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Professor Donald Kagan (left) and Professor Thomas Sowell(Jay Nordlinger / YouTube screengrab via The Rubin Report)

The term neoconservative is in bad odor on the right at present, but it was not always so, and I hope, one day, it will not be so again. (The neocons have always been in bad odor on the left.) They were great, the neoconservatives: intelligent and brave. Many of us learned a lot from them, and were inspired by their example.

Today, I am thinking of Allan Bloom, Walter Berns, Allan Sindler, Thomas Sowell, Donald Kagan... Why? Well, all of those men were at Cornell in 1969, when violent student protest erupted. And they watched the administration capitulate to it. This experience marked them, and they all left Cornell over it. (All except Sowell, who had already decided to leave.)

Bloom, by the way, went on to write for WFB and National Review. Indeed, his now-classic Closing of the American Mind began as an essay for NR.

Why am I thinking about all this? Because of what is going on at the New York Times, and other institutions as well. Armed violence? No. But consider this Twitter thread from Bari Weiss, a Timeswoman. She begins,

The civil war inside The New York Times between the (mostly young) wokes and the (mostly 40+) liberals is the same one raging inside other publications and companies across the country. The dynamic is always the same.

She continues,

The Old Guard lives by a set of principles we can broadly call civil libertarianism. They assumed they shared that worldview with the young people they hired who called themselves liberals and progressives. But it was an incorrect assumption.

Another one:

The New Guard has a different worldview, one articulated best by @JonHaidt and @glukianoff. They call it safetyism, in which the right of people to feel emotionally and psychologically safe trumps what were previously considered core liberal values, like free speech.

One more:

Ive been mocked by many people over the past few years for writing about the campus culture wars. They told me it was a sideshow. But this was always why it mattered: The people who graduated from those campuses would rise to power inside key institutions and transform them.

The New York Times is a great newspaper, despite what you may hear from some of us. WFB once said that to go without it would be like going without arms and legs. (That was a preface to a criticism.) There is chaff along with the wheat, dross along with the gold. You have to pick and choose.

Would anyone fall over dead to hear that the same is true of some conservative publications?

A funny memory: About 15 years ago, Rob Long said something about my Impromptus column, and I said, Im afraid its basically Jay Nordlinger reads the New York Times and reacts to which Rob said, And whats wrong with that?

Today, as always, the Times has great and seasoned political reporters, foreign correspondents, columnists, editors, obit writers, critics... What must they think of the wokistas, who are evidently intent on turning the Times into, say, the Bennington student paper? Will they sit around and let it happen? Is Times management like the Cornell administration?

Im singling out the Times the topic du jour but, as Bari says, the civil war is raging inside other publications and companies across the country.

Let me close my little post with the obituary of Walter Berns that the Times published in January 2015 an obit written by the superb Sam Roberts:

After the Cornell protest, one demonstrator, Thomas Jones, sent Professor Berns an apology, but he never responded...

Mr. Jones acknowledged the other day, though, that years later, after he became the president of TIAA-CREF, a financial services company and provider of retirement services in the academic, research, medical and cultural fields, he received a sardonic congratulatory note from his former professor.

First you wanted to kill me, the note from Professor Berns said. Now you want to take care of me in my retirement.

P.S. In 2004, I wrote a piece called Going Timesless: Who dares give up the newspaper of record? Robert Bork told me he had given up everything but the obit section. That, he did not want to live without. (I understand.)

More here:
'Civil War' at the New York Times Today, and Memories of Cornell University in 1969 - National Review

President Trump needs every vote he got from white evangelicals in 2016 and then some. Hoisting a Bible in the air may not be enough.

Unnerved by his slipping poll numbers and his failure to take command of the moral and public health crises straining the country, religious conservatives have expressed concern in recent weeks to the White House and the Trump campaign about the presidents political standing.

Their rising discomfort spilled out into the open this week when the founder of the Christian Coalition, Pat Robertson, scolded the president for taking such a belligerent tone as the country erupted in sorrow and anger over the police killing of an unarmed black man, George Floyd, in Minneapolis.

Speaking on his newscast, The 700 Club, the televangelist whose relationship with Mr. Trump dates to the 1990s said, You just dont do that, Mr. President, and added, Were one race. And we need to love each other.

Three and a half years into the Trump presidency, Mr. Trumps Christian conservative allies practically have a pre-written script when the time comes to defend another jaw-dropping indiscretion bragging he was so irresistible to women that he could grab em by their genitals; paying off a pornographic film star and a Playboy Playmate to conceal his extramarital affairs; insisting he has never asked God for forgiveness; cursing at the National Prayer Breakfast.

And for the most part, this week was not much different as Mr. Trumps defenders on the religious right claimed they had no problem with an elaborate photo stunt in which the president had a park near the White House cleared of hundreds of peaceful protesters so he could walk across the street to a church that had been set on fire the night before and display a Bible in front of the cameras.

Offended? Not at all, declared Franklin Graham, a prominent evangelical leader and the son of Rev. Billy Graham who was known as the pastor to the presidents. Writing on Facebook, Mr. Graham expressed the indignation that was common among many of the presidents supporters in religious conservative circles. This made an important statement that what took place the night before in the burning, looting and vandalism, he said, had to end.

But numerous polls have shown that like most other Americans, religious Americans increasingly disapprove of how the president is doing his job a shift that would imperil Mr. Trumps re-election if he is not able to reverse it.

The high marks that white evangelicals and white Catholics were giving the president earlier this year have slipped lately as the rallying effect that boosted him at the beginning of the coronavirus crisis has faded.

Any slide with these voters the cornerstone of his political base is problematic. And even if voters of faith do turn out for him again in large numbers, analysts said, there may not be enough of them to help lift him to victory.

Robert P. Jones, chief executive of the Public Religion Research Institute, noted that since 2016, the share of the American population that is white and evangelical has declined by two percentage points, to 15 percent.

In March, nearly 80 percent of white evangelicals said they approved of the job Mr. Trump was doing, PRRI found. But by the end of May, with the country convulsed by racial discord, Mr. Trumps favorability among white evangelicals had fallen 15 percentage points to 62 percent, according to a PRRI poll released Thursday. That is consistent with declines that other surveys have picked up recently. Among white Catholics, the same poll also found that his approval has fallen by 27 points since March.

He had an opportunity in March when people were looking to him. And then within four weeks he squandered it, Mr. Jones said.

Even if those numbers slip more between now and Election Day, it does not necessarily spell doom for the president. In the fall of 2016, his approval rating with white evangelicals was only 61 percent. He went on to win 81 percent of them in November.

As people whose cultural and political priorities have been extremely well served by the Trump administration, many religious conservatives long ago resigned themselves to his flaws as a president, a husband and a professed Christian. Some have come to see him as something of a divine instrument, sent by God to advance their cause.

But with the sacred often comes the profane, which is the most awkward part of the bargain Mr. Trump struck with the religious right to cement his rise to power in the Republican Party.

As strange as his appeal with the faithful might seem, it is not an entirely new phenomenon. Before he entered politics, he would often receive fan mail containing Bibles and Christian books, which he kept in a room in Trump Tower that he liked to show off to visitors. He and Mr. Robertson of The 700 Club became friendly when Mr. Trump had a large casino business in Atlantic City and hosted a boxing match featuring Evander Holyfield, who brought along Mr. Robertson as his personal pastor.

At times, including this week, it can seem as if the determination of many on the religious right to defend the president rises with inverse proportion to how most of the rest of the nation feels.

Some of President Trumps critics seem more upset about him holding a Bible at a church than they were about the vandals who nearly burned it to the ground, Ralph Reed, the founder of the Faith & Freedom Coalition, said in a statement. (In fact, the fire was contained to a small part of the church basement.)

In an interview, Mr. Reed took issue with the criticism from some on the right like Mr. Robertson, who was Mr. Reeds longtime mentor during their time together at the Christian Coalition. You cant look at the statements the president has made, the tweets he has sent out, and say that he has not expressed empathy for and revulsion at the circumstances surrounding the death of George Floyd, Mr. Reed said.

Groups like Mr. Reeds plan to spend tens of millions of dollars trying to identify and register new religious conservative voters while hammering a message about what they see at stake in November.

Turning their back on Mr. Trump now would likely spell defeat for the president in November, which would mean the end of a streak of legal and policy victories that conservatives have not experienced since the Reagan administration. The Supreme Court, with two Trump-appointed justices, now has an advantage that favors the right 5-4. And the presidents allies would like to see that grow in a second term so they might be able to finally realize longstanding goals like overturning Roe v. Wade and dismantling more of the regulatory apparatus that subjects businesses to government oversight.

Victory in these battles seems within reach as long as Mr. Trump is in the White House.

Its 2020, and people see it as a civilizational election on both sides, said Frank Cannon, president of the socially conservative American Principles Project.

Lost among the backlash to Mr. Trumps photo op at St. Johns this week was the message that many religious conservatives took from it. Symbolically, it was more important than how he did it, Mr. Cannon said. The next day, the president and the first lady participated in another photo op that was heavy in religious symbolism, visiting a shrine to Pope John Paul II in Washington that is owned by the conservative Catholic organization, the Knights of Columbus.

Some social conservatives had felt embattled as state and local governments closed down churches as the coronavirus spread. The raging debate over the last several weeks over whether they should be allowed to reopen has become the latest flash point in the countrys culture wars.

Despite efforts by Attorney General William P. Barr to offer legal support to churches fighting orders to remain closed, some religious conservatives felt the White House had not acted quickly enough to help and expressed their displeasure to senior administration officials, according to people aware of the conversations. Some have also raised questions with the presidents aides about whether his sinking poll numbers are a serious concern.

So when Mr. Trump marched across Lafayette Park to the scarred house of worship on Tuesday after members of the armed forces he commands swept out the demonstrators, many took that as a sign that the president was taking a defiant stand for conservative Christians.

I think that was a moment the president was expressing, in his own way, his support for the faith community, said Penny Nance, chief executive of Concerned Women for America. She said she wasnt at all offended by the removal of the protesters, which involved the heavy use of force and clouds of pepper spray.

Nor did it bother her that Mr. Trump did not pray he only raised the Bible above his head and displayed it for the cameras. He didnt come from our world, Ms. Nance said. Hes not Mike Pence.

But it did bother other Christian leaders, including the Episcopal bishop of Washington who oversees the church, St. Johns, who said she was outraged that Mr. Trump would use a religious gathering place as a political prop.

Noticeably absent during the presidents visit were two of the most visible religious conservatives serving in the Trump administration: Vice President Mike Pence, an evangelical Christian, and Kellyanne Conway, a Catholic who has acted as the presidents bridge to the world of activist social conservative women.

The killing of Mr. Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer has stirred up complex and often conflicting emotions among some of the presidents most stalwart supporters, who have expressed anguish over the officers conduct but have been less willing to acknowledge the pervasive racism that contributes to police brutality.

In 2018 when PRRI conducted a poll that asked about recent killings of black men by the police, 70 percent of white evangelicals said they were isolated incidents rather than reflective of a broader pattern.

The following year another PRRI poll asked white, evangelical Trump supporters if there was anything he could do to lose their support. Thirty-one percent of them said he could do almost anything and they still wouldnt turn their backs on him.

Giovanni Russonello and Maggie Haberman contributed reporting.

Follow this link:
Trumps Approval Slips Where He Cant Afford to Lose It: Among Evangelicals - The New York Times

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On Friday, Alexis Ohanian, one of Reddits co-founders, said that hes stepping down from the sites board because it is the right thing. He wants the company to appoint a Black board member in his place.

It is long overdue Ohanian said. Im doing this for me, for my family, and for my country. Im writing this as a father who needs to be able to answer his black daughter when she asks: What did you do?

He also committed to giving $1 million to Colin Kaepernicks Know Your Rights Camp as well as donating future gains in his Reddit stock to serve the black community, chiefly to curb racial hate.

Ohanians quest for absolution is vague. He doesnt specify the source of whatever guilt he is expiating here, nor any specific injustice that he contributed to that might explain what his departure is fixing. Were left to guess.

There at least a few things that have gone wrong in Ohanians time that he might be feeling bad about:

One of his biggest missteps was his failure to do anything as his platform became an incubator for some of the most toxic, extreme communities online. During Gamergate, Ohanian, et al.,more or less stood by as their platform became an organizing tool for vicious right-wing trolls who were aggressively harassing women in the gaming industry under the ridiculous guise of caring about ethics in gaming journalism.

Gamergate is often cited as a turning point in the internet culture wars, a moment when it became clear that the warped trolls werent just posting for the lulzthey were actually sexist and racist bigots who were eager to terrorize people. To this day, the almost-official GamerGate subreddit sits unbanned on Reddit, despite having been a hub for the movement.

Ohanian and Reddit were also slow to address other virulent communities of hate on the platform. The site and platform eventually did take action on some of the worst communities, banning subreddits like r/CringeAnarchy, which spread depressingly gross, incendiary content in the aftermath of the New Zealand Christchurch shooting.

He and the company also stood idly by as r/The_Donald, a subreddit featuring Trumps most toxic supporters online, grew into a massive community. Reddit eventually quarantined it, the platforms term for isolating problematic communities and making it harder to access them.

Ohanians move is especially bizarre in that he doesnt seem to have secured anything tangible from the Reddit board. There doesnt seem to be any guarantee that the company will do as he urges and hire a black candidate, nor is there any demand on his part that the Black hire be committed to any particular vision of racial justice. Black representation alone is not a guarantee of making meaningful strides to racial equity. At least he went out in the most Reddit way possiblewith a weird post that leaves you feeling faintly embarrassed for having read it.

Here is the original post:
Reddit Executive Chairman Resigns From the Site's Board, Posts Cringe - Mother Jones

New York Times writer and opinion editor Bari Weiss offered insight about the internal battle among her colleagues following the publishing of an op-ed written by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark that sparked a major backlash from its own staff.

Hours before the Times offered a mea culpa for running Cotton's piece that called for the troops to be sent in to quell the George Floyd riots, Weiss claimed that a "civil war" was brewing within the paper

"The civil war inside The New York Times between the (mostly young) wokes the (mostly 40+) liberals is the same one raging inside other publications and companies across the country. The dynamic is always the same," Weiss began a thread on Twitter. "The Old Guard lives by a set of principles we can broadly call civil libertarianism. They assumed they shared that worldview with the young people they hired who called themselves liberals and progressives. But it was an incorrect assumption."

NY TIMES ISSUES 'MEA CULPA,' SAYS TOM COTTON OP-ED ON GEORGE FLOYD RIOTS 'RUSHED,' FAILED TO MEET STANDARDS

She continued, "The New Guard has a different worldview, one articulated best by @JonHaidt and @glukianoff. They call it 'safetyism,'in which the right of people to feel emotionally and psychologically safe trumps what were previously considered core liberal values, like free speech."

Weiss pointed to the controversial 2018 decision made by The New Yorker to disinvite Steve Bannon from its Ideas Festivalas an "example" of the ideological battle among the left, stressing "there are dozens and dozens of examples."

NY TIMES REPORT ABOUT TESLA OWNERS DISTURBED BY ELON MUSK'S EMBRACE OF 'RED PILL' SPARKS MOCKERY ON TWITTER

"I've been mocked by many people over the past few years for writing about the campus culture wars. They told me it was a sideshow. But this was always why it mattered: The people who graduated from those campuses would rise to power inside key institutions and transform them," Weiss continued. "I'm in no way surprised by what has now exploded into public view. In a way, it's oddly comforting: I feel less alone and less crazy trying to explain the dynamic to people. What I am shocked by is the speed. I thought it would take a few years, not a few weeks."

The Times editor then pointed to the paper's motto "all the news that's fit to print," claiming that one group within outlet "emphasizes the word 'all,' while the other emphasizes "the word 'fit.'"

DEMS TRASH NY TIMES OVER FRONT-PAGE HEADLINE DEEMED TOO FAVORABLE TO TRUMP

"I agree with our critics that it's a dodge to say 'we want a totally open marketplace of ideas!'There are limits. Obviously. The question is: does his view fall outside those limits? Maybe the answer is yes," Weiss said. later alluding to a recent poll."If the answer is yes, it means that the view of more than half of Americans are unacceptable. And perhaps they are."

After Times editorial page editor James Bennet and Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger defended the op-ed, a spokeswoman released astunning statement Thursday evening claiming Cotton's piece never should have been published.

NY TIMES WRITERS IN 'OPEN REVOLT' AFTER PUBLICATION OF COTTON OP-ED, CLAIM BLACK STAFF 'IN DANGER'

"We've examined the piece and the process leading up to its publication. This review made clear that a rushed editorial process led to the publication of an Op-Ed that did not meet our standards," the statement read. "As a result, we're planning to examine both short term and long term changes, to include expanding our fact-checking operation and reduction the number of op-eds we publish."

CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP

Critics blasted the mea culpa, many of them citing the op-eds written by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Erdogan, and even the leader of the Taliban that apparently met their standards in years past.

Cotton's communications director, Caroline Tabler, told Fox News, "We werent contacted by the New York Times in advance of this statement and our editorial process was similar to our past experiences at the New York Times and other publications. We're curious to know what part of that process and this piece didnt meet their standards."

Fox News' Sam Dorman contributed to this report.

Follow this link:
NY Times editor Bari Weiss says there's a 'civil war' within paper amid Tom Cotton uproar - Fox News

A Black Lives Matter t-shirt sparked a fist fight on the steps of a small town New Zealand church.

A strange fracas in the rolling green hills of Te Kuiti as the United States roils in race protests thousands of miles away shows how deep American-style culture wars have seeped into Kiwi lives.

A lone voice startles a congregation at prayer in a Te Kiti church.

It shatters the unconscious silence parishioners kneel within, heads bowed, hands clasped - and into which another man reads a bible passage aloud.

READ MORE:* MAGA hats: A relic of a 'dark and racist history'* Jacinda Ardern says George Floyd situation in US 'horrifying'* As US braces for more violence, George Floyd killing protests spread to London, Berlin and Toronto

"Why are you wearing such an offensive T-shirt to mass you fool!" comes the demand.

They shake their heads. How strange to interrupt a reading. Perhaps it's a one-off.

The reader pushes on through the fine print until he reaches the solace of a full-stop and can utter his closing refrain - Lord hear our prayer.

But as he makes towards the pew he's interrupted again.

"Buffoon!" an icy-moustached man from Benneydale called Leo Leitch, yells.

Fellow catholics John Whyte and his wife Jess wore Black Lives Matter T-shirts to church that Sunday in December 2019.

Abigail Dougherty/Stuff

Thousands of protesters marched in Auckland on June 1 in solidarity after the death of African American George Floyd while in police custody.

They believe in the cause, but never expected the trouble.

After the service, congregants mingle outside for chit-chat, but Leitch wants answers.

He claims the parish priest at the time, Father Matt McAuslin, congratulated him on his outburst and shares he views about Black Lives Matter.

"The parish priest said to me, us three are probably the only ones who know the truth about Black Lives Matter."

McAuslin encouraged Leitch to question Whyte about the T-shirt, but to leave him out of it, Leitch claims.

"So I went up to him and demanded to know why he was wearing such an offensive T-shirt to mass."

Whyte was shocked by Leitch's "screeds of vindictiveness".

"My response was I know why I'm wearing the T-shirt, I'm not sure why you're abusing a reader while doing a reading," Whyte says.

The argument escalates.

Christel Yardley/Stuff

St George's Catholic Church in Te Kiti in March, where a scuffle broke out over a Black Lives Matter t-shirt.

Whyte says Leitch pushed passed a person standing between them, prompting a warning from him to back off.

"He used one hand to push my chest which I found to be quite an aggressive response, and then he smacked my wife on the face with his hand," Whyte says.

This is what caused Whyte to push back, with what he says was a single "shove".

Leitch agrees that he walked towards Whyte and challenged him twice, but says he was the one met with a "flurry of punches" to the head by both Whyte and his wife.

Whatever the case, no-one is seriously injured as elderly bystanders throw themselves in to hold the scuffling parties apart.

Both Whyte and Leitch spoke to the police, but the incident was left where it was, on the church steps.

While Whyte strongly supports Black Lives Matter, he is not keen to speak to Stuff further and wants to forget the fracas.

"Although I expect that will not be an easy thing to do," he says.

"Never in my wildest dreams would I expect wearing a Black Lives Matter T-shirt to mass in Te Kiti would result in this."

But experts studying the impact of extremist views arent so surprised such things are beginning to make themselves felt even in the quietest of places.

As people entrench in increasingly disparate online realities, its only going to get worse, they say.

Christel Yardley/Stuff

Leitch at his Benneydale home. Leitch has no regrets about causing a scuffle over a Black Lives Matter T-shirt at mass.

Leitch sits at his kitchen table one brooding, late summer's morning, explaining why he believes Black Lives Matter is an "evil organisation".

Religious iconography is peppered throughout the house: a crucifix at the doorway, Mary in the kitchen, Pope John Paul II on the living-room side table.

Leitch's house looks like it used to be a corner-store, blue-rimmed, lacy drapes, upright against a sky that rolls about like corrugated iron.

He lives in Benneydale, a lonely King Country settlement hanging off State Highway 30.

Last year, residents defended the pride of its English name: a combination of two government mining officials in the 1940s - Charlie Benney and Tom Dale.

Later, road signs with the town's recently added Mori name - Maniaiti - were defaced by grey and black spray paint.

Inside Leitch's house, light draws inward into a laptop screen, blaring back the blue and red banner of Rupert Murdochs right-leaning Fox News.

Leitch believes Fox is the most balanced and reputable news outlet there is. He also reads a lot from Breitbart, a platform described by its former boss and once-Donald Trump campaign manager Steve Bannon, as a platform for the alt-right.

Christel Yardley/Stuff

Leo Leitch follows world events on the internet primarily through conservative media outlets.

Most people don't know the truth about Black Lives Matter, Leitch says, most people don't know the truth about anything.

"I've seen them, I've seen videos of their behaviour - their behaviour is violent, aggressive, nasty.

"There are some people who would have a superficial knowledge who probably think it's a good organisation.

"They probably think it's standing up against persecution of Negroes by police, and that's the superficial veneer that it stands on.

"On TV news you won't hear anything bad about Black Lives Matter nor in the Waikato Times."

Leitch follows current events and American politics keenly and the internet is his portal. But the keyhole through which he consumes his information has narrowed and now Donald Trump has come to power.

"He's the best president America's ever had."

He maintains he's not racist, Martin Luther King's one of his heroes in fact.

"I believe everyone is equal, one law for all," he says.

The "truth and justice" of his catholicism compelled him to take action against the "offensive" T-shirt all those months ago.

"[Black Lives Matter] is an American organisation that's got nothing to do with us here in New Zealand, let alone in Te Kiti," he says with the laptop on which he consumes right-wing American media sitting open at his kitchen table.

"God knows why the fellow was wearing the T-shirt, why he bought it and has it I don't know."

Win McNamee/Getty Images

The D.C. National Guard stand on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial monitoring a large crowd protesting against the death of George Floyd, on June 2.

The killing of George Floyd, under the knee of a Minnesotan police officer for nearly nine minutes, continues to horrify over ten days after it happened.

It sparked protests across the U.S, some developing into riots.

A viral video of Floyd pleading, "I can't breathe", echoes the death of Eric Garner, killed in a police chokehold six years before.

Police officer Derek Chauvin has been charged with second degree murder, and three others for aiding and abetting the murder.

Recently streets in Auckland and Wellington were filled with Black Lives Matter protests.

One of the organisers of the Auckland march, Mez Tekeste, said forces are trying to discredit the movement.

"At the end of the day, this is about equality.

"Black people are disadvantaged, systemically and institutionally, especially in America, and to a lesser degree, here."

The protest in Auckland had been nothing but peaceful, Tekeste said, and it was amazing to see thousands of people of different cultures take a stand against injustice.

New Zealand's race relations commissioner Meng Foon said the movement stands against racism and violence and has come about through the legacy of slavery.

"Seeing the livestream of the death really hurt a lot of people."

Abigail Dougherty/Stuff

Thousands people gathered at Aotea Square in Auckland CBD on June 1 in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.

New Zealanders are embracing the movement, partly due to compassion, partly due to our own ingrained, institutional racism.

"Racism has happened here, going back to the 1840s - the New Zealand Wars, the legislation against Mori and Chinese, we've had the dawn raids, the Tuhoe incidents and the police armed response teams which are targeting Mori and Pacifika, yet this trial came out of the March 15 murders in Christchurch."

He makes a sharp delineation between the majority of peaceful protestors and looters, whose actions are unjustified.

There's no irony in a scuffle at a Te Kiti church involving two white people fighting over Black Lives Matter, he says.

"I think people generally have some human values. Even in the times of apartheid in South Africa, there were white people standing with black people and fighting apartheid."

But he urges those who hold generalisations about race to question themselves.

"For the person who found the T-shirt offensive, probably he did not know what the notion of the message is.

"It's very important to research and ask what the reason behind it is.

"A lot of hatred of differences occurs because people just don't know, and sometimes people just don't want to know."

Chris Skelton/Stuff

New Zealand's race relations commissioner, Meng Foon, said racial hatred arises through ignorance.

But Waikato University Politics Lecturer Justin Phillips said the internet's reach hasn't helped people to question themselves.

"You've got groups who might be reading material from completely different online sources and in doing so develop completely different online worlds and realities.

"It's really only slated to get worse."

If you follow conservative U.S commentators on social media, you'll see videos of Manhattan being destroyed by rioters right now, Phillips said.

He's not surprised U.S cultural movements have seeped into small town New Zealand.

CHRISTEL YARDLEY

Benneydale Catholic Leo Leitch believes Black Lives Matter is an "evil organisation"

American politics is becoming a game to follow along and participate in, he said.

The internet can make people really feel like they can participate in political change, Phillips said.

"You used to have a real opportunity to meet candidates and participate in a local political process, and this is a return to that.

"I don't know Leo, I don't know him personally, but he might consider himself to be a keyboard warrior, out there trying to fight the good fight - so to speak."

Christel Yardley/Stuff

St George's Church, Te Kiti. The parish priest at the time of the scuffle, Father Matt McAuslin, is no longer serving there.

But what about the shadowy figure of the parish priest, had he quietly shared these deeply divisive views with his parishioner?

Had he covertly agreed with Leitch that Black Lives Matter was "evil"?

Read this article:
Prayers and a punch-up as culture wars come to NZ - Stuff.co.nz