Monthly Archives: October 2021

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By Reid Fitzsimons (see the image gallery at the end of this article)

Many forces in our culture, which could properly be described as elite and privileged, have begun invoking a mantra- essentially an incantation with trappings of religiosity- consisting primarily of three words: diversity, equity, inclusion. These words especially emanate from the mouths and pens of the "woke" in academia, partisan political circles, corporate-financial-globalist interests, the celebrity world, university students, government bureaucracies at all levels and, increasingly, the military hierarchy. They are vacuous words, of course, used by people who shouldn’t have vacuous minds, but nevertheless tend to frame their thoughts with slogans and chants. I suspect if one of them were asked, for example, “What do you mean by ‘diversity?” the answer might be, ”People who don’t look like me. Diversity is our strength!” Does “equity” imply equality of opportunity or mandated outcomes, regardless of effort? Do those who demand “inclusion” embrace people who have contrary beliefs and opinions, or those they otherwise deplore?

This mantra has been incubating and evolving for many years, but its prominence greatly accelerated with the killing of George Floyd in May of 2020, and the many opportunities his death afforded, such as the power and money amassed by the elite black racialists of “Black Lives Matter.”  If a mantra can be considered to be underlying principles, so to speak, then associated slogans are often calls to action, for example, “No Justice! No Peace!” or “defund” the police!” While mantras and slogans can be emotionally satisfying, they really shouldn’t form a foundation for law and social policy, and certainly not by those who are given authority over such things, yet sadly, and often with horrific consequences, they do. With this in mind, let’s consider a sobering historical fact and how it is applicable to today.

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Jaslyn Adams and one of her killers

Note: USAA (United Services Automobile Association) is a membership based insurance company begun in the 1920s by a group of Army officers. Over the decades they grew considerably and branched out into financial services.  Some type of military association is required to be a member and they developed a deserved reputation for integrity and service. Sadly, their reputation has been slowly declining over the past few years to the point they traded quality and service for volume and greed; USAA is now indistinguishable from any quasi-legitimate financial or insurance conglomerate, and indeed fares poorly among the lower end of that spectrum. In June of 2020 the new CEO, the first one to have never served in the military, decided he wanted to offer up USAA to the gods of wokeness, so to speak. I posted an article at the time (https://conservativeproletariat.com/?p=603), and below is a follow-up that I posted on their in-house member’s community forum.

George Floyd was killed during an encounter with police in Minneapolis in May 2020. Floyd was a lifelong criminal, mostly petty and drug offenses but with a little bit of violence. Nevertheless, the events of that fateful day did not involve a running gun battle or anything of that sort, rather he was being arrested for another suspected petty offense, and was fully contained when a rather brutish police officer decided kneeling on his neck seemed like a good idea; this was the major contributing cause to his death. Pretty much anyone seeing the video could not feel disturbed, and for a brief moment we, as a nation, could have unified around this sad event, searched our consciences, and used what transpired for constructive change. This did not happen.

There were elements among the privileged that viewed the death of Floyd not as doleful and tragic, but as an opportunity, a chance for enhanced wealth and power. The main player was a group called “Black Lives Matter,” but many self-serving politicians and racialist activists/celebrities saw an opening for further profit and fame. In fact, there quickly developed a “social justice” bandwagon, and some of the wealthiest and most elite in the corporate world decided to hop on. This included Wayne Peacock, the CEO of USAA, and the ovine and avaricious Board of Directors. A month or so after Floyd’s death Peacock issued a manifesto of sorts, with an almost a religious tone, in which the sins of America were great, but he was among the handful of enlightened ones who could lead the USAA membership into the shiny new world of wokeness. His thoughts and observations were sophomoric at best, as if he cut and pasted clichés from a term paper of a privileged student at a private academy writing about personal angst associated with “white privilege.”