Tech support (bullies and creep) » « I won’t treat Muslim people like children

Patton Oswalt fans and how to outrage properly

Famous comedian, Patton Oswalt, Tweeted this:

Rich straight white guy telling the world he’d appreciate “less outrage”. This notion doesn’t sit well with those who daily face various forms of outrageous and awful kinds of oppression or marginalisation. How exactly should people of colour show “less outrage” while responding to racism? How should rape survivors and targets of sexual assault convey “less outrage”, while daily exposed to men who think they own women’s bodies? How should gay rights activists threatened with death convey “less outrage” in countries where their existence is a crime?

I’m not sure and I’m not sure Oswalt is either. Oswalt is a smart, compassionate person, from a lot of what I’ve read; I’ve no doubt he’s genuine in his intent, even if, in this case, he’s unsuccessful in his delivery. Oswalt, respectfully, doesn’t get a free pass though – as I would not get a free pass if I said something awful but well-intentioned about transgender people (i.e. when I kept using “transgendered” for example), targets of sexual assault (“don’t wear slutty clothes!”), etc.

Writer Ijeoma Oluo was equally unimpressed.

It didn’t help that this was his response, though.

While it’s important to not dehumanise your opponent, sometimes you aren’t dealing with a group or response worth investing time in to convey pity. For example, when racists mock me, when sexists threaten women with rape, why should our first response be pity? Why should I take time to try understand when they’ve made things unsafer with violent threats? It might certainly be a response, and perhaps those not being targeted could demonstrate it (say, a rich white guy), but we don’t get to assert to targets of oppression how they should respond.

This doesn’t mean all responses to bigotry is justified of course – but when you’re merely asserting, and asserting from a place of privilege, it doesn’t help anyone. Indeed, it only helps the people who want to see marginalised people silenced: See, my hero Patton Oswalt says you persons of colour/women/etc. lack compassion and can’t even respond to your oppression right!

And, indeed, when Oswalt publicly responded to Ijeoma (putting a “.” before Replying so that all 2 million of his Followers could see), this made the situation worse.

I think this, above the initial Tweet, demonstrates a profound blindness constructed by good intention: Oswalt is good to acknowledge her and acknowledge her making good points. But, too, Oswalt must surely know that amidst his 2 million followers, as a comedian and white man, that he’ll have reactionary, “edgy” men willing to say horrible things to women online; he must know there is an imbalance of replying to a women of colour, who is a writer on these issues, in a public forum he can’t control, that it would work out worse for her. If he agreed she made good points, why not discuss it privately and perhaps blog it, thus putting it on a platform he can control? This a media ethics failing on Oswalt’s part, considering the size and scale of his Twitter platform.

Oswalt is one thing. The flood of men telling Ijeoma to “take a joke”, “get a sense of humor”, and so on – i.e. please shut up and stop insulting my hero – was nauseating.

I’ll summarise their Tweets in italics.

Humourists get free pass to say whatever they want. I realise you just said being told to lighten up is awful, but I’m going to repeat it.

I can’t really offer a response, so I’m going to make a baseless comment on your character.

How dare you be so self-centered as the kind of person who faces regular oppression to tell a rich white man how to be a better ally?

Anything said or done in jest gets a free moral pass, Part 534.

Let me explain how satire works…

And on it goes.

Everything you do is wrong because of your race and gender – not because you misused your privileged position to tell marginalised people to be less outraged, instead of men like yourself to be less dickish.

“Male’s”. No straight white male has ever had opportunity to voice their opinion, including you, a celebrity comedian with 2 million Followers.

The mythical creature, the SJW, feeds off the need to be offended – there’s no way racism, sexism, etc., exist to such degrees, everywhere that warrants marginalised people to be responsive to those who should be helping.

Oh yes, nothing like wanting an ally to do better to convey how much marginalised people hate him.

Pwned. I’m a great guy.

Patton Oswalt is god because he makes me laugh, Part 3,344.

I’m going to make a slave joke at a black person. That should go down well. 

Please notice my boredom. Please. I am the spiritual sequel to Oswalt’s inital Tweet.

Until white men are in positions of power – like presidents, Nobel prize winners, scientists, head of bushinesses – we must keep defending them.

Marginalised people love bigotry. Persons of colour have to search far and wide to find racism; women really struggle to encounter sexism. 

So what do we notice,

1. Lots of men love explaining to marginalised people how to handle oppression. They can’t imagine maybe they don’t know what they fuck they’re talking about because this is a world designed to be a blank page for men – especially white men – to make their mark. “I’m a white man! You must listen to me!”

2. Humour doesn’t have any moral baggage to such people. Here, Oswalt isn’t being comedic, but he is a comedian. For some reason, that gives him moral immunity to say what he wants. Humour is a way of speaking, not an automatic free pass to say what you want. Just because humour makes people laugh doesn’t make it right all the time. We can criticise it as we do cartoons caricaturing Jewish people, white people who blackface, etc.

3. This was also telling.

As I’ve said before: nothing insulates bigotry more than thinking my friends/fans/followers can’t possibly be bigots! Indeed, the idea that the only bigots online silencing persons of colour is white supremacists is obviously false: but it’s a helpful picture to draw so you have neat moral boundaries. If you can say “only white supremacists silence people of colour”, it means you can get away with saying anything and never think “Maybe I’m being a bit racist”. Because, hey, you’re not a white supremacist, so you can’t possibly be doing something bad to people of colour!

As I say, Oswalt is a good person I admire. My issue is his fans’ responses and his media ethics failure, in making this public on an unequal platform (his +/- 2m million Followers versus 1) over which he has no control.

I can only hope he does better. We all fuck up.

 

Tech support (bullies and creep) » « I won’t treat Muslim people like children

Comments

  1. doublereed says

    Satire and comedy is awesome, and that kind of thing can be effective. But I don’t understand why people think there should only be one method or way to call out bullshit. The fact is that anger and outrage can be effective too. Just because that’s his Modus Operandi doesn’t mean it should be everyone’s. That’s assuming of course Oswalt is talking about ‘effectiveness.’

  2. Pierce R. Butler says

    1: Twitter sucks for serious dialog.

    2: How does OP suggest anyone do “less outrage” and “more counterpunching” at the same time?

    3: See # 1.

  3. Edward Gemmer says

    “Be more effective” is not poor advice. There should be more calls for better dialog, better debates, better messages, and ultimately better results.

  4. nrdo says

    Twitter is an idiotic and ineffective medium for constructive dialogue. I’m sure that if Patton and Ms. Oluo had the opportunity to converse in more nuanced setting, they would agree on most things, but one has to be extremely obtuse not to realize that this exchange looks like a group of angry, humorless “progressives” attempting to censor someone precisely because of who they are (white, male).

    • 4ozofreason says

      Yes, a group of (quick count here…) two, TWO, humorless progressives ganging up on poor little old everyone-else-on-Twitter.

      • nrdo says

        That there weren’t more of them kind of makes the optics look even worse. The idea that privileged voices should take some care not to drown out less privileged voices is totally valid, but it’s not a concept that lends itself to exposition in 140 characters.

        • nrdo says

          And just to clarify, I agree with Tauriq in the sense that it would have be more ideal if Ms. Oluo had been able to contact Patton through an alternate channel and present the case, that outrage has its place and that he should change or clarify his position.

  5. says

    What I find most ironic is that Oluo’s original response to Patton (“tone it down. he’s trying 2 sleep”), while disagreeing with him, was doing exactly what he was suggesting his “fellow” progressives and liberals do — she used humor as a counter-punch to his dumb statement. It was a lot funnier any of his later responses. Maybe his fans who went after Oluo don’t have a sense a humor?

  6. leni says

    Patton Oswalt is one of my favorite comedians. Maybe the favoritest.

    I also love your reply: “You directly addressed your fellow progressive not oppressors when you said “less outrage”.”

    You could have edited a lengthy post for a day or two. Or you could just say it once on twitter with a tiny bit of hammer 🙂

    I hope he gets it. (I think he will.) I hope.

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