OK, so I guess that’s where we differ. Not that I think that any kid’s accusations should be ignored or dismissed, but that they should be investigated with a cool head.
I remember the “Satanic Panic” of the 80’s – where daycare workers were accused of horrific abuse, acts that later investigations showed did not and could not have actually happened. (There’s a good podcast on that sad story if you’re interested). Children, and adults, can have false memories – memories that seem completely real to them but did not actually – that is a thing. That doesn’t mean that lots of people don’t really suffer abuse at the hands of people who have power over them, but it does mean that I’m not willing to ignore conflicting evidence. As I said earlier, I am hoping that the documentary can actually delve into the matter and properly weigh the evidence and accounts. Perhaps Moses is confabulating, that is certainly possible, but I’m not willing to assume it without an actual discussion of the issues he raised.
I don’t know that people should, but I do know that thinking one account is true and the other is false is simplistic and not how sources work. The arguments that Moses puts forward may be easy to dismiss with more evidence. For example Melizmatic adds:
which would certainly weaken the strength of Moses’s account. The only problem being that I’m not sure what all those other sources are since no one’s cited them (and I’m no expert on this case).
Let me be clear. I’m not trying to argue one account over the other, or suggest that Dylan’s account should be disregarded. Personally, I think Allen’s behaviour towards women has been pretty consistently creepy throughout his career. But the willingness to condemn without analyzing the evidence makes me deeply uncomfortable; it’s what leads to things like Pizzagate.
Ah, yes, the “Satanic Panic happened so now we must treat all victim/survivor accounts as sus.” defense.
No.
Yes, Satanic Panic happened. The difference is that when you actually look at it what the kids at the center of that said was over the top even before sensationalist adults grabbed and ran with it like a Q-drop. There is a Pizzagate comparison to be made, but it’s one that says “don’t believe rumours that Bob heard from Sally that she heard someone at the supermarket say she saw in “the newspaper” (more likely a Weekly World News equivalent)”, not “don’t believe anyone until they back it up with 10,000 pieces of evidence.” Satanic Panic was a dangerous sludge of sensationalist seeking adults mixed with Conservative/Fundamentalist Christianity.
Dylan’s account is nothing like what happened with Satanic Panic. Her account is of bog-standard sexual abuse (and I can’t stomach that such a phrase can even exist) that far too many people – even on this very board – have to deal with. No baby-sacrifice rituals spelled out in lurid detail, no secret codes in the shipping options for your mail order sofa. Just the basic, believable shit that sexual assault victims deal with all the goddamn time.
Oh, and BTW, if you want sensationalist and over the top, Moses’ account is heavily seasoned from the entire toxic masculinity/misogyny playbook, especially the “can’t trust the hysterical wimmens” flavour. So, yeah, on the “believability scale”, hers ranks a little higher.
Shouldn’t it be “Amazon did shelve Allen’s A Rainy Day in New York in 2018?” After all, to shelve something is to “decide not to proceed with (a project or plan), either temporarily or permanently.” You could say that Amazon placed A Rainy Day in New York “on the shelf” which would make it in a state of inactivity or uselessness. But I think shelve is the more appropriate word to use.
No. The consistent tolerance and excuses for men like Allen is what leads to pizzagate. In the absence of any real consequences from real offenders and with only popularity as a gauge people are more likely to believe that Hillary Clinton eats babies after raping them in a satanic ritual because they don’t like her than that a man who MARRIED A KID HE RAISED and CONSISTENTLY SEXUALLY HARASSES YOUNGER WOMEN might have… I dunno… molested a young woman he was related to.
One thing is not like the other. The false equivalence is possible because people cannot face the reality of run of the mill assholes who use their kids for gratification and accept it.
There’s also the fact that the kids in the “Satanic Panic” cases all initially insisted that their parents HADN’T done the things they were being accused of until they were coerced and manipulated into saying so during interrogation.
So even in those cases the problem stemmed from not believing the children.
It’s disheartening that this same scenario happens EVERY. DAMN. TIME.
You could have freakin video evidence of the crime happening in live time, and there will still be people who will eagerly play the ‘doubting thomas’, rather than accept that our society is fundamentally flawed in regards to holding powerful White men accountable for their predatory behavior.
Two things that should be obvious to everyone, but I will repeat:
1 - This happens in these topics all the time, but there is a difference between legal and moral responsibility or culpability. If your argument contains the concept of technicality, you’re likely to find a large group of folks that don’t care if something was or wasn’t technically abuse. If you go down that path, expect those responses.
2 - We believe victims here. Full stop. Victim blaming is depressingly common, yet false allegations are so infrequent as to be non-existent. This isn’t a court, we don’t do fair-and-balanced. There are lots of other places on the internet (waaaaay to many, in fact) where people can make those arguments. Don’t do it here.
