Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

Home Front: Culture Wars

The Strange Career of White Privilege

2018-07-12

h/t Instapundit
You hear the phrase "white privilege" nonstop in America these days, as the slogan has transcended the campus and entered popular culture.

...During the civil-rights movement of the 1960s, the nation’s racial tensions were mostly still defined as a binary of a dominant white majority and an often discriminated-against African-American minority.

Years of past prejudice had sparked the idea of affirmative action, or federal reparatory programs accorded to a historically discriminated-against black minority.

However, by the 1980s, owing to new cycles of massive immigration, other minorities likewise explained their own inequality in terms of white-majority oppressors. They lobbied to be included in government reparation programs in job hiring and college admissions.

...Sometimes even slight changes in self-identification have consequences. For the children of intermarried couples, it can be a career-changing decision to evolve from Robert Smith to Robert Garcia Smith (or even better Roberto Garcia Smith) to reflect one’s maternal Latino roots ‐ an effort especially appreciated by universities and employers.

...In some cases, the more desperate have invented minority pedigrees out of whole cloth, like the false but self-serving and opportunistic claim of Senator Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) that she was Native American (on the basis of "high cheekbones" or family mythology), or Professor Ward Churchill’s similar fake Native American get-up that got him hired as a minority at the University of Colorado.

...One of the strangest elements of the American obsession with superficial appearance is the habit of very well connected and affluent whites faulting poor whites for their "white privilege." It has become a sort of rite-of-passage virtue-signaling in which rich, white college students at tony universities damn white privilege and the supposedly racist, nativist, xenophobic, and sexist Trump Neanderthals. With this, they establish their spiritually pure fides or, more practically, earn a sort of insurance policy in case the all-seeing eye of the diversity tower turns its focus on them someday.
And he doesn't even mention "war against men"

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Home Front: Culture Wars

Social Justice Carpetbaggers

2018-02-01

h/t Instapundit
[PJMedia] Carpetbaggers ‐ as I’m sure most of you know ‐ were northerners who went south to make a fortune off the beaten populace and the despoiled land after the Civil War. With the former fighters of the region subdued and controlled by punitive laws, and with the wealth of the region destroyed, it was easy for any northerner johnny-come-lately to make money.

I’m not judging, nor do I attempt to judge the right and wrong of the American Civil War. As in most civil wars, there was no right, a whole lot of wrongs, and even if the emancipation was a good result of it, it caused suffering and injustice all the way up to the present day.

Yeah, what I’m saying is "the thing could have been better handled" but certainly not by me or anyone human, because it was one of those messes humans get into and where there’s no clean solution.

No. I just wanted to note that when the government takes sides, when the government raises some people and lowers others as a matter of being members of a group, there are going to be carpetbaggers. There’s going to be exploitation.

...So it has been with affirmative action. There are government set-asides for practically every category of humans under the sun, and more interestingly, the idea of affirmative action has percolated through the culture, even to those companies that aren’t involved with the government, and therefore don’t need to keep strict proportions amid their employees.

And yes, if anyone wonders, this idea of the government saying you have to have x number of this type of humans and y number of this type of humans is a very bad one.

It is bad for the companies because sometimes the best-qualified applicant isn’t the one you have to hire. More importantly, though, it is very bad for the people thus singled out, and hired, and thus consigned to a special category.
And have you seen that it done to K-12, not to mention universities?
...I don’t know if it’s worse or just tragically comic that this has now started generating (heck, has probably always generated) carpetbaggers, willing to get rich off the conquered territory and willing to lie and scheme their way to power and prominence.

Rachel Dolezal, Shaun King, and yeah, Ward Churchill and Elizabeth Warren are such carpetbaggers, and you know where they get prominent there are hundreds more hiding in the weave of society, pretending to be something they’re not, to take advantage of those who have to hand them something for nothing (and their chicks for free) for the sake of their claiming "minority" and "victim."

...In fact, it corrupts all fields and all enterprises. People elevated beyond their achievements are resentful and think they’re being deliberately being kept down ‐ see Michelle Obama’s reaction to Harvard ‐ while those around them feel put upon and not a little angry.

Progressives complain of the president being "divisive." But their policies of giving unearned benefits to people, on the basis of presumed past discrimination against long-dead ancestors, are what in fact do cause divisiveness and hatred.

It creates social justice carpetbaggers, multiplying like maggots on the body politic. And it makes a mockery of our land’s idea of equal rights before the law -- be they to liberty or to the pursuit of happiness.

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Home Front: Culture Wars

Identity Politics

2015-06-24

[WEEKLYSTANDARD] America was going to have a national conversation about transgender issues, whether we wanted to or not.
We're always having a national conversation about something or other. What would be nice would be a month or two of no babble.
Our cultural betters decreed we would. The perfectly named Vanity Fair deployed its considerable resources to present the coming out of Caitlyn--née Bruce--Jenner in what it took to be the most favorable and pleasing way possible. Jenner's upcoming reality show about the transition will no doubt be inescapable in a way that will make even the Kardashians in his family envious.
"Caitlyn," back when she was "Bruce" won a bunch of Olympic swimming medals and appeared on the Wheaties box. Now, older but probably considerably less wise, he's dressing up in women's clothing, taking women's hormones, and is either about to or already has had his pee-pee chopped off. I'm trying to picture some poor archaeologist firing up the hard drive this has been stored on for eleven thousand years and trying to make sense of it.
Americans are not being asked to tolerate the former Olympian's choices, but to deny reality and accept that Jenner is fully a woman, biology notwithstanding.
That's the set up.Then the punch line:
Now we find ourselves suddenly caught up in a different national conversation about identity, only this time it's causing our progressive overlords a great deal of pain. It recently emerged that Rachel Dolezal, the head of the NAACP chapter in Spokane, is in fact a white woman who has been using creative hairstyling and extravagant application of bronzer to present herself as African American. There's plenty of outrage. But Dolezal's defense of herself is surprisingly difficult to refute by the internal logic of identity politics: "I identify as black." The obvious question on everyone's lips: Why should we have to accept Jenner's declaration that he identifies as a woman if it's an affront for Dolezal to suggest she can be black?
Why not? Ward Churchill and Elizabeth Warren identified as Injuns.
Al Gore has been identified as a scientist.
Al Sharpton has been identified as a reverend.
Barak Obama has been identified as a Constitutional Scholar.
Brian Williams has identified as a war reporter.

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Home Front: Culture Wars

Crazy Talk

2014-12-10

There's a saying that the surest way to go crazy is to keep the company of the insane. Glenn Reynolds links to an account of a male gender studies [1] graduate telling every stranger he could find at a party to admit their "privilege". The man who may or may not have been invited, "moved throughout the party, unleashing the fundamental concepts of his undergraduate major at every opportunity. ‘It was kind of weird to get lectured about the patriarchy by, y'know, a member of the patriarchy,' one victim commented. ‘He called me an Uncle Tom for wearing bras.'"

That was a satire -- really, really well done satire that got a lot of people.

"Privilege" is the word du jour. Have you checked your privilege lately?

Recently there were two dueling articles in the Israeli press. The first, wrote Benjy Cannon of J Street, argued that Jewishness [2] could not excuse the crime of "whiteness". "While I do not often think, write about, or actively engage with my whiteness, it is an omnipresent force in my life". This was challenged by Hila Hershkovitz [3] in the Times of Israel, who asserts "Ashkenazi Jews are not white" or at least there was a time when real white people, guys with names like Himmler, didn't think so.

She has a point. Things are no longer what they seem. Ward Churchill is Native American, as is Elizabeth Warren. Nikki Haley is definitely not white, even though she's checked the box. And the whitest man in America, though he may not look it, is George Zimmerman.

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Home Front: Culture Wars

Megyn Kelly Takes On Ward Churchill

2014-09-10

[MEDIAITE] Megyn Kelly tonight brought viewers the first part of her contentious showdown with Professor Ward Churchill, best known for his controversial comments about the "little Eichmanns" who were in the World Trade Center when the planes hit on September 11th. Churchill came under intense scrutiny and was fired by the University of Colorado at Boulder.

What concerned Kelly most in the first part of the interview was that "little Eichmanns" comment, the argument being that Eichmann played a role in horrible atrocities even though he didn't directly carry out the Final Solution, which he views as similar to the financial workers in the World Trade Center on 9/11. Kelly asked, "How could you draw a moral equivalence between 3000 dead Americans and a murderous Nazi like Adolf Eichmann?"

He argued, "They are proactively involved and knowingly involved lending their proficiencies... which is served by the U.S. military." And Churchill stood by the Eichmann comment, saying, "You do not have to be the one who turned on the gas if you're making it possible for the gas to be there."

The most stunning part of the segment was when Kelly and Churchill went back-and-forth over some odd words of praise he gave to the snuffies who attacked the United States on 9/11.

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Home Front: WoT

When Terrorists Deny Each Other

2013-05-07

Had Dzhokhar Tsarnaev paid attention in history class, he might have learned something useful for any domestic American terrorist: if caught, claim solidarity with the American left.

No American institution is a safe haven for Islamist terrorists. As sympathetic as the hard left might be to the anti-Americanism of bin Ladens disciples, the instinct for self-preservation is powerful enough to mute the embrace, even in the halls of academia. Just ask Ward Churchill.

But declare ones bombs to be small acts of civil disobedience in the furtherance of socialism and anti-imperialism, and one might just find an endowed chair, or at least an adjunct professorship, from which to preach the good word until retirement. Just ask Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn.

Ayers, the former Weather Underground co-founder who proudly led his organization in the successful bombings of dozens of American targets, including the U.S. Capitol, Pentagon, and State Department, on Saturday distanced himself from his tactical and ideological cousins, the Tsarnaevs. It was a clumsy deceit, easily disproven.

I get asked about violence when what I did was some destruction of property to issue a scream and cry against an illegal war in which 6,000 people a week are being killed, the Akron Beacon-Journal reported Ayers as saying in response to a reporters question. Six thousand a week being killed and I destroyed some property. Show me the equivalence. You should ask John McCain that question. Im against violence.

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Home Front: Politix

College: Fire professor who forced students to vote for Obama

2013-02-18

[DAILYCALLER] A tenured professor who forced her students to sign pledges that they would vote for President Obama last November should be fired, the college's president recommended.
Oh, but tut tut! Surely she was just caught up in the euphoria of the election! She meant no harm. Besides, it's all in the past and we're all so much older now!
Sharon Sweet, an associate professor of mathematics at Brevard Community College in Florida, is guilty of electioneering, harassment, and incompetence, according to a three-month investigation into her classroom behavior leading up to the November election. The Board of Trustees will hold a hearing on the matter, and then vote on whether to adopt President James Richey's recommendation that Sweet be fired.
Likely it'll lose by a vote. I think that's what usually happens. Or if she's fired they'll hire Ward Churchill to replace her and then she can take somebody else's spot who screws up egregiously place next year.
According to a report on the investigation:

"Professor Sweet strongly encouraged or mandated that students from several classes sign a pledge card that stated, 'I pledge to vote for President Obama and Democrats up and down the ticket.'
That does sounds a little bit like electioneering...
She also misrepresented her intentions to multiple students, indicating at various times that she was conducting voter registration for the college, that the pledge cards were non-partisan voter registration forms, and that the pledge was a 'statistical analysis.'"
Statistical analysis of what? How many people were gullible enough to sign them?

In the eyes of the college, Sweet clearly created a hostile environment for students, since many feared their grades would be affected if they did not sign the pledge.
On the other hand, the cards wouldn't have been a legally binding contract. Nothing to say her students couldn't sign them, mentally call her a dumbass, and then vote the way they pleased. Of course, that's not the way things happen in college, is it?
She remains on paid leave until the board votes to fire her.

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Home Front: Culture Wars

Indian Princess Elizabeth Warren

2012-05-01

There's an old saying in the Indian Nation: When accused of being a fake Indian, go on the warpath.
Didn't work too well for Ward Churchill, but about the only option.
Funny, she doesn't look Siouxish...
And so we have Granny Warren, the carpetbagging Democrat candidate for the U.S. Senate doubling down after being unable to produce a scintilla of evidence to back up her claims to a piece of the racial-preference racket.
It's not like she needs Dawes Roll documentation or anything - if she 'feels' she's Indian, that's all that matters. I don't suppose she'd want Romney to check it out for her.
Evidence? She don't need no stinkin' evidence. She's got her family "lore." She's "proud" to be an Indian. It's the kind of fact-free, how-dare-you defense only a Beautiful Person could get away with.
I know who 25 of my 32 ggg-grandparents were and none were Indian; four of the unknows could possibly have been, but I doubt it; one of the knowns was rumored to have maybe been part Indian - so can I get Affirmative Action status? These grandcestors were all 9probably) born between 1770 and 1825.

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Fifth Column

Ward Churchill Still A Social Leper

2011-05-20

After an announcement earlier this week that fired University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill was being invited to town to speak over the Memorial Day weekend, the church where he was set to speak has retracted their invitation.

Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Grand Valley, in a statement on their website, cited many members of their congregation with relatives serving in military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the change.

The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Grand Valley will not be offering a venue to the Confluence Media Collective to bring Ward Churchill to speak on Memorial Weekend.

While we have a commitment to providing a forum for a wide platform of ideas and people, we had not fully vetted the speaker or the date when we offered use of our building.

Some of our congregants have close relatives and friends now serving in the armed services in Iraq and Afghanistan, and have expressed dismay about having Churchill speak during a weekend of remembrance.

Because our mission guides us toward unity with one another, we will not be using our time and space to bring a controversial and possibly divisive speaker into our community during such a poignant time.

It wasnt clear if the Confluence Media Collective, a group that publishes The Red Pill magazine and who coordinated Churchills appearance, will try to find another venue for him to speak.

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Fifth Column

Ward Churchill Loses Again

2010-11-25

The Colorado Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court decision denying University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill's effort to get his job back.

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Home Front: Culture Wars

CU asks court to bill Ward Churchill for case fees

2009-10-15

The University of Colorado is asking for more than $52,000 from Ward Churchill to recover costs the school incurred fighting a lawsuit filed by the former ethnic studies professor. The total tab, filed in Denver District Court last week, includes individual expenses ranging from $2 for courthouse parking to $22,095 for "in-trial video and visual exhibits."

"The university believes that what we've filed is both fair and appropriate for some of the expenses that we incurred during the trial," said Ken McConnellogue, spokesman for the University of Colorado system.

Churchill was fired in July 2007 after CU said he had committed repeated academic fraud in his scholarship. The ethnic studies professor then sued the school, claiming that the university really fired him over a controversial essay he had written several years earlier. In the essay, Churchill called victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks "little Eichmanns" -- a reference to an architect of the Holocaust.

A Denver jury found that CU unlawfully fired Churchill for exercising his right to free speech, but only awarded him $1 in damages. After considering the jury's ruling, Chief Denver District Court Judge Larry Naves declined to award Churchill his job back or any compensation. Churchill has vowed to appeal the ruling.

Colorado law requires the court to award the "prevailing party," in this case CU, "reasonable costs" associated with the trial. Now CU has finished tallying up its expenses, which amount to $52,181.71, and the school has filed a motion in Denver District Court requesting payment from Churchill.

Churchill's lawyer, David Lane, however, said the expenses filed by CU are well beyond the scope of what the Colorado law allows.

"They're not entitled to virtually any of it," Lane said. "Even Judge Naves will probably cut that back substantially. The statute is very limited in what they can get reimbursed."

Lane will be able to challenge the charges before Naves makes a final decision. But in the end, fighting over the university's expenses won't make a difference, Lane said, since Churchill has already filed an appeal -- one that Lane is confident he'll win.

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Home Front: Culture Wars

Judge Denies Churchill's Request For Reinstatement At CU

2009-07-07

Learning at the University of Colorado will go on without Ward Churchill.

On Tuesday Chief Denver District Court Judge Larry Naves denied Churchill's motion for reinstatement of employment as well as any "front" pay. It was part of a decision where Naves granted CU and the Board of Regents immunity from being sued, which vacates the jury verdict from April of this year.

Churchill essentially got nothing.

We believe the judge appropriately applied the law to recognize the Board of Regents role as a quasi-judicial body. This ruling recognizes that the regents have to make important and difficult decisions. The threat of litigation should not be used to influence those decisions, said University of Colorado President Bruce D. Benson on Tuesday.

The ethnic studies professor had sued CU in an attempt to regain his teaching post.

Churchill was fired in 2007, following a two-year investigation into allegations Churchill fabricated some of his scholarly publications.

But a Denver jury in April 2009 ruled the school had only fired him after controversy erupted surrounding an essay he'd written in September 2001, comparing the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to a Nazi leader.

That ruling included only a symbolic damage award of $1.

In court last week, Churchill testified that money was not his motivation for this lawsuit.

On Tuesday, Naves ruled "because quasi-judicial immunity was a 'defense that would have been applicable to any of its officials or employees' it is a defense available to the University and the Board of Regents. In this case, it is clear that the Board of Regents performed a quasi-judicial function and acted in a quasi-judicial capacity when it heard Professor Churchill's case and terminated his employment."

"Based on the foregoing, it is hereby ORDERED that Defendants are GRANTED quasi-judicial immunity as a matter of law from Professor Churchill's second claim for relief. As a result, the jury's verdict in this matter is hereby VACATED, and judgment is hereby entered in favor of Defendants on Professor Churchill's Second Claim for Relief."

Naves went on write: "If I granted reinstatement I believe there is a substantial likelihood that there would be future disputes about the propriety of Professor Churchills academic conduct... Under these circumstances and recognizing that the Universitys faculty must have the ability to define the standards of scholarship, I am persuaded that reinstatement is not an appropriate remedy in this case... The same 'sharply conflicting evidence' about Professor Churchills job performance and the fundamental disagreements between the parties lead me to conclude that 'an absence of mutual trust' makes reinstatement unfeasible."

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