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Michigan State Professor Warns of “Unconscious Bias” and “Microaggressions” in Virtual Meetings

Michigan State Professor Warns of “Unconscious Bias” and “Microaggressions” in Virtual Meetings

“For example, when the virtual background of a Zoom meeting attendee has pictures of his or her wedding, it unintentionally reinforces the idea that marriage is most fitting between opposite sexes.”

https://youtu.be/y0993CQGz5c

Now that so many people are working from home under quarantine, holding virtual meetings on the internet has become the norm. One professor at Michigan State University wants people to be careful to avoid ‘unconscious bias’ during such events.

This is an example of how progressive culture finds its way into our lives, no matter what is happening.

Professor Amy Bonomi writes with Caroline Brooks at MSU Today:

There’s an Unconscious Bias in Virtual Meetings. Here’s How You Can Avoid it.

While employees use videoconferencing now more than ever, there’s an issue happening beneath the surface with platforms like Zoom, Teams and Skype beyond stress and mental health that’s affecting its users.

Amy Bonomi, a social science researcher from Michigan State University, and Nelia Viveiros from University of Colorado, said that these platforms are a ripe setting for unconscious bias — or, when people act based on prejudice and stereotypes without intending to do so.

“Unconscious bias includes using language, symbolism and nonverbal cues that reinforce normative social identities with respect to gender, race, sexual preference and socioeconomic status,” Bonomi said. “For example, when the virtual background of a Zoom meeting attendee has pictures of his or her wedding, it unintentionally reinforces the idea that marriage is most fitting between opposite sexes.”

In fact, even a simple icebreaker — common for videoconferencing settings —can be a pathway for reinforcing dominant social norms and identities.

Here are some more examples given:

“In a recent videoconference, we were asked the ‘most fun thing you’ve done with your family during quarantine.’ Participant answers ranged from ‘gardening with my husband’ to ‘dance parties with my family,’” Viveiros said.

While these experiences are valid, Viveiros said that they can crowd out the experiences of people with minoritized social identities. For example, asking about “fun family things” prevented several Latinx attendees from sharing their experiences of losing family members to novel coronavirus.

Additionally, microaggressions are also communicated in virtual meetings just as they are in face-to-face meetings, Bonomi said. Microaggressions are brief, commonplace verbal, behavioral or environmental indignities that communicate hostile, derogatory or negative racial slights.

The article includes some specific recommendations:

Use inclusive language. Using inclusive language validates participants’ diversity of experiences, including participants whose lives may be unduly affected by the novel coronavirus.

“This can be done by acknowledging that there are a range of diverse experiences of participants and by establishing conversational norms that respect these differences,” Bonomi said.

Challenge microaggressions. Be a strategic ally in calling out microaggressions when they occur. This can be done by naming microaggressions on the spot or addressing them privately. It is important to share how the microaggression affected you and may have affected others and to provide tools for improving skills, they said.

You might assume this type of thinking is limited to academia, but it isn’t.

This article by Michele Parmelee is from Forbes:

Avoiding Bias In The Virtual Workplace

You have an important assignment that must be completed tomorrow and two people on staff who are ideally suited to handle it. Because the office is closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, both are working from home. One is single and the other has two school-aged children at home.

Who will get the opportunity to shine? If you immediately chose the single person without giving the matter serious consideration, then you may be demonstrating unconscious bias.

We all have unrecognized stereotypes—influenced by our surroundings, our upbringings, and those around us—that lead us to form instinctive judgments about others. Left unchecked, unconscious bias can determine many choices that we make in our everyday work, from the way we allocate tasks to how we manage challenging situations. It can creep into even the most inclusive teams, especially during periods of uncertainty or increased stress like we’re facing now.

Hat tip to Nathan Klein:

Featured image via YouTube.

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Comments

Looks like she’s been micro aggressed pretty hard and put away wet. Maybe.

    The Friendly Grizzly in reply to Merlin. | May 20, 2020 at 4:00 pm

    I’m sure she feels micro aggression! Look behind her. Noticed one of the light switches is up? It’s aroused! Or at least it would appear so to a psychology professor who teaches Freud.

      I would love to be in one of those ZOOM meetings, and I would have a giant poster on the wall behind me saying F.U.KAREN!!

        notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital in reply to Tom Servo. | May 20, 2020 at 9:54 pm

        She deserves many Zoom Bombings.

        What can you expect from a Communist, Chinese owned company

        Their HQ in CA is just a front.

      Sometimes a light switch in the “on” position is just a light switch in the “on” position. But I do have concerns about the switch in this particular instance.

        mister naturel in reply to DaveGinOly. | May 21, 2020 at 8:27 am

        Groucho: how do you account for having NINE children?
        Contestant: well, i love my wife.
        Groucho: well, i love my cigar, but sometimes i take it out of my mouth!

        sometimes a cigar is just a cigar…freud

        The Friendly Grizzly in reply to DaveGinOly. | May 21, 2020 at 11:06 am

        In many countries, the switch handle being UP is”off”. One must be inclusive, you know.

    Daiwa in reply to Merlin. | May 20, 2020 at 10:23 pm

    “For example, when speaker in a Zoom meeting is wearing distracting bling dangling just above her cleavage, it unintentionally reinforces the idea that we are sexual beings.”

    G-d forbid we normalize “normal”. What utter (udder?) idiocy.

    Apologies for the innuendos, but good grief.

    Virginia42 in reply to Merlin. | May 21, 2020 at 10:02 am

    Idiots gotta idiot. Unfortunately her kind is all too common.

Her virtue-signaling definitely overshadows any latent intelligence by several magnitudes. She wouldn’t be inclusive in any group setting I’d wish to be part of. I guess this is not only a mark of an advanced society that can tolerate this let alone a society in decay into frivolous activities.

“For example, when the virtual background of a Zoom meeting attendee has pictures of his or her wedding, it unintentionally reinforces the idea that marriage is most fitting between opposite sexes.”

Is this true when it is pictures of homosexual “weddings” that are visible? Or that different because shut up you racist?

    The Friendly Grizzly in reply to Recovering Lutheran. | May 20, 2020 at 3:38 pm

    It might be. A friend of mine caught hell from his boss for having a framed picture of his partner on his desk. Just a nice 3/4-profile portrait, suit and tie.

    My friend wasn’t some mincing flamer, either. Just another guy, but happen to have a male partner. The one who was upset, by the way, was some screeching harridan who complained about everything. Loudly.

    “For example, asking about ‘fun family things’ prevented several Latinx attendees from sharing their experiences of losing family members to novel coronavirus”
    ___________________

    Really? Asking a question prevented them from responding? Are they mute? Why couldn’t they simply respond to the question by saying: “I wasn’t able to do any fun family things, because my family died”?

    Or are we never supposed to ask any questions that might possibly hurt somebody’s feeeeeelz or give them the sadz? What are we, a nation of 5-year olds? These continuing efforts to infantilize everyone are ridiculous.

      DaveGinOly in reply to Observer. | May 20, 2020 at 10:39 pm

      Surely it’s possible they had fun with the family before anyone died. What does this woman think, that meetings have to start with, “Has anyone lost a family member lately?” What about the Latinx who hasn’t, and now feels left out of the conversation? Is that a microaggression?

Brave Sir Robbin | May 20, 2020 at 3:23 pm

So, she does not understand the level of her own aggressive bigotry and hate? Obviously she has no sense of irony.

Remember, if they did not have double standards, they would have no standards at all.

Idiocy and psycho-blabber. If you have an unconscious bias, you are not aware of it! If you look hard for it you might find lint in your navel.

Our great Intelligentsia has become our Idiocrasy.

“America is at that awkward stage.
It’s too late to work within the system, but (it is no longer) too early to shoot the bastards.”
Claire Wolfe, 101 Things to Do ‘Til the Revolution

“’Unconscious bias includes using language, symbolism and nonverbal cues that reinforce normative social identities with respect to gender, race, sexual preference and socioeconomic status,’ Bonomi said.”

“For example, being a blue-eyed, ditzy blond wearing a tight-fitting, low neckline jersey emphasizing one’s sizable bust line, with trinket necklaces.”

Which seems to be her wont,

https://res.cloudinary.com/culturemap-com/image/upload/ar_7:4,c_fill,g_faces:center,w_1200/v1493161847/photos/184176_original.jpg

I hadn’t known that the only family activities experienced by Latino people were deaths.

    healthguyfsu in reply to Ira. | May 20, 2020 at 3:33 pm

    Another test:

    If the “sufferers” during this conference were white, would she have cared? Would they have bothered to make a fuss about it how it made them feel in PC cultureville?

    Milhouse in reply to Ira. | May 20, 2020 at 4:18 pm

    Latino people have fun family experiences just like everyone else. But “Latinx” people don’t, perhaps because they have no families, which may be because nobody can pronounce “Latinx”. “Latinx” people do nothing but suffer; they are victimized 24-7, sometimes by people refusing to victimize them.

      ghost dog in reply to Milhouse. | May 20, 2020 at 4:37 pm

      DENNIS
      Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! HELP! HELP! I’m being repressed!

      ARTHUR
      Bloody peasant!

      DENNIS
      Oh, what a give away. Did you here that, did you here that, eh? That’s what I’m on about — did you see him repressing me, you saw it didn’t you?

    JusticeDelivered in reply to Ira. | May 20, 2020 at 6:09 pm

    Sorry, trying to click reply, got down vote.

    I think we should be considering illegals, and how much they are costing us related to China’s Virus and otherwise.

healthguyfsu | May 20, 2020 at 3:28 pm

You can’t spell microaggressions without ME

That’s what these are all about…me first, how I feel and how you must cater to my comfort whims and nuances at all times.

    TX-rifraph in reply to healthguyfsu. | May 21, 2020 at 5:26 am

    Yes. Microaggressions are a power play by the self-anointed victim. In place of behaving like an adult, I then blame you for how I feel. My overt aggression trumps your microaggression. “Mommy, he looked at me!”

    Think about the paycheck these fools get vs. the burger flipper who actually adds value to somebody’s life.

Damn autocorrect changed Latinx to Latino.

    healthguyfsu in reply to Ira. | May 20, 2020 at 3:29 pm

    I reject that use of latinx…it’s another PC move to make the term latino gender neutral.

      healthguyfsu in reply to healthguyfsu. | May 20, 2020 at 3:30 pm

      *that=the

      The Friendly Grizzly in reply to healthguyfsu. | May 20, 2020 at 3:42 pm

      I reject “gay” even if I do play for the other team.

      Katy L. Stamper in reply to healthguyfsu. | May 20, 2020 at 5:37 pm

      I reject “latino” and “latinx.” I use “latin.”

      For those of you too young to be aware, until the last couple of decades, in the United States basically all foreign names were anglicized.

      I carry on that habit. As the biggest dog on the block, and with oceans formerly protecting us from the scourge of babble, we did that.

      Too bad we don’t appreciate how incalculably valuable that is, with regard to culture and commerce.

      Who here wants to learn Chinese in order to be an air traffic controller or pilot?

      Exactly…

      henrybowman in reply to healthguyfsu. | May 21, 2020 at 12:07 pm

      Indeed. Thse people have all they can do to agitate for sexlessness in a country that speaks a relatively sexless language. If they lived in a Romance country, where everything from buildings, conveyances, garden tools, and bathroom fixtures has its own gender, their heads would explode.

    NavyMustang in reply to Ira. | May 20, 2020 at 3:38 pm

    I have a one-on-one Skype class with a professor in Costa Rica one a week.

    We talked about this latinx thing and I asked him what the Latin world thinks of it.

    “Really, we don’t even think about it. Latina is latina. Latino is latino. Periodo!”

      guyjones in reply to NavyMustang. | May 21, 2020 at 9:35 am

      Yeah, the funny thing about this ridiculous new lexicon that the Dhimmi-crats perpetually come up with, in an attempt to control the narrative and to advance their agenda, is that this lexicon is often conjured up by white Dhimmi-crats, and, then, foisted upon the targeted ethnic/racial group, with the latter usually having no desire to run with it, much less provide any input.

      I have a friend, born in the U.S., of Peruvian/Colombian heritage, totally conservative in his politics, and, he says that no one that he knows in the Hispanic community flies with this idiotic “Latinx” BS. It’s a white Dhimmi-crat conceit, created to aid their virtue-signaling, self-congratulatory antics. I joke with him that I want to visit “Latinx America,” sometime.

        henrybowman in reply to guyjones. | May 21, 2020 at 12:13 pm

        Indeed. We are told that the Negros of the 1950-60s wanted instead to be called Afro-Americans… then shortly afterward, Blacks… then shortly after that, African-Americans. The latter term has had such unusual staying power that I foresee it being changed to a new mandatory appellation as early as July.

          guyjones in reply to henrybowman. | May 21, 2020 at 7:28 pm

          Well, I do believe that the current term that is now in vogue is “Person(s) of Color.”

          Which I refuse to use, on principle. We are all “persons of color.”

The sense I get is people are more interested in seeing how everyone else on the teleconference decorates, sorta like when someone in your neighborhood is selling their house and you check out the listing photos online to see what they did with the interior. Curiosity.

The Friendly Grizzly | May 20, 2020 at 3:31 pm

It seems to be women professors who come up with this rubbish. At least she’s not using a hyphenated surname.

“ minoritized social identities.” More psychobabble.

    Yeah, what’s up with that word, “minoritized”. I’m afraid I can guess the answer. It’s part of a long-standing PC preference for verbs over nouns.

    Cf the awful phrase “enslaved persons” instead of “slaves”, and the talk of someone having “enslaved 25 people” instead of having “owned 25 slaves”. No. George Washington never enslaved anyone in his life. All the slaves he owned were slaves before he ever got them. Enslavement is an act that takes a moment. Once it’s done it’s over, and the person is now a slave.

      OwenKellogg-Engineer in reply to Milhouse. | May 20, 2020 at 6:03 pm

      Milhouse,
      What about Slavs? We were enslaved once, but now no longer; yet the term persists even tho I am free. I’m actually kinda down with it.

        Yeah, but you’re not descended from the Slav slaves; they were sold down the river to Miklagard. You’re descended from the ones who weren’t enslaved, and thus remained in Eastern Europe.

We are devolving. When people of “higher” education delve into micro aggression while ignoring their own mental illnesses which cause them to even think this type of crap has any merit whatsoever, then it is time to shut them down.

Life is not fair. It will never be fair. It will never be some stupid idiot’s view of utopia, as crap like this virtue signalling causes a lot more people to “lose it” proves.

We are responsible for our own mental illnesses and shortcomings. Pushing garbage like this causes more harm to society just as this lockdown has caused, than it ever assists people.

Don’t like something, ignore it, or put a quaint old way, grow up. This is the most childish nonsense I’ve heard, and given the way Cuomo talks down to everyone over his justifying being a dictator, that is saying something.

We need to come up with a relentless campaign of mockery against these fools. They clearly are not from this planet.

They want us to be all lockstep automatons but at the same time, they want us to be “diverse”.
Cognitive dissonance.

“Unconscious bias includes using language, symbolism and nonverbal cues that reinforce normative social identities with respect to gender, race, sexual preference and socioeconomic status,” Bonomi said. “For example, when the virtual background of a Zoom meeting attendee has pictures of his or her wedding, it unintentionally reinforces the idea that marriage is most fitting between opposite sexes.”

I INTENTIONALLY and CONSCIOUSLY seek to reinforce the idea that marriage is most fitting between the opposite genders – one man and one woman. There is no unconscious bias here. If you don’t like it, tough shit!

    The Friendly Grizzly in reply to Geologist. | May 20, 2020 at 3:48 pm

    I INTENTIONALLY and CONSCIOUSLY seek to reinforce the idea that marriage is most fitting between the opposite genders</b€ – one man and one woman.

    And I intentionally use the word sex in this context because we’re talking people, not nouns in foreign languages.

This is tiring and it is sickening.
I don’t have to hide who I am and what I believe just because some POS snowflake wants to suppress everything that offends him or her.

I am married to a woman and I have children with her. We made those children the way God (if you believe in God) or Nature (if you do not believe in God) intended us do do it.

That’s who I am.
I will not hide or suppress who I am, so GFY if that’s what you expect. Also, be prepared for violence if you really plan to try to make me do it.

“For example, asking about ‘fun family things’ prevented several Latinx attendees from sharing their experiences of losing family members to novel coronavirus.”

I have so many problems with this! First of all, let me challenge the cultural misappropriation here. I have ancestors who lived in Rome in ancient times, who were considered Roman or Latin. They were not Hispanic. They were not South or Central American. Why have we allowed Hispanics to steal the proud term “Latin” to refer to themselves? The people of South America, Central America and Mexico do not speak Latin and are not “Latino.”

Second, what is this “Latinx” shit? “Latino” would be the proper term (masculine includes the feminine), if Latin was a proper term to refer to these Hispanics.

Third, what kind of warped person thinks that having family members die of the Wuhan virus is a “fun family thing”? I certainly would entertain “hostile, derogatory or negative racial slights” against Hispanics if I believed, as Ms. Viveiros seems to, that Hispanics consider their family members dying of the Wuhan virus to be a fun event. Instead, I question Ms. Viveiros’ mental condition.

    Milhouse in reply to Geologist. | May 20, 2020 at 4:27 pm

    I think you misunderstood the claim. The claim is that white people have spent these weeks doing fun family things, and have not lost anyone to the virus, while “Latinx” people have spent all their time mourning their numerous losses and have not had any fun family times to relate.

    To which I say “screw you”. I don’t think I know one person who has not lost friends and/or relatives to this virus. And I’m not “Latinx”. I just live in NYC.

      Brave Sir Robbin in reply to Milhouse. | May 20, 2020 at 7:21 pm

      I would never have guessed you were from NYC.

      Geologist in reply to Milhouse. | May 20, 2020 at 8:24 pm

      I guess you are right about Ms. Viveiros’s meaning. In which case, she needs to improve her writing skills!! But I guess she is too busy attending funerals and wakes and consoling the mourners to learn to right English good! [Deliberate.]

      DaveGinOly in reply to Milhouse. | May 20, 2020 at 11:03 pm

      I don’t have any family within about 2800 miles of my home. I wouldn’t be able to answer this question, without any familial loss to the Wuhan flu. If the person doing the asking already knew about your recent experiences, there’d be no need to ask. If you haven’t had fun with a family member during the lockdown, it’s not a microaggression to be asked if you have. And there’s nothing stopping a Latinx in this situation to respond, “No, my Abuela died a week ago and I haven’t had any family fun.” So the claim that merely asking this question prevents anyone from speaking of a loss is simply, well, stupid. It’s illogical.

What if my unconscious bias got into my hippocampus through no fault of my own? I would be a victim then. I want to be a victim and not an unconscious bias perpetrator, I’ll feel much better about myself and you will all have to feel ashamed. And if you don’t feel ashamed, it’s more proof that you’re the perpetrator, not me.

If you challenge my micro-aggressions, as Ms. Bonomi recommends, we are most likely going to experience some macro-aggressions. I am perfectly willing to tell these Social Justice Pinheads to fuck off, in an aggressive manner.

How can there be opposite sexes when there are so many of them?

    Milhouse in reply to Obie1. | May 20, 2020 at 4:29 pm

    It’s like the two big political parties. Dems and Reps speak of the “opposite party” even though there are all the small parties. Male and Female are the two big genders, the other 57 or whatever are like the Greens and the Libertarians.

      n.n in reply to Milhouse. | May 20, 2020 at 5:13 pm

      Two sexes: male and female. Two genders (i.e. physical and mental sex-correlated attributes): masculine and feminine, respectively. And a transgender spectrum.

        Geologist in reply to n.n. | May 20, 2020 at 8:27 pm

        Two sexes: Yes or No.
        Two Genders: Male and female.

        I know this is not generally accepted, but it is why I always try to answer “Sex” with a “yes.”

    rocky71 in reply to Obie1. | May 21, 2020 at 12:17 pm

    Would more likely be “opposing” then, no? s/lol

Who asked her? No one cares about your opinion.

Hotep.Maqqebet | May 20, 2020 at 3:52 pm

Karen_1 and Karen_2

surfcitylawyer | May 20, 2020 at 4:19 pm

What would she say of my 10′ rubber duckie background?
You should be careful about your background when on Zoom or similar. Some people have had computer screens with Adult site tabs visible. Others have trees or similar growing out of their heads.

Comanche Voter | May 20, 2020 at 4:24 pm

I looked her and realized that maybe some of the many dumb blonde jokes I’ve heard over a life time might have some factual basis. Karen the Dumb Blonde—go together like a horse and carriage.

just imagine having to live with this controlling canine

In my experience, every person who has waived this garbage around has been an enormous bully in their own right.

    OwenKellogg-Engineer in reply to Andy. | May 20, 2020 at 6:11 pm

    Andy,
    You hit the nail on the head. This is a way to bully people, and play Eddie Haskell (RIP Ken Osmond) at the same time. When one ‘feels’ an offence for a third party, regardless if that third party is offended or not, then one can assume social police powers and bully anyone they feel like bullying

I guess she would get the vapors and just faint away if one of those Zoom conferencees had an American Flag hanging in the background. She would have a stroke if that American Flag was a Betsy Ross flag replica.

We all have unrecognized stereotypes

We do indeed. These are called “culture”.

Try living without any. This is called “savagery” or, if that’s too direct, call it what a less frivolous era termed the Arcadian or Pastoral State. But no matter, whatever the name it means no NetFlix, drip-dry apparel, or sushi in little plastic containters.

I’m offended by her speech just by reading the headline

I guess the poster that shows up behind me would be a trigger as it’s in Russian.

I’d like to warn of unconscious bias in Michigan State’s hiring practices.

God known nobody conscious would hire such idiots.

It is. Transgender (e.g. homosexual couplets) deny the natural order. That said, diversity (i.e. color judgment) breeds adversity, is the progressive foundation from bias to prejudice.

    n.n in reply to n.n. | May 20, 2020 at 5:11 pm

    At least she uses “sex” correctly and does not confuse it with “gender” which refers to physical and mental (e.g. sexual orientation) attributes correlated with sex. That said, perhaps civil unions that are not necessarily politically congruent (“=”), without #Judgment #TooManyLabels #Bigotry would have been the better choice.

    Oh, one more thing… #HateLovesAbortion

2smartforlibs | May 20, 2020 at 5:32 pm

Her saying that marginalizes my opinion and shows she’s a bigot, a sexist, and possibly a racist.

Her examples are obviously made up and never happened.

Ok sure, I will make a note of that. Then put that note into the shredder.

We are men and women. It almost always matters which we are. Men and women are aggressive. Their regard for each other is clouded by grudges, suspicions, fears, needs, desires, and nacrissistic postures. There’s no scrubbing them out. The best you can hope for is domestication, as in football, rock, humor, happy marriage, and a good prose style. Jokes trade on offensiveness; PC is not a funny dialect. The unconscious is a joker, a sexist and aggressive creature. Our sexuality has always been scandalous.

-Wm. Kerrigan

“Amy Bonomi, a social science researcher” Just about says it all.

Amy is irritated that her course of study, outside of the ivory towers of academia, is worthless.

    Brave Sir Robbin in reply to Romey. | May 20, 2020 at 7:30 pm

    Is negative value truly worthless? An epistemological question, I guess, but from a mathematical point of view, worthless would seem to equal only zero. Therefore, I humbly suggest you have overrated the value of this wyminx’s thoughts.

George_Kaplan | May 20, 2020 at 6:43 pm

A marriage photo reinforces notions that marriage is most fitting between opposites sexes? How incoherent can you be? Marriage IS the union of 1 man + 1 woman. Anyone who doesn’t comprehend this is wilfully ignorant of biology, history, language etc, or else plain stupid. While I wouldn’t want my private life to be on show in a zoom meeting, choosing to have a photo that depicts reality should not be construed as bias, microaggression or otherwise harmful!

Academia is declaring facts to be fantasy and fantasy to be fact.

    Geologist in reply to George_Kaplan. | May 20, 2020 at 8:40 pm

    George, I have several photos of my wife, one of our grandkids, and one of my family (three generations) from my kid brother’s college graduation on my desk and on my credenza. I don’t know which of these show up on my Zoom conferences, because I was concerned only with whether my computer camera picked up any of the mess (my overflowing out-box and piles of file folders on my desk) and anything confidential. As to my family photos, I am happy and proud to make them public — anyone who comes into my office can view them. With all of the micro-aggressions that might entail!

    DaveGinOly in reply to George_Kaplan. | May 21, 2020 at 12:03 pm

    Gay marriage has been legalized (and in Utah I understand polygamy has been de-criminalized), creating a diversity of marriages. So wouldn’t it make more sense for the Left to celebrate both/all types of marriages? Diversity is good, right? Obviously, the Left doesn’t really believe in “diversity” when a portion of that diversity is “normative” or “conservative.” Meanign they don’t really believe in diversity at all.

Now that universities and colleges are going thru financial problems it’s time for the to end this crap by shutting down every ethnic studies department in the nation.

Bitterlyclinging | May 20, 2020 at 8:32 pm

Degrees from the University of Washington and University of Seattle.
Nuf said
Long on Liberal theory, very short on reality.

We could start with dumping tenure.

She definitely has a background on this issue. Here is a clip from one of her studies:

An enduring example of hashtag activism is illustrated
by the #BlackLivesMatter movement. This movement has grown to sustain support for police brutality victims in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman in July of 2013 for the death by gunshot of African American teen, Trayvon Martin. When hashtags are used to resist harmful narratives about violence against women, the process is known as hashtag feminism (Khoja-Moolji, 2015).

and things like this:

The violence committed against Trayvon and Jada

Yep she has an agenda, narrow as it might be.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322207539_I_Was_Grabbed_by_My_Pussy_and_Its_NotOkay_A_Twitter_Backlash_Against_Donald_Trump's_Degrading_Commentary

    MarkSmith in reply to MarkSmith. | May 20, 2020 at 10:41 pm

    After reading more on her research paper, I conclude she has full blown TDS.

    Consequently, there is potentialfor Trump supporters to minimize sexual assault and to be immune to prevention pro-
    gramming. Thus, sexual assault prevention programs should be discussing Donald Trump and other celebrities accused of sexual assault to directly target attitudes that
    may be celebrity-influenced.

    What really gets me is we are paying for this twit.

    Funding
    The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship,
    and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by a grant from the National
    Institute on Drug Abuse (F31 DA039603). The results and interpretations do not reflect the
    funding agency

    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322207539_I_Was_Grabbed_by_My_Pussy_and_Its_NotOkay_A_Twitter_Backlash_Against_Donald_Trump's_Degrading_Commentary

    What she fails to include in her little study is Bill Clinton, Hillary and her supporter of Weinstein, Epstein and Weiner.

    Trump is a walk in the park compared to the Democrats.

Cheezes H. tap-dancing criminy on a crutch. Even straight, white, old men have “diverse experiences,” experiences that can not only diverge from others unlike them, but that can diverge from others in the group! Everyone has “diverse experiences.”

What an idiot.

I probably should not bring this up, but she seems to appear in a lot of images on searches with low cut outfits. She is like a walking contradiction.

    DSHornet in reply to MarkSmith. | May 21, 2020 at 8:44 am

    A search of images showed only one picture out of maybe two dozen where she’s not wearing a low neck line. Sort of like “look but don’t look.” She knows what she’s doing.
    .

      DaveGinOly in reply to DSHornet. | May 21, 2020 at 12:06 pm

      Her attire is likely meant to distract from what she’s saying. Anyone (of intelligence, I should add) listening to what she’s saying is bound to determine she’s an abject idiot spouting nonsense and inconsistencies. So she presents her boobs, front and center (well, each of them a little off-center) as a diversion

I noticed that one MSNBC commenter had a partially nude piece of artwork in the background, it disappeared in his next interview. If this PHD represent what we have in Michigan than a PhD is worthless.

You will have to stay out art museums, they have all those offensive nudes you know.

“reinforce normative social identities with respect to gender, race, sexual preference and socioeconomic status”

Would a background picture of a gay wedding be OK? Or is that problematic because it reinforces ab-normative social identities?

Hm…Seems to me that simply presenting as one’s biological sex would “reinforce normative social identities…” wouldn’t it? So shouldn’t everyone be forced to adapt the style of dress and presentation of the opposite sex?

Anyone else think that self-congratulatory, pathological narcissism is the defining personality trait of contemporary Dhimmi-crats?

I mean, it appears that these twits really do go around incessantly basking in their own self-congratulatory sense of alleged moral superiority. And, yet, the minute that a person has the temerity to disagree or to reject any facet of Dhimmi-crat ideology, the Dhimmi-crat’s vicious, intolerant, bullying totalitarian ethos and persona are revealed.

What utter nonsense. Based on what that nutty Professor states one is supposed to pursue their background and think through their responses to questions to meet her regime for participating in video conference calls. Isn’t that in and of itself reverse mice aggression? What a bunch of crap!

Also, why is this woman showing off such revealing decolletage, with her outfit? Doesn’t she know that this is totally offensive to “trans” women who may not have commenced taking “transition” hormones and/or undergoing “reassignment” surgery to acquire their own breasts?

texansamurai | May 21, 2020 at 9:46 am

imagine the plight of the poor bastards who choose to live with a woman like this–lord–am ashamed to say that have a cousin(a shrink) who could give this woman a run for her money in the obnoxious dumbass event–her husband has the patience of Job but even with that, am simply amazed that he can deal with her and has for years

perhaps she has some redeeming quality(ies) that would make the experience endurable but, as of the last 25+ years or so, have seen zero evidence to the contrary

    guyjones in reply to texansamurai. | May 21, 2020 at 10:19 pm

    Samurai-san, I can tell you, flat-out — I would rather commit seppuku with a dull butter knife, than live with a transparently miserable scold/nag/shrew/harridan/termagant, such as this woman.

Perhaps she needs to focus on the meeting agenda and the people attending the meeting rather than looking for things in the background to be offended by. If you want to video conference into peoples’ homes, you get to see what people have in their homes. Deal with it.

Now there’s a great prescription for how to go through life. Spend all your time and energy worrying about what every nitwit you interact with is thinking and feeling about you. Brilliant.

Frank Hammond | May 21, 2020 at 10:29 am

Michigan State pays these nit-wits to invent this crap? How did they get that gig?

Interesting policy from an institution whose President (Lyin LouAnna the Sodomite), Provost, and other top officials knew, supported, and funded a University physician who raped hundreds of female MSU scholarship athletes over several years.

Only someone who is receiving their excessive taxpayer funded salary could be so clueless as to put this forth during a pandemic. Too much money and too much time on her hands. Perhaps she could volunteer at a food pantry where the real need is instead of putting out this drivel.

You got it, FarOutWest!

It reminds me, in a way, of Uncle Joe, speaking his words and views of inspiration, motivation to this year’s Columbia U’s law grads, realizing, at some inescapable, undeniable juncture in his (naturally nonsystematic) illogical, pretentious and absurd horsesh**t that, in the end, future lawyers (and I’m paraphrasing), it’s all about having the right character, ie, practicing ethically and conscientiously, to make it a dedicated life worth living, and a better life for all.

You know the thing.

But, in particular, and more directly, such collegiate “studies” and comments at present seem not only idiotic and useless; they’re essentially antisocial, solipsistic, and patently immoral, apart from any First Amendment constitutional concerns, which I certainly have.

In all, this is what being on the road to mass ignorance and social degeneracy and decline looks like in the postmodern, “my- truth” era of pseudo-philosophical me-speak alone. There is the sure disappearance, the evaporation of what Martin Buber identified, at the bottom of all true authentic coexistence, as the life of The Between. It was, in times past, what provided for balance between subjects’ claims and postures, and balance today increasingly is no longer the essence of justice and peace, and any recognized morality at a common base.

Serfdom comes in many forms, and the historical Spartans must be turning in their graves, as it were. In leading a united Greek force of thousands, the real Spartans of history in no way relate to the MSU professor’s remarks in particular and the neo-Marxist decoy of me-ism in general today; not connected to anything the Greeks fought hundreds of thousands of invading Persians and died for at Thermopylae in 480 BCE — as JFK spoke to it so eloquently at his 1961 inauguration, still carrying the torch, ” . . . the survival and success of liberty”.

Better, then, that MSU — if it really claims any semblance of Western lineage in its partial intellectual reason for being — have as its mascot, say, the Quislings to be historically consistent.

Stamp out the proliferation of the widespread neo-Marxists’ liberty-, justice-, and peace-eroding fraud and plunder in our midst. End the cultural treason!

Or when a Professor uses a comment like . . .
“. . . when the virtual background of a Zoom meeting attendee has pictures of his or her wedding,”

It unintentionally reinforces the idea that people are uniformly cisgender and excludes 0.4% of the population that are transgender or pansexual.

How dare she!

I’m going to get myself in trouble. Sorry, Ladies.

Back in the ’90s somebody did a study r.e. women in combat. If you gave women 3 hours a day to work out they could develop 60% of the upper body strength of a man of the same weight.

There’s not much disparity when it comes to the lower body.

I was like, “So?” I can drag some guy in off the street and turn him into a deck ape. Why should I want to try this with some chick, who I have to schedule around her work outs, and OBTW when I was in school 60% was a failing grade.

All the cool kids were totes onboard with sending women into combat. Oddly, none of the women I knew agreed.

So this cool kid tries to give me an answer. “Women are more educated.” My first response was to say you’d be unsatisfied with a similar response if we were talking about Pakistan.

Funny how the uneven distribution of education is a bad thing depending on how it is gendered.

But I also look at this s*** and I gotta tell you. I don’t want my Sailors and Marines infected with this crap.

harleycowboy | May 21, 2020 at 6:49 pm

HOLY CRAP!!! It’s here. It’s there. It’s EVERYWHERE! All one has to do is look for it and you’ll convince yourself you’ve found it.

Okay, what was that again? I was distracted by her tits.

stpaulchuck | May 22, 2020 at 1:13 am

micro brains clasp onto micro aggressions. I welcome the SMOD in hopes it lands on a university or Washington.

The “social sciences”? It’s a perversion of the word “science”. To be renamed, “study of the useless”.