Bias-Colored Glasses
Michael Powell writes in The New York Times:
NORTHAMPTON, Mass. -- In midsummer of 2018, Oumou Kanoute, a Black student at Smith College, recounted a distressing American tale: She was eating lunch in a dorm lounge when a janitor and a campus police officer walked over and asked her what she was doing there.The officer, who could have been carrying a "lethal weapon," left her near "meltdown," Ms. Kanoute wrote on Facebook, saying that this encounter continued a yearlong pattern of harassment at Smith.
"All I did was be Black," Ms. Kanoute wrote. "It's outrageous that some people question my being at Smith College, and my existence overall as a woman of color."
The college's president, Kathleen McCartney, offered profuse apologies and put the janitor on paid leave. "This painful incident reminds us of the ongoing legacy of racism and bias," the president wrote, "in which people of color are targeted while simply going about the business of their ordinary lives."
The New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN picked up the story of a young female student harassed by white workers. The American Civil Liberties Union, which took the student's case, said she was profiled for "eating while Black."
Less attention was paid three months later when a law firm hired by Smith College to investigate the episode found no persuasive evidence of bias. Ms. Kanoute was determined to have eaten in a deserted dorm that had been closed for the summer; the janitor had been encouraged to notify security if he saw unauthorized people there. The officer, like all campus police, was unarmed.
Smith College officials emphasized "reconciliation and healing" after the incident. In the months to come they announced a raft of anti-bias training for all staff, a revamped and more sensitive campus police force and the creation of dormitories -- as demanded by Ms. Kanoute and her A.C.L.U. lawyer -- set aside for Black students and other students of color.
But they did not offer any public apology or amends to the workers whose lives were gravely disrupted by the student's accusation.
Colleges are bending over backward to avoid being demonized as un-"woke" -- sometimes or often at the expense of what really happened and the harms cause to the wrongly accused. This is quite evident if you read the rest of the story at the NYT.
By the way:
The atmosphere at Smith is gaining attention nationally, in part because a recently resigned employee of the school, Jodi Shaw, has attracted a fervent YouTube following by decrying what she sees as the college's insistence that its white employees, through anti-bias training, embrace an ideology of structural racism."Stop demanding that I admit to white privilege, and work on my so-called implicit bias as a condition of my continued employment," Ms. Shaw, who is also a 1993 graduate of Smith and who worked in the residential life department, said in one of her videos. After months of clashing with the administration, Ms. Shaw resigned last week and appears likely to sue the school, calling it a "racially hostile workplace."
ACLU, vilely:
Shame on you, @ACLU. Tragic what you've become.
— Amy Alkon (@amyalkon) February 25, 2021
Actual story: "Student workers were not supposed to use the Tyler cafeteria, which was reserved for a summer camp program for young children." ... Those involved w/camp had to have "state background checks" https://t.co/x0pgVKhYZM https://t.co/0hVsUewDPu
"...the janitor had been encouraged to notify security if he saw unauthorized people there."
Womyn Of Color are not subject to wipipo rules!
dee nile at February 25, 2021 3:53 AM
It's a shame that she's been trained to set her expectations as such; it proves that everyone that she thinks is on "her side" in this has brainwashed her into dependency on them and ultimately hates her.
As a run-of-the-mill fat white guy in college who always used his dorm meal plan card, I remember being run out of places - one they would shut down for the football team; another they operated outside programs in; another they just didn't like people who weren't from that dorm during certain hours; and sometimes, the staff just wanted to clean up and shut down early (or perhaps, on time, that I thought was early).
Imagine if she had the mental strength to respond, "I am eating lunch." and then, if they said - we're only permitting the children to eat here today - she could have either acquiesced or told them she'd be done real quick and move along. That sort of mental strength doesn't make you social media famous like smooth-amygdala weakness, though.
El Verde Loco at February 25, 2021 6:51 AM
The econ of higher ed was going to collapse anyway.
Srinivasan has thoughts about how American institutions (perhaps excepting the Silicon Valley) tend to select leaders for legitimacy rather than competence.
Academic standards for legitimacy are more about office politics, and now larger politics, and less concerned with educating and strengthening minds. Fiscal and operational aptitudes seem to barely appear in the calculation.
Crid at February 25, 2021 7:36 AM
My old house!!!!
Seriously, though, I left most of the alum groups because they had gotten so bad. Smith is a fiasco of people accusing each other of racism, and grovelling and thanking people for teaching them to be better. It just got nauseating.
NicoleK at February 25, 2021 7:50 AM
Why are university admins the ones complaining loudest about institutional racism? You'd think if anybody would be in a position to do something about it . . . .
Spiderfall at February 25, 2021 8:35 AM
"American institutions (perhaps excepting the Silicon Valley) tend to select leaders for legitimacy rather than competence. "
Carly Fiorina
Jonathan Schwartz
Elizabeth Holmes
Scott Thompson
Terry Semel
Marissa Meyer
et al.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at February 25, 2021 9:09 AM
Or maybe I'm being harsh. They did, one and all, enrich themselves with their disastrous failures and then many moved on to important positions of leadership in boardrooms around the country.
Correct me if I'm wrong - is it "moved on", "oozed on", or "slimed their way into"?
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at February 25, 2021 9:13 AM
Smith and Holyoke are always in the midst of some moral hysteria. It's almost like they're in competition.
It's impolite to point out that this probably relates to the fact that they are women's colleges and 90 odd percent of the faculty and staff are women. But the truth is, it's because they're women.
A lot of the social and cultural problems we're currently dealing with are due to the same tendencies, among women - sorry, but that's the truth.
* I'd lived in that area for nearly a decade, that's how I know.
Milo at February 25, 2021 9:24 AM
Gog, first of all, Semel was an almost psychedelically bad selection, off the charts in all respects. Presumably someone one the Yahoo board wanted to date Gweneth Paltrow or whoever was hot that year, and they thought he'd have her number. In his Rolodex.
Well, 2021. Who's better at logistics, USPS or Amazon? At identity and data processing, Facebook or the IRS? At transportation, Amtrak (et al) or Lyft?
At the intrinsics of wealth: The Fed or crypto?
Adjust your bets accordingly.
And before Tulsi, I thought Carly would be my first vote for girl-president. (Also, I'm typing this one of my two HP's.)
Crid at February 25, 2021 9:32 AM
Just like the premise that priests can't sin is false, the premise that our anointed minorities can't lie is false.
If you are primed to see oppression you will find it everywhere. I'm white and I've had bad bosses and devious co-workers--I could easily have blamed racism. The truth is that life is hard and unfair no matter who you are. You can be an angel and have your entire company go out of business. Several places I used to work are gone. Doctors don't always listen. Mechanics can screw up your car. Not racism.
cc at February 25, 2021 10:40 AM
HP when Carly took over was a company headed for the ash heap. It needed to change and Carly was brought in to effect that change. Unfortunately, the calcified board of directors proved more intractable than anyone thought and she hit the wall with them.
While the acquisition of Compaq did not go smoothly, HP's prior, almost complete, reliance on printer sales was a recipe for slow bankruptcy. However, the indigestion brought on by the Compaq merger tanked the company's stock price and made her many enemies-for-life on a board of directors that thought, since HP was one of the original high-tech companies, its stock would always rise and enrich their portfolios.
Some argued she should have moved HP into services and software -- a la IBM. However, IBM had a track record in networking and software; and moving into implementation consulting services was a natural progression for them. HP, on the other hand, was better known as a peripherals company. So, not moving the company into consulting is a defensible move. HP did later create a spinoff to provide services -- after several high-priced acquisitions of networking hardware and software companies. IBM, today, is struggling and was called by one business-watching Web site, "America's worst big tech company."
While Carly's defense that the entire technology industry entered a down turn and HP was not alone in its stock being devalued, HP's harder fall than the rest of the industry, Lucent's subsequent collapse, and Carly's track record since leaving HP tell the story of someone who was Peter Principled to her level of incompetence. No company in corporate America has sought her services since she left HP.
So, I'm a little split on Fiorina. On the one hand, dealing with the famously dysfunctional HP board could have turned even Jack Welch into Arvind Krishna. On the other hand, the chain of corporate corpses bobbing in her wake do not speak well of her fabled business acumen.
Conan the Grammarian at February 25, 2021 11:20 AM
Roughly 45 years ago, I belonged to the ACLU.
Today, I wouldn't go near them wearing a Hazmat suit and a surrounded by a Marine MEU, while embedded in a Battalion Landing Team.
They've become the "evil twin" of what they once were.
ruralcounsel at February 25, 2021 11:22 AM
I wonder if we're simply not over-compensating the executive class. With millions on the table for any given exec and/or board member, what's their motivation to do the right thing vs. do the thing that's right for them, and damn the enterprise?
They get paid millions of dollars if they fail, and tens of millions if they risk and succeed.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at February 25, 2021 11:44 AM
This is a difficult story to track because every paragraph you start to read about it spawns a dozen more paragraphs that will be no more enlightening or rewarding. This a freak-of-the-week story… Which, in the time of social media, means freak-of-the-hour.
Smith College has already been supplanted by Mr. Potato Head, and no is surprised at the sequence.
Crid at February 25, 2021 3:15 PM
So, like, if you look into this and find a hero to love or an enemy to hate or a lesson to learn and you're not kidding and you mean it with all your heart, speak up.
Crid at February 25, 2021 3:17 PM
"I wonder if we're simply not over-compensating the executive class." ~Gog
I won't argue with that. But as for the motivation angle, I doubt it matters. The issue is less one of desire and more one of capabilities. As companies get large it gets harder and harder to get information from the bottom to the top. Eventually CEOs and board rooms are isolated enough success is based more on luck than skill.
Ben at February 25, 2021 3:58 PM
"an almost psychedelically bad selection"
I'm using that to describe my ex from now on. Thanks.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at February 25, 2021 5:20 PM
Someone at twitter managed to dig up the lying bitch's linkedin profile and as always, she's part of the fail upwards crowd.
Sixclaws at February 26, 2021 8:16 AM
I asked a CEO of one of the biggest industrial groups in India which is on the verge of bankruptcy, why this happened?
He replied, “Bosses who don’t listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing to say.”
~Harsh Goenka
Ben at February 26, 2021 9:41 AM
I read an in-depth article about the Smith situation several months ago; I forget where.
It's even worse than you know from this account. First, she used a cafeteria that she wasn't allowed to use--it may even have been a facility that she wasn't allowed to use even during a normal school year. In any case she then went into a lounge/living room that was closed off with clear French doors and laid down on a couch there. NO ONE was supposed to be in that room and no one else was. I think she napped. A worker then saw through the closed doors that someone was laying down in that room. He could NOT see if it was a man or a woman or the person's race (a huge stuffed bear blocked most of his view, I did you not). As required, he called campus police and an unarmed officer arrived, spoke to her, she left, and the incident was apparently over.
But then she posted about her victimhood and identified THREE workers who supposedly had reported her presence based on racism. Not ONE of them had anything to do with the whole matter! Last I heard, the actual worker who spotted her and called campus security (and rightly so) hasn't been outed.
Here's what I think needs to be the new normal: if you falsely call someone out for racism or such, you have committed the exact offense that you accused the other person of. YOU have made a racist accusation, and whatever process would have taken place against your falsely accused victim needs to be applied to you.
Jussie Smollet committed a hate crime against white men and Trump supporters. After Smollet's tweets, any white men or Trump supporters seen in the area of the "attack" would have been in definite danger of being attacked themselves. He's morally guilty of way more than making a false police report.
RigelDog at February 26, 2021 9:44 AM
> Bosses who don’t listen
Ben— Listen to this pod. (Skip the host intros and 'questions.')
Balaji talks about that exactly, how maverick innovators *convince* people to do stuff, while incompetent guys, government or private sector, are offended at not being loved just for sitting in the Big Chair.
As Srinivasan discusses inheritance, incompetent leadership and "backlinks," you will hear one name in a pulsing whisper at the back of your consciousness—
And maybe-Crid at February 26, 2021 10:48 AM
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