Race

Observations on the Cincinnati Beatdown

/ Jack Marshall / 35 Comments

While languishing in the hospital, this was the story that I felt most frustrated about not being able to post. Not that I could get a single, clear, spin-free account of what happened. In the aftermath of some Cincinnati event or festival or something, a black man and a white one got into a verbal altercation. The white guy seems to have uttered a racial slur, precipitating a brawl that was quickly joined by a mob of black youths who beat up the white guy and then turned their anger on a white woman who tried to intervene, knocking her unconscious and kicking her as she lay helpless on the ground. An estimated hundred bystanders, most or all of them black, stood by taking videos, laughing, and cheering the mob violence on. There was only one call to 911.

1. Almost all of the national coverage of this incident has been on Fox News. The New York Times, interestingly, hasn’t reported the story at all. The natural question has been raised: If a black man and woman had been attacked and beaten by a mob of young whites as 100 white bystanders cheered them on, there would be protests in the streets and calls for “justice.” Why the double standard?

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Sydney Sweeney Indeed Has Great Genes and Those Freaking Out Over Her Jeans Ad Do Not

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments

If an attractive black model or actress had made this commercial, nobody would be complaining. But because Sweeney is white and blonde, and because the American Left has lost its mind, a classic provocative blue-jeans ad (Remember Brooke Shields saying “Nothing gets between me and my Calvins”?) is being cited as proof that America is embracing Hitler’s Master Race narrative. Sure.

This warrants an Ethics Alarms “Bite Me!” if anything does.

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One More Reason To Despise The Unethical American Bar Association…

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

The Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative pubic interest law firm, commissioned research that demonstrated how the American Bar Association pressures law schools to adopt race- and sex-based hiring and admissions preferences using the threat of withholding its accreditation. The ABA oversees U.S. law school accreditation—this should stop—and abuses its power and woke biases to dictate law school discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity and gender in violation of Title VI and the U.S. Constitution. The report is titled,“Unconstitutional Accreditation Pressures Force Law Schools to Discriminate against Faculty and Students.”

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Revisiting “I Don’t Understand This ‘Niggardly Principle’ Story At All…Or Maybe I Do and Am Just Afraid To Accept the Truth”

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

The Rest of the Story: I’m reposting this essay from almost exactly a year ago because the Free Press has a disturbing update on Holden Hughes (“He Was Falsely Accused of ‘Blackface.’ It Derailed His Life.”), one of the boys whose 2017 selfie was used by an unidentified woke ethics villain to have the children tarred as racists during the George Floyd Freakout in 2020. That ethics villain was an ideological compatriot of my friends who are raving about MAGA and Trump today. That is their “side.”

He’s an adult now, but Holden’s life plans were seriously derailed when the private school he was attending expelled him, not because he really was wearing “blackface” in that photo (he and his friends were smeared with green anti-acne facial masks) but because the woke head of the school believed that appearances mattered more than reality. Last year, a successful law suit by his family against the school ended in a one million dollar verdict for him and another one of the boys. That was just money, however, the damage remained

Everyone should reflect on this cautionary tale (which the mainstream media scrupulously avoided reporting on, and you know why) when the Trump Deranged claim that progressives defend democratic values and deplore ideological bullying. The piece ends,

Last year, shortly after the lawsuit was settled, he started dating a girl he liked. On their second date, he told her about his past and after that, he said, she stopped responding to his texts. He told me that it’s hard to accept that “something completely out of my control kind of inhibits that relationship from going farther.” But he can’t change the past.

“It’s my life, and there’s no avoiding that. It made me who I am today.”

Throughout the entire ordeal of the last five years, Holden told me he would remind himself: “I know who I am. I know my values. I know the real story.” He knows the other story—the one that isn’t true—will continue to haunt him. “I don’t think it’s ever gonna leave me,” he said. But he wanted to speak to me because he believed that putting his story in print, knowing it would be on the internet forever, would be cathartic. For him, it is a chance to finally set the record straight, after trying to hide the lies for so long.

“I am not ashamed of anything that happened,” Holden said. “I have made a lot of mistakes in my life. I make them every single day, but doing an acne face mask in eighth grade was not one of them.”

Here is the post, from May 11, 2024:

Now get this: In 2017, three 14-year-old California teens, two of whom, Holden Hughes and Aaron Hartley, were about to begin attending St. Francis High School, a Catholic private school in Mountain view, were modeling anti-acne medicinal face masks that involved smearing dark green goo on their faces. (One of the boys had severe acne and his friends put the stuff on their own faces in an act of support). The teen who wasn’t headed to the private school snapped a selfie because the boys thought they looked funny. A similar photo taken a day earlier indicated that they had tried white medicinal face masks as well. 

A student at St. Francis found the image online and uploaded it to a group chat in June 2020. Not only was the George Floyd Freakout in full eruption, but the photo was circulated on the same day that recent SFHS graduates had posted on Instagram a satirical meme pertaining to Floyd’s demise, so the school was “triggered.” The gloriously woke student who decided to publicize the greenface photo claimed that the teens were using blackface; “another example” of rampant racism at the school, he posted, and urged everyone in the group chat to spread it throughout the school community—you know, to cause as much anger, division and disruption as possible.

I can’t find the name of that charming kid. He’ll probably be Governor of California some day.

Soon after this seed was planted, the Dean of Students at St. Francis Ray called the Hughes’s and Aaron Hartley’s’ parents to ask them if they were aware of the photograph. They explained that the teens had applied green facemasks three years earlier, long before the non-racial Minnesota incident that had no demonstrable racial significance and definitely no relevance to blackface. The parents added that the teens’ use of the acne medication had “neither ill intent nor racist motivation, nor even knowledge of what “blackface” meant.”

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Comment of the Day 2, “All That Jazz” Edition: “Does Jazz Really Need DEI?”

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

I never know when a relatively obscure topic will strike a chord and produced a bumper crop of terrific comments. “Does Jazz Really Need DEI?”turned out to be such a post. Here is the second standout response, a Comment of the Day by johnburger 2013 on the post, Does Jazz Really Need DEI?

***

Here I thought Berklee College of Music was a serious institution. Silly me. Any institution with the following mission statement should be dismissed:

“The mission of the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice is to support and sustain a cultural transformation in jazz, with the commitment to recruit, teach, mentor, and advocate for musicians seeking to study or perform jazz, with gender justice and racial justice as guiding principles.” (emphases added).

Just out of curiosity, what the hell does “gender justice” mean and what does it have to do with vamping in E flatMinor? Do we only study songs written by women? Do women prefer major modalities over augmented fifths? Do women avoid playing the F#maj13add4addflat7 chord?

Music is the one medium where gender and race are monumentally irrelevant. Is Within Temptation fantastic because the lead singer is a woman? No. The combo is great because their music is complex and full of surprises. The Warning (my most recent favorite band) isn’t great because it consists of three Mexican sisters. No. They are great because their music is intricate and heavy. The fact that they started out very young and have gained world-wide recognition as a family band is interesting but they are phenomenal musicians and songwriters. Kiki Wongo isn’t great because she is a woman, but because she has talent and tone, and can melt your heart or tear your face off with her guitar playing (Smashing Pumpkins realized her greatness when they selected her out of 10s of thousands of applicants for their lead guitarist on their latest tours). Linda Ronstadt wasn’t great because she is a woman; she was great because her voice compelled attention and takes you on all kinds of sonic adventures. [Editor’s note: Linda cannot sing any more because of Parkinson’s, but she was indeed great, and is still a great interview.)

As for “racial justice,” does that mean that only minorities are allowed to play jazz? Dizzie Gillespie, Miles Davis and John Coltrane are not considered jazz geniuses because they were African American. No, they were great because they wrote and played the vocabulary for modern jazz. What about Buddy Rich? Was rich great because he was white? Hardly: he is great because he could play drums like nobody’s business and had a sublime sense of rhythm.

Popeye Time: I Am Finally Forced Into Responding To Woke Nonsense on Facebook…

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

A genuine, respected and dear friend re-posted this on Facebook:

Dr. Kristina Rizzotto created that thing; she is apparently a professional musician, so her doctorate isn’t in philosophy, public policy, law, or, clearly, linguistics. Shut up and play, Kristina.

Like Popeye, that was all I could stands ‘cuz I can’t stands no more, and I finally posted, after a good ten minutes of self-wrestling, this in response:

“Ugh. I don’t even want to wade into this, but come on. DEI is not the equivalent of three ethical virtues in a vacuum, and sure, diversity is nice; not not necessary or necessarily beneficial: the NBA doesn’t seek out white and Asian players to make it more “diverse,” because diversity doesn’t win basketball games. “Equity” means fairness, but the nation is built on equality of opportunity, not guaranteed equality of results, which is what “equity” means in the context of DEI. “Inclusion” is also nice, if it means the absence of deliberate arbitrary exclusion. If it means inclusion for the sake of inclusion, who said that’s virtuous or sensible? Who made that rule?

“Dr. Kristina is ducking the issue with intellectual dishonesty. Inclusion should be based on merit. Excluding anyone who would qualify for inclusion on merit, based on their sex, ethnicity, skin color, sexual orientation or physical characteristics is per se bias and illegal discrimination, and playing word games to deceive the inattentive and gullible into thinking otherwise is unconscionable. Similarly, black lives matter, but Black Lives Matter is a racist movement and a scam organization. Do better, Dr.”

I’m sure I’ll regret it.

Oh Dear! Patti Lupone Took My Advice and Now Broadway Wants Her “Cancelled”

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Back in November of last year, I wrote about the silly–but instructive—Broadway feud between diva Patti Lupone and performer Kecia Lewis, who is black, and who has received some accolades herself. Lewis was starring in “Hell’s Kitchen,” a 2024 jukebox musical about the life and career of Alicia Keys in a theater that shared a wall with the theater featuring “The Roommate,” a quiet, two-actor drama starring Mia Farrow and LuPone. The amplified sound in “Hell’s Kitchen” at two points in the musical could be heard by the audience LuPone’s show, so LuPone sent a polite note to the “Hell’s Kitchen” producers asking them to turn down the volume at those points in the sound design that were loud enough to interfere with her show. (The producer of “The Roommate”should have handled that, but Patti has power and influence and has never been shy about using them.) “Hell’s Kitchen” complied. LuPone, in gratitude, sent a thank-you note to the producers and flowers to the stage management and sound staff.

But Lewis decided to play the race card, because that’s what so many of the Woke of Color have been taught to do, because it works. She posted a video on Instagram reprimanding LuPone for supposedly engaging in race-based “microagressions.” I wrote in “Dear Patty LuPone: Please, PLEASE Tell Kecia Lewis ‘Oh, Bite Me!’” that I was ” hoping against hope that LuPone, who is the epitome of a diva (as this Ethics Alarms post demonstrates), either issues an emphatic “Bite Me!” to Lewis or ignores her completely as not worthy of attention from Patti’s perch on Broadway Olympus. Lewis is the racist here; she is the one who is stereotyping a white performer as insensitive and dismissive.”

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“Mostly Peaceful” Bullshit

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Guest Post by Mrs. Q

From your host: Ok, this is technically a Comment of the Day on the post, “Let Us Call the George Floyd Freakout What It Was.” I decided that it warrants guest post status for several good reasons. 1) We haven’t had a guest post for a while, and I am still seeking submissions. 2) The George Floyd aftermath disaster is one of the signature ethics outrages of my life, and is certainly worthy of more than one post saying so on its 5th anniversary. 3) I’m slyly trying to entice Mrs. Q to revive her featured column on Ethics Alarms, and 4) not for the first time, I like her take on a current ethics topic better than my own.—JM.

If anyone hasn’t had a chance to see this documentary, I’ll link it here: The Fall of Minneapolis | A Crowdfunded Documentary.

As some longtime readers here may remember, I am from Minneapolis and grew up literally at ground zero, where the Third Precinct, Auto Zone, and Minnehaha Lake Wine and Spirits were burned to a crisp. For three days and nights I watched others livestream on multiple cameras everything I knew from 4-14 years old go from vandalized to looted to burned from May 25th-28th. The first building they burned, was ironically, the last place I ever saw my black father work (it was a Snyders Drug Store then). I’d wait for him on the sidewalk in front of our four-plex, watching as he would step out the door of the building and head a half block home. Now that memory is infused with flames.

Then the riots went global.

What so many forget is that it was quite literally a war zone in Minneapolis. The documentary linked above illustrates what I witnessed. Areas were under siege and neighbors were trapped in their homes for days. It wasn’t just that crime increased, it was that the police could not help anyone. There were neighbor reports of rioters putting accelerants around neighborhoods, so people had to patrol their areas while putting themselves at risk for being attacked physically. I spoke with friends who had to flee in the early morning to get their families safe. And those who thought their BLM or Biden yard signs would save them were met with the same violence as everyone else.

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Integrity Check: Will Democrats and the News Media Ever Condemn the Open Racism and Anti-Male Bigotry of Rep. Jasmine Crockett?

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

My guess? No. Never. Neither today’s Democratic Party nor its captive news media have any integrity, and both are run by cowards and liars.

Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (D-Tx) told “Urban View” podcast hosts Clay Cane and Reecie Colbert:

“It is, it is this fear that the people within the party, within the primary system, will have about voting for a woman because every time we voted for a woman, we’ve lost. So far. And I think that that’s a natural fear because we just want to win. So there’s a lot of people that are like, you know what? Like, let’s go find the safest white boy we can find. I mean, I’m just saying. No, for real. And to be clear, when we talk about them, I can tell you that there is one specific candidate. I had a donor on the phone with me telling me that all the donors are lining up behind that candidate. So I can tell, and I tell you, it’s not a black person nor a woman, okay? When I say ‘they,’ it’s the same donors that most likely had their opinions about Joe Biden and moved … So like, that would be the ‘they’ that I would talk about. Trump, who is a misogynist. Trump, who is going to ramp up the misogynists in the first place because that’s what he does. He is disrespectful. Like, right now, he still doesn’t know how to deal with me because if you punch me, I’m punching back, okay? So, like, here’s the deal. Here’s the deal. Now, I know he think he’s running again, but that ain’t happening. I don’t care what all is going on in in this country, and I don’t care how many things we won’t say we are absolutely going to do. I am telling y’all with all confidence he is not running for a third term. That is not a thing.”

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the rising star and emerging leader of the Democratic Party, Jasmine Crocket!

What’s not to like? She deliberately fosters racial and sexual division and hate. She talks (in public, at least) like a high school drop-out. She intentionally encourages divisions in her party and American society. Best of all, she’s black, so any legitimate criticism of her can and will be immediately blamed on the racism of the critic.

Now, it makes perfect sense for Republicans and those hoping to see the Democrats follow the path of the Federalists and Whigs to cheer Crockett on. It is pretty obvious the “safe white boy” she’s talking about is Gavin Newsom, the white, male, Democratic governor who has led California to ruin. Even now it is obvious that nominating him to run for the White House in 2028 would split the party: because of Crockett (and others) the Donkeys will have to nominate a black, a woman, or a black woman who, unless someone new and competent emerges in the next four years, will lose big unless the Republican nominate Marjorie Taylor Greene or another idiot as its candidate.

Meanwhile, open bigotry and racism is apparently acceptable coming from Congresswoman Crockett, meaning that no matter how much the Democratic Party claims to be the opposite, it has become the party of hate and discrimination.

Yes, My Conservative Facebook Friends Can Be Just As Irrational As the Progressives…

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

A usually wise and measured conservative Facebook friend posted with approval a tweet by conservative pundit Matt Walsh, complaining about the father of a 15-year-old school shooter who killed two people and injured six others being charged after the tragedy. The killings (the girl shot herself as well, and died) occurred at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, in December.

“Let’s just be honest about the pattern here,” Walsh wrote. “This is the third time that a parent has been charged for violence committed by their child. In every case, the parent has been white. There is violence committed in the streets of every major city every single day. You could blame the crappy, neglectful parents in literally all of those cases. And yet none of them have ever been charged.”

Wow, talk about the wrong hill to die on! Both of those other cases involved criminally negligent parents, and the father of the late shooter in Wisconsin may have been the worst of the three.

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