Hoist By Their Own Petard

No lie, I had to look up what a 'petard' was. Apparently it's a kind of explosive. Thanks, Assassin's Creed, for teaching me all about pre-Renaissance weaponry! 

A lifetime ago, it seems, I wrote about Bahar Mustafa. I wrote about how using hateful language, even if you think you're 'punching up', is still going to come back to bite you because of the rules you set forth, because you've thrown away context in favour of outrage, because you're more worried about scoring Good Person Points than you are talking to someone you disagree with.

And here we go again. I find myself growing more and more accustomed to the phrase "I told you so."

I'll be addressing some points from an article from The Daily Beast, but first a brief musical interlude.

 

Such a catchy song. I think the whole point of it is that it's ironic that a song about irony dredges up example after example of things that aren't ironic but instead just suck.

So the gist of the article is that there are women, ostensibly comedians, being banned from Facebook (and Twitter, Instagram, etc) for such benign, harmless phrases such as "men are trash," "men are scum," and "all men are ugly." And yes, this is bad. People shouldn't be banned for writing harmless (but stupid) things like that. This is not a Good Thing.

But, to quote Tony Stark, this is the end of the path you have started us on. When you've spent the last few years attacking, flagging, and reporting everything as harmful and hateful, you shouldn't be surprised when all of the sudden your particular favoured target is now considered 'protected' and your speech is stifled. After all, Facebook is a private company, right? They're not the government and therefore not bound by the First Amendment, right? You're not crying over your freeze peach, are you?

No, of course not. Because it's Different When I Do It™, right? Because your faceless, featureless, monolith of groupthinking physical traits are morally superiour to the other faceless, featureless, monolith of groupthinking physical traits.

In the wake of the #MeToo movement, countless women have taken to Facebook to express their frustration and disappointment with men and have been promptly shut down or silenced, banned from the platform for periods ranging from one to seven days.

See, I want to respond to this. And there's such an obvious comeback, but the kindergarten-level #NotAllMen is what I'd receive in return, not any introspection about judging people by their actions and character and not by their genitals.

Kayla Avery, a comedian in Boston said she’s been banned close to 10 times by Facebook and is currently serving out the end of her third 30-day ban.

I'm not sure who Kayla Avery is. Google just shows me someone convicted of murder. Maybe if I add "comedian" to the search something will...

Oh... she seems nice.

The post features screenshots provided by Sanni where Facebook does not deem comments calling her the N-word hate speech.

You know, this one time I stumbled across a profile that was full of sexualized images of young boys. I reported that profile. This is what I got in return. 

It's almost like Facebook just sucks at moderation in general.

As ProPublica revealed in an investigation in June, white men are listed as a protected group by the platform.

A Facebook spokesperson clarified that this is because all genders, races, and religions are all protected characteristics under Facebook’s current policy.

Like it or not, whether you even knew it or not, this is what you were asking for. You wanted all manner of protected classes. Did you think Facebook, one of the world's biggest companies (and a fat financial target for litigation) would open itself up to a discrimination suit by a hungry lawyer by not making a certain group or other a 'protected class'?

Female comedians have speculated that it’s internalized misogyny on the behalf of Facebook’s content moderation team that leads to punishment such as banning to be doled out unequally. Several have tried posting “women are scum,” had their friends report the posts, and subsequently suffered zero consequences.

"Speculation and anecdotal evidence have led us to believe that they're putting chemicals in the water that are turnin' the friggin frogs gay!" Come on, now. 

One issue with the way Facebook moderators currently review posts is that many “problematic” posts are viewed individually, without context because of privacy concerns. Facebook moderators also aren’t able to view personal or demographic information about the original poster. This means that they sometimes don’t know whether a piece of content was posted by a black queer woman or a white straight male.

2015: Fuck your context, you're _____ and that's problematic!
2017: MUH CONTECKST!

In the past, ironic misandry has been a popular way for women to deal with living in a world where they’re exposed to frequent abuse at the hands of powerful men. Yet, if a woman takes to Facebook to vent about how she “wants to imprison men and milk them for their male tears,” she could quickly lose access to her account.

But wouldn't ironic misandry normalize misandric statements, and therefore allow them to creep into the mainstream? You don't want that, do you?

Do you?

...has become a favored tactic of the alt-right, Gamergate, and movements known for their coordinated harassment...

B4? That's B4, right? I'VE GOT BINGO!

“I get cold feet to post stuff, especially if I try to share something that’s going on that I want to bring attention to. because I feel like I’m going to get in trouble somehow,” she said. “Sharing anything is nerve racking. It’s like, ‘What’s ok? What’s not ok? What’s going to cross the line this time?’ It makes me feel crazy, like Facebook is gaslighting us.”

Cold feet? Almost like this sort of thing has a chilling effect on free speech? Oh my, that does sound like a problem I sure wish someone had tried to warn us about this for the last few years. 

Ok, I'm done picking at The Daily Beast for now. Look, this sucks. It does. I don't want people banned from social media for writing something dumb. If that were the norm, I'd have been banned from Blogger by now, for sure. But this is what you've been pushing us towards. This is the end of the path you started us on, and now we're stuck here. Social media companies have tried so hard to kowtow to your demands that they overreached and now you've been hit, too.

I'm sorry, I truly am. But you had this coming, and so many of us tried to warn you.

What You've Lost, and What You're Leaving Behind

When I wrote my last week's missive on my car and first-world problems, I didn't think any more of it. I didn't have even a spark of an idea of what I was writing about this week until a few separate ideas culminated in a topic I'd very much like to discuss.

It's a symptom of a disease that's been eating away at my side of the political spectrum for a while now. It sticks in my craw that my idea of the Left has been the compassionate one, the one that just wants to look out for the little guy even if we have a nasty habit of overreaching in doing so, but since the election with the, my side's more vocal proponents have been showing they care very little indeed for the little guy.

I used to be proud of this.

Over the last few weeks, I've seen one of a few reactions. There are the articles that are clearly sitting down and going "Okay, this is why we lost. Our party is corrupt, and we spent so much time calling everyone sexist and racist and transphobic and misogynist that we alienated a vast majority of voters, and while they may be problematic, we'll never win them over to our side that way."

That's an OK way to think. It acknowledges that there's a problem, and starts a conversation (a genuine conversation, with more than one point of view that goes more than one way -- that's the way conversations work, in case you had other ideas) about how to fix it.

Then there's the crowd that's basically REEEEEEEE END OF THE WORLD RACIST MISOGYNIST WHITE SUPREMACY EVERYWHERE IF YOU POINT OUT SOMETHING POSITIVE YOU'RE SUPPORTING LITERALLY HITLER LOOK AT THIS SWASTIKA AND THESE PEOPLE KILLING THEMSELVES NO IGNORE SNOPES THEY'RE LYING EVEN THOUGH THEY HAVE A BIAS TOWARDS OUR WAY OF THINKING.

That bothers me, but nowhere near as much as this.

Every single one of those is more than a month's rent for me.

It all started the other day, when I posted to a social media feed the ticket prices to Hamilton, and how privileged you must be to be able to afford to see the show. I obviously ruffled a few feathers, as I received a few unkind words in response.

Mere days later, I was greeted with these tweets (I still do not condone the use of Twitter) that perfectly illustrate another topic I have written about. I only know who one of these people are, and that's Francesca Ramsey from MTV's Decoded, who has appeared in my writings before. She's the drill sergeant in the Social Justice Boot Camp.

That's right, Ms. Ramsey and Mr. Kalidi. Some of the people who are boycotting Hamilton (and those of you who are, knock it off. When Mike Pence said people booing him was the sound of freedom, that was possibly the most mature statement I've heard a politician say all year) can't afford tickets. That's because when they go on sale, they're a "reasonable" $200, but then they're gone immediately. Faster than sports games or music concerts. If you want to see Hamilton, the only reliable way to do so is to spend what is, to a lot of people, an entire paycheck for one ticket.

I have no idea if it's any good. I'm sure it's a fantastic musical; my progressive friends won't shut up about it. What I do know is this: I'm a liberal that didn't want Trump for president and I can't afford tickets to Hamilton. To me, seeing Hamilton isn't worth the price of admission, so while I'm not boycotting it, I certainly won't be seeing it, either.

Which brings me to the term "Coastal Elite." If you're not already in one of those major cities in the US that would decide the election alone if we scrapped the Electoral College, you can't see Hamilton, because a) you probably don't make enough money, b) the ticket prices, and c) you have to add the cost of travel and lodging to the price of the tickets. Redundant? I don't care. If you're mocking people for not being able to afford a seven hundred dollar theater ticket, I want you to drink in every redundant word I'm typing here.

The bottom line here is that I'm completely fed up with the natural evolution of the Champagne Socialist and Limousine Liberal, which I dub the Perrier Progressive: the ones with their moralistic heads so far up their own moralistic asses that they can't empathize with the fact that not everyone makes enough money to spend their entire month's rent on seeing a goddamn play.

Until you can realize that, we're not the good guys anymore; we're the ones fiddling while Rome is burning around us, blaming the poor proletariat for all the world's problems. Maybe the fire is the good guy now.

Kiss my broke ass.

Orange Rooster vs Poorly Disguised Silurian, GO!

My unedited first impressions as I listened to the first Trump vs Clinton debate this evening while working:

• Both of you, stop referring to "very small loans." A very small loan is the $20 I lent the guy at the comic shop. He paid it back by giving me a ride when someone stole the battery out of my car. 
• "I call it Trumped Up Trickle Down." Hillary, quit trying to be funny. Funny doesn't work for you. 
• Moderator says "Mister Trump, you have two minutes." Ten minutes later, Trump is still talking. Donald Trump is a complicated space-time event. No moderator can contain him. 
• Yes, Trump is sniffling. It's allergy season. Sniffling isn't quite on the level of collapsing from 'heat exhaustion' in 85 degree weather. 
• Hillary, stop putting Bill's accomplishments on your resume. 
• The twenty minute mark. That's where the personal attacks start, and they don't stop coming and they don't stop coming and they don't stop coming and they don't stop coming and they don't stop coming and they d
• Hillary, quit shilling your book and your website. 
• Hillary's feed cuts out at 24 minutes approximately. Was she replaced with a body double? Hologram? Silurian? Was she already a Silurian and they replaced her with another, higher ranking Silurian? Madame Vastra, what do you think? 
• Hillary, would you like my tax returns? I haven't paid taxes either. I've gotten returns every year, except for the one where HR screwed up after my divorce, because I'm not in your tax bracket. I can't even see your tax bracket from where I am. 
• "What is he hiding?" - Hillary Clinton, 2016
• Trump, "That makes me smart" is one of the most tone-deaf things I think I've ever heard considering your constant referral to the shrinking middle class.
• Although he does have a good point. If he's spent his entire career exploiting loopholes for rich people, he would know how to plug them. But would he? 
• I really don't care if braggadocious isn't a word. It's supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. 
• Hillary, why are you putting so much focus on whether or not he's as rich as he says he is? I rather think I'd like a president that's not rich. *coughClintonFoundationcough*
• Hillary calling for criminal justice reform. Mysteriously absent: references to super predators.
• Both candidates endorse the watch list. Fuck me sideways with a school crossing sign. I want both of you to tell me, how do you get on the watch list? How do you get off the watch list? Who makes the decision? Who has oversight on who makes the decision? I have possible familial ties to what some people consider a terrorist organization in another country. What if I'm on the watch list? How will I know? How would I get off the list? This really bothers me. 
• Hillary, how is it a racist lie that Obama wasn't born in the US? Is race determined by location of birth now? Was it a racist lie that Ted Cruz wasn't born in the US? 
• According to the detective I spoke to after my PayPal account was hacked, China is behind the cyber-security attacks. They're stockpiling nuclear running shoes, I hear. 
• Oh. Russia. RED SCARE, EVERYONE! RED SCARE! 
• Hillary has now also become a complicated space-time event. Neither of these people have an understanding of time limits. I don't trust either of them to stay only four years in office. 
• "We must use the internet to stop ISIS." MEME WAR! NOW SUMMON THE RARE PEPES!
• Hey guys, did you know Hillary has a website? 
• "I have a better temperament than her." HAHAHAHAHHAHAlkh;laksdjs;dlka
• No, for real, I hear that (in private) you really do, because I've heard anecdotes about how The Hill's a terrible person to work with. 
• There used to be an old Vulcan saying: "Only Nixon could go to China." The Vulcans -- those that remain after the Abrams Event -- now say "Only Trump could go to China." 
• "I am against Team America World Police." - Trump, 2016
• Hillary, pregnancy IS an inconvenience to employers. Employees have to take time off to have a baby. It may only be a short leave as labor starts and then recovery, but it's still time missed. This is an objective fact. 
• Wait, there's going to be a VICE presidential debate? Between Pence and Kaine? I'm going to need a mountain of crystal meth to stay conscious during this.
  

I can't vote for either of these people. I voted for Obama; at the time, I was still a progressive, so I may have uttered "It's about time it wasn't an old white guy." I think, honestly, I just couldn't imagine a Mormon in office.

I think I'm going to vote for the guy who didn't know what Aleppo was. I didn't know what Aleppo was, either. 

Captain Political Sledgehammer

Female characters in comics are, despite popular rhetoric, really quite common. You can't go five pages without tripping over an enhanced, highly-trained, or mutant superheroine, and in recent years they've become much more prominent with starring turns in blockbuster movies, television shows, and solo titles.

In the case of DC, it's easy to point out: they have a flagship female character in Wonder Woman, and most recently Harley Quinn. With Marvel, it's not as easy - not because they have fewer, but because they have so many female characters that stand alongside their male brethren in the Avengers, X-Men, or Fantastic Four. The easiest, most visible amongst them, the ones where you'd list when told to "Name 5", would probably be Storm, Jean Grey, Sue Storm-Richards, Black Widow, and the subject of my writings today: Captain Marvel.

Captain, Ms. 

There's been rumblings and confirmations that Captain Marvel, formerly Ms. Marvel, formerly Warbird, formerly Binary, and aka Col. Carol Danvers of the USAF, would be getting a solo movie. Carol's been an interesting and integral part of the Marvel universe for years now, and one of a few characters I've tried to keep up with. Unfortunately,  I've fallen behind on my reading due to my backlog and not liking the art on the current and recent runs, but my personal recommendations are her solo series, leading up to and encompassing Avengers: Disassembled, House of M, and Civil War.

What's compelling me to write this today, is this article, ostensibly satire, written from the point of view of a terribly constructed strawman in the wake of self-perpetuating backlash to objections surrounding the Ghostbusters reboot. What the author doesn't seem to understand is that there is no co-opting of a male role to even build a strawman around here. Carol was, despite the inspiration she took, her own woman. Those of us who have read her stories appreciate her on her own merits, and not merits that she adopted from a previously male character.

Comparing Carol Danvers to the Ghostbusters reboot is a terrible false equivalency. The Ghostbusters reboot disregarded previous history (naturally, as reboots tend to do) and based its entire marketing campaign around insulting fans and potential audiences. Marvel, so far, has done nothing but show their fans love, and in return their fans have made them billions in box office revenue and merchandise sales (myself included - show me an MCU-related action figure and I'll show you my wallet). But beyond that, I have a terrible feeling about the Captain Marvel movie.

I want Captain Marvel to be a good movie. I want it to happen. What I don't want is for it to be used as political leverage by hipster bloggers and people who don't care about the stories that have come before.
So much of what makes Carol interesting is her struggle. Her origin story is based around an admiration for and inspiration drawn from a male superhero, Mar-Vell, a Kree warrior who was the original Captain Marvel*. She's had episodes where her powers were unreliable. She was an alcoholic. She has self-esteem issues. I hate to use SJW rhetoric, but all of these are "problematic" qualities for a movie heroine.

But the biggest reason I do not want her used a political sledgehammer is that I admire Carol Danvers because she is hard-working (colonels in the USAF don't just happen) and determined (she's overcome every one of her struggles, and adapts and continues to overcome them). There may have been times where she lay down and gave up and wallowed in self-pity, but she's human and that happens; but she also got right back up and started swinging again.

Best of all, in the wake of the House of M storyline, where she was the most beloved human superhero in a world where humans are the minority, she saw what she could be and worked that much harder to achieve that when reality re-asserted itself around her. In her long history in comics, she's been the hero that former movements of feminism would have aspired to, but using that word in reference to her now is something that I personally find... well, problematic.

I worry though because, if Captain Marvel is faithful to Carol and her history, it's going to catch hell. A women with self-doubt and insecurity? That got Joss Whedon chased off of Twitter when Black Widow had a moment of it. And if Marvel isn't faithful to Carol and her history, it's not going to be a good Captain Marvel movie. It might still be a good movie, but it won't be Carol.

As for the casting, I suppose Brie Larson's alright. She's not Katee Sackhoff, and that's who I was really rooting for. Larson seems a bit young for an Air Force colonel, or even captain**.

This is the movie I wanted. 

In short, I want a movie, not a statement.

* Sort of - that name's been thrown around a lot, and even been used for a character from a completely different company.

**Erin Says: I checked with my father, a 20-year Army officer, and he says that it's just possible for a 26 year old (Brie Larson's age) to be a newly minted Captain. After that comes Major (usually mid-30s), Lt. Colonel (late 30s to early 40s), and then Colonel (mid-40s). Sackhoff, at 36, can easily portray a Major and could, with the right makeup, pass as a Lt. Col. 

Uncle Salem's Flat

There are racists in the world.

This revelation should come as no surprise to anyone, be they Left or Right, progressive or conservative, spiritual or atheist. The only difference lies in where the line between "racist" and "not racist" lies for people, and whether they use the dictionary or a sociology 101 definition.

For some, racism comes when a member of one race looks down upon members of another race for no other reason than they believe them inferior in some way. For others, systemic power is all that is required; with that power, everyone of a particular race is racist, and without that power anyone of another cannot be racist at all.

But there's another particularly invasive and vicious form of racism that bothers me more than most, for reasons that I honestly can't put my finger on. Maybe it's my commitment to freedom of thought and speech that makes me susceptible to offense on this issue; maybe it's my strong opposition to groupthink and echo chambers. Whichever it is, I cannot stand it when people heap abuse on someone who believes something that isn't in complete lockstep with members of their identity group. This includes, but is not limited to:

• Black people being called "Uncle Toms" or "Coons" for not buying into Black Lives Matter. 
• Women having "internalized misogyny" for not being feminists. 
• White people being called "race traitors" for dating black people or protecting civil rights. 
• Gay people being called "self-hating" for not thinking all straight people are out to murder them. 
• Asians being called "bananas" (yellow on the outside, white on the inside) for whatever reason (yes, I've seen that). 

Demographic groups are just that, demographics. They are not ideologically identical monoliths, and shouldn't be treated as such. They also shouldn't be infantilized for not believing what you believe they should believe. People have their own reasons and influences for believing what they do, just as you do, and they probably believe you are just as wrong as you think they are.

There's a phrase that is very fitting here, as much as it bothers me to quote something coined by one of George W Bush's speechwriters: "The soft bigotry of low expectations." Believing that you know better than someone else without knowing or experiencing the situation of their lives is a very subtle but invasive form of bigotry; couple that with expecting to believe certain things based on their race, and you get a disgusting form of collectivist racism that allows someone to dismiss someone else's point of view because they're "simple-minded" and "self-hating" and "don't know any better".

It's sickening and truly offensive and if you think this way, you're a bigot. But you probably don't think of yourself that way. You probably think yourself a good person. So good of a person that you're somehow better than the person who doesn't think the way you think they should. But you're not.

You're still an asshole to someone based on the circumstances of their birth. And that, I cannot abide. 

The Privilege We Don't Talk About

These days, everyone likes to talk about race, gender, sexuality, and sometimes religion, if it's the right religion. Entire worldviews and ideologies exist around these factors, and people build their entire identities around the circumstances of their birth. Circumstances that are built entirely on chance and often do play a part in the way your life plays out, but these very self-same people generally tend to ignore the elephant in the room.

The very well-off, well dressed, upper-class elephant.

The elephant with multiple degrees, a trust fund, and paid speaking positions.

The elephant that makes daily stops at Starbucks to micro-blog on their Macbook Air about injustice.

Maybe it's just the reformed Marxist in me, but nothing irritates me more than seeing someone who genuinely, in their heart of hearts, feels that they're a victim of the world lecturing someone in a rougher place than they are. I can't help but feel that regardless of race, gender, whatever factor, that someone who has just stepped off the stage of the Sydney Opera House from a lecture where they earned enough to buy one or two reliable used cars shouldn't be lecturing someone in rural Appalachia regarding their place of power in the socioeconomic structure of systems.

So let's talk about Roxanne Gay. Who, according to her twitter feed 24 hours ago, will be lecturing at Missouri State University. Who, according to her twitter feed 15 hours ago, complained about a $400 suitcase that can charge her iPhone and weigh itself, just doesn't work. For comparison, last time I flew anywhere, my company paid for it, and I had just my carry-on in a $20 bag I bought from Target. But I don't want to weigh myself, who debated going to the doctor last week for a stomach ache that I thought might be my appendix (it wasn't - don't eat gluten-free pizza) against someone who has had her own TED talk. I want to talk about perspective.

Fight.. the.. system? 

Screencap for convenience. Link for veracity. The person behind the counter at McDonalds is making, in about six months, what you make for a speaking appearance, I'd wager. If not less. This person who asked you "boy or girl" might have a boy or girl of their own, who they're worried they won't be able to feed, and are just hoping the glint in your eye doesn't mean you're about to ask for the manager. This person that you're explaining how damaging enforcing the gender binary to doesn't even have an ounce of power or privilege that you have, where you can go on a national speaking stage and explain your ideas to modest crowds of people. She can't even take the words that you've spoken to her, verbatim, to her manager and have him pass it up the chain. because it won't matter. "Girl or boy" isn't something that the counter employees at McDonalds have any influence at all over. At best, all you've done is waste her time. At worst, you've impacted her productivity and inconvenienced the people behind you in line, and that's not going to cost you anything. 

Fortunately, there's a little bit of a silver lining to this story. After publicly and proudly tweeting (again, on a public platform), she was quite handily told how completely out of touch and lacking perspective she was, and did her best at apologizing. Of course, between the initial tweet and the 'apology' were quite vitriolic statements thrown at people who were being everything from supportive but critical to straight-up assholes, but progress is progress.

But this is the crux of what bothers me about identity ideologies: They're mainly made up of people who make a living out of them. I'm not paid to write these posts; I write them because these are things that I enjoy or things that I feel. I don't have a trust fund; I have a real life job somewhere that I don't mention that takes up entirely too many hours of my week to pay my bills so that I can keep myself distracted with video games or action figures, and I'm thankful that I have a job. Some people don't.

And some people have a job they hate, that pays them sweet fuck-all, and still have to deal with people who have no sense of perspective or empathy for someone that's struggling because they don't look like them or think like them. 

Calgary Expo: GO HOME GAMER GIRL

Two possible events happened this last weekend.

In one instance, a group of terrifying misogynists infiltrated a convention, harassed con-goers, and disrupted panels. The convention organizers responded quickly, and brought swift justice down, having them removed from the premises by security and taking steps to ensure that their related events would not be disrupted again.

Alternately, a group of women including cosplayers and comics creators participated in a panel discussion and were later asked to leave by the convention organizers without providing a sufficient reason, but citing that they misrepresented themselves as part of geek culture.

What really happened depends on what side of the media narrative you're on, but it's an interesting case. The podcasting group collectively known as the Honey Badger Brigade raised funds to attend Calgary Expo with a booth to promote founding member Allison Tieman's Xenospora comic. The existence of the comic, as well as a cursory glance at their YouTube channel's uploads, shows that these women have a history of discussing geek culture topics, albeit from a perspective not normally covered. Unfortunately, when pitching their fundraiser, they decided to use some tongue-in-cheek language that, in a clear case of intellectual dishonesty, The Mary Sue used as proof that the Badgers were... well, I'll let you read it for yourself:

“We plan to infiltrate nerd culture cunningly disguised as their own. Each of us has been carefully crafting a persona of nerdiness through decades of dedication to comics, science fiction, fantasy, comedy games and other geekery, waiting for this moment, our moment to slip among the unaware. Once there we will start distributing the totalitarian message that nerd and gamer culture is… perfectly wonderful just as it is and should be left alone to go it’s own way. “

How hideously villainous.

So someone spotted, at their booth, a poster with a GamerGate logo on it (unsurprising, considering that they seem not to be the Listen-And-Believe types that bought the narrative about GamerGate being the most spectacularly unsuccessful cabal of cis-het white males bent on driving women out of gaming) and tweeted the Expo. I'm unsure of the exact timing, but around then Allison and another group member were attending a panel discussion that involved bringing women into comics. I've listened to the audio of the entire panel, and the panelists discussion veered towards feminism and the MRA reaction to it, expressing a lack of understanding of the rift between the two ideologies. Allison spoke up, volunteering to explain her viewpoint as an MRA, and the panelists readily agreed. They spoke for a several minutes in a polite exchange where they even agreed on a few points. The panelist even sounded grateful for bringing a viewpoint she hadn't considered.

The following hours, Twitter was ablaze with outraged people, apparently upset that someone with a different ideology was allowed to set foot on convention ground, let alone have a booth that they paid for with (a lot) of actual, proper money.

The next morning, as they were setting up their booth for the day, the Badgers were approached by Expo staff and advised there were numerous reports of harassment that they'd received regarding Allison's interaction during the panel. They were asked to leave, and additionally that comic creator Allison Tieman was banned from further events planned by the Expo throughout Canada.
Oh, and allegedly Expo staff called the police on the Badgers two days later when they were meeting with fans at a park. Well, the alleged part is the Expo staff calling the cops. The police verifiably showed up:

Yes, I'm aware the timestamp says August 2012. Cosplayer and adult entertainer Anna Cherry is present, though, and she's a recent addition to the group, Weather Channel says it was mid-60s that week, which matches with the mix of light coats and t-shirts, and those are Canadian spring trees, not in mid-summer bloom. Someone in the Badgers apparently doesn't know how to work their damn camera.

If my take of events seems slanted, that's because one side has been far more forthcoming with details than the other. The Expo released a canned statement that serves more to reinforce how good and great they are than to address the events that transpired.

I also can't help but notice that certain outlets (looking at you, Breitbart) have been more than willing to cover this, having interviewed member Karen Straughan, while certain others (stand up, Kotaku) apparently emailed her and offered to interview her a week later. In a 24 hour, on-demand, internet world news cycle, a week may as well be next year.

Now I'm neither an MRA (there but for the grace of etc, etc) nor a feminist (at least, not anymore. I got the message loud and clear that my ilk wasn't welcome), but looking at this from a neutral standpoint, I can't help but boil it down to this:

Calgary Expo accused a group of women of being fake geek girls and told them GO HOME GAMER GIRL because they were guilty of wrongthink, and wrongthink is ungood. 

Picture: Calgary Expo telling women to go home, courtesy NBC's modern Reefer Madness.

For fuck's sake, Liberal Left, we're supposed to be better than this. You don't get to call yourself inclusive when you kick out people that express polite dissent. I have a real problem with people that say out of one side of their mouth "We love and support women and minorities" while saying out of the other "unless you disagree with us.  Then you don't get an opinion and we will do everything to silence you." 

The Fall of a Liberal Heart

So the big announcement has gone out that John Stewart will be leaving The Daily Show. His replacement is a comedian from South Africa, Trevor Noah: a half black, half Swiss Jew who grew up in Apartheid. A mixed-race child with interracial parents in a time and a place where such a thing was literally illegal. Amazingly, outrage culture has found a way to attack him, he who would otherwise be the perfect demographic to replace Stewart, because he's made some dodgy tweets.

But that's not what we're here to discuss. It's been talked to death. I've had a crazy week, and I'm behind on everything right now, so I'm going to make my contribution short. I discussed David Pakman previously, and how his Gamergate interviews seemed to age him every-so-slightly and make him question his stances based on who he supposed his allies to be. It's happening again.

I've never been a fan of Patton Oswalt. By the time he was on my radar, he'd become known for goofy, awkward comedy, and he reminds me of me several years ago. Extremely Left, extremely Progressive. But he's said some things I agree with:

It just really, really bothers me, if the liberal progressives have now become the scolds. We were the Grouchos! We’re not the Margaret Dumonts — and we’re turning into the Margaret Dumonts on a lot of levels. That lets the misogynists and homophobes and racists seem like the rebels: “Well, we’re saying what people can’t say anymore.” We should be having way more fun with language and jokes and going too far. If our side starts doing that, then I think we’re fucked in terms of moving forward as a society.

As is becoming more and more predictable, the reaction to Trevor Noah's dodgy tweets has, perhaps, pushed one more person further from the Progressive Left, and this one's got an audience. Read below. While these may have been tweeted dangerously close to the vicinity of April Fools', I believe them genuine at this time, based on Oswalt's past behavior and statements.

A joke in 53 tweets, helpfully collected in chronological order.

He's now being attacked in some corners. Being called a "brocialist" and being mercilessly ripped to shreds for defending the idea of comedy. And yet... even the most fervent peddlers of outrage culture at Jezebel seems to be aware that there was a line somewhere, and we've clearly crossed it.

Even some of the foot soldiers of the outrage machine are starting to show a glimmer of self-awareness. Taken from neo-reactionary progressive hive /r/GamerGhazi:

"Lacked moral character"? Really? You see this is what I was talking about. It's not enough to just say "He fucked up" it has to become a judgement about his worthiness as a human.This is why people don't like us liberals. We don't judge actions, we judge people. I personally thought the fat chicks joke was awful. I thought the tweet about Jenner and the Kardashians showed PROFOUND ignorance. But you know what else I thought? That the world would be a much better place if we could get HIM to see that. I'm more interested in getting people to STOP being shitlords rather than feeling self satisfied at publicly calling them out when they are.We throw around high minded ideals about tolerance and standing up for the downtrodden, but when it comes down to it we're about judging, pointing, and laughing not to try and make the world better but because it makes us feel good. It's Brianna Wu's bloody cup of coffee all over again.

In short, I can no longer, in good faith, apply a certain label to myself. I give up Progressive. I no longer want that label, given the behaviour of others using it. This is the same kind of horse-shit that made me stop calling myself a feminist. I'm tired, I'm going to bed, and I have no idea what I will be when I wake up.

And isn't that exciting?

From the Archives: Ruminations on the Fallacy of the Friendzone.

 I'm taking a week off, busy stuff in preparing for a visit from a friend, so here's something I wrote about 2 years ago. Always interesting to look back, because at this point I think I still considered myself feminist, but the label was beginning to crack.

Old meme is old.

Before I start, male and female in this post are used arbitrarily. Men do this to other men, women do it to other women, and both genders to it to each other. Even educated bees do it. That said, I'm trying to avoid any cries of sexism or gender-bias, but the he/she mechanic really is the easiest way to address this.

The internet is a wonderful place. It really is. It's birthed some of the greatest ideas, and allowed others to grow. It's given a voice to people who otherwise wouldn't have one, employment to those who would otherwise be shut out of inclusive industries, and entertainment to those who are tired of the same old cliche from aforementioned industries. It's allowed people to express themselves in positive ways without fear of repercussions, but it's also allowed some pretty negative ideas to flourish as well. And with every negative idea, there's a knee-jerk response.

There has been a recent escalation in the occurrence of the 'friendzone' meme, countered by an 'anti-friendzone' meme. The perpetrators of both of these memes seem to be laboring under some pretty severe misunderstandings. I'd like to say there's nothing I can add to it, but the one thing that neither side has been able to bring to the table so far has been reason. Given this premise, I have points I'd direct to both sides in this particular conflict.


To the pro-friendzoners: The picture has a point, if a very one-sided one. Just because you're nice to a girl doesn't mean she's going to have sex with you. There has to be chemistry, and that chemistry is required on both parts. If it's not there, it's not there, I'm sorry to say. This may mean that she sees you as just a friend, or it may mean that she really wants nothing to do with you and she's either too polite or doesn't want to feel guilty about telling you to piss right off. Either way, you didn't end up there because you're nice. You ended up there because a) biology doesn't like you, b) you're not assertive enough, or c) she's just not that into you. The best thing you can do in this situation is move on and look for someone that's going to show as much interest in you as you do in them, and reciprocate those feelings. Back up off of her until you feel comfortable being her friend again, if she truly wants that. If not, don't force it. Find someone who's really going to be your friend.



 To the anti-friendzoners: Most guys realize they're not working off of a scratch-card or tokens. There's a pretty under-represented part of the population that only incidentally wanted to sleep with you because they view you as an interesting person and want to have an emotional relationship with you. As is with most things, sex is part of that. So when you let them know you can't see them as any more than just a friend, don't get pissy and complain about this mythical friendzone idea they have in their head, because there's every possibility they're hurting and need time away from you before they can act like a rational human being in your presence. Your feelings may not be there, but theirs still are, and it's pretty inconsiderate to go "yeah, sure we're still friends" and expect things to automatically go back to the way they were before they manned up and told you how they felt. On the other hand, yes, there are guys who are the "nice guys," complete with air quotes, that complain about being friendzoned. Just be honest with them, explain your position, and if need be write them off.

This entire headache is just one more cancer that I place squarely on the shoulders of that awful Friends show. If they hadn't popularized the term, it wouldn't have taken off, and men wouldn't hate women for valuing friendship, and women wouldn't hate men for having feelings and not being able to handle them properly. The more I think about this, the more it makes me think of that rather "enlightened" view of how patriarchal society hurts men as much as women because of the whole 'man up and hold in those emotions, don't let your sadness and misery show otherwise you're less of a man' guff that we've been feeding men for the last five or six decades.

Or, I'm sure we'd have found another way to do it without the word "friendzone."

Long story short? Yes, there are people who tell other people "yeah sorry, let's just be friends" and don't mean it. And there are guys that walk away as soon as they realize they aren't gonna hit that, then joke about the whole friendzone thing. But this whole pro/anti-friendzone thing has gotten out of hand. You want to handle it? Open a dialogue.

This has been partially prompted by some shitty writing in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. I really wish Anthony Burch would stop using Mister Torgue as his personal mouth-piece. He was a good character up until a certain point, then just got annoying.

Don't You Think She Looks Tired..?

     In 2006, for the first time in decades, The Doctor toppled a government on television, bringing Prime Minister Harriet Jones's Golden Age to an end by whispering six words into the ear of her aide. The six words “Don't you think she looks tired?” A moment symbolic of any small act that creates a crack in the foundation of a much larger idea. Why am I bringing this up? I promise, it has relevance. 

     Now before we get too far, I should acknowledge and admit something. I don't talk personal politics often. I feel I probably should, as I have friends that range from far Left to far Right, liberal libertarians to conservative republicans to socialist democrats. I play my own political hand close to the chest, though, most of the time. In my younger, more extreme days, I was an old-school pinko lefty. For years I pretty much identified as communist, and spent a great deal of time hurling not-well-thought-out insults at the far Right. I've railed against bigots and religious zealots, and thrown things at corrupt politicians. I've flirted with charges of disrupting the peace and inciting riot. And I did most of this in the American Deep South. In retrospect, I consider myself lucky I haven't been disappeared down a dirt road or swampy hollow. I've mellowed in my days, though, learning the hard lesson that you can indeed have friends that hold differing political views (something I feel a great many need to learn), but this is the reason I am so dead-set against Social Justice (capital S, capital J) activists and their antics these days. Those causes I fought for, and still believe in, are causes that they're doing more harm than good to. Causes that I was fighting for before they were co-opted by people with louder, less rational voices.

     Modern Social Justice is the squat-house built on the shaky foundation of Third-Wave Academic Feminism. And don't get me wrong, I'm not against the good that Feminism has done for the world. The first wave, with its women's suffrage (even if they really were only fighting for white women – one battle at a time, I suppose), voting rights and property ownership, and the second-wave with its sexual liberties, workplace equality, and other noble goals really made some positive change, even if we have to ignore some of Solanises and Dworkins that these eras might have spawned. Third-Wave Academic Feminism, though it started strong by addressing and bringing attention to important subjects like rape laws, domestic violence, and childcare, has since had no such clear goal, and therefore has floundered a bit in the modern day, lashing out at whatever it can reach. This lack of focus may have been what spawned the Social Justice (again, capital S, capital J) trends of the last decade or so. Identity politics mixed with cultural Marxism, but completely disregarding class struggle in favor of branding entire groups of people oppressor and oppressed without consulting them first.

     So why I'm bringing all of this up right now is that recently a hashtag and picture campaign called #WomenAgainstFeminism has sprung up, a sort of reaction to negative stereotypes (justified or otherwise) of modern Feminism. This has, of course, also had a knee-jerk reaction of criticism from feminist sources ranging from the standard “oh you just don't understand feminism” to the absurd “these women are simply puppets of men.” The latter I find especially entertaining and appalling, as it's basically stripping women of their agency to disagree, something that any first- or second-waver would find detestable, I'm sure. In fact, the barrage from either side has gotten loud enough that major news outlets have gotten wind, and in their typically expected modern sensationalist manner, have started asking the question “Do we even still need Feminism?” I remember a CNN segment where a female presenter brought on two other female journalists, and asked the question. The first agreed with the presenter that absolutely it was, but the second one's started with “Weeelll....” to the abject horror of the presenter and other journalist.

     Whether we do or not, it's six little words that attacked the foundation that the Social Justice Warriors have built their flophouse on. If, as a culture, the sacred cow (no insult intended there) that Feminism is has started to be publicly doubted, perhaps identity politics as a whole will start to shake apart. While I hope none of the good works are undone, I can only hope that we can move into a period where open discussion is once again encouraged over shutting people's voices out because of the circumstances of their birth, whatever those circumstances may be, by shouting the word privilege at them, or blaming all the troubles in the world on an ethereal, ill-defined conspiratorial organization that may as well be the Illuminati. There's been entirely too many people of late that feel they can enact positive social change by tweeting obscenities or writing an angry blog-post shaming someone for an accidental slip of the tongue, and not enough attention paid to people pushing for actual change.

Institutionalized or Not, A Duck is a Duck

     Picking up the ball and running with points made in a recent post by our lovely Overlord Erin, I'd like to throw a few words at the screen on the topic of racism and generalizations. One of the favorite go-to's of the Social Justice Warrior is to claim that anyone in a social minority (that word itself being a difficult one to define, as women are considered a minority, and yet make up roughly 50% of the population pretty much everywhere short of a few outliers – seriously Oman, Qatar? What's up with that?) cannot be racist/sexist/etc. How can this be, you ask? How can someone literally not hold a certain type of attitude? Are they some ascended being of higher enlightenment? Possibly a lower life-form incapable of such thought? Of course not.

     Well, here's where things get interesting. A lot of current Social Justice language originated in Academia, and thus even out in the real world the proponents of these ideologies tend to persist in the usage of this language. Even in situations where it doesn't apply. To them, there is no such thing as just plain old racism, for example. The only racism that exists, or at least that matters, is institutionalized racism. This is where existing political or governmental systems can seem or even actually be stacked against a person or persons of a certain ethnicity or sex. Regardless of how they came to be or the reasoning behind these appearances, such things exist. The black population in the prison system is far higher than white population. It's difficult for trans-individuals to have their gender identity recognized. All valid examples.

     The problem happens when a person of this mindset refuses to believe that individual racism exists, or can be anything significant. The same people who will call out a fallacy of relative privation when addressing the standards of living for women in the western world versus those in the middle east will steadfastly refuse to believe that someone who is not a minority can be discriminated against, or cannot be discriminated against to a degree that will significantly impact them. Just because you feel someone's plight isn't relevant doesn't mean it isn't relevant to them. Human beings, in all their diversity, are built from the same chemical building blocks on the same basic template. To suggest that someone is incapable of holding discriminatory beliefs is to strip them of a part of their humanity, even if that's an unpleasant part to imagine of them. Humans deserve to be considered capable of both good and bad acts.

     The most amusing part of this mindset that I've seen is where they will unconsciously be racist themselves by lumping together many nationalities and ethnicities, assuming them to be one pure, innocent whole, and ignoring cultural attitudes like Korean anti-Japanese racism (and vice-versa), tribal/ethnic conflicts in various parts of Africa, or how North-East Indians are discriminated against by other parts of India due to having more Asian features. The world is full of diverse and beautiful people who are flawed, complicated, and cannot be generalized with one broad sweep, regardless of how noble you think your intentions may be. **coughtumblrcough**

     So while your Sociology 101 course may teach you all about cultural oppression (believe me, I've taken the course), and your academic definitions may work for some situations, they don't work for all situations. The world is a lot more complex than slapping labels on things and tweeting a hashtag. Generally, what we can do as individuals is remember to never be an asshole to someone based on the circumstance of their birth, and never forget that people are capable of being assholes to one another based on the circumstance of their birth. I openly admit to being an asshole, but generally I'm only an asshole to people based upon merit.

     I feel this really should end with a musical number. Lighten the mood and all that.

One Man's Dream is not necessarily Another Man's Cause

[this review may contain minor spoilers for X-Men: Days of Future Past]

     It's fortuitous and somewhat coincidental that X-Men: Days of Future Past has recently had runaway box office success. It's a story about a man with a dream, a man with a cause, people defending an old establishment, and extremists thinking they're doing the right thing. While it's definitely not the story the comics told us decades ago, I think it benefits for this. Shame about Kitty Pryde, though. Maybe if they'd spent a movie or two developing her as more than a background character instead of making five movies about Wolverine (not that I'm complaining. I love me some Hugh Jackman's Wolverine), the movie would have been able to stand on its own with her as the one going back instead of him.

     But that's not what I want to focus on right now. X-Men has always served as a sometimes subtle, sometimes not-so allegory for minority struggle, and DOFP, in the day of hashtag slacktivism, media bias on both sides, call-out culture, and tumblr-style gender wars, has updated the formula. Xavier and Magneto are there still, but the context has changed.

     Xavier's Dream, which I would like to say that I do, and always have, strongly believed in, is that humans and mutants can peacefully coexist with each other. On top of that, realizing that there would be humans that violently feared mutants and mutants that could justify that fear, he formed his X-Men to defend innocent mutants against the formerly mentioned humans, and innocent humans against the latter mutants. The Dream is fueled by hope, and that Dream cannot survive if fearful and bigoted humans or violent, misguided mutants harm innocents on either side.

     Magneto's Cause, on the other hand, is something that scares me as bad as the aforementioned bigoted and fearful humans. It's much simpler, because it's a cause that's fueled by anger. It's completely black and white. Humans are history, are a threat, should be removed from the equation. Mutants are the future, innocent and blameless, and acting only in defense of their people. Any human that doesn't fit with that equation is simply a tool to be exploited and discarded, and any mutant that doesn't fit is a traitor to their biology.

     The main plot of DOFP revolves around how the act of a single extremist caused the entire world to fall apart, and how those with a Dream and those with a Cause must set aside differences to stop those that would go too far from hurting everyone with their actions. One extremist, Mystique, must be stopped from taking an action that would paint all like her a criminal and a threat, and another extremist must be stopped from using her actions (and her very biology) as a weapon against innocents. It's an effective allegory for the all-too-common people who think they're fighting the good fight, but just aren't helping. 

     I'll close out this thought with a semi-angry statement made a few weeks ago. I think it's still relevant.

“Too many assholes out there thinking they believe in Xavier's Dream but fighting for Magneto's Cause.”

The Mutant Question

     While we're on the subject of Marvel (see last week), there's a subject I'd like to touch on that I have never quite comprehended.

Why mutants?

     The Marvel Universe's Earth, much like ours, has had its share of growing pains and prejudices. We know that World War II and the Holocaust happened there, because one of its prominent figures, Magneto, was a first-hand witness. We also know that that have been divergences between this fictional world and our own, in the appearance of Mutants, and the almost predictable response to them.

     In the world of Marvel, there was a very different response to when the first super-powered heroes appeared to when the first mutants appeared. In the miniseries Marvels, for example, there is initial trepidation over the likes of Captain America and the Fantastic Four, but the masses are quickly won over by them. The X-Men don't fare quite so well, and that's reflected in the very public opinion of throughout most Marvel stories.

Why mutants, though?

     Why can the public rally behind Captain America, a medical experiment? Or Spider-man, bitten by a radioactive spider (who believes that story, anyway?). Or the Human Torch, who sets himself on fire and burns at near nova levels of heat? What makes them more acceptable than average, everyday people who are born different? Someone like Tony Stark, for example, I can understand the public rallying behind. He's Iron Man. He's the pinnacle of human technology and intelligence, basically. Cute little Jewish girl Kitty Pryde? She's a monster that can walk through walls and kill you in your sleep!

Why mutants and not super-heroes?

     Granted, the parallels are obvious. Your average Hispanic can't summon lightning bolts or teleport, and most lesbians (that I've met, anyway) can't shoot laser beams from their eyes, but the Mutant situation in Marvel is meant to represent prejudice against people who are different from the normalized majority. I was not, personally, raised with any sort of bias or prejudices, so I have a hard time empathizing with those who were, but that's always been the one thing I can't wrap my head around when it comes to the Marvel universe.

     There's been the explanation put forth that perhaps mutants are the next step in human evolution instead of an aberration, and that may explain some animosity. A fear of being replaced or going extinct. Given how irrational the reaction is, I have a hard time reconciling a rational fear like that, though, which leaves me with my original question.

Why would people fear and hate mutants and not other super-heroes?