Tag Archives: morality

A Lesson About Discrimination

Posted on by
Reply

A few days ago, The Wall Street Journal ran a piece about a teacher and a principal who taught a 1968 lesson about racial tolerance, using the equally arbritrary blue eyes-brown eyes discriminant as the teaching prop.

A Letter to the Editor response decried both the lesson and the pride in it that was conveyed in that article.

…one of the most disturbing and emotional things I had ever experienced. Teachers whom I once looked up to were subjecting me to irrational and arbitrary treatment based on my eye color. … My father … called my school’s leadership and received a complete apology.

How sad, that letter writer and his father missed the point of the lesson and missed precisely that “disturbing and emotional thing” that real victims of irrational and arbitrary treatment experience.

On the other hand, a commenter in the Letters thread asked this:

Does this same reasoning that this was child abuse apply to the teachers lecturing about “white privilege” and setting up situations to guilt trip children based on their skin color?

How sad, too, that that discrimination is actively practiced today.

Union Threat

Posted on by
Reply

The American Federation of Teachers doesn’t like guns, gun owners, gun manufacturer, or those who support them.  That’s fine; this is America.

The union’s President, Randi Weingarten, has taken a typically union follow-on step: threatening a union boycott of Wells Fargo if the bank doesn’t end its relationship with the National Rifle Association and with those manufacturers.

We’re issuing Wells Fargo an ultimatum.  They can have a mortgage market that includes America’s teachers, or they can continue to do business with the NRA and gun manufacturers. They can’t do both.

The rest of us, including banks, have rights, too.  Wells Fargo is resisting Weingarten’s ultimatum, which if widely acceded to will leave the very people she pretends to want to protect utterly defenseless.  Wells should advise her and her union supporters to not let the door hit her in the fanny on the way out.

And the rest of us should push the harder for schools that aren’t unionized.  Wells’ products, along with the NRA’s and manufacturers’, are quality products.  The same can’t be said for the AFT’s products.

“White Privilege”

Posted on by
Reply

In an op-ed for Sunday’s Wall Street Journal, Zachary Wood, in the course of decrying “white privilege” as an excuse for not engaging in serious discussions to address racism, made this claim:

Does white privilege exist? Sure. If you’re white and you excel at academic or other cognitively demanding endeavors, for example, the light of your success is never dimmed by speculation about whether you benefited from affirmative action.

While his heart is in the right place, he misunderstands the particulars.  This isn’t white privilege (even assuming such a nonsensical thing could be taken seriously). The stigma attaching here is the result of the racism and sexism inherent in affirmative action programs.

Somebody Else

Posted on by
Reply

Blue Mountain School District Superintendent David Helsel, who had originally intended to arm his students with river rocks so they could throw them at intruders and thereby resist a mass shooting, has altered the plan.  He’s decided to add armed—that is, with firearms—security to his district’s protection technique.  Helsel claimed that the publicity driven by social media and the resultant NLMSM’s attention drove him to the change.

This unfortunate circumstance has increased our concern regarding the possibility that something may happen because of the media attention.

Because, like Flip Wilson’s Geraldine, it’s always somebody else’s fault.  I don’t like the NLMSM, as the half-dozen of you who read this blog know.  But it’s not the NLMSM’s fault.  It’s not social media’s fault.  Any fault is that of the ones who actually do the deeds, contributed to by those who should have known better but chose to take no preventive action.

It’s personal responsibility, not that of “others,” and Helsel seems not to get that.  This is what we have teaching our children.

Violent Illegal Aliens

Posted on by
Reply

Recall Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf’s warning to illegal aliens in the city for which she’s responsible that ICE officers were coming.  Recall further the litany of violent crimes for which many of those warned were previously convicted or accused, and that many of those violent illegals escaped ICE as a result of Schaaf’s warning.

Now we see an outcome of Schaaf’s concern for violent non-citizen criminals.

Three illegal immigrants, who avoided capture after Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf blew the whistle on a raid by federal immigration authorities last month, have since been re-arrested for new crimes including robbery and spousal abuse, ICE officials said.

They were these:

One was a Mexican national arrested for robbery and gun crimes, who was released back into the community for a prior offense despite an ICE detainer request in November.
Another Mexican national was arrested for a DUI, despite having been deported three times and prior convictions for false imprisonment, DUI, and battery of a spouse.
The third was a Mexican national who was arrested for corporal injury of a spouse, despite being deported twice and criminal convictions including drug possession, hit-and-run, DUIs, possessions of narcotics equipment, and a parole violation.

Others of this ilk remain on the loose.

This is how the Oakland Mayor seems to prioritize drug abuse and the safety of women relative to her city’s legal residents.

Side note: the gun crimes charges demonstrate the degree of effectiveness of gun control laws in keeping firearms out of the hands of those with no respect for law.