All entries by this author

Tulsa

May 30th, 2021 11:45 am | By

The Tulsa massacre almost got buried. One future historian got curious.

The white schoolboy Scott Ellsworth of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was left to wonder what the city’s darkest secret could be.

“As a 10- and 11-year-old, I would occasionally hear older adults, neighbours, talking about what we then called ‘the riot’ and they would always lower their voices or change the subject,” recalls Ellsworth, now 67. “I started to catch wind of these stories about bodies floating down the Arkansas River, machine guns on the roofs of town, but you couldn’t really find out anything about it.”

All that changed one day in 1966 when the local library installed a microfilm reader and Ellsworth and friends fed in daily newspapers

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For any insensitivity

May 30th, 2021 10:57 am | By

International embarrassment.

A hat shop in Nashville, Tennessee, has drawn condemnation and protests after it advertised an anti-vaccine yellow star like those forced on Jews by Nazi Germany.

The shop, Hatwrks, said in a now-deleted Instagram post that it was selling the patches for $5 (£3.50).

The shop was criticised online and targeted by protesters, who held a sign saying “no Nazis in Nashville”.

A local rabbi said the star was an insult to Jews killed under the Nazis.

Being urged to get a vaccination against a lethal pandemic is not very comparable to being murdered by a fascist antisemitic state.

In a later Instagram post, the shop apologised “for any insensitivity”. It said it did not “intend to

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Especially proud

May 30th, 2021 9:46 am | By

Inspirational?

Many women ask what’s inspirational about him.

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Strong adhesive back

May 29th, 2021 11:54 am | By

About those anti-vax yellow stars…

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Thousands for guidance

May 29th, 2021 11:22 am | By

More passengers are disembarking.

A string of high-profile public sector employers are cutting ties with the LGBT charity Stonewall amid mounting disquiet over its diversity training on transgender rights.

Campaigners have warned of a “flood” of departures from the Stonewall Diversity Champions scheme, after the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the equalities watchdog, did not renew its membership over “value for money” concerns.

The Telegraph says it knows of at least five more leavers.

The scheme counts 250 Government departments and public bodies among its members. They pay thousands for guidance on gender neutral spaces, pronouns and trans inclusion and are ranked on the charity’s Workplace Equality Index.

Imagine paying thousands for “guidance on pronouns” – i.e. on using … Read the rest



Talking about protected groups

May 29th, 2021 9:49 am | By

Stonewall boss is fine with comparing gender-skeptical women to antisemites.

The new EHRC chair, Lady Falkner, has said women have the right to question transgender identity without being abused, stigmatised or risking losing their job.

Or threatened. All those “kill a terf” shirts and signs and posters – those are threats.

Ms Kelley said while Stonewall believed in freedom of speech, it was “not without limit”.

“With all beliefs including controversial beliefs there is a right to express those beliefs publicly and where they’re harmful or damaging – whether it’s anti-Semitic beliefs, gender critical beliefs, beliefs about disability – we have legal systems that are put in place for people who are harmed by that.”

That’s nice.

Challenged as to

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New record

May 29th, 2021 9:06 am | By

Sport builds character.

On 17 May, 2021, it was announced that Valentina Petrillo is set to create a world record as the first, and so far only, male to participate in a female sports competition with male documents.

The software programmer and divorced father, who identifies as a woman and has not undergone cosmetic ‘gender’ surgery, is among the athletes chosen to compete in the European Paralympic Athletics Championship in Poland from June 1 to June 5. Seven athletes, including Petrillo, will compete on the Italian Team for Bydgoszcz 2021 in the women’s category, and 16 in the men’s.

The 47-year-old’s goal is to qualify for the Tokyo 2021 Paralympics.

Petrillo, who has a degenerative eye condition, skyrocketed to

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Literally a yarmulke

May 28th, 2021 4:36 pm | By

Seen on Twitter:

For people in urban, liberal cities, the mask and associated rituals are articles of faith. It is literally a yarmulke or a prayer shawl. Not hard to understand if we see it as motivated by signaling “I’m part of the good tribe.”

No it isn’t. If the mask were literally a yarmulke or a prayer shawl then it would be literally a yarmulke or a prayer shawl. It isn’t, it’s a mask. You can tell it’s a mask because of the loops for the ears, and the size and shape. It doesn’t look like a yarmulke or a prayer shawl.

But more to the point, there’s no need to attach some weird political idenniny to it. I … Read the rest



The bizarre arrogance

May 28th, 2021 4:09 pm | By

Oh so this is who Christian Jessen is.

https://twitter.com/TwisterFilm/status/1398414921969418240 https://twitter.com/TwisterFilm/status/1398414927421968389

Maybe he never had any critical thinking to begin with.… Read the rest



A lethal “school”

May 28th, 2021 3:22 pm | By

Via Your Name’s not Bruce? at Miscellany 6 – The Toronto Star reports:

KAMLOOPS, B.C. – The remains of 215 children have been found buried on the site of a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C.

Chief Rosanne Casimir of the Tk’emlups te Secwépemc First Nation said in a news release Thursday that the remains were confirmed last weekend with the help of a ground-penetrating radar specialist.

Casimir called the discovery an “unthinkable loss that was spoken about but never documented at the Kamloops Indian Residential School.”

She said it’s believed the deaths are undocumented, although a local museum archivist is working with the Royal British Columbia Museum to see if any records of the deaths can be found.

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Room for Gaetz and Greene

May 28th, 2021 12:23 pm | By

The existential threat:

On Friday Republicans in the Senate torpedoed an effort to create a bipartisan commission to investigate the deadly insurrection by Donald Trump’s supporters at the US Capitol on 6 January, deploying the procedural move known as the filibuster to stop it even being debated.

The filibuster is bad and stupid and needs to go away.

Tellingly Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, who previously condemned Trump’s role in the riot, reportedly asked senators to nix the commission as a “personal favour”. It was a sign that the rot now goes deeper than a cult of personality into the foundations of the Grand Old Party (GOP).

A personal favor ffs. This isn’t his living room we’re talking … Read the rest



To discuss everything

May 28th, 2021 10:56 am | By

It’s called “Woman’s Hour” for a reason.

Ah yes the old space to discuss everything approach. We used to understand that woman’s meant woman’s, and that for women meant for women. Now instead we “understand” that woman’s means everyone’s, and for women means for everyone.

https://twitter.com/helensaxby11/status/1398279153149960196 Read the rest


Big hugs

May 28th, 2021 10:02 am | By

Once in every billion tweets or so, a man will go so much too far that it bites him in the ass.

Northern Ireland First Minister Arlene Foster has been awarded £125,000 in damages after a defamatory tweet by TV presenter Dr Christian Jessen. Dr Jessen tweeted an unfounded claim that the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader had been having an extra-marital affair on 23 December 2019. The post remained online until Dr Jessen deleted it on 7 January 2020.

A judge at the High Court in Belfast said it was an “outrageous libel” which was “grossly defamatory”.

He ordered Dr Jessen, who is best known for presenting Channel Four programme Embarrassing Bodies, to pay damages of £125,000

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It’s everywhere

May 27th, 2021 5:12 pm | By

Like corporate greenwashing only trans-color.

Oh look, a box of 98% sugar “cereal” that’s pushed on kids via cute animals and endless tv ads – but this one is different, because it’s about…um…telling kids to be trans inclusive.

They even put out a press release.

BATTLE CREEK, Mich., May 20, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Limited-edition Together With Pride cereal hits shelves across the country today, marking the latest collaboration between Kellogg Company and GLAAD. LGBTQ+ icons and friends of GLAAD will start their day with the new cereal to celebrate that no matter who you are or who

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Always asking questions

May 27th, 2021 4:18 pm | By

Lovely words maybe, but she certainly doesn’t live up to them.

She’s not always asking questions about the world around her, and she’s very hostile to women who asks questions about the world around us that she finds politically unacceptable, aka terfy.… Read the rest



Forced ritual

May 27th, 2021 12:59 pm | By

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave – very very much free, top free, most free of any anywhere.

With just a week to go before the legislative session ends in Texas, a host of bills are making their way to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk.

One of the pieces of legislation still under consideration would require sports teams to play the national anthem at games.

So there! You have to stand up for this anthem if you go to a sports game, and the teams have to play this one song if they do a sports game. Have to, I tell you, it’s mandatory and required and a legal obligation. That’s FREEDOM. You there, … Read the rest



That way she would remember

May 27th, 2021 12:05 pm | By

Not just Ireland.

When Ann Keen gave birth, the midwives refused to give her anything for the pain. That way, they told her, she would remember it and learn not to be so wicked again. To be treated like an animal in labour, denied the most basic compassion and respect, was simply part of the punishment she had supposedly earned for getting pregnant out of wedlock aged 17. The hospital discharged her without any follow-up care, as if the birth had never happened. But the most grievous part of the story is that she also went home without her baby.

For Keen is one of a still unknown number of unmarried British women coerced into handing over their

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Guest post: A few basic principles

May 27th, 2021 10:13 am | By

Originally a comment by Nullius in Verba on Not merely the product of individual bias in reply to my request for more background.

People like DiAngelo and Kendi are not aberrations or perversions of CRT. They’re extensions of a framework that traces right back to Derrick Bell at CRT’s beginning. I’ll try to sketch some of the essentials. Theorists really do only have a few basic principles and rhetorical moves. Once you familiarize yourself with them, it’s like a perversely easy game.

I suppose the first thing to note would be that CRT’s philosophical lineage is critical theory. I mean, it’s in the name, but it’s very easy to read it as the critical in “critical thinking” rather than in … Read the rest



A pair of unsparing judges

May 27th, 2021 9:45 am | By

Cashing in.

Were White Fragility to be adapted as reality TV, the result might look something like this: A collection of affluent white women, equipped with varying degrees of vanity and self-delusion, gather at a well-appointed dinner table. There, they face down a pair of unsparing judges prepared to see right through them. Who’s racist? Time to find out. White wine flows; white women admit shameful secrets. They get squirmy; they get angry; they turn on each other. If one of them starts to cry, she has to leave. She will find tissues in the designated crying room.

The Real Housewives of White Fragility?

The Bravo version of Robin DiAngelo, in other words, might look a bit like Race2Dinner

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Office life

May 27th, 2021 8:44 am | By

It’s ok because women are Karens.

A former City bank worker took upskirt images of his female colleagues and covertly filmed them as they walked around the office, a court heard today.

Charles Sleilati, 53, made more than 300 videos of women he worked with at the leading bank, and also amassed around 1,000 images of random women in restaurants and on public transport.

Westminster magistrates court heard Sleilati was reported by whistleblowers within his Bishopsgate office, after concerns about his behaviour.

“The defendant was seen by other members of staff in an open-plan office taking pictures, filming up women’s skirts, and down their tops”, said prosecutor Komal Varsani.

He probably identifies as a porn producer. You have to … Read the rest