Get off my lawn! Rex Murphy: The contemptible concept of ‘white privilege’ is just ugly, angry racism.

White privilege is a contemptible construction. It explicitly invokes skin colour as the only vector of judgment. It insists on “whiteness” as a flaw, a failing, and, as it almost always is, when yoked with “male” is the verbal equivalent of a spit.

No, it doesn’t insist that whiteness is a flaw. Quite the opposite. It insists that whiteness alone shouldn’t mean superiority. It shouldn’t mean a giant head start. In order to talk about one race being dominant one must necessarily talk about race. No amount of logical fallacy or Jordan Peterson-esque mental gymnastics can excuse the fact that you are just frightened. Because, and I’ve said quoted this a million times before, “when you are used to privilege, equality feels like oppression”.

It must suck to feel like you are not the most important person in the room anymore, Rex. It’s called the precarious man theory. Welcome to the pissed off club. “Identity politics dissolves community”? Identity politics brought us emancipation, suffrage, gay rights and any number of amazing things that you are now ok with (because some time has passed). The only identity politics that dissolve community are the systems of hierarchy favouring one identity over the other.

Stuart Parker has a caveat:

We need to be strategic about how to challenge a powerful term. Using racial terms as uninterrogated epithets is stupid; that’s where I concur with Murphy. Calling people “white” as a delegitimation strategy is dumb. But talking about the impact of whiteness is important and necessary if we can manage to be smart about it.

Related: The crisis in modern masculinity. “Luridly retro ideas of what it means to be a man have caused a dangerous rush of testosterone around the world – from Modi’s Hindu supremacism to Trump’s nuclear brinkmanship”.

You would think that this example from right here in BC would be part of what Stuart says is being smart about it: ‘Got privilege?’ B.C. school district under fire after launching anti-racism campaign. “Field Allen said part of her concern is having to explain what these posters mean to her two grandchildren, who both attend school in the district”. If you haven’t talked to first graders already about race, guess what? That’s privilege. If you think that is a difficult proposition, guess what? That’s privilege, too.

Even when white people recognize this privilege, we still often centre ourselves. Here is a handy cheat sheet for avoiding that: 6 ways allies still marginalize people of color — and what to do instead. #4: Appointing someone as the spokesperson for their entire race.

Which is exactly what Terry Milewski and the rest of the Laurentian elite are doing to Jagmeet Singh as we speak: The CBC’s Sliming of Jagmeet Singh.

Milewski’s only response to this charge is that Cochrane also put the question to Justin Trudeau as well – so clearly, he argues, it must have nothing to do with Jagmeet being Sikh. This is ludicrous, disingenuous, and lowbrow. Why is this issue being pressed now? It is because a Sikh is a leader of a federal party. Asking Justin Trudeau to condemn those who valorize Talwinder Singh Parmar isn’t analogous, but asking him to condemn those who valorize genocidal war criminal Winston Churchill for starving 3 million Bengals to death might be. On the one hand violence is prismatic, and different communities view different historical violences differently, and on the other Jagmeet Singh is no more answerable for those who admire Parmar than Trudeau is for those who admire Churchill. That many white people consider Churchill a hero doesn’t negate or undo his demonstrable legacy of barbarism, white-supremacism, and genocide, and Milewski wouldn’t expect any white politician to reconcile the two and be answerable for it. So why try to make Singh responsible and answerable for Parmar and the some segment of the Sikh community’s views on him?

In Orwellian double-speak news: Catherine McKenna says Trans Mountain pipeline expansion will make B.C. coast safer. Is that kind of like how more guns makes America safer?

Interesting then, that the person in charge of making it safer just chained herself to a fence: Former Trans Mountain environmental engineer arrested blocking Kinder Morgan construction. “We lived and worked in fear when I worked for Trans Mountain, because the reality is that no amount of equipment or people is going to change the fact that in the event of a spill, they will be able to recover very little.”

I’d rather be a shithead than a son of a bitumen: Alberta minister apologizes for calling B.C. government ‘a bunch of shitheads’. Hmm, interesting how this is making the BC NDP look very good…

Oh hey, what’s Domino’s stance on the pipeline, asked no one:

Ironic, since Domino’s probably has a bigger economic impact than the oil industry.

Speaking of economic impact: B.C. and Chicago were right, the World Cup was a bad bet. Weird. It’s almost like the NDP already has enough boondoggles and corruption to clean up in this province from the last government…

Should have been titled: “Delta Police upset they have to work for their paycheques”: Mall becoming crime destination: Delta police. “The Mills mall is becoming a crime destination for people from the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver where they are actually targeting and getting onto busses and then coming into the community.” Stop using the Downtown Eastside as a synonym for crime.

Best praxis of the day: Neighbours wake to shocking signs on their lawns.

Best company of the day: Vancouver company deconstructs homes by hand, salvages 90% of materials.

Bonus: Welcome to Powder Mountain – a utopian club for the millennial elite. Let’s hope this devolves into a Fyre Fest type situation.

Remember to listen to Tea and Two Slices radio every Tuesday at 2pm on Save On Radio.