EXPLETIVE DELETED:  Here’s what bothers me about the media coverage of the “prom dress” fiasco.  When quoting the utterly idiotic tweet by Jeremy Lam, the Washington Post and other MSM outlets leave out the curse word.  WaPo writes:  “‘My culture is NOT your …. prom dress.'”  That, of course, is not what he wrote.  What he wrote was a lot nastier.

Where a newspaper reporter uses an ellipsis in a quotation, the reporter is telling readers that they should trust him or her that the deleted material was not significant.  But, in this case, I think it was.  By deleting the curse, WaPo made the whole thing seem more like a “debate” (which is how the headline characterized it) and less like a hotheaded rant by a pathetic fool (which is what it was).  I can understand not wanting to print curses in a family newspaper.  If so, they could have rendered it as “My culture is NOT your [expletive deleted] prom dress.”

The real story is how so many people could “heart” such an incoherent sentiment.

CELEBRATE: It’s International Workers’ Day, also know as May Day. Celebrate by buying The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. If you’ve got friends or relatives who are still starry-eyed about Marxism’s ability to bring about a workers’ paradise, whack ‘em over the head with it. It’s sure to cure them.

HERE’S AN INTERESTING LITTLE VIOLATION OF TITLE II OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964:

Back in March, Tunde Wey made headlines for his New Orleans pop-up, Saartj, where white customers were asked to pay two and a half times more than people of color for the same meal. And now, the activist chef is introducing his idea of “discomfort food” to Detroit, when he’s taking over Bank Suey community center in Hamtramck this week.

It’s not guaranteed diners will be served items like plantains stuffed with goat, confit fowl with African honey beans or the coconut flakes that have been soaked in brandy. Instead, guests who visit the pop-up will fill out a form that asks questions about their race, gender, education and income—their answers will then be used to tailor their menus.

“We want to present to you, in essence, what your privilege represents,” Wey tells the Detroit Free Press. “If you go to a restaurant right now—any nice, high-end restaurant—as much as possible folks try to tailor the experience to you. . . . I want to tailor the experience to them [guests] and I want to predicate that experience on their privilege.”

From tasting table.com.

THE LAST THING LEFT-LEANING FEMINISTS SHOULD WANT:  A Constitutional Amendment that would jeopardize preferential treatment for woman-owned businesses in public contracting.

IF POLITICS IS COMPLICATED IN MINNESOTA:  It’s probably complicated everywhere else too.

LOUISIANA PURCHASE: On this day in 1803, American Minister to France Robert Livingston, James Monroe and Barbé Marbois signed the Treaty for the Louisiana Purchase in Paris. The Americans had been authorized by President Jefferson to offer up to $10 million for New Orleans and its environs and were shocked to be offered the whole enchilada for only $15 million (cheap!). Certain that the United States would approve, Livingston took the deal. Back then, owing to the difficulty of communications, diplomats had to have more discretion that they do now.  That was also true for a whole lot of other people separated by distance from their “superiors.”

MESSAGE TO THE MAINE LEGISLATURE:   Charles Napier, a 19^th century official of the British Empire in India, well understood the limits of cross-cultural tolerance. When told by Hindu leaders that it would be inappropriate for him to interfere with the “national custom” of burning widows alive on their husband’s funeral pyre, he responded:

Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs.

Read more about Napier and Female Genital Mutilation in Maine at Burning Widows and Other Things that Even “Multicultural” Americans Shouldn’t Tolerate.

THE FALL OF SAIGON WAS 43 YEARS AGO TODAY:  Wikipedia has an entry for the re-education camps established by the communist government after the fall.  Official and unofficial estimates of the number of individuals sent to be “re-educated” at one of those camps tend to run between 200,000 to 300,000.  If you weren’t one of them, count your blessings.

STEVE HAYWARD MISSES POPE BENEDICT:  #MeToo

NEWS I HOPE YOU NEVER HAVE TO USE: Today is the 73^rd anniversary of the liberation of Dachau. In honor of that here’s a counterintuitive fact: Never give a starving person a lot* to eat. If you thought that was a myth, you should know that it’s not. It’s called re-feeding syndrome, and it can be fatal.

*No, I have no idea how much is too much, except that it’s not very much.   I’m just a law professor. You would be wise to re-check anything I say about dealing with the physical world.

MUSSOLINI WAS SUMMARILY SHOT ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY:  Hitler committed suicide two days later.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO HERB PEDERSON:  I still listen to Wheatstraw Suite and Copperfields all the time.

“PARTS UNKNOWN” TRAVELING FOOD CRITIC VENTURES TO EXOTIC … WEST VIRGINIA: And for a liberal Anthony Bourdain sounds like not such a bad guy. He actually likes going to new places, meeting new people and getting to know them (even when they’re “only” his own countrymen). He says, “You know, the contempt with which we speak of West Virginia in the political circles that I’m inclined to vote with I think is sort of disgraceful and counterproductive and unlovely. A little understanding and a little empathy — the ability to walk in someone else’s shoes for a few minutes — has got to be a good thing.” With a few more like Bourdain, maybe the Republic will survive after all.

U.S. COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS DECLARES THAT “GOALS” ARE REALLY EVIL “QUOTAS”—But only when they apply to goals the Commissioners don’t like.  When they are applied to liberal goals, like racial balancing, they’re still golden.

IS TRUMP A GREAT DEREGULATOR? Jeff Jacoby says yes and no:

[W]hile Trump deserves credit for eliminating red tape, it will take a far more aggressive effort, and significant help from Congress, to effect any lasting drainage of the regulatory swamp. In 2017, even this most regulation-averse administration signed off on 3,281 new federal rules, and another 1,834 were in the pipeline at year’s end. If Trump truly intends to be the Deregulator-in-Chief, he has a lot more work to do.

In other words: Faster, please.

THIS IS GOING TO BACKFIRE:  Press release:  “Minnesota Department of Human Rights Reaches Agreements with Ten School Districts, Charter Schools to Reduce Disparities in Suspensions for Students with Disabilities, Students of Color, Charges Files Against 2 Districts.”

For a sense of why this is a very bad idea, read The Department of Education’s Obama-Era Initiative on Racial Disparities in School Discipline:  Wrong for Students and Teachers, Wrong on the Law.  It focuses more on federal law, but the problems are about the same.

THE LAWSUIT AGAINST HARVARD FOR DISCRIMINATING AGAINST ASIAN AMERICANS IN ADMISSIONS IS PROCEEDING: Harvard has now appointed an Asian-American attorney to defend its diversity policy. And the U.S. Department of Justice has taken an interest in the case.

The thing that always gets me about race-preferential admissions policies that disadvantage Asian American and white applicants is that, when all is said and done, those policies disadvantage their so-called beneficiaries too. A “Dubious Expediency”: How Race-Preferential Admissions Policies on Campus Hurt Minority Students discusses the evidence.

But the beat goes on. Nobody likes to admit that a policy they’ve been following for 50 years isn’t working.

TRUMP SHOULD PARDON JACK JOHNSON:  And while we’re thinking about, we should think sympathetic thoughts about Frank Lloyd Wright and Charlie Chaplin too.  All got ensnared in the vaguely-worded Mann Act.

NO REGRETS:  Today would have been Supreme Court Justice William Brennan’s 112th birthday.  He was perhaps the Court’s most liberal Justice.  He also has a claim to be being its most unreflective Justice.  After his retirement, he was asked in an interview whether there were any cases where, in retrospect, he might have voted differently.  Brennan gave a startling response:  “Hell, no,” he replied. “I never thought I was wrong.” 

“THIS MAKES ME FEEL LIKE I WANT TO PUNCH THE NEXT ASIAN PERSON I SEE IN THE FACE”:  That was California Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia’s reaction to Asian opposition to the proposed repeal of California’s Proposition 209.  Nasty.

AT THE VOLOKH CONSPIRACY:  I talk about apprenticeships back in the old days–when they’d throw runaway apprentices in jail.

DON’T FREE MUMIA:  Today is the 64th birthday of Mumia Abu-Jamal–convicted murderer of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner and cause célèbre of the Left.  Mumia’s conviction was in 1982, and he spent decades on death row.   Despite a massive “Free Mumia” legal and media campaign by leftwing activists and clueless celebrities, his conviction has always been affirmed.  But his sentence wasn’t.  Citing procedural irregularities in the penalty phase of the trial, a federal judge vacated the death sentence in 2001.  The case took a few more twists and turns, including an order by the Supreme Court to the Third Circuit to reconsider the decision to vacate the death penalty.  In 2011, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania decided too much time has passed to hold a trial on the sentencing issue again.  That left Mumia with life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

You can say a lot of things about Mumia–like he’s a better journalist than your average convicted murderer or his image sold a lot of t-shirts.  But you can’t say he was innocent.

PURE VERMONT:  A reference to Vermont’s famous maple syrup?  Or a call for genocide?  Evidently the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights agrees with its newly-reappointed Chair of the Vermont State Advisory Committee that it’s fair to construe it as the latter.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:  The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, of which I am a member, will hold a briefing on hate crimes on Friday, May 11 at the Commission’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. The briefing will include an open forum at which members of the public are invited to share their experiences and views. Those who are unable to attend the briefing or who wish to elaborate more fully upon their oral comments are invited to submit written comments to the Commission.

If you or a close family member has been the victim of a hate crime, or if you or a close family member has personal experience of an alleged hate crime that was later shown to be a hoax, please share your experience with us. How crimes get classified as hate crimes or not hate crimes is an important subject of interest to the Commission. If you or a close family member has been involved in a crime that was classified as a hate crime, but you believe should not have been (or a crime that was not classified as a hate crime, but you believe should have been), again, let us hear from you. Currently, the federal hate crimes statute covers race, color, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. If you or a close family member has been the victim of a violent bias crime on some other status basis that you believe should be covered by the law, let us know about that too.

We are also interested in hearing from law enforcement about which crimes are or are not reported to the FBI as hate crimes and how law enforcement officers are instructed to make that determination.

Details regarding the oral comment period are available here, and you may send written comments to . If you would like to communicate with me about Commission business, the prefix on my Commission address begins with gheriot. Don’t use the comment section here.

SHIRLEY TEMPLE WOULD HAVE TURNED 90 TODAY:  If you think of her only as a cute little child star, then you don’t know enough about Shirley Temple Black.  As ambassador to Czechoslovakia, she was a real star, unafraid to lend moral support to the Velvet Revolution (sometimes against the advice of the Foreign Service staffers).  My grandmother thought she was adorable.  But the people who adored her the most were the Czechs.