Wokism

A water drop and ripples

We have to stop taking offense at the drop of a feather.

By Justin Katz | October 22, 2021 |

Here’s the key paragraph in this Epoch Times article about a California teacher who’s been put on leave after wearing a paper headdress and dancing in a (let’s say) indigenous fashion to drive home a math lesson: “It is damaging and disheartening to see Native American and indigenous culture represented in such a trite and…

Robin Williams charts poetry in Dead Poets Society

The woke measure everything with the wobbly ruler by which they judged poetry (and killed it).

By Justin Katz | October 22, 2021 |

Since human beings are wired to measure and compare, we are susceptible demands to judge things of less-overt merit by something other than merit that is measurable, like the skin color of the participants. 

A water drop and ripples

Funny how political defenestrations only ever go one way.

By Justin Katz | October 21, 2021 |

Expressing a view on a political or social issue can be harmful to your career, if it isn’t of the progressive-approved variety: The CEO of an American video game developer stepped down after he issued a statement supportive of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of a law in Texas that bans abortions after…

A water drop and ripples

Remember when it was the height of bigotry to worry about biological men in women’s private spaces?

By Justin Katz | October 20, 2021 |

The most infamous and egregious case, of course, is the reported rape by a boy in a skirt of a 15-year-old girl in the girls’ bathroom in a Loudon County, Virginia, school.  The school department lied about the case and tried to bury it, and the case wouldn’t be nearly as infamous if the news…

The Carmagnole (Dance Around the Guillotine) by Kathe Kollwitz

URI is helping a powerful celebrity destroy the life of one of its students.

By Justin Katz | October 19, 2021 |

It’s never an easy call to side with people on principled grounds when you vehemently disagree with something mind-blowingly stupid and offensive they’ve done or said, especially in an environment prone to witch hunts and cancellations.  But that’s the sort of thing principled people have to do in a free society. So, I have no…

A dark classroom

At least the Wall Street Journal is supporting Bessinger against the “education horror show.”

By Justin Katz | October 15, 2021 |

Yesterday, I wondered why the plight and complaints of Providence middle school teacher Ramona Bessinger weren’t of more concern to teachers, parents, the community, the union, and Rhode Islanders generally.  Today, the Wall Street Journal editorial board has proven that somebody actually cares, giving their editorial the sharp headline, “Education Horror Show, Continued.”  (Search the headline…

Theodor Aman's The Battle With Torches

Hate on Patrick Conley Exposes Progressives’ Need to Dominate

By Justin Katz | October 13, 2021 |

Phil Eil’s attack on RI Historian Laureate Patrick Conley is not the perspective of a tolerant person; it is the voice of an ideological movement that seizes power through division and dishonest appeals to fairness and then crushes all dissent the moment it thinks it has succeeded.

Dan McKee cuts a ribbon

Politics This Week with John DePetro: The Flustering McKee

By Justin Katz | October 12, 2021 |

John and Justin discuss ways in which the controversies of the day illustrate a surprising (and disappointing) tendency of the McKee administration.

Classroom scene in The Mortal Storm

The mortal storm swells in the West, again.

By Justin Katz | October 11, 2021 |

Looking to cross a movie off my never-shrinking “to watch” list, last night — preferably with something inspiring and relevant to the holiday — I watched The Mortal Storm.  Perhaps in counterintuitive ways, it fit the evening well.  Indeed, this may be a movie for our times. Released in 1940, as Nazi Germany made its way across…

Pawtucket William Blackstone statue

WPRI promotes division, declaring a new holiday in solidarity with progressives.

By Justin Katz | October 8, 2021 |

Don’t bother looking on your calendar as you attempt to interpret this headline on an Eli Sherman article on WPRI: William Blackstone statue rally planned for Indigenous Peoples Day in Pawtucket By “Indigenous Peoples Day,” WPRI means Columbus Day.  It’s just that radicals looking to divide our nation have been insisting we change the name of…