My latest in PJ Media:
Has there ever been another time in history when the powerful, moneyed, cosseted elites achieved and maintained that elite status by claiming to be despised, discriminated against and marginalized? The latest example of this fetishization of outcast status came from Yale University’s Council on Middle East Studies last Thursday, when it presented a discussion by associate professor Zareena Grewal on her book Islam Is a Foreign Country: American Muslims and the Global Crisis of Authority.
“At the talk,” reported the Yale Daily News, “Grewal spoke about her first book — which will soon have a second edition — and her next book.” So it appears that Grewal has done quite well: she holds a professorship at Yale, her first book was successful enough to warrant a second edition, and to make her writing attractive enough to publishers that she was able to sign a contract for a second book.
Zareena Grewal has, in short, been successful and prosperous. Her work has received accolades. She got a plum job at an Ivy League university. But to hear her tell it, she lives a terrifying life cowering in fear of the racist, redneck yahoos who are bent on denying her and others like her their just rewards for their labors. Grewal complains that “the pandemic impacts us in such uneven ways reflective of structural racism and disenfranchisement.” On top of that, “we have the escalation of state violence against Black and indigenous people, the climate crisis, the fascist suppression of protestors and voters, a rise in white supremacist movements, the collapsing of institutions, and the very threat of a coup.”
Wait, which side was doing the coup again? Never mind. You’ll be happy to learn that Grewal has learned to cope with all the many, many ways in which she has been victimized: “In these dark times, I rely on what I learned about the nature of crises in writing that book over ten years ago to help me slow down and metabolize all the things we are hit with every day.” Yes, metabolize. That’s how academics these days talk, you unwashed rube.
There is much more. Read the rest here.