In typical 1984/Orwellian “Freedom Is Slavery” style, an art curator has just been forced out of his job and characterized as a “toxic white supremacist” — for not being a total anti-white supremacist.
Specifically, he said during a diversity discussion that the work of white artists would still be considered.
The Daily Mail summarizes the story:
• Gary Garrels resigned as senior curator at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art on Saturday [7/12]
• He sparked outrage among SFMOMA staff by saying: “Don’t worry, we will definitely still continue to collect white artists” during a diversity presentation
• Garrels was confronted about that comment during an all-staff meeting on July 7
• He argued that avoiding work by white men would be … “reverse discrimination”
• The remark prompted a group of museum staff to start the petition calling for him to resign due to his “toxic white supremacist beliefs”
• About 180 people signed the petition before Garrels, who worked at SFMOMA for more than 20 years, stepped down
The Mail also reports, “‘Gary’s removal from SFMOMA is non-negotiable,’ the petition states. Considering his lengthy tenure at this institution, we ask just how long have his toxic white supremacist beliefs regarding race and equity directed his position curating the content of the museum?’”
Indicating that this is another example of cutting edge cancel cultists devouring yesterday’s liberal, know that Garrels appears no conservative. In fact, in “a statement announcing his decision to step down, Garrels apologized for the harm his words caused, only slightly disputing the absurd charge against him,” Reason informs.
“‘I do not believe I have ever said that it is important to collect the art of white men,’ he said, according to artnet.com. ‘I have said that it is important that we do not exclude consideration of the art of white men,’” Reason continues.
“Suffice it to say that this is not the language of a white supremacist,” the site then wrote in the understatement of the year.
Interestingly, while I wanted a news video on the story to embed in this article, I could find none. So it’s entirely possible that no TV station thought that a respected expert in his field being persecuted for espousing racial equality was newsworthy.
This is especially shocking (or would be if I didn’t know that mainstream media mainly comprise cultural revolutionaries) since Garrels’ plight is now part of a pattern. Consider the following stories from just the last nine days:
• Reporting on how Caucaphobia now reigns in Hollywood, the Daily Mail told us July 11 that a “revolution is under way. White actors are being fired. Edicts from studio bosses make it clear that only minorities — racial and sexual — can be given jobs.”
• Marymount Manhattan college professor Patricia Simon is learning that you can’t be “woke” when you’re asleep. While participating in a recent “anti-racist meeting” via Zoom, she slipped into the arms of Morpheus and consequently became the target of 2,000 petitioners who want her fired, reported Breitbart July 16. No one wondered if she’d been unwell or maybe had a fitful night’s sleep; there was no understanding, no compassion, no mercy. Simon can be happy, though: A North Korean defense chief who fell asleep during a 2015 meeting was also fired — upon — with bullets (he’s dead).
• New York Times opinion columnist and editor Bari Weiss announced July 14 that she was resigning her position because of the paper’s “illiberal environment”; Weiss, a self-described “centrist,” said she was continually bullied by colleagues who called her “a Nazi and a racist.”
• Later the same day, Andrew Sullivan, a liberal homosexual who bills himself as “conservative,” announced his departure from New York magazine. Sullivan said the magazine was “increasingly hostile” to “writers not actively committed to woke pablums surrounding race, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity,” reported the New York Post yesterday.
This reflects what I warned of back in 2012. “The reality is that there is no culture war [any longer],” I wrote. “What is occurring now is a pacification effort.”
This has proceeded apace, as the brainwashed leftists have continued emerging from college and rising to prominent positions and as the culture has drifted further left. And as the purge continues and the standard for acceptance becomes ever more stringent, even 2005-mentality liberals are now targeted.
But there are two lessons here. First, apologizing, as Garrels did, won’t save you. Our modern-day fascists are not Christian, don’t forgive, and don’t believe in redemption; they play for keeps and view contrition as a sign of weakness.
So just one thing is possible when facing an adversary who takes no prisoners: Fight till the end. It’s the only chance you have, as it can make you a hero behind whom people will rally. (Why do you think President Trump — Mr. Best Defense is a Good Offense himself — has lasted this long?)
The second lesson involves something else Andrew Sullivan said. He stated that the prevailing view at New York magazine was that writers deviating from leftist dogma were “actively, physically harming co-workers merely by existing in the same virtual space,” the Post related.
This, of course, is just a pretext for acting upon their own intolerance (see “The Offensiveness Ploy”). It also, however, reflects the “safe space” mentality at colleges, the notion that so-called “hate speech” (always tendentiously defined) constitutes actual violence.
Yet do you remember when some assumed this lunacy would stay in college and said, “These snowflakes will be in for a shock when they hit the real world”? That was naïve.
The snowflakes shocked the “real world” by bringing college to it and creating a free-speech winter. Likewise, though, it would be naïve to think this lunacy will stay in leftist private sector entities (which are metastasizing, anyway). For if your speech “physically harms” others, as the theory goes, what’s the implication?
We don’t allow physical harm (e.g., domestic abuse) anywhere, not in small businesses, homes, community organizations, or churches, do we?
Yes, they’re coming for you, for all must be “purified.” And that it’s just a matter of time is why you must speak up now. Because you may not be interested in the cold (un)civil war currently raging, but the cold civil war is interested in you.
Image: Maxiphoto/iStock/Getty Images Plus
Selwyn Duke (@SelwynDuke) has written for The New American for more than a decade. He has also written for The Hill, Observer, The American Conservative, WorldNetDaily, American Thinker, and many other print and online publications. In addition, he has contributed to college textbooks published by Gale-Cengage Learning, has appeared on television, and is a frequent guest on radio.
