Tag: race

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national politics & policies

Pick Your Poison

cigarette, menthol, racism

Are cigarettes containing menthol-​flavored tobacco racist?

Follow the science! It is an absolute fact that those menthol smokes “disproportionately addict — and kill — Black Americans.”

The reason? “Only 29 percent of White smokers choose menthol, as opposed to 85 percent of African American smokers, according to a National Survey on Drug Use and Health,” The Washington Post explains, “fueled by more than half a century of Big Tobacco aggressively marketing them specifically to Black Americans.”

Catch that causation claim? The black-​and-​white difference between racial group affinity with this flavor is the fault of cunning (white?) advertising execs with a racist penchant for hooking unsuspecting blacks. 

Never addressed — or apparently even considered? The possibility that tobacco companies are targeting their promotional efforts in relation to the obvious preferences of their customers.

It is in the news because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration must officially address, by April 29, a formal regulatory petition “demanding menthol cigarettes be banned.”

Support for outlawing menthol-​flavoring based on racial justice rationales meets plenty of opposition based on racial … sanity.

“Opposition,” notes The Post, “come[s] from GOP and Democratic officials as well as civil rights groups.” 

The idea of providing another police enforcement flashpoint by outlawing an addictive substance used overwhelmingly by blacks seems a non-​starter. “We do not think kids should be put in jail or given a ticket for selling menthol,” offered Rev. Al Sharpton.* “You’re going to give the police another reason to engage our people?”

“Banning a certain type of cigarettes because black people tend to favor them is stupid and patronizing,” one Post reader commented. “Either have the courage of your convictions and ban all cigarettes (lol) or leave this alone.”

Leave us alone.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Sharpton acknowledged to The Post that his National Action Network has received funding from “R.J. Reynolds, which makes Newport cigarettes, the most popular menthol cigarette and the No. 2 U.S. cigarette brand overall.”

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ideological culture

Whitey Need Not Apply

UBI, black, white, slavery

“Oakland to give low-​income residents $500 a month,” reads the headline, “no strings attached.”

Well, actually there may be just a little itty bitty filament attached to what CBS News calls “the latest experiment with a ‘guaranteed income,’ the idea that giving low-​income individuals a regular, monthly stipend helps ease the stresses of poverty and results in better health and upward economic mobility.”

Though certainly not universal, “Oakland’s project is significant because it is one of the largest efforts in the U.S. so far, targeting up to 600 families,” notes CBS. It is different in another unique and important way … “it is the first program to limit participation strictly to Black, Indigenous and people of color communities.”

You read that right. 

But have no fear of excluding poor whites. The network immediately provided, “The reason: White households in Oakland on average make about three times as much annually than black households, according to the Oakland Equity Index.”

Even if accurate, how does this “on average” group statistic justify denying help to someone in poverty who is white? 

“It’s also,” CBS News informs, “a nod to the legacy of the Black Panther Party, the political movement that was founded in Oakland in the 1960s.” 

You see, the Black Panthers advocated for a basic guaranteed income or universal basic income. And so, since black people in a group with black in the name pushed the idea, it only logically follows that whites should be denied this assistance. Or, uh, hmm, er.

Oakland’s program is different in yet one more way: It is privately funded.

So, what’s the big deal?

Sure, people can privately send money to whomever they want, with whatever racial criteria they design. But, private folks may not create government-​run programs that are racist even if they fund every penny of the cost.

This isn’t a pilot program for “guaranteed income” but for a racist America.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment media and media people

Nightmare Narratives

Beware the America we see on our screens.

A friend posted something on Facebook tying three recent stories together, what he called “brazenly false narratives many progressives have peddled.”

The first being that those who attacked the Capitol on January 6th were treated more gently than Black Lives Matter activists would have been. Back in January, then President-​Elect Biden made a point of offering this stark racial takeaway, sans evidence.*

The second narrative? That the Atlanta shooting spree was motivated by anti-​Asian hatred, six of the nine people shot, eight killed, being Asian. But there is yet no evidence of racism; another, quite different motive appears to have spurred the massacre.

Nonetheless, on NBC Meet the Press last Sunday, Princeton University Professor Eddie Glaude Jr. said the Atlanta shooting was part of “this panic around the whiteness of this country.” The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart echoed that emotion in a weekend column, “Asian Americans must not fight white terror alone.”

Yet, weeks ago, The Post informed readers, “Tensions between Asian and Black communities also date back decades and have been reignited by videos that show Black perpetrators in many of the recent attacks on Asian Americans.”

The terror is diverse.

Lastly, the Boulder shooter was taken alive — which “must” mean (if you are catching on) that he is … white. Some referred to the killer as a “white Christian terrorist” … problem being (you guessed it) he turned out to be a Syrian immigrant — and Muslim. Causing mass tweet deletes, including by Vice-​President Harris’s niece.**

Like me, you probably meet a lot of nice people, white and black and Asian and Middle Eastern … of both sexes, various genders, differing religions … all the time … before the pandemic, anyway. 

But no film at 11.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* I made a point here of calling him on it — thanks to David Bernstein’s excellent analysis at The Volokh Conspiracy. 

** The removed tweet by 36-​year-​old attorney and author Meena Harris, had declared in part: “Violent white men are the greatest terrorist threat to our country.” 

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education and schooling ideological culture

Disparate Outcomes, Desperate Logic

race, racism, education, testing, quota

“Virginia AG’s office finds elite Loudoun STEM school discriminates against Black, Hispanic students,” declared The Washington Post headline. 

Falsely. 

On Friday, Attorney General Mark Herring — another blackface-​wearing state government leader — issued a 61-​page report, saying “the Office of Attorney General Division of Human Rights finds there is reasonable cause to believe that Loudoun County Public Schools’ administration of the Academies of Loudoun program resulted in a discriminatory disparate impact on Black/​African-​American and Latinx/​Hispanic students.” 

Though the investigation found the admission process to be “facially-​neutral,” The Post informs that the program “in fact barred from admission qualified Black and Hispanic students who applied during the fall 2018 cycle.”

Yet blacks and Latinos were not barred. 

This year, 7 percent of black applicants were accepted and 11 percent of Hispanics. True, the acceptance rate for Asians was 13 percent and 15 percent for whites. But this gets tricky. Given their percentage of the overall student body, Asians were 42 percent overrepresented in the applicant pool, while blacks were 4 percent underrepresented, Latinos 6 percent, and whites underrepresented by a whopping 23 percent. 

“We request that Loudoun County Public Schools eliminate its discriminatory practices,” the report concludes. But … it did not stipulate any specific form of discrimination. Rather, it instructed the school district to work with the Loudoun County NAACP “to begin developing revised policies within 60 days.”

What sort of revisions are likely? 

Lower the entry requirements, reduce testing and “take into consideration the principle of geography/​socio-​economic equity.” 

You see, the problem they’re trying to fix isn’t racism, but the lack thereof.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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education and schooling

Merit No More

grades, race, school, education, prejudice, racism

San Diego’s school district is weakening its grading system because of “racial disparities.”

Yearly averaging of grades will end. Why? The practice, it is said, has penalized students who do poorly early in the year, presumably unfairly.

Teachers will also be prohibited from taking into account whether homework is submitted on time and how students behave in class. These aspects of performance will instead be incorporated into a “citizen grade.”

Richard Barrera, VP of the school district, says “to be an anti-​racist school district, we have to confront practices like this that have gone on for years and years.”

Student behavior has sometimes been called “deportment.” Grading it separately is nothing new. But San Diego’s rationale for doing so is bad. And eliminating a yearly average (or semester average) discourages students from working diligently all year long.

What if, under the hobbled system, grades still exhibit “racial disparities”? The logical conclusion is an end to grades and to merit-​based distinctions.

Many reasons for academic disparities among different groups are possible. But let’s say that kids of certain color tend to have lousier home lives than kids of other color, and therefore do worse in school. 

If so, disparities in performance cannot be attributed to attempts to objectively assess schoolwork. 

And the problems won’t disappear if grades disappear.

Any silver lining? 

Well, if you’re a substandard teacher, meaningless grades for students will also make it harder to know when you, the teacher, are doing substandard work.

Though the metal most apt, here, is much baser than “silver.”

Lead seems about right. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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education and schooling folly

Not Fired for Teaching

words, racism, PC culture

The headline states that a “USC Professor Who Used Chinese Word That Sounds Like English Slur” was “ ‘Not Dismissed Nor Suspended.’ ”

Sure. The professor was “only” removed from the course he was teaching.

Greg Patton, who teaches business communication at the University of Southern California, had been telling students about “filler words,” which for native English speakers is stuff like “uh, uh, uh.” We apparently don’t all grope for words in exactly the same way. If one grew up speaking Mandarin, one tends to say “nèi ge, nèi ge, nèi ge.”

No sooner had the example been provided than a contingent of the perpetually aggrieved lurched into action. 

Their failure to simply talk to Professor Patton, and the overkill of their response — including a letter claiming that his utterance “offended all of the Black members of our Class.… Our mental health has been affected.…” — suggests the disingenuousness of that response.

A USC dean issued an abject public apology. 

Patton also, regrettably, apologized.

Fortunately, many of Patton’s students, and others, rose to his defense, including Chinese class members who noted that Patton’s “use of ‘nei ge’ [was] an accurate rendition of common Chinese use, and an entirely appropriate … illustration of the use of pauses.”

If only the professor had been a mind reader and expert military strategist, he might have avoided this land mine. But training in proactive appeasement of bullies is not the solution here. 

What’s needed is a determination to stop appeasing bullies.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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