April 2, 2014

Big crowds attend the "White Privilege Conference" here in Madison.

The Capital Times reports.
“The courage of people speaking out inspires me. The demonstrated and suggested ways of advocacy in the face of ubiquitous white-dominated structures inspires me. The incredible articulation of wisdom encapsulated in these rooms inspires me,” said [Sue Robinson, an associate professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication]....

"It’s good to focus on how systemic racism exists and how we function with it," [said Isadore Knox, director of the Dane County Office of Equal Opportunity, who attended the all-day "Black Male Think Tank"]....

For example, rough talk and movement by African-American boys playing basketball may be viewed as threatening by some, but more likely is just posturing and a way of relating, he said. “I would parallel that to school situations where teachers who are not culturally competent see behaviors they see as antisocial, but might be just how those boys react," he said.
Meanwhile, at Breitbart, there's some reporting about how Wisconsin Reporter's Adam Tobias tried  to attend but was stymied by the difficulty of registering as a member of the media. He was told "This is a private conference," but he has some questions "as a taxpayer" about how the conference gets some money from the city's hotel tax. Obviously, these conferences bring visitors into the city, and some of them stay at hotels, but should that mean conferences can't be closed to the media? I haven't thought deeply about this, but it seems to me that these sessions were a bit like psychotherapy groups, and I can see why privacy is desirable in a context where participants are encouraged to become introspective and confessional about their vestigial racism.

ADDED: Nick Novak of the MacIver Institute managed to get into the conference and to attend various "breakout" sessions. Novak quotes a session leader:
"Teaching is a political act, and you can't choose to be neutral. You are either a pawn used to perpetuate a system of oppression or you are fighting against it," [said Kim Radersma, a former high school English teacher]. "And if you think you are neutral, you are a pawn.... Being a white person who does anti-racist work is like being an alcoholic. I will never be recovered by my alcoholism, to use the metaphor... I have to everyday wake up and acknowledge that I am so deeply imbedded with racist thoughts and notions and actions in my body that I have to choose everyday to do anti-racist work and think in an anti-racist way."
We're all sinners. To me this is bland. Pablum. But maybe you find it enraging and insulting.  It's a very old controversy. Do you want to reserve terms like racist (or sinner) for the most extreme manifestations of the tendency or do you want to use the term broadly to call attention to our shared human nature?
"We've been raised to be good. 'I'm a good white person,' and yet to realize I carry within me these dark, horrible thoughts and perceptions is hard to admit. And yet like the alcoholic, what's the first step? Admitting you have a problem," she told the session attendees.
See? It's a therapy group. And no one's making anybody attend. It reminds me of religion — and that 12-steps business is religion — where the proselytizer tries to get you to see that you're not as good as you like to think you are and you need to repent and go forth and sin no more.

130 comments:

madAsHell said...

Black Male Think Tank

.....isn't that racist?? I guess it only cuts one way.

carrie said...

If it only received a little government money, it should be private. However, I am sure that the media wants to be there to stop them from coming up with novel ideas for combating white privilege like a charter school for black boys based upon a prep school model that uses non-union teachers.

Henry said...

I find the juxtaposition of "white-dominated structures" with "wisdom encapsulated in these rooms" kind of interesting. The structures are white-dominated and the rooms encapsulate wisdom. Once your mind grows used to this level of abstraction, how hard is it to let it go at night? Do advocates dream of structural sheep?

madAsHell said...

If it only received a little government money,

How much is a little??

SomeoneHasToSayIt said...


Biggest canard in America today, and best example of 1-inch deep analysis, is that when you see a positive or negative disparate impact result, by Race, that it is due to race-ism.

Shocking shallow thinking. And about as destructive to our all getting along, as a thing can be.

This conference is a disgrace.

Curious George said...

MacIver Insitute got in, and it's clear why they didn't want press.

"Teaching is a political act..."If you don't want to work for equity, get the fuck out of education," Radersma said. "If you are not serious about being an agent of change that helps stifle the oppressive systems, go find another job. Because you are a political figure."

carrie said...

madASHell--"little" means the same subsidy that other private conferences get from Madison--and I should add that it should be private only if that same small subsidy is available to other groups on a nondiscriminatory basis--e.g., the tea party would get it if it tried to hold a private conference in Madison.

damikesc said...

Again, if a truly multiethnic society is impossible per these people, why are whites TRYING?

Zero benefit in the effort as these bigots show.

Curious George said...

"I came to higher ed to study. What is this problem that I'm scared of? I don't know what to do. My principal is scared of this. Where do I point? Who's at fault? My white body is at fault,"

Ignorance is Bliss said...

The picture at the MacIver Institute link is great if you like to play Where's Waldo.

Bob Boyd said...

Wank Fest

gerry said...

This all radchic, false consciousness, and harmful.

When will a progressive pontificate that black-on-black murder "is just posturing and a way of relating"?

who-knew said...

There was more state money involved than just the room tax. MATC and UW-Eau Claire ponied up sponsorship money and a lot of local tax dollars were squandered sending teachers and such to this joke.

RecChief said...

so since everyone has some kind of bias: against a different political viewpoint; members of the opposite sex; drug users; lower or higher economic class; different religions; even skin color, we are all just like recovering alcoholics?

Fuck, it is a cult!

rhhardin said...

Pablum with dried banana flakes was pretty good, as I remember.

On pabulum, one dictionary has "Food for thought, esp. when bland or dull."

test said...

It's a therapy group.

"Teaching is a political act, and you can't choose to be neutral. You are either a pawn used to perpetuate a system of oppression or you are fighting against it,"

The participants understand it as a political rally where they urge each other to be more aggressive in indoctrinating our children in lieu of teaching them the skills they need to be successful in life.

kcom said...

That Kim Radersma is quite the catch:

"The session was facilitated by Kim Radersma, a former high school English teacher in California and Colorado. Radersma is currently working toward her Ph. D. in critical whiteness studies at Brock University in Ontario, Canada."

kcom said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
rhhardin said...

Racism goes Konigsbergian.

kcom said...

I'm thinking of going back to grad school for critical chemistryness studies. That's a thing, right?

Wince said...

"...it seems to me that these sessions were a bit like psychotherapy groups, and I can see why privacy is desirable in a context where participants are encouraged to become introspective and confessional about their vestigial racism."

I have to everyday wake up and acknowledge that I am so deeply imbedded with racist thoughts and notions and actions in my body that I have to choose everyday to do anti-racist work and think in an anti-racist way.

Here's some smuggled video from a Tuesday mornining "Breakout Session".

AustinRoth said...

It is pablum - dangerous, corrosive, destructive pablum.

To reduce race relations to 'all whites are racist, always will be, can never change', and the associated corollaries of 'all blacks are victims of racism all the time' and 'all non-white cultures express modes that are not racist but only identified as such BECAUSE all whites are racist all the time' is in a capsule summary why race relation continue to deteriorate, not improve, in America

President-Mom-Jeans said...

Nothing like the racism of idiot white liberals.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Hilarious. The most liberal young people of my acquaintances are also the ones who've taken fullest advantage of their "white privilege". And the Cracks of the world can't figure out why Black males continue to sink during The Enlightened Era of Liberal Supremacy?

Gahrie said...

See? It's a therapy group. And no one's making anybody attend

Yet.

Roger Sweeny said...

In AA, you have to drink (or have drunk to excess) to be a sinner. In this conference, all you have to do is be born white. Some people might call that bigotry.

chickelit said...

Whatever happened to the white arm band movement in Wisconsin education? Wasn't that publicly sponsored?

Anonymous said...

The city of Madison hosted the 15th annual national White Privilege Conference last week at the Monona Terrace to discuss issues of white supremacy, social justice, education and the Tea Party.

Sounds like a KKK Klavern.

In reading some of the reports, I was struck by how badly Asians screw up their whole story line. e.g. Only Blacks can teach Blacks, Only Browns can teach Browns, etc. Then there are those White taught AP classes for Asians and whites. Let's all go back to "separate but equal"

Africa for Africans, Asia for Asians, SA for Hispanics, America for everybody...

Somewhere in your local School Budget, there is $50k for the district to send 2 teachers each, to 5 conferences like this. Remember that when they say they don't have enough money to fund the band...

Curious George said...

""There's been a recent academic study, and I say academic because people here are, most of you are academic something-or-the-others, and there has been a longitudinal study that finds the longer you are in the Tea Party, the more racist you become," he told the group."

chickelit said...

Curious George said...
MacIver Insitute got in, and it's clear why they didn't want press.

I recall that MacIver Institute did a fair amount of impartial coverage during the Walker recall so I'm glad they're getting some respect.

Anonymous said...

Here's some smuggled video from a Tuesday morning "Breakout Session".

"You want the rest of it?"

"Every penny's worth you Black SOB!"

garage mahal said...

and there has been a longitudinal study that finds the longer you are in the Tea Party, the more racist you become," he told the group.

Ahem

RecChief said...

"And no one's making anybody attend."

Except you have people like Radersma who are in education, who are then allowed to proselytize to their students. If their Christian counterparts did the same thing, they would be fired.

Tank said...

Black Male Think Tank ?

I object to them using my name.

Is Black Male Think Tank an oxymoron? Was that a racist statement? Or an edgy joke?

Who is John Galt?

How much time did he spend at these conferences?

Brando said...

Do these people think for a minute that it actually benefits oppressed minorities in any way to repeatedly tell them that the system is stacked against them, particularly when it is obvious that as a practical matter the system will forever be stacked against them? Do they actually think a culture of victimology will in any way help the supposed victims?

Imagine you have a child and you raise them from a young age pounding into them the message that all of their failures are due to the system being stacked against them and that their progress in life should be measured with that in mind. How successful would that child become compared to one who is instead told that they have a better shot at achieving things in life than any of their ancestors and that their successes will be the result of their efforts?

It's true that these minority groups can't catch a break. One moment they're being discriminated against overtly, then the next minute they're being discriminated against in a more subtle, insidious way, through lower expectations and the adoption of a mentality that is sure to hamper any progress.

SGT Ted said...

"Teaching is a political act..."If you don't want to work for equity, get the fuck out of education," Radersma said. "If you are not serious about being an agent of change that helps stifle the oppressive systems, go find another job. Because you are a political figure."

This "pablum" is partisan political corruption and it needs to be jettisoned from the schools.

Notice how no African country or majority non-white country is required to discuss their "skin privilege" and how that is a negative. Only the white ones.

This is a conference full of anti-white racists talking like the Klan, using their tax funded sinecures in the intellectually corrupt Education "profession" as the vehicle to teach their reprehensible racist notions and propaganda about white people and Althouse see's it as "pablum".

Larry J said...

How many of the attendees are government employees who're having their expenses paid by taxpayers? I'd wager the percentage is rather high. Should government be subsidizing institutional racism, for that's what this conference is all about. Oh, they'll try to claim they can't be racists but that's obvious nonsense. They're obscessed by race. Would it be any different if there was a KKK rally where the attendees were government employees and whose attendance expenses were paid by the taxpayers?

hawkeyedjb said...

Alcoholics can admit they are alcoholics, yes. But this is projection.

Non-alcoholics exist.

damikesc said...

How can any school hire these clowns? Any white kid unfortunate enough to have them has easy lawsuits if they do poorly in class.

exhelodrvr1 said...

So it's OK for blacks to act in certain ways that whites find threatening, but the reverse is not OK?

Bob Ellison said...

Are you sure it's not an April Fool joke?

madAsHell said...

e.g., the tea party would get it if it tried to hold a private conference in Madison.

Bullshit!!

An exception would be made. The tea party is not the right type of people.

Birkel said...

Isn't that cute? In one of the pictures linked by "garage mahal" a "protester" calls himself a "teabagger".

Trolls are easy enough to spot online. With pictures, "garage mahal", the sock puppetry and trolling are impossible to miss.

Credulity, much?

SGT Ted said...

Note that this conference model includes Communist style re-education/indoctrination self-confessionals and self denouncements of their "false consciousness".

Oso Negro said...

I would like to humbly suggest that the conference dedicates a future session to creating a slur aimed at white people that has even half the power of the word "nigger." If you can't egregiously offend me with a word, you can't be equal.

garage mahal said...

Isn't that cute? In one of the pictures linked by "garage mahal" a "protester" calls himself a "teabagger"

Truth in advertising.

Hagar said...

I think we should go back to the original system wherein professors were not paid by the college but charged the students directly for attending lectures.
Lecture not worth the price, no money collected.

Anonymous said...

How successful would that child become compared to one who is instead told that they have a better shot at achieving things in life than any of their ancestors and that their successes will be the result of their efforts?

My mother taught in CA schools in the late 70's. She had a bunch of Hmong kids in her classes. Kids whose parents literally were raised in a stone age culture. They and their children are now discriminated against in Berkeley admissions, because they do too well...

What it takes to succeed is going home and being told by your parents to study hard and pay attention.

Which is why immigrant blacks solidly outperform African Americans.

chickelit said...

Birkel said...
Isn't that cute? In one of the pictures linked by "garage mahal" a "protester" calls himself a "teabagger".

And yet, garage mahal is right at home with the Walker = Hitler public displays.

SJ said...

I await the formation of "Black Privilege in the NBA Conference".

Have you noticed the racial makeup of the NBA?

William said...

The pay is a little less than that in the private sector, but you get a good pension and summers off. The only real downside is the tedium of teaching sentence diagramming or long division to bored or hostile kids. This downside can be averted by teaching the kids victimology. Let the kids know how rotten and bigoted white people (other than yourself) are. That's so much more fun than teaching long division. And nothing helps a kid succeed more in life than informing him about the Dred Scott decision in Ebonics. All that grammar and long division crap are just more oppressive white rules......If you truly want white privilege, you have to learn how to play the game. A conference such as this will help white educators bamboozle blacks for another two or three generations.

ron winkleheimer said...

"I have to everyday wake up and acknowledge that I am so deeply imbedded with racist thoughts and notions and actions in my body that I have to choose everyday to do anti-racist work and think in an anti-racist way."

There is a phenomena in some churches wherein people stand up and publicly confess their sins to the congregation. Depending on the church, it might be a one time thing that you do when you are saved or you can do it whenever the spirit moves you.

One thing about such confessions is that the worse the sins confessed, the higher the status of the confessor.

After all, there isn't much panache in telling an occasional white lie or having a glass of wine with dinner.

But being a serial adulterer who was drinking a quart of whiskey a day - but is now a changed man who is fighting the temptations of the flesh?

Mea Sententia said...

The phrase 'white privilege' itself is provocative and manipulative. It is meant to put whites on the defensive because in a society with deep democratic roots, no one wants to be known to have privileges that others do not have. (Although, to be fair, we like having privileges. We simply don't want to be identified as privileged.)

ron winkleheimer said...

What I'm saying is that this "conference" is actually a religious revival.

Ann Althouse said...

"Alcoholics can admit they are alcoholics, yes. But this is projection. Non-alcoholics exist."

The use of the word "admit" suggests that everyone either is or is not an alcoholic, but it's easy to picture someone confessing to alcoholism who isn't really much of a drinker (even as it's easy to imagine a very heavy drinker denying it).

Where is the racist/nonracist line? Where is the alcoholic/nonalcoholic line? What is the relationship between where you think those lines are and the people who "admit" to being on the wrong side of them?

YoungHegelian said...

From the article: We've been raised to be good. 'I'm a good white person,' and yet to realize I carry within me these dark, horrible thoughts and perceptions is hard to admit.



Sin is the Ruin and Misery of
the Soul; it is destructive in it’s Nature; and if God should leave it without Restraint, there would need
nothing else to make the Soul perfectly miserable.

The Corruption of the Heart of Man is a Thing that is immoderate and boundless in its Fury; and while
wicked Men live here, it is like Fire pent up by God’s Restraints, whereas if it were let loose it would set on Fire the Course of Nature; and as the Heart is now a
Sink of Sin, so, if Sin was not restrain’d, it would immediately turn the Soul into a fiery Oven, or a Furnace of Fire and Brimstone.


Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

Modern Left-wing Identity Politics = Calvinism without God.

Anonymous said...

If it's a 12-step program, it's an oddly snobbish one. "I may be an alcoholic, but I'm still better than those people. They're nothing but a bunch of drunks, pouring Everclear into their tea when they think no one's looking."

chickelit said...

Althouse writes: Do you want to reserve terms like racist (or sinner) for the most extreme manifestations of the tendency or do you want to use the term broadly to call attention to our shared human nature?

I'd like some consistency in their application, without creating special immunities.

damikesc said...

Professor, to these clowns (and, honestly, academics should be OFFENDED to be labelled with these folks) there is no "non-profits" line. If you're white, you're racist. Period.

MLK's dream has worked well, hasn't it?

ron winkleheimer said...

To be more precise, a revival meeting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhsRaMDkPiM

Bruce Hayden said...

The pay is a little less than that in the private sector, but you get a good pension and summers off. The only real downside is the tedium of teaching sentence diagramming or long division to bored or hostile kids.

I think that one of the scarier things that I read related to the George Zimmerman trial was from a former inner city teacher at a mostly Black school. The excuse that a lot of his lower class Black students used when they refused (or didn't bother) to do the homework, or even class work, was that it was too "white", the school was too "white", etc. Instead of learning this "white" knowledge, they seemingly prefer going through life functionally illiterate in today's technology and in dealing with modern society, outside their local community.

Sorun said...

White privilege is awesome, though celebratory conferences is a bit uncouth.

ron winkleheimer said...

"Do you want to reserve terms like racist (or sinner) for the most extreme manifestations of the tendency or do you want to use the term broadly to call attention to our shared human nature?"

Sinner and racist are not equivalent terms.

As a Christian I believe that everyone sins, it is in our nature.

Not everyone is racist. Everyone doesn't believe they are inherently superior (or righteous) because of their skin color.

I take it this is about calling homosexual behavior a sin?

Bruce Hayden said...

From Tom Kratman (via Instapundit): The Rights's 20 Rules of Racism. Some of his points:

3. Racism could be eliminated in the United States if we could just eliminate the white liberals who so plainly depend on it so much and do so much to keep it going.

7. People who insist you’re speaking in code insist on it because they believe it’s true. They believe it’s true because they really do speak in code and can’t imagine anyone who does not speak in code. It’s not racist to think those people are idiots, nor to note that they’re mostly white. (Exception to rule: When conservatives talk about guns and zombies? Especially in terms of using the former to kill the latter? Yeah; “zombie” is code for “liberals of any color.” See Rule 6, above.)

8. It’s not racist to note that white liberalism managed to do in about thirty years something that three hundred years of slavery could not, seriously damage the black family, generally though not universally, and ruin it completely over wide swaths.

Birches said...

I agree that the methods are not unlike a religious conversion. However, in a "grace" situation, there is an eventual catharthis that comes from turning yourself over to Jesus. You are flawed, but with him, you become the recipient of His perfection. It is kind of the same with AA---your powerlessness becomes cathartic.

What is the cathartic moment for white privilege? I doubt there is one, really. This recognition of "sin" just becomes Arthur Dimmesdale whipping himself every day, hoping at some point, he might be forgiven. That's not a healthy way to live.

Brennan said...

What it takes to succeed is going home and being told by your parents to study hard and pay attention.

Which is why immigrant blacks solidly outperform African Americans.


This to me sounds like the Tom Hanks "No crying in baseball" speech in "A League of Their Own". You're not going to change everyone else. You can only hope to survive within the rule set until it changes organically. Ergo, study hard, pay attention, find your passion. Burying yourself in Marxism theory is to sacrifice your life's work for nothing.

But the pot might be good.

Peter said...

Even larger crowds would form if you bared your backs and formed a flagellation line marching through the isthmus.

MadisonMan said...

From Today's Paper.

Repent, sinner!

Anonymous said...

What is the cathartic moment for white privilege?

It's when you purchase your indulgence from the Church of Leftism.

jacksonjay said...


Have you noticed the racial makeup of the NBA?

There is no doubt that "white privilege" make the NBA and the rap-culture possible! Be careful what you wish for.

ron winkleheimer said...

"What is the cathartic moment for white privilege? I doubt there is one, really. This recognition of "sin" just becomes Arthur Dimmesdale whipping himself every day, hoping at some point, he might be forgiven."

Their flagellants.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellant

jacksonjay said...

MLK's dream has worked well, hasn't it?

Brother Martin was trapped in that "color-blind" paradigm of the 20th century.

Hey, I b flowin!

mtrobertsattorney said...

This "pablum" is laced with ricin.

All you have to do is substitute the word "Jew" for "white" and you'll realize that we've seen this kind of rhetorical crap before.

And these are Madison teachers soaking up this racist nonsense?

Browndog said...

I'm thinking most people are taking the wrong approach.

This conference is not an intellectual discussion on the morality of society-

This is nothing short of psychological warfare aimed at the susceptible and weak minded to create zealots.

The methods used are tried and true.

Very dangerous. Not funny.

Seeing Red said...

Held in one of the most racist cities in the country, priceless.

Hagar said...

And the colleges should charge the professors for rent and services.

Seeing Red said...

The cultures which are kicking our butt value studying? Are they seriously trying to argue studying is white privilege?

Is this thing being run by history majors?And how much does that diversity dude make at his school for that position?

Seeing Red said...

$440 for 4 days is too cheap.

David said...

We're all sinners. To me this is bland. Pablum. But maybe you find it enraging and insulting.

I find it a misdirection of resources resulting from self indulgent moral masturbation.

Teachers will go out, full of self regard, and proclaim their superior moral insight. They will declaim about white privilege. But they will do less and less to teach the underprivileged the skills they need to overcome their disadvantages. They are giving up on that. Because it's too hard for them. They would rather complain about white privilege than do the very hard work of actually teaching in difficult situations.

I do not quarrel with the term "white privilege." We have talked endlessly in this country about the plight of the UNDERprivileged. Under what? By and large, under more affluent, better connected and well educated white people. Many underprivileged people are and have been white, so my only beef with the white privilege crowd is that they an not inclusive. (Horrors! They are liberal. How could that be.)

Mostly the white privilegers (and especially the white ones) are engaged in moral preening. Hey. It beats work.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Imagine you have a child and you raise them from a young age pounding into them the message that all of their failures are due to the system being stacked against them and that their progress in life should be measured with that in mind.

Now imagine he got reelected in 2012 and is finally able to "have more flexibility" in righting these "wrongs."

Seeing Red said...

It gets better, helping out those who have less is bad. It's a sign of white privilege! Kids don't have supplies? Eff them!


ron winkleheimer said...

"It gets better, helping out those who have less is bad. It's a sign of white privilege! Kids don't have supplies? Eff them!"

Yeah, I'm still trying to figure that one out.

Providing charity might make the recipient feel bad, so we shouldn't do it. I guess that means she wants to end welfare. Cause starving is obviously superior to low self-esteem.

These people just aren't very bright. They have one idea, white racism causes all bad things.

Therefore, all bad things must somehow be related to white racism. Somehow.

Seeing Red said...

If they don't want to live in a country with white privilege, they can move. But like the commies of old, they won't. They'll stay cos they like their privilege.

David said...

The excuse that a lot of his lower class Black students used when they refused (or didn't bother) to do the homework, or even class work, was that it was too "white", the school was too "white", etc. Instead of learning this "white" knowledge, they seemingly prefer going through life functionally illiterate in today's technology and in dealing with modern society, outside their local community.

But remember, it's just an excuse. This is a bunch of kids who are finding a task daunting trying to make excuses. Do they really believe that it's "too white?" Do black kids really not admire other black kids who are successful in school?

My observation is that most in the black community are impressed by achievement in school. Those who are having difficulty attaining this success find some dismissive category (in this case "too white") to ease their unhappiness at their own lack of success (of which they are made aware daily by just about everyone once they reach high school.)

But these kids are not succeeding for a reason, and much of those reasons are coming from sources beyond their control. A considerable portion of that is coming from schools who do not know how to teach them.

We conservatives love charter schools. We point out how successful they can be. In other words we recognize that a good school can have good results.

And then we turn around and believe that the reason the shitty schools are failing is because black kids are rejecting work and education as "too white." Why blame the kids? The schools are supposed to teach them. They can't teach themselves.

My beef with liberals always has been that they ask too little of the "disadvantaged." They assume that they can't overcome their disadvantages, and send that message again and again, in really not very subtle ways. Are "true" conservatives now going to join the liberals in writing these kids off?

Our schools need a revolution, and it's not going to come from the left. I say that with conviction because it has not come from the left, who have dominated secondary public education for a long time now.

So conservatives, stop blaming the kids. That's just us making excuses too.

Seeing Red said...

As the teenager watches DeGrasdi where the Eastern Indian is offered a full ride to MIT....

Seeing Red said...

De Grassi.

Brando said...

Someone please explain why white privilege seems to be benefitting East Asian and South Asian immigrants more than white people in this country. Could it be that the racist system the whites set up misfired? Were the "anti-coolie" laws of a hundred years ago some secret method to help Asians do better than other Americans?

Find out more at the next White Guilt conference!

jacksonjay said...

Did you see the "white privilege" kid that was accepted into ALL of the Ivy League schools. Leaning towards Yale.

Tully said...

When your presenters and attendees all live on the government teat, it's a clue.

Rusty said...

Ph. D. in critical whiteness studies

That has got to be a joke.
On so mmany levels.

gadfly said...

Those whities who imagine that everyone with a pale skin color always denigrates (sorry, good word) dark skinned minorities need only look into a mirror to find the real racists.

The silent majority is generally civilized and savvy enough to react to real threats - not intentionally to fancied dangers wrought by coloration.

The White Privilege Conference should have been named "The White Guilt Conference."

Rusty said...

Ph. D. in critical whiteness studies

That has got to be a joke.
On so mmany levels.

Anonymous said...

These things appear to be make-work programs for minority sub-mediocrities and white women with mental-health issues.

As a palate cleanser: Angry Studies major gets white-privileged. (Re that recent Colbert struggle-session.)

mccullough said...

Miscegenation eventually will take care of this in the U.S.

Until then, the white privilege cottage industry employs elsewise unemployable people. Probably some of them making a pretty good buck on this stuff.

Limited Blogger said...

Remember Althouse's post about the professor accused of racist micro-aggressions because he edited grammatical and spelling errors in his students' dissertations, and some of those dissertations were written by black students?

http://althouse.blogspot.com/2013/11/rest-assured-i-take-this-extremely.html

Remember this. The next time you're tempted to help your white child improve his grammar or spelling skills, stop and psychoanalyze yourself. What are you really trying to accomplish? White signaling perhaps? Because bettering your white child's skills would only serve to more deeply embed his white privilege.

If your child errs in school, explain to his teacher that he is valiantly trying to rid himself of white privilege; he should not be penalized with a lower grade for participating in this worthy cause.

Seeing Red said...

The people who attend this kind of nonsense have more credentials than I do. Why don't they walk their talk? They, their conscientious couplers and offspring should make themselves examples.

Browndog said...

The White Privilege Conference should have been named "The White Guilt Conference."

Pretty sure these attendees are beyond that. "The White Loathing Conference" is more apt.

Many may be surprised how far true believers are willing to go

Anonymous said...

"Being a white person who does anti-racist work is like being an alcoholic. I will never be recovered by my alcoholism, to use the metaphor... I have to everyday wake up and acknowledge that I am so deeply imbedded with racist thoughts and notions and actions in my body that I have to choose everyday to do anti-racist work and think in an anti-racist way."

These people are evil racist pigs. "We" are not "all sinners", "white people" are "all sinners".

Would you have a problem with a government funded conference that focused on how horrible and wrong "black people" are? How is this any different?

Fen said...

But just having attended this conference is a huge Indulgence (of the kind the Church granted during the Crusades). You can now assault your stundents and rip their protest signs up because you submitted to a lecture on how racist you are. Or something like that.

Anonymous said...

Is it OK to scorn and publicly criticize Blacks for their various harmful and self defeating traits and behaviors now? This frank talk stuff is great!

James Pawlak said...

Intellectual incest!

Tyrone Slothrop said...

If I have the right Kim Radersma (and I do), she apparently charges $300 for SAT prep tutoring.

Seems like this is profiting from the perpetuation of the white supremacist power structure, or some shit.

Pianoman said...

Crack must be in the hospital or something. How else to explain his lack of presence on this topic?

Known Unknown said...

Ph. D. in critical whiteness studies

Courses include:

The Many Facets of Michael Cera
The Midsize Revolution: How The Toyota Camry Became Our Favorite Car
Lack of Rhythm in Popular Culture
Suburban Planning 207

Known Unknown said...

Crack must be in the hospital or something. How else to explain his lack of presence on this topic?


Homeless. Because of you. And Republicans.

n.n said...

I wonder which principle they rejected first: individual dignity or intrinsic value. They are nothing if not hypocrites. Sanctimonious hypocrites.

Douglas B. Levene said...

None of us are saints. We all harbor prejudices of various kinds. That's why we have laws, to push back against the dark tendencies of human nature. That much is true and trite.

The notion that teachers should all be agents of leftist agitation, loyal proponents of the revolutionary Party line, propagandists first, last and foremost, is, if not totally surprising, still utterly repellant. I can't think of a better reason to not hire a prospective teacher (or to fire one) than their determination to mold the minds of their charges into good leftist activists.

The Crack Emcee said...

Archie,

"Is it OK to scorn and publicly criticize Blacks for their various harmful and self defeating traits and behaviors now? This frank talk stuff is great!"


That seems to be the message whites are spreading. Weird how they leap to that so fast, with no prompting or anything. Just - VROOM! - right to let's "publicly criticize Blacks" with party hats on. That's supposed to get us to vote differently. Or so they say.

It's called "colorblind" racism now, and it looses all limits on white's behavior (in white's eyes) so monkey noises and calling us "animals" and so forth regularly get revved up around a lynching of one kind or another (Why was George Zimmerman signing autographs again?) all under claims of white benevolence.

Like you said, it's great! Really gets 'em going, or as the old saying goes, puts "Blood In The Face".

Considering that, it's kinda hard to understand how 400 years of racist cultural conditioning, both passive and aggressive, got fixed by 35-40 years of exposure to nothing more than mass entertainment but, if y'all say so, then - you're white - and that means it must be so. Or am I assuming wrong?

I noticed, Ann, that your criticism - and the facilitator's statement - didn't include a nod towards history, which implies they both exist outside meaning. To marginalize the single longest-running phenomena in the history of this nation, to the point of non-existence, is the only way your reasoning can sound reasonable.

Is that rendering of history to the extreme margins, much as the Germans tried to do after WWII, helpful in an honest portrayal of what's being attempted at the conference, or further evidence of the very American cultural conditioning the conference wishes to highlight?

Is it racist, to cut blacks out of American history, in order to criticize efforts made to stop that practice?

Since the Germans got found out, by their kids, they don't try to play these games any longer,...

Michael said...

I had a ride in a cab today over in Savannah with a driver who had gone to the same school as Clarence Thomas, a Catholic school. Crack would have enjoyed the ride because the driver spent the entire time talking about slavery. He focused on the slavery in Africa before the American experience, the capture and sale of Africans by Africans to Africans. He was very well read on the topic. He lamented the fact that many in his community will not quit blaming whites for their woes. He talked eloquently and without rancor about what he called the segregation days. We knew some of the same country and a few of the same characters from those times. Nice man. Retired from the Air Force on a pension and busting it with a cab business.

chickelit said...

Since the Germans got found out, by their kids, they don't try to play these games any longer,...

There is a plausible untranslatable German word for what's going on in Madison: Schuldenfreude -- the joy of guilt. "Joy" in the religious expiation sense.

I think Althouse is on to something: "white guilt" is a religious expression. But it's not part of any mainstream religion -- I've not yet heard a relevant scriptural underpinning (and BTW, was there any religious component to the Madison gatherings)?

These doings are not the doings of any theist religion. As someone noted up thread -- it's like Calvinism without God.

chickelit said...

"The cult of white guilt" should be right up Crack's alley. Or Allie's crack.

Whatever

The Crack Emcee said...

Michael,

"He lamented the fact that many in his community will not quit blaming whites for their woes. He talked eloquently and without rancor about what he called the segregation days."

Stephen or Uncle Ruckus, possibly, provided a white guy with a service, saying what a white guy would want to hear - you tipped him accordingly, didn't you?

The 97% who reach the opposite conclusion - even the rich ones - their perspective (and/or wealth) means nothing compared to your one favorite black cab driver's perspective on the 97% of the rest that matched your own.

It just looks so BIASED after 400 years of whites liking the same thing without change.

You'll never change your mind so why bother?

You're like a scientist, trying to validate your theory, rather than wanting to know the truth.

Great anecdote, but I wonder why he's driving a cab if America and the air force were so good to him? Most white air force white guys I know switched to commercial airlines and live in big houses in the hills with stewardess wives and would never think of a service job when the world's beaches and their retirement villas beckoned.

Weird - but it's O.K. with you. The way things should be I gather,...

Michael said...

Crack

He is driving a cab because it is a dignified job that gives him a lot of freedom with his hours.

You need some help, dude. You are sick.

Anthony said...

Radersma came to the realization that black students are best taught by black teachers, etc.

a) She's finding justification for bailing out of the crappy inner city school she was teaching at.

b) she's advocating for a return of segregated schools.

Anonymous said...

Suey Park's amazement that the white male wouldn't play by Angry Studies rules made me think of the old SNL skit about the last episode of Star Trek, the one where Spock kept trying to use the Vulcan nerve pinch on the stagehands who'd come to dismantle the Enterprise set. He couldn't believe it wasn't working either.

Trashhauler said...

So much for the terribly needed national discussion on race. It appears we already know the end of the conversation - we whites are guilty, even if we just arrived from Poland last week.

Guilty, guilty, guilty. Okay. Breathe it in. Own it, in the sincerely ashamed fashion that obviates all further discussion.

Then what?

The Crack Emcee said...

I'm just trying to make sense of a guy who needs "a lot of freedom with his hours" - in what can be a dangerous occupation - when he "had gone to the same school as Clarence Thomas" and, with that outstanding education, "retired from the Air Force on a pension". As I said, I've known white air force pilots and driving a cab's not how they're living, so what's missing here?

Uncle Ruckus has held up to 47 jobs,...

Michael said...

Crack. Not every member of the Air Force is a pilot. You need some help from a mental health professional. You are one sick motherfucker.

TMink said...

The concept of White Privilege is a smokescreen to hide the devastating effects of the death of the black family. Over 72% of black children grow up without a father, and they suffer the documented consequences of that loss.

Criticizing this lifestyle choice is the third rail of public discourse because false cries of racism will be used to drown out the much needed intervention. Blacks will be incarcerated at higher rates, have higher gang participation, get pregnant earlier and stay on welfare in higher rates until more black kids grow up in intact families. And white privilege has nothing to do with any of it.

Trey - "racist"

test said...

TMink said...
The concept of White Privilege is a smokescreen to hide the devastating effects of the death of the black family.


This is a little off. There are indirect effects from the family circumstance, but WP has much more immediate cause.

For decades there's been a conflict between two core Democratic Party constituencies: black parents and the education establishment. One needs their children educated, and the other is primarily a political power base which requires near monolithic teacher support. Tough standards interfere with that support, so effective teaching has become a tertiary level concern.

Race preferences have been the accommodation. Dems are effectively saying to the motivated black parents we'll get your kids into good schools even though their instruction has been ineffective, and if necessary we'll get them a safe government job when they graduate - often in education.

But race preferences are difficult to support. It's hard to justify discriminating against little white and asian kids who in many cases attended the same schools and lived in the same neighborhoods as those receiving the race preferences. So the activist academia has been desperately searching for something to justify race preferences lest their political accommodation break down.

damikesc said...

It's called "colorblind" racism now, and it looses all limits on white's behavior (in white's eyes) so monkey noises and calling us "animals" and so forth regularly get revved up around a lynching of one kind or another (Why was George Zimmerman signing autographs again?) all under claims of white benevolence.

Umm, Crack, Zimmerman isn't white. Sorry.

Considering that, it's kinda hard to understand how 400 years of racist cultural conditioning, both passive and aggressive, got fixed by 35-40 years of exposure to nothing more than mass entertainment but, if y'all say so, then - you're white - and that means it must be so. Or am I assuming wrong?

Can you explain why immigrant blacks are able to kick the crap out of American blacks on virtually all measurements of success?

I mean, outside of them not blaming everybody but themselves for anything?

Great anecdote, but I wonder why he's driving a cab if America and the air force were so good to him? Most white air force white guys I know switched to commercial airlines and live in big houses in the hills with stewardess wives and would never think of a service job when the world's beaches and their retirement villas beckoned.

Can you give us your sample size here, brutha?

The Crack Emcee said...

BTW, I also like how you all think I - alone - am "sick" but you don't mention Uncle Ruckus. A character created by another black man (so it's not just me) to represent the kind of blacks you like.

Uncle Ruckus votes Republican, loves white people, agrees with white people, and represents everything y'all like. But, somehow, you'll keep insisting it's just me and act like this cab driver doesn't have a representative blacks recognize either, like you're telling us something with these lame examples of blackness you worship.

Sorry, but we aren't a nation of Uncle Ruckus' for your pleasure.

Which means I'm "one sick motherfucker." And Aaron McGruder (Uncle Ruckus' creator) is "one sick motherfucker." And all the blacks who understand the Uncle Ruckus phenomena of whites are "one sick motherfucker."

And y'all's "sick" for thinking blacks don't understand sell-outs, Uncle Toms, and the thinking behind white supremacy you're defending until your last breath.

The Crack Emcee said...

TMink said...
The concept of White Privilege is a smokescreen to hide the devastating effects of the death of the black family.


Ah, so blacks are liars now - whites know better.

Thanks.

Michael said...

Crack:
"A snob? Please - you're sociopaths who'll say anything to cover for your lack of humanity. Of course you think it's normal that blacks should be driving whites around and saying how much better the white view of things are. Y'all love that shit."

Because a man with a different opinion than your own insane opinion is a racist or an Uncle Tom. Because driving a cab would be beneath you.

Crack, you seriously need help from a mental health professional. You lived in SF so you will recall those street people who raved on the same corner every day on the same topic? They too knew it all, could connect it all, were capable of weaving every action, every drift of a cloud, into the fabric of their narrative. You are either there or headed there.

The Crack Emcee said...

Marshal,

"But race preferences are difficult to support. It's hard to justify discriminating against little white and asian kids who in many cases attended the same schools and lived in the same neighborhoods as those receiving the race preferences."

Is not - you show them a picture of a lynched black and say "Whites did that to blacks for 400 years" and then they're quite understanding.

Conservatives, not so much,...

The Crack Emcee said...

Michael said...
Crack:
"A snob? Please - you're sociopaths who'll say anything to cover for your lack of humanity. Of course you think it's normal that blacks should be driving whites around and saying how much better the white view of things are. Y'all love that shit."

Because a man with a different opinion than your own insane opinion is a racist or an Uncle Tom. Because driving a cab would be beneath you.


No, because YOU ignore the other 40 million with a different opinion than your own - for him - and expect us to see you as good or fair or honest or anything other than craven.

Crack, you seriously need help from a mental health professional.

Says the guy who ignores 40 million black voices for 1 guy driving a cab.

"You lived in SF so you will recall those street people who raved on the same corner every day on the same topic?"

Nope, never seen it before in my life. They lock up blacks, remember?

"They too knew it all, could connect it all, were capable of weaving every action, every drift of a cloud, into the fabric of their narrative. You are either there or headed there."

Not exactly, but thanks for letting me hear your hopes and dreams,...

The Crack Emcee said...

"I have seen the devil, by day and by night, and have seen him in you and in me: in the eyes of the cop and the sheriff and the deputy, the landlord, the housewife, the football player: in the eyes of some governors, presidents, wardens, in the eyes of some orphans, and in the eyes of my father, and in my mirror. It is that moment when no other human being is real for you, nor are you real for yourself. The devil has no need of any dogma—though he can use them all—nor does he need any historical justification, history being so largely his invention. He does not levitate beds, or fool around with little girls: we do.

The mindless and hysterical banality of evil presented in The Exorcist is the most terrifying thing about the film. The Americans should certainly know more about evil than that; if they pretend otherwise, they are lying, and any black man, and not only blacks—many, many others, including white children— can call them on this lie, he who has been treated as the devil recognizes the devil when they meet."


Hey y'all!

Michael said...

Crack:

You're right. I'll speak w/ the 40 million blacks the next time I am in a cab with a guy trying to have a human to human conversation with me. That is the ticket OK.

Or maybe I'll confine my conversations with blacks to you since you speak for the entire race. All 40 million of whom agree with you, except for the dumb Uncle Tom driving a white man who is an outlier.

You should see a professional. And show her your blog for the last years and tag the point at which you shifted to this topic from the one that consumed you before. She would be interested in that conversion of passions.

test said...

The Crack Emcee said...
Is not - you show them a picture of a lynched black and say "Whites did that to blacks for 400 years" and then they're quite understanding.


Once again Crack reveals his race beliefs are founded on group guilt by skin color. A more racist belief would be hard to identify.

Anonymous said...

Paul Zrimsek: Suey Park's amazement that the white male wouldn't play by Angry Studies rules made me think of the old SNL skit about the last episode of Star Trek, the one where Spock kept trying to use the Vulcan nerve pinch on the stagehands who'd come to dismantle the Enterprise set. He couldn't believe it wasn't working either.

Lol.

What really cracked me up was the way Angry Studies girl, right after the 1:05 mark ("...you just called my opinion stooo-pid") immediately made me think of the "cabinet minister" girl from Idiocracy (at 0:20+), so perfectly did she mimic the tone and hand gestures.