Outside the Beltway

Friday Fiddly Bits

A true hodge-podge.

Steven L. Taylor
71

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The plan, backed by Marymount’s president, Irma Becerra, would close majors in English, history, mathematics, economics, and the arts, among others. The cuts would affect one-sixth of all majors offered at Marymount. Becerra submitted her plan on Wednesday to the university’s Board of Trustees, which will make a final decision on February 24, according to emails shared with The Chronicle.

The layoffs are in keeping with an increasingly grim landscape for media companies over recent months. Vox Media cut jobs by 7%; Gannett and Spotify by 6%. The Washington Post, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, eliminated its Sunday magazine and a handful of other jobs. After becoming part of Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN cut hundreds of jobs and killed off its brand-new streaming service, CNN+.

  • An opinion piece from WaPo: I’m a Black physician, and I’m appalled by mandated implicit bias training. I will admit that on the one hand, these kinds of training exercises can be pretty annoying, I wonder about the author’s thesis. While I would not wish to dismiss the doctor’s lived experience, I also have seen enough human behavior to know that a lot of people, especially white males, have no clue about the reality of biases all around them (including race and gender). I also reject her assertion that what is going on here is “The malignant false assumption that Black people are inherently inferior intellectually has been traded in for the malignant false assumption that White people are inherently racist.” First, I don’t think, unfortunately, that the malignant false assumption that Blacks are inferior has been sufficiently traded in. Second, I don’t think that trying to get people to think more deliberately about potential unexamined biases is an assumption that “White people are inherently racist.”
  • I think that French engages in a bit of strained bothsiderism in this piece, ‘Bad Apples’ or Systemic Issues? is worth a look. It does touch on themes that come up here often, specifically the ways in which one’s personal filters influence how one sees specific news stories.

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71 responses to “Friday Fiddly Bits”

  1. CSK Avatar
    CSK

    So if Marymount University dumps its English, history, philosophy, math, economics, sociology, and art majors…what’s left????

    4
  2. Flat Earth Luddite Avatar
    Flat Earth Luddite

    @CSK:
    Welding, restaurant management, and ???

    2
  3. Stormy Dragon Avatar
    Stormy Dragon

    In terms of NPR, I was under the impression that the content production was done by individual member stations (e.g. All Things Considered is produced by WNYC, Fresh Air is produced by WHYY, etc.) and the national organization was primarily involved in finance, marketting, etc.

    So I wonder if the layoffs are actually going to impact the actual media part of NPR much at all?

    1
  4. Stormy Dragon Avatar
    Stormy Dragon

    @CSK:

    Their focus is apparently various pre-law and pre-med majors, teaching, and nursing

  5. CSK Avatar
    CSK

    @Flat Earth Luddite: @Stormy Dragon:

    You can still major in fashion merchandising there. I’m so relieved.

    4
  6. gVOR08 Avatar
    gVOR08

    The David French piece does indeed seem to be

    strained bothsiderism

    The police shoot a thousand people a year dead but OTOH an organization dedicated to finding incidents of free speech infringement in academia found 900. Over 20 years. And only a third were liberals being sanctioned by conservatives. (I’d love to see a breakout of lib/con for actual job losses.)

    He stoutly maintains he’s still a conservative. I wonder what he thinks that means?

    I find French to be an example of a common phenomenon, Brooks and Will being prominent. As Republicans went from a pretense of genteel, moderate conservatism to openly nuts they all had to make a marketing decision to continue to maintain their moderate image rather than become just another voice shouting the cray cray. And he wants us to admire him for it.

    4
  7. Michael Cain Avatar
    Michael Cain

    Out of curiosity I went and looked at the catalog for the math program (Marymount does not appear to have departments per se). Look, any school that offers linear algebra only in the spring semester of odd-numbered years, and the sole differential equations class — the description for which includes, “… focuses on concepts rather than techniques…” — only in the fall semester of even-numbered years, is offering a math B.S. in name only.

    8
  8. gVOR08 Avatar
    gVOR08

    Like the infamous Hamline, I see Marymount has a student body roughly the size of my urban high school. At least I’d heard of Marymount before they went viral. IIRC once upon a time a BA was a good qualification for being hired for business. I doubt it is anymore as specialized business curricula became common.

  9. Beth Avatar
    Beth

    While I would not wish to dismiss the doctor’s lived experience, I also have seen enough human behavior to know that a lot of people, especially white males, have no clue about the reality of biases all around them (including race and gender).

    One of the most eye opening aspects of my transition has been to be subjected to how awfully men treat women. Right after my name change I had a real estate transaction where I communicated with the other attorney, a guy, solely over email. The whole time he was pushy and weird and I didn’t really understand it. I mean, all attorneys are pushy and weird. When I got to the closing he started bossing me around and talking to me like I was a particularly stupid child. When I was like, “no, I’m the seller’s attorney.” He did a COMICAL* double take and said, “Oh, I thought you were the assistant.”

    I thought maybe that was just a one off. Ooooooooooo boy was I wrong. In my years of practice, even when I was the baby-est of baby lawyers no one talked to me like I was profoundly stupid. Some of the worst attorneys I have ever seen in my life have tried so hard to pat me on the head and then explain my job to me. They are ALL men, more so white men, but not entirely.

    That’s not to say I was or am some sort of saint about this sort of thing, but shit.

    *Part of that was because I haven’t done any voice training or vocal surgery. I tend to think that I’m visibly trans, but I’ve learned that I’m femme presenting enough that men’s brains shut off when they see my hair and clothes.

    3
  10. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Beth: While not the same thing at all, the e-mail part of this reminds me of the time on my old blog when a bunch of white supremacists came to the site and engaged in a “debate” with me. One of them had seen a BlogAd on the site featuring a Black male, which he mistook for a photo of me. He was quite condescending about how I only got into to UT’s Ph.D. program because of affirmative action.

    It also makes me think of the ongoing problem a female colleague of mine had: students constantly assuming she was the departmental secretary–despite the configuration of the office suite rather clearly having a secretarial space (which my colleague did not occupy) and the fact that on her office door, it said “Dr. XXX XXX”. My office was next door. No one ever addressed me as the secretary.

    4
  11. Flat Earth Luddite Avatar
    Flat Earth Luddite

    @Beth:
    Oh Beth, I’ve spent years being Della Street in rooms full of Shatner’s Denny Crane character. I usually resembled a well-dressed troll, and most of them didn’t know whether to flip or fly. Can’t tell you how many times their heads exploded when they realized I was the assistant. Giggle.

    3
  12. MarkedMan Avatar
    MarkedMan

    @Flat Earth Luddite: I honestly didn’t understand a single word of that. “Flip or Fly”? “Della Street”? Wasn’t she Perry Mason’s assistant? Denny Crane? I really have to up my cultural trivia and slang game!

    4
  13. Jen Avatar
    Jen

    @Steven L. Taylor: I guarantee that a good percentage of women I know who work have similar stories. It’s everywhere, but particularly bad in male-dominated professions. I’ve done Republican Party work (political/elections side, so lots of candidate recruitment and field work), legislative aide for a Republican State Senator, and then I moved over to lobbying. In every single one of those jobs, I was assumed to be the admin assistant multiple times. It gets a little tiring, especially after introducing myself as “Jen, deputy political director,” and “Jen, legislative aide to Senator X,” etc.

    5
  14. charon Avatar
    charon

    I have picked up the impression that attaching Juri Arisugawa as my gravatar to my screen handle has gotten me taken a lot less seriously.

    (IRL I am cis het dude).

    5
  15. Scott F. Avatar
    Scott F.

    @gVOR08:

    IIRC once upon a time a BA was a good qualification for being hired for business. I doubt it is anymore as specialized business curricula became common.

    I have a Bachelor’s in Music, but I work in biotech now. (I’ve read it is statistically harder to earn a livable wage in opera than it is to break into the NFL.)

    I can tell you from my experience that my training in the Arts has given me what appear to be mystical powers now that I am in business. With my vocal training, I can hold a room like no other. With my performance training, I am uniquely able to communicate sophisticated ideas in a presentation. My creativity and teamwork, learned from years of working as part of an ensemble, turn heads. And, because I started out of school working for non-profit organizations, I’m a natural at waste reduction and solving problems without capital expenses – very valuable skills in the biotech industry.

    Specialized business curricula in the schools is a net loss for business.

    11
  16. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @charon: I will confess that up until recently, I thought you were female due to the Gravatar. And while Charon is male (IIRC), it is an ambiguous enough name that it did not tip me off (and could even be an alt spelling of Sharon).

    6
  17. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Scott F.: I am biased, as a Dean of Arts and Sciences, but I think that you are quite correct.

    4
  18. Mikey Avatar
    Mikey

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    It also makes me think of the ongoing problem a female colleague of mine had: students constantly assuming she was the departmental secretary

    When my PhD daughter was a new professor, she always got asked if she was taking the classes she was teaching.

    2
  19. CSK Avatar
    CSK

    @Scott F.:
    Agreed. But business may not have figured that out yet.

  20. Jay L Gischer Avatar
    Jay L Gischer

    @Michael Cain: Ok. Thank you. I feel like that’s “mystery solved”. That sort of math major isn’t worth hanging on to. However, I do wonder how you get accredited without it. Perhaps math isn’t necessary for accreditation?

  21. Flat Earth Luddite Avatar
    Flat Earth Luddite

    @MarkedMan:
    Sorry I lost you. My trivia-fu is strong this am, unlike the rest of my brain. Old lawyer tv references are as humorous to me as cop procedurals are to LEOs I’ve known. Funny, but painful.

  22. Jay L Gischer Avatar
    Jay L Gischer

    As regards the black doctor, it’s a guy who doesn’t believe there’s such a thing as a subconscious or unconscious. Who doesn’t know about the two neural pathways, of which the faster one is associational and emotional.

    A classic case – a mistake I’ve made myself – of a smart person who doesn’t realize there’s something they don’t know about, but thinks everyone else is wrong. Sigh. I’m placing a bet said doctor is a surgeon. That sort of attitude is, in fact, helpful in the OR. But it can be found elsewhere.

    1
  23. Mu Yixiao Avatar
    Mu Yixiao

    As part of my duties, I fill in at Reception a few hours a week. Aside from people be shocked that a real person answers the phone, I occasionally get people who hear my voice and blurt out “Oh! You’re a man.”

    Yes… Men can answer telephones, too. It’s not just a job for the ladies. 😛

    5
  24. MarkedMan Avatar
    MarkedMan

    @charon:

    Juri Arisugawa

    Never knew what that was from. I assumed it was a character named Charon. Just out of curiosity, why?

    1
  25. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Jay L Gischer: I am guessing that they will have to maintain general studies courses in most of these areas, math especially. As such, I do wonder how much money they will really save, since I would guess that the bulk of their math offerings are GS and not major classes (but I haven’t looked to confirm). I suppose a lot depends on the teaching load of the faculty, too,

    2
  26. charon Avatar
    charon

    @MarkedMan:

    Various reasoning, partly because it is highly visible, easy to spot/pick out in a thread of comments. Partly anonymity. Partly because I use it at Disqus with a different handle.

    It’s from my favorite anime, that I have rewatched my DVD’s many times.

    2
  27. steve Avatar
    steve

    “That sort of attitude is, in fact, helpful in the OR.”

    No, not helpful in the OR and is actually bad. Research has consistently shown that pt outcomes are better when the OR works as a team and individuals feel comfortable speaking up when they see or think something is wrong. This goes beyond the OR as the docs who want to control everything in the OR also want to do the same in the ICU and on the floors. We dont see so much of this coming out of training anymore and when we do we try to counsel them out of it. If we cant do that we get rid of them. Our former Chief of Surgery made all of his staff read the no as&hole book on management.

    Besides worse pt outcomes it also makes it harder to recruit and retain other OR staff and other support staff around the hospital. My network has bought and taken over 12 over facilities while I have been working here. During that time I have been on the team that goes in to find the problems and rehab the places we take over. All except two were losing money badly. All of them, without exception, catered to not only surgeons but all of the proceduralists (GI, Cardiology, radiology) tolerating a wide range of abusive behaviors from micromanagement to physical abuse. (To be fair this can occur with staff who are not proceduralists but its less common. Its way less common overall.)

    All of those facilities except one, still pretty recent takeover, now make money, are much busier and we can recruit and keep much better staff. we can hire nurses and techs based upon skills and work habits rather than the ability to tolerate being manhandled by some angry doc. It surprises me how many people we have successfully rehabbed and turned into good, functional docs, but we have had to get rid of a number also.

    Anyway, sorry for the way too long rant. Everyone knows TV is fictional but this myth about surgeons persists for some reason.

    Steve

    7
  28. CSK Avatar
    CSK

    @charon:

    I assumed you were calling yourself after the ferryman of Hades in Greek mythology.

    1
  29. Kazzy Avatar
    Kazzy

    Fretting about more traditional media companies’ layoffs without talking about the overall changing nature of media writ large just feels silly. Yes, those traditional outlets are losing readership and revenue for a host of reasons. Major, major reasons are that people are turning to other outlets for infotainment. Looking at how those companies have lost jobs without looking at how companies that didn’t even exist 10 or 20 years ago have added jobs is only looking at one side of the coin.

    Maybe what we’ve gained is not worth what we’ve lost but trying to make that point by merely looking at one metric on one side of the ledger isn’t particularly helpful. All it tells us is how those individual companies are doing, but nothing about why or how the overal ecosystem is doing.

    1
  30. Andy Avatar
    Andy

    On “implicit bias” I think it’s well-known that our species has biases that are invisible to us and this has nothing to do with one’s race.

    A lot of my analytical training specifically involved learning analytical methods that attempt to limit these biases or at least expose them to more scrutiny and make them visible to the analyst. And part of that is attempting to develop more introspection and to question one’s own reasoning and thinking, which isn’t normal or easy. This is actually something that the intelligence profession has spent a lot of time and research on over a long period of time as a response to analytical failures and to improve analysis and forecasting generally. Richard Heuer’s seminal work in the 1970’s and 80’s is still required reading for most analysts and is a good starting point.

    And yet I still often find myself falling into cognitive traps despite my training. It’s a really difficult problem.

    That said, I’m skeptical of “implicit bias” training and especially testing as it’s currently utilized. Compared to my own training it is quite limited and has little (if any) track record of success in actually accomplishing its supposed goals. Implicit bias testing is even worse and has the same rigor as phrenology IMO.

    The requirement for implicit bias training, therefore, seems more about checking boxes and avoiding lawsuits than anything else – like a lot of other corporate and government training programs.

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    I’ve mentioned before here that I’m a liberal arts guy who quit before finishing a master’s program and am married to a woman with an engineering PhD (Yes, I married up). There have been a number of times over the years when I’ve been called “Doctor” by people wrongly assuming I’m the one with the PhD, although that is much less common now than it used to be.

    And for several years when I worked part-time and was the primary at-home parent raising our kids, we experienced wrong assumptions about child care constantly. And ironically, it mostly came from women who liked to thank and congratulate me for being such a good dad by giving mom a break when it was actually the opposite.

    7
  31. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Andy:

    That said, I’m skeptical of “implicit bias” training and especially testing as it’s currently utilized. Compared to my own training it is quite limited and has little (if any) track record of success in actually accomplishing its supposed goals.

    FWIW, this strikes me as a reasonable critique. What strikes me about the column is that it seems to dismiss even the premise of inherent/unexamined biases.

    4
  32. Sleeping Dog Avatar
    Sleeping Dog

    @charon:

    Just goes to prove, on the internet, no one knows that you are a dog.

    6
  33. Mu Yixiao Avatar
    Mu Yixiao

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    What strikes me about the column is that it seems to dismiss even the premise of inherent/unexamined biases.

    That’s not my takeaway from the article. The author doesn’t seem to be saying that inherent bias doesn’t exist, but rather 1) it’s not the problem that DEI types are making it out to be and 2) there’s a very explicit bias against white male doctors which is causing harm to doctor/patient relationships.

    2
  34. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Mu Yixiao:

    That’s not my takeaway from the article.

    YMMV.

    1
  35. Michael Reynolds Avatar
    Michael Reynolds

    @Andy:
    I’m skeptical as well. Trying to teach a 30 or 40 year-old professional to alter the way they perceive and process information is not going to work. That’s not minor surgery, it’s a complete intellectual make-over. OTOH the training will teach people what’s acceptable speech and behavior. Sort of like when you teach your dog not to crap in the house without the dog understanding why.

    I’ll renew my occasional whinge that we should be allowed to teach some basic epistemology in schools. If people were taught the ‘how’ of thinking we could leave them to work out the ‘what’ on their own. You know, give them the tools rather than handing them the answers. But of course we can’t do that because people who learn how to logically assess and incorporate facts are called ‘atheists.’

    2
  36. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Michael Reynolds:

    Sort of like when you teach your dog not to crap in the house without the dog understanding why.

    But it sure beats the dog understanding, but still crapping in the house.

    Beyond that, it goes back to at least Aristotle’s Ethics the notion that part of how you develop virtuous behavior is through habituation.

    Much of being polite is less about profound understanding than it is about habit (especially when we are first taught to be polite).

    5
  37. Jay L Gischer Avatar
    Jay L Gischer

    @steve: Wow, that’s great information, and I’m glad to hear it. You are being quite specific about a topic that is a hot one also in the aviation industry, where it’s called “Crew Resource Management”. But it’s the same idea. We can’t afford the person in charge to be a know-it-all who doesn’t take input.

    Funnily enough, I think this change bothers some people. Also, the fact that we need to make it a topic that we study, discuss and teach means it isn’t a natural tendency.

    1
  38. OzarkHillbilly Avatar
    OzarkHillbilly

    @Beth: I can’t imagine what it’s like for women in construction. They were just beginning to show up on jobsites when I was nearing the end and the closest I came to working with one was taking a journeyman upgrade class with one. The women who survive it have to be wonder women, as in I wonder how they tune it out?

    1
  39. Jay L Gischer Avatar
    Jay L Gischer

    Yeah, the best pathway in my life that allowed for me to learn and develop some understanding of black people was the time I spent listening to and conversating with them on their own turf, where they felt more comfortable. That didn’t mean I agreed with everything everyone said, because nobody did. (One of the fundamentals of the group was “there’s no such thing as The Black Opinion”).

    That experience was worth a thousand “training sessions”. I have no idea, though, how to encourage more people to have that sort of experience. I should have said, “more white people”, because black people in America can have it every day, if they want to. It’s easily available, if they are of a mind to have it.

  40. Mu Yixiao Avatar
    Mu Yixiao

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    But it sure beats the dog understanding, but still crapping in the house

    Except, according to the author, the dog isn’t crapping in the house–but is still being chastised about why it’s bad.

    I have no information on whether the doctor is correct or not, but she’s in a far better place to make that determination than I am. If implicit bias is really a prevalent as it’s being made out to be, I’m guessing a black woman who’s in the thick of it every day would be able to tell.

    1
  41. OzarkHillbilly Avatar
    OzarkHillbilly

    @Scott F.: Yes but do you have an MBA?

  42. Kathy Avatar
    Kathy

    @Jay L Gischer:

    I was about to post CRM.

    There’s a stereotype of surgeons acting like whatever is superior to the gods*. Asimov tells an anecdote where he says to his surgeon he understands the surgery was a success.

    The surgeon scoffs and says “A success? It was perfect.”

    There are also documented accidents where a captain’s refusal or inability to listen to their crew was a major contributing factor. Namely the Tenerife disaster.

    *And cats.

    1
  43. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Mu Yixiao:

    I’m guessing a black woman who’s in the thick of it every day would be able to tell

    N=1 is not the best way to draw conclusions.

    3
  44. Stormy Dragon Avatar
    Stormy Dragon

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    Much of being polite is less about profound understanding than it is about habit (especially when we are first taught to be polite).

    I’d actually say the opposite: the real core of politeness is trying to be kind and respectful to others rather than wrote adherence to memorized rituals.

    1
  45. gVOR08 Avatar
    gVOR08

    @Scott F.: I should have clarified that when I said a BA used to be a good qualification, I meant in the eyes of corporate HR departments. I did not mean to imply it isn’t still a good qualification in the real world. I have engineering degrees, but I am eternally grateful to a demanding HS English teacher and my freshman Rhetoric 101 teacher. (Thanks to Miss McGuire in HS I was the only engineering student that year to proficiency out of 102.) I spent good deal of my engineering career writing.

    2
  46. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Stormy Dragon:

    I’d actually say the opposite: the real core of politeness is trying to be kind and respectful to others rather than wrote adherence to memorized rituals.

    Perhaps that is the core.

    But the point is that, for example, when you teach your children to say “please” and “thank you” or to hold the door for others or not to take the last piece of food without asking if anyone else wants its, etc. is first about simply doing the tasks. The understanding tends to come later.

    Even teaching kids to brush their teeth each night before bed (or washing their hands before dinner) is rote behavior before it is truly understood.

    3
  47. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Steven L. Taylor: To expand, as both a parent and an educator (and, in my own way, a lifelong student) it is rare, in my experience that true understanding of why we do things comes first, but we do and then figure it out.

    To be glib about it, a lot of life really is “fake it ’til you make it.”

    4
  48. Stormy Dragon Avatar
    Stormy Dragon

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    The understanding tends to come later.

    The problem is the understanding doesn’t always come later. Which leads to people who follow the ritual in an intentionally antagonistic manner (e.g. the type of person who says “Merry Christmas” like they’re challenging you to a fist fight) and then wonder why they’re met with hostility.

  49. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Stormy Dragon:

    The problem is the understanding doesn’t always come later.

    This is 100% true.

    But it is still better for people to behave politely, even if they never understand exactly why as opposed to doing so because they came to enlightenment and then start behaving.

    A huge number of people couldn’t explain why the rules of the road are the way they are, but thank goodness most of them more or less follow them.

    4
  50. Gustopher Avatar
    Gustopher

    @Andy:

    Implicit bias testing is even worse and has the same rigor as phrenology IMO.

    Given that everyone has implicit bias, and that most of them believe they don’t, a completely bogus test that feels real while always falsely demonstrating implicit bias would actually still be incredibly helpful.

    The antibias training I got at Google as part of the interview training was excellent. Pretty much everywhere else, it was useless and just a litany of things not to say so they cannot get sued.

    And even at Google, about half of the people in that training walked away believing it was useless because they weren’t willing to believe that they could be ever be biased, because they are brilliant, independent thinkers who rely on logic not emotion like some weak minded woman or something. They hire the smartest really fucking stupid people on the planet, who desperately need to be smacked upside the head with the proverbial clue-by-four.

    I worked on a team with the black engineer. There was only one, and that’s a bit embarrassing, but that’s not the point of this. At least once a week, someone would wander into our portion of the cube farm, and interrupt him while he was coding to tell him that there was a spill in the kitchen. Because obviously the black guy could only be custodial staff. They might be able to create a fancy new algorithm for placing names on a map (a shockingly hard problem), but they were the stupidest motherfuckers on the planet.

    Anyway, get something that gets through to them that they might be carrying implicit bias, and even if that thing is complete fraud, it would do a lot of good and make them receptive to learning how to identify when they are interpreting things with bias.

    5
  51. Just nutha ignint cracker Avatar
    Just nutha ignint cracker

    @Scott F.:

    (I’ve read it is statistically harder to earn a livable wage in opera than it is to break into the NFL.)

    I have no doubt about that. The NFL has BOTH a larger income stream and more open positions on any given year than opera has worldwide. I knew about a dozen of my classmates at Seattle Pacific’s School of Music who went on to try performing professionally. Only two of them actually maintained careers in the field–one was in a (but not necessarily “the”) Marine Corps Band and the other switched from violin to viola and may well have gotten an assist by her family being big patrons of the Symphony she played in–and that’s definitely not to imply that she wasn’t good enough. She was “all that and a bag of chips” as a violinist. The problem is that everybody who auditions is that good and has been for over 50 years (a shout out to my decision not to go to conservatory despite the urgings of faculty members of the school–I knew I wasn’t all that and a bag of chips even then, and still played/sang in regional symphonies, chorales, and one musical theater group for almost 20 years).

    1
  52. Moosebreath Avatar
    Moosebreath

    @Sleeping Dog:

    “Just goes to prove, on the internet, no one knows that you are a dog”

    Not even a three-headed dog.

    2
  53. Stormy Dragon Avatar
    Stormy Dragon

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    But it is still better for people to behave politely, even if they never understand exactly why

    Ask someone who’s ever needed an accommodation from someone who stubbornly insists a rule be followed without understanding the rule’s purpose if they think blindly following ritual is actually better.

  54. Just nutha ignint cracker Avatar
    Just nutha ignint cracker

    @Stormy Dragon: Sure. But there are always outliers. (And some of them don’t even realize they’re not “doing the right/kind/polite/whatever thing.”)

  55. Just nutha ignint cracker Avatar
    Just nutha ignint cracker

    Wow! I never realized Saddleback Church was a member church of the SBC. I always thought it was an evangelical indy.

    Though Saddleback was affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, the church did not use the word Baptist in its name or foreground any connection to the denomination. Mr. Warren rarely attended denominational meetings.

    Well that explains my mistake, I guess.

    While Mr. Wood heads the church, his wife, Stacie Wood, serves as a “teaching pastor,” a role that includes preaching, and that many see as a violation of the Southern Baptist Convention’s statement of beliefs.

    The dodge of having an “administrative pastor” who actually runs the church (business) while someone else is merely a “teacher/preacher” is a longstanding compromise I’ve been seeing for about 25 years or so. It is new to the SBC, though.

    Saddleback’s website lists Mr. Wood as the only lead pastor, but refers to “pastors Andy and Stacie Wood.”Ms. Wood has preached at the church as recently as Jan. 22, when she delivered a sermon on “how our inner thoughts can propel our growth instead of hinder it.”

    The Regular Baptist (yes, there is a sect of Baptists who call themselves the Regular Baptists*) fundie that I was raised to be notes that if it’s been a month since she’ actually preached, that I’m not sure what the issue is. Beyond that, based on the subject of her sermon, her role isn’t “Bible teacher” in the first place. In my more candid days, my inner-raging fundamentalist would have identified her topic a “psychobabblejargoncrap” and said that it was a fit topic for a midweek small group meeting but not for a Sunday morning evangelistic sermon. And while even my more enlightened self still thinks that way, Saddleback needs to do what’s best for business and can follow its muse whereever said muse will lead.

    But thanks for the link. That was interesting.

    *According to a pastor who claimed to be one of the original members of the denomination, the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches got the appellation “Regular” because they wanted the world to know that they weren’t Southern or Northern Baptists, they were just regular ones. It may be related to the association being formed as a response to moves away from basic doctrine to what was called “higher criticism” as an approach to interpreting the Bible so that they drew from both the Northern and Southerns Baptists, but I don’t know or remember enough denominational history anymore. I know that growing up, there were a dozen or so member congregations in the Seattle/Tacoma region and now there is only one.

  56. Barry Avatar
    Barry

    I have not read the article, but it strikes me as ‘even the black guy thinks…..’ variation on ‘even the liberal…’.

    And if mature professionals have a tendency to do things in correctly, then it’s reasonable to try to change that.

    2
  57. Modulo Myself Avatar
    Modulo Myself

    When I graduated with a medical degree in 1973, a Black woman in a class of mostly White men, there was a real sense that the days of obsessing over skin color and making race-based assumptions about our fellow human beings was finally fading — and, hopefully, soon gone for good.

    The audience who reads this sentence and believes is pretty credulous. This is simple bullshit. Let’s not even talk about being black…The idea that a woman, for example, was not being judged as a woman and expected to play along with the men in 1973 is insane. Add being black into the equation–maybe colleagues didn’t tell racist jokes in front of her, or tried not to, except if the joke happened to be funny.

    Newspapers should publish diverse voices, but this is like someone writing the LAPD was renowned for its upbeat racial views in 1973. This is pseudo-America here, what Ron DeSantis wants to teach the kids.

    1
  58. Jen Avatar
    Jen

    Speaking of implicit bias…the article by the Black physician is a woman. Several commenters have assumed the physician is male. So.

    3
  59. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Stormy Dragon:

    Ask someone who’s ever needed an accommodation from someone who stubbornly insists a rule be followed without understanding the rule’s purpose if they think blindly following ritual is actually better.

    I feel like you are purposefully missing my point.

    5
  60. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Barry: The basic formulation had very much occurred to me.

    @Modulo Myself: As I said initially, I am not going to try and assess her lived experience, but I have to admit that I find her situation to sound like an outlier, at best. (To put it as politely as possible).

    @Jen: Indeed.

    2
  61. Andy Avatar
    Andy

    @Michael Reynolds:

    I’ll renew my occasional whinge that we should be allowed to teach some basic epistemology in schools. If people were taught the ‘how’ of thinking we could leave them to work out the ‘what’ on their own. You know, give them the tools rather than handing them the answers.

    That’s been one of my hobby horses as well, which started for me when I was training new analysts, few of whom had much understanding of how to think through problems without a template to follow.

    @Gustopher:

    Given that everyone has implicit bias, and that most of them believe they don’t, a completely bogus test that feels real while always falsely demonstrating implicit bias would actually still be incredibly helpful.

    That presumes they don’t already know the test is bogus or are already primed to believe the test is bogus.

    Having sat through countless one-size-fits-all mandatory training evolutions I’ve found they are an eye-rolling bore to those who aren’t going to be a problem, and not effective – even counterproductive – on those who will, or are likely to be a problem.

    My view is that these sorts of training evolutions are mostly worthless and a waste of time and money. I think they should – at a minimum – have to demonstrate efficacy in achieving their purported goals. Strangely, that is rarely a requirement in experience. My cynical view is that the real goal is usually not about educating employees but covering the employer’s ass, and on that metric, I suppose they are successful.

    For the people that I supervised, they got all the mandatory training, and then I would sit down with them and give detailed expectations regarding professional behavior and their work. I don’t think there is any substitute for laying down clear expectations at the start, and then renewing and reviewing them regularly.

    And your example of the black guy would never happen in my office as I would always take the new person around and introduce them and their role to everyone in our department.

    But I’ve heard weird stories about Google and the many seemingly weird people who work there, so YMMV. Corporate and organizational culture probably counts for a lot.

  62. Stormy Dragon Avatar
    Stormy Dragon

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    No, I get your point. It’s just that “as long as everyone follows the rules, everything will be okay” is only true if “the rules” all work for you. The flexibility needed for a diverse society to function requires adherence to the spirit of rules more than the letter. And that’s only possible when people move beyond “this is the ritual we follow, even if I don’t know why”

  63. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    Stormy Dragon:

    It’s just that “as long as everyone follows the rules, everything will be okay” is only true if “the rules” all work for you.

    But that was not my point.

    2
  64. Scott Avatar
    Scott

    Do you think this pizza customer could use some implicit bias training?

    https://news.yahoo.com/customer-goes-racist-rant-amys-192500028.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall

  65. Gustopher Avatar
    Gustopher

    @Andy:

    Having sat through countless one-size-fits-all mandatory training evolutions I’ve found they are an eye-rolling bore to those who aren’t going to be a problem, and not effective – even counterproductive – on those who will, or are likely to be a problem.

    At another company I worked for the antibias training was basically filled with things to trigger the people who were going to be a problem, and I’m pretty sure the only purpose was to get the problems on HR’s radar early.

    The two worst people I worked with left a few months later to get away from all that “woke social engineering,” so I think that training also did a good job even though no one’s minds were opened in any way.

    4
  66. Modulo Myself Avatar
    Modulo Myself

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    Even if she’s an outlier, she should have some contact with the non-outliers. We’re talking about being thoughtful and reflective vs creating a very tightly-orchestrated narrative and then running with it. I don’t begrudge anybody who comes in as the first doctor or lawyer while black or a woman and has to do what they do to survive. Most of the women I’ve worked with who busted through in media and entertainment in the 70s were pretty misogynistic (and very funny and cool, to me, but not, I think, to younger women). They did it to fit in, and to survive, and some would tell you that point-blank.

    What’s odd is that the Washington Post is like screw it. Thoughtful? Reflective? Nah. We’ll go with a writer who apparently once was a very Republican-sounding independent political candidate. Boy, I wonder if she has any ulterior motive.

    1
  67. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Modulo Myself: This is what I was trying to get at with my use of “outlier” and “(To put it as politely as possible).”

    Perhaps I was being too glib.

    1
  68. Michael Cain Avatar
    Michael Cain

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    I am guessing that they will have to maintain general studies courses in most of these areas, math especially.

    At a guess, they’ll keep remedial math (ie, pre-calculus), calculus, and statistics. They may keep linear algebra and the concept-not-technique differential equations. All of them can be taught by a handful of adjuncts.

    3
  69. al Ameda Avatar
    al Ameda

    @Scott F.:

    Specialized business curricula in the schools is a net loss for business.

    I agree with you on this.
    I’ve spent my career in financial management for NPOs and universities and flat out the most capable people I’ve worked for were five women in senior management who had undergraduate degrees in Economics, Philosophy, Biology, Mathematics and Foreign Languages. All were laser sharp, with high end skills in communication, and deep technical knowledge in various aspects of the organizations they served.

    1
  70. MarkedMan Avatar
    MarkedMan

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    I feel like you are purposefully missing my point.

    Imagine that…

    2
  71. MarkedMan Avatar
    MarkedMan

    How’s this for a definition of a trumper: someone who, upon hearing something that challenges their beliefs, immediately starts looking for reasons to discount the messenger… and always quickly finds them.

    2

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