By now, my 2016 Council on Anthropology of Education (CAE) presidential address in Minneapolis has become part of our historical memory. Apparently, it has also become infamous. In the pages of this journal, it was called the “big elephant in the room” by Marta Baltodano in the publication of her 2017 presidential address (Baltodano, 2019, 384). Curiously, it has also been characterized pejoratively as a defense of “objective, descriptive research” (Baltodano, 2019, 384), or of research to produce “knowledge for knowledge's sake” (Sánchez, 2019, 402).

With this publication, readers can now decide for themselves if such characterizations are fair. After all, only a relatively small portion of CAE members attended the address, and fewer still were there from start to end. Soon after learning what a negative reaction the talk had produced, I resolved to reconstruct the oral version of the talk as faithfully as possible. I then composed a meta-reflection, interspersed with the rawness of the original talk, which I offer to you here. Indeed, I take up Patricia Sánchez's assertion that it is “important for CAE's ethnographic soul to have at least some documentation on what was said that year and how others interpreted the speech” (Sánchez, 2019, 402).

Granted, my 2016 message was delivered in an untimely and unskillful manner. There was much to cause confusion or offense; my questioning of the CAE mission statement came to overshadow my broader argument, and the moment was especially poor for that. Perhaps I should have just left well enough alone and continued to lick my wounds in silence. But a stubborn inner voice—not to mention numerous CAE colleagues—kept telling me that there was more value in airing this out than relegating it to the rumor mill of oral history. Even now, perhaps especially now amidst our post-2020 racial reckoning, we need to honor the diversity of our modes of knowledge production in the Council. At stake is both the urgency of change and the longer historical memory of our organization. I hope that you will agree.

Since some have wondered why the address was never published in the accustomed fashion, it remains only to give the details of how this current publication came to be. On January 27, 2017, I submitted an earlier version of the following text to then-Editors-in-Chief of Anthropology of Education Quarterly (AEQ), Sally Campbell Galman and Laura Valdiviezo. After their initial encouragement, I continued to revise the piece—with input from at least six CAE colleagues—and submitted a revised version (published here without substantial change) on July 6, 2017. Nearly a year later, on April 2, 2018, I received a rejection letter from the editors. They had been unable to secure a willingness from any CAE colleague to write a response. More importantly, they had asked numerous members of the Editorial Board to consider the piece for publication, and there was apparent unanimity against it, on the grounds that it neither “advances research and knowledge in the field,” nor “constitutes a presidential address” worthy of publication in AEQ (Campbell Galman and Valdiviezo, 2018). Firm and well-reasoned rebuttals were supplied by former AEQ Editor-in-Chief/CAE President Katie Anderson-Levitt and former CAE President Bryan Brayboy, and I very much appreciated their forthright honesty and collegiality. I was given the opportunity to resubmit the piece as a wholesale revision within six weeks, by May 20, 2018. I was neither able nor inclined to do so.

After letting it sit for more than three years, in the summer of 2021 I approached a member of the new CAE leadership team about whether they thought the time might be right for a reconsideration. As I explained in that initial message, I was fully prepared to publish the piece on my own website and send out a message with a link to the CAE community, for those who might care to read it. To my surprise, they gave their blessing for its reconsideration by the new editors of AEQ, who then fast-tracked the piece for publication. Knowing that this publication may stir more polemic, I thank them for their commitment and courage. Here it is, warts and all, for posterity.

Mindful that association with me can still have negative consequences in CAE, and heeding the recommendations of the 2018 AEQ reviewers, I have removed the names of all those who gave me important feedback and suggestions back then. They are deserving of acknowledgement, but they know who they are. Some tried to save me from further displaying my putatively colossal ignorance and insensitivity. Roughly as many of them urged me to drop this fool's errand and spare myself further embarrassment as encouraged me to continue seeking publication. To the former, I plead your indulgence. To the latter, here it is at last.

到目前为止，我在明尼阿波利斯举行的 2016 年教育人类学委员会 (CAE) 主席演讲已成为我们历史记忆的一部分。显然，它也变得臭名昭著。在该杂志的页面中，玛尔塔·巴尔托达诺（Marta Baltodano）在其 2017 年总统讲话中将其称为“房间里的大象”（Baltodano，  2019，384）。奇怪的是，它也被轻蔑地描述为对“客观的描述性研究”的辩护（Baltodano，  2019，384），或对“为了知识而知识”的研究的辩护（Sánchez，  2019，402）。

通过这份出版物，读者现在可以自己决定这种描述是否公平。毕竟，只有相对较小部分的 CAE 成员参加了这次演讲，而且从头到尾参加的人数就更少了。在得知演讲产生了如此负面的反应后不久，我决定尽可能忠实地重建演讲的口头版本。然后我写了一篇元反思，其中穿插了原始演讲的原始内容，我在这里向您提供。事实上，我接受帕特里夏·桑切斯 (Patricia Sánchez) 的说法，即“对于 CAE 的民族志灵魂来说，至少拥有一些关于当年所说内容以及其他人如何解释演讲的文档”（Sánchez，2019，402  ）。

诚然，我2016年的致辞传达得不及时、不熟练。有很多事情会引起混乱或冒犯；我对 CAE 使命宣言的质疑掩盖了我更广泛的论点，而此时此刻尤其糟糕。也许我应该一个人呆着，继续默默地舔舐伤口。但内心有一个顽固的声音——更不用说众多 CAE 同事了——不断告诉我，将这件事公之于众比将其归入口述历史的谣言工厂更有价值。即使是现在，也许尤其是在我们 2020 年后的种族清算中，我们也需要尊重理事会知识生产模式的多样性。变革的紧迫性和我们组织更长久的历史记忆都处于危险之中。我希望你会同意。

由于有些人想知道为什么该演讲从未以惯常的方式发表，因此它仍然只是提供当前出版物的详细信息。2017年1月27日，我向当时的《教育人类学季刊》主编提交了以下文本的早期版本(AEQ)，莎莉·坎贝尔·加尔曼和劳拉·瓦尔迪维索。在他们最初的鼓励下，我在至少六名 CAE 同事的意见下继续修改这篇文章，并于 2017 年 7 月 6 日提交了修订版（在此处发布，没有进行实质性更改）。近一年后，即 2018 年 4 月 2 日，我收到了编辑的拒绝信。他们无法确保任何 CAE 同事愿意撰写回复。更重要的是，他们要求众多编辑委员会成员考虑发表这篇文章，但显然遭到了一致反对，理由是它既不“推进该领域的研究和知识”，也不“构成总统讲话”值得在 AEQ 上发表（Campbell Galman 和 Valdiviezo，  2018）。前 AEQ 主编/CAE 主席凯蒂·安德森-莱维特 (Katie Anderson-Levitt) 和前 CAE 主席布莱恩·布雷博伊 (Bryan Brayboy) 提出了坚定而合理的反驳，我非常赞赏他们的直率诚实和合作精神。我有机会在 2018 年 5 月 20 日之前的六周内重新提交这篇文章作为批发修订版。我既不能也不愿意这样做。

在搁置了三年多之后，2021 年夏天，我联系了新 CAE 领导团队的一名成员，询问他们是否认为现在是重新考虑的合适时机。正如我在最初的消息中所解释的，我完全准备好在我自己的网站上发布这篇文章，并向那些可能愿意阅读它的人发送一条带有 CAE 社区链接的消息。令我惊讶的是，他们对 AEQ 的新编辑重新考虑表示祝福，然后他们就加快了这篇文章的出版速度。我知道这篇文章可能会引起更多争议，我感谢他们的承诺和勇气。就这样，为了子孙后代，它毫无瑕疵。

考虑到与我的联系仍然会对 CAE 产生负面影响，并考虑到 2018 年 AEQ 评审员的建议，我删除了所有当时给我提供重要反馈和建议的人的名字。他们值得被认可，但他们知道自己是谁。有些人试图阻止我进一步表现出我所谓的巨大无知和麻木不仁。他们中的许多人都劝我放弃这个愚蠢的差事，以免自己陷入进一步的尴尬，就像鼓励我继续寻求出版一样。对于前者，我请求您的宽容。对于后者来说，终于到了。