Another professor bites the dust

[Parasaurolophus]

You can't trust photos these days. They are not evidence as we once considered them. It's very easy to doctor them to produce all kinds of changes. Some photoshopping or whatever it is is meant to be detected and some is not. I am still marveling at how much darker she looks in one of the photos than in the other.

The idea that photography is a brute causal process with no significant human-side input has never been true. It's always been based on naïve understanding of the photographic process--both of the photographer's involvement, but also of the actual causal processes involved. Back in the day, developing prints, you had to make an awful lot of decisions about emulsions, mixes, dodging and burning, etc.

Regardless, it's worth noting that cell phone cameras now come with automatically-enabled filters which are applied to your images to make them conform more closely to the kind of thing it's judged most users want. This is true of digital cameras, too. You have to manually (sometimes quite literally!) disable them.

Back in 2008, both the Clinton and McCain campaigns publicized photos of Obama with rather darker skin than we usually think of him having. Now, you can get that effect through deliberate and fairly nefarious manipulation, but if you're dealing with monochrome photos, you can also achieve the same effect through several much more ordinary processes. Your standard B&W photo actually depicts colours as shades of grey, and a digital camera will user a colour mix to convert them. There's no best way to perform that conversion, though, so decisions have to be made somewhere along the process (either by the algorithm, or by the photographer). Adobe Lightroom gives you some convenient sliders to play with to do this, and the human skin colour slider is usually in the orange tones. You can achieve some startling--but no less accurate, for all that--effects by playing with that slider.

And that's not even getting into the effects of lighting conditions, background, etc.

[marshwiggle]

Backlash against stories like this often generalizes to practically anyone who thinks the initial 'insensitivity' or 'bias' worth discussing. It all gets classified and dismissed as 'cancel culture' or 'woke madness.'

I don't agree. Everyone that I've seen on here has agreed that the comment was ill-advised or inappropriate.  No-one has suggested that people were wrong for being bothered by it. All of the criticism has been related to the calls for action against the prof.

So, "discussing" it hasn't been discouraged; demands for retribution is what have gotten "backlash".

'Everyone on here' is not everyone.

For one thing, there are people elsewhere who are saying people are wrong for being bothered by this.

I agree that everyone on here is not everyone. However, the fact is that it's going to be a fairly small portion of the population who doesn't see why the tweet could be a problem. (In a similar way, while about 90% of adults in Canada are fully vaccinated, most people know someone who isn't. It's a reflection of the size of our social circles. So while most people may know someone who doesn't see how that tweet could be a problem, that still allows that the vast majority of people themselves don't think it was a good idea.)

I can probably pretty quickly find a flat-earther; that doesn't mean I'm worried about the "Flat Earth Party" winning any election soon at any level.

But that's not what I was talking about with 'backlash against backlash.'

There are people who will place the blame for outcomes like this on anyone who expressed disapproval or criticism, because nothing would have happened if no one had said anything in the first place.

I know people like this personally. I've been on the receiving end of their rants and accusations. People who think this way do exist, and stories like this just embolden them.

It's not the fault of people who criticize the 'cancel culture' aspect of these stories, but it is a thing that happens.

[smallcleanrat]

Backlash against stories like this often generalizes to practically anyone who thinks the initial 'insensitivity' or 'bias' worth discussing. It all gets classified and dismissed as 'cancel culture' or 'woke madness.'

I don't agree. Everyone that I've seen on here has agreed that the comment was ill-advised or inappropriate.  No-one has suggested that people were wrong for being bothered by it. All of the criticism has been related to the calls for action against the prof.

So, "discussing" it hasn't been discouraged; demands for retribution is what have gotten "backlash".

'Everyone on here' is not everyone.

For one thing, there are people elsewhere who are saying people are wrong for being bothered by this.

I agree that everyone on here is not everyone. However, the fact is that it's going to be a fairly small portion of the population who doesn't see why the tweet could be a problem. (In a similar way, while about 90% of adults in Canada are fully vaccinated, most people know someone who isn't. It's a reflection of the size of our social circles. So while most people may know someone who doesn't see how that tweet could be a problem, that still allows that the vast majority of people themselves don't think it was a good idea.)

I can probably pretty quickly find a flat-earther; that doesn't mean I'm worried about the "Flat Earth Party" winning any election soon at any level.

But that's not what I was talking about with 'backlash against backlash.'

There are people who will place the blame for outcomes like this on anyone who expressed disapproval or criticism, because nothing would have happened if no one had said anything in the first place.

I know people like this personally. I've been on the receiving end of their rants and accusations. People who think this way do exist, and stories like this just embolden them.

It's not the fault of people who criticize the 'cancel culture' aspect of these stories, but it is a thing that happens.

Ok, but I wasn't trying to make the claim the people who react this way are a majority of the population.

Sorry if I gave that impression.

[mahagonny]

As Shelby Steele said, you can't pass a law requiring people to be nice.

[smallcleanrat]

Disclaimer: My intention with this is to address why people thought this prof's post was a problem, not to defend all his critics or justify the university's punitive actions. It's just that there really is more to it than some poor sap's awkwardly worded compliment offending a successful model.



The fact that the post came from a psychiatrist in a position of high authority is the key to why people were making a big deal of it. In a profession which deals with people who are vulnerable and in need of compassion and support, there is good reason to set high standards for sensitivity.

One psychiatrist pointed out that this prof had previously used "freak" as an example of stigmatizing language against people with mental illness. So, there is reason to expect Lieberman to know better than to make 'dumb mistakes' of this particular sort.

Beyond his use of the word "freak," the whole sentence referred to her in objectifying terms. The tweet is not proof that he is racist or sexist, but there are real issues related to bias in medical care that are relevant here. So, there is reason to be more concerned when such a 'dumb mistake' is made by a medical professional than when made by someone else.



What I missed the first time I read about this story was that there were sort of two waves of backlash.

Some doctors responded to the initial tweet to ask him to reconsider and reword it. Several did a fair job of emphasizing that they were not questioning his intentions (variations of 'I'm sure you didn't mean it this way, but this is how it comes across').

One doctor from the same clinic pointed out that their patients are on Twitter too, and seeing their doctors post things like that can be pretty uncomfortable.

His response was the classic not-pology. He was sorry for "offense taken" and ended his not-pology post with "Living and learning." Then came a second backlash of people pissed off with his apparent glibness, pointing out that a chief of psychiatry in his 70s should have lived and learned enough to know better.

The more sincere-sounding apology came after this second backlash, once the university began initiating (or at least discussing) punitive measures. This is probably contributing to why people are not very moved by it.

[Langue_doc]

John McWhorter on Lieberman's tweet:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/01/opinion/psychiatry-professor-tweet.html

[smallcleanrat]

John McWhorter on Lieberman's tweet:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/01/opinion/psychiatry-professor-tweet.html

I think this is the best take on the story I've seen so far.

It critiques the excesses of the 'cancel him' crowd without minimizing the concerns underlying the criticism of the tweet.

[marshwiggle]

Disclaimer: My intention with this is to address why people thought this prof's post was a problem, not to defend all his critics or justify the university's punitive actions. It's just that there really is more to it than some poor sap's awkwardly worded compliment offending a successful model.

One thing which may be kind of oblique to the whole discussion, but which I've noticed for a long time, is that people seem to see Twitter as somehow "unofficial". So even when people are tweeting using their own names, they are way more unfiltered than they would be in any other form of communication, especially one where it is recorded.

If anyone has seen any research on this I'd be fascinated to hear it. I'm old enough to believe in the concept of privacy, so I think things that could get you in trouble you don't say publicly. I'm baffled by this sense people have of public statements on social media, (and Twitter in particular), as having some sort of "reputation-exempt" status.

[dismalist]

Tweet, schmeet. The medium is the message!

[Wahoo Redux]

John McWhorter on Lieberman's tweet:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/01/opinion/psychiatry-professor-tweet.html

I think this is the best take on the story I've seen so far.

It critiques the excesses of the 'cancel him' crowd without minimizing the concerns underlying the criticism of the tweet.

His swift sanctioning — accompanied by a Zoom faculty meeting that was attended by hundreds and, according to The Times's reporting, included the head of the hospital describing the tweet as "outrageous" — appears to have been conducted according to a fantastical notion that Lieberman had called a Black woman a "freak." But he did no such thing. He used that word in the expression "freak of nature," and that expression — regardless of what "freak" means by itself — was intended as a compliment. If you doubt it, consider that the supposedly offending phrase was bookended by the phrases "work of art" and "beautiful sight to behold." Lieberman thought of himself as admiring Gatwech's beauty, and I assume that most people understand that, even if they won't admit it.

It would obviously be fair to say that Lieberman's tweet reflected poor judgment, particularly for someone in his position. There's no good reason for a senior university official to randomly and publicly remark on a model's looks, however complimentary he thought he was being. But a compliment it was. He didn't call Gatwech a "freak," and to argue that he intended to requires a rather laborious reading of that tweet.

[smallcleanrat]

John McWhorter on Lieberman's tweet:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/01/opinion/psychiatry-professor-tweet.html

I think this is the best take on the story I've seen so far.

It critiques the excesses of the 'cancel him' crowd without minimizing the concerns underlying the criticism of the tweet.

His swift sanctioning — accompanied by a Zoom faculty meeting that was attended by hundreds and, according to The Times's reporting, included the head of the hospital describing the tweet as "outrageous" — appears to have been conducted according to a fantastical notion that Lieberman had called a Black woman a "freak." But he did no such thing. He used that word in the expression "freak of nature," and that expression — regardless of what "freak" means by itself — was intended as a compliment. If you doubt it, consider that the supposedly offending phrase was bookended by the phrases "work of art" and "beautiful sight to behold." Lieberman thought of himself as admiring Gatwech's beauty, and I assume that most people understand that, even if they won't admit it.

It would obviously be fair to say that Lieberman's tweet reflected poor judgment, particularly for someone in his position. There's no good reason for a senior university official to randomly and publicly remark on a model's looks, however complimentary he thought he was being. But a compliment it was. He didn't call Gatwech a "freak," and to argue that he intended to requires a rather laborious reading of that tweet.

I was referring to the fact that he acknowledged elsewhere in the piece some of the criticisms RE: objectification.

I agreed with a lot of what he said, but not with every point he made, and this was one of them.

People who made claims that he was saying black people are freaks or that dark skin is freakish were definitely mischaracterizing Lieberman's remark.

But not every criticism of his wording denied he intended a compliment.

I know that he's a language expert, but this insistence that there is a massive difference between calling someone a "freak" and calling them a "freak of nature" seems really strange and exaggerated. I can't find a dictionary making any such distinction.

Both terms can be used in a complimentary way, but both terms are often used in a decidedly non-complimentary way. So it's really not that hard to understand why some people might not be especially pleased to be referred to as a "freak of nature" even in the context of a compliment.

I also notice that McWhorter does not mention that the "sincere" apology was preceded by a not-pology and only seems to have manifested after the initial backlash ramped up significantly.

[Wahoo Redux]

We academics look like hysterics when the controversy is this flimsy.

With a few exceptions, everyone here on the Fora is sane, and everyone here without exception wants to stamp out racism----this is the vast majority of academics everywhere.  However, when academia reacts to a tweet such as this one with this level or hysteria, it helps the Trumpees immensely.

Sanity, folks, sanity.  Nothing in the Lieberman controversy is constructive.

[mahagonny]

We academics look like hysterics when the controversy is this flimsy.

With a few exceptions, everyone here on the Fora is sane, and everyone here without exception wants to stamp out racism----this is the vast majority of academics everywhere.  However, when academia reacts to a tweet such as this one with this level or hysteria, it helps the Trumpees immensely.

Sanity, folks, sanity.  Nothing in the Lieberman controversy is constructive.

We don't even agree on what racism is. If we agree on anything it's that we'd like to stamp out each other for the cause of niceness.
In my opinion our not agreeing on what racism is should have been a foreseeable consequence of our putting too much emphasis on the notion of stamping it out.
Racism is not a good thing by our definition, but most of it is low level. It's mostly nothing like the terrible things conjured up by the term: The KKK, The Third Reich.
To stamp out racism, you'd have to stamp out freedom. America is land of the free. 'We don't have a free society so you can be better. We have a free society so you can be anything you damn please.' - P. J. O'Rourke
If we substitute the term 'racism' for 'terrorism' in this statement by Henry Kissinger, around the time of the George W. Bush occupation of Iraq, we arrive at something sane:
'He states that we are going to eliminate terrorism from the face of the Earth. I wish he hadn't said that, because it's not doable. What we can do though is identify the places where the concentration of terrorism is the greatest and work to severely weaken it.'

Agree with you, what many academics are doing will drive people to the republican party. It should. Some of them aren't going to be able to change what they're doing very much if they're making a living from the Diversity Industrial Complex.

[waterboy]

As much as I am really beginning to hate cancel culture, and virtue signaling, and everything of that ilk...NOTHING could drive me towards the Republican party right now. Absolutely...nothing.

[marshwiggle]

We academics look like hysterics when the controversy is this flimsy.

With a few exceptions, everyone here on the Fora is sane, and everyone here without exception wants to stamp out racism----this is the vast majority of academics everywhere. 

I would amend that to say "the vast majority of people everywhere". Yes, everyone has biases, (which, by definition, they are unaware of), but the proportion of people who actually believe that value depends on skin colour and/or *ethnicity is pretty small.

(*A clear distinction needs to be made between genetic factors and cultural factors; patterns of behaviour in different communities, like food preferences, are easy to see, but the number of people who will put this down to genetics would be very limited.)