The usage of the terms “racist(s)” and “racism” as a percentage of all words in four of the nation’s largest newspapers from (depending on the publication) 1970 through 2019.

Zach Goldberg, in Tablet Magazine, documents the sudden rise to mainstream acceptance of the radical Marxist viewpoint on American History and society.

In the wake of the protests, riots, and general upheaval sparked by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the United States is experiencing a racial reckoning. The response from America’s elite liberal institutions suggests that many have embraced the ideology of the protesters. Here, for instance, is a sampling of the titles of opinion pieces and news stories published over the past month by the country’s two most influential newspapers, The Washington Post and The New York Times:

“When black people are in pain, white people just join book clubs”

“Black Activists Wonder: Is Protesting Just Trendy for White People?”

“To White People Who Want to Be ‘One of the Good Ones’”

“America’s Enduring Caste System: Our founding ideals promise liberty and equality for all. Our reality is an enduring racial hierarchy that has persisted for centuries.”

The last entry on the list, a lengthy feature on America’s “caste system” in The New York Times Magazine, explicitly compares the United States to Nazi Germany.

Countless articles have been published in recent weeks, often under the guise of straight news reporting, in which journalists take for granted the legitimacy of novel theories about race and identity. Such articles illustrate a prevailing new political morality on questions of race and justice that has taken power at the Times and Post—a worldview sometimes abbreviated as “wokeness” that combines the sensibilities of highly educated and hyperliberal white professionals with elements of Black nationalism and academic critical race theory. But the media’s embrace of “wokeness” did not begin in response to the death of George Floyd. This racial ideology first began to take hold at leading liberal media institutions years before the arrival of Donald Trump and, in fact, heavily influenced the journalistic response to the protest movements of recent years and their critique of American society.

Starting well before Donald Trump’s rise to power, while President Obama was still in office, terms like “microaggression” and “white privilege” were picked up by liberal journalists. These terms went from being obscure fragments of academic jargon to commonplace journalistic language in only a few years—a process that I document here in detail. During this same period, while exotic new phrases were entering the discourse, universally recognizable words like “racism” were being radically redefined. Along with the new language came ideas and beliefs animating a new moral-political framework to apply to public life and American society.

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Not ordinary white Americans! notes Matt Walsh.

where are the police while these vandals destroy public property and tear down priceless works of art that have stood, in some cases, for a century or more? You almost have to remind yourself that the people tearing down the property actually do not have the legal right to do what they’re doing. You’d be excused for thinking otherwise – does the term “public property” mean that the public can do whatever it wants with it? – however, destruction of property worth more than $500 is a felony in most states. These statues are worth many thousands of dollars, making these mob-led “removals” felony crimes. They are also dangerous crimes, as the man who had his skull cracked open in Virginia convincingly discovered.

But this has been the theme in recent weeks. The police standby while leftist radicals do, quite literally, whatever they want.

In Seattle, a group of radicals have seized control of several city blocks and declared it a sovereign state. They have set up checkpoints and barricades, and uniformed police are barred entry. The police, in fact, were nice enough to abandon their precinct at the rioters’ behest. This is a repeat of what we witnessed in Minneapolis, except in that case the precinct was then ransacked and torched. Somehow, in a civilized country once ruled by law, this has all become a familiar sight. Mobs rampage through our cities, set buildings on fire, destroy police cars, destroy public property, destroy private property, throw bricks, invade government buildings, loot, assault, and murder. And very little effort is made to stop any of these crimes from occurring, or to punish those who commit them.

There is much discussion about “privilege” in our culture. Indeed, the concept of privilege is one of the things fueling these mobs. They would say that privilege is bestowed based on race and gender, and that I, as a white man, have the most privilege of all. Yet I’m fairly sure that if I drove into town right now and threw a brick in a window, or set a retail outlet on fire, or looted a convenience store, or invaded a police precinct, or tried to set up my own “autonomous zone,” or yanked down any statues or monuments I found personally displeasing, I would be arrested on the spot, with little fanfare. And if I resisted arrest and was beaten or killed by police in the process – even if my death was unjust and the result of excessive force – there would be no CNN headlines about it, no riots in my honor, no elaborate displays of performative grief from our elected officials in Washington. Whatever my white privilege gets me, it doesn’t get me that. And it doesn’t provide me a pass that allows me to tear through the city, stealing, destroying, looting, and burning, either.

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Mainstream Christianity in today’s West has become a dead letter and a joke. But our elites are not irreligious. Their real clerisy is the rancid radical Left. And their religious observance consists of submission, self-abasement, and virtue-signalling in response to whatever the Left demands.

St. George School, Newport, R.I. I went to St. George School myself, but mine was in Shenandoah, PA.

The other day, a Yale classmate announced on the Facebook Class Group that a female member of a significantly later class has a book on the beginning years of coeducation at Yale, Yale Needs Women, coming out next month.

I pre-ordered a copy, and remarked to the group that it looked to me like the author was, unfortunately, going to be milking a “Poor us, we were victims!” perspective. Suddenly, a formerly genial classmate from St. Paul’s was urging me to take my misogynistic opinions someplace else.

Liberal idiocy and absolute liberal intolerance of dissent from the party line are everywhere in establishment America today. Will Davis, for another example, ran into both in his alumni group discussions, too.

Sometimes people ask me how I, as a member of the very liberal newspaper industry, came to be a conservative.

The answer is that I’ve been around liberals enough to know that we don’t want them running —— well, anything.

My first and most lasting introduction to leftists was in Newport, Rhode Island, where I went to boarding school.

St. George’s School is a beautiful place. A gothic chapel sits perched among red-brick Colonial classroom buildings and dorms, overlooking a grassy bluff and the Atlantic Ocean. It’s a picture of tradition, excellence and charm.

Don’t let appearances fool you. Like most of New England, indeed like most educational institutions, St. George’s was and is a hotbed of political correctness and hard-core liberalism. And it’s also the place where Fox News’ Tucker Carlson went to high school, graduating just a few years before me.

And so on Monday, the administrator of our St. George’s Class of 1992 Facebook page struck out to post this:

“Hi all, happy summer. Hope everyone is well. For those of you out there opposed to the racist hate speech that is swirling around in this country and fueling violence (that I hope has not impacted any of you or your loved ones), please consider adding your name to a letter signed by a long list of alumni who are asking the school to break ties with Tucker Carlson (who was recently used as an auction item amongst other things). Please comment here or message me if you are interested in joining other alums in asking the school to stand behind their purported values. Thanks!”

Ah, nothing brings a graduating class together like a good old ex-communication.

In case you missed it, Carlson did a monologue the other day on his Fox show explaining that white supremacy is not a real thing, that it’s a hoax just like Russian collusion used to hammer Trump. Carlson noted that there is no discernible white supremacy movement in the country; that he’s never met anyone who claimed to be a white supremacist. Neither have I. Have you? It’s merely the latest club that the left is using to try to whack Trump and his supporters. It’s just hateful slander.

On a page dedicated to keeping up with classmates, I thought it was tacky to bring up politics, and I couldn’t keep my fingers shut. As comedian Ron White famously said, “I had the right to remain silent, but I did not have the ability.”

I pointed out to my fellow Dragons that former Vermont governor and Democratic presidential candidate Howard “The Scream” Dean is also an SG alum, and he offends ME greatly. Yet I don’t urge our school to banish him.

“If you want to send the message that SG is another liberal bastion that crushes dissent and anyone who thinks original thoughts,” I wrote, “this seems like a good way to do it.”

I went on to say that I’ve lived in Georgia for 27 years and had yet to meet anyone who advocates white supremacy.

My old chum Candace Gottschalk, who lives in New York City, would have none of it.

“I imagine it would be easy for you to agree that white supremacy isn’t a problem,” wrote Gottschalk. “You are a white male who included an image of the confederate flag on your senior page. Just last week, my husband, who is black, went to the farmer’s market and was asked by the vendor if he was looking for collard greens, because you know, black people only eat collard greens. Racism is everywhere. You do not see it because you are never the victim of it.”

Really? So now her husband is a victim of racism because they asked him if he wants collard greens? My gosh, I LOVE collard greens. Are we really sitting around waiting to be offended? Can you imagine growing up with people like this?

RTWT

HT: Glenn Reynolds.

Francis Menton, Y ’72, looks at the concept of white privilege and argues that it should be defined differently.

There is “white privilege,” but it’s not what you might think. The “white privilege” consists exactly in not being looked upon or treated like someone in need of a handout or ongoing help from the grownups. It consists of being forced — or maybe the better word is “allowed” — to take responsibility in life, and to be an adult yourself.

I’m certainly not the first one to remark that members of minority groups who obtain positions in areas where affirmative action is prevalent — elite colleges and law firms being good examples — face downsides that may not have been immediately obvious to them when they got into this. At the college, you could find yourself struggling academically, and finishing at the very bottom of the class. At the law firm, you could be recognized as not up to the job within weeks or months of starting, and then being quickly turned back onto the job market without a good reference to help you. These are significant points to be considered.

But they are not the most important point. The past several weeks have shone a spotlight on the more important issue. That issue is what I would describe as the utter contempt in which the self-anointed elites of our country hold members of minority groups, most particularly African Americans. Somehow, these elites — or at least some very substantial number of them — have decided that African Americans are not capable of accepting personal responsibility in life or of being treated like adults. Therefore African Americans must be “helped” by their betters to accomplish the very basics, like staying out of trouble or earning a living.

… then we have the question of “reparations” for African Americans, suddenly ubiquitous in the news. Are you an African American who is struggling to succeed in life? (Isn’t everyone struggling to succeed in life?). We could say, man up and keep struggling until you make it. That’s what adults have to do. But now we have a better idea: no need to keep striving; just take the seemingly easy route of claiming “reparations.” The cover story is that this will be an entitlement based on mistreatment of your distant ancestors. But let’s face it, you aren’t fooled by that. The unmistakable message is that the proponents of reparations have no faith that you have any ability to make it on your own as an adult. Therefore, you will not be allowed to try, and you will be treated as a child in permanent dependency on the government.

Who are these proponents of reparations? At Al Sharpton’s National Action Network conference this week, a plurality of the Democratic presidential candidates showed up, and the Rev took the occasion to demand of each of them in turn whether they support this “reparations” thing. One after the other, they said they did: Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Beto O’Rourke, Tulsi Gabbard, Kirsten Gillibrand, Julian Castro. Even John Hickenlooper! Would anyone say, I think responsibility-free handouts are not a good thing, and that African Americans adults are perfectly capable of making it on their own? Not in this crowd. They are deep racists, all of them.

At least so far, whites still have the privilege — and it really is a privilege — of not being treated by those in power with this kind of disdain. But don’t count on it continuing. The entire agenda now going by the name of Democratic Socialism — free health care, free college, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed wages, protection by the government against all downside risks in life, etc., etc. — aims to take away everyone’s ability to be a self-responsible adult in life.

RTWT

HT: Bird Dog.

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Daily Mail story (from March):

Australian nurses and midwives are being forced to announce their ‘white privilege’ before treating Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander patients – a move which has been slammed as ‘racist to its core’.

The term ‘white privilege’ defines the unearned social and cultural advantages awarded to people with white skin which are not enjoyed by people of colour or non-white backgrounds.

The Nursing and Midwifery Board believes the cultural safety of Indigenous or Torres Strait Islander patients is just as important as their clinical safety.

“Stringer Bell”, a student currently at Yale, comments on the Social Justice Revolution underway at Yale.

These events have allowed people’s true motivations and opinions to be revealed. What some students are realizing is that their very existence is perceived as a threat. The encroaching ideology holds that by existing in the world as a white person, white people are unaware of the privileged status they hold. Anything short of continually reminding themselves that they are white, they are oppressors, and any interactions they have with a people of color have power struggle implications, is pure racism.

People are no longer individuals; we are representatives of our respective pasts. A white male speaking with a black female is not merely one human being interacting with another—no, it is one representative of the oppressor class speaking with another representative from the oppressed class.

White students, and to a lesser extent Asian students, are targets. I’ve listened to white students describe their feelings of shock and betrayal at having been accused of racism for the sin of existing. While they will readily agree that racism is a problem, many look utterly bewildered when you tell them that they are supporting “systemic racism” because they don’t take the time to incorporate the experiences of every minority group into their perspective at all times. The protesters have overplayed their hand.

It’s not all about race, ethnicity, or gender, however—ideology trumps all. Generally, white students who parrot the right opinions have been able to move through Yale with fewer accusations of racism than students of color who remain neutral or question the “Next Yale” movement. An undercurrent of resentment is forming among the dissenters of all backgrounds.

Keep in mind that the people at Yale are as liberal as they come. This grand university may soon no longer be worth saving. At this point many students are focusing on getting their degrees and getting the fuck out of here.

The University of Minnesota at Duluth is campaigning against white privilege.

CampusReform.org has the story.

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This mentality is sufficiently prevalent in educational circles that it has provoked the creation in response of a satire site called OK HOLD ON LET ME CHECK MY PRIVILEGE.

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I thought that if we just awarded an undeserved presidency to an African-American nobody from Illinois, whose only life-time accomplishment was writing a memoir after graduating from law school, that all our racial problems and divisions would vanish and the whole era of racial grievances and complaints would be finished and done with. Whatever happened to the deal that liberals kept promising?