Rise Of The Bedlamites
Andy Ngo on paying the price for other people’s intersectional piety:
[Portland bakery owner, John] Blomgren’s chronology matches and corroborates [his employees’] version of events. However, having established that his staff had done nothing wrong did not alter Blomgren’s decision to fire them. “In this situation it doesn’t really matter that the two staff members working are not themselves racist because the call they made to deny [student and activist, Lillian Green] service caused her to feel like she had been discriminated against,” his statement explained. “Sometimes impact outweighs intent and when that happens people do need to be held accountable.” The bakery has since deleted this statement and denies firing the employees to “save face or to appease anyone.”
If the word accountable has a perverse and sour ring to it, it should. “Dismantling the white supremacist hetero-patriarchy,” as Mr Blomgren puts it, is apparently something that small eateries should do now, ostentatiously, above all else, and is best achieved, it seems, by firing female employees for the sin of doing their jobs. Mr Ngo covers the escalating drama, and others, in some detail, and none of it is particularly encouraging. But it does reveal quite a lot about who such people are, the psychology in play, and the consequences of prostrating yourself in front of relentlessly spiteful “social justice” bedlamites.
The section on Cameron Whitten, one of Portland’s more prominent “social justice” activists, is also worth highlighting:
“I think he’s actually a sociopath,” speculates ‘Alex,’ a Portland-based social justice activist who has worked extensively with Whitten and witnessed his strategic use of baseless accusations of racism to take down opponents and manipulate allies. Fearful of retribution given Whitten’s growing influence, Alex spoke to me on condition of anonymity but provided evidence of their relationship. “He’s created a chilling effect in Portland. People are scared of him and no one knows how to intervene.” Alex expressed sympathy for Blomgren and said Whitten selects his targets carefully — mainly white progressives who are likely to trip over themselves when accused of racism. Some of them offer him money or career opportunities.
If you think the word sociopath sounds a bit strong, do read the whole thing.
[ Added: ]In the comments, Rafi notes that the above bears a striking resemblance to a protection racket, which it pretty much is. It certainly seems to have attracted the kinds of personalities that you’d expect to find involved in one. And if you encourage the credulous to cultivate delusions of collective guilt, and to contort themselves, abase themselves, in order to conform – and if you do it institutionally, systemically, in the name of progressive education – then it’s hardly surprising that moochers, narcissists and marginal personalities waste no time in exploiting it.
Brilliant article. I hope Andy Ngo watches his back.
I hope Andy Ngo watches his back.
Given the activists’ evident delight in vindictiveness, some caution seems in order, yes. There doesn’t seem to be much that would be beneath them.
It’s a protection racket.
It’s a protection racket.
Pretty much. And it attracts the kinds of personalities you’d expect to find involved in one.
For his gratuitous and public humiliation of a progressive scholar, Whitten was not only afforded a warm reception at the event but he was thanked by his target, who was evidently grateful to have been shamed in this way. Blazack even wrote a follow-up post restating his craven apology once more, in response to which Whitten received more donations from supporters.
Here’s Nick Cohen writing in 2005 on Gerry Healy’s Workers’ Revolutionary Party:
In truth, terms such as ‘left’ and ‘right’ can only take you so far if you’re trying to understand groups such as the Workers’ Revolutionary Party. They are far closer to the messianic religious sects that obey the orders of semi-divine leaders. Gerry Healy, the leader of the WRP, didn’t appear charismatic at first glance. He was a squat and ugly man, who maintained his personal domination by isolating his members from the outside world and their families […]
In her autobiography, [WRP member] Vanessa Redgrave described how her six-year-old daughter Natasha ‘appealed to me to spend more time with her. I tried to explain that our political struggle was for her future and that of all the children of her generation. She looked at me with a serious, sweet smile.
“But I need you now. I won’t need you so much then.'”
One woman said she barely saw her husband and four children … She shook herself out of [the WRP] when Healy forced his way into her bedroom … She left but most stayed until 1985 when the tabloids let rip with a ‘reds in the bed’ exposé of how Healy had abused dozens of women and stolen party funds. An audit of the books showed that he had taken about £500,000 from Muammar Gadaffi and £20,000 from Saddam Hussein [ … ]
[W]hat was fascinating was that a handful of members, including the Redgraves,… stuck by Healy until his death in 1989 and continued to revere his memory thereafter. Nothing could shake their faith, not the rapes and beatings of party members or the grovelling before tyrants.
I think I see a theme developing.
Mr Whitten was recently interviewed by Tucker Carlson. It didn’t go terribly well. But apparently that’s because Mr Carlson is “a white supremacist.”
If you encourage the weak and credulous to cultivate delusions of collective guilt, and to contort themselves, abase themselves, in order to conform – and if you do it institutionally, in the name of progressive education – then it’s hardly surprising that moochers, narcissists and sociopaths will waste no time in exploiting it.
What an incredible coincidence that Green – a student and a social justice activist – just happened to have a hankering for a late pastry while passing that particular bakery.
If I had a cynical conspiracy-speculating mind I might even wonder whether Green was involved in a sociology experiment “testing” the reactions of store clerks to black customers, looking for implicit racism, microaggressions and other heinous acts of hatred.
If not, there may be a rash of such experiments coming to small retailers near you soon.
Whitten selects his targets carefully — mainly white progressives who are likely to trip over themselves when accused of racism. Some of them offer him money or career opportunities.
They fired their own staff just so they could appease other SJWs. Hard to feel sorry for them.
Do read the whole thing.
Wait a minute. They fired the staff for doing nothing wrong, and then doubled down on the decision when they realised the staff had done nothing wrong? Well, it isn’t just Whitten who comes out of that looking like a vindictive sociopath. Blomgren does too.
Hard to feel sorry for them.
Well, it’s perhaps a bit much to expect sympathy for people who choose to play Woker Than Thou, though the ladies who were fired don’t seem to have had much choice in the matter. And of course every triumph of this kind emboldens the winners, and others like them, and encourages more of the same. And the next targets, the ones who find themselves harassed, or defamed, or their livelihood under threat, may not be quite so complicit.
Here’s a hint for the Eden Bakery: Fire yourselves and your whole staff. Close down the bakery, leave Portland and set up shop solewhere else. Then Mr Whitten and Ms Green and their social justice activist friends can make and serve themselves their own damn ice cream.
Whitten selects his targets carefully — mainly white progressives who are likely to trip over themselves when accused of racism.
There’s a twinkle of hope in all this. Since Sociopathic Justice Warriors are more likely to go after sympathetic progressives than, say, someone likely to tell them to go jump in a lake, they’re going to grind up their own first and foremost. “Alex” selling Whitten out to Andy Ngo is a sign of grumbling in the ranks.
Whitten = a cheap and nasty hustler.
Pretty sure the ex-employees have a case for unfair dismissal.
And yes! Blomgren is a total wan*er!
It’s a protection racket.
If I had a cynical conspiracy-speculating mind I might even wonder whether Green was involved in a sociology experiment “testing” the reactions of store clerks to black customers…
This lot is just dime (6 pence) store versions of the likes of the “Reverend” Al Sharpton, who ginned up the Tawana Bradley hoax, the Crown Heights and Freddie’s Fashion Mart riots that led to deaths, and other hustles that made him so rich he owes millions in back taxes, and the likes of the “Reverend” Jessie Jackson whose “activism” has gotten him a net worth between 10 and 40 million frogskins.
The woman, a professional equity activist, took out a video camera & claimed she was a victim of racism…“So, I’m gonna put this on Facebook and I’m gonna blast their ass.”…Chrysanthius Lathan, a Portland Public Schools teacher and equity trainer who originally recommended the bakery hire Lillian Green, is now consulting for Back to Eden. She’s had at least one meeting with the bakery and is set to start training its staff on diversity, inclusion, and equity in August.
So, yes to sociopathy & clearly premeditated race hustling/protection racket, no to experiment.
It’s also worth noting that during Ms Green’s lengthy video tirade following the incident, at no point does she question her own assumptions, or her own sense of entitlement. Say, her belief that she can walk into an eatery several minutes after closing time and demand to be served by staff already running late, and then accuse them of “Jim Crow” racism, and try to get them fired, successfully, based solely on the noises in her own head. As if only her somewhat theatrical blackness, not her tardiness, could explain what happened.
[ Added: ]
My first proper job was working in a bookstore, where students would regularly breeze in at literally the last minute and try to forcibly extend our hours of business, as if the difference between 6pm and 6:30, or however much time they saw fit to take, were utterly immaterial. And so I’ve long thought of it as rude to enter a store close to closing time, especially if you’re not sure what you want, let alone after closing time, when the ‘open’ sign is switched off. Even if I’d made a mistake about a store’s business hours, I can’t imagine feeling sufficiently entitled to argue the point and play the victim – over a hankering for dessert – and then gleefully start a campaign to get the store besieged and its employees fired.
“Sometimes impact outweighs intent and when that happens people do need to be held accountable.”
This is the language you use to scapegoat somebody as racist while presenting yourself as a trustworthy expert witness who isn’t taking sides. It’s the language of social workers and court-appointed psychologists that we’ve all now learned to speak to some extent from diversity training and Doctor Phil.
Howard Schulz used that kind of language when he threw his Philly store manager to the mob – “I think for her, she is suffering in her own way”. Given the difference in wealth to begin with and the difference in life outcomes, especially since Scuhulz has now leveraged this into a Henry Louis Gates teachable moment on his path to a presidential bid, it’s hard to find words to describe Schulz – “cowardly prick”, while true, is a paltry schoolyard insult.
The lesson here is don’t be a lower caste loser who’s ended up in a customer facing food service job, and don’t expect any protection from the leftwing so-called progressives who historically felt some solidarity or noblesse oblige towards people in your position, but now see you as contemptible and untouchable.
If you’re talented or lucky enough to be an executive, you can afford to insulate yourself from the effects of the diversity and vibrancy that you preach, payoffs to SJWs are just a business cost that can be managed, and if you spin it properly, there’s an opportunity to present yourself as a statesman and reformer. But if you lack the IQ or glibness for a corporate job, then apart from dealing with diversity and vibrancy with no insulation (and no protection or loyalty from your bosses), you’re in a lottery every day for being the target of a Two Minutes Hate.
It’s a protection racket.
In the words of Abu Afak:
“A rider who came to them split them in two (saying)
‘Permitted’, ‘Forbidden’, of all sorts of things.”
When the sadism of raw power over others is of equal or greater importance than the material gain gotten by a racket, then you are dealing with something even farther out along the spectrum of evil.
Sometimes impact outweighs intent…
Want to take a bet on who this one voted for?
They are far closer to the messianic religious sects that obey the orders of semi-divine leaders.
And their gods are extraordinarily arbitrary and capricious. And what Ngo chronicles is the sacrifice of two maidens into the volcano in hopes that it will stop erupting. Maybe.
Count me on the ‘no sympathy for the bakery’ side. They signed up for this bullshit, now they know what it means.
From the article:
In 2016, Sally Krantz opened Saffron Colonial in north Portland, a restaurant featuring historical recipes from the British Empire.
That was either sublime trolling or a massive market research failure.
This is about the rampant anti-blackness in my city that you don’t know about and you’re complicit in, so I don’t care about the intentions.
I’m beginning to think he is not acting in good faith.
In a just world, the gods of the free market would ensure that this bakery has difficulty finding both good help and regular customers.
But back in reality land, it will probably be “Forget it, Jake. It’s Portland.”
All that’s missing is the organ grinder and a tin cup. This guy is nothing but an opportunistic monkey.
So what would happen if a series of ‘customers’ managed to find reasons to yell RACISM!!! or even SEXISM!!! for a couple of weeks? I assume the owner would dutifully fire all of the staff involved, until there was no longer a staff.
If he didn’t, I’d think any wrongful dismissal lawsuits by the original clerks would be much more likely to succeed, and be for larger sums.
“dime (6 pence) store”
Heh. I’ve just noticed that: 10¢ is about 6-7p these days. When F.W.Woolworth opened in Britain in 1909, its fixed prices were, in fact, 1d and 6d. There were 240d, not 100, to the pound, the dollar was fixed at four to the pound, so at 60d to the dollar, 6d was the exact equivalent of a dime. Relative to the dollar, the New Penny is now worth almost the same as the old one. If anything, slightly less.
But a truer measure of how far the currency was debased over the 20th Century is the current fad for fixed-price stores being the near-ubiquitous “pound shop”.
Ann Doran,
…when he threw his Philly store manager to the mob – “I think for her, she is suffering in her own way”.
Of course, the commenters at the link don’t see it that way at all; “the profiling racist hasn’t suffered nearly enough and Schulz is not sufficiently groveling” seems to be the consensus. Jesusfockingchrist, those people are genuinely deranged.
Even if I’d made a mistake about a store’s business hours, I can’t imagine feeling sufficiently entitled to argue the point and play the victim – over a hankering for dessert – and then gleefully start a campaign to get the store besieged and its employees fired.
Two weeks ago I missed a train because I was 10 minutes late. I’m thinking of having the driver fired.
Hard to feel sorry for them.
One of the comments at Quilette was more blunt and the person was happy to see the left eat it’s own, so to speak.
I used to feel that way but these days it makes me sad and ashamed of my race (the human one). I guess it would be enjoyable if these sorts of incidents created cascading waves of people fed up with identity politics but it doesn’t seem to. One could argue that these things add up eventually to a dam breaking but that gives me little solace.
For instance I’m happy the Allies won WWII but don’t delight in Russians killing Germans. I don’t care if they were Nazis, Commies or whathaveyou because it was a tragic loss of life regardless.
I keep coming back to the one question that is central to “our side’s” entire existence: how to fight back – and win! – while not losing our principles and becoming those whom we despise. A great rift has formed in the Pro-West faction over this question and it will need addressing if we hope not only to triumph over the collectivist insanity but avoid replacing it with a merely different flavor of nonsense.
Two weeks ago I missed a train because I was 10 minutes late. I’m thinking of having the driver fired.
In Japan they seem to be having the opposite sort of problems.
Social media has been weaponized. honestly, it’s time something was done about the insanity it causes.
@ John B – it’s time something was done
Yes, but what exactly? That’s the rub isn’t it?
I often get into heated arguments with ideological allies for demanding details, because the solution usually involves using government – the same government that’s chock full of lefties – to punish or nationalize private industry. MOAR SOSHULIZM is not the answer, but admittedly the right course of action is not entirely clear to me.
It’s a protection racket.
Of course it is. The late, great Tom Wolfe documented the motives and the method in ‘The Bonfire of the Vanities’ 30 years ago. The character of ‘Reverend Bacon’ is the archetype for all these hustlers.
I think he’s actually a sociopath..
Hey, it’s a living.
Why don’t people tell this Whitten character to Foxtrot Oscar and mind his own business?
After the talk, I went to the ATM and got out $20 to give him because I really do think his point about being compensated for his efforts is valid.
It’s extraordinary that somebody would allow himself to be so thoroughly humiliated. And then go on talking as if he’s been left with a shred of respect or moral authority.
Is he deluding himself that this is like fraternity hazing, where showing he’s a good sport about ritual humiliation qualifies him as a member of the brotherhood? This seems more like street intimidation, where the reward for allowing yourself to be bullied is that the bullying will continue and escalate.
Tom Wolfe, in Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, has a scene where a black activist asks a white social welfare bureaucrat what his salary is and why he doesn’t hand it over to the cause he claims to care about so much. Wolfe puts the narrative point of view inside the mind of the bureaucrat, who for a minute or two imagines getting marched down to the bank to withdraw all his money, then figures out that the activist is just fucking with him (for the moment), and then tries to reconstruct his dignity and reimagine himself as a respectable man who’s made a generous concession instead of a coward who’s just been punked.
6d was the exact equivalent of a dime
In midcentury British films about spivs and juvenile delinquents, a half crown (a frequently used coin worth two and a half shillings – enough to buy lunch or a beer) is often called a half dollar. I wonder if the spivs picked it up from American troops for whom it was a convenient way of converting £-s-d into the correct amount of two-bitses.
She’s doing a PhD in education.
She’s doing a PhD in education.
We don’t deserve her gifts.
You know I’m shocked, shocked I tell you, that Lillian Green is fat, ugly and angry.
Never saw that coming.
Here is a good article on this vendetta:
https://heartiste.wordpress.com/2018/06/04/revolt-of-the-revolting/
“Two white women is in front of me…”
And while Ms Green is filming herself engorged with indignation – and demanding the firing of two unfortunate sales clerks, essentially because they’re white – she still finds time to fret about whether the “two white women” in front of her in the queue were actually women, even though they appeared to be. Because she wouldn’t want to misgender them.
Count me on the ‘no sympathy for the bakery’ side.
Count me on the ‘no sympathy for the employees‘ side.
Nobody moves from rural Idaho to Portland, and takes a job at a wankfest of a cafe like this one, without knowing exactly what kind of dogs they’re lying down with.
Being stupid has to hurt. If it doesn’t hurt, people won’t stop being stupid.
how to fight back – and win! – while not losing our principles and becoming those whom we despise.
People always seem to forget that the protections of the Geneva Conventions apply only to those countries that signed them. Sometimes, you have to firebomb Dresden and not feel guilty about it afterwards.
“you have to firebomb Dresden and not feel guilty about it afterwards”
So we need to firebomb the left. Who exactly? Where? How much? How do we ensure non-lefties won’t be consumed by the blaze? Or are we not supposed to feel guilty about the collateral damage either?
What is that you say? You were being metaphorical*? Oh. Issue is still open I suppose.
*Even the metaphor fails to inspire: the fact that we DO feel guilty about firebombing civilians is not something to decry, but to be celebrated. Governments trying their damndest to kill their entire population (see: Europe’s entire history thru 1945) is not my idea of an enlightened example of winning.
Sometimes, you have to firebomb Dresden and not feel guilty about it afterwards.
That. But more so than that, this one weird trick will prevent most of this SJW, Antifa, etc. BS from getting off the ground…Ready for it? Stop funding the idiotic education system which provides the foundation for such idiocy. Don’t be giving the enemy the guns and the bullets with which they will shoot you.
You were being metaphorical
Yes. Clearly. Unless modern-day Dresden is a hotbed of race-baiting cultural Marxism, in which case not. I don’t know, I’m not really familiar with current affairs in Germany.
Feeling guilty about fighting a war to win against an enemy demonstrably unbound by Marquis of Queensbury rules isn’t ‘something to be celebrated’, it is suicidal. And as WTP pointed out, we needn’t do anything quite so destructive; simply shunning people from polite society for espousing Marxist pieties would go a long way towards making being stupid hurt.
Because playing nice when your enemy is consistently aiming for the crotch means you end up with either bread lines or helicopters.
Ah yes, it’s either firebombing innocent civilians or the Marquis of Queensbury. Sorry, not going to buy that bullshit false dichotomy. And neither are you apparently:
playing nice when your enemy is consistently aiming for the crotch
…
simply shunning people from polite society
Shunning people? What are you, some kind of cuck?!? Would you simply shun someone if they punched you in the dick?
Ridiculous, empty chest thumping is easy. Solutions are hard, and not because we don’t have good ideas based on solid, fair principles, but because persuasion is hard.
For example I wholeheartedly agree that we taxpayers shouldn’t be funding universities, but believe so regardless of who is running those institutions. I imagine most people on the right agree for some reason or another with the sentiment, yet how many politicians and pundits push that solution? How many normies would sign on even if they did? Even our gracious host shows example after example of the clown quarter yet ending taxpayer funding for higher ed never seems to come up.
And that’s a straightforward example. From how people talk you’d think we’re seconds away from a shooting war yet when it comes time to discuss actual, real-world ways to counter the enemy it’s nothing but rah-rah platitudes.
Ironically, ending publicly funded education at all levels is one of my 2 pet issues. I think it’s the alpha and omega of contemporary problems facing the West. Conservatives rail against even the sniff of socialism yet happily send their children to socialists detention facilities all the way up through adulthood.
Looking back it’s really no surprise that the marxists were able to become the dominant cultural force so quickly. It wasn’t holding fast to principles that caused it, but rather the consistent abandonment of those principle for the sake of “playing nice”, or for simply getting free shit.
Copied this from Ace by commenter Zombie (The Zombie?…) but this is encouraging:
@ John B – it’s time something was done
Yes, but what exactly? That’s the rub isn’t it?
Step 1: build a Lofstrom Launch Loop
Step 2: Strip-mine the moon for materials
Step 3: mass-produce large (>100mi diameter) space habitats.
Step 4: emigrate. Each identity group gets its own world and can ignore the rest of us.
Apparently Mr Whitten has discovered Mr Ngo’s “alt-right” article.
Oh, my…
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/298845/