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Next entry: Santa Claus is for parents Previous entry: Mike Rogers makes mincemeat out of Warren defender’s argument on Hardball

Goldfinch’s Maxim

Mike S. Adams: If liberals believe in a theory that labeled me a mentally deficient social reprobate, then fuck them and fuck them calling people racists to keep their stupid fuck cock shit balls ass fuck bitch damn!!!

Frank Tannenbaum had a number of valid points when, in the 1930s, he established some basic premises of labeling theory. He argued that, as a juvenile, everyone engages in some form of delinquent behavior. And he correctly pointed out that not everyone who engages in delinquency is caught and, therefore, labeled “delinquent.”

Tannenbaum was also correct in saying that parents, teachers, and peers sometimes over-react to juveniles caught in an act of delinquency. He was again on firm ground in asserting that these occasional over-reactions could actually produce more delinquency.

After a stream of Wikipedia’d facts details Adams’s deep familiarity with all of liberalism that ever existed, he then tells us the sordid secret that makes his hating liberals totally cool.  He, combined readers of Pandagon, was a yellowbird.

Notions such as “secondary deviance” and “self-fulfilling prophecy” have done much to undermine the integrity of public education in this country. If you learned to read in first grade in the 1970s, you remember the “yellowbirds,” “redbirds,” and “bluebirds” reading groups. Labeling theorists thought it would be better to call a child a “yellowbird” than to call him “slow.”

(Author’s Note: I was a “yellowbird” in first grade and we all knew we were slow. We just contented ourselves with beating up the “bluebirds” during recess. Fortunately, due to the kindness of my favorite teacher Elsie Stephenson, I eventually became a “redbird.”).

So, what’s Goldfinch’s real game?  Nothing less than the total salvation of the white race from the slings and arrows of liberalism, people.  Nothing less.

Liberal progressives have spent years taking a theory from sociology and applying it increasingly to the field of education. These progressives have shown a clear interest in the question of whether negative labels (e.g., “criminal,” “dumb”) are more frequently applied to blacks and other historically victimized groups.

I think it’s less about whether the label is applied than it is about the social structures that…

...Who am I kidding?  Even if I lay out the exact rationale behind the thing he’s describing, all he’s going to hear is a club beat in his head as a half-naked Sarah Palin serenades him with a musical explanation of how his intellect and looks intimidate otherwise interested black women.  Oh, Goldie.

But, curiously, one area of research remains unexplored: What impact does labeling someone a “racist” have on his self-image – and his propensity for future acts of racism?

Oh, yes, the real victims in society - the people who constantly complain of smelling Taco Bell when their Latino neighbors walk by.  If only there were some organization set up to protect and shelter people who’d been accused of racism and had that terrible stigma trailing their Confederate-flagged souls.  Alas, they are instead the lost generations of Americans. 

Frank Tannenbaum, if he were alive today, might argue that everyone engages in some form of racist behavior. And he might point out that not everyone who engages in racism is caught and labeled “racist.”

Tannenbaum might also say that parents, teachers, and peers sometimes over-react to juveniles caught in an act of racial insensitivity. He would be on firm ground in asserting that these occasional over-reactions could actually produce more racial insensitivity.

See, here’s the funny thing - Adams only argued that Tannenbaum was valid because he needed to set up both his personal anecdote of the terrible things that liberals have done to him and the terrible things they have done to others.  There’s no credible belief that Tannenbaum is saying anything true unless he’s just doing it to charge liberals with hypocrisy and shut them up.

Oh.

...Oh!

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Surely, those who are labeled “racist” are less likely to be invited to associate with those who haven’t. And ostracism from non-racists can lead to racist associations where the strengthening of racist tendencies can occur.

Lemert might agree that people can engage in racism for any number of biological, sociological, or psychological reasons. Racism produced by any of these broad (categories of) factors could be called “primary racism.”

I can’t argue with this ironclad logic.  I mean, yes, you could theoretically argue that the broad categorization of “delinquency” is a different phenomenon altogether than a discrete act of racism, and that the social stigma of branding someone universally inferior by calling them a delinquent is different from telling someone that they can’t brand someone else universally inferior by calling them a racist name.  You could.  But it would be like arguing against the theory of relativity because Einstein had food in his teeth. 

At some point, of course, the child might internalize the notion that he is a “racist” or just generally “bigoted.” This could lead to higher rates of bigotry. When it does, one might say that “secondary racism” has occurred. Many of us might call this a “self-fulfilling prophecy.”

See, at this point, we might as well argue that the child might grow a shitty mustache and lead a cafeteria putsch against the inferior races unless we let him paint big white clown lips on his sleeping dark-skinned classmates. 

We all know that liberals often manufacture cases of racism in order to keep liberalism alive.

For instance, the great Liberalism Needs A Cracker rallies of 1987.  Those were legendary.  And thanks, Oscar Humphries of Portland, Maine, for letting us call you “the biggest advocate of discrimination since Bull Connor sent out the hoses” because you said Storm of the X-Men, and I quote, “sucked donkey dong”.  Little did you know that your 12-year-old rantings would save the political ideology that would elect our first black president.

But we need more research in the pseudo-science of sociology in order to determine how reckless accusations of racism are actually creating more real racism in America. The research can be used to test whether liberals really believe in labeling theory and whether they are willing to apply it to their own conduct.

If liberals really do believe in labeling theory, they should reconsider their own careless accusations of racism. If not, they should fess up, assign grades, and let children keep score during recess.

DAYUM!

That’s it.  Liberalism is over.  As for Aryans!  Points for the Posse Comitatus!  We cannot have fairness unless the racists win…at kickball.

 

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Posted by Jesse Taylor on 10:20 AM • (51) Comments

This will all be settled, at recess, at the court of foursquare.  But NO SPIKESIES!

Comment #1: jon  on  12/23  at  10:34 AM

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Comment #2: iqyhudga  on  12/23  at  11:11 AM

Shorter Mike S. Adams: “Labelling” theory is right when it explains why people are wrong to keep calling me a racist just because I keep doing racist things, but it’s wrong when it suggests that someone other than me who was caught engaging in any form of misbehavior other than racism in the past is more likely to be carefully monitored and thus caught engaging in that same misbehavior in the future.

Shorter Shorter Mike S. Adams: In 1st grade, I was in the slow reading group, and I still am.

Comment #3: cminus, dark lord of castle nutella  on  12/23  at  11:21 AM

Poor baby- looks like he was one of those delinquents not labeled, since he right out brags about beating up kids who are smarter than him, and publicly admits that was just about everyone else in the class. And yet, 30+ years later, he’s still out there attacking anyone who makes him feel inferior, because he never learned anything else.  Maybe the labeling would have helped him, let him see how his choice of attacking people isn’t mature. Although I’ll have to admit to growing up in the same era and state straight out that he would probably be exactly the same, no matter what the label, because teaching children better strategies was not a common teaching method at the time.  Telling them it was because everyone else was jealous because of their superior (fill in the blank) was the preferred coping strategy. 

Moving on, from what I’ve seen, racist parents have racist kids (and dumb parents have dumb kids).  If their little sweetums were caught in an act of racism, they’d probably give him/her extra helpings of dessert.  But, there you go- that will work to cement the behavior better than any label ever might.

Ah well- the problem is that he was stupid as a kid, and has finally, through much work, moved up to nearly average.  As an adult, he realizes that much of the country is smarter than him, and still hasn’t gotten over it.  But- if he can just find another group to bully, all will be well again.

Comment #4: Drachonfire  on  12/23  at  11:23 AM

Apparently his pint is that it was deeeply wrong for his teacher to help him improve his reading skills, just as it would be wrong to teach children not to be racists.

Comment #5: rea  on  12/23  at  11:27 AM

I can’t see Mike S. Adams beating anyone up.

Comment #6: Carmicus  on  12/23  at  11:34 AM

More research in a pseudo-science?  As in, an open call to bring in more bullshit as long as it is convenient to his point?  Maybe he should start writing a grant to fund some phrenology or something, because if you’re going to insist on quackery, why not go all the way?

Comment #7: Kyso K  on  12/23  at  11:37 AM

Is his argument that addressing and confronting racist behavior only creates more racists?  (I can’t tell, and I’m a bluebird!)

I mean, that TOTALLY makes sense.  There was no racism before that Martin Luther King started being all “Oh no you didn’t!”  I never saw Booker T. Washington being beaten in the streets of Birmingham, did you?  And think about what that Abraham Lincoln guy did.  600,000 white boys killed in an intramural race riot just to make a point for 21st century liberalism.

Comment #8: Hawes  on  12/23  at  11:43 AM

I did not believe that he wrote something that stupid and incoherent, so I had to click over to check.  And yes, it is in fact that stupid.  Racism is just another form of so-called deviancy, so let’s just let racists be racists and not mention anything about it.

And he correctly pointed out that not everyone who engages in delinquency is caught and, therefore, labeled “delinquent.”

I have a sneaking suspicion that Mr. Adams is one of those juvenile delinquents.  Curiously, he leaves out any mention of if he still beat up his fellow students after attaining redbird level reading comprehension.  It would not surprise me if he did.

Comment #9: DUHMonster  on  12/23  at  12:20 PM

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Comment #10: btrfkk  on  12/23  at  12:24 PM

This post might be a bit more of a specifically tuned a dog whistle than you think, especially for people who went to college or university and were on the receiving end of any one of the soapbox mini-Mussolini resentment merchants who see racism or sexism not as evils to be fought but as ladders for their own self-aggrandizement.  Think Al Sharpton at his worst in exaggerated miniature. 

I didn’t fall afoul of these morons in uni or law school, but I saw them working up close and personal.  The words “sexist” and “racist” started to lose their meaning, not due to reactionary entitlement or backlash, but because of ludicrous over-use over nothings, or transparent use as tools of political fights or infights.  I would hazard a guess that people who got called racists or sexists when they weren’t either of these things would be embittered.  If they have even a quarter of a brain then they aren’t embittered enough to actually join backlash against anti-racism or anti-sexism.  But they may be resistant to genuine anti-racist or anti-sexist work in the future on the once-bitten, twice-shy theory.  In other words they are still anti-racists or anti-sexists, but very wary of overt identification as such and not participate in political or social action.  This is, I think, exacerbated by the regrettable tendency for we on the left to often turn on our friends more ferociously than we attack our enemies.

Do I have any empirical evidence for this musing?  Nope.  But I think it’s at least a logical avenue given the human tendency to remember slights and nuture resentments.  The upside is that the 2008 election seems to indicate that the appeal of this sort of resentment politics is waning amongst the majority of the population.

This is, naturally, wholly different from calling out legitimate racist or sexist behaviour.  I’ve seen nothing from this Adams fellow to indicate that he gives a damn about such things.  I agree with the post: that this is rather traditional stuff from the right wing: calling out a bad thing is either worse than the bad thing, or will help, help I tell you!! the bad thing.  Bogus down the line.

Comment #11: seeker6079  on  12/23  at  12:27 PM

I missed the section of elementary school devoted to labeling kids “racist” or “liberal” or anything else. I do remember that some kids were worse readers than others, though. What a weird school I went to.

aimai

Comment #12: aimai  on  12/23  at  12:36 PM

There’s a germ of a halfway decent point in the idiotic ramblings of Mr. Adams.  Sticking a negative label on someone does tend to alienate them regardless of whether the label is accurate.  It takes a certain amount of personal integrity to avoid letting resentment push you into the arms of those for whom the label is indeed accurate.  Personal integrity apparently not being Mr. Adams strong point.

I wonder how well this argument would go across at Townhall if instead of “racist” the label in question was “anti-semite.”  I suspect the reception would be distinctly frosty.

Comment #13: togolosh  on  12/23  at  12:41 PM

Interesting, I don’t remember whether I was a blue, red or yellow bird. We did have reading assignments, but IIRC, they were for the whole class, not a select few “special” kids (fast or slow). Lots of kids did get beat up on the playground though. I wonder what reading group they were in.

Comment #14: Mark  on  12/23  at  12:54 PM

Oh!  oh!  I know this game!  This is a fun game!

  Frank Tannenbaum, if he were alive today, might argue that everyone engages in some form of rapist behavior. And he might point out that not everyone who engages in rape is caught and labeled “a rapist.”

  Tannenbaum might also say that parents, teachers, and peers sometimes over-react to juveniles caught in an act of rape. He would be on firm ground in asserting that these occasional over-reactions could actually produce more sexual insensitivity.

Ergo!  We should be nice to rapists!  And double nice to racist rapists!  After all, rape is a form of delinquency just like racism, and since all crimes are equal in the eyes of the guy trying to make a convoluted argument, liberals MUST be hypocrites.  QED, bitches!

Seriously, though.  One could certainly argue that if a child exhibits racist tendencies then he shouldn’t be written off as a social failure and thrown to the wolves.  Children act out their frustrations in different ways and make broad assertions from their relatively slim experience.  This is the nature of being a child.  If a white kid gets kicked by a black kid, he may come to believe all black people will kick him and act out against them universally.  But the solution isn’t to call the kid a “racist” and kick him out of school.  He should be disciplined and educated in hopes that his reaction - attacking other black kids “first” - is stopped and his experience is broadened.

After all, we can’t hold a child to the standards we would hold a full grown adult blogger who - at this time in his life - should have met enough people of varying ethnicities and creeds to know better than to make ignorant and insulting generalizations or act out violently without any semibalance of impulse control.

Were an adult to act out rashly and violently like his childhood peers, he’d be deemed mentally deficient and possibly a danger to society.  He’d be a delinquent and a fool.  Or a “yellowbird” if you prefer.

Comment #15: Zifnab25  on  12/23  at  01:06 PM

So if a person is a racist but I don’t call him a racist he’s going to stop being a racist?  If anyone goes out of their way to avoid attaching derogatory labels, it’s liberals.  We’re way too PC sometimes in my opinion. 

Besides, there simply no good euphemism for racism.  As a bald guy I can be called folliclely challenged.  But what do you call a racist?  Sensitivity deprived?  Cognitively crackers?  Overabundantly simple? 

See, there isn’t a good one. Racist, racist bastard, racist moron.  More better.

Comment #16: Magis  on  12/23  at  01:07 PM

Seeker’s got an interesting point, though it doesn’t invalidate the abject stupidity of Adams’ post.

For fear of derailing the thread, I won’t go into too much detail, but as someone who was involved with my university’s student government, I saw a whole bunch of actual racism, but I also saw a whole bunch of obvious whining and grandstanding.  Especially in the midst of the whole Chief Illiniwek controversy, I think it confused a lot of students and turned them off to anti-racist activism in general.

Let me see where I am going with this…

I think it boils down to, people don’t like to be called racist, even if they are.  And that’s probably a good thing, since it means that people have internalized the idea that racism = bad (or at least socially unacceptable).  In that way, it’s possible that Adams has accidentally stumbled across a point in his fruitless search to find his butt with both hands.

It’s often the case that people engage in racist (or sexist, or homophobic) behavior without truly understanding what they are doing.  In cases where the offender is a potential ally, I think it’s better to educate first - save labeling and ostracizing for the ones you know are lost causes.  By not “going nuclear” right away, you’ll come across as more moderate and reasonable and have a much better chance of the person actually listening to you.

The problem with Adams using this argument is that he only wants cover to continue to be a racist prick; in other words, he’s arguing in bad faith.

Comment #17: Dave  on  12/23  at  01:13 PM

@Magis

No, there is no good euphemism for white-hoods-and-burning-crosses racism.  But when someone tells an off-color joke at the office, it’s probably better to correct them politely (well, at least the first time).  At least you’ve got a better than zero percent chance of turning them around, whereas pointing and screaming “racist!” will just make people defensive.

Of course, if the bad behavior becomes a pattern, you might have to raise holy hell.

Comment #18: Dave  on  12/23  at  01:23 PM

Actually, in the end, adams and seeker both have good points that have actually been made, over and over again, by liberals and progressives on *just this topic*. In the field of child rearing and education, certainly, there has been a move away from labels of all kinds as unhelpful. And we are told not to label children, especially, as “bad” or “naughty” or “evil” but instead to discuss with the child *the behavior* which is a problem. Oddly enough that’s totally against the christian world view that most of the far right cling to—there the liberal refusal to label the whole child as “evil” is seen as adding to the child’s evilness, as producing a worse outcome in terms of behavior than that often mocked model of attachment/liberal parenting “oh no johnny! I’m sure you didn’t mean to hurt bobby.  But your actions did hurt bobby. Now, what can you do to make it up to him.” Instead of “johnny you have the devil in you, you evil boy, and i"m going to beat it out of you.”  So, sure, Adams is right that labeling a person “racist” or “non racist” for that matter is absurd. We should talk about the actions and speech that lead us to find a given behavior distasteful/awful/evil and try to get the individual to recognize that these behaviors are unworthy of them and of society.  Glad to see that what has adams upset is the hardening and continuation of racist ideas and activities, and not merely the attribution to him of negative characteristics due to his extremely negative and racist behavior.

aimai

Comment #19: aimai  on  12/23  at  01:47 PM

Sadly, just this Saturday I had to give a “oh you better not have” look to a ten year old girl who spouted off a racist “joke” while we were having a friendly card game at a party. Her mom’s my friend, I know she got it from her dad or grandmother, but when I reacted the way I did, she stopped. Did I crush her tender spirit, or just let her know I don’t tolerate that sort of crap? She knew it was wrong, but she was being raised to do it anyway. Doesn’t mean I had to let her get away with it.

Comment #20: emjaybee  on  12/23  at  01:50 PM

At least you’ve got a better than zero percent chance of turning them around, whereas pointing and screaming “racist!” will just make people defensive.

Or vastly and justly embarassed, perhaps.  The post was somewhat in jest; I’d probably, really, be polite (the first time) too.  But, more and more, I find that there is sometimes good utility to the ‘shovel to the side of the head’ approach.

Comment #21: Magis  on  12/23  at  01:55 PM

I would hazard a guess that people who got called racists or sexists when they <strike>weren’t</strike> didn’t think they were either of these things would be embittered.

There, fixed that for you. 

From my privileged position of cute white girl brought up liberal in a 90% white environment, I can tell you that entitlement comes in many forms, and that an important element of entitlement is that the privileged ones don’t even realize that they are getting better treatment most of the time.

Those signs telling you to leave your bags with the cashier?  Aren’t they funny?  It’s not like they ever make you do that.

Well, until you go into a store with a person of color, who ALWAYS has to leave her bag, and then they make you leave yours too, so it isn’t quite as obvious that only the brownish people are treated like thieves.

That resentment of someone who was brought up “color-blind” when faced with real people of color calling them out?  Fucking entitlement.  Cause here’s the deal:  if you have had a miscommunication with a person of color to the point of being called racist, and you don’t think you are racist it is your responsibility as a member of the privileged class to figure out what went wrong and why you are probably mistakenly acting like an ass.  Yeah, sometimes it is just a mistake, and communication will clear it up.  But most of the time, it’s simply not understanding that you have been entitled to better treatment because of your skin color, and that that entitlement is not fair and accepting it, even unknowingly, has been accepting of a racist environment.

————-

As for the whole “yellow bird” shit?  What the fuck, Mike?  I grew up in the 70s.  I was in first grade in 1973-74.  Admittedly, it was Catholic school, where we read “Mike, Mary and Jeff” instead of “Dick and Jane”, but I knew public school friends.

I never heard of calling kids birds.  Grouping kids into reading levels?  That’s just a good teaching strategy, especially when dealing with a classroom of 40+ kids (not uncommon back in the 70s).  If kids are going to get anything close to an individualized education, they need to be split into groups where some are working unsupervised while the teacher works with the others.

Maybe, instead of bitching about being slow, you should do something about it, Mike.  Slow and steady can still reach the goal.

I grew up in the 70s

Comment #22: Caren-Sun-blocking Creator of Animorphic Pancakes  on  12/23  at  02:16 PM

How.


Stupid.

Comment #23: Notorious P.A.T.  on  12/23  at  02:18 PM

Sadly, just this Saturday I had to give a “oh you better not have” look to a ten year old girl who spouted off a racist “joke” while we were having a friendly card game at a party. Her mom’s my friend, I know she got it from her dad or grandmother, but when I reacted the way I did, she stopped. Did I crush her tender spirit, or just let her know I don’t tolerate that sort of crap?

I said “fuck” once when I was ten years old in front of my mother, and I got much worse than that. And no, it didn’t crush my spirit. I think a racist joke by a child as at least on par with dropping an F bomb.

Comment #24: Ben D.  on  12/23  at  02:42 PM

two anecdotes. 

1) re: the post.  There are all kinds of ways to react to being called a racist.  When I was in 3rd or 4th grade, I was living in suburban VA around a bunch of casually racist white kids, and heard a lot of slurs in the course of business.  I didn’t really focus on these things as “racist,” but knew they were insulting.  I was fighting with my brother, who is two years older than me, and in the heat of the fight, I called him a n*****r.  We are both white.  My brother paused for a minute, and then KICKED THE EVERLOVING S**T OUT OF ME (probably for the last time - I have always been taller & heavier).  When he was done, he said “I can’t believe you are too stupid to even know that you are a f**king racist.” and left.  My reaction to this was not to scurry off to nurse my resentment among the local hitler youth, but rather to feel like a total dumbass for a long time, and eventually get my s**t screwed on straight.

2) re: seeker’s point above.  During the Rodney King riots, at my small midwestern liberal arts college, the more radical students called a “Day of Rage” to protest the police brutality.  Everyone was supposed to cut class, go into the quad and, I dunno, yell, or something.  I thought this was a stunningly self-congratulatory, self-indulgent, and ineffectual activity, and I headed to class.  I was stopped heading across the quad by a woman who asked me “where do you think you’re going?”  I said “To class.”  And she said “You’re a racist!”  While this moment did not tempt me to actually become a racist, or change my worldview at all, I was so angry at her presumption, arrogance, condescension and stupidity that for a moment I was fully present inside the mind of one of those right wingers who hate exactly this side of some liberals.  It was an illuminating experience.  All of this flashed in about five seconds, then I said “No, I’m not” and went on to class.

Comment #25: st  on  12/23  at  03:02 PM

We all know that liberals often manufacture cases of racism in order to keep liberalism alive.

Just because we in The Heartland demand racial purity laws to be enforced doesn’t mean you elitists need to get all bent out of shape, does it?  Mellow out and listen to some Prussian Blue, would ya?

Comment #26: RUGGED IN MONTANA  on  12/23  at  04:33 PM

Hmm, seems like Mr. Adams is explicitly calling for that “moral relativism” that conservatives are constantly decrying when they think liberals are doing it…

Comment #27: Redshift  on  12/23  at  04:34 PM

You notice he doesn’t say *he* beat anyone up.  He says “we” beat people up.  My guess is he took pleasure in watching larger, more physically confident slow readers beat people up.  A sort of first-grade version of the Keyboard Kommandoes.

APS

Comment #28: Ape Man  on  12/23  at  06:43 PM

During the Rodney King riots, at my small midwestern liberal arts college, the more radical students called a “Day of Rage” to protest the police brutality.  Everyone was supposed to cut class, go into the quad and, I dunno, yell, or something.  I thought this was a stunningly self-congratulatory, self-indulgent, and ineffectual activity, and I headed to class.  I was stopped heading across the quad by a woman who asked me “where do you think you’re going?” I said “To class.” And she said “You’re a racist!” While this moment did not tempt me to actually become a racist, or change my worldview at all, I was so angry at her presumption, arrogance, condescension and stupidity that for a moment I was fully present inside the mind of one of those right wingers who hate exactly this side of some liberals.  It was an illuminating experience.  All of this flashed in about five seconds, then I said “No, I’m not” and went on to class.


Was your liberal arts college based in Ohio by any chance? At my undergrad, there were plenty of similarly toned casually tossed accusations towards those for what were often petty personal infighting between different progressive campus groups and/or factions within such groups. 

Also, the main accusations I usually encountered was mainly being accused of being a bourgeois reactionary for my anti-Marxist/Maoist views in and out of class…..though considering such accusations were being hurled by “Marxists/Maoists” from privileged trust-fund laden upper/upper-middle class backgrounds…..I took it as a badge of honor and good humor, especially considering their extreme obliviousness of their own hypocrisy and their apparent ignorance of/disinterest in learning the actual effects of Marxist-derived regimes.  Did I also mention these same students were strongly classist against the mostly working-class town residents which is wrong regardless of the fact it was in response to the blatant racism, sexism, and homophobia from those residents. 

Another big accusation several classmates and I encountered was how we were assumed by most of my undergrad’s student body to be unintelligent and stupid because we were religious or merely agnostic.  Though it did cause problems for my classmates including Buddhists, Taoists, and Jews and I was outraged at their closeminded anti-pluralistic behavior, the sting from that was dramatically reduced when several of those claiming to be more “highly intellectual” because they were not hobbled by religious or spiritual beliefs ended up being academically suspended/expelled for poor academic performance within our first two years.  Flunking undergrad courses and being suspended/expelled as a result does not constitute a demonstration of “high intellectualism” to others….especially when they excel at the same/more advanced level courses. 

After graduation when I was taking a summer stats course, I happened to be stopped one evening right before that class by a group of extremely pushy Harvard undergrads who was insistent I joined a campus protest against a corporation for something right then and there.  My informing them I had a summer stats class in a few minutes didn’t dissuade them from continuing their spiel as they dismissively said, “you can afford to miss one class”.  They didn’t appreciate it when I had to inform them that considering I was paying for that class out of my own pocket before being reimbursed by my company, that unlike SOME PEOPLE who attend college on their parents’ dime….I did not have the luxury of skipping one class to attend a protest on the sayso of a bunch of excessively self-important pushy undergrads who never had to work a full-time job in their lives.

Comment #29: exholt  on  12/23  at  07:06 PM

I said “fuck” once when I was ten years old in front of my mother, and I got much worse than that. And no, it didn’t crush my spirit. I think a racist joke by a child as at least on par with dropping an F bomb.

I probably received at least that from my father once for referring to him as “buster” as a 6 year old kid.

Comment #30: exholt  on  12/23  at  07:15 PM

I don’t fully understand why Adams hasn’t turned into a cloud of gamma rays with this essay. Being labeled as a racist, he seems to be arguing, turns you into someone whose primary character trait is to engender bad behavior in others by labeling them as inferior because of their race. So clearly there should be no sanctions against people who show tendencies toward labeling others (at least in the way that he likes to do).

I really thought “I blame society” was one of those lines conservatives despised.

Comment #31: paul  on  12/23  at  09:59 PM

All right, this would be in the early 60’s, 1st grade, my teacher divvied us up into Redbirds, Yellowbirds, and Bluebirds.  I recall wondering “where are the Greenbirds”, also “why am a Bluebird, it is yellow that I like.”  Followed quickly by, “If I’m so darn good at reading, how come they are still always on my case about something?”
And no, I don’t feel guilty for not taking the day off to protest something, however much I dislike said something, when I need the money to survive or the class to learn.  Let the guilt be on those who don’t pay me what I’m worth.  As the saying goes, I wish I had a job to shove.

Comment #32: Angiportus, Afficionado of Liquid Garnets  on  12/23  at  10:56 PM

All right, this would be in the early 60’s, 1st grade, my teacher divvied us up into Redbirds, Yellowbirds, and Bluebirds.  I recall wondering “where are the Greenbirds”, also “why am a Bluebird, it is yellow that I like.”

Out of curiosity, how did such a system work in practice? What criteria were used for such classifications?

They didn’t divide us on the basis of reading scores in the first grade I attended in the early 1980s.  All I remembered was that one 5th grade and one 7th grade I had to take reading assessments which placed me with the group of classmates who were already reading at 11th-12th grade level. 

Then again, I tend to be skeptical of such tests as it also said my math proficiency was also in a similar ballpark.  Boy, my high school math teachers would have had a good belly laugh over that…...

Comment #33: exholt  on  12/23  at  11:48 PM

Calling a behavior bad is the only way to change it. Labeling the behavior is better than labeling the person, at least to start. But the implication by him we should say nothing would only increase racist behavior by condoning it.

Comment #34: Samantha Vimes  on  12/24  at  01:04 AM

Mike Adams wishes he was a hoodlum in elementary school so that he could blame someone for how truly miserable he became as he aged—and so he’d have an interesting story to justify his gun fetish.  See, he was a tough guy all along, not an overcompensating loser!  He is a sad, loathsome little man.  And he is allowed to teach undergraduates, which should scare the bejeezus out of anyone in eastern North Carolina.

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he’s still out there attacking anyone who <strike>makes him feel inferior</strike> challenges his delusions of superiority

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