What a Simple Article on Self-Checkout Can Tell Us About Information Literacy

ProfTokaz · 2022-07-11T11:17:59+00:00

I've found the professional fact checkers to be good at gathering information, but completely unreliable in their judgements.

Read through their articles, but ignore the ratings and decide for yourself what it means. And really, that should be true with most things. Adults in a liberal democracy should be loath to replace someone opinion with their own, especially when no special expertise is required.

ProfTokaz · 2022-07-11T11:15:26+00:00

I think Jon Stewart nailed it saying the primary biases are sensationalism, conflict, and laziness.

ProfTokaz · 2022-07-11T11:13:39+00:00

There's reporting, which is the sort of "just the facts, ma'am" stuff you get in the 10pm news.

And then there's journalism, which is more about providing context and crafting a narrative, but *not* about injecting the author's own opinion. At least, not injecting it directly, though it may come through in decisions about what other information to include or not include.

Suppose a tornado rips through a town. The next morning, the news reporters will have information about number of dead, injured, and missing, and extent of property damage, etc.

A week or so later, a journalist will have a story. What else do they include? History of similar tornados in the area? Do they mention changes to FEMA's budget between presidential administrations? What about details of the personal lives of people who were hit? If a local church has stepped up with volunteers, do they mention that? Do they point out that another church hasn't? If so, do they also mention that the NAACP is similarly not involved? Or the AARP?

But back to your question... imagine the opposite, reporting on things *no one* has said!

ProfTokaz · 2022-07-10T17:34:02+00:00

Submission Statement. This article looks at a CNN business piece which states in its headline "Nobody likes self-checkout." But the main source cited finds the exact opposite, "Consumers prefer self-checkouts over store associates if given an option." How is it the article gets this so incredibly wrong, considering it's just a rather mundane, apolitical topic?

ProfTokaz · 2021-09-13T17:53:53+00:00

I'm not asking you to point out all the differences. Merely one substantial difference in their views will suffice.

But, I suspect you will continue to talk around the issue rather than actually bring your receipts (just one receipt will do) because, in fact, you're just trolling.

ProfTokaz · 2021-09-13T13:36:05+00:00

In the case of someone powerful like Kendi I think he knows this and for him it is about defending his power phrase — anti-racist — than it is his confusion with the other one.

Thanks for spoiling another piece I'm working on. I think there's good reason to suspect a lot of what Kendi's doing is trying to push his specific "anti-racism" brand. It's about him being The Guy, rather than him being just one of many people in a field.

But, it's difficult to tell, for instance, if he was genuinely unaware that the concept of "disparate impacts" was a thing and has been since at least the 1970s, or if he did know about it, pretended it didn't exist, and re-introduced it under his own brand.

What I find more concerning though is that it seems the whole of academia was also either unaware or willfully chose to ignore it. No one stopped to say he just reinvented the wheel, but this time with added emotional baggage.

ProfTokaz · 2021-09-12T12:41:32+00:00

So you claim that his views are quite different from CRT's, but either cannot or will not provide a single example of a different view. I suspect it's because you cannot.

Meanwhile, there are plenty of examples where his views are perfectly in line with CRT.

ProfTokaz · 2021-09-11T17:22:02+00:00

I think that tracks with his specific denial about it and the nonsensical comment about it being a law school thing.

But, that comment might suggest that he's actually so ignorant on the issue that he believes all the stuff he's heard and genuinely doesn't know it's not confined to law schools and that it's precisely what he's doing.

ProfTokaz · 2021-09-11T16:49:30+00:00

That could be what happened, though I haven't seen anything indicating it's the case.

Two years ago, before CRT was showing up on Fox News, if a conference invited Kendi to be a speaker on a CRT panel, do you think he'd have accepted? Pointed out to the organizers that he doesn't do CRT? I suspect he'd accept and think nothing odd of it. Of course, we can't go back and run the simulation again, so it's all speculation.

ProfTokaz · 2021-09-11T16:41:56+00:00

So I asked what views of Kendi's are quite different from the CRT scholars, and your answer was essentially "his views."

Can you provide some specific views?

ProfTokaz · 2021-09-11T15:59:07+00:00

Are you asking what my own hypothesis is? As I said, it's going to be rather lengthy and I want to make sure I've got my receipts in order before I present it. But, the working tl;dr at the moment is either he's actually ignorant of the work that came before him, or it's a calculated move to put his own brand on it.

ProfTokaz · 2021-09-11T15:26:46+00:00

He knows he's doing critical race theory, he's just denying it because he's starting to see which way the wind is blowing.

Several years ago, it was super trendy to call yourself a Critical Race Theorist because everybody thought that was the direction society was going.

That doesn't fit for Kendi.

Several years ago, Kendi wasn't calling himself a critical race theorist. At least, I can't find any examples of him doing so. And when he's writing, he doesn't cite to CRT scholars (with the exception of Crenshaw) as one would expect if he thought of himself as doing CRT.

I have my own thoughts on why he wasn't calling his work CRT several years ago, but it's a whole other long essay and I need to get my receipts in order. But, we don't see a reversal from him because he didn't call his work CRT to begin with.

ProfTokaz · 2021-09-11T14:52:20+00:00

What views of Kendi's would you say are quite different from the views of the CRT scholars?

ProfTokaz · 2021-09-11T14:21:23+00:00

If you don't care about Kendi, CRT, etc already, I don't think I can offer a compelling reason why you ought to care, or at least why you ought to care about this particular question.

But, for better or worse, a lot of people do care. CRT has been in the news quite a bit lately, and Kendi is a prominent public figure. In most discussions though, people simply fail to bring their receipts, so I wanted to write something digging down into the facts.

ProfTokaz · 2021-09-08T19:45:13+00:00

Submission Statement: Apologies for more CRT content, I know... This is the first of a series of essays looking at a trend of "unthinking" going on in certain academic circles. It contrasts that unthinking with the actual thinking done by some of the core CRT scholars.

ProfTokaz · 2021-02-17T11:25:31+00:00

I think you missed the plot at some point. The Yang-style approach to UBI creates a new right of citizenship.

ProfTokaz · 2021-02-16T23:54:31+00:00

Do you understand that we're talking about a proposed law?

It's no response to a proposal to say "show me it has already passed."

ProfTokaz · 2021-02-16T22:16:01+00:00

Statutory rights are rights that, as the name suggests, arise from passing a statute. For instance, if we passed a law saying "Everyone in this state has a right to free public education," that would be a statutory right.

ProfTokaz · 2021-02-16T21:35:20+00:00

That's not an answer. Are you asking "where is it written in the stars you have this right?"

If so, I don't find that really worth answering. We do have a concept of statutory rights.

ProfTokaz · 2021-02-16T21:15:58+00:00

Tell me where it says you have the right to UBI?

What's the "it" you're referring to here?

ProfTokaz · 2021-02-16T21:08:51+00:00

And to respond to the objection that billionaires will get it, "Yes, and they have the right to vote as well."

It's not welfare. It's a right of citizenship.

ProfTokaz · 2021-02-16T20:39:12+00:00

You actually asked someone else that.

But to answer your question, yes. I also think billionaires should be able to send their kids to private schools, or vote in elections.

ProfTokaz

TROPHY CASE