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Political Correctness Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 09, 2015 52 Comments
Via KOIN 6 News (h/t American Power):
A local principal sent an 8th grade student home this week for wearing a shirt supporting U.S. troops. The problem, according to Gresham-Barlow School District [Oregon] officials, was that it had a gun on it. Now, many are speaking out against the principal’s decision to reprimand the student for something they consider a display of patriotism. “It means a lot to me because our family, we have a lot of people who were in the military,” middle schooler Alan Holmes said. “I didn’t see anything wrong with that shirt… It’s sad to see because it’s a fallen soldiers’ memorial.” But administrators at Dexter McCarthy Middle School didn’t see it that way.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 26, 2015 53 Comments
I'm glad that I'm late to the story of Ahmed Mohamed, because others have done the work to debunk much of the media narrative of a young tinkerer and inventor wrongly singled out because he is Muslim and abused by police and the school for the crime of "being brown." The story has unfolded much like prior racial media and activist narratives. Trayvon Martin was not shot because he was a black teenager wearing a hoodie by someone who "shot first and asked questions later." That media narrative was demonstrably proven false through a lengthy public trial at which the evidence showed that Trayvon Martin was shot as he beat the crap out of George Zimmerman, Mixed Martial Arts style, as Trayvon had Zimmerman pinned to the ground, after smashing Zimmeran's head into the concrete repeatedly. The eyewitness and forensic evidence (including ballistic analysis) fully supported that Zimmerman used legally justifiable deadly force. So too, the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson was not as the media initially portrayed. An exhaustive investigation and analysis by Eric Holder's Justice Department proved that Brown was shot while grabbing Officer Darren Wilson's gun, after having assaulted Wilson as Wilson sat in his police vehicle. The Justice Department also concluded that Brown did now have his hands raised at the time of the shooting. The "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" narrative was pure mythology, yet it persists as a slogan of the Black Lives Matter movement. So getting back to Ahmed, the original racial and religious narrative played out immediately, and is believed as the gospel truth by liberals.

Posted by Mike LaChance on September 23, 2015 17 Comments
A Wesleyan University student named Bryan Stascavage who writes for the student paper, the Wesleyan Argus, recently penned an op-ed which was critical of the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Since then, all hell has broken loose. Here's a sample of Stascavage's column:
Why Black Lives Matter Isn’t What You Think A 20-year-old man walks into a church and massacres nine people, claiming that he was afraid that America was being taken over by Black Americans, citing American race relations as evidence. About a month later, a man wears a GoPro, tapes himself walking up to a local reporter and a cameraman, and shoots them both on camera, proclaiming racial injustice in this country as his motive. Police officers are looking over their shoulders as several cops have been targeted and gunned down. The week before classes started, seven officers were killed in the line of duty; a few were execution-style targeted killings. An officer I talked to put it succinctly: “If they want to come after me, fine. Just come at me head on. Don’t shoot me in the back of my head. I’d rather go down with a fighting chance.” Is this an atmosphere created by the police officers and racist elements in society itself? Many, including individuals in the Black Lives Matter movement, believe so.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on September 20, 2015 26 Comments
Last weekend, I wrote about Secretary of the Navy Mabus rejecting the Marine Corps study that showed that units with women underperform when compared to all-male units. This week, the Marine Corps is pushing back and opening up a debate about whether or not Mabus can veto Marine Corps decisions.  The Marine Times reports:
The Marine Corps is expected to ask that women not be allowed to compete for several front-line combat jobs, inflaming tensions between Navy and Marine leaders, U.S. officials say. The tentative decision has ignited a debate over whether Navy Secretary Ray Mabus can veto any Marine Corps proposal to prohibit women from serving in certain infantry and reconnaissance positions. And it puts Gen. Joseph Dunford, the Marine Corps commandant who takes over soon as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at odds with the other three military services, who are expected to open all of their combat jobs to women.
This is of particular interest because while Mabus is a politician, General Dunford is career military and about to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs . . . . with the power, presumably, to approve the waiver that he's just submitted as Marine Corps commandant.  The Marine Times continues:

Posted by Mike LaChance on September 17, 2015 70 Comments
Yesterday a Texas teenager, who happens to be a Muslim, brought a homemade clock to school and was arrested because the clock was mistaken for a bomb. Some people are blaming racism but zero tolerance policies are the real problem. NBC News reports that he won't be charged:
No Charges For Ahmed Mohamed, Teen Arrested After Bringing Homemade Clock to School Police in Texas said Wednesday that charges will not be filed against a 14-year-old Muslim high school student who was arrested after he brought in a homemade clock that a teacher said looked like a bomb. The arrest drew an outcry on social media. Hundreds of thousands of people used the hashtag #IStandWithAhmed — and President Barack Obama invited the teen to the White House. Ahmed Mohamed, who is Sudanese-American, was arrested on Monday in the Dallas suburb of Irving after he took the clock to his high school. He told The Dallas Morning News that he had been in robotics club in middle school, and he wanted to show his new teacher what he could do.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 13, 2015 45 Comments
When the world was in an uproar over the killing of Cecil the Lion, we noted that responsible trophy hunting was important to many African economies and could be a responsible conservation tool because it created incentives for local communities not to kill endangered wildlife. But in the disgust with the killing of Cecil the Lion by luring him off a nature preserve, calls to ban all trophy hunting disregarded all facts. So this report from The NY Times is hardly surprising. While it's not about Cecil and his aftermath, it is about bans on trophy hunting, A Hunting Ban Saps a Village’s Livelihood
Lions have been coming out of the surrounding bush, prowling around homes and a small health clinic, to snatch goats and donkeys from the heart of this village on the edge of one of Africa’s great inland deltas. Elephants, too, are becoming frequent, unwelcome visitors, gobbling up the beans, maize and watermelons that took farmers months to grow. Since Botswana banned trophy hunting two years ago, remote communities like Sankuyo have been at the mercy of growing numbers of wild animals that are hurting livelihoods and driving terrified villagers into their homes at dusk.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on September 13, 2015 39 Comments
The military is gearing up to meet the 2012 directive of then-Defense Secretary Panetta that women be integrated into infantry forces by January, 2016 unless exemptions are obtained by the end of this month. Women, however, are not doing particularly well in the training programs: of the 29 who attempted the Marine Corps' Infantry Officer Course, none were successful; only 34% of women who signed up for infantry training in the Marine Corp finished successfully; and only 12 women have passed the Army's prerequisite Ranger Training and Assessment Course, two of whom went on to become Army Rangers in August of this year. The Navy SEALS announced that it, too, will be open to women, though none so far are reported to have applied.  Watch:

Posted by Amy Miller on August 29, 2015 2 Comments
This week was a terrible week in news: We dove even deeper into the depravity of the pro-choice movement. We watched the factions of the conservative movement turn on each other. We were forced to contemplate "President Biden." We found out that Hillary Clinton's minions might be violating election laws...all in the name of making sure their opponents don't vote. Hillary Clinton...she keeps showing up...spit in the faces of those seeking the truth about her emails. We watched two young news pros die on live TV... ...and then we learned that their murders were motivated by hatred. As bloggers and activists, we aren't isolated. We choose to expose ourselves to the best and worst that the world has to offer; but...good grief...this week. It's time for a palette cleanser in the form of a comedian taking PC culture to the cleaners. It's a laugh-or-cry subject, but why let that get us down? Just do it:

Posted by AACONS on August 21, 2015 13 Comments
The #BlackLivesMatter movement has a message. It is a message they are so desperate for you to hear that they have recently shutdown an anniversary celebration of Medicare and Social Security for you to hear it. Even though that meant physically bullying 73-year old Bernie Sanders off the stage. Their message is, primarily, that the police are a threat to the African American community It is not a new message, of course. As Marco Rubio said, "It is a fact that in the African-American community around this country, there has been for a number of years now a growing resentment toward how the law enforcement and criminal justice system interacts with the community.” As a member of that African American community, I am well aware of this resentment and of the tension between my community and the police.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 19, 2015 44 Comments
The Alpha Phi Sorority at the University of Alabama made a recruiting video which has generated a lot of controversy. In fact, the controversy was so severe that the university administration condemned the video and the sorority ended up taking it down. But it was saved by someone: And the problem is? I don't get it. But I'm an empirical, evidence-based type person. So I'm going to keep watching it over and over until I figure it out exactly what the problem is. This does have some serious implications, though. Not the video. The response.

Posted by Michael Stopa on July 26, 2015 30 Comments
Heather MacDonald of the Manhattan Institute, has made a career of painstakingly going into the police departments and town meetings and impacted urban neighborhoods to research the facts on the ground about how police practices actually affect lives. On July 21, 2015, MacDonald appeard on the Harvard Lunch Club Political podcast, hosted by radio talk show host Todd Feinberg and me.  The full 35-minute podcast segment is at the bottom of this post. MacDonald spoke out against the crippling influence that the "Black Lives Matter" movement is having on the quality of life in the very neighborhoods where the protests are taking place:
I think this is an even more extreme example of the way this country deals with race and policing, which is to talk fanatically about police in order not to talk about the far more difficult problem of black crime.
Proactive policing practices have been the target of protests against "police racism." Speaking about this so-called "broken windows" method of policing, where police detain perpetrators for minor, quality of life violations like turnstile jumping or loitering and smoking weed, MacDonald notes:

Posted by Mike LaChance on July 13, 2015 32 Comments
Now that the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage has been made, liberals have set their sights on destroying the language used to describe traditional marriages. Pete Kasperowicz of the Washington Examiner reports:
Dems declare war on words 'husband,' 'wife' More than two dozen Democrats have proposed legislation that would eliminate the words "husband" and "wife" from federal law. Those "gendered terms" would be replaced by "gender-neutral" words like "spouse" or "married couple," according to the bill from Rep. Lois Capps, D-Calif. "The Amend the Code for Marriage Equality Act recognizes that the words in our laws have meaning and can continue to reflect prejudice and discrimination even when rendered null by our highest courts," Capps said. "Our values as a country are reflected in our laws. I authored this bill because it is imperative that our federal code reflect the equality of all marriages." The Supreme Court ruled in June that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution means all states have to license same-sex marriages, a ruling that effectively ended the same-sex marriage debate in America. Capps said her bill was aimed at taking the next step, which is to ensure the United States Code "reflects the equality of all marriages."

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 27, 2015 49 Comments
Today, The NY Times turned its entire front page above the fold to celebrating yesterday's Supreme Court decision on gay marriage: NY Times Supreme Court Gay Marriage Headline Front Page Many national and major regional papers did the same. But is any diversity of news coverage permitted on such a huge cultural victory? If you want to know what the future of the post-SCOTUS SSM culture war looks like, take a look at this tweet by former MSM exec. Betsy Fischer Martin (h/t @bryanjacoutot) complaining that a north Louisiana paper had a larger headline about a local pageant than the Supreme Court's gay marriage decision. The Supreme Court decision was front page, above the fold, right hand side, double column, and was followed just below it with another report about the impact of the decision. But that a local pageant story had more column space apparently was unacceptable:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 20, 2015 12 Comments
As with most Ann Coulter books, her new volume Adios, America! has liberals in a twist. Here's the book's self-description:
Ann Coulter is back, more fearless than ever. In Adios, America she touches the third rail in American politics, attacking the immigration issue head-on and flying in the face of La Raza, the Democrats, a media determined to cover up immigrants' crimes, churches that get paid by the government for their "charity," and greedy Republican businessmen and campaign consultants—all of whom are profiting handsomely from mass immigration that's tearing the country apart. Applying her trademark biting humor to the disaster that is U.S. immigration policy, Coulter proves that immigration is the most important issue facing America today.
Adios America Cover Media Matters quickly developed the meme for attacking the book:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 17, 2015 67 Comments
If Rachel Dolezal didn't exist, someone would have had to invent her because she so embodies everything that is wrong with race-based politics and theories so prevalent in Higher Ed. Dolezal is white. Elizabeth Warren white. As Mark Steyn once put it with regard to Warren, "the whitest white since Frosty the Snowman fell in a vat of Wite-Out." Warren passed herself off as Native American, but mostly in secret so she could get put on a list of Minority Law Teachers in a 1980s directory used for hiring. Dolezal was very public in her adoption of a black identity. And she's standing by it. Because Dolezal feels black, she says she is. It's what is called among the campus activist class "lived experience." It is a well-worn script:

Posted by Mike LaChance on June 12, 2015 27 Comments
Our humorless and intellectually superior friends on the left listened to what Jerry Seinfeld said about political correctness and proved his point in exactly the way you'd expect. Progressives can't abide a celebrity with Seinfeld's gravitas criticizing their culture of microaggressions and limits on free speech so naturally, he must be discredited. MSNBC's Alex Wagner discussed the subject with her guests and for the most part, they dismissed Seinfeld's concerns because after all, he's rich. Matthew Balan of NewsBusters:
Shorter MSNBC: Seinfeld's Jab at 'Creepy PC' Isn't Valid Because He's Rich Alex Wagner, along with her three liberal guests, ripped Jerry Seinfeld on her MSNBC program on Wednesday, for his blast at "creepy" political correctness. Wagner hinted that Seinfeld had "fallen behind the times." New York magazine's Annie Lowrey mocked his critique: "I kind of roll my eyes at Jerry Seinfeld. You know, he's a billionaire – like I don't feel sorry for him if people don't laugh hard enough at his jokes."
Here's the video:

Posted by Amy Miller on June 10, 2015 9 Comments
The day Caitlyn Jenner's Vanity Fair cover was revealed, I made a joke about it. It wasn't anything particularly crude or shocking, and it didn't go any further than the mildest joke you would have seen on Twitter that day, but I still fielded text messages chewing me out for being "insensitive" and "transphobic" by chittering outrage squirrels who don't understand what phobic means. People in general have accepted that for the most part, comedy comes from a dark place. It's the knee-jerk reaction that you repress, but that the comedian packages and splatters on the wall for the world to see. That being said, even the world's most popular creative talents are getting the sense that, when it comes to comedy, the general population would much rather not laugh at the expense of the bubble-wrapped classes that the left so jealously shields from criticism. On last night's Late Night with Seth Meyers, comedian Jerry Seinfeld joined Seth and New Yorker editor David Remnick and unleashed on today's PC culture that can't even handle a lighthearted joke about social media that happens to have the word "gay" in it. Watch:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 17, 2015 28 Comments
We have covered the case of Emma Sulkowicz, the Columbia University student who vowed to carry her mattress around campus in protest of her alleged rapist who remained on campus. That alleged rapist was cleared by the University, and now is suing to clear his name. I don't know if Sulkowicz was lying or telling the truth. But the sharp dispute hardly makes the case comparable to what Afghan women have to go through. Beatings. Burkas. Lack of education. Executions.
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