Cancel culture IRL

[Cain]

Podcast on topic from Bari Weiss

Does she talk about trying to get professors fired for criticizing Israel?

In Tucker Carlson's latest episode, he wants cameras in classrooms so he can document how widespread CRT teachings have become (and presumably make life more difficult for educators). . It's what "Campus Watch" and similar professor surveillance right-wing outfits advocated since 9/11: recording instructors to stir outrage and get people fired, usually for criticizing Israel, but speaking ill of the troops also works.

 

[ahhell]

Is there a good reason to not have cameras in K-12 classrooms?

 

[pgwenthold]

Is there a good reason to not have cameras in K-12 classrooms?

Atheist YouTuber TellTale had his daughter bring in a recorder into their sex ed class, and recorded the teacher preaching on about the evil of gays and the greatness of God.

He and his daughter got death threats as a result.

You put cameras in classrooms, and it won't be evil commie CRT teachers who are going to be exposed.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Is there a good reason to not have cameras in K-12 classrooms?

Schools are famously not flush with cash in this country.

Given that this is clearly a ploy to gin up more CRT hysteria and is unlikely to result in any beneficial result, it's pretty easy to imagine the money could be better spent in myriad other ways.

Spending money so bat-**** parents can yell at teachers for teaching about segregation or the civil war seems like a poor use of resources.

 

[Darat]

Schools are famously not flush with cash in this country.

Given that this is clearly a ploy to gin up more CRT hysteria and is unlikely to result in any beneficial result, it's pretty easy to imagine the money could be better spent in myriad other ways.

Spending money so bat-**** parents can yell at teachers for teaching about segregation or the civil war seems like a poor use of resources.

Especially as they will still be shouting about the voices in their heads no matter what is seen on a video!

 

[mumblethrax]

Is there a good reason to not have cameras in K-12 classrooms?

I don't particularly think conditioning young people for a life of pervasive surveillance is a good idea.

 

[Graham2001]

From PEN America:

(New York, NY) — PEN America voiced serious concern today over reports that April Powers, previously chief equity and inclusion officer at the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), resigned under pressureas a result of a statement condemning anti-Semitism that triggered vociferous online outrage, on the basis that it failed to address other types of religious or ethnic animus.

https://pen.org/press-release/pen-a...clusion-officer-over-anti-semitism-statement/


Note: I think Bari Weiss has also covered this case.


Commentary from FIRE about what students from countries like North Korea, Venezuela, China (The only 'Real' democracies occording to 'New Times' magazine...)

Vaguely worded laws, censorship, and due process violations are commonplace in some of the most repressive regimes in the world. Therefore, it’s no coincidence that international students flock to the United States from all corners of the globe — making up an amazing 5.5% (~1.1 million) of the total U.S. college student population — to obtain their degrees from universities that promise both academic rigor and academic freedom. Yet some students born in other countries have found themselves facing the same modes of control (if in attenuated fashion) that they faced in their repressive home nations. When they warn us, we should listen.

https://www.thefire.org/immigrants-...-warn-of-free-speech-erosion-in-u-s-academia/


Commentary from a Venezuelan student published by FIRE.

As a University of Michigan student, I recently noticed an uneasy relationship between protests, civil disobedience, and consequences on my college campus. Two weeks into the 2020 fall semester, the university’s Graduate Employees Organization organized a week-long protest asking for the diversion of funds from the Division of Public Safety and Security and greater COVID-19 protections. Several of my peers were invested in GEO’s goal and some of them decided they would not attend any classes until GEO’s demands were met. All students who decided to take part in these demonstrations were able to do so. While the university should not punish students for their speech or protest outside of class, not attending class is effectively an act of civil disobedience, in that it could cost them a class absence. Some students complained that it was unjust that their participation in the protest could affect their participation grades, apparently under the belief that acts of civil disobedience should have no consequences.

Note that she's making a different point, but I find there's a difference between what's called 'Cancel Culture' and the consequences of protest. A lot of activists these days don't value free speech and dismiss it as a 'tool of the powerful'...



https://www.thefire.org/from-caraca...of-free-speech-and-campus-protest-in-america/

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Does it still count as "cancellation" if the racist literally asks for it?

https://twitter.com/DLamontJenkins/status/1412426960672890883

ETA: https://www.nj.com/news/2021/07/residents-protest-outside-home-of-south-jersey-man-accused-of-racially-harassing-neighbors.html

 

[The Atheist]

This is dead-set the funniest thing I've seen in weeks:

School cancels To Kill a Mockingbird

But please, do not stop at the headline!

I have no idea who the publisher of the story is, but the article is a minefield of hilarious snippets, like...

"a black man wrongly accused of ra***g a white woman" Srsly? We've reached a stage where that has to be masked? Sorry, ma***d.

The first sentence of the article is another gem:

A Scottish secondary school will no longer teach the classic novel To Kill A Mockingbird after teachers claimed the book promotes a "white savior" narrative.

Also contains the N word. (Thank christ Biggles isn't in the curriculum!)

 

[ahhell]

I don't particularly think conditioning young people for a life of pervasive surveillance is a good idea.

Reasonable but it would also condition them to a life of pervasive surveillance of government employees.

Schools are famously not flush with cash in this country.

Given that this is clearly a ploy to gin up more CRT hysteria and is unlikely to result in any beneficial result, it's pretty easy to imagine the money could be better spent in myriad other ways.

Spending money so bat-**** parents can yell at teachers for teaching about segregation or the civil war seems like a poor use of resources.

Meh, you can get a wifi cam for like 40 bucks. You could do every classroom in a school for less than the price of supporting a child in an African village.

Anyrate, its a bit like body cams on cops. They may not fix all the problems but they can't hurt and can help cops as much as hurt them.

Might be dating myself but that's a reference to the ubiquitus commercials in the 80s, "you can support this adorable kid in the third world for less than a cup of coffee.

 

[Dr. Keith]

If teachers were killing kids you’d have a better point of comparison. As it stands it is a solution in search of a problem, like most small government proposals from the GOP.

 

[Dr. Keith]

This is dead-set the funniest thing I've seen in weeks:

School cancels To Kill a Mockingbird

But please, do not stop at the headline!

I have no idea who the publisher of the story is, but the article is a minefield of hilarious snippets, like...

"a black man wrongly accused of ra***g a white woman" Srsly? We've reached a stage where that has to be masked? Sorry, ma***d.

The first sentence of the article is another gem:

A Scottish secondary school will no longer teach the classic novel To Kill A Mockingbird after teachers claimed the book promotes a "white savior" narrative.

Also contains the N word. (Thank christ Biggles isn't in the curriculum!)

“Classics” are overrated. There are lots of good books that are more accessible to most kids that are just as well written.

My kids don’t listen to ABBA because I told them it is good and forced them to listen to it. They like the music. Same for literature.

I can still see my kid’s face when she told me all I needed to know about Candide from their point of view: No, no. Really, no. (Walks off.)

 

[JoeMorgue]

I can still see my kid’s face when she told me all I needed to know about Candide from their point of view: No, no. Really, no. (Walks off.)

"Did you ever read Voltaire's Candide,
It says live life at Benny Hill breakneck speed,
Not a quote of what he wrote but a paraphrase,
Make it up as you go Keyser Soze."

- The Bloodhound Gage

 

[ahhell]

If teachers were killing kids you’d have a better point of comparison. As it stands it is a solution in search of a problem, like most small government proposals from the GOP.

So, the argument is what, we shouldn't bother because.....there aren't any bad teachers? There aren't enough to matter? Again, what's the good reason not to do it?

There is actually quite a bit of school violence and there are quite a few teachers with in appropriate relationships with students.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_harassment_in_education_in_the_United_States#By_teachers

So, minimal relative cost, teachers nor students have any right to privacy on government property, and it might prevent or at least capture on film some bad, illegal, or otherwise objectionable behavior on the part of teachers and students. I suspect it would more often prove that no such bad behavior actually occurred.

 

[Dr. Keith]

Sounds like an argument for more surveillance everywhere, all the time. Not interested.

 

[ahhell]

Sounds like an argument for more surveillance everywhere, all the time. Not interested.

Nonsense, its an argument for surveillance of employees of a government run monopoly while on government property.

 

[dirtywick]

you're also filming a bunch of minors

 

[Dr. Keith]

you're also filming a bunch of minors

But only on areas where there may be government employees, like bathrooms and locker rooms.

Unrelated side note: can we fund education with pay per view system?

 

[Graham2001]

What people forget is that whatever machinery for censorship (e.g. 'sensitivty readers', etc.) can be used by people who disagree with you. Although in this case the university bought this on themselves.

A professor is taking his former university to court, alleging that the administration retaliated against him for criticizing the university’s shortcomings on its diversity pledges.


The University of Rhode Island hired Louis Kwame Fosu in 2019 to teach in the school’s political science department. Among the courses Fosu taught was “Topics in Political Science: Examining Institutional Power, Checks & Balances, and Advocacy for a More Equitable Society.”

https://www.thefire.org/professor-f...fired-him-for-criticizing-diversity-policies/

 

[Cain]

From a recorded Zoom session in New Jersey:

In what turned out to be a Zoom class unlike any other, students at Dickinson High School said their teacher gave them a profane rant — and a lesson in hate. A discussion on climate change devolved as teacher Howard Zlotkin aired his grievances with the students.

"If you think I'm privileged then f--- you, because my daughter thinks I'm privileged and I don't speak to her," he was seen saying in a recording of the online class session. At one point he started yelling and cursing at one student.

"I hear people whining and crying about Black Lives Matter, but George Floyd was a f-----g criminal and he got arrested and he got killed because he wouldn't comply and the bottom line is we make him a f-----g hero," Zlotkin is heard saying in a recording.

"I don't think you can make a case. You know what Timmia? You're full of s--t too," Zlotkin is heard saying.

That last line must've been cathartic. I'm sure there are teachers who would love to say that to students. And parents. Old people are the best.

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/loc...lesson-calls-george-floyd-a-criminal/3029146/