"... even if the message were coded, as in a bunch of people quietly holding up MAGA signs or wearing T-shirts saying 'All Lives Matter.'
And besides, calling all this peaceful stretches the use of the word rather implausibly. It’s an odd kind of peace when a local rabbi urges Jewish students to go home as soon as possible, when an Arab-Israeli activist is roughed up on Broadway, when the angry chanting becomes so constant that you almost start not to hear it and it starts to feel normal to see posters and clothing portraying Hamas as heroes. The other night I watched a dad coming from the protest with his little girl, giving a good hard few final snaps on the drum he was carrying, nodding at her in crisp salute, percussing his perspective into her little mind. This is not peaceful..."
"Today’s protesters don’t hate Israel’s government any more than yesterday’s hated South Africa’s. But they have pursued their goals with a markedly different tenor — in part because of the single-mindedness of antiracist academic culture and in part because of the influence of iPhones and social media, which inherently encourage a more heightened degree of performance...."
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77 comments:
He assumes any anti-black sentiment is a standard for evil, which is how evil maintains itself.
I don't know, is South Africa better off with whites running the government? Is that going to be fact based or assume-based?
It's almost like: (1) they are a bunch of antisemites and (2) the left is fine with antisemites.
Wow, that second quoted section contains a lot of confusing statements. What does he mean they don’t hate Israel’s government? It is what they claim. Why does he call it “antiracist academic culture” when they are being racist? Now he is accepting their self-proclaimed identity of being antiracist. Did iPhones and social media encourage the more heightened degree of antisemitism we saw in the past?
What I can believe is he is a Columbia Professor. That explains why these students brain’s are mush.
Jews have the same rights to be safe as anyone else in America. Govt must guarantee their safety.
Perhaps the best way to do this is set up some designated communities to protect them. These could be in Nevada, Wyoming and the like, away from the haters.
Surround them with electrified barb wire fences for protection.
And so on.
Like we provided for Japanese-Americans in 1942.
John Henry
First they came for the Jews....
Rape, murder, torture, be-headings, babies places in ovens. Hostages still missing presumed dead.
That's what Hamas did on Oct 7th.
Hamas did that. This is who the left is... As they like to say "This is who we are" (WE = Leftists)
I don't see Jews riding to their deaths in tumbrils or trains this go around. The last Fourth Turning was heinous. This next upcoming one is going to be lit.
Today’s protesters don’t hate Israel’s government any more than yesterday’s hated South Africa’s.
There are times when McWhorter seems to have his head screwed on straight, and then there are other times when he lapses into almost incoherent babble to avoid saying something that might get him identified with conservatives.
The South African protests were directed at the odious policies of the government of South Africa. Full. Stop. At the time an 'enemy of my enemy' strategic argument could be had about how hard to press the issues but there is no equivalence between the former whites-only South African government and the current Israeli government.
The Columbia protestors hate Jews, Mr McWhorter. Just say it.
Of course.
Our nation and its leaders have become afraid to win wars and to stand up for its ideals.
Wait, strike that, the Democratic party and its leaders in D.C. and big cities are afraid to use force to ensure domestic tranquility and provide for the common defense.
Wait, strike that, the Democratic party and its leaders in D.C. and big cities are deliberately not using force to ensure domestic tranquility and provide for the common defense to deliberately coerce and frighten Americans and our allies into submitting to their warped goals.
Surprised the NYT published that.
Well put Tina Trent. The Left just skips over the rape and babies in ovens part.
"if they were interpreted as, say, anti-Black, even if the message were coded, as in a bunch of people quietly holding up MAGA signs or wearing T-shirts saying 'All Lives Matter."
You know, I enjoy listening to Glenn Loury and John McWhorter piece their way through some tricky issues and mostly abide by the principles of classical discussion and the Enlightenment, but every once so often, one gets the sense of the mask slipping, with McWhorter. He's clearly an intellectual, and clearly making an effort to be principled. But - 'even if the (racist) message were coded, as in people holding MAGA signs', I mean, come on! Really ? What a revealing disappointment. If confronted, I bet he would be clever about backing his way out of this, and he would be confident that he had - but it's there, and it's real, I think.
tcrosse said...
First they came for the Jews....
Having worked with Muslim Arabs back in my youth I can attest their attitudes about blacks are Lester Maddoxville. It's just expressed in different languages.
The problem I have with McWhorter is that when he objects to something, often the root of his objection seems to be decorum.
I'm a fan of decorum! But McWhorter claims not to care about stuff like that, or at any rate not to discount the undecorous just because it's icky - he's a great fan of profane and obscene language, though he is careful about when he deploys it.
Here, what's so not-peaceful about the dad's percussion and crisp salute, just because he's carrying his little daughter home from a demonstration? People take their kids to all sorts of demonstrations these days - doesn't that kind of help things stay peaceful? (Until suddenly they're not - and I am NO fan of bringing kids to ANY demonstrations!)
Now, I agree with his position on Israel vs Hamas. But I want to hear more about his objections to these protests before I agree that his reasoning for objecting is solid.
Because there hasn't been that much violence so far. The rabbi's advice to Jewish students is certainly sound as a precaution (and, frankly, has the knock-on effect, intentional or not, of getting outsiders to interpret the protests as simmering on the brink of violence whether they are or not), but that advice in itself doesn't mean violence is actually a current problem. OTOH, potential future employees' participation in campus protests is kind of a useful sorting mechanism...
Separate from the question of whether these campus protests, angry and full of harsh and even violent rhetoric as they may be, are going to turn physically violent, is the question of why we seem to accept the idea that avoidance is the only tactic we the unengaged (or the targeted) can or should employ against - especially - protests that are at base pro-Muslim.
The BLM riots were Antiblack.
The homicide rate went up 35% in one year, almost all of it black on black homicides.
The amount of destruction Progressives cause is staggering.
But now it’s “Oh MY God, Not at Columbia!”
The Left devours itself and McWhorter strokes his chin.
Pro Hamas protestors are just recreating the German post WWI Freikorps movement. In time they will find a martyr within their group to celebrate (Horst Wessel - maybe get a snappy song)!and then coalesce to anew Sturmabteilung. Instead of a homosexual leader (Ernst Rohm) I’m predicting a MtF trans leader. Hail victory!
They mix their open hostility to the nation they live in -The USA, and the Jews.
Hamas Nazis are leftist Nazis.
Stop tip-toeing around. Call it what it is and call them what they are!
Dave Begley said...
Surprised the NYT published that.
When Mr. McWhorter started his SubStack I was one of the initial subscribers. I think he was starting to attract a lot of attention there, as well as to his language podcasts, his collaborations with Glenn Loury, and his anti-Woke arguments and book. It was just about that time the NYT made him an offer to publish a periodic column. Mr. McWhorter took the deal, and though he issued an explanation that indicated he made an independent decision to stop publishing opinion pieces on SubStack, there was still a clear implication that the NYT told him they would be monitoring his independent work. Rather than continuing as an independent anti-Woke voice he's now cabined by an NYT paywall and editorial processes which I think was the intention behind the offer.
Great job NYT for publishing that steaming bowl of nonsensical idiocy.
This is how you take a stand against evil in lala land.
Don't name the problem, equivocate to show how weak and uncommitted you are.
Unless I'm not seeing the same riots as he is, they are calling Oct 7 a victory, something to be proud about and calling for more.
The Hamas groupies aren't against the Israeli government, they are calling for the elimination of Israel, and all people in it.
But it was a nice touch for him to put that bit about Trump supporters in it, to show he is really very hip. the obligatory bow to that tired old phrase, racism, was such a cute touch.
Of course that's true. That thought crosses my mind every time I see these hateful nazi protests. But as an old white guy my opinion is meaningless in modern America. At least I live in a free state now where my vote counts again.
It's a "Charlottesville" every day now. And now Biden is claiming there are "fine people" on both sides. Anyone notice a difference in the coverage from when Trump's statement had to be truncated and taken out of context to make it "a thing?" -- a really big thing?
ALL of these leftists are shitty people. Whether they support Hamas’s rape and murder of Jews or they use lawfare to interfere with America’s electoral process.
Trump tries to avoid embarrassment by paying off some mattress actresses $100 to $150k to “dummy up”… Bill Clinton has sex with women and his army of political thugs (Carville, Begala, Snuffalofagus) destroy the women’s lives.
Now… who are the criminals?
War is the great cleansor. We will see what happens when China pushes hard in a few years. Which it will. These activists and the Karen's will not survive, or they, and some millions of those who have poured across our sSouthern, will establish a new state. 15 years ago I would never thought my country could be so fragile. All of this will be paid for in blood. Who will survive when the lights go out and the stores are empty?
South Africa was a tribal conflict with native collateral damage mitigated through separation.
McWhorter is making a specific point, he makes it very well, and he is right. The objections from commenters here seem to be that he failed to make their favorite points. Kind of silly really.
I blame Trump for this. The escalation of college antisemitic protests started after Donald lashed out at the IDF bombing campaign in Gaza.
"Well, that's because you fought back. And I think Israel made a very big mistake. I wanted to call [Israel] and say don't do it. These photos and shots. I mean, moving shots of bombs being dropped into buildings in Gaza. And I said, Oh, that's a terrible portrait. It's a very bad picture for the world. The world is seeing this…every night, I would watch buildings pour down on people. It would say it was given by the Defense Ministry, and said whoever's providing that that's a bad image."
"You have to finish up your war. To finish it up. You gotta get it done. And, I am sure you will do that. And we gotta get to peace, we can't have this going on. And I will say, Israel has to be very careful, because you're losing a lot of the world, you're losing a lot of support, you have to finish up, you have to get the job done. And you have to get on to peace, to get on to a normal life for Israel, and for everybody else."
I’ll never forget that Bibi Netanyahu let us down. That was a very terrible thing,”
These are peaceful protests in support of an organization that supports rape, beheadings, and the murder of hostages. Evil is winning.
The man writes the truth.
Islam means SUBMISSION, not peace.
Submission, with or without your consent.
ah, so MAGA is code.
Remember when Hitler made friends with the Jews for most of his life? Then he just turned 180 and tried to eliminate them.
I read a lot.
John McWhorter is one smart guy. He teaches at an Ivy league school.
The Zionists were community organizers, the AntiZi are diversitists of the indoctrination and equivocation school that has waged an ethnic Spring on Jews for a century with progressive results, but Israelis have not taken a knee. That said, murder, rape, torture, abduction, and diversitism in the pursuit of social justice are no ethical vice.
...one gets the sense of the mask slipping, with McWhorter. He's clearly an intellectual, and clearly making an effort to be principled. But - 'even if the (racist) message were coded, as in people holding MAGA signs', I mean, come on! Really ? What a revealing disappointment...
Let me clarify that I agree with the headline Althouse used. McWhorter does unfortunately use intellectualist doublespeak in this piece. It amazes me how Make America Great Again is "decoded" by the Left to mean whatever they need it to. Our plan speech is a code, they say. Their plain calls for genocide are just "protest" or "slogans" they say and we are pouncing if we notice it for the murderous eliminationist rhetoric it is, the kind of thing that used to so excite and appall so many writers and intellectuals on the Left.
The BLM riots were Antiblack.
Zulu vs Mandela's Xhosa with British imperial support and native collateral damage.
If they support equity and want to tear the system down, they are Marxists. This infection runs riot through the Democrat Party.
Wake the fuck up, America!
1. @Ann: I have no compunctions about sneaking behind the pay wall of the despicable NY Times to read an opinion piece, but it's a nice convenience to your readers when you make that unnecessary.
2. I am always fascinated by NY Times reader comments but usually cannot access them. This time they did pop up. Looking at reader favorites, most of them seem to condemn McW for criticizing the protestors, bc children are starving in Gaza!!! A handful point out Hamas's responsibility plus the virulent anti Semitism of the protests, which McW denies
Howard blames Trump. Color me shocked. Another day that ends in Y…
McWhorter is trying to straddle fence that is topped with razor sharp spikes every 3 inches. I fear his deal with the NYTimes is costing him something. He had a clearer voice on Substack.
John McWhorter has never seen a fence he wouldn't try to sit on.
My goodness, what a mess, starting from the title. "I'm a Columbia Professor. The Protests on My Campus Are Not Justice." Of course they are not justice. Protests never are. McWhorter goes on to conflate numerous unrelated things and commit a few counterfactual doozies. The NYT editors present this piece as opinion, but it's not. It's an evasion. America is witnessing the ascendance of academic brownshirts, and all Dr. McWhorter can say is nice weather for it.
Judging by what the excerpts provide by Althouse (not buying that NYT subscription, not until Sulzburger disowns Walter Duranty) it seems one can study language to the nth excruciating degree and not be able to clearly express a coherent thought. Seems is the operative word. McWhorter is certain to hold a few forthright and well-reasoned opinions, but he desperately seeks to conceal them. He has taken a lesson from the Soviet history. McWhorter is like a Russian scientific agronomist confronted with Lysenkoism -- play the fool or enjoy a new career in the Siberian lumber industry. Seeming to be as thick as treacle pudding doesn't fool Quaestor; we'll see if that tactic saves McWhorter from the left.
"What I do know is that even the most peaceful of protests would be treated as outrages if they were interpreted as, say, anti-Black even if the message were coded, as in a bunch of people quietly holding up MAGA signs or wearing T-shirts saying 'All Lives Matter.' And besides, calling all this peaceful stretches the use of the word rather implausibly. …”
See what we wouldn’t know if there wasn’t some really smart perfesser to explain the obvious to us.
McWhorter doesn't understand that there alreasy have been years of violent protests against police and non-Jewish whites too. These protests have been waged against whiteness and police for a long time now, and there have been scores of murders and shootings and constant physical threat and destruction and occupation of property.
Now the moving target of this extensively planned revolution has squatted on Jews. This is a terrible thing. But it's not the first thing this protest movement did. This is just the way they do it against Jews, rather than police or whites. Different target, different tactic, but same goal.
I would happily don a yellow star and join my Jewish friends who are being targeted now. In fact, that seems like the most effective thing for all college students and professors to do to fight this anti-semitic scourge.
I would also hope Jewish students would stand alongside persecuted white non-Jews and that all these students would support the police and wear the thin blue line badge.
I am taking the step for Israel. Will other Jewish and non-Jewish citizens, white or not, join us?
For someome situated like McWhorter, I would ask: did you support the police at Columbia (I honestly don't recall -- he may have)? Did you oppose anti-whiteness at Columbia (I think he did)? Also, will you wear the Jewish star (I'm hopeful he will)?
Aggie said...
But - 'even if the (racist) message were coded, as in people holding MAGA signs', I mean, come on! Really ? What a revealing disappointment.
I think John McWhorter is aware of which audience he is trying to reach and crafts his message with that in mind. He has said numerous times on his podcast and other appearances that frequently his books or messages are intended for the Left, center-Left, or maybe centrists. He is publishing this in the NYT. I doubt he thinks that MAGA signs are inherently racist, but I suspect he could imagine a person using a MAGA sign with racist motives. However his piece is aimed at Lefty readers of the NYT, and not all of those but those that feel the current protests are fine or good. I'm assuming most of those people automatically link MAGA signs to racism. McWhorter's piece is saying what is going on Campuses is even worse than that.
It seems to be completely forgotten, now, as it was nearly forgotten at the time, that the BLM protests were nominally in service of a few reasonable goals spelled out in the BLM "manifesto".
Adding Body Cams on all uniformed cops, and in cop cars.
Ending the give-away of surplus military equipment (APCs, night vision gear, etc) to police.
Prohibiting for-profit policing, in ending particular asset forfeiture.
Banning (I can't imagine how) racial profiling leading to pretexts for "stop and frisk".
Etc.
There were stupid things on the BLM wish list as well. But absent riots and a framework of "demands", a lot of desired reforms could have proven workable, affordable, useful, and achievable. Even accomplished, by now.
I mention this because I haven't found a similar list or manifesto of desired steps toward betterment of the situation in Israel. So, I can't tell what the protestors and rioters want. Oh yeah, "from the river to the sea" ... yadda yadda yadda. But no. That's a chant, a bumper sticker, not a policy. It looks as if the protests are organized with one goal: achieving a riot, and as if a riot was prepared with the goal of destroying (Jewish) property and injuring (Jewish) people.
No.
"...But they have pursued their goals with a markedly different tenor — in part because of the single-mindedness of Marxist-racist academic culture and in part because of the influence of iPhones and social media, which inherently encourage a more heightened degree of performance...."
Over-compensating Non-combat "vet" Howitzer Howard: "I blame Trump for this."
And there it is. Idiot boy and NPC-automaton hits rock bottom.
All because Howitzer Howard, himself a long-time islamic supremacist suckup, cant deal with the reality of what is happening within the New Soviet Democratical/Islamic Supremacist alliance.
Interestingly, its pretty clear now that the islamic supremacists actually hate Christians a little less than Howard while the Jew-hatred is on a par.
Like we provided for Japanese-Americans in 1942.
John Henry
And for Italians.
AlbertAnonymous: "Howard blames Trump. Color me shocked. Another day that ends in Y"
Howard really isn't any different in mentality from the GOPe suckups that post here where every republican failure over 60 years and even the current day purposeful "failure theater" events and whatever the future holds are all layed at Trump's feet. One buffoon in particular attacked Trump for supposedly having been a democrat....you know...like Ronald Reagan! As if it were 2015 all over again and we have no idea where anyone stands.
The GOPe suckups and New Soviet Democraticals are in a tight gordian knot-like symbiosis, and its irreversible.
@Quaestor and others: you can evade pay wall at archive.ph. So sue me.
Reader comments theoretically are shown if you append #commentsContainer to the url.
The well-organized protests for Palestinian Hamas are all the more reason for demanding and obtaining an unconditional surrender, or death, of all Hamas members and supporters in Gaza, as soon as possible. The re-education of all these nimbwit dumrods worldwide will be a task similar to cleaning the Augean stables, and require working with similar material as had to Hercules.
Howard said...
I blame Trump for this. The escalation of college antisemitic protests started after Donald lashed out at the IDF bombing campaign in Gaza.
Lashed out ? The IDF is doing urban combat, like Fallujah, not bombing.
"Because there hasn't been that much violence so far."
One dead, multiple beatings, hundreds terrorized.
How much violence do you think is acceptable? For me it's zero.
To paraphrase Sarah Huckabee it's a conflict between normals and crazies. There is no reasoning with lefties on any political issue because they are ignoramuses who have learned to overcome cognitive dissonance with delusions.
The other possibility is that they are immune to reason because their goal is the destabilization and destruction of the Republic. Still crazy, but easier to understand.
It is a kindness to view our resident lefties as merely dupes, but it may be a risky mistake.
The first three comments at NYT are anti-Israel and laced with jihadi propaganda. The handwriting is on the. Americans have no patience. These protesters who have no clue about the history of this conflict or the equities involved will wear us down. Then QuidProJoe can do what he's wanted to do all along, throw in the towel to terrorism.
These protests are antisemitic and pro-terrorist. They are a national disgrace and so what? We are a righteous people no longer.
The media, academia, and the government are pro Hamas, pro terror, and anti Jew.
It's the world we now live in.
Adjust accordingly and learn to use a gun...
Interesting: Althouse offers an article about non-compete agreements AND Christohper B above speculates that McWorter has been intellectually smothered in the NYT's clammy embrace.
Kinda the same thing.
"Today’s protesters don’t hate Israel’s government any more than yesterday’s hated South Africa’s. But they have pursued their goals with a markedly different tenor — in part because of the single-mindedness of antiracist academic culture and in part because of the influence of iPhones and social media, which inherently encourage a more heightened degree of performance...."
I do not agree. The professor claims the protesters are against Israel because of the students' anti-racist academic culture? In Israel there are Jews living together who are of mixed race and backgrounds. Israel is a mixed culture with Jews whose grandparents immigrated from Europe, and Jews who immigrated from Ethiopia, Iraq, Morocco, etc.; Arab Christians and Muslims make up 20% of Israeli citizens. There is no apartheid within Israel.
What we see from the protests is the complete ignorance of the students of the actual history of Israel and the conflict and their reliance on social media as the basis of their beliefs and political activism, frequently fictional propaganda.
Of course the leaders of the pro-Palestinian protests hate Israel more than the past protests hated South Africa. A lot of students who were raised as Muslims were taught to hate Jews. It's part of their religion if you listen to certain imams. We know what exactly what the slogans "Free Palestine" and "From the river to the sea" mean. We can read on X the hateful comments about Jews and obviously phoney claims about the IDF which Muslim activists create every day. As others have commented, the goal of the protest movement in universities is to weaken and eliminate Israel. The whole point of the protests against South Africa was to have Whites and Blacks live in peace and equality. Nobody in the USA, as far as I know, was ever taught as children to hate White South Africans or wish them all dead.
In the current round of protests I've seen several examples of a behavior that I don't recall seeing before. I probably just haven't noticed.
I'm familiar with call and response - "What do we want?" "Justice." "When do we want it?" "Now."
But what I see now is a man or woman with a bullhorn in front of a crowd making a statement, often several sentences long and sometimes seemingly extemporized, and the crowd repeating that statement verbatim. This goes on for several minutes.
Mindless zombies repeating the dogma of their new religion as instructed by a Priest.
It's creepy.
tcrosse,
Say more, if you care to and can do so without self-doxing.
I lived in Southern Sudan for 5 years -- i.e. at a time when it was still one country, so the black Africans in the South were governed by the Arab Muslims in Khartoum.
If you suspect I might have an attitude about the latter...
Having worked with Muslim Arabs back in my youth I can attest their attitudes about blacks are Lester Maddoxville. It's just expressed in different languages.
The colloquial Arabic word for black people is "ebed", which means slave.
Well, McWhorter may be right that iPhones have put a premium on performing protest, but without the masks, it's hard to imagine that working. Just one of the many ways COVID is dissolving the bonds of a once proud culture.
It's confusing writing in parts and many of the objections seem to baaed on points I don't believe he's trying to make.
Like when he says today's protesters don't hate Israel's government any more than yesterday's hated South Africa's: I think he means it would be impossible to hate a government more than South Africa was hated. He's not minimizing either though the writing can easily read that way.
Somebody may already have said this.
Wear the star!
Of David.
"Because there hasn't been that much violence so far."
One dead, multiple beatings, hundreds terrorized.
How much violence do you think is acceptable? For me it's zero.
In principle I agree about the zero - I want every protest or demonstration to be 100% actually peaceful, not summer-of-2020 peaceful, and in fact also civil. But "hundreds terrorized" isn't meaningful, or maybe isn't sufficiently meaningful, in this age of "speech is literally violence" and "I feel unsafe in your classroom/lecture hall/company" to justify curtailing actual speech, which is what most of these protests and almost everything that happens at any individual protest appear to be. So the stats concerning physical violence unfortunately(? For purposes of ending or at least minimizing these protests, it's unfortunate; for people's well-being it's fortunate) can be laid at the feet only of individual actors, not the protest itself, at this point.
Or so it seems to me.
NOTE: I hate these protests. I think the "pro-Palestinian" side comprises a whole lot of useful, and often but not always youthful, idiots whom Hamas would have no qualms about beating, torturing, enslaving, or killing if it suited them. (Which it doesn't at present, because their yelling and chanting, for some reason, gets them - "Palestinians," so functionally Hamas - more sympathy than not, for some reason.)
But I've also decided to be on the side of free speech, maybe not at any cost but at some cost, so it's got to be a high hurdle of actual behavior to render a protest unallowable.
That said, you just can't know where or when the tipping point will be, when the individual who gets excited and throws a punch and somebody ends up bleeding on the ground - super triggering, and for some, in an almost sexual way - turns into the people next to him and the people next to them getting violent, and it's a riot.
So I also think the National Guard - or whoever it takes to ensure that actual violence doesn't break out - ought to be there, and "provocation" be damned. The Jewish students and faculty, as well as everyone else who just wants to go to freaking school, have a right to do so safely, and these universities are abdicating their responsibility to ensure that that's possible. And they're abdicating it by claiming it's a free-speech issue, but only with regard to this set of protests because they're sympathetic to the side the protestors support, which I think is absolutely disgusting.
My contention was only that McWhorter's saying that a dad taking his little daughter to a demonstration about something the dad feels strongly about is "not peaceful" is a statement of his opinion, not self-evident.
Of course it’s assumed MAGA people are racist against blacks. Not anymore than anyone else.
Tina Trent @10:07... The problem with supporting the police right now is that the police are the ones enforcing Democrat Party fascism. They allow Democrat Party terrorists to hunt Jews or attack elderly people at Trump rallies, and they arrest Proud Boys for defending themselves. Law Enforcement has a lot of work to do before I support the police again.
How, people asked in the past, did the people of Germany come to follow Hitler? How does genocide possibly happen? This is how. Except that in America only academics and students hate jews. I hope.
@Kirk Parker,
I was merely paraphrasing Martin Niemöller's poem First They Came.
The point being that if they can come after the Jews, what's to stop them from coming after me?
It's always been a little odd that nobody seemed to object very much when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in 1536-39. I think this lack of protest is usually attributed to everyone being terrified of Henry (which is not unreasonable). But I am now starting to understand how many people must have felt when they learned that the local Abbey was standing empty and he king was collecting the land-rents: "Those monks had been pretty useless for years. Maybe it was time for them to go."
The only problem is that most of the monastic libraries were destroyed or dispersed after the dissolution, and 700+ years of literature and history and art were lost forever.
Hating the Jews is the oldest irrational idiocy on earth. But it pops back up regularly like a deadly disease.
Fight it verbally and then watch out. Even your friends and nice people often turn out carriers of that disease or sympathetic to it. So be prepared for surprise of attacks for the Crime of Jew Loving.
Just out of curiosity, where did all those Palestinian flags come from all of a sudden?
tcrosse,
Sorry, I was fooled by blogger's lame default quoting-- if I had but scrolled up one more line, I would've seen that bumble bee was quoting you, and that's who my question is really directed to.
So, Bumble Bee?
The President of Columbia seems to be out of her depth. She invited in the NYPD to arrest the students because the students had been suspended. But they were not actually suspended at the time. Afterwards they were suspended for having been arrested.
John McWhorter has never seen a fence he wouldn't try to sit on.
=================
does he build the fences or finds them in his surroundings?
= what does it mean to be intellectual Professor at Columbia U?
I am noting that 'ebed' is hebrew word origin?!
also
Abeed or abīd (عبيد, plural of ʿabd, عبد), is an Arabic word meaning "servant" or "slave". The term is usually used in the Arab world as a name for Muslim and less frequently Christian families, however it also is used sometimes as an ethnic slur for Black people, and dates back to the Arab slave trade. In recent decades, usage of the word has become controversial due to its racist connotations and origins, particularly among the Arab diaspora.[1]
tcrosse: "Just out of curiosity, where did all those Palestinian flags come from all of a sudden?"
There are always lots of Howitzer Howard types that are happy to volunteer for the latest lefty "Cause" and deliver whatever it is Howard's "betters" determine is required.
Interesting: Althouse offers an article about non-compete agreements AND Christohper B above speculates that McWorter has been intellectually smothered in the NYT's clammy embrace…Kinda the same thing.
And reminiscent of the “capture and kill” technique the government Pecker describes above.
Drago, wasn’t a sword the eventual “solution” to the Gordian Knot?
How does John McWhorter always manage to so thoroughly miss the point while basically being on the right side of the issue? He is one of the more frustrating cases of a man sincerely trying to step out of the bubble, but constantly tripping at the edge.
He is grotesquely wrong about certain things, though: police, for example, on his campus live in constant danger of assassination or severe assault. As do conservative activists, teachers and speakers to a lesser degree -- although mostly they're just apartheided out of campuses like McWhorter's before they can be assaulted there.
And even staunchly activist anti-Apartheid white South Africans were slaughtered, Hamas style, during and after the ending of apartheid, while specially not being granted access to refugee status or visas. So no, they were not frightened on his campus because even many American citizens who married white South Africans and vocally opposed apartheid could not come home again and be on his campus.
If he's going to use such things as central points in a Times editorial, he should gather even the barest facts. Then maybe he could get out of the bubble, but he might be out of the Times, and Columbia too.
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