*This was the follow-up I posted as a kind of finger in the eye of some people who commented on either the original article or my personal Facebook page, which I have since deleted. The Mob can’t get you if you refuse to submit yourself to their jurisdiction and it’s amazing to me how much of the current culture wars are being fought on social media. Indeed, from what I can tell, that seems to almost always be its origins: FB and Twitter. I’ve decided not to ‘socialize’ my identity any more, not even a pseudonym, because apparently they can force someone to sell a company (an alter ego operating under a mark), de-platform others, and/or even get you fired from your job. They own you if you submit to their jurisdiction – and I refuse to do so. Fuck them.
I. An Apology… Sort of
In light of my recent notoriety over my defense of my friend, Greg Glassman, I have received (mostly) supportive feedback, some mild disagreement, a correction, and several pieces of semi-literate, gibbering nonsense…Of course, it is to the semi-literate, gibbering nonsense to which I feel compelled to address myself.
I think we all should take issues of “systemic racism” more seriously. I’ve worked in the criminal justice system as a defense attorney for two decades; I couldn’t agree more. I’ve sat next to many young black men in court as their defense attorney – certainly a hundred times or more. On more than one occasion, I had the distinct sense that if my client were white in the exact same circumstances, we wouldn’t be in court at all. It’s a real issue that needs real solutions; not Twitter mobs screaming about CEOs of companies because they happen to be white and hurt your Twitter-feelings. (I know, I know, I’m being deliberately mean – and I shouldn’t – because Twitter-feelings aren’t like regular feelings… they’re… super-feelings. They matter, man.)
Now, I know, in the current culture – as a cis-hetero white male – I’m supposed to “check my privilege” and bow and scrape because of my whiteness. I’ve been reminded of this by a few commenters who lectured me from their pulpit on top of George Floyd’s corpse. That’s where they all seem to be standing now, yelling about how I – and Glassman – don’t understand… and George Floyd’s family… yada yada yada, George Floyd, systemic racism.
First, a partial defense. I spent 27 years in the Marine Corps and, at one point in my thirties, 15 out of 21 months in Afghanistan – doing the same thing everyone else there was doing: kicking over rocks looking for Bin Laden. Now, I do NOT want to lean on my disability… however, I believe I do have a serious case of YGTBFKM. YGTBFKM manifests itself in veterans (usually), and it almost always shows up in the immediate aftermath of deployments, especially long ones to war zones, in which one witnesses the full panoply of Man’s Savagery Against Fellow Man acted out with high explosives and high-velocity projectiles. Upon returning to civilization, a veteran may find him- or herself subjected to routine incidents in which instantly the words drop from their lips: “You’ve Got to be F—— Kidding Me!” Trivialities and even seemingly serious subjects lose all of their power, causing veterans to instantly speak the words: and now you know the origins of this terrible affliction and how it got its name. And if you think this isn’t serious, it is. I even have a medicinal marijuana card to treat it; that’s how you know it’s serious in these serious times. So, if I say or write something and it hurts someone’s Twitter-feelings… well, I don’t want to be a guy that leans on his disability, but… it’s probably not my fault.
If I seem cavalier about issues that are making people rend their garments – and torch bIack-owned small businesses in inner cities – I’m not. My very maculate origins were right in the middle of “the struggle” and I’ve personally lived the aftershocks of one of the most important civil rights decisions in Supreme Court history, Brown v. Board of Education (1954).
* * * * * * * * *
II. Origins
My mother told my sister and I the story when we were young. When mom and dad were still together, dad even confirmed it to the finest details. There was mom, standing in the kitchen. It was hot, as only Eastern-Texas, about 100 miles from the Louisiana border can be in the late summer. I was due in a few months and my sister was two-and-a-half. The screen door allowed what little breeze there was to circulate the air in their tiny home in Henderson, Texas.
A neighbor came hurriedly to the door.
“Missuh Ronald? Miss Becky? You gotta come! Everyone’s going.”
What’s going on?
“The niggahs are marchin’ downtown. Come on!”
It was 1969 and the civil rights marches had come to Texas. My mother blanched, her eyes wide. She hated that word. She looked at my father, and the visitor, sensing some hesitation, misunderstood the look.
“What? You don’t got a gun? ‘Cuz we can get you one,” the neighbor offered helpfully.
“What? No! No. We’re all set,” my father replied quickly. “Thank you,” pointing to my mother’s distended stomach.
My mother stood there in shock, holding her swollen belly with me inside; she couldn’t believe it. My dad knew from my mother’s look that was the death-knell for making a life outside of the Air Force in the south. I imagine mom might well have had a bout of YGTBFKM, but the disease wouldn’t be widely known until much later.
* * * * * * * * *
If I told you that my mother’s mother (Gran) had 5 different kids from 4 different fathers, was married only once – and he wasn’t the father of any of her kids – that he was an alcoholic who my mother found dead in his bed when she was a teenager – that my mother and her sister had been orphaned for a short while as infants, then reunited with their mother, and then raised in the Hartford Projects until mom was 14 or 15…
…Well, if Gran were black, she’d be a horrible stereotype. But she’s not. Gran is nearly translucent white, as it turns out, and she left a nearly destroyed London, surviving Hitler’s V1s and V2s dropping on her home, for the relative safety of the United States. By comparison, then, the Hartford Projects probably weren’t all that bad.
I feel compelled to point this out – because it seems like a LOT of angry people on Twitter don’t know this but: there are white people living right next door to black people in the inner cities, in exactly same circumstances, with lots of similar problems, including with the police.
They called him “daddy” even though he wasn’t theirs. My mother, her two sisters, her brother… they all knew. He was fine when sober – kind, even… until he started drinking. Most times, he would go out to drink at night when they were in bed. Sometimes, my mother told me, she would hear him crying in the kitchen, from the pain. She would sneak out and see him seated in a chair, holding his head. He would get drunk, find himself wandering the streets, and the cops would pick him up. Most times, they’d drop him off, but on some occasions, he’d get arrested and they’d give him a beating. Phone books against the side of his head and then a blackjack or a knight stick to the phone book. No marks, horrific headaches, massive head trauma. At least he died peacefully in his sleep, I suppose, the effects of the alcohol finally overcoming him. My mother found him dead in bed when she came to check on him one morning while Gran was at work.
When she left to marry my father and follow him into the Air Force in 1965, the last thing she ever thought about was raising her children in that same place that she had crawled out of. She hadn’t seen southern segregation and Jim Crow laws, however. During her pregnancy with me, the doctor’s office in the small town was required, by law, to have separate entrances for whites and blacks.
“It was the most ridiculous thing you ever saw,” my mom would tell us. “Just stupid.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Because it’s a tiny little office. We’re in rural Texas. There’s only one waiting area, so they had white tape, on the floor, forming a line down the middle of the office. The doctor obviously had to convert the office to allow blacks to come in the back door, and we – whites – came in the front… and then we’d sit right next to each other, poor whites and poor blacks with a tape line on the floor to keep us ‘separate but equal.'” She’d shake her head and her eyes would go a little misty and you could see she was reliving the memory.
“It was… just… the most idiotic thing you’ve ever seen. White tape on the floor, sitting right next to each other. There was a black woman, due around the same time as me, and we’d see each other at our appointments. She had another one and I had your sister, and the kids would play together in the waiting area. Some people would stare – the hell am I gonna do? Ridiculous.”
Couple that the “niggahs are marching” incident and mom had seen enough of actual, honest-to-God, systemic racism. At a time when wives didn’t tell their husbands they were moving, my father didn’t even put up a fight. Back up north we would go, six months after I was born. I’ve never seen the town I was born in.
* * * * * * * * *
Brown v. Board of Education
In 1977, the courts in the south, including Florida, were still trying to sort out how they were going to implement the Supreme Court’s order in Brown v. Board of Education, one of the landmark Supreme Court cases of the Civil Rights era, first announced in 1954 in a unanimous 9-0 opinion. “Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal,” declared the 14 page opinion, violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Unfortunately, the Supremes didn’t provide any instructions on how exactly this massive restructuring of society was going to be undertaken. The Court’s second decision in Brown II, 349 U.S. 294 (1955), only ordered states to desegregate “with all deliberate speed.” Not much help there either. A later decision no one has heard of ordered the foot-dragging southern states, and many northern ones, too, to make it happen – NOW. District court judges were put in charge of mandatory integration in childhood education across the United States.
In many places, like South Boston, Massachusetts, the media diligently covered the plight of black students being bussed into previously all-white schools and neighborhoods – and the riots that accompanied it.
“I remember riding the buses to protect the kids going up to South Boston High School,” Jean McGuire, who was a bus safety monitor, recalled recently. “And the bricks through the window. Signs hanging out those buildings, ‘Nigger Go Home.’ Pictures of monkeys. The words. The spit. People just felt it was all right to attack children.”
One of those children was Regina Williams.
“I had no idea what to expect [with] this busing thing,” Williams said. “I didn’t know anything about South Boston. I didn’t know anything about, you know, they didn’t like us. I didn’t know anything that was in store for us. But when we got there, it was like a war zone.
“I came back and I told my mom, and I’ll never forget, I said, ‘Ma, I am not going back to that school unless I have a gun.’ At 14 years old. I am not going back to that school.”
In Orlando, Florida, it played out the same way – except they sent roughly 20 white kids who lived right on the Winter Park-Orlando line to a previously all-black school, Hungerford Elementary. My sister and I were part of that tranche of kids who would be the leading edge of desegregation efforts. Like Regina Williams, I was completely unprepared for the visceral nature of the hate; I was 7 and my sister was 10. One of the boys who was my sister’s age wound up leaving school in an ambulance. They chased me every day on the playground. Sometimes they caught me and gave me a beating. Fortunately, at that age, it wasn’t too bad. So, yes, I am intimately aware of what it is like to be hated simply for the color of your skin, for nothing you have done, but simply for your existence.
* * * * * * * * *
III. Truly Systemic Racism
Brown was an absolutely correct decision, but it’s important to remember that it was only undoing a previously terrible decision from the same institution – the Supreme Court – with its own prior, abysmal Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1894, which gave legal sanction and protection to “separate but equal” accommodations for blacks and whites in America. This, of course, came on the heels of the Court’s even worse (hard as that is to believe) decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857). The Court found Congress’ Missouri Comprise of 1856 unconstitutional, an attempted legislative workout on the issue of slavery in the U.S.; the decision all but started the Civil War. If the highest Court in the land wouldn’t strike down slavery, indeed, would find Congressional legislation to limit the expansion of slavery an unconstitutional deprivation of a slaveowner’s “property” – i.e. Dred Scott himself – the only recourse was war.
If you’re looking for places to find systemic racism that needs fixing, the Supreme Court might be pretty good place to start. Which is, in part, why I completely disregard the feelings of the people screaming for Greg Glassman’s head – and telling me about all the things I don’t, and can’t, understand – because they’re laughably unserious about these issues. And it looks like either useful idiots or intentional misdirection, but neither matters to me.
Ten cases are currently before the Supreme Court on qualified immunity, the judicial doctrine that insulates police officers from liability for their actions while in uniform. Qualified immunity is at the heart of George Floyd’s death and Derrick Chauvin’s actions, in the inability of bystanders to take action to help. It is the legal shield that immunizes law enforcement from ever being question or held to account for their actions. Anyone who claims to be serious about police accountability knows about QI. Anyone who claims to be serious about helping the plight of inner city black communities should be protesting in front of the Supreme Court to have their voices heard on QI.
Clarence Thomas, the (wrong kind of) black Supreme Court justice, also a notoriously tight-lipped jurist, has said that he doubts the Constitutional validity of asset forfeiture. Asset forfeiture is – yet again – a horrible, court-created doctrine that allows the police to seize property, including cars, SUVs, cash, and even homes, without ever obtaining a conviction. It’s all part of the War on Drugs and the “tough on crime” bills, like the one that Joe Biden sponsored in 1994, the one that had disproportionate sentences for powder and crack cocaine, the one that the Congressional Black Caucus advocated for, the one that Bill Clinton (Dem), signed into law. Asset forfeiture falls disproportionately on minorities – and it incentivizes the police to steal from the people they police for their budgets.
Which leads us to a really uncomfortable place… where systemic racism lives.
* * * * * * * * *
IV. Systemic Racism in Policing – It isn’t an accident!
Leadership culture is something that’s also been much in the news in light of the events with Greg and some of his Affiliates and, as a Marine Officer of twenty-seven years of service, both active and reserve, combat arms and support, overseas and at home, I have some thoughts on that subject, too, specifically as it relates to Greg’s Tweet that broke hearts and minds everywhere.
I had a CO who once told me that “every unit takes on the personality of its CO, to a greater or lesser degree.” And I’ve seen it many, many times, in different units, different specialities, across branches of service, and yes, at companies and divisions of companies: organizations tend to take on the personalities, or at least some of the tendencies, of their leaders. It is as true of CrossFit under Glassman as it is of Apple under Steve Jobs.
Given this, I would assert that police, being paramilitary organizations, have that tendency to an even greater degree than companies. Culture isn’t “magic dirt.” Culture is transmitted by human beings to other human beings and culture, generally speaking, tends to follow lines of authority. In the military, we do things the Commanding Officer likes to do… and the rest of us learn to enjoy those things. The military has its own legal system, as well, and those systems – their “personality” – tends to flow from the Commander. A new head judge will like courts conducted in a certain fashion, too. This cultural transmission is everywhere in our daily lives, in all of its institutions.
Therefore, if we’re going to seriously look for solutions to “systemic racism,” it seems to me a fair place would be at the people in charge where these terrible events keep occurring. Let’s just let it sit for the moment and then think about where it might lead us. If we assume that “systemic racism” is some form of cultural transmission within police departments than we should at least try to look for activities or affiliations that are reflective of these ideas. Given the earlier discussion about the close ties between unit culture and leadership, it seems logical to begin a search there.
Now, if I were an enterprising young Twitterer, and not just a slave of the mob, I would start by looking at who was up the Chain of Command from Derrick Chauvin, for example. He had multiple reports of using violence against citizens and continually found his way back to work, no problem. Who were the people above him, going all the way to the top of the state’s law enforcement chain of command? If one were so inclined, and given the hyper-focus on race, one might also make note of the following items for the people responsible for the culture in the police department: race, sex, and political affiliation, or any other factor that might point to clues for the origins of this systemic racism – of which Greg Glassman, I, and everyone else who is melanin challenged, are now being told we are responsible.
Of course, everyone already knows without looking what that’s going to look like. Statisticians will be shocked to find a statistically significant proportion of people with this (BL) after their name in the Chain of Command. There will be an almost 100% presence of people with (DEM) after their name. And almost everyone will also be a member of (PU) – the police union. It is to be noted that (PU) also gives a ton of money to people in political power who then agree to lavish pensions, to push qualified immunity and other “police bills of rights,” to use asset forfeiture, and otherwise return the favored endorsement and support by the local union. In most major cities in America, this all has been run by this team – (DEM) – for decades.
Someone should take the cities with the five highest numbers (raw numbers) of shootings or the cities with the highest rates of shootings of Black Americans by police officers for 2015, or 2016, or any year, or ten years, and then track those shootings to the police precincts where they are reported. Then look at the leadership chain of command up through the highest law enforcement officer in the state, to include the State’s Attorney General, if applicable, and search for patterns or suggestive statistical anomalies. Tell me what shows up most frequently and then we can discuss what should be done about systemic racism in America.
* * * * * * * * *
The Media mob has been doing its schtick of intentional stupidity, of wanton blindness to the actual causes of systemic racism for quite some time now – my whole life, in fact. Getting it completely wrong every. single. time. So, you’ll forgive me if I’m not quite as moved by the tears of the people screaming racism at the top of their lungs: I’ve seen this movie already; and I know how it ends. I’ll paint a picture for you: Al Sharpton and/or other “leaders” – and a battery of race-hustling politicians – will all stand solemnly beside another black man’s casket, wailing and gnashing their teeth, and start blaming white people. If you were an alien from another planet watching this, you’d have to conclude they were trying to start a race war.
Anyone who claims to care about issues underlying systemic racism – seriously – and thinks they’ve done anything to address them by getting Greg Glassman to resign as CEO of a CrossFit…?
YGTBFKM.
See? It can strike at any time. So, please forgive me. I don’t know what I’ll do if someone’s Twitter-feelings are hurt.
Wow.
I literally just whispered that under my breath at work as I was refreshing the page and saw your comment.
YGTBFKM must be more contagious than da ‘rona – and persistent as a condition too.
I’m still suffering!
I consider myself a connoisseur of glib acronyms, and i’ll admit it took me a while to work that one out.
Still have no clue.
You’ve go to be fucking kidding me.
It’s up there in the article.
*thousand yard stare*
Wow, that was a fantastic read. Thank you for writing it.
Now I’m even more sad that a piece like this, that offers a coherent point of view and genuine food for thought, would trigger the mob and get you cancelled.
TOK,
I didn’t get cancelled. Not even close – just a bunch of drive-by douchebags saying ignorant shit. Nothing I haven’t dealt with a thousand times over in other settings. I was a criminal defense attorney for a number of years and I’ve defended people charged with… uh… doing “unpopular” things, so it comes with the territory.
Good article Ozy. Since it is impossible for a (Dem) to be racist or a (BL) to align with an organizational ethos over a skin tone, the fault must lie with (Rep) and wypeepo.
People really don’t like to hear that it’s a cultural thing. Go to Appalachia, you’ll see the same welfare/disability scamming, petty theft, drug abuse, and shitty schools as in the inner city. But they’re “privileged”.
Yup. My brother worked (pharmacist, 3rd shift mostly) in some poor mostly-black neighborhoods and a couple middle-class mostly-black neighborhoods and some middle-class mostly-white neighborhoods. Then he switched companies and occasionally got sent to some rural locations that were poor, mostly white communities. That’s when the truth hit home to him – the drugs abuse, the robberies, the child abuse, the abortions, the alcoholism were delineated by class, not race.
I don’t know if I can write this well, but I’ve lived long enough to understand the one thing the elites and the poor in this country and others have in common: they both HATE class mobility. The poor hate it because of a combination of envy and feeling of abandonment/insult. The poor can’t stand when their neighbor moves up in the world – they will curry favor with the person and insult them behind their backs if they don’t “give back”. The elites hate it because it threatens their power especially when they realize class mobility is a two-way street; if they’re going to go down they’re going to make sure they drag others with them (to maintain their relativism).
I’d also say the elites don’t like it when some nouveau riche shows up and ignores the mores that have been established forever. Talking with some of the girlfriend’s extended family, I’ve seen the gears in their heads start to strip a bit when they talk to me (college drop out, punk/metal fan, able to carry on a conversation about politics/theology/philosophy – all subjects I try to avoid).
if – you have captured it perfectly. My own experience with class mobility is exactly that of your brothers. Not 100%, but certainly enough to have reached the same conclusion.
DESTROYED BY FACTS AND LOGIC!!1!1!
Thanks, DE. Hope you’re enjoying the beautiful sea in your parts. I do love those islands, though I’ve yet to see Maui.
It is quite literally about blaming people who have little to no responsibility for the problems and little to no power to change things* while deflecting blame from the people who are responsible for the state of things and who do have (some of) the power to change it. The entirely symbolic and irrelevant nature of all of the targets: from statues, to books, to old television shows and movies, to tweets and other social media posts, to flags and symbols, to people in utterly unrelated positions of power, speaks strongly to this. They don’t want to end systemic racism and never have. They don’t want to own up to the causes, they surely don’t want to enact the solutions, and they definitely don’t want to apply any introspection.
Many people are angry, and lots of people in positions of real power are happy to channel that anger, both to deflect it from themselves and also to point it at their own enemies. #BLM is not a fight to improve black people’s lives, it’s a fight to punish the neighbor who doesn’t mow his lawn often enough, the driver who cut you off in traffic one day, the crotchety uncle whose opinions you disagree with, the boss you hated from your old job, the boss you hate at your current job, the professor who slighted you one time in a college class, all the people who ever wronged you in some way no matter how minor or unintentional it may have been.
After all, what is good in life? To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of the powerless.
Missing asterisk: * = the power to change things through votes, while considerable in aggregate, is extremely diffuse and coarse at an individual level
kb – that’s been my observation as well. Politics now has all the subtlety and nuance of the worst of Yankees vs. Red Sox (the colors are the same, too!).
If a guy on the other team gets caught doping, all of the other team’s championships should be void, the guy should be suspended indefinitely, and it proves they’re cheaters. If your guy gets caught doping, “he was just tryna come back too quick from injury, it was a bad test, someone left it in his locker, etc.”
Social media has exacerbated the partisan nature of politics and turned it into Hatfield and McCoys. Now people want power so they can punish the other side. It’s fucked.
Well now, having power has always been about punishing the others. What’s the point of having power if you don’t use it?
So much for that white patriarchy ideal about power having a concomitant responsibility about its use.
Social media has exacerbated the partisan nature of politics and turned it into Hatfield and McCoys.
Speaking of which. I’m related to the Hatfield side.
You mean the HATEfield side.
/McCoy descendant checking in.*
*-not true. Just needed it for the joke.
It was a good read, Ozy. It saddens me to see things so debased, but I am not wholly pessimistic.
I’m not pessimistic at all, KB, but that’s because my cosmology says that this is all a training ground to offer us a chance to learn to love the Other – because in Reality, there is No Other; we are all One, a small drop of the Infinite Creator, given Life and Free Will so that the Universe can experience itself. Some days that’s a lot harder than others and I’ve not managed to perfect myself, but it keeps me from falling into a depression AND from shooting people in the face.
Well put, kb. Of course, I would say that because I’m a crotchety uncle…
I recently posted on Facebook that I ran out of my yearly quota of “Oh FFS!” already this year. Same kinda thing.
Great read. I’m just about the whitest man who ever lived, so the dwindling (but still significant) number of noticeably racist people will mistakenly think it’s safe to share their secrets with me. It always takes me aback in ways it didn’t when I was a kid. So I guess that’s progress. It’s often women more than men, interestingly enough.
*wild applause*
But you know I like your voice.
*Doffs hat and bows deeply, arm swinging around waist*
Thank you, m’lady. You are too kind to this itinerant rogue.
🙁 Another meeting? It’s a *bleep*ing Friday!
One office for the customer I support has No-Meeting Friday. You are very strongly encouraged to not schedule any meetings on Fridays, unless there’s a critical (that you can defend up the chain of bosses) reason that it has to happen that Friday.
I think I’ve had one Friday meeting with them, and that was an emergency one due to a network outage. I like that office. Unfortunately, it’s not a company wide rule, and it’s one my company scoffs at (I generally have at least three meetings Friday afternoon on my calendar).
I’ve got four today. So far three have run over their time by a significant margin (doubling scheduled duration in two instances)
The third couldn’t because another meeting got in the way.
I took today off as a comp day for the overnight and weekend work last weekend (and a small change I need to put in place Sunday). So I’m going to no meetings.
(Still sporadically checking to see if anyone dropped a critical ticket in my queue or ignored my out of office in e-mail).
I’ve been forcing myself to save leave time for the transition back to the office to avoid the bullshit as much as possible.
I’ve got some five weeks of vacation I need to take before the end of the year. I’m burning some days at the end of the month around when I’m actually going on vacation to use some. Then trying to figure out vacation options that may be possible when the restrictions end.
I have Friday afternoon meetings once a month during the school year. Mostly because it’s the only time everyone’s guaranteed to not be teaching.
Friday meetings are terrible for anything that requires prompt followup. You have a meeting, everyone agrees on doing stuff, then you go home for the weekend and by Monday everyone’s off on something different and what was said on Friday is long gone.
Feature, not a bug
Want to see an amazing display of entitlement, watch the clip below the local police posted. I used to live near there 20 years and shopped at this store. Glad I moved.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCw4p5ujNlufyY6dhjSy3GJQ
You kinda nerfed this, is it the convenient store one?
Link to the story the goes with the vid:
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/dispute-at-florissant-store-inflamed-by-protesters-who-rushed-there-police-say/article_705d7b72-2cee-5328-9384-74b5d9ce3928.html
I’ve posted this before, but it’s relevant to your bussing situation: Money and School Performance: Lessons from the Kansas City Desegregation Experiment. TW: long read
That was truly a monument to the hubris of one federal judge.
So here it is, 44 years later, and KC and StL school districts still haven’t recovered.
Look on my works and despair.
Moje, if you’ve mentioned this, I’ve forgotten – Did you come up in the KC schools and experience any of their desegregation efforts yourself, or did you live in another district? I’d be interested in your personal perspective if you were in KC.
I’ve mentioned before my brushes with some of Dayton’s half-hearted attempts at court-ordered desegregation in the mid- to late ’70s. As far as I can remember, we largely escaped violence at the level suffered in places like Boston (with the notable exception of the man tasked by a Fed judge with devising the district’s deseg plan. He was shot to death in his office in the Federal courthouse.) My own schools likewise escaped full-time cross-town busing because their district boundaries included “changing neighborhoods” like my own.
You and I posted at the same time.
To add: My peers at church who did not get bussed were in an entirely different neighborhood and went somewhere else. I can’t comment on the quality of their education. My bestie at school who got expelled (she was the very definition of “bad girl”) went to the high school I would have and it didn’t seem much was required of her except to survive.
My old neighborhood was mostly white, with a housing project across the main street in our area that was all black. Now the black population has given way to the Hispanic population and the white folks who live there are old and have been there since before I was born.
Funny thing. I was there 2 weeks ago (to get kielbasa) and wandered around a little. My old house was nice when I was growing up (from the perspective of a child) and very tidy (thanks, mom!). Now it’s a wreck. But I drove down the alley behind it and there, hidden in the brush (very carefully) was a brand new BMW isomething. I’d like to think someone was living within their means and had saved up to buy a car they valued more than the place where they lived. (You can go ahead and laugh now.)
I’m going to wager that their means are generated through black market activities.
Likely so. I don’t have a problem with that, overall.
My part-time experiences with Dayton deseg stuff had mixed results in terms of educational quality. On one hand, the “science centers” we were bused to sporadically in 6th through 8th neither promoted true social/racial integration nor taught science well. On the other hand, the Humanities class I took my senior year at the advanced academic magnet school is my favorite class from all my years in grade school, high school, undergrad and grad school.
Awesome link, Mojeaux
I skimmed and that isn’t fair. Need to reread. Thanks for the article.
de nada, OBE. I always check back on my posts, so if you say something late, I’ll reply if necessary.
Whoops, wrong link to video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m05O8sbYWW0
Great article.
Thank you,
Kinnathkinnath.(I definitely don’t want to get caught up in the ‘no capitals in my name’ kerfluffle!) 😉
handle, not name.
so not capitals. 😉
You’re just keeping us good folk down.
It’s not enough to be passively not pro-capitals. You must be Actively anti-capitals.
– someone from the Big L Libertarian camp
Screw you, I’m an ImproperNoun
So you’re an Anti-Capitalist?
Narrowed gaze or wild applause?
(I vote the latter)
Wild Gaze!
*hangs head in shame and grovels*
I’m feeling attacked.
That is the guilt. To feel better you can donate to our cause. You can do this by sending me $400, i’ll make sure it gets to the right account.
Which would be me, right?
Louisville’s busing started the year I was in first grade. White kids would get bused two years (3rd and 8th for me based on the letter C) and black kids got bused 8 years or something like that, to make the balance work.
In 3rd grade I got bused to a school in the far west end of Louisville, an area I haven’t been back to since. The class was 100% white. Seems all the 3rd grade black kids were out in the ‘burb’s that year. Whoops.
in 8th grade, my middle school was sufficiently integrated that it didn’t bus. It happened to be located in a working class neighborhood that had gone increasingly black over time, so that it balanced out the surrounding white burbs that also supplied the middle school.
So I only had the 1 year.
Fun fact about Louisville’s busing. There have been (I think) 3 supreme court cases related to it, overturning different versions. All of the suits brought by black parents who wanted their kids to attend the neighborhood schools. The local school board kept trying over and over and over again to implement it in a way that gave racial balance without using race as a factor in school districting.
It’s almost as if central planners can’t take a hint.
Somewhat related:
Alarming White Opt-Out Rates Have Left Eastside Suburban Schools Segregated at Levels Not Seen Since the 1960s
For those not familiar with the area, those are the areas known as shitty. Reading the article, there’s complaints about people using vouchers to go to parochial schools instead of the public ones.
My wife attended Cleveland Heights High School on Ceder and Lee and when she was there in the early 2000’s, I think the school was 70 percent black, the whites probably 10-15 percent with the rest was with Hispanics. It was odd because despite Cleveland Heights residents boasting about their diversity, the whites couldn’t get their kids out of Heights Schools fast enough when the trend was heading towards a black majority.
The girlfriend went to Mayfield in the mid-90’s. I was in Catholic school from grade school through high school. The schools I went to were beyond majority white (assuming you count Croatians, Asians, Irish, and Italians as white). There were a couple of Black kids in my high school by the time I graduated.
Mine started in 3rd grade. I was supposed to be bussed to one school 3 days a week and another 2 days a week. Then the next week it would switch.
My parents put me in private school.
That is possibly the dumbest thing I have ever heard, and I went thru Louisville’s busing system. Two different schools? WTF?
Great article Ozy. I always take the time to read your stuff beginning to end.
YGBFKM indeed.
Thanks, Time. I appreciate that.
FWIW, I love writing for this audience. Just like in prison, genpop can be a bit more… difficult. And unruly.
ATTICA! ATTICA! ATTICA!
*forgets what movie context it came from*
Dog Day Afternoon.
Isn’t she special.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Friday she is undergoing chemotherapy to treat a recurrence of cancer. The treatment is yielding “positive results.”
The liberal justice, 87, said she remains “fully able” to continue in her post.Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Friday she is undergoing chemotherapy to treat a recurrence of cancer. The treatment is yielding “positive results.”The liberal justice, 87, said she remains “fully able” to continue in her post.
She’d beat Sleepy Joe in a push-up contest.
Take that back you lying dog faced pony soldier!
So when she dies, the NYT headline will undoubtedly say that COVID has claimed a member of the high court, right?
Good points.
Also in military units – avg length of time for a CO tour is 1.5 yrs (up to 3 in some cases) and maybe a little more if the XO fleets up to CO.
Multiple feedback surveys for command climate, etc that whole time that get reviewed by higher, etc.
Contrast that to police where you might have the same leadership for decades at a time – and much less accountability.
In celebration of 1969.
Niiiice. I thought for sure that would be some Earth, Wind, and Fire. Now that I’ve invoked their name, I’m required by karma to link this.
I thought it was going to be this.
Ted, you absolutely have the lead in the clubhouse with obscure music links.
Ted has led from the first tee as far as that tournament goes
Over the trees, straight to the green on every par 5.
Really well done ozy, the writing engrossed me and a lot of good thoughts
// The following is my attempt at recreating a reaction from the drive-by douchbeags
And yet, rather than get on the stand and yell at the judge and challenge the system you admit that you are a racist who let it happen! This along with your defence of well known white supremacist Greg, just shows that you are a racist, and are just trying to hide it because you hate black people that much.
// End attempt.
It was a lot less sophisticated than that, leon. My favorite was an (apparently) young black woman who demanded to know what I had DONE for black people that didn’t benefit me.
I wanted so badly to reply with the requisite “fuck off, slaver” but I didn’t think that would help matters.
“I’m not so racist to itemize my work by the hue of the people who benefit.”
I couldn’t say that, though. When I was a brand new defense attorney, I started to notice a… trend, so I kept a log of every Marine I advised and it included the charges they were facing, some other bio info, and their race. It seemed to me that POCs were showing up in statistically significant numbers. I could not conclude that it was overt racism, however, so much as it was bias – and they aren’t quite the same thing.
Group of black guys get into a scuffle and it might be NJP. Group of white guys do and it was more likely to be seen as “boys being boys,” IMO, depending upon a lot of surrounding factors, as well.
There also was a case where a senior leader (SgtMaj) was a straight-up racist and an IG investigation revealed it. He got fired, but it didn’t make me popular for calling it out.
Since my work doesn’t help anyone, anything I do to help anyone is more or less completely anonymous. After all, I’m a shut-in, so it’s what I can manage remotely.
You should take advantage of the Barbados visa thing.
He’d still have to pay NYS taxes.
I take it you didn’t respond?
I did not. It was on Derpbook and I had already committed to leaving. Plus, I have kids and a wife who were really bothered by what people were saying about me on there, so I just deleted the whole thing. And my life got instantly better.
“I had DONE for black people that didn’t benefit me.”
The exact same argument applies to some Noble Teacher Who Reaches The Kids of the Inner City.
Excellent article, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Also revealed another hidden aspect of the power of media propaganda. When I heard of that Tweet, I confess I immediately thought “Meathead asshole who thinks edgy racial jokes are the funniest thing ever.” Which is clearly not the case.
I’m of the opinion that the only good works that matter are those that you don’t use for virtue signalling. The best are those where no one knows you did it, and you did it for the sake of actually helping.
* give alms in private
* pray in your closet
This^^^
Exacy right. Don’t be a hypocrite that stands on rhe corner to the blowing of horns “look, I am giving alms!”
“Unfortunately, the Supremes didn’t provide any instructions on how exactly this massive restructuring of society was going to be undertaken.”
Malcolm Gladwell had an interesting take on desegregation on his podcast. The short version was that when they desegregated the schools, the school administrators fired all the black teachers and kept all the white ones. (Because some of the white parents didn’t want black teachers teaching their kids, of course). As a result, the black kids had teachers who didn’t look like them, couldn’t relate to them, and possibly hostile toward them. The results were not good.
). As a result, the black kids had teachers who didn’t look like them, couldn’t relate to them,- meh I am unconvinced of this representation thing. A good teacher teaches, but there are not many of those.
You mean like Joe Biden? he was really concerned about his kids having to go to school in a “racial jungle.”
WTF? My sixth grade teacher in 1975 was black – the entire class of kids was white. It was interesting for about 5 seconds, then nobody cared anymore. He was a good teacher, not the best I had but far from the worst (that would be first grade).
In my non US understanding of things, the racism is present but not systemic… Just haphazardly sporadic amplifying deeper problems but not causing them.
Also I will resist the urge to ling an infinite elgintensity youtube on crossfit
zero
It is as true of CrossFit under Glassman as it is of Apple under Steve Jobs. – this is true as long as there is a personality cult involved. certainly not true of my company. The CEO is barely known to the employees. But it was thus for my friends working in Amazon
Systemic racism ended with the Civil Right Act.
Any private entity with an actual policy of racism has been sued into oblivion.
The only place where open, overt racism persists is in government where employees cannot be fired (thanks union); cannot be sued (thanks QI); and won’t be prosecuted (see union, qualified immunity, and we all have to work together in this joint).
Yahtzee! Bingo! Give this man the kewpie doll!
Yahtzee I think is similar to a game we played as kids in Romania we called Yams but we did not scream the name at any point
Bingo I never played it is not a thing here. neither are kewpie dolls
I have a sad for you, Pie. You don’t know what you’ve missed.
i played Yams, its fun!
Damn. That is really well put.
Thanks,
I’ve been practicing my speech for the inevitable struggle session that will happen at work. Said speech will likely lead to my immediate retirement (non-voluntary).
I’m going to be so happy when I can just walk quietly away instead of pulling a James Woods.
https://tenor.com/view/john-carpenter-explosion-vampires-walkingaway-wimp-gif-11536042
Systemic racism
endedchanged polarity with the Civil Right Act. FIFYIt is perfectly acceptable to discriminate against whites now and it’s systematic in things like college admissions and government hiring. Asians also get discriminated against if they start to show up in unseemly numbers.
I disagree.
Discrimination in college admissions is not equivalent to formal segregation.
I didn’t say it was segregation (although schools are starting to practice for-real segregation in dorms). It is racism and discrimination.
I’ve already seen the articles start coming out about how the ACT and SAT are racist (California is already dropping them). How much longer until they’re banned (along with private certifications) under Griggs/Duke Power?
In theory, the SAT, ACT, GRE, etc. easily meet the qualifications of Duke Power as legitimate (and that’s assuming you could apply the reasoning to students/customers vs. employees anyway). Broad aptitude is directly relevant to higher education. It would take a tortured reading of just about every relevant standing precedent to say that a college or university has to accept students who aren’t literate and numerate. Though they have certainly already been pushed in that direction by financial incentives.
I think the tests will be discarded “voluntarily” before a court forces them out, and if/when a court forces them out it will be either a total misread of Duke Power or else a new precedent entirely. While the student loans and grants have thoroughly hollowed out the cultural core of colleges and replaced it with Marxism, it has not yet transpired that the intellectual core of the colleges has been completely gutted (just situationally, by school and major). The United States has (had) a far broader and deeper selection of heavyweight intellectual institutions than any other single country for a long time; the closest comparable geopolitical body is all of Europe.
I should say it has taken more and stronger forces than the loans themselves to hollow out the cultural core of colleges. There were other factors, too, like the creation of majors that are completely masturbatory (such-and-such “studies”), which followed from the hollowing out of the core liberal arts, and the incredible bureaucracy that has been built up around education, not just the colleges’ own administration but the public K-12 schools, their unions and credentialism, and the whole edifice of pedagogy-as-“science” that results in people getting PhDs in education who can’t teach a damn thing except their own feelings and biases.
I’d argue that a large portion of those “studies” programs were enabled by the loans. Certainly, they originated before the student loan debacle, but they didn’t take off in full until the universities saw an opportunity to leech federal dollars by simply providing a larger home for the lunatic fringe.
The intellectuals of late 19th century Europe planted the seeds of the 20th century totalitarians and mass deaths.
I fear we can look forward to the same. Except we’re even better armed.
Using Our Prophetic Powers For Good: The Babylon Bee Will Now Only Write Articles About Positive Things Happening To Humanity
It has therefore been decided that we will only make jokes about cool and good things so our future will be cool and good. Here are some of our headlines. Enjoy your new future!
Presidential Election Cancelled After Nation Agrees That Everyone Will Just Be Chill To Each Other For A While
All Racism Ended After Everyone Realizes We’re All Pretty Much The Same
Joel Osteen Becomes A Christian
Wife Brings Babylon Bee Writer A Tasty Sandwich
Joe Biden Retires Peacefully To A Nice Home With A Rocking Chair And A Jar Of Werther’s Caramels
Cancer Cured, Flying Cars Invented After Twitter Outage Lasts 1 Week
Firefly Returns For 20 New Seasons
Disney Sells Star Wars Franchise To VidAngel
Abortion Is Outlawed Worldwide Saving 50 Million Babies A Year
All Politicians In Washington Gathered Into One Spot And Launched Into The Sun
Carman Releases Big Comeback Album, Hits #1 On Billboard Charts
Ron Paul Elected President, Ends Fed, Abolishes IRS, Throws Commies Out Of Marine One
Christian Filmmakers Agree To Stop Making Movies
The Babylon Bee Starts Writing Satire Again
lol
*ENB’s head explodes*
That’s the company that resulted when Vivid and Evil Angel merged, isn’t it?
Ron Paul Elected President, Ends Fed, Abolishes IRS, Throws Commies Out Of Marine One
Didn’t I see some reasonista commenter on here comparing RP to David Duke the other day? Care to rationalize that, whoever you were? I know the reasonistas and adjunct Reason functionaries were wringing their hands and distancing themselves from his “racism” because he had the audacity (#caucasity?) to call out the cultural marxism “white privelege” BS long before they decided they really had to ask themselves hard questions about who they were kowtowing to. i will fite u.
I don’t think we have any hihn level “Paulista” haters here.
Good article.
Danke Sean.
😉
Schöne
Mine was intentional, bro. I was wondering if anyone would bite.
And I was complimenting your intentions.
Nazi!
dankeUhhh… right on!
Chomp.
You’d think a Swiss person would narrow his gaze on that one.
Ozy what you did there!
I saw what you did there.
Jinx!
I’ve been listening to a few folks in the systemic racism space, and I’ve come away with no new notions. Having spent two years reading and classifying warranty narratives, I would suspect that police reports aren’t very useful; putting together a comprehensive picture of who does what and why would require decades of standardizing reports and then ungaming the “data.” For me it’s just simpler to say that the system is too tall and too wide; minimizing laws and governments is the next step which should simplify and clarify things nicely.
I’m pretty sure minimizing laws and governments is white supremacy.
Good article, OZY. I guess my military mileage may vary and perhaps for some of the reasons you mentioned. I started out from a totally white experience, all white schools in Mpls and rural MN but Mpls schools were integrated but not my neighborhood. Starting in the army in ’56 we had black kids in basic, second 8 as AIT was called. Later in Germany we had many minorities in the unit I was in. Socially, mostly segregated but not exclusively. Later, in ’58, there were many black men, NCOs, lower ranking, all of us were electronic techs, in the units I was in, life was good
I got commissioned Signal Corps, not many black officers but the few that I knew were on the top of their game. I introduced one to skeet shooting, we socialized, camaraderie was totally integrated, good friends. Before I retired I served under 2 black brigade commanders, the last one visited me in the hospital after I retired. Ft Hood, TX. As the war in VN wound down problems had developed but not totally racially. The anti-war anti-draft movement was strong in Killeen but the the war ended.
I did my student teaching in Temple, Tx, 1978, fully integrated. My kids went to a small rural school, had black/Hispanic friends, stayed at my house. I believe the south was doing a better job than the urban north by that time. I understand what you are saying but never really experienced much of the racism. Thanks for your work.
Hope to see you and many other Glibs for Honey Harvest, we’re checking the bees tomorrow, those lazy critters better pick up the pace, they’ve been spending too much time watching TV and listening to the media, they need to get outside, sans masks, and produce.
Good job, Ozy, as always
4×20, I hope no one concludes from my article that I believe the northern bullshit that the south was (and still is) totes racist and the north was racial utopia. Nothing could be further from the truth in my own experience in both places. When I lived in South Boston in the 90s, it was still plenty racist.
I’ve spent a lot of time in the south over a career in the Marine Corps (not many bases up north as it turns out) and the military is as close to racial harmony as I’ve seen. I think it was Thomas Ricks who wrote “Making the Corps” and he has a great observation in there about this exact phenomenon. Something like, “in almost no other place in American society will you find black men screaming at young white men who are willingly hurrying to do their bidding” or something like that. I’m probably effing that up from memory, but his overall take on it was great. The military tends to beat the racism out of kids because it simply won’t work in combat. It will destroy a unit and cost lives. Military units thrive on trust and the love born of genuine camaraderie from shared sacrifice.
South Boston in the 1:30pms is plenty racist. “Provincial” is the term reserved for that area.
I always thought it was provisional turf…
Plus, it’s generally hard to cultivate a culture of victimhood when everyone has to take a bite from the same shit sandwich. Lance corporals are a true brotherhood for that reason.
The tightest group I’ve ever been part of in or out of the military was our deployment to Uzbekistan. 18 guys – five black, one Navajo, one Chicano, 11 white. Two immigrants, one from Jamaica and one from Poland. Had a blast together as a group and I don’t remember any static between anyone the entire 6 months.
East TX is legitimately pretty racist. Vidor, Orange, Jasper… not good places to be non-white. That’s where the Jame Byrd murder happened that everyone tried to blame Bush for.
I remember Vidor being described as the headquarters of the Klan in Texas in The Thin Blue Line
Not Adahn you are living in the past.
I have relatives in that area and visit there regularly.
Vidor has taken concrete actions to erase their past.
A wonderful and well written article.
Bookmarking this one.
Thanks for writing this.
*Raises coffee mug*
Thought provoking as ever, thanks Ozy!
I grew up in a mixed race area, and we never gave a thought to color, we were just kids playing and having fun, Adults can really fuck things up!
A scenario that can finally make her proud of her country.
In April, author and political commentator Michael Walsh predicted that Joe Biden would choose Michelle Obama as his running mate within a month or so: “[It] would be an unstoppable ticket, and potentially give the Obamas eight more years in the White House.” Walsh quotes Dick Harpootlian, South Carolina’s former Democratic Party Chair: “If she engages, God help Donald Trump, because she’s tough as nails and enormously popular.”
Mrs. Obama, Walsh wrote, “is the perfect vice presidential candidate, one who will . . . push progressive causes, and check all the social justice boxes” while sparking a massive African American vote, a feat beyond Biden’s wildest dreams. But it’s mid-July and Biden is still dithering. Or is he? In any case, the scenario Walsh lays out remains plausible:
* The party would enthusiastically unite around Mrs. Obama.
* MSM coverage would be universally adoring.
* Former President Barack Obama instantly becomes a valuable asset.
* With the Obamas breaking trail, Michelle and Biden handily defeat Trump
and Pence on November 3.
* On January 20, Joe Biden is inaugurated.
* On January 21 the Bidens announce the 78-year old president is resigning as
“he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
* Michelle becomes president.
* On January 22 President Obama names her choice for VP.
Honestly, if Biden literally resigned on the first day of his Presidency to hand it to someone whos never actually done anything in her life, ever, I would fully support the secession of the red states. I will not be ruled by President Oprah.
“You all get a car!”
Just when I’d gotten over the idea of ex-patriating.
I took a formal debate class way back in high school. A formal argument has a clear structure. The first thing you do is define your terms.
The teacher drilled into us one important point. If you get someone to agree to your definition, the argument is already won.
For fuck’s sake, stop using “systemic racism”. Do not let these people get away with using it. Always push back.
Yep. That’s the subtext to my article, although maybe it doesn’t come through. I had a law school teacher who used to say that if he/you could control the question, he’d/you’d already won. The framing of the question/issue under discussion is about 95% of the argument. Properly framed, it leads to only one answer, the one you want.
You can see it in Supreme Court decisions almost every time.
Light bulb over Head! i never thought about that point, Control the argument, win the argument, by defining the question, very clever…
control the question
I might be making your point.
I’m intrigued by Thomas: he seems willing to ignore the details of a procedure case before him if he finds the footing for the entire issue to be unconstitutional (DHS v Regents: DACA re APA). At least the Constitution is consulted in the opinion.
Roberts finds a tax where none was ever argued (NFIB v. Sebelius: ACA); at least the Constitution was construed to figure in the case.
The cases didn’t control the argument; the Justices reframed the questions to allow their opinions to dominate.
* apologies for sloppy case references: I might have this all wrong
Interesting considering what Scruffy said earlier…
5. Anecdotally, I’m seeing several people on Facebook say that they made an appointment to get tested, missed the appointment, and nevertheless got a notice that their test was positive. Right now, this observation is hearsay, but it’s intriguing.
Could be bullshit, could be true. Who knows at this point?
As I was out tramping the north forty, earlier, this is where I ended up:
When compulsory universal mask requirements inevitably fail to “defeat” the plague, it will be revealed that transmission/infection occurs through the skin. Total coverage will save us; long sleeves, long pants, gloves and, of course, masks. Basically, full hijab.
We are the victims of a new Progressive Puritanism. They already want to shut down bars and entertainment venues, because drinkin’ and dancin’ and fraternizin’ and other suchlike hanky panky are the Devil’s playground. These things sap our energies, which must be steadfastly directed to the furtherance of the perfected Total State. And, of course, they want to shut down churches, because any voluntary organization which is dedicated to promoting charity and brotherhood is stealing resources from the True Faith, which is Progressive politics and irnfisted control of the individual.
“These things sap our energies“
Purity of essence is where it’s at, Mandrake, uh, Brooks.
They already have the kit for women to wear.
Ozy – Did you every read this story about the Ohio National Guardsman who got railroaded out of the service for reading right-wing blogs? Never charged with a crime but held for a week in solitary confinement.
I had never heard of this at all.
Enjoy your elevated blood pressure Devil Dog.
Its frustrating but the writer lays out two very important points
Fifth, never talk to the police. No one can order you to do that. This kid was dumb. He should have demanded a JAG the minute an agent approached him.
Sixth, this goes to active duty military. Don’t ever discuss the details of a deployment. That’s called OPSEC, and even if they don’t officially call it that, they’ll stick a title on it like FOUO. Don’t talk to the media, including social media. And watch who you associate with.
WTF if true. I always suppose one day my glibbing and browsing habits will catch up with me in such a manner, but then I ain’t skeert.
I had a law school teacher who used to say that if he/you could control the question, he’d/you’d already won.
Don’t you want people to live?
No
Honestly, if Biden literally resigned on the first day of his Presidency to hand it to someone whos never actually done anything in her life, ever, I would fully support the secession of the red states. I will not be ruled by President Oprah.
Honest to Zod, if that happened, I’d be hard pressed to object to a military coup.
Sadly we are locked in a fight for total dominance and neither side seems willing to let the other bow out and leave. I hoped those attitudes would change on the left once Trump took office. There was a brief moment with #Calexit, but that seems to have been squashed. The left has, in something i didn’t predict, agitated for more powers to the executive branches for the past 4 years, while still claiming that Trump is the second coming of Hitler. As it stands, i think only the blue states would have a chance at leaving peaceably, and that is slim. If red states were to attempt that, it would be absolute fire and devastation rained down on those “traitors” who wouldn’t accept the results of the election.
Trump is Hitler and we must make the Executive even more powerful.
This, all in itself, disproves absolutely the notion of cognitive dissonance. If that had any validity, lefty heads would be exploding a la Scanners. NTTAWWT
So very informative, Ozy. Thanks.
Thank you! Great read.
I would agree with the others here, you have to frame the question. And the systemic part is BS.
The “systemic” in front of racism is the giveaway. The people screaming this know it’s horseshit, as someone noted above. The real problem is that no one even knows what racism is anymore. The word has been utterly debased beyond the point of saving. Nowadays, racism is nothing more than a slip of the tongue.
My old boss’ tweet that started the mob after him was a response to the IHME claiming they were going to “model” the effects of “systemic racism.” These were the same idiots who modeled COVID (quite badly). His response was “FLOYD-19” and he followed that up by saying that given their track record on the virus that their ‘racism’ model would create a race war. THAT is what he actually said.
No sane person could derive that he was a racist from that, but that’s where we are. I don’t think Kimmel was a racist for blackface, either, or Northam, or Trudeau, or any of them. They were simply doing “bits” at a time when that was an acceptable form of humor. It might have been unkind, in bad taste, or inconsiderate, but it isn’t “racism.” I doubt that Kimmel got off of an elevator when a black person got on, for example, or that he would feel uncomfortable working with blacks. Racism, real racism, is taking a stereotype to its extreme and admitting of no exception, even when there is a human being in front of you that is obviously proof of the wrongness of the stereotype. THAT’S racism.
Stereotypes are a kind of heuristic, but racists believe no one can be anything other than that type. Racists refuse to discriminate the individual from the stereotype. And yes, I used that word intentionally. Like everything else they touch, especially language, Progs have ruined that word, as well. Intentionally, in my opinion.
To ‘discriminate’ (as in, to have discriminating taste) is to recognize individual distinctions. The problem is that the Left, Marxists that they are, reject (and hate) the notion of individualism. That’s why we find so many of these socialists with skeletons in their closet, doing the shit they rail about from others. It’s because they reject the very notion of anything beyond group identity.
Anecdotally, I’m seeing several people on Facebook say that they made an appointment to get tested, missed the appointment, and nevertheless got a notice that their test was positive. Right now, this observation is hearsay, but it’s intriguing.
Something something PROVE YOUR INNOCENCE.
Really solid read, Ozy. One of the specific reasons I’m so glad for glibs is that it introduced me to your writing.
*raises can*
Well now it’s Friday evening and I’ma gon git good n drunk on my lonesome with Clint Black and Joe D on the stereo and a ree-fridgerator full of cold ones.
So gratified to hear that you drink ’em cold. I’m convinced you’re really a ‘Murican at heart!
I know it ain’t the beer talkin when I say I fuckin LOVE ‘Murica. Mostly the warm, sunny parts, even when it’s 200% humidity and I’m walking around with a cold gatorade pressed to my forehead. Hot damn I can’t wait to visit again.
Where have you traveled and not yet visited? Brits seem to love Florida.
I was in MCO for a little bit. Nice airport. Never had a big yearning to see much of Florida. I’ve been to and around the Dallas-FW area and that’s it.
I consider that very high praise, JD, and I am honestly grateful. Thank you. You have a place to visit in AZ if you ever want to come visit the desert.
(Notwithstanding OMWC’s whining about the temps, some of us it here, especially the Sonoran desert. It’s a place teeming with life, despite what one would think.)
Certainly…scorpions, cacti, Shai-hulud…
Yes, yes, them too, but a pretty healthy amount of wildlife. The Sonoran desert is often mistakenly assumed to be identical to the Mojave (by me, initially, as well). We’re overrun by rabbits where I live and I’m on the same “parallel” as OMWC and SP. We see and hear coyotes (the local high school mascot), an occasional bobcat, and birds are everywhere. Yes, it’s really effing hot here for about 3-4 months, but a wide variety of tribes have lived here (w/o air conditioning) for a millennia or more.
Great article, as always. I had to read the Crossfit article for better context. I had already forgotten about that event. I still can not wrap my head around the vile nature of the cancel culture. Someone recently posted a video from a black guy at the outdoor restaurant with all the dumb asses standing in the water. I can’t find it now, but this article made me think of that video.
When we look at just who was standing there chanting and being generally obnoxious, can the failure be more obvious? Most of the protestors looked like young white females. They have their beta cuck males attending to them, while backing the black alphas. I would bet money that the majority of them come from second or even third generation fatherless homes. They have been wrongly educated by the system, and have no skills. No skills means no achievement. No achievement means no self esteem.
Because I never tire of Hoffer.
“Those who see their lives as spoiled and wasted crave equality and fraternity more than they do freedom. If they clamor for freedom, it is but freedom to establish equality and uniformity. The passion for equality is partly a passion for anonymity: to be one thread of the many which make up a tunic; one thread not distinguishable from the others. No one can then point us out, measure us against others and expose our inferiority.”
See my comment above about individuality and Progs. It’s anathema to their philosophy and worldview.
Mises expresses the same point in “The Anti-Capitalist Mentality.”
I find it bizarre that they are capable of dividing identities down into smaller and smaller groups, yet they despise individualism. It’s a cognitive dissonance of massive proportions.
“The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.”
Ayn Rand
I know she’s gotten torn down a lot, but I still think she was brilliant. Her fiction was meh, but her non-fiction is powerhouse stuff. Her family fled the Revolution and she watched it happen as a teen. She knew exactly what was up.
“Philosophy: Who Needs It” is a favorite of mine.
I made my youngest daughter read it. It has a treasured place on my shelf. Glad I’m not the only reader of relatively obscure philosophical tracts, Scruff.
Ozy, I’ll agree that she wasn’t a great fiction writer. Have to admit that Galt’s speech in Atlas Shrugged isn’t for the attention-span challenged. But her definition of a moral code stuck with me from the first reading lo these many years ago.
Fine article and your observation about the group assuming some personality characteristics of the leader is right on the money. *shudders when he thinks of the state of current politics*
I love it every time this discussion comes up. 😀
Galt’s speech, blurgh.
Galt, blurgh.
Hank, nom nom nom.
Fountainhead > Atlas Shrugged
Dominique > Dagny
MYB – I’m a Rand fan, probably a pretty serious one by any reasonable definition or a look at my bookshelf. I like her fiction, too, I just think that people use shortcomings in her writing (of fiction) as a bait-and-switch to denigrate her underlying philosophical points w/o actually addressing them. You will be hard-pressed to find anyone on the left willing to seriously engage with her non-fiction and that’s because (imo) when not limited by literary devices – i.e. when she writes straight non-fiction – the clarity of her thought is better displayed. Not to say she still doesn’t have some faults or holes, but boy, Atlas Shrugged is starting to look like 1984 for predictive power.
TARDIS – I have to go check the “pendings,” but I think TPTB out this one first and my original defense of Greg second. I think that way may run next week, so… there may be some repetition, but… *shrugs.* I submitted them one after the other and I probably should have said something about them being sequential.
Got it.?
Yep. The original is scheduled for Tuesday, so… you’ve already got an excused absence. 😉
De Blasio assigns 27 cops to guard BLM graffiti.
I was thinking the other day what a good job the Netflix series of Luke Cage did of painting a thoroughly evil corrupt NY politician in Alfre Woodard’s portrayal of Black Mariah. I’m sure there was a lot of zeitgeisty “#justice” stuff in there but that was a good show overall, and the other four series were mostly entertaining, too.
So… BLM is unquestionably a political movement, and it is a political activist organization. Even the supporters of that i think would agree. Would one of the lawyer types explain to me if that is a form of political speech paid by the government or is it government speech?
That has got to be so demoralizing. “Go guard graffiti made by a group that hates you and wishes you didn’t exist”. I really wonder if this is finally the time when police unions stop backing Dems.
NAPO no longer endorses Biden.
National Association of Police Organizations endorses Trump
http://www.repmetcalfe.com/News/17900/Latest-News/Metcalfe-Calls-on-Wolf-to-Resign-or-Face-Impeachment-
I mean, it’s not going to go anywhere…but i can still fap to it. Right?
Fascinating. Apparently two days ago we were attacked by fuzzy cub, or cuddly pup or whoever. But nobody was dumb enough to fall for it.
I’m lost.
“Cozy Bear” a Russian HaXxor unit.
“Death awaits you all with nasty, big pointy teeth!”
I think i soiled my suit
WBA loss today means Leeds United has clinched promotion to the Premier League. They need 1 pt to clinch the Championship title.
https://twitter.com/JohannaScharf/status/1283901922819350528
Oh dear. Now everyone will think that it’s the Utah Legislature and [[us]] that are pulling the strings.
From that Tweet thread:
“ Governor Kristi Noem
@govkristinoem
·
Jul 16
NEWS: South Dakota closed the 2020 budget year with a $19 million surplus. Despite challenges with #COVID19, we remain in a strong financial position.
South Dakota’s future remains bright because we kept our state open for business and we live within our means.”
I like her.
*splooge*
Would.
https://twitter.com/WSJ/status/1284164358705238021
Because this can’t be more “The MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION EVER”
Ginsburg just needs a pulse. Her clerks will take care of the rest.
Apparently she doesn’t even need that.
:SF Flashbacks:
:Sobs:
See comment 16 above
Yeah, but, like, i didn’t see those drugs fall out of my ass.
If Trump gets to choose another SCOTUS Justice the Oligarchy / merging of Government & Corporate Power will be complete.
Because Trump is the one that wants to merge corporate and government power. . .
SCOTUS will reverse on everything and put everyone back in chains!
Ahem…
“Penalchains”
Sadly you could probably combine the logic of Kelo with Selibus and come up with a reason why you could be enslaved by a private company, as long as it produced more tax revenue for the government.
Of course slavery to the government has always been legal.
So… since chains are taxed, we can put everyone in them?
I was born in East St. Louis, IL and attended a public grade school there from kindergarten thru 2nd grade. We moved in 1964 when the racial demographics of the city were 50/50 or likely tilted more black. I recall having no black kids in any of my classes. I vividly remember the playgrounds being segregated, not only by race but also by sex. There were 4 separate designated areas for lunch recess. Whether they were all the same size or other wise equal I don’t recall. But it was definitely school policy.
During High School and even after I would fill out job applications but seldom got a call back All my friends had no problems getting hired. I was puzzled. It was only years later that it occurred to me what might have been the cause. Back then job apps always had a form of this question: City and State of birth.
*takes a step back from Carp*
something that struck me early was how much garbage was on application forms that could never lead to anything but trouble; worse: what possible reason could anyone have for asking half of it?
I remember East St. Louis being a pleasant and vibrant place when I was wee tyke. Back in the early 80’s I went on a quest to search for our old house in E. St. Louis. Found it, all that remained were charred timbers that had collapsed into foundation.
Ouch. : (
Holy Crap – just the righteous indignation I needed today! Wonderful as always, Ozy – thank you!
My pleasure. I think I’m about to find my writing groove again. At least, that’s the plan.
The Muse seems to have returned and I’ve got a bunch of article ideas for here burbling in my head.
Gotta get them down on paper. I may try to do a serialized novel again, too, but fiction, if TPTB and the Glibertariat will suffer it.
Speaking of grooves, i’m thinking about a new band, I met a few guys, and already have followers, might be fun, I’ll find out tonight, Acid Party!
/I will babysit, not partake,
Yeahhhhh, YDAK! Let the beats flow, baby!
BhC Protests! closing the Beaches!
/We still get to play,
https://photos.app.goo.gl/nXmtyJgF3XXBjdrs7
Okay 1911 fans, go, or nogo?
$1,000 is my limit.
Maybe Evan can help! (check out the location of the owner)
Nice-looking piece.
I saw that. I thought about calling my MIL. She’s right there in Newburgh.
Awesome Ozy.
Good read. Thanks Ozy!
Best thing I ever read on Glibs. Thank you.