The mad diversity obsession being flung at American culture from the depths of the progressive insanity is a brainwashing exercise to make society forget what it has already learned: What matters is whether a group is constructed based on merits such as talent, experience, relevant skills, achievement, potential for significantly contributing to the success of an enterprise, and character. To the extent that the presence of diversity in a group suggests that opportunity has been equally available to all, contingent on these qualities, of course, it is a welcome condition. If the diversity can only be achieved by warping, rigging or ignoring the relevant qualifications, however, the process is destructive, and indeed unethical. Diversity for diversity’s own sake is a rationalization for unfair treatments and incompetence.
Corporations, sucking up to current fad as they are programmed to do, will eagerly enable this destructive cultural brainwashing, if the more level-headed and ethically grounded among them don’t do our duty and mercilessly mock such examples as these:
Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated has been holding a stunt search for unknown models to add to their usual bikini beauties for the annual, and completely anachronistic, annual swimsuit issue. The six finalists have been announced and they include a 56-year-old woman, a bald woman, and a “plus-side mode.” Why no amputees, little people, anorexia suffers, steroid-stuffed female body-builders, Asian acid burn victims and transsexuals, I don’t know. Listen to this nonsense from SI editor MJ Day:
“The entire concept of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Model Search was born out of frustration. We were not seeing the diversity and representation in the industry that we wanted to include in our brand. I could not be prouder of the thousands of people that submit to be considered and that attended the open casting call we held during Miami Swim Week. It proves that more and more women regardless of age, color and or background are feeling worthy and empowered to be a part of something that’s a lot more than just rocking a bikini.”
Fine, except that entire point of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue has been to feature gorgeous women rocking bikinis. This was always a transparently lame excuse to transform what is supposed to be a publication about sports into a girlie T&A mag once year, because it sells. Now what is the issue supposed to be, a fetish special for men who get off on bald chicks and obese sirens? Beauty and sex features are not the place for this kind of diversity. Come on, SI, we want to see some really, really ugly models. Have the courage of your convictions.
Now for a real head exploder in the Corporate Virtue Signaling Diversity Pandering race:
Barnes and Noble
Barnes & Noble kicked off Black History Month by announcing a new initiative with Penguin Random House to create “a series of covers for twelve American classics that re-imagine protagonists as people of color.” They really did. No, I’m not kidding. Really.
Thus we had covers showing a black Captain Ahab on “Moby-Dick” (but oddly no Great Black Whale), a black Dorothy on the cover of “The Wizard of Oz” (wasn’t there a musical about that?) a black Frankenstein’s Monster, a black “Alice in Wonderland,” a black Long John Silver (why not “Long John Black”?) and Peter Pan…what a great idea! Of course, none of the authors of these classics described their iconic characters this way, so the the whole exercise is disrespectful and faintly simple-minded, as if race wouldn’t change these characters’ identities and behavior at all.
A press release described the selection process explaining that an artificial intelligence program was used to “analyze the text from 100 of the most famous titles, searching the text to see if it omitted ethnicity of primary characters.” The algorithm apparently had the ability to account “for the fact that when authors describe a character, they rarely outright state their race, but often use more poetic and descriptive language.”
Happily, the booksellers got what they richly deserved. The “Diverse Editions” were scheduled to be unveiled at the Fifth Avenue Barnes & Noble in New York, but the reaction was sharply negative. The stunt dumb was called, among other choice names, an attempt at “literary blackface,” and the whole thing has been cancelled.
See what we missed?
Now the poll…
Ethics Alarms 
And why couldn’t Barnes and Noble promote black authors again? Are there no black authors good enough to be promoted? Well, there is the Three Musketeers there. But I’m not sure if they’re willing to count him.
Here’s a list compiled by Forbes of famous black authors. One of them (Fredrick Douglas) was ( gasp) even a Republican. I would have added Booker T Washington’s *Up From Slavery* but I guess he wouldn’t be very fashionable nowadays.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmarshallcrotty/2012/02/18/10-african-american-authors-everyone-should-read/
LINK! LINK!
Here it is: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmarshallcrotty/2012/02/18/10-african-american-authors-everyone-should-read/
American classics, including the monster story written by a British Woman, a novel by a French Black Guy (he’s black, so we could call him a French African-American; the fantasy play by the Scottish playwright and the children’s story by the Oxford Professor.
At least they got Moby Dick right.
And, I missed it. Was Huck Finn black? And did they make Jim white? Did Huck call Jim a Honkey, or a Cracker? Or, did they leave Twain out of it altogether?
-Jut
Honestly, Jut, how brain dead does a company have to be to allow a bone-head idea like this to get a green light? I don’t understand it.
Honestly, in both cases, it’s about publicity. Sports Illustrated has one print edition per year now that makes money: the Swimsuit Edition. They want to be woke about female objectification, and destroy themselves in the process.
What is B&N to do? It can’t ignore Black History Month. And, frankly, they like to have portraits of authors up in their stores. Highlighting black authors would be right up their alley. But, that is boring. Year after year, trotting our the same handful of authors (not that that is necessarily a bad thing: the Invisible Man by Ellison ranks high up on my list of books that have “stuck” with me.
So, they try to switch things up. Be color-blind. Imagine that the Everyman is black. Black people are not the other. If nothing human is alien to me (Terence), Ahab could be just as relatable as a black man.
Noble idea; corny execution (but, if it moves product, hooray).
However, the modern Furies of race need the “othering” of others. Their reason to be disappears if there are not “others.” So, in conformity with the malleable nature of the thought process, it serves whatever purpose they desire.
Black Ahab is either the universal person obsessed with revenge, or he is the Angry Black Man stereotype.
Black Julius Caesar either shows Obama as a persecuted politician, or it is a thinly-veiled assassination threat.
You can spin it whatever way you want. Vacuous Entailment. It proves whatever you want it to prove.
Barnes and Noble probably we’re going the inclusive Black Everyman route. The Furies want to blackface everything (even things that never were quite like that).
Barnes and Noble guessed wrong-and backed down.
Honestly, that is my best guess about what happened.
-Jut
I saw that in their PR email when it came out and immediately dumped it as stupid. A lot of these stories just do not have African-Americans in that time and setting. Most look down on fanfic because it takes liberties, but this is professional dressing as imposters. I especially thought the Frankenstein was dumb because that portrays the black man as a dangerous, murderous monster. (and how would Victor get that many black corpses in setting anyway?)
Again, picking a winner here is akin to deciding whether to either be torn apart by wild animals or be drawn and quartered, but I’m going with SI.
Subscribers used to anticipate the Swimsuit edition, wondering which supermodel(s) would be selected. The more progressive people wouldn’t buy the magazine but would complain about the shameless exploitation of women while lots of people bought the magazine, not caring what progressives thought.
Now those that normally buywill complain that the supermodels are missing, the progressives will complain that the magazine buyers are complaining, and no one will actually buy the magazine. Good one, SI.
Sports Illustrated would do much better to fire its editor and hire James Carville…
Bingo.
I would also add another opinion: featuring a 56-year-old and a plus-size model in a swimsuit issue is no less an act of exploitation to satisfy a group of people than using supermodels exploits different women to satisfy a different group of people.
Being 68, I wouldn’t throw that 56 year-old model out of bed for eating crackers.
My son watches both the older version of Mary Poppins and the newer Mary Poppins Returns.
My son appears to be mildly autistic- and he’s only 3-so I can’t yet ask him which is his favorite- but it appears to be the older. I too preferred that one, and I couldn’t figure out exactly why. Technically speaking, the newer one seems to be the better.
But then I realized what it was: David Tomlinson’s George Banks vs. Ben Whishaw’s grown up Michael Banks.
David Tomlinson actually played a character who was happy to be in 1910-and the head of his household-as a successful businessman probably would have felt in London circa 1910. And Whishaw plays a character who while living in the Great Depression- seems to have a decidedly 2018 vibe about him- as if he would prefer to be in this generation.
And then, I realized that has been happening for ages to movies in hollywood. No one can play their actual characters in their respective times-instead they must play them as if the character actually wished to belong to today’s society and opinions.
It’s a terrible shame, because if you go back and watch older movies, you realize that while the stars were always immensely talented, the skills of the character actors have drastically improved over the years. But all that improvement is thoroughly undermined by this inability or unwillingness to actually inhabit the time frame in which we are talking. As an obvious example, every slaveholder in movies today is depicted as fully evil -but we know, as a matter of practicality, it couldn’t be that simple.
I miss Tomlinson’s ability to play a character who actually inhabited 1910-and as far as I can tell, Hollywood isn’t going to give me a David Tomlinson type performance any time soon.
It’s a shame when politics are put above art-and it’s hurting the stories that are being told by Hollywood at this time.
You and your son are reacting to more than just David Tomlinson. The technology is all that’s better in the sequel. Yes, Julie Andrews can sing like nobody else, and young Dick Van Dyke has an edge over the 90-year-old version. The key difference: Robert Stevenson was a wonderful director. The movie nails its status a a classic when Mr Banks takes his long walk to be fired, and the director, even though the movie is well past the 2 hour mark, lets us follow him and his thoughts, as the Feed the Birds music swells, and he pauses by St. Paul’s, and he begins thinking about what really matters in life, which is the theme of the movie, and an important one.
Lacking of being in period is a terrible weakness in movies, tv, and books, I used to thoroughly enjoy historical novels, but the authors cannot get their heads out of 2010. Oh, they remember to omit cars and computers, but they lack period events and mentions of people prominent in the period. Worse, the attitudes of major characters are far too modern, not just a little ahead of their time, but people who would fit right in with the opinions of today. The characters are like children, playing dress up in a story they don’t understand instead of living it. Authors years back created characters who were not modern, but this relatable, but too many creators today just don’t get that there is more to the changes since then , than just tech and attitude and beliefs are just as important to get right as tech. (not that some don’t fail there too)
Personally, I find the B&N stunt far more egregious, as it seems indicative of a pattern, or trend if you will that I have noticed in the current year entertainment medium-that of taking historical events, historical period pieces, or works of fantasy that are heavily based on mythologies unique to a specific culture, and race swapping/gender swapping certain characters or historical figures.
The list begins with:
1. ‘The Witcher’
-Based on the fantasy book series by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. Anyone familiar with the series will tell you that it is influenced heavily by Polish/Slavic mythology, and takes place in a medieval European style setting.
The Netflix series race swaps several characters, namely Yennefer of Vengerberg , Triss Merigold, Fringilla Vigo, and the Elves (or Aen Seidhe, as they are also known). The descriptions of the characters in the book are quite specific as to their skin complexion.
No real explanation is given as to why the creators thought this necessary, but my personal suspicion is because the book series, and the critically acclaimed video game, also based on the book series ‘The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt’, were criticized by progressives as being ‘too white’.
2. ‘The Aeronauts’
-An Amazon Studios production, which is based on the book ‘Falling Upwards: How We Took to the Air’, by Richard Holmes, which recounts the exploits of British aeronauts James Glaisher and Henry Coxwell.
This film gender swaps the historical figure of Henry Coxwell, with that of the fictional character of Amelia, played by actress Felicity Jones.
Many apologists and critics defended the creative decision by saying that the film was ‘inspired/based on historical events’, thus rendering, at least in their eyes, any criticisms of erasing historical figures mute.
3. ‘The Green Knight’
-An upcoming indie film, based on the 14th century Arthurian poem ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’. The film is described as a ‘medieval dark fantasy’, and centers around
the story of Sir Gawain (played by actor Dev Patel) and his quest to confront the mysterious Green Knight.
I must admit that the trailer for this film looks pretty good, and does a great job invoking an atmosphere of foreboding and dread-however, I was constantly distracted by the ‘diverse’ cast, which for me at least, served to completely take me out of the setting. With the poem being set during the time of King Arthur, that of medieval England, one would not expect to see any PoC’s-at all, as England at that time was a ethnically homogeneous country.
These are only three examples-although I had seriously thought about adding the fictional world of Asgard, from the MCU to the list, as it is lifted directly from Norse mythology, yet featured a pretty diverse population-however I am sure that I could find many more examples that deserve to be on this list.
I am fully prepared to be deemed ‘racist’ and a ‘white supremacist’ by a few passerby’s ( even though I am half white and half Puerto Rican/North African), for pointing this out-but I just cannot help but notice this practice becoming more and more commonplace in entertainment, and I have my own theories as to why.
Personally it all strikes me as ‘diversity just for diversity sake’. Now I have no problem with a diverse cast-providing that it makes sense, for example:
Let’s go back to Asgard and the MCU-it makes sense that the population of this fictional world would comprised of Scandinavian looking people-just as it makes sense that the fictional nation of Wakanda is racially homogeneous.
I find it somewhat jarring that the population of Asgard ( again, given its mythological nature) is so diverse, just as much as I would find the sight of seeing a bunch of white and Asian people mixed in with the population of Wakanda jarring-because it just would not make sense given the setting, as well as the canon already established by the comics.
My same point stands for works of literature or films set in any kind of medieval European setting.
I know that I am probably spitting hairs over this, but I suspect that this kind ‘diversity washing’ is tolerated because these stories and events are part of the Western literature and history, or what progressives would term as ‘colonialist’ history and literature.
Now many will argue that these are ‘fantasy’ stories, and are completely open to artist reimagine and retelling, to which I would somewhat agree. However, I suspect that the same kind of ‘retelling’ and artist liberties would not be tolerated with works such as Chinua Achebe‘s ‘Things Fall Apart’, or ‘Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass’-I am sure you could imagine the outrage if the these works were reimagined with white leads.
Anyways, that’s just my two cents.
Well, I have noticed that the echo chamber people just listen to their little echo chamber. They have no real idea how actual people think and react. They behave as if people actually follow the PC scripts that are written for them. This is happening in politics as well. My state has a new bill promoting ‘Justice for Missing Indigenous Women’. Well, this is obviously a bill written by out-of-state people trying to fix a non-existent problem. I have heard no complaints that there are an unusually large number of women missing in this state, so I know that is just made up. I know this is from out of state because ‘indigenous women’ is a phrase that only exists for ‘indigenous women’ at places like Harvard. If this was actually a local bill it would be called ‘Inter-Tribal task force on abduction’ or ‘Missing Indian Women Bill’. Now, how awkward does the last name sound? Very. Well, ‘Justice for Missing Indigenous Women’ sounds the same if you don’t live in the SJW echo chamber. The same type of people came up with this bill and the Barnes and Noble idea.
One thing struck me right away about the B&N covers for those books — with perhaps one exception, all the characters portrayed on the covers were singularly unattractive and there was nothing about the cover to grab you and make you want to read the book. That is, after all, the actual purpose of cover art these days, to intrigue you or catch your eye and interest you in the book. That’s a big fail.
The one cover I thought was reasonably appropriate was Frankenstein. So is that how we should view blacks these days, as out of control monsters? I don’t think so.
Nonetheless, I voted for SI in the poll. Why would you want to tick off the people who buy your magazine?
It is akin to what I tell my clients when they ask about our e-mailing them about products. I believe that, as a company, we are not going to inundate you with e-mails (or phone calls) because we don’t want to annoy and antagonize our clients. It’s hard enough to get them in to the office, why drive them away from coming back? That would not be smart.
The boy scouts (yes, I refuse to capitalize the stupid) are bankrupt. They antagonized their core constituency (boy, and parents of boys) who then stayed away in droves.
SI made the same mistake. May it work as well for them.