Tag: race

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media and media people national politics & policies Popular

Birth of a Twitterstorm

Kamala Harris, race, debate, democratic, president, democracy,

“Kamala Harris is *not* an American Black. She is half Indian and half Jamaican,” tweeted Ali Alexander, a self-​described black American activist, after the California Senator’s presidential debate performance. “I’m so sick of people robbing American Blacks (like myself) of our history.”*

On Friday, Donald Trump, Jr., retweeted Alexander’s tweet (before later deleting it). His traipsing into the details of Harris’s birth immediately sparked comparison to his father’s “birther attacks” suggesting that President Obama wasn’t born here.**

Seemingly, the entire Democratic presidential field was quick to condemn the tweet and Don Jr.’s retweet as “racist.” So did much of the media. Although months ago, CNN’s Don Lemon argued, “Jamaica is not America.”

The New York Times article identified Ali Alexander only as an “alt-​right fringe figure” and “a member of a right-​wing constellation of media personalities,” but nowhere informed readers he is African-American.

“This stuff about Harris, about her status, about her blackness,” Jason Johnson, politics editor of TheRoot​.com, told Joy Reid on MSNBC, “that’s about black people.”

In fact, on Reid’s program back in February, Johnson was part of a discussion about the senator’s — gasp! — white husband. “She needs to find a strong black man advocate,” advised Tiffany Cross, co-​founder and managing editor of The Beat DC. “Let’s just be candid,” Johnson remarked, “it’s not going to be her [white] husband.”

How important is the color of a person’s skin or their ancestry or the skin color of their spouse to that person’s fitness to be president?

It only matters to racists.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* “Kamala Harris,” Alexander also pointed out, “comes from Jamaican Slave Owners.” True enough, but how is she responsible for what her ancestors did? Would it matter if she supported … reparations?

** For the record, Sen. Harris was born in Oakland, California, which was then and is still part of the United States of America.

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Kamala Harris, race, debate, democratic, president, democracy,

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education and schooling

Gaming a Newly Rigged System

SAT, college, racism, race, fairness,

Education is important. I want my young adult offspring to get into a great college or university.

Sadly, my bribery fund is empty.

Must she, then, rely only upon working hard for good grades and preparing for the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT)? 

No. There is a workaround: find a way to improve our family’s Adversity Score.

“The College Board plans to assign an adversity score to every student who takes the SAT,” The Wall Street Journal reports, “to try to capture their social and economic background, jumping into the debate raging over race and class in college admissions.”

This year 50 universities, including Yale, used these scores; next year, 150 will do so. Students are assessed on 15 not fully disclosed factors, things such as the level of crime and poverty in one’s high school and neighborhood, “the educational level of the parents,” and “family stability.” 

“An adversity score of 50 is average,” notes the Journal. “Anything above it designates hardship, below it privilege.”

Hmmm, how to climb (or descend) the “Overall Disadvantage Index”? What sacrifices to make?

My wife and I could divorce. Coming from a single parent household would improve our daughter’s opportunities in higher education.

We won’t sink her chances by upgrading our own educations. That’s obvious.

And crime-​free homeschools certainly place kids at a distinct disadvantage in being disadvantaged. I guess we could move to a more dangerous neighborhood. 

Heck — what am I thinking?! — we can stay put and just commit crimes ourselves. Show some entrepreneurial initiative! Don’t be dependent on others, for heaven sake! Be the change we wish to see in our world.

On that one, though, I better check my exuberance with my wife … if our divorce hasn’t yet been finalized.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

SAT, college, racism, race, fairness,

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folly ideological culture media and media people moral hazard Popular

Systemic Refocusing

white privilege, Jussie Smollett, Elizabeth Warren, Rachel Dolezal

Everyone comes into this world with advantages and disadvantages. 

In the last century, public morality focused on the disadvantaged. Government policy changed dramatically, aiming to help those lacking many obvious advantages. But that focus got fuzzier and fuzzier as the ranks of disadvantaged people remained, even grew larger. Progress was made on several fronts, sure, but not on all — especially not on the ones most targeted.

We even “lost ground.”

Maybe because of this, the political focus shifted to “privilege” — which often merely means “advantaged” and sometimes means a special license granted by custom or law, which is said to be “systemic.” 

White males, we are told, have the most of it. 

So they must be attacked.

But does “white [heterosexual male] privilege” really exist?

Sure, in some contexts. But so do other “privileges.” Here is a better question: Are there privileges so built in that people try to horn in on them?

When there really was white privilege, “passing for white” was a thing. Now, we see other directions of racial “passing.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, 99 and 44/​100ths pure white, for example. If white privilege were really systemic, would she have pretended to be a native American? 

If white privilege were significantly at play in the academic world, the issue of Asian students qualifying for (and being accepted into) the country’s most prestigious universities wouldn’t even come up.

And if white people actually enforced their privilege, would the charges against Jussie Smollett for perpetrating a fake racial/​ideological hate crime have been dropped? 

Seems unlikely.

If the results of focusing on advantage and privilege have been so dismal and dismaying, maybe it’s time for a refocus: on simple justice.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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white priviledge, Jussie Smollett, Elizabeth Warren, Rachel Dolezal

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incumbents political challengers term limits

Old Dominions

Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax

A photo, found on Virginia Governor Ralph Northam’s 1984 medical school yearbook page, went viral. It was of a person in black-​face next to another in a Ku Klux Klan sheet. In almost no time at all, Democrats and others quickly demanded that the governor resign.

Why the speed? 

The already-​started presidential campaign? 

Or the likelihood that Democrats would experience no disadvantage should their governor step down?

Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, an up-​and-​comer in the Democratic Party, would take Northam’s place. And under Virginia’s gubernatorial term limits, Fairfax could run again for a full term after finishing the rest of this current term. 

With Virginia’s one-​term limit, it would allow a rare option to run as an incumbent.

There’s a speed bump, though. Not necessarily the sexual assault allegation lodged against Fairfax, which he denies … and about which we know little. What’s certain? Fairfax is positioned far to the left of Northam — in a state that is still more purple than blue. 

A bitter feud with Laborers’ International Union of North America illustrates the problem. Mr. Fairfax has long opposed two pipelines that the union desperately desires. The union — a donor of $600,000 to Democrats in 2017 — demanded that candidate Northam remove Fairfax’s name and picture from mailers to union households. 

Northam complied. 

And got hit by charges of racism.

You see, Fairfax is black. 

Playing down the dis, Fairfax called it a “mistake”; others chose “mindboggling,” a “slap in the face,” and a signal that blacks “are expendable.”

Northam still won … with 87 percent support from black voters.

Should Northam finish his term, Lt. Gov. Fairfax would remain well positioned, but the race would be wide open. If Fairfax becomes governor, however, no Democrat will challenge him for fear of splitting the party.

Yet, come 2021, Fairfax is too far left to defeat a decent Republican … should one appear.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax

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Accountability education and schooling folly general freedom ideological culture local leaders moral hazard nannyism responsibility too much government U.S. Constitution

Degrading Expectations

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, race, racism, low expectations, condescension, Stuyvesant High, quota, affirmative action

Expect racism to come from the Right … we are told by the Left. 

On Wednesday, I considered the sad case of New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, pushing racial resentment in a black church, asking for an “amen” after telling the parishioners that there was something very wrong with Asian students dominating that most meritocratic of institutions, Stuyvesant High.

Giving up on meritocracy is quite bracing, as is de Blasio’s lack of commitment to the culture of individual achievement.

His assumption? Black and Hispanic Americans just cannot compete on merit alone. 

They don’t need to work harder, and we mustn’t expect them to. They needn’t change their values or encourage their children to be more academically ambitious. What’s the point in troubling to emulate successful cultures, like that of many Asians (many of them quite poor) who have been advancing so effectively? For de Blasio there’s no hope for blacks and Hispanics. 

Except through him.

Note the two pillars of de Blasio’s vision:

  1. racial determinism, where individuals cannot hope to succeed outside the stereotyped behavior of their racial background, their skin color and physical features determining their performance,
  2. except when Government steps in to save them (this is statist messianism).

And yes, by “government” he really means “de Blasio” — or “progressivise politics.”

The first assumption has been called “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” 

The second is idolatry of the State and overbearing pride in one’s own ideological tribe.

You individuals have no chance to succeed, the idea runs, but We, the Progressives, will save you. Vote for us!

How insufferable.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Categories
crime and punishment education and schooling ideological culture media and media people moral hazard national politics & policies

Bias and Blindness

GAO, racism, race, boys, Roseanne, schools, education, bias

Neither stretching the truth nor ignoring it helps beat back implicit or explicit racism.  Yesterday, my Townhall​.com column took the Washington Post to task for misstating the results of a recent GAO report.

The GAO noted wide discrepancies between the percentage of students facing disciplinary actions who are black, male and disabled and the relative percentages of these groups in the overall student population. Yet, the report also specifically stated: “Our analyses of these data, taken alone, do not establish whether unlawful discrimination has occurred.”

Nonetheless, the Post headline told readers: “Implicit racial bias causes black boys to be disciplined at school more than whites, federal report finds.” The article claimed that “a government analysis of data … said implicit racial bias was the likely cause of these continuing disparities.”

The same discrepancies regarding boys of all races? And students with disabilities? Even the crickets had no comment.

In the Post’s Outlook section, yesterday, readers were treated to further edification on race — this time via C. Nicole Mason with the Center for Research and Policy in the Public Interest. “I feel alienated and slightly betrayed by the reboot” of the sitcom Roseanne,” she writes.

The title of her piece proclaims why: “‘Roseanne’ was about a white family, but it was for all working people. Not anymore.”

The “not anymore” refers to Roseanne’s support of (and Mason’s derangement syndrome over) President Trump. Interestingly, a more legitimate “not anymore” angle was completely missed — or ignored. The Connors now have a black granddaughter. The new show isn’t “about a white family,” but a racially mixed family. 

When racism is finally extinguished from this planet, someone remember to tell the race-hustlers.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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