Tag Archives: Psychology Today

The efforts of you and more than 75,000 other ColorOfChange members paid off.1 Psychology Today has now agreed to remove controversial author Satoshi Kanazawa, the author of a deeply offensive article regarding Black women, from its website, and they have implemented new policies to prevent inflammatory content in the future.

It wasn’t easy or a foregone conclusion. After staying silent for almost two weeks, Psychology Today on Friday issued an apology, but they refused to say how they would prevent such a situation from happening again. Then hundreds of ColorOfChange members started calling the magazine by phone, along with additional pressure on Facebook and Twitter demanding a clearer response — at which point Psychology Today came correct and did the right thing.

While there still remains the larger problem of Black women and girls having to face dehumanizing and damaging messages, this is an important victory. We’ve not only drawn a line with Psychology Today — we’ve sent a powerful message to other media outlets that serving as a platform for racist and dehumanizing content is unacceptable and will result in pushback and consequences.

At ColorOfChange, we will continue to hold media accountable, and we hope you will continue to be there with us. Remember, our work is powered by you, our members. If you can support our work financially, whatever the amount, please click the link below:

http://www.colorofchange.org/donate

Thanks and Peace,

— Rashad, James, Gabriel, William, Dani, Matt, Natasha, and the rest of the ColorOfchange.org team
June 2nd, 2011

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Call Psychology Today … Rashad Robinson, ColorOfChange.org

06/01/2011 Nativegrl77

On Friday, after more than 70,000 of you spoke up, Psychology Today finally issued a statement apologizing for Kanazawa‘s racist and dehumanizing article that they published. But they failed to explain the steps they’re taking to prevent such articles from being published in the future1, which is critical for holding them accountable.

Can you take a moment to call them and demand that they do? Just click the link below to get started:

http://act.colorofchange.org/call/ptcalls

For almost two weeks, Psychology Today remained silent after publishing “Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women?” In their statement Friday they took responsibility for Kanazawa’s article, an important first step.

However, they remained silent on what they’d do differently in the future — leaving it unclear what will prevent similar articles from being published, or if Kanazawa will continue to write for the publication. Given the level of the offense, it is important that Psychology Today provide such an explanation before declaring the issue resolved.

Your phone call is about more than Psychology Today — it’s about standing up to any media outlet that becomes a vehicle for unfair attacks on our communities. Please join us in calling Psychology Today:

http://act.colorofchange.org/call/ptcalls

Thanks and Peace,

— Rashad, James, Gabriel, William, Dani, Matt, Natasha, and the rest of the ColorOfchange.org team
May 31st, 2011

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Psychology Today asks “Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive?” …from Change.org

05/26/2011 Nativegrl77

A week ago, the magazine Psychology Today published an article titled “Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women?” on its website. Within hours, following widespread outrage and criticism, the post disappeared.

Colleagues and peers of Satoshi Kanazawa, the article’s author, have since analyzed his same data and unanimously (and unsurprisingly) found his conclusions in error.

Yet Psychology Today has remained silent. They have refused to apologize or even explain why they published the article.

Articles like Kanazawa’s are more than offensive or spurious—they’re deeply harmful because they promote racist and sexist stereotypes as science.

That’s why documentary filmmaker Aishah Simmons and academic Alisa Bierria are leading a petition on Change.org to call on Psychology Today to apologize and take transparent steps to prevent the publication of racist and sexist material in the future. Click here to sign Aishah and Alisa’s petition.

http://www.change.org/petitions/psychology-today-stop-publishing-racist-sexist-articles?utm_medium=email&alert_id=mRVloIAZvg_mWBTSGXHfX&utm_source=action_alert

Kanazawa’s article never would have survived a thorough and responsible editorial process. In fact, the author himself doesn’t stand up to review.

Kanazawa has a history of pushing discredited research and is particularly notorious for making meritless claims about race and gender. (He is also known as the mind behind the much-mocked book Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters.)

In an attempt to defend previous publications, Kanazawa wrote, “If what I say is wrong (because it is illogical or lacks credible scientific evidence), then it is my problem. If what I say offends you, it is your problem.”

Well, as Khadijah Britton of Scientific American put it, “Satoshi Kanazawa has a problem.” So does Psychology Today.

Prominent women’s rights advocates, including Gloria Steinem and Beverly Guy Sheftall, former President of the National Women’s Studies Association, have already declared their support for the campaign.

Please click here to add your name to theirs:

http://www.change.org/petitions/psychology-today-stop-publishing-racist-sexist-articles?utm_medium=email&alert_id=mRVloIAZvg_mWBTSGXHfX&utm_source=action_alert

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

ColorOfchange.org —It’s a “fact” that Black women are ugly?

05/23/2011 Nativegrl77

Nearly 20 years after a black parent documented how hard it was to hear, “Mommy, I want to be white,”1 Psychology Today reinforced the false and hurtful sentiment that Black women aren’t attractive.

Last week they published an article claiming it to be scientific fact that Black women are less beautiful than women of other races,2 penned by Satoshi Kanazawa, who is notorious for hiding behind pseudoscience to promote discredited racist and sexist ideas.3

By giving Kanazawa a platform and validating his ideas, Psychology Today dehumanized Black women and girls everywhere. After widespread public outcry, they removed the article from their website.4 But that alone won’t erase the damage they’ve done by validating these discredited ideas — the editors need to apologize, explain how this happened, and let us know that it won’t happen again. Please join us in demanding they do so immediately, and then ask your friends and family to do the same:

http://act.colorofchange.org/go/827?akid=1987.1174326.Gg4MZA&t=3

Kanazawa’s article is flawed from top to bottom.5 Using a dataset from an unrelated study of teenagers, he draws the obviously false conclusion that Black women are “objectively” less attractive than women from other racial groups.

Kanazawa has a long history of hiding behind pseudo-science to express racist and sexist views. He once wrote an article asking “Are All Women Essentially Prostitutes?” and another suggesting that the US should have dropped nuclear bombs across the entire Middle East after 9/11 because it would have wiped out Muslim terrorists.6

So why does Psychology Today continue to give him a platform? Black women constantly face both subtle and explicit messages that they are valued less than women of other races — messages that are especially damaging to Black girls. Now Psychology Today has served as launching point for yet another attack, this time in the name of science.

Almost as if to cover up the racism inherent in his piece, Kanazawa says that black men are, “if anything more attractive” than their counterparts of other races because of “greater testosterone.”7 But even here Kanazawa relies on the same pseudoscience to describe black men in familiar terms — brutish, hypermasculine, oversexed, exotic. And that’s dangerous, too.

He uses a modern-day version of the faulty logic used to dehumanize blacks as inferior for hundreds of years, from the social Darwinists and eugenicists of the 19th century to The Bell Curve just 15 years ago. Psychology Today has a responsibility not to give such false logic a stage, nor validation.

To undo the damage it’s done, Psychology Today needs to explicitly reject Kanazawa’s ideas. Please join us in demanding that their editors apologize, explain how this article was published in the first place and what they’ll do to ensure it won’t happen again in the future. It takes just a moment

http://act.colorofchange.org/go/827?akid=1987.1174326.Gg4MZA&t=4

Thanks and Peace,

— Rashad, James, Gabriel, William, Dani, Matt, Natasha, and the rest of the ColorOfchange.org team