BOYCOTT TWITTER/X!!!

 

Really? I haven't posted on the Sacred Cow Wursthaus since July?

Well, that partly makes sense. I haven't had much to say. I normally vent on this particular blog when I get frustrated at something obvious that nobody else is talking about. But lately, people are at least saying what needs to be said. Sometimes. Oh, the lying for-profit fake news sources like Fox News, Sinclair, and Newsmax continue to spout their poison with zero checks or balances, and that continues to be the primary cause of The Great Madness which defines this era, but at least a few people are calling out the bullshit.

Not so with X/Twitter. Not nearly enough.

Oh, John Oliver tried, branding Elon Musk on the ass to close out his 2023 HBO season. But that only scratched the surface of the social media platform Musk took over, and then ruined.

On Christmas Day (CHRISTMAS DAY, no less!), one of the biggest trending items on X was (and I'm not even making this up) "Nate Higgers." No, seriously. And that's my point. Blunt, obvious, and inexcusable racial hatred and bigotry is not only tolerated on X, it's become the new Twitter brand.

And I get the general principle of "free speech." Of course I believe in that. But we all know perfectly well what's permissible in the public sphere. The classic example is yelling "fire" in a crowded theater, but this also extends to deliberately feeding and promoting racism, hatred, and bigotry. There's freedom of speech, and then there's going way, way out of your way to be an asshole. X is the playground for the latter, and then some. Elon Musk somehow sees nothing wrong with this. 

Exhibit A: Check out this unruly piece of work. The n-word is right there in his name, plain for all  to see. And does Twitter/X do anything about it? Of course not! Because it is currently helmed by Captain "Wrong Way" Peachfuzz, which is the same as being controlled by nobody at all.

(Note: the "account suspended" header is actually from another account which was temporarily suspended. This account, sadly, dates to January of 2022, and is STILL active after all that time.)

Nor is this a one-off. A simple search for the n-word on X reveals hundreds of gruesome results. It is literally like shooting fish in a barrel.

Like this fool, again with the n-word right there, plain as day, for all to see. Nor would we even need to have such an obvious display. The chosen screen name says quite enough!

And again, this idiot has been on X since October. And Twitter has done nothing to counter it.

Bear in mind, Elon Musk is SUING Media Matters For America, saying that his major advertisers aren't coming anywhere near this stuff. Yet look how easy it is to find! It's so obvious! I found THIS after only a minute:

And the racism on X is everywhere. It's gotten so bad it's the new 4chan or 8kun. Check this out:

"But there isn't a viable alternative to Twitter!" you might complain. Not so! That used to be the case, but BlueSky is finally ready. It recently allowed its posts to become public. Threads, even though it's part of Meta, is at least a better landscape. (Mastadon seems to have lost out.) There ARE better places to be.

It's time to be there.

Seriously, let's call this shit out for what it is. Twitter has become a cesspool of racial hatred and right-wing extremism. If you're still on it, YOU NEED TO LEAVE! It's time for everyone with a conscience to abandon this platform once and for all. If you're still on Twitter/X, you are worse than being socially irresponsible.

You are no longer trending.

The grass has literally become WAY greener on the other side of the social media fence.

It's time to let the scorched-earth hellscape that used to be Twitter finally die.

Eric

*

SCOTUS And Affirmative Action

 

By now, lots of people have weighed in on the SCOTUS ruling which struck down affirmative action for college admissions. Harvard can now push aside qualified black applicants in favor of old money again, because those with old money have greater "merit."

But speaking of merit, why shouldn't colleges simply admit based on academic achievement? Why not render higher education completely color blind? Isn't that fair? Isn't affirmative action, which was necessary in the past, no longer necessary? Has it become outdated?

And, on the flip side of the coin, is affirmative action part of the "racism of diminished expectations" we hear conservatives complaining about so much?

I don't think this topic has been clarified quite enough. Favoritism of one race over another is a primary component of racism, and there is no denying that affirmative action is, if nothing else, favoring blacks for college admission. So why do it, then? Isn't that racism too?

The answer to this is solid, but sadly, rarely used. It all has to do with the economics of opportunity. Hard work creates opportunity, yes. But privilege also creates opportunity. Better childhood education creates opportunity. Wealth creates opportunity.

And right now, for historic reasons which have been built into the structure of our nation, much of that opportunity has been denied black people. Better jobs, better schools, and better neighborhoods have all been hoarded by whites for a very long time, and they don't want to stop doing so, even when there's plenty to go around. Efforts have been made to alleviate this, but so far, not much has succeeded. We lack the political will to tell the suburbs, "Look, it's time to let the inner city thrive the way you let it thrive back when white people lived there."

As it sits right now, whites largely have the ability to invest in their own merit, and that of their children. This, more than any other factor, helps ensure that their children have good prospects and futures. Blacks, by contrast, cannot invest in merit in quite the same way.

That's why affirmative action exists. Not to fight racism with more racism, but to offset the economics.

That's why it's fair.

Am I saying that we are overlooking merit? Judging by color of skin and not content of character? Yes! But we must remember, whites were once the beneficiaries of affirmative action, too. It was the government's policy to swindle land away from Indians and sell it to white settlers at $1.25 per acre. It was the government's policy in the South to turn a blind eye to the evils of slavery and allow white people to profit and invest in their children's education for generations, while denying blacks the same ability. It was the government's policy to grant loans to white home buyers after World War II, but not blacks. It was the government's policy to enforce economic advantage for whites in the South through segregation, and in the North, through red-lining.

And after all these favoritisms, do I as a white male have the hubris to complain? I think not!

We judge by skin color today, because we judged by skin color then. Fair's fair.

Sadly, some misguided white people don't see it that way.

And admissions merely gets one in the door. Once inside the colleges, blacks must work to achieve just like everybody else. Blacks like Barack and Michelle Obama earned their grades on the same scale as everyone else. They passed the same standards as everyone else. And they graduated with pride, just like everyone else. Just like all black students must do, and have done, since affirmative action was instituted. Affirmative action may have gotten them in, but they stayed in because they earned it!

Someday, blacks in America will achieve economic parity with whites. When that day comes, we will be able to retire affirmative action and live in the perfect meritocracy conservatives prematurely call for now. 

But if we do meritocracy too soon, we deny blacks much of the economic opportunity to invest in their own merit, and thus enact an unintentional racism which inhibits them, and keeps them under. In other words, it isn't the "soft racism of diminished expectations" that is the issue. Rather, it is the "soft racism of premature color-blindness."

Premature meritocracy is like seeing a rope which was thrown to someone down a hole. And then, right before the person reaches the top, cuts the rope saying, "Well, you're 80% there, you can handle the rest."

And this is merely admissions to college. Not 40 acres and a mule. Is stamping a form really too high a cost to begin repaying the unbelievably huge tab which is reparations?

Perhaps what has really angered white racists is that affirmative action worked. Many black people have climbed the ladder, and built better lives for themselves. We are seeing more black participation in suburbia, in the entertainment industry, in science fiction, and in all the other recreational activities that were once exclusively white. Good! That's the way it should be!

And now SCOTUS has prematurely removed one of those ladders? Well, that's a loss...

But I think they're too late to stop the positive effects. And those who succeeded will put down ladders of their own.

Eric

**

Milwaukee Has Made A Faustian Bargain

 

Ah, Milwaukee.

I love my city. It's grown and prospered greatly over the last quarter-century in ways I couldn't have imagined. I've been looking forward to contributing to that growth in helping to make Milwaukee a hub for sci fi authors, filmmakers and artists.

But beneath the outward expansion of the city skyline and riverfront, there's been a looming financial cliff.

Our new mayor, Chevy Johnson, has been tirelessly working to avoid that cliff, and it seems he's succeeded. A deal has been worked out with Governor Evers and Republicans in Madison to grant Milwaukee a greater share of revenue sharing, along with giving it the right to raise taxes within the city and the county (finally!).

In exchange, Republicans get to expand school vouchers and charter schools.

Okay, look, I know the city has it's back to the wall. Mayor Johnson had to compromise somewhere. But this deal essentially mortgages our city's children in order to pay for the present.

Do charter schools work? Sort of. Do vouchers work? Again, sort of. The numbers are comparable, and the charter and voucher schools don't seem to be producing scores that notably outpace traditional public schools. This report from US News & World Report shows that, as late as 2019, charter/voucher schools did not show themselves to be the magic bullet that advocates said they would be. And 2019 still applies to today, since Covid disrupted everything between 2020 and 2022.

So, if charter and voucher schools aren't delivering the goods, why are Republicans continuing the big push?

The obvious reason is because it shuffles public money into the pockets of private religious schools. Why simply teach kids creationism when it can be done on the public dime?

But more importantly than that, charter schools get to pretend that they do better with the "three-and-out" trick. Students that need extra help can get booted after three weeks, usually on trumped-up disciplinary grounds. The school's overall scores improve at the expense of the kids they kick out. And what happens to those kids then? Why, they get sent to the only place left for them - the traditional public schools, which now have even more kids and fewer resources.

That was bad enough before Covid. But after Covid hit, so many more kids got left behind in the system. An entire generation has been lost because many schools would rather expel kids who are behind than educate them. 

And when some of them finally get expelled even by the public schools? What then?

The answer is all the bullshit you saw on YouTube in 2021 with the "Kia Boys." These are the kids left without a school, and without a future. They have little else to do with their time except steal cars, and wait for the system to give them their permanent jail-time-careers as inmates.

Milwaukee needed a financial boon. It got one. But it also needed at least two or three boarding schools for boys where troubled kids way behind in their education would finally get a fighting chance at life.

What they got instead, thanks to Republicans from White Suburbia, is more of the same. Because raising kids as Christians on the public dime is more important than actually educating them.

Milwaukee has avoided a fiscal cliff. Hooray. Yet it has gone over a different cliff. The educational one. We've already lost almost an entire generation of kids, no thanks to Covid and Trump's mis-management of it. Now we're about to lose another one. We're going to have to cross our fingers and hope that institutions like the Milwaukee Area Technical College system can make up the difference.

If Republicans don't want to slash funding for that, too.

What's that? They're already trying to do so?

Well, shit.

Eric

**