Professor Piot responded

Readers Note: Here's a 1,2, 3 post.

1) A post including an email I sent Duke faculty member and Group of 88 signatory Professor Charlie Piot.

2) Professor Piot's prompt and informative response to my email.

3) My response to Professor Piot.

That's followed by a copy of the cover email I sent him with a link to this post.

As most JinC Regulars know, I observe civility and expect commenters to do the same. I'm quick to hit the delete button.

Something else I think most JinC Regulars would say: "John means it when he offers Piot personal good wishes."

Folks, The Regulars are right about that. In fact sometimes they fuss with me because they think I'm a softie.

So be it.

I have very strong disagreements concerning much the Group of 88 did and I have very strong differences concerning what some individual Group of 88 members have done. I also think many of them appear to be more ideologues than scholars. Also, that many have so far shown themselves unwilling or unable to engage in serious discussion in which their beliefs or actions are questioned.

Because I believe those things I have an obligation to give anyone of the 88 or their supporters a fair go as regards their criticisms of me. They deserve that until they show, if they do, that all they want is a one-way shout street.

To some people that looks like softie. Well, I am what I am and no hard feelings if folks move on.


If Piot responds, I'll try to get him dialoguing here or somewhere else.

Some of us will have some very critical things to tell him and some probing questions to ask.

Done civilly, that's fine. Rough or rude: No way.

Let’s wait and see what happens.

John
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1)

On Monday, Feb. 12, six Duke faculty members, five of whom last April signed the inflammatory and discredited Group of 88's “listening statement,” presented something called “Shut Up and Teach?: Faculty and Public Issues.” It was billed as a lecture. Presenting professors were Pedro Lasch, Wahneema Lubiano, Mark Anthony Neal, Diane Nelson, Charlie Piot, and Maurice Wallace.

African and African-American & Cultural Anthropology professor Charlie Piot's lecture began with a brief criticism of blogs in general as "anything but democratic."

Piot's lecture then degenerated into a vicious personal attack on the distinguished historian and blogger Robert KC Johnson whom Piot accused of, among other things, "inciting racist attacks on African American faculty" and using "the common strategies [of] totalitarian regimes."

Piot ended with: "KC - Shut up and go back to teaching."

Piot's remarks are summarized here.

I want to respond to Piot's ad hominem..

Last evening I sent Piot the following email. I'll keep you posted on what, if anything, I hear back.

John
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Dear Professor Piot:

I'm a Duke alum and blog as John in Carolina.

I attended last evening's event at the Mary Lou Williams Center.

I plan to post on your remarks.

Where are they posted?

I want to link to them so readers at my blog can check anything I say about your remarks with what you actually said.

You said in your remarks that bloggers don't encourage free speech.

I wish you had said "some bloggers."

Some bloggers, like some professors, don't encourage free speech.

But other bloggers, like other professors, do.

Everything I've posted on my blog is available to you and anyone else in my archives which can be accessed from the main JinC page.

I don't know a blogger who's posted often on the Hoax witch hunt and its terrible injustices whose archives aren't available to everyone who visits their main pages.

Thank you for your attention to this email.

I look forward to your reply and the chance to link to your remarks.

Sincerely,

John in Carolina
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2)

Dear John in Carolina,

Thanks for your note. I've promised my piece for publication in an academic journal, with the proviso that it not be published elsewhere beforehand. I'll certainly let you know when it comes out.

I didn't use the term "free speech" in discussing the blogs, but said they haven't fulfilled their democratic/populist promise - something Peter Lange also said in his letter to faculty in early January.

I've never met a professor who discourages free speech. Professors may have their own strong opinions about things, like everyone, but they're certainly open to opinions that differ from their own. And socalled left faculty, especially, like a good tussle in the classroom. All I look for in an essay, eg, is a strong well-written, well-supported argument - whatever the student's position or politics may be. I know this to be the standard of colleagues as well.

I don't know where KC Johnson gets his information about faculty. His portraits are caricatures of the folks I know. Lubiano and others are deeply committed faculty, brilliant teachers, folks who love Duke and love their students (whether left or conservative). They are also complex nuanced thinkers, who don't just toe an ideological party line. And the debates over politics, Duke's campus culture, etc, within this group - although it's not really a "group" - are deeply contested. Johnson's caricatures of these dedicated scholars and teachers do a disservice to us all and to Duke.

I'd be glad to get together with you over lunch to talk about these issues more, if you'd like.

Best,

Charlie Piot
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3)

Dear Professor Piot:

Again thank you for your informative and detailed response to my email.

As regards the “free speech” matter, we could settle that quickly and assuredly if your remarks were on the net.

For now I’ll not contest what you say if we can have a gentlepersons’ agreement that my failure to contest is not a concession, but a civility pending a chance for me, JinC readers and others to view the tape of the Feb. 12 presentations at the Williams Center on Duke’s West Campus by you, four other Group of 88 colleagues and another “88” supportive faculty member.

If when the tape is on the net, it shows I was wrong, I’ll quickly correct as I did in this post after a reader called my attention to an error I made regarding your colleague, Professor Wahneema Lubiano.

Like so many others in the Duke community and elsewhere I was very disappointed to learn your Feb. 12 lecture is not available to those who’d want to listen carefully to it and, very likely, contest much of what you said, particularly your attacks on historian, professor and blogger Robert KC Johnson which you ended with: “KC – Shut up and go back to teaching.”

Per your Feb 12 lecture:

1) Am I right that you accused Johnson, of “inciting racist attacks on [Duke] African-American professors?” (I have that as a quote in my notes.)

2) Did you say, as my notes indict, that at his blog, Durham-in-Wonderland, Johnson practiced “common strategies [used] among totalitarian regimes” which you’ve studied?

I hope, Professor Piot, I’m wrong about both questions.

If I am, I want to work with you to correct what I attributed to you.

I’d also want to work with you to determine the most effective way I can apologize to you, Johnson, Duke and JinC readers for bringing those questions up in the first place.

However, if I’m right about those questions, consider the position you’ve put Johnson in tonight.

Look also at the position you’ve put fair-minded people who care about Duke in.

You, a Duke University Arts & Sciences professor, have accused another academic of heinous actions. But he can’t defend himself. He has no transcript of your attack. He has no videotape.

How can Johnson prove he didn’t do what I’m saying you accused him of in your “lecture?”

How can others, such as Provost Lange whom you cite in your email or any other Duke faculty member, judge the verity or even the minimal fairness of what you said about Johnson without a tape or transcript?

By withholding the tape and delaying release of a print copy of what I believe is indisputably an ad hominem targeting Johnson, you’ve put Johnson in the same position the 46 Duke students were in last Spring when the False Accuser, the Raleigh News & Observer, so many at Duke, and DA Nifong were attacking them.

Isn’t there any way you can make the tape available on the net? On campus yesterday and today even some who still are “Brodhead backers” thought ill of your attack on Johnson. One said: “He made us all look bad.”

Mind you, I’m not trying to restrict your speech. I want to make what you said more widely and immediately available.

Here is a link to my latest post concerning your remarks.

Regarding your luncheon invitation: I’d like to meet with you for a luncheon provided we first work out what I see as major differences between us as regards faculty duties and the purposes of the University.

In brief, I found Professor Weintraub’s Chronicle letter today a model of how a professor should address important issues as well as a much needed and stirring affirmation of what Duke must always strive to be.

I look forward to hearing from you.

With best personal regards I am sincerely,

John in Carolina
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Dear Professor Piot,

Sorry to be late getting back to you.

Again, I appreciate your response.

Here are two links:

The first is to a brief post letting JinC readers know I'd contacted you.


The second is to a post in which I again posted my first email and your response. I then posted a second email to you. Please take a look here.

I hope we continue to talk.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best,

John