Tag Archives: Alice in Wonderland

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In Oregon, Being on Time is Now Racist

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

On July 1, 2022, Danielle Droppers, MSW, (she/her), Regional Health Equity Coalition Program Manager with the Oregon Health Authority, emailed that a scheduled conversation between OHA officials and members of the public wouldn’t take place as planned.  No special news there. 

But read her tone-deaf reason:

“Thank you for your interest in attending the community conversation between Regional Health Equity Coalitions (RHECs) and Community Advisory Councils (CACs) to discuss the Community Investment Collaboratives (CICs). In being responsive to partners from across the state, we’re hearing the liming of this meeting is not ideal and that people would like more time to prepare for this important conversation.
We recognize that urgency is a white supremacy value (emphasis added) that can get in the way of more intentional and thoughtful work, and we want to attend to this dynamic. Therefore, we will reach out at a later date to reschedule. Thank you so much for your patience, care and understanding.”

“…urgency is a white supremacy value…”?

“The KKK would unironically love this explanation,”  commented a July 8 post from Common Sense with Bari Weiss.

I guess even Alice’s White Rabbit, “I’m late, I’m late! For a very important date! No time to say ‘hello, goodbye,’ I’m late, I’m late, I’m late!,” was a racist.

By the way, Droppers is the same woman who resigned from the Portland Police Bureau’s Training Advisory Council because, she said, it had not responded promptly to a council proposal. “We’re getting untimely responses to our recommendations,” she told The Oregonian newspaper. “There’s a level of frustration.”

Droppers’ LinkedIn account says she has a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Sociology from California State University Bakersfield and a  Masters degree in Social Work (MSW) from Portland State University. Where do educated people like her get this stuff?

Adding insult to injury, Reason magazine,  an monthly American libertarian publication, disclosed that a county health official responded to an inquiry about the email by citing a link that redirects to a website that purportedly identifies aspects of white supremacy culture.

The website, Reason noted, was “conceived and designed” by Tema Okun, a white antiracist educator who has popularized the idea that several benign and widespread traits are actually characteristic of white supremacy. Among these are preferring quantity over quality, wanting things to be written down, perfectionism, becoming defensive, and yes, possessing a sense of urgency.

“The characteristics…are damaging because they are used as norms and standards without being pro- actively named or chosen by the group.,” Okun has written. “They are damaging because they promote white supremacy thinking. 

So now, in Oregon at least, being on time is racist. 

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Next Up on the Left’s Agenda: Racializing Taxes

Cart Before the Horse. Conner Kisiel // Creative Director | by Nacent Creative Marketing Strategies | Medium

Talk about putting the cart before the horse.

Late last year, the left-leaning Oregon Center for Public Policy (OCCP) put out a podcast firmly asserting that “…Oregon’s tax system entrenches and even deepens racial inequality.”

The organization then proceeded to undercut its argument by admitting it doesn’t have the data to prove its point. So now it is including in its 2022 Legislative Agenda passage of a bill that would add a race and ethnicity question to Oregon’s income tax forms.

“We must also better understand how the tax code impacts racial equity,” the OCCP now says. “Tax justice is a racial justice issue. We need better data to see which tax loopholes worsen racial inequality, so that together we can craft solutions to fix the problem.”

In other words, OCCP wants the state to collect data that it hopes will prove its point. It’s kind of an Alice in Wonderland “Verdict first, trial later” situation.

But even if the bill, SB 1569*, passes, the data it produces and the “racial impact statements” the bill would require the Department of revenue to produce would be useless. 

That’s because the bill “Directs (the) Department of Revenue to develop schedule allowing personal income taxpayers to voluntarily report taxpayers’ self-identified race and ethnicity identifiers.” That’s right, the submission of the data the OCCP plans to rely on to prove its point would be voluntary. 

That would inevitably result in bias due to unrepresentative samples of taxpayers submitting data, known as selection bias. 

There could be under-coverage, for example, if some taxpayers are inadequately represented in the sample, or nonresponse bias, if respondents differ in meaningful ways from nonrespondents. Respondents might also be principally those who have strong opinions on the issue.  For example, the reliability of surveys on call-in radio shows that solicit audience participation on controversial topics such as abortion, affirmative action, gun control and the legacy of Donald Trump are typically unreliable. 

Unconvinced that this bill’s reliance on voluntary participation and potential sampling errors would undermine its value?

A while ago there was an election when a botched presidential poll conducted over the phone unintentionally oversampled Republicans because the well-off were more likely to have a phone.

Dewey Defeats Truman Newspaper

 

*The chief sponsors of  SB 1569 are: Senate Majority Leader Rob Wagner (D); Senator Kayse Jama (D); Representative Greg Smith (R); ​Senator James I. Manning Jr. (D);  Representative Courtney Neron (D); Representative Khanh Pham (D); Representative Andrea Valderrama (D).

The 18 regular sponsors, all Democrats, are: Senators Dembrow, Frederick, Gorsek, Lawrence Spence, Patterson, Representative Alonso Leon, Campos, Dexter, Grayber, Helm, Hudson, Kropf, McLain, Power, Ruiz, Schouten, Prusak, Williams

 

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Goodell and NOW: punishment 1st, verdict later

‘Let the jury consider their verdict,’ the King said in Alice in Wonderland.
‘No, no!’ said the Queen. ‘Sentence first — verdict afterwards.’

The National Organization for Women has called on NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to resign because of how he has dealt with Ray Rice’s assault on his then fiancée, now wife, Janay Rice.

The League initially suspended Rice for two games. It suspended him indefinitely when a video surfaced showing him hitting Janay and the Baltimore Ravens released him.

Terry O'Neill, President, NOW

Terry O’Neill, President, NOW

“The only workable solution is for Roger Goodell to resign and for his successor to appoint an independent investigator with full authority to gather factual data about domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking within the NFL community and to recommend real and lasting reforms,” Terry O’Neill, the group’s president, said

In other words, he should quit and then the NFL should investigate.

Typical of advocacy organizations seeking to take advantage of controversy, NOW’s website currently features a photo of Goodell and a call to make a donation.