Culture War Madness: May 30th edition

In a continuing effort to inform Redstate readers about the lunacy on the Left and their efforts to transform society, I am proud to bring you another installment of the seven best stories this writer could find from the past week that illustrate the pinnacle of absurdity (in no particular order of importance).

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OH! THE IRONY OF IT ALL

The Sydney Peace Foundation annually awards a Peace Prize.  Considered by some only second in prestige to the Nobel Peace Prize, past winners have been people like Naomi Klein and Noam Chomsky, which should give the reader an idea of their political leanings.  Hint: only liberals seek world peace.

This year’s recipient was recently announced: Black Lives Matter.  Lest is be forgotten, five Dallas police officers were killed by a black shooter while they were protecting a Black Lives Matter rally.  Other rallies have often descended into violence or calls to “kill the cops.”  For these “peaceful” actions, they will receive $50,000 and a trophy to be awarded at a ceremony on November 2nd.  Since there is no “leader” per se, one wonders who will accept the trophy and check.

SPEAKING OF BLACK LIVES MATTER, THEY’RE TRAINING THE NEXT GENERATION OF MALCONTENT

At least in Southern California they are where a college professor is trying to arrange a youth camp for children as young as ten years old.  According to the organizer, a professor named Anthony J. Ratcliffe, the camp is to be a “black youth-centered resistance space.”  It hopes to educate black children about “strategies for organizing social justice campaigns.”

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According to the fundraising page:

“In addition to learning strategies for organizing social justice campaigns and direct action tactics, the camp will focus on community building, skill-sharing, critical literacy, public speaking, as well as techniques for developing healthy collective- and self-care practices.”

This can be translated into (1) how to protest, (2) sharing protest skills, (3) reading radical black authors, and (4) self-segregation.  Hoping to raise $10,000 to get the camp going, Mr. Ratcliffe has thus far raised a very disappointing $764- well short of his goal.

TRY THIS ONE ON FOR CONFUSION

A University of Chicago student group has presented the university with a list of over 50 demands.  According to one source:

The coalition of student groups called “UChicago United” has urged the university to create a “Race and Ethnic Studies Department,” a “Black Studies Academic Department,” an “African Studies Department,” a “Caribbean Studies Department,” an “Asian American Studies Program,” in addition to a “Center for African and Caribbean Studies” and a “Latinx Affairs Office.”

But, they don’t stop there.  In an effort to break down the barriers of racism and segregation, they demand university funded housing specifically for an all-black dorm, an all-Latino dorm, and an all-Asian dorm.  It appears segregation is all the rage these days on college campuses.

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Now for the funny part: they also demanded that “diversity and inclusion” be a graduation requirement.  Hence, by having exclusionary housing and mandatory courses in subjects no one will ever find useful in life, this is their idea of “diversity and inclusion.”

PITY THE POOR TRANSGENDER

According to a survey by YouGov and lamented on “The Daily Beast” (site traffic down 40% over the past year), less than 20% of those surveyed reported they were willing to date a transgender person.  Senior reporter for the site, Samantha Allen, finds these results unsurprising and born of the transphobia that permeates American society.

Color me silly, but when one dates someone, one should want to know the objective gender of the person being asked on the date.  One can see where this would create confusion in the one who asks only to later find out that the one that was asked identifies with another gender.  Now, should the date develop into a romantic relationship and the girl, for example, who is asked out on the date really identifies as a male, would that make he who asked “her” out homosexual?

O (POOR) CANADA

The land of moose, mounted police, majestic skylines and ice hockey and my favorite winter sport- curling- is celebrating its 150th birthday this year.  Of course, stores are selling uniquely Canadian merchandise to cash in on the celebration- bobble-head moose, lots of T-shirts with maple leafs on them, and as Scooby-Doo would say, “Ruh-ro!,” dream catchers.

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However, the Canadian Native Americans (Canadians?) are denouncing the sale of dream catchers saying that their sale is a form of cultural appropriation that only reinforces the bad feelings of the current Canadian Indian population regarding colonization by the British, Scotch, French…and Vikings.

One store- Dollarama- seems to be taking the brunt of the protest.  But alas, capitalism wins the day.  Dollarama has stated that the dream catchers are one of their biggest sellers and they have no intention of taking them off the market.

YOU JUST CAN’T MAKE A LIVING THESE DAYS

Two young female entrepreneurs from Oregon wanted to open a restaurant that sold really great burritos.  So they trekked to Mexico and picked the brains of some of the best Mexican burrito makers that country had to offer, came back to the US, opened their restaurant, and revealed that they had taken the best the Mexicans had to offer and applied it to a Mexican restaurant.

Then the trouble started.  It would appear that the selling of a good Mexican burrito is a form of cultural appropriation.  The social justice warriors of Oregon took to social media to denounce the place and gave it 1-star reviews on Yelp along with comments about appropriation and the ubiquitous “Latinx” signatures.

But the Internet crowd didn’t stop with Kooks Burritos.  They began circulating a list of white-owned businesses that “appropriated” other culture’s foods.  One feels some sympathy for the owners of Kooks Burritos since the SJW crowd made two white women the equivalent of the second coming of Hernando Cortez.  Their website has been taken down and their restaurant shuttered.  Great job- one less business in Portland, Oregon and many less great burritos!

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NOT THAT ONE HAS ANY SYMPATHY FOR TWITTER, BUT…

Everyone knows that websites and especially social media culls user activity to determine targeted advertising.  The fact you visited Redstate gives people an insight into your proclivities.  Twitter is no different.  In an effort to be transparent, they revealed some of the things they look at to develop a user profile.  For example, they use such non-controversial items like the user’s age range, preferred mobile phone, language and (gasp!) gender.

Twitter users are able to edit their profile and recently included “add your gender” to the mix.  That brought out the critics who are apparently suffering from some sort of psychological trauma as a result of Twitter’s actions.  Said one user: “…its bad enough that you force a false gender binary, but actually misgendering folks is egregious rhetorical violence.”  This Tweet violates a central rule of Orwell’s rules for writing: Don’t use big words when smaller words suffice.

Another said that gender assumptions were “bull$#!@ stereotypes” and another said they were “outdated cis-sexist binary-centric bull$#!@.”  Again with the big made-up words.  One even vented about being “assigned male” despite the fact his(?) “pinned tweet literally says I’m not cisgender, I’m gender fluid.”

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Seems no one can win these days.  Well, that’s it for this week.

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