Double post, but i just do not understand people sometimes
https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/08/metoostem-founder-admits-to-creating-twitter-persona-who-died-of-covid-19/Here you have a middle class white person who's supposed to be pro social justice, who's quite deep into the whole activism in academia thing, but they also, on the side, made a fake LGBT woman-of-color sock puppet, got them popular, then
decided to kill them off dramatically. However, since the person they were masquerading as was also a completely fictional person supposedly working as a professor as a well know university, people obviously looked into it then and realized something was up.
What's the fucking decision making process behind this whole thing, I have no idea, but making a fake LGBT person of color to push your views does add credence to the idea that some white people co-opt minority causes for their own person aggrandizement.
Here's an older article outlining her style of activism:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/11/30/metoo-activist-bethann-mclaughlin-focused-scientists/UAvSIL2uGskEf5YUkcQhoO/story.htmlShe's pretty obsessed with rooting people out and destroying careers over personal failures or accusations. The person she reminds me of the most, actually, is Senator Joseph McCarthy, but just picking a different hill to fight on.
EDIT: actually reading the full ArsTechnica article now, after having skimmed her bio for an overview. This shit defies belief. She's constantly attacking other female and minority science activists, more so than she even does for the men she's supposed to be fighting. This is some Machiavellian evil shit.
But allegations soon emerged that McLaughlin bullied and harassed others, especially people of color. She also faced accusations of a lack of transparency. The entire #MeTooSTEM board would eventually resign, leaving just McLaughlin herself and a single volunteer listed on the site.
Man the ArsTechnica article is a great read, especially the tweets and detective work people did to put everything together. Going from what other people are saying, the sheer number of actual people of color, other female scientists, etc that she used her account and the sock puppet account to harass and bully is quite surprising.
EDIT: having read the whole thing, i now rescind what I said at the start. I do understand this person, but they're just an evil hypocritical p.o.s.