pretentious atonement from fellow players of the game.

[The universities] pledged to make slavery reparations as a result of their review, which found that the universities’ “racially unbalanced curriculum” ignores the “equally significant efforts of people of African descent.” The report does not state in which specific subjects this parity of achievement has been ignored.

The central reasoning, such as it is, seems to be that some indirect historical beneficiaries of slavery, including those born after abolition, also gave money to universities, which, in ways somewhat mysterious, invalidates those universities’ modern-day course content and renders it harmful to People Of Pigmentation. “Reading classical European literature” and “travelling to historic landmarks” are among the activities deemed tainted and bruising.

In short, on a par with other recent efforts to “decolonise” degree courses, to purge them of the “inequities” of “white knowledge,” and thereby exterminate any trace of “white supremacy.” As when the Quality Assurance Agency, an organisation that boasts of being “trusted by higher education providers and regulatory bodies to maintain and enhance quality and standards,” demanded that computing courses address “how divisions and hierarchies of colonial value are replicated and reinforced” within the subject.

I’ll give you a moment to ponder that one.

If the particulars are, again, unclear and the reliance on verbiage unconvincing, and if readers are unsure of what “neoliberal systems of power” might be, and how they might bear upon musical notation or the Royal Veterinary College, at least the antipathy towards things deemed “white,” and thus offensive, is hard to miss and evidently relished.

Despite such causal convolution, the racial browbeating is having its intended effect:

In August, the Telegraph revealed that the University of Nottingham had removed the term “Anglo-Saxon” from university module titles as part of efforts to refute “nationalist narratives.” The university offers a leading course in Viking and Anglo-Saxon history and literature, but US academics in particular have campaigned against the term “Anglo-Saxon” because it suggests a distinct, native Englishness.

And goodness, we can’t have that.

Continue reading
Reading time: 3 min
Written by: David

Blog Preservation Fund




Subscribestar Amazon UK
Support this Blog
Donate via QR Code

RECENT POSTS

  • Friday Ephemera (767)
  • And Everything Shall Be Made, Badly, Out Of Wool And Bamboo
  • Aversions
  • Did You Feel A Tingle?
  • Significant, You Say

Recent Comments

  • David on Friday Ephemera (767) May 9, 09:46
  • David on Friday Ephemera (767) May 9, 09:43
  • Stephanie Richer on Friday Ephemera (767) May 9, 09:42
  • Stephanie Richer on Friday Ephemera (767) May 9, 09:38
  • [+] on Friday Ephemera (767) May 9, 08:50
  • dicentra on Friday Ephemera (767) May 9, 08:21
  • David on Friday Ephemera (767) May 9, 08:17
  • David on Friday Ephemera (767) May 9, 08:14
  • dicentra on Friday Ephemera (767) May 9, 08:08
  • David on Friday Ephemera (767) May 9, 08:01

SEARCH

Archives

Archive by year

Interesting Sites

Blogroll

Categories

  • Academia
  • Agonies of the Left
  • AI
  • And Then It Caught Fire
  • Anthropology
  • Architecture
  • Armed Forces
  • Arse-Chafing Tedium
  • Art
  • ASMR
  • Auto-Erotic Radicalism
  • Basking
  • Bees
  • Behold My Massive Breasts
  • Behold My Massive Lobes
  • Beware the Brown Rain
  • Big Hooped Earrings
  • Bionic Lingerie
  • Blogs
  • Books
  • Bra Drama
  • Bra Hygiene
  • Cannabis
  • Classic Sentences
  • Collective Toilet Management
  • Comics
  • Culture
  • Current Affairs
  • Dating Decisions
  • Dental Hygiene's Racial Subtext
  • Department of Irony
  • Dickensian Woes
  • Did You Not See My Earrings?
  • Emotional Support Guinea Pigs
  • Emotional Support Water Bottles
  • Engineering
  • Ephemera
  • Erotic Pottery
  • Farmyard Erotica
  • Feats
  • Feminist Comedy
  • Feminist Dating
  • Feminist Fun Times
  • Feminist Poetry Slam
  • Feminist Pornography
  • Feminist Snow Ploughing
  • Feminist Witchcraft
  • Film
  • Food and Drink
  • Free-For-All
  • Games
  • Gardening's Racial Subtext
  • Gentrification
  • Giant Vaginas
  • Great Hustles of Our Time
  • Greatest Hits
  • Hair
  • His Pretty Nails
  • History
  • Housekeeping
  • Hubris Meets Nemesis
  • Ideas
  • If You Build It
  • Imagination Must Be Punished
  • Inadequate Towels
  • Indignant Replies
  • Interviews
  • Intimate Waxing
  • Juxtapositions
  • Media
  • Mischief
  • Modern Savagery
  • Music
  • Niche Pornography
  • Not Often Seen
  • Oppressive Towels
  • Parenting
  • Policing
  • Political Nipples
  • Politics
  • Postmodernism
  • Pregnancy
  • Presidential Genitals
  • Problematic Acceptance
  • Problematic Baby Bouncing
  • Problematic Bookshelves
  • Problematic Bra Marketing
  • Problematic Checkout Assistants
  • Problematic Civility
  • Problematic Cleaning
  • Problematic Competence
  • Problematic Crosswords
  • Problematic Cycling
  • Problematic Drama
  • Problematic Fairness
  • Problematic Fitness
  • Problematic Furniture
  • Problematic Height
  • Problematic Monkeys
  • Problematic Motion
  • Problematic Neighbourliness
  • Problematic Ownership
  • Problematic Parties
  • Problematic Pasta
  • Problematic Plumbers
  • Problematic Punctuality
  • Problematic Questions
  • Problematic Reproduction
  • Problematic Shoes
  • Problematic Taxidermy
  • Problematic Toilets
  • Problematic Walking
  • Problematic Wedding Photos
  • Pronouns Or Else
  • Psychodrama
  • Radical Bowel Movements
  • Radical Bra Abandonment
  • Radical Ceramics
  • Radical Dirt Relocation
  • Reheated
  • Religion
  • Reversed GIFs
  • Science
  • Shakedowns
  • Some Fraction Of A Sausage
  • Sports
  • Stalking Mishaps
  • Student Narcolepsy
  • Suburban Polygamist Ninjas
  • Suburbia
  • Technology
  • Television
  • The Deep Wisdom of Celebrities
  • The Genitals Of Tomorrow
  • The Gods, They Mock Us
  • The Great Outdoors
  • The Politics of Buttocks
  • The Thrill of Décor
  • The Thrill Of Endless Noise
  • The Thrill of Friction
  • The Thrill of Garbage
  • The Thrill Of Glitter
  • The Thrill of Hand Dryers
  • The Thrill of Medicine
  • The Thrill Of Powdered Cheese
  • The Thrill Of Seating
  • The Thrill Of Shopping
  • The Thrill Of Toes
  • The Thrill Of Unemployment
  • The Thrill of Wind
  • The Thrill Of Woke Retailing
  • The Thrill Of Women's Shoes
  • The Thrill of Yarn
  • The Year That Was
  • Those Lying Bastards
  • Those Poor Darling Armed Robbers
  • Those Poor Darling Burglars
  • Those Poor Darling Carjackers
  • Those Poor Darling Fare Dodgers
  • Those Poor Darling Looters
  • Those Poor Darling Muggers
  • Those Poor Darling Paedophiles
  • Those Poor Darling Sex Offenders
  • Those Poor Darling Shoplifters
  • Those Poor Darling Stabby Types
  • Those Poor Darling Thieves
  • Tomorrow’s Products Today
  • Toys
  • Travel
  • Tree Licking
  • TV
  • Uncategorized
  • Unreturnable Crutches
  • Wigs
  • You Can't Afford My Radical Life

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

In which we marvel at the mental contortions of our self-imagined betters.