Thanks, Chaone, for bringing this to our attention. This issue seems
the best suited for an effort to flood Obama with a plea not to appoint
Summers--someone whose conception of economics leads to the embrace of
economic and environmental racism--surely this is not in line with the
message that Obama's election has sent to the world--he shouldn't
squander the amazing good will the rest of the world is showing us after
so long. The argument you lay out is so deeply horrible and such a
telling reminder of what's so wrong with the economic theories that have
held this country (and hence the rest of the world) in their grip, and
of the fact that it's not just Republicans who've championed them. (I
agree, by the way, that the interconnections aren't coincidental, but I
think that this piece might be the most persuasive....)
naomi scheman
Chaone Mallory wrote:
> Summers is also infamous in the environmental justice world for authoring what is called the "World Bank Memo" in 1991 in which he, while head of the World Bank, advocated exporting first-world produced toxic wastes to the "vastly underpolluted" (from an economic standpoint) third world, particularly African nations, where the cost of life is so much cheaper (wages and health care) that it makes better economic sense for citizens of these areas to bear the brunt of the negative health effects from the poisonous substances. In gross economic terms, it costs less for an African citizen to get an environmentally-caused cancer because her lost wages and the cost of her health care (because she doesn't have it) is so much less. AND when he was president of Harvard, besides suggesting that women have a biologically-determined lower aptitude for math and science, he also tried to have Cornell West fired for not doing "serious scholarship." I wrote about these interconnections in Summ!
> er's thinking--and the thinking of the privileged class he represents--between racism, sexism, and environmental attitudes a bit in my dissertation. Any one else find this if not intentional, then not coincidental either?
>
> Chaone
> *******************************************
> Chaone Mallory, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Philosophy
> Villanova University
> Villanova, PA 19085
> 610-519-3274
> [log in to unmask]
>
> Villanova Year of Sustainability
> http://www.villanova.edu/sustainability/
>
> Villanova Sustainability Conference:
> http://www.villanova.edu/sustainability/yearofsustainabilty/conference/
> ________________________________________
> From: Feminist ethics and social theory [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of [log in to unmask] [[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2008 11:26 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Lawrence Summers
>
> Another element of concern in the Obama post-election is that he will
> apparently appoint Lawrence Summers as Secretary of the Treasury. Summers
> was the recent president of Harvard who was sacked for making derogatory
> remarks about women's abilities to be scientists.
>
> Is Obama less sensitive about gender issues than we'd like to think? Or
> does he regard the economic crisis as such an overwhelming priority that
> he will appoint anyone who he thinks can fix it, regardless of their
> record on gender issues?
>
> Marilyn Friedman
>
--
Naomi Scheman, Professor of Philosophy and of Gender, Women's, &
Sexuality Studies
Director of Graduate Studies in Feminist Studies
University of Minnesota
Philosophy Department, 801 Heller Hall, 271 19th Ave. S., Minneapolis MN
55455
612-625-3430, 612-626-8380 (fax), [log in to unmask]
http://www.philosophy.umn.edu/TrustworthyExpertise/home.html
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