India Arie shares videos of Joe Rogan using N-word

[Berkut]

What possible context could it be ok?
<People list contexts where it is ok>
ZOMG I GIVE UP! OH THE HUGE MANATEE!

[DGuller]

More to your point, DGuller, I think it is okay for humor to evolve and spend less time punching down on minority groups. That's okay and doesn't mean that "having a humorless society is what some people are striving for."

It's okay for the humor to evolve, and I for one think it's a good thing that implying that someone is gay is no longer a punchline.  It's just that inevitably we're going to continue to evolve, and things that are acceptable today will be looked at dimly in the future. 

If we allow people to evolve with the times, without retroactively judging them, then that's fine.  However, if people have to start protecting themselves against retroactive judgments in the future, then they would have to limit what they're saying today to a much wider extent.  They'll say less things that would be judged dimly in the future, but they'll also say less things that would still be fine in the future.  It's hard to tell which acceptable thing today would stay acceptable or not, so you'll have to cast your defensive net wide.

[Berkut]

In the time frame of a little less then 6 months, a variety of well known American celebrities (many of whome were white) said the n-word well over 300 times. It was, in fact, routine. They said it over, and over and over again.

They were, at the time, filming Django Unchained, and the film as released used the term over 100 times.

Tarantino caught some flack for his use of the word in his scripts, and he had caught some flack for its use in previous scripts as well (Pulp Fiction, notably).

How should we feel about it's use in that context? Would it be reasonable to put together a twitter video of each time Leonardo Dicaprio said the word in that movie, or Christopher Waltz, or Jamie Foxx, or Samuel L. Jackson, and then if someone asks respond that context does not in fact matter, the simple act of saying the word is damnation enough?

[Jacob]

Canadian writer? In the conspiracy nutjob system, some nationalities and occupations are considered especially heinous. These are their stories.

"Canadian writer" is underselling McInnes by a fair shot. He was one of the founders of the Proud Boys which - as you probably know - is one of the leading alt right groups involved in street violence.

[The Brain]

Canadian writer? In the conspiracy nutjob system, some nationalities and occupations are considered especially heinous. These are their stories.

"Canadian writer" is underselling McInnes by a fair shot. He was one of the founders of the Proud Boys which - as you probably know - is one of the leading alt right groups involved in street violence.

More to the point he was the only person whose nationality and occupation was considered worthy of mention.

[garbon]

Good luck garbon, I give up.

I think we are supposed to enter Languish leaving everything we know about the world at the door.

[garbon]

Though I realize that was churlish.

[Berkut]

Good luck garbon, I give up.

I think we are supposed to enter Languish leaving everything we know about the world at the door.

Not that case at all.

Here is what I honestly think is happening.

I think there is an argument to be made that Rogan is an asshole who should never have used the n-word as often as he did, and his casual use of it is worth of some level of contempt.

Those who want to make that argument however, want it to be simple. They want it to be obvious. There is no nuance here - he is some white guy we don't like, therefore he is an asshole, and anyone who says "Well....maybe...." is probably an asshole as well.

The argument is not just that he was wrong to use the word, but that it is absolutely obvious that he was wrong - there is no nuance or context that matters here.

OK.

Now, it is pretty easy to trot out a bunch of examples of where the use of the word is clearly NOT problematic. It depends on who uses it, when they use it, and who it is directed against. Hence it is trivial to show that in fact context DOES matter. Some rapper using it in a song? That's not the same. Some actor using it in a movie about slavery where it was used and used in the worst possible manner? That's not the same either.

Now, just because it is ok for Jamie Foxx or Leo Dicaprio to drop the n-word 48 times in a movie or while rehearsing for a movie does NOT make it ok for Joe Rogan to use the word however many times he used it during a podcast. But it DOES mean that that in fact the context does matter.

You can't have it both ways. Either context actually doesn't matter, and we should be cancelling Samuel L. Jackson, or context DOES matter, in which case we need to look at the context and make a reasonable conclusion about the particulars of the case. And that opens up the reality that not everyone is going to agree on those particulars and their relevance to the crime.


I think the argument that context matters and some thought should go into our reactions to the twitter mob's outrage is precisely because we are not leaving everything we know about the world at the door.

[Valmy]

Planet of the Apes is difficult to defend.

Yeah that's pretty bad. I have defended Rogan's imperfections and foibles a lot over the years, but yikes. Probably good for him she doesn't have a recording of that.

[DGuller]

It's disappointing to observe the erosion of willingness and/or ability to discuss issues.  I don't think it furthers the cause of good guys.

[Valmy]

It's disappointing to observe the erosion of willingness and/or ability to discuss issues.  I don't think it furthers the cause of good guys.

We are aging bastards getting set in our ways. Languish of 18 years ago would have debated this for 200 pages.

[DGuller]

It's disappointing to observe the erosion of willingness and/or ability to discuss issues.  I don't think it furthers the cause of good guys.

We are aging bastards getting set in our ways. Languish of 18 years ago would have debated this for 200 pages.

We would've, but I don't think the reason would be because we would be 18 years younger.  I think the reason is because "proof by STFU" has been normalized elsewhere and made its way to here.  If the thinking is that by refusing to engage in conversation you're making a statement that your POV is so obviously in the right that there is no meaningful discussion to be had, then I think it's misguided.

[Berkut]

It's disappointing to observe the erosion of willingness and/or ability to discuss issues.  I don't think it furthers the cause of good guys.

We are aging bastards getting set in our ways. Languish of 18 years ago would have debated this for 200 pages.

We would've, but I don't think the reason would be because we would be 18 years younger.  I think the reason is because "proof by STFU" has been normalized elsewhere and made its way to here.  If the thinking is that by refusing to engage in conversation you're making a statement that your POV is so obviously in the right that there is no meaningful discussion to be had, then I think it's misguided.

I think there were plenty of people engaged in the "I refuse to debate any longer!" method of concession to the weakness of their argument 18 years ago.

That is not a new invention.

[DGuller]

The invention is old, its normalization is new.

[Berkut]

The invention is old, its normalization is new.

Ridiculous. I am out of here.