Tag Archives: morality

Arithmetic and Social Justice

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California education officials—at least that’s how Williamson Evers, Senior Fellow, Director of the Center on Educational Excellence, refers to them; you and I might have different, colorfully metaphoric terms—want to base arithmetic training in K-12 on whether the classes have sufficient social justice in them, rather than on whether 2+2 equals 4 (Polish proverbs are not allowed, either). California’s Instructional Quality Commission is looking at requiring arithmetic to be taught in accordance with A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction: Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction.

This manual claims that teachers addressing students’ mistakes forthrightly is a form of white supremacy. It sets forth indicators of “white supremacy culture in the mathematics classroom,” including a focus on “getting the right answer,” teaching math in a “linear fashion,” requiring students to “show their work” and grading them on demonstrated knowledge of the subject matter. “The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false,” the manual explains. “Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuates ‘objectivity’.”

This, of course, is…nonsense.

If the Left, or their so-called educators, were truly interested in “social justice,” they would desist from their blithe, if carefully unspoken, assumption that blacks (all minorities, come to that) are inherently inferior, intrinsically incapable of mastering arithmetic—or anything else—as well as can any other group of human beings.

But if they did that, the Left would have to find a different means of feeling superior to others so that they could feel good about themselves.

Instead, they cling desperately to their (not so) soft bigotry of low expectations.

The Party of Systemic Racism

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Recall that the chairman of the Lamar County Democratic Party, Gary O’Connor, called Senator Tim Scott (R, SC) an oreo over Scott’s speech responding to President Joe Biden’s (D) speech to a sparsely populated joint Congress.

In response to the backlash to his blatantly racist and deliberately cast slur, O’Connor tendered his resignation from his position in the party.

Now we have the truth of those Progressive-Democrats:

Representatives of the Lamar County Democrats met Tuesday to consider the resignation of Gary O’Connor, the Lamar County Democratic Party chair. However, the party said in a statement that they decided not to accept the resignation after taking the “last few days to reflect upon this incident.”

O’Connor has apologized to Scott. The Lamar County branch of the Progressive-Democratic Party has its own, nominally parallel, claims regarding O’Connor’s racist slur:

Lamar County Democrats recommit ourselves to conduct our private conversations and our public social media discussions with anti-racist, pro-reconciling attitudes and language. We strongly condemn bigotry of any kind and will continue our historic efforts to work for justice and equality for all our fellow citizens.

Leave aside the fact that “anti-racist…language” includes such racist moves as attempting to force the 1619 Project into children’s school curriculum and into college and university required coursework, trying to force children to “deconstruct” their racial status and “privilege,” trying to force children and their parents explicitly to support “anti-racism” and activists like BLM, and so on.

Apologies, however sincere as O’Connor’s seems to be, at least in its construction, are nothing but empty words, though, absent sustained and observably changed behavior. Such a thing takes open, improved behavior over a considerable amount of time. Especially, it requires that behavior; simply going to ground and being silent and hidden doesn’t cut it.

Recommittals like the Lamar Progressive-Democrats’ are meaningless unless they’re accompanied by sustained, measurably improved performance. Such a thing by an organization takes changed behavior over an even longer period, and it’s best accompanied by a change in management personnel, including here those Representatives of the Lamar County Democrats.

The Lamar Progressive-Democrats’ statement, though, is especially noncredible given their decision actually to do nothing: their refusal to accept O’Connor’s resignation as their chairman. Insisting he stay on is simply their empirical (as opposed to rhetorical) demonstration that the branch, as a body, condones racism. Had that gang valued O’Connor’s contributions while decrying his racist spew, they would have accepted his resignation as chairman and reassigned him to another, lesser position within the branch.

Allen West, Chairman of the Republican Party of Texas, has the right of it. He said he was

sick and tired of the duplicitous hypocrisy of the true party of racism.

And

He said he would be sending a box of Oreos to the Texas Democratic Party.

Apologizing to Bigots

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A game show contestant won his contest last week. It was his third win in a row on that game show, and he bragged on it a little bit by flashing three fingers against his chest with his thumb and index finger forming a circle.

The Left has their collective panties twisted tightly. Flashing three fingers, they scream, isn’t a brag about winning three times. It isn’t even the standard “OK” sign that folks everywhere have used since forever.

No, it’s a White Supremacist sign. At least in their fetid, closed minds.

Worse, the winner wasn’t sufficiently contrite in response to the hysterical Left’s initial outcry.

“Most problematic to us as a contestant community,” they wrote, “is the fact that Kelly has not publicly apologized for the ramifications of the gesture he made.”

No, most problematic for the “contestant community” is the rank racist bigotry infesting that so-called community as they try so zealously to substitute their Newspeak dictionary for the standard dictionaries of honest Americans.

The response to the contestant’s abject apology, too, demonstrates that we cannot ever apologize to bigots; that only rewards them and eggs them on.

Apologizing to such as these actually is worse than useless—we can only counteract their bigoted assaults more forcefully than the attack.

The WSJ‘s final sentence in that editorial is spot on.

He has earned every penny, not least for giving a whole new meaning to Double Jeopardy.

Sexism of the Left

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It’s written all across New York City politics, explicitly so in the contest for mayor.

Andrew Yang is running for the Progressive-Democratic Party nomination for mayor. So is Eric Adams. And so is Kathryn Garcia. Both of the first two have said they’d be glad to have the third as their Deputy Mayor should one of those two win the general election for mayor.

Oh, the hue and cry from Garcia. So desperate is she to make a name for herself (she’s down in the weeds, polling at 5% as of last Friday, while Yang and Adams are at 22% and 17% respectively, and five more candidates are between 11% and 7%) during her own campaign, she has chosen to manufacture a sexist beef out of the other two’s willingness to recognize, and to let New York City benefit from, her talents. She cries,

It’s totally sexist. Totally sexist.

And

Are you not strong enough to actually do this job, without me helping you? You should be strong enough. You shouldn’t need me[.]

It’s true enough that a New York City mayor doesn’t need Garcia in particular in the Deputy’s slot. NYC does, though, need a Deputy Mayor.

Yang says through “a rep” that he

has enormous respect for Kathryn Garcia and that’s why he’s often said he’d seek her partnership at city hall if elected mayor.

It could be that Yang is blowing smoke with his complimentary remarks about Garcia. It could be, too, that he’s entirely sincere.

It’s instructive that Garcia has chosen the one interpretation of Yang’s suggestion to push and not the other. (Adams has chosen simply to ignore Garcia’s…claim.)

It’s further instructive that Garcia doesn’t even acknowledge the other interpretation, much less explain why she’s chosen her sexist beef and rejected the sincere (potential) offers.

That’s Garcia’s sexist bigotry—the manufacture of her beef out of whole cloth and without deigning explain her bald claim.