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In which we marvel at the mental contortions of our self-imagined betters.
In February, we beheld the chutzpah of our new downtrodden elite at the United Nations International School, where the children of diplomats and titans of international banking insisted that even a single mispronunciation of an unobvious name is a form of "racial trauma" inflicted by "the white man's mouth." Elsewhere, at the University of Minnesota, we heard one student recount his experience of racial profiling and police brutality – "the most traumatic thing I have ever experienced" – and then, thanks to dashcam video, saw what actually happened.
And in the Los Angeles Times, the scrupulously progressive Virginia Heffernan aired her outrage at neighbours who cleared the snow from her driveway, but failed to vote for Joe Biden - the latter act requiring "absolution," and thus excusing Ms Heffernan's supposedly principled ingratitude for the former. You see, resenting neighbours' acts of kindness, and publicly badmouthing those neighbours, in print, is the progressive way, and a basis for expecting applause.
Oh, and we also learned how to turn toilet paper into drinkable alcohol.
"Larger-bodied person" Emily Duke enlightened us in March, via the pages of Slate, with an emotional tailspin triggered by a vaccination form featuring the word obese. The mere sight of which resulted in "unparalleled grief," three hours spent deciding what to have for dinner, and an elaborate, rather convoluted claim that being given priority for a vaccine during a pandemic, while others must wait, is actually a form of oppression. Slate's comment moderator added that, should any remarks "contradict the author's understanding of her own situation," they would of course be deleted.
Elsewhere, in Scary Mommy, where progressive ladies preen and seethe, Erin Hendriksen widened our eyes with her politics of laundry - a subject explored at length and in seemingly fractal detail – while pointing to her struggles with personal hygiene as proof of martyrdom. We also pondered the mental health of other Scary Mommy contributors, among whom the use of mood stabilisers seems remarkably common, and noted the things one must pretend in woke academia – say, when faced with "indigenous elders" whose cures for gastro-intestinal ailments include arm-flapping and rubbing corn pollen on the feet of the afflicted.
The pages of Scary Mommy gripped us again in April, when Ms Amber Leventry, a "queer person and educator," managed to be outraged by the fact that she had been asked not to swear and scream in the workplace. This appeal to reciprocal courtesy, and preference for not being assailed with bellowed epithets, was denounced as both "tone policing" - a wickedness "rooted in colonialism and white supremacy" - and an effort to crush underfoot the rights and wellbeing of transgender people. When not expecting deference and "validation" for her frequent fits of temper – one might say bullying – Ms Leventry encourages her own small children, aged seven and nine, to shout profanities at passers-by who may have voted Republican.
A visit to the Rockwood School District, Missouri, revealed educators so gorged on wokeness that they had created a fake curriculum to fool parents, thereby concealing the details of how children were being indoctrinated, and while simultaneously insisting, "This is not being deceitful." And racial monomania - seemingly to the go-to setting of progressives - cropped up again in the pages of the Guardian, where the anhedonic Natalie Morris informed us that the employment of fashion models who are difficult to racially categorise is "impossible to see… as a positive thing." On account of the models' "proximity to whiteness."
We also bore witness to the creative outpourings of Finnish artist Liu Susiraja.
In May, ¿jordan¿ - a "black trans artist" and prodigious taker of selfies - announced his discovery of a new form of "violence" – specifically, "When people get my pronouns right and I can tell they still perceive me as a man." That those cowed to mouth obvious lies regarding Mr ¿jordan¿'s alleged womanliness were not in fact hallucinating on demand and actually seeing him as a woman, albeit one with a moustache and beard, and were instead merely being polite, was an outrage for our bejewelled narcissist.
We also learned, via Mr Kenny Allen, editor of Northwestern University's student newspaper, that "white people walk awkwardly on sidewalks because of their internalised racism." Following his pronouncements on pavement users of pallor, Mr Allen was scandalised by polite requests for evidence, any evidence, to support his claims – an expectation seemingly quite alien to this would-be intellectual. Ruminations on racist pavement use were followed by equally bold assertions regarding racist cycling, thanks to P. Khalil Saucier, an associate professor of Africana Studies at Bucknell University, whose ramblings on the subject were likewise untroubled by evidence, or coherence, or indeed honesty.
The month ended with a reminder that the absurd and the sinister aren't mutually exclusive, with revelations regarding eye-widening indoctrination in Portland schools, where the stated goal of "anti-racist" educators is the "disintegration" of children's personalities, such that they experience "white guilt" and "feel bad for being white." When the eight-year-old victims of this psychological abuse complained that they were unable to sleep and felt alienated from their friends and parents, this was taken by the educators as a sign of progress, of emerging wokeness.
We learned, In June, via a Yale lecturer, that "white people don't eat bread." The imparter of this wisdom, Ms Aruna Khilanani - a psychiatrist with paying customers - also shared her belief that murdering random white people, guiltlessly and for no reason beyond their pallor, would be doing the world, and I quote, "a fucking favour." Ms Khilanani's areas of expertise, beyond bread consumption and homicidal fantasies, include gender theory, race theory, queer theory and Marxism.
Elsewhere, we learned that complimenting a friend or colleague on their weight loss is not only "fatphobic" - and worse, encouraging - but is also "a perpetuation and enforcement of white supremacist beauty standards." Should comments of a favourable kind prove unavoidable, they should instead be directed towards said person's shoes. Self-styled activist William Hornby also denounced the evils of "fatphobia," insisting that one should do nothing to avoid or delay the unsightly expansion of any body parts, on grounds that not wishing to be obese is "intrinsically entangled with white supremacy." Mr Hornby also steered us to the Fat Liberation Syllabus for Revolutionary Leftists – an actual thing – which in turn denounced the "fatphobic logic of productivity, discipline, and personal responsibility."
In July, Sinead Watson offered a welcome reminder that not all people with gender dysphoria are insufferably woke, with a frank and moving account of her own experiences, including that of de-transitioning, and a warning about the erasure of boundaries between adults and children, and the fashionable affirmation of mental illness.
Elsewhere, Dr Albert Stabler, an assistant professor at Appalachian State University, confessed his innate wrongness – "I am a white teacher" – before disdaining the "white feelings" of fellow educators who objected to being punched and humiliated by brown-skinned students - including Dr Stabler's immediate predecessor, a female art teacher whose hair was forcibly cut by a black student. These objections were denounced by our woke educator as "white supremacist violence," while the actual violence – the punching and cutting and so forth - was airily waved aside as a display of the students' "cultural knowledge" and "kinetic" creativity.
The subject of bras returned to the fore in August, thanks to Gender Studies Professor Sami Schalk, for whom bralessness, and twerking, and a cape emblazoned with the words "I AM 100% THAT BITCH," constitute acts of "political defiance." When not referring to the police as "fucking pigs," and offering refreshments to rioters and arsonists, Ms Schalk, a grown woman and professional educator, and paid somewhere in the region of $102,000 a year, invites us to admire her ample buttocks and their magic blackness.
The month also brought us a striking illustration of transgender gaslighting, and indeed sociopathy, with Mridul Wadhwa, the head of one of Scotland's largest rape crisis centres, laying down conditions for receiving the centre's services. Wadhwa, a transgender woman, insisted that actual women in search of help following sexual assault must first declare their embrace of Wadhwa's own rather niche transgender ideology, and that failure to do so is "unacceptable" and will be "challenged." Because, you know, priorities.
In September, we spied more racial neuroticism in the form of Dr Derek Hook, an associate professor at Duquesne University, whose areas of expertise include "post-colonial theory" and "white anxiety." The good doctor was visibly titillated by the idea that "white people should commit suicide as an ethical act," in order to "castrate whiteness." Readers are invited to imagine an educator speaking in such terms, excitedly, about any other racial demographic, and doing it in the name of "anti-racism."
Elsewhere in academia, we learned that "suspending proficiency requirements" will – in ways somewhat unclear – "benefit" those on whom these things are inflicted, and that expecting basic and reciprocal standards of behaviour – say, respecting other pupils who are trying to hear what's being said - is "the definition of white supremacy," and therefore very, very bad. And a visit to the high-security wing of transgender TikTok proved informative, with news that wearing a low-cut top to work is sufficient proof of womanhood and should never result in even momentary confusion, however polite, among female colleagues. We also learned that "cis people should not be having conversations about trans issues" and should instead be mere objects of discussion, not participants. And, oh yes, the revelation that trans people "can't fart."
Boutique gender identities, or pretensions of such, cropped up again in October, when party-person and would-be iconoclast Mr Jordan Bennett visited Heaven, a nightclub for London's famously downtrodden homosexuals, and found that his pronoun-stipulating earrings were insufficient to exempt him from the club's security procedures. Elsewhere, at Middlebury College, counselling director Alberto Soto noted a surge in students reporting mental health problems, notably anxiety and depression, and promptly identified "whiteness" as the "source of all our psychic suffering." The possibility that the college's preoccupation with race, and racial conspiracy theories, and near-continual racial scolding, might have some bearing on the issue was somehow not considered.
And over at George Washington University, associate professor of education Julia Storberg-Walker told us, "I didn't know I was white." And further, "I think a lot of people don't know they are white." This oversight can, however, be corrected with "somatic, embodied training" and realigning one's "positionality" as a White Devil, a doer of "harm." Happily, Dr Storberg-Walker is equipped to deliver "whole-planet flourishing" by drawing on "wisdom traditions" and, inevitably, "quantum field theory." Readers are welcome to speculate as to exactly how quantum field theory might bear upon such topics as "critical race activism," or "colonised words," and how it might inform "deep learning" about the seemingly endless pathologies of being pale.
In November, "white supremacy" was invoked yet again, this time as the go-to explanation for workplace dress codes and broader expectations of professionalism - say, when teaching other people's twelve-year-old children. When not devising excuses for deploying the word racism, and painting his nails, and generally being fascinated by himself, the 30-year-old teacher in question, Mr Segal, entertains his TikTok followers with his inability to grade papers on time, and by talking about the state of his mental health, a topic revisited more than once. The competitively woke world of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation was another highlight of the month - in particular, the union's move to "eliminate racism" by weighting the votes of non-white members, such that leverage very much depends on the colour of one's skin.
More coherent thinking came from Noah Carl and his research on the role of women in the phenomenon of wokeness. Needless to say, some Guardian contributors and other ladies of the left were brought to a state of high dudgeon by Mr Carl's charts and tables of statistics, denouncing his alleged "fear" and "hatred" of women, especially intelligent women, while scorning the "fragility" of the "straight white male," and while carefully avoiding anything approaching a substantive rebuttal. As intelligent women do.
We were also entranced by "really radical" aboriginal rap, or rather by the contortions performed by Guardian columnists who pretend to, like, totally dig it, man.
As the year drew to a close, we poked through the "teachers of TikTok" hashtag and found much to ponder, including a tall, bearded educator claiming that his days spent parading around the classroom in five-inch stilettos, and sometimes full drag, which he just so happens to enjoy, is a way to make pupils feel "safe," and not, say, bewildered. The "safe" classroom, we were told, is "a place for them, by them," while clearly being all about him and entirely his idea, and entirely dependent on his cartoonish cross-dressing preferences on any given day. Such is woke selflessness. It remains unclear whether pupils or parents who find this educator's behaviour, shall we say, distracting, or not wholly reassuring, will be indulged to the same degree.
We also continued our series on employees who may not be entirely suited to the job.
And finally, we visited Swarthmore College, where annual tuition fees are north of $70,000, and where having a suitably inclusive and intersectional student party is not a simple matter. Especially when "an outsized number of white students" attend, thereby oppressing everyone else with their rampant pallor, and thus necessitating a looped and amplified message, blaring through speakers for several minutes, "telling white students to leave." "By the time the message stopped playing," we're told, "the party's racial demographics had shifted significantly." And at which point, of course, further complications ensued regarding the precise ratio of gay people present and their respective skin tones.
So, plenty to chew on.
Heavens, a button. I wonder what it does.
Posted at 00:02 in Academia, Anthropology, Politics, Psychodrama, Reheated | Permalink
"The year began with an oddly specific medical diagnosis...academics at the University of York were rendered fretful and distraught by an image...'the most traumatic thing I have ever experienced'...outrage at neighbours who cleared the snow from her driveway...an emotional tailspin triggered by a vaccination form...Scary Mommy contributors, among whom the use of mood stabilisers seems remarkably common...bread consumption and homicidal fantasies..."
I sense a pattern. Apropos of this, Powerline links to an article at the New York Times about two academic papers pondering why surveys show that conservatives are happier than liberals:
"Liberals Are Miserable People They say misery loves company, and that may be why liberals always want to extend their control over everyone and everything—because they are miserable people..."
An ideology which sees success and well-being as evidence of injustice is bound to lead to the misery of envy and resentment. And what's more, the liberal's own well-being is proof of personal guilt. It is unsurprising that this should lead to every psychological pathology one can imagine.
Posted by: pst314 | December 27, 2021 at 00:39
An ideology which sees success and well-being as evidence of injustice is bound to lead to the misery of envy and resentment.
Hence Winston Churchill's pity summary that "Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.".
Seventy five years later, things haven't changed much.
Posted by: Bill de Haan | December 27, 2021 at 02:08
To quote General McAuliffe:
"NUTS!"
Posted by: Squires | December 27, 2021 at 02:13
Thanks for documenting another year of woke hell. :-)
*pings tip jar*
Posted by: Alan | December 27, 2021 at 08:06
Bless you, sir. May your "quick" visit to the supermarket shortly before Christmas not turn into a 45-minute test of your patience.
Posted by: David | December 27, 2021 at 08:25
I sense a pattern.
As I'm sure I say every year, when you sweep a lot of leftism into one big pile, it's hard to miss certain… patterns of dysfunction.
academics at the University of York were rendered fretful and distraught by an image on the website of an art history conference – specifically, of the seventeenth-century Buddhist figurine, the three wise monkeys
I missed that one. 🤡
Posted by: Peeps | December 27, 2021 at 08:44
Well, as noted in the post, it does rather speak to the weirdly dogmatic assumptions (or pretensions) of the agonised, rather than the object being agonised about, or how said object is generally understood. At least by people who aren't competitively neurotic leftist academics.
The Competitively Neurotic Leftist Academics should be a band name.
Posted by: PiperPaul | December 27, 2021 at 12:21
...competitively neurotic leftist academics.
They should have their own olympics. Events could include:
Nervous around White People
Oblivious around Color People
Dumb for Muslims
Ew, a Peasant!
Scream at Cop
I'm a Real Woman!
I'm a Real Man!
Hate Hoaxin'
Freestyle Fatherlessness
Damage Children
They should have their own Olympics. Events could include...
Remember Monty Python's Upper Class Twit of the Year sketch?
Unfortunately the Pythons are a bit old now, and in spite of his recent public comments I doubt that John Cleese would want to do a proper job on all the academic lunacies that need mocking.
Leftist woman complains that it is more expensive to live alone than with a partner. It's an American conspiracy!
Mispronounced names: my name is german. Rarely does anyone say it right or spell it right. I'm white. I am not oppressed by this it is just life. FFS people, lighten up. There was a prof who got two black students mixed up--good thing I'm not in his situation, I mess up names constantly.
Posted by: ccscientist | December 27, 2021 at 14:07
Mispronounced names: my name is german. Rarely does anyone say it right or spell it right...I am not oppressed by this...
Agreed. Foreign language names will often be mispronounced and misspelled, no matter where you are.
I wonder if I would get your name right: I studied German for a number of years, but that was decades ago and I rarely have opportunity to practice my limited skills.
But since your name is German, and since collective guilt is all the rage, I would like to complain to you that the imported German pastries I bought for Christmas contained soybean oil and palm oil. If they had been echt Deutsche Gebäck then they would have been made with butter. Butter from cows that moo with an umlaut. Now what are you going to do about that?
Obesity: because of fear of offending, we were almost 18 months into the pandemic before I saw in print that obesity (called a pre-existing condition) is a big risk factor for covid. Better dead than rude.
If you observe middle age obese at the store, they are barely able to walk in too many cases. Esp women. Nevermind the heart disease and diabetes, do you really want to be voluntarily crippled? The only people I see using those electric carts shopping are the obese. The worst contribution of pop psych was the self-affirmation crap.
Christmas Eve meltdown: 'Woke' woman with doctorate in dance demands that she always be addressed as "doctor". Complains that she gets Christmas cards addressed to "Miss". Her profile on her now-deleted Twitter account described her as "Postdoctoral research fellow at @CDaRE_CU. Dancer. Teacher. Political. Thinker. Anti-racist. Research interests: Dance, disability, interventions, education, arts & politics. She/her. Sussex." (CDaRE_CU = Centre for Dance Research at Coventry University)
Her personal page at Coventry suggests that she will spend her life talking pointlessly about dance in tiresomely political terms while all the real accomplishments in dance will be done by actual performers and choreographers who will go about their lives paying no attention to her.
pst314: cows that moo with an umlaut hahahah.
on names: the irony is that in my experience Americans at least have gotten much better with foreign names the past 50 years with more exposure to them. Demanding people get names right that are ambiguous and complex is simply bullying.
Demanding people get names right that are ambiguous and complex
Even short and simple names can be difficult if the combination of phonemes is unfamiliar. My name is straightforward English and only two syllables, but people have lots of trouble spelling it the first time. I'm not offended, only amused.
Leftist woman complains that it is more expensive to live alone than with a partner
Carefully ignoring the significant number of partnerships where only one partner is contributing to the household income.
Posted by: asiaseen | December 27, 2021 at 14:43
I miss the original version of Girls Gone Wild videos. Why must everything turn to shit?
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/victoria-taft/2021/12/26/sit-down-karen-maskless-woman-slaps-man-in-the-face-for-not-wearing-mask-on-plane-n1544547
Posted by: WTP | December 27, 2021 at 15:16
You only need to wash your jeans once a month, experts say.
I hate to think what people would smell like if they only washed their jeans once a month.
This should remind us that "expert" is almost always a euphemism for "propagandist".
the high-security wing of transgender TikTok
Actual lol
Posted by: sH2 | December 27, 2021 at 16:00
Think about your household's monthly expenses. There are the big-ticket items — your rent or mortgage, your health care, maybe a student loan. Then there's the smaller stuff: the utility bills; the internet and phone bills; Netflix, Hulu, and all your other streaming subscriptions. If you drive a car, there's gas and insurance. If you take the subway, there's a public transit pass. You pay for food, and household items like toilet paper and garbage bags and lightbulbs. You buy furniture and sheets and dishes.
Now imagine paying for all those things completely on your own.
Not toilet paper and light bulbs!
Anne Helen Petersen is an American writer and journalist. She worked as a Senior Culture Writer for BuzzFeed until 2020,when she began writing a newsletter for subscribers at Substack. Petersen has also been published in the opinion section of The New York Times... PhD in media studies in 2011 from the University of Texas at Austin where she studied the history of the gossip industry.
I may have spotted her particular malfunction. Imagine getting a real job.
Posted by: Farnsworth M Muldoon | December 27, 2021 at 16:44
Only wash Jeans once a month? There was a woman in office near me who apparently did that and she stank with the particular crotch smell that only such a practice could produce. Awful.
A female singer proclaimed some years ago that one only needs a single square of toilet paper to wipe. Besides being TMI, that is absurd.
The Left seems to attract people who want us to live small lives. Small, smelly lives eating bugs and not having AC. WTF
There are also people who view the realities of life such as 2 can live cheaper than 1 (not exactly true but whatevs) or one must work or people are attracted to beautiful girls as conspiracies of the patriarchy or whiteness. Nothing is just what it is.
She takes every bit of actual data she sites and spins it as *proof* that American society is hostile to singles. Even the fact that the absence of dad in the house has real educational and life consequences for the kids is spun as a "if only Government was dad so mom never has one day of economic stress".
All she is arguing about is wanting to be a cosseted child where her own decisions - or even the vagaries of life itself, never cause any negative result. She wants a life of permanent Christmas with Government (and every other taxpayer) is Santa Clause.
Posted by: Darleen | December 27, 2021 at 17:26
If anyone has trouble with comments not appearing, email me, top left, and I'll poke at the spam filter.
One only needs to look at why perfume was so popular in Europe during the Renaissance era.
I do indeed know what it would be like, chiefly from occasional proximity to "homeless" people and science fiction fans.
As Europe was pulling itself out of the middle ages but streets were still mud and cities dark at night, a book on manners was published (so 1600 or so) featuring advice to please not poop or have sex in the street. The Left wants to revert to that era.
Testing the spam filter.
"...Postdoctoral research fellow at @CDaRE_CU. Dancer. Teacher. Political. Thinker. Anti-racist. Research interests: Dance, disability, interventions, education, arts & politics. She/her. Sussex." (CDaRE_CU = Centre for Dance Research at Coventry University)"
Seriously - what the fuck? What is "dance research," and why on earth would you need a centre for it? In particular, why would the world's 601st to 800th greatest university (I looked it up) need one? Who will ever refer to or rely on any of her 'research?' This is simply the useless being hired by the incompetent (and all on your dime, or... pence, bob?), isn't it?
Posted by: dcardno | December 27, 2021 at 18:53
A one-two punch: Chicago cop: "The Red Line is starting to smell like a meth lab."
Bank refuses to cash paycheck, says city of Chicago has insufficient funds.
Seriously - what the fuck? What is "dance research"
Amazingly, there are academics who actually claim that the "research" is at least as important as the topic being researched. Watch them melt down when you laugh and tell them that dance is more important than academic papers on dance, literature is more important than literary criticism, art is more important than art criticism, and so on.
You are lucky, wellwalla, that I left my bat'leth in my other X-wing.
Posted by: semi retired conservative | December 27, 2021 at 19:10
If I ever go to another science fiction convention, I will bring a respirator. :-D
It wants to let the world know that it's a deeply caring person:
https://twitter.com/Transanimals3/status/1474677308866928644
Posted by: Captain Nemo | December 27, 2021 at 19:32
The Left wants to revert to that era.
As usual, San Francisco is already there.
Missed the premier of this.
Should comments of a favourable kind prove unavoidable, they should instead be directed towards said person's shoes.
"Oh how wonderful! You can see your shoes!"
Posted by: aelfheld | December 27, 2021 at 20:02
A deeply caring person
And yet we're the ones warned by Twitter: "Don't forget the human behind the screen."
Posted by: Uma Thurmond's Feet | December 27, 2021 at 20:05
I hadn't realised it was "puritanical" to not be enthused by the sight of drug dealers shagging junkies on the kerb, in broad daylight, where children can see.
San Francisco is already there.
Related: https://twitter.com/michelletandler/status/1475143652942893056
Vancouver is already there as well (scroll down on this tweet). Likely most other places. But let's recognize that SF simply led the way.
https://mobile.twitter.com/FineTunedFoto/status/1422667387573207041
Leftist woman complains that it is more expensive to live alone than with a partner.
The author provides two solutions to her problems: stop thinking about marriage as something desirable and, of course, more government spending.
For the Progressives, there are no adult problems that cannot be solved by making other adults carry your burdens.
Posted by: Dan C | December 27, 2021 at 21:36
PhD in Animal gender studies.
A diploma mill, and/or the longest way to say "Two" known to man.
Atlanta, which used to advertise itself as "the city too busy to hate".
Atlanta: 4 motorcyclists driving with extreme recklessness on freeway; 2 die in crash. Much sympathy in Twitter comments, but I cannot forget that if anyone were to admonish them for their recklessness they would risk a beatdown that would put them in the hospital or even the graveyard. Perhaps it is time for our society to discourage sympathy for sociopaths, psychopaths, and other enemies.
Vancouver is already there as well...
Vancouver has long held the conceit that it is the 'San Francisco of Canada.' Maybe some truth to it - maybe the bridge, maybe the hippies; at one time it was a proud boast, but it's lately a matter of shame.
Children with learning disabilities offered 'do not resuscitate' orders during Covid pandemic
A minor cold snap in western Canada. (Global warming dontcha know.)
A song for my western brothers to celebrate.
Posted by: Steve E | December 28, 2021 at 01:35
But but but, Government-run healthcare is SO MUCH more humane and caring than those dirty, filthy, running-dog capitalist medical doctors and nurses.
That's a lot of cray-cray.
*hits tip jar*
Posted by: H | December 28, 2021 at 07:45
Bless you, sir. In the heat of intergalactic warfare, with atomic missiles incoming and supernovae imminent, may you master a grip that works while gaming on a tablet.
Which is why it is necessary for government to control everything: Independent private practices must be eliminated so that all doctors are part of large organizations and those organizations implement whatever policies government demands. Because doctors are incompetent to make medical decisions; only bureaucrats and political commissars know what is right and good.
Intrigue detected.
I looked at my class roster and saw last name "Ng". I asked the student how to pronounce it. He told me, but I think I still got it wrong. Thank goodness this happened in pre-woke times.
Come to find out, there are several correct pronunciations of Ng depending on dialect. So I might have pronounced it correctly in one dialect, but offended a listener familiar with another. Thank goodness this happened in pre-woke times.
What about cases where someone pronounces the name correctly but misspells it? McDonald v MacDonald, or McIntosh v Mackintosh?
Posted by: Joe | December 28, 2021 at 12:46
Thank goodness this happened in pre-woke times.
The supposed agonies of misspelled or mispronounced names have cropped up here once or twice before. With exquisitely sensitive ladies invoking Alex Haley's slavery novel Roots as a guide to their own suffering.
As noted previously, the matriarch of the local Chinese takeaway has been mangling my surname for two decades. I suppose I should barge in there, shout about feeling "invalidated," and shake her by the elbows.
Poor thing.
If you're cold, they're cold. Bring them inside and warm them up.
I suppose I should barge in there, shout about feeling "invalidated," and shake her by the elbows.
My usual reaction is to laugh, and ask "What are the most amusing mispronunciations that we Americans make, and what makes them funny? Do they just sound funny, or do they sound like wildly inappropriate words? And by the way, have you seen Monty Python's Bulgarian Phrase Book sketch?"
My usual reaction is to laugh,
It's not a hill to die on, that's for sure. And yet…
Oddly enough, the howling ladies linked above - for whom, an accidental misspelling of a phonetically unobvious foreign name amounts to a racist "attack" – don't tell us whether they're suitably punctilious in their pronunciation and spelling of strangers' names, lest they inflict the same alleged emotional scarring and feelings of being oppressed. In fact, it's curious just how rarely any mention of reciprocation crops up, even as a hypothetical possibility.
In fact, it's curious just how rarely any mention of reciprocation crops up, even as a hypothetical possibility.
Indeed. A general characteristic of the left.
Breaking: First images received from James Webb telescope:
Why are these killers never symphony violinists? It's a mystery.
Call me Doctor Dance,
Even by todays standards her CV is remarkable, but not in a good way, including as it does numerous qualifications and appointments at the following renowned and long-established seats of learning:-
Roehampton University
University of Winchester
And to cap it all:-
Bird College (you know, the one in Sidcup).
Posted by: John | December 28, 2021 at 14:25
Why are these killers never symphony violinists? It's a mystery
Because violins are part of the problem.
Also sax.
Why are these killers never symphony violinists?
Because classical music is racist.
Come to find out, there are several correct pronunciations of Ng depending on dialect. So I might have pronounced it correctly in one dialect, but offended a listener familiar with another.
And some pronunciations might include sounds that aren't in your phonetic repertoire, so you'll have to learn the phonetic systems of the ancestral languages of each of your students.
We're being reciprocal in our principles, so naturally every non-English speaking immigrant will be expected to correctly pronounce obscure Anglo names like Smith. Anyone who pronounces it Smeet or Smeefe will fail the oral test, but that could never happen because the theme is that it's only stupid monolingual Anglos who mispronounce things.
Our principles should be backdated, with the descendants of Ellis Island immigrants having their old-country pronunciations restored. We should fly German phoneticians into Ohio to start healing the multigenerational trauma of the lost umlaut in the Schroeder family.
I've noticed an ostentatious effort to pronounce Hispanic names, for example by soccer commentators. Ellis Island names are just say what you see; post-1965 immigrants with Bhutanese or Ethiopian names they have no chance with; but with a bit of high school Spanish and chit-chatting with the man who does the trabajo in the yard, they can really learn how to rev-up the r sound in Hernandez.
Posted by: tob | December 28, 2021 at 17:46
Via the Ace of Spades blog: The average quality of the information in a social network is inversely proportional to the square of the size of the network.
I've noticed an ostentatious effort to pronounce Hispanic names, for example by soccer commentators.
Some classical music radio hosts are guilty, too.
The average quality of the information in a social network is inversely proportional to the square of the size of the network.
Again, the fault lies not in our apps, nor in our social media, nor in our politicians, nor our guns, etc. etc. etc. but in ourselves. The specific problem here is that technology has advanced much faster than our ability to adjust our filters. The one exception to my point is that technology in general is accelerating much faster than any human society that has ever existed could possibly adjust. But even that is our own fault. Not so much because we "let" technology advance so rapidly but because we fail miserably to see and/or acknowledge this obvious reality. And blaming the tech for our failures eclipses our ability to see the root problem.
Having a chip on your shoulder about everything (name pronunciation, holding doors open, wood paneling, the "male gaze", imaginary nooses) is an example of what Thomas Sowell called Honor Culture where you are ready to fight to defend your honor or reputation. It is conducive to duels, feuds, and fistfights. It does not fit well with urban living or peaceful coexistence. In the context of two guys in person it at least has an internal logic. On the internet you are demanding that the whole world back down and say sorry for offending you or else...or else what?
Having a chip on your shoulder...is an example of what Thomas Sowell called Honor Culture
Is that from his book Black Rednecks and White Liberals?
...so naturally every non-English speaking immigrant will be expected to correctly pronounce obscure Anglo names like Smith.
Exceptions will be made for sexy Eastern European girls, yes?
I've noticed an ostentatious effort to pronounce Hispanic names...
El Nino!
....what Thomas Sowell called Honor Culture...
I consider "shame culture" the more accurate term, and have harped on before about both its pathological nature and the Left's fixation with turning the West into such a culture.
But here is a handy chart:
https://q.publicintelligence.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/guilt-shame.png
Note that it does cover such specific perversities as "if I and others pretend hard enough that you are guilty, even when we know you aren't, then you are" or "I am not shamed if I pretend hard enough that I am not guilty of what I did". Ditto the zero-sum game of "honor" being most readily gained by achieving the humiliation of another.
If multikulti trainers were really dedicated to the premise that there are multiple kultis instead of believing that everyone in the world is just a Western progressive with an exotic cuisine that whitebread whites irrationally hate, then this is the sort of material they'd be teaching.
Perhaps conscience culture is a better name than guilt culture: feeling bad even if you've gotten away with something, feeling secure about doing the right thing against social pressure, being able to respect an opponent's position if it appears to be conscientiously taken, appealing to an opponent's conscience if you believe him to have moral reservations about his position. It's a cultural package for conflict de-escalation and for things to be done right without having to be explicitly negotiated or micromanaged.
Posted by: Amboy | December 28, 2021 at 21:16
Today In Racism™: the song "Jingle Bells".
Rioux told the Beacon that some people "suggest that the use of collars on slaves with bells to send an alert that they were running away is connected to the origin of the song 'Jingle Bells.'"
"Bells on bob tail ring" - how the hell these dolts turn a horse into a runaway slave is beyond bizarre. This is what happens when you get rid of mental institutions.
Pathological leftism again: Imagine putting yourself in this comic and thinking you're the good person.
And it seems she did a previous comic about the joys of shoplifting.
Miserable lefty New York yenta writes a New Yorktimes column to warn every man in the world to stay away from her, much less marry her.
Slaves did not wear collars with bells. That is stupid. It is part of the "not enough real racism so let's make some up" trend. Like the rope to close a garage door in chicago being a noose. riiiight. or the banana peel hanging in a tree being racist.
And how does a ride to grandmas in a sleigh become slaves running away? How does this cretin explain the rest of the song? argh
https://thetakeout.com/what-forbidden-snacks-make-your-mouth-water-1848248157
In which progressives share their need to eat sand, Tide Pods and anti-freeze.
Wish a few more of them would try the last one...
Continuing the quote:
Rioux added that the school was "not taking a stance" about the lyric's meanings, but "we do feel strongly that this line of thinking is not in agreement with our district beliefs to value all cultures and experiences of our students."
So the school refuses to "take a stance" for truth against lies, and professes to "value the culture" of the most contemptibly ignorant and stupid people. Well, it is a public school...
Is this an example of a currently fashionable pathology, or is it satirizing that pathology?
Photoshopped insanity? No, here is the original post, in which a Wise Black Woman Goddess explains things to us: "The original Japanese & Chinese people were black. It wasnt until Ghenkiskan came around & spread his genetics that the slanted eyes became more prevalent.
Asian is a racial slur.
The term Asian should be banned, the correct term is aborigines.
Wow I miss Pangea so much."
I suspect that her unconventional spelling of Genghis Khan is a clue to where she gets her "knowledge".
Also, This agricultural/nutritional 'wisdom'.
I used to see a lot of weird stuff when I occasionally visited afro-centric bookstores, but I get the impression that things have gotten a lot crazier recently.
I think she was hangry when she wrote that. She was thinking gherkin and Genghis Khan at the same time.
Hangry for brains?
This agricultural/nutritional 'wisdom'.
Maybe I need new glasses*, I read that as semen not saliva.
* or perhaps a new brain
I've noticed an ostentatious effort to pronounce Hispanic names
The death of Col Gadafi was a great time if you regard the above as entertainment. Up to the time of his removal from power and death, I think he was always referred to in the Anglosphere as Col Gadafy/ Gadafi, and his name was pronounced as any English speaker would read Gadafy.
Then the media had a bout of competitive authenticity regarding his name, with a profusion of alternative, throat-clearing pronunciations and spelling.
When the great unwashed raised an eyebrow at this ostentatious display of affectation, we were informed that the matter was complicated - but not why each paper seemed to think it necessary to change its house style in the matter almost in unison
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/gadafy-gaddafi-or-kadafi-a-matter-of-style-1.579659
Posted by: a different james | December 29, 2021 at 09:39
Ms Amber Leventry, a "queer person and educator," managed to be outraged by the fact that she had been asked not to swear and scream in the workplace.
I think I've figured out why she's so angry. :-)
Posted by: Mike | December 29, 2021 at 09:56
I think I've figured out why she's so angry. :-)
Well, there is, shall we say, some doubt as to whether Ms Leventry's issues are the ones she says they are. And I'm not sure that a person with serious mental health problems, and drinking problems, and anger-management problems, such that meltdowns are pretty much a signature of her presence, is someone best placed to dish out lifestyle advice.
And how does a ride to grandmas in a sleigh become slaves running away?
Well, you have to admit that you could rhyme those two phrases fairly easily, so doing so would make it true for the First Order Thinkers and their faith in sloganeering and alliteration.
ostentatious display of affectation
Oooh, that's a good descriptor.
Well, you have to admit that you could rhyme those two phrases fairly easily
Jingle bells, urban hells, murder all the way.
Oh what fun it is live in a diverse hood today.
I should write a biography and title it Nine Neuroses in Amber.
Back in the sixties, there were black kids in my (Diverse Urban™) school who were offended by Irving Berlin's "White Christmas". Shrug.
Centre for Dance Research at Coventry University
Prize for the most joyless use of the word "dance" in the history of English.
Posted by: Thon Brocket | December 29, 2021 at 12:00
Yes. But have you noticed how professors who "study" the arts so often take all the joy and pleasure out of them?
In February, we beheld the chutzpah of our new downtrodden elite at the United Nations International School
And thus we see how children are trained to become monsters that no sane society should tolerate. Just one of the ways that we have come to be ruled by "elites" that should be treated with the greatest contempt and intolerance.
Following the links above, I came to this post from April.
It was indeed satisfying to hear the would-be carjacker squeal like a pig when his victim body-slammed him into the pavement.
However, it's a shame that his victim then allowed him to run away rather than detain him and call the police.
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Meanwhile, reenactors demonstrate tactics from the Battle of Mons.
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