What I found particularly annoying is the degree to which certain commentators elevated the importance of Meghan Markle’s race. If the media hadn’t told me, and then not shut up about it for months, I would never have guessed she was the daughter of a black mother and white father. To me, she looks as much Spanish, or Italian, or Lebanese as mixed-race American. Her mother simply looks like someone you’d see shopping in Marks & Spencers in Croydon, so why anyone should think her race is even worth mentioning I don’t know. Actually, I do: it’s because some people think race is the be-all and end-all (e.g. David Lammy, Katie Hopkins), and others simply took the opportunity to virtue-signal, rubbing people’s nose in the subject of immigration.
|
|||||
|
We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people. Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house] Authors
Arts, Tech & CultureCivil LibertiesCommentary
EconomicsSamizdatistas |
Samizdata quote of the dayMay 20th, 2018 |
 26 comments to Samizdata quote of the day |
Who Are We?The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling. We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe. CategoriesArchivesFeed This PageLink Icons   |
|||
All content on this website (including text, photographs, audio files, and any other original works), unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons License. |
|||||
Look on the bright side. At least some of those ‘certain commentators’ were probably annoyed at the amount of time spent discussing the dresses of all those involved, while others were probably as irritated as the original Tom Paine over something as old-fashioned, traditionally British and ‘racist’ as the monarchy getting all this publicity. There was an element of self-consolation in their dragging the subject back to the only subjects they think they should ever have to report.
(For the record, I agree with Tim’s comment that her appearance is very compatible with Iberian ancestry amongst several others.)
Two interesting points.
1. The embarrassing half the family, as I understand it, is white. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
2. This highlights the “wonders of strong feminism”. We were told, oh she’s so strong she is so independent as she walks herself down the aisle. She’s a strong modern feminist. Modern modern modern modern…
No, what she is, is from a broken family. She comes from embarrassing people. This is not strength. This is merely unfortunate. This is modern if sadness is modern.
By the way I too also found the constant emphasis on Race to be quite annoying. But at least that surplanted what would otherwise have been the constant emphasis on the perceived crassness of Americans. We Americans find familiarity to be endearing, whereas in more formal societies it’s viewed as crass and common and of course in Latin common means vulgar, or rather vulgar means common. That preacher though, what the hell. The invention of Fire? What? Now THAT was embarrassing.
The preacher made the mistake of giving two sermons when one was required. Had he sat down after he reached the end of his first set of remarks and then joked about having to get done “so we can get y’all married”, he would have been ideal on time and very acceptable on style and content. Sadly, he was determined to get in Dr Martin Luther King’s quote about the invention of fire, so began a second sermon which merely recapitulated – less well – the point of his first, and, thanks to his own joke, had everyone just waiting for him to finish.
That said, a sermon from the US episcopal church could, I assure you, have been much worse. 🙂
How said is it though that the only person you can manage to invite to your wedding is your mother, and even more so for a royal wedding. Her mother had NO ONE to share this amazing experience with.
It’s intersting that the press doesn’t seem to want to comment on this. Though, the British “rag” press probably is.
How said is it though that the only person you can manage to invite to your wedding is your mother, and even more so for a royal wedding. Her mother had NO ONE to share this amazing experience with.
If I were to ever get married, I would be in a similar position. Out of what in Judaism would be called “first order relatives”, there is only one person I would get any pleasure out of inviting. There are plenty of slightly more distant relatives I would get pleasure out of inviting, but the grief I would receive from the closer ones I didn’t invite is such that it probably wouldn’t be worth doing this.
There are many unhappy families.
Sadly, he was determined to get in Dr Martin Luther King’s quote about the invention of fire, so began a second sermon which merely recapitulated – less well – the point of his first, and, thanks to his own joke, had everyone just waiting for him to finish.
I think this is okay, personally. It doesn’t make him the first person to have ever talked a bit too long at a wedding. I liked it that he was there.
Look on the bright side. At least some of those ‘certain commentators’ were probably annoyed at the amount of time spent discussing the dresses of all those involved
Discussing the dresses is a fair fraction of the whole point of going to a wedding. I thought Meghan’s dress was nice, but not especially remarkable. Again, this is probably what is called for in such an occasion.
That article paints a troubling picture. I had been intending to pay the local Episcopalian place a visit, one of these days. Now, I wonder what I might find there…
Well, personally I was brought up in the Sydney diocese of the Anglican church. Old testament literalist, fire and brimstone, you will all burn in hell Anglicanism. Yes, it’s just as weird as it sounds.
Michael,
“Fashion at the Royal Wedding”: Neo-neocon, who has an interesting weblog mostly covering political current events but with plenty of excursions into other topics, has a shortish piece up on this very subject, with photos of the good, the bad, and at least one seriously unflattering costume. She basically agrees with you on the bride’s dress.
By the way, Samizdatistas occasionally turn up there; for instance Subotai Bahadur was sighted not so long ago.
http://www.neoneocon.com/2018/05/19/fashion-at-the-royal-wedding/
UPDATE: I was remiss. The photo of the bride is in the column immediately following the one cited and posted just before it:
http://www.neoneocon.com/2018/05/19/royal-wedding-royal-dress/
Personally, I like the dress. A lot. :>)
To be obsessed with someone’s RACE is RACISM.
The Guardian and co are opposed with the RACE of this lady.
Therefore the Guardian and co are RACISTS.
Julie: I think Ms neoneocon is harsher than I would be, honestly. I think it is a nice, elegant dress. A relatively safe fashion choice, but that was appropriate.
🙂
What’s truly important about the Duchess of Sussex is on the Royal Family’s official website.
And a quote:
She’s also got about a bit.
All of the 24/7 public TV coverage of this wedding thing was REAL?
I assumed it was another new reality show, and was waiting for the bride to give the guy a rose and then declare herself a committed lesbian.
Maybe next week.
Samizdata has been doing strange things to me too, for a few days. Normally, my name and e-mail auto-fill. No longer. Plus, the “recent comments” lineup brings me to week-old comments. It all started right when Firefox updated.
It seems the media are under the impression that Dr. King’s message was that the colour of your skin should really matter a whole lot.
“How said is it though that the only person you can manage to invite to your wedding is your mother, and even more so for a royal wedding. Her mother had NO ONE to share this amazing experience with.”
Indeed. It was obvious she desperately needed someone to pinch her to prove she wasn’t dreaming.
Mr Ed: I saw that. All a bit worrying. Would it be too Freudian to suggest that Harry saw something of his own mother in Ms. Markle? Then again, with the notable exception of his parents, the Royals’ charitable work tends to be more practical than polemical. Joining the Firm may actually end up tempering her tub-thumping side. (Famous last words…)
“It all started right when Firefox updated.”
I’m not using Firefox, and I’m seeing the same kind of thing. The RSS feed has been acting strangely for months, doing nothing for days then delivering a pile of posts in one lump.
I don’t do RSS, never have. Firefox, but not updated in the last year or more.
Starting I think yesterday, no auto-fill-in for name and e-mail. Today, I see that the “recent comments” sidebar to the last posting (“The Analogy Might Strike the Unitiated …”) isn’t updating for quite awhile after a comment to an earlier posting appears in the comment stream.
My thought is always to start with an assumption of WordPressian gremlins.
.
Sam, that sounds strangely like the behaviour of postings to the Individual Sovereignty Yahoo group. They would seem to outright disappear, and then perhaps four or more days’ worth would be posted all at once. It seems to have cleared up now at I-S, and I assumed it was because of the new ownership of Yahoo … but … the Yahoo groups also use WP….
other rob, for instance:
“Why is the Episcopal Church near collapse?” at
http://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/home-page-news-and-views/why-is-the-episcopal-church-near-collapse.aspx
From the article:
Also, from the Great Foot:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episcopal_Church_(United_States)
So they have form for it. Snarl.
DuckDuckGo turns up several results on the string Episcopal Church loses members — no quotes.
SJW Yuppie Lutherans. C’mon, man, they’re Anglicans. All of the pageantry, none of the guilt.
Like bobby and Julie from Chicago, I’ve seen recent strange behaviour in auto-fill of comment data, slow update of the recent-comments sidebar and failure to open the commented-page at the location of a comment clicked-on in the sidebar . It does not seem browser-specific (I note bobby mentions speculates about Firefox update but as part of my free speech attitudes, I stopped using Firefox on any machine when they pushed out Brendan Eich). Did WordPress ‘upgrade’ something? 🙂
Having just added this comment I see it did appear in at least my sidebar right away – but when I clicked on it, I still got taken to the wrong place in this page.
I had no idea she was of mixed race until I figured it out while watching a bit of the ceremonies, at which time it was so ‘in your face’ that it couldn’t be ignored. Also, so much for Martin Luther King Jr.’s “content of his character, not the color of his skin”.
Since the British aristocracy has long had a reputation for problems connected with inbreeding, I would have thought that any newcomers having exceptionally diverse DNA would be considered to be quite a plus.
Grating though it all was, I can’t help but think Mark Steyn has their number:
They were thrown a bone, and gnawed on it all week.
Also, “A society that can be thrilled only by its own vernacular is not in good shape.” Steyn’s in rare form at the moment.
My problem with the preacher was: “If the world ran on love we could end poverty tomorrow”.
I suppose if we can define love as “stop getting in the way” then it might be true. But it is more likely he is falsely equating love with socialism.