When you're a leftist, how do you choose?

How do you know when quiet neighborhoods are not a sign of white supremacy?

Somehow, Ace consistently finds a story on Fridays about which there is more. This week, in his The Wages of Woke post, there's a discussion of a piece in The Atlantic . .

which instructs us that wanting your neighborhood to be peaceful and quiet -- so that people can sleep at night and children can be well-rested for school and adults refreshed for productive work -- is white supremacy.

But what happened when the author of that piece finished the degree for which she apparently didn't need to study and became an adult? David Thompson provides some insight in: Don't Oppress My People With Your Expectations Of Politeness And Basic Consideration

The Atlantic is currently promoting an article from its archive, one selected by the editors as a "must-read," a measure of the magazine's importance to the progressive lifestyle. A choice that is perhaps more telling than intended.

The chosen article, by novelist Xochitl Gonzalez, poses the question, "Why Do Rich People Love Quiet?" It is sub-headed, "The sound of gentrification is silence." A racially judgemental tone prevails. Such that the term rich people can be read as meaning white people. Followed by implied tutting.

It begins with an account of life at university - Brown, since you ask - and the merits of Brooklyn hip hop combos

Ah, those downtrodden minority students, huddled together for mutual safety. Lest the roaming tigers find them.

Then the other students arrived -- the white students.

Some pointed, rather thorough fisking of the text of the Atlantic piece follows. Fisking like in the old days.

Oh, and for those of you curious about the author's precise level of brownness, and thereby magical qualities, and all those rather handy exemptions from reciprocal proprieties, I'll just leave this here:

Well, the photo kinds of leads into the next part of the story, surviving Covid in the city and . .

At which point, readers may wonder how Ms Gonzalez, a novelist, manages to write her books amid the fashionably vibrant racket that she recommends to others. All that shouting and shrieking and “ceaseless music” that she finds so liberating and authentic. Wouldn’t those extended and rather complicated trains of thought be disrupted, and likely made impossible, by all the shouting and laughing, all the whumping and thumping, all those jolly sirens?

Happily, an answer is provided in the pages of Elle Décor, in which Ms Gonzalez opined some two months earlier:

Writing novels is intrinsically solitary. Which is no small part of why I switched professions in the first place. Despite wearing the coat of an extrovert, I am pure Greta Garbo. I want to be alone.

(!)

And so, our silence-needing novelist sought out “a gorgeous historic house in downtown Kingston, New York.” Ah, yes. An “upstate vacation rental.”

Perhaps Ms Gonzalez was hoping that readers of her Atlantic article – the one about noise being so vibrant and racially affirming – would not stumble across her Elle Décor piece, published weeks earlier, which rather calls into question her own later claims. And which, it has to be said, suggests a certain pretence, a certain hypocrisy. . .

It's kind of fun to compare the description of The Atlantic at the beginning of the post on this article by David Strom which Ace linked with the other goof-ball pieces described at the end of David Thompson's post.

h/t goes to Ed Driscoll, who also found this great meme from Jon Gabriel:

In our own neighborhood, we sometimes have some loud and vibrant "culturally-affirming" activities. But often the neighbors across the street will bring us a plate of food when the band gets going, and will wind up the wild stuff before it gets too late.

Plus, they give us eggs from their hens. Cultural enrichment without The Atlantic.

Antisemitism, Racism and Decolonization

Before Ace's link disappears from the sidebar:

Douglas Murray absolutely merks paid Hamas propagandist (and former MSNBC host) Mehdi Hassan at the Munk debate on antisemitism and the "anti-Zionism" it's usually disguised as.

One style point deducted from Douglas Murray because he is very mean on a personal level, but two points rewarded because Mehdi Hassan deserves it so much
Murray brings up Pakistan, a state "created" about the same time as Israel, and notes that if someone said "I think the state of Pakistan should be abolished, and I don't believe Pakistanis have the right to their own state," we would not believe them when they then added, "Of course, I have nothing against the Pakistani people myself. . ."

You know, the Pakistan thing could be problematic for hard-core decolonization ideologues. Weren't the Muslims colonizers in the Indian subcontinent? How does today's leftist choose between support for India or Pakistan?

I thought it might be interesting to review what a couple of the big think tanks thought about Pakistan 10 or 11 years ago:

Aspen: Why is there such a difference between India and Pakistan now? (well, 11 years ago)? What are today's wokesters doing about the crisis with Pakistan kicking out all those refugees from Afghanistan?

10 years ago: Is Pakistan the most dangerous place in the world as a poor country with nukes? (Did they help us with the draw-down in Afghanistan?)

Brookings: The Pakistani army remains obsessed with India. It has lost every war with India and now turns to nuclear and "asymmetric warfare" (terrorism). Pakistan thinks this works because India doesn't retaliate (because Pakistan has nuclear capability).

Examples of war between India and Pakistan, plus numerous incidents of terrorism by Pakistan, one of which was an early challenge for Obama.

So . . . Hamas is not the only organization that thinks this way?

There are some short highlight videos from the Munk debate included in the Duane Patterson piece linked above by Ace. Here is another one which includes the comparison Ace noted between Pakistan and Israel:

Why were the no protests or college campus tent protests set up after Sudan?

What makes this current conflict different?🤔

Douglas Murray is, of course, unmatched! 👏pic.twitter.com/yqUdLLKEeu

— Kat Kanada (@KatKanada_TM) June 18, 2024

Facebook/Meta has added a thing called "Stories". These are typically enhanced memes or GIFS which disappear from view quickly, and can be quite irritating when you don't have time to read the whole thing, or when they are political in nature.

One which showed up on my feed was from a young woman I know, which suggested (among other suggestions) that if you were upset by 10/7 but had not been more upset by unspecified horrors in Sudan (there are already a lot), you were a Racist. No explanation for how "caring" or being upset would make a difference. I really think that this young woman just hates to see kids die and has not thought through the implications of these "stories", but it's troublesome that she's being fed this kind of stuff.

Anyway, a simplified form of Douglas Murray's argument about Sudan in the debate has apparently already been used by the other side.

About Sudan:

Things were much worse there a few years ago. Strategy Page was happy to sign off on regular updates in 2020. Looks like everybody just got tired of fighting.

But apparently, 14 months ago the "international community" sparked a new war by strongly insisting that the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces join with regular government forces as a step toward "democracy" or something.

The generals on the opposing sides of the new conflict used to be on the same side.

In the past few days, there has been a flurry of news items on Sudan.

UAE accused of fueling war by providing weapons to Sudan's paramilitary rivals

The Sudanese government on Tuesday accused the United Arab Emirates (UAE) of fueling the 14-month war in the African country by providing weapons to a rival paramilitary force.

The UAE dismissed the allegation as "ludicrous," calling it "a shameful abuse by one of the warring parties."

The clash came during a UN Security Council meeting at which Assistant Secretary-General Martha Pobee warned that atrocities are being committed along ethnic lines in Sudan's western Darfur region.

She urged an immediate cease-fire in the North Darfur capital, El Fasher, which is besieged by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces "to prevent further atrocities, protect critical infrastructure, and alleviate civilian suffering."
Sudanese Ambassador Al-Harith Mohamed accused the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces of "destructively launching" its war with the Sudanese military and attacking civilians, aided by weapons from the UAE.

U.N. experts monitoring an arms embargo in Darfur reported "credible" evidence in January that the UAE sent weapons to the Rapid Support Forces several times a week from northern Chad.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield on Tuesday reiterated a U.S. appeal to all "external actors to stop fueling and prolonging this conflict and enabling these atrocities by sending weapons to Sudan."

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Sudan's Mohamed urged the council to "walk the extra mile by naming and shaming the United Arab Emirates."

Sudan plunged into conflict again in mid-April 2023, when long-simmering tensions between its military and paramilitary leaders broke out in the capital, Khartoum, and spread to other regions including Darfur.

The U.N. says over 14,000 people have been killed and 33,000 injured.

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces were formed from Janjaweed fighters by then Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who ruled the country for three decades before being overthrown during a popular uprising in 2019.

He is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide and other crimes during the conflict in Darfur in the 2000s.

Last Thursday, the Security Council adopted a resolution demanding the Rapid Support Forces immediately halt its siege of El Fasher -- the only capital in Darfur it doesn't control.

I wonder if anyone will care about this report by the BBC that Iran may have been supplying drones to the military in Sudan?

This looks to me like a descent back into the misery engulfing Sudan (remember Darfur?), South Sudan and Chad not so long ago. Which people should the left "care" about? Which side do they demand that you care about? Should the RSF get "decolonization" points for being (partly) descendants of indigenous nomadic Janjaweed fighters defending their grazing rights against sedentary colonizer farmers long ago?

Better check with your local leftist faction before speaking.

Music

Better than our locals, and if they had a tuba, it would probably be in tune.

Hope you have something nice planned for this weekend.

This is the Thread before the Gardening Thread.

Last week's thread, June 15, Men Exiting Cancel Culture

Comments are closed so you won't ban yourself by trying to comment on a week-old thread. But don't try it anyway.

posted by K.T. at 11:08 AM

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