Here's part of @jelani9's article on The Closer that deals with a claim I've been thinking about more 1/x
Is there any evidence that content on Netflix can lead to direct harm? Yes, 13 Reasons Why, seems to have done so, and was irresponsible, given what we've long known about suicide. npr.org/2019/04/30/718…
Is there any comparable evidence of a comedy special doing harm? Ever?
I have found no evidence of that. No one has cited any evidence of it. Yet it's treated in piece after piece as though it's *obviously* a well-grounded concern. I want more than question begging on this point, partly for normal reasons of rigor, but also because
the vagueness of the claim about harm here is precisely the kind of thing that makes chilling effects worse, in contrast to *don't depict suicide in these specific ways*, which is a much less chilling norm because of its narrowness and specificity.
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One other line from that piece on The Closer that's worth unpacking:
The implication seems to be that it's inherently suspicious or problematic for someone with more power to claim to be the victim of someone with less power. Let's test that general view.
If a meth-addicted homeless man stabs a middle class insurance adjuster to death outside her home, is she his victim?
Was Princess Diana the victim of the paparazzi?
Can teen hackers victimize millionaire actresses?
Power dynamics are tremendously complicated and dynamic.
To me, this is clearly mistaken, which is to say: Dave Chappelle, other famous comedians, and many not so famous comedians can and do routinely mock, disparage, and poke fun at all sorts of groups, including the ones that the Successor Ideology understands as the most powerful
To be clear, I don't deny that our culture sometimes does devalue trans people. It does, and that's a shame. My claim is that *famous comedian can joke about group with impunity* is true of almost all if not all groups, not evidence of anything about any particular group.
The confidence with which some attribute this monocausally to "racism" despite significant evidence that other factors are at play is the latest illustration of how reflexive adherence to an Ur narrative harms our ability to address what is, in this case, a life or death problem.
Here is a USA Today poll about attitudes toward public safety in Detroit usatoday.com/story/news/pol… Ask yourself if @jasonintrator's claim can be squared with its findings
One needn't pay particularly close attention to know there is an uptick in murders in many American cities, and that people are concerned by that trens because murder is scary and bad.
I've been thinking a lot about this. I share @radleybalko's view that far more damage is being done by Tucker Carlson (e.g.) than people making horse paste jokes. I disagree that a profusion of condemnatory pieces would improve things. Here's my thinking for your consideration:
1. While I have long believed that e.g. Tucker Carlson is acting in bad faith on many things, I don't think, e.g., Joe Rogan is acting in bad faith on Ivermectin, and condemning people who are wrong in damaging ways but are acting in good faith automatically loses a lot of people
2. Likewise, the premise that one *must* be acting in bad faith and/or be worthy of condemnation for believing in the promise of Ivermectin obviously rings hollow to *people who believe Ivermectin has promise to treat Covid*
Yesterday, @Grits4Breakfast, a criminal justice reformer I respect and frequently agree with, criticized the recent piece wherein I argue that, as a matter of substance and rhetoric, the slogan/lodestar "defund the police" should be replaced. (1/x)
My piece made clear that the national Democratic Party had abandoned the slogan--indeed, that is a cornerstone of my case that it is utterly unpopular and politically untenable. But in @Grits4Breakfast's telling, the slogan at this point is nothing but a GOP talking point.
Yet here is a new article in The Nation, which chose, among all the criminal justice debates it could have hosted, "Do We Need Police?" thenation.com/article/societ…