The macabre social justice theory masking the far-left’s smorgasbord of anti-American initiatives is premised on the twin deceptions of “subconscious bias” and ancient, inter-racial grievances prismed through revisionist history and genealogical tracing. Neither premise is meritorious, though both are pernicious. The shallow effort to “trace” historic grievances is particularly easy to expose as ideological chicanery.
When social justice warriors trace histories, it is through the race lens — past “people of color” grievances eclipse white ones (including Jews); “people of color” acts of virtue overshadow abolitionism or other potential white absolution from race-condemnation. Because it lacks a significant “native” black/colored population, Vermont’s clear history includes very few grievance narratives of BIPOC (“black or indigenous people of color”). Contrastingly, Vermonter Alexander Twilight was the nation’s first black college graduate (1823) and legislator (1836), whose black father reputedly fought in the American Revolution — this hero reflects poorly on the “white supremacist Vermont” ideological blackwashing being inflicted on his white contemporaries.
Consequently, Vermont’s social justice theoreticians fashion a race-narrative that counters Vermont’s true history. Black victims such as George Floyd must be imported, along with overpaid professional“diversity equity and inclusion” culture-destroyers; Alexander Twilight and his legacy are flushed down the cancel-culture toilet, to compost with the dreams of Martin Luther King., Jr.
The “social justice movement” is founded on allegations of historic race-based harms through institutionalized slavery. To do this, it engages in selective moral tracing, exposing its very real (not theoretical) disconnect from both history and equity.
My great-great-great-great-grandfather Solomon Stoddard bought a small sheep farm in Vermont in about 1815. The land had been largely cleared, and Solomon never owned slaves, nor did any of his progeny. Some members of the Stoddard clan fought nobly in the Civil War, and many of us still live on that same land.
In contrast, Xusana Davis, Vermont’s Executive Director of Racial Equity, is a first-generation immigrant whose parents both presumably benefited greatly from their American citizenship. Xusana herself attended two very prestigious and expensive universities. Now she is paid some $100,000 annually (plus benefits!) to condemn white Vermonters for the sins of the largely vanished Abenaki Indians and southern plantations. These contrasting histories grind like fingernails against the powdered chalkboard of social justice religiosity.
One social justice gaffe flopped right out the gate: “American Descendants of Slavery” (ADOS). Apparently the social justice magicians didn’t get their spell-casting act together for this foible — the effort quickly fizzled, for obvious reasons. Xusana Davis definitely would be excluded from an ADOS identity group, and imagine the difficulty proving bona fides for membership! There would have to be actual evidence of offense.
But once humans start claiming genetic virtues (or hardships) via intergenerational heritage, all ideological Hell breaks loose. My mother’s father immigrated to Williamstown, Vermont from Belgium in the late 19th Century. My Jewish great-great-grandfather John Klar moved to Massachusetts from Germany – post Civil War, pre-World War II. What crimes shall SJW’s lay upon these old dead white men?
My father’s mother was significantly Abenaki. What card-carrying social justice power shall I possess for this unearned “privilege”? My grandmother experienced discrimination in Vermont — by individuals, not a “system” (though, the Progressives have visited these mountains with that Social Justice ruse). Now a newly arrived Latina woman weaponizes my heritage to discriminate against me and my progeny?
The problem with elevating bloodlines above the common-sense Dream of Martin Luther King, Jr. is that there is no merit in them. Merit is found in living individuals — in what they do, not in what skin they unwillingly wear. To judge people for others’ past sins, and alleged but unestablished “subconscious bias,” is a dystopian folly — what Thomas Sowell dubs a “seemingly invincible fallacy.”
My great-great-great-great-grandfather Solomon Stoddard reportedly lived for five winters in a stone foundation hole before buying the family farm — that foundation hole is still there as testimony. But another piece of trivia about him is that he was merely one of 32 biological great-great-great-greats, though to be genetically balanced (if gender-binary), there were also 32 great-great-great-great-grandmothers, each with yet two more sinning parents.
How far back in time does the social justice “theory” propose to reach, in its experimental test run? By what race-tracking, apartheid-shadowing mechanism will it monitor past sins and present skins? I am Abenaki but there is no way to prove this, and none currently required by the State of Vermont in order to receive favorable healthcare treatment, vaccination prioritization, land, rights, and funds.
So much for equal protection. Tracking bloodlines is as impossible and disgusting today as it was when South African racists employed it during apartheid. Tracking vice and virtue, or subconscious prejudices, using genetic melanin-measures is simply barbaric tribalism.
John Klar is an attorney and farmer residing in Brookfield. © Copyright True North Reports 2022. All rights reserved.
Great piece John.
It has never BEEN about race, in this or any other divisive labeling that puts people into convenient containers that computer models LOVE, but which, as you point out, is not HUMAN on any level.
Character, ethics, morality – THOSE are human and are right to be examined – but ONLY in the context of leaders whose merit is on the line AS a leader for those who need to be led.
Manufactured divide and conquer has always worked amongst those who will always see themselves as VICTIMS, and not as survivors, with high ethical and moral standards THAT HAVE BEEN TESTED and survived intact.
Incorruptibility is a soul covenant, and it means, I will not engage in any bias that divides me from my fellow humanity no matter who they are.
A compromised corrupt individual engages in divisive boxing and labeling for computer programs that confirm bias… its called CONFIRMATION BIAS.
As an artist, I had an art teacher who cautioned us, when both doing and viewing abstract art, NOT to say, “Well that looks like a ….”, in what she called The Mickey Mouse theory. Because once you see Mickey Mouse in an abstract painting, you will always see it, and never ever appreciate the intent of the artist and what THEY were expressing.
I do not see color or gender when I meet someone. Its a bit confusing for people whose only connection to themselves is an outside label they essentially wear, when I overlook those petty ante boxes and false identities (how can you BE your clothing, or you genitals, or your whatever? as a spiritual being…), and approach them as a living, breathing, righteous (as in you have every right to be here in any way you please without my comment or approval) HUMAN BEINGS…I get a lot of smiles in return, not surprisingly. People LIKE to be seen for who they really are.
I DO see labels when I look at politicians though, and those are the only HONEST labels we should be insisting upon. But not ironically and quite intentionally, THOSE labels are the hidden ones.
Qui bono?
What the race baiting blacks and white liberals never talk about is the war on blacks by
BLACKS… Whites didn’t kidnap blacks from their tribes in Africa to be sold to slave traders, Blacks
from opposing villages did that… Blacks are not being slaughtered by white cops as the narrative
suggest but are being shot down in the streets by other Blacks at an alarming rate. Cops actually
shot more white’s then blacks. Facts are not friendly to the professional race baiting crowd and it’s only
the rest of the brain dead left that keeps them screaming victim of whitey when it’s clearly not.
As long as blm’ers execs are becoming millionaires and blacks receive no support from them this
will continue like the warming sham.
Mr. Klar: You can neither debate nor argue with fanatic religious dogmatists. It cannot be done. The Truth is what they say it is; all else is heresy to be damned, forbidden, expunged. And you, nonbeliever in Truth, to be demonized, persecuted and shunned. Like Geocentric Universe or AGW. Joe Biden: “We accept Truth over facts!” It inspires overwhelming fear that they express glowing pride in the past year’s accomplishments of Joe Biden and fearsome wrath at those who have stood in the way of even greater Progressive achievements. Small wonder they strive to disarm those of us who obey laws, who support the Constitution, who want voters to have identification.