The smug style in American liberalism There is a smug style in American liberalism. It has been growing these past decades. It is a way of conducting politics, predicated on the belief that American life is not divided by moral difference or policy divergence — not really — but by the failure of half the country to know what's good for them. In 2016, the smug style has found expression in media and in policy, in the attitudes of liberals both visible and private, providing a foundational set of assumptions above which a great number of liberals comport their understanding of the world. It has led an American ideology hitherto responsible for a great share of the good accomplished over the past century of our political life to a posture of reaction and disrespect: a condescending, defensive sneer toward any person or movement outside of its consensus, dressed up as a monopoly on reason. The smug style is a psychological reaction to a profound shift in American political demography. The origins of this shift are overdetermined.
She? Ze? They? What’s In a Gender Pronoun Photo WASHINGTON — What happens when 334 linguists, lexicographers, grammarians and etymologists gather in a stuffy lecture hall on a Friday night to debate the lexical trends of the year? They become the unlikely heroes of the new gender revolution. That’s what happened here earlier this month anyway, at a downtown Marriott, where members of the 127-year-old American Dialect Society anointed “they,” the singular, gender-neutral pronoun, the 2015 Word of the Year. As in: “They and I went to the store,” where they is used for a person who does not identify as male or female, or they is a filler pronoun in a situation where a person’s gender identity is unknown. “Function words don’t get enough love,” a man argued from the floor. “We need to accept ‘they,’ and we need to do it now,” shouted another linguist, hidden behind the crowds. Continue reading the main story Gender binary: That’s the idea that there are two distinct genders, one male and one female, with nothing in between. But to Ms.
Why boys don't read As a young boy, Sanjay Mahboobani was a passionate reader. He travelled through time with Jack and Annie in the Magic Tree House series, and devoured each and every Harry Potter book as soon as it hit the local bookstore. But as he got older, Sanjay, who lives in Redondo Beach, CA, began to lose interest in reading — he turned away from books along with his trucks, stuffed animals, and other childish things. Now that Sanjay is in high school, he rarely reads for pleasure. Sanjay is just one example of a trend that education experts are observing with growing alarm: large numbers of boys aren’t reading, and this fact is contributing to a daunting achievement gap between boys and girls. The gender achievement gap The facts are stark: in every state and in every grade, boys are trailing behind girls in reading, according to a 2010 report by the Center on Education Policy, which called this lag, “the most pressing gender-gap issue facing our schools.” Why Johnny doesn’t read Wilhelm agrees.
National SEED Project - White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack Downloadable PDF © 1989 Peggy McIntosh "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack" first appeared in Peace and Freedom Magazine, July/August, 1989, pp. 10-12, a publication of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Philadelphia, PA. Anyone who wishes to reproduce more than 35 copies of this article must apply to the author, Dr. I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group. Through work to bring materials from Women’s Studies into the rest of the curriculum, I have often noticed men’s unwillingness to grant that they are over-privileged, even though they may grant that women are disadvantaged. Thinking through unacknowledged male privilege as a phenomenon, I realized that, since hierarchies in our society are interlocking, there was most likely a phenomenon of white privilege that was similarly denied and protected.
Hello! You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About The First Amendment. Welcome! Someone has referred you to this post because you've said something quite wrong about the First Amendment. I apologize for this impersonal approach to your mistake. So. If you said something like "The First Amendment says 'Congress shall make no law,' and Congress isn't involved here, so it's not a First Amendment issue." Congratulations! You're right that the plain language of the First Amendment only limits Congressional power. But which rights? Therefore, the First Amendment does apply to actions by states and their political subdivisions (cities, counties, state agencies, etc.), and has for more than ninety years. If you said something like "the First Amendment only stops the government from censoring you so it doesn't apply to this civil case, which is one individual suing another." Welcome back! Civil lawsuits employ government power in two ways. If you think about it even a little, this is the only sensible interpretation. Fault: It's Yours, But Not ONLY Yours
The Declining “Equity” by John Chauhan on Prezi New DOJ Statistics on Race and Violent Crime Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute has just published a table of statistics on race and violent crime that she received from the Department of Justice. For the first time in figures of this kind, DOJ has treated Hispanics as a separate category rather than lumping them in with whites. These data cover all violent crimes except murder, but the number of murders is tiny compared to other violent crimes. This table can be used for a number of interesting calculations. Interestingly, we find that violent interracial crime involving blacks and Hispanics occurs in almost exactly the same proportions as black/white crime: Blacks are the attackers 82.5 percent of the time, while Hispanics are attackers only 17.5 percent of the time. Some observers argue that what causes the overwhelming preponderance of black-on-white over white-on-black violence is “chance of encounter,” due to the fact that there are five times as many whites as blacks in the American population.
Social Justice: Not Just Another Term for “Diversity” by Paul C. Gorski | The CSJE Blog I’m fascinated with the language of equity and diversity work, especially the words we use to describe the essence of what we do in service to that work. I’ve spent much of the last 15 years working with colleges and universities and all manner of other organizations to help them bolster their equity and diversity initiatives. During that time I’ve paid particular attention to the terms they choose to use, usually in a strategic or defeated effort not to upset the very people and institutional cultures that any equity and diversity initiative worth a whit ought to upset, if even just a little. So there’s diversity and multiculturalism and intercultural relations and cultural competence. And then there’s “inclusive excellence,” which seems en vogue these days, rendering me baffled. What confuses me even more than inclusive excellence, though, is what feels like a sudden caché associated with “social justice.” Just recently I attended a fantastic one-day student affairs conference.
Black Minister asks "What if Whites Strike Back?" by Mychal Massie, The Daily Rant It would serve race mongers well to consider that even a docile old dog will bite you if you mistreat it often enough and long enough. Tangential to same is the reality of the “laws of unintended consequences.” I’m tired of seeing, reading, and hearing white people blamed for everything from black boys not being able to read to whites being privileged because of the color of their skin. This isn’t 1860 and it certainly isn’t 1955. Obama foments racial unrest and a racial divide to further his neo-Leninist agenda. Too many blacks have lost sight of the fact that it was Africans who were responsible for the enslavement of other Africans. From Genesis to the Sudan of today, slavery has been a staple around the world. But unlike the rest of the world, America had the good sense and decency to end slavery. All people, including those who are here illegally, have it better in America than they would have it anywhere else on earth. About Mychal Massie Mychal S.