Call for posts that were blocked by NYU's "Town Hall Meeting"
As some of you know, New York University's Child Study Center hosted what they purported to be a "town hall meeting" today on the topic of childhood mental illnesses. For weeks, they have been effusively "inviting public participation and input," which was to take place, supposedly, in the forum today. But what you won't likely know unless you participated in the forum is that countless posts were BLOCKED for no apparent reason -- except, perhaps, that "Doctor" Harold Koplewicz (of "Ransom Notes" and Paxil Study 329 fame) just didn't happen to feel like addressing those posts, and as such, saw no reason for them to appear at all. Clearly, he has his own unique definition of what "town hall meeting" should mean.
Here are three of my most "controversial" posts that were silenced in this "open forum":
ME: "Dr. K., In future public service campaigns, what steps will you be taking to ensure that the language/imagery you use will not inadvertently lead to further emotional harm, inflicted on a day-to-day basis via the attitudes which propagate throughout society, upon those you wish to help?"
BLOCKED
ME: "Dr. K., Do you believe that Autistic adults have anything useful to contribute to clinical/professional understanding of what it means to be an Autistic child? And what about other psychiatric conditions? Are the personal experiences of any such adults to be regarded as being of any potential use in understanding mental health, other than simply serving as examples of that which is disordered, and must be corrected?"
BLOCKED
ME: "Do you feel that professionals and researchers in psychiatry are accountable for the attitudes which they themselves instill in others, attitudes which can be clearly shown to propagate throughout society and thus have a direct, daily impact on an entire class of human beings numbering in the millions?"
BLOCKED
And many of the posts I've seen so far that were attempted by others were far more tactful than my own.
As a result -- or perhaps by design -- the forum turned out to be little more than an opportunity for Koplewicz to lecture pedantically at the few guests who were allowed to post, and to promote his own pet perspectives on what "helping the children" means. Apparently, he saw no problem with cherry-picking only those posts which he found to be most enjoyable, convenient, or profitable, and just slamming the door in everyone else's face. In other words, he turned the "town hall meeting" into just another venue for his own self-promotion. Heckuva job, Koppy!
BUT THAT JUST WON'T CUT IT. In discussions of what happened there, several people have shown an interest in compiling a list of those posts which were blocked by Koplewicz and/or his moderators (if there even were any others). The list would then be posted online, likely with some degree of analysis and/or critique of the event, to show just how "open" the forum in question really was. That's assuming I/we can collect enough entries such that it will have a significant impact.
SO, for those of you who participated in the "town hall meeting," and happened to save copies of your blocked posts, I would be very interested in adding them to the short list I have so far. If you didn't save the text of your attempted posts, but can reconstruct them with reasonable accuracy, that would be okay too. I'll add your post(s) to the "official" list of silenced voices ONLY with your explicit permission -- bearing in mind that others may be blogging/posting the list -- and if you prefer that your entry be listed anonymously, please let me know.
[please include "NYU/CSC" in the subject line so I'll know it's not spam]
I don't know if there will be enough to make a project out of this, but I'm willing to give it a shot, and I'm open to any and all help and ideas.