When the racist text messages sent by at least ten members of the San Francisco Police Department came to light, Sgt. Yulanda Williams was one of the officers of color personally targeted – by name.
Sgt. Williams is president of Officers for Justice, an association of SFPD officers formed in 1968 to advocate for the civil rights of minorities, women and LGBT people. One of the texts refers to her with a derogatory phrase offensive to both black people and women.
On Wednesday she spoke on the panel at the SF Public Defender’s 2015 Justice Summit, hosted by SF Public Defender Jeff Adachi. Mr. Adachi noted that this has been portrayed as an isolated incident. He asked Sgt. Williams to tell the public just how deep this goes.
Sgt. Williams responded, “We know that this is not an isolated incident. This problem is systemic within the San Francisco Police Department and unfortunately there have been some who have chosen to turn a blind eye.”
She said that some members of the Officers for Justice have been on the force for over 30 years and can recall similar incidents, even incidents far more egregious than the text messaging scandal.
She cited a consistent problem with the disciplinary process in the police department. She said, “When a minority officer stands before members of the command staff or the commission, unfortunately when their cases are heard, minority issues are dealt with a little bit more severe – the discipline (given to minority officers) is more severe.”
Sgt. Williams said “I stand before as a woman who was called… a NIGGER BITCH… I’m going to tell you something. First of all, it’s offensive to any female that has risked their lives on a daily basis for the citizens of this city. We entered into this position considering it a noble one and that is why we gave our lives and we committed ourselves to serve and protect the citizens of San Francisco.”
“These rogue cops have been disrespectful. They have brought discredit to our uniform. It is outright bigotry and hatredness. And as a victim, the thing that hurts me the most is the outright betrayal of this department,” she said forcefully. “As a victim of this crime – and I call it a crime, the act that they did – I have not been interviewed by the internal affairs department. They have not asked me ‘how do I feel?’ They have not asked me ‘do you feel comfortable?’ They have not asked me, ‘do you feel safe in your work environment?’”
She put blame on both the police chief and the mayor. The mayor, she said, has refused to meet with them. The police chief had a chance to get out in front of this issue and took the politically expedient route. The chief, she said, “has yet to address the rank and file members of this police department.”
“I don’t care that it was only a handful,” she said. “It still reeks of corruption because where there’s that one percent, there still could be more.”
Sgt. Williams pointed out that, by and large, the members of the SF Police Department are fine members, and most are not guilty of doing this. “However,” she said. “I joined what I thought was San Francisco’s finest and now it doesn’t feel like that today. It doesn’t feel like that to many of the minority officers.”
Yulanda Williams said that she was making this public now that the Officers for Justice had heard rumors that the text messaging incident had occurred. That was the Thursday prior to the story breaking. She called the chief to find out if the rumors were true.
“I was assured that the members had nothing to worry about and that I had nothing to worry about,” she said. “Needless to say when on Saturday the story broke and I find that not only are several of my members named specifically but then there are text messages in there to do harm to children of half-breeds… then I’m informed that my name is mentioned in there. “
Yulanda Williams was disappointed that the chief did not forewarn her that her name had come up and that something was coming out. “At least give me the decency and the respect to tell me that there’s something that I should be concerned about,” she said. “To me that almost feels like betrayal because you don’t do that to your family.”
“Because I’m black, I can never be blue enough for you,” she said with both anger and hurt. “Shame on you. Shame on all of you.”
Sgt. Williams said that “we need to develop a think-tank task force.” The task force would have black and LGBT groups, representatives from the police department, a member of the Board of Supervisors, Mental Health Professionals and community activists. “We need to do a climate survey on every officer in the city and county in San Francisco.” Are they suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder? What is weighing on the police officers?
“This climate survey will help determine how deep-rooted this racism really is,” she said. She realizes that this is “a taboo subject” but is afraid that if we do not do something, that Ferguson, Baltimore or Watts could be the reality that San Francisco faces.
Police Chief Greg Suhr could not make it, but he sent, in his place, Commander Toney Chaplin.
Commander Chaplin said that body cameras are coming to San Francisco. “A draft policy is making its way through review as we speak,” he said. “Personally I believe nationwide every law enforcement agency is going to be deploying body cameras. I’m definitely in favor of them.”
“I’m in an unenviable position of being African American and being a cop,” he said. “This is a tough time for most of the members of the San Francisco Police Department because people that they call a friend (sent those text messages)… and we found out by watching the news.”
He said he was a classmate of Yulanda Williams and that she has always had this fire burning in her.
“For some many years people have described bad treatment by the police and nobody did anything because who could back it up,” he said. “I think body cameras will give us that evidence of proof to either clear the officer or to allow us to move against the officer for something egregiously done. So I’m a big proponent of the cameras.”
“Why not? We use them for every other crime,” he said, noting that there are crime cameras all over the city. “I think it makes our job a lot easier not harder.”
Commander Chaplin said that there “is a lot of self-reflection going on, not just in the United States but in the world.” He said he felt that something should have happened well before now and he expressed sadness at the events happening nationwide.
“Some of us have lost our way,” he said pointedly. “Some people get it right away – not a problem. Some people get it sooner or later – we need to train them… Some people never get it – they need to be fired.”
He said that the chief made the recommendation to fire those officers involved in the text messaging scandal because, in some of those cases, there is nothing that can be done to change the officers’ actions.
Commander Chaplin related to own his own bad experience with the police prior to becoming a police officer. He said he went clubbing down in the South Bay. He said he wouldn’t go into details but, “It almost stopped me from being here sitting in front of you.”
Mr. Chaplin continued, “I apologize if I offend anybody, but I wasn’t shocked by any of it [that which came out on the text messaging scandal], because most of us African Americans have experienced it throughout the years.”
He said a lot of African-American police are questioning the people they thought were there friends. At the same time, he said that it’s a great time for this country because things that have been talked about and whispered about for years are finally coming out into the open.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
everyone is focused on the other article and ignoring the implications of this. its interesting the implications of the text messaging scandal – if the black police officers and others in sfpd are feeling betrayed, it will have stark consequences for their willingness to turn the other cheek at other misconduct. this will be fascinating to watch.
What is done in the dark eventually comes to the light. There exist serous issues in police departments across america. What comes to mind is the socialization that exist within their departments. Were do they obtain their ideas of unlawfulness? You call yourself an officer of the law, but you trample the vary laws established by the people. How does that work? I support officers who honor their oath to the U.S. Constitution and to their state Constitution. I also support exposing those officers who degrade there position of trust for their personal gain.
Reminds me of some of the nastier verbal behavior of some cliques in a large corporation I once worked for–there weren’t any racial epitaphs (almost everyone involved was white or asian), but there was some nasty name-calling and disparagement behind-the-back–I overheard parts of it (on both sides), and stayed out of it!–an unhealthy work environment to be in for those involved, lucky it wasn’t too close to me.
Sorry, Tribe, I’m ‘twisted’… hope you meant “epithets”, not “epitaphs”. Although, both are a serious concern.
oops, good catch hp! Some of the talk was venemous, but none resulted in death so far as I know. Guess I’ve got mortality on my mind with the other threads and news about police related deaths. Must have been a Freudian slip…or a boo-boo!
Read this a couple of times and recognize someone that is in need of cognitive behavior therapy. Just my guess here, but I am thinking that the officers were feeling reverse hostility from this passive-aggressive “I AM A VICTIM, HEAR ME ROAR!” activism in the police department. Talk about hypersensitivity. These were PRIVATE TEXT MESSAGES!!! I bet she has many time texted or written or spoken ill about people see did not or does not like. In fact, she is doing it here.
Oh, but she uses precise language to disparage and denigrate people and groups that she does not like. That is all it takes I guess to get a pass. Well you also need to be a member of a certified victim group too.
Watch. More people with Yulanda Williams’ condition are now getting into the military.
I am disgusted with brutish people and loud and nasty victims afflicted with hypersensitivity. Get either type in your workplace and they will destroy moral. They are both hostile and toxic.
In your world, Frankly, do police officers ever do anything wrong?
Methinks he alluded to problems with perhaps a minority of police when he said, “I am disgusted with brutish people and loud and nasty victims afflicted with hypersensitivity. Get either type in your workplace and they will destroy moral(e). They are both hostile and toxic.” Why would police officers be any different from any other public or private sector employees?
Or, the public in general?
You got it hpierce. And thanks for the spelling correction.
Don just glosses over what I write sometimes.
Hostile/mean peope come in different flavors.
You’re right. I read the 167 words criticizing Officer Williams, including diagnosing her need for counseling, and all the CAPITAL LETTERS, but missed the three words “with brutish people” that apparently balanced it.
Sorry.
Yes, because I can see the wolves in sheep’s clothing and you cannot because you are sometimes one of them.
Frankly’s world, white males are the only victims.
Comeon now, you know that statement is bullshit.
while i wouldn’t express it quite that way, i think the problem is that frankly immediately discounts any alternative opinions or viewpoints in a very condescending way.
Not anymore than a lot of commenters on here. Once again though it’s a conservative poster that gets pointed out.
actually i think he does it a lot more than any other commenter here though i agree, we all do it some extent. frankly stands out as by far the most egregious here and i think he would admit it and may even take pride in it.
Not the way I see it. Frankly posts more often on here than most commenters so maybe it seems that way by the shear numbers. I think you only notice because usually Frankly is coming at issues from a different viewpoint so it bothers you.
it actually bothers me when i see people i agree with treating other viewpoints dismissively as well. but frankly has become the master of taking legitimate grievances (in this case disrespect and disparate treatment of minorities) and turning them onto the victim by creating the notion of victimization. how dare this woman who has worked for 25 years in the police department be outraged that she was called a n-b. she is just creating a culture of victimization.
DP. I am Frankly.
That is the point of my moniker. I am sometimes playing Devil’s advocate. In other cases I am in direct opposition. But I am direct and I am frank.
You need to think a little harder about this criticism of Frankly. Because it is the same shoe on the other foot.
There is nobody that calls out the harsh and hostile BS from the politically correct. The self-anointed thought and word police using their narrative of “hostile” and “intolerant” and “racist” and “gender biased” and “homophobic” and “Ismaliphobic”… etc., etc. The are righteous and so they can say almost anything they want and get a pass. But question anyone in this list of protected victims and be prepared to have them and their ilk turn against you personally.
I am past the point of feeling the need to continue to persecute people in the name of civil rights over stuff they say. The practice of legislating speech to prevent hurt feelings is crap. Campuses are out of control. We are mainstreaming dysfunction… common sense is replaced with some alien thought process that nobody can justify… but somehow gets excepted as normal. That was never the goal of our civil rights march… the one started by Republicans to free the slaves. We are now way past the slippery slope of a new type of tyranny that is wrecking freedoms across the country and causing a greater divide. People do not feel safe talking and so they go to their tribe and stop talking to the other tribes. I see this type of thing as just the destructive dying gasps of activists unable to concede success and move on… and they are aided and abetted in a trifecta of political hacks and insecure passive aggressive people.
Of course I do not know Sgt. Williams. She might be a great person and a well functioning professional in law enforcement. However, since she is up in arms and openly demanding the persecution of these male officers over her assessment of hate and hostility in their private text messages, it is also fitting that she be held accountable and responsible for the hate and hostility in her words.
What really irks me about liberals related to this type of stuff… they bristle at the power wielded by cops and the courts who can destroy a life by arrest and conviction, but they don’t seem to register any feeling over the destruction of a life because someone uttered a word they deem hurtful… as long as the utterers are not a member of any qualified victims group. There is a profound lack of balance in this tendency… and one that clearly must be illuminated and call out.
In my practicing as an amateur psychologist, this dichotomy of response is a clear sign of dysfunction. And even if it is not, it is worthy of direct and frank criticism.
You see, I tend to see everyone as equal. I would give Ms. Williams a pass for the heat and hurtfulness in her words if she would do the same for her male coworkers. But since she is demanding their persecution, I am demanding the same of her.
Victim mentality is real and it is destructive. Bullies come in all shapes and forms. Hypersensitive passive aggressive behavior does as much to ruin a work culture as does overt brutishness. Neither should be tolerated.
i would say you’re selectively frankly. more often than not you become a caricature of what you think frankly should be. then again, i think it’s more of your true persona as you exhibited it even when you posted under your actual name.
you’re dense and unempathetic. you probably can’t imagine what it might feel like to have people that you thought were your friends saying personally hateful things about you in text messages and referring to blacks as “monkeys” and “n’s” as well as disparaging half-breeds. it’s contemptible. to put her into some dismissive and insulting victim status, degrades yourself. i’m sorry but i have lost complete respect for your point of view.
it’s going to be interesting because that was a wake up call for police officers of color especially in san francisco. they have held the thin blue line for a long time and stayed silent. if they start speaking out against misconduct because they no longer feel the camaraderie, it could actually become a force for change that’s desperately needed.
DP’s “maybe it seems that way by the shear numbers”. Like it… evokes ‘cutting’, ‘rendering asunder’, etc. Nice word play. Not being so clever, I probably would have used sheer.
Some good points have been made in our responses to one another, and the tone. I’m now feeling privileged that I can get both the “left’ and the “right” to discount my opinions (and, sometimes, my facts), or accuse me of discounting/dismissing theirs, or other ulterior motives.
It’s gorgeous outside… think I’m going to stay away from the computer a bit, breathe some fresh air, enjoy my neighbors (whether I agree with their politics or not), and remember that I’m part of a pretty damn good, but not perfect [by any measure] community. Best to all.
[And no, I’m not ‘channeling’ Mr Rogers]
Before I go out, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5FfJ89rGPc
hpierce: haven’t you figured out by now, i can’t spell?
frankly: an additional thought, far from williams being a “victim” it seems to me that they messed with the wrong person.
OK…haven’t made it outside yet… DP, I meant to compliment you for “word play”. Sorry you took it differently. I tend to have a ‘thin skin’.
that’s just my way of fessing up that it wasn’t meant as a play on words but rather a function of my poor spelling.
DP, you don’t have to fess up to anything since it was me who wrote it and it was just a misspell. sheesh, glad we cleared that up.
you are dense and overly emotive. you probably cannot objectively reason because of your own internal noise over how you feel.
I am not unempathetic, but I don’t project so much material harm from words spoken or written. I believe in the “sticks and stones.” parable. Of course there is a line, and that is what we should debate. But I put that line pretty high. It is a line of tolerance… real tolerance… the tolerance of who we are as people, not that superficial liberal groupism BS of race, gender and sexual orientation. You on the other hand put that line very low. In fact you seem to want to sniff out even private conversation, then attach nefarious and conspiratorial intent and persecute the person as if murder was done.
The hate and material harm has flipped to emanate from folks like you and Ms. Williams. You seem to have no empathy except for the people on your “team”… and that is the essence of bias that we need to rid ourselves of. There should be no teams, just individuals.
Hypersensitivity is the flip-side of hostility… and it should not be justification for just another form of hostility.
I have had to deal with both in my professional career. I had to fire people because of things they said. In one case the employee should have been fired. He was an asshole. In another case I had to fire a very good employee because he lost his temper with another employee and said things the heat of the argument that were unacceptable in the new workplace rules. I also had to fire another good employee because of things overheard by other coworkers at a bowling work event… again in the new workplace rules. In most cases, employees that tended to be too rough with words were teachable and could be developed to be more sensitive to the use of words.
But I have had many, many more challenges dealing with hypersensitive passive aggressive employees. And they tended to do much more damage to the work culture. And it is next to impossible to counsel them or get rid of them because their problems are emotional and psychological not just behavioral. The key is to get very, very good at interviewing so never making the mistake of hiring a person afflicted with hypersensitivity.
Like many kids, I was picked on growing up. But I learned how to cope and how to stick up for myself. Of course there is a line that goes to far and becomes bullying and true hate. I just draw that line at a level that supports true diversity. You seem to belong to the collection of people feeling resentment that you have been made to feel like you don’t quite fit in and you want your pound of flesh. That manifests into just another form of hate and intolerance and I will call it when I see it.
so you believe ms. williams is being overly sensitive in this matter?
Let’s dissect it…
All of this is clearly indicated of victim mentality and a reverse hostility. The “do you feel safe” test is a bunch of BS. Does she feel safe from what? From being hurt by words? Give me a break. If there workplace discrimination? Is she being bullied? Is she being excluded from any professional participation because of any bias that she is a woman or black?
My sense is that she may just not be a very likeable person. See appears hypersensitive. And so everyone else walks on eggshells around her. And when they are in private some of them tell others how they really feel about her. And now she has this “evidence” and can seek her pound of flesh. And this type of thing just drives a wedge into the department. People will like her even less and because of the risk that their private words can be used against them, they will go even deeper into making sure they do not interact with her or anyone that might attack them for words.
But the feelings don’t stop. You cannot legislate feelings. You cannot legislate some to like others. You can only legislate behavior. And if you legislate to persecute people for words in their private lives while allowing a person like Ms. Williams to pursue her hostility against those that do not like her, you are going backwards in the overall pursuit of tolerance. The behavior will be a facade… not any indication that we are all getting along better.
What is tolerance if not having a broader acceptance of the thoughts and words of individuals?
I know a lot of people in law enforcement and some of them are what I would call rough around the edges. Blue collar types. Not gifted with the best judgement for how to speak and convey their feelings in a way that would pass the hypersensitive politically-correct test. But all of the people I know are good people. They are not true racists, but they are rightfully irritated by the behavior of people and the lash out about it from time to time. They blow off steam. They tell off-color jokes. But they also take it as much as they dish it out. Others poke fun at them at their expense. The difference is that they do not smolder with perpetual anger and seek to destroy the career and life of someone that burns them with criticism. They are by far more tolerant than is Ms. Williams based on the quotes above.
“I know a lot of people in law enforcement and some of them are what I would call rough around the edges. Blue collar types. Not gifted with the best judgement for how to speak and convey their feelings in a way that would pass the hypersensitive politically-correct test. But all of the people I know are good people. They are not true racists, but they are rightfully irritated by the behavior of people and the lash out about it from time to time. They blow off steam. They tell off-color jokes. ”
a few points.
first, i have to wonder if part of the problem right now is that there are too many of those kinds of police officers in a world that is far more complex and requires much education and comprehension of diverse groups.
you say they are not true racists. well, maybe. but maybe it doesn’t matter if they are true racists. calling people monkeys, n-b’s, and half-breeds is unacceptable regardless of the intention. just cannot do that, not during a time when people are already concerned that police are targeting blacks.
in terms of the dissembling at the beginning. she’s clearly angry and blowing off steam in front of a favorable audiences. i think the comments by both her and the commander are clear – there is now a rift in the law enforcement community. you want to discount that. you seem to believe that there is no problem even as it stairs you in the face.
This makes we want to schedule an evening with you and optional cocktails and cigars to discuss this point.
With respect to the recent attention to policing, I think this is THE topic we should be discussing.
My business is lending. Within lending there is a professional role of “underwriting”. In my industry this is very difficult job to fill. It is difficult because, besides the requirement of underwriter experience, a good underwriter candidate in my industry must be both highly analytical and highly personable with very strong soft skills (interpersonal relationship skills). In terms of individual personality traits, these are generally opposite. Introverts get their energy from focusing internally to solve problems, extroverts get their energy solving problem working with other people. Good analysts tend to be introverts. Good customer service, marketing and sales people tend to be extroverts. But I need a balance of both for a good underwriter. It is hard to find and hard to develop people if they are even slightly unbalanced.
I view the job of hiring for modern law enforcement to be a similar challenge.
Even when I subtract the irrational liberal pursuit of unattainable utopia, I don’t disagree that there is a higher bar these days in terms of performance expectations for law enforcement. We live in a more complicated world and we also have progressed in our expectations for more sophisticated social skills from our public servants. But at the same time we have exploded the population of low socioeconomic people and we have many more misbehaving people and they are also more dangerous.
So how do you hire that perfect officer? It is someone that needs thick skin and the mental, physical and psychological toughness to do the job. But then we want them to be highly-educated, socially sophisticated and analytical too.
It is a similar problem with the military. We want professional diplomats that need to carry weapons in case they are needed, but we don’t want them to use them.
I think blind protection of law enforcement in general is as problematic as is blind criticism of that profession. I am supportive of talking about moving the needle to have more officers with degrees in psychology and carrying a clipboard if we also get more acknowledgement that there are people behaving in disgusting ways and that there are people who are dangerous to police and the general public, and we need police to do the dirty work required to keep all law-abiding people save from harm.
One last point… I started researching this to write a VG piece…
I think law enforcement would be better today in general if not for the fact that the employees of law enforcement are protected by a union. In almost all professions where unions protect the employees, more bad and misfit employees exist. Because unions make it more difficult to get rig of a bad or misfit employee, management often does not. Make public sector unionization illegal and replace employee advocacy with professional HR. That same professional HR will provide training and development services to increase the social sophistication of the workforce, while also helping to weed out more bad and misfit employees.
this is probably your best post on this topic. you might be surprised to know – i know a lot of police officers. my view is mixed. i’ve met a lot of highly intelligent guys, but they tend to be older and more experienced. younger cops tend to be cut from a similar mold to young military people – they are enthusiastic, naive, lack the people skills and the self-control to be effective. i know davis has often had an easy time finding good firefighters and a hard time getting the right police officers. so i think there needs to be a change in how they are trained.
Maybe, but then we have to acknowledge that the job is difficult and unique with pressures and risks like almost no other.
You are a thoughtful educated person, so why didn’t you pursue becoming a cop as a career? Me neither. Never entered my mind as a career choice. Why not? Who does that job? Who wants to do that job? Who does not want to do that job and why?
You can train all you want, but in the end the job is the job and the work is the work and some people will like the job and the work and others will not.
I think a percentage of the criticism of cops is misdirected frustration over the job that cops have to do. Just like a percentage of criticism of the military is misdirected frustration over the need to wage war. We want a more calm, peaceful, diplomatic, collaborative and easy way of life… but we conflate the instances of proof that we are not progressing with these goals with anger at those that have jobs dealing with the mess.
Crime happens first, and then law enforcement. If there was no crime there would be no need for law enforcement. And the amount and type and intensity of criminal activity dictates the job of policing and the job of policing attracts certain people to it.
It is “law enforcement”, it is not neighborhood and community organizing, or youth coaching, or counseling and therapy. I don’t argue that these things are needed in most of the communities where crime is high, I just don’t think it is right to blame police for not doing them.
If we want to reform policing to a new model I might support that… but then I am going to scream that we do this with the education system first. Because that will help reduce the mess that the police have to deal with.
SFPD has lots of colorful stories. A few years back officers made a spoof in-house video, and a black officer who referred to himself proudly as “dawg” decided to pretend to eat out of a dog bowl for fun. This was later seen as demeaning and racist.
More recently we had a fire department fire fighter who was away from their post when a plane crashed at San Francisco Airport. The fire fighter came back to the empty station, broke procedure and drove an older fire truck to the crash, and drove over a live victim on the tarmac. For days and weeks, this fire fighter was not identified, which smelled. It finally came out that she is a black, lesbian fire fighter, and I believe she then filled a lawsuit for slander or libel, and there were inferences that racism played a role. She ran over a tourist (who is dead), but she’s the victim?
http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_25731343/sf-firefighter-who-ran-over-asiana-airline-victim?source=infinite
Very interesting, I haven’t heard that story until now. Why is that? I think we know why.
On another note, have you noticed how the Duke noose story got stuffed? Duke officials know who put the noose up but have chosen to not say or give any details of who did it under the cloak of student confidentiality. The press has totally backed off this story too. Speculation is that a black student put up the noose in order to incite the response that it received and that’s why the story is being allowed to die.
what dpes this have to do with williams being called an n-b? let’s divert a provable instance of actual bias by citing a case where the person used accusations of bias as a smokescreen for misconduct. it makes no sense. you’re just trying to divert the conversation. in the next post, you’ll be naming a bunch of liberal politicians that you don’t like.
BP
“Comeon now, you know that statement is bullshit.”
I, frankly, do not know that it is bullshit although I also would have phrased it differently. And my opinion is based on Frankly’s posts, not anyone else’s opinions of them. Let me remind you of a few examples :
1) Frankly has decried female calls for equality as playing a “victim” card, and yet he has claimed that male athletes are “victimized” by equalization of funding for sports for women.
2) Frankly chooses to overlook many, many generations in which it was deemed inappropriate for women to receive formal education in anything other than manners or the “domestic arts” and yet claims that boys are “victimized” by a teaching format that actually requires that the student sit down and pay attention.
3) Frankly has chosen to disparage women as “feminists” ( a term he apparently views as a negative) for arguing for such basics as equal pay for equal work.
4) Frankly has dismissed the concerns of women and minorities with regard to victimization, and yet has defended the concept of a “war on Christmas” which is arguably a societally imposed Christian holiday based around a religious set of precepts not shared by our entire society.
5) At one point, Frankly, or perhaps his doppelganger poster from a parallel universe had entreated “us” to increase our rate of reproduction. Now he or his alter ego might try to waltz around this as a plea to some other group than white males, however since he is one ( I have met him) and since he used the words “we and us”, I sincerely doubt that he was speaking to black Muslims, or Buddhists, or Hispanics.
Now I agree that Frankly is far from alone in making posts that are biased by one’s own philosophic point of view ( I clearly do it too), but to pretend that he does not engage in this to an extreme degree is to ignore his own words. And to pretend that unlike some who label their biases clearly, he frequently presents his views as though they are obvious truth and that anyone who does not agree is ignorant, stupid, brainwashed or all three, also in his own words is disingenuous to say the least.
You got most of this wrong Tia.
Nope. Boys are the topic. Boys that are actually different than girls. Boys that learn differently and are wired differently. I know these types of statements will anger feminists that want a sexless (literally and figuratively assuming they are heterosexual feminists). Boys have been victimized by feminists. And the stats are in to prove it. And we are not talking “athletes” when the school has to recruit more girls and come up with new sports just to meet title 9 goals.
Nope. I just live in the present with an eye to the future with a good grasp of history. I don’t mistake the present with the past as do a lot of people owning unresolved childhood issues.
Have you read all the studies that support the actual fact that boys and girls learn differently? Do you care about all kids getting a great education, or only those kids that can sit down and pay attention… which tends to favor girls.
I have a question. Is it fair to equate “woman” and “feminist”? Frankly, (because I am) I don’t know any women that are feminists. I know some female feminists. I have no problem with equal pay for equal work. But then we have to define what “work” is. Because in my long professional career working for, with and in management of both males and females, there is a tremendous tilt in the women seeking more work-life-balance while the male more ambitiously worked toward the promotions. In my view many of the females made the better choice. But then it isn’t fair for them to come back later and claim unfair pay.
This is too general to be worth discussing. There is real oppression and there is victim mentality. Basically you can understand my perspective as being against government telling people what they can or cannot do, and for freedom to associate and behave like an idiot as long as the behavior does not cause others material harm.
I was speaking about everyone. I don’t care what race, gender, sexual preference, religion… etc. Just behavior.
We were visited from a friend who lost his wife to illness a couple of years ago and he brought his new girlfriend. They are from Indiana and she is the 50 year old daughter of a Baptist Minister that hovers over her boyfriend constantly testing his faith. I would be a flaming liberal in his house. In terms of what is extreme or what is not, it is all relative to your perceptions. And I think a reasonable benchmark can be what has been recently traditional.
Wow… “… Christmas” which is arguably a societally imposed Christian holiday based around a religious set of precepts not shared by our entire society.” Are you really so ignorant of the origins of ‘Christmas’: the fact it was a “minor” holiday, even for Christians, until the mid 1800’s; that it was chosen to ‘occur’ in December to co-opt the pagan solstice holiday (all evidence was Christ was born in August); and that it was actually promoted big-time to what it is today by merchants?
As a Christian, I’d be fine taking that holiday away from the civil world. That would result in savings to the City and other employers who give it as a paid holiday (or, ‘Winter Break’). I’m OK with that. Just as long as all the atheists, etc. don’t expect me to pay for holidays in late December to accommodate those who think there is something special about the winter solstice. Let’s get rid of Easter/Passover (and ‘Spring break’) and honoring the vernal equinox, and while we’re at it, let’s definitely get rid of Thanksgiving, because of the religious roots that holiday has. Is there anything else I can do for you today to minimize any “social impositions” on you or others? I can see huge cost savings both in the public and private sectors.
With the advantage of some time to think, I realize I was trending off-topic big-time. Moderator, feel free to remove my post… maybe part of a future discussion, on another, more closely related topic.
Apologies to all for ‘jerking my knee’. Sometimes, the knee jerks, when a nerve is hit. Think the medical term is a reflex reaction, but not sure.
Tia wrote: “2) Frankly chooses to overlook many, many generations in which it was deemed inappropriate for women to receive formal education in anything other than manners or the “domestic arts”…”
You seem to have forgotten the well-respected and well-paid nursing jobs, teaching, and library science.
And it’s easy to overlook/forget the generations that were hunter-gatherers…. all relative, and not pertinent to today. Or, is it?
Misplaced this… meant to be a response to Tia’s comment… my bad…