Author Topic: #Cancel FinCon  (Read 19052 times)

MrThatsDifferent

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #50 on: June 23, 2020, 12:41:59 PM »
Cancel culture seems to be getting worse not better. We can vote with our dollars as mentioned above, and that’s why big corporations have treaded lightly in the past around politics. This new cancel culture is far more damaging.

Someone makes a comment that 95% of people would say is harmless but gets called a racist / sexist whatever ist and they lose their job. Take the college professor who was fired for not allowing black students to get a free pass on exams.

https://www.theblaze.com/psuedo-intellectual/ucla-professor-suspended

Sure someone can keep their mouth shut on Twitter easily enough but people are being cancelled for doing nothing wrong. Many more examples of this same type of behavior. It’s one thing to see college cry babies protest any speaker who leans right but getting professors fired is nuts.

Brett Weinstein has his own podcast where he talks about this and was on the joe Rogan podcast recently as well. He covers how the college cry babies and their protests are spilling out into the real world now.

Scary stuff.

Your representation of this exposes your mindset and beliefs. The professor wasn’t fired, he was placed on a leave. No African American student made the request. Another student asked if it was possible for him to exempt students because of the protests. His email response was considered insensitive and problematic. The sad thing is he could have achieved his objective without taking such umbrage at a request considering the circumstances of the moment. Here’s the email he should have written:

“Thank you for your email around this issue and for the empathy shown for your fellow students. As I don’t wish to be presumptuous about individual approaches and preparations for exams, I’m more than happy to consider any individual application for extensions based on extraordinary circumstances. Please direct any student to me and know that my door is always open to talk.”

Anyways, it took me a second to find a less biased perspective here: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ucla-lecturer-leave-after-complaints-woefully-racist-response-request-postpone-n1228916

As for cancel culture, I’m sure it must be devastating for racists, homophobes and sexists to be held accountable for words and actions, and especially terrifying to see the balance of power slowly tip away but nothing lasts forever.

mathlete

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #51 on: June 23, 2020, 12:49:03 PM »
For what it's worth, I searched many different alternatives,

#Cancel #Fincon
#CancelFincon
#BoycottFincon
#Boycott Fincon
just #Fincon by itself

Almost no one is talking about this on Twitter. Those who are are making firm, but fair criticism. I don't see anyone using the "r" word. I requested approval for the FinCon Facebook group so that I can do more digging there, but remember that we need to find hundreds of people calling him racist in there for this hubub to be justified. I don't think that's going to happen.

Maggie Selner is running a con IMO. She's getting exactly the reaction she was looking for.

Tyler durden

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #52 on: June 23, 2020, 01:03:46 PM »
Cancel culture seems to be getting worse not better. We can vote with our dollars as mentioned above, and that’s why big corporations have treaded lightly in the past around politics. This new cancel culture is far more damaging.

Someone makes a comment that 95% of people would say is harmless but gets called a racist / sexist whatever ist and they lose their job. Take the college professor who was fired for not allowing black students to get a free pass on exams.

https://www.theblaze.com/psuedo-intellectual/ucla-professor-suspended

Sure someone can keep their mouth shut on Twitter easily enough but people are being cancelled for doing nothing wrong. Many more examples of this same type of behavior. It’s one thing to see college cry babies protest any speaker who leans right but getting professors fired is nuts.

Brett Weinstein has his own podcast where he talks about this and was on the joe Rogan podcast recently as well. He covers how the college cry babies and their protests are spilling out into the real world now.

Scary stuff.

Your representation of this exposes your mindset and beliefs. The professor wasn’t fired, he was placed on a leave. No African American student made the request. Another student asked if it was possible for him to exempt students because of the protests. His email response was considered insensitive and problematic. The sad thing is he could have achieved his objective without taking such umbrage at a request considering the circumstances of the moment. Here’s the email he should have written:

“Thank you for your email around this issue and for the empathy shown for your fellow students. As I don’t wish to be presumptuous about individual approaches and preparations for exams, I’m more than happy to consider any individual application for extensions based on extraordinary circumstances. Please direct any student to me and know that my door is always open to talk.”

Anyways, it took me a second to find a less biased perspective here: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ucla-lecturer-leave-after-complaints-woefully-racist-response-request-postpone-n1228916

As for cancel culture, I’m sure it must be devastating for racists, homophobes and sexists to be held accountable for words and actions, and especially terrifying to see the balance of power slowly tip away but nothing lasts forever.

You got me !! I said fired and he’s only been put on leave, had his classes handed over to other professors and has a petition with 20k signatures demanding he be fired.

It doesn’t matter if a black kid or white kid asked for special treatment. For some reason these kids thought special treatment should be doled out and when professor didn’t agree they want him fired. 

mathlete

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #53 on: June 23, 2020, 01:07:40 PM »
Lol at "The professor didn't agree."

Tyler durden

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #54 on: June 23, 2020, 01:22:26 PM »
it's "wrong" for black people to not want to have to look at a statue of a man who walked around with their ancestors' teeth in his mouth? to maybe not have to be reminded every moment of every day that this country was founded on the stolen lives and labor of their great grandparents and we still celebrate that like it's the greatest thing ever?

(also, tyler durden was not created to give you someone to look up to. tyler durden is a caricature of idiotic toxic masculinity. the more you know!)

It's not just seeing the statue either. I think a vast majority of people recognize and accept that history is filled with horrifically flawed people. I think it's important for everyone to study history and respect what the historical figures did within the context of their time.

But how much history do you learn from a few dozen statues of Washington, hundreds of buildings with his name on it, and thousands of streets named after him? The only association that really gets made there is, "Washington good."

I think monuments to flawed people are fine. But at a certain point, we should examine how it affects discourse. Does all this Washington worship increase the amount of inappropriate appeals to a 300 year old vision of a this country that just isn't that relevant? Maybe.

The argument is much easier to make against confederate monuments. Many of them were erected post-Jim Crow as a legal way to soft segregate and promote revisionist history. It worked, and we live that reality every day.

Well said.

I think what bothers me so much about this cancel culture is it makes the whole movement look dumb. We have real race problems in this country from the echoes of slavery / Jim Crow etc.  I think these antics only make it harder for people to find common ground to fix some of the bigger issues.

mathlete

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #55 on: June 23, 2020, 01:22:48 PM »
I started waiting tables when I was 18 years old. I worked at a local seafood restaurant. We did pretty well. Between $5 and $10 million in sales a year. For my part, including tips, I made about $13/hour.

I often "didn't agree" with customers who asked for special treatment, such as happy hour discounts outside of happy hour. I did my best to handle these situations as diplomatically as possible. If I felt I was at an impasse, I would forward the request up the chain of command (get a manager). I don't think I ever responded by giving any of my customers a rude or condescending lecture.

I was 18. We did around $5 million in sales. I made $13 an hour.

How lucky is Gordon Klein to have this brave advocacy for him? To advocate that a man in his 60s, who works at a $5 billion institution and makes $192,000 a year, should be held to a dramatically lower standard than I held myself to when I was 18 years old and making $13/hour.

If someone is paying your employer $13K to $30K a year, and they make a request of you, use your own judgement as to whether the answer is "yes" or "no", but if it's "no", maybe try to be a little diplomatic.

mathlete

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #56 on: June 23, 2020, 01:56:18 PM »
I listened to a 20 minute interview with Professor Gordon Klein just now. He seems like a pretty okay dude. I hope that cooler heads prevail, and that the university reinstates him and he's entitled to everything he should be entitled to. I feel bad for him, but I don't feel particularly bad for him. Let me explain.

In the interview, he eagerly talks about all the service he's put in over 39 years at UCLA, and all the students he's helped. That's fair, but the street runs both ways. Endowments and public funding have aided in him being paid fabulously well over those 39 years. It's also given him the platform to publish a book, influence policy, and serve as an expert witness on several high profile civil and criminal matters. In other words, he got a whole lot of money and power for his 39 years at UCLA too.

So I do feel bad for him and I hope he gets to stay on. But I don't feel particularly bad for him because people get thrown out on their ass for so much less every damn day. He could have acted professionally, but he chose to be glib and create a PR shitstorm for the University at the worst possible time. The true irony of the interview is that he discusses how he was treated by his dean and the University and it sounds an awful lot like he's upset for not getting special considerations.

Buffaloski Boris

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #57 on: June 23, 2020, 02:30:46 PM »
The extremely one sided article doesn't seem to give the full story.  Probably because as a hard core libertarian, the blogger is attempting to generate outrage and get people excited about about something.

If you make your living by being a spokesperson for something . . . then you have to avoid posting stupid shit that may rile people up.  I guess you could call that 'cancel culture', but I see it as people exercising their freedom of choice to ignore people (or cut them out of their lives) if they find what they say/do reprehensible.  Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences, and nobody in the world owes you a second chance.  If this seems too difficult a tightrope to have to walk, then don't use social media and you won't have problems of this sort.

I'm not familiar with the author beyond this article.  Do you have some information to indicate that the author is persistently erroneous in her presentation of facts?  I'm also curious about this "hard core libertarian" identification.  From what I can tell the author wasn't trying to drive any specific political agenda.  Unless of course you consider character attributes like moderation, mercy, and tolerance for views that don't mesh with your own to be inherently political rather than moral traits.  And which are presumably known to be exhibited by hard core libertarians?  Am I missing something here?   

As for the the rest of your post, I guess I'm missing exactly what this person said that would be considered "reprehensible."  Of course freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences.  But to paraphrase a philosopher I'm rather fond of: an eye for an eye eventually leaves the whole world blind.  I guess with age I've just gotten a whole lot less interested in trying to exact that last measure of justice and retribution out of people and become a lot more interested in showing some level of forbearance.  Clearly I'm not well suited to the current popular culture. The irony is that the same folks who are pushing this sort of silencing agenda are limiting the ability to more or less freely express their views to three discrete groups:

1.  The powerful.  E.g. President Trump who can say whatever he wants and not really care who he offends.
2.  The ultra-wealthy. Those who need not worry about the financial implications of what they have to say. 
3.  Those who are expressing views that are fully compliant with the current social orthodoxy.  Which seems to change more or less daily.
     

Buffaloski Boris

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #58 on: June 23, 2020, 02:37:33 PM »
Cancel culture seems to be getting worse not better. We can vote with our dollars as mentioned above, and that’s why big corporations have treaded lightly in the past around politics. This new cancel culture is far more damaging.

Someone makes a comment that 95% of people would say is harmless but gets called a racist / sexist whatever ist and they lose their job. Take the college professor who was fired for not allowing black students to get a free pass on exams.

https://www.theblaze.com/psuedo-intellectual/ucla-professor-suspended

Sure someone can keep their mouth shut on Twitter easily enough but people are being cancelled for doing nothing wrong. Many more examples of this same type of behavior. It’s one thing to see college cry babies protest any speaker who leans right but getting professors fired is nuts.

Brett Weinstein has his own podcast where he talks about this and was on the joe Rogan podcast recently as well. He covers how the college cry babies and their protests are spilling out into the real world now.

Scary stuff.

Looks to me like the neo-Stalinists of the left don’t want to be outdone by the neo-McCarthyists of the right. They look to be locked in a race to see who can be the most authoritarian and repressive. Maybe it’s a sort of olympics for kakistocrats?

I find it more interesting to see people built up rather than torn down.  Obviously I’d be a really crappy and unsuccessful politician.

Can either of you describe exactly the outcome you would have preferred in the case we're discussing?

The preferred outcome train has already left the station.  We're at picking up the pieces. 

In the more philosophical sense, I prefer that people act with tolerance and restraint toward viewpoints other than their own. Admittedly this is a very unpopular point of view right now.

mathlete

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #59 on: June 23, 2020, 02:40:26 PM »
The preferred outcome train has already left the station.  We're at picking up the pieces. 

In the more philosophical sense, I prefer that people act with tolerance and restraint toward viewpoints other than their own. Admittedly this is a very unpopular point of view right now.

Who hasn't done this with respect to the FinCon episode? I've heard tell that hundreds of people in the PF community have called Philip Taylor racist, but I can't seem to find much evidence of that.

Buffaloski Boris

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #60 on: June 23, 2020, 03:13:41 PM »
The preferred outcome train has already left the station.  We're at picking up the pieces. 

In the more philosophical sense, I prefer that people act with tolerance and restraint toward viewpoints other than their own. Admittedly this is a very unpopular point of view right now.

Who hasn't done this with respect to the FinCon episode? I've heard tell that hundreds of people in the PF community have called Philip Taylor racist, but I can't seem to find much evidence of that.

You make a very good point.  So where are the accusations?   

GuitarStv

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #61 on: June 23, 2020, 03:26:10 PM »
The extremely one sided article doesn't seem to give the full story.  Probably because as a hard core libertarian, the blogger is attempting to generate outrage and get people excited about about something.

If you make your living by being a spokesperson for something . . . then you have to avoid posting stupid shit that may rile people up.  I guess you could call that 'cancel culture', but I see it as people exercising their freedom of choice to ignore people (or cut them out of their lives) if they find what they say/do reprehensible.  Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences, and nobody in the world owes you a second chance.  If this seems too difficult a tightrope to have to walk, then don't use social media and you won't have problems of this sort.

I'm not familiar with the author beyond this article.  Do you have some information to indicate that the author is persistently erroneous in her presentation of facts?  I'm also curious about this "hard core libertarian" identification.  From what I can tell the author wasn't trying to drive any specific political agenda.  Unless of course you consider character attributes like moderation, mercy, and tolerance for views that don't mesh with your own to be inherently political rather than moral traits.  And which are presumably known to be exhibited by hard core libertarians?  Am I missing something here?   

I think that this article summarizes my feelings about 'cancel culture' best:

"Cancel culture became so central to the discourse in 2019 that even President Obama weighed in. The idea is that if you do something that others deem problematic, you automatically lose all your currency. Your voice is silenced. You’re done. Those who condemn cancel culture usually imply that it’s unfair and indiscriminate.

The problem with this perspective is cancel culture isn’t real, at least not in the way people believe it is. Instead, it’s turned into a catch-all for when people in power face consequences for their actions or receive any type of criticism, something that they’re not used to."
https://time.com/5735403/cancel-culture-is-not-real/

This was a guy who felt comfortable in his position of power.  He said things that his supporters didn't agree with.  They stopped supporting him.  They didn't silence him.



As for the the rest of your post, I guess I'm missing exactly what this person said that would be considered "reprehensible."  Of course freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences.  But to paraphrase a philosopher I'm rather fond of: an eye for an eye eventually leaves the whole world blind.

An eye for an eye refers to Hammurabic code . . . where the punishment for blinding a man would be to have your own eye taken from you.  It's very inappropriate an analogy to use here . . . because it's not at all a good description of what happened.

People financially supported this guy.  This guy said stuff they didn't like.  People stopped financially supporting him.  There was no second eye being taken.


I guess with age I've just gotten a whole lot less interested in trying to exact that last measure of justice and retribution out of people and become a lot more interested in showing some level of forbearance.  Clearly I'm not well suited to the current popular culture. The irony is that the same folks who are pushing this sort of silencing agenda are limiting the ability to more or less freely express their views to three discrete groups:

1.  The powerful.  E.g. President Trump who can say whatever he wants and not really care who he offends.
2.  The ultra-wealthy. Those who need not worry about the financial implications of what they have to say. 
3.  Those who are expressing views that are fully compliant with the current social orthodoxy.  Which seems to change more or less daily.

Nobody was silenced in the article you posted.  A guy used his free speech.  People didn't like it so they stopped handing him money.  That's how freedom of speech, freedom of choice, and consequences from actions are supposed to work - isn't it?

mathlete

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #62 on: June 23, 2020, 03:27:58 PM »
The problem with this perspective is cancel culture isn’t real, at least not in the way people believe it is. Instead, it’s turned into a catch-all for when people in power face consequences for their actions or receive any type of criticism, something that they’re not used to."
https://time.com/5735403/cancel-culture-is-not-real/

Bingo.

maizefolk

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #63 on: June 23, 2020, 03:44:56 PM »
How lucky is Gordon Klein to have this brave advocacy for him? To advocate that a man in his 60s, who works at a $5 billion institution and makes $192,000 a year, should be held to a dramatically lower standard than I held myself to when I was 18 years old and making $13/hour.

In the interview, he eagerly talks about all the service he's put in over 39 years at UCLA, and all the students he's helped. That's fair, but the street runs both ways. Endowments and public funding have aided in him being paid fabulously well over those 39 years. It's also given him the platform to publish a book, influence policy, and serve as an expert witness on several high profile civil and criminal matters. In other words, he got a whole lot of money and power for his 39 years at UCLA too.

So I do feel bad for him and I hope he gets to stay on. But I don't feel particularly bad for him because people get thrown out on their ass for so much less every damn day. He could have acted professionally, but he chose to be glib and create a PR shitstorm for the University at the worst possible time. The true irony of the interview is that he discusses how he was treated by his dean and the University and it sounds an awful lot like he's upset for not getting special considerations.

Hey mathlete, out of curiosity what was your view when NFL owners were threatening to fire or suspend football players who knelt during the national anthem? Because the view you're articulating above sounds an awful lot like the argument that was made then: their employer did a lot for them, they get money and fame, and then they create a PR problem, what did they expect? It's a question of professionalism. In fact they should be grateful not making waves.

It was an argument I heard frequently at the time.

But that argument doesn't fit with my own personal beliefs, either for football players or for professors. From what I've seen you post on this forum over the years I'm guessing it doesn't fit with your beliefs for football players either (but I could be wrong, if so, please correct me).

If that argument does ring hollow for you when it comes to football players though, what makes professors different in your eyes?

mathlete

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #64 on: June 23, 2020, 04:06:00 PM »
Having spent about half my day on researching this, here are my findings.

1.) Philip Taylor said something incredibly tone deaf and smug during a difficult time for many people. The implication in his comments were that current expression of frustration with 400 years of mistreatment of black people in this country is a media fabrication.

2.) Many people expressed disagreement and displeasure. Others added that they did not believe this was out of character for Taylor based on experience, weakening (in my mind) the impetus to give him the benefit of the doubt. Still more people lamented that they've been trying to sound the alarm for years on, among other things, frat-bro culture and hostility towards women and minorities in the PF community, and with FinCon specifically.

3.) One of these critics, Tori Dunlap, relayed an experience in which she made a tweet critical of FinCon a few months ago, claiming that they shut down discussions on misogyny in the PF community on their social media pages and how that bummed her out and made her not want to attend FinCon. When the tweet was generating drama, she deleted it. But she was pressured by Taylor over DM to also delete something she posted on Instagram, and make a formal apology and retraction. He got pretty belligerent when she didn't respond, asking her if she was going to pay him back for all the people who canceled their registration "because of her". Notice how Taylor showed zero regard for Dunlap's concerns. i.e., that there is misogyny in the PF community. His sole concern was about his money.  https://twitter.com/herfirst100K/status/1267510900748980226/photo/1

4.) Taylor's critics (most of whom were making evenhanded and non-acusatory criticism by my reading) reported being blocked or unfollowed by Taylor, who would some time later, deactivate his Twitter account.

5.) Taylor steps down as CEO of FinCon. He's the founder, so I assume he has an ownership stake in it. No read on whether or not he divested.

6.) Maggie Selner writes the Medium article. In it, she makes the friendliest possible interpretation for everything Taylor says and does, while claiming that "Hundreds of members of his own community decried Taylor as a racist." I can find almost no evidence of this happening. Selner's husband is an Internet marketing professional and allegedly has some kind of business relationship with FinCon. Make of that what you will.

For those of you who actually read the Medium article and bought Selner's narrative whole hog, maybe re-examine why you're quick to believe, despite the absence of evidence, that there was a vicious mob of hundreds coming after Taylor and calling him racist, but you have a hard time believing named, and at least somewhat prominent PF community members when they raise the flag about racism or misogyny. 

mathlete

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #65 on: June 23, 2020, 04:50:52 PM »
Hey mathlete, out of curiosity what was your view when NFL owners were threatening to fire or suspend football players who knelt during the national anthem? Because the view you're articulating above sounds an awful lot like the argument that was made then: their employer did a lot for them, they get money and fame, and then they create a PR problem, what did they expect? It's a question of professionalism. In fact they should be grateful not making waves.

It was an argument I heard frequently at the time.

But that argument doesn't fit with my own personal beliefs, either for football players or for professors. From what I've seen you post on this forum over the years I'm guessing it doesn't fit with your beliefs for football players either (but I could be wrong, if so, please correct me).

If that argument does ring hollow for you when it comes to football players though, what makes professors different in your eyes?

Hey! I was hoping you'd have some more to say. I was really interested in your POV on academia.

To answer your question, I am 100% in support of the players who decided to kneel to draw attention to social justice issues and I strongly condemn the NFL's hostility towards them on that issue. I recognize that this seems at odds with my thoughts on Gordon Klein, so let me elaborate.

Getting the obvious out of the way - I believe that what the players were doing was "right" and the sentiment that Klein expressed was "wrong". I understand that this doesn't pass the logical consistency test, but it wouldn't be honest of me to deny that this, at least in part, probably colors my rhetoric on this issue.

Now to offer some more substantive defense. Let's go piecemeal,

"It's a question of professionalism."

If you put a copy of Klein's email next to an image of Kaepernick kneeling during the anthem, it is pretty clear to me which of these people is engaging in unprofessional behavior. I'm sure you can find a lot of people who think Kaep was unprofessional as well, but if you stirp out the context and present the Klein email to an audience, I think you'd get near unanimous agreement.

"they should be grateful"

My comments about Klein's employment with UCLA were only in reference to his defense in the 20 minute interview that I referenced. He brought up, in his defense, his service to the university. Presumably, he performed that service at least in part, for the paycheck and the platform, and less so because he thought it would grant him the leeway to be shitty in an email in 2020.

I don't know what his employment contract looks like though. If he's entitled to better treatment when it comes to adjudicating bad behavior, then I suppose he should get that better treatment. What I do know, is that mandating that a player stands for the anthem is something the NFL could have collectively bargained for, alas, they did not.

I think it is reasonable to assume that not being shitty in an email is a closer conditional to continued employment at a University than, standing for the anthem when that has not been collectively bargained for is in the NFL.

"making waves"

This is probably the strongest point in my favor IMO. With regards to who is making the waves and generating bad publicity, I think I have a strong argument that the President had a lot to do with that. Kaep made some waves in 2016 when he knelt, but the NFL was largely insulated. In 2017, after Kaep was out of the league, the President embarked on a bizarre attack against players who chose to keep the protest going. Calling them sons of bitches. Demanding they be fired. Having his Vice President stage a faux-disgusted walk out on an NFL game. You know the story.

You could make the argument that Klein didn't make the waves either, those who shared the email and called for corrective measures did. But even if we do that, we can stack up all these issues point by point;

Professionalism
Kneeling vs. a glib email
Reasoning
Engaging in protest vs. making a completely unforced error
PR Flames Fanned By
The President of the United States vs. 20,000 people signing an online petition
Terms of Employment
Collectively bargained issue vs. General expectation of professionalism for university professors

In an ideal world, everything would be adjudicated on first principles, but I hope you understand why a professor getting benched for a few weeks does not alarm me about "cancel culture run wild" in the same way that the president making personal vendettas against free speech does. While they are related, I simply do not see these as the same issue. I'm making a judgment call based on the points outlined above and my judgement is to show a little less leniency/care a little less about Klein than I do about Kaep. Worth mentioning though once again, that I hope Klein gets reinstated to whatever position he feels he deserves after this all gets settled.

Tyler durden

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #66 on: June 23, 2020, 05:03:53 PM »
The problem with this perspective is cancel culture isn’t real, at least not in the way people believe it is. Instead, it’s turned into a catch-all for when people in power face consequences for their actions or receive any type of criticism, something that they’re not used to."
https://time.com/5735403/cancel-culture-is-not-real/

Bingo.

Cancel culture is very real. You have to almost actively avoid the news articles to think it’s not real.

Like most things there is nuance. Sure some people in high places scoff at any criticism and that’s BS. The pendulum seems to be swinging into crazy territory with some of it.

Dave Chappell can see It.

https://twitter.com/NetflixIsAJoke/status/1166032594305265666?s=20


mathlete

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #67 on: June 23, 2020, 05:35:42 PM »
The problem with this perspective is cancel culture isn’t real, at least not in the way people believe it is. Instead, it’s turned into a catch-all for when people in power face consequences for their actions or receive any type of criticism, something that they’re not used to."
https://time.com/5735403/cancel-culture-is-not-real/

Bingo.

Cancel culture is very real. You have to almost actively avoid the news articles to think it’s not real.

Like most things there is nuance. Sure some people in high places scoff at any criticism and that’s BS. The pendulum seems to be swinging into crazy territory with some of it.

Dave Chappell can see It.

https://twitter.com/NetflixIsAJoke/status/1166032594305265666?s=20

I know what being cancelled is. I just think people cry “cancel culture” way too often. Look at this thread. We’re 50+ posts deep greeting Selener’s medium article as if it was done in good faith when it clearly wasn’t.

I’m going to die of old age waiting on someone to produce that horde of hundreds that supposedly called Taylor a racist. It doesn’t exist. Trust me, I spent way too much of my time today looking. At this point, I think I also know more about the Gordon Klein situation than anyone in this thread including you, who brought it up.

My interest in hearing everyone out in this thread only reinforces my feelings that cancel culture is largely a made up issue.

maizefolk

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #68 on: June 23, 2020, 05:51:02 PM »
Hey thanks for the response!

Professionalism
Kneeling vs. a glib email
Reasoning
Engaging in protest vs. making a completely unforced error
PR Flames Fanned By
The President of the United States vs. 20,000 people signing an online petition
Terms of Employment
Collectively bargained issue vs. General expectation of professionalism for university professors

I'm going to focus here and then talk a bit about your last paragraph, because I think this touches on a lot of the divergence between our points of view.

With regards to professionalism, I think it is important to keep in mind that the NFL players have had a lot longer to optimize their form of expression. This whole thing started with photos of just sitting through the anthem, which, whether intentionally or not, came off as a lot less of a principled protest. Over time he (and later others) converged on kneeling as something that made a clear statement, but didn't come off as "I just cannot be bothered to stand."

Give Gordon Klein 5-6 shots at drafting that e-mail and I bet he could come up with a much more compelling way to convey the points that 1) Both I and the university are ethically and legally opposed to assigning differential work based on student's race and 2) Even if I didn't have moral qualms, logistically there is no way to do it since we don't track the race of students and I don't want to be in a position of either asking students to prove their race (all sorts of legal/ethical/moral problems) or for it to come out I was giving white students access to special privileges reserved for black students (a Rachel Dolezal situation). <-- you said that you think the sentiment Klein expressed was wrong. Do you actually think either of these points are wrong? Or do you take away a different meaning from his e-mail than what I have written and if so, what intended meaning did you get from reading his e-mail? Or is your concern primarily with the tone of the e-mail.

(I do agree he sounds sarcastic and frustrated and that clearly wasn't the right tone for him to have used).

Also keep in mind that this happened right as schools all over the country were switched from in person to online instruction with no lead time and no prior planning. The first time you teach a single brand new course, all the extra prep work can eat up well more than half of your days. Profs all over the country were having to redesign anywhere from 2-5 courses simultaneously on the fly. Which again I think makes expressing oneself in an ill-considered way a lot more likely and, to me anyway, understandable.

Quote
In an ideal world, everything would be adjudicated on first principles, but I hope you understand why a professor getting benched for a few weeks does not alarm me about "cancel culture run wild" in the same way that the president making personal vendettas against free speech does. While they are related, I simply do not see these as the same issue. I'm making a judgment call based on the points outlined above and my judgement is to show a little less leniency/care a little less about Klein than I do about Kaep. Worth mentioning though once again, that I hope Klein gets reinstated to whatever position he feels he deserves after this all gets settled.

Klein is a lecturer not a professor. As such he almost certainly does not benefit from tenure. You seem very confident that he will ultimately get his job back. In the cases that I have seen, both at my university and elsewhere, a lecturer or other contingent faculty being suspended is the first step followed by a simple non-renewal of contract in the coming semester. You are, of course, welcome to disagree with me, but really the only way to resolve it would be to set a reminder on each of our calendars to come back in September and see if he's teaching/getting paid by UCLA.

The reason I, and a lot of folks in academia, feel strongly about this is that doing our jobs right, whether on the research or the teaching side, involves a lot of telling people things they don't want to hear. Telling one student that you caught their plagiarism. Telling another student who tried really hard that they still bombed the final. Telling a congressman that sea levels really are rising in her or his district and that no, climate change isn't going to stop next year. Tell a third student that yes, I know you personally don't believe in evolution, but the test is going to cover this material anyway. Telling an activist that no, CRISPR isn't going to make his or her food poisonous... and so on.

These necessary actions simply don't work within a "the customer is always right" framework.

The reason concepts like academic freedom, and tenure, are exist, and are enforced (to the extent they are which is iffy), is that we've decided that education and society work better when there are people who are able to tell students, and government, and the public things they don't want to hear. Some of those things are stupid and wrong.* Some are expressing true thoughts but framed badly.** Some are true, framed beautifully, and draw lots of flack from the public, or government, or both.***

Unfortunately there is no way to chip away at the protection for ideas and concepts one disagrees with without equally weakening it for good ideas and concepts that other people (whether a politician or angry people on twitter) disagree with.

*I went to grad school with a prof who still claimed HIV didn't cause aids.
**Schools should not start assigning differential course work based on a student's race. They really really shouldn't.
***Phil Jones's climate research is a good example of this last case. And he was still suspended, questioned, and demoted, although thankfully not fired.

MDM

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #69 on: June 23, 2020, 05:59:18 PM »
The reason I, and a lot of folks in academia, feel strongly about this is that doing our jobs right, whether on the research or the teaching side, involves a lot of telling people things they don't want to hear.
...
Unfortunately there is no way to chip away at the protection for ideas and concepts one disagrees with without equally weakening it for good ideas and concepts that other people (whether a politician or angry people on twitter) disagree with.
+1

Very good entire post.  Didn't quote the whole thing just to save space.

Tyler durden

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #70 on: June 23, 2020, 07:12:40 PM »
The reason I, and a lot of folks in academia, feel strongly about this is that doing our jobs right, whether on the research or the teaching side, involves a lot of telling people things they don't want to hear.
...
Unfortunately there is no way to chip away at the protection for ideas and concepts one disagrees with without equally weakening it for good ideas and concepts that other people (whether a politician or angry people on twitter) disagree with.
+1

Very good entire post.  Didn't quote the whole thing just to save space.

Insightful post thank you.

Having kids request special treatment for one race of kids over others, regardless of any imaginable circumstances including the current ones, should be mocked and looked down upon with disgust.

Is it just me or are we going backwards here. Separate  treatment for different races? What’s next? Separate water fountains?

GuitarStv

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #71 on: June 23, 2020, 08:24:27 PM »
Has there been a time I missed when all races were treated the same way?  My suspicion is that if that were the case there wouldn't be riots all over the US right now.

MDM

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #72 on: June 23, 2020, 08:37:11 PM »
Has there been a time I missed when all races were treated the same way?
One might presume "in Gordon Klein's class this past semester," given his statement that he can't "identify them since we've been having online classes only".

Tyler durden

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #73 on: June 23, 2020, 09:05:52 PM »
Has there been a time I missed when all races were treated the same way?  My suspicion is that if that were the case there wouldn't be riots all over the US right now.

Never has been and probably never will be in my lifetime.

Don’t be subtle with your point if there is one. I’m not that smart to pick up on it.

GuitarStv

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #74 on: June 23, 2020, 09:16:37 PM »
Has there been a time I missed when all races were treated the same way?  My suspicion is that if that were the case there wouldn't be riots all over the US right now.

Never has been and probably never will be in my lifetime.

Don’t be subtle with your point if there is one. I’m not that smart to pick up on it.

It was in reference to your statement

Having kids request special treatment for one race of kids over others, regardless of any imaginable circumstances including the current ones, should be mocked and looked down upon with disgust.

Is it just me or are we going backwards here. Separate  treatment for different races? What’s next? Separate water fountains?

We don't treat people equally because of their race right now.  What seems to be upsetting then is not separate treatment . . . but that the separate treatment might not continue to favour the people that it currently does any more.

maizefolk

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #75 on: June 23, 2020, 09:28:38 PM »
We don't treat people equally because of their race right now.  What seems to be upsetting then is not separate treatment . . . but that the separate treatment might not continue to favour the people that it currently does any more.

So you're saying unless all racism is already stamped out there is no point in people working toward reducing racism? That unless every spark of prejudice is already expunged from every person's heart we might as well throw in the towel and write officially sanctioned racial discrimination into our laws, and codes of conduct, and syllabi?

I, personally, have never run a six minute mile. I will go further and speculate that I will probably never run a six minute mile. Yet even if I'm right and I never in my life run a six minute mile, does that mean there is no value in my seeking to achieve that goal?

That's a terribly depressing worldview, GuitarStv.

GuitarStv

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #76 on: June 24, 2020, 06:23:51 AM »
We don't treat people equally because of their race right now.  What seems to be upsetting then is not separate treatment . . . but that the separate treatment might not continue to favour the people that it currently does any more.

So you're saying unless all racism is already stamped out there is no point in people working toward reducing racism? That unless every spark of prejudice is already expunged from every person's heart we might as well throw in the towel and write officially sanctioned racial discrimination into our laws, and codes of conduct, and syllabi?

No, that's not something I believe at all.

I was responding specifically to what Tyler Durden wrote - that special treatment for one group of people, regardless of circumstances, should be mocked and looked down upon.  This sentiment sounds great on the surface . . . but in reality it always seems to break down to a simple maintenance of the status quo.  It's a way of sitting in your own privileged position, patting yourself on the back for a job well done, and saying "well, we treat people equally in theory . . . therefore if racism still exist - nothing I can do!"  The status quo is unequal treatment for people.  This approach has been shown time and again in history to not work.

While it's certainly possible to go too far, and there's a careful balancing act to be maintained - there are times where things like affirmative action policies (flawed as they are) can be used as a tool to reduce existing inequality.



I, personally, have never run a six minute mile. I will go further and speculate that I will probably never run a six minute mile. Yet even if I'm right and I never in my life run a six minute mile, does that mean there is no value in my seeking to achieve that goal?

That's a terribly depressing worldview, GuitarStv.

Maybe this is just my inner pragmatist, but I'd say this depends on both you and your goal.  If your goal is to run and win in the Olympics and you have late stage Parkinson's disease - yes.  Give up on your goal.  While romantic in theory, tilting at windmills rarely brings happiness in real life in my experience.

This isn't depressing though . . . it should be uplifting.  Selecting incremental and achievable goals and working towards them steadily is far more rewarding and will facilitate better progress then attempting to do the impossible and failing forever.  And that six minute mile may be impossible now, but circumstances can change and your goals should too . . . things are different when run an eight minute mile.  And when you run a seven and a half minute mile.  And when you run a seven minute mile.

maizefolk

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #77 on: June 24, 2020, 06:50:14 AM »
We don't treat people equally because of their race right now.  What seems to be upsetting then is not separate treatment . . . but that the separate treatment might not continue to favour the people that it currently does any more.

So you're saying unless all racism is already stamped out there is no point in people working toward reducing racism? That unless every spark of prejudice is already expunged from every person's heart we might as well throw in the towel and write officially sanctioned racial discrimination into our laws, and codes of conduct, and syllabi?

No, that's not something I believe at all.

I was responding specifically to what Tyler Durden wrote - that special treatment for one group of people, regardless of circumstances, should be mocked and looked down upon.  This sentiment sounds great on the surface . . . but in reality it always seems to break down to a simple maintenance of the status quo.  It's a way of sitting in your own privileged position, patting yourself on the back for a job well done, and saying "well, we treat people equally in theory . . . therefore if racism still exist - nothing I can do!"  The status quo is unequal treatment for people.  This approach has been shown time and again in history to not work.

Okay, I'm happy to hear that isn't your worldview. Unfortunately, I've mostly heard the the argument that we don't live in a perfectly not racist society deployed by people who are seeking to justify discrimination as a matter of policy on the left. Essentially "we cannot end racism, so let's just focus on changing which groups are penalized or benefit from it."

Personally I think that the most effective long term strategy is to continue to reinforce all across society that discrimination or special treatment on the basis of race is unethical. Even taboo. It probably won't convince people who are actively racist today to change their minds, but as long as that is the way children are being educated in schools (and it seems it has been since at least the 90s), you will have stronger and stronger support every year (and old people die and new people grow up), for stamping out any locus of racism that is publicly identified.

On the other hand, if you educate children that some types of racism are bad, but in other cases giving special treatment on the basis of race is okay,* it is much easier for them as adults to convince themselves that whatever racism or special treatment benefits them personally is the good kind of racism, and we will much much slower progress in the future.

*For example using a student's race to decide whether or not that student should have to take an exam, which was the example from my post that tyler was responding to.

Tyler durden

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #78 on: June 24, 2020, 07:06:32 AM »
We don't treat people equally because of their race right now.  What seems to be upsetting then is not separate treatment . . . but that the separate treatment might not continue to favour the people that it currently does any more.

So you're saying unless all racism is already stamped out there is no point in people working toward reducing racism? That unless every spark of prejudice is already expunged from every person's heart we might as well throw in the towel and write officially sanctioned racial discrimination into our laws, and codes of conduct, and syllabi?

No, that's not something I believe at all.

I was responding specifically to what Tyler Durden wrote - that special treatment for one group of people, regardless of circumstances, should be mocked and looked down upon.  This sentiment sounds great on the surface . . . but in reality it always seems to break down to a simple maintenance of the status quo.  It's a way of sitting in your own privileged position, patting yourself on the back for a job well done, and saying "well, we treat people equally in theory . . . therefore if racism still exist - nothing I can do!"  The status quo is unequal treatment for people.  This approach has been shown time and again in history to not work.

Okay, I'm happy to hear that isn't your worldview. Unfortunately, I've mostly heard the the argument that we don't live in a perfectly not racist society deployed by people who are seeking to justify discrimination as a matter of policy on the left. Essentially "we cannot end racism, so let's just focus on changing which groups are penalized or benefit from it."

Personally I think that the most effective long term strategy is to continue to reinforce all across society that discrimination or special treatment on the basis of race is unethical. Even taboo. It probably won't convince people who are actively racist today to change their minds, but as long as that is the way children are being educated in schools (and it seems it has been since at least the 90s), you will have stronger and stronger support every year (and old people die and new people grow up), for stamping out any locus of racism that is publicly identified.

On the other hand, if you educate children that some types of racism are bad, but in other cases giving special treatment on the basis of race is okay,* it is much easier for them as adults to convince themselves that whatever racism or special treatment benefits them personally is the good kind of racism, and we will much much slower progress in the future.

*For example using a student's race to decide whether or not that student should have to take an exam, which was the example from my post that tyler was responding to.

Exactly - state sanctioned racism isn’t going to solve racism.

What seed is that planting in a kids head at age 7 that he is a victim and needs special treatment? What resentment builds on the other side who is the non victim ? That seems like it would hinder progress. If we want to move past status quo I don’t think that’s the way to do it. I could be wrong but I see a lot of pitfalls in that approach.

Reasonable people hear about the need for police reform and hopefully agree and vote in local AGs and mayors who can make those changes. People here cash reparations like I heard the founder of BET say yesterday on CNBC and it makes me at the very least not take that side seriously and on my lesser days say eff it, any idea from that person is to nuts to even listen too. Balancing act indeed.

24andfrugal

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #79 on: June 24, 2020, 07:28:37 AM »

I can't tell you how many times I'm glad to live (relatively speaking) in the middle of nowhere, and that has been the truth ten-fold in the past three months.

I guess I'm supposed to keep that truth in the closet so as to not offend people for, who knows, an indefinite period of time.

Came here to say this. I think most people, whether they live in the suburbs or a rural area, are glad to be removed from it all. The idea I've seen thrown around (note this is not my idea) is that if you can turn off your phone or TV and ignore what's going on, even for a little while, then you're privileged. People who have to live with these problems "don't have the luxury" of tuning out.

While I get what's being said, I don't think it's healthy to stay glued to the news/social media 24/7. People need to step away, to disconnect, to think about what they've heard and seen, and for their own well-being. If that makes me privileged, ok. But it's ridiculous to think that most people aren't glad they aren't directly involved, and equally ridiculous that such sentiment is taboo.

mathlete

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #80 on: June 24, 2020, 08:41:55 AM »
@maizeman

Thanks for explaining the academia POV. I understand better now why this episode would be chilling for someone in that position. I would like to point out that Klein was not pushing a controversial but evidence backed theory here or anything. He was just displaying profoundly bad judgement in an email. But still, I get it.

I should state that if someone has very regressive views on race, I don't think they should be paid and platformed by public institutions like a university. Klein's email set off a lot of alarm bells. Because I'm a reasonable person, I sought out his side of the story and listened to it, and now I have the opinion that he does not have regressive views on race. He just did something really dumb and tone deaf that should be beneath a man in his position in his 60s.

Because it was such an unforced error in a very tense time, I'm okay with UCLA benching him. If he ultimately gets fired, I think that is wrong.

If he truly did have regressive views on race though, just imagine what he could have been doing throughout a 39 year career in academia. He wrote a text book that's mandatory on book lists. He's served as an expert witness. He's graded countless exams and assignments. Think of how many students of color he would have been in position to cancel over 39 years.

Publicly funded oppression is really really bad. And while this is only hypothetical (that I know) in the case of Klein, it is not hypothetical overall. I've seen it happen, and I was in college not that long ago. Furthermore, once I got into my career, I've seen misogynists "cancel" female coworkers of mine by limiting their careers for clearly sexist reasons. This was in the 2010s.

So this is why I balk at "cancel culture". Because it's an imperfect push and pull and of course we're going to get it wrong sometimes. I hope for Klein's sake, that we get it right for him. Most of the time I hear the phrase cancel culture though, it's in defense of the ability of powerful people to oppress with impunity.

Professors (or lecturers) are more powerful than their students. Executives are more powerful than their underlings. Famous comics are more powerful than up and comers. So I have limited concern for executives forced into early exits, comics who masturbated in front of women having to perform at shittier clubs, and yes, professors who wielded great power and influence not having years 40-50 of a lucrative career go as smoothly as years 0-39. Maybe we went 10 or 20 percent too far with some of these people, but I view backlash against cancel culture as letting perfect be the enemy of good. I see it as horrific status-quo defending.

When I think of the ideal victim of cancel culture, I think of that woman who tweeted out that she wasn't going to get AIDS on her trip to Africa because she was white. It was a dumb joke, but when she got off the plane, the Internet was furious with her and she lost her job. This woman was a nobody. There was no reason to go after her with such zealotry. If a lecturer signals regressive views on race, that's probably worth at least taking a look at though.

mathlete

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #81 on: June 24, 2020, 09:07:21 AM »
First of all, I don't think anyone is arguing that Klein should have caved to the student's request. I agree that a blanket pardon for studnets of a certain race is bad and unreasonable. What he shouldn't have done, is responded in a glib and ignorant manner that put a target on his back.

That said, "The idea of treating races differently should be mocked" sounds good in theory.

The problem is that the people who proudly march this out are in all likelihood, not out there mocking the infinitely more prominent, separate and lesser treatment that goes the other way. Stuff that is status quo, like black people being imprisoned longer for drug offenses.

We're living that reality right now. The first half of this thread was dedicated a few posters being riled up over a lynch mob going after a rich and powerful white guy in the PF community. The idea that there was an unfair lynch mob going after Philip Taylor has since shown to be largely made up though.

Now we've moved on to discussing Gordon Klein, another rich and powerful white guy. The most frustrating part is that Klein's story was brought up in pretty bad faith by Tyler Durden. He gave a pretty bad recap of the situation that someone else thankfully corrected, and then I, who is firmly on the "cancel culture isn't really a thing" side of the debate, sought out 20 minutes of Klein talking almost unbroken to make sure I had all sides of the story. At the risk of talking myself up way too much, I now know more about Gordon Klein and Philip Taylor than anyone in this thread who was purportedly outraged on their behalves that cancel culture was coming for them. Other posters clearly just wanted to be offended by a story that already fit their worldview.

This is a conversation that I'm absolutely loathed to be having. But I studied up on it because getting things right is important to me. And I'm having this conversation because it's the conversation we're allowed to have in this section of the forum. Because I guess it's personal finance adjacent. But if I start trying to have the conversation that black people are systemically oppressed by a factor of 10,000 and we have mountains of evidence for it, watch how quickly this thread gets bounced to off-topic. Because we're allowed to get outraged on the behalf of powerful PF figures who were (dubiously) treated unfairly (re: not at all), but major systemic issues might make people uncomfortable, so we've got to discuss them somewhere else.

« Last Edit: June 24, 2020, 09:11:04 AM by mathlete »

maizefolk

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #82 on: June 24, 2020, 09:13:26 AM »
mathlete, I am glad to hear my post was helpful to you in understanding why it's scary teaching right now when things like what happened to Klein feel like they could happen to any of us at any time.

One point I wonder if you could still address is what content of Klein's e-mail set off those alarm bells for you that you mention?

For me, as I described above, it was a person who was frustrated and communicating in a less considerate way, but it was clear from the e-mail that what he was saying was that he and the uni did not favor differential treatment for students based on race and that even if they did, there was no logistical way to implement such differential treatment without information on race of individual students.

It sounds like you took away a very different meaning (at least initially), from the e-mail. So I'm curious what that initial meaning was and how you arrived at it.

Because I certainly don't want to find myself "benched" by my employer whether permanently or temporarily. Nor do I want to be the target of angry people on twitter. Yet if a student submitted the same request to me, while I would word the e-mail quite differently than Klein did, the answer would necessarily be the same one:

No, I cannot, and would not if I could, require different work of different students based on their self-identified or externally perceived race (or sex, or sexual orientation, or a whole host of other protected categories).

Since it sounds like you are able to see the point of view of the people who went after Klein, and keeping in mind the answer I am required to give both based on the law of my state, my own employers policy, and my personal ethics (so nice when the three of those agree, it doesn't always happen), is there any advice you can offer to me that would avoid putting a target on my own back?

GuitarStv

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #83 on: June 24, 2020, 09:20:31 AM »
We don't treat people equally because of their race right now.  What seems to be upsetting then is not separate treatment . . . but that the separate treatment might not continue to favour the people that it currently does any more.

So you're saying unless all racism is already stamped out there is no point in people working toward reducing racism? That unless every spark of prejudice is already expunged from every person's heart we might as well throw in the towel and write officially sanctioned racial discrimination into our laws, and codes of conduct, and syllabi?

No, that's not something I believe at all.

I was responding specifically to what Tyler Durden wrote - that special treatment for one group of people, regardless of circumstances, should be mocked and looked down upon.  This sentiment sounds great on the surface . . . but in reality it always seems to break down to a simple maintenance of the status quo.  It's a way of sitting in your own privileged position, patting yourself on the back for a job well done, and saying "well, we treat people equally in theory . . . therefore if racism still exist - nothing I can do!"  The status quo is unequal treatment for people.  This approach has been shown time and again in history to not work.

Okay, I'm happy to hear that isn't your worldview. Unfortunately, I've mostly heard the the argument that we don't live in a perfectly not racist society deployed by people who are seeking to justify discrimination as a matter of policy on the left. Essentially "we cannot end racism, so let's just focus on changing which groups are penalized or benefit from it."

Personally I think that the most effective long term strategy is to continue to reinforce all across society that discrimination or special treatment on the basis of race is unethical. Even taboo. It probably won't convince people who are actively racist today to change their minds, but as long as that is the way children are being educated in schools (and it seems it has been since at least the 90s), you will have stronger and stronger support every year (and old people die and new people grow up), for stamping out any locus of racism that is publicly identified.

I certainly like this idea in theory.  The thing is, I keep coming up with questions related to it that have uncomfortable answers.

How many generations will need to learn to live with racism while we wait for the solution to spontaneously arrive?  When an openly racist leader like Donald Trump is elected, how many years does this set back your plan?  Can you point to some of the places where it has worked in implementation to stomp out existing systemic racism?



Reasonable people hear about the need for police reform and hopefully agree and vote in local AGs and mayors who can make those changes. People here cash reparations like I heard the founder of BET say yesterday on CNBC and it makes me at the very least not take that side seriously and on my lesser days say eff it, any idea from that person is to nuts to even listen too. Balancing act indeed.

A significant part of the problem with race that America faces is legacy from forcibly kidnapping and enslaving people, followed by decades of explicit and overt racist government policy.  When you take a race of people and artificially depress their earnings for centuries there are serious knock-on effects.  I don't know if reparations as cash are the right way to address this problem, but it is a real problem and I haven't really heard much in the way of solutions for it.

mathlete

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #84 on: June 24, 2020, 09:38:02 AM »
@maizeman are you familiar with the term "soul math"? Or possibility "oppression Olympics"? I think you even used that second one.

Anyway, sometimes it's a super legitimate way to criticize and make fun of SJW types. IMO a "good" use of this angle would be to go after people who make fun of Pete Buttigiege or Peter Thiel for being gay, but think it's "okay" because they're powerful white men, and the people going after them are ostensibly liberal and support gay rights anyway. This is dumb and bad IMO. If we respect gay people, let's just show that respect and keep the criticism of guys like Buttigiege and Thiel relevant to what they've actually done.

On the flip side though, these terms and ideas can be used to mock and dismiss anyone who recognizes people are treated differently based on their makeup and have different lived experiences. The angle is to take this pretty basic and agreed upon fact to absurdity in order to render it meaningless and dismiss it.

The second option is basically what Klein did, whether he meant to or not. He got all glib and Socratic about soul math and oppression Olympics, when a simple, "Hey, I can't do that. Tell these students to talk to me on an individual basis if they need help or special consideration." would have sufficed. That's what set off the alarm bells. I've see that rhetoric before and it's usually from privileged people who don't want to acknowledge that their own efforts aren't the only ingredient to success. I think that's a bad attitude for an academic to have.

Once again, I agree with his decision and I hope he doesn't get fired. And once again, no one has been able to source the claim that hundreds of people were coming after Taylor and calling him a racist. Thus is my frustration. We had a discussion about a phantom mob going after Philip Taylor and now we've managed to rescue a bad faith discussion on Gordon Klein. That's good, but I still feel a little mixed about it. Right now the best example of cancel culture we have is a guy who wielded power and influence for 39 years having a rough go of it for a few weeks right now. Maybe he'll get fired. Maybe. And in that case, hopefully he'll pursue legal options. Even his toughest critics in this thread don't think his fundamental decision was wrong. And even I don't think he should be fired.

All of this just strengthens my feeling that cancel culture = why don't we let people in power act with impunity?

maizefolk

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #85 on: June 24, 2020, 09:48:50 AM »
I certainly like this idea in theory.  The thing is, I keep coming up with questions related to it that have uncomfortable answers.

How many generations will need to learn to live with racism while we wait for the solution to spontaneously arrive?  When an openly racist leader like Donald Trump is elected, how many years does this set back your plan?  Can you point to some of the places where it has worked in implementation to stomp out existing systemic racism?

I think you are directly mischaracterizing my statement, GuitarStv.  Active social engineering to create the unacceptability of engaging in racism -- no matter how justified the individual might feel it to be in their particular case -- in public or private is not "waiting for a solution to spontaneously arrive."

Can you point to any places where systematic racism has been eradicated in the first place? Whether through social engineering that racism = bad, or through reversing the pattern of racism and trying to actively discriminate in the opposite direction?

It took 6-8 generations to end slavery in America. 3-4 to end Jim Crow laws. In the last 2-3 generations things have continued to get better and we've continued to make progress towards a less and ultimately non-racist society.

If you can propose ways to make progress faster towards a completely non-racist society, I'm all ears! Because what has happened so far is heartbreakingly slow. People are born, live, and die in an unjust world that treats them unfairly.

But I don't see how throwing over the whole project and saying it's too slow, let's give up and just treat different people unfairly in different ways is the path to speed up that progress. And it makes it a low easier to lose all the progress we've made to date when somebody who favors and disfavors a different set of groups takes power (as has happened in the USA over the last four years).

mathlete

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #86 on: June 24, 2020, 10:02:19 AM »
I'm a big fan of incremental progress because it has a history of working. That said, I don't feel I have the moral authority to say it's the best course of action.

The American Revolution was pretty violent, but I think most people agree it was a good thing. If women or black people violently revolted any time between 1776 and today though, I think I would have to consider that even more morally justified.

Because of that, I never feel great about being the arbiter of "slow and steady wins the race" as it pertains to progress. I hope that's the route we go, but that's in large part driven by the fact that it's what's best for me.

GuitarStv

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #87 on: June 24, 2020, 10:14:18 AM »
I certainly like this idea in theory.  The thing is, I keep coming up with questions related to it that have uncomfortable answers.

How many generations will need to learn to live with racism while we wait for the solution to spontaneously arrive?  When an openly racist leader like Donald Trump is elected, how many years does this set back your plan?  Can you point to some of the places where it has worked in implementation to stomp out existing systemic racism?

I think you are directly mischaracterizing my statement, GuitarStv.  Active social engineering to create the unacceptability of engaging in racism -- no matter how justified the individual might feel it to be in their particular case -- in public or private is not "waiting for a solution to spontaneously arrive."

Can you point to any places where systematic racism has been eradicated in the first place? Whether through social engineering that racism = bad, or through reversing the pattern of racism and trying to actively discriminate in the opposite direction?

It took 6-8 generations to end slavery in America. 3-4 to end Jim Crow laws. In the last 2-3 generations things have continued to get better and we've continued to make progress towards a less and ultimately non-racist society.

If you can propose ways to make progress faster towards a completely non-racist society, I'm all ears! Because what has happened so far is heartbreakingly slow. People are born, live, and die in an unjust world that treats them unfairly.

But I don't see how throwing over the whole project and saying it's too slow, let's give up and just treat different people unfairly in different ways is the path to speed up that progress. And it makes it a low easier to lose all the progress we've made to date when somebody who favors and disfavors a different set of groups takes power (as has happened in the USA over the last four years).

These are good arguments.

I guess my question is . . . when the country is electing Donald Trumps . . . do you believe that the US is moving in the direction you're talking about?  The man is openly and unabashedly racist, with a long history of racism from his pre-presidential days.  And he was elected the leader of the United States.  Has the slow and steady social engineering approach failed, or simply stalled?  It's hard for me to look around and say that things are appreciably better for black people today than they were thirty years ago.

Tyler durden

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #88 on: June 24, 2020, 10:23:25 AM »
Here is the email that got professor Klein put on leave


Thanks for your suggestion in your email below that I give black students special treatment, given the tragedy in Minnesota. Do you know the names of the classmates that are black? How can I identify them since we've been having online classes only? Are there any students that may be of mixed parentage, such as half black-half Asian? What do you suggest I do with respect to them? A full concession or just half? Also, do you have any idea if any students are from Minneapolis? I assume that they probably are especially devastated as well. I am thinking that a white student from there might be possibly even more devastated by this, especially because some might think that they're racist even if they are not. My TA is from Minneapolis, so if you don't know, I can probably ask her. Can you guide me on how you think I should achieve a "no-harm" outcome since our sole course grade is from a final exam only? One last thing strikes me: Remember that MLK famously said that people should not be evaluated based on the "color of their skin." Do you think that your request would run afoul of MLK's admonition? Thanks, G. Klein


I could read this as a semi condescending professor. Or a sincere professor asking his student body what they want and trying to avoid causing further emotional harm to some students by not including the “right “ ones.

He is also teaching .... showing these young men and women just how difficult it is to implement these ideas in the real world as it pertains to his class but also the real world as in the corporate world.

No need for condescending but it would
Be a disservice in my view to not show these young minds perhaps why their thinking it potentially flawed. ( it is horribly flawed)

Tyler durden

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #89 on: June 24, 2020, 10:25:16 AM »
I got the above email from the change.org petition. I have not independently verified it.

maizefolk

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #90 on: June 24, 2020, 10:55:51 AM »
Incrementalism vs revolution is, I think an orthogonal question from "make discrimination taboo" vs "change directions of discrimination."

Working towards a society without racial discrimination doesn't mean ruling out revolutionary change. But revolutions can be good or go very wrong. The american revolution has discrete political goals and achieved those, violently. The french revolution was also violent, but was also tracking down enemies of the people based on denunciation by their neighbors and family and did an extraordinary amount of harm.

mathlete, thanks for your response. It's not entirely clear to me still but I need to think on it more to see if I can better understand as walking around with the feeling of a target on ones back is certainly uncomfortable.

These are good arguments.

I guess my question is . . . when the country is electing Donald Trumps . . . do you believe that the US is moving in the direction you're talking about?  The man is openly and unabashedly racist, with a long history of racism from his pre-presidential days.  And he was elected the leader of the United States.  Has the slow and steady social engineering approach failed, or simply stalled?  It's hard for me to look around and say that things are appreciably better for black people today than they were thirty years ago.

As talked about earlier in this post, I don't think social engineering needs to be slow and steady. The difference is the goal being shot for: lack of discrimination vs counterbalancing discrimination. But yeah, Trump .... Trump is bad. People could and have written whole books on how and why we ended up with him as president of the United States. Personally I tend to find the model proposed by Andrew Yang the most compelling. If you look at the last 20 years, markers for stress and economic insecurity have gone up dramatically across the country. People feel like they are constantly one missed paycheck or lost opportunity away from disaster. Academic and empirical research have both shown that simply introducing the concept of resource scarcity makes racist/sexist/basically all the '-ists' thoughts and behavior shoot up dramatically. When people are worried there isn't enough to go around they get much more bigoted, and much more worried that people who aren't like them are getting unfair opportunities.

In more extreme examples than the USA: you see the insecurity and fear brought on by hyperinflation in Weimar Germany turn into first public denunciation and later mass murder of jewish people, ethnic minorities (the roma), and people with differing political opinions (communists). You see food shortages in Rwanda lead to first violent rhetoric and later mass murder of the Tutsi, and even moderate Hutus who did not support the genocide.

I'm scared about what the future holds for my country. Hopefully we never come close to examples like those. But I personally believe (and I'd state up front I cannot prove this) that, and much damage as has been done, and is being done, we are better off today than we would be in a world where Trump was still elected but there was no legacy of decades of school children learning the evils of judging people based on the color of their skin forcing him to at least speak in dog whistles and forcing even his supporters to (mostly) do the mental gymnastics of thinking "of course I think people should be treated equally, I just think right now black and brown people get unfair advantages" when they try to justify their own support of some terrible policy or another of his.

OtherJen

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #91 on: June 24, 2020, 11:02:04 AM »
Here is the email that got professor Klein put on leave


Thanks for your suggestion in your email below that I give black students special treatment, given the tragedy in Minnesota. Do you know the names of the classmates that are black? How can I identify them since we've been having online classes only? Are there any students that may be of mixed parentage, such as half black-half Asian? What do you suggest I do with respect to them? A full concession or just half? Also, do you have any idea if any students are from Minneapolis? I assume that they probably are especially devastated as well. I am thinking that a white student from there might be possibly even more devastated by this, especially because some might think that they're racist even if they are not. My TA is from Minneapolis, so if you don't know, I can probably ask her. Can you guide me on how you think I should achieve a "no-harm" outcome since our sole course grade is from a final exam only? One last thing strikes me: Remember that MLK famously said that people should not be evaluated based on the "color of their skin." Do you think that your request would run afoul of MLK's admonition? Thanks, G. Klein


I could read this as a semi condescending professor. Or a sincere professor asking his student body what they want and trying to avoid causing further emotional harm to some students by not including the “right “ ones.

He is also teaching .... showing these young men and women just how difficult it is to implement these ideas in the real world as it pertains to his class but also the real world as in the corporate world.

No need for condescending but it would
Be a disservice in my view to not show these young minds perhaps why their thinking it potentially flawed. ( it is horribly flawed)

Although I understand his point, his tone is confrontational and condescending. Even if the student had been unpleasant in their request, Klein is a senior-level academic and in a position of responsibility and authority. I worked in academia for 12 years and would never have sent such a response in a professional context. Something like "Hey, I can't do that. Tell these students to talk to me on an individual basis if they need help or special consideration,” as suggested by @mathlete , would have conveyed his unwillingness to give special treatment very clearly and much more professionally.

mathlete

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #92 on: June 24, 2020, 12:49:30 PM »
So in the audio interview I mentioned, Klein said this came about because his name was on a professor "hit list" of sorts. I googled around trying to find this hit list, but the most prominent one I found was sponsored by Turning Point USA, which is a far right organization. I'm sure this wasn't the hit list Klein was referencing, as this particular list was targeting radical left professors.

Professor watch lists sound pretty draconian and "bad". If the government was doing it, it'd be downright scary. But since it's private individuals... eh, what are you going to do? I don't like it and I would prefer that we don't do this, but it's not up to me.

Teasing this out a bit more, and taking police brutality as an example, those oppressed by the police have a range of options.

#0 Live with it
#1 Peacefully protest
#2 Subversive tactics like trying to "out" racist professors.
#3 Violent revolution

Almost everyone would pick #1 as an ideal option. But keep in mind that we've peacefully been protesting for 6 years between Eric Garner's death and George Floyd's. Watch both videos. It's essentially the same thing. In 2014, around Garner's death, BLM had negative public opinion. Six years later, with a similar video of a similar incident, we've just barely managed to get public approval of BLM to be net positive.

So peaceful protest "works", but that's a lot of excess misery that we've had to deal with in the intervening six years. It's really really slow. So maybe we can try something else. We can try to change the culture quicker by identifying thought leaders like government officials or college professors. People who slow down the discourse with regressive rhetoric. Then we do what we can to minimize their impact on society. Sometimes, people like Klein will get wrongly caught in the crosshairs.

Or we can move on to #3, start killing cops.

Any of these options are morally justified based on the terrible state of policing in the United States. The fact that we spend a vast majority of time between options 0 and 1 is something we owe a great deal of gratitude for. So I find it hard to wring my hands over stuff like this.

MDM

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #93 on: June 24, 2020, 01:07:54 PM »
Tyler, thanks for posting the actual (as far as you know) email.  Always good to see the unfiltered text.

Different people will read that in different ways, and any email comes stripped of auditory inflections that can provide useful context.

Rather than be castigated, Klein could easily be complimented for taking the time to write a lengthy reply using the Socratic method to teach the sender about the complexity of the issue.  There's "condescension" and then there's "voice of experience."  Which of those Klein was using is subjective.

maizefolk

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #94 on: June 24, 2020, 01:18:53 PM »
So in the audio interview I mentioned, Klein said this came about because his name was on a professor "hit list" of sorts. I googled around trying to find this hit list, but the most prominent one I found was sponsored by Turning Point USA, which is a far right organization. I'm sure this wasn't the hit list Klein was referencing, as this particular list was targeting radical left professors.

Could you give a little more detail on what the characteristics of the hit list he mentioned was? I'd be happy to take a look for it.

What does seem undisputed is the student sent the e-mail, Klein replied the same evening, and the student who are initiated the e-mail (although multiple students were cc'd) wrote back saying they understood. Everyone went to sleep, and woke up to the e-mail trending on twitter and a petition with thousands of signatures. Whether that happened through twitter or as part of a separate hit list really seems like a minor side issue to me, but perhaps it has some significance I'm not grasping?

Related to that, I noticed you'd posted a number of times that you'd been looking for any evidence to support the assertion that Tyler was called a racist on twitter as a result of his remarks and were not able find any such examples. It is definitely a pain to look for evidence after the fact, particularly since he deleted his account at which point most people stopped tagging him in conversations and most of the drama appears to have happened about three weeks ago. However it is certainly possible to find tweets that explicitly called his a racist at the time. Example. Whether there were hundreds, scores, dozens, or only a handful, I don't know. It would take both a lot of time and a lot of wrangling over what qualifies as calling someone racist or not. But the statement that the result of his tweet was being called a racist on twitter should not, itself, be in dispute.

Tyler durden

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #95 on: June 24, 2020, 01:43:38 PM »
Tyler, thanks for posting the actual (as far as you know) email.  Always good to see the unfiltered text.

Different people will read that in different ways, and any email comes stripped of auditory inflections that can provide useful context.

Rather than be castigated, Klein could easily be complimented for taking the time to write a lengthy reply using the Socratic method to teach the sender about the complexity of the issue.  There's "condescension" and then there's "voice of experience."  Which of those Klein was using is subjective.

Agreed

Forget the last line about MLK and I really re read those questions. I don’t think anyone can genuinely move forward with the students request without first resolving those questions.

erutio

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #96 on: June 24, 2020, 01:47:12 PM »
A problematic part in Klein's email is when he talks about a hypothetical student student of mixed parentage.  He response suggests that he thinks someone with one black parent may only be feeling half of the emotional turmoil from the current events. That is just flippant and insensitive to the matter.

I would say the original ask was ridiculous and more racist in itself.  But the response was condescending and also racist.  A generic response such as "It it against university policy to treat one group of student differently over others based on race.  However, if any individual student is experiencing hardship, I welcome them to communicate with me directly."

mathlete

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #97 on: June 24, 2020, 01:57:23 PM »
Could you give a little more detail on what the characteristics of the hit list he mentioned was? I'd be happy to take a look for it.

What does seem undisputed is the student sent the e-mail, Klein replied the same evening, and the student who are initiated the e-mail (although multiple students were cc'd) wrote back saying they understood. Everyone went to sleep, and woke up to the e-mail trending on twitter and a petition with thousands of signatures. Whether that happened through twitter or as part of a separate hit list really seems like a minor side issue to me, but perhaps it has some significance I'm not grasping?

He said that there was a spreadsheet with 83 names on it. Names in green were good and names in red were bad.

I brought it up because if this list is real (and I have no reason to doubt Klein) then it is a tally mark in the corner for cancel culture being a significant problem. I brought it up because it felt wrong for me to sit on that information while not affording it to the people arguing with me.

Related to that, I noticed you'd posted a number of times that you'd been looking for any evidence to support the assertion that Tyler was called a racist on twitter as a result of his remarks and were not able find any such examples. It is definitely a pain to look for evidence after the fact, particularly since he deleted his account at which point most people stopped tagging him in conversations and most of the drama appears to have happened about three weeks ago. However it is certainly possible to find tweets that explicitly called his a racist at the time. Example. Whether there were hundreds, scores, dozens, or only a handful, I don't know. It would take both a lot of time and a lot of wrangling over what qualifies as calling someone racist or not. But the statement that the result of his tweet was being called a racist on twitter should not, itself, be in dispute.

A couple of things. One, if Maggie Selner was sitting on an avalanche of unfair accusations that impugned Taylor, she picked an odd set of tweets to re-post in her article. It is by and large, PF community people dictating why they thought what he said was wrong and harmful, and relaying their own negative experiences regarding FinCon.

Two. With your link, are you referring to RevAGSL's tweets?

If so, here is the tweet:

Quote
It was hugely disappointing but not at all surprising since he's been a supporter of racism for years. Just not super publicly vocal to protect his business.


I know you probably consider this a distinction without a difference, but let me argue why it isn't. Calling out racism is hard. Nobody likes to be called out and everyone is very sensitive about it. One accusation that gets levied at anti-racist activists a lot is, "you think everyone is a racist." So in an effort to appease this sentiment, we came up with different ways to do it.

One thing you can do is not call a person racist (except in extreme circumstances) because that impugns them on a personal level and makes them seem irredeemably. So instead, you might say something like, "What this person said/did is racist," or "This person supports racism." Another way to soften the rhetoric is to use less strong language like, "problematic" or "microagression".

But you know what? It turns out that people hate that shit even worse! There is no way that you can call out racism while making sure to coddle all of the offender's sensitivities unless you personally know them maybe.

The reason why I'm so hung up on the "hundreds" claim is because I'm 100% positive that Maggie Selner is an unreliable narrator and this is the most obvious and clear cut reason why. So I do not want to discuss this topic unless everyone I'm discussing it with is aware that the basis of the discussion is someone's extremely unreliable take on the situation.

Tyler durden

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #98 on: June 24, 2020, 02:09:47 PM »
A problematic part in Klein's email is when he talks about a hypothetical student student of mixed parentage.  He response suggests that he thinks someone with one black parent may only be feeling half of the emotional turmoil from the current events. That is just flippant and insensitive to the matter.

I would say the original ask was ridiculous and more racist in itself.  But the response was condescending and also racist.  A generic response such as "It it against university policy to treat one group of student differently over others based on race.  However, if any individual student is experiencing hardship, I welcome them to communicate with me directly."

I don’t understand

If your going to dole out special treatment  to a certain race one would have to define who fits in that group and who does not.

GuitarStv

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Re: #Cancel FinCon
« Reply #99 on: June 24, 2020, 02:19:41 PM »
A problematic part in Klein's email is when he talks about a hypothetical student student of mixed parentage.  He response suggests that he thinks someone with one black parent may only be feeling half of the emotional turmoil from the current events. That is just flippant and insensitive to the matter.

I don’t understand

If your going to dole out special treatment  to a certain race one would have to define who fits in that group and who does not.

I suspect that many would read an implication that because a person doesn't have two black parents, somehow they're different (and perhaps less entitled to feel upset about racism) than a person with two black parents.