davidthompson

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More items from the archives:

She’s Seething With Empowerment.  

A Guardian contributor encounters a small act of courtesy, screaming ensues.

Ms Huckeba continues, “No, you cannot open this door for me! You wouldn’t have opened it two years ago, so you damn sure can’t open it now!” “I scowled and stormed away,” says she, “completely enraged.” You see, he’s not allowed to do that - holding open the door for her - or for any woman, presumably. Because although Ms Huckeba didn’t know this polite gentleman and had never seen him before, she’s nevertheless sure of what his views on holding doors open for people must have been two years previously, back when she was fat. It’s intersectional science. And this being the Guardian, what matters is that Ms Huckeba can invoke victimhood to rationalise having behaved like a complete and utter cow.

Don’t Oppress My People With Your Big Hooped Earrings.  

The pretentiously agonised, part 436.

When not struggling with oppressive punctuation, Ms Martinez spends her time fretting about the fact that she and her peers are “not taken seriously” as the radical titans they so obviously are. According to fellow umbrage-taker Jacquelyn Aguilera, who also emailed the entire campus, “winged eyeliner, lined lips, and big hoop earrings” are “an everyday act of resistance” by the brown and virtuous.

You Mustn’t Stop The Hysteria.  

A Professor of Education denounces consequences for… well, pretty much anything.

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Some items from the archives:

How Dare You Not Pretend.

On pronouns, politeness, and the strange mental rumblings of Ms Laurie Penny.  

Regarding rudeness, I’m generally polite by default, at least in person, and don’t go out of my way to needlessly put a kink in someone else’s day. I’ve had perfectly civil chats with people who regard themselves as transgender or gender-non-conforming or whatever. Nobody got upset. But what is often being asked – or demanded – is not a small thing, not in its implications.

Taken broadly, we are being asked to affirm, wholesale, a bundle of phenomena that includes not only actual gender dysphoria, whether the result of developmental anomalies or childhood molestation, but also autogynephilia, serious personality disorders, adolescent pretension, and assorted exhibitionist and unsavoury compulsions. The expectation seems to be that we should take these different phenomena, with very different moral connotations, as being one and the same thing, and then defer to them, habitually and uncritically. Which is asking rather more than can readily be agreed to.

Turf War.

At Middlebury College, woke piety erupts. A 74-year-old scholar is quite literally chased off campus.

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Some items from the archives:

No Black Lights Were Available.

New York Times contributor is oppressed by pedestrian-crossing traffic lights.

Mr Kaufman - who can doubtless detect racism in the motions of subatomic particles - would have us believe that his friend was using the word white as a racial descriptor, rather than, as seems more likely, an unremarkable acknowledgement of a traffic light’s colour when talking to a child. In light of which, Mr Kaufman’s claims of being “bombarded” with racism – daily, everywhere – become at least explicable, if not convincing. 

The pedestrian crossing signal that so distresses Mr Kaufman – a rudimentary humanoid figure, made of white lights on a black background – can be seen here, from a safe distance. You may want to steady yourselves. It’s all very upsetting, at least for the exquisitely sensitive. Mr Kaufman then goes on an investigative journey, in which he learns why, in a society with lots of non-English speakers, crossing signals with words are being replaced by simple, universal graphics, calibrated to capture attention – say, by using lights of a certain hue. Which all sounds quite sensible. Rather than, say, a nefarious racial conspiracy intended to break the will of the negro.

You May Clap When Moved.  

Mr Reed Altemus rubs his trousers, awaits applause.

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As I expect to be busy over the next few days, some items from the archives.

Something About The Tone.   

Urban Studies lecturer bemoans litter inequality, suggests bulldozing homes nicer than his own.

Our postcode class warrior also thinks that “deprived” and “marginalised” communities can be elevated, made less dysfunctional, by “the provision of services… such as… street cleaners.” Meaning more street cleaners, cleaning more frequently. He links to a report fretting about how to “narrow the gap” in litter, how to, “achieve fairer outcomes in street cleanliness.” But neither he nor the authors of said report explore an obvious factor. The words “drop” and “littering” simply don’t appear anywhere in the report, thereby suggesting that the food-smeared detritus and other unsightly objects just fall from the clouds mysteriously when the locals are asleep.

The report that Mr Matthews cites, supposedly as evidence of unfairness, actually states that council cleaning resources are “skewed towards deprived neighbourhoods” – with councils spending up to five times more on those areas than they spend on cleaning more respectable neighbourhoods. And yet even this is insufficient to overcome the locals’ antisocial behaviour. A regular visit by a council cleaning team, even one equipped with military hardware, won’t compensate for a dysfunctional attitude towards littering among both children and their parents. And fretting about inequalities in litter density is a little odd if you don’t consider how the litter gets there in the first place. 

The Dunning-Kruger Diaries, Part Two. 

Behold the creative outpourings of Ms Angeliki Chiado Tsoli.

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As I’m a little busy, more items from the archives.

How Dare You Not Defer To My Lack Of Self-Possession.

A “queer person and educator” is asked not to swear and scream in the workplace. Loud outrage ensues.

Objections to being shouted at, and sworn at, are framed with great haste as a sign of complicity in oppression: “Tone-policing is rooted in colonialism and white supremacy,” we’re told. In short, then, when a suitably black or gay person shouts at you, you “need to be quiet and listen” - and by implication, you should promptly defer, however wrong or ridiculous, or nakedly opportunist, the shouting person may be. You must “validate” their rage, and any incoherence, with lots of silent nodding, before rolling submissively onto your back. Because, being members of a Designated Victim Group, even if irrelevant or based on nothing whatsoever, they matter, and clearly, you don’t. What with all that “privilege” you apparently have. And because reciprocal courtesies just ain’t woke. It’s the progressive pecking order. Know your place. 

You’re A Monster, Just Admit It.

If you aren’t keen to become fat, activist William Hornby thinks you must be racist.

Mr Hornby is, of course, “raising awareness,” a mission that entails steering his followers to a Fat Liberation Syllabus For Revolutionary Leftists, where we learn that, “Fat liberation is a radical anti-capitalist, anti-colonial, anti-state movement that was started by fat Black and Brown disabled queer and trans people.” And where we’re told, quite emphatically, that a reluctance to become fat is “intrinsically entangled with white supremacy, anti-Blackness, settler colonialism, and capitalism.” And therefore, obviously, really, really bad. The goal, then, for all chubby-and-enlightened people, is to “abolish capitalism and settler colonial states like the US,” along with “abolishing prisons and police,” and dismantling the “fatphobic logic of productivity, discipline, and personal responsibility.” One can only hope that this revolutionary project doesn’t involve stairs or significant exertion.  

It Says ‘Poison’ In Large Red Letters. 

A reminder that the absurd and the sinister aren’t mutually exclusive.

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For newcomers and the nostalgic, more items from the archives:

Our Betters In Distress.  

At the University of York, scenes of theatrical fretting.

Readers may note that the agonising – in which any depiction of a monkey immediately conjures thoughts of black people - does rather speak to the weirdly dogmatic assumptions of the agonised, rather than the object being agonised about, or how said object is generally understood. It must be those intersectional lenses we hear so much about. 

Our Betters Victorious, But Still Unhappy.  

Los Angeles Times columnist has considerate neighbours and is therefore, naturally, outraged.

As readers may be a little confused by the air of displeasure, I should point out that no history of neighbourly rancour is offered as an excuse – no disputes over hedges or noisy pets. Nothing of that sort is mentioned at all. Ms Heffernan’s neighbours are, it seems, to be frowned upon, indeed despised, in print, in a newspaper they may well read, simply for failing to vote for Mr Biden.

Modern Love. 

If it wasn’t complicated and unsatisfying, everyone would do it.

To illustrate this terribly progressive lifestyle arrangement, we’re introduced to a Brooklynite comedian and podcaster named Billy, his girlfriend Megan, and his girlfriend Megan’s other boyfriend Kyle.

Land Of The Before Times. 

An attempt is made to glamorise a fashionably radical hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

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For newcomers and the nostalgic, more items from the archives:

Hush Now, Brown Person, I’ll Do The Talking.

Woke academic bemoans racism, while casually erasing agency from anyone brownish who happens to disagree with her.

For Ms Beltrán, then, those who tire of racial tribalism and identitarian drama, and who prefer to be engaged with as individuals, are merely surrendering to “whiteness” and “white supremacy,” and are therefore the enemy, traitorous, or at best, dupes. And for Ms Beltrán, the extremist is not the person who fixates on race as the overriding characteristic and sole basis for “recognition” - as the ideological mass around which all else must revolve - but the person who doesn’t.

Your Guilt Has Been Determined Via Pantone Colour Chart.

A mandatory course for dentists is announced. Confessions of pallor are expected.

If you plan to be a dentist and attend the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine, it seems you must first submit to condescension and insults, and accusations of being either a bigot or an enabler of bigotry, based solely on unchangeable aspects of your appearance. Because apparently you can’t do dentistry without the weird political woo of dogmatic parasites who’ve managed to insert themselves into yet another sphere of life.

Her Unspeakable Woes (2). 

Haughty bitches claim to be oppressed, while disdaining the little people who serve them drinks.

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For newcomers and the nostalgic, more items from the archives:

Damned If You Do.  

How dare you like, or not like, her aboriginal-feminist poetry:

We’re told that being a “coloured” or “Indigenous” writer is fraught with “structural oppression,” on account of being “marginalised” – as when being invited to literary award parties and then swooned over by pretentious pale-skinned lefties. “Whiteness” and “white men” are particular burdens to Ms Whittaker and her peers, whose suffering – their “collective plight” - is seemingly endless and endlessly fascinating, at least among those for whom such woes are currency. As Ms Whittaker’s world is one of practised self-involvement, her point is at times unobvious. However, our unhappy poet appears to be annoyed both by “underwhelming responses” to her own writing and by insufficiently convincing displays of approval. All that “endless patronising praise.” At which point, the words high maintenance spring to mind.

She Does All This For Us, You Know. 

Or, The Thrill Of Hand Dryers:

I thought I’d cheer you with another chance to marvel at the mind-shattering talents of Ms Sandrine Schaefer, a performance artist whose adventures with lettuce and underwear have previously entertained us. Ms Schaefer, who teaches performance art to those less gifted than herself, has been described by the senior curator at the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art as “amazing,” “compelling” and yet inexplicably “underfunded.”

You Can Either Concur Or Agree. 

At Edinburgh University, performative neuroticism reaches new heights:

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For newcomers and the nostalgic, more items from the archives:

Trump, Erections, And A Lack Thereof. 

Salon’s Chauncey DeVega and academic powerhouse Dr Susan Block get hot and bothered.

While I can boast no credentials as a high priestess of the erotic arts and sciences, unlike Dr Susan Block, “founder and director of the Dr Susan Block Institute for the Erotic Arts & Sciences,” a layman’s thought occurs. If the existence of Donald Trump is interfering with your sex life, bringing it to a standstill, then perhaps you’re thinking about Mr Trump a little too much. More than one ought, at least while under the duvet and attempting to get busy. 

Their Happiness Hurt My Feelings. 

Woke academic says evidence of a happy marriage is a “microaggression” and should therefore be hidden.

It turns out that the reckless visibility of a wedding photo may be crushing the self-esteem out of the touchily unwed. You see, the mere sight of a photo of someone’s happy day can “crowd out the experiences of people with minoritized social identities,” albeit in ways never quite explained. Other taboos include references to “simple activities like family dance parties,” which are apparently a thing, and “gardening with a spouse.” Curiously, given the stated importance of “sensitivity” and being mindful of what things might mean, we aren’t invited to ponder the kind of person who would resent someone else’s wedding photo. And then complain about it. Or whether such neurotic affectations, these unhappy mental habits, are something to be actively encouraged. In the name of progress. 

Please Stop Objecting To The Assault Of Your Person.

A professor of art education applauds the misbehaviour of his browner students.

The Year Reheated

In which we marvel at the mental contortions of our self-imagined betters.

        The year began with an oddly specific medical diagnosis courtesy of the Guardian, where Afua Hirsch informed us that boob eczema is caused by “racist microaggressions.” Readers were left to suppose that the condition might only be resolved by lengthy grumbling about “structural racism” and the oppressive nature of “whiteness.” More prosaic solutions – say, a change of detergent, or indeed bra, were not explored. “Whiteness” also bedevilled Ms Cristina Beltrán, an associate professor of social and cultural analysis at New York University, who was both mystified and aggravated by the existence of non-white Trump supporters, and who identified “multiracial whiteness” as the only conceivable explanation. For Ms Beltrán, non-white voters who prefer to be engaged with as individuals, as opposed to racial mascots, are merely surrendering to “whiteness” and “white supremacy.” And so, Ms Beltrán bemoaned racism and “the debasement of others” while casually erasing agency from anyone brownish who happens to disagree with her.

Meanwhile, academics at the University of York were rendered fretful and distraught by an image on the website of an art history conference – specifically, of the seventeenth-century Buddhist figurine, the three wise monkeys – which, via much focussing of intersectional lenses, was construed by our academics as a caricature of black people, and therefore oppressive. And denunciations of “whiteness” and “white supremacy” also featured in a mandatory course at the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine. On grounds that, in order to be a dentist, you must first submit to condescension and insults, and accusations of being either a bigot or an enabler of bigotry, based solely on unchangeable aspects of your appearance. 

        In February, we beheld the chutzpah of our new downtrodden elite at the United Nations International School, where the children of diplomats and titans of international banking insisted that even a single mispronunciation of an unobvious name is a form of “racial trauma” inflicted by “the white man’s mouth.” Elsewhere, at the University of Minnesota, we heard one student recount his experience of racial profiling and police brutality – “the most traumatic thing I have ever experienced” – and then, thanks to dashcam video, saw what actually happened. 

And in the Los Angeles Times, the scrupulously progressive Virginia Heffernan aired her outrage at neighbours who cleared the snow from her driveway, but failed to vote for Joe Biden - the latter act requiring “absolution,” and thus excusing Ms Heffernan’s supposedly principled ingratitude for the former. You see, resenting neighbours’ acts of kindness, and publicly badmouthing those neighbours, in print, is the progressive way, and a basis for expecting applause.   

Oh, and we also learned how to turn toilet paper into drinkable alcohol.

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For newcomers and the nostalgic, more items from the archives:

Loving Themselves.

Fat feminist students fight the patriarchy by gorging on doughnuts and thick, liquid pudding.

Yes, students with weight issues – issues of such magnitude that they have anger to release - will be encouraged to gorge on doughnuts and thick sugary drinks requiring an extra-wide straw, before hating themselves all over again, while pretending to be empowered and totally okay with it. You see, the way to help overweight people is to encourage the kind of high-sugar consumption that results in weight gain and inviting them to smash objects that remind them of how unhappy they are about being fat. A situation that they’ve just made slightly worse. 

One For The Ladies.

A Guardian writer tries his hand at saucy celebrity news. Things take a strange turn.

Apparently, “gay twink culture” is feeding into straight desire, albeit in ways never specified; and yet, complains our columnist, these ephebophile appetites are “nowhere to be seen in the People [Sexiest Man Alive] list.” Readers will doubtless be shocked by the revelation that the middle-aged ladies who buy People magazine, many of whom have children of their own, aren’t overwhelmingly aroused by the kind of skinny young men whose fame is based on playing skinny 17-year-old boys who get seduced by older men in the kind of art-house films loved by Guardian columnists.

The Psychology Of “Social Justice” Is A Thing To Behold.

Leftist professor advises students to say “fuck you” to potential employers. 

Readers with an academic bent will be thrilled to hear that Dr Strouse’s dissertation is titled Literary Theories of the Foreskin. This work of tremendous cultural and intellectual heft “investigates a school of thought in which the prepuce, as a conceptual metaphor, organises literary experience.” It also, apparently, “demonstrates that, within the school of preputial poetics, the male anatomy queerly embodies the plasticity and multiplicity of rhetoric.”

Should you want more, by all means click here. Also, open thread. Share ye links and bicker. 

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For newcomers and the nostalgic, more items from the archives:

Please Update Your Files And Lifestyles Accordingly.

Natan Last is a “fitful poet,” a Brooklynite, and a graduate of Columbia. Also, he will save us. 

The world of woke crossword-puzzlers - because that’s a thing that exists - is one in which enthusiasts, via social media, grumble about white men, bemoan the insufficient prominence of “queer or POC colloquialisms,” share “off-colour jokes about hypothetical titles for a Melania Trump memoir,” and fret about the exact ratio of male and female names used as clues. Because a lack of “gender parity” in crossword puzzle clues constitutes one of “the systemic forces that threaten women.” Crossword puzzles can do that, apparently.

She Feels Unclean. 

A woe is invented. A solution is discovered.

Gratuitous drama and “drenching guilt” aside, I’m not entirely sure why hiring a cleaner should obviously be more fraught than hiring, say, a gardener or roofer… But for the kind of middle-class feminist who as recreation writes for the Observer, life is apparently an endless moral torture inflicted by minor, everyday events, or at least an exhausting theatre of pretending to be tortured by minor, everyday events. Which of the two constitutes a more harrowing and nightmarish existence, I leave to the reader. 

And somewhat related,

Telepathy Not A Thing, Women Hardest Hit. 

Feminist titan Gemma Hartley bemoans the chore of getting her multiple bathrooms cleaned by someone else.