Someone I admire once suggested/commanded, "Don't live up to your stereotypes." Here you take that suggestion and begin to provide the How and the Why and the What-the-Fuck that should spur us to follow your suggestion/command. I rarely run into anything you write that doesn't go in. Far. Here you write something I want to distribute to the part of the world that knows how to listen, think and then act accordingly. Thank you.
One under-discussed problem with social justice politics (or wokeness, or whatever you want to call it), is its parochialism. Social justice activists often seem to have little understanding of or interest in the complexity of cultures and societies other than their own.
Several years ago, activists in Portland compiled a list of “appropriative” restaurants—that is, restaurants owned by white people which allegedly specialized in the cuisines of people of color. The list included a number of restaurants that serve Latin American food, including Argentine and Mexican restaurants.
If you know anything at all about Mexico, you know it’s an extraordinarily diverse country. It has 68 recognized indigenous groups, but is also home to millions of people of largely or exclusively European extraction, as well as significant Black or Afro-Caribbean and Asian populations. Argentina’s demographics are different, but it’s similarly diverse; a majority of Argentines are primarily European (from a wide range of countries), but the country also has millions of Arabs and East Asians.
Returning to Portland, what does it mean to say that white people should not operate a Mexican or Argentine restaurant? Is an Italian-American chef not permitted to operate an Argentine steakhouse, even though a majority of Argentines (like the Pope) have some Italian ancestry? There are tens of millions of white people living in each of these countries, and quite a few of them make and sell food for a living. Not only that, but Mexican and Argentine cuisine have been influenced by Spanish, Italian, French, German, and other European traditions as well as indigenous cuisines. I’m not an expert on Latin America—I don’t speak Spanish, and I’ve never even been to either of these two countries, outside of a day trip to Tijuana—but I know all of this because I’m interested in the world.
It’s possible the Portland activists who created the restaurant list are aware of this complexity and decided it’s irrelevant, but I suspect they didn’t even think about it. Unfortunately, most Americans don’t know much about Latin America. And that includes many of the most aggressive social justice activists and identitarians. Progressives like to imagine that it’s only ignorant right-wingers who are clueless about the rest of the world, but American social justice activism also has powerful flattening and anti-cosmopolitan tendencies, which are at least in part a product of pure ignorance about not only foreign cultures but sub-cultures within our own country.
Total pretendian. I'm jealous of Canada, outed pretendians usually suffer cultural and professional consequences. In the USA, they almost always keep the same jobs they obtained BECAUSE they were assumed to be Indian.
I asked my friend and former dean what he would do if a teaching applicant came in declaring some particular identity (think Ward Churchill, CU Boulder). He says school protocol dictates he must accept declared identity as truth--no questions asked. You certainly remember it took 17 yrs to expose Churchill!
And he still has defenders. I’ve written about this. Pretendians hide behind a leftist political identity in white leftist spaces. where “inclusion” is gospel. Self-identity becomes the only thing that matters.
Sherman, I tried fwd’g this to Jamie Pedersen and my niece, whose children are 1/4 Blackfeet. Couldn’t get the site t to work so am using this method to contact you. Could you please send me 3 copies of the essay (I’m in a nursing home without access to a printer) so I don’t have 1for myself and send the other 2 to Jamie and Carole. (Google Jamie; he’s grown up to become a BFD in State politics.) My name and address: Mirra Lee, 2818 NE 145th Street, Shoreline, WA 98155. Thnx - MIRRA LEE (ML), leemirra7@gmail.com
I am curious: how do you think that the adoption of "American" values - "Democrat, capitalist, socially moderate, remarkably magnanimous, and only intermittently passionate" - does or does not go with the idea of Native cultural genocide? Considering that values like "Democrat" and "capitalist" seem to be European in origin. Why would these have greater genuine appeal amongst the population?
The talon show continues, claws and effect, looking sharp. As fine a bite John WAYNE'A TEETH. AND ten years ago I met some of the "Sweat Lodge Procurers ( or is it pro- curers) they were so full of shit an baloney that the youngerfolkss were exporting kosher gas to rottenmyew in Isreal andUR DEAD MEAT to PUTTASKIIN. THEY ARE GOING TO MEAT EACH OTHER HALF WHEY. HYESOON KIM IS DONG MASS CONSULTATIIONS ON THE VALUES OF SIDEBARS.
The talon show continues, claws and effect, looking sharp. As fine a bite John WAYNE'A TEETH. AND ten years ago I met some of the "Sweat Lodge Procurers ( or is it pro- curers) they were so full of shit an baloney that the youngerfolkss were exporting kosher gas to rottenmyew in Isreal andUR DEAD MEAT to PUTTASKIIN. THEY ARE GOING TO MEAT EACH OTHER HALF WHEY. HYESOON KIM IS DONG MASS CONSULTATIIONS ON THE VALUES OF SIDEBARS.
What is it with woke white people—mostly, let’s be honest, upper middle-class white women—needing to group all non-white people into easily definable victim categories? How do people not see this as blatantly racist? When you say ‘black people’ or ‘indigenous people’ the new understanding is everyone in said group thinks, acts, talks and believes the same things. We see how the lefty media rewrites reality when this narrative doesn’t fit—it’s ‘internalized white supremacy’ when black men were kicking the shit out of Asians during Covid; you’re ‘not politically black’ if you don’t share the correct leftist views (Obama’s label); etc.
What you say is 100% true: it’s a tiny slice of the population, these radical leftist activists, and they claim to speak for all members of any ‘group.’
Black Americans are largely similar, of course: According to Pew, 66% feel that biological sex is fixed and unchangeable; most are politically moderate; most are against Defund and other ludicrous far-left ideas.
I truly think we’ll look back in 20 years on this era now and wonder how we allowed racism and cultural totalitarianism to flourish on the political left while Trumpism and the absurd political right did their own brand of insanity. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Revenge will never fix problems. White people on the left really need to stomp this nasty Wokeism out for good. We need mature, commonsense critical thinking, not overt racism in the name of White Saviorism.
We should not have revenge, but at the same time, it is also racist when people take things like "Black men kicking the shit out of Asians" and hold the whole race of Blacks collectively responsible, regardless of each individual's own contribution or not. Do you call this out when it gets done? Because such is literally no different than saying every White person is responsible for the types of racism common there, regardless of whether they individually have done them. Not saying you don't, but I want to know, because it seems everyone points to this racism or that racism while not saying what they think about the "other" racism.
Also, so long as a view is not outright promoting hatred, whether that be "kicking the shit out of Asians" or ordering tight migration laws based on IQ testing (c.f. Charles Murray) which then cause police to bring out guns and other instruments of violence, I would not call it "ludicrous". Calling ideas that are radical or provocative "ludicrous" is a problem, too, as much as it is when people in favor of those ideas ignore input from ideas they don't agree with. Genuine political diversity means being willing to listen to a lot, and not dismiss things easily (with a few exceptions like overt calls to genocide or other atrocity). One should be able to say "I don't agree with it, but I can understand how it can be argued for".
Someone I admire once suggested/commanded, "Don't live up to your stereotypes." Here you take that suggestion and begin to provide the How and the Why and the What-the-Fuck that should spur us to follow your suggestion/command. I rarely run into anything you write that doesn't go in. Far. Here you write something I want to distribute to the part of the world that knows how to listen, think and then act accordingly. Thank you.
Wonderful write up. Thank you!
If those two Oklahoma Congresscritters wore turquoise and silver bolo ties, they might have a better chance.
This is a great piece.
One under-discussed problem with social justice politics (or wokeness, or whatever you want to call it), is its parochialism. Social justice activists often seem to have little understanding of or interest in the complexity of cultures and societies other than their own.
Several years ago, activists in Portland compiled a list of “appropriative” restaurants—that is, restaurants owned by white people which allegedly specialized in the cuisines of people of color. The list included a number of restaurants that serve Latin American food, including Argentine and Mexican restaurants.
If you know anything at all about Mexico, you know it’s an extraordinarily diverse country. It has 68 recognized indigenous groups, but is also home to millions of people of largely or exclusively European extraction, as well as significant Black or Afro-Caribbean and Asian populations. Argentina’s demographics are different, but it’s similarly diverse; a majority of Argentines are primarily European (from a wide range of countries), but the country also has millions of Arabs and East Asians.
Returning to Portland, what does it mean to say that white people should not operate a Mexican or Argentine restaurant? Is an Italian-American chef not permitted to operate an Argentine steakhouse, even though a majority of Argentines (like the Pope) have some Italian ancestry? There are tens of millions of white people living in each of these countries, and quite a few of them make and sell food for a living. Not only that, but Mexican and Argentine cuisine have been influenced by Spanish, Italian, French, German, and other European traditions as well as indigenous cuisines. I’m not an expert on Latin America—I don’t speak Spanish, and I’ve never even been to either of these two countries, outside of a day trip to Tijuana—but I know all of this because I’m interested in the world.
It’s possible the Portland activists who created the restaurant list are aware of this complexity and decided it’s irrelevant, but I suspect they didn’t even think about it. Unfortunately, most Americans don’t know much about Latin America. And that includes many of the most aggressive social justice activists and identitarians. Progressives like to imagine that it’s only ignorant right-wingers who are clueless about the rest of the world, but American social justice activism also has powerful flattening and anti-cosmopolitan tendencies, which are at least in part a product of pure ignorance about not only foreign cultures but sub-cultures within our own country.
Buffy Ste Marie (SantaMaria): mi'kmaq, Cree/Piapot, Italian/English, faux Indian, pretendian?
Canada cares more; USA mostly yawns
Total pretendian. I'm jealous of Canada, outed pretendians usually suffer cultural and professional consequences. In the USA, they almost always keep the same jobs they obtained BECAUSE they were assumed to be Indian.
Agreed.
I asked my friend and former dean what he would do if a teaching applicant came in declaring some particular identity (think Ward Churchill, CU Boulder). He says school protocol dictates he must accept declared identity as truth--no questions asked. You certainly remember it took 17 yrs to expose Churchill!
And he still has defenders. I’ve written about this. Pretendians hide behind a leftist political identity in white leftist spaces. where “inclusion” is gospel. Self-identity becomes the only thing that matters.
I've been poking around online looking for your writing on this. What with my academic bottom-feeder researching skills, I can't find it. ;)
Excuse the imposition: Would you direct me?
Thx.
You’re too Rez for me.
Sherman, I tried fwd’g this to Jamie Pedersen and my niece, whose children are 1/4 Blackfeet. Couldn’t get the site t to work so am using this method to contact you. Could you please send me 3 copies of the essay (I’m in a nursing home without access to a printer) so I don’t have 1for myself and send the other 2 to Jamie and Carole. (Google Jamie; he’s grown up to become a BFD in State politics.) My name and address: Mirra Lee, 2818 NE 145th Street, Shoreline, WA 98155. Thnx - MIRRA LEE (ML), leemirra7@gmail.com
I am curious: how do you think that the adoption of "American" values - "Democrat, capitalist, socially moderate, remarkably magnanimous, and only intermittently passionate" - does or does not go with the idea of Native cultural genocide? Considering that values like "Democrat" and "capitalist" seem to be European in origin. Why would these have greater genuine appeal amongst the population?
You make a stilleto look like a badminton racket.
The talon show continues, claws and effect, looking sharp. As fine a bite John WAYNE'A TEETH. AND ten years ago I met some of the "Sweat Lodge Procurers ( or is it pro- curers) they were so full of shit an baloney that the youngerfolkss were exporting kosher gas to rottenmyew in Isreal andUR DEAD MEAT to PUTTASKIIN. THEY ARE GOING TO MEAT EACH OTHER HALF WHEY. HYESOON KIM IS DONG MASS CONSULTATIIONS ON THE VALUES OF SIDEBARS.
You make a stilleto look like a badminton racket.
The talon show continues, claws and effect, looking sharp. As fine a bite John WAYNE'A TEETH. AND ten years ago I met some of the "Sweat Lodge Procurers ( or is it pro- curers) they were so full of shit an baloney that the youngerfolkss were exporting kosher gas to rottenmyew in Isreal andUR DEAD MEAT to PUTTASKIIN. THEY ARE GOING TO MEAT EACH OTHER HALF WHEY. HYESOON KIM IS DONG MASS CONSULTATIIONS ON THE VALUES OF SIDEBARS.
holy shit!!!
Chip. Good one.
This belongs on every syllabus of so, so many courses.
De-Vikingized!!! 😂😂😂
What is it with woke white people—mostly, let’s be honest, upper middle-class white women—needing to group all non-white people into easily definable victim categories? How do people not see this as blatantly racist? When you say ‘black people’ or ‘indigenous people’ the new understanding is everyone in said group thinks, acts, talks and believes the same things. We see how the lefty media rewrites reality when this narrative doesn’t fit—it’s ‘internalized white supremacy’ when black men were kicking the shit out of Asians during Covid; you’re ‘not politically black’ if you don’t share the correct leftist views (Obama’s label); etc.
What you say is 100% true: it’s a tiny slice of the population, these radical leftist activists, and they claim to speak for all members of any ‘group.’
Black Americans are largely similar, of course: According to Pew, 66% feel that biological sex is fixed and unchangeable; most are politically moderate; most are against Defund and other ludicrous far-left ideas.
I truly think we’ll look back in 20 years on this era now and wonder how we allowed racism and cultural totalitarianism to flourish on the political left while Trumpism and the absurd political right did their own brand of insanity. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Revenge will never fix problems. White people on the left really need to stomp this nasty Wokeism out for good. We need mature, commonsense critical thinking, not overt racism in the name of White Saviorism.
https://michaelmohr.substack.com/p/some-surprising-data-on-black-americans
We should not have revenge, but at the same time, it is also racist when people take things like "Black men kicking the shit out of Asians" and hold the whole race of Blacks collectively responsible, regardless of each individual's own contribution or not. Do you call this out when it gets done? Because such is literally no different than saying every White person is responsible for the types of racism common there, regardless of whether they individually have done them. Not saying you don't, but I want to know, because it seems everyone points to this racism or that racism while not saying what they think about the "other" racism.
Also, so long as a view is not outright promoting hatred, whether that be "kicking the shit out of Asians" or ordering tight migration laws based on IQ testing (c.f. Charles Murray) which then cause police to bring out guns and other instruments of violence, I would not call it "ludicrous". Calling ideas that are radical or provocative "ludicrous" is a problem, too, as much as it is when people in favor of those ideas ignore input from ideas they don't agree with. Genuine political diversity means being willing to listen to a lot, and not dismiss things easily (with a few exceptions like overt calls to genocide or other atrocity). One should be able to say "I don't agree with it, but I can understand how it can be argued for".
Thanks Sherman, this gives me several new ways of seeing several things.
Thank you, David.