Tag: racism

Kwanzaa

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This is a public service update.

The first Umoja (Unity) candle was lit by Kwanzaa’s inventor in a lightly attended celebration (family and close comrades) on December 26, 1966.

This time of year there’s always an uptick in searches for information about Kwanzaa. I know this simply from observing the search engine hits on this TOC post: Nguzo Saba The 7 Principles of Blackness

Noting a few of those hits today, I reread that 2008 post. I wasn’t surprised that links have rotted. Most notably the Lansing State Journal article which prompted it, and a reference to The Dartmouth Review. The relevant portions of the LSJ piece are quoted in my post, but the Dartmouth article was the source of much of the Kwanzaa founder’s (Ron Karenga) biographical content.

My Nguzo Saba post hasn’t attracted a comment in a long while, but there are some interesting ones from earlier times should you wish to read it. One of those comments:

So, what the commentor [sic] above me is implying is that, we, as a community or race, need to rely on the white community to survive? You are suggesting that the white community is superior, that they “feed” us, and in todays society that is just wrong, no matter who you are. Nobody is above another just because of the circumstances of their birth.

How times have changed. That commenter had the concept right. But, now it’s a few very vocal, white, snake oil barkers convincing a few black people that unless ‘Black’ is capitalized (and white is NOT) everyone should riot, loot, burn.

And, it should be noted, Ron Karenga thought some people were more admirable than others because of the circumstances of their birth.

IAC there still seems to be Kwanzaa interest, so for latter day internet searchers I unearthed an archive of the Dartmouth article. You should read the whole thing. It’s not long.

I saw a number of things in it that register differently now than they did in 2008. The atavistic tribalism that is BLM has its ‘Roots’ here, and you’ll see predicates for CRT and racialist apologists such as Ibram X. Kendi and Robin D’Angelo.

The 7 Principles, Nguzo Saba, of Ron Karenga’s contrivance are noted in my earlier post. But there are 7 other principles listed in his book The Quotable Karenga. “The sevenfold path of blackness is think black, talk black, act black, create black, buy black, vote black, and live black.”

OK. But define “black.” Right now it’s being done mostly by white people.

That was the challenge to Kendi and, especially, D’Angelo. How can we make more money off this and achieve more privilege than Karenga did?

IAC, here are 2 snippets from that Dartmouth piece:

Initially, Kwanzaa proceeded from Karenga’s hostility toward Western religion, which, he wrote in his 1980 book, Kawaida Theory, “denies and diminishes human worth, capacity, potential and achievement. In Christian and Jewish mythology, humans are born in sin, cursed with mythical ancestors who’ve sinned and brought the wrath of an angry God on every generation’s head.” He similarly opposed belief in God and other “spooks who threaten us if we don’t worship them and demand we turn over our destiny and daily lives.”

In Critical Race Theology, white “humans are born in sin, cursed with mythical ancestors who’ve sinned and brought the wrath of an angry God on every generation’s head.” You might object that the slave owning ancestors are not mythical. Well, for the vast majority of non-black people and at least a large plurality of black people, they are entirely mythical. And those “spooks?” They’re white Progressives.

James Coleman, a former Black Panther, argues, “By only stressing the unity of black people, Kwanzaa separates black people from the rest of Americans. Americans must unify on whatever principles ensure we live in a safe, prosperous, God-loving country, with the race and ethnicity of any American seeking to abide by those principles being of no consequence.”

Yeah. That’s a passé MLK thingy. On his journey to anathema (statue destruction) MLK is now solidly in the objectionable phase. Because to say “All Lives Matter” is racist.

Will Karenga’s fanciful 1960s inventiveness see a revival among the newly faithful? In 2008 it was seen to be in decline.

Does anyone remember that back in the early 1990s, AT&T ran television ads suggesting that blacks call their families during Kwanzaa using their telephone service? That stores stocked Kwanzaa candles and kente clothes? That student unions were festooned with Marcus Garvey’s pan-African flag? In 1995, a local activist triumphantly told The Boston Globe, “We’re at the point now where Kwanzaa has gotten so big that we feel like Santa Claus is really on the way out.”

That short 2008 post from Reason is also worth a read. How has the “culture war is over” prediciton turned out?

I guess we’ll be able to tell based on the number of Kwanzaa candles sold. If anyone can tell.

A Kranzaa resurgence would be a mixed blessing for the black isolationists. By numbers most of the Kwanzaa forelock tuggers to this intensely African theme park are Progressive white women, or Jamaican/East Indian politicians.

I was invited,

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… via my junk mail folder, to take a test to see if I am racist.

I didn’t see why. Since I’m white, it’s a given that I’m racist. Should have been the first question.

Still, I was curious about the questions. There were only 5.

1. Name three Black journalists you read or three Black websites you follow.
Journalists: John McWhorter, Larry Elder, Glenn Loury, Candace Owens, Charles Payne, Thomas Sowell, Jason L. Riley, Walter Williams, Star Parker, and more. Do I get extra credit?

Websites: Black Man with a Gun, Loury, McWhorter, Ayan Hirsi Ali have their name (or skin tone) on sites. These are integrated websites, though, so white people also appear and many are referenced. Does that still count? I’ve got more, if needed.

2. Name three Black authors whose books have influenced your life – and while you’re at it, three people you’ve shared those books with.
Authors: Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Larry Elder, Ayan Hirsi Ali, Shelby Steele, Octavia Butler, Frederick Douglass, Jason L. Riley, Clarence Thomas, John McWhorter, Herman Cain, Allen West, Ben Carson, Alan Keyes, Booker T. Washington, Samuel R. Delany.

Shared: Way too many to count. I didn’t just talk about or lend the books (for one definition of ’shared’), quite a few were given away.

3. Name three tenets of the Black Lives Matter movement.
1-‘All lives matter’ is a racist statement.
2-‘White lives matter’ is a racist, Nazi, colonialist, patriarchal, homophobic, climate change denier statement.
3-All funding for police should be stopped.
4-Individualism is racist.
5-As is over acheivement in answering these questions.

4. Name three aspects of Black culture that you have had to learn and adapt to in order to succeed at your job.
For the (missing) definition of black culture, I’m excluding music, cuisine, arts, and sports since those are not directly related to any job I’ve, or most people, ever held.

In a water cooler gathering I could express an opinion on the cultural value of Billie Holiday’s rendition of Summertime vs Cardi B’s Wet Ass Pussy. I could declare collard greens are less objectionable than kale because greens are less bitter. I know Clementine Hunter’s first name is pronounced ‘Clementeen.’ I could say whether I’d prefer to have a beer with Herschel Walker or LeBron James.

I could decribe my favorite Harriet Tubman $20 bill design:

None of this has much to do with career success. Oh, maybe a bit of team building, but these days such conversations are least as likely to trigger some charge of microagression as to promote camaraderie. What if someone said Colin Kaepernick should become head coach at your Alma Mater?

Perhaps a job relevant definition of black culture could be found at some ‘acceptable’ authority. Say the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Alas, I skimmed 124 blog posts containing ‘black culture,’ and couldn’t find a chart comparable to their critique of white culture. Here’s their summary of white cultural characteristics.

Among many other ‘white’ characteristics, the SNMAAHC thinks these behaviors typify “white privilege, and anti-blackness” “woven into the very fabric of American society”:
1-Objective, rational, linear thinking
2-Delayed gratification
3-Self reliance
4-Time imposing its own objective rigidity (For example, show up on time. And see 2.)

Rejecting those those ideas never helped anyone succeed in a job outside of university _________ Studies programs, BLM organizing, Soros funded arson and looting claques, or Presidential Press Secretary.

My general adaptation to those who didn’t display those ‘white’ characteristics was to explain the benefits of logical thinking, being on time, saving money, and personal responsibility no matter the melanin content of the person who seemed unaware.

Let me anticipate the objection that I have abused the Smithsonian definition. One of the intellectuals I listed earlier, Thomas Sowell, is in apparent agreement with me:

In his collection of essays, Black Rednecks and White Liberals, Sowell applied these ideas for understanding various groups. He showed, for instance, that what often passes for “black culture” in the United States, with its particular language, customs, behavioral characteristics, and attitudes toward work and leisure, is in fact a collection of traits adopted from earlier white southern culture.

Sowell traces this culture to several generations of mostly Scotsmen and northern Englishmen who migrated to many of the southern American colonies in the 18th century. The outstanding features of this redneck culture, or “cracker” culture as it was called in Great Britain at that time, included “an aversion to work, proneness to violence, neglect of education, sexual promiscuity, improvidence, drunkenness, lack of entrepreneurship, reckless searches for excitement, lively music and dance, and a style of religious oratory marked by rhetoric, unbridled emotions, and abeyant imagery.” It also included “touchy pride, vanity, and boastful self-dramatization.”

Any commercial industriousness and innovation introduced in the southern states in the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries, Sowell demonstrated, primarily came from businessmen, merchants, and educators who moved there from the northern and especially the New England states. The north generally had a different culture of work, savings, personal responsibility, and forethought – that resulted in the southern United States lagging far behind much of the rest of the country – a contrast often highlighted by 19th century European visitors.

The great tragedy for much of the black population, concentrated as it was in the southern states, was that it absorbed a good deal of this white southern redneck culture, and retained it longer than the descendants of those Scottish and English immigrants. Sowell explains that in the decades following the Civil War, black schools and colleges in the south were mostly manned by white administrators and teachers from New England who, with noticeable success, worked to instill “Yankee” virtues of hard work, discipline, education, and self-reliance.

In spite of racial prejudice and legal discrimination, especially in the southern states, by the middle decades of the 20th century a growing number of black Americans were slowly but surely catching up with white Americans in terms of education, skills, and income. One of the great perversities of the second part of the 20th century, Sowell showed, is that this advancement decelerated following the enactment of the civil-rights laws of the 1960s, with the accompanying affirmative action and emphasis on respecting the “diversity” of black culture. This has delayed the movement of more black Americans into the mainstream under the false belief that “black culture” is somehow distinct and unique, when in reality it is the residue of an earlier failed white culture that retarded the south for almost 200 years.

That’s an unfortunate cultural appropriation. It can be blamed partly on whites, though. So there’s that.

And, seriously, were I to have actually adapted to that ‘black culture,’ would that not have been cultural appropriation? Would I not have had to show up late for the meeting I called with my subordinates to set an example for all the white people racists? Yeah, I know ’subordinate’ is badspeak. That programmer trainee should have had an equal vote – three votes if xir identified as black. I can see my 40 years of experience was ‘privilege.’

5. Name three racist remarks that you remember hearing, challenging, and you corrected.
1-‘All white people are racists.’
Robin D’Angelo can’t write more than one paragraph without mentioning it.
2-‘New York is Hymietown’.
-Jesse Jackson. Who may have been an inspiration for:
3-Ilhan Omar – “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.”

I have thoroughly castigated them all.

I’m looking forward to my score.

Monetizing black deaths

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Does it matter if Ma’Khia Bryant was the person who called 911 just before she was shot by a police officer in Columbus, Ohio?

I’ll say no.

She would have been shot anyway because of her behavior after the police arrived. And she still would have been shot multiple times because her extreme physical and verbal aggressiveness, and failure to stand down when ordered, could only be distinguished from a murder in progress by God.

The question of who called 911 arises only because some of those urging us to just let children fight with knives also strongly insist that Ma’Khia Bryant is that person.

Why? I suppose it’s an effort to reinforce Joy Reid’s trial balloon that “…what scared a 16-year-old girl enough that she felt that she had to grab a kitchen knife facing two adult women… No one’s asking what would’ve scared a kid who’s in a foster situation so much that she felt that she needed to defend herself or pick up a knife.” If she was scared she would have been better off staying that way.

If Ma’Khia is cast as a frightened child, defending herself from adults, and as a victim of her own good intent, it’s easier to blame the shooting on systemic racism than on her bad decisions. She had no choice, she isn’t well equipped to make choices anyway, and the system killed her even though she tried to do the right thing.

As noted yesterday, this is in line with stripping her of agency. As a black child she had little, and what little she mustered – calling 911 – resulted in her destruction. The system is murderously biased in its core.

But if Ma’Khia was afraid (indicated if she called 911) you’d expect she would be relieved to see a police officer 10 minutes later. Maybe even put him between herself and the people she feared? You might expect she’d have stood with a wall at her back saying, “Don’t come near me!,” rather than charging, knife in hand, at a smaller person shouting “I’m Going to Stab F**k Out of You, Bitch!”.

She didn’t welcome the police, and she acted the opposite of defensive. She not only wasn’t relieved to see the officer, but she practically ran him over in her urgency to attack “the girl in pink.”

There’s more that Joy Reid failed to consider. Perhaps because she felt her message was more important than mere facts.

The 911 caller says “This girl trying to stab us and our grandma.” It could be that Ma’Khia said that, but since she was a foster child her grandma likely didn’t live there. And who would “us” be?

There is a remote possibility of an “us.”

If you’ve seen the police body-cam video you know that a tall black man in a gray hoodie followed Ma’Khia down the driveway as she knocks a heavy set female in blue to the ground, swinging her right hand toward the woman. It’s not clear from the video if Ma’Khia is holding a knife at this point (though 5 seconds later it’s clearly in her hand).

The officer, who has just arrived, turns to his right – toward the ensuing melee taking place no more than 3 feet away.

The cop draws his gun, shouting “Get down! Get down!”. Because by now he’s seen the knife in Ma’Khia’s right hand? Everybody should be digging a foxhole at this point.

Ma’Khia jumps up and charges a girl in a pink tracksuit. Simultaneously, the man in the gray hoodie kicks the woman on the ground twice. He makes no attempt to deter Ma’Khia. He is Ma’Khia’s ally. He kicks women lying on the ground. In front of a cop.

The cop turns to his left to track Ma’Khia – she has the knife – and shouts again. Ma’Khia pins the girl in pink against a car while bringing her arm into a striking position. The cop fires 4 rounds, fatally wounding Ma’Khia.

The man in the grey hoodie cries, “You shot my baby!”. The man in the gray hoodie is Ma’Khia’s father.

He’s had a warrant out for his arrest since January, and has been arrested numerous times, including for non-support and domestic violence. He’s entitled to benefit of the doubt, but non-support and domestic violence are directly relevant here. His daughter is in foster care and he kicks supine women.

He also doesn’t live at that house. So, how did he come to be involved? Probably because Ma’Khia called him as reinforcement. If she knew he had an outstanding warrant, Ma’Khia might well have been hesitant to call 911. In any case, he knew, and he came to the scene prepared to commit assault – in front of a cop – anyway. I haven’t heard Joy Reid wondering if that was the first time he set such an example for his daughter.

None of this proves Ma’Khia was not the 911 caller, but that has nothing to do with why she died. The only reason it matters is to bolster BLM donations: She was a frightened child, and a victim of systemic racism. We will probably eventually find out who made the call, but the urgent need to embellish the neo-racist narrative supersedes the need for fact.

Never bring empty hands to a knife fight

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Sixteen year old Ma’Khia Bryant, waving a knife and screaming, “I’m Going to Stab F**k Out of You, Bitch!”, was shot by a police officer as she charged past him and attacked another black teenager. She had previously thrust the knife at a third teen right in front of the officer, knocking the other teen to the ground. The officer was present because Bryant’s housemates had called 911, reporting they feared being stabbed.

Byrant, loudly threatening murder, in clear possession of a deadly weapon, either did not feel threatened by a white police officer pointing a gun at her while he shouted “Get down, get down!,” or she was so enraged she didn’t care.

Bryant made many dangerous decisions in 9 seconds. She survived all of them until the last: She thrust a knife at another human being half her size she had pinned against a car. Again, in front of a cop shouting, “Get down!” Whose gun she knew was drawn. In the moment, she wasn’t buying the BLM theory that white cops are just itching for an excuse to shoot black people.

In stopping Bryant, the officer had far less than 9 seconds to make his decision, and he had every reason to expect he was thwarting an attempted murder: Saving a black life. Otherwise, today’s BLM agitprop might have been, “The cop was right there, and HE DIDN’T DO ANYTHING to protect that black girl!” Or, maybe not. Black on black crime isn’t so important to BLM. See: Chicago.

That does not mean Ma’Khia Bryant’s death is not tragic. It is. It does mean a reasonable person might conclude that she was murderously enraged. A condition the cop had mere seconds to evaluate.

Ma’Khia Bryant’s death is a tragedy. Proclaiming this incident evidence of systemic police violence against black people is also a tragedy; for police, for Columbus, for blacks, for our polity. The decision on that could have proceeded at a more leisurely pace, but mostly it didn’t. Because demand for ‘this sort’ of tragedy exceeds supply.

To maintain purity in the BLM narrative, sacrifices are demanded. One of those is to posthumously strip Ma’Khia Bryant of agency; because of her skin color. Which is the ultimate racist insult.

Here we need a brief diversion to define “knife fight:” Two or more people. With knives. In a fight.

This was not a knife fight. It was a knife attack. You don’t bring empty hands to a knife fight. That’s what Ma’Khia Bryant’s opponent had. And the opponent was not fighting, she was covering up. In fear.

We need this definition because people like Valerie Jarrett don’t know it:

A Black teenage girl named Ma’Khia Bryant was killed because a police officer immediately decided to shoot her multiple times in order to break up a knife fight. Demand accountability. Fight for justice. #BlackLivesMatter.
— Valerie Jarrett (@ValerieJarrett) April 21, 2021

BTW, shooting multiple times is what you do until a deadly threat is definitively over. And when the threat is immediate, you do it immediately. And “break up a knife fight” is more plausibly rendered as “prevent a murder.” In a knife fight, there is no obvious aggressor. Here, there was.

Right, Valerie. Accountability. I demand it.

Then, we get Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther weighing in on the side of Ma’Khia’s incidentality.

“Bottom line: Did Ma’Khia Bryant need to die yesterday?” he added. “How did we get here? This is a failure on the part of our community. Some are guilty but all of us are responsible.”

Two answers and a comment:
1- No, she did not. 2- Specifically? Ma’Khia was imprudent. 3- Blaming everybody in the general vicinity rather than making a point of individual responsibility is your failure. Which is disrespectful to everyone.

I did not want to, but I watched the video. I’m pretty sure I hear Ma’Khia asking the cops trying to help her; “Why did you shoot me?” That, Mayor Githner, is a question you might have tried to answer honestly. She didn’t know? Maybe other 16 year olds of all races would have benefitted from an answer.

The ultimate lack of agency theme is infanthood, of course. So, a hands off approach to imminent homicide by knife wielding, murder threatening, 200 pound teenagers is “for the children.” Bryant was a baby.

Kiara Yakita, founder of the Black Liberation Movement Central Ohio, said she was not surprised by another police shooting. “Why did they kill this baby?”

Mayor Githner, meet Kiara Yakita. You guys should talk.

MSNBC’s resident homophobe, Joy Reid, wondered on air what could have caused Ma’Khia Bryant’s murderous rage:

‘We don’t know the details of what happened beforehand but I’m bothered that no one is asking what could’ve scared a 16-year-old girl enough that she felt that she had to grab a kitchen knife facing two adult women,’ Reid said.

‘No one’s asking what would’ve scared a kid who’s in a foster situation so much that she felt that she needed to defend herself or pick up a knife,’ she added.

Well, Joy, it wasn’t Ma’Khia who called 911. Though she likely was told it would happen. It wasn’t the two women she attacked who grabbed a knife and charged down the driveway. It was Ma’Khia who assaulted those “two adult women.” It was MaKhia who showed no fear of a cop with a drawn gun. She wasn’t cowering in fear somewhere safe. If anyone was afraid, it was the girl in pink pinned against a car by someone twice her size and trying to avoid the knife.

Maybe no one’s asking that question because it’s a stupid question. And I note, Joy, that you ignore the same question whenever it applies to guns.

There’s a lot more straight-up, attempted agency theft out there, but let’s move to a more subtle form of it: The BLM take that childhood knife fights (again, this wasn’t) are so common an occurrence that even in the instant someone is screaming, “I’m Going to Stab F**k Out of You, Bitch,” and thrusting a knife at an unarmed, cringing victim – police on the scene should stay out of it. Or maybe forward the problem to the Community Instant Mental Wellness Counseling Authority BLM wants to replace them with.

Here’s a Tweet from Black Lives Matter activist, Bree Newsome:

Teenagers have been having fights including fights involving knives for eons. We do not need police to address these situations by showing up to the scene & using a weapon against one of the teenagers. Y’all need help. I mean that sincerely.
— DEFUND & ABOLISH POLICE, REFUND OUR COMMUNITIES (@BreeNewsome) April 21, 2021

What could be more racist than implying blacks have poorer impulse control, are naturally more violent, too stupid to stand down in front of a peace officer, and care little for black lives?

BTW, some teenage knife fighters in those eons died. From being stabbed. Which is what the 911 call was about. By your definition of ‘knife fight,’ I’ll bet the majority of those had no knives. Oh, and you’re right, if police stop responding to 911 reports of imminent stabbing they’ll be shooting fewer homicidal knife wielding people of all skin colors.

Let us conclude with relevant comments from Clarence Thomas on how “Progressives” play the agency card:
Clarence Thomas Rips SCOTUS Double Standard On Teen Maturity: ‘Child’ For Murderer vs. ‘Young Woman’ For Abortion-Seeker

Thomas’s comments follow recent deadly acts involving teen females. Sixteen-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant was fatally shot by police this week when she lunged with a knife at another young female. In March, a 13-year-old girl and a 15-year-old girl were arrested and charged with felony murder in the death of Pakistani immigrant Mohammad Anwar.

*Update 12:10, April 29:
Ms. Newsome has been silent about this teenage knife-‘fight’ of April 19th, the day before Ma’Khia’s death. Ohio girl, 13, stabbed to death, and another 13-year-old girl is charged with her murder I wonder if the police officer who shot Ma’Khia had heard about this murder in Cleveland.

And, while we’re at it, here are a few more teen stabbings awaiting Newsome comment. US only. Last 2 years. Not at all comprehensive (only 2 pages deep in the search results). Excludes adults stabbed by teens.

Teen stabbed to death in Stonewall
Teen mother stabbed to death by another teenage mother who will be tried as an adult, police say
Arrest made in stabbing death of Falls teen
15-year-old girl stabbed to death in grocery store during fight with 4 younger girls
A teenage killer’s eerie tweets she sent after stabbing friend to death: ‘We really did go on three’
Teen held in fatal Long Island stabbing that police say was recorded by dozens pleads not guilty
Body of Ala. Teen, 17, Was Found Stabbed and Beaten in Creek, and 3 Girls Are Charged with Murder
14-year-old charged with murder after another teen was stabbed, Columbia police say

Setting the revanchist table

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Were BLM to apply its revisionist purges to the Democrats’ pseudo-history, they would be forced to abandon the Party:
Democrats: The Missing Years

That those Democrat sins are long past is an untenable objection for the statue topplers, 1619 Project acolytes, POC supremacists, and Democrat mayors in the plantation cities.

In any case, sins are still being committed.
Joe Biden: The New George Wallace

Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day be day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except the endless present in which the party is always right…

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past…

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

– George Orwell

Come together.

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Right now. Over me.

The Beatles’ song title would be apt at George Floyd memorial services. George Floyd’s family says that coming together would be what he would have wanted.

Only a vanishingly small minority of humans would not condemn the manner of George Floyd’s killing as disturbing and depraved. You’d think we could all act as if we agree on that.

But, even that ‘coming together’ is specifically verboten by the Twitter Hongweibing, Antifa pyromaniacs, and BLM looters – who are abetted by Progressive NPCs who parrot the riot-inducing idea that every white person is possessed by an evil character irredeemably dictated by the color of their skin.

In order to enforce a guilty silence, and to normalize the actual violence they might later commit, Progressives tell you that speech they identify as violent is violence.

They insist on collective guilt by epidermal association for similar reasons; to force others to seek absolution of inherited sin by, for example, the washing of BLM feet; to encourage willingness to abase yourself because of race at the demand of strangers; and to nod your head at excuses for organized looting and arson, as well as violence and murder. Including of black owned stores and against black bodies.

The amazing part is that there isn’t more police misconduct. The duty of police is to protect the state, not you. When the state protects the bad cops, the deaths of George Floyd and Justine Damond result.

It’s only a surprise to the Progressive politicians in the nation’s largest cities, who’ve been receiving campaign contributions in exchange for union contracts which protect bad cops for 60 years, that there are some corrupt, or violent, or incompetent people in the police force. As if that groundwork were not enough: Those same politicians let violent ideologues hijack peaceful protests and destroy or steal millions of dollars of property unhindered. Then they beg for Federal bailouts – mainly of the pension obligations assumed in the aforementioned contracts. For a finale, they blame all cops for everything.

Including the ones they press gang into personal protection units while they abandon police stations to arson, and permit anarchists to seize city territory.

The anarchists have hidden behind legitimate protests over a horrific death. Progressive politicians have enabled it.

George Floyd’s wish has come apart under the weight of anarchists and venal incompetents.

…
In Chicago, between 7 p.m. May 29, and 11 p.m. May 31, 25 people were killed. In addition, 85 suffered gunshot wounds. The anarchists play with matches while the politicians play their fiddles.

And, We Are Leaving

And, Minneapolis City Council President: Ability to Call Police Over Robbery ‘Comes From a Place of Privilege’

Meanwhile, Congressional Progressives support their friends at the state and city level by appropriating culturally: “I have an idea! Let’s all dress as Ghanaians! They’re black, right?”
‘This is political blackface’: Not everyone appreciated Congressional Dems wearing kente cloth

Deplorable has already been used up

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The New York Times spent two years collaborating with the Democrats in trying to convince everyone that Donald Trump conspired with Russia. What can they do now, noses still raw from rubbing in the abject failure of their attempted coup? Take direction from the drove of Democrat presidential candidates; who are moving directly to a different way of trashing America to get at Trump: Fanning racial division.

Assisting in that effort, the Pink Lady is embarking on a project to convince Americans that the United States was founded on slavery, with side shots at capitalism. The Time’s effort is called the 1619 project, after the 400th anniversary of the first slave imported to the US. Which they will refer to as The Founding.
JOHN KASS: Robert Mueller crushed their dreams, so Democrats pivot to race.

After withering Twitter criticism over a headline above a story on Trump’s remarks after the recent back-to-back mass shootings, the Times changed the headline from ‘Trump urges unity vs racism’ to ‘Assailing Hate But Not Guns.’ This sent the newsroom into a navel gazing downward morale spiral. Not because of the change, but because someone could have lacked sufficient wokeness to sully the Times propaganda goals by posting the first headline at all. They had a staff meeting to discuss it.

The truly amazing leaked transcript of that meeting is up at Slate. Should you wish to give them a click, remove the ‘x’ at the end of that otherwise broken link. I include just one example of the discussion about the NYT pre-election plans.

Baquet is executive editor Dean Baquet. The exchange is prompted by an earlier question/answer (I paraphrase), “Why don’t we call Trump a racist more often?” The answer was, “There are more subtle and powerful ways to call him a racist.”

“Staffer: Hello, I have another question about racism. I’m wondering to what extent you think that the fact of racism and white supremacy being sort of the foundation of this country should play into our reporting. Just because it feels to me like it should be a starting point, you know? Like these conversations about what is racist, what isn’t racist. I just feel like racism is in everything. It should be considered in our science reporting, in our culture reporting, in our national reporting. And so, to me, it’s less about the individual instances of racism, and sort of how we’re thinking about racism and white supremacy as the foundation of all of the systems in the country. And I think particularly as we are launching a 1619 Project, I feel like that’s going to open us up to even more criticism from people who are like, “OK, well you’re saying this, and you’re producing this big project about this. But are you guys actually considering this in your daily reporting?”

Baquet: You know, it’s interesting, the argument you just made, to go back to the use of the word racist. I didn’t agree with all of this from [NPR’s] Keith Woods, [but] …his argument, which is pretty provocative, boils down to this: Pretty much everything is racist. His view is that a huge percentage of American conversation is racist, so why isolate this one comment from Donald Trump? His argument is that he could cite things that people say in their everyday lives that we don’t characterize that way, which is always interesting. You know, I don’t know how to answer that, other than I do think that that race has always played a huge part in the American story.

And I do think that race and understanding of race should be a part of how we cover the American story. Sometimes news organizations sort of forget that in the moment. But of course it should be. I mean, one reason we all signed off on the 1619 Project and made it so ambitious and expansive was to teach our readers to think a little bit more like that. Race in the next year—and I think this is, to be frank, what I would hope you come away from this discussion with—race in the next year is going to be a huge part of the American story. And I mean, race in terms of not only African Americans and their relationship with Donald Trump, but Latinos and immigration.”

So, a staffer asks if the NYT marching orders are, “When writing a story about anything, first and foremost consider how you can include racism as a fundamental characteristic of the United States.” And Baquet says, yes, but don’t be too obvious about it.

They act like this is a new idea, but I’m so old I can remember when they told us the words “Chicago,” and “golf” were racist.

Anyway, you will be hearing this a lot in the next year(s). So, here are two articles debunking the 1619 project that may assist you in refuting the histrionic flurry of statism and race baiting sure to come from Progressives with whom you may be trapped in an elevator.

Slavery Did Not Make America Rich
The Anti-Capitalist Ideology of Slavery