The Ambiguous Faces of Bias and Discrimination

The Ambiguous Faces of Bias and Discrimination

We all discriminate and have biases.

When we choose what color to wear, when we pick one political candidate over another, when we buy certain apples instead of other apples, we’re discriminating and exercising our biases. It’s only when discrimination relates to race, gender, national origin, religion and, lately, to sexual orientation that it becomes societally ugly and unacceptable.

To its great credit, America has evolved significantly from our bad old, bigoted days yet bias still exists in large part because people are people and don’t necessarily think their beliefs reflect bias as much as realism and they feel their views are both warranted and true. Then, too, bias and discrimination are often in the eyes of the beholder.

Complicating matters even more, some bias and discrimination are considered less vile than others.

In America’s bad old days, African-Americans were consigned to the back seats of buses, women were welcomed as corporate secretaries but not as company bosses, “Irish Need Not Apply” signs decorated doors of employers, Jews were allowed to loan us money but not own banks, and people like Chaz Bono were regarded as freaks, not dancers.

To be sure, outdated ideas haven’t all died away but whether they are all intrinsically “bad” is debatable.

The Cherokee Nation, a 300,000-strong tribe of semi-autonymous American Indians, just decided that only Cherokees are qualified to vote in their elections, which seems reasonable enough. However, that decision effectively disenfranchised some 2,800 “freedmen,” non-Cherokee descendants of slaves owned by tribesmen prior to the Civil War.

Doing what it does best, the federal government interfered in Cherokee internal affairs on behalf of the 2,800 and the tribal elections are now in Indian limbo.

Was the decision by the Cherokee Nation discriminatory? On its face, apparently so although it would seem that voting in Cherokee elections should be restricted to Cherokees, no? Was it bias? Only if tribal unity is a biased concept.

Demonstrating that the bane of political correctness is not confined to our shores, a more transparent and reprehensible discrimination with no shades of ambiguity is occurring in England. There, in the name of political correctness, children as young as three are being labeled for life with the stigma of being racists and homophobes for the sin of, well, acting like kids.

The Brits have seen fit to register over 30,000 mostly primary-school age children in a government database, a tainted record which will follow them wherever they go, due to such horrid schoolyard infractions as calling another child a “broccoli head” and for improperly using the terms “gay,” “lesbian,” and “gaylord.” . . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5471.)

Weeping, Whooping Whoopi

Weeping, Whooping Whoopi

Leftists-liberals-progressives are a spoiled bunch.

They’re not necessarily spoiled as in the old joke in which a young girl passes by a couple of old dudes and one says, “That’s my granddaughter” and the other asks, “Is she spoiled?” and the first old dude says, “Nah, she just smells that way” but leftists-liberals-progressives are nonetheless spoiled.

They may also smell bad but their chief issue nowadays is that they’re so accustomed to commoners and the mass media supplicating themselves on their altar that any real or assumed departure from that supplication is deemed insurrectionist.

Take Whoopi Goldberg. Personally, I’ll pass on taking Whoopi anywhere, anytime, and in any circumstances but, sad to say, the Whoopster is perturbed. She’s rather p*ssed that she was overlooked in an article by Manohla Dargis and A. O. Scott that cited several black Oscar winners over the last 71 years but which didn’t mention her.

What Goldberg didn’t factor into her complaint was that she may be a celebrity of sorts thanks to Hollywood affirmative actions which led to her starring role on “The View” but the bottom line is that she is still a vulgar, offensive, sad excuse for a woman, qualities she regularly exhibits on television.

However, before examining Whoopi’s poorly-disguised racist rant–against the New York Times, no less!–let’s review the record of black entertainers in America.

Back in 1996, black agitator Jesse Jackson decided that the entertainment industry was shortchanging African Americans, as I think they were known then, and compared their treatment to Jews in Nazi Germany. Graciously, he made no reference to gas chambers.

Jackson composed “An Open Letter to the Entertainment Community” to air his many grievances . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=3646)

Righty Paranoiacs vs. Lefty Conspirators

Righty Paranoiacs vs. Lefty Conspirators

Leftists have long been fond of the low tactic of dismissing rightist charges that there exists a vast left wing conspiracy to suppress negative news about liberals and liberal darlings as nothing more than conservatives manufacturing lies to undermine the mass media and its ultimate darling, Barack Hussein Obama.

That canard was largely exploded even before the last election when Rasmussen and Fox/Opinion Dynamics polls showed that large majorities of voters perceived the media as slanted toward Obama and only 11% felt the media was neutral, as it is supposed to be. Politico.com referred to the media as Obama’s secret weapon.

If their slant was ever a secret, it is no more. Bernard Goldberg, a long time CBS insider, exposed the extent of that slant nine years ago in his book, Bias.

As the president’s approval ratings continue to tank, the Wall Street Journal and Newsvine.com have just outed JournoList (sic): . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1797)