Links - 5th November 2018 (1)

Atonement as Activism - "This brand of self-flagellation has become the new form of enlightenment on race issues. It qualifies as a kind of worship; the parallels with Christianity are almost uncannily rich. White privilege is the secular white person’s Original Sin, present at birth and ultimately ineradicable. One does one’s penance by endlessly attesting to this privilege in hope of some kind of forgiveness. After the black man I mentioned above spoke, the next speaker was a middle-aged white man who spoke of having a coach come to his office each week to talk to him about his white privilege. The audience, of course, applauded warmly at this man’s description of having what an anthropologist observer would recognize not as a “coach” but as a pastor. I have seen whites owning up to their white privilege using the hand-in-the-air-palm-out gesture typically associated with testifying in church. After the event I have been describing, all concerned deemed it “wonderful” even though nothing new had been learned. The purpose of the event was to remind the parishioners of the prevalence of the racist sin and its reflection in themselves, and to offer a kind of forgiveness, this latter being essentially the function of the black people on the panel and in the audience. Amen... The self-affirming part is the rub. This new cult of atonement is less about black people than white people. Fifty years ago, a white person learning about the race problem came away asking “How can I help?” Today the same person too often comes away asking, “How can I show that I’m a moral person?” That isn’t what the Civil Rights revolution was about; it is the product of decades of mission creep aided by the emergence of social media."

10 things you have always wanted to ask a lesbian – Pat Law - "1. How does scissoring work?... We scissor as often as you fornicate your wife standing up holding her entire weight with one hand...
3. How do you do it?
I hate to be such a hypocrite here, but watch some porn...
5. How do you know if the other girl is also a lesbian?
You ask. And if you’re too shy to do so, check for the following signs:
Trimmed fingernails (think)
Toned arms (think again)
Lesbian hair (although I would argue that in today’s gender-blending world, follicles hardly pass the litmus test)...
9. Have you ever been discriminated against for being a lesbian?...
I haven’t been discriminated against for being a lesbian but it has a lot to do with the way I chose to see things, to keep my sanity. I choose not to get angry over ignorance.
10. What is your fear as a lesbian?
That I will be known for only my sexuality. I am a daughter, a friend, a girlfriend, Singaporean, Chinese, a creative director, a human to two chihuahuas, and oh by the way, I am also gay...
The last thing I want is to be that gay person who makes every damn thing about her sexuality. Like that one prominent gay dick who held drug parties at home only to be arrested and locked up, and I witnessed first-hand how some folks in the gay community blamed it on his sexuality. Dude, you didn’t get locked up because you were gay and singled out by the cops. You got locked up because you were hosting drug parties. People like you give us such a bad name... If you want heterosexuals to accept you for who you are, stop making your sexuality all that you are."

Japanese north–south gradient in IQ predicts differences in stature, skin color, income, and homicide rate - "Regional differences in IQ are estimated for 47 prefectures of Japan. IQ scores obtained from official achievement tests show a gradient from north to south. Latitudes correlate with height, IQ, and skin color at r = 0.70, 0.44, 0.47, respectively. IQ also correlates with height (0.52), skin color (0.42), income (0.51) after correction, less homicide rate (− 0.60), and less divorce (− 0.69) but not with fertility infant mortali'ty. The lower IQ in southern Japanese islands could be attributable to warmer climates with less cognitive demand for more than fifteen hundred years."
Is it still racist if they're all Japanese?

Regional Differences in Intelligence in 22 Countries and their Economic, Social and Demographic Correlates: A Review - "Regional differences in intelligence are reported for 22 countries. These are positively associated with many economic, social and demographic phenomena. These include income, health, educational and occupational achievement. These are negatively associated with poverty, fertility and crime."

Chinese sex differences in intelligence: Some new evidence - "Sex differences on the WISC-R in Chinese children were examined in a sample of 788 aged 12 years. Boys obtained a higher mean full scale IQ than girls of 3.75 IQ points, a higher performance IQ of 4.20 IQ points, and a higher verbal IQ of 2.40 IQ points. Boys obtained significantly higher means on the information, picture arrangement, picture completion, block design, and object assembly subtests, while girls obtained a significantly higher mean on coding. The results were in general similar to the sex differences in the United States standardisation sample of the WISC-R. Boys showed greater variability than girls."

Spousal Abuse: Narrative Over Facts - "There is an interesting article on spousal abuse by a chap who works with PAVE, in which he talks about the issue of domestic violence and race in Singapore. The main gist of his article is that people predominantly see it as an Indian problem when the majority of the cases reported are from the Chinese demographic. He goes on to assert that Spousal Abuse is an issue in which race has no relevance. But is this what the facts really show?... going by PAVE statistics, the Chinese demographic was 26% less likely than expected to be committing domestic violence for their makeup of the population. The Indian demographic is 2.1 times as likely as the to commit it versus the Chinese, followed by the Malay demographic in which it is seen at an incidence 2.5 times more... This is hardly something that could be called “slightly over-represented compared to their proportion in the population.” We are talking about a serious problem that happens at incidences that are significantly over the expected background rate."

Sinda concerned over family violence in Indian community - "About one in five reported abuse cases and personal protection order applications are made against Indians, said organisations approached. This outweighs their 9.1 per cent representation in the Singapore population... Anecdotal evidence suggests that Indians may be more predisposed to domestic violence due to their drinking habit, she said. Sinda has found that alcohol abuse increases the odds of a man lashing out at his family."

JFK's Very Revealing Harvard Application Essay - "At 17 years old, the future president seemed to understand that the value of an elite education is in the status it offers."

Marital rape, voyeurism to become offences in ‘sweeping’ changes proposed for Singapore’s penal code - "the committee has proposed creating new offences involving child abuse material - from using or involving a child in the production of, to the making, distributing, selling, advertising, seeking, accessing and possession of such material. This includes fictional material. The committee said fictional material could be used for grooming children, and could fuel child abuse by reinforcing potential abusers’ inappropriate feelings towards children."
No more lolis

In marital rape, proving lack of consent a 'complicated' issue, lawyers say - "It will be challenging to prove a lack of consent in cases of marital rape, criminal lawyers said, pointing to the intimacy associated with marriage and the fluid nature of consent... Another concern, the lawyers said, is the retracting of consent following a "trigger factor" like a heated argument."

Some Students Want to Abolish In-Class Presentations - "According to a recent survey by the Association of American Colleges and Universities, oral communication is one of the most sought-after skills in the workplace, with over 90 percent of hiring managers saying it’s important. Some educators also credit in-class presentations with building essential leadership skills and increasing students’ confidence and understanding of material. But in the past few years, students have started calling out in-class presentations as discriminatory to those with anxiety, demanding that teachers offer alternative options... Some responses to the most recent viral tweet, though, noted that giving a presentation in spite of anxiety might reduce a student’s fear of public speaking... “My thoughts are that we are in the business of preparing students for college, career, and civic life. Public speaking is a piece of that preparation,” says Ryan Jones, a high-school history teacher in Connecticut. “Now, some kids (many) are deathly afraid to do it, but pushing outside of comfort zones is also a big part of what we do.”"

Twitter Mob Gets U.S. Coast Guard Member Removed for Making 'Offensive' 'OK' Sign - "The Anti-Defamation League has dismissed the conspiracy theory, pointing out its origins as a hoax started on the 4chan website... According to the ADL, the OK/white power hoax is just one of many hoaxes started by 4channers and other websites “to take innocuous items, symbols or gestures and falsely attribute white supremacist meanings to them in order to fool liberals and get them to spread such false messages.” Despite the fact the whole white power symbol is a hoax, several media outlets have run with the story, claiming with certainty that the Coast Guard member flashed a white power symbol."
The ADL must be part of the alt-right

Four in 10 think British culture is undermined by multiculturalism

Midnight at Maxwell Food Centre: A Shadow of a Once Lucrative Hawker Business - "To emphasise how hard it is to be in the business today, even if you’re located at one of the most famous hawker centres in a central location, the veteran hawker adds that the stall next to his has already gone through 10 different tenants. The longest tenure was four years while the shortest only lasted a week."

Why work is exhausting even when it involves no physical labor - "as we work on a task, we struggle to focus on it or eventually lose interest in it. We become less motivated to do the task. We become drawn to the things we want to do (scrolling Instagram or reading music blogs, for instance), rather than the things we have to do. And this tension possibly causes fatigue."

Twitter is so liberal that its conservative employees ‘don’t feel safe to express their opinions,’ says CEO Jack Dorsey

After Getting 3,000% Wage Hike, Workers Are Fired in Venezuela

Relinquishing Taboos - "“Being taught to avoid talking about politics and religion has led to a lack of understanding of politics and religion. What we should have been taught is how to have a civil conversation about a difficult topic.”... Thomas Jefferson said, “I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.”

Your new school curriculum: social justice for all - "Canada's biggest school system has some problems. Math scores are flat or in decline. Too many kids aren't doing well in school, and too many of them are visible minorities. Something must be done. What is it? The answer is to make social justice and "equity" the main focus of education in Ontario... "Equality" is no longer the goal. The new goal is "equity," a very different concept. According to a sweeping draft plan prepared for the Toronto District School Board, equity is not achieved by treating students fairly. It is achieved by challenging "entrenched systems of power and privilege" and "constantly working to centre the conversation around the effects of inequity, oppression, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and other forms of hate and discrimination specifically for racialized students." In other words, kids' success or failure is shaped by historic forces that determine their victim status. (The vexed question of why some "racialized" students do extremely well and others not so well is not addressed.) One mother wrote me that social justice and equity are now the focus of her son's school. At parent council meetings they talk about microaggressions. "There is no room, it seems, for white children or mixed children," she lamented. (Her children are mixed.) In the name of social justice, Grade 9 math is being de-streamed... "Here's what will happen with de-streaming," wrote Don Cooper, a retired teacher, in a letter to the Toronto Star. "Grade 9 teachers will be faced with a classroom with more academic and social disparity, which will be much more difficult to educate." Translation: Struggling kids will be the losers... What's so awful about social-justice doctrine is that it will hurt the very kids it's supposed to help. It deploys significant resources in the wrong direction and aggressively ignores everything important that we know about kids and school achievement. Decades of social-science research confirm that the biggest predictors of school achievement are family structure effects – family composition, stability, maternal education and socioeconomic status. These have nothing to do with entrenched systems of power and privilege, and everything to do with factors such as having two parents and close parental supervision. Sad to say, not all the anti-bias training in the world is going to change that."