Tales From The Safe Space, Part 6 – California State’s Civility Cafe

Samuel Hooper2 Comments

Womyn's Herstory Month - California State University San Marcos - CSUSM

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For an increasing number of universities, re-education (or indoctrination) of students into the cult of Identity Politics is becoming a central part of the induction process

When the young, eighteen-year-old me arrived at Cambridge in the autumn of 2001, there were of course a number of welcome and induction events, ice-breaking activities and Freshers Fairs to attend. But at no point did the University of Cambridge consider it necessary to run a remedial workshop for new students, teaching us how to function in society and engage in civil discourse with our peers. That basic level of understanding was, shockingly, taken for granted.

And this wasn’t just a snobby Oxbridge thing. When I first arrived at Warwick University a couple of years later, I was likewise expected to be able to take care of myself and conduct myself like the fully grown adult that I was. The Warwick Student Union (then a bit loopy but now apparently one of the most snarlingly authoritarian in the country) gave us each a welcome bag which I recall contained a Cadbury Boost bar, a Wilkinson Sword razor and a pack of condoms to help me on my way, but was otherwise happy to stand back while I enjoyed varying degrees of success with each of these gifts without feeling the need to further intervene in my life.

And as it was for me, so it was for thousands more people who went to university as little as a decade ago. Which is partly why it is proving so hard to raise the alarm about what is happening on university campuses today. People see the odd sensationalist headline (often written by a generalist commentator) about comedians being banned or campaigns against statues or the replacing of applause with silent jazz hands, and think that they are puff pieces based on isolated incidents. After all, many people think, I only graduated a few years ago myself, and I never witnessed any of this craziness.

Well, things have changed a lot in the space of a decade, and the alarm is very much justified. Sure, the inexorable growth of statist Big Government and authoritarian crackdowns on free speech have been going on for much longer than a decade – and this blog tirelessly makes the case against censorship in all its forms and for unrestricted free speech. But to deny that something uniquely concerning has recently started to take place on university campuses in Britain and America is to bury one’s head in the sand.

One of the most troubling aspects of this new environment has been the number of universities which, hoping to avoid being embroiled in a wave of hysterical social justice protests such as those which consumed Yale and Mizzou last year, are deciding to come out ahead of the trend and pre-emptively embrace the new Cult of Identity Politics, weaving it into the fabric of their institutions before they are pressured to do so by crazed protesters.

A case in point: California State University San Marcos, which has opened what it calls a “Civility Cafe”, less of a laid-back study lounge and more of a hectoring seminar where any hopeful expectations of free speech are swiftly recalibrated by campus authorities.

The aim is to turn all students into “civility champions”, as the university’s website explains:

CSUSM recognizes students, faculty and staff who display Civility on our campus by conducting themselves with care, respect, and empathy while acknowledging the culture and humanity of others.  Like waves through the ocean, our vision is that one simple act will have a ripple effect and a tsunami of civility will take over our campus.  We encourage you to identify and nominate students, faculty and staff on campus.

Students are then “invited” to take the following pledge:

As a member of the CSUSM community
I will conduct myself with care, respect, and empathy
while acknowledging the culture and humanity of others.

The university’s student newspaper, the Cougar Chronicle, elaborates:

The Civility Cafe, a skill-based workshop, aimed to encourage and educate students on how to engage in civil discourse with their peers.

John Loggins, University of San Diego’s Director of Community-Based Student Leadership and Learning, facilitated the event on Feb. 25 in USU 2310.

[..] Students then participated in an activity designed to increase their empathy and listening skills. Students partnered up and were invited to tell their partner a story about an instance in which they either excluded someone from a community or felt excluded themselves. After students shared their stories, their partner had to tell another student the story they had just heard, but from a first-person perspective.

Loggins then played a video for those in attendance. The film featured Dan Savage, a known advocate for LGBTQIA rights and creator of the It Gets Better foundation. After watching the video, students were asked to reflect and share actions, words or ideologies that trigger negative emotions.

“How we react to triggers says more about us than what triggers us. Try to reflect before speaking out of hurt or anger; this can create more civil discourses,” Loggins said.

Note Loggins’ use of the term “triggers”. It is now difficult to recall that the concept of trigger warnings originated in online discussion forums for rape and sexual abuse victims, as a means of flagging explicit discussions for those suffering from legitimate PTSD. But we have come so far from that limited usage now – and trigger warnings are now so widely used in academia and even the media – that the expert sent from the University of San Diego to run the Civility Cafe talks about “how we react to triggers” as though every single one of us is a victim of some kind.

Sure, we may not have been the victims of sexual violence. But we can nonetheless be “triggered” by the most minor perceived cultural slights, goes the theory, and we must attend special seminars to train us to manage our reactions when we are so triggered. What literally every generation of human beings before us managed to do (with a little trial and error) since the dawn of history now must be taught as a specific Life Skill by universities more obsessed with micromanaging the lives and daily interactions of their students than imparting a rigorous, valuable academic education.

This is incredibly corrosive, part of a wider narrative whereby everyone is treated as being sick – or a victim – by default, rather than by exception. But we should expect to see more of this, and more Civility Cafes (or similar devices) popping up at college campuses everywhere. Why? Because university administrators are risk-averse.

They saw what happened to Tim Wolfe, former president of the University of Missouri, who was unceremoniously forced to resign at the hands of mob justice. They saw what happened to legions of university professors and administrators who found themselves rooted to the floor, being screamed at for largely imaginary offences recast as capital crimes under the law of Identity Politics. And so, as a perverse form of liability insurance, some universities are now leaning into the trend, making Identity Politics indoctrination a mandatory or strongly encouraged part of the student experience so that they have a defence to fall back on should protests erupt on their own campuses over some future scandal, real or imagined.

Unfortunately, this only adds legitimacy to what the Identity Politics practitioners and the New Age Censors are trying to do, giving it the official imprimatur of the university and its leadership team. Rather than obsequiously bowing down to these demands and establishing two safe spaces for every one that was originally demanded, universities should be pushing back on the student activists and telling them that as adults, they are each responsible for managing their own human interactions, and must get out of the habit of looking to an external authority figure to mediate every single dispute or to mete out punishment for what often amounts to thoughtcrime – daring to hold or articulate beliefs which are in any way contrary to the prevailing Identity Politics narrative.

None of this is to say that genuinely racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise discriminatory incidents do not occur on college campuses. Clearly they do. But the sense of panic and “danger” (student victims-in-waiting love to paint themselves as being in physical danger of nebulous words and ideas) is completely out of proportion to the issue, and overlooks the remarkable strides which have been made in overcoming prejudice and discrimination in our societies.

The American university system went from mass segregation to full integration in little more than a decade – precious gains which were made possible by exercising of unrestricted free speech, it should be pointed out. Why, then, do we need the most draconian measures – campus speech codes, re-education classes, social probation sentences for giving arbitrarily-taken offence to other students – to travel the last ten percent of the journey?

This is the case that the Identity Politics practitioners and New Age Censors need to answer. Why should freedom of speech, expression and thought be more severely curtailed now than ever before at this late stage, when most of the victories for tolerance, civility and equal rights have already been won?

Don’t expect an answer from them any time soon – for they have none. But do expect to see a lot more Civility Cafes popping up, serving flat whites with a sanctimonious side of social justice. It’s what the petty campus tyrants want, and many university administrations – like that of California State University San Marcos – either fully agree with their toxic agenda or are simply too spineless to stand up to them.

 

Safe Space Notice - 2

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The Bishop And The Brexit Debate

Samuel Hooper1 Comment

christianity-europe-eu-brexit-3.jpg

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Apparently, Brexit constitutes a “nightmare scenario” for the Bishop of Guildford. No surprise, coming from an established church with such a dubious record on democracy

Should bishops in the Church of England (or indeed the leaders of any other religious denomination) be free to speak their minds on the subject of Brexit and in advising their flocks how to vote in the coming EU referendum?

Of course they should. To suggest otherwise would be an unconscionable encroachment on religious liberty – the only exception being the intolerable Lords Spiritual whose anachronistic and unwelcome presence in the House of Lords makes Britain, like Iran, a technical theocracy.

But while non-political bishops have every right to express an opinion on Brexit, so we have the right to criticise their thinking on the subject, which tends to be woolly at best, and arrogant with a twist of elitism at worst.

King of the woolly thinkers is the Bishop of Guildford, who shared this recent gem on Twitter:

Adrian Hilton of Archbishop Cranmer dissects the Bishop of Guildford’s europhile ramblings over at Reimagining Europe:

So we read that the Brexit “nightmare” would be “very sad” because it would mark a return to “competing nationalisms” and “very dangerous times”. The EU has been “integral in delivering seven decades of peace and economic security”.We must resist the “widespread rise of populism” because “we are European” and “have nothing to fear or to lose if we remain so”. The Bishop of Leeds, Nick Baines, wants a ‘Third Way’, but that isn’t on the ballot paper. And the Bishop of Willesden, Pete Broadbent, aims directly for the Tories, but this isn’t a general election. As you see, it’s all impeccable political neutrality with rigorous episcopal impartiality.

The laity and other clergy will, of course, make up their own minds, but what manner of neutrality is it when CofE comms tells the media that the institution is neither for remaining nor leaving, while many in the House of Bishops preach the Gospel of Remain? Would a bishop ever tweet that his (or her) “nightmare” would be to wake up to a Corbyn premiership? What guilt does the prospect of voting for the Bishops’ (it probably is plural) Brexit “nightmare scenario” inculcate in the spiritually-discerning democratic intellect of the laity and subordinate clergy?

And here is the crux:

Some say we’d be poorer; others that the cost of holidays would rise; still others that our power stations would go dark and terrorism would increase. There is equal expert opinion to the contrary in every case, and it’s hardly four-horsemen-of-the-apocalypse stuff, is it? The matter of whether our national destiny is to be bound in perpetuity to an anti-democratic United States of Europe which is creeping, ratchet-like, toward continent-wide assimilation and uniformity cannot simply be distilled to short-term economic interests or security scaremongering.

I can understand Bishop Andrew’s desire to sustain a political union which is ostensibly based on sound Christian principles such as subsidiarity and solidarity. But, as Philip Booth has shown, the EU is antithetical to the very concept of localism, notwithstanding the letter of Maastricht. And I feel sure that the Greeks, Spanish, Italians and Portuguese might balk at assertions that the EU project is any longer concerned with fraternal solidarity, mutuality and social harmony.

This isn’t an organic social contract for diversity, liberty and limited state power, but a fabricated mechanism for the enforcement of national assimilation. When you’re locked – seemingly irrevocably – into a model of “economic governance” which hinders growth, destroys jobs, increases poverty, and leads mothers to abandon their children on the streets and fathers to commit suicide, I have to put to Bishop Andrew that his Brexit “nightmare scenario” would be welcomed by millions of Greeks as a dream of Grexit bliss.

The bishops’ willingness to swallow pro-EU talking points and then arrogantly sound off in public about how the EU has “kept the peace” and “delivered prosperity” is not just intellectually lazy. I would charge that it is a failure in their duty of pastoral care to all Christians in their flock, to accuse those who want Britain to leave the EU of trying to bring about a “nightmare scenario”.

Since when did believing in national democracy and sovereignty based at the level of a commonly understood demos represent a “nightmare” for the Church of England? Since when did the concept of self-determination (as opposed to slavishly following a pre-determined path toward unwanted European political integration set in motion decades ago) become unwelcome? And why is the Church willing to wring its hands and worry about human rights abuses and dictatorship abroad, but turn a blind eye when the rights of its own fellow citizens to determine the course of their own future is suppressed by Brussels?

At its root, the pro-European instincts of many bishops seem to rest in a desperate, stubborn insistence in seeing the world – and the European Union – as they would like it to be, rather than how it actually is. As Hilton suggests, the idea of the bad aspects of nationalism being eroded and replaced by shared European values of a vaguely left-wing bent of “subsidiarity and solidarity” is all well and good. But there is no European demos, and the relentless march toward further integration in the absence of a shared feeling of European-ness above national identity will only compound the simmering resentment.

The Church of England would clearly love nothing so much as to operate in a world where the nation state was consigned to the history books, and where we are primarily governed at a European level – no doubt as a stepping stone toward one world government. And they are entitled to that worldview, premature and perverse though it is.

But the Church and her bishops should at least show some embarrassment and contrition at the fact that by casting any concern for democracy aside and throwing their lot in with the European Union, they are helping to impose an elitist vision of a politically united Europe which more people vehemently oppose than have been scared and bullied by the Remain campaign into meekly supporting.

It is not the job of any Christian (least of all me) to judge another’s adherence to and practising of their faith, and so I will pass no comment on whether Andrew Watson’s gnawing fear that the British people might vote for self-government makes him a bad Christian.

But I will say without hesitation or apology that it does make him a bad citizen, a weak example of a community leader and an emblem of everything that is wrong with the established church’s continued role in the political life of our country.

 

Church of England - Church and State - Parliament - Lords Spiritual - Cartoon - 2

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Bottom Image: Abbreviated cartoon by Dave Walker

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Tales From The Safe Space, Part 5 – Return Of The Sombrero Scandals

Samuel Hooper7 Comments

Sombreros - Cultural Appropriation

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The selective outrage at supposed acts of “cultural appropriation” on university campuses takes proactive offence-seeking to a dismal new level

There is no article of clothing more likely to make a British or American university administrator break out in a cold sweat today than the sight of a sombrero on campus. Because as we all know, wearing a sombrero when not of Mexican origin is a hateful and violent act of cultural oppression, second only to donning the white robe and prancing around a burning cross.

In the UK, sombreros caused a stir last year when the University of East Anglia took it upon itself to ban and confiscate hats handed out to students by an off-campus Mexican themed restaurant. Possessed of an oversensitive racism detector which seems to jerk violently from “OK, I suppose” to “Hitler! Hitler!”, the UEA felt that the sight of non-Mexicans wearing sombreros was “discriminatory” and “stereotypical”, thus justifying their tyrannical dress code.

One might think that sombreros would at least be acceptable at a tequila party, but this too is now quite intolerable for the New Age Censors, as several unfortunate students at Bowdoin College, Maine, recently discovered to their cost.

The Washington Post reports:

Two weeks ago, some students threw a birthday party for a friend. The email invitation read: “the theme is tequila, so do with that what you may. We’re not saying it’s a fiesta, but we’re also not not saying that :).” The invitation — sent by a student of Colombian descent, which may or may not be relevant here — advertised games, music, cups and “other things that are conducive to a fun night.”

Those “other things” included the miniature sombreros, several inches in diameter. And when photos of attendees wearing those mini-sombreros showed up on social media, students and administrators went ballistic.

College administrators sent multiple schoolwide emails notifying the students about an “investigation” into a possible “act of ethnic stereotyping.”

Partygoers ultimately were reprimanded or placed on “social probation,” and the hosts have been kicked out of their dorm, according to friends.

Consider just how fascistic and totalitarian the concept of “social probation” is. And yet this is apparently a routine form of punishment at Bowdoin College, meted out to anybody who transgresses the strict, often post-hoc lines which are drawn to mark out unacceptable speech and behaviour for fully grown adults.

(The college immediately clammed up and refused to answer journalists’ questions in the aftermath of sombrero-gate, so precisely what is involved in “social probation” is not fully clear – but one can reasonably assume that it involves attending the same kind of Identity Politics re-education classes that have sprung up elsewhere. The student handbook makes reference to restrictions on “off-campus study” and the infantilisation of students by informing their parents of any misdeeds).

The Bowdoin Student Government (the student union) released a portentous declaration following the terrible sombrero incident, announcing:

WHEREAS, the Assembly reaffirms its adherence to a definition of cultural appropriation as a power dynamic in which members of a dominant culture take elements from a culture of people who have been systemically oppressed by that dominant group, perpetuates racist stereotypes, and/or misrepresents people’s culture;

WHEREAS, on Friday, February 20th, 2016 members of the student body organized a “tequila party”, during which students appropriated aspects of Mexican culture;

WHEREAS, this act of cultural appropriation is offensive for the previously stated reasons, is disrespectful, creates an environment where students of color, particularly Latino, and especially Mexican, students feel unsafe, and contradicts our goal to refine the education of students in an inclusive residential community;

[etc. etc. – you get the idea]

The statement then goes on to make the predictable list of “recommendations” (underscored by implicit threat of interminable protests in the event of non-capitulation) which we have come to expect, namely:

Recommend, that the administration should more immediately acknowledge incidents of this nature, and it must acknowledge not only their occurrence but also the deep hurt that students may be feeling immediately following such acts.

Further Recommend, 

That the administration must make clear to students, well in advance, their commitment to creating a supportive space for students who have been or feel targeted, for as long as students deem necessary.

Further Recommend,

That the administration must create a space for those students who have been or feel specifically targeted.

Further Recommend,

That the administration must create a separate space open to other students for discussion, support, and processing of the incident.

In other words, it was not enough that their well-trained lapdog university administrators immediately rushed to highlight and condemn the incident, and mete out “social probation” punishments on fully grown adults for engaging in harmless activity at a social event. This is now the bare minimum. What the university should have done additionally is to explicitly acknowledge the deep, searing, life-altering injury sustained by students who felt that their culture was being mocked, belittled and somehow appropriated and marginalised at the same time.

But this pales in comparison to Bowdoin College’s failure to provide multiple safe spaces following the traumatic event – one for students who were (or who felt) “targeted” by the wearing of mini sombreros, and another for students who weren’t affected in the least, but who still might want a well-appointed room with board games and puppy dog videos so that they can have a good, validating cry about the whole thing.

Two safe spaces – the Hierarchy of Oppression works a bit like airline lounges, with one reserved for first class passengers and one for business class and those who purchase day passes. Very important.

And of course:

Further Recommend,

That the Office of Academic Affairs mandate an academic or experience in the classroom for those involved in such incidents.

Further Recommend,

That the College develop processes for punitive measures to be undertaken against those involved in such incidents.

Further Recommend,

That the College remain cognizant of the time and academics of students of color following such incidents and take appropriate measures to ensure their academic, mental, and social wellbeing.

There’s the punishment bit. Of course it is not enough for those whose delicate psyches were injured by encountering something with which they disagreed to be comforted and fawned over in their imaginary distress. No, those who transgress in thought, word and deed must suffer the consequences – in the case of Bowdoin College, an “experience in the classroom” would seem to hint at a form of public shaming ceremony.

And finally we have the cautionary shot across the bows of the college, warning administrators that students should not have their vital social activism curtailed by onerous academic demands, and that the university is on the hook for their “mental and social wellbeing”.

Once upon a time – if the legends are true – people went to college to learn, and not simply to exchange one set of parents back at home for another set of overbearing auxiliary parents in the form of ever-watchful university administrators. And yet increasingly, universities are devoting more time catering to their students pastoral needs than their academic rigours, either reactively (after being bullied and bossed around by student mobs) or proactively (by professors and administrators too craven to stand up to said mobs).

Giving in to these petty campus tyrants only encourages them to come back with even more absurd demands. So if student activists are absolutely insistent that university authorities tend to them as though they were children, then colleges should begin administering tough love and discipline as well as obsequious hand-holding.

There may be a time and a place where people need to be monitored to ensure compliance with a dress code, and placed in detention (or “social probation”) for bad behaviour. But it’s called middle school, not college or university.

And any students who have genuinely failed to master Human Interaction 101 – and still require an external authority figure to mediate their interpersonal affairs by the time they reach the age of eighteen – should seriously stop and consider whether they are cut out for higher education.

 

Safe Space Notice - 2

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Top Image: The Tab – “Sombreros banned from Freshers’ Fair“

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Left Wing Eurosceptics – An Endangered Species Flirting With Extinction

Samuel Hooper5 Comments

Owen Jones - The left must now campaign to leave the EU - Brexit

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Many left-wing Remain supporters have no great love for the European Union, but nonetheless want Britain to remain subservient to Brussels as a means of inflicting left-wing policies on a reluctant Britain. And they call themselves champions of democracy!

 

“We must be clear about this: it does mean, if this is the idea, the end of Britain as an independent European state. I make no apology for repeating it. It means the end of a thousand years of history. You may say ‘Let it end’ but, my goodness, it is a decision that needs a little care and thought.”

– Hugh Gaitskell, speech to 1962 Labour Party Conference

 

Pete North, in a justifiably bitter tirade aimed at that group of British left-wingers who persist in stubbornly supporting the EU and campaigning for Remain against their better instincts, writes:

I don’t think I can win over leftists to the Brexit cause. They keep saying “If we leave the EU, the Tories might do stuff I don’t like” – which roughly translates as “I don’t want to live in a democracy where the government responds to the views and wishes of the public”. It also translates as “I am happy to deprive others of the right to choose because my politics are superior”. There’s not really much I can say to that. Traditionally, people like that are wearing uniforms and we shoot them rather than engage in polite discourse. What worries me is that if these people get their way, eventually they will be wearing uniforms and we will have to shoot at them.

Absolutely.

If you ever wanted proof of the British Left’s paper-thin commitment to democracy, you need only compare these two paragraphs from Owen Jones – one written when he was flirting with euroscepticism last year as the Greek euro crisis was at its peak, and the other shortly after David Cameron declared victory in his “renegotiation”.

First, Jones in Grexit mode:

Even outside the eurozone, our democracy is threatened. The Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership (TTIP), typically negotiated by the EU in secret with corporate interests, threatens a race to the-bottom in environmental and other standards. Even more ominously, it would give large corporations the ability to sue elected governments to try to stop them introducing policies that supposedly hit their profit margins, whatever their democratic mandate. It would clear the way to not only expand the privatisation of our NHS, but make it irreversible too. Royal Mail may have been privatised by the Tories, but it was the EU that began the process by enforcing the liberalisation of the natural monopoly of postal services. Want to nationalise the railways? That means you have to not only overcome European commission rail directive 91/440/EEC, but potentially the proposed Fourth Railway Package too.

Other treaties and directives enforce free market policies based on privatisation and marketisation of our public services and utilities. David Cameron is now proposing a renegotiation that will strip away many of the remaining “good bits” of the EU, particularly opting out of employment protection rules. Yet he depends on the left to campaign for and support his new package, which will be to stay in an increasingly pro-corporate EU shorn of pro-worker trappings. Can we honestly endorse that?

And here he is last month, falling into line with the Remain crowd:

Last July, I suggested that the left should at least consider Brexit, not least because Cameron believed left-leaning voters were in the bag for an “in” vote, giving him little incentive to preserve the progressive elements of the EU. My view is now to stay in, but unite with those across the continent – like the former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis’s new movement – who want a democratic EU run in the interests of working people.

[..] People like me can say: like you, I was sceptical. I’m no pro-EU ideologue, but a genuine floating voter. I understand your concerns. But I’ve come to the conclusion that we must remain in the EU, as a first step to the reform it so desperately needs.

In other words: democracy is a great and noble thing to be defended when it is delivering good old fashioned left-wing policies and high-taxing, high-spending governments. But when the people look like they might be about to vote for anything centrist or right-wing, the Left disown democracy at lightning speed, and embrace any and every procedural or bureaucratic obstacle which might thwart the people’s wishes.

Owen Jones is a smart cookie. He knows the true nature and purpose of the European Union, just as he knows that any “reform” or democratising of the EU is impossible because it would go against the very purpose of the organisation (the creation of a supranational and unaccountable layer of government above the nation state, freeing European leaders to make decisions and implement policies that their own electorates would never otherwise permit).

So when Owen Jones “saw the light” and came out in support of the Remain campaign, it wasn’t because he had suddenly found reason to hope that the EU can actually be reformed. No, it was purely and simply because cold hard political calculus told him that while the European Union may be a “neoliberal” dystopia for lefties, an independent Britain with conservative government would be far worse.

Jones changed his tune because he realises that a conservative government in an independent Britain might – shock horror – implement conservative policies desired by the voters, and the Left would have no means of undemocratically preventing it.

As a strategic piece of hard-headed and pragmatic realpolitik, you can’t fault the vanishing armies of left-wing euroscepticism for their tactical retreat. But as self-styled morally virtuous warriors for social justice and democracy, their hypocritical stance on Brexit stinks to high heaven.

 

Brexit - EU Flag

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Tales From The Safe Space, Part 4 – Guardian Article Or Satire?

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

Godfrey Elfwick - Gender - Identify as a carrot

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Not The Onion

Just as Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy teeters on the line between brilliant satire and terrifying reality, so too does this Guardian-style headline from Godfrey Elfwick.

Stylistically correct in every respect, and steeped in the same self-obsessed, exhibitionist tone of Identity Politics as practised by Safe Space-dwellers everywhere, the mere fact that you can no longer dismiss Elfwick’s confected headline as satire without a second thought really says it all.

After all, if grown men can identify as six-year-old girls and teenage girls can identity as cats, what is to say that the 2020s will not be marked by the growth of the Vegetable Rights movement?

Notting Hill was very prescient.

And yes, sometimes our best weapon against this toxic Identity Politics culture is ridicule.

 

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