I’ve touched on this topic a few times. People from academia have a hard time understanding why I would deign to respond to some of the comments and messages that I receive that are obviously unfounded attacks on my credibility.

It’s hard for people to believe that the rather decorated professors that participated in the round table discussion of this blog on NPR, and various “trolls” from the bowels of other websites like Reddit who prefer to practice debunkery free from fear of rebuttal, can possibly exist in the same universe.

What happens when the twain do, in fact, meet?

Well, when this Black professor dared to state that institutional racism exists in a college classroom, three white, male students repeatedly disrupted her classroom, and then filed a complaint, with the result that the professor was formally reprimanded.

Seattle High School Teacher Jon Greenberg was fired in 2012 for teaching about racism in his “Citizenship and Social Justice” class.

In fact, it was those very same Redditors who got this teacher in Japan fired for teaching about racism.

Too many people are underestimating the the relevance and viciousness of these people who are all-too-often dismissed as “trolls”. And when you dismiss that, you’re dismissing a threat to both truth in higher education as well as a threat to the lives and livelihoods of real people and educators out there right now trying to make a difference.

* These articles are meant to intentionally contrast how for white children and parents, “The Talk” about race and racism is seen as “optional”, and how for Black children and parents (as well as other families of color), it isn’t optional.