Wednesday, May 08, 2024

Links - 8th May 2024 (2 - General Wokeness)

The Misguided Moral Panic About Racism in British Universities - "According to one of the most extensive surveys ever conducted by the European Union, the U.K. is one of the least racist societies in the world, and what racism that remains is diminishing... in October 2019 the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) released a series of reports that purported to show that racism is widespread in Britain’s higher education sector, to an extent that is “seriously damaging to individuals and our society.” The reports argued that the problem was so large it could only be properly addressed by new laws and regulations. The reports triggered a moral panic, both among those who’d compiled them and among the sector’s leaders... In any basic social scientific Inquiry, it is incumbent upon the researcher to analyze a range of variables that may help explain observed outcomes. For example, a majority of black students come from state schools and state school students overall, black and white, tend to do less well at university than their private school counterparts. This suggests that it’s socio-economic status, not race, that accounts for the attainment gap. Indeed, the demographic least likely to participate in higher education in the U.K. is poor white British boys, while Indians and East Asians tend to have the highest incomes and educational outcomes of any racial group, including whites... the Vice Chancellor of Sheffield University Koen Lamberts is currently paying 20 of his students £9.34 an hour to monitor and report other staff and students for racist microaggressions to help “change the way people think about racism.” If an alleged perpetrator suggests that the accuser is “searching for things to be offended about” this is considered further evidence of racism and itself recorded as a microaggression... As the U.K. leaves the European Union, and as global competition increases with East Asia, U.K. universities will enter an increasingly competitive global higher education market, with students ever more aware of their post-degree careers and the signal their university degrees send to prospective employers. Similarly, parents will ask what kind of institutions their sons and daughters are attending, if, in the context of very high fees, their children are subjected to inquisitorial ideological policing and political dogma instead of learning how to think and study. Could this be why undergraduate admissions at SOAS fell by 37 percent between 2016 and 2018? It would be a fundamental mistake for U.K. universities to go further down the “decolonizing” road. Those universities that wish to thrive in what we predict will become an increasingly competitive market should distinguish themselves through a commitment to open intellectual inquiry, equality of opportunity, viewpoint diversity and academic freedom. These are the qualities that have long made U.K. universities among the best in the world. We should not sacrifice their reputation on the altar of ‘social justice.’"

Meme - "rural american states are the worst
This is why I hate cars
This is just my personal take but I hate the rural states in america with a burning passion they think they are so special and "free" when they live in car dependent shitholes in the middle of nowhere It's their fault we had trump as president meanwhile farming is one of the biggest causes of greenhouse gasses these people need to be forced and given cash incentives to be relocated to a dense city with public transport where they will not need pickup trucks that kill."
Clearly the people who think 15 minute cities are a way to control them are totally deluded

Meme - *US flag* "It's mam!"
*Palestinian flag* "Sir is fine."

Anti-racist Arguments Are Tearing People Apart - The Atlantic - "“It hurts people,” she said, “when they see a white man bouncing a brown baby on their lap and they don’t know the context!”... if this particular incident is exceedingly strange––almost a caricature of how conservatives think identitarian leftists behave––it also illuminates how the fight over anti-racism could roil many other institutions all across the country... If a member of a civic body expressed frustration that a colleague refused to read the Bible, the Quran, The Wealth of Nations, The Communist Manifesto, Atlas Shrugged, or Dianetics, and couldn’t understand an accusation until they did, most observers would see the problem. Drawing on outside concepts is fine. But if you can’t explain your position unless everyone reads your source material, then the fault lies with you. No one in a public meeting should have to read the books you consider important, much less accept that the ideas in those books are sacrosanct."

'My Little Pony' Fans Confront Their Nazi Problem - The Atlantic

The World Is Trapped in America's Culture War - The Atlantic - "multiple stories focused on a photograph of the British singer-songwriter Adele with her hair in Bantu knots. She was “accused of cultural appropriation,” the U.S. entertainment magazine Variety reported. According to the television channel ABC, the star was facing a “backlash” and was “caught in the crossfire.” Fox News had her “slammed” and “taking heat” for the hairstyle. The gossip site PageSix claimed that “a new photo of Adele has sent the internet into a tizzy.” Sensing the high level of interest in the story, British media websites covered it in similar terms... But prominent Black Britons, including the model Naomi Campbell and the talent-show winner Alexandra Burke, defended the singer. The politician David Lammy, a member of Parliament for the Labour Party, pointed out that Adele was celebrating the annual Notting Hill Carnival, which has a long tradition of masquerade and “dress up.” Most coverage was framed as a debate, but even the few pieces that offered straightforward criticism tended to be mild. One writer acknowledged the “differing responses to the star’s misstep,” while another argued that she could understand that Adele was “trying to be respectful at an event celebrating black culture with her Bantu knots,” before concluding that the look nevertheless “left a bad taste in my mouth.” Sunder Katwala, the chair of the identity-focused think tank British Future, told me it was notable that when the British talk-radio station LBC discussed the controversy, it had to bring on the American writer Ernest Owens to make the case against the singer... Somehow, a man from Philadelphia had become the designated arbiter of whether it was appropriate for a British woman to wear a Jamaican-flag bikini and a hairstyle named for people in southern Africa. (American readers: If you think being stuck in a culture war is bad, imagine being stuck in someone else’s.)... But what happens when another country’s conversation about race takes place in an “American accent”? In his article for Persuasion, Owolade argued that this risked cloaking “the reality of Black British lives behind an abstraction that flattens our humanity.” He noted that while many Black Americans are descendants of enslaved people, the majority of Black Britons are immigrants, or the children of immigrants—which should influence our discussions of diversity initiatives here in Britain. While Black Britons are underrepresented in publishing and the arts, the same is not true in the kinds of professions toward which middle-class immigrants push their children. “In a country in which black people make up only 3 percent of the population, for example, 6 percent of junior doctors are black,” Owolade wrote. Katwala also stressed that British-born people from a Black Caribbean background are four times as likely as Black Americans to have a white partner, and those from a Black African background are twice as likely. The majority of mixed-race Britons are themselves in mixed-race relationships. As a result, he added, the “segregationist strand of Black American race thinking” is not really present in Britain. As for cultural appropriation: “I’ve got an Indian name. I grew up Irish Catholic and did Irish dancing. Where are the boundaries?” This undisputed rule over the English-language internet is not just a problem for smaller countries such as Britain—it isn’t good for the United States either. Being part of the dominant group always leads to shortsightedness: an assumption that your laws, culture, and taboos are universal, the default state of humanity."
I like how the woke getting offended because they have imported American venom is the fault of the right

Thread by @L0m3z on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - " Woke isn't dying. Woke isn't going anywhere.  Friend told me his small red town in a red state 500 miles from the nearest international airport just announced it's having it's first ever Pride parade, including a drag show for kids sponsored by the town council. This also came with a "Proclamation" issued by the city declaring the town a safe space and condemning bigotry blah blah blah, suggesting that any objections, let alone active resistance to a city-sponsored Pride week and kid's drag show is somehow verboten... receipts, for the skeptical:  This raises complex strategic/tactical questions. Despite outnumbering the hicklibs, ordinary people who don't want their cities hosting kids drag shows are not organized, don't know how to organize, and wouldn't know what effective resistance would look like if they were What you're most likely to see is a disorganized counter-protest, some Facebook mom's group going off half-cocked, mixed in with a few feds, which will only strengthen the resolve of the Pride advocates, give fodder to local media, and look foolish to outside observers"
Thread by @JesseKellyDC on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Wanna know why “red” towns across America have child drag shows and muddy buddy parades?  Walk with me and I’ll tell you why. And how to stop it: First, you need to set aside Nursery Rhyme Conservative notions like “majority”. The Right loves cope like that.  “We’re the silent majority!”  Yeah, dork. Thinking like that is why you lose. The communist understands “power” and “majority” are very different things. His is a demonic religion of destruction so he knows he’ll never be popular. And he doesn’t have to be.  He just has to take the choke points of power in a society. Which brings us to your town. You know that library you drive by on the way to work every day? Do you even look at it?  No. You don’t.  Guess who does. The communist does. You see a library. He sees a choke point. The communist understands power in a way the American Right never has. You put on a MAGA hat and post on Facebook and think you’re “political”. The communist gets himself on your city’s parks department. Why? Cause he knows what politics really is about. So yes, there are only 10 commies in your “red” town. But they’re all on your school board. THEY have the power. Your “majority” means nothing. Nothing. If you want to save the parts of your country that can be saved, it involves much more than voting for Trump once every 4 years and avoiding Bud Light. You must become involved. LOCALLY. Run for school board. When there’s a meeting or a committee in your town (communists love committees), go get on them. When the communist pushes the next tranny parade, make noise. Organize. Last time they tried that in my “red” town, I had so many people calling that they stopped answering the phones in city hall. And in the end, I won. Legal and local is our path to victory. Your red area is vulnerable cause you’re watching the game while the communists are planning and organizing.  Plan. Organize. Fight. Win. That’s all."
Left wingers take over organisations because they have the Will to Power

Meme - s p o o k y @_s_m_n_: "Let's play a game. The rules are simple; in a google search type in Reply with your best."
"is smiling racist
The Weird Connection Between Smiling and Racism - Science of Us - The Cut"

Meme - "is air racist
This Is How Racist Your Air Is - Mother Jones
Study Finds Significant Racial Disparities In Vehicular Air Pollution  - WBUR
How environmental racism is fuelling the coronavirus pandemic - Nature"

Meme - "Is gardening racist
Is gardening racist? Tommy Richardson. - The Ames Tribune
jun Weeding out horticulture's race problem I Gardening advice - The Guardian
Gardening and the roots of racism - Community Reporter"

Meme - "is running racist
Running while Black: A distinctive safety concern and barrier to exercise in White... by LM Hornbuckle
Running while Black - Wikipedia
Opinion I Anmaud Arbery's Killing Shows Running Has Long Excluded Black People - New York Times"

Meme - "Is gravity racist
"Isaac Newton was likely racist, that doesn't mean gravity...
Why We Are Addressing Anti-Black Racism - Strong Propserous and Resilient Communities Challenge (SPARCC)
Gravity is racist? Sheffield Uni. wants disclaimers on Isaac Newton's theories, says he benefited from 'colonial activity' - RT
Cornell 'Black Hole' Class Racializes Astronomy - City Journal"

Meme - "is farting racist
Using the Phenomenology of Farts to Teach My Son About Racism - McSweeney's Internet Tendency
Ep. 5: Farts and Racism (The Rant is Due) by Lewis Black - Audible
The Silent but Deadly Fart of Racism - CALL YOUR GIRLFRIEND"

Meme - NPC: "Jesus was a leftist."
Normal person: "So follow His teachings."
NPC: *upset*

Go to a state school - "If I were advising a friend’s son or daughter facing Decision Day, I’d tell them to pass on the Ivy League and go to a high-quality state school instead under some conditions. Let me articulate some exceptions... go with the elite private college if (i) they had a high degree of confidence in what they wanted to do with their degree and (ii) it was in a field like law that regards the credential as particularly valuable.  And I’d tell them to strongly consider going if they came from an economically disadvantaged background and had been offered a golden ticket to join the elite. I’m not super familiar with the literature on the selective college wage premium, but it’s among this group of disadvantaged students where the benefits seem to be concentrated.  But if this student was just going to school to “find herself” — and she or her parents were footing most of the bill? Yeah, probably go with the top-flight state school — especially if she’s in a state with a very good in-state public school where the cost savings are much greater. Better that than to emerge with a mountain of debt and a degree from an institution that is likely to be viewed as highly polarizing. Public perceptions of higher education have declined rapidly, and I expect the problems to get worse... Chicago has always been an outlier. In my era, at least, it tended to attract its share of weird nerds who were turned on precisely by the school’s reputation for weird nerdiness. Chicago has also always been a politically pluralistic school, with strong institutional commitments to free speech, an emphasis on the core curriculum, less grade inflation than comparable schools, and less of a boost for legacy admits. I’m undoubtedly biased, but I think that if other schools had been run like Chicago, elite higher ed would have fewer problems than it has today. Even if I had gone to Harvard though — applied, didn’t get in, by the way — I don’t think that would make me a hypocrite because my argument is that this change has been relatively recent and that many of the downstream effects are still to come. Even in a period when nearly all American institutions are losing public trust, the decline in confidence for higher education stands out... I expect the decline in perceptions of elite private colleges to extend to people tasked with making hiring decisions... Once perceptions of an institution become politically polarized, it is very hard to undo that. But I expect elite higher ed to have an especially big problem.  That’s because academia is a slow-moving institution. Academic faculty — especially if they receive tenure — often serve out their entire careers at one or two institutions. Investments in new buildings or programs are expected to pay out over decades. There is an enormous amount of bureaucracy. Even a student, between the time they first apply to a college and when they graduate, is making nearly a five-year commitment, and that’s if they finish on time, which many students don’t. So although there are some signs that schools recognize the scale of their problems —notably, in restoring standardized testing requirements — I think elite private colleges’ problems are likely to worsen in the medium term. Younger faculty, some of whom were hired under regimes that required diversity statements that are thinly-veiled political litmus tests, are much more more into wokeness (or what I call Social Justice Leftism) than older faculty — and less supportive of traditional liberal values like free speech. And these problems are likely to be self-reinforcing. If conservative students — or apolitical students who just want to take their classes and goof off with their friends — are increasingly turned off by the political environment at elite private colleges, they won’t attend, and that will in turn make these colleges even more of a bubble with fewer relatively well-adjusted normies."

A Cult-Based Framework for Understanding Social-Justice Dogma - "When presented with cult-speak, imagine the task of translating it into another language, or simply into plain English.  By way of illustration, consider this recent blog entry on the website of the American Mathematical Society, entitled Can Mathematics Be Antiracist? Here is a representative passage, which I challenge readers to translate comprehensibly:     'Attempts to shoehorn social justice into mathematics curricula perhaps say more about the political leanings of the teacher than anything else. At the same time, we must be wary of diversity initiatives in mathematics which simply reproduce a different class of scientists that perpetuate structures of domination and oppression, in place of work to dismantle the whiteness which mathematics operates as, and to truly equip students for a world of growing inequality.'  What are “structures of domination and oppression”? They’re structures controlled by whiteness. What is “whiteness”? It’s the creed of institutionalized racial inequality. How do we define inequality? It’s something that perpetuates structures of domination and oppression.  Of course, it is technically possible to translate isolated phrases such as “structures of domination and oppression” into other languages, or into a form of English that is nominally accessible to ordinary people. But to do so in any meaningful way requires an investigation into the text as a whole, whose only real purpose is to signify the author’s allegiance to a certain system of thought. (In true cultish fashion, the author added a postscript to the original article, confessing to a minor source-attribution mistake that apparently furthered “the erasure and antiblack racism perpetuated consciously and unconsciously by nonblack people such as myself, including in science and math, profiting off the work and labour of black people.”) Ultimately, this is a patchwork of propaganda jargon—what Orwell once described as “prefabricated phrases bolted together like the pieces of a child’s Meccano set.” Franklin Jones was disgraced in the mid-1980s, after numerous former followers revealed details of his sexual abuse and brainwashing. Indeed, cults generally went into decline during this period. In part, this was because society began to take the issue of sexual and child abuse more seriously, and so the most notorious communes were raided (including, disastrously, the Waco Siege of 1993). Moreover, the emergence of the world wide web in the 1990s meant that many of the same people who were otherwise vulnerable to cult indoctrination could find communities, and get their marching orders from would-be prophets, without leaving their homes or selling off their possessions.  One result is that cultism now has increasingly blurred into mainstream web-mediated subcultures, including politics and academia. Another is that cultish ideas can spread more quickly. The above-quoted tract about racism and mathematics, written by a visiting professor at Smith College in Massachusetts, may appeal to only a small portion of the American population. But because the author channels a jargon that’s been adopted by at least some academics and activists in every English-speaking country, the potential audience is substantial. Thanks to the Internet, all cultish movements can spread their ideas (and punish heretics) on a global scale, subject only to the boundaries imposed by language. Cults can never be organized in any kind of democratic way because there is always some anointed class (often consisting of just one person) that monopolizes access to a critical body of revealed truths. And in this aspect, intersectionality is well-suited to a cult paradigm because its adherents presume that the “lived experience” that typifies every sub-group is fundamentally unknowable except to members of that sub-group. The conceit of secret knowledge confers an aura of mysticism on followers, especially in regard to the issue of gender identity, which is cast as an internally experienced secular rapture.  On one hand, this means that discussions within social-justice circles tend to be tortured and unproductive, as no one is allowed to presume a truth-telling power that extends beyond the narrow confines of one’s own intersectional constituency. On the other hand, this system of balkanized information monopolies helps protect intersectional dogmas from outside criticism, as no argument may contradict the internally experienced pain, trauma or perception of bigotry expressed by an acolyte who identifies as a member of an oppressed group. In this regard, social-justice cults diverge significantly from the interwar ideological cults that formed around various interpretations of Marxism (with which social-justice cultism is sometimes compared), as these older movements tended toward universalism in their underlying epistemological approach. My own country, Canada, provides an interesting case study in the propagation of social-justice cultism, as it has two official languages—English and French. And while English-speaking colleges and universities have largely fallen into line with the “structures of domination and oppression” narrative, the situation in French-speaking Quebec is still in flux. One reason for this, I believe, is that social-justice dogmas still strike many Francophones as a translated Anglo import whose mantras don’t quite ring true in the local tongue. Moreover, the racial and gender-based hierarchy presented by intersectionality runs at odds with Quebecers’ own historical conception of themselves as a culturally isolated and vulnerable people within English-speaking North America... when it comes to “l’intersectionnalité,” these student signatories are largely correct to cast these translated cultish creeds as part of a hégémonique Anglo academic movement that now is imposing itself on others in an ironic reprise of old colonial patterns"

The Outing of 'Lady G': Humiliating a Closeted Gay Republican in the Name of LGBT Rights - "In Washington, D.C., rumors have long swirled around a certain long-time Republican senator, a perennial bachelor, being not-so-secretly gay. But the long-simmering issue came to a boiling point recently when a concerted effort to “out” the senator, dubbed “Lady G,” went viral. The result was widespread derision and mockery of the senator. And a cadre of left-wing LGBT activists suddenly found themselves doing a complete reversal, arguing that it’s now actually okay to involuntarily “out” someone—expose a closeted person’s sexuality—if one finds their viewpoints to be disagreeable... many LGBT activists cheered on the mob—despite outing being a practice that normally is considered immoral and cruel by most gay people. Some explicitly stated that they were perfectly happy to violate their own principles if that’s what it took to ensure the Republican senator loses reelection. “Outing is a brutal tactic that should be reserved for brutes,” wrote LGBT activist Dan Savage. “Lady G more than qualifies.”... Is the senator in question really a vicious “anti-LGBTQ” bigot who deserves to be taken down by any means necessary? Well, sure, “Lady G” has opposed gay marriage. And he voted against gay integration in the military during his many years in the Senate. But so did the current Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden—you know, the same guy most of these hashtaggers now openly endorse... Barack Obama opposed gay marriage as recently as 2011. Was he, too, the devil incarnate?  And here’s a larger question: Who gets to decide which politicians are “anti-LGBT” and which aren’t?... More and more, you can always tell who the most puritanical social-justice advocates are. Gay or straight, they’re the ones doing logical backflips to justify viciousness and cruelty in the name of diversity and tolerance"
If nothing else, this is very unprofessional behavior by the sex workers

Meme - "When you realize they took a real black woman off of a syrup bottle and put a fake white woman on beer cans."
On Aunt Jemima and Dylan Mulvaney

Assumption University President Apologizes for Campus Ministry's LGBTQ-Negative Content
You're not allowed to be Christian

Meme *Soyjak*
"Tell me without telling me"
"must be gay"
"nEvEr mAdEa WoMaN cUm"
"mY gUy
"Die mad"
"If you don't like women just say that"
"Yikes"
"Check your privilege, sweetie"
"yas kween!"
"small penis"
"Imagine telling on yourself like this"
"Y'all aren't ready for that conversation"
"Incel"
"LOUDER"
"Read that again"
"Sis I- "
"touch grass"
"Wrong but go off"
"Who hurt you?"
"Chile"
"just say that"
"No <3"
"This is not the diss you think it is"
"Of course you call us females"

Meme - Micah Erfan @micah_erfan: "Y'all remember when Republicans were normal??? *Mitt Romney and Wife*"
Stephen L. Miller @redsteeze: "The current president said the guy on the left would put black people "back in chains" and the national media blamed the woman on the right for the confederate flag and Charleston church shooting.  Kindly go fuck yourself."
Every Republican Presidential Candidate Is Hitler

Meme - "Woke Western video game companies be like:
The face model *Ellen Page* / The in game model *Elliot Page*"

blog comments powered by Disqus