Reframing America

For John, BLUF:  Critical Race Theory appears to be an Anglo-American construct that sees the world centered on an all powerful Euro-American "race", while ignoring the racist (nationalism) in the rest of the world.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Asian Americans Emerging as a Strong Voice Against Critical Race Theory

From Newsweek, by Writer Helen Raleigh, 9 March 2021, 6:00 AM EST.

Here is the lede plus three:

Critical race theory (CRT) is a divisive, discriminatory ideology that judges people on the basis of their skin color.  It has penetrated our society—it's in federal agencies' and federal contractors' "bias training," in school curricula and many corporations' "diversity training."  Few are willing to speak out against it for fear of being labeled racists or white supremacists.  Asian Americans, however, have emerged as a powerful voice against this pernicious ideology.

The Chinese American Citizens Alliance of Greater New York (CACAGNY) delivered the most vigorous rejection of CRT yet, calling it "a hateful, divisive, manipulative fraud."  CACAGNY is one of the oldest chapters of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance, which was founded in San Francisco in 1895 to respond to nationwide discrimination and violence against Chinese Americans.  For more than a century, this organization has helped Asian Americans, especially Chinese Americans, to "quicken the spirit of American patriotism" and to "insure the legal rights of its members."  CACAGNY speaks out against CRT now because Asian Americans have experienced its harm firsthand.

According to CRT's victimization ledger, all whites are oppressors, and all "people of color" are oppressed.  CRT argues that unequal economic outcomes among different races in our society result from white power and white privilege.  Asian Americans punch a big hole in that worldview.  As a group, their economic achievement has surpassed that of all other racial groups, including whites.  Last year's Department of Labor statistics even showed that the median weekly earnings of Asian women surpassed white men's earnings.

Values drive Asian Americans' economic success.  Many believe in education attainment, stable marriages, delayed gratification, hard work and meritocracy.  CRT attacks all these as "white" values, and the people who practice them as acting "white."

I was surprised to see this article in Newsweek, which I normally think of as part of the major media orbit.

I believe the approach of Critical Race Theory will influence Federal, State and Local Governments, until Hispanics decide that it is not working for them, at which time the tide will turn against this view of America and swing back to the themes of hard work and "land of opportunity".

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Wokeness in North Korea

For John, BLUF:  North Korea gives us an example of how ugly it can get when certain thoughts are proscribed.  .  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Four publicly executed in Pyongyang on charges of distributing “illegal video materials”

From the Daily NK, by Reporter Ha Yoon Ah, 12 March 2021, 1:03 PM.

Here is the lede plus two:

Four North Koreans were publicly executed in Pyongyang recently on charges of distributing “illegal video materials,” Daily NK has learned.

A source in the country told Daily NK yesterday that the execution took place on Mar. 2 at the Daewon-ri Firing Range in Pyongyang’s Sadong District.  The four people, including three men and one woman, were executed by firing squad in front of local city residents and the heads of all Pyongyang’s inminban (neighborhood watch-like organizations).

All those executed were residents of Hadang-dong, an area of Pyongyang’s Hyongjae District.  Led by a man in his early 50s along with his wife, who was in her late 40s, the group was accused of placing South Korean movies, entertainment and music programs on SD cards and distributing them throughout the country.

This seems rather harsh.

The source of this action is covered toward the end of the article:

Article 27 of the anti-reactionary thought law says that anyone caught importing or distributing South Korean movies, music or published works face a lifetime of forced labor or execution, according to materials obtained by Daily NK.

Now there is serious "woke" enforcement.  There is, apparently, no forgiveness, no bringing a repentent person back into the Community.  In North Korea wrong thoughts, wrong actions, wrong words can get you in trouble, a lot more trouble than here, so far.

Those doing wrong not only sufferred execution, but also consequences for their immediate families:

The teenage children of the couple have been sent to South Pyongan Province’s Bukchang 18 concentration camp, which is run by the Ministry of Social Security.  The immediate family members of the other executed people who had been living in Pyongyang have all been exiled to other parts of the country.

Will those family members ever recover?  Not likely under the rein of President Kim Jong-un.  Under North Korea's Songbun system the sins of the parent, and of the grandparent, will be visited on the individual.  Digging out from under the Songbun system is not easy.

But, are we not developing a like system here, with our Woke approach to things?  We aren't executing anyone, but we are removing them from their place in society and casting them aside.

Regards  —  Cliff

The Hard Way

For John, BLUF:  It is obvious that, from our ranking on the MCAS scores, that we need to do more for our students.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Equity in Education

My thoughts on equity and public schools.

When I first heard the used of the term "equity" with regards to schools, vice "equality", I was skeptical.  I was like my follow City Life Show host, George Anthes.

Then I saw the graphic, with three boys of different heights, trying to watch a baseball game over an outfield fence, and then the companion sketch, with the boys standing on different sized boxes, depend on their individual heights.  It made perfect sense.

Then I wondered about visual acuity.  One boy could have 20/40 vision, a second 20/20, and the third a Ted Williams like ability to read the stitches on the baseball.  And eye-hand coordination.  One might be able to easily grab a pop foul, one might or might not grab it and one might be beaned by it.  Think about reading.  One of those boys may read a 1,000 words a minute and one at 400 and one might struggle over each sentence.

Talents differ.  We can compensate for physical differences, but perhaps not for all natural or nurtured talents.

Which got me to thinking about Schools.  I just finished a book (Tangled up In Blue), by Georgetown Law Professor Rosa Brooks.  In the book the author told about her high school years, when she suffered from some degree of depression.  Approaching high school graduation she had been accepted at Harvard, but her High School Principal was not going to graduate her, for having missed about half her school days.  Fortunately, her Step-Father, a union shop steward, went to the Principal and explained she had gotten out of high school what was to be gained and should be allowed to go to Harvard.

In like manner, my Buddy Jim Peters says that he used to ditch classes and go into the loft of the High School Auditorium and read books.  Yet, he graduated and went on to college, from which he graduated.

In my own case I never cut a class, not even for "Senior Ditch Day" and still managed to graduate in the bottom half of my class.  On the other hand, in geometry, where we did problems in class, I used to rip through them so I could get a magazine in the black of the classroom to read.  I earned an "A" in that class.

My conclusion is that the performance of the student may not necessarily be correlated with teacher contact time.  My expectation is that if we did a thorough evaluation of our COVID Zoom classes that some small percentage of students thrived overall and some thrived in certain classes, while many struggled.  And, perhaps it isn't exactly correlated with in-classroom performance.

What this suggests is that we may be mis-allocating teaching assets.  Not allocating resources equitably.  To cartoon it, some students may learn best with minimal instruction, perhaps less that an hour a day or two, while others might do better if those surplus instructional assets were focused on them.

This need based approach, would require a flexibility in assignments and also a high quality testing regimen.  It would also require Parent and Student buy-in.  Further, it would require a certain degree of Student social maturity.

Such an approach would enhance educational equity.  It would also improve the performance of our students on standardized testing.

It would, however, be the hard way, except for the students.

Regards  —  Cliff

President Biden's First Prime Time Speech

For John, BLUF:  I watched the speech, live.  The President did better than I expected.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Biden sets vaccine goal that would allow Americans to gather by July 4

From The Boston Globe, by Associated Press Reporter Zeke Miller, 11 March 2021, 10:14 PM.

Here is the lede plus three:

One year after the nation was brought to a near-standstill by the coronavirus, President Joe Biden pledged in his first prime-time address Thursday night to make all adults eligible for vaccines by May 1 and raised the possibility of beginning to “mark our independence from this virus” by the Fourth of July. He offered Americans fresh hope and appealed anew for their help.

Speaking in the White House East Room, Biden honored the “collective suffering” of Americans over the past year in his 24-minute address and then offered them a vision for a return to a modicum of normalcy this summer.

“We are bound together by the loss and the pain of the days that have gone by,” he said. “We are also bound together by the hope and the possibilities in the days in front of us.”

He predicted Americans could safely gather at least in small groups for July Fourth to “make this Independence Day truly special.”

I went first to The Drudge Report for a link, but found that the New Matt Drudge had already moved on.  Then I remembered that at 6 o'clock this morning The Boston Globe was still headlining the speech.

As speeches go, this one was pretty good.  It covered all the bases and offered both admonitions and hope.  By and large it set the proper tone.

The one place it fell short, in my opinion, was that it didn't give even an inch of credit to President Biden's predecessory, President Trump.  I believe that if President Biden had acknowledged, just for a moment, that President Trump and his Operation Warp Speed had paved the way for the innoculations of 2021 it would have been part of the political healing the President has talked about.  It would have said "we are all of us fighting this, together."  It was a missed opportunity.  Does the Democratic side detest President Trump and those who voted for him so much that they could not grant him the crumbs of acknowledgement?

But, aside from that a good speech.

And here are some Fact Checking comments, from:

• The New York Times, and,
• CNN.

This is me, a Trump Voter, reaching out to President Biden.  Will he be reaching back?

Regards  —  Cliff

What Sin Have We Committed, Only to be Revealed in Death?

For John, BLUF:  Actually, they may be hidden at death, only to be exposed after the dirt covers our coffin.  If we so denigrate the dead, who will we model ourselves after?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Corpses to the people said, “You’ll be racists when you’re dead.”

Here is the sub-headline:

Death in America is acquiring new terrors.

From Samizdata, by Blogger Niall Kilmartin (Stirling), 7 March 2021.

Here is the lede plus four:

It was already understandable if a dying Republican feared rising from their grave to vote Democrat, like a vampire harming what their life valued.  (A democrat who voted “early and often” could anticipate this too, of course, but without dreading it – their undeath would echo their life.)

But now, even the politically correct must wonder what very different character they will acquire after death.

– In the 1940s, Dr Seuss author Theodor Geisel urged writers to avoid racist stereotypes, but the dead Geisel has been resurrected onto the public stage in the 2020s as a racist.  His book ‘If I Ran the Zoo’ shows two visiting Africans in native African garb!  What racism!!!  (?) Everyone knows it is terribly racist not to portray Africans in culturally-appropriated western garb because African dress is so inferior to western, er, um, what I mean is because it’s so hurtful to remind Africans of their pre-colonial, er, well, er, that is, um, maybe I should avoid trying to explain the subtle critical race theory involved lest I travesty it – or, worse offense still, summarise it more clearly than the original.

– Sidney Poitier spent many of his 94 years defending his race – and had better cling to life because he is scheduled for resurrection as (too) white.  He looked pretty black to me in ‘Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner’ but Critical Race Theory makes it hard to be black enough.

– Adam Smith wrote that slavery was ‘cruel’, slaveowners ‘contemptible’ and blacks in the Americas not innately inferior to their white owners – and taught the economic superiority of free enterprise over slavery.  But his grave is the resting place of an appalling racist who despicably recorded that slavery in his day was almost universal, being absent only in the British Isles and parts of western and central Europe.

If you think this is ridiculus, remember that the new Government, of King Charles II, had the deceased Lord High Protector, Oliver Cromwell (died 1658) dug up from his grave in 1661, and the dead body drawn and quartered.  That was the year Tyngsborough was founded and King Charles II explicitly forbade Massachussets from executing Quakers (eg, the Boston Martyrs) and curtailed the independence of the Massachusetts Bay Coloney.  Compared to China, relatively recent history.

I oppose naming buildings after the living, because time has not tested them and allowed their secrets to be revealed.

However, the recent effort to excoriate the dead is applying today's sensitivities to yesterday's problems and understandings.  It is also failing to give credit to those who went before us, who did their best.  We should honor them, while learning from their mistakes.

What is it we don't know, which might lead to our own future condemnation?

Regards  —  Cliff

Possible Trouble to the South

For John, BLUF:  When I was a Student at Bancroft Junior High School, back in the day, Actor, Editor and Environmentalist Leo Carrillo came to give the keynote speech at our Pan American Day Celebration, in Pan-American Park.  Mr Carrillo said that the United States should stop pouring money down the sewers of Europe and Asia and focus on our Hemisphere.  Obviously, we did not follow that advice.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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As a Latin American populist shores up support, some see challenge for Biden

From The Christian Science Monitor, by Special Correspondent Whitney Eulich, 9 March 2019.

Here is the lede plus three:

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele won a decisive victory in last week’s elections – though his name wasn’t even on the ballot.

Strong support for his New Ideas party in the Feb. 28 midterms gives a seal of approval to his presidency.  It allows the party to confirm Mr. Bukele’s nominees to key positions in the independent attorney general’s office and the Supreme Court.  The party could also push for controversial moves like the removal of presidential term limits.  By potentially gaining a supermajority via an alliance with a smaller party, New Ideas’ consolidation has raised concerns around the erosion of checks on presidential power, which has important implications for the United States, as well.

Under former President Donald Trump, the U.S. used development aid as an incentive for Central American governments to crack down on migration at all costs.  In Mr. Bukele, the U.S. found a receptive partner.  Now, the Biden administration is pivoting, saying it wants to help Central American governments strengthen democracy and fight corruption so as to tackle the root causes of migration.

Mr. Bukele’s newly solidified power is not the first roadblock in the Biden administration’s efforts to pursue a values-based foreign policy:  Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, and others have presented early tests.  Arguably, President Joe Biden already had his work cut out for him in Central America, where some presidents hold onto power in highly contested, irregular votes, or barely go through the motions of fighting corruption.

We keep focusing on Europe and Asia, when important things are happening in our own back garden.  Sadly, I don't see this changing under the current Administration.

Further, there appears to be a massive backlog of refugees building in Columbia, working their way North.  War Correspondent Michael Yon talks about it here.  Mr Yon taught me something new.  I had not realized the Pan-American Highway did not go straight through from top to bottom.  There is the Darién Gap, about a 66 mile break consisting of jungle, passable by all terrain vehicles only.

Prople are coming through the Darién Gap, with the intention of coming to the United States.  Not just Venezualans escaping the Bolivarian Revolution (read Communist), but people from Asia and Africa, also escaping political or economic repression.

I am not sure we have a handle on this.

Regards  —  Cliff

Messy Finish

For John, BLUF:  Tonight was the second meeting of the Election Commission on the [anonymous] accusation that Mr Dominik Lay does not live in Lowell  I blogged about the first meeting here.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Hearing to Determine Residence
of
Mr Dominik Hok Y Lay

From Lowell Comcast Channel 99, at 1700. A Zoom call

The situation is that Mr Robert Hoey resigned from the Lowell School Committee over a racist remark uttered while on the City Life Show.  It was an anti-Semitic slur.

The meeting was quick, with some quibbling between the lawyers over the late provision of information.  The Election Commission voted to allow the late admission of material.

Then the Commissioners had a chance to ask questions.  Only Commissioner James Pope asked questions and they centered on how many days a week Mr Lay was in his home each week.  The line of questioning was rejected by Mr Lay's Attorney, Mr Milliard.

Then we got to the Motion.  Mr Pope moved that Mr Lay was not a Lowell Resident.  Ms Bev Anthes abstained, but was bullied into seconding the Motion.  The vote was one for the motion and one abstention, with the Chairwoman not voting, as she was the chair and it was deemed not a tie.

Mr Lay is out, unless there is an appeal and he wins.

One wag has suggested to me that since there were questions raised after the 2017 election, and ignored, perhaps the person to fleet up should be Mr Dennis R Mercier from the 2017 election.  He is the one who would have fleeted up if Mr Lay had been ruled uneligible at the time.  Interesting thinking.

Regards  —  Cliff