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Princeton NJ, recent protests once again shine a lite into what is often refereed to as Institutional racism ,also known as systemic racism. It is a form of racism expressed in the practice of social and political institutions. It is reflected in disparities regarding wealth, income, criminal justice, employment, housing, health care, political power and education, among other factors.
Continue reading To End “Systemic Racism” stop voting Democrat
Daniel Lattier | July 14, 2017
In May, I reported on the controversial social justice curriculum being taught to young students in Edina Public Schools—a wealthy suburban district in Minnesota considered to be among the state’s best.
At Edina’s Highlands Elementary this past year, students—even kindergartners and first-graders—were made to participate in a number of projects designed to teach them about their racial privilege and encourage them to become activists.
I had my suspicions why a school district would deem it necessary to subject kindergartners to such a curriculum, and to teach them to view the world primarily through the lens of race.
My suspicions were confirmed by Michael Seaman, a teacher and architect of the program in the district. Basically, he assumes that these young students may already be racists.
In an email to me, Mr. Seaman asked “Why do you object to teaching social justice in all classrooms?” and then wrote “I’ve linked an article for your perusal regarding the early onset of racial bias.”
Read more at: https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/wealthy-minnesota-school-district-treating-its-students-racists © IntellectualTakeout.org
It is perfectly emblematic of the empty, hashtagging political era that the primary role of government after a mass murder would be as a semiotic interpreter for the nation.
As governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton celebrated his state’s Confederate heritage with a special star in his state’s flag. Now his wife is running for president as an ardent foe of Confederate remembrance. The GOP consensus of 20 years ago was that the display of the Confederate battle flag was up to the ones displaying it. Now they are falling over each other to denounce its public display.
None of it makes much difference in the lives of Americans or on the question of good governance.
These are things that politicians do not as part of leadership but of followership – public cues intended to show voters that a candidate is “one of them.” But they do not do much to shape outcomes. Quite the opposite. These are things you do when you can’t do anything real.
Is racism a problem in America? Not nearly what it was, but of course it is. Is it something that the federal government is going to be able to remedy? Not a chance. Are mass killings, regardless of the ideological fixation of the killer, an ongoing problem? America ranks fourth in the world for mass-shooting fatalities, so there’s certainly a problem. Is it likely to be fixed by legislation? Almost certainly not.
So what’s with all the focus on the flag?
We get an insight into the thinking of the president and his party from a WaPo piece on his many frustrations with his administration’s failures on gun control and race relations:
“‘If you are a white man in America, this country is changing dramatically. You have always been in charge,’ said a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity [to] be candid. ‘So there is something to white men feeling like something has been taken away from them.’”
Not one in 1,000 white males cares about the presence of a Confederate war monument on the grounds of the South Carolina statehouse. Not one in 1 million would share the racist worldview of the Charleston killer. The overwhelming majority are focused on keeping themselves and their families afloat in the face of enormous challenges.
But focusing on them as villains is revealing and attributing the resistance to gun control and other issues as a personal response to Obama’s African heritage is an unintentionally damning revelation.
There’s nothing the president can do about the real issues, so finding and blaming a boogeyman becomes job one
By Jordan Fabian – 05/02/15 06:00 AM EDT
From Ferguson to Baltimore, the nation’s first black president is encountering the limits of his power when it comes to healing the nation’s racial wounds.
A series of racially-charged police killings, most recently in Baltimore, are quickly becoming a part of President Obama’s second-term legacy, defying predictions that his election to the White House would help bridge the country’s oldest divide.
Obama appears increasingly frustrated by the situation, this week lashing out at people rioting in Baltimore as “thugs” and “criminals.”
The president has also brushed off critics who say his administration should be taking a more forceful approach toward police misconduct.
“The challenge for us as the federal government is, is that we don’t run these police forces,” he said Tuesday during a Rose Garden press conference. “I can’t federalize every police force in the country and force them to retrain.”
The president has struggled to find the right balance between backing law enforcement and criticizing their questionable practices when police-related deaths of black men occur.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/240843-obamas-difficult-legacy-on-race
New Jersey’s black, Hispanic, and mixed-race children are much more likely than Asian and white children to live in poverty, suffer poor health, struggle in school, and to become involved in the state’s child protection system, according to a new Kids Count 2015 report releasedMonday by Advocates for Children of New Jersey.
The annual report compiles statistics on key indicators of child well-being and ranks counties according to their performance. (Mulford/Courier Post)
The Cultural Critic Discusses Sexuality, Race, Gender, Feminism, and Hillary Clinton
Nick Gillespie & Todd Krainin|Mar. 22, 2015 8:30 am
Growing up as “a gender nonconforming entity” during Eisenhower’s America wasn’t easy for cultural critic and best-selling author Camille Paglia. Her adolescence in small-town, upstate New York was marked by rejection, rebellion, and cross-dressing—all in reaction to the stultifying social norms of the 1950s and early ’60s.
So what does Paglia think of contemporary culture, with its openness to a wide variety of ever-proliferating gender, racial, and sexual identities?
Not much.
“I do not feel that gender is sufficient to explain all of human life,” Paglia tells Reason TV’s Nick Gillespie. “This gender myopia, this gender monomania, has become a disease. It’s become a substitute for religion. It is impossible that the feminist agenda can ever be the total explanation of human life.”
Whether the subject is feminism or the fate of Western civilization, Paglia is no Pollyanna. In this wide-ranging discussion, she says higher education is going to hell, the Fourth Estate is an epic FAIL, millennials are myopic, contemporary criticism has croaked, and Hillary Clinton might singlehandedly destroy the universe. Even Madonna, once Paglia’s ideal of sex-positive feminism, seems to have lost her way.
Does the celebrated author of Sexual Personae and Break Blow Burn have any reason to get out of bed in the morning? Does she have any hope for the universe at all? Watch the video to find out.
https://reason.com/blog/2015/03/22/does-camille-paglia-have-any-hope-for-ou
