Psychology Prof Leaves American Psychological Association Over Their Embrace of Woke Ideology
“a complete capitulation to far-left ideology following the murder of George Floyd”
Christopher J. Ferguson teaches psychology at Stetson University, and he is unimpressed with the APA’s embrace of the left.
He writes at Quillette:
My APA Resignation
I’ve been a member of the American Psychological Association (APA) for years, and a fellow for the past six or seven years. I sat on their Council of Representatives, which theoretically sets policy for the APA, for three years. I am just ending my term as president of the APA’s Society for Media and Technology, where I have met many wonderful colleagues. Yet, at the end of 2021, I decided to resign my membership in the APA. My concern is that the APA no longer functions as an organization dedicated to science and good clinical practice. As a professional guild, perhaps it never did, but I believe it is now advancing causes that are actively harmful and I can no longer be a part of it…
The ideological capture of the men and boys guideline in particular should have been a red flag of what was to follow: a complete capitulation to far-left ideology following the murder of George Floyd. That murder raised legitimate questions not only of criminal justice reform (of which I am a supporter) but also reignited simmering debates about race. Such conversations are understandably emotionally fraught and often ideological, with deep right-left divides on the topic. There’s a wide range of space between believing the US is still mired in Jim Crow and that it is a racial utopia, but it is often hard to guide conversation into that constructive middle ground, where nuanced and data-driven conversations can be difficult but productive. What we don’t need is our science organizations going all-in on one side of our polarized divide and stoking furor with hyperbolic statements. Unfortunately, that is exactly what the APA and other left-leaning organizations did.
In May 2020, the APA’s then-president (the position is largely honorary, rotating each year) Sandra L. Shullman, referred to the US experiencing a “racism pandemic.” The second word is basically a cliché obviously borrowing the buzzword from the COVID19 era which had just hit the US two months earlier. Shullman, speaking officially for the APA, went on to say, “The deaths of innocent black people targeted specifically because of their race—often by police officers—are both deeply shocking and shockingly routine. If you’re black in America—and especially if you are a black male—it’s not safe to go birding in Central Park, to meet friends at a Philadelphia Starbucks, to pick up trash in front of your own home in Colorado or to go shopping almost anywhere.”
These are terrifying words. They’re also at best debatable, arguably simply untrue.
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Comments
The statement “What we don’t need is our science organizations going …” implies that the APA is or was a science organization.
Its own anti-science statements show that the APA is not now, and has never been a “science organization.”
Psychology is not and has never been a science. Either way, it didn’t have to be a political tool. That was a choice. I give this guy points for calling them out on the bad choice.
“If it can’t be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion. ” – Lazarus Long
I wonder how many of these people are aware that allegations of racism had zero — that’s zero — presence in the trial of Derek Chauvin?
Never mind answering — we live in a world where loudmouthed partisans are incapable of comprehending that three dead white rioters whose photos were all over the news were not, in fact, black.
Sorry… two dead, and one on borrowed time.
It takes great wisdom to lead a volunteer organization through a politically charged era. Just look at how many organizations mishandled McCarthyism in the 1950s. Sometimes the best solution is to say, “This is a political matter beyond the scope of our group, and we remain open and welcoming to all sides of the debate.” The trouble is that many political activists always claim “This is a matter beyond debate — if you don’t agree with me you are beyond the pale and should be cancelled.”
He thinks George Floyd was murdered.
He lost me there.
Psychologists – at least in my view – are as much “doctors” as Jill Biden.
Same for psychiatrists. Three-figure $ per hour and it will take 12 years of weekly sessions to cure you.
Psychiatrists have to have an MD before they do the psychiatric specialization. They are, in fact, doctors.
Whether they are good doctors is another question entirely.
True.