The Clown Quarter Now Has An Engineering Division
Toni Airaksinen notes an interesting expansion of the Clown Quarter ethos:
The leader of Purdue University’s School of Engineering Education recently declared that academic “rigour” reinforces “white male heterosexual privilege.” “One of rigour’s purposes is, to put it bluntly, a thinly veiled assertion of white male (hetero)sexuality,” she writes, explaining that rigour “has a historical lineage of being about hardness, stiffness, and erectness; its sexual connotations — and links to masculinity in particular — are undeniable.”
Hardness and stiffness. And we can’t have any of that beastliness in the minds of people who may one day be working on projects involving cranes and scaffolding. According to Dr Donna Riley, academic rigour and the expectation of competence are “exclusionary” and tools of “privilege,” and are unfair to women and minorities, for whom rigour and competence are presumably impossible. Dr Riley goes on to denounce engineering’s “cultures of whiteness and masculinity,” and informs us that, “scientific knowledge itself is gendered, raced, and colonising.”
To fight this, Riley calls for engineering programmes to “do away with” the notion of academic rigour completely, saying, “This is not about reinventing rigour for everyone, it is about doing away with the concept altogether so we can welcome other ways of knowing. Other ways of being. It is about criticality and reflexivity.”
Yes, the design and construction of fighter jets, oil rigs and 1000-tonne tunnelling machines will one day be informed not by careful calculation, a knowledge of materials and thoroughly tested principles, but by criticality, reflexivity and “other ways of being.”
Dr Riley is the author of the little-read tome Engineering and Social Justice, which she describes as “an attempt to explain the lack of emphasis on social justice in engineering.” The term “social justice” is, we’re told, “difficult to define” and “resists a concise and permanent definition,” a problem illustrated by the author’s own struggle to arrive at a convincing definition, despite deploying the term on every other page. But apparently, engineers need to spend less time doing load-bearing calculations and more time pondering “radical protest” and “Marxist traditions.” Needless to say, Dr Riley opens the book by congratulating herself for having devised “alternative ways of thinking” that are “challenging,” and which, for those less enlightened, may be “difficult to understand.”
Update, via the comments:
Although Dr Riley’s prose is often lumpen and unclear – clarity might prompt mockery, I suppose – there’s much that’s implied. For instance,
Rigour accomplishes dirty deeds, however, serving three primary ends across engineering, engineering education, and engineering education research: disciplining, demarcating boundaries, and demonstrating white male heterosexual privilege.
That last one still feels comically jarring, as if shoehorned in, dutifully.
Understanding how rigour reproduces inequality, we cannot reinvent it but rather must relinquish it, looking to alternative conceptualisations for evaluating knowledge, welcoming diverse ways of knowing, doing, and being, and moving from compliance to engagement, from rigour to vigour.
Cynic that I am, I can’t help wondering whether those undefined “alternative conceptualisations” would entail patronising students based on whichever Designated Victim Group they can be said to belong to, provided you tilt your head and squint, and regardless of whether the individual student wishes it or not, and regardless of any consequent alienation and resentment. So if a student is suitably brown or female or discernibly gay, then their supposedly “diverse ways of knowing” – i.e., lack of rigour – would be indulged to an extent that those dreadful white male heterosexuals could only dream of. As Dr Riley complains that rigour – i.e., a standard of competence – generates both inequality and “white male heterosexual privilege,” presumably she would rather we erased distinctions more broadly, between ability and mediocrity, and between diligence and half-arsedness. Though her own so-called scholarship, and indeed her employment, suggests that these wishes may already be coming true.
Somewhat related: “Social justice theorist” Dr Riyad A Shahjahan tells us that punctuality and competence are racist and oppressive.
Also related: These clowns here, at the University of Washington, Tacoma. The ones who tell students that grammar is “racist” and “an unjust language structure,” and where supposedly professional educators spent over a year writing a single 500-word press release.
Well, now we know why those clown cars fall apart halfway through the show.
“scientific knowledge itself is gendered, raced, and colonising.”
Yeah, don’t do that thing that’s shown to work. You might catch whiteness.
You might catch whiteness.
Quite.
“The leader of Purdue University’s School of Engineering Education”
All together now…
Those who can’t, teach!
Dr Riley is the author of the little-read tome Engineering and Social Justice, which she describes as “an attempt to explain the lack of emphasis on social justice in engineering.”
It’s a mystery.
This morning, Typepad has been up and down like a tart’s nether-garments. If you’re having trouble posting comments… well, er, actually, there’s bugger all I can do.
If anyone ever wondered how the Dark Ages began, then this would be a good illustration.
The cult-like undertone of “social justice” posturing is, I think, getting harder to miss. As seen above and repeatedly in the archives, it’s not just narcissistic, pretentious, paranoid and irrational; it’s actively anti-rational. Which is to say, it’s mentally, morally and socially corrosive.
Dr Riley goes on to denounce engineering’s “cultures of whiteness and masculinity,”
Is she counting all the Asian engineering students as white now?
“The leader of Purdue University’s School of Engineering Education“
A visit to their web site is instructive, it was a plain old boring school of engineering until 2004 when it appears to have gone off the rails and become the School of Engineering Education, in 2006 they ground out their first PhD in “Engineering Education” followed by lots of grant money and a “Headship” because it is a nice gender neutral term for Chairman.
The “Engineering Education Academics” are where it gets silly after the first year which is pretty standard – “Pre-Chiropractic Engineering” (all you need to get into a chiropractic school is two years of junior college and a check that doesn’t bounce); “Pre-Law Engineering Studies” (I suppose this will be useful in having a background to sue when the planes crash and bridges collapse); “Visual Design Engineering Studies” (“Their work may include designing restaurant layouts to convey visual ambience as well as improve efficiency of service, building stylish but functional devices (e.g. phones, tablets, laptops), furniture design, and automotive exterior design that considers both aesthetics and aerodynamics.”), right…Harley Earl could not be reached for comment.
It gets better, my favorite is “Humanitarian Engineering”:
That is some fine SJW gibberish.
In short “Engineering Education” is:
a) How to bloat up a department so that sinecures can be maintained;
b) Why I don’t and won’t own a car made after 2000.
Is she counting all the Asian engineering students as white now?
Heh. Students of East Asian descent, male and female, do tend to be the second largest demographic on engineering courses in the US and UK, except, that is, where they come first, by quite a margin. But something tells me Dr Riley isn’t overly concerned by such details, or by reality in general. There are predetermined conclusions to jump to.
We’ve been here before, of course. As when the Marxist philosophy lecturer Nina Power insisted, based on nothing, that, being unequally distributed, knowledge and competence are outmoded and unfair, and that “everyone is equally intelligent.” As I said at the time, if Dr Power were involved in a serious traffic accident, I’m guessing she’d want paramedics and surgeons who possessed the kind of “hierarchical” expertise that she airily dismisses. I doubt she’d be happy to go under a knife wielded by someone who’d been taught in the haphazard manner she advocates for others.
And ditto Dr Riley.
Not to worry. We’ll just put Purdue’s politically/socially reliable graduates in charge of designing and building all those “stack-a-prole” apartment blocks so beloved among Leftists everywhere. You know, they kind where the cornices would start falling off before any tenants had been stuffed in. See also, this.
“One of rigour’s purposes is, to put it bluntly, a thinly veiled assertion of white male (hetero)sexuality,” she writes,
So if my (brown female) doctor does her job properly she’s asserting her white male (hetero)sexuality?
#confused
So if my (brown female) doctor does her job properly she’s asserting her white male (hetero)sexuality?
Heh. Yes. It’s thinly veiled.
I wonder whether Dr. Riley has thought this through. Does she really thank that her students’ potential employers are going to jump on board with eliminating rigour in Purdue’s programs and competence among its graduates?
At one point we used to say it doesn’t matter if you don’t believe in science, gravity and the other laws of nature will still continue to work. Why do I feel that some people saw that as a challenge.
The School of Engineering Education has almost nothing to do with Engineering, other than running the Freshman Engineering experience. It exists to give non-Asian minorities and women employment opportunities, and as a beachhead for SJW entryism. At one time, their Interdisciplinary program was a good way to get a combined engineering and science degree, but most people who went that route now go through the School of Biomedical Engineering.
And don’t forget these clowns here. The ones who tell students that grammar is “racist” and “an unjust language structure,” and who spent over a year writing a single 500-word press release.
Ayn Rand is not my guru; I don’t follow her ideas blindly or slavishly as some do. However, that doesn’t mean that she wasn’t correct about some things. David’s story reads like something lifted out of “Atlas Shrugged”, when the Wet Nurse talks to Hank Rearden.
To repeat, she’s not my guru, but I can’t help noting that her predictive power exceeds that of the climate change gang by a considerable margin.
a beachhead for SJW entryism.
It’s quite bizarre to struggle through Dr Riley’s writing, which is rambling, dutifully mannered and removed from reality, with its endless begged questions and idle assumptions about various Designated Victim Groups. It’s the sense that, while a great deal of effort has gone into conforming to the fashions and expectations of her “social justice” peer-group, there’s seemingly little concern for whether what’s being written has veered beyond the merely dubious and into the absurd. I got through a couple of chapters and kept thinking, “Do you not hear yourself?”
From Dr Rileys bio.:
In 2005, she received a NSF CAREER award on implementing and assessing pedagogies of liberation in engineering classrooms.
Whut?
At least she does have a degree in Chemical Engineering but doesn’t seemed to have ever worked as an Engineer.
Yes, the design and construction of … oil rigs … will one day be informed not by careful calculation, a knowledge of materials and thoroughly tested principles, but …
… by arrogantly declaring the management is always right and browbeating every employee into sheep-like compliance, with the resulting catastrophe blamed on subcontracted parties?
A little more seriously, what this cretin doesn’t realise is that one of the few ways ethnic minorities who hail from shitholes can rise above the swamp that continually pulls everyone down is by studying a discipline which demonstrates hard work and commitment, is based on principles universally recognised internationally, provides steady employment, and pays reasonably well. One such discipline is engineering, and I’ve met a very great many decent engineers who have been non-white, female, and often both. I bet the idiot who wrote the piece hasn’t met one in her life.
Remind me to never drive over a bridge designed by any of “Dr” Riley’s students…
If my experiences in engineering undergraduate education and two separate engineering firms are any indication, engineering as a discipline has enough problems with ethics and competence without loading it up with this mess.
studying a discipline which demonstrates hard work and commitment*
*May not apply to those who scraped a 2:1 by the thickness of a Rizla thanks to a 4th year industrial placement which succeeded because said scholar used to go with the company management to Maine Road on Saturdays. Ahem.
engineering as a discipline has enough problems with ethics and competence without loading it up with this mess.
Heh! Seconded.
@champ, I had similar worries, but judging by Farnsworth’s comment above, there is precious little chance of any graduates from this department engineering anything other than a Big Mac.
one of the few ways ethnic minorities who hail from shitholes can rise above the swamp… is by studying a discipline which demonstrates hard work and commitment, is based on principles universally recognised internationally, provides steady employment, and pays reasonably well.
Well, yes. Rigour and conscientiousness tend to have value. And yet Dr Riley seems much more animated by the fact that some careers and disciplines are regarded as more intellectually rigorous, and more statusful, than others. Often disciplines that require a high IQ, rare skills and aptitudes, and most likely some hardcore number-crunching. Apparently, this is somehow unfair.
If you poke through the preview chapters of her book Engineering and Social Justice, you’ll find some boosting of so-called “critical race theory,” a paragraph on Larry Summers’ comments on women in STEM that’s laughably glib and misleading, and of course Marx gets a rhetorical tongue-bath. But the thing is basically a disorderly pile of assertion, with rambling tangents and irrelevant name-dropping, and very little argument in any formal sense. And no explanation of why engineering students should be wasting their time on the “social justice” claptrap that Dr Riley wants to peddle.
In 2005, she received a NSF CAREER award on implementing and assessing pedagogies of liberation in engineering classrooms.
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency.
So, once again leftists in government are using our tax dollars to defraud us, indoctrinate our children, and destroy our culture.
I have been told numerous times that few in government are radical leftists, but rather are reasonable and moderate reality-based liberals. And yet none of them call our attention to this garbage.
“…a thinly veiled assertion of white male (hetero)sexuality,” she writes, explaining that rigour “has a historical lineage of being about hardness, stiffness, and erectness …”
Anyone else notice the homophobia? I get hard, stiff, and erect too, Dr. Riley.
I get hard, stiff, and erect too, Dr. Riley.
[ Slides plastic sheeting underneath Dom. ]
I’m concerned for my upholstery.
Anyone else notice the homophobia?
Do you mean androphobia / misandry?
“Do you mean Andropov is …”
She associates hardness, etc, with heteros, as though gay men are limp and flaccid. That’s homophobia in my book.
Andropov is = androphobia. Spell corrector.
Andropov is stiff, too. Has been for quite a while.
as though gay men are limp and flaccid
Only their wrists? (ducks)
As I recall. Post-modern fraudster Jacques Derrida was also fond of claiming that anything in the STEM fields that had to do with “hardness, stiffness, and erectness” was an inarguable sign of male sexism.
Please, someone tell me that this is a joke…
It’s only the lack of a budget which delays the apotheosis of Dr. Riley’s career; the world’s first suspension bridge with a monthly cycle.
My car’s a 2013 but it was engineered and designed in Japan, and built by deplorables on an Ohio assembly line, so I figure it’s pretty safe.
Speaking of engineering, let’s have a round of applause for the henchlesbians, who fixed Typepad right up after David issued them screwdrivers. (The metal kind.)
Politicaly incorrect slogan from an ’80s fad: Engineers do it by the book.
What were once vices are now habits.
Dr Riley is the author of the little-read tome Engineering and Social Justice, which she describes as “an attempt to explain the lack of emphasis on social justice in engineering.”
Or, Why All The Proper, Non-Bullshit Subjects Need A Social Justice Add-On To Keep Me Employed.
…explaining that rigour “has a historical lineage of being about hardness, stiffness, and erectness; its sexual connotations — and links to masculinity in particular — are undeniable.”
In a sane world, this is when the Purdue board would quietly urge this woman to seek help, arrange a face-saving sabbatical to be followed by a quiet demotion, and reassure students that there is indeed nothing at all priapic about hard work and intellectual rigor.
Hardness and stiffness
Nobody tell her about the Rigid Tool Company!
the Rigid Tool Company
I’ll just drop this here and pretend I haven’t noticed.
Speaking of deranged feminists, I’ve downloaded the first of what I think will be a series of podcasts of Laurie Penny and her sister discussing things. I’m going to try to get through it, just to see how bad a podcast can really get.
I’ve downloaded the first of what I think will be a series of podcasts of Laurie Penny and her sister discussing things.
Do report back.
I can see that rigor is hard (as in hard evidence) but why is it stiff and erect? Why don’t we just call it “big-breasted” and, uh, moist? Problem solved.
And fishy. Evidence is fishy.
And fishy. Evidence is fishy.
You can’t use that word.
Didn’t you get the memo?
Why All The Proper, Non-Bullshit Subjects Need A Social Justice Add-On To Keep Me Employed.
Exactly. And then the usual tactics start…
I can see that rigor is hard (as in hard evidence) but why is it stiff and erect?
Why cannot academic rigor be firm, yet supple, lusciously shaped and sculpted, whose major points brush up against sheer (thinly veiled?) assertions? Asking for a friend. Engineering can be a lonely profession, you know.
Speaking of deranged feminists, I’ve downloaded the first of what I think will be a series of podcasts of Laurie Penny and her sister discussing things. I’m going to try to get through it, just to see how bad a podcast can really get.
I am sure Ms Penny will be all over this item. A nice discussion point for your podcast.
https://www.redstate.com/brandon_morse/2017/12/12/feminist-lists-10-questions-feminists-ask-first-date…allow-answer/
Tim Newman-
I’d be interested in listening to this podcast. I looked around a bit, but didn’t find it. What’s it called?
I propose a new physical unit to measure either squishiness, instability, or failure-proneness: The Airak.
“Rigid body Dynamics.” If you know what I mean.
Nobody tell her about the Rigid Tool Company!
It even has a long history of association with engineering.
Here I was expecting Dr. Riley to be styled as holding the Trofim Lysenko Chair in Applied Sciences.
…it’s mentally, morally and socially corrosive.
It’s not corrosion to the Woke Engineer ™. It’s spontaneous compounding.
I’m going to try to get through it, just to see how bad a podcast can really get.
@Tim, Thanks for taking one for the team, you are a braver man than I…
… her predictive power exceeds that of the climate change gang by a considerable margin.
Okay, but you have to admit that that’s kind of a low bar.
…with the resulting catastrophe blamed on subcontracted parties?
Hmmm. I had thought the usual suspects for such catastrophes were wreckers, Trotskyites, and fascist agents.
As a female in a physical science and engineering field I am offended – no – freaking pissed off at this jackass and her idiotic “theories”. May the bridge she wants built without rigour collapse under her stupid arse and may her rescuers be white heterosexual males.
Where does the idiocy end? How much damage will we let happen before we say enough is enough?
GRRRRRRRRRRRRR
I’m so angry I can’t read the rest of this blog post. At least not right now.
A bfridge built in accordance with caring, sharing, flexible social justice principles, regard to other ways of being, and with full heed to criticality and reflexivity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFzu6CNtqec
A bridge built in accordance with caring, sharing, flexible social justice principles,
Another taste of Dr Riley’s egalitarian pretensions can be found here, filed under feminist theory:
As Dr Riley complains that rigour – i.e., a standard of competence – generates both inequality and “white male heterosexual privilege,” presumably she would rather we erased distinctions more broadly, between ability and mediocrity, and between diligence and half-arsedness. Though her own so-called scholarship, and indeed her employment, suggests that her wishes may already be coming true.
Although Dr Riley’s prose is clotted and lumpen, and her meaning often unclear – clarity might prompt mockery, I suppose – there’s plenty that’s implied. For instance,
Cynic that I am, I can’t help wondering if those undefined “alternative conceptualisations” would entail patronising students based on which Designated Victim Group they can be said to belong to, provided you tilt your head and squint, and regardless of whether the individual student wishes it or not. So if a student is suitably brown or female or whatever, their supposedly “diverse ways of knowing” – i.e., not being rigorous – would be indulged to an extent that those dreadful white male heterosexuals could only dream of.
And another thing.
Dr Riley, who describes herself as an “Engineering professor | social justice advocate | Presbyqueerian,” seems unable to grasp a number of fairly obvious things, or at least things that practical experience might reveal. Including the fact that a diverse group of people, of whatever sex, colour and sexual appetite, can find common purpose and mutual respect through a shared wish to make something work via effort and rigour. The respect for expertise, and a dislike of sloppiness, may be the thing that unites them. Whereas extending wildly different standards to participants based on their sex and melanin levels, in the name of “social justice,” seems likely to foster alienation and resentment.
Kurt Schlichter on ‘woke’ conservatism. I think it reveals the mindset of those who pander to minorities and irrelevant angry studies that is a staple of this fine blog Mr Thompson
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2017/12/11/woke-conservatives-and-the-awesome-power-of-not-caring-n2420738
The problem isn’t “Dr.” Riley, it is every other element in our society that has put her in this position and given her this degree of power. Starting with her education. How does someone of such muddled, weak thinking acquire not just a bachelors, but a masters and a PhD? Who is responsible for her track record that put her in position to be the leader of Purdue’s engineering education school? There are numerous people, committees, administrators who looked at her credentials, interviewed her, and gave her this job. Purdue isn’t some slouch school. It’s one of the finest (or maybe was) Engineering schools in the US. Note that I’m not excusing her, but she is perfectly entitled to be crazy on her own. And it is simple human nature to have ambitions. Even for, I might even say especially for, the feeble minded. If any of this idiocy is to change, it is the people responsible for her rise in stature who must be held accountable, publicly mocked if necessary.
Also, wtf is a Presbyqueerian? Not that I can’t presume, but when I attempted to look it up, Google assumed I meant Presbyterian. My iPad lookup gave me a link to a Californian named Lukas who is a 19 year old, 6’4”, and bi. Was afraid to click that. Is it a thing or just some crap people say to look cute? Asking for a Presbyterian friend. No, really this time. I enjoy pushing his buttons.
I’d be interested in listening to this podcast. I looked around a bit, but didn’t find it. What’s it called?
Here.
Good God, just looked up her profile on Purdue’s web site and apparently prior to working at Pudue she was running a similarly named school at Virginia Tech. And her Twitter feed…smdh.
Do report back.
1. Laurie’s sister speaks like a member of the royal family. Serious posho.
2. A retarded member, I should add.
3. Sounds about 12 years old.
4. So does Laurie, come to think of it.
5. 3 mins in. Nothing but giggling so far.
6. Lots of woolly talk about sisterhood. Yawn.
7. Oh wait: sisterhood is political. Who knew?
8. These two would be quite at home on a show called Mary Berry’s Best Upper-Class Recipes.
9. Sorry I’ve not commented on the actual content. That’s because there appears to be none.
10. Lots of giggling about Green Day.
11. Eleanor is proper posh. Laurie is putting on an estuary accent, I feel.
12. 10 mins in, this is a lot less annoying than I expected, tbh. Mainly because they’re not actually saying anything. The discussion has the depth of a washing-powder advert.
13. Eleanor is worried about the way the political concept of sisterhood has evolved.
14. Transphobia in the UK media is a particular problem, apparently. To be fair, they’re at least addressing the clash between feminist nutters and trannies.
15. Eleanor seems a bit smarter than Laurie. More eloquent when expressing empty thoughts, anyway.
16. Language is important. We shouldn’t call people turds.
17. TERFs, sorry.
18. Laurie has cis-privilege and is also gender-queer.
19. Trans women require “transformative economic justice”. Eleanor enjoys a good working relationship with a thesaurus.
20. Eleanor is troubled by a re-writing of patriarchal script. First world problem?
21. If you don’t have access to the podcast, just listen to two random schoolgirls on a bus.
22. “The history of radical lesbian feminism has been lost”. The world is no doubt poorer as a result.
23. Ten minutes left. This is as dull as ditchwater. At least Laurie’s articles are littered with rank stupidity for entertainment. This is just vapid nonsense.
24. Republican men are more of a danger to children than feminists. Bold stuff, this.
25. “Bathrooms are really really important. Everyone needs to wee.”
26. Standards can’t be applied universally, e.g. excluding white men is fine, excluding women of colour isn’t.
27. Physical safety of trans women trumps the comfort of cis women. So trannies get to use the women’s bathrooms.
28. 5 mins to go. I’m getting hungry. I’m going to order the biggest fucking sausage I can find.
29. Something is “incredibly problematic”. I doubt it, whatever it is.
30. Laurie got to choose her sister’s middle name. Who would have guessed her parents were permissive types?
31. Discussion on their nicknames when they were kids. More giggling. And sisterhood is magic.
32. That’s it. Yeah, find a bus, sit in front of two random teenage girls, and listen in for half and hour. Alternatively, tune into to Laurie and Eleanor Penny’s podcast.
Eleanor is proper posh. Laurie is putting on an estuary accent, I feel.
“It’s so consummate.”
Something is “incredibly problematic”. I doubt it, whatever it is.
I was planning to listen to it all, but after about five minutes I felt like I’d lost an armful of blood.
I need a biscuit, stat.
The problem isn’t “Dr.” Riley, it is every other element in our society that has put her in this position and given her this degree of power.
The Rileys of the world are luxuries some people or institutions afford themselves in order to massage their egos. Either that, or they are the sacrificial virgin in the volcano to keep the certain gods from getting angry. Purdue has a good enough reputation that it can absorb Riley’s lunacy with little effect. It makes the administrators feel good and also allows them to say, “See, we’re socially conscious. Go bother Georgia Tech.” As long as she remains confined to the Engineering Education program and its graduates are properly identified to allow potential employers to avoid them, she shouldn’t cause too much damage in the real world, where her pronouncements will be most likely ignored.
Somewhat related, and I don’t recall if this has been visited here before, but behold the might and majesty of the White Privilege Checklist.
There are 50 items, and some serious reaching in most, here are a few:
1. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time. So can the people who live in Compton
6. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented. Evidently Miss McIntosh does neither as “minorities” are far from it in the media.
9. If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege. There is a sucker and Useless Studies Journal born every minute.
13. Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability. The idiocy here speaks for itself
18. I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty or the illiteracy of my race. Rednecks not included, offer void below the Line of Mason and Dixon.
24. I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to the “person in charge”, I will be facing a person of my race. Evidently this Person of Pallor hasn’t been to any government agency lately
25. If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race. Miss McIntosh is from the astoundingly white and very affluent Wellesley, Massachusetts, and the IRS Form 1040 doesn’t list race.
34. I can worry about racism without being seen as self-interested or self-seeking. As that is all there is for the SJW crowd, there is a mighty failure of introspection here.
40. I can choose public accommodation without fearing that people of my race cannot get in or will be mistreated in the places I have chosen.Miss McIntosh evidently thinks she lives in 1950s Mississippi, or that 2017 Mississippi is just like 1950s Mississippi.
46. I can chose blemish cover or bandages in “flesh” color and have them more or less match my skin. Neither of these things have been called “flesh” for a couple of decades, and if you really want a Band-Aid that matches your skin, there is always “Clear”.
RTWT, it is a wonder she didn’t pull a hamstring from the logic leaps.
the IRS Form 1040 doesn’t list race
To be fair (because I’m feeling masochistic today), race can often be determined by name. My college has a significant percentage of black students, and I’m often in a position to see their names. Such names are not typical of any other racial group for the most part. It’s not a perfect proxy, but it’ll serve more often than not.
Shouldn’t you introduce ‘Menopausal Munter Alert’ tag for your posts? So we are not tempted to Google the pics.
As an engineer (software, so sort-of and yet at other times more-so) I am very uncomfortable with such a level of complacency. It’s the camel’s nose under the tent. It’s allowing the “Clown Quarter” to get more of a foothold in territory beyond their “quarter”. Territory that we never should have conceded to them in the first place. If this nonsense is going to stop, it must be in such a way that Purdue or similar will tell the Dr. Rileys of the world, and her (xer?) fellow travelers to “go bother Georgia Tech” because we do real engineering here at Perdue. Hence the problem is with the administrators who do not tell the clowns to return to their circuses. They are the ones that need to be hounded out of office.
Again, we are talking Purdue here. Not North Georgia Technical College. Ironically or not, I am beginning to think that I should view resumes from North Georgia Technical College with more respect. I feel it is much more likely students at the latter may have had to work in the real world, discover why they need an engineering education, actually want one, and thus have a better grasp of the entirety of engineering than the children who have percolated through our weak education system.
25. If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race. Miss McIntosh is from the astoundingly white and very affluent Wellesley, Massachusetts, and the IRS Form 1040 doesn’t list race.
In the late 1970’s my very average first generation middle class (white) parents were audited by a very nasty black lady from the IRS. Went so far as to question my $1/week church tithes. Asked for proof that I made up those $1 amounts the following Sundays for Sundays that I did not attend. But I suppose that was all our “white privilege” working for us.
@WTP
I don’t disagree. I wrote only note that Riley and her ilk exist because we/society/academe can afford it . . . for the moment. Competence will always rise to the top. Bridges, roads, sewer treatment plants, aircraft still need to be built and built well. Computers must be programmed and algorithms don’t give a damn about the racial make-up or sexual proclivities of those writing them. (BTW, my son is a senior with a 4.0 in Applied Math and Software Engineering, Minor in E.E. and Computer Engineering.) We tolerate Riley because we can. If/when that changes, she will find herself screeching into the ether. The Liberal Arts & Humanities are beginning to see that. STEM will not make the same mistakes.
Kind of, sort of related.
I don’t disagree. I wrote only note that Riley and her ilk exist because we/society/academe can afford it . . . for the moment. Competence will always rise to the top. Bridges, roads, sewer treatment plants, aircraft still need to be built and built well.
I don’t disagree either…except for “Competence will always rise to the top”. I submit exhibits A thru ZZZZZZZZ the bridges, sewer treatment plants, and aircraft of not just the USSR/Russia, Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea and such but Mexico, Jamaica, India, parts of Italy, etc. etc. etc.
STEM will not make the same mistakes.
I’m not so sure about that. Rust never sleeps. There have been efforts, looking at you Buzz Aldrin, to promote STEAM in place of STEM. Arts, with a capital “A” and that rhymes with “K” which stands for Karl Marx. OK, I’m no Henry Hill, but still…
BTW, my son is a senior with a 4.0 in Applied Math and Software Engineering, Minor in E.E. and Computer Engineering.)
Congrats on that. Prolly already know this but Machine Learning is hot right now. Perhaps not a hot as it should be but it is driving considerable investment. My 2 cents is such companies need to see themselves not as software efforts but as data science efforts.
From Kind of, sort of related
Yeah, turns out those weren’t “fantasies” the Right was having. It was something better known as “reality”. You can generally tell the difference as there are fewer unicorns and rainbows in the latter.
Doh! Just noticed I meant to say the opposite above, re:
Perhaps not a hot as it should be…
Should be:
Perhaps hotter than it should be…
sigh.
I don’t disagree either…except for “Competence will always rise to the top”. I submit exhibits A thru ZZZZZZZZ the bridges, sewer treatment plants, and aircraft of not just the USSR/Russia, Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea and such but Mexico, Jamaica, India, parts of Italy, etc. etc. etc.
The corpses of engineers who raised objections support your point.
I’m no Henry Hill, but still…
Harold Hill
The problem isn’t “Dr.” Riley, it is every other element in our society that has put her in this position and given her this degree of power.
This cannot be said too often.
For instance, the only reason that unrepentant Stalinist terrorists have become tenured professors is that so many in academia cannot really see anything wrong with even Stalinism, and would rather slit their wrists than be thought guilty of “unfairness” to “heroic progressives”.
Harold Hill
Yeah, that either.
Kind of, sort of related
What’s rarely addressed is that the psychodrama and delinquency – the fits of belligerent, hysterical victimhood – emerge as an all but inevitable consequence of the ‘ethos’ that now grips much of academia. The endless blather about “equity” – which realistically translates as ‘equality of outcome regardless of inputs’ – is absurd and immoral. It also provides a ready-made excuse for any resentment or sense of inadequacy, and a license for any subsequent misbehaviour. If an ungifted student, say, a beneficiary of racial favouritism, finds themselves struggling with the expected standard of work and falling behind, they can invoke “institutional racism” and phantom “microaggressions” as explaining their own shortcomings. Even attempts to correct basic spelling and punctuation errors can be framed as constituting a “hostile and toxic environment.”
And a rapidly-growing industry of enablers will indulge these fantasies of persecution, thereby making their own positions appear indispensable, and creating a grotesque, delusional feedback loop, in which opportunistic aggressors are applauded for their aggression. And so we arrive at supposedly professional educators telling students that grammar is “racist” and therefore they needn’t learn the basics of their own national language. As if this self-satisfied ignorance will serve them in the job market when they’re saddled with debt and a worthless qualification. And likewise we arrive at clown-shoe leftists, such as Drs Riley, Hollins and Shahjahan, insisting that expectations of competence, punctuality and rigour are inegalitarian and therefore somehow oppressive, and therefore to be dispensed with.
As if this self-satisfied ignorance will serve them in the job market when they’re saddled with debt and a worthless qualification.
This is partly where the disconnect is. They are not going to college (on our dime no less) in order to qualify themselves for good, or even adequate, jobs. They are going to college to qualify themselves for victim statuses that will, in the glorious future, excuse their need/ability to work. From each according to his ability to each according to his need. In such a world, what incentive is there to have abilities instead of needs? Where is the economic, or even logical, incentive?
I submit exhibits A thru ZZZZZZZZ the bridges, sewer treatment plants, and aircraft of not just the USSR/Russia, Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea and such but Mexico, Jamaica, India, parts of Italy, etc. etc. etc.
Well, sure, but doesn’t that in a sense prove my point. Competence exists somewhere. There is always competition and the best survive and thrive. It’s not an overnight process by any means, but it ultimately happens. Incompetence may be camouflaged for awhile, but eventually the better mousetrap is what people will want. It may take a long time, but it will happen.
Prosperity allows a greater tolerance for bullshit than the lack of same. Purdue can afford (now) a social justice infused “Engineering Education” program because we’re still in the midst of profligate student loans and lots of “feel good but no benefit” academic programs. Eventually, the lack of rigor in Purdue’s programs will work its way into the consciousness of employers and they’ll go somewhere else for new hires. Then, students will begin to seek other universities where their prospects are better. For example, my son will be working for a major defense player on graduation. They pay salary and tuition and living expenses to get a masters degree, provided it’s obtained at one of five schools, all big names. Purdue isn’t one of them. Those on the list haven’t succumbed to this madness.
Congrats on that.
Thanks. I don’t often give parenting advice, but we’ve had some success by telling our children since they were very young, that their entire raison d’être is to provide their mother and me with a three bedroom villa (with a pool) in St. Croix for our dotage. It seems to have worked out well.
best survive and thrive. It’s not an overnight process by any means, but it ultimately happens. Incompetence may be camouflaged for awhile
Yeah, I just don’t want to be driving across that bridge, flying in that plane, or hitting those brakes when the camouflage/cloaking mechanism fails.
Prosperity allows a greater tolerance for bullshit than the lack of same
Precisely. Hard times create strong men. Strong men create prosperity. Prosperity makes men weak. Weak men create hard times. Personally, I prefer we linger in the second stage as long as possible as I don’t believe I have the time left to wait for society to complete the cycle once more. Nor do I want to be one of the ones rising to the top in the manner pst134 refers to above.
One other piece of unsolicited advice…my son will be working for a major defense player on graduation. They pay salary and tuition and living expenses to get a masters degree, provided it’s obtained at one of five schools, all big names . The major defense players are a BIG BIG chunk of this exact problem. I’ve worked for a couple of them. I am currently interviewing for jobs with several. The story never changes. Wasted time, wasted effort, political BS, diversity training, “security” training, programs perpetually behind schedule because no one is accountable for the dollars spent. In just the three interview prospects that I have looked at this week (have a space venture one today in an hour or so) it’s the same damn problem. Every. Damn. Time. I’ve heard legend of small projects that were done on time on budget. But I suspect they’re like the skittle shitting unicorns I refer to above. It’s just another horse wearing a party hat, spewing the same old horse sh*t. And don’t get me started on masters degrees in software development…
jabrwok,
Somewhat related silliness.
Note that at least half of them are real names (in that actual, living women have them and wouldn’t get the joke).
skittle shitting unicorns
Band name.
OK, I’m no Henry Hill…
Fuggedaboudit…
To be fair (because I’m feeling masochistic today), race can often be determined by name.
Line 37 will trigger an audit long before having one of Spiny’s names.
Fuggedaboudit…
I blame Karen
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/pictures-of-the-year-oddly-around-the-world/ss-BBFQbwD?li=BBnbcA1#image=2
http://davidthompson.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451675669e201b8d1f6ed42970c-pi