Critical Race Theory Infests the Federal Workforce

Need I say this at the beginning of this post? Unfortunately, I might need to. On many topics I disagree with Tucker Carlson and his peers at FOX, or the current Republican Administration, because I lean left on many issues. That said, now on with the post.

I'm glad that Tucker Carlson is shining light on the use of critical race theory in the federal workforce. Carlson's guest, journalist Christopher Rufo, is gathering this information from hundreds of workplaces where CRT is taking the form of religious indoctrination. As Rufo indicates, "There is no place for this toxic, divisive, pseudoscientific ideology in our public institutions."

Rufo Tweeted yesterday: "In the past 18 hours, I've received more than 1,000 messages and 100 new sources for leaked government documents." Sunshine is the best disinfectant.

I'm posting Rufo's recent Tweet below, along with Geoffrey Miller's well phrased comment:

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Commonalities Between Woke Culture and Religion

From a recent article by psychologist Valerie Tarico titled, "The Righteous and the Woke – Why Evangelicals and Social Justice Warriors Trigger Me in the Same Way."

It occurred to me recently that my time in Evangelicalism and subsequent journey out have a lot to do with why I find myself reactive to the spread of Woke culture among colleagues, political soulmates, and friends. Christianity takes many forms, with Evangelicalism being one of the more single-minded, dogmatic, groupish and enthusiastic among them. The Woke—meaning progressives who have “awoken” to the idea that oppression is the key concept explaining the structure of society, the flow of history, and virtually all of humanity’s woes—share these qualities.To a former Evangelical, something feels too familiar—or better said, a bunch of somethings feel too familiar.

Tarico then lays out many of the similarities in detail. The similarities include:

Righteous and infidels

Insider jargon

Born that way

Original sin

Orthodoxies

Denial as proof

Black and white thinking

Shaming and shunning

Selective science denial

Evangelism

Hypocrisy

Gloating about the fate of the wicked

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About Cultural Revolutions

Then . . .

And now. Click on the photo for the story of this woman dining in DC, who was approached by BLM protesters, not satisfied to invade her while in a restaurant but insisting on the alleged need for compelled speech.

The woman dining in the restaurant is bravely exhibiting the correct approach when someone threatens you to make you say something you don't believe.  Here is a classic photo showing how to be brave.  Click on the photo for the story of the man who refused to salute Hitler.

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Babygate: Where People Allow Skin Color to Interfere with Basic Human Kindness

Have you heard about "Babygate"? The crux of the problem is that a white man affectionately held a Black friend's Black baby on his lap, at the friends's request during a meeting of the NYC Community Education Council. Members of the Council complained, indicating that this was "harmful" and that it "hurts people." The formal written accusation contained the following:

The letter characterized the lap incident as harmful: “Imagine the insult and emotional injury any thinking person, especially a person of color, suffered when they witnessed this scene and heard that comment,” it stated, calling them “shocking, disgusting, offensive, and racially incendiary.” It demanded that Wrocklage resign, claiming that allowing such incidents to continue without consequences “will only further empower the perpetuation of similar racist behaviors.

When the man who held the baby was called out, he challenged the accusers to state why this was racist. The accusers could not explain why this was racist. They told him that he needed to read Robin DiAngelo. This incident illustrates how crazed we are getting. "Anti-racist" ideology is has successfully turned innocent human kindness into a bad thing.

This recent incident and its aftermath were described in detail, then analyzed by Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic in an article titled "Anti-racist Arguments Are Tearing People Apart: What a viral story reveals about contemporary leftist discourse." An excerpt:

Folks who have different ideas about how to combat racism should engage one another. They might even attempt a reciprocal book exchange, in which everyone works to understand how others see the world. A more inclusive anti-racist canon would include Bayard Rustin, Albert Murray, Henry Louis Gates, Zadie Smith, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Danielle Allen, Randall Kennedy, Stephen Carter, John McWhorter, Glenn Loury, Barbara and Karen Fields, Thomas Chatterton Williams, Adolph Reed, Kmele Foster, Coleman Hughes, and others.

As long as sharp disagreements persist about what causes racial inequality and how best to remedy it, deliberations rooted in the specific costs and benefits of discrete policies will provide a better foundation for actual progress than meta-arguments about what “anti-racism” demands.

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Concern with Obesity, Fat-Shaming and Racism

People who don't know me well sometimes assume that it's easy for me to keep my weight down.  This is completely untrue.  I constantly watch what I eat. I constantly force myself to exercise and I make myself get on the scale several times each week.  If I don't do these things I will gain 2 or 3 pounds per month.  I've repeatedly and unwittingly run the experiment of not paying attention to my weight during my life. Each time I fall off the rails, I have had to call a stop to the nonsense and declare war on my fat. Over the past 30 years, this has led me to begin ever new rounds of weight loss boot camp (on my own, at home) where I've worked hard to lose 35, 20, and 20 pounds, as well as various smaller amounts of weight. I'm currently in yet another (minor) boot camp that will end when I lose 5 more pounds. This is my plight, my burden and my opportunity if I am going to maintain a body that  feels good and fits my clothes. I also want to avoid risks of diabetes, cancer, heart disease, strokes and other illnesses associated with excess weight.

Whenever I find out that friends are trying to reduce their size, I encourage them and celebrate their successes with them. I silently applaud when I see obese people I don't know exercising at the park  Good for them! I hope they reach their goals!

Increasingly, however, the excesses of the "body positivity" movement invade my thought process, occasionally making me do mental double-takes. Body positivity is a double-edged sword:

On the one hand, body positivity—the attitude associated with the movement—aims to try to help overweight and obese people (especially women—see also, fat feminism—and sometimes, when intersectionally analyzed, specifically black women) accept themselves and their overweight status as they are so that negative emotions are not tied up with it. This, of course, has the direct benefit of helping people not feel bad about themselves for a state of facts about the world (weight, BMI, body fat percentage, etc.), which can be demotivating and hinder weight loss attempts (or, which can just be mean and bullying—see also, fat shaming).

On the other hand, body positivity tends to rather aggressively deny any connection between weight status, including obesity, and health (see also, healthism). It rejects such connections as a “medicalized narrative” (see also, regulatory fiction). This rejects mountains of medical evidence suggesting otherwise, that being overweight and especially obese correlates strongly with and causes a number of serious health issues. This view relies upon seeing body weight status and obesity ultimately as a social construction that is used to create an unjust power dynamic that discriminates against and oppresses fat people. Activism in the body-positive movement often encourages overweight people not to want to lose weight (sometimes as a means of identity politics—see also, identity-first), which is irresponsible, at best (e.g., a book in the movement is titled You Have the Right to Remain Fat).

I agree with the benefits of body positivity described above.  Overweight people should not be shamed.  They should not be shunned.  Doing these things is cruel and destructive.  We should recognize every other person to be a precious human being. It all starts with I and Thou, Martin Buber's version of the golden rule.

That said, how can it possibly be bigoted when I work hard to be healthy and look better by losing weight. How can I possibly be acting out of bigotry to the extent that I encourage others to reach their weight loss goals?  It's not.  For background, see this article on Woke attitudes toward obesity at New Discourses. This is shut-up ("Woke") culture doing what it does best: halting important and necessary conversations under the guise of combating alleged discrimination. Today's excess is an article by CBS featuring a sociology professor who claims that concern with obesity is veiled racism.

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