Purging Dude Walls Toward Leftist Utopia

Townhall.com ^ | August 30, 2019 | David Limbaugh

[Kaslin]

If the left is so loving, tolerant and inclusive, why is it so driven by unquenchable bitterness? What fuels it to divide Americans?

No, I'm not talking about the Democratic presidential candidates, though any one of them demonstrates the same theme. The American left is just gorged with angst and apparently on a mission to share its misery. The insanity emanating from leftists today is overwhelming.

It used to be that when you came across an outrageous story in the news, you just shook your head and thought, "This is weird." But you found solace in realizing it was not representative of the societal norm. Sadly, that's not true anymore. The left has made great strides in normalizing insanity.

It's as if each day's news is an orchestrated clinic on how to make society sound crazier today than it was yesterday -- and it was way crazy yesterday.

Let me give you a typical example. NPR reported that MSNBC's Rachel Maddow was at Rockefeller University a few years ago to present a prize to a prominent female scientist. Upon entering the auditorium, someone heard her say, "What is up with the dude wall?" One side wall was covered with portraits of award-winning scientists from the university, and Maddow was distressed that they were all men.

Maddow was not alone. "One hundred percent of them are men," said Leslie Vosshall, a neurobiologist with the university. "It's probably 30 headshots of 30 men. So it's imposing." Her word choice is instructive.

Vosshall explained that Maddow's comment made her realize that for years, she had been uneasy about seeing rooms and hallways at scientific institutions adorned with portraits of white men. "It just sends the message, every day when you walk by it, that science consists of old white men," she said. "I think every institution needs to go out into the hallway and ask, 'What kind of message are we sending with these oil portraits and dusty old photographs?'"

Let me stop here and ask you: If you were to see photos or portraits of distinguished men in a university setting, would you feel like the university was sending you a message? Would it strike you as "imposing"? Would you view it through a gender or race prism?

Well, Vosshall is taking action. She's part of a committee that is going to give that Rockefeller University wall a makeover to add more diversity. I'm not quite sure how they'll accomplish that since the wall of fame consists of those who won either a Nobel Prize or the Lasker Award, a prestigious medical honor. You can't add new portraits without changing the criterion for wall placement.

It seems that "dude walls" are everywhere. Hallways of a main building at Yale School of Medicine display 55 portraits -- all are white, and only three are women. Irredeemably scandalous!

A couple of female students and a female associate professor at the school studied the effect of these portraits and published their findings in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. "Students felt like these portraits were not just ancient, historic things that had nothing to do with their contemporary experience," said one of the two students. "They actually felt that the portraits reinforced contemporary issues of exclusion, of racial discrimination -- of othering." "Othering"? Who thinks like that? Plenty of people, that's who -- and there are more thinking this way all the time, courtesy of leftist indoctrination.

These portraits, which were selected based on some standard of achievement, struck students as racially offensive. Surely, reasonable people would not infer that racial considerations had anything to do with the selection of the photos. But that doesn't matter. The left has trained generations of people to think of almost everything in terms of identity groups, and the result is a societal obsession that is alienating and dividing Americans at every turn. How can this be healthy for anyone?

Nevertheless, some schools are taking action and changing their displays to be more diverse and inclusive, history be damned. Dr. Jeffrey Flier of Harvard Medical School was taken aback when he visited Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and found that 31 large portraits of distinguished men from the university had been removed and only an empty wall remained.

"When I last lectured in @BrighamWomens Borstein auditorium, walls were adorned with portraits of prior luminaries of medicine & surgery," Flier tweeted. "Connecting to a glorious past. Now all gone. Hope everyone is happy. I'm not. (Neither were those I asked- afraid to say openly). Sad."

With all the strides that have been made in this country on racial and sexual discrimination, it is alarming that leftists, who dominate our major cultural, educational and media institutions, are consciously driving a wedge between groups in our society. It's clear that equal rights and treatment is no longer their focus. Rather, they seek to demonize groups they perceive as historically and currently privileged villains.

What is their end game? Is it truly equal rights, opportunity, and respect? Or is it something more sinister, such as revenge and ostracization of certain groups as part of a fundamental transformation of our society into some unattainable, balkanized, socialist utopia? Leftists who preach the loudest about love, harmony, tolerance, diversity, and inclusion are polarizing our society and overwhelming it with distrust, suspicion and ill will. Nothing constructive can come from this

[DeplorablePaul]

The left’s end game is to impose progressive supremacy. Political opponents will be harassed, jailed or killed. That’s what communists do.

Limbaugh knows that.

[OrioleFan]

Down with the STEM pictures. Up with the STEAM pictures.

[NativeSon]

I found another “Dude Wall” and it sits on public property with support from the National Parks Service.

A few years ago, I purposely went to see this dude wall and found listed, the names of family members.

Not all of them were white but they were/are, all men.

https://www.nps.gov/vive/index.htm

[Richard from IL]

My father’s pivotal role in inventing GPS is being overshadowed by the important but limited work a black woman did on the system. She’s being credited by many with inventing GPS when she played NO role in its formulation in 1973.

[RoosterRedux]

As Ravi Zacharias says, tolerant is the wrong word for the Left (he doesn't call them the Left). Tolerance means putting up with someone "different" than you...someone with whom you disagree and who disagrees with you.

Those on the Left are of one hive mind in that they agree on everything.

They tolerate NO ONE who disagrees with them.

Bottom line, they want you/us to tolerate them, but they have no intention of returning the favor.

Perhaps Ravi is Captain Obvious in disguise.;-)

[RoosterRedux]

I remember hearing a long time ago (paraphrased to fit here), if you want your picture on the wall, do something to deserve it. Until then, shut your mouth about the dudes on the wall.

[King Moonracer]

So basically, lefties are uncomfortable around people that don’t look like them. Skin color and gender trump actual accomplishments. Lefties have tainted all accomplishments by people of color with “affirmitive action”.

[FreedomPoster]

Aren’t there a few nurses on there? But your point is well taken.

[wita]

Leftists who preach the loudest about love, harmony, tolerance, diversity, and inclusion are polarizing our society and overwhelming it with distrust, suspicion and ill will. Nothing constructive can come from this.

Well, we’ll just see about that won’t we. There will be an election that will test the viability of those principles.

[FreedomPoster]

It’s like the handful of black women involved in back room NASA computations. Their contributions, while real, have been elevated far beyond their actual importance.

[NativeSon]

My relatives that are listed were men, I know there are women memorialized as well, I don’t know how many.

[sauropod]

We’ll see.

Never underestimate the stupidity of people in large numbers.

[AndyJackson]

The Vietnam war memorial is another dude wall. We should just polish it smooth.

[polymuser]

Unfortunately true. Look what they watch on TV.

[sphinx]

Another form of erasing history.

[Magnatron]

Yesterday I heard a clip from Dr. Sanjay Gupta talking about the recent increase in teen male suicides. He remarked that scientists have not pinpointed the cause. It's not rocket science. The increase is due to:

• Minimizing their stature in society through the #MeToo movement, and their diminished of masculinity through film and media and leftist propaganda.
• The increase in social media use has been one of the most destructive movements in all youth, but particularly teen males. Things are said behind a keyboard that would never be said to one's face. Social media has removed all forms of direct interaction between people, and rather than bring people together as it was intended, it widens the gap between and isolates individuals from one another. Isolation and social media's false method of rating self-worth only increases depression and angst in young people.
• The leftist mentality of placing people into endless categories while diminishing the singular attributes of being white and male -- in fact, even stigmatizing them and blaming them for the wrongs of the world.
• The leftist mentality of diminishing what it means to be successful, and more importantly, what it takes to become that way.
• The leftist force-feeding of destructive media, from violent video games, to fake news, to movies, to television, and a readily available ocean of online porn. In an isolated environment caused by the influence of social media, the messages that young males get continuously bombarded by is devastating to their mental well-being.
• The lack of real guidance and parenting by mostly-leftist parents. Young males often have no role model or are indoctrinated to have no hope. No one tells them: "You are too young for this game/movie/sexual information." Instead, they are on their own to navigate the maze of leftist messaging in their lonely, isolated worlds.

  We have been and continue to be on a very destructive path, and the left seems intent on dragging us into the pits of hell almost with gusto. Something needs to change and change fast. Our society is in its death throes. The last 20 years have been absolutely devastating to our youth, and particularly young white males.

  I don't see an easy way out of this, and the consequences will be very dire.

[NorthMountain]

So basically, lefties are uncomfortable around people that don’t look like them.

Leftists are uncomfortable around people who are more capable than them. They don't believe they can earn their "place on the wall", so they demand to be given it. Failing that, they'll tear the wall down and kill anybody who is like the people on the wall.

Leftists mean to kill us.

Plan accordingly.

[thirst4truth]

What if all your children are boys and you have a “dude wall” at home displaying all their school pictures and portraits? Tear it down cause its misogynist?

[Natty Bumppo@frontier.net]

The ultimate Chick Wall will never be built.

That would be the one with the names of the 40 million+ mothers who aborted their infants.

According to the Progtard DildoCrats, that appears to be the highest and most noble calling of the female of the species.