Week 5 - EuJune Kim

Week 5
EuJune Kim
A03

Theme: Imperial University

I will be the first to concede that I did not read through all 52 pages of "The Imperial University" by Piya Chatterjee and Sunaina Maira. However, I did read 30 pages of it and I also read the "Empire of Death" by Darrell Hashimoto.

"The Imperial University" provides further insight from Thursday's lecture on Corporatization of University by Professor Valverde. She discussed and pointed out issues in our own school. Universities are increasingly becoming for more profit instead of pursing higher education. As public universities increasingly turn to privatization, the universities also suffer from political attacks launched from right wing activists. These right wing groups aim to undermine the educational system in regulating and punishing those who practice free speech. Pepper spraying and suing students is one form of militarized universities. For academia, they could be in forms of "denial of tenure, not getting employment contracts renewed, ...or being blacklisted."
Right wing activists then portray themselves to be the victims against the neoliberal dissident. I could go on for hours about this but I just want to address the ridiculous hypocrisy in these right wing people's logic.

So they glorify this notion of pro-US/western civilization while simultaneously upholding values of freedom and equality. Yet, when any points of dissident and criticism are made, they are quicker than Usain Bolt to label these criticism as Anti-American and disloyal. When the NFL knelt for the National Anthem, many season ticketholders (white primarily) were outraged and burned individual player jerseys. It is absolutely ludicrous that these people cannot see that their faux patriotism is only further encouraging militarization and anti-freedom of speech platforms.

My question is: Can these attacks on the left by the right be ever stopped? How can those in the leftwing possibly protect themselves from the nonsensical and ignorance of the right wing activists?

References:

1) Chatterjee, P., & Maira, S. (2014). The Imperial University. London: University of Minnesota Press.

2) [Digital Image]. (n.d). Retrieved on 22 October 2017 from http://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/160916164438-01-nfl-players-protest-super-169.jpg