Just ask a guilty white Madison liberal to apologize.
They will before asking “what for?”

A fiery meteor is headed for Earth. The Washington Post headlines, “Sources say world to end; Congress to recess.” The Wall Street Journal: “World to End; Stock Market Plunges.” USA Today: “IT’S OVER! (No weather map today).” New York Times: “World to end; women and minorities hardest hit.”

A foolish Madison liberal named Beth Harper unwittingly recycled that old joke in her letter in the current Isthmus weekly newspaper:

Every time Dave Cieslewicz complains about “identity politics,” I wonder what political topics he thinks are NOT affected by one’s race, gender, sexual orientation, ability status, or other important aspects of identity. Economics? Environment? Public safety? Tell that to … communities of color who are disproportionately hurt by air pollution and toxic waste.

Huh? More air pollution in Meadowood than in Orchard Ridge? No garbage pick-up on Badger Road? Fast forward to an arresting essay on the front page of Sunday’s New York Times opinion section. Author Kwame Anthony Appiah gives dispensation to the worried liberal trapped in the congealing amber of identity politics.

Not every opinion needs to be underwritten by your race or gender or other social identity. — “Go Ahead, Speak For Yourself.”

Kwame Anthony Appiah is a professor of philosophy who is coming out with a book The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity. He writes:

The very word “identity” points toward the trouble: It comes from the Latin idem, meaning “the same.” Because members of a given identity group have experiences that depend on a host of other social factors, they’re not the same. …

Here’s Chris Rock, talking about his life in an affluent New Jersey suburb: “As a black man, I’m against the cops, but as a man with property, well, I need the cops. If someone steals something, I can’t call the Crips!”

A close encounter of the liberal kind

All White People are alike

The school to stupidity pipeline

Our Madison school board is living the lie of identity politics. Because a noisy group billing itself as the Freedom Inc. Youth Squad claims that police in schools creates something called the “school to prison pipeline” the guilty white liberals dominating the ad hoc committee on EROs kowtows to the race shaming. 

Does Freedom Inc. speak for all minority families? Not even for the Urban League or the NAACP.  Where is the ad hoc committee’s empirical evidence that students of color are being disciplined for chewing gym in the hallway while white students are given a free pass to beat on minorities? That evidence does not exist.

Or the Gay Pride Parade disinviting the cops. For the identity politician, every day is the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, or the Stonewall Riots in Greenwich Village, or Diary of a Mad Housewife.

“Our community is facing complex, unprecedented times, where power is a fleeting commodity for our most vulnerable members, especially queer and transgender persons of color,” OutReach board president Michael Ruiz said. …

“Those whose voices are silenced due to gender and sexual orientation, as well as the intersections of race, class, ethnicity, gender, ability, immigration status, age, and lack of institutional power, need us to amplify their voices,” Ruiz continued.

Disinviting the cops is going to amplify voices? He doesn’t think there are any women, LBGTs, or racial minorities on the cop squad?

Appoint a token conservative, be amazed!

Back to Cieslewicz. He is one of the very few Democrats who has taken on identity politics (while, lamentably, holding his tongue on cops in schools).  The former mayor writes:

The essence of being a liberal is to be open to different ideas and perspectives — ironically, even conservative ones. So, I would like to see at least one strong, articulate classic conservative in the [mayoral] race. Someone who would make a principled and impassioned case for smaller government, less regulation and more personal freedom.

So would we, not that such a dream candidate could get elected in The Emerald City. But Dave C. was mayor for two terms; don’t recall him appointing any conservatives to the myriad citizen commissions that clutter city government. 

We know because your intrepid Squire donated $1 to Mayor Dave’s re-election campaign with the expected quid pro quo that this David would be appointed to something juicy. Our $1 bribe (“more where that came from”) was refunded in the return mail.

In any case, we’ve added “appoint philosophical diversity” to The Policy Werkes’ recommendations to the Task Force on Government Structure.  Don’t worry, they won’t prevail but shouldn’t policy makers at least be exposed to a different viewpoint? An opinion the majority here in The Emerald City likely has never heard expressed? 

Blaska’s Bottom Line: Can you think of anything more racist than assuming that all black/Asians/hispanics/whites/disabled/LBGT think alike?