Wednesday, January 16, 2019

We must watch how we react to the latest ratcheting-up of the Left's identity-politics insanity

Some noteworthy skirmishes on the identity-politics battlefront lately.

Let's start with one that concludes quite deliciously:

CNN legal analyst Areva Martin thought she was talking to a white man Tuesday while appearing as a guest on David Webb’s SiriusXM radio show.
When Webb, a Fox Nation host and frequent Fox News contributor, said he considered his qualifications more important than his skin color when applying to media jobs, Martin accused him of exercising white privilege.
But there was a problem with that, as Webb quickly pointed out:
“Areva, I hate to break it to you, but you should’ve been better prepped,” he responded. “I’m black.”
Hee hee!

He explains who he is in a little more depth:

“You’re talking to a black man . . . who started out in rock radio in Boston, who crossed the paths into hip-hop, rebuilding one of the greatest black stations in America and went on to work at Fox News where I’m told apparently blacks aren’t supposed to work, but yet, you come with this assumption, and you go to white privilege,” Webb says. “That’s actually insulting.”
Then there's Gillette's "toxic masculinity" commercial, which is, gratifyingly, proving to be an utter disaster for parent company Procter & Gamble.

Then there's the case of the vapors that the CNN panel had over Trump's quip about considering having the First and Second Ladies make salads for the Clemson football team before opting to serve vast quantities of fast food.

The Left has set up a minefield in post-America's culture that will blow somebody up.

I suspect that, as 2019 unfolds, we'll see two divergent reactions on much of the Right, each of them cringeworthy: kowtowing and backlash.

We're already seeing a number of opinion pieces along the lines of how Republicans had better get a clue as to how devoid their party is becoming of demographic groups other that white males. That's not wrong, but it's not the last word on the subject. If a generally right-of-center worldview is, or at least ought to be, about anything, it's the primacy ideas, immutable principles, and eternal verities.

Nobody uses terms like "immutable" and "eternal" anymore, do they? No, now it's all relative and situational. Various "communities" have their own "needs" and sets of issues. Indeed, we're to the point that they have their own "truths."

Excuse me, but are not Judeo-Christian morality and free-market economic principles true and applicable for any demographic?

The point here is this: Let's not take outreach to the level of pandering. Let's give all demographic groups we engage the respect of assuming that they can see the appeal - indeed, the indispensability - of what we have to offer.

We can also expect to see backlash. Over-the-top displays of "You wanna see some masculinity? Here's some masculinity." One form we can expect this to take is even more entrenched defense of the Very Stable Genius's boorishness.

Both of these reactions will further stoke the Left's furious drive toward the obliteration of human nature.

Let us enter the fray as what we ought to aspire to be: ladies and gentlemen of steadfast principle and uncommon intellectual rigor.

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