VIDEO: "The Birth of a Nation" (full) - a lesson for our times?

Just about 100% of the reviews you'll read for D.W. Griffiths' masterpiece, The Birth of a Nation focus on the racism, pro-South bias, "glorification" of the Ku Klux Klan, yada yada yada. There is no dbout about the bias, but there is also no doubt that the events depicted are real, a cautionary tale about what happens when you turn society on its head.

In another masterpiece, The Civil War, film-maker Ken Burns quotes a freed slave as telling his master "Bottom rail on top now!" As the film shows, the aim of many radical abolitionists before, during and after the Civil War was nothing less than to make downtrodden black Americans rulers over the privileged whites. To do so, they used rigged elections (in which whites were disenfranchised), mob violence, and occupation of southern cities and states by the federal army.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? The KKK was undeniably racist, but would not have come into being were it not for the necessity of defending southern society and, dare we say it, civilization, in a country which had descended into chaos. Watching The Birth of a Nation may make some people uncomfortable, but it would be foolish to let the political incorrectness blind us to the realities of the culture war which America experienced then... and now.

 

President Woodrow Wilson is famously rumored to have responded to the film with the remark: "It is like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true." His published works as a historian are closely aligned with the film's negative portrayal of Reconstruction. Some of his writings are even quoted onscreen in certain prints of the film.

Also worth watching (and free of bias!) Mississippi's War: Slavery and Secession, a production of Mississippi Public Broadcasting, 2014.

Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it. (George Santayana)

Guilty of plagiarism? Princeton profs publish "anti-racism" demands

Seems like just yesterday [It was just yesterday! Ed.] Walt told you about the ridiculous list of demands made by the Faculty Association of California State University (not to be confused with the University of California) to combat the "systemic racism" which exists in their alleged university, as well as American society generally. See "Reverse racism demanded by California State U faculty", WWW 8/7/20.

Many of those demands, including a "dedicated black-only student space" (read: segregated housing) on campus, have started to pop up at universities across the country, including Princeton, which just last month bowed to the anti-racist mob by voting to remove the name of former President (of both Princeton and the USA) Woodrow Wilson from its School of Public Policy and International Affairs.

The Daily Princetonian reports that over 350 faculty members at the once-prestigious Ivy League university have published an open letter charging the school for its alleged "anti-Black racismL, and demanding "anti-racist action" and "diversity in decision-making". But the target is not just Princeton, but the whole world! "Given Princeton's influence," the signatories write, these "principled steps" are designed to "move the dial further toward justice for...the world."

Let's have a look at the 48 "anti-racist" demands. Some of them seem, errr, kind of racist, but you be the judge.

The letter calls for non-white faculty (only) to receive extra sabbaticals, extra pay and extra awards to compensate for the "invisible work" they do. Such as what? The letter states that minority professors are called upon to "chiefly and constantly 'serve' and 'represent' [racial diversity] in the interest of administrative goals."  Back in the `60s some people called that "hiring a niggler to sit beside the door."

The authors complain that just 7% of tenure-track faculty are non-white. How do they know? In South Africa, in the apartheid days, they measured people's lips and checked the texture of their hair. Anyway, the writers suggest giving those oppressed few "a full year of course relief" (meaning no teaching) so they can seek out and recruit more faculty of colour.

More ominously, an "outside committee of academics, law professors, artists, and cultural advisors from communities of color" are to be brought in to make decisions about "race, racism, anti-racism, and racial equity" that will impact the entire campus, while an "internal committee of faculty and students of color" must be appointed to hold the university accountable for carrying out these outsiders' orders.

The university's departments will be rewarded for making diversity hires, but those who don't will be punished! The letter-writers want Princeton to "enforce repercussions" for those departments that "show no progress in appointing faculty of color." Any hiring process that shows "no evidence of a concerted effort to assemble a diverse candidate pool" is to be quashed, and (presumably) the HR people re-educated.

The push for de facto segregation -- let's not beat about the bush here -- includes paying minority students to mentor underclass(wo)men of their own race. Administrators are to hold "semesterly open conversations" only with "students, faculty and staff of color" – no whites allowed!

The Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity is ordered to work with individual departments to devise tailored plans for "anti-racist research, teaching, hiring, and retention", to ensure that no discipline can squirm out from under its responsibility to redress centuries-old grievances.

All faculty must undergo anti-bias training, and standardized testing should probably be abolished because it's "strongly correlated with the underrepresentation of people of color on college campuses."

Princeton's website must include a line on its homepage acknowledging that the campus is built on "indigenous land". But wait, there's more....

The letter-writers want a faculty committee -- themselves??? -- tasked with "investigation and discipline of racist behaviors, incidents, research, and publication on the part of faculty." Sounds like an Orwellian type of thought police to enforce the parody of tolerance that has become the new normal in academia, the media and liberal politics. See "Noam Chomsky on the 'Crisis of Democracy'", WWW 1/7/20.

But let's give credit where credit is due. The authors of the letter suggest that Princeton "acknowledge, credit, and incentivize anti-racist student activism". To start with, there should be a "formal public University apology to the members of the Black Justice League" and other sometime students provoking, orchestrating and taking part in the wave of "anti-racist activism" -- complete with riots, vandalism and violence -- that is now sweeping over America's universities, and indeed, the Excited States of America itself.

Further reading: "Now It's Woodrow Wilson's Turn", by Patrick J. buchanan, Taki's Magazine, 30/6/20. "The cultural revolution has come to the Ivy League..."