Accomplishments should be celebrated
21st December 2020 · 0 Comments
In the middle of celebrating the Biden-Harris victory, the defeat of Trump’s political coup, and the beginning of the end of the coronavirus pandemic, incoming First Lady Dr. Jill Biden is now under attack.
In a moment of sheer pettiness and blatant Trumpism, Joseph Epstein attacked Dr. Jill Biden for using the honorific title of “Doctor” before her name. In a passive-aggressive diatribe masquerading as a benign suggestion, Epstein suggests that Biden “drop the “Dr.” before her name.
In “Is There a Doctor in the White House? Not if You Need an M.D.,” published by The Wall Street Journal, a conservative rag and promoter of all things Republican and conservative, Epstein said Biden’s use of Dr. “sounds and feels fraudulent, not to say a touch comic.”
Dr. Jill Biden earned a doctoral degree in education.
The use of “Dr.” before the name of a person who earned a doctoral degree is a personal choice that is an acceptable societal norm. No one ever asked Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to drop the honorific that represented his doctoral degree in theology.
Epstein’s opinion is a petty and unwarranted attack on the nation’s incoming First Lady.
Epstein grew up in a segregated society, when white privilege reigned supreme and opened doors to generational wealth that remain closed to the majority of Black people, even today. He grew up at a time when society believed a woman’s place was in the home, where the wife cooked, cleaned, took care of the children, and submitted to her husband. He grew up in an era where white men didn’t have to have advanced degrees to rise to the top of their chosen professions or to achieve the American Dream.
Epstein only possesses a bachelor’s degree. He said he took his final exam at “a pool table at Fort Hood in Texas,” while serving in the Army in the late 1950s. He also bragged about teaching at Northwestern University without a doctorate or any advanced degree.
Could it be that Epstein is jealous of Dr. Biden’s doctoral degree?
Whatever the motivation, Epstein’s attack on Dr. Biden’s use of the doctoral honorific brought the chickens home to roost on Trumpism. The fight against all things Trump spilling over from social media into mainstream media.
Epstein’s piece prompted Northwestern University and its English Department (where he worked as a visiting adjunct lecturer from 1974 till 2002) to issue statements condemning Epstein’s commentary.
“Northwestern is firmly committed to equity, diversity and inclusion, and strongly disagrees with Mr. Epstein’s misogynistic views.”
By any measure, a visiting adjunct lecturer is not the same as a tenured university professor, so Epstein’s contention that he taught college skirted the truth.
However, this is not the first time Epstein has been criticized for his extreme views. Throughout his career, Epstein has drawn rebukes for espousing anti-feminist and homophobic beliefs. During the 1980s and 1990s, Epstein compared feminist scholars to “pit bulls” and “dykes on bikes.”
In September 1970, Harper’s Magazine published Epstein’s Homo/Hetero: The Struggle for Sexual Identity,” which used the word “nigger” to describe being gay and was criticized for its perceived homophobia. Epstein wrote that he considered homosexuality “a curse, in a literal sense” and that his sons could do nothing to make him sadder than “if any of them were to become homosexual.”
As for Epstein’s failed criticism of Dr. Jill Biden, as is always the case, a fellow ‘conservative’ stepped in to do damage control and normalize Epstein’s commentary.
Calling Epstein’s opinion piece “fair” and “provocative,” Paul Gigot, the Journal’s editorial page editor, defended the commentator in an opinion piece he felt compelled to write.
In “The Biden Team Strikes Back…” Gigot wrote, “The Journal editorial page’s longtime style is to use “Dr.” only when referring to medical doctors.” But Epstein is not a WSJ employee nor was he writing about the editorial page’s style.
Epstein seemed to want to come off as offering a politically correct suggestion but his piece dripped with sarcasm and misogyny. It is an ugly passive aggressive commentary designed to demean and humiliate Dr. Biden.
Gigot has been the top editor of The Wall Street Journal’s opinion section for nearly two decades. He graduated summa cum laude from Dartmouth College, but there is no information about what degree he earned.
The Louisiana Weekly reached out to Gigot to get details but he didn’t respond at press time.
Shook by the huge backlash to Epstein’s piece, Gigot wrote, “This has triggered a flood of media and Twitter criticism, including demands that I retract the piece, apologize personally to Mrs. Biden, ban Mr. Epstein for all time, and resign and think upon my sins. The complaints began as a trickle but became a torrent after the Biden media team elevated Mr. Epstein’s work in what was clearly a political strategy.”
Gigot characterized Biden’s media support and statements by critics of Epstein’s commentary as an instance of cancel culture.
If Epstein is a victim of cancel culture, he cancelled himself. His disrespectful opinion invited the well-deserved criticism both of you received: Epstein for being so arrogant as to attempt to demean an accomplished American woman and you for having the audacity to publish his underhanded verbally abusive missive.
After four years of Trumpian attacks, the people who fired Donald J. Trump Sr., are tired of the nastiness, vile verbal abuse, name-calling, misogyny, homophobia, lies, racism and “on both sides blaming” emanating from the highest office in the land.
Our advice is simple: Stop it. Knock it off.
This article originally published in the December 21, 2020 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
