Stacy Liu, A01, Week

Stacy Liu

A01

Week5

            For this week’s reading, “‘You Are Unwise to Lower Your Defenses’: The Phantom Menace Part I”, Valverde (2019) describes her experience with her full professor promotion application. She was denied by the college for the simple reason – “not good enough”, and the white male colleague got the very rare early promotion who only has an article publish instead of Valverde’s book. Valverde (2019) chose to fight for this and found lawyers to help her.

            The title for this week’s reading is “You Are Unwise to Lower Your Defenses” and I think that is the reason that why Valverde (2019) chose to fight for herself although she knew that she will lose a lot of things. I really like the comparison between the cost of speaking and the cost of not speaking in the beginning part of this chapter. Overall, I think this comparison shows that for normal people, it will be better for them to choose not to speak, such as they will continue to have the job to support their family and so on. To my own perspective, I will absolutely choose to speak for myself because that’s the real me and I think I will be happy if I choose to speak. The sentence from the Valverde (2019) can best represent my mind: “You can’t hide or pretend. Your body hums with the urge of a volcano.” However, I know that the cost to speak is huge and I will try to figure out the best way to smartly speak for myself.

            Question: the next page of the part “Narrative” is blank and one of my friends also shows blank. So, we wonder what’s the result of Valverde’s (2019) full professor promotion application? Does she succeed at last? I think this result can give us inspiration in some way.

References

Valverde, K.L.C. (2019). Fight the Tower: “You Are Unwise to Lower Your Defenses”: The Phantom Menace Part I. Rutgers University Press.

Retrieved from
            https://www.bibliovault.org/cgi-bin/DeliverADE.epl?transid=kWi4K6WgHL2SFWjl

Dreamstime.

Retrieved from
            https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-illustration-business-team-using-shields-self-                    defense-arrows-attack-business-risk-investment-teamwork-concept-flat-design-                    element-image42589944