03/05/2016
Radio Derb is on the air — go here to listen, or download the MP3:There was a nasty case of Narrative Collapse this week up in Albany, the capital of New York State.Just to remind you about Narrative Collapse: The Narrative here is the official story about our society, as promulgated by Cultural Marxists in the media and the schools. It divides us up into Oppressors and Oppressed.
In old-style Marxism the Oppressors were the owners of capital, the Oppressed were the working classes. Things are much more complex than that in Cultural Marxism, to the degree that a given group might be Oppressors in one context but Oppressed in another. Muslims, for example, are Oppressed by non-Muslims in the West, poor things; but Muslim men are Oppressors of Muslim women and homosexuals.
Fortunately we Americans don’t have to worry too much about these anfractuosities, as the Narrative here mostly manifests itself as stories about whites oppressing blacks. These stories are regular features of our national life, pushed to the front pages of our newspapers and endlessly commented on as showing the wickedness and depravity of white people and the pitiful helplessness of blacks.
Then, much more often than not, it emerges that the narrated events never happened, or happened quite differently from what we were first told. The Narrative suffers a local collapse, and the story disappears from the headlines to be pushed hastily down the memory hole.
Well, that’s what just happened in Albany. The initial story was that on January 30th three black female students at the State University up there were insulted and attacked by ten to twelve whites on a bus.
There was the usual shrieking and wailing from the media. Demonstrations were held. Placards were held up by angry-face blacks. A Twitter hashtag was set up: #DefendBlackgirlsUAlbany. Mrs Clinton tweeted her support, tweet: "There’s no excuse for racism and violence on a college campus," end tweet. The President of the university, a black guy, put out a statement declaring himself, quote, "deeply concerned, saddened, and angry about this incident," end quote. He left out "troubled," I don’t know why.
Police carried out a three-week investigation. It ended with complete Narrative Collapse. Long quote from CNN, February 26th:
"The evidence shows that, contrary to how the defendants originally portrayed things, these three individuals were not the victims of a crime," university Police Chief Frank Wiley said in the statement. "Rather, we allege that they are the perpetrators."End quotes.Police said Ariel Agudio, 20, faces charges of assault in the third degree, falsely reporting an incident in the third degree, attempted assault in the third degree and attempted criminal mischief in the fourth degree; Alexis Briggs, 20, faces a count of assault in the third degree; and Asha Burwell, 20, faces charges of assault in the third degree and falsely reporting an incident in the third degree …
The evidence gathered against [the three women] included interviews with 35 bus passengers, video from a dozen security cameras on the bus and mobile videos taken by passengers.
"No male struck the three women," the police statement said. "The evidence indicates they were actually the aggressors … and that they continued to assault the victim despite the efforts of several passengers to stop them." … "What happened on the bus was not a 'hate crime,'" Wiley said. "The only person we heard uttering racial epithets was one of the defendants."
"Racial epithets," eh? Seems to me that means that what happened on the bus actually was a hate crime: but … we all know how that works.
This story will now disappear without trace. Then, after a month or two or three, there'll be another headliner about evil whites being beastly to cowering, fearful blacks. Mrs Clinton will tweet her outrage, the media will chide us for our racism, there'll be a demonstration or two — perhaps a riot or two — and some fool college president will tell us how saddened, angry, and troubled he is, and we'll go round the track once again to Narrative Collapse and silence.
"Eternal recurrence," Nietzsche called it. It’s been going on for decades now. I doubt it will ever end.
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