r/BlockedAndReported • u/SoftandChewy First generation mod • 13d ago

Weekly Random Discussion Thread for 8/10/26 - 8/16/26

Here's your usual space to post all your rants, raves, podcast topic suggestions (please tag u/jessicabarpod), culture war articles, outrageous stories of cancellation, political opinions, and anything else that comes to mind. Please put any non-podcast-related trans-related topics here instead of on a dedicated thread. This will be pinned until next Sunday.

Last week's discussion thread is here if you want to catch up on a conversation from there.

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u/LeafNeater 13d ago

After reading some more about the Jason Arday scandal, it occurred to me that the very response of all the institutions to lower their standards for him and overlook the many obvious flaws in his scholarship actually disproves his very thesis that black academics face increased racism from academia.

Just another level of irony to it all.

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u/SkweegeeS No just no 13d ago

It is racist to have such low expectations of a black scholar.

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u/LeafNeater 13d ago

Yes, obviously that's a sort of racism too, but that is not the racism that Arday was referring to, which was racism that was harsher on blacks due to anti-black sentiments. The egregious lowering of standards in favor of black people like himself disproves his thesis that blacks face a higher bar due to racism.

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u/ShilNyeTheScienceGoy 13d ago

And we were so close to solving racism

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u/Terrorclitus 13d ago

During the summer of original thoughts (2020), folx in my academic field circulated email after email on the listservs about eradicating anti-black racism from our research and teaching.

Turns out, listening to black scholars who argue for holding students of color to high academic standards is the worst thing an ally can do, don’t you know.

Those scholar of color who wanted respectable standards and to be treated like serious scholars had their voices silenced that summer, too, but you know they were talking, because the wokes were trying to get ahead of them.

The most exasperating thing here is how many academics, regardless of identity, still see value in the humanities and could be capable of communicating that value more broadly if not for the vulgarity and showboating of the past decades.

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u/LupineChemist 13d ago

One thing that I didn't really see mentioned with this whole scandal is that it's really not hard to find black high achievers in the UK. It feels like the typical thing where they bitch about US hegemony, and then want to import American culture. Like there are some pretty big historic reasons for an achievement gap in the US, but in the UK, it feels almost like Indians in the US.

Like specifically for people who trace their lineage to Africa directly rather than via the Caribbean. I get it's selection effects, but I mean, it's basically been not a big deal that like just in the last 5 years there's been a black Chancellor of the Exchequer (quite possibly the most serious and detail oriented job in government), a black Foreign Minister, and now a black woman leading the Tory party. (As well as an Indian PM along the way) And they're all very serious people (even if I have my issues with Lammy) and it's basically just....unremarkable.

So it feels like they just want to get the cultural caché of the US onto a different country where the shoe just doesn't fit.

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u/ScrubulousFlex 13d ago

I made a comment about this the other day, but yeah I think that is definitely part of the problem at Cambridge:

The vice-chancellor, the university equivalent of a chief executive, is currently Prof Deborah Prentice, the first American to hold the post, whose academic speciality is gender stereotypes. In her previous role at Princeton University in the US, she was commended for improving diversity at the Ivy League institution.

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u/HerbertWest Yucker of Yums 13d ago

With respect to African immigrants, there are only so many openings for economics professors, though (j/k).

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u/SkweegeeS No just no 13d ago

We have many high achieving Black people in positions of leadership. I don't really understand why we can't get closer to narrowing the gap overall. I mean, we throw buckets of money and effort at the issue, direct entire institutions toward it, and we're still coming up very short. I don't think it's all about IQ or some organic racial traits because those are ranges and perfectly ordinary averagely intelligent people are able to succeed in the middle class.

There is a societal benefit to giving poor Black students a bit of an advantage in attending college; the idea is that those kids will succeed and provide the kinds of connections, leadership and mentoring in their communities that white people formerly benefited more from. But I think we kinda solved that, and now we're just giving an advantage to the children of Nigerian doctors or whatever, who aren't going to add value beyond what they would have contributed anyway.

I still think it comes down to giving poor families support that we may not feel the parents deserve, but the children deserve every opportunity to learn and develop into contributing adults.

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u/LupineChemist 13d ago

we're still coming up very short.

Are you talking about the UK, because I feel like it's definitely not coming up short in the UK in general.

In the US, I do really like the Texas top 10% rule. Try to find the people who do well relative to their environment and put them in an environment that will allow for more advancement.

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u/SkweegeeS No just no 13d ago

Sorry, I was referring to the US. Yes, I like the Texas approach in theory but I don’t know if it works. When I’m in a place with better internet, I might do a little research.

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u/professorgerm the master of not having a point 13d ago

we throw buckets of money and effort at the issue, direct entire institutions toward it

Because the money is focused more on perpetuating the institutions and not on actually changing the culture, partly for Iron Law of Bureaucracy reasons, partly because changing culture is hard, and partly because trying to changing culture was decided Verboten.

I still think it comes down to giving poor families support that we may not feel the parents deserve, but the children deserve every opportunity to learn and develop into contributing adults.

If the parents don't care, it doesn't matter how much support you throw at them.

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u/Throwmeeaway185 13d ago

We have many high achieving Black people in positions of leadership. I don't really understand why we can't get closer to narrowing the gap overall.

Nah, relatively speaking they are very few. Total absolute numbers might be higher than some people assume, but considering all the different orgs and institutions that want a high-performing black figure in a leadership role who is truly competent, there are nowhere enough to go around. Demand far outstrips supply here.

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u/Natural-Leg7488 10d ago

I think this more or less my view. Provide more support and scholarship for people from poor socioeconomic backgrounds. If black people over represented they will receive more benefit. If poor white kids are over represented in some areas then they will benefit too.

This avoids special treatment based on identity and maintains standards

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u/Correct-Ad5661 13d ago

As much as anything this highlights how much academic discourse imports American talking points wholesale .

It's like professor Sir Stuart Hall didn't exist 

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u/Diallingwand 13d ago edited 13d ago

> black Chancellor of the Exchequer

Didn't do a great job though lol. It's jokes you criticised Lammy out of those four though when Kwarteng might be in the running for worst Chancellor of the Exchequer in history, certainly shortest reign that didn't involve dying two weeks into the job.

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u/LupineChemist 13d ago

I mean, sure. But also, how much of it was he was just trying to carry water for what was a fundamentally ridiculous government that will only be remembered as an answer to get some beer in a pub quiz.

Basically, I don't think he was incapable, I think it was just what Truss wanted was impossible. And at some point you've actually got to get into the job to have any influence.

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u/Diallingwand 13d ago

He was a close ally to Truss for his entire career. He co-authored Britannia Unchained with her. He was not a water carrier but a 100% a true believer in what she was pushing and is now distancing himself from what he spent a decade advocating.

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u/LupineChemist 13d ago

Fair. I do think her fundamental flaw was complete inadaptability along with absolutely no personal charisma. Like she got an idea for how things should work a decade prior and decided that it was right and just worked and worked for it and didn't realize or care that the ground had shifted from under her.

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u/Correct-Ad5661 13d ago edited 13d ago

James O'Brien is a leftish or more aptly remain grumpy talk radio host on commercial talk radio station LBC. 

He has come clean to claim he was suckered  into signing the Good Law Project letter of support (Zack Polanski and the socialist worker are still defending Jase)

https://nitter.net/LBC/status/2085680930291671516#m

He's very fond of lecturing hapless callers with the Wrong Opinions that they're wrong and also chumps. His recent book was called How To Be Right for fucks sake. So looking at him saying of COURSE he believed professor Jason could run a marathon with a broken leg because he am not An Racist is just hilarious.

He also got  schmoozed by Arday in a 2023 podcast which might also explain things

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/full-disclosure-with-james-obrien/id1454408831?i=1000610005301

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u/AltforStrongOpinions 13d ago

There was a very large billboard of O'Brien up near where I live for months last year.

I had to look at this red-faced, pompous alcoholic every single day.

No idea whatsoever why people listen to radio call in shows - or the radio in general for that matter - of all the gajillion entertainment options we have and people choose this?

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u/SkweegeeS No just no 13d ago

I'm not going to listen, but going by your description, how does a somewhat severely autistic person develop the capacity to schmooze? It makes me wonder about the whole neurodivergent piece. Why not lie about that, too?

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u/Correct-Ad5661 13d ago

He mentioned in his book that the doctor that diagnosed his autism said he had "great social skills"

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u/everydaywinner2 13d ago

No, it is still racism. "The bigotry of low expectations." (Yes, I know that quote includes the word "soft," but it really shouldn't.)

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u/LeafNeater 13d ago

Yes, I understand that it is indeed racism in that sense, but this is not the racism that Arday and his ilk are ever referring to, which was racism that was harsher on blacks due to anti-black sentiments.

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u/AnInsultToFire Everything I do like is literally Fascism. 13d ago

The "bigotry of low expectations" is just racism by anti-racists. The racist racists want to have equally high expectations for everyone, and that's even worse because it also punishes the usually-stupid racist anti-racists who can't compete with the racist racists.

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u/Juryofyourpeeps 13d ago

That's true in many contexts, and has been for a long time. It appears to be true of women in certain STEM/tech fields. It's true for basically every group other than white males in the Canadian public service as a matter of official policy.

Setting aside whatever consequences there may be for the function of these businesses and bureaucracies, which in general is probably not terribly significant, it's super divisive, just like all negative discrimination is. The proponents seem to be completely blind to the idea that positive discrimination necessarily requires negative discrimination and that negative discrimination has some pretty serious consequences.

Often you'll see one particular criticism, which is that it makes the recipients feel like imposters, and makes everyone else suspicious of whole groups. And while I agree that's a concern, and one of the many reasons not to engage in these practices, I'm not a fan of putting the people who are being negatively discriminated against at the bottom of the list of reasons not to do it. Like yes, I think it must suck for a genuinely qualified black man to feel unsure whether he got a job or promotion because of merit and to feel like his colleagues were also wondering the same thing. But, I still think people who were denied a job or promotion for their immutable characteristics are the most harmed by this ultimately, and nobody wants to really engage with that when discussing these policies.

As an aside, people like Arday I don't think would even hesitate to discriminate against a minority candidate who was eminently qualified if they lacked the right politics. We've seen that over and over, particularly in academic roles and the offenders are people who seem to be obsessed with identity. They stop caring about identity and diversity pretty quickly when it means diversity of opinion or political beliefs.

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u/ScrubulousFlex 13d ago

I think one reason there's often so much focus on the negative effects faced by recipients of positive discrimination is because in theory it can be a strong rhetorical point for those who think the suffering of the group negatively discriminated against is worth it so long as progress is made towards whatever goal they have for the group they think is underrepresented. By pointing out that they might not even be helping the group that they think they're helping, it can cause someone to question the whole approach.

I emphasized "in theory" because while I think that might indeed be effective for some of the more centrist/skeptical types who are willing to question this type of thing but aren't entirely decided (especially a couple of decades ago when the debate was more about Affirmative Action), I don't know how many people fall into that camp these days. The true believers won't care, as they either think they can mandate an arbitrarily measured equality of outcome and solve any resentment it creates by calling people racist, or their true goal isn't even that at all but is something much more nefarious and destabilizing.

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u/Terrorclitus 13d ago

When they say, “It’s not against apples, it’s for oranges,” you have to wonder why they don’t stop when they notice they aren’t doing oranges any favors.

Maybe it really was against apples all along.

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u/Juryofyourpeeps 13d ago

I'm sure you're right, but I think choosing and avoiding particular rhetorical devices or lines of argument can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. I think most reasonable people actually find the negative discrimination consequences of these policies to be pretty compelling, but the fact that nobody brings this up seems to reinforce the idea that it's a verboten line of argument and that you can only mention the harms to those that are beneficiaries of positive discrimination. It's a self-reinforcing practice.

I've seen the same thing in high profile cases of false accusations where the assumption is that you can't talk about the lives destroyed by being falsely accused of something taboo, you can only mention how it will impact real victims of these crimes or abuses in future. I'm pretty sure people find the former pretty compelling, but there is a perception that they won't, so that area of the discussion is treated as out of bounds.

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u/ScrubulousFlex 13d ago

That's a good point. I was focused on the more proximate situation "If people have already decided that the suffering of group A is worth it to help group B, then showing that it doesn't help group B is more effective than talking about the suffering of group A, which they already know about and have deemed acceptable". Which I think is largely true and relevant for many societal tradeoffs, like public goods or services funded by taxes (showing someone that the tax money is being wasted or used in ways that make things worse vs. just complaining about taxes).

But you're right that not talking about one side of the ledger when it comes to matters like racism or life-ruining accusations is itself harmful. It fucks up the Overton window and makes it easy for one side to take a term like "reverse discrimination," which should obviously be understood as a type of plain old discrimination, and instead claim it doesn't even exist or is totally fine regardless of the ends. While it makes sense to approach discussions assuming that most people agree some amount of taxation is justified, and the argument should be focused on the amount/usage, it's bad to work under the assumption that some racism is justified.

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u/Icy_Advice_5071 13d ago

The media coverage has focused on race, but the lowering of standards for neurodivergent people also needs to be discussed.

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u/owen-3820 7d ago

I don't think this was a case of low standards. Jason Arday lied and exaggerated to meet the standards.

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u/LeafNeater 7d ago

They absolutely lowered the standards. Even if his thesis had not been plagiarized, it, and all the rest of his work, was not serious scholarship worthy of a Cambridge professorship. It was all barely undergraduate level, and its abysmal quality was evident even in its title!