Wednesday, June 21, 2023

Links - 21st June 2023 (1 - General Wokeness)

Woman Who Berated 'MAGA' Hat Wearing Man In Palo Alto Starbucks Loses Job - "An accountant has lost her job after berating a man in public and online for wearing a "Make America Great Again" cap at a Starbucks in Palo Alto... "You know, America is still a free country right?" said Victor F., a 74-year-old supporter of the president who lives in Palo Alto... "This crazy woman came over and started raving at me. She turned to the rest of Starbucks and said, 'Hey everybody, here's this racist over here. He hates brown people, he's crazy, he's a Nazi,' and so forth," Victor told KPIX 5.  The woman, Rebecca Parker Mankey, then began taking photos and posting about it on her Facebook page, saying she was going to shame him, get him fired, kicked out of clubs and march up and down his street.  Victor says she left, then came back and tried to rile the Starbucks crowd once more. "'Hey everybody here's this racist,' and so on. And then as she wrote in her thing, she was disappointed everybody didn't come and mob me," he said.  In fact, the opposite happened. People started harassing Parker Mankey's family and her employer Gryphon Stringed Instruments, where she was an accountant.  The store owner decided to fire her after he read her Facebook posts.  "We feel that music is what brings people together. So having someone then making comments that are so divisive is not consistent with our values," said store owner Richard Johnston...   "She didn't want to discuss the issues with me. She wanted just to scream about Nazi's and so on and that's what we've sunken to," Victor said.  Victor wears a yarmulke underneath his MAGA hat. He is Jewish and so to him, being called a Nazi is hurtful.  "People with an education should know better than to say stupid things like that""

Meme - Master Beef @MasterBeef93: "Normal people "Leave kids alone"
LGBT people "This is an attack on my existence"
What did they mean by this?"

Thread by @robbysoave on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Scoop: I found some extremely curious counting in the Southern Poverty Law Center's latest report on hate groups, which now includes the conservative org Moms for Liberty. But the issues go way beyond that one group. THREAD
For the SPLC, Moms for Liberty doesn't count as one hate group. It counts as dozens and dozens of hate groups. Each chapter is listed separately. By itself, this is leading to massive hate group inflation. But the problems actually go way beyond that. In 2020, the number of hate groups actually declined. The SPLC can't have that. So they added in "antigovernment extremist" groups, which were previously labeled separately. The 2022 report combines these two "hate groups" and antigovernment groups" into one with little acknowledgement that this is what happened. It makes it seem like there's been a huge increase year over year, when actually there was a decrease... Anyway, the SPLC takes the position that even if hate groups decrease, that's just because hate is going mainstream. Heads they win, tales you lose.  On Moms for Liberty, the SPLC makes clear that it's not just group members' incendiary statements about LGBT, race, etc., but also generic opposition to covid mandates, teachers unions, and Ed Dept that qualifies as extremist. I certainly think some people affiliated with the group have said extremist things, but the SPLC is painting with a broad enough brush for us all to be labeled extremists on a future report."
Andy Ngô 🏳️‍🌈 on Twitter - "The SPLC’s labeling of others as hate groups is to deflect from their own problems. Their hate list was used by a gunman who attempted a mass shooting on a Christian group in DC. Floyd Lee Corkins was convicted of terror offenses. In 2018 they paid millions for defaming a man they wrongly put on an extremism list. Their leadership quit in 2019 following internal allegations of workplace racism & sexism. This year, one of their staffers was charged with domestic terrorism in Atlanta over an Antifa firebombing attack on government property."
Grievance mongering never ends

Thread by @RichardHanania on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "In California, the pro-affirmative action side outspent their opponents 19-1. Corporations, sports teams, etc supported the cause. Yet affirmative action barely even won LA County, got 51%, and went down in flames elsewhere. This is a loser for liberals... According to one left-leaning organization, out of 113 Democratic positions, support for affirmative action polled the second worst."

Where Did We Get the Idea That Only White People Can Be Racist? - "The recent rush to defend a black professor’s racist tweets is evidence of powerful self-deception about race.  An incoming professor of sociology and African-American studies at Boston University, Saida Grundy, tweeted, “Why is white america [sic] so reluctant to identify white college males as a problem population?”...   Those defending Dr. Grundy have a double standard when it comes to racism. That double standard has been around for a while. It seems to have originated with the Black Panthers, who fought racism with more racism, which they felt was justified anger, not racism.  The twin themes “only whites can be racist” and “all whites are racist” appeared at the University of Delaware in 2007... there is a whole sub-industry within the diversity industry that is devoted to advancing the idea that only whites can be racist. Dr. Grundy is just repeating a widespread meme that circulates among the radicals of the diversity movement.   In January 1987, Socialist Worker published the article “The Fallacy of Reverse Racism,” in which the author wrote, “Blacks cannot be ‘racists.’ They are not in a position to oppress anyone—certainly not the majority white population of the U.S.” In 1991, Spike Lee said in a Playboy interview, “Black people can't be racist.” In 2013, Georgetown professor Michael Eric Dyson, who had previously said black people do not have the capacity for racism, said white people needed to die in numbers equal to black people in order for racism to end.  The idea that “black people can't be racist” is just a meme, not a coherent argument. It is easy to see why it appeals. The programs these folks want to defend and, if possible, advance, are inherently racist...   The psychological appeal of this idea is immediately apparent.  It invites racial minorities to valorize their own racism.  But it is an idea that withers if you look more closely.... not all “systems of advantage” are based on race.  They may be based on lots of things—family wealth, birth order, or social networks, for example—that may overlap with racial categorizations but which are not racial per se.  This isn’t a minor distinction.  It is central to the question of how equitable our society really is.  Those who reduce everything to race or who make a practice of discovering racism hidden behind every disparity are engaged in what has become the most common contemporary form of racism in America.   Define “racism” as group hierarchy in which only the “privileged” dominant group can be racist, and instantly this common form of racism is defined out of existence."

John Daly’s Coke Habit on Twitter - "Black privilege is having whites maintain all critical aspects of society while you leech off of the system and blame whites for all of your problems."

Meme
'LGBTQ' in priority lane? LTO official apologizes over signage - "The photo shows a transaction window of an LTO office with the priority lane signage, where "LGBTQ" is listed alongside senior citizens, pregnant women, and persons with disability. LTO, in a statement to ABS-CBN News over the weekend, explained that the inclusion of the LGBT community in the priority lane was part of a "gender and development" (GAD) initiative. A regional official nonetheless said that the signage would be removed."

Meme - "Tell me the truth...I'm... I'm ready to hear it"
"If it really is something normal, then there's nothing to be proud of"
*cries*

Meme - "Corporations on June 1:
Look at me. Look at me.
*Pride flag and drag makeup* I am gay now."

Konstantin Kisin on Twitter - "You just have to go outside the English-speaking world for a few days to see how demented the whole LGBTQI+-*#§©%™ thing has become.  My wife and I just spent a few days in Sitges, near Barcelona, which, it turns out, is the gay capital of Europe. The town is full of gay couples walking their cute little dogs. There are lots of gay bars. If you go to a restaurant at least half the tables will be gay couples.  I didn't see ONE pride flag anywhere. Somehow gay men and women there are perfectly capable of loving each other without needing my approval or painting the whole place rainbow for a month.  Makes me nostalgic for the good old gays."

Meme - "I don't think straight ppl understand that queer ppl celebrating pride in the US this year are up against a growing crowd whose response is "we will kill you" pride might be a party to you, or a festival, or whatever, but for queer ppl it's celebrating life in the face of death
i'll add that pride has a long history of being precisely this kind of celebration. through the queer lib movement, through the AIDS crisis - and it will persist now too the question will be: do you support queer people, or fascists. there is not a middle ground."
The perils of grievance mongering. People actually believe this. And when people believe they are oppressed, violence becomes acceptable.

Microsoft Added a Pride Flag to the Windows 11 Taskbar and Made It Impossible to Remove - "And it looks like most users aren’t happy about it. The pride flag icon, when you click on it, takes you to a Microsoft webpage featuring curated pride-related articles, where users can like or dislike an article by clicking on accompanying thumbs up or down icons. Every single article is overwhelmingly voted down by users.  Will Microsoft take the hint?  It’s one thing if these woke companies are offering “pride” themes you can elect to activate"

Having children may make you more conservative, study finds - "Researchers have found that people who do not have children tend to be more socially liberal than parents, and that having children helps explain why people tend to become more rightwing with age... The study potentially offers a fresh take on the decline in birthrates seen in many countries. “I think it could contribute to liberalisation in those countries,” said Kerry, adding that countries that ban abortions might experience a push in the opposite direction... people who were more motivated to care for children tended to be more socially conservative. In addition, parents were more socially conservative than those who were childfree... The team’s findings were backed up by an analysis of data from the World Values Survey, collected over a 40-year period and involving 426,444 participants in 88 countries, which additionally suggested the more children parents had, the more socially conservative they tended to be.  However, in a few countries, including India and Pakistan, parenthood was not linked to more conservative attitudes – a finding Kerry said highlighted that having children is just one factor that may influence social values... Dr Diana Burlacu, of Newcastle University, welcomed the study but added it was hard to say whether parenthood made people more conservative or conservative people were more likely to choose to become parents.  She also noted the study did not find that parents are more economically conservative. “We find that parents do change their economic preferences and are more in favour of government spending,” she said of her own research, although she noted their support of services like daycare only lasted while they were making use of them."

Abigail Shrier on Twitter - "In school, we used to try and derail class by asking the teachers questions like, "Do you have a boyfriend?" They never indulged these questions. They said "My private life is none of your business." That was the correct response. Bring it back."

Amazon shuts down customer's smart home for a week after driver claimed he heard racist slur - "Amazon reportedly shut down a customer's smart home after the delivery driver claimed he heard a racial slur coming through the doorbell, even though no one was home.   Brandon Jackson, of Baltimore, Maryland, came home on May 25 to find that he had been locked out of his Amazon Echo, which many devices, including his lights, are connected to... Jackson, who is black, said most of the neighborhood and its delivery drivers are also African American and it would be 'highly unlikely that we would make such remarks.'... After reviewing the doorbell footage, he learned the device had given an automatic reply, saying: 'Excuse me, can I help you?'   He also said the video showed the driver had been wearing headphones during the interaction and 'must have misinterpreted the message.'   The next day, he was completely locked out of his account and it was 'rendered unusable during their internal investigation.'... It wasn't until six days later he regained access to his account, with 'no follow-up email to inform me of the resolution,' which has 'led me to question my relationship with Amazon.'   'After nearly a decade of loyalty, I’ve been given a harsh reminder that a misunderstanding can lead to such drastic measures,' he wrote. 'It seems more reasonable to handle such issues in a more compartmentalized way, rather than a blanket shutdown of all services. 'Due to this experience, I am seriously considering discontinuing my use of Amazon Echo devices and will caution others about this incident.'   The University of Maryland graduate said he is now considering using Raspberry Pi devices, rather than those connected to Amazon."
Damn far right misinformation and conspiracy theories!

Meme - *Pride flags on big companies, government, schools, hospitals, Hollywood sign, airplanes*
MTF: "Haha. Why is The Right so obsessed with LGBTQ? They bring it into everything."

Massachusetts students tear down rainbow decorations and chant their pronouns are 'U.S.A.' - "Massachusetts middle schoolers tore down Pride decorations and chanted that their pronouns were 'USA' in a striking protest after they were asked to wear rainbow colors to school.   Students at Marshall Simonds Middle School in Burlington, Massachusetts, were asked to wear rainbow-colored shirts to celebrate Pride Month on June 2, but a preplanned protest broke out with students tearing up Pride flag stickers and chanting: 'USA are my pronouns.'... Parents have told local news outlets their straight-identifying students said they felt forced to participate and were 'offended' by the Tennessee Williams quote that reiterated that the human heart is 'curved like a road through the mountains' and only lines and streets can be straight. 'Parents have told local news outlets their straight-identifying students said they felt forced to participate and were 'offended' by the Tennessee Williams quote that reiterated that the human heart is 'curved like a road through the mountains' and only lines and streets can be straight... The altercation sparked allies and parents to call for more diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the school, claiming that 'this type of intolerant rhetoric starts in the home.'"
Schools indoctrinating kids politically is only a problem, and students resisting is only bad, when it's liberal indoctrination

New Hampshire, 94 Percent White, Asks: How Do You Diversify a Whole State? - The New York Times - "New Hampshire, like its neighbors Vermont and Maine, is nearly all white. This has posed an array of problems for new arrivals, who often find themselves isolated and alone, without the comfort and support of a built-in community.  It has also posed problems for employers in these states, who find that their homogeneity can be a barrier to recruiting and retaining workers of different ethnicities and cultural backgrounds.  The issue prompted about 100 business leaders, government officials and members of nonprofit organizations to meet Thursday to search for ways that New Hampshire — which is 94 percent white — might lure other racial and ethnic groups, as well as younger people."
If you suggested too many of any other race were a problem...

Jonathan Kay on Twitter - "Canada’s govt has declared June-September to be “Pride Season.” This mass email, which just went out to 1,800 Cdn Heritage workers, gives a sense of how federal staffers will be observing it: Learning all about why Phil in Accounting just never wants to get off. "Phil, here at Heritage Canada, we're very concerned about the lack of porn on your office computer and the fact that you've never sexually harassed anyone, or told us who you had sex with over the weekend. Perhaps you would like to give a presentation to fill everybody in""

Former Philly Starbucks manager wins $25.6 million after being fired for being white - "A former regional manager for Starbucks was awarded $25.6 million on Monday after a federal jury in New Jersey unanimously found that she had been fired because of her race. Shannon Phillips, who is white, received $25 million in punitive damages and $600,000 in compensatory damages. She is reportedly seeking further compensation for lost wages.  Phillips was terminated in 2018 in response to backlash against Starbucks after two black men, Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson, were arrested while waiting for a business associate at one of the many Philadelphia locations she oversaw... Phillips claimed in her 2020 lawsuit that her firing had been racially motivated. She said she was targeted despite not having had any direct influence on the decision to call the police.  Her allegations were backed up by the testimony of Paul Sykes, the black supervisor of the employee who made the 911 call that day. Sykes argued that the fact he did not face any disciplinary action while Phillips was let go showed that Starbucks had acted in a manor that exhibited racial bias.  The coffee giant tried to claim that Phillips had been fired for being an ineffective regional manager, but they failed to convince even a single member of the jury...  The incident sparked backlash against Starbucks, and Phillips alleged that she had been used as a scapegoat by the company to show that they were not racist. Nonetheless, protests persisted, and Starbucks eventually shut down hundreds of locations across the country for one day so that staff could undergo racial bias training."
Liberals will still insist that white people have never been discriminated against because of their race, and that those who say that are just exposing their privilege, and that when you are accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression

Nearly half of gay, bi men in UK sexually assaulted, survey finds - "Almost half of gay and bisexual men in Britain have been sexually assaulted, a survey found on Thursday, as more LGBT+ rape survivors around the world speak out, including under the hashtag #MeTooGay.  The rate of sexual assault among gay and bi men is 45% - 10 times that of the general male population, according to the survey of 505 gay and bi men by SurvivorsUK, a charity supporting male survivors of sexual violence... Data on gay and bi men’s experiences of sexual assault is relatively rare, but U.S. government data from 2010 to 2012 found almost 40% of bi and gay men said they experienced sexual violence, more than twice the rate of straight men."
The cope will be that it's straight men raping them, and this shows the problem with "homophobia"

Is it now a crime to like a spiked tweet? - "spiked has never shied away from controversy. But is our output really so controversial that merely liking one of our tweets is grounds for dismissal?  That’s the position Alasdair Henderson now finds himself in. Henderson led the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) investigation into anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.  But now journalists at the Guardian and Pink News have started trawling through his liked tweets.  These include a tweet by Douglas Murray referring to the words ‘misogynist’ and ‘homophobe’ as ‘highly ideological propaganda terms’.  And spiked has been pulled into the row, too. A Pink News article fumes that Henderson dared to like an old spiked tweet which said, ‘Gay marriage is a product of therapy, not the era of civil rights’...   The row over Henderson’s illicit ‘liking’ of tweets follows similar rows over the appointment of David Goodhart and Jess Butcher to the EHRC. Goodhart has been criticised for his views on immigration, even though they are largely in line with mainstream opinion. And Butcher has been targeted for criticising contemporary feminism.  The real reason Henderson, Goodhart and Butcher seem to have drawn such ire is that they have shown some independence of thought from the identitarian mainstream – something no one in public life is now expected to do. The policing of liked tweets shows just how far some will go to maintain ideological purity in our institutions."
Crimethink is unacceptable

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene accused the media of making a big deal about a draft document that outlined the platform for the America First Caucus. - "The group would call for respecting “Anglo-Saxon political traditions”"
But this isn't even about race, and there's been a Black Caucus since 1971

Only Muslim-majority town in U.S. bans Pride flags on public property - "The all-Muslim city council in Hamtramck, Mich., unanimously voted to not allow flags representing "any religious, ethnic, racial, political, or sexual orientation" to be flown on public property in a move that will prohibit the display of LGBTQ Pride flags on city-owned grounds.  The city council voted Tuesday in favor of the "Resolution to Maintain and Confirm the Neutrality of the City of Hamtramck Towards its Residents." Hamtramck, located outside of Detroit, is the only city in the United States to have a Muslim-majority population and all Muslims on its legislative body.  The resolution also states that it in no way infringes upon or restricts freedom of speech but says that allowing minority or political groups to fly flags could "open the door for radical or racist groups to ask for their flags to be flown."   The only flags that will be able to be flown on public properties in the city are the American flag, Michigan's state flag, the Hamtramck flag, the Prisoner of War flag and the flags of other nations...   More Muslims are partnering with Christians to speak out on LGBTQ issues. For example, last fall, Muslim and Christian parents in Michigan spoke at a school board meeting against LGBTQ books in classrooms."
Why would far right white Christian nationalists do this?

Hamtramck bans LGBTQ+ Pride flags on public property - "“You guys are welcome,” council member Nayeem Choudhury said. “(But) why do you have to have the flag shown on government property to be represented? You’re already represented. We already know who you are.”  Some members of the all-Muslim council said the pride flag clashes with the beliefs of some members of their faith. Businesses and residents aren’t prohibited from displaying a pride flag on their own property.  “We want to respect the religious rights of our citizens,” Choudhury said. Hamtramck, population 27,000, is an enclave surrounded by Detroit. More than 40% of residents were born in other countries, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and a significant share are of Yemeni or Bangladeshi descent... Hayley Cain said she chose to live in Hamtramck after moving from California because it was known as a diverse community.  “I’m questioning whether it is. ... The pride flag represents making space for all humans on all the spectrums, and this is where we’re going as a human species,” Cain said. “You can’t stop that.”  Dawud Walid, director of the Michigan branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil rights advocacy group, said Hamtramck’s strict flag policy doesn’t discriminate against anyone.  “If there was one group that was not being granted access to something while others were then we would have a problem,” Walid said.  He said some Muslims who oppose an LGBTQ+ flag are no different than conservative members of other religions with similar views.  “Flags carry symbolism. Those symbols carry social and political messages,” Walid said."
It's Islamophobic to criticise Muslims and the CAIR

‘A sense of betrayal’: liberal dismay as Muslim-led US city bans Pride flags - "In 2015, many liberal residents in Hamtramck, Michigan, celebrated as their city attracted international attention for becoming the first in the United States to elect a Muslim-majority city council.  They viewed the power shift and diversity as a symbolic but meaningful rebuke of the Islamophobic rhetoric that was a central theme of then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign... Muslim residents packing city hall erupted in cheers after the council’s unanimous vote, and on Hamtramck’s social media pages, the taunting has been relentless: “Fagless City”, read one post, emphasized with emojis of a bicep flexing. In a tense monologue before the vote, Councilmember Mohammed Hassan shouted his justification at LGBTQ+ supporters: “I’m working for the people, what the majority of the people like.”  While Hamtramck is still viewed as a bastion of multiculturalism, the difficulties of local governance and living among neighbors with different cultural values quickly set in following the 2015 election. Some leaders and residents are now bitter political enemies engaged in a series of often vicious battles over the city’s direction, and the Pride flag controversy represents a crescendo in tension.  “There’s a sense of betrayal,” said the former Hamtramck mayor Karen Majewski, who is Polish American. “We supported you when you were threatened, and now our rights are threatened, and you’re the one doing the threatening.”... After several years of diversity on the council, some see irony in an all-male, Muslim elected government that does not reflect the city’s makeup... Mayor Amer Ghalib, 43, who was elected in 2021 with 67% of the vote to become the nation’s first Yemeni American mayor, told the Guardian on Thursday he tries to govern fairly for everyone, but said LGBTQ+ supporters had stoked tension by “forcing their agendas on others”.  “There is an overreaction to the situation, and some people are not willing to accept the fact that they lost,” he said, referring to Majewski and recent elections that resulted in full control of the council by Muslim politicians.. Last year, the council approved an ordinance allowing backyard animal sacrifices, shocking some non-Muslim residents even though animal sacrifice is protected under the first amendment in the US as a form of religious expression... Islamophobia exists here, and some Muslims say they saw bigotry in local voter fraud investigations, and in LGBTQ+ supporters not respecting their religion.  But Majewski said the majority is now disrespecting the minority. She noted that a white, Christian-majority city council in 2005 created an ordinance to allow the Muslim call to prayer to be broadcast from the city’s mosques five times daily. It did so over objections of white city residents, and Majewski said she didn’t see the same reciprocity with roles reversed. Ghalib disagreed, and labeled the prayer broadcast a “first amendment issue” while noting no one was asking for city hall to broadcast the calls.  Moreover, the white majority council was not always hospitable to Muslim residents who have previously faced overt racism. And with a majority-Muslim council in place, more Muslims had been appointed to boards and commissions, and hired in city hall. So had some LGBTQ+ residents, Ghalib added."

blog comments powered by Disqus