On Wednesday, October 28, 2020, less than twelve hours after I posted my first video onYouTube, a journalist from The Sophian (Smith’s “independent, student-run newspaper”) contacted me.
From: J. <XXX@smith.edu>
Date: Wed, Oct 28, 2020 at 1:24 PM
Subject: Interview for The Sophian
To: Jodi Shaw <jshaw@smith.edu>
Dear Ms. Shaw,
I hope you've been well during these stressful times. I'm writing because I work at Smith's student-run newspaper, The Sophian, and was wondering if I could interview you about the video you posted yesterday, and what led you to do so. Could we have a phone call sometime today or tomorrow? I know this is a sensitive topic, but I would appreciate a reply before tomorrow evening, as I'm working on a deadline.
Thank you for your time!
Best wishes, J.
Since my aim (in addition to defending my civil rights) was to improve conditions for everyone living and working in the Smith community, it seemed fitting that The Sophian should have the first interview.
After requesting that the interview be in writing, I attempted to cut what I thought was a fair deal with J:
“I believe this is a community matter . . . my aim above all is to improve our own community (specifically working conditions) here at Smith. In this way I am trusting you to be as accurate and objective as possible. If that is the case, then we can continue to have a mutually beneficial relationship as I embark on my path using very public channels to push the college to improve the workplace situation.” [emphasis mine]
Not only was I promising J. the first interview (I believe it’s called an “exclusive”), I was giving her my word that —in exchange for her objectivity— I would proceed to engage with her on an ongoing basis.
In other words, I was prepared to continue granting J. exclusives, and with thousands of eyeballs on me at the time, this was no small coin. All J. had to do in exchange was commit to being accurate and fair.
I wasn’t asking J. to take my side, I was merely asking her to be a journalist.
Looking back, it was probably naive of me to think J. would behave differently than she did. Although she quoted copiously from my YouTube video(s) in her final piece, of the approximately 2,300+ word response I sent her, she printed only eight. Not even a full sentence.
These eight lonely words (highlighted later in this post) appeared only after two paragraph-long rants by students, both of whom apparently found my first video so shocking one cannot help but wonder how they managed to function after viewing it.
Student # 1 said:
“The video was blatantly ignorant, horrifyingly misinformed, and a perfect example of the denial of white privilege that too many people in this world hold, even after being presented information that proves otherwise,” Helen Bezuneh ’23 said. “I worry about the many ways in which Jodi Shaw and other faculty who may secretly hold the same views have the power to make racially ignorant decisions that hurt students. This is unacceptable.”
Note how I am not merely misinformed, I am “horrifyingly” so.
And, apparently nobody at The Sophian felt it necessary to inform Student #2 that nowhere in my video did I mention Title IX or DEI training:
“I first saw the video because of Overheard at Smith, and I was definitely taken aback,” Erin Smith, who works in stockroom services at Smith wrote in an email to The Sophian. “Neither the Title IX training or the Diversity and Bias Training are ‘blame-oriented’. They’re meant to help staff and faculty recognize when there is a problem, even – especially – if that problem is one they are causing without realizing it.”
Unfortunately, my effort to keep the matter “in the family” —to utilize an instrument of the community (the school newspaper) to connect with an administration gone awry and engage students in what I believed to be an authentic effort at creating actual social and racial justice at Smith College— was thwarted.
To be clear, I don’t expect everyone to have the same opinions I do. I don’t presume agreement from people as a matter of course, either in my personal or professional life. Diversity is after all, a mainstay of progress, the wellspring of any discourse bold enough to withstand the test of time. Call me a hopeless creative, but in my mind, enthusiastic disagreement is the only way to get to something better.
All I expected from J. was what we all used to be able to reasonably expect from news writers; the journalist as conduit, collector and conveyor of the multiple disparate voices that inform any issue, in service to the reader, who may then form his/her own conclusion.
That every other person quoted in J.’s piece voiced disagreement (bordering on horror) with me is telling. Where were the other voices dissenting from the orthodoxy? Where were all the members of the community that that would lend credence to Smith’s incessant calls for “diversity”?
Does J. even know what an “orthodoxy” is?
I know there are others at Smith who agree with me because they told me so. And yet J. either did not feel compelled to seek them out, or they failed to make themselves known. Either way, their absence is palpable, further evidence of a painful fact the college administration passionately ignores, that the Smith campus community —far from being diverse, inclusive, and just— is rife with fear, hostility and conformity.
In the end, The Sophian published what amounted to little more than an opinion piece trying to pass itself off as an objective news story.
It’s not that J.’s opinion was wrong, it was that she pretended she had none. This is the epitome of dishonesty, a common phenomenon of our current media landscape. Anybody —left or right— who still thinks the news they access is objective is as naive as I was back then in the fall of 2020.
At any rate I am glad I insisted on a written interview. My words stand as testament to my frame of mind at the time.
Without further adieu, here is Part 1 of my exchange with The Sophian.
J: Thanks for taking the time to respond. A written interview would be great. I have a few questions, but they basically boil down to the question of what exactly led you to this point. Doing the video was obviously a drastic measure, and you make a lot of serious claims about the college--that it promoted a culture that emboldened students to abuse staff, that you feared for the physical safety of yourself and your family.
ME: To clarify, the statement I made about fearing for physical safety was in reference to the fear of what can and does happen if/when staff are accused (by students in particular) of racism. This is a legitimate fear, as staff we have all seen what happens to staff who are publicly accused of racially motivated behavior; they have endured verbal and written messages threatening their safety (even death threats) that were directed to them in their private homes. This is true even though the allegations of racism were in one case completely false and in and in the other, later discovered to be unfounded. One individual in particular still receives threatening phone calls and letters more than two years after the fact, in spite of not even being involved in any way with the originating incident.
J: What specifically compelled you to make the video? You wrote in a Facebook post you wanted the college to talk about the July 31 incident, but it doesn't seem like that's the only thing on your mind, as you say that Smith has engaged in behavior towards you that has pushed you over the line.
ME: You are correct --July 31, 2018 is not the only thing on my mind but it is an extremely important contextual factor. The college’s method of handling this event is seminal. I attribute much of the current hostile work environment to the college’s behavior in response to that incident.
How the college responded to the original allegation and to other allegations following it easily constitute (collectively), one of the biggest moral failings I have ever personally witnessed in my lifetime.
Smith staff member and alum Tracey Culver described well the effect the college’s behavior in response to this incident on staff in an open letter. This letter was originally published in The Republican (the Hampshire Gazette refused to publish the letter, maybe you can ask them why). You can find the text of the letter on Mass Live, but will have to scroll down through to the bottom of the article to see the actual letter. In her letter, Tracey describes how Smith’s handling of this incident contributed to the current environment of “fear, hostility and exclusion.” This kind of environment is the exact opposite of what the college is purportedly committed to achieving. As far as I know the college did not take any steps to remedy the issues Culver pointed out in her letter.
So this is the racially-charged, mis-managed backdrop against which my own experiences of racial hostility at Smith occurred.
On two occasions since July 31, 2018, I was singled out solely based upon my observable skin color and subjected to discriminatory and hostile behavior. In the first instance I was denied an important professional opportunity “because you are white.” This statement was memorialized in an email. The allegations of July 31, 2018 (which were as of that time still unverified) were cited as justification for denying me this opportunity based solely upon my skin color. The fact that my supervisor could so explicitly engage in workplace discrimination against me based upon my skin color, with the full faith and backing of the college, without any hesitation whatsoever, says a lot about how far we have strayed from the actual principles of racial justice. My supervisor was clearly basing his actions on the “script,” the one that tells us that because white people have privilege and power simply by virtue of their skin color, it is perfectly acceptable (and even desirable, in some cases, for purposes of proving how morally enlightened one is) to engage in blatant discrimination against them.
The second incident occurred more recently in the department of Residence Life. In this instance my race was also singled out as justification for the behavior I was subjected to. [These are the 8 words that J. quoted].
I will be discussing both of these incidents in much more detail in future videos. I will also of course be discussing the events and aftermath of July 31, 2018 in great detail, including the behind-the-scenes decision-making, the reprehensible treatment of staff and the damages to individuals and to the community that have resulted. There is a lot to this story and I encourage any investigative journalist (maybe even you?) to take on the task of unearthing the facts surrounding this situation, that are as of now completely excluded from the public narrative.
J: And could you describe in more detail what happened in the second instance?
ME: Not at this time.
J: Is there a particular incident you're talking about when you say that the college is emboldening students to abuse staff?
ME: Yes, I can think of multiple incidents, which for many reasons I will not disclose specifically in this medium at this time. I will say however that the Smith administration had the power and the opportunity (and in my mind, a moral imperative), to correct a dishonest public narrative about the incidents of July 31, 2018 and part of this failure included refusing to hold the student involved accountable for what I believe was injurious behavior directed toward individual staff members immediately following this event. In this way, the student (in my opinion) was then emboldened to continue to engage in what (again, in my opinion) constitutes abusive behavior toward this individual staff member and other individuals at the college.
Within this context, the fact that the college continues to create initiatives and mandates intended to compel allegiance to what is clearly a disingenuous devotion to so-called principles of “equity and inclusion” is mind blowing.
To call Smith’s current commitment to “equity and inclusion” hypocritical would be a kind assessment.
J: Is there a particular incident or student allegation that made you fear for the physical safety of yourself and your family?
ME: I have not been the target of any allegations nor have I received any specific threats [*] to myself or my family. But as stated in my video, the potential exists for any staff member who is the target of a student allegation -even if unfounded- to result in an outcome that is disastrous for the staff member. Simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time can result in serious damage. And now we are well aware that the college will not take steps to rectify these serious misunderstandings.
J: About how many staff members have you spoken to who have agreed with you?
ME: I will only say that I have spoken in private to many, many staff members, before the video and after who agree that the current climate at Smith is hostile, and that the administration's efforts in the area of “equity and inclusion” and “racial justice” are divisive and destructive. And I want to be clear here: most of us, including me, do not disagree with the end goal. Inclusion, equity and racial justice are laudable outcomes. I can’t think of a single person who would disagree with that end. The disagreement is with the means; they are not only ineffective, they appear (to many of us) to be achieving the exact opposite of the hoped for outcome.
J: And--I know this goes against what you were saying in the video--how many were people of color?
ME: Yes, this does go “against” what I am saying in the video. I am not going to respond to this. Sorry!
Stay tuned for Part 2 . . .
*[As of the date of my interview with the Sophian I had yet to receive some of the salacious communications that were coming my way].
xo, Jodi
Background photo in graphic courtesy of Smith College Stock Imagery for Public Use
Thank you for your bravery and honesty--I wish Smith College and other institutions that should devote themselves to education would stop propagating divisive, false narratives based on the simplistic formulae of the now-discredited Ibram X. Kendi and the sadistic Robin Di Angelo.
"the journalist as conduit, collector and conveyor of the multiple disparate voices that inform any issue, in service to the reader, who may then form his/her own conclusion."
I'm almost seventy years old, and I can barely remember when journalism bore some resemblance to that description.
"It’s not that J.’s opinion was wrong, it was that she pretended she had none."
This is one of the big problems I have with mainstream news outlets like NPR, CNN, MSNBC, NYT, etc.--their pretense of objectivity and denial of bias, a blatant lie. The hated Fox News, on the other hand, openly acknowledges their right-of-center to almost-far-right point of view (depending on the commentator). They don't pretend to be neutral. At the very least, that's an honest starting point the others fail to provide. I have no doubt you would receive a fair hearing on Fox, as opposed to the sabotage job you got from The Sophian.