Dark Continent: December 2008

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Back to Blogging

Now that I’ve started my sabbatical, I thought I’d see if I can keep my blog going for a decent time. I’ve rarely commented on current events because of my position as a dean and then as a full time Vice Provost. I think I have greater license to speak for myself without others thinking I am speaking officially for NYU or that I am insisting that others have my viewpoint. I speak here only as a tenured professor with the normal free speech traditions behind me.

I have to comment about the troubling connection between Obama, Rev. Wright and Rick Warren. [See Richard Cohen from Washingtonpost.com. Also, my dear Elle, of ellenfoto.blogspot.com, says that we should add to the list of mysteries about Obama—such as how can this clean cut guy smoke—his bad taste in men of the cloth.] I’m far from giving up on Obama for choosing to have an open homophobe speak at his inauguration. That’s only because I never drank the Kool Aid. My support of Obama was cold eyed—I think that’s a saying. There will be many things [particularly around foreign policy] about which I will disagree with him deeply; some of those things have preceded his choice to replace his connection to Rev. Wright with Rick Warren.

I believe that, by far, Obama is the best we can do. I don’t mean this as he’s the best of the bad. More, I mean that his positives far outweigh his negatives for me so far. I am deeply excited about Barack’s election and even wish I could be transported to the inauguration by some kind of transponder. But I am angry about his coziness with Rick Warren and the apparent decision to ignore the protests of gay and gay-friendly supporters. This is one of the most important civil rights issues of today, and, Obama has sorely disappointed me.

Academic Biography

Professor White's first book, Sierra Leone’s Settler Women Traders: Women on the Afro-European Frontier, was winner of the Letitia Brown Memorial Publication Price in 1987. Her book with Iris Berger, Women in Sub-Saharan Africa: Restoring Women to History, has become a standard reference text and has been translated into Japanese. Her most recent book is Dark Continent of Our Bodies: Black Feminism and the Politics of Respectability. She has been named a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar in Sierra Leone and a Mellon Scholar and has received a Kidder-Peabody Grant for research in The Gambia. Her appointments have included chair of the Five College Black Studies Executive Committee and member of the Graduate Faculty of the University of Massachusetts. She has a B.A. from Wheaton College, an M.A. in African history, and a Ph.D. in history from Boston University.

Along with her teaching and scholarly career, she has had a distinguished career in academic administration. At NYU, she was appointed Vice Provost in 2005. She advised the Provost on faculty appointments, tenure, and promotion. She worked closely with the Faculty Senators Council to enhance work-life conditions for faculty. She also spearheaded the university’s efforts to diversify the faculty and has responsibility for the Office of Academic Appointments, the Center for Teaching Excellence, and the Faculty Resource Network, a faculty development consortium of 52 institutions of higher education.

From 1998 to 2005, Professor White was dean of NYU's Gallatin School of Individualized Study, where she greatly increased the school’s visibility and reputation. From 2001-05, she was chair of NYU’s Deans Council. Prior to coming to NYU, she was a professor of history and Black studies at Hampshire College, where she also served as Dean of the School of Social Science and Dean of Faculty. While completing her Ph.D. at Boston University, she was an instructor at the University of Sierra Leone and a research assistant at the Afro-American Studies Center at Boston University.