UPDATE: I decided today to look at what else UC Berkeley School of Journalism had to say about women’s history month, after my reply to their tweet was deleted. But: they’ve deleted not only my replies to the tweets on their PR timeline and the timeline of the dean, Geeta Anand — @GOAnand — but all tweets about women’s history month have been summarily deleted.
The way to protect “male violence and systemic sexism” perpetrated by your boy psychedelic plagiarist wannabe guru professor, Michael Pollan — who has now been implicated in a drug death — is to CANCEL women’s history!
Here’s a screen shot of the tweet:
Main story: Yesterday [end of March] I had the pleasure of perusing the Twitter feed of the renowned (once radical) journalism school where the Pollan is now tenured professor. Being Women’s History Month, there were the usual number of lip-service posts about how they ought to, in the words of the female dean of the school, a woman of Indian extraction: “identify male violence and systemic sexism to relentlessly investigate these stories.” I assumed they’d be overjoyed to hear about these occurrences at their very own school, where they are in the position to rout them. Right?
I shared the link to my previous Medium story — about my own experience with Michael; and also the development that he has been implicated in a drug death. You won’t get to read about that, in his claims to fame — now that he’s famous, he can do anything and get away with it, right? Like the Donald? Same-same Michael Pollan?
What transpired was, alas, rather predictable: after I’d shared my own story on their Twitter timeline, the school’s official Twitter account @ucbsoj blocked me. I’m sharing screen shots of the timeline for information, starting with the dean’s statement:
Within seconds of sharing my Medium story — Tweet depicted here :
was gone from my timeline. In fact, I could no longer view any content from @ucbsoj:
Being a journalist, I called this out in a subsequent reply:
The coup de grâce was predictable: rather than address my assertion: here’s what they did:
I’ve been communicating with a number of women here and elsewhere about personal and professional trauma. The repeated ethical, personal and human rights violations on the part of the many many powerful males in publishing, media, and academia have cost us our sanity, our emotional well-being and our careers. The perpetrators count on our fear. They RELY on our terror of retaliation. Each and every time this happens, it’s another little rape, another little murder. But today — the last day of Women’s History Month, I’m no longer able to stuff it and keep my mouth shut. I’ve had enough.
