God's Own Crunk

I’ve read a slew of reactions to the firing of Naomi Schaefer Riley from The Chronicle of Higher Education, and although I try not to be cynical, I can’t say this is remotely surprising to me – Riley, in a CHE blog-post, criticized the dissertation topics of various up-and-comers in AfAm-Studies programs, and hell-arity ensued.

To wit, NSR’s reaction to the firing, the hubbub surrounding her original post, and the general malaise of grievance studies, well-put in one place:

Recently, the Chronicle of Higher Education published a cover story called “Black Studies: ‘Swaggering Into the Future,’” in which the reporter described how “young black-studies scholars . . . are less consumed than their predecessors with the need to validate the field or explain why they are pursuing doctorates in their discipline.” The “5 Up-and-Coming Ph.D. Candidates” described in the piece’s sidebar “are rewriting the history of race.” While the article suggested some are skeptical of black studies as a discipline, the reporter neglected to quote anyone who is.

Like me. So last week, on the Chronicle’s “Brainstorm” blog (where I was paid to be a regular contributor), I suggested that the dissertation topics of the graduate students mentioned were obscure at best and “a collection of left-wing victimization claptrap,” at worst.

via Naomi Schaefer Riley: The Academic Mob Rules – WSJ.com.

Yep.

In Oklahoma, there is currently a campaign underway to make more of our privately-owned space “smoke-free.” Bear in mind, in Oklahoma the only place you can smoke outside your own home are in open-air areas that aren’t universities and other publicly-owned spots, bars that don’t prepare food, restaurants that have separately-ventilated smoking rooms, certainly small restaurants that were grandfathered, and of course, casinos. Among the places you can smoke, the owners have the right to not allow smoking – no one can force a place to let you smoke.

Yet, a major league ad campaign, composed of billbaords, radio, TV and print spots, is pushing for more control over the few places left it’s okay to smoke.

This is just one example – I like the thinking in this piece:

It begins with small things, often at the city or county level.

It begins with well meaning regulations on things like when you can take your trash to the curb for pick up — and regulations which can order you to return the cans to your house within a specified time frame.

Regulations which will force you to sell an old car you’re fixing up in your driveway — simply because the neighbors think it an eyesore — regardless of current insurance and tags.

via Statism begins at home – Cherokee Co. News-Advocate: Blogs: united states, statism, liberty, politics, federal government.

William Jacobson, pointing out part of the obvious regarding perceptible Aryan Elizabeth Warren’t NatAm claim:

On what basis does someone who is 1/32nd of anything claim that 1/32nd as ethnicity or race for any purpose?  And is it believable that Warren had no purpose in claiming Native American status when she was building her career in a field which desperately sought minority, and particularly Native American, members.

via » Elizabeth Warren’s drop of Cherokee blood – Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion.

In Oklahoma, this notion of blood is Serious Business. Aside from being the landing place for the five civilized tribes and our state tourism model/motto being “Native America,” most Oklahomans know plenty of other Oklahomans who are, um, actually NatAm – like, half- or full-blooded. I assume the only other place where Native American blood is this common is Alaska, though feel free to point out how I’m wrong.

Oklahomans have two major-minor bloodlines, thanks in part to it once being Indian Territory and that other part about where we sort of took that land too and settled it with White Devils via land runs and casino gaming: there are Native Americans, and then, like much of the rest of the South, there are Ulster Scots. Yes, a dash here and there of Irish and German, but if your family’s been in this state for a few generations, that tree doesn’t have many branches.

Anyone who knows me knows that I clearly have superior Mediterranean blood running through me, probably Greek, but even from that there is still that Ulster Scot gene pumping through as well – I have flecks of red in my beard to prove that some poor slob of an ancestor of mine was probably killed by some evil English King’s henchman back in the day. I’m not psychotic enough to be Italian and I’m not psychotic enough to be, I dunno, Turkish, so Greek it is – I’m all about z’moderation.

Yep, that’s my story.

I’m probably one of at least 15 Oklahomans who claim zero Native American blood, in part because I don’t have any, and in part I have always actively sought to avoid the same type of advantages that Elizabeth Warren no doubt sought to exploit. She saw her chance, and like Maverick his first time out at Miramar, she took it, thus breaking a major rule of PC engagement: if you’re not a minority, don’t fake being a minority (didn’t the 1980s adaptation of Goethe’s Soul Man teach Warren anything?).

When I was a kid, those free pencils and other such tchochkes that came with Indian Blood came with a price – ridicule and/or questions about which animal represented said student’s spirit. Although I doubt Warren fielded such questions as she made her way through the double-bonus of AffirmativeAction-dom, it’s still funny to think about.

What I do know is that, from an XY persepective, any boy who had Warren’s aforementioned Aryan features while trying to pass off as Native would be beaten – more than likely by actual Natives, but if not, by other less-enlightened white kids (we didn’t have the Internet then, so we had to amuse ourselves with something).

Warren is guilty of many things – her election or lack thereof doesn’t really concern me, but that said, she is mosdef guilty of a paper-chase blackface – her actions are no less offensive, by PC standards, than a minstrel routine performed by WASPs, and for her sins, she should probably be forced to, I dunno, sit through six years of Oklahoma history, just like the rest of us in these parts.

Didn’t know this story, sorry I know it now. It happened 65 years ago – read about it at Enid-OK’s newspaper.

Secularist bullies and cultured despisers–the sort of people who hector Christians to be more understanding of “Piss Christ” and who perpetually rail about Judgmental Christians–knowing that Christians are required by their faith to “judge not, lest ye be judged”–are entirely flummoxed when they encounter a religious tradition where their favorite tactic of “Bully and Scold” suddenly no longer works.  Islam has, so far as I know, no tradition against frank, naked, and proud judgment against the infidel, and no sense of shame about indulging in such judgment.

via In the Country that Used to be England |Blogs | NCRegister.com.

Read it at Gawker.

From Dan Riehl, then a few thoughts to follow:

It’s within the Republican Party that you’ll find dumbness and weakness among its so called leadership. Just as NRO did, rather than acknowledging any truth in what Derbyshire wrote and quietly dealing with him in whatever way they saw fit, while also using the occurrence as a means of offering some adult discussion on racism in America, they run screaming like a pack of scared little children, seeking comfort by pulling their blankets over their eyes and chewing their pillows in hopes the boogieman at the door goes away. They end up always letting the left drive the discussion, thereby enabling them to frame the debate in such a way as to beat them at the ballot box with it.

Until the right and the GOP demonstrate some candor and fortitude in discussing racism in America, not only will it not be resolved, but Democrats will continue to use it to beat them in elections whenever and wherever it plays to their advantage to employ the race card.

via Riehl World View: Race In America: Leftism Is For Dummies, Or Is That The Right?.

I sent a few texts to a reader regarding the rather entertaining fallout from John Derbyshire’s piece over at Taki’s that’s caused such a fuss. My point in the texts were twofold:

1. Race isn’t very interesting to me
2. What is interesting is how people who have, for lack of a better term, “written reputations” to uphold have responded much more negatively to what Derbs was saying than those who don’t

I suspect that a person’s view of race, races, racism and differences between various cultures is akin to their sexual peccadilloes: we believe what we believe based on what we’ve found to be true, but airing it in public is always going to be a dicey proposition.

The difference between talking about one’s view of race and one’s sexual fetishes is that while the latter might be embarrassing and awkward, the former can end one’s career in a heartbeat. I’ve read a vast swath of reaction to Derbyshire’s piece – blogs, columns, and more comments than I normally read about anything – and it’s clear to me that people either a) agree with Derbyshire or b) are content to disagree with Derbyshire by calling him and anyone who agrees with him a racist.

Pretty neat game, really.

My Twitter feed is awash in this game, and a great many conservatives I respect have lost a bit of that respect by their unambiguous, blanket, er, de-friending of Derbs over said piece. As shocking as it is to a Sith-like absolutist such as myself, this particular game has a great many shades of gray, none of them worthy of a “Shame on Derbs” Tweet to insure one’s work is still linked at respectable sites.

This flashpoint has prompted more posts about race from me than anything I can recall – the funniest part of this is all of the reaction (and the reaction to the reactions) is all a response to white-on-white rhetoric about one Caucasian’s observations about AfAms.

Someone’s trollin’, I’m just not sure who at this point.