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May 31, 2022 - Radio Renaissance - Jared Taylor
59:36
‘Property is Racist’
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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Radio Renaissance.
I'm Jared Taylor with American Renaissance, and with me is my indispensable, irreplaceable co-host, Paul Kersey, and it is the last day of May, May 31st, Year of Our Lord 2022.
for 2022.
And we have a comment from a listener.
He writes in and says, an Afghan diary interpreter
for the Winchester, Virginia public schools informed me that the newly arrived Afghan immigrants,
these are those essential people we had to bring out apparently,
they're learning Spanish rather than English.
They are lumped together with the hundreds of recently arrived Central Americans with whom they spend most of their days in public schools.
The Afghan families are outraged because their children come home each day having learned new words in Spanish.
Isn't that the strangest thing?
Welcome to America.
Yeah.
Also, says our listener, as the number of white students decreases, there's been a significant increase in truancy cases, referrals for fighting, stealing, vandalizing.
Difficult to blame whites for the sharp rise in behavioral problems, but they will certainly find a way.
You know, this reminds me of immigrants who would come from Asia and end up in someplace in Southern California, and they would learn Spanish rather than English, too, because that was the lingua franca.
The predominant language.
Yeah, and Winchester, it's a beautiful area.
Well, it was.
Well, now the Afghans are pouring in and learning Spanish!
God bless them.
Boy, that'll turn them into good little Americans.
Now a further comment.
Someone sent us a postcard.
A postcard?
A postcard, yes.
And the postcard has a stamp with a cat.
So you can guess what this might get.
Oh my goodness.
Sorry to hear of the advocate's passing.
I enjoyed hearing her well-informed interjections during your conversations with the indomitable Paul Kersey.
Now this is just one of many messages of consolation that I've received.
You know, I'm not sure I'd get as many if you had to be put down, Mr. Kersey.
All these notes of sympathy.
It's all very, I don't know, touching and moving.
You opened up a different side of your personality.
I think a lot of people like to see the fact that you're not this... As you say, I guess I needed humanizing.
I was thought to be not the right thing.
So, now this is a little bit off topic for us, but I was listening to a French podcast.
There is a regular French podcast called C'est dans l'air that I sometimes listen to, and their comments about the United States are usually ridiculous, but they were talking about the usual Mass shootings and how how horrible American gun laws are and one of the guys on the program who claimed to be an American expert says that the gun lobbying groups are absolutely dominating the Congress and that's why they can't
Pass sensible laws and get rid of rifles and handguns and all this killing.
And he also said that, well, yes, there are some gun control groups that try to lobby Congress, but he said the spending of the gun people outstrips those of the anti-gun people 100 to 1.
So I actually looked it up.
Okay.
101 sounds a little strange to me, and apparently gun rights groups last year spent about $15 million in lobbying, compared to about $3 million in lobbying from gun control groups.
So that is about five times as much.
But in the first quarter of 22, the gun control groups were catching up because the gun rights groups spent about $2 million and the gun control groups spent over $600,000.
So, the differential went from five times to three and a quarter times as much.
So, who knows what the trends will be?
I also was very skeptical at the idea that somehow the gun industry has got Congress in its pocket.
So I looked up some of the different industries that are spending money to lobby Congress.
And boy, oh boy, the $15 million that the gun lobby spends in Congress is dwarfed!
Dwarfed!
The gun industry is not even in the top 20.
I found the numbers of the top 20 and I couldn't find the second 20 or the third 20.
My guess is that probably the gun industry is maybe in the top 100.
Maybe not.
Because, as I said, 15 million for the gun lobby.
Number one, No surprise.
Pharmaceuticals.
Especially the past couple years.
Yes, yes.
This was in 2020.
They were $306 million, as opposed to $15 million.
Then you've got electronic manufacturing equipment, insurance, real estate, oil and gas, hospitals, nursing homes, air transport, telecom services, electric utilities, securities and investments.
These are all over $100 million.
So by the time we get to the measly $15 million that the gun lobby is splashing out, I mean, that's just pocket change.
Then we go into health services, health professionals, education, internet, civil service, and public officials.
This surprised me.
Did you know that civil servants and public officials, they spend $77 million lobbying Congress.
That seems incestuous to me.
I thought the Hatch Act was supposed to keep them from dealing with legislation.
Then the automotive industry, commercial banks, TV, movies.
So, this is the number 20th on the list.
TV and movie industry spends $50 million.
But, the $15 million, as opposed to $50 million to the gun lobby, according to this frog, is supposed to actually make Congress jump to its tune, and that's why we permit Americans to slaughter each other in such horrible ways.
I have one question.
Well, I have two questions for you.
One question, then I have a comment.
What are the gun laws like in France, for those of us who are unfamiliar?
Practically nobody can own a handgun.
Okay.
Yes.
Now, they can own rifles and shotguns for hunting purposes, but you have to have a license, you have to go in and register.
They are pretty draconian about gun laws.
Interesting.
So the only people who have ARs or any kind of semi-automatic rifles are the jihadis, of course, because none of the good guys can shoot back.
You're talking about Badakhlon.
Butterclan and a few others.
It's happened before.
The Muzzies show up with their semi-automatic rifles and the police of course are armed.
And then my one comment would be that this article that you read, I don't think it took into account just the massive amount of work that Michael Bloomberg's group EverytownUSA has done to try and become I mean, it turns out that they spent $2.5 million in 2019, in the last round of the Virginia election, helping Democrats retake the legislature for the first time since 1994.
The NRA only spent $300,000 in that race.
So again, if you're looking at what some of these groups are impacting local elections, I mean, it is astonishing.
When you consider Michael Bloomberg 55 billion dollars, this guy can cut a check tomorrow for a billion dollars and not blink an eye to fund gun control causes.
Well, all I looked at was lobbying commerce in DC.
And yes, there are all kinds of other expenditures.
But my curiosity was piqued by this guy talking to a French audience, a very large French audience, saying stuff that turned out to be completely baloney.
But nothing new there.
We have people speaking to large audiences in the United States saying nothing but baloney.
In any case, let us move along.
I must confess that before Memorial Day weekend began, I had an informal online bet with someone as to whether the shootings would cross the 50 mark.
You're talking about which city?
Oh, did I?
I meant Chicago.
Okay, Chicago.
I failed to mention the city.
Well, I won the bet, but not by much.
Not by much.
Chicago experienced its most violent Memorial Day weekend in five years.
Nine killed, 42 wounded.
That's a total of 51 people.
Despite stepped up police patrols and a focus on neighborhood programs that city officials hope to provide peaceful alternatives.
This is the heartbreaking part.
The weekend was the most violent since 2017 when seven people were killed and 45 wounded.
That was a total of 52.
But the year before that, 69 people were shot over the long holiday weekend.
69 people.
This is just gruesome.
This past weekend's toll is sharply higher than last year when three people were killed and 34 wounded.
That was for a total of 37.
This year, 51.
The Chicago police canceled all days off over the weekend at a safety plan that included foot, bike, and roving patrols, traffic safety, DUI saturation checks, I guess you want people to to be sober, and carjacking task force missions, And gang and gun and organized retail theft investigation teams on the spot all weekend.
And still, I don't know how much that stops people from shooting each other, but apparently they did absolutely their best.
The city also had weekend programs in 15 high crime neighborhoods.
I bet there was a certain commonality to those neighborhoods, Mr. Kersey.
But they included music and game filled kickbacks with DJs.
And they were held later into the night to fill gaps pinpointed in conversations with young people in those neighborhoods.
Apparently they go into these places and they say, OK, brothers, what would keep you occupied and make you less likely to shoot your fellow brothers?
Midnight basketball.
Well, they said DJ, kickback parties.
OK.
No basketball.
No basketball, as far as I know.
But these things always seem dangerous to me.
You get all these guys together, kickbacking and DJing, and then they shoot each other.
Maybe, I don't know, maybe you had to go through a metal detector to be part of a kickback party.
But the weekend before that, the non-memorial weekend, the non-three-day weekend, ordinary two-day weekend, 32 people were shot.
So if we take that as a typical ordinary two-day weekend, the three-day weekend should be 1.5 times the shooting rate, but somehow It was a little bit more than that.
I don't know.
Maybe the fact of having three-day weekend really just makes people trigger happy.
But this is a very sad thing.
Now, given all the concentration with the Uvalde case, about which we have said very little so far because the world at large has talked itself blue in the face talking about that.
I don't think we really need to.
There was an incident in West Virginia that I thought was significant.
Very significant.
And went without a great deal of attention.
There had been a birthday party going on at the Vista View apartment complex on the northeast side of Charleston, West Virginia.
A certain Dennis Butler, age 37, was speeding up and down a parking lot inside the apartment complex.
And he was approached by people attending a graduation party and birthday party combined, who asked him to slow down.
We don't like squealing tires in our neighborhood.
Apparently he didn't know anyone at this party.
He got angry.
He left the scene and came back with an AR-15 style rifle and opened fire at a group of about 40 people.
Geez!
40 people!
Do we know?
Do we know?
Okay.
Yes.
Spoiler alert.
We know that the shooter is... He is an African-American.
He's black.
He's a black man.
He's African-American.
Have you seen anything about this party, by the way?
No.
I don't know anything about the party.
This is a mystery to me.
However, a woman who was there Pulled her own gun.
Well, apparently this guy, Mr. Butler, he opened fire, but he missed.
He didn't hit anybody.
This lady pulls her gun, shoots him, and kills him.
Bam!
Good shooting, lady.
No one at the party was injured.
Police described the woman as, quote, running toward the threat, saving lives.
That's courageous.
A little bit different than what we heard about what happened in Texas, but we'll leave it at that.
No, running towards the threat.
She's been hailed as a hero and will not face charges.
She's just a member of the community who was carrying her weapon lawfully, said police spokesman.
And after fatally shooting him, the woman waited around with several witnesses for police to arrive and all cooperated with the investigation.
There you go.
Now, Butler, the shooter, had been arrested several times in West Virginia, but charges kept being dropped.
They're investigating how he was able to get a rifle because, as a convicted felon, he's not legally allowed to carry a firearm.
Now, as I say, no word whatsoever on the race of the shooter or the people at the birthday party.
Do you have any information on that?
I've looked tirelessly.
I've tried to find two very important pieces of information.
One, how many casings they found that the black guy fired with his AR-15, because you said he hit absolutely nobody.
And then I believe that, I think I've read that it was a 9mm?
Handgun that the that the female chief chief fire and why I bring this up is, you know, this past weekend, President Biden actually said no one should own a nine millimeter.
Well, yes.
And then in Canada, we just saw Prime Minister Trudeau basically say, hey, we're going to ban the selling of handguns.
The point is, this lady was a hero.
That's it?
Right at the spot.
But the New York Times and the Washington Post did not see fit to write about this little episode.
Nope, nope, nope.
This just goes unremarked by our rulers.
You had a bet with someone regarding the number of shootings in Chicago.
I'll make a bet with you right now that the shooter, that the hero in this incident is a white female.
I suspect so.
I mean, Charleston, West Virginia is generally an awfully white place, but we'll have to see.
Well, we may never know.
We might never know.
We may never know.
Well, listeners out there, if you know, perhaps you yourself, Mr. or Mrs. Listener, live in Charleston, and we'd love to know the race of the lady who fired this heroic shot.
Or two, or three, we don't know.
In any case, we've really got to move along.
I understand, Mr. Kersey, that property is racist.
Property is obviously racist.
I should have known.
Remember, equity is what they want in your house.
It's not about equality.
It's about the equity that you have in your home.
A professor claims property is racist, excuses property destruction as reacting to racism.
This story came about because it's the two-year anniversary, May 25th of George Floyd dying of a fentanyl?
No, laying down his life for all his fellow black.
That's what he did. He was a hero.
Well, yes, please proceed.
Yes, yes, yeah, it's definitely an interesting way of looking at George Floyd.
Well, according to an assistant professor at Boston University, property is racist.
The Black Lives Matter riots following the death of George Floyd are ultimately excusable.
Seda Grundy, an associate professor at Boston University's Department of Sociology, And program in African-American Studies was one of the featured members of the BU community in a Twitter thread posted this past Wednesday.
And of course, that was the two-year anniversary of Floyd's death.
Are we to assume that this is an African-Americaness?
Yes.
Okay.
African-American.
Yes.
African-American female.
Yes.
If we're going to talk about George Floyd and really understand it, then we need to understand the community reactions to it, Grundy says in the video.
And we often hear politicians, we hear civic leaders from inside black communities and from outside of them as well, we hear President Biden say, you know, I understand your frustration, but don't destroy property.
Gundy continues in the video, quote, well, when you say that to black people who historically have been property, one of our greatest weapons was the looting of ourselves as property from the system of slavery.
And what we see in communities is they are reacting to the very racism, what we call property.
We know about how there was hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage in over a thousand locations during the time span of the Black Lives Matter riots.
That was according to a report by Fox News.
Grundy apparently considers the riots and property damage understandable.
She even excuses the actions, asking Americans not to judge or make assumptions about those involved in the destruction.
She said this, I think it's really important for people who see reactions in communities to not judge and make assumptions about what is good and not good reaction and not actually re-victimize communities by saying there's an acceptable and a not acceptable way to react.
So we're not to judge.
Everything they do is good just because they're black.
Now, this is not the first time she's made some interesting comments, Mr. Taylor.
She faced online backlash for comments she made about white people, according to a Boston Globe article.
In 2015, she reportedly tweeted, quote, why is white America so reluctant to identify
white college males as a problem population, question mark, end quote.
I guess she knows they're not.
Quote, every MLK week, I commit myself to not spending a dime in white-owned businesses.
And every year, I find it nearly impossible, end quote.
Well, that's up to her.
Okay.
So there you are.
I can tell she loves us.
And she's at BU?
She is at Boston University.
Boston University.
Well, accredited.
Sociology professor.
Okay.
Well, property is racist?
Well, you'll be delighted to know.
You know, we should probably just stop these stories because everything's racist after all, but talking about obesity is racist.
Oh, really?
Yes, it is.
Yes, it is.
Okay.
An academic now claims the word obesity is racist and should be dropped in favor of people with larger bodies.
I guess that's not racist.
Now, you know about property, is it racist only when we have it or can it be racist when somebody else has it?
If blacks have it, I guess it's not racist.
I guess it's not racist when they acquire said property that was once owned by white people.
From us.
From us.
Any property acquired by a black that once belonged to us, that's not racist.
Anything we have is racist.
Yes.
Okay.
It's inequitable.
Now I understand.
Okay, yes, the University of Illinois Chicago School of Public Health published a health brief called, Addressing Weight Stigma and Fat Phobia in Public Health, and it explored the association between racism, weight, and health.
According to Amanda Montgomery, now this lady is horribly melanin deficient, She, let's see her, she says, public health focus on preventing obesity has brought in an increase of negative attitude towards people with larger bodies, her preferred term.
Well, yes, if you think being fat is unhealthy, that's probably brought in negative attitudes towards people who are fat.
And this is currently one of the only socially acceptable forms of discrimination.
I disagree, of course.
There's another socially acceptable form, a required form of discrimination.
That's against people like you and me, Mr. Kersey.
The brief claims that public health approaches related to obesity can be harmful because of the focus on one outcome, weight loss.
How dare people be accountable for being overweight?
And it tends to ignore the root cause of the issue.
The solution, if you're fat, is to lose weight.
But this ignores the root cause.
Well, academics say many of the causes are rooted in discrimination born of settlers driving Native Americans off their land, then forcing black and Hispanic workers to farm that land for low pay.
That caused fatness.
Now, how did that make them fat?
Wouldn't making them farm at low pay keep you kind of skinny?
If you're made to farm land and get no pay, I think you wouldn't be fat.
Easy where you're going with that one.
Remember, we just learned in the prior segment about property and who was once property.
Well, white people are up to six times less likely to suffer from diabetes than Americans who are black, Latino, or Native American, according to the brief, and the focus on body size is rooted in racism.
Well, I didn't know that.
According to this lady, Amanda, fatness was used as a marker of uncivilized behavior while thinness was considered more evolved.
This idea was maintained throughout the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries as a way to justify slavery.
Racism and classism.
I mean, this is just lunatic stuff.
I want to ask you a question.
Where did you find this article?
Do you recall?
What was the original source?
I don't recall, but it was the... Let's see.
What was the publication that first... The University of Chicago School of Public Health issued a health brief written by this lady.
So it's the University of Chicago.
Okay.
Okay.
Boston University, University of Chicago.
This isn't some kindergarten.
And although nutrition and exercise are important, racism within the food environment is a cause of obesity among minorities.
Racism within the food environment.
This just gets queerer and queerer.
The Institute for Bioethics and Health Humanities at the University of Texas in Galveston hosted a lecture on fat phobia and racism.
At which, Sabrina Strings, a UC California Irvine professor, spoke about the racist roots of fatphobia, which she claims go all the way back to slavery.
I never saw a photograph of a fat slave, though.
Did you?
All the photographs of slaves I've seen, not a single fat one among them.
The only fat slave I think I've ever seen was in Gone with the Wind.
The woman who won the Mammy.
I believe she won Supporting Actress for that role.
Yes, she won an Oscar.
Sure did.
But that's not a real slave.
I'm talking photographs of real slaves.
Of course, there are quite a few.
Now here we learn further, the medical field took up the mantle of anti-fatness as a result of social and cultural shifts in thinking about race and feminine propriety in the early 20th century.
So, I thought it went all the way back to slavery, but now it was in the early 20th century.
So, I'm confused.
I'm very confused, but I often am.
You know, as I say, maybe we should just stop these stories about birdwatching is racist, or cameras that take pictures and fine you for speeding are racist.
Everything is racist.
I mean, since everything is racist, it's no longer news, with something rather surprising is considered and found and discovered and unmasked to be racist.
But here's another little story for you.
It's about a Chicago high school.
It's called Oak Park and River Forest High School.
Seems like a long handle for a high school.
The administrators will require teachers next school year to adjust their classroom grade scales to account for the skin color ethnicity of its students.
Oh, yes.
Now, this was the title.
Yeah.
But that's not true.
It's not true.
I saw that title everywhere.
All the different stories were headlined in this that grading was going to take skin color into account.
So that very bombastic language to get you to read the article, but that's not true.
It's not true.
It's not true as we will discover.
School board members discussed the plan called Transformative Education Professional Development and Grading at a meeting on May 26th.
in an effort to equalize test scores among racial groups.
The school will order its teachers to exclude from their grading assessments
variables it says disproportionately hurt the grades of black students.
So they're not treating blacks any differently.
They are excluding from grading, no matter what the race of the student,
those assignments on which blacks are less likely to do well.
Well, isn't that pretty much...
No, it's not treating people differently by race at all.
It's treating all the same.
But the objective of this is to make it to improve the grades of blacks.
But all students will be treated the same.
Now, what is the grading going to leave out?
Students can no longer be docked for missing class, misbehaving in school, or failing to turn in assignments.
It used to be that your grade would be worse if you missed class, failed to turn in an assignment, which makes sense to me, but because blacks are so much more likely to do those things, that kind of behavior will no longer affect your grade.
So they're not being treated differently according to race.
Back to my original point.
But one of the points made in this presentation was traditional grading practices perpetuate inequities and intensify the opportunity gap.
So it calls for what the leaders of the schools call competency-based grading, eliminating zeros from the gradebook and encouraging and rewarding growth over time.
The teachers will continue the process necessary to make grading improvements that reflect our core beliefs.
Now our core beliefs clearly are that blacks and whites and everybody else should get exactly the same grades.
So we'll just eliminate those assignments on which blacks are more likely to fail.
And they are promising consistently to integrate equitable assessment and grading practices into all courses.
But if you're eliminating those that are only Viewed as what's keeping blacks from having the correct grade, isn't that manipulating the grade system?
Of course, of course.
To the benefit of blacks.
Of course, of course.
But it's not treating blacks and whites differently.
You're just throwing out the grades for certain things that blacks are... Jack, it's like you're being facetious right now, because it is.
You are treating blacks differently.
No, you're not.
You're treating them exactly the same.
It's like, well look, it's just like fair beating.
If the people you're arresting over and over and over for fair beating are black, then you say, okay, nobody has to pay.
It's exactly the same kind of thing.
I guess I'm not interpreting.
Are you saying that whites are also disqualified from having to turn it?
Yeah, exactly.
Everybody.
Okay.
Everybody.
Okay.
You know, they're just not going to, nobody's going to be docked.
If everybody's equal, no one is.
If everyone's special, no one is, I guess is the way to put it.
Well, no one can be docked for missing class, misbehaving, or offended to turn their... So white people can just be like, I'm going to do what that black guy does.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Okay.
Just like fair beating.
Got it.
Okay.
Gosh.
Gosh.
I thought you were... No, no, no.
I'm there.
I'm just, I'm sitting there listening.
I couldn't tell if you were being sardonic or not.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
My indispensable sidekick, you know.
Because it's one of those stories that we've seen this prop up in a number of other localities.
I think in Washington State, there's a place in Washington State that's doing this too.
Yes, for example, no more zero grades or no more zeros.
You just throw those out.
And according to the Illinois State Board of Education, 38% of the sophomore students taking the SAT failed it.
Now, I don't know.
How do you fail the SAT?
I don't.
I don't think you can fail it.
I don't know the answer to that one.
It's 400 to 800, I think, is the score.
And if you get nothing at all, you still get 400 if you turn in a blank piece of paper.
Yeah, I think the SAT is out of 1600.
And so, yeah.
In any case, listen to this.
on both of them.
Yeah, math and...
In any case, listen to this.
The failure rate at this high school is 77% for black students, 49% for Hispanics,
27% for Asians, and 25% for whites.
Whites are doing a whole lot better.
I bet that's probably because they turn in their assignments on time.
That probably helps, but they're not going to have to anymore.
So the idea is, you know, if you don't make anybody turn in their assignments, don't make anybody study, then everybody's grades will go down, but probably white students' grades will go down even more.
If you teach nothing, everybody will be equally ignorant.
And Margaret Sullivan, Associate Director of the Education Advisory Board.
She says, grading based on traditional classroom testing and homework, these are outdated practices and foster unconscious biases.
There you go.
Also, the head of this school called for a switch to grading last August after issuing a report chronicling a spike in F grades.
And because F grades were higher among blacks, he says, oh, we'll just throw out that grade.
Really?
Yes.
So whites can't get Fs either.
Just like they can't get docked for turning in or failing to turn in their son.
Or being tardy, like you said.
Or fighting in school.
None of that's going to affect your grade.
And so, as she says, our administration will adopt language that makes and keeps the system visible and continues to name racism as a complex, interconnected structure.
But they have sussed this complex interconnected structure out.
They have figured it out.
It's not that complex if you can call obesity racist.
If you can say property is okay to destroy it because it's not owned by blacks.
Seems complex to me, but I guess this is just too, too deep.
Just difficult for my poor benighted white mind.
In any case, Star Wars apparently has a racism problem.
Yeah, this is a story that's, you know, there's a lot in pop culture that's quite interesting, and one of the things that... I think nothing in pop culture is interesting, but you go ahead.
Pop culture is interesting to you, unfortunately, and the way things are disseminated and discussed and positioned.
You know, in the original Star Wars, Episodes 4, 5, and 6 were unbelievably white.
1, 2, and 3, the prequels, very white.
7, 8, 9, they did all they could to add diversity.
Those are the ones that came out in 2015, 2018, and I believe 2020?
Forgive my Star Wars ignorance.
Well, Obi-Wan Kenobi just released on Disney Plus.
But that's the name of a new one?
That's the name of the new one.
That's one of the last Jedi's who trained Luke Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker's son, Darth Vader, from the Empire.
Well, now we're going to see a show set between episodes 3 and 4.
Very popular.
It's the most popular Disney Plus show ever.
I'll take your word for it.
So, in terms of views since it was released.
Well, Star Wars literally had to tell its fan base to stop being racist to Kenobi star Moses Ingram.
Is that a real person's name?
Yeah, that's a real person's name.
So that's the actor's name?
That's the actress's name.
So the sense of joy that the return of Ian McGregor was short-lived, he plays the title role, the eponymous role, Obi-Wan Kenobi, was short-lived as the main emotion elicited by Obi-Wan Kenobi, though, as the official Star Wars Twitter account was forced to send out a message to its own fan base telling Telling it to stop being racist to Moses Ingram, who stars in the series as Reva Sevinder, the villainous third sister of the Inquisitors.
Oh, is this a new character?
Or is this a race change?
This is a new character.
I don't know if it's a race change.
So if anybody out there, if you know about Star Wars, let us know.
Well, if it's a new character, it can't be a race change.
Well, it can't be a race change.
But again, they're trying to diversify the empire.
They're trying to, again, it's if you watch... Of course, if all the other sisters are white, that's a little suspicious.
It is.
So here's what the official Star Wars account told its fan base.
We are proud to welcome Moses Ingram to the Star Wars family and excited for Reva's story to unfold.
If anyone intends to make her feel in any way unwelcome, we have only one thing to say.
We resist.
There are more than 20 million sentient species in the Star Wars galaxy.
Don't choose to be a racist.
That was from the Blue Checkmark Star Wars Twitter account.
It has 88,100 likes or little likes.
I see.
So it's...
Thumbs up.
I thought Obi-Wan Kenobi was a robot.
Obi-Wan Kenobi is played by the late Sir Alec Guinness, the actor.
And then she would go on to comment on her Instagram story about all the comments that she's received from Star Wars fans who are just, again, Ever since episode 7 came out, they've tried to do all they can to add diversity as a mandate.
Well, you know, if they're adding a new character and the new character turns out to be non-white, I'm not quite sure why that's so terrible.
Unless, as I say, she's got five sisters and they're all white.
That seems a little strained to me.
But, oh dear.
Well, you know, the Globe Theater, they're doing something I consider vastly worse.
It's along the same lines.
This is showbiz.
The Globe Theatre, that's in London, and it's built on the spot where Shakespeare's original Globe Theatre is thought to have existed.
And I think they're probably pretty close to being right about where it was.
And it's a reconstruction of it, all circular and wood, and apparently a lovely place.
But they have issued content guidance to the Globe's production of William Shakespeare's Tragedy of Julius Caesar.
And let me quote.
Depictions of war, self-harm and suicide, stage blood, and weapons including knives.
So that's the morning.
Now, everybody knows there's an assassination of Julius Caesar.
There is!
And two Brutes.
Yes, but there's a warning.
Now, this is the part I don't understand.
The role of Brutus, the most famous assassin perhaps in classical history, goes to a black British actress.
Okay, well that's different.
Yes, that's a little different.
And the production also has cast Roman Senator and another one of Caesar's assassins, Cassius, as a female actress.
And Brutus' wife, and this I don't understand either.
I guess they're lesbians because Brutus' wife is also a black actress.
Brutus has had a sex change and is black and is married to a woman.
Okay.
Now, what I don't understand is I think we should get a trigger warning about something that's genuinely shocking.
Not the fact that there's going to be an assassination.
The trigger warning should say, the assassin Brutus has had a sex change and is now a Negress.
Cassius has also had a sex change and Brutus' wife is a black lesbian.
That's what the trigger warning should say, but they don't mention that.
Sounds like Julius Caesar.
This adaptation is perfect for the upcoming June LGBTQ, whatever, plus two, whatever words are at vowels.
But if they're going to warn people about something that might shock them and keep them away, that's what the warning should be.
Don't you think?
This should be public-spirited.
Now, there was a production of Romeo and Juliet with a warning last year.
This production contains depictions of suicide, moments of violence, and references to drug use.
Good grief.
There's references to drug use in Romeo and Juliet?
That's what it says.
Maybe they've modernized it.
Maybe there's, you know, a couple of doses of fentanyl.
Or maybe they smoked lines of cork.
Lines of coke, excuse me.
I believe there's a drug scene in the mid-1990s movie with Leonardo DiCaprio.
So maybe that's what they're trying to play upon.
It's updated, yeah.
Then, this is what I don't understand.
As for Romeo and Juliet, the program says, if you have been affected by any of the issues raised in the production of Romeo and Juliet, please find details below of organizations offering advice and support.
Well, Mr. Kersey, where can I go for advice and support when I see Brutus has had a sex change and has been turned into a Jamaican?
That's what I need advice and support for.
Not the fact that somebody actually gets killed on stage.
I give up.
I've got nothing.
I'm sure there's a great adaptation you could find on YouTube.
So I'll tell you what you do.
Go watch the Mel Gibson Hamlet.
That's actually a pretty good adaptation.
That's Hamlet.
I can't think of a good Caesar version on film.
In any case, Britain has just gone crazy.
And let me give you an example.
A former West Midlands Trains, that's the outfit that operates trains in the West Midlands, one of its employees named Simon Isherwood, age 60, was summarily dismissed for gross misconduct.
What he did, he was part of a Zoom diversity training about white privilege and he accidentally left his microphone on.
And his colleagues overheard him criticizing the webinar's contents.
At the end of the session, he's overheard telling his wife, I was thinking, you know what?
I'm just getting effing, and I don't think he said effing, angry.
You know what I really wanted to ask?
I wish I had.
Do they have black privilege in other countries?
So, if you're in Ghana, what's going on?
Do they have black privilege?
Well, fair question.
He was unaware.
His phone was still recording.
And 30 people were still listening.
I've quoted the words word for word.
That's what he said.
His remarks prompted colleagues to complain to bosses that they were disgusted and angered and he was fired.
It ruled that he had caused offense, brought the company into disrepute, and breached our equality, diversity, inclusion policy and the code of conduct simply by saying that he is effing angry and I want to know do they have black privilege in other countries?
How about Ghana?
That's what he wanted to know.
And that got him fired.
Now, he is taking the company to an employment tribunal and his case is backed by the Free Speech Union, which has called in the leading civil liberties barrister, Paul Diamond, to represent him.
He has fought landmark cases in the European Court of Human Rights.
And here's this guy who was fired.
He says, I'm completely shocked.
I was at home on my own time talking to my wife.
I'd worked for the company for 11 and a half years, never had anything but promotions, praise, awards, and even now, I can't believe it.
He'd had no previous record of any kind of misconduct.
And he gets fired.
He gets fired, but I'm delighted that he is fighting back.
Now, Mr. Kersey, I believe there has been a rather awkward exodus from the White House.
Well, it's not that awkward.
It's not that awkward.
Biden sees exodus of black staffers and some frustration among those who remain.
The White House, as we all know, it's one of the things that Biden pat himself on the back when he can remember to do that, that the White House under the Biden administration is historically diverse.
There are some concerns internally about a wave of departures in the current culture.
21 black staffers have left the White House since late last year or are planning to leave soon.
Some of those who remain say it's no wonder why.
They describe a work environment with little support from their superiors and fewer chances for promotion.
The departures have been so pronounced, according to one current and one former White House official, some black aides have adapted a term for them.
Blacksit.
maybe Blackson Blackson okay Blackson all right uh the first big exit came in December when uh
Kamala Harris's senior advisor and chief spokesperson Simone Sanders announced she was
leaving headed over to Gagin MSNBC Harris aides Tina Flournoy, Ashley Ettene and Vincent Evans
and public engagement head Cedric Richmond have also left uh then there are a bunch of other names
I'm not even going to read from national security council senior director a bunch of people who have
roles at the national economic council they've all left you know you know the question is is the
rate of turnover among blacks higher than the rate of turnover among whites
That's the only thing.
I mean, you need a comparison.
Those white people having a job is racist.
We already know that.
We already know that birdwatching is racist, as you said.
Calling someone obese is racist.
The exodus has raised concerns among outside observers who push for the diversification of government ranks.
Quote, I've heard about an exodus of Black staffers from the White House.
Blacks it, and I'm concerned, said Spencer Overton, president of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, which tracks government staff diversity numbers.
Quote, Black voters accounted for 22% of President Biden's voters in 2020.
It's essential.
That Black staffers are not only recruited to serve in senior, mid-level and junior White House positions, but are also included in major policy and personnel decisions and have opportunities for advancement."
So a White House official pushed back on those concerns, saying that around 14% of the current White House staffers identify as Black.
Well, that's slightly more than national proportions.
That's slightly more than national proportions.
The official added that the number is expected to increase as more black staffers are brought on board.
And that is 15% of black staffers have been promoted last year.
Sounds good to me.
And then some boilerplate about how they're excited about the historic representation for black staff and communities.
But again, if there's any sense that something is negatively impacting blacks, it's a cause for concern.
And why?
As if there is a culture of systemic inequality or implicit bias in even the Biden administration.
right there in the White House.
Right there in, yeah.
He swanned an office promising to root out white supremacy
and he's sailing even in his own building.
Yes, yes.
He's perpetrating the black sit.
White men just cannot be salvaged.
Well, there's an interesting story about wealth and crime
and it had to do with a certain Michael Todd Hill
age 54 of Leland, North Carolina.
Well, back in 2017, he won $10 million in the lottery from a scratch-off ticket.
And he took home $4.5 million in a lump sum after taxes.
This is 2017.
He apparently was a nuclear power plant worker married to a woman with an instructional design business.
He and his wife both were African-American fellow citizens.
Hill was said to be a pleasant enough fellow and even went back to the store where he won the lottery ticket and he gave the clerk that sold him the lottery ticket $2,000.
That's pretty nice.
Of course, I guess if you've just collected four and a half million, that may seem chump change, but still.
And he promised he was going to pay bills and support his wife's instructional design business, whatever an instructional design business is.
Well, now, at one point, a certain 23-year-old woman named Kiona Graham entered his life.
Graham lived with her mother, Latrinda Graham, and her 10-year-old sister, Zoe, in North Carolina.
She was a corrections officer.
Okay.
Well, in 2020, three years after winning the lottery, Michael Hill was in a hotel room with her.
This is someone other than his wife, about 20 years his junior, and discovered that she was texting, sending text messages to other men.
The young lady then suffered a single gunshot wound to the back of her head.
Mr. Hill was arrested, and despite having won $4 million just three years earlier, he filed an affidavit of indigency and got a court-appointed lawyer.
Well, on May 27th of this year, that's just a few days ago, a Brunswick County jury convicted Michael Hill of first-degree murder in the death of Keona Graham after just one hour of deliberation.
Now, yes, this apparently is a drama with an all-black cast, but it makes you wonder, what did he do with $4 million?
In three years, apparently, it was gone to the point where he had to claim indigency and have a court-appointed lawyer.
The other thing is, people are always telling us that poverty causes crime.
I don't think that's always true.
Remember, Rodney King, he walked away with a four million dollar settlement.
Walked away with a lot of money.
And he got into one crime after another.
I forgot, he died here, didn't he?
He drowned in a pool.
He drowned in a pool.
There were a lot of drugs, maybe fentanyl in his body.
Really?
Yes, he drowned in a pool.
So, this instructive thing, his life was probably better off before he walked off with that four and a half million dollars.
Now, I want to tell you about a movie I just learned about.
I don't know if it's... It's a 2022 release and it's called Karen.
Called Karen?
Karen, yes.
I've heard of this movie.
You have?
I have.
It's a BET original.
A BET original.
And the short description is, a racist Caucasian woman pulls out all the stops to rid her neighborhood of the peaceful African-American couple who just moved in next door.
And when they say pulls out all the stops, they mean it.
Here are some excerpts from the Wikipedia plot summary.
Malik and Imani are a young black couple.
Okay.
Don't you know Maliks and Imanis?
I know lots of Maliks and Imanis, who move into a new house in Harvey Hill, a suburb of Atlanta.
Karen, a white neighbor, quick to introduce herself to Malik, but she refuses to shake his hand and makes a callous comment about not having any cash in her home.
Isn't that what you say as soon as you meet your new neighbor?
By the way, we don't have any cash in the house.
That's what white people always say to new neighbors.
Karen is virulently racist with neo-confederate memorabilia in her home.
Her equally racist brother is a policeman, Mike Wind.
He shows up with a phony search warrant and arrests the unoffending Malik.
While Karen cuts the power to their house and breaks in with a gun!
So this is a horror movie, I assume?
Oh no, no, this is a real life, this is a documentary.
Okay.
Come on.
This is what happens in Southern Atlanta all the time.
All the time, all the time.
The siblings, that's Karen and the vicious, threaten Imani at gunpoint before Karen seemingly shoots her dead.
Kabim Bam!
A still-alive Imani grabs Mike's gun and kills her in self-defense.
Malik is released and he and Imani receive a full apology and compensation from the city of Atlanta for what they went through.
So there's a happy ending!
The vicious, racist Karen dies.
Sounds like a riveting movie.
Well, you know, why do they make movies like this?
I mean, this just encourages black people to hate white people.
Of course!
I mean, as if this were something that has ever happened.
But, you know, I saw, I watched the trailer.
What'd you think?
I watched the trailer.
Oh, this, it's... Cinematic masterpiece?
Oh, it had me on the edge of my seat.
But it's in this really lovely neighborhood.
All these big mansions next to each other.
Old Karen walks up.
Boy, she's a hard bit.
And they're the only black family, like you said.
I don't know about that.
Probably so.
Probably so.
But now, I looked up.
I'd never known.
I mean, I'm not very much of a popular culture kind of a guy, as you know.
I didn't realize there were such things as BET original movies.
But I just thought I would look one another one up and apparently it's about two young black boys coming of age in the ghetto having to fend for themselves when their parents are taken away by the authorities.
Okay.
I can guess what color the authorities are.
But that's what BET is doing.
Well, you've got to instill and create that animosity somehow.
It's mighty hard because we're so lovable, but they're really just trying as hard as they can be.
Now let's see what else we've got here.
I believe you have another story, do you not?
I've got a few.
Which one do you want to go with?
Well, whichever moves you.
All right, I am going to do this one because I think it's quite interesting.
And again, I know you don't want to talk about pop culture, but a nice little segue from BET to The top movie in the history of Memorial Day weekend in terms of highest grossing.
That's Top Gun Maverick.
The Royal Air Force has apologized for wanting a pilot who is preferably not white male to represent them at the Top Gun Maverick press event at the beginning of May.
Oh, was this in Britain?
This is in Britain.
So it's communication teams in an email looking for the Royal Air Force's face at the event.
The press event will be launching the latest film, the Top Gun, the highly anticipated Top Gun sequel to the 1986 film.
The email said, like I said, it's looking for a preferably not white male.
Our, of course, Royal Air Force bosses have apologized for wanting a preferably not white male pilot to represent them at Top Gun Maverick press event.
The recipients of the message were advised to reply with their expressions of interest.
The leaked email was criticized by Robert Olds, the director of the Burgess Group think tank, who called the attitude divisive and dangerous.
I don't have the actual what it said, but it was hilarious.
I think.
All right, here it is.
No, unfortunately it was cut out from these notes.
But what they actually asked for, it was hilarious the way, like, we need a non-white bloke or something like that.
A non-white bloke?
We don't want, yeah, because again, you know, the idea, most of the pilots in Top Gun Maverick, I've seen it, it's a great movie, I encourage everyone to see it.
Most of them are white, all the heroes are white males, it's one of the better movies in terms of no wokeness.
Are there any that aren't white men?
Do they have black men?
There are a few, but they preface it by saying that we're bringing in the best graduates in Top Gun for a very important mission, and invariably there's a white female, she has a radar intelligence officer, an RIO, who's a white male, and then there is a black guy and a Hispanic guy that are part of the final Battle scene, along with Maverick, Tom Cruise's character, and another white guy.
For an actual RAF pilot to represent the Royal Air Force, they specifically wanted no white blokes.
They did not want a white bloke.
In fact, I've got to just find it.
I'll find it in one second.
I'll tell you what exactly he said.
Well, in the meantime, shall I start another story?
Please, go ahead.
It has to do with black pride.
D.C.
Black Pride events return in person after a two-year pandemic-related pause.
Now, this is the Black Gay Pride event, of course.
Apparently it's been going on for every year, but they had a two-year pandemic-related pause.
That was not fun for them, I'm sure.
And apparently there's new vigor in the air.
New vigor in the air.
After the pandemic kept away in-person celebrations for two years.
Every event has been packed to capacity this year already, says Kenya Hutton, Deputy Director for the Center for Black Equity, the group that puts on DC Black Pride.
Hutton says it started as an opportunity to increase funding for resources to address HIV and AIDS within the black gay community.
Now, I'm not sure.
I guess you can raise money just for one race.
Better not do that for white people.
Over the years, says Kenya Hutton, it has blossomed into so much more with something for everyone.
There will be a drag brunch.
I'm not going to miss that.
Nope.
I'm going to be at the drag brunch.
Workshops and panels and a tea dance.
That sounds civilized.
Which is an hours-long dance party.
According to Kenya Hutton, a lot of the community doesn't really feel represented at mainstream prides.
So it's important for us to have prides that reflect the community and reflect who we are and how we are.
I guess they're feeling excluded.
Now, I'd never heard of the Center for Black Equity, but apparently its mission is achieving equality and social justice for black LGBTQ plus communities through economic equity, health equity, and social equity.
That pretty much covers the waterfront, I'd say.
I think so.
It has a staff of nine, of which the president and five others are black.
And its sponsors, this quite surprised me.
One is the National LGBTQ Chamber of Commerce.
I didn't know there was such a thing, but apparently there was.
And AARP is one of its sponsors.
That's the American Association of Retired People.
Why on earth is the AARP supporting this outfit?
I do not understand.
But if you're an AARP member, your money is going to support this Black Pride event.
Great, I'm sure there's a lot of other big Fortune 100 companies.
And just going back to the last story, here's what the leaked email said.
It wasn't blokes, it was actually something, I think it's actually funnier.
Quote, Gents, do any of you have a pilot who is preferably not white male who would like to be the RAF face at a press event for the release of Top Gun 2?
Shy guys get no cakes, so shout quick as offer also gone out to other units.
So again, they're trying to make sure that they don't want the official face for this event to be a white guy.
I mean, again, is there a country that hates itself more than England?
I can think of only one.
Shy guys get no cakes.
Okay, well...
You've got to step up to the plate if you want to have a chance to be... I thought the motto was, fortune favors the bold.
Shy guys get no cakes.
Shout out quick.
Well, you know, Canadians are just as nutty.
Maybe even more.
So there's something called George Brown College in Toronto.
Okay.
And like many universities, it requires students to sign an IT department waiver acknowledgement before using the school's online services.
Apparently, most of that has to do with internet safety or online protocols.
That's what they're ordinarily about.
You sign some sort of rubbish before you get into a Zoom conference.
Instead, This one's not about that at all.
You have to sign a document that talks about how the territory on which George Brown College operates belonged originally to the Huron-Wendat, the Mississaugas, the Anishinaabe, and the Haudenosaunee peoples.
You have to acknowledge that.
Then it also states that immigrants and settlers benefited from colonization and genocide of the indigenous people.
It is imperative that we constantly engage in acts of awareness and decolonization, it says.
Of course.
I'm constantly engaged in acts of awareness.
That's what I do for a living.
I don't think I've ever engaged in an act of decolonization, however.
Have you?
Not that you can recall.
Shy guys get no cakes.
That's right.
That's right.
We're all pretty shy around here.
And it says, by selecting I agree, you're indicating your acknowledgment of this statement.
Our intent is not to impose agreeance, but to inform through acknowledgement.
Agreeance.
That was a new word for me.
This acknowledgement is to generate awareness and offer opportunities for personal reflection.
But you've got to sign this before you can do a Zoom conference if you're a student.
The school reportedly wants students to acknowledge that the land on which George Brown College resides is subject to the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant.
This is a law, apparently, that goes into an agreement for sharing territory among two or more nations.
I'll repeat the name of this law.
The Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant.
There you go.
That sounds like fun to me.
Now, I'd never heard of agreeance.
And, apparently, agreeance is different from agreement.
Now, we might as well educate our listeners, too.
For example, if I think that chocolate is the best kind of ice cream and someone who lives 5,000 miles away happens to have the same view, we would be in agreeance, but we would not be in agreement because we have never met or even communicated.
Agreement requires an assertion of agreement.
Agreeance means having the same point of view, but just spontaneously, without ever having to get together to work it out.
On the other hand, if I say, chocolate is the best kind of ice cream, and he says, I agree, then that's agreement, as opposed to agreeance.
So now we know.
But this says that this George Brown cod is using this fancy word, but it says, our intent is not to impose agreeance.
Well, agreeance is never imposed.
It happens spontaneous.
Anyway.
Alas, our time has come.
As it always does.
It always does.
Yes.
Our cup runneth over, but our time runneth under.
And we do love to hear from you.
So please, please, send us messages either to Mr. Kersey at... Because we live here at Protonmail.com.
Once again, all one simple word.
Because we live here at Protonmail.com or please come to amren.com.
A-M-R-E-N.com.
Hit the contact us tab and tell us what you would like, anything you would like us to hear.
We especially like being corrected if we've made a mistake and also we would love to know the race of that lady shooter in Charleston, West Virginia.
Correct.
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