re: #45 Charles Johnson

I’m just sitting back watching the whole thing. I think that Arquette’s statement was pretty much muddled and clumsy as fuck, but I also think the backlash against her is more than a bit on the histrionic side.

Kind of typical of the whole thing, I thought this guy Ebers had a good point through the first half of this comment on ABL’s facebook page, but it kind of goes off the rails at the end.

Let me see if I understand what’s going on here. A white celebrity advocates something we all agree with - equal pay, and general equality among the sexes - but then, bizarrely, also calls out people of other traditionally disadvantaged groups saying, in essence, “we have always supported you, now you need to do a better job supporting us.” So, people within the groups she called out say, “Uh, wait …” - and suddenly they’re the ones being “divisive”? They’re the bad guys? And all of the sudden, the folks who relentlessly attacked Pres. Obama from the left, the folks who actively discouraged people from voting, and so forth, are saying, “HOW DARE YOU CRITICIZE A CELEBRITY!”
Apparently, mild criticism of a white liberal celebrity is the new fascism.

I think there’s a ton of conflation and lazy shit going on in the second half of that. I don’t really care to defend Arquette, except inasmuch as she’s a human being who made a good intentioned but rather inarticulate statement prone to misinterpretation. I don’t think the people defending her on that basis are doing so because she’s a celebrity, and I don’t think they’re by and large the one’s who relentlessly attack Obama from the left either, at least since 2008 after Hillary’s candidacy collapsed.

I don’t know. I don’t really care either except that it’s lame to see the left tearing at itself over mostly nothing. Which isn’t to say intersectionality issues aren’t important, but the proponents are doing a bang up job of alienating the fuck out of otherwise sympathetic voices.

Boudreau had a succinct pair of tweets that sums up my feelings at this point:

I’ll go be a decent person without all the instructions, thanks

— Ian (@iboudreau) February 24, 2015