To the Editor:

On April 10, my colleague Marc Blecher sent an email addressed to me and carbon copied to a select group of tenured Africana-identified faculty, along with Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Composition Joy Karega. The note reads as follows:

“Hi, Meredith. I see you’re ‘Still waiting for the letter repudiating anti-Black racism.’ In fact, I published one in February. Perhaps you missed it. (“Let’s Make Campus Politics More Constructive,” The Oberlin Review, Feb. 5).

“Right now, Jews on our campus are in tremendous pain, though I am sure Joy did not intend to cause that. Here’s hoping we can return to the spirit that has brought so many African Americans and Jews together over so many years to stand shoulder to shoulder in defense of equality, freedom and human dignity. Though it’d be unorthodox to do so, I’d be willing to take a big risk at this point and change ‘When the anti-Semitic Facebook posts by one of our colleagues came to light,’ to ‘Over recent weeks,’ if that’d enable African-American faculty and some other colleagues with reservations to sign on. We have the opportunity here for a breakthrough of which we could all be so proud, and that would do so much for Oberlin and the wider discourse.

“As Michelle Obama put it, this would be a great time for all of us to ‘walk into the noise.’”

The tone and delivery of this letter is offensive for many reasons. First, it singles me out in the presence of other tenured Black faculty and requests that we consider signing a document in exchange for revising a few sentences he presumed to be the source of our refusal to join 174 colleagues who appear to support his views. Professor Blecher is here responding to comments I made to a Facebook post regarding an attack on our interim Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo.

Second, this letter offered us the “opportunity” to sign a document already signed by 174 colleagues. This means that the original document would have been revised and circulated without their consent.

Third, I am unconvinced that the letter circulated [to] faculty by Professor Blecher invited calm, rational conversation. Rather than circulating a letter requesting signatures, (an incredibly divisive act that exacerbates existing tensions) it might have been more useful to reach out to President Marvin Krislov to invite faculty to engage in a series of conversations around campus, in formal and informal venues for open dialogue. Not places for attack and repudiation, but spaces that, instead of erasing Black struggle and student concerns, addressed them in the context of a growing climate of violence across the country. I have engaged in many dialogues with colleagues, friends and students, Jewish, Muslim, Atheist, European descended, Asian, African American, Latin@, Latinx and others. Even when we disagreed, we approached each other with respect and honesty.

In fact, some Africana faculty initiated a dialogue at the end of which a letter addressing the collective position of the undersigned would have been shared widely. That process stalled for very specific reasons. At the last faculty meeting, several colleagues raised valid points regarding the unequal attention afforded a series of issues on campus, including those emanating from student activism three, almost four years ago. There was no mobilization of support last year when Associate Professor of Theater and Africana Studies Justin Emeka raised these issues at a faculty meeting almost a year ago. Although there were some public forums for discussion in Finney three years ago, in Afrikan Heritage House organized by Africana Studies three years ago [and] in the Multicultural Resource Center and Comparative American Studies last year, I did not see faculty banding together en masse to draft a letter of support for students, at a time when there were both anti-Semitic and racist acts of vandalism. It is important to note that Africana Studies assumed the leadership role in offering a space for safety, planning and mobilization for all students, especially those most affected by specific incidences of bigotry and racism on campus. Clearly, we do not need to be reminded of “the spirit that has brought so many African-Americans and Jews together over so many years to stand shoulder to shoulder in defense of equality, freedom and human dignity.”

I read Professor Blecher’s not-so-private note to me as an attempt to shame and bully Black faculty into signing a document to prove our loyalty to Jewish colleagues and students. Refusal to sign implies that we support bigotry. The original letter itself targets a junior faculty member without the benefit of formal review of activities unconnected with professional misconduct. I do not support this and will not sign a document that seems primarily concerned with lynching via social media than constructive dialogue.

Last, the fact that few Black faculty signed this letter should make clear that Professor Blecher’s approach was not read as an olive branch, but something else entirely. I am clear that if colleagues can be so deeply moved by issues rather than conversations, soon there will be a Facebook post deeply critiquing 15 years of my syllabi as well. On a campus whose faculty prides itself on the majesty of faculty governance, I am appalled that outside forces have been able to so deeply manipulate our approach to this and other issues. I am reminded here of James Baldwin’s eloquence in his Open Letter to My Sister Angela Davis: “For if they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night.” Clearly, Professor Blecher came for some of us early Sunday morning. Fortunately, we were wide awake.

A Luta Continua,

– Meredith M. Gadsby
Associate Professor of Africana Studies