Withdrawing

I found this passage from a letter written by a parent on removing his daughter from an exclusive New York City girl’s school and published by Bari Weiss, quite telling:

I object to Brearley’s vacuous, inappropriate, and fanatical use of words such as “equity,” “diversity” and “inclusiveness.” If Brearley’s administration was truly concerned about so-called “equity,” it would be discussing the cessation of admissions preferences for legacies, siblings, and those families with especially deep pockets. If the administration was genuinely serious about “diversity,” it would not insist on the indoctrination of its students, and their families, to a single mindset, most reminiscent of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Instead, the school would foster an environment of intellectual openness and freedom of thought. And if Brearley really cared about “inclusiveness,” the school would return to the concepts encapsulated in the motto “One Brearley,” instead of teaching the extraordinarily divisive idea that there are only, and always, two groups in this country: victims and oppressors.

l object to Brearley’s advocacy for groups and movements such as Black Lives Matter, a Marxist, anti family, heterophobic, anti-Asian and anti-Semitic organization that neither speaks for the majority of the Black community in this country, nor in any way, shape or form, represents their best interests.

As Eric Hoffer put it, “What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation”. When the business model for these rackets (or corporations) fail, the “movements” will vanish as well but it will take a lot more actions like that of this parent for that to happen. And a removal of government subsidies.

7 comments… add one
  • steve Link

    The letter writer is correct about 2/3 of the time. Systemic racism really isn’t just interning people in camps or lunch counter stuff. We know that minorities are arrested, prosecuted, convicted and jailed longer in disproportionate numbers for drug crimes. There are several very large studies on traffic stops showing minorities are stopped and searched at higher rates even though contraband is found at higher rates in the cars of white people. For that matter they are stopped at higher rates also, during the day. Goes down at night. The same study, using police self reporting, that supposedly showed minorities were not shot more frequently also showed that violence was used unnecessarily at higher rates against minorities.

    Still, he is right about a lot of stuff and I think he demonstrates that most people on the left really don’t support the woke movement.

    Steve

  • Still, he is right about a lot of stuff and I think he demonstrates that most people on the left really don’t support the woke movement.

    Most people living in the Soviet Union were neither Bolsheviks nor members of the Communist Party; most Chinese people aren’t members of the CCP; the majority of Democrats aren’t progressives. That didn’t stop the Bolvsheviks from running the country for 70 years, the CCP from running the country for 80 years, or the progressives from holding the whip hand in the Democratic Party. All it takes is not resisting those who do.

  • steve Link

    Throughout all of history a small group of people has been able to rule, at least for a while, when the rest of the country was basically incredibly poor, mostly agrarian peasants. In those situations they were not generally having elections. So I would contend that 2021 America is a lot different than 1918 Russia or 1940 China.

    Steve

  • The CCP still rules China. Is China still “incredibly poor, mostly agrarian peasants”? I believe it’s mostly urban now and no longer incredibly poor.

    And I think elections are over-rated. When your choice is between two candidates who, essentially, believe the same things, what good is the election? IMO government of limited powers, something we abandoned 80 years ago, is a lot more important than elections. There are about 750,000 people in my gerrymandered home Congressional district. How democratic is that really? Can one representative really represent that many people?

    The Nazis controlled Germany until we removed them. Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq from the 1960s until we removed him in 2003. Iran has been ruled by the mullahs since 1980. Franco and his fascists ran Spain from 1935 until he died in 1975. All of those were primarily urban. They held elections, too. I don’t think the characterization of “incredibly poor” applies to any of them. Isn’t your argument basically “it can’t happen here”?

  • steve Link

    Fair points. I would probably argue that Iraq is/was poorer than thought because most people don’t benefit from the low money, Spain in the 30s was economically awful and Hitler* took over with the aftermath of the Depression and the poor economy due to the treaty from WW 1. That said, I don’t think any of those, especially China and Russia, are anything like what we have today. What I can see is fads taking hold and this might be a case but I don’t se it as sustainable since there is not wide support.

    *I think Hitler had more support than people would like to think, at the start.

    Steve

  • I think Hitler had more support than people would like to think, at the start.

    I have made that point myself. We weren’t just fighting the Nazis during World War II. We were fighting the Germans. After the war a distinction between the Nazis and the Germans was made to try to build a bridge between Americans and the West German people but the reality was that we had fought the Germans. Just as we weren’t fighting the militarists in Asia but the Japanese.

  • The French Revolutionary Government persisted from 1789 to 1804. During the single year of the Terror 40,000 people were killed. IMO the French Revolution is the model for radical revolutions as compared with the conservative American Revolution. Our revolutionary government has held on for over 200 years.

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