race-baiting

Stop Making Me Defend The National Football League!

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

In a new low for reflex race-baiting, Daily Beast columnist Ernest Owens, a reliable progressive hysteric, accused the NFL of being racist because the league took more than an hour to suspend and postpone yesterday’s Monday Night Football game after Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed after making a tackle.  Hamlin, 24, went into cardiac arrest on the field and remains hospitalized in critical condition.

“One would have thought the game would have immediately been cut short. After such a drastic shift in energy and spirit, surely the game would be called without a doubt,” Owens wrote. “It would take an hour after Hamlin was first administered CPR for the NFL to officially postpone the game after first attempting to suspend it. Yes, after all of the chaos, the league thought it was practical to have the traumatized players continue to play….It would be one thing if Monday’s incident was a rare drop of the ball from the NFL, Instead, it’s another reminder of how incompetent this multibillion-dollar institution has been to its players, who are mostly Black.”

DINGDINGDINGDINGDING! There it is! The obligatory race-baiting! Hamlin is black, so the time it took to make a decision to end and postpone a nationally televised football following his medical emergency must have been motivated by racism, even though no NFL game had ever been suspended and postponed following an injury no matter how serious. The only games that have ever been cancelled and rescheduled at all since 1930 involved player strikes, and those games had not begun. One would think that a white player’s injury had previously caused a game suspension in the past for Owens to even suspect that NFL officials took too long to make their decision because of race.

No, he’s just a shameless, race-baiting asshole. It’s as simple as that. Continue reading →

“You’re The Dog”

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto—how I miss his blog!— famously wrote of accusations that something was a “racist dog whistle”:

“The thing we adore about these dog-whistle kerfuffles is that the people who react to the whistle always assume it’s intended for somebody else. The whole point of the metaphor is that if you can hear the whistle, you’re the dog.”

Bingo. In the last week we have seen two particularly vivid examples of this phenomenon. The most recent is peak Great Stupid: the World Health Organization announced  that it will begin referring to monkeypox as “mpox.” Why? Well, there were complaints that its name constituted “racist and stigmatizing language.”  Yes,  all it takes to make WHO jump is complaints from morons, or perhaps power-seeking activists who want to see how easily they can bend organizations to their will, just to prove they can. Continue reading →

The Little League Cotton Fiasco: Good Job, Everybody! Now U.S. Race Relations Are In Ethics Zugzwang!

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Boy, do I hate this story! As they say in “City Slickers,” “If hate were people I’d be China.”

During the Sunday broadcast of the MLB Little League Classic between the Baltimore Orioles and Boston Red Sox, ESPN cameras zoomed in on white Little Leaguers on the Davenport, Iowa team putting stuffing from a plush animal in the hair of second baseman Jeremiah Grise, who is black. This immediately triggered a full-throated cry of racism from the professional race-baiter, because, as you know, this is a racist nation with a racist history and a population full of racists and a black American is hardly any better off than Emmett Till.

Social media erupted with outrage. ESPN piously explained that it was investigating (the supposed scandal that it had triggered.) The social justice warriors and race grievance hucksters followed the path of Carolyn Hinds, a Toronto-based film critic and journalist who saw the viral footage and tweeted that it was “exactly what we think it is and some people need to be taken to task.” (She, of course, didn’t know what was going on, but since it confirmed her biases, said that she knew.) Hinds wondered if the actions were “something that happens regularly with this team,” and what kind of lessons about racial tolerance were being imparted by the players’ parents. The Little League, predictably, tried to grovel away the episode, saying that the kids had “no ill-intent.”

That didn’t come close to illuminating the episode The team’s conduct had nothing to do with racial intolerance, but the obscene reaction to it did. It turned out that both Grise and his white teammate put the cotton-like stuffing in their hair. They were performing an homage to Hawaii Little League star Jaron Lancaster, who has a cool white-dyed Mohawk. There was nothing racial in the conduct at all. ESPN just happened to only show the black kid.

Just an honest mistake, I’m sure.

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Oh, Fine: Now Baseball Players Are Looking For Excuses To Cry Racism

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Today’s contrived controversy shows what a bang-up job Barack Obama and race-baiting progressives have done “improving” race relations in the U.S.

A week ago, black White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson and white Yankee third baseman Josh Donaldson got into a small confrontation when the latter appeared to push Anderson off third base, prompting Anderson to shoving Donaldson in return and the two exchanging words. Coaches got between the two before anything further occurred. The two crossed paths again today twice, in the seventh inning after Donaldson walked and was forced at second on a double play ball. Anderson turned and seemed to say something to Donaldson, who seemed to be laughing as he ran back to the dugout. Earlier, in the fifth, Anderson had run toward the Yankee at home plate as benches emptied.

What was going on? Anderson claimed that Donaldson had directed a “racist comment” his way. The accusation was picked up by White Sox manager Tony La Russa and White Sox catcher Yasmani Grandal. For once, the news media told us what the “racist comment” was.

Guess.

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The Most Unethical Bill Of The Year

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

H. Res. 919 is the latest Hail Mary pass by the Democratic Party to try to somehow salvage the upcoming 2022 mid-term elections, widely expected to be a crushing defeat for the party, progressives, and their ongoing plan to convert the United States of America into European-style nanny state, socialist nation—and a single party one, if possible. The bill was introduced  by Rep. Al Green (D-Texas),arguably the most race-obsessed, hyper-partisan member of Congress. It was Green who began introducing motions to impeach Donald Trump within months of his inauguration.  H. Res. 919 declares an “unconditional war on racism,” and would establish a new Cabinet-level federal agency called the “Department of Reconciliation.” If that sounds Orwellian to you, that’s because it is. The full title of Green’s pro-racism antiracist bill is “Declaring an unconditional war on racism and invidious discrimination and providing the establishment of a  Department of Reconciliation charged with eliminating racism and invidious discrimination.” Catchy! Continue reading →

We Have A Winner In The “Most Intellectually Dishonest Defense Of President Biden Basing His SCOTUS Pick On Race And Gender” Competition!

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Yes, even surpassing Garrett Epps.

This happens to me too often. I’m writing this after less than 5 hours sleep, because I stumbled on this thing while trying to calm down after an early morning errand so I could get back to bed, and found that if I didn’t write about it, it would be like comedian Lewis Black’s story about over-hearing someone say, “If it weren’t for my horse, I wouldn’t have spent that year in college.” As with that snippet of a conversation that he couldn’t stop obsessing over what the hell it could mean for days, this article from “Above the Law” would churn and churn in my brain until it finally killed me if I didn’t get this post up.

I hope it works.

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Unethical Quote Of The Week: The Stacey Abrams Campaign [Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

I was going to comment on the photo above anyway, not realizing that it had set off an online controversy. Abrams is one of the most shameless power-seeking phonies among the many phonies America is inflicted with right now; the hypocrisy in the photo is hardly unique. President Biden had such an episode over the weekend; Democratic mayors, governors and other officials have made their “rules are for the gullible peons” photos and videos an art form. Most have had the sense to say, “I’m sorry,” or “I forgot,” or “I won’t do it again.” Not the Abrams campaign (she’s running for Georgia governor again).

It responded to criticism of the photo by—guess what!—accusing critics of being racist:

“It is shameful that our opponents are using a Black History Month reading event for Georgia children as the impetus for a false political attack, and it is pitiful and predictable that our opponents continue to look for opportunities to distract from their failed records when it comes to protecting public health during the pandemic.”

Wait, is there a law that says you can’t criticize a black politician during Black History Month? I did not know that! Boy, I wish that my people—you know, bald Anglo-Greek lawyers—had a month like that! Continue reading →

The ACLU Believes Certain Sports Are Racist Now…

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

The logic and legal reasoning underlying the American Civil Liberty Union’s current bit of woke grandstanding is profoundly depressing. These people are lawyers. This is the caliber of legal minds we are supposed to trust to protect the Bill of Rights?

Central Michigan University eliminated its men’s track and field team. It shouldn’t matter why, but in its announcement of the move in May of 2020, the school cited budget concerns in the midst of the pandemic lockdown. This seems reasonable; when funds are tight, colleges should be spending money on education rather than sports. The controversy was launched when CMU decided this year to add a men’s golf program.

The decision, the ACLU of Michigan decided, was racist in light of the fate of track and field. In one letter, the organization protested that track and field was crucial to the Black community because it has “offered many a way out of oppressive poverty.”

I’d like to see the data on that.

Then the ACLU wrote the university president on September 16 that golf, in contrast, was a “white sport.” “Country clubs that have been the training grounds for elite golfers have historically been racially exclusive,” the letter states. “Add to that the expense of the sport and the socio-economic circumstances of many African Americans, and the reasons for the whiteness of golf are quite evident.”

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No, Gene Weingarten, YOU Are The Poopyface, But Not For The Reason You Confessed To

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Weingarten cartoon2

Harry Truman liked to say “If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.” That applies in a lot of fields, but perhaps nowhere more than in the field of humor and satire in these days where would-be censors and race-baiters slither across the landscape. If you are going to venture into these dangerous environs (what they endanger is free speech, expression, and freedom itself), you better have the courage of conviction and willingness to fight the adventure requires. If not, you will make things worse. You will become part of the problem, and it is a big problem.

Gene Weingarten is a longtime columnist for the Washington Post, I’ve written about one of his serious pieces here (also here) and had debates with him via email on occasion. He often writes humorous columns, and it was one of those that unjustly made him the target of the social media mobs.

I assume Gene was a little stuck for a topic, because his theme, foods he won’t eat, is a pretty hoary one. I have read very similar joke essays by other writers, going back to Robert Benchley. Clarence Darrow used to riff on foods he didn’t like: he once said, “I don’t like spinach, and I’m glad I don’t, because if I liked it I’d eat it, and I’d just hate it.“ Another of Darrow’s was “I don’t like turnips, and I don’t like anyone who does.”

So Weingarten whipped off a lazy column joking about all the foods he says he hates; remember, actually hating them isn’t an ethical requirement. The idea is just a platform to justify snarkiness and to make silly comments like ” Balsamic vinegar likely broke up the Beatles.” Among his targets: Old Bay seasoning (hate it), hazelnut (I agree), anchovies (it depends), blue cheese (yecchh), pizza with more than two toppings (I think that’s about right), “garbage sushi,” meaning junk like California rolls (not worth hating) and sweet pickles (absolutely). It should be obvious to a spaniel that all of his laments are tongue in cheek, but that spaniel might object to “Drowning good food in wildly disparate other tastes is — I do not mean to exaggerate — like drowning puppies in a toilet.”

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Monday Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 7/12/2021: It’s The Great Stupid, Charlie Brown!

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

Gypsy moth

1. Incompetent Elected Official of the Month: Guess who! Yes, of course it is VP Kamala Harris, and this would be a stand-alone post if I hadn’t begun the day with another Kamala story. You may have heard about this one, if you don’t depend on mainstream media.

The Vice President suggested during an interview at the end of last week with BET News that voter ID laws will make it unacceptably difficult for rural voters who do not live near Kinko’s or OfficeMax to cast ballots. “In some people’s mind, that means you’re going to have to Xerox or photocopy your ID to send it in to prove who you are. Well, there are a whole lot of people, especially people who live in rural communities, who don’t — there’s no Kinkos, there’s no OfficeMax near them,” she warned. “Of course people have to prove who they are, but not in a way that makes it almost impossible for them to prove who they are.”

Naturally the interviewer, the historically unobjective Soledad O’Brien, who was the worst talking head at CNN before the whole network went to Journalism Hell, just smiled and nodded as if Harris had said that the world was round. Elsewhere, Kamala’s idiotic statement got the reaction it deserved. Harris had managed to insult rural America and show her own ignorance in one single gaffe. Kinkos hasn’t existed for several years; it’s called FedEx Office now. Wrote PJ Media’s Bryan Preston, his tongue piercing his cheek,

“Rural Americans have access to these things called ‘smartphones,’ which they can use to scan and send their IDs if they need to. They also have access to these things called ‘scanners,’ ‘printers, and these amazing devices that can scan,  print, and even digitally transmit information wirelessly. It’s like magic, really. Rural Americans also have this amazing communications tech called ’email.’ They also have various means of getting their information from where it is to where it needs to be — in physical form! There’s even a whole government service dedicated to moving physical pieces of paper and even packages from place to place called the ‘U.S. Postal Service.’ We truly live in an age of miracle and wonder.”

One Tweeter writes, “She’s so misinformed and so ridiculous. It’s absurd.” Yes, It’s that trademark Harris smug laziness, all right. If she is going to keep up the dishonest Democratic talking point that voter ID is racist and a means of “voter suppression,” it would be prudent to check some facts. Harris doesn’t do that very often. The episode was reminiscent of President Bush the Elder expressing amazement at a grocery store checkout scanner, causing widespread mockery in the media over how out of touch he was. Yet I can’t find any mention of Harris’s telling botch outside of the “conservative media.” Gee, why is that? When poor Dan Quayle was VP, the fact that he misspelled “potato” was news for a week. Harris shows that she thinks of rural America as a primitive wasteland, and it isn’t newsworthy at the Times, Washington Post, CNN, CBS and the rest.

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