Well, it took a whole lot of outraged blog postings, letters to the editor and way too much time, but the Managing Editor of Psychology Today has finally apologized for allowing Satoshi Kanazawa's pseudo-scientific treatise "Why Are Black Women Less Attractive?" Personally, I think this should have gone up that day.
After some attempted editing of the title, the magazine retracted the post from its website in its entirety. Kanazawa in turn is facing an investigation by the London School of Economics, where he is a professor, after a unanimous vote for his dismissal by the student union.
Contributing writers to Psychology Today moved quickly to do some damage control. [..]However, many were still waiting for a direct response from the magazine, who, according to Stanton, "is probably the most popular PT blogger." Considering the level of outrage, the apology was some time coming. Kaja Perina, the Editor-in-Chief, issued the following statement on Friday:
Last week, a blog post about race and appearance by Satoshi Kanazawa was published--and promptly removed--from this site. We deeply apologize for the pain and offense that this post caused. Psychology Today's mission is to inform the public, not to provide a platform for inflammatory and offensive material. Psychology Today does not tolerate racism or prejudice of any sort. The post was not approved by Psychology Today, but we take full responsibility for its publication on our site. We have taken measures to ensure that such an incident does not occur again. Again, we are deeply sorry for the hurt that this post caused.
However, there was no word on whether the magazine will continue to publish articles by Kanazawa. He has not published on entry on his blog since the one removed, although there is no indication that the blog will be terminated.
It's good to hear that other organizations are seeking to distance themselves from the kind of work that Kanazawa produces. Again, it's a little late in coming, seeing that he's already written such inflammatory and pseudo-scientific tripe as
Are All Women Essentially Prostitutes?;
If Liberals Are More Intelligent than Conservatives, Why Are Liberals So Stupid?; and
Why Is It Permissible to Profile Packages But Not Passengers?.
To be clear, I'm not advocating censoring Kanazawa. He is free to say and believe whatever his racist, misogynistic and pseudo-intellectual heart believes. He's just not guaranteed a platform nor lent any credibility to do so.
