From: Group concerned that academia should seek and promote wisdom [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of bob Macintosh
Sent: 08 March 2007 9:42 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: acceptable conduct

So much for freedom, So much for democracy, so much for tolerance, proportion, forgiveness,understanding!

'By their fruits... '  What is the point of talking about values if they do not affect behaviour? Actually, we are not dealing with someone who has been blatently and consistently racist or sexist. We are not considering foul language, defamation, or sustained attacks. I have been the subject of verbal racial attack, and I can assure you that it goes a lot further than being called 'some kind of fool'. How badly caught up you are in in the image of scholarly wisdom, and what over-inflated and insecure egos you are exposing!

I will not brag of the humility of my opinions, but I can assure you that all your talk of values is empty rhetoric. This is authoritarian, complacent, self satisfied, bullying and petty. Bringing peace by eliminating the opposition has a long history, but I thought we were about transformation. This decision will destroy this group if it is not revoked; it may linger on for another 30 years, but it will never come to anything, because the path will have been set as a group for mutual ego-massage and competitive wisdom display.

And what about the silent ones? Are you listening? Are you attending? Are you concerned? Are you moral cowards? I am concerned; I am passionate; I am horrified. This is supposed to be an intelligent, upright and educated group of people, the cream, the cultual vanguard. I've found more wisdom, love and compassion in the playground.

I dare to be critical, I dare to oppose, I dare to call you all fools and knaves. So now I suppose you will have to maintain the integrity of your policy, and remove me from the list too. But it will not hurt me, I am already crying.

 bob Macintosh

I am a black woman living in a white society. I'm a writer, an artist and an educator. I am an outsider, mainly because I want to see an end to patriarchal power and an end to a society based on conformity, competition and conflict.

You are the people in power and you are throwing out a foreigner because he is frustrated with your power. He was expressing something in the best way he knew how and he was trying to express his disagreement. It is power that makes prejudice damaging. Prejudice with no power has little effect. Yet it is you that bring up racism and sexism.

I am appalled by the way that Wilfred has been treated and the way the group has aligned with this decision and with their silence: your treatment of him is the way you treat what is inarticulate and frustrated in yourselves.

Isabel.