Wedding Bell Blues (Part One): Jackie O.’s Aphorism and Wedding Bell Blues (Part Two): The Assassination of Love are compelling accounts at “Slaves of Academe” of a self described gay male academic of colour’s experiences with “Mr. Sadistic College.” I’m not entirely comfortable with the metaphorical uses of “wife” and the allusions to JFK and Jackie, but it’s a powerful story. Below is an excerpt:
…”That someone like myself, trained in a particular critical approach, would buy into this fantasy of uniqueness (and the fair shake) is, in retrospect, surprising at the very least. Let’s be generous and chalk it up to delusional optimism. On being green. On expecting to be treated professionally. What I hadn’t counted on was that Sadistic College was an institutional version of a serial abuser, especially when it came to faculty of colour and gay male faculty, of which I was (and still am) an enticing combination.
“To wit, over the span of ten years, out of a faculty of less than 130, thirteen faculty of colour had left the college, either through attrition or outright dismissal (including the first wife). In my time there, three out of the six openly gay men on the faculty (including myself) left the college under duress. The fourth decamped shortly after my departure. The current Dean (one of the most untrustworthy and unethical people I have ever met, and that is saying quite a lot, believe me) would claim to any concerned party who made this observation that each case was individual, and no pattern could possibly be discerned. Yea, right. Undisclosed financial settlements and confidentiality agreements also help eliminate”patterns”of deeply entrenched white supremacist values and a violently racist and homophobic campus culture cloaked by liberal values and an artsy reputation.
“The fact that the Dean could say this with a straight face, and that people believed it, only speaks to the power of the human mind to rationalize despair and terror to the point that when it happens to you or someone you care about, impotence and fear are the only responses. This is also deeply connected to the structural position of most junior faculty, which is determined by sheer terror, in many guises. And that was the lesson I learned, too late, from the first wife, a lesson noted before: Keep your eye on your alimony, baby!” …
