Links - 25th November 2023 (2 - Migrants)

Collin Rugg on X - "JUST IN: New York City is gearing up to pay over $1,000,000,000 on just hotels over the next 3 years to house illegal immigrants.  Good! That’s what happens when you call yourself a “Sanctuary City.”  But that’s just the hotel costs. NYC Mayor Eric Adams estimates the total cost of the migrant crisis will be about $12B over the next 3 years.  “We are past our breaking point,” he said. “With more than 57,300 individuals currently in our care on an average night, it amounts to $9.8 million a day. Almost $300 million a month and nearly $3.6 billion a year.”  Residents in NYC have had enough. In the video below, Staten Island locals were arrested for blocking migrant buses."

Meme - Latino Migrant: "I come to America." *Texas*
Soyjak: "Yes, welcome home weary traveler."
Latino Migrant: "I go here?" *New York*
Soyjak: "Noooo! We don't have the resources!"
Liberal virtue signalling in a nutshell. And of course, conservatives are to blame

1 province aims to lure immigrants from preferred countries - "In August, the Saskatchewan Immigrant Nominee Program created six draws with the goal of inviting 542 skilled immigrants in dozens of occupational backgrounds to settle in the province as permanent residents.  The catch is only those who are living in one of these eight countries can qualify: Czechia, Germany, India, Ireland, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine.  While officials say the draws are designed to target immigrants based on their likelihood to succeed and stay in the province, experts fear this might mark the beginning of a return to Canada’s ethnocentric immigration selection approach of the past... The most populous provinces — Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta — all enjoy an immigrant retention rate of higher than 80 per cent. However, the rest of Canada struggles to keep their newcomers despite the provincial nominee program meant to let them pick their own.  The country-specific pilot is an attempt by Saskatchewan to devote its limited resources to target newcomers who are most likely to stay, provincial officials say.  According to Statistics Canada, only 64 per cent of newcomers who settled in Saskatchewan between 2016 and 2020 ended up staying. Among those who came under the skilled workers and skilled trades categories in 2019, only 43 per cent of them remained.  Inspired by the settlement success of the five flights of displaced Ukrainians who arrived in the province in the past year, officials came up with the pilot project with employers, professional regulators, industry associations and community-based partners.  In picking the select countries, they looked at labour-pool characteristics, language ability, history of successful recruitment and retention of newcomers from different countries, as well as the job opportunities available in the province.  One other key element they considered was the credential compatibility of migrants from those countries. For instance, long-haul truck drivers in Poland, Ukraine and Germany are quickly recognized by provincial officials to work in Saskatchewan.  “We want to ensure that they remain in Saskatchewan and that the program is being used for genuine intent to contribute to the community growth that we’re experiencing in this province,” said the province’s deputy immigration minister, Richelle Bourgoin...   Bourgoin said the country-specific draws are by no means exclusionary because there are other draws that are open to all candidates. This year alone, the province has nominated applicants from 116 countries.  “This is one tool in a very large tool box. And we are in a position with a growing economy, a very low unemployment rate (so we use) all of the tools we have available to us,” she explained.  “In this case, we are looking to test a theory that we think might yield positive results for not only our communities but our labour market.”"
White supremacist racism means that they want Indians

ICE arrests Salvadoran alien accused of rape who went to victim's house immediately after Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office failed to honor ICE detainer - "U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested Antonio Ulises Perez, a 38-year-old illegal alien from El Salvador accused of rape, Wednesday, after the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office (OCSO) failed to honor an ICE detainer and released him from custody.   Almost immediately following his release from the Oklahoma County Jail on Oct. 9, Ulises Perez went to the home of the woman he is alleged to have raped. The victim contacted the police and Ulises Perez fled the scene.  Under federal law, ICE has the authority to lodge immigration detainers with law enforcement agencies who have custody of individuals arrested on criminal charges and who ICE has probable cause to believe are removable aliens. The detainer form advises law enforcement agencies to notify ICE in advance of release and to maintain custody of the alien for up to 48 hours so that ICE can take custody of that person in a safe and secure setting."
Clearly, ICE must be abolished

Meme - Jaden McNeil @JadenPMcNeil: "Message I received today
'You were right
About immigration
All of it
I went to Paris
My whole worldview was shattered'"
Comments (elsewhere): "I know dyed-hair women who used to volunteer in refugee arrival camps who now are active politically to get closed borders."

Meme - "THE BAGGINGSTON POST
Orc travellers spending months in field camps without stable housing, access to manflesh. The Shire should step up.
Grima Wormtongue
Goblin Daily Press
Hobbits have a moral duty to do what Men can't or won't do: give anyone arriving from Mordor whateve they desire, in any quantities and eagerly at that.
Trending now: Can we trust the Elves? Withered recluses board luxury boats and depart to a remote exotic island in droves. Read how to get a ticket to join the cruise."

NEWS: Toronto declares itself a ‘sanctuary city’, rejects Harper agenda
Toronto mayor instructs staff not to turn refugees, asylum seekers away from city shelters - "Chow told CBC Toronto that she has told staff to follow a motion passed by council in July that reverses a policy adopted by the city in May under Deputy Mayor Jennifer McKelvie.   Under the previous policy, which took effect June 1, refugees and asylum seekers were turned away from the main shelter system and directed to federal shelter programs when they called the city's central intake phone line"
Olivia Chow asks Toronto residents to offer rental units for refugees as shelter spaces fill up - The Globe and Mail
Freeland rejects Toronto bailout, says Ontario in ‘excellent fiscal position’ to help - The Globe and Mail - "The letter from Ms. Freeland comes as Ms. Chow and Premier Doug Ford have been calling on Ottawa to fund more shelter spaces for a growing number of refugee claimants arriving in Toronto and surrounding municipalities. About 300 people are turned away from Toronto’s 9,000-bed shelter system nightly because of a lack of space, the city says, roughly half of them being asylum seekers."
No new money for Toronto asylum seekers after Chow, Miller meeting
When virtue signalling blows up in your face. Presumably, the solution is to blame conservatives (while increasing taxes)

'A declaration of war on Europe' – Salvini says 6,000 migrants landing on Lampedusa in 1 day threatens to collapse Italian society - "Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, known for his hawkish stance on immigration during his tenure as interior minister in 2018, said on Wednesday that when 120 boats filled with migrants arrive on the shores of Italy at the same time, “it is not a spontaneous phenomenon, it is a declaration of war on Europe.”  The deputy prime minister of the right-wing government in Rome, who currently heads the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport, referred to the fact that the boats with approximately 6,000 migrants docked on the island of Lampedusa in one day. He stressed that the problem was not exclusive to Lampedusa and that the situation threatened to “collapse Italian society as a whole.” Salvni said he is convinced that mass migration to Europe was being orchestrated by criminal organizations, including human trafficking organizations. He added that Europe had completely abandoned Italy to protect its land and maritime borders and that Rome should act on its own to further tighten national security and migration regulations... Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni ran on a campaign platform of blocking migrants and setting up a “naval blockade;” however, since coming to power, she has overseen a record number of illegal migrants arriving in Italy and has even approved plans for Italy to accept over 400,000 non-EU legal migrants per year. "
This won't stop liberals claiming they're "far right", even though they're not gunning them down

Meme - *awake at 2:39am* "Why are all the migrants fighting- age males?"

Is the cost-of-living crisis causing international students to reconsider Canada? - "Since Damanpreet Singh moved from India to Cape Breton for his studies two years ago, he has seen his daily expenses nearly double. The Punjab native moved to Sydney, Nova Scotia in 2021 to pursue his post-baccalaureate degree in Supply Chain Management. Now a new graduate, the financial reality of living long-term in Canada has shifted significantly for him.  “When I came to Canada in 2021, with it still being COVID, there were fewer students and I could find a house easily,” says Singh, who is the Canadian Federation of Students’ representative for international students. Upon arrival, he found a room in a shared apartment for $350 per month. But since his lease expired last year, he had to move into a new place he describes as sub-par that cost him $500 per month. The same goes for his groceries: “I used to pay $150 per month for groceries on average. Now, I pay $250 for the same amount.”  International students are currently required to show proof $10,000 in their bank accounts when they arrive in Canada – the amount estimated by the federal government to cover their living expenses. That’s on top of the $30,000 to $50,000 they have to pay for tuition each year. But some students and advocates say this minimum Guaranteed Income Certificate (GIC) is misleading given the current costs of living... The number of international students coming to study in Canada has reached record highs in recent years, but a new study shows that a sizeable proportion may no longer want to stay around after they graduate. A Leger study commissioned by the Institute of Canadian Citizenship published in March this year found that 25 percent of international students surveyed plan to leave the country in the next 18 to 24 months.  The high cost of living was cited as a top concern by the survey respondents, with students growing increasingly put off by rising rents and dwindling housing options...   The federal government has not updated its cost-of-living figure for international students since 2015."

Brampton food banks are banning international students from using their services - ""There can be a lot of abuse with food banks," Rivera says, saying that her location verifies ID, proof of living in the catchment area that Ste. Louise covers, and bank statements to ensure applicants are truly in need.  "For certain groups like permanent residents, we can't serve you until you've been here for a year since the government standard is that you need to be able support yourself... and students, who are here temporarily, we also will not serve."... Ste. Louise has had numerous experiences with these students who have more than enough money for food in their bank account, but can't access it because it was borrowed from elsewhere solely for them to be able to obtain a visa.  "People come to us with $60,000 in their bank account asking for free food — when we look at this banking, we're floored," Rivera says. "They’re borrowing money then giving it back once they get here, then when they get here, they want our services."   Being a small, volunteer-run program that does not operate on government funding, Ste. Louise has identified this as a real problem that reduces the supply needed for families, seniors, people with disabilities, refugees and other groups that truly need it...   Some videos on YouTube and other platforms have also even publicly encouraged international students to use food banks as a way to "get free food in Canada.""

One simple fix could make Britain an economic powerhouse - "migration policy shouldn’t be about filling a labour shortage in this or that region of the country: it should be about inviting people whose children and grandchildren are likely, on average, to become great successes, who are likely to become educated, informed voters, who are likely to be socially, religiously, and sexually tolerant, and who are likely to themselves become magnets for global capital investment and job creation."

Hypocrisy exposed? Political activist asks pro-refugee marchers to take one into their home - Buy, Sell or Upload Video Content with Newsflare - "A British political activist claims to have exposed leftist hypocrisy by posing as an official and asking demonstrators on a pro-refugee march to take one into their own home.  "I just noticed your placard saying 'refugees welcome here' so I was wondering if you'd be willing to go down on a list saying you're willing to take refugees into your home," Jim Boobeh asks an unidentified marcher at the event in London on June 18.  "The only problem is I rent," says the demonstrator.  Davidson moves on to several other protesters with his clipboard asking the same question and all those he interviews come up with reasons not to take in a refugee.  "Left-wing activists: do as I say, not as I do," said Boobeh of his video."

Fear of X-ray age tests in UK ‘may force child asylum seekers to flee’ - "Children seeking asylum in the UK may run away and disappear because of fears of being subjected to X-rays and bone scans to verify their ages, human rights campaigners have said."
Fear of X-ray age tests ‘may force UK child asylum seekers to flee’ | Immigration and asylum : unitedkingdom - "Considering they've traversed entire continents and opted to fearlessly navigate the choppy English channel in an inflatable dinghy, it's almost laughable that an X-ray is considered a step too far."
Weird. What could they have to fear if they're really minors, especially if they've already run away from a war? Of course liberals claim these tests are inaccurate, and they pretend there's no risk to treating adults as children

Meme - "Africa, come to Europe. Because of declining population."
"Europe, Stop having children! For the environment"
"The malevolence of EU"
"Want to fight climate change? Have fewer children"
"Refugee influx helps halt decline in Germany's population"
Clearly having people from the Third World go to the First won't increase their carbon footprint

Meme - Population Matters @PopnMatters: "Greece is paying Greek people to have more babies, while trying to reduce immigration. This worrying nationalistic pro-natalism is also occurring in other countries and is the opposite of what humanity and the environment need."
William Bairamian: "tfw foreign organizations intervene to lobby for the disappearance of a nation. *Greece with Population decreasing*"

Human Error Blamed For Pakistan Plane Crash - "40% of pilots at PIA were flying aircraft with fake licenses. These pilots weren’t given the exams themselves and didn’t have the proper flying experience.  As Pakistan’s Minister for Aviation explained, “pilots are also appointed on a political basis, unfortunately. Whilst appointing pilots, merit is ignored.”"
Dozens of nurses and midwives from Nigeria STILL working in the UK despite fears their medical exam results are 'fraudulent or incorrect' - "The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) today confirmed that 48 Nigerian professionals are suspected of paying someone to a sit computer-based exam that tests medical knowledge and is needed to work in Britian.  The NMC said it was 'more likely than not' that those it has identified obtained their result fraudulently... The 48 people identified sat the exam, which covers drug dosage calculations and clinical questions for health issues like diabetes, at the Yunnik Technologies Test Centre in Ibadan, south west Nigeria.  An investigation by the NMC found 'evidence of widespread fraudulent activity' at the centre, meaning all the test results it has issued have now been deemed invalid"
Too bad it's racist to have stricter standards for some countries than others

France: Foreigners commit 69% of robberies, violent crimes, and sexual assaults on public transport - "Last year, 69 percent of violent robberies and other violent crimes, including sexual assaults, on public transport in the greater Paris region of Île-de-France were perpetrated by foreign nationals, according to the annual figures of the SSMSI, the statistics bureau of the French Ministry of Interior.  However, looking closer at the data, it is revealed that Africans alone are responsible for 52 percent of such crimes while only representing 3.2 percent of the population of France.  Even for all of France, the data clearly shows that African nationals account for 42 percent of the above-mentioned types of crimes, way above their statistical weight within the French population. Regarding crimes specific to public transport, the situation has actually not changed substantially over the years. The last time Remix News reported on such data in 2020, 69 percent of sexual assaults were committed by foreigners at that time as well. Overall in France, these crimes are also mostly (55 percent) committed by foreign nationals, the data indicated.  In a breakdown of the statistics from the city of Paris, 38 percent of violent robberies and other violent crimes were perpetrated by foreign nationals from the Maghreb region, which constitutes North African countries such as Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, followed by Africans from countries outside the Maghreb region. In total, foreigners committed approximately 70 percent of all violent robberies in Paris...   One factor to keep in mind is that the French statistics do not break down crimes based on race or ethnicity; nor do they reveal immigration background. So, a French citizen whose parents are both from Algeria will be counted as a French national in the crime statistics. In Denmark, such information is available, and it shows that second-generation migrants with Danish citizenship actually have higher rates of crime, including murder and physical assault.  As Remix News reported in June, a poll conducted for top French newspaper Le Figaro shows that nearly three out of four French people believe there are too many migrants in the country, with the poll results coming after the country accepted a record number of foreigners in 2022 under President Emmanuel Macron."

Wilfred Reilly on X - "The argument that nations should not have borders, because - if they do - a woman or child might be injured while trying to illegally cross one is just an updated version of the weaponized-empathy argument used for banning anything.  "Can you JUSTIFY your guns/fast cars/alcohol/going outside, if JUST ONE GRANDMOTHER..."   Yes. The answer is ~always yes."

Indians with fraudulent credentials : SingaporeRaw - "I was speaking with a few mates and lassie over drinks during lunch and the topic of applicants from Indian came up to which they shared they regularly found more than 40% of these applicants having fraudulent credentials when a third - party agency was commissioned to conduct a background check on them.  Visa applicants from India have regularly been scrutinised and delayed for years because of an exorbitantly high rates of forge documents from them.  Not only that: it is phenomenal that despite the small population size of foreign Indians in Sydney and Melbourne relative to the natives, these people tend to be over-represented in IT - related roles with the strikingly common dubious theme of an entire line managers being Indian (director is Indian and everyone below is Indian). They seem more populated in technical areas of banking where technical rigour is not emphasised and seldom found in technical roles within big tech (which also raise the question of "perhaps they did not made the technical cut").  I wonder if there are any similar issues like these in Singapore."

Rebecca Brannon on X - "New York City: NYC homeless sleep on concrete in filth with rats during the last few rainy cold nights as hundreds of migrants - mostly men - continue to arrive on busses - housed up in hotels, fed and supported."

Meme - Auron Macintyre @AuronMacintyre: "Notice the strategy here. manufacture the problem, call anyone who notices a bigot, and then pretend the problem has become unsolvable so the only answer is to embrace the future the left was engineering from the outset"
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick: "Roughly 2.5% of the US population is undocumented. "Deport them all" means a mass purge, roadblocks in communities around the country, "papers, please" at every corner, and a fundamental transformation of this country from a free one into a police state."

Meme - Wall Street Silver: "This is Spain. It sort of seems like D-Day. Their troops are landing on the beaches. Then at the end of the video their troop carriers head back to bring more reinforcements. If the government was at all interested in stopping this, they would be sinking those boats so they can't be used again. Create expenses for them and it will slow them down or bring it to a stop entirely." |
End Wokeness @EndWokeness: "It's not a border crisis, it's a plot. It's not immigration, it's an invasion. It isn't spontaneous, it's coordinated. Western civilization will be gone within a generation. Our grandkids will hate us."

Visegrád 24 on X - "Scandal erupts in Sweden after a newspaper published data on jobs held by "ISIS women" taken back to Sweden from the Al-Hol camp (ISIS women & kids) in Kurdish Syria Of the 83 women who returned, more than 1/4 now work in Swedish schools, kindergartens & asylum centres for kids"

Wall Street Silver on X - "These days in Germany, the native Germans are more likely to be arrested for showing the German flag because it might offend migrants and make them feel unwelcome or unsafe.  That is how ridiculous Europe has become. They need to stop being so soft and start electing real leaders who actually care about their countries."

Meme - Drake no: "Europe sucks so much AlLaHu SnAckBaR1!11!!" Drake yes: "But ill take those 2500€, free apartment and healthcare every month"

Heather ⚡️🇬🇧 🦀 on X - "If I were to go to a Middle Eastern country where I would be expected to wear a veil and cover my hair. I would 100% do it out of respect for the culture, laws and traditions of the country. I would not go over there, refuse to wear it and demand they change thousands of years of tradition in order to satisfy me.  Yet.. this is exactly what the open door policy and the globalist one world lunatics are trying to achieve. How the hell can this ever work. No one rule for everyone exists. It’s like trying to mix oil and water.  It’s impossible. Get back to individual countries. Get back to being proud of our nations. Get back to protecting everything that makes us all unique and different."
The kind of people who say it's racist to expect migrants to Western countries to integrate are also the kind who condemn Westerners who don't follow the customs of the countries they visit/live in

France: Muslim disrupts mass with screams of ‘Allahu akbar’ - "A mass celebrated by a priest in the Saint-Éloi church in Dunkirk (North), Sunday November 5, was disrupted by an individual who distinctly shouted “Allah Akbar” twice, Le Figaro learned from a police source."

'At least half of Paris crime is committed by foreigners': Where does Macron's claim come from? - "Mr. Macron cited a statistic: "If we look at crime in Paris today, we cannot fail to see that at least half of the crime comes from people who are foreigners, either illegal immigrants or waiting for a residence permit. In any case, they're in a very delicate situation, often coming in through these [illegal immigration] channels."...   In a book published in October, Didier Lallement, who was the head of Paris police until last July, cited a figure close to the one used by Mr. Macron. "In Paris, one out of every two crimes is committed by a foreigner, often in an irregular situation," he wrote. When questioned, the Paris police prefecture reported that "the share of foreign nationals in crimes committed in Paris was 48% for the first few months of the year." This is not broken down by the proportion of illegal immigrants and type of crime, as the statistics are based on "all offenses combined.""

Catholic Church Allows Muslim Call to Prayer During Mass - "A Roman Catholic Church in Ballyhaunis, a town in County Mayo, Ireland, has been criticized for opening its doors to Muslims for an Islamic Call to Prayer during Mass recently as this demonstrates the lengths that the Catholic Church is willing to go to embrace its ecumenical endeavor...   The Catholic Church’s imprudent attempts to promote ecumenism and interreligious dialogue have infected Evangelical denominations and have led to a dilution of Christianity, blurring the lines between Christianity and other blatantly false religions."
Priest criticised for allowing Muslim call to prayer in church - "A priest’s decision to allow the Muslim call to prayer to feature during a Mass in Mayo was “misguided”, according to an expert on the Church in the Arab world.  Fr Stephen Farragher of Ballyhaunis Parish organised for members of the Muslim community in Ballyhaunis to say the final prayer at 10am morning Mass last week, broadcast on Midwest Radio... “The Muslim call to prayer boldly proclaiming ‘I profess that that there is no god but God, I profess that Muhammad is God’s prophet’, can have no place in a Catholic Eucharist,” said Fr O’Sullivan, who is a fluent Arabic speaker.  “There are many ways of furthering dialogue with Muslims which today should only be recommended and encouraged.  “For obvious reasons, inviting the Islamic call to prayer to be made from the lectern in a Catholic church is not one of them.”"

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Links - 25th November 2023 (1 - General Wokeness)

VIDEO: With Katie Herzog on the Expansion of LGBTQ Identity and How it is Wielded in Political Discourse - "While various marginalized identities still trigger great discrimination, suffering and even danger in certain venues in the world, in other key elite centers — academia, media, liberal cosmopolitan enclaves, elite political debates — they confer great advantages, naturally fostering the incentive to claim it. The more marginalization points one can assemble, the more rights a person is assigned, the more deference they are due, the more inherent soundness and moral righteousness their political arguments are assumed to carry. Anyone who participates even minimally in political discourse in these venues knows these are the prevailing rules, and anyone who denies it is being dishonest. That’s the reason there have been so many cases of white straight people in academia and media getting caught falsely assuming marginalized identities that are not their own.  Any set of rules for political discourse that subordinate the merit of an argument to the identity of the person advocating it is one that is inherently unhealthy and distorted. And that framework, undoubtedly growing in strength in elite U.S. precincts, is also producing a wide range of incentives, distortions and pathologies for how marginalization and its various identities are understood."

The alt-right: identity politics on steroids - "the ‘alt-right’ has been one of the most abused terms in Anglo-American political discourse. The label has been used to refer to a range of figures, from US president Donald Trump to best-selling psychologist Jordan Peterson, from any member of Boris Johnson’s cabinet to full-blown neo-Nazi thugs and avowed racists.  This stretching of the term is not only disingenuous — it is also dangerous. By making the alt-right a mundane catch-all smear, the hideousness and danger of the actual alt-right is hidden.  Such intellectual laziness has another negative outcome: it fails to understand the deeper reasons that gave breathing space to the alt-right. Because if we scratch the surface, we are in for a surprise: the alt-right is not the resurrection of Nazi Germany or the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan, but the unwitting by-product of some of the dominant mainstream ideas of our time... what differentiates the alt-right from the rest of the transgressive, anti-mainstream right is its distinctive racial worldview. And at the centre of its racial worldview lies white nationalism... the alt-right is a distinctive 21st-century phenomenon. This is because the worldview of the alt-right is the logical result of the dominant ideology in the West today — namely, tribalism. Spencer’s talent, such as it is, lay in his ability to adapt his racist message to the prevailing cultural climate of our times. Thus, the alt-right is focusing on two areas possessed of a strong currency in today’s politics: identity and victimhood. We are constantly being told that our identity is special, that we should be proud of it, and that it makes us who we are. It tells us we are not sovereign individuals; rather, we are male, female, cis heterosexual, LGBT, BAME, minorities… the list goes on. The alt-rightists see this trend, nod approvingly, and simply add their identity to the list. We are white, they say, and this is who we are.  In this sense, the alt-right is entirely on trend, intellectually speaking. In academia, for example, racial thinking has also experienced a powerful revival in recent decades. But it has come back wearing a progressive face. Critical-race studies, and similar disciplines, tell us that colour-blindness is problematic, and that ‘whiteness’ is an inescapable predicament for white people. Indeed, critical-race theorists present whiteness as something close to a modern form of original sin.  The alt-right has seized on this revamped concept of race, and appropriated it for its own ends. In its hands, whiteness becomes something that must be defended. As Jared Taylor, a sixtysomething ‘race realist’ intellectual, who is popular in the alt-right movement, puts it:
‘What do you call a black person who prefers to be around other black people, and likes black music and culture? A black person. What do you call a white person who listens to classical music, likes European culture, and prefers to be around white people? A Nazi. All non-whites are expected to have a strong racial identity; only whites must not.’...
Ironically, it is perhaps more accurate to portray the alt-right as a white-vulnerability movement, rather than a white-supremacy one. After all, this is the ultimate justification for the alt-right’s dream of an ethno-state — namely, that it will provide a ‘safe space’, as Spencer himself puts it, for white people, threatened, as they allegedly are, by globalism and multiculturalism. Indeed, Spencer, Taylor and others in the alt-right openly claim that other races have, on average, a higher IQ than whites. Such a claim would have been unimaginable for old-style white supremacists. But here it provides another reason as to why whites need their own racial ethno-state – because they are not as bright, as, say, Asian people... We are constantly being told that our ethnicity, our gender, our upbringings and our culture define who we are. We need to stand up to this view, and defend our individual free will and our capacity to change our predicament. Only then, perhaps, will it be possible to change the world for the better. This is how we will defeat the alt-right and its misanthropy – through a defeat of tribal thinking and identitarianism in general."

So, You Want To Define Woke? - "Spoiler alert!      Woke is the Left’s “Red Pill.”  Duh.  I mean, both terms reference being asleep to some broader worldview — a system of oppression that we can’t see, like fish in water, until we finally wake up... Now, if you want the real definition, here it is:      Woke is left wing, zero-sum, cultural and systemic identitarian-collectivist activism... I mean, we could simplify things and just call it “Cultural Marxism,” but Wikipedia considers that some kind conspiratorial dog-whistle. Curiously, it’s actually not a conspiratorial dog-whistle if you just change the words around a little…
'Marxist cultural analysis'...
So maybe it’s better to say:      Woke is Neo-Marxist Cultural Activism That’s Totally Not Trying To Destabilize The West.  Come to think of it, both of these definitions, while apropos, may just be a little over some people’s heads, so let’s try something a bit easier:      Woke is The Left’s Alt-Right.  Ah, now I know we’re speaking the same language.  If you think about it, both the Alt-Right and the Woke-Left are identitarian-collectivists, both obsessed with identity and putting it first in matters of policy. Sure, they definitely have opposite views about how society should treat “cis/white/straight/Protestant/males” specifically, but they’re ultimately using the same strategies, or ideological framework, to achieve their ends.  (Kinda like how the Nation of Islam and Neo Nazis make good bedfellows.) One wants to use discriminatory policies while the other…wants to use discriminatory policies... the only way to measure a lesser of these evils is by which identities you prefer to get screwed.  But even this is only part of the picture. There’s actually a crucial difference between them: Whereas the Alt-Right wants to differentiate themselves from the standard Right, the Woke-Left wants to infiltrate and assimilate the Progressives... the young Progressives have had years of calculated indoctrination.  Still, many have been picking up on its bullshit. It’s not just a conservative thing. Progressives are increasingly telling their stories of “walking away from the Left.”  Full disclosure, I’m one of ‘em... Sarah Silverman described Woke as:      “…learning new things about people or the world and then acting accordingly like basic kindness, maybe a gesture of care to people who are more vulnerable than you.”  But that’s just more of the mud. When someone says, “Go Woke, Go Broke,” they’re clearly not referencing basic kindness or learning new things.  For example, despite Billy Eichner’s best attempts to wave away the failure of Bros by blaming homophobic crowds, there’s a reason why it could fail in 2022, yet Brokeback Mountain was widely praised in an era when marriage equality still wasn’t even legal.  Can you spot the difference?... let’s be real here, saying “Woke” is far easier than saying “left wing, zero-sum, cultural and systemic identitarian-collectivist activism.”... Race and sex swapping established characters isn’t inherently woke either, it happens all the time in stage plays, and it can be done without sacrificing the nature of the character. Think Starbuck from the Battlestar Galactica remake. The problem again is Woke-Diversity: rigging the casting for the sake of an ESG score or the showrunner’s own prejudice, especially where it doesn’t make sense. Think the BBC show, Anne Boleyn.  And, I hate to break it to you, but if you think Superman has to be black for black people to relate, you’re a racist, no matter how hard the Woke want to redefine the term. And if you know any kids who feel that way, congratulations, they’ve been indoctrinated to view identity first and foremost, which is a win for the Woke. In fact, it’s the first component of their agenda.  And it’s not just the identities, it’s also what you do with the characters. For example, making all young women unbelievable-scientific geniuses (Wakanda Forever had two of these “Women in STEM tropes,” and the horribly-titled Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’s whole plot revolves around another), or making all older women “girl-bosses.” Seriously, it’s like every person in authority has to be a chick with a stick up her ass. It’s sheer, fucking hubris. Conversely, it can also mean making all men, especially white men, little more than villains or buffoons.  This isn’t building women up, it’s patronizing them while breaking men down...  I want strong, female characters. Hell, we have a rich history proving that both can be strong and compelling. Think The Terminator. No, I’m explicitly talking about turning female characters into Marry Sues whilst making a mockery of men. Think Rey vs Finn in the new Star Wars trilogy.  Even a toddler could tell that this isn’t putting them on the same level.  Likewise, it can be found in the very skeleton of a production, such as “diversity-hiring” unqualified show runners. Not only does this trickle down wokism, it leads to a loss in quality, as green “creatives” who aren’t familiar with (or blatantly don’t like) the material they’re working on produce poor work. Think She-Hulk, whose showrunner clearly knew nothing about the titular character, law, or even comedy. It can go even further and be directors who only hire an LGBTQWTFBBQ+ cast for their production or others who outright refuse to cast a white lead... This may come as a surprise, but I have no qualms talking about serious topics in teen shows, including racism or sexism, etc., provided it’s not woke sophistry. I like seeing diverse casts (granted, more so by their character than superficial features like race), it just can’t be forced and has to make sense in the context of the work. Not even talking about entertainment, I want to see people pulled out of poverty or not abused by police…I just don’t start and end the conversation with the color of skin. I also think we should teach the full scope of history, especially the ugly bits, sans contemporary agendas and provided it’s honest and age appropriate.  See, each caveat I have to add to those statements is where you can find wokism hiding.  Speaking of which, Lefties try to say Anti-Woke means not telling “black history.” That’s bullshit too, because they don’t want to just tell history, they want to “reframe” it to achieve their goal, and that’s what we’re calling out... I don’t want children being told what to think, I want them taught how to think critically. They should not be vehicles for your agenda so your ideas can get away unscathed by challenge."
Liberals keep claiming conservatives fail in defining woke. But they always dismiss the definitions offered
Post-Marxism is another good way to define wokeness
Keywords: defining wokeness, define woke, define wokeness, definition of woke, definition of wokeness

Meme - Chanel Pfahl @ChanLPfa: "Found on the official Government of Canada website."
"WHEEL OF PRIVILEGE AND POWER
(the closer you are to the centre, the more privilege you have)"

Meme - "Tacoma Olympia Polyamory Society
Private group
350 members
About: Hello and welcome to T.O.P.S! (Don't worry, bottoms/ verse are welcome too!)
We're an 18+ social group for polyamorous folk in the Pierce County area. We'll hold social events for adults only and family friendly events too! The primary objective is to connect with likeminded people to create a community and help people make new friends! You can live outside the Pierce County area, but know most (possibly all) events will be in Pierce County. All people are welcome to join except the following:
- Centrist/Right Wingers/Republicans/Trumpers
- Racists and Anti-BLM/ALM Supporters
- Ableists
- Bigots
- TERFS
- Classists
- Fascists
- Sexists/Misogynists
- Pro-Blue Lives Supports (We're ACAB here!)
- Nazis/Anti-Semits"

Meme - USSR: "Now that we have power, it's time to get rid of the useless people"
Pride flag: "I can't wait, finally we will be free of the straight Christians, Comrade!"
USSR: "Up against the wall"
Pride flag: "Comrade?"

Meme - Libs of TikTok @libsoftiktok: ".@OneTeamFCS is so desperate for students to read pO*n in school that they offered students prizes and Starbucks gift cards if they stopped by the school library for "banned books week." We looked into their library and one of the books they offer is "Fun Home" which shows a "lesbian terrOrist" doing oral s*x"
Why do liberals want to sexualise children so much?

Canadian dad rips school board for sexually explicit book available to young children, gender policies - "A Canadian father of a fourth-grade student went off on a school district on Tuesday not just for requesting to know what his daughter’s gender identity is, but also for the contents of a book on the school library shelves.  David Todor spoke during a public portion of a Waterloo Region District meeting in Waterloo, Ontario in Canada on Monday, raising concerns about a book by Toni Morrison, titled, "The Bluest Eye... Morrison talks about homosexuality, bestiality, and sodomy.  Todor read the passage of the book his daughter can check out from the school library, during the school board meeting, saying, "If it’s good enough for her to access it, it’s good enough to be read over here."  "He could have been an active homosexual but lacked the courage. Bestiality did not occur to him, and sodomy was quite out of the question, for he did not experience sustained e----ions and could not endure the thought of somebody else's," Todor read. "And since he was too diffident to confront homosexuality, and since little boys were insulting, scary, and stubborn, he further limited his interests to little girls. They were usually manageable and frequently seductive.  "Do you know that when I touched their sturdy little t-ts and bit them—just a little—I felt I was being friendly," he continued to read.  Todor also raised concerns about the school district’s policies and a couple of surveys he says were given to students between fourth and 12th grades. One question had Todor scratching his head; it had to do with students marking what their sexual orientation is... Todor told the board he remembered when people did not ask those questions.  "It’s none of your business what a person’s sexual orientation is," he said. "Who’s interested in knowing the sexual orientation of my daughter? She’s in grade 4."  Another survey he said was given to students within the same grade range addresses gender identity, asking the student what their gender identity is. "Again, I ask you, who’s interested in knowing the sexual orientation and the gender identity of my daughter," Todor asked... Todor said he found it interesting the school had a policy to remove parents from the equation when it came to their kids, but also a policy that teachers are being told not to talk to parents, but students are being told to tell everyone except for their parents."

Twelve-year-olds are taught about anal sex in school while nine-year-olds told to 'masturbate' - "Schoolchildren are being taught about anal sex and orgasms before they have reached puberty and set 'masturbation' as homework, secretive lesson plans reveal.  Many teachers are 'indoctrinating' children with scientifically false claims about biological sex, presenting gender as fluid and furthering a narrative that people can be born in the wrong body.  It comes as the NHS is facing a mass legal action from 1,000 families who claim their children were rushed into taking life-changing puberty blockers' by the Tavistock Centre. MailOnline has found graphic teaching material — including a sex manual for pre-teens — being taught to children in classes around the UK.  It follows a concerned mother being denied the right to see the content of the lessons being taught to her 15-year-old daughter in her Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) classes, which became compulsory three years ago.  Despite a judge refusing Clare Page the right to see the material, MailOnline can reveal that a wealth of questionable teaching resources are already available online.  Colouring books, word searches and cartoon drawings have also been given to young girls and boys by 'activist teachers' in their 'overarching mission to sexualise children in the name of inclusion'.  Since September 2020, Relationships Education has been compulsory in primary schools and RSE mandatory in secondary schools. The change left many teaching staff seeking guidance.  The void was filled by charities — some harbouring unconventional views on biological sex and sharing material on their websites that references underage sex. MailOnline can reveal that some children are:
Taught that from birth until the age of one, babies can 'experience pleasurable sensations' by touching their genitals
Given ways for 12-year-old girls to orgasm while masturbating, including pinching or stroking the clitoris
Given 'masturbation' homework from a pre-compulsory RSE resource
Told that girls as young as 12 can find sexual pleasure from anal, vaginal and oral sex
Taught that it's normal to want to masturbate during and even before they hit puberty
Informed that it's normal for prepubescent children to be sexually attracted to anyone
Told that gender is different from sex but is a much more intrinsic part of who a person is
Taught that people can change their sex from being a man to being a woman
Also taught that some 'non-binary' humans are neither men nor women
Taught that men with the male Y chromosome can actually be women
The Sex Education Forum (SEF), Coram Life Education and Brook are some of the leading charities that create lesson plans for schools, hold PSHE workshops and point teachers towards related educational material... the TES lesson plan makes the false claim that being XXY (also called Klinefelter's Syndrome) means you can be male or female, or neither.  This is false. As the NHS points out, only men can be XXY... Vagina Matters also showed explicit cartoons of a woman's naked breasts, buttocks and vagina.   The guide for girls as young as 12 also pointed out where the clitoris was using a graphic diagram. Vagina Matters is the top free teaching resource on Brook's website. It is a tool aimed at 12 to 14-year-old girls that covers about sex, masturbation and orgasms.  It also normalises sex 'before your first menstruation'.  Most girls start to menstruate between the ages of eight and 13. Sex before the age of 13 is legally considered as rape.   The guide even advises pre-teens different ways of stimulation, from massaging their clitoris with a finger to being penetrated by a penis, licked with a tongue and using sex toys on themselves. The schoolgirls' guide to a vagina also said: 'During puberty, and even before that, it's normal to have the desire to masturbate and to  imagine how you would want to be touched by someone else.'  The guide, which targets 12 to 14-year-old girls, added: 'You can be sexually attracted to anyone.'  In the next paragraph, it listed ways to find 'sexual pleasure'.  It said: 'These could include masturbation, fingering, penetration of the vagina with a penis or sex toy, penetration of the anus with a penis or sex toy, [and] using the mouth and tongue to stimulate your partner's genital area.'"

Cops Probe After Middle School Librarian Allegedly Says Students Are ‘Sex Workers’ To Justify Pro-Prostitution Book - "Police in Northern Virginia are investigating after a middle school librarian allegedly defended a pro-prostitution book by saying it belonged in the library because many of the school’s 11- to 13-year old students are sex workers... A shocked Loudoun County teacher went to the police after the librarian, Stefany Guido, allegedly made the comment to her. The teacher had asked Guido about a book a parent had flagged on Twitter called “Seeing Gender,” which included a chapter titled “‘Sex Work’ Is Not a Bad Term.” The Daily Wire is withholding the name of the teacher, who as a “mandatory reporter” felt compelled to tell police that students in her charge could be in danger.  “A person may exchange sex or sexual activity for things they need or want, such as food, housing, hormones, drugs, gifts, or other resources,” reads one shocking passage in the book... The Sterling Middle School teacher went to the school library after seeing the unidentified parent’s tweet about the book to find out if it was actually available to students. Guido retrieved the book and defended it, the teacher told police in a recorded conversation... “She started talking about how there’s kids who come to the library who do sex work, and this makes them feel validated,” the teacher told police. “As a teacher, if you get an individual student coming to you because you’re abused, you have to go the police immediately.”  The teacher said Guido did not name specific students, except one who had passed through the school about six years ago.  Guido allegedly said she marked the book as being for eighth graders... Guido has been active in political and cultural hot-button issues. In 2017, Guido told the Human Rights Campaign she was canvassing for votes for a transgender Democrat political candidate. “I felt like I was actually making an impact in politics — which has always felt impenetrable in the past. It was so rewarding to get to go out and interact with other voters in a positive way,” she said.  Earlier this month, she used Facebook to raise money for abortions.  The school’s other librarian, Lisa Buffi, created a 17-page list of “LGBTQ+ Books” for children, such as “a picture book with rhyming text that encourages boys and girls to ignore common gender stereotypes,” one about a boy who transfers to a new school and begins life as a girl, and others called “The Bride Was A Boy,” “Boy Meets Boy,” and “Being Jazz: My Life As A (Transgender) Teen.” She also appealed to outside donors to purchase books such as “Ghost Boy,” and promoted an effort by a gay group to donate books to the library. The American Library Association has increasingly promoted to children comic books that contain overt sexual messages. In April, it chose a self-described “Marxist lesbian” as its president-elect. Her platform seemed to have little to do with literature, saying “So many of us find ourselves at the ends of our worlds. The consequences of decades of unchecked climate change, class war, white supremacy, and imperialism have led us here.”"
Damn banned books!
What does it say that a book about "gender identity" talks about sex work?

Meme - systlin: "So I found out that my coworker has been selling gay indulgences and honestly what a fucking genius she is. Her best friend loves chick fil a and always feels guilty about it, so Steph just told her once 'listen if you eat there send me $20 and all is forgiven" and. She did it. And is still doing that. We're working and Steph gets a notification and just goes "Oh L just sent me the Lesbian Forgiveness Tax for chick fil a" and I went 'what'
@ all straight people who've ever eaten at chick fil a; cashapp a queer person $20 immediately"
"#is this what is going to cause the gay reformation in a few years"
"Intensely interested to see what gay grievances get nailed to the front of the local gay club"
Yet more evidence that wokeness is a religion

i/o on X - ""Socioeconomic differences cause race differences in crime"  Uhm, no. Upper-middle class blacks commit felonies in the US at about the same rate as working-class whites.  "Systemic racism"  No one seems to be able to point to the presently-operating organized and interconnected framework and intentionality — that is, the system — which makes racism in America "systemic". Intermittent or disconnected incidents of racism do not constitute a system. The mere existence of disparities proves nothing, and is far more robustly explained by large and persistent mean IQ gaps between blacks and whites (and Asians).  There's no presently-operating "system" of racism in the US. It's virtually all residual and legacy effects and incidents in isolation from one another. "Systemic" is a deliberate misuse of language. The only racially discriminating "system" using institutional power is affirmative action."

Thread by @echetus on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "If you use Wikipedia, you've seen pop-ups like this. If you're like me, you may have donated as a result.  Wikipedia is an amazing website, and the appeals seem heartfelt. But I've now learnt the money isn't going where I thought...  The organisation which administers Wikipedia - to whom the money goes - is the Wikimedia Foundation Inc. Wikimedia is a San Francisco non-profit with 400 employees - which has exploded in size in recent years.  In a decade, Wikimedia's spending has soared: from $10 million in 2010 to $112 million by 2020. This suprised me, seeing as Wikipedia seems to be functionally the same website it was 10 years ago. So what explains this huge increase?  Maybe more people use the site, making it more expensive to run? No: 2021 website hosting cost $2.4 million - which is LESS than it did in 2012. In fact, according the Wikimedia Foundation's own website, less than half of what they spend goes on directly supporting the website. Bear in mind - Wikipedia used to be an incredibly cheap, volunteer run website...  So where is the money going? Well, a lot of it Wikimedia gives away to other organisations. And a significant portion of their staff are employed in that process. From 2012 to 2020, the spending on salaries increased fivefold, and $22.9 million was given in grants. At this point, you should know that while Wikipedia emphasises a "Neutral Point of View", Wikimedia is openly politicized. It is a full participant in America's culture wars, and this helps us understand how they spend the donations. Let's take a look at two big recipients.  The SeRCH Foundation received a quarter million dollars of donor cash. Glancing at the website, you could assume it was about the admirable goal of minority representation in STEM. However on closer inspection, it turns out to be a bit more unusual than that. They're proponents of an "Intersectional Scientific Method" involving "hyperspace"(?)  Their output is extremely long YouTube videos which get about 50 views a time. In the videos they discuss issues in science like objectivity (they're against it) and bias (they're in favour).  There's been one new video in the last year. Also enjoying Wikimedia's largesse was Borealis Philanthropy. Borealis is yet another grant giving organisation: They're even more political, and fully committed to driving America's cultural revolution. Wikimedia gave $250,000 to Borealis's Racial Equity in Journalism Fund. That money was then cascaded down to a dozens of ideologically aligned news outlets across the US.  Thus, the money you give to keep Wikipedia online is diverted to bankroll the inescapable American culture war. Back in 2017, a Wikipedian called Guy Macon wrote a strident article entitled "Wikipedia has a Cancer". He predicted Wikimedia's runaway spending would bankrupt Wikipedia, resulting in its takeover by Facebook or Google.  Since then, Wikimedia's budget has almost doubled. What Macon misunderstood is that orgs like Wikimedia are not cancers. They are parasites that cannot survive outside their host. Almost nobody would donate to Wikimedia so it could spend money on these causes - without Wikipedia, Wikimedia would starve.  In the west, an advanced industry of NGOs, charities, and foundations has evolved which funds so much of the weirdness in our daily lives. A caste of activist-professionals have emerged, which inevitably capture any non-profit with spare cash. This is what is sometimes called The Blob: a powerful but inconspicuous force that has given us the dysfunction of the 21st century. Wikipedia is an amazing and important website. But it doesn't need your money. It has enough to stay online, improve and grown. What it needs more donations for is to fund one side in the United States' culture war. A sad footnote to this: In 2021 SeRCH ran their own funding programme, "Hot Science Summer".  In deciding who to fund, the key criteria was use of the Intersectional Scientific method. Everything else - a scientific background, data - was optional. What could possibly go wrong? One of the projects was into spatial learning in the California Two-Spot Octopus, for which the researcher got 12 hatchling octopuses.  Unfortunately, the lab experiment went horribly wrong, killing the poor creatures before the research could be concluded."

Meme - Derek Hopper @derekmhopper: "Isn't it funny that the shitlibs at this bookstore instinctively know which countries are shitholes? Malala is from Pakistan-which wasn't mentioned by Trump-yet the store employee saw the book, thought "Yes, Pakistan is a shithole", and put it on display."
*Writers from s**thole countries*
Also seen: The Kite Runner (Afghanistan), A Brief History of Seven Killings (Jamaica), The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Dominican Republic), Exit West (Pakistan). Of course, the cope will be that this is what Trump meant

Meme - "You pay for them to teach you this shit?"
"Other anchors for the spectrum
Left
Rational
Egalitarian
Internationalist
Progressive
Right
Irrational
Racist
Nationalist
Retrogressive"
Clear proof that academia is free of bias, and anyone who alleges this hates learning

Links - 24th November 2023 (2 - Covid-19)

World at ‘tipping point’ following government debt binges, says HSBC boss - "The world is at a “tipping point” on debt that threatens to spark a global reckoning after years of government borrowing binges, the boss of HSBC has warned.  Noel Quinn, chief executive of the bank, which is one of the world’s biggest, said countries risked being “hit hard” after allowing borrowing to balloon in the wake of the financial crisis and pandemic.  Speaking at the Future Investment Initiative Institute’s summit in Saudi Arabia, known as Davos in the Desert, Mr Quinn said the current rate of borrowing was unsustainable.  He said: “I’m concerned about a tipping point on fiscal deficits. When it comes, it will come fast and I think there are a number of economies in the world where there could be a tipping point and it will hit hard.”... Larry Fink, the chairman and chief executive of Blackrock, suggested that growing tensions threatened to throw the world into recession... The International Monetary Fund and World Bank sounded the alarm over global debt levels earlier this month, warning that the US and China had put public debt on course to approach the size of the entire global economy by the end of the decade. Ayhan Kose, the World Bank’s deputy chief economist, described the debt binge since 2010 as “the fastest, most broad based and largest” the world had ever seen. Previous debt waves have all led to financial crises. Mr Kose warned that emerging markets were already in the middle of a “silent debt crisis”, where governments are crushed by debt and unable to fund public services.  Mr Quinn also described Europe as “a very low growth economy”, adding that countries including the UK were likely to see higher for longer interest rates to tame inflation... Jamie Dimon, the chairman and chief executive of Wall Street giant JP Morgan, called for “some humility about financial forecasting”.  “I want to point out that central banks 18 months ago were 100pc dead wrong,” he told the event in Riyadh."
What a heartless monster. He just wanted grandma to die

Rex Murphy: You could drive an 18-wheeler through our Charter of Rights and Freedoms - "Have there been any instances in, say, quite recent years, where the Charter has been absent or removed from its grand functions? Has Canada experienced some interval when all the protections so solemnly proclaimed and grandly stated in this wonderful document have been — shall we say, sidelined? And, strange as it might be to say this, but sidelined or disregarded with very little resistance, explanation or even notice? Well, yes, there has been such an instance, a period of two full years when a vast sweep of the most basic rights of every man, woman and child in Canada were suspended, circumscribed or withdrawn. Naturally I’m referring to the COVID regimens. During this time, all governments — federal, provincial and municipal — and numerous institutions and companies for that matter (I’m thinking particularly of school boards) set out grand rules on how people should act, where and in what number they could meet, what they must wear, and how far apart they must stand. Those rules cut deeper into our everyday lives than we have ever experienced in this country. They governed the most intimate and heart-wrenching of experiences — when people could or could not visit ailing, or even dying, loved ones. The images from the early COVID days of sons and daughters standing outside the windows of nursing homes, hand-signalling to parents they were not allowed to be physically near, were both painful and present to this very moment. Now let us make the obvious point. A new disease, a pandemic, will reasonably justify measures for the health of all. A government that didn’t act during such a crisis would be rightfully condemned. But the suspension of so many rights, so quickly, in most cases without elaborate or even minimal debate, the shifting and reverse injunctions, the exceptions — big stores can stay open, small must close — the designation of essential and non-essential, the whole great web of limitations and restrictions — all this just happened. During COVID the Charter was silent, less a shield than a thin veil, and hardly even mentioned by the various governments that so readily ignored it.  And then, we had another experience. The bald, imperious declaration of the Emergencies Act during the truckers’ protest. Now this was not a pandemic. It was a protest, a gathering of citizens expressing their concern over government legislation. The act was a sledgehammer brought down from a woeful height without the slightest testing in court, and fully in opposition to the Charter’s guarantees. Huge fines were announced, people were charged and given no bail, the private transactions of citizens were investigated, bank accounts were entered and frozen — and these were the invasions of our rights that we know of.  What calls were made on our famous charter during this period? What were the noble words about the charter then — that it “defined us as Canadians,” that it “brought us together as a country?” The truckers’ protest was the one episode, par excellence, in which the charter, if indeed it was a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, should have been called upon. It should have warranted real debate in Parliament. But the Emergencies Act blasted a hole in that sacred document you could drive — do I dare the metaphor, yes I do — an 18-wheeler through. All in, this is not the best week, or the best year, for those who have waltzed around and through the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, to be Twitter-singing its praises. They would be better off trying to explain why they worship the document when it suits them, and ignore it when it doesn’t."

Canada’s defence chief was warned military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate may not be legal - "Catherine Christensen, the Edmonton lawyer who obtained the briefing note through the Access to Information Act, argued the document shows Eyre’s order was driven by politics... The memo suggested a universal mandate was unnecessary to protect the health of the Canadian Armed Forces, given that more than 90 per cent of Armed Forces personnel were already vaccinated at that time."
External review found military's COVID-19 vaccine policy violated Charter of Rights - "A tribunal that is part of the military grievance process has found that the Canadian Armed Forces' COVID-19 vaccine policy violated its members' Charter rights.  The Military Grievances External Review Committee reviews grievances that are referred to it by the chief of defence staff, and provides the chief with non-binding findings and recommendations... The vaccine policy required Canadian Armed Forces members to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or face release.  By the time the requirement ended last October, 299 people had been released and another 108 left on their own... "The characterization that members who are 'unwilling' to get vaccinated are displaying misconduct is in contradiction with the CAF's own pre-existing policies and statements that also guarantee their members' choice towards medical treatment," she wrote."

Military leads the way on declaring vaccine mandates unconstitutional - "In January 2021, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ruled out COVID-19 vaccine mandates. In March, he shot down the idea again. In May, he dug in, saying, “We’re not a country that makes vaccination mandatory.” But in August of that year, Trudeau made a U-turn, announcing mandatory vaccinations for public servants and anyone boarding planes and trains. Then he called a snap election. The Liberals made a calculated decision that they could capitalize on the anger that the vaccinated majority felt toward the unvaccinated by mandating vaccines at a time when Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole insisted vaccination was a personal health decision. Liberal strategist Scott Reid outlined the plan on Twitter: “OToole is a nail. Vaccines are a hammer. Swing hard.” Back in power, Trudeau mused on Quebec TV about whether we should “tolerate” these “extremists,” “misogynists” and “racists.” And yet, when the pandemic subsided, Trudeau changed his tune again. He claimed that he never forced anyone to get vaccinated. Grounding passengers and firing public servants were mere “incentives.”  Now, the Military Grievances External Review Committee, which was tasked with reviewing the cases of Canadian Forces members who were kicked out of the military for refusing to get vaccinated, has called out the claim that no one was ever forced to get vaccinated. While service members “theoretically” retained a choice, “the consequences of a refusal are such that this choice is not really a choice,” wrote committee member Nina Frid in her review. Citing Judge Mark Phillips of the Quebec Superior Court in the 2022 case Syndicat des métallos, Frid explained that policies that force people to choose between staying unvaccinated and keeping their jobs engage the charter-protected rights to liberty — which includes the right to direct one’s own medical care — and security of the person, which protects bodily integrity. Not only were these rights engaged, Frid found the policy was unconstitutional.  Frid is correct. Judges who upheld vaccine mandates were wrong to accept that requiring someone to choose between vaccination and severe consequences like termination did not violate their charter rights. In fact, binding Supreme Court precedents require judges to conclude that Section 7 of the charter is engaged when a people left with no meaningful choice between complying with the law and exercising their liberty or security of the person rights.  The most egregious case of a court buying the claim that vaccine mandates did not engage Section 7 is Lewis v Alberta Health Services. Annette Lewis was refused an organ transplant after she chose not to get vaccinated. The Alberta Court of Appeal somehow concluded that the transplant program’s vaccine mandate was not “coercive,” even though Lewis faced virtually certain death if she did not comply. The court claimed Lewis remained free to make choices about her medical care without state interference, even though her choice was to comply or die. The Supreme Court, shamefully, refused to consider her appeal. Lewis was not left with a meaningful choice, and the Supreme Court has clearly ruled that governments infringe people’s rights when they leave them with no meaningful choice but to comply. In Bedford v Canada, the court struck down three prostitution laws as violations of security of the person."

Meme - Albert Bourla @AlbertBourla: "Excited to share that updated analysis from our Phase 3 study with BioNTech also showed that our COVID-19 vaccine was 100% effective in preventing #COVID19 cases in South Africa. 100%!"
Albert Bourla @AlbertBourla: "I would like to let you know that I have tested positive for #COVID19. I am thankful to have received four doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, and I am feeling well while experiencing very mild symptoms. I am isolating and have started a course of Paxlovid."

Meme - "COVID-19 Survival Rates by Age Group
0-19: 99.997%
20-49: 99.98%
50-69: 99.5%
70+: 94.6%
Source: CDC (Estimated infection Fatality Rates for COVID- 19)
Guy in mask: "I'm scared."
Guy with dossier of facts: "Here's proof that you don't need to be."
Guy in mask: "I don't want proof. I want to be scared. *burns dossier*""

Chris Selley: Hating Sunwing's Cancun 'idiots' only distracts from bigger screw-ups here - "The influencers haven’t actually done anything to make the rest of us any less safe than any other mid-pandemic revellers. The only reason politicians have latched on to this crew so firmly is because (a) we know about them and (b) they’re easy to hate. We all need distractions nowadays, goodness knows. So by all means rage at the influencers if it makes you feel better. But for heaven’s sake don’t let it distract you from the systemic failures that are increasingly afflicting Canadians more than most other countries: closed schools, pitiful testing capacity, health-care systems so under-resourced that they’re brought to their knees just by projections of spikes in hospitalization. You might also try a bit of understanding too, of course. A bunch of kids got drunk and made merry. This is of no significant consequence. There is no papering over the divide between vaccinated and unvaccinated Canadians: it is understandable that the former are exasperated with the latter, because they really are an outsized burden on Canada’s hospitals. But we don’t need more division than we already have — especially when it’s so obviously designed to keep our minds off bigger, tougher questions."
From 2022

Taxpayers on the hook for more than $110 billion due to Ottawa’s COVID waste - "Not only were programs poorly targeted, but income support payments exceeded what was needed to restore the income of many individuals. The AG found that the lowest-income Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB) recipients could earn more from receiving benefits than from working, and concluded the program “represented a disincentive to work, which impacted some labour markets at a crucial time when the need for employees was trending upwards.” In fact, due to government spending during COVID, after-tax income actually increased across all income groups, ranging from less than 2 per cent for those making up to $162,000 annually to 16 per cent for those making $25,000 or less.  Now, as the full scope of government waste comes into focus, the cost to taxpayers continues to grow. According to a new analysis published by the Fraser Institute, of an estimated $359.7 billion of total federal COVID spending, at least 25 per cent ($89.9 billion) was wasted. As this spending was financed entirely through borrowing, Canadians will pay higher debt interest costs on Ottawa’s debt—an estimated $21.1 billion in interest costs directly attributable to COVID fiscal waste over the next 10 years. In total, the cost of the federal government’s COVID fiscal waste will reach an estimated $111.0 billion by the end of 2032/33."
There is a tradeoff between speed and efficiency. But the larger issue is the (unnecessary) cost of covid hysteria

Meme - Soyjak: "UGH, THE BIBLE HAS SO MANY RULES. YOU CAN'T CONTROL MY LIFE" *upset*
Soyjak: "CDC GUIDELINES" *happy*

How the COVID-Zero movement is butting heads with Canada’s health officials - "It’s getting even harder as Australia and even New Zealand, the shining example of COVID-Zero, struggle to contain the delta variant. Meanwhile, public health officials in provinces such as B.C., Alberta and Ontario continue to advocate for keeping COVID-19 cases low while avoiding the adverse effects of heavier lockdowns... Rob DuMont, another B.C. father and photographer in the Vancouver area who is involved with the COVID-Zero movement, said he’s struggled with not getting through to public health officials, especially now that New Zealand is dealing with outbreaks of its own, fracturing the image of a COVID-Zero approach internationally. But DuMont says it’s not New Zealand’s failure for adopting a COVID-Zero strategy, it’s the fault of the rest of the world for not eliminating COVID-19, and allowing variants to form.  And now he thinks public health officials who still resist an elimination approach are “playing with fire” when they suggest life can get back to near-normal. “My impression is that within public health, and this is not just a B.C. thing, there are some words and phrases that they seem to have discussed that they use to relieve anxiety and get people out of their houses,” DuMont said. To DuMont that includes phrases like “flattening the curve,” “living with the virus,” and “transition to endemic.”  He regrets that some people have responded to his form of online activism by accusing him of being an “armchair epidemiologist.”  “Sometime in the spring there was suddenly an attempt to brand anybody who was supporting measures to brand them as a COVID-Zero zealot,” he said. “The general implication is like — nutcase and crazy for wanting to eliminate the virus.”   Lisa Iannattone, a Montreal-based doctor and dermatology professor, said she’s also noticed public health officials trying, explicitly or implicitly, to tamp down the message of the COVID-Zero crowd by suggesting everyone return to a more normal form of life.  “It’s a little patronizing to tell people not to be worried about something they are justifiably worried about,” she said. “It’s true that all the restrictions have their own negative effects, but the reason we have restrictions is because we have a lot of virus.”  That’s true even though Canada has vaccinated more than 70 per cent of its population, initially the threshold thought to be enough to stop COVID-19 from circulating widely in the community... “We could make B.C. an island,” if not physically, then through policies and restrictions, he said. “These are pretty fundamental questions. They are questions of life and death. We’re just not learning.”  Iannattone, the Montreal doctor, said they are the ones who are the realists, who have been proven right time and again as long as the COVID-19 pandemic has been prolonged rather than squashed by various measures — distancing, masks, and now vaccines.  Iannattone points to a cartoon going around on the corners of the internet where the COVID-Zero movement thrives.  In it, there’s a swimming pool divided in two parts by an underwater partition. On one side, about half-a-dozen people float, wide-eyed. On the other side of the partition: sharks. A person outside of the pool, with what looks like a toilet paper helicopter hat on his head, says “When 70 per cent have shark-proof suits on, I’m opening the entire pool.”  No one, the COVID-Zero crowd says, would want to be subjected to a shark-infested pool, even if they did have this “shark-proof” suit. COVID-19, they say, is dangerous in the same way. So why would we let it loose?"
From 2021. Of course, there're still covid hystericists in 2023.
Given that from the start of the epidemic we knew that the IFR was under 1% and covid would never be eliminated, these people were crazy from the start

Aaron Siri on X - "See Figure 2 in the Cleveland Clinic study which reflects that those with 0 doses had lowest rate of contracting COVID-19 and that the chances of contracting COVID-19 increased with each additional dose."
Thomas Massie on X - "Some have argued that these results aren’t troubling because those at greater environmental risk took more COVID-19 shots, but show me a vaccine for any other disease where rates of disease increase with doses of vaccine received."
Clearly the dose-response relationship is meaningless

Meme - "Robert W Malone, MD
Account suspended
Step 1: All the scientists agree.
Step 2: Here's a scientist that doesn't.
Step 3: <censored>
Step 4: All the scientists agree."

The end of the pandemic will not be televised - "While visual depictions of epidemics have existed for centuries, covid-19 is the first one in which real time dashboards have saturated and structured the public’s experience. Some historians have observed that pandemics do not conclude when disease transmission ends “but rather when, in the attention of the general public and in the judgment of certain media and political elites who shape that attention, the disease ceases to be newsworthy.” Pandemic dashboards provide endless fuel, ensuring the constant newsworthiness of the covid-19 pandemic, even when the threat is low. In doing so, they might prolong the pandemic by curtailing a sense of closure or a return to pre-pandemic life. Deactivating or disconnecting ourselves from the dashboards may be the single most powerful action towards ending the pandemic... History suggests that the end of the pandemic will not simply follow the attainment of herd immunity or an official declaration, but rather it will occur gradually and unevenly as societies cease to be all consumed by the pandemic’s shocking metrics. Pandemic ending is more of a question of lived experience, and thus is more of a sociological phenomenon than a biological one. And thus dashboards—which do not measure mental health, educational impact, and the denial of close social bonds— are not the tool that will tell us when the pandemic will end. Indeed, considering how societies have come to use dashboards, they may be a tool that helps prevent a return to normal. Pandemics—at least respiratory viral pandemics—simply do not end in a manner amenable to being displayed on dashboards. Far from a dramatic “end,” pandemics gradually fade as society adjusts to living with the new disease agent and social life returns to normal. As an extraordinary period in which social life was upturned, the covid-19 pandemic will be over when we turn off our screens and decide that other issues are once again worthy of our attention. Unlike its beginning, the end of the pandemic will not be televised"
When the media create a pandemic. Left wing hysteria doesn't help, of course

Existential Comics (find me on bluesky) on X - "What's great about capitalism is that the very people tasked with ending the pandemic through the creation of a vaccine have a massive financial incentive for COVID-19 to stay around forever so they can keep selling us boosters. Surely there is no better way to organize society."
Damn far right spreading misinformation!
"Nothing says capitalism like government mandate."

'1984' Prequel Released Where People Beg Big Brother To Take Away Their Rights To Protect Them From Virus | Babylon Bee

'I'm a broken man': Sask. man who refused COVID jab lost job, daughter - "A North Battleford man who was a truck driver for 23 years and refused to get the COVID-19 vaccine says he has lost everything, including his job and young daughter because of his decision to exercise autonomy over his body.  Two years later, he hasn't got his trucking job back, struggles financially, and misses his daughter.  “I’m a completely broken man,” he said."

On COVID, We Fought the Last War. And Lost - "Nearly every element of COVID policy was derived from a misapplication of lessons learned from HIV policy. Among these include a number of false presumptions:
    that recovery after COVID disease would not produce immunity;
    that herd immunity was impossible with COVID;
    that the primary deleterious clinical impacts of COVID disease would occur after recovery from acute infection;
    that everyone is at equal risk of a severe outcome—hospitalization or death—from COVID disease;
    that a physical barrier to a basic human bodily function (breathing) would prevent infected people from spreading COVID disease;
    that tracing the contacts of infected individuals would be an effective means of limiting the spread of COVID disease; and
    that closures of locations like schools where the disease was thought to spread and the limitation of travel would effectively limit COVID disease spread."

Meme - Jason (he/him/ia) Ko Jason taku ingoa @Jason_gasdive: "I unfollowed when Naomi Wu mass blocked his followers. She's usually a good judge of character. This is my bed in the garage because my partner has dropped precautions. I take precautions 100% of the time. Don't tell me that this hasn't upended every fucking second of my life" *tent with heater*
jaane @yiihya: "This dude is like that Japanese soldier who hid in the Filipino jungle for 30 years, refusing to believe that the war was over."
When you're still a covid hystericist in 2023. Sadly I still know of people going on about the dangers of long covid and advocating wearing N-95s in public
The fact that he's boasting about how much his life has been disrupted is telling - some people want to suffer, so they can paint a grand narrative

Meme - Pale Fire @PacificGirl2021: "I'm sorry you have to live like this. I no longer see my family since they stopped masking."
Jason (he/him/ia) Ko Jason taku ingoa @Jason_gasdive: "I do. Outdoor barbeque, P100 mask, no eating with them."
Pale Fire @PacificGirl2021: "My parents make negative comments about my mask and refuse to go outside to meet me"
Jason (he/him/ia) Ko Jason taku ingoa @Jason_gasdive: "That sux. I'm pretty lucky. Some of my family even do a RAT before coming over."

Meme - Jason (he/him/ia) Ko Jason taku ingoa @Jason_gasdive: "Ok, this didn't get the traction I expected.  So here goes @DoctorKarl  this one's for you.  Studies show that with the current strains about 100 virons is an infective dose. Other studies show that each breath of a shedding person contains between 100,000 and 10,000,000 virons. The numbers show that at any given time, about 2%, or 2 in 100 people have an active C19 infection. Slightly less than half of the active, shedding infections are asymptomatic. So let's put that all together for an indoor space that @DoctorKarl describes as low risk.Let's look at a space with 100 people in it. Assuming that the symptomatic people stay home, the expected number of people in the space shedding virus is one. (Yes, it may be zero, or it may be some higher number, Google Poisson distribution for details) Now we're just keeping track of orders of magnitude. Assume the lowest shedding, 100,000 per breath. Divide by the 100 virons for an infective dose, that means the person is exhaling 1000 infective doses with each breath. If there's 100 people in the space, and you're inhaling 4% exhaled air, then 4%/100 of each breath comes from the one shedding person. Multiply 4%/100 by 1000 to get the percentage of an infective dose per breath. That's 40%. So each breath in this "low risk" environment you'll inhale an advantage of 40% of an infective dose. Most people take about 12 breaths a minute. So after 10 minutes, that's 120 breaths. 40% X 120 is 4800% of an infective dose. For the avoidance of doubt, that's not low risk. These numbers are not unique to a space with 100 people. In a space with 30, the expected number of infected people is less than 1, but that just means it might be more than one visit before your number comes up. But when it does, your dose will be higher. It's been pointed out that 4% equals 2000 ppm CO2.   The basics still hold though. 1000 ppm still gets you an infectious dose in just a few breaths if outdoor air is the only ventilation."
AugustInLebanon @AugustInLebanon: "Have you ever considered the very real possibility that you may be schizophrenic?"
Wesley geer @Wesleygeer88: "Your future only has 2 options. 1:Get COVID, realize that you spent 4+ years of militant avoidance for nothing, and have a mental breakdown. 2:Never get COVID, because you lived your entire life alone, afraid, until the last of your relationships wither away.  Curious what #3 is"

Roman Baber on X - "Must Watch! On Tuesday, Doug forgot he was live on TV & repeated what he says to MPPs/Staff. The ONLY reason Ontario is in Lockdown is @fordnation thinks it's political suicide to disagree w/CMOH. He is only worried about re-election, not lives. It's truly evil. Retweet! #onpoli"
From 2021. Trust the (political) science

David Lammy caller: 'Racism is a greater risk for black people than Covid' - "A caller told David Lammy that racism in is a "greater risk" for black people in the UK than Covid, in a conversation around vaccine hesitancy amongst some ethnic communities."
We need lockdowns to end "racism"

My Kids and Their Elite Education in Racism

My Kids and Their Elite Education in Racism

"She had just read on a local news website that my children’s school, Rye Country Day, was a hotbed of racial animus, and she was worried that my children, whose father is black, had suffered as a result. I laughed politely and assured her that they were fine. But the more I have thought about their experience over the past year at this elite prep school in Westchester, the more I wonder whether the racialized madness that has overtaken our country will leave any of us “fine”—and the more I have come to believe that these schools are, in fact, beset by racism. It’s just not the kind of racism they think...

We had also been told that, of the public and private schools in our area, RCDS was among the most academically rigorous...

Within the first week of school, though, it became clear that the school had other priorities—namely, “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” The kids were immediately offered the chance to join a variety of clubs, including a diversity club, a students-of-color club, and a girls-of-color club in which older girls of color mentored younger ones. Parents received numerous emails about these clubs, and our kids were invited on a number of occasions to join, including by their teachers. They did not.

At least the clubs were not mandatory. A few years ago, the Fieldston School in Riverdale announced that, once a week, third-graders would be separated by race...

Wealthy white and Asian kids come to believe that black children are likely to be poor children, that black children are likely to come from bad neighborhoods, and that black children are likely to be less academically prepared. Schools might try to teach these kids not to make assumptions about their peers, but if you’re going to import kids of other races from other places and brag about the financial aid you’re giving them, the other students could be forgiven for some wrongheaded expectations.

Forgiveness, though, is not really in the air these days. In recent months, the black students and alumni of these schools have erupted in anger over the way they have been treated...

What counts as racism at Rye Country Day? The Instagram posts to the Black@rcds page range from trivial to inane to preposterous. One student lamented that a white friend had observed, “The [students-of-color] end of year party… was discriminatory because it ‘left out white people.’” As if this were the most absurd observation you could make. Another student, who was Colombian, felt “trapped” when a peer described himself as “richer than a Colombian drug lord.” One girl was upset because her peers, upon learning she was Jamaican, told her about vacationing in Jamaica and getting their hair braided there. She wasn’t from that part of Jamaica.

Some of the complaints are hilariously vague: After 14 years at the school, one young woman was “so sad to leave,” but since then she has realized “how toxic life was as a BLACK FEMALE at RCDS.” She notes, “I had a majority white friends all my time at RCDS and hardly had a problem with any of them. However maybe it was me just trying to fit in with my white peers by keeping my head down.” Maybe, or maybe the 14 years were perfectly fine, and only now that everyone is crying racism did she feel the need to complain.

The fact that these Instagram pages are anonymous no doubt encourages some people to make up stories that fit the narrative of RCDS as a haven for racism...

A parent at another local prep school told me her daughter had to attend an all-grade meeting because one student uttered the N-word to another student while singing a rap song. If you are a teenager looking for the wrong kind of attention, there is literally no more effective way to get it than to whisper a racial slur.

In the weeks since these complaints at prep schools first occurred, RCDS has promised to commit itself to more diversity and inclusion. In addition to pledging to recruit a more diverse student body, teaching staff, and board of trustees, and a larger number of administrators devoted to promoting diversity and procuring a bigger budget, the school has also committed to offering more “anti-racism” in the curriculum. Oh, and they’ve changed the name of the school’s leader from “headmaster” to “head of school,” because, you know, slavery.

It is not as if Rye Country Day got woke only in the wake of these most recent protests. Both the curricular and extracurricular activities of the school seemed centered on “anti-racism” from the beginning. By the end of his first month there, my sixth-grade son found himself subject to a lecture on the dangers of “microaggressions.”... Over the course of the year, there were no fewer than half a dozen similar talks...

I did start to wonder whether, in their relentless focus on racism (or sexism or homophobia), elite schools have lost sight of their job of simply teaching kids how to behave like adults. Recently, the KIPP academy network of charter schools announced that it is “retiring ‘Work hard. Be nice’ as KIPP’s national slogan.” Why? Because it “diminishes the significant effort required to dismantle systemic racism, places value on being compliant and submissive, supports the illusion of meritocracy, and does not align with our vision of students being free to create the future they want.”

Working hard and being nice may not be the only things schools should require of students, but they do seem like the bare minimum. Asking 11-year-olds to focus instead on combating systemic racism and creating the future they want seems both unrealistic and unhelpful when teaching them to navigate individual relationships with their peers.

But Rye Country Day and schools like it want to give students a political agenda, not a character education...

Everyone loves a good story about redemption, but was bringing in a convicted felon to talk about bail reform the best way to honor the legacy of Martin Luther King?

My husband and I spoke to the school’s headmaster—now its head of school—and the principal of the middle school. They seemed surprised that we would have any objection. First, they told us that Cumberbatch would be speaking only about Martin Luther King, not about bail reform. When we expressed skepticism, they acknowledged that perhaps his talk would range more widely. They noted that the students at RCDS are very good at challenging the views of speakers. When we said we thought leaving it to middle-schoolers to argue publicly with honored adult visitors seemed like a recipe for a lopsided debate, they assured us it would be fine and that they brought in adults with a wide variety of viewpoints. Perhaps we hadn’t been at the school long enough to test this theory, but I would bet a year’s worth of tuition that there will be no speaker invited to argue against bail reform.

On the day of the assembly, my children reported that they were the only ones who did not attend. Their classmates reported that Cumberbatch was barred from giving any information about his actual crime to the middle-schoolers (though he could reveal it to the upper school). Needless to say, that issue became the focus of the middle-schoolers’ attention, and once word traveled from the upper school, it was all anyone could talk about. So what began as an assembly to honor the legacy of America’s most storied civil-rights leader turned into an occasion for a group of mostly white students to talk about a black man’s violent criminal record.

By this point in the 2019–20 school year, the students had already absorbed plenty of lessons about race during their classes. The only books my son read in English class were about civil rights or, in one case, the plight of Mexican immigrants. My daughter’s history teacher used Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States to supplement his regular history textbook to study more about the evils of colonialism.

Aside from the politics, we found ourselves underwhelmed by the academic rigor of the school. The students read few books, writing assignments were rare, and my daughter spent some portion of math class each week on meditation exercises. When we asked (at my daughter’s request) whether she couldn’t be challenged more in English class or receive the kind of extra work in math that would allow her to move into a higher group the following year, we were met with blank stares. Teachers and administrators expressed concern that such assignments might cause too much “stress,” “damage her self-esteem,” or upset her “life balance.” Our meeting with the math teacher ended with her encouraging our daughter to attend her regular gatherings for girls of color.

For all the talk of the need to empower girls (and boys) of color, the idea that a request for more academic rigor (in a STEM field no less) would be met with inaction and more invitations to join diversity clubs does make one wonder. Whether this is simply the soft bigotry of low expectations or just the school’s new focus on “wellness”—they recently hired an administrator in charge of that field and forced the sixth grade to listen to a lecture on the “benefits of essential oils”—I cannot say. What does seem true is that the teachers and administrators—like their colleagues at other prep schools and colleges all over the country—seem to bring every conversation back to race...

They were told they could change their screen background (used for their classes over Zoom) into a Black Lives Matter fist. Previously, they had been allowed to use either an RCDS logo or no background at all because it could be distracting. But distractions from academics are of little importance when social justice is at stake.

When I asked my children whether they experienced racism at RCDS, they laugh. Their classmates were never anything less than kind to them. Maybe any aggressions were too “micro” to be noticed. But the parents, too, seemed considerate and warm. And this, perhaps, is what worries me most...

I fear that the message currently emanating from teachers and administrators and politicians and pundits will harm those relationships. The new anti-racism, with its endless cycles of victimization and demands for reparations—as opposed to the model of teaching people to aspire to colorblindness and providing everyone with equal opportunity—requires all of us (and children in particular) to see race all the time. This new model will turn what would otherwise be ordinary, healthy relationships—friendships, even—into dramas with racially defined roles for all the characters.

The good people of my community and others around the country are told that no matter how welcoming they are, how well they treat others, there is nothing they can do to make up for systemic racism. Will they begin to fret over every interaction, fearing that they could say or do the wrong thing? When the parents I know see a New York City education-council member screaming at a white man because he is bouncing the black child of a friend on his lap—as one activist, Rachel Broshi, did in a video of an online meeting that went viral—what will they think?

I worry that the message is already trickling down. Advice columns in recent years have featured parents asking whether it’s okay for them to adopt children of another race, or whether people can ever truly understand someone of another race enough to marry that person, or whether it wouldn’t be easier for same-sex couples to use the white partner’s egg so as not to have the insurmountable task of handling a black child. Could white supremacists of 50 years ago have dared to dream of such attitudes among people who call themselves liberals?

The modern agenda of “anti-racism” may mean that otherwise caring adults will treat my children differently, or just keep their distance entirely. So, yes, my children are okay. But I don’t know for how long."