Elsewhere (286)
Christopher Rufo on excusing habitual crime, in the name of “intersectionality”:
The latest fad in criminal-justice activism is the concept of “survival crime.” The theory holds that the homeless, the poor, and people of colour commit property crimes and low-level infractions in order to secure their basic survival. Any enforcement of these laws is thus a violation of their basic human rights… Survival-crime theory argues that local governments should decriminalise [property crime, drug possession, and public nuisance] offences because vulnerable individuals have been compelled by social conditions to commit them… Over the past five years, the classification of survival crime has expanded well beyond stealing the proverbial loaf of bread. In California, for instance, Proposition 47 downgraded theft of property valued at less than $950 to a misdemeanour, meaning that the police are unlikely to pursue even habitual shoplifters and thieves. The predictable result: a state-wide rise in petty theft.
Exempting favoured identity groups from the normal consequences of predatory and antisocial behaviour is the Hot New Fairness, apparently, at least among the enlightened. And if someone steals your phone or laptop, it would be wrong of you to protest, especially if the thief happens to be “of colour” and therefore, obviously, entitled to your stuff. Mugging, it turns out, is a form of “social justice.” We’ve been here before, of course. As when the Harvard-educated sociology professor Crystal Fleming championed the recreational looting of trainers, in bulk, and other fashion items, on grounds that the law-abiding are “hoarding resources.”
Somewhat related, Heather Mac Donald on school indiscipline and so-called “disparate impact” policies:
In 2018, a cell-phone video captured a classroom assault emblematic of the post-disciplinary era. A physics teacher in Texas had confiscated a student’s smartphone. “Give me my fucking phone. This is the last time asking your stupid ass,” the teen yelled, towering over the teacher sitting frozen behind his desk, grinning nervously, the very image of submission. The student aggressively swept the papers on the teacher’s desk to the floor, then violently shoved him in the face. Still impassive, the teacher pushed the phone across the desk back to the student, who grabbed it with a self-righteous shrug and strode away. The school principal explained that it “was just a bad day the student was having,” and commended the teacher’s response. The other students who observed this adult capitulation to thuggery learned a terrible lesson about their apparent immunity from any consequences for atrocious behaviour.
However, we’ve been assured, by our betters, that punching teachers in the face and setting fire to students’ hair is how black students “engage in learning.” What, you didn’t know?
And not entirely unrelated to that, in the pages of Inside Higher Ed, sociology lecturers Johnny Williams and David Embrick insist that calls for civility in debate are merely a front for “white supremacist heteropatriarchal capitalist power.” Opposition to threats of assault is, they say, “myopic and troubling.” You see, assaulting people, because you want to, is “democracy in action.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, Professor Williams has a history of, shall we say, adventurous thinking.
It’s woke academia, people. The bleeding edge.
As usual, feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.
That.
You have marvel at the conceit that a given identity group will somehow benefit from being seen by the wider population as effectively exempt from everyday laws and normal proprieties, as if that weren’t at all socially poisonous. Again, if you wanted to create resentment and racial animosity, reinforced daily, during every commute, what would you do differently?
And speaking of racial favouritism and encouraging incompetence:
You see, those composition classes you’re paying for shouldn’t teach students how to write clearly.
Professor Inoue has, of course, been mentioned here before.
Very much related.
Again, if you wanted to create resentment and racial animosity, reinforced daily, during every commute, what would you do differently?
Any expression of such resentment is defined as racism, and proves the need for even more special treatment.
A white who’s exposed to this during every commute, a white who can’t afford to insulate his family by moving to a “good school district”, isn’t seen as a trustworthy witness of minority misbehavior, he’s seen as a spittleflecked Deplorable pining for lost economic privileges.
As soon as Badwhites start to say “you bleeding hearts know nothing, let me tell you how these people behave on the street”, Goodwhites have been conditioned to nitpick and snark and probe for racism. That stimulus-response has been installed in the culture at least since Lee J. Cobb in 12 Angry Men, and it’s prevailed despite decades of white flight from inner cities to suburbs to gated communities.
…Goodwhites have been conditioned to nitpick and snark and probe for racism.
To which the only reasonable reply is, “Oh fuck off, Sally. Swap neighborhoods with me for six weeks and then we’ll talk.”
as if that weren’t at all socially poisonous.
Victor Davis Hanson has written extensively about the change to the Central Valley where he still lives on the family farm. He writes that the local law and code enforcement no longer do anything, even citations, to the squatters/homeless/vagrants who occupy abandoned property or the illegals who use farms as a trash dumping site. But any normal, law abiding citizen, is in their crosshairs for any minute violation, even inadvertent.
Victor Davis Hanson has written extensively about the change to the Central Valley
We’ve touched on some of that writing previously.
While doing some teaching, I was amused how the ‘students’ routinely ignored signs plastered on the classroom walls telling them they could not use their phones in class. I was less amused when one of my colleagues who had the audacity to take a phone of a non-working student (we called these kids Pups: ‘Present but unproductive’) was censured by the college bosses for doing that and told not to do it again. That’s right; the college would not back its own policy, which the kids knew was meaningless so they carried on.
My wife also taught, and she sometimes had students who would lay two or three phones out in front of them, claiming at least one was needed ‘for their drug deals.’
Amusing if it were America, but this was dull old middle England ten years ago. I doubt if it has got any better.
A white who’s exposed to this during every commute, a white who can’t afford to insulate his family by moving to a “good school district”, isn’t seen as a trustworthy witness of minority misbehavior, he’s seen as a spittleflecked Deplorable pining for lost economic privileges.
Kind of what I touched on earlier. And the whites in the area will develop their own terms to refer to various perpetrators which starts another round in the oppression olympics. Because if the random mobs in Chicago are black then any word used will be said to take on a racist meaning.
Colin had a video up from Australia where along with “teens” or “youths” the reporters referred to “thugs”. I was rather surprised because I know that term hass developed a judgmental, if not strictly racial, connotation and gone out of style in some areas.
And all this happens because saying “black youths” would be decried by the goodwhites as racist. So we all learn to read between the lines whenever “youths” are referenced and are made to feel guilty when explaining to our kids or others about what to watch out for.
The reporters referred to “thugs”
Among some American blacks, “thug” is a label to be proud of. /no further comment needed
“Goodwhites have been conditioned”
Reminds me of “goodlife” in Fred Saberhagen’s Betserker stories.