Using someone’s nationality as a reason they may be untrustworthy is not acceptable. It’s worse when this idea is promoted by a physician, especially one who has the ear of the President.
Yesterday I posted about Dr. Oz devoting time to distinguishing between “real” and “fake” psychics. I know. I’m running out of air quotes.
Being a professional vs. amateur psychic is pure Oz so I guess shouldn’t really be surprised, although of all the horrible ways people can be duped into wasting money on useless “therapies” (using that term loosely) the idea that there are “real” psychics has to be the most egregious.
What bothered me even more than promoting psychics as a real thing was the way Dr. Oz told his millions of readers how they could identify fake psychics, that they will be from “places like Romania.”
Interestingly, after I drew attention to this yesterday the post has been changed and the reference to “places like Romania” has been removed. Fortunately, with help from @42believer I was able to retrieve the original from Google cache.
Here is the original post from May 7:
It was archived on May 7, 2018 at 16:36:23 GMT
Here is how it appears on May 8:
Suggesting that “fake” psychics are likely to come from “places like Romania” is an offensive stereotype. Is this the kind of advice that comes from the good doctor himself or do the “real psychics” in whom Dr. Oz places so much confidence and trust believe this?
Hopefully someone asks him about this.
Dr. Jen Gunter 
Well, he’s right on one thing. All psychics from Romania are fake…
OMG, just way too much wrong here. Oz was probably geographically confused, thinking that Romania is one of those shit-hole countries. And “preying on innocent people’s hopes, dreams, and insecurities”? Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
I feel like the nationality-based bigotry is definitely the least of the problems I have with this. All “psychics” are fake, regardless of how they approach the scam.
Well, ok, not the LEAST of the problem that I have with this whole article. It’s actually pretty high up on the list, but still absolutely below the implication that he’s trying to say there are real psychics.
Okay the bigotry was a problem, but the whole thing is still a steaming pile, with things like ‘psychic crime detective’ made to sound like it’s a real form of police work. BTW the ‘from Romania’ stuff ties in with anti-Romany bigotry you hear from conservatives up here. See Ezra Levant, et. al.
” ‘psychic crime detective’ made to sound like it’s a real form of police work”
Try googling “PI Bob Nygaard”. I was expecting some “quack with a crystal ball” psychically solving crimes.
From what I found, it looks like Nygaard is a retired police officer who specialises in investigating scams perpetrated by psychics.
Was Nygaard on the Oz show? I cannot see how he would be very happy to have his name associated with Oz unless he saw the show as a platform he could use to get scam victims to report the scams.
You know that we follow you because you are an outspoken doctor. But don’t lose your time and effort talking about this nonsense. I wish you can open your vision about people suffering from Herpes. An be open about the test available right now that can tell if your have a life virus or not. Explain more openly about PCR.
What’s even worse is that I suspect he’s tying to refer to Romanis, sometimes referred to as gypsies. And they aren’t Romanian.
No, “fake psychics” are trying to suggest in the mind of the credulous a link with Romani / gypsy mystical powers. This is an old cultural stereotype, not invented by Dr Oz. Dr Oz may genuinely be saying something true here – that charlatans DO try to suggest a link to Romani. You cannot interpret from this that he holds the same opinion.
Whatever intern manages that page probably removed the phrase to avoid any further hassle. I’m not sure who profits from this idiotic episode – maybe it will just make it a tiny bit easier for tricksters to bluff the gullible.
https://wordpress.com/post/nilzeitung.wordpress.com/38776