Race and racial bias
December 16, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
The Washington Post moans that “despite diversity vows, wide racial gaps persist in corporate leadership” (the quote is from the print edition headline). The “vows” occurred after the death of George Floyd. The “wide gap” amounts to the difference between black representation in the U.S. population (12 percent) and black representation among the “highest corporate leaders” (8 percent, according to the Post). If one takes this story at face value,
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December 9, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Paul has commented below on the unsurprising Smollett verdict. Here I merely want to contrast two perspectives among blacks about the whole Smollett Affair. First, Black Lives Matter, which issued a statement a couple days ago, while the trial was still under way, that includes this passage: In our commitment to abolition, we can never believe police, especially the Chicago Police Department (CPD) over Jussie Smollett, a Black man who
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December 1, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Leftists like Kamala Harris want us to believe that white supremacism is a major threat to America. What about black supremacism? To Harris and the left, it’s a myth, and worrying about it is racist. Daniel Greenfield at FrontPage has the details on Harris’ quest to render black supremacism a non-concept and to bar the Department of Justice from preventing terrorism by black supremacists: Two years ago, Senator Kamala Harris,
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November 26, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Glenn Loury is a voice of reason in the madhouse of higher education. He speaks with a powerful voice that is all the more powerful for its modulation. Peter Robinson sat down with him at FOX News in New York City to record an installment of his Uncommon Knowledge series last month, although it was just posted online this week. Here are the show notes: Professor Glenn Loury is in
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October 27, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
In March 1955, nine months before Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a White on a Montgomery, Alabama bus, Claudette Colvin was arrested for the same “offense.” She was taken to jail and later placed on indefinite probation. Colvin was 15 years old at the time. So why didn’t Colvin become a civil right hero? She cites three reasons. First, she wasn’t entirely non-violent.
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October 24, 2021 — John Hinderaker
“Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” That was George Wallace’s battle cry when he was the Democratic Governor of Alabama, and today Wallace’s Democratic successors are doing their best to make good on his pledge. This comes from Wellesley, Massachusetts: A Massachusetts public school system is actively promoting racially segregated student groups and a “bias reporting program” that encourages students to report instances of their peers’ biases to school officials
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October 14, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Aaron Sibarium gives readers a look inside the higher education asylum in the Washington Free Beacon story “A Yale Law Student Sent a Lighthearted Email Inviting Classmates to His ‘Trap House.’ The School Is Now Calling Him To Account.” Subhead: “In leaked audio, administration officials allege his membership in the conservative Federalist Society is ‘triggering’ and ‘oppressive.’” Sibarium’s story opens: Administrators at Yale Law School spent weeks pressuring a student
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October 13, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Jon Gruden is out as coach of the Las Vegas Raiders because of what he wrote in private emails. The emails are described by the media as “racist,” “homophobic,” and “misogynist.” From what I can tell, the racism consists of making fun of the lip size of the head of the players’ union who is Black. The homophobia consists of calling NFL commissioner Roger Goodell the other “f” word and
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September 22, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
For more than a year now, players in the English Premier League have been “taking a knee” just before kickoff. The gesture, an outgrowth of the George Floyd affair, is supposed to signal opposition to racism. In every EPL match I’ve seen, all 22 players have gone along with it. It’s not clear why anyone should kneel to protest racism. The gesture strikes me as either meaningless or a nod
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July 26, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
The following passage is from a letter that reportedly was circulated by an outfit called Dallas Justice Now (DJN), a “racial equity group.” The letter reads like a parody, but apparently it is not: We are writing to you because we understand you are white and live within the Highland Park Independent School District and thus benefit from enormous privileges taken at the expense of communities of color. You live
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July 26, 2021 — Steven Hayward
When I first saw the letter reproduced here from something called “Dallas Justice Now,” calling on wealthy whites living in the affluent Highland Park neighborhood of Dallas not to have their kids apply to elite colleges so that there would be more room for minority applicants, I assumed that it was a satire or a hoax. But it turns out to be authentic. And there’s actually much to recommend this if
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July 23, 2021 — Steven Hayward
I’ve had occasion in the past to reference the “bootleggers and Baptists” coalition idea that economist Bruce Yandle first suggested as a way of explaining a central aspect public choice theory which holds that seemingly opposite interests some times line up on the same side of an issue because it benefits both sides against the public interest. In the case of “bootleggers and Baptists,” you’d find in certain southern counties
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July 15, 2021 — John Hinderaker
I somehow missed this story when it came out on Tuesday: U.S. State Department invites U.N. racism investigators to visit U.S. The U.S. State Department has invited U.N. experts who investigate racism and minority issues to conduct an official visit to the United States, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday. It isn’t hard to see where this is going. The U.N.’s “experts” will write a report detailing the
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July 11, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Italy defeated England in the Euro 2020 final today on penalty kicks. The score was 1-1 after 120 minutes. The penalty kick tally was 3-2 in favor of Italy. The two teams combined to convert a substandard 50 percent of their spot kicks. Gareth Southgate, England’s manager, has done a great job with the English team. In 2018, he took a squad of chronic underachievers — bounced from Euro 2016
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June 30, 2021 — Steven Hayward
I think it is Glenn Reynolds who came up with the observation that the demand for racism exceeds the supply, which explains the proliferation of Jussie Smollett-style racism hoaxes. And Hollywood is happy to do its part to reinforce this narrative. The Daily Wire reports that the CW network has greenlit a series based on Jane Austen novels that will: update a number of Jane Austen classics for the “modern”
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June 25, 2021 — Steven Hayward
I was rummaging around again in my archive of old columns from the mid-1990s that never appeared online anywhere, and I found one, from December 1996, that shows the current CRT/”anti-racism” claptrap was rapidly gaining ground way back then: Still Trendier Than Thou: The Joy of Guilt-Mongering Nearly 20 years ago the late Paul Seabury of U.C. Berkeley wrote a sprightly feature article in Harper’s magazine about the Episcopal Church
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June 23, 2021 — Scott Johnson
If the media pursued Democrats as it pursues Republicans, the odious Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island would be hounded from public life. The Washington Free Beacon’s Joe Simsonson follows up on a story that we have found of interest. Imagine this: Democratic lawmakers and racial justice advocates have kept quiet about Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s membership in a racially exclusionary organization, seemingly satisfied with the Rhode Island Democrat’s explanation
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