Kafka In Amadora

The British countryside is racist according to Ellie Harrison, a White presenter on the BBC show Countryfile. She said that ethnic minority people do face discrimination in the countryside, and there is “work to do”. The presenter also said she felt she needed to change her behaviour in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, doing more to confront racism instead of simply listening to people of colour. The Campaign to Protect Rural England has also vowed to remove barriers to the countryside for non-white people.

South African president Cyril Ramaphosa has insisted that farm murders are not “ethnic cleansing” after a grisly torture-murder in Free State led to ‘Boer Lives Matter’ protesters marching on a courthouse to get at the suspects. “The claim that violent crime on farms is part of an orchestrated campaign by blacks to drive white farmers off their land is simply not borne out by fact,” claimed the president, who is himself pursuing a policy of land grabs against landowners. Hundreds of white farmers had marched on rural Senekal magistrates’ court as two Black suspects appeared to face charges for the murder of 21-year-old White farm manager Brendin Horner. Horner had been found strung up on a pole by his neck, having been beaten, stabbed repeatedly, and apparently tortured.

A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system. [John Gall (1975), Systemantics: How Systems Work and Especially How They Fail]

Certa vez, uma menina recebeu um brinquedo novo no dia do seu aniversário. Na manhã seguinte, uma amiga foi até a sua casa para brincar. Mas a menina não podia ficar com a amiga, pois tinha que sair com a mãe. A amiga pediu que a menina a deixasse ficar a brincar com seu brinquedo novo até que ela voltasse. Ela assim o fez. No entanto, quando voltou a casa, a amiga já não estava lá e o brinquedo estava partido! Ela ficou furiosa e quis ir à casa da amiga pedir explicações! Mas a mãe ponderou: “Lembras-te quando o teu sapato ficou sujo com lama? Querias o limpar imediatamente, mas a tua avó não deixou. Ela avisou para primeiro deixar o barro secar pois  depois ficaria mais fácil limpar. Ora, com a raiva é a mesma coisa. Deixe primeiro a raiva secar, depois resolva a situação.” Mais tarde a campainha tocou: era a amiga, que pediu desculpa e tinha comprado um brinquedo novo para oferecer. A menina agradeceu e respondeu: Não faz mal, a minha raiva já secou!

Nos últimos anos tem-se dito que o “Great Replacement” era uma teoria da conspiração da extrema direita europeia e norte-americana. A população Branca na Europa e EUA não estava a ser substituída e que na harmoniosa sociedade multirracial e multiétnica tudo corria bem. Mas agora, em 2020, a RTP, televisão pública de Portugal, vem dizer que os seus canais “são excessivamente brancos” e “neles não encontramos reflexo da variedade de cores e origens que atualmente caracterizam a população portuguesa”.

Também o jornal Público, um dos jornais com mais tiragem e acessos online em Portugal, no dia 21 de Fevereiro de 2020 avançou com um “estágio profissional para promover diversidade nos media.” [Fonte] E qual é a definição de “diversidade” para o Público? Retirado do seu anúncio: “Serão valorizados os candidatos que tenham experiência, vivência e/ou conhecimento profundo de minorias étnicas em Portugal.” É considerado um Branco na Linha de Sintra como minoria étnica? Mais à frente o Público deixa bem claras as suas intenções: “Com vista a corrigir desigualdades, guiamo-nos pelo Plano Estratégico para as Migrações, que visa o reforço de medidas de promoção da integração e inclusão de cidadãos descendentes de imigrantes e dos que acederam à nacionalidade portuguesa, e pela Estratégia Nacional para a Integração das Comunidades Ciganas, que visa incentivar a participação das comunidades ciganas no mercado de trabalho, através do desenvolvimento de competências. Seguimos também as indicações da diretiva europeia denominada “Raça” (2000/43), que aplica o princípio da igualdade de tratamento entre as pessoas sem distinção de origem racial ou étnica.”

E também na Polícia de Segurança Pública, na figura do superintendente chefe Pedro Clemente, que comanda a Inspeção Nacional da PSP, ficam as palavras deixadas ao Diário de Notícias: “A perceção que temos é que o recrutamento na polícia ainda não é suficientemente representativo da diversidade étnica da sociedade. Uma polícia etnicamente diversificada é mais tolerante.” Com estas palavras ataca os polícias Brancos aos considerar incapazes de serem tolerantes com outras etnias, sendo racistas “por defeito”. E acrescenta: “vem em linha com aquela que é a área de intervenção da polícia, os grandes centros urbanos. Com este recrutamento diversificado, quem vem para a PSP pode conhecer melhor as suas zonas de ação, não estão desenraizados, têm até uma rede de apoio familiar e sabem melhor como comunicar com a população das áreas para onde vão trabalhar.” Ou seja, a sociedade portuguesa encontra-se balcanizada, uma espécie de Líbano do Atlântico, onde portugueses de etnias diferentes já têm dificuldades em “comunicar” com portugueses de outra etnia dentro de Portugal. O que o superintendente nunca assume diretamente, é que a PSP vai discriminar racialmente nos seus processos de recrutamento os candidatos Brancos, pois se contrata não-Brancos propositadamente, também propositadamente essas mesmas vagas não estão a ser disponibilizadas para candidatos Brancos.

Não existem dúvidas quanto ao Racismo Institucional implementado pelo Público, RTP e PSP nestas posições assumidas, ambos irão discriminar contra Brancos nas oportunidades profissionais e na cobertura jornalística, cultural e social que fazem nos próximos anos. Mas convém referir que do ponto de vista comercial e institucional, estas posições fazem sentido. A população portuguesa está de facto mais Africana, Mulata e, em parte, Asiática. E de facto, estas etnias querem-se rever na sua televisão pública, a RTP, e nos jornais nas bancas, como o Público. Portugal, de país homogéneo Branco em 1974, tornou-se um caleidoscópio de etnias, que agora querem o seu lugar no Poder e Riqueza. Os efeitos da substituição populacional começam agora a fazer-se sentir. O que a população Branca Portuguesa ainda não interiorizou, é que é uma etnia entre muitas em Portugal e não mais a dominante, posição que abdicou voluntariamente. E que a RTP e Público irão a discriminar no acesso a empregos, cobertura mediática, séries televisivas, programas culturais… Porque para existir espaço “para o outro”, o “Branco” terá que ser discriminado. E isso é Racismo Institucional. 2020 marca o principio da discriminação racial contra Brancos em Portugal.

“To the brain, information is its own reward, above and beyond whether it’s useful,” says Ming Hsu, a researcher at UC Berkeley, “and just as our brains like empty calories from junk food, they can overvalue information that makes us feel good but may not be useful.” Psychologists have long seen curiosity as an innate motivation that can spur actions by itself. For example, sports fans might check the odds on a game even if they have no intention of ever betting. Sometimes, we want to know something, just to know. Ming Hsu found that information activated the regions of the brain specifically known to be involved in valuation, which are the same dopamine-producing reward areas activated by food, money, and many drugs. This was the case whether the information was useful, and changed the person’s decisions, or not. While the research does not directly address overconsumption of digital information, the fact that information engages the brain’s reward system is a necessary condition for the addiction cycle. “The way our brains respond to the anticipation of a pleasurable reward is an important reason why people are susceptible to clickbait,” he says. “Just like junk food, this might be a situation where previously adaptive mechanisms get exploited now that we have unprecedented access to novel curiosities.” [Berkeley Haas, 2019]

For the average person, their consumption habits aren’t deliberate, their digital environment is on default, and there are a thousand things competing for their attention. Prolific creators, on the other hand, have gone out of their way to eliminate the competition for their attention and made deep work a big priority in their life. It takes continuous attention and intense focus to perform at an elite level. Without the ability to focus on something demanding for an extended period, you’re at a disadvantage. Your attention is worth a fortune. The founders of the major social networks, what author Tim Wu calls the “attention merchants”, have become billionaires by getting you addicted to their services and selling your attention to advertisers. It’s worth asking if the amount of your attention you’re spending on these digital things is getting you what you want. If you’re convinced that you should be spending your attention on more worthwhile pursuits, it’s not enough to implement a bunch of hacks because vague resolutions are not sufficient to tame the ability of new technologies to invade your cognitive landscape- the addictiveness of their design and strength of the cultural pressures supporting them are too strong for an ad hoc approach to succeed. In other words, all the solutions we use to deal with distractions are band-aids on bullet wounds. This is why the most effective way to become a digital minimalist is to just quit. Shallow work like checking email, updating your status or uploading pictures feels productive, but it’s not. Run them through this framework: 1 – Is this vital? 2 – Does this matter? 3 – What would happen if I didn’t do it? These things usually aren’t vital, don’t matter, and nothing would happen if you didn’t do them. I haven’t uploaded a picture to Instagram in weeks. Guess what? Nobody cared. [Srinivas Rao, 2019]

The quality of life you want for yourself ultimately comes down to how you spend your time and what you give your attention to. Time is the most valuable asset you have. It’s a non-renewable resource you can never get back. At my very first internship at a startup, the CFO asked me, “Why do you want to make a lot of money?” As a 20-year-old, I rattled off the list of luxuries I was imagining (Ferraris, McMansions, jets, etc). He said, “You’re wrong. What money buys is time. Time is what’s really valuable.”  Yet people wait to start a business, a project or pursue a dream as if they have all the time in the world. They waste time doing things they hate or suck at doing. They think there’s some mythical date in the future when the conditions will be perfect; the stars will align;, and they’ll have enough money in the bank or time to spend on their art. But the only thing that changes when you wait is that time passes. In order to use your life-fixed time effectively, you need to pay Attention. It determines the state of our lives, and is under constant assault from social media, inboxes, text messages, pings, pops and buzzes. Think of your attention as credit that you have every day after waking up and when you spend it on sources of distraction, you don’t have it anymore to yours other more meaningful pursuits. If you want to improve your attention span, start by reducing the competition for it. If it’s not relevant to the task at hand, remove it from your environment. Drown out the sound with some noise cancellation headphones. And design an environment that’s free of distractions. [Srinivas Rao, 2019]

“Harrison Bergeron” is a dystopian science-fiction short story by American writer Kurt Vonnegut, first published in October 1961. In the year 2081, the 211th, 212th, and 213th amendments to the Constitution dictate that all Americans are fully equal and not allowed to be smarter, better-looking or more physically able than anyone else. The Handicapper General’s agents enforce the equality laws, forcing citizens to wear “handicaps”: masks for those who are too beautiful, loud radios that disrupt thoughts inside the ears of intelligent people and heavy weights for the strong or athletic.

The former head of the Crown Prosecution Service, Lord Macdonald, told BBC there was “a major problem in particular communities” of men viewing young White girls as trash and available for sex. The problem must be recognised “for what it is, which is profoundly racist crime,” he added. Twenty young women had given evidence covering a period from 2011 to 2014. A total of 17 men and one woman have now been convicted of, or have admitted, charges including rape, supplying drugs and inciting prostitution. Those prosecuted were from the Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Indian, Iraqi, Iranian and Turkish communities and mainly British-born, with most living in the West End of Newcastle. [Jon Sharman (2017), The Independent]

White children from poor or working-class backgrounds are falling behind their peers from other ethnic groups in educational achievement, and they face the worst prospects for economic advancement, experts told UK lawmakers. Efforts to raise educational standards tend to be aimed at minority students, dimming prospects for white children to catch up, according to reports sent to a parliamentary committee that is investigating issues faced by disadvantaged groups. The struggles of poor white children tend to be neglected because they are seen as “unfashionable” and “not worthy” of helping, the UK Daily Mail quoted Oxford University Professor Peter Edwards as saying. Raising such concerns is “taboo” in academia, he said. White children whose families are poor enough for them to receive free school meals are underperforming their peers academically and have only a one-in-10 chance of attending university, according to the UK’s Center for Education and Youth. By comparison, in the same low-income group, three in 10 children of Black Caribbean ethnic backgrounds and five in 10 of Bangladeshi ethnicity make it to college. Nearly seven in 10 ethnic Chinese children who receive free school meals attend university. Despite the plight of white students, government and private education programs target large cities with ethnically diverse populations and, in the case of some charities, require that beneficiaries be non-white. Working-class white boys, in particular, are at the bottom of the heap when it comes to educational assistance, Edwards told the Daily Mail. [RT, 2020]

Uma coisa positiva em torno do futebol é que no momento em que se baixaram as bandeiras todas, as pessoas deixaram de pertencer aos partidos, aos sindicatos, às igrejas, o futebol é o último reduto de pertença identitária. Além que é também um espaço de alguma irracionalidade num contexto em que quase tudo na nossa vida se foi racionalizando excessivamente e é por isso que o futebol apaixona e é importante. [O Futebol, segundo Pedro Adão e Silva., no programa Bloco Central, rádio TSF]