Via Min in the comments,

Arlene Dávila, a professor at NYU and founding director of the Latinx Project, believes that looting, theft, and destruction are all part of this essential tapestry of protest. She writes, “Anyone surprised that protests include looting of luxury stores in Soho & elsewhere doesn’t know the 1st thing about racial capitalism & luxury consumption. Racial exploitation is at the root of consumer capitalism built on the commodification of black bodies through slavery.”

Those with a taste for adolescent nihilism tarted-up as woke theorising can head over here for more of the same. There, you’ll learn that sweatshops exist and that “advertising is one of the whitest industries in corporate America,” and that therefore – yes, therefore – people who recently found their businesses and neighbourhoods violated and ablaze should just quit complaining and suck it up, baby.

One can only hope that Professor Dávila returns home one evening to find that it too has been chosen as a target of ‘protest’, i.e., robbed of anything valuable and merrily on fire. Possibly as a result of parents belatedly registering the kinds of people now entrusted to educate their children. Or would that somehow be unfair? I ask because, stripped of its rote contortions, Professor Dávila’s reasoning seems to be, “I am unhappy, therefore I am obviously entitled to smash whatever I choose, terrorise whomever I choose, however arbitrarily, and to destroy the hopes and livelihoods of countless random people.”

Because – magic words - social justice.

Readers may note just how often leftism is functionally indistinguishable from sociopathy.

Update, via the comments: 

Note too that Professor Dávila carefully sidesteps the countless scenes of feral violence against random people, including elderly women, even terrified animals, and wants us to imagine that the rioting and looting and arson have been neatly confined to “luxury stores” and is therefore, somehow, acceptable, even righteous. Something to applaud. Of course, this is a lie, as hours of video footage demonstrate. But it’s interesting how our dishonest woke educator, our teacher of other people’s children, seems to believe that the property of the owners of those stores, and the livelihoods of the people they employ, and the ongoing nightmare for the people who just live nearby or in the same smashed and burning buildings… well, they don’t matter.

And so, Dr Louise Raw, a suitably woke BBC-employed writer and historian, denounces “virulent class prejudice” as a self-evidently bad thing, and then, in the very next tweet, is publicly amused by the thought of “rich, white, middle-aged men” being killed in disproportionate numbers, complete with smiley-winky face. 

And when other Twitter users point out this contradiction, with varying degrees of liveliness, our woke historian and BBC employee doubles down and dismisses those objecting, en masse, as “fascists,” “neo-Nazis” and “right-wing” crayon-eaters. Presumably on grounds that no-one else, none of her enlightened leftist peers, would register a contradiction. Or anything unsavoury. 

Update, via the comments: 

It’s worth taking a moment to ponder what it must be like to inhabit a milieu in which public expressions of racial disdain are not only aired with expectations of impunity, but also as a marker of status. A way of signalling one’s social credentials and general modishness. And being so accustomed to this environment, so steeped in its values, that, when challenged, the obvious response is to construe any demurral – all of it, wholesale – as the work of “neo-Nazis.”

It’s a complicated dance. Quite a contortion.

Via [+] in the comments.

Attention, woke citizens. During the current lockdown, do you feel a need to “challenge microaggressions” – those “verbal, behavioural or environmental indignities that communicate hostile, derogatory or negative racial slights”? Specifically, those committed during video conferencing?

According to Michigan State University’s Amy Bonomi, director of the university’s Children and Youth Institute, and Neila Viveiros, associate vice chancellor for academic operations at the University of Colorado Denver, the expanded use of virtual meeting platforms such as Zoom and Skype has created “a ripe setting for unconscious bias.”

But of course. The frontier of indignation must forever expand.

“Unconscious bias includes using language, symbolism and nonverbal cues that reinforce normative social identities with respect to gender, race, sexual preference and socioeconomic status,” Bonomi said. “For example, when the virtual background of a Zoom meeting attendee has pictures of his or her wedding, it unintentionally reinforces the idea that marriage is most fitting between opposite sexes.”

It turns out that the reckless visibility of a wedding photo may be crushing the self-esteem out of the touchily unwed. You see, the mere sight of a photo of someone’s happy day can “crowd out the experiences of people with minoritized social identities,” albeit in ways never quite explained. Other taboos include references to “simple activities like family dance parties,” which are apparently a thing, and “gardening with a spouse.”

Curiously, given the stated importance of “sensitivity” and being mindful of what things might mean, we aren’t invited to ponder the kind of person who would resent someone else’s wedding photo. And then complain about it. Or whether such neurotic affectations, these unhappy mental habits, are something to be actively encouraged. In the name of progress. At a university.

Update, via the comments:

Robert Murphy on the pathologies of the leftist campus:   

This is not a matter of “Oh, gee, there’s a bunch of people who have different views about whether health insurance should be provided by the government.” That’s not what I’m talking about. [These are people whose reaction is,] “Oh, there’s a speaker coming to campus and we don’t like that person’s views. We are going to credibly threaten that we will break stuff and hurt people, we will set things on fire and smash windows.” And so, then the school has to cancel because of security concerns. And then that gets spun as “Oh yeah, the reason that speaker couldn’t come here is because he would incite violence.” The kind of mindset that would do that and would see nothing weird about that. “Yeah, the reason the speaker can’t come here is because he promotes violence – by us, his enemies.” 

Which rather calls to mind the tenderly whispered wife-beater’s lament: “Don’t make me hurt you, baby.”

Needless to say, examples abound. And do note the role of their academic enablers.

Cathy Young on Lenin and his admirers: 

Many leftists in places like Jacobin magazine see Lenin as the “good communist” to Joseph Stalin’s “bad communist” — the revolutionary wrongly maligned as an authoritarian. Indeed, Lenin’s birthday this year was marked on Twitter by New York State Senator Julia Salazar, a member of the new crop of young progressive politicians. The “Lenin good, Stalin bad” formula was also popular among Soviet reformers, both in the late 1950s-early 1960s and in the late 1980s. It was wrong then; it is wrong now… As independent Russian historian Nikita Sokolov recently told Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe, Lenin’s only consistent position throughout his political career was that “he was a fundamental believer in violence as the solution to any problem.” 

Based on history, and their own writings, it seems entirely possible that devotees of Marxoid fantasy typically start with the ideal of violence and coercion, the titillating rewards of having power over others, and then work backwards in search of a pretext.

Oh, and Dr Jennifer Cassidy is an Oxford University politics lecturer who has thoughts on what kind of books you’re allowed to have on your shelves.

For newcomers and the nostalgic, more items from the archives:

Don’t Oppress My People With Your Public Libraries.

Woke librarian denounces “so-called ‘knowledge’” of pale people. 

Ms Leung airs her distaste for “white men ideas” – as if they had been uniform across continents and throughout history – while reminiscing about attending a “white AF conference” two years earlier. I was unsure what the “AF” might refer to and searched for some literary or scholarly explanation. It then occurred to me that a “white AF conference” is, to borrow the woke vernacular, a white as fuck conference. Which is how not-at-all-racist academic librarians convey their thoughts, apparently.

It’s Petty When It Happens To Someone Else.

Atlantic columnist Lauren Smiley excuses chronic thievery via rhetorical limbo-dancing.

Ms Fairley – who invokes racism as a cause of her local notoriety, and whose extensive cache of stolen belongings included other people’s credit cards – is described to us at length and in the softest possible light. We learn of her dysfunctional upbringing, her struggles with a mouldy apartment, and her various drug habits, including “trekking daily to a methadone clinic” – a heroic feat, apparently. Ms Fairley’s failure to attend numerous court dates – for petty theft, mail theft, receiving stolen property, possession of heroin, and child endangerment – is, we learn, due to her having “a lot going on” in her life. In at least one instance, it turns out that what was going on was stealing from a resident she’d previously targeted and who, while being robbed again, was waiting to see Ms Fairley appear in court.

Your Standards Are Holding You Back.

Brooklynite lefties launch socialist-only dating platform. Things do not go well.

Ms Isser’s indignation at the thought of socialist women being romantically shunned, even by fellow socialists, was aired in December in a Twitter howling session, during which extensive use was made of exclamation marks. After much exasperated rumbling, Ms Isser concluded that the fault must lie solely with men, and that “straight men are shallow and sexist even when they’re socialists.” Thereby proving that, contrary to legend, ladies of the left are in no way high-maintenance or difficult to please.

There’s more, should you crave it, in the greatest hits. Also, open thread.

At the University of North Texas, a small act of mockery proves revealing:

When [maths professor, Nathaniel] Hiers noticed “a stack of flyers” on microaggressions in the department faculty lounge in November, he read them and found the ideas wanting. Then he wrote “Don’t leave garbage lying around” in jest on a chalkboard, with arrows pointing to the flyers.

Those of a delicate disposition may wish to avoid this image of un-woke waywardness.

Do remember to breathe.

Needless to say, such demurral – promptly construed as “upsetting” and even “threatening” – could not go unpunished:

Hiers claims that the reasons he was given for his firing trace back to the microaggression fliers: He wouldn’t subject himself to “additional diversity training” or retract his criticism of the fliers, and his “actions and response are not compatible with the values of this department.”

Professor Hiers’ claim regarding the reason for his firing appears to be confirmed, in writing, by the maths department chairman Ralf Schmidt, who cites the incident as pivotal in his decision and describes Hiers’ mockery of the flyers as “cowardly.”

The department-endorsed leaflets insist that statements such as “I believe the most qualified person should get the job” are in fact racist, sexist “microaggressions” and, in ways somewhat unclear, terribly oppressive, even a grave health risk, allegedly “targeting” the “marginalised group membership” of theoretical persons. Persons who, we’re told, consequently endure all manner of hardships, from poverty and migraines to heart disease and eating disorders. And so, it turns out that airing a belief in the importance of competence – as opposed to a preoccupation with a person’s sex or skin colour – is some kind of malevolent incantation, a powerful curse.

Professor Hiers is now suing the University of North Texas.

This isn’t someone who barely squeaked through her degree. She was celebrated as the best there was at her school.

Janice Fiamengo ponders the mental state of a feminist and openly misandrist social worker. 

Kristina Agbebiyi, the lady in question, was hailed as “student of the year” by the University of Michigan’s social work department for her “commitment to political activities,” her embodiment of the “professional ethics of social work,” and for her “contribution to the positive image” of said field. Repeatedly boasting of a hatred of men is, we learn, not only a “commitment,” “a way of life” and a “revolutionary task,” but something to applaud. A credential of some kind. It “isn’t a game,” says Ms Agbebiyi.

Update, via the comments:

Readers may find themselves marvelling at how someone so fêted, and who evidently expects no challenging of her pronouncements by either peers or employers, nonetheless exults in theatrical victimhood and insists that she is “living oppression from the inside.” That the supposedly radical politics of which Ms Agbebiyi is so proud is usually an ostentatious leisure activity, an indulgence of the privileged, somehow passes unremarked. Though I do like the description of Ms Agbebiyi as a “narcissistic self-infatuate.”

Needless to say, the cause of this alleged “oppression” isn’t made clear, let alone persuasive. Apparently, it’s now the custom to invoke victimhood, as if it were a goal, a basis for acclaim, without actually specifying what it is that’s supposedly oppressing you. After browsing the lady’s Twitter feed, the best I can deduce is that the fact that prisons exist, at all, anywhere, is an unendurable burden on Ms Agbebiyi’s tissue-paper psyche. We should, it seems, wish for the “abolition” of prisons and “the ending of cops.” Because the world would be so much better if rapists, carjackers and sociopathic predators could act with impunity, uninhibited by even a small risk of punishment.

Some of Professor Fiamengo’s previous adventures in feminist psychology can be found here and here. 

Steven Malanga on question-begging “equity” and its corrosive effects:  

The equity movement presumes that any unequal results in society reflect structural or institutional racism, even when officials can’t identify any actual discrimination. To redress these purported inequities, the movement demands that every city department’s mission, and every major decision in local government, be looked at from a racial-equity perspective. In practice, this has meant mandatory bias training for municipal and school employees, in order to root out “policies that work better for white people,” in the words of one advocacy group, and laws passed in a number of cities that limit what employers can ask job applicants (about any past criminal history, especially), as well as other measures. […] The basic, but highly dubious, assumption behind these reports, and the equity movement generally, is that no possible behavioural differences among ethnic or racial groups might account for different life outcomes. 

Some of the examples of “equity” education are rather boggling in their evasions. Mr Malanga also discusses the “equity” approach to school discipline, which was predictably disastrous, and mentioned here and here. As I said at the time,

What’s remarkable here isn’t that young thugs and budding sociopaths will quickly exploit immunity from punishment based solely on their race, but the fact that grown adults, supposed professionals, many of whom will be parents, either didn’t see this coming or realised what would happen and went ahead anyway, thereby screwing everyone else. 

And – not entirely unrelated – Lee Jussim on the dysfunctions of academia – in neologism form:

Equalitarianism: A dogmatic, quasi-religious belief that all groups are equal in all traits that matter, usually accompanied by the belief that the only credible source of group differences is discrimination and outrage at anyone who suggests otherwise. Often accompanied by the belief that women and minorities are inherently or essentially more virtuous.

Emotional imperialism: The strange belief that your feelings should dictate someone else’s behaviour.

See also the subsequent comments, in which Quillette readers suggest additions. For instance,

Ovaryaction: the compulsion to create neologisms such as manspreading, mansplaining, and himpediment, attributing flaws by individual men as representative of all men to buttress the assertion of systemic, institutional oppression of modern, Western women by the bogeyman known as patriarchy.

As usual, feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.

From Tulane University, the very heart of White Devil Babylon – uptown New Orleans – student Shahamat Uddin – pronouns “he, him, his” – howls in protest:

Punctuality centres whiteness. It is far easier for white men to get to work on time than Black people who are having to change their hair to fit the workplace’s professionalism standards.

It’s a hair thing, yes, and therefore terribly political, a hill to die on. But it’s even more than that. It’s also the devastating suspicion that you might be more likely to get hired if you remove your nose piercing, if only during office hours:

I remember the cultural pride I felt when I got my gold studded nose piercing, admiring my ancestors who donned the same kind of jewellery. I take it out now because I know I need a job, and I have learned from the Brown and Black people before me what I have to sacrifice to get one.

You see, wondering whether that nose piercing will be frowned upon, by employers or their customers, constitutes “systemic white supremacy,” a crushing phenomenon “that is barring us from maximal success.” It’s a “sacrifice,” an outrage, proof of being downtrodden. Because nose jewellery is pivotal to both optimal functioning and mental wellbeing. And questions of whether such piercings are ideal for a given workplace – however unspecified and theoretical those questions may be – amount to further, damning proof that “this country was not made for me.”

I have learned when and where it is to my own disadvantage to be too Brown or too gay or too immigrant.

One more time, Tulane University. Where tuition is a mere $60,000 a year. And where the oppressed huddle for comfort against the Cold Winds of Whiteness.

Writing in the pages of Inside Higher Ed, sociology student and “self-identified fat woman” Bobbi Reidinger bemoans the hardships of the chunky would-be educator:

Fat academics need to be more vocal in calls for increased structural accessibility such as larger desks or substitutions for tables and chairs, greater ease in access to elevators, and more. Yet in addition to structural changes that campuses could make to help people of size be more comfortable — such as providing larger bathrooms, chairs without arms and larger auditorium seating — we need to discuss more techniques to combat stigma within classrooms.

You see, it’s not just a question of remodelling half the campus:

Weight-based stigma has an impact on the credibility of fat academics, in particular female academics who often must contend with both gender and fat stigmas… Weight stigma negatively impacts a professor’s credibility as a communicator within the classroom, with greater credibility being given to those who argue against their own self-interest.

Being sufficiently obese that it requires special furniture and enlarged bathrooms, and such that it becomes an obvious topic of classroom conversation, is in a person’s self-interest, apparently. As opposed to, say, a significant health concern – a cause of hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, gallbladder disease, stroke, osteoarthritis, joint failure, incontinence, sleep apnea, breathing problems, depression, anxiety, and cancer.

Therefore, when a fat professor makes their fatness salient inside the classroom, their fatness overrides their educational and occupational statuses, as students interpret this information as coming from an unreliable source.

It occurs to me that if an overweight educator, or would-be educator, presents her own fatness as a kind of moral elevation, a political piety arrived at via victimhood, and then demands oversized desks, plus-sized seats without arms, modified lifts, modified bathrooms, modified auditoria, “and more” – and does all this while sidestepping responsibility for her own rotundity – then students would do well to question the motives and credibility of such a person. And when a teacher or grad student fails to convince a class and promptly blames that failure on some alleged-but-undemonstrated sexism or “weight stigma,” as if that were both obvious and the only conceivable explanation, this is not necessarily proof of injustice or unrecognised talent.