Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
God forbid no one care that your feelings were hurt by a woman calling you a sexist after you called her a bitch. Photograph: Bill Varie/Corbis When a writer like New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait feels it necessary to whine in print about his and other (mostly well-remunerated) writers’ inability to write offensive tripe without…
To say I stood up and cheered as I finished reading Jon Chait’s new essay on the resurgence of a toxic political correctness on the left would be an understatement. There’s some great reporting in it that really helps put into context what the new guardians of the identity politics left are up to. Here’s…
As intended, Jonathan Chait’s denunciation of the “PC language police” – a trite note of self-victimization he’s been sounding for decades – provoked intense reaction: much criticism from liberals and praise from conservatives (with plenty of exceptions both ways). I have all sorts of points I could make about his argument – beginning with how he tellingly focuses on the…
Reasons You Were Not Promoted That are Totally Unrelated to Gender. You don’t smile enough. People don’t like you. You smile too much. People don’t take you seriously. You’re abrasive, for example that time when you asked for a raise. It was awkward and you made the men on the senior leadership team uncomfortable. You…
The PC Police are coming Chaiters Gonna Chait — The Nib — Medium.
I was really looking forward to Jonathan Chait’s essay in New York magazine about the inanity of social media outrage culture and the danger of letting angry name-calling and base grievance-mongering settle debates. And Chait, that cuddly old reactionary, hit it out of the park. The reaction on social media was, how do you say, “not at all…
Jonathan Chait’s new feature forNew York Magazine is called “Trigger Warning,” and it’s got a big old floppy dek: Can a white male liberal critique the country’s current political-correctness craze (which, by the way, hurts liberals most)? We’re sure you’ll let us know. The answer to this exquisitely slippery question is, of course: yes! A…
When New York magazine teased Jonathan Chait’s coming opus on race, politics and free speech last Friday – “Can a white liberal man critique a culture of political correctness?” — the hook alone was enough to send his Twitter haters into multiple ragegasms. I thought folks should save themselves some grief and at least wait…
<span><span><span class=”message_content”>How the language police are perverting liberalism. </span></span></span> How the language police are perverting liberalism. Around 2 a.m. on December 12, four students approached the apartment of Omar Mahmood, a Muslim student at the University of Michigan, who had recently published a column in a school newspaper about his perspective as a…
Well, this is just brilliant. Racist adverts promoting hatred against Muslims are currently being run on buses in San Francisco – but someone has started covering them up with anti-hatred messages from Marvel’s première Muslim superhero, Ms. Marvel. The adverts were purchased by the American branch of the Freedom Defence Initiative – who, here in…