So I'm an Ethnic Studies graduate student at a R1 university and decided to make a throwaway account to post on here. It surprises me by how many people on this thread are talking about huge fields and disciplines (Ethnic Studies and Gender Studies) yet seem very uneducated about these fields. It strikes me odd that there is so much discussion and disdain for "social justice warriors" yet no one can actually repeat any of the rationales and extensive argumentation my colleagues cite when teaching students different ways to think about "male and female," and "man and women" differently.

While I might not agree with everything some of my colleagues do (like dock points for using certain words or phrases) I can't help but laugh at the straw men people string up to chastise a field that has some really great research and researchers in it. (I'm thinking about scholars like Laura Pulido, Ruth Gilmore, Clyde Woods, Nelson Maldonado-Torres, and Natalia Molina.)

Has anyone here actually took an Ethnic Studies course, and if they did, tried to talk to their professor or TA about things they disagree with? I'm known within my program to have a lot of conversations and debates with students in an open minded and open hearted way. I would never mark someone down for using terminology I disagree with or for having opinions that differ from my own. But a lot of the times I see students who disagree with what they are being taught so much that they won't even bother to learn the material and the rationale (whether they believe it is faulty or not) for why a particular argument is being made. This usually isn't a problem but the majority of my assignments ask for students to synthesize these different arguments (to show understanding of where the author was intending to go, which doesn't require agreement) and apply the different arguments we read to an example in a contemporary or historical event.

Maybe being inside Ethnic Studies shows me how different many of my colleagues can be (as a white male with white male colleagues we exist in this field and find value in studying race and ethnicity), but it just seems strange that many people here sound like they've never encountered the wide range of people within Ethnic Studies.

I guess what I'm ultimately trying to do with this post is comment and actually say I'm down to answer any questions people have. As much as it is easy to characterize anyone who wants to strive for racial justice or a more fair society as social justice warriors, many of the people I know in the field find disdain with the Tumblr social justice warrior type. It makes me sad on Reddit to read people who champion logic and free speech yet who seem to have lost one of the fundamental skills for communication, which is giving a generous reading. Has anyone here ever approached a text they disagreed with and asked why would the author have an investment in what they are arguing or saying?

Lastly, if this means anything while I am in an Ethnic Studies program (and love my program) my background is in continental philosophy, critical human geography, and history. I also use to do analytical philosophy although I'm not as sharp as I use to be with thinkers and current debates in the field.