{"id":34222,"date":"2021-06-01T20:02:18","date_gmt":"2021-06-02T01:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=34222"},"modified":"2021-06-01T20:09:25","modified_gmt":"2021-06-02T01:09:25","slug":"ellie-kemper-witch-hunt-shows-why-its-hard-to-fight-real-racism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=34222","title":{"rendered":"Ellie Kemper \u2018witch-hunt\u2019 shows why it\u2019s hard to fight real racism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Do you know why it\u2019s become hard to get people to take real racism seriously? It\u2019s because ignorant leftist activists scream, \u201cRacism!,\u201d<\/em> about things which are nothing of the sort.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t care about debutante balls. (They\u2019ve always seemed ridiculous to me.) I had never heard of actress Ellie Kemper until today, so I can\u2019t say I care much one way or the other about her reputation. In the big picture, I don\u2019t even care about the tempest in a teapot<\/a> which was stirred up on social media about Kemper\u2019s debutante past.<\/p>\n

But this latest idiocy is a perfect object lesson in the danger of listening to those who compete with one another to see who can be the most \u201cwoke.\u201d Rational people who can still think in sane ways are being bullied by a tiny minority of leftist activists who have no such ability to think rationally.<\/p>\n

As these dishonest activists gain influence and power, we\u2019re seeing a small preview of the chaos that lies ahead for this dying culture.<\/p>\n

In 1999, Ellie Kemper was crowned “Queen of Love and Beauty” at a debutante ball in St. Louis, Mo. Kemper’s family was part of the wealthy St. Louis elite, so it was no surprise for her to be “presented” at such an event. And for a 19-year-old college student from her background, it was simply a social honor.<\/p>\n

This particular St. Louis event was the 105th annual Veiled Prophet Ball. It’s no different from balls which take place all over the country among the upper class. To me, such balls are laughable, but they’ve been traditions in pretty much every city of any size over the last century.<\/p>\n

So why are the woke upset with Kemper? Why is she being called a \u201cKKK Princess\u201d by the leftist idiots?<\/p>\n

The St. Louis ball was founded by a man named Alonzo Slayback, but he and everything he ever did are now considered evil — simply because he had been a Confederate soldier.<\/p>\n

In addition, the ball had not been open to blacks or Jews of St. Louis society prior to 1979. Although this offends our sense of fairness — and would never be done today — that wasn’t unusual for upper class events of the past. You and I can probably agree that this exclusion was completely wrong, but that was before Ellie Kemper was even born.<\/p>\n

The leftist woke warriors want you to believe that Kemper is somehow in league with white supremacists, but all they have is the history of an elitist social organization that had views and rules which matched the views and rules of its past.<\/p>\n

Kemper was just a 19-year-old college student who was honored to be chosen queen of a ball that was a big deal among her social set. To pretend it has any political significance — or that it reflects poorly on Kemper — is idiocy at best and dishonesty at worst.<\/p>\n

I don’t like such balls. I have little sympathy for social elites. I don’t really care one way or the other about Ellie Kemper. (As far as I recall, I’ve never seen her in anything.)<\/p>\n

But I do care about honesty and fairness. I believe in seeing the past through a proportional lens. And I can tell you without question that if you’re going to “cancel” everybody who has been connected to an organization or social group which has done something distasteful or morally questionable in its past, you’re going to have to cancel everybody and start all over.<\/p>\n

This idiocy has nothing to do with racism or “white supremacy” or anything that Kemper has actually done. This is nothing but another opportunity for activists to scream their hatred for anyone who they can vaguely connect to the evils of the past.<\/p>\n

There’s still real racism in this world. There are white racists and black racists and racists of every ethnicity. But it’s harder to get people to take real racism seriously when you scream irrationally about something such as this.<\/p>\n

A rational person is going to look at the details of this alleged controversy — then realize there’s nothing to it — and ignore your accusations in the future.<\/p>\n

An insane and irrational person is going to grab torches and pitchforks and eventually start an American version of China’s Cultural Revolution<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you know what that means, you will be very afraid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do you know why it\u2019s become hard to get people to take real racism seriously? It\u2019s because ignorant leftist activists scream, \u201cRacism!,\u201d about things which are nothing of the sort. I don\u2019t care about debutante balls. (They\u2019ve always seemed ridiculous to me.) I had never heard of actress Ellie Kemper until today, so I can\u2019t Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-34222","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-8TY","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34222"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34236,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34222\/revisions\/34236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}