Men's game spoiled by lack of taunting!

TUESDAY, APRIL 4, 2023

Florida culture war ends: Last evening, UConn defeated San Diego State in a national championship basketball clash spoiled by the failure to taunt the losing team after the game was over.

In a related matter, Kevin Drum has called attention to a dual headline from The Guardian. As you can see in Drum's post, The Guardian's headlines say this:

Ruby Bridges: how a 90s Disney movie about racism caused a culture war
A 1998 movie about school segregation has led to a white mother worrying about her child feeling guilty about racism

Drum's thoroughly sensible point is this. It's amazing to see what some news orgs will describe as "a culture war" at this point in time.

For our money, the most instructive part of Drum's post involves the dull-witted reactions of fiery commenters from our own blue tribe. 

In truth, there has been very little definitive reporting about the actual outlook of the "white mother" who stated a view about the appropriate use of the film in this matter. On the whole, Drum's fiery, highly self-assured commenters don't seem to have noticed this fact. 

Instead, self-assured commenters describe this person as a white jerk—as a privileged, stupid Karen who is advancing a white supremacist grievance against uppity blacks. They describe her as a poor little snowflake whose complaint is "just another variation of exactly the same story as is in the film."

They simply assume that they understand the substance of her suggestion / complaint. Reading their comments, we think again of how amazingly unsophisticated our self-impressed blue tribe often is. Also, of the way our non-artificial human intelligence tends to run on the rocket fuel known as preferred Storyline.

Meanwhile:

According to the Tampa Bay Tribune, the film in question has been cleared for continued use, including with second graders, at the Florida grade school in question. The following comment strikes us as well-intentioned but not especially insightful:

SOLOCHEK (4/3/23): “It demonstrates that here in St. Petersburg, all of American history is important to be taught to our scholars,” [Terri] Lipsey Scott said outside the school. “It saddens me that we even had to have a meeting.”

What a shame that we had to pay attention to someone else's view! Meanwhile, all of American history should be taught and presented to all our "scholars?" Even to first and second graders? 

Surely, no one could really believe that. And yet, we've seen such comments, again and again and again and again, whenever our tribe makes its latest attempt to discuss such matters. This is a striking example of the way human (not artificial) intelligence tends to run on memorized script and internalized Storyline.

Later in the report, the school board's vice chair gives voice to the type of mature reaction which is rarely on display in the comments to Drum's post. This is what she said: 

SOLOCHEK: [Laura] Hine, the school board’s vice chairperson, said she was pleased that the district process for reviewing challenged materials worked properly. She said she was proud of North Shore, where her children attend, for demonstrating that the procedure can be done fairly and democratically.

She said the school’s second grade parents have taken the needed next step, reaching out to [Emily] Conklin to let her know that they respect her voice and welcome her family.

“Our society has got to come to a place where we can have a conversation, disagree and then stand together,” Hine said.

In that way, Hine threw a bone to the white supremacist Karen. In the comments to Drum's post, a rather familiar type of mob was running through the streets.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. According to major international experts, our self-impressed tribe, like all human tribes, is often just extremely limited and is routinely unable to see that.

In this way, a complete and total non-event mercifully came to an end. Or, as Homer thoughtfully put it:

Such was their burial of Hector, breaker of horses.


26 comments:

  1. This is really interesting. Glad nothing was going on today so Bob could focus on it.

    ReplyDelete

  2. "A 1998 movie about school segregation has led to a white mother worrying about her child feeling guilty about racism"

    Whoa, wait a minute. We got the impression, based on these here pages, that a parent objected to showing this movie to their second grader child because of the word "nigger" in it.

    ...the same reason, incidentally, that compels dear Bob's brain-dead tribesmen to ban Mark Twain and Harper Lee.

    What gives, dear Bob?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Now last night, underwater, I saw a French mermaid,
    Treated her to caviar and wine over shrimp brain,
    In the raw, on the ocean floor, need I say more?
    You never heard nobody kick it like this before,

    Pink champagne, octopus brains,
    Saw your DJ underwater through the window pane.
    That sucker tried to hit a mix, but the mix didn't happen,
    Records kept floatin' all the fish kept laughin'

    A blowfish blew my mind and started to rhyme,
    As the octopus cut nine records at a time.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Whose copyright is being infringed today?

      https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/10355515/Digital+Underground/Underwater+Rimes

      Delete
    2. Just trying to add some levity to this forum. People in here are at each others' throats. Thought I would spread the good word of hip hop. Sorry, I'll stop if it bothers people.

      Delete
    3. Just respect the artist's work by adding their name at the end. That way, if someone wants to hear more, they can find it.

      Delete
  4. "According to the Tampa Bay Tribune, the film in question has been cleared for continued use, including with second graders, at the Florida grade school in question. "

    Somerby must be disappointed by this decision, since he was seriously suggesting that watching the film would be damaging to children, siding with a parent that nearly all school administrators and outside observers considered idiotic. But not Somerby. He described his shy, serious 5th grader who was nearly traumatized by watching the film he himself showed his class, implying that those sensitive FL kids might react the same way. And yet, look how quickly the film has been exonerated and reinstated to the curriculum after decades of previous use without incident.

    Will Somerby admit that he was perhaps over-cautious. Don't bet your bippy.

    ReplyDelete
  5. You would think that Kevin Drum was an education expert or someone whose point of view matters, but he is just a guy with a blog and a journalism degree who expresses his opinions daily, like Somerby only shorter and slightly more coherently written. It doesn't matter what his opinions about culture wars are, given that he has never been a teacher, knows nothing at all about education, and knows even less about parenting or child development, being childless like Somerby.

    And again, Somerby eagerly chastises commenters at Drum's blog, when he will not interact with his own. You can even find Somerby among Drum's commenters. He has time for that but none to talk to his own followers.

    ReplyDelete
  6. The second amendment is evil.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Breaking horses is cruel.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Much like indoctrinating our children with religion.

      Delete
    2. Anonymouse 7:15pm, hideously crueler still would be to prevent parents from indoctrinating their children into their religion.

      Delete
    3. Parents have as much right to teach their kids about religion, as the rest of us do in asking what proof they have for their beliefs.

      Delete
    4. Anonymouse 9:47pm, not only you, but their children have the same right too.

      Delete
    5. Indoctrination, the forcing of uncritical acceptance of beliefs, is bad. Period, end of story.

      Delete
    6. Beliefs don't require proof. That's why they are beliefs.

      Delete
    7. 9:52,
      Separation of church and state worked, until Republicans put a bunch of Catholics and sexual predators on the Supreme Court.

      Delete
    8. 9:55,
      Their beliefs, correct?

      Delete
    9. Anonymouse 9:54pm, it’s good that Bob won’t read your “uncritical acceptance of beliefs” remark.

      The side stitch might kill him.

      Delete
    10. Your idea of Somerby and the reality are very far apart, yet you think you speak for him. Just like religious people.

      Delete
  8. This case against Trump is definitely going to be thrown out. I'll come back and say I told you so after it is.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You may have a long wait, like forever loser!!

      Delete
    2. 7;03,
      Which one?

      Delete
  9. Presenting American history to all our scholars:
    On April 4, 1968 I was a 7 year old second grade student sitting in a classroom in the Maryland suburbs of DC. Joining me were 27 other bright eyed kids, sitting in silence after our young teacher held up the peace sign, our class signal to settle down and pay attention. Our teacher explained that Martin Luther King had been killed. After a few moments, the class erupted into a flurry of questions, “Why, Mrs. J, did they kill Martin Luther King? Why? Who did it?” Mrs. J did her best to explain what had happened and why. My friend, the other Black girl in the class came over to me and asked, “Are they going to kill us too?” Mrs. J did her best to calm her class explained how the world could be so confusing and chaotic to her kids, but our parents would help us understand.
    I didn’t say anything. When I came home that afternoon I asked my Mom, “Why?” Shocked and concerned, my mom explained why this happened as we watched the evening news and waited for my dad to come home from work.
    As the world of 1968 was swirling around us, the adults in our lives thought it was important that we understand, “Why.”

    ReplyDelete
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