cactus_pardner

It's not a full solution, but sometimes I come back to the song from Avenue Q, "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist." youtube.com/watch?v=RovF1zsDoeM Particularly interesting because it's interesting to see where different people draw the line, and how the characterize it.

(Well, speaking for myself there, not trying to impugn any of the other fine people in this chatroom.)

And all of us have biases that we occasionally let influence our actions without fully thinking them through.

@jpmc26 Actually, I don't think people doing something racist or sexist are necessarily being malicious. They might be trying to make a point, they might be copying others or making a joke (in their minds), they might be acting on misinformation, they might make a Freudian slip, or there might be other contributing circumstances.

@jpmc26 I wouldn't say that someone who acts in a biased way is automatically "unworthy of my understanding." Lots of people do things wrong for a variety of reasons, and I've found there are huge differences between misunderstandings, mischief, and malice. There's also differences in whether people understood the effects of their actions, whether they regret causing harm to someone else, and whether their behavior is typical of their normal actions.

@Ash Gotcha. :) I'd better be going so I get on to what I need to do for the day. Have a great day!

@jpmc26 (Also, I have not returned to the Academia chat b/c I, too, have not had time to go through the long review paper in detail. ;) But I am absolutely convinced that the auditing experiments that I have studied, most of which are reviewed there, offer some of the evidence you're looking for.)

To answer your question, I'm not sure if it's kindest to assume there were no racial motivations; if someone has experienced lots of racial tensions in their life, dismissing their experience may be the unkind path.

@jpmc26 @jpmc26 That link warms my heart a bit, because it was actually all a big misunderstanding! But sadly, real interpersonal situations rarely have a clarifying video replay.

Also, I've been lurking in here and appreciate everyone's efforts at productive discussion, even when it takes a lot of spoons. I have to get to bed, but just wanted to honor that. :)

@Ash Yep... sad but true

I've been thinking about this a lot... Can someone just present a hypothetical version of these, requesting that the premise that racism happened be treated as fundamentally true, no frame shifts allowed? Would that solve some of this problem?

@doppelgreener Re: using specific situations as fodder for questions, such as the one @doppelgreener mentions from Twitter about the black woman in Minnesota, or the black Yale student having the police called on her for napping in a common room of her graduate dorm. They appear racially charged, but unless the aggressor used the n-word, SOMEONE will say, "It's not about race!" :(

@aparente001 Yes, I was hoping to avoid closure, as well as avoid people getting derailed by asking for evidence. I think it's crucial to identify what "this kind of situation" is. I can now see how my edit minimizes OP's own testimony as evidence; another possible edit would say "does not have evidence beyond her own testimony/experience." I was editing to make sure the question was clear enough to keep open; I was worried about putting words in OP's mouth, but I had not even thought about my phrasing being dismissive.

@user90678 I edited the question to make it clearer that the story is an example, and that part of the premise is that they are not openly expressing bias. Please feel free to edit further if I mischaracterized anything.

Just a reminder that the story is an example, and the premise of the question is that the OP experienced something that they suspect is motivated by bias, and yet they know that there is no solid evidence of bias. How do universities deal with such situations? Quibbling with the premise does not help.

Yikes! I feel like this question is clear and concerns university culture/structure. It may help you get clear answers to edit and make it more explicit how you are characterizing the kind of incident you're asking about in this question. E.g., would you say this is a situation where students disrespect and exclude another student (in a way that might have academic consequences), and that student suspects that it may be racially-motivated?

@jpmc26 A lot of empirical evidence since that interview in 1981 confirms that racism (and other bias) exists. Here's a 2016 economics handbook chapter summing up field experiments on discrimination. The takeaway is: "Overall, this literature offers staggering evidence of pervasive discrimination against minority or under-represented groups all around the world."

@WanderingChemist Credo OP. That is, if OP were to sue someone, yes, she would have to prove her claim. But (the way I read her initial question), she believes there was bias involved, and we should answer her question from there. cag51's answer is useful while skeptical, but I think user3399's answer introduced a strawman, that then got set on fire.

@Discretelizard I think this comment thread is suffering from too much math applied to a social situation. user3399 is technically correct that bias is not logically implied by this situation, but that does not rule out the existence of bias. KonradRudolph probably does not have statistical evidence derived from exactly this situation, but reasonable people will admit that the U.S. has many incidents that are confirmed to be driven by racial bias. I don't think anyone thinks they can prove the facts of this case with given info. Thus, we take the bias as a premise and work from there.

Thanks also for the broader view, beyond, "Oh no, is this going to get closed as a duplicate group dynamics question?"

@aparente001 Basically, when I saw this question come up, I thought, "This is a new user, who may not have asked this in 100% the right way, but who has a really important question. How can I help that come through without this being preemptively closed or degenerating into questioning whether racism exists?"

I like the "group-dynamics" tag, and I can see this chat. @aparente001 :)

@aparente001 Yes, I was hoping to avoid closure, as well as avoid people getting derailed by asking for evidence. I think it's crucial to identify what "this kind of situation" is. I can now see how my edit minimizes OP's own testimony as evidence; another possible edit would say "does not have evidence beyond her own testimony/experience." I was editing to make sure the question was clear enough to keep open; I was worried about putting words in OP's mouth, but I had not even thought about my phrasing being dismissive.

@user90678 I edited the question to make it clearer that the story is an example, and that part of the premise is that they are not openly expressing bias. Please feel free to edit further if I mischaracterized anything.

Just a reminder that the story is an example, and the premise of the question is that the OP experienced something that they suspect is motivated by bias, and yet they know that there is no solid evidence of bias. How do universities deal with such situations? Quibbling with the premise does not help.

Yikes! I feel like this question is clear and concerns university culture/structure. It may help you get clear answers to edit and make it more explicit how you are characterizing the kind of incident you're asking about in this question. E.g., would you say this is a situation where students disrespect and exclude another student (in a way that might have academic consequences), and that student suspects that it may be racially-motivated?

@lujain Your fields, marketing and management, are fairly rare for PhD programs, and the vast majority of people enrolled in bachelor's and master's programs in those fields are seeking skills for employment outside academia. So that makes research doctoral positions all the more rare. Further, they're often filled by people whose prior training is in other disciplines (e.g. economics, communication, accounting, CS). A little depressing, perhaps, but you probably have a lot of competition for the slots you're applying for.

The poster is quite clearly talking about coded language, and presumably has already considered whether the person is talking about religion for its own sake or as a stand-in for condemning LGBTQ people. You may benefit from reading about political "dog whistles": en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics (Some people might learn about them without knowing the subtext, and repeat them unknowingly, but I think even then it's appropriate to say that it sounds like they're using the words to imply something else.

Hirschman's "Exit, Voice, and Loyalty" might help you think this through. "Exit" itself sends a strong signal, and it does not sound like your supervisor is listening to your voice on anything else.

I wouldn't read too much into it. The recruiter is the one out there contacting candidates, and they are not going to assign someone with more technical expertise to that role. The recruiter may not have gotten feedback that GPA is not a key metric in decision-making at this level. (I am assuming this is a recruiter working for the hiring company, not a more freelance recruiter. If the latter, I agree with sevensevens that you may want to avoid that recruiter.)