Category Archives: Political Correctness

On Friday evening, former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly was the featured guest on HBOs Real Time with Bill Maher.

During the segment, Kelly and host Bill Maher covered multiple topics, including sexual harassment at Fox, how the media is broken, honesty in reporting, and cancel culture.

Regarding the movie Bombshell, which depicted the alleged sexual harassment faced by female Fox News employees under late CEO Roger Ailes, Kelly said the she sees the film as a force for good because it helps shine a light on how its done, and how women who may not be that well connected like herself and Gretchen Carlson, faced the same issue.

Maher interjected: You had that in common. You both had to twirl for Roger Ailes.

Kelly explained that the twirl, as well as worse things that happened to her, arent necessarily about the acts themselves, but about being demeaned and controlled.

Maher moved on to media, asking Kelly what she means when she says that the media is broken.

Kelly replied:

You know its true, right? The media is so messed up. Its disheartening to me, and Ive felt this way for a long time not just since Trump. And I know Trumps rhetoric is too strong enemy of the people and all that, and I know why he says it. There [are] still amazing journalists out there doing great work, but the media is completely biased.

At this point, Maher tried to claim that the media isnt really politically biased because Fox News exists, to which Kelly noted that the reason Fox grew in popularity was because it was the singular outlet that represented the other side of the coin.

Maher then claimed that the media is truly biased toward money and conflict because thats what sells. He then cited the alleged disappointment he saw in the media when the recent Second Amendment rally in Virginia turned out to be peaceful.

Thats what I think the media bias is, more than politics, Maher said.

Kelly shot back, saying that even though she believes that there was a liberal slant in the media prior to President Trump, it has developed into something much greater since he took office:

Take CNN he came in there and said, CNN is completely biased to the left, theyre lefties, theyre completely against me, and my take on it was in the beginning, he was wrong. CNN wasnt that way. I used to watch CNN all the time when I was at Fox. When I was getting ready for the Kelly File, Id have on CNN, and Id watch a lot of their shows, and I liked a lot of the anchors over there.

However, suggested Kelly, CNN has now become the thing Trump said they were, and are indistinguishable from MSNBC.

Maher pushed back, saying its very hard to cover a guy like Trump who does awful things. Kelly agreed, but then Maher added that such coverage would make anchors or networks look left-wing.

Kelly disagreed, telling Maher that one can remain journalistically non-biased even in the face of a difficult president:

I totally disagree with you. When I was doing The Kelly File at primetime 9 p.m. on Fox News, he was attacking me for nine months straight, right? Saying outrageous things. It took everything in me to go out on the set night after night and not make it personal, and not have a vendetta against him, and not be overly harsh on him because of what he was doing to me and my family but I did it. Its doable. You just have to remember, its not about you! Its about the audience and the truth.

Later in the segment, the two spoke about political correctness and cancel culture.

I was angry for you, honestly, Maher said of NBC firing Kelly after her comments about blackface. Because this cancel culture its so funny, when they do polls, they find like 80% to 90% of the people in this county hate this s***.

Maher asked: Who are these perfect people who have never made any mistake?

Kelly replied:

I mean, my own take on it is, the countrys going through something right now, you know? Marginalized groups are rising up and trying to find positions at the table, equal positions, and thats a good thing. The difference is in approach. How do we do it? And I understand this fight because as a woman and somebody whos, you know, been in the position I was in that we talked about, I have also felt marginalized at times, and like I dont have an equal footing, but the question is, do we do it with grace and humanity and understanding that people make mistakes and that were all imperfect and were gonna screw up and kindness and an understanding that were all only here for a limited time and we cant expect a perfect score?

Whats galling is that the people who hate bullying are always bullying, Maher said. If you even talk about this, itll only make it worse. Thats bullying. The people who love diversity, except of opinion. Theres only one true opinion.

Kelly noted that the Right has been saying the same thing about ideological diversity, to which Maher said that the Right engages in the snowflakery as well.

Speaking of the woke group, Maher stated: Theyre gross because all they care about is getting a scalp on the wall. They dont care if youre really a racist, which youre not. They dont care about a million things and they always want to find the worst version of what any person is.

Kelly agreed, adding that the way it used to be was younger generations taught older generations to see the world in a new way instead of having the older generations cancelled because they didnt immediately agree or start talking about the issues in the way they wanted.

We have to get back to talking to each other so theres buy-in, so people feel heard, and we allow for disagreement, respectful, kindness, Kelly concluded.

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WATCH: Megyn Kelly Talks Intense 'Media Bias' And 'Cancel Culture' On Bill Maher - The Daily Wire

An acquaintance recently emailed me, in a sense of bewilderment after following the national news for the past few weeks, and his questions prompted me to write these down. With his permission I present some of them, edited for clarity and PG-13 audiences.

He hopes that when Trump is re-elected to a second term that the liars in the national mainstream media will be fully exposed, and how things work (i.e. the coordination between the national mainstream media and the Democrat Party) will be revealed to the American public.

I raise the point that a faction of the Democrat Party has wrested control of much of the national mainstream media and academia over a long period of time, and has no willingness to allow exposure of their dishonesty.

He posits, How is it that they are so coordinated with each other that they often utter the same exact talking point phrase du jour.

They do this because they are lazy, and invested in propagating the lies that keep them in power. Another more worldly friend suggested to me that for those who espouse such virtue-signaling tripe as collective salvation the secular humanist placebo to supplant Christian teachings for them to admit that they know what they say is bunk would collapse their entire worldview, as happened finally in the old Soviet Union.

How protected do they think they (the national mainstream media liars) are that they seemingly feel nothing is wrong with such brazen coordination in pushing biased narratives? Who is protecting and directing them? Likely the answer to the second answers the first, and it probably is some of both it is the party and the media CEOs. Examine the record of CNN and MSNBC as quick samples.

How can they always line up on the same wrong side of stories? And yes, they double down when called out for their inaccuracy or bias. Even when fighting among themselves to wit, CNNs reporter asks Sen. Bernie Sanders if he told Sen. Elizabeth Warren (some years ago, in a private conversation) that a woman cannot win the presidency? He answers, No I never said that.

The CNN reporter then turns to Sen. Warren and in a perfect example of bias and dishonesty, asks her, Sen. Warren, what did you think when Sen. Sanders told you a woman could not win the election?

The CNN journalist was perfectly comfortable using the loaded question format of So when did you stop beating your wife? on old Bernie Sanders, by ignoring his answer and changing it to pose the opposite as fact to Sen. Warren. Brazen doesnt even come close to describing this.

It must be understood that there are very wealthy people and organizations, both here and abroad, who revel in creating this sort of societal chaos. Some for supposedly idealistic rationales, though the overarching attitude is we know better, you will agree to let us run everything or well shame you, publicly defame you, antagonize your businesses or organizations , all with the treacle glaze of some save-the-country/savethe-planet as justification.

No, it isnt a conspiracy theory, just look at the things we have endured in this country in the past few years all because one faction has come to believe they are somehow morally superior or socially justified in refusing to accept that they lost an election, and continue to lose the support of many Americans. They openly use the term by any means necessary to reverse the results of 2016.

What do you call it when in a representative republic one political faction determines that they will refuse to acknowledge they have lost an election, and acts to undermine the duly elected candidate and party? Is it a civil society or not?

What do you call it when the same faction begins to push for the destruction of the entire voting system in order to win all elections in the future? For reference see the Democrats push to eliminate the Electoral College, force ranked choice voting into the states, eliminate voter ID laws which prevent voter fraud, allow illegal aliens to vote, and yes, even have 16-year-olds to vote.

What do you call it when a Bernie Sanders field worker advocates openly for gulags to re-educate Trump voters? This does not sound like acceptance of a representative republic to me; it reflects a desire for totalitarian control and abusive punishment.

Listening to the ignorance of this fellow in the recently revealed video is truly stunning his stupidity is remarkable, describing how gulags under Stalin really werent that bad . . . they got paid a living wage and had conjugal visits . . .. He probably thinks Solzhenitsyn is vodka. A millennial of course, and frankly I have no tolerance for ignorance of any age group, but in particular these self-righteous snowflakes.

What do you call it when another Bernie Sanders campaign worker attempts to assassinate Republican senators and congressmen at a baseball game? Is this tolerance and diversity, or an attempt to start a civil war?

What do you call it when the same party organizes and funds a campaign of smears and framing of opposition campaign officials in order to manipulate the willingly corrupt FBI and Justice Department into illegally eavesdropping on their, and other, communications? Is this a minor mistake by underlings?

What do you call it when the national mainstream media covers for the same partys involvement in numerous fraudulent stories about the president for three plus years?

When there is a blackout, looters loot. In 2019 weve had a national mainstream media controlled blackout on the truth, and the country is being looted our treasury, our sovereignty, our identity, our history all under the threat of being forever erased by propagandists and their protective force field of political correctness.

Freedom of the press is crucial to Americas existence, but it should not be interpreted as freedom from scrutiny. When the scrutinizers become mere stenographers (i.e. the national mainstream media and the Democrat Party) then it is high time to upend this system and examine who is controlling the narratives. Full disclosure. I was a Democrat voter for 30 years.

Another View is a weekly column written collaboratively by Dale Landrith of Camden, Ken Frederic of Bristol, Paul Ackerman of Martinsville, Jan Dolcater of Rockport and Ralph Doc Wallace of Rockport.

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What do you call it when - Lewiston Sun Journal

Prime Minister Narendra Modi did a Sherlock Holmes on December 15, saying what kind of CAA protesters are indulging in arson can be told by their clothes ( yeh aag lagaane vaale kaun hain, woh unke kapdon se hi pata chal jaata hai). Sir Arthur Conan Doyle never allowed Dr Watson to solve any mystery before Holmes did (though the understudy does a lot of work in The Hound of Baskervilles), but a Dr Watson in the BJP tried to outdo his master. Last week, BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya made a breakthrough in identifying illegal migrants: He said he knew some of the workers at his place were from Bangladesh as they were seen eating poha!

But Modis and Vijayvargiyas statements are more problematic not for being politically incorrect (I am not a fan of political correctness), but because they are wrong and expose inherent bigotry. In both, these comments were a glaring anti-Muslim connotation. Professors of Hindutva nursing such a sentiment surprises none, but one expected at least Modi to be adept at masking it. If the clothes statement was crass, the food remark was ridiculous.

Theres no denying that regions and religions have their typical food habits, but to make a judgment based on what one eats can go horribly wrong. Heres what Juhea Kim wrote in Peaceful Dumpling (which promotes veganism):

Any kind of superficial judgment of others is based on our need to feel superior. An ethical eater doesnt equal to an ethical person No one likes to be judgedand some days it will be you.

The second point is particularly interesting. Hitler was a vegetarian in his final years and he wasnt the only vegetarian who presided over massacres. Today, someone rolling a Malabar parotta around beef roast in Kerala could well be from the Hindi heartland (many of them who constitute a major workforce there have made the southern state their second home, the local food their daily diet). Kim says one of her mentors, who she calls the most conscientious person I know, is not an ethical eater. But although he eats a traditional American diet, he is still the first person I think of when I need a moral role model, she writes.

Many great men have been at the receiving end of sartorial judgments. Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar was denied entry into the Library of Asiatic Society in Calcutta in 1874 because he was wearing a dhoti.

V R Krishna Iyer, one of the most respected jurists India has seen, had a similar experience at the Presidency Club in Chennai sometime in the 1980s. If those ignominious incidents were a result of Indians upholding remnants of the British philistine that bred class distinction, the present-day Holmeses, and Watsons embody community-and-caste-based malice that gnaws at the roots of Indias diversity.

If people start judging each other by what they wear, everyone in white shirt-dhoti (or kurta-pajama in the north) today would be considered a corrupt politician. Thankfully, it is not so.

The poha-hating BJP general secretary can, however, take heart that an American neurologist-psychiatrist called Alan Hirsch has done some research linking food habits with personalities (he had to wind up his Sensa crystals which he claimed would make people slimmer even if they eat junk food sprinkled with the crystals). One of his studies on ice-cream flavours, sponsored by who else Baskin Robbins, claimed to have found vanilla eaters to be impulsive idealists, those who preferred mint choc chips frugal, cautious and argumentative, and chocolate flavour lovers dramatic, lively and charming.

Whats your scoop, Dr Watson?

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Show your plate and they will tell you who you are - Economic Times

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Posted: Jan 26, 2020 12:01 AM

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.

Steve Mnuchin cant seem to move away from a huge economic misconception that I wrote about two years ago called Living in an Economic Twilight Zone. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week, Mnuchin said the White House has started work on the second round of tax cuts even as the budget deficit continues to grow. It would appear that he still believes in this misguided premise that we can grow our way out of $23 trillion worth of debt.

Mathematically speaking, that has not been the case since our national debt was more than $9 trillion at the end of2007. Then, a president came in who was too busy apologizing for American exceptionalism and had no idea how to create an environment for growth. He believed in demonizing profits, regulating small and large businesses, taxing corporate America and increasing public assistance to record levels as the poverty rate grew larger every day. That administration believed that these actions, along with spending and expanding the size of government, was a plan for Americas growth and prosperity.

A strong economy is a great thing. I dont believe its ever been better in my lifetime than it is under this administration. But we cannotand will nothave sustainable growth, prosperity and economic stability without a strong, detailed, steadfast and unwavering plan to downsize the federal government and cut spending. We are living today in a perfect economic storm. It almost seems impossible for this storm to do anything but continue to circle around and grow in strength. The likelihood of the storm going out to sea and dissipating seems unlikely.

At the same time, we have one of the strongest presidents weve ever had; hes a businessman, not a politiciana president who knows how to get things done and a president whose decision-making is not based on political correctness. Perhaps the most important thing is that we have a president who is willing to make hard decisions for the future of America, its people and its economy. We have never had a greater opportunity to make changes that can begin to peck away at our national debt. But it would appear as though President Trump is surrounding himself with people that believe that growth is the answer to everything and will solve the debt problem for future generations.

We will never be able to cut national debt without growth in our GDP and growth in our economic environment. It is literally impossible to do without growth. It is also unattainable to reduce national debt without cutting spending and reducing the size of our government.

With the Trump administration, there is a great opportunity to heal Americas debt problem. We have a man in office who is willing to do whats necessary for the good of the American people and who prioritizes growth in our free-market economy. We may never see this perfect storm of growth with the opportunity to cut government again in our lifetime. Cut the size of government, and we will cut the size of our debt as our growth continues. For the storm to be truly perfect, it needs us to do both.

Abraham Lincoln espoused smaller government, individual responsibility and freedom for all. Lincoln established one of the principles upon which the Republican Party was founded when he said, Lets have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.

If we dont start in the next five years, it will be impossible to reduce deficits. Lets get back to Abraham Lincolns ideals and keep government small. Lets seize the opportunity to grow and strengthen the financial base like never before, to take advantage of this moment and begin completing the circle of Americas future prosperity.

Dan Celia is president and CEO of Financial Issues Stewardship Ministries, Inc., and host of the nationally syndicated radio and television program Financial Issues, heard daily on more than 660 stations across the country and reaching millions of households on several TV networks, includingFISM.TV. Visitwww.financialissues.org.

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A Strong Economy Is a Great ThingBut Is That All We Need? - Townhall

The novel initially received a great deal of positive press. It sparked a bidding war that ended in a 7-figure deal, garnered a movie deal with Clint Eastwood, was called "extraordinary" by Stephen King, and was picked by Oprah for her book club, guaranteeing its bestseller status.

Then the controversy erupted.

American Dirt tells the story of two Mexican migrants, a mother named Lydia and her child Luca, attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border. It was written by a woman named Jeanine Cummins, who identified as white until very recently (she has a Puerto Rican grandmother).

Many reviewers have panned Cummins' book for its lack of empathy, its reliance on stereotypes and trauma, and its apolitical stance that seems intent on "humanizing" migrants but that fails to implicate America or its government.

"The book is riddled with gross misrepresentations of its subjects," writes David Schmidt for the Blue Nib. "Mexico is depicted as a one-dimensional nation, irredeemably corrupt and violent, while the United States of American Dirt is a fantasy land: a country free of gun violence, hate groups and organized crime. While the book ostensibly pushes a progressive message, it drives home a very Trumpist myth: 'crime and violence are Mexican problems.' If English-speaking readers assume that this novel accurately depicts the realities of Mexico and migration, it will only further the cause of disinformation and prejudice."

In addition to the criticism, the debate inspired a Twitter thread about "writing my Latino novel" that lampoons stereotypes about Latinx culture. It's also brought up serious points about the predominantly white state of the media and publishing industry and about who gets to tell what stories.

By most accounts, Cummins' narrative fails to responsibly represent its characters. Realistically, though, many people will see the criticism of American Dirt and will be filled with rage about how political correctness is infringing on freedom of speech. This is missing a deeper point (and no one is saying you can't keep working on your novel about a woman's sexual liberation, Mike).

The question isn't necessarily whether writers should be able to write about what they don't know (they should). The question is: Who gets to decide what voices get to speak? Is it really freedom of speech when certain voices are always louder than others?

American Dirt is, ultimately, the project of people whose voices have always been the loudest. It's the product of a whole lot of white literary establishment power, and ultimately it's a finely crystallized symbol of the colonialist mindset that is alive and well in the literary world.

"I'm of the persuasion that fiction necessarily, even rather beautifully, requires imagining an 'other' of some kind," writes Parul Sehgal in The New York Times. "As the novelist Hari Kunzru has argued, imagining ourselves into other lives and other subjectives is an act of ethical urgency. The caveat is to do this work of representation responsibly, and well."

According to Myriam Gurba, whose excellent review was one of the first searing takedowns of the book, Cummins' novel does the following:

"1. Appropriating genius works by people of color

2. Slapping a coat of mayonesa on them to make palatable to taste buds estados-unidenses and

3. Repackaging them for mass racially 'colorblind' consumption.

Rather than look us in the eye, many gabachos prefer to look down their noses at us. Rather than face that we are their moral and intellectual equals, they happily pity us. Pity is what inspires their sweet tooth for Mexican pain, a craving many of them hide."

The problem is not only that Jeanine Cummins felt she had the right to tell this storyit's that she told it insensitively, in a way that misrepresents the uniqueness of every migrant experience and instead crushes it into a stereotype and reshapes it for a white audience's eyes. If writing fiction requires a sort of alchemical synthesis of empathy, nuance, and razor-sharp awareness, then Cummins seems to lack all of these things.

Still, it's likely the book would not have been so heavily panned had it not received such extensive praise and hype. "While I have nothing against Jeanine's (or anyone else's) writing a book about the plight of Mexican women and immigrants (especially if they do their homework and don't exoticize our culture), I am deeply bothered that this non-#OwnVoices novel has been anointed the book about the issue for 2020," writes David Bowles for Medium.

The ache and frustration in Latinx critics' responses lies not only in its content, but in the larger cultural context into which it was released. "At a time when Mexico and the Mexican American community are reviled in this country as they haven't been in decades, to elevate this inauthentic book written by someone outside our community is to slap our collective face," Bowles concludes.

"The heart of the problem is that American Dirt is not really a story of Mexican migrants at all. It is the story of American entitlement, one that never questions the brute injustice of geography of birth determining opportunities in life. American Dirt is an accurate depiction of what Americans demand Mexicans and other brown people suffer to be allowed into the country," writes Rafia Zakaria for CNN.

If you look at the state of the publishing industry, it's easy to see why American Dirt slipped through the cracks. "According to the trade magazine Publishers Weekly, white people made up 84 percent of publishing's workforce in 2019. Publishing is staffed almost entirely by white people and in large part, that fact can be explained by publishing's punishingly low entry-level salaries," writes Constance Grady for Vox. "Such salaries mean that the kind of people who work in publishing tend to be the kind of people who can afford to work in publishing As a result, publishing is predominantly staffed with well-meaning white people who, when looking for a book about the stories of people of color, can find themselves drawn toward one addressed specifically to white people."

Meanwhile, people of color attempting to break into the industry often have difficulty if they don't fit into the white publishing industry's expectations of them. "We fight in newsrooms, boardrooms, studio meetings, book proposals, and other spaces where white editors hungry for all of our pain and none of our nuance serve as gatekeepers," writes Alex Zargoza for Vice. "If we do break through, we then have to battle editors who want us to create trauma p-rn for white readers to clutch their chest to and lament the savagery of the countries we came from are. We lose out on anything near a seven-figure deal, effectively punished for not wanting to do what Cummins did, which was treat ourselves like the pitiful emblems of pain liberal whites see us as, or bloodthirsty barbarians Donald Trump has made us out to be."

For all the doubts she expressed about writing the novel, Jeanine Cummins' statements following the controversy haven't helped her case. She's not exactly a sympathetic figure (she just earned a million dollars from a book, after all, and received a flood of glowing reviews early on). In the epigraph she wrote about her immigrant husband, Cummins writes about her fear that her husband will be deported. She fails to mention that he's an Irish immigrant, and instead essentially equates his struggles with those of the people she's trying to write about. She's even been banning critical tweets on Twitter, apparently, which is ridiculous.

Instead of shutting down this discussion and trying to paint herself as anyone but an outsider looking in, Cummins should be embracing the critiques. She should, for example, take one for the team and shut down the forthcoming movie deal, which would undeniably win an Oscar, if it were made.

She probably won't do that, though, because it's likely Jeanine Cummins still believes she is helping a cause. She also probably cares about what's going on at the U.S.-Mexico border, whichto her creditis more than the half of America that voted for Trump can say. She also apparently spent five years doing research, though it clearly wasn't enough, considering all the errors in her book.

Cummins also probably figured that, as a well-connected writer, she had a better shot at getting her book in the hands of millionswhich was true, and this speaks more to the issues in the publishing and media industries than to the author herself.

Still, the conversation shouldn't get lost in criticizing Cummins or the book. This can, instead, be a valuable teaching moment, one that should be used as an opportunity for the literary world to learn and change. Without confronting the systemic racism embedded in the media and publishing industries, change will never happen. We have to learn to differentiate between a writer's freedom to write about anything they choose and a writer's (and the literary establishment's) decision to put forth damaging content under the guise of social justice or "resistance" literature.

The publishing company (Flatiron) and agencies that made American Dirt into such a success probably felt they were also working in support of a good cause. But the hurt that the book has caused many Latinx (and many non-white) readers and writers should be a lesson for anyone trying to write about things that are unfamiliar to them, or to anyone deciding whether to promote a book, especially a book by a white writer about a sensitive, very nuanced and political issue that's playing out in real time and that's already being written about by people who are actually experiencing it.

In general, the publishing industry needs to ask itself a lot of questions based on this feedback. These questions could include: Has the book been read and vetted by people who actually lived the experience it describes? Has the author of this book done justice to the nuance of the issue? Does the book play into stereotypes? Does it fetishize trauma? Why is this story being told? Is it helping the issue? Why is the author telling this story? And is there anyone who would be even a little bit offended that a symbol of division and painsuch as, say, barbed wire reminiscent of a certain bordermight be used as a centerpiece at a book release party?

American Dirt, Sehgal concludes in her delightfully scathing review, "is determinedly apolitical. The deep roots of these forced migrations are never interrogated; the American reader can read without fear of uncomfortable self-reproach. It asks only for us to accept that 'these people are people,' while giving us the saintly to root for and the barbarous to deploreand then congratulating us for caring."

White sympathy can be dangerous. In truth, a great deal of the migration flows currently stemming from Central America were created by American drug wars and violence that ensued from American-sponsored coups and violence. If American citizens are so desperate to do something for migrants, then it needs to start with uplifting their voices and compensating them for their work on their terms, whatever those terms may benot telling stories that attempt to "humanize" someone but that actually further reinforce preexisting stereotypes and spread misinformation.

American colonialism has long operated in the tradition of invading and entering another country on the basis of a deluded idea that the Others need to be "saved" and that the invasion is for their own good; and charitable nonprofits often fall into the same trap, air-dropping resources instead of working with communities, thus creating cycles of dependence and collapse. Clearly, entering someone else's territory (or invading their story) is not always an optimal strategy.

Colonization has long been an accepted practice in literature, too; remember that Memoirs of a Geisha was written by a white man named Arthur, and The Help was written by a white womanwhich received similar criticism for its treatment of Black characters, and which was, ironically, published by the same person who published American Dirt.

The question of whether it's possible to write about "the other" through a postcolonial lens is a labyrinthine, almost unanswerable one, but we don't even have to go down that winding road now. Instead, maybe well-meaning allies can start by practicing solidarity and deepening interpersonal relationships with people impacted by issues at hand, by supporting on-the-ground organizations like Cosecha and RAICES (or any of the names on this list), by understanding that there isto say the absolute leastno one "migrant" or "Latinx" "experience," and by asking questions, and then shutting up and listening for once.

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What We Can Learn From the American Dirt Controversy - Popdust

Wendy Williams allegedly ripped a pretty decent fart on live TV. She was in the middle of talking about political correctness when the accident happened. Williams has been in the news quite a bit over the past few weeks and recently had to publicly apologize to Joaquin Phoenix and individuals with a cleft palate after she said she found the actor to be "oddly attractive" and then talked about the scar over the actor's lip.

During a new segment on her show Friday, Wendy Williams was discussing the Odell Beckham butt-slapping incident, which has also been making headlines. While talking, she seems to take a pause when a totally audible fart can be heard. She then acts as if nothing happened and continues her talk on political correctness. Social media has not been able to get enough of the rather loud fart and the look on Williams' face when she allegedly lets it rip.

Lapel microphones are used on talk shows and The Wendy Williams Show is no different. While it's not confirmed, it is believed that the mic in question is uni-directional, which means it's only supposed to pick up audio from one direction. In this case, just like all talk shows, the goal is to hear the person's voice as loud and clear as possible. For Williams to rip a fart and have it picked up on an uni-directional microphone is quite a feat, which means that it had to have been pretty loud with a decent amount of force behind it.

Farts are pure comedic gold in most circles, so it would have been refreshing to see Wendy Williams have a good laugh while addressing it. Accidents happen and it's not like she defecated in her dress in front of a live studio audience, along with the folks watching and listening at home. Farts happen, it's just natural for the body to relieve some gas from time to time. Maybe she had a bad breakfast burrito or bad creamer in her coffee before the segment. There's a lot of different variables to take into account here.

Some believe that the live television flatulence was karma for Wendy Williams' comments on the cleft palate. Over 63,000 people have signed a petition to get her fired after the 55-year old talk show host pulled her lip up with her finger to mock the condition. Many are not excepting her apology to Joker star Joaquin Phoenix and individuals with a cleft palate. It should be noted that Phoenix's scar is not a cleft palate. Instead it's a scar that he has had since birth. Regardless, Williams is still on the air and surprising her audience with all kinds of audio goodness. You can check out the video of Wendy Williams allegedly ripping a big juicy fart on live TV below, thanks to the Pop Hub Twitter account. The awesome fart in question pops up at the 18-second mark.

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Did Wendy Williams Fart on Live TV While Talking About Political Correctness? - TVweb

MIDDLEBURY, Vt. (WCAX) A controversial author who ignited demonstrations at Middlebury College three years ago is expected to return to campus later this spring.

Dr. Charles Murray has reportedly accepted an invitation by the Middlebury College Republicans to tentatively speak on campus March 31, according to an op-ed by the group in the Middlebury Campus newspaper.

The college confirmed in a written statement Wednesday that the group invited Murray to discuss his upcoming book, Human Diversity: The Biology of Gender, Race, and Class.

A 2017 speech by Murray prompted demonstrations and a confrontation in which a Middlebury professor was injured. Murray is a social scientist who critics say uses pseudoscience to link intelligence and race.

"We believe that the way the administration and the protesters handled the 2017 event was a stain on Middlebury's reputation and a betrayal of its mission of 'creating a world with a robust and inclusive public sphere,'" said the op-ed. "We believe that this public sphere is integral to the meaning of a liberal arts education and the freedom of academic inquiry."

The 2017 incident garnered national attention over the issues of political correctness on campus and freedom of speech.

The college created new guidelines following the incident that called for evaluating the safety risks and security needs and consider canceling only events that cause imminent and credible threats that cannot be helped by changing the event plan.

The college canceled a lecture by a conservative Polish speaker last April out of safety concerns.

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Controversial author expected to return to Middlebury College - WCAX

"Me and My Tapeworm Isobel" by Marius Enescu.

PHOENIX (PRWEB) January 21, 2020

Many are frustrated with aspects of todays society such as cancel culture and political correctness, arguing that it causes us all to feel as if we walk on eggshells by being careful not to offend anyone. Marius Enescus Me and My Tapeworm Isobel: Extras from the Volume Intellectual Cramps deviates from political correctness in the interest of what the author calls political directness, offering a quick read containing Enescus biting and wickedly humorous satirical views on the world around him.

The book creatively highlights the tiny observations and thoughts Enescu has about life and humanity on a daily basis; he approaches with humor and lightheartedness a wide range of topics such as medicine, our eating and drinking habits, how we present ourselves in public and how the media influences our desires and attention.

Rather than spending his time and thoughts remaining politically correct by todays societal standards, Enescu instead prefers to call his approach to communication political directness. His hope is that the book helps teach the world how to be more sincere with themselves and others without diminishing the complexity and beauty of humanity.

If we can allow one another to be genuine when we speak, we will be able to have more friends, more love and understanding of one another, Enescu says. The difference between friends and enemies will become clearer but then we will learn to respecting our differences instead of hating them.

Enescu receives praise for Me and My Tapeworm Isobel, with one Amazon reviewer lauding the book as a great read and awarding it a five-star rating.

Me and My Tapeworm Isobel: Extras from the Volume Intellectual CrampsBy Marius EnescuISBN: 9781489720603 (softcover); 9781489720597 (hardcover); 9781489720610 (electronic)Available at LifeRich Publishing, Amazon and Barnes & Noble

About the authorBorn in Eastern Communist Europe, Marius Enescu uses his surgical skills in performing blunt incisions within the sometimes-sordid aspects of real everyday life, while humorously opposing them to the unrealistic and fabricated image described by wishful thinking and exaggerated political correctness. To learn more about Enescu and his works, please visit his website.

Contact:LAVIDGE PhoenixKalin Thomas480-648-7540kthomas(at)lavidge(dot)com

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Escape from Overzealous Political Correctness and Appreciate Humanity in Whimsical New Satire Book 'Me and My Tapeworm Isobel' - PR Web

James Melville argues that wokeness is the latest concept to be hijacked by the right-wing to make a stand against equality, democracy and justice.

Right-wingers have cultivated a bogus enemy of political correctness which they have now rebranded as woke. In effect, they are demonising common decency to legitimise bigotry.

So when actor Laurence Fox declared his all-out battle cry against wokeness on BBC Question Time, he was jumping on the bandwagon of an ever-increasing demonisation of political correctness thats been bubbling away for years, along with a mainstream backlash against progressiveness since the 2016 EU Referendum and the US Presidential Election.

Being woke means being conscious of racial discrimination in society and other forms of oppression and injustice.

Brexit and Trumpism have become the pegs on which a culture war has been hung in Britain and America. It has become an unedifying battle between a series of tribes ranging from remainers versus brexiters or woke versus gammon or snowflakes versus bigots. This turf war has spread to new frontiers covering climate change, transgender rights, #MeToo, Stormzy criticising Boris Johnson, knife crime, and Harry and Meghan.

The discourse has become toxic and evidence-free at a time when we desperately need more insight, respectfulness and empathy. Shouting down the other side has become more commonplace than the basic courteous art of listening.Repugnant narratives are justified on the basis of freedom of speech and telling it like it is.

It has become incredibly boorish. It is debate thuggery. It has become a culture war.

The term woke has been hijacked by the right-wing and its meaning turned inside out. Instead of meaning being correct, it has been rebranded as constituting a liberal elite political programme of thought control of our political, legal, educational, media and cultural institutions; another expression of political correctness. This new definition implies that a woke person is acting in bad faith by being fake in order to advance an agenda.

Political correctness has become a term that is used by the right-wing to plant the idea that there is a deep divide between ordinary people and the liberal elite who the right-wing claim has sought to control the speech and thoughts of the public. But, in effect, the right-wing is doing the same thing they claim the liberal elite are doing: trying to control public thought and opinion. Their opposition to political correctness is also arguably about providing a smokescreen for their own bigotry.

Tragically, the tactic appears to be working. More in Common, a campaign organisation that works on initiatives to address the underlying drivers of division, and polarisation, to build more united, resilient and inclusive societies, conducted a survey in 2018 in which 80% of the Americans surveyed said that they now viewed political correctness as a problem.

Brexit was the Trojan horse within this anti-PC campaign. It emboldened influential commentators to frame the narrative of a country that had lost control to progressive liberals who were shutting down sovereignty, patriotism and identity because they were subserviently letting foreigners tell us what to do or enabling immigrants to steal our jobs. The treacherous saboteurs of the liberal elite were undermining national identity and taking control away the people and the country.

Efforts by liberals and the left to fight back are portrayed as fake, aggressive and woke.The reluctance by many liberals to take part in this race to the bottom of a culture war of political discourseis embodied by the famous Michelle Obama mantra of when they go low, we go high. But, the answer isnt to avoid playing the game at all, but to play the game better.

So how do liberals and the left win this messaging culture war?

We think of the culture war as a toxic debate in which both sides scream at each other and division widens. Yet, progressives have won on most social issues over the past 20 years in areas such as gender, racial and sexual equality. But, in the case of the US and the UK, progressives have lost political power in the process.

Its now up to progressives to frame the messaging without coming across as condescending or shrill. It is one thing to persuade and another thing to win by debating with patronisingshrillness.Using a sanctimonious cultural superiority argument to silence foes risks deeper division and a further backlash which ends up with the rise of Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and Brexit. They may have the power, but its up to the progressives to find the toolkit to dismantle it.

Progressives must however, never ever lose sight of the fact that being politically correct is not an insult. Political correctness gave us the NHS. Political correctness gave us democracy. Political correctness gave women the vote. Political correctness gave us freedom of speech. Political correctness gave us human rights. Its called political correctness because its correct.

Political correctness was always about treating people with dignity and respect, including the weaker and more marginalised members of society. What sort of person are you to find that objectionable?

Being woke means being conscious of racial discrimination in society and other forms of oppression and injustice. In mainstream use, woke can also be used more generally to describe someone or something as being with it.

Im with that, who isnt?

Read more:

The Weaponising of 'Woke' - Byline Times

In this season of fires in the southern hemisphere, I am reminded of the one we have burning right here in our country. It has a name, and that name is Donald Trump. And he is systematically burning his way through every moral tenant our nation has held dear. He is, like a wildfire, out of control.

I am also reminded of ways wildfires can be effectively fought. Of course, the most obvious weapon against fire is water. Dousing a fire with enough water will have the desired results. While dousing Donald Trump with water is not an option, we could try to soak him with truth, logic, morality.

Still, my suspicion is that none of that will work. Trump has already shown that he has a very sketchy relationship with morals and truth, so most likely trying to use those against him would have little effect.

Another very effective way to fight fires is to remove whats fueling it. Cutting fire breaks can often limit the damage a fire can cause. With regard to the Trumpster fire, voting him out of office would remove the fuel. Unfortunately that will take many months, and there is no guarantee we will get a fair election this time either.

The perfect way to stop a fire is to deprive it of oxygen. Fire is, simply put, a very rapid oxidation of a material; without oxygen that cant occur.

When it comes to Trump, his oxygen is notoriety. He is a narcissist and as such thrives on being the center of attention. The presidency is the perfect place from his point of view in that every move a president makes, every word a president says is news and thus gets attention.

Add to this Trumps instinctive tactics to garner attention, and you have an out of control narcissist in a very dangerous position of power.

So how do we starve this fire of oxygen?

We can begin by slowing down the amplification of every morally bereft statement or act the man makes. There is nothing to be gained by broadcasting his latest tweet or outrageous statement all over social media. All it does is feed his ego and fan the flames. It also infuriates his cult-like followers, who are never outraged by his behavior, instead finding it the perfectly refreshing antidote to the political correctness they rail against.

For anyone who is seriously opposed to Trump and his politics, the rebroadcasting of his outrageous behaviors only reinforces the already obvious fact that he is morally bankrupt and a danger to the entire world. Frankly, if you dont already know that, no amount of information is going to change your mind. And splashing his latest tantrum across social media only gives him the oxygen he needs to keep going.

Though he might not see your posts or your friendss posts, he does watch polls and trends, and as long as his name is running high in the ratings, good or bad, he is happy.

There is no new information regarding Donald Trump. He is a one trick pony; his tweets and chopper-talk press appearances are all designed to do one thing: focus cameras and microphones on Trump.

So why give him more of what he wants? Its not like he is going to do anything surprising. He will continue to dismantle our freedoms, attack the bedrock morals of society and lie lie a lot.

I could successfully make up tomorrows headlines simply by imagining how low he could go. I would have a high probability of predicting him correctly, and, frankly, so would everyone else.

Its time to starve the Trumpster fire of its oxygen. Stop feeding the flames on social media and start doing something to make sure he is doused in November.

Get out and work for a candidate to defeat him. Start working to make the world a better place. Start living your life openly and freely and without the cloud of Trumps smoke hanging over your head. You will find it a lot easier to breath.

Hardy Haberman is a longtime local LGBT activist and a board member of the Woodhull Freedom Alliance. His blog is atDungeonDiary.blogspot.com

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Putting out the Trumpster fire - Dallas Voice