Unfortunately, many of us don’t. I’m not suggesting that I do.
I never insinuated any such thing of anyone here. More that it becomes just another violent image in our already violent media landscape and that makes is much easier to file away as a horrible thing that we really can’t do anything about. It’s especially true when it’s something going on far away, to POC, yet again and we just get this really flattened image of the rest of the world, and especially the global south, which becomes a sort of monochromatic land of suffering, which “we must do something about.”
Like almost any other giant corporation, it’s courage goes as deep as their stockholders concerns for their portfolio.
I might agree with you, except that Ms Phuc is very active in antiwar activism and charities, and a lot of that is leveraged off that very (iconic) image. More power to her. We’re very proud of her up here. (She’s one of our citizens now.)
Again, I don’t disagree. And there is a long history of civil rights activists using the mass media to their own advantage in such a way (the publication of Emmett Till’s funeral by Jet Magazine and the children’s march in Alabama in the 1960s both come to mind). But the second that Stokely Carmichael declared black power, many white activists were quickly turned off and refused to do what he asked them to do, which was to work on the racism and consiousness raising in their own communities. If there had been a comprehensive effort at such, rather than the very limited action that did happen, things might be very different today.
But one of the effects has been a certain level of digging in, too. The Dallas shootings of officers quickly overshadowed the two shootings of black, unarmed men that the march where the shootings took place were addressing. The media distorts just as much as it brings into focus, I think. It can only do so much without the work on the ground to push it in a more humane direction.[quote=“PatRx2, post:69, topic:85010”]
I might agree with you, except that Ms Phuc is very active in antiwar activism and charities, and a lot of that is leveraged off that very (iconic) image. More power to her.
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I’m not disparaging it, nor her for saying or believing it. I’m disparaging those Americans who latch onto the forgiveness of those they’ve oppressed (she’s certainly not the first). The kind, forgiving ones are so much more favored by the oppressors than the angry, fighting ones.
Given that We (collectively; the US) have nominated someone for POTUS who advocates torture, and proposes a resumption of waterboarding and “a whole lot worse,” there are apparently large swathes of the populace who are perfectly OK with this, or at least perfectly OK with a POTUS who’s perfectly OK with it. I’d like to think there are larger swathes of the populace who are rightly revolted by it.
to further that analogy, facebook is in the business of attracting and retaining user’s focus and attention which they can then auction off to advertisers in banner ads, sponsored content, etc. FB’s enemy in this case is any content hosted on their servers that could drive users away.
[quote=“Gyrofrog, post:74, topic:85010, full:true”]Given that We (collectively; the US) have nominated someone for POTUS who advocates torture, and proposes a resumption of waterboarding and “a whole lot worse,” there are apparently large swathes of the populace who are perfectly OK with this, or at least perfectly OK with a POTUS who’s perfectly OK with it. I’d like to think there are larger swathes of the populace who are rightly revolted by it.
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Nope. Not then, not now.
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A sizable minority oppose torture, yes; but a majority, no.
The Beast of Zuckerberg must not be entrusted with the role of cultural curatorship. Between this and their subversion of painted and illustrated fine art with their facile and disingenuous take-downs, it’s clear to all who care to see that they have taken upon themselves the role of society’s arbitrator of taste and decency.
Facebook, you never had a right to influence and warp culture itself, and all such acts from your corporation are akin to little more than vandalism. This is why I absolutely refuse to have a Facebook presence and take a dim view of all apologies from people who do. Fuck you, Facebook. Please cease all operations and stop your ponderous displacement of unsubverted online culture.
