“White people are so fragile, God bless ’em.”

by liberal japonicus

Has it only been four days since I posted about the ‘migrant caravan‘? Lot of pressure and Ugh is there with a stent of an open thread, but here’s a little more focussed post for those of you who want to chat.

This post is sort of about Megyn Kelly, formerly of the Today show and the title comes from this unrelated Guardian article
about Rhiannon Giddens and the final paragraph, which is:

She pauses. “White people are so fragile, God bless ’em. ‘Well, I didn’t own slaves.’ No you didn’t. Nobody is asking you to take personal responsibility for this. But you’re a beneficiary of a system that did. Just own that and move on.”

My wife (Japanese, never lived in the US) was struggling to see what was wrong with Megyn Kelly’s comments. I pulled up some links and pointed out that 1) she’s not talking about herself going as Diana Ross, she’s talking about someone else, 2) she has a history of making racist comments and 3)she’s getting umpteen million dollars so you think she would be intelligent enough to keep her mouth shut. My wife said ‘naruhodo’, which could be the Japanese equivalent of ‘yeah, that’s a bit racist…’

Thinking about another Meghan, here’s an interesting compare and contrast. Been reading a bit about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s tour and Harry’s own history in this regard in the realm of the ill-advised is interesting.

with some reporting from the time

So liberal japonicus, why does Harry get a pass, and Megyn Kelly get sent on her way? Well, I’m not sure if someone could have been kicked out of the royal family, but more importantly, this:

During one tantalising section of the film Prince Harry, who is currently dating the American actress Meghan Markle, hints at the possibility of becoming a father and introducing his children to the continent he has long loved and admired and where he has done some of his most meaningful work.

“I have this love of Africa that will never disappear,” he says: “And I hope it carries on with my children as well.”

We earlier talked about how political party affiliation is often something that can be seen as passing down from parent to child. This reminded me that a lot of things get passed down.

My senior thesis was a combination of a recital and a thesis about the pieces I played and one of the pieces I played was Hindemith’s Sonata for Horn in F and I tied that to a poem that Hindemith linked to his Sonata for Alto Horn that is supposed to be recited before the piece.

Hornist:
Is not the sounding of a horn to our busy souls
Even as the scent of blossoms wilted long ago
Or the discolored folds of musty tapestry
Or crumbling leaves of ancient yellow tomes

Like a sonorous visit from those ages
Which counted speed by straining horses’ gallop
And not by lightning prisoned up in cables
And when to live and learn they ranged the countryside
Not just the closely printed pages

The cornucopia’s gift calls forth in us a pallid yearning, melancholy longing

Pianist:
The old is good not just because it’s passed
Nor is the new supreme because we live with it
And never yet a man felt greater joy than he could bear or truly comprehend.

Your task, it is, amidst confusion, rush and noise
To grasp the lasting, calm, and meaningful
And finding it anew, to hold and treasure it.

326 thoughts on ““White people are so fragile, God bless ’em.””

  1. The white man’s love for Africa is an interesting thing, and I can symphatise with it in some cases on personal level, while condemning it morally. I’ve read books describing displaced Rhodesian whites’ longing for their home. Indeed, it was often their native home, and in a way, they probably really loved African countryside, and even appreciated the black culture. However, this feeling was a part of being racial upperclass, which included a brutal repression of black majority.
    So, while I can understand that a Rhodesian refugee might call the nostalgia he feels for white power “love”, that feeling is still a disgusting, twisted form of love. Because of this, I am a bit averse of any white person talking about their love for Africa.

  2. The white man’s love for Africa is an interesting thing, and I can symphatise with it in some cases on personal level, while condemning it morally. I’ve read books describing displaced Rhodesian whites’ longing for their home. Indeed, it was often their native home, and in a way, they probably really loved African countryside, and even appreciated the black culture. However, this feeling was a part of being racial upperclass, which included a brutal repression of black majority.
    So, while I can understand that a Rhodesian refugee might call the nostalgia he feels for white power “love”, that feeling is still a disgusting, twisted form of love. Because of this, I am a bit averse of any white person talking about their love for Africa.

  3. why does Harry get a pass
    He didn’t entirely, at the time, as the newspaper headlines in your link make rather clear.
    I think it would be fair to say that his attitudes have evolved somewhat.
    I’m not a massive fan of the Royal family (though less still of presidential systems), but the William/Harry generation seems a considerable improvement on Charles/Andrew.
    And in the end it’s perfectly possible to ignore them almost completely in a way that’s not possible for political figures. Even if sacking them is a really difficult business.
    As for Kelly, she was an employee with less latitude for opinions than she apparently believed. Or she’s just very stupid.

  4. why does Harry get a pass
    He didn’t entirely, at the time, as the newspaper headlines in your link make rather clear.
    I think it would be fair to say that his attitudes have evolved somewhat.
    I’m not a massive fan of the Royal family (though less still of presidential systems), but the William/Harry generation seems a considerable improvement on Charles/Andrew.
    And in the end it’s perfectly possible to ignore them almost completely in a way that’s not possible for political figures. Even if sacking them is a really difficult business.
    As for Kelly, she was an employee with less latitude for opinions than she apparently believed. Or she’s just very stupid.

  5. “Or she’s just very stupid.”
    If you’ve ever known a sociopath up close and over a long period of time, it’s forever difficult to tell what’s what. The most remarkable bullshit can come out of their mouths with the syrup of sincerity poured over it and even after long exposure to this stuff, you kind of sit back and study their faces for clues and tells to whether or not THEY believe the crap that just flowed from their lips, in which case THEY are stupid beyond words, or if it’s the same old congenital lying that is once again sucking you into whatever warped manipulation of their world they are trying to put over, and then YOU are the stupid one, and you marvel at how stupid they must think YOU are.
    I’ve known one all my life and it’s remarkable that all who know him can no longer look him directly in the eyes when he is speaking, out of fear that maybe he is going to hypnotize you one more time.
    Your skin crawls and you take the first opportunity to get out of the room and shake the sociopathic cooties off.
    I try and do a half-assed impression of this type on the internets.
    You put that person in a TV studio or on a podium with a mic where the eye contact is something else again and you have celebrity sociopathy and the pipe bombs and invasions of Poland that come with.
    Kelly is a bit of an amateur sociopath.
    For true professionalism and star power sociopathy, well, we know where to find that.
    That one gets to live on the nicest house in the country.

  6. “Or she’s just very stupid.”
    If you’ve ever known a sociopath up close and over a long period of time, it’s forever difficult to tell what’s what. The most remarkable bullshit can come out of their mouths with the syrup of sincerity poured over it and even after long exposure to this stuff, you kind of sit back and study their faces for clues and tells to whether or not THEY believe the crap that just flowed from their lips, in which case THEY are stupid beyond words, or if it’s the same old congenital lying that is once again sucking you into whatever warped manipulation of their world they are trying to put over, and then YOU are the stupid one, and you marvel at how stupid they must think YOU are.
    I’ve known one all my life and it’s remarkable that all who know him can no longer look him directly in the eyes when he is speaking, out of fear that maybe he is going to hypnotize you one more time.
    Your skin crawls and you take the first opportunity to get out of the room and shake the sociopathic cooties off.
    I try and do a half-assed impression of this type on the internets.
    You put that person in a TV studio or on a podium with a mic where the eye contact is something else again and you have celebrity sociopathy and the pipe bombs and invasions of Poland that come with.
    Kelly is a bit of an amateur sociopath.
    For true professionalism and star power sociopathy, well, we know where to find that.
    That one gets to live on the nicest house in the country.

  7. Lurker, that’s an interesting point. I’m a big fan of Albert Camus and the his challenge of arguing for a place for the Algerian pied-noirs and the excesses of the Algerian War seems to be a similar problem as you lay out.
    For Harry, I imagine that his connection is also related to his mother and being introduced to the continent thru her and as such, I would cut him quite a bit of slack. What your parents give to you is something that you can’t weigh and subject to the same analysis that you can with other things, though a lot of that is wrapped up in my own experiences with what my parents gave me.

  8. Lurker, that’s an interesting point. I’m a big fan of Albert Camus and the his challenge of arguing for a place for the Algerian pied-noirs and the excesses of the Algerian War seems to be a similar problem as you lay out.
    For Harry, I imagine that his connection is also related to his mother and being introduced to the continent thru her and as such, I would cut him quite a bit of slack. What your parents give to you is something that you can’t weigh and subject to the same analysis that you can with other things, though a lot of that is wrapped up in my own experiences with what my parents gave me.

  9. The value of Harry is not so much in his opinions themselves, which are pretty unexceptionable, and unexceptional – rather that a member of one of the most conservative (with a small c) institutions in British society should have adopted them.

  10. The value of Harry is not so much in his opinions themselves, which are pretty unexceptionable, and unexceptional – rather that a member of one of the most conservative (with a small c) institutions in British society should have adopted them.

  11. I read Pat Buchanan to keep my sociopath detection chops keen, but he’s so obvious so no big deal.
    I love when he reacts with great umbrage at perceived threats of violence from the so-called Left.
    I merely type the words “Lock and Load” into the comment box under his posts, and they hardly ever make it thru “moderation” (a funny sort of word to be used anywhere near Buchanan; it’s like they are saying “Here’s some rank uncivil bullshit from Buchanan. Be moderate in your responses, boys and girls, unless you agree with him.”), but yesterday they did make it thru, so I’m wondering if even the moderators at The American Conservative have thrown in the towel on their man.

  12. I read Pat Buchanan to keep my sociopath detection chops keen, but he’s so obvious so no big deal.
    I love when he reacts with great umbrage at perceived threats of violence from the so-called Left.
    I merely type the words “Lock and Load” into the comment box under his posts, and they hardly ever make it thru “moderation” (a funny sort of word to be used anywhere near Buchanan; it’s like they are saying “Here’s some rank uncivil bullshit from Buchanan. Be moderate in your responses, boys and girls, unless you agree with him.”), but yesterday they did make it thru, so I’m wondering if even the moderators at The American Conservative have thrown in the towel on their man.

  13. This is an interesting case, which is awkward for Democrats.
    In an ideal world, Ellison would have stepped down until the allegations were dealt with one way or another, but given the timing of the election, I don’t think that would have been possible ?
    https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/27/keith-ellison-abuse-allegations-minnesota-ag-2018-943086
    Still, the polling does at least demonstrate that Democrats aren’t in the ‘don’t give a shit’ mode that Republicans seem to have adopted over Kavanaugh.

  14. This is an interesting case, which is awkward for Democrats.
    In an ideal world, Ellison would have stepped down until the allegations were dealt with one way or another, but given the timing of the election, I don’t think that would have been possible ?
    https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/27/keith-ellison-abuse-allegations-minnesota-ag-2018-943086
    Still, the polling does at least demonstrate that Democrats aren’t in the ‘don’t give a shit’ mode that Republicans seem to have adopted over Kavanaugh.

  15. It’s mind boggling that somebody could live in US in the 21st C. and not understand why blackface is offensive.

  16. It’s mind boggling that somebody could live in US in the 21st C. and not understand why blackface is offensive.

  17. Somehow, “white guilt” is something that aflicts those who are willing to reckon with slavery, Jim Crow, a racially biased justice system, etc. in a clear-eyed manner and make attempts to rectify the injustices that have flowed and continue to flow from them. “White guilt” ironically isn’t something that affects those who can’t face the reality of such things.
    It’s apiece with the notion of “political correctness,” which I think we’ve covered here on this blog as something that only seems to apply to one side of the political divide in popular discourse, despite the peculiar sensitivities that should be easily recongnized on the side that supposedly eschews “political correctness.”
    We libruls are such a bunch of weenies.

  18. Somehow, “white guilt” is something that aflicts those who are willing to reckon with slavery, Jim Crow, a racially biased justice system, etc. in a clear-eyed manner and make attempts to rectify the injustices that have flowed and continue to flow from them. “White guilt” ironically isn’t something that affects those who can’t face the reality of such things.
    It’s apiece with the notion of “political correctness,” which I think we’ve covered here on this blog as something that only seems to apply to one side of the political divide in popular discourse, despite the peculiar sensitivities that should be easily recongnized on the side that supposedly eschews “political correctness.”
    We libruls are such a bunch of weenies.

  19. Just want to say that the Giddens interview with the Guardian that LJ links to in the original post is well worth a read.
    Racism in the US is a quandary. Nobody wants to deal with it because nobody wants to be called a racist. And that includes everybody, of all colors and backgrounds.
    Nevertheless, it persists.
    Progress will occur in exact proportion to the degree that people are willing to own their own crap.

  20. Just want to say that the Giddens interview with the Guardian that LJ links to in the original post is well worth a read.
    Racism in the US is a quandary. Nobody wants to deal with it because nobody wants to be called a racist. And that includes everybody, of all colors and backgrounds.
    Nevertheless, it persists.
    Progress will occur in exact proportion to the degree that people are willing to own their own crap.

  21. It’s mind boggling that somebody could live in US in the 21st C. and not understand why blackface is offensive.
    I think sometimes we underestimate just hom much of a bubble some people manage to live in. Both those like Kelly, who have no clue, and those like us, who are astonished that they don’t — because everyone we know is aware, even those who glory in being offensive.

  22. It’s mind boggling that somebody could live in US in the 21st C. and not understand why blackface is offensive.
    I think sometimes we underestimate just hom much of a bubble some people manage to live in. Both those like Kelly, who have no clue, and those like us, who are astonished that they don’t — because everyone we know is aware, even those who glory in being offensive.

  23. Meanwhile, it appears someone in Pittsburgh decided to spread the weath around.
    In response to which

    When asked if all churches and synagogues should have armed security Trump said, “it’s certainly an option.”

    Which makes lots of sense. After all, if the solution to school shootings is more guns in grammar schools, . . .

  24. Meanwhile, it appears someone in Pittsburgh decided to spread the weath around.
    In response to which

    When asked if all churches and synagogues should have armed security Trump said, “it’s certainly an option.”

    Which makes lots of sense. After all, if the solution to school shootings is more guns in grammar schools, . . .

  25. More apropos Harry than Kelly, and prompted by LJ’s mention of Camus (whose short story, “La Femme Adultère,” is a fine exploration of the pied-noir problem…
    What to make of someone like Derrida who is both a pied-noir and a Sephardic Jew (with all the attendant complications)?
    One step further into the post-colonial tangle, what about Gandhi and South Africa?
    Satyagraha, literally translated as “holding fast to truth,” obliged protesters to “always keep an open mind and be ever ready to find that what we believed to be truth was, after all, untruth.” Gandhi recognized early on that societies with diverse populations inhabit a post-truth age. “We will never all think alike and we shall always see truth in fragments and from different angles of vision,” he wrote.
    Lots to think through, and I’m still compiling.

  26. More apropos Harry than Kelly, and prompted by LJ’s mention of Camus (whose short story, “La Femme Adultère,” is a fine exploration of the pied-noir problem…
    What to make of someone like Derrida who is both a pied-noir and a Sephardic Jew (with all the attendant complications)?
    One step further into the post-colonial tangle, what about Gandhi and South Africa?
    Satyagraha, literally translated as “holding fast to truth,” obliged protesters to “always keep an open mind and be ever ready to find that what we believed to be truth was, after all, untruth.” Gandhi recognized early on that societies with diverse populations inhabit a post-truth age. “We will never all think alike and we shall always see truth in fragments and from different angles of vision,” he wrote.
    Lots to think through, and I’m still compiling.

  27. “Nobody is asking you to take personal responsibility for this. But you’re a beneficiary of a system that did. Just own that and move on.”
    I think perhaps what we are looking at is a vocabulary problem. To my mind (and I’m talking personal view, not dictionary definition), “guilt” is what you (should?) feel for things that you personally did; for actions that you took. We really need a different word for a similar but different feeling based on an environment that you inhabit.
    For example, if I set up a system which will discriminate based on race, I should (IMO) feel guilt. But if, as a high school student, I got into a college because, unbeknownst to me, it discriminates based on race? “Guilt” isn’t really the right word. Similarly, if you immigrated to the US in the 20th century, you have no guilt for slavery in the 19th and 18th century.
    This is not to say that you don’t have a responsibility to work to change the environment. But just that guilt isn’t the right word for your feeling about the existance of that environment.

  28. “Nobody is asking you to take personal responsibility for this. But you’re a beneficiary of a system that did. Just own that and move on.”
    I think perhaps what we are looking at is a vocabulary problem. To my mind (and I’m talking personal view, not dictionary definition), “guilt” is what you (should?) feel for things that you personally did; for actions that you took. We really need a different word for a similar but different feeling based on an environment that you inhabit.
    For example, if I set up a system which will discriminate based on race, I should (IMO) feel guilt. But if, as a high school student, I got into a college because, unbeknownst to me, it discriminates based on race? “Guilt” isn’t really the right word. Similarly, if you immigrated to the US in the 20th century, you have no guilt for slavery in the 19th and 18th century.
    This is not to say that you don’t have a responsibility to work to change the environment. But just that guilt isn’t the right word for your feeling about the existance of that environment.

  29. I agree that guilt is not the right word, or a useful word.
    We have a responsibility. For how we think and act. And for recognizing the circumstances with which, and under which, other people live. And for what we do, and don’t do, to either improve or perpetuate those circumstances.

  30. I agree that guilt is not the right word, or a useful word.
    We have a responsibility. For how we think and act. And for recognizing the circumstances with which, and under which, other people live. And for what we do, and don’t do, to either improve or perpetuate those circumstances.

  31. I think you can feel ‘guilt’ for having opportunities other people don’t have.
    Even simply having health and loving parents is winning the lottery. I have both, and therefore have empathy for those without, And it is clear to me that my lottery winning gave me opportunity that those without don’t have.
    I don’t think it is a stretch that having parents who were not only loving but had some financial stability enabled or at least assisted by government programs like mortgages and VA/student loans also assisted me. Those same programs were systemically denied to my father’s black peers.
    I recall overhearing discussions as a pre-teen about ‘block protection’ where neighbors agreed not to sell to black people. In our diverse community, it may have been even more important financially to ‘protect the block.’ (as an aside to HSH, my dad rejected the concept, at least in my memory).
    I don’t think you even have to be racist to want to prevent your primary investment from losing value. I still enjoy having an HOA that does protect my investment. I purposely bought in a place that had an HOA for that protection. Not by race anymore (or as much), but certainly ensuring all owners are not devaluing our collective property.
    I am the beneficiary of that. I can feel guilt when I see a peer of mine who has worked as hard, is as capable, and yet still struggles because he did not have my initial boost.
    I think ‘guilt’ works when you know you are ahead because you started ahead.

  32. I think you can feel ‘guilt’ for having opportunities other people don’t have.
    Even simply having health and loving parents is winning the lottery. I have both, and therefore have empathy for those without, And it is clear to me that my lottery winning gave me opportunity that those without don’t have.
    I don’t think it is a stretch that having parents who were not only loving but had some financial stability enabled or at least assisted by government programs like mortgages and VA/student loans also assisted me. Those same programs were systemically denied to my father’s black peers.
    I recall overhearing discussions as a pre-teen about ‘block protection’ where neighbors agreed not to sell to black people. In our diverse community, it may have been even more important financially to ‘protect the block.’ (as an aside to HSH, my dad rejected the concept, at least in my memory).
    I don’t think you even have to be racist to want to prevent your primary investment from losing value. I still enjoy having an HOA that does protect my investment. I purposely bought in a place that had an HOA for that protection. Not by race anymore (or as much), but certainly ensuring all owners are not devaluing our collective property.
    I am the beneficiary of that. I can feel guilt when I see a peer of mine who has worked as hard, is as capable, and yet still struggles because he did not have my initial boost.
    I think ‘guilt’ works when you know you are ahead because you started ahead.

  33. In white neighborhoods in transition, property values may have increased since middle-class blacks were willing to pay a premium to live there.

  34. In white neighborhoods in transition, property values may have increased since middle-class blacks were willing to pay a premium to live there.

  35. Harry’s faux pas might be better understood if you figure in the fascination of certain parts of the English “elite” with the Nazis (e.g. Edward VIII, Mitford sisters, Oswald Mosley) and the pervasive obsession of the country with WW2.

  36. Harry’s faux pas might be better understood if you figure in the fascination of certain parts of the English “elite” with the Nazis (e.g. Edward VIII, Mitford sisters, Oswald Mosley) and the pervasive obsession of the country with WW2.

  37. CharlesWT,
    Yes, that was no doubt part of the discussion. Set prices high, and then you can choose who buys. Once the first one is sold to a black family, the rest of the values went down, which is why they were trying to have an agreement not to take that sale. That was the theory anyway.
    In context, we had a drug dealing family two houses down across the street, and a very diverse low end apartment building at the end of the block. One block over was an apartment block that was mostly poor, black, and a scary place for me as a kid to even walk through.
    And Mafia. Between the mafia and the drug guys, we often had a police car simply parked there.
    Despite all that, it was a great place to grow up, my parents and neighbors had parties all the time, including black tie events a couple times a year.
    I grew up feeling wealthy. Probably because my neighbors had less.

  38. CharlesWT,
    Yes, that was no doubt part of the discussion. Set prices high, and then you can choose who buys. Once the first one is sold to a black family, the rest of the values went down, which is why they were trying to have an agreement not to take that sale. That was the theory anyway.
    In context, we had a drug dealing family two houses down across the street, and a very diverse low end apartment building at the end of the block. One block over was an apartment block that was mostly poor, black, and a scary place for me as a kid to even walk through.
    And Mafia. Between the mafia and the drug guys, we often had a police car simply parked there.
    Despite all that, it was a great place to grow up, my parents and neighbors had parties all the time, including black tie events a couple times a year.
    I grew up feeling wealthy. Probably because my neighbors had less.

  39. I’ve spent lots of time in the Squirrel Hill area of Pittsburgh.
    If only the six cops who were injured defending the synagogue against the republican murderer were protected by armed guards things could have turned out a lot better, like maybe the killer might have gone elsewhere and murdered even more human beings.
    https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2018/10/26/laura-ingraham-guest-ann-coulter-trump-should-invade-mexico/221883
    Please do invade Mexico so Civil War #2 against the entire conservative movement can become a hemispheric catastrophe.
    https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2018/10/26/foxs-sebastian-gorka-violence-against-those-you-politically-disagree-ok-one-party-america-and-one/221882
    Please do keep blaming the victims so that the victims finally rise up in savage fury and do the cleaning that is required in this country.
    https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2018/10/26/sean-hannity-criticizes-targets-bombs-and-deranged-far-left-dangerous-rhetoric/221881
    Yeah, Hannity, keep it up, you stinking conservative dead dingleberry on the asshole of the Republican Party.
    Many terrible things have already happened and all of them were ordered to happen by mp.
    Hannity needs to witness terrible up close and personal.

  40. I’ve spent lots of time in the Squirrel Hill area of Pittsburgh.
    If only the six cops who were injured defending the synagogue against the republican murderer were protected by armed guards things could have turned out a lot better, like maybe the killer might have gone elsewhere and murdered even more human beings.
    https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2018/10/26/laura-ingraham-guest-ann-coulter-trump-should-invade-mexico/221883
    Please do invade Mexico so Civil War #2 against the entire conservative movement can become a hemispheric catastrophe.
    https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2018/10/26/foxs-sebastian-gorka-violence-against-those-you-politically-disagree-ok-one-party-america-and-one/221882
    Please do keep blaming the victims so that the victims finally rise up in savage fury and do the cleaning that is required in this country.
    https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2018/10/26/sean-hannity-criticizes-targets-bombs-and-deranged-far-left-dangerous-rhetoric/221881
    Yeah, Hannity, keep it up, you stinking conservative dead dingleberry on the asshole of the Republican Party.
    Many terrible things have already happened and all of them were ordered to happen by mp.
    Hannity needs to witness terrible up close and personal.

  41. Just checked on an old friend in Squirrel Hill.
    She is fine. She attends a different synagogue in the area.

  42. Just checked on an old friend in Squirrel Hill.
    She is fine. She attends a different synagogue in the area.

  43. guilt is not the right word
    Shame is.
    Much of the history of this country is a shame.
    We should all feel shame about those parts of our history, and feel some responsibility for rectifying the wrongs, to the extent that can be done.

  44. guilt is not the right word
    Shame is.
    Much of the history of this country is a shame.
    We should all feel shame about those parts of our history, and feel some responsibility for rectifying the wrongs, to the extent that can be done.

  45. I didn’t kill any Native Americans b but there is no doubt that I benefit from them being killed. So I don’t think I need to feel guilty but I do think that I and every other beneficiary owe a debt.
    I am white-privileged too. And I think I have an obligation be aware of that privilege and to intervene on behalf of people who are getting screwed due to not having the privilege. That’s not guilt. Its more a concern about rectifying to use Joel’s word. Fairness.

  46. I didn’t kill any Native Americans b but there is no doubt that I benefit from them being killed. So I don’t think I need to feel guilty but I do think that I and every other beneficiary owe a debt.
    I am white-privileged too. And I think I have an obligation be aware of that privilege and to intervene on behalf of people who are getting screwed due to not having the privilege. That’s not guilt. Its more a concern about rectifying to use Joel’s word. Fairness.

  47. Interesting discussion. There is a large literature on the difference between guilt and shame cultures, with the US being a guilt culture and Japan being a shame culture, based on the work of Ruth Benedict.
    https://www.jstor.org/stable/640338?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
    I’ve never quite figured out the difference, possibly because I’m bicultural, I have sufficient doses of both…
    Nigel’s comment about La Femme Adultère reminds me that I need to read Camus’ The First Man
    http://movies2.nytimes.com/books/97/12/14/home/camus-firstman.html

  48. Interesting discussion. There is a large literature on the difference between guilt and shame cultures, with the US being a guilt culture and Japan being a shame culture, based on the work of Ruth Benedict.
    https://www.jstor.org/stable/640338?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
    I’ve never quite figured out the difference, possibly because I’m bicultural, I have sufficient doses of both…
    Nigel’s comment about La Femme Adultère reminds me that I need to read Camus’ The First Man
    http://movies2.nytimes.com/books/97/12/14/home/camus-firstman.html

  49. I would say the difference between shame and guilt is parallel to the difference between reputation and honor. (H/T Lois Bujold). The former, in both cases, is about what others know about you; the latter is about what you know about yourself. In a shame culture, your reputation is critical; in a guilt culture, what matters is what you know about yourself.
    Thus, in part, the flaw in trying to make people feel guilty about things which others (including their ancestors) did. They know that they didn’t take those actions, so the resent being told they should feel guilty about them.

  50. I would say the difference between shame and guilt is parallel to the difference between reputation and honor. (H/T Lois Bujold). The former, in both cases, is about what others know about you; the latter is about what you know about yourself. In a shame culture, your reputation is critical; in a guilt culture, what matters is what you know about yourself.
    Thus, in part, the flaw in trying to make people feel guilty about things which others (including their ancestors) did. They know that they didn’t take those actions, so the resent being told they should feel guilty about them.

  51. Shame is quite a useful emotion, which in the social world serves an analogous role to pain in the physical world.
    An excess of either is bad, but the inability to feel either is deeply problematic.

  52. Shame is quite a useful emotion, which in the social world serves an analogous role to pain in the physical world.
    An excess of either is bad, but the inability to feel either is deeply problematic.

  53. People who do not actively dismantle the oppressive things they inherit and seek to restore not just the balance, but also the material legacies are complicit in perpetuating the resulting inequalities.

  54. People who do not actively dismantle the oppressive things they inherit and seek to restore not just the balance, but also the material legacies are complicit in perpetuating the resulting inequalities.

  55. People who do not actively dismantle the oppressive things they inherit and seek to restore not just the balance, but also the material legacies are complicit
    Not buying it. Consider:
    Marijuana remains illegal under Federal law. But several states, where the state laws against it have been repealed, are seeing businesses set up to sell it. Suppose such a business appears near me — that is, I have knowledge of a specific case. Under your logic, I should be charged as an accessory to the Federal crime being committed. Simply because I took no action against it.
    Sorry, that doesn’t fly.

  56. People who do not actively dismantle the oppressive things they inherit and seek to restore not just the balance, but also the material legacies are complicit
    Not buying it. Consider:
    Marijuana remains illegal under Federal law. But several states, where the state laws against it have been repealed, are seeing businesses set up to sell it. Suppose such a business appears near me — that is, I have knowledge of a specific case. Under your logic, I should be charged as an accessory to the Federal crime being committed. Simply because I took no action against it.
    Sorry, that doesn’t fly.

  57. What’s interesting about marijuana, aside from the amusing spectacle of Americans waking up one morning and learning criminal activity as of 24 hours ago is now a business opportunity, is that if you live in a state where it is sold legally across the counter to all comers, as I do, it is legal and illegal simultaneously.
    It is a fascinating case of intersubjectivity, if that is the word, much like one experiences on LSD.
    The Founders would have predicted this, but they were high on originalist generalities.

  58. What’s interesting about marijuana, aside from the amusing spectacle of Americans waking up one morning and learning criminal activity as of 24 hours ago is now a business opportunity, is that if you live in a state where it is sold legally across the counter to all comers, as I do, it is legal and illegal simultaneously.
    It is a fascinating case of intersubjectivity, if that is the word, much like one experiences on LSD.
    The Founders would have predicted this, but they were high on originalist generalities.

  59. What’s interesting about marijuana … is that if you live in a state where it is sold legally across the counter to all comers, as I do, it is legal and illegal simultaneously.
    Yeah, but there are lots of cases where something is a violation of Federal law but not of state law. (Not to mention even more vis versa. Murder, for example, is not a Federal offense.)
    It’s just that, in this case, we were paying attention when something which was illegal under both is now illegal only under one.
    And we may see the converse, if Roe is overturned (as opposed to merely gutted). That is, something which will still not be illegal under Federal law will become illegal once again under (some) state laws.

  60. What’s interesting about marijuana … is that if you live in a state where it is sold legally across the counter to all comers, as I do, it is legal and illegal simultaneously.
    Yeah, but there are lots of cases where something is a violation of Federal law but not of state law. (Not to mention even more vis versa. Murder, for example, is not a Federal offense.)
    It’s just that, in this case, we were paying attention when something which was illegal under both is now illegal only under one.
    And we may see the converse, if Roe is overturned (as opposed to merely gutted). That is, something which will still not be illegal under Federal law will become illegal once again under (some) state laws.

  61. wj, I find it fascinating that in order to think about what I say about systems of oppression you flip the categories and turn oppression into legality. Not a veiled shot, just an acknowledgement that I don’t grok the chain of reasons by which the one turns into the other. I don’t see how it applies to the issues raised by taking a post-colonial approach to exploitation and oppression.
    I’m not speaking of being legally complicit – I’m speaking of being morally or ethically complicit in the perpetuation of unearned advantage (aka privilege).
    So a better way to think this through with the issue of legalization. The state you are in legalizes marijuana. Should they also releases all of the people currently incarcerated for possession or sale of marijuana and no violent offenses etc.? If they have a family, should we also work to restore some of the damage done by their loss of economic opportunity due to incarceration?
    What of the for-profit prison profits that the corporation made while they had the prisoners working for less than minimum wages?

  62. wj, I find it fascinating that in order to think about what I say about systems of oppression you flip the categories and turn oppression into legality. Not a veiled shot, just an acknowledgement that I don’t grok the chain of reasons by which the one turns into the other. I don’t see how it applies to the issues raised by taking a post-colonial approach to exploitation and oppression.
    I’m not speaking of being legally complicit – I’m speaking of being morally or ethically complicit in the perpetuation of unearned advantage (aka privilege).
    So a better way to think this through with the issue of legalization. The state you are in legalizes marijuana. Should they also releases all of the people currently incarcerated for possession or sale of marijuana and no violent offenses etc.? If they have a family, should we also work to restore some of the damage done by their loss of economic opportunity due to incarceration?
    What of the for-profit prison profits that the corporation made while they had the prisoners working for less than minimum wages?

  63. So a better way to think this through with the issue of legalization. The state you are in legalizes marijuana. Should they also releases all of the people currently incarcerated for possession or sale of marijuana and no violent offenses etc.? If they have a family, should we also work to restore some of the damage done by their loss of economic opportunity due to incarceration?
    In general, no. If you want to argue with clemency for those with ridiculously long sentences, fine. I’d support that . . . provided it is handled in an evenhanded manner. But what they did was illegal when they did it. So compensation for “loss of economic opportunity” is IMO ridiculous.
    What of the for-profit prison profits that the corporation made while they had the prisoners working for less than minimum wages?
    I happen to think that private (whether for-profit or even non-profit) prisons are a terrible idea. Even if they aren’t providing slave labor. I also think that our best shot at getting rid of them involves getting our incarceration rate down to the level of other first world countries. We know, from experience, that longer sentences don’t make use safer; if anything the reverse.

  64. So a better way to think this through with the issue of legalization. The state you are in legalizes marijuana. Should they also releases all of the people currently incarcerated for possession or sale of marijuana and no violent offenses etc.? If they have a family, should we also work to restore some of the damage done by their loss of economic opportunity due to incarceration?
    In general, no. If you want to argue with clemency for those with ridiculously long sentences, fine. I’d support that . . . provided it is handled in an evenhanded manner. But what they did was illegal when they did it. So compensation for “loss of economic opportunity” is IMO ridiculous.
    What of the for-profit prison profits that the corporation made while they had the prisoners working for less than minimum wages?
    I happen to think that private (whether for-profit or even non-profit) prisons are a terrible idea. Even if they aren’t providing slave labor. I also think that our best shot at getting rid of them involves getting our incarceration rate down to the level of other first world countries. We know, from experience, that longer sentences don’t make use safer; if anything the reverse.

  65. Based on the experiences in Colorado, it takes a few months to get the indoor grow and curing facilities set up and producing. An acquaintance in law enforcement tells me that the quality has reached a point where there is now smuggling from Colorado to Mexico to meet demand from discerning customers there.

  66. Based on the experiences in Colorado, it takes a few months to get the indoor grow and curing facilities set up and producing. An acquaintance in law enforcement tells me that the quality has reached a point where there is now smuggling from Colorado to Mexico to meet demand from discerning customers there.

  67. I find it fascinating that in order to think about what I say about systems of oppression you flip the categories and turn oppression into legality. Not a veiled shot, just an acknowledgement that I don’t grok the chain of reasons by which the one turns into the other.
    It comes down to responsibility. Whether legal or moral. Does that help?

  68. I find it fascinating that in order to think about what I say about systems of oppression you flip the categories and turn oppression into legality. Not a veiled shot, just an acknowledgement that I don’t grok the chain of reasons by which the one turns into the other.
    It comes down to responsibility. Whether legal or moral. Does that help?

  69. https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-rolls-out-anti-semitic-closing-ad
    mp orders more pipe bombs and synagogue shootings:
    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-attacks-liberal-donor-package-bomb-target-tom-steyer-after-criticism
    When Teddy Roosevelt used the term “bully pulpit”, he meant an excellent, or first rate platform for persuasion.
    In 2018, the English-only conservative republicans have refreshed the term with their default native fascist tendencies.
    “Tyrann” pulpit

  70. https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-rolls-out-anti-semitic-closing-ad
    mp orders more pipe bombs and synagogue shootings:
    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-attacks-liberal-donor-package-bomb-target-tom-steyer-after-criticism
    When Teddy Roosevelt used the term “bully pulpit”, he meant an excellent, or first rate platform for persuasion.
    In 2018, the English-only conservative republicans have refreshed the term with their default native fascist tendencies.
    “Tyrann” pulpit

  71. https://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2018/10/right-wing-trolls-arent-harmless-and.html
    https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/video-beating-dutch-boy-crutches/
    From the Wikipedia article on Joseph Goebbels:
    “He was particularly adept at using the relatively new media of radio and film for propaganda purposes.”
    He later wrote: “Adolf Hitler, I love you because you are both great and simple at the same time. What one calls a genius.”
    “Goebbels’ tactic of using provocation to bring attention to the NSDAP, along with violence at the public party meetings and demonstrations, led the Berlin police to ban the NSDAP from the city on 5 May 1927”
    “He would suddenly change direction and shift his support between senior associates; he was a difficult boss and liked to berate his staff in public.”
    “Goebbels was particularly interested in controlling radio, which was then still a fairly new mass medium.[137] Sometimes under protest from individual states (particularly Prussia, headed by Göring), Goebbels gained control of radio stations nationwide, and placed them under the Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft (German National Broadcasting Corporation) in July 1934.[138] Manufacturers were urged by Goebbels to produce inexpensive home receivers, called Volksempfänger (people’s receiver), and by 1938 nearly ten million sets had been sold. Loudspeakers were placed in public areas, factories, and schools, so that important party broadcasts would be heard live by nearly all Germans.[137] On 2 September 1939 (the day after the start of the war), Goebbels and the Council of Ministers proclaimed it illegal to listen to foreign radio stations. Disseminating news from foreign broadcasts could result in the death penalty.[139] Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect and later Minister for Armaments and War Production, later said the regime “made the complete use of all technical means for domination of its own country. Through technical devices like the radio and loudspeaker, 80 million people were deprived of independent thought.”
    “It is a great pity that such a man (Hitler) is not with us any longer. But there is nothing to be done. For us, everything is lost now and the only way out left for us is the one which Hitler chose. I shall follow his example.”
    If only Hitler and Goebbels and company had cut taxes, they might have gotten away with the entire plan.
    Those attendees at the first mp rally at Madison Square Garden in 1939 coulda been contendas:
    https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/542499/marshall-curry-nazi-rally-madison-square-garden-1939/
    https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2017/06/american-nazis-in-the-1930sthe-german-american-bund/529185/
    https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-tree-of-life-shooting-and-the-return-of-anti-semitism-to-american-life
    Return?
    Anyone ever listen to the Nixon tapes?
    Hate for the Other in America is like the appendix.
    It’s always there until it is surgically removed after being inflamed by conservatives.

  72. https://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2018/10/right-wing-trolls-arent-harmless-and.html
    https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/video-beating-dutch-boy-crutches/
    From the Wikipedia article on Joseph Goebbels:
    “He was particularly adept at using the relatively new media of radio and film for propaganda purposes.”
    He later wrote: “Adolf Hitler, I love you because you are both great and simple at the same time. What one calls a genius.”
    “Goebbels’ tactic of using provocation to bring attention to the NSDAP, along with violence at the public party meetings and demonstrations, led the Berlin police to ban the NSDAP from the city on 5 May 1927”
    “He would suddenly change direction and shift his support between senior associates; he was a difficult boss and liked to berate his staff in public.”
    “Goebbels was particularly interested in controlling radio, which was then still a fairly new mass medium.[137] Sometimes under protest from individual states (particularly Prussia, headed by Göring), Goebbels gained control of radio stations nationwide, and placed them under the Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft (German National Broadcasting Corporation) in July 1934.[138] Manufacturers were urged by Goebbels to produce inexpensive home receivers, called Volksempfänger (people’s receiver), and by 1938 nearly ten million sets had been sold. Loudspeakers were placed in public areas, factories, and schools, so that important party broadcasts would be heard live by nearly all Germans.[137] On 2 September 1939 (the day after the start of the war), Goebbels and the Council of Ministers proclaimed it illegal to listen to foreign radio stations. Disseminating news from foreign broadcasts could result in the death penalty.[139] Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect and later Minister for Armaments and War Production, later said the regime “made the complete use of all technical means for domination of its own country. Through technical devices like the radio and loudspeaker, 80 million people were deprived of independent thought.”
    “It is a great pity that such a man (Hitler) is not with us any longer. But there is nothing to be done. For us, everything is lost now and the only way out left for us is the one which Hitler chose. I shall follow his example.”
    If only Hitler and Goebbels and company had cut taxes, they might have gotten away with the entire plan.
    Those attendees at the first mp rally at Madison Square Garden in 1939 coulda been contendas:
    https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/542499/marshall-curry-nazi-rally-madison-square-garden-1939/
    https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2017/06/american-nazis-in-the-1930sthe-german-american-bund/529185/
    https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-tree-of-life-shooting-and-the-return-of-anti-semitism-to-american-life
    Return?
    Anyone ever listen to the Nixon tapes?
    Hate for the Other in America is like the appendix.
    It’s always there until it is surgically removed after being inflamed by conservatives.

  73. Count me as another for whom converting questions of oppression into questions of legality doesn’t really make sense. I guess this is where my liberal chops lie, despite my grumbles that I may be turning conservative.
    I don’t know if anyone has time to read but learning about how Native American history pushed me firmly to the point that legality and oppression have an orthogonal relationship. I recommend Sayer’s Ghost Dancing the Law
    https://networks.h-net.org/node/13784/reviews/14053/wagaman-sayer-ghost-dancing-law-wounded-knee-trials
    as a way of thinking about those issues, though I’m not sure if it would convince someone who isn’t already predisposed to thinking about things in that way.

  74. Count me as another for whom converting questions of oppression into questions of legality doesn’t really make sense. I guess this is where my liberal chops lie, despite my grumbles that I may be turning conservative.
    I don’t know if anyone has time to read but learning about how Native American history pushed me firmly to the point that legality and oppression have an orthogonal relationship. I recommend Sayer’s Ghost Dancing the Law
    https://networks.h-net.org/node/13784/reviews/14053/wagaman-sayer-ghost-dancing-law-wounded-knee-trials
    as a way of thinking about those issues, though I’m not sure if it would convince someone who isn’t already predisposed to thinking about things in that way.

  75. Count me as another for whom converting questions of oppression into questions of legality doesn’t really make sense.
    I wasn’t trying to turn it into a question of legality. I was attempting to make an analogy. In both cases, there is a difference between knowing that something is happening and being one of the parties responsible for it happening.

  76. Count me as another for whom converting questions of oppression into questions of legality doesn’t really make sense.
    I wasn’t trying to turn it into a question of legality. I was attempting to make an analogy. In both cases, there is a difference between knowing that something is happening and being one of the parties responsible for it happening.

  77. “there is a difference between knowing that something is happening and being one of the parties responsible for it happening.”
    It seems that all of my suggestions for alerting the FBI that a gang of child-kidnappers are operating out of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave in DC have fallen on deaf ears.
    Otherwise, they’d send in a SWAT team, amirite?

  78. “there is a difference between knowing that something is happening and being one of the parties responsible for it happening.”
    It seems that all of my suggestions for alerting the FBI that a gang of child-kidnappers are operating out of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave in DC have fallen on deaf ears.
    Otherwise, they’d send in a SWAT team, amirite?

  79. Not buying it
    The rectification of wrongs and the dismantling of an oppressive heritage can only be undertaken by those living in the present armed with a full and frank understanding of the past, a dollup of humility, and a conscious determination going forward.
    And if ‘reparations’ is what it takes, then that is what has to be done.
    It’s a simple thing called justice.

  80. Not buying it
    The rectification of wrongs and the dismantling of an oppressive heritage can only be undertaken by those living in the present armed with a full and frank understanding of the past, a dollup of humility, and a conscious determination going forward.
    And if ‘reparations’ is what it takes, then that is what has to be done.
    It’s a simple thing called justice.

  81. I don’t know why NBC hired Megyn Kelly, but the firing seems questionable. Kelly apologized for her remarks, and followed that with a discussion with a couple of guests about the history of blackface and why it was considered offensive.
    Blackface pretty much disappeared from American life in the 1950’s, so for people under 60 blackface is like slavery: a piece of history that happened before they were born. It doesn’t make sense to condemn someone for not knowing a bit of history as long as they are willing to learn, and Kelly demonstrated that she is.
    It’s important to discuss race if we are to move forward on the racial divisions in this country. NBC has no particular obligation to host this discussion. Nor do they have any obligation to hire someone who has in the past chosen to cultivate a certain type of ignorance by taking a job in the conservative bubble of Fox News. But by firing Kelly as they have, it seems to me that they are actively shutting down discussion. Rather than actively trying to move the country forward on race, or sitting on the sidelines doing nothing, I think NBC has actively choosing to be (a small part of) the problem.

  82. I don’t know why NBC hired Megyn Kelly, but the firing seems questionable. Kelly apologized for her remarks, and followed that with a discussion with a couple of guests about the history of blackface and why it was considered offensive.
    Blackface pretty much disappeared from American life in the 1950’s, so for people under 60 blackface is like slavery: a piece of history that happened before they were born. It doesn’t make sense to condemn someone for not knowing a bit of history as long as they are willing to learn, and Kelly demonstrated that she is.
    It’s important to discuss race if we are to move forward on the racial divisions in this country. NBC has no particular obligation to host this discussion. Nor do they have any obligation to hire someone who has in the past chosen to cultivate a certain type of ignorance by taking a job in the conservative bubble of Fox News. But by firing Kelly as they have, it seems to me that they are actively shutting down discussion. Rather than actively trying to move the country forward on race, or sitting on the sidelines doing nothing, I think NBC has actively choosing to be (a small part of) the problem.

  83. While I don’t totally disagree with that take , I don’t necessarily agree either because it looks at the firing as something that is a single act rather than a web of decisions. It has been observed that Kelly had no support within NBC, in contrast to other firings where the person fired got a lot of support from others at NBC, which points to the fact that she felt no need to cultivate relationships and adapt herself to the different environment of NBC (not to mention the fact that she was moved into a slot that necessitated Al Roker and Tamron Hall being pushed out. Also, given the amount of money that they spent on Kelly, keeping her would seem like trying to squeeze out some return on what were essentially damaged goods. So while one could argue that NBC is ‘adding’ to the problem, keeping Kelly on to try and foster a dialogue seems like the worst of both worlds.

  84. While I don’t totally disagree with that take , I don’t necessarily agree either because it looks at the firing as something that is a single act rather than a web of decisions. It has been observed that Kelly had no support within NBC, in contrast to other firings where the person fired got a lot of support from others at NBC, which points to the fact that she felt no need to cultivate relationships and adapt herself to the different environment of NBC (not to mention the fact that she was moved into a slot that necessitated Al Roker and Tamron Hall being pushed out. Also, given the amount of money that they spent on Kelly, keeping her would seem like trying to squeeze out some return on what were essentially damaged goods. So while one could argue that NBC is ‘adding’ to the problem, keeping Kelly on to try and foster a dialogue seems like the worst of both worlds.

  85. I checked with my handy authority on these things, my African-American wife. She objects to just plain blackface, but has no objection to white people darkening themselves “in character,” as long as it isn’t a stereotypical offensive character. If I went to a Halloween party as Diana Ross or Ru Paul she would have issues, but not racial issues. Othello, OK.
    What pissed my wife off is not Kelly’s stance, but that this wasn’t a fight Kelly had to pick. That some dim-bulb celebrity dressed up as Diana Ross and some people criticized her isn’t something we need to hear about from a multi-million a year “journalist,” especially one who has stepped on herself before — I still fantasize about producing a movie entitled “Black Santa,” with Samuel L. Jackson bellowing “Ho! Ho! Ho!” instead of calling for his elves, and giving Kelly a cameo — and hasn’t learned anything from it.

  86. I checked with my handy authority on these things, my African-American wife. She objects to just plain blackface, but has no objection to white people darkening themselves “in character,” as long as it isn’t a stereotypical offensive character. If I went to a Halloween party as Diana Ross or Ru Paul she would have issues, but not racial issues. Othello, OK.
    What pissed my wife off is not Kelly’s stance, but that this wasn’t a fight Kelly had to pick. That some dim-bulb celebrity dressed up as Diana Ross and some people criticized her isn’t something we need to hear about from a multi-million a year “journalist,” especially one who has stepped on herself before — I still fantasize about producing a movie entitled “Black Santa,” with Samuel L. Jackson bellowing “Ho! Ho! Ho!” instead of calling for his elves, and giving Kelly a cameo — and hasn’t learned anything from it.

  87. Re: Kelly’s firing.
    “Employment at will”
    Plus oodles of cash.
    I’ll have a tiny little violin to play for her, just as soon as the nanofabricator finish building it.

  88. Re: Kelly’s firing.
    “Employment at will”
    Plus oodles of cash.
    I’ll have a tiny little violin to play for her, just as soon as the nanofabricator finish building it.

  89. Blackface pretty much disappeared from American life in the 1950’s, so for people under 60 blackface is like slavery: a piece of history that happened before they were born
    I’m trying to make sense of this.
    I’m over 60, so blackface was still more or less around when I was a kid.
    Slavery was not. It was a ‘piece of history’ that happened before I was born.
    Nevertheless, I knew what it was, and knew that it was wrong, and why it was wrong.

  90. Blackface pretty much disappeared from American life in the 1950’s, so for people under 60 blackface is like slavery: a piece of history that happened before they were born
    I’m trying to make sense of this.
    I’m over 60, so blackface was still more or less around when I was a kid.
    Slavery was not. It was a ‘piece of history’ that happened before I was born.
    Nevertheless, I knew what it was, and knew that it was wrong, and why it was wrong.

  91. Ditto. I’m 50, and I’ve known slavery was wrong at least since seeing “Roots” on TV as a kid. (That’s kind of a joke, but seeing it did really drive the message home in a more personal way.)
    I don’t think slavery was the best example, unless people generally are supposed not to know it was bad, which would be a pretty odd thing to suppose.

  92. Ditto. I’m 50, and I’ve known slavery was wrong at least since seeing “Roots” on TV as a kid. (That’s kind of a joke, but seeing it did really drive the message home in a more personal way.)
    I don’t think slavery was the best example, unless people generally are supposed not to know it was bad, which would be a pretty odd thing to suppose.

  93. This is what I was getting at when talking about appealing across the aisle a few days back.
    Abrams is an unabashed progressive, but she does not assume that nearly half the electorate are completely beyond reach:
    https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/stacey-abrams-still-believes-that-she-can-win-over-conservative-georgians
    …“We’re going after all voters,” Abrams told me, when I described my conversation with Purchase. “I’m going to Republican-leaning places like Carroll County because there are people in these counties who will vote for me, even if they’re not Democrat by inclination.” As for Purchase, she said, “I’ve had a number of conversations with guys like him”—Trump voters, she meant, who’ve never voted for a Democrat—“who want Medicaid expansion, who want better jobs, who like my education platform, and they’re gonna vote for me.”
    Abrams also mentioned places like Thomasville and Chatsworth, where there might be only a handful of Democrats. “Places you can’t turn blue,” she said, “but you can take from maroon to pink. Or you can create some little blue dots.” Relative to the campaigns run by Georgia Democrats in the past, Abrams’s campaign has been notable in its emphasis on the whole state—on “reaching into every community rather than cherry-picking votes,” as she put it.
    In such a polarized election, conventional wisdom says that there aren’t many people left in the middle. But Abrams is still seeking them. “People have many issues they give primacy to,” Abrams told me. “Some give it to their ideology. Some their economics. Some their health. My responsibility is to give them a frame that lets them decide that I can meet enough of their interests and needs to vote for me. I’m not going to try to dismiss what they believe or change who they are. My job is to say, ‘Here’s who I am, here’s what I can do, and if you cast a vote for me, here’s what will be there for you.’ ”…

    It’s going to be a tough contest, particularly as her opponent is effectively marking his own electoral homework, along with setting the terms of the test, but I think she might just pull it off.

  94. This is what I was getting at when talking about appealing across the aisle a few days back.
    Abrams is an unabashed progressive, but she does not assume that nearly half the electorate are completely beyond reach:
    https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/stacey-abrams-still-believes-that-she-can-win-over-conservative-georgians
    …“We’re going after all voters,” Abrams told me, when I described my conversation with Purchase. “I’m going to Republican-leaning places like Carroll County because there are people in these counties who will vote for me, even if they’re not Democrat by inclination.” As for Purchase, she said, “I’ve had a number of conversations with guys like him”—Trump voters, she meant, who’ve never voted for a Democrat—“who want Medicaid expansion, who want better jobs, who like my education platform, and they’re gonna vote for me.”
    Abrams also mentioned places like Thomasville and Chatsworth, where there might be only a handful of Democrats. “Places you can’t turn blue,” she said, “but you can take from maroon to pink. Or you can create some little blue dots.” Relative to the campaigns run by Georgia Democrats in the past, Abrams’s campaign has been notable in its emphasis on the whole state—on “reaching into every community rather than cherry-picking votes,” as she put it.
    In such a polarized election, conventional wisdom says that there aren’t many people left in the middle. But Abrams is still seeking them. “People have many issues they give primacy to,” Abrams told me. “Some give it to their ideology. Some their economics. Some their health. My responsibility is to give them a frame that lets them decide that I can meet enough of their interests and needs to vote for me. I’m not going to try to dismiss what they believe or change who they are. My job is to say, ‘Here’s who I am, here’s what I can do, and if you cast a vote for me, here’s what will be there for you.’ ”…

    It’s going to be a tough contest, particularly as her opponent is effectively marking his own electoral homework, along with setting the terms of the test, but I think she might just pull it off.

  95. This is what I was getting at when talking about appealing across the aisle
    OK, maybe I follow what you are arguing for better.
    If what you are suggesting is that (D)’s should run everywhere, regardless of whether that place and those people are supposed to be “blue” or “red”, I cannot agree more.
    If what you are suggesting is to talk about *what (D)’s think is good*, as opposed to how horrible Donald J Trump and the (R)’s are, I likewise cannot agree more.
    FWIW, I’ve probably spent about $1000 this election cycle, and most of that has gone to (D)’s running in “red” places. I’ve done a small amount of get-out-the-vote postcard writing, and all of that has been on behalf of Abrams campaign in GA.
    If you were somehow to just present (D) policies to people in “red” places, without associating them with the (D) label, they will like them more often than not.
    Not always, and not universally. But more often than not, they’ll find some part of the total package attractive. Especially the economic and safety net stuff, as long as you don’t call it “safety net” or an “entitlement”.
    The correct pitch there, IMO, is “have you ever worked? then you’ve earned this.”.
    Because it’s true.

  96. This is what I was getting at when talking about appealing across the aisle
    OK, maybe I follow what you are arguing for better.
    If what you are suggesting is that (D)’s should run everywhere, regardless of whether that place and those people are supposed to be “blue” or “red”, I cannot agree more.
    If what you are suggesting is to talk about *what (D)’s think is good*, as opposed to how horrible Donald J Trump and the (R)’s are, I likewise cannot agree more.
    FWIW, I’ve probably spent about $1000 this election cycle, and most of that has gone to (D)’s running in “red” places. I’ve done a small amount of get-out-the-vote postcard writing, and all of that has been on behalf of Abrams campaign in GA.
    If you were somehow to just present (D) policies to people in “red” places, without associating them with the (D) label, they will like them more often than not.
    Not always, and not universally. But more often than not, they’ll find some part of the total package attractive. Especially the economic and safety net stuff, as long as you don’t call it “safety net” or an “entitlement”.
    The correct pitch there, IMO, is “have you ever worked? then you’ve earned this.”.
    Because it’s true.

  97. Black face was still a thing on the BBC, as recently as the 1970s
    The US is not the UK.
    Seriously, it boggles the mind that a sentient adult in the US would be unaware of the valence of blackface in our culture and history.
    Kelly either lives in a bubble, or is malicious, or doesn’t give a crap. Any of those, singly or in any combination, are reasonable causes for firing from the position she held.

  98. Black face was still a thing on the BBC, as recently as the 1970s
    The US is not the UK.
    Seriously, it boggles the mind that a sentient adult in the US would be unaware of the valence of blackface in our culture and history.
    Kelly either lives in a bubble, or is malicious, or doesn’t give a crap. Any of those, singly or in any combination, are reasonable causes for firing from the position she held.

  99. The US is not the UK.
    Seriously, it boggles the mind that a sentient adult in the US would be unaware of the valence of blackface in our culture and history.

    Understood – but equally, someone espousing Kelly’s views would receive an equally vehement (if not more so) reaction in the UK these days.

  100. The US is not the UK.
    Seriously, it boggles the mind that a sentient adult in the US would be unaware of the valence of blackface in our culture and history.

    Understood – but equally, someone espousing Kelly’s views would receive an equally vehement (if not more so) reaction in the UK these days.

  101. Glad we agree on that, russell.
    (I guess O’Rourke is doing something similar in Texas.)
    The citizenship thing should be a joke, but it’s not.
    Another term of Trump, and it’s not entirely inconceivable that you have a court that takes the idea seriously.
    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/07/the-fourteenth-amendment-is-a-battleground-for-citizenship/565655/
    Anton’s “evidence” is not even a misreading; it is outright dishonesty. It is risible as history, but we should take it seriously as politics.
    Tyrants and would-be autocrats throughout history have itched to get their hands on the law of citizenship. …

  102. Glad we agree on that, russell.
    (I guess O’Rourke is doing something similar in Texas.)
    The citizenship thing should be a joke, but it’s not.
    Another term of Trump, and it’s not entirely inconceivable that you have a court that takes the idea seriously.
    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/07/the-fourteenth-amendment-is-a-battleground-for-citizenship/565655/
    Anton’s “evidence” is not even a misreading; it is outright dishonesty. It is risible as history, but we should take it seriously as politics.
    Tyrants and would-be autocrats throughout history have itched to get their hands on the law of citizenship. …

  103. 14th A. But he is probably looking forward to taking it to the SCOTUS.
    If he is, he’s forgetting about the originalists he appointed to the court. They may not kowtow as well as he expects.

  104. 14th A. But he is probably looking forward to taking it to the SCOTUS.
    If he is, he’s forgetting about the originalists he appointed to the court. They may not kowtow as well as he expects.

  105. He’s not going to do anything. This is just a silly pre-election gimmick – just another thing that will fall by the wayside until it’s convenient to bring it up again to rile the base.

  106. He’s not going to do anything. This is just a silly pre-election gimmick – just another thing that will fall by the wayside until it’s convenient to bring it up again to rile the base.

  107. he probably does want it to go to the Court because it will get the dupes riled up.
    but it’s going to be hard to write any kind of EO that gets around this sentence:

    All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

  108. he probably does want it to go to the Court because it will get the dupes riled up.
    but it’s going to be hard to write any kind of EO that gets around this sentence:

    All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

  109. In such a polarized election, conventional wisdom says that there aren’t many people left in the middle. But Abrams is still seeking them.
    Perhaps it’s time to consider the possibility that “the middle” isn’t quite what we think it is. That is, there are a lot of people, on both sides of the left/right paradigm, who are persuadable in the right circumstances. Which may start, like it or not, with stepping away from liberal/conservative and Democrat/Republican labels and focusing on the specifics of the issues.
    Running on the issues. What a concept!

  110. In such a polarized election, conventional wisdom says that there aren’t many people left in the middle. But Abrams is still seeking them.
    Perhaps it’s time to consider the possibility that “the middle” isn’t quite what we think it is. That is, there are a lot of people, on both sides of the left/right paradigm, who are persuadable in the right circumstances. Which may start, like it or not, with stepping away from liberal/conservative and Democrat/Republican labels and focusing on the specifics of the issues.
    Running on the issues. What a concept!

  111. Nigel: The citizenship thing should be a joke, but it’s not.
    hsh: He’s not going to do anything. This is just a silly pre-election gimmick – just another thing that will fall by the wayside until it’s convenient to bring it up again to rile the base.
    I wouldn’t be so sure. I could easily see Stephen Miller, for example, leaping to draft it up for him. And a signing ceremony (why limit those to Congressional bills?) would make great pre-election TV, don’t you think?

  112. Nigel: The citizenship thing should be a joke, but it’s not.
    hsh: He’s not going to do anything. This is just a silly pre-election gimmick – just another thing that will fall by the wayside until it’s convenient to bring it up again to rile the base.
    I wouldn’t be so sure. I could easily see Stephen Miller, for example, leaping to draft it up for him. And a signing ceremony (why limit those to Congressional bills?) would make great pre-election TV, don’t you think?

  113. I agree with cleek that it wouldn’t get past SCOTUS. Even one more partisan than this. But that’s never stopped Trump trying other stuff.

  114. I agree with cleek that it wouldn’t get past SCOTUS. Even one more partisan than this. But that’s never stopped Trump trying other stuff.

  115. I’ve come across a little further info on the argument against birthright citizenship:

    To oversimplify, the idea that this can be undone by executive order turns on a rather creative interpretation of an 1890s Supreme Court decision. That decision interpreted the 14th Amendment — which holds that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens” — to apply to, well, all persons born in the U.S. The restrictionists claim this does not apply to the children of undocumented immigrants, because they aren’t “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States.

    IANAL, but it seems pretty obvious that the only folks in the country but not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” would be those with diplomatic immunity. At least, I’ve never heard it argued that an illegal immigrant doesn’t have to pay his parking tickets. 😉

  116. I’ve come across a little further info on the argument against birthright citizenship:

    To oversimplify, the idea that this can be undone by executive order turns on a rather creative interpretation of an 1890s Supreme Court decision. That decision interpreted the 14th Amendment — which holds that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens” — to apply to, well, all persons born in the U.S. The restrictionists claim this does not apply to the children of undocumented immigrants, because they aren’t “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States.

    IANAL, but it seems pretty obvious that the only folks in the country but not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” would be those with diplomatic immunity. At least, I’ve never heard it argued that an illegal immigrant doesn’t have to pay his parking tickets. 😉

  117. IANAL, but it seems pretty obvious that the only folks in the country but not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” would be those with diplomatic immunity.
    “you’re not under the jurisdiction of our laws therefore you’re illegal according to our laws (which you’re not subject to)” seems more like a Monty Python premise than a convincing legal argument.

  118. IANAL, but it seems pretty obvious that the only folks in the country but not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” would be those with diplomatic immunity.
    “you’re not under the jurisdiction of our laws therefore you’re illegal according to our laws (which you’re not subject to)” seems more like a Monty Python premise than a convincing legal argument.

  119. If he is, he’s forgetting about the originalists he appointed to the court. They may not kowtow as well as he expects.
    Unbelievable. Look, the 14th Amendment was passed by the post Civil War radical Republicans. Theirs is the “original intent”.
    Yet this collection of conservative fuckwads handed down Shelby. Go figure.
    Perhaps you could explain that to us, charles.
    Originalists my ass.

  120. If he is, he’s forgetting about the originalists he appointed to the court. They may not kowtow as well as he expects.
    Unbelievable. Look, the 14th Amendment was passed by the post Civil War radical Republicans. Theirs is the “original intent”.
    Yet this collection of conservative fuckwads handed down Shelby. Go figure.
    Perhaps you could explain that to us, charles.
    Originalists my ass.

  121. I agree with cleek that it wouldn’t get past SCOTUS.
    Anybody familiar with the contours of Shelby would never make such a blase assertion.

  122. I agree with cleek that it wouldn’t get past SCOTUS.
    Anybody familiar with the contours of Shelby would never make such a blase assertion.

  123. Anybody familiar with the contours of Shelby would never make such a blase assertion.
    Shelby or Citizens United notwithstanding, I don’t see this case as being disputable enough to get more than three justices. Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh? Yeah – it’s not like they much are about what the Constitution really says when votes are on the line. (Although Thomas might surprise. Maybe.) But beyond that? I don’t think so.

  124. Anybody familiar with the contours of Shelby would never make such a blase assertion.
    Shelby or Citizens United notwithstanding, I don’t see this case as being disputable enough to get more than three justices. Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh? Yeah – it’s not like they much are about what the Constitution really says when votes are on the line. (Although Thomas might surprise. Maybe.) But beyond that? I don’t think so.

  125. Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh? Yeah…
    From time to time, Thomas says no to something that will obviously be used to disadvantage blacks specifically. Eg, a North Carolina gerrymander and incorporation of the Confederate battle flag into a license plate design. OTOH, he wrote a concurring opinion in Shelby that said the Court should have tossed more of the law.
    If I were betting, I’d bet that he won’t vote to change the meaning of the first sentence of the 14th Amendment.

  126. Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh? Yeah…
    From time to time, Thomas says no to something that will obviously be used to disadvantage blacks specifically. Eg, a North Carolina gerrymander and incorporation of the Confederate battle flag into a license plate design. OTOH, he wrote a concurring opinion in Shelby that said the Court should have tossed more of the law.
    If I were betting, I’d bet that he won’t vote to change the meaning of the first sentence of the 14th Amendment.

  127. I am truly curious to know how He, Trump or his poodles would deal with citizenship for maternity-ward immigrants to the US.
    I entered the US through a port of entry. I had to pass a test, swear an oath, and get a certificate to become a US citizen. My kid sister entered the US through a maternity ward like the vast majority of Americans, including young Barron Trump and Senator Butchmeup; she has no citizenship certificate, and neither do they AFAIK.
    My parents were green-card holders when my kid sister was born. If anybody at the hospital asked for their ID to fill out her birth certificate, my parents had official government-issued cards to show they were “legal”. What could Senator Butchmeup’s parents have shown to establish they were NOT “illegal”?
    It seems to me that when it comes to proving our citizenship to any fascist jack-in-office busybody who questions it, we port-of-entry immigrants have it easier than most of you maternity-ward immigrants do.
    –TP

  128. I am truly curious to know how He, Trump or his poodles would deal with citizenship for maternity-ward immigrants to the US.
    I entered the US through a port of entry. I had to pass a test, swear an oath, and get a certificate to become a US citizen. My kid sister entered the US through a maternity ward like the vast majority of Americans, including young Barron Trump and Senator Butchmeup; she has no citizenship certificate, and neither do they AFAIK.
    My parents were green-card holders when my kid sister was born. If anybody at the hospital asked for their ID to fill out her birth certificate, my parents had official government-issued cards to show they were “legal”. What could Senator Butchmeup’s parents have shown to establish they were NOT “illegal”?
    It seems to me that when it comes to proving our citizenship to any fascist jack-in-office busybody who questions it, we port-of-entry immigrants have it easier than most of you maternity-ward immigrants do.
    –TP

  129. I am truly curious to know how He, Trump or his poodles would deal with citizenship for maternity-ward immigrants to the US.
    Not only that. Suppose, per Trump’s plans, being born here is not sufficient to make you a citizen. (And, presumably, never was.) So if your grandparents weren’t naturalized (at least when your parents were born), then your parents wouldn’t have been citizens after all. Which, in turn, would mean you aren’t a citizen either.
    What a fun mess! If you can’t find an ancestor who was formally naturalized (before the next generation was born), then you aren’t a citizen. Won’t that make for fun times for everybody.

  130. I am truly curious to know how He, Trump or his poodles would deal with citizenship for maternity-ward immigrants to the US.
    Not only that. Suppose, per Trump’s plans, being born here is not sufficient to make you a citizen. (And, presumably, never was.) So if your grandparents weren’t naturalized (at least when your parents were born), then your parents wouldn’t have been citizens after all. Which, in turn, would mean you aren’t a citizen either.
    What a fun mess! If you can’t find an ancestor who was formally naturalized (before the next generation was born), then you aren’t a citizen. Won’t that make for fun times for everybody.

  131. Decades ago I read an article about how Britain had developed an “AI” system(some kind of complex rule-based system I think) to determine whether someone was a British citizen or not.

  132. Decades ago I read an article about how Britain had developed an “AI” system(some kind of complex rule-based system I think) to determine whether someone was a British citizen or not.

  133. The WH not long time ago (this year?) discussed plans about how to invalidate citizenship en masse, i.e. how to legally declare large numbers of US citizens to be not actually citizens. Iirc naturalized citizens are to be targeted by accusing them of acquiring their citizenship papers through fraud (i.e. the papers are to be considered genuine but acquired under false pretenses), while natural born citizens in possession of birth certificates are to be charged with outright forgery (those without birth certificate can of course be deported forthrightly).

  134. The WH not long time ago (this year?) discussed plans about how to invalidate citizenship en masse, i.e. how to legally declare large numbers of US citizens to be not actually citizens. Iirc naturalized citizens are to be targeted by accusing them of acquiring their citizenship papers through fraud (i.e. the papers are to be considered genuine but acquired under false pretenses), while natural born citizens in possession of birth certificates are to be charged with outright forgery (those without birth certificate can of course be deported forthrightly).

  135. Regarding the Count’s 1:51 PM link, is it wishful thinking to say the nitwits behind the attempted smear of Mueller may have finally messed with the wrong person and might get nailed for it? I’d really like that to be true.

  136. Regarding the Count’s 1:51 PM link, is it wishful thinking to say the nitwits behind the attempted smear of Mueller may have finally messed with the wrong person and might get nailed for it? I’d really like that to be true.

  137. The colonial chickens, uncounted before they hatched, came home to roost by crossing the sea to get to Britain…

  138. The colonial chickens, uncounted before they hatched, came home to roost by crossing the sea to get to Britain…

  139. related to the OP
    https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/nbc-was-harsh-axing-megyn-kelly-say-45-percent-americans-1156316
    In one class here, I have students find someone who has a relative who is _not_ Japanese, which, for most Japanese, would seem like a question with very few answering yes, but there are always a handful of students whose aunt or uncle has married a foreigner, etc. I feel like the question would get a lot more yes answers in the States. It would be interesting to go thru Congress and see how many have spouses or close relatives who might come under Clickbait’s proposal. Such as McConnell’s wife Elaine Chao
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaine_Chao

  140. related to the OP
    https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/nbc-was-harsh-axing-megyn-kelly-say-45-percent-americans-1156316
    In one class here, I have students find someone who has a relative who is _not_ Japanese, which, for most Japanese, would seem like a question with very few answering yes, but there are always a handful of students whose aunt or uncle has married a foreigner, etc. I feel like the question would get a lot more yes answers in the States. It would be interesting to go thru Congress and see how many have spouses or close relatives who might come under Clickbait’s proposal. Such as McConnell’s wife Elaine Chao
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaine_Chao

  141. On the collective guilt issue—a better analogy would be: how guilty should an upper class black undergraduate admitted to Harvard feel knowing that he got in with much lower test scores than a middle class Chinese woman.
    On the blackface issue I had always thought that “blackface” was considered to be when a white person dressed up to be a stereotyped black person—not when they were honoring a particular black person. So aping stereotyped concepts to be a generic “black person” was blackface, while dressing up as Diana Ross was not. A white personal dressing as a stereotypical “welfare queen” would be blackface while dressing as Aretha Franklin because you loved her music wouldn’t be.
    I find Megan Kelly annoying in every way that I find all morning talk show hosts annoying. So I’m not well positioned to figure out what kinds of statements are disqualifying. There is potentially a little gender coding in that. I find male morning talk show hosts particularly annoying. But I think I’ll worry about that if we get safely away from all the dynamics of a post Trump political world and not before.

  142. On the collective guilt issue—a better analogy would be: how guilty should an upper class black undergraduate admitted to Harvard feel knowing that he got in with much lower test scores than a middle class Chinese woman.
    On the blackface issue I had always thought that “blackface” was considered to be when a white person dressed up to be a stereotyped black person—not when they were honoring a particular black person. So aping stereotyped concepts to be a generic “black person” was blackface, while dressing up as Diana Ross was not. A white personal dressing as a stereotypical “welfare queen” would be blackface while dressing as Aretha Franklin because you loved her music wouldn’t be.
    I find Megan Kelly annoying in every way that I find all morning talk show hosts annoying. So I’m not well positioned to figure out what kinds of statements are disqualifying. There is potentially a little gender coding in that. I find male morning talk show hosts particularly annoying. But I think I’ll worry about that if we get safely away from all the dynamics of a post Trump political world and not before.

  143. I know it’s fashionable to hate Thomas, but he really is predictably originalist in a lot more dimensions than almost any current judge. I would be shocked if he bought into Trump’s stupidity about the 14th amendment.

  144. I know it’s fashionable to hate Thomas, but he really is predictably originalist in a lot more dimensions than almost any current judge. I would be shocked if he bought into Trump’s stupidity about the 14th amendment.

  145. Well he voted the other way in Shelby.
    Any birth citizenship policy that reaches the court would quite likely be fairly restricted in scope – if the Republicans do pursue this, it would probably be by way of gradual erosion of rights … and I could quite easily see Thomas finding a way to affirm.

  146. Well he voted the other way in Shelby.
    Any birth citizenship policy that reaches the court would quite likely be fairly restricted in scope – if the Republicans do pursue this, it would probably be by way of gradual erosion of rights … and I could quite easily see Thomas finding a way to affirm.

  147. I would be shocked if he bought into Trump’s stupidity about the 14th amendment.
    Seminole Tribes of Florida v Florida
    Shocking is as shocking does.

  148. I would be shocked if he bought into Trump’s stupidity about the 14th amendment.
    Seminole Tribes of Florida v Florida
    Shocking is as shocking does.

  149. I don’t own a television any longer, but why stop at the annoying MORNING talk show hosts.
    With the 24-hour news cycle, and this includes every other medium as well, talk shows are just getting kick-starting the annoyance in the morning, gaining momentum into the afternoon and rarely leveling off even into the wee hours.
    America could just STFU for a day and practice total radio silence and give the world’s annoyance glands a respite, for pity’s sake.
    As to Kelly and blackface, I’m with Russell and others. How dumb and/or conniving do you have to be to be paid $68 million and claim not to know the provenance of blackface and its insulting intent in most cases.
    Rumor is she’s talking with Christopher Ruddy’s Newsmax about a new gig in which she will appear in blackface EVERY morning and cook fried chicken while playing old Al Jolson music videos, while disguising her voice to sound like the Kingfish from Amos and Andy.
    Ya know, Al Jolson, the well-known rap artist.
    To close the show, she’ll look directly into the camera and ask “What, WHAT?”
    The show will be called Lester’s Ax-Handle Breakfast Talkfest.
    The Kingfish and Al Jolson and Shirley Temple were great entertainers in their own rights but may we at least ask a fake blonde POX News bimbo pulling down $68 million in 2018 to know something … anything .. about historical context.
    By the way, a spinoff is planned in which Kelly will dress up as a ghastly hook-nosed Shylock from the Merchant of Venice and drop to her knees and gnaw on an undercooked pork shop at the feet of Kanye West dressed as the Pope, and that’s just the bit while the opening credits run.
    By the way, the middle class Chinese woman who didn’t get into Harvard is going to be sent packing back to Shanghai by Stephen Miller (the thicket of politically correct ironies there is a delicious thing) and his boss, and THEN affirmative action will be halted by an activist Supreme Court and the upper-class black undergraduate can assuage his guilt at the local community college while the original legacy white kids assume their customary white nationalist positions in the student body, and I don’t mean Bugs Bunny in drag.
    “Fashionable”? Justice Thomas? Is THAT all it is?
    Sniff.
    But yeah, morning talk show hosts. Annoying.

  150. I don’t own a television any longer, but why stop at the annoying MORNING talk show hosts.
    With the 24-hour news cycle, and this includes every other medium as well, talk shows are just getting kick-starting the annoyance in the morning, gaining momentum into the afternoon and rarely leveling off even into the wee hours.
    America could just STFU for a day and practice total radio silence and give the world’s annoyance glands a respite, for pity’s sake.
    As to Kelly and blackface, I’m with Russell and others. How dumb and/or conniving do you have to be to be paid $68 million and claim not to know the provenance of blackface and its insulting intent in most cases.
    Rumor is she’s talking with Christopher Ruddy’s Newsmax about a new gig in which she will appear in blackface EVERY morning and cook fried chicken while playing old Al Jolson music videos, while disguising her voice to sound like the Kingfish from Amos and Andy.
    Ya know, Al Jolson, the well-known rap artist.
    To close the show, she’ll look directly into the camera and ask “What, WHAT?”
    The show will be called Lester’s Ax-Handle Breakfast Talkfest.
    The Kingfish and Al Jolson and Shirley Temple were great entertainers in their own rights but may we at least ask a fake blonde POX News bimbo pulling down $68 million in 2018 to know something … anything .. about historical context.
    By the way, a spinoff is planned in which Kelly will dress up as a ghastly hook-nosed Shylock from the Merchant of Venice and drop to her knees and gnaw on an undercooked pork shop at the feet of Kanye West dressed as the Pope, and that’s just the bit while the opening credits run.
    By the way, the middle class Chinese woman who didn’t get into Harvard is going to be sent packing back to Shanghai by Stephen Miller (the thicket of politically correct ironies there is a delicious thing) and his boss, and THEN affirmative action will be halted by an activist Supreme Court and the upper-class black undergraduate can assuage his guilt at the local community college while the original legacy white kids assume their customary white nationalist positions in the student body, and I don’t mean Bugs Bunny in drag.
    “Fashionable”? Justice Thomas? Is THAT all it is?
    Sniff.
    But yeah, morning talk show hosts. Annoying.

  151. On the collective guilt issue—a better analogy would be: how guilty should an upper class black undergraduate admitted to Harvard feel knowing that he got in with much lower test scores than a middle class Chinese woman.
    The best I can say about this is that it’s a question framed in an oversimplified way to elicit a seemingly obviously, but wrong, answer.
    The answer I would give is: Not necessarily guilty at all, it would depend on a lot of things. Speaking as someone who had stratospherically high test scores, I can testify from a personal point of view that they aren’t everything. Speaking as someone who worked for several years in the admissions office of an elite, and not small, university, I can repeat myself.
    One of my fellow admissions officers, faced with alumni grumbling along the same “what about the test scores” lines, pointed out to the alums that if they wanted to go to a system of just letting test scores determine admissions, we could fill the first year class from Hong Kong every year. (This was actually long ago so he really said “freshman.”)
    Nothing against people from Hong Kong, either, though when someone I was close to lived and taught in China for five years, I got plenty of stories about obsession with teaching to the test scores to the exclusion of much else. It’s not a healthy way to teach, or to think, or to live. It’s not the way I’d run an admissions office if I had one.
    If there’s discrimination against Asian-Americans in college admissions, a light should be shown on it just as surely as a light should be shown on discrimination against African Americans or any other group. But the whole issue isn’t served well by an obsession with test scores to the exclusion of all kinds of other things that go into making a student, making a university class, and making a society.

  152. On the collective guilt issue—a better analogy would be: how guilty should an upper class black undergraduate admitted to Harvard feel knowing that he got in with much lower test scores than a middle class Chinese woman.
    The best I can say about this is that it’s a question framed in an oversimplified way to elicit a seemingly obviously, but wrong, answer.
    The answer I would give is: Not necessarily guilty at all, it would depend on a lot of things. Speaking as someone who had stratospherically high test scores, I can testify from a personal point of view that they aren’t everything. Speaking as someone who worked for several years in the admissions office of an elite, and not small, university, I can repeat myself.
    One of my fellow admissions officers, faced with alumni grumbling along the same “what about the test scores” lines, pointed out to the alums that if they wanted to go to a system of just letting test scores determine admissions, we could fill the first year class from Hong Kong every year. (This was actually long ago so he really said “freshman.”)
    Nothing against people from Hong Kong, either, though when someone I was close to lived and taught in China for five years, I got plenty of stories about obsession with teaching to the test scores to the exclusion of much else. It’s not a healthy way to teach, or to think, or to live. It’s not the way I’d run an admissions office if I had one.
    If there’s discrimination against Asian-Americans in college admissions, a light should be shown on it just as surely as a light should be shown on discrimination against African Americans or any other group. But the whole issue isn’t served well by an obsession with test scores to the exclusion of all kinds of other things that go into making a student, making a university class, and making a society.

  153. On the collective guilt issue—a better analogy would be: how guilty should an upper class black undergraduate admitted to Harvard feel knowing that he got in with much lower test scores than a middle class Chinese woman.
    Because this is representative of the black experience? Because this is a significant aspect of American history? Because this is how blacks have achieved social, political, and economic dominance over Chinese people?

  154. On the collective guilt issue—a better analogy would be: how guilty should an upper class black undergraduate admitted to Harvard feel knowing that he got in with much lower test scores than a middle class Chinese woman.
    Because this is representative of the black experience? Because this is a significant aspect of American history? Because this is how blacks have achieved social, political, and economic dominance over Chinese people?

  155. Another reason the question about the African American guy with lower test scores than the Asian woman is that it’s framed in terms of individuals.
    The college where I worked in admissions now has a roughly 25% “Asian” undergraduate student body, and that’s not counting the “International” students. Black students — 6.3%.
    (It’s not Harvard. I don’t pay any attention to Harvard except when I walk past the campus. 😉

  156. Another reason the question about the African American guy with lower test scores than the Asian woman is that it’s framed in terms of individuals.
    The college where I worked in admissions now has a roughly 25% “Asian” undergraduate student body, and that’s not counting the “International” students. Black students — 6.3%.
    (It’s not Harvard. I don’t pay any attention to Harvard except when I walk past the campus. 😉

  157. But the whole issue isn’t served well by an obsession with test scores to the exclusion of all kinds of other things that go into making a student, making a university class, and making a society.
    I wholeheartedly agree – and it’s an attitude which has started to permeate British education, from primary up.

  158. But the whole issue isn’t served well by an obsession with test scores to the exclusion of all kinds of other things that go into making a student, making a university class, and making a society.
    I wholeheartedly agree – and it’s an attitude which has started to permeate British education, from primary up.

  159. Regardless of their skin pigmentation, you’re not doing someone a favor if your affirmative action gets them into a school they’re unable to succeed in.

  160. Regardless of their skin pigmentation, you’re not doing someone a favor if your affirmative action gets them into a school they’re unable to succeed in.

  161. Regardless of their skin pigmentation, you’re not doing someone a favor if your affirmative action gets them into a school they’re unable to succeed in.
    Again, an oversimplified sound bite.
    Our affirmative action program was specifically designed to look especially hard for bright kids who hadn’t had much if any fostering from their families and/or schools. We brought them to campus for the summer to help them get up to speed.
    It’s becoming a “thing” now — one of the smaller college in Maine, not far from where I live, does specific programs for students who are the first in their famliies to go to college. I would have benefited greatly from that, if I could have gotten over the notion that I already knew everything.

  162. Regardless of their skin pigmentation, you’re not doing someone a favor if your affirmative action gets them into a school they’re unable to succeed in.
    Again, an oversimplified sound bite.
    Our affirmative action program was specifically designed to look especially hard for bright kids who hadn’t had much if any fostering from their families and/or schools. We brought them to campus for the summer to help them get up to speed.
    It’s becoming a “thing” now — one of the smaller college in Maine, not far from where I live, does specific programs for students who are the first in their famliies to go to college. I would have benefited greatly from that, if I could have gotten over the notion that I already knew everything.

  163. And again in the realm of how things aren’t simple: I say I would have benefited from a program for people who didn’t have a family background that prepared them for college — I did fine academically. It was all the other stuff that I didn’t really know how to navigate. Departmental politics, the competitiveness, it’s a long list. So again: numbers aren’t everything.

  164. And again in the realm of how things aren’t simple: I say I would have benefited from a program for people who didn’t have a family background that prepared them for college — I did fine academically. It was all the other stuff that I didn’t really know how to navigate. Departmental politics, the competitiveness, it’s a long list. So again: numbers aren’t everything.

  165. In the spirit of the discussion about repairing society-wide wrongs that inspired Sebastian’s original comment about affirmative action, I would say: stop obsessing so much about admission to elite college (where almost no one gets in in the first place) and start obsessing about poverty and public education for younger kids. Children are compelled by law to spend their lives in schools that are not, in turn, compelled to give them a decent education. It’s disgraceful.

  166. In the spirit of the discussion about repairing society-wide wrongs that inspired Sebastian’s original comment about affirmative action, I would say: stop obsessing so much about admission to elite college (where almost no one gets in in the first place) and start obsessing about poverty and public education for younger kids. Children are compelled by law to spend their lives in schools that are not, in turn, compelled to give them a decent education. It’s disgraceful.

  167. If we’re going to have a productive discussion, we need to focus on how they do college admissions on “The Simpsons.”

  168. If we’re going to have a productive discussion, we need to focus on how they do college admissions on “The Simpsons.”

  169. No, let’s focus on Harvard enrollment stats:
    Here’s a selection:
    https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS774US774&ei=Wb_ZW6fmMujcjwTyqYXwDQ&q=harvard+undergraduate+enrollment+statistics+over+the+years&oq=harvard+undergraduate+enrollment+statistics+over+the+years&gs_l=psy-ab.12..33i299.13125.15275..17424…0.0..0.163.1739.1j14……0….1..gws-wiz…….0i71j0i22i30j33i22i29i30j33i160.gz7sYxNaM_E
    Lowest admittance ever this way.
    Why does no one suggest that Harvard and the other elite universities expand their enrollment numbers to in some ways alleviate this ongoing endless dispute?
    Surely, they possess the endowment to expand the facilities and the teaching staff.
    I could be sarcastic .. ah, what the hell, I will be sarcastic … and remark that conservatives in this country who hate the elites at the same time don’t want to water down the the elitism by admitting those who might be even slightly beneath them.
    Hell of a racket the republican party’s got going there.
    Grover Norquist. Harvard.
    If they can admit that elite, elitist-hating, destructive piece of shit, they can take anyone.

  170. No, let’s focus on Harvard enrollment stats:
    Here’s a selection:
    https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS774US774&ei=Wb_ZW6fmMujcjwTyqYXwDQ&q=harvard+undergraduate+enrollment+statistics+over+the+years&oq=harvard+undergraduate+enrollment+statistics+over+the+years&gs_l=psy-ab.12..33i299.13125.15275..17424…0.0..0.163.1739.1j14……0….1..gws-wiz…….0i71j0i22i30j33i22i29i30j33i160.gz7sYxNaM_E
    Lowest admittance ever this way.
    Why does no one suggest that Harvard and the other elite universities expand their enrollment numbers to in some ways alleviate this ongoing endless dispute?
    Surely, they possess the endowment to expand the facilities and the teaching staff.
    I could be sarcastic .. ah, what the hell, I will be sarcastic … and remark that conservatives in this country who hate the elites at the same time don’t want to water down the the elitism by admitting those who might be even slightly beneath them.
    Hell of a racket the republican party’s got going there.
    Grover Norquist. Harvard.
    If they can admit that elite, elitist-hating, destructive piece of shit, they can take anyone.

  171. Children are compelled by law to spend their lives in schools that are not, in turn, compelled to give them a decent education. It’s disgraceful.
    Snap again.
    In some respects, forced attendance at a poor school (or in my own case, a boarding school…) represents a deprivation of liberty almost akin to incarceration.

  172. Children are compelled by law to spend their lives in schools that are not, in turn, compelled to give them a decent education. It’s disgraceful.
    Snap again.
    In some respects, forced attendance at a poor school (or in my own case, a boarding school…) represents a deprivation of liberty almost akin to incarceration.

  173. Yes, the “metrics” used for college admission are deeply flawed.
    So, my plan, which is mine:
    (for clarity, assume incoming class is 1000):
    250 is the top 250 applicants, by whatever metric is used.
    Now take the applicants between the “need this score to survive” and the previous top 250 group, and select another 750 by RANDOM LOTTERY.
    The division between “selected by merit” and “selected by lottery” can be adjusted. But every applicant that has a chance, gets a chance. And the result will be a better shuffled mix of students.

  174. Yes, the “metrics” used for college admission are deeply flawed.
    So, my plan, which is mine:
    (for clarity, assume incoming class is 1000):
    250 is the top 250 applicants, by whatever metric is used.
    Now take the applicants between the “need this score to survive” and the previous top 250 group, and select another 750 by RANDOM LOTTERY.
    The division between “selected by merit” and “selected by lottery” can be adjusted. But every applicant that has a chance, gets a chance. And the result will be a better shuffled mix of students.

  175. As for public school support, it was best stated by a NJ judge that shot down a GOP plan to cripple state funding, in spite of previous rulings to the contrary:
    “I meant what I said and I said what I meant,
    the schools must be funded, one hundred percent.”

  176. As for public school support, it was best stated by a NJ judge that shot down a GOP plan to cripple state funding, in spite of previous rulings to the contrary:
    “I meant what I said and I said what I meant,
    the schools must be funded, one hundred percent.”

  177. “represents a deprivation of liberty almost akin to incarceration.”
    The Republican elitist running for Governor of Colorado, Walker Stapleton, is on record in the past for cutting education funding to public schools and transferring the monies to the state’s prison accounts.
    One of his major donors are the private prison owners.
    Charter schools and charter prisons all in the same building, perhaps.
    Saves on transport costs.
    So it’s not much “represents” as it IS the fucking plan.

  178. “represents a deprivation of liberty almost akin to incarceration.”
    The Republican elitist running for Governor of Colorado, Walker Stapleton, is on record in the past for cutting education funding to public schools and transferring the monies to the state’s prison accounts.
    One of his major donors are the private prison owners.
    Charter schools and charter prisons all in the same building, perhaps.
    Saves on transport costs.
    So it’s not much “represents” as it IS the fucking plan.

  179. Why does no one suggest that Harvard and the other elite universities expand their enrollment numbers to in some ways alleviate this ongoing endless dispute?
    With an endowment of ~32 billion dollars, Harvard isn’t short on cash.

  180. Why does no one suggest that Harvard and the other elite universities expand their enrollment numbers to in some ways alleviate this ongoing endless dispute?
    With an endowment of ~32 billion dollars, Harvard isn’t short on cash.

  181. To echo JanieM, if the crux of our thinking about social inequity is “who gets into Harvard?”, we’re not asking the right questions. We’re not even within 100 miles of asking the right questions.
    We treated black people like beasts of burden for a couple of hundred years, then merely like lesser human beings for another hundred, and enforced all of that with systemic violence and de jure and de facto exclusion.
    So if a talented black guy gets into Harvard ahead of an equally talented Asian woman, in spite of their respective test scores, it just doesn’t move the needle on my injustice-o-meter.
    The tiniest bit of perspective goes a long long way.
    YMMV

  182. To echo JanieM, if the crux of our thinking about social inequity is “who gets into Harvard?”, we’re not asking the right questions. We’re not even within 100 miles of asking the right questions.
    We treated black people like beasts of burden for a couple of hundred years, then merely like lesser human beings for another hundred, and enforced all of that with systemic violence and de jure and de facto exclusion.
    So if a talented black guy gets into Harvard ahead of an equally talented Asian woman, in spite of their respective test scores, it just doesn’t move the needle on my injustice-o-meter.
    The tiniest bit of perspective goes a long long way.
    YMMV

  183. In the spirit of the discussion about repairing society-wide wrongs that inspired Sebastian’s original comment about affirmative action, I would say: stop obsessing so much about admission to elite college (where almost no one gets in in the first place) In the spirit of the discussion about repairing society-wide wrongs that inspired Sebastian’s original comment about affirmative action, I would say: stop obsessing so much about admission to elite college (where almost no one gets in in the first place)
    It’s pretty clear that the Asian students are being used as a stalking horse. After all, anyone who actually feels they are getting a raw deal would go after the big problem: legacy admissions.
    Cut out the kids who only get in because they were clever enough to pick parents (or grandparents?) who got in. Presto! Lots more slots for Asians. And probably more blacks as well . . . which, unfortunately, would defeat the whole aim of the suit.

  184. In the spirit of the discussion about repairing society-wide wrongs that inspired Sebastian’s original comment about affirmative action, I would say: stop obsessing so much about admission to elite college (where almost no one gets in in the first place) In the spirit of the discussion about repairing society-wide wrongs that inspired Sebastian’s original comment about affirmative action, I would say: stop obsessing so much about admission to elite college (where almost no one gets in in the first place)
    It’s pretty clear that the Asian students are being used as a stalking horse. After all, anyone who actually feels they are getting a raw deal would go after the big problem: legacy admissions.
    Cut out the kids who only get in because they were clever enough to pick parents (or grandparents?) who got in. Presto! Lots more slots for Asians. And probably more blacks as well . . . which, unfortunately, would defeat the whole aim of the suit.

  185. Count, that bit in your link about which judge recused himself is . . . fascinating. With the hearing set for Dec 14, I’d guess we’ll see the expected restaffing at Justice first thing next Wednesday morning.

  186. Count, that bit in your link about which judge recused himself is . . . fascinating. With the hearing set for Dec 14, I’d guess we’ll see the expected restaffing at Justice first thing next Wednesday morning.

  187. This is one of several racist, anti-Semitic, white supremacist republican candidates around the country I’ve read about whose children, grandchildren, mothers, and lawn jockeys are beseeching voters NOT to vote for, for crying out loud.
    I expect the candidates to win anyway because the local republican cheats, liars, thieves and vote suppression specialists are targeting the families’ ballots for disqualification.

  188. This is one of several racist, anti-Semitic, white supremacist republican candidates around the country I’ve read about whose children, grandchildren, mothers, and lawn jockeys are beseeching voters NOT to vote for, for crying out loud.
    I expect the candidates to win anyway because the local republican cheats, liars, thieves and vote suppression specialists are targeting the families’ ballots for disqualification.

  189. “And, of course, affirmative doesn’t just benefit its recipients. It benefits all students, by exposing them to viewpoints, life stories, and perspectives they might not otherwise encounter — all good things for schools that function as the training ground for the future leaders of an increasingly diverse society.”

    The impression the universities and their students give is that it’s OK to be diverse as long as you have the correct worldview.

  190. “And, of course, affirmative doesn’t just benefit its recipients. It benefits all students, by exposing them to viewpoints, life stories, and perspectives they might not otherwise encounter — all good things for schools that function as the training ground for the future leaders of an increasingly diverse society.”

    The impression the universities and their students give is that it’s OK to be diverse as long as you have the correct worldview.

  191. Not sure if you noticed in your rush to get a pull quote, but the writer is Chinese-American. This means you have to argue that he’s bought into the majority worldview (meaning he’s assimilated and therefore doesn’t count) or he is just saying that so he doesn’t get oppressed. Either way, it is a way to dismiss his opinion. At the risk of being racist, I’d say this is something white folks are quite good at…

  192. Not sure if you noticed in your rush to get a pull quote, but the writer is Chinese-American. This means you have to argue that he’s bought into the majority worldview (meaning he’s assimilated and therefore doesn’t count) or he is just saying that so he doesn’t get oppressed. Either way, it is a way to dismiss his opinion. At the risk of being racist, I’d say this is something white folks are quite good at…

  193. At the risk of being racist, I’d say this is something white folks are quite good at…
    Of course, white people are much better at being racist than anyone else…

  194. At the risk of being racist, I’d say this is something white folks are quite good at…
    Of course, white people are much better at being racist than anyone else…

  195. Of course, white people are much better at being racist than anyone else…
    Japanese in Japan? Han Chinese in China? Technology timing gave Europeans a chance to do it on a global scale.

  196. Of course, white people are much better at being racist than anyone else…
    Japanese in Japan? Han Chinese in China? Technology timing gave Europeans a chance to do it on a global scale.

  197. The impression the universities and their students give is that it’s OK to be diverse as long as you have the correct worldview.
    Assuming there is a “correct worldview,” it may be orthogonal to the benefits of diversity. It shouldn’t be impossible to argue against the benefits of diversity directly, if that’s something you’re inclined to do.

  198. The impression the universities and their students give is that it’s OK to be diverse as long as you have the correct worldview.
    Assuming there is a “correct worldview,” it may be orthogonal to the benefits of diversity. It shouldn’t be impossible to argue against the benefits of diversity directly, if that’s something you’re inclined to do.

  199. The impression the universities and their students give is that it’s OK to be diverse as long as you have the correct worldview.
    So, there is no such thing as an “incorrect” world view? Just what is your point, charles?
    It shouldn’t be impossible to argue against the benefits of diversity directly, if that’s something you’re inclined to do.
    Precisely and absolutely. Thank you, hsh.

  200. The impression the universities and their students give is that it’s OK to be diverse as long as you have the correct worldview.
    So, there is no such thing as an “incorrect” world view? Just what is your point, charles?
    It shouldn’t be impossible to argue against the benefits of diversity directly, if that’s something you’re inclined to do.
    Precisely and absolutely. Thank you, hsh.

  201. I recommend highly Richard Rothstein’s book, The Color of Law. I transcribe the following riposte to those crying in their beer about the concept of reparations or affirmative action…or even, let us be clear, the concept of justice itself (p. 222):
    Somebody once said, “Your ancestors weren’t here in 1776, but you eat hot dogs on Fourth of July, don’t you?”
    “Americans who preceded us fought for our liberty, sometimes giving their lives for it, yet we benefit without making similar sacrifices. When we become Americans, we accept not only citizenship’s privileges that we did not earn but also its responsibilities to correct wrongs that we did not commit. It was our government that segregated American neighborhoods, whether we or our ancestors bore witness to it, and it is OUR government that now must craft remedies.”
    emphasis mine.

  202. I recommend highly Richard Rothstein’s book, The Color of Law. I transcribe the following riposte to those crying in their beer about the concept of reparations or affirmative action…or even, let us be clear, the concept of justice itself (p. 222):
    Somebody once said, “Your ancestors weren’t here in 1776, but you eat hot dogs on Fourth of July, don’t you?”
    “Americans who preceded us fought for our liberty, sometimes giving their lives for it, yet we benefit without making similar sacrifices. When we become Americans, we accept not only citizenship’s privileges that we did not earn but also its responsibilities to correct wrongs that we did not commit. It was our government that segregated American neighborhoods, whether we or our ancestors bore witness to it, and it is OUR government that now must craft remedies.”
    emphasis mine.

  203. Not sure if you noticed in your rush to get a pull quote, but the writer is Chinese-American.
    Of course, I noticed that the author is Asian. I wasn’t criticizing the author but was using the quote as a lead-in to the observation that everyone is really big on diversity until it comes to opinions, points of view and ideology. To quote the author again:

    “These conversations took place in hushed tones — one person literally looked over his shoulder to make sure no one could hear.”

    And this is not the only subject where people have to be careful about what they say and who they say it to or they risk losing their jobs, professorships, and being crucified on social media.
    Universities use to be the place for the free and open expression of ideas. Now, not so much.

  204. Not sure if you noticed in your rush to get a pull quote, but the writer is Chinese-American.
    Of course, I noticed that the author is Asian. I wasn’t criticizing the author but was using the quote as a lead-in to the observation that everyone is really big on diversity until it comes to opinions, points of view and ideology. To quote the author again:

    “These conversations took place in hushed tones — one person literally looked over his shoulder to make sure no one could hear.”

    And this is not the only subject where people have to be careful about what they say and who they say it to or they risk losing their jobs, professorships, and being crucified on social media.
    Universities use to be the place for the free and open expression of ideas. Now, not so much.

  205. Universities use to be the place for the free and open expression of ideas. Now, not so much.
    Bullshit. That is not remotely true.

  206. Universities use to be the place for the free and open expression of ideas. Now, not so much.
    Bullshit. That is not remotely true.

  207. Admittedly, there are certain universities that fit the bill (the kind founded by Oral Roberts and Jerry Falwell) and certain departments at normal ones that have a tendency towards the ultra-dogmatic (including but not limited to economics).

  208. Admittedly, there are certain universities that fit the bill (the kind founded by Oral Roberts and Jerry Falwell) and certain departments at normal ones that have a tendency towards the ultra-dogmatic (including but not limited to economics).

  209. You say of course, but you pull a quote to make a point the opposite of what he wrote. Color me unsurprised.

  210. You say of course, but you pull a quote to make a point the opposite of what he wrote. Color me unsurprised.

  211. Drawing an ‘analogy’ between the victims of genocide / slavery and of affirmative action is a little bit rich, no? Seriously, wtf?
    And I say that as someone very sceptical of affirmative action – I’m for abolishing private education instead.

  212. Drawing an ‘analogy’ between the victims of genocide / slavery and of affirmative action is a little bit rich, no? Seriously, wtf?
    And I say that as someone very sceptical of affirmative action – I’m for abolishing private education instead.

  213. And this is not the only subject where people have to be careful about what they say and who they say it to or they risk losing their jobs, professorships, and being crucified on social media.
    i’m trying to think of a job where i could say anything i wanted to, at any time, with no fear of consequences or criticism. coming up blank.

  214. And this is not the only subject where people have to be careful about what they say and who they say it to or they risk losing their jobs, professorships, and being crucified on social media.
    i’m trying to think of a job where i could say anything i wanted to, at any time, with no fear of consequences or criticism. coming up blank.

  215. it’s OK to be diverse as long as you have the correct worldview.
    Do you think universities are somehow unique in this way?
    Do you think that thereally is only one ‘correct’ worldview, common to all universities, or all departments and programs within even one university?
    this is not the only subject where people have to be careful about what they say and who they say it
    Nor the only place. Not even among places that ‘celebrate diversity’.

  216. it’s OK to be diverse as long as you have the correct worldview.
    Do you think universities are somehow unique in this way?
    Do you think that thereally is only one ‘correct’ worldview, common to all universities, or all departments and programs within even one university?
    this is not the only subject where people have to be careful about what they say and who they say it
    Nor the only place. Not even among places that ‘celebrate diversity’.

  217. As though the pressure to conform is something new, or something that starts at university.
    I know, from my wife’s experience, that US schools were far more conformist than those over here – and that was decades ago.
    Do you still recite the pledge of allegiance ?

  218. As though the pressure to conform is something new, or something that starts at university.
    I know, from my wife’s experience, that US schools were far more conformist than those over here – and that was decades ago.
    Do you still recite the pledge of allegiance ?

  219. I’m for abolishing private education instead.
    This strikes me as a terrible idea. Require that private education thru grammar school and high school include certain specific material (whatever else they want to teach as well)? Sure. But then, we already do that.
    But what would be better is to return to a situation where college is available and affordable to everybody. When I was growing up, you could work half time and pay your own way thru school — I know because I, and my siblings all did so. “Tuition and fees” at the University of California amounted to under $3000 per year (that’s current dollars; at the time it was $300). There would still be those who would pay far more for Harvard or Stanford. But they wouldn’t get a better education.

  220. I’m for abolishing private education instead.
    This strikes me as a terrible idea. Require that private education thru grammar school and high school include certain specific material (whatever else they want to teach as well)? Sure. But then, we already do that.
    But what would be better is to return to a situation where college is available and affordable to everybody. When I was growing up, you could work half time and pay your own way thru school — I know because I, and my siblings all did so. “Tuition and fees” at the University of California amounted to under $3000 per year (that’s current dollars; at the time it was $300). There would still be those who would pay far more for Harvard or Stanford. But they wouldn’t get a better education.

  221. Yeah, it’s just TERRIBLE how liberal ideological conformity is imposed by Engineering schools.
    As for tuition, that was way way back in the days before the technique for setting tuition prices was ‘whatever the market will bear’.
    Capitalism! You’re soaking in it. Or soaked by it. One of those.

  222. Yeah, it’s just TERRIBLE how liberal ideological conformity is imposed by Engineering schools.
    As for tuition, that was way way back in the days before the technique for setting tuition prices was ‘whatever the market will bear’.
    Capitalism! You’re soaking in it. Or soaked by it. One of those.

  223. As for tuition, that was way way back in the days before the technique for setting tuition prices was ‘whatever the market will bear’.
    Yes, back before tuition got bided up by the government starting to back tens of thousands of dollars in signature loans to young adults who might not qualify for a secured auto loan.

  224. As for tuition, that was way way back in the days before the technique for setting tuition prices was ‘whatever the market will bear’.
    Yes, back before tuition got bided up by the government starting to back tens of thousands of dollars in signature loans to young adults who might not qualify for a secured auto loan.

  225. back before tuition got bided up by the government starting to back tens of thousands of dollars in signature loans to young adults who might not qualify for a secured auto loan.
    Is that actually the way causality went? Because my sense (memory?) is that funding for state universities got cut first (often as a result of tax cuts reducing state revenues). And then tuition got raised to make up the loss. And finally the loans were created to help provide a way for students to afford the higher costs. (Feel free to provide links to data showing it went otherwise.)

  226. back before tuition got bided up by the government starting to back tens of thousands of dollars in signature loans to young adults who might not qualify for a secured auto loan.
    Is that actually the way causality went? Because my sense (memory?) is that funding for state universities got cut first (often as a result of tax cuts reducing state revenues). And then tuition got raised to make up the loss. And finally the loans were created to help provide a way for students to afford the higher costs. (Feel free to provide links to data showing it went otherwise.)

  227. Feel free to provide links to data showing it went otherwise.
    “Several recent studies have found evidence that other federal student aid programs drive of tuition increases. A 2015 study found that a dollar of subsidized (non-PLUS) student loans increases published tuition by 58 cents at a typical college, with larger effects once reductions in institutional financial aid are taken into account. An NBER paper issued last year concluded that changes to federal student loans are more than sufficient to explain tuition increases at private nonprofit colleges. And a 2014 analysis found that for-profit colleges eligible for federal student aid charged tuition 78% higher than that of similar but aid-ineligible institutions.

    “Unlike most other student loan programs, PLUS loans are not capped—parents may borrow up to the cost of attendance, which is determined by the college. This creates incentives for colleges to increase student charges, since the federal government will make sure all eligible parents have access to the money. And PLUS loans take the lid off any tuition constraints that the caps on other loan programs might impose: since colleges know students can fall back on PLUS if they exhaust their traditional student loans, tuition may keep rising in spite of those caps.”

    How Unlimited Student Loans Drive Up Tuition
    Yet the GI Bill didn’t send tuition skyrocketing decades earlier.
    I don’t know. Perhaps the universities had a enough empty seats that the increased demand didn’t put much pressure on supply.
    “By 1950, the number of college graduates nearly tripled to 432,058. This was due to the passing of the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act in 1944, more popularly known as the GI Bill. This legislation provided for veterans of the Second World War to attend college using federal benefits. Even with these additional numbers, the percentage of adults 25 and older in the U.S. with a college degree was still only 8 percent. Half of these numbers were veterans and 328,841 of them were men.

    “By 1970, the number of college graduates just receiving bachelor degrees had increased to 839,730. Although more than half were men (475,594), the number of women earning a college degree had tripled in just twenty years. By this time, 68 percent of federal aid to college students was in the form of grants. The cost for college had not significantly increased by this point and a Pell Grant could cover approximately two-thirds of tuition annually at many universities.”

    Rising Tuition Costs and the History of Student Loans

  228. Feel free to provide links to data showing it went otherwise.
    “Several recent studies have found evidence that other federal student aid programs drive of tuition increases. A 2015 study found that a dollar of subsidized (non-PLUS) student loans increases published tuition by 58 cents at a typical college, with larger effects once reductions in institutional financial aid are taken into account. An NBER paper issued last year concluded that changes to federal student loans are more than sufficient to explain tuition increases at private nonprofit colleges. And a 2014 analysis found that for-profit colleges eligible for federal student aid charged tuition 78% higher than that of similar but aid-ineligible institutions.

    “Unlike most other student loan programs, PLUS loans are not capped—parents may borrow up to the cost of attendance, which is determined by the college. This creates incentives for colleges to increase student charges, since the federal government will make sure all eligible parents have access to the money. And PLUS loans take the lid off any tuition constraints that the caps on other loan programs might impose: since colleges know students can fall back on PLUS if they exhaust their traditional student loans, tuition may keep rising in spite of those caps.”

    How Unlimited Student Loans Drive Up Tuition
    Yet the GI Bill didn’t send tuition skyrocketing decades earlier.
    I don’t know. Perhaps the universities had a enough empty seats that the increased demand didn’t put much pressure on supply.
    “By 1950, the number of college graduates nearly tripled to 432,058. This was due to the passing of the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act in 1944, more popularly known as the GI Bill. This legislation provided for veterans of the Second World War to attend college using federal benefits. Even with these additional numbers, the percentage of adults 25 and older in the U.S. with a college degree was still only 8 percent. Half of these numbers were veterans and 328,841 of them were men.

    “By 1970, the number of college graduates just receiving bachelor degrees had increased to 839,730. Although more than half were men (475,594), the number of women earning a college degree had tripled in just twenty years. By this time, 68 percent of federal aid to college students was in the form of grants. The cost for college had not significantly increased by this point and a Pell Grant could cover approximately two-thirds of tuition annually at many universities.”

    Rising Tuition Costs and the History of Student Loans

  229. Perhaps the universities had a enough empty seats that the increased demand didn’t put much pressure on supply.
    Ha!
    What actually happened was a massive building program. After WW II, the University of California went from 3 campuses (Berkeley, UCLA, and UC San Diego, plus an agricultural college at Davis) to 8 in 1965 (adding Santa Barbara, Riverside, Irvine and Santa Cruz; plus Davis had become a general purpose campus as well). Ir has since added an 9th in Merced. (Note, there is also a medical schools in San Francisco, but it doesn’t do undergraduate education.)
    Meanwhile the California State College system expanded enormously as well.
    Essentially, supply was deliberately expanded to meet increased demand. See also
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Master_Plan_for_Higher_Education

  230. Perhaps the universities had a enough empty seats that the increased demand didn’t put much pressure on supply.
    Ha!
    What actually happened was a massive building program. After WW II, the University of California went from 3 campuses (Berkeley, UCLA, and UC San Diego, plus an agricultural college at Davis) to 8 in 1965 (adding Santa Barbara, Riverside, Irvine and Santa Cruz; plus Davis had become a general purpose campus as well). Ir has since added an 9th in Merced. (Note, there is also a medical schools in San Francisco, but it doesn’t do undergraduate education.)
    Meanwhile the California State College system expanded enormously as well.
    Essentially, supply was deliberately expanded to meet increased demand. See also
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Master_Plan_for_Higher_Education

  231. Essentially, supply was deliberately expanded to meet increased demand.
    Thus keeping tuition fees from rising. Empty seats increased as fast or faster than demand.

  232. Essentially, supply was deliberately expanded to meet increased demand.
    Thus keeping tuition fees from rising. Empty seats increased as fast or faster than demand.

  233. That Atlantic article bobbyp linked to has some interesting distinctions and points that I think bear focusing upon.
    It does a good job of distinguishing between public and private non-profit universities and for-profit universities, which is one of the things I noticed in the article that CharlesWT quoted. Of course the for-profit schools are juicing their profits by saddling their students with debt – that’s their MO. And private schools tend to either brand themselves as elite schools or as smaller Liberal Arts colleges. Where the former are concerned, the two things that signal an elite school are cost and test scores, so their brand is dependent on keeping their cost as high as can be sustained.
    Public research universities, meanwhile, are making up for the loss of state revenues by admitting more out-of-state and international students (as the article mentions). But admitting internationals also means building up a larger staff of administrators and of L2 instructors to help mainstream the international students, and the additional time required to mainstream has a knock-on effect for teaching the required courses. All that work – especially on the humanities side, is very labor intensive. To manage that, they have to hire a lot of adjunct labor to keep costs down (hello). And if they do this in the required entry-level classes at sufficient scale, they can also shrink their student/teacher ratio and move up in the rankings.
    But the public R1s are not increasing tuition in response to available student loans. There’s a bit of a disconnect there between the other two and the public schools. The driver at the public schools is a combination of lost state revenues and of non-instructional administrative bloat.

  234. That Atlantic article bobbyp linked to has some interesting distinctions and points that I think bear focusing upon.
    It does a good job of distinguishing between public and private non-profit universities and for-profit universities, which is one of the things I noticed in the article that CharlesWT quoted. Of course the for-profit schools are juicing their profits by saddling their students with debt – that’s their MO. And private schools tend to either brand themselves as elite schools or as smaller Liberal Arts colleges. Where the former are concerned, the two things that signal an elite school are cost and test scores, so their brand is dependent on keeping their cost as high as can be sustained.
    Public research universities, meanwhile, are making up for the loss of state revenues by admitting more out-of-state and international students (as the article mentions). But admitting internationals also means building up a larger staff of administrators and of L2 instructors to help mainstream the international students, and the additional time required to mainstream has a knock-on effect for teaching the required courses. All that work – especially on the humanities side, is very labor intensive. To manage that, they have to hire a lot of adjunct labor to keep costs down (hello). And if they do this in the required entry-level classes at sufficient scale, they can also shrink their student/teacher ratio and move up in the rankings.
    But the public R1s are not increasing tuition in response to available student loans. There’s a bit of a disconnect there between the other two and the public schools. The driver at the public schools is a combination of lost state revenues and of non-instructional administrative bloat.

  235. Thus keeping tuition fees from rising. Empty seats increased as fast or faster than demand.
    Exactly. Fees went up later, not due to increased demand but to reduced state support.

  236. Thus keeping tuition fees from rising. Empty seats increased as fast or faster than demand.
    Exactly. Fees went up later, not due to increased demand but to reduced state support.

  237. Public research universities, meanwhile, are making up for the loss of state revenues by admitting more out-of-state and international students (as the article mentions). But admitting internationals also means building up a larger staff of administrators and of L2 instructors to help mainstream the international students, and the additional time required to mainstream has a knock-on effect for teaching the required courses. All that work – especially on the humanities side, is very labor intensive.
    It makes me nervous when an explanation of cost is blamed on immigrants or international students, etc., because unless we saw a specific study, we’re not sure whether the international students are paying for the extra labor they require, or whether colleges are scrimping on other things in order to accommodate them, or whether international students’ tuition is actually saving the system by subsidizing the rest of the works.
    In other words, I’m not sure whether you’ve worked out all of this in what you’re saying here.

  238. Public research universities, meanwhile, are making up for the loss of state revenues by admitting more out-of-state and international students (as the article mentions). But admitting internationals also means building up a larger staff of administrators and of L2 instructors to help mainstream the international students, and the additional time required to mainstream has a knock-on effect for teaching the required courses. All that work – especially on the humanities side, is very labor intensive.
    It makes me nervous when an explanation of cost is blamed on immigrants or international students, etc., because unless we saw a specific study, we’re not sure whether the international students are paying for the extra labor they require, or whether colleges are scrimping on other things in order to accommodate them, or whether international students’ tuition is actually saving the system by subsidizing the rest of the works.
    In other words, I’m not sure whether you’ve worked out all of this in what you’re saying here.

  239. By the way, further to my 9:48, I think it’s hard to work this out. It’s work for a devoted and educated economist, and I’m not that. We need them. We need people who have learned the things that universities teach, and I’m afraid of the current environment that is trying to minimize the value of this knowledge, and these skills.

  240. By the way, further to my 9:48, I think it’s hard to work this out. It’s work for a devoted and educated economist, and I’m not that. We need them. We need people who have learned the things that universities teach, and I’m afraid of the current environment that is trying to minimize the value of this knowledge, and these skills.

  241. Sapient – at my university the international students subsidize the low-income first-generation students from the state. Both these populations have increased together and the campus has grown to accommodate them.
    But that growth in admissions has other effects that will need to be dealt with later down the road because the increases also mean capital projects and non-instructional administrative growth. I don’t know if this is sustainable.
    Also, given the current state of our international relations in the US, I’m not confident that universities will be able to count on an uninterrupted stream of international students and if there is an interruption (or interference) I think that the capital and administrative costs will remain and the axe will fall on the instructional staff and faculty.
    None of which even begins to get into the ethics of how to treat our international students and the legacies of global capitalism and colonialism that shape this current dynamic.

  242. Sapient – at my university the international students subsidize the low-income first-generation students from the state. Both these populations have increased together and the campus has grown to accommodate them.
    But that growth in admissions has other effects that will need to be dealt with later down the road because the increases also mean capital projects and non-instructional administrative growth. I don’t know if this is sustainable.
    Also, given the current state of our international relations in the US, I’m not confident that universities will be able to count on an uninterrupted stream of international students and if there is an interruption (or interference) I think that the capital and administrative costs will remain and the axe will fall on the instructional staff and faculty.
    None of which even begins to get into the ethics of how to treat our international students and the legacies of global capitalism and colonialism that shape this current dynamic.

  243. I don’t know if this is sustainable.
    I don’t either, and I am leaving this discussion with more questions than answers. I do know a lot of students, and graduate students. I’ve also known many international students. I wouldn’t want to deprive any of them of their educational experience, or the experience of being exposed to each other. I feel that we should continue to try to make higher education sustainable (and more accessible). It’s vital to what we should be as a society. (And, yes, our current political situation is working against this.)

  244. I don’t know if this is sustainable.
    I don’t either, and I am leaving this discussion with more questions than answers. I do know a lot of students, and graduate students. I’ve also known many international students. I wouldn’t want to deprive any of them of their educational experience, or the experience of being exposed to each other. I feel that we should continue to try to make higher education sustainable (and more accessible). It’s vital to what we should be as a society. (And, yes, our current political situation is working against this.)

  245. at my university the international students subsidize the low-income first-generation students from the state.
    Also very much the case in the UK that overseas students effectively subsidise everyone else.

  246. at my university the international students subsidize the low-income first-generation students from the state.
    Also very much the case in the UK that overseas students effectively subsidise everyone else.

  247. An excerpt from bobbyp’s Atlantic link:

    Associate’s degrees from for-profit universities lead to smaller salary bumps than associate’s degrees from community colleges, which are cheaper. And two-thirds of students at for-profits drop out before earning their degree anyway, meaning many will spend years struggling with debt they cannot afford to pay off—and cannot, under U.S. law, off-load through bankruptcy.

    The wonders of the profit motive!

  248. An excerpt from bobbyp’s Atlantic link:

    Associate’s degrees from for-profit universities lead to smaller salary bumps than associate’s degrees from community colleges, which are cheaper. And two-thirds of students at for-profits drop out before earning their degree anyway, meaning many will spend years struggling with debt they cannot afford to pay off—and cannot, under U.S. law, off-load through bankruptcy.

    The wonders of the profit motive!

  249. Just one more government service that the capitalists have decided to disrupt and exploit for massive profits.
    I would blame the current administration, which is after all completely invested in this sector, but the truth is that the last two were almost as poor on this front.
    “Education reform” has been a massive grift for two decades at the very least.

  250. Just one more government service that the capitalists have decided to disrupt and exploit for massive profits.
    I would blame the current administration, which is after all completely invested in this sector, but the truth is that the last two were almost as poor on this front.
    “Education reform” has been a massive grift for two decades at the very least.

  251. Just one more government service that the capitalists have decided to disrupt and exploit for massive profits.
    The concentration camps that Trump is building are a huge gift to the private prison sector. If we can get a foothold on Tuesday, it has to be a priority to stop this, or it will never go away. If we don’t make headway on Tuesday, we still need to do something, but I am not able to organize what that something is.

  252. Just one more government service that the capitalists have decided to disrupt and exploit for massive profits.
    The concentration camps that Trump is building are a huge gift to the private prison sector. If we can get a foothold on Tuesday, it has to be a priority to stop this, or it will never go away. If we don’t make headway on Tuesday, we still need to do something, but I am not able to organize what that something is.

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