That was my point: they had to pull the blog post pending verification of the facts (i.e., emails) alleged. They’re not going to risk potential liability with unverified allegations.
[quote=“retchdog, post:288, topic:12021”]
Was this “clever” turnaround supposed to be some kind of trolley?
[/quote]I really don’t understand your point here.
Honestly, has D. N. Lee made a big deal out of this? As far as I can tell, she’s taken offense at being called a whore.
The only posts I’ve seen online where I can tell what someone’s race is, it’s been white people taking offense to “urban” being used to describe a black woman.
EDIT: There’s also the fact that we know nothing about this person’s nationality. It’s a Hebrew name, so there’s always the possibility that “Ofek” wasn’t aware that tacking “whore” on to “urban” would be two insults for the price of one. Not everybody is an English-speaking American, after all.
Now, can we finally steer the conversation back on course?
By the way, Scientific American put the post back up with this statement:
Editor’s note (10/14/13): This post was originally published on Friday, October 11, 2013, at 16:58, and taken down within the hour. As fully detailed here, we could not quickly verify the facts of the blog post and consequently for legal reasons we had to remove it. Email to the editor referenced in this post to elicit his comments has gone unanswered. Biology Online would not disclose his identity or give out additional contact information and other efforts to identify him to solicit a response have been unsuccessful. Biology Online has confirmed the exchange. This post is therefore being republished as of October 14th at 4:46pm.
I find it interesting that in a statement to BuzzFeed ( Blogger's Post About Being Called A "Whore" Is Deleted By Scientific American ), their position was that it was taken down because it was too “personal” (emphasis mine):
“I’d like to elaborate on the original brief statement on Twitter that this blog fell outside Scientific American’s mission to communicate science. While we interpret that mission with a lot of latitude, Dr. Lee’s post went beyond and verged into the personal, and that’s why it was taken down.
Can I assume that, since folks are discussing everything but, we all agree that the editor’s response – no matter what they meant by each word or how it was interpreted – was completely unjustified and inappropriate, and that the editor in question fully deserved to be fired?
If so, I’ll leave you folks to debate your digressions.
I’m not sure whether glitch, et. all. are trying to prevent us from throwing out the mysogynist baby with racist bath water, or the racist baby with the mysogynist bath water, but I think it’s one of them.
Are you kidding?!? There hasn’t been a civil word spoken on this forum for hours!
“.but keep our eyes on what’s important. Which I, as a white guy, know is not racism!”
I work for a retail company that, as part of its rebranding effort, has transferred to a .org URL because the .com was taken.
I screamed about that for, like, a day SOLID. (Let alone other related crap.) The idea that people are, more and more, not giving a crap about what addresses MEAN really bugs me.
I’m basing part of my argument on what the victim herself has taken offense to, and the fact that the editor in question has a Hebrew name, which sort of implies that this person may not be versed in American culture enough to know that the English word “urban” means “black”. Nobody, and I mean nobody, is suggesting that this guy isn’t a piece of shit. We’re just suggesting that the tortured attempt to make the guy a horrible racist is, well, extremely tortured. And I’m suggesting that people like you are derailing the conversation about how inappropriate it is to call a scientist a “whore” because she refuses to work for free.
And in relation to “white guy”, since you, unlike me, don’t have an avatar that shows your race, here’s what a GIS of “Mike Hanrahan” gets me. Any of those people you?
She acknowledged that the use of “urban” could have racial implications. My guess is that she would not make a big deal out of it because then people might question her use of the word (Google urban culture and black culture and you will find people arguing against that association). Her not taking offense, however, does not mean that other black people are forbidden from being offended.
Some tweets from people who seem to think this situation is racist or that her being black is an important part of the story:
I am assuming, based on the profile pictures of those tweets, that you will not call all these people white …
(Given that many profile pictures do not have people in them, I am not sure why you decided to assume that all the people talking about the use of “urban” are white … I also hope you realize that not everyone wants to announce their race/gender everywhere they go because it can negatively affect how they are treated.)
EDIT: How many black people have been arguing that the use of urban should not be seen as offensive? My guess is that is a smaller number than the white people making this argument …
Yeah, This is Me. But seriously, if a conversation about race relations is going on, and you havn’t taken the time to inform yourself by, say, studying the subject it might not be wise to, as a white guy, declare that we should all “get past all that race stuff, and focus on what’s really important”. It’s one of those things that uninformed white folk do A LOT, and that people of color don’t particularly appreciate.
She acknowledged that the use of “urban” could have racial implications.
A citation is apparently too much to ask for…
…but a bunch of other tweets is not. At least you’ve pointed me in the right direction. Thank you; I stand corrected. One stands out:
To me, this tweet proves the wisdom of Scientific American pulling the blog post. That’s an actual accusation the Scientific American called her an urban whore, which they didn’t. Having seen a comment section or two on FOX News and Breitbart, most people just aren’t smart enough to differentiate between SciAm and a lone editor at a partner blog which may or may not be affiliated in any way other than in name. But I’m a white dude, so I’m not supposed to question the validity of such statements…
@NicT10
I love how black women apparenlty need a notarized letter with a time and date stamp to “prove” racism and sexism.@standingwithDNLee
01:59PM - 13 Oct 13
Some sort of proof isn’t a bad thing. When people talk about what they want done about it, they want people fired, they want people publicly humiliated, what have you. There’s bad people of every size, shape, and color on this great Earth; expecting them to be truthful and above deceit because they’re in an oppressed group is imho dangerous.
And a damn fine looking banjo you are, sir.
Hearsay is allowed in courtrooms as long as it falls within one of the many exceptions to the hearsay rule.
Are my previous posts in this thread hidden? "Urban whore" sexism train wrecks Scientific American's holiday weekend - #222 by fireshadow
Out of all the tweets, that is the one that stood out to you? And it justifies SciAm pulling the post? Seriously?!?! Scientific American is partnered with Biology Online, so when someone from the latter acts in a sexist/racist manner, Scientific American should step up and say this behavior is not tolerated. By pulling the post (without notifying Dr. Lee), they are basically announcing to the world that they are more concerned about Biology Online than they are about Dr. Lee. The tweeter is not saying that Scientific American literally called Dr. Lee an urban whore, they are saying that by partnering with sites that say those things, Scientific American is indirectly saying that they support such ideas.
The problem is that for a lot of people, there will never be enough proof. Googling urban as a euphemism for black returns nearly 12 million hits, but you still have white people telling black people that urban is not offensive and that they are over-reacting.
…
You are parsing this sentence incorrectly. Censorship is done by governments or private organizations. Self-censorship is done by individuals to themselves - they refuse to speak for fear of official reprisals. This is not something individuals do to each other. Public shaming is not censorship.
Since when, in your experience, has that ever worked? Instead, your “hey, this isn’t necessarily racist” looks like a white guy whitesplaining what is and isn’t racism. It may not be what you intended, but nearly this entire thread is about the gap between intention and delivery.
Definitely. She can’t be the only person claiming that Scientific American is calling her an urban whore. They did a shitty job of damage control, yeah, but…c’mon.
The problem is that for a lot of people, there will never be enough proof. Googling urban as a euphemism for black returns nearly 12 million hits, but you still have white people telling black people that urban is not offensive and that they are over-reacting.
And expecting an Israeli working for an Israeli company (seriously, look up “Ofek” and “Keebali”) to understand American culture well enough to know that “urban whore” is racist…well, it reeks of American Imperialist thinking. There’s more to the world than America. Some of those people in Not America talk this jibberish that is Not English. I know, cray-cray! Reeks of the faux outrage over at Feministing over the song “Royals”, expecting some 16-year-old kid from NZ to know that saying she doesn’t aspire after “gold grills” that she’s racist and ought to do a social commentary on white American culture instead.
And it’s not enough that this person probably disrespects over 3 billion people in the world population; oh, no, but we can take this disrespect seriously if we throw in another 22 million dudes.
“this guy wasn’t aware of the racial connotation of the word urban”
I’ll betcha he’s aware of it now! And so are you and anybody else who stumbles upon this story. Everybody wins!
Great. Now every time I hear “I’m the Urban Spaceman” I’ll be thinking of that fake documentary on the Negro Space Program…
