Surprise Oscar Nod Leads To Investigation, Criticism Of No Black Best Actress Nomination - "Actress Andrea Riseborough’s surprise best actress nomination for her brilliant performance in the little-seen film “To Leslie,” which meant that the category had no black actresses, triggered an investigation by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and condemnation from a black film critic. “To Leslie” earned a paltry $27,000 when it was released in October, but many Hollywood stars who saw the film praised Riseborough’s work, including Cate Blanchett, Gwyneth Paltrow, Amy Adams, and Kate Winslet, with the latter calling the performance “the greatest female performance onscreen I have ever seen in my life.” But some black critics expressed their fury that performances by black actresses did not receive a best actress nod. “What does it say that the Black women who did everything the institution asks of them — luxury dinners, private academy screenings, meet-and-greets, splashy television spots and magazine profiles — are ignored when someone who did everything outside of the system is rewarded?” film critic Robert Daniels wrote in the Los Angeles Times. “We live in a world and work in industries that are so aggressively committed to upholding whiteness and perpetuating an unabashed misogyny towards Black women,” Nigerian-American director Chinonye Chukwu wrote after the nominations were announced... Actress Christina Ricci slammed the investigation, writing in a later-deleted post, “Seems hilarious that the ‘surprise nomination’ (meaning tons of money wasn’t spent to position this actress) of a legitimately brilliant performance is being met with an investigation. So it’s only the films and actors that can afford the campaigns that deserve recognition? Feels elitist and exclusive and frankly very backward to me.”"
2022 Oscars nominations say it all about the sorry state of cinema - "The NY Times does give a backhanded compliment to the Academy for nominating Jane Campion and Ryusuke Hamaguchi in the Best Director category, which they say has been “historically dominated by white men.” That may be true, but also true is the fact that in recent history a “white man” hasn’t won the award since Damien Chazelle in 2016, and only two “white men” have won the award in the last decade. It’s pretty clear that the “white men” nominated for Best Director this year, Kenneth Branagh for ‘Belfast’, P.T. Anderson for ‘Licorice Pizza’ and Steven Spielberg for ‘West Side Story,’ need not show up for the awards because, in the name of diversity, there’s no way in hell they’re going to win... The desperate need to appease the diversity gods has forced the Academy to expand its membership, both through adding more “minority” members and purging older white members. The result has been an Academy that has tarnished its brand, diminished the art of cinema, and lost its audience. The ratings for the Oscar telecasts have been declining rapidly for years. In 2010, 41 million people watched the Oscar go to ‘The King’s Speech’. In 2021, just over 10 million people watched ‘Nomadland’ win the award."
Oscars TV ratings improve – to third worst ever - "The audience for the 2023 Academy Awards broadcast improved substantially on last year’s unimpressive figures, with a 12% jump on what was the second worst ratings performance in history."
John Sailer on Twitter - "Dozens of psych students signed this letter demanding UCLA not hire Dr. Yoel Inbar. After that, he didn't get the job offer he was almost certainly going to receive. His main offense: expressing skepticism about DEI statements. In his words, "It is not clear what good they do.
Here's the second page, which castigates Inbar for criticizing the Society for Personality and Social Psychology's controversial DEI criteria for *conference submissions.* It also criticizes him for saying that orgs like the SPSP shouldn't take stances on issues like abortion.
Third page. The grad students claim that his response to their DEI-themed interview questions "were outright disconcerting." Because, for instance, he noted that his work "does not really deal with identity, so these issues don’t come up for [him] in a research context.”
Fourth (and final) page. "Given the express priority of our university to consider DEI efforts and experiences in the faculty search and hiring process, we are adamant that the hiring committee[...] not extend a job offer to Dr. Yoel Inbar.""
Rob Henderson on Twitter - "DEI statements don’t do any good at all other than serving as tests of loyalty to an ideology. Which is why you’re not allowed to criticize them. These events also serve to teach observers a lesson: Step out of line and you’ll be next."
Only far right conspiracy theorists spreading misinformation think there's bias against non-liberals
Heart of Stone Star Gal Gadot Rallies Against Hollywood's Obsession for Gender-Swapping Male Characters - "Gadot is not on board with the Hollywood trend of taking a male role and gender-swapping it. For that reason, she wanted to make sure that Rachel Stone was a character built on “her own DNA.”...
'To me, it was so important in the DNA to make Heart of Stone a little different, because men and women are different. They’re built differently, they operate differently.”'...
Gadot is the first to admit that it was growing up with the likes of James Bond, Jason Bourne and Ethan Hunt that made her want to make Heart of Stone. However, she didn’t want to see one of their stories being repeated, and instead wanted to turn it into a female perspective of a male dominated franchise. In throwing herself into the role, Gadot was more than happy to take on as many action sequences as she was allowed to. One thing that Heart of Stone tries to do is make sure that the big stunts were also grounded, in the sense that there was “a science” behind the possibility of them actually being achievable by someone and not completely unbelievable
Liberals already hate her. This won't help
Royal Air Force unlawfully discriminated against white male recruits in bid to boost diversity, inquiry finds - "Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, the new head of the RAF, said he "apologised unreservedly" to all those affected, including the former head of recruitment who was forced to resign rather than implement an order she believed - correctly - to breach equality legislation. Despite the damning findings, the chief of the air staff said that none of the RAF's senior leadership, including his predecessor Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston, on whose watch this happened, would face any kind of sanction. Instead, he blamed the debacle on legal advice that incorrectly said a push in 2020 and 2021 to fast-track ethnic minority and female recruits into training slots was positive action - which is a legal way to improve diversity - when it was actually positive discrimination, which is unlawful... Thirty-one men have already been identified as having missed out on a potential £5,000 "golden handshake" to start cyber roles in the RAF. As first revealed by Sky News, the RAF is compensating each of these individuals... The admission marks a stunning U-turn by the RAF on a scandal first exposed last August by Sky News when it was revealed that Group Captain Nicholl had resigned after refusing to carry out an order to discriminate against white men. She was put into this position after her chain of command, under Air Vice Marshal Maria Byford, who reported to Air Chief Marshal Wigston, insisted that the order was to be carried out despite Group Captain Nicholl saying she had received new legal advice that it was unlawful. Only last February, in evidence to parliament, Air Chief Marshal Wigston assured MPs that there was no unlawful discrimination against white men... The whole affair is framed by an ambition set by Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston to significantly improve the RAF's diversity - a defining goal of his tenure. But this was translated down the chain of command into impossible recruitment targets. Sky News even revealed that white men seeking to join the Royal Air Force had been described as "useless white male pilots" in leaked emails that exposed the pressure placed on recruitment officers to improve diversity. A number of selection boards to place new recruits on courses - a crucial part of maintaining the fighting strength of the RAF - were also cancelled if they did not include women or ethnic minorities, according to the messages."
Liberals still mock the claim that white men are being discriminated against
Meme - Disney Primos: "I'm trying to be the BEST LATINO REPRESENTATION FOR YOU"
Woman: "The best Latino representation is already here... *JACK BLACK NACHO LIBRE*"
Women on Boards and Firm Financial Performance: A Meta-Analysis - "Despite a large literature examining the relationship between women on boards and firm financial performance, the evidence is mixed. To reconcile the conflicting results, we statistically combined the results from 140 studies and examined whether results vary by firms’ legal/regulatory and socio-cultural contexts. We found that female board representation is positively related to accounting returns and that this relationship is more positive in countries with stronger shareholder protections -- perhaps because shareholder protections motivate boards to use the different knowledge, experience, and values that each member brings to the board. Although the relationship between female board representation and market performance is near-zero, the relationship is positive in countries with greater gender parity (and negative in countries with low gender parity) -- perhaps because societal gender differences in human capital may influence investors’ evaluations of the future earning potential of firms that have more female directors. Lastly, we found that female board representation is positively related to boards’ two primary responsibilities, monitoring and strategy involvement. For both firm financial performance and board activities, we found mean effect sizes comparable to those found in meta-analyses of other aspects of board composition. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings."
Does Gender Diversity on Boards Really Boost Company Performance? - "The two meta-analyses reached very similar conclusions, despite the differences in the underlying studies (140 studies vs. 20, etc.)... It’s worth noting that even if the meta-analyses revealed a stronger relationship between board gender diversity and firm performance, we couldn’t conclude that board gender diversity causes firm performance... It is worth noting that gender diversity in other kinds of work teams is not significantly positively related to performance, either."
The observational studies were before quotas and mandates, though. So now given that unqualified women are being forced in, diversity will lower performance (as we would expect if people are unqualified. And the experimental studies are even more damning...
Of course, we're not allowed to say this. Correlation is only not causation when liberals object
Toronto school board shuns merit in the name of equity - "White, South Asian and East Asian students in Toronto seem to be a problem for Canada’s largest public school board. They crowd the merit-based specialty education programs offered by the district. The response from the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) to this overrepresentation has been to axe merit-based admissions and opt for a semi-random lottery system that discriminates based on race. Now, one-fifth of seats in Toronto’s public specialty programs are reserved for Black, Middle Eastern, Latin American and Indigenous students... This only started happening in Toronto last year, but if the biggest school board in the country is bringing in racial quotas, it could very well spread. Education policy-setting often involves following sector “best practices” which is more about following what the big players are doing than pursuing what are truly best practices. Instead of looking at how it could reach and support socioeconomically disadvantaged students better, the TDSB simply threw meritocracy out the window and pinned the problem on race. In 2017, the district’s “equity task force” considered phasing out specialized programs in a draft report that was received by parents with outrage. In 2022, the board voted 17-3 to change the admissions process for these specialty schools so that admissions were no longer determined by tests and auditions; rigorous standards have been replaced by what is essentially a box-checking exercise to get students into the lottery. The board says feedback for the change has been good, but in practice it looks the opposite. News coverage reveals frustrated students, and actual testimony at school board meetings reveals outraged parents. About two dozen parents showed up to a TDSB committee meeting on May 17 explained why they thought the new procedures were repugnant. With the exception of trustees Weidong Pei (a welcome critic of the racial-quota-and-lottery system) and Patrick Nunziata, the board seemed incurious and even skeptical of the many parent delegates who came to the meeting... “If the ulterior motive here of the lottery … is actually to eliminate the programs, then please be transparent about that,” said parent Jennifer Winter Di Cola. “And in five years TDSB will be able to proudly point to a record of perfect equity of access because the programs will no longer exist for anyone.” One parent, Michael Teper, told the board members about “numerus clausus” laws enacted in 1920s Hungary, which placed racial quotas on university admissions to correct the “overcrowding” of Jews. The TDSB’s lottery system and quota were similarly racist and should therefore be repealed, he said. The school board says research and consultations back up their racial sorting project, but it’s hard to rely on a district whose researchers can’t be relied on to produce legitimate work. Among the meeting materials for this recent committee meeting was an “academic” literature review by TDSB that supposedly supported the lottery program with data; this review was in fact plagiarized and many citations were found to be fake (the TDSB’s researcher was later fired). Evidence-based policy indeed."
Meme - "BETA ver.1.3.344
WARNING: This game was made in a time in which it was considered appropriate to portray reality as existing without people of color. Player discretion is advised.
Video games now have to put content warnings if they don't include black people"
Watch 2 female NYC officers try to subdue a very small man, fail miserably, and then let a male club security guard take the whole situation over - "Two armed and trained officers against one perp who is tiny. That dude can't be over 5' 4". Yet they couldn't get him on the ground or even hold him in place."
Diversity makes the police force stronger
Women in Law Enforcement and Police Use of Deadly Force - "We test the hypothesis that law enforcement agencies that have a larger share of female officers should experience lower rates of police use of deadly force. We use the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics 2013 survey of police and sheriff departments (N = 1,983). We measure police-involved violence as the number of civilians killed by law enforcement officers from 2013 through 2015 as reported by the website Mapping Police Violence. Using a variety of empirical estimators to take into consideration the structure of the distribution of police-caused deaths, we find consistent results that a higher share of female officers is associated with a higher likelihood of police-caused deaths. These results are consistent with prior findings within the literature and implies that in order to “fit in” with their male counterparts female officers will use coercive tactics to the same extent."
Of course, the men are to blame.
Former Google exec brings lawsuit alleging that he was fired for not being inclusive by judging employees based on merit - "A high-ranking Google executive was fired last year and, according to his lawsuit, the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion HR tyrants had it out for him because he wasn't willing to give up a merit-based evaluation in the name of "inclusion."... Google fired Ryan Olohan as managing director of food, beverage, and restaurants, telling him it was because he was not "inclusive" enough, according to the lawsuit. "In response to Olohan's request during the call for specifics as to why Google believed he was not inclusive, Google's Employee Investigations team explained that he had shown favoritism towards high performers, which it considered ‘non-inclusive,' and commented on employees' walking pace and hustle, which it considered ‘ableist'"... Adam Stewart, vice president of Google's consumer, government & entertainment division, told Olohan that there were "obviously too many white guys" in the division and in July, Stewart and the company's human resources department "encouraged Olohan to terminate the employment of a male member of his team and replace him with a female hire," the suit said. The suit said that the vague references to "inclusion" seemed to simply fault Olohan for being a white male. "Defendants discriminated against Olohan because of his gender and race, in violation of his statutory rights," the suit said."
Meme - "THE LITTLE MERMAID
Race doesn't matter. it's just a fictional character
GHOST IN THE SHELL
WHITEWASHING!!! Cultural Appropriation!"
Meme - "PRINCESS
P - Ariel
R - Rapunzel
I - Snow White
N - Tiana
C - Aurora
E - Belle
S - Mulan
S - Jasmine"
Why diversity is a losing strategy: if you're not hyper-focused on all the possible ways you can offend people, you will put out a "dog whistle" and the liberals will hate you even more (though the baseline is they keep calling you a white supremacist anyway)
Meme - Rainn Wilson: "The Northman is totally bonkers but I loved every over-the-top minute of it. Daring performances and GORGEOUS visuals. #wow @TheN..."
George Dennehy: "It's an all white cast for an all white male audience...PASS *vomit* This is a step BACK in the movement for Hollywood to be more progressive and diverse and I WILL NOT stand for it!"
Diversity means no more white people
Meme - "Just watched Dunkirk. Great film, but lack of disabled black transgender Muslims really ruined it for me!"
Meme - "These cities were once unironically called:
Detroit (Paris of The West)
St. Louis (Rome of the West)
Baltimore (Charm City)
Chicago (The White City)
New Orleans (America's Most European City)
Philadelphia (The Athens of America)
One ingredient was added, and everything changed."
"Hard to tell what happen huh"
"detroit still is the paris of the west"
Historic migration linked to modern racial bias - "Around 1910 to 1970, approximately six million Black individuals undertook the Great Migration, leaving the American South in search of better economic prospects, education, and refuge from racial violence and discrimination. Recent studies have unveiled a significant connection between this historic event and present-day disparities and subconscious prejudices. In a recently published article in Social Psychological and Personality Science, researchers have revealed that the current implicit bias held by White individuals at the county level is linked to the proportion of Black residents who lived in that county during the Great Migration, particularly around 1930. The findings lend support to the Bias of Crowds theory, which highlights how unequal environments or circumstances can contribute to collective levels of implicit bias."
I thought exposure was the way to reduce prejudice and diversity was good
LEVY: TDSB teachers say curriculum has taken a back seat to DEI training - "“No one talks about the curriculum anymore,” one teacher says. “They (the administrators) talk about equity, human rights, diversity.” “This is not what I signed up to do for a career,” says the elementary school teacher. Over the past week, I spoke with a series of teachers who’ve been living silently with pent-up frustration about the crazy woke edicts they are now required to pursue in their classrooms and how the culture has changed so drastically in the past two years under education director Colleen Russell-Rawlins. The recent tragic suicide of principal Richard Bilkszto appears to have rattled many working for the TDSB – both principals and teachers – prompting some to come forward, courageously to speak about their experiences... If principals are the front line dealing with what they describe as a “culture of terror,” the teachers are the foot soldiers who find themselves forced to simply shut up and lead indoctrination sessions that have little to do with teaching the basics. The first elementary school teacher says during the bimonthly meetings at her school this past year, the focus was consistently on Indigenous education. She says they learned about Indigenous games, cooking methods and Indigenous story-telling and were expected to replicate these experiences with their students. They were also subjected to daily events of 45 minutes to one hour that take kids away from the basics. These have included steel pan drumming, East Indian dancing, seminars on Islamophobia and brainstorming sessions on anti-black racism. There is some spelling, reading and math thrown in for good measure, says the teacher, but the “primary focus is on diversity activities.” “It’s okay if you’re not doing reading, writing and math but it’s not okay if you’re not doing the diversity stuff,” she says. “You will be labelled a racist or an Islamophobe or anti-Indigenous.” She said teachers in her school were expected to “bring evidence back” every two weeks – whether a video, audio file, student pictures or a slide show – to the principal or vice-principal. That evidence was subsequently taken to the superintendent, the teacher says. The teacher says as a consequence, they can’t keep up with the curriculum and this is why test scores are “in decline across the province.” A second elementary school teacher agrees that the climate in her school has “changed dramatically.” They are told to cover certain aspects of anti-black oppression and critical race theory without any support or training. There is always the fear they’ll do something wrong, she says... A third teacher says he was transferred by a vindictive, spiteful principal – Caucasian herself – who repeatedly allowed black students to leave class and who claimed there were “too many old white people” at his school... The second teacher says she focuses on curriculum and gets in trouble for doing so. “There are too many interruptions in the school year that take away from reading, writing and math,” she said. “There’s so much fear about being labelled a racist,” she added. The first teacher says she is in support of “back to basics’ message promoted by education minister Stephen Lecce, but unless the ministry finds a way to “hold school boards accountable [it] won’t happen at all.”... All three teachers feel the parents don’t realize what’s going on or turn a blind eye to all of it."
Minorities Don't Always Want Your Help Being Heard - "I’ve also had my voice spotlighted purely because I am trans, as if to fill some diversity quota. I’ve always been annoyed by this because of how belittling and dis-empowering it is. Recently, I came across a thread of tweets from the Deputy Opinion Editor at Huffington Post, Chloe Angyal. In her tweets, she listed her diversity quotas worked out statistically and congratulated herself of achieving many of them... this sets a horrifying precedent. Of course, part of me is tempted to support a system which would have my voice carry more weight than a white cisgender individual. I want to succeed. But on a deeper level, it feels belittling. It makes me doubt myself because it seems to assume that my work is not important in itself and that I need help and preferential treatment to address a topic that a white cisgender person is also talking about, simply because I’m transgender. The problem with intersectionality is that it avers a system that looks at identity and compares who is more at a disadvantage. You’re a woman? You’re at a disadvantage. You’re a woman of color? You must be given even more precedence than a white woman. Are you an asexual, atheistic genderfluid, non-binary trans woman of color? You’ve won the lottery of probably the most oppressed and thusly get the most attention because you clearly need it. Not everyone who is considered a marginalized person agrees with this mentality or appreciates it being applied to them as they try to make their way in life... Why should we create categories like “people of color,” “transgender,” “homosexual” and so on and give them great social significance? This won’t stop hatred. It will help enable it by empowering the use of divisions and categories. It is a return to segregating people based qualities they did not choose. While some may find it empowering, who is to decide who should be uplifted and supported more? Are we going to use a mathematical system to see who racks up the most oppression points? How is that helping? I don’t want to be told I’m oppressed and that some cisgender white girl needs to speak on my behalf or help amplify my voice because I fit an arbitrary category. I would rather see a society with no focus on labels and categories... To try and fill a quota based on aspects of identity is to appeal to ideological zealots and encourage bad ideas. Publish people’s writing based on its content and clarity and style. To pick people based on some immutable characteristic is to discriminate against people with different immutable characteristics. This kind of discriminatory practice is toxic and antithetical to a civil and rational society no matter how good your intentions are. It is also demeaning to people like me, who can prove our worthiness for a job based on our skills and hard work, not our gender identity, race or sexuality."
Martin Luther King was a bigot with internalised white supremacy, after all
'Without Grace, food is an under-seasoned soup': Criticism as law society stops prayers before meals - "One of the UK's oldest legal institutions, Lincoln's Inn has decided to replace saying Grace before meals with a moment of reflection giving thanks instead. The historic association of students, barristers and judges says the change is part of a desire to be a more welcoming and inclusive organisation. Ann Sharp, under treasurer at Lincoln's Inn, told the Telegraph the change to a non-Christian 'thanks' is to accommodate the Inn's diverse members who hold a different set of beliefs. "This is not political correctness gone mad, and it is not being driven by younger members," she said. "Other members didn’t feel comfortable so we are trying to be a little more thoughtful." Historian and commentator Martyn Whittock gave his view to Premier. “Rooted in Jewish tradition, Jesus gave thanks with the feeding of the five thousand. In the last supper, he takes bread. When he'd given thanks, he broke it and gave it to the disciples. So it’s rooted in a Jewish tradition, which became a Christian tradition as well. But it's also reflected in all the major world religions – taking the time to say thank you for food. “I personally think that deciding not to say Grace in the name of inclusivity, is just completely unnecessary. This is rooted in the Christian culture of this nation. But it's not excluding anyone from this particular historic tradition. If that's your tradition, then join in. If it's not, you can say it in your in your own head, in your own way. Or you can just be quiet and be grateful for food. “I think sometimes these things which are done to be more inclusive, actually create a blandness and a lack of variety and texture in our lives. “In many situations, I think there's a creeping secularism, which is sometimes done to protect other traditions. But you find Jews and Muslims and Hindus don’t have a problem with this, they’re not offended by it. I think often it's being done by secular motivation to kind of get God out of everything.”"
Good luck if you're uncomfortable with literally any other religion
London chef Thomas Straker apologises after he was criticised for all-white, all-male kitchen team - "A London-based chef has apologised for what his peers branded a “rude” response towards criticism, after he faced backlash online for revealing the line-up of his kitchen team at his Notting Hill restaurant. Thomas Straker, who opened his namesake restaurant Straker’s in 2022, recently shared a photograph of his “chef team” comprising eight people, including himself. All eight members of the team pictured were white and male, prompting complaints from social media users who believed it did not reflect the diversity of London... Straker, who found fame by sharing his recipes and cooking videos on TikTok, responded to the negative backlash by commenting: “Honestly, people need to calm down. Firstly, there is a shortage of chefs/hospitality workers. Secondly, if you feel so passionately, please go and gather CVs of any chefs you think we’re missing in the team. Solutions not problems. Thank you.”... “Whilst it was well-meaning I believe, a picture doesn’t lie. For whatever reason, he currently has no women or people of colour in his kitchen, so it all looks a bit ‘pale, male and stale’. Perhaps the reaction to this image will make Thomas think again a bit more carefully about who he wants to employ in the future.”"
Racist, sexist comments and hiring discrimination are good when directed at certain groups, and if you don't kowtow to the SJW agenda you are rude
