Wednesday, September 16, 2009

First staff meeting

I attended my very first staff meeting of faculty yesterday. There I discovered, when the doors of the august conference room had swung shut, the lights had dimmed, and all students had scurried away (except for the grad student rep) that: Yes, the staff are all lizard people.*

Yes, once again, I was unknowingly hired by lizard people.
Tom: How could that happen again?
Me: ???
Tom: You should really ask them at the interview, "Are you lizard people?"
Me: It's so awkward, you know?
Tom: Now you have to help them take over the world.
Me: They are starting by trying to get elected as the junior senator from Minnesota. I don't know how to begin to explain to them that that's just going to be very, very tricky.
Tom: The worst part for you is that they truly do not understand how the government works.

*This "lizard people" myth is used by, among other people, an anti semitic guy. This blog rejects racism and anti semitism. Refer to comments section.

10 comments:

butchrebel said...

HILARIOUS!!!

And also.

Completely ambiguous.
:)
You are a slick one:)

p.s. Do you think the Lizard People can be interpreted as a racialized fantasy born of white anxieties?

I am not speaking of *your* use of the Lizard People analogy -- it just came to me (cuz I've been reading racialicious.com & far too many comments on people's rage at Kanye for stealing Taylor Swift's moment while also hurting her feelings). What are the historical roots of the Lizard People construction?

Hmmm....

Tenured Lizard People -- LMAO!

your small american said...

Yes, now that you mention it, there is a racial connotation to the lizard people, at least for some folks--one of the guys who is propagating the myth of "reptillian huminoids" (er, I sort of forget what his term is, but it's a fancy way to say "lizard people") explicitly linked his theory to old and established theories of Jewish world conspiracy. As I learned on NPR, there's a tradition in the U.S. on the wacky right of linking supposed Jewish world conspiracy with the rise of African Americans (supposedly dates to Reconstruction). This particular wack-a-doodle notion is on the rise at the moment; the wackies apply it to Obama. I wouldn't be surprised therefore to hear that lizard people are in the mix, too.

In short, you are definitely on to something, butchrebel. I actually hesitated to post about lizard people, and then meant to stick a disclaimer on the post but didn't; I'll do that now.

your small american said...

Hmm, now that I wrote all about anti semitic and racist world conspiracies and wrote my little disclaimer on the original post, I am wondering whether I ought to have posted about the lizard people in the first place.

your small american said...

Here's a link to wikipedia on the anti semitic guy, if anyone is interested.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Icke

Vgirl said...

YSA,

What ever happens do not eat their food! I've heard myths that you become a lizard person this way. Step 1: eat their food. Step 2: you construct a large egg. Step 3: You spend a month inside said egg. Step 4: you hatch. Step 5: terrorize students by breathing fire. Step 6: Faculty meeting.

Just be careful, YSA!

Tom said...

Once again showing how powerless the grad student rep is in these situations.

Student Body Council President: Next we'll hear from the Grad Student Representative...

GSR: Lizard people have taken over! All the faculty are lizard people from Mars bent on taking over the world!
Grad Student: So, how will this affect my funding?
GSR: They're lizard people! They've taken over the university! They're running for government office!
Grad Student: So my funding is unaffected?
Other GS: Are there any special grants available to students at a lizard people-run university?
GSR: What?! No! That doesn't make sense!
OGS: It seems like a perfectly valid question to me! Nevermind, I'm going to google it.
GSR: Fine! Next faculty meeting I am totally going to eat the food. Next time you see me I will be in a cocoon.

butchrebel said...

Very interesting, knowledgeable small American:)

Anxieties about a Jewish engineered conspiracy, eh -- why does that particular concept always make me want to laugh?! Because it's f-ing REDICULOUS? Yeah... it's gotta be the absolute absurdity of the idea.

So the white conservative right links the perceived (yet hidden!) supremacy of Jews with the "rise" of African Americans, eh... that's right! That darned abolition of Jim Crow laws. Thank Jesus for the persistence of racially segregated public schools a la *a* class segregation law (i.e., property tax based funding for public schools) in the post-Civil Rights Era! Thank Mary for a prison system that sustains white working-class & white lower-middle class neighborhoods (by providing it's residents with jobs as prison guards, for example) by feeding on the bodies of young black men & women who are disproportionately stopped by police, disproportionately arrested, disproportionately convicted, and receive longer sentences than their white counterparts! And, finally, thank Joseph for the shrinking black middle class and the disproportionate poverty in which blacks live -- poverty that is more severe than that which poor whites live!

I've successfully depressed myself.
:)

The other thing I was getting at is -- you point to the origins of the "Jewish conspiracy/supremacy" myth in white conservative discourse that, in part, sought to explain (and certainly, bemoan) the "rise" of African Americans -- a myth, which sadly, many blacks living in the U.S. have bought into. Albeit for a different reason. The black people who believe in the hidden Jewish supremacy of the media and the government, for example, (what else would explain the U.S.'s relationship and investment in Israel!) do so/have done so for different reasons than white conservatives. White conservatives fear/perceive themselves as having lost their supremacy. Blacks never had supremacy, and were, in part, trying to explain why they -- as black people -- had yet to gain power -- gain equality -- after the Civil Rights Movement. One answer lies in the near death experience of the Black Power Movement in the 1970s and the failing effort to abolish unofficial/unwritten Jim Crow in the North.

Lizard People.
Heh:)
I really did think it was a funny analogy -- that cartoon is priceless!

butchrebel said...

@Vgirl & @ Tom: Friggin HILARIOUS!! I totally enjoyed reading your comments:)

@very small: YES! You the Lizard People post is FAB! It's funny and appropriate. Why? Well, with regard to the antisemitism issue -- I think you're redefining it's ideological connotations by linking it to academia & academicians.

Wait... am I being insensitive? (Seriously).

What myth/image is analogous to the "Lizard People" in ideological origin?

your small american said...

I agree that it is f-ed up for them to be bemoaning the rise of African Americans when African Americans are still facing a racist system that exploits them and tries to keep them down, even if many black people fight hard to make better lives for themselves and their families, and even if Barack Obama is the president.

I find the comparing Obama and Hitler stuff to be related to this, the stuff that butchrebel noted butchrebel's blog. http://blackbutchresistance.blogspot.com/2009/09/of-mice-and-white-men-racism-political.html
Also see imagery in subsequent post.

Er, I guess related, but how? It just seems so lunatic. Hitler WAS a white supremicist, folks! Hello?

butchrebel said...

"Hello" is right!

But ain't no one on the "Obama is Hitler reincarnated" side of life can be seduced by logic.
:)

Hitler was a white supremacist.

Obama is a black supremacist (according to Hannity, Beck, Buchanan, the rest of the far right and their supporters).

The overt argument they make is that Obama's socialistic policies -- like, health care reform, and the fascist style with which he seeks to implement them -- you know, like approaching Congress and the public with his ideas, putting his ideas up for a vote -- the whole checks and balances thing -- that makes him a fascist.

(*sigh*)

You know what. That black man will still be in office tomorrow, and the year after that, and I believe, after the next presidential election. So let them balk -- they are just giving scholars who contribute to the growing field of "whiteness studies" more stuff to do.
:)