We need to find useful employment for university professors. Maybe, professors could spend a couple of hours a week cleaning port-o-potties. That would be a useful service to the community, provide the professors some honestly earned money, and give them perspective. Perspective is a useful commodity. Two years ago, a Professor named Jennifer Ho declaimed that Whiteness was the root of all evil. This time around Professor Angel Jones is lauding bereavement leave for Black academics when a racist event occurs. The gentle souls cannot be expected to suck it up and get back to work. You cannot make this stuff up.

The New York Post grabbed the Assistant Professor at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville’s academic post from the University guide:

Please note her pronouns are “she/her/ella”. Professor Jones is not only a Black Professor but also Latina. She’s extra special. More from the NY Post article:

“I am a proud educator who loves what I do,” Jones wrote in a piece published by Times Higher Education. “But before that, I am a Black woman. A Black woman who is expected to return to ‘business as usual’ on Monday after seeing a member of my community murdered on Friday.”
The critical race theory scholar wrote about how she emailed her students in January following the fatal police beating of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old black man, to check on them without allowing herself time to process the horrific news and trauma.

“Although it is customary for employees to receive support and understanding while grieving the loss of a loved one, the same care is rarely shown to the Black community when we lose someone in horrific and traumatic ways,” Jones said. “Where’s our Black bereavement leave?”
The professor said she often puts her students’ needs before her own, but that universities should do more to support faculty of color — more than just sending out a campus-wide email in the wake of tragedies — in order to retain them.
“History has shown us that Black educators often have to exert additional emotional energy to pick up the slack the academy leaves behind after it sends its obligatory, and often performative, statement to the campus community,” she wrote.

I hate to break it to our POC Princess Delicate, but every communication sent out by a bureaucracy, business, not-for-profit, or academic is obligatory and performative. What’s worse is that I suspect colleges and universities world wide including in African countries have the same hive mindset. Poor Professor Jones has “Racial Battle Fatigue” or RBF. This right here is how you know we have reached peak privilege. The Black janitor at the middle school where the professor was once a counselor does not ask for Grief Leave. He does not expect. Bad stuff happens in the news and he just gets on with it. Professor Jones lists more of the tragic consequences of being a highly educated Black academic:

Racial battle fatigue can cause anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts as well as elevated heart rate, tension headaches, and stomach ulcers, according to Jones.
“Free counseling services, by culturally competent counselors familiar with identifying and addressing RBF, should be available at all times, not just when our trauma has been televised,” she wrote.
In addition, black educators should be provided the space to grieve — whether that means a day off, the option to work from home, and/or an extension on deadlines.
“Some may have thought I was joking when I mentioned Black bereavement leave, but I wasn’t. We need space and time to grieve without having to explain or defend it,” Jones said.

Here is a video of Professor Jones academic thoughts. It has less than 50 views. She lost me at “multiple, marginalized identities” as I suspect she lost anyone else who tried to watch the pseudo scholarship.

Miss Jones has attracted her share of unfortunate trolls, as does anyone of any color who professes medium to strong opinions:

Thousands of people are in their feelings because they’ve drawn clickbait conclusions about an article that I doubt they even read.
Black bereavement is a mental health day to deal with the psychological consequences of anti-Black racism.
Don’t like it? Then end racism ‍♀️

— Angel Jones, PhD (@AngelJonesPhD) March 4, 2023

Or maybe your position is ridiculous and you need to shut up and racism will go away. I don’t think ugly trolling is helpful:

Y’all can keep coming for me and I’ll keep exposing you. The irony is that your hateful messages only provide further evidence of how alive and well racism is ‍♀️ pic.twitter.com/WreJ5ieWtr

— Angel Jones, PhD (@AngelJonesPhD) March 5, 2023

Calling out someone, like Professor Jones, as a race hustler is not racism. What do I know? I am White. Stuff and nonsense.

Featured Image: Joegoauk Goa/Flickr.com/cropped/Creative Commons