Re: Robert Stacy McCain

On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 3:24 PM, Jonathan Farley <lattice.theory@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi,
Looking forward to the book.

Off the record (simply because I'd prefer to write more cogently anything I write below if it's going to be quoted), but you can use all this information for your reporting.

It seems hard to believe he doesn't remember "Jonathan Farley" given that this page
http://home.att.net/~r.s.mccain/vanderbilt.html
has been up for years, and I would be surprised if he has a page for every "heritage violation" he encounters. Also, Thomas DiLorenzo and some neo-Confederates in Jonesborough, Tennessee didn't seem to have trouble remembering, since they mentioned me explicitly this year for signing a letter urging Obama not to send a wreath to the Confederate Memorial in Arlington, a letter that had 60 other signatures. But they only mentioned Bill Ayers, a Princeton professor whom they targeted in 1999, the two people who drafted the letter, and me.

Robert Stacy McCain seems to be defiant again.

Anyway, his December 2009 post is in error. My essay had nothing to do with the dormitory at Vanderbilt. This was the neo-Confederates' contention of course, to justify dragging me into their lawsuit over said dormitory. My essay had nothing to do with my job and had to do with a statue of the founder of the KKK that was miles away from the Vanderbilt campus.

I also didn't spearhead the effort to change the name of the dormitory. Again, this is out of the neo-Confederate playbook: try to make it seem as if people who don't like the Confederacy are isolated, quixotic individuals with no support from anyone else. The story reads a little differently if in reality there's a movement of the Black Student Alliance of Vanderbilt University, whose president received a threat replete with racial epithets for her troubles, as well as the Student Government of Vanderbilt University.

Some inaccuracies in his 2002 article:

"Vanderbilt sparked conflict..." Actually, the UDC sparked conflict by suing.

The UDC provided 1/3 of the funds to build the dorm, provided those funds outside of an agreed-upon time frame, and nothing in the contract said they had naming rights, even if one were to bizarrely imagine that someone who gives less than 50% of the money for something owns it. Moreover, a gift is a gift: they didn't buy the dorm.

"Mr. Farley has complained..." (a) It's not the New York Times. Not to sound like Barbara Boxer, but I have a different title. (b) It makes the "claim" subjective, when the threats were in fact reported to the police and other people had received threats.

I already told you how he and Tim Chavez played with the time frame of the letter by the "66 year-old".

The bit about "forming armies": Well, given that I never confirmed (or denied) writing that email, and Tim Chavez says that in his column, Robert Stacy McCain's simply asserting that I did write it shows a lack of journalistic integrity. (Surprised?) Every neo-Confederate organization is organized into military units, so it's a bit weird that it's shocking if I talk about forming armies when they're already formed into one.

My father is from Guyana and my mother from Jamaica.

In the exact same sentence where I call Che Guevara a hero---and I still do consider him a hero---I also call Jesus (you may not be a fan, but at least *if* Jesus existed and was like the person he's described to be, I would still respect him), Hannibal, and Che Guevara my heroes, so this comment is a bit disingenuous.

Vanderbilt's statements about protecting my academic freedom were lies---you can interview the Math Department chairman, Mike Mihalik, who said the neo-Confederates' letters about me would be put in my file. And of course Schoenfeld and Gee attacked me publically, even years later. Obviously, McCarty's actions amounted to punishing me at my job for having written the essay. In fact, I had to leave Vanderbilt to avoid being dragged into the lawsuit, and I believe that, if I had not left, Vanderbilt and Nick Zeppos would have denied me tenure.

Schoenfeld's statement is notable in that he insists that my essay is not supported by the university, as opposed to the usual, "We have no opinion," or "No comment." He also makes no statement about protecting me physically from attacks or about how Vanderbilt deplores racism.

Regards,
Jonathan

2009/12/16 Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 9:23 PM
Subject: From Barrett Brown
To: r.s.mccain@att.net

Sir-

In the open letter you wrote to me a while back, you mentioned that people rarely go to the trouble of contacting you before attacking you. As I just mentioned in a comment I left at your blog, I am including a chapter on you in my upcoming book, which is set for an April release. If you would like to address any of the things that I or Johnson have written about you so far, you are free to do so, and any such explanations will be printed verbatim in that chapter, no matter what they may be (assuming it totals less than 2,000 words). You are even free to attack me if you wish. Let me know if this interests you.

In addition to the various items that have already been discussed by myself and others, the chapter will revolve largely around an incident that I have yet to mention publicly and which involves the article you composed in 2002 regarding Jonathan Farley, as well as the activities in which you were otherwise engaged at the time in which you wrote that particular piece.

Regards,

Barrett Brown
Brooklyn, NY