Starbucks Wants To Talk About What?

Starbucks apparently has a new policy. They want their baristas to discuss race relations with their customers. Hmm. This will not end well.

Oh, where to begin.

(1) Their baristas aren’t smart enough to discuss politics. And how exactly are they supposed to start these discussions?

Bubbly Barista Attempt No. 1: Hey, you’re dark like this coffee!
Rare Black Customer: What the f*ck?

Bubbly Barista Attempt No. 2: Why can’t people of different races get along?
Redneck Customer: Yep. We should ship all them coloreds back where they came from.
Bubbly Barista: I know, right?

Customer: Wasn’t Selma great?
Barista Attempt No. 3: Selma Blair?

Barista Attempt No. 4: Wanna talk about race relations?
Customer: No! I want you to get my f***ing order right! I said SKINNY MACHIATTO!

(2) What does Starbucks know about race relations? They’ve never had a black customer and they don’t hire Mexicans. All their customers, well 95.7%, are white suburban mothers in mini-SUVs and yoga pants. (The other 4.3% are angry white males in bike shorts who glare at their electronic gadgets as they spend the day using the free wifi.)

(3) The average interaction time with a barista is about 20 seconds. So these “discussions” will more likely turn into trivia sessions. How useful will this be:

“Black people make up 14% of the population.”
Ok.

“Black unemployment is 24%.”
Hmm.

“Mexicans come from Mexico.”
Really? Do tell.

“Asian are the new illegal immigrants.”
What?

Or is it going to be touchy-feely?

Bubbly Barista Attempt No. 1: I like black people.
Rare Black Customer: Are you hitting on me?

Bubbly Barista Attempt No. 2: Black people make great athletes.
Customer: (jaw drops)

Seriously, this is not a good idea. In fact, I can’t wait for the lawsuits as hypersensitive race baiters start visiting Starbucks waiting for the inevitable slip up. Even better, I can’t wait for the comedians to take advantage of this and go lead various unsuspecting baristas into making suicidaly stupid pronouncements about race, which they will then post on Youtube. You know it’s going to happen and it’s going to be hilarious.

Look, it’s one thing for people with an interest and some knowledge of a topic to engage in a discussion. But it’s quite another to ask thousands of low-wage morons to start randomly opining to customers about controversial issues.

Starbucks seems to think this isn’t a problem because they encouraged their baristas to talk about gay marriage and no one freaked out about that. But here’s the thing: that was an easy debate because the groupthink position was not only widely known, but so were all the acceptable responses to stay safely on the PC reservation. Said differently, even the worst morons amongst us knew what to say to stay out of trouble because the media and celebrities drilled it into them.

This is really different. There is no set of approved talking points about blacks and race relations because race relations are a broad range of issues, not a single issue that can be distilled to one view point, and the race baiters are super touchy and will freak out pretty much randomly – that’s how words like “picnic” and “black hole” can suddenly be called racist. Moreover, the race baiters often find offense in statements that are true. Hence, it takes an experience expert to avoid the landmines this topic encompasses.

Good luck.

It might be time to sell their stock.

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Millennials Are Racists (Conservatives)

I’ve spoken a couple times about Millennials and how they really aren’t what people think. People, particularly ideologues, view Millennials as in-the-tank leftists ready to do the bidding of Obama. Indeed, the left pushes this meme in the hopes of creating an inevitability and the right falls for it because... well, they’re stupid. The evidence, however, points to something completely different. Now we have more proof on the issue of race. Observe.

First, some background...

I’ve pointed out repeatedly that the public at large is no longer interested in race.

With 80+% of the public ignoring issues like the Washington Redskin’s name, all but a few thousand people ignoring race-baiting rallies like those in Ferguson, and with only around 20% of Americans thinking that whites and Hispanics are racist, it is safe to say that the public no longer cares about race issues. Indeed, this has become an issue relegated to the fringes.

That is a major win for actual conservatism, as compared to paranoid, race-obsessed “genuine” conservatism or the identity-politics-obsessed left. Indeed, while the left needs everyone to see themselves through their race and hate and fear people of other races and genuine conservatism needs to believe that the darkies are conspiring to destroy white, Christian America, actual conservatism wants a color-blind society. In other words, actual conservatism wants a society in which race isn’t an issue. The public ignoring race is exactly what actual conservatism is about.

So how do Millennials fit into this? Well...

Politico just put out an interesting article in which they try to warn the left that Millennials are not as tolerant as the left wants to believe. This is interesting on several levels. First, it confirms something else I’ve pointed out, which is that while the left has claimed kinship with Millennials, Millennials are showing much more conservatism than the left imagined... so much, in fact, that they are likely to become a conservative-dominant generation.

The reason no one has noticed this until recently is that the left plays the game of “if you keep saying it, it will one day be true,” and the right falls for this. Strengthening this idea, Millennials are very tolerant of gay marriage, which has caused the genuine conservatives to treat them as the enemy. The end result is that everyone has wrongly assumed that Millennials are all leftists, even as the evidence is mounting that they are conservative fiscally and on most social issues, with the exception of gay marriage and drug legalization. (As an aside, they are actually more conservative on many issues like divorce.)

Now we add the issue of race to the puzzle.

This Politico article noted, to the author’s horror, that while it is widely believed that Millennials are “tolerant” of racial issues, the rotten truth is that “the data suggests that millennials aren’t racially tolerant, they’re racially apathetic: They simply ignore structural racism rather than try to fix it.” Oh no!!

What does this mean? It means that Millennials don’t buy into the idea of identity politics. Instead, they simply choose to ignore the issue of race and claims of racism. That means they have adopted the actual conservative position on race!

Victory for us!!

How strong is our victory, you ask? It’s overwhelming actually:

● Only 39% of Millennials believe that “white people have more opportunities today than racial minority groups.” In other words, only 39% believe racial discrimination exists in our economy.

● 70% of Millennials oppose affirmative action or other legislative help for minorities: “it is never fair to give preferential treatment to one race over another, regardless of historical inequalities.”

● 62% of Millennials agreed that Obama’s election “demonstrates that racial minority groups have the same opportunities as white people.”

● 58% of Millennials believe that discrimination affects whites as much as minorities. This is an heretical position on the left.

That means that approximately 60% of Millennials are taking the conservative position on race relations by denying and/or ignoring the issue. And with around 80% of the public denying that the public is racist at all, this is one heck of a conservative victory. It is also an opportunity to point out again to conservatives and Millennials that they believe the same things.

Thoughts?

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Kit's Thoughts On Black Friday Ferguson Protests

by Kit

The decision of the Ferguson grand jury to not indict was announced and events unfolding in Ferguson as many expected they would. The only difference was on the extent of the damage. On Twitter I saw the Left also behave predictably to the events; Darren Wilson was a guilty racist scumbag and if you think the jury’s verdict was the right one based on the evidence at hand then you are not merely a racist but an evil and deplorable human being without even the slightest ounce of basic decency and not worth the slightest bit of respect. Away with thee! Away!

This and proclaiming #BlackLivesMatter while responding to the riots in Ferguson that destroyed 12 buildings (some black-owned businesses) and thoroughly trashed others (many also black-owned) in a town of 21,000 (over 60% black) with attitudes ranging from timid criticism to implied support to explicit praise.

But what was interesting was the Black Friday Boycott. Aside from a few references in the news, this was largely ignored outside of the greater St. Louis area, to which Ferguson belongs. But the boycott did garner attention, largely because it forced 3 St. Louis malls to close early. Now a question might cross a few people’s minds: Why Black Friday and why target shopping malls? Well, the answer will probably not surprise you but it is worth exploring simply because it reveals something about protesting in the modern era, the Left in the modern era, and a possible opening for the Right.

They know that despite the huge flare-up of riots in Ferguson and protests across the rest of the country that as soon as the fires in those 12 buildings went out and the National Guard restored order to the town that the country and the world would move on to other things. And right now there is no shortage of news with Obama’s immigration edict the continuing insanity in Iraq, a possible nuclear surrender agreement with Iran, (sort of) withdrawal from Afghanistan, Ebola still killing, etc. That means they have to keep attention on Ferguson and the death of Michael Brown. And in order to do that they must maintain the momentum of the protests.

Here is where they face their conundrum, even if they do not see it. In order to maintain momentum they must keep attention to the protests. But in order to keep attention on the protests they must keep it relevant. That means they must carry out protests that will garner attention through the news media; the protests must be newsworthy. So they use tactics that will garner attention, make their protests newsworthy and annoy everyone else.

Tactics such as calling for people to boycott Black Friday by tweeting “Don’t Shop. Join the Movement”, interrupting Black Friday shopping by lying on the ground and clapping, or marching through the corridors holding their hands up and shouting “Don’t Shoot!” in a place where the gun most likely to shoot them is a nerf gun. In Oakland this meant protestors chaining themselves to train cars in West Oakland and in San Francisco vandalizing a Bank of America and a news van. This means, of course, means arrests and, most importantly, dramatic footage for the nightly and 24-hour news shows.

To a person organizing protests this is good. It gets attention. However, it also annoys everyone else and unlike the Civil Rights boycotts and sit-ins where the tactics they used and targets they picked had a direct connection to the policies they were fighting these protestors have only made rather vague “symbolic” connections. The Montgomery Bus boycotters could argue that if the Montgomery transit company does not like the hit they can integrate and the boycott will end. Don’t like the nuisance of arresting people for engaging in sit-ins? Integrate.

Here? There is no such connection. It has the basic appearance of a desperate appeal for attention. The organizers and protestors themselves have admitted its purpose is to “raise awareness” for their cause. When someone says their goal is “raising awareness” it reminds me of Spielberg’s quote about the sad state of modern filmmaking, “People have forgotten how to tell a story. Stories don't have a middle or an end any more. They usually have a beginning that never stops beginning.”

Raising awareness is a beginning that never stops beginning. You can raise awareness until doomsday and never get one step closer to reaching your goal. This is because when you march under the banner of “raising awareness” it means you have no goal or plan other than grabbing attention for your cause. And soon, people will see that you have no plan and they will get tired of your constant grabs for attention. Eventually they will simply stop caring. That is if your pointless tactics and lack of any real accomplishment don’t start annoying the crap out of everyone else. This was the fate of the Occupy Movement when even liberal college students realized that their “revolution” consisted of noting more than slowing traffic to a crawl and defecating in public parks.

But don’t expect the far left to realize this for two main reasons. First, “Raising awareness” has one major benefit: You can feel good about yourself without actually accomplishing anything. You don’t even need to work hard on developing a plan. Just “raise awareness” and you are “doing something”. Second, the very pointlessness of the strategy also allows the Left and race-baiters to keep playing their divisive games that accomplish nothing except filling the coffers with donations.

A person deeply concerned about the issue of police militarization but wise might attempt to point out that a number of whites have been killed by possibly trigger-happy cops (such as the Tosh.0 producer), that an over-militarized police force may impact blacks disproportionately now but, if not stopped, will eventually spread like a cancer to the rest of America. He then may point to William F. Buckley’s favorite phrase “Government can't do anything for you except in proportion as it can do something to you” and the old axiom, “Power corrupts”. He might even point to the “crackdowns” on lemonade stands of a few years back and SWAT teams hitting homes of people late on their student loans. This is a libertarian argument heard even in conservative circles prior to the Ferguson verdict.

But this would run counter to the argument of the race-baiting Left who wants to present an argument based solely on victimhood and blacks as victims of an inherently racist system. To claim that over-militarization of the police might eventually effect white (and other non-black) Americans would mean admitting the system is not as racist as they claimed. It would mean admitting that the issue is not primarily race but the size and reach of government.

So they will continue to “raise awareness” with tactics that only tick off locals trying to go about their daily business. When said locals complain their reply will be a variance of “If you are not with us, you are against us” argument, perhaps accusing them of “valuing property over people” or, if they are black, of “internalizing racism”. And, ultimately, they will self-destruct. It will be slow but it will happen.

If Conservatives are smart this will open the door for them to address this issue in a reasonable and rational manner that balances the need of liberty from the state and the need of security from the criminal. Not only would it allow Republicans, as Rand Paul has pointed out, to score votes among some black voters (some) but allow Republicans to make an effective case for limited government by placing this issue within the larger context of big government by pointing to the dangers of police militarization in an era of over-criminalization.

Rand Paul should not be the only Republican politician talking about this.

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Wake Me Up Before You Vote Vote

I saw an odd headline the other day about Michelle Obama. According to the headline, she was encouraging “women and minorities” to “wake up,” like some sort of call to arms. This struck me as an interesting appeal, especially given Obama’s track record with both groups. But it turns out that wasn’t what she meant. She literally meant to wake up and not to sleep through voting day. Good grief.

To start with, let me laugh at Michelle Obama having to tell her supporters to get their lazy butts out of bed. That really adds to the stereotype of her followers being lazy and useless, and it explains why they aren’t more successful. Seriously, what normal person needs to be told to get out of bed by their leaders? The pathologically lazy is about all who come to mind.

She did try to expand the point a bit to include those who simply aren’t paying attention, but that hardly makes it better. Basically, she wants her supporters to go grab their sleep nephews or college dorm mates, their indifferent aunts and neighbors, and the rest of their lazy families “who are like, no, I ain’t going to vote, or I couldn’t wake up.” So I guess laziness runs in families. Anyway, nice grammar, lady.

But let's look at the bigger picture, shall we? Let us assume Madame O actually meant “wake up and realize what is happening to you.” This is a rather ridiculous thing for her to say. Do you know why? Well, consider her behavior and her husband's record and you'll see.

First, Madame O has spent her time suckling off the taxpayers. Five star hotels. Shopping in the most expensive shops around the world. Taking Air Force One to restaurants. This woman has lived like Marie Antoinette on steroids. For her to claim that somehow these poor, supposedly-oppressed women and minorities should support her is borderline insane. Imagine if Warren Buffett made the same appeal! Not to mention, they already support her! Every penny of the social security they collect from the few who work and every dollar of the benefits the rest get that gets taxed goes to pay Michelle's lavish lifestyle. So her appeal to wake up really should be met with, "What the hell are you doing with my hard-earned money?"... and maybe a guillotine.

Then there’s her husband. He has presided over a collapse in minority employment, minority household incomes, and minority net worth. They took the brunt of the housing bubble because they owned the subprime homes and nothing was done to bail them out. They were tricked by liberals into getting worthless degrees in African American or Gender Studies which left them unemployable and with vast debt. Liberals run the schools that seem to specialize in not teaching minority kids to read and write or do math. And Obama has done nothing to shake any of this up, even as middle class white parents are pushing their kids into charter and private schools at amazing rates. To the contrary, he's tried to block the door to save his teachers union buddies. He didn't fix the housing issue either, preferring instead to send trillions to the nation's largest banks. He's done nothing to help small (minority) businesses get credit either.

From the ranks of identity politics, he’s presided over the collapse of the black Congressional district under the Civil Rights Act with nary a genuine peep. He’s watched helplessly as voter ID laws quickly spread around the country. He’s whined, but done nothing else, as Affirmative Action basically has been strangled by the Supreme Court. He did appoint a black guy as Attorney General and an Hispanic chick to the Supreme Court, but neither is all that competent and won't make anyone proud. Beyond that, his minority appointments have been few and far between, and the White House continues to pay women far less than it pays men, not to mention it fought the extension of benefits to gays for as long as Obama thought he could. And look at Hispanics. He’s made all kinds of false promises to them!

So what exactly has Obama done to help minorities? We know what he’s done to crush them, but what has he done to help? The answer is nothing.

You know, Michelle is right, it is time for minorities to wake up and to see that Obama and the democrats are not their friends. So yeah... wake up. Oh, and get out of bed and get a job.

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Eric Holder's Legacy Is What?

There was an interesting article at Politico the other day. The article was written by a liberal who tried to explain Eric Holder's legacy. Despite being an attempt to make Holder look good, and even claiming that Holder was leaving "on a successful note," what struck me was how poor the article was at actually finding a positive legacy. Observe...

The article begins by admitting that not everyone views Holder positively... talk about understatement. The Republicans treated him like "a punching bag" over the "gun-tracking operation" Fast and Furious. They held him in contempt for not turning over documents related to that too, which is something that "will never totally be erased from his record." Oh, and he wasn't tough enough on Wall Street. But beyond that, Holder did some great stuff. Here's the list:

(1) His primary legacy will be his commitment to equal justice for all Americans.

(2) He had a prominent place in Obama's administration and lasted longer than most of Obama's Cabinet secretaries.

(3) He's black.

(4) His handling of Ferguson solidified his civil rights record as someone who cares about equal justice for all Americans.

Hmm. Ok. Let's examine these "four" points.

First, points one and four are the same. You can't double count his support for equal justice for all Americans by separating out instances. Hence, there are only three points here. Further, this claim is utter horse poop. Holder is notorious for taking the position that the nation's civil rights laws do not protect whites. His Justice Department pursued no cases of abuses by minorities. So the only way to say this is true is if you assume that whites are excluded from his commitment to equal justice. In other words, praise for his commitment to justice for "all" requires and asterisk that says: "statement does not apply to 72% of the population".

Further, let me add that Holder wasn't pro-gay when it came to marriage or benefits until five years into Obama's term. I guess they don't count either. And this is the same man who tried to argue that the terrorists at Gitmo had no rights... a position Bush never came close to taking. Clearly, they don't count either.

I would say honestly that what characterized Holder's term was an unprincipled laziness and indifference combined with a knee-jerk pro-black impulse. That's about it. And let's take a look at Ferguson. How brave has Holder really been? From the sound of things, the Ferguson police force is an epic mess. They clearly have not learned any of the policing lessons other departments have learned over the past 50 years. So what did Holder do to change that? Gee, he said he would send in DOJ to examine the department and put them under a form of super secret probation. But here's the thing, for as long as I can recall, most state and local police departments have already been subject to this. So this is nothing new. And what has this new plan done? Well, to hear the locals whine about it, nothing has changed. The police don't seem to have changed either. Essentially, Holder showed up, lectured us that we're all racists, did what Justice always does, and went back to his office to play with himself. Nice legacy.

And speaking of race, Holder is the guy who bizarrely claimed that America wasn't brave enough to talk about race when that's almost all we've been talking about since the 1960s... if not the 1860s. What else did he do to bring the country together or fix the racial divide? Nada... zip... jacksh*t. Again, nice legacy: one stupid speech and doing what DOJ already does one time.

As for number two, what kind of legacy is that? He was a lackey. Gee, thanks. Seriously, outlasting other cabinet secretaries is not evidence of quality. To the contrary, it's more likely evidence of anti-quality, of a man who never raises his head to cause problems or draw attention. As for being prominent, Holder is no more prominent than most other recent Attorneys General, and he's far less prominent than the dozens who actually did their jobs. In fact, had Holder done his job, he would have had bunches of things to investigate within the administration, but he chose the lackey route over the integrity root... and being a lackey never scores you a positive legacy.

As for being black, give me a break. That's the kind of "accomplishment" losers hide behind. If Holder had real achievements, the last thing anyone would be saying is, "Gee, his big accomplishment is being black and holding the job," especially as he didn't really earn the job -- he was appointed by his friend.

So seriously, where is Holder's positive legacy? His race is irrelevant to his accomplishment, except among liberals. His time in office produced no real groundbreaking changes of any sort. To the contrary, his department seems to have presided over a period when the Supreme Court took great delight in bitch-slapping everything Holder and friends thought would be law forever, and Holder did squat to fix it. He turned a blind eye as incompetence and law breaking ran rampant in Obama's administration. His pronouncements on race were rare, awkward, wrong and racist. His pronouncements beyond race were even more rare. He did nothing to clean up Wall Street, something both left and right would have agreed needed to be done. In fact, despite the left claiming he scored "record settlements" from some of the bigger banks, the stock of each shot up when the dollar amounts were announced. He took the "human rights outrage" of Gitmo and basically punted to the next administration. The legal advice he gave Obama about the filling of appointments was so bad that everything Obama did ended up being overturned by the courts. And so on.

Beyond that, I'm simply not sure what else to say about the man? He's an arrogant turd with the record of a lazy fool who likes the smell of his own farts. I would tend to think that almost anyone would have been a more effective Attorney General in almost every way.

Am I missing something?

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Sorry Drudge, The Unidos Estados Has Been Cancelled

OMG! The US is being overrun by brown people! Drudge screamed last week: “Hispanics to be majority within 25 years” and “Illegals pour into US”! Is he right? Hardly. Let me point out a few things, like some recent “inexpiable” changes in demographics.

Let me start by reminding you that Drudge, like his talk radio fellow travelers, is a fear monger who maintains his white, angry, scared audience by telling them that the gays, the browns, the blacks, the atheists, the Muslims, and the feminists are quickly securing the country and will soon be coming for them. But it's all garbage. So what about his headline: “Hispanics to be majority within 25 years”? is Drudge right? Well, no. If you followed the link on this headline, you would not have found an article discussing demographic trends. You would not have found an article from the Census or some new study. What you would have found is an article about a GOP candidate who claims that Hispanics will be the majority ethnicity in Texas in 25 years. In making that claim, he cites to a Gallop poll, which doesn’t say anything of the sort. It says instead that Hispanics favor Democrats. That's it.

So you tell me: was Drudge's use of the headline fair? Well get to the other one in a moment.

The idea of an Hispanic takeover of the US has been popular among racially-conscious talk radio and their opposite numbers in the Democratic Party for some time. The problem is that reality doesn’t cooperate with their thinking. Here’s the problem. They have taken a couple data points at their most extreme and then extrapolated that as a permanent thing. It’s like realizing that I gave you a dollar at noon, two dollars an hour later and four dollars an hour after that and then extrapolating that to tell the world that I will be giving you $256 in ten hours and millions by morning. Good luck with that.

What has happened is this. Hispanics have been the fastest growing group in the US because of two factors: immigration combined with a higher birth rate than everyone else. Taking this higher growth percentage than everyone else and projecting it into the future unchanged eventually leads to Hispanics becoming the majority.

But that’s not how humanity works. It also ignores the inputs, as I’ve written about before. Indeed, I’ve mentioned twice that the first big problem with this is that the majority of the growth rate for Hispanics has been immigration from Mexico, and that is coming to an end. Mexico’s economy is recovering and their birthrate has plunged well below ours. The end result is that there just aren’t enough Mexicans to go around anymore and they are choosing to stay home rather than come here. Because of this, Mexican immigration peaked in the 1990s and has been falling since. The last several years have actually shown a net ZERO in terms of Hispanic immigration. In other words, for every Mexican who came here, one left... yet Drudge says “Illegals pour into US!”

The result of this is that the same doomsday demographers who were sure we would become the Unidos Estados are now putting off that day. But never fear, they say, it’s still coming because those dirty browns breed like cockroaches!!

Only, they aren’t doing that in Mexico anymore. In fact, the birthrate in Mexico crashed from 6.7 in 1970 to 2.2 in 2012 and is approaching the same level as white European or even northern-Asian levels. Similar declines are taking place in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador – the biggest contributors to Hispanic immigration to the US.

What’s more, the Hispanic birthrate in the US has been plunging. In the 1990s, when Mexican immigrants first began to arrive in record numbers, the Hispanic birthrate in the US was about 3.0. At the same time, the black birth rate was 2.1 and the white birthrate ranged from 1.7 to 1.9 depending on the year. But these numbers don’t remain constant. By 2008, the Hispanic birthrate had fallen to 2.7. Then in 2008, something dramatic began. The Hispanic birthrate began to crash. By 2012, it fell to 2.19... just above the replacement rate of 2.1. Birth rates for Hispanics stayed the same in 2013, while whites and blacks both showed a slight increase, while Asian births fell by 2%.

In other words, these el cucarachas that were going to breed us out of existence suddenly were only turning out just enough kids to keep their population level. Moreover, Hispanic immigration had gone to net zero. That means no growth.

Hispanics are currently about 15% of the population. Based on everything we know, they are likely to top out at 17% of the population. And as we’ve pointed out before, they tend to meld into the white population fairly easily.

So much for Democratic dreams and talk radio fears.

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Woody Allen: More Proof Americans Are Over Race

I’ve said several times of late that the era of identity politics is over. From its start around the 1970s with group rights like affirmative action entering the law to its heyday in the 1990s when a form of cultural Apartheid was enforced by an army of politically correct McCarthyites, identity politics has been a scourge, hiding behind the noble idea of equality to push a poisonous form of racial and gender spoils. But the American people are finished with that, and an incident with Woody Allen gives us more proof of that.

Click Here To Read Article/Comments at CommentaramaFilms

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Affirmative Action Dead(er)

I told you last year (LINK) that affirmative action is dead. And so it remains. Well, not technically, but practically. Yesterday, the Supreme Court gave permission to remove the corpse. Let’s discuss.

In June of last year, I told you about the Fischer v. University of Texas case. That case involved a white student who sought admission to UT but ran into their admissions policies which favored minority students. She sued claiming discrimination in violation of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection clause.

She lost at the lower levels with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals pointing to the Supreme Court’s decision in Grutter v. Bollinger which allows colleges to use race “as one of many plus factors” in admissions decisions. According to Grutter, colleges cannot set aside places by race, but they can grant minorities extra points for their race provided that race is one of many different “plus” factors that can be awarded AND provided that race is not the predominant deciding factor.

That’s stupid, however. This “you can consider it, but you can’t base your decision on it” works out logically to X is true, but just not THAT true, and logically speaking, that’s nonsense. Morally speaking, this is nonsense as well. Either the use of race is acceptable or it is not. If it is acceptable then there is no reason to disallow its use. If it’s not acceptable, then it should not be allowed at all. And this attempt to allow its use, but not in any meaningful way, straddles the morality in such a way as to offend both sides.

Anyway, the Supreme Court was expected to use the Texas case to strike down affirmative action or to give it new life. They didn’t quite do either, however, and the result was that everyone in the media described the Supreme Court as “punting” on the issue of affirmative action.

Only, they hadn’t punted at all.

As I explained, the simps had misinterpreted the decision. What the Supremes held was that Texas, i.e. the state, bears the burden of proving both a “compelling state interest” in ensuring diversity at their schools AND that their method for achieving that goal of diversity is “narrowly tailored.” This is the standard “strict scrutiny” test for laws that violate fundamental rights like equal protection, and it’s hard to win.

In the Texas case, the action occurred in the second part of the test: the narrow tailoring. The Supreme Court held that Texas needed to show that under its plan to increase diversity, each applicant was still evaluated as an individual and not in a way that made an applicant’s race into the defining feature of their application. To do this, the Court held that Texas needed to prove that is it “necessary” for Texas to use race to achieve the educational benefits of diversity. “Necessary” in this case means this: “The reviewing court must ultimately be satisfied that no workable race-neutral alternatives would produce the education benefits of diversity.”

Bang! In other words, the school must show that it could not have generated diversity in any other way.

This was a death sentence for college affirmative action because there is no way to ever prove that race-based admissions are necessary. In fact, fearing the loss of affirmation action, schools everywhere found other ways to ensure diversity and thereby proved that race itself need never be a factor. That meant the Supreme Court ruling allowed affirmative action but only if you can pass an impossible test to demonstrate your need for it. Some punt.

Well, now the Supreme Court has “punted” again on affirmative action. This time, the issue involves a voter-backed initiative in Michigan which changed the Michigan constitution to prevent the state from using race as a factor in college admissions. Conservatives hoped the Supremes would strike down affirmative action. Liberals hoped the Supremes would call it a constitutional right and strike down any attempt by the public to end it. The Supremes did neither.

In a 6-2 ruling, the Supremes refused to strike down affirmative action in principle, but they held that nothing in the Constitution disallowed the voters in a state choosing to ban it in their state. So nothing changes?

Not quite.

The key to get out of this case is that affirmative action is not a right. If the Court believed that you had a right to affirmative action, then it would have followed its own lead in the gay cases where the Court struck down preemptive attempts to ban gay rights legislation. The Court didn’t apply those, however, and that means affirmative action isn’t a right protected by the constitution. Basically, affirmative action is just another goodie that you can vote on.

So what does that mean? It means that the states are now free to wipe it out without federal courts having the ability to question the state for doing so. The Congress can do this too. In effect, the Supreme Court has said, “Yes, we allow Affirmative Action, but we don't require it, so go ahead and wipe it off the map if you like.” And, adding the prior case, “if you do intend to keep it, then be prepared to prove that race preference was the only possible way to achieve your goal.” That's a death sentence.

So why not just wipe it out? Because this is a savvy way for the Court to kill something without putting their fingerprints on the murder weapon. If you ask them, they will swear that Affirmative Action is still the law of the land... you just won’t find it anywhere within a few years.

Add this to the Supremes ripping the heart out of the Voting Rights Act and I see a Court that is determined to get Uncle Sam back out of the racial spoils game. Interesting times.

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Opposition to Obamacare NOT Racist

Cynthia Tucker is a black, female journalist who gained prominence in the 1990s, and all the negatives that entails, i.e. she’s steeped in the race/gender wars. This last week, she laments that it’s hard to understand the “irrational hatred of Obamacare” (which of course is code for racism). But let’s put that aside. What Tucker doesn’t get is that the hatred of Obamacare isn’t irrational. Let’s discuss.

Tucker does what all politicized hacks always do: she creates her own facts to support the conclusion she wants you to reach. She begins with the fraudulent advocacy technique of talking about some woman she knows who is happy to finally have insurance. Whoopee! Anecdotal evidence is meaningless. In fact, I can counter with someone who thinks we should ban insurance. So what have proved? Nothing, Cynthia.

Anyways, she buys into Obama’s 7 million number and calls it “stark evidence of the overwhelming market demand.” Isn’t that cute, she’s a moron! Let us consider the seven million number and her point:

● First, it’s nonsense to call something that is forced upon people by threat of fine as creating “market demand.” That’s like saying Hitler created “market demand” for Nazism in every country he occupied by forcing it upon people. “Markets” imply willing buyers and sellers, not the coerced.

● Secondly, the 7 million number is obviously fake. Quoting it uncritically only demonstrates bias. Let’s see how many people actually have Exchange-sold policies three months from now, then we’ll talk Cynthia.

● Thirdenly, even if we accept the 7 million number, this is “stark” evidence of a lack of demand, not evidence of demand, you dingbat. There are 49 million uninsured. If we assume that all of the 7 million were uninsured before, then still only 1 in 7 signed up despite the threats of being fined if they refused. That’s evidence of horribly weak demand.

● Further, the evidence suggests that only 800,000 of the signups didn’t have insurance until Obamacare came along. That means only 1.6 in 100 of the uninsured responded. Again, how is that evidence of anything except disdain?

As for the other 6.3 million, those are people who were insured, but lost their insurance because of Obamacare and had no choice but to buy this inferior product at inflated prices. It’s not evidence of demand to ban all other alternatives and then point to your sales.

She then tells us that even though it’s too early to call Obamacare a success, it is a success. According to her,

● “It made great strides in improving access to health care.” Uh, not really. More people lost insurance than gained insurance. And only an idiot would say that disrupting the entire system to get 800,000 coverage is making strides.

● She says it will be a “boon” to the economy that young people can stay on their parent’s plans.... as if that made any sense at all.

● Now you can’t be denied coverage! That’s true, but you can be denied treatment. Which would you rather have? In fact, the biggest problem Obamacare will encounter is that people will buy this insurance, but won’t be able to find doctors, and certainly not good ones. Basically, Obamacare will cause the “two America’s” dystopia liberals always whine about, with rich people getting to see great doctors and getting treatment anywhere they wish, while poor and average people get handed worthless policies that leave them dying in the waiting rooms of third-rate converted animal hospitals. Thanks Cynthia, may it happen to you and yours first.

● Now you can get affordable insurance away from your employer! LOL! Actually, Obama killed the affordable policies. So to restate this truthfully, “Now you will lose your employer-sponsored plan and you can go buy way overpriced, underprovided phantom-coverage from Obama’s website.

Next she takes on those nasty, racist Republicans. She points out that they should love Obamacare because it “adheres to market-based ideas.” Yeah, right. There isn’t a market-based idea in the whole bill. Further, she whines, the Republicans are free to offer alternatives. This is, of course, revisionism. This bill was written in secret by a couple Democrats and the insurance companies. It was voted on without amendments, without reading, without Republican input or public input being allowed. It even got pushed through on an abusive procedural motion. I guess Cynthia wasn’t paying attention.

Of course she finishes with a nasty, slander: “Could it be that Republicans are simply furious that millions of Americans like [her friend] finally have health insurance?” No, Cynthia, racism is your obsession, not ours.

Anyways, let’s cut to the chase. She just doesn’t understand the hate. Ok, how about this...

Why should we like a law that forces us to buy a product we don’t want, a product that costs more and provides less coverage than we could have obtained on the open market before Obama banned those policies. A law which ham-fistedly attempts to reshape 1/12th of our economy. A law which has cost nearly ten million people the insurance they liked (more to come), that has severed their relationships with their doctors, which put many independent doctors out of business, which cost people their jobs, which cut down the part-time hours available for part-time workers, which forced churches to provide abortion coverage and old people to pay for pediatric issues and males to pay for feminine issues and young people to massively subsidize the elderly. A law which promises huge, rich insurance firms subsidies all paid for on the backs of the middle class. A law which may yet wipe out unions. A law which will break various state and federal budgets.

Maybe that’s why people hate it, Cynthia. And if you weren’t a racist who is looking for anything you can spin into “white people hate us!” perhaps you would see this. The problem isn’t that Obama is the first black president, it’s that he’s the first abusive, incompetent, shithead black president.

Hating Obamacare is not an irrational response. It is quite rational. In fact, I wonder how Cynthia would respond if we passed a law which forced everyone to buy a 45 caliber (or above) handgun for home defense and we made blacks pay twice as much to subsidize old whites. Do you think she’d marvel and fake confusion at all the irrational hate coming from the left? Would she finish with, “Could it be that Liberals are simply furious that millions of Americans like old Earl finally have access to home protection?” Somehow, I doubt it.

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Evil Toddlers

There was an interesting article the other day at Politico, which got me thinking. They missed the real story of their piece. But then, they would, because it doesn’t paint the left in a good light. The story involves race and education.

For a couple years now, Obama’s Office for Civil Rights has been collecting data on schools. They made some interesting discoveries. Here they are without comment:

● Black four-year olds make up 18% of students, but they account for 50% of those being suspended.

● Just 75% of high schools nationwide offer all the required math courses.

● Just 63% of high schools nationwide offer physics.

So what interested me about this? Well, the world of education is almost exclusively liberal. They have run it through the unions and control over the colleges of education since the 1940s. Conservatives need not apply and are typically driven out. In fact, I can count the number of conservative teachers I had growing up on one finger. Yet, these numbers suggest that these good liberal teachers are clearly engaging in massive, systematic discrimination against black kids... toddlers even. Just think about this. Black kids make up only 18% of 4 year old students, yet they account for nearly 50% of those suspended. That’s not a slight variance within the margin of error, that’s a 300% over-representation. That’s unmistakable that black kids are being singled out.

So how can this be? Well, no doubt, teachers want to blame black parents, but that would be racist. Not to mention, I doubt they would allow conservatives to make such an argument if this were the case at conservative charter schools. So I see no reason to overlook this for them. Indeed, the answer seems to be that liberals are inherently racist.

Next thought: the Politico article asked why anyone would suspend a four-year old because four-year olds are too young to understand such a lesson. This strikes me as again too simplistic. Suspending the kid isn’t necessary meant as a lesson for the student so much as a shot across the bow of the parents, who must now get involved. Moreover, it could also be that the school is simply looking to protect the other students.

Of course, there’s also the problem that a lot of suspensions these days are occurring under these asinine zero tolerance policies where action figures with guns or knives or aspirin become causes for bringing the sledge hammer of justice crashing down on unsuspecting children. Welcome to the world of liberalism.

On the point about calculus, this highlights one of the dangers of government data: it’s only as good as the moron who designed the survey. The idea that between 25% and 37% of high schools nationwide fail to offer core math and science classes like Calculus and Physics is pretty shocking. But is it true? Well, it turns out that there is a serious problem with this data. Consider the responses of Alaska and Georgia. Alaska noted that many of its high schools are tiny, rural schools with only 1-2 teachers handling all K-12 functions. Counting a lack of calculus in those schools against the system is rather misleading. Georgia then pointed out that it requires all high schools to offer these classes, but calls the classes “Math 1, Math 2, Math 3 and Math 4.” So when schools reported that they didn’t have "calculus," they were more likely responding to the labeling because 100% of the schools offer these classes... not 56% as the survey found.

I’m finding more and more that all these statistics about how horrible things are in schools are entirely misleading. Most fall within the margin of errors. A sizable proportion involve data collection errors or the lumping of irrelevant factors with relevant factors to lead to desired results... "Have you ever been the victim of murder, violent crime or received an overly-strong handshake?"

As for the black toddlers, by the way, the sample size was 8,000 suspended toddlers of the roughly 4 million school kids in that age range... 0.2% of the population, with no attempt being made to determine if this group is representative. So I wouldn't put much faith in the number either.

Thoughts?

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Banning The N-Word

While we’re talking about race and liberals, I wanted to talk about something that recently happened vis-à-vis the NFL and how it really exposes the problem with liberal thinking. The issue involves the NFL’s proposal to ban the “N-word.”

What brought this issue to a head was the supposed bullying of Jonathan Martin. When the NFL investigated that incident, the outside investigator turned up a massive number of uses of the N-word by and between players and even involving some coaches and trainers. The NFL immediately recognized that this created a hostile work environment and a bevy of liberal journalists proposed banning the N-word by making it a personal foul (15 yard penalty for its use on the field).

Thus, begins our tale.

Right out of the gates, every single liberal sportswriter jumped on the bandwagon of this proposal and agreed that it was time to ban the dreaded N-word. This was the perfect solution to a problem that had lingered too long: closet racists using the N-word during games. Yep, despite 0 reported instances of that, these journalists just knew this was a problem. And even if it wasn’t, it’s the right thing to do to ban this word. Indeed, only a racist could oppose this idea!

Naturally, the NFL’s designated race hustler, the Fritz Pollard Alliance, jumped on board too. The Fritz Pollard Alliance is an organization dedicated to complaining that “minorities” (read: blacks) aren’t getting a fair shake in any aspect of football.

Soon, articles were being written asking why those rich, white, conservative, racist men who own the teams (like Obama supporter Dan Rooney) wouldn’t order this ban immediately. What could they possibly be waiting for, those dirty racists?

Then things went wrong.

A few days after this golden alliance of liberals declared the perfect solution of banning this outrageous word, a black football player named Richard Sherman threw a hissy fit. He called the idea racist that a bunch of old white men would tell him and his fellow black teammates what words they could or could not say on the field.

Uh oh. That does sound racist.

Now we had a dilemma. It was racist to allow the word to be used, but it was racist to try to stop players from using it. Curses!

By this point, most liberal sportswriters were running away from this story because there was no solution they could push. Of course, that didn’t stop them from demanding that “The NFL must do something!” even though their own logic made it impossible to fix this problem.

Then, the Fritz Pollard Alliance cranks got all pissed off at the young thugs (oops, that’s now a “racist” term according to Sherman) would use a word that the old pros “had fought their whole lives to stop.” You might not remember that, but run with it. The youths responded by claiming that “nigga” is a term of endearment and, thus, the NFL had no right to trample on their First Amendment rights.

This brought a round of articles from the liberals who started this craziness about how the players' First Amendment rights are sacrosanct and the dirty, racist white-conservative-owned NFL better not trample those. Oh, and the NFL still needed to fix this N-word problem.

In the end, the issue fell apart because it was unworkable from the get go.

What this was, was an attempt by liberal journalists to try to insert themselves into history by manufacturing a new civil rights issue. Basically, they hoped to bandwagon an easy victory and then declare themselves the equal of people like Martin Luther King for their bravery in stopping the outrageous use of this word. But it didn’t work. It didn’t work because the black players they claimed to be speaking for crapped all over their idea. Liberals always seem to think of the people they help as children who need their guidance, but in this case, those children easily exposed the liberals as confused fools who never bothered to understand the issue or think through their solution. These are hard times to be paternalistic.

In fact, let’s examine some of the failings of our liberal friends on this issue:

● Notice first, that liberals love speech codes. They believe that society should ban words they don’t like and that you should be punished for using those.

● Notice next that the liberals didn’t care about First Amendment rights when they liked the end result. This is typical of liberals to assume that all good people will agree with them, to assume that no rational or decent person could be on the other side, and thus to not care about the rights being trampled because those rights belong to bad people. Liberals only want to protect things they agree with. For the record, those aren’t rights, those are indulgences.

● Notice also, that they don’t understand what the First Amendment is. The First Amendment protects your right to speak from the Government, not from the NFL.

● Notice further how this issue fell apart once it became racist to be on either side. It’s funny how often and how easily liberal ideas end up in this kind of Mexican standoff. This really highlights that the complaints aren't legitimate in the first place if the same argument can make you racist for either supporting or opposing the same thing. This really points at the rotten logic of the victim movement.

● Finally, note that we again see the same pattern you always see with liberals. First, they see a problem and they immediately demand the most obvious and overbearing solution: somebody powerful ban the word! They never stop to ask if this would work before patting themselves on the back for their great solution either.

Secondly, once the original plan proves unworkable, they fall apart because they have no actual solution other than the big, obnoxious one they originally offered. Thus, their answer becomes “somebody do something!”

Third, like everything else liberals do, their solutions quickly devolve into competing interest groups, with each side trying to claim victim status. The result is a bitter debate that gets settled on the basis of who you like rather than principle.

What’s interesting to me is how consistently the things above play out when it comes to liberals. They always propose the most overbearing solution possible; they love trampling on people’s rights and doing so hypocritically. It never works and they never care if they are causing more problems than they are solving. In trying to fix something racist/sexist/etc., they always discover the children they want to help quickly see their solutions as equally racist/sexist/etc. Everything always falls apart. And yet, they smugly claim moral superiority every single time. That’s the story of liberalism time and again. This is why they judge their own actions on intentions rather than results, because their results suck.

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Ryan's "Highly Offensive" Remarks

I want to talk about Paul Ryan’s “highly offensive” gaffe. There are several angles that make this an interesting issue worth discussing. Let us begin.

● It Was Stupid To Say: For those who don’t know, Paul Ryan went on the Bill Bennett show and said something that has been deemed “highly offensive.” What he said was that there is

“a tailspin of culture, in our innercities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value of work.”

This is pretty much true. But in phrasing it this way, Ryan allowed the Professional Race-baiting Community (PRiCs) to start screaming about Ryan using “code” and saying something “highly offensive” about blacks. Ryan himself has called his own statement “inarticulate.”

So how can this be offensive if it’s true? Well, the answer is that he’s needlessly singled out black males for his criticism. Indeed, let me assure you that the exact same cultural problem exists (probably in even great numbers) among Appalachian males and females (or white trash generally wherever they nest), and among black women. By focusing on “inner-city men,” Ryan has injected race into an issue that is not race specific. The result is screaming PRiCs.

Had he said instead, “There is a tailspin of culture in the poorer parts of our country of people not working and just generations of families not even thinking about working or learning the value of work,” then his point would have been solid and non-controversial. Ergo, it was stupid to say this, because he needlessly caused controversy which deflected the point he wanted to make and which played into the image of the GOP as sneaky racists. A man who has spent his entire life in politics, where you must weigh your words carefully, should have known never to needlessly dance along a racial line.

● Wrong Answer: Making things worse, Ryan responded. First, he called his comment inarticulate, which is fine. But then he kept talking. What he said in a statement was this:

“I was not implicating the culture of one community, but of society as a whole.”

Let’s stop there. This is wrong. Society as a whole is not to blame. It is not the fault of hardworking average Americans that there are lazy, drug addicted sh*tbirds hidden in the bad parts of town. So don’t blame the country for these people. Moreover, stop talking about blacks as having a separate culture or being a separate community. Stop playing into this idea that they are different.

He continues:

“We have allowed our society to isolate or quarantine the poor rather than integrate people into our communities. The predictable result has been multi-generational poverty and little opportunity.”

Wrong! Society has not isolated or quarantined these people. That again implies that we are to blame for their sh*tiness. They have caused their own problems. They are not the victims here. In fact, the real victims are the taxpayers who pay to support their lazy lifestyles and the working poor who live nearby and find themselves robbed and assaulted by these sh*ts.

Moreover, the answer is not “to integrate” these people, unless you are talking about taking all their kids and giving them to responsible parents. Integrating these people only spreads them out and exposes more people to their criminal behavior. The answer is to force these people to start behaving responsibly.

In an effort to sound nice, Ryan has painted the criminals as the victims and the victims as the oppressors. Again, Ryan should know better.

● Don’t Acknowledge The PRiCs: The worst thing you can do with lunatics and fringers is to acknowledge them. Unfortunately, after the criticism hit and the PRiCs demanded a meeting with Ryan, Ryan agreed to meet with the Congressional Black Caucus. This was stupid. First, it lends the grievance credence. Secondly, it lends the CBC legitimacy as the judges of all things black-racism. If there was a need for an apology, Ryan should have issued it without ever mentioned the CBC or any other PRiCs and then moved on... leave them talking to themselves. By kowtowing to them, even slightly, he has simply perpetuated their self-anointed role as the arbiters of black-white relations.

● Fortunately, Ain’t Nobody Listening: Finally, I would like to repeat a point I’ve made several times now because it’s important. Americans have moved beyond race, and this is more proof. Had Ryan said this in the 1990s, every news channel and every newspaper would be awash in analysis of this issue. Jesse Jackoff and Al Sharpton and the other PRiCs would be holding rallies and there would be 10,000 calls already for Ryan to resign.

Instead, this is a non-issue. Outside of wonks, no one is talking about this issue. There are no rallies, no public hearings, and zero public outrage. Almost no one even knows about it. In fact, the only people who care about this issue are the ideological race baiters, left and right, who try to keep their own audiences clinging to them by screaming about race.

America just doesn’t care anymore about the grievance lobby. And that’s a good thing. Now let's hope Mr. Ryan wises up a bit.

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The End of Identity Politics (1960s – 2013ish)

Our fringes, left and right, won’t like this, but there is more evidence all the time that identity politics is a dead issue with the public. I wrote about this last year and the proof just keeps on coming. Observe.

For those who don’t know, identity politics is a political strategy pushed originally by the left to drive a wedge between minorities and the rest of America so the left could secure their loyalties. The idea was to make these groups paranoid so they would identify only with others of their own kind, who would then band together and vote for leftists who promised to protect them from whites, males, straights, etc. Hence, black leftists told blacks that whites want to return them to slavery. Women were told that males want to take away their jobs and their right to control their bedroom lives. Gays were told that straights want to criminalize their lifestyles again. And so on. And each group was told they were oppressed to make them feel like victims. Talk radio hosts then brought this same tactic to the right and told whites/males/heterosexuals that they were the real victims and that everyone else was out to get them.

Both of these sides now spend their time scaring their own audiences with quotes from obscure idiots on the other side and with boogeymen tales to keep their audiences paranoia of the enemy... "Did you hear about that one guy who said that thing? You know THEY all think like that, don't you?"

But the public at large has rejected all of this. How do I know?

Well, for starters, there was the shocking poll from Rasmussen that I mentioned last July. Rasmussen found the following:

● 37% of Americans think “most blacks are racist.”
● 18% of Americans think “most Hispanics are racist.”
● 15% of Americans think “most whites are racist.”

These numbers were shocking because they were a total repudiation of everything the left and right had been saying. The left routinely claims that all whites are racists, even those who fight racism, because it is inherent in our natures. The talk radio right counter that blacks and Hispanics are racist militants who are determined to oppress whites and turn America in a Browndystopia. Yet, the public clearly rejects this: 8 in 10 reject the liberal claim and more than 6 in 10 reject the conservative claim (this number is likely higher because of the near-constant use of false racism charges by blacks who get into trouble).

Then there’s this. Even though a Pew poll found that women earn just 84% of what their male counterparts earn, only 15% of women say they have been discriminated against personally because of their gender. So much for accepting the idea that all women are oppressed.

But the best evidence comes from other sources. As I’ve always pointed out, the problems with polls are threefold: (1) bias by the pollster, who coincidentally is never held accountable if they are wrong, (2) bad methodology, including limitations of the questions and poor sample selection, and (3) the fact that people don’t tell the truth. And in terms of telling the truth, I don’t even mean that they necessarily lie. When confronted with polls, a lot of people will tell the pollster what they have been told is the appropriate answer, whether they believe it or not. Others will respond with their aspirations rather than the reality. So we need to look somewhere else.

To give you an example, people tell pollster that they have nothing against fat people. That is the “politically correct” answer. But this isn’t borne out in reality, where voters willing vote for things to try to force fat people to lose weight (like the 16 oz. tyranny), where surveys have shown that fat people earn less and are held in lower esteem than thinner colleagues, and where neither Hollywood nor Madison Avenue (advertising central) cast fat people as anything other than comic relief.

If you think about it, you will realize that Madison Avenue (and to lesser extent Hollywood) are the ultimate source of information about the state of our culture. Why? Because their livelihood depends on them correctly diagnosing cultural trends. If they misunderstand a prejudice and cast a fat guy to sell their cologne, sales will tank or even worse they might spawn a negative meme or protests by outraged groups, and they will be fired. Get fired a couple times and you’re done as a company. So getting it right is vital... unlike with pollsters and talking heads.

So why am I talking about advertising? Because I’ve seen two fascinating ads lately that relate to the issue of identity politics. In the 1990s, when identity politics was in its heyday, you took your professional life in your hands if you made a woman or a black the villain or the butt of a joke. The Nazi-like forces of identity politics proclaimed not only that all films ads must include blacks and women, but they must always be shown in positive, stereotype-rejecting ways. Thus, women and blacks were portrayed as bosses, professionals, leaders and winners. If two people competed, the black or woman won. They could never be portrayed as stupid, out of touch, or as the butt of jokes nor could be they be cast as criminals, racists, sexists, or as nasty people. Was. Not. Done. Television and films were the same way. Heck, even if the film was about gangs, the gangs were typically shown as multiracial, with a white businessman ultimately being behind them and with the white gang members being the psychotics.

Little by little though, this seems to be breaking down. The first sign was the return of white male managers and smart white males. Suddenly, not every woman on television was automatically smarter than the males around her. Girls being shown playing sports have vanished too -- a trend that was pushed heavily by feminists in the 1990s.

Then came the Microsoft tablet ad. In this ad, a white guy(and white woman) are upset to hear that the new guy got a great new tablet simply because the new guy spilled coffee on the older computer they gave him. In the abstract, this makes the new guy sound clumsy. But there’s more. The new guy is shown essentially bragging about the event in such a way that the commercial suggests that the coffee spilling was intentional. That makes the new guy a bit of a villain. Here’s the catch. The new guy is black. Showing a black guy as either clumsy or a villain or "working the system" and bragging about it would have been impossible in the 1990s... but there is it.

At the same time, in the remake of Red Dawn, there is one collaborator shown... the mayor. Guess what? He’s black. It has long been a stereotype that blacks are of questionable loyalty to America -- this was the counterargument to desegregation of the military. Portraying a black character as a collaborator in an invasion would have brought screams of racism in the 1980s or 1990s... but there it is.

Then came the Jack in the Box ad. In this ad, Jack is walking to a meeting and the woman walking next to him is a real dingbat. She doesn’t know how to complete words (she speaks in text speak) and she doesn’t know what a watch is. Essentially, this is a dig at young people. But had this been done ten years ago, the assistant would have needed to be male... this was a woman.

So what you have here is advertisers, who need to be at the forefront of culture and need to be right in their diagnosis of culture, are no longer afraid to poke fun at women and blacks. This tells us that they are no longer worried about the public freaking out about identity politics.

Finally, we have this. The two most popular female characters among women right now, without a doubt, are Anastasia Steele from Fifty Shades of Grey, a woman who is submissive and needs a strong man to take control of her life and make her happy, and Stephanie Plum... a horribly incompetent bounty hunter who can’t compete with the much more competent men in her life. Both characters would have been savagely attacked by feminists in the 1990s and probably suppressed. Similarly, fat and incompetent Melissa McCarthy and incompetent Kristen Wiig are quickly becoming the two most bankable female stars of the moment. And don’t forget, this is a country that elected a black man as president and may elect a woman soon. This is a country that has happily embraced a large number of black leading men and several tough-gal leading women in action films. News readers can be male or female, black, white or other, as can athletes. None of this would be true if the public was as obsessed with race as the fringes are.

All of this above strongly suggests that the public at large has rejected identity politics and is “moving beyond” race and gender. That’s good for the country and ultimately great for conservatism.

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Throwing Around The Ol' Redskin

Football is becoming increasingly....well, difficult. Fun to watch, but there are so many stories that get on one's nerves. Take the "new" controversy over the Washington Redskins.

No doubt you've heard a little about this already. For at least the second or third time, some people with nothing better to do have observed that "Redskin" is (or was) slang for Indian, and apparently this is a bad thing. So for the past few weeks, there's been a handful of very noisy activists trying to put pressure on the organization to change its name. To what, I don't know. A few years ago, a fan from West Virginia suggested they should end the controversy by re-naming themselves the Washington Rednecks, but I sense that's not in the cards. Anyway, now President Obama, whose many roles apparently include Spokesman For Any And All Even Theoretically Oppressed Minorities, has weighed in and said that if it were up to him, he would of course consider changing the name. And some sportscasters have announced that they will no longer refer to the team as the Redskins, but simply as Washington.

So far, the team's owner, Dan Snyder, has pretty much told these activists and sundry concerned people that they can suck it, noting in a letter the other day that the team has had this name for eighty years--and it was the "Braves" before that--that it's not meant to be offensive to Native Americans but rather to celebrate them, and finally, that they've gone this long without changing it and they're certainly not going to now. A handful of people in the media have declared that this position is so offensive it will inevitably trigger a backlash and a boycott, but let's face it--as long as Snyder is the owner and his determination holds up, they won't ever put the team under enough pressure to change its name.

More to the point, though--I always shake my head at stories like this, probably because it's so blasted familiar. Having spent years in the wacky circles of academia, I should point out that to the Left, it means nothing if you say your mascot is meant to invoke themes of bravery, ferocity, being a great warrior--which the Redskin mascot is obviously intended to do. To them, any representation of Indians or other minorities doesn't give them their due as individuals and Noble Oppressed People, so trying to stress their positive qualities is still an insult somehow. So, in a nutshell, that's their thinking here.

Not that it makes any more sense, of course. Because I haven't heard any of these people complaining about the name of the Minnesota Vikings. The old Scandinavian seafarers are also being stereotyped by the sports mascot, reducing them to ferocious warriors; why isn't anyone speaking on their behalf?

I'm being facetious, of course. We all know why. The Vikings are (were) white--not just white, but pure Nordic white. Therefore, they can't really be oppressed. Besides, they can't be made into objects of sympathy by activists the way Indian tribes can.

And anyway, it's not like there's an overwhelming feeling of offense from Native Americans today about the name. What polls there have been on reservations about the issue show that while a significant minority would prefer a name change, a majority are either fine with it or don't care. Some pointed out that they have bigger things to worry about, like their job, or paying their bills. Not that it would really matter if there was more negative opinion, because look--the Redskins are a private organization, and unless there's actual discrimination going on by that organization against Native Americans, there's nothing here. End of story.

Though, as someone mentioned on Twitter, a different kind of change might be in order. Perhaps Snyder should consider renaming the team the "Maryland Redskins." Now that would be much less offensive.

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IQ, Race, Science and Politics

This will be an odd discussion. It's about IQ. But first, some background.

The article that sparked today's discussion was published at Politico by a man called Jason Richwine. I don't trust Richwine. He co-authored the ludicrous Heritage Foundation report about the supposed cost of immigration. Even worse, a thesis he wrote in college was then unearthed in which he made some racist suggestions about immigrants; he also wrote briefly for a "white nationalist" blog. The Politico article is his attempt to resurrect his reputation. In my opinion, he fails pretty miserably because he distorts what the problem was with his thesis: the problem wasn't that he discussed IQ, it was that he started suggesting that we keep Hispanics out because they have low IQs.

So why discuss his article? Well, before he starts spinning to defend his thesis, Richwine presents a credible set of facts that interest me. In particular, he notes that there is a huge disconnect between the scientific community and the media when it comes to the issue of IQ. He notes that if you listen to the media, you will hear that IQ is considered meaningless by the scientific community, that there are no ethnic and gender differences and those that do exist are the result of biased questions, and that no legitimate scientist really pays any attention to the whole idea. Science, however, has a different take. Indeed, Richwine notes that there IS a consensus in the cognitive ability field that:

● Virtually all psychologists believe there is an intelligence factor that explains the performance of individuals on cognitive tests, and IQ tests measure that factor.

● IQ scores correlate with educational attainment, income and other socioeconomic outcomes.

● A person's IQ score is influenced by their genetic make up and environmental factors. It tends to remain stable after adolescence.

● There is an observed difference in IQ scores among different racial/ethnic/gender groups, with northeast Asians scoring the highest, followed by whites, followed by Hispanics, followed by blacks.

● Psychologists have tested and rejected the notion that racial/gender differences are the result of biased testing. They have not, however, accepted the idea of a genetic cause for these differences because no link has yet been shown between DNA gene combinations and intelligence.

In other words, everything the media claims is false is actually true and media claims that the scientific community has reached a consensus that these things are false is backwards, as the consensus goes the other way. To prove the consensus, Richwine cites numerous books and studies and even a committee report by 52 experts from the American Psychological Association which noted the above; against these, he lines up quotes from hack journalists who say things like, “IQ is a metric of such dubiousness that almost no serious educational researcher uses it anymore.” (Ana Marie Cox -- The Guardian, May 2012).

So let's forget Richwine and talk about the above bullet-points. These strike me as true. I know this in two ways. First, since at least the 1980s, leftists have struggled to disprove the above. The fact they keep struggling and have now gone into "it is heretical to say this" mode suggests it is true. Moreover, they've even gone so far as to remove testing questions from things like the SAT when minorities or women fared poorly on those questions, yet the differences persist despite these efforts to rig the tests. In my book, massive continuing statistical consistency is proof. Secondly, anecdotally, some of this is obvious. It is obvious there is an intelligence factor. It is obvious that some people are more intelligent than others. The people who seem more intelligent not only tend to do better in education and employment, but they score better on tests too. That suggests that intelligence is real, can be measured, and does impact our success. I can also say that I've met a ton of geniuses and quasi-geniuses and successful people, and they are disproportionately Asians and honkeys and male. Thus, it seems there are race/gender differences as well.

Now, I can't and won't say that this is 100% true because it's not; there are individuals in every group who are near the top or near the bottom of the human race. There are people who are well above average and well below average for their own groups and for other groups. But as groups, there appears to be noticeable differences which lead to different outcomes for the group average. I also cannot tell you if the difference is genetic, cultural or environmental. I doubt it is genetic though, or you would have consistency. In other words, if being purple made you stupid, then there would be no smart purples... but there are. Ergo, I think the race/gender differences are the result of something other than race or gender.

Why this matters to me is this: it exposes the left's thinking and that they don't care about people.

If we know that purples as a group will have lower IQs by the time they hit adulthood than blues, and we know that IQ will correlate with other measures of success, then in my opinion, we should be looking for the cause so we can find a solution to help purples do as well as blues. If there's something purple parents or purple teachers or purple celebrities are doing wrong, then we should find out what it is and fix it. If it's something blues are doing to purples, then we should find it and fix it. If it's environmental, perhaps pollution in purple neighborhoods, then we should fix it. This is true of blacks, Hispanics, whites, or anyone else who doesn't do as well as the top group. Indeed, when we find evidence of something that negatively affects a group of people, we should always investigate and find solutions.

But that's not what liberal journalists and educators do. Instead, they scream bloody racist murder at anyone who dares to suggest there is a difference. Then they go back into denial mode because that is their dogma. But what kind of people are we that we let whole groups of people get handicapped just to "prove" dogma?

Unfortunately, this seems to be getting worse too. The go-to solution these days is to demand that problems not be discussed for fear of hurting "acceptance." Everyone from race groups to gender groups to fat groups are taking this stance. How idiotic. It's like a demand that we let people fail lest we suggest that people who are failing just might be failing. I can't say this is unique. In fact, it's been pretty common throughout history, but it is unhelpful.

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A Dishonest Conversation About Race

So the Zimmermann trial has come and gone, and those on the far Left still can't believe the outrageously outrageous acquittal of whitey. Big surprise.

Beware of anyone who says that "we need to have an open conversation about race in this country." Those words only come out if the person has already decided that America is a land full of racial animosity, and that most folks are really racist, especially whites; and nine times out of ten they personally have little or no social interaction with anyone outside their own race. Nowhere is this more the case than for the media, with networks and publications (often nearly lily-white in their staff's composition, by the way) continually talking about the need for an "honest dialogue," which, of course, always turns out to be making white people confessing how deeply racist they really are and enlightened minorities sharing their experiences of oppression.

With the media reporting it, race was always going to be a big part of the Zimmermann-Martin case; everyone knows that. Or to be specific, race-baiting. From the get-go, when the media insisted on referring to George as a "white Hispanic" (how often has that term come up before now, ever?), this case has been blown up into an innocent black "child" having his life snuffed out by "The System," represented here by a paranoid white(ish) dude. So of course, following the white(ish) dude's acquittal, talking heads on TV went through amazing mental gymnastics to continue to paint this as white-on-black crime.

Take MSNBC's Alex Toure. Last week, Toure went what some might call "full retard" in attacking Zimmermann--oh crap, am I not supposed to say that? Sorry, Toure went what some might call "full exceptional individual" in attacking Zimmermann, claiming that the guy is not Hispanic at all, because he is instead "Peruvian-American." ?!?!?!?!

Boy, how could I forget? It's true; Peru was in fact settled entirely by that strong, fair-skinned Nordic race that just happened to be hanging out in Spain at the time! My God, Zimmermann is even a German name! This explains everything!!

But at least the self-proclaimed advocacy group for all Hispanics, the National Council of La Raza, jumped right in there to protect Zimmermann from these idiotic charges, didn't it? No? No. Instead, La Raza announced long ago it would join with its allies in the "civil rights community" to protest on behalf of Martin. Other Latino groups joined suit, explaining once more that Zimmermann isn't really Hispanic, he's just "half-Peruvian." See? The Latino community gets what you mean, Toure. Those infamous, Aryan Nation Peruvians....

But what really takes the cake are the rules for the "national race conversation" proposed by TheRoot, which apparently is a website of some kind. Their proposals, issued in the wake of the trial, aren't all terrible-sounding--i.e. "talking about race isn't racist": okay, true enough--but then there are these gems. "....is one of the ways racism is maintained. So is acting as if 'blacks suffer from racism' and 'whites suffer from reverse racism' are equally valid points of view." "Being 'colorblind' is not helpful because it cripples our ability to deal with the tangible effects of racial inequality in just about every area of life." "A black person making a joke about race is different from a white person making a joke about race." Blah blah freaking blah. You can read the rest here if you're interested. Noticing that these were all misconceptions about and wrong expectations of black people, conservative blogger Patterico inquired of the writer on Twitter whether only white people had rules to observe, or if there are rules for black people to follow when talking about whites, too. No solid answer was forthcoming.

It's actually not hard to understand what's going on here. The Left, as represented by the Democratic Party, Hollywood, the media, etc., is of course on the side of the black man (or rather on the side of the black race, which doesn't come out to the same thing). And for years now, they've been beating the drum that Hispanics' time has come, too, talking endlessly about "the browning of America" and other marketed jingles. And then here comes a case of a Hispanic guy shooting a black teen dead under confusing circumstances. What to do, what to do? Well, as we've seen, they can always insinuate that the Hispanic guy wasn't really Hispanic; better yet, they can pivot to talking about racial barriers in general. Which is when we're told that it's time for a conversation about race, which of course means "time for whites to feel guilty."

Shameless and disgusting, yes. Still, I have to admit, the news about Aryan Peruvia is quite a gem. I'm glad someone finally shed light on those posers.

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A Couple Points

Thanks for all the well-wishes, everyone! And thanks to Bev and Koshcat for filling in earlier in the week! I am getting back to normal and we should have a regular schedule again next week. We'll also have T-Rav's article tomorrow and a film review at the film site... the very unfunny Ted. In the meantime, here are a couple thoughts I've had watching the news this week.

● The Martin Case I: There is a belief, which is particularly prevalent in conservative circles, that we can always trust cops and prosecutors. In fact, I've seen this go so far that a great many conservatives actually believe that if someone is arrested, then they must be guilty. This is wrong, as the Martin case shows again. With lots of nasty things now being revealed about the prosecutor, it should be clear that not all prosecutors are good people. This woman is an unethical liar who slanders people, abuses her office to get anyone who crosses her, politicized her agency by firing anyone who wasn't a brown-noser, overcharges suspects, and withholds evidence. Sadly, she is not unique. There are many prosecutors who are just as rotten and just as political. That is why rule of law matters and why we cannot simply trust the people in the system to not trample on people's rights. You would think conservatives, who innately mistrust government, would realize this and demand greater protections for defendants, stronger rights for all persons, and narrower criminal laws. But not all of them do. Remember this the next time some politician tells you they are "tough on crime." Are they really or are they just tough on the accused?

● The Martin Case II: The response to the Martin case has been both encouraging and depressing. For encouraging, look at the public... in response to the verdict, there have been a handful of protest marches nationwide, typically involving a few hundred people in the biggest cities. Except for a couple of thugs (mainly in Oakland), they've been peaceful. Denied their story of outrage, the news networks have moved on, as have most of the pundits. Even liberal talking-head attorneys now are saying the jury got the law right. Jimmy "the ass" Carter and Obama both said the same thing as well. That's all very rational and very muted. That should make America pretty proud of itself. That is encouraging.

On the other hand, a lot of celebrities are exploiting this to gain publicity. That's disgraceful. It's twisted and cynical. Go back to rehab folks. A couple of dinosaur-age race baiters are out there too trying to regain their relevance. That's a fancy young girlfriend you got there Mr. Sharpton. Anyway, that's disgraceful too.

Unfortunately, there's another group too that needs to be mentioned. If you visited Drudge over the past couple days, you would think the country was in the grips of a civil war. He reported the most fringy comments as if they were widely-believed official administration positions. He had headlines about people in hiding, about roving gangs attacking whites. He's been reporting rumors and conspiracy theories as facts, linking to places like InfoWars, trying to connect unrelated murders and muggings to "the response to the verdict" to make you think there are riots everywhere, and doing so under headlines that basically scream: "BLACK PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO KILL YOU!!" It's Al-Sharpton-esque. Several radio talkers are doing the same thing, even as they ironically claim they are only warning you that liberals are obsessed with race. One host this afternoon actually cautioned people to watch for gangs "looking for whitey."

Right now, there are two groups of people pushing identity politics: the extreme left and the extreme right, and I think the right is pushing harder than the left. But as we showed in that poll last week, few people see blacks, whites or anyone else as inherently racist, i.e. few are obsessed with race -- only about two in ten. So don't let these people push you into thinking the world is like the nightmare vision they are selling. It's not... not even close.

● The Summer of Flops: Finally, the summer of flops continues with three new ones likely joining the list: Pacific Rim is officially a flop, Turbo is being seen as a likely flop, and R.I.P.D. looks like a megaflop. I was kind of looking forward to R.I.P.D.. In any event, it sounds like it's time to service the Plot-o-matic 3000.

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