Talk:Marsha Mabrey

African American
Hello. This biography is about an African American woman. That fact is part of her notability. Please do not remove it from the lead sentence. If you'd like to discuss the reasoning, this is the place to do it. Thanks and happy editing. --Rosiestep (talk) 19:29, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
 * It is certainly reasonable to include that in the lede. However, it's already in the lede; it's in the second sentence. It's redundant to assert this fact twice, and restoring it to the first sentence adds the confusion and undue weight issues I mentioned earlier. I'd like to return it to the wording as I left it. Chubbles (talk) 22:44, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Let's hear what others think. Thanks. --Rosiestep (talk) 00:05, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

I created the page and strongly feel that identifying her as African American is vitally important. There were very few women conductors when she started and virtually no African American women conductors and that is true today as well. This is certainly an integral part of her notability. Mvitulli (talk) 00:50, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

The two mentions of her being African American in the lede are valuable for different reasons, and including them both does not create any confusion.ExtandTor (talk) 01:39, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Rosiestep and Mvitulli. The first sentence is a description of Mabrey, the second is about her notability. So while the same phrase is being used, it's telling us different things. It's also not unprecedented, consider Alice Allison Dunnigan, African American is used twice in the first two sentence in addition to black or Jesse L. Brown. If the word repetition bothers you, may I suggest changing the second African American to Black? LittleDart (talk) 01:51, 15 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Agreed. Ethnic identity labels are a non-issue long ago resolved for articles in general.  People are identified as they self-identify or how they are identified in a plurality of reliable sources.  The rest is grammar.  I did a small tweak to adjust the double wording, which is awkward, but to place her ethnic identity where it is most significant, next to the notability sentence.  Montanabw (talk) 14:27, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Are we planning on reinstating the original language of the lead or leaving it as is? Also, I wonder if using Black vs. African American would make a difference since sometimes they're not exactly the same thing. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 16:17, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

I followed the suggestions of Megalibrarygirl and LittleDart and left African American in the opening sentence and changed the second occurrence to Black. Mvitulli (talk) 18:39, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
 * This edit is fantastic. Thanks!ExtandTor (talk) 18:41, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I can live with that. It’s beyond the scope of this article, but I have some concerns about defining people in general first by race and gender only if they are a person of color or a woman, as it is part of who they are, but not all that they are.  It may be part of who they are as far as notability goes, and identified in the lead is appropriate, but we shouldn’t be treating race as an anomaly, either...We don’t say, “ Thomas Jefferson was a white male of Scottish descent who was, by the way, the third President of the United States.”  We say he was President, and elsewhere note his ethnic identity to the extent it matters.  Montanabw (talk) 23:20, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
 * That's really it, in a nutshell - Montanabw sees the issue most clearly here. It's fundamentally non-neutral to treat Mabrey differently than we do every other violinist (and differently than, e.g., Britannica and the New Grove treat every other violinist, irrespective of race). I think we all agree that it's fine to mention her race in the lede - indeed, fine in the second sentence of the lede, when it establishes why race plays a role in her fame. But when it's the very first thing that the article says about her (after the standard anchor of date of birth), it singles her out in a way other articles are not singled out - indeed, in a way that African-Americans are singled out far more than any other American ethnic group on Wikipedia. I think the Jesse L. Brown article is well-couched in this way, and I thank you for bringing that to our attention - Brown is identified in the second sentence of the lede as African-American for the sake of illustrating the importance of race to notability, but he is not identified as such as the very first thing the article says. That's what's now happened here, and it's not clear to me that the subsequent commentators on this talk page (my, this has gotten quite a bit of attention very quickly!) have understood the nub of the problem. Chubbles (talk) 03:28, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
 * , you are mischaracterizing what I said above, which was not about neutrality. But I may have not clarified the nuance I intended, so let me try again, Where someone’s groundbreaking accomplishments are in part linked to gender, race, or both, it is imperative to highlight this.  We are not a race blind society. We can point put that someone’s accomplishments are extra notable because they are the first person of a certain group to do so.  But it is also awkward to phrase someone’s race (or gender, for that matter) in such a way that it overshadows what they accomplished. The same word in consecutive sentences was just awkward.  We can make it clear that someone’s ethnicity, gender, or other differences are part of what makes what they accomplish even more notable, we just don’t have to mangle the English language or place undue weight on someone’s birth characteristics (For example, it would appropriate to mention if a notable concert pianist was one-handed. I.e. “X is a concert pianist who played Chopin one-handed, the first individual to accomplish this feat.” But it is undue to make it the core of who they are. We don’t need to say “The one-handed piano player played Chopin one-handed and was the first one-handed piano player to play Chopin one-handed.  And they were one-handed.”) Does that clarify matters?  Montanabw (talk) 06:15, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, and we are more or less agreed on this; undue weight is at least as much an issue here as neutrality (I have brought up both of these issues in the past, and my focus here on the one is not intended to minimize the other). I think that it is entirely appropriate weight to note Mabrey's race in the lede in the context of noting her achievements with the Seattle Phil, front and center in the second sentence of the lede. The initial description, as a general matter of style, places people by name, place and time, and occupation, but not by race or ethnicity. So I think the best adjustment of the lede here would be "Marsha Eve Mabrey (born November 7, 1949) is an American conductor, educator, violinist and violist. She was the first African-American woman to be appointed and serve as the conductor of the Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra." Chubbles (talk) 19:37, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't see any reason to change the lead as it looks right now. It's no longer repetitive and is respectful as a BLP should be. It's not undue weight, since she made inroads that are important because of her gender and race. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 19:34, 18 August 2020 (UTC). I support the statement here. She is an African-American woman and it is a part of her notability factor. There is no sense of undue weight as a part of this. The change made to add Black in the second line also removed the repetitiveness. Shanluan (talk) 12:42, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I didn't mean to place a primary focus on the redundancy, although we should think of that in terms of content rather than repetitive wording specifically. It's not undue for this to be mentioned in the lede - and I do want to make that distinction clear, since Rosiestep's original comment made it seem like that was a bone of contention that justified reverting my edit (and almost every commenter since seems to have written as if the argument is between mentioning it in the first sentence and removing it from the article entirely). We are not disagreeing on that point - it is appropriate weight for it to be mentioned in the lede, since, yes, race is important to explaining why she is understood to be important by reliable sources. The MOS permits this, and I am not arguing that it should be different on this article. The issue is over whether it should be, ultimately, the very first thing the article informs us of (and twice in two sentences). Race is usurping the place typically occupied in articles by a geographical, rather than a racial or ethnic, anchor, that places her in space as a commonsense courtesy to the reader (as birth/death dates place the subject in time). The current wording places undue weight on the race concept as well as specifically on Mabrey's race; it implies that race is a necessary thing to mention about people first-off in general (when our guidelines specifically suggest not doing this), and it subtly implies specifically in relation to her that her race is more important than her actual accomplishment - being an excellent violinist. By moving this mention to the next sentence, in relation to her appointment in the Seattle Phil, we get context for why her race is important to notability, in a way that makes it clear why this is being mentioned so early in the article. Chubbles (talk) 04:01, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

I am fine with the “synonym fix” per Megalibrarygirl. If breaking a barrier of race and genders is part of an individual’s notability and something they consider an important part of their identity, it belongs in the lede. The rest is just a grammar and style debate, best laid to rest here. Montanabw (talk) 16:29, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I certainly disagree that this boils down to a simple grammar and style debate, and am frankly befuddled that so many commenters here have mistaken it for such. But there is too much else to do for me to pursue it further. I may return to it at a later date. Chubbles (talk) 11:33, 20 August 2020 (UTC)