discrimination

Ethics Dunce: AfroFuture Fest…Ethics Hero: Rapper Tiny Jag

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

Once again, the solution proposed for past racial discrimination is present racial discrimination. The Detroit music festival AfroFuture Fest, scheduled for August 3-4, is charging lower ticket prices for “people of color” than  “non-people of color.” (That should be “people of non-color,” you idiots.) The festival’s explanation for its racism is even worse that its English and proofreading skills:

WHY DO WE HAVE POC(PEOPLE OF COLOR) AND NONPOC(WHITE PEOPLE) TICKETS? I’M GLAD YOU ASKED!

EQUALITY MEANS TREATING EVERYONE THE SAME

EQUITY IS INSURING EVERYONE HAS WHAT THEY NEED TO BE SUCCESSFUL

OUR TICKET STRUCTURE WAS BUILT TO INSURE THAT THE MOST MARGINALIZED COMMUNITIES (PEOPLE OF COLOR) ARE PROVIDED WITH AN EQUITABLE CHANCE AT ENJOYING EVENTS IN THEIR OWN COMMUNITY (BLACK DETROIT).

AFFORDING JOY AND PLEASURE IS UNFORTUNATELY STILL A PRIVILEGE IN OUR SOCIETY FOR POC AND WE BELIEVE EVERYONE SHOULD HAVE ACCESS TO RECEIVING SUCH.

WE’VE SEEN TOO MANY TIMES ORGASMIC EVENTS HAPPENING IN DETROIT AND OTHER POC POPULATED CITIES AND WHAT CONSISTENTLY HAPPENS IS PEOPLE OUTSIDE OF THE COMMUNITY BENEFITING MOST FROM AFFORDABLE TICKET PRICES BECAUSE OF THEIR PROXIMITY TO WEALTH.

THIS CYCLE DISPROPORTIONATELY DISPLACES BLACK AND BROWN PEOPLE FROM ENJOYING ENTERTAINMENT IN THEIR OWN COMMUNITIES.

AS AN AFROFUTURIST YOUTH LEAD INITIATIVE THE VOICES OF OUR YOUTH INFORM OUR RESISTANCE.

HERE’S WHAT THEY HAVE TO SAY

” IF YOU DON’T SEE MY BLACKNESS, YOU DON’T SEE ME. PERIODT!”

I wonder how they pronounced “periodt”? Continue reading →

Ethics Observation On The Tempe, Arizona Starbucks Incident

/ Jack Marshall / 39 Comments

Ethics Alarms does not endorse any organized boycott efforts against any product, business or organization. However, if any corporation is begging to be boycotted, it’s Starbucks…

In case you missed it:

On July 4th, six Tempe, Arizona police officers visited a local Starbucks to get some coffee. The officers paid for their beverages and stood together, sipping coffee and chatting. A barista approached one of the officers, whom she apparently knew by name because he is was a frequent customer, and informed him that a customer  currently in the store “did not feel safe” because of the police presence. She asked the officers to move out of the customer’s line of sight (!) or to leave entirely.

The officers  left, but apparently reported the incident to the Tempe Officers Association, which described the incident on Facebook and added,

This treatment of public safety workers could not be more disheartening. While the barista was polite, making such a request at all was offensive. Unfortunately, such treatment has become all too common in 2019. We know this is not a national policy at Starbucks Corporate and we look forward to working collaboratively with them on this important dialogue.

The Tempe Police put out their own statement:

Starbucks, proving at least that it has not completely lost its mind, quickly apologized to the  Department, with a representative meeting with the police chief.  The statement:

“When those officers entered the store and a customer raised a concern over their presence, they should have been welcomed and treated with dignity and the utmost respect by our partners (employees). Instead, they were made to feel unwelcome and disrespected, which is completely unacceptable,”

Observations: Continue reading →

Perhaps Hollywood Was Just Virtue Signaling And Grandstanding On The “Inclusion Rider.” If So, Good.

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Apparently there is some disappointment among social justice warriors that the much ballyhooed “inclusion rider,” promoted by actress Frances McDormand in her 2018 Oscar acceptance speech, has not taken the city by storm despite abundant lip service from the Tinsel Town “woke.”  What a surprise: a business that either thrives or falls on the quality and popularity of its product chooses to make artistic decisions based on talent and merit rather than tribal quotas.

The “inclusion rider,” in its most literal form, is essentially a pledge to engage in discrimination, and to subjugate the purpose of art to “diversity” goals. All one has to do is observe the practices of “inclusion” advocates like Ava DuVernay,  currently embroiled in controversy over her racially slanted portrayal  of the Central Park Five story in her series, “When They See Us. She has vowed to hire only female directors for her series “Queen Sugar.” And how is refusing to hire an entire gender for a project “inclusion”? Well, one has to comprehend the tortured logic of the Diversity Nazis to answer that question. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: District Attorney Craig Northcutt

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

How long will it take our communities to exile social Neanderthals like Craig Northcutt to jobs where their bigotry and un-American values can only harm the people foolish enough to voluntarily associate with them?

Northcutt is the Coffee County (Tennessee) District Attorney, and a 2018 videotape reveals him saying such things as,

  • Regarding the Supreme Court decision declaring it unconstitutional to prevent gay couples from marrying: “Five people in black dresses rule us — it just takes five votes, it doesn’t take all nine.”

That statement is per se moronic, as well as irresponsible.. A ruling by any judicial panel is just as binding and has exactly as much force in law regardless of the vote. Northcutt is encouraging defiance of the law.

  • “DAs have what’s called prosecutorial discretion. Y’all need to know who your DA is. Y’all give us a lot of authority whether you know it or not, We can choose to prosecute anything, we can choose not to prosecute anything, up to and including murder. It’s our choice, unfettered. So, to deal with that, you elect a good Christian man as DA, and you’ll make sure at least [Christians] don’t get prosecuted criminally.”

Translation: “I’m biased, prejudiced, conflicted, and incapable of enforcing the law fairly and objectively., and don’t even want to, or know why I should” Continue reading →

Addressing Discrimination By Discriminating? Reparations? Pay-back? What’s Going On With Sex Specific Scholarships?

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Poor dear. She needs all the help she can get in this brutal, male dominated institution.

SAVE (Stop Abusive and Violent Environments) let us know that a study of sex-specific scholarships at 115 of the nation’s largest universities revealed widespread sex discrimination policies. Among 1,161 sex-specific scholarships, 91.6% were reserved for female students, with only 8.4% designated for male students. The analysis was conducted on colleges in 24 states across the nation; there is no reason to assume that studies of the remaining states would yield different results.

Yes, as you probably thought, sex-biased scholarships violate the terms of  Title IX, which prohibits scholarships that “On the basis of sex, provide different amounts or types of such assistance, limit eligibility for such assistance which is of any particular type or source, apply different criteria, or otherwise discriminate.” (34 CFR 106.37(a)(1))  Nevertheless, Alabama  scholarships show  a male-female scholarship ratio of  2 to 81; Florida , 3 to 70), and Utah 2 to 86). Those were the states with the most egregious imbalance;  South Carolina had the least, with 12 scholarship programs designated for men and 16 programs for women. That’s still 30% more.  Continue reading →

The SAT’s Racial Prejudice By The Numbers

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Bribing administrators  and having people take tests for your kids is one way to cheat in college admissions. Another way is to have the College Board cheat for you.

I should have written about this days ago, I know. I haven’t been feeling well, though, and this story literally makes me sick.

The SATs are adding a so-called “adversity score” that will artificially raise the test scores of some students beyond what they actually deserve on a level playing field competition. This is, we are told, “to help colleges and universities account for the various educational and socioeconomic factors that may negatively impact students’ scores.”

Let me translate: this is a cynical and dishonest device to give cover to colleges and universities as they try to base their admissions on race and ethnicity while avoiding legal prohibitions on discrimination based on race and ethnicity.  That is all it is, and exactly what it is. Continue reading →

Exhibit A On Why It Is Crucial To Understand Moral Luck: The Samuel Lee Scott Affair

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

St. Louis Bail Project is under attack for bailing out Samuel Lee Scott, who was in jail pending domestic abuse charges and couldn’t pay the court-ordered bond. Once Scott was free, he went home and killed his wife.

The bail system, which is being re-examined across the country, obviously discriminates against the poor. The idea underlying bail is to get the accused out of jail before trial, since he or she is by definition not guilty, and to create  a financial incentive for the accused to appear for trial. The system penalizes poverty, so non-profits like  the St. Louis Bail Project use their resources to allow poor defendants to have the same options rich ones do. It is an ethical mission.

The fact that this one bailee committed murder is pure moral luck regarding the Bail Project. The Project does not second guess the judge’s decision to allow bail, or the system’s determination that Scott wasn’t a flight risk or a danger to the community. Indeed, there may have been no reason to expect that Scott would kill anyone. That he did was moral luck, and cannot be logically or fairly applied retroactively to the St. Louis Bail Project’s decision to pay his bail. The fact that bail was set indicates that the system did not regard him as a threat.

The episode could justifiably spark a debate regarding when and if domestic abusers should be provided with an opportunity to go home, and whether bail in such situations should include a requirement that they live apart and stay away from the alleged victim. What it should not do is cause organizations like the St. Louis Bail Project to doubt the importance of their mission.