#cancelcolbert #banbossy, sexism, racism and all that juicy stuff.

[Ivory11]

DISCLAIMER: Please, if you want to post here be civil! I really don't want this page turning out like so many others. If you're against the people I'm about to bring up, please just state why, and if you're for those people, don't start snapping or throwing insults at others, everyone has their right to their own opinion, my own will be stated here along with the data, and I would like to hear your CIVIL feedback on this. the difference between a lively and insightful debate is politeness and respect for others, no matter how outlandish their views may seem to you.

So, two things here, both have happened in the last couple months, i will begin with the "cancel Colbert" thing.

Suey Park, a young Asian woman (trust me, the race thing is important here) has recently started her own little campaign to take down "the white man" after Steven Colbert, popular American political pundit made a tweet saying he would open the "Ching chong ding dong agency of sensitivity to Asians" as a parody of something said on a news network that he critiqued. well, Suey Park sees this as a sign of the "white heteropatriarchy" at work and wanted to start her own movement to remove white men from being able to say anything about non-whites... obviously she did this by broadcasting her own barrages of racial taunts and racist accusations at any white man she came across, including in this video below where she is being interviewed by the Huffington Post where she states quite openly that she doesn't think white men have the right to have opinions on this matter unless they are in blind support of her (and that her feelings have an effect on her argument)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNK-e6nnFGY

I'm not sure how to post videos on this forum so you'll have to follow this.

Here also is an article written on the TIME magazine website about "the white male hetero-patriarchy oppressing me" I WISH I was being sarcastic there.

http://time.com/58743/cancelcolbert-activists-we-will-protest-this-until-it-ends/

Tell me, what do you think? another nutcase doomed to fail the moment she vocalized her "case"? or do you think she raises a valid point and deserves respect? Is she anti-racist or just plan racist against white people?

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

the next one up on our agenda, Ban Bossy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dynbzMlCcw

now this one won't have a long paragraph stating the details, I'll just summarize it like this.

A group of extremely rich (many billionaires) women want to make the act of calling girls "bossy" illegal, essentially banning a word, that kind thing done in N Korea.

Obviously my point of view on this matter is "If you can't handle being called bossy, then you don't deserve to be in charge of shit" but what do you think? do you think the word "Bossy" should be made illegal?

[Avis habilis]

A group of extremely rich (many billionaires) women want to make the act of calling girls "bossy" illegal, essentially banning a word, that kind thing done in N Korea.

This is at very, very best an incredibly skewed perspective.

[Ivory11]

This is at very, very best an incredibly skewed perspective.

I honestly cannot find a way to say it any less skewed, shocking as that is, how would you say it?

[Avis habilis]

"They want people to stop discouraging women & girls from exhibiting the same sort of assertiveness & leadership that they reward men for."

I certainly wouldn't have invented, out of whole cloth, a campaign to make it a legal offense to use a particular word.

[Ivory11]

but boys are called bossy too but there's no controversy about it.

tell me, who would you rather have in leadership positions?
someone who has been coddled and been fiercely shielded from all criticism? or someone who has gone through it all, learned from it and learned to see issues from different perspectives?

everyone is rewarded for leadership, girls and boys, however while boys naturally rather take the position of leadership rather than just having everyone like them girls naturally would rather be liked than be a leader, you can ask any child of either gender this. I'm not saying that girls shouldn't be leaders, but I think leaders should never ever be shielded from criticism, in fact they should be thrown into facing all criticism, regardless of gender.

and if you actually watch the video, they are blatantly calling for a banning of the word "bossy" that is the goal of the whole campaign (even though it's been shot down entirely by now, the fact it had such big backers should have us concerned)

[Beguile's Mistress]

They are asking people to ban the word bossy from their speech and their descriptions of women who are assertive and in control not from the English language.  There is no mention of making the ban a legal issue or turning the word bossy into hate-speak.

Bossy is a description of an attitude and I've encountered many bossy people in my time from school days through the present.  A perfect example of a bossy person is Lucy van Pelt from the comic strip "Peanuts."  When I come across a person who has the attitude that it's their way or the highway and talks to those they supervise in a demeaning or aggressive manner I call them bossy.

I'm a boss and I've been called bossy by people who tell me what they are going to do at their job rather than taking the direction it is my responsibility to give them.  Some people just don't like having a boss.

[Avis habilis]

but boys are called bossy too....

Less often than girls & for more extreme behavior.

tell me, who would you rather have in leadership positions?
someone who has been coddled and been fiercely shielded from all criticism?

No. Good thing they haven't suggested anything that could even honestly be mistaken for that, eh?

and if you actually watch the video, they are blatantly calling for a banning of the word "bossy" that is the goal of the whole campaign (even though it's been shot down entirely by now, the fact it had such big backers should have us concerned)

I already have, repeatedly, & it takes a purposeful effort of will to believe they're suggesting that it be made illegal to use the word. They're saying that we should stop discouraging girls from taking charge by criticizing them for exhibiting the same behavior men are rewarded for. That's it. The use of "ban" is purely, obviously, unmistakably figurative.

[Lilias]

'Bossy' is not a compliment. 'Bossy' doesn't mean 'boss-like' - it means 'pushy and overbearing'. If you have two people exhibiting the same behaviour and only one is called 'bossy', that one is being denigrated. It's as simple as that.

[Kythia]

but boys are called bossy too but there's no controversy about it.

Huh?  Yes there is.  There's an entire internet campaign to ban the word "Bossy".  There's a video about it further up in the thread.  You posted it yourself.  When I watched it - a good 20 or 30 seconds ago now - it made no mention of banning it solely in relation to girls but allowing it for boys.  The message was "ban bossy".

[Valthazar]

Ivory11 does bring up a good point though.  It's unfortunate how most women in the US (and most people in general here) are just trying to make ends meet with any full-time/part-time job to just pay the bills and raise a family, and for whatever reason, Sheryl Sandberg thinks achieving leadership roles is the central issue facing women today.  She's part of a different socioeconomic strata, and thus, naturally may have difficulty relating to the struggles that ordinary men and women face.

[kylie]

Suey Park, a young Asian woman (trust me, the race thing is important here) has recently started her own little campaign to take down "the white man" after Steven Colbert, popular American political pundit made a tweet saying he would open the "Ching chong ding dong agency of sensitivity to Asians" as a parody of something said on a news network that he critiqued.

I think I have some idea from the video about how you might come to feel this way...  I also think Suey was not really receptive to the probably reasonable questions about the role of satire one way or another.  I'm inclined to say there, she mistook a reasonable enough analytic question for a character attack.  And she jumped from that into assuming that a character attack in this situation, would likely be due to some unexplored racist assumptions. 

       Still, with all that being said?  In the video, I don't believe I  heard her say the movement directed at Colbert or perhaps his channel was aimed to do that (by that, I mean: "take down the white man" in a general sense of removing all white men from the conversation anywhere).  Before that mess erupted at the end, she said the movement was intended to encourage white liberals to help deal with racism in some ways beyond joking about it, which they [we, as in me at least] do perhaps rather often -- and often enough, I think without much other obvious engagement. 

        She did say she thinks that the jokes are not the most helpful response from her point of view as one of the subjects, and that she feels there are more effective options available for people including Whites to participate in.  She did not get around to discussing them.  But in her defense, I have to say she also was not given a follow-up question regarding exactly what those other options might be.  Some might even say that an ideally sympathetic interviewer, someone who was very interested in similar problems and positive solutions, would ask something about the positive solutions.  Instead, the interviewer kept pressing her about whether maybe she should give Colbert/ Comedy something more of a break in this situation. 

         Suey did hint that this particular line of questioning struck her as rather confrontational.  I doubt she got to thinking it through just then.  But I wonder if she didn't think so partly because it had the effect of once again, making the talk more about reactions to Colbert -- and not so much about possible reactions to racism generally... 

A little aside here.  Just might make her seem more human?

  ...I'm really doubting she was very conscious of it at the time.  In such an interview where the issues are intense and you're not always sure who's on what side, you often do not have an ideal setting to consider things at this level and react with just the right words.  You don't always think to change the question tossed at you, when maybe you really should.  I've been in those situations and it's sometimes the most frustrating thing, even when you do realize later just what went wrong.

... But racism -- that is at least putatively, what Colbert was talking about (yes satirzing) when this all began.  At this point toward the end, in a way Suey is also kind of right, because the interview becomes all about evaluating his good name.  And the whatever to do about racism, besides joke, gets lost.  Instead we have the white guys left behind making understandably hurt, if dry (dare I say, they might be knowingly ironic?), comments at the end about how she's gone and silenced their opinions.  Which she has -- I think you're right there.  But, with the mess that erupted along the way, I suppose many people have missed just how, or why that happened.

obviously she did this by broadcasting her own barrages of racial taunts and racist accusations at any white man she came across, including in this video below where she is being interviewed by the Huffington Post where she states quite openly that she doesn't think white men have the right to have opinions on this matter unless they are in blind support of her (and that her feelings have an effect on her argument)

This is just one video.  I don't have anything just now on whatever else she, or perhaps others if it is a group or movement, have said elsewhere.  And you don't seem to have given proof it's "obviously" happened either.  Unless you mean to imply that is the only way anyone can criticize someone like Colbert in that situation.  I don't think it is.  In fact, here, is a critique of what Colbert/ Comedy did (and didn't do) that sounds more plausible to me.  It's a sizable article with (imo) some uneven writing -- but picking the parts I think would convince me best:

The tweet is part of a bit on the Redskins reportedly making a charitable foundation to offset the uproar over the clear problems with its team name. In the context of the full segment, I believe the satire is appropriate — if incredibly uncomfortable for me. However, I also believe that absent of explicit reference to what it is satirizing — adding #Redskins, or something — the tweet itself loses it satirical context and becomes wholly racist.

There’s a way to poke fun at the pseudo-racial tolerance of conservatives towards racial minorities – a ploy frequently used by those at Fox News and clearly something that Dan Snyder is invoking over at the Washington Redskins with his announcement of his charitable foundation.

This — a tweet that uses similar racial slurs in the absence of reference to Dan Snyder or the Redskins – is not it...

... the tweet appears in the absence of the satirical context, and runs the danger of perpetuating the very stereotypical images — in this case against Asians — that Colbert is satirizing regarding Native Americans. Thus, this tweet violates my rules of proper satire, which is that each example of the satire must make clear what it is you are satirizing, lest the satire be mistaken for actual hatespeech.  In the absence of this, it — the tweet – becomes indistinguishable from actual anti-Asian racism; particularly as it is re-tweeted and shared (again, in the absence of context), as tweets are wont to do.

       So back on the level where Suey was saying she started (before blowing up a bit much at the endless focus on Colbert)...  She was right.  Here's some (white, monied, and celebrity with a following) guy picking on racism in a context where it may not be so clear to everyone where he stands...  And she may fairly wonder, what else is he doing to actually deal with the economic or social patterns of racism?  In regard to that question, the author of this same page says, Colbert's own history of talking about race in the media is not so smooth. 

This isn’t the first time I’ve questioned the Colbert Report’s depiction of Asian Americans. Last year, I wrote about a segment that Colbert did on some anti-Asian statements made by Bill O’Reilly wherein Colbert, himself, basically spent several minutes making his own flurry of anti-Asian puns and jokes. And, in 2012, Colbert made this joke (as transcribed here)...

[Zakharra]

 I listened to it with an open mind and she has some points, but she also seems to go overboard with her opinion that whites, white men too) don't or shouldn't have a valid opinion that doesn't agree with her. In that she comes off as kind of bigoted herself.  As it is, I try to take everyone as they are. Skin color and gender don't mean much to me and if I dislike a person, it's because I dislike the person. Not because I dislike their skin color or the fact that  have boobs or a penis. It's a person;s attitude and actions that determine who I dislike or like.  Too many people are too quick to play the racist/sexist card on anyone that says something they disagree with. I remember a quote someone said, I am not sure who though. It is: 'I'm not racist, I hate everyone equally'  I'm not like that, but I do think that when someone dislikes or hates someone, it's not always racist and/or sexist. It just might be because they dislike the person because of who they are, not what. And some people are just dicks.

[Valthazar]

I respect her criticism of Colbert if that is her perspective, but I think it is unfortunate that she associated his actions with "white people" in general.

[Kythia]

I love that reappropriate blog, Kylie.  Thanks for the point there (and also thanks for the thoughtful analysis, but mainly the point.)

[Callie Del Noire]

I respect her criticism of Colbert if that is her perspective, but I think it is unfortunate that she associated his actions with "white people" in general.

Well I've been told (by activists like her) that as a Southern WASP I'm innately part of the problem. I don't think trashing Colbert will get anything done on the 'team mascot' side. It's just a new trend.

that being said..the starting tweet? Very offensive.. but satire and parody do tab dance across the line a lot.

[Valthazar]

Well I've been told (by activists like her) that as a Southern WASP I'm innately part of the problem. I don't think trashing Colbert will get anything done on the 'team mascot' side. It's just a new trend.

And that's why I'm concerned that much of this unnecessary blame thrown on "white people" is unfortunately adding extra fodder for extremist groups to gain new recruits.  Sadly, White Nationalist (supremacist) groups are growing at some of the fastest rates in US history.  If you read the "About Us" and "Why You Should Join" sections of largely mainstream racist forums (such as Stormfront), you'll see them using examples of double standards such as this to cajol otherwise moderate Caucasians to join their cause.

Let us call us out the individual perpetrators of racism and sexism - and avoid attaching blame to large demographics.

[Aiden]

We all know the Steven Colbert we see on the show is just a character.

As for the ban bossy, I think it is stupid.

I say we ban the following words I also used in grade school which I now feel will oppress our children from striving to what they want to be. Also, they should get participation trophies for a victory they do not deserve!

Booger head
Dookie Face
Assmunch
etc etc.

People are to damn sensitive these days.

[consortium11]

I do actually have some sympathy towards the whole "ban bossy" movement.

Yes, I'm sure there are examples of men being called "bossy" as a negative, but my own experiences (and in a debate such as this I don't think we'll ever be able to go beyond anecdote) it is far more frequently applied to women... and just as often when a man does something that would lead to a woman being labeled "bossy" they instead get a term which has at least some positive traits attached ("forceful", "commanding" etc).

Bossy seems to me to be part of a fairly long list of words and phrases... frumpy, sassy, frigid, battle-axe, feisty, vivacious, shapely etc etc... that on paper are gender neutral but in reality are used to refer to women the vast majority of the time (and when they are used to describe a man it's normally deliberately to play up supposed feminine qualities in a negative sense).

Whether being called "bossy" is a serious issue and/or reason why there are generally less women in stereotypically high powered roles is a rather different question... but I can at least see the issues with the language involved.

That said, I also have a lot of sympathy for Valthazar's point. It often seems that most of the feminist issues that get a lot of media time and a lot of high profile backers are the issues that impact on relatively few women... the frequency with which the proportion of women in boardrooms for major companies rears it's head being a good example. That's not something that will have any direct impact on the vast, vast majority of women, just as it will have no direct impact on the vast, vast majority of men who were never in contention to be board members of a major company even with the privilege being male brings. On a side point I do note that when quotas have been brought in the result was utterly unsurprising to those who understood the business world... it didn't lead to more women in boardrooms, it led to the same women in more boardrooms (the so-called "Golden Skirts").

That's not to say that people can only fixate on one issue at a time or that there isn't space for campaigns to get more women on banknotes, more women in boardrooms or to "ban Page 3" (in a major UK paper Page 3 features a photo of a topless woman with a trite caption about some topical news). It's just that it seems that these campaigns draw a disproportionate amount of media attention and support away from other issues that directly impact on far more women (and people in general)'s daily lives.

... the tweet appears in the absence of the satirical context, and runs the danger of perpetuating the very stereotypical images — in this case against Asians — that Colbert is satirizing regarding Native Americans. Thus, this tweet violates my rules of proper satire, which is that each example of the satire must make clear what it is you are satirizing, lest the satire be mistaken for actual hatespeech.  In the absence of this, it — the tweet – becomes indistinguishable from actual anti-Asian racism; particularly as it is re-tweeted and shared (again, in the absence of context), as tweets are wont to do.

I can't agree with this.

Well, actually I sort of can.

Yes, if you take the tweet and remove all context from it, it may well come across as racist. In fact, it almost certainly does. But that's because you've removed it from all context. It's a tweet by (or at least from the account of) a noted satirist, arguably the most prominent satirist of this age, a man who has pretty much made an entire career out of satire. The tweet contains a pretty much direct quote from the show where he was making quite clear that if you view the Redskins' name as racist then having the "Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation" was likewise racist. Hell, it was publicised at pretty much exactly the same time. It's quite clear that it's satire of the Washington Redskins' actions... and if you remove the racist portion of the quote out then it no longer becomes satire because it's not actually satirising anything. His point wasn't just that setting up the "Original Americans Foundation" didn't solve the issue of offence caused by the Redskins name, his point was that by including "Redskins" in the foundation name you compound the issue. He can't satirise that without including an offensive term in his satirical foundation's name... to not do so misses the point.

Not having #redskins attached to the end doesn't change that. The context is still there.

I mean, even with the #redskins that the author of the reappropriate piece suggests would have made it appropriate, is it? What if I don't know the context that Colbert is a satirist and I just saw that? Wouldn't it be reasonable to think he's supporting the Washington Redskins rather than lampooning them? What happens if I have no idea that there's any controversy about the name "Redskin"? What happens if I have no clue about American Football and have no idea there's even a team called the Washington Redskins? Without that context even with a #redkins at the end, isn't it still flat out racist?

Yes.

Because I've stripped it of context.

What happens if I didn't know Jonathan Swift was Irish? What happens if I didn't know he was a satirist? What happens if I didn't know he regularly attacked the British powers-that-be for their attitude to Ireland and the Irish poor? Without that context to guide me wouldn't I think that he was seriously suggested that the Irish poor should sell their children to be eaten? Much the same can be applied to Gulliver's travels... without the context of Swift's views on the Tory's negotiations with France then Gulliver urinating on a burning palace is just a crass aside rather than a serious point... it loses its satirical power.

If you remove satire from context it is no longer satire... satire only works because of context.

Hell, let's put this as simply as possible.

Is the tweet in question racist?

Yes.

Because it's satirising the fact that if the issue is that you have a racist term in an organisations name it doesn't solve the issue by repeating the term in another, linked, organisation even if the organisation has positive aims. Without using a racist term (or terms) as part of the satirical name then the entire thing falls apart.

[Kythia]

Following that through though, consortium, it seems like you're saying "Colbert cannot be racist.  Anything he says that appears racist should correctly be interpreted as satire".

[Oniya]

Following that through though, consortium, it seems like you're saying "Colbert cannot be racist.  Anything he says that appears racist should correctly be interpreted as satire".

Only if there's appropriate context for the satire.  If a comedian walks into a bar (couldn't resist) and says something racist out of the blue, with nothing to provide it context (he's not there for Open Mic night or anything), then he very well could be racist.

[Valthazar]

I'm struggling to understand why we should criticize Colbert for his remarks, given the much more overt statements comedians such as Dave Chappelle and Russell Peters make about other ethnic groups.  People justify their humor because they "make fun of everyone."  Why can't the same be said of Colbert if we truly are viewing all of us as equals?

[Avis habilis]

Well, as I understand it the deal with Colbert was he was actually mocking another organization's crass language & that got lost in translation. (So to speak.)

[Kythia]

Only if there's appropriate context for the satire.  If a comedian walks into a bar (couldn't resist) and says something racist out of the blue, with nothing to provide it context (he's not there for Open Mic night or anything), then he very well could be racist.

Yeah, I agree.  it did seem like consortium was saying that "Stephen Colbert said it" is appropriate enough context though:

Yes, if you take the tweet and remove all context from it, it may well come across as racist. In fact, it almost certainly does. But that's because you've removed it from all context. It's a tweet by (or at least from the account of) a noted satirist, arguably the most prominent satirist of this age, a man who has pretty much made an entire career out of satire.

Thus any tweet he makes is obviously satire?

[Oniya]

Tweets being what they are, seeing a 'racist' tweet from a comedian would prompt me to look for context.  That's my biggest problem with Twitter as a whole - damn near everything is out of context.  (That and the fact that my inner editor cringes at the forced abbreviations people use.)

[Valthazar]

Thus any tweet he makes is obviously satire?

The tweet came from the official Colbert Report show Twitter account, not his personal one, so I think satire should be assumed.