Maybe she didn't, but that's what it sounded like to me. I just really don't like statements implying collective responsibility. Can I tell you why?
"If Muslims have to take responsibility for every member of their community, so do we!"
Samantha Bee
Nice rebuttal. Too bad I never said anything remotely like that about Muslims.
And Askold, could you please tell me how I moved the goalposts?
Now for your second question. I'm talking about people emphasizing "white privilege" and "male privilege" at a time when income inequality is at its worst in decades. I'm talking about student radicals trying to get "dead white men" removed from their classes. I'm talking about SJWs bullying people for the stupidest of reasons. I'm talking about pearl-clutching nitwits trying to play the role of the fiction police. To sum up, I'm talking about a disturbing undercurrent in the American Left in recent years, one that has resulted in the Democratic Party falling to its lowest point since Reconstruction. What I'm saying is that when you find yourself in a hole, it may be a good idea to stop digging.
And how do you define "bullying" and "stupid reasons"?
Doxing, threats, trying to get people fired, etc. As for "stupid reasons", I'd say "
drawing Rose Quartz too thin" is one of the dumbest.
And what kind of behaviour, in your eyes, constitutes "trying to play the role of the fiction police"?
To me, "fiction policing" is more than just criticism and analysis. It's criticizing fiction one finds problematic in a disproportionately harsh way. It's saying that fiction corrupts, or that it has a negative impact on society, based on questionable, spurious or even nonexistent evidence. It's trying to prevent the distribution of these products for no reason other than one personally does not like them. Fiction policing comes from everywhere on the political spectrum, whether it's Jack Thompson raving about "murder simulators" or a radfem making giant leaps in logic to say that porn promotes sex trafficking.
And how do you personally define an "SJW" (and, possibly to pre-empt you, "extremism" in the context of the social left)? These terms have been used as dogwhistles for any vehement and insufficiently submissive leftist sentiment or critical sociological analysis of fiction and its impact, so you'll understand if I'm raising an eyebrow at the terminology when it's unelaborated on. (And, actually, now that I'm on the subject, I still hold to the belief that neither Hindus disliking their religion's holy chants to be performed as entertainment by non-Hindus nor expanding already-extant codes of conduct on campus to include "don't be bigoted" count as "political correctness gone mad" in and of themselves.)
There are multiple kinds of SJWs, but I think a good general definition is somebody who claims to be "fighting the good fight" on behalf of women and/or minorities, but ends up doing more harm than good out of extremism and/or hypocrisy. I'd go on, but I think
this article sums it up better than I ever could.
As a side note, there's nothing inherently wrong with rules against bigotry. But at a time when the bar for intolerance is constantly being lowered, I'd say people have every right to be nervous about being crushed under the wheels of "social justice".
Furthermore, pretty much none of this has any relevance to Trump's presidency. Unless I'm incorrect, Trump's campaign devoted exactly zero time to any particular male positivity or explicit affirming message to whites specifically (and no, that doesn't mean he's not racist), and I'll bet my testicles it didn't touch on current trends in art critique. If someone's response to being told white privilege exists is to flock a guy whose mission statement contains "Mexican immigrants are drug dealers and rapists", then it's fair to assume they already heard the siren call of racialist ideology.
Or maybe they don't like being told that they're inherently privileged because of their skin color while struggling to make ends meet, and decide to vote against the party that (directly or indirectly) promotes such nonsense.
And I maintain that calling Trump supporters racist isn't unreasonable. Sure, not every single person who voted for Trump did it out of racist feelings, but as you and others seem to have espoused, feelings don't particularly matter. Endeavouring to put an openly virulent bigot into office continues to be an inherently racist act regardless of one's internal feelings about it, because you can't just slice Donald Trump into pieces and put the ones you personally like into office. That's not how voting works. When you put in the Trump you think will create jobs despite his several bankruptcies, you also put in the Trump who called Mexican immigrants drug dealers and rapists live and wanted to register and round up Muslims. Voters don't magically take on the character flaws of the candidates they support, but if you give matches to the KKK so they can burn crosses, you don't magically become uncomplicit in racist terrorism just because you were doing to be a good neighbour or whatever.
Funny you should talk about Mexican immigrants, because
Trump did surprisingly well among Latino voters.
But with that said, labeling all Trump voters as racist is not only unfair and simplistic, it's dangerous. If somebody is called racist based solely on how they voted, would they be more or less likely to vote the way the name-caller wants? These days, trying to shame people into doing something is more likely to have the opposite effect.