God save the left-wing from themselves…a swansong on whiteness.

Michelle Goldberg, as you remember is afraid of diversity and decided to blame women and feminist of color for everything as far as I can tell because FOR THE MOVEMENT! This time Goldberg wants to weigh in on #CancelColbert, which again is all the women of color’s fault. I’m shocked, shocked I say.

“It’s increasingly clear that we are entering a new era of political correctness. Recently, we’ve seen the calls to #CacelColbert because of something outrageous said by Stephen Colbert’s blowhard alter ego, who has been saying outrageous tings regularly for nine years. Then there’s the sudden demand for ‘trigger warnings’ on college syllabi, meant to protect students from encountering ideas or images that may traumatize them…

First, this paragraph really stuck out to me because I’m in a class where I would love trigger warnings before this one kid speaks. Jesus Christ, he can’t shut the fuck up about how wrong suicide is and how those people who would kill themselves are selfish, or oh, yeah his rape joke in class because that’s appropriate. And there is totally no overlap as to people who have suffered sexual trauma and suicide. Pardon my tangent, but this seems way more like preserving the status quo than considering the best interests of the left. Additionally, the complete indifference and dismissal of the concerns of the people saying this is racist is very telling, because yes Virginia, liberals can be racists too.

Goldberg goes on to explain that it is happening overseas too because CENSORSHIP! She continues:

“Call it left-wing anti-liberalism: the idea, captured by Herbert Marcuse in this 1965 essay ‘Repressive Tolerance,’ that social justice demands curbs on freedom of expression. ‘[I]t is possible to define the direction in which prevailing institutions, policies, opinions would have to be changed in order to improve the chance of a peace which is not identical with cold war and a little hot war, and a satisfaction of needs which does not feed on poverty, oppression, movements, and exploitation,’ he wrote. ‘Consequently, it is also possible to identify policies, opinions, movements which would promote this chance, and those which would do the opposite. Suppression of the regressive ones is a prerequisite for the strengthening of the progressive ones.”  *for those not aware, Marcuse is a philosopher who immigrated from Germany to the US, and someone Noam Chomsky knew and liked, but didn’t care for Marcuse’s work.*

Without reading the whole Marcuse essay, I can say no one is censoring anyone. Colbert and god help us, Goldberg can say whatever the fuck they want, but there are consequences for the things you say. I’m so fucking tired of people thinking you can say whatever the fuck you want and walk away. Check your privilege. Goldberg goes on to cite a scholar of radical feminist, which is fine, but I think people who read this blog will be able to identify the importance and the shortcomings of radical feminism so we won’t review that, if necessary I’m happy to, but I doubt it is necessary see McKinnon and Dworkin.

Goldberg continues:

“There’s disenchantment not just with electoral politics, but with liberal values as a whole. ‘White liberal’ has, once again, emerged as a favorite left-wing epithet.

“At times like this, politics contract. On the surface, the rhetoric appears more ambitious and utopian that ever—witness, for example, the apparently sincere claim by Suey Park, creator of the #CancelColbert hashtag, that Twitter activists intend to ‘dismantle the state.’ But at the same time, activism becomes less about winning converts and changing the world and more about created protected enclaves and policing speech.”

Pro tip: let’s not use the word policing as if a subjugated group has the power to police anyone but themselves. Particularly, when there is a system of policing people of color and women that is institutional policy and then the self-policing that goes on in these communities as an active protection against more discrimination. Secondly, to me changing and being more aware of the language we use, our action, etc., and how they contribute to the systematic oppression of others is changing the world. But Goldberg seems much more interested in having her swansong about whiteness being oppressed as if expanding the rights of others is somehow a zero sum game. I also have to reject Goldberg’s definition of liberalism which seems to be Clintonlike Democrats, well that is liberal, that is center. Want to join the liberal left? Let’s throw out The Electoral College and overturn McCutcheon and Citizen’s United.

Goldberg cites Ellen Willis about how the left-wing is anti-liberal, 

“’It’s the general repressiveness of the social climate that encourages moves to ban offensive speech or define any form of sexual oppression in the workplace as sexual harassment. The main effect of these maneuvers is to foment confusion, cynicism and sexual witch-hunts, trivialize sexual violence, and legitimize conservative demands for censorship—while at the same time ceding the moral high ground of free expression to the right.’”

Goldberg then descends into a well, they’ll learn their lesson when the right comes to power and we realize how important free speech is…Like with Occupy? Or sex work? Or the NSA? Oh, wait these are things happening when the “left” is in power. You know I must have missed Goldberg’s piece railing against the use of the NSA as an invasion of privacy and an infringement of free speech. And obviously, Goldberg just wrote a piece about the importance of diverse views in feminism, when she misrepresented the statements made by black feminism, and pretty much told women of color to sit down and shut up. That wasn’t a form of censorship at all.

See the argument Goldberg is making is the sit down, shut up, and wait your turn argument. Sure, stop-and-frisky is a thing, but we have to defeat the Republicans, so wait. Sure, hipster racism keeps being a thing, and we’re not sure who benefits from these jokes, but wait your turn. Sure, women’s rights are being attacked across the US, and a disproportional number of these bills disastrously impact low-income women, but that can wait, we have to pledge unyielding support of President Obama and Obamacare, even if we lose the birth control mandate. So I ask, what is the left Goldberg is trying to save? Because without women and people of color, but mostly women of color, the left is looking a lot like the right.

Hipster racism, a refresher

Ok, so let me begin by saying, I came pretty late to the party on this whole Colbert thing, and I’m a pretty big fan of Colbert’s brand of humor. I like the absurd. I also like some of Suey Park’s work. But for me the conversation was lost when it became about Suey Park the person. First, I give zero fucks if Park doesn’t get satire, but I think she does. Second, as white people if people of color are telling us something is racist, then it is probably racist. Finally, those upset by Park criticisms really fall into straight up racist and sexist to fanatical fanboy.

The whole things seem to come from a tweet, which is pretty ridiculous when you watch the actual segment. Someone working at Comedy Central wrote a racist tweet. The handle @ColbertReport wrote “I am willing to show #Asian community I care by introducing the Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever.” This is not Stephen Colbert’s Tweeter feed.

I was going to post the clip of the segment, but Viacom...

Yeah, I watched that and cringed. The character Colbert does in the skit is racist; that is yellow face even if it is because some conservative did it first. The segment was supposed to be throwing shade at Snyder’s attempt to prove he’s not a racist by opening a foundation for Native Americans and refusing to recognize the racism of the Washington football team’s name. Satire is defined as using irony, sarcasm, and ridicule to draw attention and dismiss vice, folly, etc. (as defined by Websters). This segment could be satire…I think we should also take a minute to discuss privilege and oppression. Colbert has no place using racism (even hipster racism because its satire) to draw attention to the racism against another group.

This is particularly evident because COLBERT IS A WHITE DUDE! I know you’re shocked. He has a bunch of privilege, and the segment draws attention to a group of people of color who have traditionally been portrayed as the “model minority” and it comes off as an attempt to distract from the struggle of Native Americans who were systematically murdered by our government and now are being dismissed by Snyder. See the oppression is different, damaging on both accounts, but to pretend like all people are color are treated the same is ignorant. This is a decisive attempt by “whiteness” to prevent solidarity building between people of color. That is what I saw when I watched the clip. Colbert’s satire is exactly what “whiteness” has been doing to people of color forever, and I think the argument can be made then that it is failed satire. Keep the Irish and Blacks at each other’s throats on the railroad: they’re taking our jobs. Then the Irish became white, and Jewish people, and it looks like Asian Americans maybe the next group to be assumed into “whiteness”. Now it is immigrants of Central American descent that are the new enemy joining “blackness” in what American society has been trying force race into a binary where white is on one side and black is on the other.

Now, let’s get to the fanboys. You see a lot of people (women too) have been all about how Park didn’t get the joke, well I got the joke, and the joke is racist. It was racist in 2005, and it racist now, and it will be racist tomorrow. The tweet was racist as well, and we give passes to people who make racists tweets in the name of hipster racism because if you remember hipster racism is racism when you say something racist, but then say it was a joke because racists are stupid. But statement is still racist, and you don’t get a pass for acknowledging it after you say it. The fanboys did what they do, they rushed to defend Colbert and Comedy Central because as you know, they are going to be destroyed by this. *appropriate use of sarcasm* Often this defense was shrouded in sexism and racism, which just went to echo the underlining issues with race within the US.

Dr. Brittney Cooper calls out the exact sentiment here from the left and black people in unilateral defense of Colbert because Colbert gives some of the best racial commentary, but that is a reactionary impulse. Read Cooper’s article, it is very good and clear. Remember when you read it Cooper is talking about “blackness” the way I’m talking about “whiteness” as a social construct that only has the meaning we give it, and that does not mean all white people or individual people.

JN and JJ have excellent points as well about Park’s treatment on Twitter and how while they disagree with her argument: the response to her is overwhelmingly problematic. These two are pretty smart so while I’m not sure if we still disagree, their arguments are well thought out. Follow them on Twitter, if nothing else for the funny; I'm pretty sure JN is on some kind of watch list. We, like many people on Twitter, were probably having two different conversations with one another at the same time. (That should really be Twitter’s tagline.)