Ally Fogg makes a very good point.
The first recourse of the racist fearmonger has always been to point to one atypical incident, a riot, a murder, a rape, and hold it to be typical, to be both representative of an entire population and the responsibility of that entire population. The left cannot win by pretending there are no criminals, no thugs, no rapists, no damaged people among the shifting sands of humanity. We can win by unequivocally condemning inappropriate and criminal behaviour while simultaneously and correctly insisting that we will not allow ourselves to judge the many by the sins of the few. We will not allow ourselves to be distracted and diverted from our humanitarian obligations by fear, because history shows us where that leads. We will not allow ourselves to turn our backs on those in desperate need, because we are smarter than that and we are better than that. That is the only way the argument can be won.
I would add that one thing that’s become obvious is that if you hesitate to condemn an act because the perpetrator is a member of an oppressed group, the racist fearmongers will then turn around and use that to condemn the entirety of the left of conspiring with the group that they hate. It’s what they do, and they’re very good at it — you might even say it is the dominant trait of fearmongers, that they’re adept at smearing everything into a giant category of blame.
It’s one of the things that makes addressing them difficult: anything you do will get you swept up into the burning shitpile of hatred they keep aflame. So you might as well just do the right thing.
Only, where’s the evidence that this actually happens?
You know you’ve been accused of this yourself, do you feel guilty of having done so?
It happens. I hesitate to call out specific actions by minority groups myself (although I think I eventually get around to them).
We all think this. Group X is accused of Y, member of X does particularly heinous example of Y, and we’ve all been conditioned by the noisy Anti-Xs to know that even mentioning it will be followed with flaming blanket condemnations of all X that we do not want to be associated with. That’s why I’m saying it’s a balancing act: we have to work twice as hard to make it clear that a condemnation of one is not a condemnation of the whole, a scruple the assholes do not share.
Reminds me of my mother. To her, this Cologne incident “is what is normal for them”, “it’s only the beginning”, “probably some individuals aren’t like that, but the majority is”. I doubt she can change her opinion at that point, she was always stubborn as hell, and now she’s getting old, too. It’s funny, though, how fast integration works sometimes: 20 years ago we immigrated to Germany ourselves…
And to further this point: The fascists will never be satisfied with anything less than complete surrender. They will not stop accusing you of being part of the “Lügenpresse*” just because you report accurately or condemn acts of violence.
Fogg mentions the case of the 13 year old girl in Berlin and asks if those feminists ever retweeted a false rape accusation. Now, it’s not like they’re common occurrences, but isn’t that exactly the point? It would be dangerous NOT to correct this false information because it demonstrably demonises an already oppressed group.
Apart from that, the story actually perfectly demonstrates what research tells us about false rape accusations: They are usually made by people who are trying to protect themselves. The girl was afraid to go home after bad news from school (maybe CPS should have a good hard look into that family), ran away and because she realized that this would lead to more trouble she made up a story about unnamed men. I think the girl needs help and I don’t blame her for how the story was spun by the media, especially the Russian media and Russian politicians.
*And actual Nazi term used by the current German rightwingers meaning the “press of lies”
prae
I guess you’re one of the people I’ve been warned about 20 years ago. You know, you people are just like that*.
*Not that I believed it back then. Or now.
I guess a large part of the problem is that, whether people are quick to condemn the act or not, we end up spending a great deal of time combating accusations that we’re refusing to do so, and also countering claims that the act counts as a vindication of the casual or aggressively overt racist attitudes that were already swimming around in the absence of that act that our having condemned the act gets obscured. Something tells me that’s not an accident. I normally have a good long look at myself for conspiracy thinking when I find myself writing or thinking something like that, but I think it’s a pretty safe belief to hold on this issue as things currently stand.
Part of me wants to agree that, yes, we should maintain a consistent condemnation of those kinds of act, but then I’m reminded of the reactions to Laurie Penny’s article on Cologne, where she did, quite clearly condemn them – many of them criticised her for not condemning them. The people who [claim to] want to see evidence that we’re condemning the attacks aren’t bothering to look for it, even when they’re presented with the evidence of it.
@Giliell: if you have been warned about the evil russkies who are coming to germany to steal your jobs, then you are right :D
also: “Lügenpresse” isn’t a nazi-specific term. Basically the entire german tinfoil community uses that, like the chemtrailers, the antivaxxers or the “Reichsdeutsche” (those who believe that there is still a German Reich and current germany is a company, not a state).
@Giliell
Anecdotal of course, but I know I’ve not talked about the sexual assaults/muggings in Cologne as much as I should have, given the big media scandal. Because whenever I do, I first have to hedge and hedge and by the time I can actually talk about the issue — like the only reason there *is* such an outcry being that the perpetrators are thought to be dirty foreigners, whom we can’t let touch *our* women — anyone who isn’t sympathetic to my position to begin with has already written me off. Or has forgotten most of it, if they’re not very bright.
So it’s an issue I found myself avoiding even though it contains some great illustrations of reactionary behaviour.
And as PZ says, the assholes share none of those scruples. So their message on the issue is clear and punchy, while mine is complicated and ambivalent and doesn’t suggest any immediate solution, which makes it very unattractive.
I agreed with Ally’s piece and yours. Though I also have to be a little bemused, as Ally was at the beginning of his piece, that just now, for this one specific instance, these frothing white right-wing anti-feminists suddenly care about sexual assault. And, in fact, are haranguing feminists for NOT being outraged enough when in any other circumstance they would decry it as hysterical witch hunting and yell at them to sit back and wait for more information. That we need to wait for the verdicts from their days in court before we could even call them “rapists”, let alone pillory them with the power of mob justice like some kind of McCarthyite Orwellian neo-Inquisition. I just find it rather odd how much they reverse themselves on the subject when it allows them an excuse to scream about foreign Muslims. Same thing with Dear Muslima arguments. Always conveniently redirect all conversations towards the bad things Muslims do, to ignore the things that white men do. Feminists can easily, trivially, oppose both. Can easily be outraged and oppose both. So could anti-feminists. But, rather tellingly, they don’t. Just another case for the “Right Wing Projection” files.
Let’s be blunt: the fascists want to be the next manor lords surrounded by a subjugated populace reduced to chattel-slaves and fucktoys where the State’s sole role is the preservation of their status, privilege and sybaritic comforts. It’s not that they sincerely believe that migrants are more prone to rape than the average white guy, but they know that they need an excuse to justify their intent to establish the type of police state that will violently beat the plebs into craven submission and bring forth the type of society they long for (plus, extremists always feel smart projecting their own vices and unavowable ambitions upon the very people they intend to break).
Another example of where I’m guilty of this kind of behavior: Bill Maher. When he was given the RDF award, I tried to rationalize it. It’s specifically for his anti-religious movie (which I didn’t even like), I thought, not for his quackery. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, I told myself. Avoid saying what I really thought, for the sake of the unity of AA and RDF.
Nope. What a mistake that was.
PZ
But Bill Maher is hardly a member of an oppressed group. But recognising past mistakes is good.
prae
And our womenfolks! The Russian rapist luring good German girls to their lair and then shipping them off to some Russian oil magnate was a stock bad guy. Though I think that this fast integration also has something to do with skin colour: My dad still suffered prejudice because my gran is Ukranian German. Me? Nobody knows. It’s something that doesn’t work for the Turkish immigrants who came at the same time as my gran.
Zeppelin
Personally, I first heard about Cologne from Feminist Twitter, a few days before the story broke on mainstream media. But when there was discussion I usually found myself to my neck in the mud people flung at feminists and immigrants alike. There is still no reasonable discussion about sexual violence as such and the fact that most of the deeds in Cologne aren’t actually illegal in Germany. Here’s a good article in German about this issue.
laurentweppe @ 11:
I dunno, I’ve heard from a number that seem to truly believe it, and a number that get that’s it’s a useful lie and nothing more… and a very strange third subclass that seem to believe both – that somehow because they think it should be true, they are justified in believing it is even though they have seen that it’s not. Cogitative dissonance writ large.
…then again, that’s just my perception. Who the hell know what’s going on in people’s heads.
On reflection, I have to wonder if this gets tangled up with the oh-so-careful definition of crimes (especially rape) we see from folks of this ilk. A kind of “People tell me this is rape, but my buddy does it, and I know he’s not a rapist, because he’s like me, and I’m certainly can’t be a rapist, so what he does can’t be rape…” sort of train of thought.
@Giliell
Oh, I didn’t mean to imply that feminists at large haven’t talked about the issue. Sorry if it came across that way, it was really only meant to be one piece of anecdotal “evidence”. Just that I personally haven’t discussed it nearly as much as other comparable subjects that don’t have the racist angle…I haven’t found a good way to, seeing as the issue is hemmed in on all sides by really effective right-wing messaging.
Giliell (#13):
Non-religious Americans?
Non-religious rich white dudes with a prime-time show. Maher’s has approximately as much in common with the atheistic Hoi Polloi than Cosby has in common with ordinary Blacks.
If Bill Maher had an BM Award® he could give one to Richard Dawkins.
It’s a meh kind of point.
He’s not wrong about the general case, but the facts in this specific case are that feminists don’t have trouble condemning rape regardless of who is committing it.
Ally seems to be perpetuating the anti-feminist lie that says that saying “We shouldn’t use this sexual assault as a pretext to excuse bigotry” is functionally equivalent to saying, “We shouldn’t condemn this sexual assault.”
He gives a sensible sort of caution against falling prey to foibles to which all humans are vulnerable to, while making it seem that these foibles are something that feminists in particular fall prey to. There’s no evidence that this is the case.
So thanks for the concern trolling of feminists, Ally. And by extension, PZ.
It’s not a “meh kind of point”. It’s a thoughtful article that addresses Right wing tactics and cautions against the knee-jerk defensive responses some on the Left resort to. Fogg gives examples. There are plenty more (Goldsmith’s, anyone?)
Interesting. Ally’s post addresses the Left generally, not just feminists.
I’m not concern-trolling feminists, I’m concern-trolling me. I think it’s important to be conscious of competing biases.
Concern trolling the left, too. Thanks for pointing that out.
It’s great that it’s a thoughtful point. We should all resist knee-jerk defensiveness. Also, puppies are nice and ice cream is tasty. Golly. How helpful and insightful.
OK. That’s reasonable I guess.
I’m just not seeing why Ally saw the need to dispense that advice right now in particular.
It’s not like the unfounded accusations of feminists not caring about Real Problems Affecting Women in Barbaric Islamic Cultures™ have become suddenly less unfounded in the wake of the Cologne attacks.
This.
It’S not like the fascist will say “OK, let’s sit together and draw up sensible policies and fund integration programs for refugees” if only feminists admit often and loud enough that most of Islam is fucked up and misogynistic.
Those people will not be satisfied. Those people are not only demanding that German women must have three babies each at least, but also that refugees be shot at the border (Frauke Petry, AfD, a party with realistic chances of getting two digit results in the upcoming elections).
Giliell @ 24
I don’t think the point is to convince fascists to work with us, rather it is countering the fascists’ effort to undermine our credibility among the non-activist population politically between us and them. Am I missing something crucial (not a rhetorical question)?
‘The left cannot win by pretending there are no criminals, no thugs, no rapists, no damaged people among the shifting sands of humanity.”
I’m sorry, but can anyone point me to an instance of “the left…pretending there are no criminals…among the shifting sands of humanity”, because AFAIK, it just does not happen outside of certain people’s fever-dreams.
Ice Swimmer
Which gets me to: How?
What are we supposed to do?
People like Dawkins et. al. are still claiming that feminists aren’t covering the Cologne attacks, that we’re trying to hush muslim misogyny and so on and so forth when we’re actually the ones who have been demanding that women and children get protection from sexual predators in the shelters.
To me this sounds like those never-ending demands that muslims condemn islamic terrorism, something they’re actually already doing anyway.
Giliell @ 27
I’m not sure what we should do that we aren’t doing already. I was just pointing out that while won’t convince any fascists, we may convince people who may have supported them. I thought that while most people here know this, it’s still important to point it out as a general point. I don’t have any beef with your or Sally Strange’s arguments otherwise.
Me @ 28
It should read.
“that while _we_ won’t convince any fascists”
Also the word point is used too pointlessly-pointy-poing much.
“I would add that one thing that’s become obvious is that if you hesitate to condemn an act because the perpetrator is a member of an oppressed group, the racist fearmongers will then turn around and use that to condemn the entirety of the left of conspiring with the group that they hate. It’s what they do, and they’re very good at it — you might even say it is the dominant trait of fearmongers, that they’re adept at smearing everything into a giant category of blame.”
Even if you do condemn, the fearmongers still condemn you. I have over 70 pages of documents, papers and press releases of Muslim organizations and individuals condemning the atrocities of groups and individuals like ISIS but still the haters ask “Why don’t they condemn…?”
@Ice Swimmer
I guess there just comes a point where we have to rely on people’s skepticism. As long as people uncritically believe anything they hear, they’ll accept the first narrative they come across that fits their biases, and there’s really very little we can do about that except be more vocal in our condemnation of actual offences without vilifying people for their race, religion, or whatever, and just hope that we’re seen by more people with fewer strong biases against feminism.
I’d definitely suggest promoting basic skepticism in people, because that’s pretty much the only way we can even come close to guaranteeing that people will make the effort to look past the “why are they…” mantra to see if we/they are doing whatever thing is supposedly not being done. (I’d suggest this anyway – I’m pretty sure our chances of making it through the chan age unextincted rely on humanity as a whole learning to be deeply and rigorously suspicious of anything and everything we read online. (Although this might just be the result of me properly seeing a culture war winding up for the first time – I’m still only in my first decade of proper, adult awareness of the world, so this might just be the decennial equivalent of Tuesday, and I’m having panic attacks over business as usual for all I know.))
#13 Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk-
So WDR2 doesn’t count as mainstream media? Because I seem to recall hearing from them starting at least on the 2nd, maybe even the 1st, and I don’t see how you can have anything a few days earlier. And I’d have thought one of the largest – possibly the largest – radio stations in Germany counts.
Of course, they’re headquartered in Cologne.
I do recall numbers starting at around 50 or so (these days it’s over 1000), and hearing about their supposed origins before hearing the police didn’t want to talk about those – and I recall thinking “why are you reporters saying that at a time when we have no hard facts, given we know what the right will make of it?” I mean, once we do know it’s true, fine – but suppose we’d have learned later that the first reports were somehow mistaken, and the real culprits were some other group … Then again, pretty much impossible to reliably judge how reliable the reports are at time X from over here, so …
For that matter, my position on that is that if the police doesn’t want to point a finger prematurely, they should just say something on the lines of “we don’t want to comment as long as we’re not certain”, but not say or imply that it’s different from what it is. It’s not as if that tactic is unprecedented. That was a rather stupid move.
Which is precisely why you must condemn:
Step One: Condemn
Step Two: When the haters come with their bullhit, answer “They are full of shit, here’s the proof of my earlier condemnations”
And, if you’re like me and don’t give a shit about convenances and single-track civility, you go to
Step Three: Remind -loudly- that the haters -who pretty much never complain when the rapist is white (unless he’s associated with the left: lots of french right-wingers suddenly got very passionate about cleaning ladies’ bodily autonomy when Strauss-Khan was arrested at the Sofitel, only to completely forget about it once the election season was over)
Step Four: Conclude that the haters are, in fact Pro-rape: they just want to turn it into a privilege reserved to themselves and the people they identify with.
khms
You may remember that WDR2 is indeed a regional station situated in Cologne. So they may be mainstream but hardly of national significance like the Tagesschau or heute. My radio doesn’t even get your biggest station in the country. I know, as much as people in that region might want to believe it, they’re not the centre of the universe and WDR2 is still local news.