Mary Beard, the Cambridge professor who has to fend off a never-ending torrent of abuse because she is a) an intelligent woman b) an intelligent woman over 50 and c) an intelligent woman over 50 who relishes debate, is under attack again. This time, it goes beyond the usual disgusting misogynistic stuff. Beard is being accused of colonialism and racism.
On Twitter, she addressed the Oxfam Haiti scandal. “I do wonder how hard it must be to sustain ‘civilised’ values in a disaster zone,” she pondered, which some interpreted as Beard excusing the alleged sexual abuse of women and girls, and many took as an opportunity to abuse Beard. There was also that word, “civilised”, heavy with colonial connotations that Beard, being a classicist, ought to have harnessed with more care and self-awareness. (Encasing it in inverted commas didn’t quite cut it.) Anyway, the response has been horrific. Beard has since written a follow-up blog explaining her position and clarifying her use of “civilised”. She also tweeted an image of herself in tears, adding “I am really not the nasty colonialist you say I am”.
Now a Cambridge academic of colour has weighed in to the debate. In a blogpost, English lecturer Priyamvada Gopal referred to Beard’s tweet as “outrageous” and emblematic of the culture at Cambridge, “where there is little direct abuse but plenty of genteel and patrician casual racism passing as frank and well-meaning observations”. Gopal accused Beard’s blogpost of “taking refuge … in the familiar posture of wounded white innocence”. She pulls no punches.
At which point Wide Awoke is punching the air at the naming of a barely acknowledged strain of casual racism: genteel and patrician. The kind that wafts around in the establishment and blows unnoticed down wood-panelled corridors of power. The kind that is so obvious to POC, because we often have the maddening experience of being told by genteel, patrician types that racism is a thing of the past, invisible to others.
What’s refreshing about this exchange between two “mouthy women”, as Gopal defines herself and Beard, is that it’s combative, rigorous, respectful and involves actual listening. The academics have even agreed to meet in person to discuss the issue further. “See you at Fitzbillies,” Gopal signs off. “I’ll be having the coffee-walnut cake.” Which is how grownups, not trolls, talk.
