Kofi Montzka, a black mother, denounces ethnic studies curriculum in Minnesota: “I see why you white proponents of this bill might support it. It’s not your kids being told they can’t succeed and you get to shed some of your white guilt in the process.”
https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1639733617453678592
‘Invisible Boogeyman Of Systematic Racism’: Black Mom Shreds Minnesota ‘Ethnic Studies’ Bill, Slams Woke Nonsense
By Tim Meads
March 25, 2023
Venerable Bishop Fulton Sheen once said, “To a great extent the level of any civilization is the level of its womanhood.” Using that metric, if America has even a handful of women even remotely close to the caliber of Minnesota mother Kofi Montzka, then we’re doing just all right.
Earlier this week, Monztka took a sledgehammer to Critical Race Theory-inspired education a la “Ethnic Studies” courses that Democrats in The Gopher State want to mandate starting in kindergarten.
Montzka is a volunteer with Take Charge Minnesota, an “organization committed to supporting the notion that the idea of America works for everyone regardless of race and station in life.” She is also an excellent communicator of why the Democrats’ so-called anti-racism crusade is bad for all students — regardless of their skin color — and the country as a whole.
“This bill requires that schools teach ethnic studies starting in kindergarten, and I am against this,” she said on Tuesday. “You might ask, ‘Why in the world would a black person speak against ethnic studies?’ Because not everything that sounds good is good.”
Monztka then drilled down exactly how the bill is racially discriminatory while wrongfully indoctrinating a sense of inferiority amongst minorities while telling them they are “stuck in a caste system.”
“I’m sick of everyone denying the enormous progress we’ve made in this country, acting like it’s 1930,” she continued.
Monztka also compared the class to Jim Crow.
“This curriculum will not help kids of color succeed. All it does is remove any reason to try,” she said.
“This is not some theoretical crap,” she continued before giving a real-world example where her children’s high school band teacher “took 20 minutes at the beginning of class to talk about anti-racism. He told the kids to look around and then he said the black boys in the school would likely not live to retirement because of racism and the police.”
Montzka wasn’t done. She directly called out the white leftist adults pushing this “hopelessness” onto children.
“I can see why you white proponents of this bill might support it,” she said. “It’s not your kids being told that they can’t succeed and you get to shed some of your white guilt in the process, but you legislators of color — how can you?”
Montzka argued that they all succeeded “despite the invisible Boogeyman of systematic racism” and were voted in by “a majority of white people” to hold “some of the most powerful positions in this state.”
The woman was praised endlessly on social media for her comments.
In response, DailyWire+ host Dr. Jordan B. Peterson tweeted, “The reason the curriculum ‘removes any reason to try’ is because the point of the curriculum is to deny the utility of trying.”
“This is precisely how unconscientious people rationalize their parasitism,” he added. “And cloak that rationalization in the guise of moral virtue.”
It’s rare that something is must-watch, but Montzka’s statements fit that description.
Check out this hypocrisy from Yahoo News! March 19, 2023: “A Landlord Got a Low Appraisal. He Is Black, and So Are His Tenants.” Yahoo News March 20, 2023: “‘We don’t deserve to be priced out’: Law aims to end gentrification in Black neighborhoods”
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
March 20, 2023
On March 19, 2023, Yahoo News published this article, which is called, “A Landlord Got a Low Appraisal. He Is Black, and So Are His Tenants.”
Source: https://news.yahoo.com/landlord-got-low-appraisal-black-143506573.html
Then on the very next day, March 20, 2023, Yahoo News published this other article, which called, “‘We don’t deserve to be priced out’: Law aims to end gentrification in Black neighborhoods”
Source: https://www.yahoo.com/news/dont-deserve-priced-law-aims-090417689.html
So, at the same time, racism is causing the price of housing in black neighborhoods to be both too low, and too high.
The people who see racism everywhere will never be happy with the price of housing in black neighborhoods.
If the price is too low, that’s racism.
But if the price is too high, that’s racism too.
For the people who see racism everywhere, there is no price for housing that is not racist.
No matter what the price is, it is always racist.
This is what happens when you see racism everywhere.
Now I’m going to give my own opinion about the price of housing.
If you’re the buyer, then low prices are a good thing. But if you’re the seller, then low prices are a bad thing.
Likewise, if you’re the seller, then high prices are a good thing. But if you’re the buyer, then high prices are a bad thing.
And the best thing about this is that it applies to all races.
Buyers of every race want the price to be low.
And sellers of every race want the price to be high.
See how that works out? It’s got nothing to do with race. Instead, it’s all about whether a person is the buyer or the seller.
The great thing about my way of seeing this is that it is consistent for every person, every race, every house, every neighborhood, and every price. No matter what the combination of race and price is, my way of viewing this is 100% consistent.
This article says there’s a racist aspect to brushing your teeth before you go to the dentist. I disagree. I always brush my teeth before I go to the dentist, but it has nothing to do with racism. Why do some people insist on seeing racism everywhere?
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
March 16, 2023
This article from the Grio starts out with the following:
Black patients modify speech, dress up to reduce medical bias, survey shows
Black Californians report adjusting their appearance, changing behavior, minimizing questions and signaling to providers that they are educated to reduce chance of discrimination in hospitals and doctors’ offices.
A young mother in California’s Antelope Valley bathes her children and dresses them in neat clothes, making sure they look their very best — at medical appointments. “I brush their teeth before they see the dentist. Just little things like that to protect myself from being treated unfairly,” she told researchers.
I always brush my teeth, take a shower, and put on clean clothes before I go to the dentist, or any other medical appointment.
I don’t see what race has to do with it.
Why do some people insist on seeing racism everywhere?
https://www.yahoo.com/news/black-patients-modify-speech-dress-163722184.html
Black patients modify speech, dress up to reduce medical bias, survey shows
By Annie Sciacca
March 16, 2023
Black Californians report adjusting their appearance, changing behavior, minimizing questions and signaling to providers that they are educated to reduce chance of discrimination in hospitals and doctors’ offices.
A young mother in California’s Antelope Valley bathes her children and dresses them in neat clothes, making sure they look their very best — at medical appointments. “I brush their teeth before they see the dentist. Just little things like that to protect myself from being treated unfairly,” she told researchers.
A 72-year-old in Los Angeles, mindful that he is a Black man, tries to put providers at ease around him. “My actions will probably be looked at and applied to the whole race, especially if my actions are negative,” he said. “And especially if they are perceived as aggressive.”
Many Black Californians report adjusting their appearance or behavior — even minimizing questions — all to reduce the chances of discrimination and bias in hospitals, clinics, and doctors’ offices. Of the strategies they describe taking, 32% pay special attention to how they dress; 35% modify their speech or behavior to put doctors at ease. And 41% of Black patients signal to providers that they are educated, knowledgeable, and prepared.
The ubiquity of these behaviors is captured in a survey of 3,325 people as part of an October study titled “Listening to Black Californians: How the Health Care System Undermines Their Pursuit of Good Health,” funded by the California Health Care Foundation. (California Healthline is an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.) Part of its goal was to call attention to the effort Black patients must exert to get quality care from health providers.
“If you look at the frequency with which Black Californians are altering their speech and dress to go into a health care visit,” said Shakari Byerly, whose research firm, Evitarus, led the study, “that’s a signal that something needs to change.”
One-third of Black patients report bringing a companion into the exam room to observe and advocate for them. And, the study found, more than a quarter of Black Californians avoid medical care simply because they believe they will be treated unfairly.
“The system looks at us differently, not only in doctors’ offices,” said Dr. Michael LeNoir, who was not part of the survey.
LeNoir, an Oakland allergist and pediatrician who founded the African American Wellness Project nearly two decades ago to combat health disparities, found the responses unsurprising, given that many Black people have learned to make such adjustments routinely. “There is general discrimination,” he said, “so we all learn the role.”
There is ample evidence of racial inequality in health care. An analysis by the nonprofit Urban Institute published in 2021 found that Black patients are much more likely to suffer problems related to surgical procedures than white patients in the same hospital. A study published in November by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that Black mothers and babies had worse outcomes than other groups across many health measures. And a study published in January, led by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute investigators, found that older Black and Hispanic patients with advanced cancer are less likely to receive opioid medications for pain than white patients. (Hispanic people can be of any race or combination of races.)
Gigi Crowder, executive director of the Contra Costa County chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said she frequently sees delayed mental health diagnoses for Black patients.
“I hear so many stories about how long it takes for people to get their diagnoses,” Crowder said. “Many don’t get their diagnoses until six or seven years after the onset of their illness.”
Almost one-third of respondents in the California Health Care Foundation study — which looked only at Black Californians, not other ethnic or racial groups — reported having been treated poorly by a health care provider because of their race or ethnicity. One participant said her doctor advised her simply to exercise more and lose weight when she reported feeling short of breath. She eventually discovered she had anemia and needed two blood transfusions.
“I feel like Black voices aren’t as loud. They are not taken as seriously,” the woman told researchers. “In this case, I wasn’t listened to, and it ended up being a very serious, actually life-threatening problem.”
People KHN spoke with who weren’t part of the study described similar bad experiences.
Southern California resident Shaleta Smith, 44, went to the emergency room, bleeding, a week after giving birth to her third daughter. An ER doctor wanted to discharge her, but a diligent nurse called Smith’s obstetrician for a second opinion. It turned out to be a serious problem for which she needed a hysterectomy.
“I almost died,” Smith said.
Years later and in an unrelated experience, Smith said, her primary care doctor insisted her persistent loss of voice and recurring fever were symptoms of laryngitis. After she pleaded for a referral, a specialist diagnosed her with an autoimmune disorder.
Smith said it’s not clear to her whether bias was a factor in those interactions with doctors, but she strives to have her health concerns taken seriously. When Smith meets providers, she will slip in that she works in the medical field in administration.
Black patients also take on the additional legwork of finding doctors they think will be more responsive to them.
Ovester Armstrong Jr. lives in Tracy, in the Central Valley, but he’s willing to drive an hour to the Bay Area to seek out providers who may be more accustomed to treating Black and other minority patients.
“I have had experiences with doctors who are not experienced with care of different cultures — not aware of cultural differences or even the socialization of Black folks, the fact that our menus are different,” Armstrong said.
Once he gets there, he may still not find doctors who look like him. A 2021 UCLA study found that the proportion of U.S. physicians who are Black is 5.4%, an increase of only 4 percentage points over the past 120 years.
While health advocates and experts acknowledge that Black patients should not have to take on the burden of minimizing poor health care, helping them be proactive is part of their strategy for improving Black health.
LeNoir’s African American Wellness Project arms patients with information so they can ask their doctors informed questions. And the California Black Women’s Health Project is hiring health “ambassadors” to help Black patients navigate the system, said Raena Granberry, senior manager of maternal and reproductive health for the organization.
Southern California resident Joyce Clarke, who is in her 70s, takes along written questions when she sees a doctor to make sure her concerns are taken seriously. “Health professionals are people first, so they come with their own biases, whether intentional or unintentional, and it keeps a Black person’s guard up,” Clarke said.
While the study shed light on how Black patients interact with medical professionals, Katherine Haynes, a senior program officer with the California Health Care Foundation, said further research could track whether patient experiences improve.
“The people who are providing care — the clinicians — they need timely feedback on who’s experiencing what,” she said.
I support meritocracy because I want banks that don’t fail
Woke head of ‘risk assessment’ at Silicon Valley Bank ‘prioritized’ LGBT initiatives – including organizing a month-long Pride campaign – before bank lost BILLIONS and collapsed
Jay Ersapah was head of risk assessment for Silicon Valley Bank’s EMEA region
She launched a host of woke initiatives including ‘safe space catch-ups’ for staff
In one video she said she ‘could not be prouder’ to work for the bank which collapsed spectacularly on Friday
11 March 2023
A head of risk assessment at the beleaguered Silicon Valley Bank has been accused of prioritizing pro-diversity initiatives over her actual role after the firm imploded on Friday.
Jay Ersapah – who describes herself as a ‘queer person of color from a working-class background’ – organized a host of LGBTQ initiatives including a month-long Pride campaign and implemented ‘safe space’ catch-ups for staff.
In a corporate video published just nine months ago, she said she ‘could not be prouder’ to work for SVB serving ‘underrepresented entrepreneurs.’
Last year professional network Outstanding listed Ersapah as a top 100 LGTBQ Future Leader.
‘Jay is a leading figure for the bank’s awareness activities including being a panelist at the SVB’s Global Pride townhall to share her experiences as a lesbian of color, moderating SVB’s EMEA Pride townhall and was instrumental in initiating the organization’s first ever global “safe space catch-up”, supporting employees in sharing their experiences of coming out,’ her bio on the Outstanding website states.
It adds that she is ‘allies’ with gay rights charity Stonewall and had authored numerous articles to promote LGBTQ awareness.
These included ‘Lesbian Visibility Day and Trans Awareness week.’
Separately she was also praised in a Facebook post by the group ‘Diversity Role Models,’ a charity which campaigns against homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying in UK schools.
In a corporate document for the bank she said: ‘”You can’t be what you can’t see” has always been a quote that stuck with me.
‘As a queer person of color and a first generation immigrant from a working class background, there were not many role models for me to ‘see’ growing up.
‘I feel privileged to help spread awareness of lived queer experiences, partner with charitable organizations, and above all create a sense of community for our LGBTQ+ employees and allies.’
Biden’s nominee to lead FAA can’t answer a single question about aviation and air travel Ted Budd asks
At a March 1, 2023 Senate Commerce Committee Hearing, Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) questioned Philip Washington, nominee to be Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEj2Yq0okzU
18 minute video – Brandon Tatum explains why he agrees with Scott Adams’ recent controversial comments about race
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=linsQHQ67zo
I support meritocracy because I want Jackie Robinson’s name to be spelled correctly
On March 13, 2017, the New York Times wrote:
“The Board of Regents on Monday eliminated a requirement that aspiring teachers in New York State pass a literacy test to become certified after the test proved controversial because black and Hispanic candidates passed it at significantly lower rates than white candidates.”
On February 26, 2023, the New York City affiliate of ABC News wrote:
“Jackie Robinson Parkway sign goes up with spelling mistake”
Source: https://abc7ny.com/nyc-jackie-robinson-parkway-misspelled-sign-queens/12885986/
Here’s a photograph of the sign in question. Source of image: https://nypost.com/2023/02/26/nyc-dot-strikes-out-with-jakie-robinson-parkway-sign/
I support meritocracy because I want Jackie Robinson’s name to be spelled correctly.
Black homeschooling families take education into their own hands
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYTL9LaR0B0
To Increase Equity, School Districts Eliminate Honors Classes
https://www.wsj.com/articles/to-increase-equity-school-districts-eliminate-honors-classes-d5985dee
To Increase Equity, School Districts Eliminate Honors Classes
Supporters say uniform classes create rigor for all students but critics say cuts hurt faster learners
By Sara Randazzo
February 17, 2023
CULVER CITY, Calif.—A group of parents stepped to the lectern Tuesday night at a school board meeting in this middle-class, Los Angeles-area city to push back against a racial-equity initiative. The high school, they argued, should reinstate honors English classes that were eliminated because they didn’t enroll enough Black and Latino students.
The district earlier this school year replaced the honors classes at Culver City High School with uniform courses that officials say will ensure students of all races receive an equal, rigorous education.
These parents disagreed.
“We really feel equity means offering opportunities to students of diverse backgrounds, not taking away opportunities for advanced education and study,” Joanna Schaenman, a Culver City parent who helped spearhead the effort, said in the run-up to the meeting.
The parental pushback in Culver City mirrors resistance that has taken place in Wisconsin, Rhode Island and elsewhere in California over the last year in response to schools stripping away the honors designation on some high school classes.
School districts doing away with honors classes argue students who don’t take those classes from a young age start to see themselves in a different tier, and come to think they aren’t capable of enrolling in Advanced Placement classes that help with college admissions. Black and Latino students are underrepresented in AP enrollment in the majority of states, according to the Education Trust, a nonprofit that studies equity in education.
Since the start of this school year, freshmen and sophomores in Culver City have only been able to select one level of English class, known as College Prep, rather than the previous system in which anyone could opt into the honors class. School officials say the goal is to teach everyone with an equal level of rigor, one that encourages them to enroll in advanced classes in their final years of high school.
“Parents say academic excellence should not be experimented with for the sake of social justice,” said Quoc Tran, the superintendent of 6,900-student Culver City Unified School District. But, he said, “it was very jarring when teachers looked at their AP enrollment and realized Black and brown kids were not there. They felt obligated to do something.”
Culver City English teachers presented data at a board meeting last year showing Latino students made up 13% of those in 12th-grade Advanced Placement English, compared with 37% of the student body. Asian students were 34% of the advanced class, compared with 10% of students. Black students represented 14% of AP English, versus 15% of the student body.
The board saw anonymous quotes from students not enrolled in honors classes saying they felt less motivated or successful. One described students feeling “unable to break out of the molds that they established when they were 11.”
Tuesday marked Ms. Schaenman’s first time attending a school board meeting in person in years. She wandered the hallways of City Hall with fellow parent Pedro Frigola looking for the right room, clutching a stack of copies laying out the two-page resolution they and a few dozen other parents are asking the board to adopt.
Mr. Frigola said he disagrees with the district’s view of equity. “I was born in Cuba, and it doesn’t sound good when people are trying to achieve equal outcomes for everyone,” he said.
His ninth-grade daughter, Emma Frigola, said she was surprised and a little confused by the decision to remove honors, which she had wanted to take. She said her English teacher, who used to teach the honors class, is trying to maintain a higher standard, but that it doesn’t always seem to be working.
“There are some people who slow down the pace because they don’t really do anything and aren’t looking to try harder,” Emma said. “I don’t think you can force that into people.”
For a unit on research, Emma said her teacher gathered all the reference sources they needed to write a paper on whether graffiti is art or vandalism and had students review them together in class. Her sister, Elena Frigola, now in 11th grade, said prior honors English students chose their own topics and did research independently.
In Santa Monica, Calif., high school English teachers said last year they had “a moral imperative” to eliminate honors English classes that they viewed as perpetuating inequality. The teachers studied the issue for a year and a half, a district representative said.
“This is not a social experiment,” board member Jon Kean said at a meeting last spring. “This is a sound pedagogical approach to education.”
Gail Pinsker, a Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District spokeswoman, said the shift this school year “has increased access and provided excellent educational experiences for all of our students.”
Several school districts have scaled back plans to eliminate honors classes after community opposition. San Diego’s Patrick Henry High School planned to eliminate 11th-grade honors American literature and U.S. history last year, but reinstated both after listening to students and families, a district spokeswoman said.
The school district in Madison, Wis., pulled back on plans last year to remove stand-alone honors classes and now lets students earn an honors label within general classes. A Rhode Island district made a similar move.
Those who support cutting honors classes point out that the curriculum of honors courses often doesn’t differ substantially from regular classes. Honors classes often move at a faster pace and the students complete more assignments. Some can boost grade-point averages or give students an advantage when applying for college.
Critics say attempting to teach everyone at an elevated level isn’t realistic and that teachers, even with the best intentions, may end up simplifying instruction. Instead, some educators and parents argue schools should find more ways to diversify honors courses and encourage students to enroll who aren’t self-selecting, including proactively reaching out to students, using an opt-out system, or looking to teacher recommendations.
“I just don’t see how removing something from some kids all of a sudden helps other kids learn faster,” said Scott Peters, a senior research scientist at education research nonprofit NWEA who has studied equity in gifted and talented programs.
In Culver City, Mr. Tran said he isn’t going to mandate that other departments move away from honors but that he would listen to any teacher-driven suggestions. As for English, he said he is throwing his support behind the high school’s teachers to try to elevate education for all students.
“We will keep moving forward,” he said.
Palestinian workers prefer to work for Israeli employers
https://www.jns.org/report-palestinian-workers-prefer-to-work-for-israeli-employers/
Palestinian workers prefer to work for Israeli employers
Higher salaries, legal protections and lack of discrimination are among the reasons most Palestinians would prefer to work for Israeli firms.
February 16, 2020
The United Nations “blacklist” of businesses operating in Israeli settlements was lauded by the Palestinian leadership following its publication last week, but a recent report indicates that Palestinians actually prefer to work for Israelis rather than Palestinians.
Titled “Why Palestinians prefer to work for Israeli employers,” the report, by Israel-based media watchdog group Palestinian Media Watch, affirms that whenever Palestinian workers have the opportunity to work for Israeli employers, they are quick to leave their jobs with Palestinian employers. The report cites an article in the official Palestinian Authority daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida that praises the Israeli-employment sector.
According to senior PMW analyst Nan Jacques Zilberdik, who co-authored the report with PMW director Itamar Marcus, there are a number of reasons Palestinians prefer Israeli employers.
“First, the salary from Israeli employers is more than double that of the Palestinian sector, but that is not all. Palestinians working for Israelis are protected by the same laws as Israeli workers, including health benefits, sick leave, vacation time and other workers’ rights, whereas these protections are not granted by Palestinian employers. Also there is no gender or religious discrimination in the Israeli sector.”
Speaking on the official P.A. TV show “Workers Affairs,” Israeli-Arab labor lawyer Khaled Dukhi of the Israeli NGO Workers’ Hotline said Israeli labor law is “very good” because it does not differentiate between men and women, Israelis and Palestinians, Muslims and Jews. However, he explained, “Palestinian workers who work for Israelis still suffer because Palestinian middlemen ‘steal’ 50 percent, 60 percent and even 70 percent of their salaries, especially those of women.”
The higher Israeli salaries have been consistent for years, according to surveys published by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Labor Force Survey for the second quarter of 2018 showed that the average daily wage for wage employees in the West Bank was NIS 107.9 ($31.5) compared with NIS 62.6 (18.3) in Gaza Strip. The average daily wage for the wage employees in Israel and the Israeli settlements reached NIS 247.9 ($72.3) in the second quarter of 2018, compared with NIS 242.5 ($70.8) in the first quarter of 2018.
Telegraph: “Applicants to the police who can barely write in English are being accepted by the Met in an attempt to improve diversity”
Applicants ‘functionally illiterate in English’ accepted by the Met in bid to improve diversity
HM Inspectorate says while it is ‘noble and right’ recruitment should not be at the expense of standards
By Martin Evans
26 January 2023
Applicants to the police who can barely write in English are being accepted by the Met in an attempt to improve diversity, one of His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary has warned.
HMI Matt Parr said that while it was entirely “noble and right” that Scotland Yard was aiming to be more representative of the community it policed, it should not be at the expense of standards.
In 2021, Dame Cressida Dick, the then Met Commissioner, declared it was the force’s aspiration to recruit 40 per cent of its officers from the black and ethnic minority communities by 2023.
But despite the Government’s programme to boost the number of officers across the country, which has seen a significant recruitment campaign across policing, the number of BAME officers in London remains at less than 17 per cent.
Ambitious targets
Mr Parr said setting ambitious targets both around the number of police recruits and diversity was understandable, but that it increased the risk of lowering standards and recruiting people who were not suited to the job.
He said there was even anecdotal evidence that some applicants were being accepted even though they were “functionally illiterate in English” and had difficulty writing up crime reports.
Mr Parr told The Telegraph: “We completely support the idea that London – which will likely be a minority white city in the next decade or so – should not be policed by an overwhelmingly white police force.
“That is clearly wrong. It is not just wrong from a legitimacy point of view, and from an appearances point of view, it is also operationally wrong because it means that the Met does not get insight into some of the communities it polices and that has caused problems in the past.
“So we completely support the drive to make the Met much more representative of the community it serves than it is at the moment.”
But he added: “We have a risk of recruiting the wrong people. You will hear people from their training school say that they are taking in significant numbers of people who are, on paper at least, functionally illiterate in English and therefore just writing up crime reports has become quite difficult in some areas.
“So in that drive there is at least anecdotal evidence that they have lowered standards.”
Mr Parr said since taking over as Met Commissioner in September, Sir Mark Rowley had made it clear that he wanted to “dial down the requirement to meet those targets” and focus on ensuring the force recruited the right people.
A review of recruitment and vetting by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) published in November warned that as many as ten per cent of police officers should never have been admitted into the police.
Managed risk
But he said when it came to vetting he was not advocating a “zero tolerance” approach to minor misdemeanours, but rather one of managed risk.
He said young black men tended to have a greater involvement with the criminal justice system in London than any other group but that did not mean they should be barred from the police.
“I think the Met are doing absolutely the right thing in taking a risk on those people, they have got to, and it is the right thing to do. It is not only a necessary thing but it is a noble aim for all sorts of reasons.”
But he said the recent HMI review of vetting suggested that in some cases the police were taking too much risk with candidates or were failing to put safety measures in place to mitigate the risk.
He said: “Everyone is trying to do the right thing here and they are all acting from noble motives by and large but the upshot is they are taking too much risk with people and where they are taking risk – and I would support them in taking risk – they are not managing it properly as well.”
David Spencer, a former Met officer, who is now head of crime and justice at the Policy Exchange think tank, agreed that the pressure to meet the uplift and diversity targets increased the risk that standards would be lowered.
He said: “There is a tension between volume, quality and diversity and something has to give. Someone has to ask what is the most important of those three things and you have to be really careful because once you have recruited someone they are possibly going to be there for the next 30 years.
“When you are making a risk assessment, if you are trying to hit a target your capacity for risk is going to increase.”
Since the federal government is not seeking the death penalty against a white supremacist who shot and killed 23 people at a Texas Wal-Mart, why did the federal government file hate crime charges?
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
January 21, 2023
Associated Press recently reported:
US won’t seek death penalty for alleged Texas Walmart gunman
January 18, 2023
Federal prosecutors will not seek the death penalty for a man accused of fatally shooting nearly two dozen people in a racist attack at a West Texas Walmart in 2019.
The U.S. Department of Justice disclosed the decision not to pursue capital punishment against Patrick Crusius in a one-sentence notice filed Tuesday with the federal court in El Paso.
Crusius, 24, is accused of targeting Mexicans during the Aug. 3 massacre that killed 23 people and left dozens wounded. The Dallas-area native is charged with federal hate crimes and firearms violations, as well as capital murder in state court. He has pleaded not guilty.
Federal prosecutors did not explain in their court filing the reason for their decision, though Crusius still could face the death penalty if convicted in state court.
Crusius surrendered to police after the attack, saying, “I’m the shooter,” and that he was targeting Mexicans, according to an arrest warrant. Prosecutors have said he published a screed online shortly before the shooting that said it was “in response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”
I don’t understand the purpose of filing federal hate crime charges if the federal government is not seeking the death penalty.
Since the federal government is not seeking the death penalty, I would prefer that the federal government drop all charges, and let the state of Texas handle this. Texas would definitely seek the death penalty.
For the record, I am against passing hate crimes laws, but I am in favor of enforcing the hate crime laws that are already on the book.
Also, in my opinion, if a person is convicted of first degree murder, and there is video proof, then I support executing that person. This particular crime happened in a place where there are cameras everywhere.
Instead of building enough desalination plants, California is trying to solve its water shortage by removing the racism from water
By Daniel Alman (aka Dan from Squirrel Hill)
January 16, 2023
While the brilliant people of Israel have built enough desalination plants to end their water shortages, and the country pays only 40 cents per cubic meter for as much water as people want, all in a densely populated country which is a desert with perpetual drought, the idiotic people of California have chosen to reject desalination in favor of continued water shortages.
But that doesn’t mean that California doesn’t have a plan for its water.
California is planning to remove all of the racism from its water. This is the text of their plan:
https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/board_info/agendas/2023/jan/011823_4
STATE WATER RESOURCES CONTROL BOARD
BOARD MEETING SESSION – EXECUTIVE OFFICE
JANUARY 18, 2023
ITEM 4
SUBJECT
RACIAL EQUITY ACTION PLAN.
DISCUSSION
The Racial Equity Action Plan is a compilation of goals, actions, and metrics intended to advance the State Water Board’s efforts to create a future where we equitably preserve, enhance, and restore California’s water resources and drinking water for all Californians, regardless of race, and where race is not a predictor of professional outcomes for Water Boards employees.
On August 18, 2020, State Water Board staff presented an informational item to the State Water Board on a framework for addressing racial equity. The State Water Board acknowledged the historic effects of institutional racism that must be confronted throughout government and directed staff to develop a priority plan of action.
In fall 2020, State Water Board’s Executive Director, Eileen Sobeck, convened a Water Boards Racial Equity Team with the purpose of advancing racial equity both for the communities that the Water Boards serve, and internally within the organization. The Water Boards Racial Equity Team is comprised of Water Boards staff representing all levels of the organization and includes support staff, engineers, scientists, technologists, and executives. The Racial Equity Team has been tasked with three major priorities: 1) establish a foundation of internal and external engagement that values listening and collaboration to drive action; 2) draft a resolution on racial equity to be considered for adoption by the State Water Board and leveraged by the nine Regional Water Boards to adopt their own resolutions; and 3) develop racial equity strategies and action plans to drive efforts for the coming years.
The Water Boards reached a major milestone on November 16, 2021, when the State Water Board adopted the Racial Equity Resolution, “Condemning Racism, Xenophobia, Bigotry, and Racial Injustice and Strengthening Commitment to Racial Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, Access, and Anti-Racism” (Resolution No. 2021-0050). The Resolution directs staff to develop a plan of action to advance racial equity within the Water Boards.
In March 2022, the Water Boards Racial Equity Team began working with a diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant to articulate a vision and strategic directions that serve as the framework for our action planning.
Throughout spring 2022, Water Boards staff, community partners, tribes, and communities impacted by racial inequities began to identify draft actions to incorporate into a Racial Equity Action Plan. In April 2022, the Water Boards began soliciting requests for government-to-government tribal consultations. And in May 2022, community partners and State Water Board management and staff came together for visioning and strategizing sessions, as well as a series of action planning workshops.
The Water Boards Racial Equity Team compiled draft actions through feedback from members of the public, tribes, and Water Boards staff and leadership and partnered with community organizations to host four public workshops in July 2022 to present the draft action ideas. The Racial Equity Team incorporated feedback received during the July 2022 workshops and Water Boards staff and released the draft for public comment on September 23, 2022.
On October 19, 2022, the Racial Equity Team presented the draft Racial Equity Action Plan at a State Water Board workshop. That version of the draft action plan was posted online for public review and comment on September 23, 2022, and comments were accepted through October 24, 2022. The Water Boards Racial Equity Team incorporated resulting feedback and worked with leadership from State Water Board Divisions and Offices to finalize the draft.
The State Water Board will not take action to approve or deny the Racial Equity Action Plan, which was designed to be a living document that is updated periodically through Board and community engagement. California Native American tribes can continue to request government-to-government consultations to provide feedback and guidance on this work on an ongoing basis. Other interested parties may still provide general comments about the Water Boards’ racial equity work by emailing
racialequity@waterboards.ca.gov. Although this is an action plan for the State Water Board, the Regional Water Boards have strongly supported the State Water Board’s racial equity efforts and may leverage this plan to inform their own racial equity work, as they have the State Water Board’s Racial Equity Resolution.
POLICY ISSUE
This is an informational item to present the 2023-2025 Racial Equity Action Plan. The State Water Board will not approve or deny the Racial Equity Action Plan. However, staff will update the Board on its implementation at least annually.
FISCAL IMPACT
No additional fiscal impact to currently budgeted program resources.
REGIONAL BOARD IMPACT
The State Water Board will not take action at this public meeting; there is no Regional
Water Board impact at this time.
STAFF RECOMMENDATION
The State Water Board will not take action at this public meeting; there is no staff recommendation at this time.
Derrick Z. Jackson thinks blacks are too dumb to get admitted to college based on their grades and SAT scores
Writing for The Root, Derrick Z. Jackson said:
“One thing seems certain if the Supreme Court bans affirmative action in college admissions: The only Black men left on campus will be athletes.”
Mr. Jackson thinks blacks are too dumb to get admitted to college based on their grades and SAT scores.
At Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County, Virginia, Principal Ann Bonitatibus and Director of Student Services Brandon Kosatka deliberately avoided telling high achieving students about their possible eligibility for academic awards and scholarships because too many of them were Asian-American
At Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County, Virginia, Principal Ann Bonitatibus and Director of Student Services Brandon Kosatka deliberately avoided telling high achieving students about their possible eligibility for academic awards and scholarships because too many of them were Asian-American.
I am in favor of high academic standards for all people of all races. I am against what this school did. I hope that the school officials who did this will be fired. I also hope that all of the students will be given, retroactively, as many awards, college admissions, and scholarships as they actually earned, to the degree that this is practical and possible. For students who ended up attending a lesser college instead of a better one many years ago because of this, it may be impossible to properly reimburse them for what they had earned through their hard work. Lives may have been ruined because of what these evil people did.
Here’s the complete article:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-top-high-school-hid-213034509.html
US’ top high school hid over 1,200 students’ academic achievement in the name of ‘equity’
By Carl Samson
December 28, 2022
For years, administrators at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJHSST) concealed students’ National Merit certifications in the name of “equity,” according to a new report.
The damning discovery was published by author and journalist Asra Q. Nomani, whose own son had not been notified of being recognized as a National Merit “Commended Student” in 2020. The National Merit Scholarship Corporation, an Illinois-based nonprofit, awards some 7,500 juniors the $2,500 National Merit Scholarship every March.
While a “Commended Student” distinction does not advance a student into becoming a National Merit “Commended Scholar,” the recognition is deemed helpful for college applications and other scholarship programs. Regardless of the degree of achievement, the TJHSST officials in question — Principal Ann Bonitatibus and Director of Student Services Brandon Kosatka — allegedly withheld informing recognized students and their families.
“I learned — two years after the fact — that National Merit had recognized my son, a graduate of TJHSST’s Class of 2021, as a Commended Student in a September 10, 2020, letter that National Merit sent to Bonitatibus. But the principal, who lobbied that fall to nix the school’s merit-based admission test to increase ‘diversity,’ never told us about it,” Nomani wrote in her City Journal piece, adding that parents from previous years reported similar situations.
On Sept. 16, National Merit sent the principal the names of 240 “Commended Students,” but it was not until mid-November when homeroom teachers distributed the accolades — after early-application deadlines had already passed.
“Keeping these certificates from students is theft by the state,” said lawyer Shawna Yashar, whose son also learned that he was a “Commended Student” too late. In a call with Kosatka, she learned that the decision to withhold the news from parents and notify students in a “low-key way” was intentional.
“We want to recognize students for who they are as individuals, not focus on their achievements,” Kosatka reportedly told Yashar. The student services director then claimed that he and the principal did not want to “hurt” the feelings of students who were not recognized, Nomani noted.
In an email to parents of “Commended Students” on Dec. 12, Kosatka reportedly informed them of their children’s “important recognition” and apologized for not sharing the news earlier, saying, “We are deeply sorry.”
He also said the school would contact college admissions officials to correct the students’ records, according to Nomani.
TJHSST, which is recognized as the nation’s top high school, has faced accusations of anti-Asian discrimination after eliminating standardized testing in favor of “experience factors” since 2020. In April, the Supreme Court blocked a petition to drop the new admissions system.
Nomani’s op-ed, which was republished by the New York Post, has triggered criticism and outrage in the Asian American community.
“They decided to screw over all of the kids (most of them Asian) who had worked so hard to earn this recognition and were unable to use it in their college application. Equity at the expense of Asians isn’t equity at all,” Hyphen Capital founder Dave Lu tweeted. “These two need to be fired for their deception and hurting the lives of so many kids because they chose to take matters into their own hands.”
“In the name of equity, aka equal outcomes, TJ principal refused to commend merit that cost students valuable scholarships. Accountability started with exposing the ugly premeditated actions of @TJAnnB by @AsraNomani,” tweeted Asian Wave Alliance President Yiatin Chu, who just recently was on the receiving end of anti-Asian comments at a New York City Council hearing.
“Next, TJ officials will ask the National Merit Scholarship Corporation to distribute the PSAT scores for equity reasons. Take from those that score high on the PSAT and give it to those that cannot or have not scored as high,” educator and entrepreneur Krishnan Chittur tweeted. “Need to serve the DIE Gods.”
I asked ChatGPT the following question: “Does affirmative action cause mismatching?” Here’s how it answered.
ChatGPT is a chat bot. You can read about it at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChatGPT
I asked ChatGPT the following question: “Does affirmative action cause mismatching?”
Here’s how it answered:
Affirmative action refers to policies and programs that are designed to address past discrimination and promote equal opportunity in education, employment, and other areas. These policies can take many forms, such as setting goals or quotas for the representation of certain groups, providing preferences or advantages in admissions or hiring processes, or implementing diversity and inclusion initiatives.
One potential effect of affirmative action is “mismatching,” which refers to the idea that some individuals who are admitted to or hired for a position through affirmative action may be less qualified or less prepared than others who were not selected. This can occur if the requirements for admission or hiring are relaxed or modified in order to increase the representation of certain groups.
There is ongoing debate about the extent to which affirmative action leads to mismatching and the consequences of this phenomenon. Some research suggests that affirmative action can lead to mismatching and may have negative effects on the academic and career outcomes of some individuals, while other studies have found that affirmative action can have positive effects on the representation and success of underrepresented groups.
It is important to note that the impact of affirmative action can vary depending on the specific circumstances and implementation of the policies in question. In order to address concerns about mismatching and ensure that affirmative action programs are effective and fair, it is important to carefully design and evaluate these policies and consider their potential impacts on all stakeholders.
New York lawyer Urooj Rahman gets only 15 months in prison for firebombing a police car during the George Floyd riots
https://www.yahoo.com/news/lawyer-gets-15-months-behind-193513360.html
Lawyer gets 15 months behind bars for firebombing police car
By Tom Hays
November 18, 2022
NEW YORK (AP) — A New York City attorney was sentenced to 15 months behind bars on Friday for firebombing an empty New York City police vehicle with another lawyer during protests over the murder of George Floyd.
Before hearing her sentence, Urooj Rahman asked a judge to spare her prison time and give her a “second chance” to redeem herself for what she called a momentary lapse of judgement.
“I’m so incredibly sorry for my reckless and wrong actions,” a tearful Rahman said in federal court in Brooklyn. “I don’t think there’s enough words to express my sorrow and regret. … I completely lost my way in the emotion of the night.”
U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan praised her for choosing a career in public interest law to fight against social injustices.
“You’re a remarkable person who did a terrible thing on one night,” Cogan said.
However, Cogan also scolded her for thinking she could get away with violent protest.
“It displays an amazing amount of arrogance. … It’s just a very arrogant way to think,” he said.
Federal prosecutors had recommended a sentence of 18 to 24 months as part of a plea deal.
Rahman and Colinford Mattis were arrested amid clashes between protesters and police on May 30, 2020, during an eruption of demonstrations following Floyd’s killing by a police officer in Minnesota.
Surveillance cameras recorded Rahman hurling an incendiary device into a parked police vehicle, setting fire to its console. No one was injured in the attack, but the vehicle was severely damaged.
Officers arrested the lawyers a short time later and said they found a lighter, a Bud Light beer bottle filled with toilet paper and a gasoline tank in the back of a minivan driven by Mattis, a corporate attorney. Prosecutors alleged the lawyers planned to distribute and throw other Molotov cocktails.
While other lawyers condemned their conduct, some objected to the severity of the charges, arguing that the case was improperly handled as if it were an act of domestic terrorism. When the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn asked that the lawyers be detained without bail, 56 former federal prosecutors sent a legal brief to the court criticizing the government’s handling of the case.
Rahman and Mattis have been disbarred. Mattis is scheduled for sentencing next month.
Democrats said it was a hate crime when someone set a black church on fire in Mississippi. But the suspect who got arrested is black.
Mississippi police arrest suspect in church arson that Democrat called ‘tactic to suppress’ votes
The Mississippi Democrat Congressional candidate said that the incident ‘invoke[d] historical acts of terrorism’
By Adam Sabes
November 11, 2022
The Hinds County Sheriff’s Office says Delvin McLaurin was arrested Tuesday in Terry, Mississippi following a tip from the public. (Hinds County Sheriff’s Office)
Police in Mississippi arrested a 23-year-old old suspect thought to be associated with seven fires across Jackson, with two of them being at churches, in what one Democrat Congressional candidate called an attempt to suppress votes.
Among the two churches set on fire, one of them was destroyed in the fire. All the fires took place around Jackson early Tuesday morning.
Shuwaski Young, a former candidate for Mississippi’s 3rd Congressional District, said that the fire was an attempt to suppress votes in the area and said it invokes acts of terrorism.
“This morning several churches were burned in Jackson, Mississippi on Election Day. These cowardly actions invoke historical acts of terrorism when people are fighting for their right to vote and live peacefully as Americans and Missisippians,” Young said. “We will not be deterred and will not be intimidated. We will not allow domestic terrorists to suppress our right to vote. I ask all Mississippians to GO VOTE regardless of this decades old intimidation tactic to suppress our votes today. Just Go VOTE.”
https://twitter.com/shuwaskiyoung/status/1589979730081906690
Beginning on Tuesday at around 2:45 a.m., officials received calls regarding six fires around the city. By 6 a.m., six of the seven fires were put out by firefighters.
Epiphany Lutheran Church, a predominantly Black church in Jackson, was among the churches burnt and was on fire for over four hours.
At Jackson State University, a historically Black school, a fire began in the area surrounding the baseball practice field.
The Hinds County Sheriff’s Office said that Devin McLaurin was arrested in relation to the arson incidents, but didn’t add what his motivation was.
McLaurin is being charged with felony malicious mischief, and is also being questioned by the Federal Bureau of Investigations.
Patrick Armon, assistant fire chief with the Jackson Fire Department said that this is unusual for the area.
“I’ve been here for 30 years. This is a major occurrence,” Armon said. “This is not something we normally go to. We have about a third of our department on sites.”
Lloyd Caston, 73, who is an elder at Epiphany Lutheran Church, said that she woke up to a call at around 4 a.m. stating that the church was on fire.
When Caston arrived to the church, he saw that it was “fully enflamed.” He said that he “was hurt” when he saw the church on fire.
“It destroyed the church and everything in it,” Caston said.
Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said that no polling locations were impacted by the fires.
“We don’t yet know who or why, but I want to thank the firefighters because they were able to respond to that and still get back to the stations, so that people could set up for voting precincts,” Lumumba said.
Fox News has reached out to Young.
Video and transcript: Derrick Wilburn, a black father, criticizes critical race theory at a school board meeting in Falcon, Colorado
https://www.foxnews.com/us/black-father-slams-crt-colorado-school-board-meeting-video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnJNujTKdVA
I’d like to begin my comments tonight by reading a quote, which in essence is the genesis of all of this Black Lives Matter, social justice CRT conversations we’re having in our country today, quote, I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color, close quote, Colin Kaepernick, August 2016.
I am the direct descendant of the North American slave trade. Both of my parents are black, all four of my grandparents are black, all eight of my great great grandparents all 16 of my great greats. On my mother’s side, my ancestors were enslaved in Alabama. On my father’s side, we were enslaved in Texas.
I am not oppressed. I’m not oppressed, and I’m not a victim. I’m neither a press nor a victim. I travel all across this country of ours. And I check into hotels and I fly commercially. And I walk into retail establishments, and I order food and restaurants. I go wherever I want, whenever I want. I am treated with kindness, dignity, and respect, literally from coast to coast. I have three children. They are not oppressed either.
Although they are victims, I’ve taught my children, they’re victims of three things, their own ignorance, their own laziness and their own poor decision making. That is all my children. We are not victims of America, we are not victims of some unseen 190 year old force that kind of floats around in the ether.
Putting critical race theory into our classrooms is taking our nation in the wrong direction. racism in America would by and large, be dead today, if it were not for certain people and institutions keeping it on life support. And sadly, sadly, very sadly, one of those institutions is the American education system.
I can think of nothing more damaging to a society than to tell a baby born today that she has grievances against another baby born today, simply because of what their ancestors may have done two centuries ago. There is simply no point in doing that to our children. And putting critical race theory into our classrooms, in part does that putting critical race theory into our classrooms is not combating racism.
It’s fanning the flames of what little embers are left. I encourage you to support this resolution. Let racism die the death it deserves.
A Los Angeles judge sentenced a black man to be locked up in a mental institution for one year because he hugged a stranger on a bus without her permission
https://www.yahoo.com/news/dismantle-prison-system-viral-justice-154216500.html
To Dismantle the Prison System, We Need Viral Justice
By Ruha Benjamin
October 18, 2022
My younger brother, Jamal, and I grew up the same. Same home, same parents, same neighborhoods. But as a young Black man, the police have been chasing him all our lives. “Chasing” is the wrong word. Hunting…he is hunted. Tender meat feeding a rapacious quota system—another deer head an officer can mount on his wall.
In his late teens, Jamal began showing signs of mental illness—schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, paranoia—we weren’t sure yet. Things came to a head after he had gone missing and we found him collapsed, dehydrated, and emaciated, after hearing voices that told him not to eat. My brother is over six feet tall, and when we located him, he weighed less than 100 pounds.
A few years went by; then, during one of his episodes, Jamal grabbed a woman sitting next to him on the bus and held her for a few seconds in a bear hug. The woman screamed and my brother let go. But suddenly the bus driver stopped the bus, and cops boarded and arrested my brother for attempted kidnapping.
The cops took Jamal to the Twin Towers Correctional Facility, L.A. County’s notorious jail. With nearly 20,000 employees, including more than 10,000 sworn deputies, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is the largest sheriff’s department in the world, and its website boasts that the Twin Towers are “the nation’s largest mental health facility.” But after being caged in the Twin Towers, Jamal was so traumatized that he couldn’t stand trial.
The Twin Towers, where approximately 15,000 people await trial, yet to be convicted of any crime, is part of what has become known as the “Abu Ghraib of Los Angeles.” In a 2011 report titled Cruel and Unusual Punishment: How a Savage Gang of Deputies Controls LA County Jails, the ACLU’s National Prison Project spells out a “pattern of brutal abuse…which at times crossed the line into torture.” The report includes eyewitness testimony of Los Angeles County Sheriff deputies humiliating prisoners with sexual and racial epithets, and punching, kicking, and beating non-resisting inmates to the point of their needing surgery and hospitalization. It is a level of inhumanity that observers say exceeds even that of maximum-security prisons.
After reviewing testimony by inmates, former inmates, chaplains, and civilians, as well as reports, correspondence, media articles, and legal filings, even Thomas Parker, a former FBI agent who worked in the bureau’s Los Angeles Field Office, came to a damning conclusion: “Of all the jails I have had the occasion to visit, tour, or conduct investigations within, domestically and internationally, I have never experienced any facility exhibiting the volume and repetitive patterns of violence.” Now imagine your own loved one trapped inside this den of brutality.
Jamal was held in Twin Towers for several weeks before he was sent to Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino County for three months to be medicated so that he could take the stand. He was brought back to the Twin Towers, and it was several more weeks before he was brought before a judge, who eventually ruled that it wasn’t a criminal case that needed to go to trial.
At the hearing, when the judge asked the woman on the bus whether Jamal had hurt her in any way, she said no, that he had held her for a few seconds. In that moment, she seemed remorseful that it had come to this. The judge, in turn, ordered that my brother be admitted into a mental health facility for one year followed by several more years of court-mandated psychiatric treatment. In exchange for an unwanted hug, our punishing institutions squeezed their tentacles around Jamal tighter and tighter.
The day my brother’s criminal record was eventually expunged felt bittersweet. It came after years of harassment, profiling, jail, imprisonment, shame, trauma, and so much more that typing these words reignites a burning rage. Is it possible to wipe off a brand? How else can I describe the “mark of a criminal record,” as the sociologist Devah Pager calls it, but as a modern-day brand? Rub…rub…rub… as much as you can, the scar left behind refuses to disappear.
Each time the carceral system brands a loved one, an entire family is marked. We feel the iron of a vicious system whose appetite seems limitless. When the beast decided it had had enough, it spit my brother back out. Record expunged. But not before forcing him to sit for years in its repulsive belly, corroding his spirit and consuming his mind. The stench of that beast snakes around us, tightening and releasing, squeezing and pulsing in what clinicians term post-traumatic stress, anxiety, and depression.
In an essay titled “Collateral Damage,” sociologist Alyasah Sewell and public health researcher Kevin Jefferson explain, “People do not have to be inside the criminal justice system to feel the effects of the criminal justice system. In fact, the surveillance policies of the criminal justice system reach so far as to shape the health of people who have not yet entered into its gates.” Is it any wonder that the health of entire communities is adversely affected by being criminalized? Higher blood pressure, higher rates of asthma, diabetes, and more—health conditions born of a ritualized pattern of terror and trauma. Even when we are not the prey, we feel hunted.
So, what is there to do? How do we create justice that is not just vital, but also infectious?
The concept of “viral justice” offers a fresh orientation, a way of looking at (or looking again) at all the ways people are working, little by little, day by day, to combat unjust systems and build alternatives to the oppressive status quo. It invites us to witness how an idea or action that sprouts in one place may be adopted, adapted, and diffused elsewhere. Rather than a strict focus on macro processes and “structural change,” viral justice reminds us how individual volition maintains or transforms the status quo. Social systems, after all, rely on each of us playing along or questioning the rules of the game.
Transforming the rules in this context is not about police reform. Instead, it refers to the upending of an entire system—the gradual abolition of an institution born of slave patrols, one that protects property over people, and is kept alive by the myths of virtuosity and necessity. But those larger goals take shape in the small print of city, state, and federal budgets where individuals, groups, and coalitions—like the Seattle Solidarity Budget—are calling for investment in social goods like housing, education, work, and community.
Viral justice is also about creating communities of care—articulating the kind of world we want out there in our relationships and interactions with strangers and friends right here. It requires that we answer educator and abolitionist Mariame Kaba’s vital question: “What else can we grow instead of punishment and suffering?”
Last month, I spoke at the Fifth Annual #FreeHer Conference in Detroit, Michigan, organized by the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls. Those gathered are engaged in a range of organizing efforts including mass clemencies for women who are aging, sick, survivors of sexual violence, and those who have served decades already—those hunted, captured, and maimed by the system. They are fighting for housing, counseling, higher education, and other support services for people returning from prison. They are advocating against the construction of new jails and prisons, including “pressuring architectural firms not to bid on the multimillion-dollar job.” For example, in Massachusetts, formerly incarcerated women got the state legislature to pass a bill, which now sits on the governor’s desk, imposing a five-year moratorium on any new construction.
This is viral justice at work. Starting in their own backyards, those gathered at the #FreeHer Conference are working with neighbors, friends, and family members—like the mother-daughter duo who co-founded Families for Justice as Healing—to uproot the soul-sucking conditions that tear us apart and seed the resources that we all need to thrive.
#FreeHer reminds us that the work of crafting more caring social relations isn’t charity work or work to be done on behalf of others. Falling from a burning building, I might hit the ground first, but you won’t be far behind. My wellbeing is intimately bound up with yours. We don’t need allies—we need everyone to smell the smoke. Together, we can change our world from one in which our loved ones are hunted, our families torn apart, and our communities surveilled, to one in which people like my brother, like me, and like you will be fully embraced and empowered.
An athlete says she was “targeted and racially heckled throughout the entirety of the match,” but the video and audio recordings say otherwise. The New York Times says fake claims like this are so common that a black writer wrote a book about them.
What a Report of Extreme Racism Teaches Us
By John McWhorter
October 14, 2022
It’s time for a few words on what we might learn from a Black volleyball player’s claims about what happened at a match she participated in at Brigham Young University this past August. I have refrained from commenting on this for a spell, in case there were further revelations. As there have been none yet, I shall proceed.
Rachel Richardson, a Black member of Duke’s volleyball team playing in a match at Brigham Young University, claimed that she and other Black teammates were “targeted and racially heckled throughout the entirety of the match,” such that they had to face a crowd amid which slurs “grew into threats.”
But a sporting match such as this one is attended by thousands and is well recorded, both professionally and also by anyone in attendance with a cellphone. To date, no one has offered evidence that corroborates Richardson’s claims of racist verbal abuse, either independently or as part of an investigation by B.Y.U. There is nothing comparable in the security footage or in the television feed the school took of the match. No one at the match representing either school has described hearing such a thing happening. No witnesses have been reported as coming forward.
To be clear: It is possible that some racist spectator shouted a racial slur at Richardson at some point during the match. But it seems apparent that no rising tide of slurs and threats occurred during that match — that would be clear in the recordings. And Richardson’s having possibly exaggerated what happened casts into doubt whether there were any slurs at all, given that people leveling such words tend to do so with the intention of being heard by others, and no one present has come forward and explicitly said they heard it. Richardson and her representatives have presented no explanation as to why recordings via modern technology do not reveal what she claimed.
We cannot know why Richardson made this claim. Maybe she misheard common volleyball chants, as some have suggested. Or perhaps there were members of the crowd who did in fact resort to racist slurs that others either did not hear or are not willing to corroborate. But it’s hard not to sense that all of this is discomfitingly ambiguous — the likelihood that Richardson’s basic claim of being continuously heckled with racist slurs from the stands seems rather infinitesimal.
But this is why the B.Y.U. story is important. The message from this story is not just that interpretations of events will differ, or that in some fashion racism persists in America even if the details on this case are murky. We must also engage with the unfortunate possibility that the B.Y.U. story may be a demonstration of a pattern, one that we must be aware of to have an honest debate about racism in America today.
I have long noticed, in attending to episodes of this kind in our times, that claims of especially stark and unfiltered racist abuse, of the kind that sound like something from another time, often do not turn out to have been true. Accounts of this kind, I have realized, should be received warily. Not with utter resistance, but with a grain of salt.
The people making such claims appear to be thinking of horrors of the past and claiming that what supposedly happened to them shows that those horrors persist. It is difficult not to notice, for example, the parallel between Richardson’s claim and Jackie Robinson’s being called the N-word from the stands in the 1940s.
But while we have not remotely reached a point where racism does not exist, we have reached a point where some people are able to fabricate episodes of racism out of one unfortunate facet of being not Black, but human — crying wolf and seeking attention. This kind of thing was probably less likely when actual episodes of this kind, including lethal ones, were ordinary. Who would, on top of legalized segregation and lynching, make up racist violence? It would have seemed too trivializing of what actual people regularly went through. But today? Things are, while imperfect, quite different.
The classic, and perhaps officially inauguratory, example — and this is in no way to equate Richardson’s possible exaggeration to the prior, extraordinary event — was Tawana Brawley’s claim in 1987 to have been kidnapped and raped by a group of white men and then left in the woods wrapped in a garbage bag, covered with feces and scrawled with racial slurs. The sheer luridness of that scenario was always a clue that Brawley staged the whole thing, which she was proved to have done. A U.S. Justice Department report concluded that in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014, Officer Darren Wilson did not callously shoot Michael Brown dead despite his having his hands up in surrender, despite Brown’s friend Dorian Johnson’s claim to that effect.
White lacrosse players at Duke did not rape a Black stripper at a party, despite the 88 Duke professors who published a newspaper ad implying the lacrosse players were guilty. And of course, the actor Jussie Smollett’s story that MAGA-hatted homophobic racists jumped him in the wee small hours and put a noose around his neck has not held water. Nor is it an accident that the scenario sounds less like real life than something that would have happened on the television soap opera “Empire” that Smollett was starring in.
Cases like these are not eccentric one-offs. It is painful to have to write that they are a pattern. The incidents could fill a whole book, and they have: “Hate Crime Hoax” by Wilfred Reilly, a Black political scientist, covers over 400 cases primarily in the 2010s that were either disproved or shown to be highly unlikely. It isn’t that discrimination never happens. But the more extreme and ghastly the story, the less likely I am to believe it.
It is a kind of good news. Today’s hoaxes are often based on claims of the kinds of things that actually happened to people and went unpunished in the past. That today such things are sometimes fabricated shows, oddly, that in real life, progress has taken place.
My point is not remotely to ignore claims of racism. It is to be wary of the especially bizarre, antique-sounding cases. And so: Indeed, the racially offensive trash talk by the Los Angeles City Council members that surfaced this week was egregious, but talk like that, when speakers are unaware anyone else will hear, is common, sad though that is. That story does not disprove my point, because it happened in an ordinary rather than outlandish manner. Grotesque, racist private talk certainly still persists.
While we must always be maximally aware that racism does still exist, we must also know that not all claims of racist abuse hold water and that being aware of this does not disqualify one from being an antiracist. True antiracists know that Black people exhibit the full scale of human traits and tendencies, including telling tall tales — and yes, even about matters involving racism.
Texas Wesleyan Cancels Play After Students Say Use of Slur Is Harmful [The writer of the play is black]
Texas Wesleyan Cancels Play After Students Say Use of Slur Is Harmful
The play’s author, who is Black, said he crafted its language to be historically accurate in representing civil rights struggles. But the theater program at the university heeded the call of students.
By April Rubin
October 6, 2022
Texas Wesleyan University halted its production of “Down In Mississippi,” a play about registering voters in the 1960s, after criticism from students who said racist epithets in the script could contribute to a hostile, unwelcoming environment. Its author said he was using that language to represent the reality of the period.
The play by Carlyle Brown, a Black playwright based in Minneapolis, focuses on the efforts of a movement that led to passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed racial discrimination and protected Black voters. The plot, which is set during the Freedom Summer campaign, centers on three student activists as they travel from New York City to the South to register Black voters.
In telling that story, the playwright included a scene in which a white character used a racial slur, repeatedly, to refer to Black people, opening up a controversy on campus that also spotlighted a larger rift in American society over discussions of race and the portrayal of the struggles of people of color in media and the arts.
Two students who were not part of the production, and were described as a Latinx woman and a Black woman, heard about the scene through word of mouth and submitted bias reports to the university’s administration on Sept. 23, said Chatashia Brown, the university’s assistant director for student diversity and inclusion programs.
Their complaints prompted administrators of the university, in Fort Worth, to host a “listening session” on Sept. 29, which had been previously scheduled as the opening night of the play. Students, actors and members of the university’s faculty and staff joined the open forum, as did Mr. Brown.
Black students said that the explicit language in the play would further aggravate problems on a campus that they said did not cater to the needs of its significant population of students of color. As of fall 2021, 58 percent of students at Texas Wesleyan identified as Asian, Black, Latino or biracial.
“They wanted to kind of come in and be able to see the story and understand its impact without being triggered by it,” Ms. Brown said.
The students who expressed their concerns said that the repetition of the racial slur, spoken about a dozen times in the play, would have caught them off guard and negatively affected their mental health. They worried that the play could lead other students who are not Black to feel more comfortable repeating the slur.
“We pretty much all understand what harmful language is and how it’s been used because a lot of them still deal with that today,” Ms. Brown said. “So they just thought the timing and the place of it was pretty upsetting.”
The playwright said that his intentions were for the performance to be historically accurate. To him, the past shouldn’t be sanitized — and he said that the racial slur was used provocatively, for audience members to feel the impact it has had in real life. The scene portrays one of the play’s three students, who is white, showing the Black student how he would be treated on their journey. Training sessions like the one portrayed were common at the time and were intended to help people understand the severity of the behavior they could face.
Mr. Brown, who joined the listening session on a video call, said the play seems to have become a catalyst for a discussion about racial relations on campus that is separate from his work
“As the conversation went on, a couple students went up and looked at my image on the screen and said, ‘It’s not your play, Mr. Brown; it’s just not the play at this place, at this time,’” he said in an interview.
Last school year, the president of the Black Student Association went on a hunger strike to raise awareness of the lack of diversity on Texas Wesleyan’s campus. Among the sources of her discontent: The university didn’t have substantial classes focused on ethnic or racial studies, despite having a diverse student body; and no established multicultural center existed for students to convene.
The protest, along with other feedback from students about concerns with the campus climate and diversity, prompted the university to announce earlier this year that it would emphasize “community, engagement and inclusion” through a strategic plan, which included measures such as incorporating multiculturalism, inclusion and anti-intolerance in its curriculum; engaging in culturally relevant teaching to connect with students of diverse backgrounds; and identifying a space on campus for multicultural student programs.
However, the discussions around the play showed that students’ grievances had not been addressed to the extent they wanted, said Jaylon Leonard, president of the student body.
“It was not the play itself, but about some things that we had dealt with in the past with the school in regard to diversity and inclusion recently that weren’t unanswered,” he said, adding that “for this to be thrown on top of those issues, it was something that we were not ready to accept.”
Production dates for “Down in Mississippi” were first delayed, and the theater program considered hosting the play off campus at the Jubilee Theatre, a Fort Worth venue that puts on plays that highlight African American experiences. But the faculty of the Texas Wesleyan theater department decided not to put on the play at all, after students involved expressed their discomfort, said Joe Brown, theater chair and professor of theater arts.
The theater program has produced plays about the Holocaust, the gay rights movement, religion and political extremism, and they have been well-regarded in the campus community, Professor Brown said. All of the upcoming plays this season will examine the theme of exclusion.
“Our motivation was what’s happening in the United States right now is pretty scary with women’s rights and L.G.B.T.Q. rights and voter suppression and Black rights,” he said. “There’s some scary things happening in different states, so we felt the timeliness of ‘Is history repeating itself?’”
Students in the play sought the guidance of D. Wambui Richardson, the artistic director of the Jubilee Theatre, early in the production process, since he has put on several other plays with similar themes. He has heard the critique that the approach of a play could be glorifying negative aspects of the Black experience, citing an act on police brutality as an example, Mr. Richardson said.
“Our response was if we’re not creating a space for the conversations to be had in a safe and nurturing environment, then those conversations are not being had,” he said.
He offered for the production of “Down In Mississippi” to be moved to his theater, but Mr. Richardson came to understand that the Fort Worth student community did not seem ready for it.
“A message is only as important and vital as the lips that will repeat it, the ears that will hear it and the legs that will carry it,” Mr. Richardson said.
As the only Black person on the production team, Mya Cockrell, who was responsible for the scenic design, had reservations but felt that she had to come to terms with a show that was moving forward.
She appreciated that members of the cast went out and spoke with people involved in the civil rights movement and learned about the history, but she said that the greater campus community would have benefited from that discussion.
“I personally don’t think that the theater was in a place to put on a show like this,” Ms. Cockrell said, “because I think there’s a lot more that we can do as a community to help people, and I don’t think we were necessarily doing that or educating people outside of the theater.”
Laura L. Morgan in the Wall St. Journal: ‘Implicit Bias’ Training Cost Me My Job – States are forcing medical professionals to make false confessions of racism. I refused to go along.
‘Implicit Bias’ Training Cost Me My Nursing Job
States are forcing medical professionals to make false confessions of racism. I refused to go along.
By Laura L. Morgan
September 30, 2022
I was fired from my nursing job this year for refusing to take “implicit bias” training. After 39 years of providing equal care to all my patients without regard to their race, I objected to a mandatory course grounded in the idea that I’m racist because I’m white. I fear every healthcare professional will soon be forced to make the same awful decision I did: Falsely admit to being racist or abandon the medical field.
My ordeal started in September 2021 when my employer, Dallas-based Baylor Scott & White Health, rolled out its annual training modules for clinical educators. The list included “Overcoming Unconscious Bias.” After viewing the interactive course, I contacted my supervisor and asked for a meeting with the chief nursing officer and the human resources director. The former sent a surrogate; the latter didn’t attend. After two meetings, it was clear that I wouldn’t be given an exemption. My supervisor told me, “I don’t want you to die on this cross.”
But I did. The idea of implicit bias is grounded in the belief that white people treat those who aren’t white worse than those who are. It’s part of the woke assumption that society, including healthcare, suffers from “systemic racism.” Accordingly, my own supposed implicit bias, which is a euphemism for ingrained racism, must be rooted out. Not only that, it must be replaced with preferential treatment for the nonwhite. I fail to see how real racial discrimination is justified by my nonexistent racism.
I knew it was coming, but I was still devastated when I was fired in February. I went from a six-figure job to zero income. The day I was fired I sold my car to make sure I’d have enough money to live on. When I tried to find a new healthcare job, no one would hire me. No doubt if they contacted my old employer, they were told why I was let go.
States are increasingly requiring implicit-bias training as a condition for obtaining medical and nursing licenses. As of July, the Kentucky Board of Nursing requires that all registered nurses take a continuing-education course on implicit bias. In July, as a journalistic exercise, I paid $5 and signed up for the recommended course, created by the Kentucky Nurses Association. Nurses are told that “implicit bias kills,” and that white privilege is a “covert” form of racism. The course walks nurses through their possible contributions to “modern-day lynchings in the workplace.”
In June, Michigan started requiring all professional-license holders to take two hours of implicit-bias training. That’s everyone from doctors and nurses to dentists and counselors. The training must be taken at every license renewal, which sends the message that racism is essentially permanent and incurable. Massachusetts also mandated implicit-bias training for doctors in June, connecting doctors’ supposed racism to lower-quality care for minority patients. Maryland will enact its rule for “all healthcare practitioners” on Oct. 1.
No state board of medicine or nursing provides sufficient evidence to support the claim that all white people are implicitly biased, and there’s plenty of scholarly research that shows that implicit-bias testing is flawed. Policy makers don’t seem to be considering the unintended consequences of these mandates. Accusing my peers and me of racism will contribute to soaring levels of burnout, causing many to leave the medical profession. Some, like me, will surely be forced out. Patients, especially minorities, will experience the most harm. Their caregivers are being told to admit to unconscious racism. Why would you see a physician who supposedly hates you and will hurt your health?
More state mandates are surely on the way, including in red states. Most state medical associations, which exert a powerful influence over policy, have bought in to the belief that their own members are racist. The Texas Nurses Association declares the existence of “racial biases in healthcare” and supports implicit-bias training for nurses. The national Federation of State Medical Boards urges state boards to take a bigger role in addressing the “systemic racism and structural inequities” that it says are “embedded” in American healthcare.
Before I was fired, I wrote the following to the leadership of Baylor Scott & White Health: “Treating patients, coworkers, family members, and my superiors in a fair and respectful manner is the practice I have subscribed to during my entire 39-year nursing career.” The same is true of most of the medical professionals I’ve worked with. No one – not me, my peers or our patients – will be better off if more states call us liars and racists.
Here’s the latest example of something that was considered perfectly acceptable by most people when we were children. Now it’s considered racist.
https://www.theroot.com/wheel-of-fortune-under-fire-for-televising-racist-puzzl-1849586248
Wheel Of Fortune Under Fire For Televising Racist Puzzle
The outrage comes days after host Pat Sajak was seen in a controversial photo with right wing politicians.
By Candace McDuffie
September 27, 2022
Can y’all buy a – damn clue? The long-running television show Wheel of Fortune has recently come under fire for televising a racist puzzle. “Rhyme Time” was the category it was featured under and the answer turned out to be:“EENIE MEENIE MINY MOE CATCH A TIGER BY THE TOE.”
The dark nursery rhyme has racist origins, where the word ‘tiger’ was swapped out for the N-word. It didn’t take long for Twitter users to call out the disturbing episode and implored Wheel of Fortune to do better, according to The Sun.
This is the latest controversy to follow host Pat Sajak. Earlier this month, a photo came to light of him alongside Right Side Broadcasting Network personality Bryan Glenn and Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.
The picture was shared on the Twitter account PatriotTakes, which according to its bio consists of “dedicated researchers monitoring and exposing right-wing extremism and other threats to democracy.”
Marjorie Taylor Greene has been covered previously by The Root for her hateful rhetoric and featured in “9 Political Karens Who Spew Nothing But Trash:”
“She was banned from Twitter was banned for a reason. The QAnon Queen has been famous (and not in a good way) for spewing racist, homophobic, transphobic trash online. Her tweets are polluted with spreading COVID-19 misinformation, boasting about participating in the insurrection and accusing trans people of buying up the tampons. She’s been openly and repeatedly racist while simultaneously insisting the party she belongs to is not. Greene been the model conservative, standing hatefully against anything associated with the Left.”
Fans may be shocked by these revelations, but when it comes to politics and certain white celebrities it is par for the course.
Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog 