Category: Social Justice

Your tax dollars at work: UCLA’s “director of race”

by philg

“UCLA race and equity official placed on leave over social media posts about Charlie Kirk killing” (ABC):

UCLA’s director of race and equity has been placed on leave over social media posts he made about the killing of Charlie Kirk, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday.

Jonathan Perkins, an official with UCLA’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Office, apparently published the remarks on BlueSky. The posts seemed to express both satisfaction and indifference to the fatal shooting of the conservative activist.

The posts were “written in my own hand, in my own voice, in no way the echo of my employer, UCLA,” Perkins said in a written statement provided to The Times, adding that they were protected by the First Amendment.

“It’s a truly sad day. My livelihood could ultimately be threatened for stating, in the clearest terms, that I felt no grief at the death of an avowed white nationalist- (a) man who dedicated his life to despising mine, to despising my people, to despising our very existence,” Perkins’s statement said. “I am devastated to learn of higher ed colleagues around the country, facing similar and much worse consequences, including termination. I admit, I thought UCLA was different. I hope we are.”

What I find interesting about this is that taxpayers, both California and federal, are forced to work extra hours every week in order to pay someone to be “director of race” in a society where a government-run enterprise isn’t supposed to be able to consider race (14th Amendment). (Why would taxpayers in Arkansas and Maine have to pay, you might ask? Despite decrying inequality, California universities insist on feeding at the federal trough rather than using state tax dollars and leaving the federal money for universities in poorer-than-average stages, such as the Islamic Republic of Michigan.)

What did the Director of Race at UCLA have to say? From the Daily Mail:

These sentiments are a little different from what my Democrat friends in Maskachusetts have said. They mostly say that they’re happy that Charlie Kirk was killed (and sad that Donald Trump wasn’t), but it isn’t personal as it apparently was with Director of Race Perkins. The Maskachusetts Democrats didn’t like what Charlie Kirk had to say and are happy that he was killed because now he can’t say anything more.

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Latino Conservation Week

by philg

Today is the first day of Latino Conservation Week (not to be confused with Latinx Conservation Week, the (Deplorable) Latino Conservative Week, or the (turncoat) Latinx Conservative Week). From Audubon, the society named after a notorious advocate for slavery:

LCW events are inclusive of all communities but, in particular, are events that break down barriers Latino communities face when it comes to outdoor recreation and/or conservation efforts.

The National Park Service, under the cruel divisive tyranny of Donald Trump, doesn’t seem to be observing this “inclusive of all communities” week. Their web page on the subject dates to your tax dollars being at work in 2024:

(Despite Joe Biden’s advocacy for 2SLGBTQQIA+ community, note the government’s failure to use the correct gender-inclusive term “Latinx”.)

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NFL teams are free to choose a social justice message for this season

by philg

ESPN:

The NFL is continuing its on-field social justice messaging for a sixth straight season.

All 32 teams will feature an end zone message of their choice at each home game throughout the season, selecting from four options: “End Racism,” “Stop Hate,” “Choose Love” or “Inspire Change.” Once again, “It Takes All of Us” will be stenciled in the opposite end zone for all games. The only change from 2024 is that “Inspire Change” replaces “Vote.”

It’s “an end zone message of their choice” but all possible messages that can be chosen have been preselected for the teams. A team that wished to say “End Poverty”, for example, would not be free to make that choice. (One great way to end poverty would be for everyone who currently spends money on NFL tickets to instead donate that money to the poor! Another great way would be for everyone who watches NFL games on TV to instead work a gig job for those hours and donate the earnings to the poor.)

Who will be watching tonight’s game, the first of the season, and can let us know what social justice messages were communicated?

Separately, if you’re watching an NFL game on CBS make sure to turn off the TV before the news comes on. Bari Weiss, a traitor to the social justice cause (former NYT journalist), is going to be corrupting what had been a socially just news organization (from the NY Post):

Apparently, journalists who aren’t progressive Democrats are so rare that it cost CBS $200 million to hire one. Just how Deplorable is Bari Weiss? Here’s a recent Free Press article that contradicts progressives’ most authoritative source for health-related information (i.e., the Gaza Health Ministry):

See, also, “Another Reason Not to Trust the ‘Experts’”:

The International Association of Genocide Scholars calls itself a body of experts, but joining requires only a form and a fee. Members include parody accounts like ‘Mo Cookie’ and ‘Emperor Palpatine.’

My comment on this august body of scholars:

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Democrat economists hate Black women (NYT)

by philg

The New York Times:

Years before Lisa Cook became President Trump’s latest target in his effort to exert control over the Federal Reserve, she wrote about her experience as one of a relative handful of Black women in a field long dominated by white men.

“Economics is neither a welcoming nor a supportive profession for women,” she and a colleague wrote in a New York Times opinion essay in 2019. She added, “But if economics is hostile to women, it is especially antagonistic to Black women.”

What is the overwhelming political identity of those who are hostile to women in general and Black women in particular? “Political Affiliations of Federal Reserve Economists” (2022):

According to a new analysis of voter registration data, Democrat economists at the Federal Reserve outnumber Republicans 10 to 1. The imbalance is even larger among economists in leadership positions, among younger economists, and among female economists.

Previous studies look at the political ideologies of the broader economic profession. For instance, Langbert, Quain, and Klein (2016) report that Democrats outnumber Republicans 4.5:1 among economics faculty at 40 leading universities. In addition, Langbert (2020) finds a ratio of 4:1 among members of the American Economic Association (AEA), 4.1:1 among academic AEA members, and 2.5:1 among AEA members working outside academia and government. Earlier, Klein and Stern (2006) estimateds the ratio at 4.1:1 among public sector economists and 1.4:1 among private sector economists. McEachern (2006) shows Democrats outnumber Republicans 5.1:1 among AEA members in terms of political contributions.

I find that the ratio of Democrats to Republicans among Fed economists is 10.4 to 1. The lack of political diversity is especially pronounced at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (48.5:1). Economists at regional Reserve banks range from 3:1 (Cleveland) to 12:1 (San Francisco). The lack of diversity is also noteworthy in leadership positions (22.25:1). Economists who are 40 years old or younger at the Fed are more likely to lean left (20.33:1), as are female economists (27.5:1). This suggests the Fed is likely to become even less politically diverse in time.

We are informed that if Republicans were eliminated (liquidated?) the U.S. would become a paradise of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Yet it seems that the discrimination that has kept and continues to keep qualified Black women from assuming leadership positions at the Fed has been almost entirely perpetrated by Democrats.

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Diversity tour of Shaker Heights near Cleveland, Ohio

by philg

Photos taken walking around a rich white neighborhood of Shaker Heights, Ohio back in July…

Joe Biden won 90 percent of the vote among the folks here (Wikipedia). Quite a few houses sported political signs, 100 percent of them advocating for progressive Democrat points of view. Example from a $1 million house (a fortune by Rust Belt standards!):

Maybe the owner doesn’t want to replace the sign with one that is better condition because that wouldn’t communicate that he/she/ze/they has had a longstanding relationship with Black Lives Matter. What would happen if a Black Life from Cleveland proper wanted to dip into the “public” Shaker Heights swimming pool? Unless accompanied by a resident, he/she/ze/they would be excluded due to non-residency:

We did find some genuine diversity in the Van Aken District. One visitor was dressed in a full burqa with eye slit. Her companion wore a modest abaya with parts of her face showing and everything else covered. They walked by this clothing store whose message wasn’t exactly Islamic:

None of the closeted conservatives of Shaker Heights had the temerity to display any political message outside of their homes. One of the better examples of independent thinking was this house with a “resist” sign, an upside-down American flag, and a Ukrainian flag:

A sampling of the signs in front of some other $1 million houses:

I wonder if these signs help maintain neighborhood political monoculture by discouraging anyone who disagrees with the posted messages from buying a house. This would result in an increase in happiness among residents, according to Harvard University research as covered by the New York Times: “The downside of diversity” (2007).

But a massive new study, based on detailed interviews of nearly 30,000 people across America, has concluded just the opposite. Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam — famous for “Bowling Alone,” his 2000 book on declining civic engagement — has found that the greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects. In the most diverse communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in the most homogenous settings. The study, the largest ever on civic engagement in America, found that virtually all measures of civic health are lower in more diverse settings.

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If Zohran Mamdani were Ugandan would that have made his claim to be “Black or African-American” more fair?

by philg

The New York Times, which said that anything negative about the Biden family was Russian disinformation, jumped immediately on a story regarding the progressive on track to be New York City’s next mayor: “Mamdani Identified as Asian and African American on College Application”.

The implication of the article is that it would have been righteous for Zohran Mamdani to check the “I am Black” box for a race-based preference if he had actually been Ugandan rather than part of an immigrant population from India.

Today’s question is why it would have been fair for a recent immigrant from Uganda, even one with the correct skin color, to receive preference in college admissions or hiring. America’s race-based college admissions and jobs allocation systems were advertised as reparations for past discrimination and slavery. If someone who shows up in the U.S. five minutes ago scoops up these preferences doesn’t that prevent the preferences from going to the people for whom they were intended? What discrimination could an actual Black Ugandan who arrived in the U.S. yesterday, for example, have suffered at the hands of the bad people (i.e., white Americans)?

The idea of affirmative action (race-based discrimination by do-gooders or white-/Asian-haters, depending on your perspective) was started by President Lyndon Johnson via Executive Order 11246 in 1965. This was, coincidentally, at a point when immigrants weren’t a significant percentage of the U.S. population (Pew):

(Note that the open borders of the Biden-Harris administration made the above 2015 forecast inaccurate. The U.S. became 15.8 percent foreign-born in 2025 (CIS).)

Even though Donald Trump has gotten the federal government out of the race-based discrimination business we still have private corporations and universities engaging in it. The question for today: Why are race-based preferences available to immigrants?

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T-Mobile ends race discrimination, but not because it was wrong

by philg

“T-Mobile disconnects from DEI under pressure from Trump administration” (USA Today):

T-Mobile is scrapping its diversity, equity and inclusion programs under pressure from President Donald Trump’s administration as it looks for regulators to green-light two major acquisitions.

In a letter to the Federal Communications Commission dated July 8, the wireless carrier said it would discontinue DEI policies “not just in name, but in substance.”

“We recognize that the legal and policy landscape surrounding DEI under federal law has changed,” T-Mobile wrote.

Here’s the correct analysis, I think:

“In yet another cynical bid to win FCC regulatory approval, T-Mobile is making a mockery of its professed commitment to eliminating discrimination, promoting fairness and amplifying underrepresented voices,” FCC commissioner Anna Gomez, a Democrat, wrote on X. “History will not be kind to this cowardly corporate capitulation.”

How is it possible for a company to abandon one of its sacred principles without at least pretending to have changed its mind, e.g., saying “What we did in the past was wrong”? It’s okay to say “We thought we could make more money by adopting a completely new moral system”?

In a similar vein… “Trump administration releases $175 million in federal funding to Penn after transgender athletes agreement” (CNN):

The funding release comes after the school reached an agreement with the federal government to block transgender athletes from female sports teams and erase the records set by swimmer Lia Thomas.

The university previously said “Lia Thomas is a woman”. If the Feds had threatened to take away $1 the school presumably would have continued to say “Lia Thomas is a woman”. There was some amount of money, however, at which Lia Thomas’s gender ID changed. But what was that amount of money? Would Penn have been willing to say “Lia Thomas is not a woman” for $1 million? $5 million?

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The #Resistance in Bangor, Maine

by philg

What does a gathering of diversity advocates who’ve chosen to live in the whitest part of America’s whitest state look like? June 11, 2025, Bangor, Maine:

As in Park City, Utah, the city officially supports Pride with tax dollars by placing Biden-style trans-enhanced Rainbow Flags on every downtown lamppost:

The U.S. quasi-embassy in Taiwan explains, using your federal tax dollars, that these official city-purchased flags are missing the intersex circle:

I hope that the Taiwanese, thus educated, won’t make the same mistake as the City of Bangor!

Within a block of the rally, a “Pride Proud” church that believes Black Lives Matter even if no member of the congregation has seen a Black person lately (not shown: a guy coming out of the church wearing a “Let Gaza Live” button; the IDF would have a tough time indeed if Maine progressives turned their words into action!):

A fabric/yarn store a few steps away:

President Trump apparently sent tanks to Bangor to quell any unrest (spotted the next morning):

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