Some Right Wing Insight

 

Ever wondered how to avoid the issue of student loans? Look no further than this tweet from a self-described “freedom fighter.”

I presume that this tweet is in regards to Bernie Sanders’ (and other politicians) suggestion of erasing student debt.

Ah, why didn’t I think of this. Okay, so I don’t buy any of this stuff. I avoid these expenses. Let’s say I save $20,000 over four years. I’m debt free. Wait, no.

What’s this tuition cost? Oh, over $100,000! Looks like I’m still in debt.

Of course, this tweet isn’t really about giving advice in good faith. It is typical fiscal conservatism that frames paying student loan debt off as another commie plot that will take money away from hard workers and give it to lazy, entitled millennials.

Posts like this sometimes make me wonder if people actually realize how flawed the arguments are, but also realize their base will still eat it up. Or, if the poster is just genuinely out of touch.

Let’s look at that suggestion to avoid buying a Macbook.

First, a student will need a computer of some sort. If they are able to stay at home during university, with a short commute, maybe they can get away with a desktop that their parents already have. If not, they will need a laptop. So, when you make the decision about which one to buy, let’s say you go cheap and get something for $200. I’ll even argue that this cheaper version will have all the features a more expensive one would have and will allow students to access online learning systems, which many universities use to post class information and for submission of assignments.

Congratulations, you saved about $800, but you still have another $99,000 in debt.

Did this woman go to university?

Let’s say you go the community college route. You work hard, do extracurriculars that give you experience and look really good on the resume.

There will be jobs where they might specifically require a university degree.

Even if that doesn’t happen, let’s say you apply and your resume looks pretty good. Now keep in mind a lot of big companies just use automated systems to review resumes and cover letters, checking for keywords. Therefore, you don’t have that personal touch of someone peering through each resume and cover letter.

So, what if this applicant’s skills and experience put her/him in the top 10 applicants, but some other applicants have degrees from places like NYU or Harvard?

A degree does not always indicate more intelligence (as the Ivy League scandal indicates) but employers are still conditioned to judge someone’s skills, work ethic, intelligence etc. by what school(s) they went to.

What if someone wants to become a doctor more than anything? Should they just forget about going to med school since it’s expensive. After all, people like the aforementioned “freedom fighter” will just see them as lazy and entitled if they ever bring up the issue of crippling debt.

Education should not be so expensive but we have to accept that it is, and likely won’t get better. You can work hard and teach yourself without a degree, but a lot of fields still require rigid and formal methods of validation e.g. law school, med school. Even in Suits, the hard-working and intelligent Mike Ross goes to jail for practising law without a valid law degree.

Don’t lecture people about working hard and then turn your back on them when their pursuit of their goals leaves them with $200,000+ in debt; telling them that it isn’t right for them to ask for help from hard-working people like yourself.

The Real New York After 9/11

I was scrolling through Twitter and came across the below thread:

Now, this is not to take attention away from 9/11 victims and those affected by loss. This thread interested me because I came across an earlier tweet where someone mentioned the infamous “Mess with one of us, you mess with all of us” scene from Spider-Man (2002).

Scenes like this are supposed to represent how united America, and New Yorkers in particular, were following 9/11. While this Spider-Man scene (and another in the Andrew Garfield reboot) might be a bit on the nose, the notion of a truly united NY is very uplifting, but also very romanticized.

The stories of innocent Muslims in New York, and brown people as a whole, paint a very different picture and it is good to see a dose of reality get injected into the mainstream “we are the children” narrative that is spun every time September 11 comes around.

I don’t assume these specific stories are true. The statistics on spikes in hate crimes on brown people following 9/11 are all the evidence I need.

Chappelle’s Chinese Man Impression/Sticks & Stones

Dave Chappelle is probably my favourite comedian of all time. I loved The Chappelle Show watched most of his older (pre-Netflix) specials and I was happy to see him return. There was a period between the end of The Chappelle Show and his Netflix specials where it seemed like he wasn’t the same comedian anymore: Not just different, but just not funny.

Exhibit A:

Then the SNL Monologue and the Netflix specials popped up, and it seemed like Chappelle was back. He wasn’t as funny as before, but part of that is because you can’t necessarily be as groundbreaking after two decades in the biz. However, Chappelle’s wit, creativity and great storytelling were back. I was eagerly awaiting his new Netflix special and then I saw the “”Chinese Man” bit.

I imagine people throwing out words like “triggered,” “PC” or “SJW” right now. What if I told you I’m not too concerned about whether the piece is offensive or not? What if I told you it is just a lazy, unoriginal Chinese joke? Squinting up your face and doing a bad Asian accent is basic. I expect way more from Chappelle. He (and many other comedians) have done way better Asian jokes.

Exhibit B:

See what I mean? There is a proper punchline here. The rave reviews for Sticks and Stones Chinaman bit is a good example of what happens when you start to judge jokes solely by whether they “own the libs” or not. I think a lot of people would agree that Exhibit B is just objectively funnier than the Chinaman bit. However, people who go through years of conditioning to hate anything “PC” or “SJW” eventually start to see things differently. Their sole measure of humour is “is could it be considered offensive?” Go through the comments of the Sticks and Stones piece, see people say that they were “nearly in tears” laughing at a joke that was old a decade ago.

Look at this Eddie Murphy piece from 1983, that has the same joke:

I always see people in the comments of older videos complaining that these jokes wouldn’t fly now since people are too PC. Did they ever think that maybe these jokes don’t fly now because they’re just old and unoriginal now? The first time I was in a dark place with someone and they joked “Cadeem I can’t see you,” I might have laughed a bit. By the twentieth time I heard that joke I could only roll my eyes. Forget whether it is offensive or insensitive, it just isn’t funny.

The Jussie Smollett story is a way better example of Chappelle taking on a sensitive topic, using creativity and wit to get laughs about something that some comedians might shy away from.

Exhibit C:

That is real comedy. It is not funny just because it “owns the libs” it actually has creativity behind it. At this point, with people craving things that are “anti-PC” so badly, I think Chappelle’s next special could be him shouting slurs for a half-hour and people would praise it because it’s so edgy.

Right Wingers — Expand Your Vocab

I have been trying to get out of the habit of scrolling through social media first thing in the morning. The habit is a terrible time waster, but today it did give me the fuel for a blog post.

Guillermo Del Toro received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and had a Mexican flag with him during it. I welcome the addition of the Mexican flag, especially since the president has repeatedly stated that Mexico “doesn’t send its best.” Here, we see the result of a typical immigrant’s journey: Honest, hard work. The Mexican flag is a statement akin to Olympic athletes raising the black power salute at the 1968 Olympics, Of course, this video attracted some idiots.

The term “virtue signal” has no place here. Del Toro is one of the most famous directors in Hollywood. His visual style is revered, he is an Oscar winner who has a diverse body of work ranging from Hellboy to Pan’s Labryinth to The Shape of Water.

So when this person realizes they said something stupid and then get called out for it, they say something dumber.

Why weigh in on a director’s pedigree if you don’t watch movies? It’s like me complaining about a hockey player getting inducted into the Hall of Fame if I know nothing about the sport.

I went through “Leah’s” profile and as expected, it was a right-wing treasure chest. Pro-life, Pro-Trump, and several posts discussing the need to be “colour-blind” and look for “civil solutions” to racist abuse.

This person is also Hispanic and makes sure to mention that in the bio, since she has the belief that people of colour can’t internalize racism. This Uncle Tom (or Aunt Tammy) is just one of many who uses right-wing buzzwords as a knee-jerk response and has a hard time thinking for herself.

Triggered Racists

I have previously discussed my desire to stay away from rehashing the same arguments against bigotry.

  1. I shouldn’t have to.
  2. The people who are not convinced that bigotry is bad (or who argue about what constitutes bigotry) are usually lost causes that facts are wasted on.

However, I came across an example today that I had to get into a bit. Hopefully this can be a catharsis and get the thoughts of my mind.

Spoilers for Netflix film “I am Mother”

Long story short, the film has a main character called “Daughter” and her robot “parent,” known as “Mother.” The end of this film introduces a new character: A baby that has grown to its nine-month maturity quickly due to advanced technology. As the baby grows we don’t know its race. It is not related to any other character, it is simply one embryo among hundreds of others. At the movie’s end, it turns out the baby is black and this was enough to create right-wing outrage, particulary from thomas998.

I went through this user’s profile and found that most of his posts are arguments (about other films/TV shows) that might seem reasonable on the surface e.g. “Why not make a new gay character instead of changing a straight one?” in reference to Larry on Doom Patrol.

Like most bigots, he can keep his bigotry at bay and use other language to hide it. However, certain topics or images make the racism come out more: Like how white supremacist websites were flooded with new users shortly after Obama’s election.

Seeing a black baby for less than five minutes has led thomas998 to argue that racism is “natural” and that only a SJW would disagree.

Thomas argues that racism is an evolutionary trait that makes humans care for babies that look like them. This point is moot since the person overseeing all the children in this movie, Mother, is a robot.

Second, the baby is not the biological child of any of the characters.

Third, it is never implied that Mother raised Daughter to be racist.

The fact that this user felt the need to bring up evolutionary psychology to try to justify his racist reaction a black baby (and that other people agree) is a sad representation of the new breed of racist. I don’t think people like this are only racist online, they’re just more open about it.

Alt-America

Over the past year, most of the books I’ve read have been library loans. In order to save money, I figured it made sense to borrow fiction books that I likely wouldn’t reread. However, I made my first purchase in a while with David Neiwert’s Alt:America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump.

I’ve long been interested in the topic of the far right. My interest started after my first experiences with racism, and grew during Barack Obama’s campaign. Racists came out of the woodwork with movements such as the birthers.

Then after Obama’s election white supremacist websites such as Stormfront got thousands of new members. Then Trump got elected after a campaign filled with racism. Then hate crimes spiked…

While Alt-America’s title suggests that the book will focus on Trump, the book actually delves deeper into the history of the far right. Going back to examples from the 1990s that precipitate everything we see now, from Waco and the Oklahoma City Bombing, to Dylan Roof.

After laying out the dangers of the far-right, including the dangers of the people who do not engage in violence but believe in far-right conspiracy theories, Neiwert argues that we need to learn to have dialogue with these people. To be fair, he doesn’t say we need to try to convert the people who are too far gone, he focuses on trying to discuss issues peacefully with members of the right who still have some common decency.

When I first read this part, I thought of the picture above. However, I tried to remove my personal beliefs and read the section again. Neiwert brings up the issue of awkward Thanksgiving dinners, where liberal and conservative members clash. This is unavoidable, and I thought of the family or friends I disagree with on political issues. I hung out with one yesterday.

He wasn’t violent or a virulent racist, but his worldview is obviously coloured by some negative elements. Maybe this type of person is someone that can actually be reasoned with using facts and scientific evidence, as opposed to racist memes and misinformation.

“I accept but I don’t agree”

So, the above clip of a woman pushing a preacher off a stage has been making the rounds online. To give a bit of context, the priest was shoved after saying “fat women don’t go to heaven.” Additionally, the priest is anti-gay crusader who is waiting for the day that homosexuality is acknowledged as an “illness.”

Due to the priest’s views some of the people commenting on this clip brought up homophobia. Which led me to this comment:

The “I don’t agree” caveat always bothered me. It usually comes from the mouths of people who think they are being open-minded.

I am not gay, but I feel no need to say I support gay people although I “don’t agree.” There is nothing to agree with. Someone is different from me and has different sexual tastes that do not hurt me or belittle me. They do their thing, I do mine. There is nothing to “agree” with.

“I don’t agree” implies I don’t approve, which is not too far removed from “I dislike” or “I hate.” It’s like someone saying “I don’t agree with you being black.” Gay people don’t need your agreement, or approval. If you are truly an ally remove “I don’t agree” from your vocabulary when it comes to people. This user said it best:

Apparently, the user’s dad is gay and she has been trying to educate herself on homosexuality more since. However, she is still an idiot for the time being. Enlightenment is a long way off.

Kennedy mentions that her dad doesn’t think he was born gay, and that’s good for him. I won’t take the opinion of one gay dude to invalidate a scientific thesis. So if he wasn’t born gay, perhaps his sexual identity kicks in when he starts being more sexually inclined during puberty?

Anyways, I didn’t want to linger on Kennedy’s other points (most of them ill-informed). My most hated one, which I have criticized numerous times before, is the desire for “compromise.”

Let’s take a look at the aforementioned priest. He views homosexuality as an illness, something to be cured. How do you “compromise” with someone like that and gay people? This belief is part of a wider belief that minorities must “compromise,” “debate” or “hear out” their oppressors.

I posted this pic to Kennedy and as evidence of her mental faculty, she didn’t get the sarcasm.

What would the middle ground be between the priest and gay people? I asked this question three times, wanting a specific example and Kennedy couldn’t give one. It is almost like using the word “compromise” is a knee-jerk reaction when the subject of homosexuality comes up. Let’s not forget, Kennedy joined the Twitter convo to complain about the use of the word homophobia, even though it definitely applies in the case of this priest.

Maybe she is trying to educate herself, but she is doing a poor job of it.

Edit: Given the convo that this user and I were having, you think she would mention that she is bi right?

Typically anyone who expresses Uncle Tom-esque thoughts uses that as a disclaimer right up front e.g. I am black and I think black people complain about racism too much.

So, after getting called out more bluntly by another user, Kennedy drops this little dime:

Needy brings up a good point. Why did Kennedy not think to bring up her being bi (if she really is) when she was bringing up the “one gay person she knows (her dad).” I was willing to give Kennedy the benefit of the doubt, but there’s obviously something amiss.

People find it too hard to admit they are wrong, and it seems like that issue is amplified online. Instead of admitting she has more to learn, Kennedy drops a (probably false) “I’m bi” bomb once she gets called out.

X:Men Dark Phoenix, Author Intentions, SJWs and Guns

The early X-Men films are some of my favourite comic book films, especially X2 and Days of Future Past. While Logan was a great send-off for Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, Apocalypse left a bad taste in my mouth. Oscar Isaac was tragically wasted as the villain, due in large part to poor writing. Sophie Turner’s acting chops were suspect and many of the supporting villains were dull.

For those reasons, I am cautiously optimistic about Dark Phoenix. While the comic storyline has great potential, I am not sure if Turner has the range to pull this role off. Yes, I watch Game of Thrones, and I generally find her to be one of the weaker links on that show. I am also not a fan of Jennifer Lawrence so her presence as Mystique (which is overdone  due to her starpower) is another reason I have thought of skipping Dark Phoenix in theaters.

Now, I am not defending the writing or the acting in this clip. Lawrence sounds like she’s bored, and the writing is heavy-handed. However, complaints about “SJW” content do not concern the way messages are presented: People who complain about SJW content hate the message, or images, themselves.

Any image of strong women or POC can trigger the SJW detractors. I have seen someone call a scene with homosexuality “forced” because it involves a two-minute exchange with two women flirting with one another. For some people, ANY inclusion or mention of ANY ideas that are left of centre, is SJW.

I believe the above poster is one of these people. There is a tendency among people who cry “SJW” at everything to believe SJW content comes from a new generation of Hollywood execs. These right-wing zealots don’t realize that, sometimes, media just incorporates the messages from the original media. I remember people complaining about “liberal talking points” in The Punisher, even though those “liberal talking points” have been a part of the character for decades.

Likewise, the X-Men — a group of people hated by society because they were born different — have always been viewed as an allegory for discriminated groups, ranging from POC to LGBTQ+.

I never thought I’d see this but someone is actually arguing that the X-Men represent gun owners in America…you know, since they are persecuted and routinely threatened with deportation, extermination, violence etc.

I can agree that sometimes an author’s take on their material doesn’t have to be the only take. Sometimes, people can pick up on additional messages or allegories the author might not have intended. However, I don’t think an author’s take should be ignored, and replaced with a more asinine one (as is the case here). If this person thinks choosing to own a an assault rifle (remember, most gun control recommendations aren’t trying to outlaw all guns) and getting some skepticism for that, is the same as being discriminated against for genetic traits, then he has no idea what real discrimination is.

Update on my New Year’s Piece

I posted this early New Year’s and deleted it for a period (for reasons I can’t disclose).

I remember celebrating New Year’s in Newmarket, a very monochromatic town in Canada. I asked one lady if she wanted to dance, only to get the “I don’t like black guys” spiel. I was hanging out with some people at a house party afterwards, and I mentioned the incident.

One girl’s response was to say that such preferences are natural, or innate. Basically, you are born with a preference for a certain race. As the hick said, some of her extended family are dark-skinned so why does she prefer light-skinned guys? She also tried to stump me by asking what race I prefer, to which I responded I don’t have a solid preference. I have pursued girls of all races. The last girl I dated was Chinese, several were white.

The hick also added that she doesn’t normally like dark-skinned guys but thinks I’m attractive, giving me the old “you’re a credit to your kind” compliment. People who throw out the “I don’t normally like your kind” spiel don’t even realize how much of a back-handed compliment it is and think that they are so enlightened for being attracted to one person of a different race.

I have discussed this inaccurate belief before, but I am compelled to discuss it again now. The debate with this hick girl occurred around 3am on New Year’s Eve, so I was pretty inebriated and my brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders. So now, some dumb hick thinks she stumped me with a question I could have shut down easily in another arena.

My little sister is mixed, and my mom makes sure to raise her with an appreciation and love of her dark skin and all the features that come with it e.g. her curly hair, her nose, her lips. My mom buys my little sister books about black history and black hair. She teaches my sister to admire the beauty of dark-skinned actresses like Lupita Nyong’o and Viola Davis. My sister now fully embraces her black identity and doesn’t have any aversion to dark skin.

Now imagine if my mom raised my little sister with the mentality that she would be prettier if her skin was lighter? What if my mom told her not to play outside too much since the sun would make her darker, and therefore uglier? What if my mom constantly told my sister her hair looks better straight? What if my mom only used white actresses or public figures as examples of the beauty my sister should aspire to?

It’s pretty easy to see how my brown-skinned sister could grow up to only be attracted to light skin. If my sister started getting this conditioning by the age of five, she could easily get to twenty and think her preferences are natural. That is what the hick from Newmarket doesn’t understand. Wherever that idiot is now, I hope this truth will someday occur to her.

***

So, one of the friends I partied with that night actually knew the dumb hick I referred to in this article. He shared the article with her, at my request, and she was apparently “super upset about it.”

I believe that the friend that shared the video with the dumb hick is genuinely not racist, due to his stances on topics such as affirmative action and colonialism’s impact on present-day Africa. However, he still falls into the trap of defending the hick simply because she says she isn’t racist.

Very few people will own up to that label nowadays. White supremacits communities like Stormfront reject the label: “We are a community of racial realists and idealists. We are White Nationalists who support true diversity and a homeland for all peoples, including ours.”

See how they avoid identifying as racists? Even though the site is devoted to dreams of white ethnostates and Holocaust denial? I am not saying the hick is this racist, but she definitely is not a non-racist. Anyone who defends racial dating preferences as natural ignores the way people are conditioned to have an aversion to certain races. Ignoring something that causes a racial preference makes you a racist.

Anyone who is too obtuse to realize “credit to your kind” is an insult clearly needs to get out more. My friend made the point that unlearning racism, or the racist set of assumptions we grow up with, is a long process. However, I no longer have pity for people who grow up like this. These are the same people increasingly calling police on people of colour for stupid reasons, like BBQ Betty or Taco Tammy, and arguing that they were misunderstood once the incident goes viral, or that the video doesn’t capture the full story.

A good example is the below video. After fearlessly berating the “Arab” working at this establishment, this man brags about how many Arabs he killed while serving in the military. Then his tone changes very quickly once a cop shows up.

I’m done with having pity or patience for people who don’t realize they’re racist.

Birthers and Misinformation

By now, I think most of us are familiar with the birther movement; the movement that argues that Obama was not born in America. Even after Obama presented his birth certificate, some people (like Trump) have argued that it is invalid.

I was on moviechat’s Lori Loughlin board, which has been very busy since news of the Ivy League bribery scandal broke. I got involved in a thread that asked “who cares,” concerning the news of the scandal. The original (inarticulate) post argued that higher education is a scam anyway. I didn’t have much interest in trying to engage him in that point but as I scrolled through replies I predictably came across people arguing about whether affirmative action steals more spots than the acts of rich people.

I have discussed this before, using the Abigail Fisher trial as a case study. Fisher argued that affirmative action robbed her of a spot at the University of Texas (U of T) Austin. Fisher wasn’t in the top 10 of her class academically, so she automatically missed out on the 92% of spots reserved for the “Top 10 Program.” Next, her SAT and grades were still not that competitive outside the top 10 (1200 and 3.59 respectively). Then she had to consider her extracurriculars. I don’t have the details on what her extracurriculars are, so I can’t judge them fully. However, what I found interesting was that Fisher claimed to know that there were people of colour who got in with lower grades than she did.

First, there is a 92% chance she is wrong, since academics alone determined who got in for 92% of the positions. Second, this isn’t the first time I’ve read about where a white person doesn’t get a job/acceptance and assumes the person of colour who got it must have been unqualified.

This latter assumption popped up in the moviechat thread where someone argues that it it is a fair assumption that affirmative action gives spots to people who don’t deserve them. This poster, “PimpFranklin” then argues Obama got in with poorer grades because he applied as a foreign exchange student.

At first, I thought this was a birther comment, and responded with that assumption in mind. I did not realize there was a new birther offshoot, which argues Obama is born in the US but applied to university as a foreign exchange student to get preferential treatment.

Another user, “John Kyle” cleared this up, after calling me a “dense butt head.”

Now, I try to avoid doing what I always criticize the right for doing: Assuming facts contrary to their world view are false.

So I Googled “Obama foreign exchange student.” In literally two minutes I had multiple sources pulled up and was able to skim the heftier ones to get the origin and breakdown of this hoax.

The card that is reportedly Obama’s, where he uses his stepdad’s Indonesian last name (Soetoro), is actually photoshopped from another Columbia student. The other student’s number is still on the card, and a Columbia spokesperson has also stated the type of card didn’t exist at the time Obama was in school.

Even better, this hoax can be traced back to an April Fool’s Day post by the Associated Press.

Since I posted the links, John Kyle has not responded.

As someone else pointed out, no response from John Kyle will be worth reading. Someone who uncritically accepted a hoax like this will not use critical thinking skills to form a coherent response. If they never bothered to Google the issue themselves and verify that what they heard from a racist uncle is true, then why should I expect them to do that now?

Deep down, they might know that their theories hold no water, but they will not face that fact.

As SamGerard said: “…I suspect most people don’t want to fact check stuff like that because doing so will only confirm what deep down they already know to be true; that the theory they desperately want to believe is in fact bullshit.”