Will Amazon Suppress the True Michael Brown Story?

Interesting. And I'm just learning about this. It's a Shelby Steele joint.

Watch the trailer of Vimeo (here), apparently since YouTube won't host is. 

Jason Riley wrote about it a WSJ (paywall) and City Journal:

Shelby Steele’s new film takes a critical look at the prevailing narrative. It’s now under ‘content review.’

August was the sixth anniversary of the death of Michael Brown, the black teenager who was shot dead by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo. The incident, and the nationwide coverage it attracted, marked the beginning of a period of mass protests against police, which culminated (let’s hope) after the tragic death of George Floyd in Minneapolis this May.

The fashionable explanation for what happened to Brown, Floyd and others—such as Freddie Gray in 2015 and Philando Castile in 2016—is so-called systemic racism. The activist left and the mainstream media insist that law enforcement targeted these men because they were black—and that if they weren’t black, they would still be alive. The truth is more complicated and less politically correct, and it’s the subject of an engrossing new documentary that is scheduled to premiere Oct. 16.

The film, titled “What Killed Michael Brown?,” is written and narrated by the noted race scholar Shelby Steele and directed by his son, Eli Steele. Readers of these pages probably know the elder Mr. Steele through his best-selling books and occasional Journal op-eds. But earlier in his career, Mr. Steele also won acclaim for his work in television. In 1990 he co-wrote and produced “Seven Days in Bensonhurst,” an Emmy-winning documentary about Yusef Hawkins, the black teenager from Brooklyn who was fatally shot in 1989 after he and some friends were attacked by a white mob.

In an interview this week, Mr. Steele, who is based at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, explained the significance of Brown’s death and what it tells us about race relations today. “Michael Brown represented, even more so than Trayvon Martin, Freddie Gray and others, the distortion of truth, of reality,” he said. Mr. Steele added that when it comes to racial controversies, liberals have developed what he calls a “poetic truth,” which may be at complete odds with objective truth but nevertheless helps them advance a desirable narrative. In the case of Michael Brown, reality was turned on its head.

“It was almost absolute,” Mr. Steele said. “The language—he was ‘executed,’ he was ‘assassinated,’ ‘hands up, don’t shoot’—it was a stunning example of poetic truth, of the lies that a society can entertain in pursuit of power.” Despite ample forensic evidence, the grand-jury reports and the multiple Justice Department investigations clearing the police officer of any wrongdoing, “there are blacks today, right now in Ferguson, as I point out in the film, who still truly believe that Michael Brown was killed out of racial animus,” he said. “In a microcosm, that’s where race relations are today. The truth has no chance. It’s smothered by the politics of victimization.”

Yet Mr. Steele sees a better future, and the interviews highlighted in “What Killed Michael Brown?” help to explain his optimism. One of the film’s strong suits is showcasing the words and deeds of everyday community leaders in places like Ferguson, St. Louis and Chicago. These people are far more focused on black self-development than on badgering whites or blaming society for problems in poor black communities. They understand and accept objective truth but mostly toil in obscurity while liberal billionaires cut million-dollar checks to subsidize Black Lives Matter activism and antiracism gibberish from “woke” academics.

“It’s easy to say, ‘The white man, the white man,’ and point the finger,” says a pastor in the film whose church is located in one of Chicago’s most violent neighborhoods. “In reality, we have to take a very close look at ourselves.” His focus is on “the transformation of the person. And we’re telling them, hey, educationally, you gotta get it together. Economically, you gotta get it together. Family and spiritually, you gotta get it together. And you have to take responsibility.”

The president of the St. Louis NAACP chapter told Mr. Steele there was no evidence that the Ferguson protests had done anything to help the black people who live there. Property values have fallen, crime has increased, and schools continue to underperform. “Let’s be clear. The progressive agenda is not the black agenda,” he says. “The people in that community are no better off than they were prior to the death of that young black child. They’re no better off, and everybody knows it.”

Amazon, which was scheduled to stream the movie, is now having second thoughts and has placed it under “content review.” Eli Steele, the director, told me that he will resort to other streaming platforms if he has to and is referring people to the film’s website, WhatKilledMichaelBrown.com, for more details on how to view it. The progressive agenda may not be the black agenda, but it is the media’s agenda. Sadly, speaking plain truths about racial inequality in America today remains controversial.

 More here. 

Rania Khalek on Biden's Cabinet

Ms. Rania's further to the kooked-out left than Max Blumenthal, but she's a killer performance artist, and hot. 

Covid Shrinks the Labor Market, Pushing Out Women and Baby Boomers

At WSJ, "Nearly four million Americans have stopped working or looking for jobs":

Unlike previous recessions, this one is making it especially difficult for parents, women in particular, to work because of school closures and the loss of child care. https://t.co/tMz82YGdnX

— Catherine Lucey (@catherine_lucey) December 3, 2020

Since spring lockdowns were lifted, the demand for workers has snapped back faster than many economists expected. Between April and October the unemployment rate fell by more than half, to 6.9%, undoing more than two-thirds of its initial rise.

But unemployment data overstates the health of the labor market because the supply of people either working or looking for a job has declined. The U.S. labor force is 2.2% smaller than in February, a loss of 3.7 million workers.

The labor-force participation rate, or the share of Americans 16 years and over working or seeking work, was 61.7% in October, down from 63.4% in February. Though up from April’s trough, that is near its lowest since the 1970s, when far fewer women were in the workforce.

The supply of workers and their productivity are the building blocks of economic growth. A smaller labor force leaves fewer workers to build machines and clean tables, restraining the economy’s long-term prospects.

“If we don’t get all the workers back, we can never have a V-shaped recovery,” said Betsey Stevenson, economics professor at the University of Michigan, referring to a quick and sustained bounce-back after a sharp decline. “Everybody should be worried about making sure that we don’t leave workers behind,” she said.

>Many economists say it’s too soon to conclude this year’s decline in participation is permanent. They note labor-force participation usually falls in recessions. The lack of good-paying job opportunities prompt many of the unemployed to give up the job search, return to school or simply retire earlier than they had planned. When labor markets tighten, rising wages and better hours pull people back into the workforce. Heading into the pandemic, labor force participation rates had improved; unemployment fell to 50-year lows and wages rose during the last economic expansion.

Many who have left the labor force had worked in low-wage sectors like retail, hospitality and personal care services disproportionately hit by the pandemic. Once the virus is contained, many of those jobs and workers may return, boosting participation.

Just a third of the increase in the number of people sidelined from the labor force since February 2020 say they still want a job but are not now looking, according to the Labor Department.

>Older workers who leave the labor force for good might mean employers turn to hiring more younger workers at lower wages when the economy recovers more broadly. But that’s not the same thing as the creation of new jobs, which is the engine of economic growth.

Some economists say the extent to which participation revives depends on how swiftly demand rebounds. Joel Prakken, chief U.S. economist at IHS Markit, believes that the combination of falling unemployment and the reversal of virus-related economic effects will gradually restore participation to pre-pandemic levels.

The economy has already recovered faster than many predicted in the spring, and advances in vaccine development suggest the potential for a strong recovery as the health threat ebbs.

New applications for unemployment benefits declined last week, a sign layoffs are easing but remain high. U.S. services businesses, a key driver of economic growth, gained ground for the sixth straight month in November, adding to signs of a continued recovery.

Nonetheless, some economists see three reasons the pandemic’s depressing effect on the labor force could linger. First, it appears to have sped up some baby boomers’ decision to retire, shrinking the number of productive workers in the economy prematurely. Second, it is forcing some parents of young children, in particular women, to reduce their hours or stop working altogether, which could make a comeback harder. Third, it is falling particularly heavily on workers with less education and skills. These workers often struggle to find well-paying work and many drop out of the workforce.

Participation fell sharply after the 2007-09 recession and never fully recovered. This partly reflected demographics as the first baby boomers qualified for Social Security in 2008. The recession damped participation of “prime-age” workers, those 25 to 54, which didn’t return to 2007 levels until 2019, when the labor market was strong. Lower participation reduced average annual economic growth by 0.6 percentage point from 2009 to 2017, according to S&P Global.

This recession appears to be speeding up retirements. In the third quarter of this year, about 3.2 million more baby boomers said they were out of the labor force due to retirement than in the same period a year earlier, according to Pew Research. From 2011 through 2019, the number of retired baby boomers rose at a rate of about two million annually.

Labor-force participation among workers aged 55 and over logged in at 38.7% in October, down from 40.3% in February.

“It’s always harder for older workers to find jobs when they’re pushed out,” said Teresa Ghilarducci, labor economist at the New School in New York City.

That’s especially true for older workers who entered the pandemic already in a vulnerable position. At the start of the year, Karen Naranjo, age 65, was unemployed, networking at charity events while preparing to look for a job at a nonprofit serving homeless or at-risk youth that used her project-management skills. But then the pandemic upended her plans.

I'm Interviewed at the 'Viking'

It's the school newspaper. I'm not linking, But they were fair. And I must have been particularly loquacious. 

Two political science professors at Long Beach City College provided their insight into the presidential election.

Since the country has received the news that previous vice president, Joe Biden, would become the 46th president of the United States, the country has been hit with many questions, some being about voter fraud and what to expect in the upcoming weeks.

“Trump and his campaign will continue to challenge the election, in public opinion and in the courts. Trump’s supporters claim this was a ‘stolen election,’ but so far, there’s been little hard proof (of massive fraud in particular, at least from what I’ve seen),” said political science professor, Donald Douglas, who has been teaching at Long Beach City College since 2000.

Douglas shared more of his insight to what is currently happening in the country.

“The problem, of course, is that everybody’s going to view the whole thing from their own partisan perspective. Trump and his supporters say he was robbed. Democrats say Biden is the president-elect. It all seems like a blur. Mostly, we’ll have to let the legal process play out. Trump’s campaign has filed at least 16 lawsuits in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. It doesn’t look like things are going all that well so far, but it’s complicated,” said Douglas.

Douglas shared information on the requirements every state has for the election.

“The 50 states are required to submit their final election certifications to Congress by December 14th, when members of the Electoral College are set to meet. If Trump’s legal challenges go to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the final winner of the majority of the Electoral College vote is disputed, a decision will come before December 14th. In 2000, the Supreme Court ruled in Bush v. Gore on December 12th, stopping the recount in Florida, leaving Bush ahead in the state and delivering Florida’s electors to Bush, and victory in the Electoral College,” he said.

A possible Supreme Court case in the future leaves some uncertainty on who will take office on January 20.

Douglas discussed the different possibilities that could take place.

“There won’t be a temporary vacancy of the office of presidency. Trump will absolutely serve out his term until January 20th, and most likely Joe Biden will be sworn in. It’s complicated, but if there was a tie in the Electoral College, or if Congress refused to accept the certification of elections from a state or a number of states, Congress would have to vote to choose the winner, and the vote is by state delegations.”

Matthew Atkinson, a political science professor at Long Beach City College since 2016, also had more insight on this possibility.

“The rules are very specific, I don’t think that there are any states where the election is so close that the courts are going to throw the electors into limbo,” he said.

“I don’t think there’s any possibility that these recounts or lawsuits would change any of the outcomes. I think Biden has by now had more than enough votes to lose one of the states that contested. I don’t think he’ll lose any of them but even if he did, he still has enough Electoral College votes in,” said Atkinson.

Despite the uncertainty still on who will be sworn into office this upcoming January, it was a tight race throughout the entire election. Joe Biden won with 306 electoral college votes, and President Donald Trump with 232 electoral college votes.

Why was this election so close?

“Overall turnout was 66 percent of eligible voters, the highest turnout since 1900. Quite simply, more people voted. And Trump increased his numbers from 2016. The movement to “Keep America Great” is here to stay. It’s going to be a powerful and enduring factor of American politics for a long time, long after Trump’s retired from the scene. Democrats are worried, and rightly so. They lost seats in Congress. They failed to win back the majority in the Senate, and the two Georgia runoff elections to the Senate are a long shot for the party. And Democrats failed to win back the majority in any state legislature. Except for the presidential race, it was a bad night for Democrats and the left,” said Douglas.

This election had the highest voter turnout compared to every past election.

Atkinson said, “Through most of the late 20th century, voters didn’t really feel like that there was much at stake in the election and they certainly didn’t feel like there was an option for them that was important or exciting for a lot of Democratic voters.”

“It’s the top down mobilizing effect where it’s the parties and the politicians investing the resources and getting people to turn out to vote because that’s essential, and then there’s the bottom up people all of a sudden waking up and saying, oh wow, this is really important and start talking about it,” said Atkinson.

“If people sustain this level of voting, it would be really good for democracy, because it is good for Democratic representation,” said Atkinson.

“A lot can happen, but should gridlock reign in Washington, it’s going to be rough for the party in the 2022 midterms, with a strong possibility of Republicans retaking majority control of that chamber two years before the 2024 election,” said Douglas.

Jonathan Church, Reinventing Racism

At Amazon, Jonathan Church, Reinventing Racism: Why “White Fragility” Is the Wrong Way to Think About Racial Inequality.

A Plea for a Humanist Antiracism

 At Areo:

If the astounding fact that Donald Trump received a greater share of non-white people’s votes in 2020 than any Republican president since 1960 reveals anything at all, it’s that this past summer’s racial reckoning didn’t resonate with many. In contrast to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, which found expression in historic legislation, the results of this year’s cultural upheavals have been more symbolic than substantive. Statues were toppled—not just of confederates but of abolitionists and national founders; defund the police became the impromptu battle cry of progressive activists; dissenters like James Bennett, David Shor, Bari Weiss and Andrew Sullivan were fired from or pressured to leave their jobs for refusing to acquiesce. But, despite the fact that major corporations from Walmart to Goldman Sachs, along with almost every major media outlet, celebrity and cultural institution came out in full support of Black Lives Matter, conspicuously few national policies advocating structural reforms in policing have emerged as a result. 

A sharp uptick in violent crime and homicides was the predictable outcome of the widespread anti-police sentiment galvanized by Black Lives Matter. Rioting caused billions of dollars in property damage in largely minority neighborhoods and dozens of lives were lost. It would be a terrible irony if a movement ostensibly dedicated to preserving black lives inadvertently cost more of them than it saved. 

Trump’s gains among non-white, women and LGBTQ voters (and his setbacks among white male voters) have not stopped some progressives from blaming the unprecedented turnout of support for him on white supremacy, patriarchy and racism. Charles Blow, for example, has commented, “All of this to me points to the power of the white patriarchy and the coattail it has of those who depend on it or aspire to it … Some people who have historically been oppressed will stand with the oppressors, and will aspire to power by proximity.” Likewise Roxane Gay has asserted, “The way this election has played out shouldn’t be a surprise if you’ve been paying attention or if you understand racism and how systemic it really is.” Nikole Hannah-Jones tweeted that the Latino vote for Trump can be attributed to the whiteness of certain Hispanic ethnic groups. But the much more parsimonious answer is that demography is not destiny. 

This is an ideology incapable of adapting to new information. Modern, race-conscious antiracism is not just a political affiliation, like libertarianism or democratic socialism. The sense of meaning it provides in our increasingly secular society has turned it into a quasi-religious belief system that grow stronger in the face of disconfirmatory information. If our political identity is our primary source of morality, any challenge to our political worldview will be perceived as an existential threat. In modern anti-racism, resistance to reality is more of a feature than a bug. 

The misplaced assumption that racism killed George Floyd virtually guaranteed a disproportionate and jumbled response. The ostensible concerns of BLM—racial profiling in policing and the lack of accountability and transparency among officers—are laudable and well substantiated. But it was no coincidence that race and racism, rather than structural policing issues, quickly became the main issue. 

Police killings of unarmed people of any race are exceedingly rare in the US (there were only about 55 last year). The group most targeted by police are the poor. Interracial violence is extremely uncommon and black police officers may be just as likely to kill black suspects as white officers. White people are regularly killed by police and in higher absolute numbers than black people. The death of a white man called Tony Timpa, who was killed in nearly identical circumstances to Floyd’s attracted little interest. The discomfiting reality is that racial gaps in policing start to close when we account for differences in crime rates and frequency of encounters with police. Any honest conversation about policing must also take into account the around 400 million guns circulating in the population along with America’s disproportionate rates of violent crime in relation to our peer countries. Around 81% of black Americans want as much or more policing in their communities as they currently have. All these facts have been ignored and treated as extraneous, at best. Those who raised them are often viewed with suspicion. Questioning whether racism really killed George Floyd opens one up to the charge of being a racist oneself. To be against Black Lives Matter is framed as being against black lives. To be against the current form antiracism has taken is framed as being in favor of racism. This discourages honest conversation. 

It doesn’t have to be this way. If the advocates of anti-racism could address its two major blind spots—historical determinism and race essentialism—a better version would emerge. We can mitigate the lingering effects of racism in society without resorting to the same moral logic that gave rise to white supremacy in the first place: the use of group identity as a means to power and absolution. Any successful antiracist movement must begin with the premise that race is a fiction

...Still more.

Hot Girls Wednesday

At Drunken Stepfather, "STEPLINKS OF THE DAY."

⏩ IG: ( luna.benna ) pic.twitter.com/zMNacdD1e5

— HottieYeep (@HottieYeep) November 26, 2020

╭═➤ ✰ ✯ IG: raphabonas ✯ ✰
🇲╔══╗⋆∘･ﾟﾟ･･:⋆∘∵⋰◦⋆∘
🇺║═╦╩╦╗╔╗╔═╦╦╦╗
🇸║╔╣╬║╚╣╚╣╬║║║║
🇹╚╝╚═╩═╩═╩═╩══╝
╰═➤⏩ @HotGirlsZ0ne @BadBab3s ⏪ pic.twitter.com/YbcgGZiD6z

— vagarymodels (@vagarymodels) November 21, 2020

John R. Bruning, Race of Aces

John R. Bruning, Race of Aces: WWII's Elite Airmen and the Epic Battle to Become the Master of the Sky.

Max Hastings, Operation Chastise

Max Hastings, Operation Chastise: The RAF's Most Brilliant Attack of World War II.

When Sharks Turned Up at Their Beach, They Called in Drones

This is pretty cool, at NYT, "A goal of the SharkEye project is to one day produce automated “shark reports” for beachgoers to help them gauge levels of risk."

Statewide Mask Mandate

Fock Newsom. Just fock 'im and his focking French Laundry.

At LAT, "Californians must mask up outside their homes under new expanded mandate."

New expanded bullshit. I wear my mask when I go out. I don't want any hassles, mostly, but I don't like.

I will never go back to teaching if I'm required to wear a mask. That's my line in the sand. 

Top CAP Executive Neera Tanden is Biden's Pick for Director of Management and Budget

Lame. 

She's a lawyer and political consultant by training. She's way out of her league. 

At USA Today, "Live politics updates: Neera Tanden, Biden's pick for budget chief, draws fire from left and right."

And WSJ,"Joe Biden Fills Out His Economic Team: President-elect’s picks include Neera Tanden to head the Office of Management and Budget and Cecilia Rouse to chair the Council of Economic Advisers."

BONUS: Glenn Greenwald, "Biden Appointee Neera Tanden Spread the Conspiracy That Russian Hackers Changed Hillary's 2016 Votes to Trump."

Oh Fock China. Just Fock 'Em

Why, oh why, is the Chinese minister's tweet not flagged as "disinformation" by the "woke" Twitter memory-hole apparatchiks? 

You know the answer. Big Tech, Big Pharma, the NBA, they're all in the tank for Beijing and they greedily grab for the potential market of billions and billions of endless consumers. Truth and decency be focking damned. 

At CNN, "Australia demands apology after Chinese official tweets 'falsified image' of soldier threatening child."

And at the Syndey Morning Herald, "China fires back at Morrison, doubles down on war crimes accusation."

So brazen. I'd personally like to kick Chinese diplomat Zhao Lijian right in the teeth.

Australia’s prime minister condemned what he called a fabricated image tweeted by a Chinese official. The post showed an Australian soldier with a knife to the throat of an Afghan child. https://t.co/L1MMIMqXRJ

— The New York Times (@nytimes) November 30, 2020

Shocked by murder of Afghan civilians & prisoners by Australian soldiers. We strongly condemn such acts, &call for holding them accountable. pic.twitter.com/GYOaucoL5D

— Lijian Zhao 赵立坚 (@zlj517) November 30, 2020

William Julius Wilson, When Work Disappears

At Amazon, William Julius Wilson, When Work Disappears : The World of the New Urban Poor.

YouTube Star Jake Paul Smashes Nate Robinson with 'Brutal' Knockout (VIDEO)

Jake Paul should get in the ring with Mike Tyson. That'd be worth it, lol. 

At Sporting News, "Jake Paul vs. Nate Robinson fight results: YouTube star wins with brutal KO."

[That just reminded me: "The Great White Hope"? (Wiki.)]

Short knockout video here.

Biden's Win Hides Dire Warning for Democrats in Rural U.S.

I'm been giddy about this, especially because radical leftists and Democrats (but I repeat myself) have no clue. I've been shouting this from the rooftops to family members and friends since the election. I'm now dead to them, especially my older sister (who calls me "Mr. Republican," which I'm most definitely not, lol) and her friends. 

At the Minneapolis Tribune, "While Democrats powered through cities and suburbs to reclaim the White House, the party slid further behind in huge rural swaths of northern battlegrounds."

'Authority for the Last Days'

Pastor Mike Webb's service this morning, at Foothill Family Church, in Lake Forest, California.

'The Queen's Gambit' Turning Out to Be the Most-Watch Series Netflix Has Ever Shown

I'm trying to cut down on the number of shows I'm streaming --- or else I'll have time for nothing else, man. You can get sucked into non-stop streaming pretty fast when you're facing endless Democrat Party lockdowns. 

I'm watching football today, but maybe I'll sample episode one tonight. 

At AoSHQ, "Saturday Afternoon Chess thread 11-28-2020."

And at the Guardian U.K., "'It's electrifying': chess world hails Queen's Gambit-fuelled boom."

'Cold as Ice'

Live from 1978:

And at the comments:

 

"Lou Graham's voice was simply amazing in his prime. He is right up there with Steven Tyler, Freddie Mercury, et al... Pick your legendary hard rock or metal singer - Cornell, Plant, Rogers, Daltry, Zander, Dickinson, Halford, Hagar. Graham holds his own with any of them. Legend!"

Was That the Goal?

Of course that was the goal. Why even post such journalistic speculation except as a massive gaslighting operation. 

At NYT (FWIW), "Assassination in Iran Could Limit Biden’s Options."