Category: Social Justice

and also to hang a rainbow flag. (But first, our faith called us to move to a suburb with almost no black or LGBTQIA+ residents.)

Photos from the rich suburb of Lexington, Massachusetts:

Whenever someone tries to get me to share his/her/zir/their enthusiasm for helping migrants, I offer to pay all of the expenses to bring a migrant to the say-gooder’s house. So far, this hasn’t cost me anything, but apparently sometimes this kind of offer is accepted.

“They were homeless. I took them in. Would you?” (Los Angeles Times):

This June, I participated in Safe Place for Youth’s Host Home Program, short-term “interventions” for unhoused young people, ages 18 to 24. In December, stuck in L.A. traffic, my ears had pricked up. Marlene and Michael Rapkin were on the radio describing an inspiring three months they’d spent as two of Safe Place’s initial cadre of hosts.

“Welcoming the stranger” is one of my core Jewish values, and I’d helped with the annual homeless count.

[See “White men correctly perceive American Jews as their enemies?” for my take on this last expressed statement.]

But could I take in someone off the street? What with a recent divorce, my kid’s stint in rehab and college expenses, I’d been renting out a guest bedroom to make my monthly nut. But when a tenant canceled, and I learned that Safe Space offered a small stipend to offset hosts’ household expenses, I challenged myself to “walk the walk” of my social justice values.

If she is enticed by the “small stipend” handed out by the homeless industry, this divorcée perhaps should have planned her foray into California family law more carefully…

I offered to house any of the youths I’d met except that heavily tattooed couple. She had the word “cured” in bold block lettering on one cheek and “More Love” above her brow; his forehead read “Less Hate”; alas, a skater beanie obscured “Less.” … Then I learned that Keyawna and Jesse had been living — sweltering — in their 2008 Kia. I’ve complained that my marriage broke up because my spouse and I shared a bathroom.

How much do multi-color tattoos over a substantial portion of a human body cost? Would the homeless couple have had a decent nest egg if they’d stuck with their factory skin color?

But if the city can’t accommodate artists from economically diverse backgrounds, then only the privileged will get to create. I was also certain face tats were job killers, until Keyawna explained that they fit their “brand,” and most were Jesse’s designs. He’s a visual artist; she’s an aspiring rapper and soul singer. … She told me later they’d hidden their valuables from me too.

If they have “valuables”, why are they homeless?

American newspapers are tireless advocates for what are essentially middle class welfare programs: affordable housing, Medicare for all, etc. These proposals won’t help the poor, all of whom are already eligible for taxpayer-funded housing, taxpayer-funded health care (Medicaid), taxpayer-funded food (SNAP), and a taxpayer-funded smartphone.

This union-authored study of pay at the Washington Post may provide some insight:

For the 290 salaried male newsroom employees working at The Post, the median salary is $116,065. For the 284 salaried female newsroom employees, it is $95,595.

(Separate question: if women are less expensive to employ and work just as effectively, why does a profit-oriented guy like Jeff Bezos hire any men at all?)

In other words, it turns out that the folks who author the news in D.C. are earning close to the income limit for affordable housing for a family of 4 in D.C. If they get a pay raise they end up in the slavery zone for an American: not rich enough to afford a decent apartment in a nice area, not poor enough to qualify for any subsidies. The result is an apartment in Rockville or a house in Frederick and 2-3 hours of daily commuting.

So it is possible that they advocate for a planned economy and lavish middle-class handouts for purely altruistic reasons, but this advocacy is also consistent with their personal situation.

Related:

• “Median price for D.C. single-family home grows by double-digit percentage in one year” (keep in mind that the $810,000 median single family home price for the entire District includes quite a few neighborhoods in which a diversity-promoting Washington Post reporter wouldn’t be willing to reside; “thanks, but that neighborhood is just a bit too diverse…”)

Tonight at our local school (free tickets):

Waking up White and Finding Myself in the Story of Race

Please join the Lincoln community as we welcome Debby Irving – local author, racial justice educator, and public speaker. Debby will present in a workshop format utilizing stories from her life to exploring systemic racism that goes largely unnoticed but feeds long-held radicalized belief systems. By sharing, her struggle to understand racism and racial tensions, she offers a fresh perspective of bias stereotypes, manners, and tolerance. As she unpacks her own long-held beliefs about color blindness, being a good person, and wanting to help people of color, she reveals how each of these well-intentioned mindsets actually perpetuated her ill-conceived ideas about race. She also explains why and how she’s changed the way she talks about racism, works in racially mixed groups, and understands the racial justice movement as a whole.

From Amazon:

Debby Irving is an emerging voice in the national racial justice community. Combining her organization development skills, classroom teaching experience, and understanding of systemic racism, Irving educates and consults with individuals and organizations seeking to create racial equity at both the personal and institutional level.

Irving grew up in Winchester, Massachusetts, during the socially turbulent 1960s and ’70s. After a blissfully sheltered, upper-middle-class suburban childhood, she found herself simultaneously intrigued and horrified by the racial divide she observed in nearby Boston. Her career began in a variety of urban performance-art and community-based non-profits, where she repeatedly found that her best efforts to “help” caused more harm than the good she intended. Her one-step-forward-two-steps-back experience of racial understanding eventually lead her to dig deeply into her own white privilege, where she found truths she never knew existed. Waking Up White describes that journey and the lessons learned along the way.

Now a racial justice educator and writer, Irving works with other white people to transform confusion into curiosity and anxiety into action. She’s worked in private and public urban schools, both in the classroom and at the board level, to foster community among students, teachers, staff, and families by focusing on honest dialog that educates and connects people through shared interests and divergent backgrounds. A graduate of the Winsor School in Boston, she holds a BA from Kenyon College and an MBA from Simmons College. Waking Up White is her first book.

Amazon reader reviews:

A summary of the book: a white person from a wealthy, old-money, well-connected family has a crisis of conscience, then proceeds to take the pain and suffering of hundreds of millions past and present people of color, co-opts it and makes it all about herself, then sells a book to other white people and makes even more money. At the center appears to be a desperate concern about what others think about her. She wants you to think that she is a good person. Your opinion on that topic matters greatly to her.

She gave a talk at my school. Her examples are very dated and her research limited.

There are few books that will lower one’s IQ faster than this smarmy self-centered tome dedicated to the joke called “white privilege.” Leftist drivel combined with pitiful and laughable narratives combine to make a it a horrific read. My horror mounted as I realized that some poor students probably had to read this dreck and pretend that it has meaning in order to obtain the mandatory credit in a self-hate course.

Complete and utter trash. Ideal for use with an open fire, BURNS WELL!

Related:

• the school building, renovated or brand new as of 25 years ago, will soon be bulldozed and replaced with the most expensive, per-student, school ever built in the United States (residents voted enthusiastic for the spending project and are now arguing bitterly over how to distribute the burden of paying for it!)