As luck would have it, I read Judge Robert Jackson's opinion on West Virginia Board of Education v Barnette et al (1943) this week -- these two quotes relate: 'Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.' and 'freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order. '
The right to dissent is the first thing to go when a nation stumbles down the road to totalitarianism -- Ed Murrow said this back during the McCarthy era and it remains true today. There are others besides the men you mentioned who committed suicide during the McCarthy era --Larry Duggan Director of the Institute of International Education in 1948 after he'd been wrongly accused of spying by HUAC. Richard Nixon who had led the unfounded accusations had to apologise for 'misunderstandings' after Sumner Welles became involved in Duggan's defence. Murrow never trusted Nixon after that.
It is that right to hold unpopular, eccentric and even to some offensive views which underpins freedom and democracy. It is the All except one principle of Mills. It is the 'What if I am Wrong'.
I am pleased you write the Cornfield and more power to your pen. Keep fighting the good fight.
I stand with you in this and I cried when I heard this story. I am a gay, white male educator as well and Richard’s ordeal infuriates me. I battle DEI and look forward to its impending death.
I’ve invited Miss Kike (the ungifted race-hustler) to come and debate me on her chosen ‘profession’ of nothingness!
Ojo-Thompson wrote in her master’s thesis that she never felt like she belonged in Canada and she invented a fantasy Trinidad where she imagined she belonged. She wasn’t ever qualified to teach anyone acceptance she she never had that skill herself. Social pain is felt by the brain just the same as physical pain. This was torture like Torquemada had torture devices in his time.
That was a heart-crushing testament/story; thank you for sharing it in your well-written way. The DEI movement has lying, cruelty and love of power over others at its core. It would pave over individualism and the particulars of the individual life in exchange for mouthing cliches. Keep up your good work and let us reach out to those who fall under the lash of woke abuse.
Thank you for adding a new perspective to Blitszko’s story. It is really so sad that he isn’t here to see the light at the end of the tunnel and maybe have a laugh at Am I Racist. If anyone hires KOJO ever again it will be too soon. Although there is a post script to this story. I believe it was Quillette that broke the story of a town in Ontario that hired KOJO and one man had the same experience as Blitszko but he really nailed her and isn’t backing down. Different context as he was voted in as opposed to being dependent on his colleagues for continued employment.
i heard mr bilkszto interviewed a while back about his lawsuit, hoped he would triumph and was horrified by the outcome. i'm a 4 decade theater professional who owned a NYC costume shop. i live in the south now but was outraged to see how the arts collapsed under covid. all the arts- former rebels joni mitchell and neil young, old bad boys howard stern and sean penn, institutions like the met opera house and every broadway theater taking money from the tax payers to enforce discriminatory mandate policies while all trying to outdo each other banging the DEI drum.
during the pandemic, my BF- a grand old man of broadway backstage- sat through zoom calls for his paused hit show that dissolved into victim struggle sessions as well paid equity actors talked about the "dangers" they faced in their UWS neighborhoods where they could be "killed" at any time (!) by hoards of derek chauvins, the insults they bore from fellow cast members who might use an "offensive" word inadvertently now and then, the indignity of having the musical director correct their singing all because of structural racism and white supremacy. "you don't know what it's like" was the rallying cry.
not once did any of these spoiled kids thank the producer, a classic study in white guilt, for providing a cast BBQ on matinee days or continuing to pay them during the shut down (my BF, who has been working on broadway since before most of them were born, said he'd never had a nicer producer). after an hour of this nonsense, i left the house to work in my vegetable garden. when i came back in an hour later, they were still at it. over two hours of solid complaints.
in the end, the producer hired a race grifter to teach everyone (whites only) how to walk on egg shells around the overly sensitive (i watched as much as i could take of her "instruction"), contributed to the "right" causes, hired a "natural" hair wig person to work alongside the (i guess) unnatural hair wig person already on the payroll (the producer actually gushed the everyone had to learn about ethnic hair because "the history of america can be told through the hair!" try to imagine a bunch of IA stagehands learning about cornrows!) and an extra choreographer to get a weekly vig (with the original choreographer who had already set the show years before) but i suppose would insure that none of the POC cast members were insulted by being told how to move by an arrhythmic honky. then there were the legions of POC paid interns in every department to help the theater catch up on confronting it's terrible racist past but not to actually do anything useful.
are you kidding me? in 40 years of working in theater, i can't imagine a place where kooks and eccentrics are, not only tolerated, but embraced; the only thing that counts being talent.
when the show reopened (without my BF who chose retirement over vaccination), burdened with all that extra expense and in a climate where the audience had been drilled by government propaganda that gathering in closed spaces with fellow humans could kill you and a box office policy that wouldn't sell tickets to anyone who wasn't vaccinated, boosted and willing to wear a mask for 2 1/2 hours- the "good" kind of discrimination, and where the show could be shuttered for a week with no notice because of a positive PCR test, it closed in short order.
whatever happened to the show must go on? you'd think the abandonment of that sacred principle would be enough to kill theater for good!
theater will always be with us. people have a need to hear stories and fewer people have a need and the skills to tell stories which has kept it going since cavemen sat around campfires but theater doesn't have to be a unionized racket with benefits and pensions and lights and air conditioning and a dressing room with your name on the door. i wonder how these horrible entitled kids will keep their social justice ideals when they are fighting for the best corner to set up their sock puppet shows, when they are grateful for the pennies and rotten tomatoes tossed at them by their audiences. that's still theater.
i hope mr bilkszto will be the spartacus that slays the DEI dragon and that his murderer will face the justice she deserves.
Please don't capitalize "black". By buying into that language novelty, you're playing to the very people you criticize.
I think it's incumbent upon us to, should we ever see someone put in Richard's position in our own lives, voice our opposition to the bullying when it happens. People's fear in the face of social pressure is what leads them to staying quiet in these situations. And the fear itself may be imagined... could you believe that everyone in that room was totally on board with what Thompson was saying? Find me a room full of Canadians, tell them "Canada is worse than the USA", and tell me how that polls!
What's the secret handshake to get other dissenters to come out of hiding? We shouldn't even need a secret handshake
What about capitalizing Black and White, since in the use of the words to indicate a person’s race rather than actual skin color, the terms Latino and Asian, are also capitalized? I posit this for adherence to grammatical conventions, and not at all as a criticism of anyone, thing, place.
Thanks for this, Jamie. I too went ballistic upon reading the Free Press article and then listening to the struggle session. Your piece provides excellent context and is brilliantly well written. How have the vast majority who oppose these repugnant policies remained silent? In memory of Richard, Speak up!
As luck would have it, I read Judge Robert Jackson's opinion on West Virginia Board of Education v Barnette et al (1943) this week -- these two quotes relate: 'Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.' and 'freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order. '
The right to dissent is the first thing to go when a nation stumbles down the road to totalitarianism -- Ed Murrow said this back during the McCarthy era and it remains true today. There are others besides the men you mentioned who committed suicide during the McCarthy era --Larry Duggan Director of the Institute of International Education in 1948 after he'd been wrongly accused of spying by HUAC. Richard Nixon who had led the unfounded accusations had to apologise for 'misunderstandings' after Sumner Welles became involved in Duggan's defence. Murrow never trusted Nixon after that.
It is that right to hold unpopular, eccentric and even to some offensive views which underpins freedom and democracy. It is the All except one principle of Mills. It is the 'What if I am Wrong'.
I am pleased you write the Cornfield and more power to your pen. Keep fighting the good fight.
I stand with you in this and I cried when I heard this story. I am a gay, white male educator as well and Richard’s ordeal infuriates me. I battle DEI and look forward to its impending death.
I’ve invited Miss Kike (the ungifted race-hustler) to come and debate me on her chosen ‘profession’ of nothingness!
Dr. David E. Bray
Keep strong. This kind of thing has to stop. Thank you! Please restack and share my piece.
i'd like to be a fly on that wall!
Carolyn,
You could have a front row seat! 😊
Ojo-Thompson wrote in her master’s thesis that she never felt like she belonged in Canada and she invented a fantasy Trinidad where she imagined she belonged. She wasn’t ever qualified to teach anyone acceptance she she never had that skill herself. Social pain is felt by the brain just the same as physical pain. This was torture like Torquemada had torture devices in his time.
POWERFUL. Your bravery and courage are an inspiration.
It shouldn't be brave to speak the truth.
And yet here we are.
“In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.” Czesław Miłosz
YES
That was a heart-crushing testament/story; thank you for sharing it in your well-written way. The DEI movement has lying, cruelty and love of power over others at its core. It would pave over individualism and the particulars of the individual life in exchange for mouthing cliches. Keep up your good work and let us reach out to those who fall under the lash of woke abuse.
Thank you for adding a new perspective to Blitszko’s story. It is really so sad that he isn’t here to see the light at the end of the tunnel and maybe have a laugh at Am I Racist. If anyone hires KOJO ever again it will be too soon. Although there is a post script to this story. I believe it was Quillette that broke the story of a town in Ontario that hired KOJO and one man had the same experience as Blitszko but he really nailed her and isn’t backing down. Different context as he was voted in as opposed to being dependent on his colleagues for continued employment.
Thank you for this. I hope that these destructive people will be exposed and their influence on our culture will be dismantled.
You stand for nothing, you fall for everything.
james, thank you.
i heard mr bilkszto interviewed a while back about his lawsuit, hoped he would triumph and was horrified by the outcome. i'm a 4 decade theater professional who owned a NYC costume shop. i live in the south now but was outraged to see how the arts collapsed under covid. all the arts- former rebels joni mitchell and neil young, old bad boys howard stern and sean penn, institutions like the met opera house and every broadway theater taking money from the tax payers to enforce discriminatory mandate policies while all trying to outdo each other banging the DEI drum.
during the pandemic, my BF- a grand old man of broadway backstage- sat through zoom calls for his paused hit show that dissolved into victim struggle sessions as well paid equity actors talked about the "dangers" they faced in their UWS neighborhoods where they could be "killed" at any time (!) by hoards of derek chauvins, the insults they bore from fellow cast members who might use an "offensive" word inadvertently now and then, the indignity of having the musical director correct their singing all because of structural racism and white supremacy. "you don't know what it's like" was the rallying cry.
not once did any of these spoiled kids thank the producer, a classic study in white guilt, for providing a cast BBQ on matinee days or continuing to pay them during the shut down (my BF, who has been working on broadway since before most of them were born, said he'd never had a nicer producer). after an hour of this nonsense, i left the house to work in my vegetable garden. when i came back in an hour later, they were still at it. over two hours of solid complaints.
in the end, the producer hired a race grifter to teach everyone (whites only) how to walk on egg shells around the overly sensitive (i watched as much as i could take of her "instruction"), contributed to the "right" causes, hired a "natural" hair wig person to work alongside the (i guess) unnatural hair wig person already on the payroll (the producer actually gushed the everyone had to learn about ethnic hair because "the history of america can be told through the hair!" try to imagine a bunch of IA stagehands learning about cornrows!) and an extra choreographer to get a weekly vig (with the original choreographer who had already set the show years before) but i suppose would insure that none of the POC cast members were insulted by being told how to move by an arrhythmic honky. then there were the legions of POC paid interns in every department to help the theater catch up on confronting it's terrible racist past but not to actually do anything useful.
are you kidding me? in 40 years of working in theater, i can't imagine a place where kooks and eccentrics are, not only tolerated, but embraced; the only thing that counts being talent.
when the show reopened (without my BF who chose retirement over vaccination), burdened with all that extra expense and in a climate where the audience had been drilled by government propaganda that gathering in closed spaces with fellow humans could kill you and a box office policy that wouldn't sell tickets to anyone who wasn't vaccinated, boosted and willing to wear a mask for 2 1/2 hours- the "good" kind of discrimination, and where the show could be shuttered for a week with no notice because of a positive PCR test, it closed in short order.
whatever happened to the show must go on? you'd think the abandonment of that sacred principle would be enough to kill theater for good!
theater will always be with us. people have a need to hear stories and fewer people have a need and the skills to tell stories which has kept it going since cavemen sat around campfires but theater doesn't have to be a unionized racket with benefits and pensions and lights and air conditioning and a dressing room with your name on the door. i wonder how these horrible entitled kids will keep their social justice ideals when they are fighting for the best corner to set up their sock puppet shows, when they are grateful for the pennies and rotten tomatoes tossed at them by their audiences. that's still theater.
i hope mr bilkszto will be the spartacus that slays the DEI dragon and that his murderer will face the justice she deserves.
Please don't capitalize "black". By buying into that language novelty, you're playing to the very people you criticize.
I think it's incumbent upon us to, should we ever see someone put in Richard's position in our own lives, voice our opposition to the bullying when it happens. People's fear in the face of social pressure is what leads them to staying quiet in these situations. And the fear itself may be imagined... could you believe that everyone in that room was totally on board with what Thompson was saying? Find me a room full of Canadians, tell them "Canada is worse than the USA", and tell me how that polls!
What's the secret handshake to get other dissenters to come out of hiding? We shouldn't even need a secret handshake
What about capitalizing Black and White, since in the use of the words to indicate a person’s race rather than actual skin color, the terms Latino and Asian, are also capitalized? I posit this for adherence to grammatical conventions, and not at all as a criticism of anyone, thing, place.
Thanks for this, Jamie. I too went ballistic upon reading the Free Press article and then listening to the struggle session. Your piece provides excellent context and is brilliantly well written. How have the vast majority who oppose these repugnant policies remained silent? In memory of Richard, Speak up!
Great Work!
BRAVO!!! I Am Richard Bilkszto.