Rod Dreher on identity politics versus art: 

Schutz’s painting has been denounced by some black artists and others, because the painter is white. Hannah Black, a British-born black artist, has written an open letter demanding that the Whitney Museum not only take the painting down, but also destroy it. 

Mark Steyn on our tolerant betters: 

The left doesn’t want to win the debate. They want to cancel the debate… A case in point, [this headline]: “Citing security issues, the Somalian-born activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali calls off her scheduled Australian tour.” Let’s just expand that “Somali-born activist” précis a little. She’s not a dead white male like me or Charles Murray. As someone once said, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is everything the identity-group fetishists profess to dig: female, atheist, black, immigrant. But, because she does not toe the party line on Islam, her blackness washes off her like a bad dye job on a telly anchor-man – and so do her femaleness and godlessness and immigrant status. And in the end she is Charles Murray, or Geert Wilders – or even David Duke. A black Somali woman is, it turns out, a “white supremacist.”

And by way of timely illustration, at Villanova University, Charles Murray once again encounters the leftist welcome wagon: 

Political science professor and event coordinator Colleen Sheehan offered [the disruptive students] the first question during the Q&A. Nonetheless, all offers by the hosts were rebuffed by the protesters, who continued to interrupt the lecture.

Note how these attention-seeking clowns – who grin at their own lies and then demand applause – are indulged, effetely and at length, by university staff, as if the venue were a toddlers’ day-care centre. And note that the protestors, who wish to impose themselves on others and inhibit other people’s discussion, refuse to participate in the debate without ultimate veto and Disruptor’s Privilege.

Further to this item, here’s more news of diversity down under:

“I’m sorry, you can’t come here. It’s a multicultural playgroup.”

And so it’s not for the likes of you. 

Meanwhile, in the chronically fretful, joy-sapping world of Everyday Feminism, where absolutely everything is politicised, and where politicised invariably means oppressive, Caleb Luna ponders the gay hook-up app Grindr, and why he – sorry, they – attracts so little interest: 

As a fat person, I have rarely received any messages on Grindr, and people frequently don’t respond to my messages.

Conceivably, some users may be familiar with Mr Luna’s written output and its wearying effect. I’m guessing that declaring oneself a they, and a writer for Everyday Feminism, isn’t widely regarded as a potent aphrodisiac.

The only times I’ve been approached on Grindr have been by people who come to the app knowing they’re attracted to my body type. This gives me reason to believe that the same is true for other Grindr users. Most Grindr users have a predetermined body type they are attracted to – a thin one.

In much the same way that pornography featuring fat ‘non-binary’ models remains a niche interest. A shocking revelation. Less shocking, however, is that the option of weight loss isn’t explored, at all. Instead, it seems, we should all “interrogate” and “expand” our desires via immersion in intersectional dogma:

You can start by diversifying the range of bodies you allow into your pool of sexual possibilities.

Thus empowered, we will overcome our “phobias,” which is to say our preferences, and consequently start lusting after “alternative bodies.” Specifically, bodies like Mr Luna’s. However, in the meantime, things are looking grim:  

So, while Grindr is discussed as a place where anyone who might be considered a man can find men to have sex with, who are (mostly) looking to have sex with men, this isn’t how my experience has played out.

It’s a sad tale, yes, and about to get sadder.

And while there is certainly nothing stopping me from staying on Grindr, when I get no conversation or dates, it ultimately only takes up space on my phone.

You’ll find tissues at the bar.

That space is better used for pictures of people who actually do love and want me,

Wait for it.

Gravity is a cruel mistress. // The abandoned sofas of Los Angeles. // Lynda Carter lets rip. // A momentary rabbit. // “I love you, robot.” // At last, robotic tentacles. What could possibly go wrong? // His black paint is blacker than yours. // If only your children had been this well-behaved. (h/t, Damian) // Puppies versus couches, the oldest battle. // Dog Botox. // “Don’t do anything stupid.” // Punk in 60 seconds. // 24 seconds of frog cell division. // On zed versus zee. // Typing breakthroughs of yore. // Baked potato. // He has more baby pandas than you do. // How to build an impractical clock. // An archive of Japanese animation. // Melting and unmelting. // Attention, Western feminists. // Beat box. // And finally, foxily, and armed with ample duct tape, a beat box babe.

SJW Nonsense reports from Australia’s Clown Quarter, where jokes about absurdity will be punished absurdly: 

On the 28^th May 2013, an incident took place in a computer lab on the campus at the Queensland University of Technology. A student, Alex Wood, and two friends walked into the computer lab, hoping to use a computer. A university staff member, Cindy Prior, approached the group and asked them whether or not they were indigenous, informing them that they had entered an “indigenous space” for aboriginal students, and that they needed to find another computer room on campus. The students left the lab at her request. Later, Alex posted a comment in a student Facebook group, saying, “Just got kicked out of the unsigned indigenous computer room. QUT: stopping segregation with segregation?” Among many comments was one by another student, Jackson Powell, saying, “I wonder where the white supremacist computer lab is?”

In August 2015, over two years after the incident occurred, Alex and Jackson discovered that legal action was being taken against them for their Facebook comments. Who was so grievously harmed to be pursuing this legally, years later? None other than Cindy Prior, the woman who had initially asked Alex and his friends to leave the computer lab due to their race. Ms Prior claimed that the comments caused her to suffer “offence, embarrassment, humiliation and psychiatric injury.” Ms Prior was not mentioned by name anywhere in the comments, but she was so psychologically damaged by the posts that she had been unable to return to work due to the “trauma,” and was now seeking some $250,000 in lost wages, general damages and future economic loss.

The chronically hyperbolical Ms Prior claimed to have suffered from “sweating,” as a result of students even questioning the need for a racially segregated computer lab, and to have felt “at risk of imminent but unpredictable physical or verbal assault.” Happily, this opportunist scam ultimately failed, but only after other targets of Ms Prior’s grasping psychodrama had settled out of court.

For newcomers, more items from the archives:

An Intellectual Being Rides Again. 

Empowered feminist Melissa Fabello explains the deep, deep trauma of being disagreed with.

Ms Fabello chastises those who ironically use the term “social justice warrior” – which, she explains, is an “invalidating behaviour,” one that can get “really oppressive really quickly.”

We Can’t Promise Not To Hit You. 

The Clown Quarter is a foretaste of left’s corrected, more compassionate society. Hence all the threats and punching.  

To recap, the university’s stated rationale for censorship is that it can’t protect either the speakers or their audience from disruption and thuggery by its own students, which is quite an admission, really. And as we’ve seen, the threat of physical intimidation and mob harassment – by these would-be intellectuals of the left – is quite real. What the university doesn’t admit, however, is that this problem won’t be solved by banning any speakers deemed remotely controversial – in this case, two speakers who prefer evidence and debate over threats and hysteria. The problem will only be addressed, or begin to be addressed, when leftist students no longer feel that mob censorship and physical intimidation are things they can get away with, and get away with repeatedly, without facing consequences. Say, being expelled.

You’re Doing It All Wrong.

Avowed “feminist killjoy” Josefin Hedlund wants to correct your erotic preferences and make them egalitarian. For “social justice.”

Love and sex are unequally “distributed,” says Ms Hedlund, with an unfair amount of both going to people who are deemed lovable and attractive by the people loving them, and not to insufferable sociopaths with horrific disfigurements. Or, one suspects, self-styled “feminist killjoys.” And this is because of capitalism. It’s “obvious,” you see. 

There’s more, should you want it, in the greatest hits. And tickling the tip jar is what keeps this place afloat. 

Once again, you’ll have to throw together your own pile of links and oddities in the comments. I will, however, set the ball rolling with an unorthodox approach to convenient and accessible public transport, an improvisational robotic marimba player, and news from the world of niche attractions, where “scholars have identified the northern coast of Colombia as a hotbed of man-goat coitus.”

Oh, and then there’s this, which I think you just have to see for yourself.

These are moves of power, not moves of reason.

Filmmaker Rob Montz visits Yale, where the Clown Quarter’s trademark psychodrama has alarming influence: 

Mr Montz previously visited Brown University, his alma mater. And for those who may have missed it, Evan Coyne Maloney’s documentary Indoctrinate U was released almost a decade ago. Evidently, things have not improved.

Claire Lehmann on the denial of gender differences and its (literally) poisonous effects: 

[Feminist author Cordelia Fine] argued that neuroscientists should be schooled in the theory of intersectionality — “the principle that important social identities like gender, ethnicity, and social class mutually constitute, reinforce, and naturalise one another.” At first glance, this is a peculiar demand… To practise intersectionality, one must privilege the voices of black women over white women, and the voices of women over men, for example. The least privileged deserve the most sympathy; the straight white male deserves the least. The relevance for neuroscience is unclear at best. But its utility as an ideological weapon has made it popular among academics hoping to politicise scholarship and silence their enemies.

Richard Reeves and Dmitrios Halikias on our new would-be overlords: 

One overlooked irony of the events at Middlebury is how they proved some of the points that [Charles] Murray made in his book, Coming Apart, which he had been invited to discuss. The book documents the separation of a “new upper class,” raised in rich neighbourhoods, immersed in liberal, cosmopolitan values, and educated at expensive, liberal universities. In other words, it profiles the students of Middlebury College… We found that the schools where students have attempted to disinvite speakers are substantially wealthier and more expensive than average. Since 2014, there have been attempts at some 90 colleges to disinvite speakers, mostly conservatives. The average enrollee at a college where students have attempted to restrict free speech comes from a family with an annual income $32,000 higher than that of the average student in America. In the chart below, the pattern is clear: the more economically exclusive the institution, the more likely it is the students have attempted to hinder free speech.

For those who missed it, Dr Murray’s first-hand account of the Middlebury protest-cum-riot can be found here. 

Jordan Peterson on “white privilege” as a rhetorical tactic: 

The idea that you can target an ethnic group with a collective crime, regardless of the specific innocence or guilt of the constituent elements of that group, there is absolutely nothing that’s more racist than that. It’s absolutely abhorrent… and precisely the sort of danger that people who are really looking for trouble would push.

And Cathy Young on the dishonesties and delusions of feminist author Rebecca Solnit:

Solnit claims domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to American women; yet Centres for Disease Control and Prevention statistics show that all assault, domestic or not, ranks eighth among causes of injury to women — behind not only falls and car accidents but insect stings and animal bites.

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

Elliott Dordick reports: 

Several faculty members at Pitzer College recently discussed launching an “investigation” of a student paper for accurately reporting a student’s public comments about “cultural appropriation.”

These comments here, about the chest-crushing oppression of seeing white people wearing big hooped earrings.

Professors and administrators at the Claremont Colleges took to public Facebook posts to vent their frustrations, proposing free speech limits on campus and an “investigation” to shut down the conservative student journal.

Because that’s what grown-ups do now. At least on campus.

“We have a serious problem with the Claremont Independent bullying young women of colour and illegally posting their emails, exposing them to violence,” Suyapa Portillo, an Assistant Professor of Chicano-Latino Studies at Pitzer College, recently posted to her public Facebook page. 

Quoting verbatim public comments – comments that were directed at the entire campus via the Student Talk listserv and sprayed onto a wall - is now “bullying” and “violence,” apparently. At least on campus.

“This is dangerous, irresponsible slander and [is] unacceptable. The minute one of our women of colour students feels unsafe on campus ALL of our students of colour and faculty of colour are unsafe. #STOPBullying #TitleIX #ShutItDown #StopHate.”

“Shut it down,” she hashtags, seated proudly on a pile of non sequitur. Because accurate and undisputed quoting is, via some unspecified mental contortion, now to be regarded as slanderous and hateful, and a mortal threat to every brownish person within a ten-mile radius, and thus something to be stopped.

At least on campus.