Here’s a story that garnered some coverage in the establishment press but which definitely needs to be addressed in the proper context, because it is disgraceful and disgusting: A well-accomplished, well-respected black man was recently forced to resign from his job for using the dreaded n-word in his place of employment.
The word was reportedly used in context, which means that it was not directed at an individual. This is only part of what makes this disgraceful and disgusting. Suffice it to say that most conscientious folks find that word distasteful, but said in context, I personally don’t find it offensive in the least, regardless of the race of the person uttering it.
The point here is that when a distasteful word uttered in context becomes as troublesome in the workplace as a person exposing himself to a co-worker, we have a problem.
Earlier this year, novelist and screenwriter Walter Mosley quit the CBS drama “Star Trek: Discovery” after getting a formal complaint about him having used the n-word in the writers room. Following this, Mosley penned an account of the incident in an op-ed for the New York Times.
Long story short, Mosley is an old-school black guy with rough edges who speaks the way a lot of old-school black guys with rough edges speak, especially when the creative juices are flowing – and it doesn’t matter who happens to be in attendance. Apparently, this triggered some hypersensitive, putrid little snowflake at CBS who filed a complaint with the human resources department.
According to Mosley, the individual who complained was someone in the writers room, but he was never informed as to this person’s identity.
When most people who aren’t hypersensitive little snowflakes are offended by someone’s words or actions on the job, they typically take the issue to the offender. If they can’t straighten the issue out between the two of them, one or the other might take the problem to the human resources department. In most places of employment with HR departments (like CBS), when someone has a problem with another on the job, there’s a thing called moderation, which they use to get the lay of the land and determine if anyone involved has violated the law or the company’s policies and procedures. Excepting very rare cases, they do not allow parties to remain anonymous.
Judging by his rhetoric, most of Mr. Mosley’s sensibilities lie in the liberal realm, but he has very strong beliefs regarding self-expression. He doesn’t believe that the Confederate flag should be outlawed, for example, nor that any person’s speech should be stultified simply because it makes someone else uncomfortable.
Make no mistake: In the end, this is not about race at all, it just happens to involve a black man and a racial epithet. What it’s really about is the atmosphere of hypersensitivity and censorship in which we are all increasingly operating, and this is being driven solely by far-left radicals. Since Mr. Mosley happened to be working in an environment dominated by such people, unfortunately he ran afoul of their orthodoxy.
This is also about those on the left aggressively advancing their doctrine with all of the cavalier self-righteousness and sense of invulnerability of a Deep South bigot in the early 20th century harassing a random black man for fun. As has become apparent over the last few years, there is no lie too big to tell, no calumny too damning to level, no tactic too amoral or illegal to employ in the name of socialist ascendancy.
“[T]he easiest way to silence a woman or a man,” Mosley wrote in his op-ed, “is to threaten his or her livelihood. Let’s not accept the McCarthyism of secret condemnation.”
These days, threatening or destroying someone’s livelihood has become an essential weapon in the left’s arsenal. We’re all aware of the high-profile individuals whose livelihoods and fortunes were destroyed defending themselves against the illegal machinations of Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, but there are many whose livelihoods have been significantly damaged as a result of that cavalier self-righteousness and sense of invulnerability on the part of leftists.
Conservative media outlets have been a major target of tech giants’ censorship for some time, and even moreso since Donald Trump came to the presidency. As a result, the fortunes of many alternative media venues and those who work with and for them have turned very much for the worse. This is not widely discussed, perhaps as a point of pride, but also because we’re not a bunch of whining, putrid little snowflakes who can’t abide adversity, contrived and inequitable though it may be.
In the meantime, we have those on the far left who are attempting to dictate the use of gender-neutral pronouns and advancing the inclusion of sexual deviance in primary school curricula. We have the widespread doxxing of conservatives and Trump supporters being advocated even by Democratic lawmakers, and people of faith being accused of hate crimes for engaging in heretofore normal, inoffensive behavior. Draconian censorship on social media and online advertising platforms has become the norm. In similar fashion to that in which blacks were once viewed as inferior simply because they were black, whites, males and heterosexuals are increasingly being characterized as inherently evil simply for possessing those traits.
As always with the left, the consequence for disobedience is being labeled a bigot, in which vandalism of one’s property or assault upon one’s person remains very much on the table.
Based on the progression observed in every other nation in which socialists have come to power, we know how this plays out. Our sense of inclusion, fair play, compassion and adherence to the rule of law have become liabilities, because these are the very things our enemies are using against us.
Rather than offering my opinion as to what I believe our course of action ought to be under these circumstances, I’ll leave the reader to carefully consider the previous paragraph and come to his or her own conclusions.
