> Michael Sylvester wrote: > > > I have just received in the mail an ad for > > Michael Gazzaniga's Intro text.Now I dig this > > dude's past and current writings.But the picture > > on the cover of the new text depicts an atheletic > > event with a white chick coming first and the > > the black chics placing second and third respectively. > > With the dominant role of blacks in competitions > > like this,there seems to be something wrong with > > this text cover.
And Paul Smith replied: > Something's wrong all right, and Nancy hit it on the nose several days > ago when she wrote: "Consider yourself challenged. You buy into way too many > stereotypes and make far too many unsupportable and offensive statements Well, I really don't enjoy my apparent role as an apologist for Michael Sylvester, but it does seem to me he has a legitimate beef here. Some time ago I witnessed one of the most grievous goofs in posting I've ever seen. Someone accidentally posted to another list a private letter from his textbook co-author suggesting how they could improve sales. The level of cynicism was astounding. One of the least objectionable was the suggestion that they should add a woman as co- author on their text, not to do any writing, but only so that it would boost sales. It is both politically correct and accurate that a textbook cover picture of an athletic event should show a black woman beating a white. So why does the cover of Gazzaniga's textbook depict the opposite? Nothing that the people who market textbooks do is by chance. So someone undoubtedly made a deliberate decision to choose this particular depiction. Why? Did someone do market research and decide this would sell more books? Don McBurney is a respected textbook author, and I'm sure he wouldn't do anything shabby just to increase sales. But perhaps he has some insight into how textbook publishing works that might account for something like this. If he's still here, of course, and I hope he is. Or perhaps Michael should ask Michael (Gazzaniga) how this came to be. I'd like to know too. -Stephen ______________________________________________________________ Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470 Department of Psychology fax: (819) 822-9661 Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Lennoxville, QC J1M 1Z7 Canada Dept web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy TIPS discussion list for psychology teachers at http://www.frostburg.edu/dept/psyc/southerly/tips _________________________________________________________ --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
