Oppression Is Evil

from Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech

 

I share Martin Luther King’s dream.

Earlier today I read a tribute, from someone who had visited MLK’s historic home in Montgomery, Alabama. She quoted something from that tour, offered in a recording of his voice: 

“It was around midnight. You can have some strange experiences at midnight,” he says through the recording. It was January 1956 at the time, and Dr. King had just received yet another threat. The voice on the other end had called him an offensive name, followed by, “[We] are tired of you and your mess now. And if you aren’t out of this town in three days, we’re going to blow your brains out and blow up your house.”

Dr. King's voice shares how that message shook him to the very core.

“I sat there and thought about a beautiful little daughter who had just been born…. She was the darling of my life. I’d come in night after night and see that little gentle smile. And I sat at that table thinking about that little girl and thinking about the fact that she could be taken away from me any minute…. And I discovered then that religion had to become real to me, and I had to know God for myself. And I bowed down over that cup of coffee, I never will forget it…. I prayed a prayer, and I prayed out loud that night.

“I said, ‘Lord, I’m down here trying to do what’s right. I think I’m right. I think the cause that we represent is right. But, Lord, I must confess that I’m awake now. I’m faltering. I’m losing my courage. And I can’t let the people see me like this, because if they see me weak and losing my courage, they will begin to get weak.’ Then it happened: And it seemed at that moment that I could hear an inner voice saying to me, ‘Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness. Stand up for justice. Stand up for truth. And lo I will be with you, even until the end of the world.’… I heard the voice of Jesus saying still to fight on. He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone. No never alone. No never alone. He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone.”

I’m afraid right now he must be rolling over in his grave. Among civil society, his dream has come true. It’s not acceptable for anyone to hate because of race. Except—that voice he heard, so full of hate that they were willing to kill him, that voice is still speaking. And it’s coming from the people he was trying to help. His people. Their descendants and others seeking to oppress.

I wrote about this last week; at our school board meeting, newly elected school board member Scott Henry had the courage to say that the equity audit report’s suggestion that we hire more black teachers—not because of qualification, but because of race, wouldn’t work.

It wasn’t enough that he was lied about and mischaracterized. It wasn’t enough that they called for his removal from the school board. It wasn’t enough that they got the media to lie about what he’d said. It wasn’t even enough that they made threats to his life and the lives of his family members—just like the oppressors did to MLK. (This is especially ironic following the National School Board Association letter to the Biden administration in September led to Attorney General Merrick Garland’s admission that they were investigating conservative parents as a threat to school board members—not because of any actual evidence of threats from those parents, but because of that letter; are these actually threatening pro-racist Democrats going to be investigated?) None of that would satisfy; they had to seek out his employers and shame them into firing him; what is oppression, after all, if not the ability to take away a person’s means to make a living?

How did the employer, San Francisco-based software company Splunk, explain the sudden firing?

 "We viewed the employee's conduct as inconsistent with who we are as Splunkers and the individual is no longer employed by our company," they tweeted. What he said was that our school district should not use racist hiring practices. That is what Splunk finds inconsistent with who they are? 

Scott Henry called for us not to be racist. He commented,

Because I dared to disagree that it equates to high retention rates, there have been threats upon my life, and my wife and my children have been targeted. I will take responsibility for not saying it more eloquently.

For that he is being called a racist. One tweet put it this way:

This racist Texas #CyFair school board member just said that more Black teachers leads to worse student outcomes. He must resign. And be called out. And maybe sued….— Demanding Liz (@ehanks2208) January 12, 2022 

Did he say that? No. Did he say anything negative about black teachers in either CFISD or HISD? No.

Henry wanted CFISD to hire based on “the content of their character,” and their qualifications to teach, rather than simply the color of their skin, something MLK would approve. But the world has been toppled over.

Harris County Judge (administrator) Lina Hidalgo told the media: 

What we saw the other night was the racism said out loud. And if we allow this kind of thing in a public forum by a public official that represents a school district, what are we allowing?

Did Lina Hidalgo hear his full comments? If she did, what part of “let’s not hire based on race” offends her?

When asked to explain, Henry wrote a statement:

I was defending our school district against attacks from an out-of-state political organization that claimed our schools were failing our students because we did not [have] one pre-determined diversity metric. This political organization claimed that one metric—the percent of black teachers in our schools—determined the quality of education our students receive.

So, if they needed clarification (which they shouldn’t have needed, if they’d heard his full statement), that should have settled it. Someone at the school board meeting called that “walking back his statement,” and said we shouldn’t accept it.

The lies don’t stop.

I don’t know who it was at the Monday night meeting that gleefully spread the word that there was something said they could distort—but whoever did that is evil. I don’t know who the instigator is, but I’m going to call out a couple of the speakers, because of their power and influence, which carry their lies further than others.

Odus Ebbagharu speaking at
CFISD school board meeting January 13.
screenshot from here

One is Odus Ebbagharu, Harris County Democrat Party Chair. He was welcomed with calls of “Odus! Odus! Odus!” from the Odus-friendly crowd. Claiming unanimity with the community, “Republican, Democrat, doesn’t matter,” he says, “To sit down here and listen to what I just heard, this is not the community I know.” Then he called out the school board members and followed with a Desmond Tutu quote:

School board members, when these comments were made, not one of you spoke out. Desmond Tutu said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”

The reason no school board members called out Scott Henry at the meeting was because he hadn’t said anything to call out. He brought forth an opinion, based on the data in the report, and made a recommendation, which they would be discussing at some future point. How horrifying! More on the side of the oppressor in a minute.

The other person I’m calling out is Dr. and Pastor Evelyn Ogletree. She says something I fully agree with:

I know teachers of all races. And you cannot determine whether they’re good or bad by their race.

Dr. Evelyn Ogletree speaking at
the CFISD board meeting January 13,
screenshot from here

Scott Henry agrees with that sentence. That was the point he was making. We shouldn’t hire based on race; we should hire good teachers, because their race doesn’t matter. Everyone in support of Scott Henry believes that. Many of the “useful idiots” who were stirred up to hate Scott Henry believe that. We’re in agreement.

Except—those who are spreading the lie that that’s not what Scott Henry believes really do want hiring based on race. They want racist hiring practices. And they want racist treatment of students. But they don’t call it racist if it’s blacks committing the racism.

Dr. Ogletree used the term “African-American” nine times in her sanctimonious 2½-minute speech. She says, “I am appalled at what was said. I am hurt. I am just, really just cannot believe that this is happening in our district.”

You know what does not appall her? The racist tweets her husband sent out on the regular—her husband, Dr. and Pastor John Ogletree, one of the three board members we ousted in the election, and the one who wrote the Resolution that called for the equity audit recommending that our district use racist hiring practices. (We were reminded of these in my friend Bill Ely's excellent public comments Thursday.) To refresh your memory, here are a few:

·       “Yesterday’s Ku Klux Klan members are today’s police officers.”

·       “White Evangelicalism is nothing but slaveholder religion.”

·       “Riots are the American way” (in reference to police killings).

·       “This country was built on bad theology with White men holding bibles!!!”

·       “White Evangelicals… are complicit in Madness, Divisiveness, and Evil.”

·       “If you want to understand white privilege just watch the videos of the insurrection on the US Capital Grounds.”

·       “When will the white pulpit be as repulsed by the taking of an innocent Black life as it is by the taking of the life of an unborn fetus.”

Who’s divisive? Who’s racist? Who’s a religious bigot? Her co-pastor and husband.

But she calls on parents, teachers, and the community to speak out against a school board member for saying what she said: that you cannot determine whether a teacher is good or bad by their race.

So what was that Resolution her husband wrote about? It wasn’t about making sure we treat our students and teachers of all races equally; it was about segregating out blacks and privileging them—and oppressing anyone who stands in the way of that goal.

If you have the power to make a phonecall and intimidate a corporation into firing an employee who disagrees with your political aims, you’re not the oppressed; you’re the oppressor.

If you have the power to make a phonecall and have the government and the press appear at your beck and call and spread whatever message/lie you put out there, you’re not the oppressed; you’re the oppressor.

If you use your race as a threatening weapon against people don't look like you or don't think like you, you’re not the oppressed; you’re the oppressor.

This is evil. The people who perpetuate it are evil. Particularly evil are the ones who lie about anyone standing in their way, insisting they're the evil ones. Sowing discord. Persuading people that they’ve got to stand up against evil racism—by denigrating people who aren’t racist while wielding the threat of labeling them racist to ruin their lives.

One more quote, from the scriptures:

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven.

—Matthew 5:10-12.

Scott Henry is being persecuted for speaking the truth and doing his duty, which includes preventing this pernicious racism from taking over our schools. I pray for him that he does not need to wait until heaven for the blessings.

I’d love to see someone out there with connections to a company that could use a good data analyst—to quietly step in and restore this good man’s ability to make a living for his family. Make his life better than it would have been if he’s stayed with a company so quickly willing to give in to the oppressors.

I expect there’s more persecution coming. Brace for it. Because there’s plenty of evil right here in our community.

Hearing They Hear Not, Neither Do They Understand

Seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.—Matthew 13:13

Remember how we worked all last summer and fall to elect three new school board members?  And the main reason, as with many school districts across the country, was the pushing of racist Critical Race Theory ideas in our schools? Well, now’s the time for the payoff/fallout. On Monday was the first down-to-business school board work meeting (formal board meeting happened Thursday night; more on that later). In Monday’s meeting, board members talked about the equity audit that the previous board signed a resolution to do and then spent money on. Results are back, and a presentation was given at that work meeting.

I have not been able to see the results, beyond the presentation, which was scant on details. I did find the presentation, which I believe was given last April to the previous board prior to their ordering the audit. [I found it here, but could not pass along the link itself, because it has been moved, but clicking on the link downloaded the file for me to look at.) And I found this article, which is informative but pretty much devoid of data. During the meeting the public didn’t get to see the details. And even board members didn’t seem to have access to the raw data and methodology, which was glossed over in the presentation. That was a real problem for several board members, particularly the data-driven ones: new members Scott Henry and Luke Scanlon and board president Tom Jackson. (I’m noting Jackson in particular, because he had no problem expressing these flaws in the study Monday night, but seemed indifferent to them on Thursday night.)

But here’s one of the problems of our times: you can say something benign and well-reasoned, and someone will take offense and claim you said something that you didn’t.

That problem has hit Scott Henry this week, following his comments on Monday. He even made the front page of the Houston Chronicle. Harris County Judge (administrator) Lina Hidalgo passed along her uninformed assessment that he said black teachers cause low graduation rates in Houston’s humongous, scandal-ridden, downtown school district, Houston ISD (independent school district).

from Houston Chronicle, January 13, 2022, pp. A-1 and A-6

Did he say that? No. Did he say something that a reasonable person would construe to mean that? No. But there were a lot of unreasonable people at Thursday’s formal board meeting. Hidalgo held court (er, a press conference) out front, surrounded by news media and a crowd of sign holders letting us know that black teachers were good people—something no one had disputed. Hidalgo never came inside for the meeting, where she would have been given a forum to speak; it was all about the media for her.

But the room was packed inside. I got there a mere ten minutes early and signed up to speak, just in case. The system has always been that, during public comments, up to 10 people, chosen randomly from those who sign up, get to speak for 2 minutes each on topics related to the agenda. And then 10 people (also chosen randomly from those signed up) can speak during community comment time with the same limitations. Usually that’s where we get to speak. But since the equity audit was on the agenda, that’s what I signed up to speak on. And they changed the rules as of this meeting. As many as signed up were allowed to speak. I was next to last in that public comment segment. I didn’t count; I’m guessing around 30 spoke. The meeting started at 6:00. Public comment began shortly afterward. I spoke about 8:30, I think. You can look it up, but I feel awkward about how I looked and sounded on camera, so I’m not linking to the spot. Two minutes isn’t long enough to accomplish much of a point, but I was there as moral support.

Anyway, what turned out to be a minority of us came to support Scott Henry from the pitchfork wielders who were calling for him to resign over his “racist” comments.

CFISD Board Member Scott Henry, at work meeting January 10, 2022
screenshot from here

Here’s the troublesome segment, about 10 minutes into his 12 minutes of comment:

Scott Henry: You mentioned talking about people that look like us, and things, which I would like to remind people: our teachers are our most important asset within our district. I love our teachers. I love what they do for us every day. My kiddo loves her teachers. But I looked online. You were talking earlier about people that look like us. And we have such a hard time getting teachers. I know it’s such a hard job. You have a hard job getting teachers. Very hard. People just don’t want to be teachers anymore. I get that. It’s hard. But Cy-Fair has, what, 13% black teachers. I know you mentioned that earlier. Do you know what the statewide average is for black teachers?

Audit Results Presenter: Not at this moment, sir.

Scott Henry: 10%. I looked it up. The statewide average for black teachers is 10%. Houston ISD, which y’all used as the shining example—you know what their average number, percentage of black teachers is? 36%. I looked that up. You know what their dropout rate is? 4% I don’t want to be 4%. I don’t want to be HISD. I want to be a shining example. I want to be the district standard. I want to be the place, the premium place where people go to be. And, quite frankly, we have a limited budget with limited resources. We have a great place. And let’s don’t mess it up for everyone else.

I highlighted the part the media quoted. He was following up on an earlier part of his comments, referring to one recommendation of the equity audit asserting that Cy-Fair ISD needed to increase the percentage of black teachers, because students need to see someone who looks like them as their teacher in order to improve discipline problem and graduation rates. And the audit referred to Houston ISD as a glowing example in this regard. 

You can see there is nothing in his comments saying anything bad about black teachers. He’s pointing out that we’re already above the state average, and that’s a good thing. But their recommendation—especially when they hold up Houston ISD as their “glowing example”—doesn’t indicate that following this recommendation would lead to better outcomes.

So what he’s saying is, we shouldn’t use race as the basis for our hiring; it won’t get us the results we want, namely fewer discipline problems (talked about earlier) and lower dropout rates. His 4% number was a misspeak, by the way; HISD’s rate is considerably higher than that, and is higher than Cy-Fair’s, despite their higher percentage of black teachers, which was the point. By the way, he was also called out for denigrating another school district. But that's not what he was doing; HISD needs no help doing that. What Scott Henry is doing is pointing out the flaws in the audit report, which multiple times held up HISD as the model to follow.

Incidentally, no one at the Monday meeting gasped or exclaimed audibly when he said this. No one was appalled. But someone apparently found it useful enough to twist, to stir up the thousands who weren't there Monday and probably still haven't heard his whole comments.

The offended hordes at the meeting heard: “I hate black teachers. We should fire them. Black teachers cause higher dropout rates.” You can listen to the public comments for yourself. I’m not exaggerating. They were calling for his lynching—OK, bad choice of metaphors; literally they called for him to resign or be fired for that horrible thing he said, which showed how racist he is. That horrible message was, as you can see, “Let’s not be racist.”

It’s strange how we can be in the same room, hearing the same words, and hear completely different things—opposite things. Someone said, derisively, “And then you’ll celebrate Martin Luther King on Monday….” Oddly, MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech offers the hope that we can judge people on the content of their character instead of the color of their skin—just as Scott Henry had suggested for our hiring of teachers. The actual racists refer to the idea of a colorblind society as being white supremacist and are in the process of canceling MLK. That’s how skewed they are.

Here’s the problem with an equity audit: equity, in CRT-speak, means equal outcomes. What they are looking for are things that look unbalanced for one race in particular, and then they attribute the cause as being systemic racism. And then they make recommendations that will install contracts with their prescribed vendors to stir up more such “evidence.” It’s a racket. We taxpayers get stuck with the bill for putting CRT in our schools—even after the legislature outlawed that this past session.

In Monday’s meeting, board member Julie Hinaman tried to clear up misconceptions about the meaning of the word equity, in defense of their calling for the audit last year. She gave this definition:

Educational equity is about ensuring all students are successful. It’s about removing barriers to student success. It’s about working to close the achievement gaps. So, it’s about two things: resources—do all students have the resources that they need to be successful? And are we removing barriers that are preventing them from being successful?

series of slides in the presentation given to the Board prior to doing the equity audit,
given by Dr. Roger Cleveland of Millennium Learning Concepts,
from presentation found here

I’m not against ensuring that all students have the resources they need to succeed. That should be an obvious funding priority. But I think we need to be more precise about removing the barriers preventing their success. One of the biggest barriers is a dysfunctional family situation, and schools are not the solution to that problem; they are pretty much no more than pressure on a gaping wound in those cases. New board member Luke Scanlon had pointed out that some students literally have survival as a goal. Just live through another day.

Sometimes that disadvantage looks like a socioeconomic problem—families that don’t make enough money lead to students with worse outcomes. But when you look deeper, you see that the problem isn’t just money; that’s a symptom. The problem is broken homes, no father in the home, unstable situations at home.

Sometimes that problem looks like a racial problem. But when you look at the data, you find that black children are more likely to be born out of wedlock and more likely to live with a single parent. That is not caused by white racism against blacks in our schools; it isn’t solvable by eliminating every particle of racism.

If schools have a role, it could be teaching the importance of following the formula for rising above poverty in America: stay in school through high school, get a job, wait until marriage for sex, wait until marriage to have children. That formula works for every race in our society. If we’re failing to pass along that basic fact, we’re doing a disservice.

But, while it’s arguable that Great Society policies have led to more fatherless homes in the black demographic, the barrier isn’t caused by “systemic racism” among the population in Cy-Fair ISD.

When we have a problem with black students being 19% of the school population but 40% of the discipline problems, measured as suspensions, that doesn’t mean we should discipline the individual troublemakers less because of their race; it might mean that we need to discipline them more. Or find better discipline approaches. Saying, “Oh, they’re black and therefore disadvantaged, so let’s let them get away with whatever they want,” is telling them the rules don’t apply to them. That’s not a good thing to teach them. Luke Scanlon suggested that, from his experience, holding them accountable, in meaningful ways, gets them to be higher achievers. I’d say giving in to their tyranny-because-of-color not only harms the remaining students, it harms them even more.

So, we can recognize some students lack what other students have at home. But we shouldn’t be handicapping those fortunate students just so we can close up an achievement gap. The problem is not that there is a gap that should be closed; the problem is that there are children who are achieving less than they could, and we need to look at ways to bring them up.

Imagine a solution where we end up doing something that helps the lower achievers that also happens to help high achievers, the gap won’t close. But the real objective would be met—getting each child closer to potential. Focusing on closing the gap is like climbing a ladder that’s up against the wrong wall.

I don’t know what the board is going to do about the equity audit and its recommendations. Hopefully our new board members will stand strong against this actual racist infiltration, which is what we elected them to do. And maybe they’ll be able to sway some of the others. An angry horde calling you racist—and staking out your home and sending death threats to you and your family (yes, those things happened this week to Scott Henry)—is a scary thing to stand up to. This is what we elected them to do.

We’re praying they can do it. Literally, many friends together prayed at a certain hour today (and also continually) to lift up Scott Henry. May God protect him—and any others in this battle of ideas that is affecting our next generation in the schools.

Words Have Power

Words are the things we use to convey ideas. Words have meaning. If you have command of language, that’s a kind of power. But we don’t usually think about the dictionary writers as powerful. Mostly we don’t think about them at all.

Mr. Spherical Model and I watched a movie the other night about the creators of the Oxford English Dictionary. I’m undecided about recommending it, called The Professor and the Madman., with Mel Gibson as Professor James Murray, and Sean Penn as the madman, Dr. William Chester Minor. It was well done as a film, but because Dr. Minor (apparently in real life, according to the end credits) was seriously deranged, some scenes were hard to stomach. Anyway, Professor Murray was a Scottish autodidact, fluent in so many languages and dialects I couldn’t count them. And he happened to be kind of obsessive about tracking down the changes in the use of each word. It was a herculean task.

OED lexicographer James Murray (left)
and OED contributor Dr. William Minor
images from Wikipedia, here and here

One approach was to enlist the reading public. He had a note placed inside books sold in bookshops, asking people to note words and their usage, identifying quotes where they were used, and send them in. One of these notes ended up in the hands of a man in an insane asylum, who was very smart (a former surgeon) with plenty of time on his hands. So he made huge contributions to the work.

If you go ahead and watch it, you’ll notice that, when a word skipped a century or so and then reappeared, that didn’t mean the word actually disappeared; they just hadn’t discovered how/where it was used during those centuries. Professor Murray wouldn’t let go; he just kept up the search until they found the links they needed.

The end credits mentioned that they were putting out about 750 pages a year, moving through the alphabet. I think they got up to around M by the time Murray died in 1915. Dr. Minor, out of the asylum and returned to America, continued to contribute until his death in 1920, when the project was up to about T (I’m going by memory, so I may be off by several letters for each of them). Begun in 1879, it took until 1928 to complete.

This was the unabridged version—everything there is to know or ever was known about each word; it ran twelve volumes, and defined 414,825 words. Most dictionaries are abridged. They’re about giving you a quick answer to the basic question, “What does this word mean?” There’s minimal history, pronunciation guide, parts of speech, and useful meanings.

I don’t know who decides what gets into a dictionary and what gets abridged (left out). Lexicographers are the people getting paid to do the tasks, and I assume there’s some sort of hierarchy of decision-making as in most fields.

But what you would not expect is for a dictionary to delete a definition that is still fully in use—and is in fact the standard meaning most speakers of the language assume when they hear the word.

But that is what has happened with this word: racism.

Joshua Philipp brought this up on his Crossroads Q&A[i] last Thursday. He brought up a screenshot of the current 2021 online Merriam-Webster Dictionary for the word racism. It shows three main definitions:

1.    a belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.

2.    a. the systemic oppression of a racial group to the social, economic, and political advantage of another.

2.    b. a political or social system founded on racism and designed to execute its principles.

If you think about it, what you’ll find missing is the most common understanding of the word: racial prejudice or discrimination—essentially pre-judging someone negatively based on their skin color or race.

I often pull out my older dictionary for historical perspective: Webster’s New World Dictionary, Second College Edition, printed in 1982. In that one racism’s first meaning refers us to the variant racialism, which has given way over the years to racism. But the main definition there says:

1.    a doctrine or teaching without scientific support, that claims to find racial differences in character, intelligence, etc., that asserts the superiority of one race over another or others, and that seeks to maintain the supposed purity of a race or the races.

Then there’s a second meaning only under racism:

2.    any program or practice of racial discrimination, segregation, etc. based on racialism.

from the Webster’s New World Dictionary, Second College Edition, 1982

1.    Why does the deletion of this basic meaning matter? It’s a bait and switch. They can’t implement policies against people based on their skin color and not be racist—unless they delete that definition and pretend the word means some systemic societal flaw. As Joshua Philipp puts it:

Why did they have to remove that? Again, in order to frame these new narratives. Because, folks, they are conducting racial prejudice and discrimination through these policies. And, as a reminder, the way they altered it, they removed that, the way they altered it is by saying it includes now, instead of that, systemic oppression of a racial group to the social, economic, and political advantage of another.

They’re talking specifically here about the social systems that they could say creates oppression—socially, economically, and politically. Political disadvantage, meaning that any kind of system of lacking equity—equality of outcome—could be defined as racism.

In other words, folks, they’re saying that anything that’s not socialism is racist. Anything that does not create absolute equality—equity, equality of outcome—is racist.

They’ve defined racism by removing the actual definition of the word: racial prejudice or discrimination. They altered it to make it so that anything other than equality of outcome is racist. To make it so, again, that anything other than socialism is called racist.

You might recall that, in my last post, we saw a similar bait and switch with the term white supremacy. In the minds of most people, it’s still a fringe group of people who hate anyone not of their race—a fringe so tiny most of us have never met one. Yet we’re told, with alarm, that white supremacy is everywhere and affects everything. But the definition being thrown at us is, “related to a society that historically had a majority of white-skinned people.” That means liking Shakespeare is white supremacy. Admiring the teachings of Aristotle and Plato is white supremacy. They’ve rendered the term meaningless, but throw it around hoping the stigma of the original definition will stick.

Racism is yet another term that uses the stigma attached to the tiny subset—in this case people who practice prejudice or discrimination based on race—and smear a whole group with it: all whites. And since people don’t want to be thought of with that horrible stigma, they do whatever the word-wielders say they must do. And that’s getting pretty extreme. After all, if your whole system is built on something as vile as racism (not on prejudice or discrimination really, but on a system that may produce unequal outcomes, yet with the stigma of the former), then you tear the whole system down and replace it.

Marxism was set up to malign the system based on class hatred. Oddly, that’s a hard sell in America—since we’re based on the idea that all of us humans are created equal, without a nobility, aristocracy, or monarchy, and also no bourgeoisie or plebeians. And it couldn’t merely be about economic class hatred, because economic class mobility is the expectation in America. So the replacement for class and wealth hatred is race hatred—often extended lately to other minorities, in a Venn diagram showing where they intersect, because intersection means more power, but we’ll leave those for another day.

I took a screenshot of the BLM website “What We Believe” page last August,

 

when everyone was using Black Lives Matter as a way of saying, “I’m not prejudiced or discriminatory based on race,” when its real intent was the destruction of society and replacement with Marxist tyranny placing them in the ruling positions. Among the word salad of things that may not mean what you think they mean was the deadly serious declaration that they intended to do away with the nuclear family structure—disregarding all the calamities that happen when the family is damaged—and replace it with a communal structure. On other pages of their website they openly revealed their Marxist and socialist philosophy and intentions. It was not about declaring you weren't prejudiced or discriminatory toward blacks, as many protestors thought.

Marxism has always been about tearing down the existing society and forcing on it a tyranny that they call equitable, but is really just more power and money for the very few at the top and much less for all the others. That’s why they don’t flinch when a leader who declares herself a trained Marxist has multi-million-dollar mansions.

The thing about language is, you can’t actually change it just by including or excluding a word in a dictionary. Language is made up of the words people use to represent ideas.

But what you can do, if you have ways of pulling the strings, is use a different definition while you know the person you’re talking to is using the well-understood definition, and you attach additional baggage to the word. And eventually, when someone gets confused and goes to the dictionary, which you’ve manipulated, you say, “See, this is what it meant all along; you were just mistaken.”

The lie, this time, had to include people in power over the dictionary—at least a particular dictionary. I don’t know how they managed that. But if they—whoever they are—can change the language at their bidding, that should give us pause.

There’s a scripture I think applies. This is from the book of Jacob, in the Book of Mormon, the first time those ancient people encounter an anti-Christ:

And he was learned, that he had a perfect knowledge of the language of the people; wherefore, he could use much flattery, and much power of speech, according to the power of the devil.—Jacob 7:4

the story of Sherem the anti-Christ from Jacob 7
screenshot from this video portrayal

I’ve often thought about this verse, since words are my minor superpower. I think it’s a good thing to have skill in use of language—for telling the truth. But the enemy of truth, maybe especially in our day, uses power of speech as a weapon.

I’m still thinking through how to fight that weapon. Notice it. Call it out. Require definitions. Ask sincerely, “Why do you think that?” But do not concede. Do not give up words and their truthful meanings.

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[i] The link is for EpochTV.com. While a large part of the program is available on YouTube, this segment was toward the end, saved for the membership site.

Approval Isn’t Always Worth Getting

There was something that I heard this week that I’ve been thinking about, and expanding. I’m going to credit Andrew Klavan with what I heard, because I think it was him, although I couldn’t track it down. I re-listened to Tuesday’s show, and didn’t find it; maybe it was in Wednesday’s.

Anyway, what I think he said was that, only a non-racist culture would care whether you thought they were racist. In other words, the very fact that we find racism to be offensive, and to be called racist is damaging to our reputations, is because—We Are Not Racist.

If it were socially acceptable to be racist, it wouldn’t be possible to shame us for being racists. It has been half a century since Jim Crow laws were outlawed—and they were outlawed because most of the country recognized them as repugnant.

Vivian Malone registers as student
at University of Alabama, 1963
image from Wikipedia

There has been so little actual racism in this country that those who race-bait, who make a living from stirring up race-based hatred, need to redefine racism. And lately it has meant, if you’re born white, then you’re racist in your DNA and should be ashamed and bow down to the black race.

Think about that for a moment. You’re inferior because you’re born with a certain level of melanin in your skin, which you cannot alter. That’s actual racism.

How does that conversation go between a regular white person and a black supremacist?

White person: But, if I’m racist because I’m born that way and I can’t change it, then what do you want me to do about it?

Black supremacist: Bow down to the black person. Stop in the street and lick their boots, and apologize for your racism.

White person: But you just said I had no control over “being” racist, so what actions of mine am I apologizing for?

Black supremacist: Being white. You’re disgusting because you’re white. You’re inferior because you’re white.

White person: OK, I get it now. The color of my skin makes me an inferior, subordinate human being.

Black supremacist: Exactly.

Not that you could actually experience such a calm and reasoned conversation with someone who hates you because of your skin color. But you see the point.

So, if you fall for that accusation, and bow to the accusers in some misguided attempt to demonstrate that you are not racist—to avoid being one of those uppity white people who don’t know their place in the presence of their betters—what you’re doing is encouraging actual racism.

We’ve seen this somewhere in history before.

Racism is not the only area in which this shaming-the-innocent strategy takes place.

It’s a practice of manipulative abusers to make the abused feel like they are guilty—and are therefore required to change to earn the approval of the abuser. But, why does the abused value the approval of the abuser? Good question. Probably takes therapy to resolve.

But in day-to-day life, let’s assume you can see clearly enough not to value the opinion of someone who is attempting to manipulate you. Let’s take a look at some scenarios and imagine how some of the “reasonable” conversations would go, and maybe get some enlightenment from the thought exercise.

 

Economic Equality

image found here

Socialist scold: You have no sense of justice if you think it’s OK for some CEO to make $5 million a year while his line workers are making $40 thousand a year.

Income earner: Really? So, let me get this straight. Those line workers accepted the job for $40 thousand a year, but they were worth much much more? Why did they accept those terms?

Socialist scold: Because they didn’t have a choice?

Income earner: They didn’t? So you’re saying, they got the business degree, and the experience to run a company, and were willing to take on the risk, but they were, at that point, prevented from doing anything but taking a $40 thousand a year line worker job? How could such an injustice happen?

Socialist scold: Well, it wasn’t like that. It was just the systemic unfairness of it all.

Income earner: So a line worker should be paid more than the value he brings in for the company, and the CEO should be paid less than the value he brings in for the company—because that would mean everybody got treated fairly?

Socialist scold: Right.

Income earner: I get it now. Fairness is getting more than you deserve if you’re a person You favor, but fairness is getting less than you deserve if you’re a person You don’t favor.

Socialist scold: Exactly.

 

Climate Change

Greta Thunberg
image credit: Aaron Schwartz, found here

Climate scold: You hate the world and want to kill everybody if you don’t agree with the “climate science consensus” that says we need to totally eliminate fossil fuels. You climate denier! Get with the program and get behind the Green New Deal!

Rational human: So, I’m in denial if I notice that all the things in the Green New Deal will cause worldwide devastation, economic deprivation, starvation, and all? I hate the world if I don’t think all buildings need to be torn down or retrofitted? And all our cars and other transportation should be electric? And I shouldn’t notice that electric cars actually use more energy and create more waste than gasoline-powered cars? Am I on the right track now?

Climate scold: You’re getting there.

Rational human: And I shouldn’t notice that natural gas from fracking is responsible for most of the improvement in air standards over the past decade?

Climate scold: Fracking is evil! Say it after me: Fracking. Is. Evil.

Rational human: OK, then. What about nuclear, because, if you’re looking for a clean and safe energy source…

Climate scold: How dare you! No nuclear! Do you want to kill us all?

Rational human: No, I don’t actually want to kill us all.

Climate scold: Then stop being a science denier, and stop using anything but renewables.

Rational human: Like wind? I shouldn’t notice they cause a tremendous amount of waste and kill birds and don’t produce reliable steady energy?

Climate scold: Stop denying science!

Rational human: Sorry. What was I thinking?

Climate scold: Don’t bother thinking; we’ve done that for you. Just stop being evil and stupid and hating the planet.

Rational human: I think I get what you’re saying now.

 

Same-Sex Marriage

image from here

Woke scold: You’re intolerant if you don’t approve of gay marriage.

Decent person: I’ve been intolerant? In what way?

Woke scold: You have to approve of gay marriage and the gay lifestyle. You have to stop shoving your beliefs down the throat of others with different beliefs.

Decent person: Pardon me? How was I doing that?

Woke scold: By believing in traditional marriage, for one. You want to exclude gays from privileges everyone else has.

Decent person: Really? Were gays prevented from marrying an unmarried person of the opposite sex who was not a close relative—which is what the law has been for heterosexuals?

Woke scold: Don’t be obtuse. You know what I mean. You prevented them from marrying the person of their choice.

Decent person: Well, if you mean I was a not changing the definition of marriage to something that it never was, so that it would include their choice, then I guess that’s accurate. But then, if marriage is just a declaration of current sexual partnership, with no permanence, exclusivity, or procreative possibility—so, something other than marriage—wouldn’t it be better to just come up with some other name for what they want, rather than pretend marriage has suddenly become something different?

Woke scold: You’re just homophobic?

Decent person: I need you to help me understand. What do you mean by that?

Woke scold: You’re against gays. You’re so evil that you’d probably kill them if you thought you could get away with it.

Decent person: I’m sad you think I’m a murderous insane person for believing what people have believed for all the millennia of recorded history. But, what is it, again, I need to do to gain your approval?

Woke scold: Give up your stupid religious beliefs and support everything the LGBTQ+ community wants. And if you don’t, you should not be allowed to work or function in society; you should be cancelled.

Decent person: So, I should stop believing what I believe, and allow the LGBTQ+ agenda to be shoved down my throat, so I don’t get accused of shoving my beliefs down someone else’s throat?

Woke scold: Exactly.

 

Transphobia

The last one touched on the T in LGBTQ+, but let’s take that one separately.

Woke scold: You’re cruel and hurtful if you don’t accept what a trans person says they are.

Rational human: Oh, my! So, help me understand. Even if I’m compassionate toward them, and respectful and courteous, I’m still cruel if I don’t actually believe a person’s biological sex can be changed?

Woke scold: Imagine what they’re going through. All the ways this world rejects them and tries to tell them they’re not who they identify as. And all you need to do is admit that they’re no longer a woman when they have become a man, or no longer a man when they’ve become a woman—oh, and you need to refer to them with the pronouns of their choice, even if it’s a neutral made up pronoun like ze or zer.

Rational human: So, should I be OK with allowing them to go into whatever private space they want, including showing their, um, male genitalia in a locker room with other females whom the former male is still attracted to?

Woke scold: Of course. You shouldn’t even have to ask that.

Rational human: Sorry. I’m still trying to get the hang of waking up to being woke. So, what happens if the trans “woman” gets prostate cancer? Is it illegal to treat for a male problem now that he—er, she—is no longer male?

Woke scold: No, you’d just treat that particular woman who happens to have a prostate.

Rational human: What if a trans “man” still has a uterus and gets pregnant?

Woke scold: Then the world celebrates how great it is that a man with a uterus gives birth. Not that this should be considered a rare thing; some men have uteruses; some women have prostates, etc.

Rational human: Then, is it allowed to notice that a trans “woman” still has a Y chromosome in every cell of their body?

Woke scold: Irrelevant.

Rational human: Oh. So, I should deny biology and just go with whatever the person says on a given day?

Woke scold: Right. And if you don’t, you evil transphobe, you shouldn’t be allowed to make a living, or have any free speech; you should be cancelled.

Rational human: Because I’d be so intolerant?

Woke scold: Exactly.

 

Abortion

Let’s do one more.

ultrasound image, from here

Feminist scold: If you don’t agree with abortion—paid for by taxpayers—up to at least birth, then you hate women, and you’re anti-freedom of choice.

Pro-lifer: I wouldn’t want to be hateful or anti-freedom of choice. But it’s kind of an adjustment to killing babies.

Feminist scold: They’re not babies until they’re outside the womb; up until then they’re just fetuses, which means they’re nothing more than a clump of cells.

Pro-lifer: So they suddenly become a living human being by crossing the birth canal?

Feminist scold: It becomes a baby when and if the woman wants it to be a baby.

Pro-lifer: So, if the woman wants a baby, then it’s a baby in the womb, but if she doesn’t want it, then she can decide it isn’t a baby? At any point during gestation?

Feminist scold: At least that long; we should have a conversation about what to do with one the woman decides she doesn’t want after she sees it. I mean, what if it’s badly deformed, or has a disability, or the wrong color eyes or something?

Pro-lifer: Um. Wrong color eyes?

Feminist scold: We need to stay open-minded; it’s the woman’s decision, not yours.

Pro-lifer: So, just to be clear, it’s not a human life when it’s a human embryo, or when it gets a heartbeat, or when it grows hair and fingernails, or when it can feel pain, or when it is developed enough to be viable outside the womb?

Feminist scold: Only if the woman says so.

Pro-lifer: The father of the baby doesn’t have any input?

Feminist scold: How dare you! Of course not.

Pro-lifer: So, I hate women if I don’t want to pay for a woman to kill her offspring? And I’m anti-choice if I would prefer to protect life once it has begun, or—Baal[i] forbid—consider giving the biological father any say?

Feminist scold: Now you’re getting it. And if you don’t go along entirely, then you should be prevented from making a living, or speaking your hateful, offensive words anywhere; you should be cancelled.

Pro-lifer: Because I’ve been so intolerant?

Feminist scold: Exactly.

 

For the sake of your sanity, ask yourself, do you really care about getting the approval of someone who wants to bully you into shame for believing these things?

·         Character matters much more than skin color, and diversity of thought is more valuable than diversity of skin color. You’re not racist if you believe this.

·         Science isn’t settled unless all the data is in, and policy based on unsettled science is about power and politics. You’re not anti-science, or anti-earth, if you believe this.

·         Marriage, with permanence, exclusivity, and the possibility of offspring being raised by their own mother and father, is an inherent good to society. You’re not unfair, uncaring, or intolerant for believing this.

·         Biological reality is more real than someone’s mental image of themselves. You’re not unfair, uncaring, or intolerant for believing this.

·         A human life within the womb is not the same person as the pregnant woman; her “choice” ended sometime before the beginning of that second human life. You’re not anti-woman or anti-freedom of choice for believing this.

My guess is, if you believe these things, you’re already a better human being than the manipulator trying to shame you for those beliefs.

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[i] The ancient idolatrous god, required child sacrifice according to Jeremiah 19:3-5.