The struggle session I dreaded attending was held yesterday. Nobody can make me go because it’s done. Overnight, my foot experienced a truly miraculous improvement. I’m now walking. In shoes! Even just yesterday it was unimaginable that these shoes would fit over the horribly swollen limb. I couldn’t even go to the bathroom yesterday evening, it hurt so bad.
At the previous struggle session, my blood pressure shot up dangerously high. So this time, my subconscious decided to protect me by sabotaging my foot and making it impossible for me to go to the struggle session in a very literal way.
I have two more years as department head, and I fear that I will end up self-mutilating in some irreversible ways in these two years that I’m obligated to attend the struggle sessions.
People who are still Democrats, I know you are good people. Do you support this? It’s done by your side and in your name. Do you think it is OK to do this to people who have not hurt you in any way? Why aren’t you saying anything?
Clarissa's Blog 
“my subconscious decided to protect me by sabotaging my foot and making it impossible for me to go to the struggle session in a very literal way”
Metaphoric and goal directed illness! A two-in-one! That’s very talented!
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In the moments preceding my injury, I was thinking, “God, I really don’t want to go to this event.” As a result, I couldn’t go anywhere for a week. Mission accomplished.
Thank Lord in heaven I wasn’t thinking “I’d rather die than go to this event.”
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Echoes of Kafka and Freud…
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How do you get it to do that, though?
My health issues always kick in *after* the thing I want to avoid– like, I’ll have my MIL at my house for a week, be fine the whole time in a just-get-through-this kind of way, and then as soon as she leaves, I keel over with a three-day migraine. It’s the social exhaustion that gets me. Never happens during or before the crisis, just when I finally am able to breathe and relax again. If I could get the illness to be proactive, I might be able to avoid things that make me feel terrible!
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I didn’t do it on purpose, I swear. I should have just pretended to be sick. How would anyone even know?
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I can’t do that. I suck at lying.
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Could you describe in detail what the struggle sessions are like? And as someone who was a Democrat (now politically homeless) what would you like us to do? I was a lowly academic so I left academia rather than go along (hence my curiosity as I never actually attended a session). The little I spoke up harmed me. And leaving hurt me financially. Aren’t you in a better position to speak up? Sincere question, thanks. Sybil
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I’m department chair. Nobody can do anything to me personally but if I pipe up, I won’t be allowed to hire people. I’ll be sabotaged on every level, and it’s nothing to me but I just can’t do it to other people. I even discussed it with my priest. Should I say things that I know are lies? Or should I speak the truth and risk other people’s livelihoods? The priest said “greater love hath no man”, so I do what I must. I used to be very outspoken until I started signing contracts for people.
The struggle sessions include an activity where we have to loudly confess that we are racists, homophobes and transphobes and explain how we will stop being all these things. Then we have to explain how the courses we teach are racist, transphobic and homophobic. Then how our curriculum and our whole department are all these things. Of course, you can’t say that you aren’t racist because that’s the best proof in existence that you are racist.
Of course, once you make a person loudly and publicly confess that they are racist, you control them completely. Any time in the future they become inconvenient, you can put them down by bringing up their own willing confession of racism. It’s actually quite smart.
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Thanks. I still don’t see what any individual can do. As far as voting I know tons of normie democrats and most don’t like all the woke stuff. But you can’t just say “you voted for it” as most aren’t single issue voters, and anyway everyone is forced into carefully curated bubbles.
It’s nice Musk allows more free speech on twitter but he also elevated “blue checks” so comment sections aren’t usable. Just look at the responses to Mariane W’s tweet that was posted here. “where’s the lie?” with 5K likes etc. All we on-the-fence voters see is open contempt for women and most liberals have been driven off the site. Not helping to change minds.
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There were over 30 people in that training (and the previous trainings). There’s one person who hates them, and that’s me. Others either are madly enthusiastic or at least convinced the trainings are a good thing. They all make disgusted faces when somebody says “white people.” They all make pious faces when somebody says “George Floyd.” I want them to stop. It’s not a big ask. Just stop being such lemmings. If I saw one single sarcastic face around that table, one person to exchange a look and crack a joke about it.
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Oh okay, I thought you meant do something to stop it. The people I was referring to as Democrat normies are not in academia. I agree most academics are useless. There were a couple of people I could commiserate with at my old uni but when the three of us got together and it wasn’t one-on-one they gaslighted me, acting like they supported it and I felt betrayed. Never really trusted them after that.
There’s a lot of fear out there, as we’ve agreed on here it’s primarily a jobs program. And we’ve let a whole new level of DEI administration develop. These people have nothing to do all day but create PR for their jobs. I don’t think they are going to leave quietly. So when people say that DEI is over, the tide is turning I feel less optimistic like it’s going to be a big fight that’s hardly started and will take a very long time. I hope I’m wrong.
Do you think you might speak up when you are no longer a department chair?
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