Many are struggling in this economy. My family is among them. Please support what we’re doing here and help us to continue to spread the truth Americans need to read and hear.
Ever since the most blatant forms of racism and discrimination in America faded, what are called microaggressions have, in the view of leftist academics and social justice activists, taken their place. These are “a form of racism,” the slights and insults that, though subtle and small and typically unconscious, are insulting and harmful to their targets.
As noted by Edward Cantu and Lee Jussim, respectively a law professor at the University of Missouri and a professor of social psychology at Rutgers, microaggressions are a hot topic, as universities, diversity trainers, and others are “operationalizing” the microaggression idea “as if it were the product of rigorous science.”
But in an exhaustive analysis of the research supporting the “current microaggression construct,” or CMC, Cantu and Jussim find that a microaggression is basically what a microaggression researcher subjectively believes it to be, with almost nothing in the way of scientific evidence that racism is embedded in it or that its alleged victims even see it as racist or harmful.
Most studies attempting to measure microaggressions and their harm are based on such small samples as to be statistically meaningless, their analysis concludes. In some instances researchers draw clear conclusions from what are actually murky data. They cite one study, for example, in which the white lab partner of a black woman asks her “How did you get so good in science,” a statement that, according to the CMC, embeds the insulting racist assumption that blacks are not good at science.
“To be sure,” Cantu and Jussim write,” that question “might be an expression of racism.” But, they ask, why should that be the default interpretation when there are other equally plausible explanations, for example, that the white student simply believed that her lab partner was very good at science?
The study’s actual results on this point were mixed and unclear. It was based on a sample of just 20 black respondents, all of them college students from the same region of the country, showing 53% of them perceiving the statement to be at least “slightly racist” (with no breakdown between those who said “slighly racist” and those who said “very racist”) and 47% finding it not racist at all. The researchers dealt with this very mixed and inconclusive result by saying those 47% were possibly less intelligent than the 53%, or were just the kind of people “who simply may not be offended by anything.”
“No study … reliably demonstrates that people of color agree with researchers about what constitutes microaggressions,” Cantu and Jussim conclude.
Cantu and Jussim attribute some of the research findings basically to a wish on the part of the researcher to come to preordained conclusions, such that “confirmation bias cancels vigilance.” The same analysis would seem to apply to other research findings purporting to show that “the status quo is inherently racist,” as Richard Delgado, one of the founders of critical race theory has put it.
Gimmicks work for many precious metals companies. I despise gimmicks, which is why I recommend the straightforward approach of Our Gold Guy. If you want to buy precious metals, don’t get jacked around. Contact Ira.
Racism exists, of course, as does the heritage of slavery and Jim Crow. The question is whether they are so deeply embedded into the workings of society as to have a profound, inescapable impact on their victims, no matter what these victims do. The fashionable post-liberal assumption is that they do, and an industry of “woke” research has emerged to give a gloss of simple, objective truth to that conclusion.
The murder of George Floyd by Derek Chauvin, for example, gave rise to a widely propagated image of an America full of racist police engaged in a random slaughter of blacks. It was a powerful, emotionally gripping narrative, one made all the more powerful when the media ignored contrary facts, for example that three times as many whites are killed by police every year than blacks.
Similarly, after the shooting of eight people, including six Asian massage workers, by a sex-crazed white gunman in Atlanta in March, the media were full of commentary about how the rise in anti-Asian violence revealed the persistence of systemic racism and white supremacy. “A majority of the perpetrators were reported to be white and male,” declared a typical statement along these lines in Time magazine months after the incident.
It is, of course, understandable for people to feel strongly about the assaults on Asians, some of them very violent, that have taken place on the country’s streets. But that Time essay, which was entitled “I’m tired of educating white people about anti-Asian racism,” endorsed the “woke” first principle, that any disproportionate impact is by definition due to white racism. The evidence cited in the Time article, however, is strikingly weak and inconclusive. It came from the “Virulent Hate Project” at the University of Michigan, which acknowledged that “only a small fraction” of the news articles used to compile the figures on anti-Asian attacks identified the race or sex of the attacker.
Exactly how small a fraction—whether one-fourth or one-twentieth—neither the research nor the Time essay said. But any small sample provides a weak basis for the unqualified declaration that “a majority” of the attackers were white and male. Moreover such generalizations fail to account for the many videos showing a substantial number of the attackers to be psychologically disturbed homeless people, black, and female. Nor does it factor in police explanations of the violence, like the New York Asian Hate Crimes Task Force finding that mental illness was the “common denominator” of the perpetrators and that race was not a “major factor.”
Another persistent argument about the depth and persistence of “systemic racism” has to do with school discipline and the contention that black students are punished for misbehavior more frequently than white students. People contending that this reveals the underlying racism of American life cite studies showing that blacks do not commit school infractions more often than whites.
A 2019 report by the United States Commission on Civil Rights, for example, found that “students of color as a whole … do not commit more disciplinable offenses than their white peers,” but they “receive substantially more school discipline than their white peers and receive harsher and longer punishments.”
These claims are of the sort that earlier led to a “Dear Colleague” letter addressed to schools by the Obama Administration warning if discipline results in a “disparate impact” defined by race, their federal funding might be withdrawn. Similarly, following President Biden’s more recent executive order on “Advancing Racial Equity” the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, citing the USCCR findings, has asked educators to submit proposals on how to “identify, address, and remedy discriminatory student discipline policies and practices.”
Whatever they throw at us next, be ready. Dr. Zelenko’s new Z-DTox makes your immune system clean, resilient, and resistant.
“All of us have implicit bias,” Catherine Lhamon, currently the head of the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights, formerly the executive director of the very US Commission on Civil Rights that issued its report showing racial discrimination in school discipline. “No one is exempt.”
Most observers of school discipline do agree that black, Latino, and students with disabilities, are punished more than white or Asian students. But those who see this disparity in social justice terms do with it what they do with virtually all racial disparities: they assume it is due to racist discrimination, dismissing evidence that it could come about from other factors, among them that black and other minority students, many of whom come from poor, disadvantaged school districts, actually do misbehave and cause more school disturbance than whites and Asians.
One dissenting member of the USCCR investigation, Gail Heriot, a law professor at UC-San Diego, contended that there was “no evidence to support the sweeping assertion” that discrimination is mainly responsible for the racial disparity in discipline.
Support for Heriot’s dissent comes from a 2017 report issued by three government agencies, including the National Center for Education Statistics. Its findings were disturbing, for example that in a single recent year, there were more than 800,000 “nonfatal victimizations” of students 12 to 18 years old while they were in school. Students at schools that suffer serious disciplinary problems score lower on reading, math, and science tests than students at other schools.
The discipline disparity is often summed up in the racial difference in school suspensions, with black students, only 15 percent of the school population, receiving about 37% of suspensions. But the government study found that black students were two and a half times more likely than whites or Asians to report a gang presence in their schools; 32% of black students reported being in physical fights in school, compared to 23% of Hispanics and 20% of whites.
A study by Joshua Lewis Kinsler, an associate professor of economics at the University of Georgia, concluded that the gap in discipline is not due to discrimination but to “cross school variation in punishment.” There was little difference based on race within the same schools, Kinsler found; nor was there a difference due to the race of the teacher or the principal of a particular school. The difference came about because schools are different and some of them, having more gangs, more guns, more fights, and generally higher levels of misbehavior, resort to punishments like suspensions more than other schools.
Photo by Aleksandra Sapozhnikova on Unsplash. Article cross-posted from RealClearInvestigations.
New Conservative Network Seeks Crowdfunding Help
They say we have to go big or go home. We’re trying to go big and bring the patriotic truth the the nation, but we need help.
Readers may or may not realize that over the past year, we’ve been bringing more conservative news and opinion outlets under our wing. Don’t take our expansion as a sign of riches; all of the “acquisitions” have been through sweat and promises of greater things to come for all involved. As a result, we’ve been able to bring together several independent media sites under a unified vision of preventing America from succumbing to the progressive, “woke,” Neo-Marxist ideologies that are spreading like wildfire across America.
Buy precious metals to protect your wealth. Pick your style: JD GoldCo offers options. Our Gold Guy has no frills.
The slow and steady reopening of America is revealing there was a lot more economic hardship brought about from the Covd-19 lockdowns than most realize. While we continue to hope advertising dollars on the sites go up, it’s simply not enough to do things the right way. We are currently experiencing a gap between revenue and expenses that cannot be overcome by click-ads and MyPillow promos alone (promo code “NOQ” by the way).
To overcome our revenue gap and keep these sites running, our needs fluctuate between $3000-$7000 per month. In other words, we’re in the red and hemorrhaging.
The best way you can help us grow and continue to bring the truth to the people is by donating. We appreciate everything, whether a dollar or $10,000. Anything brings us closer to a point of stability when we can hire writers, editors, and support staff to make the America First message louder. Our Giving Fuel page makes it easy to donate one-time or monthly. Alternatively, you can donate through PayPal as well.
As the world spirals towards radical progressivism, the need for truthful journalism has never been greater. But in these times, we need as many conservative media voices as possible. Please help keep NOQ Report and the other sites in the network going.
Thank you and God Bless,
JD Rucker
Bitcoin: 32SeW2Ajn86g4dATWtWreABhEkiqxsKUGn
We Often Feel Like David Taking on Giants
Today’s Goliath is the Mainstream Media Industrial Complex that brainwashes the masses.
Our mission is very straightforward: To counter the false narratives and nefarious agendas destroying America today. It isn’t easy for obvious reasons; despite incredible growth over the last year we are still a very tiny fish in a huge media pond. But we’re fighting and we will continue to do so, Lord willing, for as long as we possibly can. The battle for America’s present and future is too important for us to back down to the giants that stand in our way.
We need help. I don’t want to say “desperately,” but the need is definitely great. If you have the means, please donate through our GivingFuel page, PayPal, or our brand new GiveSendGo page. Your generosity is what keeps these sites running and allows us to get the truth to the masses. We’ve had great success in growing but we know we can do more with your assistance.
Thank you, and God Bless!
JD Rucker
When preparing for societal collapse, don’t forget the water!
[…] ‘Microaggression’ Studies, Rooted in Macro Subjectivity […]