Vilageidiotx

Lets talk about JonTron and his possibly racist views.

goddammit you guys made this thread a motherfucker to organize the quotes for

W-which he did. twitter.com/JonTronShow/status/8450382.. I don't get your point here. And politics, by nature, are not based in disrespecting your opponent views. Respect =/= liking people. Sorry, but you're missing the point here.

@Buddha

The question was, if I recall, why there wasn't an equal backlash for the behavior of the developers toward him as there was for his original comments? I'm saying that the reason the developers behavior didn't create a backlash was that it was a personal issue between JonTron and them, whereas the other was about JonTron's political opinions, which is a public matter by default, since he made his opinions public and the opinions are about how the public should be ran. What happens between JonTron and those developers is not especially relevant on a large scale.

<Snipped quote by Vilageidiotx>

Setting the bar at "Systemic genocide" is pretty blaise. Consider: after seeing a headline "JonTron's Possibly Racist Views," are you (a) more likely or (b) less likely to watch JonTron's videos? If a candidate for office is accused of racism for 14 months, do you think that candidate is (a) more likely or (b) less likely to be elected, regardless of policy? If half the nation is thrown into a basket of deplorables, your racists, your homophobes, your misogynists, how likely is it that afterwards the two sides of the argument are going to be able to come together?

And yeah, we're talking about race in this thread because title, but this goes way beyond all that. North Carolina is losing hundreds of millions of dollars for the crime of having the same bathrooms as last year. Social bullying is the absolute norm. That's a very bad thing. The fact that it hasn't escalated to actual SYSTEMIC violence, only scattered POCKETS of violence, does not make that okay.

@mdk

It's only blaise if we consider these (racism not being taboo vs racism as an overused taboo) separate issues. I think it is a sliding scale, personally, where on one end (racism not being taboo) we have systematic violence, and on the other (racism as an overused taboo) we have stupid shit happening in public but being systematically contained. What I am afraid of is this fight currently taking place against the tabooification of racism is going to recreate systematic racism that right now is at least somewhat (though not completely) tamed.

I don't mean to be black and white about it, I understand there is a grey area ideal that we would all prefer everything to sit at. But society is a complex motherfucker, and doesn't like to stay completely balanced. So for me I'm afraid we'll trade the issue of people not watching JonTron videos for increased police violence against minorities.

As for your references in particular

A: Trump was elected. The race taboo didn't end his chances.
B: The basket of deplorables was, in my opinion, a tactical error. Deploying it hurt her. I will note the American left has been shit on for years by the right, so it's silly to pretend that conservatives are victims of a unilateral smear campaign. It takes two to tango.

Also, why is it now "Social bullying" to shop with your dollar, so to speak? I do not see the North Carolina situation as bullying at all and I think it is hyperbolic to suggest it. Witholding potential funds is a completely civil and peaceful way for opponents of NC's law to respond.

Of course, I agree with you that racism does also require explicit violence. However, I do believe in giving people a second chance. Like if a white supremacist changes his entire viewpoint and realize that he has done wrong, then I would give him a chance to prove it. We should be giving them and others a chance rather than just assume that they will change. It is like when people are saying 'punch a nazi.' What if that Nazi has completely changed? Would you try to forgive him or punish him anyway because of his past.

Of course, I am getting off topic (again).

@The Spectre

I didn't say otherwise. I just said JonTron is a racist, I didn't say he is condemned to hell or some shit. If he stops being a racist, then he is no longer a racist. If a Nazi has completely changed, he is no longer a Nazi. But if a Nazi is running around town saying "Gas the kikes" or some shit, then punching him for his current nazi-ing out is justified.

Also, I don't think JonTron is a Nazi. He just has dumb opinions that happen to be racist. I'm not lumping him in with Hitler.

Well, post-modernism affects everyone, including the conservatives and the communists. The idea that it isn't cool to call it racism, it's the idea that you must be a racist if you do nothing. Left-leaning political ideas are more popular and common than right-leaning ideas. Not saying that the right does not exist because it does. Like how a Tumblr post that talks about feminism gets tens of thousands of likes and reblogs while a post about pro-gun gets only a few hundred to a thousand likes and reblogs.

And I am wondering if you think that I am a part of the right wing movement? Just curious.

@The Spectre

Tumblr isn't exactly the most balanced sample. Both political groups exist in some relative balance in the general population. I mean, Trump got elected. That doesn't exactly support an "Everybody except a few people are leftists" argument.

Also, I never said someone is racist if they do nothing. I am sure some people think otherwise, but I disagree with them. If JonTron only said "I don't do anything about racism" I wouldn't think he was a racist.

And I do have to ask, and this is a question for everybody, is there post-modern communists? I actually don't know. I don't think post-modernism is very compatible with dialectical thought. I was thinking more those leftists who say "There is no culture" or some silly shit like that when I said "Post modernism is a edgy left thing."

The Know-Nothing party was mainly anti-Catholic and they were scared because they truly believed that the Catholics were limited liberties and freedom back in Europe. I do not understand how the Know-Nothing party fits into the modern day and that JonTron is one. Is it because of nativism or populist is highly present in the party? Care to explain?

@The Spectre

Because that was who they were faced with at the time. Germans and Irish immigrants came over in large numbers, both from the Catholic portions of those countries for the most part, and that created tensions. Working folk didn't like competing for wages with poor immigrants, and middle class people were afraid of the cultural and religious differences. Honestly, reading the complaints the know-nothings had about immigrants is sooo fucking similar to the Trump movement that it's kinda fun to read. I think this is largely because all arguments about immigration are going to be founded on the same basic ideas.

Hmm...

Well, reading most of this discussion. It basically boils down to everyone is racist, but if that's true...why is merely saying it so damning and condemning of a man's/woman's character if literally everyone on earth is racist? How can it hold such power, if it's such a vague and almost pointless thing to say? Since from birth, you're just born that way...It's not just prejudice or ignorance, which are words that already exists. No, it's believing that a particular race is superior to another. The definition on google. I just really don't hold that belief...at all.

@SleepingSilence

Okay, first and foremost lets be honest about that source. Punditry is punditry. It'd be like be posting articles from the Jacobin. Those are meant for ideological examination, not for public debate.

What I am trying to say with "everyone is racist" is that racism isn't something only Nazis do, but it is more like what @Buddha has got at a few times, that tribalistic thinking is sort of innate, and it is part of the human condition that we are supposed to rise above it. We are never perfect, and everyone occasionally slips. At the same time, there are levels. JonTron did more then just slip. He didn't go full Nazi, but none the same he did double down on some tribalistic bullshit. This thread to me has thus far been two basic arguments that weave around each other and into each other a bit.

A: Saying that JonTron said some bullshit and calling it what it is; bullshit.

B: Arguing that calling bullshit "bullshit" is just too mean, and that we must obfuscate honesty for the sake of some politically correct post-modern shit.

Also, prejudice and ignorance are general rules that cover multiple situations, whereas racism is a specific word. I am prejudice of McDonalds locations I've never been too. I am ignorant of particle physics. Racism is a word that can be used to cover ignorance and prejudice in regards to race specifically.

@Vilageidiotx Is it really debatable though? Illegal immigration means crime has already been committed. Are we arguing for roleplayerguild.com/topics/160898-lets.. to become okay? Because that's really about all that can be debated. The reason the other side doesn't use that word is so people don't question the whole "illegal" thing. Not to nitpick, that is sort of what I'm doing. But I just don't feel like going full course. I'm politic'd out. :P

@SleepingSilence

Well I hope we can debate the nature of law, yeh. That's a backbone of western thought. Leave it to the courts to be specific about legality, it is the job of the rest of us as citizens to debate based on what is best for our society.

Lets talk about JonTron and his possibly racist views.

@Chrononaut Someone's lit a fire under this doggo's ass, he seems to be on a roll right now.

@Dynamo Frokane

honestly i'm just posting here because i'm putting off going to bed.

Lets talk about JonTron and his possibly racist views.

Yeh, Europe has a legit immigration crisis going on, I'm not going to deny any of that.

The US is dealing with something less messy. We've had a lot of coming and going across the Mexican border since forever, oftentimes illegal. (there is a really good documentary about this from all the way back in the eighties.) It's just that now, over the last ten or twenty years, northern Mexico is seriously fucked up, and the trickled of people is larger than it used to be. Couple that with wage stagnation and people wanting a scapegoat, and you got what we have now.

Lets talk about JonTron and his possibly racist views.

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So you think that he deserves to be receiving insults from developers who, after they got caught shittalking, made their accounts private? And you don't think that equally deserves backlash just like JonTron got backlash? Purely because... what, purely because youtubers aren't allowed to show political opinions and affiliations?

@Buddha

Because the former is a personal matter betwixt the developers and JonTron, whereas JonTron's views have public implications by virtue of being political. You can say things, but you have to accept the potential social repercussions of those things. Just because you say something doesn't mean everyone owes it to you to like you.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

@Dinh AaronMk I'm very tired, but I will attempt to read and respond. Be lenient. <.<

I know that was a joke, but really people that can look at America. See that it's the most powerful, richest nation, largest population, who uses it's military overseas to protect the rest of the free world. Yada yada 'Murica' yada. Just saying to make a point. (of course every system is flawed and can be corrupted. Humans exist.) And go..."Yep, Capitalism probably doesn't work as well as Socialism does." and be sincere about it...the internet would not be what it is today, without it. (yes, it may have possibly existed, but not in it's current form.)

Just to briefly state a few things. The theory makes it seems likes it a universal statement. Like all people are equal in what jokes they find acceptable, but clearly isn't the case. The Irish went through plenty of shit and they had senses of humor and absolutely no one is rioting for past transgressions, nor are they offended by others making fun of them. (And honestly it seems a little racist to assume that blacks, are the only ones that -can't- take jokes from others outside their social circles.) Which I know isn't true, because friends or not. I was in a ghetto high school and lived there. Racial jokes are nearly an exclusive source of jokes, to friends and strangers. If you heard a joke, it would probably give the average crybaby on the net, a heart attack. Everyone of my friends grew up in the ghetto and not exactly well off and not all of them were black...But that aside.

If it's true, I must just know plenty of anomalies within the theory. I'm sure there's some truth to it, but at the same time I think. My point is more than ever people are taking jokes, far too seriously and trying to silence and label people as evil for jokes. Usually it's people getting offended for the sake of others who don't care. It's a growing and I'd argue a recent problem. Safe spaces did not exist back then...this is a legit concern of where the future is going. I don't find that because teenagers post things on the internet, that makes PC culture somehow valid. Freedom of speech is actually being attacked...(Canada right now, is undergoing parliament to ban all criticism of Islam...) That's not the only example, but it's a recent one. An example of literal thought policing. Which legit scares me to put into law. I can only fucking imagine, if something like this for Christianity passed in America...

@SleepingSilence

Canada isn't passing a ban on criticism of islam, it is passing a motion to condemn islamophobia. As in, it's not a law, it's just a statement. They won't enforce it.

Also, safe spaces are pretty old. A lot of "Safe spaces" are rebrands of what we used to call "Support groups."

Also also, racial jokes are still pretty fucking common. I feel like I'm in a bizarro land where we are all pretending that the racial joke is universally condemned or something

Lets talk about JonTron and his possibly racist views.

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As I've said though, today in America, the weaponization of racism is the bigger and more serious threat. By far. What I'm arguing is that we've crossed a threshold -- we're not 'sifting through' the abuses to find the problems, we're so buried in abuses that we're simply dredging up something that looks almost real and pretending so that we can collectively exploit it. Systemically, and not just when it comes to race (though that's certainly the most prone to producing actual violence as an outcome). This is crazy stupid bad for us, as a population that live alongside one another, but we're doing it anyway because Drumpf I guess. (It's not Trump, it's virtue signalling, but that's another thread)

@mdk

I dunno, I don't think that is the case to be honest. I'm just not convinced that that the abuse of the race card is so out of control compared to the potential shit that would be caused by aborting the taboo. Shit does happen, but it seems to be systematically contained.

I mean, Donnie did get elected. The people who beat up that white kid in Chicago are being tried on a hate crime. Blue lives matter seems to have defeated the Black Lives. It's not like the race-card issue has completely overhauled the system to where these things can't happen.

<Snipped quote by mdk>

I'd also contend that there is no such existence of positive outcomes that directly or indirectly stem from anti-thought taboos established for the purpose of hopefully extinguishing returns of prejudicial practices to modern life. Not only that, anti-thought taboos have a tendency throughout history to be at the center of some of the most violent, murderous regimes and political groups of all time.

@Dark Wind

I disagree. I think the history of systematic racism speaks for itself. All those holocausts and genocides, that's what we are trying to avoid. I think it is important to remember that we are still the same species that committed every horror in our history. It's completely possible that even Western countries could commit pogroms again.

It is true that taboos have been created in the past by evil regimes, but I don't think this means the creation of taboos are a slippery slope kind of thing. If a regime comes to power with a plan to commit systematic white genocide in a western country, not by the scary fear of pluralism thing white nationalists have, but by systematic violence, then I'll be proven wrong.

I think that Jontron was expressing his opinion and Destiny was just belittling him. And that Jontron needs to spend more time improving his debating skills in general (like Sky Williams). I don't think that he is a racist at all, just like Pewdiepie is not one as well. I just think that everyone just assumed that he was a racist because his views were different than the standard views, which we often see in our daily lives. The word racism/racist are losing their original meaning and being used as an emotional response. And as a way of derailing a debate or discussion. Just like the word nazism/nazi.

@The Spectre

JonTron and Pewdiepie are two different situations though. Pewdiepie isn't a racist, he's just unfunny. JonTron actually insinuated some racist shit. I agree that we shouldn't let the word racism completely lose it's meaning, but that also means not going the other direction and thinking that racism requires explicit violence or slurs or whatever.

Also

I just think that everyone just assumed that he was a racist because his views were different than the standard views

when did the right wing get into post-modernism? i'm used to post modernism being something edgy left wing kids do. where the fuck this idea that it's not cool to call it racism, that it must be called a "non-standard" view come from? this is some weird shit. Is this the new political correctness?

Legal immigration has not always been the problem unlike illegal immigration. There is a difference between an illegal immigrant and a legal immigrant. The difference is easy to notice if people are willing to open their eyes. A legal immigrant follows the pathway by living in America for three to five years, meet all the requirements, and pass the Naturalization Test. An illegal immigrant just has to cross over the Mexican-American border, overstay their visas, and other things that I cannot name at the moment. Those politicians and 'spouting bobbleheads' hate illegal immigration not legal immigration. I do not know how disliking illegal immigration makes you an anti-immigration.

I think that America should have the ability to counter illegal immigration not just blindly accept it because "we are the country of freedom" or "America is the land of immigrants so we have no choice but to accept them."

And it isn't racist if you dislike illegal immigration and want to send them back so they have the opportunity to do it the legal way.

We do counter illegal immigration. This is political rhetoric more than anything, on both sides of the debate. Some places want to be able to sift through illegal immigrants so as to not cause unnecessary problems. I don't personally think that being against illegal immigration is an evil thing btw. I think it's a completely debatable subject that's been made stupid in the general discussion because both sides want to use it to gain political points.

That being said, the arguments about illegal immigration shouldn't be white genocide or shit like that, because that's just dumb. We can talk about taxes and wages and shit like that, but when we get into racial demographic BS (back to JonTron now), well... that's racist. Does that make him a Nazi? No. That makes him a Know-Nothing. But still a racist.

Just because somebody is racist in that way doesn't make them evil. Personally I just think JonTron is a dumbass. But just because they are not evil doesn't mean we must with-hold the racism term, since doing so would drain the term of all meaning. Just because some people have abused to term doesn't mean that racism no longer is a term at all.

i do have to say though...

I do not know how disliking illegal immigration makes you an anti-immigration.

It's easy to see how the two could be conflated because they often use the same talking points. The modern illegal immigrant freak-out is a replay of a lot of immigrant freak-outs in our past. Honestly, the immigrant question is one of the most consistent in our history. I'm from old American blood, have multiple ancestors who fought on the correct side of the American Revolution, and I bet you that I have ancestors somewhere back there that used the same anti-immigrant talking points against not only JonTron's ancestors (possibly), but most certainly Trump's ancestors.

Lets talk about JonTron and his possibly racist views.

<Snipped quote by Dynamo Frokane>

I'm sorry but you're exactly wrong. Let's highlight this arbitrary segment for emphasis: he seems to have some strange ideas about race that lean towards racism, but I'm not convinced hes an outright racist, I think hes just sipped some alt right kool-aid and hasnt had enough time to spit it up.

What you're doing here has nothing to do with 'facts not feelings' or scientifical existence or whatever else you decided to call it -- you're determining whether or not a person (or series of statements) warrants thought, based on whether or not he/they pass the 'racist' test. It is specifically and exactly an anti-thought experiment, and it's what the weaponization of racism has produced, and it's why I'm not with you (or anyone else who's doing it) on this. To be clear, I'm not blaming you for (not?) thinking along these lines -- it's not your fault, you didn't create this problem. The problem is really, really, really, really real though, and it's waaaaaaaaaay bigger than some SJWs on twitter.

@mdk

Because there is a serious concern that by not treating racism as a sort of taboo, awful shit will be made mainstream again.

Anytime we assign something as taboo, it does have an anti - thought component. Pedophilia is a good comparison. We can't argue the merit of it because we don't want to face the potential repercussions in what we normalize. We don't want to normalize open racism, and so we make these sorts of "anti - thought" judgments.

There are of course people who abuse it. Every moral imperative comes with that threat. The trade off for sifting through abusive uses of victimization is hopefully that we avoid full blown racial pogroms.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

<Snipped quote by Vilageidiotx>

>When you're so shit at being funny people thing you're serious
>When you're so shit at being funny the people who thing you're serious actually believe in what you say.

Well,you gotta make bank somewhere.

<Snipped quote by Vilageidiotx>

And sometimes cars.

@Dinh AaronMk

If you didn't light up at least one cop car in college, you were a dweeb.

Frokane's Mildly Politcal Hangout Thread

Also, I'm going to double post and call back to the comment made earlier about how people can't take a joke. There's actually a scientific theory about that. The benign violation theory states that in order for a joke to be considered funny it has to violate a perceived norm while being benign in nature. But when a joke actively or is told in a threatening way to an individual and it violates the benign aspect of the joke, then it becomes threatening.

@Dinh AaronMk

That would explain Milo's career. I'm convinced the guy is just a failed comedian because his jokes are always way too on the nose, so instead of applying for TMZ, he figured out how to take being unfunny and turned it into something political.

The only thing people should be lighting on fire in college should be the shots. :P

@SleepingSilence

And Starbucks. Jeez you didn't have no fun in college, did you?

Lets talk about JonTron and his possibly racist views.

The problem with a buzzword like racism is that it has many different meanings, and people tend to think of the strongest use of the word. You could call JonTron racist for his views, sure. We could call Dynamo Frokane a racist for implying that JonTron might be racist, even if he never directly said it. I could be called a racist for calling Dynamo black, because I'm "seeing his color." Everyone's scared of being called a racist because people still think it's a term that only applies to the worst kind of people.

@BrokenPromise

Acknowledging race is in itself not racist for the same reason that it isn't sexist to acknowledge another persons sex. The "-ism" comes in either exaggeration or plain old attributing what isn't attributable to race.