Tag Archives: Slate

Are Slate and Amanda Hess Arguing for Lynching?

Feminists complain about street harassment all the time. I’ve never actually seen someone harass a woman on the street, I’ve never done it, and none of my friends have done it.  So, I’ve always been a bit skeptical, because if something is so common, why haven’t I ever even seen it occur before. A few women have told me a story or two of a random crazy person on the bus doing something harassing (ie. one man on a bus just sat himself in the lap of a girl I dated), so I knew harassment did occur, but were usually isolated events done by crazy people. I never believed it happened as omnipresently as feminists claim.

Slate has tried to prove that harassment exists omnipresently by a woman filming herself walking for 10 hours. Here’s a two-minute highlight video of the harassment. Watch it.

First, that’s 2 minutes from 10 hours, so unless a lot of harassment was cut out, that’s not as much as feminists complain about. The video claims 100+ incidents, so that’s about one incident per every six minutes, that’s more, but still not much.

Second, if we assume the video included the worst of the harassment, a safe assumption give the point of the video, the “harassment” seem rather insignificant. this “harassment” included people doing nothing but saying “Have a nice evening”, “God bless”, and “how are you this morning?”. So in other words, to acknowledge a woman’s existence is harassment. What did the 80 incidences not bad enough to appear in the video include, people saying ‘hello’?

If this is the best evidence of harassment feminists can dredge up, I still do not buy the feminist argument. In fact, this video is a strike against it.

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The more interesting part of this video though is race. I counted the incidences in the video, and by my count there were 21 harassers (two incidences had two perpetrators). Of those, 10 of the harassers looked black, 5 looked white, 2 looked Hispanic, and in 4 incidences I could not identify the race (although, two sounded stereotypically black to me).

So, of the incidences where the race was known, black committed 10 of the 17 of the cases of harassment, about 60%. Also, the the most egregious harassments (she was followed twice and some yelled passed a first comment) were by blacks.

From this, it seems the major problem is not harassment from men in general, but harassment from urban black men in particular. This would explain why I’ve never witnessed it; there are very few urban blacks where I live. That the harassers are largely black is reinforced by the stereotypical ebonics name of the campaign the video is in support of, “Hollaback!”.

Also of interest is that only a couple harassers looked even remotely middle-class, the rest looked either working-class or welfare-class.

The target audience of Slate is middle-class white liberals with humanities degrees. These are not the type of people harassing the woman in the video. There is no point lecturing Slate readers on stopping harassment because Slate readers are not the ones harassing.

So, there seems to be no point to this article. Slate readers aren’t the ones doing the harassing and it’s not likely lower-class blacks will care about the moral protestations of middle-class white feminists.

The only reason I can think of to write this is to encourage white males to forcibly stop black men from harassing them. something which reminds me of the days when looking wrongly at a white woman was a lynching offence. It seems to me that Amanda Hess and Slate just inadvertently argued for society to resume lynching uppity blacks, or at least segregation to keep them off the streets white women might use. I think everybody involved needs to check their privilege.

Anyway, if you wish to donate to a campaign to stop uppity blacks from talking to white women, you can donate to Hollaback here.

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It looks like between writing this and posting it, the implications of this video have become clear and Slate is doing damage control.

Disconnection

I read my Tweets. It seems the Oscars are tonight. Who knew? Thanks Anti-Dem blog, I guess. A lesbian who had a sitcom a couple decades ago took a picture; 2 million RTs. A lot of people it seems. Society is dying.

I read a newspaper article a friend sent me. It’s from the CBC.  It seems tribalism is evil; ethnic nationalism moreso. I almost forgot. Thankfully, this one was at least written by an adult with a functioning brain and a basic grasp on reality. I read another article, this one was not. The mind revolts; I remember why I don’t read newspapers anymore.

I’m visiting family. The TV is on while we talk. Commercials come on. I haven’t seen one in months; it feels like a mental assault. The stupidity almost hurts. Do I really feel the brain cells dying or is that psychosomatic? Has anyone, ever, been even half that excited over an egg sandwich before in their life? Even more, I am insulted someone, someone with a degree and a six-figure job, thought I would actually believe somebody could get that excited. The actor’s every expression screams backpfeifengesicht, yet I would be the one to go to jail. There is no justice. Wait, if they’re making this commercial somebody must actually be convinced to buy an egg sandwich because of it; the mind reels away from the horror. Finally the pause in conversation ends; I can ignore the terror.

I am riding the bus. An ad displays an idiot who is amazed, mouth agape, the government will subsidize his renovations. Does a thousand dollar subsidy from a nameless bureaucrat really elicit such an emotional outpouring? I wouldn’t even be that amazed if my office pool won the lottery. His face looks retarded. The urge to punch something, anything, stirs, so I look elsewhere.

Another ad. It’s a mentally handicapped man, looking slightly less retarded than the renovations guy. “I’m an athlete.” Despite being better at his sport than 90% of people will ever be at anything, “I’m an athlete.” is how you advertise him? I’m an emotionally-detached asshole, yet I’ve never been that condescending to anybody in my life. Why do the Special Olympics hate disabled people?

Another ad, but of a soldier advertising the military, something noble, something worthy. Looking past the uniforms, its a woman; still sacrifice is sacrifice. ‘I love that I’m a role model.’ Shudder. I look to the quote under the other women soldier beside her, ‘People take me seriously.’ Defeat overwhelms me. Where are the calls to flag, country, patriotism, duty, honour, sacrifice, freedom, hell, even democracy, something, anything, transcendent? The army is purposefully recruiting narcissists. My biggest regret for almost over a half decade was not joining the army after high school; that regret is almost gone. Why can’t I fall asleep?

I am at work. I overhear my coworkers discussing a show I’ve never seen. I stay in my cubicle. They move to discussing football; I don’t recognize the names. I stay seated.

I scan Slate semi-regularly just to keep some connection to the mainstream news and opinions. I rage at the stupidity and asininity, but at least it’s not Salon or the NYT or HuffPo.

The headlines are increasingly infected with the Gawker voice. You know the voice; the one that sounds like Cracked headlines had a retarded step-child.

“I opted my kids out of standardized tests. I thought it was no big deal. Boy, Was I Wrong.” Here’s how someone who hadn’t drank paint as a child would write this: “Opting my kids out of standardized tests was a greater hassle than I thought.” See: 14 words in 1 flowing sentence as compared to 19 in 3 choppy sentences; much more readable and it sounds like something not written by a child who skipped his standardized tests. But I guess you must appeal to the other paint-drinkers. Can people no longer read ‘complex’ thoughts?

Also, up yours Slate. I don’t need your permission to lick a cookie-dough spoon. What kind of pathetic incompetent does? Come to think of it, what kind of worthless person even thinks about this more than, “Hey, my cookies are baking, let’s eat the leftover batter”?

Fictional TV character doesn’t understand economics! This from the same site that publishes Matthew Yglesias. The irony almost burns. Speaking of, does Matt ever write something not retarded?

Seems Pharrell’s, who sounds vaguely familiar, Happy, which does not, is the new Hey Ya, whatever that means. No one ever writes on heavy metal; c’mon Iced Earth’s new CD just dropped.

I read something in XX. It’s dripping with venom; hate seethes from every word. I check the byline, but I already guess the author. Is there any person in the world more hateful than Amanda Marcotte?

Get to Dear Prudence. Ahhh… Normal human pettiness is an amusing relief. Hmmm… It seems teaching children anal sex against the parents’ wishes is only ok if the public school does it. Good to know.

I write for my blog. Trying to find article on Gawker voice I vaguely remember reading a long time ago. Find this instead. There is actually someone who believes Gawker writes good headlines. America deserves destruction. Reason #5: “They’re written like real people talk.” Really? Reading a Gawker headline makes my bloodlust rise. If the people I spent my time with talked like that I’d be in prison. Remind me to never talk to anyone either named or friends with Andrew Hanelly; 20-to-life does not interest me.

Finish Mass Effect 3. It and the first two have been my major interactions with popular culture over the last three months. 40 hours a game, a game a month, an average of an hour a day (but more realistically one or two evenings a week). I also watched LilyHammer and House of Cards.

The more time passes the more disconnected I feel from society and culture. My knowledge of societal and cultural events around me all comes from a small internet subculture. No radio, no TV but Netflix, no newspapers, no sports but the occasional party for the ‘big game’ or ticket to the ‘local team’.

What little of culture seeps through my filters repulses me.

I’m not sure how healthy this is.  I’m not sure if the alternative is any healthier.

Am I insane? Or is everything else?