One of the biggest proponents of Critical Race Theory is Ibram X. Kendi. Watch how Kendi does the Catch-22 Tango, care of Andrew Sullivan, to make himself appear smart.
This is what the old-time Snake Oil Salesmen used to do but Kendi went Academic and makes WAY more than those horse-drawn bozos ever thought of doing. But they all prey on the same weak-minded morons that’ll believe The Emperor really did have New Clothes (emphasis mine):
I caught a glimpse of Ibram X. Kendi’s recent appearance at the Aspen Ideas Festival, the annual woke, oxygen-deprived hajj for the left-media elites. He was asked to define racism — something you’d think he’d have thought a bit about. This was his response:
“Racism is a collection of racist policies that lead to racial inequity that are substantiated by racist ideas.”
He does this a lot. He repeats Yoda-stye formulae: “There is no such thing as a nonracist or race-neutral policy … If discrimination is creating equity, then it is antiracist. If discrimination is creating inequity, then it is racist.” These maxims pepper his tomes like deep thoughts in a self-help book. When he proposes specific action to counter racism, for example, he suggests: “Deploy antiracist power to compel or drive from power the unsympathetic racist policymakers in order to institute the antiracist policy.” “Always vote for the leftist” is a bit blunter.
Kendi depends on the fact that because he’s Black and at the forefront of this CRT nonsense, people won’t call him out over this silliness (or stupidity) masking itself as magnificent rhetoric.
Does he realize that, if confronted and truly asked to define things the way the rest of us must, he’d have to fold like a cheap suit?
Continuously repeating the same limited set of words and brazenly expecting the rest of us to let him get away with that is high-level Chutzpah.
Orwell had Kendi’s number: “The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself. If the speech he is making is one that he is accustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying, as one is when one utters the responses in church. And this reduced state of consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favourable to political conformity.” And that conformity is proven by the gawking, moneyed, largely white, Atlantic subscribers hanging on every one of this lightweight’s meaningless words — as if they really were in church.
So, who is better at nonsense: Biden or Kendi?
To me, it would be a toss-up. Biden seems to have the physical disadvantage that his mind is melting. Kendi believes that OUR minds have already melted.
But back to Andrew Sullivan – and pay close attention to what he writes because it is key to how the Left is working to destabilize the rest of us.
Orwell showed that words have meanings and that if you do away with words, the meaning (the thoughts for which those words exist) of those words disappear. It is a constant barrage and shifting sands with these people:
The most dedicated abusers of the English language, of course, are the alphabet people. They have long since abandoned any pretense at speaking English and instead bombard us with new words: “cisheteropatriarchy”, “homonormativity”, “fraysexuality”, “neutrois”, “transmasculine”, “transmisogynoir”, and on and on. To give you a sense of the completely abstract bullshit involved here, take a style guide given out to journalists by trans activists, instructing them on how to cover transgender questions. (I’m wondering how Orwell would respond if given such a sheet of words he can and cannot use.
Yes, dear readers, I would do EXACTLY what you might be thinking if such people tried to do so with me. And frankly, I’m sure, a lot of you would as well.
Let’s just say: not like reporters for the Washington Post.) Here’s the guide’s definition of “gender nonconforming”: “[it] refers to gender presentations outside typical gendered expectations. Note that gender nonconforming is not a synonym for non-binary. While many non-binary people are gender nonconforming, many gender nonconforming people are also cisgender.”
As Sullivan just said, it’s all BS all the way down. Again, they can’t define the terms honestly – they know the rest of us would just laugh at them. The severe problem is, however, is that not enough of us are doing the laughing. But the main point starts NOW:
This is a kind of bewildering, private language. But the whole point of the guide is to make it our public language, to force other people to use these invented words, to make the entire society learn and repeat the equivalent of their own post-modern sanskrit. This is our contemporary version of what Orwell went on to describe as “newspeak” in Nineteen Eighty-Four: a vocabulary designed to make certain ideas literally unthinkable because woke language has banished them from use. Repeat the words “structural racism” and “white supremacy” and “cisheteropatriarchy” often enough, and people come to believe these things exist unquestioningly. Talk about the LGBTQIA2S+ community and eventually, people will believe it exists (spoiler alert: it doesn’t).
And that is the only recourse an average citizen has when buried by this avalanche of abstraction: ask the language-launderers what they are really talking about.
And these Left whining subverters KNOW that as soon as you ask, you’re done. Game over, head to the lockers, because you have been had. And unless you start fighting back, you’ve lost. We have to CHALLENGE each and every assertion because we have to understand that every sliver of spittle that comes out of their mouths is a single point in The Big Lie. But like the fasces of the Mussolini, each one exists to reinforce the other.
When some doofus apologizes for the “terrible pain” they have caused to the whatever community, ask them to give a specific example of that “pain.” When someone says “structural racism,” ask: what actual “structures” are you referring to? How do they actually work? Give concrete examples.
When someone calls American society “white supremacy”, ask them how you could show that America is not a form of “white supremacy”. When someone uses the word “Latinx”, ask them which country does that refer to. When someone says something is “problematic”, ask them to whom? When you’re told you’re meeting with members of the BIPOC or AANHPI communities, ask them first to translate and then why this is in any way relevant, and why every single member of those communities are expected to have the same opinion. And when you’re told that today is IDAHOBIT Day, ask them if you can speak to Frodo.
I have to admit, I had to look that one up (which is part of their schtick – just keep making crap up to keep you off balance. It is just as crappy as one would think: IDAHOBIT stands for the ‘International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Intersexism and Transphobia’ which is a globally recognized date falling on the 17th of May every year.
Which, of course, if you are White, you’re Guilty as sin. Except, since most are godless, they’ve redefined sin as well. Can I go take a shower now?
Yes, some humor is key to fighting back.
Yep – Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals #5. Just remember, the Left keeps inventing the Rules – we just keep using them to tick them off. But like I’ve been saying for a while:
But the core truth is: we do not have to speak this debased and decadent language. It is designed to overwhelm and confuse and smother and subdue. And the more it is used by elites, the more normal Americans, still living in the real world, feel utterly alienated by their masters, and the deeper our divide goes. Reclaiming our discourse from these ideological contraptions will make our writing better. It will help us think more clearly. And it could help re-start a genuinely national conversation. In everyday English, the language of democracy.
Having read all that, NOW go back and read the example of Kendi, the darling of the Left. No, no a darling because of his racist rants but because he’s invoking the Tool of Speech in yet another way that diminishes the rest of in front of its Agenda. Yet another rope and duct tape with which to silence us and not allow dissent.
Yep, gone long again, but this is a PERFECT example of understanding WHY we have to fight this distortion and WHAT some of the techniques are that can be used to club them back.
(H/T: Instapundit)
