I agree, but that would require the senior NBC executives who had the genius idea to hire a former Faux News personality to host the Today Show to admit they were wrong.
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Here is a novel idea. Don’t try to defend something that is indefensible.
“Blackface on halloween” is not the same thing as “dressing up as Diana Ross for Halloween”. One disparages an entire race and reduces their humanity to the color of their skin. The other honors/flatters a pop culture icon by wearing a wig and dress that matched her look and style. No one needs to change the color of their skin for that.
And those that do and try to defend the action by saying something like “Well you painted your skin green to be Frankenstein and she painted hers blue to be a Na’vi.” THOSE ARE FICTIONAL CHARACTERS NOT PEOPLE.
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Pretty sure we can now simply communicate in obscene Dr Who .GIFs. there’s one for every occasion on there.
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Chris Moyles always was an arsehole who punched down. I have no fucking idea why he lasted as long as he did at Radio 1 (17 years!).
And Wikipedia doesn’t even mention that racist incident, or his repeated transphobia, in that long controversies section.
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I believe they are advocating for the devil known as the status quo…
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Oh, good thing a rich white woman set the black community straight on what is and isn’t offensive to them… I mean, they were so clearly confused on what was offensive to them… they really needed a white lady to step in and tell them what was what there. Just in time. Racism is over everyone, a white lady said so!!! Pack it up!!! /s
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More like the status quo ante.
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Here is an idea: I don’t have to support a person just because I don’t want them to be mobbed.
For one, I said I was just playing the Devil’s advocate. I don’t actually support her behavior or her actions.
However, I also have a knee-jerk reaction to put up a barrier whenever people pull out pitchforks. Some assholes are always really good at stabbing internet pitchforks into people. I get it. It is easy. It doesn’t cost you anything to go onto boingboing an rip Megyn Kelly a new asshole. Mobs are fun. However, I don’t know if the behavior is particularly constructive or beneficial.
I think there are enough people on the internet who want to jump on the bandwagon and attack anyone who commits some perceived faux pas or violates some social norm. I argue in cases like this one because I don’t think there are enough people pumping the brakes and putting things into proper perspective
Mobs can be great. They can murder Mussolini in the street. They can overthrow Louis XVI. They can bring down the Berlin Wall. They can also bring the Nazis into power, lynch innocent black men, or burn down Tulsa. Mobs can be awful. In fact, some of the greatest atrocities of human history have happened at the hands of the mob.
I am not saying that Megyn Kelly is defensible. I strongly disagree with her statements. However, I think this mob attack is inappropriate and disproportionate.
I am not a mob. I have not called for Megyn Kelly to be skewered. BBS is not a mob, I have not seen anyone here calling for her to be skewered.
People here are calling for her to own up to being wrong and attempting to defend an indefensible position. You are by your own admission doing the same thing. To @Melz2 's point…THE DEVIL DOES NOT NEED YOU TO ADVOCATE FOR HIM, HE DOES JUST FINE ON HIS OWN.
So my point stands…just DON’T. And yet you reply with some round about excuse as to why playing devil’s advocate is ok and you even attempt to justify it by falsely stating “Well the other side is being so mean I have to be the white knight and save Megyn Kelly from an angry mob”. You can tell me in as many words as you like that you think Kelly is wrong… I call liar liar pants on fire on you. If you think she is wrong then you wouldn’t be twisting yourself into a pretzel to justify defending her.
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You do understand that Megyn Kelly is (soon to be was) host of NBC’s Today Show, a morning news programme with millions of viewers and a commensurate level of influence?
You do understand that someone in that position might suffer consequences larger than those of an average white person who defended a racist institution?
You do understand that freedom of speech != freedom from consequences of or criticism of said speech?
You do understand that physical violence or, as far as we know, serious threats of physical violence have not been involved here?
You do understand that Kelly, sincerely or not, has apologised for what she said and characterised it as wrong, thus validating those who criticised her, and thus finding herself not in need of your advocacy services?
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But… then how would it be possible to stir the pot and to try to ‘push people’s buttons?’
Methinks you may be onto something there.
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Well, that kind of goes into a different argument, and at this point I would just be causing more strife, but if she apologized, shouldn’t we accept her apologiy and move on? People do make mistakes.
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We are. Moving on in this case means losing her agent and probably her job due to the public reaction to her repulsive statement (one not atypical of her – her only mistake was forgetting she was no longer at Fox News, where racism always gets a pass). Which is fine with me, but apparently not with the ol’ “Devil’s Advocate” (AKA the Contrarian Troll) who’s trying to break through the “horrible liberal BB groupthink” that believes racist speech should have consequences.
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Because I get really tired of contrarians and their disingenuous hyperbole, and it seems to need reposting on a regular basis;
Ridiculing a rich White person of privilege for saying and doing stupid shit publicly is not even in the same stratosphere as lynching or mobbing them.
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I’ll back out of this conversation, but when I used that word, I hadn’t really realized Trump had co-opted it as his new slogan. In context and retrospect, that looks super-shitty of me.
It looks like I made enough of an ass out of myself for one day. I’ll try not to do it next time. My bad, I am sorry. My contribution was definitely not constructive.
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