President Ferguson's Opus

Named after film director Ernst Lubitsch, a "Lubitsch moment" is when a film encapsulates its entire story or theme in a moment that can be as brief as a single line or pratfall. Hope and Change just had its Lubitsch moment:

With his own complicity in the crisis and commitment to the myth of white racism from which it springs, has a president ever been less suited to his moment than this one now? Not since George W Bush fumbled through his first public remarks on 9/11 have I seen a leader with less moral authority. W's sin was his callow ineptitude, stunningly revealed in crisis. He had no business being president. Barack Obama, on the other hand, has been thinking long and hard about just this, America's race problem. And there he is, at once complicit in and impotent before violence he will not condemn without qualification. His sin is duplicitous, and also revealed in crisis. He too has no business being president.

Hard to recall, but the initial appeal of Barack Obama to whites was largely as someone who would, with "soaring oratory" and personal example, reconcile blacks, finally, to America. It wasn't spoken outright, but the feeling wasn't that whites had to brought to the table, but blacks. He was supposed to be ideally suited to the purpose, as first black president. Nixon went to China; Barack would go to black America. Obama's enthusiastic white supporters should feel betrayed. It's obvious now he never intended to move black America one stubborn inch toward reconciliation.

But even if Barack Obama were capable of a road-to-Ferguson conversion to the truth--the persistence of white racism is not the problem; the persistence of black dysfunction is--he would still make a lousy witness.
Just as the content of his speeches and writing have gone largely unexamined by his celebrants, so too has his style. His recurring habit of juxtaposing his opponents' views with his own to lend the appearance of reasonable compromise renders his speeches flabby and even more platitudinous than they already are. Hardly what the country needs when coming to the realization that long-held convention is dead wrong.

What's called for is probably impossible--telling the truth. How do you tell a people they are poorer because they are less industrious, they are jailed more because they are more criminal, they fail at school because they are less intelligent? How does one broach that subject? What you saw tonight was a president lamely trying to walk back his demagogy of the past months and re-set the expectations of all those whose wrath he's done so much to encourage--what is needed is a leader who might, somehow, begin the process of walking back the narrative and expectations of past decades, regarding black achievement and racial equality.

But the spectacle of watching the president resort to his hoary "on this hand then the other" water-treading bunkum: "...there are ways of channeling your concerns constructively and channeling your concerns destructively..."
alongside a shot of an intersection under siege a la Florence and Normandy; it's hard not to feel contempt.

Hell of a night for insomnia

Via Reddit, the Ferguson police scanner live feed is chilling. Fires, shooting at police. One of the first things I heard was a cop calling for EMS for a "...twenty four year old white male with lacerations to the head related to 'shots fired' call...."

Cuando los cerdos vuelan...

The New York Times discovers, like hipsters discovering something that's always been there, a non-kitsch, adult approach to understanding the immigration question (kind of hard to keep up the act when gang-bangers are popping caps offstage):

It would seem to be a worst case that opponents of the Obama administration on immigration had long forecast: An illegal immigrant — one who had been deported twice, yet returned to the country each time — is accused of killing two Northern California sheriff’s officers in a six-hour shooting rampage Friday. 

The suspect led the authorities on a manhunt through two counties. After he was booked into the Sacramento County jail, federal immigration authorities used his fingerprints to identify the man, who gave his name as Marcelo Marquez: They said he was Luis Enrique Monroy Bracamonte, a Mexican who lived without papers in this country for more than a decade after he was deported in 1997 and again in 2001 because of drug- and weapon-related arrests. 

“This case shows that our laws are not being enforced, and there are tragic consequences to not enforcing them,” said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, a group that advocates tougher immigration controls.

I was surprised to find this prominent on the website. Less surprising is the appendage:

 A version of this article appears in print on October 29, 2014, on page A14 of the New York edition with the headline: Immigration Laws Facing New Scrutiny After Killings. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe

Thanks for Everything, F--- You

The Nazis and the old Soviet Union assigned political officers to military units to enforce ideological conformity. The Stasi was legendary for getting civilians to inform on each other for the slightest breaches of ideology--what we would call political correctness.

Needless to say, we would never do any such thing. We don't need commissars to keep us in line. The elite polices itself and us, without prompting, and their purview, as they would have it, extends to everything. There's a whole genre now in journalism dedicated to denouncing any found "lack of diversity"; not just in a given field or organization, but in our hobbies and associations (even bird-watching is under watch).
 Of course it isn't homogeneity but whiteness that bothers them. Spike Lee once said America is so racist we think three black guys standing on a corner constitutes a riot. That was a long time ago. Now we're so anti-racist we think three white guys working in the same room constitutes a hate crime in progress (but not everything is changed: the brothers are still on the corner and white guys still do the bulk of the work).
A related sub-genre was created by an enterprising writer in analyzing the effectiveness and aesthetics of that now familiar entertainment, the public apology. He should have quite a career ahead of him.

So it's unsurprising that an Intercept scribe interrupted his anecdote about how the late Washington Post editor Bill Bradlee gave him a break when he was a young ambitious reporter to question the man's integrity in doing it and genuflect to diversity from graveside:

 I am sure my cause was helped by the fact that I was young and white and male, the kind of object that older editors who are white and male tend to have a biased soft spot for. This is why it’s good we don’t have as many Ben Bradlees these days; the mirroring and replication of a dominant culture is weaker now. Which doesn’t mean we’re in a universally better place; we have a lot of editors who are more cautious than they should be (patriarchy replaced by management culture), and a large number of top slots are still filled with guys (yes, including at The Intercept). It’s hard to believe that gender played no role in the firing of Jill Abramson at The New York Times.

Now I get it

The persistence of Ferguson protesters despite total narrative collapse, explained.

"Push 'em Back, Push 'em Back, Bury that Lede! Push 'em Back, Push 'em Back, Bury that Lede...!"

Oh America. You are inferior to at least two African countries in how far you will go to protect citizens from potential global pandemics:

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- Health officials battling the Ebola outbreak that has killed more than 4,500 people in West Africa have managed to limit its spread on the continent to five countries - and two of them appear to have snuffed out the disease.
The developments constitute a modest success in an otherwise bleak situation.
Officials credit tighter border controls, good patient-tracking and other medical practices, and just plain luck with keeping Ebola confined mostly to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea since the outbreak was first identified nearly seven months ago.
Senegal did so well in finding and isolating a man with Ebola who had slipped across the border from Guinea in August that the World Health Organization on Friday will declare the end of the disease in Senegal if no new cases surface.
Nigeria is another success story. It had 20 cases and eight deaths after the virus was brought by a Liberian-American who flew from Liberia to Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital of 21 million people, in July. Nearly 900 people were potentially exposed to the virus by the traveler, who died, and the disease could have wreaked havoc in Africa's most populous nation.
Instead, Ebola appears to have been beaten, in large part through aggressive tracking of Ebola contacts, with no new cases since Aug. 31.
WHO, the U.N. health agency, called it "a piece of world-class epidemiological detective work." The organization is set to declare an end to the outbreak in Nigeria on Monday.
Nigeria had a head start compared with other West African countries: Officials were able to use an emergency command center that had been built by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to combat polio.
Border closings may also be helping halt the spread of Ebola.

Eight paragraphs in, a double (...may...be helping...) bank-shot obscuring of arguably the article's most salient fact: border controls work.
You can't fault the authors for not knowing their story would be titled "AFRICA STEMS EBOLA VIA BORDER CROSSINGS, LUCK", but they should at least read their own copy. They've cited "officials" as crediting border controls first (at least in their listing) above this same sentence. Well, which is it: are said officials full of shit, or is the efficacy of border closures a mystery yet to be solved?
Worth noting how the success of "patient tracking" doesn't seem to give the authors similar pause, implying as it does the creation and maintenance of government databases and rounding people up--something necessitated in the first place by the introduction of the disease through the border. All in keeping with anarcho-tyranny.

Fire Bells in the Blight

"This is a test of the Diversity Emergency Broadcast System..."

Paul Nachmann of Vdare last week:

Every Friday, a friend of the PowerLine blog whose screen name is “Ammo Grrrll” gets to weigh in there with comments (Thoughts From the Ammo Line) on the passing scene. This week, her entry seems well tuned toVdare's readership, so here's the relevant excerpt.

The last private gig of my standup career before retirement was in front of teachers at their late August in-service before the start of school. I was the final speaker of the day. I had listened to many administrators and the Keynoter who was a Diversity Drone from the state. She seemed a nice, sincere person, even though she arrived forty minutes late for her speech, keeping hundreds of people waiting. There was probably a diversity emergency somewhere...  

“diversity emergency”!  If you can work it in, that’s a concept worth mentioning when some politically-correct nimrod starts babbling about the urgency of “diversity.”

Think twice before you do that. The term "micro-aggression" is no less absurd. I can easily imagine it originating as a satirical taunt leveled at an overly sensitive college roommate. Say "diversity emergency" with or without a straight face to a True Believer and he just might ask himself why he hadn't thought of it. 

For instance. A year ago this month Hillsboro School District near Portland declared an "equity emergency" after its two most Hispanic elementary schools were rated in the fifth percentile statewide by the Oregon Department of Education in its annual "report card" for schools:

In the Oregon Department of Education’s view, none of the schools in the Hillsboro School District rank among the state’s top 10 percent. And two of them – Lincoln Street and W.L. Henry elementary schools – are among the bottom 5 percent.
The rankings emphasize the growth and graduation rates of “subgroup students” – English language learners and low-income, minority and special education students.

So, the "emergency" isn't one of insufficient diversity (whew!), but of insufficient "equity" for the "diverse"-- not the crisis of human capital it appears, but the failure of racial justice political correctness demands. We can't blame the kids for their mediocre intelligence (agreed; can't we just politely ignore it?); so we must blame ourselves. With such parameters it's no wonder the board napalmed its own position. It had to be done: we are failing diversity! 
One principal lamented in a letter to the Oregonian:

Our report card does not reflect the whole picture of who our students are, of their diverse talents and backgrounds, their ability to speak two or more languages, their musical talents, their ability to dance and connect with rich cultural traditions from around the world. 

In the near future this sort of condescension will get the average white guy sacked for insensitivity (not the "rich cultural traditions" hooey, which shall be with us forever, but the "ability to dance" bumptiousness) as demands mature from money for failing students to teaching and diversicrat jobs for adults; when it does happen our dance enthusiast can take solace in the fact that his early retirement/firing will result in greater diversity for his profession.

The school district swung into action, transferring an extra quarter million dollars from its year-end balance to bring to the diversity disaster more diversity ("Unofficially, the money will pay for additional training and preparation time for teachers and additional staff such as Hispanic outreach workers, among other things..."). 

The board gave fair warning of more non-white squalls on the horizon:

But even if Lincoln Street and W.L. Henry do improve, the board might be confronted with a more difficult conversation surrounding the funding of schools district-wide. Right now, the district funds schools on a per-pupil basis regardless of the impact of poverty, English-language learning and race on the schools.So Jackson Elementary School, where 16 percent of the students are economically disadvantaged, receives the same per-pupil funding from the district’s general fund as Lincoln Street and W.L. Henry, where over 95 percent of the student body comes from poverty.High-poverty elementary schools do split a $3 million pot of federal Title I money, Larson said, but the district can’t use those dollars to do anything it is already doing, “so you can’t reduce class size.” The Title I money helps, but it often only puts a small dent in a larger problem, he added.“Is equal equitable?” Larson asked rhetorically.

Indeed.

Scott said that if the district continues funding all the schools equally, it is probably likely that another high-poverty school will fall to Level 1 in the future. He indicated that the board might have to confront a difficult political decision to distribute funds unequally throughout the district based on demographic challenges.
Board member Wayne Clift said such a decision would be unpopular with high-achieving schools with lesser rates of poverty, where parents and teachers might see a reduction in funding as “being punished for doing good things and doing the right thing.”
“It’s going to be controversial,” Scott said of the possible unequal funding model.

Emergencies do clarify things. Here we see how, when "equity" is the highest goal, good schools (quality) are sacrificed to bad schools (diversity).

The inequity-battered schools are sixty-six and eighty-one percent Hispanic, and participate in Oregon's bi-lingual "dual language immersion" programs; in the latter school all kids through fourth grade are in the program. Despite the costs nearby Portland Public Schools wants money to expand its three bi-lingual programs, as a "high leverage educational program model" to, finally, Close the Achievement Gap.
Which makes inclusion of a Mandarin bilingual program (along with Spanish and Vietnamese) curious; I was further surprised to learn Portland Public Schools takes money from the Chinese government for its Mandarin immersion program:

Currently the district receives federal grant funding (both U.S. and Chinese Governments) specifically to support the planning, implementation and refinement of Mandarin immersion programs in PPS. This grant funding provides a Mandarin immersion instructional specialist to train and support teachers

The Chinese are getting in on the diversity rackets despite being on the good side of the Gap and wealth indicators. The same document (a draft recommendation by Portland Public Schools to the Superintendent for rapid expansion of the program) shows the Chinese community's enthusiasm for establishing Mandarin in public schools, in its FAQ: 

Why are we rushing to make these changes?  

PPS is not rushing to make changes. The Board has been directing expansion in Dual Language Immersion programs. The DLI Department has been working on expansion for two years. A timeline of this process is attached below. Additionally, when we consider our Racial Equity Policy and the persistent achievement gap for our historically underserved students including those with limited English proficiency and students of color, we are compelled to expand these programs for the next school year. Indeed what we have heard from our native Chinese speaking communities is that we are expanding too slowly.

Restless Chinese and dull Mexicans, growing in number. There's your diversity emergency.

I thought I'd find the origins of "equity emergency" in the depressing halls of scholastic Theory, but as far as I can tell this is the first and only use of the term "equity emergency" (here at the blog of a school board member he takes proud credit for introducing the phrase). Have we seen the last "equity emergency"? Only time will tell.

Marin County

About the same time the good people of the Hillsboro School Board bravely named their shame, something called "Grassroots Marin" sounded an even more dire alarm, hinting at hoods and torches in the night. The group held a press conference to declare they were writing (or soliciting signatures for a letter; it isn't quite clear) to Governor Jerry Brown requesting he sound a "Civil Rights State of Emergency in Marin”.
Residents, you see, are resisting the rapid urbanization and integration plans of HUD, developers and, of course, Grassroots Marin. They were showing up at public hearings and raising their voices, which to Grassroots is the equivalent of firehoses and police dogs. The ensuing environment became one, according to Grassroots, where fear reigned. The group issued a press release rich with irony to declare their

...growing concern about the silencing of certain voices in Marin County. John Young, Executive Director of Marin Grassroots started the discussion presenting a need for a community effort to push Governor Jerry Brown to enact a Civil Right State of Emergency in Marin County. This effort is based on the countless negative interactions with community members who are motivated by race, socioeconomic status, or dissenting opinion [imagine: someone motivated by dissenting opinion!] according to Young. Young also spoke to the “toxic” environment that has been created in many community meetings and government based public meetings. Participants advocating for fair housing in Marin described being booed, hissed at, yelled at, and losing their sense of safety in their own communities.  

Kiki La Porta of Sustainable Marin and a 50 year resident of Marin County spoke about being, “verbally and energetically assaulted,” when voicing a non-popular opinion. She continued to explain that, “This subject is a very slippery slope and we must realize what a big issue it is.” The group recognizes the many barriers to participation in these meetings and negative attitudes present arguably the largest barrier to participation for already marginalized populations. 

Ericka Erickson, Associate Director of Marin Grassroots, a County Planning Commissioner and a long term resident of Marinwood stated about a recent Community Meeting held in her neighborhood with County Supervisor Susan Adams: “I was so disgusted by the level of disrespect demonstrated by some of my neighbors towards a public official and other community members that I had to leave that meeting in the middle of it”. Many community members voiced similar experiences in different areas of Marin County. Erickson closed her argument, “We all benefit from diversity in voices in Marin County.” Piggybacking on that commentary, San Rafael City Council candidate Greg Brockbank wrapped up the session by powerfully speaking to the damage that has been done to democracy and, “wanting the Marin County we deserve.”

 How grassroots little Grassroots Marin actually is, is another question of course:

Opponents of Plan Bay Area are upset after learning that the Association of Bay Area Governments this summer awarded a $56,750 grant to Marin Grassroots, a San Rafael nonprofit that works to boost the voice of underrepresented communities. Randy Warren, who was motivated to run for San Rafael City Council due to his opposition to Plan Bay Area, has been circulating ABAG memos that discuss the grant. Warren says it was wrong for Marin Grassroots to receive a grant because it is advocating for the plan. "The issue is that taxpayers have a right to know when their money is being used by the government to have third parties speak up in support of the government's own policies," Warren said.
John Young, executive director of Marin Grassroots, said his organization has not taken an official position on Plan Bay Area and added that the grant money, which came from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, was not to advocate for Plan Bay Area.

 Marin Grassroots are being paid by the plan's backers to act as street-level shlock troops, in other words. Marin County's troubles started predictably when it took federal money, and later failed a
HUD grant compliance review:

As the result of a 2009 compliance review of Marin County’s Community Development Block Grant program initiated by HUD, preliminary findings of non-compliance by Marin County were reported in several areas, including the duty to AFFH [Affirmatively Further Fair Housing]. The compliance review found that in a county that is majority white, African-American and Latino populations were concentrated in two areas. Additionally, the county had failed to update its AIs ["Analysis of Impediments"--impediments to integration] since 1994.
This led to a December 2010 Voluntary Compliance Agreement that required the County to take several steps designed to affirmatively further fair housing, AFFH*, which, among other provisions required a study to identify and overcome fair housing barriers, such as community resistance to fair housing choice in neighborhoods and the continued development of low-income affordable housing in neighborhoods with high minority concentrations. The county also agreed to update its AIs with the help of “racial and ethnic minority citizens and persons with disabilities.” Furthermore, the county agreed to identify and analyze the causes of “lower racial and ethnic minority residency in the County relative to the adjacent counties.” As part of Marin County’s AFFH obligation, they agreed to undertake eight steps identified by HUD to meet the AFFH goal.

*The provision of the Fair Housing Act (Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968) requiring "HUD and its grantees to avoid the perpetuation of segregation, and to take affirmative steps to promote racial integration."

"This has been a test of the Diversity Emergency Broadcast system. In the event of a real Diversity Emergency..."