Selcted Scenes From the Great National Discussion on Race

Indeed.

Some time back a horrifying series of racially-menacing crimes were committed at Oberlin College. The left was well and truly outraged.

But they turned out be another giganitc hoax so the left has nothing more to say about them.

Busted. Stone-cold busted. Just as I suspected, “progressive” pranksters at Oberlin College have been definitively unmasked as the perpetrators of phony campus “hate crimes” that scored international headlines in March. The blabbermouth academic administrators who helped fuel the hysteria are now running for cover.

The Associated Press, the New York Times, MSNBC, Yahoo News, and the Huffington Post were among the media outlets that trumpeted the story of supposed racism, homophobia, and anti-Semitism run amok at my alma mater. Throughout the winter, anti-black and anti-gay graffiti, swastikas, and a shadowy figure in a “KKK hood” surfaced on the tiny campus outside Cleveland, Ohio. Black Entertainment Television News decried the hate outbreaks and a “KKK sighting.”

I'm omitting Michelle's recounting of previous racial hoaxes at Oberlin, simply because I can't quote everything. But do go over there, to NRO, to read the whole thing.

...

The orgy of self-flagellation swelled.

I have to step in here: It's not self-flagellation. Self-flagellation, in the sense of seriously scrutinizing oneself for cognitive defects, hatreds, biases, and other errors in mind and spirit, can be a useful function.

But the left never self-scrutinizes. People say they navel gaze. They do not, not in any intellectually or spiritually useful way. Their navel-gazing is navel appreciating.

If they were really pulling themselves apart to examine what makes them tick, that could be very useful. And within a few months they wouldn't be leftists anymore.

What they do, always, is pretend to be speaking of themselves -- "We must do better" -- but their use of "We" is a very odd one.

They mean others. They mean You. They mean anyone not present in their little grouphate sessions.

Self-flagellation? Not hardly. Whipping their various permanent designated whipping boys is all that it is.

Self-flagellation hurts. Whipping someone else feels good, if one gets off on being a Scourge of Evil, which the left does. So long as that evil is located outside of themselves.

Liberal grievance-mongers applauded the administration’s decision to shut down classes. Faculty, students, and opportunists took to the airwaves and the Internet to bemoan “white privilege,” institutional bigotry, lack of diversity, yada, yada, yada.

And now I delete her recounting of how the hoax was uncovered. It's great stuff and I suggest you read it. But again I can't just rip off everything she writes.

...

There are other adults who deserve to be called out. As Cornell law professor and blogger William Jacobson, who has pressed the administration for months about the cover-up, notes: “Oberlin continues the wall of silence which delayed for months disclosure of the hoax. It’s time for Oberlin to reveal who knew what, and when, particularly as to the oversight exercised by the Board of Trustees.”

Sad to say, this is the sorry state of liberal-arts colleges in America today: Extreme identity politics, multiculturalism, and pedagogical self-indulgence are creating a generation of race trolls enabled by tenured cultural-Marxist punks raking in beaucoup bucks. The bursting of the higher-ed bubble can’t come fast enough.

Yup.

And speaking of, David Freddoso, or, as I often call him, David Fredosso, recounts the recent history of racial-menace hoaxes. First he underlines this important fact: Oberlin long knew this was a hoax, but kept it silent.

Incredibly, once the hoaxers had been discovered, suspended, and removed from campus, university administrators concealed their knowledge that it had been a hoax, leaving other students (and Americans in general) to fear that their campus was a far more dangerous and hostile place than it actually was.

This is what I find repulsive about leftist. Not liberalism, mind you. But leftism, which has completely taken over what was once liberalism.

The central idea of liberalism is that Truth will liberate men. Truth.

And yet here you have a college -- a college for God's sakes! Half of them have Veritas in their coats-of-arms! -- actively concealing the truth and actively promoting a lie because they've decided the lie is better than the truth.

Liberals? Not hardly.

This is repulsive. Men who think should be repelled by this.

All men who think are repelled by this. The men who do not think and do not love the truth are the ones left to embrace it.

What were once laboratories of truth are now incubators of falsehoods.

He then goes on to list the now very-common after-school activity of perpetrating racial hoaxes on campus.

You'll be happy to know that Law & Order: JTS (Jumped the Shark) is going to be handling the Trayvon Martin shooting and Paula Dean ancient slur with their typical thoughtfulness and nuance.

The episode features the Paula Dean analogue shooting the Trayvon Martin analogue.

Why not have an Alec Baldwin analogue do it, as his most recent racial slur was five months ago, not 25 years ago? Because, Law & Order: JTS says, they're so daring and they ask the "tough questions."

He said the show would ask the tough questions.

'Is racial profiling justifiable? Can self-defense involve racial profiling? We're diving right into that,' he said.

I would think it would be a tougher question to ask why a man with Industry Connections is permitted to drop homophobic and racial slurs like he's Frank Sinatra roasting Paul Lynde and Sammy Davis, Jr., and has yet to be asked to pay any price by his media friends and protectors.

But nah, let's make a barely-famous non-Industry-Connected joke chef the villain. Because Narrative.

"Why do they seem so insistent on making it racial?" MSNBC asks several times per day.

Jonah Goldberg has a similar question, but with a different antecedent for "they."

It's all worth reading, but here's the conclusion:

From Obama down to his cheerleaders in the press, liberals have declared unremitting war on their ideological opponents, cynically polarizing the country along racial -- and, when possible, gender -- lines. They, not conservatives, have been the ones dragging race into any and every political dispute they can. This disgusting strategy has worked well for them, galvanizing minority voters and tarring the Republican brand. I don't particularly welcome the fact that conservatives are fighting fire with fire, but you can hardly blame them given how liberals like Reid have been asking for it for so long.

On Twitter yesterday, I was beside myself noting that the Oberlin story was a National Concern when the media thought it helped their Narrative.

But the exact same story is now a #LocalCrimeStory because it's a hoax which injures their cause.

See how neat that is? The exact same story changes from National Concern to #LocalCrimeStory depending on whose Narrative it helps.

I also am beside myself at being lectured about racism by an institution -- the media -- which is overwhelmingly white, and, like a tall light latte with extra milk and whipped cream, it gets whiter and whiter the higher up you go, so that it becomes almost completely white -- Nazi Party white -- in terms of upper management, high paid writers, and top hosts, pundits, reporters, and lead actors.

And right on cue, Saturday Night Live is adding four more cast members.

Shock of shocks, they're all white.

As they say: Men who live in sin must be the ones most loudly denouncing it.

That last thanks to @rdbrewer4.

posted by Ace at 05:28 PM

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