"Look at me. Look at the color of my skin."
July 7, 2020 1:31 PM Subscribe
America needs a reckoning over racism. Punishing people who did not do anything wrong harms that important cause.
A summary and exploration of three cases of people losing their livelihoods as a result of anti-racist social pressure despite not actually perpetrating racism:
A summary and exploration of three cases of people losing their livelihoods as a result of anti-racist social pressure despite not actually perpetrating racism:
Cafferty was punished for an offense he insists he did not commit. Shor was punished for doing something that most wouldn’t even consider objectionable. Wadi was punished for the sins of his daughter. What all of these rather different cases have in common is that none of the people who were deprived of a livelihood in the name of fighting racism appear to have been guilty of actually perpetuating racism.
While incidents like this are unfortunate, something tells me that the vast majority of such "viral video" incidents are legit. One, at least, was legit enough for New York City's district attorney to use as evidence to charge the person depicted with calling in a frivolous police complaint.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:40 PM on July 7, 2020 [7 favorites]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:40 PM on July 7, 2020 [7 favorites]
As far as Cafferty and Shor's firings are concerned I would think the bigger issue at play is an employment system that allows people to be fired without some finding of wrongdoing on their part. In the Wadi case his daughter was also the company's catering director so you can either call it the father being punished for the sins of his daughter or the company being punished for the public statements of one of it's senior employees.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:47 PM on July 7, 2020 [29 favorites]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:47 PM on July 7, 2020 [29 favorites]
While incidents like this are unfortunate, something tells me that the vast majority of such "viral video" incidents are legit.
But that's the entire point: even if the vast majority are "legit", this is cold comfort to the innocent people whose lives are derailed and destroyed because of bored people on Twitter spamming a company to fire someone over wrongdoing that didn't even happen.
Moreover, the other two examples brought up in the article did not even involve a viral video or photo.
How exactly is my life as a person of color under white supremacy made better by innocent people being fired without investigation due to social media mobs (again, two of the people in the above article are also people of color!)?
I know this feels like a thousand years ago, but remember the ACORN "scandal"?
posted by Ouverture at 1:47 PM on July 7, 2020 [28 favorites]
But that's the entire point: even if the vast majority are "legit", this is cold comfort to the innocent people whose lives are derailed and destroyed because of bored people on Twitter spamming a company to fire someone over wrongdoing that didn't even happen.
Moreover, the other two examples brought up in the article did not even involve a viral video or photo.
How exactly is my life as a person of color under white supremacy made better by innocent people being fired without investigation due to social media mobs (again, two of the people in the above article are also people of color!)?
I know this feels like a thousand years ago, but remember the ACORN "scandal"?
posted by Ouverture at 1:47 PM on July 7, 2020 [28 favorites]
I wonder if social media mobs are so because firing random people fired at least feels like some sort of accomplishment while Henry Kissinger and the police who have killed countless Black people happily walk free.
I think so. I've said it before -- people can only strike out to hit whoever's within arm's reach. But I'm also suspicious of throwing around the names of these horribly unlucky people. For example, I read about Holy Land in a Matt Taibbi column, and Matt Taibbi has an incentive to claim that "cancel culture" is out of control. I know of nothing against Yascha Mounk, however.
Holy Land seems to have had more problems than a teenage daughter's tweets.
posted by Countess Elena at 1:53 PM on July 7, 2020 [10 favorites]
I think so. I've said it before -- people can only strike out to hit whoever's within arm's reach. But I'm also suspicious of throwing around the names of these horribly unlucky people. For example, I read about Holy Land in a Matt Taibbi column, and Matt Taibbi has an incentive to claim that "cancel culture" is out of control. I know of nothing against Yascha Mounk, however.
Holy Land seems to have had more problems than a teenage daughter's tweets.
posted by Countess Elena at 1:53 PM on July 7, 2020 [10 favorites]
Let's also not ignore the elephant in this particular room - Mounk is not some neutral bystander here, but has been himself caught out in similar behavior (such as pushing a study on polarization that he was involved with as if he was unassociated.) It doesn't surprise me that he would put out something like this, nor that he used the "shit sandwich" structure with the person whose behavior was most like his own in the center.
Between this and that asinine letter in Harper's (and guess who's a signatory? Three guesses, and the first two don't count.) it's getting tiresome getting people who should know better trying to argue their own offenses aren't really offenses.
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:55 PM on July 7, 2020 [22 favorites]
Between this and that asinine letter in Harper's (and guess who's a signatory? Three guesses, and the first two don't count.) it's getting tiresome getting people who should know better trying to argue their own offenses aren't really offenses.
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:55 PM on July 7, 2020 [22 favorites]
But that's the entire point: even if the vast majority are "legit", this is cold comfort to the innocent people whose lives are derailed and destroyed because of bored people on Twitter spamming a company to fire someone over wrongdoing that didn't even happen.
So what are you suggesting should be the alternative?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:56 PM on July 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
So what are you suggesting should be the alternative?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:56 PM on July 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
Proper order of operations:
1. A (allegedly) does something.
2. Someone else brings it to light.
3. A's employer discovers this, and determines it's significant enough to merit their notice.
4. A's employer makes a public statement that they're taking this under consideration
5. A and their employer have a private meeting to discuss it. If there's merit to A's termination, so be it.
6. A's employer makes a public statement later to address any lingering concern.
What happens instead is that steps 4-6 are smashed into a hasty decision that is always meant to brush the problem under the rug whether it's a firing or a one-tweet claim that they'll investigate with zero follow-up.
This isn't a problem with "mob justice." This is a problem with feckless employers abusing "at-will employment" to discard employees when they become inconvenient.
No good employer wants to have had a problem employee for literal years and to never hear about it. So yeah, don't complain that people are being told on to their employers. Complain that employee rights are non-existent in this country.
posted by explosion at 2:10 PM on July 7, 2020 [62 favorites]
1. A (allegedly) does something.
2. Someone else brings it to light.
3. A's employer discovers this, and determines it's significant enough to merit their notice.
4. A's employer makes a public statement that they're taking this under consideration
5. A and their employer have a private meeting to discuss it. If there's merit to A's termination, so be it.
6. A's employer makes a public statement later to address any lingering concern.
What happens instead is that steps 4-6 are smashed into a hasty decision that is always meant to brush the problem under the rug whether it's a firing or a one-tweet claim that they'll investigate with zero follow-up.
This isn't a problem with "mob justice." This is a problem with feckless employers abusing "at-will employment" to discard employees when they become inconvenient.
No good employer wants to have had a problem employee for literal years and to never hear about it. So yeah, don't complain that people are being told on to their employers. Complain that employee rights are non-existent in this country.
posted by explosion at 2:10 PM on July 7, 2020 [62 favorites]
Between this and that asinine letter in Harper's (and guess who's a signatory? Three guesses, and the first two don't count.) it's getting tiresome getting people who should know better trying to argue their own offenses aren't really offenses.
Who wrote the piece and their motivations don't magically annul what happened to the three subjects in the piece.
This isn't a problem with "mob justice." This is a problem with feckless employers abusing "at-will employment" to discard employees when they become inconvenient.
This is a problem of both social media mob justice and at-will employment and that capitalism requires us to work to survive its inhumane conditions.
Not even tenure can save someone from the mob.
posted by Ouverture at 2:31 PM on July 7, 2020 [17 favorites]
Who wrote the piece and their motivations don't magically annul what happened to the three subjects in the piece.
This isn't a problem with "mob justice." This is a problem with feckless employers abusing "at-will employment" to discard employees when they become inconvenient.
This is a problem of both social media mob justice and at-will employment and that capitalism requires us to work to survive its inhumane conditions.
Not even tenure can save someone from the mob.
posted by Ouverture at 2:31 PM on July 7, 2020 [17 favorites]
This is literally the first paragraph (emphasis mine):
As companies and organizations of all sorts have scrambled to institute a zero-tolerance policy on racism over the past few weeks, some of them have turned out to be more interested in signaling their good intentions than punishing actual culprits. This emphasis on appearing rather than being virtuous has already resulted in the mistreatment of innocent people—not all of them public figures or well-connected individuals with wealth to cushion their fall.
Perhaps Mounk didn't think he could get away with straight-up saying "virtue signalling".
posted by J.K. Seazer at 2:35 PM on July 7, 2020 [21 favorites]
As companies and organizations of all sorts have scrambled to institute a zero-tolerance policy on racism over the past few weeks, some of them have turned out to be more interested in signaling their good intentions than punishing actual culprits. This emphasis on appearing rather than being virtuous has already resulted in the mistreatment of innocent people—not all of them public figures or well-connected individuals with wealth to cushion their fall.
Perhaps Mounk didn't think he could get away with straight-up saying "virtue signalling".
posted by J.K. Seazer at 2:35 PM on July 7, 2020 [21 favorites]
So, with Wadi/Holy Land's case:
1. As mentioned before - this was a family business, the daughter was the catering director.
2. You can see the tweets here - they're especially egregious, and also at least one implicates the whole family #shitpeopleinmyfamilysay (homophobic, pro-hitler, anti-black, multiple slurs, content warning)
3. This happened at a moment when discussion of anti-black sentiment in Arab communities within Minneapolis was especially fraught - the owners of Cup Foods (the place that called the police on George Floyd) are also Palestinian. It wasn't just the tweets, after the tweets there was a lot of discussion about how Somali customers have been treated at the Midtown Global Market location.
4. Speaking of Midtown Global Market - the place that terminated their lease just got through a solid fucking week of people trying to burn down the goddamn building, stopped only because people who lived in the building (there's also condos on top of the market) set up watches and got pepper sprayed, threatened with arrest, and shot with rubber bullets for their trouble. The Holy Land section of the Market is huge - it's not really a bakery, it's a buffet and a small grocery in a section of a building that is mostly a food court. This was a huge financial decision, it's not going to be easy for Midtown to find people to fill their lease (though maybe some of the other places that burned down would be interested, if they can manage).
So yes, I'm a little sad to find out that the hummus was racist, but in terms of folks in Minneapolis I feel sad about, Wadi is waaaayy down on the list.
posted by dinty_moore at 2:36 PM on July 7, 2020 [14 favorites]
1. As mentioned before - this was a family business, the daughter was the catering director.
2. You can see the tweets here - they're especially egregious, and also at least one implicates the whole family #shitpeopleinmyfamilysay (homophobic, pro-hitler, anti-black, multiple slurs, content warning)
3. This happened at a moment when discussion of anti-black sentiment in Arab communities within Minneapolis was especially fraught - the owners of Cup Foods (the place that called the police on George Floyd) are also Palestinian. It wasn't just the tweets, after the tweets there was a lot of discussion about how Somali customers have been treated at the Midtown Global Market location.
4. Speaking of Midtown Global Market - the place that terminated their lease just got through a solid fucking week of people trying to burn down the goddamn building, stopped only because people who lived in the building (there's also condos on top of the market) set up watches and got pepper sprayed, threatened with arrest, and shot with rubber bullets for their trouble. The Holy Land section of the Market is huge - it's not really a bakery, it's a buffet and a small grocery in a section of a building that is mostly a food court. This was a huge financial decision, it's not going to be easy for Midtown to find people to fill their lease (though maybe some of the other places that burned down would be interested, if they can manage).
So yes, I'm a little sad to find out that the hummus was racist, but in terms of folks in Minneapolis I feel sad about, Wadi is waaaayy down on the list.
posted by dinty_moore at 2:36 PM on July 7, 2020 [14 favorites]
(Holy Land's hummus being their most popular product and prior to these events could be found in pretty much every major grocery chain/co-op in the twin cities)
posted by dinty_moore at 2:46 PM on July 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by dinty_moore at 2:46 PM on July 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
Seems to me like maybe we don't need to worry about the edge cases so much as all the deep-rooted systemic disenfranchisement, but it sure is sad that there are people going around baiting strangers into making racist hand gestures on camera (?!)
Please feel free to go through my submissions if you think I haven't contributed enough on the topic of systemic disenfranchisement.
Dismissing these injustices as "edge cases" is fundamentally dehumanizing and to callously throw away vulnerable people of color who haven't done anything wrong is its own form of white supremacy.
I think it is easy for very secure, comfortable, and privileged people to think this is the price of progress. But what actual progress has been made here?
And is it really liberation to live in a world where you have to worry about someone lodging a false complaint or an out of context video, dealing with an endless torrent of harassment, and derailing your life for years?
posted by Ouverture at 2:49 PM on July 7, 2020 [17 favorites]
Please feel free to go through my submissions if you think I haven't contributed enough on the topic of systemic disenfranchisement.
Dismissing these injustices as "edge cases" is fundamentally dehumanizing and to callously throw away vulnerable people of color who haven't done anything wrong is its own form of white supremacy.
I think it is easy for very secure, comfortable, and privileged people to think this is the price of progress. But what actual progress has been made here?
And is it really liberation to live in a world where you have to worry about someone lodging a false complaint or an out of context video, dealing with an endless torrent of harassment, and derailing your life for years?
posted by Ouverture at 2:49 PM on July 7, 2020 [17 favorites]
Who wrote the piece and their motivations don't magically annul what happened to the three subjects in the piece.
The point is that we need to examine the cases more critically, because the person who is presenting the cases has an agenda for doing so - and as people above have pointed out with Wadi and Holy Land, he's engaged in a lie of omission in that particular case, concealing that there is a lot more at play than just his daughter's writings, which in turn further compromises the piece and its argument.
Not even tenure can save someone from the mob.
Except that it wasn't "the mob" that took Salita down, but entrenched pro-Israel interests that used their leverage and clout to kill his offer.
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:58 PM on July 7, 2020 [11 favorites]
The point is that we need to examine the cases more critically, because the person who is presenting the cases has an agenda for doing so - and as people above have pointed out with Wadi and Holy Land, he's engaged in a lie of omission in that particular case, concealing that there is a lot more at play than just his daughter's writings, which in turn further compromises the piece and its argument.
Not even tenure can save someone from the mob.
Except that it wasn't "the mob" that took Salita down, but entrenched pro-Israel interests that used their leverage and clout to kill his offer.
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:58 PM on July 7, 2020 [11 favorites]
I mean, I’m always going to support the idea that people should examine random Internet reports closely before acting. I find Twitter pile-ons tedious and annoying. I like being careful and think it’s something we should all do more of. 😉
But I don’t think Internet mobs are really the problem here. There are also plenty of people who have said racist things, or done much worse things, and who are still employed. That’s because those people’s employers decided that they supported that person, or just didn’t care, or because there were durable processes in those workplaces that protected them.
The author of the article is all about telling us the mob is the problem. But really, I’d be much more impressed if he had ended the article by calling for collective bargaining and the end of at-will employment.
posted by a device for making your enemy change his mind at 4:01 PM on July 7, 2020 [10 favorites]
But I don’t think Internet mobs are really the problem here. There are also plenty of people who have said racist things, or done much worse things, and who are still employed. That’s because those people’s employers decided that they supported that person, or just didn’t care, or because there were durable processes in those workplaces that protected them.
The author of the article is all about telling us the mob is the problem. But really, I’d be much more impressed if he had ended the article by calling for collective bargaining and the end of at-will employment.
posted by a device for making your enemy change his mind at 4:01 PM on July 7, 2020 [10 favorites]
I’m curious about Cafferty—I did a Google search and found several news stories from local and conservative media outlets where he claimed he was just cracking his knuckles. In the Atlantic story, he says he mimicked the “OK” gesture not knowing it was used as a racist gesture by some. Why the change?
I’m having a lot of trouble believing this story is presenting reasonably unbiased accounts of what happened in these cases. Maybe I’m way off, but when I see Glenn Beck taking up an individual’s cause, I proceed with extreme caution.
posted by epj at 4:14 PM on July 7, 2020 [12 favorites]
I’m having a lot of trouble believing this story is presenting reasonably unbiased accounts of what happened in these cases. Maybe I’m way off, but when I see Glenn Beck taking up an individual’s cause, I proceed with extreme caution.
posted by epj at 4:14 PM on July 7, 2020 [12 favorites]
struggling to see the difference between this and the tiresome conversations about but what if there are false rape accusations and what about this handful of outlier examples, like what if we believe victims but TOO MUCH
like what if we believe the victims of racism too much
like what if the balance of power in society shifts so that suddenly people who were comparatively insulated are now at risk
like what if accountability for racist actions mean there will be errors and abuses and
oh thank god, finally we're back to talking about vulnerable white people, i feel comfortable again
posted by prefpara at 4:21 PM on July 7, 2020 [37 favorites]
like what if we believe the victims of racism too much
like what if the balance of power in society shifts so that suddenly people who were comparatively insulated are now at risk
like what if accountability for racist actions mean there will be errors and abuses and
oh thank god, finally we're back to talking about vulnerable white people, i feel comfortable again
posted by prefpara at 4:21 PM on July 7, 2020 [37 favorites]
struggling to see the difference between this and the tiresome conversations about but what if there are false rape accusations and what about this handful of outlier examples, like what if we believe victims but TOO MUCH
How much should we believe a "victim" like Carolyn Bryant Donham?
oh thank god, finally we're back to talking about vulnerable white people, i feel comfortable again
If you read the article, you would have read that two of the three people discussed are vulnerable people of color.
posted by Ouverture at 4:27 PM on July 7, 2020 [7 favorites]
How much should we believe a "victim" like Carolyn Bryant Donham?
oh thank god, finally we're back to talking about vulnerable white people, i feel comfortable again
If you read the article, you would have read that two of the three people discussed are vulnerable people of color.
posted by Ouverture at 4:27 PM on July 7, 2020 [7 favorites]
I dunno about the David Shor situation. I'm a member of a listserv where this stuff blew up and he was accused of being connected to the death and rape threats received by one of his critics. The uproar and debate on this listserv anyway was about the that, not about posting the study.
posted by Anonymous at 4:31 PM on July 7, 2020
posted by Anonymous at 4:31 PM on July 7, 2020
I don't think the left is any less susceptible to mob mentality (we are humans, after all) and there definitely are people hurt by it. There is a difference between giving the benefit of the doubt to an obvious troll with an egg or MAGA hat photo and giving the benefit of the doubt to someone with a long history of at least trying to espouse progressive values, but I think for some people it is easier to get swept up than it is to make the distinction. And that's extremely unhelpful.
posted by Anonymous at 4:35 PM on July 7, 2020
posted by Anonymous at 4:35 PM on July 7, 2020
The Shor situation seems most problematic. He tweeted an accurate summary of a peer reviewed academic study by a Black scholar at Princeton, and for that lost his job.
posted by PhineasGage at 4:41 PM on July 7, 2020 [8 favorites]
posted by PhineasGage at 4:41 PM on July 7, 2020 [8 favorites]
This isn't a problem with "mob justice." This is a problem with feckless employers abusing "at-will employment" to discard employees when they become inconvenient.
I wish there was more engagement with this line of argument, because to me it's the key to this larger discussion.
One of the things I like best about being in a union is that there is a very defined process for handling grievances/disciplinary actions if employees spectacularly screw up in a way that creates real issues for our employer. I genuinely think when these cases exist in larger companies, the lack of a required grievance process thanks to the almost total destruction of any worker rights in the US basically gives companies a way to convey "hey we're dealing with this!!!!!" in a way that doesn't actually require management to look at itself in the mirror and reckon with its own shortcomings.
posted by mostly vowels at 4:54 PM on July 7, 2020 [11 favorites]
I wish there was more engagement with this line of argument, because to me it's the key to this larger discussion.
One of the things I like best about being in a union is that there is a very defined process for handling grievances/disciplinary actions if employees spectacularly screw up in a way that creates real issues for our employer. I genuinely think when these cases exist in larger companies, the lack of a required grievance process thanks to the almost total destruction of any worker rights in the US basically gives companies a way to convey "hey we're dealing with this!!!!!" in a way that doesn't actually require management to look at itself in the mirror and reckon with its own shortcomings.
posted by mostly vowels at 4:54 PM on July 7, 2020 [11 favorites]
The Shor situation seems most problematic. He tweeted an accurate summary of a peer reviewed academic study by a Black scholar at Princeton, and for that lost his job.
You're eliding the extremely important context that he tweeted that article in the first days of the George Floyd protests, when the news media and the people of this country were paying very close attention to the fact that there were protests and there were riots, and many people were conflating the two without evidence. There's no such thing as "tweeting a summary of a paper", full stop. Whenever you do anything, you do it in a context.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 4:56 PM on July 7, 2020 [4 favorites]
You're eliding the extremely important context that he tweeted that article in the first days of the George Floyd protests, when the news media and the people of this country were paying very close attention to the fact that there were protests and there were riots, and many people were conflating the two without evidence. There's no such thing as "tweeting a summary of a paper", full stop. Whenever you do anything, you do it in a context.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 4:56 PM on July 7, 2020 [4 favorites]
For that one tweet, he lost his job.
posted by PhineasGage at 4:59 PM on July 7, 2020 [8 favorites]
posted by PhineasGage at 4:59 PM on July 7, 2020 [8 favorites]
You're eliding the extremely important context that he tweeted that article in the first days of the George Floyd protests, when the news media and the people of this country were paying very close attention to the fact that there were protests and there were riots, and many people were conflating the two without evidence. There's no such thing as "tweeting a summary of a paper", full stop. Whenever you do anything, you do it in a context.
And in this extremely important context, is this grounds for firing someone?
If Omar Wasow, the black researcher whose research Shor cited, posted the exact same tweet at that specific date and time, should they also have lost their job?
posted by Ouverture at 5:02 PM on July 7, 2020 [8 favorites]
And in this extremely important context, is this grounds for firing someone?
If Omar Wasow, the black researcher whose research Shor cited, posted the exact same tweet at that specific date and time, should they also have lost their job?
posted by Ouverture at 5:02 PM on July 7, 2020 [8 favorites]
And in this extremely important context, is this grounds for firing someone?
No, but as several people have pointed out, the context makes it less a "mob justice" issue, and more a "it's fucking bullshit that employers can just drop someone like a hot potato because they've become inconvenient" issue. Also, while he shouldn't have been fired, he also shouldn't have been let off the hook either, because his tweet, given the timing and the history of people shaming black protestors for the strategies they use.
Or in short, why are you letting Civis off the hook for their bad behavior?
If Omar Wasow, the black researcher whose research Shor cited, posted the exact same tweet at that specific date and time, should they also have lost their job?
Again - no, but they should have also faced rebuke for the same reasons. Which is likely why Wasow didn't tweet his results at a time where such a tweet could easily be interpreted as an attempt to shame black protesters.
People aren't buying the argument that all of these stories are injustices inflicted by mob justice, in large part because Yasha Mounk is at best an unreliable narrator, and at worst (and given he's a signatory to that execrable Harper's letter, that's where I'm sitting) trying to push an agenda. Further compounding things is that in the case of Wadi and Holy Land, Mounk outright lied (because at the end of the day, a lie of omission is a fucking lie), which throws more questions on the piece. Furthermore, as several people have pointed out, blaming people for complaining and causing the employers to just toss people because it's the easy way out is shifting blame away from those employers and their abuse of the at-work regime.
posted by NoxAeternum at 5:42 PM on July 7, 2020 [24 favorites]
No, but as several people have pointed out, the context makes it less a "mob justice" issue, and more a "it's fucking bullshit that employers can just drop someone like a hot potato because they've become inconvenient" issue. Also, while he shouldn't have been fired, he also shouldn't have been let off the hook either, because his tweet, given the timing and the history of people shaming black protestors for the strategies they use.
Or in short, why are you letting Civis off the hook for their bad behavior?
If Omar Wasow, the black researcher whose research Shor cited, posted the exact same tweet at that specific date and time, should they also have lost their job?
Again - no, but they should have also faced rebuke for the same reasons. Which is likely why Wasow didn't tweet his results at a time where such a tweet could easily be interpreted as an attempt to shame black protesters.
People aren't buying the argument that all of these stories are injustices inflicted by mob justice, in large part because Yasha Mounk is at best an unreliable narrator, and at worst (and given he's a signatory to that execrable Harper's letter, that's where I'm sitting) trying to push an agenda. Further compounding things is that in the case of Wadi and Holy Land, Mounk outright lied (because at the end of the day, a lie of omission is a fucking lie), which throws more questions on the piece. Furthermore, as several people have pointed out, blaming people for complaining and causing the employers to just toss people because it's the easy way out is shifting blame away from those employers and their abuse of the at-work regime.
posted by NoxAeternum at 5:42 PM on July 7, 2020 [24 favorites]
Two problems here:
(a) People feel that they can only address these kinds of incidents through taking to Twitter and making things public; and
(b) Employers who would've ignored quieter notifications of behavior jump immediately to firing upon (a) occurring, because of at-will employment.
Some social media misbehavior is clearly a function of jerks being jerks. These situations are a function of better ways of addressing such incidents have been blocked or coopted.
"Mob justice," speaking broadly, arises in scenarios where the real mechanisms of justice have lost their legitimacy.
posted by praemunire at 6:40 PM on July 7, 2020 [10 favorites]
(a) People feel that they can only address these kinds of incidents through taking to Twitter and making things public; and
(b) Employers who would've ignored quieter notifications of behavior jump immediately to firing upon (a) occurring, because of at-will employment.
Some social media misbehavior is clearly a function of jerks being jerks. These situations are a function of better ways of addressing such incidents have been blocked or coopted.
"Mob justice," speaking broadly, arises in scenarios where the real mechanisms of justice have lost their legitimacy.
posted by praemunire at 6:40 PM on July 7, 2020 [10 favorites]
"Justice" is an awfully strong word for someone being fired for a tweet.
posted by PhineasGage at 6:43 PM on July 7, 2020 [10 favorites]
posted by PhineasGage at 6:43 PM on July 7, 2020 [10 favorites]
As of Friday June 26th, SDGE has denied the grievance that the union filed.
Cafferty at least does seem to be represented by a union though I'm not sure what, if anything, SDG&E denying the grievance tells us about either the collective bargaining power of unions in 2020 or the underlying facts of Cafferty's situation.
posted by GalaxieFiveHundred at 6:50 PM on July 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
Cafferty at least does seem to be represented by a union though I'm not sure what, if anything, SDG&E denying the grievance tells us about either the collective bargaining power of unions in 2020 or the underlying facts of Cafferty's situation.
posted by GalaxieFiveHundred at 6:50 PM on July 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
any portmanteau in a storm: As far as Cafferty and Shor's firings are concerned I would think the bigger issue at play is an employment system that allows people to be fired without some finding of wrongdoing on their part.
I'm reminded of the Malcolm Ross case from the '90s, in which the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that a teacher who had published antisemitic writings shouldn't be fired, but it was appropriate to take him out of the classroom and make him the school librarian instead.
I wonder if the current Supreme Court of Canada would make the same decision.
posted by clawsoon at 6:53 PM on July 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
I'm reminded of the Malcolm Ross case from the '90s, in which the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that a teacher who had published antisemitic writings shouldn't be fired, but it was appropriate to take him out of the classroom and make him the school librarian instead.
I wonder if the current Supreme Court of Canada would make the same decision.
posted by clawsoon at 6:53 PM on July 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
"Justice" is an awfully strong word for someone being fired for a tweet.
He wasn't fired for "a tweet", he was fired because people viewed his tweet as reprimanding protestors. Which, given he made his tweet right when the protests over the murder of George Floyd were getting started, isn't an unreasonable assumption to make.
posted by NoxAeternum at 6:56 PM on July 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
He wasn't fired for "a tweet", he was fired because people viewed his tweet as reprimanding protestors. Which, given he made his tweet right when the protests over the murder of George Floyd were getting started, isn't an unreasonable assumption to make.
posted by NoxAeternum at 6:56 PM on July 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
I and many others disagree with your characterization of his intent. But let's go with the worst possible interpretation of his actions and motives. He posted one tweet that expressed a viewpoint that a lot of people disagreed with, and that led to such his firing. As you say, "he was fired because people viewed his tweet as reprimanding protestors." That's so far from "justice" that the concept isn't even visible from there.
posted by PhineasGage at 7:08 PM on July 7, 2020 [9 favorites]
posted by PhineasGage at 7:08 PM on July 7, 2020 [9 favorites]
He made his tweet right around the time that protestors in Minneapolis burned down a police station. Is it really surprising that people read it as a rebuke and "concern trolling", as one activist put it?
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:22 PM on July 7, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:22 PM on July 7, 2020 [2 favorites]
Also, if you're so concerned about his firing, why aren't you holding accountable the very people responsible - his former employer, Civis?
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:24 PM on July 7, 2020 [8 favorites]
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:24 PM on July 7, 2020 [8 favorites]
I ask yet again:
What are you proposing should be the alternative?
My concern is that the only alternative I can see is for people to stop calling out racism. If you have another suggestion that will still allow for the new trend towards making racist actions have consequences at long fucking last, while protecting the rights of the few who are falsely accused, I am all ears.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:03 PM on July 7, 2020 [10 favorites]
What are you proposing should be the alternative?
My concern is that the only alternative I can see is for people to stop calling out racism. If you have another suggestion that will still allow for the new trend towards making racist actions have consequences at long fucking last, while protecting the rights of the few who are falsely accused, I am all ears.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:03 PM on July 7, 2020 [10 favorites]
No one in this thread had any power to cause or prevent the firings of any of these people nor should they. At will employment is bad. The fact that employers respond disproportionately and irrationally to complaints against their employees is a red herring as to the merits of those complaints. It is unclear why the fact that employers are shitty and cruel is somehow in tension with the fact that social media mobs' outcomes are rarely good. It is also unclear what an incident in which taking the presented facts at face value someone engaged in malicious fraud is supposed to teach about the merits of anything besides not mindlessly believing accusations of unknown third parties. This whole piece is just a muddled idea trying to pull itself together and failing.
posted by PMdixon at 8:06 PM on July 7, 2020 [12 favorites]
posted by PMdixon at 8:06 PM on July 7, 2020 [12 favorites]
"Calling out racism" is not even close to what happened here.
posted by PhineasGage at 8:11 PM on July 7, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by PhineasGage at 8:11 PM on July 7, 2020 [5 favorites]
I know that, Phineas.
But the general upshot of this article is that "this current trend of people calling out racists online has gotten things so wound up that companies are firing people based on the flimsiest of accusations", and it seems naive to not realize that the logical conclusion it's trying to lead us to isn't "therefore maybe we should calm down and stop being so quick to call out racists". It's the very kind of thing that the moderate white liberal Martin Luther King Jr. warned about would say.
That is, it seems naive to me. But what other conclusion or argument do you think the article is trying to suggest?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:19 PM on July 7, 2020 [14 favorites]
But the general upshot of this article is that "this current trend of people calling out racists online has gotten things so wound up that companies are firing people based on the flimsiest of accusations", and it seems naive to not realize that the logical conclusion it's trying to lead us to isn't "therefore maybe we should calm down and stop being so quick to call out racists". It's the very kind of thing that the moderate white liberal Martin Luther King Jr. warned about would say.
That is, it seems naive to me. But what other conclusion or argument do you think the article is trying to suggest?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:19 PM on July 7, 2020 [14 favorites]
There is a vast range between those two extremes. No one, not Mounk nor even any of the signatories to that Harper's letter (which the mods won't let us discuss on MeFi), is saying we shouldn't confront racists.
posted by PhineasGage at 8:33 PM on July 7, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by PhineasGage at 8:33 PM on July 7, 2020 [4 favorites]
So then, I ask for the third time - what are they saying we should do instead?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:40 PM on July 7, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:40 PM on July 7, 2020 [4 favorites]
The article at the top of this page is quite clear.
posted by PhineasGage at 8:49 PM on July 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by PhineasGage at 8:49 PM on July 7, 2020 [1 favorite]
Yes, it is clear in its implication that scaling back on calling out racism is the best response.
I disagree with that suggestion, personally. So I guess this puts me at an impasse. Fair enough.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:54 PM on July 7, 2020 [9 favorites]
I disagree with that suggestion, personally. So I guess this puts me at an impasse. Fair enough.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:54 PM on July 7, 2020 [9 favorites]
I don't know. There can be value in identifying that there's a problem even when you don't know what the solution is. Maybe this article is intended to suggest people shouldn't call out racism but at least on its face it doesn't read that way to me, but several people here have made a reasonable case that the author may have an ulterior motive in identifying this problem in the manner that he does. Personally I think the response offered here that says companies should be less free to fire employees at-will seems like a good partial solution to the problem, at least, and I think it's useful to identify the problem so that response can be offered.
posted by biogeo at 9:06 PM on July 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by biogeo at 9:06 PM on July 7, 2020 [3 favorites]
So then, I ask for the third time - what are they saying we should do instead?
Call out this bullshit when you see it (which is what the article is doing) so that the next time the blind mob explodes into action more people will stop and say, "hey, wait a minute - when did 'even one victim is too many!' turn into 'they're just collateral damage, what can you do?'" And push for stronger workplace protections, which a couple of other people have already mentioned.
We've all seen seen plenty of articles pointing out when abuse or manipulation of other kinds is going on within progressive movements, and despite the pearl-clutching that usually ensues, rarely does pointing out the rot lead to the movement's demise. So I would disagree that there's no daylight between turning away from these cases and silencing actual progressive voices.
posted by AdamCSnider at 9:09 PM on July 7, 2020 [9 favorites]
Call out this bullshit when you see it (which is what the article is doing) so that the next time the blind mob explodes into action more people will stop and say, "hey, wait a minute - when did 'even one victim is too many!' turn into 'they're just collateral damage, what can you do?'" And push for stronger workplace protections, which a couple of other people have already mentioned.
We've all seen seen plenty of articles pointing out when abuse or manipulation of other kinds is going on within progressive movements, and despite the pearl-clutching that usually ensues, rarely does pointing out the rot lead to the movement's demise. So I would disagree that there's no daylight between turning away from these cases and silencing actual progressive voices.
posted by AdamCSnider at 9:09 PM on July 7, 2020 [9 favorites]
Call out this bullshit when you see it (which is what the article is doing)
Here's the thing - what I find to be bullshit is Mounk's framing (and again, Mounk is not a neutral party, he's been caught up in similar matters himself, which is part of why he wrote the piece and signed the Harper's letter.) So let's take a look at the three cases he presents:
Cafferty: This is the case where the person involved did get screwed over, thanks to an asshole deciding to fuck with him by getting him to make the OK sign, then presenting him as making a white supremacy sign, which caused his employer to make a kneejerk reaction and fire him. But at the same time, it seems that people have realized that they got taken for a ride, and have switched to supporting him, and the asshole who started the whole matter has gone to ground.
Shor: White researcher decides to tweet about a research paper discussing the reaction of mostly white voters to violent protest...right when Minneapolis is quite literally on fire as people protest the murder of George Floyd by cops. Unsurprisingly, activists point out that such a tweet at that moment comes across as rebuking protestors for their actions, especially given Shor's stated focus on getting Democrats elected. His employer, not wanting to wind up on the wrong side of the protestors (who are growing in political clout), decides to drop Shor to protect themselves. It also doesn't help that Shor's defenders play the "black friend" card by pointing out that the author of the paper is black.
Wadi: Arab owner of a popular Minneapolis food and catering company has it outed that his daughter (who has a senior position in the family business) had written a number of bigoted statements while a teenager, which had been found out, and he fired her. Except that Mounk omits (and again, a lie of omission is a fucking lie) that after this came out, it opened up further inquiries into Holy Land, with numerous accusations of bigoted behavior by the owner with regards to employee pay, treatment of customers, and such, which has lead to their landlord deciding they don't want to deal with Holy Land anymore.
So, we have one case presented that does have a genuine victim, but the situation is a much larger mess than portrayed; one case where someone from the ivory tower fails to read the room when posting about a paper, getting protesters understandably angry, resulting in his employer making a kneejerk decision to protect their own asses; and one case where Mounk outright lies about the matter by omitting large amount of context showing that the problems with Holy Land extended beyond the owners daughter going through a bigot phase.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:42 PM on July 7, 2020 [22 favorites]
Here's the thing - what I find to be bullshit is Mounk's framing (and again, Mounk is not a neutral party, he's been caught up in similar matters himself, which is part of why he wrote the piece and signed the Harper's letter.) So let's take a look at the three cases he presents:
Cafferty: This is the case where the person involved did get screwed over, thanks to an asshole deciding to fuck with him by getting him to make the OK sign, then presenting him as making a white supremacy sign, which caused his employer to make a kneejerk reaction and fire him. But at the same time, it seems that people have realized that they got taken for a ride, and have switched to supporting him, and the asshole who started the whole matter has gone to ground.
Shor: White researcher decides to tweet about a research paper discussing the reaction of mostly white voters to violent protest...right when Minneapolis is quite literally on fire as people protest the murder of George Floyd by cops. Unsurprisingly, activists point out that such a tweet at that moment comes across as rebuking protestors for their actions, especially given Shor's stated focus on getting Democrats elected. His employer, not wanting to wind up on the wrong side of the protestors (who are growing in political clout), decides to drop Shor to protect themselves. It also doesn't help that Shor's defenders play the "black friend" card by pointing out that the author of the paper is black.
Wadi: Arab owner of a popular Minneapolis food and catering company has it outed that his daughter (who has a senior position in the family business) had written a number of bigoted statements while a teenager, which had been found out, and he fired her. Except that Mounk omits (and again, a lie of omission is a fucking lie) that after this came out, it opened up further inquiries into Holy Land, with numerous accusations of bigoted behavior by the owner with regards to employee pay, treatment of customers, and such, which has lead to their landlord deciding they don't want to deal with Holy Land anymore.
So, we have one case presented that does have a genuine victim, but the situation is a much larger mess than portrayed; one case where someone from the ivory tower fails to read the room when posting about a paper, getting protesters understandably angry, resulting in his employer making a kneejerk decision to protect their own asses; and one case where Mounk outright lies about the matter by omitting large amount of context showing that the problems with Holy Land extended beyond the owners daughter going through a bigot phase.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:42 PM on July 7, 2020 [22 favorites]
Yes, it is clear in its implication that scaling back on calling out racism is the best response.
I don't see an implication that the best response is to scale back on calling out racism because I don't see social media mobs going after employers to fire random workers and sending the workers harassing messages as "calling out racism".
From the article:
posted by Ouverture at 9:51 PM on July 7, 2020 [10 favorites]
I don't see an implication that the best response is to scale back on calling out racism because I don't see social media mobs going after employers to fire random workers and sending the workers harassing messages as "calling out racism".
From the article:
The loss of his job has left Cafferty shaken. A few days ago, he spoke with a mental-health counselor for the first time in his life. “A man can learn from making a mistake,” he told me. “But what am I supposed to learn from this? It’s like I was struck by lightning.”How many people of color have had their lives improved by Cafferty losing his job?
posted by Ouverture at 9:51 PM on July 7, 2020 [10 favorites]
Employers fire staff for bad reasons all the time. Let’s agree that it’s wrong to do that. But taking a few incidents and trying to weave them into a pattern indicting anti-racism seems like a bad faith spin. This just feels like more moaning and crying along the lines of claiming there’s a deluge of boys being falsely accused of sex assault.
I think it’s good that people are finally starting to lose their jobs over being racist. Again, I think we can agree that it’s best to not have false positives, but it will take more than a couple of anecdotes to convince me that that these unfortunate mistakes are anything more than a drop in the bucket compared with the deluge of actually guilty racist assholes who deserve to have their careers ruined.
posted by xigxag at 11:17 PM on July 7, 2020 [19 favorites]
I think it’s good that people are finally starting to lose their jobs over being racist. Again, I think we can agree that it’s best to not have false positives, but it will take more than a couple of anecdotes to convince me that that these unfortunate mistakes are anything more than a drop in the bucket compared with the deluge of actually guilty racist assholes who deserve to have their careers ruined.
posted by xigxag at 11:17 PM on July 7, 2020 [19 favorites]
Tagged with: DARVO for the abuser's playbook of "Deny, Attack, Reverse-Victim-and-Offfender"
(The justice is sporadic, causing some to get away or be rehabilitated and others to be cast down forever -- I can see that. However, it's not equal to the oppression faced by minorities that the power of the system has kept down for centuries, so this reads like an abuser saying 'I'm losing power and might be publicly shamed, so I'm now a victim and this has got to stop'. The response most likely to achieve balanced justice for everybody and which raises up those we-the-system have oppressed? A truth and reconciliation commission.)
posted by k3ninho at 12:12 AM on July 8, 2020 [4 favorites]
(The justice is sporadic, causing some to get away or be rehabilitated and others to be cast down forever -- I can see that. However, it's not equal to the oppression faced by minorities that the power of the system has kept down for centuries, so this reads like an abuser saying 'I'm losing power and might be publicly shamed, so I'm now a victim and this has got to stop'. The response most likely to achieve balanced justice for everybody and which raises up those we-the-system have oppressed? A truth and reconciliation commission.)
posted by k3ninho at 12:12 AM on July 8, 2020 [4 favorites]
But taking a few incidents and trying to weave them into a pattern indicting anti-racism seems like a bad faith spin.
But Ouverture's claim is that what's being indicted isn't anti-racism: they wrote,
I don't see social media mobs going after employers to fire random workers and sending the workers harassing messages as "calling out racism".
There are always some people who will take advantage of mass anger, however legitimate, as cover to behave abusively. Just because someone describes what they're doing as "calling out racism" doesn't mean it is.
posted by biogeo at 12:53 AM on July 8, 2020 [4 favorites]
But Ouverture's claim is that what's being indicted isn't anti-racism: they wrote,
I don't see social media mobs going after employers to fire random workers and sending the workers harassing messages as "calling out racism".
There are always some people who will take advantage of mass anger, however legitimate, as cover to behave abusively. Just because someone describes what they're doing as "calling out racism" doesn't mean it is.
posted by biogeo at 12:53 AM on July 8, 2020 [4 favorites]
It’s hard to take any of this in good faith when the first argument the first guy makes about how he was wrongly fired was that he’s 3/4ths Latinx/Hispanic so he can’t be racist or anti-black. I think Trayvon’s parents might have something to say about it.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 3:34 AM on July 8, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 3:34 AM on July 8, 2020 [4 favorites]
Someone linked this on Twitter, and it's aged like a fine wine:
posted by Merus at 4:25 AM on July 8, 2020 [18 favorites]
There is an investment here: I would call this a narrative investment. There is a desire for evidence “that feminist arguments critical of the sex industry and of some demands made by trans activists are being censored.” As such the explanation of the cancellation seems to be in the end what the cancellation was about: the desire for more evidence of the stifling of debate and the censoring of some critical feminist views. These views then get expressed again as if they are being stifled. They get repeated by being presented as prohibited.There is a desire for evidence that Black activists are the real villains, and thus some will be provided, even if you have to force a story that doesn't quite fit into that box. The contradictions and inconvenient details will be ignored so that the narrative continues to work.
Whenever people keep being given a platform to say they have no platform, or whenever people speak endlessly about being silenced, you not only have a performative contradiction; you are witnessing a mechanism of power.
posted by Merus at 4:25 AM on July 8, 2020 [18 favorites]
There is a desire for evidence that Black activists are the real villains, and thus some will be provided, even if you have to force a story that doesn't quite fit into that box. The contradictions and inconvenient details will be ignored so that the narrative continues to work.
Please point out where I have said that (or where you found that in the article).
I have been an anti-racist organizer my entire life and I am deeply serious in trying to understand what consequences should exist for non-famous/non-wealthy/non-powerful people being outed as doing something racist, even when it turns out they didn't do anything racist. Hell, I am deeply interested in the situations when that sort of person is actually racist. What do we do then?
I think it’s good that people are finally starting to lose their jobs over being racist.
Could you tell me more why you think that's a good thing?
Job loss makes absolute sense for racist police officers or CEOs or politicians. But for someone who doesn't have that kind of power and wealth, I do not think the current model of "3 days of nonstop abusive social media harassment + job loss" actually does anything valuable in the fight against white supremacy.
For the other few people of color on Metafilter who disagree, I would love to hear how situations of people of color being falsely accused of racism and losing their jobs have improved your life.
I think anyone who actually thinks the current punitive regime is working not taking the question seriously or is demonstrating just how difficult it is to let go of a carceral mindset that thinks throwing away people is equivalent to deterrence. It is easy to say "defund the police, abolish prisons, and racism bad", but far harder to grapple with what restorative justice and community accountability look like.
posted by Ouverture at 6:35 AM on July 8, 2020 [11 favorites]
Please point out where I have said that (or where you found that in the article).
I have been an anti-racist organizer my entire life and I am deeply serious in trying to understand what consequences should exist for non-famous/non-wealthy/non-powerful people being outed as doing something racist, even when it turns out they didn't do anything racist. Hell, I am deeply interested in the situations when that sort of person is actually racist. What do we do then?
I think it’s good that people are finally starting to lose their jobs over being racist.
Could you tell me more why you think that's a good thing?
Job loss makes absolute sense for racist police officers or CEOs or politicians. But for someone who doesn't have that kind of power and wealth, I do not think the current model of "3 days of nonstop abusive social media harassment + job loss" actually does anything valuable in the fight against white supremacy.
For the other few people of color on Metafilter who disagree, I would love to hear how situations of people of color being falsely accused of racism and losing their jobs have improved your life.
I think anyone who actually thinks the current punitive regime is working not taking the question seriously or is demonstrating just how difficult it is to let go of a carceral mindset that thinks throwing away people is equivalent to deterrence. It is easy to say "defund the police, abolish prisons, and racism bad", but far harder to grapple with what restorative justice and community accountability look like.
posted by Ouverture at 6:35 AM on July 8, 2020 [11 favorites]
I have been an anti-racist organizer my entire life and I am deeply serious in trying to understand what consequences should exist for non-famous/non-wealthy/non-powerful people being outed as doing something racist, even when it turns out they didn't do anything racist.
What sense of "should"? This is a deeply unanswerable question you have set for yourself and it's deeply unclear what you or any other person is supposed to do with the answer when you find it.
posted by PMdixon at 6:40 AM on July 8, 2020 [1 favorite]
What sense of "should"? This is a deeply unanswerable question you have set for yourself and it's deeply unclear what you or any other person is supposed to do with the answer when you find it.
posted by PMdixon at 6:40 AM on July 8, 2020 [1 favorite]
What sense of "should"? This is a deeply unanswerable question you have set for yourself and it's deeply unclear what you or any other person is supposed to do with the answer when you find it.
English isn't my first language so I am sorry, but I don't understand what you mean by this.
posted by Ouverture at 6:43 AM on July 8, 2020
English isn't my first language so I am sorry, but I don't understand what you mean by this.
posted by Ouverture at 6:43 AM on July 8, 2020
I can say "X Should do Y" and mean "I think the world would be nicer to be in if X did Y, whether or not they can or will" or I can mean "I think the world works in such a way that X will tend to Y for cause and effect reasons." There are other senses but that was the question I was asking.
posted by PMdixon at 6:52 AM on July 8, 2020
posted by PMdixon at 6:52 AM on July 8, 2020
I think it’s good that people are finally starting to lose their jobs over being racist.
Could you tell me more why you think that's a good thing?
Some punishments exist not only to punish and/or rehabilitate the offender, but to signal and inform values to the rest of society.
Yeah, someone is not necessarily likely to change their viewpoint (and may in fact develop a martyr complex) by being punished for being a racist or a Nazi and getting fired or punched. But bystanders on the fence may decide against hate (or at least not act on it) if they see there are consequences.
Furthermore, those who see injustice in the world will feel empowered to speak out. MeToo saw a wave of people speaking out about past assaults because it felt like we'd finally turned a corner and were (more) serious about acknowledging harm and holding people responsible for their actions.
We're all part of a system, part of a society. Asking why it's good for someone to be fired without thinking about the second- and third-order results is like asking why taxation is good when all it does is deprive people of their money.
posted by explosion at 7:01 AM on July 8, 2020 [9 favorites]
Could you tell me more why you think that's a good thing?
Some punishments exist not only to punish and/or rehabilitate the offender, but to signal and inform values to the rest of society.
Yeah, someone is not necessarily likely to change their viewpoint (and may in fact develop a martyr complex) by being punished for being a racist or a Nazi and getting fired or punched. But bystanders on the fence may decide against hate (or at least not act on it) if they see there are consequences.
Furthermore, those who see injustice in the world will feel empowered to speak out. MeToo saw a wave of people speaking out about past assaults because it felt like we'd finally turned a corner and were (more) serious about acknowledging harm and holding people responsible for their actions.
We're all part of a system, part of a society. Asking why it's good for someone to be fired without thinking about the second- and third-order results is like asking why taxation is good when all it does is deprive people of their money.
posted by explosion at 7:01 AM on July 8, 2020 [9 favorites]
On the other hand good people might be more hesitant to suggest someone change their racist behaviour if it could lead to taking food out of that person's kids mouths. It should be something you can talk about without bringing a loaded gun to the discussion.
posted by Space Coyote at 7:09 AM on July 8, 2020
posted by Space Coyote at 7:09 AM on July 8, 2020
On the other hand good people might be more hesitant to suggest someone change their racist behaviour if it could lead to taking food out of that person's kids mouths. It should be something you can talk about without bringing a loaded gun to the discussion.
If getting someone fired is morally equivalent to shooting them, we need to be intercepting a lot more requests to talk to the manager.
posted by PMdixon at 7:11 AM on July 8, 2020 [9 favorites]
If getting someone fired is morally equivalent to shooting them, we need to be intercepting a lot more requests to talk to the manager.
posted by PMdixon at 7:11 AM on July 8, 2020 [9 favorites]
I, too, have never heard of the "bringing a knife to a gun fight" expression and think people are actually having a gun fight. Come on.
posted by Space Coyote at 7:38 AM on July 8, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Space Coyote at 7:38 AM on July 8, 2020 [1 favorite]
And is it really liberation to live in a world where you have to worry about someone lodging a false complaint or an out of context video, dealing with an endless torrent of harassment, and derailing your life for years?
I was hounded for more than 5 years because of a false flagging as a brown terrorist by white coworkers who were not amused by my lack of deference to their white manhoods, easily a generation younger and in one case, old enough to be his mother.
Please. How do we know all of this isn't malicious weaponization under the guise of 'the chaos of the protests'... after all, both sides are being guided and advised by former super power regime change and disruption experts.
citations abound as to the lack of distinction in certain chatrooms between colourless strategies and certain religion's fundamentalist's strategies
posted by infini at 7:58 AM on July 8, 2020 [5 favorites]
I was hounded for more than 5 years because of a false flagging as a brown terrorist by white coworkers who were not amused by my lack of deference to their white manhoods, easily a generation younger and in one case, old enough to be his mother.
Please. How do we know all of this isn't malicious weaponization under the guise of 'the chaos of the protests'... after all, both sides are being guided and advised by former super power regime change and disruption experts.
citations abound as to the lack of distinction in certain chatrooms between colourless strategies and certain religion's fundamentalist's strategies
posted by infini at 7:58 AM on July 8, 2020 [5 favorites]
only alternative I can see is for people to stop calling out racism
There is a mile and a half between calling out, and calling someone's employer to have them fired.
If the person is NOT a powerful and public person, with influence and money, why does it need to be public? Speak to them personally. Engage with them on their level.
And maybe also don't attack people who basically agree with you? Criticizing the use of violence in protests (which is not clear even happened - a lot of the rioting was done by rightwing false flags) is not the same as saying that you think they shouldn't protest or don't have extremely reasonable grievances.
If you don't agree with them, argue back (ala King and moderate liberals). but getting them fired? Yay, what a victory. They are really going to support you now. (That was sarcasm).
posted by jb at 8:03 AM on July 8, 2020 [3 favorites]
There is a mile and a half between calling out, and calling someone's employer to have them fired.
If the person is NOT a powerful and public person, with influence and money, why does it need to be public? Speak to them personally. Engage with them on their level.
And maybe also don't attack people who basically agree with you? Criticizing the use of violence in protests (which is not clear even happened - a lot of the rioting was done by rightwing false flags) is not the same as saying that you think they shouldn't protest or don't have extremely reasonable grievances.
If you don't agree with them, argue back (ala King and moderate liberals). but getting them fired? Yay, what a victory. They are really going to support you now. (That was sarcasm).
posted by jb at 8:03 AM on July 8, 2020 [3 favorites]
In war, people should certainly try to avoid collateral damage and friendly fire, because it's senseless and unjust and unfair, and because it undermines support at home for the war, and because complaisance for such things sets the stage for war crimes. But collateral damage and friendly fire cannot be completely eliminated, their existence is not one of the many good arguments against war in general, and if people are determined to go to war then they must accept a certain measure of such things. Above all, don't dare to question the collateral damage, lest you receive some not-so-friendly friendly fire yourself.
posted by hypnogogue at 8:08 AM on July 8, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by hypnogogue at 8:08 AM on July 8, 2020 [3 favorites]
I can't put things better than what Ouverture has said here. But I feel that it's extremely important that we on the left not let things like this slide because right now, with a moral and ethical cipher in office, it's absolutely crucial that we present ourselves as the reasonable, just and caring people we claim we are and that means admitting our collective mistakes and working to ensure they don't happen again.
And I agree with jb, call out all you want, argue on the internet all you want, but trying to get someone fired for a non-hateful difference of opinion as in Shor's case, is way beyond the pale of righteous behavior.
posted by Brain Sturgeon at 8:13 AM on July 8, 2020 [5 favorites]
And I agree with jb, call out all you want, argue on the internet all you want, but trying to get someone fired for a non-hateful difference of opinion as in Shor's case, is way beyond the pale of righteous behavior.
posted by Brain Sturgeon at 8:13 AM on July 8, 2020 [5 favorites]
trying to get someone fired for a non-hateful difference of opinion as in Shor's case, is way beyond the pale of righteous behavior.
It was not a "non-hateful difference of opinion."
The cultural context was 100% a scolding of people who were rightly protesting against police brutality. It was rightly read as implicit support for police and the status quo.
If someone links to the wikipedia article for a noose, it might be value-neutral. If they link to the article in response to a black man doing something they disagree with, the context makes all the fucking difference.
Shor thought he was being cute standing on the sidelines taking pot-shots at the poor and oppressed of America. His employer thought it wasn't so cute, after all. If it were just a "non-hateful difference of opinion," his employer probably would have just shrugged and wrote off the complaints as the sort of usual cranks who'll complain about anything.
posted by explosion at 8:22 AM on July 8, 2020 [9 favorites]
It was not a "non-hateful difference of opinion."
The cultural context was 100% a scolding of people who were rightly protesting against police brutality. It was rightly read as implicit support for police and the status quo.
If someone links to the wikipedia article for a noose, it might be value-neutral. If they link to the article in response to a black man doing something they disagree with, the context makes all the fucking difference.
Shor thought he was being cute standing on the sidelines taking pot-shots at the poor and oppressed of America. His employer thought it wasn't so cute, after all. If it were just a "non-hateful difference of opinion," his employer probably would have just shrugged and wrote off the complaints as the sort of usual cranks who'll complain about anything.
posted by explosion at 8:22 AM on July 8, 2020 [9 favorites]
we on the left
One of my points is that there is no such thing. I am in no common organization with anyone who took any of the acts objected to. Very few people are. I don't, as far as I know, have any special ability to communicate in ways that would have made it less likely the outcomes described in the article came to pass. I am responsible for what I can affect. I genuinely do not understand what special ability to affect the outcomes described I possess as someone of "the left." I don't think my creating an account on Twitter for the sole purpose of attempting to thwart social media mobs is likely to do much, nor do I really think it's supposed to be the action the piece spurs me to. So what is? What is the statement in the language of "this set of human beings will be happier if this set of human beings behaves in a way" that justifies this taking up space in what unfortunately remains one of the major prestige publications in the US guaranteeing access to the eyeballs of the people who make decisions about how resources and violence are distributed?
posted by PMdixon at 8:30 AM on July 8, 2020 [2 favorites]
One of my points is that there is no such thing. I am in no common organization with anyone who took any of the acts objected to. Very few people are. I don't, as far as I know, have any special ability to communicate in ways that would have made it less likely the outcomes described in the article came to pass. I am responsible for what I can affect. I genuinely do not understand what special ability to affect the outcomes described I possess as someone of "the left." I don't think my creating an account on Twitter for the sole purpose of attempting to thwart social media mobs is likely to do much, nor do I really think it's supposed to be the action the piece spurs me to. So what is? What is the statement in the language of "this set of human beings will be happier if this set of human beings behaves in a way" that justifies this taking up space in what unfortunately remains one of the major prestige publications in the US guaranteeing access to the eyeballs of the people who make decisions about how resources and violence are distributed?
posted by PMdixon at 8:30 AM on July 8, 2020 [2 favorites]
I wonder why many of us have such a strong negative moral reaction to an accusation of racism leading to job loss, but have a much more muted moral reaction to layoffs or an old-fashioned arbitrary firing leading to job loss.
It surely has nothing to do with likelihood. Tens of thousands of people get laid off or fired for every person who gets fired for an accusation of racism.
And it surely has nothing to do with lack of control over our lives, since an arbitrary firing or layoff is, again, much more likely. (Maybe the illusion that we have control is important? Maybe the illusion that we won't get fired unless we deserve it? Maybe the illusion that layoffs are impersonal and therefore morally neutral?)
Something else altogether? What is it?
posted by clawsoon at 8:47 AM on July 8, 2020 [11 favorites]
It surely has nothing to do with likelihood. Tens of thousands of people get laid off or fired for every person who gets fired for an accusation of racism.
And it surely has nothing to do with lack of control over our lives, since an arbitrary firing or layoff is, again, much more likely. (Maybe the illusion that we have control is important? Maybe the illusion that we won't get fired unless we deserve it? Maybe the illusion that layoffs are impersonal and therefore morally neutral?)
Something else altogether? What is it?
posted by clawsoon at 8:47 AM on July 8, 2020 [11 favorites]
I think Internet mobs are a good example of how technology has huge social impacts. It's human nature to want someone who violates norms to be punished; outrage easily goes viral; the target gets death threats, loses their job, etc.
A non-political example is the 2005 Laura K. Krishna story (Inside Higher Ed). When Nate Kushner posted the story to his comedy group's blog, it only had a handful of readers. Three days later, there were strangers calling her house and abusing her, calling her university and demanding that she be expelled, etc.
The solution isn't clear to me.
Yascha Mounk's Persuasion has an article arguing that the problem is at-will employment: A Better Remedy for Cancel Culture. But it seems unlikely that everyone will get university-style tenure. From the employer's point of view, it seems like a straightforward business decision: get into a huge fight with a large number of angry people, or replace the employee with someone else?
Personally, I try to stick to the old FidoNet rules:
They're intended to prevent flamewars, but in a pluralistic society I think they apply more generally. They're both forms of emotional labor.
posted by russilwvong at 8:51 AM on July 8, 2020 [6 favorites]
A non-political example is the 2005 Laura K. Krishna story (Inside Higher Ed). When Nate Kushner posted the story to his comedy group's blog, it only had a handful of readers. Three days later, there were strangers calling her house and abusing her, calling her university and demanding that she be expelled, etc.
The solution isn't clear to me.
Yascha Mounk's Persuasion has an article arguing that the problem is at-will employment: A Better Remedy for Cancel Culture. But it seems unlikely that everyone will get university-style tenure. From the employer's point of view, it seems like a straightforward business decision: get into a huge fight with a large number of angry people, or replace the employee with someone else?
Personally, I try to stick to the old FidoNet rules:
(1) Don't be offensive."Assume good faith" is another way of phrasing (2).
(2) Don't be easily offended.
They're intended to prevent flamewars, but in a pluralistic society I think they apply more generally. They're both forms of emotional labor.
posted by russilwvong at 8:51 AM on July 8, 2020 [6 favorites]
Dogs and apes have a very deep sense of fairness.
Injustice, and our very strong emotional response to it, is a big part of why civil rights are important to all people. It is a very big reason why people have historically been moved to make the world fairer to others.
Even one story about injustice done to someone will have a huge effect.
It is very important that the consequences for a small action be small, and the consequences for a big action be big. It is important that the reaction to hatred be large, and the reaction to cluelessness, or momentary irritation, be proportional to their effect or to their real motivation.
Cluelessness can have startlingly big consequences, as we've seen. That cluelessness comes from a system that hides the consequences.
We need to act to change the system. Punishing people in ways that are disproportionate to their actions does draw attention to the problematic system. It can also have a huge negative emotional effect.
I don't know the truth about these incidents, but I know that I don't know enough.
posted by amtho at 9:01 AM on July 8, 2020 [3 favorites]
Injustice, and our very strong emotional response to it, is a big part of why civil rights are important to all people. It is a very big reason why people have historically been moved to make the world fairer to others.
Even one story about injustice done to someone will have a huge effect.
It is very important that the consequences for a small action be small, and the consequences for a big action be big. It is important that the reaction to hatred be large, and the reaction to cluelessness, or momentary irritation, be proportional to their effect or to their real motivation.
Cluelessness can have startlingly big consequences, as we've seen. That cluelessness comes from a system that hides the consequences.
We need to act to change the system. Punishing people in ways that are disproportionate to their actions does draw attention to the problematic system. It can also have a huge negative emotional effect.
I don't know the truth about these incidents, but I know that I don't know enough.
posted by amtho at 9:01 AM on July 8, 2020 [3 favorites]
They're both forms of emotional labor.
Why the fuck is my employer supposed to be expected to bother to engage in it:
From the employer's point of view, it seems like a straightforward business decision: get into a huge fight with a large number of angry people, or replace the employee with someone else?
The problem with being fired isn't that it feels bad, it's that in the US it means you have likely been severed to all access to material resources. The actually possible alternative to people's lives getting destroyed by being unfairly fired isn't making it so no one ever gets unfairly fired, because that's not possible and the failure modes are ugly. It's making it so getting fired doesn't have life or death consequences. As long as most of the country has Damocles' pink slip hanging above their desk we're going to keep having this conversation, and it's incredibly privileged to not have the world shoving that fact in your face constantly.
posted by PMdixon at 9:01 AM on July 8, 2020 [8 favorites]
Why the fuck is my employer supposed to be expected to bother to engage in it:
From the employer's point of view, it seems like a straightforward business decision: get into a huge fight with a large number of angry people, or replace the employee with someone else?
The problem with being fired isn't that it feels bad, it's that in the US it means you have likely been severed to all access to material resources. The actually possible alternative to people's lives getting destroyed by being unfairly fired isn't making it so no one ever gets unfairly fired, because that's not possible and the failure modes are ugly. It's making it so getting fired doesn't have life or death consequences. As long as most of the country has Damocles' pink slip hanging above their desk we're going to keep having this conversation, and it's incredibly privileged to not have the world shoving that fact in your face constantly.
posted by PMdixon at 9:01 AM on July 8, 2020 [8 favorites]
It was not a "non-hateful difference of opinion."
I mean it's definitely not as enlightened as you or I would like and you could definitely make an argument that it's racist. But I don't think you can prove, nor do I think it was likely that it came from a place of hatred for black people. That non-violent protests are more palatable to the masses is a very common, mainstream opinion that many people of all colors hold (otherwise why would people try so hard to keep their protests peaceful?) and is apparently backed by academic study. I assume Shor posted the study when he did because he felt it was relevant to the moment.
His employer thought it wasn't so cute, after all. If it were just a "non-hateful difference of opinion," his employer probably would have just shrugged and wrote off the complaints as the sort of usual cranks who'll complain about anything.
I doubt this was done out of any sense of nobility on the part of his employer. It was done to avoid mob backlash against the company itself and was pretty cowardly on their part. They could have just said "We strongly disagree with our employee on this matter but respect his right to express his opinion as an private individual in his personal time" and THAT would have been a much more progressive stance.
posted by Brain Sturgeon at 9:17 AM on July 8, 2020 [3 favorites]
I mean it's definitely not as enlightened as you or I would like and you could definitely make an argument that it's racist. But I don't think you can prove, nor do I think it was likely that it came from a place of hatred for black people. That non-violent protests are more palatable to the masses is a very common, mainstream opinion that many people of all colors hold (otherwise why would people try so hard to keep their protests peaceful?) and is apparently backed by academic study. I assume Shor posted the study when he did because he felt it was relevant to the moment.
His employer thought it wasn't so cute, after all. If it were just a "non-hateful difference of opinion," his employer probably would have just shrugged and wrote off the complaints as the sort of usual cranks who'll complain about anything.
I doubt this was done out of any sense of nobility on the part of his employer. It was done to avoid mob backlash against the company itself and was pretty cowardly on their part. They could have just said "We strongly disagree with our employee on this matter but respect his right to express his opinion as an private individual in his personal time" and THAT would have been a much more progressive stance.
posted by Brain Sturgeon at 9:17 AM on July 8, 2020 [3 favorites]
we on the left
One of my points is that there is no such thing.
Why bother with anything then? Why are you even arguing on Metafilter about it?
posted by Brain Sturgeon at 9:20 AM on July 8, 2020
One of my points is that there is no such thing.
Why bother with anything then? Why are you even arguing on Metafilter about it?
posted by Brain Sturgeon at 9:20 AM on July 8, 2020
This is such a hard discussion to have, because so many of the prominent people involved are arguing in bad faith and trying to extend cover to people who are facing legitimate consequences for bad behavior. And I think that the Holy Land story is a good example of that: it's presented as a story about a business owner being cancelled for ugly social media posts that his daughter made years ago, when she was a child. But that's not really what happened. What happened was that the social media stuff surfaced, and it led to a discussion of systematic racism against employees and customers practiced by the store's management, which included the daughter. So yeah: bad faith argument, extending cover to people experiencing legitimate consequences for bad behavior.
But I guess I do think that there's a kind of glee in taking down people who are perceived to be bad actors, and the internet crowd often doesn't have any sense of restraint or proportion. It's just tough to discuss that without playing into the hands of people who think that there shouldn't be any consequences for powerful people who abuse their power.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:22 AM on July 8, 2020 [14 favorites]
But I guess I do think that there's a kind of glee in taking down people who are perceived to be bad actors, and the internet crowd often doesn't have any sense of restraint or proportion. It's just tough to discuss that without playing into the hands of people who think that there shouldn't be any consequences for powerful people who abuse their power.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:22 AM on July 8, 2020 [14 favorites]
Something else altogether? What is it?
I wonder if it's the newness of it - it's a new way to lose your job, and we're not used to it? I suggest that because this discussion reminds me of discussions from a few years ago when various professors were being accused of sexual misconduct. I wonder if people who reacted with fear at the prospect of job loss on the basis of mere accusation of sexual impropriety then still have the same visceral reaction now, or if feelings and fears have moderated.
posted by clawsoon at 9:24 AM on July 8, 2020 [3 favorites]
I wonder if it's the newness of it - it's a new way to lose your job, and we're not used to it? I suggest that because this discussion reminds me of discussions from a few years ago when various professors were being accused of sexual misconduct. I wonder if people who reacted with fear at the prospect of job loss on the basis of mere accusation of sexual impropriety then still have the same visceral reaction now, or if feelings and fears have moderated.
posted by clawsoon at 9:24 AM on July 8, 2020 [3 favorites]
I can say "X Should do Y" and mean "I think the world would be nicer to be in if X did Y, whether or not they can or will" or I can mean "I think the world works in such a way that X will tend to Y for cause and effect reasons." There are other senses but that was the question I was asking.
Ah, thank you for the clarification! I think for me, I mean "I think this is an important question for us to seriously consider if we are fighting for a world with a basic income and a job guarantee, and without white supremacy, misogyny, transphobia, and other forms of oppression."
The current punitive deterrence dynamic is what Lee Atwater describes in his explanation of the Southern Strategy. Looking at the markers of quality of life for people of color in the past decade where this dynamic has commoditized itself into an entire industry of crisis management consultants and diversity seminars, it is clear that punitive deterrence has not actually secured material progress for people of color.
The absence of explicit or even implicit racism by individuals is not the presence of systemic racial justice.
Meanwhile, there are famous people who literally killed countless people of color who will likely never face any consequences whatsoever. And they're even very popular and liked by this very community!!
Does that really sound like justice to anyone here?
I don't have an answer. That's why I posted this piece and I really appreciate the discussion so far.
posted by Ouverture at 9:25 AM on July 8, 2020 [4 favorites]
Ah, thank you for the clarification! I think for me, I mean "I think this is an important question for us to seriously consider if we are fighting for a world with a basic income and a job guarantee, and without white supremacy, misogyny, transphobia, and other forms of oppression."
The current punitive deterrence dynamic is what Lee Atwater describes in his explanation of the Southern Strategy. Looking at the markers of quality of life for people of color in the past decade where this dynamic has commoditized itself into an entire industry of crisis management consultants and diversity seminars, it is clear that punitive deterrence has not actually secured material progress for people of color.
The absence of explicit or even implicit racism by individuals is not the presence of systemic racial justice.
Meanwhile, there are famous people who literally killed countless people of color who will likely never face any consequences whatsoever. And they're even very popular and liked by this very community!!
Does that really sound like justice to anyone here?
I don't have an answer. That's why I posted this piece and I really appreciate the discussion so far.
posted by Ouverture at 9:25 AM on July 8, 2020 [4 favorites]
The cultural context was 100% a scolding of people who were rightly protesting against police brutality. It was rightly read as implicit support for police and the status quo.
Really? To an outsider, it seems to me that the point was that (a) protests against police brutality which were largely peaceful (which is what happened) and (b) protests against police brutality which became violent (like the smashing of the CNN windows) would have very different political impacts.
Is it wrong to assume good faith on Shor's part? That seems like very important information for protest organizers.
The problem with being fired isn't that it feels bad
Agreed. After outrage goes viral and you get fired (and it's hard to get a new job), that's not emotional labor, that's a problem of income security. The FidoNet rules are intended to prevent this situation: when writing, you need to think about other people's feelings, and when responding to someone else's writing, you need to think about whether you're jumping to conclusions about their motives.
But I guess I do think that there's a kind of glee in taking down people who are perceived to be bad actors, and the internet crowd often doesn't have any sense of restraint or proportion. It's just tough to discuss that without playing into the hands of people who think that there shouldn't be any consequences for powerful people who abuse their power.
That's a good point. For elected officials, for example, they're held accountable to the public by elections, which are informed by journalism - but Trump's victory in 2016 suggested that these mechanisms had broken down. For powerful figures like Harvey Weinstein or Jeffrey Epstein, they're accountable to the law, but the fact that they got away with so many crimes for so many years would have destroyed people's faith in the system as well. When trust is low, it's natural to look for other ways to hold people accountable.
posted by russilwvong at 9:32 AM on July 8, 2020 [3 favorites]
Really? To an outsider, it seems to me that the point was that (a) protests against police brutality which were largely peaceful (which is what happened) and (b) protests against police brutality which became violent (like the smashing of the CNN windows) would have very different political impacts.
Is it wrong to assume good faith on Shor's part? That seems like very important information for protest organizers.
The problem with being fired isn't that it feels bad
Agreed. After outrage goes viral and you get fired (and it's hard to get a new job), that's not emotional labor, that's a problem of income security. The FidoNet rules are intended to prevent this situation: when writing, you need to think about other people's feelings, and when responding to someone else's writing, you need to think about whether you're jumping to conclusions about their motives.
But I guess I do think that there's a kind of glee in taking down people who are perceived to be bad actors, and the internet crowd often doesn't have any sense of restraint or proportion. It's just tough to discuss that without playing into the hands of people who think that there shouldn't be any consequences for powerful people who abuse their power.
That's a good point. For elected officials, for example, they're held accountable to the public by elections, which are informed by journalism - but Trump's victory in 2016 suggested that these mechanisms had broken down. For powerful figures like Harvey Weinstein or Jeffrey Epstein, they're accountable to the law, but the fact that they got away with so many crimes for so many years would have destroyed people's faith in the system as well. When trust is low, it's natural to look for other ways to hold people accountable.
posted by russilwvong at 9:32 AM on July 8, 2020 [3 favorites]
Why bother with anything then? Why are you even arguing on Metafilter about it?
Because people do exist, and in a less concrete fashion so do lefts, plural. I argue because:
1) It causes me distress to see people come to avoidable harm, especially when I'm the one who could have caused it to be avoided. Therefore I argue to both help myself learn from others what harms might be avoidable by action I can take and to attempt to persuade others to care about the things I do so that I don't feel that distress.
2) It is part of my understanding of how to be safe in a way that allows me to usefully go about my day that I have some understanding of how others are likely to behave and some reasonable belief that that will not disrupt my current intentions. Arguing helps me in that end.
3) As well, I understand that to the extent others understand my goals as aligned with theirs they are more likely to help me with mine. Arguing helps me clarify both the other's goals and mine and provides a venue for them to be adjusted towards each other.
4) one generalization of (3) is that it is useful to think of oneself as part of one or more ideological vehicles that one is attempting to steer and power - this is what I mean by lefts, plural. Both the steering and the powering are achieved by argument.
5) My environment of origin was one filled with high levels of verbal conflict which conditioned an attraction to that mode of interaction and arguing on the internet is a way to allow that attraction without risking starvation or injury.
6) The nature of that developmental environment left my intensely distrustful of my own judgment so I crave feedback from ~peers to be sure I'm not deluding myself in ways I will experience as harmful in the near term - other people have access to other piles of sense data to form arguments from and arguing often induces them to marshal that data in a way that I can use it to validate the conclusions I have formed based on access to my own pile of sense data. Other minds are the only thing I trust to be real at some level and arguing is the mode of interaction I most trust to find out what those minds think they know to be real.
posted by PMdixon at 9:37 AM on July 8, 2020 [1 favorite]
Because people do exist, and in a less concrete fashion so do lefts, plural. I argue because:
1) It causes me distress to see people come to avoidable harm, especially when I'm the one who could have caused it to be avoided. Therefore I argue to both help myself learn from others what harms might be avoidable by action I can take and to attempt to persuade others to care about the things I do so that I don't feel that distress.
2) It is part of my understanding of how to be safe in a way that allows me to usefully go about my day that I have some understanding of how others are likely to behave and some reasonable belief that that will not disrupt my current intentions. Arguing helps me in that end.
3) As well, I understand that to the extent others understand my goals as aligned with theirs they are more likely to help me with mine. Arguing helps me clarify both the other's goals and mine and provides a venue for them to be adjusted towards each other.
4) one generalization of (3) is that it is useful to think of oneself as part of one or more ideological vehicles that one is attempting to steer and power - this is what I mean by lefts, plural. Both the steering and the powering are achieved by argument.
5) My environment of origin was one filled with high levels of verbal conflict which conditioned an attraction to that mode of interaction and arguing on the internet is a way to allow that attraction without risking starvation or injury.
6) The nature of that developmental environment left my intensely distrustful of my own judgment so I crave feedback from ~peers to be sure I'm not deluding myself in ways I will experience as harmful in the near term - other people have access to other piles of sense data to form arguments from and arguing often induces them to marshal that data in a way that I can use it to validate the conclusions I have formed based on access to my own pile of sense data. Other minds are the only thing I trust to be real at some level and arguing is the mode of interaction I most trust to find out what those minds think they know to be real.
posted by PMdixon at 9:37 AM on July 8, 2020 [1 favorite]
But I don't think you can prove, nor do I think it was likely that it came from a place of hatred for black people.
Which doesn't matter. Telling protestors striking out against police brutality that has been costing their communities deeply that they're 'doing it wrong' doesn't become less problematic because it's not being said with hate.
Personally, I try to stick to the old FidoNet rules:
(1) Don't be offensive.
(2) Don't be easily offended.
"Assume good faith" is another way of phrasing (2).
"Don't be easily offended"/"Assume good faith" are shitty rules that enable abuse. (As an example, Harris "Doc NerdLove" O'Malley discusses in his piece on the toxic culture of the Warren Ellis Forum how people who would point out that things were going too far would be rebuked for being "too easily offended", and how that enabled the toxic culture there.) Instead of complaining that people are too "easily offended", perhaps the answer should be to to try to understand why they are bothered.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:38 AM on July 8, 2020 [9 favorites]
Which doesn't matter. Telling protestors striking out against police brutality that has been costing their communities deeply that they're 'doing it wrong' doesn't become less problematic because it's not being said with hate.
Personally, I try to stick to the old FidoNet rules:
(1) Don't be offensive.
(2) Don't be easily offended.
"Assume good faith" is another way of phrasing (2).
"Don't be easily offended"/"Assume good faith" are shitty rules that enable abuse. (As an example, Harris "Doc NerdLove" O'Malley discusses in his piece on the toxic culture of the Warren Ellis Forum how people who would point out that things were going too far would be rebuked for being "too easily offended", and how that enabled the toxic culture there.) Instead of complaining that people are too "easily offended", perhaps the answer should be to to try to understand why they are bothered.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:38 AM on July 8, 2020 [9 favorites]
Is it wrong to assume good faith on Shor's part?
Yes. Or more to the point, there is a long, ignoble history of white bystanders chiding black protestors over their choice of strategy and how it affects white opinion - this is literally the topic of Letter from a Birmingham Jail. That history doesn't go away just because it might be inconvenient, and to expect protestors today to put it aside is very much operating in bad faith.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:48 AM on July 8, 2020 [11 favorites]
Yes. Or more to the point, there is a long, ignoble history of white bystanders chiding black protestors over their choice of strategy and how it affects white opinion - this is literally the topic of Letter from a Birmingham Jail. That history doesn't go away just because it might be inconvenient, and to expect protestors today to put it aside is very much operating in bad faith.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:48 AM on July 8, 2020 [11 favorites]
"Don't be easily offended"/"Assume good faith" are shitty rules that enable abuse.
To me the two FidoNet rules go together. Being deliberately offensive (like the McQueen/McGraw photo in the Warren Ellis Forum) is also wrong, even if it's supposedly ironic.
A common pattern of how USENET flamewars start:
(1) A and B are having a discussion.
(2) A says something, not intending to be offensive.
(3) B is insulted, assumes that A meant it deliberately (since there's no non-textual cues), and responds by insulting A.
(4) A is offended by B's insult, which A regards as unprovoked, and responds by insulting B.
(5) B has now been insulted twice, and escalates.
(6) This turns into a feud that goes on for years.
this is literally the topic of Letter from a Birmingham Jail.
Wasn't King arguing for non-violent direct action? Letter from a Birmingham Jail. He writes:
posted by russilwvong at 10:13 AM on July 8, 2020 [2 favorites]
To me the two FidoNet rules go together. Being deliberately offensive (like the McQueen/McGraw photo in the Warren Ellis Forum) is also wrong, even if it's supposedly ironic.
A common pattern of how USENET flamewars start:
(1) A and B are having a discussion.
(2) A says something, not intending to be offensive.
(3) B is insulted, assumes that A meant it deliberately (since there's no non-textual cues), and responds by insulting A.
(4) A is offended by B's insult, which A regards as unprovoked, and responds by insulting B.
(5) B has now been insulted twice, and escalates.
(6) This turns into a feud that goes on for years.
this is literally the topic of Letter from a Birmingham Jail.
Wasn't King arguing for non-violent direct action? Letter from a Birmingham Jail. He writes:
In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn't this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery?Here he's talking about the violence of white mobs against non-violent black protesters.
posted by russilwvong at 10:13 AM on July 8, 2020 [2 favorites]
To me the two FidoNet rules go together.
OK but most people in the world aren't you and they tend to disagree in practice. Aggression exists as a recurrent human behavior and telling people that, in essence, they have a moral imperative to pretend it doesn't is unlikely to be very persuasive in practice. The "two rules" only work if there's no stakes. As soon as people can commit real harm to each other, the first person to start being an asshole in a room full of people following your rules gets to set the actual rules for that room.
posted by PMdixon at 10:23 AM on July 8, 2020 [1 favorite]
OK but most people in the world aren't you and they tend to disagree in practice. Aggression exists as a recurrent human behavior and telling people that, in essence, they have a moral imperative to pretend it doesn't is unlikely to be very persuasive in practice. The "two rules" only work if there's no stakes. As soon as people can commit real harm to each other, the first person to start being an asshole in a room full of people following your rules gets to set the actual rules for that room.
posted by PMdixon at 10:23 AM on July 8, 2020 [1 favorite]
Aggression exists as a recurrent human behavior and telling people that, in essence, they have a moral imperative to pretend it doesn't is unlikely to be very persuasive in practice.
I'd put it differently - you want to be aware that there's a range of interpretations of someone's behavior, and not assume the worst. But that doesn't mean you should ignore strong evidence that someone's being deliberately offensive, and with strong evidence, sanctions are a reasonable response. (In Canada, for the worst cases, we have laws against hate speech.)
As soon as people can commit real harm to each other, the first person to start being an asshole in a room full of people following your rules gets to set the actual rules for that room.
You mean, they're the one who sets the norm for acceptable behavior in the community? I would have said that the people running the room (like the moderators on MetaFilter) are the ones who set the norms, because they're the ones who have the ability to enforce sanctions against people who violate the norms.
posted by russilwvong at 10:44 AM on July 8, 2020
I'd put it differently - you want to be aware that there's a range of interpretations of someone's behavior, and not assume the worst. But that doesn't mean you should ignore strong evidence that someone's being deliberately offensive, and with strong evidence, sanctions are a reasonable response. (In Canada, for the worst cases, we have laws against hate speech.)
As soon as people can commit real harm to each other, the first person to start being an asshole in a room full of people following your rules gets to set the actual rules for that room.
You mean, they're the one who sets the norm for acceptable behavior in the community? I would have said that the people running the room (like the moderators on MetaFilter) are the ones who set the norms, because they're the ones who have the ability to enforce sanctions against people who violate the norms.
posted by russilwvong at 10:44 AM on July 8, 2020
I would have said that the people running the room (like the moderators on MetaFilter) are the ones who set the norms, because they're the ones who have the ability to enforce sanctions against people who violate the norms.
I am saying that they are able to establish the norms because they do not act within the rules you give because the rules you give amount to the claim that it is harmful to attempt to set norms.
posted by PMdixon at 10:54 AM on July 8, 2020
I am saying that they are able to establish the norms because they do not act within the rules you give because the rules you give amount to the claim that it is harmful to attempt to set norms.
posted by PMdixon at 10:54 AM on July 8, 2020
I am saying that they are able to establish the norms because they do not act within the rules you give because the rules you give amount to the claim that it is harmful to attempt to set norms.
Aha, thanks for clarifying. To me, "Don't be offensive" and "Don't be easily offended" are norms.
Hans Morgenthau describes norms as being in one of three categories, depending on the sanction that follows from breaking the rule: (1) moral norms, where the sanction is your own conscience (I feel bad if I hurt other's feelings, or if I wrongly accuse someone of insulting me); (2) social norms, where the sanction is social disapproval; (3) legal norms, where there's a formal sanction like imprisonment or banning.
To me, the two things (the FidoNet rules and moderator-enforced norms) are complementary. On MetaFilter, when people are thinking about other people's feelings (so they avoid being offensive) and assuming good faith (so they avoid taking offense where it's not intended), that helps to keep things from frequently spiralling out of control, so the moderators don't have to intervene everywhere all the time. Conversely, the fact that people know there's moderators gives them more incentive to be civil to each other.
For example, "don't use ironic racism" falls under both "don't be offensive" and "this is a MetaFilter rule enforced by moderators."
posted by russilwvong at 11:19 AM on July 8, 2020
Aha, thanks for clarifying. To me, "Don't be offensive" and "Don't be easily offended" are norms.
Hans Morgenthau describes norms as being in one of three categories, depending on the sanction that follows from breaking the rule: (1) moral norms, where the sanction is your own conscience (I feel bad if I hurt other's feelings, or if I wrongly accuse someone of insulting me); (2) social norms, where the sanction is social disapproval; (3) legal norms, where there's a formal sanction like imprisonment or banning.
To me, the two things (the FidoNet rules and moderator-enforced norms) are complementary. On MetaFilter, when people are thinking about other people's feelings (so they avoid being offensive) and assuming good faith (so they avoid taking offense where it's not intended), that helps to keep things from frequently spiralling out of control, so the moderators don't have to intervene everywhere all the time. Conversely, the fact that people know there's moderators gives them more incentive to be civil to each other.
For example, "don't use ironic racism" falls under both "don't be offensive" and "this is a MetaFilter rule enforced by moderators."
posted by russilwvong at 11:19 AM on July 8, 2020
Aha, thanks for clarifying. To me, "Don't be offensive" and "Don't be easily offended" are norms.
OK, but as norms they're neither self enforcing by definition nor stable against violation if you manage to make the whole environment respect them. They require enforcement by some mechanism - and those mechanisms in practice will be other norms, and without talking about those the system given by your proofferred norms is underdetermined in such a way there's not really anything specific to say about it.
posted by PMdixon at 11:23 AM on July 8, 2020
OK, but as norms they're neither self enforcing by definition nor stable against violation if you manage to make the whole environment respect them. They require enforcement by some mechanism - and those mechanisms in practice will be other norms, and without talking about those the system given by your proofferred norms is underdetermined in such a way there's not really anything specific to say about it.
posted by PMdixon at 11:23 AM on July 8, 2020
To me, "Don't be offensive" and "Don't be easily offended" are norms.
Yes, and the point is that "Don't be easily offended" is a shitty, harmful, silencing norm. And it really doesn't take much to understand why - "easily offended" is very much arbitrary and subjective, meaning that, as PMDixon has been pointing out, someone is going to have to define it, and often, it's the asshole who's willing to inflict the most pain to do so.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:26 AM on July 8, 2020 [10 favorites]
Yes, and the point is that "Don't be easily offended" is a shitty, harmful, silencing norm. And it really doesn't take much to understand why - "easily offended" is very much arbitrary and subjective, meaning that, as PMDixon has been pointing out, someone is going to have to define it, and often, it's the asshole who's willing to inflict the most pain to do so.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:26 AM on July 8, 2020 [10 favorites]
OK, but as norms they're neither self enforcing by definition
Sure, once a community grows past a certain size, you need other mechanisms (like moderator-enforced sanctions) to deal with violations.
the system given by your profferred norms is underdetermined in such a way there's not really anything specific to say about it.
I'm saying that you need both norms, or you can easily get the USENET flamewar dynamic.
posted by russilwvong at 11:37 AM on July 8, 2020
Sure, once a community grows past a certain size, you need other mechanisms (like moderator-enforced sanctions) to deal with violations.
the system given by your profferred norms is underdetermined in such a way there's not really anything specific to say about it.
I'm saying that you need both norms, or you can easily get the USENET flamewar dynamic.
posted by russilwvong at 11:37 AM on July 8, 2020
I didn't know anything about the Holy Land situation before reading this. Consensus in here is that it's more complex than what is detailed in the article. I'll put it aside.
That leaves the Shor and Cafferty incidents. I'm quite confident that both of these would benefit from not being put under the “cancel culture” umbrella — regardless of whether you recognize such a dynamic or think it's at play in these instances — because the phrase has become poisoned through caricature.
J.K. Rowling didn't get “cancelled”; nor did Tom Cotton or Bari Weiss. As I see it, the only similarity that the Shor and Cafferty incidents share with the Rowling and Cotton incidents is that social media was a mechanism at play. But I'm not yet convinced that it's persuasive or instructive to group things together this way, any more than it makes sense to call bats “birds” just because they fly.
Including Shor's firing in a list of grievances along with the blowback from Rowling's TERF rants (as the Harper's letter implicitly does by having Rowling as a signatory) cheapens it. I understand how Mounck may think that aggregating them bolsters his case, but I think it forces people to accept or reject them as a package deal.
The Shor and Cafferty incidents are also harder to dismiss outright because the implied remedy is not “insulate me from the consequences of my actions.” If Rowling shoots her mouth off and alienates some percentage of her fanbase, it's both unjust and unworkable to suggest that maybe they should un-offend themselves. Likewise, people can decide to cancel their NYT subscriptions for any reason they like; they're not obligated to pay for content they don't want to read just because someone insists that it's important to participate in a marketplace of ideas. But the remedies for these non-public figures losing their jobs are stronger employee protections and a stronger welfare state, so that (a) it's harder to fire someone without due process, and (b) it's not as devastating to lose one's job.
The ending of at-will employment is such an obvious net good that I'm astonished liberals don't talk about it more. I'm sure it'd be portrayed as some sort of conspiracy to turn us into Europe, but in reality it'd turn us into Montana, or Canada, or someplace where an employer merely has to work a little harder to construct a rationale for termination. Of course, the same due process that would've protected Cafferty or Shor would've protected James Damore, just as assholes still enjoy the protections of the First Amendment, but I'd take that trade-off in a heartbeat.
posted by savetheclocktower at 12:18 PM on July 8, 2020 [4 favorites]
That leaves the Shor and Cafferty incidents. I'm quite confident that both of these would benefit from not being put under the “cancel culture” umbrella — regardless of whether you recognize such a dynamic or think it's at play in these instances — because the phrase has become poisoned through caricature.
J.K. Rowling didn't get “cancelled”; nor did Tom Cotton or Bari Weiss. As I see it, the only similarity that the Shor and Cafferty incidents share with the Rowling and Cotton incidents is that social media was a mechanism at play. But I'm not yet convinced that it's persuasive or instructive to group things together this way, any more than it makes sense to call bats “birds” just because they fly.
Including Shor's firing in a list of grievances along with the blowback from Rowling's TERF rants (as the Harper's letter implicitly does by having Rowling as a signatory) cheapens it. I understand how Mounck may think that aggregating them bolsters his case, but I think it forces people to accept or reject them as a package deal.
The Shor and Cafferty incidents are also harder to dismiss outright because the implied remedy is not “insulate me from the consequences of my actions.” If Rowling shoots her mouth off and alienates some percentage of her fanbase, it's both unjust and unworkable to suggest that maybe they should un-offend themselves. Likewise, people can decide to cancel their NYT subscriptions for any reason they like; they're not obligated to pay for content they don't want to read just because someone insists that it's important to participate in a marketplace of ideas. But the remedies for these non-public figures losing their jobs are stronger employee protections and a stronger welfare state, so that (a) it's harder to fire someone without due process, and (b) it's not as devastating to lose one's job.
The ending of at-will employment is such an obvious net good that I'm astonished liberals don't talk about it more. I'm sure it'd be portrayed as some sort of conspiracy to turn us into Europe, but in reality it'd turn us into Montana, or Canada, or someplace where an employer merely has to work a little harder to construct a rationale for termination. Of course, the same due process that would've protected Cafferty or Shor would've protected James Damore, just as assholes still enjoy the protections of the First Amendment, but I'd take that trade-off in a heartbeat.
posted by savetheclocktower at 12:18 PM on July 8, 2020 [4 favorites]
At-will employment is an important, complicated topic. There are many more examples beyond Damore of people who were fired or fired or fired or fired for abusive, racist behavior off the job.
posted by PhineasGage at 1:41 PM on July 8, 2020
posted by PhineasGage at 1:41 PM on July 8, 2020
so they avoid taking offense where it's not intended
I reject this norm. Under the law, negligence is a form of intent -- speeding because your speedometer is broken is not as bad as deliberately speeding, but it's still a violation. I will be offended by things that I find offensive, and if it wasn't intended, that's a chance to learn or double down. This analogy is not that outré.
posted by traveler_ at 2:10 PM on July 8, 2020 [4 favorites]
I reject this norm. Under the law, negligence is a form of intent -- speeding because your speedometer is broken is not as bad as deliberately speeding, but it's still a violation. I will be offended by things that I find offensive, and if it wasn't intended, that's a chance to learn or double down. This analogy is not that outré.
posted by traveler_ at 2:10 PM on July 8, 2020 [4 favorites]
I reject this norm. Under the law, negligence is a form of intent -
The law does not impose an obligation to do the impossible (ultra posse nemo obligatur). On controversial topics, there is no position which avoids all possible offense to anyone. People on the right claim to be offended by the slogan "Black Lives Matter" (they claim that it suggests Black lives are more important). A local university recently caused a firestorm by changing references to "Taiwan" to "Taiwan (Province of China)," the ISO 3166 designation; there's no phrase which would not offend either China or Taiwan. It's like the fable of the man, the boy, and the donkey.
On a more tactical level, the FidoNet rules are analogous to "Postel's law" for computer networking equipment, to deal with changes and multiple interpretations of network protocols: Be liberal in what you accept, and conservative in what you send. Without it, you'd end up with islands of equipment that can't communicate with each other. In the current political crisis in the US, with an extremely high-stakes election coming up shortly, I'd suggest that a "United Front" / big-tent / coalition approach to voting out Trump is appropriate, rather than dividing into multiple hostile factions (*). At this point, anti-Trump ex-Republicans (like the Lincoln Project) are a non-trivial part of the Democratic coalition.
(*) The classic example is the People's Front of Judea, the Judean People's Front, and the Judean Popular People's Front. At the local level we have a Marxist-Leninist Party and a Marxist-Leninist Party (Maoist).
posted by russilwvong at 3:22 PM on July 8, 2020 [3 favorites]
The law does not impose an obligation to do the impossible (ultra posse nemo obligatur). On controversial topics, there is no position which avoids all possible offense to anyone. People on the right claim to be offended by the slogan "Black Lives Matter" (they claim that it suggests Black lives are more important). A local university recently caused a firestorm by changing references to "Taiwan" to "Taiwan (Province of China)," the ISO 3166 designation; there's no phrase which would not offend either China or Taiwan. It's like the fable of the man, the boy, and the donkey.
On a more tactical level, the FidoNet rules are analogous to "Postel's law" for computer networking equipment, to deal with changes and multiple interpretations of network protocols: Be liberal in what you accept, and conservative in what you send. Without it, you'd end up with islands of equipment that can't communicate with each other. In the current political crisis in the US, with an extremely high-stakes election coming up shortly, I'd suggest that a "United Front" / big-tent / coalition approach to voting out Trump is appropriate, rather than dividing into multiple hostile factions (*). At this point, anti-Trump ex-Republicans (like the Lincoln Project) are a non-trivial part of the Democratic coalition.
(*) The classic example is the People's Front of Judea, the Judean People's Front, and the Judean Popular People's Front. At the local level we have a Marxist-Leninist Party and a Marxist-Leninist Party (Maoist).
posted by russilwvong at 3:22 PM on July 8, 2020 [3 favorites]
I think you misunderstood me: what I'm rejecting is the idea anyone has an obligation to not be offended. "Welch on a bet" is racist to the Welsh whether a person knows that's the origin of that phrase or not. The best we can expect is one freebie to learn someone is offended and apologize, or be (correctly) interpreted as now intending the offense. Hence, learn or double down.
the FidoNet rules are analogous to "Postel's law" for computer networking equipment
I actually love this analogy because we've since learned that law is terrible for infosec in a network with bad actors, and terrible for reliability in a network with buggy agents, and since about 1996 the Internet has been making up for it by becoming far stricter in what's accepted at the receiving end technologically.
posted by traveler_ at 4:00 PM on July 8, 2020 [11 favorites]
the FidoNet rules are analogous to "Postel's law" for computer networking equipment
I actually love this analogy because we've since learned that law is terrible for infosec in a network with bad actors, and terrible for reliability in a network with buggy agents, and since about 1996 the Internet has been making up for it by becoming far stricter in what's accepted at the receiving end technologically.
posted by traveler_ at 4:00 PM on July 8, 2020 [11 favorites]
I think you misunderstood me: what I'm rejecting is the idea anyone has an obligation to not be offended.
Sorry, I was confused by the negligence analogy! Thanks for clarifying - you're right, "it wasn't intentional" isn't a reason not to take offense when we're talking about something that's severely offensive and that a reasonable person would be expected to know (like using the N-word).
I actually love this analogy because we've since learned that law is terrible for infosec in a network with bad actors -
What's the analogous problem with respect to running an online community? That with permissive rules about who can be in the community, some actors will claim to be acting in good faith when they're not? Or that some actors will drain the community by demanding too much emotional labor?
posted by russilwvong at 5:20 PM on July 8, 2020
Sorry, I was confused by the negligence analogy! Thanks for clarifying - you're right, "it wasn't intentional" isn't a reason not to take offense when we're talking about something that's severely offensive and that a reasonable person would be expected to know (like using the N-word).
I actually love this analogy because we've since learned that law is terrible for infosec in a network with bad actors -
What's the analogous problem with respect to running an online community? That with permissive rules about who can be in the community, some actors will claim to be acting in good faith when they're not? Or that some actors will drain the community by demanding too much emotional labor?
posted by russilwvong at 5:20 PM on July 8, 2020
The only reason any of y'all care about this is because these "victims" are white and/or otherwise a highly privileged party. What have the rest of us been told for millennia? What are the rest of us told EVEN NOW when we cry about getting fired or arrested or worse for speaking our conscience? We're told to lift up our own. We're told to keep our heads down and work our asses off and "make it" and then lift up others like ourselves. We are always being told that if we want to speak freely, we have to build our own platforms, finance our own lives, weave our own safety nets. Black directors, writers, show creators are emerging only just now, and they're the ones who had to lift up their own. Why can't white people do the same?
Someone got fired for speaking up in support of Rowling? Let Rowling save her book deal. Let Rowling put her money where her mouth is and save the person who sacrificed her career to support her. That's how it works for everyone else. Why do white people always want special treatment?
Every single person from an oppressed demographic has had to learn to keep our mouths shut even when we are being victimized for fear for being fired. Let the white folks learn the same kind of tact, now. Let this be their lesson. Let white people never, ever feel safe while talking about race directly or indirectly. Let them learn to be afraid of saying the wrong thing and getting fired. Let them learn to be afraid of saying something totally innocent and getting fired because it sounded wrong to someone on Twitter. THIS IS GOOD. In my fondest dreams I imagine men learning similar lessons about going out on their own at night, or talking about women, or being alone with women. I want them to learn to watch their step. I want them to become quite afraid of getting #metoo'd and fired and cancelled for the slightest misstep, or for nothing at all. That kind of fear is the only way men (and white people) will learn to be vigilant and self aware. You know how women and PoC ask ourselves 20,000 times whether it's safe for us to say this, go there, or even to arrange our faces like that? You know how we develop the skill of reading a room, of watching for minute changes of expression in a coworker's face that warns us that we're in danger? That comes from fear. It's high time white people learned it.
I for one rejoice at these white folks getting fired, and if they were totally and utterly innocent, even better! This is the first step in creating a culture of white self-awareness and constant vigilance. White moms will start teaching white children how to stay safe from Twitter, college campuses will circulate safety protocols for white people who wish to make comments about race, white fathers will have "The Talk" with their white children on their 13th birthdays when they get their first phones or when they go online for the first time, and when the next "innocent" white person gets fired, the headlines will read: "Karen Was No Angel, Neighbors Say," or "Chad's Sordid History As A Ricky Gervais Fan," and then, ONLY THEN, can we post this thread and waste this much time weeping for the lost lives and lost jobs of these poor innocent white people.
posted by MiraK at 7:01 PM on July 8, 2020 [15 favorites]
Someone got fired for speaking up in support of Rowling? Let Rowling save her book deal. Let Rowling put her money where her mouth is and save the person who sacrificed her career to support her. That's how it works for everyone else. Why do white people always want special treatment?
Every single person from an oppressed demographic has had to learn to keep our mouths shut even when we are being victimized for fear for being fired. Let the white folks learn the same kind of tact, now. Let this be their lesson. Let white people never, ever feel safe while talking about race directly or indirectly. Let them learn to be afraid of saying the wrong thing and getting fired. Let them learn to be afraid of saying something totally innocent and getting fired because it sounded wrong to someone on Twitter. THIS IS GOOD. In my fondest dreams I imagine men learning similar lessons about going out on their own at night, or talking about women, or being alone with women. I want them to learn to watch their step. I want them to become quite afraid of getting #metoo'd and fired and cancelled for the slightest misstep, or for nothing at all. That kind of fear is the only way men (and white people) will learn to be vigilant and self aware. You know how women and PoC ask ourselves 20,000 times whether it's safe for us to say this, go there, or even to arrange our faces like that? You know how we develop the skill of reading a room, of watching for minute changes of expression in a coworker's face that warns us that we're in danger? That comes from fear. It's high time white people learned it.
I for one rejoice at these white folks getting fired, and if they were totally and utterly innocent, even better! This is the first step in creating a culture of white self-awareness and constant vigilance. White moms will start teaching white children how to stay safe from Twitter, college campuses will circulate safety protocols for white people who wish to make comments about race, white fathers will have "The Talk" with their white children on their 13th birthdays when they get their first phones or when they go online for the first time, and when the next "innocent" white person gets fired, the headlines will read: "Karen Was No Angel, Neighbors Say," or "Chad's Sordid History As A Ricky Gervais Fan," and then, ONLY THEN, can we post this thread and waste this much time weeping for the lost lives and lost jobs of these poor innocent white people.
posted by MiraK at 7:01 PM on July 8, 2020 [15 favorites]
It's telling that the "innocent" white people who got fired for unintentionally offending people are not making common cause with the millions and millions of innocent non-white folks who have gotten fired (and evicted and arrested and beaten and almost-lynched etc etc etc) for unintentionally offending white folks. Instead, these white people are aligning AGAINST the very non-white people who are in their exact boat.
posted by MiraK at 7:25 PM on July 8, 2020 [10 favorites]
posted by MiraK at 7:25 PM on July 8, 2020 [10 favorites]
russilwvong: What's the analogous problem with respect to running an online community?
I haven't thought this through in any depth, but reading the brief Wikipedia description of the problems with Postel's Law makes me think of the "missing stair problem". Everybody in a group tolerates someone who is harming people; they figure out workarounds for the "bug". People who are new assume that the stated specification applies ("we're just a bunch of nice people!") and, not realizing that the actual specification involves avoid-the-missing-stair/bug-for-bug-compatibility, find themselves in an abusive relationship.
posted by clawsoon at 7:38 PM on July 8, 2020 [3 favorites]
I haven't thought this through in any depth, but reading the brief Wikipedia description of the problems with Postel's Law makes me think of the "missing stair problem". Everybody in a group tolerates someone who is harming people; they figure out workarounds for the "bug". People who are new assume that the stated specification applies ("we're just a bunch of nice people!") and, not realizing that the actual specification involves avoid-the-missing-stair/bug-for-bug-compatibility, find themselves in an abusive relationship.
posted by clawsoon at 7:38 PM on July 8, 2020 [3 favorites]
MiraK: This is the first step in creating a culture of white self-awareness and constant vigilance.
My first thought is, "But wouldn't it be better if we created a world where everybody could be free of that constant vigilance?" I.e. give people of colour the same privilege as white people, instead of giving white people the same lack of privilege of people of colour? Is that something you don't think would be desirable, or something you don't think would be possible?
posted by clawsoon at 7:49 PM on July 8, 2020 [3 favorites]
My first thought is, "But wouldn't it be better if we created a world where everybody could be free of that constant vigilance?" I.e. give people of colour the same privilege as white people, instead of giving white people the same lack of privilege of people of colour? Is that something you don't think would be desirable, or something you don't think would be possible?
posted by clawsoon at 7:49 PM on July 8, 2020 [3 favorites]
Shorter version of MilaK's comments: So now you get why mob justice is bad.
I for one rejoice at these white folks getting fired, and if they were totally and utterly innocent, even better! This is the first step in creating a culture of white self-awareness and constant vigilance.
You're entitled to your opinion, of course, but as a political program, it doesn't sound very attractive.
It's telling that the "innocent" white people who got fired for unintentionally offending people are not making common cause with the millions and millions of innocent non-white folks who have gotten fired (and evicted and arrested and beaten and almost-lynched etc etc etc) for unintentionally offending white folks. Instead, these white people are aligning AGAINST the very non-white people who are in their exact boat.
Are you talking about the Atlantic article, or the Harper's open letter? (Because the Harper's open letter was actually initiated by Thomas Chatterton Williams, who is Black.)
To me the key question is the choice between a "United Front" approach (downplaying differences within the progressive coalition) or a "vanguardist" approach (to avoid watering down the goals of the movement). Given the rapidly approaching election, I think the "United Front" approach makes more sense, but I'm an outsider.
posted by russilwvong at 7:53 PM on July 8, 2020 [5 favorites]
I for one rejoice at these white folks getting fired, and if they were totally and utterly innocent, even better! This is the first step in creating a culture of white self-awareness and constant vigilance.
You're entitled to your opinion, of course, but as a political program, it doesn't sound very attractive.
It's telling that the "innocent" white people who got fired for unintentionally offending people are not making common cause with the millions and millions of innocent non-white folks who have gotten fired (and evicted and arrested and beaten and almost-lynched etc etc etc) for unintentionally offending white folks. Instead, these white people are aligning AGAINST the very non-white people who are in their exact boat.
Are you talking about the Atlantic article, or the Harper's open letter? (Because the Harper's open letter was actually initiated by Thomas Chatterton Williams, who is Black.)
To me the key question is the choice between a "United Front" approach (downplaying differences within the progressive coalition) or a "vanguardist" approach (to avoid watering down the goals of the movement). Given the rapidly approaching election, I think the "United Front" approach makes more sense, but I'm an outsider.
posted by russilwvong at 7:53 PM on July 8, 2020 [5 favorites]
clawsoon: I haven't thought this through in any depth, but reading the brief Wikipedia description of the problems with Postel's Law makes me think of the "missing stair problem".
Thanks, that's a good and thought-provoking analogy.
posted by russilwvong at 7:58 PM on July 8, 2020
Thanks, that's a good and thought-provoking analogy.
posted by russilwvong at 7:58 PM on July 8, 2020
Sorry - MiraK, not MilaK! (The editing window closed before I noticed.)
posted by russilwvong at 7:59 PM on July 8, 2020
posted by russilwvong at 7:59 PM on July 8, 2020
> "But wouldn't it be better if we created a world where everybody could be free of that constant vigilance?"
I don't think so. The levels of vigilance exercised by women, PoC, queer people, etc. are damagingly high, in that we are forced to stay quiet even when we are being victimized. Let's call that 100. But a vigilance level of 50 is necessary for healthy relations. Right now, white people, cis people, men, etc. are not even at 0, we/they are at -50. That's why there are so many instances of "unintentional" offensiveness. Nobody has the right to be at -50, or even at 0! A reasonably high level of vigilance is necessary for creating an equitable environment which is free of microaggressions. While my comment was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, there is a very cynical part of me that does believe that only fear will take white/cis/male/etc. people from the current -50 to the required 50 level vigilance.
It really would be great, perhaps, if we could create a world in which everyone could just be free and there were no power structures plaguing us which made vigilance against misuse of power necessary. That's pretty pie in the sky, though. We need fear instilled in the hearts of white/cis/male/etc people NOW, because the rest are not just losing jobs but dying at their hands.
So now you get why mob justice is bad.
No, I'm arguing twitter-mob pile-ons are a great way to deal with structurally empowered oppressors. This isn't "mob justice", nobody's head is rolling off a guillotine and getting triumphantly carried into the crowd while its blood is still spurting. Let's not get carried away with these metaphors. These folks are doing fiiiiine. Seriously. This is stuff that calls for the world's tiniest violin. Enough with the hyperbole.
posted by MiraK at 8:04 PM on July 8, 2020 [10 favorites]
I don't think so. The levels of vigilance exercised by women, PoC, queer people, etc. are damagingly high, in that we are forced to stay quiet even when we are being victimized. Let's call that 100. But a vigilance level of 50 is necessary for healthy relations. Right now, white people, cis people, men, etc. are not even at 0, we/they are at -50. That's why there are so many instances of "unintentional" offensiveness. Nobody has the right to be at -50, or even at 0! A reasonably high level of vigilance is necessary for creating an equitable environment which is free of microaggressions. While my comment was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, there is a very cynical part of me that does believe that only fear will take white/cis/male/etc. people from the current -50 to the required 50 level vigilance.
It really would be great, perhaps, if we could create a world in which everyone could just be free and there were no power structures plaguing us which made vigilance against misuse of power necessary. That's pretty pie in the sky, though. We need fear instilled in the hearts of white/cis/male/etc people NOW, because the rest are not just losing jobs but dying at their hands.
So now you get why mob justice is bad.
No, I'm arguing twitter-mob pile-ons are a great way to deal with structurally empowered oppressors. This isn't "mob justice", nobody's head is rolling off a guillotine and getting triumphantly carried into the crowd while its blood is still spurting. Let's not get carried away with these metaphors. These folks are doing fiiiiine. Seriously. This is stuff that calls for the world's tiniest violin. Enough with the hyperbole.
posted by MiraK at 8:04 PM on July 8, 2020 [10 favorites]
As has been pointed out upthread, losing your job is not fine.
posted by PhineasGage at 8:20 PM on July 8, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by PhineasGage at 8:20 PM on July 8, 2020 [2 favorites]
For these folks? It is! Wake me up when a decent number of these people start getting evicted or start dying from not being able to afford healthcare or something. You know, like thousands of nonwhite, nonmale, noncis etc people?
Why are we being asked to shed tears over imaginary hypothetical suffering - I mean, these are folks who always land on their feet. Give it a few months, prove that this is more than a temporary hiccup for them. Prove that they are in fact suffering.
This argument that we should pre-emptively rush in to support the most privileged folks before they experience the mildest amount of pain -- that's as ass-backwards as sending pre-emptive trillion dollar COVID bailouts to the richest corporations while regular folks starve.
posted by MiraK at 8:33 PM on July 8, 2020 [5 favorites]
Why are we being asked to shed tears over imaginary hypothetical suffering - I mean, these are folks who always land on their feet. Give it a few months, prove that this is more than a temporary hiccup for them. Prove that they are in fact suffering.
This argument that we should pre-emptively rush in to support the most privileged folks before they experience the mildest amount of pain -- that's as ass-backwards as sending pre-emptive trillion dollar COVID bailouts to the richest corporations while regular folks starve.
posted by MiraK at 8:33 PM on July 8, 2020 [5 favorites]
Again, are you talking about the Atlantic article, or the Harper's open letter?
posted by russilwvong at 8:42 PM on July 8, 2020
posted by russilwvong at 8:42 PM on July 8, 2020
MiraK, as Ouverture pointed out up thread, two of the three people fired that were discussed in this article were not white.
posted by biogeo at 8:44 PM on July 8, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by biogeo at 8:44 PM on July 8, 2020 [1 favorite]
And yet, despite being not white, I suspect they will bounce back all the higher for having courted the support that they are courting.
They could have chosen to make common cause with people who have been fired by their employees for reporting racist incidents or sexual harassment, people who have lost book deals for refusing to remove a queer romance from it, people who have been hounded out of their homes and even their towns by ACTUAL internet mobs sending death threats to their children. But there's no personal profit there. The fight to unionize, guarantee job security, ensure safe working conditions free of harassment, win healthcare for all independent of employment - that's not gonna pay off quickly enough for these people.
Much better for them to align with the deep pockets of the right wing and attack the very people who share their own fate (except worse, with less privilege).
I repeat, wake me up when a decent number of these people can show evidence of suffering. I've watched too many male comics (white AND non-white) whine incessantly about getting cancelled - and make bank in the process - to fall for this nonsense.
posted by MiraK at 9:01 PM on July 8, 2020 [6 favorites]
They could have chosen to make common cause with people who have been fired by their employees for reporting racist incidents or sexual harassment, people who have lost book deals for refusing to remove a queer romance from it, people who have been hounded out of their homes and even their towns by ACTUAL internet mobs sending death threats to their children. But there's no personal profit there. The fight to unionize, guarantee job security, ensure safe working conditions free of harassment, win healthcare for all independent of employment - that's not gonna pay off quickly enough for these people.
Much better for them to align with the deep pockets of the right wing and attack the very people who share their own fate (except worse, with less privilege).
I repeat, wake me up when a decent number of these people can show evidence of suffering. I've watched too many male comics (white AND non-white) whine incessantly about getting cancelled - and make bank in the process - to fall for this nonsense.
posted by MiraK at 9:01 PM on July 8, 2020 [6 favorites]
MiraK: And yet, despite being not white, I suspect they will bounce back all the higher for having courted the support that they are courting.
I'm very puzzled. Did you read the Atlantic article?
posted by russilwvong at 9:08 PM on July 8, 2020 [3 favorites]
I'm very puzzled. Did you read the Atlantic article?
posted by russilwvong at 9:08 PM on July 8, 2020 [3 favorites]
The only reason any of y'all care about this is because these "victims" are white and/or otherwise a highly privileged party
I would also question whether you read the article that is the subject of this post (which NOT the Harper's letter). The first person discussed who lost their job is a) not white, and b) someone with a high school education, works in a blue collar job and is so apolitical that they are 40-something and have never voted.
posted by jb at 9:58 PM on July 8, 2020 [3 favorites]
I would also question whether you read the article that is the subject of this post (which NOT the Harper's letter). The first person discussed who lost their job is a) not white, and b) someone with a high school education, works in a blue collar job and is so apolitical that they are 40-something and have never voted.
posted by jb at 9:58 PM on July 8, 2020 [3 favorites]
MiraK: If you haven't read the article, it's not a gotcha, I just think we're talking past each other.
posted by russilwvong at 10:18 PM on July 8, 2020
posted by russilwvong at 10:18 PM on July 8, 2020
These stories ARE a gotcha. They spin racism (white people ganging up on a non-white person and firing them for no reason) as "Alas! Political correctness gone wild!" or "Alas! Reverse racism hurts non-white people too!"
The Atlantic is making shields for white racists out of the stories of non-white people. It's so blatant. I'm surprised that MeFi is falling for this. Don't anti-abortion groups routinely make a huge point of leading their gotcha cases with "The Roe in Roe v Wade regrets her abortion"? (Spoiler, they paid her to say so, preyed on her all her life.) Don't transphobic celebrities make a huge point of leading their gotcha cases with "Here's a *genuine*/good/the "right type of" trans person who has been harmed by your pro-trans propaganda"? Don't male supremacists almost invariably begin their gotcha cases with stories of women who have been supposedly harmed by feminism?
This is no different. If these stories about non-white people getting fired due to Twitter mobs are true, and if they are adding up, they would be an example of white supremacy at work. I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if in Twitter justice, the ones who get disproportionately hurt are the same people who get the short end of the stick everywhere else. The whip tends to come cracking down on women and PoC and queer people more easily than on straight cis white men.
The lesson to be learned from that is not "Twitter mobs unfairly target presumed racists who are actually innocent," instead it's "Twitter mobs can be as racist as anywhere and anyone else." To pick the former lesson is to spin this in favor of white supremacy.
posted by MiraK at 4:45 AM on July 9, 2020 [13 favorites]
The Atlantic is making shields for white racists out of the stories of non-white people. It's so blatant. I'm surprised that MeFi is falling for this. Don't anti-abortion groups routinely make a huge point of leading their gotcha cases with "The Roe in Roe v Wade regrets her abortion"? (Spoiler, they paid her to say so, preyed on her all her life.) Don't transphobic celebrities make a huge point of leading their gotcha cases with "Here's a *genuine*/good/the "right type of" trans person who has been harmed by your pro-trans propaganda"? Don't male supremacists almost invariably begin their gotcha cases with stories of women who have been supposedly harmed by feminism?
This is no different. If these stories about non-white people getting fired due to Twitter mobs are true, and if they are adding up, they would be an example of white supremacy at work. I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if in Twitter justice, the ones who get disproportionately hurt are the same people who get the short end of the stick everywhere else. The whip tends to come cracking down on women and PoC and queer people more easily than on straight cis white men.
The lesson to be learned from that is not "Twitter mobs unfairly target presumed racists who are actually innocent," instead it's "Twitter mobs can be as racist as anywhere and anyone else." To pick the former lesson is to spin this in favor of white supremacy.
posted by MiraK at 4:45 AM on July 9, 2020 [13 favorites]
These stories ARE a gotcha
Shhhhh it's very important for The Conversation we not admit that The Atlantic is basically early 00s Slate right now.
posted by PMdixon at 5:44 AM on July 9, 2020 [3 favorites]
Shhhhh it's very important for The Conversation we not admit that The Atlantic is basically early 00s Slate right now.
posted by PMdixon at 5:44 AM on July 9, 2020 [3 favorites]
The only reason any of y'all care about this is because these "victims" are white and/or otherwise a highly privileged party.
Have you read the article? Because Cafferty, a working-class person of color, does not fit your characterization:
Have you read the article? Because Cafferty, a working-class person of color, does not fit your characterization:
After finishing high school, Cafferty bounced from one physically demanding and poorly paid job to another. For most of his life, he had trouble making ends meet. But his new job was set to change all that. “I was very proud of my position,” Cafferty told me. “It was the first time in my life where I wasn’t living check to check.”posted by Ouverture at 7:30 AM on July 9, 2020 [1 favorite]
The Atlantic is making shields for white racists out of the stories of non-white people. It's so blatant. I'm surprised that MeFi is falling for this. Don't anti-abortion groups routinely make a huge point of leading their gotcha cases with "The Roe in Roe v Wade regrets her abortion"? (Spoiler, they paid her to say so, preyed on her all her life.) Don't transphobic celebrities make a huge point of leading their gotcha cases with "Here's a *genuine*/good/the "right type of" trans person who has been harmed by your pro-trans propaganda"? Don't male supremacists almost invariably begin their gotcha cases with stories of women who have been supposedly harmed by feminism?
I agree with MiraK's analysis. I think this gets to the heart of what's going on with this piece.
posted by JenMarie at 8:22 AM on July 9, 2020 [8 favorites]
I agree with MiraK's analysis. I think this gets to the heart of what's going on with this piece.
posted by JenMarie at 8:22 AM on July 9, 2020 [8 favorites]
I don't talk anecdotes in The Atlantic at face value, sorry, because I don't believe them to be dealing with me in good faith. I think it is naïve and dangerous to think anything in that publication is in the service of anything besides glory for the author and editor. I have been avoiding saying that because in my experience people react poorly to having their sources' trustworthiness questioned. But that is the case: I read the article and frankly do not think I can act as if the presentation of Cafferty's story was in the service of truth-telling. So I at least really am disinclined to focus on the specifics here because I think the specifics were arranged beforehand by bad actors.
posted by PMdixon at 8:23 AM on July 9, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by PMdixon at 8:23 AM on July 9, 2020 [4 favorites]
I don't talk anecdotes in The Atlantic at face value, sorry, because I don't believe them to be dealing with me in good faith. I think it is naïve and dangerous to think anything in that publication is in the service of anything besides glory for the author and editor. I have been avoiding saying that because in my experience people react poorly to having their sources' trustworthiness questioned. But that is the case: I read the article and frankly do not think I can act as if the presentation of Cafferty's story was in the service of truth-telling. So I at least really am disinclined to focus on the specifics here because I think the specifics were arranged beforehand by bad actors.
That's certainly your prerogative. But there is a lot of daylight between "not trusting the publication or the author" and "not reading the piece".
I find Cafferty's story interesting because of the specifics, namely that his accuser backtracked after he got fired:
That's certainly your prerogative. But there is a lot of daylight between "not trusting the publication or the author" and "not reading the piece".
I find Cafferty's story interesting because of the specifics, namely that his accuser backtracked after he got fired:
NBC 7 spoke to the man who originally posted the picture on Twitter. He has since deleted his account and said he may have gotten "spun up" about the interaction and misinterpreted it. He says he never intended for Cafferty to lose his job.posted by Ouverture at 8:47 AM on July 9, 2020 [1 favorite]
As for another anecdote, this time about an actual racist white woman who tried to get a Black man killed by the cops:
But I have to agree with Rice, Angela Davis, and Cooper himself: if this exact same situation had happened to me, I would not cooperate with the police or the prosecutor because they are not here to help me. It is the same reason why I don't trust social media outrage: what is the point of fighting for police and prison abolition if those mechanisms are just handed over to another unaccountable group that tends to prey on the already vulnerable and dispossessed?
posted by Ouverture at 9:02 AM on July 9, 2020 [6 favorites]
On one end of the spectrum are police and prison abolitionists, for whom defunding the police is just one step toward a complete dismantling and reimagining of the criminal justice system as we know it. Among them is Josie Duffy Rice, president of the criminal justice-centered website, The Appeal, who pointed out that Amy Cooper had already suffered consequences for her actions.When I initially watched the video of what happened, my first thought was "fuck, that could have been me". This is why I cross the street when I see a white woman or a white couple in certain parts of every city I have ever lived in. It is why I change how I walk and take up space in the world when I am out in public.
“Charging her is the easy solution. It’s the easy way out. And it reinforces the idea that justice can only be found in the disastrous carceral system we’ve created,” Rice wrote in a viral tweet on Monday.
To abolitionists like Rice, Angela Davis and Derecka Purnell, a human rights lawyer who recently wrote about her journey toward police abolition in The Atlantic, there is no police reform possible when the very foundations of policing were to suppress and oppress enslaved people, as well as immigrants and labor organizers. But more importantly, focusing on punitive measures takes billions of dollars of resources—time, energy, manpower and funding—from tackling the root causes of crime, like poverty or a lack of safe and affordable housing (Christian Cooper tread a bit of this ground when he questioned the efficacy of legal punishment in deterring people like Amy Cooper from committing similar acts).
But I have to agree with Rice, Angela Davis, and Cooper himself: if this exact same situation had happened to me, I would not cooperate with the police or the prosecutor because they are not here to help me. It is the same reason why I don't trust social media outrage: what is the point of fighting for police and prison abolition if those mechanisms are just handed over to another unaccountable group that tends to prey on the already vulnerable and dispossessed?
posted by Ouverture at 9:02 AM on July 9, 2020 [6 favorites]
It is the same reason why I don't trust social media outrage: what is the point of fighting for police and prison abolition if those mechanisms are just handed over to another unaccountable group that tends to prey on the already vulnerable and dispossessed?
With all due respect, I don't think there's any comparison between outraged social media mobs, and police who literally kill with impunity.
posted by JenMarie at 9:09 AM on July 9, 2020 [6 favorites]
With all due respect, I don't think there's any comparison between outraged social media mobs, and police who literally kill with impunity.
posted by JenMarie at 9:09 AM on July 9, 2020 [6 favorites]
what is the point of fighting for police and prison abolition if those mechanisms are just handed over to another unaccountable group that tends to prey on the already vulnerable and dispossessed?
HAVE those mechanisms been handed over? DOES this new group prey on the already vulnerable and dispossessed? IS this new group as unaccountable as the police are? Those are some significant claims, and I'd love to see evidence before I sign on to the collective twisting of the panties.
Even the crowd favorite non-white poster boy, Cafferty, seems to be doing rather well on the conservative & neo-Nazi media circuit; it would be irresponsible for any of us to pronounce him a victim without waiting a few weeks to see how much he makes off of his fundraiser, without waiting a few months to see how his union negotiates for him, without waiting at least until his unemployment payments run out to see whether he lands a new job.
posted by MiraK at 9:13 AM on July 9, 2020 [5 favorites]
HAVE those mechanisms been handed over? DOES this new group prey on the already vulnerable and dispossessed? IS this new group as unaccountable as the police are? Those are some significant claims, and I'd love to see evidence before I sign on to the collective twisting of the panties.
Even the crowd favorite non-white poster boy, Cafferty, seems to be doing rather well on the conservative & neo-Nazi media circuit; it would be irresponsible for any of us to pronounce him a victim without waiting a few weeks to see how much he makes off of his fundraiser, without waiting a few months to see how his union negotiates for him, without waiting at least until his unemployment payments run out to see whether he lands a new job.
posted by MiraK at 9:13 AM on July 9, 2020 [5 favorites]
It is the same reason why I don't trust social media outrage: what is the point of fighting for police and prison abolition if those mechanisms are just handed over to another unaccountable group that tends to prey on the already vulnerable and dispossessed?
Yeah nothing's been handed over. The reason social media outrage has the capacity to have this magnitude of effect is by bringing police and prisons to bear. If we did not have the carceral state none of this would play out the same.
posted by PMdixon at 9:15 AM on July 9, 2020 [2 favorites]
Yeah nothing's been handed over. The reason social media outrage has the capacity to have this magnitude of effect is by bringing police and prisons to bear. If we did not have the carceral state none of this would play out the same.
posted by PMdixon at 9:15 AM on July 9, 2020 [2 favorites]
With all due respect, I don't think there's any comparison between outraged social media mobs, and police who literally kill with impunity.
Job loss, particularly for working class people of color like Cafferty, is a form of violence. It is the primary form of social control under white supremacist capitalism.
And job loss through imprisonment is the dominant form of violence inflicted by the police. It is a significant driver of racial disparities in public health in America.
I am far less likely to get shot by a cop who wants to fuck my shit up than to lose my job due to a bogus charge that lands me in jail (mostly because of the difference in paperwork and scrutiny).
Cops kill about a thousand people a year. They imprison and dispossess millions more.
If this form of economic violence is deemed okay by carceral feminists on Metafilter, as repeated multiple times above, but the issue is that it is the cops doing it and not social media mobs, then the comparison seems entirely fair.
posted by Ouverture at 9:18 AM on July 9, 2020 [6 favorites]
Job loss, particularly for working class people of color like Cafferty, is a form of violence. It is the primary form of social control under white supremacist capitalism.
And job loss through imprisonment is the dominant form of violence inflicted by the police. It is a significant driver of racial disparities in public health in America.
I am far less likely to get shot by a cop who wants to fuck my shit up than to lose my job due to a bogus charge that lands me in jail (mostly because of the difference in paperwork and scrutiny).
Cops kill about a thousand people a year. They imprison and dispossess millions more.
If this form of economic violence is deemed okay by carceral feminists on Metafilter, as repeated multiple times above, but the issue is that it is the cops doing it and not social media mobs, then the comparison seems entirely fair.
posted by Ouverture at 9:18 AM on July 9, 2020 [6 favorites]
Mod note: A few comments deleted, one earlier and a couple more and a reply just now. The original comment, while I think just trying to push back on an absolutist framing, put that in terms of being an "antiwhite racist", which is really problematic. The inversion of structural racism from being something overwhelmingly the product of white supremacist power systems that oppress people of color to something that happens to white people is a common trope in white racist circles and is not an okay direction to take a conversation here.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:21 AM on July 9, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:21 AM on July 9, 2020 [1 favorite]
I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if in Twitter justice, the ones who get disproportionately hurt are the same people who get the short end of the stick everywhere else.
Yes, I thought that was the most valuable message from the article.
posted by biogeo at 9:24 AM on July 9, 2020 [3 favorites]
Yes, I thought that was the most valuable message from the article.
posted by biogeo at 9:24 AM on July 9, 2020 [3 favorites]
Cops kill about a thousand people a year. They imprison and dispossess millions more.
If this form of economic violence is deemed okay by carceral feminists on Metafilter, as repeated multiple times above, but the issue is that it is the cops doing it and not social media mobs, then the comparison seems entirely fair.
I take issue with your "carceral feminists" descriptor, but have at it I guess. However you are still comparing systemic, government-sanctioned violence with an occasional seemingly unfair job loss caused by social media.
posted by JenMarie at 9:33 AM on July 9, 2020 [4 favorites]
If this form of economic violence is deemed okay by carceral feminists on Metafilter, as repeated multiple times above, but the issue is that it is the cops doing it and not social media mobs, then the comparison seems entirely fair.
I take issue with your "carceral feminists" descriptor, but have at it I guess. However you are still comparing systemic, government-sanctioned violence with an occasional seemingly unfair job loss caused by social media.
posted by JenMarie at 9:33 AM on July 9, 2020 [4 favorites]
I for one rejoice at these white folks getting fired, and if they were totally and utterly innocent, even better!
I missed this initially but a world of "negative reparations", where the goal is for dominant groups to begin living as miserably as minority groups, seems bizarre and profoundly undesirable to me.
"A better world is not possible for the oppressed, so we just have to strive to make the oppressors start to feel as badly as we have for untold centuries."
Liberals have both spent decades trying to change individual behavior through fear and deterrence as opposed to solidarity against unjust systems. How well has this framework worked for securing material progress for people of color?
posted by Ouverture at 9:35 AM on July 9, 2020 [5 favorites]
I missed this initially but a world of "negative reparations", where the goal is for dominant groups to begin living as miserably as minority groups, seems bizarre and profoundly undesirable to me.
"A better world is not possible for the oppressed, so we just have to strive to make the oppressors start to feel as badly as we have for untold centuries."
Liberals have both spent decades trying to change individual behavior through fear and deterrence as opposed to solidarity against unjust systems. How well has this framework worked for securing material progress for people of color?
posted by Ouverture at 9:35 AM on July 9, 2020 [5 favorites]
Liberals have both spent decades trying to change individual behavior through fear and deterrence as opposed to solidarity against unjust systems.
Okay, this is going off the rails now.
posted by JenMarie at 9:37 AM on July 9, 2020 [5 favorites]
Okay, this is going off the rails now.
posted by JenMarie at 9:37 AM on July 9, 2020 [5 favorites]
Job loss, particularly for working class people of color like Cafferty, is a form of violence.
It surely is. And the violence was committed by his employers, not by Twitter. I would support any movement that used his story to argue for employee rights.
a world of "negative reparations", where the goal is for dominant groups to begin living as miserably as minority groups, seems bizarre
My comments here do sound callous if you take them as directed at these individual people who have been fired for no good reason. But my ire or my mockery or my callousness aren't directed at them. If any of them stood in front of me, I would absolutely sympathize and be compassionate and agree that they have been hard done by.
But here in this thread, we are being asked to put all these people's stories together and see it as part of a larger ominous trend of social media mobs ending free speech, persecuting hapless intellectuals, silencing famous people, and even literally supplanting the police as our new unaccountable and murderous overlords. It reminds me of Amy Cooper and any number of other Karens who start to hyperventilate and become hysterical because they IMAGINE their lives!!!!! are in grave!!!! danger!!!! A command performance whose only goal is to reverse victim and offender, turn sympathy at their own oppressive selves.
The people who are getting all worked up about Cafferty getting fired? They're starting to imagine things, they're hyperventilating and getting hysterical, they're putting on a command performance designed to reverse victim and offender. Their attitude is what makes me relish the idea of stoking their fear, and taking pleasure in it.
Since I am in touch with reality, I know their fears are imaginary. I know that anti-racist Twitter mobs don't really have as much unchecked power as the police, nor are they murderous. Anti-racist Twitter mobs are not, therefore, ominous to me. But if someone wants to start hyperventilating over them? Cool! Let me drag up a chair and get my popcorn. I love it even more because I believe it will be a learning experience for them: learn to be hyper-aware of other people's feelings, learn to watch what they say, teach their children to be careful lest thebogeyman Twitter mob come for them. There's a great deal of good that can come from encouraging these entitled white people and men and cis people etc. to be verrryyy verrrry afraid of Twitter. Oooooo it's coming to get you!
If the day comes when Twitter mobs genuinely do become the bogeyman this thread is making them out to be, when Twitter does wield unaccountable power to actually ruin a significant number of people's lives for no reason? The day Twitter mobs start toeing the line of gaining actual structural power? I will stop saying all this and join you. But until then, please excuse me while I delight in stoking their ridiculous fears.
posted by MiraK at 9:45 AM on July 9, 2020 [9 favorites]
It surely is. And the violence was committed by his employers, not by Twitter. I would support any movement that used his story to argue for employee rights.
a world of "negative reparations", where the goal is for dominant groups to begin living as miserably as minority groups, seems bizarre
My comments here do sound callous if you take them as directed at these individual people who have been fired for no good reason. But my ire or my mockery or my callousness aren't directed at them. If any of them stood in front of me, I would absolutely sympathize and be compassionate and agree that they have been hard done by.
But here in this thread, we are being asked to put all these people's stories together and see it as part of a larger ominous trend of social media mobs ending free speech, persecuting hapless intellectuals, silencing famous people, and even literally supplanting the police as our new unaccountable and murderous overlords. It reminds me of Amy Cooper and any number of other Karens who start to hyperventilate and become hysterical because they IMAGINE their lives!!!!! are in grave!!!! danger!!!! A command performance whose only goal is to reverse victim and offender, turn sympathy at their own oppressive selves.
The people who are getting all worked up about Cafferty getting fired? They're starting to imagine things, they're hyperventilating and getting hysterical, they're putting on a command performance designed to reverse victim and offender. Their attitude is what makes me relish the idea of stoking their fear, and taking pleasure in it.
Since I am in touch with reality, I know their fears are imaginary. I know that anti-racist Twitter mobs don't really have as much unchecked power as the police, nor are they murderous. Anti-racist Twitter mobs are not, therefore, ominous to me. But if someone wants to start hyperventilating over them? Cool! Let me drag up a chair and get my popcorn. I love it even more because I believe it will be a learning experience for them: learn to be hyper-aware of other people's feelings, learn to watch what they say, teach their children to be careful lest the
If the day comes when Twitter mobs genuinely do become the bogeyman this thread is making them out to be, when Twitter does wield unaccountable power to actually ruin a significant number of people's lives for no reason? The day Twitter mobs start toeing the line of gaining actual structural power? I will stop saying all this and join you. But until then, please excuse me while I delight in stoking their ridiculous fears.
posted by MiraK at 9:45 AM on July 9, 2020 [9 favorites]
If people wish to talk about cancel culture in general, Natalie Wynn (aka Contrapoints) has a terrific video: Cancelling.
One of her main points is that "cancelling" most badly affects people who are themselves very vulnerable. Margaret Atwood or J.K. Rowling are still banking millions; even Wynn has plenty of followers and can continue her career, though she notes that she was harassed (and her friends were harassed). But for more vulnerable people, online attacks can be much more devastating, as with August Ames who had her life ruined and then committed suicide.
Of course, she's a philosopher by training, so she talks for about 1hr40mins and has frameworks - and it's been a while since I watched it, so any mistake in my summary is mine.
posted by jb at 10:13 AM on July 9, 2020 [2 favorites]
One of her main points is that "cancelling" most badly affects people who are themselves very vulnerable. Margaret Atwood or J.K. Rowling are still banking millions; even Wynn has plenty of followers and can continue her career, though she notes that she was harassed (and her friends were harassed). But for more vulnerable people, online attacks can be much more devastating, as with August Ames who had her life ruined and then committed suicide.
Of course, she's a philosopher by training, so she talks for about 1hr40mins and has frameworks - and it's been a while since I watched it, so any mistake in my summary is mine.
posted by jb at 10:13 AM on July 9, 2020 [2 favorites]
Oh, and regarding Shor - that's another case where Mounk committed a lie of omission, as he left out Shor's followup tweet where he directly chided black protestors.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:27 AM on July 9, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:27 AM on July 9, 2020 [5 favorites]
Another interesting viewpoint on the power of Twitter mobs targeting your livelihood comes from Lindsay Ellis, who was targeted by a racist alt-right mob on Twitter based on a sarcastic Tweet she wrote pretending to endorse white genocide in order to mock a racist for thinking (or claiming to think) it was a real thing. She describes how she was lucky in that PBS, for whom she worked as a contractor, recognized there was no substance behind the accusations of the mob, but it still had real personal and professional consequences for her over a period of months, including a mental breakdown that required her to be institutionalized, and more permanent psychological trauma. I think focusing only on the material impact of whether people lose their jobs as a result of employer-targeted online harassment is missing a significant part of the picture.
posted by biogeo at 11:33 AM on July 9, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by biogeo at 11:33 AM on July 9, 2020 [4 favorites]
I mean to the extent we want to make the claim "social media in the manners we have constructed it is inherently dangerous due to the risk of the tens or hundreds of thousands of people directing their emotions at one person at once" sure I'm on board but that claim has nothing to do with anti racism.
posted by PMdixon at 11:41 AM on July 9, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by PMdixon at 11:41 AM on July 9, 2020 [4 favorites]
Oh, and regarding Shor - that's another case where Mounk committed a lie of omission, as he left out Shor's followup tweet where he directly chided black protestors.I don't think that these follow-up tweets are substantively different from Shor's thesis. We're all bad at predicting the political future — the universe seems to want us to learn this lesson very thoroughly — but I think people should be free to make consequentialist political arguments, especially when they cite their sources.
Lots of people, myself included, think that the occasional violent incident that occurred within these otherwise peaceful protests was lamentable, but far less troubling than the acts of police violence that precipitated the protests. I admit to being really nervous in those first few days of June about how the protests would be received, and whether those acts of vandalism would unjustly dominate mainstream coverage the way that they've done in the past.
I am far less concerned about this a month later, when polling has shown widespread support for the protests. To the contrary — the shift in attitudes, as evidenced by the sudden mainstreaming of the very phrase “black lives matter” that had been so controversial in years past, is the part that I'd never have predicted and still can't quite explain. It's been a pleasant surprise, perhaps the first pleasant surprise I've had in years.
But on May 28, when Shor tweeted that stuff, I would've been just as nervous about it as he was. If I knew of a study with sound methodology that told me that brushing my teeth somehow made it more likely that swing voters would vote for Trump, I'd throw out my toothbrush and resign myself to a life of dentures. The world is broken in two dozen ways right now, and I don't know the best way to put everything back together, but near the top is getting Trump out of office.
Our stupid systems constantly put us at odds in artificial ways. “What works” ideally would never be at odds with “what one is morally entitled to do,” but sometimes they are. I don't think that Shor's firing ought to be packaged in a way that makes him out to be a martyr, and I definitely don't think it'd make the top 10,000 list of injustices that have occurred in this calendar year. But I would like to believe that there's enough room in our tent to have these arguments in a generous spirit.
posted by savetheclocktower at 12:18 PM on July 9, 2020 [4 favorites]
I don't think that these follow-up tweets are substantively different from Shor's thesis. We're all bad at predicting the political future — the universe seems to want us to learn this lesson very thoroughly — but I think people should be free to make consequentialist political arguments, especially when they cite their sources.
You're quite free to make such political arguments - but you have to accept the consequences of doing so. Furthermore, Shor and his defenders were claiming that he was fired for "just tweeting a paper" when they knew very well that's not what he did. They lied to defend him, and that says a lot.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:35 PM on July 9, 2020 [7 favorites]
You're quite free to make such political arguments - but you have to accept the consequences of doing so. Furthermore, Shor and his defenders were claiming that he was fired for "just tweeting a paper" when they knew very well that's not what he did. They lied to defend him, and that says a lot.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:35 PM on July 9, 2020 [7 favorites]
And I want to point out that it says something that of the three cases Mounk chose to highlight as "the innocent being unjustly punished", he found it necessary to lie about two of them to make his case.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:49 PM on July 9, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:49 PM on July 9, 2020 [6 favorites]
Furthermore, Shor and his defenders were claiming that he was fired for "just tweeting a paper" when they knew very well that's not what he did. They lied to defend him, and that says a lot.I know that you believe this sincerely, but I'd just ask you to consider that, just as I argued in my previous comment, Shor's defenders may not consider the tweets you're referencing to be an additional transgression — just part of the original act of making the very argument that the paper makes. I don't think those tweets are being glossed over.
And you won't agree with that, which is fine. But one explanation requires you to impute bad faith, and one doesn't.
I know I can't prove it, but I'll keep saying it for as long as I believe it: we too often think that people that disagree with us are acting in bad faith, when they've usually arrived at their positions through a different set of prior assumptions, plus the results of lots of subconscious dynamics to which we are all vulnerable. This doesn't excuse people who do harm, or make “evil” people less “evil” in whatever way someone chooses to define it. But it matters for how we approach these disagreements. Intra-party disputes are subject to the same dynamics that are making the major parties more tribal and insular, and the purpose of a political movement is to unite people who want similar outcomes whether or not they share similar rationales.
Or, put more simply: if Democrats want to wield at least as much power as Republicans, then they have to figure out how to resolve these disputes without splintering the party. I think this goal is more easily attained in a world where Shor's employer figures out how to resolve this conflict without terminating him. The people running the Senate and the White House are the ones who are threatened by occasional heterodoxy, and it's why their belief system is unmoored and drifting toward incoherence.
(If you think I'm being intellectually dishonest in saying any of this, my feelings won't be hurt, and I won't go off and write a vague, silly letter which I try to get various people to cosign. That, at least, I can promise to you.)
posted by savetheclocktower at 1:24 PM on July 9, 2020 [4 favorites]
we too often think that people that disagree with us are acting in bad faith
No, my point is that the author of this piece, Yasha Mounk, is acting in bad faith. I think this because he has a history of doing so (I earlier posted about his publicizing a survey about "PC culture" that he was involved with as if he was a disinterested party, and then there's the fact that he is a signatory to the infamous letter on "free speech" in Harper's), and then has engaged in bad faith in this piece with lies of omission. At a certain point, people are going to stop assuming good faith from someone who acts in bad faith, for good reason.
And again the reality is that Shor fucked up. He did something - admonishing black protestors over how they protest - that has a long, ignoble history, and rightfully got called on it. Furthermore, he and his defenders tried to defend his behavior by lying about what he did. That should not be papered over.
Finally, I don't see you as intellectually dishonest. Rather, I think that you are so focused on keeping everything together that you fail to see how excusing this sort of behavior has led to a good deal of the stress that worries you. We've asked the dispossessed to grit their teeth when insulted for too long - it's time we stopped doing that.
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:56 PM on July 9, 2020 [2 favorites]
No, my point is that the author of this piece, Yasha Mounk, is acting in bad faith. I think this because he has a history of doing so (I earlier posted about his publicizing a survey about "PC culture" that he was involved with as if he was a disinterested party, and then there's the fact that he is a signatory to the infamous letter on "free speech" in Harper's), and then has engaged in bad faith in this piece with lies of omission. At a certain point, people are going to stop assuming good faith from someone who acts in bad faith, for good reason.
And again the reality is that Shor fucked up. He did something - admonishing black protestors over how they protest - that has a long, ignoble history, and rightfully got called on it. Furthermore, he and his defenders tried to defend his behavior by lying about what he did. That should not be papered over.
Finally, I don't see you as intellectually dishonest. Rather, I think that you are so focused on keeping everything together that you fail to see how excusing this sort of behavior has led to a good deal of the stress that worries you. We've asked the dispossessed to grit their teeth when insulted for too long - it's time we stopped doing that.
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:56 PM on July 9, 2020 [2 favorites]
Or to put it another way - when you tell protestors "you're going to get Trump re-elected", you're no longer "just tweeting about a paper".
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:59 PM on July 9, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:59 PM on July 9, 2020 [2 favorites]
You're quite free to make such political arguments - but you have to accept the consequences of doing so.
I think there are very different conversations happening in parallel here. There is the conversation debating what and why Shor/Cafferty did (and whether it was bad) along with whatever wealthy white liberal drama Mounk is or isn't involved in.
The thing I am far more interested in is whether or not the consequences they face are appropriate and if they even help fight white supremacy. This is independent of whether or not they actually did the bad thing.
After all, I can think of at least one incredibly appalling statement on this very comment thread that is far more inflammatory than anything Shor said or Cafferty did, at least to tens of millions of people of all races in America. I can think of much worse things white people and people of color on this very site have said to me over the years that carry far more malice and pain than what Shor said or Cafferty did.
Should these users "accept the consequence" of losing their job and facing a deluge of social media harassment because of one horrible thing they said on the internet?
That doesn't sound like liberation to me. Even if they said it out of spite or cruel mockery, this consequence is not something I wish on them or anyone else on here or other spaces. But it seems like I am in the minority here (pun intended).
The primacy of punishment and deterrence as a form of social control is a foundational element in all carceral ideologies, including the carceral feminism and anti-racism so vocally represented in this space. On the other hand, the principles and frameworks of restorative justice and community accountability decenter binaries of punishment and deterrence to focus instead on the much harder work of community healing and self-determination.
To dismiss this as "well technically these mobs are not the government right now and these are just a few anecdotes" is to ignore that this, just like what eventually came out from the hell that was GamerGate, is only the beginning. I would much rather talk about the hard work now than wait until later when it becomes so much more difficult to do so.
posted by Ouverture at 3:32 PM on July 9, 2020 [7 favorites]
I think there are very different conversations happening in parallel here. There is the conversation debating what and why Shor/Cafferty did (and whether it was bad) along with whatever wealthy white liberal drama Mounk is or isn't involved in.
The thing I am far more interested in is whether or not the consequences they face are appropriate and if they even help fight white supremacy. This is independent of whether or not they actually did the bad thing.
After all, I can think of at least one incredibly appalling statement on this very comment thread that is far more inflammatory than anything Shor said or Cafferty did, at least to tens of millions of people of all races in America. I can think of much worse things white people and people of color on this very site have said to me over the years that carry far more malice and pain than what Shor said or Cafferty did.
Should these users "accept the consequence" of losing their job and facing a deluge of social media harassment because of one horrible thing they said on the internet?
That doesn't sound like liberation to me. Even if they said it out of spite or cruel mockery, this consequence is not something I wish on them or anyone else on here or other spaces. But it seems like I am in the minority here (pun intended).
The primacy of punishment and deterrence as a form of social control is a foundational element in all carceral ideologies, including the carceral feminism and anti-racism so vocally represented in this space. On the other hand, the principles and frameworks of restorative justice and community accountability decenter binaries of punishment and deterrence to focus instead on the much harder work of community healing and self-determination.
To dismiss this as "well technically these mobs are not the government right now and these are just a few anecdotes" is to ignore that this, just like what eventually came out from the hell that was GamerGate, is only the beginning. I would much rather talk about the hard work now than wait until later when it becomes so much more difficult to do so.
posted by Ouverture at 3:32 PM on July 9, 2020 [7 favorites]
Should these users "accept the consequence" of losing their job and facing a deluge of social media harassment because of one horrible thing they said on the internet?
Here's the thing - I reject this framing, because of it being based in the "internet as separate from real life" mentality that's been a large part of how we got here in the first place. Shor didn't "say something horrible on the internet", he chose to engage in the time-dishonored tradition of admonishing black protestors for protesting the wrong way. Except that this time, the protesters finally had a voice (so they could tell Shor what they thought of his behavior), and clout (so that they could push back.)
The primacy of punishment and deterrence as a form of social control is a foundational element in all carceral ideologies, including the carceral feminism and anti-racism so vocally represented in this space. On the other hand, the principles and frameworks of restorative justice and community accountability decenter binaries of punishment and deterrence to focus instead on the much harder work of community healing and self-determination.
As I've said in other threads, the first step of restorative justice is contrition - the people involved need to acknowledge and own their misdeeds. But this in turn brings up another point - what happens when they refuse to do so? How do you heal a community when the person causing harm refuses to even acknowledge that something is wrong? (This is why the anti-carceral movement tends to fall on its face in matters of sexual harassment and assault.) Sometimes, what it takes for the community to heal is to remove the person preventing it from doing so.
posted by NoxAeternum at 4:20 PM on July 9, 2020 [5 favorites]
Here's the thing - I reject this framing, because of it being based in the "internet as separate from real life" mentality that's been a large part of how we got here in the first place. Shor didn't "say something horrible on the internet", he chose to engage in the time-dishonored tradition of admonishing black protestors for protesting the wrong way. Except that this time, the protesters finally had a voice (so they could tell Shor what they thought of his behavior), and clout (so that they could push back.)
The primacy of punishment and deterrence as a form of social control is a foundational element in all carceral ideologies, including the carceral feminism and anti-racism so vocally represented in this space. On the other hand, the principles and frameworks of restorative justice and community accountability decenter binaries of punishment and deterrence to focus instead on the much harder work of community healing and self-determination.
As I've said in other threads, the first step of restorative justice is contrition - the people involved need to acknowledge and own their misdeeds. But this in turn brings up another point - what happens when they refuse to do so? How do you heal a community when the person causing harm refuses to even acknowledge that something is wrong? (This is why the anti-carceral movement tends to fall on its face in matters of sexual harassment and assault.) Sometimes, what it takes for the community to heal is to remove the person preventing it from doing so.
posted by NoxAeternum at 4:20 PM on July 9, 2020 [5 favorites]
Here's the thing - I reject this framing, because of it being based in the "internet as separate from real life" mentality that's been a large part of how we got here in the first place. Shor didn't "say something horrible on the internet", he chose to engage in the time-dishonored tradition of admonishing black protestors for protesting the wrong way. Except that this time, the protesters finally had a voice (so they could tell Shor what they thought of his behavior), and clout (so that they could push back.)
You aren't addressing my question that you are quoting.
Moreover, there have been plenty of Metafilter users who have admonished Black protestors for protesting the wrong way over the years I have been here. I'm sure plenty of their parents and relatives also feel that way and have said similar things. Just this year I have seen Metafilter users defend war crimes against people of color and sexual assault due to the perpetrators being Democrats.
Is job loss the consequence for these time-dishonored behaviors? In your experience as a person of color, how has Shor's firing made your life better?
(This is why the anti-carceral movement tends to fall on its face in matters of sexual harassment and assault.)
Does it? Do you have any readings on this?
And what does contrition look like for someone falsely accused of racism?
posted by Ouverture at 4:30 PM on July 9, 2020 [4 favorites]
You aren't addressing my question that you are quoting.
Moreover, there have been plenty of Metafilter users who have admonished Black protestors for protesting the wrong way over the years I have been here. I'm sure plenty of their parents and relatives also feel that way and have said similar things. Just this year I have seen Metafilter users defend war crimes against people of color and sexual assault due to the perpetrators being Democrats.
Is job loss the consequence for these time-dishonored behaviors? In your experience as a person of color, how has Shor's firing made your life better?
(This is why the anti-carceral movement tends to fall on its face in matters of sexual harassment and assault.)
Does it? Do you have any readings on this?
And what does contrition look like for someone falsely accused of racism?
posted by Ouverture at 4:30 PM on July 9, 2020 [4 favorites]
I'm late to the party, but it turns out Omar Wasow did tweet about his research, albeit on June 18:
https://twitter.com/owasow/status/1273642987185147904
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:39 AM on July 10, 2020 [3 favorites]
https://twitter.com/owasow/status/1273642987185147904
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:39 AM on July 10, 2020 [3 favorites]
There are so many unconscionable cases of internet harassment that take place every day. Victims people who are more likely to be young, more likely to be female, more likely to be people of color, disproportionately Black, disproportionately queer and/or transgender. The phenomenon is now old enough that there are many organizations and nonprofits and activists who are working to combat it, there are academics who are studying it for patterns, there are writers and journalists who have done in-depth exposes or deep dives into internet communities that drive the harassment.
This article, though. And this discourse here in this comment section from people who support this article. Y'all are acting like this is a brand new thing. You are calling it by a name created and popularized by MRAs and white power groups, "cancel culture" -- they, too, think this is a brand new thing and a whole separate phenomenon because harassment is suddenly worthy of outrage and consideration when it happens to THEM.
This article frames the issue as "look at these guys who have lost their livelihoods" on one side, and "BLM and anti-racism protesters" on the other side - deliberately choosing anti-racists as the villains in the story. This is a blatantly white supremacist tactic. If this article's complaint is that the internet mob ruins innocent lives, why does it never even mention all the academic research, non-profits, activist groups, and all the organizations which already exist which focus on stopping internet harassment?
As I said before, what gives their game away is that the victims also chose to set themselves apart rather than make common cause with ~all the millions of people~ affected by internet harassment. There is a vast body community they could choose to become part of, and take advantage of the resources which others in the same boat as these people have painstakingly built up over the last 15-20 years. Why don't they?
Answer: because that would mean making common cause with women, Black people, queer people, people of color, etc. It would mean validating these oppressed groups struggles with internet harassment as really real, instead of brushing them off as thin skinned, "overreacting", "just get off the internet", etc. It would mean acknowledging that other people's internet harassment is as real as their own.
This is a dead giveaway of the white supremacist agenda behind these people and this article.
posted by MiraK at 9:03 AM on July 10, 2020 [11 favorites]
This article, though. And this discourse here in this comment section from people who support this article. Y'all are acting like this is a brand new thing. You are calling it by a name created and popularized by MRAs and white power groups, "cancel culture" -- they, too, think this is a brand new thing and a whole separate phenomenon because harassment is suddenly worthy of outrage and consideration when it happens to THEM.
This article frames the issue as "look at these guys who have lost their livelihoods" on one side, and "BLM and anti-racism protesters" on the other side - deliberately choosing anti-racists as the villains in the story. This is a blatantly white supremacist tactic. If this article's complaint is that the internet mob ruins innocent lives, why does it never even mention all the academic research, non-profits, activist groups, and all the organizations which already exist which focus on stopping internet harassment?
As I said before, what gives their game away is that the victims also chose to set themselves apart rather than make common cause with ~all the millions of people~ affected by internet harassment. There is a vast body community they could choose to become part of, and take advantage of the resources which others in the same boat as these people have painstakingly built up over the last 15-20 years. Why don't they?
Answer: because that would mean making common cause with women, Black people, queer people, people of color, etc. It would mean validating these oppressed groups struggles with internet harassment as really real, instead of brushing them off as thin skinned, "overreacting", "just get off the internet", etc. It would mean acknowledging that other people's internet harassment is as real as their own.
This is a dead giveaway of the white supremacist agenda behind these people and this article.
posted by MiraK at 9:03 AM on July 10, 2020 [11 favorites]
This conversation is now far more interesting than the article that engendered it, and I'm glad it was posted. But Yascha Mounk is yet another "I'm just saying" voice from a self-described nationalist who wrote his dissertation on personal responsibility - both are pretty big red flags for me in terms of whether someone will be able to honestly debate an issue. As others have pointed out, he's arguing in bad faith, and has far more skin in the game than he lets on.
I agree with MiraK that if social media storms make otherwise oblivious people more careful about what they say on social media, so much the better, particularly when the platform has shown itself to be poorly governed/moderated. That doesn't apply to Cafferty, though, who if we take his story at face value was intentionally goaded into making a gesture he didn't understand from his company truck, then doxxed.*
I also agree with Ouverture that (and please correct me if I'm mis-representing this position), given the possible consequences of getting fired in this country, and the way that disproportionally affects BIPOC folks, this sort of thing can have unintended consequences.
It does seem that at-will employment is a big part of the problem here, and I'd like to see it become a bigger part of the Democratic platform (it's never gone away in some of the more labor-oriented circles, but the Dems have their own issues with labor).
The first two cases are further complicated by the fact that SDG&E and Civis Analytics both claim to have terminated the employees due to multiple factors following internal investigation. Which of course they would, and I tend to automatically side with the employee here. With a big massive regulated public utility like SDG&E, however, I'd be somewhat surprised if there wasn't more required for termination, even if dude wasn't in the IBEW (I'm only assuming he wasn't in the union because of the speed of the termination).
Finally, it seems we know about these cases because they are edge cases, and therefore more newsworthy (or likely to get clicks, which amounts to the same thing now). If we start finding dozens of these, that's alarming, but so far there have been so many more cases of actual racist assholes being called out and exposed, and these three examples are all debatable/come from a disingenuous source. In general the tweetstorm has become a powerful if occasionally regrettable tool, and we all know about the irrationality of crowd behavior. It was inevitable that it would be misused.
*We only have his side of the story on this, and I'm not sure how convincing it is; back when I was driving a work truck around CA, if someone had made a hand gesture at me I'd have rolled the window up and looked straight ahead, not done it back to them.
posted by aspersioncast at 9:04 AM on July 10, 2020 [5 favorites]
I agree with MiraK that if social media storms make otherwise oblivious people more careful about what they say on social media, so much the better, particularly when the platform has shown itself to be poorly governed/moderated. That doesn't apply to Cafferty, though, who if we take his story at face value was intentionally goaded into making a gesture he didn't understand from his company truck, then doxxed.*
I also agree with Ouverture that (and please correct me if I'm mis-representing this position), given the possible consequences of getting fired in this country, and the way that disproportionally affects BIPOC folks, this sort of thing can have unintended consequences.
It does seem that at-will employment is a big part of the problem here, and I'd like to see it become a bigger part of the Democratic platform (it's never gone away in some of the more labor-oriented circles, but the Dems have their own issues with labor).
The first two cases are further complicated by the fact that SDG&E and Civis Analytics both claim to have terminated the employees due to multiple factors following internal investigation. Which of course they would, and I tend to automatically side with the employee here. With a big massive regulated public utility like SDG&E, however, I'd be somewhat surprised if there wasn't more required for termination, even if dude wasn't in the IBEW (I'm only assuming he wasn't in the union because of the speed of the termination).
Finally, it seems we know about these cases because they are edge cases, and therefore more newsworthy (or likely to get clicks, which amounts to the same thing now). If we start finding dozens of these, that's alarming, but so far there have been so many more cases of actual racist assholes being called out and exposed, and these three examples are all debatable/come from a disingenuous source. In general the tweetstorm has become a powerful if occasionally regrettable tool, and we all know about the irrationality of crowd behavior. It was inevitable that it would be misused.
*We only have his side of the story on this, and I'm not sure how convincing it is; back when I was driving a work truck around CA, if someone had made a hand gesture at me I'd have rolled the window up and looked straight ahead, not done it back to them.
posted by aspersioncast at 9:04 AM on July 10, 2020 [5 favorites]
*We only have his side of the story on this, and I'm not sure how convincing it is; back when I was driving a work truck around CA, if someone had made a hand gesture at me I'd have rolled the window up and looked straight ahead, not done it back to them.
That's basically what the company literature and yearly trainings says for truck drivers at my company, which means that firing/reprimands due to hand gestures is common enough for there to be policy around it. The asset protection group also does interviews and gains evidence before firing (wrongful termination is an easy and common lawsuit). So this guy may have been fired over a gesture wrongfully captured on twitter, but was not fired by social media - lots of people at his company told him he was wrong. It has also been stated policy that writing bad things on social media, even on your personal time, is a firable offense, and has been for 15 years. None of this is new.
If you think all that is wrong, then your ire should be directed at the companies and their over-reach into people's personal lives, not at social media mobs.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:02 AM on July 10, 2020 [5 favorites]
That's basically what the company literature and yearly trainings says for truck drivers at my company, which means that firing/reprimands due to hand gestures is common enough for there to be policy around it. The asset protection group also does interviews and gains evidence before firing (wrongful termination is an easy and common lawsuit). So this guy may have been fired over a gesture wrongfully captured on twitter, but was not fired by social media - lots of people at his company told him he was wrong. It has also been stated policy that writing bad things on social media, even on your personal time, is a firable offense, and has been for 15 years. None of this is new.
If you think all that is wrong, then your ire should be directed at the companies and their over-reach into people's personal lives, not at social media mobs.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:02 AM on July 10, 2020 [5 favorites]
Two things really clicked for me while thinking about this topic yesterday.
Those who are being misidentified as victims of "cancel culture" - the Caffertys, the Shors, the Wadis, and the August Ameses - were actually victims of the usual systemic oppressions, or they were guilty (see point #1), or both: employers, empowered by rigged laws, fired employees (ostensibly) without cause; businesspeople and customers refused to deal with racist restaurateurs; an internet mob made easy prey of a 23 yr old female sex worker who, btw, made hateful homophobic remarks in public. You have to wonder about the motives of anyone who seeks to blame all this on anti-racist/queer/feminist activism.
posted by MiraK at 11:46 AM on July 10, 2020 [8 favorites]
1. People who whine about "cancel culture" are trying to create a separate category of sympathy for GUILTY people who get harassed on the internet. And the thing these people are guilty of is harassing innocent people. Their goal is to continue perpetrating harassment and hate speech against innocent people without getting "cancelled" for it. THAT's why they don't join up with existing anti-internet-harassment groups when they are "cancelled": how can they make common cause with the very people they want to continue victimizing?What these two points add up to is that as far as we know, "Cancel culture" has no known innocent victims. It *could*, in theory. Even brief nights of power have the potential to cause damage to innocents. Perhaps one day we'll see a Cafferty-like incident where instead of a brown man getting summarily fired by his white employer, some truly innocent white guy gets hounded out of his home due to death threats from Black anti-racist twitter mobs, or maybe they hack his home computer and publish all his private data, or they make malicious DDOS attacks and ruin his online business. But nothing like that has happened yet as a result of anti-racist or #MeToo twitter mobs. There are no known innocent victims of "cancel culture".
2. Real internet harassment draws its power from systemic oppressions that have endured for millennia. Real harassment doxxes vulnerable, no-name Black and Indigenous activists (never celebrities or culturally powerful academics), floods rape threats into trans women's DMs (but never cis men's), shares revenge porn of young women (never of older men), sends credible murder threats to anyone who challenges white male supremacy (never to anyone who challenges anti-racists or feminists) - why? Because it leverages existing power structures. It emerges from existing power structures. Its victims are uncountable. These victims really are silenced.
"Cancel culture" has no real power 99.99% of the time. However, under extraordinary circumstances - like last month when BLM gained steam, or two years ago when #MeToo had its brief moment - the "cancel culture" bogeyman flickers into corporeality. It's as if a rare eclipse grants temporary power to the people who live permanently in the shadows. The bogeyman roars and threatens a rampage. The enduring systemic powers quickly bow and scrape and make nice, making symbolic gestures and performative sacrifices. They fire a few individuals, only because individuals can't fight back against employers, and also because it is profitable to play to the crowd on the Night Of The Bogeyman (i.e. this is REAL systemic oppression at work, not "cancel culture"). Then the night ends, the bogeyman dissolves into a wisp of our imagination, and vulnerable people go back to the shadows. Just look at the wonderfully rebounded careers of those who were "cancelled" by #MeToo.
Those who are being misidentified as victims of "cancel culture" - the Caffertys, the Shors, the Wadis, and the August Ameses - were actually victims of the usual systemic oppressions, or they were guilty (see point #1), or both: employers, empowered by rigged laws, fired employees (ostensibly) without cause; businesspeople and customers refused to deal with racist restaurateurs; an internet mob made easy prey of a 23 yr old female sex worker who, btw, made hateful homophobic remarks in public. You have to wonder about the motives of anyone who seeks to blame all this on anti-racist/queer/feminist activism.
posted by MiraK at 11:46 AM on July 10, 2020 [8 favorites]
Conor Friersdorf provides a few more examples. The Perils of 'With Us or Against Us.'
Oshry describes the basic pattern:
In a large group, people aren't going to agree on everything. That's evident even on MetaFilter.
posted by russilwvong at 12:19 PM on July 10, 2020 [3 favorites]
As a hearteningly broad coalition embraces policing reforms, a distinct, separable struggle is unfolding in the realm of ideas: a many-front crusade aimed at vanquishing white supremacy, hazily defined.In Seeing Systems, Barry Oshry suggests that for those at the bottom, who are vulnerable and oppressed in power interactions, unity and cohesiveness are extremely important. The danger is that this leads to what he calls "groupthink" - too much pressure to go along with the group. As a result, there's a tendency to eject dissenters and split into warring factions. (In Mounk's article, Shor's firing is the clearest example.)
That crusade is as vulnerable to mistakes and excesses as any other struggle against abstract evils. Some of the most zealous crusaders are demanding affirmations of solidarity and punishing mild dissent. Institutions are imposing draconian punishments for minor transgressions. Individuals are scapegoated for structural ills. There are efforts to get people fired, including even some who share the desire for racial justice.
Oshry describes the basic pattern:
- A "We" mentality develops among the members of the group. Members feel closely identified with one another on the basis of a common cause or purpose.
- Clear boundaries are drawn between the "We" and all others ("Them").
- Members feel and exert on one another a pressure to maintain unity within the group.
In a large group, people aren't going to agree on everything. That's evident even on MetaFilter.
posted by russilwvong at 12:19 PM on July 10, 2020 [3 favorites]
In a large group, people aren't going to agree on everything. That's evident even on MetaFilter.
The flip side of that is that groups exist because they agree on something, and that agreement is foundational - that's how you get tenets. Furthermore, what those foundational agreements are can and do change over time - for example, the Third Wave bringing in intersectionality as a core tenet of feminism (and with it the idea that there is no one common experience of feminity) is what pushed out the individuals who would become TERFs. The issue isn't groupthink - it's that many of these people are finding themselves on the wrong side of changing tenets in groups they used to belong to,and that has them angry.
And again, Shor wasn't fired for "tweeting a paper", he was fired because he was publicly rebuking black protestors, turning himself into a possible liability for his employer. The author of the paper points out the issue in an interview:
The flip side of that is that groups exist because they agree on something, and that agreement is foundational - that's how you get tenets. Furthermore, what those foundational agreements are can and do change over time - for example, the Third Wave bringing in intersectionality as a core tenet of feminism (and with it the idea that there is no one common experience of feminity) is what pushed out the individuals who would become TERFs. The issue isn't groupthink - it's that many of these people are finding themselves on the wrong side of changing tenets in groups they used to belong to,and that has them angry.
And again, Shor wasn't fired for "tweeting a paper", he was fired because he was publicly rebuking black protestors, turning himself into a possible liability for his employer. The author of the paper points out the issue in an interview:
As for the firing of Shor, the data analyst, Wasow says there was nothing in the brief summary of the paper that was inaccurate. He does, however, understand how — at this moment — pointing dispassionately to statistics might be seen as striking the wrong note. “The rage has almost this funereal quality, and so I’m sympathetic to those who are saying, ‘Don’t talk to us about selling the home of our father when we’re still at the funeral,’” he says. “But I’m also deeply sympathetic to David because I mostly live in this analytical, ‘let’s really talk about the numbers' kind of world.”posted by NoxAeternum at 1:02 PM on July 10, 2020 [2 favorites]
That's the crux of the different viewpoints about L'affaire Shor. The author's comment that you quote wasn't that he was "rebuking" protestors. The reason he was a "potential liability" was because of angry reactions to the timing of his tweet. His tweet was about "what's the most effective way to bring about change," not opposition to the goals of the protests. That is why there are objections to the firestorm of criticism and to his firing.
posted by PhineasGage at 1:29 PM on July 10, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by PhineasGage at 1:29 PM on July 10, 2020 [3 favorites]
I don't see why there should be any objections to the "firestorm of criticism" Shor got, PhineasGage. To me, that's the crux of the problem with this article: anti-racism activists are being singled out for blame, and a white-supremacist narrative that "anti-racism activism has gone too far" is being popularized... but the only harm that was done to him was done by other entities. We're being conned.
posted by MiraK at 3:28 PM on July 10, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by MiraK at 3:28 PM on July 10, 2020 [5 favorites]
MiraK we agree partially - the employers in these situations are of course responsible for the firings. But our views still differ about the degree to which the mass criticism led to the employer's decisions in these cases (which would not have happened except for the public firestorms). The other complicating factor - for all of us here - is how to address the larger topic of at-will employment, since there are many examples of truly hateful individuals who were able to be fired because of that very same existing labor system.
I have learned a lot reading your comments in this thread and elsewhere. On some things we agree, on others we don't. At this stage of this long thread about these specific instances, I don't expect either of us will persuade the other. When future situations arise I'm looking forward hearing your perspective and insights - although of course no one here hopes for there to be any more such situations.
posted by PhineasGage at 3:48 PM on July 10, 2020 [1 favorite]
I have learned a lot reading your comments in this thread and elsewhere. On some things we agree, on others we don't. At this stage of this long thread about these specific instances, I don't expect either of us will persuade the other. When future situations arise I'm looking forward hearing your perspective and insights - although of course no one here hopes for there to be any more such situations.
posted by PhineasGage at 3:48 PM on July 10, 2020 [1 favorite]
our views still differ about the degree to which the mass criticism led to the employer's decisions
Isn't that a classic abuser/oppressor tactic, shifting blame by saying "Look what you made me do"? The only entity that is responsible for firing Shor is the entity that fired Shor.
There's a reason they fired Shor instead of committing to a review of Shor's tenure at their organization plus some significant concrete action by the organization to support anti-racism: e.g. recruiting many more Black people to high positions in their organization including as Shor's direct boss, or donating $500K to Black causes to undo whatever damage Shor might have done, or committing 1% of their organization's work hours to allowing employees to volunteer for anti-racist causes.
Any of those actions would have shielded the organization from blowback for continuing to employ Shor. It would have earned them kudos, in fact - I doubt there is a single anti-racism activist who would not have preferred this! But they made the decision that was cheapest for their bottomline - they discarded an employee over whom they had total power because he became inconvenient for them - and they own this 100%. They don't get to say, "Look what anti-racism activists made us do!"
posted by MiraK at 4:32 PM on July 10, 2020 [6 favorites]
Isn't that a classic abuser/oppressor tactic, shifting blame by saying "Look what you made me do"? The only entity that is responsible for firing Shor is the entity that fired Shor.
There's a reason they fired Shor instead of committing to a review of Shor's tenure at their organization plus some significant concrete action by the organization to support anti-racism: e.g. recruiting many more Black people to high positions in their organization including as Shor's direct boss, or donating $500K to Black causes to undo whatever damage Shor might have done, or committing 1% of their organization's work hours to allowing employees to volunteer for anti-racist causes.
Any of those actions would have shielded the organization from blowback for continuing to employ Shor. It would have earned them kudos, in fact - I doubt there is a single anti-racism activist who would not have preferred this! But they made the decision that was cheapest for their bottomline - they discarded an employee over whom they had total power because he became inconvenient for them - and they own this 100%. They don't get to say, "Look what anti-racism activists made us do!"
posted by MiraK at 4:32 PM on July 10, 2020 [6 favorites]
Isn't that a classic abuser/oppressor tactic, shifting blame by saying "Look what you made me do"? The only entity that is responsible for firing Shor is the entity that fired Shor.
This conversation has gone in a really weird direction. I'm seeing the discussion of employee rights on Twitter and attacks on companies for firing people made by the same types of people who call for offending employees to be fired. So yell at companies to fire the guy, they fire him, and now wait, the company is the bad guy for firing them? I feel like I am walking through a funhouse. I could find commentators right here on Metafilter who call for racists to be fired. Remember Charlottesville and the efforts to identify the Nazis?
A lot of hypocrisy going on in this discussion. A lot of hypocrisy.
posted by Anonymous at 7:04 PM on July 10, 2020
This conversation has gone in a really weird direction. I'm seeing the discussion of employee rights on Twitter and attacks on companies for firing people made by the same types of people who call for offending employees to be fired. So yell at companies to fire the guy, they fire him, and now wait, the company is the bad guy for firing them? I feel like I am walking through a funhouse. I could find commentators right here on Metafilter who call for racists to be fired. Remember Charlottesville and the efforts to identify the Nazis?
A lot of hypocrisy going on in this discussion. A lot of hypocrisy.
posted by Anonymous at 7:04 PM on July 10, 2020
So yell at companies to fire the guy, they fire him, and now wait, the company is the bad guy for firing them?
Here's the thing - most of the protesters weren't calling for him to be fired. A few did, sure, but the sentiment was mainly "would you please fucking read the room?" And this is another bit of disingenuousness we see in these discussions - often times, these "calls for someone to be fired" are usually just calls for accountability - it's the employers who decide that "accountability" means "fire the person". (That said, you do get cases where there are genuine widespread calls for dismissal, like in the case of James Bennet - but that's a case where he a) had a history of promoting abusive, hateful rhetoric as a form of mental "vegetable eating" for the left, and b) his commissioning Cotton's op-ed and publishing it sight unseen was gross dereliction of duty (his job was, in part, to read proposed op-eds to make sure they were suitable for the Times.))
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:33 PM on July 10, 2020 [6 favorites]
Here's the thing - most of the protesters weren't calling for him to be fired. A few did, sure, but the sentiment was mainly "would you please fucking read the room?" And this is another bit of disingenuousness we see in these discussions - often times, these "calls for someone to be fired" are usually just calls for accountability - it's the employers who decide that "accountability" means "fire the person". (That said, you do get cases where there are genuine widespread calls for dismissal, like in the case of James Bennet - but that's a case where he a) had a history of promoting abusive, hateful rhetoric as a form of mental "vegetable eating" for the left, and b) his commissioning Cotton's op-ed and publishing it sight unseen was gross dereliction of duty (his job was, in part, to read proposed op-eds to make sure they were suitable for the Times.))
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:33 PM on July 10, 2020 [6 favorites]
I'm seeing the discussion of employee rights on Twitter and attacks on companies for firing people made by the same types of people who call for offending employees to be fired. So yell at companies to fire the guy, they fire him, and now wait, the company is the bad guy for firing them?
"Same types" is not a great category as a shared space or shared desire for certain end goals does not imply like feeling on everything, so concerns about justice can take different paths as the focus shifts from one event to another.
In times of social upheaval, where old norms are being challenged and new ones have yet to fully take root, there is almost inevitably going to be some confusion and bad results in the clash of beliefs. That isn't a good result, but seems unavoidable as part of trying to overthrow a deeply rooted system of injustice. The added difficulty here is that it isn't just one "revolution" going on, but several as social justice is being sought along different fronts, but finding much of its power through the simultaneous shift in business and interaction made possible/driven by social media.
Many firings aren't really about ideology per se, though that's where the push comes from, they are about companies trying to come to grips with the impact of social media on their business and acting out of uncertainty about how best to proceed in this new environment. This is a time of deep and widespread change in both potentially good ways and under threat from bad and the ground can feel very unstable making it difficult to get the ideal results where there is so many problems vying for attention and so many forces arrayed against the social good.
posted by gusottertrout at 8:51 PM on July 10, 2020
"Same types" is not a great category as a shared space or shared desire for certain end goals does not imply like feeling on everything, so concerns about justice can take different paths as the focus shifts from one event to another.
In times of social upheaval, where old norms are being challenged and new ones have yet to fully take root, there is almost inevitably going to be some confusion and bad results in the clash of beliefs. That isn't a good result, but seems unavoidable as part of trying to overthrow a deeply rooted system of injustice. The added difficulty here is that it isn't just one "revolution" going on, but several as social justice is being sought along different fronts, but finding much of its power through the simultaneous shift in business and interaction made possible/driven by social media.
Many firings aren't really about ideology per se, though that's where the push comes from, they are about companies trying to come to grips with the impact of social media on their business and acting out of uncertainty about how best to proceed in this new environment. This is a time of deep and widespread change in both potentially good ways and under threat from bad and the ground can feel very unstable making it difficult to get the ideal results where there is so many problems vying for attention and so many forces arrayed against the social good.
posted by gusottertrout at 8:51 PM on July 10, 2020
Me:
I think it’s good that people are finally starting to lose their jobs over being racist.
Ouverture:
Could you tell me more why you think that's a good thing?
Job loss makes absolute sense for racist police officers or CEOs or politicians. But for someone who doesn't have that kind of power and wealth, I do not think the current model of "3 days of nonstop abusive social media harassment + job loss" actually does anything valuable in the fight against white supremacy.
For the other few people of color on Metafilter who disagree, I would love to hear how situations of people of color being falsely accused of racism and losing their jobs have improved your life.
That's not an entirely honest take on what I said. You chose to omit that I explicitly stipulated that it's wrong to for people to get fired incorrectly. And the plain language reading of what you did quote doesn't in any way imply that I think it's good for people to lose their jobs over being "falsely accused of racism." Plus "I would love to hear how situations of people of color being falsely accused of racism and losing their jobs have improved your life" is Ben Shapiro level of snarky loaded-question argumentation.
Replace the word "racism" with "sex harassment" in your line of reasoning and see if you're okay with the argument that only bosses and cops should get fired for sex harrassment. Does it happen on occasion that people are wrongly accused of harassment (or racism) and railroaded from their jobs? Undoubtedly. But unless you can come with hard numbers that the false accusations are a substantial percentage of actual cases, hand-wringing over a few tragic misfirings amounts to concern trolling and a derail from gender or racial justice.
To answer your question directly, the reason I think it's good that racists are getting fired is that racists in the workplace have the opportunity to exert power over others, whether as managers, rank and file workers sabotaging, harassing and murmuring about their coworkers of color, service workers mistreating customers, teachers steering students into racially segregated tracks, and so on. Just working alongside someone who's an avowed racist is a kind of microaggression. Racism has led to the death and subjugation of countless millions. If someone chooses to espouse that ideology they deserve all the opprobrium they get.
posted by xigxag at 10:44 PM on July 10, 2020 [8 favorites]
I think it’s good that people are finally starting to lose their jobs over being racist.
Ouverture:
Could you tell me more why you think that's a good thing?
Job loss makes absolute sense for racist police officers or CEOs or politicians. But for someone who doesn't have that kind of power and wealth, I do not think the current model of "3 days of nonstop abusive social media harassment + job loss" actually does anything valuable in the fight against white supremacy.
For the other few people of color on Metafilter who disagree, I would love to hear how situations of people of color being falsely accused of racism and losing their jobs have improved your life.
That's not an entirely honest take on what I said. You chose to omit that I explicitly stipulated that it's wrong to for people to get fired incorrectly. And the plain language reading of what you did quote doesn't in any way imply that I think it's good for people to lose their jobs over being "falsely accused of racism." Plus "I would love to hear how situations of people of color being falsely accused of racism and losing their jobs have improved your life" is Ben Shapiro level of snarky loaded-question argumentation.
Replace the word "racism" with "sex harassment" in your line of reasoning and see if you're okay with the argument that only bosses and cops should get fired for sex harrassment. Does it happen on occasion that people are wrongly accused of harassment (or racism) and railroaded from their jobs? Undoubtedly. But unless you can come with hard numbers that the false accusations are a substantial percentage of actual cases, hand-wringing over a few tragic misfirings amounts to concern trolling and a derail from gender or racial justice.
To answer your question directly, the reason I think it's good that racists are getting fired is that racists in the workplace have the opportunity to exert power over others, whether as managers, rank and file workers sabotaging, harassing and murmuring about their coworkers of color, service workers mistreating customers, teachers steering students into racially segregated tracks, and so on. Just working alongside someone who's an avowed racist is a kind of microaggression. Racism has led to the death and subjugation of countless millions. If someone chooses to espouse that ideology they deserve all the opprobrium they get.
posted by xigxag at 10:44 PM on July 10, 2020 [8 favorites]
So yell at companies to fire the guy, they fire him, and now wait, the company is the bad guy for firing them?
I can see where this sentiment is coming from, but if you read through the entire thread, I think you'll find a much more complex take than that. Hypocrisy is a pretty strong accusation, and one I don't think applies to anyone here; this is a bunch of reasonable people trying to engage with a difficult subject, and doing a pretty good job IMO.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:26 AM on July 11, 2020 [2 favorites]
I can see where this sentiment is coming from, but if you read through the entire thread, I think you'll find a much more complex take than that. Hypocrisy is a pretty strong accusation, and one I don't think applies to anyone here; this is a bunch of reasonable people trying to engage with a difficult subject, and doing a pretty good job IMO.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:26 AM on July 11, 2020 [2 favorites]
Do you really need me to start digging into tweets and comments to bring up examples?
Is your argument that Charlottesville Nazis were fired because of poor employer protections, not public response to them being Nazis? First, that is pretty much carrying the idea that they should not have been fired if protections were better. Because if we don't want outcry to influence the existence of someone's job, that's gonna apply to more people than just the innocent. Second, it's saying that the backlash against the Nazis had no role in the consequences. Why were there efforts to identify them to their employers if there wasn't the belief that it would result in firings? Are we all engaging in this behavior despite knowing in our bones it will have no effect, and there just happens to be an inverse relationship between level of outrage and likelihood of maintaining employment?
These arguments about employee protections and this all being the company's fault are implicitly and explicitly carrying the message that public outcry and fear of the public's behavior does not have an effect on a company's reaction to these issues. Which is plainly false. Large corporations have far too much power in the US's political system in general but that does not mean the public has no power. Boycotts would never work and Nazis would not be fired if this was not the case.
When a Nazi gets fired we all say "free speech has consequences". Yes! It has consequences! This includes the free speech exercised by a bunch of people on Twitter all denouncing someone! That's going to have consequences! That's why people are doing it! Because they want there to be consequences! If you tag somebody's boss and say "come get your boy" you are asking for consequences!
posted by Anonymous at 9:41 AM on July 11, 2020
Is your argument that Charlottesville Nazis were fired because of poor employer protections, not public response to them being Nazis? First, that is pretty much carrying the idea that they should not have been fired if protections were better. Because if we don't want outcry to influence the existence of someone's job, that's gonna apply to more people than just the innocent. Second, it's saying that the backlash against the Nazis had no role in the consequences. Why were there efforts to identify them to their employers if there wasn't the belief that it would result in firings? Are we all engaging in this behavior despite knowing in our bones it will have no effect, and there just happens to be an inverse relationship between level of outrage and likelihood of maintaining employment?
These arguments about employee protections and this all being the company's fault are implicitly and explicitly carrying the message that public outcry and fear of the public's behavior does not have an effect on a company's reaction to these issues. Which is plainly false. Large corporations have far too much power in the US's political system in general but that does not mean the public has no power. Boycotts would never work and Nazis would not be fired if this was not the case.
When a Nazi gets fired we all say "free speech has consequences". Yes! It has consequences! This includes the free speech exercised by a bunch of people on Twitter all denouncing someone! That's going to have consequences! That's why people are doing it! Because they want there to be consequences! If you tag somebody's boss and say "come get your boy" you are asking for consequences!
posted by Anonymous at 9:41 AM on July 11, 2020
Is your argument that Charlottesville Nazis were fired because of poor employer protections, not public response to them being Nazis?
No, and I'm not sure exactly who you're arguing with.
Pretty sure we can support stronger worker protections and calling out Nazis.
posted by aspersioncast at 9:44 AM on July 11, 2020 [1 favorite]
No, and I'm not sure exactly who you're arguing with.
Pretty sure we can support stronger worker protections and calling out Nazis.
posted by aspersioncast at 9:44 AM on July 11, 2020 [1 favorite]
No, and I'm not sure exactly who you're arguing with.
That's rather disingenuous given I quoted the argument in a comment above:
The only entity that is responsible for firing Shor is the entity that fired Shor.
My point is not about whether we think Nazis should be called out. My point is that this assertion that the company's behavior has nothing to do with public reaction is wrong, and furthermore saying that the company is the sole problem here and that the company should not be allowed to react to public outcry by firing gives cover to Nazis as well as the innocent.
posted by Anonymous at 9:51 AM on July 11, 2020
That's rather disingenuous given I quoted the argument in a comment above:
The only entity that is responsible for firing Shor is the entity that fired Shor.
My point is not about whether we think Nazis should be called out. My point is that this assertion that the company's behavior has nothing to do with public reaction is wrong, and furthermore saying that the company is the sole problem here and that the company should not be allowed to react to public outcry by firing gives cover to Nazis as well as the innocent.
posted by Anonymous at 9:51 AM on July 11, 2020
Then I think we're talking past each other, because I think the bulk of commenters on this thread agree that the company is not the sole problem here, and are not in fact taking the position you're reacting to. Maybe someone is?
But most of us are wrestling with the article's assertion that as a potential side-effect of racists being called out on social media and then fired, some non-racists have also been fired. We're acknowledging that the court of public opinion is imperfect, and that worker protections might prevent firings due to "false positives." Some of those worker protections might also protect Nazis from being fired! There is always a trade-off.
I'm also on record above as being someone who doesn't quite buy the article's argument, and actually thinks we don't have enough evidence that these people were unfairly terminated. That doesn't mean I don't believe at-will employment is shitty; I do, and I'm opposed to it. I also think tweetstorms can be shitty, and that doxxing people is problematic for a number of reasons. Nonetheless I overall am OK with their use as a tool to get racists fired. In an ideal world that wouldn't be necessary, and there'd be other ways to deal with racists. In an ideal world that wouldn't mean they lose health care and starve, and I think most of us here would also support the position that housing, food, and health should not be contingent on employment. That would make getting fired less of a punishment! There is always a trade-off.
In short I don't think any of these are binaries or mutually exclusive positions, and I still think accusations of hypocrisy are unwarranted, even if they weren't specifically directed at me.
posted by aspersioncast at 10:24 AM on July 11, 2020 [2 favorites]
But most of us are wrestling with the article's assertion that as a potential side-effect of racists being called out on social media and then fired, some non-racists have also been fired. We're acknowledging that the court of public opinion is imperfect, and that worker protections might prevent firings due to "false positives." Some of those worker protections might also protect Nazis from being fired! There is always a trade-off.
I'm also on record above as being someone who doesn't quite buy the article's argument, and actually thinks we don't have enough evidence that these people were unfairly terminated. That doesn't mean I don't believe at-will employment is shitty; I do, and I'm opposed to it. I also think tweetstorms can be shitty, and that doxxing people is problematic for a number of reasons. Nonetheless I overall am OK with their use as a tool to get racists fired. In an ideal world that wouldn't be necessary, and there'd be other ways to deal with racists. In an ideal world that wouldn't mean they lose health care and starve, and I think most of us here would also support the position that housing, food, and health should not be contingent on employment. That would make getting fired less of a punishment! There is always a trade-off.
In short I don't think any of these are binaries or mutually exclusive positions, and I still think accusations of hypocrisy are unwarranted, even if they weren't specifically directed at me.
posted by aspersioncast at 10:24 AM on July 11, 2020 [2 favorites]
I made it pretty clear which argument I was engaging with and why I thought it was hypocritical. I count seven separate commenters making that argument or a variation of it. If you would like to directly address why you think the argument I cited is not hypocritical, then address that. But right now you are trying to make it seem like I am calling all arguments made in this discussion hypocritical when I have not.
posted by Anonymous at 10:57 AM on July 11, 2020
posted by Anonymous at 10:57 AM on July 11, 2020
My point is not about whether we think Nazis should be called out. My point is that this assertion that the company's behavior has nothing to do with public reaction is wrong, and furthermore saying that the company is the sole problem here and that the company should not be allowed to react to public outcry by firing gives cover to Nazis as well as the innocent.
And our point is that yes, companies can fuck up that response. Again, "asking for consequences" != "asking for the person to be fired", and arguing that the two are equal is exactly the response the author wants (because Mounk has received quite a bit of negative public opinion for doing things like supporting a right wing attack on sociology journals and pushing a negative study on "PC culture" that he advised as if he was an uninvolved party.) Not every outburst of public opprobrium demands a firing.
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:48 PM on July 11, 2020 [3 favorites]
And our point is that yes, companies can fuck up that response. Again, "asking for consequences" != "asking for the person to be fired", and arguing that the two are equal is exactly the response the author wants (because Mounk has received quite a bit of negative public opinion for doing things like supporting a right wing attack on sociology journals and pushing a negative study on "PC culture" that he advised as if he was an uninvolved party.) Not every outburst of public opprobrium demands a firing.
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:48 PM on July 11, 2020 [3 favorites]
So yell at companies to fire the guy, they fire him, and now wait, the company is the bad guy for firing them?
Of course! Like, when someone's convicted of a certain type of crime for the first time, and the angry crowd is baying for their blood, it's still the judge's responsibility and fault 100% if they hand out an unlawful or undeservedly harsh sentence. It's an abdication of responsibility for the judge to say, "well you told me to do it!" The crowd is not responsible for the sentencing, only the judge is.
It's even worse here, because companies created slavery, maintained racist policies in society, ensured racism would go unpunished, and are still profiting from white supremacy. The company deliberately, for its own profit, created a public & a society incapable of imagining and implementing nonviolent justice for racism. If the public calls for harsh punishments now for racists, it is the company's fault for leaving us no options for justice but harsh punishments.
In addition, companies also singlehandedly ensured that workers do not have rights, that workers depend on employment for basic survival (healthcare, housing, food). Companies destroyed citizen & worker safety nets. Companies destroyed public services. Companies are the ones who have created the conditions in which getting fired is violence to workers. So tell me again why it's the crowd's fault, somehow, that getting fired hurts people so badly???
Racists SHOULD lose their jobs if their job gives them any power whatsoever to act out their racism. The crowd is correct to call for job loss. But the company created and maintains the conditions where job loss is violence. It's 100% their fault and their responsibility, then, that job loss is too harsh a punishment.
posted by MiraK at 1:54 PM on July 11, 2020 [3 favorites]
Of course! Like, when someone's convicted of a certain type of crime for the first time, and the angry crowd is baying for their blood, it's still the judge's responsibility and fault 100% if they hand out an unlawful or undeservedly harsh sentence. It's an abdication of responsibility for the judge to say, "well you told me to do it!" The crowd is not responsible for the sentencing, only the judge is.
It's even worse here, because companies created slavery, maintained racist policies in society, ensured racism would go unpunished, and are still profiting from white supremacy. The company deliberately, for its own profit, created a public & a society incapable of imagining and implementing nonviolent justice for racism. If the public calls for harsh punishments now for racists, it is the company's fault for leaving us no options for justice but harsh punishments.
In addition, companies also singlehandedly ensured that workers do not have rights, that workers depend on employment for basic survival (healthcare, housing, food). Companies destroyed citizen & worker safety nets. Companies destroyed public services. Companies are the ones who have created the conditions in which getting fired is violence to workers. So tell me again why it's the crowd's fault, somehow, that getting fired hurts people so badly???
Racists SHOULD lose their jobs if their job gives them any power whatsoever to act out their racism. The crowd is correct to call for job loss. But the company created and maintains the conditions where job loss is violence. It's 100% their fault and their responsibility, then, that job loss is too harsh a punishment.
posted by MiraK at 1:54 PM on July 11, 2020 [3 favorites]
I think there's a number of different issues here:
(1) Internet mobs, as described by Jon Ronson. This isn't a phenomenon that is driven by leftist politics, or even by politics at all. It's driven by outrage going viral: when you see someone breaking a norm, it's human nature to want to punish them, and the Internet makes it easy for outrage to spread rapidly.
There's plenty of examples of right-wing mobs: for example, female politicians get a lot of misogynistic abuse, including death threats and rape threats.
(2) As a system of justice, it's not great. When someone's the target of an Internet mob, they're very likely to lose their job - from the point of view of an employer, it's far easier to replace an employee than to deal with an angry mob. Depending on the offence, that may be appropriate, or it may be completely disproportionate. There's no presumption of innocence and no appeal. In the worst case, there's been many cases of suicide due to Internet bullying.
(3) On the left, it seems that norms and self-policing are becoming more demanding: there's a lot of public pressure to conform. Again, this phenomenon ("groupthink") seems to be common for people at the bottom, aggravated by the Internet.
Personally, I prefer to stick to the FidoNet norms, which are aimed at preventing ill-will from rapidly spreading through computer-mediated communication: (1) Don't be offensive. (2) Don't be easily offended.
Besides the original article, Conor Friersdorf provides some examples of this pressure for conformity.
(1) Internet mobs, as described by Jon Ronson. This isn't a phenomenon that is driven by leftist politics, or even by politics at all. It's driven by outrage going viral: when you see someone breaking a norm, it's human nature to want to punish them, and the Internet makes it easy for outrage to spread rapidly.
There's plenty of examples of right-wing mobs: for example, female politicians get a lot of misogynistic abuse, including death threats and rape threats.
(2) As a system of justice, it's not great. When someone's the target of an Internet mob, they're very likely to lose their job - from the point of view of an employer, it's far easier to replace an employee than to deal with an angry mob. Depending on the offence, that may be appropriate, or it may be completely disproportionate. There's no presumption of innocence and no appeal. In the worst case, there's been many cases of suicide due to Internet bullying.
(3) On the left, it seems that norms and self-policing are becoming more demanding: there's a lot of public pressure to conform. Again, this phenomenon ("groupthink") seems to be common for people at the bottom, aggravated by the Internet.
Personally, I prefer to stick to the FidoNet norms, which are aimed at preventing ill-will from rapidly spreading through computer-mediated communication: (1) Don't be offensive. (2) Don't be easily offended.
Besides the original article, Conor Friersdorf provides some examples of this pressure for conformity.
The theater producer Marie Crisco created and circulated a Google Doc titled “Theaters Not Speaking Out” naming and shaming more than 400 performing-arts venues that “have not made a statement against injustices toward black people.” The Los Angeles Times reported that many theaters then posted messages of solidarity with Black Lives Matter. Crisco told the newspaper that the words seemed to come from a place of shame and “felt slapped together and hollow.”posted by russilwvong at 7:26 PM on July 12, 2020 [4 favorites]
How could they not? Before this month, no one expected theaters to release statements on worldly injustices or for theater staffers to be skilled at drafting them with the right tone and substance. Yet many institutions are treated as if a failure to quickly publish something that conforms absolutely to highly contested interpretations of anti-racism renders them deserving of opprobrium.
A Denver bookstore, The Tattered Cover, felt compelled earlier this month to explain why it had not released a statement on protests in its city. “We want to make a statement of support and take a moment to explain why we’ve been quiet,” the book store’s owners declared. “We agree with, embrace, and believe that black lives matter. We reject the statement ‘All Lives Matter’ as an either valid or helpful response ... We stand in solidarity with our black friends and neighbors, and grieve the senseless and brutal loss of life; not just of George Floyd and other recent victims, but of all lives lost from centuries of oppression and abuse. We believe there must be systemic change.”
So why had it kept quiet? The bookstore explained that it had maintained a “nearly 50-year policy of not engaging in public debate,” premised on a belief that even proclaiming “simple and unalterable truths” would be anathema to a mission it holds dear: “to provide a place where access to ideas, and the free exchange of ideas, can happen in an uninhibited way.” As they saw it, “If Tattered Cover puts its name and weight either behind, or in opposition to, one idea, members of our community will have an expectation that we must do the same for all ideas. Engaging in public debate is not, we believe, how Tattered Cover has been and can be of greatest value to our community.” The owners closed by pledging to feature more titles by Black authors, to schedule more events with Black authors, and to continue to hire and promote employees from diverse backgrounds.
Their statement of supposed neutrality affirmed everything most businesses say when supporting Black Lives Matter. But because it did not treat solidarity as preeminent, it was deemed too problematic to abide. “I’ve just told my publicist to cancel my 6/23 event in conjunction with Tattered Cover,” the author Carmen Maria Machado announced. “Unlike the owners, I know that choosing neutrality in matters of oppression only reinforces structural violence.”
Soon, the owners released a second statement apologizing for the first one. “We are horrified at having violated your trust. We deserve your outrage and disappointment,” it began. “Tattered Cover will no longer stand by while human rights are being violated. To be silent is to be complicit, to be neutral in the face of injustice is an act of injustice itself.” In fact, statements of solidarity and self-flagellating apologies for wrongthink don’t advance social or racial justice any more than displaying and exalting the American flag after 9/11 made the U.S. safer from al-Qaeda. For now, the bookstore has failed to release statements condemning America’s campaign of drone strikes, War on Terror detainees still held in indefinite detention, or the epidemic of rape and sexual abuse in juvenile-detention facilities. Is the bookstore complicit in all of those evils?
Unanimity is neither possible nor necessary to fight racism. On the contrary, attempts to secure unanimity can undermine the fight: They needlessly divide anti-racists and weaken everyone’s ability to grasp reality. When demands for consensus are intense, people may clam up or falsify [lie about] their own beliefs.
Personally, I prefer to stick to the FidoNet norms, which are aimed at preventing ill-will from rapidly spreading through computer-mediated communication: (1) Don't be offensive. (2) Don't be easily offended.
Again, these are shitty norms, because a) "don't be easily offended" is very subjective, which means that b) it is routinely treated as upholding the status quo, with people being forced to just accept abuse. The whole problem with "preventing ill-will from rapidly spreading" is that many times, that ill will is justified, and thus preventing it from spreading is inflicting injustice by demanding the injured parties accept their injuries quietly out of a sense of a greater good. When taken to extremes, this can become cheerleading for Omleas.
As for Young Conor's point, he (as usual) misses what's going on - people are pointing out that on things like BLM, trans rights, and other matters of the rights of people, neutrality is no longer acceptable. This is something that got pointed out over in the Harper's letter thread - if your high minded paeans to "freedom of speech" are ignoring the very real harms happening to the dispossesed, then your position is bullshit, and it shouldn't be surprising when those in the crosshairs call you out.
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:52 PM on July 12, 2020 [5 favorites]
Again, these are shitty norms, because a) "don't be easily offended" is very subjective, which means that b) it is routinely treated as upholding the status quo, with people being forced to just accept abuse. The whole problem with "preventing ill-will from rapidly spreading" is that many times, that ill will is justified, and thus preventing it from spreading is inflicting injustice by demanding the injured parties accept their injuries quietly out of a sense of a greater good. When taken to extremes, this can become cheerleading for Omleas.
As for Young Conor's point, he (as usual) misses what's going on - people are pointing out that on things like BLM, trans rights, and other matters of the rights of people, neutrality is no longer acceptable. This is something that got pointed out over in the Harper's letter thread - if your high minded paeans to "freedom of speech" are ignoring the very real harms happening to the dispossesed, then your position is bullshit, and it shouldn't be surprising when those in the crosshairs call you out.
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:52 PM on July 12, 2020 [5 favorites]
As for Young Conor's point, he (as usual) misses what's going on - people are pointing out that on things like BLM, trans rights, and other matters of the rights of people, neutrality is no longer acceptable.
I don't think he's missing the point at all. After all, his article is titled "The Perils of 'With Us or Against Us.'" He's saying that correcting racial injustices in the US will require discussion and argument, and it's unlikely that everyone will agree on everything.
This suggests that residential integration is important: instead of Black and non-Black neighborhoods, you would have more mixed neighborhoods, making it easier to achieve more equitable public services.
The philosopher Tommie Shelby argues against this view (that residential integration is the key) in Dark Ghettos, specifically in Chapter 2. From a 2016 interview:
posted by russilwvong at 9:25 PM on July 12, 2020 [2 favorites]
I don't think he's missing the point at all. After all, his article is titled "The Perils of 'With Us or Against Us.'" He's saying that correcting racial injustices in the US will require discussion and argument, and it's unlikely that everyone will agree on everything.
Short-circuiting debate may deprive Americans of insights on what sorts of protests are effective; how to reform police departments without a spike in murders or other violent crime; how to distinguish between and combat ideological racism versus authoritarianism; how to educate children more equitably; how to determine the potential costs and benefits of race-based reparations; how to determine the relationship among journalistic institutions, their missions, and their readers; how to assess the protections that capitalism can afford to ethnic and religious minorities; and much more.To take a concrete example, one key factor driving racial injustice in the US is residential segregation. Black neighborhoods get bad public services. They're both over-policed (subject to frequent harassment and police brutality) and under-policed. Public schools in Black neighborhoods are underfunded and underperforming. Even mundane services like roads and sewers are underfunded. See Segregation by Design.
Absolutely, Black lives matter, which is part of why everyone should encourage constructive dissent, even when it seems frustratingly out of touch with the trauma and emotion of the moment. Identifying changes that will achieve equality is hard. Avoiding unintended consequences is harder. Without a healthy deliberative process, avoidable catastrophes are more likely.
This suggests that residential integration is important: instead of Black and non-Black neighborhoods, you would have more mixed neighborhoods, making it easier to achieve more equitable public services.
The philosopher Tommie Shelby argues against this view (that residential integration is the key) in Dark Ghettos, specifically in Chapter 2. From a 2016 interview:
Q: Some successful government programs, such as Moving to Opportunity, help move black families from poor and dangerous neighborhoods to wealthier, white areas. Yet you argue that residential integration and programs such as these are not a fair solution. Could you explain your reasoning?It's not obvious to me which view is correct.
A: I think first you have to distinguish integration from desegregation. The civil rights movement was very focused on desegregation, which had to do with ending the white privileges that went along with that regime.
What I find troubling is that in an attempt to deal with the problem of ghetto poverty, the government makes needed resources and services available only on condition that poor black people join predominantly white communities. I regard it as almost insulting to put the economic fate of the ghetto poor in the hands of more affluent whites, who then get to decide whether to allow blacks into their social networks and on what terms. Then you're sort of putting disadvantaged blacks in a supplicant position in relation to people who often have contempt for them and who often possess privileges and ill-gotten gains.
There's nothing wrong with black people wanting to live with people who share their interests and values and historical experiences. The solution becomes, how can they participate in privileges that some whites possess. It's important for people to have both economic justice and certain liberties, including the freedom to choose the communities that they want to live in.
posted by russilwvong at 9:25 PM on July 12, 2020 [2 favorites]
He's saying that correcting racial injustices in the US will require discussion and argument, and it's unlikely that everyone will agree on everything.
Again, this misses the point - rather intentionally for Friersdorf, who is the sort of person who would write a piece attacking feminists for protesting rape culture then wonder why they think he's an asshole. Yes, people can disagree, and there are things to discuss. But the point the protestors and activists are making is that there are some things, like the right of black people to live in peace without the cops murdering them, where the debate is fucking over. Or to put it another way - if you say you support trans rights, but then argue that TERFs have to be given a hearing because of free speech, then you don't actually support trans rights.
It's not about everyone agreeing on everything - it's that if you want to belong to this community, there are certain things that you are expected to believe in - and you don't get to be neutral on them any more.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:34 PM on July 12, 2020 [5 favorites]
Again, this misses the point - rather intentionally for Friersdorf, who is the sort of person who would write a piece attacking feminists for protesting rape culture then wonder why they think he's an asshole. Yes, people can disagree, and there are things to discuss. But the point the protestors and activists are making is that there are some things, like the right of black people to live in peace without the cops murdering them, where the debate is fucking over. Or to put it another way - if you say you support trans rights, but then argue that TERFs have to be given a hearing because of free speech, then you don't actually support trans rights.
It's not about everyone agreeing on everything - it's that if you want to belong to this community, there are certain things that you are expected to believe in - and you don't get to be neutral on them any more.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:34 PM on July 12, 2020 [5 favorites]
Yes, people can disagree, and there are things to discuss. But the point the protestors and activists are making is that there are some things, like the right of black people to live in peace without the cops murdering them, where the debate is fucking over.
What I found interesting is the new norm that organizations (like theaters and bookstores) are required to make a heartfelt public statement affirming their support for Black Lives Matter, and that failing to do so convincingly is a violation of this norm.
posted by russilwvong at 11:09 PM on July 12, 2020 [1 favorite]
What I found interesting is the new norm that organizations (like theaters and bookstores) are required to make a heartfelt public statement affirming their support for Black Lives Matter, and that failing to do so convincingly is a violation of this norm.
posted by russilwvong at 11:09 PM on July 12, 2020 [1 favorite]
There is an important distinction between the position of neutrality no longer being an acceptable position when it comes to systemic oppression and related injustice, and people attempting to take a neutral stance not being considered acceptable people. The former is long past due. The latter can be thought of in ethical terms or in strategic terms, in which case it, respectively, may not be clearly positive and necessary as was the case for the position of neutrality as a position, or is very situationally depended from a strategic perspective.
posted by eviemath at 12:15 AM on July 13, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 12:15 AM on July 13, 2020 [3 favorites]
A really interesting article that synthesizes many of the different viewpoints expressed in this thread, including about corporate responsibility, capitalism, cancel culture, and more: "How Capitalism Drives Cancel Culture: Beware splashy corporate gestures when they leave existing power structures intact." A few excerpts, but the whole article is worth reading:
...what I call the “iron law of woke capitalism”: Brands will gravitate toward low-cost, high-noise signals as a substitute for genuine reform, to ensure their survival. (I’m not using the word woke here in a sneering, pejorative sense, but to highlight that the original definition of wokeness is incompatible with capitalism. Also, I’m not taking credit for the coinage: The writer Ross Douthat got there first.) In fact, let’s go further: Those with power inside institutions love splashy progressive gestures—solemn, monochrome social-media posts deploring racism; appointing their first woman to the board; firing low-level employees who attract online fury—because they help preserve their power. Those at the top—who are disproportionately white, male, wealthy, and highly educated—are not being asked to give up anything themselves. Perhaps the most egregious example of this is the random firings of individuals, some of whose infractions are minor, and some of whom are entirely innocent of any bad behavior...posted by PhineasGage at 2:38 PM on July 15, 2020 [2 favorites]
It is strange that “cancel culture” has become a project of the left, which spent the 20th century fighting against capricious firings of “troublesome” employees. A lack of due process does not become a moral good just because you sometimes agree with its targets. We all, I hope, want to see sexism, racism, and other forms of discrimination decrease. But we should be aware of the economic incentives here, particularly given the speed of social media, which can send a video viral, and see onlookers demand a response, before the basic facts have been established...
If this is a moment for power structures to be challenged, and old orthodoxies to be overturned, then understanding the difference between economic radicalism and social radicalism is vital...
I was going to post that article, PhineasGage! I really enjoyed it, especially this part:
Activists regularly challenge criticisms of “cancel culture” by saying: “Come on, we’re just some people with Twitter accounts, up against governments and corporate behemoths.” But when you look at the economic incentives, almost always, the capitalist imperative is to yield to activist pressure. Just a bit. Enough to get them off your back. Companies caught in the scorching light of a social-media outcry are like politicians caught lying or cheating, who promise a “judge-led inquiry”: They want to do something, anything, to appear as if they are taking the problem seriously—until the spotlight moves on.posted by Ouverture at 12:30 PM on July 16, 2020 [2 favorites]
Some defenestrations are brilliant, and long overdue. Weinstein’s removal from a position of power was undoubtedly a good thing. But the firing of Emmanuel Cafferty was not. For activists, the danger lies in the cheap sugar rush of tokenistic cancellations. Real institutional change is hard; like politics, it is the “slow boring of hard boards.” Persuading a company to toss someone overboard for PR points risks a victory that is no victory at all. The pitchforks go down, but the corporate culture remains the same. The survivors sigh in relief. The institution goes on.
If you care about progressive causes, then woke capitalism is not your friend. It is actively impeding the cause, siphoning off energy, and deluding us into thinking that change is happening faster and deeper than it really is. When people talk about the “excesses of the left”—a phenomenon that blights the electoral prospects of progressive parties by alienating swing voters—in many cases they’re talking about the jumpy overreactions of corporations that aren’t left-wing at all.
New York Magazine just ran a really interesting interview with the aforementioned David Shor, focused on his areas of data-driven, deep political expertise rather than his recent Twitter-and-work situation: " David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics." He offers insights on race, economics, education, immigration - and how a winning Democratic coalition can balance activating our base via progressive issues and attracting marginal voters who haven't (yet) been persuaded on those issues.
posted by PhineasGage at 9:04 AM on July 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
It’s true that political parties have enormous control over the views of their partisans. There’s like 20 percent of the electorate that trusts Democratic elites tremendously. And they will turn their views on a dime if the party tells them to. So this is how you can get Abolish ICE to go from a 10 percent issue to a 30 percent issue. If you’re an ideological activist, that’s a powerful force. If you convince strong partisans to adopt your view, then when the party comes to power, strong partisans will ultimately make up that administration and then you can make policy progress.He offers some heartening examples:
The problem is that swing voters don’t trust either party. So if you get Democrats to embrace Abolish ICE, that won’t get moderate-ish, racist white people to support it; it will just turn them into Republicans. So that’s the trade-off. When you embrace unpopular things, you become more unpopular with marginal voters, but also get a fairly large segment of the public to change its views. And the latter can sometimes produce long-term change.
But it’s a hard trade-off. And I don’t think anyone ever says something like, “I think it was a good trade for us to lose the presidency because we raised the salience of this issue.” That’s not generally what people want. They don’t want to make an unpopular issue go from 7 percent to 30 percent support. They want something like what happened with gay marriage or marijuana legalization, where you take an issue that is 30 percent and then it goes to 70 percent. And if you look at the history of those things, it’s kind of clear that campaigns didn’t do that.
As for “the abolish the police” stuff, I think the important thing there is that basically no mainstream elected officials embraced it. Most persuadable voters get their news from the networks’ nightly news broadcasts and CNN. And if you look at how they covered things, the “abolish the police” concept didn’t get nearly as much play as it did on Twitter and elite discourse. And to the extent that it was covered, that coverage featured prominent left politicians loudly denouncing it. And I think that’s a success story for everyone involved. Activists were able to dramatically shift the terms of debate around not just racial justice issues, but police justice in a way that’s basically the Second Great Awokening. But because Democratic politicians kept chasing the median voter, we got to have our cake and eat it too. We got to have public opinion shift in our direction on the issues without paying an electoral price.Many other interesting insights throughout his comments. Well worth reading.
posted by PhineasGage at 9:04 AM on July 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
Thanks PhineasGage, that's a really interesting interview.
On strategic errors:
So how can the Democrats hold onto them? Talk about issues where they're likely to agree, like economic issues and Covid, and less about issues where they're likely to disagree, like immigration.
On strategic errors:
... the people who work in campaigns tend to be highly ideologically motivated and thus, super-prone to convincing themselves to do things that are strategically dumb [in Clinton's case, disregarding working-class white voters, who then switched to Trump].On white racial grievance:
Nothing that I tell people — or that my team [at Civis] told people — is actually that smart. You know, we’d do all this math, and some of it’s pretty cool, but at a high level, what we’re saying is: “You should put your money in cheap media markets in close states close to the election, and you should talk about popular issues, and not talk about unpopular issues.”
The fight I saw on Twitter after the 2016 election was one group of people saying the Obama-to-Trump voters are racist and irredeemable, and that’s why we need to focus on the suburbs. And then you had leftists saying, “Actually these working-class white people were betrayed by decades of neoliberalism and we just need to embrace socialism and win them back, we can’t trust people in the suburbs.” And I think the real synthesis of these views is that Obama-to-Trump voters are motivated by racism. But they’re really electorally important, and so we have to figure out some way to get them to vote for us.Working-class / non-college-educated white voters are about 44% of the 2020 electorate; there's a significant number of working-class white voters in the Democratic coalition.
So how can the Democrats hold onto them? Talk about issues where they're likely to agree, like economic issues and Covid, and less about issues where they're likely to disagree, like immigration.
... there’s a big mass of [moderate / less engaged / less ideologically consistent] voters who agree with [Democrats] on some issues, and disagree with us on others. And whenever we talk about a given issue, that increases the extent to which voters will cast their ballots on the basis of that issue.Interestingly, voters trust Democrats more than Republicans to improve race relations:
Mitt Romney and Donald Trump agreed on basically every issue, as did Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. And yet, a bunch of people changed their votes. And the reason that happened was because the salience of various issues changed. Both sides talked a lot more about immigration, and because of that, correlation between preferences on immigration and which candidate people voted for went up. In 2012, both sides talked about health care. In 2016, they didn’t. And so the correlation between views on health care and which candidate people voted for went down.
So this means that every time you open your mouth, you have this complex optimization problem where what you say gains you some voters and loses you other voters. But this is actually cool because campaigns have a lot of control over what issues they talk about.
Non-college-educated whites, on average, have very conservative views on immigration, and generally conservative racial attitudes. But they have center-left views on economics; they support universal health care and minimum-wage increases. So I think Democrats need to talk about the issues they are with us on, and try really hard not to talk about the issues where we disagree. Which, in practice, means not talking about immigration.
... even if voters acknowledge the massive systemic inequities that exist in the U.S., discussion of them normally happens in a context where conservatives can posit a trade-off with safety, or all these other things people trust Republicans on.posted by russilwvong at 7:32 PM on July 17, 2020
What’s powerful about nonviolent protest — and particularly nonviolent protest that incurs a disproportionate response from the police — is that it can shift the conversation, in a really visceral way, into the part of this issue space that benefits Democrats and the center left. Which is the pursuit of equality, social justice, fairness — these Democratic-loaded concepts — without the trade-off of crime or public safety.
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As a person of color who has been personally affected by anti-Black and anti-Brown racism from the police and regular ol' white folks, I find these injustices horrifying in their own sad way. I wonder if social media mobs are so because firing random people fired at least feels like some sort of accomplishment while Henry Kissinger and the police who have killed countless Black people happily walk free.
posted by Ouverture at 1:35 PM on July 7, 2020 [17 favorites]