Joseph Scrimshaw explains why using “social justice warrior” as an insult makes you an idiotface, weakshoulders, and dunceburger. Yeah, I know, they’ll just say they’re using it sarcastically, but sarcasm takes some skill to use well, and they don’t.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
SJW as a pejorative has nothing to do with using the term sarcastically but is a reference to the excesses of hyperbole and outrage in which SJWs are perceived to indulge.
That one’s already a thing though e.g. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-29466113 http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/03/conservatives-ignore-european-court-human-rights-rulings
I so want to claim “Mister Thinks Murder is Wrong Guy”.
chris61 @1:
It still doesn’t make sense, given the goals of people who are interested in social justice: making the world better. Those who oppose SJWs don’t understand that, and their criticisms always involve a dismissal of people who are SJWs. Those oppositional fools set themsevles up as wanting to maintain the status quo and keep oppressed people…y’know…oppressed.
Chris61:
Yes, exactly this. It’s annoying dealing with people who take everything as an opportunity to be offended. See Steven Colbert’s racism against Asians.
That said, the term “SJW” is as misused as “clickbait”, “white knight”, or “free speech”. It basically just means anyone offended by something I don’t care about/a, doing. As such, it’s become an awesome indicator of when to ignore someone, especially when acronymed.
That just makes the user a douchebag in an inverse way: dismissing social injustice as something not worth being outraged about.
My main issue with being called a SJW is that I’m not really the “warrior” type. So I claim Social Justice Support Person. :p
For an insult to hit me personnally, the insult has to make me feel bad about the aspect being attacked. SJW makes me feel good. Hitting me with it makes me feel like I might be making a difference towards a better world. So, yeah, worst “insult” evah.
My prediction is that when SJW finally gets laughed down, they’ll start calling us DHBs, for decent human beings.
This comment from that post is nonsense:
Culture wars bring suffering? Criticizing discrimination and oppression brings suffering? Criticizing people for supporting Rape Culture bullying? Raking people over the coals for being misogynist or homophobic is somehow wrong?
Da fuq?
Vaiyt @6
The point isn’t dismissing social injustice, but people who think everything, no matter how slight/incidental/satirical is a great social injustice.
hoku @ 10
That’s still BS. Dismissing society wide problems by claiming something was just one “slight/incidental/satirical” incident is a common tactic of the defenders of the status quo. People are upset because that “one incident” happens all the fucking time.
That was great!
Of course it takes a comedian. They spend their lives making the painful and fear-inducing easier to deal with though that short-circuit we call humor.
When I see SJW being used it basically boils down to one set of behaviors.
*Person A sees something social justice related they don’t like from person B.
*Person A says “SJW!”, sometimes even with other words attached.
*Persons A and C, D, E… who are pre-programmed with the proper response shut down all filters for communication and act like my grandparents do when I say “fuck”.
In this context Joseph Scrimshaw is signal jamming people who don’t like social justice so the pre-programming is less effective. It’s honestly pathetic that it looks this simple and I’m serious about seeing it this way.
Tony @9
But getting called out about rasicm, misogyny, homophobia, etc in my speech, actions, things I like is painful and makes me suffer. Why do you want me to suffer?
/Snark
hoku
Satire isn’t a fucking excuse. Spewing a bunch of racist language as “satire” is not some brilliant, Jonathan Swift-level insight. As someone who cares deeply about the issue he was supposedly trying to make a point about, he did it wrong. He failed as an ally. He just caused more damage and distracted from the issue of the Washington Slurteam.
Waving your hands and saying “it’s satire!” doesn’t work. Go on and call me a SJW or claim I’m looking for opportunities to be offended, but I’m not writing a blank check for all the white people out there to spew racism so long as they claim they were trying to be funny.
D @ 11
That’s why I’m against the term. I do think getting outraged about tiny things hurts your point. But I agree with you that this term is mostly used as a way to dismiss the whole problem. Steven Colbert making a character to mock the Washington Redskins is not a massive injustice oppressing Asians. Getting angry about it is a great way to deflect from caring about the subjugation of the Native Americans, and it makes the actual issues of Asians seem petty.
hoku @ 10
The problem is people who think that they can shout “it’s satire” and be excused for saying ignorant and harmful shit. The problem is people who think something is slight or incidental because it doesn’t affect them or because they don’t actually understand the objection or because their intent was to mock bigots. I’ve really had waaaayyyyyy more than enough of people whining that the Colbert/Asian thing was just people looking to get offended.
The Mellow Monkey @14
Satire is a great excuse. It’s jujitsu turning someones offensive beliefs against them. The fact that a lot of people say racist shit and then try to excuse it as satire doesn’t diminish actual satire.
hoku @ 15
Again, the fact that you don’t understand the objection does not mean it isn’t oppressive or that it’s petty. It means you need to shut the fuck up and listen to people explaining what the fucking objection is.
Seven of Mine @ 16
I look at it like this, if it’s turning someones position on themselves (i.e. giving the oppressed the upperhand and mocking the oppressor) it’s satire. If the group being made fun of is the group being portrayed, it’s probably racism.
It’s not the place of rich white dudes to weaponize the oppression of a minority against other rich white dudes. That’s not fucking subversive; it’s lovingly embracing the status quo. It’s a bunch of white people who want to think of themselves as progressive and bake metaphorical “I’m less racist than that guy” cookies for each other. There’s a massive history in this country of weaponizing Asians against other minorities since they have a reputation for doing well in school and business. “Why can’t black people be more like Asians” and so on. Minorities do not exist to be used by dominant groups as weapons against bigots.
What Colbert did was not giving the oppressed the upper hand it was giving HIMSELF the upper hand by using the oppressed as a cudgel. It was shitty.
Tony @ 9
My own decaffeinated hypothesis: They’re not interested “justice” (social or otherwise), they just want quiet. I fear that in this age of militant moderation where “both sides are just as bad/extreme/crazy/etc,” any attempt to identify with a cause or ideology no matter how beneficial is seen as something arrogant or dangerous. The atheist is just as bad as the fundie. The evironmentalists is just as insane as the climate change denier. The liberal is just as extreme as the conservative. The “social justice warrior” is just as bad as the open bigot.
Akira MacKenzie @ 22
There’s a guy in the comments there making that exact argument. Nattering on about how he doesn’t like the argument of “it’s OK when we do it” referencing some unspecified tactic that he apparently thinks is equivalent to the behavior engaged in by misogynists.
Hoku @15:
To you it wasn’t a big deal. You feel the same way a fuckton of other people feel. The problem is where you see little things, we see microaggressions. For instance, for all that gay people have become accepted to a great deal in society, I still hear people saying “That’s gay” or “dude, you’re gay”, as a slight on others. As a gay man, that’s an ongoing microaggression. No it’s not the end of the world, but it’s an ongoing irritant. Your dismissal of the concerns of others bc you view them as small/petty/unimportant doesn’t make them unimportant to the people who are slighted. Try having a bit of empathy for people, rather than dismissing their concerns because they don’t reach your approved level of outrage.
Another point-the injustices of the world manifest in large and small ways. When it comes to sexism, the glass ceiling is a huge problem. So is the fact that women can’t participate in society without getting sexually harassed. Those are large scale problems. On a much smaller level, the use of the male pronoun as the default in literature or online may seem minor to you, but it’s an example of one of the myriad ways that sexism manifests in society. It’s not an isolated example of sexism. It’s part of a collection of sexist social practices. I think that’s part of your problem too. You’re seeing these micro problems as isolated from the rest of the shit people deal with. I think it’s safe to say that if sexism was diminished to the point that the most we saw of it was the use of the male pronoun as the default, a *lot* of people wouldn’t bat an eye.
hoku @ 17
No, in this case it was using supposed support of Indians as a comedic weapon. I’m of Ojibwe descent and I do not feel supported by Colbert in this instance. He was not my ally. He did not help me. He used me to hurt people. Instead of his supposed support lessening the hurt, that increases it. I feel hurt and silenced and empathic pain for anyone of Asian descent he hurt as well.
There are ways that satire can be used to make a point. Being racist against another oppressed minority to try to show how wrong racism is doesn’t help anything.
And what if it’s sexism, homophobia, or any number of other things? Those are all … improbable?
Anyway, I think of satire as being about exposing a person or group’s bad behavior, in a comical way. If they’re not actually doing anything bad then it’s not satire, merely made-up, insulting bullshit. That can come in the form of bigotry, which is an instance of made-up, insulting bullshit; but there’s plenty of classic satire which is simply about an individual. Sometimes a group identity is part of the joke even then, but sometimes not — it’s about personality quirks or ridiculously-bad choices they made or whatever the case may be.
From Scrimshaw’s piece:
I wonder how long it will take for people to use these as titles for Tumblr pages.
Tony!:
It’s not even about levels of outrage. People who’ll call, say, ongoing online harassment of women “petty” are often the first to cry blue murder over, say, a woman politely suggesting that we look critically at the portrayal of women in videogames. The scale doesn’t matter; iIt’s just when it’s directed at a target they don’t care about that it’s “petty”.
Seven of Mine @ 23:
I swear I haven’t read the comments. (I try not to do that anymore, I’m suicidal enough as is.)
* * *
Ultimately, I think the entire stupidity that we’ve been dealing with “white knights” or “social justice warrors” (or, as they called them in my day, “PC thought police”) boils down to two inane premises:
1) “You can’t tell what to say or think! You aint the boss of me!”
2) “You think you’re sooooo much better than me because you ‘care’ about these issues! You’re no better than I am!”
Or is it not him but his character? Either way, sometimes he (and his writers) should break character, but they don’t. I don’t think they appreciate how much it matters. It can be painful to watch, especially during interviews when it’s an important topic, since they become pretty much worthless.
Seven @21 and Tony @ 24
I guess for me it comes down to the difference between someone who’s generally on the side of a group using mocking of that group to actually mock a third more powerful group, and Bill O’Rielly on the Daily Show talking about how there’s no white privilege because look at Asians, and then shouting down John Stewart when he tried to say it even that depends on where they’re from.
And it’s one thing to try to change these “microaggressions” and another to demonize everyone who makes them. I actually don’t think that calling someone “gay” is a microaggression, its much worse because using “gay” as an insult implies that being gay is a bad thing.
Akira @ 22
This, a thousand times. The cult of civility. It reminds me of John Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity. “Caring sucks, cant we all just get along even though that one guy is politely destroying the world?”
robinjohnson @28:
Looking at the uproar over Anita Sarkeesian bc she wants game developers to treat women better…the people complaining about her critiques think her concerns are petty. So yeah, I think you have a point.
I don’t know. That idea’s been around for a long time…. you would’ve heard similar things during the Civil War in some circles (as well as all of the big wars and revolutions since). And these aren’t your garden-variety mushy-moderates we’re talking about. These are real troglodytes.
consciousness razor @ 30
I’d say that’s a distinction without a difference. Colbert’s entire public presence is his character.
Akira @29:
Actually the comments on that post aren’t all bad. Many are quite supportive. There’s one shitspigot who’s complaining about how bad SJWs are, but that’s about it. In fact, that whiner is, IIRC, someone who used to post at FtB.
****
Hoku @31:
Criticizing or calling out people for saying harmful things is NOT the same thing as demonizing them. I get that you don’t agree with the criticisms that some SJWs dole out, but that doesn’t mean those criticisms are without merit. I personally do consider calling someone ‘gay’ to be a microaggression for me. It’s a source of irritation like a mosquito that won’t fucking stop biting your ankles.
hoku @ 31
So it’s OK to mock a group as long as you’re doing it in the service of mocking someone else at the same time? I’ll say it again since you seem to be having trouble with it: it is not OK to weaponize minorities against bigots. They are not tools for you to use to score Totally Not Bigoted points. Stereotypes about minorities are not there for you to wear like a costume when it behooves you.
Tony @ 35
I was saying that I think galling someone gay is bigger than a microaggression. It’s much more of a direct insult to the gay community.
@ hoku
RE:satire
I can agree that satire is great, but I really don’t see anyone here dismissing satire as a whole. Some applications of humor are not appropriate. For example, a reason that racist humor (including satire) is wrong is that it allows the racist to feel better about racial tension that should be taken seriously. Another reason is if the humor takes the form of something that a minority group is used to seeing used as a weapon against them. Seeing a white person do the same thing that racists do will hurt because of experience and the context won’t even matter because of the experience flooding back into memory. The “joke” will be hopelessly lost.
I’m curious about why you think that what Colbert did is legitimate satire. There is a transcript here.
RE: SJW as a term.
I’m interested in why you think the above is not an example of a social injustice.
Also if you agree that the term is mostly used to dismiss, why are you here making it easier for people to dismiss by signal-boosting the thing that is rarely seen? If the illegitimate instances of social injustice are so rare you should be criticizing the people using it as a way to shut down communication.
Brony @ 38
I think it’s satire because it was pointedly saying, “see this offensive thing? That’s what you’re doing. You are being this offensive.” It had to be done using a minority, because there’s nothing comparably offensive to white people. It’s stupid when people retort by saying things like “cracker” because it doesn’t any of the same weight behind it.
I’m not saying over the top social justice cries are rare. But I am saying that they are far less common than actual social injustices that need to be addressed. If I have to listen to a few people that make me roll my eyes to get actual problems addressed, I’ll do that in a heartbeat. My main concern with calling someone a SJW is that it enforces the idea that apathy is cool. So I’ll say something when I see a specific thing that’s over the top, but only in the context of that specific isolated incident.
Personally, I’m more of a social justice rogue.
I’d soooo love to have these badges, but I guess I’m out of luck over here on this side of Ye Olde Big Pond.
+++
Hoku
Good thing that the latter one actually hardly ever happens. What happens a lot is that somebody gets called out on their fuck-up and instead of just saying “oh damn, sorry, my bad” they start digging as if they wanted to find Jules Verne’s giant mushrooms on their Voyage to the Centre of the Earth, at which point people concerned about social justice recognise that the problem here is not somebody fucking up, but somebody having a serious issue. And then we get the accusations of witch hunts, thought police and lynching, with all irony about usually white men accusing women and PoC of witch hunts and lynching being lost.
Tony @24- THIS
I used to use the word gay that way and probably would’ve defended it vigorously because free speech and I was just a joker etc. Then I became more serious about tolerance, met/knew more gay people and eventually saw why, yes, they had a point and it wasn’t something that was no big deal. And even if I did still think that, it wasn’t my place as a straight person, to tell them they are wrong to be offended by something that much more directly effects them than me.
Repeat this story for just about every racist, sexist, homophobic, ableist etc., borderline slur and I have learned to just err on the side of listening, trying to understand and most importantly accepting and respecting another person’s offense without questioning their motives*. To me, it’s not only the most tolerant course of action but also the wisest since it’s highly probable that an offense that I just don’t see currently is merely a repeat of all the other times I didn’t get something…then eventually did.
Another way to think about it is: if whatever borderline slur is really no big deal, then someone complaining about it and finding it offensive is even less of a big deal. I’d rather allow marginalized people to voice their concerns because that is a better policy than trying to suppress their voices (which happens all too often.) If that means that some small % of people are going to purposely look to be offended for trivial things, then so be it. I think it’s a pretty small % that actually does that. And as far as it looking bad to opponents who will use it to tar the bigger group with claims that all SJW’s of whatever particular sub-group are all whiny crybabies just pretending to be offended: who cares. The opponents are going to say that no matter how much nicer we play. If Anita Sarkeesian tossed out 99% of her criticisms, I don’t think the haters would treat her any better.
*Note: this is especially when that person is a member of a minority class (I’m entirely comfortable rejecting the fauxtrage of White, Christian, Men who are obviously trying to simply keep the status-quo and protect their privilege.) It does not mean that I can’t
I want to be a social justice bard, and my songs will give +5 hit points to my party.
Giliell @ 40
I think of myself as more of a social justice mage.
@ hoku 39
You just described Colbert using a minority group as a tool. And he used that group in a way that allowed them to re-experience racism.
It did not have to be done that way, and that is an argument that requires support. He could have appealed non-racial ways of stereotyping such as the way one political group might stereotype another. For example,
I don’t agree that we white people are so mentally deficient that we need one example of racism to see another. I want my comedians more skilled than that.
As for SJW, that is a social signal to ignore what a person is saying to anyone else in the same group. If the meaning is illegitimate most of the time then the definition is simply wrong. By taking the term we gain the advantage because the use will then line up with reality and people will see it. The functional use of SJW is what is important and it’s use causes people to be taken less seriously in an individual or group context. It’s a sign of dismissal within our privileged group, just like your eye-rolling. You may feel it as one thing but it always has a social meaning too.
All that does not matter if the rest of us stop caring about that use. It’s startling when the word that is supposed to shut things down becomes a positive because we choose it and act like it. Those social signals matter too and the nice side effect is it creates curiosity among the people who wonder why we like being called that “bad thing” so much.
hoku @ 39
It didn’t have to be done at all.
A while ago there was a big fiasco with Piers Morgan interviewing Janet Mock who is a trans woman. He sensationalized it, did the whole interview in terms of how shocking straight dudes find trans women, asking her questions about how her boyfriend responded to finding out she’s trans, constantly referring to her as “formerly male” etc. Pretty much running through every play in the transphobe play book. He had a massive meltdown on Twitter over the criticism he received. Then he had her back on a few days later where he was marginally better behaved….until he dismissed her and brought on a panel of people with no particular knowledge about trans* issues to discuss the legitimacy of her story and her complaints without her.
Shortly thereafter, she was on the Colbert show. I don’t remember the details but I do remember thinking that he’d managed to conduct an astronomically more respectful interview than Morgan had. AND it was funny AND the tans person of color had the opportunity to be in on the joke and consent to the whole thing and actually have an opportunity to talk about her story and not simply be used for yuks and scoring rhetorical points. That is subversive.
I just work doing filing in the Social Justice Recruiting Office due to a disability.
They almost wouldn’t even let me do that, I almost got stuck having to volunteer for Social Justice Scrap Drives and promoting Social Justice War Bonds.
Yeah, Karmakin. IIRC you can still find him around HetPat, FTB’s own little outpost of slime.
Because he asked:
Top 10 Best Images of Cats Getting Married
Tony! TQS @9:
I’ve seen a lot of that nonsense lately. Not sure if it’s increasing, but it feels like it. I’m starting to wonder if there’s a Fuckwit Strategy Think Tank somewhere that says, “parrot their arguments back to them, but replace words so WE are the victims!”
That’s standard operating procedure for reactionaries: appropriating the language of oppression in order to paint themselves as the real victims.
Brony @ 44
Thing is, political stereotyping like you just described would have almost no impact. Dan Snyder probably agrees with the sentiment mocking tree huggers (given his problems with cutting down trees, I’d almost say its a certainty). It needs to be something that’s so obviously offensive to anyone who sees it, that it’s clearly satirical. Proper satire almost has to go too far by definition, where people get in real trouble with satire is when they don’t go far enough. Really the group he should have used was Jews, because Snyder has tried to claim that attacks on himself and the name are antisemitic.
Seven @ 45
And he’s done plenty of shows like that. The Daily Show just did a great piece with a panel of Native leaders. But the more approaches the better. On Colbert, he is supposed to be playing the way Rich White Republicans see other races, so pretending to empathize with how Snyder sees the world was a strong angle.
Jesus fuck. Stop this.
This is the most common trivializing response I see: someone points out that Sam Harris said something sexist, or Dawkins put his foot in it, or that Shermer shouldn’t rape people, and some idjit will bounce back with, “Are you offended? You shouldn’t be offended! You don’t get to complain just because you’re offended!”
NO, I WASN’T OFFENDED. SOMEBODY SAID SOMETHING WRONG, AND I CRITICIZED IT.
I know it’s your sole defense, to argue that when you’re criticized it’s because you “offended” someone, but it’s not true. You are criticized because YOU said something fucking stupid. Otherwise, atheists are just going to have to shut up about the Catholic church — why are you taking an opportunity to be offended by an idiotic collection of dogma and ritual that justifies raping children?
Tony! @ 35
“If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.” – Zora Neale Hurston
Calling out microaggressions shows how even seemingly minor things can hurt. Maybe not a lot, but little stings. Little mosquito bites, over and over again. When people get defensive about it and try to excuse it or tell you that you shouldn’t complain about such little stings, that shows they don’t actually care about your pain.
If you only step on someone’s foot a little bit, you still say you’re sorry and try to avoid it next time.
Those aren’t tiny points. That’s why the whole SJW meme needs to go away. It’s mostly used to dismiss concerns about things that are actually problematic. All I’ve said is that there’s things that are overblown, so I see the desire to have a way to laugh at them, but that way of laughing at small things is used to deny big things, so it needs to go away.
In an attempt to further infiltrate and co-opt the gaming community, I will not only answer to “Social Justice Warrior,” but also “Social Justicar,” or “Social Justice Black Ops: Warfighter GOTY Edition + DLC Season Pass.”
(Or SJBO:WGOTYE, which should be pronounced “R’Lyeh”)
Me at 54 was meant as a response to PZ at 52.
Which pretty much gives the lie to your “it had to be done the way he did it” doesn’t it?
Not if the approach is fucking self-serving, back-patting for the dominant group. Not if the approach does entirely avoidable splash damage by playing into a very ugly history. Not if the approach weaponizes the marginalized group in service of scoring rhetorical points. It is not fucking up to Stephen Colbert to appropriate stereotypes for laughs. Because laughs is all he accomplished.
Yes, yes, yes. We all get the fucking joke. We all get that the Colbert character would sympathize with Snyder. We fucking get it. It was still shitty and insensitive and fucking racist. Riffing on bigoted stereotypes for laughs is not fucking subversive and it doesn’t magically become subversive just because you thought you were being all cleverly meta about it. The only people who gain from that shit are the dominant people like Colbert who get to score rhetorical points against a bigot while the actual minorities (you know those people that are the purported beneficiaries of this shit) are left feeling used and erased as per fucking usual.
If the joke really needed an ethnic minority, Colbert could have used Irish Catholics.
hoku @54:
My point here is that those things that you say are overblown, are things that other people find annoying or even offensive. You’re basically telling people to ignore the mosquitoes that keep nipping at you because there’s a shark that is chomping on your leg.
Quit dismissing them. That is what you are doing. Being an apologist for those who carry out micoagressions, and should be stopped from doing so.
Wren O’Maoldomhnaigh @55:
You might want to rethink ‘Social Justicar’…
Tony @4:
On the contrary, the people using the term SJW as an insult understand exactly what they’re doing. They’re Randian libertarians who believe that the only way you make the world better is by acting as selfishly as possible and that anyone setting out to improve other people’s lives is a misguided fool who only makes things worse. Yes, that belief system is fucking crazy, but the use of the term SJW as an insult makes perfect sense given their beliefs.
Thing is, political stereotyping like you just described would have almost no impact. Dan Snyder probably agrees with the sentiment mocking tree huggers (given his problems with cutting down trees, I’d almost say its a certainty). It needs to be something that’s so obviously offensive to anyone who sees it, that it’s clearly satirical. Proper satire almost has to go too far by definition, where people get in real trouble with satire is when they don’t go far enough. Really the group he should have used was Jews, because Snyder has tried to claim that attacks on himself and the name are antisemitic.
I’m not convinced that political stereotyping is a good explanation either. That just shifts the mental deficiency onto Colbert. There are always one or two more examples using current events, which he should know well enough to work his craft.
It would take less than 30 seconds.
Also you contradicted yourself when you said to Seven that his schtick is pretending to be a conservative. His audience would see the environmentalist connection. No, comedians should not have to invoke more pain from racism by mimicking other racism, to point at racism. Sticking to the form and getting out of the category is best because the most moral option is causing the least harm.
Crap, I screwed up #63.
Ignore the first paragraph, that is hoku. Also I am replying to hoku in #63.
I’m having wifi issues because of what I think is signal interference from other peoples routers and I’m getting a bit frusterated.
Brony @ 63
Current events don’t carry the same weight of offensiveness as the team name. It’s easy for someone to shrug off, and just be convinced that if thats all it is they’re definitely in the right. The best example of this that I remember from recentish times was a sketch mocking how sportscasters treated Jeremy Lin. It was three anchors with two of them making fried rice and “me love you long time” jokes and then immediately getting offended when the white guy made a similar joke about a black athlete. The point was “this shit you’re saying about Lin? Same kind of racism.”
hoku @ 65
We.
Get.
The.
Point.
It’s.
Still.
Racist.
@hoku
I can agree that older references work better because the public needs some time to digest the wrongness of the characterization, point conceded.
However, There are plenty of example of excess political sensitivity with associated ridiculous characterizations and stereotypes that will hit the seriousness “sweet-spot” because people do kill over that crap just like they do over race. Some of the people paranoid about gun control for example. Religion is another good one and there are plenty of old ridiculous examples.
I simply do not believe you and I think it’s disgusting that you want to be able to inflict harm to criticize the same harm. That’s like hitting a kid to show them that hitting is wrong. That just shows them that you get to hit people when you grow up, in other words in the context approved by the dominant group. We do not get to decide what is offensive to others and especially not when we do not have their experience.
Tony @61
I googled and found mostly video-gamey stuff, can you give me a hint as to the connection you’re making?
@ Wren
There’s a prominent anti-feminist who calls himself Justicar. Mostly known for his Youtube videos, I believe.
Wren @68:
Seven of Mine’s comment @69 is what I’m talking about. My original response to you should have been less vague. There wasn’t any reason for you to know who I was talking about. My apologies.
R. Johnston @62:
D’oh! I forgot that a lot of those whining about SJWs were libertarians. Thanks for the reminder.
Seven of Mine & Tony:
Got it, thanks.
A nice specimen of SJW-horror:
https://twitter.com/mirandachale/status/522613848227217409
Yeah, right on, let’s “use” the Jews. Fantastic idea. What an incredible imagination you have. I mean, we absolutely must use some kind of racist jokes. There’s nothing else we could possibly do. So why not use that group, since it’s been conveniently placed there in front of you?
Oh, “there’s things.” Yes, of course, the things. Indeed.
Ophelia
Those people are weird.
It’s like they’re not on the same planet.
@ hoku
I missed this earlier because I skipped to the part of that comment that was addressed to me but it deserves to be called out. What the fuck is the matter with you?
I think there are perfectly justified complaints about counterproductive social justice advocacy: think TERFs. I don’t know why everyone brings up #cancelcolbert, TERFs are a far better example. Or take a controversy closer to my heart, all the people on Tumblr who argued that asexuals can’t be queer because they’re really straight (many of the same people were also TERFs).
But that’s definitely not what SJW is about. SJW seems to mean someone who recognizes that racist jokes are racist, who thinks video games can and should do more to be inclusive of women, someone who has the audacity to care about human well-being. It’s a way of painting a group as extremists, who should by all rights be the moderates.
I assume they mean something like Social Justice Zealot, but are too inarticulate.
Not that the term “warrior” in American discourse hasn’t been thoroughly poisoned by its constant use in militarist propaganda, but I don’t think they’re that subtle :v
…Social Justice Warfighter?
hoku 39:
peep this shirt.
http://d1jrw5jterzxwu.cloudfront.net/sites/default/files/styles/article_header_image/public/article_media/atcr-1-pat-bolduc-detail.jpg
THAT is satire. What Colbert did was pit Asians against Indigenous North Americans, and that was shitty. There are MANY NDN people who are actively objecting to the bullshit racist team names in pro sports in america, and colbert and his team erased their efforts with their insensitive, hurtful bullshit.
I think you are talking when you should be listening. because you keep repeating the same clueless shit over and over, and people keep trying to get it through your thick head that you’re wrong. Please stop talking and go back and read what others have said to you, over and over, with so much patience I can hardly believe it. For bonus points, Please use the internet to learn about what actual NDN people have to say about racist sports team names, and take it to heart. You don’t have the authority to dictate to Asians and NDNs what is actually satirical. Bottle your urge to whitesplain from this point on. it’s tiresome.
*in before “I’m not white! I’m 1/16th cherokee and my grandmother spoke spanish as her first language and I have tons of colored friends!” so save it.*
PS AND STOP DERAILING THE CONVERSATION WITH YOUR CRAP.
Siggy @77:
I see what you mean, but when you analyze the words and actions of TERFs it turns out they’re not remotely interested in social justice. On the face of it they might make claims to be SJWs but they’re horrible to trans people. My feminism is trans inclusive.
@ Ophelia
It’s amazing the lengths people will go to in attempts to completely avoid where the abuse is. I take it that person was involved in the conflicts around here? If so this is not surprising. People using the same excuses will try to ally.
@ Seven 76
They want to defend the right to say racist things, because the defended need more defending. Isn’t it obvious? (Yeah I know that was rhetorical)
@ Siggy
I agree that there are examples of social justice claims that are invalid. But I think the reason that you almost never see examples like TERFs on the average person level* is because it’s not about showing demonstrating that there are bad examples. At least not primarily about that according to the ego. It’s about “My group” (insert race, social class, hobby, religion…) getting criticized, or scoring points against the other group.
I see it in my parents and their Fox News loving friends. There are tons of good reasons to toss Obama into a prison for a long time, but few that don’t make the Rs look bad as well, or make the Ds alone look bad.
*I can believe that Colbert meant well, but he said something racist and should have simply apologized.
@ ceesays 79
Thank you!
I did not think of the one thing that was race related and would have worked. Colbert using an offensive example using whites. There are admittedly few things that would work, but that one would really work well. Especially at a game involving the team in question.
I learned something about myself.
using social justice warrior as an insult is coming from the same place that in earlier time the terms “nigger lover” and “bleeding heart liberal” were used.
they only work in so far as the target wants to be accepted by the user of the terms in that way.
In my case that is never going to happen any way so who cares fuck them!
uncle frogy
I get why people are baffled by #cancelcolbert. The objections to it are not 101 level stuff as opposed to the situation in Ferguson, for example, where you can cite statistics about how often unarmed black people are shot by police and incarceration rates and so on which demonstrate a clear bias. It’s relatively easy to look at half a dozen cops in camouflage pointing automatic weapons at a single unarmed man and recognize that as a grotesque overreaction. This is a much more arcane concept for most people so, to that extent, I understand the confusion. Hell, when I first heard about it, I didn’t really understand it either. But what I did was keep my mouth shut and keep reading. What I didn’t do was assume that the people objecting were being unreasonable just because I couldn’t immediately see what was objectionable about it,
@hoku #5:
Yeah, the thing about that is that the #CancelColbert hashtag was a joke. A critical one, but a joke nonetheless. Suey Park’s original tweet read:
In case people aren’t aware, the Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals isn’t real. It’s Colbert’s fictional organization. In his joke. Which Suey Park ran with. It’s as much a performance (with real intentions) as Colbert’s schtick. Thinking that Suey Park’s goal was to cancel the Colbert Report is woefully uninformed, and naive. If you seriously think that, you ‘missed the joke’, as it were.
I’m not going to step in and explain in her place, since it’s a much more complex piece of satire than “I’m saying something racist, but I’m not really a racist, so it’s actually a joke making fun of racists. See? Clever, huh?” (cf “We Saw Your Boobs” for similar hipster sexism.)
Here here’re a couple of links:
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-campaign-to-cancel-colbert
http://www.thenation.com/blog/179084/whos-afraid-suey-park#
So, yeah, pretty much all the Colbert fans and the anti-SJW took it as an opportunity to be offended. Because they didn’t get the joke.
And whether or not it was her intention to—I get the sense that she was opening up a hashtag space to have a conversation with other Asians and PoC, rather than aim satire at mainstream progressive white society, since she’s undoubtedly more aware than me at how bad we are at getting the joke—Suey Park succeeded in showing that “C’mon, lighten up, you’re too sensitive!” is only allowed in one direction.
@84:
Exactly!
Sorry for barging in on this thread. Saw hoku’s comment and didn’t refresh for awhile. I see the conversation is already going on. I’ll catch up before commenting again.
Anthony K @ 85
I’m glad you brought up the fact that the hashtag was itself a joke. All the people squawking about Suey Park not understanding the context of Colbert’s joke were themselves steadfastly refusing to understand the context not only of Park’s original #CancelColbert tweet but also the broader context of minorities being weaponized in various ways and used as tools to provide progressives with a reason to pat themselves on the back for being all progressive ‘n’ shit.
I’m still not seeing the difference between using SJW mockingly and using MRA mockingly, or for that matter, mocking the name of any group with an ostensibly “good” name. I mean, I disagree with MRAs, and largely agree with most SJW groups, but that’s incidental.
Hmmm… I always wished I were at a place in my life where I could call myself a Social Justice Warrior. I thought that meant being on the front lines in Ferguson and weathering death threats to give a talk on feminism. I thought I was just settling for being a Social Justice Trying-not-to-be-an-insensitive-ass in my everyday life by holding the opinion that Colbert botched the Dan Snyder bit, but apparently it’s enough to qualify me for full blown warrior status. So if my relatively pitiful “contribution” to SJ causes makes me a warrior, is Anita Sarkeesian a Social Justice Shogun or something?
Hell, at this rate gently telling my kid to not refer to things as “gay” will make me some sort of Social Justice Nuclear Holocaust…but of course WE’RE the ones who are horribly offended by everything, amiright?
you mean other than the latter being a self-chosen label that’s now also used for them by people who aren’t them, while the former is an attempted insult?
nich, @ 90: Trying-not-to-be-an-insensitive-ass-in-my-everyday-life sounds like an “insult” that Scrimshaw should add to the list. Maybe Social Justice Ninja would suit you? Hiding in plain sight, waiting to bring some sensitivity into a conversation!
Anyway, folks who use SJW as an insult always remind me of the ones who say something like “I would agree with your point, if only you said it more politely.” I’m pretty sure they would never agree with my point, no matter how politely I made it. They just want me to stop making my point.
Compare and contrast:
“Social Justice Warrior” – applied to others pejoratively, for taking a stance on social justice issues; supposedly sarcastic.
“Brave Hero” – applied to self or allies unironically, for arguing on the internet (mostly with people who point out the horrible shit they receive from said allies); actually serious
Jacob Schmidt @89:
How often do MRAs actually work to improve men’s rights vs whining about feminists?
Compare that to how often SJWs work to improve the lives of the oppressed.
There’s your difference.
Interesting. Do you also not see the difference between using “gay pride” mockingly and using “straight pride” mockingly? What about the NAACP vs. David Duke’s “National Association for the Advancement of White People”?
To me the difference seems pretty clear, but I’m struggling to put it into words. I think it relates to how one set of names is being used sincerely, and the other set is just a transparently dishonest attempt to co-opt the rhetoric of the civil rights movement.
Shouldn’t PZ be Big Ol’ Human Rights Poopyhead?
Jacob Schmidt @89:
It’s exactly the same difference between using “civil rights worker” and “Klan member” mockingly. You can use either as an insult, but only one of them is actually insulting.
This example
did not go down well, but it seems fine to me. Can someone explain to me the problem with this?
Social Justice Freedom Fighter? Nah, we learned from history that today’s freedom fighter is tomorrow’s terrorist.
I’m going with Social Justice Ranger myself. :)
Appending “warrior” to the phrase “social justice” isn’t much different from appending “asshole” to “men’s rights.”
Well yeah, those groups (straight and white pride), are silly at best and actively hateful at worst. They deserve mocking. But mocking the “straight pride” group using their name to do so doesn’t mean that I think straight people are lesser, despite the frequency at which that argument is made.
Actually, there is a difference. I don’t apply the term “social justice” to myself. The slymepit does use “Men’s rights” and other descriptions for themeselves. Why are you so intent on showing it is the same? Are you really a misogynist sympathizer, or just another Vulcan sophist without an emotional point?
Marc Abian @ 99
Same reason what Colbert did was shitty. It’s one thing if you’re having a real world conversation and someone is saying these things and you say “What if you replaced “Asian” with “black”. Would you still think that was OK?” It’s entirely another thing for a member of the dominant group to riff on stereotypes about a marginalized group as part of some sort of comedy skit in order to snipe at bigots. It’s the same reason we’re appalled when white people wear blackface as a Halloween costume and things of that nature. It’s not magically OK just because your intent was to mock bigots. Minorities aren’t there for white people to use for their own moral gratification.
Julianne Hough, who wore blackface to dress up as Crazy Eyes from Orange is the New Black, can put on that costume and go to a party and then go home and take it off and go back to being a privileged white woman. Black people can’t do that. They will always have to move through the world as black people and deal with all the racist shit, day in and day out. That’s why people get pissed about appropriation. Macklemore can rap and not be perceived as a thug because he’s white. He gets credit for being the rapper who finally had the courage to write a pro-gay song despite the fact that plenty of black rappers have done similar before him. It was just that mainstream media didn’t pay attention until a white dude did it. Madonna decides henna body art is neat-o and it becomes a fad among white women while women from regions where that’s a tradition often feel like they can’t partake in their own culture because it marks them out as foreign. And so on.
It’s just not fucking up to members of dominant groups to appropriate these things and use them however they please, even if they think they’re helping.
Same goes for Men’s Rights.
Jacob Schmidt:
The term “Social Justice Warrior” actually makes sense in the context of what progressives do: advocate/fight for social justice.
The term “Men’s Rights Advocate” doesn’t make sense because those people don’t fight for men’s rights. They complain about feminism.
The former doesn’t make sense to mock, unless you don’t like the idea of advocating for social justice. The latter is eminently mockable because those fuckers do not fight for men’s rights. That’s what makes the name so hugely ironic.
1) Perhaps you don’t. However, there is a section on this network called “Race, Society, and Social Justice.” We’re clearly concerned with social justice. Being labelled as such by others is hardly indicative of anything.
2) I honestly laughed.
Clearly. Have I written otherwise? Hell, not too long ago I placed them alongside white supremacists (well, one specific group at any rate).
I mock many groups in spite of their ostensible politics. MRAs for their whiny bullshit. TERFS for their grotesque sexism and transphobia. I will happily make fun of the phrase “straight pride,” and that label makes perfect sense in regards to what “straight pride” groups are doing.
The point of disagreement with anti-SJW groups is evident by their actual politics; by what they advocate and oppose. That they mock the phrase “social justice warrior” just tells us they don’t like groups labelled as social justice warriors. That I mock the phrase “straight pride” doesn’t mean I’m against straight people.
When SJW becomes a garden variety insult; when it isn’t a phrase used to reference certain groups, but is used alongside ‘asshole,’ ‘douchebag,’ etc, I’ll concede the point. Until then, the mocking of the phrase really only signifies dislike of the groups labelled as such.
oh, i see. you problem is that you don’t actually realize that the “A” stands for activist and is part of the self-label.
I fail to see what argument you’re trying to make here. The exact same thing applies to making fun of MRAs.
and if the A in MRA stood for asshole, the “difference between using SJW mockingly and using MRA mockingly” would be even more obvious, given the difference between “warrior” and “asshole”
No, I am well aware. Once more: there is a section on this network called “Race, Society, and Social Justice.” We’re clearly concerned with social justice. Being labelled as such by others is hardly indicative of anything.
I don’t have a problem with making fun of MRAs.
Jacob Schmidt, what the actual fuck is your point? The point of the OP is that trying to use SJW as an insult just makes you look like an asshole because, for the most part, the people who get labeled that are actually working toward social justice in practice. To use that behavior as an insult reflects worse on you than it does on the person you’re insulting.
Mocking labels like MRA or Straight Pride, on the other hand is different. MRAs don’t actually fight for men’s rights. They attack feminism and feminists. [Insert Dominant Group Here] Pride is members of dominant groups having negative, defensive reactions to treating marginalized groups like people. The things they call themselves sound ostensibly positive but the work they actually do in the world is harmful. That’s what you’re doing when you mock them, you’re calling out the lie in the name.
Ever notice how MRAs often take offense at people using their own label to label them? They fucking know what they’re doing and they don’t want to be associated with it. SJW is completely different. Our reaction to that being used as an insult is basically “um yeah…and?” Because we know there’s nothing shameful in our behavior. We know that the people trying to use that label as an insult are the ones who are lying about what it means in practice.
Ah, there’s your presuppositional problem. Yes, we are for social justice, but that doesn’t make us warriors, which implies a militancy to impose our will upon everybody else. It’s like calling us militant atheists. Implies we are at war to impose our will upon others, rather than having them back off and respect our decision to ignore their imaginary deities.
While we are for social justice, our means are not backed by guns, FEMA camps, and other paranoid conspiracies. Simple persuasion with words.
That is what makes the warrior a pejorative, and shows whoever uses it is a paranoid conspiracy theorist trying to be snarky.
If we call them assholes, it fits, because they are. You are wrong.
Sven,
This isn’t an explanation, it’s just the position in different words.
I read the wikpedia article. It appears to me that characters in blackface have also displayed negative black stereotypes, and therefore blackface has bad connotations (is there also something to do with not hiring black people to play black characters, was that ever the point? That would be bad), but no I’m not necessarily appalled when someone has a black face for a costume or playing a role. It’s also said in the article that performances which have black characters.
You say it’s not magically OK, as if the default position is that it’s not ok, but that’s not obvious to me, or at least not why it’s not ok.
I don’t really understand your last sentence in this context.
And that’s equally true if she went to a party dressed as a cat. She would go back to being a PWW and black people would still face racism.
Were that the case, I would have no problem with it. There’s little about how the groups operate in practice, just a breakdown of the face-value meanings of some insults.
1) Nothing I wrote was pressupositional.
2) That is actually an excellent analogy. Thank you for that.
Are you aware that other atheists use the phrase “militant atheist” as an insult? They’re not against atheism, just the groups labelled as “militant atheists.” Of course, in practice religious pearl-clutchers use the phrase against pretty much any form of atheism. From how and to whom the insult is used, it’s clear what they actually oppose. But that would be the same no matter what insult was used; they could use “fluffy bunny” pejoratively, and the matter would remain the same.
Marc @112:
Please read more on the history of blackface and mistrel shows. You ought to be appalled at anyone who dresses up in blackface.
Blackface is white people painting themselves black and exaggerating characteristics that white people associate with black people and taking those already racist caricatures and cranking them to absurd degrees in an attempt to poke fun at and mock them. It’s rooted in racism.
On blackface:
Minstrelsy was racist as fuck:
Through blackface and mistrel shows, the various stereotypes of African-Americans were sustained. Many racist stereotypes were on display in blackface minstresly shows, such as the sambo and the coon.
The coon caricature:
Marc Abian @ 113
Then what specifically don’t you understand?
Well, sure, that’s part of it. There’s no reason to cast white people to play black people. There was no reason to cast a cis man to play a trans woman in Dallas Buyer’s Club, etc.
And this is evidence of what other than your own apathy?
How about you explain why perpetuating harmful stereotypes about marginalized groups is OK? While you’re at it, explain why weaponizing marginalized groups against each other should be OK. I mean other than because it doesn’t bother you personally.
So black people are equivalent to and deserving of no more respect than cats? Is that the takeaway from this Shining Gem of +10 to Fuckwittery? Blackness (or any ethnicity) is not a joke. It’s not a costume. It’s not there to be used by white people for shits and giggles and to feel morally superior.
Marc @112:
You’re equating Hough dressing up in blackface to her dressing up as a cat? You really can’t see the staggering differences there? I think part of the problem is that you don’t realize how deeply racist blackface is. By dressing in blackface, she perpetuates harmful stereotypes of blacks. Dressing up as a cat does no such thing.
Marc Abian @ 112
This fucking magnificent ignorance on display is a beautiful illustration of why making comparisons to other racial minorities to try to show why racism is wrong doesn’t work. Especially if the comparison is to Black people. Anti-Black racism goes deep and you’re more likely to hit that than to make a point.
There is a specific history with Blackface. A specific history unlike any other racial appropriation. If anti-Black racism disappeared tomorrow and nobody alive had any wounds over it and everybody was living in a lovely post-racial utopia, sure, maybe it wouldn’t be a big deal. But that’s not the world we live in. Empathy for the people who are hurt by it, concern for the harm it perpetuates, and just plain disgust at the history should be enough to make someone see why it’s wrong, but apparently Marc Abian takes pride in self-imposed ignorance and empathic apathy.
It’s not like blackface has stopped being used, either. Tropic Thunder came out in 2008 with Robert Downey Jr in blackface.
ck @118:
Small addition: Robert Downey doesn’t play an African-American character. He plays a white (Australian) character who in the context of the movie puts on blackface (in quite a far-reaching manner). It might be considered a subversion of the whole thing, especially because he takes a lot of flack from real African-Americans in the movie for it.
Tony
Well if displaying racist stereotypes is a necessary part of blackface, then of course I am against that (if done at face value).
But then the example of that white woman who made her face black to pretend to be a specific black person (as opposed to be a general representative stupid black person) for Halloween is not blackface then, because it doesn’t have any negative traits?
Sven
For example, you said it would be fine for someone to say “you wouldn’t make those same jokes if you replaced Asian with black” but not for someone to make those jokes to illustrate that same point. I don’t see the downside of doing it? Who suffers in the second case and how?
I don’t consider the harmful stereotypes to be perpetuated when their done ironically. I consider that to be an obstacle to them being perpetuated. I don’t know what you mean by weaponised.
That’s a pretty amazing thing to take from anything I’ve said.
Mellow Monkey,
I’m not entirely sure what you’re saying (so sorry if I misread you), but I think it’s the same as this point from Korra is not Tan tumblr (it’s a reference to a character on a TV show who is black)?
Which could be what everyone is saying in a sense? Certain things might be perfectly fine “intellectually” on their own, but given the context they remind people of hurtful things?
Marc Abian @ 120
Not my name.
Well if you don’t see it, it must not be there. The downside is that members of dominant groups getting to laugh at their own cleverness and feel superior to more overt bigots is not helpful to marginalized people. In the Colbert skit, the point he was trying to make had nothing whatsoever to do with Asian people but he dragged them and stereotypes about them into it to score rhetorical points. In the process he failed to even mention efforts by actual Native peoples to get Snyder to change his team’s name.
Tell me, are people psychic? By what real world mechanism is the harm in stereotypes neutralized just because the thought “I’m being so cleverly ironic* right now” is rattling around in your skull when you spout them? Does the sarcastic tone of your voice prevent bigots from hearing what you say and making a note of it to use the next time they want to make a bigoted joke? Or do they hear it but find themselves unable to remember it when they try? Or do they hear it but not find it genuinely funny in an its-funny-because-its-true way because you meant it to mock them? Are the Asian people who’ve been on the receiving end of those slurs their whole lives magically not reminded of those times when someone spouts them “ironically*” because the mystical aura of your magical intent protects them? Or is it just that their pain at being reminded doesn’t matter because the really, REALLY important thing is that you get to feel like you’re being all subversive and meta and shit?
*this is, incidentally, not at all the correct use of “ironic”
What do you think “perpetuate” means? I think “facilitate the continued use of” sounds reasonable. How about you? If that sounds reasonable to you, explain how meaning them ironically in any way impedes that.
You seem to have enough brain cells at your disposal to use the internet so you should be able to piece it together. Do you know what a weapon is? It’s a thing you use to injure someone. Do you know what the suffix “ize/ise” means? It means “put to use as.” So to weaponize something is to put it to use as a weapon. There. I hope you didn’t hurt yourself.
You’re the one who gave the example of dressing up as a cat as if it’s no different from dressing up as a black person. Not my fault you can’t be arsed to consider the implications of your words.