<
https://www.techdirt.com/2024/01/24/investigative-report-proves-what-most-people-already-suspected-the-war-on-woke-dei-mostly-pushed-by-a-bunch-of-censorial-racist-shitheads/>
"One of the dumber things we’ve seen over the last couple of years is the
supposed “war on woke” and (more recently) attacks on “diversity, equity, and
inclusion” efforts (often shortened to the acronym DEI). In almost every case,
these attacks misrepresent reality to generate culture war bullshit, and make a
bunch of false claims about how pretty fundamental and basic efforts to make
sure that organizations are cognizant of historical and systematic biases, and
seek to push back against them.
Of course, one thing I’ve noticed is how many of the people who are the most
vocal against such things are also (simultaneously) claiming to be free speech
supporters, even as they bend over backwards to attack and silence anyone
pushing ideas, content, or culture that they consider “woke.” They are not free
speech supporters. They’re not simply seeking to counter views they disagree
with. They’re looking to suppress speech they disagree with.
This weekend, the
NY Times had an article by Nicholas Confessore, detailing
how the whole “war on woke” and the “anti-DEI crusade” is almost entirely
manufactured by a group of censorial, racist shitheads. (The
NY Times
article, unfortunately, does not admit that the
NY Times itself has played a
fairly major role in platforming people pushing these ideas as if they were
simply honest opinions, or its willingness to suggest that the people pushing
them have legitimate, intellectually honest points to make).
Centered at the Claremont Institute, a California-based think tank with
close ties to the Trump movement and to Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, the
group coalesced roughly three years ago around a sweeping ambition: to
strike a killing blow against “the leftist social justice revolution” by
eliminating “social justice education” from American schools.
The documents — grant proposals, budgets, draft reports and correspondence,
obtained through public-records requests — show how the activists formed a
loose network of think tanks, political groups and Republican operatives in
at least a dozen states. They sought funding from a range of right-leaning
philanthropies and family foundations, and from one of the largest
individual donors to Republican campaigns in the country. They exchanged
model legislation, published a slew of public reports and coordinated with
other conservative advocacy groups in states like Alabama, Maine, Tennessee
and Texas.
As the
Times’ report notes, one of the cornerstones of this effort (including
pushing to get laws passed to suppress such content) is to claim it’s about
“diversity of thought” and “intellectual freedom,” even though it’s literally
the opposite. The entire purpose is to shut down diversity of thought and to
stifle intellectual freedom… that these shitheads don’t like."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
