Annual You're a Racist Training Video

[Anon1787]

Can you write down the pronouns requested for each member, or is that rude? I have enough trouble with names.

I have yet to be in one of those meetings where the pronouns turned out to be different from the ones that I would have guessed from the person's name and appearance.  In general, this seems to be a massive virtue-signaling exercise.

My university allows students to indicate their preferred pronouns and now includes them in the class rosters, which is useless in large classes when I don't even know most of their proper names. And how often are pronouns even used?

[mahagonny]

Can you write down the pronouns requested for each member, or is that rude? I have enough trouble with names.

I have yet to be in one of those meetings where the pronouns turned out to be different from the ones that I would have guessed from the person's name and appearance.  In general, this seems to be a massive virtue-signaling exercise.

My university allows students to indicate their preferred pronouns and now includes them in the class rosters, which is useless in large classes when I don't even know most of their proper names. And how often are pronouns even used?

I think they are used, some. but I don't have huge classes. Everyone gets to know each other a little, eventually. For example I might ask a class a question, get an answer, and then say 'what do you think of what he said? Anything to add?' It would be an adjustment, and I wouldn't relish it. So I hope the whole thing fades away quietly. But not just for that reason. I don't think it benefits us. What Pigou said.
There have to be ways of respecting everyone without going crazy about it.
And it's when I'm just meeting people that I won't be seeing regularly that things are already challenging enough.
Imagine old songs. 'He Loves and She Loves' becomes 'They Love and They Love.' Or you leave it like it was, but it's wrong.
But if it takes hold, I'll do it. Years ago I would never have thought gay marriage would happen.
And like I was bitching upthread, it seems weird that academia thinks it may just change society instead of blending with it.
I expect it to further wound the democratic party. Who will you vote for when you want collective bargaining rights? The losers.

[Sun_Worshiper]

At my state flagship I have to watch a five minute video once a year. It doesn't accuse anyone of being racist, but does encourage people to think before saying something racially charged in the workplace (sounds obvious, but some people are actually too dumb to figure this out on their own). It takes a few minutes and is such a small thing that I literally never think about it, until I see a thread like this one.

It sounds to me like a CYA type of thing, like they really don't want to get too far into the controversy. They're probably not buying the BS people like you are apt to be promoting, not 100%.
In our school there are some who think having the first name 'Becky' means you need to be watched because you're likely insensitively and untactfully unaware of your privilege, then getting combative, and could improve yourselves by enduring some ridicule. They converge on social media and spot each other readily. Just the kind of people you need to have a collegial workplace.

Not really. My place is pretty typical. What type of school do you teach at?

[mahagonny]

At my state flagship I have to watch a five minute video once a year. It doesn't accuse anyone of being racist, but does encourage people to think before saying something racially charged in the workplace (sounds obvious, but some people are actually too dumb to figure this out on their own). It takes a few minutes and is such a small thing that I literally never think about it, until I see a thread like this one.

It sounds to me like a CYA type of thing, like they really don't want to get too far into the controversy. They're probably not buying the BS people like you are apt to be promoting, not 100%.
In our school there are some who think having the first name 'Becky' means you need to be watched because you're likely insensitively and untactfully unaware of your privilege, then getting combative, and could improve yourselves by enduring some ridicule. They converge on social media and spot each other readily. Just the kind of people you need to have a collegial workplace.

Not really. My place is pretty typical. What type of school do you teach at?

I'll just give you a few particulars.
It's going to take way longer than five minutes, though it's not required, yet. But there's all kinds of stuff. The diversity and inclusion staff have a recommended reading list, as does the union. they have lists of books recommended for POC, 'whites who wish to explore and better understand their whiteness' or some such ridiculous phraseology (oh, so it's optional then...why thanks!!) Every author on the list is left of center, and most are  those people that you already know I dislike. D'Angelo, Kendi, that kind of thinker. It is an absolute joke and an insult to one's intelligence.. there is no diversity of viewpoint whatsoever.
I think you would fit right in.

[Sun_Worshiper]

At my state flagship I have to watch a five minute video once a year. It doesn't accuse anyone of being racist, but does encourage people to think before saying something racially charged in the workplace (sounds obvious, but some people are actually too dumb to figure this out on their own). It takes a few minutes and is such a small thing that I literally never think about it, until I see a thread like this one.

It sounds to me like a CYA type of thing, like they really don't want to get too far into the controversy. They're probably not buying the BS people like you are apt to be promoting, not 100%.
In our school there are some who think having the first name 'Becky' means you need to be watched because you're likely insensitively and untactfully unaware of your privilege, then getting combative, and could improve yourselves by enduring some ridicule. They converge on social media and spot each other readily. Just the kind of people you need to have a collegial workplace.

Not really. My place is pretty typical. What type of school do you teach at?

I'll just give you a few particulars.
It's going to take way longer than five minutes, though it's not required, yet. But there's all kinds of stuff. The diversity and inclusion staff have a recommended reading list, as does the union. they have lists of books recommended for POC, 'whites who wish to explore and better understand their whiteness' or some such ridiculous phraseology (oh, so it's optional then...why thanks!!) Every author on the list is left of center, and most are  those people that you already know I dislike. D'Angelo, Kendi, that kind of thinker. It is an absolute joke and an insult to one's intelligence.. there is no diversity of viewpoint whatsoever.
I think you would fit right in.

So you aren't actually required to do anything? Smh at all the complaining over some voluntary thing that isn't even required.
I actually have to do more than you, and what I have to do is practically nothing.

[financeguy]

The problem is not the herculean effort required to skip through what is essentially a powerpoint presentation. The problem is that I am expected to accept the premise that I am biased regardless of my knowledge or intent by people who have accepted a conclusion not in evidence by assuming all disparate outcomes are the result of bias.

Bias is one of many possible reasons for disparate outcomes. Counterproductive cultural norms, personal preferences, genetics and other possible explanations exist. If someone wishes to state a bias exists, I simply want evidence that it is the cause of whatever problem is stated to be present. I refuse to accept bias (or any other explanation) as the cause of a problem simply because it happens to fit a narrative advantageous to a given ideological axe someone wishes to grind.

My skepticism is highest when people attempt to remove systems that are in place specifically to remove bias. Objective test scores that DO measure intelligence fairly accurately are biased? All of them? What a conspiracy! Orchestra auditions with performers behind a curtain to remain anonymous are another example. If the representation isn't what's desired, the anonymous audition is biased? Maybe at a certain point bias needs to be proven rather than assumed, like any other fact.

[Hegemony]

Oh my God, we actually have someone on the Fora arguing that "certain races are poor and lower down in society because of inherent characteristics of that race." (Or, "disparate outcomes," etc etc etc.) What is bitterly amusing to me is that people of this viewpoint also insist that there is effectively no bias in white society — while embodying exactly that bias. "I'm just telling it like it is. Some people just are inferior. Well, let's not use the word "inferior" because that sounds insulting, so let's use the phrase, oh, maybe, 'differently abled.' They have some abilities, they're just not like white people's abilities."  Etc. It's also bitterly amusing that such people will never read the books that blast this kind of thing out of the water with rigor. Instead all the well-meaning white folks who once by mistake used the wrong word for something will be reading and feeling guilty, whereas the actual out-and-out racists are impervious. I've met a few in my time, but none recently. They did use exactly the same arguments, which were really common in the nineteenth century, along with "We enslave them for their own good" and so on.

[polly_mer]

Oh my God, we actually have someone on the Fora arguing that "certain races are poor and lower down in society because of inherent characteristics of that race." (Or, "disparate outcomes," etc etc etc.) What is bitterly amusing to me is that people of this viewpoint also insist that there is effectively no bias in white society — while embodying exactly that bias. "I'm just telling it like it is. Some people just are inferior. Well, let's not use the word "inferior" because that sounds insulting, so let's use the phrase, oh, maybe, 'differently abled.' They have some abilities, they're just not like white people's abilities."  Etc. It's also bitterly amusing that such people will never read the books that blast this kind of thing out of the water with rigor. Instead all the well-meaning white folks who once by mistake used the wrong word for something will be reading and feeling guilty, whereas the actual out-and-out racists are impervious. I've met a few in my time, but none recently. They did use exactly the same arguments, which were really common in the nineteenth century, along with "We enslave them for their own good" and so on.

You don't get out very much if you think that's what financeguy wrote.

Many academics never walk across campus to the actually diverse engineering departments that draw folks from all over the world and see what true racism and sexism look like from the new arrivals who are quite adamant that they are not Asian/African/Other, but are in fact <Country Members> who definitely should not be lumped in with <Other Country Members in the Same Geographic Region> or even <Region of the Same Country Filled with Deplorables>.

Watching people flat out refuse to sit at the same table or acknowledge the presence of those lesser folks makes the folks pushing for general acknowledgement of specific implicit biases that may not exist look silly.

I've told the story before, but one of my favorite diversity trainings involved my Russian colleague leaning over and asking what the assumptions about Asians meant.  I explained that Americans assume Asians are great at math and school in general.  My colleague's response was, why would anyone think those people are smart or even hard-working when everyone knows differently; are Americans even stupider than I thought?  This was at a top ranked graduate program in the Midwest by someone who had been living in the US for several years at that point.  She was not the only one who expressed such views; she stands out in my mind because we were friends and the only women in the filled room other than the humanities grad student giving the mandatory training to the new crop of engineering TAs. 

I was also one of only a handful of Americans in the room filled with engineering TAs and I will repeat that this was in the Midwest in a state that is still vast majority white with no other races at even 10%.  I can remember only one African American student because she was in one of my classes and most of the African national students had pretty pale skins.  The department was almost half Asian of various flavors, but few of the professors were what the humanities folks would identify as POC.  There was one woman professor and only about 10% women students.

This was decades ago, but I can imagine how a black lives matter portion to the diversity trainings would have gone over in that room, which will have picked up a handful of more women, probably foreign nationals.

[marshwiggle]

Oh my God, we actually have someone on the Fora arguing that "certain races are poor and lower down in society because of inherent characteristics of that race." (Or, "disparate outcomes," etc etc etc.) What is bitterly amusing to me is that people of this viewpoint also insist that there is effectively no bias in white society — while embodying exactly that bias. "I'm just telling it like it is. Some people just are inferior. Well, let's not use the word "inferior" because that sounds insulting, so let's use the phrase, oh, maybe, 'differently abled.' They have some abilities, they're just not like white people's abilities."  Etc. It's also bitterly amusing that such people will never read the books that blast this kind of thing out of the water with rigor. Instead all the well-meaning white folks who once by mistake used the wrong word for something will be reading and feeling guilty, whereas the actual out-and-out racists are impervious. I've met a few in my time, but none recently. They did use exactly the same arguments, which were really common in the nineteenth century, along with "We enslave them for their own good" and so on.

You mean there needs to be more unbiased stuff like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYZ2XoaBO2A

[writingprof]

Oh my God, we actually have someone on the Fora arguing that "certain races are poor and lower down in society because of inherent characteristics of that race."

I'm searching this thread in vain for an instance of someone using the words you "quoted."  If my search function is malfunctioning, I apologize. 

But it seems like you're responding to FinanceGuy's reference to

counterproductive cultural norms, personal preferences, genetics and other possible explanations.

"Genetics" is the most controversial item in the sequence, obviously.  But, leaving that aside, I wonder if you agree that "counterproductive cultural norms" and "personal preferences" exist.  If they exist, surely we can consider them as possible explanations for unequal outcomes.

[mahagonny]

Actually some of the blame can go to that crowning achievement of contemporary white liberal culture, feminism. Devaluing the role of fatherhood and specialized labor among couples, which of course, had worked fine for centuries. Therefore the prevalence of black kids growing up without a consistent father figure in the home of guidance and support. Very destructive. This has nothing to do with any assumptions about genetics or inherent differences among races.

So you aren't actually required to do anything? Smh at all the complaining over some voluntary thing that isn't even required.
I actually have to do more than you, and what I have to do is practically nothing.

Only if I want to eat. I get paid for attending the seminars and speeches which are considered a more worthy expenditure by the college than running that popular course I used to have. But I didn't see myself so much complaining as ridiculing people who are begging for it.

What finance guywrote: I read him as asking for evidence. What academics do.

On becoming a former liberal: life in academia has done it for me. The winners/losers lay of the land among college faculty, being snubbed and shut out by the tenure track's union, seeing the liberal pol university president trying to snuff out our union, plus all the hypocrisy, hype, victimology and total waste of time trends we are discussing here. It's not that voting republican would seem to make great sense. It's more that anything else makes less sense.

[Sun_Worshiper]

Actually some of the blame can go to that crowning achievement of contemporary white liberal culture, feminism. Devaluing the role of fatherhood and specialized labor among couples, which of course, had worked fine for centuries. Therefore the prevalence of black kids growing up without a consistent father figure in the home of guidance and support. Very destructive. This has nothing to do with any assumptions about genetics or inherent differences among races.

So you aren't actually required to do anything? Smh at all the complaining over some voluntary thing that isn't even required.
I actually have to do more than you, and what I have to do is practically nothing.

Only if I want to eat. I get paid for attending the seminars and speeches which are considered a more worthy expenditure by the college than running that popular course I used to have. But I didn't see myself so much complaining as ridiculing people who are begging for it.


What finance guywrote: I read him as asking for evidence. What academics do.

You get paid to go to diversity training? Sounds like a pretty sweet deal actually. What kind of university do you teach at again?

I don't know what financeguy wrote about evidence, but certainly these things are only worthwhile if they are effective. Of course, rejecting them out of hand without conducting or consulting empirical research on their effectiveness would also be silly.

[mahagonny]

You get paid to go to diversity training? Sounds like a pretty sweet deal actually. What kind of university do you teach at again?

I don't know what financeguy wrote about evidence, but certainly these things are only worthwhile if they are effective. Of course, rejecting them out of hand without conducting or consulting empirical research on their effectiveness would also be silly.

What I'm calling diversity training is not specifically that; it is a series of seminars and a keynote speech. It happens every so often; not every year. Full timers are required to attend and part timers are encouraged to attend by getting a stipend. Lots of internet discussion follows. In my opinion, too much. Still, this is, actually and potentially, one of the positive things about having a college that does not have a tenure track. Part time faculty can be, here and there, considered an asset to the college to be invested in, not a temporary mistake that threatens the dynasty. And as I wrote, some of the seminars have been great. I've learned things.  It's where social justice matters come into it that they really stink, for the most part. If you asked them to invite Coleman Hughes to present one, you'd be ridden out of town on a rail five minutes after they google him to find out who he is. One thing I can tell you about liberals: they don't like diversity.
As for the sweet deal part, it's the same situation as it is for part timers everywhere, as Kaysixteen and others have noted hereabouts, and as full timers who used to be part timers are so good at forgetting: part of your job is looking for work, so your hourly pay is lower than what might be calculated with prep time, classroom time, grading, etc.
Following the seminars, we are invited to comment on them, and I'm doing that here. Just following instructions.
A colleague works at the union. He says everyone but him has one type or another of 'Black Lives Matter' identifier on their desk or email signature. He's definitely feeling a draft.

[Sun_Worshiper]

You get paid to go to diversity training? Sounds like a pretty sweet deal actually. What kind of university do you teach at again?

I don't know what financeguy wrote about evidence, but certainly these things are only worthwhile if they are effective. Of course, rejecting them out of hand without conducting or consulting empirical research on their effectiveness would also be silly.

I teach at two colleges, so it is likely my anecdotes can be confusing. The college I'm referring to has a 'strong union.' this is both good and bad.
What I'm calling diversity training is not specifically that; it is a series of seminars and a keynote speech. Full timers are required to attend and part timers are encouraged to attend by getting a stipend. Lots of internet discussion follows. In my opinion, too much. Still, this is, actually and potentially, one of the positive things about having a college that does not have a tenure track. Part time faculty can be, here and there, considered an asset to the college to be invested in, not a temporary mistake that threatens the dynasty. And as I wrote, some of the seminars have been great. I've learned things  It's where social justice matters come into it that they really stink, for the most part. If you asked them to invite Coleman Hughes to present one, you'd be ridden out of town on a rail five minutes after they google him to find out how he is.
As for the sweet deal part, it's the same situation as it is for part timers everywhere, as Kaysixteen and others have noted hereabouts, and as full timers who used to be part timers are so good at forgetting: part of your job is looking for work, so your hourly pay is lower than what might be calculated with prep time, classroom time, grading, etc.

Gotcha. So, to confirm: The things you are griping about in this thread are not actually a trainings. These are seminars, which you choose to attend, and you enjoy them because they are great, and you even get paid to attend. Sometimes they are focused on social justice, and you don't like those and resent your university for not letting you bring in somebody named Coleman Hughes. You don't have to attend the social justice talks, of course, but you choose to because you want to get the check (how principled of you... although you might want to think about the opportunity costs).

And this all somehow this has to do with part timers looking for work and full timers being forgetful.

[mahagonny]

You get paid to go to diversity training? Sounds like a pretty sweet deal actually. What kind of university do you teach at again?

I don't know what financeguy wrote about evidence, but certainly these things are only worthwhile if they are effective. Of course, rejecting them out of hand without conducting or consulting empirical research on their effectiveness would also be silly.

I teach at two colleges, so it is likely my anecdotes can be confusing. The college I'm referring to has a 'strong union.' this is both good and bad.
What I'm calling diversity training is not specifically that; it is a series of seminars and a keynote speech. Full timers are required to attend and part timers are encouraged to attend by getting a stipend. Lots of internet discussion follows. In my opinion, too much. Still, this is, actually and potentially, one of the positive things about having a college that does not have a tenure track. Part time faculty can be, here and there, considered an asset to the college to be invested in, not a temporary mistake that threatens the dynasty. And as I wrote, some of the seminars have been great. I've learned things  It's where social justice matters come into it that they really stink, for the most part. If you asked them to invite Coleman Hughes to present one, you'd be ridden out of town on a rail five minutes after they google him to find out how he is.
As for the sweet deal part, it's the same situation as it is for part timers everywhere, as Kaysixteen and others have noted hereabouts, and as full timers who used to be part timers are so good at forgetting: part of your job is looking for work, so your hourly pay is lower than what might be calculated with prep time, classroom time, grading, etc.

Gotcha. So, to confirm: The things you are griping about in this thread are not actually a trainings. These are seminars, which you choose to attend, and you enjoy them because they are great, and you even get paid to attend. Sometimes they are focused on social justice, and you don't like those and resent your university for not letting you bring in somebody named Coleman Hughes. You don't have to attend the social justice talks, of course, but you choose to because you want to get the check (how principled of you... although you might want to think about the opportunity costs).

And this all somehow this has to do with part timers looking for work and full timers being forgetful.

so, to confirm: colleges may hire academics from on or off campus to give talks on social justice issues for the purpose of provoking thought and discussion, on campus and beyond, and you want the discussion to be all the type you agree with, and when it's not, you choose to make an issue with the person discussing it in a way you don't agree with; notably, his succumbing to his need to make a living, rather than take up any of the points ardently and regularly made by the far left university culture, which we are well familiar with by now.