If you’ve been following the #FTBullies controversy ridiculous hissy fit reasoned discussion by reasonable people (with reason!), you may have come across a number of people calling my credibility and motivations into question with regard to my refusing to grant any legitimacy to the meme that Freethought Blogs is a hive-mind that silences dissent. “Of course he won’t criticize them,” say the nay-sayers “He has too much to lose! He’s trying to stay on PZ’s good side! He’s trying to ‘move up the ladder*’!”
Well folks… they’re on to me. I need this gig. You see, being employed full-time as a researcher, playing in a rock band, and juggling personal and volunteer activities simply isn’t enough for me. I need to have people occasionally tell me that they like my writing. I need it. I also can’t live without the ~$60/month mega-haul that I get from being on FTB. It’s all part of a grand scheme I hatched 2 years ago, pretending to care about racism and other social justice issues in a devious plot to be included as a middling-trafficked site on a blog network that didn’t exist yet. You got me.
And now apparently my meal ticket is about to blow away:
One morning last week, as per usual, I woke up to read my hometown Boston Globeonline. As I scanned the updates on Queen Elizabeth’s handshake and Rielle Hunter’s breakup, my eyes landed on a headline proclaiming what might be the most historic, transformational news of my lifetime. No, not the upholding of Obama’s health care law. This headline was much, much bigger: Stain of Racism Is Finally Fading in America.
As a 41-year-old black woman living in America, you can imagine my visceral reaction. “It’s about #*!^@% time!” But I quickly moved past that, because I couldn’t wait another second to dive into a column announcing the sunset of white racism, written by my formerGlobe colleague and syndicated conservative columnist Jeff Jacoby.
We’ve been breathlessly forecasting the arrival of a post-racial society going on four years. Now, according to Jacoby, it’s Jubilee time. “America’s racist past is dead and gone,”he proclaimed, and as I read on all I could think is, this is gonna be some funeral.
Well shit. Talking about racism was the only way I could tap into the white guilt of the atheist community. Without racism, how will I be able to manipulate people into pretending that I have something worthwhile to contribute? I’ll finally be exposed as the fraud I am! And I’m not the only one:
While we’re on the subject of betting, let’s talk about cards. Race cards, to be precise. It sounds like someone is going to have to break some news to Ta-Nehisi Coates, the author, blogger, and senior editor for The Atlantic, whom Jacoby cites as insisting “that America is steeped in white racism . . . He has no intention of putting away the race card.”
Mr. Coates, are you sitting down? Here it is: You are going to have to find a new card to play. Actually, you’re going to need a whole new deck. The jack of intractable-racial-disparities-in-health-care, the queen of yet-another-Obama-joke-about-monkeys-and-watermelon, the straight flush of black men into prison before they can get to college — all those cards are gonna have to go. Racism is finally dead — we won! Or as Jacoby seems to imply, you lost, and need to find a new job.
Shit. No wonder black unemployment is so high – the only real skills we have are as dealers of an endless string of race cards that guilt hard-working white landowners into taking us on, unqualified and lazy as we are.
Seriously though, Francie Latour has written a brilliantly biting piece of satire, and you should check out the whole thing.
Like this article? Follow me on Twitter!
*Someone literally said this, upon which I laughed myself thinking of all the FTBloggers perched on an A-frame ladder trying desperately to outdo each other for… I dunno, cookies from PZ I guess.
I suppose I should admit that there have been times when someone on FTB has said something that I disagreed with, but I didn’t say anything. Most of the time it is out of apathy (i.e., the issue is minor or tangential to the topics of this blog). On a rare occasion, it’s because I think it’s tacky to criticize someone else’s style, especially when you work with them (but obviously I’ll make an exception if the flaw is egregious). I guess the ‘take home’ of this is that the way to tell I’m trying to stay on someone’s “good side” is when I’m being silent – I assure you that happens extremely rarely. If I go to the trouble of saying I agree, it’s because I do.
You-you-you-you ONE PERCENT!
There’s a ladder at FTB? What could you get promoted to, Super Blogger?
The person at the top of the ladder has to change all the lightbulbs. Not really much of a reward, if you ask me.
I’ve got a suggestion. Give recipes for spicy food and gush about the New York Yankees. Or is that niche already occupied?
Hmm… good idea. Let me check.
*Checks*
Shit!
I guess you’re going to have to do it the hard way. You’ll have to educate us privileged White folks that racism is still extant. Then start discussions on what to do about that and other societal problems.
Posting the occasional video of you singing would also be good.
I agree with Jacoby for the most part. She is not claiming that there are no racists. She is claiming that a large portion of America believe that race is not a significant factor in how individuals judge other individuals. I guess we must be arguing about the definition of “post-racial” and I would trust Jacoby’s definition more than most others (as I have a great deal of respect for her writing).
But, even if you disagree with me about racism (and I’m sure you disagree), I don’t see how this relates to your complaint in the first paragraph. What does race have to do with the claims about the “hive-mind” of FTB? They do not relate. I suspect that the “hive-mind” claim has to do with the topic of feminism. Your attempt to equate this with racism is very odd (it actually feels like you really are playing the race card yourself… how odd).
You are not making a very compelling argument here. Maybe you should just ignore those who are criticizing you and just continue to do what you do. Adding fuel to the fire will only add fuel to the fire (if you know what I mean).
You probably blog for the same reason everyone else does; to find fulfillment from making your opinions known and to change the opinions of others. This can certainly be considered a “gig” even if it doesn’t pay any money. The rewards come from the feelings of power and influence. This is a “gig” that you have here…. it is perhaps a “free” gig. To imply that you do not value this gig because it doesn’t pay is not sincere or believable. (and certainly you must see that it is important for PZ to like you if you blog here)
PS – I never tweet.
So does this mean that funding of diseases that occur more commonly or exclusively in blacks will suddenly increase to balance out past higher funding of diseases mostly or exclusively occurring in whites?
He can be part of the Approved Male Chorus!
~$60/month mega-haul
I’m picturing you saying “$60/month mega-haul” with an utterly straight face and it’s highly amusing. But I would like to point out that you’re probably spending, what, 10-20 hours per month on your blog between writing and monitoring threads? If my guessestimate is right, that means you’re making $3-6 per hour off the blog. Much under minimum wage. If it’s just the tons of money you’re after, you’d be better off learning to ask if we wanted fries with that.
They also believe in god. The point is?
It is the art commonly known as “making a joke”
Well, now that racism is over, I guess that just leaves drug dealing or welfare. Fox News tells me you can live like a king on the welfare system (with heat and a refrigerator and everything!). Oh, and you’ll have to personally sire thousands of illegitimate children by different women.
Gosh, I’m soo happy that racist stereotypes no longer exist!
Jeff Jacoby is more than an idiot. He’s a propagandist. As Crommunist rightly notes, pick your social indicator of choice, blacks will not be in a fair, decent or on-par position. In that context having black president is a step in the right direction but there are miles and miles to go. As I endlessly flog, the criminal justice system is anything but fair and the wealth of blacks was all but obliterated under Bush the Lesser. In a post-racial society, the numbers would be very different.
Worse, the Washington DC elites seem to buy the post-racial argument. For example, the SCOTUS in 2009 (Ricci v. DeStefano) started putting it’s foot in the post-racial camp (diminishing disparate impact analysis).
Um, John I think yer kinda missing it…Crommunist was utilizing this obscure form of writing known as ‘humor’.
Perhaps you should visit your doctor to check on your ‘funny bone’.
Wow… okay… so funny I forgot to laugh. I will try reading all the FTB post as if they are humor. Perhaps they will begin to make more sense. yes…. kind of like a poe comedy central. I see.
maybe not, but being KING OF THE HILL is all the trolls who can’t decide if we’re a hivemind or riddle with DEEEEPPPP RIIIIFFTTTSSS really care about.
They all wanna be Ewan McKenobi saying “I’ve got the higher ground,
AnakinFTB!”Did you… did you just skip a bunch of the words there? The criticism is that my motivation for blogging (a significant part of which is about race) is to be rewarded by acclaim, and that I don’t buck the hive mind for that reason. If racism is over, then I have no more reason to blog.
And yeah… it was sarcasm. I’m not sure how it’s possible you didn’t get that.
AHAHAHAHAHAHA. Yesssss all the POWEH accorded to someone who writes a blog! Dance for me, minions!
I blogged for nearly a year before anyone read it. If I got fired from FTB tomorrow, I’d still have a post up on Monday. I write because that’s what I do. I’ve been writing since before blogging was possible. I am nowhere near deluded enough to confuse myself for someone who has “power and influence” over anything except my own life. Apparently we don’t share that assessment of the nature of power.
It’s actually completely unimportant if PZ likes me. He doesn’t write my posts, he doesn’t drive my traffic, he doesn’t sign my paycheques (and even if he did, I derive none of my income from my blogging).
You’re missing the big picture, Ian. You could make a fortune changing bulbs early and flipping them on the black market. I bet the old ones were all incandescent, too- hold on to those for a few years and they’ll be solid gold.
Note for those who weren’t paying attention: it’s Jeff Jacoby, not Susan Jacoby. I know Susan Jacoby, and Jeff Jacoby is no Susan Jacoby. Respecting the writing of Susan Jacoby is no reason to agree with a column by Jeff Jacoby, because he’s not the same person.
Wait wait wait… not all people with the same name are identical people?
Because I could have sworn I saw you in both Hamlet and Soap.
So you were happy with blogging when nobody read your work and you were just as happy if your work was unnoticed? Really? I find that hard to believe.
You write because that’s what you do? Really? Then why don’t you just keep a journal?
Hey now, the One Percent is A MINORITY!
Derf… caught skimming again. My mistake. I have read all the links and still find they are unrelated to the first paragraph. My point is that racism and feminism are two different things and that the “hive-mind” comment is likely to be about feminism.
I think you severely overestimate how crucial this blog is to my life. You know me as ‘a blogger’, so it’s understandable. I have a lot more going on in my life than that. And I put this stuff online because it comes up in conversation a lot, and it’s way easier to send someone a link than it is to scan a page from my journal and send it to them.
If you’re asking if I get absolutely zero satisfaction from knowing that people are reading my writing, then obviously the truth is that I’d much rather have some people read it than have no people read it. But if you go back into the archives, you’ll see that my output then was just as prodigious (and the subject matter was the same) when I had zero readers as it is now, when I have somewhat more than that.
Fucking Christ, the comments on that article make me angry. Black people saying “the black people who don’t succeed now aren’t trying hard enough or just don’t want to succeed”, people attacking affirmative action and calling it reverse racism against whites, people saying that talking about racism perpetuates racism or IS racism (which is rather reminiscent of DJ Groethe…), people saying black people get arrested more because they commit crimes more….
GAH. The stupidity, it BURNS.
Actually, anti-racism and feminism aren’t two different things. There is a significant overlap between the subject matter and the tools of inquiry, such that understanding one gives you a much better chance of understanding the other.
And I’ve explained the “hive mind” thing to you twice now. I don’t know how much more explicit I can make it.
What does that remind me of?
Oh, yeah, a British Lady
What evidence does she offer? The statement above addresses opinions.
Also whether or not people believe that has pretty much nothing to do with whether or not it is true (it isn’t).
“Her” writing? The original article is by a Jeff Jacoby. Do you still have a preference for his definition (such as it is) given that he’s clearly not who you’re thinking of?
An acquaintance of mine doesn’t believe it’s sexist to vent about her coworkers by saying she works with “too many females” and that there’s “too much estrogen floating around” and that women “create drama” in ways men don’t. She doesn’t get how she’s not targeting individuals as she claims but deriding them for their womanhood, and, as a consequence, putting down women in general. In other words, what she believes and her actual attitudes don’t match up at all.
There are legions of people who hold the same contradictory positions when it comes to race. A genuinely post-racial society requires more than people naively believing that race isn’t a factor in how they judge one another; it requires their behavior to match their beliefs.
:::: waves hand frantically ::::
I know! I know! You post at FTB for the extra-high quality anti commenters. (Now with extra stamina and optional verbiage.)
I’m not going to lie, y’all make this a lot more fun. Used to feel a bit like throwing words into a hole.
you know, I get all that free shit from Obama so I don’t need this lucrative Black Skeptics gig!
It is every couple of days that I hear another (usually rich, usually male) white person announce The End of Racism! and have done since I was old enough to pay attention. It was The End of Racism! in the 1980s, The End of Racism! in the 1990s, The End of Racism! in the 2000s, and just this week this is at least the third announcement of The End of Racism! I’ve come across.
Thanks white people! How were we supposed to know our own life experiences without a white person to explain it to us?
And clearly when a
coloredAfrican-American… from Canuckistanperson of color from the People’s Republic of Canadia can make $60 a month blogging, it is truly The End of Racism!Is that $60 American, or in Monopoly money?
@Cromunist
Crayons. You could try explaining it in Crayons. Maybe with random capitalization and weird fonts.
Sparky
Actually he is using the “there are successful black people, and racism is not explicitly talked about in politics, therefore racism is not a force in day to day life.
Neither of those means anything, none of his “evidence” means anything.
How can that be? Here is one example:
In the late 60s, when politicians realized they were losing the battle against civil rights legislation, ALL of the exact same senators suddenly became concerned with crime. Whether it was Democrats like Byrd, or Republicans like Nixon, all the people against equal rights were now against crime. “Crime” and “Drugs” were and still are nothing but synonyms for “black”. Nixon even said as much to his campaign aides.
Now maybe you don’t believe that (well the fact of WHO the senators were is true, you may not believe crime and drugs are synonyms for black), but even if you don’t, you can see how a simple mental expermint renders Jeff Jacoby’s entire article false. Because it is very easy for there to be successful black people, and also for racist words to be rarely uttered, while at the same time have rampant racism everywhere.
@John D
Maybe they weren’t in the past, but third wave feminism (that’s the kind happening now) focuses a lot on Intersectionality. That means that ALL issues of social justice are important, and many minority and women’s groups have over-lapping goals. I’m not just a feminist – I hope that I’m also considered an ally to people of color, LGBTQ people, poor people, etc. I don’t have to focus on one cause to the exclusion of all others. It’s not a zero-sum game.
It’s just as much fun as celebrating the End of Sexism.
I totally believe Crommunist was happy blogging without readers. I keep a blog that nobody reads, but I still write anyways (it’s under a year old, so that one year comment makes me happy). Why do it online instead of in a journal? Well, there is the issue of my handwriting…I do want to be able to go back and actually read my old writings :). But more importantly, to say that nobody reads it isn’t meant to be taken 100% literally…I have had a couple of comments here and there, as I’m sure Crommunist did back in his first year, and even these few short dialogs makes it worthwhile to keep it online. Besides, you have to start somewhere, and that somewhere in the blog world is usually 0 readers.
Actually, Joe, the Canadian dollar is on a par with the US dollar.
Maybe FTB did function as a hive mind during the time it fired Thunderfoot off the network …. and then it went back to normal again. Back to allowing dissenting views, but not too dissenting, mind you…. After all, all the bloggers came here for some reasons? They must have lots in common?
Or… maybe it never WAS a hive mind, as I’ve explained. Or… maybe FTB didn’t collectively fire anybody, also as I’ve explained.
True FTB didn’t collectively fire anybody. But I think that’s not the issue here. The issue here, as I try to understand it from Thunderfoot’s perspective, is how much FTB bloggers are allowed to disagree with those who run and own the network. Maybe the bloggers are allowed to disagree up to a certain limit and within set rules and regulations, as the Thunderfoot example hints you can’t disagree too much here. And if this is true, and you can’t disagree too much, it means there is common theme here that every blogger must agree with. Can you call it a hive mind attitude? Maybe. Maybe not. Then, in the end, every group or organisation works this way, or else they wouldn’t be able to survive!
Plus, like I said before, the attitudes of a person, a group, or an organisation can never be static. Which is to say, what may have caused the removal of Thunderfoot a week ago, may not have caused his removal a week later. NOW. It also depends heavily on what mood your boss is in. Have you worked under a supervisor who had a nagging wife? One day he would let you play games on your computer, the next day he wouldn’t let you take your eyes off the monitor even for a minute, and the next week he may start threatening you with a demotion for no apparent reasons! Complicated issues these are….:)
Wow, you really don’t like women, do you?
If one of the ideas that you “can’t disagree with” on FTB is being a gigantic gaping and totally unreasonable asshole to all of the people you work with, then yes I suppose there are some ideas that don’t fly here. And I have no fucks to give about Thunderf00t’s perspective. He’s revealed that when it comes to this issue, he lives in a veeery different version of reality than the rest of us.
For the billionth time (not that I think it will persuade either you or the legions of others making this dumb argument), TF was not fired because he disagreed. He was not fired because he expressed his disagreement. He was fired because his assholery and blind self-aggrandized adherence to his own ignorance made life impossible for the rest of us. He was here to troll Freethought Blogs, not to join it.
Oh Jeez! I do like them. Much more than I like men. But just because I like them, it doesn’t mean women do not nag, and I am not allowed to say they nag . Men nag, too. Tell me something. What if I had used the nagging husband example instead of the nagging wife example? Would that have made me someone who didn’t like men? I believe this is exactly the attitude we are talking about there, or I am talking about here. Almost every blogger I have spoken with here is just too keen to jump to conclusions about my attitudes towards women. You guys, it seems,have your own personal standards of how a man should talk about women, and talk to women. If someone not follows those standards, then he is certainly a woman-hater. I am sorry, but if this is not hive mind, then I don’t know what is.
On a less serious note, of all people, I would hate to be seen as a gentleman by any woman. And tell you what? My experiences forces me to guess that most women would not like to see too many gentlemen around them either. On the contrary, they would like to be treated as people, not like some holy and revered objects. Tell you what, experience tells me women can easily see men’s strings attached to their overly gentlemanly behaviours. If it does anything, it repels them and pushes them away.
Be nice when, or if, you reply. But I am bracing myself for turbulence anyway…
Ok. I agree with you. Yes. Maybe he came with a mission, with chip on his shoulder as PZ Myers put it, and with a grudge in his heart. A mission to test how much assholery can be tolerated here. Not much, it seems. Which is good.
Yeah… when your “go-to” example of someone under stress is “male boss with nagging wife” it isn’t exactly a huge leap to assume that you buy into the same bullshit gender stereotypes that go lockstep with a bunch of other attitudes about women. And yeah, I do have a standard about how one should talk about women. They should do it as though women are people, not a collection of stereotypes. This isn’t the first sexist bullshit you’ve said here – I’m not jumping to conclusions; you’re walking me there gradually. And the fact that we can see the strings attached to your bullshit doesn’t mean that we’re a hive mind – it means we’ve been here before with a bunch of other “totally not a misogynist” people.
It’s possible to be a gentleman without being a creep. I’m sorry that you haven’t yet located the middle grond between asshole and creepshow. We’re here waiting for you.
Kels: that was awesome.
@Kahfre
I actually know a couple of people who have decided that, for whatever reason, whenever they go out for a drive, there are a lot of people honking their car horns. They think that it’s just one of those things, and that the honking has absolutely nothing to do with them.
These two people are horrible drivers. They are oblivious to it, even though other drivers are trying to communicate that to them by honking their car horns.
If you keep getting feedback from people that you’re saying sexist things, take a moment to think about how that might apply to you, and that perhaps you just haven’t realized it yet. I’ve seen you comment in other places here at FtB, and you have consistently put your sexist foot in it. Try to learn why people are saying these things to you.
And American money has turned all kinds of funny Monopoly colors these days too. They just don’t make it like they used to…
If that’s how things work here, then I *really* want PZ’s cookie recipe. I think this network could definitely do with some more food blogging. 😀
Well, in that case, don’t keep your hopes too high. I am what I am today because I didn’t want to die a virgin, or a sexually-deprived man.
And, mind you, the issue of how to talk to women is better left to women. Which is to say, I should listen to women how I should talk to them, instead of some over-zealous self-appointed knights of feminism. And women tell me, it is OK if I talk to them, and with them, in a way I do. So, I am happy and peaceful, regardless of what you or your friend bloggers have assumed about me. In fact, it is quite a fun to see how wrong you people are, and are proud of it.
Sorry, I posted my above post at the wrong location. It was meant to be in the thread.
Clue-by-four: you needz one.
Yeah. And this is precisely what I have been doing lately, and I have come to the following conclusion: Those who call me a sexist are probably seeing their own reflection in me. For them saying such words to women translates into sexism. Maybe they haven’t had a chance to look what’s deep in their minds.
Otherwise, I can’t see how anyone could figure out my whole personality from a few words written on a blog. You know this is a very un-scientific practice that defy all reasoning to say the least?
Hey dude, if you’re happy being an asshole, then by all means go nuts.
Man… that is fucking sad.
So when you say ‘women’, you mean someone besides the number of women who have also pointed out that you’re being a total prick? Different women, I guess.
My friend bloggers? Who exactly are you talking about? You’ve showed up here, consistently been a dick, and somehow my “friend bloggers” and I are conspiring against you? There is exactly nothing that I have “assumed” about you man – you’ve showcased yourself here. Ain’t no assumption involved. Just the evidence you’ve offered. But yeah – if you’re happy living your life then keep it up. Just don’t expect me to validate your shittiness.
OK. now you are being a true example of how to be classic FTB hive mind. You have left reason far behind you.
Waaaah waaaaaaaaah
…
Heh. Hehehe. You’re either a comedic genius or a complete moron. I honestly can’t tell which.
As a woman, I gotta say, Kahfre, that your comments here have convinced me that I definitely do not want to talk to you in real life. Frankly, I don’t even really want to talk to you here, either, but I didn’t want to let you be able to go on implying that the few women who *are* willing to talk to you IRL for unknowable reasons of their own are somehow representative of all of us.
Kahfre, there are two possibilities at play here:
1. You’re right. Every single person (who come from all over the world, and typically do not know each other in real life) who has called you out for being sexist here at FtB are co-conspirators in a massive hive-mind. They are so well-coordinated that multiple commentors respond to you in exactly the same way in response to your comments.
2. You’re wrong. You make comments from a place of ignorance and refuse to accept it when people correct you.
I realize that Option 1 is easy. No action required on your part, except to continue on believing that everyone who disagrees with you is under the control of some mysterious internet entity.
Option 2 involves real work, in that it forces you to examine the prejudices of the culture in which you’ve been raised, and that you have internalized.
Kahfre’s comment is leading me to the conclusion that many people don’t actually know what a hivemind is. It doesn’t necessarily mean ‘one of many people who’ve called you an asshole for doing/saying assholish things’.
Incidentally, it also doesn’t mean they’re wrong to do so.
Crayons aren’t gonna do it. Too complex.
…Maybe with playdough? Or maybe gloves that don’t let it type? That could work. At least my nausea would go away.
My point earlier was that human behaviour is a massively complex issue. I still cannot see how you supposedly rational people could claim to have analysed my mind from a remote computer terminal… and then being so sure about it, asking me to agree with your opinions about me? WOW. This is classic! But that’s a different issue. One that you are probably going to keep ignoring.
The thing is, I see both men and women as people, and as such, I talk to women and about women, in more or less the same way I talk to men and about men. I don’t see women as objects that need sympathy and a sense of honour from men. Maybe this is one of the reasons why you people are getting confusing signals from me.
As to why I am having so much difficulty accepting your titles… I think it is probably because I have never ever been called a sexist outside of FTB. Both on the Internet and in real life. Not by a man, not by a women. Maybe initially I was a little blunt. But then I tried to explain a little to no effect. So, it is really not my fault if I assume that it is you guys who need to check your own self-created standards of how a man should talk to women. I know it is a sensitive topic out in the real world, but on FTB it has gone way over the sensitive mark. It’s an overly-sensitive topic on FTB. You simply cannot have a rational discussion on this topic here.
In the end, my world, fortunately, is much bigger than FTB. And as I said, people, both women and men, are quite happy the way I interact with them in real life.
We’re ignoring it because it’s stupid. There is nothing special or unique or magical about your behaviour. You’re depressingly typical. It’s like in a bad horror film when you hear the spooky music and you just know the axe-wielding maniac is hiding behind the car or whatever – we all know what’s coming, and we’re just fast-forwarding through the boring parts. We are all working with exactly what you’ve given us. You want us to see you in a different way? Start acting differently I guess.
Translation: I simply refuse to recognize the fact that there are serious ramifications to gender constructs, and that maybe I need to work a little harder to see the world through eyes uneclipsed by the male privilege I’ve been swimming in since day 1.
It certainly couldn’t be my fault! You’re all crazy. I’M the sane one here! (By the way, purported victims of harassment should be vigorously interrogated by a panel of experts)
Yeah… there are a lot of people who don’t get called racist to their face either. Is that proof that Rush Limbaugh is just a misunderstood civil rights crusader? Or maybe it’s just that people would rather quietly avoid you rather than confront you.
Yuuuup. It’s not that a) you have terrible ideas, and/or b) you’re awful at explaining yourself. We must all just be butthurt whiners. All of us. Without exception. Self-awareness is an overrated quality anyway.
And as I said, if you’re cool with being the way you are, then go have fun. But none of us are fooled, and none of us are impressed.
Okay, first of all, you seem to think that everyone who has responded to you is the same person. I’ve never engaged with you before, and I certainly have not tried to analyze you over the Internet. But these words you keep typing? Those are the things that I’m judging you by. It’s all I have.
I don’t care if no-one in meatspace has told you that you have sexist attitudes. You don’t even seem to be open to the possibility, though, which would discourage people close to you from saying anything.
You say that human interaction is complex. I agree with you. But I find that your comments are inconsistent with that idea, since the sentiments you express are based on easy, simple and non-complex stereotypes. You are the one ignoring the complexity in this interaction.
Yeah, I would suppose that if you started to discuss some things “skeptically” around here you’d get a pretty unisono reply: global warming, evolution, women are people.
I’m sorry if that’s too much of a circle-jerk, hivemind, echo-chamber for you
‘xept for thos who don’t, but I guess we count
Unlike many outlets that get called part of the “liberal media”, the Boston Globe actually is (editorially) a liberal paper. I’m pretty sure they keep Jeff Jacoby as their token conservative as proof that conservatives are complete morons. I used to read the Globe online since I’m from Boston originally (though I haven’t since they switched to paywall), and I don’t think I’ve ever read anything by him that wasn’t utterly stupid.
Nonono, you see, there are no wimminz on the internet. Well known fact. Therefore, anything yous all say about sexism is irrelevant, because you’re not wimminz, which we know due to theres being no wimminz on the interwebs.
And anyways, some chill girls(tm) are okay with Khafre’s sexism, therefore it’s all alright.
I admit to complete typing failure
K – people are probably more pissed off by your use of “hive mind” than your use of “nagging wife”. (The latter is a pretty tired cliche, I will say.) Hive mind is more insulting than you think. So use it sparingly, if at all.
There is a tradition that some of the people who come to post negative comments at FtB are anti-feminist and pro men’s rights. Men’s Right’s Activists includes some extreme sociopaths who applaud a divorced man (with half custody) who shot up a nail salon and killed 7 or 8 people. While not all MRAs have their woman hating dial turned up to eleven, some of them do.
When you appear to be in sync with their arguments, particularly the hive mind one, you appear to be just another trolling agent or sock puppet sent over from the Slymepit. That’s the history here.
You’d probably learn something about drawing inferences from indirect conversation if you googled “dog whistle” plus “political” and “speeches”. If you’ve never paid much attention to word choice or done a lot of literary analysis, then this is going to be unfamiliar. The fact that other people notice and care about cliches, stereotypes and putdowns is not a conspiracy. Um, it may, however be ‘proof’ that we talk to each other a lot.
Now that the troll is (I hope) gone, I have to point out an error in the footnote on your post. PZ would give you a cracker, not a cookie.
Silly, that’s where they hang the World Heavyweight Title.
Best blogging humor I’ve seen all day!
And none of the people you know outside of this blog have ever called you a sexist.
Clearly they are all part of a hive mind attitude. Maybe. Maybe not.
(hint: you can call it a “hive mind attitude” if you like, but that would belie a total ignorance of 1) what’s actually going on and 2) what a “hive mind” is)
“It’s possible to be a gentleman without being a creep. I’m sorry that you haven’t yet located the middle grond between asshole and creepshow.”
-Crommunist
“Well, in that case, don’t keep your hopes too high. I am what I am today because I didn’t want to die a virgin, or a sexually-deprived man.” – Kahfre
Lemme guess, ‘I’ll only get laid if I treat women like shit cuz women don’t *really* like “nice guys”, they like jerks!
Women made me this way!’
Yes, you sound totally like a nice guy…
Barf.
“Jeff” is not typically a female name. I think you’re thinking of Susan, who did not write the column in question
Daamn, how long have you been saving that one up? :p
The problem is that this boss sounds like an asshole.
But you just jump right to the nagging wife stereotype, which is why you’re getting called sexist. You see an unhappy man who treats his underlings poorly and who do you blame? The nagging wife. Yeah I’m sure that was his excuse too, but that’s because that’s the kind of thing assholes do.
And by the way, I did work for a man who’s wife was what a lot of people would call “naggy”. He was probably the nicest, calmest boss I’ve ever had. He was like the eye of a hurricane. I’ve seen him deal with customers asking if we had dog on the menu (they are Thai and owned a restaurant- how many times do you suppose they heard this “joke”?) in a way that would have made Gandhi ashamed. After working 60 hours a week over a hot grill and dealing with this “naggy” wife. The point is that he’s a human being and deserves credit, good or bad, where it’s due just like everyone else. However he, unlike this supervisor, was actually really good at his job and was respectful to the people who worked for him even when he was having a bad day. That’s what good bosses do.
Just ask yourself this: why didn’t you even consider that maybe this supervisor was responsible for his behavior, rather than his wife? Isn’t the simpler explanation just that the guy just wasn’t very good at his job?
If there were any question about the survival (robust health even) of racism, one need only read the comments on Francie Latour’s article.
I still wonder why keep tabs on a blog that they apparently dislike and definitely don’t understand.
Translation: ‘I refuse to consider that I might be in the wrong. Instead, everyone calling me wrong is talking about themselves.’ The ‘projecting’ defense is truly pathetic, merely the adult language version of ‘I know you are, you said you are, so what am I?’
Regarding the playdough suggestion: he would just eat it all anyway, and then where would we be?!
Heh, if you think that snide inline comment was bad, you should see all the trash he vomited up on Cristina Rad’s “Don’t Feed the Trolls” thread:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/cristinarad/2012/07/08/dont-feed-the-trolls-skepchickconconvergence-panel/
I still haven’t been able to decide whether the stupidity or the misogyny burned more. It’s a lot like being set on fire while splashed with acid.