Category: Race and Race Relations
-
Richmond’s Real Scandal
It just keeps getting worse. At least 280 students have been disqualified from receiving a high school diploma after a Richmond Public Schools review of student transcripts and irregularities in the granting of high school diplomas. At best only 810 students will qualify to attend graduation ceremonies — and the number could be smaller, the…
-
Northam Finds Salvation in Victimhood-and-Grievance Agenda
Funny how things worked out. Democratic Party cries for Ralph Northam’s resignation during the blackface scandal have diminished to a barely audible murmur. Now the establishment media is taking notice of the fact, stating out loud what everyone knows: The scandal has passed. Northam is off the hook. Virginia’s governor has purchased absolution by advancing…
-
Herring Still Campaigning on Racial Justice Issues
Attorney General Mark Herring wants to be the next governor of Virginia, which means he first must win the Democratic Party nomination. Despite confessing several months ago that he once wore blackface as a college student, he has put race front and center in his bid for the state’s top office. It will be interesting…
-
SJWs Strike Again: Police Field Reports Are Biased
Here we go again. Today readers of the Richmond Times-Dispatch are treated to a front-page, top-of-the-fold article highlighting racial disparity… not in arrests… not in convictions… not in stop-and-frisks… but in the Richmond Police Department’s use of racial identifiers in “field interview reports.” The newspaper’s indictment: Of the 29,997 reports Richmond police officers documented in…
-
Northam Seeking “Diversity and Inclusion” Officer
Governor Ralph Northam is looking for a new senior-level official to promote diversity and inclusion within state government, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch. The new employee will report directly to the governor and his chief of staff. Among the qualifications listed in the job description: the “understanding of systemic and institutional bias.” States the RTD: The…
-
Replacing One Inequity with Another
Governor Ralph Northam vetoed a bill yesterday that would have imposed mandatory minimum sentences on repeat domestic abusers on the grounds that racial minorities would be disproportionately affected. I nearly headlined this post, “Northam to Domestic Abuse Victims: Drop Dead.” I decided that wouldn’t be quite fair. But I wouldn’t be surprised if many people…
-
Mugged by Reality: Sedgwick Gardens Edition
A conservative, as the saying goes, is a liberal who has been mugged by reality. Well, it appears that a large number of liberals in the affluent Cleveland Park neighborhood of Washington, D.C., have been mugged by reality. Whether they become conservatives remains to be seen. In a social experiment that could have implications here…
-
A Street Sign by Any Other Name Is Still Just a Street Sign
The Arlington County board is expected to ask the Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) to rename the section of the Jefferson Davis Highway, Rt. 1, that runs through the county. What took it so long? I defend the preservation of Civil War statues, especially those along Richmond’s Monument Ave. The statues are magnificent works of public…
-
Virginia’s Decline in Crime
One of the advantages of living in Virginia is that citizens are less likely than other Americans on average to become crime victims. The rate of violent crimes (seen above ) is about half the national average, according to data published today on the StatChat blog based on 2017 FBI crime data. The rate for…
-
17th-Century Renderings of Native Virginians
Wenceslaus Hollar, a prolific maker of etchings in the 1600s, has an exhibit dedicated to his works now on display at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Born in Bohemia, he spent most of his adult life in Germany, Netherlands and England, where he cranked out a prodigious number of works, sometimes of his own…
-
Brace Yourself for the “Food Justice” Movement
“Food justice” is a thing now. My first instinct when I read the phrase was cynical: While some people are busy running food banks and food pantries, growing urban gardens, and setting up grocery stores in Richmond’s inner city — you know, doing things that actually feed poor people — food justice warriors are busy…
-
Follow-up: Charlottesville Race Threats a Really Bad “Joke”
A week ago I predicted that an online threat of racial violence that resulted in the shutdown of Charlottesville public schools would prove to be a hoax, possibly perpetrated by an activist trying to bring attention to racial injustice. Well, the incident did turn out to be a hoax, although I was wrong about the…
-
Hit-and-Run Journalism and the Oppression Narrative
Two days ago, I took the Washington Post and New York Times to task for uncritically publicizing the allegations of recently resigned Portsmouth Police Chief Tonya Chapman that the police department was riddled with racism. Both newspapers rushed to publication without any dissenting view or even a note of caution. Portsmouth City Council has appointed…
-
Bacon Bits: Economic Research Edition
I periodically check the research papers coming out of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) because they often address issues of interest to Bacon’s Rebellion. The research is far more rigorous from a methodological perspective than the work product of special-interest and advocacy groups, hence more worthy of serious consideration — even when it…
-
The Media’s Oppression Narrative: Portsmouth Edition
Thanks to the release of the Mueller report, we now know that the national media utterly disgraced itself over two years by pushing an unfounded conspiracy theory about President Trump’s collusion with Russians. Now maybe it’s time to focus on the media’s role in perpetuating the narrative of endemic racism. The latest example: coverage by…