Meilseoir

I've outgrown the unintentionally awkward phase of my youth, well, the unintentional and youthful parts...

[Meilseoir @eiodopet]

@jason_howerton We are in a depression. This is a high-tech version of the 1930s. Tech bros gaslight us about a “great economy,” and we pretend, we can it see too. Like the Emperor’s clothes fable, so we don’t have to admit, any time, we could be homeless. I’m very close now, with long hours.

[John McWhorter @JohnHMcWhorter]

Folks, I'd like to get my two cents in on Karmelo Anthony. This is a long one -- pretend it's an editorial.

“He put his hands on me. I stabbed him.” Why does a boy spontaneously justify stabbing someone on so thin a pretense? And why do so many Black Americans see his 35-year prison sentence as racist?

I think the answer to both questions takes us to Scotland, Ireland, and northern England.

At a track meet at Kuykendall Stadium in Frisco, Texas in April of last year, Anthony sat down under a team’s tent. Anthony was neither on the team nor a student at its school, and an unwritten but widely known rule is that only team members are permitted under a team tent. Multiple student witnesses – and not just “whitenesses,” as several were Black -- testified about what happened next. Anthony was told several times to leave the tent but refused, including a profane epithet, culminating in warning “Touch me and see what happens.” Team member Austin Metcalf shoved Anthony, who pulled a knife out of his bag, stabbed him in the chest, threw the knife into the stands and ran away. Caught by the police, he immediately admitted to the stabbing, reportedly saying “He put his hands on me. I stabbed him.” Metcalf died in his twin brother’s arms.

There is no reason to think Anthony was trying to kill Metcalf. He was trying to hurt him severely, putting him in the hospital, for shoving him, as he indicated in at first saying "He's not gonna die." Also, claims such as prosecutor Bill Wirskye’s that Anthony meant “Touch me and see what happens” as a provocation are based on a misreading of Black English. “Touch me and see what happens” is not a command to touch. It means “If you touch me, you will find out.”

The question is why Anthony thought being pushed justified sinking a knife into Metcalf’s body. The answer is the culture of “disrespect” in young Black male culture, documented by many (including black sociologists). His calculus was "If he even touches me, I am disrespected, and will respond in destructive kind." The idea is that being dissed merits what we might phrase as cutting someone a new one.

There is no reason to suppose that this is due to Black people having some inborn propensity to violence. The Black economist Thomas Sowell has traced the “disrespect” culture to the whites from the “Celtic Fringe” – an area comprising parts of northern England, Scotland, and Ulster County in Ireland -- who migrated to the South starting in the 1700s and established plantations (or worked on them as indentured servants). Black people, often enslaved, worked alongside and around them and their American-born descendants. At this time (although certainly not now), whites from the Celtic Fringe area had the same tripwire response to being dissed – “touchy pride” -- as well as many other traits now commonly associated with “gangsta” Black culture.

In his classic study of early migrants to America “Albion’s Seed,” the historian David Hackett Fisher referred to the oppressed people of this northern borderland region, encompassing Scotland, northern England and Ulster County in Ireland, as “some of the most disorderly inhabitants of a deeply disordered land.” “Manliness and the forceful projection of that manliness to others – an advertisement of one’s willingness to fight and even to put one’s life on the line – were at least plausible means of gaining whatever level of security was possible in a lawless region and a violent time,” Sowell notes.

Hundreds of thousands of people from this region migrated to America starting in the early 1700s, eventually migrating to the South. Many establishedplantations and bought enslaved Black people to work on them. Referring often to the scholarly and sympathetic study of this “cracker” culture in America by the historian Grady McWhiney, Sowell notes that they manifested “a touchiness about anything that might be even remotely construed as a personal slight, much less an insult, combined with a willingness to erupt into violence over it.”

The step is short between that and “He put his hands on me. I stabbed him.” It is hard not to see the parallel between the “cracker” culture and the sociologist Elijah Anderson’s study of late twentieth century Black culture of “the streets,” where “respect is viewed as almost an external entity that is hard-won but easily lost, and so must constantly be guarded. (...) Many of the forms that dissing can take might seem petty to middle-class people (maintaining eye contact for too long, for example), but to those invested in the street code, these actions become serious indications of the other person's intentions. Consequently, such people become very sensitive to advances and slights, which could well serve as warnings of imminent physical confrontation.”

Sowell argues that enslaved Blacks would have internalized these norms from the whites they worked with and lived around. It might seem hard to imagine whites and Blacks sharing a culture on the kind of plantation familiar from dramatic depictions, where legions of Black people worked in the fields while whites were their owners and overseers. However, in reality, relationships between whites and Blacks, while fraught and founded in pitiless domination, allowed for degrees of interchange and familiarity. Plantations varied massively in size, and white children and Black ones grew up playing together, even influencing one another’s speech.

Black sociologist W.E.B. DuBois’ survey of Black Philadelphia in the 1890s, as well as studies afterward, shows that until the 1960s, the “cracker” inheritance from whites was largely confined to the least advantaged and segregated Black people. However, for the past several decades, aspects of the “disrespect culture” have had influence even among middle-class Black people.

For one, the Black middle class vastly increased after the Civil Rights victories of the 1960s, and therefore, for most middle class Black people, poverty remains only a few generations back. Culture does not always change in lockstep with income. Add to this that in the 1960s, many Black people rejected the old idea that our goal was to assimilate to mainstream (i.e. white) norms. Rather than engaging in what is often called respectability politics, many Black people embraced the idea of a separate Black identity – and one aspect of that was the chip-on-the-shoulder style.

This all meant that these days, a Black boy hardly needs to grow up in the ‘hood to internalize aspects of what Sowell calls “redneck” culture. This includes the tripwire sensitivity to being “disrespected.”

This informs how so many black commenters on the trial and sentence seem to not quite process the horror of Metcalf’s murder. Representative Jasmine Crockett thinks the length of the sentence is racist – as if a white boy shivving a Black boy to death would only get a slap on the hand -- focusing on the fact that the knife was not especially large and that Anthony only stabbed once. Martin Luther King’s daughter Berenice King opines that the main lesson from the episode is racial disparities in the justice system. Many online revile that none of the jurors were Black. But it is reasonable to think that they would have liked that a representative number of jurors would pardon Anthony as representing his “disrespect culture,” and thus less culpable than a teen of any other race in America? If so, they are less progressive than retrograde, if we are really to get past race. Dr. King didn’t die demanding that whites make excuses for us.

What’s missing in these opinions is thoughts that would occur readily to the outside observer. How about if Anthony hadn’t been carrying a knife at all? How about Anthony just getting up and leaving, or just shoving back rather than hauling out a weapon? But under the “disrespect” culture, even in the background as a tacit sentiment, the idea that Anthony could simply have done what he was told seems an almost unreasonable expectation based on respectability politics. And frankly, I venture that there another resonance in the air: that on a certain level we are supposed to see Anthony’s deed in the light of slavery, Jim Crow and George Floyd, and other disrepectings upon us as a group.

Karmelo Anthony drank in this way of thinking subconsciously in the way that we all grow into the culture we are born into. He doubtless incorporated countless elements of Black culture that are positive or even just neutral. But one of them was this notion of what it is to be a man, which made sense in some upper reaches of what we now know as the United Kingdom centuries ago, but doesn’t work in modern American society.

The sports journalist Jemele Hill advises “We need to be having conversations with our young black boys about emotional regulation and decision making and discernment and wisdom.” Black women often give their boys “The Talk” about obeying what cops demand. But that talk needs to come with a second one – there need to be “The Talks.” Young Black men need to be told not to fall for the idea that being dissed justifies physical violence. That, and not the persistence of racism, is what Karmelo Anthony’s fate should teach us.

If you did, thanks for staying with me until the end!

[Meilseoir @eiodopet]

@JonnyThePhoenix My now long time solution, has been Bollywood. When there was some reason (traveling with someone who is going to see some Hollywood movie) to be at a theater, I see if there is a Bollywood at the same complex. My good luck is there always was.

[Jon @JonnyThePhoenix]

I have practically stopped watching movies. Not only are they all shit for the last 2 decades at least, but 99.9% of all actors and the rest of hollywood are evil morons, and I will not pay them.

We canceled Netflix, Disney or any other streaming.

All replaced with audio books. The writes of books actually have some talent worth respect. Unless they try and promote their woke agenda and then I just choose a different author.

If you need escape from reality, I can't recommend enough to switch from movies to audiobooks (or read actual books, but thats not a direct replacement).

[Meilseoir @eiodopet]

@ProtonRCS @MattMorseTV @PatrickByrne I agree about the left. The disservice to language by moderns, is to conflate “liberal” and leftist. This, when liberal-leftist is an oxymoron. Liberals are not a “part of” the left (progressives) any more than conservatives are.

[The Little Platoon @PlatoonPod]

Banning smoking in pubs & restaurants was hysterical, unnecessary, illiberal, myth-based, costly, and damaging (as the malaise of the pub trade shows).

It was supported by a bunch of curtain-twitching busybodies more concerned with imposing their personal taste on places they didn't frequent in the first place - middle class women in particular - and it legitimised moral panic as a basis for making public policy.

So yes, I'd say this comparison is apt.

The law should not be a gesture. We should not make law on the basis that, though the problem is lacking evidence and the solution is proven not to work, it will nonetheless "change the culture".

You try to change the culture by making arguments, not by sucking up to politicians and having them dictate terms to your fellow citizens.

You live the culture you want by using the tools you already have at your disposal (such as banning smartphones, monitoring your child's internet usage, etc).

You provide the evidence that your views produce better results.

You do not force every adult in the country to hand over their data, their ID, their right to privacy, on the basis of mere vibes.

You may not like the choices other people make, but you do not have the right to impose your whims on them.

This is foundational liberalism, and it is pathetic that it must be restated in this way.

[Meilseoir @eiodopet]

@DanielMiessler AI “makes it easy,” and AI makes it CHEESY!!!

[Meilseoir @eiodopet]

@DanielMiessler The ONLY AI selling point, is “someone else will” “if we don’t” and “you’ll get left behind” if you don’t like it. Pure lemming memetic. No reason that anybody would ever want it. Culture is ALL mindless empty fomo now. There is no art in art, music, or fashion: it is dead.

[Meilseoir @eiodopet]

@anand_singh0 @VigilantFox

[Mike Morrison @MDMorrison82]

In the dead of night the Scots arrived at the Airbnb across the street. Decked out and playing the pipes at 6:30 am. So it begins…

[Meilseoir @eiodopet]

@TruueDiscipline I’m laughing because when I hear “essay” I always think “ese.” You know……

https://t.co/bITpD6654D

[Meilseoir @eiodopet]

@realMaalouf

[Meilseoir @eiodopet]

@TheBeezy420 Well, I mean, Hitler, actually WAS a leftist. And back before the war, progressives LOVED Mussolini.

https://t.co/eAncF65urA

[Meilseoir @eiodopet]

@Jay661044941 @Woodlandtrails @NiohBerg That is not the autopsy. That is an Al review. "Al told me" is not research.

https://t.co/QPBxdHb8AV

[Meilseoir @eiodopet]

@theobjectivist Remember the “thinking with the wrong” maxim?

[Phil Labonte 🇺🇸 @philthatremains]

the issue is never the issue, the issue is always the revolution

[Ericds @EricDeSilvestr1]

Le climatosceptiscisme est un terme inventé par la secte du GIEC, aux fins d'interdire toute contestation et tout débat scientifique qui remettrait en cause la croyance selon laquelle le réchauffement actuel aurait une origine humaine.
Le GIEC n'a plus grand chose de scientifique, contrairement a ce qu'affirme le propagandiste Patrick Cohen, et ce depuis qu'il est aux mains de militants politiques, qui contrôlent le contenu de ses rapports de synthèse, et qui excluent toute contribution scientifique qui remettrait en cause de près ou de loin leur doxa.
Le réchauffement (tout relatif) du climat de l'époque actuelle n'a pas grand chose à voir avec les émissions humaines de CO2, comme l'affirment les escrocs du GIEC, qui viennent d'ailleurs d'invalider leurs scénarios les plus catastrophistes.
Nous sommes actuellement dans une période de réchauffement interglaciaire naturelle qui se produit cycliquement dans l'histoire de notre planète et la température actuelle reste moins élevée que les pics précédents.
Nous devrions nous réjouir de vivre pendant une période interglaciaire propice à l'agriculture et à la prospérité économique, et arrêter de détruire notre économie sous le prétexte utopique de lutter contre un réchauffement sur lequel nous n'avons strictement aucun contrôle.
Ceux qui veulent nous faire croire que l'humanité aurait un quelquonque contrôle possible sur la variation du climat, et à fortiori la France ou l'Europe, sont des escrocs et il faut les dénoncer comme tels.
A ce titre Patrick Cohen est un escroc parmi tant d'autres.
La véritable menace à long terme pour l'humanité sera la prochaine période glaciaire.

[Meilseoir @eiodopet]

@NiohBerg I say it over and over and over in different wordings, but please listen, the “fitting in” instinct is a very big mistake in our evolution, and until there is a medicine to neutralize it, whenever you ever recognize it in yourself, you must always defy it. Or it WILL undo you.

[Meilseoir @eiodopet]

@Mankosmash @captive_dreamer And I have never ever thought of Trump AS a bad man. That was NEVER my point. In history, the “movement” of whatever moment, has always been the PROBLEM. The bundle of sticks is collectivism, yet people always put that label on individual leaders.

[Meilseoir @eiodopet]

@Mankosmash @captive_dreamer My take is, that “don’t defy the crowd/movement, because WE rule,” is not the flex some think it is. I’ve never had a problem with Trump himself, but ochlocracy is the purest evil there ever was. Yes, more than ANY solitary bad-man in history: by themselves, each were harmless.