Tuesday, June 30, 2020



Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About White Privilege

Wayne Allyn Root

My name is Wayne Allyn Root. I'm an SOB (son of a butcher). I understand this "white privilege" controversy like no one person on Earth.

I've never had it. I've never even had a whiff of it. That's why I have no "white guilt." I have nothing to be guilty about. But I have met plenty of privileged white kids. You know what you call them? Liberal Democrats. More on that in a minute.

First, my background. My Jewish ancestors were far more likely to be slaves than to have one. My ancestors were persecuted, abused, robbed, enslaved and murdered by government -- just like Black Americans.

My Jewish grandparents got to America in the early 1900s -- long after slavery. They settled in New York City, not the South. If they ever met anyone from the Ku Klux Klan, it was only because they were being persecuted by white extremists -- just like Black Americans.

My father fought in World War II and faced sure death at Okinawa. Was that "white privilege"? He spent the rest of his life as a blue-collar butcher. He woke at 3 a.m. every day to drive to the meat market in the dark and freezing cold and buy the wholesale meat he'd sell at his shop. My father struggled his entire life as a working-class man and died with an estate of nothing (other than his home).

He worried every hour of every day how he'd pay his bills. No one gave him anything in his life -- let alone because he was white.

So, where was his "white privilege"? Can liberals please explain where all that hidden privilege was? Because my dad's story is the story of most middle-class white Americans. We are the "silent majority" that supports President Donald Trump. We've never caught a whiff of "white privilege."

My personal story is all about Black and white. I attended a rough urban high school on the Bronx borderline that was 90% Black. I was one of the few white kids out of 4,000 students. I was tortured 24/7 for being "the minority." I was beaten a hundred times. I was chased home from school, terrified, fearing for my life. My lunch money was stolen so often I stopped going to lunch. I knew better than to ever go to the school bathroom. That's where kids were terrorized and robbed. I was almost murdered by a thug with a machete. Is that what you call "white privilege"?

But, eventually, I learned to fight, knocked out a few bullies, became an athlete and won my classmates' respect. I graduated valedictorian and was accepted to my dream school, Columbia University.

That's where I first learned about "white privilege." As a matter of fact, almost every one of my classmates at Columbia University had it. They were almost all lucky-sperm-club, spoiled-brat, filthy-rich kids with rich, powerful fathers who opened every door for them, greased every wheel. They had everything handed to them on a silver platter, with no effort necessary.

Now that's white privilege.

Oh, and where did all these little spoiled brats with "white privilege" wind up? Today, my Ivy League classmates are mostly powerful politicians, lawyers and media figures.

So, "white privilege" is real. But it is only enjoyed by 1 percent of 1 percent of 1 percent of the country. And trust me, virtually every one of them is a liberal Democrat. Every classmate I ever met who was born rich was a liberal Democrat who hated Ronald Reagan, hated white people (even though they were all white), hated capitalism and hated America.

Today, they all hate President Trump.

So, yes, there is "white privilege." But it isn't me. Don't try to hang that guilt trip on me. I have no white guilt. This son of a butcher has earned every ounce of my success. That applies to 99 percent of the 63 million Trump voters. No one ever gave us anything. We don't owe anyone anything. "White privilege" exists. But we've never experienced it.

So, it's a free country. Everyone has free speech. March and protest for Black Lives Matter to your heart's content. Just do it peacefully. And understand that the tiny percentage of Americans who actually have "white privilege" are spoiled-brat, Ivy League-educated white liberals.

Whenever you meet a liberal lawyer, powerful Democratic politician or member of the media, there's your "white privilege." They're the ones you should be angry with. They're the ones you should be protesting.

So much for "white privilege."

SOURCE 





JK Rowling blasts Labour as she hits back at shadow minister Lloyd Russell-Moyle who had claimed she was exploiting her sex assault ordeal in transgender row

JK Rowling has hit out at a Labour frontbencher who accused her of 'using her own sexual assault as justification for discriminating,' against the transgender community.

This morning Lloyd Russell-Moyle, a shadow environment minister, wrote a grovelling apology for comments he made in The Tribune about the Harry Potter author.

JK Rowling has hit back, warning people are 'concerned' about Labour's position on women's rights after saying: 'When so-called leftists like (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) demand that we give up our hard won sex-based rights, they align themselves squarely with men’s rights activists.

'To both groups, female trauma is white noise, an irrelevance, or else exaggerated or invented.'

Ms Rowling has found herself the subject of vicious trolling and accusations of being transphobic after responding to a headline on an online article discussing 'people who menstruate'. In a tweet, she said: 'I'm sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?'

Stung by criticism, the writer – whose Harry Potter books have sold more than 500 million copies worldwide – sought to justify her decision to speak out in a deeply personal essay.

Recalling how the trauma of 'a serious sexual assault I suffered in my twenties' had informed her thinking about the trans issue and women's rights, Ms Rowling explained: 'Like every other domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor I know, I feel nothing but empathy and solidarity with trans women who've been abused by men.'

Trans-rights activist Mr Russell-Moyle, claimed the author was 'using her own sexual assault' to justify her views on transgender issues in an article for left-wing magazine Tribune.

Hitting back in a series of tweets on Sunday evening, Ms Rowling wrote: 'This morning, Mr Russell-Moyle issued an apology on Twitter, although he didn’t trouble to tag me in. Coincidentally, his change of heart occurred after his remarks were repeated in national newspapers with higher circulations than.'

She told followers she had been 'moved to tears' after receiving more than 3,000 emails 'thanking me for speaking up,' about the abuse she had suffered.

Ms Rowling went on to say: 'As I stated in my essay, my primary worry is the risks to vulnerable women. As everyone knows, I’m no longer reliant on communal facilities, nor am I likely to be imprisoned or need a women's refuge any time soon. I’m not arguing for the privileged, but the powerless.'

She ended her Twitter thread by writing: 'I accept (Mr Russel-Moyle's) apology in the hope that he’ll dig a little deeper than hashtags and slogans. He might then understand why increasing numbers of people are deeply concerned about Labour’s position on women’s rights.'

SOURCE 






Hope for the Muslim world?

FOR YEARS, Saudi Arabia worked tirelessly to export Wahhabism, its home-grown strain of intolerant Islam, to Muslim communities worldwide. It poured many billions of dollars into funding mosques, schools, and cultural organizations that promoted Islamist extremism — an extremism capable of turning murderous, as Americans learned on Sept. 11, 2001, when 19 Al-Qaeda terrorists, 15 of them Saudi citizens, murdered thousands of people.

Given the link between Saudi Arabia's monarchy and the rise of radical Islam, Muhammad al-Issa might not be your idea of a typical Saudi cleric.

The 55-year-old secretary general of the Muslim World League, a graduate of Imam Muhammad bin Saud University with a degree in comparative Islamic jurisprudence, has become a leading exponent of moderate Islam. Al-Issa vigorously criticizes religious extremism and vocally supports interfaith cooperation. He has been hailed by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Catholic archbishop of New York, as the "most eloquent spokesperson in the Islamic world for reconciliation and friendship among the religions" and extolled by the president of the Mormon church, Russell Nelson, as "a peacemaker [and] a bridge-builder."

Especially notable has been Al-Issa's insistence on condemning hate crimes against Jews, including the lethal synagogue shootings in Pittsburgh and Poway, Calif. In January he led a Muslim delegation to Auschwitz, then published a column calling Holocaust denial a "crime" that should appall true Muslims. This month, speaking from Mecca to an online conference on antisemitism, he said he had made it his "mission to work with my brothers and sisters of the Jewish faith" to advance interreligious harmony, and "to confront the extremists ... falsely claiming inspiration from our religious texts."

Naturally, some of those extremists were incensed by Al-Issa's words. On Qatar's state-owned Al-Jazeera network, senior anchor Ahmed Mansour sneered that the Saudi sheikh must have been angling for "the Great Medal of the Zionist," while the Muslim Brotherhood writer Mohamed Shanqiti mocked him for describing Jews as "brothers and sisters."

Clearly it is significant that a Saudi religious leader and politician (Al-Issa was his country's minister of justice from 2009 to 2015) is impassioned in defense of religious tolerance and so strongly opposes "political Islam," or Islamism — the supremacist doctrine that all societies must be ruled by uncompromising Islamic law. Al-Issa's moderation and open-mindedness are 180 degrees removed from the totalitarianism of the Taliban, ISIS, Nigeria's Boko Haram, or the hardline regime in Iran.

Yet Al-Issa's views haven't prevailed in his own land, either. Saudi Arabia is among the most unfree nations on earth, particularly for religious minorities and dissenters. Dissidents, reformers, and human-rights activists are frequently arrested, imprisoned, or brutalized. The grisly murder of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul shocked the world. There have been real reforms in Saudi Arabia in recent years, but the country is still far from anything resembling Al-Issa's vision of openness.

Winston Churchill described Russia in 1939 as "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." But, Churchill added, "perhaps there is a key." If the same is true today of Saudi Arabia, perhaps the key to its internal contradictions is that Islamism is in retreat — not just in Saudi society, but across much of the Muslim world.

Writing in the Boston Globe four years ago, Daniel Pipes suggested that there were two weaknesses that might bring about an unraveling of the Islamist movement. One was internecine fighting among Islamists themselves — the classic dynamic of one-time allies turning on each other as they compete for dominance. Of that there have been examples aplenty, such as the falling out in Turkey between Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the religious leader Fethullah Gülen, or the bitter clash in Iran between Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

But "the bigger peril for the movement," Pipes wrote, was rising unpopularity — "as populations experience Islamist rule firsthand, they reject it." He pointed to the widespread antipathy of ordinary Iranians to the theocratic regime in Tehran, and to the massive demonstrations in Egypt against the Muslim Brotherhood government of Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

Today, there is a profusion of indications that Islamism is losing its grip.

"Across the Arab world people are turning against religious political parties and the clerics who helped bring them to power," the Economist reported in December. In Iraq, Lebanon, and other Muslim-majority countries, the Arab Barometer polling network finds a notable drop in trust for Islamist political parties and a declining share of Arabs who think religious leaders should have influence over government. The Turkish analyst Mustafa Aykol writes that there has been a backlash to Islamism in the form of "a new secular wave breeding in the Muslim world." Another Turkish scholar, sociologist Mucahit Bilici, concludes: "Today Islamism in Turkey is associated in the public mind with corruption and injustice."

The 2019 Arab Youth Survey, a study of 3,300 men and women between 18 and 24 in the Middle East and North Africa, found that two-thirds believe "religion plays too big of a role in the Middle East" and 79 percent believe that "the Arab world needs to reform its religious institutions."

This may be what is unfolding, ever so gradually, in Saudi Arabia: a halting shift to moderate Islam in what was the world's foremost exporter of radical Islam. There are no guarantees, of course; this may be only a lull between storms. But the rise of so outspoken a Saudi moderate as Muhammad al-Issa offers reason for encouragement. For decades, Saudi Arabia peddled a version of Islam that was repressive and narrow-minded. Let us hope it now works just as assiduously to promote Al-Issa's message of tolerance, peace, and empathy, and thereby cultivate the very best in Muslim tradition.

SOURCE 






Knights of Columbus sue Delaware city for banning Nativity: 'Blatantly unlawful'

A local Knights of Columbus council in Delaware filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against the city of Rehoboth Beach for banning its Nativity from the bandstand on the boardwalk.

The Knights chapter, affiliated with St. Edmond Catholic Church and represented by First Liberty Institute, Jones Day, and Morton, Valihura & Zerbato, LLC, is claiming religious discrimination after the city prohibited all religious holiday displays beginning in 2018, according to the lawsuit.

“The Knights of Columbus simply wants to continue a beloved tradition of this town,” Roger Byron, First Liberty senior counsel, said in a statement to Fox News.

The Knights said they aren't aware of any complaints made since the 1930s, when the Nativity scene started being displayed in the Rehoboth Beach community. They claim the city unfairly has a holiday scene organized by a private organization with a Christmas tree, holiday lights and a Santa House, all of which were with the Nativity before it was banned in 2018.

“It is perfectly lawful to have a crèche on public property, and blatantly unlawful to ban it," Byron added.

The city's compromise was to move the Nativity to leased property a half-mile from the display at the Bandstand Circle, upsetting locals, including Crabby Dick's Restaurant, which put up the sign: "Wake up Rehoboth Beach (sic) Jesus is the reason for the season," The Daily Times reported.

When the controversy arose again in December, Mayor Paul Kuhns told the local news the city is being inclusive and won't be changing the policy anytime soon.

“I think from the perspective of the city it’s easier to not have anything and allow on any kind of private property any kind of display that anybody would like to do,” Kuhns told WMDT.

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The Ideological View of Poverty, Wealth and Civilization

Jordan Peterson

The following is from a draft of my upcoming book, Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life

The poor are poor, so goes the [Leftist] ideological story, because they are oppressed (with no consideration given to their characteristics as individuals).

But the poor are poor for many reasons. Corruption, addiction, poor mental or physical health, lack of education, unwillingness to work (as conscientiousness is a normally distributed trait), narcissism, psychopathy, social upheaval, economic downturns, natural disaster—the list is virtually endless, and the cause cannot be laid simple-mindedly at the feet of the insufficient and corrupt social structure (even though it is insufficient, compared to what we would like; even though it is corrupt, compared to what it could be. But some perspective and some gratitude is in order).

The rich are rich because they are oppressors

With no consideration given to their potential competence and productivity and desire to improve the lot of those around them and to mentor and lead and to strive for self-improvement and to compete and cooperate in a fair and just manner and to accept additional responsibility and to solve complex problems and to take extreme entrepreneurial risks and engage in philanthropy and to leave a better world for their children and grandchildren

All of western civilization is the result of patriarchal oppression. All political, economic, religious and philosophical systems are based on the desire for power. Race (or class, or gender, or ethnicity) is the prime determinant of human value.

This is the replacement of actual knowledge with mere verbal fluency. You are not correct, merely because you can make an argument, even a good argument, nor because you can make your opponent’s position appear absurd (particularly if he or she is not particularly capable of verbal sparring). You are not correct if you spend your time creating straw man, and then lighting them on fire. There is nothing productive or good about this line of argumentation. It is mere simplification for the purposes of inciting divisiveness, regenerating tribalism, and justifying revenge. Of course the system is rife with problems. That’s not the point. Compared to what? The past? The present, in the rest of the world? And what are you planning to do, in your ideological certainty, to make even one thing better, without insisting that someone else changes to ensure that improvement occurs? 

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here
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Monday, June 29, 2020



Racial awareness is not racism

I think the story below points to the sloppy way "racism" is used.  If Elba exdperiences racism "every day", it cannot be very oppressive, given his popularity and success as an actor.

What he is clearly talking about is racial awareness.  He perceives, probably correctly, that people whom he meets do not -- at least initially -- see him as just a random person but as a black person.  And given the unhappy history of black/white relationships, that perception will almost inevitably be tinged with caution.

But how he is TREATED because of that is another matter.  These days "affirmative action" thinking may cause him to be treated BETTER than a random person. So using a word for that which also describes the evils of Nazism is very sloppy usage indeed.  Such sloppiness is sadly common  however.  To the Left almost any mention of race makes you a "racist".

Individual cases will differ of course but I suspect than most claims of racist treatment by blacks really refer to incidents where racial awareness has been perceived rather than incidents of racial oppression


Idris Elba has said that asking him about racism is akin to asking 'how long I have been breathing.'

While taking part in The Reckoning: The Arts And Black Lives Matter event, on Friday, the Luther actor, 47, also revealed how his parents instilled in him that in order to make it 'you have to be twice as good as the white man.'

During the live-streamed discussion about the Black Lives Matter movement and the arts, Idris explained that his success has not 'negated' his experience of racism.

The actor said: 'Success has not negated racism for me. Asking me about racism is like asking me about how long I have been breathing.'

Idris went on to explain that the first time black people have 'any consciousness' around their skin 'it is usually about racism'.

'That stays with you regardless of whether you become successful or you beat the system,' asserted the star.

Elba said his parents instilled in him a strong work ethic, telling him: 'if you want to make it in this world, you have to be twice as good as the white man'.

He detailed how this became like a 'mantra' to him, and helped to guide his work ethic.

The talented actor also explained that, although he was good at football, he 'still applied in cricket because I was always of that mindset.'

He added: 'Before you know it you realise you are quite multi-faceted,' before expressing how to be successful 'you have to have your fingers in many pies'. 

Idris' late father Winston grew up in Sierra Leone, and his mother Eve is from Ghana.

The actor has forged an incredibly successful career, starring in Marvel films, including the Avengers, as well as for the lead role in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.

He also starred in a Netflix movie about child soldiers, Beasts of No Nation, which was filmed in Ghana.

SOURCE 






British iconoclasm is class warfare

The rage against monuments reflects a middle class ashamed of its country and history.

Recent iconoclasm in Britain, far from being a popular uprising of racial anger, is white middle-class performative anti-racism. Whatever the dynamic in the US, events in Britain have a unique class character.

The working and upper classes are generally more patriotic than the middle class. They are more comfortable in their skins, less self-conscious. Orwell observed, ‘England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution.’ The middle-class left is ashamed of British history, suspicious of our flags and anthems. This cosmopolitan, xenophile, predominantly white managerial caste provides our politicians, civil servants, senior police officers, journalists, media pundits and teachers.

It has not escaped anyone’s notice that many rioters in London and Bristol were middle-class white people. BLM in Britain barely exists. (When BLM protests took place in the UK a few years ago, it was a handful of white middle-class people protesting about airport runway expansion.) BLM in Britain overlaps with eco-activism and Antifa. As in the US, Antifa supporters in the UK are largely young, middle-class and white. Many activists join the Antifa movement while at university.

It was entitled middle-class vandals who defiled the Cenotaph that commemorates British and Empire dead – comprising a wide array of ethnicities and political creeds. Among those dead are socialist servicemen who were not motivated by chauvinism, but compelled by duty to defend family and nation. Images of the Cenotaph being desecrated – passively watched by police – will not be forgotten.

People know the protesters were middle-class anti-patriots who managed to accomplish so much because of the acquiescence of police chiefs, local councillors, mayors, cabinet ministers and the prime minister – all of whom are middle-class social liberals. Television news programmes and many newspapers downplayed the violence; the BBC portrayed riots targeting national symbols as ‘largely peaceful anti-racism protests’ (quickly altering that wording once it attracted criticism). British demonstrations are a clash of class values. By targeting symbols they nominate as racist, arrogant middle-class liberals assert they know how to fight racism; the working classes’ opposition to iconoclasm is therefore treated as evidence of their inherent racism.

When, subsequently, groups came out ostensibly to prevent monuments from being attacked, they were condemned by the press and politicians (including Boris Johnson) as ‘racist thugs’. When ordinary people – angered by lawlessness, lockdown flouting and defilement of public property – believe (correctly or otherwise) that those individuals were putting their safety on the line to protect statues that the police had so singularly failed to defend, this generates solidarity with those ‘thugs’. What next? After all, if holding ordinary views (such as patriotism, respect for law, venerating the war dead) is ‘far right’, then why not vote for far-right Patriotic Alternative or Britain First? If being normal is far right, then far right is normal.

There is a greater unaddressed grievance that the working class has against the middle class.

The murder of black man Stephen Lawrence in 1993 by a gang of racist white youths in South London catalysed a change that had awful implications for British race relations. The killers escaped initial prosecution because police failed to handle the crime correctly; some officers were implicated in an apparent cover-up, which allowed the killers to remain free for years. Incompetence, corruption and callousness on the part of police officers caused further injustice indirectly due to the 1999 Macpherson Report.

That report advanced the concept of ‘institutional racism’ – the idea that a whole organisation can be racist even though no perpetrators of outright racism can be identified. It established the Orwellian definition of racist incidents as ‘any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person’ – a dangerously subjective definition that has entered hate-speech legislation. Macpherson stated that ‘colour-blind’ policing was not legitimate and should be dropped in favour of colour-directed policing, thereby abandoning any attempt at neutrality. The new policing culture caused police to obsess about phantom prejudice among (working-class) officers who needed to be scrutinised by (middle-class) superiors; conversely, evidence of crimes committed by ethnic-minority perpetrators was actively suppressed. The Macpherson Report paved the way for decades of silence regarding the Muslim grooming-gang scandal.

Hundreds (perhaps thousands) of police officers, social workers, teachers, local councillors and journalists knew about the drugging, rape and torture of women and girls by Muslim men. When they reported this information, they were told by superiors to be quiet. An undeniable contributing factor was that middle-class individuals in authority did not trust or empathise with white working-class victims. People believe justice should have been served not only on gang members, but also individuals in authority who were more worried about race relations than rape. Yet a whole generation of people who colluded in silencing victims of abuse have retired with OBEs and substantial pensions, protected by the system they served. Read website comment sections or listen to pub conversations and you’ll be left in no doubt how strongly people feel about this.

In former eras we had noblesse oblige – the practice of nobility looking after families working for them (partly due to patrician beneficence, partly due to undiluted self-interest). Lords, bishops and gentlemen met ordinary people and understood their concerns. Nowadays, British society is governed by a managerial elite that only encounters working people when they pass them in Waitrose stacking shelves. Today’s politicians, journalists and police commanders consider ordinary people’s sentiments backward and view their concerns about crime and migration as bigoted.

If our system of technocratic governance exists without accountability or transparency – run by political parties populated by politicians of the same caste with nearly identical social outlooks – is it any wonder we are caught between poles of apathy and violence?

SOURCE 





Some Church of England statues will have to come down, says Archbishop of Canterbury

Given my "Wee Free" Presbyterian background, I am no friend of Christian iconography but I think it is sad that Cantuar is not faithful to his church's traditions

The Archbishop of Canterbury has said that some of the statues and memorials in Church of England churches and cathedrals “will have to come down” in a review of their links to slavery and racism.

Anglican dioceses are conducting audits to document who is memorialised in their 16,000 churches and 42 cathedrals after church leaders backed the “alteration or removal of monuments” in some cases.

Canterbury Cathedral and Westminster Abbey are among the ancient buildings whose memorials will be examined, while several statues on church land have been submitted by members of the public to the Topple the Racists website.

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Unliked Likes: Cancelling Pastor Chris Hodges and Church of the Highlands

It started with Charlie Kirk, the conservative leader of Turning Point USA. Kirk is an outspoken supporter of President Trump and has been at the center of several high profile conflicts over the past few years. Like many other social media figures, Kirk seems particularly skilled at provoking outpourings of admiration and disdain in equal measure. He knows how to use social media.

Most recently, Kirk has been one of the more visible proponents of the belief that, while racism is evil, claims of systemic racism are not true or are exaggerated. In this, Kirk represents a significant number of Americans, many of whom identify as evangelical. As I’ve written about, marched for, and spoken on, I believe that Kirk (and those who agree with him) are wrong.

Please see the video we just put out this morning from the National Association of Evangelicals, which (I believe) presents a better approach. Or, put another way, I’m of a different view and have been quite vocal about it.

Simply put, systemic racism is real and we have a key national moment to address it.

This controversy soon invovled Chris Hodges, the pastor of Church of the Highlands in Birmingham, when he liked some of Kirk’s social media posts (details here). In a lesson about the power of social media to—as the Epistle of James warns about the tongue–set forests ablaze, Hodges quickly found himself in the midst of a firestorm. It looks like people are gathering with pitchforks and torches for him and his church.

So, why am I writing on this?

It’s true that Hodges was a Trump supporter when I was not. He has also led his church to be the largest diverse church in Alabama, to engage the poor and marginalized, and to minister widely and well in his community. He and the church he leads has served the poor, engaged the sick, volunteered in the schools, and more. During the pandemic, Church of the Highlands has served thousands of meals, made masks, hosted blood drives, and helped other churches with online services.

He also liked some social media posts.

Get the pitchforks.

Worth noting: the church will continue to resource the schools even after their church was kicked out saying, “Going forward, we will continue our financial support of the school system and encourage others to do the same.”

Of course, the school board was not offering the schools for free; the church was paying rent. Let me add that the people in that church are paying taxes to the school district and rent to use the space.

The Housing Authority of the Birmingham District and the Birmingham Board of Education also just cut ties with Church of the Highlands because Chris liked those social media posts.

But, the school district does not want the money and the housing authority does not want their service to the poor.

The Rise of Cancel Culture

While Hodges made a mistake, I am wary of the ways people have weaponized social media in response. I warned in Christians in the Age of Outrage that even as Christians need to be angry at injustice and hate, social media can make us exceptionally bad stewards of our anger.

This new practice is called the “cancel culture.” And, as President Obama weighed in at a summit last year, it is both easy and ineffective at bringing lasting change. In fact, he condemned the notion of responding by ‘canceling’ someone: “That’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change. If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far. That’s easy to do.”

Simply put, the cancel culture refers to the practice of withdrawing support for those in the public after they say or do something considered offensive by a certain group. That’s what the Birmingham schools and housing authority just did.

The cancel culture communicates here, ”We won’t take your money, tweet liker. We won’t let you serve our communities either. Out with you—because we are inclusive.”

Perhaps a better way is to take the time to look at the larger picture of a person or organization. Each of us have said or done something at some point that deserves conversation or pehaps even confrontation. That is undeniable. But does every instance require a public shaming and, in this instance, a cessation of ties that has offered so much good to so many?

Here is a church that wants to serve—and has served—and is leading the way in its community. Unfortunately, as of this writing, “The Housing Authority of Birmingham Division voted on Monday to no longer allow church volunteers and clinic workers to do work at public housing communities.”

They want to cancel the church’s ministry to the poor because they did not like the pastor’s social media likes?

SOURCE 






Enraged Madison Protesters Assault State Senator, Tear Down Statue of Abolitionist

Black Lives Matter protesters in Madison, Wisc., became angry when one of their leaders was arrested by police. Devonere Johnson, a local activist and organizer, was arrested after following a white customer into a restaurant with a bullhorn and a baseball bat. Johnson said the white man “provoked” him.

Johnson began shouting into the bullhorn, calling the white man a “racist” and ranting on about the pyramids, slavery, and other unintelligible things.

After this unhinged display, Johnson was taken into custody.

But the mob apparently believed Johnson did nothing wrong — at least, nothing that he should have been arrested for. They gathered in front of the capitol building on Tuesday night and decided to go on a statue-destroying binge.

Except, the statues they tore down represented the finest of Wisconsin’s progressive past.

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

Protesters, chanting for the release of the man who’d been arrested earlier, also broke glass at the Tommy Thompson Center on West Washington Avenue, smashed windows and lights at the state Capitol, and set a small fire at the Dane County jail before police arrived just before 1 a.m.

The destruction followed similar incidents in cities nationwide following the death of Floyd in Minneapolis. But in other cities, statues of Confederate soldiers and other symbols of slavery were destroyed.

In Madison, statues of Wisconsin’s motto “Forward” and of Col. Hans Christian Heg were dragged away from their spots guarding the statehouse. Heg was an anti-slavery activist who fought and died for the Union during the U.S. Civil War. His nearly 100-year-old sculpture was decapitated and thrown into a Madison lake by protesters.

One can almost imagine the conversation between activists before tearing down Heg’s statue.

Protester #1: Hey! We shouldn’t be doing this. This was one of the good guys, man.

Protester #2: He’s not good, He’s white, ain’t he? It’s a statue, ain’t it? Off with his head!

The “Focus” statue had stood in front of the capitol since 1885. A replica replaced the original in the 1990s.

Unfortunately, Democratic Governor Tony Evers was nowhere to be seen. He apparently is one of those Democrats who think it’s a healthy way to express yourself when tearing down historic works of art.

Tuesday night’s violence drew the fury of the Republican leader of the state Assembly, who called the protesters who knocked down the statues “thugs.”

“This is absolutely despicable. I am saddened at the cowardice of Madison officials to deal with these thugs,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, tweeted as the statues were being torn down.

Vos also questioned why Gov. Tony Evers hadn’t intervened in the destruction of the statues, given it took place on state Capitol property. Protesters also broke windows of a state building near the Capitol which houses the state jobs agency, among other state offices.

The state senator who was assaulted, Democrat Tim Carpenter, was a little bewildered. He says all he was doing was taking pictures of the riot — probably to approvingly share on social media later — when he was jumped by some “peaceful protesters.”

“I don’t know what happened … all I did was stop and take a picture … and the next thing I’m getting five-six punches, getting kicked in the head,” Carpenter told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel following the attack.

Senseless, mindless barbarism. I don’t know what else to call it.

SOURCE 

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here
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Sunday, June 28, 2020


US police kill up to 6 times more black people than white people

The above headline is perfectly accurate.  But it is still misleading.  OF COURSE the police kill more blacks in Chicago.  There are more blacks there.

It is rare that raw numbers tell us much.  What is needed is context.  In this case we need to look at percentages.  Is the PERCENTAGE of blacks killed different?

More technically, if we control for population size, are blacks killed more often than whites?  The number of whites killed in Chicago is probably low.  But Chicago is primarily a black city.  So the absolute number of whites there is also low

It could well be that cops are more prone to killing people with brown skin than people with white or pink skin -- but we are not actually shown that.  Context is missing



In some parts of the US, police kill black people at a rate six times higher than they kill white people. The differences are most stark in the northern Midwest, especially Chicago, and in north-eastern states like New York.

Protest movements like Black Lives Matter have highlighted the disproportionate killing of black people by US police, and called for major changes in policing practices. However, official data on police killings can be unreliable. The database run by the Bureau of Justice Statistics is known to undercount deaths, partly because police forces don’t have to contribute data. That makes it harder to stop the killings.

Gabriel Schwartz and Jaquelyn Jahn at Harvard University compared police killings in different regions of the US between 2013 and 2017. They used data from Fatal Encounters, an independent organisation that gathers public and media reports of killings, and fact-checks them.

The researchers assigned each death to one of the US’s 382 “metropolitan statistical areas”. These are “cities and the areas surrounding cities”, says Jahn, and reflect where people spend most of their time.

Rates of police killings varied widely. For the overall population, the highest rates of killings were in south-western states like California and New Mexico, where more than 1 in 100,000 people were killed by police every year. In the north-east, rates were often lower than 0.3 people per 100,000.

However, the pattern changed when the team looked for differences linked to ethnicity. In south-western states, police killed black people 1.81-2.88 times more often than they killed white people. In the north Midwest and north-east, the disparity was often more than 2.98. In the Chicago metropolitan area, black people were killed 6.51 times more often than white people.

“They are showing for the first time that there’s a lot of variation by place in racial inequalities in police killings,” says Justin Feldman at New York University. That in turn should help us understand why some places have such large disparities, and how to reduce the deaths, he says.

Schwartz and Jahn’s study is the latest of a raft of studies showing that black people in the US are killed by police more often than white people. Young black men are at highest risk. A 2019 study found that black men aged 25-29 were being killed at rates between 2.8 and 4.1 in 100,000.

Neighbourhoods are also a factor. Death rates are highest in poor neighbourhoods and neighbourhoods with high non-white populations, but black people are at higher risk of being killed in white neighbourhoods.

SOURCE 





Be Careful Who You Call a White Supremacist

This past Saturday, after President Trump’s Tulsa rally did not draw the expected capacity crowd, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, “Actually you just got ROCKED by teens on TikTok who flooded the Trump campaign w/ fake ticket reservations & tricked you into believing a million people wanted your white supremacist open mic enough to pack an arena during COVID.”

“Shout out to Zoomers. Y’all make me so proud. ??”

Ocasio-Cortez was responding to claims that TikTok, with apparent help from within China, flooded the Trump campaign with fake reservation requests, discouraging others from attending.

But what was most telling in her tweet was the reference to Trump’s “white supremacist open mic.” This dangerous and ugly accusation is now standard fare for the left. Trump is a white supremacist, as are his white supporters.

Of course, you could see this building for several years now.

First, the leftwing media branded candidate Trump a white supremacist, based especially on his comments about Mexican immigrants and Muslims.

Confirmation for this was found when men like David Duke endorsed him.

Then, there was the misrepresentation of his words about Charlottesville, where he allegedly said that there were some “very fine people” among the neo-Nazi demonstrators.

To the contrary, he categorically condemned those very people, saying, “Racism is evil and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups.”

But the misrepresentation continues to this day, repeated regularly by presidential candidate Joe Biden.

The next step in the leftwing media’s strategy was to brand you a white supremacist if you were white and supported Trump. In fact, in some circles, it is assumed that, for white supporters of Trump, MAGA really means, “Make America White Again.” (House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made this very claim.)

For people like Ocasio-Cortez, this is simply taken for granted.

I documented these accusations in my new book Evangelicals At the Crossroads: Will We Pass the Trump Test?

In the book, I meticulously lay out the case against Trump, including the charges that he is an unashamed racist. And I do this, not to whitewash such charges but to examine them carefully and fairly. Is Donald Trump a white supremacist and racist?

Some of Trump’s statements have certainly lacked precision, leading to further misunderstanding and confusion. And I recognize that, in many ways, he has been highly divisive. I have no desire to defend those aspects of his speech or conduct.

Still, as I demonstrate in my book, the charges of “white supremacy” have no substance at all. (According to Merriam-Webster, a white supremacist is “a person who believes that the white race is inherently superior to other races and that white people should have control over people of other races.”)

White supremacists do not go out of their way to meet regularly with black leaders for input and wisdom.

White supremacists do not pass major criminal justice bills that largely affect non-whites.

White supremacists do not gain stories in the New York Times like this one, from September 10, 2019, headlined, “Trump Focuses on Black Economic Gains and Support for Historically Black Colleges.” As the Times reported, “Since the beginning of Mr. Trump’s presidency, the administration has, in fact, made an effort to support historically black schools, increasing investment in their programs by 14.3 percent.” (For further documentation of these points, see Evangelicals at the Crossroads.)

White supremacists do not immediately call for the FBI and the Department of Justice to look into the death of a black man, George Floyd, at the hands of a white cop, Derek Chauvin.

And white supremacists do not call for special forums titled “transition to greatness,” where the focus is on listening to black leaders address the problem of racism in America.

Cynics would say, “He’s a politician. He’s just doing this for votes.”

But real white supremacists do no such things, especially white supremacist politicians, whose very reputation depends on their racism. (When it comes to politicians doing things for votes, which politician does not do things for votes?)

Yet, as bogus as the charge of “white supremacist” is when it comes to Trump, it is even more bogus for the vast majority of his white supporters.

Many of them would have voted for Ben Carson in a heartbeat had the elections been between Dr. Carson and Hillary Clinton. White supremacists would not do this. (Of course, white Trump supporters would have voted for Hispanic candidates like Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio had they run against Hillary.)

And the vast majority of white Trump supporters opposed President Obama because of his policies, not because of the color of his skin. (The last I checked, both Hillary and Biden are white, so our rejection of them has nothing to do with skin color.)

Not only so, but some of Trump’s most prominent white evangelical supporters have been involved in interracial ministry for decades, with a long history of opposing racism. And of the many, white Trump supporters I know, not a single one of them fits the definition of “white supremacist” cited above.

Let us, then, call this ugly accusation for what it is: slanderous, libelous, and dangerous. Shame on those who use such ugly words as a political and ideological tool.

SOURCE






HHS Scraps Obama Rules on Gender Identity, Abortion

Federal health officials announced a final rule Friday scrapping an Obama-era regulation that forced medical workers to perform abortions despite their religious beliefs.

The Obama administration’s 2016 regulation, already vacated by a court ruling, also redefined sex-based discrimination in health care to include questions of gender identity.

The old rule would have imposed nearly $3 billion in costs on the economy, the Department of Health and Human Services said in announcing the change. Prompted by the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, the rule had not been implemented after being halted in court.

When Congress passed the Obamacare law in 2010, it included a section broadly prohibiting discrimination among health insurance plans.

Under the  Obama administration, HHS tried to apply that provision to both abortion and gender identity in the 2016 rule. The rule defined gender identity as “one’s internal sense of gender, which may be male, female, neither, or a combination of male and female.”

The real-world effects of prioritizing gender identity in health care became clear after a 32-year-old pregnant woman went to the emergency room complaining of abdominal pains and claiming to be a man.

The attending nurse treated the patient as a man, based on the electronic medical record, and the end result was a stillborn baby in a case first reported by The New England Journal of Medicine in May 2019.

“That’s one example where confusion over what the meaning of sex is—whether it’s based on biology or based on gender identity—can have some real-world and in this case tragic consequences. That’s why clarity is so important,” Roger Severino, director of the HHS Office for Civil Rights, told The Daily Signal.

“This [new] rule will establish clarity over the confusion that was unleashed by the Obama administration’s previous definition, which included male, female, neither, both or some combination, which is very difficult to administer in a health care setting.”

The new rule will enforce the provision by returning to the government’s interpretation of sexual discrimination according to the plain meaning of the word “sex” as male or female and as determined by biology, HHS said.

The 2016 regulation did not recognize sexual orientation as a protected characteristic, and the Trump administration’s rule doesn’t change that.

“The Obama administration itself thought that was a bridge too far. And this final rule leaves undisturbed that judgment from the Obama era,” Severino said. “So if people take issue with that, they should also take issue with the Obama administration as well.”

The Trump administration’s HHS says it will continue to enforce federal civil rights laws prohibiting discrimination in health care on the basis of race, color, national origin, disability, age, and sex.

The final rule keeps a section that ensures physical access for individuals with disabilities to health care facilities, as well as communication technology to assist those who have impaired vision or hearing. 

Regulated entities still will have to provide written assurances of compliance to HHS.

“Truth matters and words have meaning,” said Ryan T. Anderson, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, asserting in a written statement that the Trump administration was right to rescind the previous rules:

In addition to being an unlawful abuse of agency power, these rules would have caused serious harm. They would have required doctors, hospitals, and health care organizations to act in ways contrary to their best medical judgments, their consciences, and the physical realities of their patients, or face steep fines and become easy targets for unreasonable and costly lawsuits.

All people should be treated with dignity and respect. Therefore, federal law should not outlaw reasonable disagreements about the best medical care for gender dysphoria. Nor should federal law force anyone to violate their pro-life conscience or the privacy and safety of others in the name of political correctness.

The revised rule provides protections for non-English speakers, including the provision of translators and interpreters.

However, the final rule relieves Americans of approximately $2.9 billion in regulatory costs over five years by eliminating a mandate for regulated health care entities to insert “notice and taglines” to patients and other consumers in 15 or more languages in almost every mailing. Those costs got passed down to consumers.

In December 2016, a federal court preliminarily enjoined the Obama administration’s attempt to redefine sex-based discrimination. The court said the provision likely contradicted existing civil rights law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act.

In October 2019, a second federal court agreed. That same month, the initial federal court vacated the Obama HHS rule and remanded the provisions it found unlawful back to the department.

The court action stemmed in part from an Obama administration  rule regarding abortion. Existing laws said doctors and nurses can’t be compelled to perform an abortion if it would violate thier religious beliefs or conscience.

“Other federal laws prohibit discrimination against health care providers who refuse to participate in abortion,” Severino said. “If not performing abortion is sex discrimination, then of course you have clear conflicts of federal law protecting conscience.”

Also Friday, the Department of Housing and Urban Development began to undo an Obama administration regulation by proposing a rule to allow men’s and women’s shelters to make their own sex-specific housing policies.

“The Trump administration is also correct to unwind an Obama-era housing regulation that imposed a gender identity mandate at the expense of privacy and safety,” Anderson said. “The proposed HUD rule allows shelters to determine their own policy on single-sex housing, thus protecting female-only spaces.”

SOURCE 






Indigenous peoples’ problems show Australians are in denial about their racism

This article is completely empty of any proof or evidence for what it asserts.  There is NO evidence advanced to counter the argument that Aborigines bear a large part of the blame for their own backwardness.  Mentioning a couple of anecdotes proves nothing.  You can prove anything by anecdotes


Police on horseback gathered in a circle to defend the statue of Captain James Cook in Sydney’s Hyde Park. Australians inspired by American protests, and calling attention to the plight of their country’s indigenous peoples, might have toppled the statue. The moment was replete with historical irony. The “discoverer” of Australia met his end on a Hawaiian beach, at the hands of a crowd of angry natives. The police seemed determined not to let it happen to him a second time.

The whole messy issue of Australia’s past rose up and wound itself in knots around Cook’s bronze form. The conservative prime minister, Scott Morrison, condemned the protesters. But he drew a distinction between Australia’s history of white settlement and America’s. Australia had been “a pretty brutal place”, he conceded, “but there was no slavery.”

That is some gloss to the real story of white settlement. Australia’s indigenous peoples have endured land seizures, massacres, servitude and, well into the second half of the 20th century, children forcibly removed by government agencies and church missions in the name of racial assimilation—the so-called stolen generations. An uproar over his comments compelled Mr Morrison to backtrack and clarify that he had meant no legal slavery. To many of his government’s supporters, muttering over their barbies, the furore was political correctness gone mad.

Nobody denies that Australia’s indigenous peoples face bleak odds. Aboriginals and Torres Straits Islanders are 3% of the population but 27% of prisoners. Their life expectancy is eight years less than the national average. They do terribly at school.

But Australia has made strides to improve the Aboriginal condition, starting with a referendum in 1967 granting full citizens’ rights to indigenous Australians. In 1992 a High Court case over land title overturned the long-held legal fiction that Australia had been an uninhabited terra nullius for the taking. And in 2008 the then prime minister, Kevin Rudd, formally apologised to the “oldest continuing cultures in human history” over the stolen generations and other past mistreatment. Mr Rudd’s and successive governments have committed to “closing the gap” in socioeconomic outcomes.

Many Australians therefore share Mr Morrison’s contention that Australia is not a fundamentally racist country but its opposite, a “fair” one. From this some conclude that Aboriginals’ remaining problems—the drinking, the domestic violence, the supposed indolence—are of their communities’ own making, not a consequence of discrimination. One columnist even claims that the protesters are “enablers for systemic and entrenched indigenous problems to fester”.

In the past, bottom-up efforts by indigenous folk to improve their lot tended to work only if the political climate encouraged it. The “Uluru statement from the heart” in 2017, which called for constitutional change to give indigenous Australians a special voice in laws and policies that concerned them, was rejected by the ruling coalition, on the ground that the proposed body would constitute a third legislative chamber.

That argument, Mr Rudd contends, is “bullshit”: the body would have had no authority to introduce or vote on legislation. Rather, the rejection was a dogwhistle to the same kinds of voters who were encouraged to believe, after the High Court ruling on land rights, that Aboriginals would soon be camping in their back yard. Mr Morrison’s criticism of protesters was intended for much the same audience.

It is no surprise then that indigenous people believe Australia does not offer them a fair go. “There’s a view here that we’re all mates,” says Pat Anderson, an Aboriginal leader. “But this is a mythology they tell themselves.” Petty racism abounds. One Aussie-rules star, Adam Goodes, who complained when a 13-yearold called him an ape, was booed into early retirement.

Yet some think the social and political ground might soon shift. A younger generation of indigenous Australians, many better educated than their parents, is beginning to puncture the cosy selfimage of Australia projected by the likes of Mr Morrison—using wit to get their point across. It was hardly salutary that a recent study concluded that three out of four Australians have a “racial bias” against Aboriginals. But it did bring cheer when Briggs, an indigenous rapper, tweeted that the fourth Australian was probably “conducting the survey”.

SOURCE  

********************************

Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here
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Friday, June 26, 2020



Britain's cultural revolution

According to The Daily Mail, Madeline Odent is the Curator of the Royston Museum in Hertfordshire. This museum is funded by Royston Council. In the past few days, Mrs Odent has taken to Twitter, giving expert advice on how to use household chemicals to cause irreparable harm to statues she dislikes.

It is, she says, “extremely difficult” to remove the chemicals once they have been applied. She adds that “it can be done, but the chemical needed is super carcinogenic, so it rarely is.” Again, she says: “We haven’t found a way to restore artefacts that this happens to.” Her last reported tweet features a picture of Winton Churchill’s defaced statue in Parliament Square, and says: “Stay tuned for our next edition, where we’ll be talking about marble memorials of racists.”

The newspaper and various people are calling for the woman to be sacked. It is, I allow, surprising for someone to hold a job that involves conserving the past, and then to advise an insurrectionary mob on how to destroy the past. This being said, and assuming the story is substantially true, Mrs Odent is less to be blamed for giving her advice than those who employed her as an expert on conservation and its opposite.

We have had a Conservative Government since 2010. We have had a Conservative Government with a working majority since 2015. For the past six months, we have had a Conservative Government with a crushing majority. It all counts for nothing, because the Conservatives themselves are useless.

Political power is not purely, nor mainly, a matter of being able to make laws. It is far more a matter of choosing reliable servants. Before 1997, we could suppose, within reason, that these servants were politically neutral. They often had their own agenda. They could use their status as experts to influence, and sometimes to frustrate, laws and policies with which they disagreed. But there were not self-consciously an order of people devoted to a transformative revolution. The Blair Government broke with convention by stuffing the public sector with its own creatures, loyal only to itself. This is to be deplored. On the other hand, the Blair Government did have a mandate for sweeping change, and it is reasonable that it should have given preference to employing those who could be trusted to further both the letter and spirit of this mandate. The Conservatives have had enough time to make the public sector into at least an obedient servant of those the people keep electing. Instead of this, they have spent this time employing and promoting people whom Tony Blair would have sacked on the spot as malicious lunatics.

Royston as a town and Hertfordshire as a county have been dominated by the Conservatives almost without a break since the creation of elected local government in the nineteenth century. Yet Royston Council allowed Mrs Odent to become the curator of its town museum. It allowed this in 2015 – five years into a Conservative Government. To her credit, she did not lie her way into the job. Once more according to The Daily Mail, she claims that she negotiated a contract with her employers that allowed her to “decolonise and diversify” the museum, and that her employers gave her a “safe platform” that she could use to “piss off some racists.” She adds: “a) my boss thinks I'm funny, b) she also supports BLM, and c) I'm the one reading [your direct messages].”

Ever ready to pose as the spokesman for a disenfranchised majority, Andrew Rosindell, the Conservative Member for Romford, announced that the spreading wave of vandalism was being driven by “a politically-correct gang of anarchists who hate everything about this country.” Fair enough, so far as these people do hate England. But this is not an insurrection of anarchists – not even the kind who like the power to destroy. It is an insurrection driven by the wealthy and the well-connected. Mrs Odone is the daughter of an American college president and the wife of a banker. She is part of a network of the rich who feel no twentieth century shame about their wealth, so long as they believe and act on their beliefs in a repeat of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. And they have been given the power to make this revolution by Conservative Governments.

A government of conservatives would long since have purged these people from every institution within its orbit of control or influence. It would have remodelled some and shut others down. This Conservative Government has instead left or even put them in charge of these institutions, and they are now acting in mockery of the parliamentary majority won just six months ago.

For the avoidance of doubt, I do not approve of police brutality. Indeed, I have long believed in abolishing the police. I am no fan of Winston Churchill. I do not believe, had I been alive at the time, that I would have supported slavery or the slave trade. I do not think, in retrospect, that having a big empire was a good idea. But the events that have been made the excuse for what is now happening took place in a foreign country, or a long time ago. What we now have is, I repeat, a cultural revolution – a cultural revolution led by what amounts to the ruling class. The BBC has incited it. Big business and the rich are cheering it on. The police have no wish to stop it.

It is also a cultural revolution that will not end with pulling down the statues of men whose actions may not have been spotless. Again, I quote Mrs Odent, whose honesty, if nothing else, is to be commended: “[W]e all immediately forget history when statues are destroyed.”

And a Conservative Government that, last December, swore blind it would stand by us has abdicated what little control it might still have. If disappointment is reasonable, we have no reason to be shocked. The Conservatives are, and always have been, unfit for any honest purpose. Sooner or later, I have no doubt – if it has not already happened – Mrs Odent and Boris Johnson will meet at some smart dinner. They will get on very well. Why not? She may despise him. Being herself intelligent, she has no choice. Being intelligent, though, she can also be sure that, unlike the average reader of The Daily Mail, he is not her enemy.

SOURCE 






The ugly rise of left-wing racism

The contemporary British left has lost the moral high ground when it comes to debates over race. Many of us have known this for some time, but recent events have made it all the more clear.

In a remarkable exchange in the House of Commons recently, Labour backbencher Florence Eshalomi questioned whether home secretary Priti Patel truly understood racism in the UK. Essentially being hectored into doing so by Eshalomi, Patel discussed her personal experiences of racism in front of her parliamentary colleagues. This included recounting childhood experiences of being called a ‘paki’ in the school playground, as well as recently being the subject of an anti-Hindu cartoon published by that bastion of chattering-class intolerance, the Guardian. In response, Labour MPs sent Patel a letter, accusing her of ‘gaslighting other ethnic-minority communities’ – essentially of using her own heritage and experiences to downplay other forms of racism. As well as striking an unsavoury tone, the letter itself was authored by Bradford West MP Naz Shah – who is hardly the strongest authority on race relations.

Then there was the backlash to the announcement that Munira Mirza, head of No10’s policy unit, would be heading up a new commission on racial inequalities. Since the announcement she has been subjected to the most appalling forms of racism from the bigoted left. Mirza has previously criticised the politics of grievance, which she says acts as a barrier to meaningful policy change on issues of racial inequality. Leftist figures, in predictable fashion, have wasted little time in directing racially charged slurs towards her. Novara Media’s Ash Sarkar has labelled Mirza a ‘racial gatekeeper’ – a term used for non-white people who supposedly provide political cover for perceived injustices based on race. Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, arguably one of the most poisonous voices in Britain’s race-relations debate, labelled Mirza a ‘brown executioner’ of ‘white supremacy’. University of Cambridge academic Priyamvada Gopal conducted a class-based analysis on the background of South Asian surnames, in a desperate attempt to tie Mirza with a position of natural privilege. This was strange, not least because Mirza is the daughter of a factory worker and Gopal is the daughter of a diplomat.

It seems that this distinctly left-wing form of racism has almost become normalised.

While there is a serious discussion to be had on enduring forms of racial discrimination in the UK’s labour market, the existence of socio-economic ethnic inequalities is a complex phenomenon. Mirza’s role has ruffled feathers because, going on her past work in this area, she will not shy away from delving into politically sensitive territory. This would include, for instance, exploring how problematic internal cultural norms and social behaviours feed into economic disparities between British ethnic groups. This is deeply unsettling for the feelings-over-facts critical-race theorists, who refuse to acknowledge the possibility that family dynamics, lack of female empowerment, and a general failure to cultivate aspirational attitudes may be stalling the progress of certain non-white communities in the UK.

This reflects the hypocrisy and contradictions contained within Britain’s anti-racist movement. A growing number on the left are not welcoming of ethnic-minority advancement, unless the successful individuals fall neatly into their own political agenda on a range of matters – particularly ‘cultural’ issues such as immigration, multiculturalism and social cohesion.

Nor are they willing to discuss admittedly sensitive factors that are holding back the social progress of certain non-white ethnic groups in the UK. It is critically important that debates on race relations and ethnic inequalities are not hijacked by these ideologues. They label themselves as progressive anti-racists but are uninterested in truly getting to grips with and tackling what is driving inequality.

Worse still, they are guilty of indulging in one of the most dehumanising forms of racism: insisting individuals must think a certain way, purely on the basis of their racial identity. This ultimately strips non-white people of agency, and rejects the idea that they can think for themselves.

Mirza will no doubt be subjected to more left-wing racism. As a high-achieving, working-class northern woman of Pakistani-Muslim origin, and as someone who refuses to give an inch to tribal identity politics, she is a natural target of bigoted leftists. The same can be said for Priti Patel, a state-educated woman of Indian origin who has little time for metropolitan leftists and their attitudes towards immigration, crime and terrorism.

The foul treatment of these two ethinic-minority women, who refuse to play the role ascribed to them, shows how ugly – and racist – identity politics is.

SOURCE 






Ignoring Black-on-Black Victimization

The deafening silence from Democrat Party race hustlers and their Leftmedia propagandists about the murder of thousands of black citizens.

Mark Alexander

In my column Wednesday, “Talking With a Democrat About ‘Systemic Racism,’” regarding the cognitive/emotive breakdown when discussing contentious issues, I also highlighted the gross racial disparity regarding interracial and intraracial crimes. I noted, “Don’t expect to hear a single objection about either of those issues from Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, or Chuck Schumer.”

A friend and career federal agent recalled our post regarding a racially charged incident in Milwaukee in 2014, and it is worth revisiting.

In November of that year, Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn, a liberal Democrat, participated in a contentious meeting with black community leaders and residents after a Milwaukee PD officer shot and killed a schizophrenic black man. After the meeting, a reporter confronted Chief Flynn, asserting he had been rudely disrespectful because he was texting during the meeting.

Flynn responded: “This is a tragedy for the family. It’s a tragedy for the community. … But there are a lot of people lining up to take advantage of this tragedy to promote their own agendas. … If some of the [protesters] here gave a good G-d damn about the victimization of people in this community … I would take some of their invective more seriously. The greatest racial disparity in Milwaukee is getting shot and killed. Eighty percent of my homicide victims are African American. Eighty percent of our aggravated assault victims are African American.

Now [the protesters] know all about the last three people who have been killed by the Milwaukee Police Department in the last few years, but there is not one of them who can name one of the last three homicide victims we’ve had in this city. There is room for everybody in fixing this police department and … we’re not without sin. But this community is at risk alright. And it is not because men and women in blue risk their lives protecting it. … The [protesters] are absolutely MIA when it comes to the true threats facing this community.”

Today, those protesters and rioters, and the Democrat Party race hustlers and their Leftmedia propagandists who incite them in the name of “George Floyd,” maintain a deafening silence about the thousands of black citizens murdered by other black citizens. That does not fit their political narrative.

As a long-time Patriot Post supporter concurred: “As a black American male who was raised in the inner city, I am angry at the reaction of the hypocrites in Congress, corporate America, and their media outlets. If ‘black lives (really) mattered,’ they would stop ignoring the pandemic of black on black crime that has been raging through their cities for years. Hypocrisy won’t solve the real problems in our urban centers, but changing the policies that keep poor black Americans enslaved on what amount to ‘poverty plantations’ will.”

Barack Obama demonized cops with deadly results — for cops. Today’s leftist Democrats have taken that rhetoric to a dangerous new level, manipulating data to support their false narrative, and absurdly promoting efforts to “defund the police.” A quick look at the results in Seattle reveals where that will lead

SOURCE 





Australia: Channel 7, Sam Armytage and Prue MacSween sued for racial vilification

Channel Seven, Sunrise host Samantha Armytage and commentator Prue MacSween are being sued for racial vilification over a 2018 discussion on the network’s breakfast program.

The decision to take the complaint to Federal Court was made after settlement discussions at the Australian Human Rights Commission crumbled.

The court case stems from a segment on Sunrise in March 2018 where the panel – which including Armytage, MacSween and radio host Ben Davis – suggested a second stolen generation was needed to help Aboriginal children.

“Just like the first stolen generation where a lot of kids were taken for their wellbeing, we need to do it again,” MacSween said on the program.

The discrimination case is being led by legal firm Susan Moriarty and Associates, which in a statement said the eight Aboriginal complainants were “forced” to take their case to the Federal Court after settlement discussions collapsed.

Indigenous elder Aunty Rhonda, who is leading the complaint, said the group just wanted “accountability and equality”.

“This nationwide broadcast by Channel Seven in March 2018 was another symbol of national shame and another appalling example of the deeply entrenched virus of racism that still plagues white platforms of privilege in this country,” she said.

“Channel Seven’s subsequent disingenuous downcast eyes and ‘we’re so sorry’ murmurs, after we protested and their racism was called out, mean nothing to us when they refuse all reasonable requests for proper repatriation of the pulverising hate, humiliation and distress we feel every day of our lives.”

Dozens of protesters chanted outside Sunrise’s Sydney studio in March 2018 in the days after the segment.

The Australian Communication and Media Authority also found the segment to be in breach of the Commercial Television Industry Code Of Practice.

The ACMA forced Channel Seven to independently audit the production process behind Sunrise and all editorial staff were required to undertake training on racism and Aboriginal affairs.

SOURCE  

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here
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Thursday, June 25, 2020


If Black Lives Really Mattered...

If black lives really mattered for something other than attracting attention to the rare incidences of police officers killing black criminal suspects, more attention would be paid to failing schools run by Democrat supported teachers unions and other deeper problems in black communities.

Defunding police departments, the de rigueur action step advocated by many on the left and BLM activists, makes no sense. This is because, at the local level, police spending is dwarfed by education spending, which amounts to 40 percent of local government spending nationwide, versus just six percent for police. Their return on education spending is indeed criminal. Attention should be also given to the epidemic of fatherless black households in America where boys turn into violent gangsters by the time they reach puberty.

There is an increasingly ignorant, hyperbolic push by progressives to capitalize on the recent police shootings of black men. CNN’s Don Lemon has stated, "It depends on the nutrients in the soil. So if you grew up in America, you came out of American soil. Considering the history of this country ... how can you not be racist? How can you not have racial blindspots, how can you not see that the factory reset in America is whiteness?" It is interesting that Don Lemon espouses this jaded perception. In an early interview with actor Morgan Freeman, Freeman dismissed Lemon's emphasis on racism limiting opportunity, saying, "look at you and me."

Freeman went on to say if you talk about it (racism), then it exists. On the Senate floor, Tim Kaine, the Democrat Senator from Virginia boldly stated: “The United States didn’t inherit slavery from anybody. We created it.” Kaine is a perfect example of Freeman’s statement, if you talk about it (racism), it exists. Kaine will create and perpetuate racism and slavery as long as it serves his political ambitions.

Those in the black community advocating for peaceful protest and change should toss the Democratic politicians out on their heads since the most violent cities in America are consistently run by Democratic politicians, from city councils, to mayors to legislators to governors, to the U.S. Congress. If these mindless hacks produced an automobile, no one would buy it. As Barton Swaim has pointed out, “The transformation of American society into a civil-rights regime…was carried out by decent and well-intentioned people. Were they right? Was it true that only massive federal spending and coercion could bring about racial parity between blacks and whites? The evidence around us leaves reason to doubt.”

Hard Data

Actual facts are irrelevant to the BLM movement, and attacking the police is an elite progressive luxury. Underlying facts don’t attract media attention and newspaper headlines. From 2012-2015, blacks in America committed 85.5 percent of all black-white interracial violent victimizations. That amounts to 540,360 felonious assaults on whites. Whites including police, on the other hand, committed 14.4 percent of all interracial violent victimizations. When five Dallas police officers were ambushed and murdered in 2016, the best our mixed-race president could muster was, “African-American parents are right to fear that their children may be killed by police officers whenever they go outside.” Veiled racism was a recurring theme in the rhetoric of Obama and continues to fester and erupt in American society as Democrats and liberals intentionally use it to push America towards socialism. Yes, if you continually talk about it, it exists.

In truth, much of the hyperbolized “white officers killing innocent black men” is apocryphal. In 2019, police officers fatally shot 1,004 people, most were armed or otherwise dangerous. Two hundred thirty-five African-Americans amounted to approximately 25 percent of those killed by cops. This ratio has remained stable for the past decade and is less than what the black crime rate would predict because police shootings are a direct function of how often police encounter armed and violent suspects. In 2018, black males made up 53 percent of known homicide offenders in the U.S. and committed about 60 percent of robberies. This stands in the face of the fact that they are only 13 percent of the population. As Heather Mac Donald concludes, “a police officer is 18½ times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male is to be killed by a police officer.”

Perhaps the most comprehensive study of police shootings comes from Michigan State researchers, Caroline Brooks & Joseph Cesario who conclude: “We found that the race of the officer doesn’t matter when it comes to predicting whether black or white citizens are shot. If anything, black citizens are more likely to have been shot by black officers, but this is because black officers are drawn from the same population that they police. So, the more black citizens there are in a community, the more black police officers there are.” Sadly, the left-leaning Democratic politicians and community organizers which include BLM, Black Visions Collective, Campaign Zero, Justice Collaborative, Justice Coalition and Reclaim the Block, all ignore these inconveniently true statistics and embrace the false narrative about “feelings and pain.” Again, if you continue talking about it, it exists, so forget the facts!

During the George Floyd and Rayshard Books riots, much the same constituent burned, looted and killed. Here is the essence of black lives really mattering, something that has been neglected by Democrats since the Civil Rights Act passed in 1965, 55 years ago. The way the BLM cohort can prove that black lives really matter is to quit blaming others—the police, conservatives, President Trump and his administration.

Solutions

Senator Tim Scott, a star in the Republican Party, says that “In our society we spend so much time on the ‘root causes’ and disadvantages that we forget to talk about the solutions…” Scott believes that family formation requires having two parents in the household...If you have two parents in the household you reduce poverty by 85 percent. That’s a stunning truth that needs more oxygen. Use the money you get from organizations and federal and state government to achieve four things.

First, instill programs in the black communities and churches that place value and insist on two-parent homes so that black children grow up with fathers.

Second, if you feel like demonstrating for something really meaningful to help black lives, do so nationally against marginal or failing school districts that have a symbiotic relationship with liberal teacher unions and demand placing a premium on excellent education like that in most charter schools.

Third, follow the likes of Senator Scott, Thomas Sowell, Dr. Ben Carson, Walter Williams, Shelby Steele, John McWhorter and countless other black men who were born poor, yet had the parental support and studied hard to become successful role models for black children instead of gangstra criminals. This means lobbying your local politicians to provide nonunionized charter schools.

Fourth, elect local and state government candidates who are committed to inner-city law and order enforcement and who are passionately committed to do whatever it takes to get drug dealers and drugs off the streets.

Coopt BLM and other likeminded organizations to support these efforts. If they don’t, black lives obviously don’t really matter to them.

SOURCE 







There Has Been A Slew Of Violent Attacks Against White People. None Have Been Prosecuted As Hate Crimes. Why Not?

A white Macy’s employee was brutally assaulted by a black man in the middle of the store a few days ago. Video shows the assailant, Damire Palmer, punching the man in the head as he crawls on the ground begging Palmer to stop. The assailant’s brother, who filmed the crime and posted it proudly to social media, claims that the victim used the N-word. Even if true, that wouldn’t remotely justify felony assault. But it isn’t true. Macy’s investigated and confirmed that the attack was “unprovoked.” Also, the N-word claim is absurd on its face. A Macy’s employee is not going to casually refer to his black customers as racial slurs. If he had that habit, he would have been fired a long time ago.

What actually happened, from the looks of it, is that the Palmer brothers selected a victim based on his race, beat him mercilessly, and then slandered him. They damaged him physically and then tried to ruin his life. If the “hate crime” designation has any meaning, this should fit the bill. Yet, to this point, no hate crime charges have been filed, nor has there been any public discussion about filing them.

It should be noted that a man who assaulted a Macy’s employee last year was charged with a hate crime because he used anti-gay slurs during the attack. The prosecutor in that case said that the attacker “subjected [the victim] to offensive physical contact” and that this was done “because of his perception of the victim’s sexual orientation.”

Well, was this latest Macy’s assault not “offensive physical contact” due to the attacker’s perception of the victim’s race?

This, unfortunately, is not an isolated incident. Recently there has been a slew of horrific physical attacks against white people. Last week, a group of African-American men attacked a white man in a gas station parking lot in Texas, punching him, knocking him to the ground, and then stomping on his head. In New York, a black man pushed a 92-year-old woman to the ground. She bashed her head against a fire hydrant as she fell. No hate crime charges have been filed.

In another attack against the elderly, Jaden T. Hayden of Michigan repeatedly beat a 75-year-old nursing home patient in the head as he lay helpless on his bed. Hayden has YouTube videos where he claims that “the black race is supposed to rule the Earth.” No hate crime charges were filed, but try to imagine the same outcome if a white man with similar professed views about the white race were to film himself brutalizing an elderly black man.

There are more examples. During the riots in Rochester a few weeks ago, a white woman was attacked by a group of black men. She was punched in the face repeatedly and beaten with a wooden board. In Ocean City, where violence has been rampant of late, a white man was knocked out while sitting on a park bench. Again, no hate crime charges.

And hate crime charges aren’t the only thing missing. There has been little public attention to, or condemnation of, these attacks.

I am not personally a proponent of the hate crime designation. I don’t think prosecutors can look into a criminal’s heart and accurately assess whether a crime was motivated by hatred or not. And even if they could, I’m not sure why a crime of hate should be considered any more severe than a crime of greed, jealousy, anger, or boredom and indifference. Is it really worse to shoot a man for his race than for his wallet? Haven’t you treated him as less than human either way? Isn’t his family mourning him just the same?

But if we are going down this road, and if we have gotten into the business of doling out special punishments for hate-based crime, then equal justice under the law means prosecuting crimes against white people with all the same gusto as crimes against non-whites.

SOURCE 







BLM Leader: Statues and Stained Glass of Jesus Are 'White Supremacy,' Must Be Torn Down

On Monday, Black Lives Matter leader and former Bernie Sanders surrogate Shaun King called for the demolition or removal of all statues, murals, and stained glass windows of “white Jesus, and his European mother, and their white friends,” i.e. the Twelve Apostles. He said religious imagery was a symbol of “white supremacy” and oppression.

“Yes, I think the statues of the white European they claim is Jesus should also come down. They are a form of white supremacy. Always have been. In the Bible, when the family of Jesus wanted to hide, and blend in, guess where they went? EGYPT! Not Denmark. Tear them down,” King tweeted.

“Yes. All murals and stained glass windows of white Jesus, and his European mother, and their white friends should also come down. They are a gross form white supremacy. Created as tools of oppression. Racist propaganda. They should all come down,” the leftist added.

King’s comments came after CPAC leader Matt Schlapp warned that, in the Cancel Culture iconoclasm of the Black Lives Matter/1619 riots, “statues of Jesus are next.” Some activists made it a “separation of church and state issue,” saying they would topple government-funded Jesus statues. King took it one step further in branding Jesus statues “white supremacy.”

Mobs had already toppled statues of Confederates, then Christopher Columbus, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson; then Ulysses S. Grant (who helped defeat the Confederacy and ending slavery in the U.S.), Francis Scott Key (writer of “The Star-Spangled Banner”), St. Junipero Serra (the leader of Spanish missions in California), and Miguel de Cervantes (author of Don Quixote and a former slave); and then Mahatma Gandhi, leader of the Indian independence movement, and the Robert Gould Shaw 54th Regiment monument, which celebrates the first all-volunteer black regiment of the Union Army during the Civil War.

The targeting of religious art and iconography seemed to follow in the progression. If mobs will vandalize the statue of black Union soldiers, what would prevent them from tearing down statues and stained glass windows of Jesus? Now, Shaun King has given them a racial reason to do so.

Yet King is utterly, inexcusably wrong about Jesus being a symbol of “white supremacy.” Jesus firmly condemned racism, crossing racial barriers to make the Good Samaritan the hero of one of His parables and speaking with the Samaritan woman at the well. His disciples would teach that “there is no Jew or Greek, no slave or free, no male or female, but we are all one in Christ Jesus.”

When white Europeans and Americans adopted their pseudoscientific racism — what King rightly condemns as “white supremacy” — they rejected the center of Christianity, which teaches that Jesus died to offer salvation to people of all nations, all classes, all races. European racism developed in part as an excuse to oppress black people and native Americans — oppression that many Christians condemned from the start.

Yet the “white” depiction of Jesus dates back further than any European pseudoscientific racism. What King describes as a horrific tool of “white supremacy” emerged about 1,000 years before the first tremors of “white supremacy.”

In 2018, a Christian origins professor argued that the most common portrayal of Jesus — a thin white man with a long beard, flowing locks, and a long robe — is based not on the carpenter from Nazareth but on paintings of the pagan gods Zeus and Apollo.

“That image can probably be traced back to the Byzantine period when artists had to make choices on how to represent the ‘son of God,'” Joan Taylor, a professor of Christian origins and Second Temple Judaism at King’s College London, wrote in her new book What Did Jesus Look Like? “And they were probably inspired by existing godly figures like Zeus and Apollo.”

The Monastery of St. Catherine on Mt. Sinai in Egypt boasts the magnificent “Christ the Pantocrator” painting, dating back to the 500s or 600s A.D. Most of the earliest surviving art depicting Jesus does not suggest a specific skin color, but what Shaun King would condemn as a “white Jesus” dates back at least as far as the 600s A.D., a time long before any “white supremacy” when people of different skin colors interacted frequently in the Mediterranean world.

Shaun King’s decision to contrast Egypt and Denmark proves rather interesting. Yes, Joseph and Mary fled to Egypt to escape King Herod’s murder of babies after Jesus’ birth, but that does not suggest that Jesus had dark skin. Egypt and Judea were both part of the Roman Empire at the time, while Denmark most certainly was not. The Holy Family fled for refuge to a close geographic area, not to a place where they would necessarily “blend in.”

Modern scholars are divided on the race of Egyptians, with many insisting they were “white” or pale-skinned and others insisting they had darker skin. Many peoples in the Mediterranean world had olive skin as well.

Just as the four Gospels do not focus on Jesus’s race, so ancient texts are not clear as to the skin color of Egyptians. Even if Egyptians were jet black, that would not prove that Jesus’s family sought refuge there for reasons of skin color. They did not intend to “blend in,” they intended to save their baby boy from death at the hands of a tyrant in Judea.

Shaun King’s argument is absurd, but it illustrates the destructive mob logic of the 1619 riots. This mob will justify destroying any statue or public monument in the name of equality, even if that monument celebrates the sacrifice of black Union soldiers who fought against slavery.

Shaun King encouraged roving bands of rioters to target churches, smashing stained-glass windows and altarpieces in the Black Lives Matter crusade. He would have black Americans condemn Jesus art dating back to the 600s A.D. as a symbol of the “white supremacy” that oppressed black Americans in the 1700s-1900s.

The truth and the real meaning behind such statues don’t matter to these crazed rioters. Black Lives Matter! Burn it all down.

SOURCE 






Australia: 'Fire me!' Kerri-Anne Kennerley defends her VERY controversial television rants and says she 'can't resist' making politically incorrect comments

Kerri-Anne Kennerley says she 'can't resist' making politically incorrect statements that have landed her in hot water over her long and lucrative television career.

The Australian presenter appeared on Sky News' The Death of the Aussie Larrikin? on Tuesday night, which looks at social media's impact on Australian culture and whether political correctness has killed off humour. 

The 68-year-old is no stranger to making outlandish comments, perhaps none more infamous than her rant about climate change protesters in October last year.  

The Studio 10 panel were discussing the Queensland government's plan to introduce tougher sentences for unruly protesters, some of whom glued themselves to roads in Brisbane.

Kennerley said she supported tougher sentences. 'Personally, I would leave them all super glued to wherever they do it,' she said at the time.

Referring to a protester who attached a hammock to a bridge in Brisbane, she said: 'The guy hanging from the Story Bridge. Why send emergency services to look after or get a moron down?

'Leave him there until he gets himself out. No emergency services should help them, nobody should do anything, and you just put little witches hats around them, or use them as a speed bump.

'Is that wrong? Put them in jail and forget to feed them. Put them in some of the aged care homes around Australia, that would really sort them out.'

On Tuesday night, host of the Sky News program Rowan Dean questioned Kennerley about her controversial comments and whether she ever takes a step back before speaking her mind after widespread backlash last October.

'They really pray I do. They really go, ''Now, you know, maybe, we don't want you to pull back, but you know, maybe'' and I go, ''Oh what the, so fire me!'' she said.

'If I'm on Studio 10 and I'm having a cheeky day, and something like [political correctness] comes up, I can't resist it.'

She explained her comments about Extinction Rebellion protests were just a 'joke' and were made because 'I thought they were funny'.

The television personality said it's fine if people disagree with her comments, but it becomes a different issue when they become 'vicious'.  

Kennerley called on the 'silent majority' to 'speak up'. 'There will always be an echelon of society who don't really know you and really want to play darts, and it would seem most of those people use social media,' she said.

'And it's very powerful, but it's also not as big as the silent majority. So silent majority, could you just speak up a little bit? Just a little bit more? Thanks. It'd be very helpful.'

Kennerley was joined by comedians Paul Fenech, Vince Sorrenti and Emma Malik, actor Delvene Delaney, who all agreed 'political correctness is killing the larrikin'.

Last year, Kennerley came under fire following a heated argument about protests against Australia Day with Yumi Stynes who labelled her a 'racist'.

Kennerley said Indigenous protesters and their supporters should be more concerned with the dire state of many Aboriginal communities.

'The 5,000 people who went through the streets making their points known, saying how inappropriate the day is - has any single one of those people been out to the Outback, where children, babies, five-year-olds, are being raped?,' she said.

'Their mothers are being raped, their sisters are being raped. They get no education. What have you done?'

After a pause, Stynes fired back at Kennerley. 'That is not even faintly true, Kerri-Anne. You're sounding quite racist right now,' she said.

Kennerley responded by stating she was offended, but Stynes doubled down on her insult. 'Well keep going then, because every time you open your mouth you're sounding racist.'

SOURCE  

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here
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