Glenn Loury offers a great response to all those “mea culpa, I’m with you” emails
It’s an excellent statement. I’ve half a mind to send a copy to my alma mater, the president of which sent me one of those unctuous missives as well.
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
Not being practiced, and rehearsed, in either the romance languages or jive, I see no reason why a simple
“What do you mean “we” Kimo Sabe?”
wouldn’t suffice.
There do exist black intellectuals and pundits (some, but not all, conservative) who reject the media-driven narrative of black victimization and who do not accept the lies of BLM, including Robert Woodson of 1776Unites (the corrective to the fraudulent 1619 Project); one of the most interesting is Wilfred Reilly, who appears occasionally on Fox to discuss the complete lack of facts and evidence behind the radical and mendacious propaganda of BLM. Reilly grew up poor in Chicago, but took advantage of various scholastic opportunities, and he is now a professor at Kentucky State (a black school) and writes very good articles and books.
Right on! All the public breast-beating and virtue signaling, especially since we all now the people doing so will not change a thing after this blows over, is disgusting.
Glenn is courageous for speaking so forthrightly in the intense SJW environment of Brown. He is an inspiration.
If you’re alma mater sent you only one, you’re getting off easy. I’ve been getting lots, admittedly that includes organizations I was a member of. Today I even got one on Climate Change. And that’s two or three crises ago. (I lose count.)
My old friends and I have been emailing back and forth about this. Surely this BS is costing them contributions, isn’t it?
May I suggest putting these unctuous missives in your SPAM folder? Thankfully, I have only received one such missive and I responded: You have been flagged as SPAM, goodbye forever. Mr Loury will soon be fired or forced to resign.
I see today that Bezos is happy to lose customers because of his support of BLM. I am happy to learn that I am apparently not the only one.
On the other hand, it is dawning on me that I cannot boycott every organization that is on the virtue signaling bus; unless I return to subsistence farming, well off the grid. It is endemic, as the saying goes.
Key sentence: “Is it obvious that “hate”—as opposed to incompetence, or fear, or cruelty, or poor training, or lack of accountability, or a brutal police culture, or panic, or malfeasance—is what we observed in Minneapolis?” Exactly.
It would be far, far more constructive to look closely at police training and procedures and make some much-needed reforms than to assume “systemic racism” applying to every white person. That approach solves nothing.
“Is it obvious that “hate”—as opposed to incompetence, or fear, or cruelty, or poor training, or lack of accountability, or a brutal police culture, or panic, or malfeasance—is what we observed in Minneapolis?”
First, there is no evidence that diversity (i.e. color judgment including racism) was a motive. Second, another possibility is that the suspected needed to be restrained, perhaps forcefully, to protect him and the officer from progressive harm. There is only circumstantial evidence that the restraining action contributed to the cause of death. Thus the need to avoid em-pathetic appeals, forego the warlock judgments that drive protests, and follow due process to its fateful conclusion, then run amuck, if you must. That said, social (i.e. relativistic) justice anywhere is injustice everywhere.
Oh, and good for Loury for standing, when he could just as easily have kneeled, comfortably.
Loury has LONG been a moderate conservative (perhaps moderate liberal?), quite sympathetic to actual racist problems but not blind to the various nuances.
It would be nice if there were words in social media that indicated hate and hate speech, like “I hate Trump”, or “Trump should be killed/ murdered/ suffer some other violence”.
I’ve long been following Glenn on Facebook, too. Moderately Libertarian, very rational, mostly honest.
” I’ve half a mind to send a copy to my alma mater, . . .” [Neo]
Then I humbly recommend that you do so. The Gramscian march through the institutions has been as successful as it has been because its opponents dismissed it as unserious, or not noteworthy, or good in spirit but misdirected. Donald Trump is perhaps the first president to stand firm and run his administration with a “This stops here! This stops now!” approach; this is certainly one reason he is so hated by his opponents. The fight against the inertia of the status quo, in politics as in life, is one in which we all must take part because “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Just send him a link to your web site. What have you got to lose?
Maybe his genius can provide the long missing logical demonstration of how objective moral obligation exists in a progressive values nihilism, subjectivity based, and relativistic reality.
His reality might be that he feels he feels someone’s felt oppression. How nice. My lived reality imight be that he is a worthless nuisance.
How is this question to be arbitrated, and why? Maybe he can say.
I want to give a copy to my current employer; but, I believe such an action would put me on the unemployment line.
We are not alone. Likely outnumbered. But not alone.
I have seen similar letters from MIT, CIT and UofM.
My response has been to”
1) never again give $$ to those schools that I so proudly attended long ago
2) my wife and I changing our wills to make Hillsdale College and the Marine Corps scholarship fund as beneficiaries in the event of our deaths.
“I’ve half a mind to send a copy to my alma mater,” – Neo
I read Loury’s post the same day I got my own now-obligatory “we won’t be racist anymore pinky-swear” email.
If we each send half a mind off to our AMs – does that equal a whole mind?
Counter programming:
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/jeff-reynolds/2020/06/08/insurrection-civil-rights-leader-shelby-steele-to-mark-levin-blacks-have-never-been-less-oppressed-n507980
All of this piling on is because the Left has now defined “silence” as acquiescing to racism and police brutality. Most of you can quote the lines from “Man for All Seasons” that apply.
However, the white guilt all stems from the concept of white privilege, which gets a smack down at Prager U by Brandon Tatum (black guy, FYI).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18IVjGz9Gvk
How To End White Privilege
Jan 20, 2020
Some meas are more culpa than others.
Talk about partisan pandering photo ops!
https://www.redstate.com/bonchie/2020/06/08/congressional-democrats-practice-cultural-appropriation-and-take-a-nine-minute-knee-bonus-pelosi-cant-get-up-after/
Leftists also specialize in youa culpas.
https://ricochet.com/765990/whatever/
Whatever…
By Dr. Bastiat | June 8, 2020
RTWT. There are a lot more good observations.
I could not help noticing that the format and phrasing of Justin’s insufferably arrogant email exactly mirrors the templates that were shopped around by Democrat activists during Obama’s tenure on how to start conversations about (pick-a-cause) at family Thanksgiving dinners and other social events.
These people are truly obnoxious.
Almost certainly coming to a planet near you…
https://babylonbee.com/news/new-app-syncs-all-your-social-media-to-latest-virtue-signals-so-you-never-look-problematic
How much virtue
Could a SJW signal
If a SJW
Could signal virtue
“we” is first person plural. It includes the speaker and one or more other individuals involved in the issue under discussion.
So if the speaker says “we” are doing something wrong and need to stop, the obvious thing is for the speaker to stop his self-confessed sinning. I never started. So that’s two of us and…we’re on our way.
I could not help noticing that the format and phrasing of Justin’s insufferably arrogant email exactly mirrors the templates that were shopped around by Democrat activists during Obama’s tenure on how to start conversations about (pick-a-cause) at family Thanksgiving dinners and other social events.
AesopFan: Back in 2015 before holiday break the “Harvard Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion” (I get tired just typing that one) distributed “holiday placemats” — crib sheets to help freshmen … er, first-year students … guide holiday meal conversations into proper SJW channels and respond to the foolish concerns of more conservative relatives.
In 2015 that idea even got pushback from liberals, not to mention the Harvard Republican Club. I doubt that would happen today.
https://freebeacon.com/issues/harvard-brands-worried-about-syrian-refugees-islamophobic/
I shouldn’t be, but I am still surprised by how quickly college administrators and business executives embrace stereotypes and hate-filled slander. They hate deeply. They are so willing to “other” millions of people in order to feel good about themselves. These people are shockingly immature — morally and mentally. Defective actually.
It’s really ugly.
“You can tell a man from Brown …
… you just can’t tell him much.”
How un-self-aware can Pelosi and her cohorts be? They gather to take a knee, assuming we will see it as self-deprecation like we have been taught to.
Well, I’m a slow learner, still absorbing last month’s lesson… I see Bad Congressmen, with their knees on the neck of America, choking the life out of free-thinkers everywhere. Nancy is the trainer, with a long history of corrupt behavior, and the others are learning Congressional Brutality from her!
Ray – I’ve seen comments about the kneeling and that they were really imitating the actions of the policeman with his knee on the neck. If they really wanted to ask for “forgiveness”, they would have been prone.
About the mail – I’ve been archiving them to see how many I get from each of the companies. The covid emails are starting to move to “we’re woke” emails. But I did get one today that I read. It was from a seed company and they were apologizing for delays in shipments since it seems like more people are interested in growing food. I wonder why?
To Ray Van Dune
Perhaps “Congressional banality” is as close to the truth
“…seems like more people are interested in growing food….”
And baking their own bread. Apparently in some locales, flour has been practically impossible to come by.
And then there’s this curio:
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/281563
Mau Mauing and all dat. Just like with man-made global warming, the obvious measurements are discarded or massaged to get everybody lathered up to face the Real Problem: yous white folks has too much. Give it to us or lose it all!
Time to face the Great Redistribution from the guilty! haves to the designated victims of RACISM.
You need to know what’s coming in order to be prepared. Obama was just a warm up Act for this Second Coming to take from You.
Dennis, good point, but I was trying to tie into “Police Brutality”.
and make some much-needed reforms
What’s the point of ‘reforms’? The man had coronary artery disease, was intoxicated with fentanyl, had three other drugs in his system, and was non-compliant (claiming he was too claustrophobic to sit in a police car when he’d arrived at the store in question in an automobile). What do you propose as a ‘reform’? A hotline that would allow the police to access someone’s medical records?
Douglas Murray is very angry and seriously sarcastic about the Marxist monkeys rampaging in Europe, quickly leaving behind any notion of George Floyd’s apparent murder or memory.
He’s angered by the Orwellian madness, words are violence, silence is violence, blah, blah. In the UK, he says the scenes remind him of Middle East youths after a revolution. Mobs, thugs = madness. The host makes a sympathetic plea against simple minded presentism. 12 minutes worth your time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5frKAyhG3Rs
I agree with Kate and others who have pointed out a key sentence in his missive:
“Is it obvious that “hate”—as opposed to incompetence, or fear, or cruelty, or poor training, or lack of accountability, or a brutal police culture, or panic, or malfeasance—is what we observed in Minneapolis?”
As far as I know there hasn’t been a “documented” history of racist acts or racist social media activity from the Minneapolis police officer accused of killing Lloyd. I should think not, as Minneapolis is a deep blue city, and anyone like that would have been booted out after the incidents involving St. Trayvon and St. Brown. Furthermore, weren’t some of the officers also dragged into this murder rap who were standing around black themselves (just as in the previous “I can’t breathe” incident in NYC)?
Other that the arresting officer being white and the perp being black, there is no evidence I’ve seen or heard of why Lloyd’s death was due to racism. It seems that it could just as well been due to the officer being poorly trained, an angry person with a streak of sadism, or just that he overestimated the threat posed by Lloyd when he resisted arrest and overcompensated in his restraint.
Yet here we are–Lloyd was undeniably murdered by a racist cop and to question that fact makes you a racist yourself.
Funny, although this story about an elderly white couple shot and killed by a black man at a cemetery in Delaware last month received relatively no press, the little coverage it did receive either took pains to mention that the motive was “unknown” or didn’t mention a motive at all. If the races were reversed, wouldn’t this be an even more blatant example of a hate crime than Lloyd’s death?
https://www.wmdt.com/2020/05/update-suspect-identified-in-cemetery-shooting-that-killed-elderly-couple/
Art Deco:
Are you saying nothing can be learned or improved upon after the death of George Floyd? Are police use of force procedures and methods frozen forever?
“
No you should not be surprised. None of us should be. But because we analyze the situation rationally, and then out of emotional investments, politely avert our eyes from the conclusion, it comes as a surprise, even though we know it should not be.
And why be surprised when people whose life strategy is based on institutional niche seeking, and whose lives have been dedicated to securing that nest, instantly follow the cues emitted by the swarm leaders?
They may be your cousins, your neighbors, your own children; but when it comes to choosing between keeping their rice bowls topped off on the one hand, and preserving your rights and whatever relationship you think that you had with them on the other, is odds on likely to be you that gets sacrificed.
We know this. We know how emotionally desperate Sally was for a tenure track. We know how badly mild mannered George needed above all else to get a position that offered him “job security” and protection from the buffetting of market forces, and the constant need to compete. And we know how perfunctory have been their contacts with us since they found an earthly patron which offered them protection and a guranteed income stream in return for nothing more onerous than their total fealty.
It’s only natural they should form new friendships and family or family-like relationships which more directly contribute nowadays to their current goals and desires
What did Grandma really expect out of those kids? They have a new family. It may resemble the diabolical bureaucracy in The Screwtape Letters, but while they are insiders in good standing, and do its bidding with enthusiasm and alacrity, they feel safe.
Why should we be surprised. We always knew their character weaknesses. It just didn’t seem so important back when bureaucracies and government didn’t control or seek to control most life chances and decisions.
Who cared if they were hiding out as school teachers, massaging their lisping egos in the State Department, or dedicating themselves to playing corporate politics? They didn’t affect our lives. Neither would their character shotcomings. So we thought.
Related:
https://www.rt.com/usa/491234-university-professor-fired-racist/
Key graf:
“A UCLA professor has been placed on leave after refusing to give black students preferential grades in the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing.”
Note, too, the following virtuous bromide broadcast by the University’s nomenklatura:
“Respect and equality for all are core principles at UCLA Anderson….”
FYI
https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2020/06/02/the-mandatory-banality-of-university-presidents/
If we’re going to have a third-rate intellectual culture, why don’t we do it in the third world? The cost of living is so much less expensive!
Anonymously — “Other that the arresting officer being white and the perp being black, there is no evidence I’ve seen or heard of why Lloyd’s death was due to racism. It seems that it could just as well been due to the officer being poorly trained, an angry person with a streak of sadism, or just that he overestimated the threat posed by Lloyd when he resisted arrest and overcompensated in his restraint.”
Exactly. And how about the fact that there are 800 officers in the Minneapolis PD, and 18,000 black people, and somehow the two people in this incident happen to work providing security at the same club? Is it possible this was a personal beef? Doesn’t that at least bear looking into?
huxley on June 9, 2020 at 9:22 am said:
…
AesopFan: Back in 2015 before holiday break the “Harvard Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion” (I get tired just typing that one) distributed “holiday placemats” — crib sheets to help freshmen … er, first-year students … guide holiday meal conversations into proper SJW channels and respond to the foolish concerns of more conservative relatives.
In 2015 that idea even got pushback from liberals, not to mention the Harvard Republican Club. I doubt that would happen today.
* * *
Doubt the placemats, or doubt the pushback?
I think they have gotten more subtle with their propaganda, but the impulse to direct the conversations has not gone away.
Your story linked to the Harvard Republicans’ response, which is very good.
Too bad none of the administration or faculty paid any attention to it.
https://www.facebook.com/HarvardGOP/posts/1052584841428767?pnref=story
T on June 9, 2020 at 6:35 pm said:
FYI
https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2020/06/02/the-mandatory-banality-of-university-presidents/
* * *
Outstanding post – thanks for the link.
Comments are worth reading, especially the one about the MA supreme court getting woke.
Time to pack your bags and leave Boston.
Minding the Campus led to National Association of Scholars, who also condemn the banality of the college presidents, citing the MTC post.
https://www.nas.org/blogs/article/college-presidents-choose-the-right-side-of-history
Re my post 6/9/20 9:38pm:
Exactly. And how about the fact that there are 800 officers in the Minneapolis PD, and 18,000 black people, and somehow the two people in this incident happen to work providing security at the same club? Is it possible this was a personal beef? Doesn’t that at least bear looking into?
CBS NEWS June 10, 2020, 8:22 AM
George Floyd and Derek Chauvin “bumped heads” while working at nightclub, former coworker says https://www.cbsnews.com/news/george-floyd-derek-chauvin-nightclub-bumped-heads/
Quelle surprise!
Richard Saunders:
I saw that earlier today. I decided not to write about it yet, though, because I figure we should learn more over time.
One of the things I’ve learned over time is to hold back on stories of a certain type, stories that give me the sense that they have a good chance of being untrue. That one strikes me that way so far – just a gut feeling.