Wokism

Racial conflict fist as a green light

The purpose of critical theory in public schools is to make children unhappy.

By Justin Katz | November 3, 2021 |

Episode 49 of James Lindsay’s The New Discourses podcast, titled “The Birth of Identity Marxism as Critical Theory’s New Proletariat,” is well worth the hour and a half to listen to it, although it may leave you worried that you’re becoming a conspiracy theorist. As the title suggests, Lindsay reviews some leftist intellectual writing from the…

A water drop and ripples

A hot-take that’s sure to be unpopular across the political spectrum.

By Justin Katz | November 2, 2021 |

Stephen King could write an incredible novel if he were willing to imagine something demonic in wokism.

Mural at Portsmouth High School

The Equity Institute Seeks to Hide Student Surveys in Portsmouth

By Justin Katz | November 2, 2021 |

The level of secrecy and implicit threat against sharing suggests that the Equity Institute and Portsmouth school department know they are skirting a line, whether legal, moral, or political. 

A water drop and ripples

Is this “bullpen” story from PETA a diversion?

By Justin Katz | October 30, 2021 |

Want proof that there’s no depth of silliness that radical activists won’t plumb and that the news media won’t take seriously? With the World Series underway, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is calling on Major League Baseball to stop using the term “bullpen.” According to PETA, “bullpen” references the holding area…

A water drop and ripples

The phrasing of justice at URI is frightening.

By Justin Katz | October 26, 2021 |

The Providence Journal has mildly more detail on the saga of the University of Rhode Island student currently watching his life destroyed because a sent a stupid and racist message to a celebrity football player, and it’s kind of chilling: [Vice President of Student Affairs Kathy] Collins said the person in question is allowed to accept…

A water drop and ripples

Maybe construction firms are missing equity targets because they’re ridiculous.

By Justin Katz | October 26, 2021 |

Stop everything!  Boston construction companies aren’t hitting their equity targets! Rules in Boston that set minimums for the participation of city residents, women, and people of color as workers on construction projects are not being met by the vast majority of projects. City data obtained by GBH News shows that in the last five years,…

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…