The Fora: A Higher Education Community

In this Medium post (https://medium.com/@jessakrug/the-truth-and-the-anti-black-violence-of-my-lies-9a9621401f85).

The Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/09/03/white-gwu-professor-admits-she-falsely-claimed-black-identity/) has a piece on it.

It's something of a doozy, she works in Africana studies and had claimed to be black. She was apparently a diversity hire, so essentially took a post that could have gone to a scholar of color.

Quote from: bacardiandlime on September 03, 2020, 03:28:19 PM
In this Medium post (https://medium.com/@jessakrug/the-truth-and-the-anti-black-violence-of-my-lies-9a9621401f85).

The Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/09/03/white-gwu-professor-admits-she-falsely-claimed-black-identity/) has a piece on it.

It's something of a doozy, she works in Africana studies and had claimed to be black. She was apparently a diversity hire, so essentially took a post that could have gone to a scholar of color.

Basically a repeat of Rachel Dolezal.

So, I guess "Black-passing" is a thing. I'm betting we see more of these as time goes on. It raises an interesting question. If a white person "passes" as black, then what does that say of any "oppression" they experience, since by definition, it can't be because they are black?
Does it have to be admitted as a fiction, or does it get acknowledged as part of ordinary human experience, and not "oppression" at all?

So is the job open now? Maybe Coleman Hughes is interested.

Quote from: mahagonny on September 03, 2020, 04:05:36 PM
So is the job open now? Maybe Coleman Hughes is interested.

If he doesn't vote for Biden, "he ain't black", so maybe not.

Ugh. That is, indeed, very bad.

Quote from: marshwiggle on September 03, 2020, 03:32:30 PM

So, I guess "Black-passing" is a thing. I'm betting we see more of these as time goes on.

You shouldn't be surprised. If you were familiar with the discourse, then you'd know that passing in general is a thing. All kinds of people can pass for all kinds of other people.

(Whether this is strictly about passing, xface, or trans-racialism, or something else is another matter. It seems much more active than passing, to me.)

Quote
It raises an interesting question. If a white person "passes" as black, then what does that say of any "oppression" they experience, since by definition, it can't be because they are black?

A lot hangs on what's meant by 'oppression', but for a start we need to distinguish between harm and oppression. A harm is something that sets back someone's interests; 'oppression' is typically understood to be group-based injustice (so: people are oppressed when they're subjected to injustice due to their group membership).

From there, there are different ways to go. One is to bite the bullet, because it's not so big: a white person who passes as non-white is harmed or faces injustice, but they're not oppressed. Another is to focus on the structural element of oppressive structures, rather than the individual case: what makes a structure an oppressive one is that it distributes or perpetuates injustice based on group-membership--once you have an oppressive structure in place, though, it oppresses everyone it's taken to apply to. So if you're white but look non-white in the Jim Crow South, you're oppressed, too. Other options are available.

I pass as non-white--entirely because of people's ignorance, I might add (i.e. they mistake one phenotypical thing for another, one linguistic thing for another, etc.). I get all kinds of comments. All kinds. Almost every time I interact with strangers, actually (it's exhausting). Some are worse than others (the worst of all came from senior academics, actually). A group of young men once pelted me with beer bottles while yelling at me to "go back to [country]". I'm certain--although I can't prove it--that it's affected my job applications negatively. I don't think anybody would deny those are harms and injustices. I tend to think that in at least some of those cases, I was oppressed, and experienced the same kind of oppression as someone who actually belonged to that group would have. But I'm no kind of expert on the subject, and I'm comfortable with the possibility that it might turn out, upon reflection, that what I've experienced was not oppression, properly-speaking.

As I said: to my mind, what matters is oppression's structure. What matters is that it targets people based on group membership; whether it correctly targets someone doesn't seem all that relevant to me. But, again, I'm not an expert.

Huh.  Anyone see her picture online?  How did she pull this off? 

I wouldn't mind hitting the job market one more time (now that things are very, very bad) but there's no way my skin tone can pass for anything other than whitey white white.

Quote from: marshwiggle on September 03, 2020, 03:32:30 PM

Quote from: bacardiandlime on September 03, 2020, 03:28:19 PM
In this Medium post (https://medium.com/@jessakrug/the-truth-and-the-anti-black-violence-of-my-lies-9a9621401f85).

The Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/09/03/white-gwu-professor-admits-she-falsely-claimed-black-identity/) has a piece on it.

It's something of a doozy, she works in Africana studies and had claimed to be black. She was apparently a diversity hire, so essentially took a post that could have gone to a scholar of color.

Basically a repeat of Rachel Dolezal.

So, I guess "Black-passing" is a thing. I'm betting we see more of these as time goes on. It raises an interesting question. If a white person "passes" as black, then what does that say of any "oppression" they experience, since by definition, it can't be because they are black?
Does it have to be admitted as a fiction, or does it get acknowledged as part of ordinary human experience, and not "oppression" at all?

There should be reparations, or restitution, for the oppression experienced. she should return the salary made form the teaching job that was obtained through fraud --  impersonating a person who deserved it. She should give it to a black scholar in her field, maybe.

Quote
As I said: to my mind, what matters is oppression's structure. What matters is that it targets people based on group membership; whether it correctly targets someone doesn't seem all that relevant to me. But, again, I'm not an expert.

By this definition white people are easily some of the most oppressed in society today as we are targeted for suspicions of racism because of our group membership. (And, strikingly, to me at least,  is that much of the work that keep these suspicions in circulation is done by whites). But when I think of oppression I think of not just dislike or distrust, but preventing a person from making progress socially, economically, etc. Which would not be something these more surly subset of POC would not have as much opportunity to do to the white man, being that we have greater numbers and more wealth.
putting is simply, a guy can hate your guts, but have little power to oppress you.

Quote from: mahagonny on September 03, 2020, 06:19:06 PM

By this definition white people are easily some of the most oppressed in society today as we are targeted for suspicions of racism because of our group membership. (And, strikingly, to me at least,  is that much of the work that keep these suspicions in circulation is done by whites). But when I think of oppression I think of not just dislike or distrust, but preventing a person from making progress socially, economically, etc.

As I said: oppression is structural injustice (and often, though not exclusively, institutionalized) predicated on group membership. It's not the same thing as bare harm or injustice. With respect to the example you're giving (I'm assuming its truth for the sake of argument, even though I don't agree at all), white people would satisfy a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for being oppressed.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on September 03, 2020, 07:20:41 PM

Quote from: mahagonny on September 03, 2020, 06:19:06 PM

By this definition white people are easily some of the most oppressed in society today as we are targeted for suspicions of racism because of our group membership. (And, strikingly, to me at least,  is that much of the work that keep these suspicions in circulation is done by whites). But when I think of oppression I think of not just dislike or distrust, but preventing a person from making progress socially, economically, etc.

As I said: oppression is structural injustice (and often, though not exclusively, institutionalized) predicated on group membership. It's not the same thing as bare harm or injustice. With respect to the example you're giving (I'm assuming its truth for the sake of argument, even though I don't agree at all), white people would satisfy a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for being oppressed.

Race has replaced class in a certain way of thinking. We know how the class version ended. Why should the race version end in anything but the same sea of tears?

Aw, nobody's picking on white people. C'mon! that's just made up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPDpcYEdiOg

Quote from: dismalist on September 03, 2020, 07:26:26 PM

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on September 03, 2020, 07:20:41 PM

Quote from: mahagonny on September 03, 2020, 06:19:06 PM

By this definition white people are easily some of the most oppressed in society today as we are targeted for suspicions of racism because of our group membership. (And, strikingly, to me at least,  is that much of the work that keep these suspicions in circulation is done by whites). But when I think of oppression I think of not just dislike or distrust, but preventing a person from making progress socially, economically, etc.

As I said: oppression is structural injustice (and often, though not exclusively, institutionalized) predicated on group membership. It's not the same thing as bare harm or injustice. With respect to the example you're giving (I'm assuming its truth for the sake of argument, even though I don't agree at all), white people would satisfy a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for being oppressed.

Race has replaced class in a certain way of thinking. We know how the class version ended. Why should the race version end in anything but the same sea of tears?

I'm not saying that white people couldn't conceivably satisfy the necessary and sufficient conditions. I'm saying they don't in that example. More generally, I take it that this will often be the case.

And who says the 'class version' has ended?

I'm glad to see these attempts at "diversity hires" thwarted even if by a douche nozzle like this. I still don't see why she doesn't go all the way and claim to identify, if everyone's allowed to be whatever they want without objective standards of any kind.

BTW, this is one of the few times I've heard a position openly referred to as a diversity hire at all, and even then only retrospectively. I have noticed now that Biden has told us beforehand the race and gender of his VP and initial Supreme Court picks that no one should feel the need to perpetuate the fallacy that AA only comes into place between two "otherwise equal applicants as a tie breaker." Come to think of it, I haven't even heard that justification recently. We're basically ok openly stating who the role should NOT go to (i.e., usually a white male) if not specifically who it should go to.

A USC Valedictorian either last year or the year before said the quiet part out loud when instead of advocating for "diversity opportunities" she said that there needed to be more opportunities for "non-whites." I actually wish people would just say this as opposed to the euphemism.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on September 03, 2020, 09:22:09 PM

Quote from: dismalist on September 03, 2020, 07:26:26 PM

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on September 03, 2020, 07:20:41 PM

Quote from: mahagonny on September 03, 2020, 06:19:06 PM

By this definition white people are easily some of the most oppressed in society today as we are targeted for suspicions of racism because of our group membership. (And, strikingly, to me at least,  is that much of the work that keep these suspicions in circulation is done by whites). But when I think of oppression I think of not just dislike or distrust, but preventing a person from making progress socially, economically, etc.

As I said: oppression is structural injustice (and often, though not exclusively, institutionalized) predicated on group membership. It's not the same thing as bare harm or injustice. With respect to the example you're giving (I'm assuming its truth for the sake of argument, even though I don't agree at all), white people would satisfy a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for being oppressed.

Race has replaced class in a certain way of thinking. We know how the class version ended. Why should the race version end in anything but the same sea of tears?

I'm not saying that white people couldn't conceivably satisfy the necessary and sufficient conditions. I'm saying they don't in that example. More generally, I take it that this will often be the case.

And who says the 'class version' has ended?

The class version buried itself in 1989.

Quote from: financeguy on September 03, 2020, 09:47:34 PM
I'm glad to see these attempts at "diversity hires" thwarted even if by a douche nozzle like this. I still don't see why she doesn't go all the way and claim to identify, if everyone's allowed to be whatever they want without objective standards of any kind.

People have always faked their identities for social advantage. 50 years ago, the advantageous identity in academia was WASP. (You'll find plenty of stories of people adjusting their accents, if not outright lying about backgrounds).
Now when job ads specify "people of color", and universities speak openly about wanting to recruit from certain groups: it's naive to think opportunists won't adjust their identities to suit.

As for "diversity hires" it will be interesting to see how this particular case shakes out. Since they can't legally say that being black was a job requirement, they can't fire her for not being black.

There is a video going round of her testifying to a NYC council meeting, as "Jessica La Bombera" and it is a real trip. I have no idea how anyone could have believed she was black. (If she'd gone for a weaker claim, like a Puerto Rican grandmother, she might have got away with it).

"Getting away with it" doesn't mean that "others fell for it." It is much more likely that in public statements, most people (such as myself) do not say what we believe to be true but what is required to avoid getting fired. This is exacerbated when there is absolutely no upside to commenting either way. You'd have to have rocks in your head to bring up race unnecessarily as a white person in the workplace no matter how unlikely someone's claim.

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 03, 2020, 05:48:52 PM
Huh.  Anyone see her picture online?  How did she pull this off? 

I wouldn't mind hitting the job market one more time (now that things are very, very bad) but there's no way my skin tone can pass for anything other than whitey white white.

Sigh. "She pulled if off," because race, while very real, is a social, not a biological or phenotypical, category. The classic example is Walter White, who was a black man, and head of the NAACP, but had pale skin and blue eyes. There are lots of people, who identify as black, have parents who both identify as black, but who if you took them out of their social context, would not be indentifiable as black. As Para shows, it can work the other way too.

Quote from: financeguy on September 04, 2020, 02:59:07 AM
"Getting away with it" doesn't mean that "others fell for it." It is much more likely that in public statements, most people (such as myself) do not say what we believe to be true but what is required to avoid getting fired. This is exacerbated when there is absolutely no upside to commenting either way. You'd have to have rocks in your head to bring up race unnecessarily as a white person in the workplace no matter how unlikely someone's claim.

I would think that most people's default attitude is, instead, to simply accept what we're told by someone about their heritage. People don't normally lie about that, and they're not normally terribly mistaken, either, so it's perfectly normal, when someone makes a claim that seems surprising, to just shrug and say "Huh!".

Speaking from experience, I can tell you that when someone doesn't take your word for it, it's pretty fucking rude. When it happens to you most days, it's infuriating. I would hope that most people implicitly understand that, and aren't so invested in stirring up trouble that they stew over it forevermore and fantasize about saying it out loud. It seems to me that we have pretty good reasons to avoid that sort of conflict, starting with the fact that we'd usually be in the wrong.

As a side-vent, I have a colleague who persists in calling me "Papasaurolophus", even immediately after other colleagues correctly call me "Parasaurolophus" (although I have to say that when they write to me, they still fucking call me "Parasaurolophuse"), and after I've corrected him any number of times. Why is he so invested in the mistake? It's not actually a particularly unusual name in this country, and he's from a part of the country where it's more common than it is here. I guess I should be thankful that it's not the usual error ("Parasaurolophuse"), but honestly, it bugs me a lot more.

I wonder if her pronouncing to the world was really all that helpful. If she wants to absolve herself of the guilt she's been feeling all over the years, a discussion with her HR and publisher could have gotten her book and job pulped.

It's like I heard they say in AA you are supposed to apologize to people from your past unless that apology will hurt them more, opening healed wounds and such.

But now she dumps her guilt onto the public discourse to deal with and create drama about.

Just a thought experiment I suppose...maybe the world (especially the academics familiar with her work) have a right to know it all.

Quote from: Diogenes on September 04, 2020, 07:46:22 AM
I wonder if her pronouncing to the world was really all that helpful. If she wants to absolve herself of the guilt she's been feeling all over the years, a discussion with her HR and publisher could have gotten her book and job pulped.

It seems she was about to be rumbled. She wanted to get her side out first.

Quote from: bacardiandlime on September 04, 2020, 07:48:35 AM

Quote from: Diogenes on September 04, 2020, 07:46:22 AM
I wonder if her pronouncing to the world was really all that helpful. If she wants to absolve herself of the guilt she's been feeling all over the years, a discussion with her HR and publisher could have gotten her book and job pulped.

It seems she was about to be rumbled. She wanted to get her side out first.

Yeah. A junior scholar was on the scent (https://twitter.com/DrYoFiggy/status/1301602923026284551).

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on September 04, 2020, 07:55:09 AM

Quote from: bacardiandlime on September 04, 2020, 07:48:35 AM

Quote from: Diogenes on September 04, 2020, 07:46:22 AM
I wonder if her pronouncing to the world was really all that helpful. If she wants to absolve herself of the guilt she's been feeling all over the years, a discussion with her HR and publisher could have gotten her book and job pulped.

It seems she was about to be rumbled. She wanted to get her side out first.

Yeah. A junior scholar was on the scent (https://twitter.com/DrYoFiggy/status/1301602923026284551).

From that string of tweets:

Quote
She made a living & a whole life out of parroting Black Rican trauma and survival. As a Black Rican I am PISSED.
The other thing is that, let historians tell it, her work is actually good, chick is smart- so why lie?
why chase the extra clout of being a hood raised Black Boricua?

Unintentional 4th wall break?

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on September 04, 2020, 07:44:11 AM

Quote from: financeguy on September 04, 2020, 02:59:07 AM
"Getting away with it" doesn't mean that "others fell for it." It is much more likely that in public statements, most people (such as myself) do not say what we believe to be true but what is required to avoid getting fired. This is exacerbated when there is absolutely no upside to commenting either way. You'd have to have rocks in your head to bring up race unnecessarily as a white person in the workplace no matter how unlikely someone's claim.

I would think that most people's default attitude is, instead, to simply accept what we're told by someone about their heritage. People don't normally lie about that, and they're not normally terribly mistaken, either, so it's perfectly normal, when someone makes a claim that seems surprising, to just shrug and say "Huh!".

Speaking from experience, I can tell you that when someone doesn't take your word for it, it's pretty fucking rude. When it happens to you most days, it's infuriating. I would hope that most people implicitly understand that, and aren't so invested in stirring up trouble that they stew over it forevermore and fantasize about saying it out loud. It seems to me that we have pretty good reasons to avoid that sort of conflict, starting with the fact that we'd usually be in the wrong.

As a side-vent, I have a colleague who persists in calling me "Papasaurolophus", even immediately after other colleagues correctly call me "Parasaurolophus" (although I have to say that when they write to me, they still fucking call me "Parasaurolophuse"), and after I've corrected him any number of times. Why is he so invested in the mistake? It's not actually a particularly unusual name in this country, and he's from a part of the country where it's more common than it is here. I guess I should be thankful that it's not the usual error ("Parasaurolophuse"), but honestly, it bugs me a lot more.

that is insulting. Your name is you own property, like your hairstyle, tattoos (or none) and clothes. Should be respected, learned and pronounced to the best of one's ability. Including if you change it. Maybe especially then.

Quote from: bacardiandlime on September 04, 2020, 02:47:24 AM
As for "diversity hires" it will be interesting to see how this particular case shakes out. Since they can't legally say that being black was a job requirement, they can't fire her for not being black.

They can surely find a pretext if they look hard enough.  Should it even become necessary.  After this revelation I would think that her position will become so untenable that she'll soon be pressured into resigning.  Students will be protesting, colleagues in her field will ostracize her, she'll get all manner of hate mail and probably some death threats.  Resignation and seeking refuge in obscurity will be her only hope of making all that go away.

Question.  Not trying to troll here, I'm honestly curious.  Is it possible in practical terms for a white person (who's honest about it) to get a position in Africana studies and be accepted?  I really don't know.

I don't know the answer, but I'll pose this. Is it possible for a black man to sing country music? A Japanese person to play 'the World Is Waiting for the Sunrise' on the banjo? I've seen both, and they were as authentic as it gets. I thought the idea of education was you could master that which has been 'foreign' to you. If you've mastered it, why couldn't you convey it?
These days I am running into white colleagues who are calling out other whites for racist behavior. They've never been black. They don't feel the sting of the insult. They've been learning. Although in a few cases they've been learning how to be a jerk.

Quote from: apl68 on September 04, 2020, 08:16:48 AM

Quote from: bacardiandlime on September 04, 2020, 02:47:24 AM
As for "diversity hires" it will be interesting to see how this particular case shakes out. Since they can't legally say that being black was a job requirement, they can't fire her for not being black.

They can surely find a pretext if they look hard enough.  Should it even become necessary.  After this revelation I would think that her position will become so untenable that she'll soon be pressured into resigning.  Students will be protesting, colleagues in her field will ostracize her, she'll get all manner of hate mail and probably some death threats.  Resignation and seeking refuge in obscurity will be her only hope of making all that go away.

Question.  Not trying to troll here, I'm honestly curious.  Is it possible in practical terms for a white person (who's honest about it) to get a position in Africana studies and be accepted?  I really don't know.

I know lots of white people in Africana studies departments.

This story was on the 10 pm local newscast. One of her previous students who was interviewed thought something was off about her last year.  Two members of GWU's Black Student Union weighed in too.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on September 04, 2020, 07:44:11 AM

Quote from: financeguy on September 04, 2020, 02:59:07 AM
"Getting away with it" doesn't mean that "others fell for it." It is much more likely that in public statements, most people (such as myself) do not say what we believe to be true but what is required to avoid getting fired. This is exacerbated when there is absolutely no upside to commenting either way. You'd have to have rocks in your head to bring up race unnecessarily as a white person in the workplace no matter how unlikely someone's claim.

I would think that most people's default attitude is, instead, to simply accept what we're told by someone about their heritage. People don't normally lie about that, and they're not normally terribly mistaken, either, so it's perfectly normal, when someone makes a claim that seems surprising, to just shrug and say "Huh!".

Yes. If you really think that you can look at someone and know what their "real" racial identity is, you're very much mistaken.

Quote from: apl68 on September 04, 2020, 08:16:48 AM

Question.  Not trying to troll here, I'm honestly curious.  Is it possible in practical terms for a white person (who's honest about it) to get a position in Africana studies and be accepted?  I really don't know.

Yes, totally. And there are men in women's studies departments, too.

Quote from: mahagonny on September 04, 2020, 08:24:48 AM
Is it possible for a black man to sing country music? A Japanese person to play 'the World Is Waiting for the Sunrise' on the banjo?

There are real, important questions to be asked about cultural appropriation and cultural property, and when appropriation causes profound offense or harm. I think it's fair to say that, generally, it's accepted that the appropriation of an artistic element (like a style, genre, etc.) is perfectly fine--indeed, it's a cornerstone of artistic practice--although the way one goes about doing so may be morally wrong, insensitive, harmful, or profoundly offensive.

You can deny you're black and 'get away with it.'  A former girlfriend of mine said that her father was doing it. She never said she was doing it. Well, at that point, let sleeping dogs lie i guess. This is how I found out I love black women. Well, certain ones especially.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on September 04, 2020, 08:44:02 AM

Quote from: mahagonny on September 04, 2020, 08:24:48 AM
Is it possible for a black man to sing country music? A Japanese person to play 'the World Is Waiting for the Sunrise' on the banjo?

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on September 04, 2020, 08:44:02 AM

Quote from: mahagonny on September 04, 2020, 08:24:48 AM
Is it possible for a black man to sing country music? A Japanese person to play 'the World Is Waiting for the Sunrise' on the banjo?

There are real, important questions to be asked about cultural appropriation and cultural property, and when appropriation causes profound offense or harm. I think it's fair to say that, generally, it's accepted that the appropriation of an artistic element (like a style, genre, etc.) is perfectly fine--indeed, it's a cornerstone of artistic practice--although the way one goes about doing so may be morally wrong, insensitive, harmful, or profoundly offensive.

If you heard the two people I'm thinking of I think you'd conclude they earn their place at the table.

Quote from: marshwiggle on September 04, 2020, 08:03:20 AM

From that string of tweets:

Quote
She made a living & a whole life out of parroting Black Rican trauma and survival. As a Black Rican I am PISSED.
The other thing is that, let historians tell it, her work is actually good, chick is smart- so why lie?
why chase the extra clout of being a hood raised Black Boricua?

Unintentional 4th wall break?

Could you explain? She was claiming to be a Puerto Rican (Boricua) woman from the "hood" (Bronx)....

We need a rating system from least to most oppressed group so job hunters deciding what to "identify" as have some practical guidance. I would personally rather identify as employed than not so if that involves a "race fluid" identity, so be it.

Quote from: mahagonny on September 04, 2020, 08:24:48 AM
I don't know the answer, but I'll pose this. Is it possible for a black man to sing country music? A Japanese person to play 'the World Is Waiting for the Sunrise' on the banjo? I've seen both, and they were as authentic as it gets. I thought the idea of education was you could master that which has been 'foreign' to you. If you've mastered it, why couldn't you convey it?

I would call that just cultural exchange. A black person playing country music isn't faking anything, and not to mention country is the white man's blues and is deeply rooted in black music (including the African instrument: the banjo)

She could have built a honest career doing the same thing without faking her identity. Darius Rucker doesn't pretend to be white.

Quote from: Caracal on September 04, 2020, 04:23:40 AM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 03, 2020, 05:48:52 PM
Huh.  Anyone see her picture online?  How did she pull this off? 

I wouldn't mind hitting the job market one more time (now that things are very, very bad) but there's no way my skin tone can pass for anything other than whitey white white.

Sigh. "She pulled if off," because race, while very real, is a social, not a biological or phenotypical, category. The classic example is Walter White, who was a black man, and head of the NAACP, but had pale skin and blue eyes. There are lots of people, who identify as black, have parents who both identify as black, but who if you took them out of their social context, would not be indentifiable as black. As Para shows, it can work the other way too.

Okay sure, I get this concept.  "Performativity" I think is the fancy intellectualized term.  She appropriated style, attitudes, and customs of a minority group to make an identity.

But there's also the biological reality.  It's only a couple of microns of pigment and maybe some facial morphology, but still.

The same question persists about Dolezal.  If you've seen the documentary about her, at least one of her colleagues looked at her and thought "How come she looks so white?" or something to that effect, but Dolezal managed to persist until she was outed by a journalist.  I'm just surprised when we are so hyper-attuned to these sorts of differences between us in America.


Maybe we are just super willing and/or eager to see race and ethnicity?

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 04, 2020, 12:15:39 PM

Quote from: Caracal on September 04, 2020, 04:23:40 AM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 03, 2020, 05:48:52 PM
Huh.  Anyone see her picture online?  How did she pull this off? 

I wouldn't mind hitting the job market one more time (now that things are very, very bad) but there's no way my skin tone can pass for anything other than whitey white white.

Sigh. "She pulled if off," because race, while very real, is a social, not a biological or phenotypical, category. The classic example is Walter White, who was a black man, and head of the NAACP, but had pale skin and blue eyes. There are lots of people, who identify as black, have parents who both identify as black, but who if you took them out of their social context, would not be indentifiable as black. As Para shows, it can work the other way too.

Okay sure, I get this concept.  "Performativity" I think is the fancy intellectualized term.  She appropriated style, attitudes, and customs of a minority group to make an identity.

But there's also the biological reality.  It's only a couple of microns of pigment and maybe some facial morphology, but still.

But that's the thing. Race doesn't correspond to any biological reality. I think people get mixed up about this because so much of the ideology around race is built on the idea that it can be defined by appearance or biology. However, it really can't. Most black people in the United States have substantial amounts of European ancestry. The average is probably around 25 percent, but that means that in many Black Americans, it is substantially higher. There are a pretty large number of people who identify as black who have majority European ancestry. Plenty of those people could pass as white if they wanted to, that's why there is a whole literature and scholarship around "passing." So, given that context, it isn't strange at all that people wouldn't question someone's racial self identification.

This is the second professor at GWU this year to have turned out to be living a racial lie: https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-novelist-hg-carrillo-dies-coronavirus-cuban-heritage-a-fiction-20200525-eri3ltxxc5dspgekbdax3w2ebu-story.html

Quote from: polly_mer on September 04, 2020, 01:04:40 PM
This is the second professor at GWU this year to have turned out to be living a racial lie: https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-novelist-hg-carrillo-dies-coronavirus-cuban-heritage-a-fiction-20200525-eri3ltxxc5dspgekbdax3w2ebu-story.html

Lying on a resume, including about one's race, is not illegal and probably shouldn't be, though falsifying underlying documents, such as a birth certificate is. What is raised is the question of the trustworthiness of the individual. And in that context, the last couple of sentences of the article are scary:

Quote"I think that in any other century, there were storytellers, like jesters, and in African culture, and in First Nations cultures, and when they told stories, people never expected the truth to be the reality, you know? There was another truth there. And I think that speaks to Hache," he said.

So, how many truths are there about a person? Truth about a person doesn't seem to matter to the interviewee. The perpetrators of the deceit used to be called imposters. Wow, just wow.

Quote from: dismalist on September 04, 2020, 01:17:50 PM
Lying on a resume, including about one's race, is not illegal and probably shouldn't be, though falsifying underlying documents, such as a birth certificate is.

That's an interesting point, and might make sense as it calls to mind that colleges are routinely lying to the public (by omission) about who's doing the teaching. Thus, you have assistant professors, associate professors, full professors, whose ongoing relationship with the institution is an elaborate, regimented affair,  and then just 'professors.' Unranked, adjunct professors who get called 'professor' and have the job of going out there in front of the classroom cast as imposters, and whose ongoing relationship with the institution is an indifferent coincidence, commonly unbeknownst to the student.
(But let's not get into a hijack. that wouldn't be proper.)

Quote from: Caracal on September 04, 2020, 12:47:19 PM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 04, 2020, 12:15:39 PM

Quote from: Caracal on September 04, 2020, 04:23:40 AM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 03, 2020, 05:48:52 PM
Huh.  Anyone see her picture online?  How did she pull this off? 

I wouldn't mind hitting the job market one more time (now that things are very, very bad) but there's no way my skin tone can pass for anything other than whitey white white.

Sigh. "She pulled if off," because race, while very real, is a social, not a biological or phenotypical, category. The classic example is Walter White, who was a black man, and head of the NAACP, but had pale skin and blue eyes. There are lots of people, who identify as black, have parents who both identify as black, but who if you took them out of their social context, would not be indentifiable as black. As Para shows, it can work the other way too.

Okay sure, I get this concept.  "Performativity" I think is the fancy intellectualized term.  She appropriated style, attitudes, and customs of a minority group to make an identity.

But there's also the biological reality.  It's only a couple of microns of pigment and maybe some facial morphology, but still.

But that's the thing. Race doesn't correspond to any biological reality. I think people get mixed up about this because so much of the ideology around race is built on the idea that it can be defined by appearance or biology. However, it really can't. Most black people in the United States have substantial amounts of European ancestry. The average is probably around 25 percent, but that means that in many Black Americans, it is substantially higher. There are a pretty large number of people who identify as black who have majority European ancestry. Plenty of those people could pass as white if they wanted to, that's why there is a whole literature and scholarship around "passing." So, given that context, it isn't strange at all that people wouldn't question someone's racial self identification.

Nella Larson wrote a novel called "Passing."

It's a very sad case in so many ways.  Both this person and Dolezal seemed to need a stronger sense of group belonging than just being another white majority member.  This one cycled through different Black identities like a carousel.  No matter what happens to her at GWU, her prospects of a reputable come-back are non-existent.  If she has any friends, I hope someone is watching over her.

I wonder what her colleagues thought about her being Caribbean one week, African the next?  And her parents and family?  What a lost soul - what a world.

Quote from: bacardiandlime on September 03, 2020, 03:28:19 PM
In this Medium post (https://medium.com/@jessakrug/the-truth-and-the-anti-black-violence-of-my-lies-9a9621401f85).

The Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/09/03/white-gwu-professor-admits-she-falsely-claimed-black-identity/) has a piece on it.

It's something of a doozy, she works in Africana studies and had claimed to be black. She was apparently a diversity hire, so essentially took a post that could have gone to a scholar of color.

I feel very upset about this. It makes me sick to my stomach but I won't go and harass her on social media like a lot of people are doing. I tried avoiding the topic but as a WOC, I'm not surprised, but speechless and upset. That's all I have to say about it. I'll go back to pretending I have never head of this story, it,s better for my MH.

Obviously lying is wrong, but am I missing something, or is it also explicitly illegal in this country to ask someone about their racial or ethnic heritage, in a job appl?

eh... "legal" isn't that relevant if it isn't enforced. Take a scholarship at Columbia University about 20 years ago that had been endowed decades in the past for a student from the same state as the grantor of the trust that also specified the recipient must be white. Courts have routinely reversed these conditions, either removing the restriction or allowing the trust corpus to revert to the estate of the decedent after dissolution, depending on what state and how it was drafted. The former happened in this instance.

When I applied to a graduate program after 9/11, I was admitted and told the NY-based department had no "general fellowships" that year but several specialized ones that I should look at and they'd try to nominate me. Nearly every single one of them specified that the recipient must be a member of a specific gender, racial group or both. If you take out other non-race/gender requirements (a specific undergraduate GPA, state of origin, outside interest, etc) I wasn't eligible to be considered for any of them. This was even at a state institution. To my knowledge, NY courts that overturned the Columbia scholarship trust conditions have not been overrun with similar requests to remove restrictions from this institutions endowed fellowships that do not allow white (or in some instance other) applicants.

I have been a minority in the literal definition of the word in all three major cities I've lived in as an adult. I guarantee that if I am ever "underrepresented" based on population percentage  for any opportunity and affirmative action were ever used by an institution to advantage me or other whites, you can take it to the bank that any courts view on the legality of AA practices or nonsense arguments such as "one of many factors" will change immediately.

Quote from: financeguy on September 05, 2020, 01:27:11 AM
eh... "legal" isn't that relevant if it isn't enforced. Take a scholarship at Columbia University about 20 years ago that had been endowed decades in the past for a student from the same state as the grantor of the trust that also specified the recipient must be white. Courts have routinely reversed these conditions, either removing the restriction or allowing the trust corpus to revert to the estate of the decedent after dissolution, depending on what state and how it was drafted. The former happened in this instance.

When I applied to a graduate program after 9/11, I was admitted and told the NY-based department had no "general fellowships" that year but several specialized ones that I should look at and they'd try to nominate me. Nearly every single one of them specified that the recipient must be a member of a specific gender, racial group or both. If you take out other non-race/gender requirements (a specific undergraduate GPA, state of origin, outside interest, etc) I wasn't eligible to be considered for any of them. This was even at a state institution. To my knowledge, NY courts that overturned the Columbia scholarship trust conditions have not been overrun with similar requests to remove restrictions from this institutions endowed fellowships that do not allow white (or in some instance other) applicants.

I have been a minority in the literal definition of the word in all three major cities I've lived in as an adult. I guarantee that if I am ever "underrepresented" based on population percentage  for any opportunity and affirmative action were ever used by an institution to advantage me or other whites, you can take it to the bank that any courts view on the legality of AA practices or nonsense arguments such as "one of many factors" will change immediately.

Yes, life has obviously been difficult and hard for you as a white man.

Quote from: Caracal on September 05, 2020, 04:26:01 AM

Quote from: financeguy on September 05, 2020, 01:27:11 AM
eh... "legal" isn't that relevant if it isn't enforced. Take a scholarship at Columbia University about 20 years ago that had been endowed decades in the past for a student from the same state as the grantor of the trust that also specified the recipient must be white. Courts have routinely reversed these conditions, either removing the restriction or allowing the trust corpus to revert to the estate of the decedent after dissolution, depending on what state and how it was drafted. The former happened in this instance.

When I applied to a graduate program after 9/11, I was admitted and told the NY-based department had no "general fellowships" that year but several specialized ones that I should look at and they'd try to nominate me. Nearly every single one of them specified that the recipient must be a member of a specific gender, racial group or both. If you take out other non-race/gender requirements (a specific undergraduate GPA, state of origin, outside interest, etc) I wasn't eligible to be considered for any of them. This was even at a state institution. To my knowledge, NY courts that overturned the Columbia scholarship trust conditions have not been overrun with similar requests to remove restrictions from this institutions endowed fellowships that do not allow white (or in some instance other) applicants.

I have been a minority in the literal definition of the word in all three major cities I've lived in as an adult. I guarantee that if I am ever "underrepresented" based on population percentage  for any opportunity and affirmative action were ever used by an institution to advantage me or other whites, you can take it to the bank that any courts view on the legality of AA practices or nonsense arguments such as "one of many factors" will change immediately.

Yes, life has obviously been difficult and hard for you as a white man.

Ding! Outing the guy who doesn't know his privilege. Give yourself a hearty pat on the back. Snappy woke rejoinder #1 from the catalog.

[end sarcasm] There must be hundreds of accounts by now on this forum and the old one about how difficult  academic life can be that are responded to with sympathy. Regular occurrence. But now and then people forget to insert race into the discussion.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on September 04, 2020, 08:44:02 AM

Quote from: apl68 on September 04, 2020, 08:16:48 AM

Question.  Not trying to troll here, I'm honestly curious.  Is it possible in practical terms for a white person (who's honest about it) to get a position in Africana studies and be accepted?  I really don't know.

Yes, totally. And there are men in women's studies departments, too.

Thank you.

Quote from: Caracal on September 05, 2020, 04:26:01 AM

Quote from: financeguy on September 05, 2020, 01:27:11 AM
eh... "legal" isn't that relevant if it isn't enforced. Take a scholarship at Columbia University about 20 years ago that had been endowed decades in the past for a student from the same state as the grantor of the trust that also specified the recipient must be white. Courts have routinely reversed these conditions, either removing the restriction or allowing the trust corpus to revert to the estate of the decedent after dissolution, depending on what state and how it was drafted. The former happened in this instance.

When I applied to a graduate program after 9/11, I was admitted and told the NY-based department had no "general fellowships" that year but several specialized ones that I should look at and they'd try to nominate me. Nearly every single one of them specified that the recipient must be a member of a specific gender, racial group or both. If you take out other non-race/gender requirements (a specific undergraduate GPA, state of origin, outside interest, etc) I wasn't eligible to be considered for any of them. This was even at a state institution. To my knowledge, NY courts that overturned the Columbia scholarship trust conditions have not been overrun with similar requests to remove restrictions from this institutions endowed fellowships that do not allow white (or in some instance other) applicants.

I have been a minority in the literal definition of the word in all three major cities I've lived in as an adult. I guarantee that if I am ever "underrepresented" based on population percentage  for any opportunity and affirmative action were ever used by an institution to advantage me or other whites, you can take it to the bank that any courts view on the legality of AA practices or nonsense arguments such as "one of many factors" will change immediately.

Yes, life has obviously been difficult and hard for you as a white man.

Supposing your sarcasm has a serious intent (and maybe it doesn't)....

Firstly, what good is a comment like that?

And secondly, you do realize that even white men with all their "privilege" must struggle in life?

And thirdly, what about your own attitude?

I was actually in a room with several other graduate students when a student who was a member of a minority group, instead of celebrating the success of her colleague who had just gotten a really sweet gig teaching minority studies at a really good uni, said aloud for everyone to hear, "He's a white guy" as if that should disqualify him. We know what would have happened had someone said of a Shakespeare scholar, "He's a [minority] guy" as if that disqualified him.

If we simply want to antagonize each other in life and culture, okay.  But if we don't want to antagonize each other...

Reasonable people recognize the many historical and current disadvantages heaped on minority groups in our culture, academia has seen itself for a generation at least as a corrective element to this.

OMG, if incentives are created for people to lie about their race (minority hires) people lie about their race - who could possibly have ever foreseen that? /s

The first post in this thread stated that she had been a diversity hire.  I haven't seen that stated anywhere.  She presumably was hired because of her expertise in the history of the African diaspora and what made her work especially appealing was her own lived experiences as a Black latina with parents or grandparents from both north African and the Caribbean.  on the other had, there is some discussion on Twitter that some of her awards or fellowships were intended for BIPOC.

Her department has a very strong statement on their website:  https://history.columbian.gwu.edu/our-statement-jessica-krug

I think few people are going to be tempted to pretend they're of a race they really aren't, just to get a diversity hire. Diversity hires don't just hire you because you're X, and then you've got a great gig. They typically are in the field your race is related to, e.g. African-American. So you'd have to start preparing years in advance to be an expert in the field of African-American literature, history, or whatever, and be prepared to devote your career of 20-40 years' length to the field. Then you'll be expected to mentor African-American students, to participate in outreach to the African-American community, to be up to speed on controversies related to African-American issues, to be asked/pressured to be on every committee possible, for diversity and for the appearance of diversity. You'll also have to be ready to be the target of bigotry, condescension, potential violence, overtly expressed convictions that you're actually stupid and badly prepared but you got the job because you are a minority, and the not negligible disadvantages that come with being identified with a vilified group. You could pass for white when you need to, because actually you are white, but you will be treated as Black by anyone who knows your professed identity, and I'd bet not all of those people are kindly and supportive.

So I think you'd have to be all-in if you were going to launch a career by identifying yourself as a member of a group that you're actually not in. Why these particular people chose to do it, who's to say. I have my suspicions, but they aren't about the cold calculation of professional advantage.

This has not been my experience. I've had many people tell me they need to "fill the role with an x" where x is either a woman or racial minority. Of course these things are not in the advertisement or openly stated, but you don't need to be a statistician to figure out when a very small percentage of participants in a given specialty are members of group x yet all three in person finalists are members of x that this didn't just happen by chance. I was the undergrad student rep on a search where this happened in 1998, finding out the following year that the "big name" who interviewed was not hired. Apparently the wrong plumbing. Over 20 years later and the person hired is still not as prominent by a long shot as the guy that was turned down more than two decades ago. No one who attends does so to study with this person who is clearly not in the league of many in the department who are not just "good" but the best in the world at what they do. These decisions do not come without a cost.

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 05, 2020, 09:03:27 AM

Quote from: Caracal on September 05, 2020, 04:26:01 AM

Quote from: financeguy on September 05, 2020, 01:27:11 AM
eh... "legal" isn't that relevant if it isn't enforced. Take a scholarship at Columbia University about 20 years ago that had been endowed decades in the past for a student from the same state as the grantor of the trust that also specified the recipient must be white. Courts have routinely reversed these conditions, either removing the restriction or allowing the trust corpus to revert to the estate of the decedent after dissolution, depending on what state and how it was drafted. The former happened in this instance.

When I applied to a graduate program after 9/11, I was admitted and told the NY-based department had no "general fellowships" that year but several specialized ones that I should look at and they'd try to nominate me. Nearly every single one of them specified that the recipient must be a member of a specific gender, racial group or both. If you take out other non-race/gender requirements (a specific undergraduate GPA, state of origin, outside interest, etc) I wasn't eligible to be considered for any of them. This was even at a state institution. To my knowledge, NY courts that overturned the Columbia scholarship trust conditions have not been overrun with similar requests to remove restrictions from this institutions endowed fellowships that do not allow white (or in some instance other) applicants.

I have been a minority in the literal definition of the word in all three major cities I've lived in as an adult. I guarantee that if I am ever "underrepresented" based on population percentage  for any opportunity and affirmative action were ever used by an institution to advantage me or other whites, you can take it to the bank that any courts view on the legality of AA practices or nonsense arguments such as "one of many factors" will change immediately.

Yes, life has obviously been difficult and hard for you as a white man.

Supposing your sarcasm has a serious intent (and maybe it doesn't)....

Firstly, what good is a comment like that?

And secondly, you do realize that even white men with all their "privilege" must struggle in life?

And thirdly, what about your own attitude?

I was actually in a room with several other graduate students when a student who was a member of a minority group, instead of celebrating the success of her colleague who had just gotten a really sweet gig teaching minority studies at a really good uni, said aloud for everyone to hear, "He's a white guy" as if that should disqualify him. We know what would have happened had someone said of a Shakespeare scholar, "He's a [minority] guy" as if that disqualified him.

If we simply want to antagonize each other in life and culture, okay.  But if we don't want to antagonize each other...

Reasonable people recognize the many historical and current disadvantages heaped on minority groups in our culture, academia has seen itself for a generation at least as a corrective element to this.

Oh stop. Finance guy was whining about the difficulties of life as a white man in academia. Obviously, I was making fun of that assertion, not making comments about his life difficulties. More to the point, minority groups are hugely underrepresented, not overrepresented in academia. This hasn't changed over the last decade. So, the assertion that somehow white people are being systematically disadvantaged in academia, is to put it politely, garbage. The grad student is a jerk and a fool, who cares? For some reason, these are always the kind of arguments people make on here. It boils down to "racial discrimination against white academics is real, because once somebody said something mean to me."

Quote from: Hegemony on September 05, 2020, 11:42:28 PM
I think few people are going to be tempted to pretend they're of a race they really aren't, just to get a diversity hire. Diversity hires don't just hire you because you're X, and then you've got a great gig. They typically are in the field your race is related to, e.g. African-American. So you'd have to start preparing years in advance to be an expert in the field of African-American literature, history, or whatever, and be prepared to devote your career of 20-40 years' length to the field. Then you'll be expected to mentor African-American students, to participate in outreach to the African-American community, to be up to speed on controversies related to African-American issues, to be asked/pressured to be on every committee possible, for diversity and for the appearance of diversity. You'll also have to be ready to be the target of bigotry, condescension, potential violence, overtly expressed convictions that you're actually stupid and badly prepared but you got the job because you are a minority, and the not negligible disadvantages that come with being identified with a vilified group. You could pass for white when you need to, because actually you are white, but you will be treated as Black by anyone who knows your professed identity, and I'd bet not all of those people are kindly and supportive.

So I think you'd have to be all-in if you were going to launch a career by identifying yourself as a member of a group that you're actually not in. Why these particular people chose to do it, who's to say. I have my suspicions, but they aren't about the cold calculation of professional advantage.

I'm sure many diversity hires are what you say, but you shouldn't stereotype an entire group like this and many are not.  I am currently working with an indigenous hire in chemistry.  They were not hired to teach indigenous chemistry, but they were hired because they were indigenous.  That being said, they are great, and fully qualified, but have had a hard time with colleagues based on their status.

As a white male in academia, I think anyone who says we are poorly treated it crazy.  I have never had anyone question my credentials, why I was hired, or anything of that nature.  I've been on several hiring committees and have never seen anyone suggest we should, or shouldn't, hire anyone based on their race, skin colour, or gender.  I'm sure that has happened somewhere, but from my experience, it has always gone to the most qualified person.  Diversity hires represent a small number of positions and it is likely necessary to slowly shift the balance.

Quote from: Hegemony on September 05, 2020, 11:42:28 PM
I think few people are going to be tempted to pretend they're of a race they really aren't, just to get a diversity hire. Diversity hires don't just hire you because you're X, and then you've got a great gig. They typically are in the field your race is related to, e.g. African-American. So you'd have to start preparing years in advance to be an expert in the field of African-American literature, history, or whatever, and be prepared to devote your career of 20-40 years' length to the field. Then you'll be expected to mentor African-American students, to participate in outreach to the African-American community, to be up to speed on controversies related to African-American issues, to be asked/pressured to be on every committee possible, for diversity and for the appearance of diversity. You'll also have to be ready to be the target of bigotry, condescension, potential violence, overtly expressed convictions that you're actually stupid and badly prepared but you got the job because you are a minority, and the not negligible disadvantages that come with being identified with a vilified group. You could pass for white when you need to, because actually you are white, but you will be treated as Black by anyone who knows your professed identity, and I'd bet not all of those people are kindly and supportive.

So I think you'd have to be all-in if you were going to launch a career by identifying yourself as a member of a group that you're actually not in. Why these particular people chose to do it, who's to say. I have my suspicions, but they aren't about the cold calculation of professional advantage.

It is an outgrowth of colorblind thinking. I think it is true, that if my resume stayed the same but I suddenly  became an underrepresented minority, I would have a better chance of getting a closer look in interviews for some tenure track positions. I'm in a field where the market is very tight. It is also an overwhelmingly white field. There are lots of qualified candidates for most positions, so anything that makes you stand out helps.

However, there are two problems with claiming this means that white candidates are disadvantaged. One is that there just aren't enough minority candidates for this to significantly impact my chance of getting an interview or a job. Just because a department might want to hire someone who would bring a different perspective, all things being equal, doesn't mean they will actually do that when only a few minority candidates are in the application pool. Like all candidates, most of those people will probably not fit for various reasons. And again, if you look at the actual hiring numbers, there aren't enough jobs going to non white candidates for it be impacting me much.

This highlights the second problem, which is that you assume there are no barriers to everyone getting the same qualifications. I attended a fairly small grad program, but if I think about the cohorts within 3 years of me either direction, I can think of one Black American out of somewhere around 80 people. There's no one simple explanation for this, and my program may have been worse than many, but that basic pattern holds pretty well. It is pretty clear that it is not a simple or easy path.

Quote from: Caracal on September 06, 2020, 03:50:33 AM
Oh stop. Finance guy was whining about the difficulties of life as a white man in academia. Obviously, I was making fun of that assertion, not making comments about his life difficulties. More to the point, minority groups are hugely underrepresented, not overrepresented in academia. This hasn't changed over the last decade. So, the assertion that somehow white people are being systematically disadvantaged in academia, is to put it politely, garbage. The grad student is a jerk and a fool, who cares? For some reason, these are always the kind of arguments people make on here. It boils down to "racial discrimination against white academics is real, because once somebody said something mean to me."

Seems to me we've been down this exact path before and I think you've said very much the same thing before.  I've posted my own anecdotal experiences observing minority hiring and retention in academia, which while admittedly a weak form of evidence would militate against what you've just said above.

I've also been looking around at the actual numbers---and it is interesting.

I probably won't stop.  And that wasn't what I talking about, anyway.  I don't cotton much to some poster's commentary myself----I think some folks are ridiculous and adolescent.

What I was more interested in was your actual approach and what you think you can accomplish from it.  It's "garbage" is not a convincing argument.  You, my friend, sound as reactionary as these other folks.

Just out of curiosity, would would be the proper ratio/percentage/whatever of minority faculty and why?

Quote from: Caracal on September 06, 2020, 07:43:31 AM
However, there are two problems with claiming this means that white candidates are disadvantaged. One is that there just aren't enough minority candidates for this to significantly impact my chance of getting an interview or a job. Just because a department might want to hire someone who would bring a different perspective, all things being equal, doesn't mean they will actually do that when only a few minority candidates are in the application pool. Like all candidates, most of those people will probably not fit for various reasons. And again, if you look at the actual hiring numbers, there aren't enough jobs going to non white candidates for it be impacting me much.

That only works if one is not actively on the job market and/or has not seen a job go to a less-qualified (on paper anyway) candidate. 

What if they do a study that finds there aren't enough black adjunct faculty because black people have more common sense?

As long as we have the attitude that a difference in representation relative to the population as a whole means oppression, there's no reason to further the conversation under that assumption. The NBA analogy of underrepresented whites is getting pretty worn out. Oppression is one possible reason for representation differing from the general population, as are preferences, innate group differences, or even the undetermined reasons, which can easily be the most likely answer if a field is too small to even be representative. Trying to "represent the population" in a field graduating less than 100 people a year nationwide, for example, is probably not going to happen for many reasons, oppression being least likely.

And btw, I've not stated that I've had a "hard life" at all, which can be said of 0% of people in pursuit of a graduate education in the United States, minority or otherwise. Once you walk onto that campus, you are privileged relative to the vast majority of the world to such an insane degree that it's almost an embarrassment to even argue over who got the history job at Duke and for what reason. This is a very different statement than I have lost opportunities based on race and some have received them based on race. I'm still in a good place either way and will continue to be because I'll make it happen regardless, even if that means business ownership on my own outside of an academic environment. My own quality of life isn't really the point.

Quote from: Caracal on September 06, 2020, 07:43:31 AM

Quote from: Hegemony on September 05, 2020, 11:42:28 PM
I think few people are going to be tempted to pretend they're of a race they really aren't, just to get a diversity hire. Diversity hires don't just hire you because you're X, and then you've got a great gig. They typically are in the field your race is related to, e.g. African-American. So you'd have to start preparing years in advance to be an expert in the field of African-American literature, history, or whatever, and be prepared to devote your career of 20-40 years' length to the field. Then you'll be expected to mentor African-American students, to participate in outreach to the African-American community, to be up to speed on controversies related to African-American issues, to be asked/pressured to be on every committee possible, for diversity and for the appearance of diversity. You'll also have to be ready to be the target of bigotry, condescension, potential violence, overtly expressed convictions that you're actually stupid and badly prepared but you got the job because you are a minority, and the not negligible disadvantages that come with being identified with a vilified group. You could pass for white when you need to, because actually you are white, but you will be treated as Black by anyone who knows your professed identity, and I'd bet not all of those people are kindly and supportive.

So I think you'd have to be all-in if you were going to launch a career by identifying yourself as a member of a group that you're actually not in. Why these particular people chose to do it, who's to say. I have my suspicions, but they aren't about the cold calculation of professional advantage.

It is an outgrowth of colorblind thinking. I think it is true, that if my resume stayed the same but I suddenly  became an underrepresented minority, I would have a better chance of getting a closer look in interviews for some tenure track positions. I'm in a field where the market is very tight. It is also an overwhelmingly white field. There are lots of qualified candidates for most positions, so anything that makes you stand out helps.

However, there are two problems with claiming this means that white candidates are disadvantaged. One is that there just aren't enough minority candidates for this to significantly impact my chance of getting an interview or a job. Just because a department might want to hire someone who would bring a different perspective, all things being equal, doesn't mean they will actually do that when only a few minority candidates are in the application pool. Like all candidates, most of those people will probably not fit for various reasons. And again, if you look at the actual hiring numbers, there aren't enough jobs going to non white candidates for it be impacting me much.

This highlights the second problem, which is that you assume there are no barriers to everyone getting the same qualifications. I attended a fairly small grad program, but if I think about the cohorts within 3 years of me either direction, I can think of one Black American out of somewhere around 80 people. There's no one simple explanation for this, and my program may have been worse than many, but that basic pattern holds pretty well. It is pretty clear that it is not a simple or easy path.

Except that the research shows that if you have an "ethnic" sounding name you are automatically at a disadvantage.  This is also.tru if you have a female name, you are automatically downgraded based on this, before they even look at your qualifications.  To assume you are advantaged as a minority flies in the face of any research I have seen.

Quote from: Kron3007 on September 06, 2020, 06:15:52 PM

Quote from: Caracal on September 06, 2020, 07:43:31 AM

Quote from: Hegemony on September 05, 2020, 11:42:28 PM
I think few people are going to be tempted to pretend they're of a race they really aren't, just to get a diversity hire. Diversity hires don't just hire you because you're X, and then you've got a great gig. They typically are in the field your race is related to, e.g. African-American. So you'd have to start preparing years in advance to be an expert in the field of African-American literature, history, or whatever, and be prepared to devote your career of 20-40 years' length to the field. Then you'll be expected to mentor African-American students, to participate in outreach to the African-American community, to be up to speed on controversies related to African-American issues, to be asked/pressured to be on every committee possible, for diversity and for the appearance of diversity. You'll also have to be ready to be the target of bigotry, condescension, potential violence, overtly expressed convictions that you're actually stupid and badly prepared but you got the job because you are a minority, and the not negligible disadvantages that come with being identified with a vilified group. You could pass for white when you need to, because actually you are white, but you will be treated as Black by anyone who knows your professed identity, and I'd bet not all of those people are kindly and supportive.

So I think you'd have to be all-in if you were going to launch a career by identifying yourself as a member of a group that you're actually not in. Why these particular people chose to do it, who's to say. I have my suspicions, but they aren't about the cold calculation of professional advantage.

It is an outgrowth of colorblind thinking. I think it is true, that if my resume stayed the same but I suddenly  became an underrepresented minority, I would have a better chance of getting a closer look in interviews for some tenure track positions. I'm in a field where the market is very tight. It is also an overwhelmingly white field. There are lots of qualified candidates for most positions, so anything that makes you stand out helps.

However, there are two problems with claiming this means that white candidates are disadvantaged. One is that there just aren't enough minority candidates for this to significantly impact my chance of getting an interview or a job. Just because a department might want to hire someone who would bring a different perspective, all things being equal, doesn't mean they will actually do that when only a few minority candidates are in the application pool. Like all candidates, most of those people will probably not fit for various reasons. And again, if you look at the actual hiring numbers, there aren't enough jobs going to non white candidates for it be impacting me much.

This highlights the second problem, which is that you assume there are no barriers to everyone getting the same qualifications. I attended a fairly small grad program, but if I think about the cohorts within 3 years of me either direction, I can think of one Black American out of somewhere around 80 people. There's no one simple explanation for this, and my program may have been worse than many, but that basic pattern holds pretty well. It is pretty clear that it is not a simple or easy path.

Except that the research shows that if you have an "ethnic" sounding name you are automatically at a disadvantage.  This is also.tru if you have a female name, you are automatically downgraded based on this, before they even look at your qualifications.  To assume you are advantaged as a minority flies in the face of any research I have seen.

This.

Quote from: adel9216 on September 06, 2020, 07:59:35 PM

Quote from: Kron3007 on September 06, 2020, 06:15:52 PM

Except that the research shows that if you have an "ethnic" sounding name you are automatically at a disadvantage.  This is also.tru if you have a female name, you are automatically downgraded based on this, before they even look at your qualifications.  To assume you are advantaged as a minority flies in the face of any research I have seen.

This.

So we name our kids nice Anglo-Saxon male, and the problem is gone within a generation. :-)

Quote from: adel9216 on September 06, 2020, 07:59:35 PM
Except that the research shows that if you have an "ethnic" sounding name you are automatically at a disadvantage.  This is also.tru if you have a female name, you are automatically downgraded based on this, before they even look at your qualifications.  To assume you are advantaged as a minority flies in the face of any research I have seen.

This.
[/quote]

Well...maybe.

I'm ambivalent and not necessarily an opponent of minority hiring, Affirmative Action, etc.  And I've actually worked on two "diversity initiatives" in my time.

But you know that there is also a body of research on the term "reverse discrimination," for and against the term, some from the '70s, some recent. 

And we were talking about academic jobs anyway.

Is there any research into ethnicity and academic job markets?

Quote from: bacardiandlime on September 04, 2020, 09:20:57 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on September 04, 2020, 08:03:20 AM

From that string of tweets:

Quote
She made a living & a whole life out of parroting Black Rican trauma and survival. As a Black Rican I am PISSED.
The other thing is that, let historians tell it, her work is actually good, chick is smart- so why lie?
why chase the extra clout of being a hood raised Black Boricua?

Unintentional 4th wall break?

Could you explain? She was claiming to be a Puerto Rican (Boricua) woman from the "hood" (Bronx)....

That sounds a lot like "'hood privilege". Wouldn't her original "white privilege" have been worth more? Or, is privilege context-specific?

Quote from: marshwiggle on September 07, 2020, 01:14:49 PM
Or, is privilege context-specific?

Yes. You can be privileged in some respects, and not in others.

Depends whether you're the privileger or the privalegee! :-)

The fact that two white women passed as a black women to get a jobs, and then were humiliated and lost said jobs when their real ethnicity was outed, should answer those particular questions and provide some level of proof to the assertion of...well, I don't want to use the term because some folks take umbrage. 

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 07, 2020, 05:09:42 PM
The fact that two white women passed as a black women to get a jobs, and then were humiliated and lost said jobs when their real ethnicity was outed, should answer those particular questions and provide some level of proof to the assertion of...well, I don't want to use the term because some folks take umbrage.

To clarify; the fact that women got jobs by appearing to be black, and lost them once they were revealed to be white, is definitely evidence of something.

Quote from: marshwiggle on September 08, 2020, 03:56:44 AM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 07, 2020, 05:09:42 PM
The fact that two white women passed as a black women to get a jobs, and then were humiliated and lost said jobs when their real ethnicity was outed, should answer those particular questions and provide some level of proof to the assertion of...well, I don't want to use the term because some folks take umbrage.

To clarify; the fact that women got jobs by appearing to be black, and lost them once they were revealed to be white, is definitely evidence of something.

Yes, it is evidence that if you misrepresent yourself or lie about your background and someone finds out, you usually get fired. I assume the same thing would happen if you falsely claimed to be a military veteran, or lied about being  in the WTC towers on 9/11. You wouldn't be fired because only a veteran or a 9/11 survivor could hold the job, you'd be canned because the lie was a breach of trust and a moral failure.

There is only one story here. If you incentivize something, you get more of it.  If you tax something, you get less of it.  The American professional class has incentivized blackness and taxed whiteness.  Rational actors in the marketplace are adjusting accordingly. 

Also: I'm a black Native American, so it's racist of you to disagree with me.

Quote from: Caracal on September 08, 2020, 04:37:11 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on September 08, 2020, 03:56:44 AM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 07, 2020, 05:09:42 PM
The fact that two white women passed as a black women to get a jobs, and then were humiliated and lost said jobs when their real ethnicity was outed, should answer those particular questions and provide some level of proof to the assertion of...well, I don't want to use the term because some folks take umbrage.

To clarify; the fact that women got jobs by appearing to be black, and lost them once they were revealed to be white, is definitely evidence of something.

Yes, it is evidence that if you misrepresent yourself or lie about your background and someone finds out, you usually get fired.

The twist here is that it was lying about things that for a few decades would have been illegal or at least totally inappropriate to ask about, let alone consider in hiring decisions. The regress of society into explicit tribalism is sad and dangerous.

Quote
I assume the same thing would happen if you falsely claimed to be a military veteran, or lied about being  in the WTC towers on 9/11. You wouldn't be fired because only a veteran or a 9/11 survivor could hold the job, you'd be canned because the lie was a breach of trust and a moral failure.

If it was considered relevant to the job, (such as to teach military history, or dealing with trauma), then there would be an implicit understanding of being especially suited to the job. (Or in the case of the claim to be a veteran, if there was some job recruiting program for veterans that the person misrepresented themself to get into, then it is actual fraud.) If the job were to teach computer science, those issues would not have had any reason to come up in the job search or interviews, and would be no more relevant than professed ability to play the cello. If the person had performed well teaching for several years, it would be unlikely to be a firing offense in and of itself.

Quote from: marshwiggle on September 08, 2020, 05:37:50 AM

Quote
I assume the same thing would happen if you falsely claimed to be a military veteran, or lied about being  in the WTC towers on 9/11. You wouldn't be fired because only a veteran or a 9/11 survivor could hold the job, you'd be canned because the lie was a breach of trust and a moral failure.

If it was considered relevant to the job, (such as to teach military history, or dealing with trauma), then there would be an implicit understanding of being especially suited to the job. (Or in the case of the claim to be a veteran, if there was some job recruiting program for veterans that the person misrepresented themself to get into, then it is actual fraud.) If the job were to teach computer science, those issues would not have had any reason to come up in the job search or interviews, and would be no more relevant than professed ability to play the cello. If the person had performed well teaching for several years, it would be unlikely to be a firing offense in and of itself.

I think anybody who misrepresented themselves in a professional capacity can end up in real trouble. If I teach computer science and like to go to the bar and tell lies about my tour of duty in Afghanistan, that might not be relevant to my job. However, if I bring up my imaginary combat tour every time an issue involving veterans comes up in a faculty meeting, that's rather different. It wouldn't matter whether being in the army had any relevance to my job responsibilities or if my misrepresentation had actually resulted in any tangible benefits for myself.

Quote from: Caracal on September 08, 2020, 07:06:59 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on September 08, 2020, 05:37:50 AM

Quote
I assume the same thing would happen if you falsely claimed to be a military veteran, or lied about being  in the WTC towers on 9/11. You wouldn't be fired because only a veteran or a 9/11 survivor could hold the job, you'd be canned because the lie was a breach of trust and a moral failure.

If it was considered relevant to the job, (such as to teach military history, or dealing with trauma), then there would be an implicit understanding of being especially suited to the job. (Or in the case of the claim to be a veteran, if there was some job recruiting program for veterans that the person misrepresented themself to get into, then it is actual fraud.) If the job were to teach computer science, those issues would not have had any reason to come up in the job search or interviews, and would be no more relevant than professed ability to play the cello. If the person had performed well teaching for several years, it would be unlikely to be a firing offense in and of itself.

I think anybody who misrepresented themselves in a professional capacity can end up in real trouble. If I teach computer science and like to go to the bar and tell lies about my tour of duty in Afghanistan, that might not be relevant to my job. However, if I bring up my imaginary combat tour every time an issue involving veterans comes up in a faculty meeting, that's rather different. It wouldn't matter whether being in the army had any relevance to my job responsibilities or if my misrepresentation had actually resulted in any tangible benefits for myself.

But that's the point; bringing up your imaginary combat tour in discussing an issue involving veterens would indeed be claiming that it had specific relevance to the job. (The "job" of a faculty member does indeed go beyond just teaching.) Just like Jessica Krug and Rachel Dolezal used their faked ethnicity to imply relevant perspective to their teaching.

With the rise of the emphasis on "lived experience" in certain humanities fields, only someone claiming the "right" ethnicity would be able to speak freely, while anyone from with the "wrong" ethnicity would only even have a chance at being hired if they readily and consistently espoused the "correct" perspective.

Quote from: Caracal on September 08, 2020, 07:06:59 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on September 08, 2020, 05:37:50 AM

Quote
I assume the same thing would happen if you falsely claimed to be a military veteran, or lied about being  in the WTC towers on 9/11. You wouldn't be fired because only a veteran or a 9/11 survivor could hold the job, you'd be canned because the lie was a breach of trust and a moral failure.

If it was considered relevant to the job, (such as to teach military history, or dealing with trauma), then there would be an implicit understanding of being especially suited to the job. (Or in the case of the claim to be a veteran, if there was some job recruiting program for veterans that the person misrepresented themself to get into, then it is actual fraud.) If the job were to teach computer science, those issues would not have had any reason to come up in the job search or interviews, and would be no more relevant than professed ability to play the cello. If the person had performed well teaching for several years, it would be unlikely to be a firing offense in and of itself.

I think anybody who misrepresented themselves in a professional capacity can end up in real trouble. If I teach computer science and like to go to the bar and tell lies about my tour of duty in Afghanistan, that might not be relevant to my job. However, if I bring up my imaginary combat tour every time an issue involving veterans comes up in a faculty meeting, that's rather different. It wouldn't matter whether being in the army had any relevance to my job responsibilities or if my misrepresentation had actually resulted in any tangible benefits for myself.

How black do you have to be to say you're black. We had a black POTUS who was, at the most, 50% of African descent. How about 1/4, 1/18, 1/16, 1/32 black? Are they making false claims?

Quote from: Caracal on September 08, 2020, 04:37:11 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on September 08, 2020, 03:56:44 AM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 07, 2020, 05:09:42 PM
The fact that two white women passed as a black women to get a jobs, and then were humiliated and lost said jobs when their real ethnicity was outed, should answer those particular questions and provide some level of proof to the assertion of...well, I don't want to use the term because some folks take umbrage.

To clarify; the fact that women got jobs by appearing to be black, and lost them once they were revealed to be white, is definitely evidence of something.

Yes, it is evidence that if you misrepresent yourself or lie about your background and someone finds out, you usually get fired.

Fair enough.  I simply meant that both Dolezal and Krug got their jobs essentially because they were taken to be of a particular race.  In other words, denying that race was a factor in their employment, and their dismissal, is the kind of "denial" we see when people do not want to admit to something----the term is used most frequently in drug or alcohol rehabilitation.

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 08, 2020, 09:29:52 AM

Quote from: Caracal on September 08, 2020, 04:37:11 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on September 08, 2020, 03:56:44 AM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 07, 2020, 05:09:42 PM
The fact that two white women passed as a black women to get a jobs, and then were humiliated and lost said jobs when their real ethnicity was outed, should answer those particular questions and provide some level of proof to the assertion of...well, I don't want to use the term because some folks take umbrage.

To clarify; the fact that women got jobs by appearing to be black, and lost them once they were revealed to be white, is definitely evidence of something.

Yes, it is evidence that if you misrepresent yourself or lie about your background and someone finds out, you usually get fired.

Fair enough.  I simply meant that both Dolezal and Krug got their jobs essentially because they were taken to be of a particular race.  In other words, denying that race was a factor in their employment, and their dismissal, is the kind of "denial" we see when people do not want to admit to something----the term is used most frequently in drug or alcohol rehabilitation.

How do you know that's true? As I understand it, she was actually hired as a member of the history department. She's a historian of Africa and the African Diaspora. I can tell you that most historians of Africa aren't black. I haven't read any of her work, but I've heard from people that her book was actually good and careful scholarship.

Her colleagues in her department are now calling for her firing or resignation:

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2020/09/08/jessica-krugs-department-speaks-out?_ga=2.186742637.499993294.1599585461-2042736888.1573583818

It's hard to see her holding out against that.  Or any other department trusting her enough to hire her for a comparable position.  Or her work, whatever its merits, being taken seriously in the field after this.

Quote from: apl68 on September 08, 2020, 10:23:36 AM
Her colleagues in her department are now calling for her firing or resignation:

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2020/09/08/jessica-krugs-department-speaks-out?_ga=2.186742637.499993294.1599585461-2042736888.1573583818

It's hard to see her holding out against that.  Or any other department trusting her enough to hire her for a comparable position.  Or her work, whatever its merits, being taken seriously in the field after this.

Indeed, although there are lots of terrible people who have written good books.

Quote from: apl68 on September 08, 2020, 10:23:36 AM
Her colleagues in her department are now calling for her firing or resignation:

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2020/09/08/jessica-krugs-department-speaks-out?_ga=2.186742637.499993294.1599585461-2042736888.1573583818

It's hard to see her holding out against that.  Or any other department trusting her enough to hire her for a comparable position.  Or her work, whatever its merits, being taken seriously in the field after this.

Interesting quotation from the article:

Quote
The discipline of history is "concerned with truth telling about the past," the professors said, and so Krug's conduct raises "questions about the veracity of her own research and teaching."

It would be fascinating to see academics explain how the "veracity of a person's research" would be in question by virtue of lies about the person's own past.  As far as I can see, it suggests that research is inherently subjective, which undermines the whole idea of the purpose of academic research.

Quote from: marshwiggle on September 08, 2020, 05:37:50 AM
The twist here is that it was lying about things that for a few decades would have been illegal or at least totally inappropriate to ask about, let alone consider in hiring decisions. The regress of society into explicit tribalism is sad and dangerous.

This. Regression is indeed the right word.

QuoteWith the rise of the emphasis on "lived experience" in certain humanities fields, only someone claiming the "right" ethnicity would be able to speak freely, while anyone from with the "wrong" ethnicity would only even have a chance at being hired if they readily and consistently espoused the "correct" perspective.

"Lived experience" reeks of euphemism. A non-black person who had lived in subsaharan Africa would have a better lived experience of life in subsaharan Africa than an African American who had never lived there, but I doubt the academic left would widely see it that way.

Quote from: marshwiggle on September 08, 2020, 10:53:46 AM

Interesting quotation from the article:

Quote
The discipline of history is "concerned with truth telling about the past," the professors said, and so Krug's conduct raises "questions about the veracity of her own research and teaching."

It would be fascinating to see academics explain how the "veracity of a person's research" would be in question by virtue of lies about the person's own past.  As far as I can see, it suggests that research is inherently subjective, which undermines the whole idea of the purpose of academic research.

We now know that she lied about a pretty big, important thing. She had no qualms about misrepresenting herself in her professional, as well as her personal, life to try to gain an advantage. It's not beyond the pale to wonder if she lied about anything in her research. Did the sources she cites really say what she claims they did? Do they even exist? Did she properly cite her sources, or did she plagiarize?

It seems to me that rigor would demand that we ask those questions, just as, when we discover that someone massaged or invented their data, we ask what else they may have massaged or made up. It's rigor, not encroaching 'subjectivity'.

Quote from: Stockmann on September 08, 2020, 11:18:47 AM

QuoteWith the rise of the emphasis on "lived experience" in certain humanities fields, only someone claiming the "right" ethnicity would be able to speak freely, while anyone from with the "wrong" ethnicity would only even have a chance at being hired if they readily and consistently espoused the "correct" perspective.

"Lived experience" reeks of euphemism. A non-black person who had lived in subsaharan Africa would have a better lived experience of life in subsaharan Africa than an African American who had never lived there, but I doubt the academic left would widely see it that way.

I don't really think you guys know what you're talking about.

Quote from: Caracal on September 08, 2020, 10:15:33 AM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 08, 2020, 09:29:52 AM

Quote from: Caracal on September 08, 2020, 04:37:11 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on September 08, 2020, 03:56:44 AM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 07, 2020, 05:09:42 PM
The fact that two white women passed as a black women to get a jobs, and then were humiliated and lost said jobs when their real ethnicity was outed, should answer those particular questions and provide some level of proof to the assertion of...well, I don't want to use the term because some folks take umbrage.

To clarify; the fact that women got jobs by appearing to be black, and lost them once they were revealed to be white, is definitely evidence of something.

Yes, it is evidence that if you misrepresent yourself or lie about your background and someone finds out, you usually get fired.

Fair enough.  I simply meant that both Dolezal and Krug got their jobs essentially because they were taken to be of a particular race.  In other words, denying that race was a factor in their employment, and their dismissal, is the kind of "denial" we see when people do not want to admit to something----the term is used most frequently in drug or alcohol rehabilitation.

How do you know that's true? As I understand it, she was actually hired as a member of the history department. She's a historian of Africa and the African Diaspora. I can tell you that most historians of Africa aren't black. I haven't read any of her work, but I've heard from people that her book was actually good and careful scholarship.

I don't know and cannot say for sure.  But it certainly seems indicative. 

If she is a good scholar, her race should not matter.  In theory, at least.  If she is a good teacher, scholar, and citizen of the university, I do not understand why she would be fired, again in theory.  Sure, she lied on her application.  But what difference does her race make if she is doing the job well?

Dolezal had minimal academic credentials for either her job as a teacher or for her job as head of the NCAA.  Yet she was hired. 

We might take some commentary from people involved from this  WaPo article (https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/09/03/white-gwu-professor-admits-she-falsely-claimed-black-identity/) to shed some light:'

Quote
"Sakona, who is African American, said there are several Hispanic and first-generation students in the class, which is being taught remotely. She hopes the university will find another professor, preferably someone from the Latin American community, to teach the material."

Or from CNN (//http://)

Quote
In a Washington Post interview, Figueroa said it was "disgusting," and asserted that many in the academic world are "aghast that (Krug) would perpetuate these lies and gain access to the spaces in the academy, the resources."

Quote
"Krug took advantage of the willingness of many urban Puerto Ricans to embrace their African ancestors to claim Blackness -- "Caribbean rooted Bronx Blackness," as she describes in her Medium post, even though she was visibly light-skinned."

I get where you are coming from, Caracal, I really do.  But I also think you don't want to admit some commonly acknowledged realities about academia. 

Anybody remember Ward Churchill?

Studies about "black sounding names" on resumes refers generally to corporate hiring, which I don't know as much about.

I'm tempted to post my own experiences regarding academic and just see how you might respond.

Quote from: marshwiggle on September 08, 2020, 10:53:46 AM

Quote from: apl68 on September 08, 2020, 10:23:36 AM
Her colleagues in her department are now calling for her firing or resignation:

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2020/09/08/jessica-krugs-department-speaks-out?_ga=2.186742637.499993294.1599585461-2042736888.1573583818

It's hard to see her holding out against that.  Or any other department trusting her enough to hire her for a comparable position.  Or her work, whatever its merits, being taken seriously in the field after this.

Interesting quotation from the article:

Quote
The discipline of history is "concerned with truth telling about the past," the professors said, and so Krug's conduct raises "questions about the veracity of her own research and teaching."

It would be fascinating to see academics explain how the "veracity of a person's research" would be in question by virtue of lies about the person's own past.  As far as I can see, it suggests that research is inherently subjective, which undermines the whole idea of the purpose of academic research.

I'm tempted to tell you that all research is subjective, in any discipline. But, let's not go down that hole...

I'll translate this as a historian. When you do historical research, you often are poking around in archives and sources that haven't been used by a lot of other people. That isn't usually because you've found some rare and amazing document, unfortunately. Plenty of people may have used the county court records before, but they obviously weren't looking for the court case involving a brawl between two people who relate to your research in some other way.

This is why historians are so obsessed with footnotes. The idea is that you need to leave a trail that allows other people to verify your work, or to make use of those sources themselves. However, in practice, nobody is actually going to go check all this stuff out. If I write that Reginald Farmer willed two sheep to his daughter and you can find that in Obscure County's Court Records Vol 8, p. 243, everyone is really just taking my work on that. If for some reason I had just made that up and there was no court record of the kind, chances are nobody would ever figure that out.

Usually, there's not much reason to question this kind of thing. The assumption is that it wouldn't be worth it to fabricate evidence. Even though, in any particular case, a person could probably get away with it, it would be a risky thing to make a habit of doing and it runs counter to the basic principles of the discipline. However, if you learn that somebody has been knowingly perpetuating a lie for their entire academic career...

If I had to guess, this is someone who really compartmentalizes her life and the work is probably fine, but I wouldn't stake much on that.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on September 08, 2020, 11:29:23 AM

"Lived experience" reeks of euphemism. A non-black person who had lived in subsaharan Africa would have a better lived experience of life in subsaharan Africa than an African American who had never lived there, but I doubt the academic left would widely see it that way.

I don't really think you guys know what you're talking about.
[/quote]

Nope, they don't. Most historians of Africa at American universities are white people.

Quote from: Caracal on September 08, 2020, 11:54:43 AM

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on September 08, 2020, 11:29:23 AM

"Lived experience" reeks of euphemism. A non-black person who had lived in subsaharan Africa would have a better lived experience of life in subsaharan Africa than an African American who had never lived there, but I doubt the academic left would widely see it that way.

I don't really think you guys know what you're talking about.

Nope, they don't. Most historians of Africa at American universities are white people.
[/quote]

Why do you suppose that is? 

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 08, 2020, 11:39:29 AM

I get where you are coming from, Caracal, I really do.  But I also think you don't want to admit some commonly acknowledged realities about academia. 

Anybody remember Ward Churchill?

Studies about "black sounding names" on resumes refers generally to corporate hiring, which I don't know as much about.

I'm tempted to post my own experiences regarding academic and just see how you might respond.

I think you're missing the larger context. African history is actually one of the strongest fields in terms of the market. People often imagine it is a field with lots of black Americans in it, but that's actually not true. Most historians of Africa in the US are white. Of course, race could have played a role in the hiring decision, and I have no problem with that. But, you're assuming that if she hadn't misrepresented herself, there's no way she would have been hired and that just isn't true.

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 08, 2020, 12:01:25 PM

Quote from: Caracal on September 08, 2020, 11:54:43 AM

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on September 08, 2020, 11:29:23 AM

"Lived experience" reeks of euphemism. A non-black person who had lived in subsaharan Africa would have a better lived experience of life in subsaharan Africa than an African American who had never lived there, but I doubt the academic left would widely see it that way.

I don't really think you guys know what you're talking about.

Nope, they don't. Most historians of Africa at American universities are white people.

Why do you suppose that is?
[/quote]

History has problems, in general, with racial diversity. I think people just assume that African history would be different because its about Africa. If you think about it, that's a little strange. It isn't as if people whose ancestors came from Germany in the 19th century make up a huge proportion of historians of Germany.

Quote from: Caracal on September 08, 2020, 11:54:43 AM

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on September 08, 2020, 11:29:23 AM

"Lived experience" reeks of euphemism. A non-black person who had lived in subsaharan Africa would have a better lived experience of life in subsaharan Africa than an African American who had never lived there, but I doubt the academic left would widely see it that way.

I don't really think you guys know what you're talking about.

Nope, they don't. Most historians of Africa at American universities are white people.
[/quote]

Reading comprehension fail. I didn't write that "lived experience" or race were the deciding factors for the hiring of most nor even of many historians of Africa at American universities.

Quote from: Stockmann on September 08, 2020, 12:23:16 PM

Quote from: Caracal on September 08, 2020, 11:54:43 AM

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on September 08, 2020, 11:29:23 AM

"Lived experience" reeks of euphemism. A non-black person who had lived in subsaharan Africa would have a better lived experience of life in subsaharan Africa than an African American who had never lived there, but I doubt the academic left would widely see it that way.

I don't really think you guys know what you're talking about.

Nope, they don't. Most historians of Africa at American universities are white people.

Reading comprehension fail. I didn't write that "lived experience" or race were the deciding factors for the hiring of most nor even of many historians of Africa at American universities.
[/quote]

Be nice. I was reading your quote in context of what you quoted, which did make that assertion. No need to get snippy.

Quote from: Parasaurolophus on September 08, 2020, 11:29:23 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on September 08, 2020, 10:53:46 AM

Interesting quotation from the article:

Quote
The discipline of history is "concerned with truth telling about the past," the professors said, and so Krug's conduct raises "questions about the veracity of her own research and teaching."

It would be fascinating to see academics explain how the "veracity of a person's research" would be in question by virtue of lies about the person's own past.  As far as I can see, it suggests that research is inherently subjective, which undermines the whole idea of the purpose of academic research.

We now know that she lied about a pretty big, important thing. She had no qualms about misrepresenting herself in her professional, as well as her personal, life to try to gain an advantage. It's not beyond the pale to wonder if she lied about anything in her research. Did the sources she cites really say what she claims they did? Do they even exist? Did she properly cite her sources, or did she plagiarize?

It seems to me that rigor would demand that we ask those questions, just as, when we discover that someone massaged or invented their data, we ask what else they may have massaged or made up. It's rigor, not encroaching 'subjectivity'.

Yes.  When somebody has proven to be this egregiously dishonest in one area of life and career, it's not unreasonable to start wondering about that person's honesty elsewhere.  It's not an tribal "I don't agree with you, so I am honor bound to deny anything you say" thing.  Moving forward, others in the field are going to have serious reservations about taking her word for it on things.  Those who might have been inclined to use her work as a basis for further work, or to cite her as an authority, will probably now be reluctant to do so.

Quote from: writingprof on September 08, 2020, 05:09:00 AM
There is only one story here. If you incentivize something, you get more of it.  If you tax something, you get less of it.  The American professional class has incentivized blackness and taxed whiteness.  Rational actors in the marketplace are adjusting accordingly. 

Also: I'm a black Native American, so it's racist of you to disagree with me.

And yet, American faculty are still disproportionately white.  Again, based on any research I have seen applicants that are female or with "ethnic" names are at a disadvantage in the job market, so they are taxed.  I suppose what diversity hires are is a tax rebate.

Quote from: Caracal on September 08, 2020, 12:01:41 PM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 08, 2020, 11:39:29 AM

I get where you are coming from, Caracal, I really do.  But I also think you don't want to admit some commonly acknowledged realities about academia. 

Anybody remember Ward Churchill?

Studies about "black sounding names" on resumes refers generally to corporate hiring, which I don't know as much about.

I'm tempted to post my own experiences regarding academic and just see how you might respond.

I think you're missing the larger context. African history is actually one of the strongest fields in terms of the market. People often imagine it is a field with lots of black Americans in it, but that's actually not true. Most historians of Africa in the US are white. Of course, race could have played a role in the hiring decision, and I have no problem with that. But, you're assuming that if she hadn't misrepresented herself, there's no way she would have been hired and that just isn't true.

She might have been hired if she were white.  Sure.

But we know that she faked her race to gain an advantage.  She admits that.

I entirely understand the larger context.

My point was simply that there are  very few African-American academics in history (https://www.amacad.org/humanities-indicators/higher-education/racialethnic-distribution-degrees-history) to choose from.

Quote
Over the 1995–2014 time period, the shares of both master's degrees and Ph.D.'s earned by students from traditionally underrepresented racial/ethnic groups increased to approximately 11%, up from 6.6% at the master's level and 5.6% at the doctoral level

Overall this is a mildly heartening trend.  But we know history is in real trouble as a profession.

If race were NOT a factor in hiring Krug, Dolezal, and Churchill, why did these three use race as a factor to get hired?  And yes, I am fairly certain that race was a factor in their hiring and eventual firing.

Quote from: Kron3007 on September 08, 2020, 12:52:07 PM

Quote from: writingprof on September 08, 2020, 05:09:00 AM
There is only one story here. If you incentivize something, you get more of it.  If you tax something, you get less of it.  The American professional class has incentivized blackness and taxed whiteness.  Rational actors in the marketplace are adjusting accordingly. 

Also: I'm a black Native American, so it's racist of you to disagree with me.

And yet, American faculty are still disproportionately white.  Again, based on any research I have seen applicants that are female or with "ethnic" names are at a disadvantage in the job market, so they are taxed.  I suppose what diversity hires are is a tax rebate.

This appears to be true in corporate hiring (although unproven).

Is it true in academic hiring?

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 08, 2020, 12:54:09 PM

Quote from: Kron3007 on September 08, 2020, 12:52:07 PM

Quote from: writingprof on September 08, 2020, 05:09:00 AM
There is only one story here. If you incentivize something, you get more of it.  If you tax something, you get less of it.  The American professional class has incentivized blackness and taxed whiteness.  Rational actors in the marketplace are adjusting accordingly. 

Also: I'm a black Native American, so it's racist of you to disagree with me.

And yet, American faculty are still disproportionately white.  Again, based on any research I have seen applicants that are female or with "ethnic" names are at a disadvantage in the job market, so they are taxed.  I suppose what diversity hires are is a tax rebate.

This appears to be true in corporate hiring (although unproven).

Is it true in academic hiring?

I saw a good study about this regarding gender, where even female faculty rated the CV with a female name lower than the same one that had a male name.  So, for gender, it seems to be the case, and is systemic.  I dont know if this is the case for race/ethnicity, but I would be surprised if it wasn't.  This is well outside of my area, so I am by no means an expert, but we all sit on hiring committees... 

Quote from: Kron3007 on September 08, 2020, 12:58:58 PM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 08, 2020, 12:54:09 PM

Quote from: Kron3007 on September 08, 2020, 12:52:07 PM

Quote from: writingprof on September 08, 2020, 05:09:00 AM
There is only one story here. If you incentivize something, you get more of it.  If you tax something, you get less of it.  The American professional class has incentivized blackness and taxed whiteness.  Rational actors in the marketplace are adjusting accordingly. 

Also: I'm a black Native American, so it's racist of you to disagree with me.

And yet, American faculty are still disproportionately white.  Again, based on any research I have seen applicants that are female or with "ethnic" names are at a disadvantage in the job market, so they are taxed.  I suppose what diversity hires are is a tax rebate.

This appears to be true in corporate hiring (although unproven).

Is it true in academic hiring?

I saw a good study about this regarding gender, where even female faculty rated the CV with a female name lower than the same one that had a male name.  So, for gender, it seems to be the case, and is systemic.  I dont know if this is the case for race/ethnicity, but I would be surprised if it wasn't.  This is well outside of my area, so I am by no means an expert, but we all sit on hiring committees...

My wife finished her doctorate first and I followed her.  It was not a great job, not desirable pay or a desirable place, but a job is a job this day and age.  We were there several years and made friends and...

She came home one day quite amused.  Someone had spilled the beans to her.  Apparently she got her initial phone interview because her name looked "black" to some of the search committee members (why neither of us could ever figure out), and she was female (which they liked), and (because my wife writes a lot on minority literature) the committee assumed she was a POC.  After the campus interview the committee actually went back to their pool of applicants to find a POC to interview.  They could not find a POC willing to come to our lousy campus.  So my wife got the job.

My own interest and feelings about "diversity hiring" come exclusively from my own experiences.

I have to teach tonight but I am happy to share what I have seen and what I am seeing now----weak evidence, surely, but we are talking about "lived experience."

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 08, 2020, 01:25:35 PM

Quote from: Kron3007 on September 08, 2020, 12:58:58 PM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 08, 2020, 12:54:09 PM

Quote from: Kron3007 on September 08, 2020, 12:52:07 PM

Quote from: writingprof on September 08, 2020, 05:09:00 AM
There is only one story here. If you incentivize something, you get more of it.  If you tax something, you get less of it.  The American professional class has incentivized blackness and taxed whiteness.  Rational actors in the marketplace are adjusting accordingly. 

Also: I'm a black Native American, so it's racist of you to disagree with me.

And yet, American faculty are still disproportionately white.  Again, based on any research I have seen applicants that are female or with "ethnic" names are at a disadvantage in the job market, so they are taxed.  I suppose what diversity hires are is a tax rebate.

This appears to be true in corporate hiring (although unproven).

Is it true in academic hiring?

I saw a good study about this regarding gender, where even female faculty rated the CV with a female name lower than the same one that had a male name.  So, for gender, it seems to be the case, and is systemic.  I dont know if this is the case for race/ethnicity, but I would be surprised if it wasn't.  This is well outside of my area, so I am by no means an expert, but we all sit on hiring committees...

My wife finished her doctorate first and I followed her.  It was not a great job, not desirable pay or a desirable place, but a job is a job this day and age.  We were there several years and made friends and...

She came home one day quite amused.  Someone had spilled the beans to her.  Apparently she got her initial phone interview because her name looked "black" to some of the search committee members (why neither of us could ever figure out), and she was female (which they liked), and (because my wife writes a lot on minority literature) the committee assumed she was a POC.  After the campus interview the committee actually went back to their pool of applicants to find a POC to interview.  They could not find a POC willing to come to our lousy campus.  So my wife got the job.

My own interest and feelings about "diversity hiring" come exclusively from my own experiences.

I have to teach tonight but I am happy to share what I have seen and what I am seeing now----weak evidence, surely, but we are talking about "lived experience."

Meanwhile, the last ten faculty hires in my department have been white.  I dont think they were hired because they were white, and the gender balance has been pretty good, but based on my lived experience it dosnt seem that minorities have any advantage (this dosnt mean they are being discriminated against here either).  Of course, our examples are just drops in the bucket and irrelevant when discussing national/global trends.  I'm sure some universities are actively working on this, but it is not universal and the broader trend is what matters.   

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 08, 2020, 12:52:43 PM

Quote from: Caracal on September 08, 2020, 12:01:41 PM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 08, 2020, 11:39:29 AM

I get where you are coming from, Caracal, I really do.  But I also think you don't want to admit some commonly acknowledged realities about academia. 

Anybody remember Ward Churchill?

Studies about "black sounding names" on resumes refers generally to corporate hiring, which I don't know as much about.

I'm tempted to post my own experiences regarding academic and just see how you might respond.

I think you're missing the larger context. African history is actually one of the strongest fields in terms of the market. People often imagine it is a field with lots of black Americans in it, but that's actually not true. Most historians of Africa in the US are white. Of course, race could have played a role in the hiring decision, and I have no problem with that. But, you're assuming that if she hadn't misrepresented herself, there's no way she would have been hired and that just isn't true.

She might have been hired if she were white.  Sure.

But we know that she faked her race to gain an advantage.  She admits that.

I entirely understand the larger context.

My point was simply that there are  very few African-American academics in history (https://www.amacad.org/humanities-indicators/higher-education/racialethnic-distribution-degrees-history) to choose from.

Quote
Over the 1995–2014 time period, the shares of both master's degrees and Ph.D.'s earned by students from traditionally underrepresented racial/ethnic groups increased to approximately 11%, up from 6.6% at the master's level and 5.6% at the doctoral level

Overall this is a mildly heartening trend.  But we know history is in real trouble as a profession.

If race were NOT a factor in hiring Krug, Dolezal, and Churchill, why did these three use race as a factor to get hired?  And yes, I am fairly certain that race was a factor in their hiring and eventual firing.

Sure, I'm sure it factored in. What I'm pushing back on is the idea that it was a particularly good or canny strategy. I know you haven't said that, but others have. She was actually in a field that is quite strong. Who knows if without the misrepresentations she would have gotten that particular job, but she would have likely had an excellent chance of getting a position somewhere. Instead she committed to this bizarre lie, that was always likely to be discovered. This isn't a story about how to get anywhere in academia you have to pretend to be black. Its a story about a crazy person who had a bizarre and self destructive compulsion to pretend to be something she wasn't.

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 08, 2020, 01:25:35 PM
...Apparently she got her initial phone interview because her name looked "black" to some of the search committee members (why neither of us could ever figure out), and she was female (which they liked), and (because my wife writes a lot on minority literature) the committee assumed she was a POC.  After the campus interview the committee actually went back to their pool of applicants to find a POC to interview.  They could not find a POC willing to come to our lousy campus.  So my wife got the job.

My own interest and feelings about "diversity hiring" come exclusively from my own experiences.

Ha ha. Something similar happened to me at one of the universities where I've worked. The administrator heading up the search committee seemed to think that I was a minority applicant who received a doctorate from an HBCU. I know this, because when I did my on-campus interviews, that same administrator admitted his surprise and disappointment to discover that I was a white person. It must have been quite a blow to him to tactlessly verbalize this out loud to me, especially as there was another senior administrator in the room.

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 08, 2020, 12:52:43 PM


My point was simply that there are  very few African-American academics in history (https://www.amacad.org/humanities-indicators/higher-education/racialethnic-distribution-degrees-history) to choose from.

Quote
Over the 1995–2014 time period, the shares of both master's degrees and Ph.D.'s earned by students from traditionally underrepresented racial/ethnic groups increased to approximately 11%, up from 6.6% at the master's level and 5.6% at the doctoral level

And yes, so much of the focus is on the hiring process, but in a lot of ways that's the worst place to try to change these trends from. You also can't separate it out form the general state of the job market. It sounds good to say that we need to find ways to get more students of color or students from disadvantaged backgrounds to consider going to grad school...except nobody should actually be encouraged to go to grad school in the humanities. The less economically secure someone is, and the fewer family resources you have the potential to draw on, the worse a choice it is.

Quote from: Caracal on September 08, 2020, 01:40:16 PM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 08, 2020, 12:52:43 PM


She might have been hired if she were white.  Sure.

But we know that she faked her race to gain an advantage.  She admits that.

I entirely understand the larger context.

My point was simply that there are  very few African-American academics in history (https://www.amacad.org/humanities-indicators/higher-education/racialethnic-distribution-degrees-history) to choose from.

Quote
Over the 1995–2014 time period, the shares of both master's degrees and Ph.D.'s earned by students from traditionally underrepresented racial/ethnic groups increased to approximately 11%, up from 6.6% at the master's level and 5.6% at the doctoral level

Overall this is a mildly heartening trend.  But we know history is in real trouble as a profession.

If race were NOT a factor in hiring Krug, Dolezal, and Churchill, why did these three use race as a factor to get hired?  And yes, I am fairly certain that race was a factor in their hiring and eventual firing.

Sure, I'm sure it factored in. What I'm pushing back on is the idea that it was a particularly good or canny strategy. I know you haven't said that, but others have. She was actually in a field that is quite strong. Who knows if without the misrepresentations she would have gotten that particular job, but she would have likely had an excellent chance of getting a position somewhere. Instead she committed to this bizarre lie, that was always likely to be discovered. This isn't a story about how to get anywhere in academia you have to pretend to be black. Its a story about a crazy person who had a bizarre and self destructive compulsion to pretend to be something she wasn't.

I'm not sure the real issue is whether her lies were in order to get a specific job. As a white woman from Kansas, she would be not terribly remarkable. But given that black people make up about 13(?) percent of the US population,  being "black" would make her much more rare. By being black AND Latina (or whatever), she could stand out even more. I think the job was only one aspect of her manufactured life, but all of it relied on her belonging to a much smaller "tribe" that she would have by birth. The number of WOC in any academic discipline would be much smaller than the number of white women, so as academia has gotten more and more focused on diversity hiring, assuming a "diverse" persona was a shrewd move.

Quote from: marshwiggle on September 08, 2020, 01:57:45 PM

Quote from: Caracal on September 08, 2020, 01:40:16 PM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 08, 2020, 12:52:43 PM


She might have been hired if she were white.  Sure.

But we know that she faked her race to gain an advantage.  She admits that.

I entirely understand the larger context.

My point was simply that there are  very few African-American academics in history (https://www.amacad.org/humanities-indicators/higher-education/racialethnic-distribution-degrees-history) to choose from.

Quote
Over the 1995–2014 time period, the shares of both master's degrees and Ph.D.'s earned by students from traditionally underrepresented racial/ethnic groups increased to approximately 11%, up from 6.6% at the master's level and 5.6% at the doctoral level

Overall this is a mildly heartening trend.  But we know history is in real trouble as a profession.

If race were NOT a factor in hiring Krug, Dolezal, and Churchill, why did these three use race as a factor to get hired?  And yes, I am fairly certain that race was a factor in their hiring and eventual firing.

Sure, I'm sure it factored in. What I'm pushing back on is the idea that it was a particularly good or canny strategy. I know you haven't said that, but others have. She was actually in a field that is quite strong. Who knows if without the misrepresentations she would have gotten that particular job, but she would have likely had an excellent chance of getting a position somewhere. Instead she committed to this bizarre lie, that was always likely to be discovered. This isn't a story about how to get anywhere in academia you have to pretend to be black. Its a story about a crazy person who had a bizarre and self destructive compulsion to pretend to be something she wasn't.

I'm not sure the real issue is whether her lies were in order to get a specific job. As a white woman from Kansas, she would be not terribly remarkable. But given that black people make up about 13(?) percent of the US population,  being "black" would make her much more rare. By being black AND Latina (or whatever), she could stand out even more. I think the job was only one aspect of her manufactured life, but all of it relied on her belonging to a much smaller "tribe" that she would have by birth. The number of WOC in any academic discipline would be much smaller than the number of white women, so as academia has gotten more and more focused on diversity hiring, assuming a "diverse" persona was a shrewd move.

Yes, its working out quite well for her.

Quote from: Caracal on September 08, 2020, 01:59:18 PM

Quote from: marshwiggle on September 08, 2020, 01:57:45 PM

Quote from: Caracal on September 08, 2020, 01:40:16 PM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 08, 2020, 12:52:43 PM


She might have been hired if she were white.  Sure.

But we know that she faked her race to gain an advantage.  She admits that.

I entirely understand the larger context.

My point was simply that there are  very few African-American academics in history (https://www.amacad.org/humanities-indicators/higher-education/racialethnic-distribution-degrees-history) to choose from.

Quote
Over the 1995–2014 time period, the shares of both master's degrees and Ph.D.'s earned by students from traditionally underrepresented racial/ethnic groups increased to approximately 11%, up from 6.6% at the master's level and 5.6% at the doctoral level

Overall this is a mildly heartening trend.  But we know history is in real trouble as a profession.

If race were NOT a factor in hiring Krug, Dolezal, and Churchill, why did these three use race as a factor to get hired?  And yes, I am fairly certain that race was a factor in their hiring and eventual firing.

Sure, I'm sure it factored in. What I'm pushing back on is the idea that it was a particularly good or canny strategy. I know you haven't said that, but others have. She was actually in a field that is quite strong. Who knows if without the misrepresentations she would have gotten that particular job, but she would have likely had an excellent chance of getting a position somewhere. Instead she committed to this bizarre lie, that was always likely to be discovered. This isn't a story about how to get anywhere in academia you have to pretend to be black. Its a story about a crazy person who had a bizarre and self destructive compulsion to pretend to be something she wasn't.

I'm not sure the real issue is whether her lies were in order to get a specific job. As a white woman from Kansas, she would be not terribly remarkable. But given that black people make up about 13(?) percent of the US population,  being "black" would make her much more rare. By being black AND Latina (or whatever), she could stand out even more. I think the job was only one aspect of her manufactured life, but all of it relied on her belonging to a much smaller "tribe" that she would have by birth. The number of WOC in any academic discipline would be much smaller than the number of white women, so as academia has gotten more and more focused on diversity hiring, assuming a "diverse" persona was a shrewd move.

Yes, its working out quite well for her.

It is working out quite badly because she lied about being a WOC. 

If she actually were a WOC it would indeed be working out pretty well for her.

Quote from: marshwiggle on September 08, 2020, 01:57:45 PM

Quote from: Caracal on September 08, 2020, 01:40:16 PM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 08, 2020, 12:52:43 PM


She might have been hired if she were white.  Sure.

But we know that she faked her race to gain an advantage.  She admits that.

I entirely understand the larger context.

My point was simply that there are  very few African-American academics in history (https://www.amacad.org/humanities-indicators/higher-education/racialethnic-distribution-degrees-history) to choose from.

Quote
Over the 1995–2014 time period, the shares of both master's degrees and Ph.D.'s earned by students from traditionally underrepresented racial/ethnic groups increased to approximately 11%, up from 6.6% at the master's level and 5.6% at the doctoral level

Overall this is a mildly heartening trend.  But we know history is in real trouble as a profession.

If race were NOT a factor in hiring Krug, Dolezal, and Churchill, why did these three use race as a factor to get hired?  And yes, I am fairly certain that race was a factor in their hiring and eventual firing.

Sure, I'm sure it factored in. What I'm pushing back on is the idea that it was a particularly good or canny strategy. I know you haven't said that, but others have. She was actually in a field that is quite strong. Who knows if without the misrepresentations she would have gotten that particular job, but she would have likely had an excellent chance of getting a position somewhere. Instead she committed to this bizarre lie, that was always likely to be discovered. This isn't a story about how to get anywhere in academia you have to pretend to be black. Its a story about a crazy person who had a bizarre and self destructive compulsion to pretend to be something she wasn't.

I'm not sure the real issue is whether her lies were in order to get a specific job. As a white woman from Kansas, she would be not terribly remarkable. But given that black people make up about 13(?) percent of the US population,  being "black" would make her much more rare. By being black AND Latina (or whatever), she could stand out even more. I think the job was only one aspect of her manufactured life, but all of it relied on her belonging to a much smaller "tribe" that she would have by birth. The number of WOC in any academic discipline would be much smaller than the number of white women, so as academia has gotten more and more focused on diversity hiring, assuming a "diverse" persona was a shrewd move.

Well, maybe.  I'm more inclined in this case to suspect that Caracal's right about her having been more of an unstable fantasist than a calculating careerist.  Or maybe it would be more accurate to say a careerist (You really can't get anywhere in academia now without being that) with a wide fantasist streak that ended up getting the better of her careerist sense.  Surely any sensible person understands that the risk of eventually being exposed for pretending to be something one is not in one's career outweighs any career advantage that the pretense might carry. 

The psychology of this sort of thing is interesting.  We all know of cases where people tried impersonations like this, only to be exposed and disgraced.  How is it that others keep on convincing themselves that they're going to get away with it?  Do that want to be what they're not so badly that they in a sense convince themselves as well as others?

Quote from: apl68 on September 08, 2020, 02:13:46 PM
The psychology of this sort of thing is interesting.  We all know of cases where people tried impersonations like this, only to be exposed and disgraced.  How is it that others keep on convincing themselves that they're going to get away with it?  Do that want to be what they're not so badly that they in a sense convince themselves as well as others?

It's probably a combination of these factors. People genuinely identifying with their research field so much they feel connected to it? People just wanting to give themselves more authority in the field (and yes, whether we agree it is a life advantage overall, there are contexts in which "speaking as a woman of color" is a trump card)? People who are some way mentally ill to begin with?

Numerous scholars have been busted over the years faking their narrative, which to my mind suggests there are more fakers out there (GWU had two there at the same time, Krug and Carrillo!). What if the ones who get busted are only a small proportion?

Carrillo's rollercoaster of an obit (https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/cuban-american-author-hg-carrillo-who-explored-themes-of-cultural-alienation-died-after-contracting-covid-19/2020/05/21/35478894-97d8-11ea-91d7-cf4423d47683_story.html)

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm desperately hoping that fake black person Jessica Krug turns out to be a man faking womanhood, too.  And I don't mean in the transgender sense.  I mean, I hope that she is, and identifies as, a man, but has been putting on a wig and a dress to fool search committees.  Only that level of identity fraud, writ large, will end the poisonous identity movement.

Quote from: apl68 on September 08, 2020, 02:13:46 PM

Quote from: marshwiggle on September 08, 2020, 01:57:45 PM

I'm not sure the real issue is whether her lies were in order to get a specific job. As a white woman from Kansas, she would be not terribly remarkable. But given that black people make up about 13(?) percent of the US population,  being "black" would make her much more rare. By being black AND Latina (or whatever), she could stand out even more. I think the job was only one aspect of her manufactured life, but all of it relied on her belonging to a much smaller "tribe" that she would have by birth. The number of WOC in any academic discipline would be much smaller than the number of white women, so as academia has gotten more and more focused on diversity hiring, assuming a "diverse" persona was a shrewd move.

Well, maybe.  I'm more inclined in this case to suspect that Caracal's right about her having been more of an unstable fantasist than a calculating careerist.  Or maybe it would be more accurate to say a careerist (You really can't get anywhere in academia now without being that) with a wide fantasist streak that ended up getting the better of her careerist sense.  Surely any sensible person understands that the risk of eventually being exposed for pretending to be something one is not in one's career outweighs any career advantage that the pretense might carry. 

Suppose a person had 1 black great-grandparent, and 7 white ones. Would the person have better career options by just going with their apparent white identity, or identifying as "black" on the basis of the one ancestor? (And in the current political climate, would anyone dare to deny them the option of identifying as black?)

Quote from: apl68 on September 08, 2020, 02:13:46 PM
I'm not sure the real issue is whether her lies were in order to get a specific job. As a white woman from Kansas, she would be not terribly remarkable. But given that black people make up about 13(?) percent of the US population,  being "black" would make her much more rare. By being black AND Latina (or whatever), she could stand out even more. I think the job was only one aspect of her manufactured life, but all of it relied on her belonging to a much smaller "tribe" that she would have by birth. The number of WOC in any academic discipline would be much smaller than the number of white women, so as academia has gotten more and more focused on diversity hiring, assuming a "diverse" persona was a shrewd move.

Well, maybe.  I'm more inclined in this case to suspect that Caracal's right about her having been more of an unstable fantasist than a calculating careerist.  Or maybe it would be more accurate to say a careerist (You really can't get anywhere in academia now without being that) with a wide fantasist streak that ended up getting the better of her careerist sense.  Surely any sensible person understands that the risk of eventually being exposed for pretending to be something one is not in one's career outweighs any career advantage that the pretense might carry. 

The psychology of this sort of thing is interesting.  We all know of cases where people tried impersonations like this, only to be exposed and disgraced.  How is it that others keep on convincing themselves that they're going to get away with it?  Do that want to be what they're not so badly that they in a sense convince themselves as well as others?
[/quote]

Watch the documentary about Dolezal.  She actually believes she is African-American even though she knows full well that her parents are Caucasian.  Her theory is that race is not actually defined by genetics or even skin color----she doesn't see herself as appropriating anything----she actually believes that she can be African-American because she associates so strongly in her mind with AA tradition and culture----a perspective a great many AA women take umbrage with.

So the issue is not really with the psychological reality of the subjects here, which is clearly [something] (I don't know the psychological terminology or theory), but what they did with their delusion, which is to get jobs that they *probably/maybe* would not have gotten had they been honest about their genetic lineages.  Or, more precisely, they *probably/maybe* would have been beaten by a WOC had they been honest about their genetics.

Quote from: writingprof on September 08, 2020, 04:44:45 PM
I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm desperately hoping that fake black person Jessica Krug turns out to be a man faking womanhood, too.  And I don't mean in the transgender sense.  I mean, I hope that she is, and identifies as, a man, but has been putting on a wig and a dress to fool search committees.  Only that level of identity fraud, writ large, will end the poisonous identity movement.

That would be hilarious.

God bless the identity movement.  As long as we have freedom of thought, let identity ring.

Let's just not lie about identity and take a job based upon that lie.

Quote from: Caracal on September 08, 2020, 11:54:43 AM
Nope, they don't. Most historians of Africa at American universities are white people.

One of the most rewarding and memorable classes I took at UW-Madison in the '80s was The African Storyteller, taught by a white guy named Harold Scheub who recently passed away at a ripe old age. He wandered around S. Africa with a tape recorder and recorded the oral tradition. A fascinating guy, a challenging but rewarding course. He hand graded everything and only gave written exams. In a class of like 400 people.

I don't have a greater point to make. I loved that class and had immense respect for Dr. Scheub.

Anybody remember those debates on the old Fora about "inside candidates"?  Tons and tangents and a couple of specific posters who simply denied that there was such a thing as an "inside candidate" despite those of us who have seen the "inside hire" first hand, either as the victim or benefactor, just like here.

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 08, 2020, 05:43:47 PM
Anybody remember those debates on the old Fora about "inside candidates"?  Tons and tangents and a couple of specific posters who simply denied that there was such a thing as an "inside candidate" despite those of us who have seen the "inside hire" first hand, either as the victim or benefactor, just like here.

Yep.

I also know about the research in academic STEM hiring that favors women: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/04/14/study-suggests-stem-faculty-hiring-favors-women-over-men

I guess I can't be surprised with people making racial decisions about hiring when we have racial representation that is simply factually incorrect, so long as it benefits non-whites. The statue near the WTC location recreating the photo of three firemen depicts them as white, black and Hispanic. In reality all three were white. We also see a "race neutral" casting where one need not necessarily be white to play a founding father, as the practice is carried out in Hamilton. I don't think we're going to see Anthony Hopkins as MLK any time soon. There have been generations of attempts to uphold classical era music by non-white males but it doesn't seem to stick for some reason presumably having nothing to do with the high bar set by those evil white males.

Well, we had decades of white people playing black people (Amos & Andy, anyone?), while the only characters actual black people were allowed to play were dimwits (Stepin Fetchit, anyone?). I think we can tolerate a few years of black people taking a minuscule number of parts that white people might have played.

No prob with that. I actually think more parts where race is not specifically mentioned could go to anyone, rather than minorities only "playing minorities." Also no problem with Hamilton's explicitly doing a neutral cast since no one actually thinks Jefferson was black as a result of this. I don't want to see inaccurate depictions of non-fictional people unless it's explicitly the case for all cast members, not as a "one off" to mislead. While we all know non-fiction films take creative license, there are some areas where this is probably not a good idea and just gives an unnecessary talking point. The Fox News film is an example. Margo Robie's character is a composite yet they give her one of the pivotal scenes with the Roger Ailes character, which was used by critics of the film/me too in general to lessen the credibility of the overall story. One little "white slight" that is factually incorrect in a film sympathetic to past racial injustice will do the same thing.

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 08, 2020, 05:43:47 PM
Anybody remember those debates on the old Fora about "inside candidates"?  Tons and tangents and a couple of specific posters who simply denied that there was such a thing as an "inside candidate" despite those of us who have seen the "inside hire" first hand, either as the victim or benefactor, just like here.

If I recall correctly, I don't think anybody was denying that there are sometimes candidates who had been pre-selected. Those posts were always started by someone applying for a job, or considering applying for a job, who suspected for some reason that there was an "inside candidate." Usually this belief was based on flimsy evidence, like the existence of a visiting person in the field. The problem is that doesn't mean much. Usually someone is there as a visitor or an adjunct for the same reason there's an open job. The department wants or needs somebody to teach something. In some cases,  the person there really is locked in.  More often, they get some consideration, but there's no predetermined result. Of course when they do get the job the other disappointed candidates, and possibly, department members who wanted to hire someone else, can whine about the search being fixed and further the annoying narrative.

Quote from: polly_mer on September 08, 2020, 05:46:21 PM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 08, 2020, 05:43:47 PM
Anybody remember those debates on the old Fora about "inside candidates"?  Tons and tangents and a couple of specific posters who simply denied that there was such a thing as an "inside candidate" despite those of us who have seen the "inside hire" first hand, either as the victim or benefactor, just like here.

Yep.

I also know about the research in academic STEM hiring that favors women: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/04/14/study-suggests-stem-faculty-hiring-favors-women-over-men

The study cited in there seems. highly questionable to me. To be clear, however. I don't have a problem with people wanting to hire more candidates from backgrounds which are underrepresented in the field or at an institution. Early on during Covid, I was trying to find epidemiologists and virologists to follow on twitter who seemed to be able to provide more in depth knowledge and perspective. I realized quickly that some of these people didn't seem very reputable and others were unhelpful and seemed more interested in posturing than providing useful information. As I started unfollowing these people and adding in better ones, I realized that I'd created a list with mostly women in it.  That fits with my lived experience. Men are more likely to pretend to be experts on things they aren't, to shout loudly at those they disagree with, and to pretend to be sure they are right rather than acknowledging the limitations of their knowledge and data. I doubt this stuff is only about communication on twitter. I bet if you get more gender diversity in some stem fields, you'd also get better science.

Same thing in lots of other fields. In my own small subfield, I'm pretty sure that because I have a different background than most other people in that field, I ask different questions than they do. That works more broadly too. A preference for hiring people who don't look like the rest of the department makes a lot of sense. If that results in me having a slightly smaller chance of getting a position, I'm fine with that. What bothers me is all the people who keep insisting, in defiance of the actual evidence, that white male candidates can't get a break these days.

Quote from: Caracal on September 09, 2020, 04:16:38 AM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 08, 2020, 05:43:47 PM
Anybody remember those debates on the old Fora about "inside candidates"?  Tons and tangents and a couple of specific posters who simply denied that there was such a thing as an "inside candidate" despite those of us who have seen the "inside hire" first hand, either as the victim or benefactor, just like here.

If I recall correctly, I don't think anybody was denying that there are sometimes candidates who had been pre-selected. Those posts were always started by someone applying for a job, or considering applying for a job, who suspected for some reason that there was an "inside candidate." Usually this belief was based on flimsy evidence, like the existence of a visiting person in the field. The problem is that doesn't mean much. Usually someone is there as a visitor or an adjunct for the same reason there's an open job. The department wants or needs somebody to teach something. In some cases,  the person there really is locked in. More often, they get some consideration, but there's no predetermined result. Of course when they do get the job the other disappointed candidates, and possibly, department members who wanted to hire someone else, can whine about the search being fixed and further the annoying narrative.

But in a case like this, where there's already a "preferred" candidate, it's understandable that people will be annoyed after spending the time, effort, and often money to apply, travel for an interview, etc., when it turns out they weren't really in the running from the beginning. It's misleading advertising, at least.

I had a kind of reverse situation. I drove 14 hours for an interview in the boonies. After the interview, I found out THE (singular) other candidate had dropped out already, so I was the only candidate. I got the job. (It was a 1 year maternity replacement.) Should I have had to drive 28 hours round trip when  it essentially had no bearing on the outcome?

Quote from: marshwiggle on September 09, 2020, 05:09:50 AM

Quote from: Caracal on September 09, 2020, 04:16:38 AM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 08, 2020, 05:43:47 PM
Anybody remember those debates on the old Fora about "inside candidates"?  Tons and tangents and a couple of specific posters who simply denied that there was such a thing as an "inside candidate" despite those of us who have seen the "inside hire" first hand, either as the victim or benefactor, just like here.

If I recall correctly, I don't think anybody was denying that there are sometimes candidates who had been pre-selected. Those posts were always started by someone applying for a job, or considering applying for a job, who suspected for some reason that there was an "inside candidate." Usually this belief was based on flimsy evidence, like the existence of a visiting person in the field. The problem is that doesn't mean much. Usually someone is there as a visitor or an adjunct for the same reason there's an open job. The department wants or needs somebody to teach something. In some cases,  the person there really is locked in. More often, they get some consideration, but there's no predetermined result. Of course when they do get the job the other disappointed candidates, and possibly, department members who wanted to hire someone else, can whine about the search being fixed and further the annoying narrative.

But in a case like this, where there's already a "preferred" candidate, it's understandable that people will be annoyed after spending the time, effort, and often money to apply, travel for an interview, etc., when it turns out they weren't really in the running from the beginning. It's misleading advertising, at least.

I had a kind of reverse situation. I drove 14 hours for an interview in the boonies. After the interview, I found out THE (singular) other candidate had dropped out already, so I was the only candidate. I got the job. (It was a 1 year maternity replacement.) Should I have had to drive 28 hours round trip when  it essentially had no bearing on the outcome?

Well, they might have just wanted to check and make sure you were a reasonable human capable of interacting with colleagues and students without alienating everyone immediately. I know places that usually bring in only one candidate for visiting positions. I think they almost always offer the person the position, but presumably if something was very off, they would go back to the pool and bring someone else in.

Quote from: Hegemony on September 09, 2020, 01:00:38 AM
I think we can tolerate a few years of black people taking a minuscule number of parts that white people might have played.

Oh, a few years, is it?  If the Left had its way, every provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act would have been operative forever.  And, of course, no one believed Sandra Day O'Connor's contention that racial preferences in college admissions would no longer be necessary by 2028--least of all John Paul Stevens and David Souter.  (To their credit, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer didn't go along with that obviously ridiculous prediction, if memory serves.) 

Anti-white racism, affirmative action, racial preferences: Whatever you want to call them, they will never end, because too many people's jobs and/or quasi-religions depend on their continuance. 

Quote from: Caracal on September 09, 2020, 04:16:38 AM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 08, 2020, 05:43:47 PM
Anybody remember those debates on the old Fora about "inside candidates"?  Tons and tangents and a couple of specific posters who simply denied that there was such a thing as an "inside candidate" despite those of us who have seen the "inside hire" first hand, either as the victim or benefactor, just like here.

If I recall correctly, I don't think anybody was denying that there are sometimes candidates who had been pre-selected. Those posts were always started by someone applying for a job, or considering applying for a job, who suspected for some reason that there was an "inside candidate." Usually this belief was based on flimsy evidence, like the existence of a visiting person in the field. The problem is that doesn't mean much. Usually someone is there as a visitor or an adjunct for the same reason there's an open job. The department wants or needs somebody to teach something. In some cases,  the person there really is locked in.  More often, they get some consideration, but there's no predetermined result. Of course when they do get the job the other disappointed candidates, and possibly, department members who wanted to hire someone else, can whine about the search being fixed and further the annoying narrative.

I'm sorry, but you are incorrect.  It was one of those topics which, no matter who started it or why, a body of posters would weigh in with essentially the theory that no one would dare skew a job search.  It would get quite heated.  I always found it funny since no one was ever accusing anybody on the Old Fora of these things.  Some folks just could not stomach the concept.  They were too high-minded. 

Even those of us with pretty damning evidence for inside hires (on a campus visit a faculty once showed my wife the name of the VAP who got the job already mounted on hu's office door; I once lost a job to a search chair's wife with absolutely minimal qualifications), or those of us who benefited from the "inside candidate" status----and there were several who copped to it (including myself)----it was unthinkable to certain posters.  It. Just. Could. Not. Be.

I think we have the same thing here.  For instance...

Quote from: Hegemony on September 09, 2020, 01:00:38 AM
Well, we had decades of white people playing black people (Amos & Andy, anyone?), while the only characters actual black people were allowed to play were dimwits (Stepin Fetchit, anyone?). I think we can tolerate a few years of black people taking a minuscule number of parts that white people might have played.

I take Hegemony's point, and in theory I agree...at least to an extent, but this is someone perfectly okay with privileging minority candidates, even if hu is theoretically impartial during a job search.

Last time this subject came up I was instructed by somebody in a well-known theory of job placement in academia: one of the criteria for a job candidate can and should be how well said hypothetical candidate relates to students from certain backgrounds, even if that is not spelled out in the job ad.   It's back there somewhere.  In other words, we need minority faculty to relate to minority students.

And this "I don't have a problem with people wanting to hire more candidates from backgrounds which are underrepresented in the field or at an institution" is exactly it.  Call it what you will or explain it how you will, this is the privileging of race and gender.   

Quote from: writingprof on September 09, 2020, 05:50:48 AM

Quote from: Hegemony on September 09, 2020, 01:00:38 AM
I think we can tolerate a few years of black people taking a minuscule number of parts that white people might have played.

Oh, a few years, is it?  If the Left had its way, every provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act would have been operative forever.  And, of course, no one believed Sandra Day O'Connor's contention that racial preferences in college admissions would no longer be necessary by 2028--least of all John Paul Stevens and David Souter.  (To their credit, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer didn't go along with that obviously ridiculous prediction, if memory serves.) 

Anti-white racism, affirmative action, racial preferences: Whatever you want to call them, they will never end, because too many people's jobs and/or quasi-religions depend on their continuance.

Poor memory, and curious: what provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act shouldn't be operative today?

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 09, 2020, 06:38:51 AM
And this "I don't have a problem with people wanting to hire more candidates from backgrounds which are underrepresented in the field or at an institution" is exactly it.  Call it what you will or explain it how you will, this is the privileging of race and gender.

It's hilarious to have the discussions when the math just doesn't work in terms of qualified people.

I can remember one search where the HR insistence was we couldn't go forward until we had X% of the pool as members of a particular protected group.  Someone spent an afternoon assembling the list of literally everyone who was minimally qualified by virtue of having earned the relevant degree in the previous 10 years and was a member of the protected group.  The list was about 20 names and likely had everyone because the field knows it has a big gap and has been tracking to see if diversity efforts at the BS level are working.

The list maker then asked point blank whether HR would make the calls to each person asking them to apply for the job that was a bad match based on actual research specialty or whether HR would trust the committee to make the calls and be turned down since the one person on the list who was a good candidate for the full job requirements had already declined to apply since they are happy with their current job.

Quote from: polly_mer on September 09, 2020, 07:08:18 AM

It's hilarious to have the discussions when the math just doesn't work in terms of qualified people.


The list maker then asked point blank whether HR would make the calls to each person asking them to apply for the job that was a bad match based on actual research specialty or whether HR would trust the committee to make the calls and be turned down since the one person on the list who was a good candidate for the full job requirements had already declined to apply since they are happy with their current job.

Was it on the fora a few years ago where there was a discussion of how insanely competitive institutions are to recruit  high acheiving minority students? In trying to fulfill diversity quotas, they're desperate to get the academically qualified students of whom there aren't enough to go around.

Yes, some sub-fields (and even some large fields in general) have to broaden the sense of what they consider to be diverse even if it doesn't officially tick a box. But we shouldn't think we know everyone available today based on 10+ years ago, or even 5. Situations change. I know in some of the sciences, especially when you consider non-citizens working in the US (I realize not all jobs can do that) or people applying from overseas (ditto), its not 100% clear what someone's race or ethnicity really is in any official sense. How or when do you ask that if you don't know? I know that sounds kind of dorky, and I don't mean to sound ignorant, but if you want to meet some specific goal, but don't know how people fit into that goal, what do you do?

To me, increasing diversity is more about opening yourself up to more options that weren't previously considered, or maybe prioritize or at least seriously consider certain sub-fields with higher percentage of URM's. 

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 09, 2020, 06:38:51 AM
Last time this subject came up I was instructed by somebody in a well-known theory of job placement in academia: one of the criteria for a job candidate can and should be how well said hypothetical candidate relates to students from certain backgrounds, even if that is not spelled out in the job ad.   It's back there somewhere.  In other words, we need minority faculty to relate to minority students.

And this "I don't have a problem with people wanting to hire more candidates from backgrounds which are underrepresented in the field or at an institution" is exactly it.  Call it what you will or explain it how you will, this is the privileging of race and gender.   

I really didn't want to post on this thread, but this sticks out at me.

I teach at a reasonably large state school in the South, but I have also taught at community colleges on the East Coast. My current school is just over 30% non-white (mostly black, because it's the South) but my last two schools were almost 50% non-white (pretty equal parts black, Hispanic, and Asian). I teach humanities, and specifically general education courses required for nearly every student. My current department has 50+ full-time faculty members. As far as I can tell (it's harder with masks), just one is non-white. Our school is not very discerning in its student selection, so many of our students seem to drop out after a semester or year, and this seems to be disproportionately true among the non-white students, who comprise 50% of my first-year classes at the moment.

Humanities is overrun with good, qualified scholars of all races. 50 equally qualified people could apply to teach here next year, and 5 might be non-white. All other qualifications being equal (and that's an essential point; this isn't about hiring an inferior candidate), I think a non-white faculty member would be able to support some students (not all) in ways that I (a white woman) cannot. I try to make it clear to my students that I am willing to advocate for them, but I don't expect them to take my word for that. Many of them have already been exposed to systemic racism in local secondary schools and communities. Why should they trust me? I can earn their trust, but if it takes the whole semester, some will already be failing out of school by the time they believe that I am an advocate. Representation matters. Of course this privileges a certain race, but it does so in a way that can significantly and directly benefit 30% of the student body. Inasmuch as I work to treat all my students equitaby, it would take me decades of effort to be able able to support my non-white students as ably and easily as someone from their same background(s) can.

AR.

Quote from: AvidReader on September 09, 2020, 08:08:05 AM

Humanities is overrun with good, qualified scholars of all races. 50 equally qualified people could apply to teach here next year, and 5 might be non-white. All other qualifications being equal (and that's an essential point; this isn't about hiring an inferior candidate), I think a non-white faculty member would be able to support some students (not all) in ways that I (a white woman) cannot. I try to make it clear to my students that I am willing to advocate for them, but I don't expect them to take my word for that. Many of them have already been exposed to systemic racism in local secondary schools and communities. Why should they trust me? I can earn their trust, but if it takes the whole semester, some will already be failing out of school by the time they believe that I am an advocate. Representation matters. Of course this privileges a certain race, but it does so in a way that can significantly and directly benefit 30% of the student body. Inasmuch as I work to treat all my students equitably, it would take me decades of effort to be able able to support my non-white students as ably and easily as someone from their same background(s) can.

AR.

You've identified the problem. If 90% of your applicants are white, then it's pretty much only by explicitly eliminating them on that basis alone that you're going to be likely to hire someone that isn't. (And it's also statistically unlikely with those odds that all other qualifications are equal.)

Wanting a diverse faculty which more closely reflects your student body is a noble goal, but the question to consider is what (if any) limits there ought to be on how to achieve that.

Quote from: Ruralguy on September 09, 2020, 07:45:28 AM
Yes, some sub-fields (and even some large fields in general) have to broaden the sense of what they consider to be diverse even if it doesn't officially tick a box. But we shouldn't think we know everyone available today based on 10+ years ago, or even 5. Situations change. I know in some of the sciences, especially when you consider non-citizens working in the US (I realize not all jobs can do that) or people applying from overseas (ditto), its not 100% clear what someone's race or ethnicity really is in any official sense. How or when do you ask that if you don't know? I know that sounds kind of dorky, and I don't mean to sound ignorant, but if you want to meet some specific goal, but don't know how people fit into that goal, what do you do?

To me, increasing diversity is more about opening yourself up to more options that weren't previously considered, or maybe prioritize or at least seriously consider certain sub-fields with higher percentage of URM's.

I agree. Part of the problem is that if you start with the assumption that obviously the best candidate is the one who went to the fanciest grad program, wrote 3 articles while in grad school and already has a book contract, you are going to end up with a less diverse faculty. It isn't just that you are going to have a racially homogenous faculty, it is also that you are going to have a pretty homogenous group of people in general with less varied and interesting research and teaching.

Quote from: marshwiggle on September 09, 2020, 08:55:17 AM

Quote from: AvidReader on September 09, 2020, 08:08:05 AM

Humanities is overrun with good, qualified scholars of all races. 50 equally qualified people could apply to teach here next year, and 5 might be non-white. All other qualifications being equal (and that's an essential point; this isn't about hiring an inferior candidate), I think a non-white faculty member would be able to support some students (not all) in ways that I (a white woman) cannot. I try to make it clear to my students that I am willing to advocate for them, but I don't expect them to take my word for that. Many of them have already been exposed to systemic racism in local secondary schools and communities. Why should they trust me? I can earn their trust, but if it takes the whole semester, some will already be failing out of school by the time they believe that I am an advocate. Representation matters. Of course this privileges a certain race, but it does so in a way that can significantly and directly benefit 30% of the student body. Inasmuch as I work to treat all my students equitably, it would take me decades of effort to be able able to support my non-white students as ably and easily as someone from their same background(s) can.

AR.

You've identified the problem. If 90% of your applicants are white, then it's pretty much only by explicitly eliminating them on that basis alone that you're going to be likely to hire someone that isn't.

That doesn't actually make any sense.

Quote from: AvidReader on September 09, 2020, 08:08:05 AM
Humanities is overrun with good, qualified scholars of all races. 50 equally qualified people could apply to teach here next year, and 5 might be non-white. All other qualifications being equal (and that's an essential point; this isn't about hiring an inferior candidate)...

Well, this is where your experience and my experience diverge.  Or perhaps it is better to say----my experience has been that the "inferior" candidate can and probably will win once we believe in the concept that we majority people cannot relate to our minority students in the same manner that a minority faculty would (which I don't know that I buy or should necessarily be a factor).

I have taught at two open-admissions, highly un-selective universities.

One uni was primarily white and rural and spent a great deal of its resources on recruiting African-American students from one of the state's large segregated cities, often with less than success.

Our current uni is urban in a very poor part of the country and approximately 25 percent minority students.  Our overall success rate is not good for a variety of reasons.

What I have seen at both places is that race can be the defining factor in both hiring and tenure decisions.

Quote from: Caracal on September 09, 2020, 08:56:45 AM
I agree. Part of the problem is that if you start with the assumption that obviously the best candidate is the one who went to the fanciest grad program, wrote 3 articles while in grad school and already has a book contract, you are going to end up with a less diverse faculty.

Wait, wait, wait!

You've just described an excellent candidate.  THAT person should not get the job simply because hu does not fit a diversity profile!!!????

That, my friend, is reverse discrimination.

Do we not have minority candidates who have a name degree, have written three articles, and have a book contract!!!???  Or this is person going to an Ivy?

Quote from: marshwiggle on September 09, 2020, 08:55:17 AM

Quote from: AvidReader on September 09, 2020, 08:08:05 AM

Humanities is overrun with good, qualified scholars of all races. 50 equally qualified people could apply to teach here next year, and 5 might be non-white. All other qualifications being equal (and that's an essential point; this isn't about hiring an inferior candidate), I think a non-white faculty member would be able to support some students (not all) in ways that I (a white woman) cannot. I try to make it clear to my students that I am willing to advocate for them, but I don't expect them to take my word for that. Many of them have already been exposed to systemic racism in local secondary schools and communities. Why should they trust me? I can earn their trust, but if it takes the whole semester, some will already be failing out of school by the time they believe that I am an advocate. Representation matters. Of course this privileges a certain race, but it does so in a way that can significantly and directly benefit 30% of the student body. Inasmuch as I work to treat all my students equitably, it would take me decades of effort to be able able to support my non-white students as ably and easily as someone from their same background(s) can.

AR.

You've identified the problem. If 90% of your applicants are white, then it's pretty much only by explicitly eliminating them on that basis alone that you're going to be likely to hire someone that isn't. (And it's also statistically unlikely with those odds that all other qualifications are equal.)

Wanting a diverse faculty which more closely reflects your student body is a noble goal, but the question to consider is what (if any) limits there ought to be on how to achieve that.

As most of us would agree, for academic hiring fit is as important as most quantifiable characteristics.  This is true at least among applicants that make it through the first pass.

From here, we need to know what defines the most qualified candidate or best fit?  If the intention of the role is to provide mentorship for minority students, I would argue that the candidate's racial background would impact this.  So, if you look at it only based on academic pedigree, publications, grants, etc., you may find it is the white candidate, but for some specific hires that is not all that matters. 

So, we break down the ideas essentially as:

Hegemony: white people have had the advantage for a long time and they were pretty bad people in this regard; now it's time for minority candidates to occupy the academy because it is only fair (and this is only a minority of positions anyway---as if we have lots of jobs to go around).

Caracal & Kron: even if there are better candidates, race should be the defining factor in order to make minority students more comfortable in the classroom, and this makes perfect sense.

Writingprof & financeguy: Snarl! Time to end this ridiculous liberal takeover.

Marshwiggle: I'm not sure what he is saying.

Wahoo Redux: I am an eyewitness to race as the overarching factor in hiring and tenure; I don't know if that's constant in academia, but everything (including this thread) seems to suggest it is.

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 09, 2020, 09:24:48 AM
Marshwiggle: I'm not sure what he is saying.

Come on. The point I made above is that if 90% of candidates are white, you're going to wind up mostly hiring white people unless you specifically reject them because they're white.

You don't have to agree with me; just don't pretend I'm making some kind of obscure argument. (In this case, I didn't make up the 90% statistic; I was pointing out its significance.)

Mostly what this discussion is telling me is that it is basically impossible for a hiring committee to make a choice that will not end up being second-guessed for one reason or another.  Especially when hiring in a crowded field where there is a diversity of strong candidates.

Quote from: bacardiandlime on September 08, 2020, 04:30:45 PM

Quote from: apl68 on September 08, 2020, 02:13:46 PM
The psychology of this sort of thing is interesting.  We all know of cases where people tried impersonations like this, only to be exposed and disgraced.  How is it that others keep on convincing themselves that they're going to get away with it?  Do that want to be what they're not so badly that they in a sense convince themselves as well as others?

It's probably a combination of these factors. People genuinely identifying with their research field so much they feel connected to it? People just wanting to give themselves more authority in the field (and yes, whether we agree it is a life advantage overall, there are contexts in which "speaking as a woman of color" is a trump card)? People who are some way mentally ill to begin with?

Numerous scholars have been busted over the years faking their narrative, which to my mind suggests there are more fakers out there (GWU had two there at the same time, Krug and Carrillo!). What if the ones who get busted are only a small proportion?

Carrillo's rollercoaster of an obit (https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/cuban-american-author-hg-carrillo-who-explored-themes-of-cultural-alienation-died-after-contracting-covid-19/2020/05/21/35478894-97d8-11ea-91d7-cf4423d47683_story.html)

It would be interesting to see what would have happened had "Carrillo" been unmasked while alive.  As a Cuban-American he was an egregious fraud.  But he was authentically gay and of African descent.  I suspect he might well have found apologists/excuse-makers willing to defend him in a way that would have made for some fascinating arguments in the media.  Whereas it's hard to see anybody sticking up for Krug.

Quote from: apl68 on September 09, 2020, 10:24:04 AM
Mostly what this discussion is telling me is that it is basically impossible for a hiring committee to make a choice that will not end up being second-guessed for one reason or another. Especially when hiring in a crowded field where there is a diversity of strong candidates.

But AvidReader's example was of a situation where 90% of the candidates shared one very obvious characteristic. Suppose it was that 90% got their PhDs at the same institution, or that 90% had the same sub-field, or pretty much anything else. The fact that the one factor shared by an overwhelming majority was not shared by the successful candidate makes it hard to believe that characteristic was not used to reject all of those candidates.

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 09, 2020, 09:04:35 AM

Quote from: Caracal on September 09, 2020, 08:56:45 AM
I agree. Part of the problem is that if you start with the assumption that obviously the best candidate is the one who went to the fanciest grad program, wrote 3 articles while in grad school and already has a book contract, you are going to end up with a less diverse faculty.

Wait, wait, wait!

You've just described an excellent candidate.  THAT person should not get the job simply because hu does not fit a diversity profile!!!????

That, my friend, is reverse discrimination.

Do we not have minority candidates who have a name degree, have written three articles, and have a book contract!!!???  Or this is person going to an Ivy?

Come on, there's not much point in a discussion if you just are going to put up a straw man and whack it with a stick. I didn't say anything like that.

When you have highly competitive fields, one of the things that can happen is that the minimum qualifications even to be considered keep getting higher and higher. Sometimes that makes sense. If you have hundreds of applications, maybe it isn't worth the risk to even consider people who are ABD. However, qualification creep can eventually result in a real narrowing of perspectives and approaches in a field. It is one thing to consider it a plus if a candidate right out of grad school has a published article (this is the humanities) However, if you make it a minimum requirement, you might be failing to look at candidates who might be doing more interesting work that didn't lend itself to cranking out articles while writing a dissertation. It also might not be a particularly helpful metric for finding a candidate to teach at a SLAC or teaching focused regional school.

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 09, 2020, 09:24:48 AM

Caracal & Kron: even if there are better candidates, race should be the defining factor in order to make minority students more comfortable in the classroom, and this makes perfect sense.

I don't think that it should be the defining factor. I think it should be balanced along with everything else.

Although the discussion has now focused on hiring as the main issue with Krug, there were more things about her professionally that would seem to merit loss of tenure. As others have said, in her field most historians of the African continent are white. So her using a fake racial background would not have been necessary to get a job. And apparently her work is very good--she was a finalist for the Frederick Douglass Book Award, which is very prestigious and has been won by white scholars.

What really disqualifies her as that she conjured up a fake lived history, and presented that in academic settings: keynotes, conferences, and in the classroom, to make scholarly points. She claimed to have lived around the corner when Amadou Diallo was shot (she did not). She claimed that her brother had been racially profiled and abused (he had not). She presented herself in academic settings with a forged background, and conjured up "lived experience" examples to support her academic assertions. They're on YouTube for all to see. So while she may well have gotten the job based on excellent scholarship, whatever her race, she went beyond that to build a false and sustained professional presence based on an imaginary identity.

She also apparently apparently physically attacked her white neighbors and stole their packages. But that's another story.

Quote from: Caracal on September 09, 2020, 10:55:18 AM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 09, 2020, 09:04:35 AM

Quote from: Caracal on September 09, 2020, 08:56:45 AM
I agree. Part of the problem is that if you start with the assumption that obviously the best candidate is the one who went to the fanciest grad program, wrote 3 articles while in grad school and already has a book contract, you are going to end up with a less diverse faculty.

Wait, wait, wait!

You've just described an excellent candidate.  THAT person should not get the job simply because hu does not fit a diversity profile!!!????

That, my friend, is reverse discrimination.

Do we not have minority candidates who have a name degree, have written three articles, and have a book contract!!!???  Or this is person going to an Ivy?

Come on, there's not much point in a discussion if you just are going to put up a straw man and whack it with a stick. I didn't say anything like that.

When you have highly competitive fields, one of the things that can happen is that the minimum qualifications even to be considered keep getting higher and higher. Sometimes that makes sense. If you have hundreds of applications, maybe it isn't worth the risk to even consider people who are ABD. However, qualification creep can eventually result in a real narrowing of perspectives and approaches in a field. It is one thing to consider it a plus if a candidate right out of grad school has a published article (this is the humanities) However, if you make it a minimum requirement, you might be failing to look at candidates who might be doing more interesting work that didn't lend itself to cranking out articles while writing a dissertation. It also might not be a particularly helpful metric for finding a candidate to teach at a SLAC or teaching focused regional school.

What strawman?  I responded to exactly what you posted.

And now you're talking about general job trends in the humanities which indeed have inflated in the last ten or fifteen years-----which is not what this discussion is about.

I just want to address one issue, the "all things being equal" scenario. We are led to believe by this argument that there are many job searches that lead to three experts in a field simply unable to tell if one of two candidates possess a job-related advantage and gee golly, they just can't! I guess no one will be hired at all since it's just so hard to determine qualify of program, experience, publication count and other factors. I guess we'll have to pick something else. I have seen many affirmative action hires, and I can tell you that not one single one meets even the vague description of the "tie breaker" scenario.

This is a similar rhetorical flourish to the "one of many factors" argument in that it attempts not to argue for the morality of the act, but simply imply that its impact is minimal or even often inconsequential. To take this to its logical extremity, we could consider how attractive the secretarial applicant is "as one of many factors." I don't think most people would be arguing if the percentage of the decision of how "hot" the applicant is should be 10 or 15%, when typing speed is coming in at only 5%. We would simply not accept that criteria at all, regardless of how many total factors are considered.

Both the "all other things being equal" and the "one of many factors" argument are dishonest in that they attempt to get us to accept something we may consider to be wrong by virtue of magnitude. If you believe it's immoral to use AA to overcome "material and significant differences in qualifications" and "as one of or even the main decision making factor" you have only a disagreement on magnitude rather than substance.

Making an argument of degree is fine if that's what is actually done, but this is far from the case. The "it's there but not really a big deal or like a moral thingy cause it's like small and rare" argument is simply a rhetorical tool used to conceal something that is a) almost never the "tie breaker" scenario hypothesized and b) usually "the" factor rather than an ancillary piece of trivia among "many." This highlights the as of yet unmentioned major problem with AA in that not one person believes it will be utilized honestly, and most (in CA for example) don't even believe it is used legally. With almost no transparency in the process, this shouldn't be a big surprise.

Quote from: Caracal on September 09, 2020, 11:03:25 AM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 09, 2020, 09:24:48 AM

Caracal & Kron: even if there are better candidates, race should be the defining factor in order to make minority students more comfortable in the classroom, and this makes perfect sense.

I don't think that it should be the defining factor. I think it should be balanced along with everything else.

My opinion is slightly more nuanced than that, but I think you know that.

Another one (https://medium.com/@cvvitolo/a-second-step-9fe0c6511ff3)

Some people had mentioned her in the wake of the Krug case. How does academia deal with this? Rescind a job offer?

Quote from: jimbogumbo on September 09, 2020, 06:57:34 AM

Quote from: writingprof on September 09, 2020, 05:50:48 AM

Quote from: Hegemony on September 09, 2020, 01:00:38 AM
I think we can tolerate a few years of black people taking a minuscule number of parts that white people might have played.

Oh, a few years, is it?  If the Left had its way, every provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act would have been operative forever.  And, of course, no one believed Sandra Day O'Connor's contention that racial preferences in college admissions would no longer be necessary by 2028--least of all John Paul Stevens and David Souter.  (To their credit, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer didn't go along with that obviously ridiculous prediction, if memory serves.) 

Anti-white racism, affirmative action, racial preferences: Whatever you want to call them, they will never end, because too many people's jobs and/or quasi-religions depend on their continuance.

Poor memory, and curious: what provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act shouldn't be operative today?

Are you asking my opinion?  I agree with the Supreme Court majority (in 2013's Shelby County v. Holder) that got rid of the hoary formula that determined whether formerly-discriminatory states were allowed to change their voting rules or procedures without "preclearance" from the feds.  Since the whole business was based on the awful, destructive, evil doctrine of collective, ancestral guilt, I was pleased to see it go.

Quote from: writingprof on September 09, 2020, 02:00:14 PM

Quote from: jimbogumbo on September 09, 2020, 06:57:34 AM

Quote from: writingprof on September 09, 2020, 05:50:48 AM

Quote from: Hegemony on September 09, 2020, 01:00:38 AM
I think we can tolerate a few years of black people taking a minuscule number of parts that white people might have played.

Oh, a few years, is it?  If the Left had its way, every provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act would have been operative forever.  And, of course, no one believed Sandra Day O'Connor's contention that racial preferences in college admissions would no longer be necessary by 2028--least of all John Paul Stevens and David Souter.  (To their credit, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer didn't go along with that obviously ridiculous prediction, if memory serves.) 

Anti-white racism, affirmative action, racial preferences: Whatever you want to call them, they will never end, because too many people's jobs and/or quasi-religions depend on their continuance.

Poor memory, and curious: what provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act shouldn't be operative today?

Are you asking my opinion?  I agree with the Supreme Court majority (in 2013's Shelby County v. Holder) that got rid of the hoary formula that determined whether formerly-discriminatory states were allowed to change their voting rules or procedures without "preclearance" from the feds.  Since the whole business was based on the awful, destructive, evil doctrine of collective, ancestral guilt, I was pleased to see it go.

I really was asking. I do think that the motivation for the passage of the Voting Rights Act was based on much more than "awful, destructive, evil doctrine of collective, ancestral guilt" though. There were clearly many states setting up rules with the intent of depriving African Americans of their right to vote.

In my opinion, the right to vote should be determined based on a combination citizenship, paying taxes, and receiving SS. Registration would be eliminated for those filing Federal income taxes and/or receiving SSA. You vote based on your declared state of residence for those; no registration required.

Quote from: bacardiandlime on September 09, 2020, 01:57:08 PM
Another one (https://medium.com/@cvvitolo/a-second-step-9fe0c6511ff3)

Some people had mentioned her in the wake of the Krug case. How does academia deal with this? Rescind a job offer?

Interesting quotation from that article:

Quote
What I know now is that perception is not reality. Race is not flat, it is a social construct rife with contradictions. Fighting racism never required dissociating myself from whiteness.

In the current climate, being "anti-racist" pretty much requires denouncing "whiteness", so to avoid having to self-flagellate, it pretty much does require "dissociating myself from whiteness".

Quote from: bacardiandlime on September 09, 2020, 01:57:08 PM
Another one (https://medium.com/@cvvitolo/a-second-step-9fe0c6511ff3)

Some people had mentioned her in the wake of the Krug case. How does academia deal with this? Rescind a job offer?

Read a few of the comments from people who apparently know her in person. What these two cases and the previous one with the fake twitter persona have in common is that their perpetrators show clear signs of "dark triad" personality disorders: machiavellianism (a manipulative attitude), narcissism (excessive self-absorption and regard), and psychopathy (lack of empathy). They didn't just lie about this one thing for [reasons], they intentionally manipulated people to get things they wanted, needed to be the center of attention and control everything and everyone around them, and left a pattern of abusive behavior and broken relationships in their wake. These are your classic scam artists-- I think the fact that they lied about their race is  somewhat unusual but ultimately incidental-- they've almost certain lied about other things too.

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 09, 2020, 12:32:07 PM

Quote from: Caracal on September 09, 2020, 10:55:18 AM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 09, 2020, 09:04:35 AM

Quote from: Caracal on September 09, 2020, 08:56:45 AM
I agree. Part of the problem is that if you start with the assumption that obviously the best candidate is the one who went to the fanciest grad program, wrote 3 articles while in grad school and already has a book contract, you are going to end up with a less diverse faculty.

Wait, wait, wait!

You've just described an excellent candidate.  THAT person should not get the job simply because hu does not fit a diversity profile!!!????

That, my friend, is reverse discrimination.

Do we not have minority candidates who have a name degree, have written three articles, and have a book contract!!!???  Or this is person going to an Ivy?

Come on, there's not much point in a discussion if you just are going to put up a straw man and whack it with a stick. I didn't say anything like that.

When you have highly competitive fields, one of the things that can happen is that the minimum qualifications even to be considered keep getting higher and higher. Sometimes that makes sense. If you have hundreds of applications, maybe it isn't worth the risk to even consider people who are ABD. However, qualification creep can eventually result in a real narrowing of perspectives and approaches in a field. It is one thing to consider it a plus if a candidate right out of grad school has a published article (this is the humanities) However, if you make it a minimum requirement, you might be failing to look at candidates who might be doing more interesting work that didn't lend itself to cranking out articles while writing a dissertation. It also might not be a particularly helpful metric for finding a candidate to teach at a SLAC or teaching focused regional school.

What strawman?  I responded to exactly what you posted.

And now you're talking about general job trends in the humanities which indeed have inflated in the last ten or fifteen years-----which is not what this discussion is about.
Sigh

Looks like there's a lot of this going around:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/09/10/more-allegations-racial-fraud-academe

Quote from: secundem_artem on September 10, 2020, 06:44:50 AM
Looks like there's a lot of this going around:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/09/10/more-allegations-racial-fraud-academe

Those examples they throw in are really different cases. The grad student is certainly much closer to Krug. Carillo is a completely different sort of thing. People pretending they are somebody they aren't isn't some new phenomenon linked to leftist academic culture. You can go all the way back to Esther hiding her Jewish identity in order to marry the Persian King. Odysseus is constantly taking on new identities to fit the situation.

Quote from: secundem_artem on September 10, 2020, 06:44:50 AM
Looks like there's a lot of this going around:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/09/10/more-allegations-racial-fraud-academe

So who are the psychologists here who can throw a theory at us here?

Each of these actors claim "trauma" as a partial reason----hiding from themselves in a new persona?

And, of course, this was interesting considering the latest turn in the conversation:

Quote
Actress Mindy Kaling's brother, Vijay Chokal-Ingam, has written about why he faked being Black to get into medical school, which he eventually dropped out of. Chokal-Ingam says he benefited from affirmative action in admissions decisions but, to his surprise, faced discrimination in other areas of his life while he faked being Black.

His story is pretty interesting. (https://nypost.com/2015/04/12/mindy-kalings-brother-explains-why-he-pretended-to-be-black/)

Quote from: Caracal on September 10, 2020, 07:35:24 AM

Quote from: secundem_artem on September 10, 2020, 06:44:50 AM
Looks like there's a lot of this going around:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/09/10/more-allegations-racial-fraud-academe

Those examples they throw in are really different cases. The grad student is certainly much closer to Krug. Carillo is a completely different sort of thing. People pretending they are somebody they aren't isn't some new phenomenon linked to leftist academic culture. You can go all the way back to Esther hiding her Jewish identity in order to marry the Persian King. Odysseus is constantly taking on new identities to fit the situation.

That's very true.  We've always had people trying to become something else, or at least putting on airs.  What's curious is the changes we're seeing in what people claim to be.  In the past children of Scots-Irish strivers in the South who were ruthless and lucky enough to acquire major land holdings liked to imagine that they were descended from English gentry.  Recent immigrants elsewhere in the country aspired to be taken for WASPs.  Now we're seeing dramatic changes in the sorts of identities people want to adopt.  Something is going on here.

My mother, the college teacher of Spanish and Spanish and Latin American culture and literature is not of Hispanic descent--her ancestors were all hill people from northern Arkansas.  But she grew up in New Mexico, has spoken fluent Spanish all her life, and has cousins who are Mexican.  She could probably have found a way to pass herself off as a blue-eyed Latina.  But much as she respects and enjoys that culture, she has never felt a need to exchange that identity for the one she grew up with (Plus she's, you know, honest).  Nor does she have any colleagues of her generation who seem to have tried anything like that.  Something has changed.

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 10, 2020, 07:59:18 AM

Quote from: secundem_artem on September 10, 2020, 06:44:50 AM
Looks like there's a lot of this going around:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/09/10/more-allegations-racial-fraud-academe

So who are the psychologists here who can throw a theory at us here?

Not a psychologist but I did remember this article.

https://www.chronicle.com/article/what-the-1920s-tell-us-about-dolezal-and-racial-illogic/

Quote from: apl68 on September 10, 2020, 08:19:27 AM

Quote from: Caracal on September 10, 2020, 07:35:24 AM

Quote from: secundem_artem on September 10, 2020, 06:44:50 AM
Looks like there's a lot of this going around:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/09/10/more-allegations-racial-fraud-academe

Those examples they throw in are really different cases. The grad student is certainly much closer to Krug. Carillo is a completely different sort of thing. People pretending they are somebody they aren't isn't some new phenomenon linked to leftist academic culture. You can go all the way back to Esther hiding her Jewish identity in order to marry the Persian King. Odysseus is constantly taking on new identities to fit the situation.

That's very true.  We've always had people trying to become something else, or at least putting on airs.  What's curious is the changes we're seeing in what people claim to be.  In the past children of Scots-Irish strivers in the South who were ruthless and lucky enough to acquire major land holdings liked to imagine that they were descended from English gentry.  Recent immigrants elsewhere in the country aspired to be taken for WASPs.  Now we're seeing dramatic changes in the sorts of identities people want to adopt.  Something is going on here.

It follows from the earlier examples that now there is some advantage to be had from appearing non-white.It may not be universal, but as long as it exists in certain settings people are going to try to game the system.

Quote from: apl68 on September 10, 2020, 08:19:27 AM

Quote from: Caracal on September 10, 2020, 07:35:24 AM

Quote from: secundem_artem on September 10, 2020, 06:44:50 AM
Looks like there's a lot of this going around:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/09/10/more-allegations-racial-fraud-academe

Those examples they throw in are really different cases. The grad student is certainly much closer to Krug. Carillo is a completely different sort of thing. People pretending they are somebody they aren't isn't some new phenomenon linked to leftist academic culture. You can go all the way back to Esther hiding her Jewish identity in order to marry the Persian King. Odysseus is constantly taking on new identities to fit the situation.

That's very true.  We've always had people trying to become something else, or at least putting on airs.  What's curious is the changes we're seeing in what people claim to be.  In the past children of Scots-Irish strivers in the South who were ruthless and lucky enough to acquire major land holdings liked to imagine that they were descended from English gentry.  Recent immigrants elsewhere in the country aspired to be taken for WASPs.  Now we're seeing dramatic changes in the sorts of identities people want to adopt.  Something is going on here.

My mother, the college teacher of Spanish and Spanish and Latin American culture and literature is not of Hispanic descent--her ancestors were all hill people from northern Arkansas.  But she grew up in New Mexico, has spoken fluent Spanish all her life, and has cousins who are Mexican.  She could probably have found a way to pass herself off as a blue-eyed Latina.  But much as she respects and enjoys that culture, she has never felt a need to exchange that identity for the one she grew up with (Plus she's, you know, honest).  Nor does she have any colleagues of her generation who seem to have tried anything like that.  Something has changed.

Well, it is always tricky to extrapolate from the edge cases. Lots of academics study a group they don't belong to, and the vast majority of us don't have any more desire than your mother did to pretend to be someone they aren't. For most of us, telling big lies would be exhausting. Really, the question is, why would some unbalanced people seize on this particular lie. I'm guessing it is probably mostly about people with a lot of anger and a desire to find something to hold as a cudgel over others, or people who have a narcissistic desire for attention and sympathy, or both.

The thing that bothers me about these conversations is that some people want to use this to argue that anybody who points out inequities is just looking for attention or trying to gain a personal advantage. If I pretended to be a Syrian war refugee, would anybody argue that this showed that there was too much sympathy for war refugees?

Quote from: marshwiggle on September 10, 2020, 09:40:39 AM


It follows from the earlier examples that now there is some advantage to be had from appearing non-white.It may not be universal, but as long as it exists in certain settings people are going to try to game the system.

Oh, do you think?

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 10, 2020, 07:59:18 AM

Quote from: secundem_artem on September 10, 2020, 06:44:50 AM
Looks like there's a lot of this going around:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/09/10/more-allegations-racial-fraud-academe

So who are the psychologists here who can throw a theory at us here?

Each of these actors claim "trauma" as a partial reason----hiding from themselves in a new persona?

And, of course, this was interesting considering the latest turn in the conversation:

Quote
Actress Mindy Kaling's brother, Vijay Chokal-Ingam, has written about why he faked being Black to get into medical school, which he eventually dropped out of. Chokal-Ingam says he benefited from affirmative action in admissions decisions but, to his surprise, faced discrimination in other areas of his life while he faked being Black.

His story is pretty interesting. (https://nypost.com/2015/04/12/mindy-kalings-brother-explains-why-he-pretended-to-be-black/)

See my earlier post. I don't think any of this is new, or specific to race.

Quote from: Puget on September 09, 2020, 02:43:51 PM
Read a few of the comments from people who apparently know her in person. What these two cases and the previous one with the fake twitter persona have in common is that their perpetrators show clear signs of "dark triad" personality disorders: machiavellianism (a manipulative attitude), narcissism (excessive self-absorption and regard), and psychopathy (lack of empathy). They didn't just lie about this one thing for [reasons], they intentionally manipulated people to get things they wanted, needed to be the center of attention and control everything and everyone around them, and left a pattern of abusive behavior and broken relationships in their wake. These are your classic scam artists-- I think the fact that they lied about their race is  somewhat unusual but ultimately incidental-- they've almost certain lied about other things too.

Quote from: Caracal on September 10, 2020, 10:10:47 AM
The thing that bothers me about these conversations is that some people want to use this to argue that anybody who points out inequities is just looking for attention or trying to gain a personal advantage. If I pretended to be a Syrian war refugee, would anybody argue that this showed that there was too much sympathy for war refugees?

No, but if you were a member of a group who was repeatedly identified as impicitly hostile to war refugees, the claim would make a lot more sense.

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 10, 2020, 07:59:18 AM

Quote from: secundem_artem on September 10, 2020, 06:44:50 AM
Looks like there's a lot of this going around:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/09/10/more-allegations-racial-fraud-academe

So who are the psychologists here who can throw a theory at us here?

"The graduate student in question is CV Vitolo-Haddad, a Ph.D. candidate in journalism and mass communication. They (Vitolo-Haddad's preferred pronoun) were outed last week via an anonymous post on Medium and subsequently wrote two posts of their own on the platform."

I think this student needs two psychologists.

Quote from: Puget on September 10, 2020, 10:18:31 AM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 10, 2020, 07:59:18 AM

Quote from: secundem_artem on September 10, 2020, 06:44:50 AM
Looks like there's a lot of this going around:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/09/10/more-allegations-racial-fraud-academe

And, of course, this was interesting considering the latest turn in the conversation:

Quote
Actress Mindy Kaling's brother, Vijay Chokal-Ingam, has written about why he faked being Black to get into medical school, which he eventually dropped out of. Chokal-Ingam says he benefited from affirmative action in admissions decisions but, to his surprise, faced discrimination in other areas of his life while he faked being Black.

His story is pretty interesting. (https://nypost.com/2015/04/12/mindy-kalings-brother-explains-why-he-pretended-to-be-black/)

The story he tells in the 2015 NY Post article is pretty interesting. He dropped out of the med school that he scammed his way into and went to business school instead. Inspired by that education, he wrote a book about his scam so he could profit from it rather than be punished.

Now he's peddling Coronavirus conspiracy peddling Coronavirus conspiracy theories (https://coronavirusexplanation.com/).

Pretty enterprising, if not admirable. I won't be using his counsel.

I'm surprised no one is bringing up the recent Oscar news. The new "diversity rules" to be considered for best picture are pretty dystopian. This is just waiting for a backlash the first time that a film with a lot of buzz that otherwise may have made it is rendered ineligible.

Quote from: financeguy on September 10, 2020, 11:54:58 AM
I'm surprised no one is bringing up the recent Oscar news. The new "diversity rules" to be considered for best picture are pretty dystopian. This is just waiting for a backlash the first time that a film with a lot of buzz that otherwise may have made it is rendered ineligible.

I think it's pretty dystopian that people win Oscars because "it's their time" and maybe they were overlooked for the film that really deserved the award. I also think it's pretty dystopian that only one female director has ever won an Oscar for direction, and only five have ever been nominated.

Besides which, the standards are pretty easily satisfied, especially considering that nominations must only satisfy the standards in 2/4 categories. I think you'll find that, when you start looking at particular cases, quite an awful lot passes the muster. Seriously, give it a try: what are some deserving films that don't satisfy 2/4 categories?

I'm not sure the standards end up excluding very much at all, actually; instead, their primary purpose seems to be to get people to actually think about diversity issues during the nomination process. The goal seems to be to encourage diversity in hiring and development; that won't necessarily translate to much of a change at the level of what you see being nominated.

And anyway, it's only for the best picture Oscar. And it seems useful and important to me to have clearly articulated criteria for pertaining to what's 'best'. In that respect, I don't think they've gone far enough at all.

I suspect the Hollywood  gender issue (https://womenintvfilm.sdsu.edu/research/#:~:text=Women%20comprised%2033%25%20of%20directors,26%25%20in%202017%2D18.) is much the same as many of the diversity issues in academia:

Quote
The percentages of women working as directors, writers, producers, executive producers, and editors on independent films reached historic highs in 2018-19.  Women comprised 33% of directors, up 4 percentage points from 29% in 2017-18, and 32% of writers, up 6 percentage points from 26% in 2017-18.  Women accounted for 37% of producers, up 1 percentage point from 36% in 2017-18, and 32% of executive producers, up 6 percentage points from 26% in 2017-18.  Women made up 29% of editors, up 2 percentage points from 27% in 2017-18.  Despite these gains, it is important to note that independent films employed more than twice as many men as women (68% vs. 32%) in key behind-the-scenes roles.

This thread started with opinions of a single transgressor but understandably evolved into a discussion of diversity and its discontents.

Diversity as enunciated is nothing more than an income redistribution scheme, from reasonably well off whites, especially males, to reasonably well off non whites. One can be for this or against it, but as practiced, the promotion policy is opaque.

To fix this, it would suffice to determine binding quotas for all jobs in proportion to a group's share of the population. Virtually all institutions require quality hires, and these won't be forthcoming from women and minorities for lack of past training. Hence, we make the quotas tradable: A woman, say, formally qualified to get a certain job, but is rejected, could sell her quota to a man. Man gets job, but has to pay woman for the job. Purpose of diversity is fulfilled.

Administratively, 'twould be easier with a white male tax whose proceeds are transferred to all non-white males, but the consequences are completely equivalent or can be made so. :-)

Quote from: dismalist on September 10, 2020, 02:41:54 PM
This thread started with opinions of a single transgressor but understandably evolved into a discussion of diversity and its discontents.

Diversity as enunciated is nothing more than an income redistribution scheme, from reasonably well off whites, especially males, to reasonably well off non whites. One can be for this or against it, but as practiced, the promotion policy is opaque.

To fix this, it would suffice to determine binding quotas for all jobs in proportion to a group's share of the population. Virtually all institutions require quality hires,

I could quarrel with this a little. This is gonna sound really bitter, but I think many would agree. In some of the arts what and who are considered great at what they do and therefore desirable instructors are noticeably influenced by the type of artist who is given the the prestigious academic positions. The cool people, their cheerleaders in the press and their trends.

I am a feminist.

I have worked on diversity initiatives.

I try my best to be a good citizen and strive to treat all my students equally.

I turned down a job in my dream city and left a FT job that I didn't like very well to support my wife's career.

I know very little about my family history, almost nothing past my grandfathers on either side of the family.  I suspect the great-great-neanderthals on my father's side were pretty bad people, and probably bigots, but my grandfather and father were extremely decent men and not bigots.  It seems unlikely, but not impossible, that these poor dirt farmers and kiln builders (father's side) and the New York intellectuals (mother's side) in the remote past of my genetic-line owned slaves----but we have no proof one way or the other.

Sadly, however, I must pay for the sins of my fathers because white males have had the advantage for so long----or maybe I should say, I should humbly accept the possibility that I will pay for the sins my ancestors, even though I am not the one who committed the sins which led to this particular cultural conundrum, because that's only fair. 

Quote from: dismalist on September 10, 2020, 02:41:54 PM

Administratively, 'twould be easier with a white male tax whose proceeds are transferred to all non-white males, but the consequences are completely equivalent or can be made so. :-)

Do you mean like a progressive income tax, so that higher income means higher rate of taxation, and on the other end, income so low it isn't even taxed gets you earned income credit? Starting to sound familiar isn't it.

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 10, 2020, 05:23:26 PM
I am a feminist.

I have worked on diversity initiatives.

I try my best to be a good citizen and strive to treat all my students equally.

I turned down a job in my dream city and left a FT job that I didn't like very well to support my wife's career.

I know very little about my family history, almost nothing past my grandfathers on either side of the family.  I suspect the great-great-neanderthals on my father's side were pretty bad people, and probably bigots, but my grandfather and father were extremely decent men and not bigots.  It seems unlikely, but not impossible, that these poor dirt farmers and kiln builders (father's side) and the New York intellectuals (mother's side) in the remote past of my genetic-line owned slaves----but we have no proof one way or the other.

Sadly, however, I must pay for the sins of my fathers because white males have had the advantage for so long----or maybe I should say, I should humbly accept the possibility that I will pay for the sins my ancestors, even though I am not the one who committed the sins which led to this particular cultural conundrum, because that's only fair. 

So you should give something on a regular basis to POC who are university presidents? This makes you feel better, while it would negatively affect your lifestyle, and wouldn't have any affect on theirs unless they need a bigger yacht.

Quote from: mahagonny on September 10, 2020, 06:54:18 PM

Quote from: dismalist on September 10, 2020, 02:41:54 PM

Administratively, 'twould be easier with a white male tax whose proceeds are transferred to all non-white males, but the consequences are completely equivalent or can be made so. :-)

Do you mean like a progressive income tax, so that higher income means higher rate of taxation, and on the other end, income so low it isn't even taxed gets you earned income credit? Starting to sound familiar isn't it.

No. There'd be an auction market for the work rights.

Jessica Krug has resigned from her tenured position.

Quote from: Hibush on September 10, 2020, 11:50:05 AM

Quote from: Puget on September 10, 2020, 10:18:31 AM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 10, 2020, 07:59:18 AM

Quote from: secundem_artem on September 10, 2020, 06:44:50 AM
Looks like there's a lot of this going around:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/09/10/more-allegations-racial-fraud-academe

And, of course, this was interesting considering the latest turn in the conversation:

Quote
Actress Mindy Kaling's brother, Vijay Chokal-Ingam, has written about why he faked being Black to get into medical school, which he eventually dropped out of. Chokal-Ingam says he benefited from affirmative action in admissions decisions but, to his surprise, faced discrimination in other areas of his life while he faked being Black.

His story is pretty interesting. (https://nypost.com/2015/04/12/mindy-kalings-brother-explains-why-he-pretended-to-be-black/)

The story he tells in the 2015 NY Post article is pretty interesting. He dropped out of the med school that he scammed his way into and went to business school instead. Inspired by that education, he wrote a book about his scam so he could profit from it rather than be punished.

Now he's peddling Coronavirus conspiracy peddling Coronavirus conspiracy theories (https://coronavirusexplanation.com/).

Pretty enterprising, if not admirable. I won't be using his counsel.

Wow, here's a strong case of mental illness. "Look at me, look at me!  There's no deep end that's too deep for me!"

Quote from: dismalist on September 10, 2020, 02:41:54 PM
This thread started with opinions of a single transgressor but understandably evolved into a discussion of diversity and its discontents.

Diversity as enunciated is nothing more than an income redistribution scheme, from reasonably well off whites, especially males, to reasonably well off non whites. One can be for this or against it, but as practiced, the promotion policy is opaque.

To fix this, it would suffice to determine binding quotas for all jobs in proportion to a group's share of the population. Virtually all institutions require quality hires, and these won't be forthcoming from women and minorities for lack of past training. Hence, we make the quotas tradable: A woman, say, formally qualified to get a certain job, but is rejected, could sell her quota to a man. Man gets job, but has to pay woman for the job. Purpose of diversity is fulfilled.

Interesting!
Some jobs would never get staffed. Imagine someone saying 'I'll sell you my gig teaching freshman chemistry, one to two sections, that's if they fill, because they can be canceled at the last minute. Pay is $2200 per course.' The person who is unable to sell the job will then blow it off once the semester begins.

Quote from: dismalist on September 10, 2020, 02:41:54 PM

A woman, say, formally qualified to get a certain job, but is rejected, could sell her quota to a man. Man gets job, but has to pay woman for the job. Purpose of diversity is fulfilled.

Could you clarify? If she's qualified, why was she rejected? Academic hiring pools usually contain dozens of people who are qualified. Should they all get paid for NOT getting a job?

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 10, 2020, 05:23:26 PM
I am a feminist.

I have worked on diversity initiatives.

I try my best to be a good citizen and strive to treat all my students equally.

I turned down a job in my dream city and left a FT job that I didn't like very well to support my wife's career.

I know very little about my family history, almost nothing past my grandfathers on either side of the family.  I suspect the great-great-neanderthals on my father's side were pretty bad people, and probably bigots, but my grandfather and father were extremely decent men and not bigots.  It seems unlikely, but not impossible, that these poor dirt farmers and kiln builders (father's side) and the New York intellectuals (mother's side) in the remote past of my genetic-line owned slaves----but we have no proof one way or the other.

Sadly, however, I must pay for the sins of my fathers because white males have had the advantage for so long----or maybe I should say, I should humbly accept the possibility that I will pay for the sins my ancestors, even though I am not the one who committed the sins which led to this particular cultural conundrum, because that's only fair.

1. As a historian, I always am perplexed when people think they ought to feel guilt or pride over the actions of their ancestors. My very strong impression is that this view is largely confined to white people-I see it in some white liberals as well as sons of Confederate veterans types. It just feels like a weird impulse to me. Why in the world would I feel guilty about the actions of people I didn't know?

2. I also don't like the idea that obviously slaveholders must have been terrible people. It misses the way in which evil systems and institutions operate. There were plenty of monsters wandering around in human form in the United States before 1865, but there weren't enough of them to keep millions of enslaved people in captivity. For that, you needed lots of people who weren't particularly cruel or sadistic, but weren't interested in asking a lot of questions about the systems that they had grown up with and that benefited them. Enslaved people were very quick to make these distinctions between the truly awful people and the ones who just were part of the system. I think about those relatively "ordinary" people a lot when I teach about slavery. They knew who the monsters were, everyone did. They tsked-tsked about the terrible things they did to enslaved people in private, but it never occurred to them that there anything to be done and they tried to avoid coming face to face with the terrible cruelty of the entire institution. To some extent, many of us are like that.

3. I think you're misinterpreting the message you're hearing about race and history. You're hearing that we should understand and acknowledge that long histories of race and oppression continue to influence our present and you think people are demanding you feel guilty. Don't feel guilty, nobody needs your guilt. Just understand a little about that history and try to apply those lessons.

4. As far as being "punished," are you really? As we've talked about, there aren't enough people of underrepresented groups being hired in most academic disciplines to be making it significantly harder for you to get a job. So, what exactly is the punishment? To the extent that sometimes an institution might give some weight to the background of another candidate is that really a "punishment?" Would you think of it as a punishment if a job went to a person with more experience teaching at a SLAC, or who studied some area that a committee thought was more interesting or trendier?People can assert all they want that there are all these jobs where white people aren't considered, but I don't see the evidence for it. 

Quote from: bacardiandlime on September 11, 2020, 04:33:31 AM

Quote from: dismalist on September 10, 2020, 02:41:54 PM

A woman, say, formally qualified to get a certain job, but is rejected, could sell her quota to a man. Man gets job, but has to pay woman for the job. Purpose of diversity is fulfilled.

Could you clarify? If she's qualified, why was she rejected? Academic hiring pools usually contain dozens of people who are qualified. Should they all get paid for NOT getting a job?

'

Exactly. I'm qualified for lots of positions I'm very unlikely to get. That's true of most positions vaguely in my subfield. If you gave me the job, I could do it adequately, at least. You wouldn't have parades of students beating down the chair's door to complain about me and I'd probably manage to meet my publication requirements. That doesn't mean I deserve the job. The department gets to decide which qualified candidate would best meet their needs.

Quote from: Caracal on September 11, 2020, 05:00:27 AM
I think you're misinterpreting the message you're hearing about race and history. You're hearing that we should understand and acknowledge that long histories of race and oppression continue to influence our present and you think people are demanding you feel guilty. Don't feel guilty, nobody needs your guilt. Just understand a little about that history and try to apply those lessons.

There are people who want Wahoo to feel guilty, and there are white people who enable and encourage them to be OK with the fact that they want Wahoo to feel guilty. This is the mania that has taken over.

Quote from: mahagonny on September 11, 2020, 05:45:08 AM

Quote from: Caracal on September 11, 2020, 05:00:27 AM
I think you're misinterpreting the message you're hearing about race and history. You're hearing that we should understand and acknowledge that long histories of race and oppression continue to influence our present and you think people are demanding you feel guilty. Don't feel guilty, nobody needs your guilt. Just understand a little about that history and try to apply those lessons.

There are people who want Wahoo to feel guilty, and there are white people who enable and encourage them to be OK with the fact that they want Wahoo to feel guilty. This is the mania that has taken over.

I've heard very little of that. I suspect you aren't listening very well.

I wouldn't say "guilty," but I'd like Wahoo, and all of us white people, to be cognizant of the many ways we've benefited from racism through the centuries. For instance, if our families have been in the U.S. for at least 2-3 generations, we've most likely benefited from the mortgages and inexpensive suburban housing promoted to white people, and denied to Black people. As a recent clip going around emphasizes, it was written in many suburban housing mortgage contracts that the house could not be initially sold to Black people, nor resold to Black people. By and large white Americans have profited significantly over the decades from the rise in housing values, which they could only do because they were allowed to get onto the housing ladder in the first place. Similarly, I remember the days when Black people were allowed to be sharecroppers or farm workers or train porters or maids, and not much else — a very few professionals, who served only other Black people. Not much chance to save much to pass on to future generations. The thousand rules and laws and practices of bigotry that held Black people back from accumulating wealth and passing it down the generations, and frustrated ambition and squandered talent — I'd like us all to be aware of the structures that perpetuated those things, and of the ways our current society is still very much shaped by them. If some people want to feel guilty, they can do that — but not if they think guilt will take care of the problem. Continued vigilance and action is what is needed, not performative emotion.

Quote from: Hegemony on September 11, 2020, 06:21:08 AM
I wouldn't say "guilty," but I'd like Wahoo, and all of us white people, to be cognizant of the many ways we've benefited from racism through the centuries. For instance, if our families have been in the U.S. for at least 2-3 generations, we've most likely benefited from the mortgages and inexpensive suburban housing promoted to white people, and denied to Black people. As a recent clip going around emphasizes, it was written in many suburban housing mortgage contracts that the house could not be initially sold to Black people, nor resold to Black people. By and large white Americans have profited significantly over the decades from the rise in housing values, which they could only do because they were allowed to get onto the housing ladder in the first place.

How do you explain the similar standard of living in other countries (such as in Europe) where there was no legacy of slavery, and where the population has always been fairly racially homogenous? If white people in the US have only succeeded at the expense of others, countries which have never been ethnically diverse should have a significantly lower standard of living than white Americans.

Quote from: Hegemony on September 11, 2020, 06:21:08 AM
I wouldn't say "guilty," but I'd like Wahoo, and all of us white people, to be cognizant of the many ways we've benefited from racism through the centuries. For instance, if our families have been in the U.S. for at least 2-3 generations, we've most likely benefited from the mortgages and inexpensive suburban housing promoted to white people, and denied to Black people. As a recent clip going around emphasizes, it was written in many suburban housing mortgage contracts that the house could not be initially sold to Black people, nor resold to Black people. By and large white Americans have profited significantly over the decades from the rise in housing values, which they could only do because they were allowed to get onto the housing ladder in the first place. Similarly, I remember the days when Black people were allowed to be sharecroppers or farm workers or train porters or maids, and not much else — a very few professionals, who served only other Black people. Not much chance to save much to pass on to future generations. The thousand rules and laws and practices of bigotry that held Black people back from accumulating wealth and passing it down the generations, and frustrated ambition and squandered talent — I'd like us all to be aware of the structures that perpetuated those things, and of the ways our current society is still very much shaped by them. If some people want to feel guilty, they can do that — but not if they think guilt will take care of the problem. Continued vigilance and action is what is needed, not performative emotion.

Many faculty are immigrants, and have no historic debt or benefit. However, European immigrants in particular have many of the benefits of native White Americans. That group nevertheless has responsibility for fixing the problem using the power conferred by their position.

Quote from: Caracal on September 11, 2020, 05:00:27 AM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 10, 2020, 05:23:26 PM
I am a feminist.

I have worked on diversity initiatives.

I try my best to be a good citizen and strive to treat all my students equally.

I turned down a job in my dream city and left a FT job that I didn't like very well to support my wife's career.

I know very little about my family history, almost nothing past my grandfathers on either side of the family.  I suspect the great-great-neanderthals on my father's side were pretty bad people, and probably bigots, but my grandfather and father were extremely decent men and not bigots.  It seems unlikely, but not impossible, that these poor dirt farmers and kiln builders (father's side) and the New York intellectuals (mother's side) in the remote past of my genetic-line owned slaves----but we have no proof one way or the other.

Sadly, however, I must pay for the sins of my fathers because white males have had the advantage for so long----or maybe I should say, I should humbly accept the possibility that I will pay for the sins my ancestors, even though I am not the one who committed the sins which led to this particular cultural conundrum, because that's only fair.

1. As a historian, I always am perplexed when people think they ought to feel guilt or pride over the actions of their ancestors. My very strong impression is that this view is largely confined to white people-I see it in some white liberals as well as sons of Confederate veterans types. It just feels like a weird impulse to me. Why in the world would I feel guilty about the actions of people I didn't know?

2. I also don't like the idea that obviously slaveholders must have been terrible people. It misses the way in which evil systems and institutions operate. There were plenty of monsters wandering around in human form in the United States before 1865, but there weren't enough of them to keep millions of enslaved people in captivity. For that, you needed lots of people who weren't particularly cruel or sadistic, but weren't interested in asking a lot of questions about the systems that they had grown up with and that benefited them. Enslaved people were very quick to make these distinctions between the truly awful people and the ones who just were part of the system. I think about those relatively "ordinary" people a lot when I teach about slavery. They knew who the monsters were, everyone did. They tsked-tsked about the terrible things they did to enslaved people in private, but it never occurred to them that there anything to be done and they tried to avoid coming face to face with the terrible cruelty of the entire institution. To some extent, many of us are like that.

3. I think you're misinterpreting the message you're hearing about race and history. You're hearing that we should understand and acknowledge that long histories of race and oppression continue to influence our present and you think people are demanding you feel guilty. Don't feel guilty, nobody needs your guilt. Just understand a little about that history and try to apply those lessons.

4. As far as being "punished," are you really? As we've talked about, there aren't enough people of underrepresented groups being hired in most academic disciplines to be making it significantly harder for you to get a job. So, what exactly is the punishment? To the extent that sometimes an institution might give some weight to the background of another candidate is that really a "punishment?" Would you think of it as a punishment if a job went to a person with more experience teaching at a SLAC, or who studied some area that a committee thought was more interesting or trendier?People can assert all they want that there are all these jobs where white people aren't considered, but I don't see the evidence for it.

Interesting commentary.  But I think you missed my point, my friend, which was largely sarcasm.  My point was actually why should I feel guilt or feel that I, no matter how minimally, have to correct the sins of the past?

1. & 2. I feel neither guilt nor pride about my ancestors, about whom I know very little.  What I do know of my father's side is that they were probably pretty "terrible people" in the general sense of the term----you know, A-holes, regardless of their slave owning status.  Also regardless, I suspect they had a great deal of racial animus, so while they may not have been any more or less "evil" than their peers, they were members of the zeitgeist which created the racial dynamic we are still dealing with today.  My point is, why is that my fault?

3.  I have to disagree with you there. I think we---most certainly academics---acknowledge the past and the effect it has on the present: the famous Faulkner quote from his Noble prize acceptance comes to mind: "The past is not dead.  It is not even past." We love that quote.  You, perhaps, don't blame people such as myself for the past, but plenty do. 

Like my friend Hegemony says shortly after this:

Quote from: Hegemony on September 11, 2020, 06:21:08 AM
I wouldn't say "guilty," but I'd like Wahoo, and all of us white people, to be cognizant of the many ways we've benefited from racism through the centuries.

And:

Quote from: Hegemony on September 11, 2020, 06:21:08 AM
Continued vigilance and action is what is needed, not performative emotion.

Maybe not a denotative definition of "guilt" as we understand it----but I am certainly being told I need to change my attitude.

Thank you, Hegemony, I am very well aware, and have even posted before, about my acceptance of the concept of white privilege.  I've been told about it for years and am very well aware of how it operates.  For what it is worth, I've taught Frederick Douglas, Toni Morrison, a host of AA poets, August Wilson, and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks as well as the movie Fruitvale Station all in an attempt to diversify the curriculum and include many voices.

So please, spare the lecture.  We are all educated people and know these things.

My point is actually...

4) I disagree.  People are very cavalier about the job market when this subject comes up.  They are not dismissive or cavalier about academic careers in any other context.  But when the concept of "reverse discrimination," as problematic as that term is, comes up, suddenly it is a minority of jobs that are vanishing (among a minority of job openings).  To be an academic this day and age is not like getting a job in the finance sector; there are a finite number of jobs and these are hyper-competitive; being in history you should know this.  What I have seen is exactly the opposite of what you assert above.   

I have to teach class in about 10 minutes but I will come back and use my own "lived experience" as examples.  As well as the article written by a very questionable man with a very famous sister.

Quote from: dismalist on September 10, 2020, 07:17:21 PM

Quote from: mahagonny on September 10, 2020, 06:54:18 PM

Quote from: dismalist on September 10, 2020, 02:41:54 PM

Administratively, 'twould be easier with a white male tax whose proceeds are transferred to all non-white males, but the consequences are completely equivalent or can be made so. :-)

Do you mean like a progressive income tax, so that higher income means higher rate of taxation, and on the other end, income so low it isn't even taxed gets you earned income credit? Starting to sound familiar isn't it.

No. There'd be an auction market for the work rights.

What if anybody could sell their classes?  I teach 5/5.  Only two of my current classes are interesting to me.  Could I sell the other 3?

See:

https://thefora.org/index.php?topic=1753.0

Quote from: Hibush on September 11, 2020, 06:53:43 AM
Many faculty are immigrants, and have no historic debt or benefit. However, European immigrants in particular have many of the benefits of native White Americans. That group nevertheless has responsibility for fixing the problem using the power conferred by their position.

So exactly how much difference is there in the standard of living of "European" immigrant faculty and non-European immigrant faculty? If the one group gets lots of benefits and the other gets none, then the difference should be pretty stark.

Quote from: Hibush on September 11, 2020, 06:53:43 AM
the benefits of native White Americans. That group nevertheless has responsibility for fixing the problem using the power conferred by their position.

Do we?

I am willing to do my part because I care about people and the future, but is it my "responsibility"?

This was exactly the question I posed: why is it my "responsibility" to fix something that I had no part in making?  The cultural dynamics, rightly or wrongly, were established before I was born.

I was born into this world and I suffered or benefited from what came before me.  Now I choose to help if I can, but I do not see why I should be expected to refuse, offer up, or relinquish anything that I have unless I decide I want to participate, which I do.

There is a discussion going on that I should not feel "guilt"----but there is a lot of de facto guilt being hefted my way, whether or not people want to admit it.  I think we liberals are losing this battle because of this very attitude and they way we lecture people who are not absolutely in concert with us.

Quote from: marshwiggle on September 11, 2020, 07:35:16 AM

Quote from: Hibush on September 11, 2020, 06:53:43 AM
Many faculty are immigrants, and have no historic debt or benefit. However, European immigrants in particular have many of the benefits of native White Americans. That group nevertheless has responsibility for fixing the problem using the power conferred by their position.

So exactly how much difference is there in the standard of living of "European" immigrant faculty and non-European immigrant faculty? If the one group gets lots of benefits and the other gets none, then the difference should be pretty stark.

Positive and negative discrimination affecting non-European immigrant faculty varies widely of course. Recent European immigrants tend to get much of the positive discrimination experienced by white Americans, so I used that as the group to make the statement about.

A hundred years ago, Europeans dominated US immigration, and there was a lot of distinction among European immigrants of different origins. The phenomenon is the repeating pattern of society putting particular groups at the bottom (no matter how homogeneous the society seems to outsiders).

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 11, 2020, 08:23:21 AM

Do we?

I am willing to do my part because I care about people and the future, but is it my "responsibility"?

This was exactly the question I posed: why is it my "responsibility" to fix something that I had no part in making?  The cultural dynamics, rightly or wrongly, were established before I was born.

If you've benefited from an injustice that was not of your own doing, it seems to me you have a moral responsibility to compensate those who were harmed by it. That responsibility is clearly less than that incurred by the perpetrators.

If people acted unjustly on your behalf, it seems to me you have a moral responsibility to compensate those who were harmed by it (e.g. victims of the Bush- and Obama-era torture programs, separated children and their families, overthrown political regimes, etc.). That responsibility is clearly less than that incurred by the perpetrators.

Sometimes, we contribute to injustice and harming others without realizing it (e.g. climate change). In that case, it seems to me that you have a moral responsibility to compensate those who were harmed by it. That responsibility is clearly less than that incurred by people who contribute to the injustice knowingly, deliberately, or at a larger scale.

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 11, 2020, 08:23:21 AM

Quote from: Hibush on September 11, 2020, 06:53:43 AM
the benefits of native White Americans. That group nevertheless has responsibility for fixing the problem using the power conferred by their position.

Do we?

I am willing to do my part because I care about people and the future, but is it my "responsibility"?

This was exactly the question I posed: why is it my "responsibility" to fix something that I had no part in making?  The cultural dynamics, rightly or wrongly, were established before I was born.

I was born into this world and I suffered or benefited from what came before me.  Now I choose to help if I can, but I do not see why I should be expected to refuse, offer up, or relinquish anything that I have unless I decide I want to participate, which I do.

There is a discussion going on that I should not feel "guilt"----but there is a lot of de facto guilt being hefted my way, whether or not people want to admit it.  I think we liberals are losing this battle because of this very attitude and they way we lecture people who are not absolutely in concert with us.

I don't think you need feel guilty for things you had nothing to do with.

It is the present-day discrimination that is wrong. It is the present-day inequity from historic discrimination that is wrong. If you have power to do something to correct those wrong, yes you have a moral responsibility to do so. If you do nothing, then you do have something to feel guilty about.

Do it as a powerful person, not as a guilty person.

Quote from: Hibush on September 11, 2020, 08:31:08 AM

Quote from: marshwiggle on September 11, 2020, 07:35:16 AM

Quote from: Hibush on September 11, 2020, 06:53:43 AM
Many faculty are immigrants, and have no historic debt or benefit. However, European immigrants in particular have many of the benefits of native White Americans. That group nevertheless has responsibility for fixing the problem using the power conferred by their position.

So exactly how much difference is there in the standard of living of "European" immigrant faculty and non-European immigrant faculty? If the one group gets lots of benefits and the other gets none, then the difference should be pretty stark.

Positive and negative discrimination affecting non-European immigrant faculty varies widely of course. Recent European immigrants tend to get much of the positive discrimination experienced by white Americans, so I used that as the group to make the statement about.

A hundred years ago, Europeans dominated US immigration, and there was a lot of distinction among European immigrants of different origins. The phenomenon is the repeating pattern of society putting particular groups at the bottom (no matter how homogeneous the society seems to outsiders).

Forget a hundred years ago. How is the recent immigrant faculty member from India or China materially worse off than the recent immigrant faculty member from Lithuania?

Quote from: marshwiggle on September 11, 2020, 06:51:17 AM

Quote from: Hegemony on September 11, 2020, 06:21:08 AM
I wouldn't say "guilty," but I'd like Wahoo, and all of us white people, to be cognizant of the many ways we've benefited from racism through the centuries. For instance, if our families have been in the U.S. for at least 2-3 generations, we've most likely benefited from the mortgages and inexpensive suburban housing promoted to white people, and denied to Black people. As a recent clip going around emphasizes, it was written in many suburban housing mortgage contracts that the house could not be initially sold to Black people, nor resold to Black people. By and large white Americans have profited significantly over the decades from the rise in housing values, which they could only do because they were allowed to get onto the housing ladder in the first place.

How do you explain the similar standard of living in other countries (such as in Europe) where there was no legacy of slavery, and where the population has always been fairly racially homogenous? If white people in the US have only succeeded at the expense of others, countries which have never been ethnically diverse should have a significantly lower standard of living than white Americans.

All wealthy nations, without exception, grew wealthy through extensive participation in global trade networks.  If you're familiar with the history of global trade, it's not hard to find many, many examples where the nations that benefited did so at the expense of other parts of the world that supplied the necessary cheap raw materials and labor.  So it's possible to argue that wealthy nations that never imported African slaves or had much in the way of colonies still profited from those practices. 

For example, your country may not have had slaves growing cotton, but any textile mills they had in the 1800s probably relied on imports of slave-grown cotton.  In this view, to have grown up in a prosperous society is to be complicit in a global web of unjust trade and production practices.  Which continue to this day.  Most of the world's inexpensive garments are produced by sweated labor, most of the world's imported oil comes from nations run by tyrants or fanatics, etc.

Personally I view all of this as evidence of overall human depravity as taught in the New Testament.  Attempting to use this or that bad thing from history to stoke grievances and tar others with guilt and demand reparations for things that happened hundreds of years ago is like demanding an eye for an eye--once you start it, there's no logical place to stop, until everybody is blind and everybody ends up losing. 

It's more constructive to see what we can do about the bad stuff that is currently happening.  That's why though I am very much in favor of, for example, serious police reform, I get very frustrated with the absolutely endless rhetoric about how police shootings of black Americans are the moral equivalent of slavery, and are evidence of white America's ongoing depravity.  Yes, black bodies have been oppressed in the United States for hundreds of years.  It shouldn't be denied or forgotten.  But much of that's not really germane to fixing the current problem of keeping trigger-happy police officers from shooting black and other people today. 

It also ignores the ongoing problem of all different colors killing and raping other people of all different colors today.  Contrary to what so many BLM activists seem to believe, black-on-black crime, and black-on-white crime, and white-on-white crime, etc. are all still very much a thing.  Dealing with all of this is going to take a lot of working together by people of goodwill, and endless rehashing and stoking of old grievances is a distraction from that.

Quote from: Hibush on September 11, 2020, 08:40:15 AM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 11, 2020, 08:23:21 AM

Quote from: Hibush on September 11, 2020, 06:53:43 AM
the benefits of native White Americans. That group nevertheless has responsibility for fixing the problem using the power conferred by their position.

Do we?

I am willing to do my part because I care about people and the future, but is it my "responsibility"?

This was exactly the question I posed: why is it my "responsibility" to fix something that I had no part in making?  The cultural dynamics, rightly or wrongly, were established before I was born.

I was born into this world and I suffered or benefited from what came before me.  Now I choose to help if I can, but I do not see why I should be expected to refuse, offer up, or relinquish anything that I have unless I decide I want to participate, which I do.

There is a discussion going on that I should not feel "guilt"----but there is a lot of de facto guilt being hefted my way, whether or not people want to admit it.  I think we liberals are losing this battle because of this very attitude and they way we lecture people who are not absolutely in concert with us.

I don't think you need feel guilty for things you had nothing to do with.

It is the present-day discrimination that is wrong. It is the present-day inequity from historic discrimination that is wrong. If you have power to do something to correct those wrong, yes you have a moral responsibility to do so. If you do nothing, then you do have something to feel guilty about.

Do it as a powerful person, not as a guilty person.

Okay.  I don't feel like a powerful person, but I suppose in some regard I am.  I have done what little I can and will continue to do so, which I have made clear.

However, I reject the notion that it is somehow incumbent upon me or anyone else to sacrifice anything, particularly for cases in which I could face serious consequences.  I would save you from a burning car if I could; I might even be willing to risk my life; but if I am reasonably sure that saving you would result my own serious bodily damage or death, I reserve the right to keep myself safe.

The original subject of this thread probably did what she did because of psychological problems.  But she also probably reaped the benefits of pretending to be someone she is not; yes, she had plenty of success on her merits (which is why her predicament is too bad) but it is also reasonable to assume that her spurious status as a POC helped in her particular line of work----just like a young man of Indian descent who has a famous sister and who faked his way into med school with a 3.1 GPA because he could pass as African-American.

Again, I have seen with my own eyes opportunities denied to white people yet given to black people---for instance, two back-to-back tenure cases with almost identical problems, one white (denied), one black (granted) and the effect this had on the faculty who noted the disparity.  These are serious consequences.

Sure, we "people of power" can help but not at our own cost.  The good peeps here are pretending that these costs don't exist and/or they are relating history lessons about why these costs should be paid----and a great many people are now rejecting these ideas, particularly outside the academy.

Again, there are many reasons Donald Trump was elected.

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 11, 2020, 09:15:48 AM

Again, I have seen with my own eyes opportunities denied to white people yet given to black people---for instance, two back-to-back tenure cases with almost identical problems, one white (denied), one black (granted) and the effect this had on the faculty who noted the disparity.  These are serious consequences.

One thing that happens today is that URM TT faculty get poorer mentorship than majority faculty to help them achieve tenure. What if you had helped the black assistant professor amass a tenure package that was strong enough to be approved without others questioning it? It's not running into a burning building, but it is one example of what faculty can do.

Quote from: Hibush on September 11, 2020, 09:48:13 AM

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 11, 2020, 09:15:48 AM

Again, I have seen with my own eyes opportunities denied to white people yet given to black people---for instance, two back-to-back tenure cases with almost identical problems, one white (denied), one black (granted) and the effect this had on the faculty who noted the disparity.  These are serious consequences.

One thing that happens today is that URM TT faculty get poorer mentorship than majority faculty to help them achieve tenure. What if you had helped the black assistant professor amass a tenure package that was strong enough to be approved without others questioning it? It's not running into a burning building, but it is one example of what faculty can do.

Your response is very interesting to me.

Why do you believe that URM TT faculty receive poorer mentorship?  Who has said that?  Majority people can also receive terrible mentorship---my wife, who is white----has had awful mentors.  Expectations for tenure are in our faculty handbook and she asked around. 

And just FYI, the criteria for tenure are very, very low here.  Neither the white tenure candidate nor the black tenure candidate leapt over this very low bar.  The minority faculty was told at 3rd year review what hu needed to do.  Hu is an adult.  Minority or not, it is also hu's responsibility to know what the job entails.  Hu has a Ph.D. so hu is smart enough to read a faculty handbook.

And more to the point, why did you assume or conjecture that that is the case?

Respectfully, you just provided an excuse for differing standards. 

Two things that are of interest recently:

People think that the "backlash" to the woke/BLM crowd will come largely from suburban whites and while this may be true, it ignores the fact that there are other minority groups that are not happy with this. Asians are not exactly pleased with the current CA attempt to bring back racial discrimination in college applications and Hispanics have just given Trump a lead in FL of all places (Hilary got 63% in 2016), possibly in large part due to all of the BLM focus while they were largely left out of the convention (AOC did get 60 seconds!) and none of the "POC" candidates for VP were Hispanic.

A psychology friend of mine (who as an Indian agrees with the former premise above) told me of a quote from the devil incarnate Charles Murray that he said in response to the Bell Curve. He said that when he was at Harvard in the early 60s and saw a black student he thought "that guy's probably smarter than me" due to the necessity to potentially overcome intellectual as well as additional obstacles to get there. What do you think someone thinks when they see a black Harvard student today? What value does the credential retain if many people have this opinion?

Okay, I think this funny even if not everyone here will:

https://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2020/09/11

Quote from: jimbogumbo on September 11, 2020, 03:57:26 PM
Okay, I think this funny even if not everyone here will:

https://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2020/09/11

That is pretty hilarious; white males have absolutely no obstacles ever on the road to success!!!!

New stuff about Jessica Krug. She wasn't a fun date (https://canoe.com/news/world/man-says-bogus-black-professor-jessica-krug-was-tinder-date-from-hell/wcm/428c6910-02aa-4090-971c-40cdea79809e/).

lol...love the article's close. In general though I don't think it's a good idea to get super political from the right or left on a date. The key phrase in this situation the guy used is "getting a lecture" which no one really wants.

Quote from: jimbogumbo on September 11, 2020, 03:57:26 PM
Okay, I think this funny even if not everyone here will:

https://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2020/09/11

Yeah, that's pretty funny.

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on September 11, 2020, 04:40:54 PM

Quote from: jimbogumbo on September 11, 2020, 03:57:26 PM
Okay, I think this funny even if not everyone here will:

https://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2020/09/11

Yeah, that's pretty funny.

Not shown: what often comes after success. Divorce.

I wonder if she could do one of those 23 & Me genetic profile tests and perhaps demonstrate some ancestry from whatever part of the world she says she's from this week.

Problem solved.

Quote from: financeguy on September 11, 2020, 12:30:14 PM
and Hispanics have just given Trump a lead in FL of all places

That's likely the Cuban American voting block, which has fairly consistently voted Republican.

I don't doubt that at all, just still surprising since Hilary got so much more. I do sense an anecdotal backlash from the non-black minorities I have spoken to. We shouldn't necessarily assume the views of all groups who are not black or white will react similarly to the same things.

Quote from: financeguy on September 11, 2020, 04:33:25 PM
lol...love the article's close. In general though I don't think it's a good idea to get super political from the right or left on a date. The key phrase in this situation the guy used is "getting a lecture" which no one really wants.

They are piling on a bit, but amusing nonetheless.
Isn't there some warning on Tinder that if you don't want a lecture, avoid college professors?

I wonder how much the self-hating in these incidents comes from the movement to make whites ashamed of their identity and all other races "proud."

On the old fora, in the post-election 2016 thread, someone told a story about a child who told a teacher "I don't have a culture; I'm white" and pointed to that as a reason for white grievance.

I don't want to make this too simplistic and claim "BLM/other movements=bad" because they may make white people feel bad about themselves.

At the same time, as funny as the Jessica Krug's of the world are, I really think there is some internalizing of hate towards your own race that creates these situations.

Would anyone here feel comfortable saying "I'm proud to be white?"  Why not?  Why does that get labeled as something only a white supremecist would say?  Shouldn't blacks be proud to be black, Asians be proud to be Asian, and whites be proud to be white?

Quote from: Descartes on September 12, 2020, 01:43:03 PM
I wonder how much the self-hating in these incidents comes from the movement to make whites ashamed of their identity and all other races "proud."

On the old fora, in the post-election 2016 thread, someone told a story about a child who told a teacher "I don't have a culture; I'm white" and pointed to that as a reason for white grievance.

I don't want to make this too simplistic and claim "BLM/other movements=bad" because they may make white people feel bad about themselves.

At the same time, as funny as the Jessica Krug's of the world are, I really think there is some internalizing of hate towards your own race that creates these situations.

Would anyone here feel comfortable saying "I'm proud to be white?"  Why not?  Why does that get labeled as something only a white supremecist would say?  Shouldn't blacks be proud to be black, Asians be proud to be Asian, and whites be proud to be white?

Can't be proud of something you haven't accomplished yourself. Skin color is inherited; no one has done anything to obtain it.

Quote from: dismalist on September 12, 2020, 02:26:59 PM
Can't be proud of something you haven't accomplished yourself. Skin color is inherited; no one has done anything to obtain it.

That didn't stop James Brown.

Can you be proud of a cool sweater that someone gave you? Can you be proud because your wife is beautiful and smart? And to be really gauche, can you be proud of your white privilege? I would say if other people are applauding you, you're getting away with it.

The serious answer of course is no, you can't be proud of being white unless you express it as Scottish-American pride, Scandinavian-American pride, etc. 'White pride' means 'we enslaved you and we think it's cool.' And this is the pitch of people like Richard Spencer: the white man has lost his identity, and needs to act to restore it. Why should we be surprised that someone says that?

Quote from: Descartes on September 12, 2020, 01:43:03 PM
Would anyone here feel comfortable saying "I'm proud to be white?" 

I'm proud to be white.

Quote from: dismalist on September 12, 2020, 02:26:59 PM
Can't be proud of something you haven't accomplished yourself. Skin color is inherited; no one has done anything to obtain it.

I disagree.  I have obtained my present state of whiteness by avoiding the outdoors, sunlight, tanning beds, beaches, fluorescent bulbs, jazz music, Ta Nehisi Coates, and the local Housing and Urban Development office.  Don't say it wasn't work.

Quote from: writingprof on September 12, 2020, 05:09:24 PM

Quote from: Descartes on September 12, 2020, 01:43:03 PM
Would anyone here feel comfortable saying "I'm proud to be white?" 

I'm proud to be white.

Quote from: dismalist on September 12, 2020, 02:26:59 PM
Can't be proud of something you haven't accomplished yourself. Skin color is inherited; no one has done anything to obtain it.

I disagree.  I have obtained my present state of whiteness by avoiding the outdoors, sunlight, tanning beds, beaches, fluorescent bulbs, jazz music, Ta Nehisi Coates, and the local Housing and Urban Development office.  Don't say it wasn't work.

It's hard to be a woman white. :-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2KP9fYZUWA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2KP9fYZUWA)