The Maoist State of America

Silverfiddle Rant!

Another day, another un-woke celebrity cancelled by the Red Guard...

The persecution of Gina Carano
Her sacking perfectly illustrates the hypocrisy and intolerance of the woke elites.

So far, she has not opted for a self-flagellating Maoist Struggle Session, which seems to be all the rage lately.  She must be smart enough to realize you cannot appease the baying mob.  

"The guillotine's thirst for blood is never slaked."

These theatrical self-shaming debasements all hit the same notes.  You could play word bingo with them: Systemic racism, inexcusable, painful, white privilege, people of color, etc...

...but the most disturbing aspects of the public self-accusations are the admissions of "ignorance," and the promise to "learn" (be reeducated).  This ends in a dark place.  I leave you with a few examples that could have been taken directly from historical accounts of Mao's Cultural Revolution:

NY Times food critic offered this obsequious self-mortification for criticizing a woman of color:

“I’m a white woman who has and will continue to benefit from white privilege and I recognize that makes what I said even more inexcusable and hurtful. The fact that it didn’t occur to me that I had singled out two Asian women is one hundred percent a function of my privilege (being blind to racial insensitivities is a discriminatory luxury).

My favorite, a florid burst of self-censure from the Poetry Foundation:

“To our community of contributors, subscribers, partners, and visitors which includes,” it noted, “but is not limited to, Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Middle Eastern, Asian, trans, non-binary, and queer people, undocumented and other immigrants, people with disabilities, and those struggling financially: we apologize for our silence in the face of crisis amid the call to dismantle institutional racism.”

The host of "The Bachelor" fell afoul of the Social Control Ministers at Ingsoc when he did not collapse into an attack of vapors and immediately organize the horsewhipping of a woman contestant who attended an antebellum themed party when she was in high school. 

His groveling self-rebuke hits all the required notes with an economy of words:

“What I now realize I have done is cause harm by wrongly speaking in a manner that perpetuates racism, and for that I am so sorry.”

"By excusing historical racism, I defended it. I invoked the term ‘woke police,’ which is unacceptable. I am ashamed over how uninformed I was. I was wrong,”

Here are quotes from a college professor's particularly operatic apology for the crime of extolling the virtues of college football: 

"I am sorry for the hurt, sadness, frustration, fatigue, exhaustion and pain this article has caused anyone, but specifically Black students in the higher education community and beyond," writes the Ohio State University professor. "I am struggling to find the words to communicate the deep ache for the damage I have done."

My center is as a learner, so movement for me will involve unlearning and relearning by listening, reading, dialoguing, reflecting and writing as a means for increasing my awareness and knowledge about systemic racism and the experiences of people of color and people who hold marginalized identities different from my own."

I am just beginning to understand how I have harmed communities of color with my words. I am learning that my words—my uninformed, careless words—often express an ideology wrought in whiteness and privilege. I am learning that my commitment to diversity has been performative, ignoring the pain the Black community and other communities of color have endured in this country. I am learning that I am not as knowledgeable as I thought I was, not as antiracist that thought I was, not as careful as I thought I was. For all of these, I sincerely apologize.

I know it's not anyone's job to forgive me, but I ask for it—another burden of a white person haunted by his ignorance.

In this last sad example, a former fighter pilot and Boeing executive apologizes for writing an article opposing women in combat.  33 years ago:

In an apology upon leaving the company for an article he wrote in 1987 opposing women in combat, then-Boeing executive Niel Golightly said the article was “painful because it is wrong. Painful because it is offensive to women. Painful because it reminds me of the sharp and embarrassing education the uninformed and unformed ‘me’ of that time received as soon as the piece appeared.”

This will not end well.

Links:

The Humiliating Art of the Woke Apology

Ohio State Professor Apologizes.  He is so very, very, so very sorry

Alison Roman apologizes again to Chrissy Teigen for her 'tone deaf remarks'

Jonathan Chait and MSNBC’s Chris Hayes Take Friendly Fire for Defending Fired Star Wars Actor Gina Carano: ‘Stop This Bullsh*t’