Modern Struggle Sessions

I've made no secret of the fact that I despise communism and communists.  There are no redeeming qualities in the ideology or in those who hold it.

In 1984 we learned that freedom is "the freedom to say that two plus two makes four.  If that is granted, all else follows."  In the two-part Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Chain Of Command, Captain Picard is captured by a militaristic race, humiliated, tortured, and told to state that he saw five lights when he knew there were only four.

Compelling people to say what they know to be untrue is one method totalitarian organizations use to humiliate people into compliance.  In China under Mao this was done in what were called struggle sessions.  Today it's done under the guise of being "anti-racist", a doctrine that is actually pure racism and hatred.  Those of us who work for large organizations, including government, may soon be subjected to this if we haven't been already, and this author suggests a way to thwart the intent:

Of course, if you find yourself in one of these “training sessions,” you will quickly realize that the whole point is to humiliate you and force you to express loyalty to the approved orthodoxy. Suppose you think — as I do — that the progressive programs that are lately put forth as the solution to “systemic racism” are actually counterproductive and make the situation far worse for African Americans. Can you speak up against the insanity you are going through? Or will word immediately get back to your boss, and to your boss’s boss, that you are a “racist,” whereupon you will promptly be fired?

If you find yourself in one of these things, one strategy is of course to do your best to remain silent, or at least to say as little as possible. I can’t tell you not to follow this strategy. But if it were me, it would not be in my nature to just sit back and accept humiliating accusations of “racism” from people who are idiots and who are also themselves racists as I see it. What’s more, if everybody with a brain just remains silent and allows the totalitarians to proceed without pushback, we gradually — maybe rapidly — lose all of our freedom.

But then, anything you say may be quoted back against you. It’s a tricky situation.

Fortunately, the Manhattan Contrarian has a few handy tips should you find yourself required to show up for one or more of these sessions.

My first tip is, it is a mistake ever to make a declaratory statement of any kind, even “yes,” “no,” or “I understand.” So, if asked to assent to something, or to say something, what do you do? The answer is, always respond with a question. Also, there is no need for the question that you pose to have anything to do with the question that has been posed to you. In fact, the less related your question is to the thing you are being asked to concede, the better. You can also try to ask a question even if no question has been posed to you. The point here would be to try to divert the “trainer” off his or her prepared outline or script, and onto something that challenges their assumptions.

Here are a few questions I have come up with if you want to have some fun:

• Are you a racist? (If no,) How do you know that? What facts do you base that on? (If yes,) So why don’t you stop being a racist?

• Can you provide us with a complete list of all words and terminology that are now deemed racist and/or disrespectful so that we can stop using those words going forward? If you can’t give a complete list, how about 20 (or 30 or 40) examples?

• Do all black lives matter? (Note: Don’t make the mistake of using the phrase “all lives matter,” even in a question. That will get you branded as a “racist.” The question of whether all black lives matter will be a new one on them.). Do the lives of approximately 6500 black men murdered by other black men each year matter more or less than the the lives of the far smaller number of blacks killed by police each year (under 300), let alone the number of unarmed black men killed by police each year (which is around 20 or fewer, although you can’t get a precise figure because the Washington Post data base only includes deaths by shooting)?

• How do you explain the fact that Nigerian-Americans and Ghanaian-Americans have higher household median income than native-born white Americans?

• Does the NBA — where average salaries are multiple millions per year and active players are about 75% black — have an obligation to make itself “look more like America”? If not, why not?

That should be enough to get you off to a good start.

My school district has issued a notice that indicates, at least to me, that Marxist BLM and other so-called anti-racist training is coming our way.  Anyone who knows me knows that I will not be silent.

Update, 7/30/20:  The struggle sessions are important because they divert attention from uncomfortable facts:

No state wears its multicultural veneer more ostentatiously than California. The Golden State’s leaders believe that they lead a progressive paradise, ushering in what theorists Laura Tyson and Lenny Mendonca call “a new progressive era.” Others see California as deserving of nationhood; it reflects, as a New York Times columnist put it, “the shared values of our increasingly tolerant and pluralistic society"...

Despite these progressive intentions, Hispanics and African-Americans—some 45 percent of California’s total population—fare worse in the state than almost anywhere nationwide. Based on cost-of-living estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, 28 percent of California’s African-Americans live in poverty, compared with 22 percent nationally. Fully one-third of Latinos, now the state’s largest ethnic group, live in poverty, compared with 21 percent outside the state. “For Latinos,” notes longtime political consultant Mike Madrid, “the California Dream is becoming an unattainable fantasy.”

Update #2, 7/30/20:  I will not be silent or neutral.  I myself do not support the Marxist ideals of the racist Black Lives Matter organization:

A group of students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign signed a letter of demands to the Federalist Society chapter at the university after the chapter stated it would remain neutral on the Black Lives Matter movement.

Note the following, which appears later in the article:  "there is only one, right, non-debatable stance: Black Lives Matter".  First, so much for diversity.  Second, the capital letters mean something, and I don't support that organization or its aims.

Remember that it was the Red Guards, students, who helped propel China's so-called Cultural Revolution.  I will fight them here.

Update #3, 7/30/20:  This article is exceptional and is very clear about the vocabulary so-called anti-racist trainers will use, and how you can use that same vocabulary to challenge their tenets.