Semi-Partisan Politics

The Everyday Feminism “Post-Election Thanksgiving Fact Sheet to Help You Prove Oppression Exists” is so deliciously beyond parody that it almost defies analysis too.

Kim Tran, who is “finishing her Ph.D in Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley” (naturally), writes:

“Thanksgiving” is a weird time when we get stuck with conservative family members who might trigger us so much that it feels almost impossible to formulate a sentence.

Especially this year – when the entire election cycle seemed dominated by not just sexism, but sexual assault and not just “colorblind” racism, but racial terror – we may find ourselves at a loss for how to make an appeal to our conservative uncles, cousins, and parents.

Trust me when I say I know how hard that can be.

Yes, there will be thousands of people twitching uncontrollably on the floor around the Thanksgiving dinner table this year, having been exposed to unwanted contradictory opinions and triggered beyond all endurance.

I’m not quite sure what Thanksgiving has done to deserve the special quotation marks in Tran’s introduction, though. Perhaps this is an allusion to the fact that the SJWs who read Everyday Feminism have little to give thanks for at the present time. And truly, one should feel sympathy for them. Previous generations of Americans who lived through the Civil War, the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, two world wars and Jim Crow and still managed to celebrate Thanksgiving have no idea just how hard today’s pampered young millenials have it, or how very little they have to give thanks for now that Donald Trump is about to take possession of the White House.

Oh, and let’s note Tran’s acknowledgement of “conservative uncles”, but not of conservative aunts. What’s this? Erasing the identity and lived experience of conservative women? Tut tut, very oppressive.

I’m definitely not saying to cross boundaries of physical or emotional safety. I am, however, hoping white allies can show up really hard right now because, well, we need you. We need you to be uncomfortable so that queer folks, undocumented people, Muslims, survivors, and countless others can feel safe.

Lord, have mercy. If I was a white person in Kim Tran’s acquaintance I would sooner spend Thanksgiving shut away on my own with a cheerless $1 microwave meal for dinner than spend one of the most beautiful holidays in the American calendar being lectured by some screechy SJW about how I’m not doing enough to make people who broke federal immigration laws feel sufficiently warm, fuzzy and safe.

But it gets better:

So particularly, if you are one of the few of the cohort of white progressives/radicals/do gooders, we need you to go ahead and call-in Randy, Travis, and Becky. I’ll even give you the cold hard facts to help you feel more comfortable doing it.

Woah. So let me get this straight. Kim Tran lives and studies at the prestigious UC Berkeley in California, the golden state, finishing a PhD in “Ethnic Studies” which would be utterly useless in the real world, but will equip her perfectly for a lifetime of tenured service on a university faculty perpetrating the Cult of Social Justice and Identity Politics. Basically, she has it made. And from this lofty position she sees fit to mock people called Randy or Travis, all of whom must (to her mind) be backward, ill-educated, prejudiced, tobacco-chewing hillbillies whose presence has is graciously tolerated, once a year, by the socially and morally enlightened readers of Everyday Feminism.

In other words, Kim Tran is stuck so far up her own backside that she openly mocks and belittles other people with more Southern-sounding names and zip codes, yet still considers herself the oppressed minority in America. It doesn’t occur to her that living in the Golden State and embarking on a career where she will be paid – paid! – to churn out meaningless identity politics drivel might, just might mean that she is more privileged than the stereotypical white male trailer park inhabitant in Appalachia whom she so evidently despises. Marvellous, absolutely marvellous.

The rest of the Thanksgiving Fact Sheet is the usual blend of lies and distorted propaganda pumped out by the SJW brigade – like the idea that one in five women will be raped in their lifetime, and one in four sexually assaulted at college, both of which statistics have been debunked more times than one can count.

Then we get airy assertions about illegal immigration, like:

Lots of immigrants do different jobs from natives because they have limited English language or technical skills, or because they have insufficient exposure to the US workplace. For instance the most popular occupation for undocumented workers is “maids and housekeepers,” while the most popular occupation for native workers is “cashier.”

My emphasis in bold.

Note the insidious switching between talking about “undocumented ” workers and immigrants in general, all part of the SJW masterplan to normalise illegal immigration.

Then we get damaging claims that oppression is somehow so endemic that “people of colour” (what a stupid term – and being one myself, I can say so) shouldn’t even bother trying to succeed on their own merits:

Pulling Yourself Up By Your Bootstraps Is Almost Impossible (If You’re A Person Of Color).

The idea behind the American Dream goes a little something like this: if you work hard, you can achieve economic success and comfort. Unfortunately, that’s not true for the vast majority of people of color.

One of the first steps to this kind of “success” is school and the school to prison pipeline predetermines students of color “as violent and in need of reform.”

Note how Kim Tran strips “people of colour” (ugh) of any agency or responsibility for their own lives, decisions and circumstances. This is the true tyranny of low expectations, and will succeed only in bolstering some people’s sense that they belong to a permanent victim class, focused largely on historic injustice rather than present opportunity.

And then for dessert:

Climate Change Is Real And It Affects Communities Of Color The Most

It’s important to mention that communities of color are most impacted by climate change and human-created environmental racism.

Three quarters of hazardous waste landfill sites are in Black and Latinx neighborhoods.  Moreover, during natural disasters like the recent hurricane in Haiti, women are often the last to escape, because they tend to prioritize the safety of their family and children.

Well, Black Lives Matter UK would agree strongly, at least.

I hope you are in a good mood to celebrate Thanksgiving now, having been lectured by Kim Tran and Everyday Feminism about how everything you are, everything you do and everything you love is basically evil and oppressive. And I know that “factsheets” like this one will make you really want to reexamine your own beliefs and reach out to the other side in a spirit of mutual trust and understanding. I know I sure do. Or maybe not.

This year, #JeSuisTravis.

 

–

Support Semi-Partisan Politics with a one-time or recurring donation:

–

Agree with this article? Violently disagree? Scroll down to leave a comment.

Follow Semi-Partisan Politics on Twitter, Facebook and Medium.