Sometimes, it’s easy to long for the era before the internet.
Those were days when, if one wanted to find video or audio examples of incomprehensible behavior, one had to search video stores for bad movies, or, better yet, search used record shops for the dusty, hard-to-procure records of Mrs. Miller or The Shaggs. They were fun to discover, partly because they were rare, but also because they made one wonder what on Earth people were thinking when they allowed the stuff to see the light of day.
Now?
Now, the Web has made that material readily available, and other examples of incomprehensible behavior are so plentiful, it’s as if the “W” in “Web” were “The Big W” from the classic comedy film, “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.”
Take Robin Broshi, a member of the Community Education Council of District 2 in Manhattan who, during a recent video conference call, joined the outrage mob and sounded off more stridently than The Shaggs ever could have imagined when they stood behind the mic.
As Shane Trejo reports for Big League Politics, evidently, fellow Council member Thomas Wrocklage had been entertaining his friend’s baby nephew, who happened to be black, on his lap as members appeared on camera. And that was a big no-no for Broshi.
Because, of course, Wrocklage is white, and Broshi is so “woke” that she can’t see how utterly racist and flipped-out her "wokeness" makes her appear.
Yells this government agent who is partially in charge of how thousands of kids will be taught and how millions of tax dollars will be spend on said “education": "It hurts people when they see a white man bouncing a brown baby on their (sic) lap. And they (the people watching?) don’t know the context. That is HARMFUL! That makes people cry! It makes people log out of our meetings! They don’t come here! They don’t come to our meetings!"
Shoot. Why would ANYONE not want to watch a meeting when she could be screeching like a vulture in it? It’s so darned… charming.
And constructive.
At this NYC Ed. Council meeting, member Robin Broshi (@EastSideGadfly) criticizes her white colleague for having his friend’s non-white nephew on his lap.
— kyro (@pxlitic) July 4, 2020
Claiming this “racist” act “hurts people” and “makes them cry,” Broshi tells him to read Robin Diangelo’s White Fragility. https://t.co/cBBY4juK77 pic.twitter.com/eEbBNxEmLG
Wrocklage appeared taken aback, asking, "I would like to know before this meeting adjourns how having my friend’s nephew on my lap was hurtful to people and was racist. Can you please explain?"
Ahh, but, see, that shows his white privilege, or white imperialism, or color-of-skin-based racism…er… Right?
The woman who was identifying him and the baby by skin color certainly seemed to think so. And she’s a woman, and he’s a man, so there’s that whole gender-dominance thing that could be involved here as well.
Her reply really helped clear things up.
"It’s not my job to educate you. You’re an educated white male, and you can read a book, and you can learn about it yourself," she screamed back.
But, isn’t that assuming a lot of things about an “educated white male?” First of all, how dare she assume things about his gender?! What if he IDENTIFIES as an uneducated, talking, female, cross-dressing zebra named Lenny? And if she really means that white males can learn about these things themselves, then how can she call him educated? Wouldn’t that make him “ignorant” in this regard?
And if a white male CAN learn something by himself, does that mean that she assumes all white males – even those under eighteen years of age -- need not be forced to attend the NY public school system she helps run?
She seems to assume a great potential for sagacity on the part of the white male, so why be so exclusionary? Why just white males? What about all other groups? Are they excluded from learning about this, or did she just run out of breath during her tirade?
So many questions. Perhaps there will be a sequel to this wonderful video entertainment. When this installment left off, Ms. Broshi, The Screechmaster General, was telling Wrocklage that he should read a book like, “White Fragility”, by left-progressive Robin Diangelo.
Which might get a few parents worried that she’ll try to force said book on their kids to assuage her outrage mob mentality.
And have no doubt, this is the outrage mentality, the kind of preachy, whiny, holier-than-thou postmodernism that has crept into not just public school systems, but also into private workplaces where, because local, state, and federal governments claim the unauthorized “power” to “regulate” how people engage in their own private consensual business, employees can target one another for firing or target employers for lawsuits merely by claiming “offense” over some innocuous action or comment.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could decide for ourselves and allow our dollars to flow to or away from those we liked or disliked?
Heck, the whole “white privilege” terminology takes such a center stage in this story that it’s easy to miss this larger point.
In fact, it’s certainly possible that someone is justified to be outraged at someone else’s behavior. It’s possible that Ms. Broshi is right! Perhaps she really does have insight, and some people could be offended seeing a white man in charge of their child's education bounce a brown baby on his leg.
The problem is that when the government is involved, no one can voluntarily decide to withdraw payment if he or she is offended, by either the man with the baby, or the woman accusing him of insensitivity. No taxpayer can choose to pay or not pay based on his or her own assessment.
It’s one thing to be outraged in a private realm, where observers can decide to interact or not based on the degree of their offense or agreement, displeasure or pleasure.
It’s another to be forced to pay -- and right now, that's the way things stand across the U.S.
Where’s the outrage about that?