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Showing posts with label Jerry Barnett. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jerry Barnett. Show all posts
Sex And Censorship ✒ The teaching of Critical Race Theory in schools was one of the main concerns of voters.
A year ago, in the aftermath of the US Presidential election, I wrote an article entitled Why is the Minority Vote Shifting to the Right?, which noted a surprising trend in the voting numbers. Although Donald Trump had been continuously accused of racism, sexism and homophobia, he had significantly increased his vote among all racial minorities, women and LGBT voters. In fact, Biden only won the election at all because his vote increased among white men (the most regressive of all groups, if you believe the woke Left).

I had predicted this result, on the basis that, under the cover of noisy anti-racism, the Left was becoming increasingly racist. It was clear that many non-white people were tiring of being patronisingly regarded as ‘oppressed’. As I wrote then:

In short, “antiracism” has become a toxic brand, largely driven by white people, and increasingly alienating non-whites, who feel patronised by it. So for some time, I have predicted that, win or lose, Trump would increase his share of the black vote at this election...

Continue reading @ Sex And Censorship.le.

The Republican Win In Virginia Is Another Woke Legacy

Jerry Barnett ✒ It seems the Left's recent obsession with race is alienating rather than attracting non-white voters. 

Jerry Barnett

For me, the recent US Presidential election brought a double dose of good news. Not only did Donald Trump lose overall, but the Democrats saw a reduced share of the racial minority, female and LGBT votes. These two points probably sound contradictory: allow me to explain.

I have a soft spot for black conservatives, although I should point out here that I’m neither black nor conservative. In fact, for many years, until a decade ago, I was a left-wing activist and blogger. Now, I guess I’d be roughly classified as “centrist”, and I try to stay as far away from the toxic extremes of left and right as possible. Politics has changed dramatically in recent years, and many things have happened over the past decade to shift my political position away from the Left. One of those things was encountering a young woman on Twitter, who I’ll refer to here as Samantha, and who later became a friend. Samantha is a black British woman and, at the time I first encountered her, she was a loud fan of Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska, and a leading figure in the emerging right-wing Tea Party movement (the movement that later fed strongly into the Trump phenomenon).

This infuriated me. I loathed Palin, who appeared to appeal to the most regressive instincts of rural, conservative, white America.

 Continue reading @ Sex And Censorship.

Why Is The Minority Vote Shifting To The Right?

Jerry Barnett ✒ Reports of online abuse often greatly exaggerate its prevalence in order to generate clicks, support a narrative, or justify censorship.

This week, Britain has seen another moral panic over racism, resulting from online abuse of black footballers in the wake of England’s football defeat on Sunday. Having followed such panics over many years, I could have written Monday’s script in advance - and some commentators clearly did. Britain has, in fact, been in the grip of a series of moral panics over racism for some years: at least since the death of Eric Garner at the hands of New York police in 2014, and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.

This narrative, which has seeped from the far-left into the mainstream media over the years needs constant feeding, and so will seize on almost anything to sustain itself. This has resulted in countless, spurious claims of racism - many of which are so ludicrous that only the true believer can take them seriously. We have had racist rice, racist burgers, racist hair, racist t-shirts (which weren’t actually racist), racist chicken boxes… in normal times, these claims would be the subject of satire and mockery. But these aren’t normal times, and people are not acting rationally. Given the media’s newfound habit of finding racism literally everywhere, then any story, however trivial or questionable, will be amplified.

Continue reading @ Jerry Barnett.

The Tendency To Exaggerate Online Bigotry

Medium ✒ So many get it wrong in "gender debate." 

18-December-2019

I began the Sex & Censorship campaign in 2013 in order to cast light on UK government attempts to censor the Internet (attempts which are now worryingly close to fruition), and to oppose feminist-led moral panics for the censorship of sexual expression. I assembled a broad coalition of support, including sex-positive feminists. What I hadn’t bargained for was a widespread belief among my allies that gender was a social construct.

I was familiar with social constructionist ideas, which had been popularised in the second wave feminist movement of the 1960s. My mother, in common with much of her generation, had once subscribed to the idea that ‘gendered toys’ and socially-constructed stereotypes were to blame for unruly male behaviours. And so, like many Generation Xers, I didn’t own any toy guns or swords, I was briefly enrolled into ballet classes, and I had a doll (called Jemima).  

All this provided little obstacle to the expression of my gender identity. Weapons could be made out of sticks. I refused (age 5) to participate in ballet, and I don’t remember having any great interest in Jemima.

Continue reading @ Medium.

Almost Everyone In The “Gender Debate” Is Wrong

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