Americans are the fattest, dumbest people on earth . . . and because being fat and dumb are remediable given the proper motivation, it’s fair to say that Americans are also the most unmotivated people on earth. This is not to say that all Americans are fat, dumb and unmotivated. There’s a subset of Americans who get up every morning, brush their teeth, go to work, excel at what they do, come home, set the alarm and get up and do it again tomorrow. And take care of their families. These people are carrying the rest of the country on their backs. But for the average American, the best explanation for his or her life being the way it is is likely to be “I’m fat, dumb and unmotivated.” That’s a pretty tough admission to spit out though so most of us look around for something more palatable to sell… Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Race
What Can Be Done About Gender Diversity in Computing?
That is the question posed in, among other places, the October 2015 issue of Communications of the ACM. Since gender is no longer a biological imperative connected to one’s physical anatomy, there’s now a simple answer to this. Men (and women, but that’s not relevant to this question) can identify as either gender, independent of reproductive organs and chromosomes, and a thoughtful consideration of the uniqueness and validity of every person’s experiences of self requires a societal stamp of approval. Google or Facebook or any organization that wants to improve its gender diversity metrics can offer some modest incentive (could be financial, could be you use the women’s locker room at the company gym … use your imagination!) for workers to identify as female. Have a 50 percent female workforce by Friday! Now that I’ve written this down I’m thinking that maybe I should be starting up a diversity consulting… Read more →
The Bamboo Ceiling
Michael Wang had a 4.67 GPA and a perfect ACT score. He placed first in the state of California at the AMC 12 – a nationwide mathematics competition. He performed with the San Francisco opera company, and sang in a choir that performed at Barack Obama’s first inauguration. He volunteered his free time to tutor underprivileged children. He applied to seven Ivy League schools and was rejected by all seven. I saw recently that a local kid from Fullerton High School here in Orange County was accepted at all eight Ivy League Schools. His name is Fernando Rojas. Here’s another young man, Harold Ekeh, who was also accepted at all eight Ivy League schools: Last year, Kwasi Enin was accepted at all eight Ivy League schools: A study by Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade examined applicants to top colleges from 1997, when the maximum SAT score was 1600 (today it’s 2400).… Read more →
Still Right on the Black Family After All These Years
Next month marks the 50th anniversary of Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s report on the black family, the controversial document issued while he served as an assistant secretary in President Lyndon Johnson’s Labor Department. Moynihan highlighted troubling cultural trends among inner-city blacks, with a special focus on the increasing number of fatherless homes. For his troubles, Moynihan was denounced as a victim-blaming racist bent on undermining the civil-rights movement. . . . Later this year the nation also will mark the 50th anniversary of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which some consider the most significant achievement of the modern-day civil-rights movement. . . . Since 1970 the number of black elected officials in the U.S. has grown to more than 9,000 from fewer than 1,500 and has included big-city mayors, governors, senators and of course a president. But even as we note this progress, the political gains have not redounded to the… Read more →
See You in Hell
[See You in Hell is a feature by our guest blogger, Satan — PE] Greetings from the underworld! I just read about a father and son teaming up to punch out the son’s high school basketball coach because the teen wasn’t getting enough playing time. What a heartwarming story! A lot of young black men don’t have a male role model in their lives. See you in Hell . . . Read more →
Civil Rights Symmetry
Why does a Civil Rights Bill forbid me to apply racial criteria when I choose an employee but allow me to apply racial criteria when I choose an employer? If I turn down a job offer, should I be required to prove that my motives were not discriminatory? … Why am I permitted to apply racial criteria when I select a spouse but not when I select a personal assistant? — Steven Landsburg, The Armchair Economist Read more →
Testing a White Privilege Theory
According to an article titled “The Thing About White Privilege,” “job applicants with white sounding names are 50% more likely to receive a callback for a job interview than applicants with black-sounding names, even when all job-related qualifications and credentials are the same.” What happens when someone with an Asian-sounding name applies for a job? Serious question. Does the answer support a white privilege theory? What about someone with an Indian-sounding name? A Middle Eastern-sounding name? A Jewish-sounding name? An actual African-sounding name? Test your theories against reality rather than just slinging bullshit and ignoring information that inconveniences you. I followed the link above and learned that “applicants with white names needed to send about 10 resumes to get one callback; those with African-American names needed to send around 15 resumes to get one callback.” That’s 10 percent vs. about 7 percent. Anyone who thinks “50% more likely” is the… Read more →
Halle Slams Gabriel!
Halle Berry is at least 50 percent white, the girl’s father is white . . . do the math on how white the girl is supposed to look. Read more →
See You in Hell
[See You in Hell is a feature by our guest blogger, Satan — PE] CLAYTON, Mo.— A grand jury declined to indict a white police officer in the shooting of an unarmed black teenager whose death in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson became a national flash point on race, justice and policing. — WSJ.com Greetings from the underworld! Why is Michael Brown always described as “an unarmed black teenager” rather than “a violent troublemaker” or “a current resident of Hell,” both of which are at least equally accurate? Anyone who thinks an unarmed person doesn’t pose a threat has never been punched in the face. If you have a gun and I don’t and you let me take the gun away from you, all of a sudden I’m not unarmed anymore. See you in Hell . . . Read more →
Martial Artist, Self-Taught
“I’m taking a self-defense workshop for women this weekend.” “My wife knows martial arts.” “What kind of martial arts does she know?” “I’m not sure. She’s self-taught. She’s Asian, she thinks she’s good at everything Asians are supposed to be good at: martial arts, badminton . . . some people might say she doesn’t know martial arts at all, she’s just violent and crazy.” Read more →
That’s Why It’s Called the Opposition Party
Charlie Crist, former Republican and currently Democratic candidate for governor in Florida, on why he changed parties: I couldn’t be consistent with myself and my core beliefs, and stay with a party that was so unfriendly toward the African-American president. I’ll just go there. I was a Republican and I saw the activists and what they were doing, it was intolerable to me. It was so intolerable that Crist left the GOP in 2010 — four years ago — and he’s just bringing this up now? Has anyone asked this fool why Republicans have been unfriendly to all other Democratic presidents? Or why Democrats have been unfriendly to all GOP presidents? What is his theory on that? Is he really this stupid or is he counting on his target audience being this stupid? I suspect the latter . . . Read more →
See You in Hell, Carl Douglas
[See You in Hell is a feature by our guest blogger, Satan — PE] “It put a smile on my face that finally [Donald Sterling] would be unable to deny the racist allegations against him,” said Carl Douglas, a lawyer who represented former Clippers general manager Elgin Baylor in a lawsuit against Sterling. — FOX Sports Carl Douglas is best known as a member of the O.J. Simpson defense team. O.J. Simpson has done some regrettable things, like murdering a couple of white people, but at least he’s never made negative remarks about Magic Johnson photos on Instagram. See you in Hell . . . P.S. Carl Douglas the lawyer should not be confused with Carl Douglas the “Kung Fu Fighting” singer. Him, I like. [youtube http://youtu.be/jhUkGIsKvn0] Read more →
More People I’m Sick Unto Death Of
I had a friendship with [Donald Sterling], so for him to then make these alleged comments about myself … there’s no place in our society for it. — Magic Johnson There’s no place in our society for what? For people who say, “Don’t post pictures of Magic Johnson on Instagram”? I say there’s no place in our society for affected morons who use intensive pronouns (“myself”) in place of personal pronouns (“me”). Someone made a cutting remark about a friend behind their back? Absolutely shocking! If everyone knew what their friends say about them behind their back, civilized society would collapse. Grow up, you simpleton . . . Read more →
See You in Hell
[See You in Hell is a feature by our guest blogger, Satan — PE] Congratulations, Americans! Your lives have become so trivialized that you think the most important issue facing your country is how many Magic Johnson photos get posted to Instagram. See you in Hell . . . Read more →
I’m Done With the NBA
I’m choking to death on all the pious platitudes re Donald Sterling. I hope that TMZ will make a recurring feature out of providing glimpses into the private lives of NBA executives, coaches and players. The level of sanctimony amongst these juvenile moralizers will drop off a cliff. To cite an obvious example: The Clippers are currently in a playoff series against the Golden State Warriors. The coach of the Warriors, Mark Jackson, describes himself as “an African-American man that’s a fan of the game of basketball and knows its history and knows what’s right and what’s wrong.” He goes on to encourage people to boycott Clippers games and says, “We cannot allow someone with these feelings to profit.” Jackson is an ordained minister. He and his wife run the True Love Worship Center in Reseda, Ca. Jackson was also, a couple of years ago, the victim of an extortion… Read more →
NYT Misrepresents California’s Affirmative Action Results
In reporting on yesterday’s Supreme Court decision to uphold a Michigan ban on the use of racial preferences in admissions to public universities, the New York Times looks at results in other states that have banned racial preferences. Here’s what the Times says about my state, California, which voted to ban racial preferences in UC admissions in 1998: Hispanic and black enrollment at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, Los Angeles dropped sharply after voters approved a statewide ban on affirmative action. Those numbers have not recovered, even as the state’s Hispanic population has grown. That is a misleading analysis for a couple of reasons: One: Affirmative action was banned at all UC campuses, not just Berkeley and UCLA. Ignoring all the other campuses allows the Times to say that black and Hispanic enrollment “dropped sharply” when there was actually only a 2 percent decline in… Read more →
See You in Hell: The Fritz Pollard Edition
[See You in Hell is a feature by our guest blogger, Satan — PE] The head of the Fritz Pollard Alliance, which monitors diversity in the NFL, expects the league to institute a rule where players would be penalized 15 yards for using the N-word on the field. — NFL expected to penalize players for using racial slurs in games – ESPN The N-word. Let’s see . . . the N-word is “National,” the F-word is “Football” and the L-word is “League.” Wait — what?! I’m now being informed that the N-word in this case is “nigger.” That’s what the Fritz Pollard Alliance wants to penalize. OK, that’s a great idea, Fritz Pollard Alliance, and by “great” I mean “bullshit.” Has anyone at the Fritz Pollard Alliance read the Harry Potter books? In the Harry Potter books, Voldemort is known as He Who Must Not Be Named. He’s so powerful… Read more →
EppsNet Book Reviews: The Known World by Edward P. Jones
I bought this book and read it because it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. See, it says so right there on the cover: “Winner of the Pulitzer Prize.” Did you know there was a time in our country’s history when black people were bought and sold as property, sometimes by other black people? And did you also know that 15 minutes could save you 15 percent or more on car insurance? Human slavery is deplorable, yes, but at this late date, can it be deplored any more than it has been already? If you have new depths of insight into the hearts and minds of the participants, by all means offer them, but Jones doesn’t have them. Reading The Known World is like reading a history book, albeit with a little more authorial contempt for some of the characters. It’s customary in book reviews to mention authors whose work… Read more →
Kids Should Study Math and Science, Say Adults Who Never Studied Math or Science
The New York Times has been editorializing recently on the nation’s need to enlarge our pool of science and math students, with a particular focus on girls and minorities, and to encourage them to pursue careers that will keep the country competitive. Here’s a list of the members of the NYT editorial board, including academic major(s), which I obtained from their online bios. See if you notice anything unusual. Andrew Rosenthal, Editor (American History) Terry Tang, Deputy Editorial Page Editor (Economics, Law) Robert B. Semple Jr., Associate Editor (History) David Firestone, Projects Editor, National Politics, the White House and Congress (Journalism) Vikas Bajaj, Business, International Economics (Journalism) Philip M. Boffey, Science (History) Francis X. Clines, National Politics, Congress, Campaign Finance (none listed) Lawrence Downes, Immigration, Veterans Issues (English, Journalism) Carol Giacomo, Foreign Affairs (English Literature) Mira Kamdar, International Affairs (French Literature) Verlyn Klinkenborg, Agriculture, Environment, Culture (English Literature) Juliet Lapidos,… Read more →
See You in Hell, New Orleans
[See You in Hell is a feature by our guest blogger, Satan — PE] A 1-year-old girl was shot dead in her babysitter’s arms in New Orleans, prompting the city’s mayor to declare “enough is enough” as police hunted for two suspects with little help from witnesses. Londyn Samuels, who was just learning to walk, was struck by a bullet fired into her 18-year-old nanny’s back as she carried the toddler home from the park. — “‘Enough is enough’: 1-year-old shot to death on New Orleans street” – NBCNews.com There’s a train they call the City of New Orleans, and it is on a fast track to Hell. First of all, let me say for the record that everyone is equal in Hell — regardless of race, color, religion, creed, national origin, blah blah blah, or any other legally protected status. That said, when I see a headline like 1-year-old… Read more →