photo by me

On a bulletin board that I frequent, someone put up a link to the conservative Human Events Online Top Ten Most Dangerous Professors in the U.S.. It was so slanted that it made me laugh.

I had to say something about it, so I countered with this:

What one person sees as dangerous, another can see as brilliant.

bell hooks

One of the foremost thinkers in education. Her philosophies on education (and feminist, multi-cultural education, especially) are among the top-rated in the country.

Amiri Baraka

Dropped the black nationalist perspective and turned to Marxism and fighting for the working class.

Tom Hayden

A peace activist who teaches as Adjunct Faculty in Social Movements (something he understands well as a peace activist and former California State Assmeblyman). One doesn’t always have to have a higher-level degree to teach (especially at a college – versus a university).

Joseph Massad

A Jordanian native who was maligned by a pro-Israeli movie that proclaimed he was anti-Semitic. He vehemently maintains that it is Israel that is racist because of their actions against those who are not Jewish within national borders.

Jose Angel Gutierrez

La Raza Unida was established to bring attention to Chicano civil rights (or lack thereof). He has worked extensively in social service programs including the Commission on Economic Development Subcommittee of the National Catholic Conference’s Campaign for Human Development.

Armando Navarro

Has worked for the empowerment of the Latino communities with all of the Americas. He was the founder and former Director of the Ernesto Galarza Public Policy and Humanities Research Institute at the University of California, Riverside.

Gayle Rubin

Author of “The Traffic in Women: Notes on the ‘Political Economy’ of Sex” and one of the leading researchers in the origins of women and their status within society.

Angela Davis

While incarcerated for her activities, Davis (with her supporters) was able to mobilize the prisoners to initiate a bail program for indigent prisoners. She has worked diligently in addressing the class, race, and gender factors that have led to large numbers of blacks and Latinos being incarcerated and has been an activist in anti-Death Penalty movements.

Bill Ayers

He was interviewed in the Chicago Sun-Times on 9/2/01 and said he regrets that “people were hurt, that three of my dear friends were killed, that we were stupid, immature, intolerant and unwise. I regret that I hurt people’s feelings.”

Bernardine Dohrn

Wife of Bill Ayers, Dohrn is a child advocate who teaches, lectures and writes about children’s law and justice, the needs and rights of children and youth, and international human rights. Dohrn and Ayers turned themselves in, charges were dropped due to “extreme governmental misconduct,” and served time. She has since worked in the field of Human Rights and is highly regarded in that field.

All of this can be found online, also. Much of it in Wikipedia, some on other websites.

There are always two sides to a story and, honestly, I’d be honored to take a class with any of these professors.

It’s funny how things we do in our early 20s will haunt us for a lifetime no matter how much good we do later in life.

It’s interesting how something can slant so far to one side and the rhetoric makes it seem like these people are public enemy #1 even though there are good things about them, as well.

We are a mixture of good and bad – each one of us. If we can strive to make a change or a difference, that’s all we can do.