racist – praag.org

School slammed for labeling toddlers ‘racist’

Professionals have slammed teachers who have been reporting children as young as five for being racist, saying that making children frightened to ask questions is unhealthy.

The comments come after parent Hayley White was summoned to her seven-year-old son’s primary school and told that her some Elliott had been at the centre of an ‘incident’ with another pupil, the Daily Mail reports.

She was told that the situation was so serious she would have to sign an official form admitting he was racist; something Ms White refused to do.

The reason for this demand was because her son had asked a four-year-old pupil during break time if he was “brown because he was from Africa”.

“When I arrived at the school and asked Elliott what had happened, he became extremely upset,” said Ms White, a 32-year-old NHS worker.

She said her son was distressed about the reaction from staff, saying to his mother: “I was just asking a question. I didn’t mean it to be nasty”.

The row over the question escalated when the black child told his mother about the question when he returned home from school, who then informed the school hoping they could “have a quiet word with Elliott”.

Elliott’s mother was given a copy of the school rules to read with particular focus on its ‘zero-tolerance’ policy on racism.

“I was told I would have to sign a form acknowledging my son had made a racist remark, which would be submitted to the local education authority for further investigation,” she said.

“I refused to sign it, and I told the teacher that in no way did I agree the comment was racist. My son is inquisitive. He always likes to ask questions, but that doesn’t make him a racist.”

The singling out of children as ‘racist’ or ‘prejudiced’ for making comments which the politically-correct brigade rule as unacceptable can have serious consequences for young children, with the record staying on their school report and the child being branded as a bigot for the whole of their school career for asking a simple question.

Source: Breitbart

New app to avoid black areas

Two enterprising white entrepreneurs just made yet another app for avoiding non-white areas of your town, and it’s really taking off!

SketchFactor is here, an app made for avoiding “sketchy” neighborhoods, which is the term young white people use to describe places where they don’t feel safe.

The app is the brainchild of co-founders Allison McGuire and Daniel Herrington, is a Manhattan-based navigation app that crowdsources user experiences along with publicly available data to rate the relative “sketchiness” of certain areas in major cities.

The app will launch on the iTunes on Friday, capping off a big week for the startup, which was named as a finalist in the NYC BigApps competition.

According to Ms. McGuire, a Los Angeles native who lives in the West Village, the impetus behind SketchFactor was her experience as a young woman navigating the streets of Washington, D.C., where she worked at a nonprofit.

After meeting Mr. Herrington, an electrical engineer who was taken with the SketchFactor idea, the two quit their Washington D.C.-based jobs and decamped to New York City with funding from family and friends.

As one of the finalists in the BigApps competition, SketchFactor is poised to receive more attention when it launches.

English school threatens to permanently label white children as racists unless they ‘learn about cultures’

The headmistress at a primary school in a small town in England tried to order parents to send their children to a Nov. 27 workshop focused on Islam or else have the kids permanently labeled as racists for the rest of their academic careers.

On Wednesday, parents of children aged 8 to 11 received the stark warning in the form of a letter from Lynn Small, the headmistress at Littleton Green Community School in Huntington, Staffordshire — just over 20 miles from Birmingham.

The letter describes the field trip as part of a “statutory requirement” for kids “to learn about different cultures.”

“The workshop is at Staffordshire University and will give your child the opportunity to explore other religions,” Small pedantically explains. “Children will be looking at religious artefacts, similar to those that would be on display in a museum. They will not be partaking in any religious practices.”

Small then lays down the hammer for any parents who might be reticent about exposing their own kids to “other religions.”

“Refusal to allow your child to attend this trip will result in a Racial Discrimination note being attached to your child’s education record, which will remain on this file throughout their career.”

The headmistress also promises to investigate any absences closely “for their credibility.” She warns that anyone who skips the field trip had better produce a doctors’ note if they don’t want their kids tarred as racists for the next decade or so.

On top of all that, parents must pony up £5 (about $8) per kid for the Explore Islam trip.

The Daily Mail reports that parents in the Littleton Green Community School community aren’t very happy about Small’s attempts at intimidation.

“How dare they threaten to brand the children racist at such a young age?” asked Gillian Claridge indignantly. “It’s going to make them feel like little criminals.”

Stacy Waldron, the mother of an eight-year-old girl at the school, noted that her daughter would have nothing to do with any decision about going on the field trip.

“This is my choice, not hers,” Waldron told the Mail.

Local Parliament member Gavin Williamson agreed, calling the threat “bonkers.”

“The idea of attaching a ‘racial discrimination note’ to children’s education records saying it will remain on their file for the duration for their school career seems unfair, particularly when it is not the child’s decision whether or not he or she attends,” the MP told the Mail.

The story does end reasonably well. After the intense responses from parents, local government officials intervened and forced Small to apologize for her threatening letter. She has since written a second letter to parents kindly asking them to “disregard” the first missive, notes the Mail. – Daily Caller

Britten’s indifference

One very positive side-effect of the Red October protest was that it aired the stale house of the MSM in Mandelatopia. This breath of fresh air made the usual suspects, and a few newbies, cough convulsively, as expected.

The loudest convulsion was a coarse phlegm-ejecting piece by the foul-mouthed Irish colonial reject Chris McEvoy. It is not worth reading. The second raffish algospasm was by Georgina Guedes. She tried, via an attempt at irony, to persuade her readers that it was oh so bleeding-heart symbolic of the freedom of democratic expression in Mandelatopia seeing a “dignified” black policeman escorting and “protecting” the white Red October marchers. She somehow conveniently forgot that the “dignified” policeman’s colleagues killed another peaceful protester, Mark Tatane, not so long ago – not even to speak of the Marikana massacre, the 1000-plus deaths per year in police custody since 1994, or the fact that both the ex-bosses of the “dignified” policeman are criminals.

The third bawdy paroxysm came from Lady Nicky Falkof, fresh from her 14-year sabbatical at the feet of Her Majesty the Queen of England. Her strident call for “progressive language” (e.g. rights, minorities, diversity, etc.) to remain the sole moral property of those who run Manor Mail & Guardian – at the behest of the Queen and her moneymongers – is only out-cramped by her near-autistic fixation with proper syntax and correct spelling. I’ll deal with Miss Commonwealth Spelling Bee 2013 in my next column.

The most interesting throe was thrown by the ever-so-swanky MSM darling, Sarah Britten. Her piece, albeit well-argued and neatly packaged, was pure sentiment. And it was precisely this appeal to emotion which prompted me to, once more, put my theory about white liberal irrationality to the test.

It only took six tweets of 140 letters/characters each to confirm said theory.This was how it was done. I simply asked her if she supported black lesbians protesting against “corrective” rape. She answered in the affirmative, of course. Then I pointed out that rape affects all women, not just black lesbians. Meaning that black lesbians form a sub-group protesting that which affects them specifically namely “corrective” rape. But, as mentioned before, rape affects all women, not just black lesbians.

From this it follows that it is logically and, even more importantly, morally inconsistent to laud one sub-group (black lesbians, in this case) for their “discriminatory” form of protest – i.e.they only protest against corrective rape, and not all rape – whilst demonising another (in this case, Red October whites) by accusing them of partaking in a “discriminatory” form of protest.. based on the fact that crime affects all, not just whites. Ergo, the rationale underpinning the protest by whites against their slaughter at the hands of blacks is no different to that of black lesbians protesting against corrective rape. Yet, the former is demonised while the latter is lauded and applauded by Britten and her MSM ilk.

It suffices to say that that which is good for the black lesbian goose is not good for the Red October white gander. This means that people like Britten discriminate on the basis of race – in terms of the above-mentioned biased sentiments expressed publicly. Given the above context, and what we know from all the standard definitions of racism, this would make Britten a racist.

Yet I doubt whether Britten could be classified as a racist, for she loves all those whites and blacks, et cetera, who agree with her. Meaning that her irrationality must be founded on something other than race-based zealotry. Or is it?

Britten is part and parcel of the upper-class British establishment in Mandelatopia. This group is the richest and (still) most influential collective in the country. They are just another appendage of her Majesty the Queen of England. And, as we know, England is the fons et origo of Pax Britannica. This (former) global empire was built by men like Cecil John Rhodes… whose moral motivations can best be summed up by the following quote; “

I contend that we British are the finest race in the world and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race. Just fancy those parts that are at present inhabited by the most despicable specimens of human beings what an alteration there would be if they were brought under Anglo-Saxon influence…

At first glance the above quote seems like the paragon of racism. Not even Verwoerd ever said anything remotely similar. But I think it goes deeper than that. Is it “hate”? I mean, you really need to dislike others quite a lot to refer to them as “despicable specimens of human beings”. In short: are upper-class Brits like Britten hateful racists, like their forebearers, like Rhodes?

I think not. They are simply indifferent to all others, other than themselves. If dislike were an adjective, hate would be its comparative… and indifference its superlative. I mean it is beyond hate to, for example, kill 33 000 women and children in concentration camps and coldly go about carrying out a scorched-earth policy which reduced a unique nation to the poorest white nation on the planet, just for the sake of gold and diamonds. Similarly, it is beyond hate to try and turn the whole population of one of the oldest civilisations on the planet, the Chinese, into opium drug addicts… simply because your love of/for tea caused a huge trade deficit at the time.

It is a cardinal mistake to think that this indifference has, somehow, mysteriously vacated the non-soul of the British upper-class. Just think about the following fact: England is the only country in the Western world which (still) has such a huge divide between the upper and middle class. This divide is rigorously enforced, by complete indifference to the wishes and aspirations of the British middle and lower classes.

And this indifference is still very much present in modern South Africa. Just listen to Nobel Prize winner Nadine Gordimer – a representative of the British elite in this country:

Afrikaner women are lower than rats, closer related to plants, just fit enough to be raped in an act of genus preservation.

Lovely lady, ain’t she? She may have said “hate”, but it is clear from the magnitude of her hate that it is indifference. They only disguise their indifference as hate, so as to appear as if they actually give a continental toss… as if they actually still have one shred of humanity left.

Meaning that the imperial indifference that was once projected (and protected) by the military might of the old British Empire has simply morphed into an imperial indifference enforced by morality. In short; what the sword did for Rhodes, neo-liberalism (à la Pax Brittanica) is now doing for Gordimer, Britten and their useful idiots like Helen Zille, boy-man Fransie Cronje, Eusebius McKaiser, Piet Croucamp, Djonitin Jansen, Anton van Niekerk, Tim du Plessis, Max du Preez, Leopold Scholtz, Willie Esterhuyse, FW de Klerk and ilk.

Therefore never think that they actually care. They feel zilch for other nations, other peoples, cultures, traditions and their moral idiosyncrasies. They are completely indifferent to the plight of all others, especially poor blacks and the white farmers in this country.

The quickest way to rid this warm country of these cold bastards would be to unleash Raka in the form of a Mugabe-Malema on them. But that would lead to wanton slaughter; something the Afrikaner, unlike the British upper-class, has not got the stomach for, unfortunately. The Afrikaner hates wanton slaughter… that is why they organized the Red October protest.

The most humane way to ship their pitiless afters back to their crappy little mud-island with its Islam(ic) weather (partly Sunni, mostly Shiite) would therefore be to treat them with the exact same indifference they display towards all and sundry on the planet. Now that would be cricket, wouldn`t it, Sarah?

Hounded ‘racist winemaker’ gave money to Coloured girl to study in USA

Johnny Burger (right) with his fellow accused Wilhelm Treurnicht in the Ashton Magistrate's Court. Photo: Cape Times. — Johnny Burger (standing, right) with his fellow accused Wilhelm Treurnicht in the Ashton Magistrate’s Court. Photo: Cape Times.

As more facts surface regarding the owner of Rietvallei wine farm, Mr. Johnny Burger, who had been driven to suicide by anti-racists and the media, the so-called perpetrator is starting to look more and more like a victim.

In a glowing letter published in the Boland Gazette, a local newspaper in the Cape, a young Coloured woman recounts how the winemaker donated money to further her studies in America. At the time her father was a worker on the farm who was treated with warmth and fairness by the same man accused by Rapport of “beating a young Coloured boy into epilepsy”.

We reproduce the letter here:

The ‘Oom Johnny’ that I knew…

by Meriza Lakey

The first time I met Johnny Burger, or Oom Johnny, as I called him, I was an embarrassed teenage girl. My father, who passed away four years ago, was a builder and worked for Oom Johnny for close to a decade.

After matric, I was determined to travel overseas and made the necessary arrangements to go to America. These plans were a little bit ambitious for a coloured, Afrikaans girl from a small wine community within the Western Cape. One Friday afternoon, my father told me to hop into his old, rickety bakkie and we drove off to Rietvallei to see Johnny Burger.

At the farm, my father introduced me to Oom Johnny and I remember meeting the tallest man I had ever seen in my life. My father was a pretty tall man himself, but Oom Johnny towered over him like a city skyscraper. My father explained to him that this was the daughter who was leaving for New York soon and if he, Oom Johnny, didn’t have a few extra ‘dollars’ to give to me.

As a teenager, this completely caught me off-guard and I thought I could’ve just died. I remember poking my father in the hip and smiling shyly, as to say that we don’t need any ‘hold-outs’. I was a proud teenage girl embarrassed at everything that my father did or say. Oom Johnny just smiled, walked over to his cabinet and drew 200 American dollars out of his drawer. I was shocked at how easily he gave the money, almost like an investment, in me.

My father loved him, that’s why he worked for him for over a decade. He always came home with some story of what “Johnny Burger said” or what “Johnny Burger did”. I smile now at how Oom Johnny was never known as just “Johnny”, his name was always followed by his surname and it’s like I can see my father saying it right now. Oom Johnny was also the first to offer advice when we found out about my father’s cancer.

I remember visiting Rietvallei again after I came back from America. Oom Johnny spoke to me in English and I replied in my ‘newly-acquired’ American accent, much to his and my father’s amusement. I remember him looking at me and I remember seeing the same look in his eyes, as I saw in my own father’s eyes; that of a proud father.

I can only tell you of the Johnny Burger I knew. I wanted to write this tribute to Oom Johnny, as my father would have wanted me to do. I can speak only of what I know and what he did for me and my family. And if that is testament to the kind of man he was, then to me, that was a great man.

– Meriza Lakey (daughter of Tommy Lakey)

Boeremag trial: ‘I am not a racist,’ says Dr Lets Pretorius

Boeremag member Dr Lets Pretorius told the High Court in Pretoria on Monday he was not a racist and had never been in favour of using violence to achieve change.

Testifying in mitigation of sentence, he said he had not raised his sons to be racist or to be fanatical extremists.

“We were a happy, loving, God fearing and close family. I raised my sons as patriotic Afrikaners,” he said.

Pretorius, his three sons and 16 other Boeremag members were convicted last year on a charge of high treason.

This arose from a rightwing coup plot to overthrow the African National Congress government.

His sons, and Herman van Rooyen and Rudi Gouws, were also found guilty on charges of attempting to murder former president Nelson Mandela with a homemade bomb.

They were furthermore convicted of murdering Soweto mother Claudia Mokone with a bomb placed on a railway line in October 2002.

Pretorius said that as a medical doctor he worked with black patients at a missionary hospital for three years.

He ran several rural clinics in the former Lebowa for 16 years and treated both black and white patients at his private clinic.

His sons often accompanied him and did not have any problems with black people, he said.

“The day before my arrest, I received a command from the Holy Spirit to level the road for the Boer nation in the desert, and to raise a banner for the new nation that would be formed.

“There was no element of violence anywhere in this command.

“I’ve kept myself busy with this since my release on bail. I know the State has watched every word and step I take, and I am sure that if there was even a hint of illegality anywhere my bail would have been cancelled.

“I am still involved in the website Boerevryheid that is used as a debate forum to build the Boer nation as an entity.”

He denied playing a leading role in the Boeremag.

He said his role would have been to provide medical support services when a large scale black-on-white attack (the so-called Night of Terror) predicted by Boer prophet Siener van Rensburg came to pass.

He claimed the coup plot was exclusively the brainchild of fellow accused Tom Vorster and that he had not been privy to all of Vorster’s plans.

“Vorster assured me we were busy with plans that would come into effect after the Night of Terror.

“I never had the impression that we were busy with an offensive action. I was very effectively bluffed.

“I am prepared to admit attending meetings and to admit my lack of insight.

“I was always on the sidelines and never helped to make plans, except to ensure there was medical equipment available.

“I can say in all honesty that I was never at any stage busy planning a coup.

“If people had enough trust in me to link my name without my knowledge to ranks and posts, I should not be punished for it.

“I never had the impression that my sons were going to plant bombs.

“I knew absolutely nothing about the planting of bombs. If I had not been arrested, I would have done everything within my power to ensure than no bomb ever went off.

“I confronted my sons in jail about the bombs and was told Tom Vorster and Hanekom had convinced them they would be in a situation of war and would be protected by the Geneva Convention.

“I’ve never been in favour of violence to achieve change.

“I had always treated the victims of violence, but the first time I personally came into contact with violence was when a gun was pushed against my head and I was shoved around during my arrest.

“I’ve had a good relationship with black people all of my life. My record [as a medical doctor] speaks for itself,” he said.

Pretorius testified that he and his son Johan, also a medical doctor, had according to his calculations each lost about R20 million as a result of the case.

They had to close down their private hospital and Pretorius also had to sell off his farms and livestock.

The trial continues. – Sapa

Oprah: Just because you’re not racist doesn’t mean you’re not a racist

by Ben Shapiro, FrontPage Magazine

Oprah Winfrey is a cultural mover and shaker. That much is clear after her historically inaccurate film The Butler, which portrays Ronald Reagan as a doddering racist and ignores the legacy of bigotry of Southern Democrats, finished first last week at the box office. Seventy-two percent of those who went to see the film cited Oprah’s participation as a factor in favor of their buying a ticket. Sadly, Oprah has used that power to push a false racial narrative directly at odds with the racial narrative pushed by The Butler.

First, The Butler’s racial narrative. The movie, as Oprah has said, begins with a lynching in 1926 and ends with President Barack Obama in the White House. The notion is that Obama marks the culmination of a centuries-long movement toward equality for blacks in America, a popular perspective that largely explains Obama’s election in 2008.

Then there’s Oprah’s actual racial narrative. In her view, President Obama remains an exception to a broader racist rule. Trayvon Martin, Oprah says, is just today’s Emmitt Till, murdered in 1955 by the Ku Klux Klan. So what if racism in America is at an all-time low? So what if the vast majority of Americans are not only not racist, but actively anti-racist? That’s not enough for Oprah. “A lot of people think if they think they’re not using the n-word themselves, they physically aren’t using the n-word themselves, and do not harbor ill will towards black people that it’s not racist,” she said in a comment that is as challenged syntactically as it is intellectually.

This is paranoia of the highest sort. And it is absolutely crippling to America’s future. If a huge number of Americans believe that racism that is not present in action nonetheless lurks beneath the surface of our life, waiting to burst forth in a conflagration of hate such as that which allegedly claimed Trayvon, there can be no shared future.

But many on the left, including Oprah, apparently don’t want a shared future. They want emotional blackmail. The corollary to the belief that racism hides in the nooks and crannies of the white personality is the belief that the only way to expunge such racism by embracing the philosophy of people like Oprah. If you see The Butler, you’re buying a racial indulgence; if you vote Obama, you’re buying a racial indulgence. Lee Daniels, director of The Butler, told CBS News that white extras cried during the filming of the movie. Presumably, in his view, that meant they were not racist. But what about all the Americans who will never shed tears over The Butler? How will they demonstrate their non-racism, even if there has never been a shred of evidence that they are in fact racist?

That seems to be the perspective not just of many black Americans like Oprah and Daniels, but the perspective of many in various minority communities. For example, in California, Governor Jerry Brown recently signed a law declaring that transgender children must be allowed to enter bathrooms of their choice and join sports teams of their choice. The idea here is that this will minimize bullying, as though most Americans bear children with gender identity issues some sort of ill will. The truth is far simpler: Americans have a right to worry that their children will feel uncomfortable in a bathroom next to someone of the opposite sex, no matter what that person believes him or herself to be. That’s not wrong. That’s normal. But the onus has now been placed on children without gender identity issues to explain why they feel uncomfortable at the urinal next to a girl, even if they’ve never bullied a transgender child.

That’s nasty. More than that, it’s an attempt to shape values by implying that everyone is in need of having their fundamental racism, sexism, homophobia overcome by government action. Americans have nothing left to discuss. America is now a country where whites are often perceived as racist until proven innocent. And the only way to prove yourself innocent is to perform acts approved by the leftist establishment.

None of this helps black Americans. All it does is perpetuate power for those who divide us in pursuit of political gain. Hillary Clinton, who has begun touring the country invoking the supposed racism of voter ID supporters, is merely the latest race hustler to attempt this pernicious trick. Unfortunately, it seems to work. And that means that Oprah’s racial narrative is far more influential than The Butler’s.

Ben Shapiro is an attorney and writer and a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, and author of the new book “Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How The Left Took Over Your TV” from Broadside Books, an imprint of HarperCollins.

Hillary polarizing racial politics

Hillary Clinton began her 2016 march to the White House last week, and it wasn’t a promising debut. The former first lady and Senator used her first big policy speech since leaving the State Department to portray American election laws as fundamentally racist. The speech was longer on anecdotes than statistics, so allow us to fill in some of the holes.

“In 2013, so far, more than 80 bills restricting voting rights have been introduced in 31 states,” Mrs. Clinton told her political base of lawyers at the American Bar Association. She portrayed these laws as part of an effort reaching back years to “disproportionately impact African-Americans, Latino and young voters.” And she threw the Supreme Court in as part of this racist conspiracy, assailing its recent decision finding the “preclearance” section of the Voting Rights Act to be unconstitutional.

She claimed the High Court had “struck at the heart” of the law, though all it did was eliminate a section that had forced such states as Mississippi to meet higher legal burdens for election laws than other states with a worse current record of minority voter participation. “Now not every obstacle is related to race,” Mrs. Clinton added, “but anyone who says that racial discrimination is no longer a problem in American elections must not be paying attention.”

No one thinks racial discrimination has vanished from American life or the human condition. But as for minority voting, Mrs. Clinton is the one who hasn’t been paying attention. In particular, she must have missed the May 2013 Census Bureau study on “The Diversifying Electorate—Voting Rates by Race and Hispanic Origin in 2012 (and Other Recent Elections).”

The study, based on data from the November 2012 Current Population Survey, shows that minority voter turnout nationwide has been rising—dramatically so. Take blacks, who as recently as 1996 had a low voter turnout rate of 53%.

As the nearby chart shows, black turnout has jumped in each of the last four presidential elections. In 2012, black turnout as a share of all eligible voters exceeded the turnout of non-Hispanic white voters—66.2% to 64.1%. Nearly five million more African-Americans voted in 2012 (17.8 million) than voted in 2000 (12.9 million). In both 2008 and 2012, black voters even exceeded their share of the eligible black voting age population. In 2012, blacks made up 12.5% of the eligible electorate but 13.4% of those voting.

Having Barack Obama at the top of the ticket no doubt helped this black voter mobilization, but the trend shows that the surge preceded his candidacy. Remember when liberals portrayed Bill Clinton as “America’s first black President”? The black turnout surge accelerated after Mr. Clinton’s last election. Such a large increase in black voter turnout over 16 years would seem to refute the claim by Mrs. Clinton that racial obstacles to voting are increasing.

Mrs. Clinton ignores all of this and focuses instead on anecdotes, while raising alarm about the voter ID laws that have passed in the last decade. She specifically raises fears about North and South Carolina. Yet the same Census Bureau study shows that black turnout exceeded non-Hispanic white turnout by statistically significant rates in both Carolinas, and was higher in most states east of the Mississippi River outside of New England.

North Carolina, she says, has this year “pushed through a bill that reads like the greatest hits of voter suppression.” But that supposed horror show merely reduces early voting by a week, and bars same-day registration and extending voting hours by political whim. All of these are designed to preserve ballot integrity, which is as vital as voter access to public confidence in honest elections. Voters without an ID can get one free at the Department of Motor Vehicles and they can also cast a provisional ballot pending confirmation that they are legally registered.

By the way, Georgia, Indiana and Tennessee have some of the strictest voter ID laws of the more than 30 states that have such laws, yet the Census report says black turnout exceeded that of non-Hispanic whites in 2012 in all three. Where is the evidence that voter ID laws keep minorities from voting?

The disconnect between these facts and Mrs. Clinton’s assertions suggests that she is the one playing racial politics. The current narrow Democratic majority is largely a coalition based on gender and racial identity. It requires big turnout among single women and non-whites. As the Obama era winds down, the fear among Democrats is that these voters won’t have the same enthusiasm.

Mrs. Clinton can play the “first woman President” card, but she also needs large minority turnout. If she can’t motivate that turnout based on rising economic optimism or opportunity, which is hard given the Obama economic record, she and Democrats will play to racial fears to drive it. She wants a racially polarized electorate.

This is a tragedy for the country, and Republicans like Mitt Romney share the blame for doing so little to attract minority votes. But this strategy and Mrs. Clinton’s speech don’t bode well for a less polarized politics as Democrats try to extend their electoral dominance.

Mrs. Clinton billed her speech last week as the first of a series addressing what she called “eroding public trust” in government. Government could use the help, though note the irony that Mrs. Clinton’s party has been running the government even as its reputation sinks. In any case, stoking racial fears based on imaginary government racism won’t make Americans feel better about politics or government.

A version of this article appeared August 19, 2013, on page A16 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Hillary’s Racial Politics.

‘Tintin in the Congo’ not racist, Belgian court rules

A Brussels court has rejected a legal bid to ban “Tintin in the Congo”, the second adventure of Belgian writer Hergé’s globe-trotting boy reporter. Black associations in the country claimed the book contained racist stereotypes.

“Tintin in the Congo” – a classic 1920s comic strip about Belgium’s celebrated fictional boy reporter – is not racist, a Brussels court ruled on Wednesday.

The Brussels Appeals Court upheld a 2011 ruling against Congolese immigrant Bienvenu Mbutu Mondondo and the Belgian Council of Black Associations, who wanted the book banned.

In 2010 Mbutu, who lives in Belgium, Congo’s former colonial ruler, said Tintin employed a little black helper who was seen as “stupid and without qualities”.

“It makes people think that blacks have not evolved,” he said.

In one scene, a black woman prostrates herself before Tintin, saying: “White man very great. White mister is big juju man.”

‘Gentle and candid humour’

Alain Amici, lawyer for the plaintiffs, told the court in 2011: “The negative stereotypes portrayed in this book are still read by a significant number of children. They have an impact on their behaviour.”

Not so, said Brussels judges, for whom “Tintin in the Congo” is full of “gentle and candid humour”.

The cartoon strip, written in the late 1920s, was Belgian writer Hergé’s second Tintin adventure. It was followed by stories in which the author tried to add greater realism and historical accuracy.

Hergé himself recognised that “Tintin in the Congo” was a “youthful sin” that reflected the prejudices of the time.

In 2007 a British court ruled that “Tintin in the Congo” should be sold with a warning that it includes racist content.

Mbutu has also tried to have the cartoon banned in France, unsuccessfully. – France24

Frankie Boyle wins 54 000 pounds for being called a ‘racist’

London, Oct 23 (ANI): Comedian Frankie Boyle has been awarded more than 54,000 pounds in damages after a High Court jury found that he had been libelled by a newspaper which described him as “racist.”

The jury concluded that Boyle, 40, from Glasgow, had been defamed by the Daily Mirror, the Daily Mail reported.

After the verdict, the comedian gave a V-for-Victory sign on the court steps and revealed that he would be donating the money to charity.

Boyle said that he filed the lawsuit because he had always “made a point” of being “anti-racist.”

He had claimed that a Daily Mirror article published on July 19 last year defamed him by describing him as “Racist comedian Frankie Boyle,” adding that he had been “forced to quit” BBC panel show ‘Mock The Week.’

Daily Mirror publisher Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) defended the article, arguing that the “racist” description was either true or “honest comment on a matter of public interest.”

MGN also argued that the words “forced to quit” did not mean that Boyle had been sacked and were not defamatory.

Boyle was awarded 50,400-pound damages for the “racist” assertion and a further 4,250 pounds in relation to the claim that he was “forced to quit” the BBC show.

Boyle was also awarded legal costs, estimated to be in the region of 100,000 pounds. (ANI)

Don’t laugh please, we’re black(face)!

Administrators in the Waverly Central School District have been fielding complaints all weekend after students involved in a Friday pep rally staged a skit critics say was racist and made light of domestic violence.

The issue is getting some national attention after a Waverly High School graduate posted a story on the CNN iReport website early Monday.

Three white students wearing blackface put on the skit, according to the post by 2006 graduate Matt Dishler, with two of the students representing singer Rihanna and her former boyfriend, entertainer Chris Brown, who were involved in a highly publicized domestic violence case in 2009.

A photo posted with the story shows one male restraining another male, with a student portraying Rihanna cowering on the floor. Students and others sitting on the bleachers in the background appear to be smiling and laughing as they watch the skit.

Dishler said he didn’t attend the rally, but heard about it from friends. After confirming the information, he decided to post an opinion piece.

“I can testify there’s not a lot of racial diversity in that school whatsoever. We’re not really exposed to that at that school,” Dishler said. “I felt like something should have been done about this. I don’t believe the kids had any vicious intentions, but the administrators should have said that’s not exactly OK.”

Waverly Superintendent Joseph Yelich said he was not aware that the students were planning to do the skit, but he has received plenty of complaints since then.

“The Waverly School District is committed to creating a positive atmosphere through all activities,” Yelich said. “I’ll be working with building administration, staff and students to develop future activities consistent with that commitment.

“There is a set of concerns that a number of individuals have had, and we want to address those concerns,” Yelich said. “I want to be sure administration and staff and students know what our expectations are.”

Yelich did not indicate what if any specific actions would result from Friday’s pep rally.

A New Hope Center, an Owego-based agency that assists victims of domestic and sexual violence, hate crimes, rape and other abuse, is already working with the Waverly School District on bullying issues, according to Assistant Director Francis J. Bialy.

Bialy wasn’t aware of Friday’s pep rally, but he said, in general, it’s disturbing to try to find humor in grave issues such as domestic violence.

“If it’s intended to be humorous or putting down people, it further perpetuates permission to engage in such behavior,” Bialy said.

“When you look at issues with race, the same thing holds true. If people act in racist ways or support racist behavior, they tell other people it’s OK to act racist.

“I hesitate to judge the intent of something,” Bialy said.

“There’s also a dynamic that well-intentioned actions are done without a full sense of understanding that also end up being damaging as well. I think it should be looked at.”

Dishler said he is still proud of his former high school and didn’t want to be too critical.

“I believe they will take steps to cure it. I just think sometimes things need to be brought to light,” Dishler said.

“(Domestic violence) is nothing to joke about. I wanted people to know this mistake was made and can we please rectify it so it doesn’t happen again.” – stargazette.com