“Jason Richwine, the co-author of a controversial immigration study released this week by the Heritage Foundation, tells Post Politics that he has resigned his position with the organization….The study written by Richwine and Robert Rector argued that the immigration reform bill would cost $6.3 trillion, but it was widely panned by conservative groups pushing for immigration reform as not accounting for the economic benefits of immigrants.
“Complicating matters were a series of revelations about Richwine, including that he had written a doctoral thesis at Harvard University arguing that the United States should focus its immigration efforts on those with high IQs and that he had written for a Web site that describes itself as “nationalist.”
Nice—he saves the women, and they mock him. Who’s the real jerk here?
Charles Ramsey is a hero without qualification. He saw someone in peril and acted, kicking in his neighbor’s door to help a woman and a child who were strangers to him. This assertive and proactive conduct led to the rescue of three young women missing for a decade. Yet because Ramsey is unrepentantly expressive in the manner of his community and peer group, and is not the typical white, middle class American who tends to dominate the internet, videos of his account of the event, replete with colorful slang and vernacular and his own expressive flourishes, have become objects of mockery and ridicule on the web, with a nasty racist edge. He is now a viral meme, especially his signature quote about knowing something is wrong when “a little pretty white girl” runs into “a black man’s arms.”
Wrong. I love Ramsey, and love his open, clear, emotional, story-teller’s manner. He is articulate in the true spirit of the word—interesting, vivid, clear and genuine. John Kerry should communicate so well. Mitch McConnell should hire him as a coach. If Al Sharpton could convey such sincerity, we’d all be in trouble. Continue reading →
I’ll say this: Roland was less irritating than Soledad O’Brien…
CNN has been engaged in either a purge or a make-over in recent weeks, depending on one’s point of view. One of the talking heads given the gate was Roland Martin, who describes himself on his blog as “a dynamic and engaging journalist.” Upon getting the bad news, Martin, who is African-American, took a hard look at his own career and abilities, applied an objective analysis, and concluded…that CNN was racist. He told the Huffington Post:
“You have largely white male executives who are not necessarily enamored with the idea of having strong, confident minorities who say, ‘I can do thisWe deliver, but we never get the big piece, the larger salary – to be able to get from here to there.”
Martin cited as proof the fact that when he guest-hosted a show for the network, the ratings didn’t drop: “If it’s a ratings game, and we won, how is it I never got a show?”
This is the permanent handicap a legacy of racism in the U.S. culture and the workplace bestows on American blacks. Not necessarily discrimination, but the impossibility of ever knowing whether discrimination and not legitimate factors have been the reason for a career setback, a failure, or the inability to advance. It is potentially crippling if the African-American, like Martin, uses the doubts created to relieve him of the duty of honest self-assessment, and to block him from the responsible course of rededicating himself to improving his skills and marketability. Continue reading →
Amazingly, this is the actual size of Bill Hanstock’s head!
The article on SB Nation is called “White people celebrate Heat loss in exceedingly white fashion,” and consists of the writer, a guy named Bill Hanstock, whose article more effectively made me detest an author than any piece I’ve read in a long time, mocking individual spectators at the Chicago Bulls -Miami Heat NBA game (which ended that team’s epic winning streak) based on their faces, their choice of clothes, their beverages, their accessories, their ages, their hair (or lack of it), and most of all, their race.
The instant verdict here: not only is the article unfunny and unethical, not only should SB Nation’s editor be sacked for allowing such garbage to pollute the site and the web, but Hanstock is, to put it mildly, a virulent jerk. Continue reading →
“Beyond the Myth” is a 2012 documentary that provides a vivid, troubling and often moving account of “breed specific legislation” in the U.S., which primarily involves states and municipalities banning “pit bull-like dogs,’ a.k.a. “vicious dogs,” though the dogs such legislation targets are usually not vicious and often are not even pit bulls. If you are one of the misinformed who have been convinced by biased reports and public hysteria that pit bulls are any more dangerous or vicious than any other breed, you owe it to yourself, your children, and the dog owners in your community to watch this film, which is available on Netflix.
Long-time readers of Ethics Alarms know that the site has visited the issue of anti-pit bull cruelty and bigotry frequently, most recently here. For those who have read and absorbed what I have written and the references I provided, there will be much that is familiar in “Beyond the Myth,”; nevertheless, I found the documentary shocking. I had no idea how pit bull bans worked in cities like San Francisco and Miami, with Gestapo-like raids on private homes culminating in harmless and beloved family pets being confiscated and slated for death if a police officer concluded that they have “5 out of 8” physical traits identified with pit bulls. Nor was I aware of how many of these dogs were being euthanized—tens of thousands every year—for being born with a broad head or a deep chest that meant they were legally branded as “vicious.”
The stories of the individual dog owners who have organized, lobbied, sued, and in some cases had to move out of their homes to protect a loving canine companion are also inspiring, if astounding. Wounded veterans have even had their service dogs taken from them. The most illuminating aspects of the documentary, however, are: Continue reading →
Today is Jackie Robinson’s birthday. He would be 94, but he lived only slightly more than half that long. He was one of our greatest ethics heroes, and I’d like to honor Mr. Robinson by reblogging a post from April 16 of last year.
Yesterday, the media, history buffs and Kate Winslet fans were obsessed with remembering the Titanic, sometimes even with proper reverence to the 1500 men, women and children who lost their lives in the North Atlantic on April 15, 1912. A strong argument could be made, however, that the most significant event that occurred on April 15 took place in 1947, in Brooklyn, New York. For that was the day that Jackie Robinson ran out to his position at first base as a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers, and became the first African- American to play baseball in the Major Leagues since the earliest years of the game.
With that act, and his epic heroism for the rest of the season, Robinson changed baseball, sports, American society and history. It was a cultural watershed in a nation that had been virtually apartheid since the end of the Civil War, a catalytic…
A newspaper columnist and an ESPN commentator both reaped the wild wind last month after statements in a column and on a televised panel that many, including me, took as irresponsible, unprofessional and worse. I wrote here about the column, a diatribe in Iowa’s Des Moines register by veteran Donald Kaul against guns, gun owners, the NRA and any politician who supported them. The panelist was ESPN’s Rob Parker, whom I didn’t write about simply because his racist rant against Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin was so obviously wrong that there was nothing much to say about it. If you missed it, African American Parker questioned Griffin’s bona fides as a black man because, among other offenses, he appeared to be a Republican and has a white girlfriend. I would have had a lot to write about ethical double standards if ESPN hadn’t finally fired Parker after suspending him, but he was let go yesterday.
Both Kaul and Parker now claim they were misunderstood, and thus treated unfairly. Kaul, who has been backed by his paper in an editorial, claimed in a recent column that his universally derided piece was obviously satire, and implying that anyone who didn’t catch the twinkle in his eye is illiterate:
“Gun owners seemed particularly upset at the suggestion that Boehner and McConnell be dragged [ by “a Chevy pickup truck… around a parking lot until they saw the light on gun control” ].The tactic, which dates back to the days of lynch mobs, became a more modern nightmare in the wake of the 1998 dragging murder of James Byrd by white supremacists in Texas. Many of the people I heard from said I should be arrested for threatening federal officials, and one said he had personally reported me to the FBI. Let me say this about that: That wasn’t a suggestion to be taken literally. I don’t believe Boehner and McConnell should be dragged. I was using it as a metaphor for making politicians pay a price for their inability to confront the gun lobby. It’s a literary device.
“Think of Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” written 200 years ago, in which he suggested that the Irish famine could be relieved if babies of poor families were confiscated at 12 months and sold to rich people, who could eat them. Swift, an Irishman, didn’t mean that literally. It was a satiric device to underline the misery that had been visited on the Irish by their English landlords. So too with my dragging of the Republican leaders.”
Yes, this hateful hack just compared himself to Jonathan Swift.
Parker, meanwhile, takes a different route: he tries that old stand-by, “it was taken out of context.” He told an interviewer he was shocked at the uproar his comments caused, saying,
“I mean, looking back at some of the comments, I can see how some people can take it out of context and run with it, but the response, and what happened over the past 30 days and everything was just shocking.”
Really. Well, here is the video of Parker’s attack on RG III. Tell me in what context such remarks would be considered appropriate, and not racist and mind-blowingly stupid:
Your Ethics Quiz Question:
Which of the two defenses, Kaul’s “It was satire!” or Parker’s “It was taken out of context!” is more unethical, unethical in this case meaning, “a pathetic lie and an insult to the intelligence of everyone who hears or reads it”? Continue reading →
This is the first of two informative Comments of the Day regarding this post. 49erDweet is correct, of course: the decision to honor Tiburcio Vasquez is a disgrace, and the comment shows that it is even more outrageous and irresponsible than I thought. I have read some of the claims on the web that Vasquez was “framed,” and that he didn’t commit the crimes attributed to him. None of them offer any proof other than the fact that mainstream scholars and historians, which naturally are biased against Mexicans, chronicled his activities, and none explain this mystery: if Vasquez didn’t commit all those crimes, what the heck did he do that was so remarkable? The only reason he is famous is because of his crimes. If he really was innocent, then he was a non-entity.
“The Alisal school district’s area is directly adjacent to mine but in the same community, so I’m a tiny bit familiar with the issue. I’ve disbelievingly read most of the few published responses of a couple of their board members and their superintendent. For some reason the other board members haven’t been available.
From what I’ve read it’s apparent the individuals involved, all of whom have Hispanic surnames, believe the available published history concerning California is biased and untrue, and Vasquez should be considered a popular hero in the same vein as was Robin Hood. For the crimes he committed against his own people, which they believe were minor, they readily forgive him. And to their way of thinking he’s a folk hero who should be idolized.
“I believe this is sad, bad community leadership, obviously a major ethics fail, and is more than passingly ironic because the area they represent is one of the major Mexican prison gang battlefields currently in crisis in California. They are preparing to hold up a killer, thief, robber and rapist as a person their future students should emulate. Which, for a gang area, should build up the prison population and a much shorter than normal life expectancy.
“My heart breaks for the students who will be negatively impacted by this dreadful decision.”
OK, so he was hanged for murder. Nobody’s perfect.
According to the University of Southern California historical archives, Tiburcio Vasquez (1835- 1875) was California’s second most notorious bandit. At the age of 14 he stabbed a constable, then embarked on a life of crime. He became the leader of his own gang, which ranged up and down central and southern California, robbing and killing. Vasquez was convicted of horse-stealing and sentenced to San Quentin prison in 1857, escaped, stole more horses, and was finally released in 1863, after playing a role in four prison breaks that resulted in the deaths of twenty inmates. For the next ten years he and his gang committed a string of burglaries, robberies and murders in the San Benito County area, finally ending with his capture in 1874. Convicted of two murders of the six attributed to him, Vadquez was sentenced to death, and executed by hanging the next year. Shortly before the noose was placed around his neck, Vasquez dictated an explanation for his actions:
“A spirit of hatred and revenge took possession of me. I had numerous fights in defense of what I believed to be my rights and those of my countrymen. I believed we were unjustly deprived of the social rights that belonged to us.”
I know what you must be thinking: “What a perfect historical figure for the Mexican-American community to honor by naming an elementary school him!” Continue reading →
“It is a shame that anytime something goes wrong, they pick on women and minorities..All of the things they have disliked about things that have gone on in the administration, they have never called a male unqualified, not bright, not trustworthy. There is a clear sexism and racism that goes with these comments being made by unfortunately Sen. [John] McCain and others . . . How do you say that a person with Susan Rice’s background is not qualified? I wonder what your qualifications are for your job. Where did you finish in your class? You know, I know one of them finished in the bottom of their class. Susan Rice was a Rhodes scholar. How do you say a person like Susan Rice is not qualified?…I mean, Susan Rice’s comments didn’t send us to Iraq and Afghanistan. Somebody else’s did. But you’re not angry with them.”
—-Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-OH),accusing GOP Senators John McCain, Lindsay Graham, and Kelly Ayotte (a woman) of sexism and racism for their harsh criticism of UN Ambassador Susan Rice for her repeated assertion on multiple news shows that the Benghazi attack that killed the American ambassador in Libya was a spontaneous demonstration over a YouTube video after the Obama Administration had been told otherwise.
It must be comforting to be able to rationalize all criticism arising from your own conduct and to attribute it to the biases of your critics. Crippling, but comforting. If one cannot regard criticism as legitimate, then one can never assess one’s own mistakes and weaknesses and work to improve.
Fudge is one of the habitual race-card players in Congress: earlier this year, she accused the bi-partisan House ethics committee of racism because a disproportionate number of the Congressional Black Caucus’s members were under investigation. (This was, of course, because a disproportionate number of the Congressional Black Caucus’s members, like Fudge, have engaged in dubious practices that indicate a weak grasp of ethics.) This time, she had lots of company, including Rep. James Clyburn (D-NC), who later said that the word “incompetent” was racist code. Brilliant! This means that no black public official can ever be called incompetent! Sure to be added to the code book if this theory sticks: inept, ineffective, corrupt, careless, irresponsible, and unqualified. Fudge, Clyburn and their colleagues propose to make legitimate criticism of black and female officials—those who are Democrats, that is—impossible, one word at a time. Continue reading →
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