race-baiting

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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More On The Andrew Yang “Racist” Cartoon: Some Perspective From The Ethics Alarms Archives…

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

In contrast to the political cartoon discussed in the previous post, THIS is a racist cartoon. Below is the Ethics Alarms post from 2014 titled, “9 Observations On The Boston Herald’s ‘Racist’ Cartoon”:

1. I’m adding this new #1 right at the beginning—there were originally only 8 observations—because some of the early comments suggest that I over-estimated some of my readers’ scholarship, historical knowledge and/or sensitivity on this issue, so let me be direct:  the reference to any African- American having an affinity to watermelon is about a half-step from calling him or her a nigger, and maybe even closer than that. Clear? This is not a political correctness matter. If the reference is intentional, there can be no debate over whether it is racist or not. It is. The President of the United States should not be subjected to intentional racial slurs.

2. I’m amazed—I just don’t know how this could happen. How could this cartoon make it into print? Cartoonist Jerry Holbert explained that he came up with the idea to use watermelon flavor after finding “kids Colgate watermelon flavor” toothpaste in his bathroom at home. “I was completely naive or innocent to any racial connotations,” Holbert said. “I wasn’t thinking along those lines at all.” Is this possible? In a political cartoonist? On one hand, since the racial connotation is so obvious and so predictably offensive, it seems incredible that a cartoonist for a major daily would dare offer such a cartoon unless he really didn’t perceive the racial stereotype it referenced. On the other, the man is a political cartoonist, not a Japanese soldier who’s been hiding in a cave for decades. How could he not know this? How could his ethics alarms, racial slur alarms, survival alarms not go off?

I don’t get it.

3. Hence the quotes around “racist.” The only way the cartoon makes any sense to me is if Holbert is amazingly, wonderfully non-racist, and completely color blind. The flavor of the toothpaste is innocuous if one doesn’t think in racial terms at all. Maybe he just thinks about the President as the President. If so, isn’t that terrific? Wouldn’t it be great if everyone was like that? Wouldn’t it be swell if a dumb detail like the flavor of the toothpaste in a cartoon that has nothing to do with race OR toothpaste wasn’t even noticed?

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Political Cartoon Ethics: No, There Was Nothing “Racist” About Bill Bramhall’s Andrew Yang Cartoon

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Yang cartoon

Some day, in a more mature and enlightened America, we will have non-male and non-white candidates for elective office as well as elected officials whose supporters do not use the politicians’ race or gender to unethically intimidate critics by crying “Bigotry!” when there is none. Some day. Or maybe not. Right now, it is clear that such politicians and their supporters just can’t help themselves. It’s cheap, it’s unfair, it’s dishonest, but as Harry Reid ( or Niccolò Machiavelli) might say, “It works!”

It needs to stop working. I consider the routine use of that tactic to stifle legitimate criticism as an valid, if not necessarily decisive, reason not to support female or minority candidates.

The latest despicable example of the practice arrived in New York City, where a mayoral race is heating up. Evelyn Yang, wife of candidate Stephen Yang, attacked New York Daily News’ cartoonist Bill Bramhall for a characature she called a “racist disfiguration” of her husband.

Bramhall, a boringly predictable progressive cartoonist who draws Donald Trump to look like he ate Orson Welles, mocked Yang by exploiting the common complaint that he’s not a real New Yorker, but a carpetbagger who is naive about the ways of The Big Apple. Mrs. Yang, however, tweeted,

“I can’t believe my eyes. To publish this racist disfiguration of @AndrewYang as a tourist, in NYC where I was born, where Andrew has lived for 25 years, where our boys were born, where 16% of us are Asian and anti-Asian hate is up 900%.”

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