The right has some problems in a similar way to the left--there is no getting around that the extremists will ruin any given cause if you don't sideline them. Ben Shapiro said something similar to your position here, Helen. Good on those who do not reward bad behavior, though Shiloh should not be harrassed or her family doxxed.
Brilliantly dissected as always, Helen. I miss you on Twitter but I fully understand your need to stay away from it! I hope you and your family are well x
I think there is a better argument. You still won’t be convinced, but I’m now giving the steelman case (as I see it) for supporting her. I don’t actually believe this strongly enough to donate to her, but I think it’s a reason why one could support her in this case.
To start with, Shiloh Hendrix is not a woman of great social or economic power. The way she talks, her mode of dress, her excessive tattoos, the fact that there doesn’t seem to be a Mr Hendrix in the picture, all of this codes as lower/working class. She is the sort of person who has not done particularly well in the last thirty years or so, but who also would be described by Robin DiAngelo as having White Privilege. If so, she hasn’t cashed in on that privilege in a particularly effective way. I certainly see use of racial slurs toward a small child as outside of social norms, but Shiloh lives in an environment in which such expression is far more common.
So a woman who probably lives on the edge said something rude to a child. Not something I’d do or condone, but at the end of the day not that big a deal. And yet this video was promulgated with the intent of ruining the life of this lower class American woman. She committed a misdemeanor— said something rude in a public setting — and the mob came for her with the intent of having her serve time for a felony. The purpose of publicizing this was to create a Great Racial Incident and to gratuitously destroy the life of a woman who doesn’t have that great a life to start with. For a minor offense.
By rewarding her, we reduce the incentive to take minor transgressions and totally blow them out of proportion. The fact that the man doing the recording was a pedo is just a bonus.
I would be sympathetic to that view if the same people had donated to help all the people falsely accused of racism in the past 10 years. Few of those people got any help at all, so it's pretty galling that the one time people rally to defend a non-celebrity from cancel culture it's to help someone who is actually guilty of the thing they're accused of.
I thought I’d seen it all on there, but this race war commentary has mindwormed some understandably fed up normies. It looks like a race to the bottom on both sides. Super ugly and worrisome.
Arguments over the N-word are really just symptoms of the underlying conflict. That for a long time there has been an asymmetric political norm which accepts some people have the right to engage in ethnic/racial affinity self-interest and others do not. Most visibly that Black people have this right but it is wrong for White people to engage in it - the key takeaway from the competitive money-raising is that this asymmetry is breaking apart. Its a crude way of signalling this, but I believe its a necessary step on the way to a realistic discourse about racism.
So should this asymmetry break down, what do you think these state of race relations look like? Because I find it pretty unlikely that with enough white people shouting the n word in public, black people will reign in their racist tribalism and the racist whites will duly correct course. Surely more likely is that the most obnoxious racists of each group will just get bolder and bolder off the back of each other's behaviour?
Where did you get that impression from? You don't know me IRL or what I post on other platforms. I've grumbled about all the 'whitey is cause of all problems' for years now (only got substack recently), but because I'm sceptical that a woman calling a 5-year-old a slur is going to improve race relations, I must be some 2017 blue-check CRT believer, right?
I just clicked your profile and was surprised to learn you're a middle aged dad and not an 18-25 year old woman.
You genuinely talk like those blue-haired feminists who cry "male tears" and get all snarly whenever someone points out they're wrong. Hilarious and ironic in equal measure!
This was excellent, thank you.
The right has some problems in a similar way to the left--there is no getting around that the extremists will ruin any given cause if you don't sideline them. Ben Shapiro said something similar to your position here, Helen. Good on those who do not reward bad behavior, though Shiloh should not be harrassed or her family doxxed.
Brilliantly dissected as always, Helen. I miss you on Twitter but I fully understand your need to stay away from it! I hope you and your family are well x
I’m going to pop in tomorrow!
I think there is a better argument. You still won’t be convinced, but I’m now giving the steelman case (as I see it) for supporting her. I don’t actually believe this strongly enough to donate to her, but I think it’s a reason why one could support her in this case.
To start with, Shiloh Hendrix is not a woman of great social or economic power. The way she talks, her mode of dress, her excessive tattoos, the fact that there doesn’t seem to be a Mr Hendrix in the picture, all of this codes as lower/working class. She is the sort of person who has not done particularly well in the last thirty years or so, but who also would be described by Robin DiAngelo as having White Privilege. If so, she hasn’t cashed in on that privilege in a particularly effective way. I certainly see use of racial slurs toward a small child as outside of social norms, but Shiloh lives in an environment in which such expression is far more common.
So a woman who probably lives on the edge said something rude to a child. Not something I’d do or condone, but at the end of the day not that big a deal. And yet this video was promulgated with the intent of ruining the life of this lower class American woman. She committed a misdemeanor— said something rude in a public setting — and the mob came for her with the intent of having her serve time for a felony. The purpose of publicizing this was to create a Great Racial Incident and to gratuitously destroy the life of a woman who doesn’t have that great a life to start with. For a minor offense.
By rewarding her, we reduce the incentive to take minor transgressions and totally blow them out of proportion. The fact that the man doing the recording was a pedo is just a bonus.
I would be sympathetic to that view if the same people had donated to help all the people falsely accused of racism in the past 10 years. Few of those people got any help at all, so it's pretty galling that the one time people rally to defend a non-celebrity from cancel culture it's to help someone who is actually guilty of the thing they're accused of.
I thought I’d seen it all on there, but this race war commentary has mindwormed some understandably fed up normies. It looks like a race to the bottom on both sides. Super ugly and worrisome.
Arguments over the N-word are really just symptoms of the underlying conflict. That for a long time there has been an asymmetric political norm which accepts some people have the right to engage in ethnic/racial affinity self-interest and others do not. Most visibly that Black people have this right but it is wrong for White people to engage in it - the key takeaway from the competitive money-raising is that this asymmetry is breaking apart. Its a crude way of signalling this, but I believe its a necessary step on the way to a realistic discourse about racism.
So should this asymmetry break down, what do you think these state of race relations look like? Because I find it pretty unlikely that with enough white people shouting the n word in public, black people will reign in their racist tribalism and the racist whites will duly correct course. Surely more likely is that the most obnoxious racists of each group will just get bolder and bolder off the back of each other's behaviour?
Where did you get that impression from? You don't know me IRL or what I post on other platforms. I've grumbled about all the 'whitey is cause of all problems' for years now (only got substack recently), but because I'm sceptical that a woman calling a 5-year-old a slur is going to improve race relations, I must be some 2017 blue-check CRT believer, right?
Fuck off with that snotty attitude.
I just clicked your profile and was surprised to learn you're a middle aged dad and not an 18-25 year old woman.
You genuinely talk like those blue-haired feminists who cry "male tears" and get all snarly whenever someone points out they're wrong. Hilarious and ironic in equal measure!
This is the flip side of Robin DiAngelo on how to enrich yourself off white folks.