Said Charles Negy, quoted in "University Must Reinstate Professor Who Tweeted About ‘Black Privilege’/An arbitrator found that the University of Central Florida failed to show 'just cause' last year when it fired Charles Negy, a tenured professor whose comments generated outrage on campus" (NYT).
The university said: "U.C.F. stands by the actions taken following a thorough investigation that found repeated misconduct in Professor Negy’s classroom, including imposing his views about religion, sex and race. However, we are obligated to follow the arbitrator’s ruling."
What did Negy say? We're given 2 tweets:
1. “If Afr. Americans as a group, had the same behavioral profile as Asian Americans (on average, performing the best academically, having the highest income, committing the lowest crime, etc.), would we still be proclaiming ‘systematic racism’ exists?”
2. “Black privilege is real: Besides affirm. action, special scholarships and other set asides, being shielded from legitimate criticism is a privilege. But as a group, they’re missing out on much needed feedback.”
"But I think it’s fair to say the activism surge has at least slowed a little bit. Just look at the sports world’s reaction to the leak that the Supreme Court is likely to overturn Roe v. Wade.... Leagues are like any other corporation: They will support a cause if they think it will benefit them, and they won’t if they think it won’t.... They’re run, and played, mostly by men.... And it’s fair to say the unity, such as it was, that we saw in sports after the murder of Floyd will be difficult to replicate when it comes to abortion. People are exhausted. All over sports, there is an undeniable sense of gratitude that the pandemic is over (at least in the eyes of the people who run and play sports) and that 'normal' seasons are back. Increasingly, 2020 is seen as an anomaly in all senses. For all the activism of that year, decades of powerful inertia is still pushing sports to focus solely on the games themselves.... It might be a shame — for all of us — that they’re returning to those comfort zones. But it’s not difficult to understand why."
From "Why Athletes Are Ignoring Roe v. Wade" by Will Leitch (Intelligencer).
It's not really that complicated, is it? People are truly divided on abortion. Some have very deep beliefs and many are permanently torn and don't know what position to take. Compare the George Floyd protests: Virtually everyone opposes racist police and police brutality. The differences are about how pervasive the problem is and what form activism should take.
There are not a lot of comments over there, but here's the one with the most up votes, and it went up 2 days ago:
Maybe very few people care about actually buying books anymore, or maybe the book-buying public waits until it gets the hard copy of the NYT Book Review, which is part of the Sunday NYT. (Sunday is the 27th; the article went up on line on the 25th.)
But it amazes me that having the pretense of erudition —opining on which new books are worthy — the NYT doesn't monitor the comments and fix errors like this.
By the way, here's the subheadline for the article: "Two journalists dive into George Floyd’s life and family; Viola Davis reflects on her career; a historian explores the brutal underpinnings of the British Empire; and more." For a moment there, I thought the NYT was recommending 2 books about George Floyd's life. But it's just one book with 2 authors.
I'm guessing the headline writer thought it was important to use the active voice and to maintain parallelism. So if Viola Davis reflects and a historian explores, then 2 journalists must dive. The authors all simply wrote, but there's an idea out there that says you ought to use vivid verbs, so "write" is systematically converted to metaphor: dive, reflect, explore. That desire for vigorous activity dictated a structure with the writer coming first in the phrase, and that created the ambiguity that made me think there were 2 books about George Floyd.
So the subheading begins "Two journalists dive into George Floyd’s life and family; Viola Davis reflects on her career...." and the poor NYT reader must struggle not to feel that the newspaper is force-feeding anti-white-fragility medicine. But hang on: There's also "the brutal underpinnings of the British Empire; and more." And more! AND. MORE...
I'm sure that is an immense relief to many, many people
Outside the building in Minneapolis where the verdict was read, there was a shout — “Guilty!” — and then an eruption of cheers. When all the counts came back guilty, the cheer changed: “All three counts!”...
At George Floyd Square, the memorial to where Floyd was killed, a woman nearly collapses in tears. When she straightens, she manages to croak out, “We matter. We matter.”
***
There is no comments section anymore, but you can email me here. Unless you say otherwise, I will presume you'd enjoy an update to this post with a quote from your email.
"I think if they want to give their opinions, they should do so in a respectful and in a manner that is consistent with their oath to the Constitution to respect a coequal branch of government. Their failure to do so I think is abhorrent, but I don't think it has prejudiced us with additional material that would prejudice this jury."
Said Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill, the judge in the Derek Chauvin case, quoted in "Jury ends first day of deliberating with no verdicts in Derek Chauvin murder trial/With the dismissals of the alternates, the jury of 12 is now half white and half people of color" (Star Tribune).
It's a hopeless wish. People are going to talk. And disrespect is part of human expression. An important part. The rule of law is one of the all-time great ideals, but the way the law plays out in real life deserves — and benefits from — the expression of disrespect. It's fine for the judge to wish for respect, but it's up to him to do what earns respect.
His main point here is to deny that there has been a mistrial because of what's been said out there in public, particularly what Rep. Maxine Waters said — that protesters need to get "more confrontational" if there is no guilty verdict. It's horrible to think that all the hard work of conducting a trial could be squandered by one wild-talking politician. Of course Cahill denied the motion.
But does the threat of riots unfairly prejudice the jury — and does Waters's one inflammatory statement make all the difference? What does "more confrontational mean"? It could just mean bigger, louder, more passionate demonstrations. But perhaps we're supposed to know that she meant destruction and violence — just like the way the supporters of the last impeachment were sure that when Trump urged people in the street to "fight like hell," everyone was supposed to know he advocated criminal disorder.
***
There is no comments section anymore, but you can email me here. Unless you say otherwise, I will presume you'd enjoy an update to this post with a quote from your email.
"... through leading questions on cross-examination, to walk witnesses through the video, explaining to the jury moment-by-moment exactly what the prosecution’s theory of the case is. If he does this skillfully, the prosecutor turns his 'questioning' into the equivalent of a summation.... In addition to stressing Chauvin’s patent awareness that Floyd was in pain, the prosecutor had the witness concede that the defendant had been told by his fellow officers that Floyd had lost consciousness, ought to be rolled over on his side (to facilitate breathing), and had no pulse. While defense attorney Eric Nelson had made much of the crowd presence and the possibility that it could pose a threat to the police, Schleicher had Brodd conceding that the crowd was small and posed no threat to the police.... The foundation of Chauvin’s defense is that he had reason to fear that Floyd would regain consciousness and begin resisting arrest again. Schleicher elicited from Brodd the explanation that there is a difference between a threat and a risk: Police may use force to counter a threat they perceive based on some affirmative act by a detainee; but they may not use force based on a mere risk that a detainee might pose a threat at some future point."
From "Chauvin Defense Expert Destroyed on the Stand" by Andrew McCarthy (at National Review).
FROM THE EMAIL: Omaha1 writes:
Oh, wouldn't you just love to pile into an unmoderated comments section right now? I've abolished the comments section, because the tragedy of the commons was just too damned heart-rending. But I could turn it on for an individual post, just to see what happens. That's an option I've considered and that a few people have mentioned in email. (You can email me here.)
Why not turn it on for this post? Actually, I considered it, because I think there's a lot in the video to talk about, and I'm not personally in the mood to comment about it, other than to have selected that one quote for the post title. And isn't it interesting that the quote expresses appreciation for "good dialogue"?
But if the comments were open, the beginning of the comments section would be filled with comments from people who hadn't watched the video. And there'd be comments saying things that have already been said about "Saturday Night Live" — that's it's never been funny or hasn't been funny since [whenever]. How long would it take before somebody would say something trenchant about the actual substance of the video?
"I think this is a good dialogue...." is a funny line because the referenced dialogue is not good. And yet we cling to the notion that dialogue is good. I love dialogue.
Here ends my monologue.
FROM THE EMAIL: Temujin writes:
I've wondered if you've considered randomly opening up comments at some point for posts only you want to hear comments on. There were one or two in the past couple of days I would have loved to have commented on. But not on this one. You are correct to not open comments on this one. It would be a bloodbath. No one likes a bloodbath in the morning.
Yeah, bloodbath is more of an evening luxury.
Slave labor? https://t.co/jE5ZpzdF9y
— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) April 8, 2021
I'd love to visit your famous Uyghurs training facilities to see how China gets things done. Can you also give me a tour of the Fentanyl production facilities that killed George Floyd and my stepson? https://t.co/BmZCOuarLO
— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) April 8, 2021
FROM THE EMAIL: A reader named Mike writes (and I haven't fact checked the history):
China lies. The Central Pacific Railroad was built by free labor. The Chinese laborers were highly valued employees, in fact the CP couldn’t get enough of them. They knew how to use blasting powder, they worked without the hullabaloo that the white, Irish workers created. They didn’t drink and carouse. At one time they... quit and started working for another company.
Plus the fact we’d just fought a four-year war to end slavery.
See Stephen Ambrose’s “Nothing Like It in The World.” Great book about building the transcontinental railroad.
MORE FROM THE EMAIL: A reader named Daniel writes:
I think Scott Adams wasted an opportunity -- he caught Chinese attention, but he was more interested in making domestic points to domestic audiences than in calling out the Chinese. Randomly bringing up George Floyd using fentanyl is not about calling out the Chinese. And by the way, we've got our own problems with fentanyl behavior, between Purdue, McKinsey, over-prescribing doctors and over-dispensing pharmacies. I'd call it a big loss by Adams.
Adams seems to take every opportunity to castigate China over Fentanyl. I wouldn't have brought in George Floyd. There's an ongoing trial, and the key question seems to be whether it's possible that Fentanyl and not Derek Chauvin's knee was the cause of the death. Adams is deliberately writing as if we know the answer, and I guess that's the "thinking past the sale" type of persuasion he frequently talks about. I'm sure some of Adams's followers get off on that sort of thing.
There's also this from RigelDog:
Like you, Adams produces content every day but in the form of a podcast. He's got a pretty big audience. It may interest you to know that he considers Chinese government to be not only the enemy of the free world, but also his, Adams', personal enemy. He openly vows to take them down in any way that he can. Looks like he is making some headway and getting some (dangerous?) attention.
He must love this.
YET MORE EMAIL: Christian writes:
Looking at China and the slavery situation, we can see how so many for so long countenanced what they even the called the evil "institution" of plantation slavery. It's not the same thing, but the dynamics are similar, and the stakes even higher, with the potential benefit to the USA lower than ever.
The South declared war over the presence of someone they thought was a threat to slavery. If we actually managed to put real economic hurt on China (or maybe just threatened enough to push them over the edge), who's to say war with millions of Chinese and hundreds of thousands of US/allies lives won't be the cost?
And unless we impossibly managed a modern day Sherman's March from the sea across inland China to pacify the country, we wouldn't end up making anyone more free. To say nothing of the devastating generational consequences of war across economy, government growth, families, etc. The toll is much higher than the casualty count, which would be unimaginable.
So we do the calculations - are the wealth and prosperity gains from doing business with a bad nation, while also preventing conflict, worth permitting a terrible "institution" to continue. It's not just a question of "money". We don't develop the next MRI machine without high profit margins and high sales volumes that come from overseas manufacturing a wide range of goods across the whole economy.
We may say one thing to assuage our conscience. But our actions demonstrate with clarity how we truly feel.
"... and when I look at the facial expression of Mr. Floyd, that does not appear in any way, shape, or form that that is light to moderate pressure."
From "Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo Testimony on Use of Force in Derek Chauvin Trial Transcript" (REV).
The defense will try to argue that Mr. Floyd took a fatal amount of fentanyl, but now [the prosecutor, Jerry W.] Blackwell is saying that is not true, that he had built up a tolerance and was not exhibiting signs of overdose. “Mr Floyd had lived with his opioid addiction for years… he was struggling, he was not passing out.”...
The prosecutor is trying to head off arguments from the defense that George Floyd’s size had anything to do with his death — “his size is no excuse,” he said. George Floyd was already more than six feet tall in middle school and he rapped under the name Big Floyd with popular DJs and rappers in Houston.
Mr. Chauvin’s lawyer begins his opening arguments with the notion of “reasonable doubt.” He needs one juror to buy in to the idea that drugs killed Mr. Floyd, not Mr. Chauvin’s knee, to hang the jury and force a mistrial.
Here's a live feed of the trial:
1. The headline translates to "Why Meghan left Buckingham...." and the speech bubble says "because I couldn't breathe anymore."
2. Now, for the first time, I'm thinking about whether the Queen shaves her legs.
3. Is the image outrageous? But Charlie Hebdo wants to be outrageous... so it is immune to any criticism people might choose to lob. Still, the question remains: How outrageous is it and what are the elements of outrageousness?
4. The most outrageous part — if I consult my own sensitivity — is the appropriation of the pain surrounding George Floyd for a comical presentation. The second most outrageous part is connecting Markle to Floyd because she is black.
5. Those outrageous things are not, however, purely gratuitous, so it's not just a case of laughing at George Floyd and finding it worth pointing out that Markle, too, is black. What's not gratuitous is the radical contrast between what happened to Floyd — suffering and death on the street, under the knee of a cop — and what happened to Markle — palace life insufficiently pleasant.
6. It's important that Charlie Hebdo avoided using stereotypical features in drawing Markle, but unfortunate that the drawing doesn't look much like her. I'm interested in the window pane image on Markle's cheek. I believe this is the classic cartoon way to signify shininess. I guess Markle indulges in the makeup convention of dabbing shiny highlighter on the cheekbones. It would be a real stretch to connect that to the racial slur "shine." The slur has to do with the occupation of shining shoes — though Markle's face is right next to the Queen's shiny shoe — and not to some notion about how black people look.
7. It's important to be able to make fun of public figures. Markle is actively using accusations of racism to fend off criticism. This might work, for her and for many others, if the fear of these accusations is too intense. In that light, Charlie Hebdo is doing us a service, taking the heat, and — if you think about it the right way — contributing to racial progress.
"The martyrdom of Black Americans is very prevalent among particularly white liberals and we see that, I think, in how we celebrate MLK and how a lot of these folks will uphold the whitewashed and martyred idea of Dr. King without actually exploring his radical nature and radical ideology.... [It was] the typical well meaning white liberal kind of paternalistic type of racism... She called to apologize in a way and it just really rang hollow to me. It rang like somebody that, one, didn’t reflect on what she said before she heard that I was upset. She also resorted to it as an individual hurt, in saying sorry she hurt me, without an ability to see a wider level and see as what it was, racist behavior, racist mentality. And I kind of started to say that and I’m like, 'You’ve got a lot of work to do.' And she said, 'I’m trying to do that work. Maybe you could help me.' And I told her that it’s not for me, I’m not here to do the work for you. You’ve got to do it yourself."
Said Matthew Braunginn, one of the "two," in "Two Sustainable Madison Committee members resign over 'God bless George Floyd' remark" (Madison 365).
Braunginn utters a long but important phrase: "the typical well meaning white liberal kind of paternalistic type of racism." Consider how regarding Floyd as a blessed martyr is a kind of racism. Understand why Braunginn was so outraged over this that he quit his alliance with some well-meaning Madison liberals.
The black vinyl letters in the artwork “Truth Be Told” measure 21 feet high and stretch some 160 feet across the facade of the 1929 red brick building that now serves as the School, a branch of Manhattan’s Jack Shainman Gallery.
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