The Talk We Need to Have with China

As a former teacher of American History, I can recall the frequent mention in our public school social studies textbooks of the deliberate dissemination of smallpox blankets among Native American tribes. This event, condoned by British Colonel Henry Bouquet in the 1760s, serves as proof of our use of genocidal chemical warfare against them. This is only one example of how our textbooks teach today's youth to hate western civilization and our nation's past. Today's students are never asked to consider comparing this past event to China's current actions against our citizens--hence the motivation for this article.

A published version of this article may be found on American Thinker at: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/07/the_talk_we_need_to_have_with_china.html 

There is much that America can be proud of in our relationship with China. Our nation was often at odds with other global powers in our attempt to protect that nation’s sovereignty. Often, we stood alone. Following independence, our new nation was shut off from trade within the British Empire and both China and the U.S. benefited from cooperative trade agreements. Until driven out by the communists 150 years later, American missionaries in China established churches, schools, and worked to relieve the distress of the poor. When Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and Japan began carving out spheres of influence within China, the United States sought to negotiate “Open Door Agreements” with them to protect Chinese interests. When the Boxer Rebellion threatened the lives of thousands of Europeans and an international military coalition restored order in China, the United States made it a point to use the Chinese financial reparations to educate Chinese students in American universities to assist in its modernization. In the 1930s, as Japan's military invaded China, America refused to invoke neutrality in order to be legally supply China with weapons. Hundreds of American pilots volunteered to defend China against Japan as part of the famous Flying Tigers fighter squadrons. America’s continued defense of China was the reason behind Japan’s attack upon Pearl Harbor and our entry into WWII. Americans then built the Burma Road to get needed supplies to Chinese military forces fighting Japan. Following a thaw in the Cold War relations between our nation and China, American businesses led the way in efforts to modernize China. As American corporations invested heavily in China, our own factories were allowed to rust and millions of our manufacturing jobs and much of our middle class disappeared entirely.   

     What has the United States gained from being China’s long-time protector and most fair western trading partner? We’ve seen Chinese espionage take place at unprecedented levels within our universities, businesses, and scientific research facilities. The FBI recently announced it opens two new investigations each day related to Chinese espionage. China has succeeded in copying our most advanced weapons systems, even to point of having superiority in some areas. The disastrous trade imbalance America shares with China threatens our country’s future. The Chinese openly brag of their influence and infiltration within the top levels of our government.  Chinese spying has led to an unprecedented joint U.S. FBI--British MI5 warning to alert our citizens to the danger. FBI Director Christopher Wray has stated he “was blown away” by the level of current Chinese espionage efforts. China is simultaneously trampling democracy in Hong Kong, committing atrocities against the Uyghurs, and employs slave labor to keep its production costs low. It  has provided military aid and has entered into strategic partnerships with our enemies and has even announced the U.S. and NATO should be treated as an enemy.  

     While many of the above issues have been the subject of negotiation between our two nations, little or no pressure has been placed upon Xi Jinping to halt China's distribution of fentanyl to third party nations such as Mexico. Chinese drug lords and Mexican Cartels now export hundreds of pounds of the deadly drug into the United States and collaborate in extensive money laundering schemes to fund their operations. Last year over 100,000 Americans died from drug overdoses, mostly from Chinese fentanyl. This represented a 29% increase from the year before. Enough of the drug was seized in 2021 to kill every American. Sadly, as it is deliberately laced with other counterfeit drugs it has become the number one killer of young American adults. The fact that all Americans could possibly be killed by conterfeit drugs laced with Chinese fentanyl which are deliberately made to appear as over-the-counter drugs can only be described as an act of genocide against the American people. 

     The refusal of the Biden administration to secure our border will, of course, only increase the number of Americans murdered by this drug. The president must remind Xi Jinping of America’s long history of support for China. He must also live up to his constitutional duty to protect the lives of innocent Americans who are increasingly being murdered by Chinese drug lords, deadly Mexican Cartels, and a complicit CCP. To counter this threat, the president needs to warn China that it will face increased U.S. criminal prosecutions, the threat of additional tariffs on its exports, and  calls for investigations by World Health organizations and the United Nations into the manufacture of its illegal drugs. Without such pressure, the genocide against our citizens will continue unabated.

____  

Jack Bovee

Fort Myers, FL 
The writer has been a social studies educator, founder of Rho Kappa--the National Social Studies Honor Society--past president of the Florida Council for the Social Studies, and a former Elementary School Principal of the Year in Lee County, Florida. He may be reached at: jsbovee@aol.com.

Appeal to JES to Balance its Content

The Jefferson Educational Society in Erie, Pennsylvania bills itself as “Erie’s Think Tank for Community Progress.” Founded in 2008 to “promote civic enlightenment . . . through the study, research, and discussion of ideas and events that have influenced the human condition,” it serves as a vehicle to explore solutions to pressing community problems and controversial issues. This is accomplished through hosting the thoughts of a wide variety of “Residential Scholars”—individuals whose expertise and opinions are offered as guidance to the community on a wide array of subjects. 
    Over the past two years that I've been a member, I’ve found their essays and programs both enriching and informative. When, however, their scholars include erroneous information or fail to cite sources for the data used in their opinions—especially on highly controversial subjects—I’ve expressed my concern to the Society. In response to such concerns, I was informed the Society invites noted experts whose credentials qualify them as ‘experts’ in their subject. The current guidelines of the Society leave it up to the scholars themselves whether or not endnotes or footnotes are to be included in their essays. The Society likewise has taken the position to not allow public comment or corrections to such articles for fear that personal attacks, obscenities, and misinformation would be the inevitable result. That countless newspapers, media outlets, blogs, and other sites do this on a daily basis was not a convincing argument for them to change this policy. 
     As a result, I’ve occasionally written to the Society that it has a responsibility as a “Think Tank” to remain unbiased if it wishes to live up to its non-partisan mission. Moreover, when scholars offer misinformation or personal opinions on partisan or controversial subjects, the Society should offer its readers information from alternative sources and experts. This is especially the case since there is no way for others to correct or post alternative views on their website.
     Recently, I sent both the Society and its guest “Residential Scholar”—Dr. Parris J. Baker—three individual responses to his series of articles related to the subject of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and the pernicious effects of “Whiteness.” Links to his original article as well as my own commentary follow.

MEMO to:

Pat Cuneo, JES Publications Coordinator    cuneo@jeserie.org
Ferki Ferati, President       ferati@jeserie.org
Ben Speggen, Vice President      speggen@jeserie.org

Re:  Parris J. Baker’s “Whiteness Must be at the Center of Discussions on Critical Race Theory” --  April 26, 2022.   (available here)

 
Once again I applaud the JES for bringing to your community of readers such an important topic as contemporary race relations and the impact of Critical Race Theory upon our nation. Once again, however, I find it necessary to pick up my pen to write you about the same two issues that I’ve written to you before—namely, to share what I perceive are significant historical errors of your newest “resident scholar” and the very vital need for the Society to temper such inaccurate views with countering opinions on the same topic. Without balanced reporting on such a controversial issue, such bias only serves to continue to miseducate the public and promulgate greater division and racial discord in our nation. Dr. Parris Baker’s epistle on “Whiteness Must be at the Center of Discussions on Critical Race Theory” is one such example.
     After reading that Dr. Baker and I shared the common experience of attending McKinley Elementary School on Erie’s east side and that we both are tied to Gannon University, I found myself heavily disagreeing with his basic academic points.
     First, he falsely charges ”It is an undeniable truth that white people were largely responsible for establishing and maintaining the institution of slavery and constructing systems of racism, race, and religion to support its continuance.”  Really? Dr. Baker seems to forget the very word “slave” has its origins in the fact that millions of Slavic whites, the majority of them women, were enslaved by non-western brown and black Muslim slave traders on the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov during the late middle ages. Non-western Islamic slave traders from the continent of Africa continued to prey upon white Europeans for their slave markets and harems for hundreds of years into the modern era. And while it may be correct to lay some of the blame for the Atlantic Slave trade upon what later became the United States, it may be worthy to note that both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were confronted with the reality of Islamic white slavery perpetrated against the citizens of this nation. To dare to assign solitary blame to whites for being even “largely” responsible for creating the institution of slavery is a statement that borders on academic recklessness.
     Dr. Baker continues in his biased approach to “whiteness.” Ignoring the fact that all societies practiced slavery and that by the 1850s most northerners in this nation were opposed to the institution, he quotes an Alexander Stephens speech in 1861 as if it represented mainstream American thinking. He conveniently forgets to mention that this mostly white nation--led by white elites--has been the only one in history to wage a war costing 750,000 lives to free an oppressed people of a race other than their own.
     Dr. Baker finally draws his attention to the papal Bull of 1455 permitting King Alfonso of Portugal to “invade … and subdue all Saracens and pagans whatsoever” and to enslave and expropriate the property of such infidels. Again, the reader is left to wonder how quoting an obscure Pontiff’s position was in any way different from the views of Chinese Emperors or typical Islamic rulers of the time. That non-European societies had been guilty of the same mentality of Pope Nicholas V for thousands of years and that Saracens, in particular, had subjugated and oppressed two-thirds of the known Christian world before the Crusades is somehow omitted by Dr. Baker. Moreover, as stated earlier, these non-western societies continued to practice the slavery, subjugation, and genocide of ‘others’ well into the twentieth century.
     Far from proving that “…white people were largely responsible for establishing the institution of slavery” it would be more “truthful” for Dr. Baker to admit that white people have been virtually alone amongst the races in eradicating the institution of slavery. I’ve looked for years in vain to find the equivalent of the huge anti-slavery campaigns that dominated the United States and European nations in the mid-nineteenth century in non-white cultures. Although Dr. Baker might find one or two singular examples of benevolent rulers from other societies, I doubt he can cite any similar non-western movement dominated by the likes of Wm Lloyd Garrison, Theodore Parker, Garrett Smith, Levi Coffin, Wendell Phillips, Thomas Garrett, Garrett Smith, John Brown and countless other white men and women. When he can cite examples in the last 1,000 years of any racial group sacrificing 750,000 lives to free a people of an entirely different race, I’ll stop thinking that Western civilization and this nation, in particular, are ‘exceptional.’
     I look forward to reading Dr. Baker’s more recent essays with the hope his views are not so biased or extreme.
     Again, without some better balance on today’s racial and social issues with the likes of Larry Elder, Jason Whitlock, Thomas Sowell, Candice Owens, Jason Riley, Ben Carson, Glenn Lowry, Burgess Owens, Bob Woodson, or John McWorter, etc. etc. the Jefferson Educational Society’s propensity to tell only one side of the civil rights story perpetuates myth and engenders division and resentment. Without an accurate portrayal of the past and without balancing opposing views on such controversial issues, such articles can only lead to more Buffalo’s, more Charleston’s, more Waukesha’s, and more subway shootings like that of Frank James. And what’s worse, the racial animus that leads to such sufferings—much like the false “hands up, don’t shoot” mantra of Black Lives Matter adherents—will largely have been promulgated from erroneous beliefs.
     
Yours in the hope that through honest dialogue, we all benefit.

Jack Bovee

______________________________________________     

MEMO to:

 

Pat Cuneo, JES Publications Coordinator    cuneo@jeserie.org

Ferki Ferati, President       ferati@jeserie.org

Ben Speggen, Vice President      speggen@jeserie.org

 

Re:  Parris J. Baker’s “Truth in Love: ... Confronting Whiteness”  -  May 2022 (available here)

 

 

     I was pleasantly surprised to read in Dr. Baker’s opening paragraph that after a lifetime of “experiencing, studying, and discussing” race that he was tired of it all.  What surprised me, even more, was his statement that he was also tired from attempting to dissuade “well-intentioned white folks that Critical Race Theory (CRT) is not a threat to America or to white children.” More about that later.

     Dr. Baker then proceeds to defend CRT and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement as “simple messages” that have somehow been “perceived as pernicious, hostile, or intimidating by some white Americans.” Despite his lifetime of study into matters of race Dr. Baker admits that he finds such fears “wildly confounding and draining.” To illustrate his point, Scholar in Residence Dr. Baker provides his readers with a ridiculous analogy. He equates the attempt to censor the teaching of such controversial doctrines to primary school children as the equivalent of eradicating six letters of the alphabet. “Imagine singing the alphabet song without those letters. Tragic. . . .  removing the letter “B” from the alphabet is that the 14,359 words that begin with B will all have to change.”  From here he digresses into how the names of popular soap operas and NFL teams (Browns, Bengals, and the Buccaneers) will have to change.  “Silly, isn’t it?” he admits. Yet his analogy to equate justifiable opposition to the precepts of BLM and CRT to an assault upon the English alphabet is worse than “silly.”  It represents an insult to the millions of Americans who have likewise studied both doctrines and have come to oppose them for the false, divisive, and even racist content they espouse.
     Here are just a few problems with each: the riots of 2020 have been called the "Black Lives Matter Riots” and they resulted in dozens of deaths, thousands of police officer injuries, and even the assassinations of police officers. It resulted in the destruction of hundreds of millions of dollars damage, countless businesses—many minority-owned—destroyed, and thousands of arrests (but few prosecutions.) The founders of BLM have candidly announced their affinity to Marxist thought and action. The BLM organization opposes the nuclear family and much of western civilization. Its leaders have failed to file proper tax records on the hundreds of millions of dollars they have been given, and they espouse a false narrative—that police prey upon innocent Black males—that has indirectly caused thousands of innocent black lives through the “Ferguson effect.” CRT opposes the concept of a color-blind society envisioned by Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan and Dr. Martin Luther King. It condones race-based decisions for almost everything and would return us to the days previous to Brown vs Board. It rejects the idea of equality before the law in favor of race-based equity measures that clearly discriminate against people based upon the color of their skin. (I’m happy to provide footnotes and evidence for each of the charges above.) And yet Dr. Baker remains mystified that some white Americans oppose these doctrines?

    Dr. Baker has discovered from his lifetime of study on race relations that “some white Americans feel ill-equipped and genuinely unprepared for conversations regarding America’s appalling race-related histories.” One reason for this is that any white person who objects is immediately called a racist, is often threatened with the loss of a job and livelihood, or is literally threatened with physical harm. [Again, examples of each of these charges are far too numerous for this short rebuttal, but I’d be happy to supply dozens for each should Dr. Baker or your Board wish.] 

     As with most white males today, I’ll leave it to several Black conservatives to critique the philosophy Dr. Baker so ardently subscribes to. Several times before I’ve strongly suggested the Jefferson Educational Society inject better balance into its readings. I’ve suggested other ‘Think Tanks” from which you can find respectable and thought-provoking alternative authors that could help our community arrive at responsible solutions to some of the current issues plaguing our region and nation. One group I’ll suggest again is FAIR – the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism.  Another is The Federalist Society.  Still more would be the views of the many conservative Black commentators I’ve provided in previous emails.  Here a but a few examples that your Board and Dr. Baker might find instructive on the topic of CRT:

 

   --  “Why race-based framings of social issues hurt us all” by Greg Thomas (of FAIR - available here)

   -- “How ‘Social Justice’ Policies are Causing Mass Violence and Injustice in New York City” by Grace Bydalek of the Federalist Society.  (available ‘here’) 

   --  “Why Violence is An Inevitable Outcome of Critical Race Theory” by J. Allen Cartwright (available ‘here’ by the Federalist Society

 

Finally, here is a video of commentator Larry Elder dismantling the ideas of Ibram Kendi, whose book is highly recommended by Dr. Baker.  Available ‘here’ (20:14)

Perhaps Dr. Baker will take up the challenge of responding to Mr. Elder for the benefit of all readers. 

Again, while I applaud your many articles designed to educate readers on topics of current importance, I urge that your Board provide a better balance to today's controversial issues. DOING SO WOULD FURTHER EDUCATE YOUR READERS ON ALL SIDES OF THE ISSUE.

 

Sincerely,

Jack Bovee

Millcreek

_________________________________________________

MEMO to:

 

Pat Cuneo, JES Publications Coordinator    cuneo@jeserie.org

Ferki Ferati, President       ferati@jeserie.org

Ben Speggen, Vice President      speggen@jeserie.org

 

Re:  Parris J. Baker’s “Truth in Love: How to Understand the Doctrine of Discovery, International Law of Colonialism, and Key 1823 Supreme Court Case” --  May 2022 (available here)  

 

     Once again I feel it necessary to point out the problems associated with the definitions and historical interpretations of Scholar in Residence Dr. Parris J. Baker. In his second of the recent JES series, “Truth in Love,” he examines “How to Understand Doctrine of Discovery, the International law of Colonialism, and [a] Key 1823 Supreme Court Case.”  After reading through this particular essay, I hope I’ll be forgiven if I don’t feel it was written in either “truth” or with much “love.”

     Like many WOKE intellectuals in today’s marketplace of ideas, he casts a broad brush of faulty generalizations when getting to his main point. That point is, namely, that “white supremacy” has given “birth” to the “intersections of power, pigmentation, and privilege.” While it is perfectly fine to expose the sins of western civilization and America toward non-white cultures in the modern era, his repeated attempts to taint only the West, the United States, and European civilization with crimes against humanity reveals what only can be called deliberate malice.

    Dr. Baker begins his essay with an attack upon the classical view of Columbus as once portrayed in a popular poem from a bygone era. This is nothing new. Since the publication of Kirkpatrick Sale’s controversial book, “The Conquest of Paradise” in 1990, Leftists have been dragging the Italian navigator through the mud. (Whether Sale and professor Baker are justified in their assessment of Chris, however, is another matter.) Moreover, there is little argument with Dr. Baker’s assertion that “there is nothing romantic or poetic concerning colonialism.”[1]

     Dr. Baker, of course, deliberately chooses to inform his audience only of those examples of colonization from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries that are white and European in origin. Left in this context of history, readers naturally assume that Christianity and ‘whiteness’ are the sole causes of colonialism, racism, and genocide. While it’s perfectly fine for Dr. Baker to place the sins of western civilization during the last several hundred years under his overwhelmingly negative microscope, his refusal to acknowledge that the sins of power, racism, and mistreatment of others run rampant in all cultures and civilizations reveals an inaccurate portrayal of the past and causes one to wonder at his motives. That these same Eurocentric cultures would later forge legal systems and societies that guaranteed individuals from all religions and races the greatest degree of human freedom in the history of the world is somehow never mentioned in this essay.  

      In this article, Dr. Baker continues to repeat the mantra of today’s Marxist Critical Race Theory. A closer examination of his claim that “the intersections of power, privilege, and pigmentation” were “birthed” in the events associated with European expansion in the 15th century will be instructive. According to Dr. Baker in this essay, “White supremacy, as an ideology, can be traced to the Crusades in Muslim-controlled territories and in the Protestant colonization of Ireland.” Dr. Baker does not explain how the subjugation of white Irishmen by white Englishmen led to the creation of a white supremacist ideology. Nor does Dr. Baker acknowledge that the savage Muslim conquest of two-thirds of Christendom and their subsequent subjugation and enslavement might have been a primary reason for the Crusades. Rather than provide historical context to his outlandish charges, Dr. Baker then proceeds to inform readers it’s clearly “evident” today that “on the way to Auschwitz the road’s path led straight through the heart of the Indies and of North and South America.” What?

     During the same time that Dr. Baker is aiming his weapon at the West, he not only ignored the advances of Muslim powers into Christian Europe, but he also ignores the continued enslavement of over one and one-half million white Europeans by white, brown, and black slave traders from North Africa. Nor are the ten tenets of the “Doctrine of Discovery” applied to expansionistic cultures such as the Han Chinese, Shinto Japan, the Ottoman Empire, Barbary Coast States, the Aztec and Mayan empires, or Shaka Zulu. This is a deliberate attempt to weaponize history. For example, if his readers were reminded of the hundreds of thousands of human sacrifices that were perpetrated upon other Native Americans by Mayan and Aztec overlords they might better understand why leading European thinkers indulged the thought that theirs was a ‘superior’ way of life in 1500. In believing this the Europeans would, of course, be no different from countless others in history.

      To offer an alternative viewpoint, here are just a few examples of ‘racism,’ ‘subjugation,’ and ‘genocide’ of others within the same period of time that Dr. Baker wishes to remind us of the dangers of “whiteness.”

 

-- The Mfecane, literally ‘the crushing,’ was caused by the violent expansionistic wars of the Zulu empire in South Africa between 1820 and 1840. It caused an estimated 2 million deaths and displaced less powerful African tribes throughout the southern half of the African continent.

 

-- The Fulani War (1804-1808) pitted the Fulani people against the Hausa and created the Sokoto Empire in West Central Africa—an Islamic state that became one of the largest states in Africa in the 19th century. Hundreds of thousands were killed and brutalized.

 

-- During the course of World War I and in the years immediately following that conflict, the Turkish nation engaged in the systematic genocide of their non-Islamic Christian Greek and Armenian peoples who were viewed as lesser than-equal members of the “new Turkey.” Millions were brutalized, raped, starved, and tortured in one of the most massive ethnic and religious cleansings of the last couple hundred years. 

 

--  In 1947 when India and Pakistan both declared their independence from Britain, the ‘religiously’ and ethnically supremacist beliefs of both groups prevented their being able to co-exist in one nation. Before the British, scores of millions of Hindus had been subjugated and oppressed by Muslim overlords who viewed them as less than equal infidels. The separation between the two groups after World War II displaced tens of millions of persons and the deaths of an estimated one to two million persons. While it appears to Dr. Baker that only whites and Westerners can harbor ‘supremacist’ tendencies, it may be important to argue that only through the efforts of whites had these two groups been prevented from committing acts of genocide against one another for two hundred years. Today, murderous acts between the two groups continue to threaten the lives of millions.

 

-- In the 1972 Burundi Genocide the Tutsi-dominated military and government slew an estimated 150,000 Hutu in order to subjugate them. They were considered vermin despite the common blackness of their skin.

 

--  In 1967 the Igbos people of Biafra declared independence from the Hausa-Fulani dominated Nigeria resulting in the deaths of between one and two million innocents from genocide and starvation. The International Red Cross estimated that 8,000 to 10,000 innocents starved to death each day during the blockade of basic food and medical supplies to the province.  The leader of a Nigerian peace conference delegation said in 1968 that "starvation is a legitimate weapon of war and we have every intention of using it …”[2] 

    Legal scholar Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe and other academics argued that the Biafran war was in fact a genocide, for which no perpetrators have been held accountable. Biafra made a formal complaint of genocide against Igbos to the International Committee on the Investigation of Crimes of Genocide, which concluded that the actions undertaken by the Nigerian government against the Igbo amounted to a genocide. With special reference to the Asaba Massacre, jurist Emma Okocha described the killings as "the first black-on-black genocide".[3]

 

-- In1994 a Hutu genocide of over 500,000 Tutsi in Rwanda took place with the systemic rape of over 250,000 women.

 

-- Not the last example, today’s expansionistic Boko Harem’s (literally--“westernization is sacrilege”) Muslim jihad against Nigerian Christians has resulted in the kidnapping, rape, and murder of tens of thousands.

 

Nowhere does Dr. Baker dare utter the fact that in the last three-quarters century, western governments have—for the most part--rushed aid and used their influence to either end the brutality or ameliorate the suffering of brown and black innocent victims.  (The brutal subjugation and genocide of Nigerian Christians by Black Muslims in West Africa is an exception to this pattern.)

 

Once again, I believe it important to lay out the need for JES to better balance its reporting on current issues.

 

Sincerely,

 

Jack Bovee

Millcreek

_______________________________________________

Identity Politics

A published version of this appeared in American Thinker and may be accessed "HERE".

     In 2020 The Simpson’s voice actor Hank Azaria (a Caucasian man) said he would no longer perform Apu’s voice (an Indian character). For nearly thirty years no one had a problem with this, but all of a sudden it became a cause for concern. Why is it that something which was perfectly acceptable by practically everyone for so long suddenly became verboten? It would seem, even to a casual observer, that doing accents is one of the primary trademarks of acting. 

This relatively recent trend in Hollywood has gone so far that on June 30, 2020 The Babylon Bee (a satirical website) ran a parody where Alyssa Milano began a new movement with the hashtag ‘#takethepledge.’ In the satire she states, “Actors should not act like people they are not.” Sadly, it was not as far fetched as the humorists had intended. 

In the 2019 movie “The Upside,” able-bodied actor Bryan Cranston received flak for playing a disabled man confined to a wheel chair. He defended himself by saying that he was entitled to play characters whose attributes and abilities differed from his own, "If I, as a straight, older person, and I'm wealthy, I'm very fortunate, does that mean I can't play a person who is not wealthy, does that mean I can't play a homosexual? I don't know, where does the restriction apply, where is the line for that?" he told the Press Association. 

Back in 2005, there was an uproar in the Deaf community over a New York adaptation of Carson McCuller's "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" in which the central character John Singer (who is deaf and mute) is played by a hearing actor. On October 18, 2009 “Curb Your Enthusiasm” Season 7 Episode 5 aired and Larry David came under fire for his use of not one but two actresses who can walk playing wheelchair users. Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton, Jack Whitehall, Ed Skrein, Abigail Breslin, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Dwayne Johnson are among some other actors who have faced criticism for playing disabled characters.

In 2018 actor Darren Criss said he would no longer accept LGBT scripts because he did not want to be "another straight boy taking a gay man's role." Britain's Ben Whishaw (an openly gay actor) expressed sentiments similar to that of Bryan Cranston's after winning a Golden Globe for playing a gay man in A Very English Scandal. "I really believe that actors can embody and portray anything and we shouldn't be defined only by what we are. On the other hand, I think there needs to be greater equality," he continued. "I would like to see more gay actors playing straight roles. It should be an even playing field for everybody. That would be my ideal," he concluded.

It is interesting how this principle seems only to apply to straight, able-bodied, Caucasian men. For over 30 years a woman named Nancy Cartwright has performed Bart Simpson’s voice, and no one ever batted an eye. In 2022 Mark Ruffalo played a straight man in “The Adam Project,” and no one said a word about it. Sean Penn played gay activist Harvey Milk in 2008, but he has been grandfathered in due to his bona fides as a progressive warrior. Where was the outrage when Kevin Spacey was portraying non-pedophiles? In the current day age of absurd superhero movies, films about time travel and space exploration, and other such fantastical subjects, it seems odd to fixate so unbendingly on who exactly may be allowed to play certain specific roles. In any case, there was an actor who expressed a more sensible and preferable take. Actor Andrew Garfield said it best, “If we only let people play exactly who they are, it’ll be the death of imagination.”

Jean-Marc Bovee, PharmD retired
St. Louis, MO

    

Fabricating Division

In 2016, a YouTube movie review channel known as RedLetterMedia posted a video discussing the deceits surrounding, and controversy at the time regarding the new Ghostbusters movie featuring four female protagonists in replacement of the original all-male cast. The nature of their video could be used as an example to illustrate how much our current day politics suffers from the same types of deceptions vis-à-vis the Wag the Dog nature of them. It is a sad yet fascinating commentary on how propaganda can manipulate people’s perceptions and thus their view of reality. It also exposes the ‘monkey see monkey do’ nature of too many of us, and how easily we can succumb to groupthink.

For instance, the original Ghostbusters 2016 trailer had an inordinate number of downvotes (970,322), which Sony Entertainment and the entertainment media chalked up to a massive preponderance of sexism, misogyny, and, of course, racism (that ostensibly run rampant throughout our culture). What they failed to grasp was that the math did not add up to support this contention. The trailer had 38,045,852 total views meaning that only 2.5% of those who viewed it clicked the ‘dislike’ button. Also, there were only 279,282 comments posted, which means only 0.73% of people veined to leave a remark. In other words, 99.27% of people who saw the trailer did not bother to comment on it at all. 

In an effort to stoke the flames further, for increased publicity and thus interest presumably, Sony began deleting relatively benign and civil comments critical of the trailer and left only the more vile ones. This gave more notice to the hate-filled misogynistic comments, and thus the impression that they were par for the course. This would lead to articles such as that on May 2, 2016, by Tom Huddleston titled, ‘New Female Ghostbusters Trailer is Bringing Out the Misogynists.’ News stories were everywhere about man-children, their bigotry, and the injustice to what was, in all honesty, a very unfunny movie and its terrible trailer. The fellas at RedLetterMedia cited an article by The_Night_Rider on March 7, 2016, titled ‘Sony Rigging Ghostbusters Comments?’ It was concluded that these antics would presumably give Sony a review embargo of sorts and an angle with which to market the movie. 

Then Sony handpicked reviewers and bloggers to attend early screenings of the film. Apparently, they paid people to see the movie once it came out, and lie about how much they enjoyed it. On March 12, 2002, CBS News’ Bootie Cosgrove-Mather reported, ‘Sony Pays for Fake Reviews.’

So, one can begin to see how relatively simple it is to artificially create a narrative. Ultimately, there was an insignificant number of hateful comments posted and Sony, along with their accomplices in the entertainment media, exacerbated a relatively minuscule issue besmirching the American culture and society in the process. According to Mike Stoklasa at RedLetterMedia, “They were able to ignite a fraudulent movement based on a dumb, unfunny ‘comedy’ film.”  

Now, who is to say that our government and their lackeys in the mainstream media do not do the exact same sort of thing on a daily basis for the purpose of misleading the public on a whole host of issues. Remember when Nancy Pelosi besmirched the TEA Party (who merely felt they were being overtaxed) by claiming she saw swastikas at their rallies? There was no evidence of this, but it did not matter. It made it into the zeitgeist anyway. Same thing happened with the Michael Brown ‘Hands Up Don’t Shoot’ fiasco, which never happened. Who could forget how NBC News doctored George Zimmerman’s call regarding Trayvon Martin in an effort to make him look racist? I recall when a MSNBC reporter referred to Black Lives Matter protests in Minneapolis as “mostly peaceful” while buildings burned behind him. Look at how quickly people were willing to buy into Jussie Smollett’s bald-faced lie that he was assaulted by racist MAGA supporters. 

Remember this when the powers that be try to tell you that there is a racist white supremacist behind every tree, or that there is a rape culture on college campuses, or that there are widespread weekly school shootings, or that there is an epidemic of police shooting unarmed black people, or that trans women are women (while Lia Thomas crushes the competition), or the current ‘Gay’ misinformation campaign regarding Florida’s recent bill is homophobic despite that fact that this word is nowhere within it), or that the ‘science’ declares for safety that we wear masks, lockdown for years, get a mandatory vaccine (or get fired), get mandatory booster after booster, et cetera, et cetera. The time has come to open our eyes, read between the lines, critically analyze the news, think for ourselves, and draw our own conclusions based on facts, stats, and wisdom. 

Jean-Marc Bovee, PharmD retired
St. Louis, MO

New Powerpoint Program on Rob't. E. Lee now available!

 In the hope of providing local elected officials, Lee County residents, media-types, and perhaps SW Florida teachers and students of history an accurate and well-researched biography on the life of General Robert E. Lee, we're posting the following Powerpoint on this website. Contained within the notes of each slide and in the accompanying script for the program are many factual details, reference sources, maps, and other details--all of which give a background of Lee's life and the controversy surrounding the Memorial to him in Lee County. 

Download the Powerpoint program     HERE

Download a PDF of the Program.        HERE

Download the script of the Program     HERE

Comments to Erie's JES on Tanya Teglo's Series

(links to Ms. Teglo's JES Articles "here" and "here")

MEMO to:

Pat Cuneo, JES Publications Coordinator    cuneo@jeserie.org
Ferki Ferati, President       ferati@jeserie.org
Ben Speggen, Vice President      speggen@jeserie.org

Re:  Tanya Teglo’s “King Arrest Thrust Police Brutality into Spotlight”-- Feb. 2022
        Tanya Teglo’s “The Story of Amadou Diallo” – February 2022

Date:  February 26, 2022

Once again JES is to be congratulated for having as a major focus during Black History Month many excellent articles detailing the vast and significant contributions African-Americans have made to our nation.  The role JES plays in educating the Erie Community to not only its past, but also how residents can work together towards ensuring a brighter future with equal opportunity for all is heartily applauded.

Unfortunately, it’s sometimes hard to adequately safeguard readers from possibly biased distortions of the historical record. A case in point is the recent publication of several JES articles authored by African-American Studies expert Tanya Teglo. Today, when many citizens weren’t around during the arrest of Rodney King or the police shooting of Amadou Diallo, most readers are tempted to accept her version of the events. In neither case does she mention even a single mitigating fact that led police officers to be found not guilty in both cases. Sadly, Teglo went on to deliberately distort reality with this false statement: 

Some of the most widely known instances of the use of racial profiling that had deadly consequences were the cases involving Eric Garner, Treyvon Martin, Brionna Taylor, George Floyd, and many others.     

“Racial profiling” deaths? When Ms. Teglo so distorts reality she not only does a disservice to her readers, she stokes the flames of unjustified racial hatred and the continued racial division in our nation. 

It would be a hard sell to demonstrate police racial profiling in any of the individual cases cited by Ms. Teglo. Eric Garner had been arrested more than 30 times for selling black market cigarettes and police were called to the scene after he was observed once again committing an illegal act. Garner resisted arrest which led to his death, the events of which are still surrounded by controversy. Treyvon Martin might have been profiled by a non-police officer, but his own very violent assault upon George Zimmerman was the cause of his justifiable death. Breonna Taylor was under police surveillance for many reasons and therefore wasn’t “profiled” without cause.  She had rented a car, which was later involved in a murder, and a former drug-selling boyfriend had both used her address and kept large sums of drug money in her home. While exercising a legal search warrant at her home, Ms. Taylor was unfortunately killed in a police shoot-out with her boyfriend. George Floyd was not racially profiled but died while resisting arrest after officers had been called to the scene for his attempt to pass a counterfeit bill and for his drunken state behind the wheel of a car. 

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the only time Ms. Teglo engaged in distorting past events. In another article related to the arrest of Rodney King, she gave a totally inadequate description of what took place. Like most of the readers of her story, Ms. Teglo herself may be ignorant of the fact two other Black males were in the vehicle driven by Mr. King that fateful night. Bryant Allen and Freddie Helms exited the car, complied with police instructions, and were able to go home afterward.  Mentioning to readers the fact that two other Black males who complied with instructions were not “brutalized” by a racist LA police force, of course, would not fit in with her narrative that America still suffers from systematic racism. 

It’s fine that Ms. Teglo drew attention to the still existing video of the King beating—something that offended the sensibilities of all Americans. What she ignored in her description of the event, however, was his behavior beforehand that led to that beating. She failed to mention that he endangered innocent lives as he drove intoxicated through residential neighborhoods at speeds up to 80 miles per hour, running at least one red light. She doesn’t inform readers that King refused to leave his vehicle and when he did, he was laughing and pointing to the police helicopter above, making officers afraid that he was high on drugs. Refusing police commands and grabbing for his buttocks, King led officers to draw their guns in the belief he was reaching for a weapon. Fortunately, a police sergeant ordered them to holster their weapons and subdue him by physical force. This possibly saved his life, but resulted in his severe beating. While on the ground, for example, King was tasered but was still able to rise and charge toward one officer, resulting in the heavy use of batons to subdue him.  It is at this point that the famous videotape of his beating begins. Observing it out of context as she asks her readers to do, leaves viewers unaware of these events that led to the final use of police batons. One wonders if Ms. Teglo is herself aware of these facts. It may be the case she was but simply chose to ignore informing her readers of them. 

In her narrative, Ms. Teglo also appears to leave the reader with the impression the police officers got off scot-free. She took the time to cite the names of all four officers who faced charges in King’s case, even giving their ages, and that they “were acquitted on all charges.” She neglected to mention, however, even one mitigating reason for their acquittal or how their lives were ruined as a result of their role that night.   In summary, Ms. Teglo’s narrative does little to explain why both the trial of the officers and the resulting riots—which severely injured and took the lives of many innocent persons who were not speeding drunk through LA nor resisting arrest—was so controversial. 

The list of other neglected facts in her narrative is telling. There is no mention of the disparate statistical criminal anomalies that exist between the races. “Blacks between the ages of ten and 43 die of homicide at 13 times the rate of whites, according to the CDC…”  (For a more complete analysis of racial crime rates, I’ll refer you to an email I sent to your office last June as a result of another anti-law enforcement narrative. I’ve attached it for your convenience.) No mention that Black males are more likely to be struck by lightning than killed by police. 

If Tanya Taylor is interested in pursuing some real profiling that is happening in America today she may want to turn her investigative skills toward finding what group is mostly involved in the current spate of Asian hate crimes that have plagued our nation.  She might wish to cover a history of what group was mostly involved in the widespread “Knock-out Game” which saw dozens of citizens seriously injured for the benefit of a nice upload on Twitter. She might want to verify the accuracy of the report the Blacks commit the majority of hate crimes in America. Investigative journalist Daniel Greenfield’s review of FBI records for 2019 revealed, “The FBI statistics point to the reality that black people are committing hate crimes at twice their demographic representation.” He notes the number of whites committing hate crimes was most likely heavily distorted because the FBI counts Latinos who were charged with such a crime as white. Even given the gang-related animosities between Latinos and Blacks, which entered into the total number of whites committing hate crimes, whites committed only 52% of such crimes whereas Blacks committed 24%. Greenfield adds, “It should also be noted that law enforcement is usually more reluctant to address hate crimes against white people, requiring a higher standard of proof, so these numbers are underreported.”  In reviewing these crimes over several years, he points out the percentage of overall hate crimes committed by whites declined while the percentage committed by Blacks increased. 

So why do I take the time to write you on such a trivial matter about Ms. Teglo’s personal opinion? Why pick on her article, the main points of which were to relate American music to the Civil Rights Movement? I do so because she chose to enter into the current false narrative about police profiling and its deadly consequences for today’s Black men. It’s because her views represent a much larger pattern that seems to now have taken control of America’s newsrooms, educational institutions, the federal government, and corporate boards. Despite evidence that proves such narratives wrong, widespread support for them has resulted in exacerbating racial divisions in our country. For years, false accusations in “historical” movies such as Nate Parker’s Birth of a Nation, incendiary racial statements from noted athletes such as Colin Kaepernick and LeBron James, and an increasing number of hate crime hoaxes against whites by Jessie Smollett-type Black accusers, have all played a major role in creating further racial divisions in our nation.  What is needed to restore faith in our institutions is an honest approach to race relations in which such opinions are not censored, but balanced and where news journalists hold those who hold such narratives accountable.  

To continue with the current unbalanced and inaccurate portrayal of America as a hopelessly racist nation that oppresses minorities will only lead to more incidents such as Darrell Brooks’ mowing down innocent families because of their race with his vehicle last Christmas. It’s fine for Ms. Teglo to use a racist comment attributed to Bull Connor from 60 years ago while discussing the influence of songwriters to the Civil Rights movement. It’s wrong, however, for her opinion about police profiling leading to the deaths of Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, or George Floyd to go unchallenged. 

It is just as wrong for JES to commit to only one side of the discussion on the national topic of race. For a second time, I urge the Society to enlist a conservative writer to lend balance to your views. Another possibility is to allow a moderated ‘comments section’ for your articles which would permit an open forum for your readers. Former Attorney General Eric Garner once accused us of being ‘cowards’ on the subject of race. I agree. When our national media ignored a racist diatribe against whites with the call for their “extermination” by an African-American professor during a televised C-SPAN debate at Howard University and when it maintains a current silence on the beliefs and motives of Darrell Brooks, we won’t solve the racial problem’s in America until we have the courage to express fairly and openly facts about both past and current events. 

ENDNOTES (send to the JES with the original email and coming here soon)

Wilfred Reilly: A Realistic and Honest Approach to Race

FAIR consultant, Wilfred Reilly, exposes the Left's lies about white supremacy and racism in his recent opinion piece. Contained with the article is his charge that the media "consistently misrepresent the facts in [a] way has generated a narrative almost directly opposed to reality." Why they deliberately do this is the big question. Among the facts he exposes is that although Blacks comprise a much smaller percentage of our population than whites, they commit roughly 80% of interracial acts of violence. Nor is there a genocidal campaign against Black males by inner-city police departments, virtually all of which are run by Black law enforcement officials and politicians. Facts reveal that approximately 75% of those killed in police interactions are whites and Hispanics. For those interested in more, you may read his entire article HERE:  [https://fairforall.substack.com/p/the-broken-mirror-media-narrative?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjozMTg3NjI3NywicG9zdF9pZCI6NDc1MDg5NDMsIl8iOiJGQkJZMiIsImlhdCI6MTY0NTcwMzE4MCwiZXhwIjoxNjQ1NzA2NzgwLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItNDE1MjAwIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.5FqIWKJq7S_mcwJxAY3dRZxljXzx_AoKdHTOwmGEq8o&utm_source=url.]