Category: Social Justice

CIA Officer: My existence is not a box-checking exercise

by philg

“I am perfectly made” and “My existence is not a box-checking exercise”:

(Note that I disagree with this Twitter user’s comment, “I think it’s safe to say the contemporary American left has failed.” First, I don’t think politics in the U.S. is supported by any coherent philosophy and therefore there is no “left” or “right”. Second, to the extent that checking victimhood boxes is associated with “left”, this ad would be evidence that the contemporary American left has succeeded.)

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Derek Chauvin conviction makes us less safe in the long run?

by philg

As predicted in How’s the Derek Chauvin trial going?, the jury agreed with the government and the rest of Derek Chauvin’s life will be at taxpayer expense, as planned, but in a prison rather than a squad car or at a desk.

Short-term positive: we don’t all have to pay higher insurance premiums to cover $billions in losses from mostly peaceful protests that would have followed an acquittal ($1-2 billion in damage from last summer’s, according to Wikipedia).

I wonder if the long-term consequences of conviction will be negative for Americans who interact with the police. Once this one bad apple is locked away, nobody will be motivated to consider whether police should be unionized and therefore effectively immune from the consequences of any misconduct short of appearing to kill someone in custody on a video recording.

In the comments to the first Chauvin-related post, I cited an NPR story: “After police officers gained access to collective bargaining rights, there was a substantial increase in the killings of civilians — overwhelmingly, nonwhite civilians.”

Having more non-white police officers won’t help, based on the George Floyd killing, since two of the four officers involved were non-white. My comment regarding those other officers:

[what Chauvin was doing] was plainly something that other police officers in Minneapolis though was okay because three of them were there on the scene and didn’t try to stop Chauvin. Now, however, his brother/sister/binary-resister officers are coming out to say that what Chauvin did was way off the reservation (and we don’t need Elizabeth Warren to tell us how bad that is).

If they can paint Chauvin as a single bad apple then they can keep the system in place indefinitely ($300,000+/year total compensation, practical immunity from almost any wrongdoing via unionization, etc.). They can say “We convicted Chauvin so now #ProblemSolved and #MissionAccomplished.”

Senorpablo’s response:

the fact that ALL FOUR of these guys didn’t have the sense to not kill a guy in broad daylight only emphasizes the level of systemic corruption in law enforcement. Not one of these guys had the sense and stones to prevent Chauvin from killing another man and also ruining his own life? I expect the same authority and power complex that police display towards the public probably exist in their own hierarchy. Police are put on the hero pedestal–we must give them tremendous latitude and we can’t possibly fire them because what they do is so dangerous(it isn’t at all). It’s a great marketing job done by the unions or whomever. It seems like the majority of police training focus on their safety and well being, at the expense of those who they are paid to serve. It’s a completely voluntary job so this seems backwards to me.

If 1-4 guys are convicted and imprisoned, it isn’t “systemic corruption” as Senorpablo put it, but 1-4 guys who are outliers.

The research psychologists say that what we consider to be fundamental personality characteristics are actually artifacts of the environment we’re in. People behave consistently because we tend to see people in the same environment over and over. If the psychologists are right, Chauvin’s behavior was strongly influenced by the environment he was in (unionized police officer in which it is almost impossible to be fired).

Since Elizabeth Warren was mentioned above, I can’t resist pointing out that she seems to be here in Jupiter, Florida with us:

Related:

  • Shooting of Justine Damond (George Floyd‘s life turned out to be worth more than Justine Damond’s, though Justine Damond had no criminal background (Floyd had been convicted of eight crimes); the city paid out $20 million to Damond’s family and $27 million to George Floyd’s. Imagine if these payments, instead of coming from taxpayers, were funded by reduced raises to the police!)
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How to run a quota-based operation in a transgender-friendly manner?

by philg

Pilot friends are still talking about the new United Airlines training operation in which half of the slots are reserved for people who fall into one or more victimhood categories (white women, Black men, anyone “of color”, etc.; see Fly the Quota Skies).

I’m a little confused as to how this can operate in a world where we recognize that gender ID, and therefore victimhood group membership, is fluid, transitory, and unmoored to our DNA and anatomy.

Suppose that Larry Localizer identifies as a “white male” through age 18. She decides, shortly before applying to train/work at United Airlines, that Loretta Localizer is a better fit for her current gender ID. If questioned, Loretta says “I am large, I contain multitudes [of gender IDs].” Loretta qualifies under whatever reduced standards United has for the “quota half” of the pool and is admitted. When she arrives on campus, however, she says “Call me Larry. I experienced some gender dysphoria over the summer and now I identify as a man.”

Now United’s carefully chosen mixture of trainees is messed up due to an excess of student pilots identifying as white males. I can see how a skin color-based quota system could work, assuming that applicants are denied the use of makeup or tanning beds, because United could apply an objective test with a color temperature meter. But how does a quota system based on gender ID work at an employer that #FollowsScience regarding LGBTQ?

United Airlines supports the “Transgender Law Center”, from which they might be hearing if they were to terminate Loretta/Larry due to her/his/zis/their gender fluidity.

Related:

  • “What it means to be gender-fluid” (CNN): For some people, gender is not just about being male or female; in fact, how one identifies can change every day or even every few hours. Gender fluidity, when gender expression shifts between masculine and feminine, can be displayed in how we dress, express and describe ourselves. [and how we apply for jobs at United!] Everyone’s gender exists on a spectrum, according to Dot Brauer, director of the LGBTQA Center at the University of Vermont. Progressive gender expression is the norm for the university, which offers gender-neutral bathrooms and allows students to use their preferred names.
  • “What Does It Mean to Be Gender Fluid? Here’s What Experts Say” (Health.com, reminding us to listen to “experts”): Because gender fluidity means not having a fixed, single sense of your gender, that gender could shift over time—during the course of a day, weeks, months, or years. “Whatever form gender fluidity takes, it is important to remember that it is a valid gender identity. It is not being flaky or ‘going through a phase,’” says Eckler. “So many other aspects of ourselves ebb and flow and shift that it only makes sense that our gender can, too.”
  • Facebook uses a Malibu-flying engineering manager to promote careers in engineering… (in which Facebook sends a pilot who identified as a “man” for 51 years to show teenagers identifying as “women” how easy it is to succeed in the world of nerds)
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Pacific Islanders won’t be safe on Uber?

by philg

Email received from the Righteous of Uber:

Let’s break this down a little…

The hate and violence against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders is heartbreaking.

There is hatred and violence against Group A and Group B.

We stand with our Asian-American friends, community, and team to strongly denounce these frightening and painful acts of hate.

Uber stands only with Group A (Asian Americans). Group B (Pacific Islanders) can fend for itself with private cars, public transit, walking, or perhaps sheltering in place? (14 days to flatten the curve on racism?)

Separately… “If you tolerate racism, delete Uber.” (is this another way to say “intolerance will not be tolerated” or is it more complex?)

Related:

  • Uber stands with the Black community (but won’t hire more than 0.8 percent Black “teach leaders”); Uber’s only email to me on the subject of #BLM was in June 2020. Apparently it was “one and done” for what Uber said were “problems we have faced for centuries”.
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Fly the Quota Skies

by philg

(those who identify as) White males need not apply… “United Sets New Diversity Goal: 50% of Students at New Pilot Training Academy To Be Women and People of Color”:

United Airlines, the only major U.S. airline to own a flight school, will begin accepting applications today as it embarks on an ambitious plan to train 5,000 new pilots by 2030, at least half of them women and people of color. Backed by scholarship commitments from United Airlines and JPMorgan Chase, United Aviate Academy will create opportunities for thousands of students, including women and people of color to pursue a career as a commercial airline pilot, one of the most lucrative careers in the industry.

In addition, for those United Aviate Academy students who may need additional financing, United has partnered with Sallie Mae to offer private student loans to ensure that no highly-qualified, highly-motivated, eligible applicants will be turned away solely because they can’t afford to enroll. United Aviate Academy expects to enroll 100 students in 2021.”Over the next decade, United will train 5,000 pilots who will be guaranteed a job with United, after they complete the requirements of the Aviate program – and our plan is for half of them to be women and people of color,” said United CEO Scott Kirby. “We’re excited that JPMorgan Chase has agreed to support our work to diversify our pilot ranks and create new opportunities for thousands of women and people of color who want to pursue a career in aviation.”To break down the financial barriers that limited access to the airline pilot career path for generations of women and people of color, United has committed to fund $1.2 million in scholarships. The airline’s credit card partner, JPMorgan Chase has also committed $1.2 million to support women and people of color who are accepted to United Aviate Academy.”We are proud to partner with United to support the Aviate Academy’s mission to enable thousands to pursue their dream as a commercial airline pilot,” said Ed Olebe, President of Chase Co-Brand Cards. “Investing in this program directly aligns with our efforts to advance racial equity by expanding career development opportunities and making tangible progress in a field where women and people of color are underrepresented.” United will leverage its long-standing relationships with a variety of organizations, including the Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals, Sisters of the Skies, the Latino Pilots Association and the Professional Asian Pilots Association to help identify and steer highly qualified, diverse candidates to the United Aviate Academy.

Looks like those who identify as Asians are “pilots of color” who can get in under this quota-based admissions system. This is good news considering that United has a Black Lives Matter pin for employees, but not a #StopAsianHate pin:

United thought that I would be thrilled to hear about this and emailed me, a loyal Mileage Plus member, this afternoon so that I would be sure not to miss it in the media.

This photo of an executive in the office is a good reminder to wear masks, but if Jessica is concerned about contracting coronavirus, why did he/she/ze/they go to work to begin with? He/she/ze/they is not a mechanic, pilot, flight attendant, or ramp worker. Why can’t he/she/ze/they work from home and #StopTheSpread?

(photo of Boston’s Logan Airport by Tony Cammarata, May 2020, from our Robinson R44 helicopter; your humble author at the controls)

Related:

  • “Pilot Sues Airline For Emotional Distress After Mechanical Failure Led To PTSD” (Plane & Pilot): A former QantasLink pilot is suing the regional carrier to the tune of $780,000 for suffering and damages from a case of PTSD she says was caused by a 2018 mechanical failure of one of the Boeing 717’s engines, which resulted in the shutdown of the engine and an emergency landing. … The plane landed without incident, and no one was injured. … She’s the first woman of color to wear a Qantas uniform, and she has received numerous awards for her work in aviation. She said recently, acknowledging the recognition she had earned for her historic place in Australian airline history, that her advice for younger Australians was, “People still stop me to congratulate me at how proud they are to see female pilot, let alone one of colour. My response is the same ‘Action Inspires Action’—you can achieve your dreams, too. Be the best possible human you can be.”
  • Does the United Airlines incident support Cicero’s point of view regarding wage labor?
  • Commercial flights during Coronapanic: a mostly mask-free experience
  • My visual approach, and Asiana’s (explains the havoc that a newbie can wreak in airline operations)
  • once an race-based hiring program is in place, the general public may use it to explain accidents. An ar15.com forum message: “I found the reason for the crash. Affirmative Action hire strikes again.” (regarding the loss of Atlas Air 3591, a Boeing 767 lost to spatial disorientation, more typically suffered by novice Private-rated pilots)
  • A simpler way for an American to obtain the spending power of an airline pilot, from the Massachusetts chapter of Real World Divorce: “There are a lot of women collecting child support from more than one man,” Nissenbaum noted. “I remember one enterprising young lady who worked as a waitress at Boston’s Logan airport. She targeted three airline pilots, had a child by each of them, and back then was collecting $25,000 in tax-free child support from each pilot. Of course, instead of serving food and beverages, she did have to care for those children.”
  • “United Airlines Fined $49m Over Fraud On Postal Service Contracts” (Simple Flying, February 27, 2021): The DOJ documents states that instead of providing USPS accurate delivery scans based on the shipment of the mail, United submitted automated delivery scans “based on aspirational delivery times.” These scans did not correspond to the actual transportation of the mail, as mandated by the contracts. Therefore, since there was no movement of the post, the Chicago-based carrier was not entitled to payment. However, it still secured payments of millions of dollars from USPS.
  • “United Found Willful in Age Discrimination” (Law Week Colorado)
  • “United Settles Charges in Case of Flight Route to Benefit Public Official” (U.S. SEC): According to the SEC’s order instituted today, United reinstated a nonstop flight between Newark, N.J., and Columbia, S.C., at the behest of David Samson, the then-chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey who sought a more direct route to his home in South Carolina. … the SEC’s order finds that United officials feared Samson’s influence could jeopardize United’s business interests before the Port Authority, including the approval of a hangar project to help the airline at Newark’s airport. The company ultimately decided to initiate the route despite the poor financial projections. The same day that United’s then-CEO approved initiation of the route, the Port Authority’s board approved the lease agreement related to the hangar project. United employees were told “no proactive communications” about the new route. … The route ultimately lost approximately $945,000 before it ceased again roughly around the time of Samson’s resignation from the Port Authority.
  • database of $144 million in fines imposed by the Federales against United, divided into fraud, employment discrimination ($48.8 million, even though, as demonstrated by this new program, sometimes discrimination is good!), aviation safety violation ($22 million), aviation consumer protection violation, etc.
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Is anti-racism primarily responsible for a white identity?

by philg

In a Clubhouse discussion back in February, an immigrant to the U.S. from China said that, in her opinion, our roughly nine months (so far) of #BLM and #SocialJustice was the primary driver behind people perniciously identifying as “white”. As far as she was concerned, prior to all of the efforts in “anti-racism”, people who happened to be white would primarily identify as “Italian” or “German-American” or “New Yorker” or “Dentist” or whatever. But with the constant media drumbeat of Black vs. white, Asian vs. white, and Pacific Islander vs. white, the former “Anglo-Scotch-American” now identifies as “white”.

Speaking of Pacific Islanders, how many white Americans know what a “Pacific Islander” is? Is there an organized group of white Americans who hate people from the Marquesas and Kiribati? Amazon thinks that there is. This look at my Amazon Prime app on launch, punctuated by a “We stand in solidarity with Asian and Pacific Islander communities. #StopAsianHate”, should give you a good idea of what life is like in our household….

Or maybe Amazon’s Artificial Intelligence has figured out that people who watch Foghorn Leghorn are haters of Melanesians? There are quite a few problematic Foghorn Leghorn quotes:

  • “That woman’s as cold as a nudist on an iceberg” (Cuomo after a typical meeting with voters?)
  • “He’s so dumb he thinks a Mexican border pays rent”
  • “Hmmm, bare, I say bare as a cooch dancers midriff” (Hunter Biden?)
  • “That dog’s like taxes, he just don’t know when to stop”
  • “Gal reminds me of a highway between Forth Worth and Dallas – no curves”
  • Foghorn Leghorn : Let me guess, dearie. You’re looking for a husband.” Miss Prissy : Yes! Foghorn Leghorn : “Well, you’re going about it the wrong way, sister. You don’t bat ’em on the bean with a rolling pin. That comes later.”

but none of these bash our brothers, sisters, and binary resisters spread out on the other side of the International Date Line.

(The #StopAsianHate signs have begun to sprout in the Boston suburbs, incidentally, sometimes displacing #BLM signs and LGBTQIA+ rainbow symbols.)

Related:

  • “I Am Not Ready to Reenter White Society” (The Nation): As the pandemic wanes, and I have to leave the safety of my whiteness-free castle, I know that racism is going to come roaring back into my daily life. … Going out into white society for me is a little bit like a beekeeper going to get honey. I know what I’m doing: If I put on the right protection and blow enough smoke, most of the bees will leave me alone and the ones who don’t won’t really cause me that much pain. But I’ve got to put on the suit and the hat with the mesh and carry the smoke machine and be careful every time I want some goddamn honey. … With vaccination (I get my second shot next week) comes reentry into the larger society. I’ve been the “default” skin color in my personal life for a year, but as I open back up, I’ll be thrust again into a world where I’m treated like an “other,” one where white people feel empowered to just walk around like they own the place.
  • “Captain Underpants author withdraws book over ‘passive racism'” (Guardian): The Adventures of Ook and Gluk: Kung-Fu Cavemen from the Future, first published in 2010, follows two cavemen who travel to the year 2222 and meet Master Wong, a martial arts instructor. Last week, publisher Scholastic announced that it would stop distributing the book and remove all mention of it from its website, saying it had “the full support” of Pilkey. “Together, we recognise that this book perpetuates passive racism,” Scholastic said. “We are deeply sorry for this serious mistake.” (From Amazon, where the not-banned book was offered at $680, a 2017 review: “but what got to me about this book was Master Wong and his granddaughter Lan. Omg talk about drawing stereotypical Asian people! When master wong first appeared with his thin, line eyes (I’m not kidding, he literally has lines for eyes) I gritted my teeth and just continued reading. Sure, some Asians have small eyes, nothing wrong with that. But then Lan, Master Wong’s granddaughter also has the same damn line eyes! Like seriously bruh! You gonna draw Asians using this ancient ass stereotype? I would have deducted from the name Wong, the kung fu shop, and master Wong’s traditional Chinese outfit that he was Asian. I know it’s a kids book and people may say, don’t take it so seriously. But it’s micro aggressions like this that children who read this book will learn! Kids DO pick up on this stuff. Trust me, I’ve seen too many kids while I was growing up making pulling their eyes to make the slanted ‘Asian eyes.‘ It wasn’t funny then, and it’s not funny now, as it appears in this Pilkey book.” (a good barometer of social change; the book was universally acclaimed in 2011 and was too racist to sell in 2021)
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Both non-white residents of Vermont can now get a COVID vaccine

by philg

From the Vermont Department of Public Health:

If you or anyone in your household identifies as Black, Indigenous, or a person of color (BIPOC), including anyone with Abenaki or other First Nations heritage, all household members who are 16 years or older can sign up to get a vaccine.

A little more detail on this government program …

Related:

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Is the Passover story the original false victimhood narrative?

by philg

It’s still Passover and I hope that readers of the Jewish persuasion are enjoying their matzot! Nothing like a week of Matzah to make you appreciate Wonder Bread.

It’s also April Fools’ Day, in which we celebrate the credulous.

What if we combine these celebrations? Wikipedia:

The consensus of modern scholars is that the Bible does not give an accurate account of the origins of the Israelites. There is no indication that the Israelites ever lived in Ancient Egypt, and the Sinai Peninsula shows almost no sign of any occupation for the entire 2nd millennium BCE (even Kadesh-Barnea, where the Israelites are said to have spent 38 years, was uninhabited prior to the establishment of the Israelite monarchy). In contrast to the absence of evidence for the Egyptian captivity and wilderness wanderings, there are ample signs of Israel’s evolution within Canaan from native Canaanite roots. …

The biblical narrative contains some details which are authentically Egyptian, but such details are scant, and the story frequently does not reflect Egypt of the Late Bronze Age or even Egypt at all (it is unlikely, for example, that a mother would place a baby in the reeds of the Nile, where it would be in danger from crocodiles). Such elements of the narrative as can be fitted into the 2nd millennium could equally belong to the 1st, consistent with a 1st millennium BCE writer trying to set an old story in Egypt. (The name of Moses, for example, belongs to 1st millennium Egyptian, and would have been Mase in the 2nd).

A century of research by archaeologists and Egyptologists has found no evidence which can be directly related to the Exodus captivity and the escape and travels through the wilderness.

We Jews say that we were enslaved and forced to labor for the Egyptians, whose pay records of voluntary laborers (farmers in the off season) are well-preserved and for whom “slavery” meant subjecting non-Egyptians to a 20 percent income tax. We Jews say that we weren’t permitted to leave Egypt, but there is no record of Ancient Egypt having any controls or restrictions on emigration (as the richest and most advanced civilization in the region, why would substantial numbers of people have wanted to leave it?).

When proffering a tale of victimhood, details add credibility. Example from a Haggadah:

This Pharaoh made the Israelites slaves. He forced them to do hard labor, building cities with bricks made from clay and straw. The people knew neither peace nor rest, only misery and pain. The cruelest decree of all was Pharaoh’s order that every baby boy born to an Israelite woman be drowned in the River Nile.

In contemporary western nations, where the most valuable coin is victimhood, should Jews be credited with having developed the first false victimhood narrative?

And what about a contemporary victimhood narrative that is fit for April Fools’ Day? On a collective basis, maybe immigrants to the U.S. could get the prize. From “Immigrants May Be Fed False Stories to Bolster Asylum Pleas” (New York Times, 2011):

Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s accuser said in her 2004 asylum bid that she was gang-raped, and that soldiers destroyed her home, beating her and her husband, who she said died in jail. She recently admitted to prosecutors that she had been lying. Her lawyer, Kenneth P. Thompson, said she was desperate to leave Guinea, and had been encouraged to exaggerate her claims. She told Manhattan prosecutors that a man had given her a recording of the asylum story to memorize.

Whether here legally or illegally, immigrants can apply for asylum within one year of arriving. To qualify, they must show a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group — which could cover gays or abused women.

Immigration courts across the country granted 51 percent of asylum claims last year, government statistics show. Such courts in New York City, which heard more cases than in any other city, approved 76 percent, among the highest rate in the nation.

How about in the individual category? For fans of the TV show The Good Place, the actor Jameela Jamil should be a candidate. Insects are three of the ten plagues in Exodus: lice, flies, and locusts; from Wikipedia:

In interviews, Jamil has mentioned several bee attacks in her life, including being hit by a car at age 17 when running away from a bee. In 2015, Jameela claimed that while she was interviewing musician Mark Ronson in the Hollywood Hills, the ‘biggest swarm of killer bees’ she had ever seen made them retreat. Ronson contradicted Jamil’s version of events, describing ‘one or two individual bees’ and walking ‘slowly inside’ in response. Jamil related that while filming the first season of The Good Place in 2016, she was chased by a dark swarm of bees and again got hit by a car. In 2019, Jamil states she ran away from bees while crossing the road to the UN headquarters to give a speech.

(see the “bee on my arm” at about 1:15 into the “Solar Panel Guy” recording at jollyrogertelephone.com)

Exodus talks about boils. Jamil:

In 2015, Jamil mentioned that she left the BBC Radio 1 Official Chart Show because of a breast cancer scare in 2014, and had lumpectomies on both breasts, in which she says she lost a ‘large chunk’ of breast tissue. However, in the 3 October 2019 Hardtalk interview, she concurs with the interviewer that she had a breast cancer scare ‘in 2016’, and that this precipitated an immediate move to Los Angeles after ‘a week’ waiting for test results that showed it to be a single ‘benign lump’.[105] Separately in a segment recorded in 2016 for Fashion Targets Breast Cancer, she instead describes having ‘recently’ experienced ‘a lump in her breast that showed signs of precancerous cells’. Also in October 2019 in the same month as the HardTalk interview but not in the interview itself, she stated she suffered from actual cancer twice, having cervical cancer in 2016 and 2019.

In 2020, a social media user accused Jamil of having Munchausen syndrome and falsifying or exaggerating specific public claims of health issues. For instance, Jamil claimed to have had a peanut allergy at birth and had recently posted an image of a peanut snack, ….

What if you search for “children’s haggadah”? One of the first results is from JewishBoston. The document fails to disclose that the Ancient Egyptians who purportedly oppressed the Jews are not the same people (except for a few Copts who have survived) as the people who live in Egypt today (i.e., even if we believe the story we should not hold a grudge against a modern person who says “I am Egyptian.”). It also fails to disclose that scholars doubt the historicity of the tale and that the Ancient Egyptians may not have been bad people. So the false victimhood narrative lives on!

(Separately, this Haggadah devotes roughly 1/10th of a page to telling us that “Nearly 50 Million Americans suffer the oppression of hunger.” So… our neighbors are starving. By contrast, “feminism and women’s rights … gay and lesbian Jews … spit out the seeds in their orange segment to reject homophobia and hatred” is a full page story:

More about the Good Orange Woman from the Jewish Women’s Archive.)

Whether or not you’ve Jewish… Happy April Fools’ Day!

Related, from the Labor Seder put on by a temple in Falls Church, Virginia (median household income $125,000 per year):

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The haters who said that polygamy would follow same-sex marriage

by philg

Back when same-sex marriage was the subject of referenda (eventually rendered irrelevant by the Supreme Court), the haters said that same-sex marriage was the camel nose under the tent for polygamy. This was an outrageous calumny. See “Polygamy Is Not Next” (TIME, 2015), for example and “No, Polygamy Isn’t the Next Gay Marriage” (Politico, 2015): “Opposing the legalization of plural marriage should not be my burden, because gay marriage and polygamy are opposites, not equivalents.”

From CNN, six years later: “Three dads, a baby and the legal battle to get their names added to a birth certificate”:

This isn’t news, actually, but we’re just hearing about it now…

The judge ruled in their favor before their daughter Piper was born in 2017. Jenkins believes they are the first polyamorous family in California, and possibly the country, to be named as the legal parents of a child.

The journalists want us to know how much better this is than when there are two squabbling opposite-sex parents:

The dads and their children share a bustling house with two Goldendoodles named Otis and Hazel.

“We’ve had zero negative feedback from coworkers and friends. Everyone seems to just be delighted about the arrangement and that’s because they know us,” Jenkins says. “I think some people will look at this and say like, ‘Oh, this is exotic. It’s going to harm the child.’ But people who know us know that we have been taking care of these kids as best as we possibly can.”

That however hopeless things may seem as a young gay man struggling to fit in, the world is changing. And that he’ll someday find more love under one roof than he ever imagined.

(If two dads are good, maybe three are better! See The happiest children in Spain live with two daddies,)

From my inbox, “How Polyamorists and Polygamists Are Challenging Family Norms” (New Yorker): “Campaigns for legal recognition may soon make multiple-partner marriages as unremarkable as same-sex marriages.“

Some excerpts:

The next year, in an online forum, they saw a post from a woman in her early thirties named Julie Halcomb that said, “I’m a single mom, I’ve got a two-year-old daughter, and I’d like to learn more.” Rich wrote, “If you want to know more, ask my wives.” Angela had opposed adding a third wife, but when she got off her first call with Julie she said, “O.K., when is she moving in?” Julie visited, mostly to make sure that the kids would get along, and joined the household permanently a week later.

Their living arrangements attracted other unwelcome attention. Neighbors called the police, and Child Protective Services interviewed the children. Since there was only one marriage certificate, the police couldn’t file bigamy charges. “They said, ‘We don’t like it, but there’s nothing we can do,’ ” Julie recalled. “But we had them at our door constantly. One of the kids would have an accident at school—we’d have them there again. They were constantly trying to find signs of abuse.”

At the family’s largest, Rich had four wives, but when I met him, a couple of years ago, he and Angela were divorcing, and another woman, April, had come and gone. Rich, Brandy, and Julie were living with their kids—six, including Rich’s and Julie’s from earlier relationships—and saw Angela’s two every other weekend.

The Austins would like one day to enjoy the legal benefits that married couples take for granted. Brandy and Julie take heart from the success of the gay-marriage movement. “I’ve got a wedding invitation on the way from a friend who’s transitioning from female to male,” Julie said. “I’ve got classmates that came out almost twenty years ago. They’ve been lucky enough to get married. I wish people would be as accepting with us as we try to be of everyone else.”

We already have functional polygamy in the U.S. An American doesn’t need to settle for the highest-earning partner whom he/she/ze/they can find for a long-term marriage. He/she/ze/they can have sex once with an already-married high-income defendant and earn more via child support (see Hunter Biden’s plaintiff) than by getting married to a mediocre earner and enduring his/her/zer/their presence in the apartment 24/7. Soon we can have de jure polygamy?

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Harvard and MIT: Love Asians, but don’t let them into your school

by philg

My inbox has been filling up lately with emails regarding purported hate crimes against Asian-Americans. Somewhat curiously, these emails are coming from institutions that explicitly discriminate against Asian-Americans (see “A Ceiling on Asian Student Enrollment at MIT and Harvard?”, for example, and Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard).

Harvard graduate Tom Lehrer wrote about this in his song “National Brotherhood Week“:

it’s Fun to eulogize the
People you despise
As long you don’t let them in your school.

From Larry Bacow, President of Harvard:

For the past year, Asians, Asian Americans, and Pacific Islanders have been blamed for the pandemic—slander born of xenophobia and ignorance. … Footage of individuals being targeted and assaulted has driven home a rise in aggression and violence across the nation. Today, we continue to reel in the wake of eight murders in Georgia—six of the victims of Asian descent—and to contend with events that shock the collective conscience.

(If only six of the victims were of Asian descent, what’s El Presidente’s theory for how this was an anti-Asian hate crime? The murderer hated Asians, but was not intelligent enough to distinguish between Asians and non-Asians?)

Harvard must stand as a bulwark against hatred and bigotry. We welcome and embrace individuals from every background because it makes us a better community, a stronger community.

I long for the day when I no longer have to send such messages. It is our collective responsibility to repair this imperfect world. To Asians, Asian Americans, and Pacific Islanders in our community: We stand together with you today and every day going forward.

(Is there, in fact, anyone who blames “Pacific Islanders” for COVID-19 or coronapanic? Readers: Have you heard someone curse Samoans, Fijians, or Tongans for causing the deaths of 82-year-olds in Maskachusetts?)

From Martha Tedeschi, director of the Harvard Art Museums, where the paychecks keep coming despite the museum being closed.

I am reaching out to the extended museum family of the Harvard Art Museums in the face of Wednesday’s breaking—and heartbreaking—news of the deadly shootings and violence against women of Asian descent in Atlanta. I want to state my own shock and horror—sentiments I know so many of you share—that once again we are confronted by a wave of racist violence that makes it impossible for so many communities in this country to feel safe. Anti-Asian hostility has a long history in the United States. … want to say emphatically that the Harvard Art Museums stand firmly against Anti-Asian racism. It feels only moments ago that I was writing to you about the murder of George Floyd and so many others and the importance of banding together in support of our black and brown communities.

(Do we think that George Floyd, with his minimal employment history, would have been a likely customer for a $20 ticket to Martha Tesdeschi’s museum? If not, what qualifies Martha Tedeschi to talk about those in Mr. Floyd’s socioeconomic stratum?)

What if we go downmarket and down the river? From L. Rafael Reif, President of MIT:

This message is for everyone. But let me begin with a word for the thousands of members of our MIT family – undergraduates, graduate students, postdocs, staff, faculty, alumni, parents and Corporation members – who are Asian or of Asian descent: We would not be MIT without you.

(But, as noted above, “we also don’t want too many of you”?)

Bizarrely, for a school that claims credentials are important enough to spend years and hundreds of thousands of dollars acquiring, the president of MIT, with no credentials in criminology or political science, claims expertise in criminology and political science:

Across the country, a cruel signature of this pandemic year has been a terrible surge in anti-Asian violence, discrimination and public rhetoric. I know some of you have experienced such harm directly. The targets are very often women and the elderly.

These acts are especially disturbing in the context of several years of mounting hostility and suspicion in the United States focused on people of Chinese origin. The murders in Georgia Tuesday, including among the victims so many Asian women, come as one more awful shock.

Lumped in with the discussion regarding spa workers, because she happened to have identified (maybe?) as an Asian female:

Earlier this month, we lost an extraordinary citizen of MIT, ChoKyun Rha ’62, SM ’64, SM ’66, SCD ’67, a professor post-tenure of biomaterials science and engineering, at the age of 87. Raised in Seoul in a family that expected her to become a doctor, she came to MIT because she wanted to be an engineer. In 1974, she joined our faculty; in 1980, she became the first Asian female faculty member to earn tenure at MIT. Dr. Rha went on to build a remarkable career as a teacher, a mentor and a scholar.

It is difficult to imagine how alone she must have felt in her early years at MIT, when women students and Asian students numbered in just dozens. But the trail she and so many others blazed helped lead to the rich diversity of MIT we treasure today.

Is this an example of “All Look Same”? In the context of killings of spa workers in Atlanta, what’s the relevance of someone who defied her family by becoming an engineer rather than a doctor and never lived in Atlanta?

(Also, Rafael Reif says that she must have felt alone (how can he know?). If so, given that she stayed at MIT for four degrees and to work as a professor, isn’t that equivalent to calling her stupid? An intelligent person would have left MIT, presumably, and gone somewhere where she didn’t feel alone.)

Circling back to the title of this post… if the presidents of Harvard and MIT love Asians so much, why won’t they let them into their respective schools?

(If the answer is, “we just can’t find enough Asians whose personalities we like, notwithstanding their superb academic achievements,” here are some numbers from “The Rise of Asian Americans” (Pew, 2012): “The modern immigration wave from Asia is nearly a half century old and has pushed the total population of Asian Americans—foreign born and U.S born, adults and children—to a record 18.2 million in 2011, or 5.8% of the total U.S. population, up from less than 1% in 1965.”

)

Readers: Are you getting a lot of email from bureaucrats expressing their new-found love for Asians?

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