The Study of Perpetual Victimhood

There are a few people in the United States, sometimes known as "community leaders" who have set themselves up as professional victims of society's injustice, whether real or imaginary.  Their leadership positions are made more secure if they can convince their malleable followers that times are tough and all of society's problems result from white racism and a lack of federal funding.
Get that chip off your shoulder and just play the cards you were dealt.
Too many people believe that black people can't succeed without the government's help, but those who do, or tell others they can, must be vilified as "Uncle Toms."*
Yeah, sure, everybody's a victim. Stop your whining.
Recently I observed President and Mrs. Barack H. Obama on television at the dedication of the Martin Luther King memorial in Washington, DC, singing We Shall Overcome (Someday) and I was struck by the unmitigated gall exhibited by this couple.  He's the President of the United States, yet he still whimpers about overcoming ... someday.

It's never enough.  No matter how many years of "affirmative action" the country endures, no matter how many hiring quotas, preferences and special privileges are lavished upon blacks — based entirely on skin color — it's never enough.  No matter how many black millionaires there are, it's never enough.  The so-called black "community leaders" still hope to "overcome someday".


Shakedown, white guilt, several generations, quotas, racial preferences.

Background, overview and recap articles:

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A Nation of Victims Is Doomed to Fail.  America has become a nation of 'victims' and 'survivors'.  Everyone is getting over a 'trauma' or 'processing'.  They demand special privileges because of the suffering of their ancestors.  They trot out studies which prove that they are somehow disadvantaged.  They gorge on self-help books and deploy therapy terminology to accuse everyone else of mistreating them.  Our society has turned into a cross between a Marxist academic conference and therapy session where Marxist terminology like "systemic racism" and therapy talk like "gaslighting narcissist" form key parts of the grammar of perpetual victimhood.  Politics has been reduced to victimhood advocacy and we are worse off for it.  Victims are not good people.  Postmodern influencer culture conflates 'victim' and 'survivor', but they are two very different things.  Survivors are people who pick themselves up and go on.  Victims give up and spend the rest of their lives doing nothing except blaming everyone else.

No Race Has Ever Done More for Another Race than White Americans Have Done for Black Americans.  In the last twelve months, we have been ceaselessly bombarded by claims that America is a racist society in which Black people are oppressed by White people.  This is a truly astonishing claim because nothing could be further from the truth.  You can conduct a quick reality check yourself.  Despite their fervent accusations of racism, those who make them have not been able to point to a single racist law, ordinance, or practice in the whole of the United States.  This holds true across the spectrum:  the federal, state, and local levels.  If the United States were indeed an institutionally racist society, you could surely find at least one law or practice in this vast nation to support your contention.  But they cannot do it and that for a good reason:  there aren't any.

The Evolutionary Advantages of Playing Victim.  Victims may receive attention, sympathy, and social status, as well as financial support and other benefits.  And being a victim can generate certain kinds of power:  It can justify the seeking of retribution, provide a sense of legitimacy or psychological standing to speak on certain issues, and may even confer moral impunity by minimizing blame for victims' own wrongdoings.  Presumably, most victims would eagerly forego such benefits if they were able to free themselves of their plight.  But when victimhood yields benefits, it incentivizes people to signal their victimhood to others or to exaggerate or even fake victimhood entirely.  This is especially true in contexts that involve alleged psychic harms, and where appeals are made to third-parties, with the claimed damage often being invisible, unverifiable, and based exclusively on self-reports.  Such circumstances allow unscrupulous people to take advantage of the kindness and sympathy of others by co-opting victim status for personal gain.  And so, people do.  Newly published research indicates that people who more frequently signal their victimhood (whether real, exaggerated, or false) are more likely to lie and cheat for material gain and denigrate others as a means to get ahead.

20 Questions the Woke Can't Answer, Because Thinking Makes Their Brains Hurt.  Twenty Questions.  Expect zero answers.
  •   Why are people demonstrating in American cities, burning police stations and throwing bottles at cops commanded by Democratic mayors?  What specifically do they want?  How do we get them to go home?  The cops in George Floyd's case have been in jail for months.
  •   What exactly do you mean by "systemic racism"?  Is it different from what Christians face in the Muslim world, minorities face in China, and ethnic minorities have faced in virtually every society known to man?  How?
  •   Why hold white people to standards you plainly don't hold Chinese or Africans to?  Do you think whites are superior?
  •   Is that why the Smithsonian, and other white-run institutions, are designating things like punctuality, professionalism, rational thought and diligence as part of "white culture"?
  •   You say that racism is so deeply entrenched in America that to eliminate it we need to uproot our whole culture, history, and political system.  That's exactly what the white segregationists warned us in the 1950s.  Martin Luther King, and before him Frederick Douglass, vehemently disagreed.  Are you happy taking the Klan's side against them? [...]
  •   Do you want to help solve black Americans' problems, or are you just milking them?

America, the Racist.  Writing in the December 1991 issue of Academic Questions, Fred Siegel, associate professor of history at Cooper Union and a self-described liberal and Democrat, bemoaned a fashionable trend in history writing.  The "New Historians," he quipped, saw American life as "a story of defeat, despair, and domination.  American history became a tragedy in three acts:  what we did to the Indians, what we did to the African-Americans, and what we did to everyone else."  That's a pretty fair description of A People's History of the United States.

Republicans Appeal To The Hero.  Democrats Appeal To The Victim.  A hero is a person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities.  Heroes have a different outlook on life.  They tend to be more fulfilled and are generally happy.  They have confronted problems and achieved success.  They took advantage of opportunities and learned to be independent, self-reliant and responsible.  They have a positive view of life and are content with where they are.  Heroes concentrate on things they can control.  The dictionary says a victim is someone or something that has been hurt, damaged or killed or has suffered, either because of the actions of someone or something else, or because of illness or chance.  Victims generally feel that the place where they are is not where they want to be and that is not their fault that they are where they are.  Others have wronged them and victims feel helpless.  Their lack of success is always someone else's fault.  They demand justice.  They tend to depend on others and refuse to take full responsibility for themselves.  Victims concentrate on and complain about things they can't control.

Why do the least-bright people rise to the top?  This is the plight of a wealthy nation.  The leftists have to invent things to be mad about.  There can never be happiness, gratitude for what our nation has accomplished and provided to the rest of the word.  No.  There can only be anger, dissatisfaction and rage against old crimes, slights and perceived offenses.  That is what the left traffics in, rage at counterfeit crimes, transgressions committed by long-dead people, even if they worked tirelessly to bring about change.  The Founders wanted and knew slavery would come to an end.  They hoped it would not take war, but it did.  Does the rabid left acknowledge this?  Never.  For them, if we are not people of color, we are all guilty to the end of our days.  This is why so few of the really smart people are in Congress; only the truly brave go there.

Victim Politics:  The Game of Loser Takes All.  When life is good, there are people who seek out others to make it worse, to level inequalities.  It is hard to get the mind around this, but they do.  The players of victim politics speak clearer than mere explanations can do.
  •   When Ace Magashule, a career henchman who helped make South Africa fail, says, "We have been building the white people's roads, their houses, working their farms, now it's time for a black person to own land and farm," — that's victim politics.
  •   When a Palestinian delegate calls on the UN "to hold Israelis accountable for violations and crimes in the Palestinian Territories" — that's victim politics.
  •   When Hilary Clinton blasts misogynist homophobic Islamaphobic xenophobic racist America — that's victim politics.
  •   When black actor Jussie Smollett pays for staging a white hate crime on him — that's opportunistic victim politics.
  •   When a flyer at the University of Illinois declares, "Ending white privilege starts with ending Jewish privilege" — that's victim and Jew-hating politics combined.

Doubts About the Victimhood Narrative.  If even a third of America's black citizens shared the views of Jason Hill, a 1985 Jamaican immigrant to this country, the Democratic Party as currently constituted would not exist.  Consequently, Hill and black Americans with similar views are despised and vilified by "compassionate" Dems and by blacks who've embraced the victim status assigned to them by Alt-Left politicians and academicians like Cornel West and Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Victimhood Addiction.  The Orwellian disintegration of language has created the impression that there is something ennobling or virtuous in being a victim.  Martyrs are virtuous and noble, but victims are just as likely to be bad as good.  That is a relatively minor concern.  Much more serious is crowning whole classes of people as "victims" and insisting that this notional victimhood entitles them to special consideration from society.  The evil this creates dwarfs any imagined harm done to these groups of people.  Indeed, every great evil of our time has been done in the name of that horrific monstrosity "social justice" on behalf of presumed groups of victims.

Racism: The Ineradicable Sin?  For today's radical Left, which now has virtually uncontested control of the Democratic Party, racism is the universal and unforgiveable sin.  It is also considered a sin that so permeates society that it is ineradicable except by a societal revolution — one that completely rearranges what is deemed an inherently oppressive hierarchy continually contaminated by microaggressions passed down from tyrannical generation to generation.

Half a Century of Blaming White Racism for Black America's Problems.  For half a century, the federal government has pursued a disastrous strategy in addressing the problems of black Americans.  They were designated a victim class, and enormous sums of money were expended on incentives to perpetuate that status.  The welfare state has perpetuated multi-generational pathologies, while the encouragement of victimology and the blame placed on white racism have poisoned race relations instead of healing them.  It's fair to say the United States government began its long and catastrophic commitment to this approach fifty years ago today (or yesterday):  February 29, 1968.  On that day, the Kerner Commission (officially the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders) delivered its report (official summary; full 400-plus pages), and white racism was officially blamed for the problems of black America.

A Letter To White America.  [Scroll down]  Blacks themselves have made race the major issue in America over the past half century.  And, they are the ones that have insisted that their academic failures be advertised to the maximum extent.  They have done this in order to extract more money, more jobs, higher positions and continued leverage over the white power structure.  Victimization is their strategy.  Therefore, when one writes about the academic failures of black children, he is simply acknowledging that which blacks insisted be put in the public arena.  Blacks complain that their all-black schools are segregated, and therefore, inferior, and that that is the reason for their underachievement.  However, they still make this claim when the teachers are well paid and have advanced degrees, the school facilities are upscale, and the per-pupil money is above that in the white schools.  In addition, blacks insist that the teachers and administrators in predominately black schools "look like the children."  In other words, in one breath they complain about segregation, and in the next breath they insist on it.

Here are 1,366 well sourced examples of Barack Obama's lies, lawbreaking, corruption, cronyism, hypocrisy, waste, etc.  [#40] The Obama administration accused fire and police departments in Jacksonville, Florida, New York City, and Dayton, Ohio of "racial discrimination" because they required potential firefighters and police officers to take a written test. [...] [#84] In 2012, the Obama administration accused Pepsico of "race discrimination" because it used criminal background checks to screen out job applicants. [...] [#213] In June 2013, the Obama administration filed lawsuits against Dollar General and BMW for using criminal background checks to screen employees.  The Obama administration claimed that such background checks were "racist." [...] [#318] In March 2012, Obama's Justice Department blocked Texas's voter ID law, claiming that it was "racist." [...] [#536] In January 2014, it was reported that the Obama administration had accused lenders in the auto industry of "racism."  However, the auto industry does not report or keep track of the race of the people whom it lends money too, and the Obama administration's accusation of "racism" was based on guessing the races of the people who had borrowed money. [...] [#551] Obama's Justice Department blocked Texas's voter ID law, claiming that it was "racist." [...] [#712] In May 2014, it was reported that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau had stopped conducting employee evaluations because they were "racist."  The agency's new policy would pay all employees as if they had received the highest score.


Timely news and commentary:


BLM and the media again make a martyr of a teen who tried to kill a sheriff's deputy.  On Saturday, a San Bernardino sheriff's deputy shot and killed a 15-year-old.  According to BLM and the media, the deputy slaughtered an autistic black teenager in cold blood.  According to known facts, 15-year-old Ryan Gainer's family called the sheriff because the allegedly autistic teen was terrorizing them.  Gainer attacked the deputy, who fired in self-defense.  A story from Britain's Guardian tips you off to how the piece will be covered: "California officer shoots and kills boy, 15, holding gardening tool."  Imagine a peaceful child raking the lawn when a sheriff drives by and fires.  However, even The Guardian explains that the family called 911 because they were afraid and that Gainer charged the deputy: [...] All are bladed tools that can operate effectively in both battlefield and garden.  Many people have been beaten to death with shovels and garden hoes.  When Gainer charged, the officer had a choice:  Kill or be killed.  However, BLM and the despicable media have their narrative, facts [notwithstanding].  For BLM, Ryan Gainer, who came charging at a deputy with a weapon of war, is the newest martyr, joining the ranks of George Floyd, Trayvon Martin, and Michael Brown, all of whom died while engaged in criminal activities, with Martin and Brown each trying to kill someone.

Rachel Levine Plays the Race Card on Climate Change.  The 2020s are like a South Park episode.  Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine, a biological male who identifies as a transgender woman, earlier this month took time away from encouraging pre-adolescent children to explore their gender identities through the wonders of endocrine-disrupting pharmaceuticals to lecture the public about how climate change might be racist.  In a video posted on X, Levine said, "Black Americans are more likely than White Americans to live in areas in housing that increase their susceptibility to climate-related health issues," and added that "65% of Black Americans report feeling anxious about climate change's impact."  [Tweet]

Activist Media Outlets Run Cover for Fulton County DA Fani Willis, Claim Scrutiny Is Motivated by Racism.  It was only a matter of time before folks on the left began throwing race into the saga surrounding embattled Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.  Activist media outlets have begun spinning the narrative that the criticism and scrutiny of the prosecutor isn't about her inappropriate romantic relationship with one of the prosecutors she hired to handle the election interference case against former President Donald Trump but about the color of her skin and her sex.  The New York Times and Associated Press have published pieces intimating that the furor over Willis' alleged corruption was due to racism and sexism and not the fact that she clearly engaged in a torrid affair with prosecutor Nathan Wade.  The only thing surprising about this is that it took them so long to begin weaving this narrative.

Illegal Alien Accused of Causing Sgt. Michael Kunovich's Death Files Civil Rights Lawsuit Claiming Limited English Skills Make Him Disabled.  An illegal alien, accused of causing St. Johns County, Florida, sheriff's office Sgt. Michael Kunovich's death, has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit claiming his limited English-speaking skills make him disabled.  As Breitbart News reported, 19-year-old illegal alien Virgilio Aguilar-Mendez of Guatemala was arrested in May 2023 and has been charged with resisting an officer with violence and manslaughter in connection with Kunovich's death.  This week, Aguilar-Mendez's defense attorneys filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Kunovich's estate, Lt. Jose Jimenez, who also responded to the incident, and St. Johns County, claiming that their client is disabled because he does not speak English or Spanish and was thus denied his rights under the "Americans with Disabilities Act" and the "Rehabilitation Act."  [Video clip]

The Editor says...
[#1] Does a violent illegal alien have any such rights?  [#2] Is limited English now an excuse for crime?

IL Democrat Mayor Snaps at Officials for 'Attacking Black Woman in Power' When Questioned on Spending.  Mayor Tiffany Henyard (D) of Dolton, Illinois, got heated with officials Monday when they questioned her on issues that have brought a wave of criticism.  Fox News reported Thursday that she was pelted with questions about her controversial spending habits and transparency.  [Tweet]  Video footage shows the meeting with Henyard speaking to fellow officials.  She said, "Y'all should be ashamed of y'all selves.  Y'all black.  Y'all are black.  And y'all sitting up here beating and attacking on a black woman that's in power.  You should be ashamed of y'all selves."  "Y'all forget I am the leader.  They want to hear from the mayor.  If y'all ain't learned that yet, the mayor.  Not the trustees that don't do nothing that only run they mouth.  Y'all don't do no work, no work," she said.

Systemic Racism Is Bogus.  [Scroll down]  Ironically, much of this started just as the nation elected its first Black President, which on its face, would seem to disprove the theory.  Rather than using his half-white/half-black origin, Obama went about making racial matters worse rather than using his position to make things better.  The argument is made that because white citizens have a somewhat higher income than blacks, blacks commit more crime, do worse in school, and have more broken families, this is prima facia evidence of racism, white privilege, and discrimination.  Now it seems, that white suburban housewives pay money to people to make them feel guilty and miserable about themselves as racists.  Airlines promise to hire more females and blacks, even if they are not the most qualified.  Schools quit giving grades and using standardized tests, or commit grade inflation; just to be sure no one (especially if they are white) can show they can do better than someone else.  Schools abandon discipline since more blacks might be involved in disciplinary events.  Even on television, the advertising agencies would have you think the black population has grown from roughly 13% to about 95% of the country.  Making sure more black women are shown using shampoo is supposed to fix our problems.

If Michelle Obama's Running, Two Sentences from Her College Thesis Should Be Read by Everyone.  Since Michelle Obama is now being discussed as an alternative if the powers that be within the Democratic Party decide to dump Joe Biden at the Democratic nominating convention, it's time we start telling the truth about this woman.  I have collected much research on her over the years but for now, let's discuss her college thesis.  In her thesis, she makes the wild claim that America was founded on "crime and hatred" and that whites in America are "ineradicably racist."  Of course, history is a lot more complex than that.  Most Americans opposed slavery, which is why we had a civil war to end this evil institution.  And after the Civil War, racist laws would have been abolished a lot sooner, but the party Michelle belongs to — the Democratic Party — blocked civil rights legislation for decades.  They were the party of slavery, Jim Crow and segregation.  The Republican Party was specifically founded to oppose slavery and racist laws, but Michelle seems to be unaware of this.  What's disturbing is that she constantly uses the terms "separationist" and "integrationist" in her thesis when describing the views of black people, and her thesis clearly identifies her as a separationist.  So, if you are a minority who wants to get ahead in broader society, Michelle thinks you're a sellout.  Talk about divisive.

Johns Hopkins Hospital DEI chief claims ALL whites, males, Christians, able-bodies people and English speakers are 'privileged'.  Johns Hopkins Hospital has sparked outrage after its DEI chief sent out a letter labeling all white people, Christians, men and English-speakers as 'privileged'.  The letter, posted on Twitter by End Wokeness, was written by Chief Diversity Officer Sherita Hill Golden, was part of the 'monthly diversity digest'.  A furious hospital employee shared the memo with the Twitter account.

The Dead End Of Victimhood Benefits Only Its Promoters.  For weeks, we've seen videos exposing Hamas's depravity.  Its soldiers' blatant disregard for human life and the seeming joy with which they carried out their depravity was disheartening.  Sadly, this kind of depravity can be found closer to home, too, where videos abound of black crime across America, with people shot, pushed in front of trains, sucker punched, beaten to a pulp, and even killed by individuals, gangs, or groups of "teens."  In both cases, the perpetrators have an ostensible enemy at whom their anger is directed.  For Hamas, it's Jews, and for blacks, it's whites.  Apologists for both groups claim it's the actions of the "oppressor" that caused the "victims" to react.  For Hamas, it's Jews "stealing" Palestinian lands.  For blacks, it's slavery and Jim Crow.  In both cases, though, the outsized violence against bystanders demonstrates that those are just convenient justifications for evil people to gain power.

In the Mouth of Marxist Madness.  [Scroll down]  Of course, if Orwell prophetically captured the malicious spirit of our present age, it was Aldous Huxley who foresaw its moral degradation.  He understood that promiscuity, drug addiction, and other pleasure-seeking obsessions are not only gateways to eroding religious conviction but also the perfect tools for any authoritarian government seeking to keep the public mentally enslaved and subdued.  If a free-thinking individual can be relegated to a hallucinogenic state of narcotic dependency, then that person will never again possess the free will to challenge anything.  If adolescents can be taught to embrace a revolving door of sexual partners while joyfully "shouting their abortions," then they can be prevented from ever creating stable families of their own.  Healthy marriages produce happy families with thoughtful children who, in turn, grow to be self-sufficient, productive adults.  Governments that require their citizens to be obedient are strongest when those citizens remain dependent upon government for life.  Drug-addled, psychologically confused adults who are incapable of taking care of their own families are the perfect candidates for government enslavement.

Obama's Racist Chickens Have Come Home to Roost.  Obama was elected, twice, by a mostly white voting bloc.  He owns four mansions.  He and his wife attended the best colleges.  They are living proof that black people can achieve the highest levels of success.  Yet he continually whines that black people are victims of white privilege, hostility, and racism.  He could have been a president who turned the fortunes of black people around forever, but the last thing a Marxist race hustler wants is a country full of successful black folks.  The Marxist needs them poor and angry to get what he truly wants — chaos, then communism.  Obama, the most successful black man in the history of American politics, spent his two terms telling black people they were victims and that white people were responsible.  It's been six years since Obama left the White House, and black people are worse off now than they've been in generations.  President Trump's policies led to the lowest black unemployment rate in history, yet the Marxists convinced black people he was somehow "racist."

Dashcam Footage Analysis:  Why 'Justice for Leonard' Will Fail.  On Monday, October 16, Leonard Cure was shot by a white cop during a traffic stop.  Now there are calls for proof that the police officer was in fear of his own life, thus justifying the use of deadly force.  "The family is not convinced that you're going to see that," said Ben Crump, the civil rights attorney representing Cure's family.  The Camden County, Ga., Sheriff's Office has released both body and dash camera footage.  I'm wondering if they've seen it because there is so much evidence that Staff Sergeant Buck Aldridge tried literally every tool in his belt before using his firearm.  [Tweet with video clip]

BLM Thinks They Found Their New George Floyd.  A Georgia deputy fatally shot a Black man at point-blank range during a traffic stop after the man, who had been wrongfully imprisoned years ago, grabbed the officer by the neck and was forcing his head backward, according to video released by a sheriff Wednesday. [...] "I believe there were possibly some issues going on, some mental issues with my brother," Michael Cure said of his slain brother.  "I know him quite well.  The officer just triggered him, undoubtedly triggered him.  It was excitement met with excitement."  [Video clip]

Hamas Provides a Clarifying Moment.  Ever since Marx, lefty politicians have recognized that the royal road to political power is to pose as the savior of the victims, whether workers, women, blacks, gays, Palestinians.  Never mind that most of the problems of the workers was due to government screwing up the economy with wars, inflations, deflations, and central bank incompetence.  Never mind that, after the passage of the civil rights acts, pro-black politics is simple racism.  Never mind that feminism has benefited high-born women and destroyed the traditional family that supports ordinary women.  Never mind that the gay rights movement has morphed into the trans rights racket.

NY Times readers let Ibram Kendi have itNY Times columnist Michelle Goldberg has written a defense of Ibram Kendi which is probably the least convincing thing you'll read today.  To be clear, I don't think the problem is with Goldberg, who is a decent writer when she has a meaty story to work on.  The problem in this case is that attempting to blame Kendi's problems on "the system" just isn't credible. [...] None of this is really Kendi's fault, it's the system, man.  If the left wasn't so driven by fads and celebrity, this wouldn't have happened.  Why wouldn't it have happened?  Because Kendi never would have been given all of that money in the first place.  This is the best defense she can come up with.  It's not Kendi's fault he was unprepared and undisciplined, it's everyone else's fault for believing in him.  Come to think of it, this is pretty much the same hokum that is central to Kendi's own work.  His great insight is that all differences in outcome between groups are proof of a systemic problem (racism) which needs to be opposed and rectified.

Indicted Senator Bob Menendez to Announce Reelection Bid Monday.  Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), who was indicted days ago on federal bribery charges, is expected to announce on Monday that he intends to seek reelection, according to a report from the New Jersey Globe.  Menendez has been defiant in the wake of the indictment, claiming that he's being targeted for being Latino.  "It is not lost on me how quickly some are rushing to judge a Latino and push him out of his seat," he said in a statement.  "I am not going anywhere."

The question of racist red light cameras.  The return of red light cameras to St. Louis City has been in the news, both print and TV.  This is the result, particularly, of the rise in traffic fatalities.  It is reported that in several cities and in the past, they were responsible for significant decreases in traffic violations.  It is also reported that these will differ from the previous red light cameras in that they will take pictures of potential violations, the driver's face, and the license plate number.  Adding the driver's face is to enable better results in identifying responsibility as well as protecting vehicle owners not involved.  This news — encouraging to some, discouraging to others — has raised another surprising issue.  In a Post-Dispatch article relating to an aldermanic bill proposal, this comment appeared:  "The bill also aims to blunt concerns that the camera system will unfairly burden minority and low-income drivers and that the fines will be used as revenue generators for the city."

Geology: Too hard?  Too white?  Willa Rowan, of Western Washington University, had what she thought was a rock-solid idea for her master's thesis.  She would generate — and sift through — data to discover the systemic racism and inequality that must be inherent in the geosciences... and the study thereof.  According to thecollegefix.com, Rowan surveyed 139 college seniors majoring in geoscience — from 99 universities.  She purported to find that "BIPOC students, especially female and non-binary students, were more likely to report struggles with mental health and feelings of inadequacy."  The same could be said of females and non-binary individuals that aren't in (or studying) the geosciences.  Unsurprisingly, Rowan also claimed that "BIPOC students in geoscience face discrimination and barriers to learning at all levels, from microaggressions to systemic racism."

Is NPR Trying To Start A Race War?  The government-funded pundits at National Propaganda Radio (NPR) seem to have a toxic fixation with race.  On Tuesday, the outlet blamed the success of American country music on racial prejudice.  In a podcast episode titled "How racism became a marketing tool for country music," NPR brought on a historian to outline the myriad ways country music is a vehicle for white supremacy.  The host, Britany Luse, introduces the episode by previewing questions to Amanda Martinez, a country music historian at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.  Luse wants to know "how country music became this symbol of racism" and why country music stars remain popular despite artists who currently lead the charts "peddling racist rhetoric today."

Congresspeople are wrong to blame health woes amongst blacks on race.  Disproportional health outcomes are tragic, but that's not tied to racism.  By alleging it is, these politicians shirk their duty to solve pressing problems, demonstrate their ignorance of government-supplied data, and falsely impugn America and the medical profession.  Black babies die from sudden unexpected infant death syndrome at 2.1 times the rate of whites, but it has nothing to do with racism.  One study showed that black mothers don't follow the Safe to Sleep recommendations.  Some said they thought they were unnecessary or made them uncomfortable.  Another study pointed to black mothers' continued use of high-risk sleep practices.  A 2019 study found that black people aged 51 [to] 55 were 28% more likely to have a chronic disease compared to white people of the same age.  Many cried "racism," but that's not correct.  Poor health outcomes are tied to increasingly sedentary lifestyles and being overweight.  Culturally, blacks don't subscribe to thin is in.  American blacks "in general accept larger body sizes and feel less guilty about overeating than other ethnic groups."  Blacks are least likely to engage in non-work physical activity or regular exercise, while Latinos are second.

Black people need 'safe spaces' to camp to avoid 'trauma' from white people who might have Trump flags.  NBC News has been slammed online for a report about black people needing 'safe spaces' to enjoy outdoor activities.  NBC BLK reporter Char Adams described in a recently-revived June essay several black-led outdoor groups working to 'provide safe spaces for black people to enjoy outdoor activities and dispel myths that the outdoors doesn't belong to us.'  The report focused heavily on creating racially segregated 'safe spaces' so that black people can avoid 'harassment' and 'trauma' from white people who might fly 'Trump flags' at campsites.

Is coffee racist?  How drinking coffee perpetuates white supremacy.  If you're a person of color, you know what I'm talking about.  You walk into a new coffee shop and your senses are overwhelmed with whiteness and you get the glare from the Karens.  The white hipster barista lines herself up between you and the bathrooms, ready to tell you non-customers aren't welcome.

Yes, Really: Texas University Offers Degrees in 'Victim Studies'.  [Scroll down]  In other words, this isn't a college degree; it's a glorified course in woke, leftist social justice activism.  It's likely students will learn little that isn't colored by leftist propaganda.  What exactly will these graduates be fitted for, other than gluing themselves to tarmac or joining Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in Congress?  The website says the Victim Studies Department works with "local law enforcement and criminal justice agencies, rape crisis and domestic violence shelters." The problem is that those most fitted to help abuse victims are not woke college students who spent four years in propaganda courses, just as Gender Studies graduates mostly aren't doing great work to help women.  It's all jargon.

The War on Native American Names and Mascots.  To understand the dishonesty, begin with the grim pathologies afflicting Native Americans.  For one, the average life expectancy of an American Indian is 44 years and they disproportionally suffer from cirrhosis, diabetes, and chronic lower respiratory diseases.  Alcoholism is rampant — nearly a quarter report monthly binge drinking, and under-age drinking is higher than any other ethnic/racial group.  Not unexpectedly, Native Americans had the highest poverty rate of all ethnic/racial groups.  The homicide rate was nearly two and half times that of whites.  According to the Census, 25.4% were classified as below the poverty line compared to 20.8% of blacks and 8.1% of whites, As if that were insufficient, they suffer disproportionately from mental illness.  How do these nicknames contribute to these dreadful pathologies?  Did groups of Navajos watch the NFL on TV, see the Washington Redskins' logo, and then get drunk and squander all their money?

The Muddled Mindset of Progressivism.  It's time we had a courageous conversation about the left's incoherent stance on big government and race.  This muddled mindset was on full display last week as two progressive Supreme Court justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, attacked the majority's decision rejecting affirmative action in higher education by crediting such race-based policies for progress while also claiming that nothing much has changed in our supposedly racist country.  "Today," Sotomayor declares in the second paragraph of her dissent, "this court stands in the way and rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress."  Despite that grand advancement, she asserts just one sentence later that the majority was cementing "a superficial rule of colorblindness as a constitutional principle in an endemically segregated society where race has always mattered and continues to matter."  Momentous progress in an endemically segregated nation?  Both Sotomayor and Jackson try to show how race continues to matter by drawing on the pessimistic historical determinism of critical race theory to argue that African Americans are still shackled by the original sin of slavery.

Canadian smoke is racist.  Canada is a very White country. 70% of the population is of European extraction.  So it's no surprise that the smoke from Canada's wildfires is harming Blacks and other underprivileged Americans disproportionately. [...] Back in March, I wrote about an absurd Los Angeles Times article that claimed that car exhaust from White drivers was sickening Black Angelinos.  It was a fascinating deep dive into the twisted minds of liberals, whose racial obsession leads them to believe that car exhaust is racially aware and White exhaust seeks out and sickens Black people.  Given that Hispanics make up nearly half of Los Angeles' population, and non-Hispanic Whites only about 30%, that is some mighty discriminating car exhaust.  I wonder how the Hispanic and Black car exhaust avoids being pollution.  It's a mystery.  But not, to me, any more vexing mystery than the ability of Canadian smoke to deftly avoid the lungs of White Americans, who make up a larger fraction of the people exposed to the smoke than minorities.

Diabetes Reveals Itself to be Racist.  Is diabetes "racist"?  It must be, since more Black than White people have it.  The latter must be responsible for it.  The American Medical Association hasn't made the connection, yet.  But give it time.  In the meanwhile, the AMA is focused on ignoring one of the primary correlative factors that leads to diabetes — and a host of other serious, chronic illnesses — in everyone:  Being seriously overweight.

Should Christians Declare A State Of Emergency, Too?  Less than six months after President Joe Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act, which codified gay marriages, the Human Rights Campaign declared its first-ever "state of emergency" for "LGBTQ+ people."  Why?  Because of a supposed spike in "legislative assaults sweeping state houses this year."  "More than 75 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been signed into law this year alone, more than doubling last year's number, which was previously the worst year on record," the HRC says.  But look closely.  Almost every single bill on the "assault" list is legislation designed to protect children from the omnipresent and increasingly aggressive "transgender" community.  The list includes things such as bans on doctors performing sterilization procedures or prescribing dangerous puberty-blocking drugs to minors.  It includes Florida's ban on public schools teaching children under age 9 about gay sex, and removing books from elementary school libraries that are too pornographic to show on local news programs.

The Quota States of America.  Surprisingly Martin Luther King Day is still a national holiday.  Why hasn't he been cancelled over his past words that today would be deemed racist or white supremacist, much like the names of towns, mountains, or Confederate statues?  As a reminder, MLK once spoke of the true measure of his fellow man, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."  Today "content of character" or merit is deemed racist.  If you think I jest, the Education Writers Association asks, "Are merit-based education admissions practices racist?"  Why stop with merit.  Everything is racist now.  The Seattle Times asks, "Is math racist?"  Medium claims that waking up early is rooted in white supremacy.  Perhaps I should sleep in more to atone for my alleged privilege.  In America today, everything is viewed through the eye of race and gender, ignoring experience and skills, in favor of fulfilling some arbitrarily defined quotas, all in the name of diversity.

A Shortage of Doctors?  A recent CNN headline — "We don't have enough doctors" — is quite accurate.  The explanation given for the M.D. shortage is completely wrong.  CNN notes the "health-care workforce shortage is 'more acute' in Black and brown communities."  The black community represents 13 percent of the U.S. population, but only 5.7 percent of American physicians are black.  The implication is clear:  only black doctors should or can treat black patients or, at a minimum, will treat them properly.  This is racist dogma.  The vast majority of American doctors (and nurses) are blind to skin color, religion, ethnicity, and even criminal behavior.  Real doctors treat each patient as a unique, valuable individual without regard to demographics.

California Reparations Commission Demands Formal State Apology for Reagan's Use of 'Welfare Queen'.  As the power-drunk California Reparations Commission continues its ridiculous demands on the Democrat-controlled state to make amends for slavery and racism, the task force is now demanding a formal state apology for former Gov Ronald Reagan's use of the term "welfare queen."  Never mind that California never in its history allowed slavery.  Never mind that the task force claimed Reagan used the term while he served as governor from January 1967 to January 1975, but in reality, he used it during the 1976 presidential campaign after he left the governor's mansion.  And never mind that Reagan's reference to "welfare queen" referred to one person — a bi-racial woman named Linda Taylor, who was prosecuted for welfare fraud and reportedly abused the system.  Nonetheless, as reported by Fox News, the task force claims "welfare queen" is a racist term primarily used to denigrate single black women who live on government benefits.

The Editor says...
[#1] Reagan is dead.  Get over it.  [#2] Never apologize for the truth; especially the truth spoken by somebody else.  [#3]  Anybody who "who live[s] on government benefits" (other than Social Security payback checks) should be subjected to derision and mockery.

In a World Gone Mad, the Jordan Neelys Rule.  Jordan Neely was a mentally ill homeless man who had terrorized the citizens of New York — especially subway passengers — for many years.  He had been arrested at least 40 times for crimes ranging from assault to disorderly conduct and fare evasion.  And on the day of his death, several eyewitnesses report that Neely had made repeated threats to the well-being of passengers, "stating his willingness to 'hurt anyone' and saying that he was unbothered by the prospect of returning to jail or being killed," according to NRO.  [Tweet]  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says Jordan Neely was "murdered" because he "was houseless and crying for food in a time when the city is raising rents and stripping services to militarize itself."  So passengers and bystanders are just supposed to allow Mr. Neely to terrorize and assault them with no thought of defending themselves?  You picked the wrong hobby horse to ride, AOC.  [Tweet]  AOC also didn't mention this attack on the gay community.  [Tweet]

You may also find this informative, in regard to Mr. Neely:
Video Of Jordan Neely Defecating In A Subway Station, Then Walking Around Naked (NSFW).  A video of a schizophrenic homeless man, Jordan Neely, [defecating] and then walking around naked in a NYC subway station has surfaced.  The media and BLM have done their best to portray Neely as a friendly Micheal Jackson impersonator when in reality he was a dangerous individual with a long, violent arrest record with little regard for the law.  [Video clip]

'Homicide' is the wrong cause of death for subway assailant Jordan Neely.  Now we know that after he was restrained Mr. Neely was alive and able to talk, so Mr. Penny didn't kill him.  So you might inquire why is Penny being accused of homicide?  Coukd it be racial politics?  I have already elaborately explained here at American Thinker that George Floyd was not murdered, thathe died of a cardiac arrest while he was resisting arrest and agitated. [...] To proceed, the information now available is that Mr. Neely was conscious and talking at the scene after he had been restrained and then collapsed and died.  He wasn't lynched, he died because he was juiced up and excited and he got restrained by a Marine who knew how to take down a perp. [...] Cardiac rhythm problems kill people all the time — sudden death while exerting/excited, sometimes for no reason whatever.  George Floyd was not murdered, nor was Mr. Neely.  Death in the circumstances of an arrest or detention or restraint.

Tickets for loud music nearly 3 times more likely for Black drivers under new Florida law.  Black drivers in Florida are nearly three times more likely to be ticketed by police and sheriff's deputies under a law that allowed law enforcement to cite drivers for loud music starting last year, according to a new analysis of traffic data and court records.  The analysis showed that Black drivers received almost 37% of the tickets, despite Black people making up only about 16% of Florida's driving-eligible population.

The Editor says...
[#1] The only thing this proves is that black drivers like loud music.  [#2] One-dimensional percentages are often deceptive.  Somebody is trying to make this sound like a widespread problem.  How many tickets were written last year for driving while blasting loud music?  How many of those misdemeanor defendants were acquitted?

Anything for attention:
From transgendered to 'transabled': Now people are 'choosing' to identify as handicapped.  A troubling societal issue called "transableism" is attracting attention these days.  Transableism is a newer term for BIID, or "Body Integrity Identity Disorder," in which a person actually "identifies" as handicapped.  BIID has been relabeled to transableism to align with today's trans community, according to some.  The point of "changing the identifier" from a psychiatric condition (BIID) to an advocacy term (transableism) is to "harness the stunning cultural power of gender ideology" to the cause of allowing doctors to "treat" BIID patients by "amputating healthy limbs, snipping spinal cords or destroying eyesight," according to Evolution News and Science Today (EN), which reports on and analyzes evolution, neuroscience, bioethics, intelligent design and other science-related issues.

Eric Adams: New York City Is Being 'Destroyed' by President Joe Biden's Migrant Crisis.  New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) said New York City is being "destroyed" by President Joe Biden's migrant crisis during a panel discussion in Washington, DC, hosted by the African American Mayors Association.  "The city is being destroyed by the migrant crisis," Adams bluntly stated. [...] Adams seemingly took a shot at other New York City officials, accusing them of not fighting hard enough to get federal resources to the city.

The Editor says...
Does the mayor think New York City is the only place that's being affected?  Has he changed his mind about the wide-open Mexican border?  Why is more federal spending the answer to every problem?

Buttigieg: roads designed to kill Black people.  Pete Buttigieg, our Transportation Secretary, hates roads.  He has a point, though: roads are racist.  They hate Black and Indigenous people.  They hate Black people so much that they kill them at higher rates than White people. [...] I will take Buttigieg's word for it that there is a strong correlation between race and traffic deaths.  I'm not going to bother looking it up because... well, why?  It has no relevance to my point.  Given my own experience driving in my neighborhood, which is majority-minority, I can certainly believe it.  Traffic rules here are not even seen as suggestions.  They are largely ignored.  As are sidewalks, looking both ways before crossing the street, and all the normal behaviors that make driving or walking safer. [...] What is the connection here?  Hmm.  If I were to design a study examining the connection I might throw in a few other variables and test whether they correlate.
  •   seat belt use
  •   driving style
  •   speed
  •   drug use rates
You could test a number of variables.

Chicagoans Blame Walmart for Closing Down Despite Losing Millions Due to Theft.  Local leaders in Chicago's Chatham neighborhood, located in the south side, held a press conference to demand the area's Walmart to not close down, going as far as to blame the company leaving the area is the reason they not are economically thriving.  "We have healthcare deserts.  We have food deserts.  And we wonder why!  Our communities look like they look!  That we have violence every single day!  It is not just on us, it is on the corporate citizens that come into our community and ravage our community.  And Walmart, you should absolutely be ashamed of yourselves.  You are the reasons that our communities lack the investment that they have," one speaker said.  "We deserve!  We deserve to be able to shop, work, play in our own communities."

Medical Reparations Have Arrived.  The Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) and the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) are implementing new policies to make skin color a crucial factor in who receives life-saving kidney transplants.  The shift is perhaps the most dangerous victory for wokeness in health care to date.  In the name of "equity," UNOS and OPTN purport to be expanding black patients' access to kidney transplants.  They essentially claim that the longstanding system for such transplants is racist, pointing to how black patients make up 30 percent of the dialysis population and transplant wait list but receive a smaller fraction of kidney transplants.  Activists assert that this disparity reflects bias on the part of treating physicians, particularly when referring black patients for early kidney care.

California bill would create missing persons alert ONLY for black women [and] children.  A new bill proposed in California would create an "Ebony Alert" system to specifically notifiy the public when black women and children go missing.  While the state already has a missing persons alert system, this one would only be for black women and children.  The state currently has an Amber Alert for missing children, a Silver Alert for missing elderly persons, and a Feather Alert for missing indigenous persons.  The Amber Alert system is not race-segregated like the Ebony Alert would be.  In a release on the race-based crime bill, state senator Steven Bradford said that the bill would "address the often ignored or lack of attention given to Black children and young Black women that are missing in California."

Chicago mayor-elect Brandon Johnson rebukes 'large corporations' for poverty, violence in the city.  Liberal Chicago Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson put the blame on violence and poverty in the Windy City on big corporations.  "We have large corporations.  Seventy percent of large corporations in the city of Chicago — in the state of Illinois, did not pay a corporate tax," Johnson said during a Thursday appearance on CBS Mornings.  He argued that low investment in Chicago has led to poverty, which in turn caused violence.  "And it's that type of restraint on our budget that has caused the type of disinvestment that has led to poverty, of course that has led to violence."

The Editor says...
You just walk around Chicago for a few minutes and see what happens.  From what I've been reading, the whole city is "the bad part of town."  When you get jumped, please note that you weren't beaten and robbed by a "large corporation."  The description of the suspects is almost always the same, but I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.

Anti-Gun Protesters Count Transgender Shooter Among the Victims During Moment of Silence.  Some protesters inside the Tennessee State Capitol counted transgender shooter Audrey Hale among the victims during a moment of silence.  Protesters in the capitol held a moment of silence for those who lost their lives at Nashville's Covenant Academy, but some disagreed on exactly how many victims there were.  While some protesters held up six fingers, commemorating the three children and three adults whose lives were taken at the horrific school shooting, others held up seven fingers, counting transgender shooter Audrey Hale among the victims.

The Editor says...
After any other mass shooting, when was the shooter counted as one of the victims?

Trans woman left sobbing in JFK Airport after TSA agent hit her testicles: report.  A transgender woman was left in tears at JFK Airport after she claimed a TSA agent punched her in the testicles while she was going through security, the Daily Mail reported.  The unidentified flyer took to social media to vent about the incident, in which she said the agent "humiliated" her in front of everyone in a series of posts that have since been deleted, according to the outlet.  "hi so a tsa agent at jfk airport punched me in the genitalia, yelled at me for having a penis (?) and humiliated me in front of everyone after i told her to please stop," she captioned a photo of her crying in the airport bathroom, according to a screenshot of the post.  But the embarrassment didn't stop there, according to the woman.  "[The TSA agent] followed me into the women's bathroom and began talking about me to a coworker while I sobbed in a stall," she wrote, asking friends on the internet for advice as to what she should do.

The Editor says...
The whole purpose of being a transvestite is apparently to attract attention and sympathy on the internet.  Too many people are wallowing in self-pity because of their self-inflicted problems.

Who Knew?  White People Drinking Coffee Perpetuates 'Pillar of White Supremacist Capitalism'.  As a non-coffee drinker in a coffee-obsessed world, I'm pleased to know that at least in this case, I'm not a genetically-coded "inherently racist" white supremacist, by virtue of my whiteness.  I am a "cis" white male, though, so I do qualify as "all of the above" in every other ridiculous left-wing sense, so there's that.  Anyway, a recent idiotic article posted on Afru.com makes the argument that drinking coffee perpetuates white supremacy.  Yeah.  The ridiculous piece suggests that because coffee was "created by black people," if you enjoy drinking the stuff, you're "helping an industry built on racism."  The idiocy is never gonna stop getting even more idiotic, is it?

The Editor says...
If the coffee industry was created by black people (which I find difficult to believe), and you eagerly participate as a customer, how are you harming the founders of that industry?

28 everyday things that have now been labeled racist.  This dude Greg [...] compiled this exquisite thread of everyday things that have now comically been labeled rrraaaccciiiisssssst by the Woke Mafia.  Per usual, instead of embedding a zillion tweets and hurting your wifi's feelings, I have provided screen shots.

The Grand Unified Theory of Victimhood!
Hillary Ties It All Together, Says Women Are the Main Victims of Climate Change, Especially In Ukraine.  This is why Hillary Clinton rose to the top and came within an ace of shattering the highest, toughest glass ceiling of all:  she knows how to tie together all the Left's favorite talking points into one neat package.  Of course, the end result has nothing whatsoever to do with reality, but when did that ever stop Leftists?

The Editor says...
Oh no, I would say left-handed, transgender, indigenous inner-city women in underserved communities in Ukraine are hardest hit; especially those who are affected by asthma resulting from exposure to second-hand smoke, PM-2.5, and gas-guzzling cell phone towers due to the lack of access to public transportation caused by rising sea levels and boiling oceans.  It's all Donald Trump's fault, obviously.

Trust the Science: White people driving cars are poisoning POC in LA.  When earnest reporters at the LA Times got ahold of the study, they couldn't wait to dissect the possible racism contained within.  Make the scientific argle-bargle accessible to your everyday white drivers (aka "THE BAD GUYS") so they would be educated on their transgressions, feel miserable about themselves, self-flagellate, and change their habits of perpetual vehicular oppression.  [Excerpt omitted for brevity, among other things.]  That lad certainly has all the SJW codewords down.  In another column, a second LA Times type waxes on about his drives, how he tries not to drive, and how guilty he should feel every time he drives.

Famed Texas Tech Basketball Coach Suspended for 'Racial Insensitivity' after Quoting Bible Passage.  Texas Tech has suspended men's basketball coach Mark Adams for what the school is calling an "inappropriate, unacceptable, and racially insensitive comment."  According to the school, Adams was encouraging a player to be more receptive to coaching and "referenced Bible verses about workers, teachers, parents, and slaves serving their masters."  Adams apologized to the team after he found out the player was upset about the use of the Bible verse, a source told ESPN.

Now Disney Says Bluebirds and Sunshine Are Racist, Too.  The Orange County Register's headline was another signpost along the way of our long march toward Racial Justice: "Disneyland quietly removes controversial lyric from new parade soundtrack."  That's good, eh?  It's heartwarming to see the big corporations doing what must be done in order to ensure a just and equitable society for all.  And so visitors to Disneyland will never again be subjected to having to hear these horrific racist lyrics: "Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay [...]" [...] There is nothing in the song about blacks or whites or anything having to do with race at all.  The Left hates the song because it is joyful, which Leftists never are, and because it was sung in the movie Song of the South by a black man, James Baskett, in a context that suggests that human beings could still be happy even amid circumstances of oppression and injustice.  That kind of thinking blunts the revolutionary ardor, and that will never do.

Lori Lightfoot lost for failing Chicago — not because voters are racist/sexist.  Anyone can stand at a podium and accept adulation.  Real leadership involves having the humility to remain standing upright while accepting blame when you've failed the people you're responsible for instead of conveniently leaning on a readily available crutch.  But then, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot never was much of a leader.  Lightfoot lost her re-election bid this week, receiving just a putrid 16.4% of the vote, finishing behind former head of Chicago Public Schools Paul Vallas and Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson.  Lightfoot had her crutch before the results were in.  "I am a black woman — let's not forget," she told The New Yorker in a piece published three days before the election, providing reasoning for her inevitable defeat.  "Certain folks, frankly, don't support us in leadership roles."

New York Times Discovers a New Source of Racism, and This One Could Be the Most Ridiculous Yet.  The New York Times, that intrepid warrior for anything and everything that the Left is hysterical about, on Friday published a lengthy piece about a source of systemic racism that no one has ever noticed before:  It seems that equestrian helmets are racist because they don't accommodate the dreadlocks that some black horse riders wear.  One black rider's mother lamented: "Mostly everything in this sport isn't designed for us."

Women and girls are disproportionately affected by climate change.  The adverse effects of climate change have impacted numerous areas of human health and well-being.  In most parts of the world, women are least able to mitigate such changes, so they are an appropriate focus in a recent research paper.

Are Helicopters Racist?  I call your attention to [...] the Los Angeles Times, more particularly a story that ran in the paper's Sunday print edition but appeared online Friday evening.  Los Angeles Police Department and County Sheriff's Department helicopters fly lower over black neighborhoods than others, we are told, causing all manner of misery for those living below.  Left unsaid but implicit in the article is that the only possible explanation for this is racism among the people flying the noisy whirlybirds.  The article is truly a shining example of agenda-driven journalism, in which the reporter, Jeong Park, had to ignore every last bit of relevant information regarding both air traffic control and crime in South Los Angeles so as to assign malign intent among the airborne cops and bring this embarrassment to print.  He even linked to an FAA document he apparently believed supported the argument, but which in fact undercuts it.  The piece's many deficiencies have been brought to the attention of several editors at the paper, yet as of this writing it remains online and uncorrected.

Woke Biologists Claim Now Even Wild Animals Are Suffering From the Effects of Systemic Racism.  One of the most diabolically clever notions the Left has ever devised in order to advance its Marxist agenda has been "systemic racism."  Systemic racism is everywhere and nowhere, requires no evidence of actual discrimination in order to make its case, and will result, if followed to its logical conclusion, in the implementation of an unlimited number of wealth confiscation and redistribution schemes.  It's so useful that "experts" keep finding it in more and more places, and absurdity is no bar for how low they will go.  Their audience, after all, is Leftists, who are already accustomed to swallowing absurd claims on an industrial scale.  And so the latest claim, that even wild animals are suffering from the effects of this all-pervasive malady, was just another day for the Left's propaganda mill.

Campus diversity, equity, and inclusion programs make students miserable.  Winston Churchill offered two brief, brilliant definitions of socialism:  (1) "Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy."  (2) "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings.  The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries."  In other words, unhappiness is socialism's lifeblood.  It needs unhappy people to be the revolution's foot soldiers and, after the revolution, its praetorian guard.

The real coup d'etat.  The Democrat party was the voice of the middle class, the minorities, the marginalized, helping them realize the promise of the system.  That is no longer the position of the left. [...] It is following a two-tiered approach to realizing its current goal, which is system control.  Step #1:  Recruitment.  Amass a permanent electoral majority.  Employing identity politics and the immutable traits of race and sex are its basic tools.  Divide the populace into oppressors and oppressed.  The oppressors are essentially adult, hetero, white males.  Everyone else — females, the youth, other races, gender variants — are oppressed, victimized by patriarchal white supremacy.  Debase America as racist and imperialistic.  Delete its history.  Degrade religion as intolerant and science denying.  Provide amnesty and benefits for "asylum seeking" illegals.  Saturate the electorate with your message via media, academia, and corporate HR sycophants.  Identify contrary thought as disinformation and cancel it.  In short, create a culture of victimization, chaos, and disconnect which must turn to the government's Democrat party for guidance and safety.

Billionaire LeBron James Whines About Not Being Able to Go to Target Like 'Regular People'.  Poor LeBron James is frustrated, America, as he [very] well should be.  Turns out life as a world-famous billionaire NBA superstar isn't as glamorous as it's cracked up to be.  Not even close.  For example, LeBron can't even go to Target, for heaven's sake — like "normal people."

No End to the Victim Narrative.  If anyone thought that the culture of the black victim was reaching its sell-by date — after Rodney King, after Trayvon Martin, after Michael Brown, after Philando Castile, after George Floyd — well, obviously we were wrong.  Because in the beating death of Tyre Nichols — in which five black policemen are accused of murder — we can see that the cult of the dead black victim is not going to go away.  Not yet.  It doesn't matter that, this time, it wasn't a racist white policeman that did it.  The weeping dead man's family, the mostly peaceful protests, the helpful intervention of attorney Benjamin Crump:  it doesn't need to be choreographed, because everyone knows their part in Victim Theater.

At least now we know who depends on cheating and plagiarism to graduate.
University's Ban On Cheating, Plagiarism 'Unfairly Targets' Minority Students, Ivy Leaguer Claims.  A Princeton University student argued in a Sunday night opinion article that the school's Honor Code unfairly impacts racial minorities, citing parallels to the U.S. criminal justice system.  The Ivy League school's Undergraduate Honor Code lays out standards for student conduct that all undergraduate students must abide by and prohibits students from plagiarizing or cheating, according to its website.  Emilly Santos, author of the op-ed and Princeton University student, likened the code to the United States criminal justice system to propose that it "disadvantages" minority students.  "Princeton's Honor Code, tasked with holding students accountable and honest in academic settings, mirrors the criminal justice system in its rules and effects," Santos wrote.  "It is harmful to the entirety of the Princeton community: the fear it instills in students fosters an environment of academic hostility.  But it is often most damaging for first-generation low-income (FLI) students — students who also often belong to racial minorities."

Straight Talk on the Latest Riots.  Riots broke out in Memphis and are rapidly spreading through the usual urban areas.  The purported rationale is the horrific beating to death in Memphis of Tyre Nichols captured on video and released by the police.  As Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) observes, Nichols' beating was administered by "Black officers in a majority Black city with a Black police chief."  The officers involved have been criminally charged, but the media to which every Black killed by a cop is just proof that we are still in the Selma, Alabama world of decades ago — another case of some innocent Black person victimized by racist oppressors.  The odious Joy Reid at MSNBC highlighted a guest who blames Nichols' death on "white supremacy" and CNN's Van Jones opined "The police who killed Tyre Nichols were Black.  But they still may have been driven by racism."

There Is Nothing Democrats Won't Destroy.  Democrats can't let people simply be people, they need us to be groups; groups that can be manipulated to do whatever best suits their needs at any given moment, and any people hurt in the process are expendable.  After the death of George Floyd there really wasn't anyone saying the video was really nothing.  People saw that long video and were horrified that someone would just sit there for that long on top of a handcuffed man.  That didn't help Democrats, so the division soon started.  "White cops kill another black man" or "This is how police treat minorities."  How many times did you hear about "white privilege" that week?  A digital counter for that would make the national debt clock look slow.  (Ever hear of Tony Timpa?  He died the same way George Floyd did — on camera, saying he couldn't breathe while a cop sat on him — only 4 years earlier.  Tony made the classic mistake of being white, so the CNNs and MSNBCs of the world didn't bother reporting on it.  The guy who sat on him as he died got promoted last year.  Maybe Tony should've engaged his "white privilege" or something?)

Come See The Racism Inherent In The Paint Chip!  It sounds like a bad joke about woke gone amok, but it's not.  Norway's University of Bergen is sponsoring research into the burning question of whether and how white paint contributes to white supremacy and why Norway should feel guilty about it because of its role in it.  It turns out, you see, that Norwegians were behind the innovation of titanium white paint, which is considered pure white.  The university wants researchers to explore "the cultural and aesthetic changes instigated by titanium white ... and how can both the material in itself and these changes be conceptualized and made visible?"

WNBA Player Demands Private Jets for Entire League.  The WNBA costs about $70 million per year to operate and generates just $60 million in revenue.  The NBA, which makes money because people like to watch it, subsidizes the women's league in the name of equity.  WNBA teams typically travel on commercial airlines to save money.  Chartering private planes for the entire league would cost an estimated $30 million per year.  Liberals complain that WNBA players don't make as much money as their NBA counterparts, which is why Griner, Stewart, and others are forced to play abroad in Russia or Turkey.  Griner and Stewart are among the league's highest-paid players, taking home $228,000 per year (not including bonuses) on top of endorsement deals worth about $1 million.  Former president Barack Obama defined "wealthy" as an individual earning more than $200,000 annually and called for higher taxes on these individuals to pay for government programs.  "I do think at a certain point you've made enough money," he said in 2010.  (Obama and his wife are estimated to have a net worth approaching $100 million.)

Does this mean the end of Hawaii Five-O?
USA Today: Stop Using 'Culturally Sensitive Words' Like 'Aloha', 'Shalom'.  Greetings such as "aloha" and "shalom" are "culturally sensitive" and their use could "come off as mockery," according to a recent USA Today piece demanding people "consider the cultural implications" before using such terms.  In an essay published in USA Today on Friday [1/13/2023], titled "Is it time to stop saying 'aloha' and other culturally sensitive words out of context?" reporter David Oliver argues, "just because you can say something doesn't mean it's always appropriate."

US renames 5 places that used racist slur for a Native woman.  The U.S. Department of the Interior announced Thursday that it has given new names to five places that previously included a racist term for a Native American woman.  The renamed sites are in California, North Dakota, Tennessee and Texas, completing a yearlong process to remove the historically offensive word "squaw" from geographic names across the country.

The Editor says...
Racism is in the eye of the beholder, in my opinion.  The term in question is not racially offensive to anyone except those who are easily offended and others who enjoy offending them.  It is highly unlikely that several places around the midwest were named with the intent of being racially offensive, and nobody thought so until very recently, when victim status became popular.  How is it that after all these years, suddenly the names are offensive?

SciAm: Damar Hamlin's injury was racist.  [Scroll down] If there is a more meritocratic career than professional sports player, I can't think of it.  There was a time when race played a role in who could play; the racial barriers kept black players out, rather than preferentially recruiting them for the meat grinder.  Blacks fought to get into the sport, not get out of it.  It is true that football is a violent game, but that violence has nothing to do with race.  It was a violent and dangerous game for decades.  The only player to die on the field from a heart attack, as Damar Hamlin almost did, was Chuck Hughes.

Washington lawmaker with past convictions introduces bill to pay state prisoners minimum wage.  A Washington state lawmaker who is a former convict is aiming to start paying inmates for working prison jobs.  Democratic Rep. Tarra Simmons said in a statement, "This is an evolution of slavery," and is proposing that the convicted felons be paid minimum wage for working in the kitchen or while producing other goods.  Simmons is an attorney and co-founder/director of the Civil Survival Project, an organization that advocates for former convicts.

What the Feds Are Teaching in Diversity Training.  Asking an Asian person for math help is a microaggression.  Reverse racism does not exist.  Men can get pregnant.  Those are just a few of the lessons imparted to government workers in diversity trainings and presentations in 2021, according to documents obtained by the Wall Street Journal editorial page.  The materials, summarized in a December 30 editorial, show how once-fringe ideas have saturated the federal bureaucracy, from the Department of Veterans Affairs to NASA and the military.  One NASA training states that efforts to be colorblind "actually limit us."  Another identifies the words "America is a melting pot" and "don't you want a family?" as "microaggressions," along with "asking an Asian person to help with a math or science problem."  A third lists "perfectionism" and "data is king" as examples of "common leadership mistakes."  "Value and center lived experience," the presentation says.  "Do not demand data in order to accept a person's individual perspective or to utilize that perspective in decision-making."

Use These Five Easy Tricks to Identify the Marxist in the Room.  Look for communism masquerading as morality in the forms of:
  •   Black Lives Matter
  •   Critical race theory
  •   "Trans rights"
  •   Climate change
  •   ESG — Environmental, Social and Governance
All of these pretend to help the helpless, but in America, no one is defenseless.  The supposed "oppressors" here are straight white men. [...] Communism recruits its bellicose legions from supposed victim classes, many of which they create.  Democrats will tell black people that they are the victims of white racism, then conscript them to take to the streets.  Democrats then promise to right the wrongs of the "white racism" the black folks have endured but proceed to do nothing.  Why?  Because Democrats can't control prosperous black folks, only the angry "victims" of phantom white supremacy.  Also, what is there to "fix"?

Apple faces class-action lawsuit alleging 'racial bias' in watch's blood oximeter.  A New York man filed a class-action lawsuit against Apple on Dec. 24, alleging that the Apple Watch's blood oximeter has a "racial bias" against individuals with darker skin tones.  The Blood Oxygen app is available on Apple Watch Series 6 and newer and can "measure the oxygen level of your blood on-demand directly from your wrist, providing you with insights into your overall wellness," Apple explains.  New York resident Alex Morales alleges that he purchased an Apple Watch between 2020 and 2021, and was aware that the watch "purported to measure blood oxygen levels and he believed it did this without regard to skin tone," according to the lawsuit, which was filed in the Southern District of New York.

Racism raises Alzheimer's risk for non-white Americans, HHS says.  "Entrenched systemic racism" is a significant risk factor for Alzheimer's disease and dementia in non-white Americans, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) claimed in its 2022 update on how to fight the disease.  The HHS' "National Plan to Address Alzheimer's Disease" said black, Hispanic and low-income populations are more likely to face health-related risk factors that contribute to Alzheimer's and said this disparity is due to "structural inequities" that are the result of racism.  Those inequities include "underinvestment in education systems, less walkable communities, decreased access to nutritious food, barriers to health care access and low quality of care in their communities."  The report recommended that one way to reduce the risk of Alzheimer's is to focus on "cultural competence and equity."

The Editor says...
Is Alzheimer's contagious?  Can you get it from somebody you've never met?  Can my thoughts make your brain stop working properly, even if we've never met?

HHS: Whites Are Giving Non-Whites Alzheimer's Through 'Racism'.  The Alzheimer's Association "found high blood pressure and diabetes are suspected risk factors [in developing Alzheimer's] and said high blood pressure is 'more prevalent in the African American community,' while diabetes is 'more prevalent in the Hispanic community,'" Fox News reported.  "In fact, some studies suggest that after adjusting for health and socioeconomic risk factors, no differences in Alzheimer's prevalence exist," the Alzheimer's Association reported.  Becerra and Levine prefer to just blame white people.  The media has also claimed that white people are poisoning non-whites through air pollution.

The Wasteland of Leftist Compassion.  Compassion is one of the greatest of human virtues.  But effective compassion comes with an obligation to do more than what merely feels and sounds good.  Public policies motivated by compassion must also consider the full complexity of the challenge — the unintended consequences and the reality of human nature — and strike a balance between what is desired and what is possible. [...] Without taking a balanced and holistic approach to compassion, special interests hijack public policy and reap perpetual profits working on problems that never go away.  For them, ineffective compassion is good business.  But it leaves behind a wasteland. [...] Emotional appeals to voters and politicians demanding displays of compassion are the means by which the Left claims the moral high ground.  And in those appeals, and the misguided policies that result, entire industries are created — industries populated by individuals whose careers depend on perpetuating the fraud.

Why the Left Relies on Statistical Illiteracy.  In September 2022, three researchers published the provocatively titled article, "Do Introductory Courses Disproportionately Drive Minoritized Students Out of STEM Pathways?"  That article got loads of social media publicity for its conclusion that unequal withdrawal rates from STEM degree tracks are due to systemic racism.  Co-authors Chad Topaz ("Data scientist/mathematician and activist" and co-founder of the Institute for the Quantitative Study of Inclusion, Diversity and Equity) and Nate Brown ("Math faculty like me can be a major barrier to diversifying STEM fields") added to their scholarly research an opinion article that provides a guide for "How STEM Faculty Can Fight Institutional Racism and Sexism."  The scholarly article is bunk. [...] No rigorous and fair-minded researcher with any understanding of statistics, experimental design, or the irreproducibility crisis would take this study seriously.  Indeed, the fact that it passed peer review is yet more evidence that peer review now functions to credential and accelerate groupthink rather than to deter it.  Such shoddy research is far too common in the sciences and social sciences.  This is a grave enough problem in its own right, but it has more serious consequences for America as a whole.

Is this news?  Daylight Saving Time has been around a long time.  How would it not affect everybody equally?
Daylight Saving Time sheds light on lack of sleep's disproportionate impact in communities of color.  As the United States rolled back the clocks one hour this month to observe the end of Daylight Saving Time, many people got a bit more sleep than usual — but some not as much as others.  Growing evidence shows that lack of sleep and sleep disorders, such as obstructive sleep apnea, remain more prevalent in Black, Asian, and Hispanic or Latino communities, and these inequities can have long-term detrimental implications for physical health, even raising the risk of certain chronic diseases.

MSNBC's Reid: GOP Trying to Keep Thanksgiving 'Simplistic Fairytale' to Erase Genocide.  MSNBC's Joy Reid said Wednesday on her show "The ReidOut" that she believed Republicans want to portray Thanksgiving as a "simplistic fairytale" to cover up for America being founded on "violence" and "genocide." [...] Reid added, "The Klan is still active, and as Americans, we continue to choose violence.  We are a country that chooses violence over and over again.  There is no facet of American society that is untouched by it."

The Editor says...
I challenge you to go out and find a member of the KKK.  Where would you look?  When was the last time the KKK took credit for an act of violence or terrorism?  Upon what basis does Joy Reid claim that "the Klan is still active?"

Rapper who stole pandemic money says 'everybody around was doing it'.  Nuke Bizzle never had much choice but to grab as much pandemic cash as he could steal, according to his version of events.  Bizzle, the rap name of Fontrell Baines, is now pleading for leniency from a federal judge who will decide how much more of his life he will spend behind bars.  "I never had a birthday party.  I never had a normal family dinner.  I have never been to a wedding, only funerals and court dates," Baines told a judge in a memo ahead of his Dec. 7 sentencing.

Self-Sabotage and the Midterms.  During America's 2022 midterm election cycle, seven arson cases, including two church fires, shattered the calm of Jackson, Mississippi.  Prompted by these events, Shuwaski Young, an African American and former Democrat candidate for Mississippi's 3rd Congressional District, invoked the specter of Klan violence.  He said the church fires were cowardly actions reminiscent of "historical acts of terrorism" designed to suppress the black vote.  Later the sheriff's office arrested Devin McLaurin, an African-American, in connection with the arson incidents.  While the investigation continues, no evidence has surfaced showing that Mr. McLaurin is a member of the Klan.  Instead, the evidence gives rise to the inference that Mr. McLaurin and Mr. Young have taken part in America's victimhood Olympics.  This conclusion tracks with scholar Wilfred Reilly's investigation of more than 340 reported "hate crimes," which shows that fewer than a third are genuine, as well as the 2016 Mississippi hate-crime hoax broadcast by the Southern Poverty Law Center.  More likely than not, Mr. McLaurin has participated in either self-victimization or hate-crime fraud rather than voter suppression.

Race-Obsessed Sheila Jackson Lee Absurdly Connects COVID to Slavery, Demands 'Curative Reparations'.  Democrats in general are phenomenal at connecting dots that don't exist, but Jackson Lee can connect virtually anything to "racism" in fewer dots than most — except for MSNBC's Joy Reid, of course.  In her latest display of ninja-like mastery, Jackson Lee, on Thursday, drew a ridiculous connection between COVID and slavery during a disjointed speech on the House Floor as she once again called for reparations, as reported by The Blaze.

One would think that construction workers in the 21st Century wouldn't be afraid of a piece of rope.
Construction Halted At Obama Presidential Center After A Noose Was Found At Site.  Construction of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago has been temporarily suspended following the discovery of a noose at the worksite.  The Lakeside Alliance, a group of Black-owned construction companies building the center, said they are investigating to identify those responsible for what the Obama Foundation described as an "act of hate".  The noose was discovered on Thursday morning on the premises of the center, located in Jackson Park, and the police were notified.

Woke Sports — Why Do We Still Watch?  [Scroll down] The NHL named Kim Davis (black) their new Executive Vice President of Social Impact — love the Orwellian title — and she came out of the gate strong: "The NHL's first internal demographic study found its workforce to be overwhelmingly white."  Obviously, this is terrible.  "We know we have a lot of work to do," she added.  For comparison, let's check NBA numbers.  What's that you say?  Nearly 80% black?  Whoa!  With such astonishing overrepresentation, there must be frequent calls for diversity, right?  Uh, no.  On the contrary, any team that accidentally gets too white (like the Mavs) is accused of racism.  Blacks' dominance in the NFL is similarly cheered.  The only possible conclusion is that diversity in sport means fewer whites.  But, but, but... basketball's a black game.  Blacks are better at basketball than whites.  Okay, can that argument be used in hockey?  Or any other facet of life?  Of course not.  And what of the few white NBA players?  Does anyone doubt they're mocked and bullied?

NBC News: Strict Voter ID Laws Disproportionately Impact Trans Voters.  Wednesday, NBC reporters Joe Fryer, Savannah Sellers and Jo Yurcaba discussed the impact of voter ID laws on transgender people on NBC News' free streaming service show "Morning News Now."  Fryer said, "As Gen Z gears up to hit the polls, transgender voters are concerned they might be blocked from casting their ballots."  Sellers said, "That is because a growing number of states are enforcing stricter voter identification laws that disproportionally impact the community."

The Editor says...
If you habitually pretend to be something you're not, you should not be surprised if your identification is challenged.  If you live your life as a transvestite, you shouldn't be surprised if you encounter self-imposed obstacles that normal people don't encounter.

Stacey Abrams: Georgia Sheriffs 'Want to Take Black People Off the Streets'.  Stacey Abrams, the Democratic nominee for governor in Georgia, declared during a debate with Kemp on Sunday night that 107 sheriffs had endorsed her opponent, incumbent Republican Brian Kemp, because they "want to be able to take black people off the streets."  Kemp unveiled the mass endorsement of his reelection bid in November 2021, arguing at the time that "it has never been more dangerous to put on a uniform, and we've seen that during this once-in-a-century pandemic, civil unrest and the radical defund-the-police movement that continues to gain steam in Washington, D.C., and other liberal cities across the country."  "Despite being vilified by many, these men and women get up every day and put the uniform on and serve and protect us," he added.  The governor has characterized calls for defunding the police as "simply an insane idea."  Abrams has denied that she supports defunding law enforcement, but she serves as a leader in multiple organizations that do.

John Fetterman's wife claims 'swimming in America is very racist'.  The wife of Democratic Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman claimed "swimming in America is very racist" — as she likened her husband's use of closed captioning to turning up the brightness on a smartphone.  "Historically, swimming in America is very racist, and usually when you look at drowning statistics, it usually affects children of color, because of lack of access," Gisele Fetterman said on the iGen politics podcast on Thursday.  Gisele made the comments while discussing how she and her husband, Pennsylvania's lieutenant governor, had decided not to move into the state-owned mansion in Harrisburg but made the pool accessible to the public.

San Francisco's Mayor Apologizes for Telling the Truth.  It is not racist to acknowledge that the city's open-air drug market is dominated by Honduran drug dealers. [...] [Mayor Breed] said nothing offensive or inaccurate in her original comments.  In fact, it's her critics who are being dishonest about what's happening in the open-air drug market of San Francisco's Tenderloin District and who are doing a disservice to the poor, immigrant communities on whose behalf they claim to speak.  And by conflating professional drug dealers with regular immigrant families, it is they who are being xenophobic and racist.

Sacheen Littlefeather's Sisters Claim Activist Lied About Being Native American.  This year, Hollywood and the news media took a knee for Sacheen Littlefeather.  Woke news outlets including NPR, the New York Times, and Variety ran glowing articles identifying her as a Native American who was unjustly ridiculed and shunned by the industry when she infamously rejected Marlon Brando's Oscar for The Godfather in 1973.  It culminated in August when the Academy publicly apologized to her.  There was just one problem.  According to her biological sisters, Sacheen Littlefeather, who died earlier this month at 75, wasn't Native American.  Her family has no Indian ancestry they could find.  Nor did she grow up with a violent and abusive father, as she claimed in the past.

The Racial Inequality of Sleep.  Black Americans aren't sleeping as well as whites.  Here's why that's a public-health problem[,] and what can be done to fix it.

Democrats want to expand DOJ's power to fight for 'environmental justice'.  House and Senate Democrats proposed legislation this week that would establish a more robust environmental justice office and a new section focused on tackling environmental crimes within the Department of Justice.  The Biden administration defines "environmental justice" as the "fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development of environmental laws, regulations and policies."  The Justice Department already has an Office of Environmental Justice that seeks to "protect overburdened and underserved communities from the harm caused by environmental crimes."  However, Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragán, D-Calif., said her bill is needed to give the Justice Department the full range of tools it needs to hold companies accountable to "low-income communities and communities of color burdened by pollution."

The Editor says...
[#1[ What "environmental crimes" addressed by this proposal have never been outlawed before?  [#2] If a neighborhood in a big city is affected by air pollution, one might reasonably ask, Do they not share the same atmosphere with the rest of the city?  [#3] What does "environmental justice" mean, how much does it cost, and who gets the money?  And when does it end?

New 'R' plates are now available for Australian drivers who require empathy and need more space on the road.  Australian drivers who have experienced road trauma can order an 'R' plate to signal to other drivers that they need more empathy and space.  The plates are designed for motorists who have had a traumatic experience on the road but are ready to ease back into driving.  The light blue plate signals to others drivers that the person inside the car will need a little more patience and space on the road.

The Editor says...
How about "S" for snowflake?  How about "G" for get over yourself?  No empathy is forthcoming, so get out of the way.

Gun Rights Make for Good Manners and Safe Nations.  If good fences make good neighbors, then surely, well armed citizens make for good manners.  Just as respect for another's privacy and personal boundaries paradoxically creates common bonds, the expectation that those around us are capable of standing up for themselves, or defending their own lives if necessary, establishes an equality among strangers otherwise possessing vastly different natural strengths.  The "woke" victimhood cult dedicated to confiscating guns steadily ignores this point.  "Woke" culture, such as it is, may be the most parasitic, selfish, and unimpressive shared creed to clog so many human minds.  It offers nothing original or enlightening, artistic or inspiring, but rather picks at the ordinary sores of Western civilization's profound accomplishments, preaching grievance and spreading acrimony, tunneling through society's rot much the same way dung beetles feed and breed in chambers of filth.  Since morals, customs, and proper etiquette have been jettisoned so that "woke" scolds may scream and bellyache to the world, these mental gnats believe that "good manners" are archaic social chains from another era, or worse, proof that a racist, patriarchal system of behaviors exists to keep women and minorities under perpetual control.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Democrats Used A Massive Race Hoax To Gain Power.  [Scroll down] The only allowed narrative was that America is racist.  The pandemic created the perfect environment.  The only people allowed to escape during the lockdown were BLM activists because they were civil rights activists.  Besides, perpetuating the evolving racial hoax was more important than protecting people from a deadly disease.  Then, there were added daily reports that the pandemic was taking a disproportionately greater toll on Blacks.  The media repeatedly claimed that it was due to racist medical practitioners and hospitals.  No one mentioned a higher presence of comorbidities, and none noted when the disproportionality disappeared.  They also didn't say that Latinos were the group hit the hardest and Asians the least hard because the message was White racists, White privilege.

Guess what caused Jackson, Mississippi's water crisis.  Jackson, Mississippi is still in the midst of a severe water crisis, though conditions have reportedly improved a bit.  Torrential rains caused the Pearl River to overflow its banks and overwhelm the area.  Their water and sewage treatment plants were inundated and the city was placed under a boil-water advisory that was only lifted a few days ago.  The waters have begun to recede, but residents still report that the water coming out of their taps is discolored and has a foul odor.  So what caused all of this mayhem?  You might be tempted to blame it on the sudden, prolonged surge of rain.  Or you could point the finger at the floods themselves or an inadequate drainage system.  But according to "residents, politicians, experts, and activists" quoted by the Associated Press, you would be wrong.  None of those things were the cause.  Would you care to guess the real reason?  If you said "racism," give yourself a cookie.

L.A. School District Shares Video from 'Nutritionist' Who Says Eating Right Is Racist  Your dreams have come true, kids: French fries and pizza are now good for you, so eat up, or else:  if you don't, you might be suspected of "white supremacism."  If you thought things couldn't possibly get any crazier, forget it:  a "nutritionist" has proclaimed that "nutrition standards are rooted in whiteness," and so like Robert E. Lee and Bull Connor, they've got to go.  Nor is the nutritionist in question, Kéra Nyemb-Diop, some nut raving on the streetcorner; she works for Mondelez International, which is so concerned about nutrition that it produces Oreos and Chips Ahoy!

Convicted murderer blames white judge for being in jail.  Milan Loncar was walking his dog in the Brewerytown section of Philadelphia one cold winter night in January 2021. Little did he know it would be his last night alive.  Josephus Davis and another man attacked Loncar and, after a brief tussle, shot him in the chest.  In an instant, Loncar's life was over.  Davis and the other man fled the scene while Loncar was left to die on the street with only his dog nearby.  Davis was later arrested and sentenced last week for his crime.  But rather than admit remorse, Davis blamed his skin color as the reason he was in jail.  Davis appeared in court through Zoom last week for his sentence hearing.  Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Barbara A. McDermott sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole.  Yet Davis maintained his innocence and blamed systemic racism as the reason he was in jail, not his murder of Loncar.

New Orleans' Democrat mayor says flying economy is unsafe for black women.  New Orleans Democrat mayor has declared economy class flights unsafe for black women, while insisting she wont repay $30,000 of taxpayers' money blown on first-class flights to France and Switzerland.  Speaking at a press conference Thursday, LaToya Cantrell said: 'My travel accommodations are a matter of safety, not of luxury.  'As all women know, our health and safety are often disregarded and we are left to navigate alone.  'As the mother of a young child whom I live for, I am going to protect myself by any reasonable means in order to ensure I am there to see her grow into the strong woman I am raising her to be.  'Anyone who wants to question how I protect myself just doesn't understand the world black women walk in.'  She has repeatedly refused to repay the cost of a luxury American Airlines flight from Washington Dulles Airport to Switzerland for herself in July, despite a city ban on luxury air travel.

Mississiippi Shrinking.  Jackson, the capital of Mississippi, didn't have running water last week.  Fortunately, water pressure has now been restored, but the unhappy residents are still being instructed to boil their tap water.  The Washington Post explains that the reason 82.5 percent black Jackson can't keep its water running is... white people. [...] As the middle class, white and black, flees, the remaining residents of Jackson are increasingly made up of the dregs of society.  The city appears to have had the worst homicide rate of any of the 200 biggest cities in 2021, at 90 killings per 100,000 people, twice as bad as Detroit.

Private School Diversity Director: 'BIPOC Students' Must be Protected from 'White Gaze'.  The Director of Diversity and Inclusion for a private school in Baltimore expressed support for racial segregation in order to protect students from the "white gaze" and promoted turning children into woke activists.  Kalea Selmon, the Director of Diversity and Inclusion at Maryvale Preparatory School, gave a presentation where she argued that nonwhite students must be given spaces away from white students and described how those who work in education can use students as activists.  The presentation was given at the People of Color Conference, which is hosted by the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) and tells teachers and administration how to embed the tenets of Critical Race Theory into their schools.  The NAIS is America's largest accreditation agency for K-12 private schools.

The Fake History of the 20th Century.  It's one of the most famous moments in sports history, or 20th Century American history, period.  Jackie Robinson, the first player to break the pro baseball color barrier, took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers on the road against the Cincinnati Reds.  A hostile racist crowd poured abuse down onto him.  But then, Robinson's teammate Harold "Pee Wee" Reese shamed and quieted the crowd by walking over to Robinson and putting his arm around him in a gesture of support.  It's a moment immortalized in film, in children's books, and even in bronze.  But as the Wall Street Journal revealed in a recent article, the whole episode never happened:  ["]No newspapers reported the event at the time.  In fact, the New York Post said Robinson had been 'the toast of the town' in Cincinnati.  The Cincinnati Post reported the day after the game:  'If anyone had any objection to Jackie's presence on the field, he failed to make himself heard.'["]  This wasn't just a harmless myth.  For decades, ordinary people in Cincinnati were tarred as hateful racists in order to further a specific narrative about America.

Wisconsin Democrat Mandela Barnes Suggests National Parks Are Racist.  Wisconsin Senate Democrat candidate Mandela Barnes claimed last July that national parks "weren't made for the enjoyment of people who weren't white."  Speaking on the "Black Oxygen" podcast, Barnes suggested national parks are a part of the systemically racist fabric of America because the "parks are on land that was indigenous."  "It's important to create more welcoming spaces because things haven't always felt welcome," he said.  "And that's historical, just that perspective, given the fact that national parks weren't made for the enjoyment of people who weren't white.  National parks are on land that was indigenous."

NYT Union Accuses Paper of Systemic Racism in Performance Reviews.  The New York Times treats its white employees more favorably than its minority employees, according to a lengthy report from a labor union representing Times reporters and employees that argues the paper must grapple with systemic racism in its own ranks.  For years, according to the Times Guild's report released Tuesday, the Times has discriminated against employees of color.  Zero black employees received the highest performance review rating in 2020, whereas white employees made up 90 percent of those with the top marks.  Black employees are 10 percent of the union's membership, but contribute to nearly 18 percent of the "partially meets expectations" ratings given out by management.

The Editor says...
There is another possible explanation (other than overt racism) that is apparently out of the question, and that is, maybe all the unionized black workers are just terrible employees.

Monkeypox cases disproportionately among people of color.  Monkeypox cases are rapidly rising in the U.S.  Cases surpassed 14,000 this week.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced more supply of the limited vaccine is on the way but now, people are urging health leaders to distribute the medicine to communities who need it.  Health officials have delivered messaging on the disease's impact on people in the gay community, but new demographic data shows monkeypox is disproportionately affecting people of color.

The Editor says...
Viruses are color-blind.  The disease affects hyper-promiscuous homosexual males.  If a lot of them are black, that's not the virus's fault.

Victims Wanted.  [Scroll down]  An ideal victim is in a perpetual state of socioeconomic misery and brewing with violence.  The trick is fighting to liberate them while keeping them in that same state, available for weekly revolutions and sad sack stories to be consumed by suburban woke ladies at book clubs.  Revolution is about money and power for a select few, but for the dulled denizens of a society that has long since blurred fact and fiction, reality and ideology, the performance is the thing.  Political metafictional narratives distill a police shooting into books, movies, and an entire culture which being both real and fiction are more compelling than either fiction or the real world.  The George Floyd fandom took a career criminal dead of a drug overdose, made him a meme, and immersed countless liberals commuting cautiously into the city into a racial rebellion against the imaginary evil empire of systemic racism at the mere cost of wrecked neighborhoods and thousands of deaths.  Black Lives Matter leaders got Hollywood deals and mansions out of it.

Don't Carry Guns, Don't Run From the Cops, and if You Do, Expect to Be Treated Roughly.  An armed suspect runs from the police only to be pursued, subdued, disarmed, and arrested.  In a sane world, the officers would be lauded for their efforts.  Alas, the world is far from sane, and few portions of it are farther from sanity than Chicago and its surrounding communities.  So, instead of being praised for removing an armed criminal from the streets, the officers find themselves villainized for using what the uninformed or willfully blind perceive as excessive force.  The incident was captured on police and bystander cameras, and when the footage hit social media and the television news, it inspired indignation among those predisposed to or professionally reliant on outrage.

Who, exactly, gets offended by 'cultural appropriation'?  We live in an age of mass stupidity, with totally ridiculous notions elevated to the status of self-righteous causes.  But among the most absurd complaints that predominantly young wokesters embrace is the censure of what they call "cultural appropriation."  By this, they mean people of one ethnicity using cultural artifacts of another culture.  Having lived in Japan, which eagerly embraced Westernization more than 150 years ago, and where classical music is far more popular than in the United States, this seems an odd complaint.  Cultural appropriation has made Japan rich, diverse, and happy.  McDonald's is the biggest restaurant chain, though sushi and ramen remain immensely popular, too.  It is a delightful mix of opportunities for fun in every realm of human endeavor, with all the world's cultural achievements available for sampling in today's Japan.  The wokesters, of course, have no knowledge of such matters, and focus almost exclusively on complaining about Caucasians dressing, eating, singing, or otherwise sampling cultures which the wokesters have decided are victims.  But what they fail to understand is the cultural pride almost everyone feels when others find their own practices worthy of emulation.

Biden's New Cybersecurity Deputy Inexplicably Declares 'Systemic Racism' Greatest Threat to America.  Camille Stewart, a former Google strategist, has argued that the U.S. "national security apparatus must be a part of dismantling systemic racism," and that "pursuing anti-racist and anti-hate policy outcomes" should be a chief national security focus for the Biden administration, as reported by the Washington Free Beacon.  So there you have it, America.  No need to worry about cyberattacks from Russia, China, Iran, or any of the other bad guys of the world, the top threat to U.S. cybersecurity is "systemic racism" — defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as "policies and practices that exist throughout a whole society or organization and that result in and support a continued unfair advantage to some people and unfair or harmful treatment of others based on race."  Needless to say, Biden's latest race-obsessed hire is not likely to sit well with Republican lawmakers who have been more focused on real defense issues rather than on Biden's race-centric ideological agenda.

The Editor says...
Please note that so-called "affirmative action" and other minority hiring quotas easily fit the Cambridge Dictionary definition of "systemic racism" cited above.

NYC students, drivers suffering on buses with no AC: 'So many signs of dehydration and heat stroke'.  Parents in New York City are [angry] over the fact that un-airconditioned busses are transporting young and disabled children during a hot and muggy heat wave expected to crush previous records this weekend.  Since the academic summer camp program began on July 5, hundreds of complaints have been received by the city's Department of Education, according to The New York Post.  Parents to Improve School Transportation, a group of concerned parents whose acronym appears to be synonymous with their sentiments about the school bus situation, said that the majority of the vehicles in service do not have air conditioning.

The Editor says...
[#1] You're in summer school.  Summer school is always hot.  [#2] You're too hot?  That's what the windows are for.  [#3] The bus is better than walking.  [#4] Aren't these same schools teaching children that air conditioning is bad for the earth?  This real-world experience will help them see the truth:  Air conditioning is a good thing.

NYC students stuck on hot school buses during heat wave with no AC.  Many public school buses transporting young students and children with disabilities during an interminable heat wave in New York City don't have air conditioning, families told The [New York] Post.  The advocacy group Parents to Improve School Transportation, citing workforce sources, says more than half of the buses don't have cool air.  The city Department of Education has received hundreds of complaints about sweltering conditions on the vehicles since the "Summer Rising" academic and camp program began July 5, according to city data.  The DOE did not provide its own counts of the buses without air conditioning or affected students.

Portland State student files complaint against campus police for listing race of suspect on the loose.  A Portland State University student filed a bias complaint against the campus police department for mentioning the race of a potentially dangerous individual on the loose.  "The email uses problematic language to identify the suspect," the student complained in the report filed with administrators.  The student added the language "puts a target on so many campus community member's [sic] backs."  Writing that other such warning emails have had similar references to race, the student asked the police department to "reconsider the language used in these emails."

AOC laments 'insane' cost of being congresswoman despite $174,000 salary.  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) lamented the cost of working as a member of Congress in an Instagram post despite her substantial congressional salary.  Members of Congress are required to occupy one residence in Washington, D.C., as well as one in the state from which they are representing, according to the New York Democrat.  This leads to "class dynamics" within Congress and causes economic strains for those who struggle to afford two residences, she argued.  "It's insanely expensive, there is no stipend or per diem for it, and you're not allowed to write it off even though your job forces you to have it.  This creates real class dynamics in the House," she wrote in a post on her Instagram story.  "Many sleep in their offices, but if you are caught, it could get bad for many reasons, including violations."

The Editor says...
If your life as a U.S. Representative is so tough, you don't have to run for re-election.  In fact, you can resign at any time.

Now, They Claim Dog Names Are 'Racist'.  According to a Social Psychology Quarterly study, a disparity in adoption times for dogs exists based on "racial associations" with the names we give America's favorite pets.  Bottom line?  Dogs with "white-sounding" names are more quickly adopted than dogs with black- or Hispanic-sounding names.  Shocked?  Me, neither.  "But to what extent do racialized names continue to matter when they do not belong to people?", Social Psychology Quarterly asks, "almost" as if the leftist "study" was conducted with a conclusion already in mind, simply so the study could then be presented as further "proof" that that in "racist" America, nothing is untouchable — including the names we give our furry friends.

Minority neighborhoods in Denver have fewer trees, making them hotter.  Minority neighborhoods make up more than half of all acreage in Denver, but they account for less than a third of the city's tree canopy, a 9Wants to Know investigation found.  Neighborhoods with fewer trees are hotter, which is significant as the world warms.  In the 10 Denver neighborhoods with the most tree cover, the majority of residents are white.  Only one of the top 25, Harvey Park South, is a neighborhood that is not mostly white.  Meanwhile, minority neighborhoods make up 13 of the 25 worst neighborhoods for tree canopy cover.

The Editor says...
[#1] "Neighborhoods with fewer trees are hotter," the writers claim.  How much hotter?  One degree?  Ten degrees?  They don't say.  [#2] The "minority neighborhoods" are sure to include housing projects, where conditions are poor because nobody who lives there owns the property.  If someone comes along next week and plants a row of trees in a Denver housing project, they'll all be dead in a year, because nobody will take care of them.  [#3] At this moment, just before sunrise in Dallas, it's 76 degrees outside.  In Phoenix, it's 91 degrees.  In Denver, it's 69 degrees.  So don't grumble about your hot neighborhood.  Summer is just getting started.

Buttigieg launches $1B pilot to build racial equity in roads.  Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Thursday [6/30/2022] launched a $1 billion first-of-its-kind pilot program aimed at helping reconnect cities and neighborhoods racially segregated or divided by road projects, pledging wide-ranging help to dozens of communities despite the program's limited dollars.  Under the Reconnecting Communities program, cities and states can now apply for the federal aid over five years to rectify harm caused by roadways that were built primarily through lower-income, Black communities after the 1950s creation of the interstate highway system.

The Editor says...
[#1]  Think.  It makes sense to build a highway on the least expensive land in town.  The people with the least money live on the least expensive land.  That was true in 1950 and it's still true today.  Nobody set out to destroy neighborhoods by using highway construction as a weapon.  The highways were going to be built for the benefit of everyone, and they had to go somewhere.  [#2]  Generally, the harm being done to "lower-income, Black communities" is being done by black gangs and black drug dealers.  Fix that problem, Pete.

The Real Systemic Racism In Policing.  Police in Washington state must now take a suspect's race into account before doing their job.  The state Supreme Court unanimously ruled earlier this month that a suspect deserves special treatment should he happen to be nonwhite. [...] In effect, minorities can now claim they were unlawfully detained by police simply by pointing to their race — even if a cop had a legitimate reason for stopping them.  If the new standard had been applied to the Sum case, the police would have to hesitate to approach any vehicle in a spot known for stolen cars if the occupants happen to be nonwhite.

Teachers at Oregon elementary school say colleagues open disdain for woke principal is example of white supremacy.  Schoolteachers at an Oregon elementary school claim that eye-rolling directed at the principal is a form of aggression 'rooted in white supremacy.'  BIPOC teachers at Errol Hassell Elementary school sent an email to school administrators on May 27 after hearing that their principal, Cynthia Lam Moffett, may be removed from her position, Fox News reports.  BIPOC stands for black, indigenous, and people of color.  "We believe that much of the resistance to Principal Moffett's work... is a result of bias and targeted aggression.  As BIPOC educators we have observed, experienced, and witnessed similar micro and macro aggressions,' the teachers said in the email.

AOC: $174,000 Congressional Salary Difficult on 'Working and Middle Class' Lawmakers.  The $174,000 congressional salary is difficult on "working and middle class" lawmakers, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) asserted this week on Instagram.  "Only 10 women in the history of the United States have ever given birth while serving in Congress. 10," Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a story posted to her Instagram, referring to the U.S. House of Representatives as a "hostile place to have a baby," as vote schedules "pretty much" assume that no one has a family, as they change often and require frequent travel.

Joy Behar claims, with zero evidence, voting rights [are] being stripped from Black people.  Joy Behar, co-host of 'The View' has claimed that voting rights are being taken away from African Americans.  She made this claim during an episode celebrating Juneteenth and provided no evidence to back up her bold claim.  [Video clip]  Joy Behar said:  "We should be aware on a day like this that voting rights are being systematically taken away from African Americans and other people too in this country... It's a good day to reflect on that, I think."  However, Behar's comment lacked any evidence or information to back it up.  She did not voice concerns over any particular politics, bills, or anything that would indicate anyone has lost the right to vote.

MSNBC's Joy Reid asserts that Kamala Harris is not being treated fairly by the 'white, male' media.  MSNBC host and commentator Joy Reid spoke out over the weekend about what she feels is unfair media coverage of Vice President Kamala Harris.  Reid blamed the 'white, male media' for treating Harris with a bias that would not be found during the tenure of her predecessors, in an interview with The Root.  'Think about her portfolio, voting rights, immigration and the border, and police reform.  The things on her plate are the toughest things that the Biden Administration has to deal with outside of inflation and the war in Ukraine,' said Reid.  Reid blames a white, male media class for cementing a narrative about Harris that has been hard for the Vice President to overcome: 'Most of the media is still white and male.  And their take on Kamala Harris becomes the take.  It becomes conventional wisdom.'

Mayor Adams compares displacement of black New Yorkers to slavery in Juneteenth speech.  Speaking in Central Park [6/19/2022], [New York City mayor Eric] Adams compared the modern-day uprooting of people of color from neighborhoods across the US — including the five boroughs — to slavery.  "When I was in Ghana last year, [I] saw how families were displaced, torn apart and brought over to America through slavery in the hulls of the ships, living in dungeons, spending months and months living in their human waste, having their babies taken from them, and saw them dispersed and displaced," he said.  "That's no different here," Adams told the crowd at the Central Park Conservancy's Juneteenth Celebration.

Rep. Al Green makes push for National Slavery Remembrance Day.  Rep. Al Green is leading an effort to make 2022 the first year that would mark the anniversary of the first slave ships arriving in North America 400 years ago.  The Texas Democrat, who introduced a resolution last November, is hoping to renew the push as the country celebrates Juneteenth on Sunday, and the federal holiday on Monday.  "Juneteenth is a celebration of freedom.  Slavery Remembrance is a commemoration of slavery itself and it will help us to make sure that we don't see it sanitized.  We want to tell the truth about it," Mr. Green told The Washington Times.

David Hogg:  Putting More Cops in Schools May Endanger Non-White Students.  While speaking at the June 11 March for Our Lives rally, gun control proponent David Hogg suggested that putting more cops in schools may actually endanger students do not have white skin.  Hogg suggested that a common response to school shootings is to put more police in schools.  He then claimed, "Putting more cops in schools hasn't worked."  He cited two examples to bolster his viewpoint:  First he pointed to the armed officer who stood outside Parkland instead of entering, even as the attack was carried out.  Then he made claims about the police response to Uvalde.  Hogg did not mention the numerous times armed resource officers have saved lives on campus.  For example, on December 13, 2013, an 18-year-old with a shotgun entered Denver-area Arapahoe High School and had to face the fact that an armed resource officer was coming for him.  The Denver Post noted that the resource officer was a deputy sheriff who, hearing a gunshot, ran toward the gunman.  As the resource officer closed in, the attacker took his own life, ending the attack.  The Arapahoe attack lasted 80 seconds.

What Predisposes Jews to Vote for Democrats?  [Scroll down]  One New Jersey rabbi proposed that Jews vote Democrat because it's in their DNA.  Jews were slaves in Egypt, which all good Jewish families still talk about.  They were victims of the Holocaust where they were slaughtered wholesale.  As a result of this history, so it is thought, Jews have historically been motivated by a drive to "do good" in the world.  There is no doubt Jews were and are still victims of anti-Semitism, but being a victim should not mean one is beholden to victimhood.  Victimhood is how we got where we are today, with ethnic groups warring against white people and each other.  Jews don't have to embrace toxic victimhood in order to remember their history.

Patrisse Cullors:  Martyr to the IRS.  Patrisse Cullors admits she's made a "few mistakes" as the ugly headlines continue to mount over her scandalous spending as the disgraced former leader of Black Lives Matter.  She attempted to keep a lid on her self-authorized spending for several years, but the IRS simply couldn't be ignored for another fiscal year.  (The group hadn't filed since 2017 and was forced to halt collection of donations.)  Once the bad news broke in a public tax filing last week, Cullors couldn't be bothered to address the allegations of her being at the center of a multi-million dollar grifter project, but rather she doubled down on the absurd claim of being cast in the role of "victim."  "Weaponizing against black women," was the ex-leader's way of explaining the IRS's routine demand for a 990 form from the world-famous "social justice" network for purposes of fiscal accountability.

San Francisco drops 'chief' from school job titles over cultural sensitivities.  The San Francisco Unified School District announced Wednesday that it would no longer use the word "chief" in employee job titles due to its connection to Native American culture.  The change applies to all 10,000 current employees in the California school district, according to a report by the San Francisco Chronicle.  "While there are many opinions on the matter, our leadership team agreed that, given that Native American members of our community have expressed concerns over the use of the title, we are no longer going to use it," district spokeswoman Gentle Blythe said in a statement.  The school district has not yet announced what term will replace "chief" in its employee title lexicon, but Blythe noted that the change did not reflect a demotion for those affected.

San Francisco School District Bans 'Chief' from Job Titles over Native American Links.  The San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) has banned the word "chief" from job titles because of its connotations with Native American leadership and a fear of offending indigenous people. [...] The origin of the word "chief" is actually French, not Native American, and entered English in the Middle Ages.  The SFUSD has a recent history of renaming things for reasons of left-wing ideology and political correctness.  Last year, the board removed the names of the country's founders from 44 schools, casting George Washington and Abraham Lincoln as racist villains.

The Editor says...
Notice that they're doing this because of "a fear of offending indigenous people."  Nobody's offended yet, but they say they're afraid of offending somebody.  Here's a word of advice:  Elect leaders to the school board who are not afraid of every little thing.

America is Regressing into a Tribal Society Rife with Acrimony, Anxiety and Suspicion.  In 2008 77% of Americans (60% of Blacks) thought race relations were good in their individual community In a shocking recent poll among Blacks, 75% now believe they or someone they love will be attacked by a white person.  This is an easily disproven belief as government statistics from the Department of Justice reveal that Blacks were the attackers in 85% of violent crimes involving blacks and whites.  This same recent poll also showed that 70% of Blacks believe over half of all white people (or 110 million Americans) "hold white supremacy beliefs."  Any accurate estimate of the actual number of white supremacist is impossible to find as the definition of "white supremacy" has conveniently evolved with the political winds (e.g., all Trump voters have often been referred to as being sympathetic to white supremacy.)  Over the years, by extrapolating the dubious and inflated data from the rabidly left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center, it has been estimated that there "could" be many as 500,000 believers or 0.2% of the overall white population.

The Editor says...
Hmmm... What happened in 2008 to make race relations sour?  Oh, I remember.  Obama was elected President.

Walmart pulls Juneteenth ice cream after backlash: 'We sincerely apologize'.  Walmart will remove its ice cream, commemorating Juneteenth amid growing backlash.  Photos of the product recently surfaced on social media.  "Share and celebrate African-American culture, emancipation and enduring hope," the label read.  The ice cream consisted of a swirl of red velvet and cheesecake flavors.

Stacey Abrams says Georgia 'the worst state in the country to live,' despite owning multiple houses there.  Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams declared Saturday that Georgia is "the worst state in the country to live," despite owning at least two houses there.  "I'm running for governor because I know that we have to have a conversation about who we are in this state and what we want for each other and from each other," Abrams said during a speech at the Gwinnett Democrats' Bluetopia Gala in Norcross, according to audio posted by the Gwinnett Daily Post.  "I am tired of hearing about how we're the best state in the country to do business when we are the worst state in the country to live," she said.

The Latest Georgia Voting Rights Controversy Is Erupting — Asking for a Signature Is Now Racist.  Have we finally reached peak outrage in the latest fight over Georgia election laws?  Lost in all the current furor, between Florida banning gay students, Elon Musk setting the Constitution on fire by employing the First Amendment, and the country being cast into the dark ages over the right to kill infants, there is more attempted outrage simmering in the state of Georgia.  More voting controversies are being claimed, and the rationale offered is only getting dumber.

'Persons of color' growing hostile to whites, bumping into them on streets amid fake claims of mass racism.  Haters on the left continue to do all they can to collapse our civil society and create an interracial conflict that our multiethnic country will not survive.  The latest example involves an 'experiment' an Asian woman discussed on TikTok along with a video she posted of her literally bumping into whites on the street because they refuse to 'move over' for her.  "A woman of color on TikTok shared a video of herself refusing to move for white people while walking on a sidewalk.  What happened was a shock to viewers," The Daily Dot reported.

Lawmakers strike the word 'marijuana'from all state laws, calling term racist.  "Pot," "weed," "grass," "Mary Jane," "flower" — there is no shortage of terms to describe cannabis.  However, Washington state is taking one word officially off the table: "marijuana."  Legislators recently passed a law that changes every Revised Code of Washington with the word "marijuana."  The change gets rid of the term, swapping it out for the word "cannabis."  Supporters say the word "marijuana" has a long history of racism.  "The term 'marijuana' itself is pejorative and racist," said Washington state Rep. Melanie Morgan during testimony in 2021.  Morgan is a Democrat representing the 29th Legislative District and sponsored the bill — House Bill 1210.  Morgan discussed the history of the word, which originates from Spanish.  "As recreational marijuana use became more popular, it was negatively associated with Mexican immigrants," Morgan said.

Against All Odds:  Mother Tells How Her Daughter and Every One of Her Friends Are Suddenly Trans.  The trans ideology of today is similar to the skinheads of the 80's.  Insecure, lonely, rebellious kids, frequently bored, and many angry at their parents, are looking for an outlet.  This is the perfect breeding ground for recruiters from outlier subculture groups like skinheads and transgenders.  Both groups offer a built-in social structure, acceptance, and a sense of belonging to a group of outsiders who have never belonged to anything.  More importantly, both groups have the ability to make a kid feel "special" because both groups offer "purpose" and both groups consider themselves "victims."  Victimhood, to many, is comfortable.

Michelle Obama's brother and his wife sue $24,000-a-year Milwaukee school for kicking their nine and 11-year-old 'model student' children out.  The brother of former first lady Michelle Obama and his wife are suing their children's private school alleging that administrators expelled their two sons after they complained of racist bias during virtual lessons.  Craig and Kelly Robinson filed a lawsuit against the $24,000-a-year University School of Milwaukee Pre-K-12 school this week after alleging that the private institution used words like 'plantation' inappropriately during lessons.  They also claim that teachers were inconsiderate to a wide variety of socio-economic backgrounds.  The complaint alleges that the school retaliated against their family — whose kids are aged nine and 11 — after they submitted reports in January and March 2021 about concerns they had over racial and socio-economic bias they reportedly overheard during virtual learning last year.

Your Top Priority is The Emotional Comfort of the Most Powerful Elites, Which You Fulfill by Never Criticizing Them.  When Hillary Clinton's divine entitlement to the U.S. presidency began to look imperiled in 2016 — first due to the irreverent and unkempt (but surprisingly formidable) Democratic Party primary challenge from Bernie Sanders, the independent socialist Senator from Vermont — her campaign and its media allies invented and unveiled a deeply moving morality tale.  A faceless horde of unnamed, uncredentialed, unmannered, violent, abusive and deeply misogynistic online Sanders supporters — dubbed with the gender-emphasizing name "Bernie Bros" even though many were women — were berating, insulting and brutalizing Hillary, her top campaign surrogates (U.S. Senators, former cabinet members, corporate executives), and especially pro-Hillary corporate journalists with a vast artillery of traumatizing words and violent tweets.  This storyline — and especially the way it cleverly inverted the David v. Goliath framework of the 2016 campaign so that it was now Hillary and her band of monied and Ivy-League-educated political and media elites who were the real victims — was irresistible to Harvard-and-Yale-trained journalists at NBC, CNN, The New York Times and Washington Post op-ed pages who really believe they are the truly marginalized peoples.

The Democrats Need COVID to Stay in Power.  There are specific issues that are key to the very existence of the Democrat Party and most liberal/progressive advocacy groups.  The Democrat Party trades in multicategory victimhood and creating taxpayer-funded Government programs in order to "cure" the problems they've identified and hyped for each group of victims.  Often, these so-called "problems" don't actually exist — they've just been fabricated by the Democrats and trumpeted by the eagerly complicit liberal media — but absent these so-called problems and cures, the Democrat Party would have no rationale for existing.  Every special-interest and so-called minority group has its Democratically sponsored taxpayer programs.
  •   Blacks
  •   Hispanics, including illegal immigrants
  •   Women
  •   LGBTQ
  •   Teachers and other unions
  •   Environmentalists/Warmists
These are the main ones, but there are other groups as well.

Democrats Call Republican Senators Racist for Treating Ketanji Jackson Like Everyone Else.  Here we go again.  Democrats have found yet another opportunity to falsely label their political opposition as racist.  The Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson began on Monday [3/21/2022] and the left is already characterizing Republican senators as vicious racists for daring to question her qualifications.  Even Mr. Magoo could have seen this coming from a mile away.  Several members of the left-wing chattering class have already started lobbing erroneous accusations of racism at GOP lawmakers for questioning the nominee.  Professional race-baiter Elie Mystal wrote a piece for The Nation in which he predicted Republicans are going to do all kinds of racisms to keep Jackson from being appointed to the Supreme Court.

Former Employee Sues Google For 'Racially Biased' Culture.  A former Google employee filed a class-action lawsuit in a San Jose, California, federal court Friday alleging systemic bias against black employees and a corporate culture preferring white males, Reuters reported.  The lawsuit, filed by April Curley, says Google places black employees in lower-level jobs, pays them less, and denies them opportunities to grow at the company, Reuters reported.  Specifically, Curley states black people make up only 4.4% of employees and about 3% of leadership, according to Reuters.

USA Today declares Dr. Rachel Levine its 2022 'Woman of the Year'.  USA Today has declared a string of wokesters for its 2022 'Women of the Year' honors, and one of them is Dr. Rachel Levine.  Seems you need to be born a man to achieve excellence in womanhood these days.  Being an actual woman is no longer enough.  The awards are absurd, given that not many of the women on the list have actual accomplishments  — they're there because they're victims, like Simone Biles, radical activists like Janet Murguía, promoters of bad things like recreational marijuana, like Roopali Desai; people who deny the obvious, like fashion editor Nina Garcia who credits her Colombian heritage rather than the opportunities America gave her with her success as an American fashion editor; or else women who have had some sort of role in inventing or promoting things that don't really work all that well, such as electric cars and the Moderna COVID vaccine.  Naturally, Kamala Harris, whose chief achievement as a woman has been to sleep her way to the top and serve as an affirmative action placeholder for the Biden administration as well as impeachment insurance for corrupt old Joe, is on the list.  And in Levine's case, it wasn't even necessary to have xx chromosomes, let alone merit, just that masculine energy it takes to seek promotions in order to be the alpha dog.

White Picket Fence.  [Scroll down]  Driven though we were to be cool, au courant, and sexually irresistible, we still perhaps asked for particulars on the gas mileage of the Studebaker and the possibility of getting one without all the pricey options.  But we did not ask these questions of the actual programs, for we didn't realize they were selling anything.  Nor did the producers.  But they were.  We were being sold something called "American Life."  We viewers of our favorite program didn't realize that the program itself was an ad, and the producers didn't intend to produce it as such, but the result was an actual instance of subliminal advertising.  The White Picket Fence, Andy Hardy, and Father Knows Best portrayed an American existence as fictional as that of Superman's Smallville.  We television children looked around, at the Vietnam War and segregation, inter alia, compared it to the White Picket Fence, and found America not wanting but despicable.  The Vietnam War is 50 years gone, segregation and racism have died.  But the continued existence of American malevolence is insisted upon by various political movements.  If we look away from the screen, however, we do not find it.  The screens today are selling us a vision of America as false as the White Picket Fence.  But they are now flogging its opposite:  America as an Evil Land.

AOC plays victim card with student loans while living large.  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has often spotlighted her own student loans since entering Congress, personalizing a hot-button issue to decry a system that saddles millions of people with debt coming out of school.  However, unlike most Americans struggling to pay off student loans, Ocasio-Cortez, 32, has spent her money lavishly and appears to be in a position to pay off her full debt at any time, according to a review of her student loan history.  As of 2020, Ocasio-Cortez owed between $15,001 and $50,000 in federal student loans, according to her most recent personal financial disclosure report, which was filed in August 2021.  That debt was incurred from August 2007 to May 2011.  Student loans are often paid off under a 10-year plan.  In December, however, Ocasio-Cortez said she had "over $17,000" in student loan debt.

Harris compares Republicans to 1960s Alabama state troopers.  Vice President Kamala Harris used her visit to Selma, Alabama, as an opportunity to compare state Republicans who passed new election laws to 1960s state troopers who attacked Black civil rights protesters as they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge.  Ms. Harris made the trip Sunday to commemorate the 57th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday," the day in 1965 when White state troopers assaulted Black voting-rights demonstrators trying to cross the historic bridge in Selma.  Ms. Harris described the marchers on that day as "preparing for the worst" and were kneeling in prayer as the state troopers charged at them.

Bill to create first-of-its-kind missing Indigenous persons alert passes WA senate.  A bill creating an alert system for missing indigenous women and people within Washington passed the state Senate.  The bill, sponsored by Rep. Debra Lekanoff from Skagit County, would create an early alert system that would distribute information about the missing person, similar to a Silver Alert. [...] Indigenous women and people go missing more than four times than white women, according to research conducted by the Urban Indian Health Institute in Seattle.

The Editor says...
[#1] This is yet another government program that treats certain classes of people as more important than others.  Each of the fifty states is prohibited "from denying any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law."  Is there a reason indigenous people are in need of more protection than others?  [#2] What's the reason to use the phrase indigenous women and people, instead of indigenous women or indigenous people?  Are women not people?  Does the word people exclude women?

Saying You're 'Colorblind' About Race Is Now Considered Racist By The Federal Government.  A race-based training program used by federal agencies claims, among other things, that saying one is "colorblind" to race is itself racist.  The training is part of a newly revealed federal diversity program that greatly expands on previously critical race theory trainings within the federal government, the Washington Examiner reported.  Part of the expansion comes in the form of opposing "microaggressions," or words and actions by one person that unintentionally upset another.  As the Examiner noted, training provided to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says that offering a black student a basketball is considered offensive.  "Not only are federal workers urged to consider what they say, but also how their comments are received.  In one chart, a white male is shown saying he is 'colorblind.'  The black woman shown beside, however, takes as an insult that the white is denying her 'racial/cultural being,'" the Examiner reported.  "And, it advised men, don't interrupt a woman speaking because they hear, 'Women's ideas are not valued.'"

Black Lives Matter's True Colors.  It's been almost two years since the summer of violent Black Lives Matter insurrections and cop-hating crusades. [...] This unprecedented eruption of hatred and violence was fueled by a racial hoax claiming that there was an "open season" on black lives, despite the fact that there is no evidence to support this claim, whether statistical or circumstantial.  Apart from affirmative action, which was given a pass by the Supreme Court, and despite the false claims of the president, there is no systemic racism in America today.  If police departments, for example, were systemically racist, there would be massive lawsuits invoking the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which specifically outlaws institutional and systemic racism.  There are no such massive lawsuits because there is no systemic racism in police departments.  Although the accusation of systemic racism is the main currency of the Black Lives Matter hate campaign — and, shamefully, of the rhetoric emanating from the White House itself — there is no factual basis for this slander.  None.

Justice Department Ends Initiative Aimed at Chinese Espionage over Concerns of Racism.  The Biden Justice Department is ending an initiative aimed at Chinese espionage and intellectual property theft over concerns it created a perception of racism, according to a top official on Wednesday.  Assistant Attorney General for National Security Matthew Olsen announced during a speech at George Mason University that the department was scrapping its China Initiative, even though an internal review found no indication of racial bias or prejudice.

Baltimore State Attorney who faces perjury charges over COVID hardship claim tries to have case thrown out.  A Baltimore State Attorney facing a $1million perjury lawsuit for fudging financial numbers while taking out a loan for a pair of holiday home purchases in Florida has tried to get the case thrown out, claiming she's being targeted due to the fact that she's black and progressive.  In their most recent filing in the federal case, attorneys for Marilyn Mosby, 42 — who is charged with two counts of perjury and two counts of submitting false statements on loan applications to make the purchases, which amounted to $1.02million — accused federal prosecutors of having a personal vendetta against their client, claiming one of the legal eagles even spread rumors she cheated on her husband. 'Since its inception, the prosecution against State's Attorney Mosby has been driven by malicious personal, political, and even racial animus on the part of the prosecutors,' Mosby's attorneys wrote in motion to toss the case filed Friday.

Seattle does away with its 'racist' bike helmet law.  In 1993, almost 30 years ago, the King County Board of Health passed a law requiring people within that county to wear a helmet while riding a bike.  Sure, it was a nanny state law but it definitely made a difference in the outcome of accidents involving bicycles.  Thus, a 2016 study concluded that bike helmets reduce the risk of serious head injuries by almost 70%.  In other words, at a relatively low cost and minimal inconvenience for the bike rider, the personal and societal costs of bike-related brain injuries are hugely decreased.  But some things are more important than protecting people from terrible brain injury and one of those things is making sure that Blacks, Indigenous, and "Peoples of Color," as well as homeless people, don't feel put upon by police anxious to force those helmets on their heads.

Mandatory bicycle helmet law revoked in Seattle area after finding it was enforced mainly against homeless or Black riders.  In the face of data showing enforcement has been both minimal and has disproportionately affected people of color and those experiencing homelessness, the King County Board of Health voted to repeal its decades-old mandatory helmet law for bicycle riders.  The repeal goes into effect in 30 days.  The board, made up of elected officials and medical experts from cities across the county, voiced its support for the voluntary use of helmets, passing a resolution Thursday encouraging riders to don the protective gear.  But board member and King County Councilmember Joe McDermott said there are other ways of encouraging helmet use that do not rely on law enforcement, including educational campaigns and free helmet distribution.  The Metropolitan King County Council recently budgeted more than $200,000 to buy helmets and expand education.

The Editor says...
If the law is racist, why wait 30 days to repeal it?  What happens to the person who gets a ticket tomorrow, and goes to court after the law is repealed?

Mask-Optional Schools Hit with Suspiciously Identical Suits Alleging ADA Violations.  On the heels of a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that put the kibosh on a statewide school masking mandate, lawyers in the Keystone State are trying a new tack to reinstate a classroom mask requirement — suing individual school districts in federal court on the grounds that they are failing to protect medically vulnerable students.  Over the last month, at least four nearly identical lawsuits have been filed in Pittsburgh- and Philadelphia-area school districts that recently made masks optional, accusing them of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, a civil-rights law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of disability.

Mayor Eric Adams rips press, claims white journalists misrepresent him.  Mayor Eric Adams unloaded Tuesday in an epic rant in which he threatened to stop fielding "off-topic" questions at his press conferences — and blasted the Big Apple's news organizations over what he said was their lack of racial diversity.  The scolding, which came before an unrelated press conference on summer youth employment efforts, appeared to be sparked by coverage of his failed bid to get state lawmakers to budge on his anti-crime agenda — although the mayor failed to convey how race factored into that.  One day after meeting with Albany lawmakers in what he all but admitted was a failed attempt to roll back recent criminal-justice reforms, Adams claimed that accounts of his trip, none of which touched on race, were unfairly negative.

The Editor says...
He's the mayor of New York City, and he's still complaining about how tough his life is.

Creating A George Floyd Scholarship Sends Black Kids The Exact Wrong Message.  The constant push to virtue signal to the idol of social justice is causing some of our historically trusted institutions of academia, health care, and journalism to lose the public's trust and is further splintering our nation.  Minnesota seems to be in the epicenter of it all.  The Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota recently endowed a new scholarship to honor George Perry Floyd Jr.  It's the wrong decision and undermines the work of the civil rights movement and what we communicate to black American children across the country.  What happened to George Floyd was a travesty.  But it is important we remain disciplined in acknowledging that tragedy.  When honoring someone's life in a scholarship at an institution of higher education, we should honor the sacrifice, achievement, and virtues of a person's life.

FDA Slows Approval Of Affordable Cancer Drug In The Name Of Racial 'Equity'.  An effective and more affordable treatment for lung cancer may not gain approval after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) complained about the lack of black people in its clinical trial, with a top FDA cancer official repeatedly noting in a meeting that it is Black History Month.  Eli Lilly and a Chinese partner called Innovent believe the drug, known as Tyvyt or sintilimab, could extend the lives of those suffering with late-stage non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), and be more affordable than other treatments.  The clinical trial patients were Asian because the trial was conducted in China.

'Meat Supremacy'? Eating Meat Is Part of 'White Supremacist Patriarchal Worldview'.  If we've learned anything from the inhabitants of Planet Looney Tunes over the last couple of years, it is this:  Anything and everything the left doesn't like is racist, misogynistic, or worse.  And by "racist," we're talking systemic racism — which is tied to white supremacy and the ridiculous notion that all white people — at birth, solely because of the color of their skin — are inherently racist, and for which, they must atone by living proactively anti-racist lives.  And, as if we haven't laughed at these people enough, they now tell us that eating meat is "all of the above."

Critical race theory is about to segregate America like an open-air prison yard.  [Scroll down]  A few years after making the film, I began studying critical race theory and the racialist ideologies that are becoming entrenched in American schools.  Though the comparison is provocative, frightening parallels exist between the racialist logic of the prison yard and the racialist pedagogy of many public schools.  First, schools that have adopted critical race theory reject individualism and colorblindness; to achieve an authentic identity and gain collective power, individuals must identify first and foremost with their racial group.  Second, as in the prison yard, some public schools have begun segregating teachers and students for training sessions, classroom exercises, field trips and even playground activities.  Third, many schools that have adopted critical race theory explicitly teach that children belong to categories of "oppressor" or "oppressed" based on a racial hierarchy, and then tell students that they must tear down society in order to "decolonize" the land, settle racial scores and direct the spoils to their compatriots.  This development might not come as a total surprise.  Critical race theory draws heavily from black-nationalist ideology, such as that of the Black Panther Party, which came to fruition in California prisons in the 1960s.

The Unbearable Racism of COVID.  The media like to say that "COVID has struck minorities harder than other races" or, as the Washington Post has it, COVID "ravages" minorities rather than other races.  This is a loaded and utterly dishonest statement, and one with racist undertones to boot.  First of all, COVID is not an agent that decides to "ravage" one race rather than another.  Actually, COVID does not "ravage" anyone.  One contracts COVID, as one would any other disease, and one does so in a number of ways and situations.  Second, there's that word "minorities."  By this the media do not mean minorities in the sense of those who constitute a minority of the population, as do all races, depending upon how and where they are counted.  What they mean are blacks and Hispanics, but primarily blacks.  And among blacks, they do not mean IBM executives or sports billionaires — they mean poor blacks.  The media goes out of its way to find individuals of partially African descent who are unsuccessful, and it then claims they are the victims of "systemic racism."  In truth, they are no more "victims" than is any one of us.  Every person alive has faced challenges.  Some have faced them and surmounted them; others have not.

Washington University in St Louis hosts an event claiming 'professionalism is racist'.  A Missouri university is hosting an online forum that will explore whether the term 'professionalism' is racist — and according to the event's synopsis, it is.  The February 1 presentation at Washington University's St. Louis campus centers around a term defined by Merriam-Webster as 'the conduct, aims, or qualities that characterize or mark a profession or a professional person.'  An explainer for the upcoming virtual event reads:  'The term "professionalism" has at times been used to silence and marginalize people of color, when attributes of appearance, language or interactions that have nothing to do with job knowledge or constructive collegial relationships are labeled as "unprofessional".

This Person Was Just Put In Charge Of A Massive School District In Georgia.  The Gwinnett County Board of Education on Thursday elected Tarece Johnson as its new chair.  Johnson, a Democrat, is in her second year on the board.  She is the first Black woman to serve as chair.  When she was elected to the board, Johnson said she wanted to hire more bilingual teachers, increase diversity in the curriculum and expand early education.  She's opposed efforts to limit lessons on race in classrooms.  Johnson has made several visceral videos accusing America of being a racist nation and how she teaches her children about the racist system they apparently live in.  [Video clip]

16-Year Old Stages a Robbery, Gets Shot During the Robbery, Is Labeled a Victim and Family gets $40k in Donations.  A 16-year old Burger King employee helped stage a robbery only to turn on her robbery crew, gets shot by another individual in the Burger King who shot back and dies, then the family posts she was a victim and gets at least $40,000 in donations!  [Video clip]

Yellen says US economy 'never worked fairly' for people of color.  Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Monday [1/17/2022] the United States has a lot of work to do to bridge its racial wealth divide, arguing the economy has never been fair to minorities.  Her remarks came during the annual Martin Luther King Jr.  Day breakfast hosted by Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network.  From Reconstruction to Jim Crow to the present day, our economy has never worked fairly for black Americans — or, really, for any American of color," she said, according to a transcript of her prepared remarks.  "Our administration has tried to change that; to ensure that neither the figurative bank of justice — nor any literal economic institution — fails to work for people of color."

The Editor says...
Now I feel really sorry for Tyler Perry, Oprah Winfrey, a wide assortment of overpaid athletes, and a number of highly overrated black singers, who have all acquired great wealth in the U.S.A.

The ascendance of the inner-city predator.  The inner-city predator has been a problem for decades, but never before has the predator received the affirmation of the criminal justice system.  The criminal justice system and the mainstream media have conditioned us to see the predators themselves as victims of social forces.  They are people deprived of opportunity and incapable of making decent choices.  The predators are the true victim.  The prey are simply collateral damage. [...] As sociologists, progressives, and liberals see it, the predators who come out of the inner city and smash and grab their way through suburban shopping malls for $500 to $1000 are not thugs but desperate young people.  Their behavior does not show their thuggery but their limited opportunities.  Why else would they take such enormous risks for so little money?  And who is responsible for this?  You are, because you have not worked to change the social system.  It is not the people doing the smashing and grabbing who are at fault, but the people who limited their opportunities.  And the legitimacy of this twisted ideology is underscored by having the police stand in place while the "teens" bash their way through suburbia.

Biden nominee equated 'proof of citizenship' with 'voter suppression,' likened felon voting ban to slavery.  One of President Biden's judicial nominees reportedly disparaged various voting restrictions in the United States, including by comparing slavery to the ban on felons voting and "proof of citizenship" to "voter suppression."  "When you add laws that prohibit people with a criminal conviction from voting, it's practically the same system as during slavery — Black people who have lost their freedom and cannot vote," attorney Nancy Gbana Abudu said in a post for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).  "And without access to the ballot, a victim of the system cannot elect the very officials pulling the levers to hire the police, determine which cases are prosecuted and what sentences are imposed."

Elementary School Canceled 'Jingle Bells' This Year to Fight Racism.  Christmas is over, and I hope you had a good one — filled with the sights and sounds of the season.  For one elementary school in New York, the above didn't quite work out.  For the sake of equity, the school canceled "Jingle Bells." [...] An announcement was made earlier this year on the district's public website, which hosts a section on "Diversity and Equity."

Elementary School Bans Jingle Bells As Having "The Potential To Be Controversial Or Offensive".  "Jingle Bells" is one of the most performed and well-known secular holiday songs ever written, not only in the United States, but around the world.  It's the first song to have been broadcast from space — by Gemini 6 astronauts nine days before Christmas in 1965.  It's regularly been sung at the White House — most recently by President Barack Obama and his family upon lighting the National Christmas Tree in 2016.  But "Jingle Bells" isn't being sung anymore at Brighton's Council Rock Primary School.  "Jingle Bells," explained Council Rock principal Matt Tappon in an email, has been replaced with other songs that don't have "the potential to be controversial or offensive."

Victimhood, the Monster the Dems Created.  Take the case of Jussie Smollet — a gay black actor who, last week, was found guilty of staging a hate crime against white people. [...] Jussie's episode is a result of the "victimhood" monster created by Democrats.  An industry has developed around becoming a victim.  If someone can become a "victim" their sins are forgiven and they're elevated to sainthood.  Colin Kaepernick is the perfect example; abandoned by his black father, given up for adoption by his white mother, and raised by a loving white couple; Colin claims victimhood status, has been anointed a hero and has become wealthy.  Lebron James (multi-millionaire), Meghan Markle (millionaire princess), and Michelle Obama all claim to be victims.  Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson became wealthy by shaking down corporations over claims of victimhood.  What are all these privileged, black millionaires victims of?  White supremacy, racism, and being oppressed.  They use their "victim" status to elevate themselves.

Build Back Racism.  In June, I wrote that Republicans need to embrace the culture war and loudly oppose critical race theory.  I said we need to "lean" into the subject and show the organic movement of parents who are concerned about their kids' education that "we have your back."  I said Republicans need to make clear that America should be a colorblind society where individuals are judged by the content of their character, not by the color of their skin.  Glenn Youngkin clearly heeded that advice.  And it's part of what earned him a historic victory in Virginia three weeks ago and why he's governor-elect.  Democrats wholly embraced critical race theory.  Youngkin's opponent, Terry McAuliffe, campaigned with Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, who penned a threatening op-ed for CNN warning parents that "you can't stop" teachers from using concepts borrowed from critical race theory.  It's vital to ask why they did that.  Why would Democrats embrace such a divisive ideology that instructs its adherents to judge individuals based on the color of their skin?  The answer is simple:  Democrats cynically believe they can create a coalition of minority voters by telling them they're victims and "oppressed."

There is no racial grievance in the Rittenhouse trial.  Everybody involved is white!
Levi Strauss offers employees session with 'racial trauma specialist' over Rittenhouse acquittal.  Levi Strauss & Co. reached out to its U.S. employees offering individual counseling and promoting a forthcoming session with a "racial trauma specialist" to "help promote safety, sharing and to encourage healing" following the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse, the company confirmed to FOX Business on Wednesday [11/24/2021].  Levi's chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer, Elizabeth Morrison, sent an email following the verdict that began, "With the news that Kyle Rittenhouse was not convicted in the shooting of three individuals — two of whom lost their lives — during racial justice protests last year, this is a difficult day for many."

Clownworld ABC News Report Claims The Use Of The Term Looting Is RACIST!  Critics responded strongly to Monday's "expert" allegations, using the term "looting" to describe the recent massive theft from California retailers that could be related to colored races.  It should not be used because it is.  According to the Bay Area's local ABC affiliate, the California Penal Code does not allow the use of the term "looting" to describe theft involving large numbers of people because the definition did not match the law.  It was.  As defined by law.  He also quoted two individuals called "experts". They explained that the term is reminiscent of blacks and the colored races associated with looting.  [Video clip]

MSNBC host says trucking industry full of 'aggressive' white men who 'overwhelmingly voted for Trump'.  MSNBC host Tiffany Cross characterized the truck driving industry as populated by "a lot of white men" who she says "overwhelmingly voted for" former President Donald Trump.  Cross, who is the author of Say It Louder!  Black Voters, said Sunday on Cross Connection that she is worried because her brother is a truck driver.  She said it "feels like a dangerous industry."  Cross questioned her guest, CrossCountry Truck Driving School owner and president Pamela Day, about how the industry can become more "welcoming" to drivers of color.  "This is an industry populated by a lot of white men over the age of 55," Cross said.

"Woke" is now a term of mockery, and the left has only itself to blame.  "Woke" was coined by the left some years ago to describe a person who had become sensitive to the left's pet issues, especially racial and "social justice" ones.  It implied that a person disagreeing with the left about those issues was not just wrong, but unconscious.  This catchy term was initially successful.  But the left never succeeds at success.  That's because what's important to them is not being successful in resolving grievances, but parading those grievances as evidence of their victimhood.  Victim status is more important to the left than winning — and easier too.  If the left were a sports team, they'd be lazy and winless but they would always say, gleefully, that it's because the referees robbed them.  And so, to the left, an outcome that succeeds in resolving their grievances is a failure because it deprives them of their celebrated victimhood.  An outcome that fails to resolve their grievances is a success because it ensures perpetual victimhood.

Why Progressives Ruin Democrats.  A few weeks ago Penguin published Woke Racism by Columbia University linguist John McWhorter, whose book has in common with San Fransicko the view that wokeism is a religion.  In Woke Racism, McWhorter humorously ridicules the irrationality, immorality, and supernatural components of woke religion.  McWhorter lampoons its contradictions.  If whites move into black neighborhoods they are causing gentrification, which is racist, but if they move out of them they are engaging in "white flight," which is racist.  If whites appreciate black culture, they are engaging in "cultural appropriation," but if they ignore it they are ostracizing.  How can these beliefs, which McWhorter calls "the catechism of contradictions," be part of the same woke religion?  Because they're all in service of singular goal of calling white people racist in order to gain cultural power.

Right-hand privilege presentation at university goes viral.  Check your privilege, especially if you used your right hand to open this article.  That's according to a presentation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that has gone viral.  Using one's right hand as the primary mode of grappling objects "makes life easier" and gives one more "opportunity" and "advantage," according to the presentation.  It also said being right-handed apparently makes one have a sounder "sense of belonging" in the world.  The lecture took place Monday, Newsweek reported.  It has garnered more than 2,600 "likes" on a popular Twitter account.

Philly becomes first major US city to end pulling drivers over for minor traffic offenses — a tactic which opponents say disproportionately affects black people.  Philadelphia became the first major city to ban police traffic stops of low-level motor vehicle offenses, a tactic which critics claim disproportionately affects black people.  The Philadelphia City Council passed two Driving Equity bills on Thursday that Mayor James Kenney is is expected to sign into law this week.  The law creates an open searchable database recording traffic stops and prohibits police officers from stopping drivers for minor offenses by reclassifying several offenses as secondary violations.

University of Michigan professor ousted from class after playing Othello film where [an actor] wore blackface.  A University of Michigan music professor is facing backlash after showing the 1965 film "Othello" with star Laurence Olivier in blackface, a school official announced.  David Gier, dean of the School of Music, Theatre & Dance, said a new professor will be taking over the class previously taught by Bright Sheng to "allow for a positive learning environment," The American Spectator reports.  "Professor Sheng's actions do not align with our school's commitment to anti-racist action, diversity, equity and inclusion," Gier said last week, adding that Sheng has been reported to the Office of Equity, Civil Rights, and Title IX.

GoFundMe nukes page set up for alleged school shooter asking for $25k to treat 'trauma'.  GoFundMe has removed the fundraising page of the Texas student who opened fire at Arlington high school and wounded four students after his family set it up requesting $25,000 to treat his alleged "trauma" over his father's death.  Two of the shooting victims are still in the hospital while 18-year-old Timothy Simpkins was allowed to walk free on bond.  The GoFundMe page was launched Thursday by Dallas attorney Kim T. Cole, who asked the public to donate money to help Simpkins, according to the Daily Mail.

Seattle scraps 'single-family zoning' label over racism fears.  "Single-family zoning" is no more in Seattle following a city council vote Monday [10/4/2021].  The bill, sponsored by Councilmembers Teresa Mosqueda and Dan Strauss, will replace the city's single-family zoning moniker with "neighborhood residential zoning," according to MyNorthwest.  While it won't change the actual makeup of Seattle's density, it does away with a term regarded by critics as rooted in discriminatory red-lining policies.  "The legislation passed today brings us one step closer to a more inclusive Seattle," Mosqueda said in a news release following the bill's passage.

Coming to America soon?  German parking garage installs 'diversity' spaces.  An underground German parking garage has reserved "diversity" spaces for vehicles driven by LGBTQ and migrant drivers so people who feel "a special need for protection" will feel safe.  Hanauer Parkhaus GmbH has reportedly reserved three spots specifically designated for the LGBTQ community and migrants in their structure in Hanau, which is just outside Frankfurt, according to the Daily Mail.  Thomas Morlock, who is the chairman of the HPG supervisory board and a city official, claims that the company's goal in providing the segregated parking spaces is to give individuals a sense of security and protection.

Data Firm Claims Racism Causes 'Tree Inequity' in U.S. Cities.  An analysis from a geospatial data company argues the number of trees planted in different neighborhoods nationwide is unequal along racial lines, and says the threat of "tree inequity" is real and growing.  "EarthDefine uses an Artificial Intelligence (AI) classification model to detect areas of an aerial image that are covered by trees, as opposed to other ground cover like shrubs, buildings and asphalt.  They then calculate the percentage of the total land area that is covered by trees — a metric called 'tree canopy cover,'" the San Francisco Chronicle reported and compared the California city's tree cover with other U.S. cities.

House Dem threatens to vote against $3.5T bill unless Black colleges get more money.  President Biden's wavering $3.5 trillion social welfare bill took another hit when Rep. Alma Adams said she's a no vote unless more money goes to historically Black colleges and universities.  Ms. Adams, a North Carolina Democrat and top advocate for HBCUs, said Mr. Biden is shortchanging the Black schools in the massive spending bill.  "I cannot in good conscience vote for legislation that I sincerely believe will not serve its intended purpose," she wrote this week to her Democratic colleagues.  "If this language as written becomes law, it is accurate to say that HBCUs will only successfully compete for pennies on the dollar."

LOW IQ Snowflake Says White People Food Isn't As Healthy As Non-White Food But Blames Crappy Black Food On Racism.  Yes, it's another episode of WTF is this snowflake smoking!  This mumbling snowflake tries to explain that white people's food is so bad for people and when those who eat cultural food, whatever that is, they tend to eat healthier.  She must have missed all the fried foods in Hispanic eating or sugars in Asian cuisine.  And of course, no diet is less healthy than black Americans but she has the tried and true answer to this.  [Video clip]

A Virus More Potent than COVID.  Shame and blame are animating features of the Critical Race movement.  The latest example of Critical Race Theory can be found in the article from Inside Higher Ed and is titled "Camera's On:  Surveillance in the Time of COVID-19." [...] The authors claim that asking students to keep cameras on during synchronous online class sessions is actually "indicative of an attitude toward teaching that positions students as docile bodies in need of constant surveillance."  In fact, though "sharing an empty box or just a name seems to make many instructors uncomfortable ... feeling such discomfort does not give them the right to demand entry into students' private spaces."  Who is "demanding entry into students' private spaces"?  The Zoom screen does not meander into other rooms.  It shows the face of the student.  But the more important point according to Finders and Muñoz is that "the ideologies of 'cameras on' are incredibly problematic due to their racist, sexist and classist undertones."

Wisconsin Sheriff Will No Longer Call Prisoners Inmates But Rather 'Residents' To Humanize Rapists And Murderers.  The Dane County Sheriff's Office is eliminating the term "inmate" from its official vocabulary.  Sheriff Kalvin Barrett announced the move Monday [8/16/2021], explaining the change is designed to "maintain the dignity and respect for all who are involved in our criminal justice system," WMTV-TV reported.  [Video clip]

University's Required Training Labels Straight White Males 'Oppressors' — in the Name of Being 'Inclusive'.  At James Madison University, they're trying to make sure everyone's included. [...] As for "privilege" oppressors, the school listed them thusly:
  •   Male
  •   Cisgender
  •   Christian
  •   Heterosexual
  •   Western European
  •   Upper-to-middle class
  •   Thin/Athletic build
  •   Able-bodied
  •   Age 30s to 50s
  •   White

Black Employment Fell In July While White Employment Rose By 1.1 Million.  The stronger than expected jobs figures released Friday conceals a troubling sign for the economy:  black employment fell in the best month for the labor market since Joe Biden was inaugurated.  The economy added an estimated 943,000 jobs in July.  But those job gains were far from evenly distributed.  White employment rose by 1.1 million in July.  Asian employment rose by around 267,000.  Black employment actually declined.  Hispanic employment, which is counted separately and includes people of any race, rose.  The job losses were concentrated among black men.  Black women gained jobs for the month.  The black labor force participation rate fell in July.  So did the labor force participation rate for Hispanic women.

The Editor says...
Maybe that's because whites want to work and others would rather collect welfare payments.  Or maybe it's because every employer in the country is a racist.  Which explanation sounds more reasonable?

Anti-Racism Reaches Its Most Ridiculous Low Yet: $50,000 to Move a Rock.  On Friday, the University of Wisconsin at Madison struck a blow against racism in today's America.  No, who am I kidding?  It paid $50,000 to move a rock from one campus to another because of a word written about the rock in a newspaper article almost a hundred years ago: [...] That's it.  That's the whole case for doing this.  There isn't, so far as I can tell, any complaint with Chamberlin, whose profession as a geologist makes a 42-ton boulder an appropriate memorial.  There is nothing about anything that has been said or done since 1925.  All this is about just one reference in a century-old newspaper clipping, which someone must have gone to great lengths to locate in order to claim that current black students at UWM walk around feeling oppressed by a 1925 edition of the Wisconsin State Journal.

University of Wisconsin-Madison removes massive rock from campus after 'racism' claims.  The University of Wisconsin removed a controversial boulder from its Madison campus Friday after the Black Student Union and other activists objected to its description nearly 100 years ago with a racial slur.  Chamberlin Rock, which rests atop Observatory Hill, is named after a 19th Century geologist and former university president, Thomas Crowder Chamberlin, whose work centered on glacial deposits, according to a bio on the university's website.  But it was a reporter's reference to the rock in a nearly century-old Wisconsin State Journal article that prompted the push for its removal.

The Editor says...
If there is a rock in your driveway that was once hurled by a racist, would that have any impact on your life?  No.  The idea that this boulder was once mentioned in the newspapers in a bad context has no impact on anybody, either.

Spike in 'forged instrument' arrests raises fear NYPD targeting minorities.  NYPD arrests for forged instruments, which typically involve phony license plates, have surged sharply in the last first six months, according to a watchdog group concerned the crackdown might be a pretext to stop minority drivers.  Of the 1,634 criminal cases for which the top charge was criminal possession of a forged instrument, Blacks were arrested in 951 of the cases — 58% of the total.  Of that total, Hispanics were arrested 541 times, comprising 33% of the total, according to the Police Reform Organizing Project.  Whites were charged in only 73 cases, a mere 5% of the total.  Those identified as Asian/Indian, are 4%, with 69 forged instrument arrests.  The data was provided to PROP by the state.

The Editor says...
The writer in the NY Daily News seems to overlook one possibility:  Perhaps white people drive with authentic license plates, and others often do not.  If you don't want the cops to "protect and serve" you so much, don't give them a reason.

University of Wisconsin moves rock seen as symbol of racism.  The University of Wisconsin removed a large boulder from its Madison campus on Friday at the request of minority students who view the rock as a symbol of racism.  Chamberlin Rock, on the top of Observatory Hill, is named after Thomas Crowder Chamberlin, a geologist and former university president.  Students of color on campus say the rock represents a history of discrimination.

Maybe you should switch to Talcum X.
Lawsuit citing baby-powder cancer concerns alleges Johnson & Johnson targeted Blacks.  Civil rights attorney Ben Crump announced this week he filed a lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson, alleging the company targeted Black women with its sales of baby powder that allegedly caused cancer.  Representing the National Council of Negro Women, Mr. Crump said the company's talcum-based baby powder has links to ovarian cancer and it was specifically marketed to Black women.  "It is about the lives of our grandmothers, our mothers, our sisters, our daughters, our nieces and our wives and how they were cynically targeted by Johnson & Johnson, this multi-billion dollar corporation," Mr. Crump, best known for representing the family of George Floyd, said at a press conference.

The Editor says...
If there was a National Council of White Women, do you think they'd be accused of racism?

What's Dumber Than CRT?  CNN.  As we discussed last week, "critical race theory" is a subtle philosophical construct where the answer to everything is:  THAT'S RACIST!  Teachers hawking this glop are being defended by their journalist allies, who sneer that CRT critics are too stupid to understand the nuances of the theory.  The Aristotelian ideal of this sneer was Elle Reeve's "special report" for CNN — pre-taped to eliminate any danger of Elle being contradicted by someone smarter, such as a 10-year-old.  CNN's Brianna Keilar introduced the segment by asking her:  "Do these vocal opponents of critical race theory actually understand fully what it is?"  (That's what's known as a "rhetorical question," kids!)  Elle:  "No."  [Bored]  "And why should they?  It's an academic theory taught mostly at the grad student level.  But what they think it means is teaching white kids that all white people are bad and racist.  And so, of course they're afraid of that."  They're afraid!!!  Wait — remind me:  Who's banning books, again?  Who's flipping out about "microaggressions"?  Who's demanding that Big Tech censor people?  Who's demanding "trigger warnings" and "safe spaces" from speech they don't like?

Nature Is Racist? 'Systemic Racism' Blocks Black People From Going Outdoors.  A report published by Outside Interactive alleged that America's historically racist policies have contributed to "the nature gap," resulting in black Americans having less enjoyment of the so-called "great outdoors."  Erin Key, the report's author, is pushing for minorities to use their free time outdoors in nature through the use of grants and advocacy work.  She does not, however, mention that there are no modern laws prohibiting non-whites from visiting public nature sites.

PSA: Fish Are Now Racist.  In this episode of "What's Racist Today?", we'd like to announce that the woke prophets have spun the wheel of things to call bigoted and have landed on our scaly friends from beneath the waves.  [Tweet]  The controversy stems over Asian carp, several invasive species that have threatened rivers and the Great Lakes.  The fish are destroying local ecosystems and are known to jump out of the water at boaters when spooked.

Bug experts get rid of the name 'gypsy moth' because some Roma people consider it to be an ethnic slur.  Bug experts are getting rid of the name 'gypsy moth' because some Roma people consider it to be an ethnic slur.  The Entomological Society of America, which oversees the common names of bugs, is getting rid of the common name of that critter and the lesser-known gypsy ant.  The group this week announced that for the first time it changed a common name of an insect because it was offensive.  In the past they've only reassigned names that weren't scientifically accurate.

Washington Post Warns:  Calling Food 'Exotic' Reinforces Xenophobia, Racism.  Referring to food as "exotic" creates distance between individuals and groups and "reinforces xenophobia and racism," according to a recent Washington Post article which, instead, suggests people ask themselves why they are unfamiliar with certain foods and question their willingness to change that.  The Thursday [7/8/2021] article, written by the paper's food section staff writer, Daniela Galarza, and titled "Stop calling food 'exotic,'" begins by quoting a couple who praised Afghan restaurants and referred to the cuisine served as "exotic," in an old Post essay.

Black Lives Matter Says US Flag Is a Symbol of Hate.  The Black Lives Matter activist group, which reported 2020 earnings of $90 million dollars in a down economy, still can't seem to find happiness.  Despite that fact that co-founder Patrisse Cullors has managed to make a decent enough living to afford four homes across the United States, the group is still boohooing to anyone gullible enough listen.  BLM's latest claim is that the US Flag is a "symbol of hate".  On the Fourth of July, Utah's Black Lives Matter Chapter posted a message on Facebook saying:  "We know the person flying it is not safe to be around.  When we see this flag we know the person flying it is a racist.  When we see this flag we know that the person flying it lives in a different America than we do.  When we see this flag, we question your intelligence.  We know to avoid you.  It is a symbol of hatred."

This is amusing.  Blacks, who commit most of the violent crime in this country, say we're the ones who are dangerous.
BLM chapter leader says anyone flying Old Glory is 'racist' and not safe to be around.  Utah's Black Lives Matter chapter has labeled everyone who flies an American flag "a racist" in a Facebook screed posted over the Independence Day holiday, reports noted on Thursday.  "When we Black Americans see this flag we know the person flying it is not safe to be around," says the post.  "When we see this flag we know the person flying it is a racist.  "When we see this flag we know that the person flying it lives in a different America than we do.  When we see this flag, we question your intelligence.  We know to avoid you.  It is a symbol of hatred," the post continued.

The Editor says...
If you're black, I can see how you might want to steer clear of a bunch of guys flying a Confederate flag.  But a normal American flag?  Really?

Spike Lee at Cannes:  Black people still 'hunted down like animals'.  Director and producer Spike Lee declared Tuesday [7/6/2021] that more than 30 years after he made "Do The Right Thing," Black people are still being "hunted down like animals" in America.  During the Cannes Film Festival jury press conference in France, Mr. Lee, who is the first Black person to lead the jury, spoke highly of the late film critic Roger Ebert after his widow mentioned her late husband was outraged and had even threatened to boycott the festival after "Do The Right Thing" didn't win any awards in 1989. [...] Radio Raheem, a fictional character in "Do the Right Thing," dies at the hands of police in the film.  The role was played by actor Bill Nunn, who died of leukemia in 2016 at age 62.

Marjorie Taylor Greene blasts Cori Bush for bizarre race-baiting July 4 tweet.  Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene blasted progressive Missouri Democrat Rep. Cori Bush for what she said was a racist tweet when Bush wrote that "Black people still aren't free."  In response, Greene said that "You can stop with the racism now Cori and put your race card back in your pocket.  4th of July is freedom for all from a tyrannical government.  Happy Independence Day!"

Squad member Cori Bush sparks outrage by saying she won't celebrate Independence Day because 'this land is stolen and black people still aren't free'.  Missouri Congresswoman Cori Bush sparked controversy on Sunday with a tweet in which she said Independence Day was only a holiday for white people.  'When they say that the 4th of July is about American freedom, remember this:  the freedom they're referring to is for white people,' she wrote. 'This land is stolen land and Black people still aren't free.'  Bush, who was first elected to the House of Representatives in November, has been widely viewed as the newest member of the so-called 'Squad' of congresswomen known for being outspoken on their left-wing views, and she is no stranger to controversy.

National Geographic Says 4th of July Fireworks Are Racist Because Smoke Disproportionately Affects Black People.  National Geographic posted an unhinged and unscientific tweet on Independence Day saying fireworks are racist because they affect communities of color. [...] This is what can be described as "scientism" and NOT "science."  There is absolutely no proof to support this theory.  In fact, in cities like St.  Louis and New York City, minorities shoot off guns on New Year's Eve and the 4th of July.  This is much more dangerous than sniffing fireworks smoke for a night.

The Editor says...
[#1] If you can smell the smoke from a fireworks show, you're in the wrong place.  If you're close enough to smell the smoke, the explosions themselves are a greater risk.  [#2] How many days per year does the average black person light fireworks?  Not many.  How many black people intentionally inhale smoke every day?  Over six million.  (14.9 percent of non-Hispanic Blacks, of which there are 40.6 million in the U.S.)

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot sparks outrage by claiming '99% of her critics are racist and sexist'.  Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has blasted her critics as sexist and racist — just six weeks after she sparked fury by refusing to be interviewed by white journalists.  Her comments came in an interview with WTTW, a local PBS station, when she was discussing the city's recent spike in violence as well as critiques of her approach to handling it.  Phil Ponce, of WTTW, said, 'In recent months, there have been questions raised about your temperament and your reaction to criticism — a (Chicago) Tribune editorial used the term irascible — how much of this do you think might have to do with the fact that you're a woman and specifically a black woman?'  In response, Lightfoot said, '99 percent of it.'

The Rise of Equity Charges at Restaurants.  Jon Miltimore of Fee.org recently published an article on the expansion of 'equity' and 'living wage' charges at restaurants around the country and why many of the underlying economic assumptions made by these establishments are erroneous or performative.  A restaurant local to him, Broders', is one such place.  In a portion of his piece titled 'The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,' Miltimore walks the reader through its stated purpose and reasoning for these new, "inclusive" policies.

Restaurants Are Now Adding 'Equity' Charges to Customers' Checks to Fight Oppression.  Located in southwest Minneapolis, Broders Pasta Bar is a local gem. [...] On its website, Broders' has a notice to customers notifying them of a new 15 percent "benefits and equity" charge they've instituted.  They justify the charge, first, by explaining that "many states have allowed reduced minimum wages for service staff in the form of a tip credit."  The restaurant's second justification is that many tippers are racist and sexist, according to uncited research.  "Studies have also shown that there is inequity and built-in bias in the way consumers give tips," the statement reads.  "In general, Black or Brown servers receive less tips than Caucasian servers.  There is gender bias as well."  The final part of the statement says the new policy stems from wider racial injustice and is not a substitute for gratuity.

The Editor says...
[#1] Why would anyone eat at a restaurant that assumes its customers are a bunch of racist oppressors -- and says as much on its website?  [#2] This new surcharge is partly in lieu of a higher minimum wage and partly in lieu of reparations for slavery.  You're paying for the effects of the socialist platform, whether it is ever enacted as law or not.  [#3] The restaurant management is overlooking the strong likelihood that the cheapest, stingiest, most miserly customers in town are themselves black.  Everything I've ever heard from restaurant workers I've known indicates that blacks are the worst tippers in any restaurant.

Black diversity chief out after failing to mention Islamophobia in statement rejecting antisemitism.  A Black Jewish diversity chief at a nonprofit group for children's book authors resigned amid backlash after she neglected to specifically condemn Islamophobia in a statement denouncing antisemitism.  April Powers, chief equity and inclusion officer at the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, issued a statement this month saying the organization denounces "all forms of hate, including antisemitism," citing an uptick in crimes against Jewish people.  Critics apparently took issue with Islamophobia not being specifically mentioned in the statement.  Ms. Powers apologized in a statement announcing her resignation Sunday, saying she "neglected to address the rise in Islamophobia, and deeply regret that omission."

Why Black people are disproportionately dying in traffic accidents.  Black people represented the largest increase in traffic deaths last year than any other racial group, even as Americans drove less overall due to the pandemic, according to recently released data. [...] And Black people are more likely to face traffic injuries in general; from 2010-2019, Black pedestrians were 82 percent more likely to be hit by drivers, according to a 2021 report from Smart Growth America, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group focused on urban development.  Calvin Gladney, president of Smart Growth America, said the pandemic has only exacerbated the longstanding problem.  He said there are three major reasons Black people bear the brunt of roadway injuries:  infrastructure, design and racism.  Predominantly Black neighborhoods are less likely to have crosswalks, warning signs and other safety mechanisms, he said.  And many high-speed highways are in or go through communities of color, thanks to a federal effort in the 1950s to modernize the nation's roadways.

The Editor says...
Ri-i-i-ight.  Blacks are systematically targeted -- years in advance -- by those evil highway architects and engineers!  A more likely explanation of black pedestrian deaths includes these factors:  [#1] Blacks routinely disregard crosswalks and traffic signals, and cross the street wherever they please.  [#2] Blacks do not hurry when crossing the street, because that would be "acting white."  You need only drive to downtown Dallas and observe pedestrian traffic for ten minutes.  Blacks walk more slowly in the street than they do on the sidewalk.  This isn't a baseless stereotype.  I've seen this myself:  Blacks wait until the light turns red, and then they amble into the street, defying the motorists to run over them.  [#3] Blacks naturally have less visibility at night, and are sometimes nearly invisible, especially if they choose to be.  Combine all three, and there's a problem, but it is a problems that's easily dealt with.

Traffic fatalities are now part of structural racism.  A recent analysis from NBC News may be demonstrating a new twist in consistent memes we've seen from liberals in recent years.  One theory that we've been hearing for quite a while now is that "everything is racist."  (Or everything is racism.)  I'm sure most of you are familiar with that one.  The more recent trend, at least among Democrats[,] is to say that everything is infrastructure.  It's not just roads and bridges anymore.  People are infrastructure.  Climate change is infrastructure. [...] But now, brought to us by Char Adams at NBC, we see a confluence that even I wouldn't have predicted.  Infrastructure is racism. [...] You see, there was an alarming uptick in traffic deaths in 2020, at least according to this report.  And among the victims of these accidents, a larger than anticipated percentage of the people who died in these accidents were Black.  And that's because of the roads and associated transportation infrastructure.  So the roadways are racist.

So America is racist, huh?  In the 1920s at its apogee, the KKK had anywhere from 3 to 8 million members.  At the time, the American population was approximately 110 million.  That would mean that somewhere in the ballpark of 5% of the American population would have been members of the Klan.  Included in that group were doctors, lawyers, politicians, and even a future Supreme Court justice.  Today, the number of Americans who are part of the Klan is estimated to be between 3,000 and 5,000.  With our larger population, that works out to be 0.000015% of our population.  Were the number 5% as in 1920, there would be 15 million Klan members in the U.S. today.  But there aren't.  In fact, there's been a reduction of 99.99% of members of the premier racist organization in American history. [...] If America were a nation of racism incarnate, we'd likely not have had a black president.  We'd likely not pour billions of dollars a year into the pockets of black entertainers or put them on the pedestals or jerseys or wall posters.  It's unlikely that 8% of American millionaires would be black or that the last two federal holidays created would have been centered on black history.

St. Paul Target employees offended over Juneteenth display in break room.  Several employees at a St.  Paul Target store complained to management about a tabletop display in the break room for Juneteenth that included cherry Kool-Aid packets, watermelon candy and servings of hot sauce.  The display was set up for Juneteenth by a human resources manager at the Midway Target on University Avenue and had different iterations before it was removed on Tuesday [6/22/2021] following concerns by workers that the table was offensive and glorified stereotypes of Black people, employees said.

Ikea Atlanta Juneteenth menu changed after blowback over plans to serve fried chicken, watermelon.  Retailer Ikea is under fire after one of its stores reportedly sent out a lunch menu for a Juneteenth celebration that is said to have featured certain dishes that perpetuate racial stereotypes.  An Atlanta Ikea store sent a letter to employees last week to inform them of the celebration, which allegedly included a note about a "special menu" including items like fried chicken, watermelon and other foods with ties to racism, as reported by local CBS affiliate.  The meal was intended as an internal celebration for store workers, not for customers.

The Editor says...
Most stereotypes are based in obvious reality and are embarrassing and usually humorous but no one is harmed.  Black people like fried chicken, as do many others.  Accommodating that demand is not racist.

CRT says MAGA is racist
Leaked Documents from Iowa School System show Teachers are FORCED to classify [MAGA] as a type of "racism" & "white supremacy".  [Thread reader]  This is done through MANDATORY Critical Race Theory training FORCED on teachers at taxpayer expense.  Trump won Iowa by +9 points[.]  Teachers of Iowa are being INSTRUCTED to classify the vast majority of Iowan children as Racist & White Supremacist.  Iowa is Trump country.  Trump carried 94 out of 99 Iowa counties in 2020.  The Republican Governor endorsed Trump.  The Iowa Senate/House is solid Republican.  This is a ROCK SOLID, REAL WORLD application of Critical Race Theory being used as a *political* weapon to target Republicans.  This is NOT education.  It is naked political vengeance using the state education system and our children's educators.


If everybody is racist, then nobody is.  Now that racism has been outlawed in business, and racists have been driven from the public square, you don't witness much racism in America.  Being racist is a bad move socially and career-wise.  That's good.  But black achievement in America still lags badly behind white, Asian and Hispanic achievement.  The black illegitimacy rate is triple the white rate and the black murder rate is 7x the white rate.  Both figures are worse than before affirmative action, worse than before the Great Society programs of the 60s and 70s, and even worse than the days of Jim Crow laws.  The latest explanation for this continued malaise is that there's a type of racism that you can't see, but can only feel, and it's getting worse.  They call it "systemic racism."  Systemic racism in America is like water to a fish in a pond.  It's everywhere, but undetectable except in its effect.  That effect is to keep American blacks uniquely — not Asians or Hispanics or even black African immigrants — oppressed.  A scientific sounding name has been assigned to this:  "Critical Race Theory."  The people who dreamed up the name ironically seem to think that calling it a "theory" makes it true.

Appeasement only leads to more and greater demands.
Squad member Cori Bush now calls for reparations and 'black liberation' after House votes to make Juneteenth a 'National Independence Day' federal holiday.  Squad member, Rep. Cori Bush said on Wednesday night [6/16/2021] that black Americans now need reparations and 'liberation' after the House approved a bill making Juneteenth a federal holiday known as 'National Independence Day'.  President Biden is set to sign the bill at an event with Kamala Harris on Thursday afternoon after it passed through Congress, with 14 Republican members voting against and saying it conflicted with July 4.  'It's Juneteenth AND reparations.  It's Juneteenth AND end police violence + the War on Drugs.  It's Juneteenth AND end housing + education apartheid.  It's Juneteenth AND teach the truth about white supremacy in our country,' she wrote in a tweet Wednesday night.  'Black liberation in its totality must be prioritized,' the Missouri Democrat encouraged.

Six Ways The Black Community Is Hurt By Democrat Policies.  [#2] Selling the Victim Mindset:  The victim mindset scam, packaged most recently under Critical Race Theory but stretching back decades, is the singularly most harmful element of Democrat policy afflicting the black community.  How can it not be?  Democrats are actively telling an entire group of people, based solely on the immutable characteristic of their skin color, that they are destined to be second-class citizens so long as whitey rules the roost.  Nothing inspires hope and optimism like believing innate gifts or effort will do little to change your station in life.  Candace Owens tells the black community — and really any community — that the choice of outlook is between a victor mindset or a victim mindset.  Seeing oneself as a victor means that you make of life what you can.  A victor faces challenges, but they see themself as able to overcome challenges and believe their destiny is in their own hands.  Conversely, seeing oneself as a victim means that external forces are there to be blamed.

The Racial 'Crisis' in Wisconsin.  The accusation that America is deeply, irredeemably stained by systemic racism is not up for debate.  No white person can be innocent.  Your individual conscience is irrelevant.  Each one of us is a white supremacist benefitting from a white supremacist structure.  We must confess our "white privilege."  So, if we're so overwhelmingly dominant, why can't we disagree? [...] The city of La Crosse is 89% white and 2.4% black.  The [La Crosse] Tribune obviously sees itself as the aggressive guardian of the 2.4% in shaming the 89%.  In these lengthy articles, there is no spokesman for an opposing view.  Oh, there are apologetic school administrators on the defensive.  There are shadowy local student villains making videos where they repeat hip-hop lyrics with racial slurs on the internet.  But no one is allowed to debate the American Civil Liberties Union or the black students at La Crosse Logan High School that are the central victims of the story.

Communicable Victimhood.  [Scroll down]  This default to victimhood likely finds its roots in the postmodern philosophy permeating American culture.  This neo-Marxist philosophy places society squarely into a victim or victimizer bucket, and nobody wants to be seen as a victimizer.  This same philosophy ensures that regardless of the circumstances, at no point is attribution given to the individual, but rather to the system.  Whether it's Barack Obama claiming that you didn't build your own business or Critical Race Theorists chalking up individual crimes to centuries of oppression, you are never responsible for the worst or the best of your choices.  Your choices are merely the byproduct of systems to be overthrown.  In the end, you are only responsible for your intentional acts to abdicate your victimizer status. [...] Politicians have found that there is influence to be acquired in wielding victim status as a weapon.

Is Anyone Else Noticing a Pattern With the Increase in 'Random' Attacks on White People?  A 350-pound, large-breasted man pummeled a diminutive woman (actually two women) in Gardena, Calif., over the weekend.  Fortunately, the second beating was caught on video, leading to the suspect's arrest.  The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department released surveillance photos and video showing the shirtless "man" coolly walk up to a woman and brutally pound her.  He then continued to hit her as she was on the ground. [...] Mystery motive?  Random?  No reason?  How's this:  the Democrats and the lefty media demonize white people 24/7.  Biden has black people believing gangs of white supremacists are patrolling in pick-ups looking to lynch their kids.  The left tells black people, "You are a victim.  Systemic racism and oppression are keeping you down and white people are to blame."  What happens when you tell people they are helpless victims?  They lash out.

Washington Post reporter troubled by 'racist legacy' of some birds.  According to The Washington Post, it's hunting season for cancel culture and its latest targets are "racist" birds.  The Post ran an expansive report on Thursday, titled "The racist legacy many birds carry," focused on the "birding community," which apparently is having a difficult debate "about the names of species connected to enslavers, supremacists and grave robbers."  "Corina Newsome is a Black ornithologist, as rare as some of the birds she studies," Post environmental justice reporter Darryl Fears began his piece, noting she was hired to "break down barriers" at the Georgia Audubon nature preserve.

The Editor says...
Lots of places and things are named after badly flawed people.  Get over it.  The people insisting on renaming them all are at least as badly flawed.

'Woke' medicine is coming to a hospital near you.  According to Katie Herzog, writing at Bari Weiss's Substack blog, Critical Race Theory is aggressively intruding on physicians' ability to treat patients, do research, or train the next generation of doctors.  Katie Herzog's "What Happens When Doctors Can't Tell the Truth?" examines a world in which doctors are silenced for fear that they will be destroyed professionally should they run afoul of the Critical Race Theory infecting medical care across America and in which young doctors, imbued with "anti-racist" zeal have the whip hand. [...] The only way to stand up to what's happening is through collective action.  Woke people, drunk with power and the urge to avenge wrongs that predate their births, quickly form mobs that surround and destroy anyone who offends them.

What Happens When Doctors Can't Tell the Truth?  They meet once a month on Zoom: a dozen doctors from around the country with distinguished careers in different specialities.  They vary in ethnicity, age and sexual orientation.  Some work for the best hospitals in the U.S. or teach at top medical schools.  Others are dedicated to serving the most vulnerable populations in their communities.  The meetings are largely a support group.  The members share their concerns about what's going on in their hospitals and universities, and strategize about what to do.  What is happening, they say, is the rapid spread of a deeply illiberal ideology in the country's most important medical institutions.  This dogma goes by many imperfect names — wokeness, social justice, critical race theory, anti-racism — but whatever it's called, the doctors say this ideology is stifling critical thinking and dissent in the name of progress.

What if I'm Right?  [Scroll down]  But instead of changing minds, the passing of the years has only made the dominant discourse ever more absurdly antiquarian.  For example, the failure of property values to boom in black neighborhoods in the 53 years since redlining was abolished has not made it more acceptable to point out that if blacks want higher prices in their neighborhoods, they should work harder on being better neighbors.  Instead of noting that the hundreds of black inner-city riots last year have helped drive this year's housing boom in suburbs and small towns, the prestige press has decided to obsess over the Tulsa riot of 100 years ago (which was started by blacks but ended by whites) as the reason blacks aren't rich today.

Wokeness and Victimhood.  If there's a topic the woke like talking about most, it's themselves.  This is not unusual for people obsessed with their own well-being, status, and influence over others.  Which pretty much sums up the mindset of most of the woke.  A culture based on such values easily tips over into narcissistic exhibitionism — the obsessive desire to parade one's self before others:  nothing could be more important than satisfying the craving for attention, approval, and adulation. [...] Life-coaches, life-style gurus, chat-show hosts, and other promoters of 'well-being' have now turned this into a constant searching for the 'real me' or the 'me you can't see.'  The performative display of this quest for authenticity consists of celebrating fragility instead of overcoming it.  This is existentialism woke-style.  Among the woke it is seen as a virtue to open up about one's mental health issues, or merely one's emotional fragility.  Receiving therapy brings status.

George Floyd's Family Demands 'Federal Laws to Protect People of Color' After Meeting Joe Biden at the White House.  The family of George Floyd met with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday [5/25/2021], urging him to work for and sign police reform legislation.  "If you can make federal laws to protect the bird, which is the bald eagle, you can make federal laws to protect people of color," Floyd's brother, Philonise Floyd, told reporters after the meeting.

The Editor says...
Yes, someday the Republicans will pass the Civil Rights Act of 1965, after the Democrats use the filibuster to delay it as long as possible.

Unconscious Reprogramming:  The Deepest Form of War.  The whole premise of anti-unconscious-bias training is that large numbers of Americans are already brainwashed by a flawed culture; they're unconscious bigots who need to be deprogrammed.  "Many organizations have considered adopting unconscious-bias training to address their roles in perpetuating racism and inequality.  This kind of training seeks to make participants aware of their biases, in a blame-free manner."  People are already brainwashed; it just needs to be turned left-side up.  Since a disease of the unconscious must be cured at the same level.  Attitude training is a battle for the subliminal mind of a civilization.

Democrat Left's Critical Race Theory Preaches Black Failure.  Black Lives Matter, the "diversity" police, and other "systemic racism"-mongers relentlessly claim that white privilege and white supremacy blockade black success.  Blacks think, "Yes, we can."  The Democrat left replies:  "No, you can't."  Last June, Seattle staged something called Interrupting Internalized Racial Superiority and Whiteness.  This segregated brainwashing program for white municipal workers accused them of rendering people of color "unable to imagine a way forward that comes from a place of humanity and empowerment."  So, blacks are paralyzed victims, as helpless as butterflies ensnared in a tarantula's web of white racism.  This frightful fantasy is concocted to leave blacks cold and scared — all the better to swaddle them in the warm, loving arms of the left.

Anti-Gun Mayor Says She's The Victim After Husband Busted On Drug, Gun Charges.  What's an anti-gun mayor supposed to say when police raid her home and find illegally possessed firearms and illicit drugs inside?  In the case of Rochester, New York mayor Lovely Warren, the answer is to claim that you're the victim of a political investigation and an attempt to derail your re-election campaign. [...] "Tim" is Timothy Granison, Warren's husband and the alleged owner of an unregistered handgun discovered in the couple's home earlier this week (a modern sporting rifle was found as well, though so far police haven't said if was registered with the state as required under New York's SAFE Act set of gun control laws).  Warren's correct in noting that she's not currently facing charges in connection with the drug investigation, though the mayor is facing felony charges of her own in a case involving alleged violations of the state's campaign financing laws.

Amazon halts construction at Connecticut site after 7th 'noose' found.  Amazon is halting construction at a facility in Windsor, Connecticut after workers discovered the seventh case of a "rope which could be interpreted as a noose" at the site.  The first six were discovered at the work site during the last week of April.  The latest was Wednesday [5/20/2021], when officers on a private duty assignment "were made aware of the discovery of a rope which could be interpreted as a noose hanging within overhead beams on the site," police said.  "We continue to be deeply disturbed by the incidents happening at the construction site in Windsor and have ordered its shut down until necessary security measures can be put in place," Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said.

Is Mom's Apple Pie a Symbol of Oppression?  There is nothing more American than mom's apple pie.  The image of the hot sugar-crusted pie is a happy memory for countless Americans.  Variations of this tasty dessert belong to all American mothers regardless of race or ethnic origin.  Leave it to progressive demagogues to find a way to tear down this cultural icon.  They cannot let an apple be an apple.  They deconstruct an apple pie to always find a hidden racist or oppressive narrative.  The Left rejects the truth that apple pie is just an easy-to-make dessert.  Instead, it denounces what it calls "food injustice."  This sour exercise consists of tracing food origins and reading oppressive narratives into them.  These same people will look at modern food chains and find exploitive labor and other practices embedded in their production processes.

Reality Check.  [Scroll down]  Moreover, there is the Heisenbergian factor:  If a lot of blacks had moved into the neighborhood, it wouldn't have gone up in value as much.  The fundamental reason that homes don't appreciate as fast in blacker neighborhoods is not their tragic dirt, but because blacks tend to be lousier neighbors.  Fortunately, there is an obvious win-win solution:  If blacks want to make more money off home ownership, they should work harder at being better neighbors.  Unfortunately, nobody is supposed to mention any such bracing realities to African-Americans.  It is widely assumed that blacks can't handle the truth.  Instead, everybody is supposed to reassure them of how oppressed they are.

Saying "No" to Black People.  San Dimas is a city in L.A. County.  Demographics:  roughly 50% non-Hispanic white, 33% Hispanic of any race, 14% Asian, 1.8% black.  Last month in San Dimas an L.A. County Sheriff's deputy pulled over a woman who was texting while driving, a ticketable offense in this state.  The deputy was a calm, composed Hispanic (as I've often mentioned, the LASD is over 50% Hispanic).  And the driver was a [...] crazy black lady, a college professor (though currently not employed as such) who tried every trick she could to bait the deputy into a confrontation.  Body-cam footage captured the incident.  In a voice dripping with hostility, Textquesha repeatedly calls the deputy a "murderer."  "You're a murderer, you're a murderer."  The deputy remains as cool as Fonzie in a fridge.  He continues about his business, not taking the bait, but not bending.  "You scared me and made me think you were going to murder me," the woman bleats.  "You're threatening to kill me and my son!  You're trying to threaten to kill me."

Illinois Lawmaker Wants to Stop Hair Discrimination in Schools: 'These Policies Are Outdated'.  An Illinois lawmaker this week introduced a proposal that he said is aimed at stopping discrimination in schools based on a student's hair — citing his own experience growing up.  State Sen. Mike Simmons, a Democrat from the northside of Chicago, introduced his legislation on Monday [5/10/2021].  If passed, it would bar schools from having rules against "hairstyles historically associated with race, ethnicity, or hair texture," specifically referring to "hairstyles such as braids, locks, and twists."

Symone Sanders 'hurt' that Biden picked Psaki over her for press secretary, Wa-Po reports.  The problem with those who go through life perceiving themselves as victims is that their victimhood lives on in perpetuity.  Symone Sanders, 31, senior adviser to Vice President Kamala Harris, is reportedly "hurt" that she wasn't selected over White House press secretary Jen Psaki to be President Joe Biden's spokesperson.  Sanders bailed on Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., — no relation — after briefly serving as press secretary during his 2016 presidential campaign.  After joining CNN later in the year as a contributor, Sanders declared, "We don't need white people leading the Democratic Party right now."

Republicans fight big-government control in broadband expansion plan.  House Democrats want to spend $100 billion to expand broadband internet to poor rural and inner-city communities and make permanent a COVID-19 program that pays $50 a month of the internet bill for low-income families while setting maximum prices that providers can charge in some cases.  The pandemic highlighted the importance of being able to afford online access for everyday activities such as going to school or seeing a doctor, President Biden and top Democrats on Capitol Hill say.  The issue fits into the Democrats' priority of reducing racial inequity in the U.S. Studies show that Black and Hispanic families are less likely than White families to have broadband service at home.

The Editor says...
[#1] Broadband internet service is not a right.  Narrow-band internet service (which is what most of us think we have) is far better than none.  [#2] If you need "broadband service" so you can watch nasty shows 24/7 on your 54-inch TV set, I have a hard time feeling sorry for you.

Things I Never Knew Existed:  Wealthy Black Communities.  At the risk of modeling a "soft bigotry of low expectations" and/or sounding racist, here goes nothing:  I recently learned that there are several majority-black, upper-class communities in America.  And I am not talking like an inversion of George Floyd Square that encompasses a few blocks; I am talking entire developments and dedicated city areas.  It's not necessarily surprising given the profundity of opportunity in and greatness of this country, and yet I genuinely didn't know such prosperous communities existed.  After all, we bathe in lies about systemic oppression.The stories told are generally of poverty, despair, and chains for the black population.  Moreover, people like Lebron James and Patrisse Cullors move to predominantly white neighborhoods, evidently eschewing their own kind and further cementing the idea that only white communities could be upper-middle class.  For all their blather and hatred, why not move in with other brothers?  And then there are people like Don Lemon, Lori Lightfoot, and Kamala Harris who willfully marry into white families, so for all of the talk of black solidarity and the evils of whiteness, apparently that's only a thing for other white people.  Their whites are okay.

Michelle Obama says she fears for her daughters when they drive amid police shootings.  Former first lady Michelle Obama fears for her daughters when they get behind the wheel of a car amid police use-of-force incidents, she said.  Obama is "breathing a sigh of relief" after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter in the death of George Floyd, though she said there's "still work to be done."  "Many of us [black people] still live in fear as we go to the grocery store or walking our dogs or allowing our children to get a license.  I mean, just imagine — [my daughters] are driving, but every time they get in a car by themselves, I worry about what assumption is being made by somebody who doesn't know everything about them," she said of her daughters, Malia and Sasha, in an interview with CBS News released Friday [5/7/2021].

The Editor says...
I find that difficult to believe.  Doesn't the entire Obama family have 24/7 Secret Service protection?  Do the Obama daughters actually drive by themselves?  Isn't that a liability issue?

Blaming Jim Crow, Northwestern student journalist says the way White people walk on sidewalks is too racist.  The opinion editor of the Northwestern University's student newspaper recently published an article asserting that White people walk awkwardly on sidewalks because of their internalized racism.  "When I first got to Northwestern, I wondered why walking around on campus could be so frustrating.  Even when sidewalks were relatively empty, I would often have to walk way around people to pass without bumping into them," wrote Kenny Allen of The Daily Northwestern, "At first, I chalked it up to the geographic diversity of the school; maybe the people that came to this school were used to different ways of moving through a public place."  However, after "talking to [his] Black friends about my experience," Allen concluded that "people at this predominantly White school would not move out of our way on the sidewalk."

Ag Secretary Vilsack says U.S. needs to address 'cumulative' bias against Black farmers.  Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Wednesday the administration will press ahead with plans to aid Black farmers for the "cumulative effect" of past discrimination by Washington, brushing aside a lawsuit by White farmers alleging discrimination because they are not eligible for a COVID-19 loan forgiveness program for disadvantaged producers.  Mr. Vilsack said White farmers "did pretty well" under pandemic relief programs prior to the Biden administration's $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, signed into law in March.  But he said "socially disadvantaged" farmers need more help due to decades of discrimination.

The Editor says...
Wasn't such discrimination outlawed years ago?  Were any formal complaints filed about the alleged discrimination?  If this supposed discrimination went on for decades, isn't that the government's fault?  If you're a farmer, living in the middle of nowhere and attending to the crops and the animals all day long, do you care if you're "socially disadvantaged?"

Black Penn State profs report 'noose' behind house; ends up being part of neighbor's swing set.  Earlier this week, a pair of black Penn State University professors reported a "noose" in a tree behind their house.  As reported by the PSU student newspaper Daily Collegian, the professors said the incident was "deeply distressing to them and their family."  The Centre Daily Times notes the profs believed the "noose" was "deliberately placed [on the tree] to harass them."  Responding to the profs' call about "possible harassment," Patton Township Police Department collected the "noose" and began investigating around the neighborhood.  PSU President Eric Barron sprung into action, posting a statement "expressing concern" about the incident and "offering support."

Don't Confuse an Accident with a Crime.  For those who think now-former Brooklyn Center police officer Kim Potter should be charged with a crime — let alone murder — I have a simple question: if a surgeon accidentally nicks an artery and kills a patient when she mistakes the scalpel in her hand for a prober, should she be charged with murder, or even manslaughter?  Answer: no.  After all, the surgeon did this thing we all do:  she made a mistake.  She had no ill intent, let alone malice.  Despite the best intentions and protocols, it sadly happens on occasion, and especially in the heat of the moment during a pressure filled situation like surgery.  The question is, what should happen when it does?

America's Real White Supremacy Problem.  [T]he Nazis seem to have made a comeback — according to the Department of Homeland Security, the media, and Joe Biden.  While self-identifying Nazis tend to be in short supply, organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center have taken to slapping the label "White Supremacist" on any number of replacements who, conveniently, happen to be their political opponents.  Real white supremacists don't say they're white supremacists, they argue.  So leftists opportunely and telepathically continue to find "white supremacists" among those who oppose them politically.  The accused can try to deny their white supremacist tendencies.  But there's really no way to prove you're not a white supremacist because denying your white supremacist tendencies is exactly what a white supremacist would do.  Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham are white supremacists, according to the SPLC. So too are the police.  According to The Hill, our modern police directly evolved from pre-Civil War "slave patrols" that rounded up escaped slaves.

A Great New Idea for Reducing Police Shootings.  [Scroll down]  This is America 2021.  Of course we are amid a horrible once-in-a-century pandemic, but systemically we have no real societal problems — so we make up our own problems. [...] The last remaining vestiges of racism in America ended at least a quarter century ago, as we institutionalized giving preferential treatment to discrete minorities applying for schools, for jobs, for government loans, for housing assistance.  We even elected a Black head of government — twice — something that no other White country has done:  not England, not France, not Italy, not Scotland, not Ireland, not Germany, not Greece, not Belgium, not Russia.  Throughout Asia:  China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam always have been headed only and exclusively by people in the dominant racial and ethnic majority.

Charlotte arts group apologizes for funding city's symphony, opera and children's theater since 1958 — calling them 'white, Western Eurocentric organizations'.  An arts advocacy group in Charlotte, North Carolina, is facing backlash after it apologized for funding 'white, Western Eurocentric organizations' including the city's symphony, ballet and children's theater.  The Arts & Science Council, which has been a main source of funding for arts and cultural groups in the Charlotte area since 1958, issued the extraordinary apology in a February report examining its funding practices.  The group receives more than $3 million a year directly from the city, along with getting funding from philanthropies.  It gave out $4.3 million in grants to 37 arts and culture organizations last year, according to the Charlotte Business Journal.  The nonprofit group has an endowment of nearly $40 million.

The Editor says...
Never apologize to the "woke" mob, especially when no apology has been solicited.

Chauvin Trial:  The Scottsboro Case in Whiteface.  Beginning last May, Minneapolis was the scene of riots in protest of George Floyd's death, riots that destroyed 100 buildings and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage from fires and looting.  By June of that year the area riots were the cause of two deaths and over $500 million in damage.  The corporate media and (I'm sorry to say, universities and schools as well) harped on the death as yet more evidence of some nonsense called "systemic racism," suggesting that the death was deliberate.  In fact, none of the three charges against Chauvin indicated that he intentionally killed George Floyd. [...] Press accounts bought the race baiters' claim of an "epidemic" of police shooting unarmed black males.  Depending on your political inclinations, estimates of the numbers vary.  Very liberal respondents to surveys said about 10,000 unarmed black males were killed by police, The actual figure for the 2019, last year in which I can find figures, was eleven.

This is one of the dumbest opinions ever propagated through an excerpt on this web site:
The climate crisis demands a national Black climate agenda.  Climate change is not an isolated crisis — it is a symptom of our economic system.  That system has jeopardized the future of life on this planet.  According to two independent, globally reviewed and scientifically-based reports give us less than a decade before we reach the point of no return with the global climate crisis. [...] The climate is going through human accelerated change that threatens all life on earth.  It is important that we understand climate change as a byproduct of an economic system based on extraction, exploitation, accumulation through dispossession — and racism.

The Editor says...
[#1] Racism does not cause global warming.  [#2] Ask Oprah Winfrey, Bill Cosby, or any of several overpaid basketball players if they find capitalism (or the weather!) to be especially oppressive because of their race.  [#3] The world-wide economic system has not "jeopardized the future of life on this planet."  The opposite is true.  Many people live much longer now than they would have without capitalist prosperity, even if that prosperity is unevenly distributed.  [#4] How fast is the climate changing?  Global average temperatures are increasing so slowly that if a century of natural changes were to happen in the next two minutes, you wouldn't even notice.  [#5] How many degrees of warming (or cooling) would it take to "jeopardize[] the future of life on this planet?"  If temperatures change at the rate of five degrees per century, wouldn't intelligent people adapt to it, or move to a different latitude?  [#6] The author of the article above appears to be one of those pathetic people who is determined to live life as a perpetual victim, while clamoring for attention on social media.

Tragedy as a Political Weapon.  The day after the Chauvin verdict, Philadelphia Public Schools teaches kindergarteners that "George Floyd was killed by a police officer" and that America is built on a "pyramid of hate" culminating in "genocide."  The lesson plan, produced by Philadelphia's Office of School Climate and Culture, instructs kindergarten through second grade teachers to encourage students to discuss "what happened to George Floyd and the goals of the Black Lives Matter movement."  The teachers are told to share a "social story" presenting the case in racial terms:  "George Floyd was killed by a police officer"; "Mr. Floyd was African American, the officer was white."  The lesson teaches that for years, "some police officers have hurt African Americans."  Finally, the teachers are asked to discuss the "Pyramid of Hate" with the children as young as four years old, teaching that "our society" is built on "biased attitudes," "systemic discrimination," and "bias-motivated violence," which can lead to "genocide."

All Things Great and Small... Are Racist!  The title of this article is based on that great British TV series which ran between 1978 and 1990 called All Creatures Great and Small about British veterinarians in the 1930's.  Although the Church of Wokeness hasn't passed judgement yet, it was clearly racist!  Why?  There weren't any blacks in the show!  And it was about white farmers and small village white people, so how could it be anything except racist?  Right?  The facts about who actually lived there is meaningless!  They should have included Asians, Hispanics, blacks and some female veterinarians.  Preferably a black lesbian veterinarian with Asian and Hispanic ancestors.

Minnesota Gats.  [Scroll down]  The blacker you are, in appearance and behavior, the more valuable you are as a victim in the racial politics being waged on white America by the ruling class.  This is the reality of Jim Snow America.  Whites, especially white males, will get the harshest treatment from the law.  The usual suspects flood the zone with phony studies on racial differences in sentencing, but they never hold up under scrutiny.  When adjusted for criminal history, whites get longer sentences than other races.  Males, of course, will always get harsher sentences than females for the same crimes.  Of course, the Jim Snow rules apply to victims as well.  Ashli Babbitt was a right-wing white woman murdered by a black cop inside the Capitol, but he is black, and she is a bad white, so it is okay.  Cannon Hinnant was a 5-year-old white boy executed by a black man, but the media could not be bothered to notice.  On the other hand, Adam Toledo, a 13-year-old gangbanger shot by cops, is national news.  This will only get worse.

A House Divided.  As I've been known to point out, the "equity" that the all-conquering Diversity-Inclusion-Equity (DIE) crusade truly wants is your equity in your home.  Current developments in Evanston, Ill., and Manhattan Beach, Calif., are starting to give us a sense of how today's increasingly antiquarian white guilt will be leveraged into sizable handouts over supposed injustices in the distant past.  We live in an era bizarrely obsessed with real estate transactions of increasingly remote generations.  For example, Amazon's new TV series Them is about the horrors at the hands of whiteness faced by blacks moving to Compton, Calif., in 1953.  For example, the first episode "Covenant" is about the supernaturally sinister power of restrictive covenants, which were abolished in 1948, but their bad juju powers live on, or something.  In reality, of course, blacks turned Compton, which had been a nice enough suburb of Los Angeles that in 1949 it was home to two future presidents of the United States, into the crack murder capital of the world in the NWA era.

Kamala Harris:  Black Women in the US Are More Likely to Die in Connection with Child Birth Because of Racism and Implicit Bias.  Kamala Harris on Tuesday [4/13/2021] said black women in the US are more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications because of "systemic racial inequities."  "Black women in our country are facing a maternal health crisis," Kamala said.  "Black women are 2-3 times more likely to die in connection with child birth than other women.  "We know the primary reasons why — systemic racial inequities and implicit bias — and the consequences are both very real."

The Editor says...
If black women have more trouble during maternity and childbirth, systemic racism isn't the problem.  It is far more likely that their difficulties arise from a lack of prenatal care.  I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that low-income women use the nearest hospital emergency room as their primary doctor, and don't show up at that doctor's door until they're about to give birth, at which point they can't be turned away.  If there are any complications, racism has nothing to do with it.

Lancet Medical Journal: 'Racism Is the Public Health Crisis'.  The woke Lancet medical journal praises the Black Lives Matter protests in its latest issue, urging greater activism to overcome white supremacy.  In an article titled "Racism Is the Public Health Crisis," UK-based Professor of Black Studies Kehinde Andrews asserts that the Black Lives Matter movement "needs to be seen in the wider context of the mobilisations during the 20th century, ranging from civil rights and Black Power to the Third World movements across the globe."

Dem Rep. Plays The Victim, Says Capitol Mayhem Was Like Pearl Harbor.  Democrats are not only still bringing up the Jan. 6 chaos at the U.S. Capitol, now some are acting as if it was comparable to one of the worst attacks against America.  During an off-the-rails interview on CNN, Tennessee Democrat Rep. Steve Cohen claimed that the Jan. 6 Capitol mayhem was comparable to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, where over 2,000 U.S. soldiers were killed and the country was dragged into World War II.  "January 6th is a day like that," Cohen said.  "It's a day that should be remembered in America because our democracy was at stake.  It was under attack as much as Pearl Harbor was an attack on our country."  "This was an attack on the United States Constitution," he continued.

Presumption of Guilt:  Physicians Blamed for Racial Health Disparities.  Efforts to raise awareness about "implicit racial bias" or "structural racism" in health care are forcing some doctors to speak out — carefully.  In March, an editor at JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, was fired because he said in a podcast it was unfortunate the word "racism" taints a valuable discussion on disparate outcomes in health care.  Physicians make a huge investment in time, money, and energy to become medical doctors and are reluctant to make waves with government regulators or powerful special interests.  Implicit bias training is now a requirement for credentialing with at least one insurance company and may soon be mandated for medical licensing.  Physicians undergo this training at their own time and expense.  Additionally, there is little to no evidence that health care disparities are the result of "racism."  Blacks suffered disproportionately from COVID-19, but science shows this has more to do with factors like population density than subconscious bigotry.

Disadvantage #1:  Most of them are guilty!
Study of Denver prosecutions finds 'persistent set of disadvantages' for Black and Hispanic people.  A study of prosecutorial decisions made by the Denver District Attorney's Office released Wednesday found "a persistent set of disadvantages faced by Black and Hispanic defendants" compared to white people going through the criminal justice system.  The study looked at thousands of felony cases charged between July 2017 and June 2018 in Denver.  Authors also interviewed 20 prosecutors from the district attorney's office.  The study was commissioned by District Attorney Beth McCann, funded by the Colorado Evaluation and Action Lab at the University of Denver, and authored by Stacey Bosick, the interim associate vice president of academic programs and dean of undergraduate and graduate studies at Sonoma State University.

Portland Wokies Target Trees for Racism.  Ida B. Wells-Barnett High School in Portland, Oregon is currently delaying the adoption of a new mascot, a tree.  In today's hyperpolitical public education system, it seems that even trees are unable to avoid identity politics.  Students were excited to celebrate natural wonders.  Unfortunately, the vote on this resolution was delayed because Portland Public Schools Board of Education Director, Michelle DePass has growing concerns that trees could possibly be seen as a symbol of lynchings from the past.  She commented, "I've heard from a couple of community members now about the idea of using a tree — which, of course, I mean, personally, I love evergreens, I'm from Oregon — but using a tree that's used to lynch people in our mascot, if there was any consideration as to the imagery there, that we've all seen from people hanging from trees and using this mascot."

Portland school delays 'Evergreens' mascot vote over fears it's tied to lynching.  A Portland high school delayed a vote to change its mascot to an evergreen tree over concerns about its potential ties to lynching, a report said.  Ida B. Wells-Barnett High School — named after the prominent black activist and reporter who documented lynching — was set to vote on the new mascot last Tuesday [3/30/2021] until a board director shared community concerns over the tree's imagery, the Portland Tribune reported.  "I'm wondering if there was any concern with the imagery there, in using a tree ... as our mascot?" Portland Public Schools Board of Education Director Michelle DePass asked at the meeting.  "I think everyone comes with blind spots and I think that might've been a really big blind spot."

The Editor says...
There are some people who can find a way to be offended by almost anything.

Voting Rights Groups File Second Lawsuit Against Georgia's Over Election Law and We Already Know What They Are Claiming.  From the moment Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed a comprehensive elections bill into law, it was obvious the left would attack the legislation in the courts.  Now, several so-called "voting rights" groups have filed a series of lawsuits against the measure, claiming it is an attempt to prevent black residents from voting.  The Hill reported that "The complaint alleges that the law is the culmination of a 'concerted effort' by Kemp and Republican state lawmakers in a 'to suppress the participation of Black voters and other voters of color.'  It claims the restrictions are a GOP response to demographic changes that contributed to the state favoring Democratic candidates in recent elections."  The law was passed amid a national debate over election integrity.  Many believe that President Joe Biden's victory was a result of voter fraud and the Republican leadership of Georgia's state government has been under scrutiny for their handling of the election.

Kamala Harris ignores border, focuses on mansion renovations.  Kamala Harris, who is famous for her giggling, is suddenly frowning these days.  Reportedly, she's upset at the speed of vice presidential mansion renovations, and somehow being homeless at Blair House, is frustrated with 'living out of suitcases.' [...] She's upset at living out of suitcases?  At the luxury digs of Blair House, which has its own hair salon?  There's a solution for that — she can move back into her own $1.7 million condo down the road off ritzy Dupont Circle, bought by her and her husband as part of their $8 million real estate portfolio.

Oxford University wants to cancel musical notation.  One of the things about living in a totalitarian society is that, once something has been identified as problematic, everyone ends up competing to attack in the most aggressive way.  Fail to do so, and you may find yourself being the next person identified as problematic.  Perhaps that explains why the University of Oxford, founded in 1096, is contemplating ending sheet music because it's part of white supremacy.  To be honest, it's a little bit hard to make sense of the story because it's so screamingly stupid.  Apparently, music professors are claiming that all Western classical music has "complicity in white supremacy."  This seems to include such composers as Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, and Handel, all of whom were living in continental Europe in the 17th through 19th centuries and none of whom had anything whatsoever to do with Blacks, Africa, or the slave trade.

Rhode Island lawmaker argues dress code is 'oppressive,' calls Senate a 'White western space'.  The Rhode Island Senate on Tuesday passed attire guidelines that sparked an uproar for allegedly imposing standards that were biased toward White people.  On March 15, the Rhode Island Senate rules committee was debating a provision that would mandate legislators maintain decorum by dressing in certain ways.  Sen. Jonathon Acosta, D-District 16, argued that legislators' varying backgrounds were affected by an "ethno-racial-class nexus" and informed what they considered to be appropriate dress.

The mainstream media's anti-White racism is escalating.  [Scroll down]  The media's racial obsession is a way to maintain the Democrats' political power, by silencing the opposition, and to drive ratings.  Eventually, though, the real-world consequences are going to be disastrous.  If our children are consistently told that Whites are not just racist, but akin to the KKK or even Nazis, the means that waging war against them is within the pale of moral behavior.  I am deeply concerned that the media will incite someone — or a group of someones — to take up arms in the imaginary war against "White supremacists" and start targeting people based upon their skin color.

Cigna's critical race theory training:  Don't say 'brown bag lunch' and be mindful of 'religious privilege'.  Employees at one of the nation's largest health insurance providers are routinely subjected to far-left critical race theory lessons and asked not to consider white men in hiring decisions, according to leaked documents and chat logs obtained by the Washington Examiner.  Those who work at Cigna told the Washington Examiner that they are expected to undergo sensitivity training they consider racist and discriminatory.  Lessons include reviews of concepts such as " white privilege," "gender privilege," and something called "religious privilege," which is described as "a set of advantages that benefits believers of a certain religion but not people who practice other religions or no religions at all."  Employees say they are pressured to comply with "inclusive language" outlines that suggest replacing terms like "Brown Bag Lunch" with "lunch-and-learn" or "grab n' go."

A Kingdom of the Anti-American Elite.  Biden's defense secretary, General Lloyd Austin, tells us the greatest security threat to the United States comes from internal subversive organizations, and it is implied that these are white supremacists.  Civil servants, like most American elementary, secondary, and post-secondary students, are taught the malignant critical race theory and it is legitimizing the monstrous self-directed blood libel that America is based on racial exploitation and was always a racist enterprise.  There is not and has not been for many years the "systemic racism," as even Biden now claims afflicts the country.

The Top 1% Are Not Causing the USA's Problems.  [Scroll down]  The oft-repeated challenge offered by the left is that the income gap between the rich and the poor is growing and that is proof of the exploitation of the middle and lower classes.  This conclusion is built on a false premise.  That premise is that the amplified income is the cause of the income stagnation or slippage of everyone else.  A dollar added to the pockets of the rich does not mean a dollar subtracted from the pockets of everyone else.  Thomas Sowell, one of our legendary pro-capitalism economists, noted that only 15% of the poor, not of society as a whole, remain at the same level of poverty or go to a lower level, but the other 85% rise out of poverty over a 25 year period.  If someone gets a raise in a job does that mean that somebody else is getting a pay cut somewhere else?  No way.

Don't post Oprah memes if you are not black:  White people are told that using interviewer's Meghan reaction clips for fun is 'digital blackface'.  White and non-black people are being told not to share any of the numerous Oprah Winfrey memes from her bombshell interview with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle — because they are a form of 'digital blackface'.  The Slow Factory Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to social and environmental justice, this week issues a warning about digital blackface, describing it as an online phenomenon where white and non-black people share GIFs and photos of black people to express emotion, and stating that it often perpetuates negative stereotypes that they are 'aggressive, loud, and sassy.'  In an Instagram post, the organization used an Oprah meme as a direct example of 'digital blackface' — sparking a furious debate in the comments where some agreed with the message, while others hit back, claiming that banning non-black people from posting the memes equates to 'black erasure'.

Reparation H.  Six Dr. Seuss books have been voluntarily withdrawn from publication by the company that oversees the late children's author's works.  Apparently, a bunch of "college professors" and other unskilled cretins had combed through Seuss' catalog searching for instances in which the poor bastard had drawn nonwhites.  In one case, they found a cartoon of an Arab on a camel.  Everyone knows that Arabs never ride camels.  Literally, that's a blood libel right up there with Jews drinking baby blood and black men paying child support.  So that book got banned.  In another Der Stürmer-esque atrocity, Seuss drew a Chinese man with slanted eyes.  Banned!  Because everyone knows that Chinese people don't have epicanthic folds; it only looks that way because white supremacists so confound the noble Asians that they're constantly squinting in disbelief that a race can be so evil.  In Seuss' early work McElligot's Pool, the veritable KKK Grand Wizard dared to draw Eskimos wearing parkas.  Such calumny!

Report finds 'no racist intent' behind song 'Eyes of Texas'.  The University of Texas' long-awaited report on "The Eyes of Texas" has found that the school song has "no racist intent," but the school president said athletes and band members will not be required to sing or participate when the song is played at games and campus events.  The 58-page report, released Tuesday [2/9/2021], was commissioned last year by school President Jay Hartzell after a group of Texas athletes, most notably football players, demanded the school drop the song as part of racial injustice protests.

Why The Equality Act Is Bad Law.  If you run a business, you realize that to stay out of court, you need evidence to prove that you are not in fact discriminating, and the only way to do that is to hire someone from the protected group in advance and to have a "woke" corporate policy in your advertising.  That way, if someone does make a claim against you, you can prove your innocence with the evidence of your prior obedience to the anti-discrimination policy.  It is like the old suburban riff, "Some of my best friends are from protected groups..."  On the other hand, if you do not have members of those protected groups on your staff and woke propaganda in your advertising, watch out!  Your guilt is assumed by your failure to provide proof of your innocence in advance, even if you had a legitimate reason for turning down a specific job applicant.  When the courts developed theories like "disparate impact," which says that if a protected group is disadvantaged by an action, it is assumed to be discriminatory even if no such intent exists, the problem got even worse.  You now must show an intent toward anti-discrimination in advance.

California Reopening Plan 'Propagates Racism,' LA Teachers Union Says.  The Los Angeles teachers union said Monday [3/1/2021] California's school reopening plan is a "recipe" for propagating racism and will unfairly punish minority communities.  United Teachers Los Angeles representatives argued that teachers are being asked to make up for the leadership failings of elected officials "from Washington, D.C., to Sacramento to LA" during a press conference Monday. Since California's plan calls on schools in communities with low infection rates to reopen, the union said reopening funding will only go to white communities since they have less transmission.

Racial disparities prompt calls to repeal King County's bicycle helmet law.  [Edwin] Lindo, who identifies as Central American Indigenous from Nicaragua and El Salvador, and his friend, Aaron Bossett, who is Black, viewed the encounter as a racist attempt to exclude them from the biking community.  But even before that incident, Lindo knew Black and brown people were treated differently while bike-riding, taking transit, driving and using other forms of transportation.  Now, Lindo has joined a chorus of individuals and organizations calling for the repeal of the King County law that requires bicyclists to wear helmets because of disproportionate enforcement, especially among Black, Native and homeless riders.

Monopoly is racist now too.  Sorry.  [A]pparently we haven't been feeling guilty enough while playing Monopoly.  But that's okay, Mary Pilon is here to rectify that in her Atlantic piece intriguingly titled "The Prices on Your Monopoly Board Hold a Dark Secret."  She apparently wrote a whole book on how racist Monopoly is back in 2015.  Which is quite an impressive feat.  But anti-racism wasn't the booming industry it is today, so she's dredging the content back up for the Atlantic.  To be fair, the history is actually pretty interesting and terrible.  But history isn't really the point with articles like these, is it?

A Monopoly On Stupid.  Democrats are always at the ready to be outraged, but the flames of outrage burn so hot that they must always be fed. [...] The latest, and one of the dumbest, outrages the manufacturing wing of the industry has churned out is over the board game Monopoly.  "Monopoly's standard board originally based all its cheapest properties in black neighborhoods — inspired by the racial segregation in 1930s Atlantic City," screamed a headline from the UK Daily Mail.  The story, if you feel like wasting time you'll never get back reading, is as dumb as you can imagine it is.  The game, using street names from Atlantic City, is, according to the author of the essay the story is based on, "as in so much of the rest of the United States, that hierarchy reflects a bitter legacy of racism and residential segregation."  Did you know that?  No.  Does it matter?  No.  Dig deep enough into the history of anything and, if it is your objective, you can find something to pretend to be upset about.  Monopoly is hated not because of the property names, but because it teaches capitalism.  But Democrats can't come out and just say that, so you get this.

Black Sleep MattersTeen Vogue magazine recently published an article by two writers who are calling for "rest reparations" in addition to the regular, old, garden-variety reparations for African Americans, which advocates have been advocating for years.  Navild Acosta and Fannie Sosa contend that, on average, Black lives are shorter than white ones because Black people experience "generational fatigue" due solely to the fact that they are, in fact, Black.  The two allege that "the American dream is a sleepless one" for Black folks, and claim to have had an epiphany when they realized the reason they were always tired was because they were impacted by "hundreds of years of sleep deprivation" that was due to systemic racism.

The Miasma Theory of White Racism.  In 2021, the conventional wisdom is that while you almost never see white racism, it's always out there somewhere, everywhere, ruining the lives of blacks, lowering their test scores and raising their murder rates.  It's as if white people implicitly exude a poison from their pores that harms only blacks, due to their being genetically different, although, as everyone also knows, genetic differences, like race, don't exist.  C'mon, man, follow the science!  Similarly, the history of miasma theory shows how resistant poor explanations can be to correction. [...] Miasma theory was not ridiculous.  It tended to merely get the arrow of causation backward, much like The Establishment now believes that stereotypes cause blacks to behave badly rather than that black bad behavior leads to stereotypes.

Rioting for profit:
CNN And NBC Both Paid $35,000 To Left-Wing Activist For Footage Of Fatal Capitol Shooting.  A left-wing activist facing criminal charges for his involvement in the Capitol riots received $35,000 from both CNN and NBC for footage he recorded of a Trump supporter being fatally shot inside the Capitol building, according to records he filed in federal court on Tuesday [2/16/2021].  Lawyers for John Sullivan, a 26-year-old Utah native, disclosed the payments as part of the activist's argument that he was acting as a journalist in the Capitol rather than a rioter.  "Defendant is legitimately self-employed as a documentarian and it is oppressive to require that he not be allowed to continue his primary area of employment for an extended period of time," Steven R. Kiersh, the Sullivan lawyer, wrote in a court filing in which he argued for Sullivan to be allowed to continue using Facebook and Twitter.

Why not call for an end to ALL hate crimes?  Or all crimes?
Olivia Munn Calls for End to 'Anti-Asian Hate Crimes' in AmericaX-Men:  Apocalypse and The Predator star Olivia Munn tweeted her support of the "stop Asian hate" campaign, claiming that fellow Asian Americans are suffering "racist, verbal and physical assaults" in the U.S.  The biracial Ocean's 8 star, whose mother is from Vietnam and father is of German and Irish ancestry, posted her plea to social media on Tuesday with a message warning her fans about the "rise of anti-Asian hate crimes."

The Editor says...
I've never heard of her, or any of those movies.  But even if I had, it's still true that the opinions of celebrities are no more valuable than yours or mine.

[Announcer voice:]  The following apocryphal recollection appears to have been greatly embellished for presentation at this time.
Squad member Ayanna Pressley says she felt 'deep and ancestral' terror as she barricaded herself in her office during Capitol siege.  Democratic 'Squad' member Ayanna Pressley says she felt a 'deep and ancestral' terror while she was barricading herself in her office during last month's Capitol riots as she slammed white supremacist mobs.  The Massachusetts congresswoman spoke her fear in an interview on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday [2/7/2021] — exactly one month after the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol.  'As a black woman, to be barricaded in my office using office furniture and water bottles on the ground in the dark, that terror, those moments of terror, is familiar in a deep and ancestral way for me,' Pressley said.

Are acronyms a symptom of 'white supremacy culture?' SFUSD makes another disputable decision.  First the San Francisco School Board decided to rename 44 schools because they are named after people with ties to racism or slavery.  Now the Arts Department has taken a bold move by changing its name, "VAPA" because they say, "acronyms are a symptom of white supremacy culture."

The Editor says...
LOL.  I'm sure the LGBTQWERTY people are ROTFL.  Is the ACLU AWOL?  (Etc.)

Disney's Jungle Cruise will remove 'negative depictions' of native peoples as savages and cannibals after 65-year-old ride was branded racist.  The Jungle Cruise ride at Disney's theme parks in California and Florida, long criticized as as racist, is getting a makeover to remove what the company called 'negative depictions' of some cultures.  Disney said on Monday that the river boat attraction would be updated to 'reflect and value the diversity of the world around us.'  The Jungle Cruise, which first opened in 1955, has long been accused of having racist overtones in its depiction of some non-Western characters as savages and cannibals.

The Editor says...
Communists are the most humorless people on earth.  Only a politically-correct 21st-century commie would object to comedic caricatures that have been part of a widely-enjoyed animated cartoon for sixty years.

Tlaib: Senate Would Have Removed Trump From Office If He 'Looked Like Me' Or Obama.  Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) claimed Tuesday that the Senate would have convicted President Donald Trump during his impeachment and removed him from office if he were a person of color like her.  Speaking to Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman, Tlaib claimed that not just Trump should be held accountable, but also anyone in Congress who "enabled him."

The Editor says...
[#1] Every Republican voter in America "enabled him."  [#2] Obama looked like Obama and nobody made much effort to impeach him.

Leftist Journalist Claims the US Constitution Itself is a 'Racist Document' solely because of when and who wrote it.  Elie Mystal:  "I believe that the Constitution is a racist document.  I believe that it was written in — it was written at a time when the people were racist, it was written to support a white supremacists state.  And that's — and it's structurally still that document."  [Video clip]

Racial profiling leads minorities to shop online rather than in stores.  Shoppers from minority groups are more likely to shop online than go into a store, in order to avoid racial profiling, according to a new report.  The study from the French beauty company Sephora found that in order to avoid incidents such as being falsely accused of shoplifting, minority shoppers avoid touching product samples, make a point of chatting to sales assistants and make sure they are well dressed, all in order to lessen the possibility of being racially profiled when "shopping while black".  Last summer, fashion brands were called out for alleged hypocrisy, for making public statements of support for the Black Lives Matter movement while casual racism remained common on shop floors.

Congressman: If an Officer Hadn't Fired the Shot That Killed Ashli Babbitt, Rioters Would've Hanged Black People.  Democratic Georgia Rep. Hank Johnson has strong words about those causing chaos at the Capitol.  Guesting on MSNBC's PoliticsNation Saturday [1/9/2021], the politician claimed that, had a Capitol police officer not fired the shot which struck unarmed Ashli Babbitt (who later died), he and others would've been literally lynched. [...] In response to Al [Sharpton] asking how many congresspeople were there, Hank kept things clear:  The breachers were in business to murder by rope.

The Editor says...
Oh!  That explains it.  Go back and look at the pictures of the crowd.  Everybody was carrying ropes!  Now we know why.

The Cycle of Racial Madness.  One of the interesting aspects to America's obsession with race is the fact that the saltiest people on the race issue are the ones benefiting the most from it.  Managerial-class whites get to live like white nationalists, while expressing their righteous indignation over white privilege.  The talented tenth of blacks, living better than 90% of whites, are convulsed with rage over alleged racial inequity.  Here is a good example of that from a professional black person writing for a site called The Undefeated, which is supposed to be a sports website.  The title of the article is "Doc Rivers and America's Preoccupation with Black Failure."  Doc Rivers is a coach in the human flea circus called the NBA.  The point of the essay is that America has an obsession with seeing successful blacks fail at whatever it is they are doing.  Most people reading this would find that claim to be rather weird.  America has been drenched in a celebration of all things black for a long time.  If there is not enough blackness in something as innocuous as a TV ad, there are demands that blackness be inserted, in order to counter white privilege.  Despite being just 13% of the population, blackness is everywhere in America.

Farewell to a Dreadful Year.  [Scroll down]  Meanwhile, cancel culture went from tearing down statues and public art to censoring speech.  Suddenly, words or expressions innocently used for decades and centuries, were deemed to have "racist connotations." These included, for example, "Peanut gallery," "Eenie meenie miney moe," "Gyp," and "No can do."  The term "master" was viewed as problematic because it supposedly related to the relationship of master and slave.  Did anyone ever think such a thing when praising a performance as "masterful" or conferring a "master's" degree?  Does it matter?  Liberal writer Andrew Sullivan observed that the use of the term "white supremacy" to mean not the KKK or the antebellum South but American society as a whole in the 21st century is now routine on the Left.  The word "women," is now being replaced by "people who menstruate."

Judge won't try Black man in courtroom with white portraits.  A Black defendant's right to a fair trial would be harmed if the jury heard the case in a courtroom lined with portraits of white jurists, a northern Virginia judge has ruled.  The upcoming trial of Terrance Shipp on charges of eluding police will be held in a courtroom that has no portraits on the wall, said Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge David Bernhard.

Jamaal Bowman calls capitalism 'slavery,' says Dems should follow 'Squad,' not Obama.  As he prepares to enter Congress in the new year, Rep.-elect Jamaal Bowman said in a new interview that he believes capitalism is "slavery by another name."  Bowman (D-NY), who ousted longtime Rep. Eliot Engel in a bruising primary battle, made the remarks while speaking Monday [11/21/2020] to The Root, an African American-focused news organization.  The incoming congressman, whose future district includes parts of Yonkers and Scarsdale, began by making his case that the Democratic Party is ripe for a makeover.

Who Is to Blame for Black Poverty?  In particular, I noted in the public remarks made by soon-to-be repeat offender against our economy, Janet Yellen, that a big part of her focus as Fed Chair is to address economic inequality, wage inequality, food insecurity, poverty — all seemingly benevolent causes until you peel back the onion just slightly and realize that she's not talking about these things in the scope of helping everyone, regardless of race.  No, she's specifically talking about "communities of color."  Just so we're clear, a group of people is going to receive different (preferential) treatment based solely on the color of their skin.  I'm pretty sure that's called racism.  Yellen goes on to say that she also wants to provide more opportunities for people of color, because, she says in so many words, these opportunities are denied to people of color.  She specifically states that opportunities are denied, so I must ask the question:  Who exactly is doing the denying?

'Vote Reparations': Law School Prof Says Black Ballots Should Count Twice.  In case you haven't figured it out yet, so-called "social justice" efforts aren't aimed at righting ongoing wrongs of "systemic" inequality and racism because they don't exist.  Rather, those efforts are designed to enact official policies aimed at achieving vengeance against white people in America for things literally none of them have done to persons of color, ever.  Accepting that will help you understand such blatantly racist 'recommendations' that are supposedly designed to bring about 'equality,' when really they're just designed to cancel out the white majority (many of whom already vote with the left as it is).  Writing in the leftist bible The Nation, Brandon Hasbrouck, an assistant professor at Washington and Lee University School of Law, actually proposed allowing black votes to count twice as a means of enacting "vote reparations."  Not even kidding.

He isn't kidding.  This isn't satire.
The Votes of Black Americans Should Count Twice.  Black votes in this country are worth less than white votes.  Joe Biden won the Electoral College because Black voters in Atlanta, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia turned out in significant numbers.  But even with overwhelming Black support — 94 percent of Detroit voted for Biden! — the outcomes in Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania were worryingly close.  One core problem is the Electoral College.  Wyoming, which has just 580,000 residents and is 93 percent white, gets three electors because of its two senators and one representative in the House.  By comparison, Georgia's Fifth Congressional District — which includes Atlanta, has 710,000 residents, and is 58 percent Black — has no dedicated electors or senators and can only occasionally overcome the mostly white and conservative votes from elsewhere in the state.  This devaluation of Black votes allows our political system to ignore Black lives, and the consequences are devastating.

The Editor says...
Incremental changes made by the left can only go in one direction.  If black voters are allowed to vote twice next year, they will never be restricted to a single vote ever again.  And as soon as the rest of the country gets used to the idea, the black voters will be allowed to vote three times each.  Then four.  Then, why not ten?  After that, why not allow only blacks to vote?

Critics Boycott CBS Series 'The Stand' Because the Actor Playing the Deaf Character Can Hear.  Well, it had to happen eventually.  In our new woke paradigm, actress Scarlett Johansson can't portray a woman identifying as a man.  Nor can James Corden be a straight actor playing a gay character.  Thus, we take an obvious next step:  Deaf characters should only be played by deaf actors.  Such is the premise of a December 17th letter picking up steam on the web, which condemns the casting of actor Henry Zaga.

The Editor says...
But it's okay to portray Beethoven as a black man.

Sharpton: Texas Election Lawsuit 'Clear Racist Attempt to Disenfranchise Black Voters'.  MSNBC host Al Sharpton said on MSNBC's "The ReidOut" that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the 17 state attorneys general and Republican lawmakers who support his lawsuit to contest the presidential election results of four battleground states were involved in "a clear racist attempt to disenfranchise black voters."  Anchor Joy Reid said, "This is nothing short to me of white nationalism in action in our political system.  It's anti-democracy."  She added, "They are only going after cities where the prominent black voters and saying that is where the fraud is.  It's a direct war against Black voters."

The Editor says...
[#1] Only at that point did the writer get around to mentioning what Al Sharpton said, which was the main point of the article, according to the headline.  [#2] If there ever was "a direct war against Black voters," you'd know it.

Serial Dine And Dashers Cry Racism When The Chipotle They've Ripped Off Requests Payment Up Front.  Oh look, the good old get out of jail free card has been played.  The good old RACISM card.  [Video clip]

Portland official who called 911 on Lyft driver blames fear of 'white supremacists'.  The Portland city commissioner, criticized after phoning 911 with concerns during a Lyft ride despite pushing to "defund" Portland police, attributes her actions to fear of "white supremacists."  Jo Ann Hardesty and Lyft driver Richmond Frost quarreled Nov. 1 when Hardesty ordered an Uber from a casino resort and the two had trouble locating each other.  Hardesty then complained about the driver's windows being down, which is in line with Lyft's policies to prevent the spread of COVID-19, according to KATU News.  Frost eventually pulled into a Chevron gas station, canceled the ride and asked Hardesty to leave the vehicle.  The city commissioner said she called 911 and refused because "it was cold and she was a woman and alone," the dispatch report shows.

Supporting Systemic Victimhood Is Not Caring.  America is not defined by systemic racism; the racism of the past is largely a memory thanks to the hard work of many caring Americans.  Certainly, improvement is possible, but the answer is never "special programs" for any minority, reparations, or expanded government entitlements that trap citizens of all races in government dependence.  You don't end racism by making special benefits to one race at the expense of others.  You want rights and opportunity for all, but, for citizens of every race, the rewards of freedom must be earned.  Certainly, some will have more challenges than others, but the best response bias is to succeed anyway.  Millions do to their credit!

The Diversity Guidebook:  How to Politicize Everything.  [Scroll down]  In this case, a physician-instructor learned she was on the receiving end of a complaint filed by a first-year medical student at a well-known university.  Apparently, she had offended the student's "ethnic sensibilities."  The drama ensued over the instructor's selection of six slides (repeat six) showcasing a cross-section of patients for a basic course on taking a history and physical.  The student "felt" her ethnic group was shortchanged with only one slide featuring African-Americans.  When peering through a viewfinder of racism, where everything lacks racial parity, the student was bound to make a simple mathematical mistake.  Not that it should matter, but the instructor — who remains mindful of SJWs on campus — deliberately selected two slides of African-Americans, two of Hispanics and one Asian.  The token white patient made up the sixth slide.  There is a perverse irony to be drawn from the complaint.  Statistically speaking, African-American patients were actually over-represented, accounting for 33-1/3 percent of the slides, and 13 percent of the national population.

9 Warning Signs of Democrat Radicalization.  For Democrats, the most important person is the one who can claim highest victimhood.  Being gay is always better than being straight.  Being female is better than being male, but being transgender is better still.  The shade of a person's skin color is always more important than the content of that person's character.  Evidence of persecution is the noblest virtue for the left.  Unless you or your family has been a victim of socialism or communism — then you do not exist at all.

NYT's Astor:  Literally Any Criticism of Kamala Is Racist and Sexist.  After Wednesday's [10/7/2020] vice-presidential debate, the press was full of defensive accusations against Vice President Mike Pence for his alleged "mansplaining" behavior against Joe Biden's running mate Kamala Harris.  The New York Times in particular has made that particular Harris-as-victim trope a central theme of its campaign coverage, desperately turning every conservative argument against Harris into proof of her opponents' underlying racism and sexism.

Dreyer's announces new name for 'derogatory' Eskimo Pie months after pausing production.  After more than 100 years, Dreyer's is changing its popular Eskimo Pie ice cream bar to Edy's Pie.  The new name was announced by the brand Monday [10/5/2020].  The new name was a long time coming.  Back in June, the company stated its intention to rename its "derogatory" product name.  "We are committed to being a part of the solution on racial equality, and recognize the term is derogatory," said Elizabell Marquez, head of marketing for its parent Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream, the U.S. subsidiary for Froneri, in a statement to FOX Business in June.  "This move is part of a larger review to ensure our company and brands reflect our people values."

Ohio State Professor Apologizes for 'Hurt, Sadness, Frustration, Fatigue, Exhaustion and Pain' Caused By Pro-Football Article.  Matthew Mayhew is sorry.  Very, very sorry.  "I am sorry for the hurt, sadness, frustration, fatigue, exhaustion and pain this article has caused anyone, but specifically Black students in the higher education community and beyond," writes the Ohio State University professor.  "I am struggling to find the words to communicate the deep ache for the damage I have done."  Yet finds them he does — in a lengthy article for Inside Higher Ed so hyperbolic and servile in tone that it verges on parody.  Indeed, I emailed the professor to confirm that his apology was sincere; he did not respond to a request for comment.  Perhaps he is busy with the "long process of antiracist learning" that he has pledged to undertake.

Anyone 'not racist' is racist:  Universities latch on to antiracist movement.  There's a word to describe Americans who believe in a colorblind society and that all people should be treated equally regardless of their skin color:  racist.  That, at least, is the contention of the burgeoning anti-racism movement, which holds that people are either racist or anti-racist, and those who are not actively agitating against White supremacy and systemic racism might as well take a seat next to former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.  Oh, and if you say you're not racist, you're definitely racist.

B&G Foods to remove black Cream of Wheat chef from packaging.  B&G Foods said Thursday it would drop an image of a black chef from the packaging of its Cream of Wheat cereal mix, the latest company to make changes to branding widely considered as racially insensitive.  Companies including Mars and PepsiCo are changing names and branding of some of their products that are rooted in racist imagery amid a wider national debate over racial inequality in the United States. "For years, the image of an African-American chef appeared on our Cream of Wheat packaging.  While research indicates the image may be based upon an actual Chicago chef named Frank White, it reminds some consumers of earlier depictions they find offensive," B&G Foods said in a statement.

Uncle Ben's renamed 'Ben's Original' in effort to ditch racist imagery.  Mars Inc. has renamed its Uncle Ben's rice products "Ben's Original," making it the latest food producer to ditch a brand steeped in racist imagery.  The Virginia-based company is also scrapping the portrait of a white-haired black man that has adorned its rice boxes for decades — an image that's long been criticized as a racist stereotype.  "We're still in the process of deciding on what our new iconography will be, but are committed to ensuring that it will be truly reflective of the inclusive future we are striving to create for Ben's Original," a Mars Food spokesperson said in a statement.

The Editor says...
I've known a lot of bigoted pinheads in my day, mostly in the 1970s, but I've never known anyone who considered Uncle Ben to be a racist stereotype.  Now the parent company appears to be searching for some kind of mascot or brand that won't offend anybody.  It won't work.  No matter what the packaging looks like, somebody will be offended by it, because social media has made it possible to convert petty offenses into immediate short-term fame.

The Background of the "Harris-Biden" Ticket.  The Black Grievance Industry (BGI) is an assembly of two larger groups.  Group-one is the Black Lives Matter group, modern and extremist.  Group-two is the AME church network, more traditional and with a larger network.  The BLM group originated during the terms of the Obama administration.  The AME network has existed for many decades before. [...] Immediately before the South Carolina primary, Barack Obama (BLM network) and the traditional racial apparatus (AME network) realized they were about to lose control to Bernie Sanders.  Their response was to quickly coordinate a club move to swing the election away from the Sanders camp.  An urgent assembly of all party control officers was called.  The power brokers within the DNC Club designed a plan around using James Clyburn (AME network) as the official spark for Joe Biden to take back control of the primary outcome.  Former President Obama contacted all candidates and informed them when and how they would quit the race and fall-in-line behind Joe Biden.  James Clyburn was then triggered to initiate his endorsement and begin the rapid-fire process.  Within 48 hours all members of the club and candidates had their instructions and proceeded to follow-through on the plan.  They had no choice.  If they did not comply they would suffer the consequences of a fully aligned club hierarchy who would target them personally and financially.  The plan worked flawlessly.

The left's search for microaggressions keeps getting more ridiculous.  Leftists need to destroy the past to ensure that people have no point of comparison when they suffer the miseries, indignities, and multiple forms of slavery that make up daily life under leftism.  That may explain why leftists, not content with destroying America's history, are reaching out to destroy any culture derived from white people.  The latest historical personage to end up in the left's crosshairs, believe it or not, is Beethoven.  Apparently, he is such a painful symbol of "exclusion and elitism" that it would be best if he were canceled along with the Founding Fathers.  This bizarre, entirely reductive view comes from Vox, where Nate Sloan and Charlie Harding launched their assault against Beethoven.

Vox calls Beethoven's Fifth Symphony 'a symbol of exclusion and elitism'.  In an article published by Vox on Tuesday that quoted New York Philharmonic clarinetist Anthony McGill, writers Nate Sloan and Charlie Harding argued that the work has been propped up by white, wealthy men, whose embrace of the musical composition stood as a symbol of "their superiority and importance."  "For others — women, LGBTQ+ people, people of color — Beethoven's symphony is predominantly a reminder of classical music's history of exclusion and elitism," Sloan and Harding wrote.  The writers suggested that because Beethoven was white and most other classical musicians are white, classical music has become a form of "exclusion, elitism, and gatekeeping" for black and brown people.

Every Card is the Race Card, But They're Not Playing with a Full Deck.  Democrats will "play the race card" at any time, with any topic, and without any evidence.  The only question remaining about Democrats and their approach to race relations is — how can anyone even take them seriously anymore?  Several weeks into O.J. Simpson's murder trial in 1995, attorney Johnny Cochran decided to employ race as part of the defense team's strategy by portraying Simpson as the victim of racist detectives investigating the case for the LAPD.  The trial had captivated millions of Americans, with proceedings that were televised daily and drew huge ratings.  During analysis by various pundits, viewers were exposed to the widespread, frequent use of the term "playing the race card" for the first time.  Cochrane's decision was highly controversial, however.  The attitude for many Americans at the time was this: if Simpson is innocent, let the facts of the case exonerate him.  Why would you need to play the race card?

Fight — or the Dems Will Steal This Election.  Schools have been teaching identity politics to our children for decades.  The left seeks to abrogate of our nation's moral fiber with the deliberate destruction of absolute right and wrong under written and duly enacted law.  While we seek to debate, they seek to silence.  While we accept differences of opinion, they cancel.  While we would live and let live, they will burn it all down.  We see the consequences of this in the disaffected youth playing "resistance" dress-up and burning down our cities.  The process of using identity politics to maximize victimhood has damaged the values and principles this nation was founded upon and its citizens have lived by.  Self-sufficiency, taking responsibility for one's own actions, equality under the law, property rights, and law and order have been cast aside in favor of Critical Race Theory and the 1619 Project.  It is the left's attempt to see anarchy reign in our streets as rioters run amok, steeped in the victimhood and righteous violence taught to them all their lives.  It is all part of their plan to steal the presidency, one way or another.

Today and Yesterday.  In matters of race and other social phenomena, there is a tendency to believe that what is seen today has always been.  For black people, the socioeconomic progress achieved during my lifetime, which started in 1936, exceeded anyone's wildest dreams.  In 1936, most black people lived in gross material poverty and racial discrimination.  Such poverty and discrimination is all but nonexistent today.

How Libraries Are Indoctrinating Kids To Think All White People Are Racists.  As he watched Joseph Stalin's coffin removed from Red Square in 1961, Yevgeny Yevtushenko asked, "But how to remove Stalin from Stalin's heirs."  For us, in 2020 the question becomes:  "How to remove racism from the anti-racists?"  According to Ibram X. Kendi, a rising scholar of the white disorder called racism, there is no such thing as being non-racist.  You are either a purposeful anti-racist or a racist.  No neutral ground exists.  To be "color-blind" is a ruse.  Since racism is the original sin of Euro-Americans, to be anti-racist is to be ... well, you finish the sentence.

Professor Suspended for Saying Chinese Word That Sounds Like English Racial Slur.  If 2020's rampage of stupidity couldn't go any further, a story out of Los Angeles might just convince you the modern-left has literally ruined everything.  University of Southern California Professor Greg Patton, in the process of teaching a class was discussing standard vocal patterns in different cultures.  In explaining the Chinese pattern of using the word "that", which translates into Chinese as "nega," Patton said the word in quick succession which led to students questioning his use of the word.

USC Suspended a Communications Professor for Saying a Chinese Word That Sounds Like a Racial Slur.  Greg Patton is a professor of clinical business communication at the University of Southern California.  During a recent virtual classroom session, he was discussing public speaking patterns and the filler words that people use to space out their ideas: um, er, etc.  Patton mentioned that the Chinese often use a word that is pronounced like nega.  "In China the common word is 'that, that that that,' so in China it might be 'nega, nega, nega, nega,'" Patton explained to his class.  "So there's different words you'll hear in different cultures, but they're vocal disfluencies."  But because the Chinese word nega sounds like n****r, some students were offended and reported the matter to the administration.

Professor Cottom
Black professor argues Republicans have 'deputized all white people to murder us'.  A University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor recently argued on Twitter that Republicans have "deputized all white people" to murder black Americans.  Tressie McMillan Cottom, associate professor of information and library science, made the comment in reference to another tweet which stated:  "Sen. Ron Johnson just said he supports 'citizen soldiers' in Kenosha.  Kyle Rittenhouse, who murdered 2 people, is a citizen soldier. [...]"  Johnson is a Republican U.S. senator representing Wisconsin.  The professor has nearly 142,000 followers on Twitter.  Her tweet had been liked nearly 10,000 times as of Monday night [8/31/2020].


Black Assimilation Is The Great Threat To Democrats.  If there was one moment during the Republican convention that caused my official Daily Wire Leftist Tears Tumbler to magically overflow, it was in a speech by former Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley.  "In much of the Democratic Party, it's now fashionable to say that America is racist," Haley said.  "That is a lie.  America is not a racist country."  Democrats and the media — but I repeat myself — reacted swiftly.  "I'm just hung up a little bit about Nikki Haley," said hung up ABC Anchor Linsey Davis.  "A comment that she made, 'America is not a racist country.'  I think that that's a statement that a lot of black people, black and brown people, would take umbrage with."  Chicago Tribune columnist Dahleen Glanton was blunter, saying the statement made Haley "appear to be either disgracefully ignorant or a blatant liar."  But, of course, what Haley really was, was completely correct.  There is a history of institutional racism in America, no doubt, but today our country is wholly free of it.  The U.S. is easily the least racist nation on the planet.

The Editor says...
This country is NOT "wholly free" of institutional racism.  What do you call this?  And this?  And this? Is Kwanzaa an American institution?  Is Black History Month an American institution?

Michelle Obama talks about her experience with racism as first lady.  Michelle Obama has recalled her "exhausting" experience with racism using the example of a simple trip to get ice cream with her daughters during her time in the White House.

No Lives Matter.  With many minority groups claiming historical injustices against them and demanding remedial recognition and reparation, with official endorsement by many institutions of those claims and demands, and with their propagation via all major channels of communication, no voices have been raised in support of the indisputably smallest and most persecuted minority group — the individual.  "Individual" and "individual rights" are words that must not be spoken.  Any recognition of the individual draws attention to the fundamental and massive violation of individual rights stemming from coronavirus totalitarianism and governments' encouragement of riots, vandalism, and violence. [...] The game is always the same.  In the name of some collective greater good — safety, anti-racism, fill in the blank — the wealth, property, work, rights, freedom, and lives of individuals are stolen.  Of course the alleged greater good is never realized, but that was never the point.

Stop Infantilizing African Americans.  All too often, the message conveyed by media, academia, and government is that African Americans are incapable of expressing agency.  Policy wonks never discuss a Jewish, Asian, or white agenda, because these groups are deemed sufficiently competent to solve their own problems.  Few recognize the covert racism of attempts to "assist" African Africans.  Economic freedom, for example, does not feature prominently in the liberal quest to ameliorate the conditions of American blacks, because it does not fit the agenda.  We are told that there is something inherently fragile about African Americans, making them perpetual victims.  Many have espoused the subtle racism of the Black Lives Movement, without recognizing an effort to infantilize African Americans.  African Americans possess the foresight and talent to uplift themselves from the trenches without the benevolence of the state.

California ski resort changing name, citing offensive word.  California's popular Squaw Valley Ski Resort will change its name because the word "squaw" is a derogatory term for Native American women, officials announced Tuesday [8/25/2020].  The site was the scene of the 1960 Winter Olympics.  The decision was reached after consulting with local Native American groups and extensive research into the etymology and history of the term "squaw," said Ron Cohen, president and COO of Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows.

The Truth of Kamala Harris.  Living in California, I have seen first hand what damage has been done to our State and the dishonesty of [Kamala] Harris in the ability that she possesses in the advancement of her goals.  Two points that are being pushed on the American people by both the Progressive socialists and the media is that 1. Harris was disadvantaged in her childhood and 2. That she is a black woman.  I have known for a long time that Harris will say whatever she needs to to get head and has lied consistently in her approach.  She is using talking points in an attempt to play the victim for the American people.

South Carolina Mayoral Candidate Fakes Her Own Kidnapping On FB Live To Get More Votes, Gets Arrested Instead.  A woman running for mayor in Sumter now faces criminal charges after police say she staged her own kidnapping and beating to get "publicity, sympathy and votes in the November election."  Sabrina Belcher, 29, carried out the stunt on Facebook live, police say, with help from 34-year-old Christopher Eaddy.  [Video clip]

Belcher
Democratic Mayoral Candidate Faked Her Own Kidnapping To Win Votes.  On Tuesday night [8/18/2020], a mayoral candidate in Sumter, South Carolina, reportedly faked her own kidnapping and assault via Facebook Live to garner "sympathy votes."  Twenty-nine-year-old Sabrina Belcher, who fashioned herself the "1st black female candidate ever to run" for Sumter mayor, apparently coordinated her assault and kidnapping with 34-year-old Christopher Eaddy, WIS News reports.


Tucker shreds Michelle O over 'calculated lie' about black murders: 'shut up and accept her dominion over you'.  Fox News host Tucker Carlson mocked the Left's sycophantic fawning over Michelle Obama, saying Democrats never criticize her because they're terrified of being called racist or being bullied by left-wing mobs.  The Left often howl that Fox News is partisan, even though FNC and Tucker have repeatedly criticized President Trump when they disagree with him.  You'd never see a CNN host criticize Barack or Michelle Obama the same way.  Carlson said Michelle's iron-fisted grip over the Democrat Party is eerily similar to the cult following that Scientology leader L. Ron Hubbard has over his flock.  During her DNC speech, the former First Lady laughably painted herself as a victim because she's black — even as she addressed her obedient sect from her $11 million Martha's Vineyard estate.

Our BLM Jihadis.  Last month, "Afro-Latinx" singer-actress Naya Rivera drowned while swimming in Lake Piru in Ventura County, Calif.  Rivera had grown up in the area; the lake was not unfamiliar to her.  It was an accident, and nothing more.  Still, a black life was "taken," so a petition was created to "cancel" Lake Piru.  "Lake Piru needs to go down.  Now and forever.  It's taken too many lives," brayed signatory Erin Jordan.  [Other quotes, laden with obscenities, omitted for brevity.]

Ridiculous trigger warning for 'Blazing Saddles' shows how far culture has gone off rails.  Say, kids, did you know "Blazing Saddles" is "an overt and audacious spoof on classic Westerns"?  Well, now you do, thanks to the trigger warning that has just been slapped on the movie by HBO Max, which hired University of Chicago professor Jacqueline Stewart to set things up for anyone who might be clicking on the Mel Brooks comedy thinking they're in for Swedish drama about the lingonberry harvest.  Stewart informs us that the movie features "racist language and attitudes" but "Those attitudes are espoused by characters who are explicitly portrayed here as narrow-minded, ignorant bigots.  The film's real and much more enlightened perspective is represented by the two main characters."  You don't say.  Stewart's intro should be called "Blazing Obviousness" since everyone already knew all of that, and always has, for the 46 years the movie has been in release.

RZA wrote a new ice cream truck jingle to replace 'racist' song 'Turkey in the Straw'.  RZA, of the Wu-Tang Clan, has partnered with Good Humor to write a cheerful new ice cream truck jingle in place of "Turkey in the Straw" — an earworm with a troubled history long criticized for being racist.

The Editor says...
I wouldn't say "Turkey in the Straw" has been "long criticized for being racist."  In fact, I've never heard anyone say so.  Nor am I aware that the tune has any lyrics.  (I presume the lyrics must be the problem; I mean, surely the combination of certain musical notes can't be taken as offensive, right?  It's hard to know these days.)  I haven't seen an ice cream truck in my neighborhood since the 20th century, and the last time I saw one, the music had been turned down to the "barely audible" setting, probably because of "noise pollution" complaints.  This whole "news" article is about a guy solving a problem nobody has, for the sake of his own publicity.

Fairfax County, Virginia public schools tell parents not to hire tutors because it is unfair to kids whose parents can't afford them.  If you had any doubt that hard-left ideologues run government school systems in many (most?) places, take a look at Fairfax County, Virginia's most populous county, with over a million residents, one of the richest counties in the United States with an average household income well over one hundred thousand dollars.  The educrats who run the Fairfax public schools have advised parents there not to hire tutors or organize informal homeschool "pods" to replace the shuttered schools because some parents cannot afford to do so, and that would be "unfair."

Black community blaming 'racism' for police chief's departure.  Some members of the African American community say racism prompted Seattle's first Black female police chief to retire.  They are blaming one of Seattle's most diverse city councils ever.  They point out there are no Black people on the City Council for the first time since the 1960s.  And they believe racism forced Carmen Best to leave her job as the city's top cop.  Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best wouldn't call out the Seattle City Council.

What's Wrong with 'Equality'?  [Scroll down]  The more 'victim' groups a person can belong to, the higher the status in the 'victim' hierarchy, and the greater authority the person can wield over those lower in the hierarchy — because 'victimhood' somehow confers moral authority in the world of identity-politics.  Cry-bullying rights.  And this explains why some people today are much 'more equal than others' and enjoy many more enforceable rights and protections than those who are not able to find a place in the complex Venn diagram of intersectional identity politics.  That's partly why the rhetoric of 'equality' is so obscurantist and the rabbit-hole so dark and deep.  Because this is not about uniting us in our common humanity, it's about subverting what we have in common in favor of emphasizing the grievances felt by a noisy and disruptive minority who claim that their 'victimhood' means we should submit to them.  Whatever this is, it's not equality.

New group tells media what they can't report about Biden's running mate.  A new group, We Have Her Back, is comprised of far-far left agitators — all women — including Valerie Jarrett (the Obamas' close friend), Planned Parenthood and NARAL, Emily's List, Times Up, and others.  They sent out an absurd, and stunning memo.  The group put the memo together as we "embark on a historic moment — once again — having a woman on the presidential ticket."  After bloviating about George Floyd and regurgitating the weaponization of black and brown women, they listed all the things they don't want to hear from News Division Heads, Editors in Chiefs, Bureau Chiefs, Political Directors, Editors, Producers, Reporters, and Anchors.  How is that acceptable?  These far-left women are telling the media — the news — what they are allowed to say.  The media will acquiesce.

Democratic Party sets rules for criticizing Biden's VP pick Kamala Harris.  Media organizations have just been warned by the Democratic Party machine that they better be very, very careful with how they cover Joe Biden's vice presidential choice — just revealed to be Kamala Harris.  Any criticism of the expected woman will be considered racist and sexist, we are told.  Oh, they wrap up that threat in a word salad, but that's the bottom line:  There should be second and even third thoughts about any criticism of Mr. Biden's VP pick.  An actual memo went out from an ad hoc group of Democratic operatives (pretending to be advocates for women) to media organizations with orders on how to proceed with their coverage.  The fact that they expected this partisan missive to be accepted and adhered to by media entities tells you all you need to know about the problem with today's legacy media.

Fed's Daly says she worries pandemic will widen racial and gender inequalities.  San Francisco Federal Reserve President Mary Daly said she is worried the pandemic will widen gender and racial inequalities and said policymakers need to make sure the recovery is inclusive.  Daly said the crisis "magnified" gaps that existed across race, gender and other communities and that people who cannot work from home are especially challenged.

Candace Owens blasts 'white supremacists running Dem Party' for what they are teaching black children.  Conservative commentator Candace Owens called out "the true white supremacists" running the Democratic Party for destroying black America.  Owens addressed the latest efforts by Democrats to negatively impact the black community, noting in a tweet accompanying a recent interview that they are well aware that "ignorance guarantees them votes." [...] "Black children are now learning that the nuclear family, traditional values, and academic success are tacit forms of 'white supremacy,'" Owens wrote in the caption of the tweet she posted Monday [8/10/2020].  The conservative activist spoke about this narrative with the Daily Caller's editorial director Vince Coglianese, as he brought up the controversial "whiteness" chart recently on display at the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of African American History.

A Funny Kind of Privilege.  Black female billionaire Oprah Winfrey recently "encouraged her white viewers to acknowledge that they will always have a "leg up" in culture because of the color of their skin."  White people, she says, "no matter where they are on the rung or ladder of success, they still have their whiteness."  To be white, she argues, is to enjoy peculiar social advantage in America today.  You have to give credit where it's due.  A famous black female billionaire convincing her suburban hovel-dwelling white female audience that they should self-pillory for enjoying a culture of "white privilege" that is actively oppressing people like her?  That is nothing short of brilliantly manipulative persuasion. [...] But it's worth asking — would the words "black female billionaire" even sequentially exist in the America that Oprah imagines?  What about the words "black female First Lady?"  Former First Lady Michelle Obama is another rich and powerful black female who claims that the system is rigged against people like her.

'Systemic Racism' or Systemic Rubbish?  The "systemic racism" refrain is a meaningless abstraction.  Operationalize the nebulous abstraction that is "systemic racism," or get out of my face!  To concretize a variable, it must be cast in empirical, measurable terms — the opaque "racism" abstraction being one variable (to use statistical nomenclature).  Until you have meticulously applied research methodology to statistically operationalize this inchoate thing called "racism" — systemic or other — it remains nothing but thought crime.  That is to say, it is impolite and impolitic thoughts, spoken, written, or preached.  Says you.  Thought crimes are nobody's business in a free society.  (By logical extension, America is not a free society.)  The law already mandates that people of all races be treated equally under its protection.  The law, then, is not the problem — logic is.

Peddling the idea that 'all white people are racist' for profit.  The wholesale intellectual fraud that is "white fragility" has so infested our culture that Oprah Winfrey, the world's first female black billionaire, is criticizing America as hopelessly and intractably racist.  For this we can thank the white liberal academic Robin DiAngelo, whose book "White Fragility:  Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism" — first published in 2018 by a small press — has become a textbook of liberal orthodoxy and a totem of radical chic.  DiAngelo's thesis:  All white Americans are racist.  All white Americans are a product of white supremacy and are actively or unwittingly complicit in maintaining this power structure.  If you say you are not racist, that is only proof that you are racist.  If you believe you are not racist, same thing.  Black people exist in America only to be oppressed by whites.

Mich. Gov. Orders State Employees to Conduct 'Implicit Bias Training,' Declares Racism a 'Public Health Crisis.  Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, signed an executive directive on Wednesday ordering state employees to undergo "implicit bias training."  Executive directives allow the Michigan governor to establish procedures or basic policy for employees of the state's executive branch.  According to the directive, current state employees will be required to undergo "implicit bias training" by the end of this year, while new employees must complete the training as part of the hiring process.  While various bias training initiatives have been implemented by government offices in recent months, some research shows that the impact of these initiatives is negligible.

Black Lives Matter's Symbiosis with White Supremacists.  George Orwell showed in Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm that totalitarians and "movements" usually need a real or even an imaginary enemy against which to rally their followers, lest their leaders otherwise become irrelevant. [...] The leaders of Antifa and the BLM movement would similarly be relative nobodies were it not for swastika-waving white supremacists chanting, "You will not replace us" and engaging in violence on their own behalf.  The famous educator Booker T. Washington said of this, "There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public.  Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays.  Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs."  White supremacist demagogues manipulate their Caucasian followers similarly, and it is past time for the country to tell both groups that we want none of what they are selling.

Always Victims, Never Bullies.  The Portland mayor cited Donald Trump sending in federal troops as the culprit for violence in Portland.  We are supposed to believe that before federal law enforcement arrived in Portland, "peaceful protesters" were holding hands, singing "Give Peace a Chance."  We are not to ask what led to Trump sending in federal troops or make any mention of rampant violence and burning buildings prior to Trump's actions.  When protesters tried to blockade a public road, a female driver attempted to maneuver past the crowd.  Aghast at the audacity of anyone unwilling to comply with their decision to ban any public street, at any time, the "peaceful protesters" miraculously transformed into a violent mob.  While jumping on the car, kicking, and hitting the vehicle, some rioters urged to get the "license plate and face" of the driver as they recorded the incident.  Why do they tell others to get a view of the license plate number and driver's face on camera?  To report her to the police.  Ironically, the violent rioters fighting for the abolition of law enforcement are incredibly eager to report any resistance to the authorities.

Anything for publicity:
Michelle Obama Says She's Suffering From "Low-Grade Depression" — Blames President Trump.  Former First Lady Michelle Obama whined about being holed up in her mansion during Covid quarantine during Wednesday's episode of "The Michelle Obama Podcast."  Obama said she is suffering "low-grade depression" because of quarantine, 'racial strife' and of course the "hypocrisy" of the Trump Admin.

Cartoon strip pulled from newspapers, Cartoonist refuses to apologize to critics.  This is such a 2020 kind of controversy.  No one will ever be woke enough to please everyone.  Cancel culture is a creation of the far left who demand uniformity in thought and speech.  Let them live with it.  Why are White liberals surprised that Black social justice warriors call them out for their own racism?  You know why.  Liberal White people don't see their own racism, that's why.  And, they sure don't like it pointed out to them.

Oprah: Whiteness Gives You The Advantage, No Matter What.  Oprah has her conversations from within the confines of her gated communities, of course.  Her conversations include chatting with other successful African Americans.  Not once have we seen Oprah Winfrey out on the streets of her hometown of Chicago chatting up small business owners of black communities who have lost their livelihoods due to excessive rioting and crime.  Instead, she chats with an NFL player who tells her, and anybody who is listening, that America is "run by whites" and that he has warned his white friends about allowing their children to live a "white" life.

Oprah Winfrey says 'system of White people' keeps Black Americans off 'ladder of success'.  Billionaire Oprah Winfrey says it's important for Americans to realize that "the system of White people" continues to keep Black citizens off "the ladder of success."  The media mogul made the comments July 31 on her Apple TV+ show "The Oprah Conversation," which included former NFL linebacker Emmanuel Acho.  Ms. Winfrey titled the episode "Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man:  Part 1," in honor of the ex-athlete's YouTube conversations under the same banner.

The Editor says...
Imagine how much money Oprah could have made if she had been allowed onto the ladder of success!  I want the names of those mean people who kept her off the ladder of success!

BLM protesters say costly gear to protect them from cops prices them out of civil rights.  Five Black Lives Matter demonstrators in Seattle claim they're being priced out of their right to protest.  In a lawsuit filed Monday [8/3/2020] in federal court, they say that clashes with the Seattle Police Department have made it impossible for them to exercise their right to protest without expensive personal protective gear.  "Because protesters now must purchase expensive equipment to be assured that they will be able to protest safely, the indiscriminate use of weapons by SPD implicates equal protection," the lawsuit says.  The plaintiffs — Jessica Benton, Shelby Bryant, Anne Marie Cavanaugh, Alyssa Garrison and Clare Thomas — say helmets, gas masks, goggles, gloves, boots, umbrellas and other gear are needed against pepper spray and nonlethal projectiles used for crowd dispersal.

People do not have the right to riot.  Protesters in Gotham and other cities around the nation are so used to getting their way, they've been spoiled.  Their illegal occupation of our streets and parks has become so routine that the protesting class throws tantrums when it faces consequences, however rarely that happens.  Last week's arrest of Nikki Stone, wanted for alleged serial vandalism of police cameras, was a case in point.  The 18-year-old homeless woman was marching in a "peaceful," though non-permitted, march down Second Avenue when plainclothes NYPD officers arrested her and put her in an unmarked van.  Stone had been filmed on multiple occasions painting over NYPD security cameras around City Hall Park during the last month's occupation.  Her alleged actions suggest a flagrant lawlessness and enmity against the public good.  Yet Stone became a cause celebre, with supporters claiming she had been "disappeared," as if by a right-wing regime in Latin America circa 1982.

Will the National Audubon Society cancel John Audubon?  Conservation group confronts its namesake's slave-owning and white supremacist past.  The National Audubon Society is re-examining and confronting the racist and slave-owning past of its namesake.  The non-profit environmental organization, dedicated to the conservation of birds and other wildlife, was founded in 1905 and named in honor of Franco-American ornithologist John James Audubon.  Audubon is perhaps most famous for illustrating birds in their natural habitats and publishing his book, Birds of America, as a series in sections between 1827 and 1838.

A terrifying revolution sweeping newsrooms sees journalists who deviate from the new liberal orthodoxy hounded out.  You might never have come across Bon Appetit, a glossy monthly magazine which serves up a cosy mix of gourmet recipes, wine reviews and lifestyle tips to its 1.5 million readers.  It is hard to imagine a less controversial publication, or one that's more quintessentially American with its aspirational blend of self-improvement and conspicuous consumption — and it has been attracting record digital subscriptions thanks to lockdown tips for banana bread and avocado toast.  But popularity counted for nothing when a picture appeared online showing its editor of ten years, Adam Rapoport, dressed as a Puerto Rican at a Halloween fancy dress party.  At a stroke he was out, branded a racist.

The Black New Deal: 1) Abolish Welfare 2) Incentivize The Nuclear Family.  [Scroll down]  The time for black complaints is over.  Slavery happened in America like it has happened in every culture around the world since the beginning of time.  Slavery has been prohibited in the West, and apart from communist China and parts of Egypt, most of the East.  Moreover, as recent studies have shown, racial police brutality has declined to the point of statistical insignificance.  The raison d'etre for the Black Lives Matter organization is a rounding error.  Recent spikes in crime aside, broadly speaking, America has never been safer.  So why does everything feel worse?  For one, media and technology.  Mainstream media, citizen journalism, and nonstop social media all contribute to the sense that our racial divide is at the root of all evil.

Trader Joe's wises up, reverses course, tells the leftist political-correctness mob 'no'.  Have we reached Peak Corporate Cave-In?  It kind of looks like it — Trader Joe's has decided to reverse course and not change all the brand labels of its products to satisfy the wokeness demands of a tiny, largely white, racism-parsing left-wing mob.  Here's the statement: [...] That's a big change from all the cancel culture that's taking every minority face off food-label packaging, from Mrs. Butterworth to the Cream of Wheat man to Aunt Jemima to Eskimo Pies to the Land O'Lakes Indian maiden and more, leaving just the faces of whites on the packages.  Trader Jose, Trader Ming, Arabian Joe, Maitre Pierre, Trader Giotto, Trader Joe San and the rest, though, look as though they might just stay, just as their customers like.

Trader Joe's Will Keep Some International Food Labels, Denies Packaging Is Racist.  The grocery store chain Trader Joe's will actually not be rebranding its international food products amid accusations that they promote racist stereotypes.  Earlier this month, Trader Joe's said that the ethnic names for its various products — Trader Giotto's (Italian), Trader Ming's (Chinese), Trader José (Mexican), and Trader Joe San (Japanese) — would be discontinued, asserting that such a decision had been in the works for several years.

Household income by ethnic group
Worst. White.  Supremacists.  Ever.  The Democratic Party platform has been published in draft form, and it is a beauty.  An openly racist document, it is largely an attack on white people.  The platform mentions whites or whiteness 15 times, never in a positive light.  I want to focus on just one of those references to alleged white supremacy:  ["]Median incomes are lower and poverty rates are higher for Black Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and some Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, compared to median white households.["]  But wait!  Notice how they tried to slip that one by you:  "some Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders."  Why only "some," in a land defined by white supremacy?  There is, of course, a story here, one that the Democrats will never tell.  These are how various ethnic groups ranked by median household income in the 2018 census.  Whites come in 17th:  [Chart]


'Uncle Tom': A Quiet Earthquake.  Albert Einstein once said that if he had an hour to solve a problem, he'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem, and five thinking about the solution.  The "race problem" in America is pretzeled into such a Gordian knot because we've spent decades thinking up solutions to a problem that no longer exists.  And it's not working.  Black oppression is dead in America.  The good guys won. [...] For decades we've spent trillions to implement anti-discrimination policies and poverty programs.  America is home to the wealthiest group of blacks, likely, in all of history.  Black mayors, black police chiefs, black law enforcers, black attorneys, black school officials and black politicians are stuffed into every crevice of city and state governments across the nation.  A black man was elected to Earth's most powerful office — twice!  Yet somehow, the screech for "racial justice" is louder now than it was when black oppression was real.  Race will always be a ticking time bomb as long as America buys into the Al Sharpton version of the black experience — that blacks are still hobbled by race-based inequities rooted in slavery.

Trader Joe's Changing 'Offensive' Product Names, Caves to Teen's Petition with Fewer than 4,000 Signatures.  A high school student's petition posted on the change.org website claims that Trader Joe's ethnic food labels and its founder are racist, and the store announced it will be rebranding its products.  "The Trader Joe's branding is racist because it exoticizes other cultures — it presents 'Joe' as the default 'normal' and the other characters falling outside of it," Briones Bedell, 17, wrote on her petition, which has gained more than 3,600 signatures.

Doctor Calls For an End to 'Adam's Apple' Because It's 'Misogynistic'.  If you're one of those people offended by the sexism of their own body, I've got great news.  Dr. Kristin Small — a gynecologist, obstetrician, and anatomy lecturer — is calling for an end to the term "Adam's apple."  Why?  Because it's "misogynistic." [...] But the good doctor isn't just down on the protruding throat of the patriarchy; she also wants to heal the heel:  "Achilles heel" has gotta go, too.

Trader Joe's to remove 'racist' packaging of ethnic food.  Trader Joe's is getting rid of ethnic brand names from its products as a petition calling for their removal gains steam.  The California-based grocery chain said it's working to phase out stereotypical names it has attached to foreign foods, such as "Trader José's" for Mexican cuisine, "Trader Ming's" for Chinese products and "Arabian Joe's" for Middle Eastern dishes.  "While this approach to product naming may have been rooted in a lighthearted attempt at inclusiveness, we recognize that it may now have the opposite effect — one that is contrary to the welcoming, rewarding customer experience we strive to create every day," Trader Joe's spokeswoman Kenya Friend-Daniel said in a statement.

Minneapolis City Council declares racism a public health emergency.  The Minneapolis City Council declared racism a public health emergency in the city Friday, vowing to allocate funding and other resources to "name, reverse, and repair the harm done" to people of color in the city.  The resolution was unanimously approved nearly two months after George Floyd, a Black man, was killed by Minneapolis police while in custody in south Minneapolis.  Days after his death, Council Vice President Andrea Jenkins called on the council to define racism as a public health crisis.  During a committee meeting last week, Jenkins said Floyd's killing, Black people's vulnerability to the corona-virus and racial gaps in homeownership are issues that have "been deeply agreed upon that at the core is racism."

Sheer Lunacy Rules the Day.  Crucial to the rabid ideas of the left is Critical Race Theory, which is an "academic discipline that maintains that society is divided along racial lines into (white) oppressors and (black) victims, similar to the way Marxism frames the oppressor/victim dichotomy along class lines.  Critical race theory contends that America is permanently racist to its core, and that consequently the nation's legal structures are, by definition, racist and invalid." Thus, "members of 'oppressed' racial groups are entitled — in fact — obligated to determine for themselves what traditions have merit and are worth observing."  Such ideas as "meritocracy, equal opportunity and colorblind justice are just empty slogans," and "favoring blacks in employment and higher education is not only permissible but necessary as a means of countering the permanent bigotry of white people[.]"

Professor: Term 'low-hanging fruit' is a microaggression because it reminds blacks of lynching.  The official definition of the term low-hanging fruit is "a thing or person that can be won, obtained, or persuaded with little effort," according to the Oxford dictionary.  But according to one business professor, it's a racial microaggression.  "For African-Americans, if you say 'low-hanging fruit,' we think lynching," said Mae Hicks-Jones, an adjunct faculty member of Elgin Community College.

The Editor says...
All looks yellow to a jaundiced eye.*  Who knows how much innocent fruit has been hanged over the years.

Let's Take Back Our Kids, Already!  Dad was a civil rights pioneer.  He pressured me and my four younger siblings to always vote and join the NAACP.  Upon attending my first NAACP meeting, I was stunned.  They actually joined in a circle; held hands; and sang, "We Shall Overcome".  Their rhetoric sounded as though I had stepped through a time warp back to 1950.  Leftist institutions of indoctrination are still selling students, black and white, the absurd lie that America has not progressed racially beyond the 1950s.

Thomas Sowell: 'Systemic Racism' Has 'No Meaning'.  Conservative African American economist Thomas Sowell says that the term "systemic racism," which is central to the Black Lives Matter movement, has "no meaning." [...] Sowell, who recently turned 90, was born poor in North Carolina, and grew up in Harlem before attending the Stuyvesant magnet school and moving on to the Ivy League and the University of Chicago.  Initially attracted to the left, Sowell eventually rejected socialism in favor of conservatism.  He has written some of the most important critiques of left-wing dogma.

The real problem with 'cancel culture'.  The online "cancel culture" of Twitter mobs, public shamings and the occasional public firing has become pretty unpleasant of late.  And unsurprisingly, people whose job it is to say things resent being hushed.  Hence "The Letter," published this week by Harper's Magazine, in which 153 writers and public intellectuals warned that widespread cancellation is chilling the free exchange of ideas.  Indeed it is.  I've been hearing from people, center-left as well as center-right, who have moved from astonishment to concern to terror as senior editors were fired for running op-eds written by conservative senators or approving inept headlines; as professors were investigated for offenses such as "reading aloud the words of Martin Luther King"; as a major arts foundation imploded because its statement of support for Black Lives Matter was judged insufficiently enthusiastic.  These people were becoming afraid of their own colleagues, who might, if they feel they're not being listened to, leak internal communications to friendly websites, or organize a public protest on Twitter.

Here Come the Speech Police.  Recently, I ran across a piece in The Philadelphia Inquirer that lays out four racist words and phrases that should be banished from the English language.  It begins like this:  "Editor's note: Please be aware offensive terms are repeated here solely for the purpose of identifying and analyzing them honestly.  These terms may upset some readers."  Steel yourself, brave reader, here they are:
  •   Peanut gallery.
  •   Eenie meenie miney moe.
  •   Gyp.
  •   No can do.
The same grammarian who authored the piece had previously confronted the "deeply racist connotation" of the word "thug," noting that President Donald Trump "wasn't the least bit bashful" when calling Minneapolis rioters "thugs" in a tweet, despite the word's obvious bigoted history. [...] Attempting to dictate what words we use is another way to exert power over how we think.  Few people, rightly, would have a problem with referring to the Charlottesville Nazis as "thugs."  Only the "protester" who tears down a Ulysses S. Grant statue or participates in an Antifa riot is spared the indignity of being properly defined.  The recent assaults on the English language have consisted largely of euphemisms and pseudoscientific gibberish meant to obscure objective truths — "cisgender," "heteronormativity" and so on.  Now, we're at the stage of the revolution where completely inoffensive and serviceable words are branded problematic.

Why We Can't Trust Anything 'The Science' Says Any More.  Despite standing behind their data and method used to conclude there is "no evidence of anti-Black [sic] or anti-Hispanic disparities across [fatal police] shootings," a study's authors want to retract their work because it contradicts left-wing politics.  "Although our data and statistical approach were valid to estimate the question we actually tested (the race of civilians fatally shot by police), given continued misuse of the article (e.g., MacDonald, 2020) we felt the right decision was to retract the article," Michigan State University's Joseph Cesario and the University of Maryland at College Park's David Johnson wrote in their retraction request, according to the blog Retraction Watch.

Tone-Deaf NBA Players Complain About Meals And Hotel Rooms Most Americans Can't Afford.  As America's basketball superstars head into the National Basketball Association's isolation "bubble" at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida, for their delayed and shortened season, some have shared tone-deaf complaints on social media about their new living conditions.  Players are required to quarantine for two weeks before the league's July 30 relaunch, meaning they must limit contact with others and will have all meals delivered directly to their hotel rooms.  Nearly immediately after entering "the bubble," players began sharing their complaints on social media about everything from the food and WiFi to their resort lodging accommodations.

Michigan to require all medical professionals to undergo implicit bias training.  Michigan medical professionals will need to undergo implicit bias training in order to be licensed by the state, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and state leaders announced Thursday [7/9/2020].  The state Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs is in charge of licensing medical professionals.  Under a new executive directive from Whitmer department will create new rules that make implicit bias training mandatory for people to qualify for licensure, renewal or registration.  The new requirement is based on a recommendation from the Michigan Coronavirus Task Force on Racial Disparities, led by Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II.

Cult Programming in Seattle.  Last month, the City of Seattle's Office of Civil Rights sent an email inviting "white City employees" to attend a training session on "Interrupting Internalized Racial Superiority and Whiteness," a program designed to help white workers examine their "complicity in the system of white supremacy" and "interrupt racism in ways that are accountable to Black, Indigenous and People of Color."  Hoping to learn more, I submitted a public records request for all documentation related to the training.  The results are disturbing.  At the beginning of the session, the trainers explain that white people have internalized a sense of racial superiority, which has made them unable to access their "humanity" and caused "harm and violence" to people of color.  The trainers claim that "individualism," "perfectionism," "intellectualization," and "objectivity" are all vestiges of this internalized racial oppression and must be abandoned in favor of social-justice principles.  In conceptual terms, the city frames the discussion around the idea that black Americans are reducible to the essential quality of "blackness" and white Americans are reducible to the essential quality of "whiteness" — that is, the new metaphysics of good and evil.

Let's Talk about Black Privilege.  Take NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace, who imagined a noose the way the narrator in Edgar Allen Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart imagined a droning beating heart.  A hysterical black American creates unnecessary panic over a noose found in his garage; draws 15 FBI agents to investigate, at a total of tens of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money; investigation confirms the black American's story was paranoia; FBI goes home; nothing happens to the black American for making a false accusation and creating unnecessary panic; continues to receive fawning press in the DMIC (Democrat Media Industrial Complex).  Black privilege — yes or no?  Lincoln County, Ore. exempted from mandatory mask-wearing "[p]eople of color who have heightened concerns about racial profiling and harassment due to wearing face coverings in public."  Black privilege — yes or no?  Black Americans saying the "N-word" without fear of recrimination of being called racist:  black privilege — yes or no?

Stacey Abrams:  U.S. Constitution 'Began the Practice of Voter Suppression'.  Failed Georgia Democrat Gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams is now blaming the Constitution for what she claimed was the beginning of "the practice of voter suppression" in the United States as the left-winger continues to push for vote-by-mail options in elections nationwide.  "Voter suppression was baked into the notion of America," Abrams recently told Vanity Fair.  "It was embedded not in our Declaration, which was a glorious document, but the Constitution began the practice of voter suppression."

Confusion and resentment of this sort can exist only in a nation of poorly-educated simpletons who don't understand context.
Infinity Ward removes 'OK' gesture from 'Call of Duty' game over hate symbol concerns.  Players on the popular shoot-'em-up game "Call of Duty:  Modern Warfare" will no longer be able to celebrate with an "OK" gesture because of its use as a hate symbol, according to a report.  US video game developer Infinity Ward quietly removed the gesture from the game amid concerns over its use by racist right-wing extremists, the Independent reported.  Neither Infinity Ward nor publisher Activision has confirmed the reason for the removal of the gesture, which was a popular way for interactive players to celebrate the end of a winning mission.  The gesture has been replaced with an emote called "crush," the news outlet reported.

CNN: 'Master Bedroom' Carries Racist Connotations.  CNN has determined that "master bedroom" carries racist connotations, as do several other commonly used terms and phrases, including "blacklist," "cakewalk," and the "peanut gallery."  The English language is fraught with words and phrases that carry racist connotations, say CNN's Scottie Andrew and Harmeet Kaur, both of whom presented the problematic terms in a piece published Monday [7/6/2020].

Investigators determine it wasn't a noose found at Escambia County paper mill.  International Paper's Director of Marketing Thomas Ryan tells Channel 3 that what they found on site in late June was actually not a noose at all.  Ryan says they immediately partnered with a third party to investigate the supposed noose.  That third party group, he says, was very diverse.  Ryan says the investigators reviewed current and historical photographs and interviewed more than 60 employees and contractors.  They found the rope was actually used to hold up cables, but knocked down by a storm that night.

Virginia officials order removal of American flag from construction site, calling it a 'target' for protestors.  An American flag presented at a Richmond, Va., construction site was taken down almost as soon as it went up Friday after city officials voiced concerns that it could be a "target" for demonstrators and protesters.  Since the death of George Floyd in police custody in late May, protests and marches have continued throughout the nation.  While most demonstrations have remained peaceful, officials worried the flag could pose a "safety risk" for the July Fourth weekend, according to The Washington Post.  "Over the past month we've seen buildings and structures around Capitol Square vandalized and flags, dumpsters, a bus and other items set ablaze during demonstrations around the city," Dena Potter, spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of General Services, said in an email Friday.

Four Flaws in Logic of the Black Lives Matter Movement.  [Scroll down]  A third BLM logic fallacy is known as Appeal to Ignorance.  Here a position claims that a proposition must be true because there is no evidence against it.  This fallacy is lacking in any sophistication.  It accuses an individual or group of something, and if there is no convenient way to prove otherwise, then the assertion must be true.  This fallacy is especially difficult if the accusing party refuses to accept evidence to the contrary, like no "systemic racism."  Members of the BLM movement accuse virtually every segment of American society of being overtly racist.  There is white racism in government, education, business, sports, entertainment, income, and opportunity.  The list and accusations go on and on.  Many scholars and researchers, even those of color, have challenged these assertions to no avail.  In the face of accusations, many aspects of our society have been cowed into accepting the claim and feel compelled to make new commitments and concessions to people of color.

Popular chess channel hit by YouTube's racial justice algorithm.  Apparently, saying things like "white knight takes black pawn" is now too racist for Google's artificial intelligence.

National Parks Are Latest Target of Systemic Racism Claim in America.  Elements of the left are claiming now that America's national parks are built on systemic racism.  "The outdoors and public lands suffer from the same systemic racism that the rest of our society does," Joel Pannell, associate director of the Sierra Club, said in an ABC report, titled "America's Great White Outdoors."  The report called the parks "stubborn bastions of self-segregation."

Twitter is dropping coding terms like 'master' and 'slave' after 2 engineers led an internal effort to press for change.  Twitter is dropping decades-old coding terms like "master" and "slave" as the Black Lives Matter movement continues to cause ripple effects through the tech world.  The company's engineering division tweeted out a set of words that it wants "to move away from using in favor of more inclusive language."  The list includes replacing "whitelist" with "allowlist," "master/slave" with "leader/follower," and "grandfathered" with "legacy status."

Virginia college may nix wasp mascot, fearing tie to 'White Anglo-Saxon Protestants'.  Emory & Henry College in Virginia has announced to students the school will re-examine its wasp mascot.  Why?  The bug may appear "exclusive" to students who are not White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, or "WASPs."  While a public outcry over racism continues around the nation, the college is already concerned that its two historical namesakes — Methodist Episcopal Church bishop John Emory and founding father Patrick Henry — were slave holders.  The school mascot has also come under scrutiny.

The Editor says...
What's so offensive about White Anglo-Saxon Protestants that they must never be mentioned?

The Marxist Mob Isn't Coming — They're Already Here.  Across the cultural spectrum, ever since "Defund the police!" instantly became their rallying cry, you've seen most of the nation's news and entertainment media outlets stand in solidarity with the Marxist activists of Black Lives Matter [BLM].  Corporations publicly align with BLM, vowing to "do their part" to "educate" all of us about America's "systemic racism".  One smothering monolithic voice will come from across the cultural spectrum from all the media sources the Marxists have embedded themselves within.  "You are systemically racist, America, and you need to change!  Show us that you know you need to change!  Kneel and confess your white privilege!  Kneel before the activists of BLM and give them what they want!"  You'll hear this propaganda endlessly from political shows.  On the sports channels.  Movie theater chains.  Netflix.  Music channels.  Home shopping networks.  Video game channels.  Comic books.  When I say across the entire cultural spectrum, I am not exaggerating.

The Most Noble Experiment in Human History is on a Ventilator.  [Scroll down]  There was an implicit understanding that while the United States provided no guaranteed outcomes, it did offer unprecedented opportunities for success.  Were there equal opportunities for the slaves (and their immediate descendants) brought to the United States against their will?  No.  Did traders from Britain, Portugal, and France roam the African Continent capturing slaves for export to buyers around the world?  No, they didn't have to.  Dominant African tribes were more than happy to do the dirty work and sell lesser advantaged peoples into slavery.  It was ever thus.  Perhaps the greatest folly of the past month (and that's not an easy one to pick, given the daily deluge of chicaneries being foisted on the American populace) is the notion that slavery was a uniquely American peculiarity, and blacks in America are owed reparations because of the way they have been treated from the 1600s until today.  Perhaps Al Sharpton sums up the thought process from his speech at a George Floyd memorial service.  The premise here is that no African Americans in the United States have been successful because the white man has held them back.

In New Message, Lightfoot Accuses Trump of Targeting Cities With Female Mayors.  Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot accused President Donald Trump of targeting Democratic, female mayors in larger U.S. cities with "misogynistic and racist rants" after the president wrote a letter to her on the city's increasing violence.  "What's abundantly clear over this last month in particular, there's some obvious dots to connect as part of his regular rotation of criticisms," Lightfoot said during an unrelated press conference Monday.  "He has started attacking and trying to undermine every big city Democratic mayor, especially the women."

'Master' no longer used to describe bathrooms and bedrooms by Houston real estate group.  These bedrooms and bathrooms are nobody's master.  Earlier this month, the Houston Association of Realtors dropped the word "master" for specification, opting for "primary" as a more inclusive descriptor.  "The Multiple Listing Service advisory group regularly reviews the terms and fields used in the MLS to make sure they are consistent with the current market environment," read an association statement.  "The updates to primary bedroom and primary bath were among nine requests for review that were submitted by members and considered at the most recent meetings."  The adjustment came after several members of the organization called for a review of the word's use, according to Houston TV station KPRC.

Aunt Jemima's Relatives Want Reparations.  Earlier this month, when Quaker Oats announced that Aunt Jemima would get a new name and logo, a 47-year-old truck driver named Larnell Evans, Jr. received the news with some ambivalence.  Evans is the great-great-grandson of Anna Short Harrington, one of several actresses who played Aunt Jemima at fairs and in advertisements throughout the early 20th century.  The company's rebrand and future $5 million donation rang hollow to him.  "That's the easy way for them to go," Evans tells The Daily Beast.  "I guess you would say, that's saving money."  He had a different reckoning in mind.  Six years ago, Evans and his nephew, Dannez Hunter, tried to confront Quaker Oats about their shared history in federal court.  In September of 2014, they filed a federal lawsuit against PepsiCo, the corporate owner of Quaker Oats, alleging that Harrington had helped develop Aunt Jemima's signature self-rising pancake mix, and that the company had used her likeness as its logo without providing proper compensation.  They asked for $2 billion in relief and a share of sales revenue.

Native American activists are attacking an Olympic landmark in the Sierras.  If you're from Northern California, you might have spent time at Squaw Valley in Lake Tahoe, the site of the 1960 Winter Olympic Games.  It is one of America's most beautiful mountain areas.  Now, though, the leftists have Squaw Valley in their crosshairs, for they're claiming that the word "squaw" is a pejorative that must be stricken from the English language.  Not only is this out-of-control cultural Marxism, it's factually wrong.  As with so many things that leftists advocate, it comes from a place of ignorance.

Insults to Black History.  Many whites are ashamed, saddened and feel guilty about our history of slavery, Jim Crow and gross racial discrimination.  Many black people remain angry over the injustices of the past and what they see as injustices of the present.  Both blacks and whites can benefit from a better appreciation of black history.  Often overlooked or ignored is the fact that, as a group, black Americans have made the greatest gains, over some of the highest hurdles, and in a shorter span of time than any other racial group in history.  For example, if one totaled up the earnings and spending of black Americans and considered us as a separate nation with our own gross domestic product, we would rank well within the top 20 richest nations.

Why Are We Letting Democrats Steal from Us?  Brainwashed, radicalized liberals have been using Trump's election as a reason to take over our streets, college campuses, corporate America, and other traditional American institutions in ways we could not have imagined.  Putting aside the Resistance movement, which began the day Trump won, these frustrated anarchists are now acting like rabid dogs let loose on innocent populations who wish to live and prosper in peace.  They have stolen livelihoods from the same people they purportedly care so much about.  They have stolen the lives of officers and individuals who seek only to instill law and order in the midst of chaos.  They are pilfering much of what has made America unique and special — including our glorious history and traditions.  From Aunt Jemima, Mrs. Butterworth's, Uncle Ben's, Cream of Wheat, and Eskimo Pie to Land O'Lakes, corporate logos that existed for over a century are now gone or soon to be removed from grocery store shelves.  When leftists see racism in Snap, Crackle and Pop, where does the insanity end?

'The Masters' Golf Tournament Should Change 'Racist' Name, Writer Says.  One of golf's four "major" tournaments every year is called "The Masters."  The field of golfers is the smallest of all the majors — only the best allowed — and the winner can be deemed "The Master" (plus, he gets a cool green jacket that every pro golfer covets).  But one writer at Deadspin has decided that the tournament's name is racist and should be changed.

Great-Grandson Of Aunt Jemima Is Angry Quaker Oats Is Erasing Her Legacy.  On Wednesday, June 17th, Quaker Foods announced it would rebrand the Aunt Jemima products and stop using the logo in response to civil unrest in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.  The great-grandson of Anna Short Harrington, the woman who played Aunt Jemima from 1935 to 1954, announced he was angry with Quaker's decision to change its logo and name on its pancake mix and syrup.

Chick, please.  At a recent roundtable discussion of race, Chick-fil-A's CEO, Dan Cathy, showed that he believes actions are stronger than words.  Unfortunately, the words in question were Cathy's declaration that to atone for racism, white people should literally start polishing the shoes of black people wherever they find them.  Which won't be socially awkward at all, right?  To show he means business, Cathy then whipped out a shoeshine brush that he keeps in his pocket (this is called "eccentricity" when you're wealthy) and stooped to polish the sneakers of rapper Lecrae Moore — a black man who has been so oppressed by centuries of systemic racism that he currently has a net worth of only $3 million.

No, America Is Not Plagued with 'Systemic Racism'.  I was born at the end of World War II, into the Boomer generation.  At that time, there was systemic racism throughout the United States, not just in the South, as some in other parts of the country would have you believe.  The country functioned under laws that divided blacks from all other ethnic groups (even other minorities; Mexicans and Asians were part of white America).  My parents' generation and those who came before them experienced even more injustice than did my generation.  That said, today, what is transpiring is not systemic racism, but rather a skillful manipulation of poorly educated (including some who have college degrees), resentful American blacks, who are oblivious to being used.  They are "useful idiots."

Systemic Ignorance.  If you don't know much of anything, what right have you to instruct those who do know?  Every right, it would presently seem.  In acknowledgement of which right — oh, boy! — you commission instructive pieces of testimony like the San Francisco overthrow of a statue representing — are you ready? — former President and Gen. Ulysses Simpson Grant.  U.S. Grant!  Grant, who accepted, at Appomattox courthouse in 1865, the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia on the initiative of its commander, Robert E. Lee!  Thus writing "finis" to the Civil War/War Between the States.  I have read that the rap on Grant, from the standpoint of the San Francisco mob, was that for a year, he personally owned one slave — one — who he freed a couple of years before the war.  I doubt many find this explanation persuasive.  I don't.

Family of woman who portrayed Aunt Jemima opposes move to change brand.  An East Texas family is not happy about the 'brand changing' of a popular pancake syrup:  Aunt Jemima.  The iconic "Aunt Jemima" has long-standing ties with the city of Hawkins, and a goodwill ambassador named "Lillian Richard."  Living in Forney, Vera Harris is the family historian for the Richard family of Hawkins, and could hardly believe a big part of their family legacy, the "Aunt Jemima" brand, was about to be erased from supermarket shelves.

Eskimo Pie
Bye, Bye, Eskimo Pie.  Eskimo Pie joins the brands that featured minorities and now are destined for history's dust bin: ["]The maker of Eskimo Pies will change the 99-year-old brand name of the ice cream treat, the company said Friday — becoming the latest organization to overhaul the marketing of a product with a racially tinged moniker in recent weeks.["]  What does "racially tinged" mean?  It is bad, supposedly.  But why?  The "Eskimo Pie" ice cream bar was obviously named in recognition of the fact that Eskimos live in cold places.  Eskimo Pies come from the freezer.  They are ice cream — cold.  That is it.  How is this somehow derogatory?


Eskimo Pies to drop 'derogatory' name over racial insensitivity.  The maker of Eskimo Pies will change the 99-year-old brand name of the ice cream treat, the company said Friday — becoming the latest organization to overhaul the marketing of a product with a racially tinged moniker in recent weeks.  The owner of the Eskimo Pie, Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream, said in a statement they had been considering renaming the chocolate-covered ice cream bar and popsicle for some time.  "We are committed to being a part of the solution on racial equality, and recognize the term is derogatory," the company's head of marketing said in a statement.

'Snap, Crackle, Pop' Determined To Be Racist.  Fiona Onasanya, a Black Lives Matter activist and former member of the UK parliament, claims that Kellogg's Rice Krispies is a racist cereal because it has "three white boys" as mascots.  Now that's "systemic racism"!  If Ms. Onasanya had stopped there, she would simply be dismissed as a fool and that would have been that.  But in her eagerness to prove racism, Onasanya doubled down on her charge and, in the process, proved she is an ignorant fool.

What's the name of the football team in Kansas City?
Duluth pushes to remove 'chief' from job titles, calling it offensive to indigenous people.  City leaders are making a push to remove the word "chief" from job titles, calling the term offensive to indigenous people.  At a news conference Wednesday, Duluth Mayor Emily Larson implored City Council members to vote to approve the change next week "so that we have more inclusive leadership and less language that is rooted in hurt and offensive, intentional marginalization."  The measure, slated to go before the council Monday night, would change Chief Administrative Officer Noah Schuchman's title to city administrator and Chief Financial Officer Wayne Parson's title to finance director.

University of Virginia changes its athletics logo for the second time in two months after accidentally including reference to school's slavery past in April redesign.  The University of Virginia changed its athletics logo for the second time in less that two months after realizing that the last version had connotations to the school's slavery past.  A new logo unveiled this week lacks the curls added to the handles of the sabers which have come to represent the school's Cavaliers athletics department.  The sabers now have smooth handles.  The Charlottesville school's athletics director Carla Williams says she did not realize at the time the previous logo was introduced on April 24 that it had a 'negative connotation' to slavery.

Quaker Oats [is] Destroying Legacy of Black Female Civil Rights Pioneer, Aunt Jemima.  Quaker Oats has jumped on the woke bandwagon by announcing the destruction of the legacy of one of America's earliest black female civil rights pioneers, Aunt Jemima.  The company announced on Wednesday that it would be cancelling the legacy of former slave and early civil rights activist Nancy Green, who served as the spokesperson for the Aunt Jemima maple syrup that so famously bears her image.

Mrs. Butterworth's, Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben's phasing out racial brand images.  Conagra Brands announced Wednesday afternoon [6/17/2020] that they are doing a complete review of Mrs. Butterworth's, a brand that dates back to 1961 and is characterized by syrup bottles in the shape of a matronly woman.  The company said that the packaging is intended to evoke the images of a "loving grandmother," but understands how it may be interpreted in a way that is inconsistent with their values.  "As discussions on race and racial injustice have become more prevalent, we've been listening to our employees and consumers," a spokesperson for Conagra Brands told FOX business.  "Based on these discussions, we've decided now is the time to update the brand."

The Editor says...
Just about anything done by any company "may be interpreted in a way that is inconsistent with their values."  There are those who are constantly on the lookout for new and different ways to be offended by things that have been around for decades.  Don't change anything because of their complaints!

Kangaroo Nation.  The premise behind much of the protesting we hear in our time from women, African Americans, gays, and other groups granted the special status of being in the minority (how that applies to women, who make up more than half of the population, is hard to see), is that they are to be believed when they tell their stories of oppression.  Nay, more.  Even to express a doubt in any specific case is tantamount to violence.  One might say, in the case of women — who, with the obvious and important exception of rape, are much less likely than men to be the victim of every single category of violent crime — that the very claim is a sort of wish-fantasy, salt to an insipid life, so that they may see themselves as actresses in a drama of high meaning and great danger.  Be that as it may, the premise is nonsense.  When one speaks the truth, one wants to be heard, but one does not cry out, "Believe me, or else!"

Yesterday Came Suddenly.  Did you know that Paul McCartney once wrote a song celebrating slavery?  Well, neither did he.  It took about half a century after "Penny Lane" was a hit for the Beatles before historians decided that this street in Liverpool was a legacy of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.  Sir Paul wrote the song as a nostalgic ode to Penny Lane as the scene of childhood happiness "beneath the blue suburban skies."  The Liverpool-born musician could not have known, while composing the cheerful tune in the mid-1960s, that scholars would one day conclude Penny Lane was probably named in honor of James Penny, a local mariner who made his fortune in the slave trade in the 1700s.  Historians have not been able to prove this as a certainty, but the mere possibility was enough [...] Now that I think about it, didn't McCartney's lyrics in "Get Back" mock someone who "thought she was a woman, but she was another man"?  Isn't this the textbook definition of transphobic hate speech?

Mrs. Butterworth's syrup says it will review branding due to racial bias concerns.  Mrs. Butterworth's syrup says it will review its brand and packaging after two other popular products announced changes to their products due to racial bias concerns.  "The Mrs. Butterworth's brand, including its syrup packaging, is intended to evoke the images of a loving grandmother," the company said in a news release Wednesday.  "We stand in solidarity with our Black and Brown communities and we can see that our packaging may be interpreted in a way that is wholly inconsistent with our values."  Conagra Brands said it has "begun a complete brand and packaging review on Mrs. Butterworth's."

Uncle Ben and Mrs Butterworth
Uncle Ben's and Mrs. Butterworth's Will Get Rebranded Following Aunt Jemima Retirement.  Just hours after Quaker Oats announced they were renaming and rebranding Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben's has announced they will do the same thing.  The brand, which is owned by Mars Inc. is taking a stand against racism.  Like Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben is based on a racial stereotype, and people have criticized both brands for years now.  Conagra, the company behind Mrs. Butterworth's syrup, said it would go through a rebranding and renaming.  Conagra noted it "can see that our packaging may be interpreted in a way that is wholly inconsistent with our values."


Aunt Jemima
Corporate Pandering Means Invisibility.  So, how did Aunt Jemima fail to "reflect [the] values" of Pepsico/Quaker Oats?  She is a totally normal, positive image that happens to be black:  [Photo]  How in the world is that image "based on a racial stereotype?" Is it a stereotype that African-American women know how to make good pancakes?  I don't know; but if so, why is this bad?  Pasta manufacturers use images of Italian women.  Is that somehow racist?  I don't know whether Quaker Oats has decided to go out of the pancake business.  Maybe the racial palaver is just a cover for deep-sixing a brand that no longer makes money.  But if the company stays in the pancake business, how will they replace Aunt Jemima?  With an African-American demonstrator or arsonist?  I assume not.  This positive, friendly image of a black woman, which has been on grocery shelves for more than a century, will just disappear.  With Aunt Jemima gone, could Uncle Ben be far behind?  Sadly, no.


Cream of Wheat
I hear the new mascot is named Kareem of Wheat.
Cream of Wheat now reviewing mascot amid Black Lives Matter backlash.  Is Cream of Wheat next in line for a social justice makeover?  Cream of Wheat is now re-evaluating its black mascot following announcements by Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben's that they'd overhaul their controversial imaging amid online criticism.  The move comes in wake of Black Lives Matter protests over the deaths of George Floyd and other black men while in police custody.  "We understand there are concerns regarding the Chef image," said B&G Foods in an emailed statement, adding that they "are initiating an immediate review" of the cereal brand's packaging.  The Cream of Wheat parent company is referring to their 130-year-old beaming cook logo, which was based on Rastus, a black caricature that appeared in minstrel shows in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, reports CNN.


Aunt Jemima brand to change name, remove image that Quaker says is 'based on a racial stereotype'.  The Aunt Jemima brand of syrup and pancake mix will get a new name and image, Quaker Oats announced Wednesday, saying the company recognizes that "Aunt Jemima's origins are based on a racial stereotype."  The 130-year-old brand features a Black woman named Aunt Jemima, who was originally dressed as a minstrel character.  The picture has changed over time, and in recent years Quaker removed the "mammy" kerchief from the character to blunt growing criticism that the brand perpetuated a racist stereotype that dated to the days of slavery.  But Quaker, a subsidiary of PepsiCo, said removing the image and name is part of an effort by the company "to make progress toward racial equality."

The Book-Burners Are Here.  In terms of free speech and the defense thereof, this month has been one of the worst in our nation's history.  Those who don't kowtow to either the street mob or the Twitterati regarding the George Floyd controversy are finding themselves canceled, fired, and socially exiled for life.  Opinion editor James Bennet of the New York Times was forced to resign after printing an article by Senator Tom Cotton that fellow staffers claimed put them "in danger."  Bennet is not alone.  Magazine editors, TV stars, sports announcers, university professors, radio hosts, and newspaper reporters donned their scarlet letters and took the walk of shame after uttering their respective blasphemies.  Most caved to the will of the online show trials, offering false confessions and begging for their inquisitors' forgiveness for their alleged transgressions.  Many of these allies-turned-enemies had previously fancied themselves modern-day Robespierres.  Unfortunately for them, they were correct.

About my 'racism' and 'privilege'.  [Scroll down]  I treat everyone I know or may meet in a friendly, fair and equitable manner, unless or until they give me a concrete reason to act differently.  I'm a pretty simple guy at heart, so let's not make the world any more complicated.  We should focus and be judged on behaviors and overt actions.  As sentient beings, we all have choices to make, and usually are able to think before we act or speak out.  We're motivated by a lifetime of different experiences, and that definitely has an impact on who we are and what we do.  Trying to get inside everyone's head is fraught with problems, so let's Defund The Thought Police without delay.

Boston considers removing Abraham Lincoln statue with freed slave.  Boston's mayor is in favor of taking down a local statue of President Abraham Lincoln standing before a freed black man, after a petition was launched for its removal, his office says.  Mayor Marty Walsh's office added that the pol wants a community discussion about its future and whether a new statue commemorating the end of slavery should be commissioned to take its place, according to the Boston Globe.  The controversial statue, situated in the city's Park Square, is a replica of the Emancipation Memorial in Washington and shows Lincoln with one hand raised above a kneeling man with broken shackles on his wrists.  The monument was intended to show Lincoln freeing the man from slavery, but a new petition argues that it "instead represents us still beneath someone else.

Democrats accuse Trump of racism for planning rally on 'Juneteenth' in Tulsa.  Democrats accused President Trump of racism Thursday for scheduling his next campaign rally on the "Juneteenth" anniversary of slavery's end, in Tulsa, Oklahoma — site of one of the worst massacres of blacks in U.S. history.  "This isn't just a wink to white supremacists — he's throwing them a welcome home party," tweeted Sen. Kamala D. Harris, California Democrat and a contender to become running mate for Democratic nominee Joseph R. Biden[.]

The Editor says...
Is Tulsa off-limits to whites on Juneteenth?

Cracker Barrel under attack because it 'feels' like a racist place, with a racist name.  First they came for "Cops" and "Gone With The Wind," and now they appear to be gunning for Cracker Barrel.  Sort of.  Amid the Maoist-like cultural revolution currently happening across the states, there seems to be an emerging movement to smear (and eventually possibly cancel) the iconic Southern restaurant chain Cracker Barrel.  It reportedly began with April Reign, the far-left activist reportedly responsible for launching the stunningly racist #OscarsSoWhite hashtag.

Civil Rights Veteran Shelby Steele:  The Idea Of 'Systemic Racism' Is A 'Corruption,' Blacks 'Have Never Been Less Oppressed' In America.  Speaking with Fox News' Mark Levin on "Life, Liberty and Levin"on Sunday, civil rights veteran Shelby Steele, the author of "White Guilt:  How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era" and "Shame:  How America's Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country," ripped of the claim that America is plagued by "systemic racism."  He stated, "That's a corruption; it's a corruption because the truth of the matter is, blacks have never been less oppressed than they are today.  Opportunity is around every corner."

The Democrats' Insane Vow to Disband Police.  [Scroll down]  Folks, ponder this.  One police officer wrongfully killed a black man, which all of America condemned.  The officer is being prosecuted.  And yet, Democrats and fake news media flooded the airwaves with their lie that blacks are being murdered daily by police.  Data confirming that police are the greatest protectors of blacks are ignored.  Cops are far more likely to be killed by a black rather than the other way around.  Democrats and fake news media absurdly say every white American is responsible for the daily persecution of blacks.  Therefore, Democrat politicians are outrageously physically kneeling in worship to Black Lives Matter, begging forgiveness for being born white.  Antifa thugs are demanding that other whites do the same.  It still blows my mind that public schools, beginning in kindergarten, are allowed to teach white students that they are born racist.  It is no wonder that many Black Lives Matter anarchists are guilt-infected white youths.

GM designates $10 million to promote inclusion, racial justice.  General Motors Co. on Friday said it has designated $10 million to support organizations that promote inclusion and racial justice, with an initial $1 million going to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

The Editor says...
What can be done to "promote inclusion?"  Who has been excluded from what?

Black Caucus PAC Defames WH's Kayleigh McEnany As 'Racist' In Baseless Petition For Her Resignation.  The Congressional Black Caucus PAC is circulating an online petition that calls for the resignation of Donald Trump's White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany over supposed "racist statements" she made about former President Barack Obama.  There's just one problem.  The petition does not explain what those statements are.  There are no pull quotes — or any quotes at all — citing what supposedly bigoted words the Trump spokeswoman uttered about the President's predecessor.

Maxine Waters Classifies Term 'Rioting' as 'Negative Language ... Used Against Black People'.  Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), in an interview published Wednesday [6/3/2020], explained why she rejects the term "rioting" in describing violent protests, contending that the word is part of "negative language used far too often in a description of black people by folks who fundamentally don't see black people the same way they see whites and others." [...] She spoke in depth about her experience with Gates, Los Angeles's former police chief, and explained how those events shaped her view of the "negative language" used today.  "A lot of negative language gets used against black people, describing what whites often believe is true about us: that language includes 'lazy,' 'criminal,' and 'rioting,'" Waters told the outlet.

The numbers don't support BLM claims about the police.  Are black lives in danger due to "systemic racism" in American policing?  Are "black and brown bodies" under systematic assault by white racists?  The numbers from recent years suggest that the answer to both questions is "no."  There are few instances in which unarmed blacks are killed by white police officers.  To the extent that, in these instances, the police officer acted wrongfully, the officer must be held fully accountable.  However, the low number of instances compared to the frequency of encounters undercuts any claim of a systemic policing problem in this regard.  Similarly, the statistics on interracial violence undercut the claim that white racists pose a serious threat to black and brown bodies.  Blacks engage in violence against whites far more frequently than whites engage in violence against blacks.

Democrats and Antifa:  Fighting Racism with Racism and Riots.  Then there is a respectable organization, the National Museum of African-American History and Culture (a part of the Smithsonian Institution), that gets the lion's share of its funding from the federal budget.  On its site, it propagates an "anti-racism" laced with racism toward white people.  The chapter of its agenda called "Whiteness" emphasizes that "since white people in America hold most of the political, institutional, and economic power, they receive advantages that nonwhite groups do not."  The museum opened its permanent home in September 2016 in Washington, D.C. with a ceremony led, ironically, by the America's first black president, Barack Obama.  Nothing illustrates "systematic racism" better than the black president of the country opening a museum of black history and culture.

NBA announcer Grant Napear fired over 'All Lives Matter' comment.  Grant Napear was fired by his radio station and resigned as the Sacramento Kings TV play-by-play announcer Tuesday after his tweet that said "All Lives Matter" amid the George Floyd protests was met with backlash.  Napear, a graduate of Syosset High School on Long Island, tweeted "All Lives Matter... Every Single One!" on Sunday after former Kings star DeMarcus Cousins asked the 60-year-old for his view on the Black Lives Matter movement.  The phrase, "All Lives Matter," is seen by many as mocking the Black Lives Matter movement, which began in 2013 as a campaign against systematic racism and violence toward black people.

The Editor says...
If you lose your job over a perceived insult, it wasn't a job worth having.

In the NFL, cowardice drives grievance.  The NFL recently announced several proposals to increase diversity.  A few years ago, the NFL demonstrated its commitment to pleasing leftists by donating $100 million towards "social justice" causes.  But the left is insatiable.  Shelling out truckloads of cash to grievance groups attracts more predatory behavior than Bill Clinton and Joe Biden at a high school cheer competition.  There's an abundance of white people naïve enough to believe that appeasing Democrats will bring about a ceasefire — but it never does.  Cowardly compliance creates new targets for future shakedowns.

The Same Fools Who Called Us Racist For Wanting Early Border Closures Now Admit They Should Have Closed The Borders Earlier.  We all remember what happened when the CCP Coronavirus started spreading and posing a risk to Canada.  People like you and me were calling for border closures early on, realizing that the way to protect Canada was to shut our borders.  Yet, when people like us were calling for that, the foolish people in charge like Justin Trudeau, Theresa Tam, and Patty Hajdu insinuated that border closures were 'racist.'  They claimed that 'stigma' was a 'greater threat than the virus,' a statement that will live in infamy as one of the dumbest things every uttered.

Dear GOP: Stop Cowering Before Bad-Faith Race Card Attacks.  In 2012, then-Vice President Joe Biden told a black crowd in Virginia that the Republican Party was planning to "put you all back in chains."  In 2000, a Democratic group ran an ad saying that then-Gov. George W. Bush's stance on hate crimes legislation was equivalent to killing James Byrd, the black man dragged to his death by three white supremacists in a truck in Texas.  Policy proposals to ensure the integrity of ballots are routinely presented by Democrats as not just racist but as having no function other than racism.  Although Democrats have a near-monopoly on the black vote, the welfare, busing, and affirmative action programs they passed have failed to produce the promised results.  And let's not forget Democrats remain completely hostage to the demands of teachers unions, which resist basic educational reforms and have made trapping kids in underperforming schools the "civil rights issue of our time."  Because unions demanded it, one of Obama's first acts as president was to kill off D.C.'s school vouchers program — which disproportionately helped poor black kids.  Democrats have done a lot of grandstanding but very little to revise, improve, or get rid of these expensive programs.

An Aristocracy of Losers.  Even by the standards of the Washington Post, Sunday's [5/17/2020] feature on Stacey Abrams was remarkable.  And by "remarkable," of course I mean, ludicrous.  The hagiographic profile, which ran to more than 5,000 words, likened her to "a runway supermodel" and included a silhouette photo of Abrams, enshrouded by machine-made fog, that provoked widespread derision on social media.  Of course, any criticism of Abrams will immediately be denounced by liberals as racist and sexist, which is the most obvious reason why Abrams has been promoted as a "rising star" of the Democratic Party.  The liberal media enjoy nothing more than denouncing Americans as hate-filled bigots.

MSNBC's Reid:  Trump [is] Moving on Because Coronavirus Mostly Killing Black, Brown People.  Sunday [5/10/2020] on MSNBC's "AM Joy," host Joy Reid said President Donald Trump is attempting to move on from the coronavirus pandemic and reopen the economy because it is "disproportionately killing people who are black and brown, which is not his base."

New Jersey professor assigns blame for coronavirus outbreak [to Trump supporters].  A professor at a New Jersey university is blaming President Trump and his supporters for the impact of the coronavirus outbreak, claiming it's their fault African-Americans have been dying at a disproportionate rate.

The Editor says...
At that point in the article above, the quotes from a black professor of "Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies" began, and since the professor is unable to express herself without profanity, you won't read her comments here.

What if Cultural Behavior Influences Coronavirus Susceptibility?  I want to alert all who are involved in fighting the disease that "culture" will be deemed by progressives of all ethnicities a taboo subject.  Any attempts to reveal to black Americans that cultural habits could be killing them will be turned back on the hapless investigators as evidence of their racism and lack of understanding.  The victimhood scam, perpetrated by progressive leftists must be protected at all costs. [...] In line with this misdirected notion, blacks are fed the lie that they hold no responsibility for their circumstances.  If they eat unhealthy foods and suffer the consequences of those choices, it's not their fault.  They are victims of that nebulous "racist system."  Progressive Democrats have been masters in force-feeding that lie.

Van Jones says states reopening businesses amid coronavirus is 'a death sentence for communities of color'.  CNN political commentator Van Jones said Tuesday [4/21/2020] that the decision by some states to ease stay-at-home restrictions and open businesses is effectively "a death sentence for communities of color," which have been disproportionately affected by the novel coronavirus.  His comments follow Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp's announcement that some businesses in the state would be able to reopen as early as Friday, as other state leaders signaled similar plans.

If You Protest Against Leftist Tyranny, You're Racist.  You have to admire the left's unrelenting ability to bypass logic and facts and connect everything to their Victimhood Narrative.  The stay-at-home order protests have nothing to do with racism or oppressing anyone; indeed, it is oppression they are fighting.  The only lives being sacrificed are those of Americans who are having their livelihoods gutted not so much by the coronavirus itself as by the totalitarian overreach of progressive leaders who are seizing upon this crisis to cut the legs out of what had been President Trump's booming economy, until the pandemic hit.

MSNBC Panelist Complains Surgeon General — Who Is Black — Advising Minorities Not to Do Drugs Is Indicative of White Supremacy.  Jamil Smith on the Surgeon General telling minorities to avoid drugs:  "This disease is one that is teaching us a lesson about how racism and white supremacy work in this country."  [Video clip]

Ayanna Pressley:  I Have Proof My Constituents Are Succumbing to Racism During Outbreak.  Again, statements like these aren't helping.  We already have CNN calling President Trump a racist and xenophobe for using accurate terms like "foreign virus" to describe the COVID-19 outbreak.  But Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) is now accusing her constituents of more of the same.  "Since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, we have seen not only the spreading of the virus but also a rapid spreading of racism and xenophobia," Pressley said at a recent hearing.

CBS Warns Common Words & Phrases Are Now Racist.  On Tuesday [3/10/2020], the hosts of CBS This Morning warned viewers that common words and phrases with no racial context whatsoever were now somehow examples of "racism" in everyday life.  It was all part of a segment designed to promote a "new book teaching kids the roots of racism."

Since When Are Viruses Racist?  In the identity politics world of the progressive left, everything is racist. [...] Cold weather, air, dogs, solar eclipses, and farmers markets are also considered racist to the woke progressives.  So, it's no surprise that something so small that it cannot be seen with an ordinary microscope is also said to be racist.  I speak of a virus, the "Wuhan virus," to be specific.  Or the "Chinese Coronavirus" to use another term.  This virus is busy causing not a mass epidemic, but mass hysteria, leading people to empty store shelves of toilet paper and hand sanitizer.  Also known as COVID-19, the Wuhan virus, like so many of its predecessors, is named based on where it was first identified, in this case, Wuhan, China.  In an intellectually functional society, claiming a virus name is racist would be nonsensical.  But in America, where thoughtful discussion is replaced by cliched outrage and common sense has been relegated to history books, the name "Wuhan virus" has become the latest trigger for the left.

Bill protecting Black hairstyles from discrimination passes Legislature, awaits Inslee's signature.  A bill to prohibit discrimination in Washington based on hair texture, specifically targeting hairstyles traditionally worn by Black people, is awaiting the Gov. Jay Inslee's signature.  House Bill 2602 would amend the Washington Law Against Discrimination (WLAD) so that race includes "traits historically associated or perceived to be associated with race," specifically citing hairstyles including Afros, braids, locs and twists.  It passed the Legislature on March 4, with a Senate vote of 38-9.

Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act Won't Hide the Real Threat to Black Lives.  Last week, the House of Representatives passed the "Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act," which designates lynching a federal hate crime,"[s]ixty-five years after 14-year-old Emmett Till was lynched in Mississippi."  The vote for the measure was a lopsided 410 to 4.  The Senate passed its version of the bill in February, and President Trump is expected to sign the final version.  Anti-lynching laws had been proposed in Congress going back over 100 years but always failed. [...] If lynching were still being tolerated, why do Democrats have to go back to the first Eisenhower administration for a victim to name their law after?  Even the act's own findings stipulate that the era in which blacks were being lynched was "between 1882 and 1968."  The act is an empty and unneeded reminder of a threat to blacks — horrible as it was in its time — that ended more than half a century ago.

Racist America?  Countering the 1619 Project's False Narrative.  A group of predominantly black scholars, journalists, entrepreneurs, clergy, and community leaders, led by Robert Woodson Sr., a respected anti-poverty activist, have launched "1776 Unites" to counter the false and harmful narrative promoted by the New York Times' "1619 Project."  The Times rolled out its woke narrative of America the racist nation as a Sunday magazine in August.  Then it swiftly disseminated the collection of essays, along with teacher guides, lesson plans, and other educational aids, to thousands of classrooms nationwide, according to the Pulitzer Center, which crafted the curricular materials.  Woodson and his colleagues are very concerned about the "lethal" impact of this race grievance ideology on children who are being taught that blacks are forever second-class American citizens, lacking agency to improve their lives.

These Black Scholars and Leaders Rebuke 1619 Project's Narrative of Victimhood.  An initiative featuring the writings of black Americans will counter and rebut a New York Times Magazine project that "reframes" all of U.S. history around slavery and racism.  The Woodson Center last week announced the sponsorship of "1776," a collection of essays and other material mostly written by black scholars and community and business leaders, among other backgrounds.  Their goal is to tell "the complete history of America and black Americans from 1776 to present."  The "1776" initiative directly rebuts the so-called 1619 Project introduced in August by The New York Times Magazine.  The purpose of the 1619 Project, according to an initial mission statement, is "to reframe the country's history, understanding 1619 as our true founding."

Chicago Transit apologizes for Abe Lincoln tweet honoring Black History Month.  Chicago's mass transit system apologized this week after a tweet recognizing Abraham Lincoln for Black History Month sparked a backlash.  The Chicago Transit Authority's (CTA) official Twitter account retweeted a post with photos of a man dressed as the Great Emancipator waiting for the Red Line train.  "In honor of Black History Month, Abraham Lincoln was seen making a guest appearance on the CTA," the CTA wrote Wednesday [2/12/2020], which was also Lincoln's 111th birthday.  The tweet was quickly deleted after users criticized the agency for celebrating a white man during Black History Month, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Sanders: The United States Is a 'Racist Society'.  Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) on Friday said the United States has a "racist society from top to bottom" on everything from health care to criminal justice to education.  "We have a racist society from top to bottom impacting health care, housing, criminal justice, education, you name it.  And clearly this is an issue that must be dealt with," Sanders said during the debate hosted by ABC News.  "But in terms of criminal justice, what we have got to do is understand the system is broken — is racist.  We invest in our young people in jobs and education, not more jails and more incarceration."  Sanders continued by calling for an end to the war on drugs, saying it has unfairly impacted African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans.

Trashing America as racist won't help Democrats beat Trump.  Tom Steyer, the billionaire who's trying to buy a win Bloomberg-style in the South Carolina Democratic primary, issued a stark warning at the beginning of the Democratic debate Friday night in New Hampshire:  Trump has the economic numbers that can help him get reelected, and Democrats are going to need to have a strong message to overwhelm it.  About an hour into the debate, they found their message:  America, Bernie Sanders said, is "a racist society from top to bottom."  One by one, the candidates echoed the message that "systemic racism" characterizes America.  "We can't legislate away racism," said Andrew Yang, because racism runs so deep in the American soul.  Joe Biden, verbatim (poor Joe): "The fact is that we in fact there is systemic racism."  Elizabeth Warren even declared that "we need race-conscious laws in education, in employment, in entrepreneurship to make this country a country for everyone."

Warren goes full weasel after campaign is accused of racism.  Six African-American staffers from Elizabeth Warren's Nevada campaign have resigned.  They accused the campaign of "tokenism" and racial insensitivity, and claimed that their work environment was "toxic."  There are two possibilities here.  The first is that the allegations are true.  Warren wouldn't be the first liberal to treat African-Americans as tokens or, indeed, affirmatively to mistreat them.  And even if Warren herself doesn't discriminate against African-American staff members, it's certainly possible that those who help run her campaign do.  The second possibility is that the allegations are [false].  These six staffers wouldn't be the first employees to play the race card without justification.

Warren blames 'legacy' of U.S. racism for conditions that caused campaign staff to quit.  Sen. Elizabeth Warren says it's time for America to consider its "long legacy" of racism in response to six minority staffers who quit the Nevada arm of her campaign.  The Massachusetts Democrat discussed the issue with MSNBC's Chris Hayes this week as she vies for further traction in the party's presidential primaries.

Liberal White Women Going to $2,500 Dinners to Learn How They're "Racist".  Talk about a recipe for indigestion.  Perhaps proving true the apocryphal saying "There's a sucker born every minute," liberal white women across the country are paying big money to host/attend dinners at which they can be lectured about their "privilege" and "racism" — and perhaps be brought to tears in the process.  If you guess who's coming to dinner here, no, it's not Sidney Poitier.  It's the co-founders of "Race to Dinner" (RtD), "Regina Jackson, who is black," the Guardian reports, "and Saira Rao, who identifies as Indian American," whatever that's supposed to mean (perhaps another 1/1,024th genealogy result is in the offing).  How it works is that a "white woman volunteers to host a dinner in her home for seven other white women — often strangers, perhaps acquaintances," the Guardian informs.  Once there, Jackson and Rao "challenge liberal white women to accept their racism, however subconscious," as the paper puts it — and all for a measly $2,500.

The Senate's Acquittal Is a 'Jim Crow' Cover-Up, Democrat Pastor Tells Black Caucus.  In a fiery speech to the Congressional Black Caucus on Tuesday [2/4/2020], Rev. William Barber — the black North Carolina pastor behind the Poor People's Campaign — compared the likely impeachment acquittal of President Donald Trump to Jim Crow-style "southern justice." [...] "The coordinated coverup we are witnessing as senators conspire to facilitate Trump's obstruction of Congress is deeply troubling to anyone who knows the history of Southern courthouses, where district attorneys openly coordinated with all-white juries and corrupt judges to cover up acts of racial terror," Barber declared.  "With patience and decorum, [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell has brought Southern justice to the United States Senate."  By "Southern justice," Barber meant the Jim Crow-style cover-up of Ku Klux Klan racial terrorism.

'This was supposed to be reparations' Why is LA's cannabis industry devastating black entrepreneurs?  A Los Angeles government program set up to provide cannabis licenses to people harmed by the war on drugs has been plagued by delays, scandal and bureaucratic blunders, costing some intended beneficiaries hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses.  Black entrepreneurs and activists across LA told the Guardian that the city's embattled "social equity" program has left aspiring business owners on an indefinite waiting list, causing potentially irreparable damage to their families' finances and preventing them from opening marijuana shops they have been planning for years.

The Editor says...
I find it difficult to feel sorry for inner-city drug dealers, even if the drugs are legal.

Newsreader Loses His Job of 30 Years For Quoting Shakespeare at a Black Person.  Veteran British newsreader Alastair Stewart has lost his job of 30 years after quoting a Shakespeare passage to a black man that included the word "ape," despite the fact that he had previously directed the same tweet to a white person.  Broadcaster ITN said Stewart had made "errors of judgment" is his use of social media that breached editorial guidelines.

Top Newsreader Alastair Stewart Fired for Quoting 'Racist' Shakespeare.  One of Britain's most popular and respected newsreaders has been sacked after using on Twitter a Shakespeare quotation that a black activist complained was 'racist'.  Alastair Stewart, who had been a newsreader at Independent Television News (ITN) for 40 years, was engaged in a Twitter debate with a vexatious nonentity called Martin Shapland, a former Liberal Democrat activist of no known distinction.

Patrick Mahomes vs The Gospel of Trayvon.  "The Gospel of Trayvon" is the fiction into which black Americans have been indoctrinated for almost eight years.  The Gospel maintains that across America there are armed white men in the streets, cops especially, eager to shoot unarmed black people at the slightest suspicion and for no reason other than their dark skin tones.  In addition, The Gospel maintains that America is hopelessly racist, and that its people, government and institutions are racist as well.  If you are African American, you are expected to accept The Gospel of Trayvon as unquestioned fact, to protest when called upon, and above all, to get out and vote for your protectors in the Democratic Party.  Heretics, take note.  If you challenge The Gospel you can expect reprisal.

Far-left agitprop for pre-K tots: what NYC schools have come to.  What are they teaching in New York City preschools?  At one taxpayer-funded Brooklyn nursery, it isn't numbers, letters or nap time — but racism and victimhood, plus transgender and "queer" rights, with a heavy dose of political indoctrination in the mix.  "I was kind of horrified," the father of a preschooler told me.  "They say they're trying to reduce racism and discrimination.  To me, they're perpetuating it, fomenting a sense of victimhood that 4-year-olds would never consider on their own.''

The Media Claims That The NFL Discriminates Against Black Coaches.  The Facts Tell A Completely Different Story.  There has been a renewed panic this year over the supposed lack of black head coaches in the NFL.  To be precise, this panic is renewed every year around this time, when the demographic make up of new coaching hires inevitably fall short of the media's arbitrary expectations.  USA Today tells us that the NFL is "failing coaching candidates of color."  A column on Yahoo Sports laments that "black coaching hires" remain at a "dismal level."  We are not told precisely what the Black Coaching Level is supposed to be.  The Washington Post reports that black coaches are suffering from a "denial of opportunity."

The Democrats:  Identity Politics above All.  The Democrats are totally and absolutely a party focused solely on identity politics and a party not at all concerned with the greater, general good of the country.  Their electoral strategy is based on identifying specific groups of voters to whom they can assign victimhood status and then promise a taxpayer-funded government program to alleviate their suffering and correct the wrongs perpetrated against them.  Implicit in the Democrats' argument is the common theme that these so-called transgressions are the result of biased, intentional wrongdoing by white conservative Republicans, whose prejudices, shortsightedness, and mean-spirited nature are aimed at those groups, with the intention of maintaining (or regaining, in some instances) political control of the country by a white heterosexual male cohort of European decent.

Kamala Harris' Campaign In Free Fall, ABC Blames 'America'.  As Sen. Kamala Harris' (D-CA) campaign for her party's presidential nomination continues to implode, some in the media are looking for answers.  ABC News shot first, asking if Harris "proof that America isn't ready for a woman of color as president?"  The article began with quotes from Harris making the argument herself.  She had previously spoken about her "electability" several times, and in May she went ahead and wondered whether "America was ready for a woman and a woman of color to be president of the United State of America."  She made the claim on "The View."  This statement set her up with the tired and ready-made excuse in case she lost the primary:  It's because America is racist and misogynist.

Seattle Renames the "Red Line" Light Rail Route Because It's Triggering.  We have not yet reached peak insanity with the left.  They continue to impress us with their continued lurch toward Idiocracy.  Red Lining was a practice where banks denied bank loans for minorities.  So, now and forever the term Red Lining, or its variants, shant be uttered because, apparently, it sends minorities into apoplexy.

Angry Target shoppers say anti-theft stickers are only being placed on darker shades of makeup.  Target is under fire after a picture was shared widely on social media, showing only the darkest shades of Elf Cosmetics foundations marked with anti-theft stickers.  A Twitter user shared the since deleted post earlier this week in a tweet aimed at the retail giant that garnered more than 16,000 retweets.  The photo showed rows of foundations ranging several skin tones, but four of the darker tones were covered in stickers reading, 'This item is electronically protected.'

Montgomery County CROWN Act bans discrimination based on hairstyle.  The CROWN Act — which has been passed in California and New York — gives residents a legal recourse if their hairstyle impacts their employment status, or if they're denied service because of it.  Montgomery County Council President Nancy Navarro said the CROWN Act "seeks to advance racial equity" by defining Protected Hairstyles.

The Editor says...
This law is ostensibly to eliminate discrimination; however, it is a law that benefits blacks exclusively and is most likely to be enforced only against white business owners.

Mathematics [are] a tool of racial oppression, Seattle public schools committee says.  Something called the "K-12 Math Ethnic Studies Framework," created by a Seattle Public Schools "Ethnic Studies Advisory Committee," is intended to instruct students that math is intimately connected to racial oppression.  Students will be taught "how technology and/or science have been and continues [sic] to be used to oppress and marginalize people and communities of color."  The framework, the final draft of which is scheduled to be completed by September 2020, will also attempt to "explain how math dictates economic oppression."  That's correct:  math.

Math is racist according to Seattle Public Schools.  The Seattle Public Schools Ethnic Studies Advisory Committee (ESAC) has determined that math is subjective and racist.  In a draft for its Math Ethnic Studies framework, the ESAC writes that Western mathematics is "used to disenfranchise people and communities of color."  Using the ESAC's framework, Seattle's public school students will be able to "construct & decode mathematical knowledge, truth, and beauty" so that they can contribute to their communities.  Students will also analyze the ways in which "ancient mathematical knowledge has been appropriated by Western culture," and "identify how math has been and continues to be used to oppress and marginalize people and communities of color."

UConn students arrested for 'ridiculing' speech in viral video.  Two University of Connecticut students were arrested Monday ]10/21/2019] after video allegedly showed them using racial slurs.  The school confirmed to Campus Reform that the men were charged under a Connecticut statute that makes it a crime to "ridicule" certain people.

Fat black professor of gender studies blames Trump for black female obesity.  No, this is not from the Babylon Bee.  It actually comes from the Oprah Winfrey Network, and a segment featuring Professor Britney Cooper, who sports a PhD from Emory University and who currently is an associate professor in the Department of Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers University.  With that sort of background, perhaps it isn't surprising to eternalize blame for obesity on racism and seem to indict President Trump for it.  In fairness, she only mentions Trump before launching her indictment of racism as the cause of black female obesity.  Here are few screen grabs of her subtitled rant, followed by the entire segment embedded in a tweet, in case you want to hear her, the moderator, and the audience all enthusiastically accept the theory that white people in general and President Trump in particular are what make a disproportionate number of black women obese.

Obese Professor Says It's Trump's Fault that Black Women are Overweight.  A Rutgers University women's and gender studies professor from New Jersey, suggested that racism and President Trump's policies are responsible for black female obesity.  Brittney Cooper made her absurd and "victimhood" argument during an appearance on "Black Women OWN the Conversation" that appears on the Oprah Winfrey Network.  Cooper goes on to say, "I hate when people talk about Black women being obese.  I hate it, because it becomes a way to blame us for a set of conditions that we didn't create."

Beto's Gospel of Despair.  [Scroll down]  Behold the words of flaky far-left presidential wannabe Robert Francis O'Rourke.  He goes by "Beto," a culturally appropriated nickname that his politically savvy father gave him so he eventually could bamboozle El Paso's overwhelmingly Hispanic voters into believing that the tube-sock-white Robert is actually Roberto and, thus, Hispanic.  This poser told the New Hampshire Democratic party convention last Saturday that America in 2019 is defined by its original sin:  slavery.  "This is a country that has been defined by foundational, systemic, endemic racism since the very founding of this country," O'Rourke shouted, his arms typically flapping about, like the late Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic.

Hillary Clinton has become completely delusional.  In the months and years since her humiliating loss, she blamed James Comey, Russia, computer bots, WikiLeaks, Bernie Sanders, Facebook, Joe Biden, fake news, Twitter, voter ID laws, the vast right-wing conspiracy, sexism, Barack Obama, ageism, Anthony Weiner, white women, xenophobia, black people, the Electoral College, the DNC, misogyny, and women cowed by their husbands.

TV Station Accused of Racism for 'Braves Scalped' Headline After MLB Game.  A Bay Area TV station was accused of racism for broadcasting the caption "Braves Scalped," after Wednesday's [10/9/2019] National League Division Series game between the Atlanta Braves and the St. Louis Cardinals.  The Cardinals trounced the Braves in a 13-1 final in Game 5 of the NLDS.  But as soon as the game ended, KTVU broadcast a headline that some found offensive.

Elizabeth Warren wraps herself in the victimhood of others.  In a post called "Not just a fake Indian," Scott discussed Elizabeth Warren's claim that, as a young teacher, she was let go because she became pregnant.  The claim is false, as demonstrated by records of the school board in question and confirmed by what Warren herself said in 2007. Warren is sticking to her story.  She is an inveterate liar.  One point that Warren keeps making is that her (fake) experience as a pregnant woman in the workforce mirrors that of millions of women in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.  I've heard Warren's supporters in the media say the same thing in her defense.  But the victimhood of others has no relevance to the key issue of whether Warren is lying when she claims to be a victim.  I don't doubt that in the past, many women lost jobs because of pregnancy.  I don't doubt that there are many Indians.  Warren's problem is that she is not part of either group, but claims to be.

To David Chang, the 'ethnic' food aisle is racist.  Others say it's convenient.  To millions of shoppers, the supermarket is just a place to stock up on produce and pantry staples to keep the family fed.  But to others, especially children of immigrants who may already feel pushed to the margins of the American mainstream, the supermarket can be just another place to experience the sting of their outsider status.

Vegan says she is 'traumatized for life' after eating pork roll.  A vegan claims she was served a pork sausage roll she thought was meat-free — and says she'll be "traumatized for life."  Sharleen Ndungu, 20, said she broke down in tears and started having heart palpitations once she realized that the vegan sausage roll she ordered from bakery chain Greggs in Kent, England, actually contained meat.

The Editor says...
If you accidentally swallowed a bug, or a little piece of paper, or anything else, would you be traumatized for life?  Probably not.  This sounds to me like a troublemaker laying out a case for a frivolous lawsuit.

"OK" hand sign added to list of hate symbols for white supremacy.  The "OK" hand gesture has been added to an expanding list of hate symbols used by white supremacists.  The Anti-Defamation League announced dozens of new additions to its database Thursday [9/26/2019].  The hand symbol began as a hoax by users of the website 4chan before turning into a popular trolling tactic, according to the Anti-Defamation League.  By this year, it had evolved into a gesture embraced "in some circles as a sincere expression of white supremacy," the civil rights group said.

Update:
Beto O'Rourke Caught Flashing White Supremacist Gang Gesture.  According to a new list of hate symbols released by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Democratic presidential contender Beto O'Rourke is a white supremacist.

Racist Exam Questions?  The U.S. Department of Justice has recently sued the Baltimore County government alleging that its written test for police officer recruits was unfairly biased against black applicants.  It turns out that black applicants failed the written test at a rate much greater than white applicants.  That results in fewer blacks being trained and hired as police officers. [...] Baltimore City uses Municipal Police Selection Test.  You can examine some sample questions at its website.  I'd like to know which of the questions are either unrelated to police work or racist.

Democrats and the Media Seek to Divide Americans.  Rather than unifying Americans, each 2020 Democrat presidential candidate is campaigning on dividing us into bogus victimized voting blocs.  They seek to convince every American that they are a victim in one way or another; a victim of racism, sexism, white privilege, environmental racism, income inequality, and so on.

Why Stacey Abrams still won't concede.  Stacey Abrams lost her 2018 bid for the Georgia governorship last November in a contentious race against then-Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp.  And despite acknowledging Kemp as the legal victor, Abrams has refused to officially concede the election.  "Concession in the political space is an acknowledgment that the process was fair," she told Yahoo News.  "And I don't believe that to be so."

Multicultural Frauds.  Notice how multicultural intellectuals teach nonwhites that they are victims in need of redress.  Notice how whites learn that they are to blame for all the world's problems.  Despite their appearance of righteousness, multicultural intellectuals are in the business of manufacturing hostilities and grievances between racial groups, for, as with feminism and its endless battle against "sexism" and "misogyny," the war on "racism" requires a perpetual supply of "racists" to oppose.  Meanwhile, social order is breaking down, and the future looks dark.  In 2017, the Brookings Institution took a survey of 1,500 current undergraduates.  To the question of whether a student group had the right to shout down or otherwise disrupt a speaker who is "known for making offensive and hurtful statements," 51% answered that they found such a tactic justifiable.  One in five students said that violence was acceptable in silencing a politically incorrect speaker.

The Lies of the 1619 Project.  First, it's hard to take its claims seriously when its creators and contributors are privileged blacks holding exalted positions in journalism, the media, and academia owned and controlled largely by whites.  The Project's creator, Nikole Hannah-Jones, is a black reporter employed by the white-owned New York Times.  She holds a 2017 fellowship with the MacArthur Foundation, which was founded and endowed by a white man, in which she received a $625,000 no-strings-attached grant.  She's doing pretty well as a black woman in what she claims is a white, racist America.  And, ironically, even though she condemns white America for its alleged systematic discrimination against blacks, she demanded that whites be excluded from the Project.

Dior pulls its 'tone deaf' Johnny Depp advert for its 'Sauvage' cologne.  Dior has deleted ads from its social media accounts promoting its Sauvage fragrance after it faced a backlash because of its use of Native American culture.  A video on Twitter featuring a Native American dancer and an Instagram post explaining the campaign that was crafted with Native American consultants was deleted hours after the fashion house was called out for cultural misappropriation and being insensitive.

Seattle Councilman Argues Power Washers are Racist, Since Hoses [were] Used Against Blacks in [the] Past.  Seattle has a human feces problem on their streets and sidewalks.  But the city council cannot agree on how to remove the crap.  Councilmember Larry Gossett says power-washing the sidewalks bring up images of using hoses against civil rights activists.

The Editor says...
Maybe so, but piles of feces in the street "bring up images" of the baboon cage at the zoo.

The Fraud Squad.  For real democracy to work, a body of citizens with a sound understanding of the principles of democracy is needed.  In America today, the body of citizens with a sound understanding of democracy is the silent majority of mostly white and Christian men and women who are never evoked or quoted by the media, but go about their business and lives without complaining and claiming to be victims.  And although victimhood has become the sine qua non of today's America, it is a con perpetrated by ignorant but opportunistic politicians who remain in power through the publicity they get from their phony crusades. [...] Watching those desperate men and women vying for votes in the Democratic primaries is a lesson on how not to live one's life.

A blatant attempt to revise history:
New goal for New York Times: 'Reframe' American history, and target Trump, too.  Perhaps when you think of the founding of the United States, you think of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Federalist Papers.  Now, the New York Times wants to "reframe" your understanding of the nation's founding.  In the Times' view (which it hopes to make the view of millions of Americans), the country was actually founded in 1619, when the first Africans were brought to North America, to Virginia, to be sold as slaves.  This year marks the 400th anniversary of that event, and the Times has created something called the 1619 Project.

The Left's Madcap Social Engineering.  Today's Democratic candidates for the 2020 Presidential election are pushing all types of social engineering:  Medicare for all, basic income, affordable housing, reparations, and climate change.  But control is the central motivation behind the Progressive Wizard's curtain.  Two other powerful examples of social engineering are affirmative action and victimization.  These two are the gateway to all other forms of social engineering.  They are based on an assumption that minorities, particularly black Americans, are forever discriminated against, and are and will forever be victims of said discrimination.

The Student Debt You Willingly Took On Is Not My Problem To Solve.  [Scroll down]  What did you do to afford college?  What didn't you do because of the cost of college?  Were you getting tattoos and traveling your way through college?  Were you pledging and partying?  Did you go to your top-choice university?  Maybe an out-of-state public university with higher tuition rates?  Which spring break and study abroad destinations did you visit along the way?  Did you splurge on your fairytale wedding instead of paying down your student loans?

What's Really Behind the 'White Supremacy' Terrorism Scare.  The anti-Trump forces, now stripped of their Russian collusion ammunition, have invented another imaginary threat they hope to weaponize against the president:  The public menace posed by "white supremacist" terrorism.  Much like the collusion conspiracy theory — which relied on random incidents, fictional villains, unconvincing evidence, and the Bad Orange Man in the White House — there is little substance to this purported danger.

Why 'policing is racist' is such a poisonous lie.  The Democratic candidates have revived the anti-police rhetoric of the Obama years.  Joe Biden's criminal-justice plan promises that black parents will no longer have to fear when their children walk the streets — the threat allegedly coming from cops, not gangbangers.  Pete Buttigieg has said police shootings of black men won't be solved "until we move policing out from the shadow of systemic racism."  Beto O'Rourke claims that police shoot blacks "solely based on the color of their skin."  A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences demolishes the Democratic narrative regarding race and police shootings.  It turns out that white officers are no more likely than black or Hispanic officers to shoot black civilians.  It is a racial group's rate of violent crime that determines police shootings, not the race of the officer.  The more frequently officers encounter violent suspects from any given racial group, the greater the chance that members of that racial group will be shot by a police officer.

Ilhan Omar and the Door of No Return.  One might think that having been rescued from the ravages of her native country, and from the tribulation and futility of a fragile existence in an overcrowded refugee camp, [Ilhan] Omar would be singing the praises of a country that has allowed her to rise from desperate poverty to formerly undreamt of heights of success, power, fame and fortune.  But apparently not.  Instead, Omar rides on the updrafts of victim politics, seeing any criticisms of her positions as personal attacks on her as a woman, a minority or a Muslim, or better yet, all three.

Georgia elementary school accused of racism after putting up a poster dictating how black students should style their hair.  An elementary school in Georgia has come under fire after it created and displayed a poster dictating 'appropriate' and 'inappropriate' hairstyles for black students.  One parent of a student of the Narvie Harris Elementary School noticed the controversial diagram as she passed through the halls and took a picture.  Outraged, the woman shared it with her friend Danay Helena, who in-turn shared it on Facebook where it has since been shared thousands of times.

Baltimore and Cummings:  Democrat grifters peddle racism and broken cities.  In the uproar over the condition of Elijah Cummings Congressional district in Baltimore, one conclusion is inescapable.  Apparently, Democrats think they are immune from criticism, accountability or being confronted with the facts of the actual existence of the constituents that they feed off of.  And if you dare to criticize their actions, judgment, record, or clear evidence of corruption then you are racist.

The Seven Dumbest Things Democrats Demand You Believe.  If you don't like seeing young men with pants hanging below their derrières and underwear showing, you are clearly a racist.  If you think Ilhan Omar is an unmitigated, hateful disaster, you're racist through and through.  If you don't think politicians seeking to represent the entire country should be breaking bread with Louis Farrakhan, you might as well join the Ku Klux Klan.  Similarly, you're a racist if you believe Al Sharpton should pay his federal taxes, that the city of Baltimore has greatly declined under Democrat leadership, a state of affairs that happens to manifest itself with black people in positions of power (that decline, however, was present when Martin O'Malley, who is white as a sheet, was mayor) or that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Hank Johnson, Mazie Hirono, or Rashida Tlaib are among the lesser examples of American leadership one might produce for inspection.

There Is No Safe Space:  We Are All Listening at Each Other's Keyholes.  Taking offense at anything is now common for two reasons: intersectionality and the death of privacy.  Intersectionality holds that oppression can come from literally anywhere: class, race, sexual orientation, age, religion, creed, disability, and gender.  It can even originate from sources we haven't even imagined yet.

Black rag dolls meant to be abused are pulled from stores.  Black rag dolls that came with instructions to "find a wall" and slam the toy against it have been pulled from three stores after customers and a lawmaker said they were offensive.

The Squad Becomes the Untouchables.  Watch and see:  In short order, if not already, criticism of these three will be reflexively denounced by the mass of liberaldom as racist and sexist.  The beatification process is already underway.  The members of the Squad are appearing together in TV interviews stoically framing themselves as (in AOC's words) "fighters" for "justice" against the evil Trump's "weaponized" "bottom-to-the-barrel vitriol." Last week, with President Trump rolling his Twitter grenade, was portrayed as a political martyrdom for these poor, unfortunate, mild, meek, silent lambs.  The Squad will become the Untouchables.

Everything You Don't Know About Mass Incarceration.  Start with drugs.  Contrary to the claims in Michelle Alexander's much-discussed 2010 bestseller The New Jim Crow, drug prohibition is not driving incarceration rates.  Yes, about half of federal prisoners are in on drug charges; but federal inmates constitute only 12 percent of all American prisoners — the vast majority are in state facilities. [...] That a prisoner is categorized as a drug offender, moreover, does not mean that he is nonviolent or otherwise law-abiding.  Most criminal cases are disposed of through plea bargains, and, given that charges often get downgraded or dropped as part of plea negotiations, an inmate's conviction record will usually understate the crimes he committed. [...] Not only are most prisoners doing time for serious, often violent, offenses; they've usually received (and blown) the second chance that so many reformers say they deserve.

'Words matter': Castro pushes for government to remove words 'illegal aliens'.  Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) wants the word "alien" and the term "illegal alien" taken out of the government's legal code.  The congressman is arguing that the words work to "demonetize and dehumanize the migrant community."

The Incredible Victimhood of Kamala Harris.  Daniel [Greenfield] focuses on The Incredible Victimhood of Kamala Harris, and he asks:  Will the oppression of the privileged millionaire never end?  [Video clip]

Candace Owens on Breaking the Victimhood Mindset.  "There's nothing that I cannot do as a black woman sitting in this chair or in this society, in this country, that you can do as a white man.  It's all about our choices," writer, producer, and conservative commentator Candace Owens says.  Owens is the founder of Red Pill Black and the leader of the "Blexit" movement, which encourages black Americans to reevaluate and renounce their allegiance to the Democratic Party.  She argues that the core of the Democratic platform is emotionally manipulating people — from women to minorities to the LGBTQ community — into believing they have been oppressed and victimized.

They always say we're racist.  The New York magazine headline amused me, "Tucker Carlson's Latest Attack on Ilhan Omar Is a Pack of Racist Lies."  Any criticism of a Woman of Color by anyone is now considered racism.  Democrat Congresswoman Omar is a refugee we took in from Somalia along with thousands of others.  We fed her.  We clothed her.  We housed her.  We gave her father a job driving a taxi.  We educated her.  We elected her to Congress.  And she showed all the gratitude of a frog.  In that way, she is much like your typical Democrat.

Michelle Obama jokes she's 'surprised' daughters have friends after White House childhood.  Former first lady Michelle Obama said her daughters Malia and Sasha played a lot of pretend when they were growing up in the White House.  Not make-believe.  More like, pretend-those-armed-Secret-Service-agents-aren't-there pretend, Obama told Gayle King during a CBS interview at the Essence Festival in New Orleans this weekend.

Michelle Obama Shares Her Deep Thoughts.  Ripley's Mom linked this yesterday [7/7/2019]:  Michelle Obama's July 4th Weekend Message to Americans.  I think it's part of the Obamas' Netflix deal — they plan to turn it into a series titled "Michelle Obama Shares Her Deep Thoughts." [...] I admit, my initial reaction was "what kind of moron lets her kids have a sleepover the night before they are to vacate the premises, the day before they are to participate in the (supposedly) peaceful transfer of power to the new president?  But then I remembered it was most likely a lie.

Democrat Rep. Frederica Wilson:  People Who Mock Members of Congress 'Should Be Prosecuted'.  Democrat Florida Rep. Frederica Wilson stated Tuesday that those who mock members of Congress online should be prosecuted.  "Those people who are online making fun of members of Congress are a disgrace, and there is no need for anyone to think that is unacceptable," Wilson stated as she stood outside of the Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children in Homestead, Florida.

The Editor says...
Yes, I agree that "there is no need for anyone to think that is unacceptable."  Wait — is that mockery?  Are you gonna have me arrested?

Rep. Frederica Wilson calls for online pranksters to be 'prosecuted' if jokes target lawmakers.  Rep. Frederica Wilson has no love for social media's meme-makers and pranksters — she literally wants them prosecuted.  The Florida Democrat weighed in on free speech issues this week and told an audience that it should be illegal to mock lawmakers.  "Those people who are online making fun of members of Congress are a disgrace," she said while speaking in Homestead.  "We're gonna shut them down and work with whoever it is to shut them down, and they should be prosecuted.  You cannot intimidate members of Congress, frighten members of Congress.  It is against the law, and it's a shame in this United States of America."

The Editor says...
If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

Michelle Obama Claims People Dismiss Presidency After Barack: 'If a Black Guy Can Do It, Anybody Can'.  In a Saturday [7/6/2019] interview, former first lady Michelle Obama insisted that Americans now dismiss the U.S. presidency because a black man was recently in the office.  Speaking to TV host Gayle King during the 2019 Essence Festival at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, Obama exclaimed that husband Barack made the presidency "look too easy," Fox News reported.

Night before Trump's inauguration was 'very emotional': Michelle Obama.  Michelle Obama in an interview Saturday evening [7/6/2019] said the night before President Trump's inauguration in January 2017 was "very emotional."  "The truth is, on that day I was moving my children out of the only house they had really grown up in," the former first lady told Gayle King of CBS News at the Essence Festival in New Orleans.  "I think that gets lost on people."

The Editor says...
[#1] Mrs. Obama had a team of servants to help her move.  [#2] She didn't have to wait until the last day to move out.  [#3] She and her kids are some of the wealthiest and most over-privileged people in the world.

Black Barbie
The first black Barbie to use a wheelchair is here.  A black Barbie who wears her natural hair and uses a wheelchair has become an internet sensation.

The Editor says...
The doll is somewhat tan, not black, and has no obvious deformity that would indicate why she (or he?) would need a wheelchair.  Being confined to a wheelchair is nothing to celebrate.  And just because some product "has become an internet sensation," (e.g., Beanie Babies and Cabbage Patch dolls), that's not a reason to buy it.


The spoiled 'protected group' brats of America.  Liberal Democrats have steered us so far away from the essence of American egalitarianism that no one cringes at the words "protected groups."  The very phrase suggests that certain groups are not protected.  You and I can easily identify the protected classes; non-Caucasians, illegal aliens, gays, and other assorted sexually self-indulgent mugs.  The list might counterintuitively include Islamists who hold a tacit distaste for gays.  All of these protected classes share a common trait:  they play the American left and Google for the fools they are.  Protected classes now behave as spoiled children; thuggish behavior abounds.

California poised to ban hairstyle discrimination.  This is California, remember.  The Golden state is perched to become the first in the nation to ban discrimination based on unique hairstyles, mainly targeting blacks.  The measure, which has passed both chambers of the state legislature, could be signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom as soon as next week.

California is set to become the first state to ban discrimination against black people's natural hair styles.  California is poised to become the first state to pass a law banning workplace discrimination against black people for wearing natural hair styles.  The bill dubbed the CROWN Act (Create a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural Hair) passed California's Assembly on Thursday [6/27/2019] with a vote of 69-0.  The bill previously passed California's state Senate in April, and now awaits signature from Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat.

The Editor says...
Mrs. Editor and I went into a restaurant a couple of weeks ago, and upon catching sight of an employee's foot-long dreadlocks dangling over the salad ingredients, when turned around and walked out.  Could we get arrested in California for doing that?  Maybe not today, but these things happen incrementally, and this new law is just another increment.

Cory Booker:  We Need to Talk More About Transgender Americans.  Sen. Cory Booker argued during the Democrat presidential debate on Wednesday [6/26/2019] that Americans need to talk more about transgender people.  "We do not talk enough about trans-Americans, especially African American trans-Americans, and even incredibly high rates of murder right now," he said.  He compared the transgender rights struggles to the civil rights of black Americans, recalling a time when they were lynched in America.

Mastercard will allow transgender people to use chosen name.  Mastercard will allow transgender people to use their chosen names on credit cards in an effort to combat discrimination at the cash register.

Professor accused of 'hostile learning environment' for assigning male authors.  A 22-year old female University of Utah student reported her business professor to campus administrators for, among other things, assigning too many historical texts written by influential male economists of the past.  "I understand the importance of studying the work of those before us and the importance of context," wrote the student in a complaint to the university's bias reporting system, where she labeled the professor's transgressions "derogatory," "degrading," and "intimidating," thereby causing a "hostile learning environment."

A Movement of Professional Victims and Conspiracy Theories.  If the radicals had red hats, they would say, "They're Out To Get You."  TOTGY has been the leftist motto since before Marx learned to shave and then decided to stop doing it.  The arc of history may bend toward many places, but the black rainbow serviced by a snarling leprechaun with a PhD and a cocaine problem always begins and ends in the same paranoid place.  They're destroying the planet.  They're hoarding all the wealth.  They start all the wars.  They're dividing the country.  They're killing kids in schools.  They're conspiring with the Russians.  They killed JFK.  The Democrats crave inspirational leaders for the same reason that alcoholics need mouthwash.  It covers up the ugly stench.  Lefties love packaging their hateful ravings, paranoid delusions and plans for world domination with moving soliloquies about everyone coming together to make a difference.

Is America Now a One-Party Country?  Democrats understand that in all groups and in all places at all times, there will be those who curse the darkness and refuse to recognize the noonday sun.  As long as there are such among us willing to be exploited in this way, there will be modern Democrats and their fellow travelers to take full advantage of them and their willingness to be serfs in exchange for "revenge."  Democrats don't advance this system as a political party in the traditional American sense, though they appear on ballots as such.  They achieve their victories as a collector of absurd malcontents, a harvester of make believe ills, appealing always to the lowest common denominator in mankind:  that of spite.  That's not a political party.  It's a long-term tantrum.

Minneapolis' Sacred Stupidity.  [Scroll down]  Which brings us to Minneapolis, the hometown of the illustrious illegal immigrant and tax-evading congresswoman Ilhan Omar.  And one Jacob Frey, the Democrat mayor of the City of Lakes, who thought it a wonderful idea to commemorate the 400th anniversary of black slaves arriving at the English colony at Jamestown, Virginia by holding something the city's "Racial Equity Coordinators" call "400 Years of Resistance and Liberation.  Remembering, Recovering, Reimagining — Sacred Conversations with City Staff."  There were never black slaves in Minneapolis, unless perhaps some were brought by recent Somali immigrants to that city given that black slavery is alive and well in Somalia (perhaps Rep. Omar might speak on the subject with more expertise than your author).  It would appear more appropriate that Minneapolis celebrate its historical status as a refuge for escaped and freed slaves in the 19th century, but that isn't the kind of thing that would hook in the rubes, is it?  So instead we must have Sacred Conversations.

Segregation Comes to Minnesota.  It has often been observed that progressives are re-segregating some areas of the country, especially college campuses.  But Minnesota has never been segregated, so our progressives are boldly venturing to segregate our citizens by race for the first time. [...] But the project is risible in other ways.  [#1] Why is the City of Minneapolis (incorporated 1867) commemorating the 400th anniversary of "African people being brought to Jamestown, VA"?  Is there some relevance here that escapes me? [...] [#2] The City's assertion that Africans were "forced into slavery" upon their arrival in Virginia is false.  They were enslaved in Africa; sub-Saharan Africa had a slave economy at that time and for centuries after.  As of 1619, slaves had been an important commercial commodity in much of Europe, Africa and the Middle East for 2,000 years.  But slaves have never been bought or sold in the State of Minnesota.  [#3] Meanwhile, most Africans have come to the United States voluntarily as immigrants, not as slaves.

The dictionary doesn't need to change.  YOU need to change.
Women of color call out Dictionary.com's 'offensive' definition of 'black': 'This needs to change'.  What is the definition of the word "black?"  According to Dictionary.com, the synonyms associated with the word range from "gloomy," to "threatening," to "evil," and even "soiled."  The noun section adds that "black" is sometimes capitalized in reference to "a member of any of various dark-skinned peoples," and "often offensive" when referring to African Americans.  Now, women of color online are demanding a change to the "offensive" connotations of the word.

The Editor says...
One of the trickiest features of the English language is that some words have multiple definitions.  Only the most poorly educated among us fail to understand this concept.

Sports Stars and Bartenders Are Not Slaves.  George Orwell once observed that "we have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men."  Clearly, such are the times in which we now live, considering that it's become necessary to explain why multi-millionaire sports stars are not, in fact, anything close to resembling slaves.  You wouldn't know that to hear some of them speak.  On HBO's The Shop last year, Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors quipped that we shouldn't use the term "owner" to refer to NBA team owners, because it is racially insensitive to the predominantly black players in the league.  Now, at least two teams have "done away with" the term "owner," ostensibly due to the word being a key component of "slave-owner."

Barack Obama:  The United States Was 'Founded on Inequality'.  Barack Obama asserted that the United States was founded on inequality, despite the Constitution enshrining equality into the law. [...] Obama commented on his understanding of the founding of the United States during the VTEXDAY 2019 conference in Sao Paulo, Brazil on Wednesday [5/29/2019].

Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.  The writings, public statements, and sermons of Rev. [Jeremiah] Wright reflect his conviction that America is a nation infested with racism, prejudice, and injustices that make life extremely difficult for black people.  As he declared in one of his sermons:  "Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run! ... We [Americans] believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God."  Lamenting "the social order under which we [blacks] live, under which we suffer, under which we are killed," Wright depicts African Americans as a politically powerless demographic whose constituents "don't run anything in the Capital except elevators."

Her 'Sad Life': WaPo White House Reporter Whines About Covering President Trump.  Ashley Parker, White House reporter for the Washington Post, whined online Thursday night [5/23/2019] about her "sad life" having to cover President Trump.  Parker complained that her smartphone buzzed every four minutes and instead of it being a message from her husband it was (tweets by) President Trump.

The Editor says...
Here is your problem:  You have made yourself a slave to the cell phone.  You are in a miserable situation of your own making.  You put yourself on a leash.

What are the Children Learning?  Journalist and author Jason Riley describes how black activists and white progressives stress racism so that far too many "young black Americans today maintain that they are victims, first and foremost." [...] Yet black activists and leftists continue the drumbeat of disaster when they promulgate such programs as Black Lives Matters at School which is a "national committee of educators organizing for racial justice in education."  Begun in 2016 in Seattle (the land of exploding homelessness), this program promotes ending "out-of-control suspensions and expulsions," hiring more black teachers in the school, and including Black History and Ethnic studies.  What is never addressed is the reason behind the high rate of violence and disruption among black students or why the race of the teacher and not his/her educational credentials are what should be evaluated[.]  And, in fact, about the only history that any American student is taught nowadays is the Civil Rights movement.  But BLM's true intent is stoking hatred of America and fomenting racial unrest.

Surprise! Learning about Cotton in School Is Racist Now.  I currently live in Arlington, Va., and do not vote in local elections.  It's not that I don't want to vote, but there is literally no one [...] on the ballots who could even pretend to be anywhere close to being a conservative.  The problem isn't my lack of desire, it's that I don't have anyone to vote for.  As one of the most progressively leftist communities in this country, my local government is completely devoid of any representation of my beliefs and values.  So, I was not surprised to read ARLNow's article about an Arlington elementary school teacher who has found herself in hot water for having her students study cotton.

Planting of Cotton at Arlington Elementary School Prompts Discussion.  A cotton plant growing at Campbell Elementary School drew criticism online today, but Arlington Public Schools said allegations that staff were going to make kids "pick cotton" was a misunderstanding.  "At no time, never, was the school going to have students pick cotton," said APS spokesman Frank Bellavia.

Critical Race Theory is destroying our country.  Critical Race Theory holds that American society is irredeemably racist in favor of the white majority.  The thinking is that in a racially oppressive society, though you may also have in common with another your sex, your likes or dislikes, your religion, your political ideas, even your disposition, ethnic commonality or skin color matters beyond anything else.  For this reason, only someone of your ethnicity can ever really understand you or grasp your deep-down motives for your actions. [...] The idea is that the oppression makes things happen on its own because it so overwhelms everything else, and justice needs to take this into account in determining guilt.  This is how people arrive at the notion that blacks can't be racist or, indeed, guilty of much of anything.

How about a 'real disadvantage' SAT score?  The U.S. Supreme Court is likely soon to ban race as a factor in college admissions in all 50 states.  This new secret "adversity" score — although it never mentions race — gives liberal colleges new ways to guess (with high accuracy) which student applicants are leftist-favored minorities.  It is a way to circumvent any future ban on explicitly using race in college admissions.  This is ironic because, as Sidney Fussell noted in the May 18 online Atlantic magazine:  "The original Scholastic Aptitude Test was invented in 1926 by Carl Brigham, a Princeton alumnus and avowed eugenicist who created the test to uphold a racial caste system."

The College Board's New 'Adversity Score' Is A Joke.  Students are assessed on 15 not-fully-disclosed factors, things such as the level of crime and poverty in one's high school and neighborhood, "the educational level of the parents," and "family stability."  The other widely used standardized test, the ACT (American College Testing), is now working overtime to come up with its own measurement.  "An adversity score of 50 is average," notes the Journal.  "Anything above it designates hardship, below it privilege."  [Indeed], a mere two points difference on this new scale takes one from a hardship case to a person of privilege.

The Editor says...
If you don't know who your father is, your mother is in the county jail, you're being raised by your grandmother but she's constantly drunk, you've been wounded at least three times in drive-by shootings, your TV reception depends on rabbit ears and there's no sound from the left stereo speaker, your internet access is dial-up, you're color-blind, autistic, dyslexic, easily triggered, and you have peanut allergies, they'll just give you a diploma!

Update:
College Board abandoning SAT 'adversity score' after criticism.  The company that administers the SAT college admissions test is replacing the so-called adversity score with a tool that will no longer reduce an applicant's background to a single number, an idea that the College Board's chief executive now says was a mistake.  Amid growing scrutiny of the role wealth plays in college admissions, the College Board introduced its Environmental Context Dashboard about two years ago to provide context for a student's performance on the test and help schools identify those who have done more with less.  The version used by about 50 institutions in a pilot program involved a formula that combined school and neighborhood factors like advanced course offerings and the crime rate to produce a single number.

College board president behind SAT 'adversity score' was also the mastermind of the controversial K-12 'Common Core' curriculum changes that has children just learning for a test.  The man behind the new plan to assign adversity scores to every student who takes the SAT is the same person who championed the controversial Common Core K-12 curriculum standards that remain a point of contention among parents, teachers and political leaders in many states.  David Coleman, president of The College Board, which administers the SAT, was the 'architect of Common Core' — which several states dropped after its adoption due to pressure from local communities and educators, according to Fox News.  Proponents of Common Core say the method was meant to establish a baseline of curriculum standards for K-12 education, with a focus on math and English language arts literacy.

Grievance Proxies.  For decades, the College Board defended the SAT, which it writes and administers, against charges that the test gives an unfair advantage to middle-class white students.  No longer.  Under relentless pressure from the racial-preferences lobby, the Board has now caved to the anti-meritocratic ideology of "diversity."  The Board will calculate for each SAT-taker an "adversity score" that purports to measure a student's socioeconomic position, according to the Wall Street Journal.  Colleges can use this adversity index to boost the admissions ranking of allegedly disadvantaged students who otherwise would score too poorly to be considered for admission.

Telling the awful truth about the new SAT 'adversity' score.  In his introduction [Tucker] Carlson outlined many problems with the whole idea:  [#1] It's kept a secret.  "Trust us," in effect, they say.  There is no appeal possible.  And as a black box whose inner workings are secret, it becomes an ideal vehicle for engineering the racial results admissions offices desire.  [#2] It is easily gamed — fake addresses, even possible income manipulation (by claiming a lot of depreciation, for instance, the way that Donald Trump reported negative income in the 1980s)  [#3]  And it provides perverse incentives, rewarding victim status, not achievement.

SATs will now contain secret 'adversity scores': Students will be rated on deprivation and crime in effort to level playing field.  Every student taking the SAT will now be given an 'adversity score' to level the playing field between people with different social and economic backgrounds, but critics say children of affluent parents could be penalized by the new system.  The scoring system was established by the national College Board, the nonprofit which administers the test, according to The Wall Street Journal.  The new system will use 15 different factors to weigh a student's adversity score, based on things such as the crime and poverty rates in the neighborhood where the teens grew up.

The Editor says...
The SAT is not a contest to see who is the most downtrodden victim of society.  It is supposed to be a measure of scholastic aptitude.  Those who are given hundreds of extra points to compensate for all their woes, and then end up in a rigorous university, are set up to fail.

Are Impeachment Democrats Geniuses or Idiots?  [Scroll down]  Let's assume that the left's grand strategy, of riling up the poor to demand loot from the middle class, is reaching its sell-by date.  Obviously, when the vast majority of voters are poor, then a program for the poor is a political winner.  Indeed, the real genius of the welfare state was to help the poor by dealing in the middle class, as in government education, Social Security and unemployment insurance.  Everybody wins!  It's not surprising that, as the poor and the working class moved upwards to modest prosperity, the left would need to modify its successful strategy.  And it did, by searching for new victims to represent.  But there's a problem.  The programs to help the new victims did not deal in the middle class.  Indeed, they were paid for by the middle class.  Affirmative Action was paid for by the white workers who didn't get those firefighter jobs; diversity and inclusion are paid for by white males who are guilty until proven innocent.  At some point, people start to notice.

The Voter Suppression Myth.  Democrats accuse Republicans of suppressing the minority vote with laws to ensure ballot integrity.  But then how do they explain record minority turnout last November?  If Republicans were trying to stop minorities from voting, their schemes were inept.

Beto O'Rourke says he'd put Stacey Abrams in charge of combating voter suppression.  Former Texas congressman Beto O'Rourke says he'd put former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams in charge of combating voter suppression if elected president.  Speaking to supporters in Fort Worth on Friday [5/3/2019], O'Rourke said he had a conversation on the subject with the rising star in the Democratic Party.  "I called her to thank her for all the work that she's doing on voting rights.  And making sure that every person in this country can vote.  And that every vote counts in this country," O'Rourke said.  "We talked about how in our states of the former Confederacy, really ever since the end of reconstruction, we have drawn people out of their ability to participate in this Democracy."

The Dems Don't Even Believe Themselves.  The trick for each of the Democratic candidates is to be quite obvious and explicit in showing each victim group that the candidate knows of their plight and has a solution for it.  The victims are simply members of a group and every Democrat must check the box for that group.  The entire Democratic campaigning process is one of checking as many boxes as they can in as flamboyant a manner as possible, while showing the national media their unforgettable, attractive personality. [...] What's missing — by intent, not by accident — is any sense by any of these Democratic contenders that their goal is for the good of the country as a whole.  The good of the country — which includes every subgroup listed above, as well as everyone else — is not their concern.  Their only concern is checking victimhood boxes and hoping in the end that the sum total of those boxes equals 270 or more.

In The Maw Of Wokeness.  The National Antiracist Book Festival is a project of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University, headed by Ibram Xolani Kendi, who describes himself as "hardcore humanist and softcore vegan". [...] According to Kendi's invitation letter, The National Antiracist Book Festival recognizes that it is primarily about anti-black racism.  In its panel schedule, it is exclusively so.  In the absence of other knowledge, one could come away from this conference with the perception that there is only one kind of racism, and only one kind of racist — that all crimes of racism are white on black.

Beto O'Rourke describes illegal immigration as 'modern-day bondage'.  Former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke suggested illegal immigrants were akin to slaves during his Saturday afternoon remarks to the Service Employees International Union.  "[With] Immigration.  Millions [are] living in the shadows, working some of the toughest jobs, lucky to make a minimum wage.  Some not even making that," O'Rourke told the audience of roughly 200 labor union members, organizers, and activists at Las Vegas' Enclave venue.  "Kept in modern-day bondage, their immigration status used as leverage to keep them down from fully participating in this country's success."

Yankees' Kate Smith ban could lead to the breakup of America itself.  The New York Yankees' bold decision to ban Kate Smith's 1939 recording of "God Bless America" from the stadium over two racist songs she once performed surely calls for further brave steps by the team.  Stadium-goers in the seventh-inning stretch will no longer be forced to listen to the strains of Smith, who recorded the 1930s song "That's Why the Darkies Were Born" — a number that was also performed by black entertainer Paul Robeson for satire's sake.  But if the Bronx Bombers are serious about standing tall against racism, they must next ban the national anthem, which is sung before every game.

Social justice warriors are going to utterly maul Joe Biden.  Even before launching his 2020 presidential bid, Joe Biden knelt at the altar of identity grievance.  He will kneel and kneel some more through the campaign.  None of it will be enough, and he is destined to be mauled by the modern left's grievancve-mongers.  The "woke" social justice movement rules today's Democrats, and the party's candidates are ranked for fitness on a crude, ever-shifting scale of "intersectionality," used to determine who is most oppressed.  If a candidate can claim oppression based on race, gender or sexuality, he or she can move forward.  If he is deemed to have "privilege," [that's bad].

Your hair is now a race!
California moves to ban racial discrimination based on hairstyles.  A bill that would ban schools and workplaces from having dress codes that forbid braids, twists and other natural hair styles has passed the California State Senate.  SB 188 updates the state's anti-discrimination laws so the definition of race "also include traits historically associated with race, including, but not limited to, hair texture and protective hairstyles."

Beware: PC scolds are invading America's restaurants.  This week, the Milk Bar dessert chain caved to a handful of complaints over their Crack Pie — a sweet, oat-crusted confection that's been their most popular item for 11 years.  Why?  "Crack" is a word forbidden to use outside of its literal meaning lest it offend "largely poor, largely black communities" that suffered from the crack-cocaine epidemic and violence of the 1980s.  None of Milk Bar's 16 outlets in six American and Canadian cities is known to have been picketed, boycotted or otherwise condemned by members of poor and/or black communities.  The purported fury emanated from a very, very few food critics who evidently believe that the oppressed class needs protection from supposedly racist restaurateurs — notably The Boston Globe's Devra First, who wrote a piece headlined "There's nothing cute about Crack Pie."

Yankees ban Kate Smith's 'God Bless America' over 'history of potential racism'.  The New York Yankees' anti-racism efforts have extended to pulling from their seventh-inning stretch a famous recording of the legendary Kate Smith singing "God Bless America."  Not because anyone has complained that the song is racist, but because Smith recorded other racially insensitive standards from and during the Jim Crow era.  The Yankees pulled Smith's "God Bless America" from the rotation at the start of the season, but the New York Daily News reported the reason Thursday — "the Yankees were made aware of Smith's history of potential racism."

The Editor says...
What is potential racism?

The Convenience Of Victimhood:  AOC Calls NY Post's Message To Omar 'An Incitement Of Violence Against Progressive Women Of Color'.  Anti-Semite Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) reduces an American tragedy to "some people did something."  This is the same as calling the attack on Pearl Harbor a Japanese training exercise.  She gets called out for it.  Then her great pal, media darling AOC, leaps to her defense by perverting the facts and turning this into an insult to progressive women of color.  Democrats have this great ability to transmogrify any act of wrongdoing on their part into an offense against them.  Usually, as AOC has done in this case, they portray themselves as the victims of those racist Republicans.  They have been disrespected and are owed an apology.

John McWhorter:  America Has Never Been Less Racist.  When actor Jussie Smollet lied about being attacked by racist, MAGA-hat-wearing Trump supporters, Columbia University linguist John McWhorter actually interpreted it as a sign that "we have come further on race than we are often comfortable admitting."  "Only in an America in which matters of race are not as utterly irredeemable as we are often told," he wrote in The Atlantic, would someone "pretend to be tortured in this way... [because] playing a singer on television is not as glamorous as getting beaten up by white guys."

ACLU Warns 'Immigrants and People of Color' Not to Go to Florida.  The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) went on Twitter Monday [4/8/2019] to warn, "immigrants and people of color to use extreme caution when traveling to Florida."  The ACLU's tweet comes in light of the state's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, urging Florida's legislature to pass laws that would ban sanctuary cities.  The laws would prevent police departments from refusing to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials in apprehending illegal immigrants.

Reparations: Another Cynical Racial Ploy from the Democrats.  They say money is the mother's milk of politics, but for the Democrats the true mother's milk is racism — that is the perception thereof.  Without the belief that America is a racist country, specifically against blacks but generally against any other group they can claim to be vulnerable, the party would cease to exist, dissolving into a puddle like the Wicked Witch of the West in the "Wizard of Oz."  That is why they work so hard to preserve this sense of a country suffused with racism, fanning the flames at every turn to make it so, even when it isn't.  In so doing, they often hypnotize themselves, convincing themselves of their own belief, which in turn perpetuates the myth and continues to manufacture hatred where it doesn't exist.

Hate-Based Faith.  [Scroll down]  Of course, both Trayvon and Ferguson proved to be huge factual fiascos.  But that didn't stop the growth of faith in the white racism conspiracy theory as the one true revelation.  With its furious hunger for hate hoaxes, wokeness is a hate-based faith dependent upon demonizing whites.  Thus, we see increasing numbers who feel that the legal system punishing blacks, such as Jussie Smollett, must be racist.  State's attorney Kim Foxx is likely sincere in her claim that she megalomaniacally believes:  "I was elected on a promise to rethink the justice system."  Her 2016 campaign was funded by George Soros' push to replace big-city district attorneys with new woke ones sworn to put fewer black criminals in prison.

Take a Torch to the Faux Shaming.  Both the old racism (white supremacy) and the new racism (critical race theory) create, brittle false group identities that prevent us from seeing each other as individuals.  Real people want to be judged on their own merits and to be seen for themselves.  False people, identity-grievance addicts, are perfectly willing to accept unmerited privilege and actually become blind to the world itself—Jussie Smollett style.  Encouraging a child to believe that the odds are stacked against him, that oppressors are anxious to oppose his progress, is an invitation for him to go out seeking a victim pilgrimage.  It has become a collective kind of child abuse in this country, and it appears to have become so cherished a part of the cultural psyche that you can stage fake hate crimes without being charged for them.

Rutgers professor:  Even the concept of time is racist.  The associated professor of Women's and Gender Studies and Africana Studies who once opined that Jesus was "potentially queer" or was "married to a prostitute," called black city officials she did not like "white supremacists in Blackface," and had nothing but words of "the four-letter variety" after the US Supreme Court allowed for religious exemptions to the ObamaCare contraceptive mandate, now says that the very concept of time itself is racially biased.  In an interview with NPR last week, Cooper said that the way we "position ourselves in relationship to time comes out of histories of European and Western thought"; in other words, "white people own time."

Gender Studies Professor Says Time is Racist.  Brittney Cooper — an associate professor of women's and gender studies and Africana studies at Rutgers University, says that time is racist.  Yes, really.  During an interview with NPR affiliate WSIU-FM, Cooper explained that black people have a reputation for being late, therefore time itself is owned by white people.

We should free this woman trapped in a country she fears.  At 37, she is a refugee struggling to survive in a foreign country she hates.  She told Vogue Arabia, "It's an everyday assault.  Every day, a part of your identity is threatened, demonized, and vilified."  Oh that poor woman.  We should rescue her.  She also said, "[The nation's leader] is tapping into an ugly part of our society and freeing its ugliness."  That poor woman.  We should liberate her from that country she is forced to live in.

Ilhan Omar, Somali refugee, trashes living in USA: 'It's an everyday assault'.  Democrat Congresswoman Ilhan Omar — a Muslim refugee from impoverished, war-torn Somalia — trashed the United States under the Trump presidency, saying living here is a daily nightmare.  "It's an everyday assault," Omar told Vogue Arabia.  "Every day, a part of your identity is threatened, demonized, and vilified."

Eric Holder goes on MAGA-rant that takes a dark turn: 'Exactly when did you think America was great?'.  Former Attorney General Eric Holder fired a shot at America's past as he questioned the thoughts behind President Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan[.]  Holder declared that America's greatness "never, in fact, really existed" during an interview on MSNBC's "The Beat With Ari Melber" on Wednesday [3/27/2019].  The Obama-era attorney general, who has decided not to run as a Democratic presidential candidate for 2020 so he can focus on issues like partisan redistricting and criminal justice reform, was expounding on those topics when host Ari Melber asked about America's past.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez flips out over mocking of her name.  What's in a name?  Everything for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  The New York Democrat blasted Fox News host Laura Ingraham and her guest for mocking how she pronounced her name and saying she does so because it's a "Latina thing."  "If by 'the Latina thing,' she means I actually do the work instead of just talk about it, then yeah, I'm doing 'the Latina thing,'" she wrote on her Twitter page late Wednesday [3/20/2019].  "Unless of course she's talking about being multilingual, which we know isn't a 'Latina thing.'  It's a '21st century' thing."  Ocasio-Cortez also said that Fox News' hosts incorrectly pronounce her name as "Cortez," because that sounds "more 'stereotypically' Hispanic + probably incites more 'anxiety' for them."

Exclusive: Outrage in Brooklyn over '40 Ounce' water bottle that looks like malt liquor.  It's blackface in a bottle.  That's what outraged Brooklyn residents are calling a marketing ploy to sell spring water in 40-ounce containers that look like malt liquor bottles.  An upstart company founded by a Hollywood actor is in hot water with NYCHA activists after selling H20 in bottles shaped like Colt 45, Olde English and Private Stock — beverages historically targeted to generations of people in black neighborhoods.

Cory Booker: 'My Roots Go Back to Slavery'.  Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) on Sunday [3/3/2019] emphatically said his roots "go back to slavery" and his roots rose up during the civil rights struggles in the 1960s, potentially previewing a major potential point of contrast between him and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) as they court the party's critical black primary voters.  Speaking at the "Bloody Sunday" commemorative service at the Brown Chapel AME (African Methodist Episcopal) Church in Selma, Alabama, Booker told the story about how his "roots rose up in the 1960s" when his parents tried to buy a home in New Jersey.  He said they were often "denied housing because of the color of their skin" and even had dogs sicced on them.

The Editor says...
As I've said many times, it's apparently okay for a black candidate to make a purely political speech in an all-black church, but if a white candidate even stepped into an all-white church, his career would be over.

Dear Black Americans:  Forget the Race Issue.  The fact is that the Civil Rights Acts went about as far as politics and legislation can go for any marginalized and oppressed group.  Ever since, we have been arguing about girl stuff like "I can't believe she said that."  We have been arguing about trifles.

Pigs on Two Legs Turn on Each Other.  Among leftists, Kamala Harris, as black and female, trumps Cory Booker who is just black, who trumps Elizabeth Warren who is exposed as just female, who trumps Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders who are reverse threefers as white, male, and heterosexual.  None of the progressive revolutionaries ever stopped to ponder whether much of the country targeted by the new racialism might not like it and mirror image this sad descent into tribalism.  In such a revolutionary scramble to be the most diverse and hard left, the logical trajectory ends up with a race to transcend the physical limits of victimhood.

Bad Ideas Make for Bad Progressive Policies.  The central doctrine of the left is determinism:  humans are what they are because of biological, social, or economic determinism, material forces that distort their otherwise benign nature.  Dysfunctional behaviors once believed to result from bad character, a lack of virtue, and destructive choices now find their causes in the environment.  If some people have less than others, it's because of unjust social and economic institutions.

The Mythical Rise in White Supremacist Violence.  [A]s President Trump said during his SOTU address, African-American unemployment stands at its lowest rate ever.  The resultant increase in prosperity will make it more difficult for the Democrats to stir unrest.  Thus, they need to create a new source of concern among blacks, and have hit upon the fiction of metastasizing white supremacy and violence against minorities.  Predictably, the media has enthusiastically abetted this strategy.  Indeed, it is why they were so willing to run with the preposterous Jussie Smollett story and a long list of equally absurd hate crime hoaxes perpetrated since Donald Trump became President.  It is why we are increasingly subjected to editorials in the major "news" publications claiming that killings perpetrated by "right-wing extremists" are on the rise and that this alleged increase coincides with the Trump era.

Ocasio-Cortez: 'Weird American Dream mythology' requires 'painful' changes for poor whites.  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says the nation's "weird American Dream mythology" needs to change — particularly in the minds of "cisgendered" and poor white citizens.  The rising Democratic Party lawmaker from New York told the Intercept's "Deconstructed" podcast this week that poor white people need to accept that they "benefit" from their skin color, and more so if they identify as their birth sex.

The Editor says...
In other words, if you're not white and not heterosexual, or at least not male, you're doubly entitled to liberal victim status.

Democrat meets with undocumented immigrants who were fired from Trump's golf club.  Undocumented immigrants who were fired from Trump National Golf Clubs after revealing their immigration status say they suffered physical and verbal abuse while employed there, and now fear deportation and retaliation after their employment was terminated.

The Editor says...
If illegal aliens were still working for one of Trump's companies, that would be a scandal.  If they get fired, that's another scandal.  Either way, Trump can't win.

Joe Biden:  White America 'has to admit there's still a systemic racism'.  Former Vice President Joe Biden, speaking at a breakfast Monday morning [1/21/2019] in Washington honoring Martin Luther King Jr., said that white Americans need to acknowledge and admit the fact that systemic racism still exists and must be rooted out.  "The bottom line is we have a lot to root out, but most of all the systematic racism that most of us whites don't like to acknowledge even exists," Biden said at an event hosted by the Rev. Al Sharpton and the National Action Network.  "We don't even consciously acknowledge it.  But it's been built into every aspect of our system."

Basketball team quits MLK tourney after their fans flaunt Trump flag.  A high school basketball team in Minnesota has come under fire — and is now pulling out of a tournament scheduled for Martin Luther King Jr. Day — after its fans displayed a "Trump 2020" flag during a game against predominantly black inner-city kids.  "Please explain how and why this is appropriate at a high school basketball game?" wrote coach Michael Walker, of Minneapolis Roosevelt High School, in a Facebook caption last Wednesday following the game against Jordan High School.  The post was accompanied by a photo showing a group of Jordan fans who — aside from the one black student sitting off to the side — are all white and displaying the "Trump 2020: Keep America Great!" flag.

High school boys basketball team pulls out of MLK Day tournament after fans show off Trump flag.  Following a game on Tuesday in which their fans controversially displayed a flag supporting President Donald Trump's re-election, the Jordan (Minn.) High School boys basketball team has pulled out of an invitational tournament on Martin Luther King Jr.  Day.  The Jordan Hubmen were scheduled to play Patrick Henry High School at the Martin Luther King Showcase on Monday but cancelled the game on Sunday.  Jordan School District Superintendent Matthew Helgerson said in an email to the Star Tribune that he didn't "want our presence at the event to detract from the athletes."  Jordan High School got into hot water because of the optics surrounding their recent home game against Roosevelt High School.  Jordan is a rural, predominantly white school, while Minneapolis-based Roosevelt's enrollment is 79 percent minority, according to the US News & World Report.

School where fans displayed Trump flag pulls out of MLK game.  A Minnesota high school where fans displayed a President Donald Trump re-election flag has pulled out of a basketball invitational hosted by a Minneapolis school on Martin Luther King Jr. Day[.]  The Jordan High School boys' basketball team was scheduled to play Minneapolis Patrick Henry High School on Monday in the MLK Showcase at Minneapolis Roosevelt.  Some Jordan fans displayed a Trump banner when Roosevelt visited Jordan last week.  Jordan is a rural, overwhelmingly white community.  Roosevelt's coach says his team is predominantly black.

Lebron James says NFL owners are a "bunch of old white men" with a "slave mentality".  LeBron James had some strong words for NFL owners on his HBO show "The Shop" which aired Friday night.  [He] blasted NFL owners for having what he called a "slave mentality" and calling them "a bunch of old white men".

Today's excuse:  Russians made black voters stay home.  Voter turnout among black people set records in 2008 and 2012, but fell to pre-2008 levels in 2016.  It must be the Russians, Democrats said today [12/17/2018].

We're all in gender studies 101 now.  Manhattan Institute scholar and author Heather Mac Donald appeared on the Mark Levin show this weekend to discuss how campus culture has begun to surface in American politics.  Social justice warriors used to be confined to college campuses, now their world view has been adopted by many elected officials.  Mac Donald points out that college students are indoctrinated upon arrival to believe they are either victims or oppressors and that this paradigm is worsening the problem it is supposedly solving.  She uses the Kavanaugh hearings as an example of the advancement of the progressive concept of campus 'rape culture' and the diminished value of due process.

California University 'Whiteness' Panel Claims 'Veggie Tales' Is Racist.  Last week, a two-hour "Whiteness Forum" held by students at Cal State San Marcos added the children's Christian program "Veggie Tales" to the list of forbidden "racist" media.  I fondly recollect waltzing with potatoes up and down the produce aisle in my childhood years, and can report with certainty that evidence for this claim is just as hard to find as a Cebu.  According to The College Fix, a female student at the "Whiteness Forum" argued that "Veggie Tales" is racist because the villains are vegetables of color.  "When kids see the good white character triumph over the bad person of color character they are taught that white is right and minorities are the source of evil," the project stated.  As The College Fix's Drew Van Voorhis explained, the female student argued that "the accents of the evil characters tend to sound ethnic, such as Latino, while the good characters sound white."

In Defense of Franklin Armstrong.  Social media erupted in another bloody fistula of outrage when observers noted that in one frame from 1973's animated TV special A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, young Franklin Armstrong — AKA "the token black kid" — was pictured seated all alone on one side of the kids' slapdash Thanksgiving dinner table. [...] Much was also made of the fact that Franklin, the soft-spoken Negro of the Peanuts gang, was forced to sit on a folding lawn chair while the others sat on what appear to be hardwood chairs.  If you ask me — which you didn't but I'll answer, anyway — Franklin received the only comfortable chair of the bunch.  And let's not mention the fact that Franklin has more desserts than anyone else at the table, but maybe that's some sort of racist dog whistle about how black people don't eat healthy food.

Media Begin Full Propaganda Push to Create Victim Narrative around Migrants.  With the reality of hundreds of central American migrants attempting to overwhelm the U.S. southern border by force; and after weeks of denying the migration horde were a threat to U.S. immigration and national sovereignty; the media narrative engineers need to quickly respond with manufactured victim optics.  With a migration force consisting of 95% military-aged males, the media photo journalists, aka. 'optical narrative engineers', desperately seek out pictures of the few women and children to accompany their print propaganda.

'A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving' Is Now Racist.  Another holiday classic has been slapped with the label "racist" by SJWs for supposedly marginalizing the token black character:  "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving."  People on social media have expressed outrage over the fact that the lone black character Franklin in "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" appears seated differently juxtaposed to the white characters during the famous dinner scene where Charlie Brown serves popcorn and toast to his hungry guests instead of turkey and stuffing.

Pay the fare or provide proof of black skin.
DC City Council Passes Bill to Decriminalize Fare Evasion, Cites 'Racism'.  The Washington DC City Council voted 11-2 last week to decriminalize fare evasion on the DC Metro after councilmembers said "90 percent" of the 20,000 riders cited for fair evasion were African-American.

Chipotle rehires Minnesota manager fired over racial discrimination claims after alleged victim's dine-and-dash tweets surface.  Fast-food giant Chipotle rehired a manager of one of its Minnesota franchises it had fired after she was recorded in a series of viral cellphone videos refusing to serve a group of young black men unless they paid first.  The restaurant chain said in a statement Monday [11/19/2018] that it reversed it's decision after it "spent the last few days reviewing the evidence available to us regarding the incident."  The company had earlier said it was aware that one of the alleged victims who claimed that he and his friends were racially profiled had previously boasted on Twitter about dine-and-dash incidents specifically targeting Chipotle.

Chipotle manager is fired after telling African American customers they must pay before ordering their food.  A Chipotle manager has been fired after she was filmed telling customers that they had to pay before being served.  The video, which was posted to Twitter on Friday morning [11/16/2018], features a group of young black men who are told they cannot order until they prove they have money to pay.  In the video, the manager of the restaurant in St Paul, Minnesota tells the customers 'you gotta pay because you never have money when you come in here.'

Guy Whines on Twitter That Chipolte Wouldn't Serve Him Until He Proved He Could Pay, Citing Previous Dine-and-Dash Incidents.  Except... this guy dines-and-dash[es] so often he actually talks up his habitual theft of food on Twitter. [...] Chipotle says it may rehire the manager after evidence has been brought to its attention — but note, it conducted absolutely zero investigation before firing this woman based on some rando's say-so.

School bans 'expensive' jackets due to 'poverty shaming' of students.  A school in the United Kingdom has forbade students from wearing "expensive" jackets because doing so may "poverty shame" other students.  A letter sent by officials from Woodchurch High School in Merseyside informed parents that "pupils will not be permitted to bring in Canadian [sic] Goose and Monclair [sic] coats after the Christmas break."  Such garb can cost up to $900, according to Reason.

Woman says she was racially profiled by Dunkin' Donuts.  A black woman says she felt "racially profiled" when she was booted from a Virginia Dunkin' Donuts after she tried to use the shop's free Wi-Fi without buying anything, reports said.  Tirza Wilbon White was about to use her laptop in the Fairfax store when a woman who identified herself as the owner told her and another man — also a person of color — that they'd have to make a purchase if they wanted to stay.

Florida official Brenda Snipes: racism 'probably' a factor in attacks against me.  A top elections official in Florida who endured national humiliation after missing a midterms recount deadline by two minutes has told the Guardian that racism is "probably" a factor in the backlash against her.  Brenda Snipes, elections supervisor of Broward county, was condemned by Republicans and Democrats after failing to submit tallies in the US Senate race between Rick Scott and Bill Nelson on schedule.  On Friday [11/16/2018], with a hand count of votes under way, about two dozen protesters continued their vigil in a car park outside Snipes's headquarters.  Some claimed without evidence that she had missed the deadline deliberately because the results she oversaw boosted Scott's overall lead.

Detroit's School Board Is Considering Renaming Ben Carson High School Because It's 'Offensive'.  The Detroit School Board voted Wednesday to open consideration into whether a handful of DPS schools should have their "offensive" names changed — including Benjamin Carson High School of Science and Medicine, named for former presidential candidate, accomplished surgeon, and Housing and Urban Development director, Dr. Ben Carson.  The board will seek comment over the next several months on whether to change Carson High, which was named for Dr. Ben Carson before he became active in politics, and well before he became an ally of President Donald Trump, something the Detroit School Board apparently doesn't appreciate.

Black Caucus Chair Rips Dems: [It is] 'Insulting' Clyburn [is the] Only Leader with [a] Challenger.  Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-LA), the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, said on Wednesday evening [11/14/2018] that it is "insulting" that Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), an African-American male, is the only top Democrat who has an announced challenger.  Speaking to CNN's Don Lemon, Richmond pointed out that "out of the three leadership positions, only the African-American male has opposition within our party."

Brenda Snipes, idiocy and how to destroy the electoral system.  [Scroll down]  The Florida Senate took its time, and it finally confirmed her firing in 2005, by a narrow margin — 33 [to] 6.  Miriam [Oliphant] threatened fire and brimstone and Federal lawsuits alleging, you guessed it, racial discrimination but, alas, we are still waiting for her to file the announced lawsuit.  Her friends eventually got her a job as a School Guidance Counselor, with a starting salary of $75,000 that sent many a teacher's head spinning.  No bad for a girl with no experience.  And as her previous gigs, it ended too, with a push out the door.  Her firing from that position in led to all sort of reviews that ended in nothing.  And, yes, she played the race card yet again.

MSNBC's Joy Reid says Broward SOE Brenda Snipes' mistreated as an 'older black woman in the deep South'.  In response to concerns about potential election tampering in Florida by scandal-plagued Broward County elections supervisor Brenda Snipes, a black woman, MSNBC host Joy Reid has cried "racism."  "Here is the way they are treating Brenda Snipes, who is the long-time Election Supervisor there, who by the way is an older black woman in the Deep South," she said during the Saturday [11/10/2018] broadcast of MSNBC's "AM Joy" before playing a video of Snipes' critics calling for her removal.

Democrats: 'If We Lost, the Voters Must Be Racist'.  At issue is the defeat of Andrew Gillum in the Florida governor's race and of Stacey Abrams in the Georgia governor's race.  Democrats are busily trying to undo those defeats as of this writing (Florida Democrats have a real knack for suddenly discovering caches of ballots from sympathetic voters at the opportune moment) while simultaneously arguing that the reason these two candidates failed is that they are black, and that Donald Trump's America is just one tweet away from repealing the 13th Amendment.  Senator Bernie Sanders — who abandoned his native Brooklyn for Vermont, the whitest state in the union — insists that white voters are "uncomfortable" voting for a black candidate.  Maybe some are.  But Barack Obama won more than 100 more electoral votes running against Mitt Romney than Hillary Clinton won running against a man who'd never run for office before.  The signals are at least mixed.

Look who's behind 'Voter ID is racist' campaign.  A radical group funded by billionaire George Soros that has a history of biased research is primarily behind a national campaign to paint voter ID laws as racist.  The voter ID data collected by the group, the Brennan Center for Justice, has been called into question by experts and has been contradicted by other credible studies.  Yet the center's information is cited widely by news media and even members of the Obama administration.

Andrew Breitbart Explained Left's Playbook in 2012: Calling Everyone 'Racist' the 'Most Effective Tool'.  Long before the Trump presidency, and long before the Resistance, Andrew Breitbart understood that left's use of the race card was a simply a tactic and effective one at that.  Now, with the midterms upon us, an unhinged media and an unhinged Hollywood are employing that same tactic with an unparalleled fervor, casting aspersions on any and every deplorable.  It's a playbook and it's nothing new.

Public School Teachers Denounced for Dressing Up as Mexicans, Trump's Wall for Halloween.  Schoolteachers in Idaho are in trouble after dressing in politically charged costumes for Halloween.  Photos surfaced on Facebook of staff at an elementary school in Middleton, Idaho, dressing as Mexicans and President Trump's proposed border wall along with the saying, "Make America Great Again," and waving American flags.  Parents flagged the post as being potentially insensitive to some of the students and the local DACA group reported the photos saying they were "extremely disheartening."

'If you see a white person... say something'.  What complicates this "if you see something..." message is when race and ethnicity enter the picture, plus the existence of organizations that thrive on turning molehills into lucrative mountains thanks to false accusations.  It is one thing to call security when a slovenly dressed white male repeatedly visits Tiffany's asking to handle expensive diamond rings without buying anything, but the same behavior from a poorly dressed black man is not comparable.  Putting "a tail" on the white customer is just prudent security; doing the same for the black "customer" is easily construed as racial profiling, an invitation to public outrage and possible lawsuits.

Union demands investigation of VA official who displayed painting of KKK leader.  Union leaders are calling for a full investigation into a senior Department of Veterans Affairs official who displayed a picture of the first Ku Klux Klan figurehead in his office, and say VA leadership is ignoring the issue.  The photo belongs to David Thomas Sr., deputy executive director of VA's Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization, which certifies veteran-owned businesses seeking government contracts.  The painting depicted Nathan Bedford Forrest, a confederate general who became the KKK's first grand wizard in 1868.  Thomas claims he did not know Forrest's background before a Washington Post reporter pointed it out to him.  He says he has now removed the painting following a Washington Post report.

The Editor says...
One may easily presume that a picture of former Klansman Robert Byrd would have been okay.

Fabricating Hate Crimes Is a Byproduct of Victimhood Ideology on College Campuses.  [Scroll down]  Incidents like this have become a strikingly common trend in the past few years, especially on college campuses.  While most alleged hate crimes on campus go unsolved, it is hard to ignore the fact that so many hoaxes have occurred.  A variety of motivations may prompt a student to make up a hate crime, but one thing is for certain:  The overwhelmingly dominant ideology on college campuses celebrates victimhood, even above achievement, and achievement itself is worthless without victimhood.  If one doesn't maintain some kind of victimhood status, your opinion is worth less, your accomplishments are dismissed, and your success is written off as the product of privilege.

Midterm madness — Elizabeth Warren, other Dems embrace victimhood as a political platform.  We are a people who chose freedom and liberty rooted in a sense of virtue over despair and hopelessness.  And with courage, sacrifice, and an indomitable spirit and an abiding faith in God, we won our independence and eventually created the greatest country in the world.  Powerful forces in today's Democratic Party though, are at war with that fundamental understanding of the American story.  In fact, many think the founding of our country was inherently corrupt and even illegitimate, and they have made a decision to run against that version of America.  In the absence of an actual plan to grow American prosperity and keep us safe, Democrats are embracing victimhood as a political platform this midterm cycle.

Why Doug Adler's ESPN Lawsuit Matters.  Doug Adler, longtime tennis commentator, was providing commentary at the Australian Open in January 2017 for ESPN. He was calling Venus Williams' match at the Open when — in admiration of her method of attacking the net — Adler used the phrase "guerrilla" tactic, meaning ambush.  It is a common tennis term and Venus Williams has been one of the most successful in employing the play.  What should have been a completely unremarkable event became a social media firestorm.  Many were offended by this seeming, at least to their ignorant ears, obvious and appalling racial slur.  How dare this commentator compare Venus Williams to a gorilla? [...] As usual, the ignorance of the offended knows no bounds.  The term "guerilla" refers to warfare and first appeared during the Napoleonic Wars. [...] To showcase the grand hypocrisy of ESPN during the 2018 NBA playoffs, Steve Harvey in an ESPN on air interview actually called the Golden State Warriors "gorillas."  As in African apes.

Mom files federal lawsuit after son doesn't make high school soccer team.  A St. Louis mom is making a federal case over the fact that her son didn't make the high school soccer team.  The unnamed woman, whose son is a junior at Ladue Horton Watkins High School — located in the most affluent section of the city — filed a lawsuit in federal court this week, claiming the coach's decision discriminates against her child.  The boy, called John Doe in the Wednesday [9/26/2018] filing at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, played on the junior varsity team last year, and the suit claims he's good enough to do so again[.]

Life in a Gynocracy.  Since when do those accusing others of crimes become "survivors" rather than "accusers"?  How you frame your self-description affects views, doesn't it?  If you claimed that someone had raped you, why must we always believe you just because you tag yourself "a survivor"?  Do we do this with those who claim to have been robbed or beaten?  "I'm a robbery survivor, so you have to believe me when I say X robbed me."  The shift in language is to message that accusers must always be believed.  It is, at heart, based on a gross distortion of statistics. [...] Indirect data, in fact, highly suggest that far more than two percent of rape accusations are false.  The 2% genesis was a handout from Susan Brownmiller's file.

Students Fight Oppressive Ice Cream Marginalizing Muslims, Vegans.  Students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are taking action against discriminatory and marginalizing ice cream on campus, since some of the flavors use a beef gelatin.  Yes, we've become so far removed from reality on college campuses that students are now fighting against oppressive ice cream.  Talk about First World problems.  Students have crafted legislation, titled "Ice Cream for All," demanding the ice cream at university-owned Babcock Dairy use more "inclusive" ingredients, thus ceasing the "marginalization" of "Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Vegetarian, and Vegan students."

The Editor says...
Wow, I never knew ice cream was so mean!

Woman slams airline for calling her 'Miss' instead of 'Doctor': 'This was not about my ego'.  A doctor who slammed Qantas for calling her "Miss" is receiving public backlash — however, she said she was trying to highlight "everyday sexism."  After tweeting at the Australian airline, Siobhan O'Dwyer responded to criticism on Twitter, writing, "This was not about my ego."  O'Dwyer was boarding a Qantas plane when a flight attendant reportedly looked at her boarding pass — which said "Dr. O'Dwyer" — and instead addressed her as "Miss O'Dwyer."  "Do not look at my ticket, look at me, look back at my ticket, decide it's a typo, and call me Miss O'Dwyer," Dwyer shared on social media.  "I did not spend 8 years at university to be called Miss."

The monkey with a well-done nothingburger.  Conversations are the mine fields in America's politics.  A candidate, even a well-meaning Democrat, opens his mouth at his own risk.

MSNBC Contributor Adds 'Performed Well' To List Of Offensive Phrases.  MSNBC contributor and Washington Post Columnist Jonathan Capehart Wednesday night [8/29/2018], became the first person to declare the term "performed well" as hurtful and offensive to African-Americans.  Capehart appeared on "The Last Word" with Lawrence O'Donnell and was asked about comments made earlier in the day by Ron DeSantis.  Capehart responded, "We are all focusing on the 'monkey' line," adding "but that was the third of three things that he said that I as an African-American picked up right away."

Florida primary winner says black opponent would 'monkey up' the state.  Florida GOP Rep. Ron DeSantis — the Republican nominee for governor backed by President Trump — warned voters Wednesday [8/29/2018] not to "monkey this up" by electing Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, his African-American Democratic opponent.  "The last thing we need to do is monkey this up by trying to embrace a socialist agenda with huge tax increases and bankrupting the state," DeSantis told Fox News, while also describing his opponent "an articulate spokesman for those far-left views."  The Florida Democratic Party quickly responded with a statement of outrage that accused DeSantis of racism.  "It's disgusting that Ron DeSantis is launching his general election campaign with racist dog whistles," party Chairwoman Terrie Rizzo said in a statement, the Tallahassee Democrat reported.

Omarosa and Omarosi.  As a rabbi, I have met more Omarosi than have most.  These are people who present initially very well.  They speak well.  They are coherent, even quite intelligent.  They are presentable, sometimes even attractive.  And they come forward with a story of woe, that they sometimes never have attained their potential nor achieved the greatness to which their skills and knowledge should have taken them by now.  For some reason, they have gotten a bad break — or many.  They have been pigeon-holed unfairly.  They have been misunderstood.  And now they unfairly have been blacklisted even though they have so much to offer.  All they beg for is a break, a chance, sometimes a job, sometimes some bucks — usually, all.  Rabbis, priests, and pastors meet more Omarosi than does the general public because, often, for Omarosi we are the last station on their increasingly desperate train line. [...] And 98.7% of them ultimately revert to being the Omarosi they always were and always will be.

Rahm Emanuel tells the truth about Chicago violence and gets fierce blowback.  Chicago's mayor evidently forgot one of the iron laws of the Democratic Party:  no members of any victim class can be held responsible for any problems that result from their behavior.  The ever expanding list of victim classes has grown from blacks to include all "people of color" (basically, everybody but Caucasians, who implicitly are deemed "colorless"), even elite and privileged ones like Sarah Jeong; poor people; and people who choose sexual and gender adventurism, among others.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar compares national anthem to songs of slavery.  NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar likened the national anthem to songs that were sung by slaves while they were forced to do manual labor.  Abdul-Jabbar, 71, in a Tuesday [8/14/2018] column for The Hollywood Reporter, recanted what Frederick Douglass said in "My Bondage and My Freedom."

Kareem Abdul Jabbar:  National Anthem Just Like Songs Of Slavery.  President Trump is just like the oppressors who forced their slaves to sing patriotic songs, according to NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.  Writing in The Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday [8/14/2018], the former basketball star likened the debate over NFL players singing the national anthem to slaves who were forced to sing while they work.  "Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work."  Abdul-Jabbar wrote, adding they would often sing their "oppressor's feel-good songs."

Singer John Legend:  Louisiana's Jury Laws are 'White Supremacy'.  Singer-Songwriter John Legend is calling on the people of Louisiana to alter their constitution to require unanimous juries to convict felony defendants in a Tuesday op-ed in the Washington Post.  The crux of Legend's argument is that Louisiana's white male-written constitution was designed to discount the input of blacks, who make up nearly a third of the state's population, in jury decisions.

The Ten Most Hateful Americans and Why they Matter.  [#4] Alicia Garza is regarded by Fortune Magazine as among "50 of the most influential world leaders."  What did she do to deserve this highly questionable accolade?  She's one of three co-founders of Black Lives Matter, formed after the acquittal of George Zimmerman, a white Hispanic found not guilty of murder following the deadly fight in which Treyvon Martin was shot and killed as Zimmerman defended himself from assault.  Garza calls BLM "an ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise."  Oh, she also maintains that blacks face "deadly oppression" and that "extrajudicial killings" of blacks is a regular feature of our society.  She claims "Blacks are uniquely, systematically, and savagely targeted by the state" and this has led to black poverty, "genocide," and mass incarceration.

Top 10 Black Racists.  In a case of deviancy having been defined down, these antisocial, anti-white sentiments are accepted by the media as normal, even admirable.  Some black racists today have become rich and famous by vilifying white people and the American system, claiming blacks are systematically persecuted and discriminated against — despite federal laws which make this illegal — and asserting that there is an invisible conspiracy of white supremacists preventing black people from becoming successful.  Anti-white racism is often expressed in matter-of-fact terms, largely unchallenged by the gatekeepers of our culture, including by self-styled conservatives.  Black racists routinely say things and engage in race-baiting that would typically land whites in hot water.

Get Whitey.  When it emerged yesterday [8/2/2018] that the Twitter feed of the New York Times editorial board's latest appointee, Sarah Jeong, crackled with nasty and puerile racial invective, it was generally assumed by many — including her defenders — that she would be let go before the day was over. [...] Jeong calls herself "a woman of color on the internet" — surely a novel formulation of identity — and assumes a veil of protection from criticism based on this status.  It's hard to understand how a highly rewarded immigrant, whose family was embraced by the same country whose majority population she now denigrates, sees herself as a victim.  Yet she does, and in fact, a supportive media narrative casts her as a double victim:  first she was trolled by racists online, and now "far-right" activists and even "Nazis" are trying to get her fired.

Cory Booker laments 'savagely wrong' state of American culture.  Sen. Cory Booker implored an audience in New Orleans on Friday [8/3/2018] to combat the "savagely wrong" state of American culture by thinking about the importance of a "civic gospel."

Your conservative friends aren't racists, and the accusation provides cover for real racists.  While catching up on news about Papa John's pizza founder John Schnatter's resignation, I started thinking about society's evolving standard for language, and hazarded the following:  "Why is the N-word the only remaining curse word?  "Every word that shocked and horrified 50 years ago is now mainstream, but the n-word is so unthinkably evil, it's a national headline when anyone says it, even as a quote.  "Except rappers, of course."  The tweet garnered a variety of responses that ranged from the snidely condescending to the cheap and insulting, but most flailed at the straw man that I, as a white man, was complaining about the stigma of using a racist slur.  I suppose in our societal race to the lowest common denominator, it's possible that nobody considered that someone might actually decry low standards, rather than complain about high ones.

Maxine Waters warns supporters of possible 'armed protests' against her.  Rep. Maxine Waters warned supporters on Wednesday [7/18/2018] of potential "armed protests" against her after an extremist group called for ongoing demonstrations outside her office in Los Angeles.  In a lengthy statement issued late Wednesday, Waters, D-Calif., said she'd been notified about forthcoming protests by the Oath Keepers, which she described as "an anti-government militia" that's staged armed protests in cities across the country.  She warned her supporters against being "baited" into counter-demonstrations or confrontations with the organization, which she said has a track record of "violent and provocative behavior."

The Editor says...
ABC News is happy to pass along demonstrable lies, as long as they come from an elected Democrat. Anyone who spends five minutes examining who the Oath Keepers are and what they stand for will see that the Oath Keepers are not an anti-government organization.  Nor is there any evidence (known to me) that the Oath Keepers have ever engaged in "violent and provocative behavior."  If anyone in this story has a "track record" of encouraging violence, it is Representative Maxine Waters.

Those Poor, Helpless Indian Savages.  On July 2, Facebook's indefatigable legions of Hate Robots censored a post as "hate speech" because it dared to contain a passage from the Declaration of Independence: [...] The three words everyone zeroed in on were "merciless Indian savages."  The only thing inaccurate in the term "merciless Indian savages" is the word "Indian," but facts don't matter in an era where moral outrage is forever on the warpath.  What was ignored in the predictable Sanctimony Bloodbath that ensued was the broader context of that quote.  It quite uncomfortably implies that King George was actively trying to crush the American colonists by fomenting race war against them.  And this is true — is a documented fact that in 1775, General Thomas Gage, leader of the British Army in America, ordered his Indian allies to "deliver war upon the colonists."

Man Shoots Burglar, Family Predictably Cries Foul.  What is it about family that makes it so you can be absolutely convinced that despite them engaging in a criminal act, they're still somehow angels?  I ask because it seems that no matter what the circumstances, when someone gets shot, the family will invariably step up and pontificate on just why that person shouldn't have been killed.  In this case, a man killed in an Iowa store burglary is as pure as the driven snow or something.  Well, maybe not.  The family at least admits he was in the wrong for stealing, but they still think he shouldn't be dead.

The Racism of the Alleged Affronted.  At the Consortium of Higher Education for LGBT Resource Professionals, one learns that at an upcoming webinar, "queer and trans people of color are welcome to join and engage in or observe the space.  However, we do want to provide a content warning that in these spaces we hope white folks will process our thoughts and behaviors in a learning environment so we can address them and discuss and [sic] tactics of decentering whiteness." [...] Under the social justice rubric, being born white makes one evil, plain and simple.  In fact, according to Dr. Kathy Obear, one can either be a good white ally or a bad one.  Thus, everything is seen through the prism of race.

Only Uncle Tom Celebrates July 4th?  American leftists cannot restrain themselves from throwing stink-bombs at all things wholesome and good.  July 4th, my wife Mary read two articles in which black writers scolded blacks for celebrating Independence Day.  They claim that us blacks have nothing to celebrate because we were not free in 1776.  Why are leftists so hellbent on instilling in me and my fellow blacks a belief that America is not our country?  America has repented of her sins long ago.  The Civil War was fought to liberate blacks from slavery.  White abolitionists broke the law by teaching blacks to read. [...] My point is that American history is replete with godly whites who helped blacks; sometimes risking everything.  And yet, leftists have successfully sold blacks their lie that any success achieved by blacks is in spite of racist white America.  Blacks are only 12% of the population.  Much of black wealth in America is the result of white help and patronage.

Montreal jazz festival cancels controversial show after criticism.  The Montreal International Jazz Festival has cancelled the remaining presentations of a show that has been criticized because it features a white woman singing songs composed by black slaves.  The festival said Wednesday [7/4/2018] it was apologizing to anyone who was hurt by the decision to put on the shows.

The Toxic Race-Mongering of the Left.  The current status quo serves the short-sighted power aims of the worst of the Democratic party, that is the far left, too well for them to abandon it.  Scream racism at every disagreement and you might convince meaning-seeking millennials that leftism provides them a cogent moral framework, you might scare blacks out of noticing that they are thriving under Donald Trump's policies, you might convince women that Trump's boorish words are somehow worse than Bill Clinton's actions.  But the long-term costs of these political gains are great.  The constant cries of racism have kept race at the center of the American political discussion long after most Americans would happily let the subject go.

How quickly can a bully become a victim?
Black female leaders criticize Pelosi, Schumer for 'failure to protect' Waters.  Black female leaders and allies expressed their "deep disappointment" with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for their "recent failure to protect" Rep. Maxine Waters "from unwarranted attacks from the Trump administration and others in the GOP."  "We write to share our profound indignation and deep disappointment over your recent failure to protect Congresswoman Waters from unwarranted attacks from the Trump Administration and others in the GOP," the women wrote in a letter sent Tuesday [7/3/2018].  "That failure was further compounded by your decision to unfairly deride her as being 'uncivil' and 'un-American.'"

SPLC Keeps Denying.  Black-on-White Violence Keeps Happening.  Think of the odds:  every day, for years, the Southern Poverty Law Center has been cranking out studies, talking points, and direct mail to show how black people are victims of relentless white racism, all the time, everywhere, and that explains everything.  Just a few days ago, the SPLC declared that black-on-white violence is the "biggest lie" because everyone knows the real problem is white-on-black violence.  But what crazy luck:  The more the SPLC says black criminality is a myth, the more it just keeps happening.

Proof that Dems' unfair race baiting doesn't add up.  In the wake of Roseanne's awful, racist tweet comparing former Barack Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett to an ape, Jarrett took part in a special town hall on race on MSNBC.  In it, she blamed President Donald Trump for the star's racist joke.  While sitting next to Al Sharpton, a man who made his name through racist hoaxes, Jarrett repeated what has become a favorite narrative of the political left — that the United States, at its core, is fundamentally racist.

Portland bakery fires employees for denying black woman service after closing.  Two employees of a bakery in Northeast Portland were fired earlier this month for denying a black woman service because the business had closed.  "Back To Eden Bakery" released several public apologies and statements following the incident, before letting the employees go.  In one Facebook post, the bakery's co-owner wrote, "We are doing business in a gentrified neighborhood in a racist city within a racist state of a racist country."

Portland bakery fires two employees for refusing service to a black customer after closing time.  [Scroll down]  In my opinion, there is an inescapable presumption behind this firing: ordinary rules do not apply to black people.  Failure to realize that any demand from a black person must be immediately complied with, no matter the rules that apply to all other people, is a firing offense, it looks like to me.  It is more than a little surprising to see a business labelling its neighbors and presumably customers "racists," but who knows?  Maybe in Portlandia, people prefer to give their business to those who abuse them as the worst thing a person can be these days, a racist.

Roseanne Barr escapes burning at the stake — for now — but loses her hit show, talent agency, and career.  The mostly unspoken rules of contemporary American society hold that African Americans cannot be insulted in ways that Caucasians and some other minorities can be.  This is mostly a legacy of slavery and the official discrimination that followed under Jim Crow laws passed by Democrat-controlled governmental units in the post-Civil War South.

How to Fail Racial Sensitivity Training.  In most schools, it begins with an invitation to have a "Courageous Conversation" about race.  Within a few minutes, the white teachers learn they must be courageous enough to admit their own racism and how it is responsible for so much black dysfunction in America.  Tip for the soon to be enlightened 177,000:  If you want to keep your job and think you are not racist, don't let anyone know about it, or you will meet the same fate as the teachers who said the same thing in their seminars.  They get fired.  So there is no conversation — just monologue.  This is too bad, because as your average befuddled white guy, there are so many questions I want to ask, yet so few answers.

Actresses: We were wrongfully arrested after using restaurant bathroom.  Three actresses in Atlanta claim they were wrongfully arrested after using the bathroom at a restaurant.  The women — Erica Walker, Brittany Marie Lucio and Asia'h Sharrell Epperson — called on the district attorney Tuesday to investigate an incident at Houston's restaurant where an officer removed them from the restroom, news station WXIA-TV reported.

If you see something, say something (unless you see black).  There has been a spate of articles recently about white people calling the police against black people who were apparently doing nothing wrong, like sleeping in a common room in Yale, attempting to urinate in Starbucks, shopping at Nordstrom Rack, and playing on a golf course.  The idea behind these articles is that white people are racist. [...] A few points to make about this:  [#1] The liberal media rarely report the whole story about these events.  Specifically, they often exclude key facts, such as the suspicious behavior that made people call the police.  [#2] These stories are cherrypicked.  We see the ones reported where the black people have committed no crimes.  There are never, ever stories of the times black people are arrested for crimes after someone phones in a "suspicious person" report.  What percentage of suspicious persons reports end up being valid?  The [New York] Times doesn't want to know; it just wants more stories of stereotypes.  [#3] Liberals insist that citizens be disarmed because the police will protect them.  Now they are saying citizens shouldn't call the police.

Ex-congressman says he's 'given up on America' after sentenced for 3rd conviction.  A former Democratic congressman from Chicago, heading to prison for the third time, says he has "given up on America" and plans to move to Africa after he serves his latest sentence.  At his sentencing Thursday [5/10/2018], Mel Reynolds, 66, got six months in prison for failing to file tax returns on more than $400,000 he received for consulting work.  He also received a scolding from federal Judge Robert Gettleman, who told the Harvard graduate he could recall thinking to himself in the early 1990s that Reynolds had tremendous promise.

South Carolina woman's claims of being harassed by 'white cop' are questioned as new footage emerges.  A South Carolina woman who said being pulled over for speeding by a "white cop" was a "traumatic experience" is having her story questioned after police body camera footage from the incident showed a less intense series of events unfolding.  Dawn Hilton-Williams, in a Facebook Live video on April 27, accused a Brunswick County Sheriff's Office sergeant of racism after she was ordered to sign a summons asking her to appear in court or pre-pay a traffic ticket.  The officer said he clocked her going 70 mph in a stretch of rural Route 58 in Virginia that has a 55 mph limit.

McKinney council member who accused officer of racial profiling in traffic stop says he won't resign.  McKinney City Council member La'Shadion Shemwell said in a Facebook Live video Thursday night [5/10/2018] that he will not resign after he accused a police officer of racial profiling when he was pulled over for speeding earlier this week.  Shemwell said after the traffic stop that he had been pulled over for "being black with dreadlocks."

McKinney Council Member Says He Was Arrested For Racial, Political Reasons.  A McKinney City Council Member claims racial profiling and political retribution were behind his arrest during traffic stop.  La'Shadion Shemwell says he wasn't speeding when he was stopped for speeding by McKinney Police on Highway 5 around 6:45 p.m.  Tuesday [5/8/2018].  Shemwell is black and an activist against police brutality.

The Semantic Whoredom of the Left.  [Scroll down]  I realized it wasn't just their etymology that was faulty but that these people had in fact built themselves an entirely new language, with words that are in common use [...] voided of their signification and filled with meanings they were never meant to have, meanings that can only be understood if you share the basic assumptions of leftist liberals. [...] There are a few hundred other words that have similarly been beaten until they lose all self-respect and now are passed from mouth to mouth in leftist circles as a sad parody of the words they used to be.  Possibly the most common of those is "racist."

Calling police on black women at golf course is latest example of 'White Fear Weaponized'.  We can now add golfing to the list of normal activities that black people dare not do without inciting irrational fear.  Last weekend, police were summoned to the Grandview Golf Club in York, Pennsylvania, when a group of golfers — all white men — called the police on five black women golfers after accusing them of slow play.

Camille Cosby Compares Husband to Emmett Till and Blames Media.  Camille Cosby, the wife of the disgraced comedian Bill Cosby, disparaged the media, Mr. Cosby's accusers and his prosecutors in a caustic statement released Thursday [5/3/2018], her first public comments since Mr. Cosby was convicted of sexual assault last week.  She called for a criminal investigation of the Montgomery County district attorney and repeatedly suggested that Mr. Cosby was targeted because of his race.  In a three-page release, Mrs. Cosby explicitly blamed the media for Mr. Cosby's fate in court, citing what she called a "frenzied, relentless demonization of him and unquestioning acceptance of accusers' allegations without any attendant proof."  She went on to say, "Bill Cosby was labeled as guilty because the media and accusers said so."

The Editor says...
No, Bill Cosby is guilty because a jury said so — after deliberating upon a volume of evidence.  Good bye, Bill.

'It's all a set up': Bill Cosby says he has no 'remorse' and claims jurors in his case were 'imposters'.  Disgraced comedian Bill Cosby said that he is not remorseful despite currently serving a multiyear prison sentence after being convicted on charges of aggravated indecent assault.  Cosby, 82, formerly a television producer, director, and comedian, was interviewed on Sunday for the first time since his sentence began.  "I have eight years and nine months left," Cosby told BlackPressUSA.com.  "When I come up for parole, they're not going to hear me say that I have remorse.  I was there.  I don't care what group of people come along and talk about this when they weren't there.  They don't know."

Whatever the Left Touches it Ruins.  The left has poisoned race relations.  America is the least racist multiracial society in the world.  On a daily basis, Americans of every race and ethnicity get along superbly.  But the black left and the white left constantly poison young minds with hate-filled diatribes against whites, "white privilege," "systemic racism," black dorms, black graduations, lies about the events in Ferguson, Missouri, and the like.

Singer Halsey stirs debate over hotels offering only 'white people shampoo'.  Black women face "high levels of anxiety" about their hair more often than white women, according to a 2016 "Good Hair" study by the Perception Institute. Hair texture, density and thickness, among other things, are common topics of discussion among women of color.  There are charts that determine how curly or coarse one's hair is and dedicated aisles in stores now that contain "ethnic" hair products.  But these products are not found in hotels.

The Editor says...
Is shampoo a civil right now?  The hotels supply the same shampoo to everyone.  If it's not your favorite brand, that's your problem.  You are not being denied access to shampoo.  If your hair has special needs, bring your own stinkin' shampoo.

Leftist Propaganda Thwarts Unity.  The Americans who listen to the Washington Post, the New York Times, and all the networks are being systematically lied to. [...] Around 3,500 blacks were shot in Chicago, called Chiraq by black Chicagoans, last year, but that's rarely mentioned in the news.  On the other hand, the MSM had wall-to-wall coverage when a white police officer shot a black thug in self-defense.  Note that both Obama and his black attorney general agreed that the shooting was justified and that that wasn't given wall-to-wall media coverage.  Because of this sort of "reporting," many Americans think the real problem in America isn't out-of-control crime in black neighborhoods in Democrat-run cities, but that the police are out hunting innocent blacks on a regular basis.

Baltimore police chief attends hip-hop show, apologizes for '200 years' of abuse by cops.  Music lovers arrived at Baltimore Soundstage on Wednesday night [4/18/2018] to hear the tunes of hip-hop group Eric B. & Rakim, but soon found themselves listening to an apology for corrupt policing.  "I want to take about 20 seconds to apologize for all the things that the police have done dating back 200 years," Commissioner De Sousa said in a video posted online by Baltimore Fishbowl.  "Two-hundred years ago, all the way to civil rights.  All the way to the '80s where crack was prevalent in the cities and it affected disproportionately African-American men.  All the way to the '90s.  All the way to the 2000s when we had zero tolerance."

Ignorance: The Greatest Threat to Black Americans.  Democrats refuse to hold blacks accountable for anything — black on black crime, epidemic school dropouts, out of wedlock births, and generational poverty.  Insidiously, Democrats have totally relieved blacks of all responsibility for their lives.  Democrats have tripled down on teaching black youths that everything wrong is the fault of "white privilege," systematic, cultural, and economic white racism in America.  Deadbeat, lazy blacks are quick to embrace the Democrats' its-all-whitey's-fault narrative.

The Battle of Woke Island.  [Scroll down]  In the world of the campus, one's status and moral authority increases with the number of victim groups in which one claims membership.  This is the postmodern dogma of "intersectionality" that promotes solipsism at the personal level and division at the social level, that forbids the "cultural appropriation" of one victim group's tastes, symbols, language, and commodities by another group, and requires members of the victimizer group — cis-gendered white males — to recognize, confess, and atone for their "privilege."

'Black Panther' Mirage Proves Obama Set Race Relations Back Decades.  America's regression, our backwards strides away from [Martin Luther] King's dream, all began with Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign and a media so desperate to protect him that every criticism leveled at The One was labeled racism.  Everything was about race.

A Tale of Black Racism.  The Philly media, like the media elsewhere, makes much of gentrification.  Philadelphians are forever hearing about what a social evil it is. [...] Constantly propagating notions such as white supremacy, white privilege, gentrification, and others, the media creates a kind of toxic intellectual air.  Unhappy people breathe it in, and the result is all sorts of mad beliefs.  It is as if being white guaranteed a middle-class existence.  It is as if being black meant that personal failure is not even a possibility; in place of it there is always some white discrimination or other.

Bigotry of Bigotries; All Is Bigotry.  Anyway Ferguson recently convened a conference at Stanford's Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank.  No one much cared about what was discussed and debated.  For those who believe in diversity uber alles, a conference on history and public policy must be judged by the number of representatives from different oppressed groups. [...] The New York Times was appalled at the lack of diversity.  It blared out the shrill headline... there were no women at the conference.  Which means, to Times readers, that the whole thing was an exercise in bigotry.  You need not know anything else.

This brave sixth grader recorded her teacher's ugly rant about Trump and minorities and told her story.  A Georgia middle school teacher's rant about President Trump forced the school district to respond to an "extremely unfortunate" incident that was brought to light by a student.  The Henry County school district responded to an audio recording of sixth grade teacher Johnetta Benton which was captured by one of her students at Hampton Middle School.  Josie Orihuela began recording the audio once Benton began her lecture as she was introducing a video to celebrate Black History Month.  The teacher reportedly gave students a 15-minute monologue about how "America has never been great for minorities," taking a jab at Trump's campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again."  [Video clip]

Sixth-grade teacher delivers 15-minute rant claiming Trump's MAGA slogan is a call to bring segregation back.  A sixth-grade teacher has delivered a shocking classroom rant claiming that President Donald Trump wants a return to segregation and accused white students of being the progeny of 'European' mass murderers.  Student Josie Orihuela recorded the incident last month at Hampton Middle School near Atlanta, where social studies teacher Johnetta Benton was delivering a lesson for Black History Month.  Josie began recording just after Benton turned off a film the class was watching and pronounced that that 'Make America Great Again' could be a precursor to 'trying to bring back segregation,' the student told Fox News.

Trump Census Citizenship Question Helps Black Americans.  After the Commerce Department decided to ask if people filling out the census are citizens, the crazed racial Left mobilized and called the change the return of Jim Crow.  The change to the Census was a plot against minorities.  To them, Jim Crow keeps returning again and again.  His return has more sequels than Rocky.  Jim Crow first came back as Voter ID.  Jim Crow returned as keeping voter rolls clean.  Then Jim Crow rode into town, again, when Kansas sought to ensure that only citizens are registering to vote.  Jim Crow also appeared when the federal Election Assistance Commission allowed Alabama and Georgia to change a federal voter registration form to ensure that only citizens were registering to vote.  Jim Crow is also on the loose in Indiana, because that state compares Indiana voter rolls with other states via the interstate cross check program, to make sure people aren't registered twice.  Jim Crow is on the loose everywhere, it seems.  Anytime honest elections are promoted, Jim Crow appears.

Racism charges fly over indictment of NFL's Bennett despite liberal prosecutor, black victim.  Allegations of racism have erupted over the indictment Friday [3/23/2018] of NFL star Michael Bennett, even though he's being prosecuted by a liberal, Soros-backed district attorney for a crime against a black victim.

Deep-Freezing the Truth at Penn.  The diversity imperative demands dissimulation and evasion.  The academic-achievement gap, the behavioral differences that produce socioeconomic disparities, and the ubiquity of racial preferences must all be suppressed in public discourse, since they undercut the narrative that white racism is the driving force in American society.  This dissimulation was on display last week at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, when Dean Ted Ruger announced that law professor Amy Wax would no longer teach mandatory first-year law courses at the school. [...] Wax was deemed a "white supremacist" for suggesting that not all cultures were equal in preparing people for participation in a modern economy.

Before anything was known about the perpetrator or his motives...
Black Caucus members call for action on Austin bombings.  Congressional Black Caucus members want the bombings in Austin, Texas, to be classified as "terrorist attacks" — and are calling on officials to determine whether they are "ideologically or racially motivated."  While the two young men injured in the most recent blast are both white, all of the other victims have been either black or Hispanic.

The Editor says...
Do they really believe the cops weren't already working on those questions?

The Age of Expert Ignorance.  In 2015, a police officer was 18.5 times more likely to be killed by a black man than an unarmed black man was to be killed by a police officer.  Black men have constituted 42 percent of all cop-killers over the past decade, even though they are only 6 percent of the population.

Ga. parents furious after 7-year-old, 'the only white girl in her class,' cast to play supremacist.  A Georgia school district is investigating after a 7-year-old student, "the only white girl in her class," according to her father, was cast to play a segregationist in a school play.  In a video of the play, 7-year-old Anastasia Bertram, playing the part of a segregationist, yelled at a group of black children to "go away, you don't belong here!"  She then marched with a sign that read, "Go home," on one side and "Cursed is the man who integrates" on the other, ABC-affiliated WSB-TV reported.

Two Opposing Black Views of America.  [Scroll down]  He went on to recount horrific incidences of racial injustice: a black boy sharing an elevator with a white girl igniting a race riot, black inventions stolen, and black businesses destroyed.  These events happened in the 1920s.  And yet the passion with which my friend reported them was as if they had happened yesterday.  My friend's anger at America is as if eight years of Obama never happened and Oprah is not worth three billion dollars.  He believes that police routinely murder young black men.  He believes that America's evil white power structure labors 24-7, scheming to undermine blacks economically and culturally.  In his circles of black academia, his erroneous beliefs are deemed inarguably true.  His colleagues think any black who doesn't subscribe to these obvious truths is either an idiot or an Uncle Tom.

9/11 and Parkland:  When Systems Fail.  Black Lives Matter and the LGBT movements now have more power than our churches, businesses, and all other traditional institutions.  The rest of us are expected to cower and submit before the leftist dictates of the new American culture and to dispense with the values once held dear.  Victimhood rules.  If one is not a victim, then he or she is an oppressor.  That is how it is.

Enemies Of The People.  The black NYU undergraduate who got two cafeteria workers fired because she took the menu as an act of racist aggression hardly qualifies as a commissar sending dissenters to the gulag.  But that incident is certainly on the spectrum.  Imagine that:  two people are out of a job now, and have their careers tainted by accusations of racism, simply because they were trying to show sensitivity to black students, but one black student was offended, and the gutless university administration preferred to sack those workers than to be accused by anybody of complicity in their horrible racist act of serving ribs and collard greens. [...] Note well:  the people running the cafeteria had consulted black co-workers about what they should serve to honor black history.  But they hadn't asked the right kind of black people, apparently.

'Stop blaming white people' sign causes stir N.J. post office.  The United States Postal Service said it is investigating a racial sign put up outside its Flemington location.  USPS Postal Inspector Greg Kliemisch said Friday afternoon [3/2/2018] the sign, which read "March is national stop blaming white people month!  Accept responsibility for your own bad choices.  Hug a white person!," was put up sometime Thursday.  It was taken down in the afternoon by employees, he said.

Black Panther:  Not Even A Decent Movie — But An Ominous Warning For White America.  It's nothing more than a $350 million ($200 million for production with $150 million from Disney to market the movie) exercise in wish fulfillment for Ryan Coogler, the 31-year-old black director.  But according to movie review website Rotten Tomatoes, Black Panther is not just a good film — but the greatest movie of all time!  What's going on?  This is only Coogler's third film.  His first was Fruitvale Station, about Oscar Grant, the black youth shot by a police officer while riding BART in Coogler's hometown of Oakland CA.  Coogler went to great lengths to portray the criminal Grant as an innocent victim.  This eerily similar to the way BART officials refuse to release CCTV footage of crimes committed on the transit system so as not to "create a high level of racially insensitive commentary toward the district... and create a racial bias in the riders against minorities on the trains."

Patton
Unarmed White Teachers Are At Risk Of Rape And Murder By Their Black And Latino Students.  Stacey Patton (left) is an "assistant professor of multimedia journalism" at Morgan State University, an "urban" black college in Maryland.  Patton has a Ph.D. in African-American History, and I don't even know where to put the share quotes there.  She's the author of Spare The Kids:  Why Whupping Children Won't Save Black America, which deals with "black America's relationship with corporal punishment", I. E. horrific rates of child beating, which is apparently the fault of white people and nothing to do with a low-IQ, high crime rate population having to deal with low IQ, high crime rate children.  As Steve Sailer notes [elsewhere], she's been given op-ed space in the Washington Post to say that teachers should be unarmed, because armed teachers may kill black and Latino students. [...] But teachers aren't safe from kids of color.  Take the late Colleen Ritzer, for example.


Texas city removes popular gorilla statue for being 'racially insensitive'.  The City of Corsicana, Texas, this week removed a popular gorilla statue from its cage in a community park playground after people complained it was racially insensitive.  A makeshift memorial cropped up Tuesday at the empty cage in Community Park, where "Dobby" the gorilla stood for the past 19 years.  A Facebook page called "In Memory Of Dobby" reached more than 1,100 supporters, and a petition on Change.org calling for the statue to be returned fetched more than 2,300 signatures.  A candlelight vigil took place Wednesday night and a protester sat inside the cage, vowing to remain until the statue was returned, a local CBS affiliate reported.

The Editor says...
It's a statue of a gorilla in a cage.  How is that racially insensitive?  Is an actual gorilla in a cage also racially insensitive?  Now, if the gorilla depicted in the statue was wearing saggy pants with his underwear showing, a big black hoodie in July, and big gold chains around his neck, and he had a mouthful of gold "grill," and a straight razor in his shoe, I could see where the complaints might have some merit.

The Labyrinth of Oppressions.  There are a few common denominators to all these paradoxes that overwhelm the daily news.  One, people are people, unique individuals, not monolithic cut-outs of classes, races, or religions.  Two, in comparative global terms, it is hard for anyone to be oppressed in a free-wheeling, rich, and leisured 21st-century America.  The efforts to appear so can hinge on the embarrassing.  Three, when movements, such as the identity politics core of progressivism, rely on shared oppressions, and when the categories of the oppressed in many demographic groups outnumber the available oppressors, we should expect a confused competition of grievances.  Four, victimhood cannot serve as the basis of a viable political movement.

Fired cooks at NYU demonstrate the impossibility of culinary commemoration of Black History Month.  Two people who work to prepare food for students at New York University have lost their jobs for serving a meal featuring food and beverages believed to be stereotypically associated with black cuisine. [...] The only safe course for anyone associated with preparing food for a population that includes any blacks would seem to be to ignore Black History Month.  Would that lead to protests?  That works for me, but it no doubt would be considered racist as well by those with a need to be offended.  So we are left with a full descent into rule by dining hall commissars who must approve every menu.  You can count on that to produce cuisine that will both taste bad and be boring.

Anita Hill [is] a Poor Choice to Lead Commission on Sexual Harassment.  The many recent allegations of sexual harassment and assault in Hollywood have brought down powerful men — most notably Harvey Weinstein — and prompted industry executives to seek ways to combat the rampant problem.  One such effort to was to form the Commission on Sexual Harassment and Advancing Equality in the Workplace, a panel spearheaded by Hollywood executives to devise a strategy to confront "the broad culture of abuse and power disparity" in the industry.  This is a laudable move that could very well make Hollywood a safer and more welcoming place for women.  But there's just one problem:  the woman tasked with leading the commission — Anita Hill — has a history of defending sexual assault.

Harvard Law Grad:  Armed Teachers Would Shoot Black Students.  A Harvard law grad argued Thursday [2/22/2018] that armed teachers would shoot black students.  Elie Mystal, who graduated and practiced law with a Harvard University law degree, made the case for why armed teachers would shoot black students, reported The College Fix.  He published the argument on Above the Law, a law blog he edits.  Mystal argued that arming teachers would be pricey, not dissuade potential shooters, and "directly result in students of color being shot to death at school."

New York University issues public apology for 'racially insensitive' meal served during Black History Month.  New York University has issued a public apology and fired their director of food service after students pointed out the watermelon-flavoured water and collard greens the school was serving during Black History Month were racially insensitive.  College of Arts and Science sophomore Nia Harris noticed the offensive meal when she walked into Weinstein Passport Dining Hall — before alerting the deans of the school and NYU's President Hamilton of the insensitive and "stereotypical" meal.

Clarence Thomas:  "At some point, we're going to be fatigued with everybody being the victim".  Originally omitted from the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, America's second African-American Supreme Court Justice rarely speaks in public, but when he does, it's meaningful.  Justice Clarence Thomas, appearing on a panel at the Library of Congress, reminisced about his grandfather's great strength and personal integrity in never seeing himself as a victim.  Thomas lamented the current culture of victimhood and predicted that "At some point, we're going to be fatigued with everybody being the victim."

Sen. Menendez: 'Chain Migration' Is 'Cruel' To Descendants Of Slaves.  "Chain migration" refers to immigration policy that allows the extended families of immigrants to join them in the United States.  According to Menendez, who is fresh off of a corruption trial, the term is "cruel" and "obscene."  "I find it obscene, the phrase 'chain migration,'" Menendez told CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer.  "It is incredibly cruel to those whose ancestors were brought to this country in chains in slavery."  "It is a dehumanizing element of what is, in essence, family reunification, which has been the core of American immigration principal for over a century," Menendez continued, "the belief that when we have families together, that ultimately they strengthen not only themselves and help each other but they help build communities and help build our nation."

This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things.  NBC News Black, because news has a race now, posted an interview with one of the actors in the movie proclaiming the movie, set in a fictional African country, "will prove to the colonialists that if they had not interfered with Africa, we'd be so far advanced."  Not to be outdone in the stupid, none other than the New York Times declared, "Part of the emotional and visual appeal of "Black Panther" lies in the fact that Wakanda has never been colonized."  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the movie or the comic books on which it is based, Wakanda is a fictional African country, which would make not only colonization difficult, but a vacation fairly unlikely as well.  Oh, and the character was created by two Jewish men, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

Patrisse Cullors:  Nearly Six Years Ago Trayvon Martin Was Murdered 'In Cold Blood'.  Patrisse Cullors is one of the co-founders of the Black Lives Matter movement, a movement which began after unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by George Zimmerman nearly six years ago.  Today, NBC News has published a piece by Cullors which repeats some false claims about Martin's death, foremost among them that he was murdered in "cold blood."

How Progressives Use Race as a Weapon Against Our Country.  [T]o believe the Democratic Party platform one has to believe that the historic Civil Rights movement, which led to the Civil Rights Acts was an abject failure and achieved nothing.  Such extreme condemnations originate, and are intended, as attacks on America itself — on the American idea and its achievements.  This is the meaning of the nationwide protests of the national anthem, and the attempt by the California NAACP to delegitimize and replace it as "racist," and by the numerous attempts to destroy monuments to Thomas Jefferson and other American Founders, as though their legacy was not one of freedom but oppression.  The curricula of American schools originally designed to educate the citizens of a democracy are increasingly devoted to the doctrine that whites are racists, that America oppresses "people of color," and that "whiteness" is a socio-political "construct" which must be abolished.  As one Texas State college student, echoing Obama, wrote in his school paper, "White DNA is an abomination."  Nor is this a view confined to students and their teachers, but rather one with broad currency among the nation's intellectual elites.  According to the winner of the 2016 National Book Award, Ta-Nehisi Coates, "white America's progress, or rather the progress of those Americans who believe they are white, was built on looting and violence."  In a 2017 book on Obama's presidency, Coates declared:  "white supremacy [is] so foundational to this country that it [will] not be defeated in my lifetime, my child's lifetime, or perhaps ever."  Ta-Nehisi Coates is the nation's most celebrated and awarded black author.

Parents of slain Pizza Hut robber angry that victim used a gun against him.  Self-defense is regarded as a right deriving from natural law.  But that offers no justification to the parents of Michael Grace, Jr. of Charlotte, NC, who was shot to death while attempting to rob a Pizza Hut. [...] I may be an extremist, but it seems to me that if one decides to commit a crime, the victims should have more rights than the perpetrator, especially the right to defend themselves from the presumption of violence that accompanies a robbery, home invasion, or other property crime.

Sadly, Another Black History Month.  Blacks are only 12% of the U.S. population.  Therefore, black millionaires and billionaires like Oprah, Samuel L. Jackson, Colin Kaepernick, and countless others confirm my point; white America made these blacks extremely wealthy.  And yet, sadly, most millennial blacks believe the Left's lie that their opportunities for success are limited.  They believe white cops murder black men on sight.  They believe white America is obsessed with conceiving dirty tricks to keep blacks down.  It is interesting that the American Left, which includes the NAACP and Congressional Black Caucus, despises and seeks to destroy successful blacks who bear witness to the greatness of America.  I am talking about blacks like the world-renowned retired neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson, businessman extraordinaire Herman Cain, and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.  Without lowered standards or special concessions due to their skin-color, these blacks achieved success the old fashion way.  They earned it.

Libs Ruin Everything:  Now Notre Dame's Nickname, 'The Fighting Irish', Is Being Regarded As 'Racist'.  It's impossible to be racist against white people, except when faking offence is politically expedient.  How many times have you heard people say it's impossible to be racist against white people?  That 'reverse racism' as some call it isn't 'a thing' because racism requires some kind of an oppressive power structure [...] So, aside from the ever-moving goalposts of the perpetually offended, we've got no basis of explaining how this can suddenly qualify as racism.  You'd think there is suddenly a right not to be offended.

Class Warfare and Platitudes:  Joe Kennedy's Democratic SOTU Response Rife With Overtures to Aggrieved.  Rep. Joseph "Joe" Kennedy III (D-MA) delivered the Democratic response to President Donald Trump's State of the Union address Tuesday in Fall River, Massachusetts.  The speech, rife with appeals to equality and "who we are," sought to unite the economic struggle of working class Americans to the identity politics battles of the Democratic Party, including Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, and the "transgender" movement.

Mom Sues Walmart to End Policy of Locking Up, 'Segregating' Beauty Products.  A Perris mother is taking legal action over what she claims is discrimination against African-Americans by Walmart over their policy of locking up certain products.  Essie Grundy told reporters at a news conference Friday she has filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against the retail giant after asking for assistance to buy a 49-cent comb, which was among several products secured in a glass casing at the Perris store.

The Editor says...
If you don't like the way the store is run, your only recourse is to take your business elsewhere.  Perhaps there are items locked up in transparent cases because that merchandise is most likely to vanish from the store!

Racism Is Not Why Blacks Underperform in School.  Despite what [Jaylen] Brown and civil rights leaders say, not all research supports this conclusion.  One preeminent study by John Ogbu, "Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb:  A Study of Academic Disengagement," concluded that the education gap between whites and blacks has more to do with community forces than economic status or racism.  These community forces, which include the ways minorities interpret and respond to school, as well as beliefs and behaviors within the minoirty community regarding education, work against blacks succeeding in the educational system.  Ogbu found that this is something that does not affect other minorities in the same way or to the same degree as blacks, if at all.  While all minorities express some level of mistrust in white Americans, blacks are more concerned about how they're treated by the teachers than they are with the teachers' ability to provide them with an education that will make them productive citizens.  One is purely subjective, the other is objective.

Why All the Anti-Monkey Hate Speech?  Regarding monkeys, it has always been our political stance that they are absolutely adorable, especially when you dress them up in cute little costumes and try to make them look human.  That's why we don't understand why, in the current year of 2018, after all the wars we've fought both on the battlefield and in the streets, everyone thinks it's a bad thing when you compare people to monkeys.  This was most graphically and noxiously illustrated last week when the international clothing retailer H&M was found guilty of first-degree racism by the International Tribunal of Outraged Social Media Users after it featured an ad with a five-year-old black boy wearing a green hoodie that bore the message THE COOLEST MONKEY IN THE JUNGLE.  Would they have preferred if they called him the least cool monkey in the jungle?  Why is everyone hatin' on monkeys, anyway?  This is not who we are. [...] In South Africa, members of Julius "Kill the Boer" Malema's Economic Freedom Fighters Party rampaged through at least a half-dozen H&M stores, smashing and trashing everything in their path in what we will presume was an attempt to prove that African people don't act like monkeys.

How to Get Kicked Off YouTube.  Not to worry, all you lovers of racial venom.  YouTube still has plenty of material to satisfy even your most vitriolic yearnings.  Want to use the world's largest video platform to watch a Nobel Peace Prize-winner sing about killing white people?  No, it's not Barack Obama, but Nelson Mandela, leading a group of black people in a solemn vow to kill the whiteys. [...] Ditto for Oprah telling us old white people have to die before white racism disappears.  Or how about step-by-step instruction on how black people can rob Asian people in their homes? [...] These and thousands of other videos make YouTube a favorite place to spread black hostility, hate, and violence — you know, the same kind that is easy to find every day on NPR, MSNBC, CNN, and whatever else we are calling the conglomeration of reporters and public officials hopelessly devoted to spreading the greatest lie of our generation:  the hoax of black victimization.

Planned Parenthood kills 1,000 times as many blacks as cops do.  According to Black Genocide, Planned Parenthood situates 78 percent of its abortion clinics in minority neighborhoods.  It's almost as if Planned Parenthood is targeting black and brown babies.  And perhaps it is.  Margaret Sanger, the founder of PP, shockingly said, "Colored people are like human weeds and are to be exterminated."  She created the Negro Project to sterilize unwitting black women and others she considered undesirable.  Her motto was grotesque as well as Hitler-esque:  "More children from the fit, less from the unfit."

Professors claim farmers' markets cultivate racism: 'Habits of white people are normalized'.  Two professors from San Diego State University claim in a new book that farmers' markets in urban areas are weed-like "white spaces" responsible for oppression.  Pascale Joassart-Marcelli and Fernando J Bosco are part of an anthology released this month titled "Just Green Enough."  The work, published by Routledge, claims there is a correlation between the "whiteness of farmers' markets" and gentrification.  "Farmers' markets are often white spaces where the food consumption habits of white people are normalized," the SDSU professors write, the education watchdog Campus Reform reported Wednesday [12/27/2017].

Man, those trees are mean!
California city promises to remove 50-foot-tall 'racist' trees planted in the 1960s that separate a historically black neighborhood from a golf course.  A row of 'racist' trees standing between an African-American neighborhood and a city golf course will be removed, local officials in Palm Springs, California, told neighborhood residents.  On Sunday [12/17/2017], Palm Springs Mayor Robert Moon told residents of the historically black Crossley Tract neighborhood that the city would remove the line of tamarisk trees and a chain link fence that runs between the neighborhood and the Tahquitz Creek Golf Course, reports the Desert Sun.  The decision to remove the trees and fence comes after neighborhood residents complained that the 50-foot tall tamarisk trees — an invasive species that blocks views of both the golf course and the San Jacinto mountains — have been lowering property values for decades.

That's Problematic? Not My Problem.  The world of The Problematics is a deeply unhappy place where people constantly have 99 problems, all of them imaginary.  Where whatever you do — no matter how pure your intentions — they're going to find a problem with it.  As many longtime leftists are finding out to their bewilderment, there's always going to be someone standing behind them and shouting in their ear that you can never be too "not racist," "not sexist" and "not homophobic" enough for them.  And even more chillingly, there's someone standing behind those people, too, watching their every movie and jotting down their ideological missteps on a little clipboard.  It's a bottomless pit of purity-spiraling.

Boston Professor Proclaims 'Jingle Bells' a 'Racist' Song.  A professor at Boston University has proclaimed Christmas carol favorite "Jingle Bells" to be a "racist song" and is urging people to shun the jaunty tune.  Kyna Hamill, a theater history professor at Boston University, recently told the Boston Globe that the venerable Christmas song has a "secret" racist past that has been "systematically" hidden from Americans as they celebrate the Christmas season.  "The history of the song has remained hidden behind its local and season affection," Hamill told the paper.  She continued saying the song's "blackface and racist origins have been subtly and systematically removed from its history."

CNN Gloats, Screams, And Laughs At Black Woman Who Lost Her Job In Trump Administration.  An all-female CNN segment on Wednesday [12/13/2017] laughed, gloated, and even screamed in mockery at the news that a female African-American member of the Trump administration lost her job.  CNN political commentator Angela Rye gloated and screamed at the news that Omarosa Manigault-Newman, director of communications for the White House Office of Public Liaison, was let go from her position.  CNN host Brooke Baldwin, CNN political analyst April Ryan, and regular CNN guest Symone Sanders all joined in what was a public display of complete classlessness as the group all laughed.

The Editor says...
One cannot enjoy the position of an un-fireable sacred cow in a do-nothing job and expect to play the victim card upon termination.

Why The Left Hates Thanksgiving.  Why is it so hard for the left to be thankful?  The answer is as easy as pumpkin pie.  The left is a movement built on resentment.  And resentment and gratitude are opposing emotions.  That is why the left really hates Thanksgiving.  The revisionist autopsies of American history and the guides to sensitively calling your uncle a racist are about substituting resentment for thankfulness.  Whether it's a family getting together once a year, the Pilgrims and the Indian tribesmen breaking bread or the White House press corps being asked to talk about the good things in their lives, a moment of thankfulness has to be ruined with resentment.  Resentment is the force that gives the left meaning.

DACA Illegal Aliens Stage Thanksgiving Holiday Hunger Strike.  Illegal aliens shielded from deportation under the President Obama-created Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program are staging a hunger strike in the days leading up to Thanksgiving Day.  The group of illegal aliens from New Jersey have promised to not eat until Thanksgiving, according to WNYC, while they lobby Republican members of Congress to pass an amnesty for the nearly 800,000 DACA recipients in the U.S.

How Obama Brought Back Muslim Slavery of Black People.  Slavery was always one of Barack Obama's favorite subjects.  It was a favorite subject because it provided him with countless opportunities for tearing down America.  When called upon to disavow the racist, anti-Semitic and anti-American rants of his mentor, he instead denounced the Constitution as "stained by this nation's original sin of slavery."  At the funeral of the Dallas police officers murdered by a member of the racist hate group he supported, he once again invoked this original sin even while he was justifying Black Lives Matter's bigotry and violence.  At Hillary's DNC convention, Michelle Obama claimed that the White House had been "built by slaves".  The unifying theme was that America's racist past made its origins, including their constitutional restraints on his power, illegitimate.  A Constitution tainted by slavery should not be able to inhibit the actions of the nation's first black president.  His wife had a special moral authority over the White House because it had been built by slaves.  Slavery gave the Obamas a unique moral claim on power.  But Barack Obama and his ancestors had never been slaves.  They might have been slave owners and sellers.  And America's first black president unquestionably helped bring Muslim slavery back to Libya.

Portland police reportedly scrap gang database over fear of labels.  Authorities in Portland, Ore., are reportedly scrapping their database of suspected gang members out of fear that these labels will most negatively affect minorities.  Portland police, next month, will end its two-decade-old practice of designating people as gang members or associates following the pressure from the community, The Oregonian reported.  Activists have been trying to abolish the database and gang designations for years, claiming they disproportionately affect minority communities.

Is the Star Spangled Banner Racist?  The objective genius writers and editors at Salon.com — supported by a lecturer in the Department of African American studies at the University of Maryland who really should know better — are busy parroting the latest far-left Only Black Lives Matter non-historians who have recently discovered pro-slavery references in what is now being claimed to be a racist National Anthem.  And they'd be right, too, except that's not what Francis Scott Key was writing about.  Not at all.  Salon might be forgiven for not knowing this, but Professor Jason Nichols really should (and possibly does) know better.

PhD: Small desks cause 'hostile' environment for fat students.  Heather Brown interviewed 13 fat women in college, finding that "classroom design and furniture," especially "too-small desks," not only make fat women feel "unwanted," but also perpetuate "thin privilege and fat hatred."  Brown argues that colleges "must make attempts to alleviate the damage a hostile physical environment causes to fat women learners," suggesting renovating classrooms with "differently sized chairs and tables."

We must let go of the grudges from slavery.  The greatest threat to a healthy black culture and consciousness today is an inability to see beyond slaveholding.  When we carry resentments in our hearts over generations, these resentments hurt us.  Dwelling on slaveholding creates a desire to get back at others, to lash out.  One feels entitled to destroy institutions due to the original sin of slavery.

The 6 Big Ways Liberals Are Destroying America's Culture.  [#3] Victimhood:  Only in America do people get so excited about the idea of being a victim that they will even fake hate crimes against themselves to get that status.  [...] Only in America do we have to come up with things like white privilege and institutional racism because there's not enough real racism happening to allow liberal minorities to feel like victims.  There was a time in America when people wanted to feel strong, capable and able to handle their own problems instead of being victims.  There still are people like that today and they're called conservatives.

If Corn Pops are racist, what about Cocoa Puffs or Count Chocula?  Kellogg's has apologized after a member of the Social Justice Breakfast Brigade complained about racially insensitive artwork on a package of Corn Pops.  The artwork included cartoon characters shaped like corn kernels frolicking about in a shopping mall.  All but one of the kernels was yellow.  The lone brown kernel was working as a janitor. [...] The notion that a major American company was forced to apologize after somebody got their flakes frosted by a cartoon corn kernel demonstrates just how perpetually offended and overly sensitive we've become.

Culturally Appropriate This, Social Justice Jerks.  The latest fake outrage has to do with Moana, the charming Hawaiian Disney princess.  Some little girls whose ancestors did not come from that island paradise would like to dress up as this spunky heroine, and this is officially the worst thing ever, according to the blindingly white girls who run Cosmopolitan. [...] These ultra-white girls from Manhattan have taken it upon themselves to speak up for the Hawaiian people and demand we not allow our children to commit the hate crime of pretending to be something they aren't, which is sort of the point of Halloween but whatevs.

Prof:  Algebra, geometry perpetuate white privilege.  Gutierrez worries that algebra and geometry perpetuate privilege because "emphasizing terms like Pythagorean theorem and pi" give the impression that math "was largely developed by Greeks and other Europeans."  She also worries that evaluations of math skills can perpetuate discrimination against minorities, especially if they do worse than their white counterparts.

Professor Claims Math, Algebra And Geometry Promote 'White Privilege'.  A University of Illinois math professor believes that algebra and geometry perpetuate "white privilege" because Greek terms give Caucasians unearned credit for the subject.  But that isn't the professor's only complaint.  She also believes that evaluations for math proficiency perpetuates discrimination against minority students, if they do worse than their white counterparts.  Rochelle Gutierrez argues in a newly published math education book for teachers that they must be aware of the identity politics surrounding the subject of mathematics.

The Left's Sirens Are Already Hinting Our Culture Wars Will End In Another Civil War.  Is there anything left in American public life that isn't an occasion for political rancor and division?  NFL games are now nothing more than crude pieces of political theater.  On Sunday [10/8/2017] even Vice President Mike Pence got in on the act, showing up to a Colts-49ers game then leaving after a few players knelt during the national anthem.  Next day was Columbus Day, which the cities of Los Angeles and Austin decided this year to replace with "Indigenous Peoples' Day," because Christopher Columbus is apparently the new Robert E. Lee.  And it's only Tuesday.  It should be obvious by now that our culture wars will henceforth be constant and unending; the next battle could be triggered by almost anything.

Minnesota is Ground Zero in the Left's efforts to brainwash young people.  [Scroll down]  Teachers in Edina take the ideas of Freire, Lenin, and Ayers seriously.  At Edina's Highlands Elementary, teachers indoctrinate five-year-olds in order to radicalize them and encourage them to become activists obsessed with race.  The school district's "unrelenting focus on skin color is the leading edge of a larger ideological campaign to shape students' attitudes and beliefs on a range of controversial issues — most importantly, the familiar litany of 'race, class, gender,'" [Katherine] Kersten writes.  While this is happening "ordinary students are too often falling through the cracks and gifted education is languishing."  Edina embraces something called the All for All plan.  Its "fundamental premise is that white racism — not socio-economic factors like family breakdown — is the primary cause of the achievement gap."

America Divided: It Starts With the Democratic Party.  While [President] Trump and his fiery brand of populism grab all the headlines, the most powerful ideology in America remains identity politics.  It permeates our culture and fuels our national obsession with diversity, understood as the proportional representation in all realms of life of the various "communities" that have gained recognition:  African-Americans, women, Hispanics, LGBTQs, Asians, and, if the Census Bureau has its way, MENAs — Middle Easterners and North Africans.  Conspicuously absent from the list, of course, are whites, Christians, and men — three of the most numerous groups in America.  Via the doctrines of affirmative action and disparate impact, identity politics has reshaped our laws and our legal system.  It has weakened our commitment to meritocracy and equal treatment under the law as a result of its single-minded focus on equalizing group outcomes.  It has replaced post-modernism and watered-down Marxism as the unofficial creed of our institutions of higher learning.  And it has taught all Americans that prejudice in all its forms — including merely in speech — is the one unforgivable sin.  The fundamental division in America, according to the identitarians, is between the oppressed and their oppressors.

ESPN host compares Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones to a slave owner.  On the same day that Jemele Hill was suspended from ESPN for tweeting about politics, another network personality, Michael Wilbon, compared Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones to a slave owner.  Mr. Wilbon, co-host of "Pardon the Interruption," took issue with Mr. Jones' stance that players who do not stand for the national anthem before football games will not play.  "And the word that comes to my mind — and I don't care who doesn't like me using it — is plantation," Mr. Wilbon said on Monday's [10/9/2017] show.

Berkeley Students Protest Exam, Demand 'Take Home Essay' Because White Privilege And Stuff.  A video has surfaced on YouTube showing students at the University of California, Berkeley protesting an exam, and demanding a "take-home essay with significant time to prepare."  The reason?  "Our well-beings are being put on the line because of our emotional, mental, and physical stress that [Berkeley] is compounding with what is already going on in our every day lives," according to one of the students in the video.

Police: 'Noose' found in Michigan State dorm was a shoelace.  An item found on a stairwell door handle in a Michigan State University residence hall and initially believed to be a noose was, in fact, a shoelace, MSU police say.  MSU President Lou Anna Simon released a statement Wednesday morning [10/4/2017] condemning what appeared to be an instance of racial intimidation and saying, in part, that "No Spartan should ever feel targeted based on their race, or other ways in which they identify."  By Wednesday afternoon, after further investigation, the university offered a different account of what had happened.

Puerto Rico Enters the 'Great American Victim Derby'.  Seems like everyone's a victim in the USA these days, from college "snowflakes" who can't abide someone with views unlike theirs within miles of their campuses to allegedly assaulted women wearing sexually explicit hats to multi-millionaire football players who are sure there's something wrong but can't always remember what it is (other than Donald Trump).  The latest of the many entries in this "Great American Victim Derby" is Puerto Rico — or at least a significant part of the island's leadership.  Who will win this derby?  It's anybody's guess, but the thing about playing the victim game is that even — perhaps especially — when you do win, you're even more likely to continue to be a victim and play some more.  Victimhood is self-perpetuating [...]

Ivy League Black Students Group:  There Are Too Many African And Caribbean Students Here.  Identity politics is a nasty thing.  Everyone who isn't a progressive knows this.  At Cornell University, that slice of politics is rearing its ugly head, with the school's black students group demanding that more African American students be enrolled.  They're concerned that there are too many Caribbean and African students.  To start, their letter to the administration prefaces with the usual 'there's white supremacy everywhere' angle.

There Are No Oppressed People in America.  Never before have so many claimed to be so oppressed and mistreated over so little as Americans in 2017.  We have men who have gotten extraordinarily wealthy and famous playing a game who protest the flag of the nation that put them not just in America's wealthiest 1%, not just in the global 1%, but in the historical 1% of everyone who has ever lived.  We have pampered college students at expensive private schools having hissy fits because someone they disagree with is allowed to speak at an event on campus they're not even required to attend.  We're told Hispanic Americans are oppressed because foreign Latinos who came to this country illegally when they knew the penalty was deportation are not universally being allowed to get away with their crime.  We have feminists who think they're oppressed because some guy "mansplained" something to them by finally giving his opinion after listening to them blather on for 10 minutes.

Blacks, Crime, and the Bended Knee.  Whites comprise about 75 percent of America's population and they have had just about enough of the offensive accusations, protests, and moral outrage directed at them.  Yes, blacks were brought here centuries ago as slaves, but America did not originate slavery nor do we still practice slavery, as do parts of Africa and Muslim nations today.  In fact, America fought a civil war to end slavery.  It's been over 150 years since the Emancipation Proclamation, thus, the fate of today's blacks rests not upon yesterday's slaveholders, but upon today's failed black leadership who have intentionally kept America's blacks on an imaginary plantation through the indoctrination of victimhood.

Rep. John Lewis Wants To 'Take A Bullwhip' To People So They Care About Civil Rights.  Democratic Rep. John Lewis said Thursday [9/21/w2017] he sometimes feels like "taking a bullwhip" to people in order to make them care about civil rights. [...] Lewis added that young people must become "fighters" and "warriors" for the cause of civil rights.  Activists "just need to be radical" and "extreme" in order to fight racism in the United States, Lewis opined.

Kneeling as psychodrama therapy for the rich, black, and guilty.  The otiose craze for wealthy black people and their "supporters" to disrespect the American flag by kneeling in public — momentarily play-acting tragedy and grief in front of a TV camera — is psychodrama psychotherapy for the guilt they richly deserve to feel.  The histrionic fad started by Colin Kaepernick that has infected athletes, entertainers, and politicians like Representative Sheila Jackson Lee is expiation for the unconscious guilt these privileged people have earned for their heartless betrayal of black Americans.  Kaepernick's phony first plotline, that the worst problem for black people is the police, engenders defensive anxiety in its sheer stinking falsehood.  The big, deadly lie that white racism is to blame for all the problems of black Americans and that black people remain helpless victims in 2017 is so patently false.  As with all delusional systems, its maintenance causes rage and anxiety when challenged.

5 Problems With The NFL's National Anthem Protest.  [Problem #1]  Vague and Unclear Protest Goals:  One of the keys to a good protest is to have a clear goal.  If the discussions on Sunday [9/24/2017] were any indication, nobody is entirely clear what is being protested when athletes kneel during the national anthem.  CNN said yesterday's display was about opposition to Trump: [...] The opening paragraph in the Los Angeles Times story on the protests said they were about "the relentless vortex of controversy that surrounds President Trump, as players from London to New England to Carson knelt or linked arms Sunday while others stayed in the locker room during the national anthem."  Later the story said the protests during the national anthem were meant to "draw attention to racism and social injustice."  The national anthem protests began last year, before Donald Trump was elected the first time, when then-professional quarterback Colin Kaepernick took a knee for a variety of reasons.

Obama's promises for presidential center may not be enough this time for African-Americans.  Now that [Barack H.] Obama is about to build his presidential center in Woodlawn's Jackson Park, some residents are wary of his ability to transform neighborhoods without doing harm to longtime residents who could end up displaced by gentrification.  A nasty fight over a community benefits agreement with the Obama Foundation has exposed an unexpected rift between the former president and some of the South Side residents who helped lift him to prominence.  Not everyone on the South Side, it seems, thinks Obama did enough for black folks during his eight years as president.  And as he prepares to build a presidential center that will pay tribute to his legacy, some South Siders are calling him out for what they consider broken promises.

Race Realism.  Three generations ago our rulers decided that the reason blacks were so far behind whites was culture.  They set about changing the laws, creating programs to address past sins, modifying institutions to accommodate blacks and lecturing whites about the sinfulness of racism.  The last black to be the victim of Jim Crow, for example, is 75 years old this year.  We are reaching the point where no living person was the victim of legal segregation.  The majority of blacks now have never experienced real racism. [...] [N]o black under the age of 50 has had their race used as an impediment to their success.  In fact, being black is now an enormous asset for a black person with anything on the ball.  The demand for competent blacks far exceeds the supply and prices have responded accordingly.  Despite all this, the achievement gap between blacks and whites remains unchanged in measurable areas like education and household wealth.

Apology, apology, who's got an apology?  ESPN, the sports network, is part of Disney entertainment enterprises, and last week one of its "anchors," a $1.98 cent [sic] word for "announcer," or "reader," had to be disciplined by the network for telling her semi-vast following that "Donald Trump is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/other white supremacists."  She said it in a tweet, naturally, the preferred communication of those unable to speak words of more than one syllable.  She offended a lot of people, or at least some people.  How could she not?  Taking offense is the great American pastime.  Ms. Hill is, of course, entitled to her opinion, however ill-informed by liberal group-think, but she should have known that even as a commentator, entitled to pop off about whatever pops into her mind, she should beware of making a fool of herself.

Woman freaks out over Hobby Lobby's raw cotton display.  A Texas woman has been getting ridiculed online for being "too sensitive" after she blasted the arts-and-crafts chain Hobby Lobby for selling faux raw cotton stalks — which she found offensive.  "This decor is WRONG on SO many levels," Daniell Rider posted on Facebook this past Thursday [9/14/2017], along with a photo of the phony textile plants.  "There is nothing decorative about raw cotton... A commodity which was gained at the expense of African-American slaves," she said.

The Editor says...
Wow — I had no idea that cotton was still being harvested by slaves!  I guess Daniell Rider will have to toss out all of her clothes and linens that contain cotton.

Hillary's Anti-Presidential Campaign.  Hillary Clinton spent a third of her miserable adult life trying to get into the White House.  Now the nation's failed Harridan-in-Chief is determined to spend her remaining years blaming everyone, from Matt Lauer to the Electoral College, for having to live out the rest of her life in flat broke poverty in the eleven rooms of her Georgian Colonial mansion (and the neighboring mansion in their cul-de-sac too).  Current 'blamees' include the FBI, millions of white people, sexism, the Russians, Russian sexism, Bernie Sanders, Jill Stein, Joe Biden, Matt Lauer and the Electoral College. [...] Hillary was America's First Crybully:  the malicious professional victim, the abuser who claims to be the abused, the black nationalist thug throwing cinderblocks at police while shrieking, "Hands up, don't shoot" and the leftist campus protesters screaming how afraid they are while they terrorize speakers.  What Happened is Hillary's crybullying text.  It's an attack posing as victimhood.

Trump, racism, and the media's obsession.  If it weren't for their sick obsession with race, the national media would have next to nothing to talk about.  The October issue of The Atlantic magazine features a long essay by Ta-Nehisi Coates on President Trump being "The First White President," a lament about the shame Americans should feel in electing a white man after a black one.  It's been heralded by Coates' media peers as a "blockbuster" and something to "admire," since it goes on and on about racism and nothing else.  Legitimate reasons voters had for choosing Trump are legion (the suffocating politically-correct culture, immigration, Hillary Clinton's laugh) but Coates chalked up the entire 2016 outcome to white racists and Trump's whole agenda to bigotry.

"Sambogate".  Move over, Muhammad; you're no longer the only sacred icon that can't be drawn as a cartoon.  Black people are now on the small and exclusive list of things that will spark an instantaneous jihad if sketched by an artist.  And the ground zero for black cartoon proscription?  Chicago, a city in which blacks are so sacred, they compete with one another on a daily basis for martyrdom.

The Editor says...
The article above is about the PC over-reaction to this cartoon.

Discarded Banana Peel Causes Racial Hysteria at Ole Miss.  There is a raging controversy within the University of Mississippi's Greek Life community regarding race relations and bananas.  A Greek Life leader accidentally sparked mass hysteria after he placed a banana peel on a tree in the woods — because he could not find a trash can.  The Daily Mississippian reports that three black students found the banana peel — and were apparently triggered by what they saw.

Banana
Greek Life retreat cancelled after banana peel found in tree.  A Greek Life retreat at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) was promptly cancelled this weekend after a banana peel was found hanging in a tree.  A student said he threw the peel because he could not find a garbage can, but the incident made some students uneasy, so the school "felt it was imperative to provide space immediately to students affected by this incident."


USA Today redefines 'racist' so it applies to pretty much everyone.  Racism is a serious thing.  Racism is a horrible thing.  Racism deserves to be treated as a serious, horrible thing.  Those who are truly racist need to be called out as such, held accountable for their awful attitudes and never allowed to turn their attitudes into action that can hurt anyone.  But we're in danger of losing our seriousness on the subject of racism, and it's precisely because the media and the left are more interested in using the issue as a wedge, even to the point where they're goading supposed Republicans into signing on with this foolishness.  If everyone is a racist, then racism is meaningless.

Politically correct and intellectually intolerable.  You only need to read a few recent news stories to get the gist of it, but what drove me over the edge was a story from last week that three Portland, Oregon, elementary schools were having their names changed because they "offended" some students and families.  The schools were named after Patrick Lynch, a man who generously had donated land to the local school district in the late 1800s and whose name had thus been memorialized in Lynch Wood Elementary School, Lynch Meadows Elementary School and Lynch View Elementary School.  So what was the problem?  Patrick Lynch's patronym happens to also be the word used for public executions by a mob, especially when done out of racial animus.

Muslim woman granted $85G after suing California police for removing her hijab.  A Muslim woman was awarded $85,000 by the city of Long Beach Tuesday [8/8/2017] after she sued the city's police for removing her hijab against her will during an arrest in May 2015.  Kirsty Powell, an African-American Muslim, filed the lawsuit in 2016, causing the Long Beach Police Department to change its policy regarding inmates wearing head scarves due to their religion, according to The Los Angeles Times.  Police originally banned inmates from wearing head scarves.

NFL Source:  Kaepernick Turned Down At Least 1 Contract To Play Up The Race Card.  Colin Kaepernick is still a free agent, and an NFL inside source told The Daily Caller Monday that the former 49ers quarterback has no one but himself to blame.

Check your 'cognitive privilege,' all you smart people!  Progressives, crazed with identifying new forms of oppression attached to the currently fashionable catchword "privilege," have finally embraced the stupid as a victim class.  Hey, let's celebrate stupidity!  Just ponder for a moment all the potential grand marshals for the inevitable Stupidity Day Parade in New York City once the stupid are organized into a grievance-powered pressure group.

She was a historic first lady, but Michelle Obama says some never saw past 'my skin color'.  The moderator lauded Michelle Obama for her achievements over the past eight years and touched on the former first lady's plans, but Tuesday's conversation also veered into uncomfortable territory.  It was Obama's largest public appearance since the 2016 election — speaking in front of more than 8,000 people at the Women's Foundation of Colorado's 30th anniversary celebration — and she touched on personal attacks that she faced again and again.  Many had the same theme.  "The shards that cut me the deepest were the ones that intended to cut," Obama said, according to the Denver Post.  "Knowing that after eight years of working really hard for this country, there are still people who won't see me for what I am because of my skin color."

The Editor says...
The Obamas got into the White House because of the perceived novelty of their skin color and the vigorous support of the news media for that reason alone.  Michelle Obama has no extraordinary qualifications for public office, as far as I can tell, and her husband has even less.  There are few things more insufferable than listening to one of the wealthiest people in the world grousing about how tough her life is, and about what a victim she will always be.  Michelle Obama never has to go to work, lock her doors, or drive a car ever again, yet she apparently never misses an opportunity to tell the press what a victim she is.

Seattle Councilman:  Cleaning Poop Off Sidewalks Is Racist.  A Seattle, Wash., councilman implied that a new effort to clean excrement off the side walk outside the local courthouse could be racist Tuesday.  The crime and smell of urine and excrement have gotten so bad outside a King County courthouse that two judges are scrambling to find ways to fix the situation, reports the Seattle Times.  King County councilmember Larry Gossett isn't a fan of one solution to power wash the feces from the sidewalks to tamp down on the smell.  Power washing the sidewalks is too reminiscent of civil rights activists being hosed down, he said.

Projection:
MSNBC Host Joy Reid:  Republican Party Is Built on 'Victimhood,' 'Resentment'.  MSNBC's Joy Reid said on Thursday [7/13/2017] that President Donald Trump can make Republicans "literally accept anything."  Appearing as a guest on "All In With Chris Hayes," Reid explained that Trump saw trends in the GOP and took advantage of it.  "This is a Republican Party that's been built on resentment and a sense of victimhood, a sense of persecution — almost a persecution complex — for more than 40 years, almost 50 years, going back to the dawn of the Civil Rights movement when they felt persecuted by the world," Reid said.

A piece of hateful plastic
Stray Piece of Plastic Wrap Investigated as Hate Crime.  Libs are getting desperate in their search for racism against someone other than whites: [...] Now even stray pieces of rubbish count as racist if they have knots in them, on the grounds that nooses have knots, and as we all know, only black people were ever hanged.


MSNBC Contributor:  Hillary Lost Because Obama Is Black.  MSNBC contributor Wendy Sherman believes that Hillary Clinton may have lost the election because it was too hard for America to elect the first female president directly after the first black president.  Sherman was on a panel at the Aspen Ideas Festival discussing modern political technology when she segued into the bizarre comment.

Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice Says She's a Victim of Racism and Sexism.  Former national security adviser and UN ambassador Susan Rice refuses to go quietly into retirement, even though she remains one of the most controversial figures of the Obama Administration.  Now, thanks to a glowing profile in New York Magazine, we know that despite Susan Rice's very public shortcomings (whatever happened to that dastardly filmmaker who spurred violence across the Middle East, anyway?), she believes any criticism of her tenure is at least partly the result of racism and sexism.

Indiana mom sues principal, teacher after son "forced" to recite Pledge of Allegiance.  An Indiana mom filed a lawsuit on Friday [6/9/2017] against an elementary school teacher and principal for allegedly forcing her son to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.  Jamie Porter said her son's first grade teacher removed the boy from class when he refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance back in March, according to Fox 59.  The lawsuit, filed by the ACLU on behalf of the family, alleged that the boy refused to recite it because he was "protesting" the government.  "He was doing it to protest the government of the United States, as it was racist, greedy and does not care about people," the lawsuit stated.

The Editor says...
Elementary school kids should stand and sit when they are told without regard to their parents' political views, or their own.  Moreover, those who do not vote should not protest against the government.  What does a first-grader know about government greed anyway?

ACLU: U.S. Exiting Paris Climate Accord Is 'An Assault on Communities of Color'.  Pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord is racist, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) declared in response to President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the climate deal President Barack Obama unilaterally committed the U.S. to without the Senate's approval.  "Pulling out of the Paris Agreement would be a massive step back for racial justice, and an assault on communities of color across the U.S.," ACLU warned in a Twitter post Thursday [6/1/2017].  "Climate change doesn't affect us all equally," it states, claiming "Black and brown people are more likely to live near coal plants."

Newtonian Physics is Oppressive to Marginalized People.  A feminist scholar has published a paper claiming that Newtonian physics is oppressive and that we must use "quantum feminisms" to make the science more intersectional.  In a paper for The Minnesota Review, culture and gender-studies researcher Whitney Stark argues that Newton's understanding of physics is oppressive because it has "separated beings" based on their "binary and absolute differences" — a structure that she calls "hierarchical and exploitative" — and the same kind of system is "embedded in many structures of classification," making it "part of the apparatus that enables oppression."

Portland Burrito Shop Forced to Close After Getting Hounded for 'Stealing From Mexico'.  Kali Wilgus and Liz "LC" Connelly, owners of Portland pop-up shop Kooks Burritos, just wanted to make and sell some really great burritos.  So when they were on a trip to Puerto Nuevo, Mexico, they "picked the brains" of the local tortilla ladies and brought those recipes back to the States. [...] Whelp, apparently this interview sparked an Internet [furor], which ended in Kooks Burritos shutting down and the two white women who owned it scrubbing social media of the business' existence.

The Inconvenient Truth Behind The Net Neutrality Movement.  The most immediate issue with net neutrality is the fact that many of the groups supporting it are purportedly concerned with social issues which are totally unrelated.  One such organization is the protest movement Color of Change.  Color of Change's website states that their mission is "design campaigns powerful enough to end practices that unfairly hold black people back."  However, the group has increasingly begun to focus on advocating for net neutrality, a cause which does not appear to be related to their mission statement in any obvious manner.  Color of Change claims that changes the FCC plans to make to net neutrality rules will "devastate black communities" without bothering to explain exactly how this might happen.

Federal Prosecutor Says DOJ's New Focus On Drug Crimes Will Target People Wearing 'Heavy Gold And Chains'.  A federal prosecutor said Thursday [5/25/2017] that the Department of Justice's efforts under Jeff Sessions to aggressively prosecute drug crimes will target people wearing "heavy gold and chains."  The attorney general gave a speech in Memphis where he touted his recent charging memo that rolls back former Attorney General Eric Holder's policy to not charge many drug offenders with mandatory minimums.

Oregon Leftists Circulate List of Restaurants Engaging in 'Cultural Appropriation'.  Talk to anyone who has tried to run a business and ask them how hard it is.  I can speak from experience when I tell you that it isn't easy.  Long hours, sleepless nights, and concerns you never even thought about as an employee are the norm.  Add in the fact that you get paid last, which can mean some very lean times, and the challenges of owning a business become rather obvious.  Now, you may also have to consider the idea that Social Justice Warriors think you have the wrong DNA for your line of work, because they're horrible.

1 + 1 = You're a Racist.  Piper Harron is an unhappy-looking black woman whose mood would be greatly improved if white male math professors would just 'fess up to their unearned privilege and quit their jobs.  She is currently a "temporary assistant professor" in mathematics at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and I think we can all agree that this is the first time any of us has ever heard of that school.  Piper holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Princeton University, which sounds impressive until you take into account the mathematical fact that a study from Princeton reveals that blacks are given a handicap of 230 SAT points compared to whites when it comes to admissions standards.  On her resume, she makes the startling and mathematically improbable claim that during her eleven years of collegiate studies, she not only "survived external and internalized misogyny," she also suffered the horrors of "external and internalized racism."  What are the odds?

Social-Justice Math Class: 'Math Has Been Used as a Dehumanizing Tool'.  A new online course instructs math teachers how to incorporate social-justice ideology into their lessons by discussing how mathematics has historically been used to oppress people.  The class — titled "Teaching Social Justice Through Secondary Mathematics" — was developed by Teach for America and is being offered through edX, according to an article in Campus Reform.  "Do you ask students to think deeply about global and local social justice issues within your mathematics classroom?" the course overview asks.  "This education and teacher training course will help you blend secondary math instruction with topics such as inequity, poverty, and privilege to transform students into global thinkers and mathematicians."

Teachers Instructed to Use Math to Indoctrinate Kids in Social Justice.  There are some subjects one thinks would be immune from the input of social justice warriors.  While social studies are ripe for their meddling — as are literature and even science these days — a subject like math should be resistant to their tampering.  Well, one would think that.  Unfortunately, a report at Campus Reform shows that such an assumption would be wrong.

North Carolina high school confiscates every yearbook, claiming white female student's 'build that wall' quote is 'inappropriate'.  A North Carolina high school has confiscated all its senior yearbooks and is reprinting them because it believes a white female student's 'build that wall' quote was inappropriate.  Richmond Early College High School is a predominantly white public school in Hamlet, North Carolina, with 214 students.  Its staff recalled its senior yearbooks this week after a screenshot of one female student's photograph and quote appeared on social media, sparking accusations from critics that the state is 'racist'.

Obama Describes White House Life as 'A Very Nice Prison'.  Former President Barack Obama bluntly likened living in the White House to incarceration during an environmental summit in Milan, Italy on Tuesday [5/9/2017].  Former White House chef Sam Kass had wondered, "Everyone wants to know about what you miss about the White House.  I'm curious to know about what you don't miss."  "The hardest thing about being the President of the United States is it is unique in its isolation," Obama said.  "You live in what's called 'the bubble.'  And it is a very nice prison."

ESPN SportsCenter 6 Co-Host Michael Smith:  Every City in America Is Racist.  ESPN's determination to dig its own grave continues to move at high speed.  On Tuesday [5/2/2017], SC6 (short for SportsCenter&Nbsp;6) co-host Michael Smith intensely overreacted to the racist actions of a small contingent fans at a Major League Baseball game at Boston's Fenway Park, using what they did to tag every city in America as "racist."

ESPN Michael Smith:  All Cities in US are Racist.  After racist Boston chowder-heads threw a bag of peanuts with a racial slut at Orioles' player Andrew Jones, ESPN and black racist Michael Smith says all cities in America are racist or something.  I guess that means San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Chicago and New York are also racist cities eh Michael?  And ESPN wonders why they continue to lose viewers.  They axed 100 dirtbags a few days ago.  Why wasn't Michael Smith the racist one of them?

Therapeutic Universities and Soft Despotism.  [Scroll down]  Identity politics programs also find such offices to be useful allies for reinforcing their ideological agendas. Identity politics is predicated on victimhood, and victimhood generates demands for compensatory programs and services.  Minority students and women presumably are being psychologically wounded by racism and sexism, and thus should have services that apply therapeutic balm to their psychic wounds.  Given the rarity these days of legal or violent expressions of sexism or racism, victims must look to psychological effects like "low self-esteem" or subjective perceptions of "microagressions" as evidence of "unconscious racism" and other occult biases.  The therapeutic services offered by the university validate this victim narrative, as do sexual harassment policies, "hate speech" codes, and other policies all backed up by badly written federal and state laws.

Student Union Wants to Ban Clapping and Cheering Because it Excludes Deaf People.  Britain's largest national student union has told attendees of its annual conference they would face "consequences" for cheering and clapping because these forms of expression exclude deaf people.  The National Union of Students (NUS), which includes most university student unions, held a two-day conference on Tuesday [4/25/2017].  During the conference, audience members were repeatedly warned that they must stop whooping and expressing support for a speaker because it has "serious impact" on the accessibility of the conference, The Daily Telegraph reported.

White, female student 'glares' at peers, gets reported as bias incident.  Gone are the days when saying something that hurts another's feelings is a bias incident.  Now just looking at someone funny can get you reported to the campus Thought Police.  It happened at the University of Wisconsin Madison, where an unnamed "white, female student" was reported to the university's bias incident reporting system.  Her crime?  Glaring at two female peers.

The Truth For Young Americans:  You Are Not A Victim.  Oh no, someone called you a name!  You think you're disadvantaged because of an "ism."  It's not fair that you got into a nasty conflict with someone else and came out on the short end of the stick.  You're a victim!  You need someone to pity you so people will show up and fix your problems!  This is going to be hard for some of you to hear, but that's loser talk. [...] Why?  It's a mentality.  If you wait for someone else to solve your problems, you're usually in for a long wait.  Even if you do get help, you probably won't like the help you get.

Choosing to Live in a Tiny House Deemed 'Poverty Appropriation'.  According to an article in the "intersectional" blog The Establishment, people who don't have to live in tiny houses living in tiny houses is a "troubling" example of "poverty appropriation."  In an article titled "The Troubling Trendiness of Poverty Appropriation," July Westhale explains that she grew up in poverty in a small immigrant town in California, where she lived in a small house because she had to — and that she's finding herself getting a little offended by people who are living in small houses because they want to.

The Greatest Threat to America Isn't Islam — It's the Left.  The left has found the great weakness of conservatives:  their conscience and decency.  When someone accuses them of being racist or some other form of evil, their reflex is to apologize and appease.  The more conservatives placate and soothe, the louder the left screams racism — because it works.  The cultural decay of our civilization will continue until conservatives choose to stand up and say "enough."

Hillary Clinton is Trying Really Hard to Make You Think She's Okay.  In the wake of her loss, she seems unable to process that voters just simply didn't like her, has embraced her celebrity side, and doubled down on her claim that she lost because she was a woman. [...] She's hammered away at claims that she couldn't have won the presidential election because of internalized prejudice, patriarchal tendencies and all-out bigotry, but seems to forget her campaign outspent Trump by more than $300 million, and couldn't even lock down Florida.

Irvine woman sues Albertsons after clerk wrongly assumes she's on food stamps.  An African-American woman filed a civil rights lawsuit Monday, April 10, against Albertsons and its parent company, Safeway, alleging that its managers took no steps to correct or apologize for the actions of a checkout clerk at an Irvine store who incorrectly assumed the woman was on food stamps.  Jenna Watkinson, a spokeswoman for Safeway, said company officials have not seen the lawsuit and "do not comment on pending litigation."  "However, any time we interact with a customer, our goal is to ensure that they are treated with the utmost respect and courtesy," she said Wednesday.

PETA Says Milk is a 'Symbol of White Supremacy'.  PETA's shenanigans vary from the absurd to the downright offensive.  From likening rape survivors to pigs and cows, to calling Pokémon a form of animal cruelty, PETA's efforts to "save the animals" always make the headlines — and with good reason:  they're completely absurd.  The animal rights group today released a new video to cry over milk, equating the nutritious drink with Nazism.

Now Milk Is Racist.  At this point in the Left's descent into absolute madness, I honestly cannot tell you whether this article is parody or on the level.

Latina University Student Calls On White Students To Pay For Her Spring Break.  A Latina student at Pitzer University emailed fellow students asking "white allies" to donate to her spring break trip, accusing fellow white students of the "genocide and enslavement of our ppl."  "We are hoping ppl are willing to support us in our ventures out to queer [as f***] oakland & some national parks to find some spaceeee to breatheee," said Pitzer University student Leandra Vargas, who identifies with they/them pronouns, in an email obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

The Hate Group That Tracks Down 'Hate Groups'.  SPLC contends that from 2000 to 2012, the number of hate groups in the U.S. increased by 67% — a surge allegedly "fueled by anger and fear over the nation's ailing economy, an influx of non-white immigrants, and the diminishing white majority, as symbolized by the election of the nation's first African-American president" (Barack Obama).  And America's racists, by SPLC's calculus, are almost all conservatives — as evidenced by the caption featured in the "Hatewatch" section of SPLC's website:  "Hatewatch monitors and exposes the activities of the American radical right."  The radical left gets no mention at all.  SPLC's "hate group" counts have been shown to be devoid of legitimacy a number of times.  Laird Wilcox — a researcher specializing in the study of political fringe movements — reports that many SPLC-designated "hate groups" are untraceable, due either to their inactivity or nonexistence.

Permanent February.  The National Museum of African American History and Culture opened on September 24, 2016. [...] The museum is a stone's throw from the Washington Monument and an even shorter throw from the National Museum of American History.  As I looked at the two museums, I thought of a word:  apartheid.

How the Southern Poverty Law Center Faked an Islamophobia Crisis.  [Scroll down]  But the bad news, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, is that anti-Muslim hate groups shot up from only 34 in 2015 to 101 in 2016. [...] The SPLC decided to count 45 chapters of Act for America as separate groups.  How do you get a sudden rise from 34 to 101 hate groups?  It helps to suddenly add 45 chapters of one group.  Act for America isn't a hate group.  It's also just as obviously not 45 groups.  And it didn't come into existence last year.  Act for America was only listed as one group in the 2015 list.  It shot up to 45 now.  The SPLC this year listed the Los Angeles chapter of Act for America as a separate group.  But the chapter has been around for quite a few years.  Furthermore Act for America boasts not 45, but 1,000 chapters across the country.  Why list just 45 of them?  Look at it from the SPLC's perspective.  Next year, it can add 200 chapters and claim that anti-Muslim hate groups once again tripled.  And then it can do the same thing again the year after that.

College Writing Center Declares American Grammar A 'Racist,' 'Unjust Language Structure'.  An "antiracist" poster in a college writing center insists American grammar is "racist" and an "unjust language structure," promising to prioritize rhetoric over "grammatical 'correctness.'"  The poster, written by the director, staff, and tutors of the University of Washington, Tacoma's Writing Center, states "racism is the normal condition of things," declaring that it permeates rules, systems, expectations, in courses, school and society.  "Linguistic and writing research has shown clearly for many decades that there is no inherent 'standard' of English," proclaims the writing center's statement.

Wisconsin students group demands free tuition for black students.  The student government at the University of Wisconsin-Madison said on Wednesday [2/15/2017] that black students should be offered free tuition and housing because blacks were legally barred from education during slavery and university remains out of reach for black students today.  The Associated Students of Madison said in a resolution that suburban high school students are over-represented.  The group said consideration of ACT and SAT scores in applications upholds "white supremacy" because it restricts opportunities for the poor.  The college has proposed measures aimed at improving diversity.

Transgender illegal alien SJW of color asks US to 'gofundme'.  Catalina Velasquez is an illegal alien from Colombia who also says he is a woman.  Catalina claims that if he is deported to his native Colombia, he will be killed for pretending to be a woman.  There are 47 million people in Colombia.  All 47 million know what he looks like and are sworn to kill him.  Colombia is over 440,000 square miles in size.  Catalina knows that if he sets foot in any of those 440,000 square miles, there will always be one of those 47 million people who have sworn to kill him just waiting for him.  Therefore, he says he is entitled to stay in America.

Jogger suspect's sister thinks he was framed because he's black.  The sister of Karina Vetrano's accused killer said Monday [2/6/2017] that her sibling was framed — and that he was only arrested because he's black.  "I think the cops framed him because he's a black person.  They couldn't find anyone else to pin this on, so they pinned it on my brother," Theresa Forbes, 36, told reporters.  Forbes's half-brother, Chanel Lewis, 20, was charged Sunday with murdering the Queens jogger in August based on DNA evidence and two videotaped confessions, authorities and law-enforcement sources have said.

Trump and Obama's Legacy of Racism.  [Scroll down]  Let's look at a few examples, starting with the easiest, the Department of Justice.  For eight years, the two attorneys general have crusaded to let the world know there are too many black people in prison for no reason what so ever — other than white racism.  Too many arrested.  Too many prosecuted.  Too many convicted.  Too many sent away for too long.  And once let out, too many return too soon.  They call it Criminal Justice Reform — and it is all about white racism and racist police.  From the president on down, they say the only reason more black people are arrested than white people is that racist white police pick on black people in black neighborhoods.  And if they pulled the cops out of black neighborhoods and put them in white hoods, the crime numbers would flip and white people would be arrested wildly out of proportion.

Black History (aka Demonize White America) Month.  Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' rise from nothing is an extraordinary American tale.  The NAACP and so-called civil rights community should hold Justice Thomas up high as a shining example to black youths of what can be achieved via education, hard work, right choices, and self-reliance.  Remarkably, Justice Thomas is despised by the NAACP and fellow Leftists for exposing the benefits of embracing Myers' tried and true virtues.  Renowned black retired neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson and black businessman extraordinaire Herman Cain are hated by the NAACP for the same reasons.  They do not view themselves as victims nor do they hate whites and America.  Both Carson and Cain love their country and tout the benefits of self-reliance, education, and hard work.

Implicit Bias Gets an Explicit Debunking.  There are legions of people who take the notion of implicit bias very, very seriously.  Hillary Clinton thought it could explain why cops shoot black suspects.  Diversity trainers make piles of money "revealing" unconscious bias and explaining how it allegedly influences hiring and other workplace decisions.  Universities beat students over the head with the notion that they are racist whether they like it or not.  To some, it's a key explanation for persistent racial disparities in education, housing, employment, and law enforcement — and a justification for cultural retraining.  There's no way to show that you're immune to implicit bias, because you are by definition unaware of your own subconscious.  Indeed, even if you do well on the IAT [Implicit Association Test], take it again and you might flunk.  I've taken the test at different times on different days and achieved wildly different results.  Is my mind that malleable, or is the test mostly a game, a Ouija board of the mind conjuring up the ghosts of our own bigotry?

Obama: 'We Cannot Deny the Legacy of Racism' in Justice System.  President Barack Obama is finishing his term with a lengthy essay on criminal justice reform in the Harvard Law Review, arguing that Americans should recognize systemic racism in the system.  "[W]e cannot deny the legacy of racism that continues to drive inequality in how the justice system is experienced by so many Americans," Obama wrote in his 56 page essay.  Obama cited studies from the NAACP showing that African-Americans and Hispanics were more likely to be stopped by law enforcement officials and suffer stricter penalties in court.

Glover: History of America About 'Annexation' and 'Violence'.  Actor and political activist Danny Glover challenged the United States to figure out ways to rectify the violence committed against people of color, describing America's history as one of "annexation" and "violence."

Parting Regrets from the LOSer's Presidency.  With legal slavery and segregation gone forever, it was necessary for race grievance industrialists to concoct a new narrative of oppression.  Add a pound of white guilt and a pinch of victimology, and a maudlin mythos called the Legacy Of Slavery (LOS) was concocted.  Since the 1960s, the indefinable yet ever worsening LOS has been the go-to justification for black privilege and the pandemically deadly transfer of responsibility away from black people for the crimes they commit.  The great thing about the LOS is that because it harkens back so far no one has a clue what it means.  LOS pertains not to civil rights, but to the most basic human rights.  Anyone who won't face the reality of LOS must be turning a blind eye to the scourge of slavery.  The Obamas, Holder, Lynch, and others make up the first LOSers presidency.  Michelle Obama was hopeless and unable to be proud of America until Barack's nomination meant that something could finally be done about LOS.  At the Democrats' recent loss, LOS is back, and hope is gone again!

Michelle Obama ready for anonymity after 'painful' election.  Michelle Obama is looking forward to getting her "anonymity" back.  The first lady complained in an interview that aired Monday night with Oprah Winfrey on CBS that her biggest sacrifice while Barack Obama served as president was giving up her ability to be anonymous.  But soon, she believes, that'll change.  "You know, there's nowhere I can go in the world and just sit at a table and have a cup of coffee and watch the world," Obama said in what is expected to be her final sit-down interview.

'Students of color' conference at University of California reportedly dissolves into a fight over who is most oppressed.  First question:  Are there actually students at UC who have no color at all?  Are they transparent?  This arrogation of the concept of color as being limited to designated victim groups is disturbing to me.  Nobody ever calls me a "person of color" even though my skin has a distinct pinkish cast to it.

Stop Blaming Hillary Clinton's Loss on Racism.  Only in the fever swamp imagination of the race-obsessed Left can a white man beat a white woman and the reason is racism.  Yet that is emerging for some as the explanation for 2016.  The campaign wasn't about Obama's policies, or Hillary's corruption, or Trump's massive celebrity.  It wasn't about the threat of Islamic terror or the declining prospects of the white working class.  It was about white supremacy.  How do we know?  Well, according to the Huffington Post, liberal icon Ta-Nehisi Coates explained it "perfectly" to The Daily Show's Trevor Noah. [...]

Michelle Obama Feels Hopeless.  During his time in office, Barack Obama doubled the national debt, made economic conditions far worse for black Americans, and has allowed race relations to deteriorate to the point where the nation is more divided than at any point since the eve of the Civil War.  Suddenly, Ms. Obama is not feeling so hopeful, but it has nothing to do with the financial and cultural wreckage her floppy-eared mate has bequeathed unto America.  She recently sat down with billionaire Oprah Winfrey, whose cousin says she lied about growing up impoverished and who has blossomed into a hideously spoiled diva who never stops [grousing] about the nation that made her a billionaire.  Miss Obama, upset that she and her family can no longer milk America's racist white taxpayers to the tune of $85 million to go on lavish vacations that fairly pulsate with bling, this whiny recipient of affirmative action programs that discriminate against white students with higher grades is suddenly kvetching from yet another Hawaii vacation that "we are feeling what not having hope feels like."

John Conyers now claiming the electoral college is rooted in slavery.  When the Democrats lose, they hate anything that they think contributes to their loss and once again they've taken aim at the electoral college after Trump beat the pantsuit off of Hillary a month ago.  Today John Conyers held a forum on the Future of the Electoral College where he proceeded to argue for the abolition of the electoral college by claiming it is rooted in slavery.  [Video clip]

Donald Trump's Win Wasn't About Racism.  Already, liberals are trying to push the narrative that Donald Trump's win was propelled by racist Americans.  "This is a candidate who ran on a clearly racist message, attracting people with clearly racist views.  And he won," wrote Vox's German Lopez.  "This was a white-lash against a changing country," said CNN's Van Jones.  "It was white-lash against a black president in part." [...] But the facts show otherwise.  "Trump performed stronger among black and Hispanic voters than Mitt Romney did as the Republican nominee in 2012, according to NBC exit polls," NBC News reported.

The Democrat Media Complex Will Never Understand What Happened Tuesday Night.  [Scroll down]  When discussing voters beyond the coastal bubbles, MSM Clinton apologists focus solely on race.  The economic situations of any white voters in flyover states are left at the door as the pundits rush headlong to the only explanation they've really known for 8 years when confronted by the reality that not everyone thinks the same as they do.  They see only ethnic and racial voting blocs, not people.  If they do spend a moment contemplating the people of middle America as individuals, then the "white privilege" subroutine of their "Racism!" programming kicks in, quickly mollifying any internal conflict that may have been brought on by the brief introduction of evidence contrary to the narrative.

Southern Poverty Law Center Facing 'New Reality,' Calls Trump Advisers 'Far-Right Extremists'.  The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an organization that has been praised by Obama's Justice Department for combating "domestic extremism" and designates groups on a "Hate Map" including some controversial listings of conservative groups, reacted Wednesday [11/9/2016] to the news of President-elect Donald Trump's win calling it a "new reality."  "Today, we're facing a new reality — a president-elect who has denigrated people because of their race, their religion, their ethnicity, their gender, and more," SPLC President Richard Cohen wrote.  "Our mission is to hold Donald Trump to what he is saying now — that he will be a president for all Americans and that he will work to bind the wounds of division, wounds that his own words have caused."

'Whitelash Against a Black President': Van Jones Blows Up Over Election Results.  CNN's Van Jones had a pretty grim take (to put it mildly) on the results showing a likely Donald Trump presidency.  "People have talked about a miracle.  I'm hearing about a nightmare," he said.  "It's hard to be a parent tonight for a lot of us.  You tell your kids, 'Don't be a bully.'  You tell your kids, 'Don't be a bigot.'  You tell your kids, 'Do your homework and be prepared.'  And then you have this outcome and you have people putting children to bed tonight and they're afraid of breakfast.  They're afraid of 'How do I explain this to my children?'"  He said that there are Muslims and immigrant families out there who are "terrified tonight."

The Editor says...
If there had been any backlash against Obama just because he's black, he never would have been elected in the first place — or re-elected.

Thug Got Killed Robbing a Pizza Hut, Mom Wants Self-Defending Employee Charged With a Crime.  Last month, Michael Grace Jr. stormed a Pizza Hut restaurant in October and demanded money with a handgun pointed.  Things didn't quite work out for him as one of the employees had his own handgun and shot the would-be robber in the head killing him.  Police recovered a gun and pronounced Grace dead at the scene.  It's as clear-cut a case of self-defense as you will ever hear about.  The super liberal Washington Post feels like this extremely justified shooting is really more proof that America is racist against black people and highlighted Grace's mother who wants this employee charged with a crime for killing her thug son.

The New Anti-Racist Racists.  The SPLC was founded in 1971, ostensibly to fight for civil rights among other good causes.  By the end of its first decade it was targeting the KKK and other racist organisations.  So far so good.  But like many a campaigning organisation, they experienced the happy blow of basically winning their argument.  By the 1990s, there were mercifully few racist groups in America going about unchallenged.  When a member of the KKK cropped up everybody in civil society pretty much understood that here was a bad person who should not be given a free pass.  But there is an odd trait in campaigning groups that is well known.  Once they have achieved their objective, they continue.  Why is this so?  Usually it is because there are people with salaries at stake, pensions, perks and more.  Campaigning for a particular thing or against a particular thing has become their way of life and their means of earning.  And so they find a way to continue.  For some years, the SPLC staggered around in such a manner, as pointless and purposeless an organisation as could be imagined.

You Knew It Was Coming:  Hurricane Matthew Amnesty.  Never missing an opportunity to offer illegal immigrants reprieve, the Obama administration has repeatedly used inclement weather, a virus, natural disasters and tainted water in a U.S. city to extend the perk in the last few years.  This month the administration announced yet another special amnesty for victims of Hurricane Matthew. [...] The government is calling it "immigration relief" that may help people affected by unforeseen circumstances, including natural disasters such as Hurricane Matthew.  Among the relief measures that will be available are work permits, "change of nonimmigrant status or extension of nonimmigrant stay" for those in the U.S. illegally and forgiveness for immigrants who blew off deportation court hearings.

Racist cupcakes!
Cupcake shop owner defends Oreo cake that triggered claim of 'implied racism'.  An Oregon bakery has been accused of racism over its Mr President cupcake.  The controversial pastry comes from Fat Cupcake, a bakery with locations in Portland and Oregon City.  It's described as an Oreo cookie baked inside white cake with cookies and cream buttercream frosting.  A Yelp review from 10 September first noted an issue with the cupcake's name.  "Very troubling," Don P wrote on the restaurant reviewing site.  "They were serving a cupcake called the 'Mr President' that had an Oreo cookie inside.  When I tried to point out the racism implied, they claimed that 'our current president loves Oreos.'"


Hey, Racebaiters: What If You're Not As Oppressed As You Think?  The ongoing "state violence" of police officers gunning down unarmed black males has created a "human rights crisis."  It's part of America's legacy of "racial terrorism," according to a United Nations panel.  The panel decided that the United States government owes reparations to its black population.  The panel failed to explain why hordes of blacks haven't fled white oppression to the continental safe space called Africa.  The truth is:  Black Americans enjoy a higher standard of living than any black population group anywhere on earth.  And they always have.

Making Justice Clarence Thomas Invisible.  Disgraced accused serial rapist Bill Cosby is favorably mentioned.  So is philandering adulterer, golfer Tiger Woods.  One imagines a whole wing of the new Smithsonian African American museum is dedicated to Barack Obama:  the worst, most polarizing president ever to hold the office.  Why then in our "post-racial" age, is a black Supreme Court Justice — one of the two ever to serve on the nation's highest court — treated like a modern-day Ralph Ellison "Invisible Man"? [...] To add further insult to injury, the only tangential reference to Justice Thomas is a political smear:  a pin-back button reading "I Believe Anita Hill."  (Now ironically a race and gender anti-discrimination professor at Brandeis University, Ms. Hill famously accused the jurist of unsubstantiated sexual harassment at his 1991 Senate confirmation hearing.)  So, between references to Ms. Hill, Mr. Cosby and Mr. Woods, a rogue's gallery of the morally dubious are well-represented.  (In fact, at the casual glance this ultramodern structure of sterile glass and oppressively ornate bronze mesh could easily be mistaken for a three tiered prison, an inverse step pyramid or a cubist slave ship.)  Opened on the Washington mall on September 24, 2016, this 19 Smithsonian housing 37,000 objects is a 379,000 square foot eyesore.  Within, ample space has been lovingly dedicated to violent quasi-terrorist anarchist organizations like the Black Panthers and Black Lives Matter.  Yet, among 12 exhibitions, a person most central to both American history — and specifically the black experience — is wrongly marginalized and negated.

Ted Cruz's Letter to Smithsonian Asking for Inclusion of Justice Clarence Thomas Has Bipartisan Support.  When it opened in September, the National Museum of African American History & Culture failed to include an African American in one of the most important federal branches — Justice Clarence Thomas. [...] Monday [12/19/2016], Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), wrote the Smithsonian, asking them to include an accurate depiction of Justice Thomas' legacy.

Resolution Introduced to Include Clarence Thomas in African American History and Culture Museum.  Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas) introduced a resolution on Monday evening in the Senate calling on the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture to recognize Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.  Thomas is only featured in a sizable display about Anita Hill, who became famous while accusing Thomas of sexual harassment during Thomas' confirmation hearings.  The resolution calls on the museum to place Thomas in a prominent location in the museum.

Clarence Thomas snubbed by Smithsonian's new African American history museum.  Of the 112 justices appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court since its inception, only two have been black — and the second one apparently isn't worth consideration, as far as the new National Museum of African American History and Culture is concerned.  The Smithsonian museum still has "no plans" to include in its exhibitions a reference to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, one of the high court's conservative stalwarts who celebrates his 25th anniversary on the bench this year.

Smithsonian on Why Clarence Thomas is Not in New African American Museum: 'We Cannot Tell Every Story'.  The new Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History and Culture's tagline is "powerful moments in African American history, culture, and community." However, the museum — with a $540 million price tag funded 50 percent by U.S. taxpayers and with a collection of more than 36,000 artifacts and 100,000 people represented — doesn't include many prominent blacks, including Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Edward Brooke, a Republican who became the first African American to be elected to the U.S. Senate by popular vote in 1966.

The Editor says...
The museum only has room for agitprop that shows how tough every black life is, and how only Big Government can help.

Obama: Visiting black history museum can help heal racial division.  President Obama said Friday [9/23/2016] that he hopes the opening of the African American History and Culture Museum on the National Mall will help people deal with the racial turmoil embroiling Charlotte, N.C., and Tulsa, Okla., and other cities besieged by violence after deadly confrontations involving the police.  "The timing of this is fascinating because in so many ways, it is the best of times but in many ways, these are also troubled times," Obama said Friday during a White House reception honoring the celebrities, politicians and advocates who donated to the museum's creation.  "History does not always move in a straight line and without vigilance, we can go backwards and as well as forward," Obama said.

The Editor says...
Nice try, but history doesn't move at all.  History is a chronological record of the world's major events, and time only goes in one direction.  Mr. Obama is apparently trying to have his followers believe that they can all lapse back into slavery if they aren't loyal to the Democrats.

Update:
Smithsonian's Response to Lawmakers' Criticism of Clarence Thomas Museum Omission:  We Added A Caption For Anita Hill.  In response to a letter from lawmakers demanding to know why Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is not included in the new National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Smithsonian responded that it has added a caption to Anita Hill's representation in the museum.  The caption reads:  "Anita Hill accused a nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas, of sexual harassment.  Her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee provoked serious debates on sexual harassment, race loyalty, and gender roles.  Thomas denied the allegations and went on to be confirmed by the Senate, becoming the second African American to serve on the Supreme Court."

America's Versailles Set.  Take the case of Colin Kaepernick, the back-up quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers who makes $19 million a year (or about $20,000 per minute of regular season play).  He has been cited by National Football League officials in the past for his use of the N-word, yet he refuses to stand for the pregame singing of the national anthem because he believes that his country is racist and does not warrant his respect.  His stunt gained a lot of publicity and he now sees himself as a man of the revolutionary barricades.  A number of other NFL athletes, as well as those in other sports, have likewise refused to stand for the national anthem to express solidarity with what they see as modern versions of the oppressed peasantry.  But Kaepernick and his peers make more in one month than many Americans make in an entire lifetime.

Statistics: Twice as many white people were killed by police this year so far.  Almost twice as many white people were killed by police this year so far, than black people, yet the mainstream media and their Black Lives Matter propagandists on social media are trying to convince everyone that cops are "hunting" black people and that there is an "institutional white supremacy" problem in law enforcement.  NO.  There's an ignorance and crime problem in America, largely in black communities.  Please understand that black men are only 6% of the U.S. population but commit 50% of the murders.  That's about a 1000% more on average crime rate than whites.  1000 percent.

Will The National Mall's New Museum Tell The Real Civil Rights Story?  [Scroll down]  It remains to be seen how large a role this progressive influence will have on the museum's message, programming, and ethos.  Did the federal government just build a monument to warmed-over anti-Americanism, disguised as near-holy history, with some video clips of Aretha Franklin and Jackie Robinson sprinkled in?  Will Colin Kaepernick, Angela Davis, or Ta Nehisi-Coates be the first speaker to hold forth in the museum's Oprah Winfrey Theater? [...] A photo of Anita Hill holds one wall, opposite a Public Enemy display.  Her former good friend Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who was the second African American to serve on the court, has no place of honor here.  But perhaps the larger story is that the museum, astonishingly, offers no major items related to Martin Luther King, Jr.  This is likely because King's children have often demanded large licensing fees for the use of King's likeness, documents, display of his Nobel Peace Prize, etc.  The King children have regularly litigated over such disputes, and have even sued each other.

Obamas tour new African-American history museum.  The first family on Thursday [9/15/2016] took a private tour of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which is set to open to the public next week.

The Editor says...
From what I've seen, the museum is a place for the easily-aggrieved to wallow in their downtrodden status, even though they're several generations removed from slavery — or, in many cases, even the second-class status of black citizens in the early 20th century.  Visitors like Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan and Michelle Obama probably leave the museum singing "We Shall Overcome Someday."

'Religious freedom,' 'liberty' just 'code words' for intolerance, U.S. Civil Rights chairman says.  The chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights said that "religious freedom" and "religious liberty" have become merely "code words" for intolerance, "Christian supremacy" and committing every form of identity-politics sin, and thus they must yield before anti-discrimination laws.  The remarks, released Thursday [9/8/2016] in a report on "Peaceful Coexistence:  Reconciling Nondiscrimination Principles with Civil Liberties," is the latest example of an increasingly hostile reception in liberal circles to one of the six specified rights at the core of the First Amendment — the "free exercise" of religion.

Cosby Lawyers Blame Sexual Assault Allegations on Racism.  Lawyers for Bill Cosby claim racism is fueling the sexual assault allegations against him.  "Mr. Cosby is no stranger to discrimination and racial hatred," his lawyers said in a statement.  They took special aim at lawyer Gloria Allred, who represents over 30 of Cosby's alleged victims.  "When the media repeats her accusations — with no evidence, no trial and no jury — we are moved backwards as a country and away from the America that our civil rights leaders sacrificed so much to create."  His legal team says Allred is using racial bias to gin up a case against Cosby.

NAACP Lawsuit:  Judges in Alabama Courts are All White.  A civil rights group is challenging Alabama's practice of electing appellate judges by statewide vote, saying it has resulted in all-white courts in a state where one of every four people is African-American.

Charles Barkley: 'Brainwashed' Blacks, Not Whites, Are Keeping Blacks Down.  In light of 49er quarterback Colin Kaepernick's outrageous accusation that the United States is a country that oppresses people of color, it's worth noting that NBA legend Charles Barkley gave an interview recently to a local Philadelphia radio station in which he stated that "unintelligent," "brainwashed" African-Americans, not whites or cops, are the ones keeping successful blacks down.

Leftist Latino Group Crowns USDA "Federal Agency of the Year" for Cultural Transformation.  [Scroll down]  To get a clearer idea of LULAC's radical agenda[,] back in the 1990s one its officials accused a Mexican fast-food eatery of a hate crime for using a Chihuahua in a commercial.  LULAC claimed that "Mexican Americans are treated like dogs, they have to work like dogs, and now they're being portrayed as dogs."  Nevertheless, Obama's first attorney general, Eric Holder, professed solidarity with LULAC and publicly chanted the group's socialist mission statement — in both English and Spanish — at a LULAC powwow in which he bragged about the DOJ filing more civil rights cases than in any previous period in the nation's history.

$114M Quarterback Sits Out the National Anthem to Protest Black Oppression.  Controversy arose over the weekend when San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick sparked outrage by remaining seated on the bench during the playing of "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the beginning of Friday night's loss to the Green Bay Packers.  Why did he sit out the national anthem, while the rest of his teammates and coaches stood?  Well, it wasn't because he was conserving energy for the game.  Instead, by sitting he was taking a stand against America's white supremacy.  After the game Kaepernick, the half-black adopted son of white parents (his real father was "out of the picture" before he was even born to a destitute white mother), told NFL.com, "I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. [...]"

NFL quarterback sits during national anthem, calls America racist.  If you can't play, enter the political fray.  That could be the only possible explanation for 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick sitting in protest of the national anthem.  Kaepernick has dominated headlines in the past year for a massive regression in his production, now stuck fighting for a job with Blaine Gabbart.  No serious analyst expects the 49ers to be competitive, despite Kaepernick leading the Niners to the Super Bowl during the 2012 season.  But this time, he's making headlines on purpose for reasons other than football.

NFL quarterback refuses to honor National Anthem because America 'oppresses people of color'.  The 49ers' quarterback Colin Kaepernick says that he refused to stand up during the National Anthem because America is racist. [...] Apparently he's been protesting the oppression of people of color by refusing to play well for a long time too!

Manufactured Grievance:  You are right that the number of depressed and confused men driven to enter the ladies' room is practically zero as a percentage of American men (gay or straight), but that's not the point.  You are right that good studies show police are less likely to shoot and kill black men than other men, but those facts don't matter.  You are right that America is a good country, but again you don't get it.  The point is to elevate the perceived victimhood of all minorities through the girls' bathroom issue, of black Americans by making "all lives" a slur, of successful women by converting reasonable and humane abortion restrictions into a century-reversing threat to their livelihood.

Ole Miss band to look away from 'Dixie' beginning this fall.  "Old times there are not forgotten" proclaim the lyrics to the Southern anthem "Dixie."  But the University of Mississippi, whose athletic traditions were once overlaid with Confederate symbolism, is ready to forget the song.  Athletics Director Ross Bjork said Friday [8/19/2016] that he asked the university's marching band, known as the "Pride of the South," to create a new pregame show that excludes all the variations of Dixie it has traditionally played.

White-on-Black Violence Is Everywhere, Says AP.  There are a million stories in the big city.  With a million ways to tell each one.  So when the University of Chicago told reporters that a new poll shows that 62 percent of young black people are more afraid of violence from "white extremists" than from ISIS, the world's largest news organization had a choice:
  [#1]  It could produce a story scorning such a transparently false idea.  Maybe even remind their readers that white people are 25-50 times more likely to be the victim of black violence than vice versa.  Though many already know that from personal experience.  Or,
  [#2]  It could perpetuate the greatest hoax of our generation:  The myth of black victimization — that black people are relentless victims of relentless white racism all the time, everywhere, that explains everything.  Especially why cops are always picking on black people for no reason what so ever.
Don't laugh:  it's called "Critical Race Theory".

'Don't tread on me' shirts and hats could be officially declared RACIST by the government — even though the symbol is an icon of the American Revolution.  The United States workplace discrimination watchdog is considering if employees wearing clothing with a Gadsden flag logo are racial harassing African Americans.  The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is reportedly investigating the issue surrounding the 'Don't Tread On Me' snake logo after an African American employee of a federal agency complained they were racially harassed when a co-worker wore a cap showing the symbol.

Is the Gadsden flag racist?  The "Don't Tread on Me" Flag just got trod upon — by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.  The EEOC is investigating whether the Revolutionary War-era Gadsden Flag could be considered a racist symbol in the workplace.  In recent years, the yellow flag with its coiled snake has also become a symbol of the Tea Party.  "Whatever historic origins and meaning of the symbol, it also has since been sometimes interpreted to convey racially-tinged messages in some contexts," the EEOC report states.

Police union's 'Black Labs Matter' dog photo is called insulting to Black Lives Matter cause.  A San Francisco police officers' union has published a photo of two dogs in its monthly newspaper that critics say belittles the Black Lives Matter movement.  The photo has also raised questions about if the force is serious about repairing its relationship with people of color in the community.

What A Horrible Country.  My takeaway from the Democratic National Convention so far is that we're a sexist, racist, homophobic country full of monsters hunting young black men, sex traffickers, and greedy people [...] The "Mothers of the Movement" speeches were the most exploitive thing I've seen this year.  The speakers were mothers of people who either committed suicide (Sandra Bland), were killed by someone they were attacking (Trayvon Martin), or killed by some random guy (Jordan Davis), not the #BlackLivesMatter "victims" of police they were billed as.  Nothing Hillary, or any politician, could do would have saved any of them.  Having Michael Brown's mother up there was a direct slap in the face of police and the concept of law and order.  He ripped off a liquor store and attacked a cop, trying to take away his gun for reasons we can only assume weren't friendly.  He was killed because of his violence against an innocent man.  You can argue he didn't deserve to die, but his actions earned it.

The Scientific Method Is Racist.  The social justice warriors at Brown University are describing an "analysis tool" that has come to be known as critical theory.  When refined to address racial issues (primarily African-American), its name is critical race theory (CRT).  The theoretical framework of CRT was developed in the mid- to late 1980s to better understand black oppression in the United States.  Its major themes now include white privilege and micro-aggression.  It is taught in nearly every grievance department in the country (women's studies, African-American studies, Hispanic studies, and ethnic studies).  The white privilege theme was first introduced in a 1988 paper by Peggy McIntosh.  Ms. McIntosh suggested that issues involving Band-Aid color and free hotel shampoo, rather than education deficiencies and a breakdown in the family structure, are impediments to black progress in America.  Offshoots of CRT have been developed for other marginalized groups.

Blacks with college experience more likely to say they faced discrimination.  A majority of black Americans say that at some point in their lives they've experienced discrimination or were treated unfairly because of their race or ethnicity, but blacks who have attended college are more likely than those without any college experience to say so, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey.  About eight-in-ten blacks with at least some college experience (81%) say they've faced discrimination or been treated unfairly because of their race or ethnicity, compared with 59% of blacks who have never attended college.

African Methodist Episcopal Church:  Global Warming Hurts Black People.  One of the nation's largest and oldest black churches, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, is warning black people about the dangers of climate change.  The Guardian reported Sunday [7/24/2016] that the AME church "passed its first resolution in its 200-year history devoted to climate change, calling for a swift transition to renewable energy" at the church's general conference in Philadelphia.  "We can move away from the dirty fuels that make us sick and shift toward safe, clean energy like wind and solar that help make every breath our neighbors and families take a healthy one," the resolution stated according to the Guardian.

Controversial headline
Image of the Day:  You know what else is racist?  The truth.  A newspaper in Memphis came under fire last week for its coverage of the assassination of five police officers in Dallas.  What specifically had locals in such high dudgeon was the headline emblazoned across the front page.  Protesters who congregated outside the offices of the paper, The Commercial Appeal, were so outraged that a simple correction was deemed sufficient.  Instead, the publication's editor offered up a nearly 1,000-word mea culpa.  So what did the headline say?  This:  [Image]


Black Lives Matter Accuse Pokemon Go of Inherent Racism.  No, Seriously.  There are three respects in which Pokemon Go is regarded as racist by those in the know in the BLM movement.  The first respect, is that it's much safer to play Pokemon Go, which requires you to walk around your own neighborhood; if you're white and living in your own neighborhood.  Second, if you're black and you play Pokemon in Beverly Hills, chances are the police are going to stop you, question you and see what you're REALLY up to.  The third respect in which Pokemon Go is racist is that you can set yourself up as a white Avatar, hunting down and collecting — or shooting — the black monsters in your own neighborhood.  Yes, LIke Jar Jar Binks before them, large eyed Pokemon Go characters [...] are all really just stand ins for black people.

Indicted politician says she's being 'persecuted' because she's black.  A Florida congresswoman indicted on fraud charges is telling supporters she's being "persecuted" by federal authorities because she's black.

Media Ignore the Tsunami of Black Violence against Cops.  The shootings in Dallas did not make much of a difference.  Not to the reporters explaining the protest and the reason behind the assassination of five police officers.  The reason for the demonstration was simple and beyond pushback:  White cops shoot black people all over the country, all the time, for no reason whatsoever.  Everybody knows that.  So sad.  Some took it to the next level:  The head of a black group called Dallas Action said the killings were a wake up call to let people know how cops are picking on black people.  All the time.  For no reason whatsoever.  The local Fox reporter in Dallas took the comments in stride, quickly changing the topic to all the pretty lights on nearby police cars.  Not one reporter at any point even hinted at how black violence is wildly out of proportion.

Are Blacks Disproportionately Involved in Police Shootings?  What was the racial breakdown of those who were shot by police in 2015?  The largest number, 494, almost exactly half, were white.  258 were black, 172 were Hispanic, and the remaining 66 were either "other" or unknown.  (Interestingly, Asians are rarely shot by police officers.)  The 258 blacks represent 26% of the total.  That is about double the percentage of blacks in the American population.  Is that prima facie evidence of racism on the part of law enforcement?  Of course not.  It is common knowledge that blacks have an unusually high rate of contact with the police, both as victims and as perpetrators.  In 2012-2013, the Department of Justice found that blacks were the perpetrators of 24% of all violent crimes where the race of the perpetrator was known (in 7.8% of violent crimes, it was unknown).

Law prof: microaggressions can be evidence of discrimination.  An article in an academic law journal claims that microaggressions have such pernicious effects that they can even rise to the level of illegal harassment.  Boston University School of Law professor Ronald Wheeler lists several examples, such as asking a married man if his wife was with him, asking a gay man which bars he frequents, or asking "how may I help you, sir?"

Why police were called to a South Jersey third-grade class party.  On June 16, police were called to an unlikely scene:  an end-of-the-year class party at the William P. Tatem Elementary School in Collingswood.  A third grader had made a comment about the brownies being served to the class.  After another student exclaimed that the remark was "racist," the school called the Collingswood Police Department, according to the mother of the boy who made the comment.  The police officer spoke to the student, who is 9, said the boy's mother, Stacy dos Santos, and local authorities.  Dos Santos said that the school overreacted and that her son made a comment about snacks, not skin color.  "He said they were talking about brownies. ... Who exactly did he offend?" dos Santos said.

The Editor says...
Do the schools bring in the police whenever racially sensitive comments are made?  Don't the cops have plenty of other things to do?

Need a reason to support global warmism?  OK, how about 'fossil fuels are racist'?  A notorious social activist and author claimed the reason governments don't take global warming seriously is because the fossil fuel industry benefits from "institutional racism."  Author and anti-capitalist activist Naomi Klein wrote in an editorial published by Australian newspaper The Saturday Paper that politicians don't discuss global warming because they are part of racist and bigoted governmental institutions that allow fossil fuel industry to exploit blacks and Latinos.

Pool rules poster 'Racist' Pool Safety Poster Brings Red Cross Apology.  A Red Cross Hospital signboard that carried a "super racist" message about swim safety guidelines for children prompted an apology from the hospital on Tuesday [6/27/2016].  The dialogue opened on Twitter after a photo circulated of the poster in Fort Morgan, Colorado.  The poster, which has since been taken down, read at the top:  "Be Cool, Follow the Rules." Below the heading were depictions of children playing.  The white children were labeled as behaving "cool" while children of color were depicted as misbehaving, or "not cool," for breaking pool safety rules.

Red Cross apologizes for 'super racist' pool safety poster that shows black children misbehaving while white kids obey the rules.  A Red Cross sign designed to teach children how to behave in a swimming pool has instead been blasted for being 'super racist'.  The poster — entitled 'Be Cool, Follow the Rules' — was spotted in two pools in Colorado and showed children playing in a pool with signs pointing to the 'cool' and 'not cool' children, indicating who were acting correctly.  But the majority of the 'not cool' kids were black, causing one bemused tweeter to open a dialogue with the organisation about what message they were trying to send out.


Image of the Day:  Your challenge is to find the 'super racism'.  Not just garden-variety racism, mind you.  It's super racism.  That is the term critics are using in reference to a well-intentioned safety poster put out by the American Red Cross.

The Editor says...
Go to a public pool (for example, in McKinney, Texas) and see who the disruptive, disorderly, rude and inconsiderate people are.  Apparently a depiction of the truth is racist, but an inversion of the truth would be acceptable.  Yes the Red Cross made a big mistake — when they apologized!

Congressional Democrats Clueless on Gun Bills.  Congressional Democrats emerged from the Capitol building Thursday afternoon [6/23/2016] from their 25-hour long "sit-in" in the House of Representatives sleepy but satisfied with what they'd accomplished.  They may not have secured a vote on gun control legislation they were demanding in the wake of the Orlando terror attack, but they had grabbed headlines across the media that portrayed the their gun control ploy as a historic civil rights crusade.  To the tune of "We Shall Overcome," members of the Democratic caucus sang outside the Capitol:  "We shall pass a bill, some day."

Grossly Misleading Claims About Black Teens Being "Vastly More Likely to be Killed by Police than Whites Even After Adjusting for Crime Rates".  If you look at offender data and assume that 92 percent of murders are committed by males, you find that young black males were about 8 times more likely to commit murders than similarly aged white males.  However, a lot of murders occur where the offender isn't identified and that this problem is greater for gang related murders.  To try to deal with this, we have made some calculations using victim data.  Adjusting the data by the rate that blacks and whites kill members of their own and other races, young black males were 9 times more likely to commit murders than similarly aged white males.

This study found race matters in police shootings, but the results may surprise you.  [Scroll down]  It's the third time researchers at Washington State — Lois James, Stephen M. James and Bryan J. Vila — have set up simulations to monitor the differing reactions of police when confronted by white or black suspects.  And all three times, they found that officers took significantly more time to fire their weapons if the subject was black, according to their latest report, "The Reverse Racism Effect," to be published in the journal Criminology & Public Policy.

America Has The World's Most Predatory "Victims".  Any non-liberal white man who disagrees with a non-conservative black or Hispanic person is immediately presumed to be racist.  Decent people are incessantly called "racists" just for disagreeing with liberal policies.  We're told black Americans are such victims that they must be helped out with Affirmative Action.  But who's really getting victimized when the son of a white cop is passed over for the son of a black CEO purely because of the color of his skin?  It has gotten so bad that illegal aliens, who broke the law KNOWING that the penalty for it is deportation, are now considered to be victims.  Enforcing the law against illegal aliens?  We're not supposed to do that because they're a protected victim class that has to be allowed to break the law with impunity.

Is It Time for the Country To Voluntarily Segregate?  [Scroll down]  This analogy is tame compared to what is actually happening in the "Black Community," particularly on college campuses.  Everything perceived to be wrong (of which very little is) in the black college community is someone else's fault.  No matter what the transgression, perpetrated on or by blacks on campus, it is someone else's fault.  You have probably heard of or seen the video of the black femaleSan Francisco State University student who attacked a white guy because he had dreadlocks.  It was a completely unprovoked attack — all because, according to the girl, dreadlocks are reserved for blacks only.  Rather than just rightfully claim the girl was in the wrong, the University's Black Student Union excused her attack and blamed it on an overall racist environment and general vilification of black women in America.

Microaggressions: All Racism, All the Time.  It almost sounds like a statement of the obvious to say that an obsession with racism — or with microaggressions — feeds paranoia and thus in the process creates the sickness of over-sensitivity.  Thus it's no surprise that City Journal (among others) has called the whole show a "farce, and a fad".  It's crystal clear that microaggression theory feeds off an already infantile sense of victimhood.  Moreover, our society — with the help of mollycoddled academics — has become ill with victimhood.  So much so that the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has said that to be a fully-fledged victim is to reach the "height of this culture".

Love Finds a Way in Oakland.  This month, Oakland's City Council voted 5-3 to adopt "Love Life" as the city's motto. [...] "Love Life" is the brainchild of Donald Lacy, whose daughter LoEshe — the name means "Love Life" in Nigerian — was killed near McClymonds High School in 1997.  The 16-year-old died in the sort of senseless random gang-turf shooting that has taken too many young black lives in Oakland. [...] Enter racial politics.  Because Schaaf and some motto foes are white, while McElhaney and some other supporters are black, "Love Life" fans suggested that opponents lacked empathy for victims of street violence.

Sanders's comment on white people and poverty creates social media stir.  Bernie Sanders stumbled on a question at Sunday's [3/6/2016] debate over whether white Americans can empathize with blacks, stating that white people don't know what it's like to be poor.

The Editor says...
This presumes that all blacks are poor and all others are not.  This is typical Democrat reasoning:  everybody who isn't white is a victim, and their only hope is to elect a wealthy white Democrat as president.

A Million People Were In Prison Before We Called It Mass Incarceration.  October's cover of The Atlantic carries a headline that, even a decade ago, you probably never would've seen:  "The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration."  The 20,000-word article attached to it, by Ta-Nehisi Coates, covers the remarkable growth in the United States' prison population and its outsize impact on black individuals, families and communities.  That Coates's piece employs the phrase "mass incarceration" 17 times is telling.  The term has become ubiquitous in conversations about prison in the United States.  But 10 years ago, barely anybody put the two words next to each other to talk about what the phrase has come to represent for many:  everything that's wrong with the American justice system.

Far More People Claim Alien Abduction Than KKK Membership.  While there is a lot of present concern over the Klan, the group is in reality incredibly small and irrelevant.  According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the KKK only boasts about 3,000 members.  To put this in perspective, far more people believe they have been abducted by aliens than claim allegiance to the Klan.  Hundreds of thousands of Americans believe they have been taken by extraterrestrials.  One support group for alien abductees says it receives 1500 reports per year of involuntary UFO contact.

Black Lives Matter leader explains why 'all lives matter' is a racial slur.  "'All lives matter is a new racial slur," Marissa J. Johnson, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Seattle, said on Bret Baier's "Voter Revolt" special.  "White Americans have created the conditions that require a phrase like 'Black Lives Matter.'"  "Do you know how horrific it is to grow up as a child in a world that so hates you?" she asked Fox interviewer John Roberts, who is white.  "That you have to literally say to other people, 'My life matters,' and they're like, 'Well everybody's life matters,' while you're literally being gunned down in the street, while you're being rounded up and mass incarcerated and forced into prison slavery."

Black student group releases list of demands at UC Davis.  A student group supporting the black community at the University of California, Davis, came out with a list of demands on Monday [2/22/2016] for the university's chancellor.  The group, known as Black Under Attack, also led a march on campus, with approximately 200 students participating.  The group's demands comes one week after a black female student was the victim of an alleged hate crime on campus.

Widely Held Beliefs That Are Either Untrue or Meaningless, Part 2.  A pillar of contemporary leftism is the notion of "white privilege."  Given that a generation of high school and college students are being taught that a great number of "unearned privileges" accrue to white Americans — the charge of white privilege demands rational inquiry.  The assertion turns out to be largely meaningless.  And more significantly, it does great harm to blacks. [...] So, then why all this left-wing talk about white privilege?  The major reason is in order to portray blacks as victims.  This achieves two huge goals for the left, one political, the other philosophical.  The political goal is to ensure that blacks continue to view America as racist.  The left knows that the only way to retain political power in America is to perpetuate the belief among black Americans that their primary problem is white racism.  Only then will blacks continue to regard the left and the Democrats as indispensable.

Racial gaps found in Wake County student arrests, suspensions.  The Wake County school board will discuss Tuesday [2/16/2016] racial disparities in student arrest and suspension rates in North Carolina's largest school system.  The work session agenda includes a report showing that the odds of being arrested for fighting are 1.67 times higher for Wake's black students as compared to other students.  The report also shows that the odds of being arrested for theft are 1.7 times for black students as compared to other students.  Additionally, black students accounted for 69 percent of the referrals made by school resource officers to the adult criminal justice system, juvenile petitions, teen court, and other restorative programs.

The Editor says...
None of that should be construed as conclusive evidence that blacks are being treated unfairly.

Bernie Sanders confronted by supporters demanding slavery reparations as he courts the black vote.  Bernie Sanders was repeatedly pressed to endorse reparations tonight by his own supporters at a 'Black America' community forum.  'I know you're scared to say 'black,' I know you're scared to say 'reparations,' panelist Felicia Perry said, then told him, 'Can you please talk specifically about black people and reparations?'  Sanders replied, 'You and I may have a disagreement on this,' but 'it's not just black.  This is Latinos.  There are areas of America, more rural areas where its whites, OK?  As he talked about income inequality and poverty in the 'African-American community an audience member interrupted to urge him to use the term 'black.'  'I've said 'black' 50 times.  That's the 51st,' Sanders declared.

Lawmaker Wants Select Committee on 'Excessive Use of Police Force' on Minorities.  Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) wants the House to create a select committee to investigate "the unjustified use of lethal and excessive force by police officers against African-Americans."  Earlier this month Rep. Rush introduced a resolution that would create a select panel similar to the one reviewing the attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi in 2012.  "This past year alone we have seen 7 different incidents of the unjustified use of lethal and excessive force by police officers against African-Americans," the resolution says.  "It is the will of the Congress that a select committee be formed to investigate these patterns of excessive use of force in communities of color."

Christians, Conservatives, Men, and White People Are Not Responsible For Your Problems.  Today, people will not shut up about their problems.  They want to let you know about every issue they have, every "microaggression" and every time they're offended.  It's a bottomless sea of discontent.  Worse yet, our generation of complainers never seems to blame themselves for their own problems.  Instead they've picked out a group of designated fall guys that it's always okay to blame for every problem they have:  Christians, conservatives, men or white people.

The Myth of Wanton Police Shootings Collapses under the Weight of Facts.  In a project titled "The Counted," the Guardian is tracking killings by police in the United States and has compiled a comprehensive list for the year 2015.  The tracker was motivated by much-discussed but poorly founded concern about excessive use of police force particularly against blacks.  In December, police killed 92 people — 21 blacks, 40 whites, 17 Hispanics/Latinos, five Asians/Pacific Islanders, and nine of unknown race.  Fourteen were unarmed, including five blacks.  Those who were unarmed reportedly still posed other types of threats to officers.  These threats included physical violence and ramming officers with a vehicle.  Most of these reports are based largely on the accounts of eyewitnesses and the officers involved and so might not include all relevant details, such as results from ongoing police investigations.  But the available facts fail to support the claim, made most prominently by the movement Black Lives Matter, that police systematically target unarmed black men.  Of note among those who were killed is, however, the prevalence of mental illness.

New York village votes to keep logo criticized as racist.  Folks in a central New York village want to keep the community's official logo, which appears to show a white man choking a Native American, even though critics call it racist.  In a non-binding vote Monday night [1/11/2016], residents of Whitesboro — a village of about 3,700 in Oneida County — voted 157-55 to not change their current seal.  The Whitesboro website says the emblem dates to the early 1900s and depicts a friendly wrestling match between village founder Hugh White and an Oneida Indian.

Is the Left Even on America's Side Anymore?  [Scroll down]  Black Lives Matter is a movement built on the fiction that police have declared open season on innocent black Americans.  According to progressive fictions, police are the agents of a "white supremacist society" — a claim alone that should make one wary of the sanity of those who advance it.  The facts belie the very basis of the claim that African Americans are being indiscriminately gunned down by police:  African-American males, accounting for 6 percent of the population are responsible for more than 40 percent of violent crimes.  But a Washington Post report on all 980 police shootings of 2015 reveals that only 4 percent of fatal police shootings involved white officers and black victims, while in "three-quarters of the incidents, cops were either under attack themselves or defending civilians," or, as Michael Walsh observed in the New York Post, police officers were "in other words, doing their jobs."

Obama and the Insanity of the Liberal Mind.  Obama, Holder, Jarrett and the gang would have us believe that we are a country of racists.  Ignoring the fact that Americans elected an African-American to the highest office in the land twice, this gang of angry black folks is fueling the flames of hate — at the expense of African-Americans.  Obama's divisiveness has set the civil rights movement back decades as Black Lives Matters groups protest violently, police across the country are paralyzed while crime rises, and everyone who does not agree that we are a racist country is labeled, well racist.

15 Stats That Destroy Liberal Narratives.  "Consider, for example, that in 1958 a mere 4 percent of Americans approved of interracial marriage.  By 2013, that number had grown to 87 percent.  In 2012 these once-taboo unions hit an all-time high.  Ku Klux Klan membership has shrunk drastically from millions a century ago to fewer than 5,000 today.  The Black Panthers are essentially extinct.  While plenty of other hate groups have attempted to fill the void, they have always operated on the margins of society.  Black politicians are now common — President Obama's percentage of the white vote was almost perfectly in line with that received by other recent Democrats, all of whom were white.  Granted, these statistics offer but a snapshot of American society, but the more one looks, the more a trend emerges.  America is a lot of things; racist isn't one of them."

No, Tamir Rice Was Not "Open Carrying," You Race-Baiting Liars.  I'm just as sick of the Tamir Rice case as the next guy, but it's also my job to debunk lies and information on firearms and firearms laws, so I've been sucked back into this story at least one more time to debunk a pair of idiotic articles written by out-of-their depth leftist writers who allege that Tamir Rice was "just open carrying."

NAACP calls for civil disobedience in Cleveland after Tamir Rice ruling.  Civil rights activists in Cleveland have invited like-minded people to their city to protest the prosecutor's decision not to bring murder charges against the two police officers responsible for the death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice.  As tensions mounted Wednesday, the NAACP's Cleveland Branch joined a coalition of groups — which includes the Cleveland Renaissance Movement, Black People in Progress and Nation of Islam — to outline their demands for the City of Cleveland: [...]

Tamir Rice gun
One of These Is The Toy Gun Tamir Rice Was Holding: Prosecutors.  A photo released today [12/28/2015] by the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office shows what it says is a real gun next to the replica gun 12-year-old Tamir Rice had the day he was shot dead by a Cleveland, Ohio, police officer.  Prosecutors said in a report released today [12/28/2015] that the gun Tamir was carrying — at the top and right — was "functionally identical" to the real one pictured at the bottom left.  The report came in the wake of a grand jury's decision today to not indict officer Timothy Loehmann or his partner, Frank Garmback, in connection with Rice's death.  Rice had that toy gun when he was shot dead by Lohemann on a Cleveland playground in November 2014.

Photo source:  Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Office.

Students at Lena Dunham's college offended by lack of fried chicken.  Students at an ultra-liberal Ohio college are in an uproar over the fried chicken, sushi and Vietnamese sandwiches served in the school cafeterias, complaining the dishes are "insensitive" and "culturally inappropriate."  Gastronomically correct students at Oberlin College — alma mater of Lena Dunham — are filling the school newspaper with complaints and demanding meetings with campus dining officials and even the college president.

The Editor says...
If the school serves fried chicken, it's culturally insensitive.  If they don't serve fried chicken, it's discriminatory.  If the cast of a movie is 100 percent black, it's an "exploitation" film.  If the cast is zero percent black, it's racist.  I don't know if you've noticed this, but every TV commercial these days includes at least one black actor — usually front and center, or in the dominant/heroic role.  (Notice that in advertisements for fried chicken restaurants, all the customers are white.)  Again, if everybody in a TV commercial is black, that's wonderful, but if nobody in the commercial is black, that's exclusionary!

Students demand college rename 'Lynch' building because of racial overtones.  Protesters at a Pennsylvania college are demanding that the school rename a building called Lynch Memorial Hall because of the racial overtones of the word "lynch."  The group of students at Lebanon Valley College submitted a list of demands to the administrators, including nixing the name of the building devoted to the college's former president, Clyde A. Lynch.

The Editor says...
What if Loretta Lynch was invited to speak there?  Would the protesters insist that she change her name first?

University Students Comforted with 'Counseling' after Seeing Confederate Flag on Laptop.  University students in Massachusetts who were upset by an image of a Confederate flag sticker on another student's laptop were offered counseling services at Framingham State University.  The offer came after the university's "chief diversity and inclusion officer," Sean Huddleston, described the display of the small Confederate flag sticker as a "bias incident."

At last, the one day of the year when black federal employees can't be fired for any reason!
Black U.S. leaders call for Abolition Day holiday.  A group of black U.S. lawmakers and other prominent figures on Tuesday [11/24/2015] called on the federal government to declare a national holiday to mark Abolition Day, the official end to the nation's use of slavery.  Members of the Congressional Black Caucus as well as a federal appeals judge and the NAACP released a petition asking for the holiday to fall on Dec. 6, which this year marks the 150th anniversary of the ratification of the 13th Amendment.

The Real Story about Deceit in Racial Crime Numbers.  When you ask, white people and black people report using cocaine in about the same amount.  But when you test, black people are six times more likely to use cocaine.  And lie about it.

Sticks and Stones.  The door has swung open and now we can see what's really in there. [...] In fact, I'm even having trouble figuring out what their problem is.  One kid says he's against white privilege, but his family, which is all black, is solidly part of that famous and much maligned 1%.  So if a black man can earn millions of dollars a year in Middle America, what's his son so mad about?  What privilege can he possibly gain from disrupting a major college campus?

The coming campus revolution.  We may be seeing the beginnings of a full-blown campus revolution.  Not a revolution based on actual oppression, but a revolution stemming from perceived oppression and a desire to attain victimhood status.  The seeds of the revolution sprouted in full force this week, with protests at Yale and the University of Missouri.  At Mizzou, students began protesting alleged incidents of racism.  In addition to whatever true allegations there might be, false ones have contributed to the mass hysteria, as when Mizzou's student president was forced to retract a Facebook post informing students that the Ku Klux Klan was on campus.

There are those who think blacks can get away with anything.
7 passengers kicked off Spirit Airlines flight at LAX; some claim racial discrimination.  Seven passengers were booted from a Spirit Airlines flight at Los Angeles International Airport on Monday night [11/2/2015], and one of them says they were discriminated against because they were black.  The onboard commotion began about 7:15 p.m. when an African American couple raised concerns about an overbooked seat on Flight 868 to Dallas, said Officer Rob Pedregon, an airport police spokesman.

Community Organizing America.  The modern art of a community organizer seems fairly simple.  The proverbial agitator identifies a particular aggrieved racial, ethnic, gender, or class group that believes equality of opportunity must guarantee equality of result.  Then he "organizes" the victims by claiming that their ostensible failure to obtain parity can only be due to systematic racism, sexism, and bias by the supposed callous establishment majority (usually emblemized as callous white, male, heterosexual Christians).  Myth is useful (e.g., "hands up, don't shoot" or "one in four women on campus suffer sexual assault").  Next he mounts a shrill campaign to demand "fairness" and "equality" [...]

In Qatar Speech, Michelle Obama Complains About Growing Up as a Girl in America.  Michelle Obama went to Qatar to give a speech on girls education.  There, the first lady of the United States complained about growing up as a girl in America.  "[B]ack when I was a girl, even though I was bright and curious and I had plenty of opinions of my own, people were often more interested in hearing what my brother had to say.  And my parents didn't have much money; neither of them had a university degree.  So when I got to school, I sometimes encountered teachers who assumed that a girl like me wouldn't be a good student.  I was even told that I would never be admitted to a prestigious university, so I shouldn't even bother to apply," Obama said at the Qatar National Convention Center in Doha.

The Editor says...
Boo hoo.  I can hardly go on with my day, now that I've heard what a tough life Michelle Obama has had.

US high court grapples with racism in jury selection.  Timothy Foster has spent nearly 30 years on Georgia's death row.  On Monday [11/1/2015], his lawyer will speak before the Supreme Court to fight for his life, pointing to endemic racism in US jury selection and the death penalty.

More evidence that many so-called "journalists" are really political activists:
Texas university dean is undermined by dashcam video, police chief says.  A journalism professor's who claims she was stopped in a suburban street for 'walking while black' has been undermined by a dashcam video, a police chief says.  Dorothy Bland, the Dean of The University of North Texas' School of Journalism, says she was 'racially profiled' when cops stopped her while exercising in her 'golf-course community' of Corinth, Texas, on October 24.

College Dean Accuses Officers Of Stopping Her For 'walking While Black' But Dashcam Shows She Lied.  Dorothy Bland, dean of the journalism school at the University of North Texas, is used to taking a walk at daybreak.  That's what she was doing when she says... THIS happened!

Too Many Black People in Prison — And Other Fairy Tales.  The great and powerful Leo Strine figured it all out:  Too many black people are spending too much time in prison. [...] In Strine's world, either lots and lots of black people are in jail for no reason.  Or lots and lots of white people belong in jail, but get away with murder — and burglary and assault and shootings and stealing cars and lots of other crimes.  The solution to the both scenarios is easy enough:  Rustle up the victims, videos, witnesses, police reports, 911 calls and other evidence so Strine can free the wrongly imprisoned and imprison the unjustly free.  If racist cops, judges and juries are not doing their jobs, at least produce a few dozen victims.  They should be easy to find.  But they are not.  Because they do not exist.

Black Lives Matter asks state Dems for 'reparations'.  The case for reparations is typically made as a form of economic compensation to descendants of slaves.  These days, some racial activists also make the case for reparations as compensation for systemic discrimination in law enforcement.

The Cult of Victims.  We change people's character by teaching them that "victimhood" is a way to get attention and moral status.  Our ancestors never would have accomplished much if they'd labeled themselves victims.  They crossed oceans and the prairie knowing that many people on the journey would die.  Some of them really did end up being victims.  But they were proud of striving, not proud of being victimized.  They accomplished far more because of it.

Victimology, African Americans, and Islam.  [Scroll down]  At the moment, two notorious wars of words come to mind; the American "Black Lives Matter" (aka BLM) complaint domestically and the quarrels at home and abroad about terror, violence, and Islamic culture.  While the goals may vary, these rhetorical conflicts have much in common.  Black America and Islam are united by grievance, the perception, in both cases, that the plaintiffs are victims; preyed upon or handicapped by race, religion, politics, oppression, bigotry, history, or all of the above.  Indeed, in both cases, general and sweeping indictments of "majority" cultures are used to justify a litany of social pathologies that run the spectrum from poverty, illiteracy, addiction, crime, on to terrorism.  Violence is the mastic that joins both Islamist and black American cultures.

Woman Asks 'White Friends' to Pay for Her Therapy to Deal with Stress from Racism.  A 29-year-old Thai-Cambodian woman has launched a fundraiser asking her "white friends" to pay for her therapy — claiming that they owe it to her because stress caused by racism is why she needs it in the first place.  Rinna Rem is from the Portland, Ore., area and suffers from a chronic illness that affects the heart and connective tissues called "Marfan syndrome."  According to Rem, the condition is much worse for her because of all of the racism.

General Hospital Star Slams Viola Davis' Emmys Speech: "She Has Never Been Discriminated Against"General Hospital star Nancy Lee Grahn was not a fan of Viola Davis' speech at the Emmys on Sunday night [9/20/2015] — and now she's facing intense backlash because of it.  Davis made Emmys history by being the first black woman to win the award for Best Lead Actress in a Drama.  In her speech, the How to Get Away with Murder star quoted Harriet Tubman and observed, "The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is simply opportunity.  You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there." [...] Davis' remarks were met with enthusiastic applause from the crowd inside the Microsoft Theater, but Grahn slammed them on Twitter.

Infiltrating the #BlackLivesMatter Cult.  [Scroll down]  Many of these people are what Karl Marx might have called an American version of the Lumpenproletariat.  They are so hopelessly inept at life that they need to explain away their failures.  Their list of scapegoats is long.  They blame imaginary systemic racial discrimination, markets, white people, police, corporations, Republicans, insufficiently generous welfare programs, and whatever else trickles down day to day from their intellectual betters in the academy.  They need something to believe in.  They need something to explain why their lives [stink].  They hate America, and they want to burn it down.  These are Obama's people.  They're the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's people.  They're Minister Louis Farrakhan's people.

The Weariness of the Whiners.  Brandon Marshall, the New York Jets wide receiver and occasional sports commentator, charges that the National Football League is racist.  He alleges that the league favors white players over black athletes like him, especially white marquee quarterbacks.  Aside from the fact that Marshall recently signed a three-year contract for $27 million — and, for example, African-American lineman Marcell Dareus just concluded a contract extension with the Buffalo Bills for six years at $100 million — examine Marshall's whimper in light of the demography of the National Football League.  Currently, African-Americans comprise about 12% of the population.  Yet they make up about 67% of the current meritocratic, but allegedly racist NFL roster.  In the quota parlance of affirmative action engineering, they are "overrepresented" in one of America's most prestigious and compensated industries at over five times their percentages in the general population.

Black Man Suffers Another Racist Beating — in Whole Foods?  Another black man is the victim of another racist beating — for no reason whatsoever.  Or so the media would have us believe.  This time in Oakland.  And we know that because of what the CBS affiliate called an "unprovoked violent beatdown" was witnessed by one of the world's top authorities on black victimization, Dr. Zoe Marks.  And she is spreading this story around the globe. [...] ["]The 'witness' in the video is a social justice warrior that has one of those dubious doctorates in 'African studies' degrees and ties to look for racism where none is present.  Everyone involved in this situation is black.  A customer, the cashier, the manager and the security guard — are all black.["]  Except for Dr. Marks.  She is white.

Black Man Kills Two White People for — Wait for It — Racism.  Vester Flanagan murdered two local television news employees today and posted a homemade video of the crime.  He was a black man.  The reason he chose to kill the two white people?  Racism.  I know you're shocked.  Reading statements made by WDBJ station management tells of a volatile man who sought out things in which to find offense. [...] Perhaps the weatherman said to "watch for black clouds tomorrow" or the station did a news report on "black holes."  For someone constantly looking for offense, it is easily found.  Especially for certain blacks in America who have been trained to believe that EVERY failure in their life is due to racism of white people.  Flanagan was no different.

Murder Most Foul.  There are people whose lives are so empty that anger is their oxygen.  F/W seems to have been in that camp, perhaps psychotically so, but is not the #BlackLivesMatter (and before them Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton) business model of seeing racism behind every tree and under every rock and in phrases like "the most qualified person should get the job" designed to foment just such anger?

More about Vester Lee Flanagan II a/k/a Bryce Williams.

Specifics matter for Black Lives Matter movement.  For the past year, the Black Lives Matter movement that emerged after the killings of Eric Garner in Staten Island and Michael Brown in Ferguson wrestled with the same question the protesters of Occupy Wall Street never did answer before fizzling out:  What, exactly, do they want?  This week, the activists who never miss an opportunity to decry police abuse, real or perceived, moved importantly from cataloging a long train of abuses to detailing a 10-point action plan.  In that platform, some good, overdue ideas are undercut by utterly unrealistic aspirations and policy ideas that would harm the very people they aim to protect.

University of Wisconsin Director: Police Use Our "Stealing" as Excuse To "Arrest Us".  Jaw dropping, then again, maybe not-so-much.  This is a continuation of a several year effort (Black Lives Matter) to claim the police are to blame for their efforts to stop unlawful behavior.  [Video clip]

Black women 'humiliated' after getting kicked off Napa Valley Wine Train.  What started as a joyous ride through wine county Saturday afternoon turned into a "humiliating" experience for 11 African American women, who said they were booted off the Napa Valley Wine Train for laughing and talking too loud.  Accounts and pictures of the episode have been spreading across social media, spawning the hashtag #LaughingWhileBlack while the women involved have questioned whether they would have been treated differently if they were not African American.

The Editor says...
If you act like civilized people, you will be treated as such.  If you can't enjoy each other's company without screeching and cackling disruptively, you may find others don't condone your behavior, especially on privately-owned transportation venues.  It's not about being black.  It is about acting like an adult in public.

Ten Things You Didn't Know Were Racist.  [#5] Lunch bags look racist.  Elliot Bronstein of the Seattle Office for Civil Rights sent a memo to the public-affairs office banning the term "brown bag" as in brown-bag lunches.  [#6] Complimenting America as open and fair is racially hurtful.  "I believe the most qualified person should get the job" is officially listed as a micro-aggression that the University of California wants eliminated from its classrooms.  Also banned are "America is the land of opportunity," and "America is a melting pot," because some students may regard those ideas as controversial.

University Ban on Saggy Pants Declared Racist.  Henderson State University in Arkansas is being accused of racism for posting a sign on campus telling students not to wear saggy pants.  The whole argument here, of course, is that saggy pants are associated with black culture, and therefore banning them is due to a racist hatred of that culture.  After all, it's not like the university should be able to expect students to cover their butts on campus.

The Tragic and Complete Collapse of Racial Relations.  Ta-Nehisi Coates writes that he has no affinity with the firemen and police who were incinerated on 911, given his grievances over endemic racism and the inability of blacks to gain parity with the majority due to systematic exclusion, formerly overt, today insidious.  Currently, blacks make up about 12% of the population.  The president of the United States, the present (and former) attorney general of the United States, the secretary of Transportation, the secretary of Homeland Security, the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the head of NASA are African American.  Twenty-one percent of the Postal Service employees are African-American; seventeen percent of the entire federal work force is black.  Seventy-eight percent of the NBA are African-American.  Sixty-seven percent of NFL players are black.  Sixteen percent of the teams have African-American head coaches; twenty-four percent of the teams have black general managers.  Has the definition of diversity become that overrepresentation in some areas (the Left's word, not mine) of African-Americans, based on percentages in the general population, is still diversity, while underrepresentation of blacks in the physics department at Caltech is proof of endemic racism?  Or does a physics professor enjoy more perks and money than a NFL general manager?

Academic Fascism.  Faculty leaders of the University of California consider certain statements racism and feel they should not be used in class.  They call it micro-aggression.  To them, micro-aggressive racist statements are:  "America is the land of opportunity."  That is seen as perpetuating the myth of meritocracy.  "There is only one race, the human race."  Such a statement is seen as denying the individual as a racial/cultural being.  "I believe the most qualified person should get the job."  That's "racist" because it gives the impression that "people of color are given extra unfair benefits because of their race."  These expressions don't exhaust the list of micro-aggressions.

Camera Saves Cop from Racial Hostility — Again.  To the list of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, Sam Dubose and the millions of other martyrs to white crime and violence, Garnet Coleman wants to add one more name:  His.  "He talked to me a like a child," Coleman said during the hearing.  "He was so rude and nasty.  When he found out I was a legislator he became more rude and nasty.  What I'm saying is that he treated me like a boy.  I want to be very clear about it."  This is familiar territory for Coleman, who gets lots of awards for accusing lots of people of racism.  But the cop's dash camera recorded a different story.  One that must interrupt, however briefly, Coleman's installation in the Black Victims Hall of Fame.

Black Skin Privilege: To Be Above the Law.  It is true that black Americans are not treated equally by the nation's police forces — far too often they are treated better than members of other races because police are quite properly terrified of being accused of race-based discrimination.  This preferential race-based treatment of African-Americans fuels violence and social media-driven reigns of terror.  It encourages today's race-baiting lynch mobs that troll the Internet to satisfy their unquenchable desire to be offended and outraged.  When the cranks and low-rent bigots of the so-called Black Lives Matter movement target an enemy, they get plenty of support from the media, and in many cases, from politicians.  Black liberation theology and critical race theory no doubt helped the nation get to this unfortunate place.

Disastrous Consequences of Lib Indoctrination from the 60s to Obama.  Due to black youths believing America is against them and cops routinely murder them, black mob attacks, rapes, and murders of innocent whites are on the rise.  Black looters feel entitled.  Social justice gives them the right to recoup what whitey/America stole from them.

Why White People Will Always Be Racists.  Now that South Carolina has taken down the Confederate flag flying on statehouse grounds, MSNBC is drumming the five whose state flags incorporate "Confederate themes." [...] They continue to prove liberals are never satisfied.  We fought the Civil War.  We ratified the Fourteenth Amendment.  We have the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  The civil-rights movement was a success.  Now, we have South Carolina pulling down the Confederate flag.  But it's still not enough.

The Declaration of Codependence.  You'd think the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage that advocates so desperately wanted would have brought about some semblance of closure or calm, at least temporarily, to those who celebrated it.  You'd be wrong.  Victimhood, which people used to fight against, is now a coveted position in society.  When that status is lifted, even in a way progressive advocates want, the threat of losing that sought-after position is met with a desperate scramble of reclamation.

Fiddling Away the Future.  In the wake of the Charleston murders, some people promote the false narrative that it's white racists who are the interracial murderers.  That's nonsense.  FBI crime victimization surveys show that blacks commit 80 percent of all interracial violent crime.  The bottom line is that even if white people were to become angels tomorrow, it would do nothing for the problems plaguing a large segment of the black community.  Illegitimacy, family breakdown, crime and fraudulent education are devastating problems, but they are not civil rights problems.  There is little or nothing that government or white people can do to solve these problems.  The solution lies with black people.

The Progressive Timeline.  Race is the most obvious big social issue which has been totally controlled by Progressives.  Since the 1950's, the Left has had a free hand in trying to[ ]make the races get along.  They even control the definition of "getting along."  Despite this, the last few years has been a non-stop campaign to "fix" race, as well as a cynical effort to cause a race war.  After the church shooting, every member of the Cult was out in the streets claiming nothing has changed since the last time a white guy killed a bunch of black people, which was fifty years ago.  Normal people would look at the near total absence of white on black crime in the South, relative to the bad old days, as an amazing development.  To the Left, this has not happened and it is still 1955.

The Last Thing the Left Wants is Racial Healing.  While the media was all abuzz over Obama using the "n" word, I was outraged over him accusing my country of being a nation filled with racists.  Folks, our president actually said racism is in our DNA and is passed on from generation to generation.  Dude, you're a black man whom white folks — because blacks are only 12% of the population — made leader of the free world two times.  Stop it with the "blacks are victims" nonsense.  Millennial blacks have never or rarely experience bona-fide racism.  So why are Obama and his fellow Leftists hell-bent on instilling racial paranoia and resentment against whites in millennial blacks?  The answer is simple:  this is how Democrats keep their monopoly of the black vote.  Instill in blacks that America is eternally racist and voting for Democrats is the only way to keep the haters which are the majority at bay.

Black Americans now see race relations as nation's most important problem.  While only 3 percent of black Americans ranked race relations as the most important problem facing the U.S. when asked at the beginning of 2014, by the end of the calendar year, that number had reached 15 percent and, halfway through 2015, remains at 13 percent, according to pollsters at Gallup.

NY Teacher Exam Thrown Out For Being Discriminatory.  At first glance, the city's second Liberal Arts and Science Test (LAST-2) seems fairly innocuous.  Unlike the unfair literacy tests of Jim Crow, LAST-2 was given to every teaching candidate in New York, and it was simply a test to make sure that teachers had a basic high school-level understanding of both the liberal arts and the sciences. [...] Nevertheless, this apparently neutral subject matter contained an insidious kernel of racism, because Hispanic and black applicants had a passage rate only 54 to 75 percent of the passage rate for whites.

Jimmy Carter: White Americans cling to 'feelings of superiority' toward minorities.  Former President Jimmy Carter told AARP Bulletin during a recent interview that many Americans hold "feelings of superiority" toward minorities.  Mr. Carter spoke on a range of subjects with the magazine, including campaign spending and lobbyists, but he made a point to say that the U.S. still is lacking in terms of safeguarding civil rights.  "The recent publicity about mistreatment of black people in the judicial and police realm has been a reminder that the dreams of the civil rights movement have not been realized. [...] Many Americans still have racist tendencies or feelings of superiority to people of color," Mr. Carter told AARP Bulletin, The Hill reported Thursday [6/4/2015].

The Editor says...
I guess I don't know what "the dreams of the civil rights movement" are or were.  I thought the civil rights movement was about blacks being required to sit in the back of the city bus, being confined to their own neighborhoods, and being badgered at the polls.  All that was eliminated decades ago, but President Carter seems to thing that nothing has improved since 1960.

Ills Of Blacks Due To Government, Not Racism.  Hustlers and people with little understanding want us to believe that today's black problems are the continuing result of a legacy of slavery, poverty and racial discrimination.  The fact is that most of the social pathology seen in poor black neighborhoods is entirely new in black history.

Further Racial Rancor from the FLOTUS.  [Scroll down]  Well, this year racial raconteur Michelle is ramping up the agitation rhetoric to a whole new level.  For instance, after visiting the New Museum in New York to talk about drinking more water, dropping in on the Terracotta Warriors Museum in China, frequenting the Metropolitan Museum of Art where, as honorary guest, she cut the ribbon for the opening of the Anna Wintour Costume Center and, in time, one day being memorialized in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, Michelle — who, by the way, is black — felt it was fitting to plant a seed in the heads African-American school children about being unwelcome at museums. [...] To rectify rampant gallery bias, Michelle challenged color-blind curators to grant children from minority communities free access to America's museums, because nothing screams long-overdue reparations like a free pass to the MOMA.

Black Leaders Showing Signs of Frustration With Mayor de Blasio.  Dozens of black ministers, justice reform advocates and civil rights activists and four black members of Congress gathered last Monday at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem to discuss a delicate matter:  What to do about Mayor Bill de Blasio.  Over the course of the morning meeting, attendees voiced a series of concerns:  Mr. de Blasio, some complained, seems to have lost his appetite for criminal justice reform. [...] Other participants grumbled that Mr. de Blasio and his staff have simply not done enough to communicate with black community leaders on issues like affordable housing.

The Editor says...
Why did this meeting about local government take place in a church?  Don't they have conference rooms at the City Hall?

Robert Woodson: If All Whites Moved Out of USA, How Would It Solve Inner-City Problems?  The solution to poverty begins in the neighborhoods and the people affected by it, says Robert Woodson, the founder and president of the Center for Neighborhood Enterprise.  "You always have to begin with a solution in mind," Woodson told CSPAN Tuesday morning in a discussion on poverty.  "I tell people, what is your solution?  If all whites tomorrow were to move to Canada and Europe, tell me how it would affect the black on black crime rate, how would it it affect the out-of-wedlock births, how would it affect the spread of AIDS?  How would it affect those issues?" he asked.

The Return of Obama's Hoax-Spreading Bitter Half.  At Tuskegee, FLOTUS traded her affable TV persona for the divisive social justice complainer we all came to know and loathe during her husband's first presidential campaign.  Obama's resurrected bitter half inspired the graduates by complaining about people complaining about her.  She complained about the "sting" of "daily slights" throughout her life and her poor, beleaguered husband's.  And then she complained.  And complained.  And complained some more.  She clucked at the "folks" (read: white folks) who allegedly "crossed the street in fear of their safety" at the sight of the Obamas.  She called out unnamed "clerks who kept a close eye on us in all those department stores."  She decried the racist "people at formal events who assumed we were the 'help.'"  (Funny, the only time I recall this happening in the Obama White House was when Valerie Jarrett mistook four-star Army Gen. Peter Chiarelli, who is white, for her waiter.  But I digress.)

One of the most pampered women in America complains about how tough her life is:
Michelle Obama Tells Black Grads That White People Make Life Tough.  Michelle Obama has made numerous racially-charged statements in the past, but none so atrocious as her commencement speech at Alabama's Tuskegee University on Saturday [5/9/2015].  The historically black school welcomed the First Lady's obscene comments, cheering as she implied over and over again that they will always judged by the color of their skin by their white colleagues.

Michelle Obama: Blacks have been 'frustrated and invisible' for 'decades'.  First Lady Michelle Obama urged students at Tuskegee University, a historically black university in Alabama, to remain involved in civic life during a time of tension regarding race relations across the country.  At the school's commencement address, the First Lady listed scenarios in which African-Americans feel they encounter systemic discrimination, such as "nagging worries that you're going to get stopped or pulled over for absolutely no reason."  She said those feelings are "real," but disengaging is not an option.  "I want to be very clear that those feelings are not an excuse to just throw up our hands and give up.  Not an excuse.  They are not an excuse to lose hope.  To succumb to feelings of despair and anger only means that in the end, we lose," Obama said.

The Editor says...
Her husband the President is black, the black Attorney General was just replaced with another black AG, the head of Homeland Security is black, etc., yet Michelle still looks forward to the day when the shtruggle will be over and blacks will be free to walk the shtreets.

The Four Horsemen of the Education Apocalypse.  America watches in horror as ravaging mobs of young, mostly black, people tear through American towns burning cars and businesses, looting and vandalizing, screaming obscenities and mindless chants.  Our president blames slavery — gone now for over 150 years, blacks blame the cops, journalists blame poverty, but so far no one has blamed the educational system.  If you spend between 12 and 16 years telling kids:
  •   that they are victims of gross unfairness,
  •   that they have no hope unless somebody else fixes things for them,
  •   that the system is rigged against them,
then you shouldn't be astounded when they blow up.

Professor: If You Read To Your Kids, You're 'Unfairly Disadvantaging' Others.  According to a professor at the University of Warwick in England, parents who read to their kids should be thinking about how they're "unfairly disadvantaging other people's children" by doing so.  In an interview with ABC Radio last week, philosopher and professor Adam Swift said that since "bedtime stories activities ... do indeed foster and produce ... [desired] familial relationship goods," he wouldn't want to ban them, but that parents who "engage in bedtime-stories activities" should definitely at least feel kinda bad about it sometimes.

Social Justice Sociologist Denounces "Bedtime Reading Privilege".  The difference between a lunatic and a liberal egalitarian sociologist is that the latter has tenure and visiting professorships at Harvard.  As the frontier of social justice continually expands, like a balloon filled with stale toxic gases, it has become time to investigate the privilege enjoyed by children whose parents read to them at night, instead of smoking crack over their beds.

Michelle Obama: Museums Don't Make Young Minorities Feel Welcome.  Are art museums welcoming enough to minorities?  While it's probably a question that never occurred to you since, if you are so inclined, you simply pay the admission and enter, it it apparently a pressing issue to some people.  One of those people to whom this though has occurred is first lady Michelle Obama.  At the opening of the new $420 million Whitney Museum in New York City, the first lady spoke of a "feeling of not belonging" in museums when she was a growing up on the south side of Chicago.

The Editor says...
A visit to a museum of art or natural history is an occasion where one is expected to "act white."  Silence, orderliness, decorum, and a quiet, contemplative atmosphere are expected.  Loud music, larceny, drinking, smoking, sleeping, eating, cursing, spitting on the floor, groping, screeching and cackling are discouraged.  It's a museum, after all, not the city bus.  So it's true that certain people do not belong in a museum.  You wouldn't like the museum anyhow, if you have a compulsive need to have an interactive video screen in your face at every waking moment.  Being welcome everywhere you go is not a right.

The very next day, this article hit the news wires:
Guggenheim accused of racism after high school kids are booted.  The Upper East Side museum banned a Brooklyn high school for life after its students were deemed too rowdy on a recent visit — a move that some call discipline and others discrimination.  A group of about 80 kids from Downtown Brooklyn's Science Skills Center HS were kicked out after just 20 minutes after a student allegedly spat off the museum's swirling rotunda lobby and another threw a penny off its winding walkway.  The coin was rumored to have hit a security guard.  It was only a handful of troublemakers, but the whole group of ninth- and 10-graders got the boot, with the museum forcing them to wait outside for an hour for their bus to arrive.

Banning Unruly Students from an Art Museum is Now Deemed Racist.  Guggenheim museum accused of racism after 'banning mostly-black high school for life' because kids 'spat and threw pennies from a staircase.'  It's better to let the kids do their wilding in the museum, and risk a multi-million dollar painting being ruined, than to be charged with racism.

Contra the First Lady, America's Museums Aren't Institutionally Racist.  The dedication of New York City's new Whitney Museum — a $420 million, nine-story behemoth, under construction in Manhattan's meatpacking district for the past five years — was an occasion for celebration.  Leave it to an Obama to employ the occasion for racial scolding.

Dem lawmaker: Unrest comes from 'affluent' trying to keep control.  Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) said Thursday [4/30/2015] that the riots and blight in West Baltimore are a result of "the affluent" using the justice system to keep "control" over the poor and working classes.  "Excessive police force and staggering unemployment work together because what we've done in the United States is that we've said that the affluent part of our society is going to demand more tax breaks, more wealth, more privilege, leaving less for the less fortunate," he said during an interview on CNN's "New Day."

Four cases, four different stories.  Four times in three years, three white police officers (and one Hispanic watch captain, rebranded as 'white' by the Paper of Record) were accused of tracking down and killing black men on purpose, a recurring theme of an epidemic of violence, recalling the worst of Jim Crow.  But it turned out that the four cases were all very different, with the assumed role of race in each instance ranging from low or nonexistent to shockingly high.

Army Soldiers Sit Through 'White Privilege' Presentation — and the Backlash Isn't Pretty.  The U.S. Army is investigating an unauthorized diversity training presentation on "white privilege" shown to hundreds of Georgia soldiers, USA Today reported [4/3/2015], citing an Army spokeswoman.  The Equal Opportunity training presentation was shown to about 400 soldiers of the 67th Signal Battalion at Fort Gordon on Thursday, according to Captain Lindsay Roman.  The portion of the program involved a slide projected on a screen entitled "The Luxury of Obliviousness," which listed elements of "white privilege."

Feds Consider Puerto Ricans Disabled Because They Speak Spanish.  The Social Security Administration (SSA) approved disability benefits for hundreds of Puerto Ricans because they do not speak English, despite the fact that Puerto Rico is a predominantly Spanish-speaking territory.  According to a new audit by the Office of Inspector General (OIG), the agency is misapplying rules that are intended to provide financial assistance to individuals who are illiterate or cannot speak English in the United States.  Under the rules, Puerto Ricans are allowed to receive disability benefits for their inability to speak English as well.

Native Hawaiians Arrested in Protests of Massive Telescope.  After days of blockading the road to prevent construction machinery from reaching the summit, thirty-one out of about 300 protesters against the $1.4 billion Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) in the Mauna Kea Conservation District on the Big Island of Hawaii were arrested by the Hawaii Police Department and officers of the Department of Land and Natural Resources. [...] Native Hawaiian protestors hope to reach the Supreme Court and worry that beginning construction before the courts reach resolution will cause irreparable harm to the environment and to Native Hawaiian ancestral graves and sacred places.

Strains of 'Dixie' brings complaint at WBTV.  Management held meetings this week in the WBTV newsroom to address staff concerns about racial sensitivity.  On Wednesday morning [3/11/2015], a photographer was heard whistling in the newsroom the folk tune "Dixie," whose origins date to the blackface minstrel shows of the 1850s before becoming an anthem for Southern forces in the Civil War.  Several African American staffers were in earshot.  On Thursday, two meetings were held with staffers and WBTV general manager Nick Simonette and news director Dennis Milligan.  "We wanted the staff to know that we don't tolerate things in the workplace that make people uncomfortable," Milligan said.

If You're Reading This, You're Racist.  There is nothing too petty for progressives to racialize. [...] Sweden's birdwatchers have already gotten in trouble for racially insensitive names like the Hottentot bird.  Meanwhile diversity promoters in American birdwatching claim that minorities won't join because they're afraid of being attacked by militias and the KKK.  National Park Service Deputy Director Mickey Fearn had claimed that black people don't want to visit national parks because of slavery and lynchings.  He also suggested that national parks should check their white privilege because, "Preserving wild places is a white concept, going back to Rome."

Obama: 'We're the Slaves Who Built the White House'.  President Obama, speaking today [3/7/2015] in Selma on the 50th anniversary of the historical Bloody Sunday march:  [Video clip]

Threats to Voting Rights Remain, Selma Gathering Is Told.  [Eric] Holder spoke at ceremonies before veterans of the civil rights era and ordinary citizens who gathered here [3/8/2015] for a commemorative march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge to mark the 50th anniversary of a violent confrontation between the police and protesters that led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act.  "It has been clear in recent years that fair and free access to the franchise is still, in some areas, under siege," said Mr. Holder, speaking at Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church.

Celebrating Grievance In Obama's Most-Racial America.  A community organizer becomes President. [...] But what happens when you elect a professional grievance advocate whose entire purpose was, and is, to promote grievance?  It is an impossible task to remove the issues of their ideological profession.  Even when you give such an ideologue everything they demand, the ideologue will only change the construct of the grievance.  In essence you cannot fill a void that refuses to be filled.

Perpetual Grievance: "queer theory" linked with illegal immigration.  The average illegal alien might be puzzled to see his situation analyzed under the rubric of "queer theory."  That confusion would only mean that he has not spent enough time in university circles, where such pairings spring naturally from the all-consuming campaign to magnify victimhood and denounce the American status quo.

Proper English Grammar Is Now Racist.  It seems like not a day goes by without my reading about some new absurdity.  I ran across an article written by some left-wing lunatic who purports to be an English teacher and who is part of what she calls the "social justice movement".  She writes for a blog called Everyday Feminist.  She claims that demanding that everyone speak proper English grammar is "grammar snobbery" and is oppressive and racist.  Why is it oppressive and racist?  Because the dictionary was written by a white supremacist, heteropatriarchal system.

Trigonometry is racist.  There is nothing that happens in these United States that will not be impugned as secret racism.  Nothing.

ACLU: Banning Obscene Rap at Parade Is Racist.  In an attempt to keep the upcoming annual Mardi Gras parade family-friendly, the St. Martinville, LA police have asked participants to refrain from playing rap music with vulgar lyrics. [...] In an increasingly coarse culture created by the ACLU's destruction of minimal public decency standards, it would be no wonder that nothing could possibly be considered offensive, even at an event where hundreds of children are present.

Manufacturing Outrage.  The most disgraceful use of this strategy has been the deliberate stoking of black rage against whites.  Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown became martyrs not perpetrators.  Al Sharpton was anointed healer-in-chief and Obama's point man on race (the arsonist becomes the fire department chief — such are the perversions Barack Obama has inflicted on America).  Barack Obama has fanned the flames by comments such as "racism is deeply rooted in American society" and his Attorney General Eric Holder has race-baited throughout his tenure, routinely claiming civil rights violations at the height of the strife triggered by the deaths of Martin and Brown — and routinely being frustrated by the facts.  Joe Biden told a black audience that "Republicans are "going to put y'all back in chains." [...] And so it has been throughout Obama's presidency.  He has never missed an opportunity to manufacture outrage.

Obama's Political Prayer.  [Scroll down]  He was scolding us in advance, not for what we had done but for what it was clear to him, in his wisdom, that we were thinking about doing.  Yet if his goal had been merely to rub out all rage and bitterness against ISIS as if it were a cigarette butt to be casually flipped to the ground and squashed by the presidential foot, he wouldn't have achieved half the offensiveness he actually managed.  For the president had no interest in claiming his own share in the guilt of the Inquisitors; his goal was to demonstrate his long heritage of victimhood and show off his moral superiority.  He explained that the Inquisition had led via slavery right to Jim Crow; and where Jim Crow is concerned, he embodies all suffering victims (not that he actually has any ancestors who were slaves).

Obama to host 'Selma' screening at WH.  President Obama is hosting the cast and crew of "Selma" for a screening of the movie at the White House on Friday [1/16/2015].  The film about the landmark 1965 voting rights march stars David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King Jr., and received an Academy Award nod for Best Picture when nominations were announced Thursday.  But Oyelowo was shut out of the Oscars' Best Actor category, which many critics called a "snub."  Others noted that Oscar nominees in every top acting category were white.

The Editor says...
A nomination is now a civil right, I suppose.

Night Thoughts.  Now and then, I think back to why I rejected the Left, many years ago — when I was in college.  One of the reasons was, they always kept the racial pot boiling.  They would never let the pot cool off.  It seemed to me they did not want racial harmony.  They preferred strife, regarding it as more "authentic" or something.  Harmony was for Toms.

To progressive politicians the Blue Line is the enemy.  The seeds of dissent planted along the path to anarchy is called "Racial Profiling".  Google "Racial Profiling" to see for yourself how hatred of the Blue Line originally came to North America, and indeed elsewhere.  It is racial profiling whose so called statistics are incessantly reported by a propaganda press that manage to convince whole communities that police deliberately pull young blacks off the roads for traffic infractions because of their skin colour.

America Is Among Least Racist Countries In The World.  With all the recent race clanging on MSNBC and other cable news networks, now's probably a good time to remind everyone that America is among the least racist countries in the world.  I know this statement will be shocking news to regular viewers of "PoliticsNation," but it also has the quality of being true.

Twice elected, first black president sees U.S. still mired in racism.  More than 132 million Americans invested their vote to elect — and reelect — Barack Obama as the nation's first black president.  But that president now says he's convinced the country remains mired in racism.

Ferguson in Black and White.  "We're talking about the exception here," contended Giuliani, regarding the shooting in Ferguson.  The real issue is "the fact that 93 percent of (murdered) blacks in America are killed by other blacks," Giuliani asserted.  "I would like to see the attention paid to that, that you are paying to this."  About the complaint of heavy police presence in black communities, Giuliani said "white police officers wouldn't be there if you weren't killing each other 70 to 75 percent of the time."

The death of this de facto martyr was mostly his own fault.
Blame only the man who tragically decided to resist.  Eric Garner was a career petty criminal who'd experienced dozens of arrests, but had learned nothing from them.  He was on the street July 17, selling untaxed cigarettes one at a time — which, as inconsequential as it seems, happens to be a crime.  Yet another arrest was under way when, suddenly, Garner balked.  "This ends here," he shouted — as it turned out, tragically prophetic words — as he began struggling with the arresting officer.  Again, this was a bad decision.  Garner suffered from a range of medical ailments — advanced diabetes, plus heart disease and asthma so severe that either malady might have killed him, it was said at the time.  Still, he fought — and at one point during the struggle, a cop wrapped his arm around Garner's neck.

The last stand of the old line civil rights establishment: Ferguson as Selma.  We are still feeling the effects of Selma today.  And now, the old-line civil rights establishment is attempting to channel Selma into Ferguson.  We have the marches, the demonstrations[,] the attempt to cast the police as the villains, oppressing the black citizens.  We're told, against all the facts[,] that the cops shoot innocent, and defenseless young black men.  They're stopped (and frisked) by the police, just as 50 years ago a young black man would get stopped, and beaten, for walking in the wrong part of town, or drinking from the wrong fountain, or sitting in the front of the bus.  The black leadership in this country wants to "go back to the future" and tell us that nothing has changed.  America is still rotten, still evil, still oppressing its poor.  It is the sole rational for their existence, to perpetuate the big lie.

Please Don't Take Away My Oppression!.  As one egregious incident of racial oppression after another turns out to be imaginary — the Duke lacrosse players didn't rape Crystal Magnum, George Zimmerman didn't murder Trayvon Martin, Darren Wilson didn't murder Michael Brown — the purveyors of the racism narrative are getting desperate. [...] America is the least racist multi-cultural society since the Roman empire.  There's really never been anywhere on earth where so many different peoples live together so well.  The trouble that besets us is not white against black, and it's not black against white either.  It's the left against liberty.

Is Obama locked in a victim mentality?  True victims can't surge out of anything, because they are hostage to forces outside their control.  They await justice and restitution.  They don't, ultimately, see themselves as able to stamp out poverty; they see themselves as the rightful recipients of food stamps.  They don't, ultimately, see themselves as able to take control of their health; they see themselves as the rightful recipients of free health insurance.  They don't, ultimately, see themselves as someone worth hiring and worthy of investing themselves with education and training; they see themselves as worthy of 99 weeks of unemployment checks.

The Fairytale of the Victimhood.  [Scroll down]  This point of view is bolstered by journalists who write things such as "80 percent of the traffic violations in this town are waged against Black people" while neglecting to tell you that 90 percent of the town's population is Black.  Or when they report that "2/3 of all suspensions are of Black children" while neglecting to mention that the school might be 78 percent black and 22 percent Hispanic.  The reality is that in many of the inner city public schools, there are little to no white children to suspend.  There is no mention of personal responsibility, familial responsibility or objectivity.  Such is the culture of victim-hood.

Forget Slavery: Too Uncle Tom Even for Conservatives?  Is racism alive and well in America?  Absolutely, on both sides.  People have a variety of prejudices.  Is racial prejudice in America prevalent enough to stop anyone from achieving?  No.  The Bible says "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he."  Wow, what a powerful truth, able to empower or destroy you.  If you see yourself as a victim, you are.  But, if you see yourself powerful and free, you are.

Brown Revealed to Have Charged Wilson; MSNBC Declares the Word Charge to Be Racist.  The grand jury found that Darren Wilson was justified in shooting Michael Brown in part because forensic evidence and eyewitness accounts reveal that the oversized maniac was charging him. Liberals respond as you might expect:  by barking that the word charge is racist.

Get Ready for the Super Bowl of Outrage in Ferguson.  Many of those on the streets of Ferguson, Mo., have legitimate concerns about police conduct and the possibility of wrongful force regarding Officer Darren Wilson's fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown.  Unfortunately, Ferguson also has become a huge electromagnet for professional protesters who bounce from one focus of fury to the next.

Judge Rejects the 'Disparate Impact' Fraud.  Labor Secretary Thomas Perez, who is on the American left's short list for replacing U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, was informed by Judge Richard J. Leon that his effort to find housing discrimination where none existed amounted to "wishful thinking on steroids."  Perez sought to apply the policy of "disparate impact" to housing.  Judicial Watch explains this contemptible concept.  "Under the theory of 'disparate impact,' a defendant can be held liable for discrimination for a race-neutral policy that statistically disadvantages a specific minority group even if that negative 'impact' was neither foreseen nor intended," they write.  "In such cases, defendants can be forced to pay for harm caused not by their own actions, but by economic and statistical realities, even if beyond their control."  Leon wasn't buying it.

NAACP: Tillis won because of voter law, not policies.  Republican state House Speaker Thom Tillis was elected to the U.S. Senate on Tuesday not because North Carolinians support his policies but because of changes to state voting laws that affected who cast ballots, the NAACP said Thursday [11/6/2014].  Tillis defeated Democratic U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan 49 to 47 percent, or about 48,500 votes out of almost 2.9 million votes cast statewide, according to unofficial results.

Rangel to CNN: Southern GOP Still Believes in Slavery, Wins Through Racism.  Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) is doubling down on his belief that southern Republicans still believe in slavery and think the Confederates won the Civil War, implying that the Democrats' major senatorial losses came as a result of racism.  Rangel made the initial comments last week at a rally for incumbent New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Ebola and American Racism.  "It's really interesting how when Ebola was common in Africa, nobody cared about it, but now that it's common in white countries, there is a vaccine and a cure."  The student who said this to me is a good student.  He is intelligent, hard-working, courteous, and curious about the world.  We were conversing on an American university campus in mid-October 2014, during the worst Ebola outbreak in history.  I responded to this student, "Ebola has never been common in Africa.  The death toll is in the thousands, not the millions.  Ebola is not common in white countries.  There is no vaccine.  There is no cure.  There are lots of incurable diseases that strike lots of white people."

Multiculturalism Kills.  On Anderson Cooper 360 last week CNN's Ebola expert David Quammen — Yale grad, Rhodes scholar — struck the perfect multicultural note.  With the fury of a Puritan divine, he scolded those who want to ban commercial travel to West Africa.  "How dare we turn our backs on Liberia," said Quammen, "given the fact that this is a country that was founded in the 1820s, 1830s because of American slavery.  We have a responsibility to stay connected to them and help them see this through."  Quammen was merely saying out loud what the multiculturalists in the Obama administration, the president included, have been thinking: America has become rich by oppressing the people of color.  We owe them, even at the cost of American dollars and American lives.  In the empty-headed patois of the movement, we must "check our privilege."

Philadelphia Mayor: Young Black Men Are Not Responsible For Their Actions.  Michael Nutter is the mayor of Philadelphia and... well, a nutter, which is Brit-slang for a crazy person.  Hey, at least he has that "truth in labeling" thing going for him. He penned a piece for the Huffington Post today in which he "exposes" myths that are keeping young black men from succeeding.  Not only doesn't he disprove any myths, he essentially says that black men are not responsible for their own actions and their only saving grace is massive government intervention.  Like I said: a nutter.  I think it's safe to assume that the Honorable Mr. Nutter is not a member of the GOP based on his premise that a racist society is keeping black men down and the only fixes are more spending by the government.

Teddy Bears and Anti-White Ethnic Studies.  The California school district of El Rancho is dropping its geography requirement and replacing geography with an ethnic studies requirement.  As nearly everyone understands by now, ethnic studies programs amount to government-funded racial polarization. [...] As one brave teacher described the ethnic studies program he was part of:  "The basic theme of the curriculum was that Mexican-Americans were and continue to be victims of a racist American society driven by the interests of middle and upper-class whites."  These programs are problem enough already, and now a legitimate educational subject is being pushed aside in favor of ethnic separatism.

Teaching American Students They're Victims Is A Grave Disservice.  Goddard College's recent decision to have its students addressed from prison by a convicted cop killer is just one of many unbelievably irresponsible self-indulgences by "educators" in our schools and colleges.  Such "educators" teach minorities born with an incredibly valuable windfall gain — American citizenship — that they are victims who have a grievance against people today who have done nothing to them, because of what other people did in other times.  If those individuals who feel aggrieved could sell their American citizenship to eager buyers from around the world and leave, everybody would probably be better off.

Duncan Family Plays the Race Card After Ebola Patient Zero Dies.  Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who lied on his exit forms and brought Ebola to the United States, died today.  It took less than half a day for his family to come out and blame racism for Duncan's death.

Poll: Majority of Blacks Believe There Would Be Ebola Cure if Outbreak Originated in US or Europe.  Nearly six in ten black Americans (59 percent) believe that there would already be a cure for the deadly Ebola virus had it originated in Europe or America.  A YouGov/Economist poll also found that 62 percent of Americans think "more would have been done" to combat Ebola had it not originated in West Africa.

In Ferguson, and elsewhere, the media clings to predetermined conclusions.  Some examples:  Ferguson's population is two-thirds black, but five of its six city council members are white, as is its mayor.  Conclusion:  this racial composition must be the product of racism.  Never mind that blacks barely turn out to vote and field practically no candidates.  Never mind that the mayor ran for a second term unopposed.  Is there a record of Ferguson's supposed white power structure suppressing the black vote?  None has been alleged.  Did the rioters even know who their mayor and city council representatives were?  The press didn't bother to ask.  But this "problem" is disturbingly widespread, in the media's eyes.

Are bird-watchers racist?  In Colorful World of Birding Has Conspicuous Lack of People of Color, author Martha Hamilton engages in hand-wringing and navel-gazing over the relative lack of "people of color" (as opposed to the colorless majority) out looking for exotic avian life. [...] The horror!  If people do not do every recreational activity in exactly the same proportions, we are suffering from racism.  For some reason, people who claim to "celebrate diversity" want every group to behave exactly the same.  And we know who is at fault.

The Daily Caller Presents The Alphabet Of Racism: The Letter 'E'.  Ending racism is racist, declared Justice Sonia Sotomayor in a dissenting opinion after the Supreme Court ruled the feds can't force the state of Michigan to engage in racial discrimination.  Michigan had passed a proposal mandating race-neutral state policy, which effectively banned affirmative action in that state.  But Sotomayor complained Michigan's decision to ban a racist policy was itself racist, because it "changed the basic rules of the political process in that State in a manner that uniquely disadvantaged racial minorities."  If you or a loved one talked about Barack Obama's lack of experience as a presidential candidate (and you're white), you're almost certainly racist, because "experienced" is apparently a racial code word.

The concept is simple:  If you don't pay your water bill, the city turns off your service.
NAACP Legal Defense Fund: Detroit Water Service Shutoffs Were Racially Motivated.  After a class action lawsuit filed against the city of Detroit, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund says that recent water shutoffs to Detroit residents were racially motivated.  Veronica Joice with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund says, "That (the shutoffs are) being done in a discriminatory fashion; and they should at least take a look at whether there's a better way to do this that doesn't affect the most vulnerable citizens — the majority of whom are African American here in Detroit."

Federal complaint says N.C. hog farms hurt minorities.  A federal complaint says North Carolina's regulation of hog farms discriminates against minorities who, disproportionately, endure strong odors and contaminated water.  Three groups filed a complaint Wednesday that asks the Environmental Protection Agency to investigate what they say are violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Washington and Lee University to remove Confederate flags following protests.  Washington and Lee University expressed regret Tuesday for the school's past ownership of slaves and promised to remove Confederate flags from the main chamber of its Lee Chapel after a group of black students protested that the historic Virginia school was unwelcoming to minorities.  President Kenneth P. Ruscio's announcement was a surprising move for the small, private liberal arts college in Lexington, which has long celebrated its Southern heritage.  Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee served as the university's president after the Civil War, his crypt is beneath the chapel, and the school has gingerly addressed its ties to the Confederacy and its having profited from the possession and sale of slaves.

NJ man sues Benjamin Moore over 'racially offensive' paint names.  A New Jersey man named Clinton Tucker is suing former employer Benjamin Moore, claiming discrimination regarding the paint company's colors "clinton brown" and "tucker chocolate."  Tucker, who identifies himself as an African-American man in the lawsuit filed in Essex County court in Newark, said he was hired in June 2011 in the digital marketing department but quickly found himself being discriminated against, according to a write-up of the filing on CourthouseNews.com.  Tucker is seeking damages for discrimination, retaliation and a hostile work environment, according to the suit.

Fired Black Employee Sues Paint Company Over Racist Paint Names.  A black man in New Jersey has filed a lawsuit against his former employer, Benjamin Moore Paints, which he says named one of its paint colors after him and then fired him when he complained.  Clinton Tucker, who managed online sales for Benjamin Moore, which is owned by the conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway, said that he was bothered by the names of several of the company's paint colors, "Clinton Brown," "Tucker Chocolate," and "Confederate Red."

The Editor says...
The minute you let the perpetually offended whiners take control of the dictionary and allow them to delete every word they find offensive, you open the door to Newspeak, as Orwell predicted in 1984.

Government Agency Scraps Employee Ratings To Avoid 'Discrimination'.  One government agency has decided that the results of employee ratings are too discriminatory, and eliminated the process entirely.  The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced on Monday [5/26/2014] that it will now award all employees the highest rating regardless of performance reviews.  The CFPB, which oversees transactions in the financial sector for the federal government, decided to no longer conduct employee reviews because there were just too many apparent "significant disparities" between the races, ages, and locations of its employees.  According to American Banker, this new policy is set to cost over $5 million dollars, as it will now pay employees as if they received the highest evaluation score.

The Editor says...
In other words, this is five million dollars that will be spent to appease the perpetually offended ("I didn't get a raise because I'm black!") and lower everyone's standards to rock bottom.

Attorney general says racial equality threatened in subtle ways.  Attorney General Eric Holder said on Saturday while public utterances of bigotry are roundly condemned in the United States racial discrimination persists in more subtle ways.

Michelle Obama tells students 'by some measures our schools are as segregated' as they were back then.  Segregation by force of law is no longer legally acceptable in America, but de facto segregation still plagues our schools and neighborhoods, First Lady Michelle Obama told a group of graduating students Friday night [5/16/2014].  The First Lady was expected to use the speech to celebrate about diversity in America.  Instead, she took racism head on, telling the Topeka, Kansas, seniors, 'by some measures, our schools are as segregated as they were back when Dr. King gave his final speech.'

Michelle Obama warns of resurgent school segregation.  In her prepared remarks, the first lady praised the legacy of that decision, Brown v. Board of Education, noting the diversity of the crowd before her.  But she also warned that the specter of school segregation is returning as people of different races cluster in separate communities, urging the graduates to continue striving for inclusion and mutual understanding.

The Editor says...
People of different races congregate together (for example, on Sunday morning) because they choose to, not because the government tells them to.  Voluntary segregation is also known as "freedom of association," and only leftist troublemakers like Mr. and Mrs. Obama think it is something to be eliminated.

What a non-minority won't dare say about racism, bigotry.  An email is floating around with comments allegedly from an unnamed Canadian:  "Only in America ...could people claim that the government still discriminates against black Americans when they have a black President, a black Attorney General and roughly 20% of the federal workforce is black while only 10% of the population is black, 40+% of all federal entitlements goes to black Americans — 3X the rate that go to whites, 5X the rate that go to Hispanics!"  Don't know who said it but it rings true.

Obama EPA Chief Regina McCarthy: Pollution holds African-Americans back.  Regina "Gina" McCarthy, President Obama's chief of the Environmental Protection Agency, has essentially called pollution a force of racism in the US, saying that pollution is "holding back millions of African-Americans."  McCarthy made even more strange comments at an April 24 appearance at Clark Atlanta University sponsored by the Hip Hop Caucus, [...] The EPA chief, who was appointed by Obama in July of last year, claimed that black students are the "most vulnerable to climate change" and they should become "champion climate justice advocates."  Turning pollution into an excuse to throw the race card, McCarthy claimed that stopping pollution is all about "equity" and that minorities have been "overburdened by pollution and environmental health hazards for far too long."

Black students disciplined at higher rates than whites at Wichita-area schools.  Black students at schools in Wichita and surrounding districts are disciplined at higher rates than their white peers, a trend that mirrors racial disparities throughout the country, according to the most comprehensive survey of school civil rights data in nearly 15 years.  The findings, part of an expansive survey of America's public schools by the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, shows that black students are more likely than whites to be suspended or expelled at middle and high schools in Wichita and most area districts.

Update:
Thugs Run L.A. Classrooms, Thanks To Obama Suspension Ban.  As we predicted, the Obama regime's anti-suspension policy is backfiring.  Los Angeles teachers complain unsuspended violent kids are intimidating them and effectively ruling their classrooms.

DOJ to spend $4.75M studying race.  The Justice Department will spend $4.75 million to create a center to collect racial data on police stops, searches and arrests in an effort to shine a light on a perceived bias against minorities. [...] In a video statement issued Monday afternoon [4/28/2014], Holder pointed to a recent study finding that roughly half of all black men in the United States are arrested at least once by age 23.  The same study found that black men were six times more likely to be arrested than white men in 2012.

Holder, Justice Department to collect police data to evaluate racial bias.  The Department of Justice will begin collecting law-enforcement data on stops, searches and arrests made in some U.S. cities to evaluate racial discrimination, Attorney General Eric Holder said in a video statement Monday [4/28/2014].  Mr. Holder said this initiative, funded by a $4.75 million federal grant, will help level the playing field for men of color and improve the relationship between African-Americans and the law-enforcement community.  Half of African-American men have been arrested at least once by age 23, and overall, black men were six times more likely to be imprisoned than white men in 2012, Mr. Holder said.

The Editor says...
If blacks are "six times more likely to be imprisoned than white men" it's either the result of a nationwide conspiracy that involves every cop, every District Attorney, every judge and every jury in the country, or it could be because, on a per capita basis, blacks commit six time as much crime as whites.  (Sources:  [1] [2] [3] [4] )  Mystery solved.  Where do I collect the $4.75 million dollars?

The Paranoid Madness of the Democratic Party.  The Democrat may no longer believe in God, the Constitution or even motherhood and apple pie, but he devoutly believes that somewhere out there Republicans are sitting in a sealed room and plotting to bring back the 50s.  And if not the 50s, then at least the early 60s.  The left accuses the right of being deeply paranoid.  Meanwhile the left is convinced that every Republican sneeze is a racial putdown of America's first black president since Bill Clinton.

Boehner blasts Eric Holder for claiming he and Obama are treated differently because they are black.  House Speaker John Boehner blasted Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday for suggesting that Republicans only attack him because he's black.  'There is no issue of race here,' he told a reporter during his weekly press briefing on Capitol Hill.  Holder went off-script Wednesday during a speech to Al Sharpton's National Action Network, slammed Republicans for consistently attacking him and Barack Obama because they are the first African-Americans to hold their jobs.  'What attorney general has ever had to deal with that kind of treatment?' he said, alluding to his status as the only African-American ever to hold that post.

Teacher 'White Privilege Conference': Whites Are Never Cured of Racism.  More details are emerging about what was presented at the "White Privilege Conference" held in Madison, Wisconsin, where tax money was spent to train teachers how to annihilate "white privilege" and "white supremacy" in American schools.  One session insisted that whites can never be cured of their permanent racist attitudes.

Preacher blames city's black violence on slavery.  Curiously, the [Wilmington, Delaware] city council was instrumental in killing a $250 million deal to privatize the Port of Wilmington last year.  The Port is losing $8 million a year but city officials and union leaders convinced the state to stop the deal because building a new port would somehow kill jobs.  And without jobs, there is violence.  As the city made its way to what would be record numbers for shootings — 154 shot and 18 dead are the final numbers for the 2013 — the city council found a new excuse in December.  It passed a resolution declaring that black violence in Wilmington was the result of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder brought on by slavery.

More about black violent crime.

The Big Topic on Campus: Racial 'Microaggressions'.  A tone-deaf inquiry into an Asian-American's ethnic origin.  Cringe-inducing praise for how articulate a black student is.  An unwanted conversation about a Latino's ability to speak English without an accent.  This is not exactly the language of traditional racism, but in an avalanche of blogs, student discourse, campus theater and academic papers, they all reflect the murky terrain of the social justice word dujour — microaggressions — used to describe the subtle ways that racial, ethnic, gender and other stereotypes can play out painfully in an increasingly diverse culture.

Black preschoolers more likely to face suspension.  The racial disparities in American education, from access to high-level classes and experienced teachers to discipline, were highlighted in a report released Friday [3/21/2014] by the Education Department's civil rights arm.

Thousands of preschool kids getting suspended.  Data to be released Friday by the Education Department's civil rights arm finds that black children represent about 18 percent of children enrolled in preschool programs in schools, but almost half of the students suspended more than once.

The Editor says...
Maybe the little bastards (in the literal sense) are getting suspended for misbehavior because they live in godless, fatherless households, usually with an assortment of half-siblings and a mother who uses the television as a babysitter and only has additional kids because it increases her welfare payments.  Prove me wrong.

Dartmouth Caves to Student Threats.  [Scroll down]  The initial student letter called for greater diversity in the faculty and post-doctoral program as well as an increase in enrollment for Black, Latino, and Native American students to 10 percent of the student population each.  The anonymous students also demanded that all students be required to take classes on "social justice" and "marginalization," that gender-neutral housing be available for all students, and that restrictions on the use of the term "illegal immigrants" be imposed.  In response to the demands for racial quotas, Dartmouth plans to allocate $1 million to hire faculty "who bring diverse perspectives to campus."  Another $30 million will also be spent to bring in more minorities for the post-doctorate program.

Finding Hate in All the Wrong Places.  Against my better judgment I took a look at the recent update of the despicable Southern Poverty Law Center's "hate map."  One of the groups I hadn't noticed before, listed as "anti-LGBT," was the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM).  I was unfamiliar with it so I looked it up; maybe it was a kook outfit like the Westboro "Baptist" "Church."  After all, just because the SPLC calls something a "hate group" doesn't mean it's not.  You won't be surprised to learn that C-FAM is a mainstream conservative group, devoted to keeping an eye on the antics of the U.N. and related transnational activist groups.

College to award annual Trayvon Martin Award for Social Justice.  The Providence College Black Studies Program e-mailed students, faculty, and administrators Tuesday to renew an award called the Trayvon Martin Award for Social Justice.  The award honors those who have shown leadership and commitment to "challenging and eliminating racism" and "empowering others to seek social justice," said the e-mail obtained by The Daily Caller.

Students unhappy about U-M's racial climate.  University of Michigan students plan to hold an all-night protest starting Tuesday over what they call low minority enrollment and inclusion on campus as school officials move forward with plans to boost racial diversity and increase black enrollment.

Student forced to apologize for emailing pic of Obama kicking a door, because RACISM.  [Scroll down]  What happened next is almost unbelievable:  Another student issued a formal complaint against Farnan for committing a "micro-aggression."  For those not up-to-date on the PC lexicon, "micro-aggression" is the latest phrase of choice for leftist radicals seeking to blame racism for common annoyances suffered by people of all races.  Minority activists at the University of Michigan, for example, have insisted that trivial slights, such as "Having your opinion second-guessed in a group assignment," are micro-aggressions that betray the campus as a hostile place for students of color.

Obsessive-Compulsive Racism and the Black Guilt Complex.  [Scroll down]  There are at least two other subtexts of the black guilt complex besides the ten-foot pole phenomenon evidenced by Joe.  There is guilt over black criminality and the collapse of the black family and the fact that some of the more prominent aspects of black popular culture are obscene, vulgar, and tedious.  And there is guilt over the African-American studies race grievance industry, which has abducted the minds of many gifted black people who would otherwise have done something useful with their lives.

The Politics of Race: "Perpetual Victimhood".  [Y]oung Trayvon Martin — although flagrantly brandished as an icon for civil rights — was an ordinary youth, evidently troubled and in need of care and guidance, like many other youths.  Here is some of what was revealed about Martin:  a photo in which he shows his gold teeth to the camera while pointing upwards his middle fingers; suspension from his school less than a month before his encounter with Zimmerman; texts and photos of firearms associated to Martin and a "U gotta gun?" text sent from his phone eight days before his death; texts referring to marijuana and photos that show him blowing smoke; texts and a video that suggest his involvement in organized fights.

A Challenge to Our Beliefs.  What do low-income whites in England and ghetto blacks in the United States have in common?  It cannot be simply low incomes, because children from other groups in the same low-income brackets outperform whites in England and outperform blacks in America.  What low-income whites in England and ghetto blacks in the United States have in common is a generations-long indoctrination in victimhood.  The political left in both countries has, for more than half a century, maintained a steady and loud drumbeat of claims that the deck is stacked against those at the bottom.  The American left uses race and the British left uses class, but the British left has been at it longer.

Blacks and Obama.  Obama's electoral success further confirms what I've often held:  The civil rights struggle in America is over, and it's won.  At one time, black Americans did not have the constitutional guarantees enjoyed by white Americans; now we do.  The fact that the civil rights struggle is over and won does not mean that there are not major problems confronting many members of the black community, but they are not civil rights problems and have little or nothing to do with racial discrimination.

No, Oprah, America isn't racist.  Oprah's pronouncement produced another "huh?" moment for me, considering the fact that it was millions of Americans that gave their colorblind eyes to her show for a quarter-century, famous enough to be interviewed by the BBC.  As communism wound down in the Soviet Union, President Reagan was asked whether he still considered it an evil empire.  "You are talking about another time, another era," he replied.  Oprah is still living in that other time and era in which people separated themselves from one another primarily on the basis of race — a real time to be sure — but one that is, for the most part, not our reality today.  That's especially so at the highest levels of politics and entertainment.

Oprah: Generations 'marinated' in racism will need to die out for discrimination to end across the world.  Oprah Winfrey has said racism is still a problem around the world and the only way for it to end is for generations of racists to die out. [...] The 59-year-old added that President Obama was treated with disrespect because of the color of his skin and said she feels fortunate to have been born after segregation ended in the U.S.

The war against achievement.  A friend recently sent me a link to an inspiring video about an upbeat young black man who was born without arms.  It showed him going to work — unlike the record number of people living on government payments for "disabilities" that are far less serious, if not fictitious. [...] The vision on which the all-encompassing and all-controlling welfare state was built is a vision of widespread helplessness, requiring ever more expanding big government.  Our "compassionate" statists would probably have wanted to take this young man without arms, early on, and put him in some government institution.  But to celebrate him in the mainstream media today would undermine a whole ideological vision of the world — and of the vast government bureaucracies built on that vision.

Black Mob Violence and Denial.  [Scroll down]  Here is a homework assignment.  Find a cop, active or retired.  Ask them the following question:  When you stop a black person in a car or on the street or in a home or anywhere in the course of your duties, how often do they say "You are only doing this because I am black"?

A Shocking Number.  It is an irony of history that waving the bloody shirt has in the Age of Obama become the Democrats' primary mode of discourse.  Oppose the Affordable Care Act?  Racism.  Like the Second Amendment?  Racism.  Black Barbie is on sale for half off, but white Barbie is full price?  Racism.  Black holes sucking the energy out of your quadrant?  Why single out the black ones?  Racism!  Waving the bloody shirt is not only about making an emotional appeal — it's a strategy for distraction.

The Bad Fruits of Race Hustling.  Some people try to explain how Asians and Asian Americans are able to succeed so well in education and in the economy by some special characteristics that they have.  But their success may also be due to what they do not have — namely "leaders" who tell them that the deck is so stacked against them that they cannot rise, at least not without depending on these "leaders."  Such leaders are like the people who said that the laws of aerodynamics showed that the bumblebee cannot fly.  Those who have believed these "leaders" have in fact stayed grounded, unlike the bumblebees.

Does Aaron Alexis Represent A New Breed of Killer?  Although many hoped that the election of Barack Obama would ameliorate black discontent, those paying attention were less optimistic.  In his 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father, Obama reveled in his own grievances, all of them either false or trivial.  Friendly Obama biographer David Remnick conceded that many of those slights were "novelistic contrivances," but if Obama "darkens the canvas" or "heightens whatever opportunity arises" to score a racial point, he did so, according to Remnick, "obviously" because he was going "after an emotional truth."

The Bad News Is Wrong.  Half a century ago, life was brutally oppressive for blacks in the South.  Today the South is the most attractive place for black Americans to live.

MLK Anniversary Speaker Compares Supreme Court Justices to KKK.  Melanie Campbell, the president of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, said though black Americans are not threatened by biting dogs and KKK members in white hoods, the "dogs are still biting in other ways" and there is still "racism and inequality."

We HAD A Dream.  If Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today, he'd cheer the great strides African-Americans have made since his 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech.  So why are his heirs so angry?  Hearing their down-in-the-mouth speeches commemorating the 50th anniversary of the march on Washington, you'd think there'd been little progress in equality and living standards for blacks.  Last Saturday's celebration quickly turned into a grievance-fest.

A Discussion On Race, Crime And The Inconvenient Facts.  The racial victimhood industry demonstrably cares little about the facts, for example, in cases such as Martin-Zimmerman. [...] It took zero lag-time after the original Trayvon Martin incident for race baiters such as Al Sharpton to accuse our country of engendering a climate of racist danger for black citizens.  This qualifies as anti-American slander of the first magnitude because the facts are to the contrary — if anyone still cares to know them.

Instead of celebrating progress, the blacks engage in a massive celebration of self-pity.
Thousands gather on Mall for March on Washington anniversary.  Tens of thousands of people descended on the national Mall on Saturday [8/24/2013] to rally for a litany of civil rights issues in an event organizers billed as a continuation of the March on Washington 50 years ago.

The Left's Faux Martyr.  The Left has a new martyr.  Rosanell Eaton is a 92-year-old black woman with a compelling story about the harm done to vulnerable people, especially members of minority groups, by North Carolina's new voter-ID law.  But none of it holds up.  Rosanell Eaton isn't a martyr at all, in fact.

Students go back to school with 'Trayvon Martin dialogues'.  Middle and high school students in San Diego, California will be encouraged to vent their frustration that the world lacks justice when they return to school and participate in the "Trayvon Martin dialogues" this fall. [...] The sponsors of San Diego's Trayvon Martin dialogues, however, believe the resolution of the case has produced in teenagers "feelings of fear, anger, and skepticism that they will live in a just society," according to The College Fix.

Racial Warfare.  Two months ago, President Obama declared again, that the War on Terror is over. [...] But there's one conflict that will truly never end, or more precisely, will never be allowed to end:  the perceived war of American racism.  In this conflict even though, for all intents and purposes, a kind of peace was reached years ago through constitutional amendments and numerous legislative acts, the battle rages in the hearts and minds of too many Americans.

Dem Lawmakers: Tighter Border Security Means More Illegal Immigrant Deaths.  Texas Democratic Congressmen Rubén Hinojosa and Beto O'Rourke are pushing back against efforts to further secure the U.S.-Mexico border, arguing that more migrants would die while illegally crossing the border into America.

'Justice for Trayvon' Protests Draw Small Crowds; Nation Moves On.  Nationwide rallies against the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin drew small crowds, a sign that Americans had largely accepted the verdict and that race relations are not nearly as frayed as Al Sharpton's National Action Network had sought to indicate.  The flagship rally in New York only drew a crowd of "hundreds," while a rally in Newport News, Virginia struggled to draw two dozen.

Birth of a Racist.  Use of racism to implement an agenda or get one's way, has been building over years.  This isn't news to any of you.  Anytime you fire someone who is a minority, you must have documentation backing up your non-racist justifications.  Even if you have pages and testimony to bolster your decision, you still could be confronted with an unpleasant lawsuit identifying you as a "discriminator."  Even though we are supposed to be a color-blind, post-racial society, groups and individuals force us to think about race all the time.

Cummings: 'I cross the street' when white women walk toward me.  Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Maryland, has been a member of Congress for almost two decades.  Yet when he is walking down the street in Washington, D.C., at night and white women walk toward him, he says "I cross the street" to avoid making them uncomfortable.

Obama Continues Racial Zimmerman Narrative While Hispanics Targeted.  Barack Obama continued to promote the evidence-free narrative that Trayvon Martin was racially profiled by Hispanic George Zimmerman in remarks made Friday.  The President said, "few African-American men in this country who haven't had the experience of being followed."

Let this be a lesson to us all:
The Election of a Black President has Meant Nothing.  The greatest hope most Americans — including Republicans — had when Barack Obama was elected president was that the election of a black person as the country's president would reduce, if not come close to eliminating, the racial tensions that have plagued America for generations.  This has not happened.  The election, and even the re-election, of a black man as president, in a country that is 87 percent non-black — a first in human history — has had no impact on what are called "racial tensions."

PC sentiment is the real injustice.  Do you remember when O.J. Simpson was let go after killing two people?  If you questioned that verdict, or the racial makeup of the jury — you were a racist.  Now a jury lets off a "white Hispanic," and if you're not out on the street complaining about it — you're a racist.

NAACP president Ben Jealous: These are 'times of great peril'.  Today's opening speeches of the NAACP's national convention in Orlando have become a rallying cry for action in Trayvon Martin's name.  NAACP president and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous told hundreds of attendees that although these are times of great possibility, they are also "times of great peril."  "We feel it every time we see one of our young sons... walk out the door and pull his hoodie up," said Jealous.

The Editor says...
The rebuttal to Mr. Jealous has already been written by Jack Coleman:  "Then again, your teenage son, regardless of skin hue, is likely to live a longer, healthier life if he manages to avoid suspensions from school, dabbling in drugs, getting caught with jewelry and a burglary tool hidden in his backpack, and aspiring to gangstahood."

Black English and a Bad Saint Bernard.  If you ever want to get out of your neighborhood McDonald's or Walmart, it helps to speak English.  For a variety of reasons, whether we like it or not, speaking only Spanish in the United States seems less of an impediment to at least a modestly successful life than speaking "Black English." [...] But when so many young blacks refuse to speak English because they don't want to "seem white," it is difficult for whites to respond by saying "OK, you're hired."

Companies Sued For Trying To Avoid Hiring Convicts.  In 1963, the great civil rights leader Martin Luther King said it was his hope that black Americans would no longer be judged on their color of their skin, but on the content of their character.  Fifty years later, the Obama administration's Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says King got it wrong.  The EEOC launched two lawsuits against private companies this week over their use of criminal background checks, claiming that in rejecting applicants with proven criminal records, they somehow discriminated against minorities under a disparate impact clause in their guidelines.

Employment Checks Fuel Race Complaints.  In complaints filed in federal courts in Illinois and South Carolina, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said two companies discount retailer Dollar General Corp. and a U.S. unit of German auto maker BMW AG generally barred potential employees based on the criminal checks, when they should have reviewed each applicant.  The commission said the policies had the effect of discriminating against black applicants.  The suits underscore increasing government scrutiny of criminal and credit checks, which are widely used to screen job applicants.

The War on Pot Is Both Insanely Racist and Insanely Expensive, New Report Says.  Across the United States — north, east, south, west — blacks are more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana possession.  That's the conclusion of a new ACLU report that compares arrest data from 945 counties across the country.

The Editor says...
That doesn't necessarily prove unfair enforcement.  Maybe blacks like marijuana more than whites.

Louisiana legislator claimed Obamacare opposition is motivated by race.  Karen Carter Peterson, who also chairs the Louisiana Democratic Party, claimed Monday that opposition to Obamacare is 'about the race of this African-American president.'  'It's not about how many federal dollars we can receive.  It's not about that,' she told her fellow lawmakers.  'You ready?  It's about race.  No, nobody wants to talk about that.  It's about the race of this African-American president.'

The Editor says...
The Democratic Party platform is discussed on another page.  The primary goal of this particular Democrat, Ms. Peterson, seems to be the acquisition of federal dollars, as if federal dollars can be obtained at no cost.  The veneer of racism and perpetual victimhood doesn't help, either.

Louisiana Democratic Party chief says ObamaCare critics motivated by race.  The head of the Louisiana Democratic Party said on the floor of the state Senate this week that opponents of the federal health care overhaul are motivated by President Obama's race — a remark that drew the scorn of state Republicans who now want her to apologize.  State Sen. Karen Carter Peterson, who is also chairwoman of the state Democratic Party, repeatedly invoked race as she railed against ObamaCare critics.

Obama's Black lie to Black Graduates.  While delivering the commencement speech at historically black Morehouse College, President Obama predictably utilized "victimology 101" to access the inner victim that presumably exists inside all black Americans.  He disingenuously reminded the all-male graduates, "As an African American, you have to work twice as hard as anyone else if you want to get by."  Unsurprisingly, this underhanded insinuation that racism is so pervasive that no amount of individual effort will overcome it received a thunderous ovation, even though this recycled notion has the legitimacy of a three-dollar bill.

Don't be afraid to call evil by its name.  There is always someone, somewhere looking for a reason to be offended.  Jesse Jackson has fashioned a lucrative career out of being perpetually peeved.  It works if you know how to play the game.  And one of the reasons it works is that too many people who ought to know better allow themselves to be characterized as racists, xenophobes, homophobes, anti-Semites; it's a long list.

A doctor is accused of mass murder, so naturally he plays the race card.
Defense Attorney: Prosecution of Gosnell is 'Elitist, Racist'.  Defense lawyer Jack McMahon delivered his closing argument on behalf of abortionist Kermit Gosnell on Monday, [4/29/2013] accusing prosecutors of "manipulating" the case to engage in an essentially "racist" prosecution of the man charged with four counts of first-degree murder, killing babies born alive during abortions by snipping their spinal cords with surgical scissors.

Boom: Gosnell Attorney Says Doctor Targeted Because He's Black.  In a move displaying the desperation the defense must feel, Kermit Gosnell's attorney blamed his prosecution on racism in his closing arguments today repeating the charge he made during opening arguments.

Study: Black students suspended more often than others.  Black students are suspended more than three times as often as their white classmates, twice as often as their Latino classmates and more than 10 times as often as their Asian classmates in middle and high schools nationwide, a new study shows.  The average American secondary student has an 11% chance of being suspended in a single school year, according to the study from the University of California-Los Angeles Civil Rights project.  However, if that student is black, the odds of suspension jump to 24%.

The Editor says...
These statistics are not surprising at all.  Asian students are taught at home in their two parent households to behave themselves.  If teachers weren't afraid to discipline black students, the percentage of black students suspended would be a lot higher.  Statistics like these are intended to portray blacks as victims, but the main cause of this problem is fatherlessness, not irrational prejudice.  It also doesn't help to have racial opportinists like Jesse Jackson drumming up self-pity by having crowds of young people chant, "I am somebody! when in most cases that's not true.  Many of the same people who get suspended in school go on to prison later in life — for the same reasons:  Fatherlessness, godlessness, peer pressure, and years of faulty decision making.

White and Wrong in Philly.  [Robert] Huber's article contains mostly tepid examples of whites' negative experiences with blacks and primarily black neighborhoods, such as a Philadelphia resident whose grill was stolen from her backyard but "blames herself" for not fencing it in.  Its tone is basically apologetic, absolving a drug dealer of responsibility because he was just "trying to get by" and describing the US' racial history as "horrible and daunting."  Yet this wasn't good enough for Mayor Michael Nutter and his comrades.  They still want Huber silenced.

Mayor Nutter Threatens Magazine with Criminal Charges for "White in Philly" Story.  Philly's Mayor Nutter is living up to his name.  And more troublingly his language quite clearly summons up the censorship used in countries such as Canada and the UK to suppress freedom of speech.  This isn't about the content of the article.  That's not even the point now.  It's about the mayor of a major city threatening a magazine without the usual Freedom of the Press types having much to say about it.

The Philadelphia Inquisition.  If Girard [College] is a monument to the city's racial progress, that makes it an odd place for the city government to launch a racial inquisition — an investigation of Philadelphia magazine for the crime of journalism.

The Power of Being "Offended" in Order to Shut Down Political Debate.  Progressives are increasingly claiming to be offended whenever those on the right disagree with their left-wing positions.  It doesn't matter what the issue is; the left will divert a legitimate political debate into an accusation that the right disagrees with them because they are full of hate towards them.

King of Fearmongers.  Cofounded in 1971 by Morris S. Dees Jr. and Joseph Levin Jr. (who is now general counsel), the SPLC [Southern Poverty Law Center] started out fighting legal battles against lingering segregation in the South.  More recently — and more lucratively, its critics say — it has transformed itself into an all-purpose antihate crusader, labeling 1,007 different organizations across America at last count as "anti-gay," "white nationalist," "anti-Muslim," "anti-immigrant," or just plain hateful (one SPLC category is "general hate").

All the president's (white) men.  Who'd have thought that the first African-American president would become the target of ... the Congressional Black Caucus?  In a letter to President Obama, caucus Chairwoman Marcia Fudge complained, "You have moved forward with new Cabinet appointments and yet, to date, none of them have been African-American."

Is the South Still Racist?  At issue in Shelby County v. Holder was whether some states in the American South, unlike many states in the North, must still submit any change in voting practices to the Justice Department for approval, as required by one section of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted, the practical enforcement of this provision is mainly directed at Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana.

Samuel Betances: Race Hustler on the Dole.  The Obama administration would have you believe trimming federal fat will cause a calamity.  Here's a suggestion — stop giving federal money to Samuel Betances.  Betances is the top-shelf race hustler who receives your hard-earned tax dollars to go inside federal agencies in Washington, D.C., and teach government workers that America is a racist country.  Judicial Watch obtained records of one of his looney talks at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.  It contained a creepy call and response that would have made the Symbionese Liberation Army proud.

Midtown teacher includes questions about slavery in elementary school math homework.  A furor over slavery has erupted at a Midtown elementary school, after a teacher handed out math homework that include questions asking kids to tally the killing and beating of slaves.  The shocking questions were given to at least one class of 9-year-olds at PS 59 in Manhattan — which included the kids of United Nations personnel.  The inflammatory queries were only uncovered after a student teacher was asked to hand them out to a second class.

Why Do We Still Have "Black History Month"?  Black History Month diametrically opposes the thrust of Dr. King's dream — but it helps to drag us into the sort of internal division that our current rulers love to exploit.

Obama to add 'taxation without representation' plates to limo this weekend.  "President Obama has lived in the District now for four years and has seen firsthand how patently unfair it is for working families in D.C. to work hard, raise children and pay taxes without having a vote in Congress," the White House said in a statement.  "Attaching these plates to the presidential vehicles demonstrates the president's commitment to the principle of full representation for the people of the District of Columbia and his willingness to fight for voting rights, home rule and budget autonomy for the District."

The Editor says...
My congresswoman doesn't appear to agree with me about anything; so in effect, I have no representative in Washington.  But that doesn't make it more difficult for me "to work hard, raise children and pay taxes".

Public School Teaches "White Privilege" Class.  A school district in Wisconsin said they will review a high school diversity class that exposed students to radical leftist thinkers and promoted a critical race theory that alleges white people are oppressors.  The "American Diversity" class was taught to students at Delavan-Darien High School in Wisconsin, Fox News has learned.  "They're teaching white guilt," one parent told Fox News.  "They're dividing the students.  They're saying to non-whites, 'You have been oppressed and you're still being oppressed.'"

20 Ways America Has Begun to Reap What It Has Sown.  [#9]  We celebrate victimhood; then we're surprised to see people faking hate crimes.

Obama's Struggle.  On the campaign trail, Michelle Obama often employs the word "struggle."  It was actually Mrs. Obama's peculiar pronunciation — "shtruggle" — that first drew my attention to the frequency of her usage.  At the 2012 Democratic National Convention, her speech referred to some form of "struggle" nine times.

If PB&J is racist, then we're toast.  Quite a few eyebrows were raised by a Portland, Oregon, report that found traces of racism in the classic peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  The study is aimed at uprooting the subtle ways schools foist majority viewpoints on minority students.  Its authors decided that telling children a PB&J sandwich is the quintessential American kids lunch sends a message of inferiority to students whose families hail from places where peanut butter and jelly comes on a pita or corn husk.  Extreme multicultural hoo-haw.  Yet Portland spent $526,000 to get that feedback.

Translation:  "Historically black college" means "all-black college."
Historically black colleges get $228 million in federal funds, including 15 schools in Alabama.  The U.S. Department of Education announced today [9/18/2012] that 97 historically black colleges will receive $227.9 million in federal funds as part of its annual Strengthening Historically Black Colleges and Universities grants.  Miles College President George French said there's a sense of relief after efforts to decrease federal funding across the board in the Department of Education.  "We're happy the funding levels were restored," said French.  "This is the second year we had to fight for funding.  It's still lower."

Where Does That Thirty Percent Come From?  A technician at my wife's office has made it well known up and down the corridors that she would file a "racial discrimination" suit if she were ever laid off for any reason.  Most offices have one of these.

Principal Sees Racism in Peanut Butter.  An Oregon grade school principal suggested in a newspaper interview that peanut butter and jelly sandwiches might be racially and culturally offensive.

Now Racist: Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwiches.  Via Twitchy with the sarcasm and such, a Portland educator wants you to ponder all the ethnonormative assumptions packed into your PB&J.  By the way, the Portland Tribune isn't snarky about this — they give this idiot the Bold Hero Slant.

NAACP Furthers the Mission of the KKK.  The mission of the KKK is to stifle black liberation via intimidation, which is exactly what the modern black civil rights coalition continues to do to blacks.  Both organizations despise self-starting, self-reliant, and free-thinking blacks.  The primary mission of the black civil rights coalition (NAACP/CBC) and the Democratic Party is to keep black Americans believing themselves eternal victims of an eternally racist white America.  Many blacks have been successfully indoctrinated into believing that every problem in the black community is the result of white oppression.

Thoughts on Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman.  [#1] For liberals, it is always 1962, and we are always in Mississippi. ... [#2] This incident, whatever you think of it, has nothing to do with the Civil Rights template.  The neighborhood where the incident happened is multiracial, only about 50% white.  The man who shot Martin, George Zimmerman, is a Hispanic who has African-American relatives and may himself be partly black.  He appears to be something of a nut, obsessively calling 911.  He evidently thinks that he is a some kind of neighborhood watchman, but he has no official capacity of any sort and is unknown to the national neighborhood watch organization.  Whatever he did, he did on his own, and not as part of some sort of movement or political faction.

MSNBC Guest: Would A White President Get Heckled?  "This is just so unprecedented and outrageous, that you have to ask the question, would the right-wing president be doing this if we had a white president there?", MSNBC guest and Democratic strategist Julian Epstein said on the channel this afternoon [6/15/2012].

The Editor says...
This hypersensitivity to race is the left's all-purpose weapon.  If you didn't vote for Obama, you're a racist.  If you oppose socialized medicine, you're a racist.  If you express a preference for some other candidate in the 2012 election, you're a racist.  And between now and the election, if you exhibit the slightest disagreement with Obama, or if you interrupt him when he's speaking, you're definitely a racist.  This can only lead to one long-lasting result:  Obama will be the last black president for decades to come, because the American people are sick of having the race card thrown out every time Obama's fragile ego is hurt.

What About the Kids Who Behave?  The Obama administration is waving around a new study showing that black school kids are "suspended, expelled, and arrested in school" at higher rates than white kids.  According to the report, which looked at 72,000 schools, black students comprise just 18% of those enrolled yet account for 46% of those suspended more than once and 39% of all expulsions. ... The data were compiled by the Education Department's civil rights office, which probably thinks that it's doing black people a favor by highlighting these racial disparities and pressuring schools to reduce black suspension rates.  No thought, it seems, was given to whether this course of action helps or harms those black kids who are in school to learn and not act up.

The Big Hoax.  The biggest hoax of the past two generations is still going strong — namely, the hoax that statistical differences in outcomes for different groups are due to the way other people treat those groups.  The latest example of this hoax is the joint crusade of the Department of Education and the Department of Justice against schools that discipline black males more often than other students. ... If black males get punished more often than Asian American females, does that mean that it is somebody else's fault?  That it is impossible that black males are behaving differently from Asian American females?  Nobody in his right mind believes that.  But that is the unspoken premise, without which the punishment statistics prove nothing about "equity."

The race card is a joker.  When I watch MSNBC and read plenty of liberal commentary online, I get the distinct feeling that I am not living in 21st century America, but in some imagined past where racism is still an all-pervasive, all-powerful bogeyman. ... MSNBC's white anchors seem to think they know more about race and racism than I do.  Their obsessed daily rants insist that almost everything the Republicans do is really about sending messages to white people about black people.

Black History Month: The Left's Favorite Time of the Year.  Alas, another Black History Month... or as the left likes to view it, their annual "Opportunity To Exploit Race Month."  It is the month in which liberals attempt to convince us that race relations in America have progressed very little since the days of police unleashing dogs on civil rights activists.  Rather than presenting a balanced, honest look at black history, leftist schoolteachers and the media say America is still racist and whites should feel eternally guilty.

Internet Access Is Not a Human Right.  Over the past few years, courts and parliaments in countries like France and Estonia have pronounced Internet access a human right.  But that argument, however well meaning, misses a larger point:  technology is an enabler of rights, not a right itself.  There is a high bar for something to be considered a human right.  Loosely put, it must be among the things we as humans need in order to lead healthy, meaningful lives, like freedom from torture or freedom of conscience.

Victimology and the Phony 'Digital Divide'.  [Scroll down]  Liberals want designated victim groups to be on a moral pedestal, immune from any criticism, while they blame "society" for their problems in life.  Black people are allowed to describe white people's motives, attitudes, behavior, and institutions, but non-blacks are not allowed to return the favor.  There is hypocrisy inherent in this rule of multicultural etiquette. ... There is an extraordinary sense of entitlement present in this attitude, which reserves for minorities the right to be seen as perpetual victims, while no one else is allowed to offer criticism of their never-ending state of victimhood.

'Internet access not a human right,' says 'Father of the Internet'.  "Internet access is not a human right," wrote Vinton Cerf in an OpEd in the New York Times on Thursday.  Cerf is a prominent computer scientist who worked on the DARPA project that gave rise to the Internet, and is revered as the "Father of the Internet."  Cerf, who wrote the piece in response to the United Nation's drive towards declaring Internet access a human right, is Google's Chief Internet Evangelist.  He argued that "technology is an enabler of rights, not a right itself."

There is a Martin Luther King Boulevard in every big city, and they're all dangerous places.
Quote of the day.  Instead of complaining about people avoiding a ghetto, how about fixing up the ghetto?  There is no sane reason for ghettos to exist.  School integration became the law of the land 57 years ago.  The end of job discrimination against blacks became the law 46 years ago.  Affirmative action came into being 40 years ago.  Trillions have been spent on programs designed to help the poor get out of poverty, or at least ease the pain.  And yet no one in their right mind would drive down any Martin Luther King Boulevard after dark?

Similarly...
Obama's Mean Streets: Crime wave on Obama Way, Barack Obama Boulevard.  A battery assault was reported to have occurred at 6:54 p.m. on the evening of February 22 in the 1600 block of Broadway Avenue, aka Obama Way, in Seaside, Calif.  The alleged assault comes on the heels of two reported thefts along Delmar Boulevard, aka Barack Obama Boulevard, in St. Louis, Mo.

Urban streets named for MLK still struggle.  A walk down the 6-mile city street named for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. yields plenty of images that would surely unsettle the civil rights leader:  shuttered storefronts, open-air drug markets and a glut of pawn shops, quickie check-cashing providers and liquor stores.

Beating the Racism Card.  For too long, too many blacks have wallowed in their own private sumps of self-pity, collapsing into whimpers every time somebody mentions blackmail, blackouts, or black markets.  It's a pathetic epilogue to the heroism and grandeur of the civil rights movement.  It's past time this adolescent posturing was put aside. ... The black grievance-hunters are no better than the Dixiecrats of old, using the same methods to keep Americans on edge, in fear, and overcome with anxiety.  Using racism for political gain is a cheap and coarse tactic no matter who is involved.  It needs to be ended.

Guinness: Samuel L. Jackson highest grossing actor of all time.  Samuel L. Jackson's movies have made more than $7.4 billion — making him the highest-grossing actor of all time, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

5 Reasons Black Americans Should Give Up On The Democratic Party.  [Scroll down]  The only thing any Democrat has to do is claim that his opponent is a racist and he's got 90 percent of the black vote locked up.  On the other hand, Republicans have absolutely no reason to pursue black voters because no matter what they do, they believe they're going to be branded as racist, and their opponents will collect 90% of the black vote.  Until black Americans start giving some indications that their votes are up for grabs, they will continue to be ignored by both parties.

Sorry, Your "Race Card" is Expired, Over-Limit, and Declined!.  Some black elected officials have been making some remarkable public statements.  The fact of the matter is that the race card is played because historically it worked.  Shouting "racist" ended the debate and sent the opposition scurrying for cover, despite the accusation being entirely unfounded.

Trumping the Race Card.  What does racial prejudice have to do with the debt ceiling debate?  For the average person the answer to this question isn't obvious.  But according to Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, it is the most salient factor that's shaping the debate.  Last Friday the congresswoman delivered a stunning speech on the House floor where she spuriously implied that Republican opposition to raising the debt limit stemmed from their virulent racism.

Woman says TSA hair search amounts to racial profiling.  An African-American woman is accusing the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) of racial profiling because her hair was searched at an airport security checkpoint.

Illinois commission would probe racial discrimination [against blacks].  The call for the commission stems from a report that showed blacks are disproportionately incarcerated for low-level, non-violent drug crimes than whites.

The Editor says...
In my opinion, the creation of this commission is itself an act of discrimination.

The End of an Idea — Why Affirmative Action Should Stop.  Is there a color-coded graph somewhere that says the darker one is, the more consideration one is due?  Apparently not — given that most East Asians and Arabs are not usually extended affirmative action status.  OK, but do third-generation affluent Japanese-Americans qualify for preferences on the rationale that their parents as children were interned in camps in the American West; or fifth-generation Chinese because their great-great-grandparents were treated horribly while building the transcontinental railroad?

This material came from akdart.comStatists and the Racial 'Health Gap'.  I often speculate that deep in the bowels of the Obama administration there exists an obscure office charged with inventing egalitarian schemes to increase American dependency on government.  Ignore the high-sounding "fairness" and "equality" rhetoric.  The President's minions just cannot stop pushing, even boldly lying until the last vestiges of limited government and individual initiative are history.

If this is the worst mistreatment you can complain about, then your life must be fairly comfortable.
Minorities hit hardest by iPhone tracking technology.  Friday on MSNBC's daytime programming, host Thomas Roberts explained that in the wake of revelations the iPhone tracks your movements with its operating software, minorities, specifically blacks and Latinos are most vulnerable, since they use their cell phones more than whites according to a Nielsen study.

Abusing the Voting Rights Act.  When the Voting Rights Act was enacted in 1965, Section 5 was supposed to be a temporary, emergency provision.  It prohibits certain jurisdictions from implementing any change in their voting laws unless those changes are pre-cleared by the Justice Department or approved by a three-judge panel in federal court in Washington.  This 45-year-old "emergency" provision has been renewed four separate times, most recently in 2006.  That renewal gave the section 25 years of new life, despite a complete lack of evidence that the type of systematic discrimination that led to its initial passage still exists.

Delaware Supreme Court overturns cinema ruling.  The Delaware Supreme Court overturned a decision by the state Human Relations Commission that the manager of a Dover cinema was racist when he used a "condescending tone" in telling a crowd of largely black patrons viewing a Tyler Perry movie to silence their cell phones and remain quiet.

At Least One Black American Dreads Black History Month.  Throughout American history, white folks, and mostly Christians (there's that dirty C-word which the left despises) suffered, sacrificed, and died to help set blacks free and move them forward.  And yet, Sharpton and company use Black History Month to promote the image that every black achievement was made "in spite of" white America.

Black Man's Burden: Those Who Make Them Victims.  Jesse Jackson once told an interviewer that when hearing footsteps behind him while walking down a street at night, he is relieved if he turns to see the sound is coming from white feet.  Michelle Obama, when asked whether she worried about the safety of her then-presidential candidate husband, said, "I don't lose sleep over it, because the realities are that, you know, as a black man, you know, Barack can get shot going to the gas station."  She probably didn't mean a gas station in Beverly Hills.

Dim Bulb: National Community Reinvestment Coalition.  The median FICO score in America is 723.  Insisting borrowers have a respectable credit history isn't racist.  In fact, giving huge loans to people with poor credit is why taxpayers have spent more than $100 billion bailing out Fannie Mae.

Taxpayer Dollars Being Used to Fight for Homeless People Living in Illegally Parked Vehicles.  The taxpayer-funded Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA) is suing the city over its efforts to bar homeless people from illegally living in campers, trailers, and cars on the streets of the city's Venice neighborhood.  Some homeless people say they're being targeted because of who they are.  "Stop the haters," said one protest sign carried by a homeless man in Venice during a protest march in December.

Blacks Have Separated Themselves from America.  For some reason, a majority of blacks don't choose to participate in the American dream of unity and the founding principles.  They are on a conflicting mission, one that does not fit into the American dream.  Their mission is the Obama message of social justice, the Sharpton message, the Congressional Black Caucus message, the reparations message, the affirmative action message, or whatever it is they are hearing from the Marxist left.  Race has become a worse divider of America than it was, under the victim mentality indoctrinated into the black population.  That is why disagreement with the Marxist black political agenda earns you a racist tag.  It doesn't have to be this way.
This is an original compilation, Copyright © 2013 by Andrew K. Dart
The Modern Left (Unmasked).  The left embraces "social justice," a concept in which the State — not the individual, guided by the Constitution or any god — is the ultimate authority to determine the best interest of its wards. ... For social justice to apply, though, there must be victims.  The left draws from a pool of "victims" suffering ostensible injustices based upon class, race, the environment, gender, and diversity/multiculturalism.

The Victim in Chief.  In treating most communication as a means of stating how he feels about what someone else has done, Obama is not merely demonstrating his own personality.  He is embodying the character and reflexes cultivated today in academia, the traditional media, and in politics.  In exactly his present form, he is the ideal of our cultural elite.  Sadly, that elite doesn't know any longer how to speak to Iranians in the tones of liberty, empirical confidence, and moral courage.  Its expertise now lies in reducing all questions to matters of hate speech and victimhood.

Crazed Democrats in Virginia attack opponents, throw signs.  This video depicts two men unleashing a string of racial epithets at members of Americans for Prosperity, who took the video.  While flailing arms and shouting, the two also start yanking signs off of private property and throwing them aside, while saying, "This is public space.  I pay taxpayer dollars while y'all to spread racism and bigotry."

The Party of the Rich.  At this moment, two of [the Democratic Party's] leaders from a supposedly disadvantaged minority are about to be tried for ethical transgressions (read: thievery) even Congress couldn't sweep under the rug.  Never mind that these transgressions mostly exploit the very minority these people purport to represent.  It's part of the game.  Convince minorities they should act like victims.  Extort guilt payments from the majority and keep the change.  Meanwhile, nothing improves for the minority because it would interrupt the system.

Never-Ending Racial Hostility.  This, as compared to the nation I saw in the 1950s, is not a racist country.  The time has come to stop being intimidated by racial rhetoric and guilt for the past.  The generations upon whose shoulders the guilt rests have since passed into the mists of history.  Those alive today, black and white, are the ones who made the enormous advances in civil rights possible.  It is a matter of immense pride and accomplishment.  Do not allow others to take it away from you.

We Have Overcome.  Benjamin Hooks lived to see the promise of the movement he helped lead, even if he wouldn't have admitted it.

Race and Politics:  Part II.  No dogma has caused more mischief — and, in some countries, tragedies — than the notion that there is something strange and wrong when some groups are "over-represented" or "under-represented" in some occupations or institutions.  This dogma is so widely accepted, and so deeply entrenched, that no one asks for evidence and no speck of evidence is offered.  Moreover, tons of evidence to the contrary are ignored.

More Lies Exposed in 'Phantom N-Word Tale'.  We all know the story by now.  Rep. Andre Carson (D-In) says that he and Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga) were assaulted with racial slurs by Tea Party protesters as they walked down the step of the Cannon office building and headed to the Capitol on March 20th.  Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo) also told reporters that he heard the 'N-word' as he was walking a few yards behind Rep. Lewis.  "It was like a chorus", Rep. Cleaver said.  Only problem is:  Rep. Cleaver wasn't there.

The Ongoing Melodrama of Victims and Oppressors.  In Obama's world, there exists a simple zero-sum melodrama of victims and oppressors.

Opposed to Obamacare?  Then You Must Be a Racist.  As the ever-tolerant [Frank] Rich reasons:  "The conjunction of a black President and a female speaker of the House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay congressional committee chairman — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play."  So that's it.  It's just a bunch of scared, white males who would yelp about anything this gang came up with.

The next move of the Alinsky left.  [Scroll down]  Why did these congresspeople, including Emmanuel Cleaver (the alleged "spitee", who actually walked too close to a protester shouting "kill the bill" and got sprayed), Barney Frank, and Nancy Pelosi deliberately march into the demonstration and confront the Tea Partiers?  After all, wasn't it Nancy herself who said she was "frightened" by these supposedly violent people?  Is it possible that they wanted to provoke a reaction from the crowd to be used by the media to demonize the Tea Party movement (i.e., "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it")?  Is it also possible that when there was nothing sufficiently provoked by the lawmakers' confrontation, they decided to fabricate it?  I believe their previous record of untruthfulness supports this hypothesis.

Left Playing the Hate Game.  In reality, this kind of commentary is nothing new.  We see it every time conservatives have any political momentum whatsoever.  The idea is that by shouting "racist," these liberal columnists can make their opponents shut up.  But this is a very angry and polarized political climate.

Black Congressmen Under Investigation?  Must Be Racism!  If Democrats did not peddle victimology and faux moral superiority, their status would be reduced to that of a fringe party, and they would end up having to get in line for a statist bailout of their own.  In 2009, only if one refuses to examine reality can race be depicted as a major societal problem.

There can be no peace in the land of the easily offended.
Mixed reaction on MARTA's 'yellow line' rebranding.  MARTA's decision to brand its train line into Doraville "yellow" has stirred quiet debate among some within Atlanta's growing Asian-American community.

Libs Scold Black Conservatives.  The liberal media celebrates black achievement only when it comes from an I made it in spite of America's racism point of view.  Blacks who proclaim, "I achieved because America is the greatest land of opportunity on the planet for all who choose to go for it" are vilified by the media, branded Uncle Toms and traitors to their race.  The Left's message is clear.  To be authentically black and faithful to their race, blacks must not achieve on their own.  They must view themselves as eternal victims and reserve at least a minimal resentment against white America.

The Racism Trap Defined.  Unfortunately, after King's assassination, black liberation theologians (like James H. Cone) and Black Panthers, Black Muslims and other splinter groups hijacked Dr. King's movement and turned it upside down and inside out, adopting the vengeance/violence model.  Even after the post-King-assassination wholesale riots and killing sprees ended, these groups adopted socialist revolutionary tactics (those designed by Alinsky and others), which have perpetuated the battle, turned racism into a black on white sin more than the other way around, and have demanded more and more and more as just retribution and penance for the sin of white racism in the past.

Mexican flag has no place in an immigration march.  I understand the feelings of the tens of thousands of people who marched on the National Mall yesterday in pursuit of immigration reform and, in particular, paths to citizenship for millions of undocumented workers.  I understand their desire to live without fear of arrest, to simply do an honest day's work and to see their children thrive.  I understand that our immigration system is haplessly dysfunctional and that major reforms are needed.  What I don't understand is the claim by some at the march that those here illegally are somehow victims.

The Real Problem With ACORN.  [Scroll down]  Eventually I soured on welfare in a number of ways.  Even with the women it was doing no good.  They had no sense of self-sufficiency.  It was just a sophisticated form of begging.  They would develop a sense of entitlement so that "getting ahead" simply meant making more and more strident demands on more and more people.

Obama, Abortion and the Promise of Racial Equality.  Prior to the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States, many people believed (or feared) that racism remained so widespread in America that no African-American could be elected to national office.  That hypothesis has been falsified.  It is not that our country is free of racists (or anti-Semites, or anti-Catholics, or other bigots).  Racist views, however, have been stigmatized and people holding such views have been marginalized.  The overwhelming majority of whites today are prepared to vote for a black candidate for any office.

Of Race, Gender and Justice.  Judge Sotomayor's offensive words are a reflection of her much greater body of work as an ethnic activist and judge.  Identity politics is at the core of who this woman is.  And let me be clear here, I am not talking about the understandable pride in one's ancestry or ethnic roots, which is both common and natural in a country as diverse and pluralistic as ours.  Identity politics involves a sense of grievance against the majority, a feeling that racism permeates American society and its institutions, and the belief that members of one's own group are victims in a perpetual power struggle with the majority.

Race Talk for "African-Americans".  Race talk often portrays black Americans as downtrodden and deserving of white people's help and sympathy.  That vision is an insult of major proportions.  As a group, black Americans have made some of the greatest gains, over the highest hurdles, in the shortest span of time than any other racial group in mankind's history. ... It was a black American, Gen. Colin Powell, appointed Joint Chief of Staff in October 1989, who headed the world's mightiest military and later became U.S. Secretary of State, and was succeeded by Condoleezza Rice, another black American.  Black Americans are among the world's most famous personalities and a few are among the richest.  Most blacks are not poor but middle class.

The Obama We Knew But Denied:  [Scroll down slowly]  We saw a perfect glimpse of this condescending prejudice from Rev. Jeremiah Wright, when he spoke to the NAACP on the differences between white children and black children.  Wright declared that black children simply could not learn in the same rigid type of environment in which white children thrived.  "Their brains are wired differently," he proclaimed.  This is simply a way of saying, "Black children can't succeed" in a white world with the same standards of achievement for all.  This prejudiced attitude is the foundation of affirmative action, whether in education or employment.  Whatever standards cannot be met by the disadvantaged group must be waived out of deceptive "niceness."  This is the insidious prejudice that has all-but destroyed our nation's public schools.

No sacrifice too great for Michelle Obama.  The First Lady has once again uttered words that reveal her self-absorbed interior life.  Speaking in Copenhagen, she referred to her trip as a "sacrifice." ... There is a victim mentality at work here.  Life is unfair.  This is a woman who sees herself put-upon by life, the victim of forces beyond her control.  And she lives in the White House!

Paterson Whines:  'Racism!'  Gov. Paterson has played the race card.  The state's first black governor yesterday [8/21/2009] blamed his political woes — and those of President Obama — on a white-dominated media that he accused of taking part in an "orchestrated" attack campaign.  "We're not in the post-racial period," Paterson said in a freewheeling interview on the liberal talk-radio station WWRL.  "My feeling is it's being orchestrated, it's a game, and people who pay attention know that."

N.Y. Gov. Paterson blames unpopularity on his skin.  New York's Democratic Gov. David Paterson has figured out why his popularity there has declined from the heady days when the lieutenant governor succeeded sex scandal-plagued fellow Democrat Eliot Spitzer.  Paterson told a radio interviewer today it's because he's black and there aren't enough black media outlets to counter the white ones.  He also suggested the same racist forces will soon take after President Barack Obama.

Promoting Racial Paranoia.  Henry Louis Gates Jr. has threatened to make a documentary on "racial profiling" in the wake of his highly publicized arrest for disorderly conduct on July 16.  It's going to be a very long film, given the Harvard professor's exceedingly expansive definition of what counts as biased policing.  Unfortunately, Pres. Barack Obama's take on police work is no more reality-based than Gates's.

Cries of reverse discrimination build to a chorus.  A black president tabs a Latina for the Supreme Court.  She had made a ruling against white firefighters.  That ruling gets reversed by her prospective high-court colleagues.  It was pretty easy to guess what would come up in her confirmation hearings.  America, it seems, isn't over race after all.  Rather, now the race card is being dealt in every direction.

Stinging Remarks on Race From Attorney General.  The United States is "a nation of cowards" when it comes to race relations, the country's newly minted attorney general said today [2/18/2009].  In remarks made during a speech to honor Black History Month, Eric Holder said the country remains "voluntarily socially segregated," making head-turning comments that could spark fierce dialogue and the ire of some conservatives.

Why should a journalist's race matter?  With so many other things to worry about, and with the whole world able to see that racial identity is no longer a barrier to even the most powerful position in American life, you might think the press would finally be ready to abandon its unhealthy preoccupation with the color of skin — especially the skin within its own ranks.  Alas, no.

Blacks should reflect on conservatism.  When I talk with other blacks about their view of the GOP, they see a party that harms African-Americans.  I see a party of personal responsibility, values and smaller government that acts to make all people self-reliant — a goal of our nation's finest black leaders, too.

Whites Can't Make Blacks Happy.  One of the creepy things about our "need to have a conversation about race" is the assumption that whites can somehow make blacks feel better, or be happier, or be more self-accepting.  Nobody has the power to do that, except what individuals do for themselves, one person at a time. … Far too many black people don't feel good about themselves, and are constantly looking for answers from somebody else.  That quest for the impossible has been turned into an accusation against the invisible but all-powerful white racist establishment.

Michelle Obama: Perpetual Victim.  Her husband has been lauded as the Messiah; benefited from the most fawning coverage bestowed on a presidential candidate, at least since JFK; is running in the most Democrat-favorable electoral environment, at least since Watergate; has raised more funds than any presidential candidate ever; has become a worldwide celebrity; and is spending an unprecedented amount of money running negative ads about his opponent. ... Yet in her world, they're still "underdogs."

Perpetual Victimization for Perpetual War.  Perpetual victimization is the worst thing that can be done to someone.  It means conceptually depriving them of their free will and treating their every action as a reaction.  Yet perpetual victimization is at the heart of Western liberalism, it is the very same premise that once promoted eugenics against the poor and throughout the 20th century has promoted and sought to keep minorities helpless and victimized, rather than self-empowered.

The Wright Cost of Anger:  Here's the "victicrat" mindset:  Kids having difficulty performing well on standardized tests?  Blame "cultural bias."  Get pulled over by a cop?  DWB — driving while black.  A disproportionate number of blacks in prison?  A racist criminal justice system that "targets" blacks for prosecution and imprisonment.  Katrina?  As Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., put it, "ethnic cleansing by inaction."  Difficulty qualifying for a loan?  Blame banks' devious plan to prevent blacks from getting "access to capital."

Angela Davis:  Prisons perpetuate oppression of minorities.  After the inauguration of the first black president, America is now on the precipice of changes that were never before possible, 1960s radical turned academic Angela Davis told a crowd of hundreds at the University of New Hampshire last night.  The vestiges of slavery, colonization and exploitation remain rife throughout America, as is evidenced by the over-representation of minorities in prison, Davis said.

Watermelon Art at California Fair Said to Be Racist.  Colusa County officials are defending their display at the California State Fair after a black couple complained that a caricature of a smiling watermelon seed was racist.  The "Waldo Watermelon Seed" drawing was removed this week after the couple said the image evoked negative stereotypes about blacks.

Frustration and Optimism in New Orleans.  [Scroll down]  "I think it's bad," said Merline Kimble, 59, a music promoter from the Treme neighborhood who recently returned to New Orleans.  "For people who want to come home, rent is more expensive, utilities are more expensive, everything's more expensive.  Nobody's doing anything to get people home."

The Editor says...
Billions of dollars have been spent on New Orleans since hurricane Katrina, and yet there are people who say "nobody's doing anything."

Could Obama's rise signal the end of black victimology?  Victimology, in the view of black writer John McWhorter, is the theory that (1) African-Americans are continuing victims of racism and discrimination, and (2) their progress consequently depends chiefly on acts of repentant benevolence by whites — in the extreme case, reparations for slavery.  Jesse Jackson is the best-known victimologist, but far from the only one.  They all must experience acute ambivalence as they view Senator Obama.

Why Stupid Is as Stupid Does.  Jesse Jackson, Rainbow-Push Coalition, and the rest of the industry of outrage that make a living off of spreading such a victimhood mentality in their communities have been doing it for years.  To be very honest its one of the reasons newly immigrated blacks from Africa or the Caribbean have a very hard time fitting in to such communities.  As immigrants they see the opportunities in front of them as blessings and they cannot comprehend why some domestic, multi-generational black Americans won't seize them.  Victimhood is a state of mind first and foremost.  Overcoming the barriers that keeps one down is exceedingly liberating.  But on Chicago's south side, fellow African Americans make large sums of money convincing some that they must remain angry, suspicious, and sadly — victims.

For America's Scholars Of Race, An Obama Dilemma.  What bothers Brown University economist Glenn Loury is that Obama's election would fundamentally change the rules of race in America, yet that victory would come with the overwhelming assent of black people who have no idea that is what they are agreeing to.  "They're voting for the end of affirmative action and they don't even know it," said Loury, who is black.  "They're voting for the end of race and they don't even know it."

The Editor says...
In other words, black activists don't want racism to go away.  They thrive on it.  By claiming to be victims of other people's racism, they have an open-ended excuse for their own shortcomings.  That's what perpetual victimhood is all about.

Talking Back to a Black Man:  A few weeks ago, I was listening to a radio talk show when a black man called in to take Barack Obama to task for suggesting that black men were sloughing off their responsibility as fathers.  The caller didn't deny recent data that indicated that 80% of black babies were being born to unwed mothers.  Instead, he said that this dire situation wasn't the fault of irresponsible young men and women, but, instead, was the logical result of rampant racism in our country.

An Enduring Crisis for the Black Family:  In 1965, a young assistant secretary of labor named Daniel Patrick Moynihan stumbled upon data that showed a rise in the number of black single mothers.  As Moynihan wrote in a now-famous report for the Johnson administration, especially troubling was that the growth in illegitimacy, as it was universally called then, coincided with a decline in black male unemployment. ... Unfortunately, those warnings were as prescient as they were reviled.  Civil rights leaders, worried about reviving racist myths about black promiscuity, objected to what they viewed as blaming the victim.  Feminists were inclined to look on the "strong black women" raising their children without men as a symbol of female autonomy.

NAACP head:  Obama win won't solve racial injustice in U.S.  The chairman of the NAACP says racial disparity will remain an issue in America whether or not Barack Obama is elected as the nation's first black president.

Obviously the NAACP will never be satisfied, no matter what happens.  This page is dedicated to people who can never be content — people who always need someone else to blame for their troubles.  The NAACP has figured out how to keep this discontent churned up and turn it into a business.

Obama:  Too Little, Too Late.  [In] "Dreams from My Father", [Obama] describes in vivid detail his first meeting with [Jeremiah] Wright, whom he quotes as warning him:  "Life's not safe for a black man in this country, Barack.  Never has been.  Probably never will be."  Apparently these words didn't set off warning lights.  To the contrary, the young, Ivy-League educated Obama, who had been raised in Hawaii by his white grandparents and attended prep school there, seemed to be seeking a vicarious sense of victimhood in Wright's church.

Jeremiah Wright's Wider Toll:  Through my work with the Illinois governor's task force on human services reform and its efforts to reduce welfare dependency, I have encountered misguided community "leaders" like Wright who tell their followers, for example, that the job market is stacked against them and that the jobs that are available aren't good enough — that they are entitled to more.  The underlying message:  You can't win because of who you are, regardless of what you do.

The Rev and the Global Victims' Club:  The saddest aspect of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's tirades is neither his dishonest charges, nor his egocentric claim to speak for all black churches, nor even the harm he's done to the dreams of his best-known parishioner.  The sorrow and the pity of it all is that the Chicago pastor, who's reveling in his 15 minutes of fame, is only one of many demagogues in all races and creeds who foster cults of victimization around the globe.  And nothing is more certain to keep those at the bottom down than self-appointed messiahs who assure them they'll always be victims.

More information about Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

A Report from the White Community:  I did not spend a moment today thinking about how to keep the black man down.  Just another day.  I can't remember ever getting a memo about, or an invitation to a strategy meeting on keeping the corporation white.  So stop telling me everything is my fault. … I am aware that racism still exists.  It is a sad part of the human condition.  But it is no longer institutional in America and to the extent it exists, it runs both ways.

Blacks, Banks and "Institutional Racism":  In today's online information age, don't many borrowers apply for and obtain loans either online or via telephone, with the loan officer completely unaware of one's race? … Don't at least some white borrowers pay interest rates as high, if not higher, than those paid by blacks?

House Majority Whip:  Climate Change Hurts Blacks More.  Climate change is no longer just an environmental issue.  It's now an issue of race, according to global warming activists and policy makers.  "It is critical our community be an integral and active part of the debate because African-Americans are disproportionately impacted by the effects of climate change economically, socially and through our health and well-being," House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., said July 29.

Cultural Affirmative Action:  In a way, I prefer the old, overt affirmative action.  While it was government-sanctioned discrimination, at least it was, in some measure, more honest than our cultural affirmative action.  There is such a thing.  It's when people in the market and media privilege others — sometimes unconsciously — based upon the latter's identification with a "victim group."

Black Reparations:  The Ultimate Prize.  In the years much closer to slavery than we now live, blacks founded and ran their own towns, owned and prospered on millions of dollars worth of land, formed so many successful businesses that it necessitated formation of the National Negro Business League, directed their own schools and colleges — all of this long before the 1950s.  Yet now, according to the custodians of the race, the "residue" of the slave experience pierces so deeply into the psyches and immediate lives of blacks, that only more monetary resources from whites can heal the wounds and finally eliminate what these worthies are calling the "lingering negative effects" of slavery.

What does Obama's victory mean?  Today, if black Americans' gross domestic product were measured separately, it would be the 16th-richest country in the world.  Nearly 80 percent of blacks live above the poverty level, contrasted with 65 percent 40 years ago.  The greater percentage of blacks live either middle-class or better lives.  The employment rate for married black men equals the employment rate for married white men.  The average black woman with a college degree makes more money than the average white woman with a college degree.  The highest percentage of blacks in American history — 46 percent — own their homes.

Racial Hoaxes and the NAACP:  The major problems confronting a large segment of the black community have little or nothing to do with racism — problems such as unprecedented illegitimacy, family breakdown, fraudulent education, crime and rampant social pathology. If white people became angels tomorrow, it would do nothing to solve problems that can only be solved by blacks.

America's Newest 'Victims':  There's a new class of victims in America:  former NFL players. … There's no doubt that many former players are physical wrecks.  But should we feel sorry for them?  After all, many players reveled in the fact that they could punish their bodies week after week and continue to play.  Noticeably absent from this debate is any discussion about the personal responsibility these players bear for their post-career conditions.

Blacks must drop victimhood and reclaim dignity.  When restaurants, laundries, hotels, theaters, groceries, and clothing stores were legally segregated, black people opened and ran their own.  Such successes provided jobs and strength to black economic well-being.  They also gave black people that gratifying sense of an interdependent community with people working to help each other.  During legal segregation, white racists destroyed some of these economically independent communities.  To their credit, our ancestors did not accept victimhood.  They fought back as individuals and as a people.  Most refused to become passive victims of the system.

At Last!  People for whom indignation is a way of life — and there seem to be an increasing number of such people — repeatedly have outbursts of outrage whenever the police fire a lot of shots at some criminal.

Pay Up, Honky.  "Black people, wake up!" shouts the ad running in local black newspapers.  "Do not spend your money with Kohl's Department Stores or T-Mobile Wireless … Help us prove their racist stereotypes wrong."  From the hyperbolic tone, you'd think the companies had installed whites-only drinking fountains.  But the outrage stems from something a bit more pedestrian.  Black newspapers are crying discrimination because the two companies don't spend enough money with … black newspapers.

Misstep in a Liberal Minefield:  For decades, liberals, believing that "self-esteem" is a universal entitlement that is endangered by nearly universal insensitivity, have striven to make everybody exquisitely sensitive to slights.  Liberals have become industrialists as an indignation industry has burgeoned.  It writes campus speech codes, infests corporations with "sensitivity training" workshops and "consciousness-raising" retreats, and generally enforces the new right to pass through this vale of tears without tears or even being peeved.

Step Down Off the Slave Auction Block.  What if a long line of whites showed up at every black-owned business in America.  What if they had qualified credentials and demanded to be hired, promoted and loved?  What if the black owner refused to fire one of his tried and true black employees just to make room for the white applicant and to have equal representation of all races in the workplace?

America's Unhappiest Millionaire:  Michelle Obama's gospel of misery.  By her husband's logic, Michelle Obama must be a heavily armed xenophobic religious zealot, because boy is she bitter.  [A] C-SPAN video of a speech delivered by Mrs. Obama in North Carolina last Friday [5/2/2008] is characteristic of her peculiar recent performances on the stump.  It is an hour-long talk to supporters who just want something to cheer about, and who get some opportunities at the outset, but then find themselves treated to a profoundly and relentlessly negative vision of American life.

Modern Liberals, Whine Connoisseurs.  Michelle Obama whines about the burdens of paying for piano lessons and summer camp for the kids, and the paying off the student loans for her two Ivy League degrees.  "The salaries don't keep up with the cost of paying off the debt," she complained when the Obamas cleared half a million a year … Barack Obama understands the language of victimhood and uses it effectively.  And victimhood has become a central tenant of modern liberalism.

Hillary's Hurdles:  Dubious Donors.  Asian-American groups don't like the increased scrutiny that Hillary Clinton's mysterious Chinese dishwasher donors are getting. … In the wake of eye-opening investigations by The Post and the Los Angeles Times of more dubious foreign funny money flowing into Hill's coffers, ethnic-grievance groups are stepping forward to condemn these stories as examples of "negligent journalism."  Yep:  The newspapers are guilty of "negligence" because they actually broke news instead of covering it up.

Self Sabotage Preventing More Black Entrepreneurs.  During a recent speaking engagement at a DC high school, I talked about the importance of cultivating an entrepreneurial spirit. … Nearly every student in the audience was black.  Their response was heartbreaking.  One student after another told me that the white people would prevent them from becoming successful entrepreneurs.  These kids were only teenagers, and they had already given up.

It's a vast white wing conspiracy.
Nagin Suspects a Plot To Keep Blacks Away.  New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin has suggested that the slow recovery and rebuilding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina — which has prevented many black former residents from returning — is part of a plan to change the racial makeup and political leadership of his and other cities.

Left Off Debate List, New Orleans Sees Politics at Play.  When presidential debates are in the news, it is usually because of something a candidate says.  But the omission of New Orleans this week from the roster of four cities that will hold the 2008 debates raised the question of whether politics was behind the site-selection process.

The Editor says...
After Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, the people of New Orleans quickly came to expect politicians to pander to them at every opportunity.  It's getting old.

Hip hop:  Popular culture is white culture.  This isn't because of some anti-minority agenda.  This isn't because TV and music executives aren't part of the community.  It's because there are more white people than black people.  Therefore, there is more advertising money in appealing to the pop culture sensibilities of white people.

Ammunition for poverty pimps:  Since President Johnson's War on Poverty, controlling for inflation, the nation has spent $9 trillion on about 80 anti-poverty programs.  To put that figure in perspective, last year's U.S. GDP was $11 trillion; $9 trillion exceeds the GDP of any nation except the U.S.  Hurricanes Katrina and Rita uncovered the result of the War on Poverty — dependency and self-destructive behavior.

The Offensiveness of Taking Offense.  Whether it's an off-color joke or colorful commentary, it's now hard to make anything but the most plain vanilla statements without offending somebody. … Screaming "That's offensive!" is nothing but a ploy. … They just don't happen to like what you're saying.

Seattle's Culture of Victimology and the Shooting of Jews.  How could it happen?  In Seattle, of all places, a city of moderation and diversity?  On Friday, July 28, a man barged into the offices of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle.  It is alleged that, armed with two handguns, Naveed Afzal Haq, 30, killed one woman and wounded five others.

Discriminating against the 'brown coin'.  In the renewed debate over whether to rid our currency of the penny, it's awfully conspicuous that the coin being targeted for elimination is the one coin that's a different color from the rest.  More precisely, it's the coin that's "copper" amid a sea of "silver" ones — that is, the brown coin amid a sea of white coins.  It also happens to be the coin paying tribute to the president who freed the brown people, in contrast to the white coins, which sport presidents who were slaveholders.



"Master" and "slave" computer labels unacceptable, officials say.  Los Angeles officials have asked that manufacturers, suppliers and contractors stop using the terms "master" and "slave" on computer equipment, saying such terms are unacceptable and offensive.

J-K Flip-Flop

 Editor's Note:   The senselessness we know as Political Correctness will thrive as long as there are spineless politicians who dignify and legitimize absurd complaints by failing to ignore them.  This is exactly the kind of nonsense for which California is famous.  How will it help anyone to remove the words master and slave from computer equipment, or from the dictionary?  How else could you explain the operation of a J-K flip-flop? (See diagram above.)

Loran diagram - Click to enlarge
And another thing...
The words "Master" and "Slave" were originally used to describe the operation of the Loran navigation system.  (Now the "Slave" stations are called "Secondary" stations.)

If one computer component is the slave of another, should we feel sorry for it and try to set it free?  (What if the computer is shackled by a Master padlock?)



The Essence of Liberalism:  Embracing Life's Losers.  The rhetoric of today's left shows that they see society divided between the privileged and the powerless, the favored and the unfortunate, victors and victims.  Liberals feel an irresistible instinct to take sides with the less fortunate.  While the right wants to reward beneficial choices and discourage destructive directions, the left seeks to eliminate or reduce the impact of the disadvantages that result from bad decisions.

The politics of disparity:  Class warriors incessantly complain of the expanding gap between "rich" and "poor," by which they mean the rich are getting richer at the expense of the poor.  In fact, all boats rise with the tide — the poor are getting richer, too.  Unfortunately, too many Americans believe the lie because of its constant repetition in the media and in our public schools.

Wal-Mart Imagemaker Quits Amid PR Flap.  In the [Los Angeles] Sentinel interview, Young was asked about whether he was concerned Wal-Mart causes smaller, mom-and-pop stores to close.  "Well, I think they should; they ran the 'mom and pop' stores out of my neighborhood," the paper quoted Young as saying.  "But you see, those are the people who have been overcharging us, selling us stale bread and bad meat and wilted vegetables.  And they sold out and moved to Florida.  I think they've ripped off our communities enough.  First it was Jews, then it was Koreans and now it's Arabs; very few black people own these stores."

Black Unemployment Drops Under Bush.  Anybody keeping up with the African-American unemployment rate would know that it is at one of its lowest levels ever. … Currently, black unemployment is 9.4%, which is significantly lower than the 10% it averaged in the Clinton years.

For L.A. homeless: a gym, movies, and hair salon.  The city opens a $17 million shelter Monday [4/18/2005] amid controversy that funds would have been better spent on affordable housing.

[What's more affordable than "free?"]

The race card — 2005.  The Democratic Party continues to play the race card for political gain.  Remember the claims by John Kerry and others of one million black voters disenfranchised in Florida during the 2000 presidential election?  Peter Kirsanow, a black attorney and member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, says the commission's six-month investigation failed to find any evidence of black voter "intimidation."  "Not one person was intimidated," says Kirsanow, "[or] had their vote stolen.  There was no disenfranchisement … no truth to any of those allegations."

Opportunity is not black or white.  Race matters only to those who want to continue to keep the nation divided.  Some individual Americans may from time to time stand in your way, but America does not.  America is defined by its ideals, not by its limitations.

Hurricane Katrina, the race card, and the welfare state.  Maybe someday one of the news anchors will ask one of the so-called civil rights leaders the following question:  Doesn't the demand for race-based preferences, set-asides, private sector anti-discrimination laws, social welfare programs, and social "safety net" programs all conspire to say one thing — "You are not responsible"?

Victims.  The problem is the government gives of the excess fruits of some people's labors to others who do no labor at all.  Food stamps, housing, and welfare — all are given away.  Why work when the government will give you your basic needs?  In this circumstance, when hard times come people are not prepared to deal with them.  So yes, government failed, but its failure is its active role in the slow, steady decline of its citizen's sense of personal responsibility and accountability.

We're all victims.  Critics have noticed that nobody is responsible for anything anymore, since almost everyone is a victim.  Here are the top 10 victim stories of 2005.

Michael Jackson & the Race Card—  Don't leave home without it.  It works.  Just ask O.J. Simpson.

A few words about O.J. Simpson and Michael Jackson:  Before the cuffs went on, Simpson and Jackson couldn't have found black America with a road map.  The jock had ensconced himself in chichi Brentwood where he was said to have built a world in which about the only thing black was the busboys at the four-star restaurants.  The moonwalker had — one of his top aides told me this once — peeled his skin the color of bones and carved himself a nose that would not be out of place on Tinker Bell, because his African features were abhorrent to him.  Yet, to listen to Jackson's brother Jermaine and Simpson's lawyer Johnnie Cochran, during their respective trials, they were some combination of Emmett Till, Rosa Parks and Kunta Kinte, targeted for the color of their skin, not the content of their criminal files.

Do poor blacks need to hear "millions more" excuses?  Am I suggesting that blacks in America today do not have to contend with the burden of racism?  Of course I am not.  What I do claim is that the most damaging racism in our community is what it hears from its own leaders.  It is the message that black citizens cannot and should not be treated as free and personally responsible individuals.

'Aunt Jemima' Sues After Council Meeting Ban.  An activist arrested after disrupting a City Council meeting dressed in an Aunt Jemima costume and banned from attending meetings until the end of March has filed a lawsuit claiming her rights were violated.  Jackie Brown filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to have the ban declared unconstitutional as well as unspecified damages and attorneys fees, The Florida Times-Union reported Monday [2/13/2006].

Intolerable.  [John] Banzhaf's action followed an appellate court ruling that will allow Native American groups to challenge the Washington football team's trademark on "Redskins."  The federal Trademark Trial and Appeal Board has already ruled that the word Redskins is racially derogatory and offensive.

Black Activist Decries Civil Rights Apologists.  The Senate apology for lynching perpetuates the "Posture of the Victim".

Responsible voting:  Since 90 percent of the black vote goes to Democrats, it is especially important for Democrats to scare blacks, in order to get a large turnout.  Charges of "racism" have been used for this purpose in the past but it is hard to make that stick against an administration with the first black Secretary of State and the first black National Security Adviser in the White House.  The ploy this time is to claim that Republicans are trying to "suppress" the black vote "again."  Senator Kerry has stooped to this, despite the fact that many of the voting booth problems in Florida in 2000 occurred in precincts controlled by election officials who were Democrats.

Fables Democrats tell themselves:  The U.S. Civil Rights Commission began investigating charges of voter disenfranchisement in 2001.  They investigated every tale of roadblocks, intimidation and registration anomalies.  They found not a single African American who had been harassed, intimidated or prevented from voting at any polling place in Florida.

The oldest fraud:  Election frauds are nothing new and neither are political frauds in general.  The oldest fraud is the belief that the political left is the party of the poor and the downtrodden.  The election results in California are only the latest evidence to give the lie to that belief.  The most affluent counties were where Kerry had his strongest support.

Victimhood:  Rhetoric or reality?  If you listened to the rhetoric of black politicians and civil rights leaders, dating back to the Reagan years, you would have been convinced that surely by now black Americans would be back on the plantation.  According to them, President Reagan, and later Presidents Bush I and II, would turn back the clock on civil rights. … We can now recognize this rhetoric as the political equivalent of the "rope-a-dope."

Five reasons to fear the Democratic party:  Reason #3 - The Professional Grievance-Mongers.  The ethnic shakedown artists who have sued over every slight and hyped every faked claim of a hate crime are America-bashing enablers of the worst sort — and they are the heart and soul of the Democratic Party.

Conservatives, liberals and blacks:  According to a Washington Times story (July 14, 2004), Democratic hopeful Sen. John Kerry, in a speech about education to a predominantly black audience, said that there are more blacks in prison than in college.  "That's unacceptable, but it's not their fault," he said.  Do you think Kerry would also say that white inmates are faultless?  Aside from Kerry being factually wrong about the black prison population vs. the black college population, his vision differs little from one that holds that blacks are a rudderless, victimized people who cannot control their destiny and whose best hope depends upon the benevolence of white people.

Understanding Income Inequality in the United States:  The top fifth of U.S. households (with incomes above $84,000) remain perennial targets of class-warfare enmity.  These families, however, perform a third of all labor in the economy.  They contain the best educated and most productive workers, and they provide a disproportionate share of the investment needed to create jobs and spur economic growth.  Nearly all are married-couple families, many with two or more earners.  Far from shirking the tax burden, these families pay 82.5 percent of total federal income taxes and two-thirds of federal taxes overall.  By contrast, the bottom quintile pays 1.1 percent of total federal taxes.

The grand fallacy  The grand fallacy of our times is that various groups would be equally represented in institutions and occupations if it were not for discrimination.  This preconception has undermined, if not destroyed, the crucial centuries-old legal principle that the burden of proof is on the accuser.

The Great Black Church-burning Hoax:  Responding to the reported wave of southern black church burnings, President Clinton proclaimed that "Racial hostility is the driving force" behind the church burnings and said, "I want to ask every citizen in America to say we … we are not slipping back to those dark days."  Okay, Mr. President, I'll say it. I'll say it because this "epidemic of hatred" is a fraud.  A myth.  A deliberate hoax.

Crime Study Doesn't Show Racism.  In [a recent] report, the Sentencing Project, an advocacy group that favors alternatives to prison, estimates that on any given day 32 percent of black men ages 20 to 29 are serving a criminal sentence.  That's 827,400 young black men.  But what most of the news stories didn't tell you was that the majority were not behind bars but on probation or parole.

Obama:  Tilting at Racial Windmills.  Simply put, black offenders do not receive stiffer penalties than white offenders for equivalent crimes — not today, and not at any time in recent decades.  The most exhaustive, best designed study of this matter — a three-year analysis of more than 11,000 convicted criminals in California — found that the severity of offenders' sentences depended heavily on such factors as prior criminal records, the seriousness of the crimes, and whether guns were used in the commission of those crimes.  Race was found to have no effect whatsoever.

Victimhood: The Status Of Underdog Is Vastly Overrated.  Domestic policy has been skewed too much in favor of the unsuccessful.  I sometimes wonder why I bother working, saving, investing and doing the things that help people get ahead when the government goes to great lengths to help those who do not do those things.


The case of Oberlin College vs. Gibson's Bakery:


Recap:
3 Colleges Get Their Just Deserts.  [#1] Oberlin College:  In Ohio, Oberlin College, a hub of political correctness, lost its appeal of a $31 million judgment for defaming a local bakery and ruining its business with fabricated claims of racism.  That amount includes $25 million in punitive damages and $6 million for attorneys' fees.  Gibson's Bakery is a local institution that has operated for more than 130 years.  In 2016, a black male student, accompanied by two black female students, shoplifted two bottles of wine after first trying to use a fake ID to buy them.  The son of the bakery owner chased them out of the store, where the three students attacked him.  Police arrested the students and all three pleaded guilty to misdemeanors.  Yet students at the college, with the full support of school administrators, made false claims of racism against Gibson's, saying the shoplifters had been racially profiled and that Gibson's was a "racist" establishment.  They organized protests and vandalized and damaged the bakery.  The university canceled all its business contracts with the bakery for catering and continued the racism claims.

Oberlin College pays bakery it called 'racist' over $36 million after years-long defamation lawsuit.  Oberlin College in Ohio has paid out over $36 million to Gibson's Bakery and Food Mart after years of attempting to overturn a jury decision that the college had defamed the local business.  In 2016, Allyn Gibson, the son of Gibson's Bakery and Food Mart owners David Gibson and Allyn Gibson, chased and tackled a Black student who was suspected of stealing a bottle of wine on Nov. 9, 2016.  Two students at Oberlin College, who are also Black and were friends with the student who stole the bottle, got involved in the incident, which became physical.  In a statement to Fox 8, an Oberlin College spokesperson said that the institution has paid $36.6 million to the bakery.  The amount covers the damages awarded, legal fees, and interest accrued.

Oberlin College sues 4 insurance companies over Gibsons Bakery settlement.  Oberlin College has sued four of its insurance providers in Lorain County Common Pleas Court to force them to cover the multimillion-dollar judgment that Gibson's Bakery won against the college in 2019.  The college filed suit in April against Lexington Insurance Company of New York; United Educators Insurance of Bethesda, Maryland; Mount Hawley Insurance Company of Peoria, Illinois; and StarStone Specialty Insurance Company of Cincinnati.  Oberlin College claimed the insurance companies wrongfully refused "to honor promises they made in their respective policies to protect the interests of Oberlin College" and its former vice president and dean of students, Meredith Raimondo.

Appearance of 'risk' manager sends Oberlin students into frenzy over the danger of 'risk aversion'.  Over its almost 200 years of existence, Oberlin College has faced a civil war, an economic depression and pandemics.  But until this year, it had never faced the likes of Kalinda Watson.  Student editors on The Oberlin Review have risen up against the addition of Watson to the college ranks as an existential threat.  No, Watson is not a conservative or a Republican — groups that haven't been welcome on campus for many years.  Oberlin is ranked in the top three most liberal colleges in the country, and finding a conservative professor is about as likely as finding a licensed, practicing wizard.  No, Watson is far, far worse.  She is a risk management expert.  The panic over the arrival of a risk management expert in this small college is that she may be working ... wait for it ... to lower the risk of lawsuits at the college.  Oberlin, it appears, attracts lawsuits as much as liberals.  The students fear that she will create "risk aversion" that could chill future protests.

Finally, The Gibson's Bakery Family Has Been Paid By Oberlin College.  The last we checked in on Gibson's Bakery v.  Oberlin College, the Ohio Supreme Court refused to hear Oberlin College's appeal, ending the college's fight to overturn the massive jury verdict.  The $25 million verdict plus interest and attorney's fees resulted in an almost $32 million judgment, with interest running at about $4000 per day since June 2019.  In all, over $36 million was owed, secured by an appeal bond.  While Oberlin College announced, after the Ohio Supreme Court ruled, that it had agreed to pay the judgment, in fact it did so out of legal compulsion, not good faith.  The Gibsons were poised to execute on the appeal bond.  As we noted at the time, Oberlin College, even in legal defeat, refused to apologize or acknowledge it did anything wrong.

Oberlin finally paying the $36.59 million it owes to Gibson's Bakery.  After years of legal wrangling, Oberlin College has announced that, following the Ohio Supreme Court's decision not to hear its appeal, it is beginning the process of paying in full the judgment against it for libeling Gibson's Bakery and promoting a boycott. [...] Oberlin's endowment reportedly is in the neighborhood of a billion dollars, so this sum — the original judgment plus interest — while painful, is not about to bankrupt it.  But my sense as an observer of competition in the higher education market is that Oberlin has suffered a lot of reputational damage from its conduct, both in provoking the lawsuit and in defending itself.

Oberlin College "has initiated payment in full of the $36.59 million judgment in the Gibson's Bakery case".  It looks like the Gibson family's long struggle with Oberlin College is over, and the college will pay the judgment it has been fighting for years.  Unfortunately, David Gibson and "Grandpa" Allyn Gibson did not live to see it, having passed away after the trial verdict.  We have covered this case since the November 2016 protests, through the trial (the only national outlet with a reporter in the courtroom every single trial day, through the appeals, and now what appears to be the end.  It was not always easy covering this case, at one point Oberlin College tried to subpoena OUR records, After legal challenge, Oberlin College withdraws subpoena seeking our journalist communications.

Will I Ever See the $36 Million Oberlin College Owes Me?  [Scroll down]  I still haven't seen a penny from the school.  In 2019, Oberlin appealed to have the jury verdict overturned.  Ohio's Ninth District Court of Appeals rejected Oberlin's claims and upheld the jury's verdict.  But in May of 2022, Oberlin appealed again to the Ohio Supreme Court to try to avoid the jury's decision.  Thankfully, earlier this week, the Ohio Supreme Court denied Oberlin's appeal and ruled that the school must pay us $36 million.  But even with this most recent ruling, the college, which has about a billion dollars' worth of assets at its disposal, still refuses to pay.  We hoped that, with time, the kids who started all this would graduate, and that new students would come in and that the whole drama would fade.  But I'm told that freshmen are still told to boycott us.  Parents who come in tell me that their kids have been brainwashed to hate us. [...][ While the Ohio Supreme Court's recent decision has made us hopeful, if the money doesn't come through within the next couple months, I'll be forced to declare bankruptcy and shut the doors of Gibson's for good.

Gibson's Bakery Wins! Ohio Supreme Court Refuses To Hear Oberlin College Appeal.  Hopefully the long, hard road Gibson's Bakery has traveled in its fight with Oberlin College has come to an end.  The Ohio Supreme Court just refused to accept jurisdiction over Oberlin College's appeal (the Court also refused to hear the Gibsons' appeal seeking to reinstate the full punitive damages award).  It was a 4-3 decision, and it means the Gibsons now can collect approximately $36 million.

Ohio Supreme Court declines to take up Oberlin's appeal, college will now have to pay Gibson's Bakery.  The shoplifting and subsequent protest of Gibson's bakery happened way back in 2016.  It took years for the Gibson's defamation case to make its way through the courts but finally in 2019 they won a massive award.  The award (initially $44 million later reduced to $25 million) was appealed by Oberlin and in April of this year the school lost that appeal.  By that point the full judgment plus the cost of attorneys fees had risen to $31 million.  But Oberlin appealed the case to the Ohio Supreme Court and also asked that it not be forced to pay the Gibson's Bakery until that appeal was resolved.  The Ohio Supreme Court agreed to the latter request earlier this month.  However, today it looks like this case might finally be over.  The Ohio Supreme Court has refused to consider Oberlin's appeal.

Ohio Supreme Court Grants Stay of Enforcement of Judgment Against Oberlin College.  We have covered exhaustively the Gibson's Bakery v. Oberlin College case, from the moment of the shoplifting and protests throught the trial verdicts and now on appeal.  The most recent activity was that after the Gibsons won in 9th District Court of Appeals, they sought to collect on a $36 million bond posted by Zurich American Insurance under contract with Oberlin College, to secure the judgment.  The argument was that since there appeals court directed the trial court "execute" on the judgment, and there was no stay of the appeals court order by the Ohio Supreme Court, the Gibsons could collect on the bond.  This is a serious situation, because Oberlin College's litigation stalling tactics combined with a continued college community boycott of Gibson's Bakery (now approaching years), the bakery is on the verge of going out of business.

Oberlin College Still Refusing to Pay Verdict to Gibson's Bakery.  How is Oberlin getting away with this?  When does Gibson's Bakery get what is owed to them? [...] The historically liberal Oberlin College, located in Oberlin, Ohio, is still refusing to pay up for defaming Gibson's Bakery as racist in 2016.  The college, which is financially underwater, has now asked the Ohio Supreme Court to halt the multi-million dollar judgment while it appeals the decision for the second time.  Earlier this year, the Ninth Ohio District Court of Appeals upheld a jury's finding that Oberlin committed libel, slander, and interference with business relationships against Gibson's after it encouraged student protests over a bakery employee's pursuit of a black student who had shoplifted.  For delaying making the payment, Oberlin has added on $4 million in interest to the original judgment of $32 million, raising the cost to $36 million.

Gibson's Bakery:  We may close if Oberlin College doesn't pay us.  If Gibson's Bakery isn't paid the money it won in a civil suit against its neighbor, Oberlin College, the 137-year-old family-owned bakery might be forced out of business, its attorney told a court last week.  Attorney Lee Plakas asked Lorain County Common Pleas Judge John Miraldi to either order Oberlin College to pay the more than $36 million his clients are owed after winning a court case against the college in 2019 or to hold a hearing against an insurance company that holds Oberlin College's appeals bond.  "The delay in enforcing the unanimously affirmed judgment will result in irreparable harm to the Gibson family and their iconic bakery," Plakas wrote in the July 26 motion.

Gibson's Bakery "May Only Survive for the Next Couple of Months," Pleads With Court To Collect Against Oberlin College.  It is over 3 years since Gibson's Bakery obtained judgment against Oberlin College for almost $32 million, which with accumulated interest nears $36 million, the amount of a bond posted by the college through Zurich American Insurance to secure the judgment.  Neither "Grandpa" Allyn Gibson nor his son David Gibson lived to see the Gibson family collect.  They both passed away, as Oberlin College waited them out.  Oberlin College has done everything possible to delay the Gibson's getting the money, including an appeal which the college lost and another appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court, which has not yet ruled on whether it will hear the case.  Because the appellate court ruling affirming the judgment included a mandate that the trial court "execute" on the judgment, the Gibsons moved in the trial court to collect the bond.  The college then sought a stay from the Ohio Supreme Court.  Neither the trial court nor the Ohio Supreme Court have ruled on the motions as of this writing, so the Gibson's attempt to collect on the bond is in limbo.

Oberlin College asks court to reject Gibson's Bakery cross appeal.  There is "no substantial constitutional question" for Ohio Supreme Court justices to consider when reviewing Gibson's Bakery's appeal over limits on monetary damage awards, attorneys for Oberlin College argued in a court filing Wednesday.  The Gibsons and their attorneys are "distorting" the court record so their arguments will be heard, the college told the state's highest court in a memorandum.  The bakery and its owners' arguments also are not "an issue of public or great general interest worthy of this court's review," the college's attorneys argued.  Oberlin College appealed a 9th District Court of Appeals ruling against it to the state's highest court in May.  The Gibsons filed a cross appeal in June after their appeal also was rejected by the 9th District Court.

Oberlin College hasn't paid Gibson's Bakery the $31 million it owes (plus more than $4 million in interest).  Oberlin College was hit with a huge judgment in 2019 for its treatment of Gibson's Bakery.  Initially set at $44 million that amount was cut based on Ohio law to $25 million and then increased to $31 million to cover the cost of the bakery's lawyers.  Since then the school has appealed that judgment to an appeals court and lost.  The school recently appealed the loss to Ohio's Supreme Court.  The school also asked that it not be required to pay the bakery until the appeals process (which could go all the way to the Supreme Court) had ended.

Gibson's Bakery Wants Ohio Supreme Court To Restore Full Punitive Damage Verdict Against Oberlin College.  Gibson's Bakery filed today [6/13/2022] its response to Oberlin College's request that the Ohio Supreme Court exercise its discretion to hear the college's appeal from the $32 million judgment (which includes attorney's fees and costs).  That judgment resulted from the $11 million compensatory and $33 million punitive damage awards totalling $44 million, reduced by the trial court under Ohio tort reform law to $25 million.  The bulk of that reduction was that over $10 million in punitive damages were eliminated by punitive damage caps.

Gibson's Bakery Seeks To Execute On $36 Million Appeal Bond Since Oberlin College Failed To Obtain Stay Of Appeals Court Mandate.  As posted recently, Oberlin College is seeking to have the Ohio Supreme Court hear an appeal from the massive $32 million judgment entered after jury trial in the Lorain County Court of Common Pleas as affirmed by the 9th District Court of Appeals.  There has been an appeal bond in place since trial issued by Zurich American Insurance Company securing the judgment plus future interest in the amount of $36 million, as a condition of a stay of judgment issued by the trial court.

Gibsons to court:  Make Oberlin College pay $36 million judgment.  Attorneys for Gibson's Bakery in Oberlin have asked a Lorain County judge to order their clients be paid a $36 million-plus judgment they're owed by Oberlin College after the college failed to file an appropriate motion with a state appeals court.  Oberlin College didn't ask for a stay of a 9th District Court of Appeals ruling in March that rejected its appeal, attorneys for the Gibsons argued in a court document filed Friday.  As a result, the college should pay what a jury and court determined was owed the family bakery and its owners from a 2019 civil trial — plus interest, attorneys for the Gibsons argued.  The 9th District Court of Appeals rejected appeals by both the college and the bakery in March.

Gibson's Bakery Files Cross-Appeal In Ohio Supreme Court in Oberlin College Case.  The Gibsons now have filed a Cross-Appeal, to preserve their right to argue that the statutory cap on punitive damages, which reduced their judgment by over $10 million, is unconstitutional as applied to their case.  The Cross-Appeal is not denominated as "contingent," which is how they cross-appealed in the lower appeals court.  The reason to make a cross-appeal "contingent" would be to be able to drop the cross-appeal if the appeal were rejected on procedural or other grounds.  In other words, if you can live with the judgment, you don't want any appeals court to rule on it if you can avoid it.  But that's not how the Gibsons filed the cross-appeal, It's not contingent, and it argues the grounds under which the Ohio Supreme Court evaluates whether to take cases are met here as to the cross-appeal[.]

Oberlin College appeals to Ohio Supreme Court.  Oberlin College has appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court a $25 million judgment awarded to Gibson's Bakery in another chapter of the long-standing legal battle.  In a 20-page memorandum in support of jurisdiction filed on behalf of Oberlin College, attorneys blasted a March decision by Ohio's Ninth District Court of Appeals as an attack on free speech and the first amendment.  The lawsuit and subsequent appeals stem from a November 2016 shoplifting incident and arrests at Gibson's sparked protests by Oberlin College students who alleged racist behavior by the bakery owners.

Gibson's Bakery Scores a Victory for Truth.  Periodically, in what seems like a never-ending assault on our basic values and the rule of law, good news emerges.  The good news now is the unanimous decision of a panel of three judges on an Ohio Court of Appeals, supporting a jury decision in favor of Gibson's Bakery in its case against Oberlin College.  Gibson's Bakery sued Oberlin College for libel, intentional infliction of emotional distress and intentional interference with a business relationship, because of the school's involvement and support of student demonstrations accusing the bakery of racial profiling and discrimination.  The decision is worthy of our attention because it shows just how troubling the situation is at our colleges and universities.

Oberlin must pay record $31M award to bakery it defamed as racist, says appeals court.  A record $31 million award to a mom and pop bakery that accused a liberal Ohio college of ruining its business with false accusations of racism has been upheld by a state appeals court.  Gibson's Bakery, a 135-year-old family business near the campus of Oberlin College, was initially awarded more than $40 million in punitive and compensatory damages in the aftermath of a 2016 incident in which the owner's son confronted three black Oberlin students who were stealing wine from the store.  Although the suspects were arrested and later admitted they were shoplifting, the episode touched off school-sanctioned protests and accusations of racism that crippled the store's business.

Appeals Court Upholds Gibson's Bakery Massive Verdict Against Oberlin College.  For those of you new to the case, Gibson's Bakery was a 5th generation family business in Oberlin, Ohio, near the Oberlin College campus.  It served baked goods to the public and also to the student dining service, as well as operating a general convenience store.  As with many other small businesses, student shoplifting was epidemic, [...] A store clerk, a member of the Gibson family, caught an Oberlin black student shoplifting, a scuffle ensued that was joined by two other Oberlin black students.  When the police arrived, they arrested the students who eventually plead guilty.  But before that, the college officials and students accused the bakery of racial profiling, called a boycott, suspended Gibson's business with the college, and organized protests outside the bakery.  At the protests, a flyer was handed out, according to witnesses who testified at trial, by Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo, who also handed out stacks of flyers for others to distribute.  The flyers accused the Gibsons of a long history of racial profiling, including in the incident with these shoplifters.

Gibson's Bakery Owner Dies.  Allyn W. Gibson, owner of Gibson's Bakery in Oberlin, died on Saturday, according to a statement to the business' Facebook page.  Gibson, 93, formerly of Oberlin, passed away at Capri Gardens Rehab Center in Lewis Center, Ohio.  The statement announced Gibson's passing "with a heavy heart," and said Gibson, 93, died during "bakers hours."

Confidential Facebook Records of Gibson's Bakery Clerk Unsealed By Trial Court On Oberlin College-aligned Media Request.  In a strange ending to a long series of motions and appeals, trial court Judge John R. Miraldi has unsealed confidential Facebook records of Gibson's Bakery store clerk Allyn D. Gibson, who was not a party or witness in the underlying trial that resulted in massive verdicts for the family bakery.  Allyn D.'s stop of a black Oberlin College student for shoplifting set off protests, boycotts, and allegations of racial profiling that led to the court case and trial.  We still await the Ohio 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision in which (1) Oberlin College is challenging the compensatory and punitive damage awards totalling, after reduction under Ohio tort reform law, $25 million, plus over $6 million in attorney's fees, bringing the judgment to over $32 million, and (2) the cross-appeal by Gibson's Bakery and two members of the Gibson family (including the widow of the late David Gibson) seeking to restore the full $33 million punitive damages award.

Gibson's Bakery Store Clerk Intervenes Against Attempt By Oberlin College-aligned Media to Unseal His Facebook Records.  We still await the Ohio 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision in which (1) Oberlin College is challenging the compensatory and punitive damage awards totalling, after reduction under Ohio tort reform law, $25 million, plus over $6 million in attorney's fees, bringing the judgment to over $32 million, and (2) the cross-appeal by Gibson's Bakery and two members of the Gibson family (including the widow of the late David Gibson) seeking to restore the full $33 million punitive damages award.  As we have been covering for years, there is a second piece of this puzzle, a vindictive and transparently collusive attempt by certain media entities to unseal confidential Facebook records of Allyn D. Gibson, the store clerk whose stop of a black Oberlin College student shoplifter led to protests, boycotts, and false accusations of racial profiling.  Allyn D. was not a party in the case, was not called as a witness, and the Facebook records — produced during discovery under a court ordered confidentiality agreement — were not even offerred as exhibits.

Ohio Supreme Court to hear arguments over Gibson's Bakery evidence.  A month after referring it to mediation, the Ohio Supreme Court has sent a matter involving the unsealing of evidence in the Gibson's Bakery versus Oberlin College lawsuit back to its regular docket for a future decision.  Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor made the announcement in a brief entry on the court's docket Wednesday.  In mid-July, WEWS-TV in Cleveland and several other parties had asked the Ohio Supreme Court to force Lorain County Common Pleas Judge John Miraldi to release photos of Facebook posts by Allyn D. Gibson, the son and grandson of the owners of Gibson's Bakery, that were submitted as evidence in a 2019 civil trial but never introduced during the trial.  Miraldi has 21 days to file a response to the TV station's complaint, according to O'Connor's ruling.  The state's highest court had referred the matter to a mediator on July 22.

Media Aligned With Oberlin College Take Quest To Unseal Gibson's Bakery Store Clerk's Facebook Records To Ohio Supreme Court.  A few days ago I posted about an Ohio appeals court's dismissal of an appeal by Cleveland media interests seeking to unseal the confidential Facebook records of Allyn D. Gibson.  Allyn was the store clerk who stopped an Oberlin College black student shoplifter that led to the false accusations of racial profiling and the court case that resulted in a massive compensatory and punitive damages verdict against Oberlin College.  The appeal on the money verdict is still pending.  In that post, I noted that the appeals court found that the media interests used the wrong procedure of a direct appeal, when they needed to seek a Writ of Mandamus ordering the trial court to unseal the records.  In an Update to that post, I noted that one of the litigants, WEWS-TV, had in fact filed a Complaint for Writ of Mandamus in the Ohio Supreme Court (docket), and that the case was referred to mediation.  That mediation referral caught the attention of the Oberlin Chronicle-Telegram.

Cornell's New General Counsel Is Oberlin College In-House Lawyer Responsible For Gibson's Bakery Case.  Donica Thomas Varner, currently General Counsel at Oberlin College, has been appointed the General Counsel of Cornell University, it was just announced.  Varner is the General Counsel of Oberlin College and was responsible for overseeing the Gibson's Bakery litigation.  Varner became infamous for an email she sent between the compensatory and punitive phases.

This is activism, not journalism:
Update on Cleveland Media attempt to gain access to Gibson's Bakery store clerk Facebook records.  Oberlin College and its allies continue to fight to overturn the Gibson's Bakery verdict, and to wage war on the Gibson family by unsealing confidential Facebook records of non-party Allyn D. Gibson.  The Facebook records technically are not being litigated by the College anymore — the College lost that issue in the trial court and did not appeal.  Rather[,] it's certain Cleveland Media entities, includinge a news station where the College's lead trial attorney was a consultant, who are fighting to unseal the records.

CBS News Feature About Gibson's Bakery v.  Oberlin College Nominated for Emmy Award.  On November 3, 2019, I wrote about a CBS News Sunday Morning feature by Ted Koppel about Gibson's Bakery, its owners, and the years-long struggle to obtain justice after being targeted by Oberlin College, its administrators, faculty, staff, and students.  My post was, Ted Koppel:  Despite verdict, Oberlin College President still "makes allusions to a pattern of racist behavior" by Gibson's Bakery.  Read the post for background on the events, and Oberlin College's post-trial campaign to portray the Gibson's as racist notwithstanding the jury verdict and evidence to the contrary.  It's astounding, what I called Oberlin College's "almost sociopathic malevolence" towards Gibson's Bakery.

Oberlin College Supporters Permitted to File Amicus Briefs In Gibson's Bakery Appeal.  The appeal brief of Gibson's Bakery opposing the appeal of Oberlin College and Meredith Raimondo is due on August 5, after Gibson's motion for a final extension of time was granted by the appeals court Magistrate.  Gibson's previously filed its Cross-Appeal Brief, seeking reinstatement of the full punitive damages verdict.  While the regular briefing has been pending, a group of media and other groups asked permission to file so-called Amicus (friend of the Court) briefs in support of the college's appeal.

What does protesting the past get us?  America, in order to make up for the past suffering of slaves, has bestowed on blacks many privileges and entitlements that are not available to all other Americans, affirmative action and protection from so-called disparate impact being examples.  American whites have become — as a racial group — the most aracial people on Earth.  In predominantly white America, both implicit and explicit discrimination against blacks in admissions, hiring, retention, and promotion has been made illegal.  Even vague expressions of perceived anti-black racism, like displaying a rope that some may consider a noose, are being vigorously investigated by law enforcement and — if the evidence warrants it — punished.  A privately made statement that could be interpreted by some as racially disparaging or critical of blacks can easily end the professional career of the speaker, particularly if the speaker is white.

Nightmare at Oberlin.  Things haven't gone well for Oberlin College in court recently.  First, it was found liable for defaming Gibson's Bakery.  After the bakery's owner tried to stop a black student from shoplifting, the Oberlin student senate condemned the bakery as racist and called for a boycott of its products, which Oberlin stopped purchasing for a time.  A jury awarded the Gibson family $44 million in damages (reduced to $33 million by operation of Ohio law).  The case is on appeal to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.  Now, the Sixth Circuit has ruled that a male student may proceed with a claim of sex discrimination against Oberlin for railroading him out of the college for alleged sexual assault.

Groups file brief in support of Oberlin College, free speech in Gibsons suit.  A group of 22 media organizations, publishers and professional associations joined a brief filed last week in support of Oberlin College in its ongoing appeal of the multimillion-dollar legal judgment awarded last year to the Gibson family and Gibson's Bakery in Oberlin.  In a brief urging the 9th District Court of Appeals in Akron to overturn the verdict of the jury in last year's trial, the group supports Oberlin College's claim it was protecting students' free speech and did not act with malice toward the family-owned bakery during and following two days of protests in 2016 that led to the yearslong [sic] lawsuit and a $30 million-plus judgment against the college.

The Editor says...
Show me the dictionary in which "years-long" is a single unhyphenated word.

Gibson attorneys argue in appeal that punitive damage caps are unconstitutional.  Legal caps on punitive damages are unconstitutional under Ohio and federal law, attorneys for Gibson's Bakery and members of the Gibson family argued this week in their appeal a year after their clients were awarded millions of dollars in judgment against Oberlin College.  Less than a week after Oberlin College filed documents in support of its appeal of the more-than $35 million judgment of a Lorain County jury, attorneys for the Gibsons argued that Oberlin College is "a billion-dollar institution with power and money to bully anyone in the Oberlin community" with a "conscious disregard of the Gibsons' rights and callousness, ill will and hatred towards the Gibsons."

Gibson's Bakery v.  Oberlin College — Bakery Files Cross-Appeal Brief to Restore Full $33 Million Punitive Damages.  You may recall that there actually are two appeals here.  The first is by the defendants trying to overturn the verdict, or at least reduce further the amount of the damages.  But the second appeal is by the Gibsons, who are contesting the reduction of punitive damages by the trial court which reduced the ultimate verdict from $44 million to $25 million. [...] The Cross-Appeal Brief is a very interesting evidentiary read.  It's a reminder of the hostility the college showed towards the bakery and family.

Gibson's Bakery v. Oberlin College — Appeal Brief Filed — NAACP Supporting College.  Oberlin College and Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo have filed their Appeal Brief in the Gibson's Bakery case.  The NAACP also has filed an Amicus Brief in support of the college.  Full copies of both briefs are at the bottom of this post.  The Oberlin College Brief is redacted because some information was filed under seal (the information at issue in the various motions to unseal we previously covered).  It's not clear whether any Amicus Briefs will be filed supporting the Gibsons, to my knowledge no one is coming to their assistance.

Gibson's Bakery v.  Oberlin College — Court rejects attempt to unseal store clerk's private Facebook records.  After a monumental compensatory and punitive damages jury verdict in favor of Gibson's Bakery and its owners against Oberlin College and its Dean of Students, the college launched a public relations campaign claiming, among other things, that the Gibsons really were racist even though the jury found the accusation of racial profiling false and defamatory.

Oberlin College to lay off more than 100 in custodial, dining services.  Oberlin College's president said Tuesday the college is taking steps to save up to $2 million annually by outsourcing more than 100 jobs currently held by unionized workers.  For a union representative who learned of the college's proposal at 11:30 a.m.  Tuesday, just two hours before his membership would hear the plan, the news came like a punch in the gut, delivered in "bad faith."  In a letter posted Tuesday [2/18/2020] on the college's website, President Carmen Twillie Ambar said the college is hoping to save $2 million in salary and benefits by "formally considering contracting with outside vendors for dining and custodial services currently provided by college employees."

Oberlin College to lay off more than 100 in custodial, dining services.  Oberlin College's president said Tuesday the college is taking steps to save up to $2 million annually by outsourcing more than 100 jobs currently held by unionized workers.  For a union representative who learned of the college's proposal at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, just two hours before his membership would hear the plan, the news came like a punch in the gut, delivered in "bad faith."  In a letter posted Tuesday on the college's website, President Carmen Twillie Ambar said the college is hoping to save $2 million in salary and benefits by "formally considering contracting with outside vendors for dining and custodial services currently provided by college employees."  An estimated 52 full-time dining employees and 56 full-time custodial employees would be affected, she wrote.

To Dox The Store Clerk or Not, That Remains The Question In Gibson's Bakery v.  Oberlin College.  As we documented previously, there is ancillary litigation in the trial court by certain Cleveland media interests seeking to unseal confidential Facebook records of Allyn D. Gibson, the bakery clerk who stopped the Oberlin College student from shoplifting.  That turned into a scuffle, arrests of three students, and the protests, boycotts, lawsuit, and jury trial.

Oberlin College students, staff and community members protest layoffs of UAW workers at the school.  A large crowd comprised of Oberlin College students, employees and community members gathered Feb. 19 inside the campus' King Hall to protest the institution's recent announcement that 108 college workers could lose their jobs.  The protest, consisting of roughly over [sic] 800 people, took place during an Oberlin College faculty meeting.  The situation started with a Feb. 18 statement by Oberlin College President Carmen Twillie Ambar where she said "Oberlin (College) has notified the United Auto Workers that we are formally considering contracting with outside vendors for dining and custodial services currently provided by college employees."

The Editor says...
A reporter might say that a crowd included "roughly 800 people," or that it included "over 800 people," but the Morning Journal's editor should have filtered out the phrase, "roughly over 800 people."

Ayanna Pressley: 'American Constitution Is Sexist By Its Very Design,' Women 'Still Shackled'.  Far-left Democratic Representative Ayanna Pressley (MA) declared on the floor of the House of Representatives on Wednesday that women are "still shackled" and not "free" in the United States because the U.S. Constitution is "sexist by its very design."  "The year is 2020 and here we women are still in so many ways not fully free, still shackled," Pressley said.

The Editor says...
How odd.  A Member of Congress is wailing about how tough her life is, claiming that (all) women are "shackled."  The shackles must have made it really difficult to run for Congress.

Somewhat related:
Oberlin: Protest advocating for President Trump's impeachment to be held on Tappan Square.  Activists plan to gather at the southeast corner of Tappan Square in Oberlin by the flagpole at 5:30 p.m. Dec. 17 as part of the nationwide "Nobody Is Above the Law" rallies, which advocates for the U.S. House of Representatives to vote to impeach United States President Donald Trump.  State House Rep. Joe Miller (D-Amherst), candidates for Ohio's 4th Congressional District Shannon Freshour and Jeffrey Sites and candidate for OH House District 55 Zach Stepp will also be in attendance, according to a news release[.]

Gibson's Bakery alleges Cleveland media collaborating with Oberlin College to unseal store clerk's Facebook records.  On November 8, 2019, I noted a strange twist in the Gibson's Bakery v. Oberlin College case.  Several months after the verdicts, and a month after the court denied a nearly identical motion by Oberlin College, two Cleveland media outlets plus an Ohio media non-profit group sought to unseal the Facebook records of Allyn D. Gibson.  Allyn D. Gibson was the store clerk whose stop of a black Oberlin College student for shoplifting led to protests, defamation, and eventually, this case.  Allyn D. is the grandson of plaintiff Allyn W. Gibson and the son of the late David Gibson.  Allyn D. was not a party in the case and did not testify at the trial.

Gibson's Bakery v.  Oberlin College:  Identity Politics on Trial.  The video of the lecture is below.  I don't have a transcript.  I covered my theory of why you cannot understand the reaction to the shoplifting arrests unless you understand the history of social justice warfare at Oberlin College, and weak and complicit involvement of the prior administration.  I then walked through various incidents we have covered, particularly The Great Oberlin College Racism Hoax of 2013, that predated the Gibson protests.  I also spend a lot of time talking about Oberlin College's perplexing and offensive demonization of the bakery and the Gibson family, both before and at trial.  I discussed some of the evidence in the case, but my job was not to argue for or against the verdict, but to understand it.  [Video clip]

Cleveland Media Seek Access To Gibson's Bakery Store Clerk's Sealed Facebook Records in Oberlin College Case, But Why?  The court already ruled against Oberlin College's attempt to unseal the records of a Gibson family member who wasn't a party and didn't testify.  So why are Cleveland media outlets trying to rescue Oberlin College's post-trial public relations effort?

A protest against racism, and a $31.5 million defamation award.  David Gibson, one of the owners of Gibson's Bakery in Oberlin, described what happened when his son, Allyn, was at the cash register when the student tried to buy a bottle of wine:  "My son confronted him and would not accept the false ID.  Realized it was a fake ID as well.  But realized that he was also trying to steal two bottles of wine.  And at that point he denied him the sale.  "He attempted to take a picture of him with his phone.  At that point, the young man took his phone and shoved it in his face and was able to run out of the store.

Despite verdict, Oberlin College President still "makes allusions to a pattern of racist behavior" by Gibson's Bakery.  One of the most disturbing aspects of the Gibson's Bakery v.  Oberlin College case has been the almost obsessive demonization of Gibson's Bakery and its owners by the college.  It started not just during the protests and pre-litigation interactions that gave rise to the lawsuit, but in the Answer filed by the defendants in response to the lawsuit. [...] For now, the battle is being fought in the court of public opinion.  And the college's aggressiveness in attacking the Gibsons has not changed, with suggestions by the college, wink, wink, that the Gibsons probably are racist even if the college wasn't allowed to prove it in court.

CBS News report on Gibsons v.  Oberlin College case to air Sunday.  CBS News will run a special report on the court case between Gibson's Bakery and Oberlin College at 9 a.m.  Sunday [11/3/2019]. [...] Award-winning broadcast journalist Ted Koppel was in Oberlin in early October conducting interviews for a CBS News Sunday Morning special on the November 2016 protests that led to a court case and $32 million judgment against the college last spring.

Gibson family appeals reduction of $44 million award in case against Oberlin College.  The Gibson family, owner of Gibson's bakery, won their case against Oberlin College earlier this year and a jury awarded the family a total of $44 million.  However, that amount was later reduced to just over $31 million to keep it in line with caps on damages that exist under Ohio law.  Earlier this month the college filed an appeal of that reduced judgment.

Gibsons file notice of appeal in case against Oberlin College.  Less than two weeks after their counterparts announced plans to appeal the verdict, attorneys for Gibson's Bakery and the Gibson family have filed their own notice of appeal in their multi-million dollar lawsuit against Oberlin College.  Both sides are now seeking to overturn rulings made during and after the six-week trial that capture national attention as it played out in Lorain County Common Pleas Court.  The jury's original $44 million award to the Gibsons was the largest in a libel suit in Ohio history, though it was later reduced by Judge John Miraldi due to statutory limitations in Ohio law.

David Gibson Admitted to 'Hospital in Very Serious Condition' Due to Pancreatic Cancer.  Gibson's Bakery posted on Facebook today that David Gibson, one of the owners of the bakery and a plaintiff in the lawsuit that yielded almost $32 million in damages against Oberlin College, went to the hospital "in very serious condition."  He announced on August 6 that he has pancreatic cancer. [...] Gibson knew about his pancreatic cancer for months.  He asked the court not to tell the jurors about his illness.  In his announcement video, Gibson said Oberlin College planned to drag out the court battle due to his pancreatic cancer.

Somewhat related:
Oberlin students campaign for candidates in Virginia.  With the general election less than a month away, Oberlin students are working the phones to try and turn the Virginia Statehouse blue.  Students met in the Mudd Center to call and campaign for three Virginia Democrats; incumbents Wendy Gooditis and Danica Roem, and challenger Dan Helmer who is trying to unseat a Republican incumbent.  Oberlin student Emma Bally is a member of the Oberlin College Democrats and a fellow for the Human Rights Campaign.  She said she organized with the college group to help campaign Thursday afternoon [10/10/2019] so they could help influence the campaigns in Virginia.

Oberlin College to appeal Gibson's verdict.  Attorneys for Oberlin College filed notice in Lorain County Common Pleas Court on Tuesday [10/8/2019] that they are appealing the verdict handed down by a Lorain County jury earlier this year in a defamation case brought by Gibson's Bakery and the Gibson family.  Oberlin College's board of trustees voted to appeal the multimillion jury verdict, which currently stands at $31.5 million in favor of the Gibsons.  The appeal will be heard by the Ninth District Court of Appeals in Akron.

Oberlin College hires high-powered D.C. lawyers to appeal Gibson's Bakery verdict.  Oberlin College just announced in an email blast that it not only is appealing the Gibson's Bakery verdict, it has hired 1st Amendment litigators at the D.C. Office of a large national law firm to lead the appeal.  The email blast announcing the appeal was sent by Chris Canavan, Chair of the Oberlin College Board of Trustees.  For most of the past decade Canavan also was Director, Global Policy Development, at Soros Fund Management, until leaving that position last month.

Judge denies Oberlin College's request to unseal Gibson Bakery store clerk's Facebook records.  There have been many strange motions and actions in the Gibson's Bakery v.  Oberlin College case.  A post-trial motion by Oberlin College to unseal Facebook records may be one of the more strange developments, and offers a window into the bitter feelings of college officials.  Allyn D. Gibson (Allyn D.) is the grandson of plaintiff Allyn W. Gibson ("Allyn W.") and the son of plaintiff David Gibson.  Allyn D., who was not a party in the lawsuit, was the store clerk on duty who caught an Oberlin College student shoplifting.  The scuffle that ensued, involving two additional Oberlin College students, resulted in (1) the arrest (and later conviction) of the three students, and (2) protests and boycotts, and the alleged defamation of the bakery and its owners by Oberlin College and Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo.

Judge rejects new trial in Gibson's case; documents detail settlement attempts.  A judge on Tuesday [9/10/2019] denied Oberlin College a new trial to once again defend itself in the case brought by the Gibson family and Gibson's Bakery over the college's behavior during student protests nearly three years ago.  Lorain County Common Pleas Judge John Miraldi rejected not only a new trial, but also a request by the Gibsons that he award an additional $105,000 in interest on top of the already-awarded damages, according to court documents.

Oberlin College denied new trial in Gibson's Bakery case.  [Scroll down]  In neither Order did the Court address what I found to be the only "interesting" issue, the jury verdict form on compensatory damages that found no "actual malice," yet the jury considered bad intent as part of punitive damages.  Apparently the Court did not find it sufficiently interesting to address separately.

Oberlin College wants new trial in Gibsons case.  Citing errors in the six-week trial that led to a multimillion-dollar legal judgment in favor of Gibson's Bakery and the Gibson family, Oberlin College has asked a judge for a new trial to be held in the case.  More than 540 pages of legal arguments and exhibits were filed Aug. 14 by Oberlin College attorneys asking Lorain County Common Pleas Judge John Miraldi to order a new trial.

Oberlin College Seeks New Trial in Gibson's Bakery Case.  Everyone is waiting for the appeal in the Gibson's Bakery v.  Oberlin College case that has captured the attention of the nation.  The judgment is for almost $32 million in damages and defendants were required to post a $36 million bond to secure the judgment pending appeal.  The appeal phase, as I've previously indicated, is the most perilous for the Gibsons.  Their case was so strong on the facts, and the trial defense so tone deaf, that a jury verdict in their favor was likely.  But on appeal, there are legal landmines the defense will try to raise that could torpedo the jury verdict.  I'm not predicting that, but in any lengthy trial there are a myriad of issues a losing party could raise on appeal.

Oberlin College Professor after Gibson's Bakery verdict: "how idiotic can the college be always?".  Despite over 100 posts at Legal Insurrection on the Gibson's Bakery v.  Oberlin College conflict and lawsuit, I just read a fresh perspective on what happened.  The perspective is that of Abraham Socher, currently Editor of the Jewish Review of Books.  Pertinent to this discussion, Socher is a former Oberlin College Associate Professor of Religion and Director of Jewish Studies, where he taught for 18 years. [...] This wasn't just a town-gown conflict, or even a racial conflict, it was a class conflict as much as anything.

Gibson's Bakery owner announces cancer diagnosis, says Oberlin College is trying to wait him out.  Gibson's Bakery co-owner David Gibson is fighting pancreatic cancer, he announced in a video posted Tuesday to the bakery's Facebook page.  He also said he believes Oberlin College is trying to wait until he and his 91-year-old father are dead as the two sides continue to battle in court in a case that resulted in the largest monetary award for libel in Ohio history.  Doing so wouldn't absolve the college of having to pay if it loses or exhausts all its appeals, according to an experienced First Amendment attorney who has been following the case.

Oberlin College, staff member post bond in Gibson Bros.  Inc. lawsuit.  Oberlin College Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo posted a bond July 30 for the sum that a Lorain County jury says they owe a local bakery.  In a filing in Lorain County Common Pleas Court, the Zurich American Insurance Company, of Maryland, posted a $36,367,711 bond on behalf of Oberlin College and Raimondo to cover the current judgment that was imposed against them by the jury and Common Pleas Judge John R. Miraldi.

Oberlin Says It Can't Pay Defamed Baker, Judge Orders College to Post Bond of Over $36 Million.  Oberlin College was ordered to pay $31.5 Million to a local baker for defamation.  They are saying they can't pay.  The judge just ordered them to put up a $36 Million bond to make sure they do.  That's hardcore justice.

Oberlin College ordered to post $36M bond in case against Gibson's Bakery.  Lorain County Common Pleas Judge John Miraldi has ordered Oberlin College to post a $36 million appeal bond before he stays execution of the multimillion-dollar judgment recently won against the college by Gibson's Bakery and the Gibson family.  Attorneys for the Gibsons had requested the college post a bond worth $36,367,711.56, representing the total amount of judgments against the college, plus interest, awarded by a jury and Miraldi following a six-week trial that lasted from late May into early June.

Gibson's Bakery: "there is serious concern about [Oberlin College's] ability to pay this sizeable judgment three years from now".  With interest running at over $4k per day, Oberlin College seeks stay of execution of Gibson's Bakery $32 million judgment, but doesn't want to post a bond.  The $25 million damages judgment plus the over $6.5 million attorney's fees and expenses award, puts Oberlin College almost $32 million in debt to Gibson's Bakery and its owners.  Post-judgment interest in Ohio is 5%, which if my math is correct, on $32 million equals $1.6 million a year just in interest, or $4,384 per day.  So that $32 million is going to keep growing as the inevitable appeal winds its way through the courts.

Judge awards Gibson's attorneys $6.5 million in fees on top of damages.  The law firms that represented Gibson's Bakery and its owners in a lawsuit against Oberlin College have been awarded approximately $6.5 million in attorney fees by Lorain County Common Pleas Judge John Miraldi.  The amount is on top of the $25 million in compensatory and punitive damages Oberlin College has been ordered to pay the bakery and its owners, who won a lawsuit against the college last month.

Gibson's Bakery says Oberlin College's scorched earth defense justifies large legal fee award.  The post-verdict fight over legal fees continues in the Gibson's Bakery v. Oberlin College case.  The jury decided that Gibson's would get attorney's fees, but it is up to Judge John Miraldi to determine the amount.  Last week Daniel McGraw reported on the court hearing, and the astounding fact that the lawyers on each side had time into the case equaling just under $5 million.  The defense lawyers got paid hourly, the Gibson's lawyers have the case on a 40% contingent fee, but kept track of their time.

Gibson's Bakery v.  Oberlin College: $5 million attorney's fees may be a floor, not a ceiling.  The hourly time put in by the plaintiffs' and defense attorneys each was just under $5 million.  That would seem to create a measure of "reasonable attorney's fees" to be awarded Gibson's — the issue is whether and how much of a multiplier is applied.

Former Oberlin College President:  "Pay the court's judgment, don't fight it; apologize to the Gibson family and to the community".  [Scroll down]  There is no indication the current Oberlin College administration is ready to change the culture.  The post-verdict public relations campaign continues falsely to portray Oberlin College as having done nothing other than attempt to protect student free speech, and as having been held liable for student speech in a result that is a threat to higher education.  The jury verdict is just the latest in a long line of Oberlin College enemies to be slain.

Gibson's Bakery v.  Oberlin College:  The $13 million damage claim the jury wasn't permitted to consider.  Oberlin College's erroneous crisis management public relations campaign seeks to portray itself as the victim of a process in which the judge and jury made numerous mistakes, and the media misrepresented the case.  But in reality, Judge John Miraldi had several rulings that helped Oberlin College tremendously.  In his pre-trial summary judgment ruling, Judge Miraldi found a number of the statements the plaintiffs wanted to present to the jury on the libel claim to be constitutionally protected opinion.  Only two of the documents which contained defamatory statements and were spread by the college (the flyer and student senate resolution) were permitted to be shown to the jury.  The judge also denied the plaintiffs' request to show videos of the demonstrations because student speech was not at issue (contrary to what Oberlin College President Ambar keeps saying).

Recap and overview of the Gibson's Bakery case:
Oberlin College is Paying the Price for Defaming a Family-Owned Bakery as 'Racist'.  The day after the 2016 presidential election, an Oberlin student entered Gibson's Bakery, near the college campus, and slipped a bottle of wine into his coat.  Allyn Gibson, whose great-great-grandfather founded the business, told the young man that he was going to call the police.  When he took out his phone to photograph him, the youth slapped the phone out of Gibson's hand and ran out of the store, with Gibson in pursuit.  When the police arrived on the scene, Gibson, who is white, was on his back being beaten by the youth and two of his friends, all of whom are black.  Nine months later, the three youths pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges and read a statement saying that Gibson's behavior was justified and not racially motivated.  But in the interim, student protests were held outside Gibson's store, and pamphlets were distributed accusing the store of racism.

Court enters $25 million Judgment against Oberlin College in Gibson's Bakery case.  In the Gibson's Bakery v. Oberlin College case, the Court has entered a Judgment calculating the damages owed by the defendants after applying the statutory tort reform caps.  The total amount (inclusive of compensatory and punitive damages) is:  David R. Gibson $14,000,000; Allyn W. Gibson $6,500,000; Gibson Bros.  Inc. $4,549,000.  The total is $25,049,000.  A hearing on awarding plaintiffs attorney's fees is set for July 10.

Oberlin Punished for Fact-Free Food Fight.  Oberlin College in Ohio has devolved into one of academe's most infamous examples of political correctness, one of those unwelcoming places that rails against anyone who brings speakers to campus if those speakers upset Oberlin's crusades against the racist/sexist/anti-gay menace.  Now Oberlin's administration is being punished in a very significant way for a very significant offense, and it's about time.  It has taken political correctness to an abusive extreme.

Irony: Ultra-liberal Oberlin College will save millions on Gibson's Bakery verdicts under Republican Tort Reform.  The massive compensatory and punitive damage jury verdicts in favor of Gibson's Bakery and its owners Allyn W. Gibson and David Gibson, against Oberlin College and Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo, continue to reverberate.  This case is a big shock to the higher educational system and already is giving rise to a rethinking of the role of administrators in participating in student activism.  Yet think of the jury verdict as the end of the beginning.  The most legally dangerous territory for the Gibsons is ahead.  The facts of the case were so strong for the Gibsons that in some ways the easiest part is behind them.

I'm an Oberlin Graduate.  They Had It Coming.  As a right-wing alumna of far-left Oberlin College, I have four words for the administration in response to last week's ground-breaking $11 million jury verdict in the defaming of humble Gibson's Bakery:  You had it coming.  I have five more words for Oberlin as arrogant college officials continue their obstinate war on the Gibson family even after the much-deserved courtroom defeat:  You still don't get it.

Woke apocalypse: the Oberlin College suit.  If there is one thing you learn about at Oberlin, the notoriously progressive liberal-arts college, it is surely privilege:  white privilege, hetero privilege, gender privilege — you name it.  Now, an Ohio jury has identified an entirely new variety — Woke Privilege — and resolved to hold accountable people who believe they are protected by it.  The jury handed down a staggering $11 million verdict against Oberlin for a smear campaign against a local business and awarded another $33 million in punitive damages to the targeted mom-and-pop store, Gibson's Food Market and Bakery.  The damages will certainly be — reduced, but the verdict is a shot across the bow of prestigious institutions tempted to join social-justice mobs.

Oberlin Gets a $33 Million Smackdown.  Today's podcast largely concerns the stunning slam of Oberlin College by an Ohio jury, which found it liable for the defamation of an off-campus business, the venerable Gibson's Bakery.  What does this portend for racial politics on campus and the disgraceful conduct of out-of-control college administrators?  [Podcast]

With a Huge Punitive Damage Award, the Oberlin Verdict Becomes Even More Meaningful.  First, while the facts of the case were egregious, they were not unique.  In the Oberlin case, students accused the plaintiffs — owners of Gibson's Food Market and Bakery — of racism and racial profiling after police arrested three students for attempting to steal wine and then physically attacking an employee who tried to stop the theft.  The students later pled guilty to multiple criminal counts.  Students immediately launched protests of the bakery and created and disseminated flyers declaring the bakery "a RACIST establishment with a LONG ACCOUNT of RACIAL PROFILING and DISCRIMINATION," and that a member of the Oberlin community "was assaulted" by its owner.  These claims were false.  The evidence at trial showed that employees and administrators helped publish and distribute the false flyer, including by disseminating it to the media.  The college also suspended its business relationship with the bakery.  Anyone who's spent any time dealing with campus controversies knows that activist administrators often help, support, and even direct the activities of radical students.

Oberlin's cultural rot went far beyond SJW politics into a 'culture of theft'.  In the wake the landmark $44 million verdict against Oberlin College for defaming a 5-generation family business, information is coming to light about the behavior of students and administrators at that once-respectable institution that is simply appalling. [...] Oberlin students acted as predators on the larger community.  The pervasiveness of the student culture that regarded shopkeepers as prey is indicated by the admission of the author that he himself had stolen from the people he interviewed.  These students, whose yearly costs of attending Oberlin (>$70k) far exceeds the average income of the surrounding community (<$55k), care not a whit about the people who work long and hard to serve them.  All the time pretending that they are interested in "social justice."

Punitive damage verdict against Oberlin College "was like a seismic wave moving quickly through the courtroom".  When the punitive damage jury verdict was read in court yesterday in Gibson's Bakery v.  Oberlin College, it was like a seismic wave moving quickly through the courtroom.  It was that big, bigger than anyone had expected.  The added punitive damages was $33,223,500, charged to Oberlin College.  That was $33 million in damages added on to the $11.2 million they had already awarded the small business family and its owners as compensatory damages.

Oberlin alumni letter predicts 'lengthy and complex legal process'.  Less than 24 hours after a $44 million settlement against the college in favor of Gibson's Bakery, Oberlin College President Carmen Twillie Ambar assured alumni in an email that the punitive damage award will change.  In the letter sent to alumni that was obtained by the Chronicle-Telegram, Ambar writes:  "This is not the final outcome.  This is, in fact, just one step along the way of what may turn out to be a lengthy and complex legal process... It will not distract, deter or materially harm our education mission, for today's students or for generations to come."  Eight jurors in the civil lawsuit deliberated on punitive damages for less than three hours Thursday afternoon [6/13/2019] and came back with their verdicts shortly before 3 p.m.  Their total damage award was more than $44 million, plus an as-yet-undetermined amount of attorney fees payable to the Gibsons' legal team.

College With $887M Endowment Claims That $33M Settlement For Misconduct Will Hurt Students.  Well, this is certainly brazen.  As I reported yesterday, Oberlin College got hit with punitive damages of $33M for coordinated attacks by their employees and students on a local bakery.  The back story boils down to the fact that this bakery tried to stop three people from shop-lifting some wine.  This led to sustained attacks, spurned on by #blacklivesmatters, based on false accusations of racism that caused serious harm to the business. [...] This has Oberlin college poor-mouthing about how such a judgement will hurt their student body and others not directly involved in the activities in question.

Oberlin Pays for Smearing the Town Grocer.  Ohio's Oberlin College has achieved national notoriety for the zeal of its progressive activism.  According to a 2016 story in the New Yorker, students have bombarded administrators with endless demands for accommodation, including abolishing midterms, banning grades below C, the addition of "trigger warnings" to classic literature and even an $8.20 hourly wage for engaging in activism.  It isn't surprising in this light that a hate-crime hoax, spurred by a shoplifting incident at a nearby business, was enough to put students in attack mode.

Oberlin College hit with maximum (capped at $22 million by law) in Gibson's Bakery case.  Daniel McGraw, our reporter in the courtroom, reports that in addition to the $11.2 million compensatory damages awarded last Friday, the jury awarded a total of $33 million in punitive damages, which will probably be reduced by the court to $22 million because of the state law cap at twice compensatory (it's not an absolute cap, but probably will apply here).  That brings the total damages to $33 million.

Oberlin College pleads poverty to jury deciding on punitive damages.  [Scroll down]  But of course it is not a divorce, it is a proceeding intended to signal to the nation, especially to the college administrators of the country, the costs of reckless catering to politically correct radical students making false claims of racism.

Good!  It was the students that got you into this mess.
Oberlin College to Jury:  We're cash poor and big punitive award to Gibson's Bakery will hurt students.  The witness testimony completed today [6/12/2019] in the punitive damages hearing, which follows the $11.2 million compensatory verdict last Friday in the lawsuit Gibson's Bakery v. Oberlin College.  The jury could award up to double damages, meaning $22.4 million on top of the $11.2 million, bringing the potential total to $33.6 million, plus a recommendation that the judge award attorney's fees. [...] Gibson's lawyers spent considerable time going over Oberlin College's IRS Form 990, showing over $1 billion in assets and numerous employees earning over $100,000[.]

Ohio Family Bakery Stopped Shoplifter.  Protesters Called Them Racist.  This Jury Just Awarded The Bakery $11 Million.  A family that has owned and operated an Ohio bakery near Oberlin College since 1885 suffered accusations of racism and protests after stopping a black Oberlin College student from shoplifting.  That prompted the Gibson family, which has owned and operated the business since its inception, to sue the college and its interim vice president and dean of students, Meredith Raimondo, asserting that they had defamed the bakery and caused emotional distress.

Jury awards Gibson's Bakery $11 million against Oberlin College.  The Jury in the Gibson's Bakery v.  Oberlin College case has reached a verdict.  According to our reporter in the Courtroom, the jury awarded $11 million.  Here are the details:  Allyn W. Gibson was awarded $3 million, David Gibson $5.8 million, Gibson Bros. $2,274,500.  Next Tuesday [6/11/2019] there will be a separate punitive damages which could be a double award (meaning tripling the $11 million to $33 million).

Gibson's Bakery v. Oberlin College trial reflects Higher Ed disconnect from the lives of most Americans.  Within the limitations of our ability to know, I've come away with some overall impressions, in no particular order:  First, from the start of this case I have questioned the aggressive and demeaning attacks on the Gibsons as a defense strategy.  There is no evidence that the Gibsons did anything wrong, unless you consider stopping people from stealing something wrong.  That lawful act of protecting one's property nonetheless has devastated a 5-generation business because of Oberlin College racial politics.

Gibson's Bakery v.  Oberlin College — Trial Day 12 — Defense says Bakery worth only $35k, less than one semester at Oberlin College.  In many civil court cases, it is not the liability of the defendant that causes the jury the most trouble.  It is how they measure that liability in dollar amounts.  In previous testimony by plaintiff's expert Frank Monaco, an accountant with about 40 years experience doing businesses valuations and income streams calculations, testified Gibson's was set to lose about $5.8 million over the next 30 years from the defendant's alleged racist accusations.  Defendants today [5/30/2019] presented their own expert's findings.  That expert, an accountant, stated his opinion that $5.8 million quite a bit off, and told the jury that the 135-year-old small business was only worth $35,000.

The Single most amazing (and insulting) line from the Oberlin College story.  There is a lot being written about the Oberlin College verdict awarding Gibson Bakery over 11 million for defamation. [...] Every single bit of it is worth your time but if you really want to to read one paragraph that sums up what was going on at Oberlin College this bit from the 9th day of the trial is it. [...] The bakery was talking to the school trying to defuse the situation and the school demanded that the students going to their $70,000 a year college be given a free pass to steal from their bakery at least once before getting police involved. [...] And what's worse that's all based on race.

Court: Gibson's Bakery lawsuit against Oberlin College can continue in full.  The short version is that three Oberlin students were arrested for shoplifting at Gibson's bakery.  Oberlin students claimed racial profiling, and mounted protests and a boycott supported by college student groups, administrators and faculty.  The boycott continued even after police released data showing there was no racial profiling in shoplifting arrests at the bakery, and the three students pled guilty.

Oberlin College lashes out at Gibson's Bakery, portrays itself as victim.  For over a year we have been covering an incident at Gibson's Bakery in Oberlin, Ohio, close to Oberlin College.  The incident involved charges of racial profiling against the Bakery after three black Oberlin students were arrested for shoplifting.  When one of the employees, Allyn Gibson, attempted to stop them, a scuffle broke out.  The reaction from Oberlin student activists was to make claims of racial profiling, as we documented in our first post on the incident in November 2016[.]

Lawsuits, Protests, And Cries Of Racism At Oberlin After Black Students Arrested For Stealing, Assaulting White Shopkeeper.  A small business in Oberlin, Ohio, popular with denizens of Oberlin College is facing accusations of racism and protests after three black students were arrested November 2016 for assaulting a white shopkeeper and stealing bottles of wine.  After being labeled as a "racist establishment," by a senior dean at the college, the family owned business, Gibson's Bakery, says it has no choice but to sue the college and Meredith Raimondo, vice president and dean of students, for slander, the Associated Press reported.

Racial dispute at beloved bakery roils liberal college town.  The dispute, which began in November 2016 with the arrest of three black Oberlin students who tried stealing wine from Gibson's, is now a lawsuit in which the exasperated bakery owners accuse the college and a top dean of slandering Gibson's as a "racist establishment" and taking steps to destroy the family's livelihood.

Philadelphia Committee Passes Bill Forcing Store Owners to Remove Bullet-Proof Glass Because it's Offensive.  What's more important, protecting the dignity of customers who shop in local liquor stores, or the innocent employees and store owners who come in every day, knowing that the only thing that ensures they will go home alive, is the bullet-proof glass between them and the criminal element who enters their store?  Well, according to one Philadelphia councilwoman, it's the dignity of the customers.  Philadelphia's Public Health and Human Services Committee passed a bill Monday [12/4/2017] to ban shop owners from protecting themselves with bulletproof plexiglass.



The Bill Cosby Subsection:

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For English, please press '1'.  Two politicians in Maryland are now in trouble for stating the obvious:  People who work in customer service should speak English.  And out-of-control multiculturalism is to blame for the failure to preserve America's common language.  The professional victims are up in arms as usual — demanding apologies, whining to the press and clamoring for government subsidies to nurse their hurt feelings.

Work pays!  Those for whom indignation is a way of life often inform us of the fact that families or households in the top 10 or 20 percent in income make far more money than people in the bottom 10 or 20 percent in income.  What they almost never inform us of are how much money they are talking about and how many people in these different brackets actually work.

Mayors' Claims of Growing Hunger Appear Wildly Exaggerated.  The US Conference of Mayors has released its annual report on hunger and homelessness in America.  The mayors have released a similar report each year since 1987.  The report measures "hunger" by the number of persons using food banks or soup kitchens.  The Conference of Mayors has reported that the number of persons using food banks or soup kitchens in major cities has increased substantially in each of the past 16 years, and it is expected that a similar increase will be reported this year.  The mayors' hunger reports, however, are vague.  They do not give the number of persons using food banks or soup kitchens.  Instead, they merely report the rate of increase in use compared to the prior year.

Racism Charge Is A Clunker:  Once the numbers are cooked and disparate impact is shown, the heavy legal burden of disproving racial discrimination falls on the defendant.  (For that, blame the 1991 Civil Rights Act — one of the most disastrous bipartisan legacies of former President George Herbert Walker Bush.)

White guilt, black exploitation:  Few Americans have heard of the National Slave Memorial Act (HR 196) that proposes to erect a National Slave Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

Liberal segregationist in the schools:  The spirit of George Wallace is alive and well — among left-wing zealots in some of America's most "progressive" taxpayer-funded schools.  In Oberlin, Ohio, local school board president Tony Marshall argues that only black high school teachers should teach "black history."

Children's Nursery Rhyme Triggers Racial Discrimination Lawsuit:  A Southwest Airlines flight attendant's use of a popular children's rhyme - "Eenie, meenie, minie, moe" - has resulted in a federal racial discrimination lawsuit against the airline filed by two African American women asking for unspecified financial damages.

 Update:   Southwest Airlines Cleared in Race Discrimination Lawsuit.  A federal jury has decided that a Southwest Airlines flight attendant did not discriminate against two black passengers when she used a nursery rhyme to get passengers to pick their seats.

Black-casualty myth shattered:  In fact, it is whites who serve on the front-lines in disproportionate numbers.

Death Penalty by the Numbers:  Inasmuch as black murderers commit about half of all homicides in the United States, the numbers make it clear that the death penalty is imposed with disproportionate severity not on blacks, but on whites.

Republicans and Civil Rights:  In the 26 major civil rights votes after 1933, a majority of Democrats opposed civil rights legislation in over 80 percent of the votes.  By contrast, the Republican majority favored civil rights in over 96 percent of the votes.

Family Secrets:  [T]oday's unprecedented illegitimacy and weak family structure has nothing to do with discrimination and slavery.  It's explained better by promiscuity and irresponsibility, and as such it's not a civil rights problem.

Truth:  If ever a black woman should have screamed "black liberation" with a southern accent, that woman would have been [Oseola] McCarty.  But she did not.  What she did do was save her money for seventy-eight years.  Year after year, she washed clothes day and night.  She saved what she could.  She did not marry.  She did not have children out of wedlock.  And at the end of her days, Ms. McCarty gave all of her life savings, $150,000, to create a scholarship for black students.

Black students allegedly behind racist graffiti:  Three African-American students at the University of Mississippi have been accused of writing racist graffiti on doors outside rooms of two other black students in the Kincannon residence hall on the Oxford campus.

Hate crime hoax at Ole Miss:  A terrible racial incident took place at Trent Lott's alma mater last month.  But you won't hear about it from Dan Rather or Time magazine or The Washington Post or the NAACP.  That's because what happened at the University of Mississippi in the early morning hours of Nov. 6 has all the markings of a fake hate crime:  An apparent racial hoax committed by black students against black students, but blamed on whites — until the suspects were nabbed last week.

Anti-Muslim attack called bogus.  A Muslim student who said a masked gunman assaulted her after he wrote anti-Islamic slurs in a women's restroom at Elmhurst College was arrested Friday after an investigation concluded the attack never happened.  A week after the case roiled the small college, Elmhurst Police Chief Steven Neubauer said Safia Jilani, 19, of Oak Brook had been booked on a felony charge of filing a false police report, which is punishable by 1 to 3 years in prison.

Sob Your Way Into College:  Many of the freshmen entering California's public university system this fall will owe their college opportunity not so much to great test scores but to hard-luck stories, such as surviving a shooting, dealing with the death of a close relative or growing up in a single-parent household.  Conservative civil rights activists suspect that this post-"affirmative action" admissions policy is little more than an end-run around the voter-passed prohibition against racial preferences.

Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams:  Grace Under Fire.  For over 30 years, Thomas Sowell, currently with the Hoover Institution, and Walter Williams, chairman of the economics department at George Mason University, led the charge against the "victicrat" mindset.  Through decades of weekly columns, books, speeches and lectures before often-hostile crowds, they long argued that racism cannot be blamed for poverty, crime, illegitimacy, and under-performing schools.

The Friends of James Ujaama:  In the name of "African American Unity," the political friends of James Ujaama refuse to believe he is anything other than a benign minority community activist under attack by a biased government.  This self-serving love of racial demagoguery is blind, dumb and dangerous.

Naming Names in "Africa-America":  The so-called "slave names" that so many blacks began repudiating in the 1960s, were neither given to them by slaveowners nor were they usually the slaveowners' family names.  They were names chosen despite prohibitions, in order to symbolize family ties that were often stronger than those in today's ghettoes.

Cronyism 101:  The Perks of Being "Disadvantaged".  The "Disadvantaged Business Enterprise" program, run by the U.S. Department of Transportation and adopted by states and cities across the country, is one of the most atrociously corrupt government endeavors in existence.  Opportunists of all colors have used the racial set-aside law to win billions of dollars worth of federal contracts for themselves and their friends under the guise of being "victims."

A Usable Black History:  A better, more usable history would be one that gives greater emphasis to black successes in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. That kind of history inspires, instead of breeding victimhood.

Black History Month:  What is called Black History Month might more accurately be called "the sins of white people" month.  The "sins" of any branch of the human race are virtually inexhaustible, but the history of blacks in America includes a lot more than the sins of white people, which are put front and center each February.

Remembering to color inside the lines:  A new book by a black writer takes sharp and refreshing exception to the notion that nurturing victimhood is the route to success.  His title, "The Envy of the World:  On Being a Black Man in America," is ironic, but it suggests a direction away from the victim mentality.  Ellis Cose, the author, acknowledges the paradoxes of being black, but seeks to inspire in a new way, looking ahead at black potential rather than nurturing grievances over slavery and the oppression of the past.

History vs. Hogwash:  From time to time someone tells me that I would not have been able to do this or that without affirmative action.  But everything that I have done was done by other blacks before me — and therefore long before the civil rights revolution of the 1960s or affirmative action.

A New Strategy for Racial Quotas:  "Comprehensive Review".  If your father beats your mother up or abandons her, or you've made a few suicide attempts, you're moved up a notch or two over the more academically qualified students who are short on familial pathology.

Race and Entitlement:  At a recent meeting in Washington, D.C. sponsored by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, a who's who of leftist minorities, seven representatives from both communities took to attacking a pair of their favorite boogiemen, the judicial and political systems.

Harvard Prof, Involved in Political Flap, Labeled "Intellectual Lightweight":  Cornel West, the Harvard professor and author at the center of a racial controversy at the prestigious school, is being criticized for his contributions to academia by both the political left and right.  Author David Horowitz said West is "an incredible intellectual lightweight" who has only achieved success by playing racial politics.

"African American" Blackmailers Come to Harvard:  At a meeting in October, the new Harvard President reportedly urged Professor Cornel West to help combat Harvard's rampant grade inflation, singling out his so-called "Introduction to Afro-American Studies" as a prime example of the problem.  Oops!


"There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs and the hardships of the Negro race before the public.  Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays.  Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs."

Booker T. Washington   (1865 - 1915)    


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Updated March 15, 2024.

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