Articles by Robert Jensen
Last Sunday: What to Do With/About White Folks?
Dissident Voice ·
After the initial “Last Sunday” gathering in November, many people made the observation that it was a mostly white audience, and then asked the question, “How can we attract more people of color to the event?”
Last Sunday: The problem with solutions
Dissident Voice ·
I’ve been assigned to talk about solutions to the pressing problems we face, but I’ve never been very good at following orders. So, instead I’m going to talk about the problem with solutions.
Saying Goodbye to My “Fargo” Accent
Dissident Voice ·
Ever since the movie Fargo came out a decade ago, my ability to mimic the Scandinavian-inflected accent of my hometown and home state of North Dakota has been a guaranteed way to elicit laughter during my public speaking.
That joking ended earlier this month, when I realized — in a painfully public manner — that my use of that North Dakota accent was in a small but undeniable way supportive of a white-supremacist account of the history of this country. The story of that episode illustrates not just the depth of the pathology of white America but also a way we white folks can — with self-reflection and help from others — start to transform ourselves.
Digging In and Digging Deep
Counterpunch ·
All the conversations that Eliza, Jim, and I had in planning this gathering eventually came back to a core point: Hard times are on the way, coming sooner than most of us expected, and we’re not ready for them.
We started with the recognition that for all its affluence and military power, the United States is in many ways a society in collapse. On all fronts — politically, economically, culturally and most important, ecologically — we are in trouble. We live in an increasingly callous culture that exploits sexuality and glorifies violence; embedded in a house-of-cards economy built on orgiastic consumption, deepening personal and collective debt, and an artificially inflated dollar; at the end of an imperial era that is grinding to a disastrous demise — and, as if that weren’t enough, looming behind all those crises is the recognition of the consequences of humans too-long ignoring the unraveling ecological fabric that makes life possible.
Opportunities lost: When bullies derail dialogue, we all lose
Counterpunch ·
In a world of spin, no one expects truth from corporate executives or the politicians who serve them, but many of us hold out hope that in the classroom and sanctuary we can engage one another honestly in the struggle to understand the world and our place in it. So, while I’ve had my share of squabbles with schools and churches over the years, I remain committed to them as important truth-seeking institutions.
Pornographic query: Is a DP inherently sexist?”
Dissident Voice ·
Is the sexual practice in which two men penetrate a woman anally and vaginally at the same time — a “DP,” or double penetration in the vernacular of the pornography industry — inherently sexist?
When I first got into academic life, I couldn’t have predicted some of the questions that would come my way. But after nearly two decades of writing and speaking about the contemporary pornography industry, not much surprises me.
The 2006 elections and the coming train wreck: Does it matter if we slow down the train?
OutlookIndia ·
On Election Day 2006, the U.S. public didn’t switch trains but simply ratified a different group of conductors. It’s the same old train, on the same tracks, heading in the same direction.
Academic freedom on the rock(s): The failures of faculty in tough times
Counterpunch ·
Threats to academic freedom — direct and indirect, subtle and not so subtle — come from a variety of sources: Politicians, the general public, news media, administrators, corporations, and students. In my academic career, I have been criticized from all of those quarters. Though these attacks have been relatively easy to fend off in my particular case, the threats are real and should trouble us; they require of us sharper analysis and a strategic plan to fend off attempts to constrain inquiry. But, even with that understanding of the seriousness of these external threats, I will argue that the most important aspect of the current controversies is how they mark the complacency and timidity of faculty members themselves.
University response to racist “ghetto fabulous” party is less than fabulous
Counterpunch ·
When one of the first-year University of Texas law students who participated in a “ghetto fabulous” party posted pictures on the web, we saw the ugly face of white privilege and the racism in which it is rooted. But the depth of the problem of white supremacy at the university — and in mainstream institutions more generally — is also evident in the polite way in which the university administration chastised the students.
Finding my way back to church — and getting kicked out: The struggle over what it means to be Christian today
CounterPunch ·
This past year, after decades of steadfastly avoiding churches of all kinds, I returned to church. Ironically, and completely by coincidence, I returned to a Presbyterian church, the denomination in which I was raised and to which I swore — in both senses of the term — I would never return. But return I have, prodigally perhaps, depending on one’s position on various doctrinal issues, which we will get to tonight in due time.
5 years later, still a voice crying in the wilderness
Houston Chronicle, September 14, 2006 ·
We all remember where we were and what we felt on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. I also have a clear recollection of the morning of Sept. 14, 2001.
I got to my office early, and the red message light on my phone was already blinking. My voice-mailbox was full of angry condemnations of an essay that had run in the Houston Chronicle that morning (“U.S. just as guilty of committing own violent acts,” Outlook), in which I sharply criticized past U.S. policy and warned that a vengeful response to the terrorist attacks would be disastrous.
Parallel purges: Academic freedom in Iran and America
CounterPunch ·
When I published an article this summer that condemned the past six decades of U.S. policy toward Iran, and the Middle East more generally, as a strategy of “domination-through-violence,” one critic emailed to suggest that if I was so unhappy with the United States, “why don’t you and all the other liberal professors just pack up and move to Iran and see how you like it there.”
Getting cognitive: The limits of George Lakoff’s politics
CounterPunch ·
One of George Lakoff’s key observations in his work on contemporary political discourse is that “frames trump facts” — when facts are inconsistent with the frames and metaphors that structure a person’s worldview, the facts will likely be ignored.
Ironically, Lakoff’s new book — Whose Freedom? The Battle over America’s Most Important Idea — demonstrates that problem all too well. His worldview seems to keep him from the very critical self-reflection that he counsels for liberal/progressive people.
Attacking Iran: Bad policy is a bipartisan affair
Dissident Voice ·
Will the United States attack Iran?
That was the question on everyone’s mind at a recent political talk I gave in a small college town in Texas. I ran through some of the many reasons such an attack would be ill-advised, bordering on insane…
The four fundamentalisms and the threat to sustainable democracy
CounterPunch ·
The most important words anyone said to me in the weeks immediately after September 11, 2001, came from my friend James Koplin. While acknowledging the significance of that day, he said, simply: “I was in a profound state of grief about the world before 9/11, and nothing that happened on that day has significantly changed what the world looks like to me.”
One nation, in the closet
CounterPunch ·
For very different reasons, personal and political, Kenji Yoshino’s beautiful book on a new approach to civil rights is painful and important to read.
Why leftists mistrust liberals
CounterPunch ·
Some of my best friends are liberals. Really. But I have found it is best not to rely on them politically.
So, what do you give our society’s most influential pimp?
Houston Chronicle, April 9, 2006 ·
Hugh Hefner is 80 today. America, say happy birthday to our most influential pimp.
“Crash” and the self-indulgence of white America
Dissident Voice ·
“Crash” is a white-supremacist movie.
The Oscar-winning best picture — widely heralded, especially by white liberals, for advancing an honest discussion of race in the United States — is, in fact, a setback in the crucial project of forcing white America to come to terms the reality of race and racism, white supremacy and white privilege.
Noxxxious fumes: As porn turns more mainstream, the images it produces are more degrading
Hindustan Times; OpEd News ·
Following the principles we claim to hold/being the people we claim to be
OpEdNews.com ·
If we transcend the sad, desperate triumphalist rhetoric of an empire in decline — that is, if we break from the conventional platitudes about the inherent benevolence and superiority of the United States that underlie the politics of both major parties — we can see clearly the breadth and depth of the problems we face.
MLK Day: Dreams and nightmares
CounterPunch ·
uther King Jr’s most famous speech, he had a dream.
But in another of King’s important addresses, he faced the depth of our nightmare.