Dan welcomed back Dr. Danielle Lee to Writing Remix last year for the fifth annual Big Rhetorical Podcast Carnival, which was focused on ‘Politics and Rhetorics, Navigating Civility, Culture, and Crisis.’ Their conversation went deep into the need for a civility in the current political landscape, how the lack of civility is escalating dehumanization from everyone, the failures of institutions like higher education, the role of education going forward, intergenerational trauma, and Dr. Lee even gets into the Kendrick Lamar vs Drake beef. This conversation is even more imperative as we all attempt to navigate political extremes from every direction.
Approximate Show Notes
00:00 Introduction to the Big Rhetorical Podcast Carnival
01:54 Introducing Dr. Danielle Lee
02:58 The Crisis of Civility in Modern Society
04:29 The Role of Education in Shaping Civility
08:54 Media Influence and Dehumanization
10:31 Teaching Love and Dialogue in Education
20:06 Challenges in Higher Education
39:25 The Impact of COVID-19 on Society
39:59 Personal Space and Societal Healing
41:54 Crisis Culture and Civility in Rhetoric
42:44 Teaching in a Changing Classroom
45:06 Exploring Complex Literary Themes
49:29 Intergenerational Trauma and Student Reactions
50:47 The Role of Hope in Education
51:50 Addressing Hurt and Humanity
01:00:53 Reflections on Teaching and Hope
01:09:42 Final Thoughts and Recommendations
Danielle Lee is the Associate Dean for Academic Institutes and Programs for the School of Arts and Sciences at SUNY Old Westbury, the Director of SUNY Old Westbury’s Social and Environmental Justice Institute, and an Assistant Professor of English. Dr. Lee is Old Westbury EOP Alumna (2010) where she received her B.A. in English, with a specialization in Multicultural Literature. She received her Doctorate in English from St. John’s University in Queens, NY. Aside from her dean and director duties, Professor Lee also teaches Early Modern British Literature, Shakespeare, and Topics in African American literature. Dr. Lee’s research is rooted in Premodern Critical Race Studies, examining precolonial African agency in the construction of the Atlantic Trade System.
People, Texts & Podcasts Mentioned in the Episode
- Big Rhetorical Podcast
- Dr. Charles Woods
- Dr. Danielle Lee
- The Daily Show (TV Series 1996-Present)
- Jordan Kepler
- Archie Bunker
- All in the Family (TV Series 1971-1979)
- George Jefferson
- Sanford and Son (TV Series 1972-1977)
- All About Love by bell hooks
- Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
- Langston Hughes
- James Baldwin
- Jacques Derrida
- The Harlem Renaissance
- Moana (Movie 2016)
- Drake vs Kendrick beef
- Mulatto by Langston Hughes
- Nicole Sieben
- Indiana Jones (Franchise)
- Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
- The Nostalgia Test Podcast
“It’s on both sides, you know, there’s like this righteous fire, and then there’s another type of righteous fire, right […] Righteousness seems to have been really bastardized and now we have this lack of civility.”
-Dr. Danielle Lee
“I grew up on Archie Bunker, George Jefferson, [and] Sanford and Son. These shows [when] I was growing up is how I learned civility when dealing with racial difference in conflict. I know that sounds weird, right? But if you go back to All In The family […] to the specific episodes where Archie Bunker and George Jefferson were talking, both of them had racist views, both of them felt very vindicated in their views based on their individual experiences, right? Even though […] they could still have an honest conversation about white people, about black people, they could still speak to each other and never once in the show did we see violence. Never once in the show do we ever hear about needing to incite violence, and Archie Bunker, even at his worst it never tipped that line,”
-Dr. Danielle Lee
“Where did the hole in the ground open up, this chasm between education and common sense?”
-Dr. Danielle Lee
“I don’t understand how marriages are splitting up. I don’t understand how relationships are splitting up. Families, all these things are splitting up because we can’t establish a civility, ‘I can only be civil with you if you believe what I believe, I don’t have space to consider your very different views, so therefore, bounce.’”
-Dr. Danielle Lee
“As a woman of color, as a black woman, as a woman of many nations, I anticipate violence.”
-Dr. Danielle Lee
“If I believe in humanity, and if I’m saying I want everybody to be okay, I want people to have what they need and access all that stuff, if I can say that, and if I’ve dedicated my career to doing that, and to providing access and to educating people, how can I only love one faction of people and not love humankind?”
-Dr. Danielle Lee
“When we’re talking about love, we’re talking about hope, and we’re talking about decolonizing education.”
-Dr. Danielle Lee
“Money doesn’t solve a lack of education, [and] it doesn’t solve civility. Money doesn’t solve a lot of things because you cannot eat money. You cannot make a house out of money. So, when you have people that are housing insecure, they’re financially insecure, they’re worried about school, all these things, I wonder where in there are we teaching them civility for their own self care.”
-Dr. Danielle Lee
“ For me, it’s always been like the more idiotic things you say, the more hostile, the more violent, the more racist, the more homophobic, xenophobic, all the things, the more you say it, the more you have dehumanized yourself because you’ve now outed yourself as someone that does not have a profound love, hope, or respect for all of humanity.”
-Dr. Danielle Lee
“Civility is about learning.”
-Dr. Danielle Lee
“Because that’s the rule that we live by as academics, right? Our productivity, our productivity.”
-Dr. Danielle Lee
“ I’ve realized that not only am I trying to get students to see themselves, I’m also trying to see more of myself.”
-Dr. Danielle Lee
Ep. 108 Transcript
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