By Lori Adelman • @ladelman • 12 years ago

Apology from Psychology Today is too little, too late

After all that hubbub surrounding Psychology Today’s “here’s why black women suck” article, their puny apology has been met with little fanfare or public response.

Late last week (I’m sure releasing the apology on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend was no coincidence) Kaja Perina, Editor in Chief of Psychology Today, issued this statement:

“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.”

I’m sorry, but I find this to be totally inadequate.

It seems like they are just trying to cover their asses, but are still not grasping the enormity of what they’ve done. They say the post wasn’t approved by them. Huh? Well then what was it doing on their site? And they say they have taken measures to ensure it doesn’t happen again. What sort of measures?

Uh uh. I’m not buying it.

Psychology Today, I’ve got a song for you (don’t worry, it features plenty of “objectively attractive” white women):

Lyrics here.

Brooklyn, NY

Lori Adelman started blogging with Feministing in 2008, and now runs partnerships and strategy as a co-Executive Director. She is also the Director of Youth Engagement at Women Deliver, where she promotes meaningful youth engagement in international development efforts, including through running the award-winning Women Deliver Young Leaders Program. Lori was formerly the Director of Global Communications at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and has also worked at the United Nations Foundation on the Secretary-General's flagship Every Woman Every Child initiative, and at the International Women’s Health Coalition and Human Rights Watch. As a leading voice on women’s rights issues, Lori frequently consults, speaks and publishes on feminism, activism and movement-building. A graduate of Harvard University, Lori has been named to The Root 100 list of the most influential African Americans in the United States, and to Forbes Magazine‘s list of the “30 Under 30” successful mediamakers. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Lori Adelman is an Executive Director of Feministing in charge of Partnerships.

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