However much you think the modern Left hates America

And to a broader extent, the whole of the Christian West, you doubtlessly underestimate the reality. This was brought to mind when Deacon Greydanus copied this FB post:

Woof.  Most "White" Americans in 1872 were White Supremacists?  What about 1873? That made me think of this:

The joke is that this is a fellow insisting Trump/MAGA/Conservatives are the Nazi racists when he, like so many on the modern Left, thinks nothing of judging and condemning an entire nationality based on race and ethnicity.  We call that projection, not to mention naked hypocrisy.  And, of course, it's racism plain and simple.  But it's what we're up against, and there are obviously a growing number of people in the world more than happy to cheer on this thinking, since they can clearly see where this attitude and bias is heading. 

If you're wondering, here was Deacon Greydanus's own comment in the post that linked to this typical progressive spin on our history: 

Saying you will learn anything about anything by reading such a leftist screed is like saying 'If you don't know the background of the LGBTQ community - read Fred Phelps."  We won't get into the slanted way one must see history to agree with such an appraisal.  

As the Left peddles more and more anti-Caucasian race hate for the purpose of burning the whole of the Western tradition, and further makes clear that it cares not a lick about human suffering but that it can be exploited,  and on top of it all is doing this in order to sniff around the door of walking back religious liberty, free speech, advocating cannibalism, excusing the slaughter of Jews, and pondering the benefits of human sacrifice, we're faced to confront a difficult reality. Those Christians who have long aligned with the left of center can't possibly not see what is happening.  Naivete and innocent credulity only go so far.  At some point we must concede that they know full well what is being done, they see it for what it is, and for reasons known only to them and God, they fully align with it.  Not that this hasn't happened many times in history.  It's just difficult when it's happening in your own time. 

What siding with the bad guys looks like

 Exhibit A:

That's' deacon and Catholic film critic Stephen Greydanus.  Stifle it and an end to the conversation was his final explanation. I wish he had just said whites are evil and racist and you can tell everything you need to know by their skin color since that's what the majority expert consensus says.  It would be honest and reflect just what our modernist establishment is teaching.  Instead, we have what appears to me a level of doublespeak and denial of reality that would make Orwell blush.  

I was going to write a lengthy tirade about how so many Christians, including Conservatives and their leaders, are becoming court prophets dedicated to excusing, defending, endorsing or ignoring whatever evils are emerging from our post-Christian era, especially from the left of center.  But I thought this stood well enough on its own without any extensive commentary on my part.

That was my guess

I posted on the mixed up messaging with Juneteenth here.  For the record, I finally blocked Greydanus at FB because I was tired of the mendacity.  Beyond so much BS regarding not admitting the obvious, he is definitely a white guy who has bought the 'white is evil' narrative.  He will bypass the horrors of many suffering innocents until he can find someone white to post against.  Well, despite blocking him, and because of his perpetual focus on only white crimes, I saw a copy of this in a thread:

As a disclaimer, it didn't include the post itself, and because I blocked him I don't know what he said.  But I'm willing to guess.  Nonetheless, take note.  It's apparently linking to BLM activist Gloria Purvis.  Why now?  If my math is good, it's the 9th anniversary of the tragic mass shooting.  Not exactly a milestone.  So why now?  And in Pride Month no less?  

But that's the point.  The reason I posted my post about Juneteenth was that we noticed a few stories about random civil rights topics this month. A murdered black person from the past here, a falsely accused civil rights activist there, a reminder of the history of slavery over there.  And in Pride Month?  What gives?

That's when it dawned on us.  Having made Juneteenth a thing, the Left can now designate yet another month to the trashing and hashing of the rehashed trash of America's vile sins and evil past.  Couple with those now saying Juneteenth is a day about black culture, and others saying it is Independence Day for blacks, whites can have their own, it's obvious where this is meant to go. 

So once again we are told by those on the Left that if we do something it's because of some lofty, harmonious and unifying goal.  Only to realize a year or so later that this is not the case at all.  Once again it is to tear down and destroy the West, the US and the Christian traditions.  

UPDATE: So Greydanus has stepped in with his reaction to the debate last night. Remember Trump's  celebration of Nazis all those years ago.  And now Trump says he doesn't know if Washington owned slaves.  Of course Washington owning slave is really the only thing worth knowing about him today.  And one of the reasons I blocked Gredyanus, things like sanctification or redemption by Christ or working out one's own salvation have definite stopwatches and time limits.  When I pointed out that America ultimately did right by the Civil Rights movement, he shot back that I should look at how long it took. I said I didn't think there was some time limit for people - much less entire nations - striving toward holiness and doing good.  But for him, yep.  His Catholic Church has all sorts of limits and provisos.  I can't say if he applies the same to transgender mutilation, abortion or black on non-black racism, or continued attacks on the Jewish community by pro-Palestinians since he never dwells on such things.  But this is why I don't follow him any more.  

Because of racism

 This:

There are only four athletes who are billionaires, all of them black Americans.  It becomes more and more difficult to convince sane and thinking people that we are a Jim Crow nation of gas chambers and death camps and universal racism and oppression of minorities.  Remember, as my oldest son observed, the BLM movement didn't begin until after the reelection of our first black president.  That alone should give clues about what we're seeing. 

Beyond the obvious narrative breaker of non-white, non-Western and non-conservative protesters and activists praising Hamas and calling for the slaughter of Israeli Jews, we have this.  With more and more black multi-zillionaire superstars dominating various sports and professional positions, it gets difficult to convince poor, working class, low income whites that they nonetheless have the privilege owing to their skin color.

Not that everyone needs convincing of course.  Only enough.  And Catholics alone have shone we're equal to the task when it comes to providing people who will believe and embrace such bilge, no matter how much evidence is stacked against it. 

How can you not see the racism?

That was my question for Deacon Greydanus over at Catholic World Report.  He wrote a review of the latest Rocky based movie.  I've lost track of how many Rocky movies there are.  Anyway, I read through the review out of curiosity since I didn't realize the series was still going.  Suddenly, I came to a paragraph that really jumped out at me.  This was the part that got me: 

Rocky was a small-time, working-class palooka whose rags-to-riches story is part grit and part dumb luck. His antagonists include the polished showman Apollo, the Soviet golden boy Drago, and Mr. T’s “Clubber” Lang, who is mainly different from Rocky, alas, in being Black. “Clubber” is also the franchise’s nastiest villain, a fact highlighting an uncomfortable, much-noted racial dynamic running through all six films named for Rocky, every one of which depicts a Black champion humbled, beaten, or killed in the ring by a White challenger

How in the world was Rocky racist just because Rocky is white and wins against two black opponents (because that's what 'uncomfortable, much-noted racial dynamic' means)?  How is Drago - a one dimensional cardboard cutout figure if there ever was one - not important when it comes to Rocky's victories?  And how is skin color the 'main' difference between Clubber Lang and Rocky?  I told him I wondered if he actually watched the third movie. 

Now, he did respond to me and was overall fine in terms of behavior.  He responded and tried to point out why I was wrong.  Why white privilege and systemic racism and racist narratives and sociological frameworks and social sin and cabbages and kings and whatnot.  He responded that nobody is saying Stallone was racist or motivated by racism.  Which, to me, wouldn't be as bad as what he was suggesting.  If he's not saying Stallone was being racist, he's saying the problem is simply that Stallone was white.  The part Stallone wrote for himself was filled by a white man, and that's the issue.  Which, by my lights, is far worse.  After all, it's one thing to falsely say a black man is guilty of something he's not guilty of.  It's another to say he's guilty simply because he's black.  Or Jewish.  Or Muslim.  Or Indian.  Or any group. 

I tried to wrap my head around Deacon Greydanus's responses, and I can't figure out what he's trying to say if not that.  It especially gets tough when he leaves that nebulous world of academic abstract thinking and says one possible solution for mitigating the racist narrative of the first Rocky movie would be making Mickey, Rocky's coach and mentor, black by scrubbing Burgess Meredith.  That seems pretty concrete, rather than abstract sociological, to me.  He's saying the problem with Mickey was the actor's skin color, and the  skin colors involved, and a different skin color would solve the problem.

Which, per my upbringing in liberal post-WW2 America, is racist.  I don't care how sociological you insist you're being.  Saying the problem with someone or something is the skin color - no other accusations intended - is a big 'Where's the swastika?' warning sign.  Again, that's from decades of having it pounded into my skull that it is ever and always evil to judge someone by their skin color.  Much less treat them differently or remove them from something because they are of the wrong ethnicity. 

Perhaps I'm missing what he said, but that's the best I could come up with.  Whatever  it was, he obviously embraces the very racist White Privilege narrative, as well as the assumption of America as foundationally racist, thus anything produced can be fit into the 'America as racist' narrative; that "uncomfortable, much-noted racial dynamic".  If I'm wrong about that, I wish someone would explain what he was actually trying to say.  

Mark Shea and the Left's modern racism

Read it here.  We call that a lack of self-awareness.  Mark posts his usual rant against modern conservatives as being racists to the core.  He says for MAGA types racism is a feature, not a bug.  He then claims that any attempts to reach such MAGA types are doomed to fail.  They're that bad. 

Note, however, the way in which Mark writes of 'white' people.  At no point does Mark refer to 'white' in any way but as a pejorative term. If you took what he wrote about whites and replaced it with blacks or Jews, do you think it would seem racist?  You bet it would. And you'd be correct to say so. 

The genius of the modern Left - driven largely by wealthy, college educated white liberals - has been to weaponize racism against their own ethnic identity.  Quite brilliant if you think on it.  Because almost any challenge can be seen as denying the racism that they clearly see.  After all, they see the real problem, why can't you?  Doesn't that mean you're a racist?  Pure genius.  

What their long term goal is I don't know.  What they think things will look like in another fifty years of such rhetoric is beyond me.  I just recognize racism when I see it.  When your attitude toward any ethnic group echoes a racist attitude against any other ethnic group, I'm calling it racist.  Even if it's an attitude aimed at your own ethnic lineage. 

Bonus points if you see Mark's all too common blunder of gleefully calling down woes on the rich.  He forgets, apparently, that for most of human history and the majority humans in the world today, Mark is filthy rich indeed.  Perhaps missing that little tidbit demonstrates how Mark could miss that the logical result of calling down endless hellfire on his own ethnic group might not exclude him or his posterity

their fantasies of fascist self-pity and “Benedict Option” revanchism is just grotesque (and blasphemous to anybody who knows the first thing about the gospel which neither knows nor cares about the ethnics distinctions so cherished by this white supremacist freak show).

Written by Mark, a man who spent the entire article making ethnic distinctions, albeit about his own ethnic group. Once more I become convinced that to align with the modern Left demands an unprecedented level of lacking self-awareness. 

So that is why

I noted a week or so ago the sudden vendetta against Bishop Barron and Word on Fire ministry.  Now we know:

I've noticed that, for all the chest pounding and warnings that you don't want to tick off the side of the issue that owns all the guns, there are few who can withstand the Left's assaults.  

Of course releasing this video series may have been pre-planned before everything erupted against Bishop Barron.  But I've seen people going after him and WoF for many moons now.  And I don't know when this was planned or produced. 

Ms. Purvis is a Catholic who drinks deeply from the well of BLM.  I don't know which parts of BLM she rejects, but she accepts the premise: an inherently racist nation with white racist Americans in racist Catholic Churches who should be ashamed of themselves because white means being racist. In short, she represents that - hopefully - small but likely growing number of blacks in America who are told to stop with the forgiveness and reconciliation rubbish and get that pound of flesh. 

I don't know if WoF wouldn't have published her series or not.  After all, woke/cancel,BLM,#MeToo are all ingredients in the same recipe. And Bishop Barron famously went after woke (leftwing censorship).  Or perhaps WoF had every intention of publishing this in order to give voice to different sides of the debate.  Something Bishop Barron's tendencies make believable. 

In any event, I saw that this was met with great cheers by some who had targeted WoF and Bishop Barron recently.  It's not hard to imagine that, like Chik fil A or the Boy Scouts or anything the Left targets, it could be the result of inevitable surrender and retreat.  Those are outcomes that, quite frankly, mark the typical results of the conflict between the traditional values of the Christian world and the new values of the secular pagan world.  

Where is the White Supremacy coming from in America?

 I don't know.  Let me think for a minute:

The above is part of a list on Google from a single search including the words White and Racism in America. 

America's liberals and liberal minorities have essentially endorsed talking about white Americans the way Germans in the 1930s talked about Jews.  The question isn't if or when there will be some violent 'racial reckoning'.  The question is, why do America's liberals seem to want it to happen?  After all, no sane person of  good will would adopt the above attitudes toward a group of human beings with the expectation that harmony, peace and love will be the result. 

As a bonus, here is another slick headline suggesting why some Caucasians of a particular age group might feel put upon by our modern society:

The unbearable existence of white people

Yep, even when it comes to board games.  Somewhere, within the last hundred years, we decided that European and American civilization have no right to exist.  That includes anything connected with Caucasians.  Much less Christianity.  

African, Chinese, Japanese,  Aztec, pre-Columbian American, Mongolian, Indonesia, Indian, Hindu, Muslim, and an endless list not-Caucasian, not-Christian, not-European/American cultures have every right to exist.  They are to be celebrated and embraced, honored and respected without exception.  But that does not apply to anything north of the Mediterranean or west of the Urals.  

I've said before how I remember like it was yesterday the first time I heard the term WASP described.  It was fourth grade.  That's about 1976/1977.  It was a dark time in American history when we were a WASP  (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) nation, or so we learned that day.  Then came that first ray of light when Catholic John Kennedy was elected president, breaking the stranglehold that those/us WASPs had on our nation.  Glory be it was a new era of possibilities. 

More than one Catholic I've known over the years accepts that narrative. Heck, many still do.  Was a time when America was the nation of bigotry and prejudice, discrimination and oppression in those old Protestant majority days.  But we became much better that November in 1960. 

Problem?  Obviously the problem is plain to see.  It took no time at all to swap the P with C, for generic Christian.  By the late 70s it was time to ditch the hold that old Judeo-Christian values and beliefs had on our society.  By the late  80s, the J-word and Christianity were to be seen, not heard.  

Same with the AS part of WASP.  As the P gave way to C, so the AS eventually merged with Europeans in general and finally - as today - simply White.  So now it's the deplorable WC that is a blight on our nation, and on the Western tradition as a whole. If it's White it's evil.  And you can bet your grandma's uncle that any form of evil thinking today, any bigotry or opposition to the pure faith of modernity, is rooted in Christianity somewhere.  Christianity quickly became the only purely evil religion in a world of fake and fictional, but often honorable, religious beliefs.

That this anti-white racism and anti-Christian bigotry is driven by whites and Christians as much as anyone is beside the point.  Others are beginning to warm up to the trend. Plenty of minorities and activists from around the world are starting to notice what the article points out: That "whites" make up a decidedly small part of the global population, with serious Christian believers only slightly more numerous.  

Again, our grandchildren will get what we deserve.  From this the Faith will no doubt survive, and a remnant will keep the Gospel message alive, even after the world has forgotten  gothic cathedrals and Shakespeare and Mozart and Mt. Rushmore.  I have no doubt the Faith will grow in other parts of the world, and it will go as the Holy Spirit will lead.  Just as it has for 2000 years.  

But it took our generation of believers, including Catholics, to conclude that the Holy Spirit must have taken a thousand year vacation from which we are only now beginning to return.  The great blunder of God was allowing the Church to grow and develop in this one civilization that, due to its ethnic and religious heritage, never should have existed in the first place. 

I know that sounds over the top.  But please find me examples of modern rhetoric about America and the West and Christianity and Caucasians to show we're I'm wrong.  

Black Catholics and the rising white hate

 So I saw this:

Here's my thing.  I've been Catholic since 2005, and I have yet to hear the word homosexuality spoken.  Not in RCIA. Never in a homily.  On occasion I've heard marriage spoken about in where it's framed as a bond is between a man and woman, but that's it. Yet to hear gay activists, you'd think every parish is a gas chamber in which the LGBTQ community is routinely assaulted and terrorized and singled out for suffering and ultimate extermination. 

That's one of the modern world's neatest tricks.  If you don't worship me as god of my reality, it's the same as saying you want Hitler to come back from the dead and murder me in a gas chamber.  With that standard established, how much worse is it if you actually say something, like I'm wrong? 

I see black Americans going this way now.  I've already written about the dearth of 'Righteous Gentiles of the Civil Rights era' in the black community. That is, no real emphasis given to whites who gave it all for the sake of black liberation.  Sometimes I've heard black activists insist no white was ever anything but a racist at heart, no matter what they did.  

This sentiment is being fostered today by the Left, and increasingly accepted by the Church.  So it shouldn't come as a surprise that I'm seeing black Catholics speak as if every parish is a cotton field existing for the sole purpose of pissing on and oppressing black Catholics.  Despite the fact that I have yet to ever come close to experiencing this, and those Catholics I know who are black are as confused about such a sentiment as I am. 

The sad fact is, people can be swayed to see the world a certain way, whether it is the correct way or not.  It's easier if you are asked to see it in a convenient way. A way that sets you against them. A way that sets you over them.  A way in which they are to blame, not you.  A way in which, quite frankly, you're the one with a star on your belly and not them.  It should come as no surprise to anyone that black Catholics would be among those warming up to the idea of seeing the enemy, and realizing it's all those other Catholics over there. It's the slick and easy way to go in our world today.  As it always has been. 

One of the best things about being a New Prolife Catholic

Is the joy that comes with the Left's assurance we need only care about human suffering when it doesn't hinder the leftwing narrative.  Any calls for unconditional love or empathy for our neighbors are subordinate to the opportunity to exploit their suffering to validate a particular leftwing agenda.  See how fun it is:

Yep.  The story is old, last year I believe. It was a survey that found unusually high numbers of white college students were lying about their ethnicity.  Odd, if you accept various leftwing talking points like White Privilege, Systemic Racism, and the 1619 Project spin on American history.  After all, if white Americans are wallowing in white privilege, why would so many lie about not being white?  

As can be expected, the story itself was swept under the carpet by the Praetorian Press in no time flat.  And that was by those few outlets that bothered to carry it at all.  Nonetheless, the story seems plausible.  When my oldest - a straight A college student - was given a website for scholarships and grants, there were thousands available.  After he entered gender (male) and race (white), however, the options dropped to only a few hundred or so.  

Mark happily spews contempt on the possible injustices with the usual false accusation of racism and bigotry as the motivation behind any concern  After all, what's false accusation and character assassination for a New Prolife Catholic? That there could be suffering or unfair treatment of young white Americans doesn't appear to get near Mark's radar.   

Why? Because the Left has perfected the call to ignore human suffering and misery, even death, unless it can be exploited to buttress the pertinent leftwing narrative. And if the suffering challenges a leftwing narrative?  Hell.  That's not even worth discussing. 

I have one for Ms. Purvis

 So Gloria Purvis, BLM supporter and CRT narrative advocate for the Catholic Church, posted this:

Now, it could just be she mentioned this during Black History Month.  Perhaps she added the point that he was never recognized, just because.  You know, bit of trivia.  Why do I get the impression, however, that it's supposed to imply he was never recognized ... because he was black?

As the NFL world rebounds from yet another charge of racism from a fired black coach, I thought it might be worth pointing out that not everything that happens to black people is because they are black.  Sometimes it just happens.  Sometimes employees who happen to be no good, black or white, get canned.  Sometimes a talented and celebrated assistant coach craps out in the head position.  Sometimes a veteran is overlooked because that's what happens. 

For instance, my dad's next older brother served in WWII.  He was a medic, as he asked for something where he wouldn't have to hurt anyone.  He served with Patton in the breakout period until the end of the war.  And yes, he was involved in the legendary Battle of the Bulge.

Nonetheless, it wasn't until shortly before his death from cancer in the late 1990s that he received any decorations.  I don't know what they were, and for that matter, neither did he.  He called my dad and asked what this was all about.  Some medal and talk of an Ardennes Offensive in December, '44.  My dad chuckled and said that was the Battle of the Bulge.  He said he didn't know what it was called.  He just remembered that it was freezing and people kept trying to kill him. 

We still laugh at that.  That was my uncle.  But you see Ms. Purvis, my uncle spent most of his life being quite white.  Unless there was some vast anti-white conspiracy, it's likely the failure to recognize his heroism in that legendary battle was anything other than what happens in the bureaucracies of massive countries with the third largest population in history.  No ill will or malice.

This isn't to say no black serviceman was ever overlooked because of race.  Nor is it to say no black was ever fired because of race. That's would be an absurd suggestion.  But there are other forms of prejudice that can enter into play.  And sometimes it has nothing to do with prejudice, bigotry or racism at all. Sometimes it's just that thing Prince called Life.  Common sense should say nothing else.

But how much longer can we keep beating this horse until it is dead?  How much longer can we act as if America and Racism and Race are the only things in its existence, apart from misogyny?  Or is there any intention of not beating it until it is dead?  Who knows?  If we stop attributing everything under the sun to race and race alone, perhaps it might help us look at other reasons there are so many problems in the black community.  You never know! 

Speaking of MLK

I was shown this:

The quotes in question are here:

First, could Deacon Greydanus point me to a recent time in which he's referenced whites as an ethnic group in a non-negative, non-pejorative, non-judgmental way?  I'm not thinking of any, though I don't follow everything he writes.  If he can't, then that, good deacon, is racism.  Even if it's against your own race. 

Anyway, speaking of racism, notice the lead in to the series of quotes.  Us white folks don't ever talk about these quotes because, well, us white folks. So let's unpack them. 

First quote?  I've seen that before.  I can't account for the skin color of those who have quoted it, but I'll assume there's a chance some of them are white. I am, and I've seen it more than once over the years. So nope, that one is known and quoted. 

Second quote? Oh yeah.  I 've seen that many, many times.  Usually it's quoted in the context of "the only thing necessary for evil" discussions.  I've seen it recently, quoted by conservatives watching the modern assault on democracy and freedom and life.  So sorry, that's a common one. 

Third quote? Nope, you got me there.  That's the first time I've heard of the hellhound quote.  So there's one.  Not sure if it's because of white people being white, but haven't heard it until now.  Or if I did read it, it didn't stick.

Fourth quote?  I've heard this one, but not often.  But it's not white people being white.  It's those who have tried to make MLK into the peace loving non-violent love child who Jesus should have been.  Like Attenborough's Gandhi, he was the man who was never about violence.  Violence, after all, was never, ever the answer (pre-2020 America).  And if mister peace, love and John Lennon songs himself was advocating riots (which are essentially using or threatening violence, assaults, destruction and even terror for a cause), this quote doesn't help.  Hence why I've heard it, but not often (until recently, especially after 2020, I should add)

Last quote?  Yeah, I've heard it.  Not often, since 1) it seems to touch on economics, and 2) it could be seen as a somewhat pro-not-Capitalist private ownership quote.  Given the charge that MLK was a communist agent by some detractors back in the day, I can see this one not flying.  Truth be told, I probably heard it more on leftwing Catholic sites than anywhere.

So that's that.  Most of those listed are quoted, even by white people who spend most of their days being white.  With the exception of hellhound discrimination, if I haven't heard much of them, there is a reason.  And it isn't because of whites being uncomfortable as much as the quotes being avoided by those trying to present MLK in a prepackaged image of convenience.  

So there you go.  FWIW, aside from a few conservatives and conservative outlets I know, there is one quote that was conspicuously absent yesterday in all the news and social media outlets I saw:

I wonder why. That, to me, is the interesting omission.  It also helps to answer this question:

My third oldest son has an observation that I adore.  If you think you would have been one of the brave heroes of history standing up to the evils of the age, there's a 95% chance you're wrong.  Would I have marched?  Probably not.  I'm not doing much to stop what's happening now.  

But if you embrace the modern racism, the racism against whites, the judging of a 12 year old girl as having privilege because of her skin color no matter her station in life, then there is a 99.99% chance you wouldn't have marched.  In fact, there's an overwhelming chance you would have unleashed the fire hoses if you had the chance. 

Because to quesiton Vatican II is to be a racist

Says so right here:

Yep.  I was going to comment, but I realized nothing I could say would make it look worse or less charitable than it already does.  

Despicable

 This:

First because it's head up a donkey's butt stupid.  The idea that parents upset about teaching kids to judge based on skin color  must be descended from people who threw rocks at black kids, because obviously skin color, makes a German rhetoric from the 1930s seem sane by comparison.   The thought that some, like my mom, would be outraged at this and yet was an open advocate for black rights in the 1950s, seems absolutely lost on Greydanus and this level of partisan hackery. Ancestor blood guilt - the latest fad among the Left. 

Second, it's despicable because it insists we ignore the ugly truth that many - and I mean many - who are upset about this racist movement called Critical Race Theory (that does and doesn't exist at any given movement) are not white.  They are blacks and other minorities who don't want their kids to be taught to see themselves as hapless victims awaiting brave white crusaders to step in and save the day. 

And it's not just those conservative blacks who never seem to matter in the equation.  Some blacks and other minorities who were protesting at a local school district a couple weeks ago didn't sound conservative at all.  From some of what they said when interviewed by local news outlets, they sounded like pro-BLM and pro-Democrat all the way. They simply resent their kids being boxed up in swift group labels as the good deacon Greyadnus is clearly willing to do. 

Or perhaps they see their kids ignored since the above stupid Twitter post demands we invoke the unperson of disobedient blacks, just like we unperson the disobedient women who blaspheme the gospel of pro-abortion feminism.  The idea that this, like so many issues, cuts across group identities seems almost abhorrent to those on the Left. 

At some point he's gong to have to come back from the edge of the pit, or he's going to fall in.  I remember him from many years ago. I was never a fan of his post-modern approach to movies.  But he was never like this, nor would he ever have passed along such a stupid, false and sin laden Twitter post.  The poison that is the Left. 

Oh, and I wouldn't recommend going to the article the Twitter post references.  It's not for the squeamish or the virtuous and honorable and truth seeker for that matter. 

African diaspora?

 Yep.  Apparently that's a thing:

Naturally it refers primarily to those Africans brought to the New World through the Transatlantic Slave Trade.  No mention of the much more robust Islamic Slave trade that dwarfed that of Europe, and continued in parts of the Islamic world well into the late 20th Century.  Or any other part of the vast slave  trade that was so common across the African continent for millennia. 

I'm fine with repenting of the sins of the past, so long as we don't go overboard or use such actions to buttress our own self-righteousness, or use it to ignore the sins of the present.  Much worse is if we condemn the sins of the past and then turn around and excuse or embrace the sins of the present, ahem.

Heck, I've often said, on one level, I might be open to reparations for past wrongs.  But it would have to be done in the Christian vein, not simply a tool to tear apart the Christian Western tradition or American experiment.  Nor would I stand for it invoking ancestral blood guilt of all whites guilty of the sins of all whites, therefore people deserving to squirm and pay the price today due to skin color.

Oh, and lest anyone fall for that stupid, evil, racist and false notion that only whites are racist so therefore only European slavery was racist and that's really what makes slavery bad, consider this little gem:

Therefore, the Negro nations are, as a rule, submissive to slavery, because Negroes have little that is essentially human and possess attributes that are quite similar to those of dumb animals, as we have stated.

That's from Ibn Khaldûn, a 14th Century Islamic scholar, musing on the reasons given in the Islamic world to justify the vast Islamic slave forays into Africa.  You know, that slave trade that defined so much of African history centuries before the first Europeans showed up to cause mischief.  Put in the mouth of a European, I have little trouble believing Ms. Purvis would label such a sentiment as racist. 

Again, multiculturalism is one of the key weapons for destroying the Western Tradition, Christian values and teachings, and the American experiment.  The stupidly false - and unChristian - idea that only the Christian West and America ever sinned, and anything any other culture did was just fine, smacks against the Gospel and common sense and historical reality all at the same time. 

I should mention that if the Catholic Church endorses such a wrong-headed and race based view, or allows blacks to make themselves black first and Catholic distant second, then expect future generations of Catholics to have to repent of our ignorance and evil just as much as modern Catholics feel inclined to do the same for that cloud of witnesses who came before our time.  

Then my advice to Cardinal Gregory is don't be divisive

That's my advice to Cardinal Gregory regarding his lament over the divisions in the Church.  If we remember, Cardinal Gregory was the one who received kudos from the media for blasting Trump for his appearance at the John Paul II shrine.  

This would be the same cardinal who referenced the January 6 riots in his condemnation of the demon of divisions in our country while heaping praise on the BLM riots protests the previous year.  Oh, and the same cardinal that invoked the classic 'people who criticize me remind me of the critics of the priets who supported Civil Rights Movement' shtick so common among liberalism.  Critics you say?  Just say they would have hated blacks back in the day, too.  These examples speak to politically driven partisan divisiveness that is sweeping both our country and our church. 

No, send a different messenger than him if we care about divisions in our church or country.  That puts me in mind of the whole post-inauguration plea from democrats that conservatives stop being divisive and admit they're Nazis. They didn't say it that way of course. But it's the usual thinly veiled use of divisions and dividing people by giving them only one possible alternative to avoid being divisive. 

By the way, an interesting question from my sons when thinking of the political narratives the good cardinal clearly endorses.  Why is it so hard to believe that the political party that existed to defend slavery, that fostered the KKK, promoted Jim Crow, fought against desegregation, and opposed the Civil Rights movement, never really stopped its war against black Americans?   

Why is it hard to think that it simply found a new way to exploit black America by sanctioning destructive and counterproductive attitudes and behaviors, lowering expectations and standards, and then seize upon the logical consequences by insisting if it is just given continual power, it promises to crush the real villains who are the real cause of black American suffering?  

Why is it easy instead for so many, including Catholic leaders (ahem), to be offended at that possibility and instead embrace like the Gospel the idea that the fault is the whole of American history, every white American who ever lived, and the sum total of the heritage of the Christian West - oh, and white conservative Republicans? 

I had no good answer, other than the people who run the culture want one thing to be true and what could likely be true not possible. 

Hospital Reflections: Where are the white families?

As a general rule, we don't watch television.  If we watch, it's old shows from days gone by.  Andy Griffith is a family favorite. Other shows are liked or not by different members of the family.  But we don't watch much in any event.   Football games, the Olympics, certain specials here or there through the year is most we do.  If you put a gun to my head and demanded I name five current television shows, you'd be speaking to a dead man.

Nonetheless, when you're sitting in a hospital room with a wife who is resting and sleeping most of the time, reading only goes so far.  Especially since in hospital rooms there's no such thing as peace and quiet.  So between reading materials, I found myself sometimes turning on the television. 

Most of what I watched when my wife was up was Food Network, since at this point she's not to get too riled up.  I can think of nothing less stimulating than Food Network.  Plus some of the shows are fun.  We watched a couple other stations, just to see what is going on in the modern world of television.  There were a couple stations that played older shows and we watched those as well. 

But I noticed something.  In the world of marketing, advertising and corporate America, white families simply don't exist at this stage in the game.  In those days of watching various networks and seeing endless dozens of commercials, I saw not one that featured a family portrayed by actors that was white.  The closest was one white dad doing housework for his white kids.  And one featured two white kids with two white dads.  Otherwise?  Not a single Ward and June in that batch.

There were other combinations.  Black families ruled, and I'd guess half of the ads featured all black families.  Mixed racial families were also common.  In fact, apparently white people no longer marry white people, thus says Madison Avenue.  Asian families, Hispanic, Middle Eastern were also featured in different commercials..  But not a single white family of all the ones I saw.

This does not, of course, count local commercials where a business owned by a white family was featured.  Nor does it count any products sponsored by a celebrity who happens to be white.  It's commercials that feature 'a family' portrayed by actors.  

Apparently the research that marketers and advertisers use in formulating their ad campaigns concluded having all white families is not good for the product's promotion.  There would be no other reason.  It's not a coincidence.  No way. That was on purpose.  Let that sink in.  Imagine what we are told about the reason blacks didn't feature in American movies or American advertising back in the day.  Why didn't they?  Because racism.  Now think of today. 

The great sleight of hand of the Left has been to convince everyone - including the celebrated Catholic Church - that the best remedy for racism is racism done right.  From the highest ecclesiastical leaders to global agencies, international governments, and almost every major institution here at home, that trick has been completely embraced.  So much so that commercials featuring gay dads, lesbians and even a transgender papa are understood as what Americans want, along with families of any and ethnic group imaginable.  But white families need not apply.  Again, let that sink in.  Then consider the logical and predictable ramifications. 

As a bonus, here's a story that has hit the Internet waves because it's so racist stupid. Apparently a fair young pop star named Olivia Rodrigo muses on the fact that she once thought only white girls could be pop stars.  No, she's not 118 years old.  She appears quite young.  Young enough that such obviously white pop stars as Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner, Gladys Knight, Janet Jackson, Gloria Estefan, Diana Ross, and endless others (these right off the top of my head) were already old matriarchs of the pop world by the time she came along.

See what is happening?  In addition to promoting the 'Eew, ick, yuck, a white person!' mentality, it's also incumbent upon the new Left to eradicate the history of any non-whites who challenge the 'Only white people ever' narrative.  That's where eliminating American Indian sports names or African American spokeswomen from products gets you - the elimination of those people.  

So we have this blind stupidity by Ms. Rodrigo.  Was she really that thick that she missed entire swaths of the entertainment industry to conclude that? Or does she know that ignoring the undesirables is demanded by the Leftist State, and so she regurgitates the appropriate talking points?  Only time will tell.  But beyond the dearth of white families in commercials, expect less and less time to be spent celebrating the various ethnic minorities who achieved great things against overwhelming odds and real prejudice in the months and years to come. 

To embrace the Left

Is to embrace the lies and deplorable arguments required to defend the Left.

I've stopped following the page that monitors Catholics on Twitter because I'm more and more convinced that Twitter is of the Devil.  I know there can be good people who post good things on Twitter, but the bad far outweighs the good from what I've seen. 

Nonetheless, one individual I will check on is deacon and film critic Steven Greydanus, simply because I continue to watch in amazement as he has descended deeper and deeper into the shadows of the Leftwing pit.  Things I know he once would have condemned, or arguments he rightly would have laughed at, are now his stock and store. 

He and I used to have some pretty good discussions back in the day. While we didn't always agree, he was respectful and had little tolerance for lousy or lame arguments that were used to make a Social Media point.  Of course he was also against the name calling and calumny that defines so much online discourse.  That made debating things with him a pleasure, even if I never thought much of him as a film critic.

I say all of this because: 

His source is a Huffington Post piece - which should raise a thousand alarms right there - about how Texas Republicans are banning the teaching of evil and good.  They are literally saying schools can no longer teach the KKK is bad or mention MLK, at least according to the HP hit piece.  

Which is false of course. And not just false, but head-up-a-donkey's butt idiotic lies.  You would have to be some special level of partisan dumb to think that's what this or any major bill would seek to accomplish.  It's nothing but the old trick of  saying 'Republicans won't teach that Stalin was a bad man' while failing to mention it's because they won't promote the policies and ideologies of Hitler, who said Stalin was a bad man.

It wasn't easy to find, but if you dig a bit you can see what is happening.  The Texas GOP is going after the racist based Critical Race Theory that alternately does and doesn't exist based on the moment, and is founded on the principle that going to a pre-WWII approach to sizing people up and judging them based on group identities including, but not limited to, skin color and ethnicity is the only way to go. Sane people of virtue and common sense see CRT for the evil stupidity that it is. 

FWIW, here is an alternate view over at FOX. I unusually don't reference FOX for more than fluff or trivial pieces, but  I had to go there in order to see almost any attempt in our propaganda ministry national press to ask the Texas Republicans their point of view.  Most outlets seemed happy to take the HP's 'GOP wants to praise the KKK and Nazis' narrative as gospel truth because, well, of course they do.  

The emergent Left is a grave evil, a sort of 'History's evils' greatest hits.'  It poisons everything, including deacons of good will who once would have recognized and condemned the lies and evils used here in order to perpetrate even greater lies and evils, but who now must support the same.  

Democrats promote bill targeting black Americans

Yep, says so right here.  A bill targeting hate crimes again Asian Americans, when it's commonly known, and begrudging admitted, that black Americans make up the single largest demographic group who targets Asian Americans.  In fact, in most of the video clips I've seen on the news of Asians being attacked, it's black assailants who are the mischief.  

So when a disproportionate numbers of blacks are arrested, assuming the numbers continue as they have been, will we then hear about how racist we are as a country? 

Of course this has little to do with anything.  It's not about protecting Asians or giving a damn about blacks any more than #MeToo gives a rip about sexually assaulted women unless it's convenient.  It's evil, and sane people of good will see it for what it is.  Now we're beyond just hate crimes, but we are singling out this or that group for special protection, while ignoring any stats that could help because overnight we've sanctioned racism and ethnic cleansing as the only way to be American.  

We are seeing people - national leaders, politicians, power players mind you - openly declare that they will allow only the correct skin color to drink at their fountains.  We see religious leaders embrace race obsession with Jesus in a way I've not seen outside a KKK rally.  We've all but ditched the old 'one race, the human race' and 'equality for all.'  In fact, in a spectacular turn around, equality is now a racist term, and if you even think that everyone is equal  in the eyes of God, well obviously that's the new definition of Nazi. 

My oldest sons are amazed at this. As they said, it was drilled into their heads through public school that we must be color blind, we must look past our racial differences and affirm a single human race. To repeat the famous quote, we must judge not by skin color, but by the content of character.  Anything less than this is a one way road straight toward Auschwitz.  So it's stunning for them to see all that they were told is evil is now completely endorsed by our nation, our national leaders, our schools and colleges, our popular culture, celebrities, sports figures, corporations and even some religious leaders.  It's not like the Nazis.  It's like the Nazis coming to power preaching against anti-Semitism and then turning on a dime and ramping up the old gas chambers once they're calling the shots. 

But then, as they say, it took someone to make up the masses at the Nuremberg rallies.  Now maybe we'll judge those people less harshly since we've seen how easily, and how quickly, evil can become embraced by a nation, from its leaders down to the people on the street.  In fact, those embracing the evil today have one thing the Nazis and the slave owners of old didn't have, and that's the lessons from the Nazis and slave owners of old.  I believe it is possible that on the day of judgment, those condemning the racists and ethnic cleansers of today will be the ones from Germany, 18th Century Alabama and Colonial Europe who will insist if they knew what we know today, they happily would have repented their sins.