Tag: racism

Shaming Private Ryan

NPR, man. It used to be good, though liberal, until it was taken over by woke fanatics. Now NPR’s TV critic, Eric Deggans, is attacking Tom Hanks for not being woke enough. Deggans, who is black, praised Hanks for his recent op-ed about the Tulsa race massacre, and calling on Hollywood to tell more stories like it. But now Deggans wants Hanks to do penance for having made movies about white people. I kid you not. From Deggans’s essay:

[I]t’s wonderful that Hanks stepped forward to advocate for teaching about a race-based massacre – indirectly pushing back against all the hyperventilating about critical race theory that’s too often more about silencing such lessons on America’s darkest chapters.

But it is not enough.

After many years of speaking out about race and media in America, I know the toughest thing for some white Americans — especially those who consider themselves advocates against racism — is to admit how they were personally and specifically connected to the elevation of white culture over other cultures.

But in Hanks’ case, he is no average American. Or average Hollywood star, for that matter.

Over the years, he has starred in a lot of big movies about historical events, including Saving Private Ryan, Greyhound, Forrest Gump, Apollo 13, Bridge of Spies and News of the World. He has served as a producer or executive producer on even more films and TV shows based on American history, including Band of Brothers, The Pacific, John Adams and From the Earth to the Moon. He was an executive producer of documentaries such as The Assassination of President Kennedy and The Sixties on CNN.

In other words, he is a baby boomer star who has built a sizable part of his career on stories about American white men “doing the right thing.” He even played a former Confederate soldier in one of his latest films, News of the World, standing up for a blond, white girl who had been kidnapped and raised by a Native American tribe.

He’s not alone. Superstar director Steven Spielberg has a similar pedigree (notwithstanding occasional projects such as The Color Purple and Amistad). And fellow director Ron Howard. These stories of white Americans smashing the Nazi war machine or riding rockets into space are important. But they often leave out how Black soldiers returned home from fighting in World War II to find they weren’t allowed to use the GI Bill to secure home loans in certain neighborhoods or were cheated out of claiming benefits at all.

They don’t describe how Black people were excluded from participating in space missions as astronauts early in America’s space program. As the book and film Hidden Figures notes, even brilliant Black and female mathematicians faced discrimination in the space program during the 1950s and 1960s. If given better opportunities, perhaps they could have helped us get to the moon sooner, by putting our best minds on the problem, regardless of race.

Deggans is angry because these artists didn’t make the films he thought they should have made.

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Columbus police say weekend shooting spree was racially motivated

The 39-year-old man charged in a weekend shooting spree told Columbus police his assaults were racially motivated, targeting white men he felt had taken from him all his life, a detective testified Monday.

Though police allege Justin Tyran Roberts was involved in three separate assaults that wounded five people Friday and Saturday in Columbus and Phenix City, he was in Columbus Recorder’s Court to face charges in just one of those incidents, a shooting around 2 p.m. Saturday under the Oglethorpe Bridge at Broadway and Fourth Street.

That’s where a man was shot in the back as he was getting into his vehicle in a parking area under the bridge, said Detective Brandon Lockhart, who quoted Roberts as telling police, “I had to have him.”

The victim was hit once in the back, but four bullets hit his vehicle, and police found six shell casings at the scene, Lockhart said.

Under questioning by public defender Robin King, Lockhart elaborated on what Roberts, who is Black, told him during an interview at police headquarters.

“Basically, he explained throughout his life, specifically white males had taken from him, and also what he described as ‘military-looking white males’ had taken from him,” the investigator said.

Roberts also claimed that such men were “shooting at him in a wooded area with a slingshot,” and the wounds had infected his skin, Lockhart testified. Police saw no injuries to substantiate that, he said.

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White farmers win fight against “discriminatory” criteria for federal Covid relief

A Wisconsin federal court has temporarily stopped payments in a federal farmer loan forgiveness program that allocates benefits on the basis of racial categories.

Twelve farmers and ranchers across nine states filed the lawsuit against the Biden Administration, saying they are not eligible for relief because they are white.

The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 directs the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to give preferential treatment to businesses owned by women, veterans, and people who are “socially and economically disadvantaged.”

The federal law uses a controversial “critical race theory” definition of “socially and economically disadvantaged” that can only include minority groups.

The court entered the emergency injunction temporarily halting payments in the $4 billion program, stating that the white farmers are “likely to to succeed on the merits of their claim”.

A Texas court recently temporarily halted a program for restauranteurs under the same federal program for the same reasons.

Several other courts have ruled similarly and enjoined the Biden Administration from administering the Covid relief program on a discriminatory basis.

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Yoga Instructor and “Body Activist” Jessamyn Stanley Says White Supremacy has Polluted Yoga

Jessamyn Stanley is a yoga instructor and “body activist.”

Jessamyn is making headlines for some reason after blaming white supremacy for polluting yoga.

Seriously. This happened.

When is the left just going to come out and call for mass genocide of whitey?

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The Totalitarian Threat of Critical Race Theory Rears Its Ugly Head

Last week, a black Amazon delivery driver sucker-punched an elderly white woman after the victim rejected the driver’s snide remark about the “white privilege” of getting annoyed while waiting for a package. A few months back, a Yale lecturer spoke about her “fantasies of unloading a revolver into the head of any white person that got in my way.” Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot complained that too many of the journalists reporting on her are white.

A noxious leftist ideology links all of these racist incidents, and it is already wreaking tremendous havoc on American society. This ideology justifies blatant racism in the name of promoting “equity.” It is spreading throughout American classrooms, corporate boardrooms, and legacy media outlets. One of its architects has even called for a totalitarian bureaucracy to enforce his vision of “equity.” This new racism masquerades as “anti-racist,” but it judges people according to the color of their skin, not the content of their character.

Marxist thinkers invented critical race theory (CRT) in order to upend society by claiming that hidden racism pervades American institutions. CRT teaches people to seize on any racial disparity as ipso facto proof of racial discrimination, despite the clear prohibitions on racial discrimination in federal law. Advocates claim that the American status quo is racist — if not “white supremacist” — so extreme measures to reverse historic injustices are the only “anti-racist” option.

Since American society must be secretly racist, CRT advocates attribute various aspects of society to the nefarious impact of “whiteness.” The Smithsonian briefly published a “teaching tool” infographic on “whiteness.” That infographic claimed that the nuclear family, science, capitalism, the Judeo-Christian tradition, individualism, “objective, rational linear thinking,” and even values such as “be polite” are aspects of oppressive whiteness. The Smithsonian rightly removed the graphic after facing criticism, but this incident illustrates just how mainstream CRT has become.

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