OK, I have a hypothetical hereIIRC, Maya Angelou never went to college yet she also has received honorary degrees and I would have no problem addressing her as “Dr. Angelou.”
When talking about black folks and the respect accorded to titles, you are on some very dangerous territory here, Lurleen, FYI (even though I largely agree with what you are saying).

FYI, I have less of a problemwith Harry Jackson using the title “Bishop” than with Hutcherson and King using the title “Doctor.”

Additionally, Dr. Angelou alsoreceived at least one of her honorary doctorates (I’m sure she has more than one) from an undergraduate institution.

yeah…As much as I think one shouldn’t be able to simply proclaim that one is a “Bishop”, that is a religious title so I don’t really care. (Though, My favorite religious title is “Prophetess”)
Now I DO have a problem with people calling themselves “Doctor” when they haven’t earned the title. Dr. Angelou earned her title through her writing and her civil rights work. I don’t think an undergraduate institution should give out doctorates.

You can call her whatever you wantThe difference is that you know that her degrees are honorary and to my knowledge she’s not using the stature she gains from them to hurt people.
Kevin, the people I highlighted here are the people I know who have have attacked my LGBT family publicly while using empty titles.  They happen to be black.  So what?  If I find out about some non-blacks doing the same thing, they’ll get the same treatment.  I don’t believe in allowing people to get away with deception just because they’re black, especially when that deception hurts us both.

So the criteria would happen to bethat Dr. Angelou isn’t hurting people? Since Dr. Angelou supports marriage equality, some people might beg to differ on that…that would all depend on your POV.
I love zchildree’s distinction below; Dr. Angelou has more than deserved the distinction of Dr. through her work (I do believe that Dr. Angelou may have also received one of those honorary doctorates from Wake Forest, where she now teaches).
I also actually agree with your point about these degrees being deceptive. As far as I know, Alveda King has been a freeloading harpy for much of her life (freeloading off of the King name) what work has she done to legitmate her use of that title would be my question (as that’s not even a question for Dr. Angelou)
I’m just carrying the message, though, that there is a well documented history of white people who refuse to use the titles that black folks have actually earned and that there are times when something like this is used to “put a nigger in his/her place”
This is a very sensitive area, that erupted a bit in the blogosphere just recently.

All of these clowns are pathetic.Sincerely,
The Right Honourable Katrina Rose, Esq., Royal High Muckitey Muck and First Baroness of Rock Island County

On the title “bishop”Growing up, I can only remember referring to one of the 4 (maybe 5) pastors in my church as “Bishop.”
And he had been pastoring and ministering for a very long time, IIRC, so while he may not have had the formal education, I do believe that in terms of length of service, Bishop C. had more than earned his right to be called “bishop.”
Also…growing up, at least in my household, my Mom and Stepdad did make the distinction between honorary doctorates and Bill Cosby’s doctorate in education (my Mom’s precise words were that Cosby “got a real degree”).
But still…
If Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, for example, were to give an honorary doctorate to Oprah Winfrey (not because she’s black but because she’s local and she did teach a class there)…now maybe there were certain academic things that she didn’t do but she would certainly have earned the distinction of being referred to as “Dr. Winfrey”, IMHO.

if that is what you want to talk aboutthen you need to take it to another diary, because that is not what this diary is about.  if i hadn’t done any research but just assumed these gas bags were using empty titles, you’d be justified.  but i did do the research, so i ask you not to derail to commentary.

I’m not derailing the diary at allas I said, I agree with your argument in these cases; the only degrees that I’m aware of that Harry Jackson has “earned” for example, is a BA from Williams College (or Amherst?) and a MBA from Harvard.
I personally don’t think that the criteria by which a person can legitmately use these sort of titles (“earned” from “honorary degrees” was put together and well thought) and whether you like it or not, this does play out differently in other ethnic communities.
And King, Hutcherson, and Jackson have to know this; so it further increases my own personal sense of disgust for them (well, King and Hutch, yes, I’m somewhat indifferent to Jackson).
It’s even more insidious and deceptive than you’re giving it credit for, in other words.

“[A]ttainment of the highest levels of institutional authority” Actually, there is a lot moreHistorically, a person could only become a bishop by way of Apostolic Succession. According to tradition, Jesus appointed the Apostles; they, in turn, appointed successors and others to carry on their work, then they appointed successors and new apostles, and so on. A legitimate bishop is one who can trace his authority backwards in this manner to Jesus Christ Himself. Somehow, I doubt very much that Jackson is a part of this historic succession.
As far as honorary degrees, does anyone remember the right wing brouhaha when Al Gore got an honorary degree from the University Tennessee? It was a Doctorate of Laws and Humane Letters in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, given for his work in publicizing the threat of global warming. The screeching from Michelle Malkin and other far right wing toads was ear-splitting: his degree is a fake, this is academic fraud, proof that he was an ivory tower elitist and that every university in this country was in the firm grip of traitorous liberals trying to destroy all that was Right And Good.
Funny, isn’t it, the kind of blackwhite that the right wing engages in.

The Universal Life Church has many religious titles available… for a feeWhy be just a bishop when you can be an Archbishop, Metropolitan, Patriarch or Pope for only $13.99 plus the cost of postage? I’ve been thinking of getting “Spiritual Warrior”, just to annoy the fundies with actual credentials.
You can also get a Doctor of Divinity for only $32.99, Doctor of Metaphysics for $29.99, Master of Wicca for $29.99 and certification as a Jedi Knight for only $7.99!

Yeah, I do remember thatnow that you mention it, TechBear…and I would have no problem calling him “Dr. Gore” either (although…well, that doesn’t sound quite right, LOL).
But…and here’s my critical criterion, I guess…would you say that Al Gore earned it?

Yeah, there is a larger argument here, TechBearadmittedly, it’s not the one that Lurleen is making but…
in many respects, degrees and titles and whatnot don’t confer the respect that they used to.
I mean, even in my lifetime, I can remember that when someone was conferred a title, they earned it, either through actually doing the rigorous academic work or by extraordinary service to the community.

Maybe it’s precisely because of that history, and the fact that the African American community respects education,that some African American anti-gay individuals are using honorary titles to puff up their credentials. Maybe we see less of this particular kind of puffery among Anglo anti-gay individuals because bigoted Anglos tend not to value education.
In other words, Alveda King and the others mentioned are well aware that the African American community puts a high value on education, and will respect recipients of advanced degrees, which is precisely why they make prominent use of their honorary degrees. And they know that not many gay-friendly people would dare to question those degrees, as it might sound racist and have echoes of the historical disrespect and disregard that African American scholars endure to this day. (I’ve witnessed it myself in rural communities.)
I’m sure that there are examples of Anglo bigots using degrees that they haven’t earned or deserve, but it’s less likely that they would even bother, since their intended audiences are generally pretty anti-intellectual anyway.  

NoThe historic purpose of honorary degrees is to recognize work outside of normal academic channels that is substantially equivalent to or surpasses work that would have been within academia. Albert Einstein never received any earned college degree, not even a Batchelors, but I don’t know anyone who would say that he did not earn the honorary degrees in physics and philosophy that he received in his lifetime.
Merely being an advocate, even a high profile advocate, does not merit a doctorate. If Gore had been in an actual doctorate program, the dissertation committee would have given him three minutes before adjourning with a “get back to us when you have something we can look at.”
The problem is that honorary degrees have become A) a semi-legitimate diploma mill operation, handed out by shady insitutions of questionable authenticity (any bets that Hutchinson’s degree came mail-order?) and B) a way of currying favor from rich potential donors while creating a media sideshow to attract other rich potential donors. There have been scandals for decades where schools handed out honorary degrees to anyone willing to donate large sums of money, no classroom time required.

As far as I know, Al Gore doesn’t go around calling himself “Dr. Gore.”

I have a problem with anyone using ‘doctor’ who did not earn the degree.and neither Ms Angelou nor Ms King did
In the case of both, powerful women who changed the dialogue, one for the better, one for the worse.
But I EARNED and WON my PhD, in class, and then defending my thesis. In Spanish as well.
And without claim of any lawyer’s DNA in me, to wit.
M E Hennessey, LLB, LLM, PhD

Honorary degrees are handed out every year to wealthy donors. It’s very common.

My point exactlyThey used to be legitimate. Now they can be purchased in gross lots. Even if I were to earn a PhD or DJ or some other such advanced degree, I would be ashamed to call myself “Doctor.”

Ding ding ding!we have a winner.
You explained that much better than I did.
I understand what Lurleen is saying, but…this simply isn’t a race neutral issue. Knowing the cultural context is necessary being that all of the parties that she identified are black Americans.
And it’s why I fing King and Hutcherson to be so deeply and personally offensive to me (much moreso than Lurleen does).
It’s not merely an academic exercise or unearned credentials.

But would that dependon the specific degree conferred to Dr. Angelou (and don’t think that people began referring to her as Dr. Angelou until she started teaching)?
And I think that other people starting referring to her as Doctor, I don’t think that she started that.

There is one unearned title of Hutcherson’s that irks us all.Didn’t Hutcherson once said that he was sent by the (Bush) White House to do some “business” in Latvia?  It was like a “US ambassador to Latvia” or something.
About honorary degrees and doctorates, most of them haven’t abused theirs unlike the religious bigots.

Diploma mill?How many employers consider honorary degrees as evidence of training or qualifications when people apply for jobs?
Yes, schools hand out honorary degrees to people with no classroom time; so what?
As to whether someone “earned” it, that depends on someone’s individual criteria. Some people will say Gore earned it. Some will say he didn’t. Or, if an actor gets a honorary degree with acting / performing arts from a college, some will say s/he earned it. Others will say s/he didn’t.

Einstein earned every inch of that Ph.D.TechBear, your comments regarding Einstein are inaccurate — check his Wiki entry. He received an undergraduate diploma from the Eidgenössische Polytechnische Schule (ETH) in Zurich, and subsequently earned a Ph.D. from the University of Zurich. People at these institutions didn’t really know what to do with him, since in a lot of ways he was really out there (we’d say today in the US that he was a “poor fit” for the “intellectual culture” of the departments), but he rightfully earned those degrees. The departments didn’t just give them to him because he was a nice guy.
(Yes, science historians, I know that this is a rather simplified version of Einstein’s twisty academic career, but the point is, he earned the degrees from the above schools, even though he bounced around in the system rather a lot.)

It seems I was in error, sorryThe bio I have states that he attended a number of universities, but rarely attended lectures. He did get credentialed as a teacher, but was never able to find a teaching post until after he had gotten recognition for his work on special relativity. It does mention several honorary degrees in physics for his work as a physicist and degrees in philosophy for his writings and lectures in latter life against nuclear armament.
I dug deeper and found a different bio that says, “In 1905, received his doctorate for a thesis entitled On a new determination of molecular dimensions.” Presumably this was a PhD, but it does not say that specifically, nor does it say what university awarded the degree.
It just strikes me as very odd that so many of his bios make little, if any, mention of his academic credentials. At a guess, they diminish the mystique of the dyslexic young man working in the Patent Office.
In any case, thank you for the information. I will make a note of it.

Well, WTF…From now on you all can refer to moi as Her Holiness, and Empress of the Seven Mortal Delusions, Pope Lightning Rose Atreides the First.
Note to Harry Jackson: You’re now officially ex-communicated. Please send me your pointy hat and all robes, rings, etc, of office. Have them boiled and sterilized first.

Karl Marx even earned HIS DoctorateIn philosophy, by the by

Doctor of Divinityis my favourite.  The title of Rev. Dr. from a non-christian  gay lay person just makes the religious fundies head explode.

Well, Toni Morrison has an honorary doctoratefrom Oxford.
Now the highest education that she achieved was actually a MA from Cornell in English.
After that she taught, edited at Random House for 20 years, wrote books, essays, academic work, won the Nobel Prize…
Would anyone be willing to say that she hasn’t earned the right to use the title Dr? (granted I very, very rarely hear Toni Morrison referred to as “Dr. Morrison.”)

“degrees and titles and whatnot don’t confer the respect that they used to”that is not my personal experience.  i purposefully don’t use my title, which i earned after years of hard work, because i’ve found that it intimidates some people.  others it impresses.  either way, i only employ it when i want to take a power stand on something.  and it works.  well, except for with some men, who refuse to believe that a woman (a geeky one no less) can have a ph.d. (or any credential they don’t).  poor fragile dears.

who wouldn’t want to be a doctor of this?

No worries! Tricky guy, that Albert.Yeah, that’s sort of the difficult thing about Einstein — you really can point to him as the exemplar of the genius academic who was totally misunderstood by all his teachers. This is rare, but he’s empirical proof that it can happen. My understanding is that he was just sort of shuffled through the system because nobody really liked him or particularly had a handle on what exactly he was daydreaming about all the time; you couldn’t say he was incompetent, but there was something off about the guy. Still, it’s best not to overstate his accomplishments too much, because he was of course as human as anyone else.
Of course, now every crackpot gets to claim that they’re the next Einstein whenever they’re dismissed by what they perceive to be “the system.” Trick is, Einstein was right a lot of the time, which seems to escape your modern cranks.

thank you for this excellent commentarykevin, why didn’t you get night owl to say so in the first place?!
if there is such a phenomenon particularly among african-americans, i wonder if it is the (faux) academic analog to simple ostentation.  in my day and my town, it was expressed by blacks via big cadillacs.  whites expressed it (still do) with mcmansion trophy houses bought on maxed-out credit.  but in the end it’s all the same thing: putting up a false front to win prestige.  i suppose in the white academic world, the equivalent is lying on your resume.  here is one of my favorite examples of a pathetic white guy claiming all kinds of honors and prizes to make himself look impressive.

wait a minuteAs someone whose doctorate was not honorary, I have a question: how does an undergraduate school which can’t give a degree higher than BA or BS to its students offer an honorary doctorate to anyone?  If St. Anselm’s has no graduate degree programs, how can it offer an honorary doctorate?  That’s not honorary, that’s illusory.

They’re also a PR toolGive a degree to somebody famous and your school is in the news, alums are happy, blahblahblah.

Oh, Doctor, I have this pain–What, you’re not that kind of doctor?
Oh, sorry.

That is quite a mouthfulCan we use Herself for short?
Anyway, I have been a Discordian since high school; I named myself Pope the day I graduated. I don’t use the title, though, because I’m pretty informal about formalities.

“That’s not honorary, that’s illusory.”So? As long as it keeps the cash rolling in, who cares?

That was one of the points I tried to make aboveThere are legitimate honorary degrees, given to people who have earned them through non-academic hard work. The sheer quantity of illegitimate honorary degrees, however, have seriously diluted the honor, which is why people like Morrison and Gore do not actually use those titles.

“Bishop” definition depends upon your contextthe Greek word transliterated as “episkopos” has the literal meaning of “overseer”. In the canon, the word can be used interchangeably with “presbyteroi”, the word for elder(s). Synagogues were governed by a council of community elders, and the very early Christian groups likely also had such governance. In the mid- to late-second century CE, the word seems to indicate the president of the council of elders, functionally the leader of the city’s Christian congregation, the person that would settle disputes between individual factions, sacramentally ordain presbyteroi (as opposed to selecting candidates), and be a spokesman for the Christian community. With the growth of Christianity, episcopoi oversaw multiple urban and rural congregations and eventually adopted a monarchical style of governance.
Most Protestants do not consider apostolic succession (bishops ordaining other bishops, in a line supposedly traceable to the apostles) to be important. More important is continuity of the teachings.
Some predominantly African-American denominations and non-denominational churches use “Bishop” as the title of the senior pastor. Others use the word to indicate the elected regional administrator.
“Bishop” is a legitimate term for Protestant church officials and senior pastors outside the traditional “apostolic succession”. Harry Jackson is properly called “Bishop” in his tradition.

I was a pope……but then I excommunicated myself.

“I have a PhD in Truthology from Christian Tech”

Yes, and it can lead to some embarrassing messes, too.There was a flap about Robert Mugabe’s honorary degree from U-Mass Amherst a few years ago.

It seems that kevinchi is making the point that it’s different when black people do it.
Or maybe it’s just that it’s inappropriate to take issue with black people who do it.
Usually I’m right there with kevinchi, but I have to say that I don’t follow him at all on this one.

ZooMass!I did my MFA at UMass/Amherst, back when the program was #3 in the country after Iowa and Johns Hopkins.

well that explains the Mugabe debacle then

I have no problem with their use of the title
If they received an honorary doctorate from an accredited university (this rules out Hutcherson), I’ve no problem with their using the title.  Of course, very few people granted honorary titles use them in standard address, but in most cases conferral of an honorary degree is a consequence of a lifetime of work. (Or the university’s hope that the honorand will give a butt-load of money.)  
I’m not accusing you of fetishizing PhD work, Maura, but I really don’t think that earning the degree is a guarantee of quality.  George Rekers earned his degree. Or, hell (to be the first to invoke Godwin’s law), for that matter so did Mengele.
But I’ve met far more than my share of half-wits with PhD’s (I’ve even been on committees that produced them) to argue that earning the degree through academic study is necessarily an indication of merit.  Again, I’m not accusing you or arguing the latter point, though it’s implicit in a lot of people’s reaction to honorary degrees.

It is back breaking work to earn a PhDat the Complutense
Mengele’s doctorate was in Medicine, a professional, not an academic degree

RekersHaving a degree doesn’t immunize anyone against mental illness or succumbing to the humiliation society flings at us.

Actually attending lecturesI can’t speak for German-speaking institutions a century ago, but until the 1970s graduate programs in older English universities did not consider actual attendance at lectures to be all that important in earning a doctorate, as compared to the preparation and defense of a dissertation.
Note 1: I am a Ph.D. doctor, not a doctor doctor.
Note 2: It is my recollection that U.S. lawyers used to earn Ll.B. (Bachelor of Laws) degrees until they and their institutions realized, during the Viet Nam era, if memory serves me, that the Defense Department treated people with J.D.’s (Doctor of Laws) better, even though there was no difference between programs.
Note 3: Thanks to whoever for pointing out that Bigot Harry Jackson’s title is essentially self-awarded by an organization that is less than 15 years old.
http://www.wellingtonboone.com…
I expect, however, that his MBA from the Harvard Business School has been as useful to him in his life and support for America’s most vulnerable as was George W. Bush’ MBA from the same institution.

I’m aware of the difference.
And I’m aware of the difficulty in earning a doctorate.  
But surely you must be aware how many complete idiots are nonetheless successful in earning one.  
Ultimately it’s only difficult if you do it right.
My point is just that there’s nothing sacred about having a degree. The university where I teach is filled with people for whom I have no respect.  

That’s not what I’m saying at allalthough with Dr. Angelou there is a little bit of a class issue (i.e. she had to work in order to support her child).
I’m saying the same thing that TechBear said below; I have no problem with anyone receiving an honorary degree when they’ve done sufficient and extraordinary work for it, even if it’s outside academia.
Simply looking at the resumes of both, Dr. Angelou earned hers, Alveda King has not.
At least not by standards that I would set.

Yes, I was supporting your point. I agree.

Thanks. Your post helped me see the point I made. That’s what is great about Pam’s place. We talk.

GWB went to Yale, not HarvardBut I’m sure that Jackson’s MBA is quite useful in making sure enough church income flows to certain places of need, like perhaps his “clerical collar fund”.

I believe that the importance of education and attainment of degrees means much more than status to many African Americans.This is different from buying status symbols for prestige, and I don’t think that there is an equivalent in the majority culture. It is a tradition that goes back to the 19th century and is rooted in the courageous response of many African Americans to a culture and laws that denied an entire group of people the right to education and literacy. This denial of education was part of the dehumanization by a majority culture that sought to justify slavery by creating the myth that black people were not equal to white people, and therefore not deserving of or even in need of education.
This is why the attainment of educational degrees is still highly respected among middle class and upper class African Americans. Not only was it a way to attain higher incomes and better social status, it was the single most important way of revealing the genocidal lie of black inferiority. And people really had to struggle and risk their lives to attain those degrees – they were often murdered in their attempts, within living memory in the United States.

Well, yeah, I was about to saythe Caddys and the McMansions are transient; they hold you until you get the next one.
That education is something that you will always have; once that piece of paper is earned, neither it nor the work behind it can be taken away from you.
Gloria Watkins (bell hooks) has written quite eloquently about the racism that she encountered as she went through graduate school as well (and most blacks with advanced degrees encountered racism in graduate and professional schools, where the professors would (and still will) be very quick to put a black student in his or her place).
You do interestingly (and correctly) note that lil’ ol’ class divide among black Americans as it regards college degrees, too.

I like my divinities a bit nuts n/t

An excellent thread on white privilegeamong many other issues.
And please note that I’m not saying racist.
I just don’t think that Lurleen had the slightest idea that titles and degrees simply take on a significance in the black community that they don’t with a lot of white people.
And it is a difference between the two communities that if not limned out (and nightowl did a better job than I did) can lead to a lot of misunderstanding and hurt feelings.

GWB did get a Harvard MBAHis BA is from Yale.

well if i’ve stumbled onto some insight, i’m glad for iti’m not sure it is fair to say my ignorance is based on privilege rather than simple ignorance about the subtleties of another culture, however.  LOTS of poor white families (lets call them not-as-privileged whites) also put the same very high value on education despite their not having the same ancestral legacy of discrimination as blacks but often a legacy of poverty or ‘scratching to get by’.  the black & poor whites groups’ social histories are different but the extreme respect for the degree i think may be quite similar.  not all whites from scrappy backgrounds want to be seen and treated forever as hillbilly yahoos, you know.
should we ask why it was an ignorant white person who happened to call out this group of people rather than someone from ‘their own community’?  am i really the first person on a blog or in the media to notice that these 3 public bigots are operating behind empty titles?  if the black community has an exceptionally high respect for higher education because of past and ongoing racism (a premise i fully accept – it’s clear once you explain it), why hasn’t the black community policed itself better regarding pretenders?  is it that these individuals are unassailable because of the power they’ve attained?  or is it a matter of not wanting to risk embarrassing the rest of the community with public display of dirty laundry?  or something else?  ignorant minds want to know!

well, that’s why I said“a lot of white people”
Now interestingly, I grew up in Detroit in the 1970′s as the white flight was happening; I went to school with a lot of redneck kids (families moved to Michigan to work in the car factories). Usually, I was one of the smart kids in the class and it was the white kids that liked me for it; a lot of the black kids hated my guts.
And…oh, it’s defintely the dirty laundry, Lurleen, you just don’t air the dirty laundry in the presence of white folks and those blacks that attempt to do so are shamed and talked down…
Now within the community; in churches and in our newspapers, sure, this is something that could be discussed but in the presence of white people, no….it’s an embarassement to the race.
(Also, black people may not judge this the same way that you do; both King and Jackson do have degrees beyond a bachelor’s…I mean, they ARE educated…) and the “Bishop” title isn’t a concern.)
and THAT is not so different from a lot of ethnic white communities (especially Italian Americans).

And let’s not forget…the portion of the debate here between an earned and an unearned title.
See, I do agree that a college or university should not confer honorary degrees that they don’t confer the normal way.
And, again, it should be for exceptional work and service outside of academia.
I have no problem with Dr. Angelou’s honorary degree (and you do note the important distinction that this isn’t a hidden thing) nor would I have a problem if Medill or Columbia Journalism School wanted to confer an honorary doctorate on Oprah (Ellen? maybe in another 5 years. Barbara Walters? of course).
OK…

i’m not sure it is fair to say my ignorance is based on privilege rather than simple ignorance about the subtleties of another culture,

Yes it is, IMHO. Black American culture is still American culture, I mean…it’s your culture too. (Now this WOULD get to another debate deserving of another thread, but that is actually my feeling about it).

Or in other wordsit’s that very innocence that constitutes the privilege.

In the case you and me and everyone is privilgedbecause none of us knows the whys and wherefores of every American community’s structure.

wow, typosI meant to say: In that case you and me and everyone is privileged because none of us knows the whys and wherefores of every American community’s culture.

With all due respect LurleenYou are really coming across badly in this thread, and maybe need to do a little less talking and a little more listening.
The thing is, if these discussions are happening in the black community (and trust, they are), they are not going to be happening for the benefit of white people to play gotcha with. Black folks, generally speaking, don’t air dirty laundry in public like that, because we’re well aware of what happens when we do. Maybe we should, maybe we shouldn’t, but without a discussion of the dynamics of privilege and how these things play out (see: the NAACP & Shirley Sherrod for a textbook example of When Keepin It Real Goes Wrong), you are feeding right into the professional black homobigots’ charges of racism among the white queer/allies activist community. I’m not saying that some black people’s inappropriate use of titles is a sacred cow (it’s something that annoys the shit out of me, personally), I’m saying that there is something really hinky about a white woman with admittedly very little knowledge of how black communities work calling people to task on this. There are a million things you can call these assclowns on that aren’t so incredibly racially loaded as this. This is exactly the sort of thing that sets us back.
Someone else already pointed out the context of titles like Bishop and how they’re used in black churches, particularly churches of Pentacostal extraction so I won’t get into that. I’ll only add that when you question the legitimacy of something like that without failing to take into account that institutionalized Christianity is one of the most segregated bodies on this planet (Sunday’s the most segregated day of the week), and the history of many of these non/denominations, it’s pretty much the height of white privilege.
In short…you really should have quit while you were ahead. Because this is textbook defensive white posturing when a POC very rightfully pointed out your ass was showing.

Defensive white posturing?I’m engaged in a conversation trying to learn something.  If you try to shut me down by accusing me of some ugly knee-jerk reaction, we will never get anywhere.

Straw man argumentKevinchi,
I don’t think that’s a fair hypothetical.  Maya Angelou is a well respected literary figure. I don’t believe she uses her honorary titles, and I doubt any reasonable person would question her having earned those degrees through experience from her published books, poetry, and teaching experiences, even though they may be considered honorary degrees (though they do consider some work experiences as experiential learning contributing to the attainment of actual degrees nowadays).  
None of the people above have the respected notoriety that she has attained so this comes across as a straw man argument to me and makes it a weak hypothetical.

I hope you have read enough of this threadto know that I’m not making that argument, but Lurleen did raise the question as to “unearned titles” so to ask that hypothetical was fair game.
And Dr. Angelou does use her title but…I have no problem with that because she has earned that right.

Well said, Chovexani

Surein relation to women or trans folk and even uneducated folk in the black community, I AM privileged…I can cite many examples of it too.
But this is a strawman, Lurleen.

First time I ever read thisthat is, Derailing For Dummies.
An awful lot of derailing took place in this thread…

Excellent discussion but . . .I like the discussions we have on here. It’s a learning process. But that last comment – and I very familiar with the Derailing for Dummies – was kind of a cheap shot there. Let’s not get too mean with each other. LOL