padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
It's a difficult subject to think with, if you don't have "skin in the game" so to speak
without a doubt. it's only in the last couple years that I feel I've been able properly wrapped my head around the issues, and a fair bit of that had to do with sorting out my own sexuality and self-image. it's not like the queer community is a monolith either - besides (some) lesbians and (some) trans women, there are also issues between cisgendered gay men and trans people, gay men and women (of all kinds) in general, etc, aside from the inevitable divisions around race and class.

it's not like trans people are immune to criticism, of course. but it's really only in the last few years like that trans people have really started becoming culturally visible other than as freaks, objects of disgust, etc, and that visibility is much less far along in terms in creating access to a better standard of living for trans people. Laverne Cox is great but she's an extreme outlier, let alone Caitlyn Jenner. I know so, so many people who do or have done sex work for primary or supplementary income. not to paint (voluntary, ofc) sex work as evil, or shame sex workers, but it points to the frequent difficulty of finding other employment and stable living situations.

in that context it's especially galling to see an extremely rich woman with vast cultural power to take the lines Rowling has, which I imagine contributes to the opprobrium of the response. I don't want her to be cancelled, in any event. she's wrong (in seeming good faith tbf), but she's not dangerous in the way a neonazi is. she should be refuted and held responsible for what she says. preferably in a non-toxic fashion, but that seems inescapable in the medium, tho I'm no Twitter expert.

like many of these things, it's also a distraction from more important issues, like trying to create concrete improvements in the lives of trans people

as always that's much more difficult to achieve than fighting on Twitter, especially in the middle of pandemic, Trump, etc

tho also, words are important, politics is indeed downstream of culture, and you have to advocate ideas against retrograde attitudes
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
I don't think there's anything wrong with traditional gender identities, btw. I'm a dude, I was assigned male at birth, I like being a dude.

what's wrong is anyone feeling forced into an identity because that's all that's available to them

even the most cursory search of human history will show that gender identity has always been more complicated than binary man/woman

one thing that Rowling (and yeah, TERFs) shares with social conservatives is the obsession with sex and bathroom issues
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
also in re rappers or other black celebrities and anti-Semitic comments, that's been going since forever

I have noticed an uptake in it recently - Ice Cube, Nick Cannon, and now Wiley, and probably others I'm missing (surely Kanye at some point)

which isn't surprising, people always turn to conspiracy theorizing in unsettled times

and Jews running everything is the oldest, dumbest conspiracy of them all ("the socialism of fools" is well over a century old)

James Baldwin wrote eloquently on the particular mistrust between black people and Jews. unsurprisingly, it's some divide + conquer shit.

it's also one of the very saddest iterations of conspiracy thinking

I wouldn't want to cancel any of these people but again, they're responsible for what they say

I was heartened to see some other black celebrities - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, especially - call this nonsense out for what it is

(for which Ice Cube, predictably, attacked him)
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Have any of you had the misfortune to see a tv programme called Last Man Standing (I think that's the name anyhow)? It's about this macho outdoor type guy, a real man's man, who is married with three kids - all girls - and the basis of its so-called humour stems from this hero's straight-talking, tell it like it is, stand no bullshit attitude and the way it is constantly rubbing up against the marginally more reasonable group of women that constitute his household, and whom he he sees as namby-pamby far left extremists who are all fully paid up members of the pc brigade - consequence of course of their girly nature.
That's it in a nutshell, it's a comedy taking the piss out of political correctness gone mad. I guess it's from a few years ago but even so it seems amazing that people were still flogging that particular dead horse in living memory. And although the main guy often gets some kind of (generally mild) comeuppance, he is the protagonist and it feels as though you are supposed to, as a rule, see him as a voice of reason in a world in which you just can't say anything any more. Though most people would see him more as a charmless and boorish wanker he's often referred to in glowing terms by other characters and I think you are actually supposed to see him as a dynamic alpha-male that people look up to and like.
Saw a few minutes just now and was amazed that the plot of the episode was that he got annoyed cos his daughter was suspended for using the word gay as an insult on a fellow student, and although she basically admits she was in the wrong and the rest of the family agree, he gets annoyed and does a rant about how unfair the whole thing is, drawing heavily on the wise proverb about sticks and stones. To illustrate his point in the wittiest of ways he then does a live podcast advertising his shop in which he announces they are doing a special sale on items in the shop that begin with n - and which will be called The N-Word Sale (perfect timing I'm sure you'll all agree, I wonder if someone put this episode out tonight on purpose). Now I'm sure that by the end he will have a couple of problems which will cause him to recognise that sometimes words can be a bit hurtful and the rest of his family will see the error of their ways too and realise that they shouldn't get so worked up about a little bit of harmless homophobic bullying every now and again as long as it doesn't get out of hand.
But I'll never know cos I've cancelled this show and I wish the, increasingly inaccurately named, Comedy Chnnel, would do likewise.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I was very high... I actually fell asleep two or three times while writing it (cos it was about six am) but I had this kinda heroic determination to finish it and not let you down... seems a bit weird now.
 

chava

Well-known member
it's the flagship think-tank of the Koch brothers, or the remaining one, anyway, and has been for decades

not talking about cancellation, but understanding the slant of whatever sources you're using

Don't worry. My sources are 100% verified diverse on the political spectrum.
 

chava

Well-known member
Yes sorry I was having my lunch earlier :)

On the one hand you have relatively privileged people - journalists, authors, lecturers, film directors etc - some of whom are millionaires. This is the usual focus of "cancel culture". These people say or do bad things and there is a twitter-storm and they are "cancelled" but most of them seem OK and either continue working or pivot into this writing about being cancelled schtick we've gone over on this thread. Some of them are so rich already that they don't need to work.

On the other hand you have people with less privilege - ordinary people who lost their jobs because of trade union activity, or who get arrested at demos or get picked up in Portland by unidentifiable cops who take them to unknown sites for who knows what. Or even people who get sacked from supermarkets for going on a rant on facebook about how shit their job/boss is.

The class dimension is that as far as I can tell only the first lot really gets covered as part of "cancel culture" - but the real serious harm is actually done to the second lot.

This also raises the "free speech" mania that is going on which only seems to be about people's "right" to chat sexist or racist nonsense. The media seems a lot less focussed on people's right to talk about their shit working and living conditions or how they have been victims of racist or otherwise corrupt policing.

Nobody claims that these "powerful" people are cancelled for good. James Damore will find a new job, of course. It is of course the silencing of dissent and the resulting monophonic voice of corporate America that's worrying.

The other claims are whataboutery, I don't recognize a silencing of worker's voices where I am. Perhaps in America, idk.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Nobody claims that these "powerful" people are cancelled for good. James Damore will find a new job, of course. It is of course the silencing of dissent and the resulting monophonic voice of corporate America that's worrying.

The other claims are whataboutery, I don't recognize a silencing of worker's voices where I am. Perhaps in America, idk.

Literally on this thread someone has said they were sacked for being a trade union activist. Former Dissensus poster Mark Fisher also claimed that he was sacked for trying to convene a union branch.

Where are you?
 
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john eden

male pale and stale
I know people who have been made redundant because they didn't toe the company line. When I was temping in factories and warehouses there was a correlation between how little you raised issues around health and safety and how much work you got.

Obviously the tribunal cases are the ones that succeeeded - which requires a level of proof that isn't always there. And until recently you had to stump up a few grand just to get in the door, thanks to the Tories. So there are a lot of less fortunate people who are without a job because they said the wrong thing, that we never get to hear about.
 

chava

Well-known member
But yeah the real issue is whether or not millionaires can chat shit about trans people.

You could argue that the many examples you posted are people who got fired for doing harm to the company (not that I agree OF COURSE!!), while someone like James Damore got fired by doing exactly what the company told him.
 
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