The Most Active Threads of the Past Week

Today I'll look at the most active threads of the last week. However, I'll skip threads that have already been mentioned in the daily updates. With that in mind, a thread that was fourth in number of replies and seventh in number of views for the week was the most active of the remaining threads. This thread, titled "Are all POC women encouraged to work outside of the home?" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. This may not have been the best forum for the topic, but it seems to have worked out well enough. The original poster of this thread describes herself as Pakistani American and says that while her mother was a stay at home mom, the original poster was taught from a young age to value education and financial independence and to pursue a different experience. However, the original poster notices that her white friends seem to view becoming a stay at home mom as aspirational and almost an achievement. The original poster asks why this is the case?

This thread hits on a number of hot button issues and was almost immediately reported to me as a thread on which I should keep an eye because it was likely to be a problem. I agreed with that prediction and watched it closely for a few days. The thread involved work out of the house moms (WOHM) vs stay at home moms (SAHM), people of color vs white people, and differences in affluence. Surely this thread was going to go sideways? Wrong. Rather, not immediately. Instead there were a number of nuanced, perceptive, and interesting responses and very little vitriol. So little drama in fact that I got bored of it after a few days and stopped watching it. I see today that in the last pages it did deteriorate somewhat, but is still very much on the rails. I must say that I am pleased that such a touchy topic can be the subject of serious and substantive discussion on DCUM.

Fifth in number of replies and eighth in number of views, was a thread titled, "Asians are NOT the model minority: the Affirmative Action Chess Game" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster links to an USA Today article that disputes many of the commonly-held beliefs about Asian-Americans. The article points to polls showing widespread support for affirmative action among Asian-Americans and provides statistics suggesting that Asian-American academic achievements may not be as significant as is often believed.

Disputes over Asians and academics has a long and frustrating history on DCUM, particularly in the "Advanced Academic Programs (AAP)" forum where the admissions policy of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology is an endless topic of discussion that often centers on Asians. Inevitably, negative stereotypes of Asians, as well as racist depictions of Black and Hispanic students, surface in such threads. The negative posts get reported and I remove them. However, while less common, it is not unusual for me to receive reports about posts that portray Asians in a positive light such as being hard workers, high academic achievers, and particularly law-abiding. Some posters see this view of Asians as a "model minority" as also damaging and inaccurate. These posters often stress that the "model minority" stereotype overlooks the diversity and complexity of the Asian American community.

At its heart, this thread is a rehash of these arguments. Whle the original poster argues that Asian-Americans don't, in fact, live up to the "model minority" characterization, responders argue in favor of Asian-American exceptionalism. Moreover, despite Asian-American achievements, these posters claim, Asian-Americans are the victims of unfair discrimination. I have not read the 22 pages of this thread, but I would expect that it has gone the way of so many other threads on similar topics. Which means it is probably offensive to many readers whether they are Asian, White, Black, Hispanic, Jewish, any combination of those, or other. Though, admittedly, I haven't received many reports of posts from the thread, suggesting the thread either might not be that bad or its participants have a high tolerance for offensive posts.

A thread titled, "Care manager at children’s shared details of child’s ER visit with school" and posted in the "DC Public and Public Charter Schools" forum was eighth in number of replies and ninth in number of views last week. This thread alludes to much more controversy than there ends up actually being, but nevertheless highlights something about which many parents may be unaware. The original poster tells about taking her child to the emergency room at Children's National Hospital and later, surprisingly to the original poster, receiving a follow-up call from her child's school nurse. The original poster had not told the school about the ER visit and, when told that Children's had informed the school and that this was normal protocol, was very offended. While a number of the posters who responded didn't view this as something to be bothered about, some of the replies suggested that this was a violation of HIPAA. But, unbeknownst to me until just now, DCPS and DC charter school nurses are employees of Children's and provided to schools under contract. Moreover, the original poster had signed a long release form that specifically allowed providing information about the ER visit to the school nurse (though the original poster hadn't noticed that part of the form). So, there was no HIPAA violation or any improper disclosure of medical information. The original poster was not completely mollified by this information and proposed — with some support from other posters — that Children's modify some of its procedures and paperwork.

At some point, the thread got diverted into criticism of the original poster due to her disclosure that she had brought her children to the ER dozens of times. This seemed like a high number of visits to some posters that might suggest a need for additional support from the school nurse. The original poster was, of course, offended by this and argued strenuously that, not only were the visits not out of the ordinary, but she didn't need parenting advice from DCUM posters. This inflamed the discussion and for a while the thread was a cycle of attacks on the original poster followed by her detailed and lengthy rebuttals. Then, posters started complaining about the length of the original poster's posts, provoking even more lengthy responses. In addition, the original poster was accused of sock puppeting, which she wasn't doing so I removed the posts making such accusations. I admit that I found the thread sort of entertaining near the end simply due to the inane arguing. Beyond that, the original poster does seem to have brought attention to something that might concern some parents and has perhaps been able to achieve changes to Children's procedures that might remediate some of those concerns. So, all in all, the thread is sort of a mixed bag.