A clown who thinks he's an academic

He wrote one of the most detailed books of the Rwandan genocide. He’s not a clown at all. A lot of fascism scholarship is focused on the ways explicit violence is enacted not disability rights. Asshole take here to discount his work because his research is different from other commenters. Sheesh.

His "research". I learned that shit in high school history decades ago.

You read about the Rwandan genocide in high school? I must be older than you are. I found his book to be very moving and still find insights about it. Shocking to see someone minimize the tragedy in Rwanda as “that shit in high school history”

No. I read about WWIi fascism's in high school and knew about its connection to targeting disabled folks. Your obsession with Rwandan is frankly weird. No one was talking about that.

I’ll bet that at least one of the belligerent factions had some sort of mythology fabricated out of superstition and some precolonial sense of identity that they used to justify their atrocities

You're kinda just an asshole for snearing at people, especially disabled people, who are more informed about fascism and don't turn a blind eye to the inherent eugenics (read: ableism) of it. Sheesh.

oh wow he wrote a book one time about a different thing nowai

FWIW, nobody is born a clown. A clown is something we become.

A person can know a lot about one thing. That doesn’t make them an expert in everything and that also doesn’t preclude them from saying wildly ignorant and ableist things. And if a person is an expert then they SHOULD be including an understanding of disability and not doing that is just ableism.

Isn’t giving any white male “expert” carte blanche to just say anything and believe them without a second of skepticism something that we are moving away from as a society? His comments are blatanty false and very dangerous and it is completely reasonable and in fact necessary to correct him.

And also: “A lot of fascism scholarship is focused on the ways explicit violence is enacted not disability rights” is an absolutely horrific and bigoted hateful omission and not a reflection of reality. That should be a red flag not a justification for ignorance.

I’m usually challenged by writing on this type of platform, and re-reading that sentence, I agree that that isn’t what I meant. I don’t think of him as an expert because he’s a white guy, but I do appreciate the research he did on the Rwandan genocide to explain the quick flip to violence.

That’s why I was responding to someone who was flippant in dismissing his contributions to that specific scholarship, admittedly quite poorly.

And you seem to be overlooking that I made no comment on his knowledge of the Rwandan Genocide.

No he’s a fucking clown and I say this as an academic who has studied fascism

This is basic shit. theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umbe...

People aren't discounting his work. They're dismissing his bs take like they should. I get we were raised to think everything about the US is special and unique. But our fascism is just standard issue fascism.

I think calling him “a clown who thinks he’s an academic” is discounting his work. The Rwandan genocide he wrote about was not marked by the state dismantling the public health system. It’s possible to treat people with dignity when their background knowledge is different from our own.

Again. High school knowledge of WWII is sufficient. Save your attempted condescension for your students. Bet they love it. 👋

And your whole point was to come here and police my comment? Are you proud to be a cop?

You have a very weird understanding of the professions of cop and clown. Good luck out there.

I feel bad for her students given what I’ve seen here

Imagine a well celebrated and published physicist who specializes in particle physics. Now imagine they said that "Venus isn't a planet, it's obviously somethings else" Would they NOT be a clown? They're published in the field! We should treat them with dignity as they double down on lunacy!

Nobody said anything about the Rwandan genocide except you.

If you don’t know who Philip Gourevitch is, that’s on you.

Lmao

Lady I don’t give a flying fuck

Would it be a shock to consider that some academics who just study an issue, miss critical details that people who actually live in the issues know? Due to willful bias or sloppy research, which includes not listening to people they don't consider "academic enough" to listen to and learn from.

If he's that knowledgeable and educated, then that makes his take even worse than it already is. You understand that, right?

The fact he's a genocide scholar and doesn't know this makes it more embarrassing, not less. Thanks for that addition. I'm more shocked and horrified now.

As for his “scholarly” credentials, highest attained degree is an MFA in creative writing

Saying that destroying scientific and medical institutions and the people that rely on them isn't fascism sure is creative writing. He's doing his degree proud there. He's creating fascist apologia.

i....... how do you call the way fascism expresses its violence and how it treats the disabled different categories?

By not believing disabled people are people.

I’m saying that a guy who studied a rapid genocide by a people group who didn’t seize the apparatus of government has a blind spot around fascist regimes who did. Admittedly wrote that sentence poorly. Character limits, no edit button, and comment threads are not great ways for me to communicate.

fair enough, but “he’s speaking from ignorance” isn’t really a defense so much as an explanation, especially if he styles himself an expert on fascism and has such major blind spots about it

I’ve never seen anywhere that he claims to be an expert of fascism (though admittedly haven’t read everything he’s written recently), but I’ve used his stuff when discussing state violence and the conditions of genocide.

I think his statement at the beginning of this thread shows a belief in himself as more of an expert than the incorrect claims in it show him to be

So ummmm, why are you melting down then?

he should stop doing clown shit

Oh so he’s a dilettante, even worse