Friday, February 22, 2013

USDA Sensitivity Training Scandal

A still photo from the USDA sensitivity training session. This trainer has been paid millions of dollars by the US government to train employees to have approved responses to various ethnic groups.  Who wins, who loses? Pilgrims are bad. "Bam!" -- a required response. I'm not kidding. 
This is NOT a still photo from the USDA sensitivity training session.
"The Manchurian Candidate" 1962. Laurence Harvey, Frank Sinatra, Angela Lansbury, Janet Leigh.  Director: John Frankenheimer. BTW, Laurence Harvey was Lithuanian-Jewish.
I know this blog is read in other countries, and I know readers in other countries express shock at how identity politics in the US works. 

If Polonia wants to eliminate the Bieganski, brute Polak stereotype, it will have to understand how identity politics works in the US. 

There is a small scandal in the US right now -- I say small because only right-wing outlets are paying much attention. USDA employees have gone public to talk about sessions they have been subjected to, where they were required to chant negative slogans about the Pilgrims, and about themselves. They were required to chant that they were racist, and required to chant uplifting slogans about members of other ethnicities. They were also required to shout "Bam!" after the sensitivity trainer made a point. This was in lieu of "Amen," which was perhaps perceived as too religious. 

There have been films of this training on youtube, but as the day has gone on, some have been removed. 

You can easily find news coverage of the scandal by googling "USDA Sensitivity Training." I won't post a link because I haven't read through all the sites and I can't recommend one or the other above any other. They are all pretty much saying the same thing. I base what I wrote, above, on the youtube videos I saw, which were later removed. 

15 comments:

  1. I've been through a few of these kind of required programs. While it's true in most feedback is encouraged, people feel intimidated to not disagree with the party line.

    It's worse for my daughter, who is biracial. Her history teacher is like this guy and my daughter asks us for a reality check. She doesn't want to confront the teacher. But my wife is thinking about it.

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    1. Intimidation--that's just it. Intimidation is even more important than indoctrination.

      Delete
  2. Marc would love to hear more about your daughter's experience.

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  3. so thats some kind of job opportunity for otherwise useless,superfluous people like these "sensitivity trainers"? In Poland, we are having an organization,sponsored by Soros- otwarta.org, Nigdy Wiecej and other anti-racism-is-my-job orgs. I think it was otwarta,org that kind of used the Holocaust as an example for "racism", and why we must be totally accepting of others. Yeah....one thing-Do I also have to be "accepting" of behaviour I really dont like? Like Muslim women not wanting to show their faces? Like people not wanting to integrate into society? I am completely against top-down forced "anti-racism".Because we are all human and no one should get preferencial treatment-no one.

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    1. Hanna, I'm all for "anti-racism."

      This program, though, from what I saw on youtube, was more like thought control. People had to chant slogans identifying themselves as racist oppressors. They had to say "Bam" after the speaker's anti-American statements.

      If they refused to do so, i have to guess there would have been employment repercussions.

      That's coercion.

      And this man has been paid millions of tax payer dollars for these programs.

      Waste and fraud for ideological ends.

      Delete
    2. Money for old rope, I imagine, as presumably "sensitivity training" is simply a matter of knowing who is "unter" and who is "uber". Its not rocket science, given that America's media and its academe signal it clearly enough.

      However, I won't be able to make a living running such courses, as I believe the Inspired Scriptures when they tell us that we are all the children of Adam, with an even closer common ancestor in faithful Noah.

      There is no uber and unter. We are all siblings.

      Plus, I want to obey my Creator, the God of Abraham, and honour my parents, as He commands. So I can't make the Stalinist denunciation of them and their generation that it seems "the world" requires.

      However, I take Dr.Goska's point about employment repercussions... I am retired so its easier for me - so far. If I was required to attend such a course, I would have to sit quietly at the back, and if it was noted that I failed to join in the chorus of : "Four legs good, Two legs bad", I would have to - politely and kindly - explain why I couldn't join in.

      We need to trust in Jehovah with all our heart when we are in these kind of situations, as only He can help us. The world is very powerful, but He is the Almighty God.

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  4. Note that the speaker is from Chicago and his website features a red star logo - any questions?

    Soros is devil incarnate - in WWII he was selling off his own people for extra Reichmarks

    Meir Shalit

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  5. My wife, who is black, would have probably given him a bam by throwing her shoe at him when he began gesticulating wildly and demanded his audience parrot "say thank you black folk, say thank you black folk".

    I was called onto the carpet when I worked for the District Attorney in New Orleans and told to shut up regarding a black woman's demand that I do her work - if it goes to court, I was told, she will win the suit because she is a black woman and you are a white man. In most of my jobs in New Orleans there were blacks who taunted white co-workers with name-calling and used the race card whenever they were called on being lousy employees. The "minority sensitivity" types used divisive rhetoric to their economic and political advantage. The result was a bitter and angry and by and large unemployable community that relished their ignorance.

    My daughter who is mixed tells me blacks have been more prejudiced than whites in the way she is treated, and toward
    whites in general (not to mention asians and hispanics).

    Interesting how we never hear this side of the story.

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    1. Marc, thank you very much for sharing your experience.

      I am not black -- to state the obvious -- but I've lived with black people all my life (our next door neighbors were black when I was a kid and their daughter was my playmate.) I lived and worked in Africa and I live in a majority / minority city now.

      And ... Black people are not the objects liberals want them to be. I say "objects" because liberals think blacks are their toys.

      Shelby Steele writes about this brilliantly in his book "White Guilt."

      I find I feel a great deal of sympatico with black conservatives.

      Delete
  6. Danusha,

    Having read your excellent review of "Inglorious Bastards" on Amazon, I look forward to reading what you have to say about Tarantino's "Django Unchained."

    --Liron

    P.S. I recently read your reviews of "Downfall" and "The Lives of Others" on the AAPJS website. When I grow up, I want to write like you.

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    1. Hello Liron, yes, I have said before that in a more rational world, Dr.G would earn her living as a reviewer. I haven't seen "Django Unchained" - have no wish to - assuming from what i have read about it that it glorifies violence and is likely to cause even more hatred between the children of Adam than there already is. But I would read Danusha's review, IF she has watched it and wants to review it.

      Delete
    2. Liron I am touched by and grateful for your comment.

      It made my day.

      As you can see from the comments on the blog, there is a not insignificant subset of Polonians who are actively hostile to books, to authors, to scholars and scholarship. This is tragic for Polonia.

      I'm glad someone sees and values what I do.

      As for "Django." As a general rule, I do not view violent films. I do think that violent films contribute to the amount of violence in the world.

      There are exceptions. I saw "Inglorious Bastards" because of the Holocaust theme.

      I'm very glad that "Argo" won best picture, and not "Lincoln," and my reviews for both say why.

      Thank you again, Liron. Your kind generous words mean a lot to me.

      Delete
  7. Mrs. Knight,

    “Django Unchained” is, in my opinion, merde: merde undiluted and unadulterated.

    Forty-five minutes into the film, I turned to my husband, gave him a beseeching look, and whispered, “Let’s split. I think I’m going to puke.” To which he replied, “Ten more minutes. Maybe it’ll get better.” Knowing that he is not the type to leave a movie theater in the middle of a film, I did the only civilized thing I could thing of: I closed my eyes and kept them closed. I was fast asleep ten minutes later, happily dozing amid the sound of gunshots, the screams of tortured slaves, and the self-satisfied sneers—I had them, Mrs. Knight, I swear!—of the juvie director.

    Approximately forty-five minutes later—my husband had moved the shoulder on which I was so blissfully dozing—I woke up and started watching again. It was at this point that disgust turned into indignation. The scene I’m referring to is the one in which the protagonist’s nemesis, the vicious house slave Stephen, menaces the protagonist’s wife, Broomhilda Von Shaft. A black slave with a German name—precious, isn’t it? Stephen is a vile character whose consuming self-hatred (“Yassuh, Mr. Candie. You gonna let that nigger talk to you like that, Mr. Candie?”) and liberal use of the word “mother******” we are invited to laugh at and enjoy.

    OK, enough. Django was a disgraceful film, but I still hope Dr. Goska reviews it.

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    1. Hello Liron Rubin, and thanks for the warning. It sounds even worse than I thought. I doubt that Dr.G will be watching it, but if she does review it, like you, i would read her review.

      Interested about your solution when stuck in front of the horrible thing - because that is exactly what i used to do many years ago in our expat days. There was a time when we used to go over to Bahrain - a lovely little island - and have a meal and shop, and the crowd we went with always wanted to watch a movie. So I had to go along, and I used to go to sleep. I would wake up with a start every so often, see or hear something appalling on the screen, and then try to get back to sleep. I did not want it inside my head.

      One thing - did our Creator, the God of Abraham, give us the precious and beautiful gift of language, and show us how to use it in the perfect language of the Inspired Scriptures, for us to talk to and about each other in that vile way?

      Delete
    2. Liron, I didn't know that that sort of stuff was in the film. I am more determined than ever not to see it.

      Delete

Bieganski the Blog exists to further explore the themes of the book Bieganski the Brute Polak Stereotype, Its Role in Polish-Jewish Relations and American Popular Culture.
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