Monthly Archives: May 2021

Fredericksburg Incident Exposes Tactical Divide Between Black Activists

Posted on May 24, 2021 by | 29 comments

Moe Petway. Photo credit: Free Lance-Star

by James A. Bacon

Back in April, Isiah Brown made a 911 call to the Spotsylvania County Sheriff’s Office concerning a domestic dispute. Brown told the dispatcher that he was going to kill his brother but also said he was unarmed. When a deputy arrived, Brown was walking down the street away from his house with an object in his hand. According to body-cam footage, the deputy yelled at Brown to “show me your hands” and to “drop the gun.” He then shot Brown seven times. As it turned out, the object was not a gun but a cordless house phone.

Brown survived the shooting but was hospitalized and has undergone multiple surgeries. A special prosecutor has been assigned to the case, which is still under investigation.

The incident has done more than open up the divide between Black Lives Matter and defenders of the police, it has revealed a divide in the African-American community.

Moe Petway, president of the Spotsylvania Branch of the NAACP, jumped on the case. The NAACP negotiated the release of the video and 911 recording of the shooting and pressed for the investigation and special prosecutor. He has established a working relationship with local law enforcement authorities, he says, that allows the NAACP to accomplish things that street protests cannot. Continue reading →

29 Comments

Posted in Crime, Corrections and Law Enforcement, Race and Race Relations

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Good News for Corruptocrats

Posted on May 24, 2021 by | 51 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

Listen closely.

Hear that?

That’s the sound of champagne corks popping as local corruptocrats and sleazy businessmen celebrate the continued demise of local newspapers.

I’m talking, of course, about The Virginian-Pilot. Or what’s left of it.

And The Daily Press.

Perhaps you heard. On Friday, shareholders of The Tribune Company, which owns The Pilot, The Press, The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, The New York Daily News, The Orlando Sentinel and about 70 other newspapers, approved a sale of the company to Alden Global Capital — a hedge fund that Vanity Fair once described as “the grim reaper of American newspapers.”

Terrible news for Southeastern Virginia. Continue reading →

51 Comments

Posted in Media

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Dodging Emails Versus Dodging Bullets

Posted on May 23, 2021 by | 42 comments

Erik Nielson, University of Richmond professor whose expertise is hip hop culture and African American literature. His recently published book is “Rap on Trial: Race, Lyrics and Guilt in America”

by James A. Bacon

What the Richmond Times-Dispatch considers news this morning…

Headline: “Task force creating Richmond police oversight board publicly calls out Chief Smith.”

Excerpt: “At some point, the unwillingness to engage with this body does start to feel like arrogance. I don’t think we can overlook it,” task force member and University of Richmond professor Erik Nielson said during a public meeting Wednesday. “If you’re watching a task force creating a civilian review board that could potentially just co-opt your authority, and there’s nothing. It makes me feel like they don’t believe it or they’re just not going to deal with it. They think they can get out of it.”

Here’s what WTVR considers news today:

Headline: “Widow tired of dodging bullets in Richmond neighborhood.” Continue reading →

42 Comments

Posted in Crime, Corrections and Law Enforcement, Media

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The Case Against Structural Racism at VMI

Posted on May 23, 2021 by | 10 comments

Alternatively headlined: There Will Be Heat Death in the Universe Before You Read These Quotes in a Washington Post news article.

Carmen Villani, Virginia Military Institute class of 1976, recently compiled a list of perspectives given by African-American alumni as well as actions taken by staff and professors that illuminate the military academy’s record on race. The narrative is far different from the one articulated by former Governor Ralph Northam, himself a VMI alumnus, who declared in October that VMI was guilty of “systemic racism” and then ordered an investigation to prove his point. He submitted the list to members of the VMI Board of Visitors and Superintendent Cedric Wins last week.

In introducing the comments, Villani recounts the words of David McCullough in a 1994 speech at in Charlottesville. Thomas Jefferson, said the noted author, “was an exceedingly gifted and very great man, but like the others of that exceptional handful of politicians we call the Founding Fathers, he could also be inconsistent, contradictory, human.”

We are all “human,” Villani says, and that makes all of us flawed but we strive to be better. That is what should be recognized about VMI. Flawed, yes, BUT it has been a great contribution to society.” The Institute does not deserve the slanders it has endured in recent months.

— JAB

Messrs. Randolph And Gore, VMI Class Of 1972

“’We had bigger fish to fry in our minds,’ Randolph said. ‘We were dealing with something that everybody has trouble dealing with — not black people, not white people, everybody — and that was being a rat at VMI.’  ‘I just kind of had it,’ he said. ‘VMI’s a great school — it’s just not for everybody.’” Continue reading →

10 Comments

Posted in Education (higher ed), Race and Race Relations

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UVa President Ryan on UVa Religious Studies Professors Attacking Evangelicals

Posted on May 22, 2021 by | 20 comments

UVa President James Ryan

by James C. Sherlock

University of Virginia President Jim Ryan was kind enough to read my column detailing the unacceptable behavior of two Department of Religious Studies professors.

There are two “counts” I charged against them:

  1. First, slander. All speakers trashed all white evangelicals as racists and “confederates” who are sorry the South lost the Civil War. Two of them were UVa professors speaking at a University-sponsored webinar.
  2. Second, systemic slander.  The webinar had a topic, “Informed Perspectives: White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America,, which demanded a speaker for the evangelical community for a balanced discussion. None was invited. It was an academic lynch mob.

President Ryan wrote to me:

“I assure you we’re taking this matter seriously and looking into it.”

He did not have to write that. I take him at his word. Continue reading →

20 Comments

Posted in Culture wars, Education (higher ed)

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The Great Scattering

Posted on May 22, 2021 by | 15 comments

Richmonder Doug Monroe is the founder of The Praxis Circle. an organization that explores philosophical and theological world views, primarily though not exclusively from conservative and Christian perspectives. Doug has interviewed dozens of literary and philosophical giants in the United States and United Kingdom and distilled key insights into short, digestible video clips. He also publishes a blog highlighting the work of his contributors. In his most recent post, Doug discusses the work of Mary Eberstadt, the Washington, D.C.-area author of “Primal Scream: How the Sexual Revolution Created Identity Politics,” which could not be more timely. — JAB

by Doug Monroe

A few weeks ago Mary appeared on a British program, Triggernometry (see the YouTube clip above) to explain how her theory in Primal Screams helps explain the violence we saw last year in America and Europe. It’s a fascinating interview that clearly had the favor of her religiously agnostic, engaging, and off-beat British hosts, Konstin Kisin and Francis Foster. Mary summarized her argument in the introduction she gave to our Praxis Circle class linked here. 

What we can say is that the events of last summer involving over 10,000 incidents of violence nationwide and over 500 incidents of serious damage or injury were unprecedented since the 1960’s, and that they made Mary look like a prophet with Primal Screams clearly on record in 2018. Continue reading →

15 Comments

Posted in Culture wars

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Virginia Tops the List of Grossest States

Posted on May 22, 2021 by | 17 comments

Some outfit terming itself Zippia, the career expert, has published a ranking of the “grossest states” in America — and Virginia finds itself atop the list, followed by our neighbors to the south, North Carolina and South Carolina.

The methodology for this (hopefully) tongue-in-cheek exercise combined metrics for dirty air, trash, the spread of the flu, and the prevalence of Google searches for mayonnaise recipes and Crocs. Continue reading →

17 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized

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No One in Virginia Schools is Licensed to Practice Social-Emotional Learning

Posted on May 22, 2021 by | 6 comments

Gov. Northam – Neither a clinical nor applied psychologist

by James C. Sherlock

The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotion Learning defines SEL as:

the process through which children and adults understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.

It raises the question of who in the school system is qualified and licensed to practice the process of SEL.

The answer appears to be no one. Continue reading →

6 Comments

Posted in Education (K-12)

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Bacon Meme of the Week

Posted on May 22, 2021 by | 8 comments

8 Comments

Posted in Bacon and Pigs

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A Jewish Community Heartbroken and Distraught

Posted on May 22, 2021 by | 11 comments

by Ellen Renee Adams and Daniel Staffenberg

Richmond’s Jewish Community has watched the developments in Israel and Gaza with sadness, empathy and trepidation. The suffering of innocent Israelis and Palestinians is unacceptable. We are pained by the ways in which this conflict is being misunderstood and mischaracterized by some members of the media and our communities. They cling to a mistaken belief that the Israelis are the aggressors in this situation and that blame for the current hostilities can be laid squarely on Israel. This has led to an increasing sense that conflict abroad is contributing to increased hatred and attacks on Jews here at home – to an
unprecedented degree.

In the recent op-ed “We Can’t Breathe” in the pages of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Michael Paul Williams repeats falsehoods and longstanding canards that don’t reflect the realities on the ground and diminish the plight of both Palestinians and Israelis. Additionally, he works to undo decades of strong, collaborative connections between the Jewish and Black communities in Richmond. Continue reading →

11 Comments

Posted in Race and Race Relations

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Bacon Opens Mouth, Mayhem Ensues

Posted on May 21, 2021 by | 2 comments

I been blogging less and jabbering more this week. I don’t know if the world is better or worse off for it, but for those of you who subscribe to the theory that “there’s no such thing as too much bacon,” I offer the following for your listening/viewing pleasure.

Two Mikes podcast. Conversation with Michael Scheuer and Co. Mike about how Virginia has fallen into a pit of pure craziness, with a focus on the University of Virginia, the Virginia Military Institute, the Northam administration’s public education policy, and social-justice indoctrination for Alexandria Little Leaguers.

Tidewater Libertarian Party zoomcast. I join in a zoomcast presentation on Critical Race Theory. The Heritage Institute’s Hans Spakovsky provides an overview of CRT’s origins and how it is playing out nationally, while I discuss how it is being implemented in Virginia under the guise of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.

–JAB

2 Comments

Posted in Blogs and Blog Administration, Media

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What We’re Reading…

Posted on May 21, 2021 by | Leave a comment


If you’re not subscribing to the Bacon’s Rebellion newsletter, The Blunderbuss, this is a taste of what you’re missing. The “What We’re Reading” feature links to must-read articles from outside Virginia that have caught the eye of our editors, Bob Rayner and Robin Beres. These are from today’s edition:

Thank God for Big Pharma
James B. Meigs/Commentary Magazine

New York Times Promotes a COVID Cult of Caution
Jacob Sullivan/Reason.com

A Crisis of Undiagnosed Cancers Is Emerging in Pandemic’s Second Year
Duaa Eldeib/Propublica

How AP Got Caught Lying (Again) About Israel and the Hamas Terrorists
Issues & Insights

Catch up on recent Bacon’s Rebellion stories and features you might have missed here.

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Posted in Blogs and Blog Administration

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Some Virginia Black Children Have Restricted Access to In-Person Learning — But It’s Complicated

Posted on May 21, 2021 by | 3 comments


by James C. Sherlock

I just spent a good bit of time researching the statewide return-to-school instructional schedules of 132 school districts (May 3 VDOE data) in order to determine if Black students are being disproportionately disadvantaged.

They are, but the data show a very complex picture. The answers to “why and by whom?” get complicated. Continue reading →

3 Comments

Posted in Education (K-12)

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Would Someone Please Explain the “Science”?

Posted on May 21, 2021 by | 38 comments

COVID positivity rates for students (left) and employees (right). Source: UVa COVID Tracker.

by James A. Bacon

Let me get this straight. The University of Virginia has just announced that all students returning to the university starting July 1 must be fully vaccinated, or they will be barred from entering the grounds. But employees, while urged to get vaccinated, are under no such mandate.

Exemptions will be allowed for individuals on medical or religions grounds, but those without vaccinations will be required to be tested multiple times per week.

“This approach will enable our students to return to a residential academic setting where they can live, study, and gather together safely,” reads an email signed by President Jim Ryan, Provost Liz Magill, and other senior administrators, according to UVA Today.

UVA Today, the mouthpiece for the Ryan administration, gave no explanation of why students, who are younger and more resistant to the virus, are required to be vaccinated, while employees, who are older and more vulnerable, are not. Continue reading →

38 Comments

Posted in Education (higher ed), Public safety & health

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Ranked Republicans Recapped: Round 2

Posted on May 21, 2021 by | 11 comments

by Chris Saxman

Having recapped the gubernatorial contestants in the Republican Ranked Choice Unassembled Convention, let’s review what happened for the Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General nominations.

These two contests, like the top of the ticket, seemed to pivot on the outsider vs. insider narrative. Whereas we saw two successful outsider businessmen plow millions of their own money into their relatively brief campaigns for governor, the down-ballot candidates ran their campaigns the traditional way — get in and grind.

But first you have to Lose Yourself

Look/If you had One shot
Or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted
In one moment/Would you capture it
Or just let it slip?
Yo.

Continue reading →

11 Comments

Posted in Elections, Politics