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Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Lindon Barrett, RIP
Posted by Scott Eric Kaufman on 07/16/08 at 01:12 AM
Earlier today, I learned a man I rarely agreed with had been murdered. Seven years ago, Lindon Barrett had the gall to inform me—a grad student at the institution in which he held tenure—that I was full of shit. I dealt in "useless abstraction," to quote from his comments on my seminar paper, and I hated him for writing that.
He was, of course, absolutely correct.
The man loved to argue, but he gave you room and time enough to state your case. But the combativeness of the seminar room relented in office hours, as when I went to speak to him about my paper on "Rip Van Winkle" and the legacy of American slavery. (To reiterate: I was full of shit.) His voice barely above a whisper—he had lectured earlier, he said, and lost it reading Frederick Douglas too enthusiastically—he helped bring order to my swirling mess of thought.
I’ve been reading the comments posted elsewhere tonight, so I don’t want this to sound like a criticism, but I can’t help but remember how Barrett responded to a short paper I turned in on Clotel; or, The President’s Daughter: A Narrative of Slave Life in the United States: "Sentiment is a ruse."
And I’d fallen for it.
I was the white guy who read anti-slavery tracts and felt damn fine about himself for bravely opposing slavery a hundred years after the fact. Barrett told me I should’ve turned my attention to the racist logic underlying the self-congratulatory victory laps I was running, but I was young and possessed an abiding faith in the epicness of my egalitarianism.
He was, of course, absolutely correct.
I still think he was wrong about a host of other things, but tonight I dispose any particular disagreements we may have had, to say plainly, with thunder, I wish we’d had the opportunity to have them.
I just had the Professor for my African American literature class last quarter and he opened up our eyes in ways that very few professor ever do. One of the sharpest and kindest professor there ever was. He will be greatly missed!
This is horrible news.
I will miss him (and his arguments with students) so much.
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