Re: [dinosaur] Prehistoric Road Trip,Tiny Teeth, Fearsome Beasts

I am working on an article on paleoracism for Prehistoric Times.

The below has some points, but I strongly disagree with it.

As a lily white male who has been in Vert Paleo for decades long and still dominated by my race and sex, I can first say there were plenty of white male dudes PRT, more than enough. Did not need more. Really, did not. Would be interesting to do a count of boy and girl paleos in PRT. There always has been a significant female contingent in VP, a quick count I did of abstracts from ~1980 when I was getting involved indicate it was around 1/6. A count of recent abstracts is too tedious to do, but a partial count indicated it is still 1/6. Rather surprising in how SVP leadership is now strongly female good for them. If Emily overrepresented women in her series sounds like a good thing to me.

I found Emily's fun and chirpy attitude to be very a refreshing change from us guys -- we tend to be a dour lot if one has not noticed. She was fun. What in the world is wrong with that. Emily is a breath of fresh air. Paleo should be more fun, all us dull white men may be hindering more nonwhites and females wanting to put up with us. I have heard women paleos complain about us. We tend to take ourselves too seriously, I mean you Sereno and many others including myself. More power to Emily and I look forward to seeing her in future programming.

The absence of black paleontologists in paleodocs, and nearly from the field, is a big problem. Note that PRT was focused on the paleo of the area Emily grew up in, the northern US plains. Don't think any African heritage person is working there, please correct me if I'm wrong. Emily did bring in some Original Peoples who are a major factor in the region, and she did a good section on issues of paleo exploitation of reservations lands and efforts to compensate for that.

Why there would be a problem with presenting this show to white kids I do not see. Especially girls since it is so female positive. Same for the natives of the area because it directly address issues related to them. More of a problem for black children due to lack of role models. What can be done about that is difficult to determine. As I point out in the PT article, for various reasons African-Americans are not prone towards entering non-practical sciences like paleo, and they may remain the same for a long time. And dinosaurs are not the kind of hip item they are likely to be attracted to. Dinosaurs are the kind of dweeb thing us dorky whites are into. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I have seen fossils pulled out in shale slabs. It is how that works.

BTW the best part of the series was when Emily was staying at the good old Virginian Hotel (named after the novel, the first western, set in the area) near Como Bluff WY. At the fine dinners we had -- fried chicken and mashed tatters my favorite -- there the summer of 78 while digging up a gigantic partial nonbrachiosaur titanosauromorph at Como Bluff north that has never been surprised. During a brief return in 80 an oil boom was underway and the place was too packed and service was down.

I may have more to say on this.

GSPaul

-----Original Message-----
From: aviva <aviva@gmx.us>
To: dinosaur-l@mymaillists.usc.edu
Sent: Sat, Jul 18, 2020 4:00 pm
Subject: [dinosaur] Prehistoric Road Trip,Tiny Teeth, Fearsome Beasts

Hello

I had a chance to view this program this weekend with my daughter and

grandson. I have a criticism about this show, two or three of them

actually. First, as my kids pointed out, to our view, this program was

soft in content. In scene where Emily is pulling fossils out of shale

slabs had my eyes rolling. I do believe we have all seen this before

with Sir David Attenborough. This last of original content repeated

itself through out the program.

The second problem, and this one I consider extremely problematic, is

the lack of men in this program. The program is patently bigoted. Men

are completely sidelined in the entire show. This is not a message I

would want to expose my daughters to, and not my son either.

Thirdly, Emily's constant giggling and smiling, as well as the other

women presented don the show, doesn't serve the purpose of the show, and

reinforces some negative stereotypes as well. So it fails to either

present a positive view of women in the field, and it doesn't present

the field well either.

A show that doesn't find the best presenters, regardless of creed,

gender, or race, is not just repugnant, but it is dishonest, and cheats

the viewing public of quality programming, especially when much of the

nation is locked down, badly looking for new material to view and read.

I hope you find this criticism constructive, as it is intended to be

so. I remember a documentary with Paul Serano where he lost "Beth" and

they were in a panic. At the time, I thought this was rather other the

top and not what should be in a documentary. But Serano has done

considerable work to reach deep into the poverty stricken communities,

especially the Black and Latino communities of Chicago, in order to

educated and produce real talent. In my opinion, this is where our

focus should be. Our focus should not be producing false narratives and

using bigoted standards to produce programming. If one wants to do a

show about women in Paleontology, just do it. It is a fine and worth

topic. But this is not serving any purpose at all over than reinforcing

stereotypes and putting a stamp of approval on bigotry.

Avvia

PS - it would be nice to see some Black Scientist area in shows, if they

have something to contribute. There has to be one Black paleontologist

somewhere, who is an expert on a topic worth covering? No?

Scott Edwards maybe?