Lawn Maintenance Is Racist
Further to the previous post, more “critical race thought” from a severely educated young person.
You see, a pleasing lawn is not only “racist” but obviously a manifestation of “the white psyche’s compulsion to establish complete dominion over ‘property.’” (Do note the scare quotes around the word property, which is apparently a doubtful concept with no basis in reality.) Now excuse me while I nip across the road to tell the chap at number 32, the one whose family hail from India, that his immaculate lawn is merely a sign of his own oppression, of submission to “white norms,” “white supremacy,” and the “white conception of property.”
I’m sure he’ll appreciate being educated in this way.
Via Dicentra.
For more on so-called “critical race theory” and its stupefying effects, see this by Heather Mac Donald.
One more time:
Presumably, Ms Zhang has learned, at some expense, that this is the kind of thing that will impress her lecturers.
Next month I’m flying to China. Should I tell them their gardens are racist?
Next month I’m flying to China. Should I tell them their gardens are racist?
Ah, but Ms Zhang says that doesn’t count. You see, the expectation of reciprocity merely shows you have “no understanding” of “white supremacy.” Apparently, the “unequal power dynamics between white and non-white peoples” apply always, everywhere and forever – regardless of context, or what particular shade of skin the majority of people in any given country happen to possess. All roads, inevitably, lead to white guilt.
If you poke through Ms Zhang’s tweets, you’ll notice, quite quickly, that she has some rather obnoxious racial baggage. Baggage that was presumably paid for in the form of tuition fees.
“Related”…
https://twitter.com/ThomasHCrown/status/1023958287950204930
“Related”…
Yes, that.
I’m sure he’ll appreciate being educated in this way.
Being woke means you can insult white people and patronise everyone else.
the white psyche’s compulsion to establish complete dominion over “property” … Chinese casino workers in Connecticut who turned their houses into multifamily communities, use garages as communal space, turned lawns into lush Asian veg gardens—and the white backlash against this assertion of autonomy over space.
When a dozen hot-bunking Chinese move in next door and make no effort to confirm to American suburban norms, you couldn’t possibly suspect them of trying to establish “dominion” for their ethnic group. The only reason they’ve come all the way from China to Connecticut is to share with us a sustainable environmentally friendly alternative to outmoded Eisenhower-era models of low density nuclear-family oriented suburban living. Anyone who doesn’t want their neighborhood to be reshaped according to a Mao-era model of high density communal living must be a bad person.
See also: “Why would you want to live next door to someone who essentially has immunity from the rules? Why would you want a neighbor who cannot be criticized or asked to abide by the codes of conduct everyone’s supposed to follow? “
unequal power dynamics between white and non-white peoples
So these power dynamics remain unchanged even in China, where I have noticed a distinct lack of white people? I’m not sure whether white expats or the Chinese would be most surprised to hear that.
So these power dynamics remain unchanged even in China…
Generational trauma from the Opium Wars and White™ attitudes imprinted upon the Chinese because of the Treaty of Nanking.
Hate crime.
Hate crime.
Indeed it is, notice the culturally appropriated Japanese maple.
Hate crime
Imagine being reduced to denouncing suburban lawn conventions as damning proof of minority oppression, of “the white psyche’s compulsion to establish dominion.” I mean, once you’re that far out – so contorted with pretension (or genuine racial bigotry) – there’s no obvious way back to shore.
I struck a blow against racism by not getting around to pulling weeds last week. Where’s my free drink?
[ Rolls a pickled egg to Pogonip. As it travels, the egg accumulates fluff, fag ash and a discarded bottle top. ]
Because white people never complain about other white people’s lawns. It’s like this woman has never heard of an HOA in her life.
– there’s no obvious way back to shore.
I think it is a contest to see who can come up with the best inanity daily.
It’s like this woman has never heard of an HOA in her life.
Well, quite. Here at Guild of Evil HQ, there are comparable restrictions and a broader, informal expectation that, say, hedges will be trimmed occasionally so as not to block the pavement, and bins won’t be left to overflow and scatter the street with garbage. That’s kind of why people – of various pigmentations – chose to live here. The notion that these expectations exist in order to “force white norms onto non-white people” is posturing wank. And as someone who grew up on a street where a neighbours’ garden was used only to hoard trash – including a wheel-less, derelict car of unknown provenance, slowly disintegrating – I rather appreciate them.
“Next month I’m flying to China. Should I tell them their gardens are racist?”
To be fair, neat gardens probably are something to do with a deep-seated urge for domination over, not property per se, but nature. And that’s what gave us civilization, not only in Europe, but Asia, the Americas and, yes, Africa. Manicured lawns and indoor plumbing are of a piece.
“Related”…
I’d only seen the first in that series of tweets before, which is good enough, but he absolutely nails it later on. Goading the majority into becoming a constituency (again) isn’t the smartest of tactics.
“I struck a blow against racism by not getting around to pulling weeds last week. Where’s my free drink?”
Now I come to think of it, this theory does go some way to explaining a curious phenomenon I noticed the other week: most of the gardens here in the parliamentary constituency of Political Fashion Victim Central look like dioramas of the South American rainforest. But of course we wouldn’t want anyone to think we’re racist…
I always love these people who take something extraordinarily common and pedestrian, i.e. not wanting to live in a trash heap, and turn it into evidence of some sort of nefarious moral failing. Who’s being harmed, if I cut my grass and plant flower gardens? And BTW, does Ms. Zhang not establish “dominion” over her apartment? Why are her decorating choices in her habitat not evidence of “Yellow Supremacy?”
I think a beautiful garden is a gift to the whole neighborhood. Silly me.
these people who take something extraordinarily common and pedestrian… and turn it into evidence of some sort of nefarious moral failing.
When it’s not just a tiresome affectation, it suggests a delusional sense of importance in other people’s lives. Whatever the humdrum thing being bitched about is, it’s somehow always about them. “Yes, dear. People are mowing their lawns just to oppress you.”
Let’s be fair: her complaint isn’t that white people having nice lawns is oppressing people, it’s that there are laws/bylaws/HOA regs/wtfever that prevent residents from having anything but a nice lawn on their front yard.
Admittedly race has nothing to do with that, I’ve lived in parts of Toronto where this issue raged for decades in majority Italian and Portuguese neighbourhoods, where complete-coverage paving and excessive statuary were a common front-yard theme.
Sir, I roll the “egg” back in your general direction.
her complaint isn’t that white people having nice lawns is oppressing people,
Given Ms Zhang’s determination to repeatedly and gratuitously racialize the subject – “The white psyche’s compulsion to establish complete dominion over ‘property’ while using laws to punish non-white ppl,” etc – I think we can take the oppression angle as strongly implied. See also her numerous references to “white supremacy,” “unequal power dynamics between white and non-white peoples,” and so forth. It could have been a mundane grumble about residents’ associations and such, but instead it’s steeped in the language of intersectional victimhood.
Don’t know if you can follow this link without an AppleID, but this is typical of the PC BS. I just got a new iPhone after transitioning back from Android and upon verifying that my calendar dates transferred, I see it is also dotted with some Muslim (and Jewish) holidays that I have no interest in. Useless clutter to me. So trying to find out how to get a calendar that provides the standard US holidays I google around and end up here:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/33704220#33704220
Someone had a similar question, of course, but it simply had to be answered in the most sanctimonious manner. The nit picking, the willful obtuseness, the pretentiousness. All because Apple (or maybe it was a Google import, who knows) simply had to default to a calendar no rational person would expect to see. I’m actually looking forward to some Muzzie suing them for having the audacity of defaulting Jewish and Christian holidays onto their phone.
Well, that’s definitely it then – with this bracing blast of insight exposing the true nature of inarguable cultural division throughout (lawnmower) time itself, we shall promptly take our illuminator at it’s word.
We shall throw up walls, moats, gates, and just Elysium the whole place. I’d be the last to in any way disappoint a single woke messiah.
Don’t know if you can follow this link without an AppleID,
Alas, no.
To be fair to Ms/Myxt/Myst/Myrp Zhang, perhaps nobody’s taken the time to explain the pleasant-environs thing we whitey-white-white suburbanites in the US and other civilized nations have going.
For example, I could never see how the present-day Chinese could possibly abandon unwanted girl babies to die in the gutter, but reading Ms/et.al. Zhang’s deep thoughts suddenly made it all clear to me as to how they could find that acceptable…
And if that seemed rather mean, my goodness, even the woman’s Twitter avatar has a punchable face; Flying Spaghetti Monster only knows what’s she’s like in person.
Alas, no
Well for reference I’ll copy just the original question and a couple replies:
OP:
Responses:
and on it goes. It gets richer from there. 6 pages worth. For the record, after much hunting around myself (and note that the link provided by the commenter is not intuitive nor provided via the Apple Calendar) I was able to find something called “Real Holidays USA”, a name which I’m sure causes even more anger and consternation but I’m guessing the more realistic names, such as the original “US Holidays” and “Holidays in the United States” were already taken. Also note that September 11 is not referenced in either calendar. Because of course, the scolds will point out that it’s not a REAL holiday. Or some etymological discussion of “holy day” or such would ensue. Well, you know the routine.
“Real Holidays USA”
Sounds useful; I always forget what day the Fourth of Kunigunde falls on every year.
Since when does the majority get all the rights, and minorities no rights in the United States? That violates the First Amendment to the constitution.
There it is. The intellectual argument progressives embody – apart from their philosophy of brute force – is that the American founding was aimed at constructing equal “right” of social outcome.
Why, you could just as easily argue for the theft of free- wait, not could. Have, shall, and will. Aside from the nature of rights requiring or even allowing absolutely no such thing, the leaps you have to make to believe this unmitigated lie are breathtaking.
“A woman’s right to choose” is one of the more offensive of these fallacies. Well, no; there is no such thing except by just another force, which makes it a normalization or a policy or a pastime or a hobby but never a right, at least not by the lights of the founding per the First and per the Constitution.
Note that the conversation this excerpt is taken from displays ground already lost. Arguing about the relative conditions and outcomes of progressivism is just another kind of soft progressivism itself. Would you debate with any malignancy? Cancer, maybe?
They don’t even want to win on these or other points. They want to dominate to the elimination of the last soul not them.
Above you thought it was about lawns. It was never about lawns.
I’ll just leave this here.
David, I barked my shins on it and spilled my Wadworths 6X as I made my way to the gents. Could it maybe go up on the stage instead?
[ Fetches badly frayed piece of string and suspends ‘close italics’ sign above Jim’s table. ]
Apologies host. Before anybody says anything, I’m also working on my it’s and its. Really I am.
OT: I can’t tell you how happy new HTML fuck-ups make me. Each new one causes my most recent dumpster fire of internet-fu to fade farther into memory.
I didn’t water my lawn and it turned brown, so I guess I’m woke as f*ck now.
Or my municipality is, since they’re the ones who put the water restrictions in place each summer.
Come autumn, those restrictions will disappear, my lawn of color will revert to its former lushness, and we’ll all be racist again.
Each new one causes my most recent dumpster fire of internet-fu to fade farther into memory.
The gods, they mock us.
Listen, lady, you worry about your lawn, and I’ll worry about mine, and we’ll get along surpassing fine.
If anyone has trouble with comments not appearing, email me and I’ll poke randomly at the spam filter.
Sorry, David, I’m screwing up.
Heh…it gets worse. Just notice my response to “Since when does the majority get all the rights, and minorities no rights in the United States? That violates the First Amendment to the constitution”-guy was rejected by Apple because “it contained inappropriate language or comments. We understand wanting to share experiences, but these forums are meant for technical questions that can be answered by the community.” My comments were no more inappropriate than the condescending attitudes of numerous other posters who were on the other side of the issue. While a few (short) token anti-PC responses were left, the overwhelming number of comments were of the PC variety. Most of which were not relevant to the technical questions being asked, but just served to obfuscate the OP’s question and put it in a negative light. It was a simple question that could have been addressed in a simple, technical manner without a lot of injected opinion from either perspective. And it goes on for six pages of what is mostly condescension.
…my response to “Since when does the majority get all the rights, and minorities no rights in the United States? That violates the First Amendment to the constitution”-guy was rejected by Apple…
Of course. This is them.
My comments were no more inappropriate than the condescending attitudes of numerous other posters who were on the other side of the issue.
Of course. This is them.
“…poke randomly at the spam filter…”
[spam filter giggles]
If we can get around the logistics, I think it would be fun to have a blog meet-up.
Probably the easiest method is for everybody to come to my house. You can leave the pickled “eggs” and the tentacles-in-a-jar at home.
Pogonip, if you include all the occasional commenters and the observers/readers/lurkers, you might find yourself needing a larger space.
But it would be a great idea, if sadly a bit tricky for those of us half a world away. Even the pickled eggs were provided as an incentive.
I wonder if we could do it by video?
We have a garden in our front yard. Veggies. A lot of ornamentals. I’d get pretty pissy if it was just lawn and we had to mow it weekly. So I sympathise with her that much, but draw the line at ever uttering something like ‘lawns are raaaaacist!’