I can’t help but recall that hoary old Vietnam era slogan when considering that no one is showing up to oppose this kind of jack-booted idiocy.
The .gif from this bit of rather bland, standup humor …
… when shared is a “racist microagression” with consequences just short of something North Korea would admire:
Brian Farnan, Vice President for Internal Affairs at the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) in Canada thought it was funny too, and circulated the .gif as part of a weekly mailing.
That got him in trouble with the thought police, who filed a complaint against him with SSMU’s Equity Committee, which enforces an expansive Equity Policy banning a broad range of supposedly “oppressive” conduct.
As reported by The McGill Tribune:
On Oct. 17, Farnan sent out a weekly SSMU listerv that included a link to a .gif file of United States President Barack Obama kicking down a door, originally a clip that was manipulated and aired by The Tonight Show.
“There was a complaint issued; [and] the process was followed—the public process as equity complaints are done,” Farnan said.
According to the equity policy, a submitted complaint can undergo either an informal resolution or a formal resolution, which Farnan explained as the cause of the three-month delay between the submission of the complaint and his apology.
The modern University is really one of the most unfree places in the ostensibly free West, but Farnan’s apology reads like something from Communist China’s public confessions
The email in question contained the phrase “Honestly midterms get out of here” followed by a URL leading to a .GIF image of President Obama violently kick a door and storming out of a room following a press conference. The inclusion of the .GIF image was intended to bring a humorous tone to the email and use President Obama’s frustration with the press conference in question to mimic the frustration students feel when confronted with midterm examinations. Despite the innocent intentions influencing my decision to use this particular image, I have come to recognize the negative implications of adding the .GIF image within this given context.
(…)
Oppression, as outlined in SSMU’s Equity Policy, means the exercise of power by a group of people over another group of people with specific consideration of cultural, historical and living legacies. The image in question was an extension of the cultural, historical and living legacy surrounding people of color—particularly young men—being portrayed as violent in contemporary culture and media. By using this particular image of President Obama, I unknowingly perpetuated this living legacy and subsequently allowed a medium of SSMU’s communication to become the site of a microaggression; for this, I am deeply sorry.”
Where is the outrage?
Well, this is an war and this is what happens when the opposition just rolls over and gives up.
The United States accomplished the amazing feat of virtually extinguishing race prejudice in a single generation, between the late 1950s and the early ’80s. It was a superb accomplishment, on the order of the Moon landings. But young Americans get no chance to take pride in it: We don’t just suppress the facts, we lie about them. We teach our children from kindergarten up that America still struggles with prejudice against approved minorities and women, when they can see with their own eyes that prejudice in favor of approved minorities and women is everywhere—in education, industry, and government. How are they supposed to learn that it is important to tell the truth? How will they learn what the truth means?
This problem is not keeping the Obama regime up nights. A Hillary administration would be equally indifferent.
War on Truth is the Obama administration’s middle name, and sometimes seems to be its actual goal. Releasing the toxic phrase “War on Women” into the political atmosphere was a risky move for the left—they have got away with it only because Republicans are so timid and lazy. That Republicans are antiwoman is an absurd lie, and what does it say about Republican women? Are they dupes or traitors? Or just dumb broads? (You know how women are about politics. Hopeless.) There was a time when honest Americans of every political type would have exploded at the sheer, filthy dishonesty of the phrase. No more. American culture is changing.
But but but … it is Ted Cruz and Rand Paul and those Hobbity teabaggers who are the problem! Amiright? Huh? Huh?
So, what if they gave a war and nobody came?
They win.
“Vice President for Internal Affairs at the Students’ Society of McGill University”
Stopped reading, obvious yammerhead. Ignore.
The triumph of the long march through the institutions.
Sad thing is, it only works if we accept the premise. The first time a large enough group of people stand up and say “no, you don’t get to tell me I meant something that didn’t even occur to me, and that only serves your agenda as an identity politics pimp and would-be thought tyrant,” this all goes away. Because the enforcement mechanisms are often only viable when kept in relative darkness.
Shine a light on it and it scurries away to hide. Like cockroaches.
Somebody somewhere is offended by the fact I exist. To them I say FUCK YOU — and to the McGill complainants as well.
McGill is, coincidentally, the undergrad alma mater of Scott Lemieux.
I always think of Pepe LePew’s love interest when I read that name.
I said FUCK YOU to Little Gorebot Minions long ago.
Greetings:
Didn’t the hippy-dippies also have a slogan that went “You have not converted a man when you’ve silenced him.” or some such ??? Or was that the straight up Commies ???
Michelle Malkin used to call Islam “The Religion of the Perpetually Aggrieved.”
I suspect there might have been some spillover effect on the left.