On Wednesday last week, just after the President’s speech at the memorial service for the fallen police officers in Dallas, I posted this on National Review Online: I think it’s a fair question whether a memorial service for the fallen police officers in Dallas was the appropriate venue to talk at all about the shootings in Minnesota and Louisiana, and about bias, bigotry, prejudice, racism, and discrimination in America — “and that includes our police departments.” The scope of the president’s remarks aside, here is what seems to me to be the most problematic paragraph of his speech: “And so …

1. There’s really little to say about the Dallas shootings. They were horrific and inexcusable. 2. Does Black Lives Matter bear some of the blame for them? The argument would be that, by relentlessly vilifying the police and shrilly insisting that they are targeting black men, it encourages counter-assassinations. But, as Kevin Williamson points out, there’s a big jump from even overheated rhetoric to an action like the Dallas snipers. Yes, it shows that words matter, and those elements of BLM that have used irresponsible words should take a hard look in the mirror. And BLM’s supporters should ask whether they are really comfortable in …

The draft Democratic platform that has just been released is about what you would expect on civil-rights issues, especially in the criminal-justice area.  The draft language condemns our nation’s “institutional and systemic racism” and our “mass incarceration,” and it affirms that “black lives matter.”  Felons should be allowed to vote, and our marijuana laws have an “unacceptable disparate impact” on African Americans.  There’s also plenty on LGBT rights, where “there is still much work to be done.”  Speaking of “Black Lives Matter” –  This USA Today op-ed explains how Black Lives Matter and anti-Israel Palestinian protestors are sharing notes — …

Yes, it’s a really bad idea to suggest that the way a judge does his job is inevitably determined by his skin color or national origin.  I’m just surprised that people who have long urged that judicial appointments should be made with “diversity” in mind have so quickly come around to this view …. Shame on the Washington Post  — The Washington Post had an editorial criticizing the lawsuit filed recently by Republican leaders of the state legislature against Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe’s recent executive order that restores the right to vote to all felons, no matter their crime. Let’s …

We are supposed to be excited because the Congress has passed, and President Obama has just signed into law, a bill that will get rid of “insulting” words like “Oriental” and “Negro,” changing them to more enlightened terms like “Asian American” and “African American.”  But wouldn’t it have been better if all references to race has just be taken out of the U.S. Code altogether, since the reason they’re in there these days is principally to advance race-based preferences and decision-making by the federal government? *          *          * The Chronicle of Higher Education — which, like it or not is …

That was the reason given by a St. Louis-area public school system for refusing to allow a black student to attend a school that he would have been allowed to go to had he been any other color. This discrimination was justified by a desire to achieve the right racial mix in public schools. So there you have it: Politically correct diversity trumps individual rights and educational opportunity.  Read all about it here. More on Race-Based Decision-Making in Education:  There have been a couple of newspaper pieces in the last week that make the (dubious) case for hiring fewer white teachers:  “Black teachers …