Tag: political correctness

Media Outlets Apologize for Correctly Identifying Transgender Shooter as a Woman

The New York Times and USA Today complied with radical gender ideology by apologizing for correctly identifying the Nashville Christian School shooting suspect as a woman.

Soon after the shooting at Nashville’s Covenant School on Monday, in which three students and three adults were shot and killed, police identified the suspected shooter as 28-year-old Audrey Hale. A little while later, officials stated that Hale, who was killed by police during the attack, identified as transgender — meaning Hale allegedly believed she was a man.

Following the revelation that Audrey was a woman who identified as a man, both USA Today and The New York Times were quick to issue statements on Twitter, seemingly apologizing for adhering to biological reality by correctly calling Hale a woman. The publications also appeared to scrub references to Hale as a female from online news articles.

Keep reading

Agatha Christie Books Get Woke Makeover, Join Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming

The sensitivity readers have found another target: Agatha Christie.

Books by the acclaimed mystery author—who was born in the 19th century and passed away in 1976—have been edited, ostensibly to comport with modern sensibilities. “The new editions of Christie’s works are set to be released or have been released since 2020 by HarperCollins, which is said by insiders to use the services of sensitivity readers,” noted The Telegraph. “It has created new editions of the entire run of Miss Marple mysteries and selected Poirot novels.”

As was the case with recent edits to the works of Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming, the changes hardly seem necessary; there are few readers clamoring for them. The sensitivity readers, who are hired to rewrite texts and prevent offense, are making the books less colorful and descriptive. In the original Death on the Nile, some characters were described as Nubian—as in the ethnic group from the region of Nubia in northern Africa—but no longer. A character in The Mysterious Affair at Styles who was referred to as a Jew—because, well, he is a Jew—is now just a person. And a servant identified as black no longer has a race at all.

It’s one thing to change outdated ethnic references or references that specifically malign a specific race. Christie is no stranger to that: Her 1939 book, And Then There Were None, was originally published under the name Ten Little Niggers in the United Kingdom, where the racial slur was not as broadly offensive. (The book was named after a children’s rhyme.)

It’s quite another matter to delete all references to ethnicity because… why do it? Who is offended by knowing the race of a specific character? Should books cease acknowledging Africans, Jews, and Indians?

Keep reading

James Bond books rewritten to remove ‘offensive’ references

Racial references have been removed from Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels following a sensitivity review.

Terms such as the n-word, which featured in his writing from the 1950s and 1960s, have been edited out of new editions of the 007 books, which are set for reissue in April.

Some depictions of Black people have also been reworked or removed, but references to other ethnicities, including the use of a term for east Asian people and Bond’s mocking views of Oddjob, Goldfinger’s Korean henchman, remain.

Revised lines include Bond’s assessment in Live and Let Die that African would-be criminals are “pretty law-abiding chaps I should have thought, except when they’ve drunk too much”, which has been changed to “pretty law-abiding chaps I should have thought”.

However, references to the “sweet tang of rape”, “blithering women”, doing a “man’s work”, and homosexuality being described as a “stubborn disability” have been kept in, reported The Daily Telegraph.

A disclaimer accompanying the new editions is expected to read: “This book was written at a time when terms and attitudes which might be considered offensive by modern readers were commonplace.

Keep reading

Prosecutor suspended by Soros-backed DA George Gascon for ‘misgendering’ trans child molester

Los Angeles prosecutor Shea Sanna was suspended by far-left District Attorney George Gascon for deadnaming and misgendering 26-year-old Hannah Tubbs, a biological male who identifies as transgender. Sanna prosecuted Tubbs for grabbing a 10-year-old by the throat in 2014 at a Denny’s and sexually assaulting the girl in a bathroom stall.

According to Fox News “Sanna has argued in the past that jailhouse phone calls show Tubbs was attempting to use gender identity to game the justice system – an argument that sources say made others in Gascon’s office uncomfortable and led to the suspension.”

Tubbs began identifying as transgender and using a different name after Tubbs was connected to the child molestation case via DNA evidence.

In January 2022, Tubbs was sentenced to two years in a Juvenile Detention center after pleading guilty to molesting the 10-year-old. Despite being an adult, Gascon sought to have Tubbs sent to Juvenile Detention because Tubbs was under 18 when Tubbs assaulted the 10-year-old.

“Tubbs has a lengthy criminal history in California and Idaho,” reports Fox and Tubbs has been recently accused of “beating a man to death in the woods with a rock in Kern County” in 2019.

Tubbs is being held on $1 million bond after being charged with murder and robbery in connection to Michael Clark’s death and has pleaded not guilty.

The 10-year-old, now an adult, told Fox, “I’ve also heard that my attacker goes by she/them pronouns now. I see it also unfair to try him as a woman as well, seeing how he clearly didn’t act like one on January 1st of 2014.”

Courthouse audio recordings between Tubbs and Tubbs’ father showed the offender saying, “So now they’re going to put me with other trannies that have seen their cases like mine or with one tranny like me that has a case like mine. So when you come to court, make sure you address me as her.”

Keep reading

Roald Dahl’s publisher to offer books ‘uncensored’ after backlash

On Friday, Puffin, the publisher of beloved children’s author Roald Dahl, announced they were releasing uncensored “classic texts” of Dahl’s body of work through their parent company, Penguin, following backlash. That backlash, from PEN America, readers, and lovers of literature was against the publishing house for making hundreds of changes to the works after “sensitivity readers” deemed some of Dahl’s original language offensive to modern readers.

According to the publisher’s website, “Puffin announces today the release of The Roald Dahl Classic Collection, to keep the author’s classic texts in print. These seventeen titles will be published under the Penguin logo, as individual titles in paperback, and will be available later this year. The books will include archive material relevant to each of the stories.”

The Managing Director of Penguin Random House Children’s division, Francesca Dow, said, “We’ve listened to the debate over the past week which has reaffirmed the extraordinary power of Roald Dahl’s books and the very real questions around how stories from another era can be kept relevant for each new generation.”

“As a children’s publisher, our role is to share the magic of stories with children with the greatest thought and care. Roald Dahl’s fantastic books are often the first stories young children will read independently, and taking care for the imaginations and fast-developing minds of young readers is both a privilege and a responsibility,” Dow said. “We also recognise the importance of keeping Dahl’s classic texts in print.  By making both Puffin and Penguin versions available, we are offering readers the choice to decide how they experience Roald Dahl’s magical, marvellous stories.”

The change comes after the Telegraph published details last week on how Puffin consulted with Inclusive Minds, a “collective for people who are passionate about inclusion, diversity, equality and accessibility in children’s literature,” and subsequently made changes in the author’s language regarding mental health, violence, gender, weight, and race that ranged from full portions being rewritten or cut. 

Keep reading

Priorities: Defense Dept. Holds Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion “Summit” As Military Fentanyl Overdoses Surge

In an article entitled “‘You Can’t Fix the Problem If You’re in Denial:’ The Military’s Surge of Fentanyl Overdoses,” Military.com tells the story of Carole De Nola, whose son Ari McGuire, “a 23-year-old reconnaissance scout with Fort Bragg’s storied 82nd Airborne Division,” died of a fentanyl overdose.

[O]n a Friday night in August 2019, De Nola got a call from an Army officer: Her son was on life support in a Fayetteville, North Carolina, hospital. Ari’s heart had stopped beating while riding in an Uber, coming through the gate at Fort Bragg. An ambulance had managed to revive him, and Ari was induced into a coma upon arriving at the hospital.

De Nola, her husband Joseph, and the cantor from their synagogue had made the daylong trek from California to North Carolina to say goodbye to Ari. “When we got there, the doctor told us that there was nothing they could do. I’m sure that the whole hospital heard me screaming.”

Unfortunately, statistics show that Ari is not alone. His death was one of 332 fatal overdoses within the military, according to information newly released by the Pentagon on ODs between 2017 and 2021. That five-year period also saw 15,000 non-fatal ODs among the active-duty force. Fort Bragg is a known drug “hot spot“; “Thirty-four soldiers died at the base between 2017 and 2021; it also saw a 100% increase in drug crime over 2021. Those deaths account for more than 10% of the total fatalities reported by the military.”

Gil Cisneros, the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, stated in a letter accompanying the new fentanyl statistics that “[w]e share your concern that drug overdose is a serious problem and must be addressed.” But “De Nola said that she doesn’t feel that the military has done enough.” Others agree.

Alex Bennett, a professor at NYU’s School of Public Health who has led several studies addressing opioid-use among military veterans, stated that “what we have in the military is sort of an epidemic that’s not fully acknowledged.”

Keep reading

The War on Insensitivity

So, here’s a “conspiracy theory” for you. This one is about the global-capitalist thoughtpolice and their ongoing efforts to purge society of “insensitivity.” Yes, that’s right, insensitivity. If there is anything the global-capitalist thoughtpolice can’t stand, it is insensitivity. You know, like making fun of ethnic or religious minorities, and the physically or cognitively challenged, and alternatively gendered persons, and hideously ugly persons, and monstrously fat persons, and midgets, and so on.

The global-capitalist thoughtpolice are terribly concerned about the feelings of such persons. And the feelings of other sensitive persons who are also concerned about the feelings of such persons. And everybody’s feelings, generally. So they’re purging society of any and all forms of literary content, and every other form of content, that might possibly irreparably offend such persons, and persons concerned about the feelings of such persons, and anyone who might feel offended by anything.

By now, I assume you have seen the news about the “sensitivity editing” of Roald Dahl, the author of books like James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Witches, The Twits, and numerous others. What happened was, Dahl’s publisher, Puffin Books, hired a little clutch of “sensitivity editors” to substantively rewrite his books, purging words like “fat” and “ugly,” and Dahl’s descriptions of characters as “bald” and “female,” and inserting their own ham-handed, “sensitized” language.

What you may not be aware of is that Puffin Books is a children’s imprint of Penguin Random House, a multi-national conglomerate publishing company and a subsidiary of Bertelsmann, a nominally German but in reality global media conglomerate. Penguin Random House is one of the so-called “big five publishers” that control approximately 80% of the retail book market. The other four are Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, Hachette, and HarperCollins.

Together, these five corporate behemoths, with their hundreds of divisions, publishing groups, and imprints (e.g., Puffin Books), control the majority of what everyone reads. Pull a few books off your bookshelves at random and look up the imprints to see how many are owned by one of the “big five” publishers or one of their divisions or publishing groups.

Keep reading

The rewriting of Roald Dahl should disturb us all

It’s easy to become inured to the madness of the culture war. Stories of Peter Pan being slapped with trigger warnings or God going gender-neutral are 10 a penny these days. They can sometimes wash over you. Not because they are unimportant – far from it. But because they are so ubiquitous. Every institution from the Wellcome Collection to Splash Mountain has fallen to some flavour of woke regressivism. Language is warped to flatter a few narcissists. Old art works and new are censored at the behest of hysterics. Such cases don’t surprise us anymore, no matter how deranged and illiberal.

But once in a while the authoritarians who make up our cultural elites outdo themselves – and remind us how much is at stake in this thing we call the culture war. The rewriting of the late Roald Dahl’s books is one such story. When the Telegraph revealed yesterday that Puffin, Dahl’s publisher, has made ‘hundreds of changes’ to his beloved children’s books, in line with suggestions from so-called sensitivity readers, the response was one of horror and disbelief. An author beloved by generations of children for his magical, spiky and sometimes sinister work has had his literary edges sanded off. All new copies will feature the newly cleansed text. Dahl’s words and stories will be changed forever, no longer truly his own, all because some weirdo with a red pen thinks they know better. The philistinism, the cultural vandalism, is stunning.

And what is it that so upset them? What is it that made these sensitivity readers conclude that Dahl’s books must be changed, so they ‘can continue to be enjoyed by all today’, in the words of Puffin? The word ‘fat’, for one. That’s gone from every book – sparing the blushes of characters like Augustus Gloop, the fat lad from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The Oompa-Loompas are now no longer ‘titchy’ or ‘tiny’. Just ‘small’. They’ve also gone gender-neutral for good measure, with ‘small men’ swapped for ‘small people’. Perhaps most outrageously of all, whole lines have been rewritten and brand new lines added, seemingly to pre-empt any prejudice that might otherwise curdle in the minds of young readers. In The Witches, a line describing a witch posing as a ‘cashier in a supermarket or typing letters for a businessman’ now casts her as an aspirational girlboss, ‘working as a top scientist or running a business’.

Keep reading

Science needs to stop using terms like male, female, mother and father, researchers say

Alternatives to terms like “male” and “female” and “mother” and “father” should be sought in science because they assume that sex is binary and heterosexuality is the norm, a group of researchers from the US and Canada suggests.

Male and female should instead be referred to as “sperm-producing” and “egg-producing,” the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) Language Project said, according to the Times of London.

Meanwhile, father and mother should be labeled “parent,” “egg donor” and “sperm donor” in the scientific field.

The group has called on the scientific field to use words that are more “inclusive and precise,” according to a press release from the University of British Columbia, which has three researchers in the initiative.

“Much of Western science is rooted in colonialism, white supremacy and patriarchy, and these power structures continue to permeate our scientific culture,” some project members wrote in the Trends in Ecology and Evolution journal.

UBC assistant professor Dr. Kaitlyn Gaynor said the undertaking began from a Twitter conversation among a few people about terminology that is potentially harmful.

“We reached out to different networks in ecology and evolution that were focused on increasing inclusion and equity in the field to rally support for one very specific action —revising terminology that might be harmful to certain people, particularly those from groups historically and currently excluded from science,” she said, according to the press release.

Keep reading

Biden Admin to Drop Half a Million on Artificial Intelligence That Detects Microaggressions on Social Media

The Biden administration is set to dole out more than $550,000 in grants to develop an artificial intelligence model that can automatically detect and suppress microaggressions on social media, government spending records show.

The award, funded through President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, was granted to researchers at the University of Washington in March to develop technologies that could be used to protect online users from discriminatory language. The researchers have already received $132,000 and expect total government funding to reach $550,436 over the next five years.

The researchers are developing machine-learning models that can analyze social media posts to detect implicit bias and microaggressions, commonly defined as slights that cause offense to members of marginalized groups. It’s a broad category, but past research conducted by the lead researcher on the University of Washington project suggests something as tame as praising meritocracy could be considered a microaggression.

The Biden administration’s funding of the research comes as the White House faces growing accusations that it seeks to suppress free speech online. Biden last month suggested there should be an investigation into Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter after the billionaire declared the social media app would pursue a “free speech” agenda. Internal Twitter communications Musk released this month also revealed a prolonged relationship between the FBI and Twitter employees, with the agency playing a regular role in the platform’s content moderation.

Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton likened the Biden administration’s funding of the artificial intelligence research to the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts to “censor speech unapproved by the state.” For the Biden administration, Fitton said, the research is a “project to make it easier for their leftist allies to censor speech.”

Keep reading