Tag: political correctness

Harvard University removes human skin binding from book

Harvard University has removed the binding of human skin from a 19th Century book kept in its library.

Des Destinées de l’Ame (Destinies of the Soul) has been housed at Houghton Library since the 1930s.

In 2014, scientists determined that the material it was bound with was in fact human skin.

But the university has now announced it has removed the binding “due to the ethically fraught nature of the book’s origins and subsequent history”.

Des Destinées de l’Ame is a meditation on the soul and life after death, written by Arsène Houssaye in the mid-1880s.

He is said to have given it to his friend, Dr Ludovic Bouland, a doctor, who then reportedly bound the book with skin from the body of an unclaimed female patient who had died of natural causes.

Harvard University explained its decision to remove the binding, saying: “After careful study, stakeholder engagement, and consideration, Harvard Library and the Harvard Museum Collections Returns Committee concluded that the human remains used in the book’s binding no longer belong in the Harvard Library collections, due to the ethically fraught nature of the book’s origins and subsequent history.”

It added it was looking at ways to ensure “the human remains will be given a respectful disposition that seeks to restore dignity to the woman whose skin was used”.

The library is also “conducting additional biographical and provenance research into the anonymous female patient”, the university said.

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‘Blacklisted’ is racist and ‘sanity check’ is disparaging to people with mental health issues, according to new internal diversity letter issued to US spies

US spies, including members of the CIA, have been told the term ‘blacklisted’ is racist and ‘sanity check’ is disparaging to people who suffer from mental health issues in a new internal diversity letter.

The latest guidance, which also included advice from a crossdressing secret agent, was revealed in The Dive – a newsletter issued by the intelligence community’s diversity, equality, inclusion, and accessibility office.

The document is full of diversity guidance aimed at ‘focusing on ways spy agencies can be more inclusive’.

The Dive’s theme revolves around ‘the importance of words’ and is packed with phrases that officials have now been urged to refrain from using.

One of the six articles within the newsletter – about ‘linguistic diversity’ – has highlighted the alleged racist connotations around the term ‘blacklisted’.

This is because it implies ‘black is bad and white is good’.

The term ‘sanity check’ has also been discouraged because it suggests that those who suffer from mental illnesses are inferior.

The terms ‘cakewalk’ and ‘grandfathered’ also made an appearance in the article because of their association with slavery.

In another section of the newsletter, an intelligence office warned that previous training had conflated Islamic beliefs with terrorism and cautioned the language that targeted spies’ Muslim-American colleagues.

The author further detailed an effort to revise intelligence presentations to weed out problematic language.

The Dive’s editor-in-chief, who has been kept anonymous on the online version of the document, also took to writing a section of the 16-page handout.

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Anger As Shakespeare Plays Infested With Trigger Warnings

Productions of Shakespeare plays in the UK have had “content guidance” trigger warnings placed on them, prompting a backlash.

Recent productions of Antony and Cleopatra, Romeo and Juliet, and Julius Caesar at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London have seen audiences being forewarned that the plays contain “depictions of suicide, and scenes of violence and war.”

The warnings have also prepared audiences to expect “misogynoir references,” a made up mashed together term for misogyny and discrimination against black people.

Theatre goers have blasted the move as ridiculous.

Actors Ralph Fiennes and Ian McKellen both recently slammed the trend, noting that people shouldn’t be mollycoddled when it comes to theatre.

Fiennes recently noted “There are very disturbing scenes in Macbeth, terrible murders and things, but I think the impact of theatre is that you should be shocked and you should be disturbed. I don’t think you should be prepared for these things and when I was young we never had trigger warnings before a show.”

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Government Funded Study Claims Shakespeare Made Theatre ‘Too White, Male And Cisgender’

A study funded by the British government to the tune of almost a million pounds claims that William Shakespeare, one of foremost the literary icons in history, has been disproportionately represented and has enabled “white, able-bodied, heterosexual, cisgender male narratives” to dominate theatre.

The study, by academics at the University of Roehampton, was funded by the government’s Arts and Humanities Research Council and essentially claims that Shakespeare is not diverse enough.

The Telegraph reports that the overseer of the study, Andy Kesson, complains that “masculinity and nationalism were crucial motivating factors in the rise of Shakespeare as the arbiter of literary greatness” adding that “[w]e need to be much, much more suspicious of Shakespeare’s place in contemporary theatre”.

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INSANITY: Canada’s Supreme Court decision opts for ‘person with a vagina’ over ‘woman’; this is as insane as Bill C-63; Supreme Court judge Sheilah Martin, said a decision in a sexual assault case

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in a recent sexual assault case that it was “problematic” for a lower court judge to refer to the alleged victim as a “woman,” implying that the more appropriate term should have been “person with a vagina.”

What?

What insanity in Canada, we have the former Chief Justice saying Bill C-63 is insane and cannot be made law for how can you imprison someone for life because you are offended? Put a pin in that for a moment:

Now, ‘In a decision published Friday, Justice Sheilah Martin wrote that a trial judge’s use of the word “a woman” may “have been unfortunate and engendered confusion.”

Martin does not specify why the word “woman” is confusing, but the next passage in her decision refers to the complainant as a “person with a vagina.” Notably, not one person in the entire case is identified as transgender, and the complainant is referred to throughout as a “she.”

The case was R. v. Kruk, which involved a 2017 charge of sexual assault against then 34-year-old Maple Ridge, B.C., man Charles Kruk.’

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The North Face offers 20% discount for completion of racial inclusion and allyship course

Outdoor clothing and gear giant The North Face is offering customers a 20% discount if they complete a digital course on racial inclusion and allyship.

Titled “Allyship in the Outdoors,” the course seeks to help customers all over the world understand the challenge people of color face when it comes to “accessing the outdoors” and offer them training on how to become a “better ally and to make the outdoors a safer and more welcoming place for everyone.”

“At The North Face, we believe in the power of exploration. As individuals, professionals and companies who share a love for the outdoors and exploration, we also have a responsibility to support spaces where everyone feels like they belong,” a course description reads.

“The course focuses on perspective of race and racism in Europe, and we acknowledge that the experiences of people of colour around the globe differs. It will also provide training and resources, through 4 interactive modules, to help you be a better ally and to make the outdoors a safer and more welcoming place for everyone.”

Intended for people who work and operate in the outdoor industry, the training lasts an hour.

During the training, one learns about the limitations people of color face when it comes to enjoying the outdoors, the impact of events such as the death of George Floyd, and the aim of creating an “equitable outdoors for everyone.”

After completing modules, participants must answer questions such as, “Why should we aim to achieve equity in the outdoors?”

When it comes to allyship, participants listen to testimonials and are taught that “white privilege” means “your race and skin colour can give you access to the outdoors when others can be excluded because of historic, enduring racism and biases.”

They are also encouraged to reflect on times they have felt excluded and how it made them feel.

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Former Employees Reveal Fani Willis’s Extreme DEI Training: Forced to Associate ‘White’ with ‘Bad’, Judges Ranked on Skin Color

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis subjected her employees to mandatory race training, forcing the entire office to rate “Black” or “White” skin colors as either “Good” or “Bad,” according to training slides and video exclusively obtained by Breitbart News.

“If you didn’t participate in the quiz, you got fired,” a source exclusively told Breitbart News about Willis’s policy.

Sources who shared the race training with Breitbart News wished to remain anonymous for fear of retribution due to their direct knowledge of the “corrupt” and “hostile work environment” inside the District Attorney’s Office.

Sources described the race training as a directive straight from Willis, “[who] injected racism [into the office] from the second she got hired.” Willis won election in 2020 and is up for reelection this November. In 2021, she began probing former President Donald Trump.

Dubbed an “implicit bias test,” a Harvard website generated the “diversity, equity, and inclusion” slides that made some sources feel ashamed of being white employees.

“Willis had some guy be live for roughly eight hours,” a source said. “He was a former member of Obama’s White House.”

The training suggested the United States was founded on the sins of white men and the slaughter of native Americans, one source described. “I thought it was so wrong.”

“Willis pulled it off as diversity [training], but it was more so an attack on the race [relations] thing,” a source explained.

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The Irish Should Reject The New ‘Hate Speech’ Bill

The Republic of Ireland could soon become one of the worst violators of the human right to free speech in the Western world. Despite the government claiming to espouse liberal ideas, the looming Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences Bill would usher in a dangerous new standard for state-driven censorship. The expression or possession of content or even ideas deemed “hateful” would be illegal under the law, with serious implications for everyday people simply seeking to live according to their convictions.  

The Irish need only look to the case of Finnish member of parliament Päivi Räsänen — criminally prosecuted for over four years for a Bible-verse tweet, to recognise the suffocating impact “hate speech” laws engender. Finnish state prosecutors are pushing her case into its fifth year with an appeal to the country’s supreme court, making no attempt to hide their insatiable quest to silence and sanction the parliamentarian for her peaceful expression of Christian conviction. 

Räsänen’s “crime” consisted of sharing her Christian position on marriage and sexuality in a 2019 Twitter post. When her church decided to officially sponsor a Helsinki “Pride” event, she expressed an objection in light of Biblical teaching, posting a verse from the New Testament book of Romans. Lengthy police interrogations followed by criminal prosecution ensued, absurdly under the section of the Finnish criminal code titled “war crimes and crimes against humanity”.  

Räsänen was dealt three criminal charges, carrying a potential prison sentence of two years, for the tweet, in addition to her comments on a 2019 radio debate and in a church pamphlet she had authored nearly 20 years before. Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola was charged alongside her for publishing the booklet for his congregation. 

Räsänen and Pohjola were twice unanimously acquitted of all charges, but with the pending supreme court appeal, it’s clear that free speech in Finland hangs very much in the balance. The prosecution of individuals in the public eye has a particularly repressive effect — few and far between will be the brave person willing to speak their mind when the state, utilising near limitless resources, makes clear its tireless pursuit of censorship.  

Such is the reality increasingly facing us in the West who dare to voice our beliefs in the public square. While “hate speech” laws are pervasive throughout Europe, with the proposed new law, Ireland is setting a new low bar for censorship. Notably, the draft bill goes so far as to include a sentence of up to five years in prison for the mere possession of “hateful” material.  

Not content with its existing array of free speech restrictions, the government has based the necessity of the new law on the need to counter rising violence in Ireland, following a surge of incidents largely tied to tensions over immigration. The argument is that restricting speech somehow increases safety on the streets—but history has shown no proof of this. What it has shown is that censorship is the preferred answer to any problem the state faces. It’s easier for those in power to silence dissent, than to deal with the problems plaguing their societies.  

The thought of Irish police raiding homes to seize materials, including books and even something as ridiculous as memes on phones, recalls some of the darker episodes of the past century.

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‘Absurdly woke’: Google’s AI chatbot spits out ‘diverse’ images of Founding Fathers, popes, Vikings

Google’s highly-touted AI chatbot Gemini was blasted as “woke” after its image generator spit out factually or historically inaccurate pictures — including a woman as pope, black Vikings, female NHL players and “diverse” versions of America’s Founding Fathers.

Gemini’s bizarre results came after simple prompts, including one by The Post on Wednesday that asked the software to “create an image of a pope.” 

Instead of yielding a photo of one of the 266 pontiffs throughout history — all of them white men — Gemini provided pictures of a Southeast Asian woman and a black man wearing holy vestments.

Another Post query for representative images of “the Founding Fathers in 1789″ was also far from reality.

Gemini responded with images of black and Native American individuals signing what appeared to be a version of the US Constitution — “featuring diverse individuals embodying the spirit” of the Founding Fathers.

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Oregon school district under fire for making race ‘main criteria’ in discipline policy

An Oregon school district is being accused of discriminating against students based on their race through its new discipline policy.

Portland Public Schools (PPS) introduced its “Student Support, Discipline & Safety” policy in November. Under the policy, behavioral support plans must consider a student’s “trauma,” “race” and “gender identity/presentation,” as well as whether “social emotional learning” and “restorative justice” are appropriate for them.

The policy further requires each PPS school to maintain a “School Climate Team,” tasked with participating in “ongoing training in implicit bias, antiracism and culturally responsive practices.” Additionally, it mandates that a teacher not be transferred to another location if doing so would “decrease the building’s percentage of minority teachers to less than the student minority percentage in the building” or decrease its percentage of transgender and nonbinary staff to less than 30%.

The complaint filed Thursday by advocacy group Parents Defending Education (PDE) argues PPS is only disciplining select students based on “immutable characteristics” through its approaches, including race. The group is asking the U.S. Department of Education to investigate whether the practices are in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

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