Cancelling Dr. Seuss

[mahagonny]

There was no statement 'nobody has it harder than white people.' That is the statement you'd relish the opportunity to refute, but you're out of luck. The people who have it the hardest are those who've been told they are perpetual victims, and believe it. Look at the data. Data says something like 88% of black Americans voted for Joe Biden and this group has undergone the sharpest drop in his approval ratings. Conservatives self report significantly higher levels of happiness than liberals.
It's true, whiteness has been demonized by the left, but the strategy is not working. It's making them miserable, it's causing people to leave their party, it's getting school board members ousted and it's causing them to lose elections they thought they had sealed up. Articulate black conservatives from all walks of life are getting up a head of steam.
The left is terrible? Doing terribly might be your concern if you're determined to be one of them. But before you fix your messaging problem, consider this: maybe the message has been getting heard, and that's your problem.

[jimbogumbo]

Another stab at humor: https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/comics/strips/?name=pearls-before-swine&itid=sf_entertainment-comics

[smallcleanrat]

Saying I'd relish a chance to refute something, but I'd be out of luck implies the thing I want to refute is true. Which you just said it isn't... So...wouldn't I be in luck?

But my point wasn't even about that; it was about relevance and the discussion-killing effects of hyperbole.

What does Biden's approval rating among black voters have to do with this story?

How are students in this story "demonizing" all white people by 'calling out' one individual for an inappropriate remark he really did make?

It's not my messaging problem because I have never subscribed to messages like 'all white people are racist' or 'only white people deserve to be criticized for racism' or any number of messages justifiably scorned for extremism and overgeneralization.

My message here was that students saying "Calling a student 'Mr. Chinaman' is inappropriate and insensitive." are not necessarily trying to push any additional messages like 'white men = bad'

My point wasn't 'the left is wonderful and white people are never treated unfairly so who cares about them.' My point was pulling out 'the left is terrible and demonizes white people' comments for every single story regardless of the specific situations doesn't help discussions like this go anywhere new or useful.

[mahagonny]

My message here was that students saying "Calling a student 'Mr. Chinaman' is inappropriate and insensitive." are not necessarily trying to push any additional messages like 'white men = bad'

Sure, I thought we agreed on that.

[jimbogumbo]

And another: https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/comics/strips/?name=cornered&itid=sf_entertainment-comics

[Wahoo Redux]

This is why these threads get frustrating.

The details of the individual stories factor into the discussion so little.

Sometimes a person is slandered and maligned, and suffers for a wrong they never committed.

Sometimes a person actually says or does something worth criticizing, but receives a disproportionately vicious level of backlash and punishment.

Sometimes a person says or does something worth criticizing, people criticize them, and that's pretty much it.

Sometimes a person says or does something NOT worth criticizing, people get mad and criticize anyway, and that's pretty much it.

No matter. General comments in the spirit of 'the left is terrible' and 'nobody has it harder than white people.' tend to dominate and eclipse discussion of specifics.

I ignore some commentary as pointless.

I think the points made in the commentary I did not ignore were very good.

[jimbogumbo]

Cancellation nation in North Texas: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/texas-education-maga-trump-book-bans-1310603/

[downer]

Cancellation nation in North Texas: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/texas-education-maga-trump-book-bans-1310603/

Interesting piece. I might well use that in one of my classes.

I don't know what radical means in these contexts. Maybe telling the truth to people who believe in the myth of American exceptionalism is radicalizing. Maybe pointing out that they are still benefitting from colonialism and the racism of the past could be radicalizing too. Though mostly people believe what they want to believe.

[mahagonny]

Cancellation nation in North Texas: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/texas-education-maga-trump-book-bans-1310603/

Interesting piece. I might well use that in one of my classes.

I don't know what radical means in these contexts. Maybe telling the truth to people who believe in the myth of American exceptionalism is radicalizing. Maybe pointing out that they are still benefitting from colonialism and the racism of the past could be radicalizing too. Though mostly people believe what they want to believe.

If a Native American person has strep throat and it is killed off by a course of penicillin, he's benefitting from colonialism of the past. Can liberal professors stand to teach true history irrespective of which political agenda it might appear to align with, or not align with?

What's radical? Example:

"Try to guess what the Princeton University students are talking about here:

We aim to decolonize our practice of ____, even as ____ remains an imperialist, colonialist, and white supremacist art form. (Answer: ballet)"

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/02/22/confronting_the_snake_oil_of_woke_ideology_147224.html

[jimbogumbo]

But, what do you think of the article I posted, mahaggony? Are you for em or agin em?

[marshwiggle]

Maybe pointing out that they are still benefitting from colonialism and the racism of the past could be radicalizing too. Though mostly people believe what they want to believe.

If a Native American person has strep throat and it is killed off by a course of penicillin, he's benefiting from colonialism of the past.

This opens a very big can of worms. If you compare the income and/or standard of living of people in the US whose ancestors were brought here as slaves with the income and/or standard of living of the descendants of related people who remained in Africa, then there is a case to be made that the people in this generation have benefited from the slavery of their own ancestors.
 

[Wahoo Redux]

Not sure this would be exactly classified as "cancel culture," but it is kind of funny...

SUNY prof rebuked for race / gender "progressive stacking".

[dismalist]

Maybe pointing out that they are still benefitting from colonialism and the racism of the past could be radicalizing too. Though mostly people believe what they want to believe.

If a Native American person has strep throat and it is killed off by a course of penicillin, he's benefiting from colonialism of the past.

This opens a very big can of worms. If you compare the income and/or standard of living of people in the US whose ancestors were brought here as slaves with the income and/or standard of living of the descendants of related people who remained in Africa, then there is a case to be made that the people in this generation have benefited from the slavery of their own ancestors.

Careful, people. Yes, it is a can of worms.

The slaves taken here who have on average benefited from being enslaved benefit from survivorship bias, many having died on the Atlantic or prematurely here. Descendants from former slaves do also. Hence, restitution would have to take into account that one would have to give one hell of a lot of money to people to voluntarily accept a gamble with such a very high chance of death.

On the other hand, slavery has been the norm in human history. It was completely moral. What is special is that the West freed the surviving slaves! One must subtract the value of freedom to the ex-slaves from any compensation to them.

Figure it out!

[My personal attitude is to invoke the principle of a statute of limitations, but, hey, people just want more and want more votes.]

[ergative]

On the other hand, slavery has been the norm in human history. It was completely moral. What is special is that the West freed the surviving slaves! One must subtract the value of freedom to the ex-slaves from any compensation to them.

No. What? No. Good grief, no. Just because people were shitty in the past doesn't mean we should charge their victims for the cessation of shittiness.

[Langue_doc]

Not sure this would be exactly classified as "cancel culture," but it is kind of funny...

SUNY prof rebuked for race / gender "progressive stacking".

I saw this a couple of days ago. Progressive stacking? Profiling your students on the basis of skin color, gender, sexual orientation, and other attributes unrelated to being a student? Prof, what were you thinking?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10535791/Woke-Binghamton-sociology-professor-slammed-saying-gives-priority-non-white-folks.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=1490

In her class syllabus, she asks white males and those 'privileged by the racial and gender structures of our society' to hold off on questions