Let’s try yet again to tease out some of the polarities of Critical Race Theory versus The Approved Kind of Discussion of Racism.

Marisa Iati in the Post a couple of months ago:

Some lessons and anti-racism efforts, however, reflect foundational themes of critical race theory, particularly that racism in the United States is systemic.

So there’s one: racism as systemic, i.e. embedded in various systems and institutions, as opposed to being random and individual – just people with bad manners.

Critical race theory is an academic framework centered on the idea that racism is systemic, and not just demonstrated by individual people with prejudices. The theory holds that racial inequality is woven into legal systems and negatively affects people of color in their schools, doctors’ offices, the criminal justice system and countless other parts of life.

Ok so do we think that’s wrong? Do we think it’s factually mistaken?

If we do I have to ask why. Why would it be wrong? At what point did we complete the job of removing racism from all US systems? I must have missed the news that day.

Just off the top of my head I know that black women have much worse statistics in childbirth than white women do. Is it likely that systemic racism has nothing to do with that? Generations of poverty because employers and unions and landlords and realtors are riddled with systemic racism? Unequal access to healthcare because of the above plus systemic racism in the healthcare system (such as it is)? And I know that the prison stats are grotesquely out of whack – and even if you decide “Wull that’s because there are fewer white criminals” you can surely see that that can be for similar systemic reasons. Jobs, schools, housing, transportation – they’re all part of a system that was not what you’d call enlightened on the issue of racial equality.

Khiara Bridges, author of “Critical Race Theory: A Primer,” said traditional civil rights discourse maintained that racism would end when people stopped thinking about race. The dissenting scholars, she said, rejected that conclusion and believed race consciousness was necessary to overcoming racial stratification.

“I don’t see color” versus “Oh yes you do see color and we all need to talk about what happens because of that, so that we can FIX IT.”

“Critical race theory is an effort really to move beyond the focus on finding fault by impugning [should be “imputing”] racist motives, racist bias, racist prejudice, racist animus and hatred to individuals, and looking at the ways in which racial inequality is embedded in structures in ways of which we are very often unaware,” said Kendall Thomas, co-editor of “Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement.”

Which means in a way that conservatives ought to like it, because it’s not about sniffing out individual racists; it’s impersonal. It also means those stupid “Give us lots of money to come to your dinner party and call you racist” scams are the very opposite of CRT.

Although the phrase “critical race theory” refers to an area of academic study, its common usage has diverged from its exact meaning. Conservative activists and politicians now use the term as a catchall phrase for nearly any examination of systemic racism in the present. Critical race theory is often portrayed as the basis of race-conscious policies, diversity trainings, and education about racism, regardless of how much the academic concept actually affects those efforts.

The Heritage Foundation, a right-leaning think tank, recently attributed a range of events to critical race theory: property destruction and violence during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, efforts to fire a Yale University professor amid a Halloween costume controversy, two White actresses stating that they would not play mixed-race characters, and the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., that killed 17. They reasoned that critical race theory makes race the primary lens through which people see the world and reimagines the United States as divided by factions that are pitted against each other.

Christopher Rufo, a prominent opponent of critical race theory, in March acknowledged intentionally using the term to describe a range of race-related topics and conjure a negative association.

Hat tip to Jesse Singal for asking about that today.

And the badass women are…Simone Biles, Allyson Felix, Naomi Osaka, Laurel Hubbard, and the US Women’s Soccer Team.

Yes that’s right, Laurel Hubbard is included as one of the badass women. A shameless cheating man becomes a badass woman just by saying so.

The women won’t wheesht rally:

I think we get a glimpse of latsot as the camera pans left.

Republicans are using this “everybody’s always picking on me” rhetoric as cover for their campaign to suppress the Enemy Vote.

In Texas, Republican state legislators are pushing a new bill to require an audit of the 2020 results, one conducted by a third party appointed by top Republicans.

But tellingly, as The Post reports, the audit would be required only for the largest counties — virtually all of which backed President Biden.

Aka the cities are where all the Jews and communists are. We’ve been down this road before.

This is being justified by the notion that Republican voters no longer “believe in their election system,” as its chief sponsor, Republican state Rep. Steve Toth, put it.

Anything to do with the Trump-Fox lies about it? Maybe?

But why audit just in larger counties? Behold this remarkable answer:

While Toth said he would support a statewide effort, he also argued the undertaking would be too expensive and time-consuming. Asked if he would consider including some smaller counties, Toth replied, “What’s the point? I mean, all the small counties are red.”

Oopsie. You’re not supposed to say that part out loud.

Interesting.

This is what I’ve been saying all along – people are slapping the CRT label on every kind of anti-racism they find stupid or bullying or both. It’s helpful to see Christopher Rufo himself confirm that that was the plan.

Gee, now why would we despise Trump and all his works? It’s such a mystery, and just so rude of us.

Hot damn this is a stupid piece for the Washington Post to bother publishing.

When supporters of former president Donald Trump hear media pundits analyze them with the usual collection of belittling observations, they must be tempted to respond, “Hey, we’re right here! We can hear you!”

So we shouldn’t think it’s stupid or evil or both to vote for Donald Trump for any public office at all, let alone the presidency? Why? Why shouldn’t we? He’s one of the most thoroughly godawful human beings on the planet, and possibly the only one without a single redeeming quality.

Yes, they are indeed here, and living among us. And they have every right to be insulted by being accused of believing a “big lie,” and by the implication that they are violent, or traitors, or mindless sheep — racist sheep, of course.

No they don’t. Trump is a very bad man, and he promoted racism, violence, treason, and mindlessness, and he still does. They have zero right to be insulted by being told that a vote for Trump is a vote for those qualities.

They’re fed up not just with the overt insults, but also with more subtle digs, such as former defense secretary Leon Panetta saying last week that he worries that Trump “will continue to try to somehow sway his followers” to attempt another Jan. 6-style uprising. Followers? No one refers to President Biden’s “followers.” It’s a word generally reserved for adherents of cult figures.

No shit, Sherlock, because that’s what they are, because there is zero rational reason to vote for Trump, let alone to support his attempts to overturn the election. That’s not because he’s a Republican or a conservative, it’s because he’s an evil sack of shit.

I’ll stop now. The Post can surely find better right-wingers than this chump.

H/t Mike Haubrich

A nitwit writer for Jezebel writes the 40 millionth piece on JK Rowling the transphobe blah blah:

We can certainly quibble over how much Rowling needs to be defended from random Twitter users, especially considering the violence associated with her transphobia and the transphobia of her supporters (who haven’t hesitated to defend Rowling with threats of their own). But here’s what’s most glaring about Rowling’s responses: Her insistence on framing this as gendered violence against women, perpetrated by men. Rowling cannot accept that the transgender women who have clowned her, who have told her to “go die,” who have been the loudest critics of her TERF agenda, are women. It’s easier for her to simply dismiss them as men, and regard their anger as male violence directed at her, a “real” woman. It’s a convenient misreading of feminism that positions Rowling as the vulnerable victim of dangerous men.

Ah yes it’s so very glaring that JKR recognizes male entitlement and male contempt for women and male aggression when she sees it. It’s so glaring that she doesn’t politely nod and agree that these men are women if they say they are. It’s so glaring that she considers herself a real woman and men as not real women. It’s such a misreading of feminism to see dangerous men as dangerous men.

More than that, it’s a sly way of misgendering that acts as a dog whistle for the many people who celebrate Rowling’s “bravery.” But Rowling’s sex and gender essentialism isn’t brave, it’s the status quo.

Well status quo isn’t the opposite of brave, for a start, but more to the point, not everything that’s the status quo is wrong or evil or in need of reversal. Women are women and men are not women, and that’s not like a fashion in hats or a taste in music, it’s just reality, status quo and all.

David Frum is gentler on the anti-vaxxers than I am.

Experts list many reasons for the vaccine slump, but one big reason stands out: vaccine resistance among conservative, evangelical, and rural Americans. Pro-Trump America has decided that vaccine refusal is a statement of identity and a test of loyalty.

And that’s profoundly wicked, because statements of identity and tests of loyalty are trivial compared to spreading a killer virus. Utterly utterly trivial. People have no right to put their identities or political loyalties ahead of public health. It’s disgusting and contemptible.

Part of the trouble is that pro-Trump state legislatures are enacting ever more ambitious protections for people who refuse vaccines. They are forbidding business owners to ask for proof of vaccination from their customers. They are requiring cruise lines, sports stadiums, and bars to serve the unvaccinated. In Montana, they have even forbidden hospitals to require health-care workers to get vaccinated.

So stay out of Montana for the duration, since you can’t be safe even in the damn hospitals.

As cases uptick again, as people who have done the right thing face the consequences of other people doing the wrong thing, the question occurs: Does Biden’s America have a breaking point? Biden’s America produces 70 percent of the country’s wealth—and then sees that wealth transferred to support Trump’s America. Which is fine; that’s what citizens of one nation do for one another. Something else they do for one another: take rational health-care precautions during a pandemic. That reciprocal part of the bargain is not being upheld.

This is what makes me want to smack people like Tucker Carlson and Lauren Boebert. They’re enjoying flashy careers here and they refuse any reciprocal duty.

… there’s no getting around the truth that some considerable number of the unvaccinated are also behaving willfully and spitefully. Yes, they have been deceived and manipulated by garbage TV, toxic Facebook content, and craven or crazy politicians. But these are the same people who keep talking about “personal responsibility.” In the end, the unvaccinated person himself or herself has decided to inflict a preventable and unjustifiable harm upon family, friends, neighbors, community, country, and planet.

Will Blue America ever decide it’s had enough of being put medically at risk by people and places whose bills it pays? Check yourself: Have you?

Hell yes, and I have all along.

FBI confirms the “investigation” of Brett Kavanaugh was a sham.

Nearly three years after Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s tumultuous confirmation to the Supreme Court, the F.B.I. has disclosed more details about its efforts to review the justice’s background, leading a group of Senate Democrats to question the thoroughness of the vetting and conclude that it was shaped largely by the Trump White House.

Ya think?

In a letter dated June 30 to two Democratic senators, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Chris Coons of Delaware, an F.B.I. assistant director, Jill C. Tyson, said that the most “relevant” of the 4,500 tips the agency received during an investigation into Mr. Kavanaugh’s past were referred to White House lawyers in the Trump administration, whose handling of them remains unclear.

It was a background check not a criminal investigation, so the rules are different, she pointed out.

Ms. Tyson’s letter was a response to a 2019 letter from Mr. Whitehouse and Mr. Coons to the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, posing questions about how the F.B.I.’s review of Mr. Kavanaugh was handled.

Oh, so it took the FBI only two years to respond. How impressive.

In an interview, Mr. Whitehouse said the F.B.I.’s response showed that the F.B.I.’s handling of the accusations into misconduct by Mr. Kavanaugh was a sham. Ms. Tyson’s letter, Mr. Whitehouse said, suggested that the F.B.I. ran a “fake tip line that never got properly reviewed, that was presumably not even conducted in good faith.”

And they didn’t tell the senators it was a sham at the time.

Originally a comment by latsot on The chemistry teacher’s question.

A brilliant, moving article. Lesbian and Gay News gets better and better. Any comparison with the off-red comic would be such a glaring category error that it would blind us all from space.

I have much sympathy with the author. I was bullied in much the same way, relentlessly, by kids and teachers alike. Every single day, from around the age of four to when I left school at 15. While I had a few friends, I don’t remember a single day that wasn’t hell. At first, my family didn’t seem to notice. After I had an enormous, violent explosion one night, they most certainly knew about it, but did absolutely nothing. For that, I can never forgive them.

I was constantly called a girl by kids, teachers and family and while I never thought for a moment to actually question my sex, I knew I was a broken kind of boy, not a boy like any of the others.

I was so vulnerable in other words, to grooming of virtually any kind. Thank goodness, that didn’t happen. After a period of homelessness, I went back into education and achieved the towering success I enjoy today. But as I’ve said here before, I could so easily have been seduced by a cult – any cult – that told me there was nothing wrong with me. I don’t think I’d ever have believed I was a girl, but I’m damn sure I would have gone along with it anyway, for a while at least, if I thought it might have given me some respite.

I think mine is a fairly extreme case. I was a very strange kid, have a remarkably uncaring family and it was a very rough school. But then, transing was not an option back then and acceptance of any kind of gender or behavioural nonconformity was unthinkable. Now that new genders are available off the peg it is no wonder that children – and especially girls – want to wear them like a costume. Or a suit of armour.

If only it could remain a costume, I’d be delighted. But groomers like Mermaids, institutionalised by organisations like Stonewall, are grinding children to pieces with their zealotry and we haven’t even begun to see the carnage, yet.

It has to stop.

Another thing that’s funny (but infuriating) about that “Duhhhhhh wut’s GC?” is –

He knows all about it, unlike us, but he doesn’t know what GC is.

And it gets worse.

Yes you find things out by asking but you just told us you already know all about the subject and that WE DON’T.

So there’s that.

Uhhhh…that unlike most of the people who criticise you over this, you HAVE got your head round both sides.

It was two days ago. Click on Tweets & replies. It’s right there.

More pathetic by the day.

“Evidence? Don’t come pestering me with your evidence – I’m SCIENCE-BASED MEDICINE.”

What is he on? Some kind of tribalism train is my guess. All the doors are locked, it blasts through all the stations, all it does is speed ahead until it runs out of track.

What’s Tucker Carlson’s complaint?

In a March interview with The Washington Post, Dunn said he was called the n-word more than a dozen times that day in January. Black police officers, he said, “were fighting a different fight” as a throng of Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol grounds and building — some violently attacking police officers standing in their way.

Dunn will be one of the first witnesses to testify next week before a special committee tasked with investigating the insurrection. But Fox News host Tucker Carlson, during his Wednesday night broadcast, cast doubt on the officer’s ability to testify objectively.

Ah yes, and by the same token an assault victim can’t testify objectively, a victim of rape can’t testify objectively, a victim of burglary can’t testify objectively, and so on.

“Dunn will pretend to speak for the country’s law enforcement community, but it turns out Dunn has very little in common with your average cop,” Carlson said. “Dunn is an angry left-wing political activist.”

So what Tucker Carlson is saying here is that your average cop, your normal cop, is a racist. Your average cop apparently has no objection to violent armed insurrectionists shouting “nigger” as they try to overturn an election. I’m not sure your average cop is going to be as thrilled with that picture of them as Carlson thinks.

Here’s an interview Officer Dunn did on ABC News in February. We can see why Tucker Carlson wouldn’t like him…

I really despise Tucker Carlson. I would be happy to see him get the virus and become deathly ill.

Harry Dunn:

Macron has put his foot down.

More than 100,000 people took to the streets across France over the weekend to protest against President Emmanuel Macron’s tough new vaccination strategy, which will restrict access to restaurants, cafes, movie theaters, long-distance trains and more for the unvaccinated.

More than a hundred thousand people took to the streets to protest measures to prevent the spread of a virus that kills.

Why are people so stupid?

Demonstrators in Paris and elsewhere vented against what some called Mr. Macron’s “dictatorship” after he announced that a “health pass” — official proof of vaccination, a recent negative test, or recent Covid-19 recovery — would be required for many to attend or enter most public events and venues.

That’s just stupid. It’s not dictatorship, it’s emergency measures in an emergency. Remember when the Nazis occupied Paris? Now that was dictatorship. This is not.

Lots of people are rushing to get the vax though. Allons enfants.

Some protesters caused particular outrage after drawing parallels between their situation and that of the Jews during the Holocaust. Some wore a yellow star that said “nonvaccinated,” others carried signs or shouted slogans that compared the health pass to a Nazi-era measure.

“This comparison is abhorrent,” said Joseph Szwarc, 94, a Holocaust survivor who was speaking on Sunday as France commemorated the victims of racist or anti-Semitic acts by the Vichy government.

“I wore the star, I know what it is, I still have it in my flesh,” said Mr. Szwarc said at a ceremony in Paris.

Justement.

At Lesbian and Gay News:

“Why are you wearing a boy’s uniform?” That question has stayed with me since it was first asked by my chemistry teacher in front of a packed class when I was just 13 years old. The year was 1989, Thatcher was in power and had passed Section 28 the year before and it was the year that Stonewall was founded…

I often look back on that moment, in that class in front of my classmates, and wonder why it has stayed with me more than everything else about that dreadful time at that dreadful school. Over the years I’ve battled with my mental health, most of it due to trauma of living through the homophobic abuse I got day in day out when I was just a young boy struggling to come to terms with his sexuality and who was mercilessly picked on by his peers because he wasn’t boisterous or violent, because he preferred the company of girls, because he wasn’t into football, because he did crazy things to his hair, and because he liked Doctor Who.  

The much more overt and disgusting stuff his classmates did to him has not haunted him in the same way.

Up until that point my 13-year-old brain was able to rationalise, as best it could, that my classmates were just common bullies, and that what they were saying and what they were doing was borne out of a childish need to hurt people. It was a distraction from their own insecurities, an acting out of what they had seen elsewhere, or just something that they did because it made them feel a little more in control of their own lives. When my chemistry teacher asked that question, and the entire class all laughed, it hit hard because it was coming from a different place, and I perceived that it had a truth that only a position of genuine power and authority could give it.

It triggered in me a period of intense dysphoria where I struggled with what I thought was the truth. A truth that spoke directly to my insecurities. The truth that I was damaged and broken, and that there was this terrible mistake and I had been born in the wrong body. The terror of that perceived truth stayed with me until I fully came to terms with my sexual orientation.

But the truth for me after that teacher’s question was for a time, what if I really was a girl? Was that why I was getting crushes on boys? Is that what my peers knew but that I up until that point was not aware of? The actual reality was that the question was spiteful, red hot and dripping with homophobia, but to 13-year-old me it was confirmation of my worst fears, why was I wearing a boy’s uniform?

But now, somehow, it has become the enlightened and “kind” thing to do – to assure people that they really are the other sex since they’re so clearly not comfortable with the conventions of their “assigned” sex.

I share this story to give context to why I am so deeply angry with the way Stonewall has betrayed its founding principles as it chases money and a reason to continue to exist. When Stonewall was formed the message that we as gay men are not broken, and there was nothing wrong with us, eventually filtered down to me. It was a light that I could cling to, being shone by adults who understood what I was going through because they had been through it themselves.

Stonewall ultimately helped me overcome my dysphoric feelings while I did the work I needed to do to come to terms with who I am.

Stonewall said that I was not a freak, or broken, or born in the wrong body, they said that I had every right to wear a boy’s uniform as the next boy in my class, or even wear a girl’s uniform, it didn’t matter as I was still a boy – I didn’t need fixing, as I was perfect just as I was.

But now Stonewall says the opposite.

The way that gender ideology has metastasised into every area of public life means that things for children today struggling with sexuality has gotten worse in recent years. It’s Stonewall now asking: “Why are you wearing a boy’s uniform?” I wonder if Stonewall would congratulate my chemistry teacher for being progressive and inclusive? It is Stonewall after all who now seem to look down on homosexuality as something to be ashamed of, something to be belittled, to be redefined, to be brushed under the carpet as an inconvenience to their gender identity homophobic pseudoscience.  

It’s horribly sad and destructive.

Science-based. SCIENCE-BASED I tell you! Is is is is IS.

It’s a SCIENCE-BASED block.