It takes an enormous amount of courage to stand there, keep filming, and scream "What the fuck, you asshole" at someone wearing a badge who just shot and killed one of your neighbors in cold blood.
If you're grasping for anything to feel good about right now - and that's a very difficult thing to find - feel good about the fact that not everyone is as much of a spineless, collaborating coward as our elites. Total strangers will risk their lives to stand next to you. ...
"Let's Look Back on 2025: Year in Review" wow no thank you, once was plenty ...
j says:
I am statistically as likely to be Ed Burmila as I am to be swallowed by a sperm whale tonight. Which is zero. Unfortunately in the former case, but very happily in the latter case!
j says:
And yet, if you are a minority who is fortunate enough to get the same education and experience as your typical non-minority, there is a slight advantage to being able to enumerate your minority status in some fields such as my own. If you are a minority researcher, there are a number of grants and fellowships that are available to you that are not available to non-minorities. This can translate into cases where, if it's a toss of the coin between two people for one slot then if one has minority status then it's a slight push in their direction.
Given this situation, some people (dirty dirty republicans!) might think it's a bad thing because people aren't judged solely on their merits. Others might think it's a good thing because disenfranchised minorities need help and diversity should be celebrated.
I think it's a great thing for a very different reason: usually minorites who are well-qualified have had to push way harder to get where they are than non-minorities in a similar situation. The conservative rationale is turned on its head.
warmbowski says:
When I first head of Geraldine's remarks, I remembered the stuation between Isiah Thomas and Larry Bird back in the late '80s? Almost the opposite image of the current situation, with a black player (Thomas) playing the Ferraro part and disparaging a white player (Bird) in the context a heated playoff. I looked up the quote and it went something like – if Bird were black he "would be just another good guy".
I don't remember the outfall of these remarks too well, but I think that Thomas at least regretted them.
BTW
Ed says:
Well, J, I understand what you mean. Sometimes in academia one thinks "Man, if I were black I could get a job much more easily." What most people neglect to remind themselves is that if they were black they probably wouldn't be there to ponder that reality.