text: No.  Just that hurling epithets without any suggestions for improving the situation  is not constructive, and certainly not the role of an academic.
  
  His comments would have been denounced as paternalistic, provincial and racist if they had been made in respect of say, Caribbean, Middle Eastern, Maghrebian, or Sub-Saharan societies.
  
  The role of the academic is to advance debate, not tout one's own supposed superiority.