This week, presumably sane adults who have gone to college and, in theory, are able to take care of their basic needs made some interesting decisions. One was probably a really weird goof, the other not such much. Let’s have a look:
Target Sells Kids Racist Halloween Costumes
Alright, so I saw this pop up on my news feed this week. I’m pretty skeptical of the “everything is racist” vibe from 2020, so I went to look at this rather warily. The jist of this story is that Target decided to sell a Halloween costume1 for kids that was a kind of grinning clown. Only some people felt that it represented anti-black caricatures and had a “Minstrel show” vibe.
Again, we’ve heard a lot of “everything is racist” stuff back in 2020, much of which was deeply goofy and part of a widespread race moral panic. So cue a little mild eye-rolling from me as I took a look. The picture of the costume in question is below, judge for yourself.
Alright, so I admit that’s preeeeetty bad. I mean it’s a bad costume to begin with, but ok, fair enough it does look like Minstrel show type stuff and I can understand why people felt it was racist. It’s so bad it’s kind of funny in the “what were people thinking?” kind of way so I’m a bit more inclined to chuckle than publicly rend my clothes. Nonetheless, I can understand people found this racist.
I don’t think Target execs sat around and said, “Hey, let’s do a racist blackface Minstrel show clown thing for kids. People will love it!” I’ve seen enough group entities, committees, companies2, etc., go completely bonkers and actively suppress “tire kicking” such that truly bad ideas can pass though without anyone saying out loud, “Hey, maybe we shouldn’t do this…” My best guess is this was developed and passed through as a batch with other costumes3 and it was rushed. I wonder how many human eyes really even set on it prior to it being offered to the public4?
Even the gloves, my god, the gloves. Target is already under fire for rolling back DEI policies5, and understandably pulled this from its catalog. Don’t send you kids out with this monstrosity folks!
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A Texas University Decides To Destroy Itself6
Red state politicians really don’t like universities. I get it, universities have definitely dug themselves into a woke-hole over the past decade or so, and I’ve been pretty vocal myself about the need for them to reform. But, historically, US universities were the envy of the world. We want to return to that, not destroy them altogether.
Unfortunately, some conservative politicians prefer destruction. In Texas, one of the biggest reds of red states, politicians passed a law limiting remote work for professors. Particularly post-covid, many professors realized they can do a lot of work from home such as grading, working on research papers, etc. The zoom era allows meetings to occur online and even many universities are doing classes online. I don’t love online classes myself (Stetson is mostly in person other than summers) but it works for some people I guess.
The Texas law is obvious geared toward getting professors back on campus rather than remote. But Texas A&M University Victoria decided to interpret the law in the most draconian way possible. Effectively they are demanding that faculty punch a 9-5 40 hour work week clock7. This has caused mass resignations, class cancelations, and general chaos.
Now, normal human beings will ask, “Why shouldn’t professors work normal hours like the rest of us?” And that’s a very fair question!
There are two answers. The first is that being a college professor just doesn’t quite work like other jobs. In one sense we’re kind of always on…I’d say I do some work almost every day of the year aside from big holidays (Christmas and Christmas Eve, New Years Eve and Day, Thanksgiving, July 4 and my birthday)8. And I may do work from when I wake up to late in the evening. But I’m not working continuously. I’m mixing that up with other stuff…hanging with the family, personal life stuff, appointments, classic Dr. Who marathons, Dungeons and Dragons, exercise and my pool. It’s an exchange that suits this particular career…you never really are “off”9 but at the same time you have a lot of flexibility in how and when you do your work. That’s not something that works for everyone, but for pretty autonomous people it’s a fair exchange I think. Do some faculty abuse it? Sure…though far fewer than you’d think. I don’t think, you know, coal miners have to weep for the plight of the tenured faculty member, but I’d say most faculty do carry their weight.
The other thing is, particularly for those of us with degrees that have practical applications (clinical psychology in my case, but also medicine, nursing, engineering, business, law, etc.), if we had to be in a punch-the-clock kind of job we could make lots more in those practical fields than in teaching college. Which is one of the reasons I think we’re seeing a lot of TAMU Victoria faculty leave.
This seems to be the kind of decision made when one wants to turn the screws on one’s opponents rather than thoughtfully decide if there’s a problem to be fixed in the first place (probably not in this case), and if this is the best policy to fix it (clearly not in this case). Policy born from emotion or the desire to enact revenge on others is seldom good policy.
I’ll be curious to see where this goes for the rest of the TAMU system but I am once again reminded why I’m so thankful to be at Stetson!
I should note my wife is deeply offended that Halloween stuff is up already during her birthday month, but I say bring on the tricks and treats!
First and foremost the American Psychological Association where I had the dubious pleasure of watching the dysfunction of the Council of Representatives work or not work for 3 years.
Hell, maybe AI designed it as part of AI’s insidious plot to overtake the world.
This is sort of reminiscent of my thoughts on peer review, where unpaid reviewers often don’t have time to more than glance at an article before accepting it. Then people ask, “How did reviewers not spot this” my answer is “peer reviewers work for free and you get what you paid for.” Granted, presumably someone is paid not to offer racist costumes to the trick-or-treating public, but alas.
For the record, I actually think Target did the right thing there. Most DEI policies don’t work and may actually backfire. If these were smart DEI policies I’d feel differently, but most 2020 era DEI policies simply were not. Target’s financial situation has weakened in recent years, although whether that’s due to people not shopping there due to the DEI stuff, or post-covid economic stuff I think is hard to know.
Alright, that might be a tad dramatic, but still…
The exact hours don’t literally need to be 9-5, but do need to be 40 hours across 5 days a week.
Mornings when I wake up are my most consistent. Every single day, other than the exceptions I mentioned, I put in 2-3 hours, which can be done remotely. Most of this is research, so teaching class is a whole separate thing.
This, on the other hand, is the advantage of punching the clock. You get to go home and forget about work until the next morning, or Monday if it’s a weekend. Professors generally do not.
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