I’m A Black Female College Professor in Texas. Should I Get a Gun?

[ancianita]

13. I'd say yes. Try to wrap your head around the idea that a gun is another tool you learn to use.

Learning to use that tool is about vigilance, proper care. Conceal and carry will make student gun carriers respect you, even if it's a fear-based respect. An alternative might be to, instead of pay for house cleaning, pay for an "assistant" or "observer" or "intern" to be unobtrusively present during your classes -- one who is really your armed security guard.

I'm sorry you find yourself in this circumstance, but you don't have to be trapped in it. The power of your class's learning climate and what you teach are so needed by students raised in Texas gun culture and the South in general. Perhaps this can be a good experience for everyone.

Even discussing gun culture, how it dampens intellectual discussion and debate; what, in the need for "freedom of expression" is behind the need for confederate symbolism; oppositional concepts in the classroom, the nature and rules of good argument; these are a democratic move to defuse tensions.

Needless to say, if you remove yourself from this place, it would be their loss. I wish you all good things.