political correctness – United States of Joe

Is Political Correctness Really Bringing America Down?

flappy_flaps — Donald Trump believes America doesn’t have time for political correctness. On that assumption, however, Trump and those who think like him are very incorrect. (Photo Credit: Getty Images News/Scott Olson)

In my last post, I wrote about Jordan Peterson and how I believe, alongside others, that his rhetoric about the excesses of the left can be dangerous in the wrong hands. Naturally, my thoughts were summarily dismissed, my credibility was challenged, and I was told by numerous individuals, presumably Peterson’s supporters, that my references and I completely misunderstood Peterson and his theories, and that I needed to watch one of his lectures in its entirety or read one of his books—that is, hear it straight from the proverbial horse’s mouth—to fully comprehend what he’s talking about. In other words, it’s not Peterson’s fault he’s so misunderstood—it’s the fault of the liberal media who bashes his beliefs and me for being such a leftist dum-dum.

Leftist dum-dum as I may be, I do thank those who pointed me to the Munk Debates, a forum billed by the organization itself as “the world’s preeminent public debating forum.” The most recent debate, held back in May, involved the aforementioned Mr. Peterson; academic, author, preacher, and radio host Michael Eric Dyson; actor, comedian, presenter, and writer Stephen Fry; and author and blogger Michelle Goldberg. The theme was Political Correctness, under the tagline, “Be it resolved, what you call political correctness, I call progress.” Dyson and Goldberg represented the Pro side of the debate. Fry and Peterson comprised the Con half.

The merits of this particular debate can be questioned; Lord knows they have been, from my cursory reading of various reactions to the two-hour-long event. A common charge from reviewers was that, for a forum about political correctness, political correctness wasn’t discussed all that much, a sentiment that Fry, one of the participants, expressed during the actual proceedings.

The discourse wasn’t entirely civil, either. During a particularly heated exchange on the subject of white privilege, Jordan Peterson displayed a sense of irritation, challenging his confrères on the opposite side of the debate to quantify as to what percentage he has benefited from his white privilege, and to ask how he should recompense others for this advantage. Michael Eric Dyson countered by suggesting that white privilege is not something quantifiable, and pivoted to questioning Peterson on his tone: “Why you mad, bruh?” Or, to paraphrase Dyson in his subsequent comments, for all your success as an author and public intellectual, why are you so intent to play the part of the “mean mad white man”?

Unfortunately, comments like Dyson’s—valid or otherwise—have sort of overshadowed the larger conversation about political correctness as the night’s central point. Arguments about whether or not political correctness was adequately addressed also seem to be blown out of proportion. As Michelle Goldberg contended, part of the problem about talking about “political correctness” is how it’s defined and used. That is, political correctness is difficult to define as something discrete, and can be employed by its champions in service to respecting people’s differences or deployed as a weapon to attack liberal politics.

For Dyson, meanwhile, the outrage about political correctness is part of a reactionary attitude for whites in trying to come to grips with the need to cede power to minority groups. When nearly all white straight Christian males were in charge, per Dyson, political correctness wasn’t a thing. Thus, to speak about political correctness, one must acknowledge issues pertaining to race and gender, among other characteristics, as well as the need for larger conversations about these concepts.

Before I get to noting how attendees scored the debate, let’s first get into some background about political correctness itself. Merriam-Webster defines politically correct as “conforming to a belief that languages and practices which could offend political sensibilities (as in matters of sex or race) should be eliminated.” From the apparent origins of its current use with the New Left in the 1960s and 1970s, the term has since been coopted in conservative circles as a pejorative to express discontentment with a perceived liberal/progressive orthodoxy in schools and especially at colleges and universities. As many liberal commentators view this alternative use of “PC,” it’s a segue to discrediting the views of “the Left,” as amorphous as that identifier may be.

In the context of the present “culture wars” between liberals and conservatives, the battle over political correctness has taken on new meaning in the era of Donald Trump, a man who, by most accounts, has eschewed traditional political norms as an unabashed political outsider, and according to fact-checkers, who have had no shortage of work during his tenure as President of the United States, is generally incorrect in what he states to be incontrovertibly true. Since then, in the eyes of many onlookers, these two sides have become only that more entrenched in defending their views from perceived attacks from the other side, and for that matter, from those within their own ranks.

Indeed, some people likely felt a sense of betrayal when they found out Stephen Fry, a liberal-leaning homosexual Jew, was to accompany Jordan Peterson on stage arguing against political correctness as progress. For Fry, who acknowledged that he and Peterson may have their differences of opinion—which may be putting it mildly—his argument against political correctness is that it doesn’t work, as exemplified by the rise of Trump and of the growing influence of white nationalism around the globe. As Fry believes, it only succeeds in promoting a backlash from destructive elements on the right and far-right, as well as alienating people by making them unsure about how to act, nervous about how to speak, and unafraid to be creative or experimental for fear of rebuke.

As for Trump, he has addressed the subject of political correctness directly, perhaps most notably in the first Republican debate of the 2016 election season in Cleveland. As Trump put it:

I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct. I’ve been challenged by so many people and I don’t, frankly, have time for total political correctness. And to be honest with you, this country doesn’t have time, either.

So, to put the question point-blank, does the United States simply not have time for political correctness? And does it do more harm than good, or does it simply not work?

Certainly, there are those who would opine that political correctness is a deleterious force, that it does not make for constructive dialogs. One such opponent of PC culture, Michael Rectenwald, professor of Global Liberal Studies at NYU, believes the fundamental flaw of political correctness is it necessitates political correction.

As Rectenwald recently argued, the necessity to correct incorrect behavior involves a imposition of what is deemed to be right, and hearkens back to earlier invocations of the term as used in Soviet Russia and Maoist China. As he also insists, these allusions are not made merely for shock value, but because of the totalitarian impulses that likewise lie behind enforcing political correctness. Rectenwald writes:

I mention the Soviet and Sino-Communist sources of political correctness not to invoke a Red Scare but rather to note that the contemporary “social justice” movement is marked by the same impulses. Former Soviet and Maoist Chinese citizens recall a system under which verbal spontaneity and skepticism could be fatal. During our soft cultural revolution, those accused of ideological deviation — such as Google’s former employee, James Damore — while neither tortured or killed, are sent to the metaphorical gulags of public censure and unemployment.

On the specific case of James Damore, while it’s certainly the case that his memo was misrepresented by the media as being overtly “anti-diversity” (Damore actually offers suggestions for how Google’s handling of diversity issues might be improved), and while Google perhaps overreacted by firing him, to say that Damore was terminated merely for “ideological deviation” belies the offense that numerous women within the company took in relation to the circulation of this internal memo, and fails to consider that Google and its CEO Sundar Pichai found portions of the memo to be in violation of the company’s Code of Conduct and professed that these offending segments “cross the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace.”

Upon the memo’s contents going viral, numerous critics objected to the validity of the science contained within and regarded it as bigotry dressed up as empirically-derived evidence. In short, Pichai and others did not have a problem with Damore questioning specific policies at Google, but in doing so in a way perceived to be discriminatory. Indeed, prior to Damore withdrawing his complaint before the National Labor Relations Board, an NLRB lawyer found the company was within its rights to fire him based on his use of discriminatory language.

As for the invocation of murderous communist regimes, this is quite a comparison to make, and seems just as well suited to come from one of Jordan Peterson’s tirades against “postmodern neo-Marxism.” How does “public censure and unemployment” even come close to being “tortured or killed”? Sure, efforts should be made by Google and other employers to not disproportionately harm one’s image or livelihood in the event of a firing like James Damore’s. Such are unfortunate consequences. They’re not, however, the kind of things that, you know, get outlawed in the Geneva Convention. Rectenwald’s characterization here smacks of hyperbole.

Rectenwald’s other evidence for the growing totalitarianism of North American colleges and universities seems rooted in his personal experience. As he alleges, NYU strongly rebuked him for his “mere questioning of social justice ideology,” essentially forcing him to take a paid medical leave, and faculty members subjecting him to all sorts of racist and sexist slurs. That Rectenwald tweeted anti-Left sentiments any number of times using the handle @antipcnyuprof is not up for debate; the man admitted as much in an interview with the school newspaper. That he was the target of defamatory statements may be true, and I’m not about to question the validity of his claim here.

That he was pushed into taking leave, though, appears highly questionable. According to E-mail correspondence between Rectenwald and Fred Schwarzbach, dean of liberal studies at the university, Rectenwald specifically requested a leave of absence, and Schwarzbach indicated his dismay at how Rectenwald characterized his treatment by NYU to the media. At best, Rectenwald appears to be mistaken in his depiction of how events unfolded, and at worst, is purposely twisting them to serve the designs of his narrative.

Michael Rectenwald’s treatises on the pitfalls of totalitarian political correctness are, of course, not the only source for this type of content, so far be it from me to suggest that his questionable logical connections mean that his side of the debate has necessarily lost. Before we dispense with his case, however, it is worth noting the way in which he has been given a platform for his discontent. Breitbart and FOX News, perhaps predictably, latched onto the story as a case of SJW activism gone wrong, and Rectenwald has also gotten exposure on Tucker Carlson’s show, as well as in The Washington Post and in YouTube videos alongside—you guessed it!—Jordan Peterson.

His exposure is perhaps not on the level of Mr. James Damore, whose termination from Google earned him an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, as well as interviews with, among others, Ben Shapiro, Business Insider, CNBC, CNN, and—right again!—Jordan Peterson, but you get the idea. As with Peterson making waves for vowing not to comply with legislation on the use of gender-neutral pronouns, there seems to be more than just an issue of free speech at hand here.

At least for the moment, let’s pause and swing over to the other side of the debate fence. Mark Hannah, a staffer on the John Kerry and Barack Obama presidential campaigns, wrote a piece for TIME Magazine that characterizes political correctness not as the opponent of “unvarnished truth-telling,” but as the counterpart to carelessness toward other people’s attitudes and beliefs.

In thinking along these lines, Hannah invokes the presidential campaign of one Donald Trump (the column was published prior to the 2016 election), and highlights how the use of precise language by Obama vs. Trump’s free-wheeling approach gets conflated with views on political correctness. In particular, Hannah contrasts Obama’s refusal to refer to “radical Islam” with Trump’s rhetoric about Muslims and political correctness gone amok, recognizing Obama’s deliberateness as strategic rather than fawningly considerate. Hannah writes:

Conservatives might tell us Obama is “politically correct” and Trump “tells it like it is.” But when it comes to the debate over the phrase “radical Islam,” Obama is playing chess and Trump is playing dodge ball. If politics is about strategy, political correctness is arming oneself with a sound strategy while political incorrectness is strategic recklessness.

As Hannah details, Obama himself dismissed concerns about political correctness in avoiding the term “radical Islam,” saying that his careful use of language is about defeating extremism and hampering recruitment efforts. Reckless characterizations, on the other hand, invite alienation of our allies in the war on terror and motivation of adversarial groups like ISIS.

While criticizing Trump and his ilk, Hannah also stresses that perceptions about the right from the left on the subject of political correctness might be similarly confused. From his anecdotal experience as a lecturer, Hannah finds that while anti-PC stances may be a reaction for some in not being able to espouse their personal prejudices, for others, it’s a mistrust of deliberate speech as the tool of high-falutin’ politicians:

Many on the left think conservatives demonize political correctness because they resent having to suppress their own prejudices. That might be true for some. But as someone who teaches a college class on political rhetoric, I’ve come to appreciate that anti-PC attitudes are part of a longer tradition of suspicion toward carefully calibrated language. Throughout history, our species has tended to distrust people who have a knack for political oratory. Part of this stems from the fact that most people are not good public speakers at the same time most people have an affinity for people who are like them. This is something psychologists call “homophily,” and is the reason so many of us tend to want to vote for somebody we’d “like to have a beer with” rather than someone smarter than us.

Looking at the 2016 election post-mortem, while race definitely played a part in people’s votes (how else to explain, for example, the wide disparity between white evangelicals, a majority of whom voted for Trump, and evangelicals of color, a majority of whom sided with Hillary Clinton?), this suspicion of more polished orators like Obama was almost certainly a factor as well, favoring the “Make America Great Again” candidate. It’s a tendency, Hannah tells, with origins as far back as ancient Greece, rooted in distaste for the use of ornate language as a means of courting votes for public office or avoiding jail time. Given his scandal-plagued tenure as president, this sounds more and more like Trump as we go along.

As Hannah writes in closing, though, the use of political correctness is in line with American tradition, back to the country’s very formative days. Political correctness was not viewed as a way to “stifle insensitive speech,” but a manner of speaking for those “trying to out-compete that speech in a free and open exchange.” For Trump and others to complain about PC culture, therefore, is to blame the free marketplace of ideas a professed Republican like he should ideally embrace, or, to borrow a sports analogy, to “petulantly” argue with the umpire. In professional baseball, that’s the kind of thing that can get you thrown out of the game. Trump, alas, is very much still in the game, but there’s every reason to think he stands to do something that will get him removed from office. In theory, even his Republican supporters have their limits.

Going back to the Munk Debate on Political Correctness, it’s worth noting that while 87% of people in attendance expressed an openness to changing their opinion on the matter at hand, prior to the debate, a 64% majority agreed with the Con side, a majority that grew to 70% following its inclusion. Without detailed demographic information or follow-up questions, it’s hard to know precisely what the audience believed and why they voted like they did.

It’s possible they believed, as they are entitled to, that political correctness really is a force that retards societal progress. I surmise that, lost in these statistics, is an affinity for the Jordan Peterson and Stephen Fry that only grew in the wake of Michael Eric Dyson’s “mean mad white man” comment. After all, Peterson and Fry have quite the followings, and admittedly, Dyson and Michelle Goldberg were previously unknown to me. Fry’s self-deprecating humor, too, was one of the highlights of the debate, and provided a nice balance against Peterson’s nearly-relentless seriousness.

Then again, perhaps the uptick can simply be attributed to the sentiment that Peterson and Fry won the debate. After reading a sample of online comments related to viewing the debate remotely, a number of users appear to have indicated Dyson’s comments about Peterson were the point that decided that the Pro side lost the debate, because that’s when it got personal and Dyson’s views lost all weight. It’s difficult to know to what these random commenters genuinely subscribe, or what biases—conscious or unconscious—might inform their assessments of the validity of the onstage arguments.

Wrong or right, the timbre of Dyson’s diatribe was a direct response to Peterson’s tone in asking for a percentage of how much his white privilege has helped him, one of dismissiveness and vitriol. In this respect, you could say Dyson took the bait offered by a clearly-vexed Peterson. Or, you could claim Dyson’s just a “racist,” as numerous commenters did. Never mind the idea that racism implies power and invokes the institutions behind it. In today’s modern political parlance, for many, racism and prejudice are one and the same. Such may be a false (if not dangerous) equivalency.

I’m also not sure how well the percentages of those surveyed at the debate reflect the opinions of Americans or Canadians at large. Certainly, to have someone more liberally inclined such as Stephen Fry arguing against the widespread use of political correctness may be telling that objection to this convention can come from people on either side of the political aisle and in between. Someone on the left, for instance, may balk at the extension of the acronym LGBT to include categories like queer, intersex, asexual, and pansexual because it feels, to them, more like alphabet soup than a community. Political correctness must be adaptive to changing social norms, and requires that participants be capable of adapting with it. For even the most PC-minded among us, it can be a challenge.

This notwithstanding, and irrespective of the Munk Debate audience tallies, political correctness is something worth striving for. Even if its opposition doesn’t reflect an underlying annoyance at having to use preferred terms or, worse, a genuine loathing for someone or their constituent group, political correctness still facilitates an open exchange of ideas and indicates a willingness to deal with the other person on amicable, equitable terms. Moreover, to recapitulate Mark Hannah’s points about the values of our forefathers, political correctness is very much in the American way. As suspect as Barack Obama’s precise language made him seem to some, Donald Trump’s political incorrectness only reflects his lack of preparation and his cruelty. That’s not politically useful—it’s a liability and morally objectionable.

On top of all this, to address Fry’s concerns, political correctness does work. As tempting as it may be to side with social anarchy, political correctness provides guidance on how to act in situations involving mixed-group interactions, and on the plane of creativity, PC language does not stifle innovation, but allows it to grow by imposing constraints, whereas “blue-sky thinking” can give rise to deleterious phenomena like bigotry, groupthink, and misattributions of truth merely to those that speak loudest or most often (for more information, attend this excellent piece by Guardian columnist Oliver Burkeman and the appended Cornell study within the text). In short, political correctness works in any number of life situations, and in the era of #MeToo, rejecting it for fear of reprimand from some objector real or imagined is a rather hollow justification.

Political correctness isn’t standing in the way of progress, or making the world less safe, or killing comedy, or coddling our youth. It’s a useful method of communication and representation which connotes our ability to honor those different from us and understand where they’re coming from, and to grease the wheels of strategic advancement rather than to invite counterproductive, reckless behavior. To those of us like Donald Trump who insist we don’t have the time for political correctness, one may easily counter that it’s perhaps exactly the time for it, and something we need now more than ever.

To view this post as it appears on Citizen Truth, click here. Citizen Truth is an independent and alternative media organization dedicated to finding the truth, ending the left-right paradigm, and widening the scope of viewpoints represented in media and our daily conversations. For more on CT, please visit citizentruth.org.

Islamophobia, by Any Other Name

sam-harris-800x430 — Hi! I’m Sam Harris! I think the Muslim ban was a bad idea but I also think Islam is a primitive and evil religion! Try to reconcile that! (Photo Credit: Steve Jurvetson/Flickr)

As I’m sure you’re aware, on the evening of January 29, in Quebec City, a 27-year-old man named Alexandre Bissonnette walked into the Centre Culturel Islamique de Québec mosque and started firing. By the end, six men were killed, with others injured, and the next day, Bissonnette was charged with six counts of first-degree murder and five counts of attempted murder with a restricted weapon. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was quick to condemn the attack as a terrorist act and one of cowardice on the part of the assailant, and authorities and Canadian citizens alike called for a spirit of inclusivity and togetherness in the wake of the violence. While mass shootings have become regrettably almost run-of-the-mill in America, mass shootings in Canada have been relatively sparse.

Within the United States, however, for a number of vocal Trump supporters during the early confusion of details filtering down from Quebec, the attack on the Centre Culturel Islamique was Exhibit A as to why the recently-enacted “Muslim ban” is not only advisable, but patently necessary. Initial reports identified two suspects in connection with the shooting, one of whom was Mohamed Belkhadir, a 29-year-old engineering student originally from Morocco. The jingoists among us, eager to fly the Stars and Stripes at first notice of an exclusionary narrative onto which to latch, were likely already foaming at the mouth at mention of the name “Mohamed,” and news of Belkhadir’s connection with the crime just sent them over the top. See, this is why we don’t want to let refugees from Muslim nations into the country! There’s too great a danger! You never know when ISIS might be lurking around the corner! Bear in mind Morocco isn’t one of the countries specified in President Trump’s ban on immigration, but let’s not let the facts get in the way of a good argument, shall we?

Except for the eventual revelation Mohamed Belkhadir was not actually a suspect in the mosque attack, but a witness. Oops! According to reports, Belkhadir was trying to administer first aid to a friend and fled to the cultural center’s parking lot when he saw someone with a gun, not knowing that person was a cop. Indeed, the search for a narrative and the desire to run with it led to a hasty presumption based on unconfirmed information and betrayed a series of arguments predicated on racial and xenophobic prejudice. What’s more, regarding the person of Alexandre Bissonnette, a synopsis of various media sources by Manisha Krishnan, writing for VICE, paints a picture of the Laval University student that might easily be recognized stateside as well as in Canada. According to these reports, he is a loner, a subscriber to right-wing views, a xenophobe, someone who displays misogynistic tendencies and trolls a Facebook group for refugees, is a white nationalist, and—to top it all off—is a fan of Donald Trump and his policies. Oops, again! While I personally might balk at the idea that Bissonnette is one of the Trump Train lot, as, ahem, not every Trump supporter is a mass murderer, that Bissonnette would seem to be an admirer of the President’s puts an almost ironic twist on the quick finger pointed at the Muslim world wholesale by those espousing similar right-wing views.

There are any number of striking things about this example of brutality. Certainly, the idea that Donald Trump’s influence translates into French Canada and abroad may startle, though the rise of white nationalism is certainly not limited to Trump; Alexandre Bissonnette is also said to be an admirer of France’s Marine Le Pen, whose National Front party has gained popularity by adopting a similar anti-immigrant stance. What also grabs the attention, however, at least for yours truly, is statistical information regarding all Canadians’ attitudes toward Muslims. Justin Trudeau, either because he’s being diplomatic, he truly believes it, or both, has, in the wake of the mosque attack, consistently preached the country’s support for the Canadian Muslim community and solidarity with the population. Personal views, meanwhile, tend to vary. Alyssa Favreau, a Montreal-based writer, connects the Quebec shooting to a rising sea of anti-Muslim sentiment.

As Favreau notes within the piece, police-reported hate crimes against Muslims more than doubled in Canada from 2012 to 2014, and the raw number (99) stands to be much larger because the majority of these crimes go unreported. What’s more, the attitudes of average Canadians toward Islam on the whole speak to a vague apprehension about the religion and its practitioners. A 2015 survey by the Quebec Human Rights Commission found that, despite about half of respondents having reservations about organized religions in general, a significantly higher percentage of those surveyed said they felt more uncomfortable about someone wearing a hijab as opposed to one wearing a cross. As for the Canadian population as a whole, based on a Forum Poll (Canada’s leading public opinion service) survey, more than a quarter of respondents had unfavorable feelings about Muslims. In other words, if Trudeau’s sentiments conveyed the sense some sort of love-fest exists in his country for followers of Islam, evidence points to the contrary.

In the United States, meanwhile, according to a report by Shibley Telhami, the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland and the director of the University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll, just under half of respondents across a composite of four polls during the election year disapproved of Islam on the whole; the approval rate for Muslim people fared yet better, with 70% of respondents viewing this subset of the population in a positive light, as opposed to 28% surveyed viewing Muslims in a negative light as of October 2016. This actually marks an improvement on these ratings since November 2015, and in spite of the salience of events like the Orlando shooting. As Telhami instructs, the upward trend in pro-Muslim leanings is almost exclusively attributable to changing views among Democrats and independents, and may well be a reaction to Donald Trump’s divisive actions and rhetoric. While the direction of this trend may be surprising, the source seems less so. After all, we would expect more liberal-oriented respondents to more readily embrace Islam and those who practice the faith.

If American views of Islam and Muslims are on the upswing, and even though progressives would like to see improvement on the dimensions governed by the polls interpreted by Shibley Telhami and his associates, it is therefore somewhat troubling to have people who would more readily identify with the left espousing views that mischaracterize Islam. By and large, I appreciate the comedy of Bill Maher, and while I may not agree with all of his positions on key issues, I have a certain degree of respect for the man. His stances on Islam and Muslims, on the other hand, I patently disagree with, and his embrace of fringe theories about this religion is not only arguably counterproductive, but potentially dangerous as well.

On a recent airing of his show, Real Time with Bill Maher, the namesake host featured a conversation with Sam Harris, author, cognitive neuroscientist, and co-founder of Project Reason, on the nature of Islam. Harris, no stranger to the program and notable for being a leader within what has been coined the New Atheist movement, had some choice words for the Muslim world and those liberals who support them. According to Sam Harris, “the left has allied itself with Islamists and closet Islamists,” and while on one hand, he and Bill Maher reject the merits of the Muslim ban, he had this to say about criticisms from left-leaners of others possessing Islamophobic tendencies: “You don’t have to be a fascist or a racist or even a Trumpian to not want to import people into your society who think cartoonists should be killed for drawing the Prophet.” Maher was quick to chime in at one point on this broad subject, condemning comparisons made between Islamist terrorist groups and the Ku Klux Klan, saying dismissively, “The KKK is not seeking nuclear weapons.” Um, bully for them then?

Both Sam Harris and Bill Maher, in discussing Muslims and Islam in this way, appear to be making a fundamental error. Harris, making a sweeping generalization, evidently believes all Muslims and refugees from countries where the predominant faith is Islam think cartoonists should be killed for drawing the Prophet Muhammad or otherwise representing them in a less-than-holy light, when realistically, this is a hallmark of radical or ultra-conservative Muslims, and not necessarily your everyday followers. As for Maher, he makes the distinction between the Ku Klux Klan and various Islamist groups, as if to say, “See? What did I tell you about Islam!” If saying the KKK doesn’t want nukes is your primary defense of this group, though, it’s a bit of splitting proverbial hairs, no? It’s like saying Donald Trump isn’t Hitler because he hasn’t tried to exterminate the Jews. That’s really a cold comfort, and besides, dude’s still got ample time in his first 100 days and Stephen Bannon the Skeleton King pouring poison into his ear. In either case, Harris and Maher are conflating the work of jihadists with that of rank-and-file Muslims, and such discourse not only seems to be steeped in faulty logic, but potentially is dangerous given the national voice these figures possess.

Sadly, this is nothing new for either man. Though a bit dated by Internet standards, Salon in 2015 compiled a compendium of Bill Maher’s “greatest hits” on Islam, which includes references to Muslims’ beliefs as “pernicious,” the Koran as a “hate-filled holy book,” and to Islam itself not being a religion of peace. As for Sam Harris, Glenn Greenwald, perhaps the best journalist you’ve never heard of, penned a lengthy op-ed about Harris and other New Atheists on “anti-Muslim animus” back in 2013. I know—positively ancient, right? And yet, not much seems to have changed or evolved within Harris’s world view since. Greenwald acknowledges Sam Harris’s antipathy toward organized religion as a whole (Bill Maher, though not an avowed atheist, is like-minded in his distaste for organized religion and its more deleterious effects), but notes how Harris, for lack of better phrasing, has a hard-on for Islam and those that worship in accordance with its precepts. From the essay:

The key point is that Harris does far, far more than voice criticisms of Islam as part of a general critique of religion. He has repeatedly made clear that he thinks Islam is uniquely threatening: “While the other major world religions have been fertile sources of intolerance, it is clear that the doctrine of Islam poses unique problems for the emergence of a global civilization.” He has insisted that there are unique dangers from Muslims possessing nuclear weapons, as opposed to nice western Christians (the only ones to ever use them) or those kind Israeli Jews: “It should be of particular concern to us that the beliefs of devout Muslims pose a special problem for nuclear deterrence.” In his 2005 “End of Faith”, he claimed that “Islam, more than any other religion human beings have devised, has all the makings of a thoroughgoing cult of death.”

This is not a critique of religion generally; it is a relentless effort to depict Islam as the supreme threat. Based on that view, Harris, while depicting the Iraq war as a humanitarian endeavor, has proclaimed that “we are not at war with terrorism. We are at war with Islam.” He has also decreed that “this is not to say that we are at war with all Muslims, but we are absolutely at war with millions more than have any direct affiliation with Al Qaeda.” “We”—the civilized peoples of the west—are at war with “millions” of Muslims, he says. Indeed, he repeatedly posits a dichotomy between “civilized” people and Muslims: “All civilized nations must unite in condemnation of a theology that now threatens to destabilize much of the earth.”

This isn’t “quote-mining”, the term evidently favored by Harris and his defenders to dismiss the use of his own words to make this case. To the contrary, I’ve long ago read the full context of what he has written and did so again yesterday. […] Yes, he criticizes Christianity, but he reserves the most intense attacks and superlative condemnations for Islam, as well as unique policy prescriptions of aggression, violence and rights abridgments aimed only at Muslims. As the atheist scholar John L Perkins wrote about Harris’ 2005 anti-religion book: “Harris is particularly scathing about Islam.”

The larger significance of these kinds of attitudes, as Glenn Greenwald sees things, is that this thinking can be used to justify all sorts of aggression, human rights abuses, and violence against Muslims, the kinds of acts to which rights activists independent of political affiliation strongly object. They include anti-Muslim profiling, state violence (i.e. liberals are “soft” on terrorism), support for Israel even in the face of international criticism, and torture. What’s more, whereas defenders of divisive behavior and rhetoric on the right might view this as justified based on vague ideas of Christian righteousness or outright racism and xenophobia, the foundation of New Atheism’s anti-Muslim sentiments is feelings and notions of a moral superiority. Sure, Sam Harris and his confederates might view their objections to Islam as more correct because they are not based on strict adherence to religious doctrine, but viewed in the context of secular morality and a battle of good versus evil, they are equally as insidious, if not more so. “They know not what they do”? Hardly. Harris and Company know exactly what they do—and that’s the point.

As Glenn Greenwald frames his arguments, then, Bill Maher’s and Sam Harris’s wholesale character assassination of Islam fits in all-too-nicely with a generalized American and Western condemnation of the Muslim world, and a tendency to side with our own interests even when they may be seen as wrong. Greenwald describes the problem with Harris’s denigration of Muslims and Islam quite succinctly:

Harris’ self-loving mentality amounts to this: those primitive Muslims are so tribal for reflexively siding with their own kind, while I constantly tout the superiority of my own side and justify what We do against Them. […] He is at least as tribal, jingoistic, and provincial as those he condemns for those human failings, as he constantly hails the nobility of his side while demeaning those Others.

As Sam Harris and other New Atheists would have it, the end game of Islam is to convert everyone to the faith, politically subjugate those who don’t convert, or kill those who stand in the way. Otherwise, the assumptions they make about the way Muslims think are based not on factual observation or rational, intellectual inferences, but rather a spirit grounded in religious or “tribal” attitudes—and if we really want to get down to brass tacks, this liberal Islamophobia is pretty much a religion in of itself. So much for that whole “no religion” bit.

It’s one thing for educated folks like Bill Maher and Sam Harris to sneer at the section of right-wing America that, to paraphrase Barack Obama’s infamous quote, clings to its Bibles, its guns, and its resentment against the foreign and the unfamiliar. It’s quite another, however, for their likes to convey an elitist tone and deride the Muslim ban as an obvious poor choice while they, in the same breath, denigrate Muslims and what they believe. So, while Maher, Harris and other non-believers/agnostics may thumb their noses at those who get caught up in matters of sectarian conflict, looking down at the rigidity of organized religions from atop their high horses, by painting Islam and Muslims with broad, largely negative strokes, they are no better than the Americans who, say, argue Muslims are a danger to the United States because they want nothing more than to make sharia law the supreme law of the land and subvert our existing statutes in the name of Allah.

Speaking of which, on that last note, in another one of those quasi-ironic twists that I seem to love these days, if anything is liable to bring religiously-motivated laws into a position of greater influence and effect, it is not Muslims, but the man behind the ban himself, President Donald Trump. Alongside plotting a gutting of the Dodd-Frank Act, a piece of legislation crafted in direct response to the irresponsible banking, lending and other regulatory practices which led to the global financial crisis almost a decade ago, Trump vowed recently to destroy the Johnson Amendment, which effectively bars churches from making political contributions, and thus, is an important aspect of the separation of church and state in the United States. Evidently, and in short, Trump, his cronies, and Republicans who aid and abet him in terrible policy-making are content to let the financial industry and religious organizations alike run amok. As many of us may reason, they might as well. You know, after confirming the likes of Rex Tillerson, a man who has ties to Vladimir Putin and who until recently helmed a company that dealt with countries considered state sponsors of terrorism, and Betsy DeVos, whose millions of dollars of political contributions somehow are supposed to count for a complete lack of competence and experience, there’s almost nowhere to go but up. Almost.

What we don’t need, therefore, returning our focus to the topic of anti-Muslim sentiment, is more noise from individuals professing to uphold science and intellectualism but instead giving way to beliefs that smack of white ethnocentrism and are reliant on a warped understanding of a religion practiced by over a billion people worldwide. People like Sam Harris argue liberals are in bed with jihadists and others like Bill Maher feel political correctness holds us back from having an honest and open conversation about Islam and the Muslim world, and at worst, makes us “pussies.” Little do they realize, however, it is, to a considerable extent, their closed-mindedness which only fuels mutual misunderstanding between East and West and drives us all further apart.

On “Snowflakes,” #Winning, and Allegations of Voter Fraud: Sensitivity in the Era of Trump

bs-ed-trump-baby-20160803-001 — What’s the difference between President Trump and a crying infant child? Honestly, beyond the size and age differences, not a whole lot. (Photo Credit: Stacie Scott/AP).

Trump supporters have really been, as the kids would say, “popping off” since their esteemed leader was elected to be President of the United States and has since been sworn in to fill the vacancy left by Barack Obama’s departure. It’s been terrible—I know. Through my anecdotal research of social media, as I have seen, one hashtag which is particularly oft-used by Trump Train riders, alongside the ubiquitous #MAGA, short for Make America Great Again—a slogan which is vaguely insulting in the insinuation America is not great right now, and which any number of us would insist is already great, albeit not without its share of problems, namely President Trump—is that of #Winning. Throughout his campaign, Donald Trump promised that if he were to be the next President, we as a country would start winning so much we would, quite frankly, get tired of winning so much. The analogy which comes to mind for me, a seemingly apt one in its distinctly American flavor, is that of going to a buffet and eating all the delicious food on the menu, only to develop a serious case of indigestion afterwards. Trump reiterated these sentiments in his Inauguration speech: “America will start winning again, winning like never before.” All we’d do is win, win, win—no matter what—and as the likes of DJ Khaled, Ludacris, Rick Ross and T-Pain would have it, everybody’s hands would go up, and what’s more, they would stay there. You know, until our arms get tired, presumably.

#Winning. As is my tendency, I scrutinize trends related to President Trump and his followers. Mostly because they’re patently frightening, and like a rubbernecker on the freeway glancing at a burning wreck, I can’t help but look, but even so. This reference to “winning” without much consideration of context gets me wondering: if these supporters believe the amorphous “we” are winning, or that maybe just they are, who are the implied losers in this scenario, and at what cost might we/they be winning? This boast reminds me at least of the famous (or infamous) claim of Charlie Sheen’s from his 20/20 interview with Andrea Canning in 2011 that he was winning. Sorry, I mean, WINNING! His evidence of his winner status was in his accounts of being rich enough to buy stupid shit and to do stupid shit and get away with it, dating porn stars, and doing drugs, among other things. When it was revealed in 2015 and later confirmed by Sheen himself that he is HIV-positive, it seemed as something of a cruel and ironic twist of fate for the man who just a few years earlier had to make it painfully clear that he was—duh!—winning, and as still others might imagine, this news might just be proof karma is real. (Side note: I’m not sure how Charlie Sheen might have contracted HIV, but I submit maybe his reference to possessing “tiger blood” was more telling than we might otherwise have imagined. Maybe he got it from a literal blood transfusion that would have seen actual tiger blood enter his veins. These are the things about which I think.)

Enough about Charlie Sheen, though. Getting back to the topic of another self-destructive rich white asshole and his fans, if only they are truly #Winning, who isn’t? The key to their logic, twisted as it might appear, is in their use of a pejorative term which seems to have taken on a new and increased significance in the past year or so: that of “snowflake.” You may have even heard it directed at you if you subscribe to a more liberal political orientation and world view—certainly, it gets thrown around a lot. To what does it refer, though? Well, as much as the term is used in a political context, its exact definition is somewhat elusive. Rebecca Nicholson, writing for The Guardian, explores the use of the term and its origins as “the defining insult of 2016.” The term, despite its recent explosion, is not new, and as Nicholson notes, may be, in part, related to a line uttered by the character Tyler Durden in Fight Club: “You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else.” A sobering sentiment, no? What may be yet more sobering is the very idea that snowflakes, themselves, are not necessarily unique, as researchers have been able to construct identical patterns within snowflakes within controlled environments. I know—mind blown, right?

We could do our own separate analysis of Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club and the accompanying film, or the crystalline structure of precipitation, but let’s not get lost in the proverbial weeds. Rebecca Nicholson, in citing countless notable iterations of the term “snowflake,” outlines how its early use was characterized by perceived generational differences in attitudes, specifically coming from those espousing “traditional” values as a criticism of younger generations. Within this purview, “snowflake” as an insult is a rejection of the apparent inclination within American society and other developed countries toward hypersensitivity. The tone is one of condescension, depicting millennials/young adults as easily offended, entitled, narcissistic, thin-skinned crybabies who lack resiliency, are enemies of free speech, and constantly need attention. Accordingly, when it comes to discussions of things like “safe spaces” on college and university campuses, the self-identifying anti-snowflake segment of the population eschews such notions, much as conservatives and members of the alt-right online and on social media deride those who rail against discrimination and defend political correctness as “social justice warriors,” another pejorative designation You can probably hear or see the comments in your mind along these lines. Get over it. Suck it up. Especially now that Donald Trump is President of the United States, here’s one that might sound familiar: “Don’t worry, snowflakes—the adults are in charge now.” Or: “There’s a new sheriff in town, kids!” As if Barack Obama somehow wasn’t or isn’t an adult or let lawlessness reign supreme.

Easily offended. Entitled. Narcissistic. Thin-skinned. Crybaby. Enemy of free speech. Constantly needs attention. Wait a minute—these traits sound familiar. If the revelation that Charlie Sheen is HIV-positive was ironic given that he trumpeted his exploits with adult entertainers and saw virtue in living with reckless abandon, it is seemingly as ironic, if not more so, that those pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps types among us who decry “snowflakes” as weak-willed thumb-suckers have gravitated toward a figure in Donald Trump who not only seems to embody these qualities, but is evidently an exemplar of these tendencies in their worst forms. Recently, ABC News anchor David Muir interviewed President Trump, the transcript of which is one of the most terrifying interviews I have ever read from a world leader in light of what it stands to mean for America—and this is no hyperbole. Feel free to read it for yourself, but I’ll try to spare you with a summary of the, ahem, finer points:

President Trump appreciates the magnitude of the job—tremendously bigly

The first question Muir asked Pres. Trump was, “Has the magnitude of this job hit you yet?” This was his response:

It has periodically hit me. And it is a tremendous magnitude. And where you really see it when you’re talking to the generals about problems in the world. And we do have problems in the world. Big problems. Business also hits because of the—the size of it. The size. I was with Ford yesterday, and with General Motors yesterday. The top representatives, great people. And they’re gonna do some tremendous work in the United States. They’re gonna build back plants in the United States. But when you see the size, even as a businessman, the size of the investment that these big companies are gonna make, it hits you even in that regard. But we’re gonna bring jobs back to America, like I promised on the campaign trail.

The size, indeed. Big, great, tremendous. Everything is of a superlative magnitude in Trump’s America. Including the problems. Oh, do we have problems, Mr. Trump? Oh, really? Gee, thanks! We had no idea, because we’re all a bunch of f**king morons. This interview is starting off on a great note.

Where there’s a wall, there’s a way

Following the illuminating revelation that problems face the nation, David Muir got down to the more serious questions. His first real topic of discussion was that of the wall at the border with Mexico, construction of which has been authorized by the President by way of executive order. Muir asked Trump, point blank, if American taxpayers were going to be funding construction of the wall, and Trump replied by saying they would, but Mexico’s totally going to pay us back. This is in spite of the notion Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto has vowed Mexico will not pay for construction of the wall, a point Muir pressed him on. And Pres. Trump was all, like, yeah, but he has to make a show of it first. Of course they’re gonna reimburse us. Muir then labored on the notion of reimbursement further, commenting that the sense he (Trump) gave voters was that Mexico would be covering the construction costs from the onset. And President Trump was all, like, I never said they’d be paying from the start. But they will pay us back, and besides, I want to start building the wall. Muir then asked for specifics on when construction would begin, and Trump indicated it would start in months, as soon as physically possible, in fact. We’re drawing up the plans right now. Right freaking now.

In speaking about the wall and the payment plan, if you will, Pres. Trump also referenced needing to re-work NAFTA, because we’re “getting clobbered” on trade, and that we have a $60 billion trade deficit with Mexico. In the past, Trump has highlighted this deficit as a means of our neighbor to the south covering the costs of the wall’s construction, and it is evident from his insistence on this point that he doesn’t really understand how it works, which is why I’m making an aside here. President Trump treats the trade deficit as proof that Mexico is getting over on us, but it’s not as if the existence of the deficit means that Mexico has all this cash lying around, just waiting to be allocated for a project like the wall. In a piece which appeared on CNN back in October, Patrick Gillespie addressed the myths about trade that Trump himself helped feed. For one, Gillespie advances the idea that a trade deficit may be a good thing, for when a country exports to the U.S., for example, they also tend to invest more here, which helps create jobs, including in the field of manufacturing. In addition, Mexico is a major trade partner for the United States, with millions of jobs and many American businesses depending on business with Mexico. This bluster about the wall, therefore, risks damaging a critical trade relationship for our country, not to mention it likely puts average Americans on the hook for building and maintaining a structure that is expected to cost tens of billions of dollars and has been consistently criticized as something that would ultimately prove ineffective, if not counterproductive to its larger aims. Other than that, though, it’s a great idea. Tremendous, in fact.

Yes, the “dreamers” should be worried

Keeping with the subject of illegal immigration, David Muir next moved the conversation to so-called “dreamers,” or children who were brought to this country by their parents, also undocumented immigrants. Could President Trump assure them they would be allowed to stay? To which Trump replied, they shouldn’t be worried, because we’re going to have a strong border and because he has a “big heart.” Seriously, though—he said that shit. Muir pressed him on this issue, asking again more succinctly if they would be allowed to stay. Pres. Trump dodged, though, saying he’d let us know within the next four weeks, but that he and his administration are looking at the whole immigration situation, once more emphasizing how big his heart is, and then seguing into a diatribe about getting out those “criminals”—those “really bad people” who come here illegally and commit crimes—who are here. So, um, sons and daughters of undocumented immigrants: be afraid. Be very afraid.

So many “illegals,” so much fraud—so little evidence

Almost as liberally as the term “snowflake” is thrown around in mockery of liberals, allegations of fraud have been hurled about rather indiscriminately these days, and Donald Trump is a prime suspect in this regard. David Muir asked Trump directly about perhaps his most reckless claim to date: that some 3 to 5 million illegal votes were cast in Hillary Clinton’s favor, explaining why he lost the popular vote. As Muir noted, it would be the biggest fraud in American electoral history, so where, pray tell, was the evidence? Pres. Trump first deflected by saying that was supposed to be a confidential meeting, but Muir interjected by saying he had already Tweeted with these allegations. It was at this point, though, that the interview began to go off the rails a bit. Mostly because Trump kept interrupting David Muir. I would’ve gone to California and New York to campaign if I were trying to win the popular vote. By the way, if it weren’t for all that fraud, I would’ve won the popular vote. Handily. But there were dead people who voted. Dead people! Oh, yeah! And people registered in multiple states. So we’re going to do an investigation. You bet your ass we will.

When he could actually get a word in edgewise, Muir fired back by saying these claims have been debunked. Donald Trump was all, like, says who? I got a guy at the Pew Center who wrote a report. And Muir was all, like, no, he didn’t—I just talked to him last night. And Trump was all, like, then why did he write the report? This report, by the way, was published way back in 2012, and David Becker, the man referenced by Muir and Trump in their back-and-forth and director of the research, said Pew found instances of inaccurate voter registrations, including people registered in multiple states and dead voters still on voter rolls, but that these were not evidence of fraud. Though Becker did note these inaccuracies could be seen as an attempt at fraud—especially by someone who lost the popular vote by more than 2.5 million votes and has a serious axe to grind. What’s more, Trump said Becker was “groveling” when confronted with the idea that his organization’s research proved evidence of fraud. This is the same word, for the sake of another by the way, that Pres. Trump used to characterize Serge Kovaleski, the disabled reporter he mocked—even though he said he didn’t—and under similar circumstances, too. Recall when Trump made the blatantly false claim that thousands of Muslims were cheering in the streets of Jersey City on 9/11 after the Towers fell. Once again, Donald Trump is misremembering, misleading, and out-and-out lying.

David Muir wasn’t having it, though, advancing the notion that Paul Ryan and Lindsey Graham have also commented on the lack of evidence of widespread fraud, and trying to move the conversation to “something bigger.” To which President Trump said—and I am not making this up—”There’s nothing bigger.” Really? Really? People are about to lose their health insurance and pay for a wall they don’t want and refugees from seven countries are barred from entering the United States—and we’re here talking about whether or not a few dead people or “illegals” (nice way to make Hispanics feel particularly welcome, while we’re at it) voted in the election. It was at this point when Muir posed the question: “Do you think that your words matter more now?” Pres. Trump said yes, of course. To which Muir followed up by asking: “Do you think that talking about millions of illegal votes is dangerous to this country without presenting the evidence? You don’t think it undermines your credibility if there’s no evidence?”

And Trump? He said no, and then went off on a crazy tangent. All of these illegal votes were for Hillary Clinton. None were for me. I had one of the greatest victories in American history. Barack Obama didn’t do anything about this fraud—and he laughed about it! He laughed about it! We can’t downplay this! We have to investigate this! And perhaps the most salient point of all Muir barely managed to eke out over all Trump’s overtalking: “It does strike me that we’re re-litigating the presidential campaign and the election.” In other words: “You won, bruh! Give it a rest!” President Trump would not be assuaged on this point, though. Because he can’t be, and will concoct any evidence to try to prove his case, evidence his apologists will believe and defend. This man is our President, he muttered to himself, sighing deeply.

“My crowd was bigger than yours!”

David Muir, likely with great unspoken relish, pivoted to the kerfuffle about the size of Mr. Trump’s Inauguration Ceremony crowd size relative to that of Barack Obama’s attendance. As a reminder, the claims of Donald Trump, his press secretary, Sean Spicer, and that of the Counselor to the President, Kellyanne Conway, are objectively false. Obama’s crowds easily surpassed those of the current President. Easily. With this in mind, Muir asked Pres. Trump when things like the crowd size at the inauguration, the size of his rallies during the campaign season, and being on the cover of TIME Magazine start to matter less, keeping with the theme of, “You won, bruh! Give it a rest!” And Donald Trump was all, like, David, bruh, don’t even. That speech was a home run. They gave me a standing ovation. I mean, it was Peyton Manning winning the Super Bowl good. And your little network tried to throw shade at me for it. I didn’t even want to talk about this whole crowd size business, but you made me, so there. I had to drop some truth bombs. Muir responded, though, by questioning the merits, whether or not Trump and his administration are right about the crowd sizes—which they’re not, let’s stress—of having Sean Spicer come out in his first press conference, talk about this junk, and not take any questions. Aren’t there more important issues facing the nation? And President Trump was all, like, how dare you and your network demean me and my crowd! No wonder you only have a 17% approval rating! (Side note: Trump’s approval rating, as of this writing, is at a scant 42%, and the 45% approval rating he experienced as of the Sunday following Inauguration is the lowest rate in Gallup’s polling history for an incoming President. Ever.)

So, in summary, guess there isn’t anything more important than Donald Trump and his manhood. Oh, well. Sorry, America.

How do you solve a problem like Chi-raq?

Easy answer: you call in the feds. David Muir tried to pin President Trump down on this comment he made regarding the murder rate in Chicago and how to fix it, the so-called “carnage” in America’s third-largest city. This is, however, and as we know, like trying to pin down a jellyfish in a kiddie pool full of baby oil. Trump suggested that maybe we have stop being so politically correct. When Muir pressed Pres. Trump on this issue, he demurred, saying that he wanted Chicago to fix the problem, and when Muir pressed him further, Trump resorted to his platitude of needing to get smarter and tougher—or else. And when Muir asked him what “or else” means, effectively pressing him on whether or not he would send in the feds for the fourth time, he simply replied, “I want them to straighten out the problem. It’s a big problem.” So, um, yeah, Chicago, better fix that shit before martial law is declared. I’m not saying—just saying.

It’s all fun and games until someone gets waterboarded

Is this interview still not scary enough for you? Wait—it gets better. And by “better,” I mean much worse. David Muir shifted to the contents of a report that stated Donald Trump was poised to lift the ban on “black sites,” locations which are not formally acknowledged by the U.S. government, but where torture and indefinite periods of detention of terrorism suspects were known to occur during President George W. Bush’s tenure. Trump, ever the coy one, said, “You’re gonna see in about two hours.” (Spoiler alert: he totally f**king did.) Muir then responded by asking, more or less, um, are you OK with torture? And Trump was all, like, sure I am! I mean, it gets results! Why shouldn’t I like it? I mean, for Christ’s sake, David, they’re chopping off our heads! Muir was all, like, even waterboarding? Trump was all, like, especially waterboarding. Just in case you thinking I’m making this up, here is an actual quote from the man:

Do I feel it works? Absolutely, I feel it works. Have I spoken to people at the top levels and people that have seen it work? I haven’t seen it work. But I think it works. Have I spoken to people that feel strongly about it? Absolutely.

Let this sink in for a moment. I feel it works. I think it works. Um, shouldn’t you know if it works, Mr. President? I could say I feel like veggie pizza is healthy, but that doesn’t mean it’s true. And on the subject of waterboarding, this is way more serious than pizza, although obviously nowhere as delicious. A 2014 Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report found that waterboarding was not a credible means of saving American lives nor was it believed to be superior to other “enhanced interrogation techniques.” And where did the Committee gets its information? Oh, you know, only from the CI-f**king-A—that’s who. Waterboarding, in case you were unaware, involves putting a cloth or plastic wrap over a person’s face and pouring water over his or her mouth, as if to simulate the feeling of drowning. That’s right—you’re made to feel as if you are dying. This is torture. We cannot and should not bring waterboarding back as an interrogation technique. No, no, no, no, no.

The Muslims—they hatin’ on us

To the subject of refugees we go—and mind you, this was before the so-called “Muslim ban” took effect—David Muir asked Pres. Trump about his intended executive action to suspend immigration to the United States, as we now know from seven countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. You know, the ones where he doesn’t have business interests, and from which nationals hadn’t killed an American on U.S. soil during the period from 1975 to 2015. Those ones. Muir was all, like, come on, dude, this is a Muslim ban, isn’t it? And Trump, he was all, like, no, it isn’t! It’s countries with tremendous levels of terror! Listen, I want America to be safe, OK? Barack and Hillary were letting all kinds of people into this country. Germany is a shit-show. We have enough problems here in the United States. We don’t need a bunch of people here trying to kill us. Muir then asked President Trump why certain countries were not on the list, namely Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, just for kicks. It’s because he has business interests there. I know it. You know it. And Trump—surprise!—didn’t answer. He talked about something called “extreme vetting,” despite the notion the vetting that’s currently in place is pretty damn extreme. Muir rightly asked in follow-up whether or not he was concerned this would just foment anger within the worldwide Muslim community. And the President was all, like, more anger? I don’t think that’s possible, because they’re pretty damn angry already. The world is a mess, David. What’s a little more anger?

David Muir then got up very slowly, went to the wall of the room where a samurai sword was strategically placed, and plunged it into his stomach. OK—Muir didn’t do that, but I’d like to imagine he was thinking about it, if for no other reason than to more quickly put an end to the interview. Instead, it continued. The next topic was Iraq, and the specific remark by Pres. Trump that, “We should’ve kept the oil, but OK, maybe we’ll have another chance.” Like, what the f**k was that supposed to mean? Trump, apparently, was totally serious on this point. Yeah, David, we should’ve kept the oil. It would’ve meant less money for ISIS. And Muir replied by suggesting that critics would say this would be sorta kinda a violation of international law. And Trump was all, like, who the f**k said that? Idiots. If we take the oil, that means more money for us. For schools. For infrastructure. How is that a bad thing? And Muir, likely trying to prevent his eye from twitching uncontrollably, moved to address the particular idea that “maybe we’ll have another chance.” That is, you might just start shit and risk American troops for that purpose? And Trump, likely with a smirk on his face, said this—for real—”We’ll see what happens.”

What an asshole.

I could tell you what David Muir and President Donald Trump said about the Affordable Care Act, but it would be a waste of time

This is the end of the interview, and sorry to wrap things up so unceremoniously, but here’s the gist: Trump and the GOP hate “ObamaCare,” and say they will replace it with something better, but they have no g-d clue about a superior successor to President Obama’s hallmark legislation. What we need is single-payer or universal health care. Just listen to Bernie Sanders—he’ll tell you. Don’t listen to Pres. Trump. For, ahem, the sake of your health.

19845399_sa — Sure, there were no protests or off-color remarks made when Barack Obama was elected and re-elected President. Why do you ask? (Image retrieved from wbbh.images.worldnow.com.)

The start of Donald Trump’s tenure as President of the United States has been nothing short of hellacious. Renewed talk of building a wall at the Mexican border and mass deportations. Effecting a Muslim ban—on Holocaust Remembrance Day, no less. Allowing Steve Bannon to have as much power as he does, a trend which only seems to be on the incline. Bringing us back full circle, though, to Trump’s supporters, this amounts to little more than “sore loser” talk. We won. You lost. Democracy in action. Get over it. What is particularly striking about this attitude, aside from the notion it is really not in the spirit of sportsmanship or togetherness, is that it comes with the supposition on the part of those supporters taunting young adults and liberals/progressives as “snowflakes” that they are superior because “they” never protested when Obama was sworn in. How quickly or easily they forget, though—or just plain deny. As this video from the online publication Mic explains, protests at President Obama’s Inauguration featured some particularly hateful rhetoric, including references to Obama not being born in this country—the “birther” controversy Trump himself helped perpetuate—images evocative of lynching, and allusions to Obama being a secret Muslim. This same video notes Trump also asked his Twitter followers back in 2012 to “march on Washington” after Barack Obama’s re-election in protest of this “travesty.” It’s only fair, then, that we march in protest of President Trump, right?

Either way, the equivalency between the protests then and now, despite some acts of vandalism and violence this time around from a few bad actors, is a false one. Protests of Donald Trump as President are not a rejection of the political process, but of a man who has made exclusion, hate, prejudice and xenophobia his calling cards. By this token, marches like the Women’s March on Washington earlier this month and planned marches in the coming weeks and months are about solidarity, not about trying to divide a cultural wedge into the country’s center. Even at their worst, however, these demonstrations and endless social media chatter in resistance of Trump’s policies have nothing on the reactionary, thin-skinned ways of the Bully-in-Chief himself. As Rebecca Nicholson details in her above-referenced column, the left has taken to trying to reclaim the term “snowflake” by, in part, turning it around on Trump and his endless griping, and if this muddles the meaning of this phrase or neutralizes its effect, so be it. Otherwise, they might do well to claim it as a badge of honor. Jim Dale, senior meteorologist at British Weather Services, is quoted in Nicholson’s piece as understanding why the term “snowflake” is used, but that there is a hidden power within this designation:

On their own, snowflakes are lightweight. Whichever way the wind blows, they will just be taken with it. Collectively, though, it’s a different story. A lot of snowflakes together can make for a blizzard, or they can make for a very big dump of snow. In which case, people will start to look up.

I, for one, hope this is the case. So, for all of you out there #Winning because President Trump is “making America great again,” know that for all your jeering of people like me who would be called “snowflakes,” we stand to become more organized and prepared to fight for our preferred version of America than you might think or might otherwise have realized had your boy not won the election. And enjoy this feeling of exuberance while it lasts, but don’t look up now—we snowflakes might be ready to make a very big dump on you.

On Björk, Sexism and Adventurousness in Music

bjork-portrait-oct-2016-billboard-1548 — Why is Bjork wearing a flower mask, you ask? What don’t you get? What are you: some sort of sexist or something? (Photo Credit: Santiago Felipe/Getty Images)

To the feminist conscious of current events or other social critic, there’s a high likelihood she or he will find evidence of sexism, whether in an individual’s actions or comments or in some institutionalized form—even when it may not exist. Of course, most incidences of sexist references identified by these dissenters do tend to be accurate. Plus, when you have someone like Björk making allegations—someone who has been around the music industry as long as she has and who has, on top of her years of service, continued to make high-quality music—you tend to want to listen to what she has to say.

Recently, everyone’s favorite Icelandic-born female singer-songwriter did two sets as a DJ at Houston’s Day for Night Festival, which were met with mixed reviews by critics. Björk, for her part, seemed taken aback by the charge that she spent too much time behind “desks” or at turntable decks or what-have-you, and not enough on performing. Apparently, she was being criticized for, you know, being a DJ and doing the kind of DJ things that DJs do. As a result, Björk, who received this criticism mainly from male reviewers and did not find the same criticism leveled at her male counterparts, determined the reason must be sexism. She wrote about it in a rant-like Facebook post, an excerpt of which I have copied and transcribed in a more eminently readable version here. It went a little something like this:

I am aware that it is less than a year since I started DJ-ing publicly so this is something people are still getting used to, and my fans have been incredibly welcoming to me, sharing my musical journey and letting me be me. It’s been so fun, and the nerd in me editing together pieces of others people’s songs for weeks gets to share the different coordinates I feel between some of the most sublime music I know.

But some media could not get their head around that I was not “performing” and “hiding” behind desks, and my male counterparts, not. And I think this is sexism, which at the end of this tumultuous year is something I’m not going to let slide. Because we all deserve maximum changes in this revolutionary energy we are currently in the midst of. It’s gotta be worth it. Anyways.

Women in music are allowed to be singer-songwriters singing about their boyfriends. If they change the subject matter to atoms, galaxies, activism, nerdy math, beat editing, or anything else than being performers singing about their loved ones, they get criticized. Journalists feel there is just something missing—as if our only lingo is emo.

I made Volta and Biophilia, conscious of the fact that these were not subjects females usually write about. I felt I had earned it. On the activist Volta I sang about pregnant suicide bombers and for the independence of the Faroe Islands and Greenland. On the pedagogic Biophilia, I sang about galaxies and atoms. But it wasn’t until Vulnicura where I shared a heartbreak that I got full acceptance from the media. Men are allowed to go from subject to subject, do sci-fi, period pieces, be slapstick and humorous, be music nerds, and get lost in sculpting soundscapes—but not women. If we don’t cut our chest open and bleed about the men and children in our lives, we are cheating our audience.

Björk’s post goes on from there, but you’ve got the essentials, as far as I’m concerned. There’s a few things to consider, even with what we have here. At the crux of Björk’s argument for sexism is the notion that she received criticism for not performing when her male cohorts did not, and it’s possible some measure of prejudice accompanies the negative reviews. I personally have not read any critical responses at length. Then again, Björk does come from a bit of a different place than others in the EDM scene, beginning as a performer and transitioning into a role as a non-performer, and given her legacy of over two decades of creating innovative music buoyed by her soaring vocals, it’s somewhat natural to wonder why she wouldn’t sing, or at least wish for it. As I understand, too, she was even playing some of her own songs as part of her sets. If the criticisms were based solely on recognition of this idea, I tend to think that they could’ve been filed against Björk, or Beck, or even the remaining members of the Beastie Boys. For all the dynamism of the physical experience the concertgoers in Houston encountered, they as paying customers probably would have liked to see and hear Björk rock the mic as only she can. After all, why come to the show when you can stay home and listen to the MP3s for free?

The other major component of Björk’s argument is that, according to her, women are not allowed to sing about subjects other than relationships. To an extent, she might be right, at least with respect to there being a double standard for men and women as to how we characterize their contributions to popular music. I’m reminded of the criticism brought against Taylor Swift by some observers that she, perhaps, writes and sings too much about relationship issues. Now, I must specify that I am no great fan of Taylor Swift and her music, so I am not particularly psyched about the prospect of defending her, but I feel her push-back on this front has merit. Her Swiftness had this to say about her romantic-drama-laden verses and criticism thereof:

Frankly, I think that’s a very sexist angle to take. No one says that about Ed Sheeran. No one says that about Bruno Mars. They’re all writing songs about their exes, their current girlfriends, their love life and no one raises a red flag there.

This discussion is part of a bigger conversation, as I see it, on disparities between men and women concerning perceptions of their character based on their love and sex life. If a man is involved with several different women in a short period of time, he tends not to be questioned, or is even lauded for his prowess. Be fruitful and multiply. If a woman is involved with several different men in a short period, meanwhile, she’s a slut or a whore. Can’t keep her legs closed. All of this comes on top of the notion that Taylor Swift, within the context of her songs, is merely singing from the point of view of someone in these relationships. Thus, while we might guess Jake Gyllenhaal or John Mayer is the subject of a particular tune, we just as well might insist that this is immaterial. Taylor Swift as a poetic voice is not the same as Taylor Swift, dater of one or many men. There is a line between the artist and his or her art—or at least there should be. Let there be some myth in all the storytelling, I say.

To be clear, though, this is not exactly what Björk is saying. To reiterate, the Icelandic singer-songwriter is venting about the idea that men can write about whatever subject they please without catching flak for it or even being praised for their adventurousness as an artist, but as soon as a woman strays from the milieu of family and relationships, she gets marginalized—not just that there is gender-based perception bias when people sing about love and relationships. I have not studied these phenomena extensively, so I’m not sure to what extent this is true and whether or not female performers get ostracized to a greater degree than male performers when they create outside the box.

From what I’ve observed, however, irrespective of sex, those who are more “out there”—whether in terms of their image, the themes about which they write, or both—are generally less apt to meet with widespread appeal or approval. Andrew Bird and The Decemberists, to name two artists/groups, are critically acclaimed for their musical contributions, which are well-suited to the bookish listener in particular, but unless you are a fan of alternative or indie music, it is doubtful you know either or both of them. In terms of female singer-songwriters, meanwhile, I could say the same about, say, a Joanna Newsom or Regina Spektor. Some of the best and most adventurous current music is of the sort you would be hard-pressed to find on your average Top 40 pop radio station, and this is not entirely surprising. For one, society in general tends to frown upon those who choose not to conform to normative trends. This is not altogether a criticism, mind you, just a function of our social psychological makeup.

In addition, with physical media on the decline for some time now and consumers less willing to pay directly for music (as opposed to, for instance, streaming services which utilize advertisements or employ a “freemium”-type model), it’s harder to generate interest on the merits of music alone. As such, especially if catering to a younger audience, someone like Sufjan Stevens or even St. Vincent is fighting an uphill battle for recognition against the likes of Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber or Fifth Harmony (wait, now that Camila has left, shouldn’t they be called Fourth Harmony?) There’s a good chance these “fringier” artists don’t mind so much anyway, but it’s worth noting that anyone who writes about atoms, terrorists or something other than how their love is like whoa is already bound to be less sought-after by a wider audience.

Which brings us back to Björk, who, in terms of her music and music videos, has been about as adventurous and “out there” as they come. Her peak popularity in the 90’s came at a time when music and other forms of entertainment generally seemed more unusual. You had movies come out like The Big Lebowski, Fargo and Pulp Fiction. You had popular television shows air such as Twin Peaks and The X-Files. Shit, you had bands with names like Butthole Surfers, Cherry Poppin’ Daddies, Squirrel Nut Zippers, and Toad the Wet Sprocket. The 1990s were a different time, man, and having grown up in this decade, I suppose it’s only natural that I should reckon myself quite the different individual. So Björk and her eccentricities arguably made more sense back then. Nowadays, the 51-year-old musician, perhaps known only to some younger reviewers in the context of being a DJ, is branching out, and has not met with the same success or acclaim as perhaps she’s used to. Though this shouldn’t denigrate her past achievements, it also shouldn’t free her from criticism on the merits of her DJ skills or her artistic vision related to her new role. Assuming that’s all the criticism is about.

I’ve already had enough of presidential politics for one calendar year, despite my seeming uncontrollable urge to write about the subject, but let me make a final comment (or one of my final comments, at least) regarding allegations of sexism and, in doing so, try to bring this discussion to a close as well. In an election cycle when candidates traded barbs even throughout the primary season and with the help of Twitter—you know who I’m invoking when I say that last bit—candidates and their supporters were quick to fire back at the opposing side. You know, whomever that opposing side was presumed to be. Right or wrong, for better or for worse, Hillary Clinton’s supporters often viewed layers of sexism in criticisms of their chosen candidate in the lead-up to the election. Even a casual Google search turns up articles penned during the campaign season like this gem from a Rebecca Bohanan, originally posted on the website xoJane, and re-posted on Huffington Post. It, um, very plainly states its agenda and beliefs in the title: “The Bernie vs. Hillary Battle All Boils Down to Sexism.”

Bohanan’s evidence of this supposed truth was her anecdotally-based explanation that she knows lots of young women who planned to vote for Bernie Sanders and vocally supported him, but knew of not one straight white man who would do the same for Clinton. Aha! Scientific proof! It couldn’t be that any of these heterosexual Caucasian males disagreed with Hillary on the basis of her stances on the issues. Not at all. Ms. Bohanan, in her indignation, also references comments made by former Secretary of State Madeline Albright and renowned feminist Gloria Steinem that were criticized for their apparent bias, as if to say that because of either their gender or their stature, they should be above reproach. With no disrespect to their intelligence and knowledge, however, I find their comments to be in poor taste. Albright suggested “there’s a special place in Hell for women who don’t help other women.” If meant to be serious, it’s an egregious conflation of Christian ideology with political environment. If an ironic jest, it nonetheless undermines the decision-making capability of young women and persists with laying a guilt trip on them.

As for Steinem, who intimated that young females only were going to Bernie Sanders rallies to chase after boys, there’s a similar vibe of lack of trust in the 30-and-under crowd to make a cogent decision. Not to mention it’s pretty darn insulting to infer that they would rather get laid than act for the sake of the country. Again, no one’s questioning Gloria Steinem’s feminist credentials, but much as it’s very possible for a black person to be racist, Madeline Albright and Steinem are not immune from sexism in their own right. Legends as they are, they’re allowed to be wrong.

So, yes, Björk. Her DJ sets down in H-Town got mixed reviews, but not necessarily because of some patriarchal refusal of the boys’ club of electronic dance music to let her in. It may be as simple as reviewers not knowing what to make of the spectacle, or legitimately being confused as to why a gifted vocalist wouldn’t be singing. Or it just may be that times have changed, and while Björk is by no means washed-up, perhaps the zeitgeist of the present is just not as conducive to showering her with praise. In other words, while we should be sensitive to gender bias in our lives and in the media, and while virulent sexism is still alive and well in our world today (you’ve heard Donald Trump talk, right?), it doesn’t always exist to the extent we may think it does. I’m all for political correctness, but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

“This Was Locker Room Talk.” Yeah, Not Good Enough, Mr. Trump

dt-common-streams-streamserver — What was Donald Trump thinking about here? Was he sorry about those awful things he said about women over a decade ago? Was he contemplating how his campaign is in shambles and Republicans are running to get away from him? Or was he constipated, wondering when he would be able to shit again? You make the call. (Photo Credit: AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump has lied so frequently and so blatantly it is frankly odd he would issue some sort of mea culpa when it came to the newly-released recording known colloquially as the Trump Tapes. By now, pretty much anyone following national news on a regular basis is at least vaguely familiar with the details of this much-talked-about conversation between the Republican Party nominee (boy, aren’t they glad they’ve stuck with him up to now!) and Billy Bush, who made such a fine impression on us recently when defending Ryan Lochte despite obvious evidence he had fabricated the story of his robbing at gunpoint in Rio de Janeiro. Back in 2005, when Donald Trump was set to make a cameo appearance on soap opera Days of Our Lives, in a recorded conversation with Bush, then-host of Access Hollywood, he made various references to kissing and groping women as part of his sexual advances, whether they had given explicit consent or not and even whether or not they were married. His language, as one might imagine, was not suitable for all audiences, with Trump even going as far as to say that, because he’s a star, he could “grab [women] by the pussy.” According to the real estate mogul, a man of his stature can “do anything” he wants in this regard.

Certainly, there are any number of things wrong with this contention of Trump’s, not the least of which is his collective comments smack of entitlement and a misguided belief in his sheer magnetism. What is perhaps most galling now, though, is that more than 10 years after the fact, Donald Trump is quick to dismiss his banter as “locker room talk.” Boys will be boys. What’s said in the sauna room at the country club stays in the sauna room at the country club. Unsurprisingly, very few beyond the purview of Trump supporters and apologists are having any of this justification. One group which has slammed Donald Trump’s sexist nonsense is professional athletes, who are not always known for their tact in relationships with women.

Yet numerous athletes have rejected this characterization of the GOP nominee’s about locker rooms, with some suggesting that while they can’t speak for all situations, and while players do talk about women, they don’t do so in such degrading, ugly terms, especially those with wives and daughters and other close relationships with females in their lives. The devil’s advocate argument is that maybe these athletes aren’t telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help them God. Then again, it is theoretically equally likely that Donald Trump, whose own athleticism appears relegated to playing shitty golf, knows very little about what is said in locker rooms circa 2016. Of course, this wouldn’t necessarily stop Trump from making faulty attributions about them, mind you, but it is worth noting for those of us who understand his, shall we say, complicated relationship with the truth.

This whole debate—if you can even refer to it as such owing to the dearth of logical arguments herein—is mediated by what one side in particular refers to as a “culture war.” In one corner, we have those who favor a growing recognition for the need for equality for groups which have been marginalized over centuries by a white patriarchal society, and with that, increased sensitivity to the effect images, sounds and words have on members of the disenfranchised, especially those of a homophobic, racist, sexist, transphobic, or xenophobic nature. In the other corner, we have those individuals who aver we are becoming too sensitive and too politically correct, and that those same disenfranchised people should “grow up” or “get a pair” or not get “so butt-hurt” about these matters.

In defense of the “lighten up” crowd, as one might call them, there are times, I believe, when cultural sensitivity and political correctness can be taken to absurd extremes. A notorious example from recent memory can be found in Starbucks’ decision to issue plain red cups for its hot beverages around the “holiday” season last year, devoid of any symbols which may be construed as Christmas-related and thereby promoting Christianity above all other faiths. The coffee company’s apprehensiveness about offending some of its customers, while understandable, was offensive to a number of its clientele, particularly the crowd that’s tired of taking “the Christ out of Christmas” and otherwise kowtowing to the beliefs of other religions, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa be damned. Others, more apathetic to the spiritual nature of this argument, were likely annoyed people were making such a big deal about a bunch of stupid paper cups. I myself sympathized with the commentary of poet and novelist Jay Parini, who decried Starbucks’ choice in an opinion piece for CNN.

As Parini contends, first of all, Christmas has become largely secular anyhow, with commemoration of the birth of Christ in the manger (some dispute December 25th is the true date of the Nativity, but this is another issue altogether) giving way to crass consumerism and the pursuit of the perfect present. More importantly, however, the author suggests that by removing more innocuous icons that have nothing to do with Christmas, such as reindeer and tree ornaments, we are sacrificing mythical applications of these images and stripping the aesthetic of any real sentiment. He writes:

I write this as a Christian who feels no need to thrust my own faith upon anyone else. Political correctness has its place — we don’t want to impose our beliefs (and especially our prejudices) on anyone else. People need to have and feel good about their own stories.

But this attempt to peel away even the secular side of Christmas — to strip all texture and mythic potential from contemporary life — seems beyond absurd, perhaps even dangerous, as it points in the direction of total blankness, a life lived without depth, without meaning.

Discussions of this nature concerning excessive political correctness are arguably characteristic of outliers, not the norm, however. In many more cases, circumstances that cause self-appointed social critics to rail against the trappings of too much PC “nonsense” are either protesting instances in which just enough or too little attentiveness to mutual respect of one another manifests. It is the latter condition, in particular, which potentially may be deeply disturbing, and which pretty much exclusively colors Donald Trump’s campaign. Even within this distinction of being too politically incorrect, it should be pointed out, there are degrees of just how, well, reprehensible the GOP candidate is.

At his best—er, least worst—Trump favors discrimination and prejudice under, if nothing else, the pretense of keeping America safe. You can’t separate Donald Trump from his professed policy and rhetoric against Mexicans and Muslims, though those prospective voters who support the man are apt to share an anxiety and fear about these “outsiders.” So, while the man of a thousand failed investments may tap into the paranoia and rage of a portion of the electorate which is predominantly white and not as liable to have graduated from college, he certainly didn’t invent these emotion-laden responses to domestic and international population trends. Thus, when Trump speaks of political correctness holding America back in terms of our ability to furnish law enforcement with information from cellphones and other technological devices, verify the legal status of residents, and vet refugees, even the most rational among us may allow our sensibilities to be affected by discourse of this kind.

Even when Donald Trump’s deviations from standard operating procedure for politicians possess some vague justifiability and/or connection to theoretical policy, they lack merit on the humanity dimension. Accordingly, when there is no apparent immediate connection to an executive decision to be rendered, and Trump is behaving like an ass to be an ass, his actions and words tend to feel that much more terrible. Recall Trump’s childish and insensitive imitation of New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, invoking his disability (arthrogryposis, a joint condition), following a dispute over whether or not there were thousands of Muslim-Americans cheering on the streets of Jersey City on 9/11 (guess which side Trump was on). Or his way-off-base comments criticizing military veterans, such as when he suggested John McCain was somehow less of a man for being held captive, or going after Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the Pakistani-born parents of fallen U.S. soldier Humayun Khan, a man awarded multiple posthumous honors for his service. There was no need to make comments of these sort—unless Trump’s implicit intent was to rile up the “deplorables” among his supporters, and in that case, we should rightly be disgusted. In addition, we might note with some irony how the GOP candidate talks tough about belittling the sacrifices of others, dismantling ISIS and knowing more than the generals on the ground despite never having served himself. But that’s our Donald. Bully and misdirect like no one’s business.

484129326 — Tastes good, doesn’t it? I’ll bet it does, you fat f**k, you. (Photo Credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Coming back at last to the notion of Donald Trump excusing his degrading remarks about women as locker-room fodder, it’s on some level sad that we’re talking about awful things he said before he even seriously considered running for President when there are so many important issues on the table this election. Such is the state of the 2016 race, however, when Democrats and other anti-Trump forces must spend umpteen hours trying to delegitimize a candidate who was never legitimate in the first place. Amid the controversy over what Trump was heard saying on the recording, Trump apologists are quick to point out that the man said these things over 10 years ago, and so should be granted some clemency with respect to being excoriated for it now. Because this donnybrook has nothing to do with actual policy ideas, and instead is one of a myriad number of dialogs about presidential character and fitness for the office, a small part of me is sympathetic to this defense.

I stress that it is a small part, though. After all, Donald Trump has been quick to drag the marriage of Hillary and Bill Clinton into the spotlight, invoking events that transpired even before his ill-advised trip to the gutter-mouth convention in 2005. In this regard, his pseudo-private conversations and own personal romantic life are fair game. I mean, when you start slinging mud around indiscriminately, you shouldn’t really act offended or shocked when some of it gets on your high-priced suit. Meanwhile, I and scores of others also submit that there is no statute of limitations on being a sexist douchebag. Trump, in his quasi-apology, has vowed to be a better man after the breaking of this latest scandal. If comments as recent as last year about Carly Fiorina’s appearance are any indication, however, the Republican Party nominee hasn’t learned anything since his chat with Billy Bush—and moreover won’t, because he can’t.

Snippets of Donald Trump’s past, then, are useful to the extent they illuminate present attitudes of men toward women and vice-versa, and how these attitudes may be constructed in the future. In today’s terms, as is alluded to by even those professional athletes critical of Trump’s stance on lewd remarks about females, whether private or not, one can’t truly know what happens in all locker rooms across the United States, be they used by grown men or still-developing boys. And certainly, I am not advocating for assigning culpability based on what people think, lest we get into the realm of science-fiction, or something like that. Still, let me qualify Trump’s remarks simply by returning to the idea that he is a seemingly shitty golfer, and judging by his current physical stature, he doesn’t really fit the mold of the athlete. To put this another way, Barack Obama, he is not. Besides, it wasn’t like Donald Trump and Billy Bush were in an actual locker room at the time of the recording. Per my understanding, it is an audio recording that is responsible for boasts about kissing women and even more graphic non-consensual situations with the opposite sex, so I’m not sure exactly where the fateful one-on-one took place, but even if Trump were under the impression what he was saying was “off the record,” in a public place, you can’t really rely on the vague notion of confidentiality. To this day, it amazes me how many high-profile figures get caught in “hot mic” situations. Even when you’re not “on,” you should have the mentality that you’re being recorded. Shit, you never know when the NSA might be listening!

Even if 2016’s male-populated locker rooms are, in fact, largely above reproach on the respecting women dimension (though knowing myself and having lived through my teenage years, I can attest that they are most certainly not above reproach on the cleanliness dimension), going forward, to have someone like Donald Trump in a position of relatively high standing saying such terrible things about females that since have been made very public—and to excuse them with little more than a wave of his hand—makes me concerned about how this lends itself to perpetuation, or, worse yet, proliferation of rape culture among impressionable young men. Already, educators are reporting a “Trump effect” on playgrounds and in schools among children who are harassing African-Americans, Hispanic/Latino(a) and Muslim cohorts, as well other targets of Trump’s ridicule. Undoubtedly, small children are probably as confused by why the GOP nominee advocates grabbing women by their “kitty cats” as they are by why, say, they are told by their classmates to “go back to China” when they are from South Korea or Vietnam.

But what about “bigger kids,” especially those teens and young adults who are affluent, white and, well, apt to feeling rather entitled to talk and behave in a way that fails to hold them accountable for their bad behavior? In past posts, I’ve referenced the Brock Turner rape case (dude’s already out of jail, BTW), as well as the ridiculous “affluenza” defense levied by Ethan Couch, his family, and his legal defense team after Ethan hit and killed multiple people while driving drunk (he’s only 19, mind you, and was only 16 when he committed the fatal act) and then violating probation by fleeing to Mexico (the latest: dude’s appeals to have his sentence reduced and the judge presiding over his case thrown out have failed, but he’s still only serving 720 days for killing four human beings). These are extreme cases and ones that garnered a wealth of publicity, granted, but this also sort of goes to my point: what about those less-publicized instances where “locker room talk” leads to extra-locker-room action, and not necessarily of the sort where the woman encourages such action?

Women’s rights groups, rights activists groups, and other concerned citizens speak of a “rape culture” that manifests in this country, one that is disturbingly prevalent at colleges and universities, even extending to treatment of purported female victims at the hands of police. I’m sure you’ve heard the kinds of excuse responses that mark this pattern of behavior and thought. She realized what she did and now she’s crying “rape.” I thought it was consensual. She was asking for it—the way she was dressed. She was drunk and can’t remember. She’s a slut, she’s a bitch, she’s a whore.

In response to allegations of race or sexual assault, some men (and women, in some cases, too) will get not just defensive, but downright nasty toward their accusers, and what’s more, those charged with hearing and responding to student claims at various colleges and universities may be slow or unwilling to acquiesce, requiring the victim to proverbially jump through any number of administrative/legal hoops to move forward with the case. A few months ago, Brigham Young University caught a lot of flak from members of its female student body and later national media for encouraging female students who believed they were victims of sexual assault to come forward and file a report, yet punishing those same students for violations of BYU’s Honor Code, which prohibits consumption of alcohol, drug use and consensual sex—on or off the campus. As numerous critics inside and outside the university believe, and so it would appear, BYU is concerned more with the school’s image than the safety of its students. Don’t be afraid to speak up—but shh! Not so loud!

If Donald Trump is inaccurate about the state of locker room banter in this day and age, and thus we can’t directly attribute rape and sexual assaults to what is discussed in this setting, then we’re already worse off in light of Trump spreading falsehoods or making incorrect assumptions about the character of today’s “jocks.” If he is, in fact, authentically portraying the mindset and speech of not just athletic men, but individuals of the male persuasion more generally, however, then we may have a different problem on our hands, for what is said behind closed doors may not necessarily stay that way. Either way, the statistics would dictate the incidence of sexual crimes against both women and men is very much a problem. According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, one in five women and one in 71 men will be raped at some point in their lives. When considering sexual abuse of minors, the stats are yet more alarming, with approximately one in four girls and one in six boys abused before the age of 18.

Meanwhile, in the context of college, one in five women and one in 16 men are sexually assaulted during the course of their study. Worst of all? Many cases of abuse and assault go unreported by victims too distraught or too intimidated to confront their abuser/assailant; according to the NSVRC, over 90% of sexual assault victims on college campuses do not report the assault, and in general, 63% of sexual assaults are not reported to police, and as much as 88% of instances of child abuse fail to be brought to the attention of authorities. Just “locker room talk?” “Boys will be boys?” I’m sorry, but that’s not good enough. Not with so many victims out in our world, and more unfortunately guaranteed to come with each passing year.

By invoking the concept of locker-room talk, if Donald Trump were truly cognizant of the danger so many people face as a result of rationalizing guilt away, especially women and children, he would use his unfortunate comments as a teachable moment rather than an excuse. As mentioned before, though, this is Donald J. Trump we’re talking about here. How can he teach when he refuses to learn or, at that, engage in a modicum of self-reflection? If how he spoke to Billy Bush in that recording is how guys supposedly talk and think, maybe we should be guiding them with a firmer hand on a path to a mindset that reinforces equal treatment of women. If you supposedly respect women as much as you say you do, Mr. Trump, you would call for greater accountability for yourself and others in political correctness toward people of all genders, rather than delivering some pithy excuse and continuing along the campaign trail as if nothing happened. Not only do you not seem genuinely interested in anyone but yourself, however, Mr. Trump, but you apparently are not all that invested in the female vote. Yeah, um, good luck with that next month.

In case I haven’t made it abundantly clear by now, I find Donald Trump’s comments singularly abhorrent, but whether it’s self-identifying members of the alt-right, or other males who evidently are on board with indiscriminate groping of women and blurred lines between forced and consensual sex, with these types running off at the mouth from behind their computer screens, it is incumbent upon the men who likewise are appalled by Trump’s foul-mouthed, entitled yapping to speak up on behalf of the women in their life and speak out against this type of thinking. This whole controversy is not a women’s issue. It’s a human issue, and until more people grasp that fact as well as the overall importance of this discussion, we’re that much further away from genuine gender equality.

Free Speech Is All Well and Good—Except When You’re Being a Complete and Total Asshole

milo_you-can't_hear_him — Don’t be sad, Milo. You weren’t banned because Twitter hates conservatives, free speech or gays. You were banned because you were being an asshole. (Image retrieved from pixel.nymag.com)

In one form or another, you’re probably well familiar with the saying attributed to Voltaire, but really authored by writer and Voltaire biographer Evelyn Beatrice Hall: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” With that, this phrase is probably the most common citation used in evoking the fundamental right of the individual of free speech in a free society. Not made explicit herein is the presumption that any argument which qualifies as protected speech under this maxim is reasonable or otherwise not intended as an injurious attack, though many would contend this much is implied. In other words, freedom of speech, conferred upon the American people by the First Amendment to the Constitution, is not absolute.

Where common sense has been insufficient, case law has helped to fill the void and define the parameters of what constitutes protected speech and that by which an individual may be held liable for what they say. Pursuant to this notion, another popular trope concerning the potential limitations of free speech is the “shouting ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater” analogy made by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in expressing the Supreme Court’s opinion in the unanimous ruling in the 1919 case Schenck v. United States, which seeks to illustrate the point that false statements of a kind that would “create a clear and present danger” to the public are and should not be protected. This is to say, in a larger sense, that malicious or reckless language could present a liability for the person who indiscriminately utters it.

Now that we’ve got some context under our belt, let’s get to the relevant present-day circumstances, shall we? As reported by Buzzfeed’s Charlie Warzel and his cohorts on numerous other media outlets, on July 19, conservative commentator Milo Yiannopoulos was permanently banned on Twitter after he evidently orchestrated a campaign to attack Leslie Jones, Saturday Night Live cast member and star of the female-led Ghostbusters remake, via social media, which Yiannopoulos’ loyal followers acceded to in the form of scores of racist and otherwise derogatory images and remarks. The totality of the hateful messages Jones received spurred her to, in an emotion-laden post, announce her self-imposed Twitter hiatus, prompting Paul Feig, the director of the new Ghostbusters, to come to her defense and, eventually, Twitter itself to intervene. Here’s what the company—or a spokesperson within its ranks—had to say on the decision to ban Milo:

People should be able to express diverse opinions and beliefs on Twitter. But no one deserves to be subjected to targeted abuse online, and our rules prohibit inciting or engaging in the targeted abuse or harassment of others. Over the past 48 hours in particular, we’ve seen an uptick in the number of accounts violating these policies and have taken enforcement actions against these accounts, ranging from warnings that also require the deletion of Tweets violating our policies to permanent suspension.

We know many people believe we have not done enough to curb this type of behavior on Twitter. We agree. We are continuing to invest heavily in improving our tools and enforcement systems to better allow us to identify and take faster action on abuse as it’s happening and prevent repeat offenders. We have been in the process of reviewing our hateful conduct policy to prohibit additional types of abusive behavior and allow more types of reporting, with the goal of reducing the burden on the person being targeted. We’ll provide more details on those changes in the coming weeks.

As Warzel highlights in the Buzzfeed piece, it’s not so much his own hateful speech which got Yiannopoulos indefinitely barred—though his bullying, condescending (Milo refers to Jones as “barely literate” after a typo) and insulting comments likely didn’t help his case—but that he put a target on Leslie Jones’ back and encouraged abuse hurled at her. Milo Yiannopoulos, meanwhile, did not go gentle into that good night of social media censure, firing back at Twitter from his soapbox on Breitbart, for which he serves as tech editor. Straight from the horse’s ass, er, mouth:

With the cowardly suspension of my account, Twitter has confirmed itself as a safe space for Muslim terrorists and Black Lives Matter extremists, but a no-go zone for conservatives.

Twitter is holding me responsible for the actions of fans and trolls using the special pretzel logic of the left. Where are the Twitter police when Justin Bieber’s fans cut themselves on his behalf?

Like all acts of the totalitarian regressive left, this will blow up in their faces, netting me more adoring fans. We’re winning the culture war, and Twitter just shot themselves in the foot.

This is the end for Twitter. Anyone who cares about free speech has been sent a clear message: you’re not welcome on Twitter.

Wow. Yiannopoulos’ response to Twitter’s administrative action hits on a number of underlying issues, so it’s difficult to know where to begin. Before sifting through his arguments, let me first say that I find it a tad bit perplexing that Milo would vilify Leslie Jones for playing the victim when his speech is framed in a way that makes him seem like a martyr, crucified by the “totalitarian regressive left” and its dictatorial arm, the fascist Twitter. Nice use of manipulative demagoguery there, Milo. Maybe the Trump campaign could use you as part of its public relations wing.

Without going further on Milo Yiannopoulos’ rhetoric, let me take a step back with my own views on the very concept of a Ghostbusters remake. Personally, when I first heard about this project, I was not enthusiastic about it. Before you go ahead and infer a reason, let me explain. My aversion to this 2016 do-over of the original popular action-comedy film has little to do with the casting, and much more to do with the decision to green-light it in the first place. See, this kind of “creative” work strikes me as an example of the kind of unoriginality which plagues much of Hollywood’s output these days. If movies are not being remade, they are adapted from existing media. Like comic books and graphic novels. There are more superhero movies nowadays than one could shake a turbo-charged stick at, and as some might argue, these are a big part of the problem with modern American cinema. Or there are “reboots.” You can thank that trend for why we’ve had not one, but two shitty Fantastic Four adaptations in the past decade. And sequels. God help us, the sequels. From reports, the Saw film series, which I submit should have never gone beyond the first iteration, is likely to see its eighth installment start filming in the next few months. And the Ice Age franchise just released a movie involving a saber-toothed squirrel flying around, of all things, a spaceship. SPACESHIPS? FOR F**K’S SAKE! DID WE REALLY NEED ANOTHER F**KING “ICE AGE” MOVIE?!?

Sorry, I get worked up about these kinds of things. But yes, my major malfunction is with the perceived lack of effort on producers’ and studios’ parts, not on the gender of Ghostbusters (2016)’s primary quartet. If anything, my quibble with the casting would be that the film’s makers borrowed too heavily from the current and former ranks of SNL (though I acknowledge the common lineage), but on talent, I can’t say I fault these choices—Leslie Jones especially. Others who are more vocal in their criticisms may have similarly legitimate objections to the existence of this new movie, namely their condemnation of the updated model in favor of the 1984 original, which has stood the test of time since its release and has inspired its much-warranted affection and legacy. Simply put, 1984 Ghostbusters is good enough that 2016 Ghostbusters was patently unnecessary. That the comedic talents of Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Bill Murray and Harold Ramis have been supplanted or usurped, as some might see it, and in a format that simply because it is different is threatening, makes this especially galling. “They’re just sweeping the 1984 version under the rug! There’s no emoticon for what I am feeling!”

For those individuals who are not Ghostbusters fanboys, or otherwise are not nerdish enough in their protests to argue against the Jones-McCarthy-McKinnon-Wiig quaternity based on its revisionist nature, if not embracing this fab female four, or just hopelessly ambivalent, the likely alternative is outright hatred, and not necessarily based on the movie’s technical merit. Here’s where we start to approach the position of Milo Yiannopoulos and his ilk. While Yiannopoulos may choose to hide behind his assertion that Leslie Jones participated in a terrible movie, and hence deserves to be targeted, the tone of the “hate mail” directed at Jones as a result of his efforts really puts the “hate” in “hate mail.” Jones, who is black and fairly large in physical stature (though not obese/seriously overweight or anything like that), drew unfortunate comparisons to an ape in many of the Tweets that bombarded her account. Otherwise, death threats, derogatory imagery of a sexual nature, and taunts about her being ugly pervaded the glut of responses she received as a result of her involvement with the movie and her own reactions to the vitriol to which she was subjected. I don’t blame Leslie for wanting to abandon Twitter outright after having to absorb that level of abuse.

In the eyes and minds of Jones’ online assailants, a prohibitively male audience, the new Ghostbusters and its star are a symbol of a vague leftist conspiracy that intrudes upon their way of life. In particular, their reading of a feminist bias in the movie’s cast—which to them, based on their definition of “feminism,” stands for the subjugation of the male even though mainstream feminists seek elevation of the female only to the extent female and male are equal—and an ever-increasing tendency for society as a whole to insist on political correctness represent a threat of the highest order. Consequently, those so-called “social justice warriors” who argue on behalf of what are seen as faulty defenses of feminism and political correctness (under this purview, I suppose I would qualify as an SJW, too) are ostracized for their beliefs and for pontificating from behind a keyboard on issues they neither care about nor truly understand. As much as one might counter that this rebellion against the social justice warrior is a bit like the proverbial pot calling the kettle black, with any confrontations with chauvinistic trolls on these terms, appeals to logic may only go so far. So it goes in the arena of Internet discourse.

As a result, right or wrong, these users’ free speech is understood by them to be unassailable, and in turn, any harassment of other users is justifiable based on the cloak of the First Amendment and the imminent danger of a woman-oriented, politically correct existence. Which brings us back to Milo Yiannopoulos. Let’s—at last—dissect what he has to say regarding Twitter’s “cowardice,” as he elects to call it.

With the cowardly suspension of my account, Twitter has confirmed itself as a safe space for Muslim terrorists and Black Lives Matter extremists, but a no-go zone for conservatives.

Putting aside that these may be legitimate issues, what does this have to do with you getting kicked off Twitter? You’re deflecting from the subject at hand: whether or not you specifically targeted someone for abuse.

Twitter is holding me responsible for the actions of fans and trolls using the special pretzel logic of the left. Where are the Twitter police when Justin Bieber’s fans cut themselves on his behalf?

Um, Milo, you do understand that was a hoax, right? Yiannopoulos is referencing a hashtag campaign prank circa 2013 with apparent origins on 4chan—a site known for its fair share of targeted attacks and threats of violence as organized by its users. The prank, accompanied by fake but nonetheless graphic photos of people cutting their arms over their frustration with Justin Bieber’s alleged use of marijuana, evidently targeted the singer’s fans, perhaps even aiming to convince them through the hashtag #CuttingForBieber to cut their own limbs out of protest of Bieber’s bad behavior. A sick joke, yes, and again, maybe Twitter bears some responsibility on its end (though arguably 4chan should shoulder a larger portion of the blame), but nonetheless, this is once more deflecting from your culpability with respect to attacks on Leslie Jones and others.

Like all acts of the totalitarian regressive left, this will blow up in their faces, netting me more adoring fans. We’re winning the culture war, and Twitter just shot themselves in the foot.

Hmm, someone really has a high opinion of himself, doesn’t he? Milo Yiannopoulos speaks of a culture war, and I can only think he’s referring to a seemingly growing divide between Americans who think political correctness is a good thing, because, well, it is—people generally like to be treated with respect and sensitivity—and those who think it imperils and inhibits us—when what they’re really saying is, “I’m bigoted/racist/sexist/xenophobic/all of the above, and I hate that you’re making me think before I speak.” Are you really winning the culture war, though, Milo, or is this just what your sycophantic followers have convinced you is true?

This is the end for Twitter. Anyone who cares about free speech has been sent a clear message: you’re not welcome on Twitter.

I don’t know—last time I checked, Twitter was still doing OK for itself. Really a vibrant community, actually. Beyond the 140-character limit, however, I have never felt particularly restricted by Twitter’s terms and conditions. Then again, though, I don’t target actresses who only appear in films—as opposed to actually directing, producing or writing them—with derision and hate. Hearkening back to my discussion of the First Amendment at the start of this piece, freedom of speech is not inherently absolute, and furthermore, you broke the rules that Twitter had posted as terms of your use of the site. It’s not about free speech. It’s about you being a complete and total asshole.

couldn't_beat_the_rapp — Alison Rapp was an enthusiastic brand ambassador for Nintendo as well as a feminist. Which, of course, is why she had to be the subject of online harassment and get fired by her employer. Nice going, guys! (Photo retrieved from kotaku.com)

Leslie Jones’ harassment at the hands of a small but vocal group of haters is reminiscent of the kind of abuse Alison Rapp faced when localization changes were made in a number of titles by then-employer Nintendo regarding the sexualization of young women and the anticipated negative backlash which would ensue among Western audiences to have female characters depicted in a certain way. Rather than blame Nintendo, however, Internet trolls, always lurking, looked for a scapegoat for this action of the video game company’s, which they saw as emblematic of a feminist-led crusade in favor of censorship and political correctness. Enter Rapp, a self-professed feminist, who had nothing to do with the decisions on content, and lo and behold, their target was acquired. What ensued was an attack of a number of levels. Of course, there was the expected name-calling, with her aggressors labeling her “cancerous” as well as a “femi-Nazi.” Always enjoy that particular portmanteau, myself.

This element hell-bent on Alison Rapp’s destruction, however, which she believed was affiliated with the loosely-constructed GamerGate movement, took things a step further by digging into her academic and professional-verging-on-the-personal lives. Regarding the former, Rapp wrote a paper while in college concerning Western pressure on Japan to strengthen laws against sexualized depictions of minors, arguing that this agenda was misplaced because it didn’t take into account cultural differences and shifted blame away from the governments and other “patriarchal” systems that enable the abuse of children. In the hands of the online lynch mob calling for her head, though, this was translated to mean she endorses the legalization of kiddie porn, which is an absurd extrapolation. As for the latter, the anti-SJW crowd which put Alison in their crosshairs wasn’t shy about bringing to Nintendo’s attention the fact that she moonlighted as a model under an alias posing for pictures that were not unforgivably obscene but still NSFW.

Nintendo, being the understanding company it is, though, was not cowed by the stream of antipathy hurled at Rapp nor was it influenced by these revelations about her off-the-clock identity. Kidding! They fired her. Nintendo has maintained they “terminated” Alison Rapp because of her second job. From a statement by a company representative:

Alison Rapp was terminated due to violation of an internal company policy involving holding a second job in conflict with Nintendo’s corporate culture. Though Ms. Rapp’s termination follows her being the subject of criticism from certain groups via social media several weeks ago, the two are absolutely not related.

Nintendo is a company committed to fostering inclusion and diversity in both our company and the broader video game industry and we firmly reject the harassment of individuals based on gender, race or personal beliefs. We wish Ms. Rapp well in her future endeavors.

“Ms. Rapp,” meanwhile, disputes this explanation. According to the moonlighting model herself, “Moonlighting is actually accepted at Nintendo. It’s policy.” Regardless of why she was fired, however, what a number of people reacting to this situation when news first broke were dismayed with was not simply that the company terminated Alison Rapp—though numerous critics expressed the belief that Nintendo caved to the pressure exerted by the GamerGate gang—but that it failed to support Alison through months of directed online attacks. As Jessica Lachenal wrote in a piece on The Mary Sue:

For an industry that apparently tries so hard to “make things better” for women, this is one hell of a way of show it. Provided with an opportunity to make an impact for women working in games, Nintendo instead chose to distance itself from someone undeserving of the harassment she soaked up on behalf of the company. Most of all, it comes down to this: For many, it is completely unsurprising that Nintendo did what it did. This is the sad, depressing expectation of all women working in games. When—and believe me, it is a when and not an if—they become the target of harassment, it’s more likely than not that they can expect to be “laterally moved” out of what they love to do and iced out, or perhaps even outright fired for completely unrelated reasons. These things can and will and have happened through no fault of their own; they will have their entire lives dramatically altered simply because a faceless group of people have decided to harass and dig up skeletons in order to assassinate a person’s character.

Viewing the circumstances behind Rapp’s firing in this way, what happened was fairly simple. A group of anonymous trolls decided Alison Rapp was intruding on what they saw as their space—the male-dominated world of video games—they attacked her with prejudice and without restraint, and a high-profile company stood by and watched it happen. The parallels to Leslie Jones’ abuse on Twitter at the behest of Milo Yiannopoulos and others are obvious, and what’s more, her case is just another turn in the long-standing saga of content providers being unable—or perhaps unwilling—to step in to curb misogynistic malice. As Twitter itself seems to grasp in its justification for suspending Yiannopoulos’ account, there are those who feel it hasn’t done enough to discourage or stop hate speech on its interface. I, for one, would count myself among this concerned bloc of users.

The reality is that, even with Twitter insisting it is working on improving tools and enforcement systems to better root out abuse, especially the type coming from repeat offenders, there is little assurance that either Milo Yiannopoulos’ censure will be the first of many to come, or that Jones’ prolonged abuse will be among the last of its kind. Twitter, as a business and one devoted to allowing people to express themselves, respectfully must walk a fine line in generating traffic without wanting to seem like an institution of the “totalitarian regressive left.” That said, if it fails to act in a way that discourages hate, Twitter runs a risk of alienating even more of its millions of accountholders. It’s the same dance that an organization like, say, the Republican Party must reckon with. On one hand, it must try to expand its ranks if it is to avoid stagnation. On the other hand, it is set to feature a man who revels in his divisiveness as its nominee for President of the United States. My, what a dance it is, indeed.

As much as doubts may exist about Twitter and other social media sites’ ability to police its content, aspersions have similarly been cast on their ability to enforce Milo Yiannopoulos’ “permanent” ban. Soon after the announcement of the ban, the hashtag #FreeMilo was trending, and it is doubtful we’ve heard the last on this case or this topic. In the meantime, though, I won’t shed any tears for Milo. Not because he’s a conservative. Or because he’s gay. It’s because he behaves like an entitled asshole. Apparently, he believes he’s entitled to free speech because this is America or that he’s particularly clever or whatever. But when your free speech makes others feel trapped—in the case of Leslie Jones, like she’s in her own “personal hell”—it’s not really so “free.” When abuse, online or otherwise, is on the table, there is always a cost. If Milo Yiannopoulos has to pay it, someone with a history of directing hateful, malicious attacks on innocent users, all the better.

Tag: political correctness

Menu

Menu

Social Menu