Brown’s Professor Loury speaks out about our “race reckoning” in a way that the Left needs to hear.  

His comments are food for the mind — for all.

Unspeakable Truths about Racial Inequality in America

Loury speaks the unspeakable:

Downplaying behavioral disparities by race is actually a “bluff.”

“Seeing prisons as a racist conspiracy to confine black people is an absurd proposition. No serious person could believe it. Not really. Indeed, it is self-evident that those taking lives on the streets of St. Louis, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Chicago are, to a man, behaving despicably. Moreover, those bearing the cost of such pathology, almost exclusively, are other blacks. An ideology that ascribes this violent behavior to racism is laughable. Of course, this is an unspeakable truth, but no writer or social critic, of whatever race, should be canceled for saying so.”

TUDOR PLACE: The two sides of the racist coin are INTERGENERATIONAL WHITE BIGOTRY and the PATHOLOGY OF THE URBAN BLACK NEIGHBORHOOD.  Both must go.

“Structural racism” isn’t an explanation — it’s an empty category.

“The invocation of ‘structural racism’ in political argument is both a bluff and a bludgeon. It is a bluff in the sense that it offers an “explanation” that is not an explanation at all and, in effect, dares the listener to come back . . . 

“And it is a bludgeon in the sense that use of the phrase is mainly a rhetorical move. Users don’t even pretend to offer evidence-based arguments beyond citing the fact of the racial disparity itself. The ‘structural racism’ argument seldom goes into cause and effect. Rather, it asserts shadowy causes that are never fully specified, let alone demonstrated. We are all just supposed to know that it’s the fault of something called “structural racism,” abetted by an environment of “white privilege,” furthered by an ideology of “white supremacy” that purportedly characterizes our society. It explains everything. Confronted with any racial disparity, the cause is “structural racism.”

TUDOR PLACE: No one denies that there STILL IS racism in this country, but to ABSTRACT IT into reified concepts which quickly devolve into hollow slogans — SIGNS WITHOUT REFERENTS — is to ENTRENCH the problem rather than DEAL WITH IT.  It also keeps blacks PERMANENTLY AGGRIEVED while relieving them of ANY RESPONSIBILITY in coming to terms with THEIR OWN RACISM in an increasingly DIVIDED society they, too, are now PERPETUATING.

We must put the police killings of black Americans into perspective.

“There are about 1,200 fatal shootings of people by the police in the U.S. each year, according to the carefully documented database kept by the Washington Post, which enumerates, as best it can determine, every single instance of a fatal police shooting. Roughly 300 of those killed are African Americans, about one-fourth, while blacks are about 13% of the population. So that’s an over-representation, though still far less than a majority of the people who are killed. More whites than blacks are killed by police in the country every year. You wouldn’t know that from the activists’ rhetoric.”

“To put it in perspective, there are about 17,000 homicides in the U.S. every year, nearly half of which involve black perpetrators. The vast majority of those have other blacks as victims. For every black killed by the police, more than 25 other black people meet their end because of homicides committed by other blacks. This is not to ignore the significance of holding police accountable for how they exercise their power vis-a-vis citizens. It is merely to notice how very easy it is to overstate the significance and the extent of this phenomenon, precisely as the Black Lives Matter activists have done.”

TUDOR PLACE:  A Filipino-American died some time last year as a result of a policeman KNEELING ON HIS NECK.  The crime was IDENTICAL to the one committed by Derek Chauvin on George Floyd.  Yet, the story was never aired by the MSM.  Nor have any MURALS been painted to memorialize the dead Filipino-American.   Did his life not matter?

There is a dark side to the “white fragility” blame game.

“One risks cancellation for saying this, but the right idea is the idea of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.: to transcend our racial particularism while stressing the universality of our humanity. That is, the right idea, if only fitfully and by degrees, is to carry on with our march toward the goal of “race blindness,” to move toward a world where no person’s worth is seen to be contingent upon racial inheritance. This is the only way to address a legacy of historical racism effectively without running into a reactionary chauvinism. Promoting anti-whiteness, and Black Lives Matter often seems to flirt with this, may cause one to reap what one sows in a backlash of pro-whiteness. Here we have yet another unspeakable truth, which, as a responsible black intellectual, it is my duty to apprise you of.“

TUDOR PLACE: The pro-whiteness backlash is already here and rapidly gaining traction.  What could be more counterproductive to those seeking to END RACISM?  And it begs the question of whether the Left is just as interested in PERPETUAL POLARIZATION as the Right.  Provoking backlashes certainly keeps RACE BAITING going on both sides.  And for some, that’s a LUCRATIVE BUSINESS.

“Black fragility” is a form of infantilization. 

“When you take agency away from people, you remove the possibility of holding them to account and the capacity to maintain judgment and standards so that you can evaluate what they do.“

“What is more, there is a deep irony in first declaring white America to be systemically racist but then mounting a campaign to demand that whites recognize their own racism and deliver blacks from its consequences. I want to say to such advocates: ‘If, indeed, you are right that your oppressors are racists, why would you expect them to respond to your moral appeal? You are, in effect, putting yourself on the mercy of the court while simultaneously decrying that the court is unrelentingly biased.’ The logic of such advocacy escapes me.“

TUDOR PLACE:  Let’s be clear here.  The entire BLM/CRT initiative is a DEMAND for a SECOND EMANCIPATION.  This time, with REPARATIONS.  Trouble is, BLACKS ARE NO LONGER IN CHAINS.  BY LAW, they have as much EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY as other Americans, including naturalized citizens WHO, BY AND LARGE, outperform them.  Still, is Glenn Loury not LIVING PROOF that blacks can MAKE IT?

Whites cannot “give” blacks equality.

“Take responsibility for your life. No one’s coming to save you. It’s not anybody else’s job to raise your children. It’s not anybody else’s job to pick the trash up from in front of your home. Take responsibility for your life. It’s not fair, and this is another, I think, delusion. People think there is some benevolent being up in the sky who will make sure everything works out fairly, but it is not so. Life is full of tragedy and atrocity and barbarity and so on. This is not fair. It is not right. But such is the way of the world.”

“If we blacks want to walk with dignity, if we want to be truly equal, then we must realize that white people cannot give us equality.”

TUDOR PLAZA: Nor is it white people’s RESPONSIBILITY.  Plus, until blacks EMANCIPATE THEMSELVES from both what RESIDUAL BIGOTRY REMAINS as well as the PATHOLOGY of much of URBAN BLACK CULTURE, they’re as DEPENDENT on MASSA as ever.  And it’s that PSYCHOLOGICAL DEPENDENCE which now must be broken.  What was it Billie Holiday sang?

“God Bless the child that’s got his own.”

. . . THEM COVERING THEIR BUTTS or THEM COURSE CORRECTING?

It’s really not that tough a choice.  A politician first covers his butt.

BESIDES, THEY’VE GOT THEM ON CAMERA!

When will the Right realize?  Trump first?  Or country first?

One man’s opinion to be sure.  And ONLY that as, last year, Wien got six of his ten picks wrong, four right and one half-right — proving ONCE AGAIN that it’s LARGELY a 50/50 world and that NO ONE KNOWS NUTTIN‘.

Nonetheless, here are Wien’s ten 2022 “surprises” anyway.

• A 20% correction in the stock market
• Persistent inflation
• Four Fed rate hikes
• The return of conventions and group meetings by year-end
• A CCP curb on speculative investment in housing
• A 20% rally in gold to a record high
• West Texas crude in excess of $100 a barrel
• Increased push for nuclear power generation
• New ESG standards
• A lithium battery shortage that restricts US electric vehicle production (“China controls the lithium market, as well as the markets for the cobalt and nickel used in making the transmission rods, and it opts to reserve most of the supply of these commodities for domestic use.”)

Here are the “surprises” I agree with: persistent inflation; a curb on speculative housing investment in China; and more nuclear power generation.  The others involve market movements, the behavior of the Fed, the evolution of COVID, US bureaucratic action; and electric vehicle supply and demand dynamics.  I mean, how could one “KNOW” about any of these?

But here’s why I see the three I agree with as BETTER BETS:

• Inflation WILL STILL BE WITH US — even if there’s DISINFLATION — as money printing REMAINS A NECESSITY.
• China MUST continue with its CONTROLLED DEMOLITION of its PROPERTY BUBBLE or risk CRATERING its economy.
• If the world doesn’t step up the use of nuclear power — EVEN AS IT DECOMMISSIONS COAL AND NATURAL GAS PLANTS AS PART OF THIS CURRENT DECARBONIZATION MANIA — SOCIETY SIMPLY WON’T FUNCTION.

We’ll see if I’m right.

Whether or not you agree politically with her — and I generally don’t — this woman radiates strength.  And she’s fixed on NAILING TRUMP.

HOW GREAT IS THAT?

That’s right.  A first-world country (of sorts) with prices now OUT OF CONTROL.

From Zero Hedge:

“Think 6.8% CPI is high? Think again: this morning long-suffering Turks living in Erdogan’s macroeconomic experiment woke up to learn that the country’s annual inflation rate surged to 36.1% last month, its highest in the 19 years Tayyip Erdogan has ruled, blowing away expectations of “only” 27.4%, and laying bare the depths of a currency crisis engineered by the president’s unorthodox interest rate-cutting policies.”

Who knows how bad this will get?

From Mike Shedlock:

EU Seeks to Classify Some Natural Gas as Green

Two Nuclear Green Requirements

1. The project has a plan, funds and a site to safely dispose of radioactive waste.
2.  New nuclear plants must receive construction permits before 2045.

Natural Gas Green Requirements

1. Investments in natural gas power plants would also be deemed green if their emissions are below 270g of CO2 equivalent per kilowatt hour (kWh)
2. Replace a more polluting fossil fuel plant
3. Receive a construction permit by Dec. 31 2030
4. Plan to switch to low-carbon gases by the end of 2035

Looks like the adults in the room finally got the COMMON SENSE memo.  The only way to “ACHIEVE” current energy transition goals would be to SHUT DOWN THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT.

Don’t flick on that light switch, and don’t turn the ignition key to your car.

SORRY, FOLKS, IT’S NOT HAPPENING.  PEOPLE HAVE TROUBLE WEARING MASKS AND GETTING VACCINATED.  TRY ASKING THEM TO SIT IN THE DARK OR NOT DRIVE.

Get set for all manner of definitions as to WHAT CONSTITUTES GREEN.

To me, the PERFECT PERSONIFICATION of BLACK LIVES MATTER ORG’S ETHOS.

We were VICTIMS, we STILL ARE victims and we ALWAYS WILL BE be victims.  One has to wonder — are they handing out PhD’s in VICTIMOLOGY at Harvard or Stanford yet?  I mean, what’s the LIBERAL CANONICAL PROFESSORIAT waiting for?

The next Jussie Smollett?

Here’s Batya Ungar-Sargon’s take on what transpired re the CURRENT ONE.  Though, yes, there will be KNOCK-OFFS.

The Liberal Elites Believed Jussie Smollett for the Same Reasons They Don’t Want to Confront America’s Crime Wave

Highlights:

• “From Joy Reid to AOC to Kamala Harris to Lori Lightfoot, Smollett’s false attack seemed to confirm everything they wanted to believe about their fellow Americans across the political divide.”

• “The way black Americans are treated by the criminal justice system remains a blight on our nation; our failure to ensure equality before the law is a moral emergency that all Americans of conscience should object to vocally and vigorously.

  “But in their support for Jussie Smollett, BLM betrayed that cause, demanding that Smollett be held to a lower standard of justice because he is ‘a Black man.'”

• “We’ve abandoned a worldview based on right vs. wrong for a worldview based on powerful vs. powerless, and then superimposed a racial binary onto it.”

• “If you can’t blame your political opponents and smear them as racists, the liberal mainstream media and Left-wing politicians don’t want to hear about it.

  “And this means that a murder spree that has resulted in the deaths of hundreds and hundreds of poor black children goes virtually unreported. Their names are never mentioned. And this signals to politicians that they can ignore it.

  “Their lives matter.”

For BLM cultural Marxists, justice has been replaced by SOCIAL JUSTICE which itself is merely a political POWER PLAY IN DRAG.

This all started with OJ trial.  I remember the moment I heard the verdict.  It was lunchtime, and I was eating a sandwich in Rock Center where a crowd had gathered.  The moment the NOT GUILTY verdict was announced, the blacks in the crowd erupted in an ECSTASY of TRIUMPH and RELIEF.

But as the trial evidence clearly showed, this was not a victory for JUSTICE but for SOCIAL JUSTICE.  INJUSTICE HAD FINALLY BEEN DELIVERED TO WHITES!  EQUITY HAD BEEN ACHIEVED!  The merits didn’t matter.  The POWERFUL had LOST.

And from that beginning, BLM is now attacking the concept of CASE BY CASE JUSTICE.

In true Marxist-Leninist fashion, it’s attempting to RECAST the JUSTICE SYSTEM as the servant NOT OF LAW BUT OF EQUITY where those guilty of RACIAL CRIMES — a stand-in for CLASS CRIMES — are the GREATEST OFFENDERS and deserving of COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT.

Meanwhile, INDIVIDUAL CRIMES — many of which are committed in greater numbers by blacks — are INCREASINGLY DECRIMINALIZED or viewed as the NORMAL RESULT of OPPRESSION-INDUCED POVERTY.

This isn’t JUSTICE, but MORALLY-CLOAKED, POWER-GRABBING.  And it’s sold to LEFTIST ACADEMICS and POLITICIANS as SOCIAL ENGINEERING so as to SANITIZE it.

But without a VICTIMHOOD IDEOLOGY, there’s no basis for this kind of OBVIOUS SELF-DEALING.  And so, BLM needs VICTIMHOOD to be perpetuated, even as the REAL VICTIMS remain the growing number of young black males VIRALLY MURDERING ONE ANOTHER.

And about that, NOT A PEEP from BLM, CNN or MSNBC.

Anyone surprised in a world this complex and fast moving?  Assets often spawn liabilities.

While data is skewed by reduced holiday reporting, there’s increasing signs #Omicron wave in London may be peaking. The huge wave has occurred, so far, with only a small rise in hospital admissions requiring mechanical ventilation. New York City may be about 2 weeks behind London pic.twitter.com/WIqFkB16f9

— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) December 31, 2021

A closer look:

It may have, indeed.

From the Epoch Times:

“The South African government has lifted most restrictions in the country as officials declare the country ‘may have passed the peak of the fourth wave.’”

“The country’s Department of Health reported a 29.7 decrease in the number of new cases detected in the week ending Dec. 25, compared to the number of cases found in the previous week, at 127,753.”

Now let’s hope this holds.