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Poll: Majority of Americans Want First Amendment Rewritten

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A majority of Americans believe the First Amendment should be rewritten and are willing to crack down on free speech, as well as the press, according to a new poll.

More than 60 percent of Americans agree on restricting speech in some way, while a slim majority, 51 percent, want to see the First Amendment rewritten to “reflect the cultural norms of today.” The Campaign for Free Speech, which conducted the survey, said the results “indicate free speech is under more threat than previously believed.” . . .

Of the 1,004 respondents, young people were the most likely to support curbing free expression and punishing those who engage in “hate speech.” Nearly 60 percent of Millennials—respondents between the ages of 21 and 38—agreed that the Constitution “goes too far in allowing hate speech in modern America” and should be rewritten, compared to 48 percent of Gen Xers and 47 percent of Baby Boomers. A majority of Millennials also supported laws that would make “hate speech” a crime—of those supporters, 54 percent said violators should face jail time.

American hostility to the First Amendment did not stop at speech. Many would also like to see a crackdown on the free press. Nearly 60 percent of respondents agreed that the “government should be able to take action against newspapers and TV stations that publish content that is biased, inflammatory, or false.” Of those respondents, 46 percent supported possible jail time.

The poll was released just two days after two University of Connecticut students were arrested for allegedly saying racial slurs in a viral video. The 21-year-old suspects were allegedly playing “a game in which they yelled vulgar words,” according to the police report. Lystad said such incidents and the rise of social media may be behind the increased willingness of Americans to curb speech rights. (Read more from “Poll: Majority of Americans Want First Amendment Rewritten” HERE)

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Yoga Instructor Teaches Classes to Undo Whiteness

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By Breitbart. A Seattle yoga instructor is teaching a class that is aimed at “Undoing Whiteness,” by showing white yoga students how white supremacy is present in their “body, mind and heart.”

The class is taught by Laura Humpf, a yoga teacher of 15 years who claims that the class known as “Undoing Whiteness,” will teach students how to “unpack the harmful ways white supremacy is embedded” in the culture.

“I do stand behind white people needing to talk to other white people on how to undo whiteness,” Humpf told the Seattle Times. “Can I keep refining it and doing it differently and better? Yeah, and I will forever and ever. But I believe in this space as one tool.” . . .

“I was seeing white people show up in yoga spaces in racist ways,” Humpf explained. Particularly irksome to Humpf, was witnessing white yoga instructors make racially insensitive jokes.

“Her class tries to neutralize defensiveness, perfectionism and the ‘white savior complex’ as participants try to physically interpret words such as ‘oppression” and “liberation,’” according to the New York Post. (Read more from “Yoga Instructor Teaches Classes to Undo Whiteness” HERE)

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Seattle Yoga Teacher’s ‘Undoing Whiteness’ Class

By The Seattle Times. . .This spring, Humpf publicized an “Undoing Whiteness” yoga class at Rainier Beach Yoga, geared toward white people wishing to “unpack the harmful ways white supremacy is embedded” in their “body, mind and heart.” Along with providing a contemplative space, the class would dissect the “pathology of whiteness” — an obliviousness to the batch of privileges society grants white skin — and how it operates in daily life. . .

After posting the “Undoing Whiteness” class on neighborhood Facebook groups, some responded that Humpf had “lost her mind.” Others interpreted the class as “a bunch of white people” getting together to discuss their “white shame” without consulting people of color, and one equated it with embarking on a pub crawl to tackle alcoholism. (Read more from “Seattle Yoga Teacher’s ‘Undoing Whiteness’ Class” HERE)

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NFL Star Smacks Alyssa Milano over Abortion

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On Sunday, pro-life advocate and NFL star Benjamin Watson took actress and abortion activist Alyssa Milano to task over her claim that laws restricting abortion would be “catastrophic” for black women. Watson chalked up Milano’s comments as “ignorance, racism, or some combination of both,” and asked the actress to stop patronizing black people.

Watson was reacting to Milano’s appearance on CNN last week. Pro-life laws “will affect the communities of color more than anything,” the actress told CNN host Chris Cuomo. “I feel like any woman of privilege that lives in one of these states — if this goes through — they’re gonna be able to travel to a state to get a safe, uh, reproductive health care (abortion). But for the women of color, for the women that are marginalized, for the women that are low-income communities, for the women that are most at-risk, these bill will be catastrophic.” . . .

“[For Alyssa Milano] to claim that giving MORE children of color the right to be born will negatively affect ‘women of color’ reveals IGNORANCE, RACISM or some combination of both,” Watson blasted.

Though Milano and others in the pro-abortion crowd are disingenuously framing recently pro-life laws as racist, abortion bans in Georgia and Alabama would save the lives of black babies more than any other demographic. And, of course, the laws have an exception for the life of the mother. So the logic that the laws are racist is flawed, to say the least. (Read more from “NFL Star Smacks Alyssa Milano over Abortion” HERE)

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Surprise! Learning About Cotton in School Is Now Considered Racist

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I currently live in Arlington, Va., and do not vote in local elections. It’s not that I don’t want to vote, but there is literally no one even close to sniffing on the ballots who could even pretend to be anywhere close to being a conservative. The problem isn’t my lack of desire, it’s that I don’t have anyone to vote for. As one of the most progressively leftist communities in this country, my local government is completely devoid of any representation of my beliefs and values. So, I was not surprised to read ARLNow’s article about an Arlington elementary school teacher who has found herself in hot water for having her students study cotton. . .

Catherine Ashby, the Director of Communications for [Arlington Public Schools], tells ARLnow that a teacher planted cotton seeds in pots as an experiment to see how they would grow. Social media posts about the experiment from the teacher prompted objections from other educators.

“She tweeted about her experiment and what she was growing, and that’s what got other staff members upset about what she was doing,” said Ashby.

. . .

One Twitter user, who said her name was R. Jones, shared a screenshot of the email. She told ARLnow that a school staff member had forwarded it to her and they were both “angry and offended” about the racial undertones of a teacher planting cotton.

Oh, my word! Angry and offended about the racial undertones of a teacher planting cotton?!? (Read more from “Surprise! Learning About Cotton in School Is Now Considered Racist” HERE)

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Burger King Faces Stark Criticism for What Many Social Media Users Are Saying Is a Culturally Insensitive Ad. Here It Is.

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Burger King aired an ad in New Zealand featuring one of the franchise’s latest offerings: the Vietnamese Sweet Chili Tendercrisp. . .

A caption for the company’s Instagram campaign read, “Take your taste buds all the way to Ho Chi Minh City with our Vietnamese Sweet Chili Tendercrisp, part of our Tastes of the World range. Available for a limited time only.”

One Korean New Zealander told the Huffington Post that she immediately took offense to the ad. . .

“[People of color] are constantly having to deal with microaggressions as well as outright hatred and it just never ends,” Mo added. “I was watching it thinking there must be some kind of layered twist ― only to realise, no, there was no twist, it really was that base level.” . . .

“We are truly sorry that the ad has appeared insensitive to our community,” said James Woodbridge, who the outlet identified as the restaurant’s general manager for marketing. “We have removed it and it certainly does not reflect our brand values around diversity and inclusion.”

(Read more from “Burger King Faces Stark Criticism for What Many Social Media Users Are Saying Is a Culturally Insensitive Ad. Here It Is.” HERE)

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Watch: Immigrant Ninth Circuit Nominee Explains the Lesson His Dad Taught Him About America Through the Pain of Racism

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At a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Ninth Circuit nominee Kenneth Lee told a powerful story of his experience with racism as a child and the uplifting lesson his dad gave him about America.

Lee’s family immigrated from South Korea during his childhood. Some time after their move to the U.S., Kenneth’s parents took him and his three sisters to Disneyland, he said.

To save money on the trip, the family packed a meal of traditional Korean food, which Lee noted was “very exotic” in the U.S. 35 years ago. He said he was mocked at the park by other children for what he was eating and what his family looked like.

“Little kids started coming up. Some said it smelled. Other said it looked like feces; they used a slightly different word,” Lee said. “One of them, I remember, was pointing to my parents, making kind of faux Asian-sounding names and pulling their eyes.”

“When you’re a kid, the smallest things seem like the world to you,” the nominee recalled. The next day, he told the committee, maybe because he “felt helpless, I blamed my dad for this whole thing, and I said ‘I want to go back. I want to go back to Korea. You never asked us if we wanted to come here, move to a new country.’”

“My dad was a stoic man, but he said, ‘I know it’s tough for you; it’s tough on your sisters; it’s tough on me, your mom,’” Lee said. “‘I know it’s tough here, but you don’t want to go back,’ he said, ‘because things aren’t fair there.’”

Lee said his father told him that in South Korea, family-owned conglomerates (known as Chaebol) wield oligarchic power and influence. “‘They control the government, they control the economy, they control the laws, so you’re not gonna get a fair shot there.’”

“But, he said, here in America, things are different,” Lee recalled. “It doesn’t matter that you’re not white. It doesn’t matter you weren’t born here. It doesn’t matter that our family doesn’t have wealth or power. He said everyone here is treated equally.”

“My dad wasn’t a lawyer; he never read the Federalist Papers,” Lee concluded. “But he had a gut understanding of what makes our country and our Constitution so great, so powerful, and so unique in the world. And I’ve always remembered that.”

This answer flies in the face of concerns from committee Democrats and liberal outside groups over Lee’s views on race because of things he wrote about affirmative action as a teenager.

The answer was prompted by a question from Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah. The relevant portion of the answer is below, and video of the full committee hearing is here. Watch:

(For more from the author of “Watch: Immigrant Ninth Circuit Nominee Explains the Lesson His Dad Taught Him About America Through the Pain of Racism” please click HERE)

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WATCH: Rashida Tlaib Suggests Mark Meadows Is Racist. He Flattens Her.

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Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) slammed Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) on Wednesday for suggesting that he was a racist during the House Oversight Committee hearing of former Trump attorney Michael Cohen.

Tlaib’s accusation came after Meadows invited Lynne Patton, a top Trump housing official who is black, to attend the hearing in order to push back on any accusations that Trump was racist.

“Just because someone has a person of color, a black person, working for them does not mean they aren’t racist and … the fact someone would actually use a prop, a black woman in this chamber, in this committee is alone racist in itself,” Tlaib said as she took aim at Meadows.

“Meadows, a Trump ally and head of the conservative Freedom Caucus, immediately demanded a retraction,” The New York Post reported. “Getting emotional, Meadows said his nieces and nephews are people of color and he rejected any notion he’s a racist.”

(Read more from “WATCH: Rashida Tlaib Suggests Mark Meadows Is Racist. He Flattens Her.” HERE)

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Report: Chicago Police Have Made Explosive Conclusion About Alleged Racial Attack on Jussie Smollett

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By The Blaze. New explosive details are emerging out of the investigation into the claims from “Empire” star Jussie Smollett that he was the subject of a racial and homophobic attack by assailants yelling President Donald Trump campaign slogans.

The wheels of justice began to grind much more quickly after Chicago police discovered the two “persons of interest” that were caught by surveillance cameras on the night of the alleged attacks.

. . .

“Multiple soucres tell @ABC7Chicago Eyewitness News Jussie Smollet and the 2 men who are being questioned by police staged the attack,” he tweeted, “allegedly because his character was being written out of the show Empire.”

The two men are reportedly of Nigerian descent, and their homes were raided by police on Wednesday evening, according to Charles De Mar of CBS Chicago, who spoke to the families of the men.

Smollett had vehemently denied the speculation from many that the attack was a hoax. It appears he will have to answer to law enforcement about those claims.

(Read more from “Report: Chicago Police Have Made Explosive Conclusion About Alleged Racial Attack on Jussie Smollett” HERE)
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Lawyer for Nigerian Brothers Does Not Deny That Attack Was Staged

By TMZ. Attorney Gloria Schmidt was at the Chicago police station Friday night, after her clients, Ola and Abel Osundairo, were released from custody. Schmidt said the “new evidence” that triggered the release of her clients was something they knew and presumably told cops.

Our photog asked Schmidt flat out if the “attack” was staged, and she answered obliquely, saying there were moving parts and she didn’t want to speculate. . .

She said she didn’t want to speak for her clients because they had a story to tell “when the time is right.” That clearly sounds like they have inside information about what went down at Jussie’s apartment building. (Read more from this story HERE)

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Liam Neeson’s Racism Confession Is Actually the Beginning of a Very Important Conversation

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Actor Liam Neeson shocked fans when he recounted a story about his own dalliance with prejudice and racism. Neeson said that after a close female relative revealed to him that she’d been raped by a black man, he walked around for about a week just hoping to find someone to confront…and punish. . .

You know that “honest conversation about race” Americans are always being told we need to have? I’ve never thought we were capable of having it. Truthfully, I think Neeson’s confession is the perfect place to start.

I once attended a community development conference in Chicago and on the second day they hosted a forum on “racial reconciliation.” The goal of the forum was to invite representatives of different races to participate on a panel and have a “brutally honest conversation” about race in America. The program flyer for the day warned that they would pull no punches and some people might feel uncomfortable about what they were hearing. Naturally I was in the front row, excited to see what this “honest conversation” might look like.

The panel was made up of a White woman, a Black man, a Chinese-American woman and a Latino man. The moderator began by asking each panel member what their biggest concern was about race in America. The white woman said she chose to acquiesce her time to the other members as she did not feel her voice as a white person was valid to the conversation (a sentiment I found extremely unhelpful). The two men gave their own standard “here’s what’s wrong with White people” answers, but the Chinese-American woman strayed from the PC script. . .

“At what point do we have to stop and admit that there is more to racism than just the racist? Why can’t we talk about the reasons people harbor racism in their hearts? Look at my dad. Is he wrong for judging all black people based on his own experience? Yes, and it shames me. But what about the resentment and hatred he was treated with? How did that shape his views? I want to have an honest conversation about race, but it seems to me that no one wants to really talk about the uncomfortable parts or ask the uncomfortable questions. Until we can sit and listen to the very uncomfortable things that people like my dad think, we can’t really air out our differences.”

(Read more from “Liam Neeson’s Racism Confession Is Actually the Beginning of a Very Important Conversation” HERE)

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The Worst Racism My Children Have Experienced Came From Black Peers

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In December, McKenzie Adams, a fourth grader from U.S. Jones Elementary School in Demopolis, Alabama, despondent after relentless taunting by other black children for her relationship with a white child, hanged herself in her family’s home. Although suicides resulting from school bullying have sadly risen steadily over the years, McKenzie’s death spoke to me on a very personal level. . .

We knew that adopting two little girls (4 and 9) from the other side of the world into a family of two boys (4 and 2) wouldn’t be easy in terms of bonding and re-assimilating the family birth order structure, but it was the stuff like what little McKenzie Adams experienced that we didn’t see coming, and it quickly blindsided me. . .

As we chatted before we left the store, the pastor, a black woman, suddenly lowered her voice, became somber, and inquired as to how I was “immersing the girls in their culture.” I truly wasn’t sure what she meant, so I asked. . .

She then began to sermonize about how important it was for me to get the girls subscriptions to “black” magazines and to make sure and watch “black” movies and TV shows so they could see and relate to people of their color. She veritably assured me that, as a white woman, I couldn’t be expected to understand the “black experience” in America. I needed to be sure and make appropriate and relevant material accessible so they could better assimilate with black culture. . .

Discontent with my answer and intent upon pressing her point, she continued. She believed my thought process unfortunate because my “whiteness” couldn’t process the fact that the girls’ fate would always balance at the pinnacle of someone else’s prejudicial small-mindedness. It was up to me to make them vigilant of the discrimination that would surely come their way. (Read more from “The Worst Racism My Children Have Experienced Came From Black Peers” HERE)

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