Wait until the ads finish….
https://www.aol.com/news/video-shows-stranger-attacking-asian-115308599.html
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/05/04/the_curious_case_of_the_asian_american_victim_774865.html
The mass shooting in Atlanta on March 16, which took the lives of six Asian women among the eight victims, appears to be a one-off event – the violent act of a deeply troubled 21-year-old man who, according to what he told the police, was trying to wipe away sexual temptation, in the form of massage parlors that he felt guilty patronizing.
But that’s not how the incident was treated by the Asian American commentariat. Instead, a consensus quickly formed among journalists, scholars, and cultural figures writing op-eds and giving broadcast interviews that the shooting represented a pervasive, historical victimization by Asian people at the hands of the white majority. It was almost as if shootings of Asian women by white gunmen were an everyday occurrence, rather than a singular, exceedingly rare event.
Bee Nguyen, the first Asian woman to be elected to the George state assembly, declared at a rally four days after the shooting that the incident requires us “to demand justice not only for these victims but for all victims of white supremacy.” The Asian-American Association of Massachusetts, a supposedly nonpartisan group established by the state legislature, issued a statement blaming the attack on “misogyny, white supremacy, and the historical portrayal of Asians as the ‘Yellow Peril.’”
The Korean American novelist R.O. Kwon wrote a “letter to my fellow Asian women whose hearts are breaking,” published in Vanity Fair, saying that the Atlanta murders represented “the passing of women shot for what they looked like, killed by a racist gunman and by this country’s white supremacy.”
Two days after the attack, the page one headline in The New York Times read, “How Racism and Sexism Intertwine to Torment Asian-American Women,” with the article quoting several women excoriating the Atlanta police for even thinking that the massage parlor shootings may not have been racially motivated. There were no views on the other side of the issue in the Times coverage. Similarly in a New York Times podcast, the poet and essayist Cathy Park Hong said, “We have also been victims to systemic racism throughout history,” except, she continued, “we have been conditioned to pretend that it doesn’t exist.”
“I think that came from the white supremacist system that we live in,” she added.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/05/04/the_politics_of_attacking_t
After a week of vicious personal attacks on Sen. Tim Scott, it’s time to step back and ask what’s really going on here. Why such ferocious pushback after Scott’s calm rebuttal to President Biden’s speech to Congress? Why are the assaults so nasty, so personal? What are the political implications?
One implication should be clear, but another is well hidden. The obvious one is the attacks are meant to keep Black voters firmly within the Democratic coalition. Condemning dissidents like Scott as “race traitors” implies that the only way to keep faith with Black America is to support Democrats and their progressive agenda.
This unified, enthusiastic support from African Americans is crucial for the party to win elections in purple states. Scott is challenging that unanimity. Donald Trump did, too, and made some inroads, but Scott is a far more congenial messenger. He’s a happy warrior with an impressive background and a record of accomplishment, personal and professional.
Related movements, such as “Blexit” (Black Exit from the Democratic Party), don’t have to be large to be politically important. Small inroads matter because our electorate is so evenly divided, so many contests are tight, and Democrats can win only if (1) Blacks turn out in very large numbers and (2) almost all of them vote Democratic.
That’s also why Democrats are furious about Georgia’s new voting law. Of course, they genuinely believe it is an obstacle to Black voting. But there’s another, equally important reason. They think attacking the law shows African Americans across the country (and many progressives) that the Democratic Party really cares about them and that Republicans are racist. This PR campaign has led to some ludicrous hyperbole, such as President Biden calling the law “Jim Crow 2.0.” That’s an insult to people who actually suffered through Jim Crow, who were denied the vote, education, good jobs, and dignity under that legal regime (which lasted from the 1890s until the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act).
How does Sen. Scott threaten this Democratic coalition? Both by conveying his own views so effectively and by encouraging other prominent Blacks to join him. The more such voices, the harder it is to marginalize them as “tokens.” The more who speak out, the more socially acceptable it is for African Americans to vote Republican. The more traction this movement gains, the more dangerous for Democrats. Again, a small shift in this key constituency could matter.
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/two-months-later-hows-the-lifting-of-the-mask-mandate-going-in-texas/
When Texas governor Greg Abbott lifted the state’s mask mandate on March 2, he was simply leaving it up to individual businesses to decide whether they wanted to require masks depending on circumstances. As expressed by Beto O’Rourke, who called the GOP a “cult of death,” here was the typically temperate response of many in the Democratic Party and its media wing, otherwise known as “the media”:
They literally want to sacrifice the lives of our fellow Texans, for I don’t know, for political gain? To satisfy certain powerful interests within the state? This isn’t hyperbole. You heard our lieutenant governor, arguably one of the most powerful positions in the state of Texas, say on Fox News at the beginning of the pandemic, we are willing to die. Old people are willing to sacrifice their lives in order for the economy to reopen. . . . Unconscionable, unacceptable, we’re not accepting it. We’re moving forward on an individual and collective basis to help our fellow Texans.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17342/iran-sanctions-relief
Iran’s economy is state-led. Significant parts of the economy are controlled by just two major entities: the Office of the Supreme Leader, led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)…. The IRGC and its front companies have a stake in almost every sector of Iran’s economy such as construction, transportation, telecommunication, banking and insurance….
The Supreme Leader and the IRGC will be the first beneficiaries of any extra revenues; they will most likely use additional cash first to strengthen their military apparatuses and guarantee the survival of the Islamic Republic and their positions in it. Increased revenues would also allow the IRGC and the Supreme Leader to crack down more easily on any domestic unrest against their government.
The other priority of the regime is to export its revolutionary ideals to other countries….promoting the regime’s interests and ideology — including anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism.
The billions of dollars that Iran will gain from the Biden Administration’s potential sanctions relief will be directed towards sponsoring terrorism, funding and arming militia and terror groups across the Middle East, harming US national and security interests, undermining US allies, particularly in the Middle East, further advancing the regime’s clandestine nuclear program to obtain nuclear weapons, and suppressing the Iranian people by squashing their hopes of establishing a democracy there.
Is this what the Biden Administration really wants as its legacy?The extent to which the Biden administration is willing to go to appease the Iranian regime to revive the 2015 nuclear deal boggles the mind. During the current nuclear negotiations, the Biden administration has reportedly been offering increasing concessions and sanctions relief to the Iranian leaders.
Not only has the current US administration seemingly been planning a major rollback of nuclear and economic sanctions on Iran, it is also reportedly eyeing lifting non-nuclear sanctions, for instance those linked to terrorism, missile development and human rights. According to the Associated Press:
“American officials… have said they are open to lifting any sanctions that are inconsistent with the nuclear deal or that deny Iran the relief it would be entitled to should it return to compliance with the accord. Because of the complex nature of the sanctions architecture, that could include non-nuclear sanctions, such as those tied to terrorism, missile development and human rights.”
Through sanctions relief, the regime would be able to breathe a sigh of relief: it would be capable of increasing its oil exports, doing business with more countries and corporations particularly companies in Europe, and bringing in foreign investment.
What will the Iranian authorities do with increased revenues — potentially billions of dollars? Will they be grateful of the Biden administration and alter their anti-American policies? Who will be the beneficiary of this windfall?
https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2021-5-3-some-sensible-black-voices-are-on-to-the-antiracism-scam
As Critical Race Theory and “antiracism” have swept through academia and the media and corporations over the past few years, seemingly almost no one in those institutions is able to see the thinly concealed and vile racism embedded in these ideologies. Here is Ibram Kendi’s famous articulation of what he calls “antiracism”:
“The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”
So in other words, simply treating black people as adults and expecting them to make it on their own in a non-discriminatory world is not an acceptable remedy. Instead, blacks are to be permanently dependent on assistance from the government and/or whites. As I put it in a post back in April 2019, the “antiracism” agenda evidences:
the utter contempt in which the self-anointed elites of our country hold members of minority groups, most particularly African Americans. Somehow, these elites — or at least some very substantial number of them — have decided that African Americans are not capable of accepting personal responsibility in life or of being treated like adults.
Meanwhile, Kendi gets rich off peddling his neo-racism, and plenty of others make various sorts of comfortable livings off the trendy ideology, whether as teachers or as diversity deans at colleges or as corporate diversity officers. But are there any black thinkers who are seeing through the smokescreen of Orwellian “antiracist” verbiage and calling out the ideology for just how destructive it is for the supposedly intended beneficiaries?
The answer is that there is a small but growing number, and they are deserving of greater exposure. So let me give a small shout out to some of the more prominent examples.
https://worldisraelnews.com/opinion-mount-meron-a-tragedy-waiting-to-happen/
The Mount Meron tragedy reflected the best and worst of Israeli society.
The best could be seen in its wake. Israel unified around the victims and their families. Over 2,200 units of blood were donated in a single day. Sunday was declared a national day of mourning.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said while visiting recovering victims of the tragedy at Rambam Hospital in Haifa: “One of the parents told me the sentence that summarizes everything: ‘Here one reveals that the people of Israel has one heart.’”
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, who had recently warned the country was dangerously divided, said “At the end of the day, and however hard it is for us to remember it, we are better than they tell us, more united than the election campaigns try to suggest. We are more committed to each other than this or that person with an ax to grind would have it. At the moment of truth, we are one human fabric.”
The outpouring during a time of national sorrow was especially poignant as the victims were haredim, or ultra-Orthodox Jews, a segment of the population scorned by many for its insularity and hostility to Zionism. Antipathy toward the haredim has been exacerbated during corona, when it was felt that they ignored pandemic guidelines.
All that was pushed aside after the catastrophe – the worst civil disaster in Israel’s history – which took 45 lives on a festive holiday marked by dancing, singing and bonfires celebrating a famous Torah sage from the second century C.E. and, as chance would have it, the end of death from an ancient plague.
https://www.jns.org/opinion/mount-meron-and-israels-paradoxical-nature/
On Saturday night, as Tel Aviv’s City Hall lit up with the image of the Israeli flag to commemorate the dozens killed and 150 injured in the crowd-crush two nights earlier on Mount Meron, Israelis of all backgrounds came together to light yahrzeit (memorial) candles.
Some of the people present at Rabin Square that evening, like others around the country, configurated tea lights in the shape of the numeral 45—the number of people trampled to death during the Lag B’Omer celebrations that would become the source of multiple funerals.
The outpouring of nationwide grief over the victims and empathy with their families was not unusual in a state sadly accustomed to burying citizens who are, by all measures, too young to die. Nor was it novel for Israel’s Kan Radio to play sad music, out of respect for the gravity of the hour.
The same can be said of the public’s lining up in droves, and for hours on end in sweltering heat, to donate blood for the treatment of those still in the hospital. Though less frequent an occurrence, the offer by Israel’s national carrier, El Al, of free passage for anyone from abroad needing to pay their last respects or provide bedside comfort to loved ones was also not surprising.
Even the fact that Arab villagers from the Meron area in the north rallied to help their Jewish brethren in distress—distributing free food and drink to survivors—wasn’t totally out of the ordinary.
But all of the above has been noteworthy nevertheless, due to the identity of the casualties. All were ultra-Orthodox (haredi) Jews who had made a pilgrimage to the gravesite of second-century sage Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai to dance around the holiday’s traditional bonfire—hosted, as it happened, by the Jerusalem-based, anti-Zionist sect, Toldot Aharon.
https://johnmcwhorter.substack.com/p/people-getting-fired-for-referring
It has become clear over the past year that our racial reckoning has shaped attitudes about the N-word. Or, among a certain few who scare the rest of us into pretending to agree.
As someone who is both a linguist and commentator, I am in an awkward position on the N-word. The linguist describes; the commentator opines. In my new book Nine Nasty Words, which publishes tomorrow, in the chapter on the N-word I try to stick with just describing. However, many will wonder how I “feel.” I have opined here on this topic before; in anticipation of the publication of Nine Nasty Words I will share some further thoughts.
* * *
A widely discussed documentary on James Baldwin in 2019 was carefully titled I Am Not Your Negro, as opposed to what Baldwin actually said in an interview, “I am not your nigger.” In 2019 when literature professor Laurie Scheck ventured a discussion in a class at the New School in New York on why Baldwin’s actual phrasing had been elided, she uttered the word itself – only to be reported to the administration by students in her class and narrowly avoid being fired. And then, more recently, she was indeed fired, with no compelling reason given. It is hard to imagine that continued evaluation of the N-word incident in light of the “racial reckoning” starting last summer had nothing to do with this.
It has become almost hard to keep up with the episodes of this kind of late. As I have discussed here, law professor Jason Kilborn was barred from the University of Illinois in Chicago’s campus as a threat to black students’ safety after in frustration referring to himself in satire as a “monster” in a conversation with black students intended as a healing one. The conversation’s spark? His writing “n*****” in an exam question about employment discrimination, that had bothered no one until – golly, wonder why? – this year.
About ten minutes before this, Greg Patton had been dismissed from a class he was teaching at the University of Southern California for mentioning that in Mandarin, the equivalent of the hedging “like” in English is “nèi ge, nèi ge” which translates as “that, that …” but sounds like, well, you know. Not only had Patton given the lecture countless times before with no problems, but – you couldn’t write this better – the class was on communication in global markets!! Yet the usual suspects went about for weeks claiming that Patton had committed a kind of “violence” added to the grinding burden that being black in modern America is.
https://www.israelhayom.com/2021/05/04/abbas-declares-state-of-emergency-following-elections-deferral/
The decision to delay what would’ve been the first Palestinian election in 15 years sparked protests
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared a 30-day state of emergency in the Palestinian Authority.
While the announcement follows the leader’s decision last week to indefinitely postpone what would have been the first Palestinian elections in 15 years, such declarations have become routine during the coronavirus pandemic.
Following the postponement, Hamas – the Gaza Strip-based terrorist group that would have faced off against Abbas’s Fatah party – accused Abbas of perpetrating a “coup” against their partnership.
Protests against Abbas immediately flared both in Ramallah and in Gaza City.
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While the leader cited the tense situation in East Jerusalem as the pretext for calling off the vote, critics have said that the 85-year-old’s decision is due rather to his unwillingness to submit to the electoral process.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell described the deferment as “deeply disappointing.”
