Thinking Like Children
And expecting applause. In the pages of Vice, a moral lecture, delivered from on high:
How to Talk to Relatives Who Care More About Looting Than Black Lives.
As an exercise in question-begging and dense, self-satisfied presumption, it’s quite a thing, that headline. It’s very now.
Among those of us deemed insufficiently woke and therefore suspect, questions may arise. For instance, in what way will those “black lives” be improved by the destruction of local infrastructure, local businesses, and the subsequent, perhaps dramatic, reduction in trust and goodwill? And what if the stores and homes in question – the ones being smashed, stripped of their contents and set ablaze – are owned by people who happen to be black, as has often been the case?
What if the places being looted and vandalised with abandon, indeed exultation, are depended on by people who also happen to be black, whether as customers or employees? After the razing and ruin of their places of work, should these people be pleased to be former employees? Unemployed people who now have no local grocer, or garage, or pharmacy?
Alas, such considerations appear to have eluded the keen mental processes of the article’s author, Ms Rachel Miller, a young woman who dutifully declares her pronouns and boasts of being a “Buzzfeed alum.”
If you’re not Black but want to support BLM, having fraught conversations with your kinda (or definitely) racist loved ones will likely not be fun, but it’s a very worthy undertaking.
Right from the off we’re informed, firmly, that any perceptible reservations about looting and rioting, or reservations about the Black Lives Matter movement – say, regarding its demented far-left agenda, its racial tribalism, and the stated goal of abolishing capitalism, prisons and the police – must be taken as an indicator of being “kinda (or definitely) racist.” Wokeness is not, it seems, a recipe for cognitive subtlety.
“Some people,” we’re told, “appear to be far more worried about the fate of a Nordstrom or Target store than that of the actual human lives of protesters.” Again, one might deduce that only those protesting with, shall we say, physical enthusiasm have “actual human lives,” unlike their victims, whose hopes and livelihoods can be gleefully destroyed as an act of righteous liberation. From local amenities.
Apparently, Ms Miller has failed to register the obvious symbolism of what we’ve seen – a metastasising nihilism, a horror show in which the most basic rules of civilisation – on which our living together depends – are gleefully and triumphantly rejected, then set on fire, along with so much else. The contortion required to approve of such scenes and what they imply, to find them heartening, a thing one can endorse, is a kind of moral derangement. And yet this derangement is demanded in order to conform, to submit, and to escape being slandered as a racist.
If you, a non-Black person, know that Black lives matter, but your parents or other relatives (or friends, or chosen family) fall squarely into the camp of, “I support their right to protest… as long as they do it on my specific terms! And, yeah, I think Colin Kaepernick was also doing it wrong, what of it?”… well, you’ve got your work cut out for you.
Conveniently for the author, those “specific terms” aren’t specified, but possibilities that come to mind include, ‘Terrorising random people, assaulting them, and reducing their neighbourhoods to a rubble-strewn war zone isn’t an ideal way to elicit sympathy or concern for one’s wellbeing.’ Or, ‘Perhaps addressing issues of racism isn’t best achieved by acting like savages.’ Something along those lines.
We are, however, told about “the myth that peaceful protest is the only way to successfully fight for civil rights,” and that “anti-looting discourse” is, in ways left mysterious, a function of “white supremacy.” Ms Miller’s other suggestions are equally helpful and no less steeped in nuance. When lecturing “loved ones” who are “kinda (or definitely) racist” on account of their unease about criminal predation and mob thuggery, Ms Miller suggests the following rebuttal:
Honestly, who gives a fuck if Black people are destroying property?
Yes, the moral insight is giddying in its complexity. You see, “respectability politics” – i.e., a wariness of nonreciprocal standards and a general aversion to inflicting on others, arbitrarily, the kind of violation one would not care to receive – is, for Ms Miller, a bad thing, a “bad idea,” albeit for reasons that, again, are not entirely clear. We are merely informed that such concerns amount to “being compliant.”
In short, then, a “productive conversation,” one likely to “educate” the aforementioned loved ones, entails construing all brown-skinned human beings as “oppressed people,” regardless of any actual circumstances, and therefore entitled to act like sociopathic brutes. Oh, and using the word racist many, many times. Especially when those loved ones are reluctant to affirm mob thuggery and recreational beatings as an obvious path to a brighter, fluffier, more fragrant tomorrow.
Should this “productive conversation” somehow fail to convince your un-woke relatives of their wicked, wicked ways, Ms Miller suggests a fall-back position, an emergency measure:
If you have a Black partner or even a close Black friend… you have a responsibility to inform them that your relatives are racist so they can keep themselves safe.
Yes, safe. From people who don’t feel entitled to rob you, or beat you insensible, or burn down your home.
Such is wokeness. Bathe in its glow.
Via Pogonip.
Very well said.
The sooner Vice goes bust the better for everyone.
These ‘educated’ people are so stupid it’s actually scary.
More Undocumented Shoppers in Brussels show just how heartbroken they are over George Floyds death.
via Old Holborn
It’s an intifada. And the same mindset which supported the Palestinian intifadas also supports this one. After all, if they are murdering and destroying at random, it just shows how oppressed they are, right? The only moral choice is to cave in to their every demand.
These ‘educated’ people are so stupid it’s actually scary.
And so mentally uniform. In that, yes, these educated people, our self-imagined betters, seem, at least in moral terms, remarkably stupid, imperviously so – and in precisely the same way. They’re practically interchangeable. It’s almost eerie. Sadly, Ms Miller’s LinkedIn profile doesn’t disclose what it was she spent tens of thousands of dollars and four years of her life studying at Michigan State University. A curious omission, I think. I’m guessing, however, that it didn’t include much in the way of causality, or realism, or how to think in straight lines. Such that one thing follows from another.
Zionist Overlord #73: ’ The only moral choice is to cave in to their every demand.’
Sadly, that appears to be what our disgrace of a police farce in both London and Bristol has chosen to do.
These ‘educated’ people are so stupid it’s actually scary.
And so, Ms Miller says that “some people” – i.e., “racists,” if only by her rather contrived and self-serving definition – “appear to be far more worried about the fate of a Nordstrom or Target store than that of the actual human lives of protesters.” It doesn’t seem to have occurred to her that, objections above aside, what people are seeing, and generally recoiling from, is a kind of monstrous, vindictive nihilism, a complete disdain for the very basis of society, the basis of us living together with minimal friction and any kind of hope.
And if you’re going to gleefully, triumphantly, tear up the rule book of civilisation, you should hardly be surprised when civilised people, on whom so much depends, including your own comforts and career, react with revulsion and alarm.
I’ve had this conversation on line. It goes something like this:
ME: Maybe this is a statement of the obvious, but looting is bad!
THEM: You monster, you care more about looting than the lives of black people.
ME: It’s possible to care about both.
THEM: You want black people to die!
ME: Looting sure won’t help to bring them back to life, and it will alienate more people than it wins over.
THEM: It’s a legitimate form of protest, and protest will change the world!
ME: Black protesters themselves *don’t like* the looting. See this link here.
THEM: You racist racist from racistdom, stop imposing your racist cultural norms on then. Racist.
ME: Looting is bad.
THEM: Looting is wonderful!
That.
These ‘educated’ people are so stupid it’s actually scary.
Yeah, but try telling anyone that 20 years ago when the damage what has manifested itself today was being done. People would look at you funny. Doctors, even “conservative” doctors, would suggest maybe you should talk to a psychiatrist. Ask me how I know.
how to think in straight lines.
Ooh, you mean like “linear thinking”? Yeah, that’s nice but you’re just not a big boy thinker if you do that. And no, big boy thinkers don’t give credit for multithreaded linear thinking. Theirs is a special kind that linear thinkers are too simpleminded to understand. Get with the program…ah, but maybe you can’t. Big boy thinkers pity you.
Ms Miller seems to care more about looting than the lives of Patrick Underwood, Italia Kelly, and David Dorn.
David, you’re the world’s best fisker. Thanks!
the article’s author, Ms Rachel Miller, a young woman who dutifully declares her pronouns and boasts of being a “Buzzfeed alum.”
“These Tweets are protected”
Don’t talk back peasant.
@JuliaM
It brings to mind a quote from (I think) Alan Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind, to the effect that during student riots in the 60’s the students discovered that their pompous elders could, with a little shove, be made into dancing bears.
@TimT You want Black people to die!
Have you seen this video? It’s from 2 years ago, but fits quite well… 😀
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXWhbUUE4ko
Also, I believe it was Theodore Dalrymple who wrote that sentimentality and brutality are two sides of the same coin. I believe he explained that point on more than one occasion, but here is the first link that I found:
https://www.city-journal.org/html/cruel-when-not-kind-13655.html
I’m all for reparations to any black person born before 1865 in the United States.
*applauds*
Brilliant. Tip jar hit.
David, you’re the world’s best fisker.
I don’t think it’s that. It’s more that the evasions and contortions currently in fashion among the vain and mediocre are so transparent, so nakedly absurd.
Tip jar hit.
Bless you, sir. May the local deli never run out of your favourite spicy meatball sauce.
Minneapolis City Council President: If You Call the Cops When Your Garage is Broken Into, You’re a White Supremacist
https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2020/06/minneapolis-city-council-president-if-you-call-daniel-greenfield/
Steve Sailer finds an interesting take from a comic by Stan Lee based on Tom Wolfe’s essay ‘Radical Chic’.
Still relevant:
Lol.
London’s rats are out again.
https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1269720576010018816
I’m assuming the ambulance has some kind of white privilege.
Are we disturbed yet?
And in lighter news.
If you are worried who to call when someone is breaking into you house after we get rid of the police, check your privilege.
I’m assuming the ambulance has some kind of white privilege.
WTF? Was there someone inside?
27 police injured peacefully, peaceful protesters worst hit:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/06/according-to-the-bbc-largely-peaceful-protests-left-27-officers-injured/
Was there someone inside?
Do you imagine they particularly care?
Again, symbolism.
Was there someone inside?
Actually, on second thoughts, given the psychology on display, the uninhibited degeneracy, it seems likely that the thought of some seriously ill or injured person being slammed around inside and in fear of their life might very well heighten the enthusiasm and obvious glee. I mean, when you’re trying to tip over an ambulance that may have a seriously ill or injured person in it, someone in fear of their life, where’s the line you won’t cross?
John, I forget where I first saw that, but the report said the ambulance was trying to deliver a patient to Casualty.
“Sadly, Ms Miller’s LinkedIn profile doesn’t disclose what it was she spent tens of thousands of dollars and four years of her life studying at Michigan State University.”
Turns out, David, that there are (at least) two Rachel Millers who went to Michigan State (motto: “Thank God we’re not the University of Michigan”). Miller’s profile at LinkedIn states she earned her B.A. in Journalism and History.
Yes, it is strange colleges actually award a degree in typing. After a degree awarded to athletes, it’s the second-easiest degree to get. (I know; I have one.) The third-easiest degree is history, which explains the rest of her many and storied accomplishments at MSU:
Sigma Kappa Sorority, Greek Week Leadership Team, Order of Omega.
I’m assuming the ambulance has some kind of white privilege.
#1 daughter, the CCT RN – her and her crew kept on high alert during their runs last week. A few times they had to transport to/from Los Angeles, one run during the height of the riots in Santa Monica so they made sure to give those spots wide berth.
Luckily they didn’t encounter any problems — not luck for them per se, but luckily for any assholes my girl would have no trouble running over.
states she earned her B.A. in Journalism…
And behold her mighty works.
Instalaunch! David, you’re going to need more coasters and to dust off the sausage roll.
Well said indeed.
To answer your implied question: “Heavens, a button. I wonder what it does” — it makes payments, for purposes such as enjoyment of a well-written article. I can now confirm that the button works.
Honestly, who gives a fuck if Black people are destroying property?
Isn’t that what a racist would say as rioters burn down their communities?
Being woke must be hard. I’m afraid I’m not up to it.
David, you’re going to need more coasters
We need breath mints, stat. And Darleen, be a love, throw on a bit more jewellery.
I can now confirm that the button works.
Bless you, sir. May hair never gather in your plugholes.
Sigma Kappa Sorority, Greek Week Leadership Team, Order of Omega.
Ah, a fratgirl, fratess, whatever the cognate of Bro, Etc.
As the saying goes, yes, this is my shocked face.
what people are seeing, and generally recoiling from, is a kind of monstrous, vindictive nihilism, a complete disdain for the very basis of society, the basis of us living together with minimal friction and any kind of hope.
That.
May hair never gather in your plugholes.
Ummm? I thought that was rather the point.
Oh. Gather in sinkdrainythings. Nevermind . . .
Miss Miller should have attended Wayne State in Detroit. A solid college, with the benefit of having instructors who experienced the long, terrible aftereffects of rioting and looting. When I attended in the late ’90s, the burned out apartment buildings still stood on Brush Street like monuments to a war before I was born.
You can still travel outward from campus and see rubble; and if you’re lucky, people building on long-disused lots. But how scary to build a business in an urban area, knowing a bad police officer in another part of the nation could bring it crashing down.
By the way, the spam filter’s being moody again. If anyone has trouble with comments not appearing, email me, top left, and I’ll liberate them into the daylight.
When they destroy all the rules and find that us old people have the capacity to kill and destroy beyond their wildest nightmares, then it will be , “No we didn’t mean that.”
Remember, the police do not exist to protect the civilian population from the criminal class, they always arrive too late to perform that function. They exist to convince the civilians that there is a system that will hold criminals accountable, which is supposed to discourage us from vigilantism. They exist to protect the criminals from the civilians. If they cannot perform that function, lets go back to nature, red in tooth and claw, and see who has the numbers and the will. Kids, we ain’t gonna be playing revolution, we ain’t LARPing, let the bodies hit the floor. Look at the Balkans, Look at Iraq, look at Afghanistan. I do not want that shit in my front yard but the “revolutionaries” seem so intent on immanentizing the eschaton. There can be no heaven on earth but we can replicate a reasonable facsimile of hell.
Remember, the police do not exist to protect the civilian population from the criminal class, they always arrive too late to perform that function.
Now, now, now, a recurring assurance is of being able to arrive in minutes, when seconds are at stake . . .
Why on some occasions, I’ve read of such remote support being able to arrive in hours, when minutes are at stake . . .
If you are worried who to call when someone is breaking into you house after we get rid of the police, check your privilege.
I’m genuinely curious as to whether MPD is going to double the guard on City Council President Lisa Bender’s home, or withdraw it entirely. Everybody in the state knows where she lives, after all…
I’m assuming the ambulance has some kind of white privilege.
Honestly, that looks to me more like a mobile command vehicle for the cops. Not that this makes the behavio(u)r acceptable, but it’s a lot easier to see how the barbarians would consider it a valid target.
In other news from the lesser of the Twin Cities across the river, I read today that one of the businesses burned down last week has no intention of returning. I do a lot of work with economic development people at the city and county level, and I can only imagine how many brochures that business owner has already received. On the bright side, you don’t need cops when there’s nothing to protect.
Also, while We Heart Lake Street congratulates everybody for helping raise $5.5 million for cleanup and reconstruction, insurers estimate costs to rebuild will run somewhere north of a half a billion. So congrats, crowdsourcers — you’ve remedied 1% of the problem!
Have I mentioned that we all know where Lisa Bender lives?
barbarians
That.
“Honestly, who gives a fuck if Black people are destroying property?”
Well, the Black people who suffer disproportionately from this problem probably do.
Same thing with that Minneapolis council creature who basically told all her rich white supporters that they just need to suck it up when black folks rob their home. Beyond the incredible racism of assuming that black folks are naturally thieves, it’s also cute that she thinks that black folks will be the only ones to take advantage of the opportunity.
Was there someone inside that ambulance? Yup. All the flashers were on, so at a minimum there was a driver and a medic; if they were actually transporting a patient add the casualty inside (and possibly if the patient was a child, a parent or guardian in the cab with the driver).
Thoughts and prayers.
I suspect it would be safe to assume Ms. Miller’s views depend largely on her perspective as one who does not expect her possessions to be looted nor set on fire.
Part of the trouble with bien pensants is they rarely have to experience the consequences of their airy notions.
Governor Squid: It’s a standard box ambulance, and would have been clearly and conspicuously marked as such. No PD uses a command vehicle that can be mistaken for an ambulance because the potential for disaster is clearly understood. It’s a firing offence for a duty crew to carry any kind of weapon so the best those people inside could hope for was a Reginald Denny murderous beating with career-ending injuries.
Like I said, thoughts and prayers.
Had to go to vice to read the article in question. That was easily the most condescending racist dribble I’ve ever read. Miller stands out far from the rest in the STOOOOOPID parade.
Megaera,
The guy who posted the video clarified that it was a paddy wagon* in St. Louis, so I’m not sure what to believe at this point. It’s probably enough to say that I’ve no trouble believing that these mobs would behave the same way regardless of the exact nature of the vehicle.
* With apologies to my friends of Irish extraction.
* With apologies to my friends of Irish extraction.
[ Hides breakables. ]
I’ve no trouble believing that these mobs would behave the same way regardless of the exact nature of the vehicle.
Obstructing ambulances trying to get to emergencies and menacing their occupants isn’t exactly unknown at BLM gatherings. See the last paragraph. Sadly, the relevant video has been disappeared by Twitter. Along with another, rather shocking video, in which a lone female driver is encircled by a mob of ‘protestors’ who are trying to smash her car’s windscreen into her face while videoing her distress.
Because they care so very much.
* With apologies to my friends of Irish extraction.
*offence-detection antenna twitches*
*Offence Level- Low*
*resumes perusal of Best Potato Catalogue*
A different james: you mean you’ve been <gasp> microaggressed?
@ Joe Smith: “Same thing with that Minneapolis council creature who basically told all her rich white supporters that they just need to suck it up when black folks rob their home.”
This wonderfully kind and caring lady has effectively painted a bullseye on any hardworking, taxpaying [white] citizen who stays in her district. The message is clear: the taxpayer-funded town council will not maintain order and will not defend the rights of people who live and work there. That should promote flight from the city – by industrious people of every race. Maybe the sub-title to her pronouncement should be “How to turn a prosperous city into a ghetto.”
Jim
I’ve seen the artillery that some of those shopkeepers are carrying to defend their businesses. It’s pretty scary.
” Same thing with that Minneapolis council creature who basically told all her rich white supporters that they just need to suck it up when black folks rob their home.”
I suppose she’s one of the ones, too, who just voted in Minneapolis Council to ‘defund the police’. It’s not clear what that means – it was a panicked decision, so, whatever it means it isn’t good – but just why, exactly, she expects anyone to stay in her city after that, she’s a fool.
Sorry, should have grammar checked that last comment!
I’ve seen the artillery that some of those shopkeepers are carrying to defend their businesses. It’s pretty scary.
George Zimmerman had superior artillery. Sure, he’s at least alive, but what kind of a life is that? People driving down the road taking potshots at him, living as a pariah. And he was 100% in the right. No one cares. Our cops and military are taking a knee to these people now. That’s where their loyalties now sit. How do you think it’s going to turn out when the screaming mob tells the cops and military that kneel to them to arrest and persecute the shop defenders?
Hey Governor: all we can do is work with the info we’re given. That said, and bearing in mind that there can be variations between states in equipment rules and regs, still, the flashers on that truck were all white and red, which is pretty much standard for ambulances -and just as significantly, police vehicles are all equipped with blue lights these days. (Quick way to figure out what it is that’s closing FAST in your rearview mirror: red/white, there’s trouble, but it’s not yours — yet, anyway; blue, well, your day just got a little more unpleasant.) No blue lights on that truck in trouble, so I think it’s Fire/EMS, not PD.
After the razing and ruin of their places of work, should these people be pleased to be former employees? Unemployed people who now have no local grocer, or garage, or pharmacy?
It begins.
https://twitter.com/StarTribune/status/1270047461822824449
It begins.
“Unexpectedly,” as Instapundit would say.
It’s worth bearing in mind that, while irretrievably stupid, Ms Miller’s views are by no means uncommon:
Same energy, as they say.
The woes of pseudo-radical LARPing.
Related.
And if I might be so arrogant as to quote myself…
How do you think it’s going to turn out when the screaming mob tells the cops and military that kneel to them to arrest and persecute the shop defenders?
I now see where over yonder in Jolly Ole England, young men who positioned themselves around Churchill’s statue in order to protect it from rioters, were escorted away by police so that the rioters could deface the greatest obstacle to fascism the 20th Century ever had. Get a fucking clue, people.
Old habits die hard.
Vice may be the rancid turd of news sites however the satellite TV channel of the same name is pleasingly inoffensive and regularly shows episodes of Bob Ross’s Joy of Painting – arguably the most relaxing and unwoke programming since the test card.
Ping.
Ping.
Bless you, sir. May your upholstery never discolour, at least not unevenly.
Bob Ross’s Joy of Painting
I’ll just leave this here.
Is classic liberalism imploding before our eyes, being replaced by woke authoritarianism?
Feels like it, but insanity — like alcohol-producing yeast — eventually chokes on its own toxins. The problem is “eventually” can be a long time coming.
It begins.
And when, as they will, other employers move away from an obviously risky and hostile, indeed dangerous, area, taking jobs and opportunities and prospects with them, this too will be blamed on racism and a lack of “social justice.”
Rinse and repeat.
The problem is “eventually” can be a long time coming.
And once a society has been so badly damaged it can take generations or centuries to recover.
Unfortunately for this lovely woke creature, it’s not possible to construct a system that will completely avoid the deaths of unarmed people in the course of being arrested – at least not in the US. Some people get violent, some people are in the process of over-dosing on things like Fentanyl or cocaine and slip into a fatal arrhythmia (like George), sometimes cops make mistakes or get angry and lose it – and yes, some of the victims will be black.* You can improve your numbers and practices, but you can’t ever make it perfect, because the world isn’t perfect and neither are the cops. By making this the standard, you’re setting people up for perpetual conflict and perpetual escalation. It’s a negative feed back loop that makes civilization literally impossible. Basically, this is your standard: If a cop makes a mistake or even acts abusively, however infrequent, we get to destroy everything in the vicinity, over and over again, forever. . . . That actually appears to be their position.
*For the “white” version of a similar event, goggle “Tony Timpa.”
When lecturing “loved ones” who are “kinda (or definitely) racist” on account of their unease about criminal predation and mob thuggery, Ms Miller suggests the following rebuttal:
Honestly, who gives a fuck if Black people are destroying property?
If it would be wrong to enjoy it if black people destroyed her iPhone, I don’t want to be right.
Two instalanches on the same post. 😀
Two instalanches on the same post.
Heh. I think that may be a first, for me at least.
If Black Lives Mattered to black people, then there wouldn’t be so much black on black crime, or black abortions. Of course if the criminals switched the race of their victims, the recidivism rate would go down.
Woke person: “You care more about destruction of property than you do about black lives!!!”
Unwoke Relative: [Takes woke relative’s cell phone and smashes it with a hammer.]
Woke person: [Suddenly cares very deeply about destruction of property.]
“These ‘educated’ people are so stupid it’s actually scary.”
David responded, “And so mentally uniform. In that, yes, these educated people, our self-imagined betters, seem, at least in moral terms, remarkably stupid, imperviously so – and in precisely the same way. They’re practically interchangeable.”
This is very late, I know, but I thought it interesting and related.
C. S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, ch. 5, section 1 (Miss Hardcastle speaking to Mark Studdock):
“Why you fool, it’s the educated reader who can be gulled. All our difficulty comes with the others. When did you meet a workman who believes the papers? He takes it for granted that they’re all propaganda and skips the leading articles. He buys his paper for the football results and the little paragraphs about girls falling out of windows and corpses found in Mayfair flats. He is our problem. We have to recondition him. But the educated public, the people who read the highbrow weeklies, don’t need reconditioning. They’re all right already. They’ll believe anything.”