September 19, 2020



Why Is It Hurtful To "Identify" As A Difference Race But Not A Different Gender?

Why is it hurtful to "identify" as a race you were not born into when it is seen as your right and, by many, a merit to be born with, say, ovaries, and yet "identify" as a man?

I suspect it has to do with advantages now dispensed according to color (over merit). If you aren't taking an opportunity only someone born that "color" could have gotten, where's the hurt?

No one expresses "hurt" over transgender people, save for when someone born male runs in a women's race, as that born-male person likely has physical advantages from higher testosterone, greater muscle mass, etc.

Oh, and note that it is considered an act of harm and hate to ever stray from referring to the trans person with their birth sex or previous name, even by accident. In other words, we're expected to act as if they are and never were anything but the gender they currently "identify" as being.

In the New York Post is the latest story on a university person who put herself forward as black. Hannah Sparks writes:

A graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has apologized and resigned from their teaching job and worker's union leadership position after years of embracing "lies" about their racial identity. CV Vitolo-Haddad, who uses the non-binary pronouns "they" and "them," admitted that they are actually Southern Italian and Sicilian -- not black or Latino, which are both labels they accepted when peers allegedly assumed they were a person of color. "When asked if I identify as black, my answer should have always been 'No,' " Vitolo-Haddad wrote Sept. 8 in the second of two confessions on Medium. "There were three separate instances I said otherwise." "I have let guesses about my ancestry become answers I wanted but couldn't prove," Vitolo-Haddad previously said in an apology published Sept. 6 on Medium. "I have let people make assumptions when I should have corrected them." ...In their initial post, Vitolo-Haddad also expressed a desire "to make amends for every ounce of heartbreak and betrayal" the deception has caused others. Due to the controversy, the graduate student -- who studies at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication -- has given up their teaching position and stepped down as co-president of the school's chapter of the Teaching Assistants' Association (TAA), a graduate student union. However, Vitolo-Haddad also claimed they have never identified as non-white on paper or attempted to gain access to scholarships and awards provided specifically for people of color, according to Inside Higher Ed.

Another:

Satchuel Cole, leader in the fight for racial equality in Indianapolis, lied about own race https://t.co/ATlMcIJYXm pic.twitter.com/HUyb71GwXC — IndyStar (@indystar) September 18, 2020

Linkzombie



I'd like to retroactively take a gap year from consciousness, please. https://t.co/1Wg9yFayBr — Amy Alkon (@amyalkon) September 19, 2020

September 18, 2020



Hilarious Gotcha For Princeton Prez Proclaiming University Racist

Um, about those Federal funds your university has been receiving...!

At WashEx, Tiana Lowe writes:

The Department of Education has informed Princeton University that it is under investigation following the school president's declaration that racism was "embedded" in the institution. President Christopher Eisgruber published an open letter earlier this month claiming that "racism and the damage it does to people of color persist at Princeton" and that "racist assumptions" are "embedded in structures of the University itself." According to a letter the Department of Education sent to Princeton that was obtained by the Washington Examiner, such an admission from Eisgruber raises concerns that Princeton has been receiving tens of millions of dollars of federal funds in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which declares that "no person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance." Eisgruber's letter branding the 274-year-old university racist came after a summer of unrest rife with race riots and an open letter from hundreds of Princeton faculty members who wrote, "Anti-Black racism has a visible bearing upon Princeton's campus makeup." The admission was followed by dozens of "anti-racist" policy change demands. Among them were calls for select faculty race quotas and to "reconsider" the use of standardized testing for admissions. Now, the Education Department has sent a formal records request as it pursues its investigation. Its main point of contention is whether Princeton has lied to the public with its marketing and to the department in its promise not to uphold racist standards, in accordance with receiving federal funds. ...What the department seeks to obtain from its investigation is what evidence Princeton used in its determination that the university is racist, including all records regarding Eisgruber's letter and a "spreadsheet identifying each person who has, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, been excluded from participation in, been denied the benefits of, or been subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance as a result of the Princeton racism or 'damage' referenced in the President's Letter." Eisgruber and a "designated corporate representative" must sit for interviews under oath, and Princeton must also respond to written questions regarding the matter. Multiple people familiar with the matter have confirmed the letter's validity and assert that this investigation is not political. Instead, they insist that the department has a legal obligation to investigate a supposedly self-admitted violation of federal civil rights protections.

Tribal signaling has its costs, including potentially huge amounts of Fed dollars.

Linkmarxists



"We smashed Whole Foods because we are against capitalism in all its forms."



Morons. Apparently have never seen a Soviet-era grocery store, noteworthy for the empty shelves and bins throughout the store. https://t.co/dkOW0Ggx4d https://t.co/9rh1leRaRo — Amy Alkon (@amyalkon) September 17, 2020

September 17, 2020



Poor White Pregnant Women, You're Outta Luck!

Marina Pitofsky writes at The Hill that pregnant black and Pacific Islander women in San Francisco will receive a $1,000 monthly supplement:

Approximately 150 pregnant Black and Pacific Islander women in San Francisco will receive a $1,000 monthly supplement during their pregnancies and for the first six months of their babies' lives, the city's mayor announced. Mayor London Breed's (D) office said on Monday that the Abundant Birth Project is the first of its kind in the country. The project's goal is to eventually provide a supplement for as long as two years post-pregnancy. "Providing guaranteed income support to mothers during pregnancy is an innovative and equitable approach that will ease some of the financial stress that all too often keeps women from being able to put their health first," Breed said. "The Abundant Birth Project is rooted in racial justice and recognizes that Black and Pacific Islander mothers suffer disparate health impacts, in part because of the persistent wealth and income gap. Thanks to the work of the many partners involved, we are taking real action to end these disparities and are empowering mothers with the resources they need to have healthy pregnancies and births," she added.

It's good to help pregnant women who need help, whatever their color or cultural background. A fair and non-racist program would select pregnant women to help financially per their income level, Irrespective of race, etc.

Linkpuppies



September 16, 2020



"The Welfare State Did What Slavery Couldn't Do"

Wendy McElroy writes at Mises what people are afraid to say -- that intact families are vital to children's well-being, including black children's:

The black social theorist Thomas Sowell, who teaches at Stanford University, has written extensively on the decline of the black family. In his article "A Legacy of Liberalism," Sowell rejects the argument that current black impoverishment is the residue of slavery or due to inherent racism. He refers to "the legacy of slavery" argument as a reason not to think about the subject or rely on evidence, because it replaces research with an emotional reaction. "If we wanted to be serious about evidence," Sowell observed, "we might compare where blacks stood a hundred years after the end of slavery with where they stood after 30 years of the liberal welfare state....Despite the grand myth that black economic progress began or accelerated with the passage of the civil rights laws and 'war on poverty' programs of the 1960s, the cold fact is that the poverty rate among blacks fell from 87 percent in 1940 to 47 percent by 1960. This was before any of those programs began." In his article "The Legacy of the Welfare State," Williams agreed. "The No. 1 problem among blacks is the effects stemming from a very weak family structure. Children from fatherless homes are likelier to drop out of high school, die by suicide, have behavioral disorders, join gangs, commit crimes and end up in prison. They are also likelier to live in poverty-stricken households. But is the weak black family a legacy of slavery?...Here's my question: Was the increase in single-parent black families after 1960 a legacy of slavery, or might it be a legacy of the welfare state ushered in by the War on Poverty?" In another article Sowell answered, "A vastly expanded welfare state in the 1960s destroyed the black family, which had survived centuries of slavery and generations of racial oppression. In 1960, before this expansion of the welfare state, 22 percent of black children were raised with only one parent. By 1985, 67 percent of black children were raised with either one parent or no parent." The percentage has held fairly steady since then. And, statistically, the parent figure is usually a mother or a grandmother. Being effectively fatherless can be devastating. The paper "What Can the Federal Government Do to Decrease Crime and Revitalize Communities?," issued by the US Department of Justice, offered statistics on children from fatherless homes. The children account for: •Suicide: 63 percent of youth suicides



•Runaways: 90 percent of all homeless and runaway youths



•Behavioral disorders: 85 percent of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders



•High school dropouts: 71 percent of all high school dropouts



•Juvenile detention rates: 70 percent of juveniles in state-operated institutions



•Substance abuse: 75 percent of adolescent patients in substance abuse centers Lawmakers do black people no favor when they advance a narrative that dismisses the importance of the family structure and offers instead dependence on government rather than independence as human beings. As Williams stated, "The undeniable truth is that neither slavery nor Jim Crow nor the harshest racism has decimated the black family the way the welfare state has....The most damage done to black Americans is inflicted by those politicians, civil rights leaders and academics who assert that every problem confronting blacks is a result of a legacy of slavery and discrimination. That's a vision that guarantees perpetuity for the problems."

Linkzilian



Angle your labia to the curb lest you get ticketed. https://t.co/oXu7SADUEL — Amy Alkon (@amyalkon) September 16, 2020

September 15, 2020



Advice Goddess Free Swim

Five hours Monday night filling out a grant application. Wiped out, but good wiped out. So for today: You pick the topics.

P.S. One link per comment or my spam filter will eat your post.



September 14, 2020



If Black Lives Matter, How Come Black Businesses And Neighborhoods Keep Getting Destroyed?

I think a good deal of the protesting is not protesting at all but an excuse to loot and riot.

Brad Palumbo writes at FEE:

It appears that in Kenosha, just as in Minneapolis and Chicago, the fallout from rioting and looting will disproportionately harm minority communities. "I always think that people have the right to protest--to peacefully protest--but this goes beyond that," La Estrella Supermarket owner Abel Alejo said. "They were destroying the neighborhoods that they want to protect." Even a local Black Lives Matter leader denounced this destruction, saying "We're not into doing anything to damage our community... it waters down our message."

A used car dealership was destroyed.

A member of the family who owns the dealership tells me more than 100 cars were destroyed over 2 nights of riots. Around 90 were torched Sunday night & the couple dozen that survived were then torched during the riots Monday night. Estimates $2.5-million in losses. — Garrett Tenney (@Garrett_FoxNews) September 3, 2020

Palumbo continues:

This damage is significant, but defenders will no doubt seek to downplay it, explaining that "businesses have insurance." Yet the damage goes beyond cold cash. There is also the enormous human and emotional toll involved in having your property destroyed and having to pick up the pieces that even a premium insurance plan can't account for. What's more, lost income and unpaid labor inevitably await any entrepreneur victimized by vandalism. Plus, many small businesses don't have insurance or are underinsured. They will have to bear the costs themselves. Ultimately, the destruction in Kenosha and its disproportionate impact on urban, minority communities reminds us of a timeless lesson: Property rights are the fundamental basis of a market economy. Yet, despite how critics often portray them, property rights are not simply a matter of protecting the wealthy and big corporations. The protection of private property is what ensures immigrants, minorities, and poor people are not derailed on their climb up the economic ladder in pursuit of the American dream.

And he's right:

"Social justice" agitators who cross the line past peaceful protest and engage in violent vandalism are only sabotaging the same minority communities they claim to care about.

Lameladylink



Women who need this sort of distortion are basically adult 6-year-olds, kids the grownups feel they should let "win" at checkers. pic.twitter.com/SzPtNk2mVT — Amy Alkon (@amyalkon) September 13, 2020

September 13, 2020



Linktonover



The Overton window has moved so far left that it's flying off the schooner in one of those flat earth drawings along with all the terrified sailors. https://t.co/ZlIW8zC7gJ — Amy Alkon (@amyalkon) September 13, 2020

Everything Now Gets Put Through The "Diversity" Grinder -- To The Point Of Parody

The latest is a mural at the University of Rhode Island, painted nearly 70 years ago, that is set to be taken down after staff said students complained about a lack of diversity in the picture.

Sam Read writes at WJAR:

1954 was the dedication of "The Memorial Union" at the University of Rhode Island. When veterans returned from World War II and enrolled at URI, they and other community members raised money in memory of those who lost their lives in the war. Money raised was for a modern student union, which gave it the name, "Memorial Union." Arthur "Art" Sherman was a decorated returning veteran and member of the class of 1950, a predominately all-white class. Less than 2,000 students overall attended the university overall. Originally, he was asked to draw cartoon-like murals in a Quonset Hut that served as an earlier site for the student union but in 1953, as the current Memorial Union was being completed, the building's manager asked him to paint more murals in the new building's ground. "Oh, I loved painting that, yeah," said Sherman, who's now 95 years old. "I never had any formal education in painting by the way I just used to cartoon." The murals depict servicemen returning to Kingston, a class reunion, URI commencement, a South County beach scene, and students piled into a jalopy wearing letter sweaters. "Well, it depicted that era," said Sherman. "A lot of students, friends of mine, would come by and say why don't you do this, why don't you do that so that's what I did so everybody chipped in."

This represented the people there at the time and the artist's view.

"It really depicts a snapshot in time of the university's history, important history, showing a person returning back to campus from World War II and other historical moments," said Vice President of Student Affairs, Kathy Collins. "We've made a really difficult decision as we aim for the university's future and we think about who are our students today, and who are our students going to be tomorrow." Collins said she's been working for URI for the last four years and has received complaints from students. "I have received complaints about the murals that portray a very homogeneous population predominately the persons painted and depicted on the wall are predominantly white and that does not represent who our institution is today," said Collins. "Some of our students have even shared with us they didn't feel comfortable sitting in that space."

Well, if you can't be around white people without feeling uncomfortable, you are -- same as people who'd feel that way about people of any other color -- sick and racist and perhaps in need of a good bit of therapy so you can participate in society with people of all cultures and colors.

September 12, 2020



Marketwatch Goes Marxistwatch

Is there something in the air? The water? Hamburgers? How come everywhere you look, in the least expected places you look, everyone is falling all over themselves to be "woke" along the lines of Teen Vogue?

The latest is Marketwatch.

I'm not kidding. This comes from Marketwatch. Nicholas Tampio and Enzo Rossi, profs of poli sci, write:

The argument that we make here was presaged by Karl Marx in his famous essay, "On the Jewish Question." According to Marx, capitalism is happy to extend political freedom to more and more people. Capitalism wants a lot of people to work and consume. Discriminating against laborers or buyers does not make business sense--especially for large corporations with a global reach. But that is a very different thing that granting the majority of people the right to control the means of production. Woke and exploitative



Capitalism is a pyramid with a small number of owners and managers on top of a large base of workers. Capitalism, to restate Marx's idea, is woke and exploitative. To be clear: we agree with many theorists of racial capitalism that capitalism as it currently exists disproportionately harms people of color, if only because the racial wealth gap is concentrated at the top 10% of all races by now, as Matt Bruenig recently noted: "The lower and middle deciles of each racial group own virtually none of their racial group's wealth." Charisse Burden-Stelly observes that "Blackness expresses a structural location at the bottom of the labor hierarchy characterized by depressed wages, working conditions, job opportunities, and widespread exclusion from labor unions." This seems like an accurate description of places like Baltimore, Chicago, and Philadelphia, or the Bijlmer neighborhood in Amsterdam, Holland and many other such places in rich countries. The racial capitalism literature enriches our understanding of the racial dynamic of what Marx called primitive accumulation, the seedy side of capitalism that depends on extralegal resource extraction, brutally repressive policing of the underclass, and so forth. Wokewash



However, racial capitalism does not seem to apply to elite institutions of higher education or modern corporations that have diversified their leadership. "Lesser" organizations may or may not follow this trend, but elite ones set the tone that makes something like cancel culture a widespread reality that can take away the livelihood of (often innocent) ordinary workers. Capitalism still exploits leadership, but the leadership is becoming evermore rainbow colored. That is why we think that woke capitalism, rather than racial capitalism, is the ascendant order of the day. To paraphrase Antonio Gramsci, the old racial capitalism is dying and the new woke capitalism is not fully born yet. Arguably, woke capitalism is transracial rather than postracial, and it remains to be seen whether a truly postracial capitalism can be achieved. What is clear is that while the woke transformation of capitalism admittedly improves the opportunities of some people of color, it does little to address the fundamental problems of capital's exploitation of people and planet, and it may even work as a new legitimation story--call it wokewash--for capitalism's old racket.

The obsession on color is making for increased racism, resentment, and discrimination. Now, however, it's just okay and even "good" to discriminate against whites, Jews, and Asians.

P.S. This is not progress. It is regress. And people for this sort of thing would more accurately call themselves "regressives." Or, for simplicity's sake, "racists."

Oh, and finally, this "granting" business...

But that is a very different thing that granting the majority of people the right to control the means of production.

...is what we call theft of one person's labor and the thuggish "donation" of it to another.

Linkurritos



Nothing incentivizes supermarket executives to open new stores like the screaming protesters terrorizing shoppers at Trader Joe's. https://t.co/J56nmkXtIZ — Amy Alkon (@amyalkon) September 11, 2020

September 11, 2020



"Over-representation" Is Not Racism

There's this weird thing happening where college deans and presidents keep admitting to racism where there is no meaningful evidence of it, and coming up with "solutions" to solve the racism that isn't.

Princeton is the latest.

Sergiu Klainerman, a mathematician at Princeton, has a terrific opinion piece about this in Newsweek:

In his most recent letter addressed to the Princeton community, our president, Christopher Eisgruber '83, uses the terms "racism," "structural racism" and "racial justice" at least 15 times to describe both American society as a whole and Princeton University in particular. By contrast, "academic freedom" and "academic excellence," once the hallmarks of this and every other major U.S. educational institution, barely register: The first appears once as an afterthought, or rather as an excuse for not having done enough to promote diversity and inclusion, while the second is nowhere to be found. The letter is the first response by the president to the 48 race-related demands contained in the now-infamous "Faculty Letter" of July 4th. Though he does not accede to many of the most egregious demands, what the president writes is a major betrayal of the University over which he presides. By yielding to the manifest falsehood that Princeton is a racist institution, he makes it impossible for him to defend Princeton's values; for racism is, as we all know, no simple blemish on our reputation, but rather the cardinal sin of our times, requiring a major overhaul of the University in which both academic freedom and the quest for excellence will have to be sacrificed. How did we get here? In the usual definition of the word, Princeton is not in the least racist. Most people know this. Certainly the president does, and I suspect most of the signatories of the July 4th letter do as well. It is true, as the president reminds us, that Princeton was in the past closed to women and various minority groups, such as Blacks, Jews and Catholics. What he does not say is that prejudice and exclusion were the norm at all major institutions of higher learning everywhere in the world. He also fails to point out that what is truly remarkable about Princeton and many other American universities is an extraordinary modern story of redemption. Take Jews, who were once among the most excluded religious and ethnic groups the world over. In 1920, an unofficial quota artificially limited Jewish enrollment at Princeton to 3 percent--far lower than the quotas at other Ivy League institutions (at Harvard, it was 25 percent). In the 1930s, however, Princeton took the national lead in welcoming Jewish and other refugee scientists from Nazi Europe. The presence of Einstein, Gödel, von Neumann, Wigner, Lefschetz, Weyl and many others put Princeton, New Jersey at the pinnacle of worldwide research in the mathematical sciences. Both informal and explicit quotas were dropped in the 1960s, which has led to an unprecedented flourishing of Jews at Princeton and other U.S. campuses.

Now there's an "over-representation" of Jews and Asians at universities, in terms of their numbers in the population, and for good reason: out of universities having to develop "policies that are blind to considerations of race, ethnicity, religion, sex, socio-economic class and any other factor not relevant to intellectual achievement."

The problem with this approach, as has now become painfully clear, is that over-representation of certain groups necessarily implies under-representation of others. This is certainly a problem, but not one of racism; rather, it stems from the opposite of racism--namely, a policy that rewards people based on their individual achievements and promise of future achievement, and not by the color of their skin or their ethnic or socioeconomic background.

And consider where Princeton's calls for "diversity" over merit leads -- the very ugly places it leads:

Among the measures the president proposes is to "assemble a faculty that more closely reflects both the diverse make-up of the students we educate and the national pool of candidates." So we must ask: Are there "too many Jews?" "Too many Asians?" Members of which groups, exactly, must give up seats they earned on merit for members of the "under-represented" groups to take them? Is anyone seriously prepared to claim that the "over-representation" of, say, Jews and Asians on the Princeton faculty is the result of prejudice at Princeton in favor of Jews and Asians? Did Jewish and Asian members of the Princeton faculty gain their positions on the basis of racial or religious favoritism? Moreover, which under-represented groups should we take into account? One can justifiably argue that the nation and the University do owe descendants of slaves and Native Americans special attention, due to our past history, but what about all other minority groups? The ultimate logic of measuring racism by discrepancies of outcome implies that all types of groups, whether based on race, ethnicity, sex, sexual preferences etc., should be equally represented at Princeton in all activities of the University, academic and nonacademic, according to their proportion in the population. How many more diversity and inclusion administrators will be needed to carry this out? Should Princeton, for example, make serious outreach efforts to bring more Asian football or baseball players on campus in the name of proportional equity? And what about the rest of the world? Since Princeton claims to be strongly opposed to nativist policies, should we also extend these equality of outcome principles beyond our borders? Has anybody in the leadership of Princeton thought through the full scope and consequences of such an enterprise?

Linksporty



Join me in a game of Ashkenazi women's basketball. You can take any position other than the one I've chosen: reading a book far enough away from the court not to be bothered by the ball. https://t.co/CuJv186YhN — Amy Alkon (@amyalkon) September 10, 2020

September 10, 2020



Discrimination In The Name Of Equality

You don't fight discrimination with discrimination: discriminating against individuals to supposedly "heal" discrimination against groups, which is the nature of "affirmative action" (or as one might call it, benevolent prejudice in action).

First, from Wikipedia the ballot measure to do exactly that by reversing Prop 209::

Proposition 16 is a California ballot proposition that will appear on the November 3, 2020 general election ballot, asking California voters to amend the Constitution of California to repeal 1996's Proposition 209. Proposition 209 prohibits the state from discriminating against, or granting preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting. Therefore, Proposition 209 banned the use of affirmative action in California's public sector.

Michelle Steel writes at the OC Reg about disgusting California ballot measure, Prop 16, that reverses the state's path toward true equality -- merit-based rather than sex- and color-based assessments of individuals:

Over two decades ago, California set a clear standard by passing a constitutional amendment that put the state on a path to towards true equality. Proposition 209, passed by voters in 1996, adopted language from the 1964 Civil Rights Act to prohibit the state from discriminating against or giving preference to any individual or group on the basis race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in the areas of public employment, public contracts and public education admissions. The Californians who voted to pass Prop. 209 knew that discrimination, though long entrenched in our society, is against the fundamental values of American culture. Prop. 209 applied to California the essence of Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream of a nation where individuals would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. Both morality and data prove that this merit-based approach is working in its most controversial application - college admissions - and aiding minorities in the state. Hoping California voters ignore this, politicians in Sacramento recently approved Assembly Constitutional Amendment 5 (ACA 5), a ballot initiative repealing Prop. 209 and ensuring a return to racial discrimination. Prop. 209 allows college applicants to be judged by their accomplishments in high school or community college in the admissions process, not by the color of their skin, where they come from, or by their gender. Because of this, we have seen an increase in both enrollments and graduation rates in California's public colleges and universities. ...Proposition 209 did not eliminate discrimination altogether in California, and we still have much to do to fight racism. Yet the success of Prop. 209 toward race-neutral opportunity for all is anything but a "stain."

The text of Prop. 209 reads: The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting. And it works, even though there is still more to do. What we cannot and should not do, in our ultimate quest for equality, is to reinstate racial discrimination. Particularly when we've seen that a policy of non-discrimination is actually lifting up Black, Hispanic and Asian Americans. Eliminating Prop. 209 will divide us further along racial lines. It will reverse decades of merit-based advancement for all and promote unequal treatment based on race in California. This division is exactly what we seek to eliminate in the United States.

Linkation



The woodland thimble I should be vacationing in. https://t.co/Wdh3oV28eS — Amy Alkon (@amyalkon) September 10, 2020

September 9, 2020



"Woke"-ieism Ruins Everything



Now it's "Kimberlé Crenshaw's List" -- or stories from the Holocaust era with Goebbels played by Samuel L. Jackson and Lucy Liu as Eva Braun. https://t.co/ifSZvDSHcf — Amy Alkon (@amyalkon) September 9, 2020

The story on "Diversity Rules for Best Picture Oscar" from The New York Times' Nicole Sperling -- with the photo caption: "To take the top Oscar, filmmakers will have to explain how their productions reflected diversity on camera and off."

In June, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which oversees the Oscars, said it would add a diversity component to the Oscar race. On Tuesday, it explained how it's going to work. Beginning in 2024 with the 96th Oscars, films hoping to qualify for the best picture category will have to meet inclusion standards both on camera and behind the scenes. To meet the onscreen representation standard, at least one of the lead actors or a significant supporting actor must be from an underrepresented racial or ethnic group, whether that means Asian, Hispanic, Black, Indigenous, Native American, Middle Eastern, North African, native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander. There are alternatives: Thirty percent of all actors in secondary or more minor roles could come from two of the following categories: women, L.G.B.T.Q., an underrepresented racial or ethnic group, or those with cognitive or physical disabilities. Or the main story line must focus on an underrepresented group. The move is part of a continuing effort to improve inclusion both within the organization and in the movies it honors. Over the years, the academy has come under fire for presenting all-white acting slates at nomination time, a fault many attribute to both the homogeneous makeup of the organization and the industry at large. These standards are meant to address the broader industry issues. "The aperture must widen to reflect our diverse global population in both the creation of motion pictures and in the audiences who connect with them," the academy's president, David Rubin, and chief executive, Dawn Hudson, said in a statement, adding that the pending standards will "be a catalyst for long-lasting, essential change in our industry."

Movies filled with token disabled people to get in under the Oscar wire. Sounds like a huge improvement, especially when Irish films need to cast a Chinese actress to play James' Joyce's wife to get consideration.

Genius idea, too, just when everybody's staying home to watch streamed TV.

PS Remake movies into appropriately "woke" movies! For example:

"My Dinner with Andre Braugher" — furious_anonymously_sourced_a (@furious_a) September 9, 2020

Scripted Link



September 8, 2020



Government Employees Are Immune From COVID!

Emma Colton writes at the WashEx that San Francisco gym owners are livid after discovering gyms in government buildings have been open for months -- despite privately owned gyms being ordered to close due to the coronavirus:

The gyms that have been open for government employees include those for police officers, judges, lawyers, bailiffs, and paralegals, according to the report. One such gym, the Hall of Justice gym, has been open since July 1. "It just demonstrates that there seems to be some kind of a double standard between what city employees are allowed to do and what the residents of San Francisco are allowed to do," Dave Karraker, owner of MX3 Fitness in the Castro, said. "What the city has unwillingly done is created this great case study that says that working out indoors is actually safe," said Karraker. "So, at this point, we're just demanding that they allow us to have the same workout privileges for the citizens of San Francisco that the employees of San Francisco have." The report comes after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was recorded in a San Francisco salon without a face mask, despite local orders mandating that such establishments be closed. "It was a slap in the face that she went in, you know, that she feels that she can just go and get her stuff done while no one else can go in, and I can't work," salon owner Erica Kious told Fox News last week of Pelosi.

There are those who are in government and then there are the peons they supposedly represent. We're supposed to know our place and stay home -- while businesses die.

Plucklink

He's a little miffed Helen refused to hear more of his tripe.

Authoritarians demand you listen to them, as if they have not just a right to speak but a right to others' attention. https://t.co/8B38g4RsgI — Amy Alkon (@amyalkon) September 7, 2020

September 7, 2020



Macron Stands Up For Free Speech

Love this. French Prez Macron announced:

"To be French is to defend the right to laugh, jest, mock and caricature, of which Voltaire maintained that it is the source of all other rights."

At PJM, Rick Moran writes:

There is not an American politician on the left who would dare utter such apostasy. There are many young people who think they should have the right not to allow anyone to hurt their feelings -- First Amendment be damned. Some believe it should be illegal to mock anyone's race or ethnic heritage, their sexual orientation, or the sex they've chosen for themselves. White males? Well, no one much cares if their feelings are hurt or not. Macron was speaking at the Pantheon, where, 150 years ago, the Third Republic was founded. Today, he used the occasion to blast Islamic extremism. The trial of more than a dozen accused accomplices in the bloody 2015 Charlie Hebo massacre began on Friday, so the contrast with a fundamentalist religion that will kill you for mocking the prophet was clear.

Macron was speaking at a citizenship ceremony for new French citizens:

Macron told the new citizens, "You don't choose one part of France. You choose France....The Republic will never allow any separatist adventure." I wish an American politician would say that -- and mean it. Freedom in France, Macron said, includes "the freedom to believe or not to believe. But this is inseparable from the freedom of expression up to the right to blasphemy."

Right fucking on.

A bit of my free speech doings on Twitter.

Also:

You have a right to protest, & I support your doing it even if I disagree w/your view (or find it loathsome...hi, Skokie Nazis!).



You have NO RIGHT to destroy another's property, & calling it "protest" doesn't change that. It's simply theft & those who do it are lowlife thieves — Amy Alkon (@amyalkon) September 6, 2020

Linkburn



September 6, 2020



Colleges Are Now Run By Weak Morons Sucking Up To The Woke

USC suspended a communications prof for saying a Chinese filler word that sounds like the "n" word, reports Robby Soave at Reason:

Greg Patton is a professor of clinical business communication at the University of Southern California. During a recent virtual classroom session, he was discussing public speaking patterns and the filler words that people use to space out their ideas: um, er, etc. Patton mentioned that the Chinese often use a word that is pronounced like nega. "In China the common word is 'that, that that that,' so in China it might be 'nega, nega, nega, nega,'" Patton explained to his class. "So there's different words you'll hear in different cultures, but they're vocal disfluencies."

Some of the wet diapers known as students were -- yes! -- offended, and reported this to the administration.

Now, if you are adult running a university, when students come to you with ridiculous crap like this -- "sounds like!" (what is this, a game show?) -- to try to defenestrate a professor, you politely let them know that this is not an action-worthy situation. (Rather than telling them that they are utter fucking idiots, and what did their parents do to raise such twatmuffins?)

However, according to Campus Reform, Patton has been suspended and is no longer teaching his class. Because...

"Recently, a USC faculty member during class used a Chinese word that sounds similar to a racial slur in English. We acknowledge the historical, cultural and harmful impact of racist language," the statement read.

BUT IT WASN'T RACIST LANGUAGE! IT WAS A CHINESE FILLER WORD.

USC is now "offering supportive measures to any student, faculty, or staff member who requests assistance." The school is "committed to building a culture of respect and dignity where all members of our community can feel safe, supported, and can thrive."

Lets rephrase: "Where all poopy diapers in the form of students can have their every unreasonable to insane demand met with coddling by the administration."

Bushlinks

Dyeing your armpit hair will not make you interesting.

September 5, 2020



Advice Goddess Free Swim

Sorry to do this again so soon, but it's Friday night, and I wrote my guts out plus talked to a mediation client for a long time, and then wrote some more. So for today: You pick the topics.

P.S. One link per comment or my spam filter will eat your post.



September 4, 2020



40 Acres And A Kugel

Kugel is a German-Jewish noodle dish: Noodles, ricotta cheese, raisins. Really good. Or was when my bubbie made it. (My late mother, a "health food" aficionado, had the ability to turn any food into a substance you wouldn't feed pigs.)

The title of this blog post came out of one of my tweets:

Help! I'm lost! Lost in the weeds of "race and gender are social constructs" & that we can choose to "identify" as we wish--& then the conflicting weeds of intersectionality conferring status via race, etc., in a sort of Oppression Olympics, making that choice horrible fraud. https://t.co/WPqjf3oHQD — Amy Alkon (@amyalkon) September 3, 2020

A bit from Krug's Medium piece:

For the better part of my adult life, every move I've made, every relationship I've formed, has been rooted in the napalm toxic soil of lies. Not just any lies. ***

To an escalating degree over my adult life, I have eschewed my lived experience as a white Jewish child in suburban Kansas City under various assumed identities within a Blackness that I had no right to claim: first North African Blackness, then US rooted Blackness, then Caribbean rooted Bronx Blackness. I have not only claimed these identities as my own when I had absolutely no right to do so -- when doing so is the very epitome of violence, of thievery and appropriation, of the myriad ways in which non-Black people continue to use and abuse Black identities and cultures -- but I have formed intimate relationships with loving, compassionate people who have trusted and cared for me when I have deserved neither trust nor caring. People have fought together with me and have fought for me, and my continued appropriation of a Black Caribbean identity is not only, in the starkest terms, wrong -- unethical, immoral, anti-Black, colonial -- but it means that every step I've taken has gaslighted those whom I love. Intention never matters more than impact. To say that I clearly have been battling some unaddressed mental health demons for my entire life, as both an adult and child, is obvious. Mental health issues likely explain why I assumed a false identity initially, as a youth, and why I continued and developed it for so long; the mental health professionals from whom I have been so belatedly seeking help assure me that this is a common response to some of the severe trauma that marked my early childhood and teen years.

But mental health issues can never, will never, neither explain nor justify, neither condone nor excuse, that, in spite of knowing and regularly critiquing any and every non-Black person who appropriates from Black people, my false identity was crafted entirely from the fabric of Black lives. That I claimed belonging with living people and ancestors to whom and for whom my being is always a threat at best and a death sentence at worst.

I am not a culture vulture. I am a culture leech.

The truth is, when getting ahead in an area becomes based on skin color and "identities of oppression" rather than merit, people will try to cut the line, save on the hard work of developing, by joining the group getting in the door on skin color and the rest.

I suspect she was about to be exposed, though I can't know this, and published the piece to out herself, seeing the mea culpa as the less damaging route.

Epi-link

I'm guessing somebody sells these with a little maple leap on the back.

