Virtue Signaling in a Lilly White World

As the snow flies
On a cold and gray Chicago mornin'
A poor little baby child is born
In the ghetto (in the ghetto)

Elvis Presley

Today's post was stimulated by the confluence of two very different News/Opinion articles in in the WSJ and my good old "Stowe Reporter" that congealed into a single theme.  

(Incidentally, Today's song which starts with "As the snow flies" only serves as a reminder that Stowe is NOT a ghetto, but  rich ski town full of privileged white people.  More on that in a moment.)

First was from The Wall Street Journal which had a very interesting "Opinion" piece about "fake" hate crimes.   Link is here: Hate Crime Hoaxes Are More Common Than You Think

A highlight or two if you were paywalled.

"A political scientist found that fewer than 1 in 3 of 346 such allegations was genuine."

When I asked Wilfred Reilly about last week’s appointment of a special prosecutor in Chicago to take up the Jussie Smollett case, he was cautiously optimistic. Mr. Reilly is author of a new book, “Hate Crime Hoax,” in which he details how the initial publicity for supposed hate crimes tends all but to disappear if the allegations are exposed as fake.

Mr. Reilly eventually compiled a database of 346 hate-crime allegations and determined that less than a third were genuine. Turning his attention to the hoaxes, he put together a data set of more than 400 confirmed cases of fake allegations that were reported to authorities between 2010 and 2017. He allows that the exact number of false reports is probably unknowable, but what can be said “with absolute confidence is that the actual number of hate crime hoaxes is indisputably large,” he writes. “We are not speaking here of just a few bad apples.”

If you are paywalled from the WSJ I will be happy to send you the article.

Incidentally a link in the article takes you to a different website that researched a bunch of NY Times weekly "reporting" of "hate crimes as part of their "Trump" reporting.  The majority turned out to be likely "untrue" but the times rarely issued corrections.  

Anyway this has been stirred up by the Jessie Smollett case and I could not help but chuckle at this weeks "Big Article" in my beloved Stowe Reporter, which in my opinion is all due to an unlikely "hate incident" I have underlined a few phrases and provided commentary in bold.

   

Racism coalition struggles with mission statement

• By Caleigh Cross | Stowe Reporter
 
• Jun 13, 2019
• • 
    

A coalition formed in response to incidents of race- and faith-based harassment in Stowe and Morristown floundered when it tried to define its purpose May 26.

The Stowe-Morrisville Coalition met for the first time in April, and for the second time May 26.

It was formed after an incident last summer, in which a driver on Mountain Road hurled racist slurs at children of color at a summer camp at Stowe Golf Park and Stoweflake Mountain Resort at Stowe, including the N-word and the term “monkeys.”

( Now here is my own take on this "incident", widely reported in the Stowe Reporter last summer,which in part caused he initial stir about racism in Stowe. 

You will note the "Monkey's "Term".  First  a Map of Stowe Golf Park which you can click on link to see.

The Stowe Golf Park is located next door to the "Blue Donkey" Hamburger joint.  I would give you 10 to one odds that the weekend visitors -they were parents and kids of an "inter-racial"adoption group- who were playing in the Golf Park heard some one say something like "Hey there is the Blue DONKEY (not to be confused with "Monkey").  I said this to friends in Stowe  last year when we visited Stowe a few weeks after the incident in question.  

In addition   apparently some "kids"over the last year have also carved swastika's in a Moorestown school and on a Stowe playing field.  Numerous Stowe residents decided all this was likely caused by Trump's election, according to the locals.  A reaction from fear that racism was now rampant in a town and state which voted OVERWHELMINGLY against Trump-so  certainly MAGA country this was NOT.  Anyway back to this hard hitting piece....)

Also motivating formation of the coalition were incidents of anti-Semitism in Stowe and Morristown, including swastikas found carved into a desk and painted on a field at Stowe Middle School and Peoples Academy.

At the May meeting, the coalition tried to complete its mission statement, including phrases such as “identify and reduce prejudice and discrimination” and “dismantle systemic oppression.”

It’s been through six drafts already, said Nathan Suter, a member of the coalition’s steering committee.

The coalition spent about 15 minutes talking about how to talk about racism — “Well-meaning white folks can do a fair bit of harm,” said coalition member Kate Donnally, a therapist based in Lamoille County.

Coalition members agreed it’s uncomfortable to discuss issues of racism and bias, but Suter urged people present to push through and “step up. This is our work. I’ve been benefiting from racism in this history of this country for centuries.

“I’ve got a debt to pay, and if discomfort is part of that payment,” Suter said he’s prepared to roll up his sleeves.

About 20 minutes into the meeting, Saudia LaMont, a woman who spoke at April’s meeting — pointing out that the coalition didn’t include many people of color —(Uhmm you think??????? see Stowe demographics below) alleged that it was racist of the newspaper to include her race when quoting her May 2

“I was outed as a black woman,” she said. “That was highly offensive.”  (The Stowe Reporter nust be racist?)

The Rev. Barbara Miller, who identified herself as black, acknowledged it’s tough to know how to help.

“It’s hard if a person hasn’t dealt with racism and prejudice,” she said. “You have to go through the experience to be able to vocalize” what it’s like.

Tough issues, tough conversation

Media coverage of racial issues was the topic of much of the rest of the meeting.

“As a Muslim man, particularly, obviously, since 9/11, there’s an incredible disparity in how events are reported in the news,” one man said. “I’m sure it’s not news to anybody here, but if it’s a Muslim man, it’s automatically terrorism,” but non-Muslims are described as “deranged” or “crazy” instead, he said.

“That has a serious impact. It’s a miseducation of the public. It further solidifies the otherness. … I’ve been in this community for over 20 years and I still, going to the store, when my beard was a little bit longer, take a store that I walk into every day, I get this look from somebody in the store. Why do I deserve that look that you just gave me?”

The man said the national news media, in particular, is partly to blame for what he sees as discrimination against his race  (Muslim "Race"??) and faith.

Other coalition members took issue with the local media.

The Stowe-Morristown Coalition has received financial support from the town of Stowe and the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development — $3,000 to fund a professional facilitator — and the Stowe Reporter has been invited to both meetings of the coalition.

However, some don’t think the newspaper should cover the meetings at all.

“On the one hand, I understand the need to educate the community about what we’re doing here,” Rachel Vandenberg said, “but it’s almost like we can’t even start the conversation about these tough issues because it’s all about first creating that safe space, and I don’t feel safe” with a reporter in the room.

“There are times when the media report on their own incidents within the media, like when (Matt Lauer) got thrown off for sexual harassment,” Vandenberg said. “I would challenge the reporter to represent everything at the meeting.”

A date and location for the coalition’s next meeting has not been announced.

END OF ARTICLE

Now let's take a jaundiced eye to all this, after all my real estate taxes contributed to the $3,000 funding of this "committee" of babbling snowflakes.  Heck nobody should even be able to report on a publically funded meeting. 
 First some facts about this richly diverse community we call Stowe (Note: Morrisville is about the same demographic profile, I think I once bloged about my first meeting as A United Way Board member when I took issue with the group who cited "diversity" as a local "strength" by saying "Diverse are you kidding me", this without knowing the following profile at the time.)

This From Wikipedia a profile of Stowe's "Diversity":

Estimated Population in 2014 was 4411 down slightly from 2013. The racial makeup of the town was 97.51% White, 0.28% African American, 0.37% Native American, 0.44% Asian, 0.23% from other races, and 1.18% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.06% of the population.

For the math challenged:   From my own quick"calculator"

Total Stowe Population =4,441

White =4,301, African=12, Native American=16, Asian=20, "other"=10, Mixed=52

If you look at school age out of about 600 school students in Stowe probably 2 kids are African American, and a total of 15 kids are "Non White" in some fashion.  That is like 1 or 2 per grade in the school system.

Now to my own Observations on the article,  which documents concerns about racism in Stowe by this committee,  and the need to "eradicate racism", and "white privilege" (white guilt?) in their community.

1.  When you "feel guilty" about your whiteness living in the most "white community" in what has been termed the whitest state in America, maybe you should move to a more inclusive community.   Speaking of incusion :

For two years the residents of Stowe have battled against combining their school district with Morrisville, a poorer white community, because it fears diluting the benefits of having the "richest most privileged", and the least economically diverse school district in the state.

Or try this, The Stowe Land Trust is one of the biggest recipients of local charity dollars.  It's purpose is to buy up tracts of land to prevent residential building development.  It keeps out low income housing for deplorables.  We would not want this in our community.

Talk about maintaining privilege!


2.  Having a committee that cannot even define its' mission to combat racism might show your "virtue"  but will really do nothing to solve a problem that does not exist. The "problem" in  Stowe was  (in my own reading over the last year) created to demonstrate your political distaste of a national election.  It is virtue signaling with no other real purpose, or outcome.  The real problem is "economic" privilege that you do systemically  maintain.

3.  A few  privileged kids do stupid things like carving swastikas in desks or painting them on fields...to get a sick laugh.  They succeeded.  They should be persecuted for their defacement but it is likely not from anti-semitism.

4.  Like so many "reported" hate crimes someone shouting "monkey" (most likely "donkey") is not a sign that your entire community is filled with MAGA loving race baiters.  The community is 85% "Rich White Liberals", looking for a cause and political validation.  If someone did use the "N" word (I doubt that as well) my own bet is they were likely a a lost out of state motorist who took a wrong turn on route 100 and were perplexed to see some black faces in Stowe's lilly white world.

Look I understand that racism exists in the hearts of a small number of our population but frankly the fixation on rooting it out is not advanced by ridiculous efforts of "involved" community activists, combating "racism" in Stowe.  Talk about fake news.......

So ends my Observation for today.

With that I bid you adieu.

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