Category: Social Justice

How much more successful would Rishi Sunak have been if he had been born white?

by philg

The UK has a new prime minister. Because they could not find anyone 78-86, which Science proves is the age range in which a human exhibits optimum decision-making skills, they’ve chosen 42-year-old Rishi Sunak.

“Rishi Sunak to become first British PM of colour and also first Hindu at No 10” (Guardian):

Rishi Sunak is about to become the UK’s first prime minister of colour and the first Hindu prime minister, both milestones in Britain’s evolution as a multicultural and multi-faith society. … the UK has never had a black or brown prime minister before.

Neema Begum, assistant professor in British politics at the University of Nottingham, said Sunak’s appointment “shows how far ethnic minority representation has come in politics”. “Sunak as prime minister is not necessarily a cause for celebration for all ethnic minorities. It shouldn’t be used to refute the ongoing existence of racism or obscure the fact that there are well-documented systemic racial and ethnic inequalities in housing, health and education.”

“New British PM Rishi Sunak is richer than King Charles III. How wealthy is he and where did it come from?” (Forbes):

Rishi Sunak and his wife, Akshata Murty, have a combined net worth of around £730 million ($826 million), … That’s around twice the estimated wealth of King Charles III.

So… this guy overcame racism and, as a “brown” person navigated a society in which white privilege is a huge advantage. This leads to the question How much more successful would Rishi Sunak have been if he had been born white? Instead of having to wait to age 42, at what age would he have become prime minister? Instead of being worth $826 million, how much would he be worth if he’d enjoyed white privilege?

Here’s a recent sunny Saturday near the Palace of Westminster. Almost impossible to walk on the bridge because nobody can decide whether to walk on the left or on the right.

And a young Heroine of Faucism who is wearing a non-N95 mask as defense against an aerosol virus while on a 30-minute nearby London Eye ride in close proximity to the unmasked:

Just for fun, a photo at the top:

On the subject of systemic racism, a newspaper that I picked up on my way into a multi-million-dollar electric vehicle:

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The religion of Diversity and the failure of the recent UK government

by philg

“Liz Truss has appointed the most diverse cabinet ever.” (Guardian, 9/7/2022):

None of the four most senior jobs in the British government will be held by a white man.

We are informed that Diversity leads to superior results and that this has been proven as a Scientific fact. “There is a wealth of research that says diverse teams perform better because each team member brings a different perspective to the table.” (NYT 2018). “Why Diverse Teams Are Smarter” (Harvard Business Review, 2019):

In recent years a body of research has revealed another, more nuanced benefit of workplace diversity: nonhomogenous teams are simply smarter.

So the Liz Truss government was more diverse and more intelligent than any previous British government. Science would have predicted high performance for this group. Yet the same folks who tell us that diverse teams are better says that the Liz Truss team was incompetent:

Prime Minister Liz Truss announced on Thursday that she would resign, just days after her new finance minister reversed virtually all of her planned tax cuts, sweeping away a free-market fiscal agenda that promised a radical policy shift for Britain but instead plunged the country into weeks of economic and political turmoil.

Ms. Truss’s political viability had become tenuous after her proposals for broad unfunded tax cuts roiled markets and sent the pound’s value plunging. She suffered a grave blow on Monday, when her newly appointed chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, said that the government was undoing the last vestiges of Ms. Truss’s tax proposals.

That announcement constituted one of the most dramatic reversals in modern British political history, and a humiliating repudiation of Ms. Truss’s leadership. In recent weeks, support for her Conservative Party had collapsed in opinion polls and unrest among its lawmakers intensified, undermining her ability to remain in office.

How do we maintain our faith in the religion of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion after this spectacular failure? Do we point out that not enough people on the Liz Truss team were members of the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community? (and do they have the “2S” over there?)

Speaking of diversity and “2S”, the Elizabeth Warren section of the Diana, Princess of Wales’ Memorial Playground:

Going forward, Britain will feature high tax rates and rule by white men? Here’s the new money guy:

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Math for Democrats: 30 is less than 19

by philg

“Young Aviation Record-Setters Share Secrets to Success at 2022 NBAA-BACE” (NBAA.org, today):

Barrington Irving, founder and CEO of Flying Classroom, moved with his family from Jamaica to the U.S. and grew up in a rough neighborhood in Miami. In 2010, at age 23, he became the youngest and first African-American to fly solo around the world.

Shaesta Waiz, founder and president of Dreams Soar, came to the United States from Afghanistan with her family and quickly became fascinated with aviation. In 2017 that drove her, at age 30, to become the youngest single-engine pilot at the time to circumnavigate the globe solo.

Unless Mr. Irving had a multi-engine airplane, which a Google search reveals is false (he flew a Columbia/Cessna 400), we are forced to conclude that 30 is less than 23. Folks who remember Matt Guthmiller’s 2014 flight are forced to conclude that 30 is less than 19. (The current record-holder was just 17 years old at the time (August 2022).)

Here’s a problematic paragraph:

“To be honest, I did not resonate with Amelia Earhart,” Waiz said. “Yes, she’s a woman. But she had such a different background than me. When I read Barrington’s story and how he kind of grew up in the ghetto of Miami – a similar background to how I grew up – and I saw that he did it, that was my proof that I could do it, too.”

I hope that she was not saying “I figured that if a Black person could do it then it must be pretty easy”!

In case the article is memory-holed:

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Climate Change and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Aviation

by philg

Starting right now at NBAA in Orlando… “Climate Risks & Business Aviation” taught by a friend from Maskachusetts (an aviation lender):

Join us for an introduction, categorization and explanation of the climate risks facing business aviation. We’ll also include predictions and estimations of the impact climate has on the industry. Participants will walk away from this session with a better understanding of why this is so relevant for our industry, and how climate risks could impact the industry’s future survival.

The first casualty of climate change is diversity, apparently, because “DE&I in Business Aviation – Practical Implementation” is scheduled to conflict with the above:

How can a variety of business aviation organizations, like aircraft operators, FBOs and other service providers, successfully introduce diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) principles into their daily operations? Attend this session to get guidance and practical tips to building your organization’s DE&I strategy.

Hope to see everyone there!

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Should we start a $36.6 million GoFundMe for Oberlin College?

by philg

From the Daily Mail:

Woke institution Oberlin College has finally paid out the full $36.5 million it owes an Ohio bakery it defamed with false racism claims, one week after the store owners begged college officials to pay up.

The liberal arts college had been ordered to pay after jurors ruled that it had, in fact, defamed Gibson’s Bakery by blasting the institution as racist after a storeowner chased down three black students who stole from the business in November 2016.

With legal fees and interest, the amount rose to over $36.5 million.

Oberlin College had tried to appeal the case to the Ohio Supreme Court, which announced on August 30 it would not take up the issue.

Finally, in a statement on Thursday, the college announced it ‘has initiated payment in full of the $36.59 million judgment in the Gibson’s Bakery case and is awaiting payment information from the plaintiffs.

Former Oberlin dean of students Meredith Raimondo led the woke mob’s attacks against Gibson’s, and even turned up outside the business to screech accusations while toting a bullhorn.

While named as a defendant in the suit, she won’t have to pony up any of the cash.

And despite the disgrace she heaped on her former employer, Raimondo has now landed a cozy job at Oglethorpe Liberal Arts College in Atlanta, and has yet to speak over her role in the costly scandal.

Who will join me in starting a GoFundMe for Oberlin?

Let’s see what’s important to Oberlin right now. From the Mission and Values page:

Related:

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Following the Science at Columbia University

by philg

Prepping for a deposition last month in an inter partes review, a guy joined the call who is in his first year at Columbia University’s Law School (he knows enough about patents that it would make more sense for him to be teaching at Columbia, but that’s irrelevant for our purposes). Of course, after asking whether his student loans have already been canceled, I asked what percent of the righteous Ivy Leaguers were wearing masks in class. “100 percent,” he responded. “It’s required for at least the first few weeks of the semester.” Are the Scientists wearing N95 masks? “Cloth masks aren’t allowed, but you don’t need an N95 mask. A surgical mask is okay.”

In “COVID-19 Precautions for Fall 2022”, Columbia says “Students are required to be vaccinated” and “Masking will be required everywhere indoors when the COVID-19 risk is high”, but apparently this is an add-on idea that somehow the first part of the semester is the riskiest (students will get cleaner every day that they spend in the respiratory-virus-free environment of Manhattan).

What is our young colleague going to learn? Let’s check in at

They have a statement on the Supreme Court’s latest outrage:

This opinion is a devastating setback for the long-term struggle for sex equality, bodily autonomy, civil rights, and basic dignity for all. While we do not expect progress to be linear, we do expect our highest court to serve as gatekeeper to the foundational values in which our nation is rooted—equality, liberty, dignity, justice—rather than using their power to dismantle well established constitutional norms, causing the pain and suffering of millions in its wake.

Restrictions on abortion are a fundamental equality issue because: (1) Abortion is singled out for more onerous treatment than other medical procedures that carry similar or greater risks; (2) Restrictions further perpetuate harmful and discriminatory gender stereotypes that limit equal participation in society; …

(Is there a medical procedure that carries greater risks to a 33-week-old baby than abortion care (perfectly legal at all stages of pregnancy in Maskachusetts)?)

What if he wants to save $25,000 on his third year? The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion page:

The Fellowship in Support of Careers in Racial and Social Justice, provides a $25,000 grant in the fall of the 3L year to J.D. students who intend to pursue racial justice legal work after graduation and/or students of color who intend to pursue other social justice legal work after graduation.

So the tax-exempt federally-funded institution will allocate these $25,000 grants according to race and/or willingness to follow Justin Trudeau’s example. This has to be legal/Constitutional since the Law School knows everything about law.

Separately, here’s an ad posted within our local Costco:

“Air is life. Make it perfect.” Columbia Law School seems to share this perspective. Make air perfect by adding a saliva-soaked mask in front of your face!

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Palm Beach County Library Kids’ Section

by philg

I was on a call with an MIT professor who, after expressing his horror at the post-Roe age in which we somehow live, expressed the belief that the dictatorship of Ron DeSantis has prevented libraries in Florida from stocking the books that Americans should be reading now. I said “DeSantis and the state can say and do whatever they want, but ultimately it is counties that decide what books to buy. If you walk into the kids’ section of our local Palm Beach County library you would see all of the same books featured in all of the same ways as in Lexington, Massachusetts or Newton, MA. You would have to dig deep, for example, to find a book describing the achievements of a white cisgender heterosexual male.”

After voting in the primary (Ron DeSantis and affiliated thugs attempted to suppress my vote by demanding ID, but I thwarted this attempt by bringing my wallet), I took a few photos in our local library. All of these are from the kids/juvenile section.

Would a child get the impression that there was anything less than glorious about the 2SLGBTQQIA+ lifestyle? Not from reading Heather Has Two Mommies, he/she/ze/they wouldn’t.

Is there anything unusual about changing one’s gender or being “genderqueer”? No.

Is it a beautiful thing when members of the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community kick a soccer ball as expertly as a 14-year-old boy? Yes.

Gender ID can change at any moment, but it turns out that nearly all engineering and scientific advances were made by people with a particular gender ID:

And gender ID of the subject turns out to be a big factor in whether a book will be featured:

The entire world is being destroyed because there are too many humans living the American high-CO2 lifestyle. At the same time, we should expand our population by 200+ million via immigration from low-CO2 countries.

Kids can prep for a lucrative career in the nonprofit sector:

One final way to guarantee being featured by the librarians:

Related:

  • “American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Randi Weingarten admitted to sharing a false tweet claiming that certain books were banned in Florida on Sunday.” (Hate Central)
  • “Fact check: Fake list of banned Florida books circulates widely online” (USA Today): “While school districts can ban books through a process created by the new law, Florida has not banned any books at the state level, a spokesperson for Gov. Ron DeSantis told USA TODAY. In fact, several works on the list have been recommended to school districts by the state Department of Education.” [Is it accurate to say that a book was “banned” because a school district no longer promotes it to students and the book remains available at the nearest public library?]
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Can Black Americans get a huge discount on property tax?

by philg

“Home Appraised With a Black Owner: $472,000. With a White Owner: $750,000.” (New York Times, August 18):

Last summer, Nathan Connolly and his wife, Shani Mott, welcomed an appraiser into their house in Baltimore, hoping to take advantage of historically low interest rates and refinance their mortgage.

But 20/20 Valuations, a Maryland appraisal company, put the home’s value at $472,000, and in turn, loanDepot, a mortgage lender, denied the couple a refinance loan.

Dr. Connolly said he knew why: He, his wife and three children, aged 15, 12 and 9, are Black. A professor of history at Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Connolly is an expert on redlining and the legacy of white supremacy in American cities, and much of his research focuses on the role of race in the housing market.

Months after that first appraisal, the couple applied for another refinance loan, removed family photos and had a white male colleague — another Johns Hopkins professor — stand in for them. The second appraiser valued the house at $750,000.

The industry standard, in other words, if we are to believe the Newspaper of Science, is to apply a 37 percent discount to a Black-occupied house.

An appraised-low house is a curse if you’re the typical spend-like-a-drug-dealer American and want to pull the last dollar of home equity out to spend on bling. But an appraised-low house is a blessing if you’re faced with paying the annual property tax bill.

I’m wondering what this means for sharing out the property tax burden in the U.S. Wouldn’t most members of the laptop class eagerly grab their one Black friend to stand in for them when the local tax assessor comes buy to set the house’s value for property tax purposes? Let’s consider the appraisal discrepancy that affected Dr. Connolly, M.D., above: $278,000. At Baltimore’s 2.25 percent property tax rate, a subtraction of $278,000 in assessed value would save $62,550 over a 10-year period.

Here’s some new construction near the Stuart, Florida airport, maybe evidence that someone managed the PPP and other coronarelief programs correctly. I’m betting that he/she/ze/they would pay good money to a Black family willing to move in for a couple of hours while Martin County’s assessors try to figure out how much to hit them for.

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When the going gets tough, send in the Chief Diversity Officer

by philg

This summer we stayed in a hotel that was hosting a Knanaya Catholic Congress of North America convention. There were some very fine people attending the KCCNA convention, but others couldn’t resist partying until 4 or 5 am in the hallway outside our room and there were elevator issues. I decided to see if there was a way to contact Marriott’s “unhappy customer” line. Here’s the “Customer Care” section of the Bonvoy app:

What is the #1 concern of a hotel guest who requests “care”? “Where Can I Find Information on Diversity & Inclusion?”

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United Airlines at Oshkosh

by philg

First time at the Oshkosh airshow for United Airlines. Their senior captains did some yanking and banking in a 777 in front of the crowd. The most frightening maneuver was approaching the crowd (west side of the runway) from the east in a dive and then climbing over the crowd. Some years ago I was in one of the jump seats of an empty Boeing 757 being ferried out of JFK and the captain put the plane into a 40-degree bank so that a friend on the ground could get a photo. The avionics were unhappy, shouting “bank angle, bank angle” repeatedly.

As the plane carved up the sky, the United announcer proudly disclosed the quota-based hiring policy for the company’s new flying school. Only 20 percent of the slots would be available for white males while 80 percent would be allocated to “women” (however that term is defined by the airline’s team of biologists) and “people of color” (however that term is defined by the airline’s team of diversity consultants). Curiously, there is no quota for student pilots who identify as 2SLGBTQQIA+. Numerous folks sitting near me grumbled angrily on hearing the airline’s plan of sex- and race-based discrimination. It is unclear why United thought that this message would be warmly received by the audience at Oshkosh. General aviation is overwhelmingly white, male, old, and conservative. The young people there who talked about pursuing a dream of professional aviation were also overwhelmingly white and male (i.e., they’d have to fight for the 20 percent scrap at the United school). Here’s the United AVIATE booth within the “EAA Career Center”:

It seems that United has taken over Lufthansa’s old school in Goodyear, Arizona, perhaps because Lufthansa could no longer get students in and out due to coronapanic. Cirrus SR20s with air conditioning are used for primary training.

If United were serious about diversifying its pilot group, the company would offer a “no-overnight” schedule (see Ryanair: airline that is not a hotel customer for how the world’s lowest cost airline does this). Right now, the only people who can consider flying for the U.S. airlines are people who are willing to be away from friends and family up to 22 days per month (trending down to 10 or 11 for the most senior pilots in a seat, but it can take decades to reach this level of seniority as a captain at a major U.S. airline). This makes it a terrible job for anyone who might become a parent. When the mostly-at-home spouse files the inevitable divorce lawsuit, he/she/ze/they is a slam-dunk winner to obtain primary custody, a free house, and a river of child support cash under a typical U.S. state’s family law that looks to see “who was the primary historical caregiver of these now-lucrative children?” How many women want to fly around for a few years and then spend the rest of their lives paying a former husband to hang out at home with what used to be her kids plus some new sex partners from Tinder?

If we visit the EAA official merchandise market, we can learn that pilot and astronaut are already jobs held exclusively by females.

Airplane constructor is also exclusively a woman’s job, according to EAA’s merchandise selection. Here is the only plane-builder featured:

Pilots identifying as “women” can get a free T shirt and participate in a variety of exclusive events at Oshkosh under the rubric of WomenVenture, a 15-year-old event started just in time for the term “women” to become undefined. As a measure of progress, what had been the “innovation” pavilion at Oshkosh, showcasing new technologies, is now the “WomenVenture Center” (complete with pink theme).

Meanwhile, gender ID is somewhat less fraught at the SOS Brothers tent, “BeerVenture” until some litigation with EAA forced a re-titling. Here are the “bikini bartenders” that EAA complained about in its lawsuit:

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