Month: January 2023
French publishers discover ‘sensitivity readers’
Readers who track down ethnic and sexual prejudices that may offend certain non-white minorities in books, are emerging in French publishing. Known as “sensitivity readers”, they are now routinely employed before a book is published, especially if the author is writing about cultures outside their lived experience.
In the Anglo-Saxon book industry, these new kinds of proofreaders scrutinise manuscripts for descriptions that could offend minorities and spark controversy on social networks.
The first novel by Filipino American Daphne Palasi Andreades, 30, was published in France on 12 January. Brown Girls (its original title) traces the trajectory of a cohort of girls and women from Queens, a working-class district of New York. American women of immigrant background who are trying to find their place.
A few months before publication, the editorial director of Les Escales, Sarah Rigaud, was looking for the right translation in French of the term “brown girls”, which appears throughout the text. She called on Maboula Soumahoro, a lecturer in American civilisation at the University of Tours, to find the right word and carefully reread the manuscript. Involved in the debates on the decolonial question, this researcher sees her (paid) mission as a simple question of “common sense, honesty and quality research”.
Scrutinising a text for descriptions of characters from ethnic, sexual and cultural minorities in order to avoid offensive stereotypes is an uncommon approach in France. However, in the space of a few years, this approach has become ubiquitous in the English-speaking world, under the name of “sensitivity reading”.
This new profession is developing rapidly, in a climate that some see as a return to censorship and others see as necessary for the predominantly white and privileged industry to become aware of its racist, sexist or homophobic prejudices. Officially or not, all the major publishing houses have resorted to it and agencies specialised in sanitizing texts are multiplying.
“At the slightest doubt about an aspect of the book that could create a debate, all Anglo-Saxon publishers call on sensitivity readers,” confided the foreign literature editor of a major French publisher, speaking to French daily Le Mondeon condition of anonymity. They risk too much, and they are very afraid.
Subjective censoring
The author of seventeen novels, including the best-selling We Need to Talk About Kevin (2003), 65-year-old American Lionel Shriver is known for her outspoken opposition to the literary community’s efforts to promote inclusivity and diversification of writers and characters in fiction. “The biggest problem with wokism [a pejorative term applied to anti-discrimination work] is its methods: name-calling and revenge,” she said in the British conservative daily Evening Standard on 16 June 2021.
Contacted by Le Monde, Lionel Shriver dismissed “sensitivity reading” as just another “subjective” take on a work of fiction. “Sensitivity reading is a totally subjective editing process. Getting excited about what a group of people will think of a book is a mistake and a waste of energy that forces authors to be careful. The more cautious you are, the less creative you are. If you are afraid of stepping on people’s toes, you don’t dance!”
Last year, controversy blew up in the UK over teacher Kate Clanchy’s memoir Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me, about her time teaching kids from diverse backgrounds to write poetry.
Although Clanchy’s book was initially lauded (even winning the Orwell Prize), criticism soon eclipsed praise. Readers, prominent writers of colour and autistic author Dara McNulty protested the language Clanchy used to describe her pupils (“Somali height”, “Ashkenazi nose”, autistic children as “jarring company”). Her publisher Picador agreed the objections were “instructive and clear-sighted”; eventually, it withdrew the book from publication.
Clanchy apologised for any offence caused, but maintained that her book had been intended to be anti-racist. “I’m horrified that people found prejudice and cruelty in my book,” she wrote in an article on UnHerd.
A recent example from academic publishing is that of “BIPOC” writer Mary Rambaran-Olm, who was asked to read a chapter on Early Medieval England of a history book written for the general public. Rambaran-Olm has expertise in relevant academic fields, and also through her personal experience as a scholar of Afro/Indo Caribbean origin.
The white male authors overwhelmingly did not accept her advice about problems with the manuscript’s representation of the past and how it feeds into contemporary racism. They thanked her in the acknowledgements, however. This created the false impression she had actively shaped the contents of the book.
According to “nonbinary” author Alison Evans, they’re paid between $350 and $400 for sensitivity reads.
https://freewestmedia.com/2023/01/16/french-publishers-discover-sensitivity-readers/
VIDEO: Brilliant takedown of both wokeness and climate change madness
By Andrea Widburg
British comedian Konstantin Kisin spent his childhood years in the former Soviet Union, a place that policed its citizens’ speech aggressively and painfully. Like many former residents of the Soviet bloc, when he finally made it to the West, Kisin didn’t embrace the leftists there. Instead, he became a conservative. Better even than that, he became a conservative comedian. In both those roles, he’s opposed to the “woke” worldview, which he considers to be limiting, despotic and, as to those things its acolytes claim to support—most notably, climate change—ineffectual.
In November, the Oxford Union asked Kisin to be one of the presenters at a debate. To those unfamiliar with it, the Oxford Union is a debating society formed in 1823 as “The Oxford Union Society.” It exists independently of the many colleges in Oxford.
Much of what happens in the Oxford Union is simply training the members to be collegiate debaters. However, what makes the Oxford Union famous is that it invites well-known people in specific fields to advocate for or against a specific proposition. After the guests speak, the members then vote on the proposition.
Some of the propositions and votes have become infamous. In 1933, the Oxford Union voted in favor of the proposition that “This House would under no circumstances fight for its King and country.” Ironically enough, starting six years later, the union’s members did just that, with many dying for King and country.
Free speech is core to the Oxford Union. Two hundred years ago, it was created to fight against speech restrictions that prevented students from discussing certain subjects on campus. Even when the restrictions ended, however, the Union continued on, and it has survived the age of woke rule in academia. Indeed, if you go to the website, it announces that it is currently “Celebrating 200 years of Free Speech,” with Peter Thiel appearing as the “inaugural Bicentenary guest speaker.”
Famously, or infamously, in 2001, the Oxford Union invited noted Holocaust denier David Irving to speak on the topic of censorship, but the outrage was so loud that the debate was canceled. However, Irving did appear in 2007 to debate freedom of speech. That event became a circus both inside and outside of the chamber.
What happened at the most recent Chamber debate seems to have passed off much more peacefully, although it was one of the best-attended events of the school term. The motion up for debate was “This House Believes Wokeness Has Gone Too Far.” One of the invited guests was Kisin, who obliterates both wokeness and the current Western approach to climate change (namely, returning the world to a pre-industrial level of darkness and death). It’s a little less than 9 minutes long and worth every minute:
Based solely on Kisin’s presentation, you won’t be surprised to learn that the motion passed.
Joe Biden and the CIA Worked to Install Current Communist Regime in Brazil – This Was All Planned
About those overcounted COVID-19 deaths…
By Jack Hellner
The media, especially the social media, say they are very strict about reporting misinformation but that is a lie.
They willingly repeat talking points to push agenda, whether it is about Russian collusion, climate change, or COVID without asking questions when they are pushing an agenda. They are essentially propagandists.
Their COVID death overcounting is one of the best examples of it, they used those overcounted numbers as a cudgel against President Trump.
Now they’ve changed their story. Here’s a column by Dr. Leana Wen, a public health official who’s influential in Democrat circles, stating what everyone else knew in a new column for the Washington Post:
We are overcounting covid deaths and hospitalizations. That’s a problem.
In March of 2020, the CDC changed the way they counted deaths from COVID. Instead of only counting deaths that were caused by COVID, they suddenly counted all deaths where a person may have had COVID as caused by COVID.
This was purely misinformation to control the people, to basically get them to capitulate to dictatorial mandates with fear-mongering.
This caused major undercounting of deaths from other causes.
How many children’s lives were destroyed because misinformation kept them out of school?
How many deaths from suicide and other causes occurred because people were scared to get tests?
How many old people died alone because children were told they would kill their grandparents and others if they got near them?
Of course, the information from this Townhall piece by Sarah Arnold will mostly be ignored by the media that is still complicit and compliant.
CNN Medical Analyst Admits After Two Years There’s Been ‘Overcounting’ of COVID Deaths
“We Are Over-Counting COVID Deaths and Hospitalizations. That’s a Problem,” [Wen] acknowledged that “90 percent of patients diagnosed with COVID are actually in the hospital for some other illness.”
“Since every hospitalized patient gets tested for covid, many are incidentally positive,” [Wen] wrote, citing Robin Dretler, an attending physician at Emory Decatur Hospital.
[Wen] then provided an example.
“A gunshot victim or someone who had a heart attack could test positive for the virus, but the infection has no bearing on why they sought medical care,” she wrote.
Shocker. However, that admission is two years too late.
At the beginning of [Wen’s] column, she expressed skepticism after the CDC released its latest Covid-19 death stats.
The CDC claimed that the U.S. is experiencing at least 400 deaths from Covid every day. However, Wren questioned whether those deaths were directly from the virus itself or another illness.
“At that rate, there would be nearly 150,000 deaths a year. But are these Americans dying from COVID or with COVID?” She asked.
[Wen] admitted that hospitals are adding Covid to patients’ death certificates, but often the virus plays no role at all in how they died.
Several critics of [Wen’s] article expressed frustration that after two years, the Left is just now admitting they were wrong about so many things regarding the Coronavirus.
So much misinformation about COVID was spread it is hard to know where to start.
First Dr. Anthony Fauci said COVID wouldn’t cause many problems in the U.S.
Joe Biden and others said President Trump was racist for blocking travel from China.
Then we shouldn’t wear masks before we had to.
The six foot social-distancing requirement was made up and greatly harmed businesses.
We were told COVID would easily spread off surfaces which was an absolute lie.
We were told that Plexiglas would stop the virus, which was idiotic.
We were told that taking the vaccine would prevent the virus and people who refused to take it wanted to kill people.
People were fired for refusing to take the vaccine. Why aren’t they getting rehired and getting back pay?
Democrats say that women have the right to do whatever they want with their bodies but forced them to take vaccines same as the men or else get fired. They are not for freedom of choice.
Investigations of the Wuhan lab were blocked by the media, Fauci, and others by falsely saying it was a disproven conspiracy.
Why are Fauci and others still used as sources for the media when they intentionally spread so many destructive lies?
I have lost hope that Democrat campaign workers, posing as journalists would start doing their jobs and work for the American people. They are pure propagandists who are willing to destroy America. They claim that people who want to make and keep America great are the extremists.
Today, most of the media is blocking the releases from Twitter showing how corrupt and collusive the media and swamp creatures from the government are.
Most people posing as journalists are just as trustworthy as the Chinese who recently changed their death toll from COVID from 37 to 60,000. Anyone who believe that number should have his head examined.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/01/about_those_overcounted_covid19_deaths.html
India: Two terror suspects killed a man and chopped up his body to impress their terror “bosses” in Pakistan
On Sunday, January 15, Delhi Police revealed that the two terror suspects arrested from the Bhalswa Dairy area killed a man and chopped up his body to impress their bosses in Pakistan. The accused, Naushad and Jagjit, recorded their act on video and sent it to their bosses in Pakistan to show their capabilities.
According to police, the two suspects who were arrested under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) on Thursday, confessed to their crimes.
During a press conference, Delhi Police Special Cell’s Additional Commissioner Pramod Kushwaha revealed that Arsh Wallah, who is currently based in Pakistan, directed both the accused. As per reports, ACP Kushwaha also revealed that the main intention of Naushad and Jagjit was to target a right-wing leader.
The two suspects were arrested from Bhalswa Dairy area
Earlier on Thursday, Special cell of the Delhi police arrested the two — identified as Jagjit Singh (29) and Naushad (56) — from the Bhalswa Dairy area of Jahangirpuri in Delhi. The police recovered two hand grenades, three pistols, and 22 live cartridges from the suspects. The police also found traces of blood at their house, following which the two were questioned.
Further, Delhi Police said it has information that Jagjit Singh has links to Khalistani terrorist Arshdeep Dall. He is also a member of the notorious Bambiha gang and has been receiving instructions from anti-national elements based abroad, the city police said, adding that he is also a parole jumper in a murder case in Uttarakhand.
Naushad is also associated with Harkat-ul-Ansar (HUA), a terror group that is based in Pakistan and primarily operates in Jammu and Kashmir. He has been a life convict in two counts of murder and has also served a 10-year sentence in connection with a case under the Explosive Act.
During their questioning, they confessed to their terror activities, and when the police searched their residences and nearby areas, the chopped-up body was found in a drain. The deceased is yet to be identified.
When the police questioned the neighbours about the two men, they said that they had bought a new refrigerator but returned it a week later. Police suspect that the accused had chopped the man after killing him and kept the remains in the refrigerator, and later they dumped the body in the drain.
Temporary Morgues are Being Built Across UK Due to Unprecedented Increase in Excess Deaths
India: Muslim posed as Hindu to trap and marry a Hindu woman, raped and tortured her when the truth was revealed
A shocking case of Love Jihad has come to the fore in Uttar Pradesh’s Prayagraj wherein a 21-year-old Hindu woman was raped and tortured by her Muslim husband who pretended to be a Hindu. The victim is a resident of Bihar’s Balia who was pursuing a nursing course in Prayagraj. In August last year, a case was registered on the basis of the victim’s complaint against her husband and his brother.
The accused Mohammed Alam who is reportedly a lawyer by profession, trapped the victim by posing as Anuj Pratap Singh aka Sonu on the Clubhouse app. The victim had lost her father during the Corona pandemic in 2021, as accused Mohammed Alam got know about this, he started being sympathetic towards the victim. The accused reportedly took the victim to Kashi Vishwanath temple as well as took care of her when she was ill in order to win her trust. The victim soon drew close to the accused Mohammed Alam and started trusting him completely. The accused one day took the victim woman to a hotel in Rambagh and established sexual relations with her. Later, when the victim became pregnant, Mohammed Alam got her child aborted. On February 24, 2022, the two had a court marriage.
However, three days later she was left shocked after seeing her marriage certificate, as claimed by the victim woman. On seeing the name of her husband as Mohammed Alam instead of Anuj Pratap Singh, the confronted the accused for breaking her trust. As per a Dainik Bhaskar report, the victim was brutally thrashed by her husband after this, who snatched her mobile phone and locked her in a room.
The accused used to torture the victim and even injected drugs. The Hindu woman was first coerced into having sexual relations with his brothers by Mohammed Alam. Upon refusing, she was brutally thrashed. The victim who was intoxicated was then sexually assaulted first by the accused Mohammed Alam’s brother Noor Alam and the sons of his maternal uncle.
On 13 August 2022, however, the victim managed to escape and reach Colonelganj police station and lodged a complaint against her husband Mohammed Alam, and his brother Noor Alam.
Mohammed Alam threatened to kill the victim’s family members
After filing the complaint, the victim claimed that Mohammed Alam called her mother and threatened to kill her, her mother, and her brother if the complaint was not withdrawn.
The victim also alleged that Mohammed Alam threatened to kill her family if she underwent a medical examination and testified against him in court. “I got scared after the threat, and to save my mother and brother, I gave the statement in court as Alam wanted,” the victim said in a statement to Dainik Bhaskar.
As per the victim, on October 11, 2022, the accused took her to a secluded place in Kaushambi where he fired two bullets at her. Despite taking two bullets in her back, the victim managed to escape and called the police while hiding. Later, the police got her admitted to Swaroop Rani Nehru Hospital. Following this, Kokhraj Police booked Mohammed and Noor Alam on an attempt to murder charges.
The victim has alleged that Mohammed Alam has called her and threatened to kill her family and dump their dead bodies in a sever.
‘Hindu Murdabad, I will see your Yogi government‘
Moreover, Mohammed Alam also sent messages to her in which he wrote, “Withdraw the case of Section 307 and do not file a complaint of Love Jihad. If you will do so, I will defame you and also throw acid on you. You will not be able to do anything. Media and Police are mine. Hindu Murdabad. I will see your Yogi government. Within three days I will get you shot or I will throw acid on your face.”
The victim has said that the accused persons are criminals and that her life is under threat. Seeking justice, the victim has penned a letter to Prayagraj Police Commissioner Ramit Sharma.
Europe’s future? See the maternity wards and schools
by Giulio Meotti
“From a demographic point of view, Europe seems to be on a path that could lead it to leave history”, said Benedict XVI in 2007, while his secretary Georg Gänswein evoked the “danger of the Islamization of Europe”.
Three years earlier, while cardinal, Ratzinger had explained that “Europe seems to have become empty from within, paralyzed by a crisis in its circulatory system which puts its life at risk, entrusted, so to speak, to transplants, which however then cannot but erase his identity”.
In the past few days the news that Mohammed is the second most popular name among newborns in all of Holland (it has been first in the four main cities for years), the first name in England, the first in Berlin, the first in Oslo, the first in Malmö, first in Brussels, third in Vienna… The Welt informs us about Germany: “Even in Dortmund the first is the name of the Prophet, as in Duisburg and Essen…”.
It is enough to walk into a maternity ward, a primary school or a playground in a large European city to see that Europe’s farewell has already taken place. “The historic peoples in a number of cities, districts and departments feel themselves in the minority, where the demographic change in Europe is extremely spectacular,” wrote the French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut.
“But how can we tell people that the plague has descended when there is no visible evidence?”, wrote Pierre Chaunu, professor at the Sorbonne and head of the school of Lucien Febvre and Marc Bloch, in that magnificent book published in 1974 by Gallimard titled “The White Plague”. How to avoid the suicide of the West. “Where are the dead bodies on the street corners? The media? Be serious. The large public wants songs, dances and colors. Nothing more. Who will dare to interrupt broadcasts and announce with the obligatory smile that the white plague has descended on all rich countries, that the evil seems to have no remedy for the moment”.
“The great replacement, I was shocked that you call it a theory, it’s not a theory, it’s a fact,” Michel Houellebecq said in an interview last month that earned him a lawsuit from French Muslims. In Malmö, the great substitution is a fait accompli.
The majority of first-time students in Sweden’s third largest city have a migrant background. The news prompts calls for new educational facilities where migrants can study in their mother tongue, Arabic, because Swedish is now a “minority language”. A third of Malmö’s residents were born abroad, with Iraq being the most common country of birth, with Syria and other Middle Eastern countries following at the top of the list. Data show that two-thirds of people aged 5-19 have an immigrant background and this data does not include third-generation immigrants and national minorities.
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the major German newspaper, reports that “in Malmö half of the residents are under 35 and the most common first name in Malmö is Mohammed”. Malmö is also the city most affected by gang violence and 30 of the 100 bombings that swept Sweden in one year took place in Malmö. An average of three a month. “The bombs that wake us up at night, exploding so that glass windows fly into the bedrooms, have taken thousands of Malmö residents hostage,” reports the large Expressen newspaper. “Friends tell me how they renovated their house in so that children are not injured when there are explosions nearby”.
In recent days, Krone – the most widely circulated Austrian newspaper – reported that in Viennese schools classes are starting to be organized according to religious affiliation. Muslims with Muslims, Catholics with Catholics. The proportion of the population with an immigrant background has increased significantly in Austria over the last decade. A quarter of the Austrian population is an immigrant. This figure has increased by 35 percent in ten years. More than a quarter of the students do not speak German. And in Vienna, Muslims already outnumber Catholics in middle and high school. In the city, Catholics have halved since 1971.
A Vienna teacher speaking at Welt reports serious problems with Muslim students. “In a class of 25 children, I would have to integrate 21. No one can do that. Where should we integrate them? Music and dance are rejected for religious reasons”. Welt provides staggering numbers: “While on average a quarter of all pupils in Austria has a migration background, in Vienna it is one in two. In Viennese secondary schools it is as high as 70 percent”.
Schools mirror demographics. “Islam has long since become the number one faith in secondary schools,” Krone explains. The incredible growth of the Islamic community in Austria is documented by statistics: in 1971 there were 22,300 Muslims, in 1981 76,900, in 1991 158,800, in 2001 339,000 and in 2021 745,600. At the end of the century, Muslims will be half of the Austrian population (without considering any other migratory variants).
In an interview with Der Standard, the Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna Christoph Schönborn said: “Take a look at Viennese schools and you will observe how the demographic developments of Christian children and Muslim children are divergent. This is a serious topic. There is no shortage of Islamic voices who affirm that Europe is a ripe fruit for Islam”. Even the newspaper Krone Zeitung has published impressive figures in the case of constant immigration: “In 2046, one in three Viennese will be Muslim”. The study is conducted by the Institute for Demography at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna.
In Hamburg’s schools, 51.4 per cent of students have a migration background. In schools in North Rhine-Westphalia we are at 60 per cent. In many Oslo’s school districts, 50 percent of the student population are immigrants from Muslim countries. We had already known for ten years that in Antwerp, Belgium’s second city, more than half of the students of the primary schools are Muslim. In Strasbourg we are still a little behind: 25 percent of the students are Muslims. Already ten years ago, in Brussels, 41 percent of primary school students were Muslims. In Birmingham, England’s second largest city, Muslim children have outnumbered Christian ones.
Antwerp, Hamburg, Malmö, Strasbourg, Birmingham, Brussels, Vienna and the other metropolises of the Old Continent show that the change of civilization is happening and not even slowly.
French Catholic Church Heavily Vandalised, Paintings and Statues Wrecked
A French church in the commune of Champagne-au-Mont-d’Or in the suburbs of Lyon was vandalised this week, with paintings and statues smashed.
The church of Saint-Louis-Roi in Champagne-au-Mont-d’Or, a Roman Catholic church, was vandalised on Tuesday, according to local priest Father Martin Charcosset.
“The objects in the church – candles, books, vases, etc. – were thrown to the ground. The nativity scene in front of the altar was turned over and damaged. The Stations of the Cross and the paintings in the choir were essentially destroyed, as were two large crucifixes,” Father Charcosset said, broadcaster BFMTV reports.
“Three of the large stained glass windows of the choir were significantly damaged,” he added.
“Without prejudging the intentions of their perpetrator, these acts, because of their violence and their target, constitute what the Church calls a desecration: the desire to attack the sanctity of the place.”
The attack is just the latest against a Catholic church in France, coming after several attacks last year.
In July, a Muslim man entered a mass in a church in Saint-Germain-en-Laye in the Paris suburbs of Yvelines, attacking a parishioner.
“He called us hypocrites. Christians. He said he was being made to look like a buffoon. It was then that a man, quite tall, approached him and told him to leave. The other asked him if he wanted to fight. That’s when there was the headbutt. Others intervened to control it,” a witness said.
In November, a fire broke out at the cathedral of Saint-Pol-de-Léon in what was suspected to have been a deliberate act of arson, according to the Mayor of Saint-Pol-de-Léon, Stéphane Cloarec.
Just weeks later in December, two churches in Bordeaux and Paris were attacked before Christmas Day.
The Church of the Trinity in Bordeaux was found with 17 “impacts” to the windows of the church, while the 17th-century Eglise Saint Roch was vandalised with far-left slogans.