Two lefties walk into a bar. 

Via Rafi. Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

Frances Widdowson on the “indigenised” Canadian university, where pretending is everything:  

In 2018, one of the co-directors at my university’s Office of Academic Indigenisation invited an Indigenous elder to give a presentation on “Western Medicine vs. Traditional Healing Medicine.” A member of the audience asked the elder what he recommended for the “gut problems” afflicting her child. In response, the elder stated that the parent should “rub corn pollen on his feet and do a sunrise ceremony.” A number of professors in the Faculty of Science and Technology attending the session acknowledged afterwards that this example of “traditional healing medicine” was completely inconsistent with evidence-based scientific medical techniques (as seems obvious, even to those of us who aren’t doctors). But they remained silent at the event, as did everyone else, out of “respect.”

Not quite the right word, I think.

Readers will note that the beneficiary of this “respect” is the peddler of primitive woo, the one being deferred to as a quasi-magical being, some kind of leprechaun. Not the mother whose child was in need of medical attention. I am, of course, assuming that gastro-intestinal ailments won’t actually be cured by rubbing corn pollen on your feet. But such are progressive priorities. There’s much more to chew, and some noteworthy contortions are performed, so do peruse the whole thing. It does rather convey the unhinged, neurotic atmosphere of woke academia. There are also other gifts of aboriginal piety and “indigenous knowledge.” For instance,

[A]t the University of Winnipeg in 2015… presiding Indigenous elders declared that it was in keeping with their traditions that women in attendance should wear long skirts. (Two years earlier, at the University of Saskatchewan, a poster promoting a similar event instructed women to skip the ceremony if they were menstruating.)

And,

[W]hen I attended an “Empowering Indigenisation Symposium” a few months later, an elder said that his “knowledge” included the belief that trees come out of dormancy in the spring because birds sing to them.

Please update your files and lifestyles accordingly.

Somewhat related: Guardian columnist denounces Western medicine as “outdated,” champions use of bush dung.

Via Nikw211.

I paraphrase, of course. Though not by much: 

The hired facilitators asked each member of the department to respond to various personal questions about race and racial identity. When it was my turn to respond, I said “I don’t feel comfortable talking about that.” I was the only person in the room to abstain. Later, the facilitators told everyone present that a white person’s discomfort at discussing their race is a symptom of “white fragility.” They said that the white person may seem like they are in distress, but that it is actually a “power play.” In other words, because I am white, my genuine discomfort was framed as an act of aggression. I was shamed and humiliated in front of all of my colleagues.

I filed an internal complaint about the hostile environment, but throughout that process, over the course of almost six months, I felt like my complaint was taken less seriously because of my race. I was told that the civil rights law protections were not created to help people like me. And after I filed my complaint, I started to experience retaliatory behaviour, like having important aspects of my job taken away without explanation…

What passes for “progressive” today at Smith [College] and at so many other institutions is regressive… and I fear this is rapidly leading us to a very twisted place. It terrifies me that others don’t seem to see that racial segregation and demonisation are wrong and dangerous no matter what its victims look like. Being told that any disagreement or feelings of discomfort somehow upholds “white supremacy” is not just morally wrong. It is psychologically abusive.

Of the people being degraded and stupefied by “critical race theory” – and there are a lot of them – some, a few, are daring to object, albeit belatedly. Those who do, however – like Ms Jodi Shaw, quoted above – may find themselves being told that they are “in need of further training,” which is to say, more of the aforementioned psychological abuse. Iterations of which can be found here. By politely questioning the assumptions of “critical race theory,” and by drawing attention to its non-reciprocal premise, Ms Shaw is apparently a danger of some kind and requires yet more indoctrination, and more bullying, “before she can safely interact with students and fellow staff.” 

Update:

Douglas Murray on the “unconscious bias” hustle: 

[“Unconscious bias” testing] became the basis of an industry, propelled by people pushing divisive ideas about identity politics. These people either believed or professed to believe that the exercise was scientific and could actually correct the brains and behaviour of anyone who had beliefs they disagreed with. So far and fast did this run that soon the inventors of the monster realised what they’d created and tried to kill it. Two of the three Harvard academics responsible said publicly that the exercise was not capable of being used in the way it was being used. There are too many variables in peoples’ behaviour over any day, never mind over time, to quantify, pin down - let alone ‘correct’ anyone’s ‘biases’. But that is where the opportunists came in. For in recent years another group decided to claim that these ‘tests’ had some laser-like precision. They began to charge hundreds of pounds to people to tell them that they were biased. A very nice racket to get into. For if anyone objected then this was simply yet more evidence of unconscious bias.

The particulars of “unconscious bias” woo were touched on here, where we learned that guilt – and the need for correction – can be determined by the random positioning of a chair. Such is intersectional science.

Via Darleen, Christopher F Rufo finds more primary school indoctrination: 

A fifth-grade teacher at the inner-city William D. Kelley School designed a social studies curriculum to celebrate [Angela] Davis, praising the “black communist” for her fight against “injustice and inequality.” As part of the lesson, the teacher asked students to “describe Davis’ early life,” reflect on her vision of social change, and “define communist”—presumably in favourable terms. At the conclusion of the unit, the teacher led the ten- and eleven-year-old students into the school auditorium to “simulate” a Black Power rally to “free Angela Davis” from prison, where she had once been held while awaiting trial on charges of conspiracy, kidnapping, and murder. The students marched on the stage, holding signs that read “Black Power,” “Jail Trump,” “Free Angela,” and “Black Power Matters.” They chanted about Africa and ancestral power, then shouted “Free Angela! Free Angela!” as they stood at the front of the stage.

In news that will shock no-one, the school in question is not rated highly in academic terms, with only 3 percent of students proficient in maths by sixth grade, and only 9 percent proficient in reading. Still, fear not. Our peddlers of “equity” have a fix for everything.  

And via Mr Muldoon, whiteness has been helpfully classified. For children. By educators.

When wokeness means gaslighting:

Asian Americans need to locate anti-Asian violence as part of a pattern of white supremacy… even if perpetrators of violence are people of colour.

No, really.

The strained use of the word locate is, I think, the first warning that horseshit will follow. And what follows includes an exhortation to not “fall back on racist assumptions” – from a man making, and taking pride in, racist assumptions. Such that a white majority population is deemed uniquely oppressive and objectionable, unlike the majorities of other, browner countries, and people can be categorised, pejoratively, as “white” or “white-aligned.” Mr Nguyen, whose words are quoted above, is of course an educator. Shaping young minds.

If the above isn’t sufficiently vivid and perverse, I’ll direct you to this, posted recently, and in which children are apparently expected to pretend similar things, quite hard, and pretend until they believe.

Because, you see, when a black thug assaults and murders a frail 84-year-old Thai man – attacking him, unprovoked, and slamming him into the ground – this can only be because of “white supremacy.” Obviously. The thug in question, Mr Antione Watson, apparently having no agency of his own, and no responsibility, on account of his magic blackness. And that’s why Mr Watson looked so satisfied with himself as he strode away afterwards, leaving a man to die.

To watch the footage linked above and then deduce that Mr Watson, the aggressor, is actually a victim, a mere puppet of Diabolical Whitey And His Infinite Cunning – and that Mr Watson’s malevolence is in fact, somehow, someone else’s fault – is, we’re assured, “intersectional empowerment.”

Update, via the comments: