Said Laura Humpf, quoted in "Seattle yoga teacher’s ‘Undoing Whiteness’ class: Founded on deep purpose, it’s triggered outrage" (Seattle Times).
“I was seeing white people show up in yoga spaces in racist ways,” says Humpf.... Humpf opened Rainier Beach Yoga in 2014. She says the practice coupled with reflecting on white supremacy’s role in society helped her understand how racism manifests itself internally, including defensiveness, perfectionism and the “white savior complex.” It’s these attitudes, among others, the class seeks to neutralize.That name is strangely similar to my own. And the image of self-purifiers inventing their own pose as the word "oppression" is shouted out at them and worrying about the racism lurking inside their body while proclaiming their conscious mind "woke"... it's just too silly to worry about.
The evening workshops feature Humpf and co-facilitator RW Alves sounding off words such as “oppression” and “liberation” to about a dozen students. The paired participants then physically interpret them, posing to form human sculptures. The exercise is one of many intended to highlight how both body and mind can absorb “the conditioning of whiteness.”...
People attracted to the class are mostly racial-justice-minded white people looking to go beyond an “intellectualized” view of how racism harms everyone, according to student Anne Althauser.
“When this ‘Undoing Whiteness’ yoga class came up, I felt like it answered two cravings of mine — to work through racism and how I hold whiteness in my body, and to bring an anti-racist lens to an appropriated practice that so many of us white folks participate in. If I’m only “woke” in mind but not body, I will only continue playing out harmful, subliminal racist actions unintentionally,” says Althauser, a longtime yoga practitioner....
And isn't yoga cultural appropriation?
The song playing over the hotel lobby speaker while I'm trying to write this is "Play That Funky Music, White Boy."
IN THE COMMENTS: This story made me think of Jules Feiffer, so I was happy to see tcrosse had the same feeling and found the perfect cartoon for the occasion. ADDED: Here's the link to the great cartoon! Sorry, I'd forgotten it.
Posts
229 comments:
1 – 200 of 229 Newer› Newest»For most of my life, I thought the line was, "Play that funky music right, boy."
What is the point of cultural diversity if we're not allowed to appropriate things?
I don't get yoga but the pants are nice.
how racism manifests itself internally, including defensiveness, perfectionism and the “white savior complex.”
There really is a shortage of racism, or They wouldn't have to brag about scraping the bottoms of their imaginary barrels looking for virtues to signal.
how I hold whiteness in my body
Then again, they're just crazy.
Where does this enlightened self loathing come from?
“Hello, my name is Bill and I’m a white person”
When, oh when, are people going to care enough to see that folks like Laura Humpf get the psychiatric treatment that they so desperately need?
That a white person believed combining yoga and racism into a single class would be constructive contradicts the white supremacy idea.
Wow. Yoga AND interrogating white privilege.
Great journalism depends on ad revenue
Bad journalism just needs a leftie sugar daddy.
“White supremacy” is grammatically an assertion that whites are superior, “white supremacism” is the belief that whites are superior. A Freudian slip showing unconscious racism? It’s kind of funny that people who claim to think so deeply about the issue can’t see the difference.
Lay down that boogie and play that funky music till you die.
These navel gazers posing about their Whiteness and yogi-ing out their guilt are just useless human beings.
When the feces hits the oscillating mechanism they will be the first to perish and wonder why no one else will come to their rescue. Pose THIS!!!
"Comments have been closed down due to the "sensitive" nature of this article". HAHAHA - due to the racist nature of the crazy cat lady more like it.
I have rarely hit a site that bogged down my browser in a worse manner too - continual ad loads that slowed the whole computer down and continual "wait or leave" warnings from Chrome. The Seattle Times is a spam site more than a paper.
"it's just too silly to worry about"
Well, it's just your white privilege telling you not to worry about the latest instance of crazy prog wokeness.
But plenty of progs worry about your unworry. They'll find ways of woking you up.
including defensiveness, perfectionism and the “white savior complex.”
They need to get out more. Visit other countries.
Well, these people actually are racist. Just not how they imagine.
In my Marine unit, skin color was no more relevant than hair color.
It's like, how much more Seattle could this be, and the answer is none. None more Seattle.
Titania McGrath is selling the perfect T-Shirt to wear to this yoga class. "Its not OK to be White." Maybe you could buy it through Ann's port hole.
I attended an educational conference last spring on student safety and wellness. One session was on "Diversity in the Classroom." I naively thought it would suggestion learning styles and attitudes in various cultures. The speaker in the first film clip asserted, "All white people have racial bias."
For the first time in my 30+ year career, I walked out of a workshop. I refuse to accept that premise.
Jules Feiffer has heard it all before
The Red Green Show perfectly captured this tyoe of silliness in the "Man's Pledge":
I am a man.
I can change.
If I have to.
I guess.
I thought that the SJW fascists had declared that Yoga was a form of cultural appropriation.
Need an example of how great things are going in America? Crap like this, starts with disposable time and income. And lots of it.
I have no words. Soft headed liberal idiocy at its absolute worst.
This could have been an SNL or Kids in the Hall skit.
We. Are. Doomed.
Is rap and hip hop played during this class?
Don't forget, the women is also a licensed marriage and family therapist. Maybe she can help all Seattle's homeless learn how to lead productive lives......nevermind.
I put on blackface to undo my whiteness.
It isn’t Whiteness, per se, that they want to destroy, but rather Western European Judeo-Christian culture. Asians, though actually POC, by race, are treated as honorary whites, because they have successfully adopted many of the better features of this White European culture, just as Jews became honorary White Christians in an earlier generation.
Why do they want to destroy Western European culture? I think because they believe that that would open the way to one world socialist government. With, of course, the Woke in charge.
It is, of course, absurd. All cultures are not the same, of equal value. The White European culture, along with the honorary POC Whites who have adopted it, have given the world the economic progress that allows everyone to communicate over the Internet, instead of with smoke signals, eliminated or greatly reduced much of the disease that used to kill many of us in ages past, and allowed the growth in wealth around the world, where obesity is now more of a problem in much of the world than starvation.
It's admirable that whites are always trying to improve. All races should do the same.
The onion? Babylon Bee?
Please say yes.
The teacher's going to be white, isn't she? I bet she's white I bet she's white I bet she's white..... click
YUP! Hahhahahaha.
The speaker in the first film clip asserted, "All white people have racial bias."
And I'm sure would have denied that this assertion is itself racist.
Harold Ramis already mocked this gig:
C’mon, rhythm! Hut, 2, 3, 4. Black guys help the white guys..
If you were playing a Buzzword Bingo drinking game while reading this, you'd end up shitfaced.
“The speaker in the first film clip asserted, "All white people have racial bias."”
It isn’t really a racial bias so much ch as a cultural one.
Many years ago, I vacationed in one of those fancy time shares near Cancun.
On the big party night, an all Mexican cover band played "Play that Funky Music White Boy" mariachi style.
A great trashy moment in my life.
I do yoga. The yoga practice in the U.S. is overwhelmingly a world of white hipster women. Seldom have seen a black in class. Men are rarities.
In today's racial politics, only non-whites can experience their race authentically.
All of this really is white people's fault. If we just gave them more real things to complain about, they wouldn't have to resort to complaining about fake things.
Typical of us white people not doing our part to make the world a worse place for people of color (and whites wracked with white guilt) to whinge about.
Perfect cartoon? Perfect? Perfectionism is whiteness! 🙄
"Humpf opened Rainier Beach Yoga in 2014."
Most folks pronounce it "rain year". My brother, who live in Seattle, pronounces it "rain ee urr".
Ms. Althauser is a self-loathing honky.
After yoga she has expresso. Her expresso is served in the same manner as she likes her
men; strong and black.
Started by five queer people of color, the class, which operated controversy-free the previous five years, was intended as a safe space for people of color to practice yoga.
All yoga spaces should be safe for all people to practice yoga.
I will say in the US yoga is very white. In London too. It's stuff white people like. BUT there's nothing wrong with that. I'd rather queer people (although I've always had a lot of queer people in my classes) and people of color realize how welcome they are in every yoga studio.
Ugh - the left's never ending obsession with the skin color wars is really tired.
It's a beautiful morning in Seattle, with views all around.
Dollars to donuts the inspiration for this class came to her while in the Down Dog position.
That point above about disposable income gets me thinking.
In the old pro wrestling circuit there were character roles and a dramatic line built through a season. Some wrestlers took on villainous roles, the "heels", in the circuit. The heel was essential, else there would be no drama, no story.
Now, this sort of thing, this yoga class, seems to indicate an unmet demand for psychodrama. A sort of female-centric one, granted, but still. They are crying out for someone to hate. It could mean a lot of money, perhaps, for a "heel" hate-figure white man yoga instructor with inappropriate views.
It would require some young-ish, very fit and attractive fellow with the right personality, but its a cinch that he could accumulate a huge fan base of smitten women who will love to hate him.
A market crying out for fulfillment I think.
iowan2 is absolutely correct, above.
When we're not worried about dining gruesome deaths we make up shit to worry about.
Like glowball warmening and other mystic religious doctrines.
The reason that I keep pushing the cultural side is that the definition of what isn’t White is ludicrous. AOC, for example, has very white skin. Much more so than most of the Hispanics I see regularly. Muslims are typically treated as non-whites, despite the religion having been invented by Arabs, who would otherwise be considered Semitic Caucasians. Speaking of Caucasian, Caucasia, the Caucasus mountain area, is just north of the Turkish and Iranian borders with Georgia. Turks and Iranians, despite being obviously Caucasian, are POC based on religion, culture, and history. And, of course, Wikipedia defines Aryan as a term that was used as a self-designation by Indo-Iranian people. But, they are Muzzies (for the Iranians) or Hindu (for the Indians), so acceptable as POC.
Ms. Humpf is a name right out of Dickens, isn't it?
I check her pic and she looks as though she does a lot of Humpf-ing.
That deeply caring look she sports is classic.
Harrumph, Humpf.
The Chinese have a word have a word for White American Women who appoint themselves champions of minorities. Yes, it's that specific and its derogatory:
Baizuo — 白左 literally, “white left” — is an internet term that came into being in the mid-2010s. It’s a derogatory word for liberal elites, specifically those who are educated and whose “obsession with political correctness” serves only to “satisfy their own feelings of moral superiority”
Rainier Beach has a yoga studio??
Rainier Beach is a diverse neighborhood with the associated small arms fire.
And here comes buwaya echoing iowan2 but sneaking his comment in before mine.
*shakes fist*
Why is it so obvious to so many?
Why are the bubbles so intricate around the few, like the author?
buwaya, you're seven years too late with this idea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Friend_(yogi)
The academics on that side do not believe that there is a legitimate white ethnicity. They believe that "whiteness" is a made up thing invented specifically to oppress the people of other races and take wealth from them.
Ta Nahesi Coates states this explicitly in "Between the World and Me" (Yes, I've read it).
This is how the Nazis viewed the Jews. They weren't a real race. They were a parasitic non-nation that could produce nothing of value by itself, and existed only to exploit real nations and take their wealth from them.
All of this really is white people's fault. If we just gave them more real things to complain about, they wouldn't have to resort to complaining about fake things.
So true. Life is too easy for some people so they make up problems.
Too much time. Too much discretionary income. Too few real world obligations to tend to. Too few excursions outside of their protective little bubbles. Leads to this dilettante type of thinking.
Useless people.
The idea that it's important to "undo [one's] whiteness" would itself seem indicative of "white savior complex"...
From the article referenced in Fen's 8:45 post:
"The Chinese see the Baizuo as ignorant and arrogant westerners who pity the rest of the world and think they are saviours"
This sums it up better than anything else I've ever read and I will appropriate the word 'Baizuo' proudly.
Bruce Hayden: Why do they want to destroy Western European culture? I think because they believe that that would open the way to one world socialist government. With, of course, the Woke in charge.
"The academics on that side do not believe that there is a legitimate white ethnicity. They believe that "whiteness" is a made up thing invented specifically to oppress the people of other races and take wealth from them.
Ta Nahesi Coates states this explicitly in "Between the World and Me" (Yes, I've read it).
This is how the Nazis viewed the Jews. They weren't a real race. They were a parasitic non-nation that could produce nothing of value by itself, and existed only to exploit real nations and take their wealth from them."
Nailed it.
The ideas being espoused aren't about equality anymore.
Look around the world, or even the country, and compare those steeped in "whiteness" to those steeped in "brownness" or whatever you want to call it. Which are, on the whole, more prosperous, more safe, more advanced, less corrupt? It ain't the brown ones - which are hemorrhaging people dying to get to the misery of societies created by those awful crackers.
Minorities have a stunning, absolutely stunning, inferiority complex, brought on by themselves and their pasty white lefty 'allies'.
Also, can we finally admit that different shades of brown skin with universal black hair isn't really all that diverse?
As a yoga student, if I saw the POC-only class on the schedule, I would honor that and still attend classes at the studio. If I saw the "Undoing Whiteness" class at the studio, I wouldn't attend it and I'm not sure I would feel comfortable at that studio. I would think the whole time the owner would be thinking I should get myself into that Undoing Whiteness class.
"I think because they believe that that would open the way to one world socialist government. With, of course, the Woke in charge. "
What a stupid statement! Socialism is a product of Western European culture. Apparently, "western European culture" only includes the parts that you find appealing.
"People attracted to the class are mostly racial-justice-minded white people looking to go beyond an “intellectualized” view of how racism harms everyone, according to student Anne Althauser."
The whole point of this is to express hatred for other white people. The lower class plebeians. Humpf and people like her - are NOT good-hearted souls who cry for the oppression of colored people.
Bruce Hayden has described Antonio Gramsci's contribution to Marxism in a nutshell. By the way, Gramsci is Mayor Pete's number one intellectual hero. Clever fellow that Mayor Pete.
I think AOC is about the same as most people from PR.
IIRC they are about 60-70% “white”.
There are lots of whiter ones, that could be plopped down in Sevilla and would pass as natives.
PR is about the whitest place between the US and, I think, Colombia, or maybe Venezuela a few years ago.
Good heavens, I just caught myself singing that song as I worked in the kitchen. Damn!
To be white is to be racist, or so they say. How can this be undone? Rachel Dolezal had the right idea, I guess, because unless you undo your whiteness by darkening your skin you'll still be white and racist.
My head hurts.
Freder Frederson notices something and blames the person who noticed the contradiction.
Logic, how does it work?
If you truly wish to permanently and totally undo your irredeemable whiteness, perhaps Seppuku could do so better than yoga?
I don't know why these people think they're actually sending the message they claim to want to send. The message they're actually sending, to vast number of white people, is "you must identify as a white person even if you didn't before--the rest of the world will only see you that way and, by the way, is incredibly hostile towards you because of that; you will never fully remove the taint of your identity and that identity must define who you are. Submit and be punished, forever."
There must be millions of white people who never though of themselves primarily as "white people" until these Wokeatarians decided that attacking white people and their whiteness was imperative.
Many nice centrist people will naturally cringe and genuflect, begging to be forgiven for their imagined sins. Many less nice people...won't.
Remember back when nice centrist people told us how important it was to elect and elevate Lightbringers like President Obama to help the cause of healing and reconciliation? If only we give Leftists and Progressives more power we can come together as a nation!
Thanks, assholes.
There's only one way out. Do the right thing.
Indeed Freder, that is so. It is part of the, well, the popular word is incoherence, of that very popular world view.
It is a mark of the depth of the European imperial influence that even those who pretend to rebel can find no concepts outside of it.
And it is exactly what Sayyid Qutb said about socialism, well, one thing. A very logical fellow, the sayyid. A relative of mine as it happens.
Where does it all end ?
My brother, who live in Seattle, pronounces it "rain ee urr".
It's pronounced ray-NEER, and it rhymes with with BEER!!
This *is* peak whiteness.
My initial thought is that "undoing whiteness" is necessarily cultural appropriation in itself. Now what am I supposed to say, do, eat, wear, sing?
So much for that whole content of my character thing that I've been so worried about for 60 years.
It's pronounced ray-NEER, and it rhymes with with BEER!!
You betcha!
Raaaaaayyyyyy-neeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrr-beeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrr!
But it is also Rainy-er than most places.
Raaaaaayyyyyy-neeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrr-beeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrr!
One of the best commercials ever!
If one wants to escape “whiteness” or rather Europeaness, one needs to go in a completely different direction.
That of Sayyid Qutb for instance, though that is itself a modernized take on his own culture, regularized and standardized through European technology.
There are other ways to authentically “go native” of course, but none are very attractive to the pseudo rebels.
Confucius for instance. No American High School can safely teach the analects of Master Kung these days, as my neo-medieval Catholic high school did @50 years ago.
Rainier Beer
What a stupid statement! Socialism is a product of Western European culture.
So is everything else except cannibalism, you fool.
Why do you think all those POCs want to get into white created countries and leave the shitholes they are fleeing ?
Your hero Marx was white, of course. Asians, as someone else said, are "honorary whites" because they also believe in work and achievement.
Proper neo-medieval Catholicism would be almost as foreign to those people as that which they profess to aspire to.
Most of these manias come with, or from, a lack of education.
Matt said...
Look around the world, or even the country, and compare those steeped in "whiteness" to those steeped in "brownness" or whatever you want to call it. Which are, on the whole, more prosperous, more safe, more advanced, less corrupt? It ain't the brown ones
You don't understand the reasoning, Matt. Whites got rich and advanced by stealing from the other races. Black activists routinely state that the US is rich because of all the "stolen labor" of black slaves.In fact the parts of the US that are the poorest are parts where slavery was most prevalent, and the great wealth of the US compared to Europe was only accumulated after 1865.
Yet people are taught this. In college.
There are still non-European cultures around Mike.
At least in the bulk of the philosophical priors, if not in their casual attire.
Foreigners are foreign, which is often a difficult point to get across.
@Fen - loved that River Tam/Serenity clip. Helps, I think, having been a Firefly fan. Very appropriate. Thanks.
I wish the SJWs could understand how dangerous it is to encourage whites to self-identify as a tribe. Currently, they use it to shame whites, but when that effect wears off what are we left with? A lot of people conditioned to be members of The White Tribe. And then something wicked this way comes. A charismatic leader who speaks to their problems and finds another tribe to blame it all on.
Welcome to New Auschwitz-Birkenau!
A technological marvel of efficiency!
200,000 sub-humans processed daily!
(please be ready to present papers)
---
All cultures are not the same, of equal value
I think we may soon witness a Preference Cascade
The first domino is the Progressive Delusion that there is no difference between the sexes. But now people can see with their own eyes that when "male" athletes are allowed to compete against females, they dominate whatever sport they enter.
Once people are forced to admit that Gender Equality is a lie, they will begin wondering if they were sold a bill of goods on Racial Equality too. There are obvious racial differences, in general, each one having it's own distinct strengths and differences. But instead of confronting and addressing this dilemma we've been in denial, we've repressed the truth. And we already know how dangerous repression of anything can be, how it eventually explodes and damages everything.
And now the falling dominoes have been lit on fire. A recent archaeological discovery in Europe has dated a human settlement to 200,000 years prior evidence of humans in Africa. I'm cautious and will remain skeptical, but if it pans out it will dovetail with my theory that humans did not come out of Africa, they evolved simultaneously (roughly) in different parts of the world.
But this poses two problems:
1) The obvious. Will this discovery be suppressed in the name of political correctness? Are we so afraid about how some ridiculous white supremacists (they are all mutts LOL) will use this to justify racism that we will memory hole evidence of human origin and evolution?
2) My greater concern is the domino chain toppling the Out Of Africa theory and revealing it to be a myth, a consolation prize intended to appease Africans and excuse their primitive nations on the continent. I think the greatest limiting factor of racism amoung Whites and Asians is the concept that we are all children of the same ancient tribe. What if we are not? If you thought the Philadelphia Eagle fans were horrible...
"My tribe was making fire before yours learned to walk upright, you primitive ape!"
Hayden: Very appropriate. Thanks.
No problem. I wondered about taking liberties but I figureed you would approve. ;)
If you can't raise a subset of people up then bring the other subset down. Walla, equality! Deviation will not be allowed. It's for the common good.
I think I'll go with misery loves company. Probably closer to the truth.
Whites got rich and advanced by stealing from the other races.
Sarcasm, I know, but to extend it: Whites got rich by being BETTER at stealing than the others :) It reminds me of a card shark complaining that he was hustled at the poker table.
We know what the Aztecs and Paleo Native Americans did their fellow humans in the Americas. They are not the "noble savages" Hollywood has recast them as.
And if your ancestors were African slaves, it's very likely you also have African slave traders in your family tree.
It's as if the Left can't work through a line of reasoning to it's end point.
"Good heavens, I just caught myself singing that song as I worked in the kitchen. Damn!"
It's stuck in my head now. Unfortunately, or maybe not, I only know the one line.
Blogger Fen said...
Whites got rich and advanced by stealing from the other races.
Sarcasm, I know, but to extend it: Whites got rich by being BETTER at stealing than the others . . .
Nope. By being more evil than the other races. See Toni Morrison's depiction of white people in "Beloved," for example.
No matter how much these people yammer, I am not going to feel guilty for being born.
It may be the one thing that is completely and totally Not. My. Fault.
"And isn't yoga cultural appropriation?" She called it "an appropriated practice".
-ness gives de-adjectival nominals, so whiteness uses white as an adjective, not a noun. So it's not really about whites.
Blogger Original Mike said...
No matter how much these people yammer, I am not going to feel guilty for being born.
It may be the one thing that is completely and totally Not. My. Fault.
But the moral thing for you to do (but no member of any other race) would be to renounce your whiteness and white supremacy. It is your racial obligation.
Today's Leftists believe that people have must engage in certain activities and practices based on their race.
I assumed for years that the band Wild Cherry was a bunch of black guys. Does that make me a White Supremacist?
Actually, there's great book explaining the apparent superiority of certain cultures and why it has nothing to do with race: "Guns, Germs and Steel" which you can purchase through the Althouse-Amazon portal today!
Some of the things they gave your people a head start seem irrelevant at first glance, like whether your continent spanned East-West or North-South. Or how domesticating a greater number of animals forced your tribe to develop resistances to diseases like small pox, instead of being wiped out by them when explorers vectored them into your population.
Downward Drooping Dingus
Doing cultural appropriation from Huey P. Newton:
I’M WHITE AND I’M PROUD!
"born this way"
"But the moral thing for you to do (but no member of any other race) would be to renounce your whiteness and white supremacy."
Funny, I don't feel supreme. I don't even feel white.
Sometime in the mid 1980s, where I worked found out that my father, and his parents were members of the White Earth Band of Ojibwa, and that I was going to inherit money from the White Earth Reservation Land Settlement Act of 1985 (WELSA) concerning land that my grandmother lost. Work was as happy as could be, and wanted me to sign some forms about my Indian heritage (probably something that they could use as for adding another minority on their list of minorities). I refused. They were not happy about it.
Traditionally yoga is a religious practice. Yoga practiced in exercise studios is just stretching. Unless the practitioners are purging themselves of the sin of whiteness, so it's become a quasi-religious conceit.
Where does this enlightened self loathing come from?
It is a genocidal urge that comes from a sense of misplaced guilt and a lack of understanding.
The Civil Rights Act, War on Poverty and Affirmative Action were advertised as giving African Americans hope for a better future. However, those hopes have been only slightly realized.
In order to justify more action to better the lives of Blacks, Whiteness has to be villainized. When that does not work, the next step is to rid the world of White people.
Nazis had the same thoughts about Jews.
AOC is probably 95% European.
The other 5% of her, namely her chompers, is 100% donkey.
Funny, I don't feel supreme.
Then try a Double-Decker® Taco Supreme®, "the bunk bed taco". (we are not making that up)
I Just Want To Celebrate
Although not the first white band signed to Motown, Rare Earth was the first big hit-making act signed by Motown that consisted only of white members.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRVPLPFoJL0
Actually, there's great book explaining the apparent superiority of certain cultures and why it has nothing to do with race: "Guns, Germs and Steel" which you can purchase through the Althouse-Amazon portal today!
Terrible book, and, for completely nonsensical reasons, the author does actually declare some races to be smarter than others.
I am entirely unwilling to read the linked article. Why editors think this is information worth publishing is beyond my un-PC understanding. But I do wonder- how many people are in the class?
East Asians and Ashkenazi Jews are supreme, not whites. It doesn't seem to bother whites though.
Is there a word for a thing that is in reality the exact opposite of what is claims to be? Like a fireman claiming to be fighting a fire by pouring gasoline on it. I mean besides just stupid hypocrisy. Something more precise, more opposite and counter-productive than is suggested by "hypocrisy".
If she is really so ashamed of herself for being born "white" - she can always commit seppuku to atone for her shame.
Other than that act, she can just shut the hell up and stop bothering the rest of society.
My superiority has nothing to do with race, unless race makes you work your ass off most of your life, and avoid dumb decisions. Maybe there is a gene for that.
...she can always commit seppuku
"...deaaaaad honkey!!"
It's pronounced rah-NEER where I come from (Minnesota).
If you can't raise a subset of people up then bring the other subset down.
So you sat through That Movie too?
Rae can't shine unless Luke and Han are debased.
Rabid diversity. This is reminiscent of the National Socialist effort to undo Jewishness, which they rationalized with a concept of "Jew privilege". Here's to progress.
...for completely nonsensical reasons the author does actually declare some races to be smarter than others.
Where? Because I don't recall that. Think I would have noticed it.
I am told that due to my ancestry, something over which I have no control, I am inherently racist. Also, irredeemably racist, unconsciously racist, unforgivably racist, and on and on.
Given that this is their opinion of me, what am I to do? Accept their condemnation, roll up in a ball and cry, or hey, maybe dispute their opinion. And if I do, THAT's RAAAAAAAACIST!
The only way to win this game is not to play.
The only way to PLAY this game is not to play by their rules.
To hell with them. THEY are the racists.
"If you can't raise a subset of people up then bring the other subset down."
I think you've nailed it.
The only way to win this game is not to play.
The only way to PLAY this game is not to play by their rules.
To hell with them. THEY are the racists.
OR....just claim it. Own it....and say if I am going to be called a racist no matter what I do...well then.....let me show you some first class racism.
I don't advocate or participate in that last reaction. (yet) However, do NOT be surprised when others do.
Don't forget, the women is also a licensed marriage and family therapist. Maybe she can help all Seattle's homeless learn how to lead productive lives......nevermind.
You almost slipped into the "white man's burden" crevice, there...saved by the "nevermind".
"Guns, Germs and Steel" - Jared Diamond
Which is pretty much the essence of the French Annales school - aka Fernand Braudel - taken on a methamphetamine-fueled drive off a cliff.
You know, if you were really serious about getting rid of your whiteness, you would get an all over body tattoo of deep brown and move to the South Side of Chicago that isn't in the University of Chicago campus.
One thing that I would like to ask leftists is why do they think that cultural appropriation is bad. For millennia, the Japanese were considered by the Chinese to be little more than uncivilized Koreans. And at one time, Japan was even more closed than China. The Chinese turned inward right before Europeans started their era of exploration. The Japanese followed, several centuries later. Then, in the 1850s, Japan was forced to open itself to European (and, in particular, American) trade by Adm Perry and his fleets in the 1850s. By the end of the 19th Century, the Japanese had joined westerners in colonizing China, beat the Russians in a small war between the two countries, and by the time that they attacked the US on Dec 7, 1941, controlled a significant part of China. All by culturally appropriating from Western Europe and the US. China, finally waking up, after better than a half century of arrogant self centered cultural imperialism, followed in Japan’s steps, adopting many Western ways, and now has one of the biggest economies in the world.
For Goddess of the Classroom: Analysis of Wild Cherry.
Jared Diamonds purpose was to propose a non-racist, or non genetic explanation for differences in cultural development. That is, it is the result of geographic and environmental happenstance. There is some value in that, it explains some things.
Its no surprise that the Netherlands became a trading superpower, being that it has a near infinity of natural harbors and safe anchorages, and is at the mouth of the superbly navigable Rhine watershed.
Its no surprise that the industrial revolution began in Britain, which has coal ready to hand in unlimited amounts (on the usage scale of the 19th century). France was short of it (the French technical workarounds to this problem are an interesting case in industrial history), Italy and Spain have (or had) very little.
Etc.
But Diamond has to do a great deal of special pleading to explain away all sorts of counter-cases.
"Laura Humpf, quoted in "Seattle yoga teacher’s ‘Undoing Whiteness’ class: Founded on deep purpose, it’s triggered outrage" (Seattle Times)." Thjs is clearly RAAAAACIST.
The whole point of this is to express hatred for other white people.
I think the point is that she understands her product has no inherent value. Thus she is tapping into her potential customers' mental insecurity to get paid.
Some businesses offer tangible value. Others offer to satisfy your psychological needs.
https://althouse.blogspot.com/2019/06/the-diet-industry-is-virus-and-viruses.html
Are these Baizuos against interracial marriage? I appropriated sperm to make a biracial baby.
This is what liberals at Disney think white people need to do to solve racism."
Princess and the Frog is totally not a racist movie at all.
"One thing that I would like to ask leftists is why do they think that cultural appropriation is bad."
Because its a leftover of the rather narrow matter of black resentment that white musicians copied black musicians and made more money at it. It has been expanded into a general principle. This expansion happens when an unsoundly based emotional reaction is turned into a system in order to justify it. Its like when one must lie more and more to cover up an initial little lie.
These people probably think going to church is silly.
Oscar Handlin pointed out something that might shed a light on White. Many immigrants only found out they were German, or Italian, or whatever, when they got here--that is they thought of themselves as coming from a province or locale, not a nation; once here they found an identity (or had one put on them) that they didn't originally have.
I see something similar going on now: the white male vote used to be more evenly split, but now whites and males are becoming self-conscious as a voting bloc on their own. Why the Left thinks this augers well for leftdom I leave as an exercise for the reader.
Diamond's book is anything but terrible, but it's not above criticism. I do recall his frank comment that the average New Guinea highlander might be smarter than the average Anerican citydweller, because the environmental challenges require it. It's a theory.
I expect to be perceived as a de facto racist by most younger POC (and others) as a matter of course. I grow increasingly unconcerned.
Finally, what are the odds that some scholar will do for Africa what Joseph Needham did for China in "The Genius of China"?
Narr
Rhetorical question
Some of "Guns, Germs and Steel" is pretty good. The theory of east-west axis for agriculture is not bad.
The UCLA Department of Anthropology, of which my daughter is a graduate x 2, is a leftist propaganda center. That is where Diamond hangs his shingle. She is the daughter who told her mother, "Mother, if you watch Fox News it will rot your brain." I think she is moderating a bit now that she is pregnant. Motherhood will be a shock.
Its no surprise that the industrial revolution began in Britain, which has coal ready to hand in unlimited amounts (on the usage scale of the 19th century).
It also helped that France revoked The Edict of Nantes and drove out the Protestants who created the Industrial Revolution. The "Scottish Enlightenment" was also important although most of those were "nonconformists" not CoE types.
One of the best commercials ever!
Rainier is now brewed in Irwindale, California. I'm pretty much convinced that the motorcycle commercial is the ONLY reason that Rainier is stilled brewed.
still not stilled
Its like when one must lie more and more to cover up an initial little lie.
Much the same is happening to Affirmative Action. It began as a way to help black children who were being excluded. Now it requires the demonization of whites because blacks are mired in failure. Even grade inflation and "Black Studies" majors are not enough to make them successful. The failures aren the one we see shoplifting from Gibson's Bakery and marching in Black Lives Matter demonstrations. Those that are successful, you never hear from. Except actors, of course, because that is what they do.
Blogger Fen said...
“Actually, there's great book explaining the apparent superiority of certain cultures and why it has nothing to do with race: "Guns, Germs and Steel" which you can purchase through the Althouse-Amazon portal today!”
“Some of the things they gave your people a head start seem irrelevant at first glance, like whether your continent spanned East-West or North-South. Or how domesticating a greater number of animals forced your tribe to develop resistances to diseases like small pox, instead of being wiped out by them when explorers vectored them into your population.”
Liked the book quite a bit. As Fen pointed out, a lot of little things ultimately made significant differences. The east/west orientation of Eurasia lent itself to many thousands of miles of roughly similar climates, which meant that both plants and domesticated animals could migrate for thousands of miles fairly easily. This meant many more food plants and domesticated animals available. In the end, it also meant slowern, and, thus, less lethal, adaptions to many more diseases. North/south colonization and trade was far more difficult, due to the wide range of the environment that had to be traversed, and esp the crossing of the tropics in both the Americas and in Africa.
“Terrible book, and, for completely nonsensical reasons, the author does actually declare some races to be smarter than others”
Why should some races being, on average, smarter than others be the least bit controversial? It shouldn’t be. Different races faced different evolutionary pressures. For example, Caucasians and Orientals seem to have prioritized brains over brawn, while it is the reverse with Negroids. Hard to have both, since our brains use a lot of energy.
"And isn't yoga cultural appropriation?"
Yes, and in the narrowest sense, since yoga is properly a religious practice.
Hoist, petard. Wrong side of the intersectionality, lady.
The single best thing to ever come out of Seattle was a series of ads for high risk insurance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItWpoUMbqJE
I'm supposed to feel guilt ridden that God loves so much that he made me white? It's like winning a lottery, you don't question why you were chosen to be so lucky, just be grateful you are. As mentioned above thread, this white privilege guilt nonsense can only occur in a society wealthy enough to be sufficiently secure from real threats to indulge itself in pseudo nonsense. Put enough of the woke in charge and soon enough it will be 1930 on steroids and other than the vanguard of the proletariat, no one is going to be privileged.
Freder, socialism isn't a white western construct. The outer appearance, I'll give you that but socialism is a universal moral failing that cuts across every racial, ethnic and gender divide. Its envy and greed that boils down to "I need, I want, you have, I take".
Another question for those who believe that all cultures are equally valid - Why cannot the Muslim world, with over a billion people, win Nobel science prizes? Tiny Israel, with a small fraction of their population, wins gobs of them.
My theory is that Islam teaches a fatalism that is in stark contrast to the self determination taught by Christianity and Judaism, which is interesting because much of Islam was fairly obviously derived from those older two religions.
1. White guys were in Motown's Funk Brothers. Meritocracy works.
2. Jared Diamond, in his preface to GG&S, says he was motivated to write it because he wondered why sub-Saharan people had not advanced at the same rate as other world cultures. In the book, he claims a couple reasons: indigenous sub-Saharan animals could not be domesticated, making agricultural advances difficult. And all the opportunities for the trade of goods and ideas took place north of the Sahara - east to west and west to east (on land and across the Mediterranean) - which effectively stifled sub-Saharan interactions with other cultures.
Because its a leftover of the rather narrow matter of black resentment that white musicians copied black musicians and made more money at it
Odd. It seems like whites would never have taken to black music if not for white intermediaries. I'm ignorant of Music History, but I would guess that black music was refined to appeal to the greater white audience by white musicians? Not out of any racial animus, but simply because those artists knew would appeal to people of their own race.
They were translators, not thieves.
As mentioned above thread, this white privilege guilt nonsense can only occur in a society wealthy enough to be sufficiently secure from real threats to indulge itself in.
I blame all my failures in life on the Great Potato Famine.
Liked the book quite a bit.
Something else he pointed out that I had never considered - the genocide of the Native Americans was not a unique event. All over the world, civilizations were gradually expanding and bumping into more primitive populations that were then conquered. Like Russia with Siberia.
My theory is that Islam teaches a fatalism that is in stark contrast to the self determination taught by Christianity and Judaism,
An excellent book, titled "For the Glory of God" makes that case in considerable detail.
For the Glory of God is an engrossing narrative that accounts for the very different histories of the Christian and Muslim worlds.
Remember when you're a "liberal" or "progressive," you start out being stupid just by your love of the worst killer and thief, in history, the State. The stupidity only feeds on itself (look how Inga's posts escalated in dopiness), until you get the "undoing whiteness" gal.
When buwaya @ 8:42 channels Laslo, some very profound (albeit troubling) truth emerges. In particular, the "unmet demand for psychodrama".
Many immigrants only found out they were German, or Italian, or whatever, when they got here--that is they thought of themselves as coming from a province or locale, not a nation; once here they found an identity (or had one put on them) that they didn't originally have.
Back in college I worked night shifts as security for a Baylor Medical. The black guys on our shift participated in some actual frank conversations about racism, mainly to keep ourselves awake and alert at 4am.
They were stunned to discover most whites don't think in terms of White vs Latino vs Black, but instead tend to divide over Normans vs Gauls vs Saxons etc.
Ah!
Thanks, buwaya and Fernandistein, for trashing Jared Diamond with even better evidence than I had to hand. (Diamond == "Just So Stories For the Cognoscenti".)
Bruce,
"The east/west orientation of Eurasia lent itself to many thousands of miles of roughly similar climates, which meant that both plants and domesticated animals could migrate for thousands of miles fairly easily. "
Actually, no. This is a perfect example of what I mean by Just So Stories. Zea mays is grown everywhere in Africa outside actual deserts. The basically north-south orientation of the continent did nothing to hinder this. The spread of maize there is so profound that in some places (notably East Africa) it's now the staple food, replacing whatever poor predecessor was there (probably cassava, in which case I say Good Riddance!)
Here's more: "...And all the opportunities for the trade of goods and ideas took place north of the Sahara". Ever been to the east coast of Kenya or Tanzania? Geez what a fooking idiot Diamond is.
I am so done with all of this "whiteness" bullshit. I am unapologetically white. Anyone who doesn't like it is cordially invited to kiss my ass.
Is there any purer expression of Whiteness than believing that taking a class can undo one's Whiteness?
"They were stunned to discover most whites don't think in terms of White vs Latino vs Black,"
This is true. Even the current American cultural wars aren't white vs shades of brown, but white vs white, the brown people generally being props or mcguffins or rationalizations.
Since moving away from Seattle a little over a year ago, I say a little prayer of thanks every morning.
This is a prime illustration why.
Except now that they've screwed up Seattle and environs, they're all moving down here (AZ), but hopefully I shall be dead by the time they ruin this place.
"... to about a dozen students ..."
Makes you kind of wonder why the article was even written.
A nephew of my Basque grandmother, a black sheep of sorts, "went native" in deepest Mindanao, becoming Datu (chieftain) of his Muslim village. That is authentic.
Another question for those who believe that all cultures are equally valid - Why cannot the Muslim world, with over a billion people, win Nobel science prizes? Tiny Israel, with a small fraction of their population, wins gobs of them.
Achievement is a White Supremacist tool used to oppress People of (darker) Color.
My theory is that Islam teaches a fatalism that is in stark contrast to the self determination taught by Christianity and Judaism, which is interesting because much of Islam was fairly obviously derived from those older two religions.
I've known plenty of Hindu scientists and Hindus about as fatalistic as you can get.
As mentioned above thread, this white privilege guilt nonsense can only occur in a society wealthy enough to be sufficiently secure from real threats to indulge itself in pseudo nonsense.
I've always used the same question to illustrate this: "How affluent does a civilization need to be in order for x to become a problem?"
Apparently, this affluent.
Fen - if you see this, I've got some unrelated USMC questions. Please get in touch.
What percentage of Americans buy into this nonsense? 1%? 2?
We must live in the most prosperous times in the history of man if this is the shit people are worried about.
OTOH, I don't think I've known any great Hindu scientists. ;-)
Wonder what percentage of white lefties wake up regretting they were born white? What percentage wish they were born black?
"What percentage of Americans buy into this nonsense? 1%? 2?"
It doesn't take more than that, if its the right 1-2%
The movement is at this time ubiquitous in the upper tier American universities.
"OTOH, I don't think I've known any great Hindu scientists. ;-)"
There have been great Hindu scientists. When in engineering school I attempted more "theoretical" studies in advanced mathematics and physics, ultimately not for me. Part of that was trying to struggle through Chandrasekhar on Plasma Physics. So that's one, Subramanyan Chandrasekhar.
Narr said...
Oscar Handlin pointed out something that might shed a light on White. Many immigrants only found out they were German, or Italian, or whatever, when they got here--that is they thought of themselves as coming from a province or locale, not a nation; once here they found an identity (or had one put on them) that they didn't originally have.
Several of my wife's ancestors arrived in the U.S. in the 1890's. My wife's grandmother was very quick to point out that they were Bohemian. Not Bavarian, German, Austrian, or any of the other nation-states- they were Bohemian.
I understand that in Great Britain even today that the Scots, Irish, English, and Welsh can tell at a glance which one you are with a great deal of accuracy. And the Cornish can tell you're not from Cornwall. Not a lot of genetic mixing going on there.
One of my great-grandfathers arrived from Lancashire in the 1890's. I've traced a few dozen distant cousins with his surname in England- all living within a 50 mile radius. Who all married people from Lancashire and Staffordshire. My great-grandfather only had one child, a son, so not a lot of descendants, yet. Currently living in 6 different states. I have distant relatives with my mother's surname living on the same land one of my 5g-grandfathers lived on in Virginia. But he also has descendants in 30 different states. I don't think any of my 5g-grandparents (or further back) in Britain have living descendants in 30 different counties in Britain. OTOH, their descendants here are scattered all over.
I can trace several family branches reliably back to arrival here before the Revolution. I'm a mixture of everything the British Isles has to offer, French, Bavarian (and other Germanic tribes), Genoan, Dutch, Huguenot (French), and others. This type of mixing really doesn't exist anywhere else in the world. When I look in the mirror I see an American. Not a caucasian, not a white, not a hyphenated American, but an American. If liberals succeed in their dual quest to get everyone to view the pie as a fixed size and to force all Americans into a hyphenated identity, it will end badly for non-whites. Another thing to remember- a very large number of Latinos could identify as white overnight by saying "Gee, I'm white." Latino is an invested identity.
Seriously, you criticize Diamond's GG&S on the basis of the distribution of Indian corn and East African trade five centuries after the Columbian Exchange?
Back to school, KP.
"Black" music as appropriated by whites (post-minstrelsy anyway) was filtered through the trained musicianship of such artists as W.C. Handy, who was very aware of what had to be done to reach the biggest audiences. One of the great ironies of world cultural history to me is how much of American export is based on or drawn from the same experience--both the cotton that underlay the textile revolution (look it up) and the blues as a style and attitude have affected the planet.
Narr
To the pool for me
One of the great ironies of world cultural history to me is how much of American export is based on or drawn from the same experience--both the cotton that underlay the textile revolution (look it up) and the blues as a style and attitude have affected the planet.
Based partially on. The fact that a great deal of formative "rock and roll" is blues-based does not invalidate later additions to American exports, nor were the blues the ONLY thing they drew from, jazz and many other forms included. It took one helluva melting pot to go from Blind Lemon Jefferson to Maynard James Keenan, just to use the most juxtiposition-y nu metal example off the top of my head. MJK, in fact, would readily acknowledge what he owes to all of Tool's influences, but that doesn't somehow degrade their incredible contributions to both the contemporary music scene (worldwide) nor what comes in the next 100 years that might credit songs like Sober and Forty-Six And Two among their influences.
Buwaya asserts: There have been great Hindu scientists. When in engineering school I attempted more "theoretical" studies in advanced mathematics and physics, ultimately not for me. Part of that was trying to struggle through Chandrasekhar on Plasma Physics. So that's one, Subramanyan Chandrasekhar.
Thank you. That supports my first point without contradicting my second. I said I'd not known any great Hindu scientists, not that they didn't exist. The ones I worked with were pretty mediocre.
A nephew of my Basque grandmother, a black sheep of sorts, "went native" in deepest Mindanao, becoming Datu (chieftain) of his Muslim village. That is authentic.
His name wasn’t Tuan Jim, was it?
Self-hatred.
Jared Diamond makes some good points, but he does throw a lot of spaghetti against the wall too.
It's a great loss to Mathematics that the source of Hungarian Jews has been curtailed.
“I understand that in Great Britain even today that the Scots, Irish, English, and Welsh can tell at a glance which one you are with a great deal of accuracy. And the Cornish can tell you're not from Cornwall. Not a lot of genetic mixing going on there.”
To the best of my knowledge, I am 3/8 English, 3/8 Welsh, 1/8 Scottish, and 1/8 German of some type or another. 7/8 from one tiny island, and, yet, to my great grandparents, it was a Big Thing. I think that the modern Brits would probably guess at Welsh for me, but maybe English for some of my brothers, if they had to guess. My partner keeps reminding me that her (very French) father would have said that my long head looked like a mule’s behind, which is what he said of many Welsh, most notably Tom Jones, who could both sing and dance better than he could. And the dark thick hair that I inherited from my full Welsh grandmother (along with the tendency to gray early). In her grandfather’s days (a Robert) they had a Welsh hymn book publishing company in Chicago. Her father (another Robert, thus Robert Robert) switched to English language hymn books, and her brother (Owen Robert) went into other areas of publishing. At least by then, they had gotten away from switching around first and last names, which makes Welsh genealogy somewhat difficult.
"The east/west orientation of Eurasia lent itself to many thousands of miles of roughly similar climates, which meant that both plants and domesticated animals could migrate for thousands of miles fairly easily. "
The east-west theory works well in Europe, which is the example he gives.
The north south works pretty well in the Americas, plus of course the isthmus. The Sahara was a Mediterranean climate in the ice Ages.
My profile in both 23&me and Ancestry have me at 100% Irish but my mother's father comes from English stock (Mileham family name back to the Revolution.) My wife and daughter have African, maybe Vandal in origin, of about 2%.
I am not sure about the genetic profiles from these companies beyond several generations,
There was actually a genuine white social identity that developed in the European empires. For the people who were quartered way out there there was indeed a racial, or lets say Euro-cosmopolitan, identity, as opposed to the natives of wherever it was. You will find it all over history and literature. It would often include odd lots of not-exactly Europeans, Armenians, Syrians, Sefardi Jews, Parsees and so on.
European governments of the time tended to be open to talented recruits, refugees and renegades from other nations, and most national militaries were multi-national in composition.
You saw that Euro-unity everywhere from the Raffles bar to the dungeons of the Mahdi to the ultimate expression probably, the 55 days in Peking, 1900, where all the whites, and the Japanese, honorary whites for the occasion, fought united.
Clyde said...
I am so done with all of this "whiteness" bullshit. I am unapologetically white. Anyone who doesn't like it is cordially invited to kiss my ass.
To which they reply: that is so very WHITE of you!
You can't win, so I'm with you, ain't gonna bother trying (and wasn't open to doing so anyway).
God this shit is boring.
Jared Diamond's historiography has some serious problems. He is an example of a scholar who gets his facts correct, and uses them to construct a narrative that does not make sense.
In Diamond's view, no one is responsible for their own history. It's all geography and climate. But the Europeans, who are passive receivers of their own history, make history for other people by making choices -- for example, by demanding the Haitians deforest their half of Santa Domingo as the price of ending their isolation.
If Diamond's histories are just-so stories, what observed reality is he attempting to explain?
Jared Diamond does not explain how Afonso de Abuquerque took Malacca outnumbered 20:1, against vastly superior firepower (the Sultan had 2000+ cannon).
Or how Cortez won at Otumba, without ammunition, entirely at swords point.
Or how Clive won at Plassey against worse odds.
It is these things, repeated with almost tedious regularity, that created "white privilege".
@stevew, @Clyde, say it with me ...
I’M WHITE AND I’M PROUD!
Life has gotten too easy.
Stupid shit like this is exhibit A.
We were built for conflict.
When surviving is no longer a struggle, when shelter, food, security, and a mate are not challenges that occupy our every waking moment, certain humans can wander way down a long, dumb road that leads to this.
It's almost like self-destruction is something people create because they realize without struggle, our lives can become basically meaningless. So they have to find, or make, a substitute.
There was actually a genuine white social identity that developed in the European empires.
The British said, "The WOGs begin at Calais." Those were the days !
WOG was a term invented when the Colonial Office ordered the settlers in Africa to stop calling natives ni**ers and ordered the use of "Worthy Oriental Gentlemen."
This expression of it is certainly silly, but overall the obsession with anti-whiteness does worry me. The obsession only seems to be growing. It is like a cult that people belong to, the Anti-Whiteness Cult. They want you to join too, and they don't take no for an answer.
Of course my remarks were about a self-conscious White identity movement in this country (the old D's were like that to a large degree). I know very well that the Euros saw the world in racial terms, but this is different.
There was a Colonial Office guy who famously said, "We have to decide whether [some African or Pacific ruler] is a ni88er or a king, and I don't care which." (I think they decided king.)
During the 55 Days at Peking, there was an entirely separate siege of a group of Chinese Christians; the Euros wanted nothing to do with them.
Narr
It's a cruel world
If she truly believed what she is teaching, she wouldn't stand behind others; she would take the lead. However, I do understand that she is actually undoing people.
"During the 55 Days at Peking, there was an entirely separate siege of a group of Chinese Christians;"
The Beitang, a Catholic church; it was defended by 40 French Marines.
Thanks for the correction, buwaya.
Narr
Still cruel
Most folks pronounce it "rain year". My brother, who live in Seattle, pronounces it "rain ee urr".
I was born literally with a view of it out the hospital window and am a fourth generation Puget Sounder and I pronounce it ruh-NEER. That's because I'm a little snooty though and think the usual pronunciation, ray-neer, sounds common. However, its usual name is just 'the mountain.' :)
Regarding the article: Easy to ignore kooks who run non-mandatory classes. Go about your business and let the crazies congregate with each other.
Less easy to ignore: Mr. Pants' work HR sent out an email informing everyone that in celebration of pride month, rainbow flags would be distributed; "please display them on your desks in full view." Not even, "if you want to pick one up and put it on your desk feel free." Just, "do this." Don't be the one who stops clapping first, Comrade.
He works from home so it's easy to ignore in his case, but, yay for forced political and social commentary in the workplace. I look forward to more of the same.
Wow, Pants! That's terrible! Not only that but I didn't know there was an entire month of Celebrate-Your-Perversions. I wonder if they do rainbows in schools, too. :-(
How was qutb, an Egyptian a relative, maybe I read that wrong, the Spanish had fought the moors for about 400 years, since the time of Rodrigo diaz de vivar, el cid,
Swede is right:
When surviving is no longer a struggle, when shelter, food, security, and a mate are not challenges that occupy our every waking moment, certain humans can wander way down a long, dumb road that leads to this.
It's almost like self-destruction is something people create because they realize without struggle, our lives can become basically meaningless. So they have to find, or make, a substitute.
I've often thought along those lines, as well. We need to conquer real obstacles--those of survival--in order to feel truly human and truly alive. These peurile and illogical 'issues' only arise when we are bored.
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