Teachers read papers. Thousands of papers. Even tens of thousands of papers over our careers. Like someone who develops an incredibly sensitive ear for jazz or taste for fine wine, we have an eye for margins. Fonts, margins, spacing… we’re like eagles, we spot even small deviations from standard formatting as if it were instinct, and it makes us want to go in for the kill.
Anyway, I was lol-ing about a format finesser with my friend Jordan G. the other day (do they really think we can’t tell?), and he forwarded me this cartoon (at Abstruse Goose):
A few months ago Lisa wrote about bulletin boards posted in New York City that racialize the abortion debate by presenting it as a particular danger to African American children. The new anti-abortion film Gates of Hell takes this racialization a step further, presenting a future world in which the Black Power movement has begun a domestic terrorist movement against providers of abortion services for what they see as genocide against African Americans. Here’s the trailer, sent in by Dolores R.:
Black power. Abortion. Terrorism. “Prophetic fiction”. Three years in the making, “Gates of Hell” is a documentary from the year 2016 that chronicles the crimes of a band of domestic terrorists known as the Zulu 9. Finnish filmmaker Ani Juva travels to the United States to better understand the mysterious black power assassins, the bizarre eugenics conspiracy theory that drove them to commit extreme acts of violence and how America’s political landscape was transformed forever. Blending real history and real public figures with a fictitious (yet plausible) future, it is safe to say that you have never seen a film like “Gates of Hell”.
As yet, the film doesn’t have a distributor; they have an online call for funding to help screen the film. The production company behind it, Illuminati Pictures, is headed by Molotov Mitchell, a contributor to popular conservative website World Net Daily, which posted a promotional video about the movie.
In her earlier post, Lisa questions the apparent concern for African Americans expressed in this framing of the abortion debate, pointing out that in some cases they seem to blame Black women for having abortions and totally ignore the structural factors at play. In a similar vein, this anti-abortion film, while ostensibly sympathetic to the idea of African Americans fighting what they see as genocide, draws on the stereotype of African American men as particularly violent and willing to kill, even while presenting them as possibly justified in this case.
And over at Feministing, Vanessa pointed out that we might question Molotov Mitchell’s genuine concern for oppressed groups given a video he appeared in back in 2009 supported Uganda’s anti-gay bill, which allowed the death penalty for repeat offenders:
As Lisa pointed out, there are very good reasons to be concerned about African American women’s reproductive freedom and the structural inequalities that might push them into making decisions about whether or not to end a pregnancy regardless of their personal preferences. But some of these anti-abortion messages presenting abortion as genocide seem to use racialization as a convenient tool that has little to do with more widespread concern about racial (or other forms of) inequality, discrimination, and even violence more broadly.
What makes top news today: a Southwest pilot’s homophobic, sexist, and vulgar commentary; it was kept quiet for some three months. This happened on March 25th, 2011, broadcast accidentally over the air route traffic control frequency during the flight. It’s now almost July. The FAA, the pilot community and Southwest Airlines kept this under wraps for eighty-nine days. Amazing.
Here’s the transcript of exactly what was said (trigger warning):
Southwest Pilot: “Well, I had Tucson to Indy all four weeks and, uh, Chicago crews…11 out of 12 …there’s 12 flight attendants, individual, never the same flight attendant twice.
“Eleven fucking over the top fucking, ass-fucking homosexuals and a granny.” (silence)
“Eleven. I mean, think of the odds of that. I thought I was in Chicago, which was party-land.”
“After that, it was just a continuous stream of gays and grannies and grandes…”
“Well I don’t give a fuck. I hate 100 percent of their asses.”
“So, six months, I went to the bar three times. In six months, three times.”
“Once with the granny and the fag, and I wish I hadn’t gone.”
“At the very end with two girls, one of them that was part do-able, but we ended up going to the bar and then to the crew at St. Louis, and all these two women wanted to do was, one wanted to berate her sister and the other wanted to bitch about her husband.”
“Literally, for three hours, me and the F.O. (First officer). When that was done, got back to my room, I’m like why the fuck did I stay up?”
ATC: “OK, whoever is, uh, transmitting, better watch what you’re saying.”
Southwest Pilot continues: “They’re still both (inaudible), you know what I mean? I still wouldn’t want anyone to know if I had banged them.”
“So, I mean it was a complete disaster for six months.”
“Now I’m back in Houston, which is easily where the ugliest bases. I mean it’s all these fucking old dudes and grannies and there’s like maybe a handful of cute chicks.”
In interview with Tom Costello on the NBC Today Show this morning, Aviation Analyst, John Cox defended the airline industry, saying the pilot’s comments are a throw-back to a different age in the cockpit: “It was more common in the past, but in today’s environment you see a lot more focus on the professionalism and you don’t hear these kinds of things very often anymore.”
Really? Mr. Cox, you don’t hear these kinds of things often, anymore? Spend one moment to Google “Southwest stuck mic”; you will find pilot aviation forums yucking it up already in defense of the pilot saying, “Well, at least he was honest!”
Is it any wonder only six percent of all commercial pilots are women? The cockpit is not a place of equal opportunity. Never was. Isn’t today. What’s more, there’s a cover-up. Outside of what airlines now call a “flight deck”, the pilot fraternity defends itself saying, “yeah it used to be like that, we’re more professional now.”
Try to find the pilot’s name. You can’t. Southwest will not identify the pilot. He was initially suspended without pay, but is now back in the cockpit under the good-‘ol-boy protection program and after involuntary “diversity” training.
Aviation market studies indicate women make up 26% of the prospective pilot population. Only 7% of all pilots are female. Unless serious action is taken, I doubt anything will change soon.
Stephen Wilson is an aircraft salesperson, flight instructor, and former air safety investigator who takes interest in his profession from a sociological viewpoint. He posts aviation and personal commentary on his blog, from where we borrowed this post.
Over the past few months, a number of readers have sent in examples of college-related advertising with a distinctly sexual theme. There’s something interesting here. College pursuit, preparation, and achievement are being conflated with sexual prowess (the size of one’s dick, no less). I suppose it was never was really about smarts. Still, the overt conflation of (masculine) sexual superiority with academic achievement seems new to me. Am I wrong?
Scott M. and Ed A-N. sent in which penis size is used as a proxy for preparedness for the LSAT:
Stephanie A. sent in this ad for MyEdu, a college management site (whatever that is) that makes an obvious reference to Viagra (the little blue pill that makes for not-so-little erections):
Last but not least, Becky E. and Monica Y. sent in this facebook ad encouraging women to apply to a school loan by suggesting that very-sexy-ladies do the same:
Many Westerners are constantly reminded that (very) thin women are sexy to men and (even slightly) chubby women are not. In fact, men’s desires vary quite tremendously and often include a much wider range of body types than the media would have us believe. This is often kept secret not just by media executives, but by men themselves who might feel “weird” if they don’t prefer the culturally ideal type.
Both of these facts are nicely illustrated with this single example, from PostSecret, in which a man feels the need to confess that he prefers his wife chubby, even though she diets to try to “look good” for him.
In Fair and Foul: Beyond the Myths and Paradoxes of Sport, Stanley Eitzen discusses a number of contradictions in modern sports. One of the most prominent is the way that sports is both unifying and divisive in ways that can be extremely strong. Fans often feel a sense of solidarity simply because they like the same team — whether the local football team or a specific nation’s representative athletes at the Olympics. Individuals who might have little else in common, and might in other aspects of their lives be in conflict, can form a sense of affiliation and friendship through sports fandom.
This is true because fans identify with their teams, talking about “our” team, “our” win, and so on (though, oddly, when the team loses, it’s often “their” loss), often despite the lack of any direct connection to a team (I have relatives involved in constant low-level battles with their spouses about the placement of University of Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma State University memorabilia in their houses, cars, yards, and even pets and children, thought neither spouse attended either school).
Jay Smooth at Ill Doctrine recently put up a video about fan reactions to the NBA finals that awesomely addresses the joy fans take in their love of sports, the social constructedness of these affiliations, and how comments by LeBron James bring this all into view:
Is a university admissions office the same as the basketball team? Should selecting an entire student body for the college be like selecting players for the varsity?
Remember that kid at UC Merced, the one who argued that the graduated income tax was like redistributing GPA points? He found students who supported a graduated income tax and programs for the poor but who wouldn’t sign his petition to redistribute GPA points from the A students to those with lower GPAs. None of the students could articulate, on the spot, their reasons for not signing the GPA petition (assuming that he didn’t edit out any who did offer a reasonable explanation). (My earlier post on it is here.)
He’s baaaack. This time he’s asking students to sign a petition for affirmative action in sports – specifically to give preference to whites trying out for the team. Get it? If you support affirmative action in college admissions but not in sports, you’re a hypocrite. As before, students support one use of race preference but not the other, and as before none can give a convincing reason. The students all say, “It’s different,” but they can’t explain why.*
(To save time, I’ve set the video to start near the end – most students say the same thing. To see the whole thing, just drag the slider back to 0:00.)
Nyahh, nyahh – you’re for preferences for blacks where they’re a minority but not for whites where they are the minority. You’re a hypocrite.** Either that, or your thinking has been muddled by liberal ideas, which is pretty much the same thing, isn’t it?
The video concludes with the dictum that college admissions and sports should be the same. “Race-based preferences are wrong.” Ah, moral clarity.
Is college really the same as a sports team? They are certainly different in their consequences. If you’re a student now, in the coming years when you apply for a job, will HR ask you if you played varsity? Maybe. But unless the job you’re applying for is power forward, your answer won’t matter very much. But HR will absolutely want to know if you have a college degree. And your answer will matter. A lot.
Sports and school are different in another important way. Schools seek out minorities more for the sake of campus diversity than for the benefit of individuals. Yale probably gives preference to applicants from Montana or Mauritania over those form Manhattan. (Yale also might give preference to a power foward if the team this year is short of guys who can work the low post.) The purpose of this admissions policy is not to benefit Montanans (or power forwards) but to provide other students with the experience of living with a diversity of people (and to provide the basketball team with the right diversity of skills).
That same goal of demographic diversity does not apply to the competitive teams or the glee club or orchestra for that matter because those groups have a much more narrowly defined task. It’s that difference in purpose, rather than the difference in which race gets helped, that underlies the responses in the video. Take those same liberal students who support admissions policies that bring more blacks to campus; ask then if they would also support race-based preferences to get more blacks into crew, the glee club, or the chess team. I’m sure they would say no. As in the actual video, they would probably be unable to explain why giving preference to African Americans is acceptable in admissions but not activities.
They’ll say that the two are different, even though they can’t immediately explain why. Does that make them hypocrites, natural or un-?
The next time someone shoves a microphone in your face and asks for a justification for some distinction you make, smile at the camera and say, “As Michael Polany wrote in The Tacit Dimension, ‘we know more than we can tell,’ an insight that Richard Nisbett later developed with much social science evidence in his book Knowing More than We Can Tell.” See if you make it into the version that gets posted on YouTube, or into Robin Hanson’s blog.**
————————-
*I had assumed that the petitioner and his camera people were students at Merced. But in this new video, he’s at UCR.
** As with the previous video, Robin Hanson, on whose blog Overcoming Bias I found both of these, files the students’ attitudes in the folder marked “natural hypocrisy.”
A blue-collar worker gets laid off. Maybe he or she reads an article in the Boston Globe with an image of a wind farm, like this. So he or she types “wind energy jobs” into Google, and ends up at one of many websites promoting wind energy jobs, with an upbeat graph like this:
Was this a common pattern during the recession, during which Obama has promoted the idea of moving workers into the wind energy sector? Honestly, I never would have thought of that question if not for the results of today’s poking around.
Action in context
New kinds of data have the potential to open up vast new territory in the study of patterned individual behavior. Finding and understanding aggregate patterns in micro-level behavior is more feasible than before. My prior poking around has included tracking the relentless decline of the name Mary given to children born in the U.S., the search patterns associated with having a baby across millions of Google users leading up to the recession, or patterns of divorces across states according to their unemployment levels.
In each of these situations, individual behavior assumes a social form that emerges when the data are aggregated and analyzed in relation to other patterns or time periods. And in each case it appears that separate individuals are responding similarly to larger forces — allowing us to understand those forces in new ways.
In today’s exercise I plugged the weekly number of initial claims for unemployment into the Google Correlate tool, and asked it for the 100 search term trends that were most closely correlated with the unemployment trend since 2007.* On the list were “wind energy jobs” and “green jobs.” Beyond those, it was pretty easy to group the 100 search terms into categories: 38 of them were searches for songs and lyrics (especially MGMT lyrics), 17 were Internet/technology related (such as “roadrunner webmail login”). I have no explanation for those.
But the last large group was clearly recession-related: those about loan modifications (such as “loan modification,” “loan mod,” or “mortgage hardship.”) All of these were very highly correlated with the initial unemployment claims trend (.93 or higher on a scale of -1.0 to 1.0). Here they are, plotted by week since the start of 2007.
The Google search volumes are relative (on the right axis), so we don’t know how many people were doing these searches, only that they were doing it in the same weeks that unemployment claims occurred.
A final, small group of terms were related to porn. Maybe there are just so many porn search terms that something is correlated with any trend. But the search terms “snake tube,” “uncoached” and “coomclips” track initial unemployment claims very well, with correlations over .94. Here they are together:
Maybe some brave Sociological Images reader will explain why these particular terms might follow the unemployment trend. (It could just be that they were new sites that became popular and then tapered off in 2008-2009.)
What’s the point?
It’s not news to people interested in sociology that individual, intimate behavior follows common patterns, which are related to cultural forces. What’s interesting to me here is that capacity to find patterns we couldn’t before. For example, does losing a job lead to more porn consumption? Are those porn searchers different from the people typing in “green jobs”? I’m hoping that other people will dig further and turn these tools to productive uses.
——————————
* To avoid big seasonal spikes unrelated to unemployment, I used the seasonally-adjusted unemployment claims, which basically tamp down the big jump in layoffs after Christmas and when school gets out each summer.
Philip N. Cohen is a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park, and writes the blog Family Inequality. You can follow him on Twitter or Facebook.
About Sociological Images
Sociological Images encourages people to exercise and develop their sociological imaginations with discussions of compelling visuals that span the breadth of sociological inquiry. Read more…
