A Judge Judged Guilty of “Wrongspeak” is Forced to Resign

“Soon, we will all be forced to make a choice, if, in our silence and compliance, we haven’t made it already.”

The Social Justice catechism has now been adopted by countless bureaucracies and administrations, from local governments, to schools, to private industry. Never in any of our lifetimes has speech, and speech alone, dear readers—even the utterance of a single word, whether used insultingly or innocently—been so fraught with peril.

Five hundred years ago challenging the edicts of the church might get one excommunicated, so today, challenging the edicts of the SJ/ BLM movement, (what I have otherwise called Postmarxism), might get you censored or fired. No one is immune from judgement, not even a Colorado Judge, Natalie Chase, as we discover here. Her principle sins were three: 1): While driving in a car with a black court employee she wondered aloud as to why black people can use the N-word, but white people can’t? Does it make a difference whether there is an ‘r’ at the end of the slur or an ‘a’? 2): She expressed disagreement with NFL players who, per the BLM playbook, took a knee during the singing of the national anthem 3): During an exchange with court employees who were schooling her on the catechism of BLM, she contended that “all lives matter.” On the basis of these three doctrinal errors, she was forced to resign, even after she offered an apology.

Only once in American history, during the alien and sedition laws of 1798, have crimes of speech risen to this abhorrent and terrifying level. Even during the darkest days of McCarthyism, no one was fired for the mere expression of sympathy, say, for the tenets of communism, and Hollywood had to be impelled by congress to ferret out the “reds in its midsts.’ Today it’s the “unrepentant whites in our midsts” that need to be ferreted out: business, industry, private or public, and now even courts have taken the lead in erecting an extra-judicial system, a Fifth Estate that is swiftly moving to supersede the First Estate (the clergy) in an attempt to monitor our language and ultimately purge us of certain “harmful” sacrilegious thoughts. This is cause for concern for many traditional liberals, like ourselves at The Artifa[ctuals]: on the one hand freedom of expression is the foundation for freedom per se. On the other hand, liberals find common cause with the more morally high grounded aims of the SJ and BLM movement. But that movement, we must now conclude less we blinker our consciences into pointlessness, violates the deepest convictions of liberalism; postmarxist maxim holds that freedom of expression is a vestige of white privilege, a conceit of the pale and powerful, and it has no scruples in making our thoughts and expressions bend to its sinister will. Dialectic is done. Soon, we will all be forced to make a choice, if, in our silence and compliance, we haven’t made it already.

Empathy Is Now A Conceit of the Privileged

“Was talking with Mom & She Said ‘I Watched Trial Of Policeman Who Killed George Floyd, & Cried’. I Said ‘Mom, I Know This Is Gonna Sound CRAZY, But.. I Kept Thinking …..Maybe If I’d Been There,…I Could’ve Helped.” This was Cher, also of “Sonny and Cher,” reflexively tweeting in response to videos of George Floyd that aired during the trial surrounding his death. Cher is half-Armenian and part-Cherokee (the basis of her famous song “Half Breed“), hardly ethnicities that came from “privilege;” more like raped and pillaged and exiled from their ancestral home lands. Perhaps that history was playing out in her mind when she tweeted those words while her mom cried, who knows. In any case, the demented SJ mob descended upon her because, we discover, empathy is also a conceit of the privileged. “I say this with respect: White savior complex. Stop.” This remonstration came from a Twitterer who goes by “Goth Frida Kahlo.” GFK has all of 89 followers and describes herself as “Erotic Laborer and Wannabe Comedy Writer.” But it didn’t matter that she was a nobody “Erotic Laborer”; her 280 characters or less sent Cher scrambling back and forth in penance, apologizing profusely to all those people she’d offended, even if, we imagine, she couldn’t imagine how she offended them or who they were. When will the rich and powerful tell these Twits to “just shut the fuck up.” Our culture is now in the grips of morbid Goths. We used to wait for what our most learned and earnest cultural arbiters had to say on a matter; now, it’s the likes of GFK, sadistic and patently humorless out of work wannabes who are vetting our comments and shaping the rules which we are increasingly obliged to obey. “Clients,” GFK recently tweeted [I kid you not], “I’m retiring from FSSW and fully recommitting strictly to pro BDSM. I gotta keep it true and real and focus on what brings me joy, cock and ball torture.” As though we couldn’t have guessed.

The Inscrutable Racism of Sponge Bob

Even our beloved sponge is getting put through a ringer? Will they stop at nothing short of dish rags? The scandal surrounds an episode titled “Kwarantine Crab,” featuring a health inspector quarantining the patrons of the Krusty Krab restaurant after discovering a case of clam flu. Paramount and Amazon and Nickelodeon yanked the episode because of unspecified “sensitivities” surrounding the virus, as though our children haven’t been battered into unconsciousness already by the year long internal siege they’ve been made to endure. But, maybe it had less to do with the pandemic per se, as, according to this article, it had everything to do with racism: “The removal of the “Kwarantined Crab” comes during a time of increased anti-Asian violence in the United States.” China—like our aquatic health inspector—did forcibly quarantine people who contracted Covid, but would our kids be cognizant of such a pernicious fact? Maybe they’ll be tipped off by the “Kw” (think Chinese names like “Kwon” or “Kwok” or “Kwai”) in the spelling of quarantine; or perhaps “clam” flu is associated too closely for comfort with clams with black bean sauce in kids’ brains? Or more likely it had nothing whatsoever to do with our children and their interests—as though our X-rated profiteers are dedicated PG-rated pediatricians—but rather it had to do with Xi and the “sensitivities” of the Chinese “kash kow” that brooks no criticism. Looks like Nickelodeon and the rest crossed the thin Red line.

Smith student cries wolf, the wolf is a sheep, and the NYT is the butcher

This story itself (I know there is a paywall but just put your browser on private mode and you should be able to access it) is very worth reading, both because it supports our contention that the Social Justice movement is, at its core, a death cult; but it’s also worth reading because in the story we find, for the first time, I think, the NYT doing a most quiet about face on its own earlier SocialJustice reporting on the incident, attempting to absolve itself of the charge of journalistic malpractice, if not murder.

Here is the self-damning sentence, that the NYT so casually inserts a few graphs into the story: “The New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN picked up the story of a young female student harassed by white workers. The American Civil Liberties Union, which took the student’s case, said she was profiled for “eating while Black.” As it turned out, she was a pathological liar, as most of the social justice neurotics are.

But this is more about the activist reporters, who, let’s face it, at least on the social-cultural beat, are a bunch of self-congratulating hacks, mindless puppets for the SJ ventriloquists who have taken their decadent roadshow from one town to the next, and burning that town down as they go.

Just confect any tall tale that you’re a victim of racism or sexism and they come running towards you with their pens in hand, ready to repeat in print what you mumble between sobs—to hell with what the ugly -white -other-side has to say. I wonder, did they interview the white campus police officer, he who makes $17 an hour and supposedly uttered those vile words to that degraded co-ed? Isn’t that what reporters are supposed to do? “A low life campus police officer, why would we? She’s a Smith (or Vassar or Yale or Oberlin, etc., ad nauseam) student after all—just like we were once upon a time! So long as she’s black, her word is as good as gold!”

This is how they think, dear readers, but here’s what I think: now that the Prince of Darkness has been vanquished, the so-called Major Media will begin to gingerly wake up from their wokeness, one story, one mea culpa, at a time. Now that the Prince of Darkness is gone they are going to reconsider their whiteness, whether, in fact, there were traces of virtue running in their pale blood all along! But only Twitter will tell whether it will end in bang or a whimper.

“To understand what was in the video, I asked if she had called someone else the slur or whether she was rapping or quoting a book title. In asking the question, I used the slur itself.” This was the explanation by Donald McNeil Jr. (a white name if there ever were one!) the NYTimes top science writer, and one of America’s best, just before he resigned last week after a lynch mob of “young journalists” hanged him from the NYTimes tree. Apparently, merely using the slur “ni–er” is now as taboo as Orthodox Jews using the word “G-d” in their writing.

‘“I should not have done that,” McNeil confessed in a Friday email shared with Times staff. “ Originally, I thought the context in which I used this ugly word could be defended.”’ One of the hallmarks of the Postmarxists is their intolerance for context or gradations. The word and the word alone is forbidden to utter lest one condemn oneself to purgatory. But perhaps purgatory is the wrong word, as at least Christians allowed for forgiveness upon confessing a sin. This, rather, absolutist attitude better reflects the religion of the most brutal of primitives. It is a mind-bending reversal of the enlightenment values of learned, measured readings of reality, and, more to the point, traditional liberals’ belief in the relativeness of ethics (situational ethics) and the slipperiness and subtleties and playfulness of language itself. This made for great comedians. In his autobiography, “Pryor Convictions,” Pryor wrote, “Nigger. And so this one night I decided to make it my own. Nigger. I decided to take the sting out of it. Nigger. As if saying it over and over again would numb me and everybody else to its wretchedness. Nigger. Said it over and over like a preacher singing hallelujah.” Language can be turned on others, turned on oneself, or even turned on itself—as Pryor seems to be doing here—until its purchase on our world view evaporates. The freedom to use words in whatever way we chose was a mark of our individuality. Liberals embraced this reality. 

We are now deep into a different dispensation, led by a new “children’s crusade” that has even the most powerful and sophisticated adults cowering. It is judgmental, humorless, has a strict catechism and demands piety. A new religion, in short. With the Biden administration, we’ll see Church and State coming together as they haven’t for a hundred years. McNeil should never have apologized. In groveling for forgiveness the way he did he dragged the rest of sane society down with him.

The Social Justice movement continues twisting and turning upon itself until its grotesquery is almost too much to bear. In this weird case, a Galveston Mayoral Candidate, one Bo Quiroga, said at a campaign speech, “Believe me, I’m a clean Mexican. I want the streets cleaned. I want the paper picked up. I want everything looking real good.” The speech was videod and posted for all to see. I’m mean, let’s face it, exploiting a comment like that was a no-brainer. So, in due time, the opposing candidate, one white Blair, did exploit it. He wrote in the comment section of the video post: “He’s a clean Mexican? Wow.” Lots of harm, but no foul by any reasonably human standards. But noooo! Bo accused the white Blair of racism for repeating what Bo said. Apparently, we’ve reached a point where only POC are allowed to repeat the words of a POC lest they be accused of racism.

Racist Restaurant? Now, Yelp will Howl on your Behalf.

We can’t ever remember stepping into a racist restaurant, and probably neither, dear reader, can you. Whether it’s Thai, or Mexican, or Peruvian, hardly a restaurant turns away a polite, paying customer, especially since Covid—when nearly half of them are scraping by just to meet rent. Still, The Social Justice mob has convinced Yelp to convince itself that Racism is so prevalent in eateries that special action must be taken. Hence, from here on out a warning label will be placed next to any restaurant listed on Yelp that is accused of Racism. Didn’t get your shish-kebob cooked to pink perfection? Maybe that Armenian owner (who also chain smokes cigarettes right in front of the door, disgusting!) has it out for you because you once asked him if the restaurant was Lebanese. You had to send that chicken curry back to the kitchen three times because it wasn’t spicy enough!!! Perhaps your white complexion fed the waitresses’ “unconscious bias” that you couldn’t handle heat? Notice how that Thai joint down the street had no Latinos serving, but half a dozen of them were fucking bussing tables? In the future, we imagine, Yelp reviewers themselves will get “labelled” as racists for not frequenting the likes of Roscoe’s Chickens and Waffles.

Fire ’em up coach! Wait, I meant, toss coach on the fire! High five!

We enjoy irony in this column, but this story actually leaves no room for anything other than the soberest approach. It’s undeniable that the Social Justice Priestesses and Priests want to abolish Christians, but more importantly, Christianity. Christianity’s global embrace of humanity— Paul’s words”There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”—are hate speech to the ears of those who seek to divide and conquer along tribal lines. This coach, an offensive coordinator at Illinois State, had the temerity to take down a BLM sign that was posted on his door. He didn’t like that someone would put a sign up on his door that he hadn’t put up himself. Fair enough, we think. Yet, predictably, before long, the PC vultures descended, and he was forced to quit. But, he left behind a sign of his own on the way out: “All Lives Matter to Our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ.” We imagine for that heresy, he’ll be consigned to the ranks of some Christian High School for the balance of his coaching life. BLM, we must regrettably conclude, is the new Gospel.
Source

I used to be a professor; now I’m a mouse.

everyone who teaches knows, the Social Justice Priests and Priestesses have successfully silenced dissenting views in the formerly garrulous halls of Academia. The captains and titans of free speech and free thought are now like mice scurrying into the remotest corners of the ship in fear of getting caught in the social media trap. “Yes, I have tenure, but that doesn’t mean they can’t take away some of my travel money to a conference I intend to attend next Spring !” Hence, they “keep their heads low,” and “their mouths shut,” in fear of retribution, embarrassingly contenting themselves with the crumbs, e.g. occasionally “challenging” students in the classroom to “think more broadly about these matters,” etc. Sometimes to get one’s point through to the larger public requires professors take weird measures. In this depressing case, an alleged UNH professor used a twitter pseudonym and posed as a Woman of Color. S(He) wrote, “I was successful in killing my dept’s woke statement on recent social unrest…“ And “I was successful in removing all woke terminology from the statement including anti-racism, white supremacy, white privilege, and claims of systemic racism. Before attempting a similar feat, it’s important to make sure you know what all these terms really mean.” Naturally, everyone was emotionally torn asunder! We imagine the reply: “If you don’t know what those terms mean then you weren’t listening, or you refuse to understand; in either case, it means then you’re a RACIST. Done!”
Source

In the annals of Social Justice, this may go down as one of the greatest absurdities of that movement’s endless absurdities, a true mind-twister. Princeton University claims it is racist, so naturally the Justice Department want to know just how so that it can decide whether it has broken the law. We suspect, of course, that it doesn’t REALLY believe it was racist against POC, not in the commonsensical use of that term. In fact, as everyone knows, in the commonsensical use of that term Princeton bends over backwards to admit POC. Still, it is racist, per its own admission, in the nonsensical use of the term, otherwise known as “systemic racism.” But there is another layer of absurdity to this psychosis inducing cake. As everyone knows, Princeton, like Harvard and many of the so-called Top Tier schools, is indeed racist, only towards a race, Asians, that is not part of the Social Justice catechism. In Sum: Princeton must deny being Racist towards Asians, though it is in fact racist; must deny it is Racist towards other POC to avoid the DOJ’s wrath; and to placate the Social Justice crowd it must admit it is Racist toward POC “systemically.” All of this dementedness coming from one of our most coveted academic institutions; let it sink in. Source

“My childhood dream was to be black or brown so that I could teach college in Fresno!” We’re beginning to feel bad for all these non-POC grad students whose prospects of getting a teaching position are next to nil. Imagine spending seven or so years of your life getting a Ph.D. only to be consigned to an adjunct position at a community college, preferably close to your parents home, as you’ll definitely need your old bedroom back. Or perhaps we shouldn’t feel bad. Maybe they—how CV Vitolo-Haddad, the subject of this article, prefers to pronoun herself—felt that for how deeply enmeshed they was with the Social Justice Movement they felt they’d receive an indulgence. Can humanities Ph.D. programs produce anything more sickly than they’re currently producing? Wasn’t it once upon a time all about “embracing and accepting” yourself. Them days, let’s here conclude, are finished.
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Added commentary by our very own Philalethes

THIS WAY TO THE AUTO DA FÉ, LADIES, GENTLEMEN, AND OTHERS.

Turns out some honky professor who calls theirself by the viable pronoun they— so me don’t know whether they is a he she or a it— also claimed they was Black and Cuban while in fact they is Sicilian (with a touch of the Saracen tarbrush in the second muzzle of they’s double-barreled name) but that’s by descent, your doesn’t think they was born in Palermo or in her sea what he is between Scylla and Charybdis which would make zi Aquatic and anyhoo it got outed by a poster what was posted by persons or peoples unknown in Wisconsin where him were supposed to come to the Golden State from, and now Fresno State it has withdrawn a offer zi made to her and said lots of people is traumatized, wounded, depressed, sad, and also unhappy because Mr./Mrs./Dr./Rabbi/Father/Pastor/Imam (just not Prof., so long, sucker) Vitolo/Hadad aren’t what/who it claimed to be & that has really truly upset peoples so much that like they is losing his lunch. 

The above paragraph has been patrolled for Gender Neutrality. In keeping with the new Chicago Manual of Style (Not), we have also endeavored to violate the white-privileged rules of grammar. Punctuation seemed inevitable at, well, points, and that may make readers under thirty break down in heartbroken sobs. They are invited to enjoy “therapy” at our petting zoo. The crocodiles are waiting, tears and all.

Gauleiter Noisome in Pimento has dispatched all firepersons involved in mostly peaceful mediation with wildfires to the Scenic Campus to serve as grief counselors. “It’s all because of Global Warming anyhow so why even try to put out the fires. The Donald is to blame,” said Noisome at a press conference, quickly pocketing a handsome wad of yuan. Presidential candidate Bidet when reached for comment said, “Wha? Who?” Then it was time for his nap.

Cistrans student Tukulti Ninurta Washington, who wishes to be identified as Assyrianx, said to this reporter, “Like, I feel microaggressed against.” While being led to the pyre, Vitolo/Hadad said to this reporter, “Sniffle, sniffle. I’m really not Black. I just wanted the other children to like me and share their toys.” 

And in the meantime Sicilian spokesmen (yeah, spokesMEN, ya gotta problem widdat?) have promised that a whole lot of liberals will be enjoying fish dinners real soon. Like around early November. Asked what exactly that meant, one of them leaned real close to the microphone and opined, “I don’t know and I don’t wanna know.” Asked if they were aware of Vitolo/Hadad’s whereabouts, they expressed sincere regret that he seemed not to esteem adequately his picturesque southern Italian heritage and said, “Haven’t seen him around. I think he moved to California.” (Verbum sapienti) 

“Someone needs firewood this winter!” reads a tweet. “JK’s new book is perfect to burn.”

J.K. Rowling is not the best writer—let’s get that out of the way. Now she has a new book “Troubled Blood,” written under a male pseudonym. It’s probably not that great a read either, but one doubts it deserve to be thrown on a funereal pyre minutes after it’s been born, what some twitter terrorists of the trans-whatever type want to do with it. Rowling’s excommunicable sin: the villain in her novel is a killer who dresses as a woman! (Of course, should it have been be a man dressed as a women, that would’ve been a stroke of genius, as it would reflect the world perfectly per the politically correct catechism). Apparently, we are beyond those halcyon days when we expected a storyteller to take an unexpected turn, those days when a novelists greatest fear was getting “trashed” by reviewers. “The unifying factor between all types of purposeful book-burners in the 20th century is that the perpetrators feel like victims,” Rebecca Knuth, an expert on these matters said. Beware of victims, friends: their hate has no end, and they especially detest the sacred in the face of which they feel more vulnerable than ever.
Source

Please, let me burn myself at the stake! “I cancel myself.” Imagine, hating yourself so much, feeling so rootless and pointless—meaning, without victimhood, even if you are Jewish (maybe the Holocaust wasn’t quite enough?)—that you “channel” Blackness into your very being, so much so that you believe you are Black, talk in a vaguely ghettoish way that Black people are “supposed” to talk; champion the cause of and teach courses on Black culture. That’s exactly what Ms. Krug, a professor, predictably, at GW University stupefyingly did. Until her “act” was found out. This is a case of “cultural appropriation” in extreme, what can only amount to a kind of identity politics psychopathology.
Source

Naturally, Classical Music is Racist Too! Everyone knows that only old white guys—those who still don knit sweaters and slip into suede slippers, have little respect for Gangsta Rap, maybe smoke pipes and drink scotch, live in nice homes and read Proust— listen to classical music, hence, we shouldn’t be surprised that the emerging consensus among the “reimaginers” is imaging a world without Beethhoven or Brahams. The crime here was exposed via Instagram by someone, two years after it had occurred. This anonymous person was “tasked” with driving two outstanding musicians to the airport following a concert. In the course of the drive, the musicians made a disparaging comment about an audience member, whom they referred to as “big momma.” With careers now in the lurch, all those thousands of hours of practice potentially evaporated in a blink, they quite predictably turned penitent, pleaded for a pardon, and just barely, it seems, avoided total plundering of their careers. We can thank NPR for this stunner, which it reports without a hint of irony or shame.
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Cooking Cancelled Too?
The prestigious James Beard Award for top chefs crumbled this year under accusations of systemic racism, sexism, general exploitation and bullying of restaurant culture (a la, we imagine, “Hell Kitchen” or “Kitchen Nightmares”). Before they cancelled the awards, they tried numerous ways of amending the election process to stave off the twitter and instagram critics, including asking nominees—against whom some crime was alleged— to voluntarily drop out of the nomination process. Eventually, in utter exhaustion, it appears, the organizers threw in the kitchen towel.
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Cat-Nap as Dog Whistle
Professor Patricia Simon, Marymount Manhattan College
July 2020
Claim: Racism (for allegedly falling asleep during an anti-racism zoom meeting).
Consequence: A petition that garnered 1800 signatures calling for her firing.
Source

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Writers “Burn” Their Own Books
Alexandra Duncan, Amélie Wen Zhao, Keira Drake, E. E. Charlton-Trujillo, and Kosoko Jackson
August, 2020
Claim: Racism, Cultural Insensitivity, Violated PC Taboo: “Thou shalt not write from the perspective of anyone other than oneself.”
Consequences:
Duncan retracted book “Ember Days”
Zhao retracted novel “Blood Heir”
Drake retracted “The Continent” (that had the temerity to feature a white girl saving the world from ruin, hence, white privilege)
Kosoko Jackson, an African American and LGBT writer retracted book set in Yugoslavia, hence “cultural insensitivity”
E. E. Charlton-Trujillo retracted novel “When We Were Fierce,” also “cultural insensitivity”
Source

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Lawrence Mead, a professor at NYU,
August 2020
Mead, a leading scholar in welfare reform, wrote a commentary for the Journal Society where he argued that cultural differences lead some cultures to climb out of poverty and others to remained mired in it. He also believes that “assimilation” is necessary for certain groups, like Hispanics, to move up the economic ladder. The commentary has since been retracted and demands for his resignation or firing are ongoing. Take away: the concept of “assimilation” is racist. Source

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Mayor of Holyoke, Alex Morse
August 2020
Using the dating apps Tinder and Grind, Morse, who is gay, hooked up with men who might have been students at Univ. of Mass. Amherst, where he only occasionally taught. No claim is made that he hooked up with his students, just students in general, violating the PC unequal power differential taboo. Morse made no apologies for hooking up, even with 18-year olds, and said, “I want to be very clear about this. I have never, in my entire life, had a non-consensual sexual encounter with anyone. I have never used my position of power as mayor and UMass lecturer for romantic or sexual gain, or to take advantage of students.” An investigation into his “sexual deviancy” is pending (Source) but there is a strong pushback by gay groups, accusing the claimants themselves of a homophobic and politically motivated smear campaign.

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Adolph Reed, Black Marxist Scholar
August, 2020
Seventy-three year old Professor Reed, was invited to speak at the Democratic Socialist New York City chapter. His topic was the coronavirus, and its disproportionate toll on poor people. In order reduce this toll, he believed that a multiracial coalition would be effective petitioning for resources. This emphasis on a big-tent approach, raised the ire of the BLM-types, the Afrosocialists and Socialists of Color Caucus. They protested, and characterized Reed as “reactionary, class reductionist and at best, tone deaf.” Rumors began circulating that they were going to crash the zoom-talk, and the talk was cancelled. Source