The left is infected with a moral rot: anti-Semitism

It's actually worse than that. They lack not only morals but also any genuine feelings for others. As communists they murdered millions without a second thought. So what Hamas does is nothing to them. They have no feelings for the innocent victims of Hamas barbarism. Their occasional moral claims are an empty pretence for propaganda purposes only

Following Hamas' heinous and unspeakably evil terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, which resulted in the death of 1,400 innocent Israelis, protests erupted across the country and around the world, with pro-Hamas protesters siding with the terrorists, excusing the atrocities or outright denying them.

At college campuses and even some high schools, woke students chant, "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." A call for the genocide of the Jewish people and the destruction of the only Jewish state.

Pro-Palestinian supporters are tearing down posters of missing and abducted Israelis. As Matt put it in his recent VIP column detailing these despicable actions, "If you rip down these posters, you're with [Hamas]."

Thanks to 21st-century technology, a light is being shined on this anti-Semitism through some of our reporting, and these terrorist sympathizers are paying the consequences. Some have lost their current jobs, and some have seen their cushy careers lined up post-graduation disappear.

Not only has this anti-Semitism crept into the Ivy League universities and workplaces across the country, but it has also infected Congress and the Biden administration.

Democrat Representatives Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar are notorious for their pro-terrorist anti-Semitism. They'd rather side with Hamas. They've even spread terrorist propaganda, blaming Israel for an explosion at a hospital in Gaza that was later confirmed to be from a failed rocket attack by Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Instead of condemning Hamas for using innocent Palestinians as human shields, they call Israel an apartheid state and say it's carrying out genocide, despite Hamas' own charter calling for the eradication of Israel.

And just yesterday, when asked what the Biden administration is doing to combat anti-Semitism across the country, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre had this atrocious response:

We have not seen any credible threats, I know there's been always questions about credible threats, and so just want to make sure that that's out there. But look, Muslims, and those perceived to be Muslim, have endured a disproportionate number of hate-fueled attacks. And certainly, President Biden understands that many of our Muslim, Arab-American, and Palestinian-American loved ones and neighbors are worried about the hate being directed at their communities.

Jean-Pierre made a question about the dangers of anti-Semitism all about "Islamophobia."

Of course, the White House communications team is backtracking after facing severe backlash, with Jean-Pierre posting on X, "To be clear: the President and our team are very concerned about a rise in anti-Semitism, especially after the horrific Hamas terrorist attack in Israel."

If the administration's position is so clear, why couldn't she have said this from the beginning?

Here at Townhall, we will not stop shedding light on this moral rot that's spreading across our great country. We will expose these Hamas supporters and never stop supporting the nation of Israel's right to defend its people from 7th-century savages and their barbarism.

https://townhall.com/columnists/townhallcomstaff/2023/10/27/the-lefts-moral-rot-n2630295

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California Spent $110M to Stop Asian Hate Crimes. Where Did It Go?

Two years ago, amid a national wave of violent crimes against Asian immigrants and Asian Americans, the state of California awarded $110 million over 3 years to non-profit organizations to provide services to victims and to develop programs to prevent anti-Asian hate crimes. “In response to the visible rise in anti-Asian hate, both locally and nationally,” the California Department of Social Services wrote on the program’s website, the state legislature provided those funds “to address the rise in hate against Asian and Pacific Islander Californians.”

What was that money spent on? Through a public records request, Public recently obtained grant applications from close to 50 grantees in the San Francisco Bay Area region, through two rounds of funding. The programs proposed by most of these groups, which typically received hundreds of thousands of dollars each, have little obvious connection to the goal of protecting Asians from violent attacks.

Collectively, the applications provide a glimpse into how much of the activist non-profit sector sustains itself by exploiting high-profile crises to raise funds that are then diverted into barely related or entirely unrelated causes. It also indicates how little the actual victims of those crises — in this case, Asian hate crime victims — actually benefit from these ballyhooed government spending sprees, which keep non-profit workers employed but do little for the communities they purport to serve.

“I have questions about the effectiveness of this program,” Carl Chan, a leader in Oakland’s Chinatown community who was once the victim of an anti-Asian assault, told Public. “Some of the organizations are getting millions of dollars to ‘stop AAPI hate,’ but it doesn’t look like they’re doing anything to actually stop it. That money isn’t going where it was supposed to.”

Per their answers to a question on the application asking them to describe what services they intend to provide with the funding, 16 of the groups described what many might expect from a program designed to protect Asians from violence: self-defense training, safety patrols, escort services for elderly Asians, legal services, “know your rights” workshops and psychotherapy for crime victims.

But the majority of the groups that received funding proposed programs that have little obvious direct impact on the lives of Asian hate crime victims or potential victims.

The Oakland Asian Cultural Center was awarded $90,000 for the 2021-22 fiscal year to produce an anti-racism podcast. (For the second fiscal year, the same organization received $168,000, though the documents that the California Department of Social Services provided to Public did not include the group’s application for its second round of funding.)

Richmond Area Multi-Services, Inc. received $100,000 in the first round to provide mental health services for a group of children the organization took on an anti-racism road trip. (RAMS received $375,000 in the second round, but again, its application for continued funding was not provided to us.)

One group received funding to combat “anti-Blackness in the PI (Pacific Islander) community,” as if the reason Asians were victims of hate crimes was because of their own racism. Likewise, a group that represents Asian nail salon workers boasted of publishing a statement “condemning anti-Black racism in nail salons.” Another group aimed to “address biases against individuals who are houseless, formerly incarcerated, or Black/African American” — presumably biases held by Asians in the Oakland Chinatown community that the organization serves. Yet another group described its work educating the Asian community about the “connections” between anti-Asian violence and “anti-Black racism and white supremacy.”

Other groups didn’t pretend to serve Asians at all. Six groups proposed programs to protect LGBT people but made no mention of Asians. One of those groups, the Positive Resource Center, received $620,000 to produce “an anti-racism and anti-hate film that highlights the experiences of Black transgender folx through interviews.” Another worked on behalf of Latino LGBT immigrants. Yet another puts up posters against “hate,” without specification of any group in particular.

For some of the applicants, the language describing what they would do with the funding was impenetrable. “Through cross-racial dialogue and exchanges as well as stakeholder briefings,” read one, “we will gather and disseminate lessons and best practices to develop and strengthen system-wide wellness practices and program offerings to better serve youth in community as well as schools.”

“We cannot make change until we move away from operating in our traumatized selves and into power; we cannot fully heal until we dismantle the oppressions of the systems around us,” read another. “Therefore our approach includes supporting through a blend of traditional, ancestral and western evidence-based healing practices, as well as restoring a sense of self, voice, and power through curricula that addresses identity, inequity, and root causes.”

It isn’t even clear that the organizations that purport to provide meaningful services to Asians are actually fulfilling those roles. In February, Anthony Morales, a Filipino-American private investigator whose work extracting minors from sex slavery we’ve reported on at Public, called and emailed 17 of the Bay Area groups that received funding, posing as the nephew of an elderly Asian woman who was violently attacked. Only three of them offered any specific service. One was a non-profit law firm that offered to do an intake session. Another provided counseling services, but never called back as they promised they would. The third also offered counseling and made an earnest effort to serve the victim.

The rest either did not return Morales’ calls or emails, referred him to another organization, or told him they had no help to offer.

“As much as we would love to help, we aren’t currently set up to offer assistance to victims of hate crimes,” responded one organization that received over $1 million in state funding. Another group, which received $140,000, told him they don’t provide “services” and focus only on “environmental justice” and “organizing.”

If most of these organizations aren’t even trying to provide real services to victims or direct interventions to prevent future hate crimes, why is California giving them tens of millions of dollars to “stop Asian hate?”

https://public.substack.com/p/california-spent-110m-to-stop-asian ?

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White Residents Sue City Over Racially Discriminatory Human Rights Policy

Residents of Asheville, North Carolina, are suing the city in federal court over allegedly unconstitutional racial discrimination at the local human rights board.

The residents argue that the city’s discriminatory treatment runs afoul of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That provision forbids governments from discriminating against individuals on the basis of their membership in a racial group.

Asheville has a history of alleged racial discrimination. In January 2022, the city settled a federal civil rights lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch over a racially discriminatory city-funded scholarship program. At the same time, the city agreed to erase racially discriminatory eligibility provisions from a related program that hands out grants to educators.
Racial criteria are used in the selection process to fill positions on the Human Relations Commission of Asheville (HRCA), which was created in 2018.

The HRCA initially enforced quotas, requiring the city council to fill the 15-member board with specific numbers of people from specific classifications of people, such as African Americans, Latinos, LGBT members, “professionals with influence,” youth members, a representative from each of the city’s geographical areas, public housing residents, and individuals with disabilities.

“Under the HRCA’s membership criteria, the City Council will not endeavor to appoint white residents unless they also satisfy a separate category, such as being a member of the LGBTQ+ community, a youth member, disabled, living in public housing, or recognized as a community leader. On the other hand, the City Council will automatically prefer minority applicants without requiring those applicants to satisfy a separate category,” the legal complaint states.

In 2022, as it struggled to fill vacancies and reach a quorum, the city revamped the HRCA, reducing the number of seats to nine. The city also removed the numeric race quotas from the HRCA’s membership requirements but replaced them with equally discriminatory race-based membership preferences.

What remains is a de facto race quota in which the city prefers individuals from certain races, according to Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), a public interest law firm that challenges government abuses and that represents the plaintiffs in the legal action.

Andrew Quinio, a PLF attorney, said, “The opportunity to serve your local community should not depend on your race. “Asheville’s candidates for public service should be treated as individuals, instead of mere members of arbitrary racial groups. Asheville needs to stop making assumptions about people’s experiences and qualifications based on arbitrary and offensive racial classifications.”

One HRCA candidate, plaintiff John Miall, is a white man and lifelong resident of Asheville. He spent almost 30 years working for the city, including as its director of risk management. He co-founded The Asheville Project, a community-based health care program for the city’s workforce in 1997 that became a national model for improving patient care at lower costs, evolving into what’s known today as value-based insurance design.

He felt his decades of municipal experience and continued service to his community would be a natural fit for the HRCA. But when he applied for one of the vacant seats, Asheville turned down his application because of his race and re-advertised the open positions, according to PLF.

But there is a new wrinkle in the lawsuit, Mr. Quinio told The Epoch Times in an Oct. 25 interview.

After the lawsuit was launched, the city appointed Mr. Miall to the HRCA. “It may be an attempt by them to get rid of this lawsuit,” the lawyer said.

But there are still four other plaintiffs in the lawsuit who have been harmed by the city’s discriminatory policy, he said. All of the plaintiffs are white.

“This lawsuit moves forward until the city changes its ordinance and agrees not to use race as a criterion in making appointments to this commission.”

“If you’re running a race and you get tripped along the way, even if you’ve crossed the finish line, well, someone’s got to answer for tripping, for you not being to compete fairly.”

The other plaintiffs whom the city failed to appoint to the HRCA are Robyn Hite, David Shaw, Willa Grant, and Danie Johnson.

Ms. Hite serves on the North Buncombe Elementary Parent Teacher Organization board and is a past president of the North Windy Ridge Parent Teacher Organization.

Mr. Shaw is a sales manager for a construction company. He earned an MBA from Western Carolina University and is working towards a master’s degree in social work. He also interns in the women’s behavioral health unit at a local hospital, where he provides group therapy and support to patients.

Ms. Grant taught at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College and Blue Ridge Community College. She currently serves the Western North Carolina Rescue Mission, mentoring homeless citizens and helping them obtain housing.

Mr. Johnson is an architect who started his own firm in Asheville in 1974. He designs commercial and residential buildings throughout the city and across North Carolina.

Attorneys have asked the court to certify the lawsuit as a class action.

Asheville spokesperson Kim Miller told The Epoch Times the city will continue to contest the lawsuit.

“The City vehemently denies any allegation of discrimination. It is our intention to defend the City’s interests in the suit vigorously. Beyond this, it is our policy not to comment on active litigation,” Ms. Miller said by email.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/white-residents-sue-city-over-racially-discriminatory-human-rights-policy-5518022?ea_src=au-frontpage&ea_med=special-coverage-constitutional-rights-medium-0

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Australian government effort to nip toxic masculinity in the bud.

I cannot even imagine how they might do that. Talk is cheap and kids are already preached at from dawn to dusk. To change behaviour you have to change the needs that drive it and that will rarely be possible.

Andrew Tate is a symptom, not a cause. Disrespect for women comes naturally to meny men and feminist preaching will only magnify that. Being constantly told that women are so much more admirable and worthy than men will usually provoke defiance and an attitude opposite to that desired.

The one faint hope of change would be to replace the currently pervasive valorization of women with a much more balanced message but that is not going to happen. The idea that men too have problems seems to stick in the throats of feminists

Even a heavy legal assault on domestic violence would achieve little. Bashing women is clearly something impulsive and done out of anger -- and laws are unlikely to restrain that.

The only preaching that might help would be to stop mindless praise of women and demonization of men and replace it with lessons about the needs that the respective sexes have. At its simplest, both sexes could be told that men have needs for adventure and women have a need for security. Men often say that they don't understand women at all but explanations of what drives female behaviour are posible and could be widely deployed.

I long ago wrote an explanation of female behaviour -- unlikely though that may seem. I have four women calling on me regularly these days despite my frail old age so maybe I do know something. My explanation below:

https://johnjayray.com/women.html

To end violence against women and children, the federal government aims to reshape young male attitudes toward healthy, respectful relationships as “extremist influencers” like Andrew Tate influence minds.

The initiative, known as the “Healthy Masculinities Project,” is poised to launch next year as a three-year trial, supported by $3.5 million in funding.

This innovative project will tackle the insidious impact of social media messaging targeting young men and boys, with the primary aim of eradicating gender stereotypes perpetuated online and promoting a culture of respect and supportive relationships among peers.

The project will engage the target school-age male audience through face-to-face interactions at sporting clubs, community organisations, and on social media.

Recent research has revealed 25 per cent of teenage boys in Australia look up to social media personalities who propagate harmful gender stereotypes and endorse violence against women.

The government has channelled funding through the First Action Plan Priorities Fund, an $11.9 million fund which is part of the National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children 2022-32.

Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth said there is a need for young men to develop supportive relationships with their male peers and marked the project as a critical first step towards fostering healthy male attitudes.

Ms Rishworth cited the links between harmful forms of masculinity and the perpetration of violence against women.

“Research shows there are strong links between harmful forms of masculinity and the perpetration of violence against women,” she said.

“Educating boys about healthy masculinity and providing them with positive role models are important steps to ending cycles of violence.”

The grant round for this trial will open its doors in early 2024 and will offer an opportunity for organisations equipped with specialist expertise to sign on.

Ms Rishworth emphasised the necessity of addressing violent behaviour at its roots.

Andrew Tate is a controversial kickboxer and reality TV star turned content creator who has amassed billions of views among tens of millions of followers despite being de-platformed by most social media platforms.

He has been known to preach troubling views regarding women, including that rape victims “must bear some responsibility” for their attacks; or that women should be choked by their male partners and stopped from going out.

But Mr Tate, who often flaunts his lavish life, is seen by many young men as an authority on what it is to be successful.

In August, he was released from house arrest in Romania and placed under judicial control, a lighter restrictive measure, while he awaits trial on charges of human trafficking.

As National Director of White Ribbon Australia, Allan Ball, previously explained to news.com.au, “the use of gaming, extreme bravado and music [in the videos of Tate] overlays his deplorable actions with a filter of normalcy”.

“Impressionable young minds are drawn in by money, power and unwavering confidence to become part of a tribe,” he said.

Mr Tate created the Real World Portal in recent months, after closing his subscription-based “Hustler’s University”, an online academy for his fans, promising to assist them in making big money while helping his videos on social media go viral.

Real World, which bills itself as an anti-university, promises members will make over $10k a month online.

A joint statement from Dr Stephanie Wescott and Professor Steven Roberts, two leading experts in the education field from Monash University, broadly welcomed the government’s initiative while highlighting the hazardous influence of misogynistic influencers like Mr Tate on impressionable boys and young men.

The pair are currently conducting research on the impact of Mr Tate’s content on boys in Australian schools, and have already revealed its far-reaching consequences on girls and women in classrooms across the country.

The research further highlighted that boys consuming Mr Tate’s content were more likely to harbour unhealthy views on relationships — an alarming finding given the high rates of family violence in Australia.

Dr Wescott and Prof Roberts raised a critical concern about the potential pitfalls of implementing short-term, “quick-fix” programs and interventions that might lack the capacity for sustained engagement with young men.

They cited mixed evidence regarding the effectiveness of such approaches and emphasised the absence of a uniform strategy for evaluating their impact.

The experts recommended long-term, direct, and targeted initiatives that challenge detrimental social norms affecting boys’ mental health and emotions while adopting a “gender-transformative” approach based on best practices.

“We also challenge the assumption that boys need only to hear from other men about how to develop positive masculinity, and note that the inclusion of only male role models in healthy masculinity programs are not backed by robust evidence,” they wrote.

They argued boys benefit from interacting with individuals of diverse gender identities at all life stages.

The experts warned that featuring only male role models may reinforce negative aspects of healthy masculinity programs.

“The reasons boys and young men find extremist influencers like Andrew Tate appealing are complex and multifaceted, and so must be the approaches we use to address them,” they said.

The pair urged the federal government and the Minister for Social Services to consult widely with experts in the field and lean on established research.

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/parenting/teens/extremist-influencers-australia-throws-35-million-at-tate-problem/news-story/fb8f162b5462f5b0ede05fd106c67d60

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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The DEI Complex Will Never Protect Jews

In a good example of Leftist deception, DEI in reality promotes uniformity. inequality and exclusion. And guess who is excluded

The vast diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) complex has sucked away incalculable sums of money and institutional energy and now all but defines the purpose of American higher education. For this industry to overlook the needs and anxieties of Jewish students during the toughest times they’ve ever faced would invite hard questions about what campus DEI is even for. Surely, there’s no way the DEI establishment, a former oddity of higher education that rose to shape the morals, sentiments, and business models of the mainstream corporate, entertainment, and cultural world—would botch something so simple as providing basic moral or rhetorical support to a besieged minority group when the stakes are this high. If the DEI offices’ hearts aren’t in it—Jews being rich white people whose near ancestors just happened to have been the Nazis’ chief targets—they could at least feign a strategic interest in Jews, thus protecting themselves from future accusations of willful neglect.

Young Jews have never felt more alone on American campuses as they have during these past two weeks. Classmates and soon-to-be-former friends have rallied in large numbers to celebrate the burning and torture of 1,400 Israelis. Professors have announced their glee at the redemptive spilling of settler blood. University administrators who treat every scratch of racist graffiti as a kind of communitywide soul-murder have discovered a newfound sense of nuance when faced with the 21st century’s worst butchery of Jews.

The nation’s army of campus DEI staff presumably exists for moments like this one, where an already unpopular minority group confronts an unanticipated surge of stress and potential danger. Yet DEI offices haven’t even bothered with pro forma expressions of fake concern. This week, I called or emailed over a dozen equity divisions at prominent colleges and universities to ask whether they had released any statements, held any events, or created any new programming for Jewish students since the Hamas rampage of October 7 and the wave of campus unrest that followed. The answer is no—of course not.

The fact Jews put their names on buildings and otherwise lavishly support many of these institutions apparently makes no difference to DEI bureaucrats. For example, I received no response from any of the diversity czars at the University of Pennsylvania, where internal dissension over the administration’s refusal to condemn the Hamas attack has already cost the most Jewish of Ivies hundreds of millions in pledged funding.

One of the few responses I did receive came from the University of Michigan—which makes sense, since according to a 2021 Heritage Foundation report, the school had 163 DEI employees, the most in the nation. A representative of the university directed me to two statements from Santa J. Ono, the school’s president. Neither announcement made any specific mention of Jews, while the list of “support resources” appended to each press release did not include any service that the university Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion was itself offering. Which is as clear an answer as one might ask for, I guess.

The City University of New York might have just purged the final Jews from the institution’s 80-member senior leadership team, but a staffer still helpfully pointed me toward two post-attack statements from Chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez. His short concern-blurbs from October 7 and 9 deserve credit for naming Hamas as the perpetrator of the violence that set off this latest round of war. Still, the latter statement contains a startling admission that CUNY campuses have become an incubator of sympathy and justification for some of the darkest acts imaginable. “We want to be clear that we don’t condone the activities of any internal organizations that are sponsoring rallies to celebrate or support Hamas’ cowardly actions,” Rodriguez wrote in anticipation of these exact events. “Such efforts do not in any way represent the University and its campuses” he continued—a suggestion that according to his own statement is clearly false.

George Washington University, the site of an act of vandalism against a Torah in 2021, is so serious about social justice on campus that the website of its Office for Diversity, Equity, and Community Engagement puts a self-flagellating land acknowledgement at the very top of the page: “We acknowledge the truth that is often buried: We here in the D.C. area are on the ancestral homelands of the Piscataway, Anacostan, and Nacotchtank Peoples, who were among the first in the Western Hemisphere. We are on Indigenous land that was stolen from the Piscataway, Anacostan, and Nacotchtank. We pay respects to the Piscataway, Anacostan, and Nacotchtank elders and ancestors. Please take a moment to consider the many legacies of violence, displacement, migration, and settlement that inform and impact us all.”

Impressive, no doubt. Yet the university’s equity bureaucrats apparently did not take a moment to consider the plight of Jewish students horrified at the butchery in Israel and the celebration it provoked among their peers. When asked what that office itself did the week of October 7, I was directed toward two statements from university President Ellen M. Granberg—who, I should add, deserves credit for being one of the very few in higher education to describe the Hamas attack in appropriate moral terms. “We know there is a long and complex history associated with this conflict,” she wrote. “Still, this does not justify the evil we have collectively witnessed.”

If the DEI offices’ hearts aren’t in it—Jews being rich white people whose near ancestors just happened to have been subjected to the Holocaust—they could at least feign a strategic interest in Jews, thus protecting themselves from future accusations of willful neglect.

Given the dearth of replies by either phone or email, it became necessary to look through Twitter feeds, event schedules, and recent announcements on the universities’ DEI pages in order to ascertain their level of activity in response to the worst crisis Jewish college students have faced lately. On Oct. 18, the Twitter feed of the Rutgers University Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Community posted a pair of graphics about “meeting the moment with humanity.” In one of them, the #RUWorkforinclusion hashtag appeared below a quote from Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who was once one of the world’s leading opponents of the existence of the State of Israel. The office did not put out any statement in the immediate wake of the October 7 assault, although it did host a webinar on “micro-inequities” on Oct. 17. Presumably, even according to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the mass slaughter of Israelis might qualify at least as a “micro-inequity.” However there was no sign Jewish students were particularly encouraged to attend that or any other Rutgers DEI event.

Not to be outdone by its less rarefied rival to the north, the University of Virginia’s Division for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion held events on microaggressions on both Oct. 17 and Oct. 18. Those who missed “I Felt That: Intro Microaggressions” must have been a little lost at “I Felt That: Microaggressions—The Remix (Intermediate)” the following night. The idea that the survivors of the Hamas massacre and their fellow Jews on campus might have also felt something worth recognizing was nowhere in evidence.

The University of North Carolina saw a faceoff between mourners and celebrants of the Hamas attack that nearly turned violent. Jewish students and their campus allies—assuming they have any—might have looked at the resistance enthusiasts in their midst and wondered in horror at exactly who they’d been going to school with. If they’d looked at the University Office for Diversity and Inclusion’s web page, they’d have found an infographic about “inclusive excellence.”

Nobody picked up the phone when I called Michigan State University’s Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, whose website includes handy and potentially disgrace-preventing instructions on how not to botch a land acknowledgement ritual. “Although land acknowledgements are powerful statements,” the guide reads in boldface type, “they are only meaningful when they are coupled with authentic and sustained relationships with Indigenous communities and community-informed actions.” Those of a Talmudic cast will be intrigued to learn that there is both an official land acknowledgement for Michigan State University and a shortened land acknowledgement for Michigan State University that satisfies the rigors of equity Halacha. No one at the school’s DEI office seems to be acknowledging the turmoil of the university’s Jewish students, though.

For the past two weeks, DEI offices have had a chance to show they can be responsive to the real-life needs of young people facing a scary and unfamiliar crisis. But these offices clearly do not exist to serve Jews, or wish to recognize Jews might be capable of feeling pain, even when their friends and co-religionists have been slaughtered en masse. That’s because DEI bureaucracies don’t exist to serve actually existing people of any background. The purpose they serve is a theological one, and dogma enforcement is a big part of what universities do these days. The aforementioned Heritage study found that in the aggregate, there were 1.4 times as many DEI staff as history professors across the 65 institutions surveyed. “Promoting DEI has become a primary function of higher education,” the report observed.

An equity office’s job is to engineer the values of the rising elite so that DEI and the wider ideological edifice it serves will remain powerful, protected, and even feared. These bureaucracies are not burning through institutional capital in order to salve the anxieties of Jewish students, because helping students was never the point. Their ambitions are of a different order: DEI embodies the moral authority of a larger system for distributing status and power. It doesn’t care about actual human beings—and as we’ve learned since the massacre of October 7, it especially doesn’t care about Jews.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/the-dei-complex-will-never-protect-jews

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Why they rip down the 'Kidnapped from Israel' fliers

by Jeff Jacoby

A CAT from my neighborhood has gone missing. Her owner has distributed fliers around the area, asking residents to keep an eye out for her. "LOST CAT," it says in big letters beneath a photo of Coco, a beautiful animal with fluffy white fur and blue eyes.
Whether the fliers will lead to Coco's recovery I don't know. But of one thing I am certain: No one walking through the neighborhood will be grabbing all the posters and stuffing them in the trash. Even people who dislike cats wouldn't be that callous and mean.

But ever since fliers calling attention to something far more terrible than a missing cat — the plight of the more than 200 hostages abducted from Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7 — began going up on telephone poles, subway walls, utility boxes, and worksite fences in cities around the world, a startling number of people have been eager to tear them down. Individuals have been filmed destroying or defacing the posters in Boston, London, Miami, New York, Melbourne, Philadelphia, Richmond, Ann Arbor, and Los Angeles.

There is no possible justification for such heartlessness. The whole purpose of the fliers is to heighten awareness of the Israeli (and other) civilians kidnapped by the Hamas terror squads — to put names and faces to the hostages, all with one goal: to bring them back home. How can a project so heartfelt and humane trigger such a poisonous response?

The posters were the brainchild of two Israeli artists, Nitzan Mintz and Dede Bandaid, who were visiting New York when Hamas carried out its bloodbath. Aching to help in some way, they drew on their art backgrounds to design the eye-catching fliers. Each is topped with the word "KIDNAPPED" in large white letters on an orange background; below that heading is the name, age, nationality, and photo of one of the hostages, who range in age from 3 months to 85 years.

The posters went viral overnight. Within days they were appearing everywhere, a powerful symbol of Israel's anguish and of the desperate yearning for the captives' safe return. Then came the backlash. "Within minutes or hours of going up," reported the New York Jewish Week, "many of them had been partially ripped off the subway station's walls, tears obscuring the victims' faces or details about their lives, while others were defaced with marker or surrounded by messages such as "Free Palestine." On a poster of two of the youngest hostages, 3-year-old twins Emma and Yuli Cunio, Hitler mustaches were drawn on the girls' faces. On other posters, the words "Lies" or "Actors" were scrawled.

Those ripping down or damaging the signs are by no means abashed about doing so. Some have filmed themselves attacking the fliers and posted the video online. Others, when asked why they were trashing the pictures of civilian hostages, have yelled about "genocide," declared their support for "Palestinian civilians," claimed the fliers contained "inaccurate information," or simply cursed out the person filming them.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is intensely controversial and generates great emotion on both sides. But these assaults on the "Kidnapped" posters have nothing to do with the merits of the dispute. The sole purpose of the fliers is to emphasize the humanity of the innocent hostages seized by Hamas (many of whom, as it happens, were peace activists deeply committed to Arab-Israeli coexistence). What drives the people ripping down the posters or adding Hitler mustaches to the pictures is a pathological need to deny the humanity of those kidnapped Jews.

A core principle of antisemites in all times and places is that Jews are not fully human and are never innocent. A thousand years ago, Jews were slaughtered by Crusaders for being satanic Christ-killers who consumed the blood of children; a century ago Hitler preached that they were subhumans who polluted the racial purity of Aryan Europe. Today the Jewish state is accused of committing the demonic crimes of genocide and apartheid. The poison never changes, only the vial it comes in.

The "Kidnapped" fliers are intolerable to the haters because they so urgently challenge the antisemitic paradigm. They make it vividly clear that in the war between barbarism and civilization, between oppressor and oppressed, it is Jews who are under attack. That infuriates those whose worldview revolves around the certainty that Israel and its supporters are the victimizers. The outpouring of sympathy for Jews kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists — and the moral force of that sympathy — is anathema to them.

That explains as well why the atrocities committed on Oct. 7 immediately triggered so many vehement public demonstrations in support of the Palestinians. Precisely because the massacre and abductions had been so unspeakably horrific, it was necessary to reinforce the narrative of Jewish villainy. At times, denunciations of Israel gave way to naked antisemitsm. At a pro-Palestinian rally in Sydney, a chorus of voices chanted "Gas the Jews! F*** the Jews!" Others expressed their hatred by rejoicing in the slaughter of Israelis. A professor at Cornell, for example, told a crowd he was "exhilarated" by what Hamas had done.

In the wake of terrible mass shootings like the one that took at least 18 lives and convulsed Lewiston, Maine, on Wednesday, grieving family and friends often display pictures of their loved ones. It is a way of reinforcing the humanity of the victims and of evoking compassion from passersby. Who, seeing such a display, would destroy or vandalize it? Some norms are so ingrained as to be all but inviolable. When someone puts up an image of a missing or murdered child, no decent person rips it down.

But antisemitism has the power to override every norm and decent impulse.

On Reddit last week, a commenter explained that coming across a "Kidnapped" flier made him feel not empathy with the hostage, but "the exact opposite." It filled him with "white hot rage," he wrote, and he decided that "ripping it down and tearing it to shreds is the only thing I can do."

The ripped-up fliers are one more indication of the rising tide of antisemitism in America and the West. A "white hot rage" is building. I, for one, cannot shake the conviction that Jews are at graver risk than they have been in decades, and not only in southern Israel.

https://jeffjacoby.com/27308/why-they-rip-down-the-kidnapped-from-israel-fliers

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Premodern Diversity vs. Civilizational Unity

Victor Davis Hanson

Few Romans in the late decades of their 5th-century A.D. empire celebrated their newfound "diversity" of marauding Goths, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Huns, and Vandals.

These tribes en masse had crossed the unsecured Rhine and Danube borders to harvest Roman bounty without a care about what had created it.

Their agendas were focused on destroying the civilization they overran rather than peacefully integrating into and perpetuating the Empire.

Ironically, Rome's prior greatness had been due to the extension of citizenship to diverse people throughout Europe, North Africa, and Asia.

Millions had been assimilated, integrated, and intermarried and often superseded the original Italians of the early Roman Republic. Such fractious diversity had led to unity around the idea of Rome.

New citizens learned to enjoy the advantages of habeas corpus, sophisticated roads, aqueducts, and public architecture, and the security offered by the legions.

The unity of these diverse peoples fused into a single culture that empowered Rome. In contrast, the later disunity of hundreds of thousands of tribal people flooding into and dividing Rome doomed it.

To meet the challenge of a multiracial society, the only viable pathway to a stable civilization of racially and ethnically different people is a single, shared culture.

Some nations can find collective success as a single homogenous people like Japan or Switzerland.

Or equally, but with more difficulty, nations can prosper with heterodox peoples -- but only if united by a single, inclusive culture as the American melting-pot once attested.

But a baleful third option -- a multicultural society of diverse, unassimilated, and often rival tribes -- historically is a prescription for collective suicide.

We are beginning to see just that in America, as it sheds the melting pot, and adopts the salad bowl of unassimilated and warring tribes.

The U.S. is now seeing a rise in violent racially and religiously motivated hate crimes.

The border is nonexistent.

Millions of unlawful immigrants mock their hosts by their brazen illegal entrance.

They will receive little civic education to become Americans. But they will learn that unassimilated tribalism wins them influence and advantages.

In contrast, America was once a rare historical example of a multiracial, but single-culture democracy that actually worked.

Multigenerational Americans were often energized by keeping up with new hard-working immigrants determined to have a shot at success in a free society long denied them at home.

Other large nations have tried such a democratic multiracial experiment -- most notably Brazil and India. But both are still plagued by tribal feuding and serial violence.

What once worked for America, but now is forgotten were a few precepts essential for a multiracial constitutional state wedded to generous immigration.

One, America is enriched at its cultural periphery by the food, fashion, art, music, and literature of immigrants.

But it would be destroyed if such diversity extended to its core. No one wants Middle-East norms regarding gays or emancipated women.

No one prefers Mexican jurisprudence to our courts.

No one here wants the dictatorship of Venezuela or the totalitarianism of communist China.

Two, people vote with their feet to emigrate to America. They flee their native culture and government to enjoy their antitheses in America.

But remember -- no sane immigrant would flee Mexico, Gaza, or Zimbabwe only to wish to implant in their new homes the very culture and norms that drove them out from their old.

If they did that to their new home, it would then become as unattractive to them as what they fled.

Three, tribalism wrecks nations.

Just compare what happened in Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, or Iraq.

Anytime one ethnic, racial, or religious group refuses to surrender its prime identity in exchange for a shared sense of self, other tribes for their own survival will do the same.

All then rebrand their superficial appearance as essential not incidental to whom they are.

And like nuclear proliferation that sees other nations go nuclear once a neighboring power gains the bomb, so too the tribalism of one group inevitably leads only to more tribalism of others. The result is endless Hobbesian strife.

Four, immigration must be measured, so that newcomers can be manageably assimilated and integrated rather than left to form rival tribal cliques.

Five, it must be legal. Otherwise, the idea of citizenship is reduced to mere residency, while the legal applicant is rendered a fool for his adherence to the law.

Six, it must be meritocratic, so immigrants come with English and skills and do not burden their hosts.

And last, it must be diverse. Only that way, can all groups abroad have equal access to the American dream.

A diversity of immigrants also ensures that no one particular ethnic or political tribe seeks to use immigration to divide the nation further.

The old immigration once enriched America, but our new version is destroying it.

https://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2023/10/27/premodern-diversity-vs-civilizational-unity-n2630454

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Is Australian multiculturalism failing?

The events described below are real but isolated. They do not well reflect everyday life in Australia. Let me tell another story: Most days I have my breakfast in a local suburban cafe that has a very good menu. And it is very popular and busy.

But as I sit there day after day I observe a minor miracle. There are usually only one or two other people with my Celtic coloring (freckles!) but everybody behaves in a manner that I see as proper. There are always some Chinese, some Indians and probably some people from Europe. The cafe was formerly run by an Italian and is now run by a Vietnaese. Both were superb managers

And there are no raised voices and no aggression of any sort. Everybody there remains polite at all times. I have not once seen an exception to that. There are even some apparent Middle-Easterners of probably Muslim persuasion who make no waves at all. They usually keep in their own groups but no harm comes of that.

So every day I sit in the middle of a very multicultural population and experience nothing that disturbs my Old Australian soul. I have no doubt that in Australia I live in a brilliantly successful multicultural society


In March 2022, Declan Cutler, a working-class 16-year-old, died after being stabbed over 50 times by a ‘gang of teenagers’ in a random attack in North Melbourne.

Hours after the incident, one of the attackers allegedly went home and searched the question, ‘Is hell guaranteed for a Muslim who commits murder?’

Earlier this year, Jason Langhans, 17, was killed when he tried to stop a fight between gatecrashers and partygoers at a get-together in the small coastal town of Tooradin.

The attacker, a 17-year-old Afghan who has not been named, moved to Australia as a refugee, drove a screwdriver 8cm into Jason’s brain. The judge noted that he had a ‘traumatic upbringing’, leaving Afghanistan for Pakistan, Indonesia, and then Australia by boat.

Earlier this month, hundreds of protesters gathered at the Sydney Opera House and called for the death of an entire race of people … the Jewish people.

Minister for Immigration Andrew Giles says that Australia’s multicultural diversity is ‘a source of national strength’.

But these increasingly common events, along with a changing conversation abroad, might give us pause to reflect.

Suella Braverman, Home Secretary for the United Kingdom, recently stood in front of a crowd last month and announced that ‘multiculturalism in Great Britain had failed’.

Her analysis of Britain’s handling of immigration and diversity was scathing, and perfectly reflected the way the debate around multiculturalism is changing.

‘Uncontrolled immigration, inadequate integration, and a misguided dogma of multiculturalism have proven a toxic combination for Europe over the last few decades.

‘We are living with the consequence of that failure today. You can see it play out on the streets of cities all over Europe. From Malmo, to Paris, Brussels, to Leicester. It is 13 years since Merkel gave her speech, and I’m not sure that very much has changed since.’

Australia’s official policy of ‘Multiculturalism’ is celebrated in ministerial white papers and corporate boardrooms but its real-life consequences are starkly different.

In the streets of Melbourne’s CBD earlier this year, Sikh separatists attacked Hindu protesters with sticks while chanting ‘death to India’.

In Sydney, Hindu protesters were filmed allegedly menacing Muslim-run businesses in Harris Park, an area with a long history of ethnic-religious violence.

In Brisbane, during the Hong Kong independence protests at the University of Queensland, students were physically assaulted by a number of pro-Chinese students.

Fireworks and celebrations erupted in the Sydney suburb of Lakemba following the attack of Israel by Hamas.

The question has to be asked: How is the average Australian benefiting from this? And if we’re not benefiting, what are we doing to stop it?

Because as one British writer put it, the eruption of ethnic tensions in our cities doesn’t just reflect the complete failure of integration, it also reflects a complete repudiation of our systems, laws and way of life.

‘When you watch people have so little respect for British values and British laws they gleefully saunter around Britain’s streets saluting atrocities committed by ISIS-style terrorists then you know multiculturalism is failing.’

This has happened, he says, ‘Because of mass immigration into Britain, because of the total failure of our politicians to integrate old and new immigrants into British society, and because of their determination to continue to import more culturally and religiously distinctive migrants and tribal grievances from abroad.’

It isn’t just Britain changing their tune on multiculturalism.

Last year, the Sweden Prime Minister announced: ‘Integration has been too poor at the same time as we have had a large immigration. Society has been too weak, resources for the police and social services have been too weak.’

More than Sweden, the other paragon of Scandinavian progressive pragmatism, Denmark, instituted an abrupt turnaround on its previously generous immigration program, with Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen citing a multi-decade failure of its newcomers to integrate.

And just weeks ago, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said in a television interview that ‘it was a grave mistake to let in so many people of totally different cultures, religions, and concepts’.

‘It creates a pressure group inside each country.’

Is it now time to admit that Australia also made a ‘grave mistake’? Do we have pressure groups inside our country, and if so, what are we going to do about it?

‘I think we are starting to realise there’s a difference between being an Australian and living in Australia,’ wrote one person in a viral tweet, following the Opera House incident.

Australian politicians like to claim we’re the ‘most successful multicultural nation on Earth’, but how much longer can they ignore the fraying edges that has become increasingly evident this month?

Opposition leader Peter Dutton is talking tough on the issue, saying that anyone on a visa at the protests who was breaking the law ‘should be deported’. But what of the hundreds of thousands of new arrivals coming in next year? What of the gangs roaming our streets, killing unsuspecting teenagers? There is simply no plan to deal with these multicultural clashes – governments are just throwing a Hail Mary and hoping it doesn’t explode on their watch.

With a record 450,000 migrants arriving in Australia this year alone – many of which not only from nations with which we share little culturally, but who are also adversaries to our allies – it can be assumed Labor isn’t heeding Braverman’s warning about ‘uncontrolled immigration, inadequate integration, and a misguided dogma of multiculturalism’.

Moreover, with Australia’s legitimacy increasingly attacked by the political left, and with the country referred to as a ‘coloniser state’ that disenfranchised indigenous people, it’s hard to see what the large numbers of people coming here will integrate into.

Our country is heading down a strange path. The roots that once held us together are increasingly weakened, while the rapidly rising number of people coming from other countries have no dominant culture or way of life to integrate into.

Until a stronger discussion is had around multiculturalism and immigration, these cultures will inevitably clash again, with increasingly tragic circumstances.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/10/is-multiculturalism-failing/

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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Capital Crime Wave Prompts DC Mayor’s Major Reversal on Police Restraints

Amid escalating crime in the nation’s capital, President Joe Biden went to bat for a “police reform” law passed by the D.C. Council by vetoing a bipartisan congressional measure that would have overturned it. Now, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser wants to roll back the same law that Biden protected.

The House Oversight and Accountability Committee, whose oversight includes the District of Columbia, held two hearings earlier this year on the D.C. crime problem.

“Unfortunately, President Biden refused to stand by the Metropolitan Police Department and allowed the D.C. Council’s anti-police bill to go into effect,” House Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., told The Daily Signal in a written statement Tuesday.

“As a result, crime in the District has continued to surge and now the D.C. mayor is even trying to roll the D.C. Council’s disastrous law back,” Comer said.

The D.C. Council previously enacted laws to restrict police and to reduce sentences for felons. Congress voted to block both.

Meanwhile, Biden signed a measure—also pushed by the oversight panel to reverse a D.C. law reducing sentencing for felonies, including carjackings and burglaries.

The Oversight Committee adopted a resolution blocking the D.C. Council’s 2022 police reform legislation from taking effect. However, Biden vetoed that bipartisan measure in May.

House Resolution 42, which blocked the D.C. anti-police law, was sponsored by Reps. Andrew R. Garbarino, R-N.Y., and Andrew Clyde, R-Ga.

“I’m glad that Mayor Bowser can admit that her policies have contributed to rising crime in the District of Columbia. However, the proposed legislation is the definition of too little, too late,” Garbarino said Tuesday in a written statement.

The city’s new law expanded the definition of chokeholds, already banned for the Metropolitan Police Department, to mean most neck restraints; established a new office to investigate complaints against police; and made it more difficult for officers to disperse riots.

The formal name of the D.C. law is the Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act of 2022.

“MPD has hemorrhaged officers over the last two years, leaving the department severely understaffed,” Garbarino said, adding:

Criminals have been empowered to break the law while our men and women in blue have been vilified and hindered from doing their jobs. D.C., New York, and [other] liberal cities across the country are paying the price for their anti-police policies and rhetoric. If Mayor Bowser wants to make a real difference to D.C. crime rates, she would completely roll back all of the D.C. Council’s anti-police efforts and empower law enforcement to tackle rising crime as they see fit.

Axios first reported Bowser’s proposal over the weekend. The mayor released a public statement Monday about a proposal (dubbed the Addressing Crime Trends Now Act, or the ACT Now Act) to amend the D.C. police reform law.

“This legislation reflects what our community is telling us: They want appropriate accountability for those who choose to commit crimes and inflict fear in our neighborhoods,” Bowser said. “At a time when we’re dealing with historically low staffing levels at MPD, we’re making commonsense changes that recognize the day-to-day operational challenges our officers experience and that will better support safe and effective policing.”

Bowser’s proposal would reinstate the ability of the Metropolitan Police Department to declare drug-free zones for 120 hours, to prohibit congregating in public space to purchase, sell, or use illegal drugs. The legislation also would impose criminal penalties for organized retail theft, establishing that “directing organized retail theft” is a crime.

The mayor’s bill also calls for reinstating a law against wearing a mask for the purpose of committing criminal acts or intimidating and threatening others.

House Republicans first raised concerns that the D.C. Council’s “policing reform” would lead to more crime. The Oversight Committee pushed the resolution to block the law in April. and the Senate followed in May.

However, Biden then vetoed the measure, saying:

While I do not support every provision of the Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act of 2022, this resolution from congressional Republicans would overturn commonsense police reforms such as: banning chokeholds; setting important restrictions on use of force and deadly force; improving access to body-worn camera recordings; and requiring officer training on de-escalation and use of force. The Congress should respect the District of Columbia’s right to pass measures that improve public safety and public trust.

After Biden vetoed the congressional resolution, Comer noted that crime in the District of Columbia was up 27% from 2022 levels. Specifically, homicide was up by 19%, other violent crime by 16%, and vehicle theft by 118%, Comer said.

“House Republicans have pledged to advance policies that make our nation safe and take on left-wing efforts to defund the police,” Comer told The Daily Signal.

“The House Oversight Committee has held two hearings on historic crime in the District and we’ve advanced legislation to block the D.C. Council’s radical pro-crime and anti-police bills from taking effect,” he said.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/10/24/capital-crime-wave-prompts-dc-mayors-major-reversal-on-police-restraints

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Anti-racism supersedes actual medicine, endangers patients

Ibram X. Kendi’s gravy train could soon screech to a halt. The famous "anti-racist" professor is under intense public and institutional scrutiny after a Boston University investigation revealed that his "Center for Antiracist Research" squandered tens of millions of dollars, producing practically no research.

But while the ideologue is disgraced, his ideological fingerprint remains impressed upon academia. Nowhere is anti-racism’s influence more concerning than medical research, where racialized pseudoscience has effectively replaced scientific rigor in making sense of matters of life or death.

Anti-racism asserts that race-blind policies allow bigoted attitudes and beliefs to flourish, and that disparities across racial groups must be evidence of racism. In accordance with the ideology, leading healthcare organizations now uncritically and reflexively claim that health disparities across racial groups must be the result of racism disguised or fueled by race-neutral policies.

In writing on the "impact of racism on our public nation’s health," the CDC now claims that racism is a "fundamental" cause of "health inequities, health disparities and disease." It further states, "these health disparities underscore the urgent need to address systemic racism as a root cause of racial and ethnic health inequities and a core element of our public health efforts." The National Institutes of Health similarly states that structural racism "lies at the center" of health disparities.

Previously, leading health experts dispassionately embraced intellectual curiosity and the scientific method to understand and address health disparities. Take, for example, a Health and Human Services initiative launched in 2000 called "Healthy People 2010." The initiative made eliminating health disparities across populations one of its overriding goals.

The final review noted that such disparities arise due to a "range of personal, economic, and environmental factors that influence health status, including factors such as biology, genetics, individual behavior, [and] access to health services."

The 560-page "Healthy People 2010" review doesn’t once speculate or assert that disparities are caused by racism, and for good reason. Across society, racist beliefs are rare and declining. Doctors in particular are laser-focused on treating individual patients, regardless of skin color.

Yet racism is now blindly stated as fact, in service to the anti-racist demand that medicine be viewed through a racial lens. As Yascha Mounk points out in his recent book "The Identity Trap," it remains baffling why attempting to purge unverified individual racism through training and other coercive measures would even solve supposedly systemic issues. Orthodoxy supersedes not only facts, but basic logic.

Problems aside, anti-racist ideology is enforced and propagated through peer-reviewed medical journals, the information bank that journalists, judges, and lawmakers generally entrust to make sense of what "science" says about critical issues.

The American Medical Association’s "Organizational Strategic Plan to Embed Racial Justice and Advance Health Equity," for example, cites research as a "lever for change." It goes on to clarify that "methods will be informed by social epidemiology and critical race theory."

The American Medical Association’s strategy is perverse. Research is fundamentally about the pursuit of knowledge, not a "lever" for social transformation. Once the objective of research is determined to be something other than the pursuit of knowledge, it ceases to be research, but opinion weaponized as "fact" operating under the guise of "science."

Consider, for example, a recent meta-analysis (i.e., compilation of studies) published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. It found that Black patients in the emergency department were more likely to be physically restrained.

A curious scholar might probe whether this finding is related to factors like the disproportionate number of Blacks treated in the emergency department for substance abuse disorders or schizophrenia. Instead, the "researchers" dismiss this possibility by saying that racial difference in these measures would also be proof of racism.

The Journal of the American Medical Association is not alone in this radicalism. Health Affairs, another widely cited journal, devoted their October 2023 issue to "structural racism," essentially accepting the argument that disparities are evidence of racism.

The New England Journal of Medicine, the world’s most widely cited medical journal, has pledged a commitment to anti-racism that routinely plays out in its pages. For instance, a commentary published in early October notes the disproportionate number of Black medical residents who face remedial intervention or dismissal from their programs, which is alleged to be a sign of racism.

In writing on the "impact of racism on our public nation’s health," the CDC now claims that racism is a "fundamental" cause of "health inequities, health disparities and disease."

Yet Occam’s razor would point to radically lower medical school admissions standards for Black students, who are more likely be unprepared for the demands of the job.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/anti-racism-supersedes-actual-medicine-endangers-patients

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Rodeo Events: The Far Left's Latest Target

The Far Left - ranging from elected Democrats to their preservationist environmental friends - are determined to ban rodeo events across the U.S.

On October 17th, 2023, the San Diego County Democratic Central Committee unanimously voted in favor of a resolution condemning an upcoming rodeo event scheduled for January 2024 at Petco Park. What’s their beef? The SDCDC equated rodeos to “animal torture devices.”

The San Diego Rodeo is tentatively scheduled for January 12-14, 2024, at the scenic ballpark in downtown San Diego.

“The San Diego County Democratic Central Committee condemns the plans of the Padres and City of San Diego to bring a rodeo to PETCO Park and encourages the San Diego City Council to immediately pass an ordinance banning animal torture devices used at rodeos,” the resolution read.

“Cute, innocent, docile farm animals should not be subjected to cruel treatment and torture devices used at rodeos!” Bryan Pease, the lead author of the resolution, wrote. “There has not been such a cruel event in the City of San Diego since the 1980s, and never before at PETCO Park.”

These attacks on rodeo events, however, aren’t new. These campaigns started to ramp up in the early 2000s. More recently, anti-rodeo efforts have materialized several hours north of America’s Finest City in Los Angeles.

The Democrat-majority city council has been toying with a ban for several years. The body passed an ordinance in December 2022 aimed at these events and could spell doom for the annual February Professional Bull Riding (PBR) event at Crypto.com Arena. This past October 10th, the L.A. Board of Animal Services Commissioners unanimously recommended by a 5-0 vote the city ban rodeos within city limits—alleging they promote “animal cruelty.”

Thankfully, not all Angelenos agree with this misguided campaign. Different cowboy organizations - including organizations boasting Hispanic, Black, and Native American members - have sounded the alarm over L.A.’s obtuse ordinance.

Sixth-generation cowboy and professional bull rider Dakota Louis, who is Native American, defended his way of life to Los Angeles Magazine, saying: “The cowboy way is always going above and beyond and taking care of everyone else before you take care of yourself, and that’s exactly how it is at our dinner table. Our animals are taken care of and fed before we eat dinner.”

In February 2022, the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo- named after legendary black cowboy and rodeo performer Bill Pickett- urged its Facebook followers to “step up and help keep the LA city council from passing a ban against rodeo and equestrian events.”

Which groups are behind the anti-rodeo pushes? Townhall readers will recognize two familiar groups.

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) - a serial alarmist organization - is a big proponent of rodeo bans, writing on their website: “Countless animals have paid with their lives to satisfy humans’ desire to play cowboy in events such as calf roping, bull riding, steer wrestling, and bronc riding.”

PETA also advocates banning the American pastime by urging its supporters to “work to institute a state or local ban on calf roping, the event in which cruelty is most easily documented. Since many rodeo circuits require calf roping, eliminating it can result in the overall elimination of rodeo shows.”

Animal Legal Defense Fund is a litigious outfit behind the bans. The group is also vehemently against predator management, hunting, and wildlife management.

Their workplace culture is similarly hostile to meat products and animal agriculture, with their mission statement reading like this: “Consistent with this mission, the Animal Legal Defense Fund’s staff and volunteers agree that they will not introduce into any Animal Legal Defense Fund office, or at any Animal Legal Defense Fund function outside the office (e.g., staff lunches, meetings, etc.), products that are derived, in whole or in part, from an animal. Such products include, but are not limited to, meat, fish, poultry, eggs, dairy products (including milk, yogurt, and cheese), leather, and wool. This prohibition does not apply to products to be used for the purpose of educating the public about animal cruelty.”

Interestingly, suing in the name of “animal rights” is very lucrative. ALDF reportedly has net assets worth nearly $20 million (as of 2021). But the group, nonetheless, isn’t without internal strife either and has been seen as insufficiently woke and progressive. A June 2023 report revealed former employees found ALDF to employ “union-busting tactics while perpetuating a transphobic, racist, and retaliatory work culture that undermined the organization’s mission and pandered to conservative donors.” Ouch.

Protect the Harvest reminds us that today’s cowboys and cowgirls are “demonstrating their skills across the country, bringing our rich history and culture to cities and towns across America.”

Much to the chagrin of anti-rodeo activists, rodeo events like PBR are quite popular. Bullriding T.V. events are watched by millions. Paramount Network’s hit show, Yellowstone, and its spinoffs have reinvigorated interest in the sport and accompanying culture. And even unlikely venues –including Madison Square Garden in far-left New York City – are holding sold-out events.

Rodeo, like hunting and fishing, is pure Americana. It must be protected and preserved at all costs.

https://townhall.com/columnists/gabriellahoffman/2023/10/27/rodeo-events-the-far-lefts-latest-target-n2630455

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Imported haters in America

In last week's column, we noted the popularity of Hamas terrorists with BLM representatives. This week, we'll consider the other main contingent of Hamas Boosters: foreigners, who, for reasons I can't understand, are in my country.

In the past few weeks, Muslims and Arabs have poured into the streets in nearly every U.S. city to celebrate the slaughter of Israelis, while wearing scarves, keffiyehs and other clown outfits and waving the flags of Palestine, Egypt, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco, Yemen, Turkey, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Nigeria, and on and on.

It's so obvious that these people don't belong here that the immediate reaction of a number of politicians was to demand that their visas be revoked. (Nobody looked at anti-war protests in the '60s and said, Revoke their visas!)

Question: Why are we importing millions of people from lesser cultures who will inevitably despise and resent the West for its very success?

This isn't the old They hate us for our freedoms! Rather, it is simply an acknowledgment of the fact that the most common and destructive human emotion is jealousy. People will brag about being gluttons, prideful, greedy, angry, lustful and lazy. The only venal sin no one will cop to is envy. That's how insidious it is.

Consider the "open letter" from 33 Harvard student groups blaming Israelis for their own slaughter. In addition to about a dozen Muslim and Arab groups, the letter was signed by clubs for immigrants from various locales notable for their high levels of corruption and leprosy (e.g., Bangladesh, Nepal, Bengal and South Asia).

You think Harvard had a problem with the "Bengali Association of Students" before the 1965 Immigration Act?

Freshly installed and deeply unimpressive Harvard president Claudine Gay (daughter of Haitian immigrants) issued a kumbaya statement in response to the bloodthirsty student letter, expressing sadness about both the 1,500 slaughtered Israelis AND "the war in Israel and Gaza now underway."

At this, billionaire donors to the university finally began to notice the insanity they've been funding. A couple of Israeli billionaires, Idan and Batia Ofer, quit Harvard's Kennedy School of Government board in protest. Another Jewish billionaire, Bill Ackman, demanded the names of the students behind the letter. Gentile -- and Republican! -- Ken Griffin (cumulative gifts to Harvard: more than $500 million) also raised a ruckus.

The same thing happened at other institutions of higher learning.

Sorry to roll my eyes, but where have they been? The gleeful cheering for the mass murder of Israelis is only the latest expression of hate by inferior cultures toward the superior culture of the West -- of which the donors are a shining example.

Here are a few other signposts of our descent into Calcutta.

In the last few years, statues of one great man after another have been toppled, among them: Christopher Columbus, Ulysses S. Grant, Thomas Jefferson, Robert E. Lee, Teddy Roosevelt and Francis Scott Key. White, white, white, white, white and white.

Portraits of scientists at Rockefeller University who'd won the Nobel Prize or Lasker Award had to be removed on the grounds that they were all white men. The portraits made medical student Max Jordan Nguemeni Tiako sad, so they had to go.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art disemboweled Beethoven's opera, "Fidelio," to turn it into a story about BLM triumphing over a white supremacist conspiracy to oppress immigrants and people of color (with a discussion sponsored by Columbia University on dismantling "systems of incarceration").

Responding to student demand, the University of Pennsylvania removed a portrait of William Shakespeare and replaced it with a picture of a black feminist writer.

And how did Gay become the president of Harvard in the first place? Obviously, it was a rigorous competition -- just as it was for Vice President Kamala Harris, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sen. Laphonza Butler.

Gay's "historic" appointment gave Harvard its first black president! (Who could've seen that coming?)

The shocked Harvard alums might not even be admitted today, with their cisgender white privilege. The college's admissions office describes its job as "antiracism work."

But when the exact same people who hate our country turned out to hate Israel, too, our clueless elites were gobsmacked. Gee, where'd that come from? We thought you liked us.

Of course barbarians hate Israel! Surrounded by enemies, Jews transformed an unforgiving desert into a first-rate civilization. Did anyone imagine the Holocaust would temper the bitter jealousy? That's like heterosexual white coeds claiming to be "binary" to earn woke street cred. You're still pretty, and they still hate you.

The conflict is far larger than a few hundred disaffected immigrants, "colonized" and "indigenous" people cheering mass murder by invading paragliders.

This is an endemic problem. Israel can't do much about the neighborhood, but why on Earth is the U.S. importing preposterous foreigners from third-rate cultures? The failure of their ancestors to create anything worthwhile, certainly compared to the stupendous accomplishments of the West, is too glaringly obvious. Inviting millions upon millions of them here, to gawk at our magnificent civilization, is a guarantee of perpetual strife and resentment.

It could never work. It was always an insane idea.

Instead of trampling on the free speech rights of people who hate the West, how about avoiding the problem altogether by leaving them where they are? They'll like it! Vastly fewer "white supremacists" to oppress them. They can hate us all they want. Just do it from their own countries.

https://townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/2023/10/25/staple-a-green-card-to-their-kill-the-jews-signs-n2630376

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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Nigel Farage branded ‘sketchy crackpot’ in secret NatWest emails disclosed after de-banking scandal<

Nigel Farage claims a “woke brigade” is marching through public and private companies after emails revealed NatWest staff gloated about the closure of his bank account in a series of sniggering internal messages.

The crowing remarks were handed over to the former Ukip leaders through a subject access request, and shone light on conversations among staff members who joked he had been “debanked” by Coutts, a NatWest subsidiary, and that they hoped it “knocked him down a peg or two.”

In an angry tirade agains the bank, Mr Farage also revealed the internal documents referred to him a “crackpot”, “sketchy” and “a fool”.

The internal gossip followed the closure of Mr Farage’s Coutt’s account, which he claims was a politically motivated decision.

Mr Farage was also described in one of the emails as an “awful human being”, while another said they would have paid a significant sum to have been the one to tell the GB News presenter his account was being shut down.

A third said: “I’d throw a milkshake at him if I was approached to open an account for him.”

In one exchange, published by the Daily Telegraph, an employee points to Mr Farage claiming NatWest has a “political agenda”.

A colleague replies: “No it’s just you are an awful human being Nigel Farage lol. He’s so politically relevant right now. Like who even are you anymore.”

The colleague goes on to mock the Brexiteer’s past attempts to portray himself as a man of the people, saying it is “good that an ‘everyman’ banked at Coutts”.

Following the publication Mr Farage called for former NatWest boss Dame Alison Rose, who quit over her role in the scandal, to have her multi million pound severance pay deal scrapped.

“This is the culture that the queen of woke, Dame Alison Rose, brought into the head office and throughout the Bank of NatWest,” he said.

And Mr Farage called for an investigation into all the staff who had made mean comments about him.

But he told GB News: “It does not hurt at all. I am so used to the illiberalism of the so-called liberals, that I can deal with it. It is horrible stuff.

“But it all goes to show the arrogance of those in power, the march of the woke brigade through our public and private corporations.

“I have the honour to be the first person to genuinely have the voice and the position to stand up and fight back.”

NatWest is hosting a board meeting on Thursday to agree the terms for Dame Alison’s departure. It is set to unveil its quarterly results on Friday.

Mr Farage said any payment to Dame Alison would be a “reward for failure” paid for by taxpayers, given the public’s 39 per cent ownership of the bank.

The closure of Mr Farage’s bank account led to a row over so-called de-banking of those with controversial political views, but a review by the Financial Conduct Authority foud no firm evidence of banks denying people access to accounts over the last year due to their political views.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nigel-farage-natwest-coutts-alison-rose-b2435066.html

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UPenn faces free speech hypocrisy storm for refusing to discipline pro-Hamas protesters - despite probing into law professor who said 'America would be better with fewer Asians'

A typical deliberate misquote from the Left. What Prof. Wax actually said:

"But as long as most Asians support Democrats and help to advance their positions, I think the United States is better off with fewer Asians and less Asian immigration.”

It was clearly a political, not a racist statement


The University of Pennsylvania has been accused of hypocrisy for trying to oust a controversial law professor who said 'America would be better with fewer Asians' while claiming free speech means it cannot punish anti-Semitic students.

The beleaguered Ivy League college has spent two years trying to discipline tenured professor Amy Wax over her remarks and other comments, which include arguing that some ethnicities have lower IQs than others.

University leaders claimed her behavior undermines Penn's commitment to attracting a 'diverse student body to an inclusive educational environment' and 'harmed' students.

But amid a backlash to the Palestine Writes festival last month that invited speakers who have made anti-Semitic remarks, Penn reaffirmed its commitment to upholding free speech.

Among those who appeared was Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters, who has previously performed in an outfit closely resembling a Nazi uniform and once suggested 'bombing' audiences with confetti in the shape of swastikas, stars of David and dollar signs.

Although Penn released a statement condemning anti-Semitism ahead of the event, it still copped furious criticism that it tried to deflect by hiding behind a commitment to free speech.

The Palestine Writes festival - held on the eve of Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar - featured a lineup of well-known antisemites. It drew extra attention after the Hamas attacks on Israel two weeks later.

A memo to the university's board about the Palestine Writes event asserted that 'Penn does not regulate the content of speech or symbolic behavior,' the Washington Free Beacon reports.

Recipients were reminded that faculty may invite 'hateful' figures on campus so long as there is 'no imminent threat of harm.'

The note, written by the university's president Liz Magill and chairman of trustees Robert Bok, also rejected the term 'hate speech' as too difficult to define and noted the college had done away with its anti-hate speech policy following a political correctness dispute in 1994.

That was despite the school using the term 'hate speech' in its complaint against Wax.

Penn bosses have been attempting to remove the professor following her comments and concerns she has assigned work related to racist thinker Enoch Powell and invited Jared Taylor a white identity politics advocate to speak in her class.

She is now attempting to use the university's memo and its stance on free speech as an argument that she is afforded the same protections.

In a letter to university officials, Wax's lawyers said: 'The [memo] makes clear that even if Jews are 'harmed' by the speech of radical left Palestinian supporters appearing at the [Palestine Writes] Festival, those organizing the [Palestine Writes] Festival and inviting Jew-hating Palestinian nationalists will not be punished because Penn permits and protects the expression of all viewpoints, even those that are contrary to Penn's 'institutional values.

'But if a strongly conservative and tenured professor invites Jared Taylor, assigns Charles Murray and Enoch Powell, and takes to social media to tell very hard-to-hear truths about group differences, she is not protected. Rather, she is sanctioned.'

The letter was sent two days after the devastating Hamas attacks of October 7 and argues that there is a 'glaringly obvious' double standard.

It comes as the university battles to hold onto donations after several major donors pulled the plug on funding amid what they deemed to be an unsatisfactory response to the Palestine Writes festival, anti-Semitism and the so-called lax response to the attacks.

'We are devastated by the horrific assault on Israel by Hamas that targeted civilians and the taking of hostages over the weekend. These abhorrent attacks have resulted in the tragic loss of life and escalating violence and unrest in the region,' Magill said in a statement three days after the attack.

'Many members of our community are hurting right now. Our thoughts are especially with those grieving the loss of loved ones or facing grave uncertainty about the safety of their families and friends.'

But, some took exception with the statement, saying it didn't go far enough and condemn the attack.

That led several prominent alums to sever ties with Penn including David Magerman, a Jewish computer scientist who helped build the trading systems of Renaissance.

Magerman's decision came after Apollo CEO Marc Rowand and Highsage Ventures founder Jonathan Jacboson reduced their donations down to just $1.

Estee Lauder heir Ronald Lauder also vowed to 're-examine' his financial commitment to the institution unless it did more to protect Jewish students.

Meanwhile trustee Vahan Gureghian called for Magill's resignation after resigning from the board over what he feels is an insufficient response to mounting anti-Semitism on campus.

'Like so many elite academic institutions, the leadership of UPenn has failed us through an embrace of antisemitism, a failure to stand for justice, and complete negligence in the defense of its own students' well being,' Gureghian said.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12672425/UPenn-free-speech-anti-Semitism-Amy-Wax.html

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Homes in 99% of the country are below the affordability threshold, meaning that they cost more than 28% of a family’s income

Home ownership was supposed to be the American dream, the thing to which the entire middle class could not only aspire but also achieve. That dream has turned into a nightmare, thanks in large part to the Biden administration and the big spenders in Congress. Now home ownership is increasingly out of reach for Americans.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta began maintaining a Home Ownership Affordability Monitor Index in 2006 because homes were so unaffordable at that time. The latest reading from that index, which has plunged 36% since President Joe Biden took office, is the lowest in its history and indicates record unaffordability. It now takes 44% of median income—before taxes—to afford a median-price home.

It’s even worse in several major metropolitan areas across the country. The cost of a median-price home is 50% of median income in Boston, 55% in Miami, 63% in New York, 84% in San Francisco, and 85% in Los Angeles. But these are percentages of before-tax income, which means the cost of home ownership in some of those places exceeds 100% of net income. “No joke,” as Biden would say.

And it’s not just a problem in a few major cities—it’s everywhere. A recent report estimated the affordability of the median-price home for the average American in 572 counties. Going through the data in the report reveals that homes in 99% of the country are below the affordability threshold, meaning that they cost more than 28% of a family’s income.

What’s even scarier is that measurements like the one from the Atlanta Fed are underestimating the problem. Its index assumes a buyer has a 10% down payment, but most people can only comfortably afford a 3% down payment. If the median prospective buyer wipes out all his savings, he still only has enough for an 8% down payment.

Putting less down means a larger loan, which means larger monthly payments, which means lower affordability. Additionally, interest rates have continued to rise and are now over 7.6%, compared with the 6.8% used in the Atlanta Fed’s calculations. Home prices have also risen, and both factors further increase the monthly payment on a mortgage.

How we got here is a lesson in excessive government spending.

During the pandemic, the government spent trillions of dollars it didn’t have and created money out of nothing to pay for it all. In 2021, instead of allowing government spending to return to normal levels, Biden and a spendthrift Congress rammed through trillions of dollars in additional spending while the Federal Reserve continued creating money to finance the deficit spending.

The predictable result was 40-year-high inflation. That sent prices, including the prices of homes, through the roof. Artificially low interest rates compounded the problem by allowing people to take on ever-growing mortgages without increasing their monthly payments. Home prices rose even higher.

But inflation caused people’s real (inflation-adjusted) earnings to fall and forced interest rates to rise. This was a deadly combination for home-ownership affordability.

Lower real earnings mean everyone is spending more on food, transportation, energy, etc., with less available in their monthly budget for housing. At the same time, home prices have been pushed to record highs and mortgage rates are at the highest level in 23 years. At the same moment as people have less money to pay for housing, the price of housing has shattered all previous records.

To be clear, the foundation for this problem was laid long before Biden became president. The Fed’s persistently artificially low interest rates have been causing asset bubbles for two decades, and its purchase of housing-related financial derivatives has further buoyed housing prices.

In the years immediately preceding the pandemic, the Fed had begun a tighter monetary policy, which helped blunt the inflationary impact of government spending in 2020. But Biden’s continued overspending, excessive borrowing, and oppressive regulating—along with creating money to pay for it all—gave the problem a violent shove into overdrive.

For example, impractical corporate-average-fuel-economy and heavy-haul-emissions standards—along with higher fees on coal power plants and leases for oil and gas wells on public lands—have all increased energy and transportation costs, which have trickled down throughout the economy, raising prices everywhere.

Had Biden not imposed these regulations and merely allowed spending to return to previous levels, the problem, and $2 trillion annual deficits, could’ve been avoided. But now we’re trapped in a nightmare it’ll be hard to wake up from.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/10/23/home-prices-from-american-dream-to-american-nightmare

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First peoples?

There has been a lot of indecision in recent years about what to call those people whom for many decades Australians have called "Aborigines". That word now seems to be taboo. "Indigenous" is a favourite replacement but the Canadian practice is increasingly creeping in. Canadians say "First Nations" for the early inhabitants of their country.

Using "first Nations" for early inhabitants of Australia is a however a substantial misfire. The many pre-white tribes of Australia had few of the characteristics of nations except perhaps informally understood borders. Making "nations" out of hundreds of tribes is quite a stretch. There was certainly no language or DNA common to them all and not much that we would recognize as governing bodies or a defence department.

Perhaps for that reason the angry article below refers to "first peoples" instead, a more defensible usage.

But both usages founder on the claim that the pre-white inhabitants of Australia were in any sense "first". They were not. It enrages the Left for anybody to mention it but it is well documented that the original inhabitants of what we now call Australia were a race of pygmies. And the pygmies concerned are far from a lost tribe. Some of them still survive in areas of the Atherton Tableland.

One of them walked right past me in 2004 as I was sitting in an open-air cafe in Kuranda. He was black but was only about 4'6" tall, a height commonly given for the Australian pygmies in early documents. There certainly are still some very short blacks in the mountainous areas behind Cairns

In the early days, anthropologists and explorers took photos of the pygmies which showed them as being about 4.6" (1.3 meters) tall

There is a long article by the irreverent historian Keith Windschuttle which gives the full story. See

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/history-wars/2002/06/the-extinction-of-the-australian-pygmies/

There were quite a lot of reports of contact with pygmies throughout the 20th century. See:

https://www.mysteriousaustralia.com/our_lost_pygmy_tribe.html

There have been many attempts from the Left to debunk the story that there were a race of pygmies in Australia but have a look below and you will see one of them, 3"7" tall and still alive when the picture was taken by a news photographer in 2007.



She is pretty substantial to be a "myth". There is an article about her reprinted below

https://tongue-tied2.blogspot.com/2023/10/elder-faces-eviction-article-originally.html

It’s a measure of the confidence assimilationists now feel, not to mention their profound indecency, that they’ve wasted no time pushing to start rolling back what few gains have been made on Indigenous policy.

Tony Abbott immediately demanded that Indigenous flags no longer be flown and acknowledgements of Indigenous people be abandoned at official events — signs of separatism, he says. If even those most basic acknowledgements that First Peoples exist are now to be erased, then we are indeed seeing full-blown separatism. The LNP in Queensland abandoned support for a treaty process in that state. Peter Dutton, in the words of one of his own MPs, sought to “weaponise” claims of child abuse within Indigenous communities.

The mainstream media also wasted no time in trying to fit the result into a narrative that carefully avoided the core issues of the referendum. The Australian Financial Review echoed the argument of The Australian that it was all Anthony Albanese’s fault for his “failure to genuinely consult with Mr Dutton to try to secure bi-partisan support for the Voice,” arguing that it was down to Albanese’s “hubris”.

This is a self-serving lie that gets everyone — Dutton, the No campaign, racists, the media — off the hook. There is literally no referendum proposal that Dutton would have supported, as his goal was to damage Labor, not address the substance of either recognition or closing the gap. The AFR goes on to complain that Albanese has ruled out “pursuing other forms of constitutional recognition or legislating for an Indigenous advisory body”.

Let’s coin a name for this fiction: how about the White Man’s Recognition Myth? It’s one many No supporters, including Abbott and Dutton, cling to — that if only they’d been asked to support simple recognition without a Voice, they’d have backed it.

White Man’s Recognition found a full flowering in an extraordinary column by David Crowe last week. Normally the doyen of both-sidesist press gallery commentary, Crowe came alive during the campaign to lash the No campaign but lamented last Thursday “a Yes vote is only possible for leaders who compromise more than they would like. This is true for Indigenous leaders as much as party leaders. As late as June this year, there was a pathway to success for recognition without the Voice, something Dutton says he supports.”

That is, the failure of the referendum is on First Peoples and their inability to compromise, their unwillingness to accept a token White Man’s Recognition, their insistence that recognition actually be meaningful and involve a two-way interaction, not imposed on them like so much else has been imposed on them for more than two centuries.

Stop complaining, accept what you’re given, abandon any agency, it’s non-Indigenous people who’ve done all the compromising, why won’t you? Being recognised as actually existing should be enough. It’s not just Albanese, evidently, who is afflicted with hubris.

It shouldn’t need to be said, but after the ferocious and resentful dismissal of genuine recognition by non-Indigenous Australia, no non-Indigenous person is in a position to lecture First Peoples about what they should have done differently in order to please us.

It is non-Indigenous people who have killed off recognition and reconciliation in favour of maintaining a white fantasy in an occupied country. The next steps, whatever they are, must come from First Peoples. And if those steps are away from the rest of us, we’ve only ourselves to blame.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/the-job-of-non-indigenous-australians-now-is-to-shut-up/ar-AA1iFLla

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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