My name is Tiffany Martínez. As a McNair Fellow and student scholar, I’ve presented at national conferences in San Francisco, San Diego, and Miami. I have crafted a critical reflection piece that was published in a peer-reviewed journal managed by the Pell Institute for the Study of Higher Education and Council for Opportunity in Education. I have consistently juggled at least two jobs and maintained the status of a full-time student and Dean’s list recipient since my first year at Suffolk University. I have used this past summer to supervise a teen girls empower program and craft a thirty page intensive research project funded by the federal government. As a first generation college student, first generation U.S. citizen, and aspiring professor I have confronted a number of obstacles in order to earn every accomplishment and award I have accumulated. In the face of struggle, I have persevered and continuously produced content that is of high caliber.
I name these accomplishments because I understand the vitality of credentials in a society where people like me are not set up to succeed. My last name and appearance immediately instills a set of biases before I have the chance to open my mouth. These stereotypes and generalizations forced on marginalized communities are at times debilitating and painful. As a minority in my classrooms, I continuously hear my peers and professors use language that both covertly and overtly oppresses the communities I belong to. Therefore, I do not always feel safe when I attempt to advocate for my people in these spaces. In the journey to become a successful student, I swallow the “momentary” pain from these interactions and set my emotions aside so I can function productively as a student.
Today is different. At eight o’clock this morning, I felt both disrespected and invalidated. For years I have spent ample time dissecting the internalized racism that causes me to doubt myself, my abilities, and my aspirations. As a student in an institution extremely populated with high-income white counterparts, I have felt the bitter taste of not belonging. It took until I used my cloud of doubt and my sociological training to realize that my insecurities are rooted in the systems I navigate every day. I am just as capable if not more so than those around me and my accomplishments are earned.
This morning, my professor handed me back a paper (a literature review) in front of my entire class and exclaimed “this is not your language.” On the top of the page they wrote in blue ink: “Please go back and indicate where you cut and paste.” The period was included. They assumed that the work I turned in was not my own. My professor did not ask me if it was my language, instead they immediately blamed me in front of peers. On the second page the professor circled the word “hence” and wrote in between the typed lines “This is not your word.” The word “not” was underlined. Twice. My professor assumed someone like me would never use language like that. As I stood in the front of the class while a professor challenged my intelligence I could just imagine them reading my paper in their home thinking could someone like her write something like this?
In this interaction, my undergraduate career was both challenged and critiqued. It is worth repeating how my professor assumed I could not use the word “hence,” a simple transitory word that connected two relating statements. The professor assumed I could not produce quality research. The professor read a few pages that reflected my comprehension of complex sociological theories and terms and invalidated it all. Their blue pen was the catalyst that opened an ocean of self-doubt that I worked so hard to destroy. In front of my peers, I was criticized by a person who had the academic position I aimed to acquire. I am hurting because my professor assumed that the only way I could produce content as good as this was to “cut and paste.” I am hurting because for a brief moment I believed them.
Instead of working on my English paper that is due tomorrow, I felt it crucial to reflect on the pain that I am sick of swallowing. My work is a reflection of my growth in a society that sees me as the other. For too long I have others assume I am weak, unintelligent, and incapable of my own success. Another element of this invalidation is that as I sit here with teary eyes describing the distress I am too familiar with, the professor has probably forgotten all about it. My heartache can not be universally understood and until it is, I have to continue to fight. At this moment, there are students who will never understand the desolation that follows an underlined “not.” There are students who will be assumed capable without the need to list their credentials in the beginning of a reflective piece. How many degrees do I need for someone to believe I am an academic?
At this moment, I am in the process of advocating for myself to prove the merit of my content to people who will never understand what it is like to be someone like me. Some of you won’t understand how every word that I use to describe this moment was diligently selected in a way that would properly reflect my intellect. I understand that no matter how hard I try or how well I write, these biases will continue to exist around me. I understand that my need to fight against these social norms is necessary.
In reality, I am tired and I am exhausted. On one hand, this experience solidifies my desire to keep going and earn a PhD but on the other it is a confirmation of how I always knew others saw me. I am so emotional about this paper because in the phrase “this is not your word,” I look down at a blue inked reflection of how I see myself when I am most suspicious of my own success. The grade on my paper was not a letter, but two words: “needs work.” And it’s true. I am going to graduate in May and enter a grad program that will probably not have many people who look like me. The entire field of academia is broken and erases the narratives of people like me. We all have work to do to fix the lack of diversity and understanding among marginalized communities. We all have work to do.
Academia needs work.
TIFFANY MARTÍNEZ 
I know all to well about your experience. I was also a McNair student, continuously on the Dean’s List and English is not my first language. I came to the states to pursue my college education. This disrespect and accusation you speak of happened to me both as an undergrad and graduate student (two different institutions in two different states). First time, the instructor (was not even a professor) clearly violated FERPA as in your case. I tried to be the nice student who worked directly with the instructor to not get her in trouble and in turn she made an even worse accusation -ALL false! I wrote a letter and had it revised by other professors before sending it to the Dean and all was resolved within an hour. My credentials,(un)fortunately where essential in the letter to the Dean. I encourage you do the same and I see many professors here have offered to revise it.
I can’t promise you that it will not happen to you again. Once in graduate school I got an email suggesting that I was plagiarizing in a 50 page project that was not yet final. In the e-mail I knew the professor had not even read my work as she mentioned things that had nothing to do with my project. Again, I had other professors read my work and help me draft an e-mail back. Make connections with these professors! They will become your mentors and help you in your journey to become the awesome professor you are obviously going to be.
These experiences are hurtful and denigrating, and boils my blood each time it happens to me, and my fellow minority classmates/coworkers. Yes, race, ethnicity, class and gender have a lot to do- for those of you who are doubtful. I am now a professional at a college and unfortunately we still have to continue to prove our intelligence and defend our degrees.
I share this (by now a longer post than ever intended) first, because there are those who are obviously doubting if this actually happens and they need to hear these stories to be able to learn and change. But, most importantly, I share this with you because you have encouraged me to speak out about this issue with others. You have made me very proud. I look forward to welcoming a yet another fellow caribeña into higher education . Keep up the great work!
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It’s never okay for an instructor to single out a student in this way in public, regardless of their background. I do hope you find a way to get through to them, Tiffany, and I hope you alert their department chair about this inappropriate classroom conduct.
Having said that, I want to contribute a different perspective to your piece, and that is as an instructor myself. You didn’t mention whether this is true of your instructor, but I am an adjunct, part of the growing army of underpaid labor teaching university classes with little or no job security. We are tasked with grading papers submitted by students who have many ways of plagiarizing. While it’s true that there are ways to check automatically for plagiarism (like SafeAssign on Blackboard), I have found the digital algorithms to be lacking in the necessary sophistication. I often have to rely on gut instinct, combined with Google searches, to document plagiarism. After I find several instances in a given course – I find 10% or more of papers to be plagiarized in some way, every semester – I feel frustrated beyond belief, and sometimes start suspecting plagiarism everywhere.
Again, as I said above, instructors’ frustrations about plagiarism in our classrooms are no excuse for how your instructor handled your work. When I find or suspect plagiarism, I immediately send an email message to the student, either asking them for a re-write or informing them that their paper has earned zero points, and asking to meet with them in private. I try to give students the benefit of the doubt, and I have been persuaded in a couple of cases that, despite very close matching between internet sources and the students’ work, they did come up with their language and ideas on their own. In those cases, I’m happy to revisit my initial concerns, and i apologize for any stress I might have placed on the student.
But I wanted to suggest that your mistreatment by your instructor might be symptomatic of a larger problem in US academia today, which is universities’ massive reliance on people like me who are really not compensated adequately to deal with the huge problem of plagiarism on our campuses. Either we ignore it altogether (and risk unfair assessment and vetting cheaters), or we spend hours and hours of time on checking out plagiarism and jumping through all the hoops I’ve mentioned above, leaving us more likely to jump to conclusions – we are only human, after all. Again, I am terribly sorry to hear about your experience and hope we can improve the system all around.
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I had a bit similar experience in Holland. My supervisor was kind of missing critical theoretical and methodological aspects of my thesis. I recognised that at the very beginning of my project. However, I was not bold enough to tell her she lacks points. Fortunately, I had a practical experience on the topic and able to finalize things well ahead of time. However, my supervisor feedback turned out out to be “how are you able to manage this and that thing quickly? how do you come to know this?” Then, I realised that my professor got a stereotype that an African doesn’t know science. Then, I decided to disprove her stereotype by presenting my proposal at many sessions and get evaluated by multiple professors. I did that and scored 8/9. In all these process I never let them know the race issue. What I reported was that she lacked supervisory capacity. When asked her response was I don’t respect her. Fortunately, I got scholarship at another university and left her. I’m happy she was not able to confirm her stupid steoreotype. I doubt how she was able to reach to advisory level. She don’t deserve more than a secretary position.
I’m finishing my PhD in same field with her and looking forward a time to meet her and throw her down the tube. She was really a bitch and I don’t have any respect for people from that area.
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Congrats!
You just won free tuition. Please go by the University President’s office with your attorney to claim your prize.
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Joan, what a mean and sick response, written from the cushy comfort of your white privilege.
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If more people sued for change instead of money, the system might actually be held accountable and would be forced to change policies and remove professors like this who treat students in this manner. We become desensitized when we just sue for money. If I was Tiffany, I wouldn’t want a free ride. I would just want my accomplishments and my intelligence to be validated and appreciated. That professor had NO right to treat her that way. If he thought she copied and pasted, he should have talked to her after class. One problem with our society is people are always looking to sue for money, quick money, free money. We need to sue for change. Then we are not greedy money grubbers, but actual social activists seeking to change the world we live in for the better.
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Tiffany, nothing cuts to the core more than an assault on your authenticity. I am sorry this has happened to you. It has happened to me. You are obviously an excellent student with a bad teacher. Move on, move forward, excel and be well. In May, after graduation, I hope you can share this with the administration. I also, hope they are ready to hear it. Something tells me you are going places that Instructor has never been.
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Hi Tiffany, I feel your pain because I was in your shoes. In my case it was an English professor that gave me an “F” on a paper she believed I had not written. She said the writing was not my style. I was a serious and scrupulous student and I was devastated. I tried to use the University’s appeal process to no avail and the professor was unable to explain exactly what the basis of her determination was. I remember the pain vividly and that was 1979. The darkest experience of my education. I happen to be a white male, and the professor was a white female. I don’t believe race or gender were factors, but I didn’t know the professor well enough to judge.
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I’m trying to understand your point? Your last two sentences seems like an attempt (probably unintended) to invalidate her further.
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Reblogged this on Datapulted and commented:
Dear fellow professors, I know it’s hard, but let’s remember that without students, we aren’t teachers. Let’s offer them encouragement, so that they too might shed light where it is needed. Even when we are grading.
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First, I’m sorry that you had to experience this. I am not going to repeat the support and comments what hundreds of people have said here– just know that you are not alone and you are not “wrong.”
In fact, as a professor, I can say that this professor is WRONG. It is against FERPA regulations to discuss student work that identifies the student to other students (in other words, to discuss your work AS YOUR WORK in front of the class with other students). You have a grievance on your hands here– and I highly encourage you to take this to your University’s ombudsperson (if you have one), and at the very least to your advisor or the Director of Title IX/ Student Affairs.
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Former adjunct here. Definitely file a grievance against the professor, especially for challenging your work in front of the class. Federal law protects the privacy of student records. I think a case could be made that challenging the legitimacy of the work implies a bad grade — possibly failure depending on school policy — and by announcing that publicly, the professor has violated your rights. Also, everywhere I taught, the burden of proof was on the professor to prove plagiarism. But seriously, any *competent* professor can spot plagiarism instantly and it has nothing to do with vocabulary, unless the student in question has shown poor mastery of language in class and other work or correspondence. Your professor is an idiot and, clearly, you are not. Your professor feels intellectually threatened by you, and that is pitiful.
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Precisely! I just wrote something similar. I very much hope that you do file a grievance…
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I agree that this particular instructor was in the wrong. I disagree with the notion that any competent instructor can “spot plagiarism instantly.” I teach a gen-ed Humanities subject for which there are many, many online cheats. I often suspect plagiarism but have to do extensive work in some cases to document it, because many students are very sophisticated in their cutting-and-pasting. (Last semester, I found after an hour of sleuthing that one paper had cleverly inter-woven material from four different websites. Imagine what that student could have done with their own ideas.)
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This is outrageous.
Back in the eighties, my sister was a post-grad student of music in London with a working class Scottish background. She wrote a dissertation on film music, spending many, many hours researching in libraries in those pre-internet days. It received a poor grade because the marker thought the word ‘sober’ was an ‘Americanism’, and should have been spelled ‘sobre’. On the sole basis of his own inability to spell a simple word, he scrawled a very unpleasant diatribe in red ink accusing her of plagiarism and laziness.
As a student of Hispanic literature in another university at the time, I wrote a letter to this pompous ass, in which I said “if you care to look up the word ‘sobre’ in the Concise Oxford Dictionary you will see that it is not in fact a word in the English language. It is, however, the Spanish for an envelope or ‘on top of’ “. However, my sister urged me not to send it as she didn’t want to stir up trouble for herself. Snobbery is another form of bigotry which can have real consequences for its victims. After over twenty years, I am still upset for my sister, who went on to have a successful career as a classical violinist.
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I’m so sorry to hear you were subjected to this racist bullying nonsense. I hope you’ll find the support that you need. And I hope your professor gets fired (although probably that won’t happen if they have tenure…. but I wish!)
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why don’t you name the professor? this professor should be held accountable and this article should pop up when someone does a google search on them.
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My thoughts exactly. As a college professor, I can honestly say that behavior is unacceptable in our profession and shows ignorance that shouldn’t be tolerated. Name names. He or she has earned any repercussions there may be. Also, as others have stated, file a grievance.
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I hope you have taken your moment to be upset and grieve for your disappointment and now you can use this as a catalyst for change. You’re bright, colored, capable. You can make change happen
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Reblogged this on Reclaiming The Language for Social Justice.
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Using the professor’s standards of conduct, you could rightfully go out to the parking lot with a knife, and scratch on the good of his car, “This is NOT your car.”
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I empathise and feel your annoyance. This article is articulate and no doubt it has helped you in a positive way.
However, once the dust settles, I would like you to remember one thing – it doesn’t matter. People like this may make you feel like you’re not worth anything or force you to strive for their approval your whole life but – it doesn’t matter. Be who you are and get to where you want to be . You will always meet haters along the way. Yes, you may be able to convince some and change perceptions, but the reality is .. most people don’t change their beliefs. They are so ingrained within them that although at the surface it would appear they have reflected and resolved, innately, they will still be the same.
You keep doing what you’re doing! And don’t worry about people too much.. they will come and go.
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It doesn’t just happen to non-whites. I had two occasions in my academic career (once in high school and once in Uni) when the teacher/professor flatly refused to believe that the language I had used was my own. The Uni Prof actually made me re-do the entire assignment, even though he could not identify the source of my supposed “plagiarism”! I think faculty members just feel intimidated when a student’s vocabulary is equal-to or better than their own…
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This is horrifying! I am a professor – I was a first-generation college student, white, female, grew up working class – and it is important to me that my students feel respected and validated. I have a special place in my personal, internal mission statement for encouraging other first-gen and other women in college to meet their potential and achieve their dreams. I am so infuriated that this happened to you! I want to thank you for speaking out and showing the world this broken part of the academic enterprise. You are so right – there is SO MUCH WORK TO DO!!! But you should not have the burden of doing it! You should be supported, not ridiculed and defamed. Sending my solidarity and word that there are a lot of us working on the ground in our department meetings, classrooms, and scholarship to DO BETTER and purge the academy from this racist, sexist nonsense. In the meantime, know that you are right, you deserve everything you’ve accomplished and earned, and you are supported.
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As someone who works with faculty on incorporated writing assignments in their courses, I am embarrassed and angered by the conduct of my colleague. I work very hard to help faculty use writing and writing instruction to build student’s capacity and develop their talents, and when someone so obviously fails as an instructor, it breaks my spirit and gets me fighting mad.
PLEASE follow up with the Office of Equity and Diversity and be sure everyone knows about this knucklehead. When an instructor behaves this foolishly, it is an institutional problem. We haven’t done enough to prepare this instructor to teach well and to prevent this instructor from behaving badly. You have advocates and friends in the Center for Writing and I apologize sincerely for this grave lapse of professional conduct.
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I’m mad enough for punctuation errors! It should be students’, not student’s, and throw a comma in the last line before and. Bad teaching got me like…
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So sorry that happened to you, you are a better human being than I. That prof would most likely have been eating that paper by the time i was done with him. This is also why i am not in college…
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That shit used to happen to me and sadly still does. Take a deep breath, carve “fuck’em” clearly in some space of the wall in your mind, and don’t let them hold you back. 💕
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Ms. Martinez
My heart goes out to you regarding the position you find yourself in: defending your position, your words, your thoughts, as your own. It is a horrible feeling, to have someone in an academic position accuse you of a “cut and paste” hack as the only way you could have produced your own work. It’s one thing to be told that you could work on a more natural “voice”, as that is often valid for many college students; it’s another to have someone sniff at your work with a suspicion of plagiarism without sufficient evidence.
You remind me of something that happened to me in college. I had a meeting with my supervising professor, who stunned me with a report that I was pulling a failing grade in course work that I had previously received nothing but praise, positive feedback, and excellent marks along the way. The professor asked me not to comment until he was finished telling me why I was failing, so I sat, red-faced and teary-eyed, until he was completely finished giving me a complete dressing down of my semester’s work. I knew that this could not be happening, that these were not my marks. But I was silent, as he requested.
When he was done, he asked if I had any questions or comments about his appraisal. I asked, “What is my name?” He said, “What? It’s Tran [not her real name].” Right then and there, I said, “No, my name is Bernice Imei Hsu. You have confused me with another Asian student in your class.” There was a very long silence between us, as I screamed inside of myself.
To him, I was just another failing Asian student. He did not see me, and therefore confused me with the only other Asian student in his course.
As he fumbled for his evaluations, he pulled up my paperwork, apologized, and then read me my report. All perfect marks. All exemplary remarks from all my working peers. He dismissed me from the room and congratulated me on a semester well done. And as I walked out of the office, shaking and stunned, I saw Tran waiting outside his office for her meeting with him, head down, hands folded. And I went to the bathroom and wept, unable to process what had just happened.
At that time, there was no Internet, no Social Media, not other way of broadcasting to other students this painful experience. My choice would have been limited to reporting the professor to the department head, and as I weighed in on that choice at the time, I decided against it. Looking back, it might have helped other students like me if he had been given any kind of re-training or disciplinary action. I can only hope that he learned something critical from his horrific mistake, and never repeated it again.
I take hope that your post of your experience will have a more far-reaching impact on other students as well as your academic institution. Bravo for putting to words what both groups need to hear. HENCE, you prove well that you do indeed belong, and your choice to rail against the parts that need changing allows you to say you are both part of the academic world and not part of it; you walk the line between, on your own terms.
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I would like to apologize to you on behalf of all white people who DON’T have their head stuck so far up their rear ends they can see daylight back out of their mouths. This is wholly unacceptable. Stomach-turning. I hope that your future path is not encumbered by such idiocy and bigotry, and wish you all the best as you head towards the bright future you deserve.
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I don’t think this story is true. It’s just a too perfect one dimensional villain.
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Really, this example of racism is so unbelievable to you that you’re just going to sit in your basement and accuse the author of lying?
Wow. Just wow.
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You say that in a country where we may actually elect a captain planet villain? Boy bye!
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Making up a story like this and publishing it would have devastating consequences for a student. It makes no sense to think an accomplished young woman would run that kind of risk.
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I will bet $1000 that you are white and you just gave yourself the name Juan so that your comment would have more credibility
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On the contrary, I think it’s all too common. My experience was in high school, but I had a teacher schedule a one-on-one with me to confront me about plagiarism because I used the word “juxtaposition”. I read a lot, it wasn’t a stretch, but they couldn’t see me using the word, so I was reprimanded. This isn’t a rare scenario.
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Welp, it looks like it’s time to file a formal complaint to the school…
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My thought exactly.
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Congratulations on all of your achievements and good luck in your endeavors.
Your “professor” is a piece of work (that was not the term I started to use, but decided to edit myself). No words in the English language belong to anyone, so he may as well have circled ‘the’ or ‘it’. If he was trying to say you plagiarized a single word, that’s simply ridiculous. Stay above it. He has a personal problem. You probably can’t solve it. As a published writer, I can say your writing is coherent, cohesive, and heartfelt. Job well done. Keep it up.
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Thank you for sharing this. Like other posters, I am also a college professor trying to learn about these issues. Your professor definitely handled that situation incorrectly, and you might even be in a position to retaliate. I hope that this story gets out to other faculty so they can better understand how their comments and actions end up impacts students.
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Fellow McNair Scholar here; my heart hurts and pains for you. I a white cis-hetero-male with a european sounding name (i’m first gen, from rural working class/poverty) knowing what my fellow McNair fellows went through to get to school and thrive in it i makes it all the more upsetting when the system seeks to crush you out. I hope in whatever way you freely can, that you rise above and through this professor’s hideous ceiling. It is our role to step into the professoriate and change the landscape so this kind of thinking and can finally die.
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My young sister, keep your head up and don’t let them win. Si puedes!! What is happening to you is also happening to a lot of highly educated, successful Latino’s. Don’t let them win!
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This totally stinks. But speaking out against oppression and fighting for its change are worthy goals. Here’s a different career option that would merge your strengths and passion nicely: become a lawyer. We write for a living, intentionally using words such as “Hence” and other transitory options. Moreover, cutting and pasting is our life – the profession’s work product is defined by seeing language that works (is accepted by judges who make decisions in our favor) and copying it exactly, and on purpose, in order to get the same result. The only place we need to cite is when using language from judicial decisions. For most other documents, no credit is necessary, imitation is the highest form of flattery. Hence, I offer you the invitation to pursue a JD rather than a PhD.
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Sorry this happened to you. Unfortunately, this happens way too much, but I am glad that you are gonna be a professor–someone not like this racist and elitist person. Which grad programs are you looking at?
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And, you should file a report in writing with the department, the dean, & the Ombudsman at your school. It’s still important to have a written record of such microaggressions.
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Hello. I am really sorry that you had to go through that humiliation. I don’t believe it is your fault. And I believe (even though it’s another pain in the neck for you) that you will be a learning opportunity for your professor. I can’t believe that through all of our education – academic and social – we’re told to adopt a certain way of writing, of phrasing, and then when you use it you get told it’s not yours! How low and miserable your professor must be to accuse you of plagiarism without going through proper protocols, and by the ridiculous “system” of using a basic word like “hence” no less! You have solid writing skills and a strong grasp of expression even though you are upset. That is no mean feat. Congratulations on making it this far, on the work you have done and don’t give up. You are doing amazing things.
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Reblogged this on Past & Present.
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Have you considered that your professor knows your writing stile and saw an inconsistency when using the word “hence”?
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You can’t be serious.
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1.Have you considered that “hence” is an incredibly common word, particularly in academia. 2. Has it occurred to you that undergraduates are often in the process of developing their “professional” writing style and that any professor should take that into consideration before impugning a student’s integrity, especially if they’re going to do so in front of the entire class. 3. Has it occurred to you that this individual is clearly articulate and probably didn’t grunt through her other papers. 4. Have you considered spelling style s-t-y-l-e, like the rest of us?
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Excellent post subversive
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You can’t detect “inconsistency” by looking at a single word. That’s ridiculous.
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My comment is in response to Andrew’s comment. (The screen does not show that I hit reply to his disrespectful remark.)
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I am sorry that you had to go through this. But I urge you to continue your academic path. Others depend on you and the stance you take against this type of thing. Don’t let it stop you, for that would be playing right into their hands. Speak up for yourself and help to disseminate stereotypes that are designed to hinder education in minority communities.
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I hope you send that professor your dissertation one day. With a note that says, ‘My words’
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Very easily remedied by bringing this to the professors boss and explaining your side…do not take this crap in any way…call this person out!
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I hope you will be able to find someone in the university to help you correct this situation. (Of course the hurt will never be taken away, but that professor needs to understand the harm they have caused. And you need the A your paper deserves.)
On top of racism and insensitivity, that teacher sounds lazy. There are ways to check for plagiarism. When your paper passed, if the teacher still had doubts, they could ask you to talk about it in their office. Anyone who buys papers would fail that. You, however, would shine.
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I really hope you considered sending a copy of this letter to the professor. It is important he knows the mistake he made.
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I’m hoping the same thing. I hope the prof gets his white male privileged ass handed to him. Your story fills me with despair and anger. As a woman, I’ve had this experience but in such minor degree compared to what you describe.
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Why do you assume the professor is male? This is a sexist assumption. Two wrongs don’t make a right, and hypocrisy has no place in justice.
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I’m Asian. I was accused of plagiarizing an entire 10-page paper when I was in college 50 years ago and I’m still mad.
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I have never been one to aim for academics, and even still I faced a similar situation. I was once told by my advisor that she didn’t think I’d amount to anything. At that point I had already accomplished so much, and she didn’t even care.
I kept thinking, “when will I have attained enough accomplishments to prove that I AM worthy of success?”
So please, keep fighting the good fight.
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Similar has also happened to me. A word that I chose was also used in one of the 500+ articles/blogs online that dealt with the same topic I was writing about. It seems to be easier to bandy about ‘plagiarism’ than it is to believe that a lowly student could have analyzed and reached a similar conclusion to one among hundreds of others with an online presence.
I’m a white female. The professor was a white female. My conclusion: The professor was an asshat. One among a dozen or more asshats I ran across in ‘Academia’.
When you ask for Academia to love you back, consider the source. Do you need that love?
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I know you did not just dismiss racism.
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I do not see it as racism. It’s happened to me too, but I didn’t call it racism or sexism or any -ism.
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She did not dismiss racism. She related an anecdote about how she, even as a white female, was treated poorly by another white female, in academia. “Because this, not the other” is not a valid assumption.
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This is called bullying. Definitely an incident that should be reported to a harassment or equity officer at your university. And the word “hence” belongs to everyone. Use it as much as you like!
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I was also a first generation college student that had similar experiences of racism in college. I was once in a lecture where a professor was chastising the whole class for being upper middle-class spoiled brats who didn’t even know where the ghetto part of the college town was. I think he was trying to make a point about how no one from this “ghetto” neighborhood would ever go to college. He asked the class if anyone even knew where it was. He actually yelled the question a few times before I reluctantly raised my hand. Then in front of the entire class, he asked how I knew about this place. I said, “Because I grew up there.”
I am currently a college writing instructor. I have to continue to answer questions about whether I am qualified to be there. People suspect that I am only filling a minority faculty quota, and that I am taking a spot they deserve. What keeps me going is that I am that change that academia needs. I work hard, and I am good at what I do. Don’t give up. Don’t give this one person this kind of power over your confidence and what you know to be true. Don’t believe people when they say you don’t belong there. You do.
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I’m so sorry you experienced this, and angry you have to expend time and talent reporting it (an important and necessary activity), and grateful for your eloquence and passion in doing so.
I hope you find some good and well-connected mentors, and continue to succeed in your chosen areas of interest, without having to spend too much energy on this outdated nonsense.
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Wow. Just wow. This post was shared to me via Facebook and I wish that I could say that I was surprised. As a white student who went to a fancy, expensive, private school in the Midwest — needless to say, this has NEVER happened to me. The institution just assumed we all had money. What they did not realize was that even though I was well-spoken, and well-written, that I came from abject poverty in what might be called (pretty close) White Trash America… They ASSUMED I was a part of this elite group of students because, of course, only the elite could afford to go to a place that was $41,000 per year. I can only imagine what the perception of minority students was behind the scenes. Thank you for sharing your experience – the more we talk about it, the more we expose this behavior as unacceptable and change perceptions across the board.
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Transitional word, not transitory. Transitory denotes a quality of the noun itself moving between two areas. It’s transitional because it has to do with a transition. The English language is stupid.
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The mere fact that you took precious moments of a life to write this indicates who you are as a person. Clearly, you did not grasp what the point of her writing. #MicroAgression
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And your response is #MacroAgression. Practice what you preach.
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Your only response to this incredibly powerful piece of writing is a correction? Way to mansplain that, Andrew!
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Thank you for ‘man-splaining’ it to her. Wow, without your correction, she would never have learned anything about the most important element of the entire article. After all, for a woman, it’s important that we be corrected publically and our work diminished by a singular point that needs male correction. (please apply sarcasm here.)
Proof of yet one more way she is held to be “other.”
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Congratulations on the pedantry
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What kind of word is douche?
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You forgot to begin your reply with, “Well, actually.” I’m glad the women will be saved by this mansplaining. Bless your heart.
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Thanks Andrew! Some people like to be offended because you happen to be a man. You would have commented the same whether the OP was male or female, but no one pauses for a moment to consider this before jumping on the SJW bandwagon.
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And Some people like to be insensitive bigots
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Oh for fuck’s sake, you couldn’t let that go? It’s not, like, the MAIN FUCKING POINT!
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Really?
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This is bullshit you should NOT have to deal with! I’m a university professor, and I’m telling you that you do NOT have to deal with that. Your campus has some kind of office of social equity –go there and document this incident.
And then go and continued to kick ass, my young friend!!
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