December 12, 2007
Roboprofessor Heckles Bill Clinton at U. of Iowa
A University of Iowa professor dressed as a robot interrupted Bill Clinton at a campaign stop at the university last night, demanding an apology for Sister Souljah, an activist and former member of the hip hop group Public Enemy, the Des Moines Register reports.
In a YouTube video of the incident, Kembrew McLeod, an associate professor of communications who has published four books on the freedom of expression and intellectual property, is seen standing on a chair speaking into a plastic microphone.
“Robots of the World want you to apologize to Sister Souljah,” Mr. McLeod says, while tossing cards into the audience.
“There are more environmentally responsible ways to protest than throwing graffiti,” the former president responds.
Mr. McLeod has been trying to get the president to apologize to Sister Souljah since 1992, when Mr. Clinton gave a speech that likened the controversial author and activist to former white supremacist David Duke for remarks she made after the Rodney King riots. Defenders of Sister Souljah say her comments were taken out of context.
In an interview with the Register after the event, Mr. McLeod said he was trying to “draw attention to these serious issues.”
“Maybe the way that I draw attention to them is an absurd way, but it was the only way that I could draw attention to the particular issue of Sister Souljah, which is an issue that’s been swept under the carpet.”
YouTube Video:
Kelly Field | Posted on Wednesday December 12, 2007 | PermalinkComments
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Clinton could have said: “No, I won’t apologize to Sister Souljah, because racism should be confronted wherever it occurs!” Instead, he made a lame joke about not throwing “graffiti.” (I assume he meant confetti.) It’s interesting to see how people behave under pressure without a script to guide them.
— S. Britchky Dec 12, 02:50 PM #
Re: McLeod’s remark that “Maybe the way that I draw attention to them is an absurd way…”
Well, duh. What a doofus.
Thank goodness he’s not a prof at my university. I feel sorry for the students who have to take his classes in order to graduate.
Who is the publisher giving this guy four book contracts? There’s no way he can be taken seriously on subjects as important as freedom of speech and intellectual property.
— JPS Dec 12, 03:20 PM #
Very disturbing behavior in my opinion. Dr. Marci, ( “Miss DSM III 1980”) says it looks like adult onset schizophrenia to me.
— marci Dec 12, 05:28 PM #
So McLeod advocates freedom of speech for everyone except Bill Clinton?
— PJ Dec 12, 09:16 PM #
Perhaps his tactics were misguided and his message obscured, but I appreciate that a professor is willing to stand up to establishment types and reclaim the status of public intellectual. We need more academics who are willing to stand up. Perhaps the only way to stand up to an absurd system is to stand out in absurd ways.
— Ryan Dec 13, 03:30 AM #
I assume that Prof. McLeod’s point was that it is bad to lie and impugn another person’s character, and that Mr. Clinton has a right to free speech and so a right to do this, but that he needs to be called on it. For anyone who reads the original comments by SS, it is clear that they were taken way out of context (unless a person somehow denies that there is such a thing as context, but that would be dense), and that Mr. Clinton was sacrificing SS to the fears of the suburbian mom.
— Invisible context does not exist Dec 13, 07:19 AM #
McLeod is mentally imbalanced and crazy. Does he believe and practice in freedom of speech? He should have been physically thrown out of the meeting. It is unfortunate that no one tossed him out.
— Kan Chandras Dec 13, 09:32 AM #
His method might be unorthodox and his cause old news, but he got he got national attention and given other comments on this blog did get a bit of a discussion about the actual topic. He may be crazy, but it’s crazy like a fox in my opinion.
— Vern Dec 13, 10:11 AM #