Academics are more disturbed by naming bias than by bias itself

Evidence

Emphasizing that a white male professor in an English department who teaches only work by “great white men ” is making a political decision, we had to work consistently against and through the overwhelming will on the part of folks to deny the politics of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and so forth that inform how and what we teach. We found again and again that almost everyone, especially the old guard, were more disturbed by the overt recognition of the role our political perspectives play in shaping pedagogy than by their passive acceptance of ways of teaching and learning that reflect biases, particularly a white supremacist standpoint. — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 82

Categorization

• SEED: Angle for an essay/observation about why openly naming a bias triggers more defensiveness than the bias itself operating invisibly.
• XREF: connects to: Curriculum structure shapes how vigorously fields debate their own naming; Labeling criticism in advance with political names contradicts genuine critical inquiry — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 277; Erasure of racial language makes naming racism itself look mad — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 838 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Curriculum structure shapes how vigorously fields debate their own naming #expands (0.80)
• Labeling criticism in advance with political names contradicts genuine critical inquiry #corroborates (0.75) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 277
• Erasure of racial language makes naming racism itself look mad #complicates (0.72) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 838