"People who think racism is a thing of the past"

Via Chronicle's Footnoted blog: Oh No a WofC PhD responds to Bitch PhD's whining about how she can't afford to live on what her household income is. On No a WofC PhD has a "shame list," basically a list of all the things that piss her off about being an academic. Two things stuck out to me:

• I chose a profession in which I have to work with people who think racism is a thing of the past, LGBT people are “gross” and “sinful,” and who when hiring decisions are made never hire these people but are more than happy to fill the adjunct ranks with them
• I chose a profession based on inequality in which women and people of color make up the ranks of the lowest paid, least tenured, and most over-worked (through demands placed on them to do extra teaching loads or not be asked back the following semester or year, by being asked to officially or unofficially mentor all the people in their identity group, and teach most if not all of the courses associated with their identity group)

I wrote a while back about women in academia, but women of color especially have a hard time getting placed in prestigious (and not so prestigious) institutions as full-time tenured professors. While institutions are generally moving away from the tenure model, I think it's especially true that these institutions are more than happy to hire in their lower ranks but have different standards that are much harder to meet if women have pregnancies. I think Oh No a WofC PhD put it in a frank and honest way. These professors and deans don't think of themselves as perpetuating racial and gender divides, but they are.