Hi tumblr…so. I wanted to provide you with an update on something I’ve been dealing with alone and in silence because I’m tired of feeling silenced and I need people to know what I’m dealing with and help support me through it.
I’m an undergraduate student at UNCW who happens to be queer as well as a muslim immigrant, and I have spent the last two years of my life being harassed relentlessly by a tenured professor who insists on comparing me to ISIS, sending his students and supporters after me to make death threats, writing blog posts about me claiming it’s not possible for me to be queer and muslim, slandering me in his classes, and ultimately doing everything he can to use his power, privileges, and platforms over me to make my life hell to try and stop me from speaking out against injustice. The university has been letting him do this since my freshman year and it’s only gotten worse these past few months.
This professor (who is 30+ years older than me, by the way) wrote an article about me called ‘A ‘Queer Muslim’ Jihad?’ outing me, comparing me to militant Islamic groups, attacking my intelligence, diagnosing me with mental illnesses I don’t have, and just being the most despicable kind of person you could be.
And if the article ITSELF wasn’t bad enough the comments are even better! :)
Not to mention that, because he used my full name, his supporters have been blowing up my Facebook with horrible comments and really despicable threats. Almost all of these people being 40+ year old white men doing this to a 19 year old girl.
I tried to talk to my university about this and let them know that I was tired of having to defend myself, my name, my sexuality, my religion, my EVERYTHING from a professor who is in a higher position of power over me and they told me they couldn’t do anything because he’d just sue the university.
And I’m just tired. I’m really, really tired. And I want all of you to see what the fuck I’ve been having to deal with and know why I legitimately do not want to continue my education somewhere where I continuously have to be called a jihadist. I don’t want to be threatened anymore. I don’t want to be demeaned. I don’t want to be stuck in an environment that deems this sort of behavior as okay. And I don’t know what to do.
Read it and see the things I’ve been forced to hear about me and my religion and my sexuality all for the sake of getting an education. Read it and see all the hatred that people of color are forced to combat just to be able to get a degree. Read it and see how fucking hard it is for black women to succeed anywhere because people like this will say/do anything to bring us down. Read it and understand that if a professor wrote about a white student this way it would have never been acceptable, but he knows he can get away with it because nobody cares about harassment against black students. Read it and understand how fucked up society is. And please help me figure out what to do, because I legitimately feel like I’m drowning.
He is also the founder of the inscrutable yet admirable SuperTrain movement.
I don’t know if “inscrutable” is the word I would choose to describe SuperTrain. It’s fairly scrutable if you’ve been paying attention. What none of us know, of course, is whether or not there will be a space for US on SuperTrain when the time comes. That’s why you keep a small bag packed, and hope to christ you have everything you need.
i think this might be true. i might even look worse than the guy in the bottom photo. Apparently I make an “angry” face when I am thinking. And since I am thinking about 99% of my waking time……sigh.
It’s time i got back to getting shit done. I’ve been miserable and angsty and cranky with the humidity and the futility of life. but living in this clutterfuck isn’t helping any, and I can actually do something about THAT, unlike all the angst at the pit of vipers where i work.
so, what needs doing this weekend?
send chapter draft to committee member
bank to deposit check
grocery shopping, and try to get something that isn’t made of bread
laundry (put it away!)
post office: packages and bills!
maybe do a 20/10 in the livingroom?
start getting the drawers put back together in the study
sweep upstairs hall
vacuum upstairs where diatomaceous earth is
it’s a lot. i’m tired, because I haven’t been sleeping well or much, and because today is grey and chilly, and because sleeping is fun. going out - to the store, the bank, the post office - does not appeal at all, but it must happen today, because the post office is closed on sunday.
A 20-minute bout in the living room would do wonders.
the drawers in the study won’t be a big chore, either, especially since I get to line them with pretty paper.
vacuuming is going to be ugly; the cat terror alert will be at level freak-the-fuck-out-RED. and the foster kittens who are already constantly at that level will probably crank it up even more and discover a new color of fear on the spectrum.
however.
bits and pieces, 20 minutes here and there, and progress will happen. i need to remember this for my dissertation, as well.
all right. to business. get those packages ready to ship, then get your ass in gear.
Now, I know this sculpture is from Robert McCloskey’s Make Way for Ducklings. And that is great: it’s a fantastic book and a charming sculpture and I am happy it exists.
But I also think it’s a pretty great representation of Unfuck Your Habitat, especially in this photo, where the Lead MomDuck gleams in the sunlight, and the string of wayward ducks emerges from the shadows.
Because really, with all the cleaning and melamine-foam Sorcery and discovering what your flooring really looks like and getting Cat Pee problems solved and 20/10ing your way to happiness - well, I’ll embrace the gross cliche and say it IS like stepping into the sunlight. Sunlight that doesn’t reveal all the crap you failed to tidy up, but instead reveals that stray cup or unfolded towel that you no longer ignore, but put in its proper place before going off to be awesome someplace in your unfucked home.
