The truth slowly puts its boots on: university Jew-hatred; George Floyd’s death
There are some things that should have long been obvious to anyone who has taken a close and thoughtful look at them. One is the leftist takeover of almost every university; with concomitant moral relativism, double standards on free speech depending on who’s doing the speech, coddling of leftist-designated victim identity groups, and Jew-hatred disguised as Israel-hatred and concern for Muslims. Another is the evidence that Derek Chauvin did not murder George Floyd.
I’ve been writing about both for years. Most bloggers on the right have covered them as well, as have many pundits on the right. The facts on which my opinions have been based are neither obscure nor hard to come by. And yet … and yet …
We have this [emphasis mine]:
A few days ago, the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and UPenn testified on Capitol Hill in a House hearing on antisemitism in higher education. The thing that is significant about this hearing is that the entire country finally got a crystal clear window into the woke, doublespeak that has permeated academia since the turn of the century, when none of the leaders of three of the most prestigious universities in the world could simply condemn antisemitism on their campuses.
I guess the author is correct that the hearing seems to have opened some eyes. But why did so many eyes need opening? How had so many remained oblivious to what has been obvious for decades?
I don’t have a good answer to the question except to say, as I’ve said before, that most people are busy living their lives. Also, institutions tend to ride on their previous reputations and perhaps a lot of people give them the benefit of too much doubt. But I still find it amazing that the rot in academia (that’s been going on for even longer than that writer indicates) has previously been unnoticed by most people.
The same for the death of George Floyd. That ignorance is probably a bit easier to understand, considering how devoted the propaganda machines of the MSM, the left, the legal system in Minneapolis, and sanctimonious groups such as Black Live Matter have been to making sure people think Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd in cold blood.
The reason I’m writing about this now is a video I watched last night, with Glenn Loury and John McWhorter, on the subject of Floyd revisited. Loury and McWhorter are two black professors who have a popular podcast where they discuss issues of the day with a particular focus on race but not limited to that topic. I watch them quite regularly and enjoy their talks. Although McWhorter is too liberal for my tastes, I especially like Loury. Both are smart and – what’s more rare – open-minded. That’s why I was shocked at how late they’ve come to doubting the narrative of Chauvin’s guilt, although I respect them for changing their minds (we all know how difficult it can be to change a firm opinion).
But how and why can the facts be news to them? They discuss things about the case that I knew about and wrote about just a few weeks after Floyd’s death occurred, facts easily available to anyone exercising due diligence – such as the provenance of the hold Chauvin employed to restrain Floyd, and the bodycam footage or transcript of the bodycam footage. Some of these early posts of mine can be found here, here, here, and here.
At any rate, please watch (I suggest going to “settings” and upping the speed to 1.5 or so, if you’re impatient like me):
Why? Why? Why did they miss all this before? I suppose it was because of confirmation bias – and perhaps lack of curiosity to dig deeper, beyond the MSM headlines. At least now that they’ve seen the documentary they are willing to jettison their previous assumptions. But for most people, the propaganda will almost certainly hold forever. And Chauvin – if he lives – will remain in prison for a long long time.
The thing I found most astounding about the U presidents was not their double-talk. That one can find everywhere in the leftist world. But that they are so insulated in their leftist bubble that they didn’t realize how horrible it sounds to anyone outside that small clique.
I think I’ve mentioned before that the lack of awareness of many on the left reminds me of the segregationists I remember from the 60s.
I am sending the video to my Best Friend, who believes that Floyd was murdered. We can’t talk about this topic at all, nor Jan 6. No, he is not liberal but a moderate conservative. He does watch too much left TV. Don’t know if he will watch it nor if he will change his mind. He is not stupid. He is a retired Professor of Vet Med at a Midwest University.
Yes, Loury’s and McWhorter’s astonishment after watching the new Floyd documentary astounded me, also! You didn’t see any of the obvious evidence that Chauvin was doing his job? Yes, the video looked horrifying, but the underlying facts were fairly apparent that Floyd was high on something and being completely uncooperative. So Chauvin had no choice but to restrain him by a technique he WAS trained to do.
It’s funny, I watched that video last night as well and had the same reaction. I also particularly like Loury and am mystified why he acts like most of the information presented in Death of Minneapolis is actually news. As you say, this evidence has been out there for quite some time.
I also found it irritating that McWhorter compared those who would not accept that Chauvin did not murder Floyd to those who believe that Trump had the 2020 election stolen from him. He obviously needs to do a little more research on that topic.
Loury seems genuinely outraged and I would say betrayed by those who pushed the Floyd myth. But then he also goes on to ask in amazement how it is possible that Trump is doing so well in the polls. Neither one seems to be able to fully grasp how a huge section of the population feels — betrayed and lied to by the media and their government on issue after issue after issue. You don’t have to like Trump to understand why a large section of the population would support him as a retaliation against a system that is corrupt to its core.
Why did they miss it? It’s more than confirmation bias, it’s active rationalizations about something so as to replace belief in Truth, which you might not like, with the truth that most folks accept. Especially your peers and those who would judge you, and all higher status folk.
If low status folk believe in something else, it’s most probably wrong, but certainly it’s lower status to believe it.
There is a Market in Rationalizations, by Dan Williams.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/41FB096344BD344908C7C992D0C0C0DC/S0266267121000389a.pdf/div-class-title-the-marketplace-of-rationalizations-div.pdf
He’s a liberal, so will have Fox news or Trump examples of misinformation, but his logic is quite damning to the rationalization support of untruth provided by the NYT.
“two characteristics of belief-based utility:
(i) that preferences for similar beliefs are often widely distributed in society, and (ii) that belief ‘choice’ is subject to a rationalization constraint, such that individuals can only bring themselves to believe things for which they can find appropriate rationalizations. I argue that these facts give rise to a spontaneous market for rationalizations, a social structure in which agents compete to produce justifications of widely desired beliefs in exchange for money and social rewards such as attention and status.”
The news media that we consumers pay for, is a market to provide rationalizations to … confirm our beliefs.
I’m so hugely grateful to be reading Neo who seems always more interested in truth.
look how much was omitted, the police practices in the training manual the delay in rescue personnel, all to shape a narrative,
re January 6th, there was much exculpatory material that was left out, re chansley, the water buffalo man, that judge lamberth, the same one who failed to authorize a warrant on moussaoi more than 20 years ago didn’t bother with,
with dominion, the trial only included opinions by those who had no relevant experience, none of the question that judge totenberg, had raised back in october 2020,
Shirehome, I’ve written here before I know moderate folks who are utterly convinced Chauvin killed Floyd. They saw the video! And nothing will change their mind. They have no interest in any evidence that contradicts that view.
That the then police chief of Minneapolis utterly lied on the stand concerns no one because they saw the knee on the neck with their own eyes. You will never get them to watch the other videos that show Chauvin’s knee was never on Floyd’s neck.
Did those presidents know how bad they looked? Clearly not. The evidence is the smug little grin on one’s face. And it can’t be easy balancing all of those competing grievance groups. But this is the world they helped create.
Sounds like several of us were among the 32,000-some-odd views registered on that video at the time I listened to it.
I think that to get the real import of Loury and McWhorter’s realization that they’d been lied to about Floyd, one probably has to have listened to a number of their other videos over the couple of years as they commented first on the immediate aftermath of Floyd’s demise, then on Chauvin’s trial. I wouldn’t call myself a regular listener of their show, but I remember Loury being really fuming even back then that Chauvin got such a raw deal. In some dimensions, then, I think their video the other day is not some amazing about-face.
They bring up the other interesting point about Kendi and how he basically never would have been anybody special if George Floyd hadn’t tried to pass a counterfeit $20 bill that day. Kendi and all his garbage are a further consequence, in other words, still working its way through our lives.
Their video is kind of a neat summary, I think, of the crucial points, the pivot points, to be discerned in American race politics over the last several years. It’s why I think that, of all the countries of the world, we actually got it harder in 2020 than almost everywhere else, because on top of COVID and all those direct associations, George Floyd happened. That particular double whammy was delivered primarily here in the U. S. I say primarily because there were some relatively minor copycat protests in the UK and I assume Canada and so on, but we got the full brunt of it. Minneapolis, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia… world-class cities that, while they certainly all had their problems before, really took it on the chin because of George Floyd and are still seeing stars even now.
I haven’t yet seen the documentary about Minneapolis, but if it’s of the caliber that they describe, it seems plausible to me that it could have been a sort of catalyst for Glenn and John’s realization as they expressed it this week. Sometimes a certain crystallization process has to occur for people to fully realize things, and I daresay that realization could then become a seed crystal for the development of further revelations. That video from Loury and McWhorter, for example, could be the precise distillation of the issue that could change the mind of someone else yet to be heard from. (They speculated toward the end whether something like this could happen down the road, mentioning Coleman Hughes, I think, as one who might ultimately synthesize all of this for posterity.)
The feminization of American universities is one of my hobby-horses, so I try to restrain myself when the subject pops up.
For now, I’ll just note the obvious. Three university presidents famously refused to publicly condemn genocide of the Jews. These presidents are all women, as is Heather MacDonald, who recently wrote an article entitled “In Loco Masculi: the feminization of the American university is all but complete” (https://www.city-journal.org/article/in-loco-masculi).
If you have a few minutes, please read MacDonald’s essay.
None of this should come as a surprise, since a little more than 2,000,000,000 people believe that The Koran is a divinely-delivered piece of scripture. It is beyond argument that it is a late contrived literary hoax, largely “borrowed” from various books of the Jewish and Christian Bible, then reworked to alter the meaning. E.g., Ishmael becomes the son of promise, not Isaac; Jesus did not die but was swapped out for someone else, and when He comes back at the End of Days, He will fight for Allah and kill the infidel Christians. If you ask most moslems, they will admit, if they are truthful, that they have never read the Koran or The Hadiths, but rely on what their imam tells them. The list of the anachronisms, geographical errors, outright falsehoods and other defects in the Koran that prove it to be a fraud is almost endless. I recommend a perusal of the many You Tube videos from Jay Smith wherein he provides a devastating dismantling of all things Islamic.
Do the majority of people, once having an opinion, ever change it? That leads to a lot of internal unpleasantness. I don’t believe debate really enlightens. Rather it has the effect of hardening positions. Chauvin, Jan. 6, name an issue. At least in my experience few people are willing to admit they were wrong.
I believe that Chauvin is a political prisoner, or a better term might be cultural prisoner. As much as black men in the south who were accused of basically being black.
Scott Addams wrote a while back how two people can watch the same movie and then describe two different stories.
Releasing the J6 video won’t change anything since the majority of the media won’t cover the story.
My own theory is that one of the reason that Jews in particular missed this is that they labored under the convenient misconception that the Nazis were right wing. This allowed them to remain comfortably left while opposing conservatives, safety was to be found among progressives. As to why they were left in the first place, I expect it was because of the mass immigration early in the last century from regions dominated by Czarist Russian antisemitism and pogroms and it got passed down through the generations. There are many family stories.
Looks like they caught another White Supremacist (of Color) red handed!
“Suspect in attempted arson of MLK Jr’s birth home is decorated US Navy veteran”—
https://www.foxnews.com/us/suspect-attempted-arson-mlk-jrs-birth-home-decorated-us-navy-veteran
Smells like we have a Jussie Smollett Prize** winner!
With Distinction!!
(To be sure, MLK’s “Judge a man not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character” is likely to be viewed as SICKENINTLY RACIST AND SEXIST, according to the current zeitgeist”…..)
** “…for Exemplary Citizenship and Promoting Racial Harmony”
The bad news wasn’t hard to explain from the start. Neo, brutality is easy to explain. Brutality takes no skill.
Weirdly, here’s Hillary arguing on The View the Jewish side towards a ceasefire in the current war with surprising power and articulation.
Biden and The Squad have so lowered the bar on Democrat political speech that Hillary practically sounds like Winston Churchill — albeit with OTOHs about the plight of the Palestinians.
_____________________________
Remember there was a ceasefire on October 6th, that Hamas broke by their barbaric assault on peaceful civilians.
–Hillary Clinton, “Her Recent Comments on the Israel-Hamas War | The View”
https://youtu.be/czN4E-CTJ_E?t=97
_____________________________
It doesn’t make me feel warm and fuzzy about Hillary. It does, however, remind me that this is a serious fissure among Democrats between the Clinton and Obama wings of the party, and that once upon a time Democrats weren’t entirely brainwashed about the Jews and Israel.
Which I see as good news.
It was necessary because Islamist militants sometimes conceal ‘splody bits under the clothes.
Reality is hard.
Quote
Philippe Lemoine
@phl43
·
6h
This is a good thread, but again what is amazing is that one even needs to explain this. It’s obvious that the point was to humiliate and have images of victory to show for domestic consumption. It’s absolutely disgraceful.
I’ve seen people argue that it was necessary to check… twitter.com/Charlie533080/…
Show more
I used to return home and kiss my nieces and nephews. Then return to sea. It was just what I was born to dlo.
The bad news wasn’t hard to explain from the start. Neo, brutality is easy to explain. Brutality takes no skill.. anybody can be brutal. I’ll spare you the details.
Don’t call them militants Miiguel. They are too contemptible for that
One prez down. Stefanik says 2 more to go. Unfortunately she understated the problem. 1 down, about 300 more to go.
Do the majority of people, once having an opinion, ever change it? That leads to a lot of internal unpleasantness. I don’t believe debate really enlightens. Rather it has the effect of hardening positions.
–Richard Cook
Sure, people change their opinions, even entrenched positions, e.g. neo herself.
People are affected by debates, but the changes are usually small, even microscopic. Usually they don’t acknowledge such changes and they may seem to harden their positions.
Nonetheless, those changes accumulate over time and sometimes they add up to a shocking change, a conversion of sorts.
Change is hard and slow, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Debate is part of that process.
Cornflour notes the gynocracy of the higher ed establishment. I watched it happen in real time. Now over 60% of the students are women and same with the faculty. Most of the women faculty I knew could best be described as harpies. As a father of 2 great adult daughters, I hesitate to note this. But the entire culture of my college changed as it became feminine.
I have a retired cop neighbor. We have talked a lot about the difficulties of making arrests. The policeman wants to go home uninjured at the end of his shift. He is trained to use enough force to accomplish the arrest and stay uninjured. When a perp resists, they are liable to get injured or, as in many cases we hear about, killed.
My reaction when I first saw the Floyd video with Chauvin and two other officers holding him down, was that Chauvin was overdoing the restraint, and maybe he was guilty of excessive force. My ex-cop neighbor was of the same opinion.
After seeing the video of the arrest from the time they first encountered Floyd, I realized that I was wrong. Floyd was complaining he couldn’t breathe from the beginning. Also, Chauvin didn’t come on the scene until they decided to put Floyd on the ground for his own safety and call the medics. I saw no overreaction or brutality by the police at any point. My neighbor was happy to see that video.
Neo also called attention to the fact that Minneapolis Police Department procedure called for the restraint technique the police were using. It sure changed my mind. It’s why I’m a Neo fan.
Loury and McWhorter are open-minded enough to be on the conservative spectrum, so I’m not surprised that they changed their minds. It was hard at the time of the Floyd as martyr story to go against the grain and find opposing facts. Maybe they will become a bit more skeptical of such a wave of hyperbole in the future.
One thing I don’t think Neo realizes is that she is rather different than a majority of people. She has a passion for facts and truth, and the ability/willingness to research those facts. It really sets her apart, IMO.
We have a similar case being tried here in Tacoma. Mannie Ellis died while resisting arrest in March of 2020. It was videoed by a bystander and Ellis was also complaining that he couldn’t breathe.
The trial seems to have been much fairer than the Minneapolis cops got, but the jury may well find the three policeman guilty of second-degree murder. The trial ends Monday. It’ll be interesting to see what the verdict is.
https://www.deepcapture.com/2023/12/extortionist-jack-smith-is-being-extorted-to-pursue-trump/
I didnt call them that, the one who snarked the times reporter did
The ivs are the flagship
https://twitter.com/michellerichmon/status/1733517735488077991
Huxley
Citing singular examples does not make it so. I do not believe deeply held beliefs (Jews are evil, Democrats are good, etc.) change, not at least without a cathartic event. The black community, by and large does not believe blacks can be racist but we know this is not true in the face of evidence. Yet…… I have actually seen people plug their ears to avoid hearing differing opinions. I have just not seen it happen.
Richard Cook said, “Do the majority of people, once having an opinion, ever change it? That leads to a lot of internal unpleasantness. I don’t believe debate really enlightens. Rather it has the effect of hardening positions. Chauvin, Jan. 6, name an issue. At least in my experience few people are willing to admit they were wrong.”
I believe that you are mistaken, Richard Cook.
Ironically, to illustrate, I point to the segregated South. Like most Southerners raised in the ’40s and ’50s, I accepted the conventional wisdom, until forced to face reality. Also, like most Southerners when confronted with facts that belied the conventional wisdom that had been ingrained; we changed our perspective.
WRT to Derek Chauvin, although the impact was certainly not equivalent, both he and the country were victims of a massive hoax. Chauvin obviously has had his life stolen; but the country has suffered long term, if not irreparable, damage. I suspect that many, especially those in the public eye, were simply afraid to not believe in Chauvin’s guilt; so refused to acknowledge any contradictory evidence. On the other hand, many, notably BLM and similar groups, profited greatly from the false narrative.
Ironically, to illustrate, I point to the segregated South. Like most Southerners raised in the ’40s and ’50s, I accepted the conventional wisdom, until forced to face reality. Also, like most Southerners when confronted with facts that belied the conventional wisdom that had been ingrained; we changed our perspective.
OldFlyer:
As a Southerner in the 60s/70s, I saw that happen and by God, it did happen … en masse, contrary to R. Cook’s generalization that people don’t change their opinions.
I saw the White/Colored drinking fountains in 1959. I saw my white parochial high school bring in black students in 1966.
The South IMO never got the credit it deserved for that transformation.
Oldflyer and Huxley
You missed the point about cathartic event. I was alive through the riots, marches, government enforced busing, government enforced desegregation. I think you are both wrong. With a tidal wave of enforced change providing the cathartic event no wonder attitudes changed. The 101st Airborne is a hell of a change agent for desegregation.
Richard Cook:
I can see an argument for cathartic events, though I didn’t realize you speaking for such a broad spectrum and time period.
To be sure, cathartic events are one way to get change. However, in my life, I’ve also had the experience of being overcome by the sheer weight of argument and evidence. Most notably with the JFK assassination and Bugliosi’s “Reclaiming History.”
My take on the South:
Considerable pressure was brought to bear on the South on race issues. True. But I say — and I wasn’t really a Southerner, I just lived there — Southerners changed because they also saw it was right.
Huxley
I just find in my day to day existence most people I have encountered don’t respond to evidence. They respond emotionally to the threat to their belief. I have learned not to discount the ability of people to create their own reality whatever the issue.
I think that their reaction is instructive. It’s obviously genuine – and their outrage is indicative of the depth of their intellectual curiosity. They’ve been lied to, and it burns. It galls them.
There are a lot of people out there like them. And a lot more like that young EMT that was in the documentary, testifying proudly in her uniform. A trained EMT, but she was watching a different movie in real life, seeing something different on the street instead of a fentanyl overdose reaction.
A lot will be fully capable of watching the documentary and not change their views one iota. That’s the most disturbing thing about the case. Our culture is not likely to change, not likely to bring its views in line with the reality shown by the documentary. The propaganda works.
I just find in my day to day existence most people I have encountered don’t respond to evidence.
Richard Cook:
I understand.
My point is that people rarely back down in a debate for standard primate dominance reasons. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t hear and continue to process what was said. Which might make a big difference further downstream.
Speaking as a standard primate.
Steve (retired/recovering lawyer) on December 9, 2023 at 3:53 pm
I second Steve’s recommendation to go visit some of the Jay Smith videos on the more realistic version of the history of Islam (based on Western style scholarship). Search for Pfunder films.
Somewhat related: Creating the Qur’an: A Historical-Critical Study; by Stephen J. Shoemaker. There appears to still be disagreement about the role of Mecca vs. Petra in the earlier phases of Islamic history.
Huxley: “Southerners changed because they also saw it was right.” I agree. Some decades ago I saw an op-ed (probably by Leonard Pitts, but I am not sure) where the author claimed many Southerners were relieved when integration became the social standard to support, as they had been unhappy with the injustices of racial segregation, but did not have the means or courage to counter it in their societies/ locales at that time.
As Tim Scott said: “America is not a racist country!”
Huxley: “Southerners changed because they also saw it was right.” I agree.
R2L:
Thank you, for my Southern brethren.
Neo, just FYI (really big grin!):
George Zimmerman did *not* stalk and murder Trayvon Martin.
In related news, George Zimmerman is Hispanic, not “White”
😀
And, in another shocker:
Skateboard Armed Pedophile Chasing Rifle Armed Teen Has A Very Bad Day… Wins Darwin Award.
😀
I’m please to say that I got JM Straczynski to ban me from his FB page by forcing him to ack that he’s a complete liberal hypocrite (well, he banned me so he did NOT have to ack it, BUT, the ban was a defacto admission).
Y’all might remember the big frufru in Austin, Texas, when the state legislature was passing an anti-abortion bill. Both sides were there in force on it. At one point, the lefties tried to sneak in with urine and feces in baggies. They were caught, and the baggies taken away, and they were charged with some misdemeanor charge. Unfortunately, whoever DID catch them did not KEEP the baggies as evidence, they appear to have tossed them. So the charges were dropped, for lack of evidence. All this occurred 6m to 1y after the Zim/Martin problem started.
JMS comes onto his page to crow about how it “proves it was all a lie, that it never took place, blah blah blah”.
I politely countered, and there was a back-and-forth quite a few times — I was always polite, mind you, sticking to the facts. Among other things, I pointed out the heinous behavior of the left, with actual video: The pro-life bunch was singing “Amazing Grace” in the building, and the left were chanting “Hail Satan”.
He refused to ack the audio was audible (I grant, it was muddy at best, but you could hear what they were chanting)… and pointed out that there was a young girl who walked across the middle of the screen and any idiot could see she mouthed “Hail Satan”.
He granted SHE did but claimed the rest wasn’t so.
So, at some point, he took a stand, and said that this is the way the Justice system works in America, “You are innocent until proven guilty” (Not the actuality, but more on that in a moment). Since they hadn’t been proven guilty, they were innocent.
I asked him if that was what he said at his Hollywood parties when the Zimmerman/Martin situation came up (and, hence, where this tale came from).
BLAM!!! Insta-ban! 😀
He knew I had him so totally dead to rights there was no hope of a defense. So he blocked me, which probably deleted the entire conversation, at least, my side of it. So “it never happened”. 😛 Liberals operate, much as Muslims do, on a very primitive shame system rather than the more common Western guilt system.
Nice piece by the erstwhile Dr. Sanity about 15y ago:
https://drsanity.blogspot.com/2009/03/democratic-party-as-shame-culture.html
How a guy so far in the tank for the left managed to write Babylon 5, one of the two most common pro-libertarian screeds in all of SF history is a strange and mysterious aspect of the universe.
=============
With regards to the “innocent until proven guilty”, no, that’s not correctly it. It’s “presumed innocent until proven guilty”, which is very much not the same thing.
Being found “not guilty” does not make you “not guilty”, it only means the presumption is applied for lack of sufficient evidence to prove otherwise.
And any rational person — excluding a lefty hack trying to justify a blatantly doubtful position — which it was, for any rational individual. The contraposition was that the Austin Capital security people made up this charge out of whole cloth, with the idea to smear rando people they’d selected out of the crowd. Not only does this require a significant conspiracy to put into play, but it also isn’t like the Left hasn’t been known to attempt and even accomplish this (sneaking baggies with filth into a public chamber) in the past. Occam’s Razor alone says which way to bet as to the guilt or innocence of the accused. Not a justification suitable for a legal forum, but for a public forum, yeah, it’s clear which way to bet.
}}} My own theory is that one of the reason that Jews in particular missed this is that they labored under the convenient misconception that the Nazis were right wing.
This is a very common piece of disinformation from the Left — Nazi stands for National Socialist, so, pretty blatantly, they are Marxist, which is a left-meme and concept/credo.
It also explains why they and the Soviets were natural enemies, because they both promoted different subforms of Marxism. They were like Shiite and Sunni Muslims, in that.
It is singularly hilarious that Stalin was actually, personally *shocked* that Hitler attacked the USSR, since Stalin himself was already well along with plans to attack Nazi Germany….
“But… but… we had an agreement!! ” ROTMLMAO
}}} Ironically, to illustrate, I point to the segregated South. Like most Southerners raised in the ’40s and ’50s, I accepted the conventional wisdom, until forced to face reality. Also, like most Southerners when confronted with facts that belied the conventional wisdom that had been ingrained; we changed our perspective.
The same can be held true for antiSemitism, to a point at least of ebb-and-flow.
In the 40s, antiSemitism was common and not at all unusual. As the important movie “Gentlemen’s Agreement” showed, the culture was pervaded with a strong measure of the behavior. (And, to a lesser extent, for the USA, at least, there was a considerably disdain for Catholicism, too — The KKK was both anti-Jewish and anti-“Papist”)
This slowly reversed until at least the 1980s, after which the Left came to full power, and it began to swing the pendulum back the other way.
It’s particularly interesting that modern accounts, pictures, footage, etc., of the various Civil Rights marches, which included a lot of Jews, have had their presence minimized and downplayed to the extreme of almost non-existence. The 2014 film Selma pretty much ghosted a number of prominent Jewish civil rights activists central to events, to its never ending shame. To have “white people” prominent in the efforts does not fit the woke narrative of All Whitey Bad.
And, of course, “Asians” — e.g., “Orientals”, people descended from residents of The Orient, hardly a pejorative term — also gained positive attention for their contributions and their civil rights — even though they tend to be the most prominent racist/phobic cultures on earth.
The Japanese word for “foreigner” (“Gaijin”) translates to “Barbarian” — if you are not Japanese, you are a “barbarian”. Chinese is even worse, their word for “foreigner” also translates to “devil”. If you are from somewhere else, you are an evil being…
I miss Dr. Sanity.
The thing that struck me at the time of Floyd’s death was the expression on Chauvin’s face on the video of him restraining Floyd. There was a police officer supposedly in the act of murdering a man, in front of God and everyone with a camera, actually looking at a camera, and his expression is one of calm, matter of fact, routine, doing his job. Not what one would expect of a murderer in the act of murdering. (read On Killing by Dave Grossman)
Also, regarding the video linked to this article and the question of how they could possibly be surprised by this “new” evidence; don’t underestimate the power of corporate, academic and state censorship in support of the narrative. Ever since Obama was president and had reinvigorated the whole race struggle the narrative was set: black men were routinely being murdered by racist white cops. The two gentlemen acknowledged that. So that was the narrative, and nobody was allowed to question it. That is why so many people still think Chauvin murdered Floyd: they never were allowed to see contradicting evidence. And the existence of the Death of Minneapolis film is an opt-in thing where each person must choose to see it. That takes some effort and most won’t make the effort.
I applaud the gentlemen for making the effort and being open to the evidence that was new to them. I don’t fault them for being unaware of that evidence until now. I hope many more will also.
It is extremely dismaying that we live in a time when a significant percentage of Americans are not only uninterested in due process, but seem unaware of what it is.
Regardless of the true events on May 25th, 2020; nothing, nothing on May 26th, 2020 should have been disconcerting to any American; regardless of their political inclinations. The Minneapolis police force was investigating the tragedy.
On May 26th, 2020 every decent American citizen should have been wanting that investigation, including the subsequent autopsy, to be done as openly and unbiasedly as possible. Americans should have been disgusted and repulsed by any politician, athlete, DA, Mayor, political activist, pundit… trying to excite peoples’ emotions before the facts were known.
Unless and until we educate enough Americans on the importance of innocent until proven guilty and the importance of a fair and impartial judiciary we will struggle to continue as a nation. If justice simply means: which side can foment the most unrest? America is doomed.
I am a fan of Loury and McWhorter also, but it is dismaying two men with their wisdom were not dismayed by the political unrest in the Floyd-Chauvin legal case even before the facts were known. Didn’t they see the immense potential for that to taint the case and impede justice?
It is also dismaying they were so ignorant of the actual facts of the case until watching the documentary, “The Fall of Minneapolis.”
Jerry: you are absolutely correct but the thing is that many people saw Chauvin’s calm demeanor as evidence of his depravity rather than his innocence. I will never forget being in a doctor’s waiting room where the trial was on the television. An elderly woman turned to her husband and sneered “Why are they even going through this? It’s obvious that he is guilty. They are just wasting time and money.”. This is what it’s come to. Even if you thought Chauvin was guilty you should want a robust justice system that protects the rights of everyone. My last thought is why can’t that Minneapolis police chief be charged with perjury, since he claimed that the restraint procedure was never part of their training. I guess I know the answer but it grates on me that justice will never be served in this case.
who’s going to charge him the soros district atty, keith ellison, they were all parties to the fraud,
Well, Dershowitz doesn’t hold back, and he’s 100% correct. Having lived in the belly of the beast, I don’t see much changing at all just by getting rid of the administrators and the DEI structure. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the faculty are now “woke”, and worst of all tenured. So no uprooting those poisonous plants for at least another 20-30 years.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12847443/harvard-claudine-gay-jews-israel-gaza-alan-dershowitz.html
Jerry:
But by the time of the Floyd case, Loury and McWhorter already were well aware that the “narrative” about racist cops murdering black men wasn’t true. Nevertheless, they thought that Chauvin and Floyd were an exception and that Chauvin HAD murdered Floyd. Why did they continue to think that for so long?
Neo poses THE question…
“Why did they continue to think that for so long?”
I’ve watched their podcast twice now…once @ 2x & once at normal speed. I’ve also re-watched the testimony of the three Ivy League harpies before congress.
In the case of the posted video, I think it’s more than confirmation bias (I actually believe that’s downstream from what may be an answer) and more than tribal affiliation (blacks wanting to affirm the “lived truth” of their tribe).
What’s worse…I’d argue we’re all susceptible at some level.
Loury and McWhorter believe they’re on the side of the angels…that somehow they live far enough above the fray to just “know.” They just “know” & it takes a cataclysm to shake that.
I applaud them for beginning to admit their errors. But quite frankly, it’s too late & I barely care. Chauvin will likely die in prison “guilty” of a crime he did not commit & God bless the good Drs, they’ll go to sleep in clean sheets in their own bed & eat at their own table until they die. If they were to suddenly go public (bigger than a limited impact podcast) & risk significant $$$ security & social credit to start a “Free Chauvin” campaign…I’d start to care more. What’s the old adage…”put up or shut up.”
Why are Loury and McWhorter just now seeing the entire body-cam footage of Floyd’s arrest? It was available 2 years ago. And, they never answered my question: Did the jury ever see it?
I appreciate Loury and McWhorter as black intellectuals making, I think, good faith attempts to see the whole picture.
However, their black blind spots have been clear since I first paid attention.
Of course, I don’t hold it strongly against them, since I consider humans more irrational than not. Our brains evolved to survive, often in split second situations, and always in tribes.
Weighing evidence out of the vast amounts in current discourse and arriving at a careful, fair assessment is not something we do well.
I imagine that thinking about why two really smart guys got it wrong is one thing.
But advertising this as “EVEN LOURY AND MCWHORTER NOW SEE THE TRUTH!!”
might have some impact. Somewhere.
Except in the stalls where the two are considered Uncle somebody.
https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1733976372450853222
Good comment by Rufus at 9:47 AM today.
It is also dismaying they were so ignorant of the actual facts of the case until watching the documentary…
It’s dismaying to me that these two renowned pundits are, with all due respect, a couple of dumbasses.
I watch Loury’s podcasts. IMO, he was never really convinced that Chauvin was guilty, but he caved on this one. I greatly admire that he can buck the black victim narrative, but I guess the whole Floyd saga was just a step too far.
Doug Purdie:
The jury saw selected portions of the bodycam videos, but I don’t know which potions or how much.
I’m very late to this party, which is OK because I have nothing to add but to say what a joy it was to watch these two men discuss one of the most important events of the last decade with such intellectual honesty. It effectively treats my recent depression.