Category: Regressive Left

Regressive Iowa professor decries school mascot as too solemn!

September 4, 2016 • 1:15 pm

This is Herky the Hawk, the “athletic mascot” of the University of Iowa (UI).

Herky performs during the Beat State Pep Rally Friday, Sept. 12, 2014 on the Pentacrest. (Brian Ray/hawkeyesports.com)

A journalism professor conceived of Herky in 1948, and, 11 years later, he took to the field as a mascot! He’s been the symbol of Iowa ever since. However, two years ago they replaced the old Herky (below) with the current version, above. Old Herky: football helmet, no teeth (i.e. anatomically accurate), and not much of a frown. New Herky: no helmet, teeth, and fierce looking. This upset some Iowa fans.

Herky_the_Hawk

Now there’s been a lot of criticism of school mascots lately: they can conjure up images of racism, slavery, and xenophobia, and some of these criticisms are correct. I don’t, for instance, approve of stereotyped Native American “mascots”. Nor do I approve of live animals being paraded on the football field, like lions, bears, tigers and eagles. Those things belong in the wild.

But Herky? He’s not a real hawk, and he doesn’t evoke any emotions or images involving bigotry, oppression, or othering, right? So you can’t really object to Herky as a mascot, amirite?

Nope. You haven’t realized the depth to which Regressive Leftism has insinuated its tentacles into college life.

According to the August 24 Iowa City Press-Citizen, a UI Professor has strenuously objected to Herky for—wait for it—its lack of emotional variety as well as its perpetually angry expression. (Has she ever looked at a hawk?). I can’t do better than quote from the paper:

A University of Iowa professor is asking for the Department of Athletics to allow the university’s mascot, Herky the Hawk, to display a wider array of facial expressions in university publications.

“I believe incoming students should be met with welcoming, nurturing, calm, accepting and happy messages,” Resmiye Oral, a clinical professor of pediatrics at UI, wrote recently in an email to UI athletic department officials. “And our campus community is doing a great job in that regard when it comes to words. However, Herky’s angry, to say the least, faces conveying an invitation to aggressivity and even violence are not compatible with the verbal messages that we try to convey to and instill in our students and campus community.”

The email was included in a message Oral sent Tuesday morning to other members of the UI Faculty Senate, where she is one of the representatives from the UI Carver College of Medicine.

In a phone interview Tuesday, Oral said she has been concerned for some time with the lack of emotional variety displayed in the images of the university’s long-standing mascot — specifically the Fighting Herky, the “Old School” Flying Herky and the Tigerhawk logo developed by retired Hawkeye coach Hayden Fry.

Her intention, she said, is to bring diversity to how Herky feels, not to eliminate the ambitious, competitive, go-getter Herky.

Oral’s message to the Faculty Senate came in response to a series of posters and fliers on campus with messages welcoming new students — “On Iowa! Welcome Class of 2020! You’ll always be a Hawkeye. This is where it begins” — atop the images of Herky or the Tigerhawk.

“I would like to bring to the Faculty Senate’s attention that the attached Herky images are totally against the nonviolent, all accepting, nondiscriminatory messages we are trying to convey through campus,” Oral wrote in the email to her fellow senate members.

Oral stressed that she thinks the iconic images of Herky definitely have a place within the highly competitive nature of college athletics, but she wants other parts of the university to have some nonaggressive options for using such a beloved symbol.

“As we strive to tackle depression, suicide, violence, and behavioral challenges and help our students succeed, I plead with you to allow Herky to be like one of us, sometimes sad, sometimes happy, sometimes angry, sometimes concentrated,” she wrote.

The suggestion Dr. Oral —why isn’t she a mouth doctor?—was given to a new faculty and staff committee devoted to “working on the larger issue of ensuring that the university climate is one that is safe, inclusive and supportive of all of our community.” I won’t comment on that, but here’s their response to Dr. Oral’s thoughtful suggestions for Herky:

At this time, the committee is not focused specifically on how Herky is depicted,” said Thomas Vaughn, an associate professor of public health and president of the UI Faculty Senate.

Translation: “Leave us alone!”

Now this is one isolated professor, but she’s clearly infected with the Regressive Virus. By implying that Herky is actually violent, much less prone to inspire thoughts of violence, suicide, and depression in students, Dr. Oral shows she’s clearly drunk the Kool-Aid. And how is Herky supposed to show a diversity of expressions like happiness, puzzlement, concentration, and so on? It’s a plastic head, for crying out loud! Or perhaps she’s suggesting that there be a variety of Herky Heads that are changed during breaks in the game.

Either way, she needs to realize that it’s a mascot, Jake!

ImageHandler
Resmiye Oral (not angry)

h/t: Reader Jay

Syracuse decides to allow screening of film on Israeli settlers

September 3, 2016 • 12:30 pm

The other day I noted that M. Gail Hammer, a professor of religion at Syracuse, canceled the screening of a film on Israeli settlers because of her fear that it would incite the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) students on campus. The director of the film “The Settlers“, Simon Dotan, had been invited by a professor at Nebraska who was co-organizing a Syracuse conference on religion and film, but Hammer nixed that invite. The ironic thing was the BDS would have supported the showing, for the film apparently portrayed Israeli settlers in a negative light.

This was unique, as far as I know, because it was a disinvitation based not on any tangible dissent or opposition, but merely the fear of dissent—and a misguided fear to boot. Hammer’s behavior was reprehensible.

Fortunately, people can back down, as both Hammer and Syracuse have now done. As Syracuse.com reports, Hammer has apologized and the University of Syracuse will be showing the film after all. The Atlantic article by Conor Friedersdorf publicizing Hammer’s actions no doubt contributed to the publicity that led to this reversal:

Michele Wheatly, vice chancellor and provost at SU, emailed the campus community Friday morning to say that Hamner’s decision was not consistent with university policies. She said the university would be reaching out to the filmmaker to arrange a screening on campus.

Hamner also issued a formal apology, saying her reluctance stemmed from a fear of controversy and inexperience planning conferences.

. . . SU’s provost, Wheatly, responded to the controversy this morning [Sept. 2].

“I feel it necessary to reaffirm our commitment to intellectual and respectful debate on controversial issues,” she said in an email to the campus community.

Wheatly pointed to a letter from her predecessor, from 2014. Interim Chancellor and Provost Eric Spina said at the time that SU does not support the boycott of Israeli academic institutions, but welcomed discussion, debate and dialogue on campus concerning issues of peace and security in the Middle East.

Wheatly said she was working with Chancellor Kent Syverud and the College of Arts and Sciences to invite Dotan to screen the film on campus. No plans for the screening have been confirmed at this time.

Hammer issued her own statement through the University News Office:

Screen Shot 2016-09-03 at 12.09.49 PM

Well, I’ll take that; she certainly uses the right words, and it’s not a “notapology.” What is interesting is her mentioning the “media coverage” that ultimately came from the Atlantic piece. This is a lesson for us: if you see an egregious example of censorship or suppressionof speech, call it to the attention of the media, preferably Big Media like The Atlantic.

 

h/t: Greg Mayer

Film screening cancelled at Syracuse merely because professor feared pushback from BDS supporters

September 2, 2016 • 11:15 am

We’ve all seen plenty of examples of speeches at universities disrupted by offended students, speech invitations withdrawn because of student protests, and honorary degrees rescinded because of political offense (viz., Ayaan Hirsi Ali at Brandeis). But this is the first case I know of where a presentation was cancelled out of fear that it might offend students. And that fear was unsubstantiated and would have been unwarranted.

It’s reported in The Atlantic, so you can’t say this is biased right-wing reporting. The piece, “How political correctness chills speech on campus,” is by Conor Friedersdorf, a writer whom we’ve met before as a free-speech defender. And the case is distressing.

What happened, in brief, is that Syracuse University planned a conference next spring called “The Place of Religion in Film”, and a documentary filmmaker was invited to show a relevant (and well regarded) film there. The invitation came from a professor at the University of Nebraska who was also an organizer of the conference. The film was by Simon Dotan, and I’ll quote from The Atlantic:

The award-winning filmmaker, who sits on the faculty of New York University’s graduate school of journalism, recently finished a feature length documentary,The Settlers, that chronicles the history and present state of the religious settler movement in the West Bank, where more than 400,000 Israeli Jews live on occupied land.

The film is “one of the first close-up views of the motives and personalities in a group that rarely opens up to outsiders,” The New York Times noted. Variety raved that its festival presence is assured, and said that it is gripping enough to break out to wider audiences.

More about the film’s message later, but it’s not what you’re probably thinking.

After the invitation to Dotan was extended, with an offer to fly him from Israel to Syracuse, and then to Omaha for another screening, Professor M. Gail Hamner, a professor of Religion at Syracuse, put the kibosh on the invitation. Not because there were protests, mind you, but because she feared that the BDS group (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions, a notoriously nasty and anti-Semitic outfit) would object. But Hamner hadn’t even seen the film, or, apparently, knew anything about it. Here’s the letter she wrote to Dotan rescinding the invitation (my emphases):

Dear Professor Dotan,

I know you have been in contact with my Omaha colleague, Bill Blizek, about screening The Settlers and serving as plenary speaker at a religion and film conference in Syracuse in March, 2017. I am the convener of that conference and I found Bill’s description of your work, and the reviews I read of it exciting.

I now am embarrassed to share that my SU colleagues, on hearing about my attempt to secure your presentation, have warned me that the BDS faction on campus will make matters very unpleasant for you and for me if you come. In particular my film colleague in English who granted me affiliated faculty in the film and screen studies program and who supported my proposal to the Humanities Council for this conference told me point blank that if I have not myself seen your film and cannot myself vouch for it to the Council, I will lose credibility with a number of film and Women/Gender studies colleagues. Sadly, I have not had the chance to see your film and can only vouch for it through my friend and through published reviews.

Clearly I am politically naive. I also feel tremendous shame in reneging on a half-offered invitation.

I do want to stress that my colleague who Chairs our SU Jewish Studies program, Zak Braiterman, was fully willing to strongly support your coming, even though he too has not yet screened your film.

Obviously, my decision here has nothing to do with you or your work, and nothing to do with Bill, who contacted you in good faith. I feel caught in an ideological matrix and by my own egoic needs to sustain certain institutional affiliations.

I sign off in hopes that I do have the chance to engage your work one day, and in prayer that you’ll forgive me. My sincere apology and best wishes,

M. Gail Hamner
Professor
Religion Department
Affiliated Faculty in Women and Gender Studies
Affiliated Faculty in Film and Screen Studies
Syracuse University

And so Dotan’s film will not be shown because of the mere perception and fear that BDS activists would make trouble, and Hamner’s reputation would be sullied! I know of no similar cases.

But here’s the real kicker: BDS wouldn’t be making trouble if they knew about the film, for it’s not pro-settler! As Friedersdorf notes:

The political viewpoint of The Settlers shouldn’t matter. But a final irony is that the documentary, while allowing all sides to speak in their own words, portrays the settlements in a negative light, and is skeptical, at the very least, toward many settlers. A typical educated audience member would emerge with new knowledge of terrorist acts perpetrated by Israeli settlers, explicit racism in the settler movement, and a sense of the apartheid culture that has been created in the West Bank. Had I seen the film before learning of this controversy rather than after, I would have expected any attempts to stop it from being screened to come from the pro-Israel faction that has threatened free speech at the University of California.

Now I’ve argued that using the “apartheid” trope isn’t really appropriate to Israeli treatment of Arabs, but I’m not going to get into that argument now. The film deserved to be shown because of its quality and because it would provoke discussion.  I haven’t seen it, but I would go to see it, and I would never protest its being shown.

If you don’t think that The Offense Culture of students has had a chilling effect on free speech, read the above. In fact, it’s prevented the showing a film that the Perpetually Offended would have welcomed. They’re hoist with their own petard, but so are the rest of us—as this toxic student culture spreads through the US and UK.

hamner-m.gail
M. Gail (Ban)Hammer

More on the Western fetishizing of Islamic worship

August 18, 2016 • 11:30 am

The Canadian ex-Muslim Eiynah, also known as “Nice Mangos” —it’s telling that many ex-Muslims, but not ex-Jews or ex-Catholics, must hide their identity—drew my attention to an article in Time Magazine with this tw**t:

And Eiynah’s right with her claim that similar displays by Christians would be cringe-worthy. In fact, we don’t even have to speculate about it: we already have an example in the form of “Tebowing.” Tim Tebow, a former quarterback for the Denver Broncos, used to drop to his knees on the field after a victory, genuflecting and thanking the nonexistent god he loved so fervently. Here’s one of his poses. He did this so often that it became a meme, and a subject of national debate.

17558103-mmmain

And indeed, a lot of people liked Tebow’s behavior, for there are always those who prize public displays of Christianity. Indeed, at the University of Florida, Tebow used to wear Biblical verses on the black pigment that quarterbacks often wear under their eyes (supposedly to stop sun glare). You can look up this verse for yourself.

TEBOW3-jumbo
Credit Chris Graythen/Getty Images

But, as the New York Times recounts, there was plenty of criticism of this excessive religiosity as well, with Tebow being seen by some as a “religious nut job.” There’s even a a website that mocks his gesture, showing people Tebowing all over the globe. So yes, there’s not universal approbation for public displays of Christianity on the athletic field.

But there is for Islam. We’ve already seen the huge outpouring of enthusiasm for Ibtihaj Muhammad, the American who fenced in the Olympics wearing a hijab. Even Hillary Clinton tweeted about that, even though there was nothing courageous or heroic about Muhammad’s act, and in the end she turned out to be a pretty nasty exponent of anti-Semitism. There’s nothing to celebrate about an athlete from the U.S. wearing religious garb during the Olympics, particularly a garment that is a symbol of oppression: of a religion that views women as temptresses who can incite men’s uncontrollable lust by showing a wisp of hair. Yes, women have the right, or should, to wear hijabs everywhere, and some even claim to do it by “choice”—although what does that mean when there’s often severe social pressure by family and peers to conform? But let’s not deem the wearing of headscarves to be “heroic”. What would be “heroic” would be a woman in Iran or Saudi Arabia—where wearing the head-shackle is mandatory—to take it off in public.

But of course the Western media, even on the Left, have bought into Islamic exceptionalism: what would be cringe-worthy or mocked if it were done by Christians or Jews is seen as wonderful when done by Muslims. This is done out of fear—fear of two sorts. Fear that one could be attacked physically for criticizing or not sufficiently deferring to a religion whose adherents have made “I’m offended” their trademark, and fear that one will be called a bigot for not sufficiently osculating the Oppressed. It all stinks, for it’s all about celebrating the inimical effects of religion on human behavior.

But according to the latest venue to osculate Islam, Time magazine, the religion is all positive. Have a look at this headline below (click the screenshot to go to the site)

Screen Shot 2016-08-18 at 6.50.59 AM

My first temptation is to say one could write a counter-headline: “20 beheadings and 5 gays thrown off buildings show the negative power of Islam.” But, that aside, I bet that Time hasn’t used examples from the Olympics to show the positive power of Christianity or Judaism! Nope, it’s Islam that must be coddled and its “positive power” extolled at all costs.

Time gives three examples, and maybe the first one does show a salubrious influence of the faith on one athlete, Mo Farah, who won the men’s 10,000-meter dash. I quote from Time:

After he crossed the finish line, Farah fell on the track again—this time to pray. He bowed his head before a stadium of adoring spectators. That performance was just as dramatic as racing past Kenya’s Paul Kipngetich Tanui to win this third gold medal.

Farah’s prayer can help counter the damaging stereotypes of Muslims held by many around the world. For Farah, and scores of Muslim athletes, faith is not incidental, but central to their excellence in sport. “I normally pray before a race,” Farah said. “I read du’aa [Islamic prayers or invocations] think about how hard I’ve worked and just go for it.”

First of all, it’s not a stereotype of Muslims, at least one I’m familiar with, that their faith is “incidental”. We all know that it’s one of the faiths most closely bound up with politics and social lives. As far as Farah’s performance is concerned, maybe his faith had something to do with it, but we don’t know for sure. He feels it does, but that’s not even evidence for a placebo effect. All Time can really say is that Mo Farah prays before he races, and he won.

What about athletes who don’t pray before they race, because they’re atheists, and they win too? Would you say that shows the “positive power of atheism”? Does Michael Phelps’s stupendous performance in the Olympics show “the amazing power of cupping”?Why wouldn’t Time write that? What about an athlete who wins wearing his lucky shoes? Would Time say “Olympic athlete shows positive power of lucky shoes”?

Screen Shot 2016-08-18 at 6.51.40 AM
Britain’s Mo Farah celebrates winning the Men’s 10,000m during the athletics event at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games at the Olympic Stadium in Rio de Janeiro on Aug. 13, 2016. Photo: Frank Fife, Getty AFP Images.

Time‘s example number 2 is a hijab-wearing weightlifter from Egypt:

Donning all black with a red headscarf, the colors of her nation, the diminutive [Sara] Ahmed lifted a combined weight of 255kg (562lbs) to claim the bronze medal in the 69kg weight class. The feat, given her nationality and ethnicity, was unprecedented. Ahmed became an instant icon in her native Egypt, becoming the first female medalist in the nation’s 104-year history in Olympics’ competition and the first Arab woman to win an Olympic medal in weightlifting.

As she bowed her head to receive her medal, Ahmed represented world-class power, strength and Muslim womanhood, disrupting tropes that have enabled headscarf bans in France and trite oppression narratives in America and elsewhere.

Time doesn’t report anything that Ahmed said about her faith. She just wore a hijab when lifting. How does that show the positive power of Islam? We see here Time’s virtue signaling: “See, we’re not racists because we love those who wear hijabs!” And, of course, Time doesn’t point out how in places like Iran, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia, women are deliberately weakened by the state—on religious grounds.

The last example is Ibtihaj Muhammad:

Ibtihaj Muhammad was a star in the Muslim American community long before she stepped onto the global scene. But her story was about far more than being “the first U.S. Olympian to wear a hijab during competition.” She championed a cause long-ignored by non-Muslims and Muslims alike: the distinct experience of African American Muslims and the distinct perils often created by intersecting racism and Islamophobia.

The other cause she champions, which Time didn’t mention, is to promulgate lies about Israel on her social media site (they were pointed out to her, but she refused to retract them). But that means nothing alongside the fact that she wore a hijab and is considered “oppressed”. (I don’t find much evidence for that.) Yes, kudos to her for her persistence, but in the end, she became a fencer because no other sport was open to a woman who refused to remove her hijab. Had she doffed that symbol, she could have played any sport she wanted.  The hijab limits women, even when they wear it “by choice”.

College Follies of the Day. Part 2. Florida professor forbids students from describing the U.S. as a “melting pot”

August 14, 2016 • 11:45 am

About a year ago the Daily Beast wrote a piece called “The University of Californa’s Insane Speech Police,” which described UC President Janet Napolitano’s “invitation” for deans and department heads in the UC system to attend a seminar on suppressing free speech “fostering inclusive excellence”. These seminars were held at 9 of the 10 University of California campuses, and included a list of “microaggressions”: phrases that should be avoided because they constitute “verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership.”

Some of these are indeed offensive (“You are a credit to your race” or “I am not a racist; I have several Black friends.”) Others, however, can be construed offensive only if you’re a Pecksniff, including these phrases whose use shows that “a White person does not want to or need to acknowledge race”:

  • “When I look at you, I don’t see color.”
  • “There is only one race, the human race.”
  • “America is a melting pot.”
  • “I don’t believe in race.”

These are more problematic, for at least two of them would have been endorsed by Martin Luther King, Jr. himself, and another—”America is a melting pot”—is intended to be a phrase of comity, where diverse people can share rights and liberties, and exchange bits of each other’s culture, leader to a rich national “culture.”

But the “melting pot” phrase has now become a “microaggression”, and the only reason I can see is because we’re supposed to not only remain balkanized by ethnicity, religion, or ideology, but admit constantly that we are balkanized. The phrase is inoffensive.

Well, not to everyone. One professor in Florida has not only banned the “melting pot” phrase from her classroom, but threatens to penalize students who use it.

You’re only going to see reports on this from sites like the conservative Washington Times or the even more conservative Campus Reform, but if you think they’re lying because they’re right-wing sites, provide me documentation to the contrary. Please to not discredit a story just because your ideology disagrees with that of a source. I’ll assume what the sources say is true because they provide documentation.

To be brief, I’ll excerpt Campus Reform:

Students enrolled in Art Appreciation at the University of Florida risk losing credit on assignments if they use the phrase “melting pot” in class.

Professor Pamela Brekka told Campus Reform that she has reprimanded students for using the term in the past, and even withheld credit from those who used the phrase on assignments, because in her opinion, “melting pot” is a term that “signals a Euro-White Colonial standard, point blank, period.”

The course itself, entitled Art Appreciation: American Diversity and Global Arts, fulfills UF’s general education requirements for both the “Diversity” category, which requires three credits for graduation, and the “Humanities” category, which requires nine credits.

The course syllabus, obtained by Campus Reform, describes the class as “an introduction to the visual arts from a global perspective with an emphasis on diversity in the United States,” adding that “to facilitate this process we will assimilate and use discipline[-]appropriate terms.”

According to Brekka, you MUSt to recognize that America is neither a soup nor a stew, but a SALAD. No soup for you!

Brekka told Campus Reform that she doesn’t want students to use the phrase “melting pot” because it is not an accurate description of diversity in the United States, asserting that “the reason we put less emphasis on the way cultural groups are alike is because of the historical disadvantages minorities have had compared to the white majority.”

She believes diversity in America can more accurately be described with a salad metaphor.

“It’s the difference between a soup and a salad…in the salad, the flavors remain distinct,” she explained. “Your romaine lettuce retains its flavor, the tomatoes retain their flavor, and so on. They are all living happily in one bowl.”

Brekka admitted that in past courses she would deduct a partial point if a student used “melting pot” in an assignment, although she also said it was not a “strict policy.”

Yet Campus Reform’s documents, apparently obtained from a student, shows that it does seem to be a strict policy. Have a gander at the policy and the Authoritarian Leftist ideology these students must obey—or get a lower grade.

On several online course modules, through which students submit assignments, a statement reads, “DO NOT EVER USE THE PHRASE ‘MELTING POT’ IN THIS CLASS. IN THIS CLASS WE CELEBRATE DIVERSITY, NOT SAMENESS.”

MeltingPotPhrase

MeltingPot--NAandArchitecture

I remember the wonderful phrase that Martin Luther King used in his “I have a dream” speech:

I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Whatever happened to that? Is that no longer the day we want?

Now when we say Dr. King’s phrase, we’re committing a microaggression! As noted above, you’re a bigot every time you say, “When I look at you, I don’t see color.”

But what’s the alternative? To say, “When I look at you, I always see color”? I suspect the alternative is something like this: “When I look at you, I see a black person, and acknowledge that therefore you have traits X, Y, and Z because you have been oppressed. And with that I recognize my privilege.”

Now I can appreciate the need to recognize bigotry and inequities based on “race”—although saying you don’t believe in race, which used to be a sign of ideological Leftism, has now become a microaggression! So yes, in that sense you can “see color” and recognize how it plays out in American life. We can’t eliminate these inequities without recognizing their existence. But they don’t have to be recognized every single time we interact with someone of a different ethnicity!

I’m not going to play by Professor Brekka’s odious rules. I will continue to try to judge people by their character and not their pigmentation, and, above all, I still believe in an America that can welcome people of diverse backgrounds, because—and maybe this sentiment is outdated and sappy—I think that’s been a major factor in whatever greatness America can claim.

PamelaBrekka
Pamela Brekka, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Art History, University of Florida.

UPDATE: Reader Pliny the in Between has a cartoon take on this fracas:

Art Class.001

Wearing a hijab is neither virtuous, courageous, nor heroic

August 11, 2016 • 12:00 pm

Let me begin by saying two things. First, yes, in Islam wearing a hijab (the head covering) is a sign of virtue, designed to prevent men who cannot control their raging lust from seeing your salacious hair. It is a garment of modesty. But by “virtuous” above, I mean, this: you’re not a better person because you wear a hijab. All you are doing is displaying your adherence to one of the world’s many forms of superstition.

Second, this post is not meant to encourage bigotry against Muslims. Those women who wear a hijab have every right to do so, and are not bad people because they do so, although the hijab is probably a sign of coercion far more often than we think. Nevertheless, it’s laudable for people to fight bigotry: the unwarranted prejudice against someone on the basis of ethnicity or adherence to a religion.

But in these days of Regressive Leftism and Virtue Twerking (see Grania’s earlier post), people often seem to post not to reduce bigotry or improve society, but to congratulate themselves for not being bigots. Often these posts center on hijabs, and, to me, boil down to this statement “I am awesome for not being a racist. I am not a racist because I don’t hate women who wear headscarves.” (For one blatant example, see here.)

I became aware of another example from the Twi**ter feed of Sarah Haider, once a Shia Muslim and now, a nonbeliever, a co-founder and outreach director of Ex-Muslims of North America:

Here Haider is talking about Ibtihaj Muhammad, the American Olympic fencer who wore a hijab under her headpiece during competition. For this Muhammad has been lauded as a role model, as having made history, and for showing exemplary courage. But Muslim women athletes who don’t wear the hijab are no less courageous—in fact, they could be seen are more courageous by bucking the social pressure to cover your hair. What is being celebrated seems to be not Muhammad herself, but her hijab, and I’m not wholly comfortable with that.  (I do recognize that it’s also a self-congratulatory gesture by the U.S. on our supposed liberality.)

Yes, Muhammad has reported sporadic cases of bigotry against her, as has surely every black athlete on Team U.S.A., but I don’t see that as heroic. Persistent, yes, determined, yes, and tenacious, yes, but an American hero? Not to me. Sarah Haider, who speaks openly of her apostasy, thereby risking death or injury, is a greater hero. As is Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who travels with an armed bodyguard in the face of many death threats—all for speaking up against the oppression of Islam. Wearing a headscarf in the U.S. is simply not a gesture worthy of the term “heroic.” You want heroic? How about not wearing a headscarf in Saudi Arabia?

The article cited by Haider was by W. Kamau Bell on CNN, and was a plea to Michael Phelps (written as a letter to him) to make a “noble gesture,” stepping aside as the U.S. flag-bearer in favor of Muhammad in the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. (He was voted flag bearer by his fellow athletes on the basis of his amazing performances, with Muhammad coming in second. And he ultimately carried the flag on the day Bell wrote his piece.) But why this plea? To show how open and liberal America is, of course—for making a hijab-wearer a symbol of our country. And, of course, to publicly denigrate Donald Trump and his bigotry. As Bell notes in his plea to Phelps:
Your stepping back will allow this moment to become something bigger than just another opening ceremony. No offense, but right now America has enough tall, successful, rich white guys hogging the spotlight trying to make America great … again.
No offense, indeed! Except, perhaps, to Mr. Phelps, who won more gold medals than any other American Olympian.
But why Muhammad instead of, say, a yarmulke-wearing Jew (if there are any on Team USA)? After all, on a per capita basis American Jews suffer twice as many hate crimes as do Muslims. Can you even imagine CNN asking Phelps to step aside in favor of a Jew sporting a skullcap? Of course not. But why not?
Or why not a black athlete who doesn’t wear a hijab? After all, the greatest social unrest in the U.S. today is based not on religion but on race.
And why not an athlete who doesn’t have Muhammad’s history of anti-Israel tweets, as you can see here? Below I’ve put a few, which at the very least are distortions and, for the first two, outright lies (there are many more).
Screen Shot 2016-08-11 at 9.18.42 AM
Screen Shot 2016-08-11 at 9.18.08 AM Screen Shot 2016-08-11 at 9.18.23 AM

Is this the kind of comity we want our flag-bearer to instantiate? Is this what we want as our symbol of America? Did Hillary Clinton know about this when she paraded her own virtue?:

I doubt you’ll find anything close to Muhammad’s lies and hatred on the Twi**er feed of Michael Phelps. Muhammad is simply a dupe for false stories about the nonexistent Israeli dam and the distorted story of birth control drugs (women asked for them and then lied when their husbands found out); and Israel does not, of course, practice apartheid. Muhammad has simply used those lies to gin up public hatred of Israel. Some hero!

So kudos to Muhammad for following her dream. But no kudos to those who, as Haider says, want to use her as a symbol to feel better about themselves. We all agree that people should be able to wear whatever clothes they damn well want, but perhaps what’s in order is a little less self-congratulation about our open-mindedness, and a little less celebration of a garment that, in the end, is a sign of anti-Enlightenment values.

“Locational liberalism: Why do some Leftists admire foreign right-wing ideologues?

August 4, 2016 • 1:00 pm

We all know of Western Leftists who admire political movements that are repressive and regressive. I wasn’t alive when academic Leftists were all hearts and flowers about Stalin, even when they knew of his excesses; more recently, Nick Cohen has documented the hypocrisy of Western liberals in, for example, ignoring the existence of Serb concentration camps. Although Noam Chomsky has taken up some good left-wing causes, he also admired the genocidal dictator Pol Pot. And we know about the Regressive Left, who, while vociferously in favor of gay rights and women’s rights, and strongly opposed to capital punishment and torture, suddenly aren’t so sure when those rights are abrogated by Islamic regimes. That’s what happens when you suddenly see pigmentation as a sign of virtue, and all Muslims as victims of Western oppression. It’s what Maajid Nawaz calls “the soft bigotry of low expectations.”

In his piece in the Jerusalem Post, “Why Western leftists adore right-wing religious extremists abroad“, Seth Frantzman gives other examples:

This is particularly odd and contradictory among those who self-identify as “Left” and “liberal” and then embrace movements, leaders, ideologies and religions that are manifestly illiberal and right- wing extremist abroad. For instance American philosopher and gender theorist Judith Butler said in 2006 that “understanding Hamas [and] Hezbollah as social movements that are progressive, that are on the left, that are part of the global left, is extremely important.”

That contradictory view is emblematic of a phenomenon spanning everything from Michel Foucault’s embrace of the Islamic Revolution in Iran to those “anti-war” activists in the UK who support Syrian President Bashar Assad and Russia’s bombing of civilians.

Why do people who support women’s rights in the US or France excuse the Iranian regime? Why do those who dislike militarism view as romantic people in uniform in Pakistan or Moscow?

Why do those who dislike US presidential candidate Donald Trump find bombastic populists like Venezuala’s Hugo Chavez so endearing? [JAC: Do they?]

. . . Whether it was George Bernard Shaw touring and apologizing for Stalin’s Russia, or Noam Chomsky claiming refugees from the Cambodian genocide were “unreliable” and that “massacre reports were false,” there is a long tradition of mitigating the kinds of crimes abroad people would never excuse at home.

Of course when it comes to Islam I have my own theory, which has to be right because the Regressives assert it themselves: Muslim countries are oppressed, largely by the West, and therefore we can overlook their abrogation of human rights. But that doesn’t explain the admiration for Putin that I’ve seen even on this website, or for Chavez, which I haven’t seen but Frantzman takes as ubiquitous.

Frantzman has two other theories.

1.) Westerner liberals harbor a lot of anger (where it comes from isn’t specified, I’d like to think through observing of injustice), as well as a pent-up nationalism, and it’s politically correct to harbor “surrogate” nationalism by admiring other countries. 

To understand the blind and contradictory loyalty of people who call themselves “progressive” but embrace manifestly reactionary policies abroad is to understand that humans need to fill the void of rage within.

For the self-declared “Right” in the West that void is filled through home-grown nationalism. But the “Left” eschews nationalism at home. Yet the nationalism of the “other” is authentic and palatable. Discarding one’s own flag is de rigueur but filling oneself up with the nationalism of the other is acceptable.

Thus the post-1990s embrace of religious fanaticism and right-wing nationalist extremism abroad has filled the void left by the fall of communism for the intellectual Left in the West.

This doesn’t explain, though, why that void is filled by admiration of thuggish ideologues rather than more admirable nations like those in Scandinavia. Perhaps it’s because Scandinavians can’t be seen as oppressed. But Frantzman has another explanation:

2.) Western Leftist nationalism requires a strong-handed, “virile” form of nationalism that helps release our suppressed aggression:

Why is Persian nationalism or other foreign nationalism so enticing to some in the West? Because American, French or German nationalism is not.

Abroad is a place to pour one’s love of “proud nations.” It’s where one can openly worship verile, powerful men; nationalism, religious extremism, war, caning and hanging in public, beheadings, stonings – let out all that aggression that living in the West has cooped up.

The love of foreign nation and religion one finds in the writings of so many on the “Left” who ostensibly oppose nationalism is always interesting. The love of “pride,” faith, dignity and roots in the soil, of brawn and flag, of sword and gun, points to a nationalist yearning that the Western self-defined Left cannot allow them- selves at home.

I’m not so sure about that. One could, I suppose, make this argument, but what’s the evidence? Not many Leftists in the U.S. admire either Putin nor Chavez, though Malgorzata tells me that admiration of Chavez is widespread in Poland and other European nations.

But regardless of the reasons, Frantzman gets the symptoms right if not the diagnosis (content note: fat shaming):

The same values in Trump or Brexit, Le Pen or Lega Nord that the progressives find objectionable in the West, when expressed in Venezuala, Syria, Iran or among Palestinians are admirable.

Don’t kid yourselves and pretend these progressives simply don’t hear their friends in Iran call abortion “satanic” or hear them say homosexuals are a “cancer,” or hear their chauvinist friends in the Muslim Brotherhood say a woman’s “place is in the home.”

They hear it, and they support it. When the overweight, bearded religious leaders in Iran say “women and men are different; women are driven by their emotions,” the same people who speak of “gender neutrality” in the West widen their eyes and say “yes I agree, such an insight,” not “where is the transgender bathroom?”

When Hugo Chavez said he couldn’t be a homosexual because he was “sufficiently macho to pulverize any accusation along those lines,” gay rights advocates didn’t bat an eye. Homophobia is cool – only abroad, not at home.

If you took an average progressive lover of Hezbollah and told them to dunk in a fountain and be born again in Texas they’d mock “ignorant religion” – but take them to the Beka’a valley and tell them to whip themselves for Ashura and they’ll find it beautiful.

This entire phenomenon is what should be known as “locational liberalism.”

Locational liberalism means you support liberalism only in one place, and support its diametric opposite somewhere else. The result is that there are basically two right-wing forces at war with each other in the West. One supports right-wing religious nationalist forces abroad, the other supports them at home.

That seems just a tad hyperbolic, but readers can weigh in about it. Still, just as we can separate the tenets of religion from the adherents of religion, rendering the cry of “Islamophobia” nonsensical, so the Locational Liberals should be able to separate what they consider the “good parts” of autocratic regimes (I’d be hard pressed, though, to identify much good in the Saudi government) from the reprehensible practices of those regimes.