“Telling people what they want to hear may not help them in the long run, though it usually helps the tellers in the short run. This is common sense. But many of today's academics do not think and act like common people.” Common SenseAcademia Book:Stones of Contention Source: Stones of Contention
“I see the rhetorical question "Who Owns the Past?" so frequently used by humanities and social science professors to provoke classroom discussions as needlessly and erroneously planting the idea that a living group of people could "own the past." Surely, any such claim should be taken no more seriously than the cast of Sesame Street should they claim to "own the alphabet.” PastHistoryAcademiaSesame Street Book:Stones of Contention Source: Stones of Contention
“There is no shortage of [American] Indians today, only an apparent surplus of miseducated settler colonists.” Native AmericansAmerican IndiansSettler Colonialism Book:Stones of Contention Source: Stones of Contention
“Guilt, in principle, is simply not among the things baby humans can inherit. However, white settler colonial guilt is a horse of a different color.” Settler ColonialismWhite Guilt Book:Stones of Contention Source: Stones of Contention
“The remarkable idea of a privileged socioracial group benevolently lifting a less privileged one should always be met with remarkable skepticism. If this were so when the Massachusetts Bay Colony put the words "Come Over and Help Us" in an Indian's mouth, perhaps things would be different today.” Native AmericansAmerican IndiansSettler Colonialism Book:Stones of Contention Source: Stones of Contention
“Archaeology's calling card - the masonry trowel - does not necessarily inspire joy among people who see it routinely used to systematically dissect their ancestral places. In such contexts, it is not at all difficult to see archaeology as an instrument of settler colonial oppression.” ArchaeologySettler Colonialism Book:Stones of Contention Source: Stones of Contention
“I call this brand of racial paranoia white settler colonial guilt. Its rise in recent years may superficially resemble karma or poetic justice to those with leftist sensibilities. But anyone concerned with the well-being of society should recognize that it is merely yet another mechanism by which human individuality is suppressed and group preconceptions are reinforced.” RacismSettler ColonialismWhite Guilt Book:Stones of Contention Source: Stones of Contention
“To me, the political right appears as a largely unexplored country inhabited by a pantheon of brilliant black scholars whose works do not "matter" to a left-leaning academy that chooses racial hypocrisy over intellectual diversity.” RaceAcademiaLeftismIntellectual DiversityPolitical BiasBlack Intellectuals Book:Stones of Contention Source: Stones of Contention
“The prevailing vision of history, as an egalitarian pageant of equally valid, self-authenticating "perspectives" on the past representing the "voices" of particular groups, is dangerous to society at large. It reserves a special place for everyone, which is exciting news for political extremists, con-artists, and megalomaniacs eager to register their self-interested propaganda as legitimate contributions to a "broader perspective" of history.” HistoryIdentity PoliticsPolitical ExtremismPropoganda Book:Stones of Contention Source: Stones of Contention