Note that the largest and most prominently featured signs are a rainbow flag (in a city with 358 gay households) and a Black Lives Matters sign (“Black people — many of them immigrants — make up less than 2 percent of Maine’s population but almost a quarter of its coronavirus cases” (Washington Post)). You have to scan down with your eyes and read a smaller font to see the name of the bar: Portland Hunt & Alpine Club. Maybe these symbols are like the crosses that adorn the top of church facades? Christian believers expect to see a cross that is larger than the text providing the name of the church.
How would a person seeking a gay bar find a gay bar, if every bar signals that its primary mission is serving the LGBTQIA+ community?
Also from Portland, October 15, every other table featured COVID-19 fatalities..
When a break-up requires a trip to the Maine Bureau of Motor Vehicles…
When you don’t have to lock your car because young people don’t know how to operate the four-speed transmission:
Don’t invite anyone out on your boat, including family members:
One of my big concerns with the above is that the LGBTQIA+ rainbow flag, part of the Biden-Harris sign, is placed in an inferior position to the American flag, which the 1619 Project informs us is a symbol of oppression (not to mention treason against legitimate British rule that would have ended slavery decades earlier!). In what moral universe does the Flag of Slavery (TM) get to be placed higher than the Rainbow Flag of Tolerance?
(Note that “Science is not a Liberal Conspiracy” is illustrated with lithium, useful for treating poor mental health occasioned by forgetting to take away the Deplorables’ right to vote.)
As you know the district has partnered with NCBI (National Coalition Building Institute) to support us in our work to become an antiracist district and our larger AIDE work (antiracism, inclusion, diversity, and equity). One of the many facets of our plan this year is for NCBI to conduct focus groups with a series of stakeholders including students, parents/guardians, and district staff.
The list below shows all of the focus groups we plan to hold over the coming two months:
Boston-resident students in METCO program grades 4-6 Boston-resident students in METCO program grades 7-8 Lincoln-resident students in grades 4-8 who identify as Black, biracial, or mixed Lincoln-resident students in grades 4-8 who identity as part of other racialized groups (LatinX, Indigenous, Asian-American, Middle Eastern) Lincoln-resident students in grades 4-8 who identify as White
In sociology, racialization or ethnicization is the process of ascribing ethnic or racial identities to a relationship, social practice, or group that did not identify itself as such. Racialization or ethnicization often arises out of the interaction of a group with a group that it dominates and ascribes a racial identity to for the purpose of continued domination; over time, the racialized and ethnicized group often gradually identifies with and even embraces this identity and thus becomes a self-ascribed race or ethnicity. These processes have been common throughout the history of imperialism, nationalism, and racial and ethnic hierarchies.
With almost everyone, except for Donald Trump, dropping dead from COVID-19, how important is this?
We recognize that everyone has a lot going on in life now — and we also believe that it is important for us to dedicate time to listening to the experiences of our fellow community members.
I would love to know who these people are who have “a lot going on in life now”!
iPhone owners can make a difference, learn, give back, take action, and more! Let’s click and check the range of political opinion that Apple expects phone owners to want to learn about…
And scrolling…
There is nothing better than “grappling with … privilege” from the vantagepoint of a $1,400 iPhone 12 Pro Max!
Wouldn’t people have a lot more to donate “in support of Black lives and communities of color” if they kept their old phones and/or bought Google Pixel phones rather than Apple?
As part of this section, Apple also notes “Racism is a factor in health care, criminal justice, education, and other crucial election issues. Learn more about where the presidential candidates stand.” This leads to a Trump, who ripped Apple’s zero-tax rug out from under the company, versus Biden section:
Would resurrecting the ERA actually be a move in the direction of social justice? How could the federal government continue to have quotas for women-owned businesses, for example? Couldn’t people identifying as “men” or “not women” say that this program violated the ERA? The Biden-Harris campaign platform promises to direct billions of dollars to those who identify as “women”:
Biden will: Direct federal funding to women-owned businesses, including through his new historic $400 billion investment in additional federal purchases of products made by American workers, in his first term. This will be the largest mobilization of public investments in procurement, infrastructure, and R&D since WWII, and it will critically be designed to support small businesses and those owned by women and people of color. … Improve and expand the Small Business Administration programs that most effectively support women-owned businesses, especially those owned by women of color. Immediately after taking office in 2009, the Obama-Biden Administration started to make billions of dollars in capital available to women-owned businesses… Biden will build on this work and expand SBA programs that target women.
District courts struck down a bunch of stuff that Trump was trying to do because they found that his campaign rhetoric was evidence of wrongthink. Unless Presidents Biden and Harris can rip out the hard drives at archive.org, there will be a huge mountain of evidence that their intent for much of their agenda was motivated by a desire to help Americans with a particular gender ID, something that would then be prohibited by an adopted Equal Rights Amendment:
Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
(does the ERA itself need to be amended? It sounds as though it might be tainted with some gender binarism and transphobia)
Readers: Can we be redeemed merely by following Apple’s guide?
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the largest humanities philanthropy in the United States, has pledged to spend $250 million over five years to help reimagine the country’s approach to monuments and memorials, in an effort to better reflect the nation’s diversity and highlight buried or marginalized stories.
The first major grant under the new $250 million initiative will be a $4 million, three-year gift to Monument Lab, a Philadelphia-based public art and research studio that works with artists and community groups across the country to “reimagine public spaces through stories of social justice and equity,” according to its website.
The cover photo of the story:
Readers: What new monuments do you propose?
My first idea is a monument on the Hudson River to the French software engineers who kept the Airbus A320 from stalling despite Captain Sully’s heroic stick-full-back-the-whole-time landing (some details). Computer programmers are a group whose stories are marginalized, as required by the foundation. How often does anyone want to hear a tale of cisgender white male nerds writing code?
A friend’s high school-age son recently earned his driver’s license. He already has an idea for improving the family Tesla 3: a rotating license plate, like in the old James Bond movies, that would read “Black Lives Matter” when the GPS determined that the car was traversing urban territory and “Blue Lives Matter” when on the Interstate highway or in the suburbs.
I wonder if it could be improved, though. How about E Ink-based signs built into the four sides of a car? As the Social Justice movement progresses over the years, the signs could be kept up to date from a touch screen within the car or automatically downloaded from the manufacturer’s social justice executives. When driving into a retrograde Red State, the messages could automatically be switched to “Heading to Sturgis,” “Preserve the Second Amendment,” and similar.
Twenty-four years ago, California was consumed by debate over affirmative action. A charismatic Black businessman named Ward Connerly led support for Proposition 209, a ballot initiative to ban racial preferences in admission to the state’s world-renowned public universities. The measure passed with 55 percent of the vote and inspired similar changes in nearly a dozen other states.
This November, with an initiative to repeal Proposition 209 on the ballot, California voters will have the opportunity to change their minds.
How are the polls on this one? The New York Times says we need to go back to state-run racism and it will actually be the best thing for the Asian kids who don’t get into the colleges of their choice:
Ending racial preferences in a state university system harmed Black and Hispanic students while doing little to lift whites and Asian-Americans, a study asserts.
Buried in the middle:
Of course, selective university admissions is a zero-sum game. For every Black and Hispanic student excluded by Proposition 209, another student, probably white or Asian-American, took their place. But in focusing on those who got into the most selective U.C. campus at Berkeley, the study found that white and Asian-American students received little concrete benefit from the policy. Mr. Bleemer’s study suggests they would have otherwise enrolled in an equally selective college elsewhere, and had the same chances to graduate and begin successful careers.
The Asian kids weren’t harmed because they earn a lot of money anyway even if they don’t get to attend UC Berkeley at a low cost. But maybe this is just a restatement of what economists have found, i.e., that being smart enough to get into an elite college is a great predictor of income, but attending an elite college isn’t that relevant (summary: what is taught in college is of minimal economic value).
Readers: What’s your prediction about how the California righteous will vote on this one? Will there be a rush to hire Victimhood Studies graduates to restart the sort-by-skin-color system for college applications?
My prediction: Census data show that California is 39.4 percent Hispanic. There’s another roughly 6.5 percent who are Black (and whose lives therefore matter!). Ignoring that these categories may overlap to some extent, my prediction is that 45 percent of Californians vote for to bring back race-based admissions out of self interest (since it is designed to help Black and Hispanic applicants; this number might be off if a lot of the folks in the designated victimhood categories are ineligible to vote due to not being citizens). Then add 15 percent of the remainder. These could be white people who aren’t going to have children, for example. Voting to restore race-based admissions can make them feel good without any personal sacrifice or sacrifice for anyone they care about. That’s 8 percent. So the ballot Proposition passes by 53-47.
Related:
“Kamala’s America?”: California today boasts a fabulously rich technology elite; it’s also home to the highest poverty rate among the states, adjusted for costs, according to the U.S. Census. Under its largely one-party regime, notes liberal economist James Galbraith, California has seen inequality grow at among the fastest rates in the country. The state endures the widest gap between middle and upper incomes in the country—72 percent, compared with a national average of 57 percent.
“Prop 16 confusion: Affirmative action ballot measure struggling in polls” (NBC): … despite the recent political wave in favor of social justice, the ballot measure isn’t polling particularly well. Why? It may have something to do with the measure’s confusing wording. … “Watching a focus group with Black voters from Los Angeles, they all said no we won’t vote for this as it was read to them,” said Eva Patterson, who co-chairs the Yes on 16 campaign. “Then we explained that it was in favor of affirmative action and equal opportunity, and they all said, ‘Of course we’ll vote for this.'” … The latest polling on Proposition 16 shows 31% of Californians in favor, 47% opposed and 22% unsure. In the Bay Area, the numbers are a bit more in favor of the measure: 40% for, 41% against and 19% not sure. [It is “equal opportunity” because opportunity is based on skin color and anyone who wants to can follow Justin Trudeau’s lead in adjusting skin color?]
In case your local school is mostly shut down and you want to make sure that your kids get the essentials, from the front of a house in the Boston suburbs…
(the neighborhood welcomes People of Color as long as they can afford the two-acre zoning minimum (about $750,000 for a vacant lot, and don’t forget to set aside $20-40,000 per year for no-longer-deductible-unless-Biden-gets-elected property tax))
A bail fund in Massachusetts is defending itself after freeing people facing serious crimes, including a convicted rapist who has since been charged with a new rape.
The Massachusetts Bail Fund said in a statement Wednesday that it bails out people based on financial need “regardless of charge or court history” because it believes pretrial detention is “harmful and racist.”
The Cambridge-based organization, whose motto is “Free Them All,” said criticism over its practices only serves to “prop up a white supremacist institution” that studies have shown imposes higher bails on people of color than whites for the same crimes.
On July 15, the Massachusetts Bail Fund paid the $15,000 in bail to release a registered Level 3 sex offender awaiting trial on rape and kidnapping charges stemming from a 2018 case, according to authorities.
On Wednesday, he allegedly raped again. And authorities are now openly criticizing the fund for setting Shawn McClinton free, referring to him as a “sexual predator.”
McClinton, 39, was arraigned Thursday in the Dorchester division of Boston Municipal Court on new charges of aggravated rape, kidnapping for the purpose of sexual assault, strangulation, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. His bail was set at $500,000 on these charges, and Judge Lisa Grant revoked his open bail from the 2018 case, according to a news release from Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins’s office.
On Tuesday night, McClinton allegedly met up with the victim, and they went from Quincy to Dorchester. When she tried to leave on Wednesday, McClinton allegedly wouldn’t let her and raped her at knifepoint. The victim reportedly suffered cuts and bruising and ultimately was able to escape. A passerby saw her afterward and called 911, authorities said.
How about M4BL The Movement for Black Lives? Their May 2020 “vision” and “policy demands for Black power, freedom, & justice” says that the Jews in Israel are committing “genocide … against the Palestinian people.” If there is a full-scale genocide being perpetrated by Jews, why should the top priority of the righteous be the behavior of the police in Minneapolis, Baltimore, Portland, and some other U.S. cities? Nobody has accused these police departments of genocide. Why not give money to Hamas so that they can #Resist the Jewish-run genocide?
Let’s look at the reading list with some excerpts from Amazon…
I Believe I Can is an affirmation for boys and girls of every background to love and believe in themselves. … [the author] Grace was bullied throughout her childhood
Why is this limited to affirming “boys” and “girls”? What about children with other gender IDs?
Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table: Will Allen is no ordinary farmer. A former basketball star … he can see what others can’t see. When he looked at an abandoned city lot in Milwaukee he saw a huge table, big enough to feed the whole world. No space, no problem. Poor soil, there’s a solution. Need help, found it. Farmer Will is a genius in solving problems. In 2008, the MacArthur Foundation named him one for his innovative urban farming methods, including aquaponics and hydroponics.
Might this mislead youngsters regarding farming economics? How can a hydroponic farm built by Will Allen compete with a regular farm in Mexico plus a truck to bring the produce to Costco? (Wikipedia says that at least one of this guy’s urban farming projects went bust.) If the answer is “we need to eat it right after it is picked” then might it still be cheaper to airfreight the produce than to grow it in a city with exotic life support? (NPR says that I’m wrong: “How Hydroponic School Gardens Can Cultivate Food Justice, Year-Round”)
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You is an adaptation for youngsters of Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America: (from a reader) This is one of the greatest history books I’ve ever read. I was highlighting passages on pretty much every page, mostly because so much of what’s here was new to me. Hey, I’m an upper middle class white guy who’s trying to examine my own privileges, understand more of why there’s so much racism in this country and learn how I can do better. This book, which was undoubtedly extremely difficult to write, is an amazing resource, one I’ll be referring back to probably for the rest of my life. We all owe Ibram X. Kendi a tremendous debt.
Wikipedia says Ibram Kendi is director of the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University. So people who don’t want to spend $20 on these books can pay $77,662 per year to watch a video by Dr. Kendi. (If “privilege” is all about being white, how is it that “in 2016, Ibram X. Kendi became the youngest person ever to win the National Book Award for Nonfiction” (“How to Be an Anti-Intellectual” from City Journal)? Shouldn’t Americans who identify as Black need to work harder and for more years in order to get to the same places as Americans who identify as white?)
United Airlines Holdings Inc. packs its charter flights for sports teams with young, blond crews and bars older flight attendants from working the plum routes, according to a new lawsuit.
The attendants — a Black woman who has worked for the airline for 28 years and a Jewish woman with 34 years of tenure — say that they both tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully to get assigned to work the charter flights.
Sharon Tesler and Kim Guillory said they were told by supervisors that they were unable to get work on the charters because they weren’t on “preferred” lists that were based on team preferences, according to the complaint.
They said they later discovered that young, white blond attendants — with less seniority — were given the assignments.
United Airlines “has adopted and continues to implement procedures that are designed to ensure that young, white, blond/blue-eyed, female employees receive positions with the charter program, while more senior, and Black and Jewish employees such as plaintiffs, do not,” they said in the complaint.
The protests are moving into white residential neighborhoods, where activists demand that people choose a side.
Terrance Moses was watching protesters against police brutality march down his quiet residential street one recent evening when some in the group of a few hundred suddenly stopped and started yelling.
Mr. Moses was initially not sure what the protesters were upset about, but as he got closer, he saw it: His neighbors had an American flag on display.
“It went from a peaceful march, calling out the names, to all of a sudden, bang, ‘How dare you fly the American flag?’” said Mr. Moses, who is Black and runs a nonprofit group in the Portland, Ore., area. “They said take it down. They wouldn’t leave. They said they’re going to come back and burn the house down.”
Nearly four months after the killing of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police, some protesters against police brutality are taking a more confrontational — and personal — approach. The marches in Portland are increasingly moving to residential and largely white neighborhoods, where demonstrators with bullhorns shout for people to come “out of your house and into the street” and demonstrate their support.
Can investors make money by investing in companies that produce BLM and other social justice signs? And then, once every house in the U.S. has a BLM sign, how will the protesters sort out the true believers from the sham sympathizers who merely place signs as protection?
