Tag: racism

More school insanity

Via Ace –

This is that story you’ve heard: a student was silently reading a book called Notre Dame vs. the Klan, a book about Notre Dame’s efforts, um, versus the Klan. You know, the Klan being defeated.

A black student saw him reading it during their Spanish CLEP test practice class, and told him she didn’t like the Klan. The student agreed — the Klan is bad. She reported him anyway. And, incredibly, the university took action against the student for racial harassment.

Video here, but it makes a couple of notable mistakes – it seems to think that the fact that the student was reading a “good” book is what makes this such a tragedy. Last I checked, this is America. The student could be reading Mein Kampf or the Little Red Book for all the university should care, as there is no harm done to anyone by reading the book. To the contrary – this student might actually learn something! At a university, of all places! On the other hand, maybe that’s why they have such a problem with it. We can’t have the student learning anything that is outside of the standard doctrine, can we?

It’s an all-too-typical example of the decline and fall of American education into insanity and closed-mindedness. Some of you who frequent the geekier blogs may recall the incident reported by the HeliOS project, in which a teacher confiscated Linux discs from a student who was showing people his Linux install on his personal computer and then threatened the person who gave the student the Linux discs with legal action because “no software is free” and “Microsoft is the only legal software.” That case was another case of schools overstepping their boundaries and forcing a narrow – and decidedly incorrect – view onto students for no other reason than that The School Says So.

Now it may seem that this case is radically different than the one above because it’s talking about software instead of books, and about Linux instead of the Klan – but again, I remind you that in both cases the school was not addressing anything that was directly affecting the school, nor was it addressing something that was covered by any sort of law or institutional rule, but rather it was enforcing some sort of arbitrary standard onto these students who broke the mold that the teachers had set. It’s a nasty sight to see, coming from these places lauded as bastions of education and free-thinking.

More fun from Chris Matthews & Co

The man just doesn’t stop delivering the goods in this panel on how awesome Obama the Lightbringer is:

MATTHEWS: One reason for the rage from the east, and I’m no expert. All these years that have led to the terrorism, the undercurrent of rage against the west, us, is the sense that we have disrespected them, their culture, we have looked down on them. In fact, we have defeated them technologically in some cases. But there’s that sense that they feel they’re reacting to the hatred of the west. By electing somebody with this name, are we going to diffuse some of that? I think that would be very hopeful if we could.

KATTY KAY, BBC: Yeah, I think it really does undermine some of that knee-jerk criticism of America. It’s much harder if you’re in the Middle East now to stand up and reject an American president whose middle-name is Hussein. It just, it just is.

As noted in the link, it’s amazing how fast saying his middle name changed from being “racist” to being “inspiring” once they came up with a spin for it. And then there’s this gem from NBC executive Mark Whitaker on the same panel:

I think it’s a bigger phenomenon which is the leader of the biggest democracy in the world is now a person of color and that is going to give him what political scientists would call a legitimacy in the street around the world that I don’t think an American leader has had, ever perhaps.

So he’s going to be great because he’s black? Really?

Who’s the racist now?

h/t: Daily Pundit

Cystic Fibrosis is racist. Let’s not cure it.

Seriously?

OTTAWA – The Carleton University Students’ Association has voted to drop a cystic fibrosis charity as the beneficiary of its annual Shinearama fundraiser, supporting a motion that argued the disease is not “inclusive” enough.

The basis of this idiotic suggestion is the claim that CF “has been recently revealed to only affect white people, and primarily men.” Because we white men don’t deserve to live, in the minds of these enlightened, educated scholars. The suggestion alone is absurd – should AIDS research be abandoned because it affects mainly black people? Native Americans suffer disproportionately from heart disease – should we stop researching treatements for that too? Of course not. Even if we lived in a bizzaro world where this insane idea of “racial medicine” somehow made sense, it’s pretty clear that this is yet another case of the educated youth backlashing against the Evil White Man™. But, in an entirely unexpected twist of events, it turns out that CF doesn’t just affect white people! And this one actually comes from a real, live scientist!

CF is diagnosed just as often among girls as boys, although the health of girls deteriorates more rapidly, she said. It is commonly considered an illness that affects Caucasians, but that includes people from the Middle East, South America, North Africa and the Indian subcontinent.

“‘Caucasian’ as we understand it isn’t just white people,” said Morrison. “It includes people with a whole rainbow of skins.”

Behold, the result of modern education! Sure, this isn’t public policy, this is just a university fundraiser – but it’s a million bucks, and a million bucks can do a lot of good. Plus, the fact that there are enough of these people to make these kind of decisions does not speak well for the future.

From a more personal standpoint, I know a couple of people who are afflicted by cystic fibrosis. It’s not a pleasant condition to have, and it almost always causes the sufferer an early death – I’m not talking 60s here, I’m taking 20s or 30s. Maybe 40s. That’s a good 40 years hacked off your life because of a nasty, currently uncurable genetic disease, and these arrogant children have decided to play god with the lives of those afflicted, thanks to this insane racist attitude toward white people. I am not at all happy about the idea of having to attend my friend’s funeral simply because society deemed him an unworthy white.

h/t: Ace

Hope! Change! Aztlán!

Obama really loves my little state, it seems. It’s now reported that Raul Grijalva is a top choice for Secretary of the Interior.

Okay, while all my Arizona readers are hyperventilating, I’ll catch the rest of you up on why this is A Bad Thing. First off, Grijalva is one of the most liberal members of the House of Representatives – and the man’s got some stiff competition, so this is no small feat.  He also was a member of MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán), a radical pro-reconquista student group who believes  that the southwest (California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Nevada) should return to being Hispanic states, or the region of Aztlán – ideally back under Mexican control. As such, they oppose any “melting pot” theories in which they would adjust to the culture of the United States, but instead try to impose their culture on those around them, since they believe it to be inherently superior. It is certainly valid to label them a racist group as well – their unofficial slogan, “Por La Raza todo, Fuera de La Raza nada,” translates to “For the race, everything, outside the race, nothing.” The motto also bears close resemblance to the motto of the Cuban communist revolution. He is also, unsurprisingly, strongly against enforcement of illegal immigration laws.

So once y’all are breathing regularly again, think about the repercussions of having a guy like this occupy the seat of the Secretary of the Interior. Stick Napolitano in the seat next to him as Secretary of Homeland Security, and we could get some real interesting changes around these parts – I hope that it’s not as bad a change as I expect. Plus, we’ll have completed the trifecta of “Arizona politicians on the national scene that make me want to vomit” that John McCain started. I couldn’t be more proud.

h/t: Liberty’s Apothecary

Further Insight

Iowahawk (recently added to the blogroll along with a few others I’d been shamefully neglecting) has a brilliant piece summarizing what significance this election has in addressing accusations of racism, and other perhaps even less pleasant accusations entitled – and if the title alone doesn’t get your mouth watering, I don’t know what will – America Can Take Pride In This Historic, Inspirational Disaster:

Although I have not always been the most outspoken advocate of President-Elect Barack Obama, today I would like to congratulate him and add my voice to the millions of fellow citizens who are celebrating his historic and frightening election victory. I don’t care whether you are a conservative or a liberal — when you saw this inspiring young African-American rise to our nation’s highest office I hope you felt the same sense of patriotic pride that I experienced, no matter how hard you were hyperventilating with deep existential dread.

Go. Read. Now.