A Double Standard
I am a member of a classic liberal group, Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR) and a subscriber to its substack column. The title column can be found at
FAIR calls out incidents of intolerance and/or racism wherever they occur. The group is scrupulously non-partisan and was tough on Donald Trump and his administration. The specific post was written by Wilfred Reilly, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Kentucky, who specializes in empirical testing of political claims.
The Will Smith/Chris Rock Slap
The article begins with reviewing mass media coverage of the Will Smith/Chris Rock slap. Despite both principals being black, the coverage descends immediately into racism, claiming that Smith was treated more harshly than a white man would have been treated, and justifying his actions because he was defending a black woman.
{T}he UK’s Guardian newspaper, straight-facedly claimed that any anger at Smith’s boorish behavior is itself rooted in racism or “anti-Blackness.” . . . This reaction is a microcosm of a broader pattern that has become common in recent years: high-profile defenses of “POC” and/or attacks on “white” people, combined with claims that no one ever defends minorities or criticizes whites.
Entire books are based around essentially this same dualistic argument. Ijeoma Oluo’s 2020 book Mediocre might fairly be described as a 318-page critique of white people—and to a lesser extent males generally—but her thesis is that white men are rarely subjected to harsh criticism, enjoy racial privilege, and are thus able to acquire better jobs than, say, black women at the same level of performance and competence. Even the best-selling Mediocre is not the queen bee of this genre. Robin D’Angelo’s world-famous White Fragility is devoted almost entirely to criticizing white Americans, while simultaneously arguing that these privileged pale-faces are so rarely criticized that they become uniquely “fragile” when subjected to straight talk about past history and contemporary racism.
This is the false narrative that supports Biden’s fury at “white supremacists,” whom he sees around every corner. This distracts from the real problem plaguing Black America, especially in urban areas with prosecutors and judges unwilling to jail repeat offenders. The majority of people released over and over again are themselves black, and target black men, women and children for violence.
I fear the spread of violence until we are engaged in a Second Civil War. Biden/Harris has already done an excellent job of destroying the country. Let’s please not let them continue to lie to us about what the state of the economy, jobs and inflation are, as part of trying to defend the indefensible.
I'm on their mailing list but find some of their contributors increasingly tiresome.
I think any strategy that can possibly have any useful outcome is tracing the money that enables the vicious morons that cluster under the general umbrella of "Antifa" to roam from area to area without consequence.
Back to first principles. Interpol worked pretty well in the olden days. A trazillion "intelligence agencies" are just slush funds. There's no "terrorism," just crime. We glamorized what is commonplace shittery.
It's essentially a laurel they've made a concerted effort to bestow upon "marginalized identities." A tacit acknowledgement of permanent/preemptive acquittal. Blamelessness.