Yeah, those damn Kenyans, what are they doing here!
“Dear Hastur: I know I haven’t been a very good cultist…”
I don’t see how you did anything terribly wrong in that regard. Banquet Bear came in with a link to the wiki on black twitter. Per that link, it is chiefly a US phenomenon. You made reference to a well known figure in the US mentioning another twitter phenomenon and rather than a simple search being done or asking, the dialogue escalated.
Sexual assault has meanings in criminal and civil language, which vary from state to state. It also has a lay definition. The plain meaning is just ‘unwanted sexual contact.’ So from the pov of the lady in question, it definitely was. For Ansari, it was not. The question is whether he knew or had reason to know the conduct was unwanted.
Now, we are not asking this in a legal context since there’s not a legal complaint. Or even a complaint at a university. But if you are a female pundit of whatever stripe and you choose to identify with the pov of the accuser for purposes of characterizing the event (likely because of your own similar experiences), I am not seeing it as any great sin. Bear in mind, I don’t give Ansari a complete pass on whether he should have known, and understand why female pundits would not- I’ve presided over much more egregious cases and the accused didn’t think they had done anything wrong. Hell, Brock Turner didn’t (and famously, his dad) didn’t think the boy had done anything wrong raping a passed out woman behind a dumpster.
I do take some offense at your ‘what ifs’ as you have not shown that there’s any real harm being done to men, and the historical and present harm to women has been demonstrated repeatedly and exhaustively. Your justifications amount to, "I’m sympathetic, but I really have no interest in changing my worldview because that’s kind of inconvenient and might at one point result in me being called out for my behavior.’
Bear in mind, I have 3 sons, and have no issues with them facing both the social or legal impact of their actions if they decide to be ‘rapey.’ It’s not that hard.
Stonebow, the “you might be called out for your behavior” bit was uncalled for. I specifically noted that a lot of what we are talking about is stuff I have never done, never would do, and consider scurrilous behavior. But as I keep saying, people have the right to act shitty in a lot of ways without being accused of committing a crime. This principle is no different from the fact that I applaud the ACLU’s sticking up for right of Nazis to march. That doesn’t in any way imply that I embrace a Nazi ideology. We’re talking about civil liberties here, and civil liberties have to be for everyone, even scumbags.
It’s pretty depressing, actually, to find that when I say that even scumbags get to have civil liberties, I’m met with “oh, you must just be saying that because you’re a scumbag too.”
Thanks!
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This is a good moment for some quotes from John Stuart Mill’s seminal work On Liberty:
“Every man who says frankly and fully what he thinks is so far doing a public service. We should be grateful to him for attacking most unsparingly our most cherished opinions.”
“No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead.”
“Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself.”
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…what a load of horseshit. I’ve been a member of this board since two-thousand-and-fucking-two. I’ve been here longer than Slacker. Yet he calls me a “visitor.” That’s elitist bullshit that he pulled out of his arse because I made him look like a fool.
Black twitter is a well documented cultural phenomenon which is pretty notable worldwide. “Gay twitter” and “feminist twitter” are not. Neither is the Knight Foundation or NPR culture critic Glen Weldon, even if he does “have a special interest in comics.” To make the leap that just because I’ve heard of “black twitter” I must be American, and if I’m American then I must have heard of the Knight Foundation, I must be aware of its 2.4 billion dollar endowment, and I must know NPR culture critic Glen Weldon (who by the way, has a special interest in comics) is just fucking stupid.
You made me look like a fool by aggressively asserting your own ignorance? BAHAHAHAH! That’s entertainment, folks. You just can’t get a laugh like that from passive entertainment like sitcoms. Priceless. 
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…you are fucking delusional.
I suppose that must be it, since droves of people are chiming in to support your assertion that Black Twitter is a thing, but Feminist Twitter is not. Oh wait: seems more like they are just quietly facepalming. Sorry.
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…how many people have been chiming in to support *anything *you’ve asserted in this thread? From sexual assault to comic books, you’ve been shown to be laughingly wrong about practically everything. You fail to understand exactly what black twitter is, and how it differs to other communities on twitter. You’ve failed at pretty much everything you’ve attempted to do in this thread. So don’t lecture me on “support”.
People aren’t just quietly facepalming over everything you’ve said, they are “facepalming” loudly and clearly to you here in this thread.
Way to spectacularly miss the point, B-Bear. Yes, it is abundantly clear that my opinions are opposed by the vast majority in this thread. (Which is why I posted the quotations from John Stewart Mill.)
But it is precisely that fact that should make you wonder why there are crickets now. None of those people are going to jump to my defense, but like the Sherlock Holmes dog that didn’t bark in the nighttime, it is conspicuous that they are holding their fire on this question. I don’t even know why you would make such a silly assertion to begin with, but it has been mildly diverting to toy with you as you sputter and dig in your heels in a vain attempt to support this loser of a position.
My friendly advice is that you learn from the best (that’s me) and when your position is untenable, just concede the point—but then quickly and smoothly pivot and tack to an argument where you are in a stronger position, or at least not so desperately behind the eight ball. I mean, it’s amusing to make fun of you for a little while, but then that gets tiresome and I crave more of a challenge.
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That’s some ridiculous egomania, I’ll give you that, but you’re gonna have to raise your egomaniacal nonsense game if you want to match Shagnasty.
Cite?
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…what the fuck are you talking about?
I asserted black twitter is a well documented cultural phenomenon and that “Gay twitter” and “feminist twitter” are not. I backed up that assertion with a cite to a wikipedia page that documents the birth, growth and rise to public awareness of black twitter, its use in activism and its prominence in the black community. There isn’t a wikipedia page for gay twitter or feminist twitter because their cultural impact and their notability simply aren’t the same.
I’ve backed up my case. There is no reason for people to “jump in” because there really isn’t anything else to say on the matter.
My assertion wasn’t silly. My assertion is backed up by my cite.
ROFL! What position do I hold that is “untenable?” I’ve often conceded on these boards when I’ve gotten things wrong, but I haven’t gotten anything wrong here. “Quickly and smoothly pivot and tacking to a different argument” is the action of a weasel and is stupid advice.
Believe me, that’s not why I think you’re a scumbag.
You are prepared to ignore the suffering of real people in favor of your bizarre hypotheticals. If you can identify the larger principle that you feel is at risk, do let me know. But society does have the ability to move on, and if you feel left behind, consider it is you that’s the issue. Some things that were illegal, are now legal. Some things that were legal are now illegal. Aside from a couple of shitty anecdotes, you don’t much to offer other than this change disadvantages ‘friends and acquaintances’ of yours, and do nothing to recognize that there is a net positive to the changes discussed. I can cite a single example of excess and abuse for any given rule of law without invalidating the rule.
Hi! Your friendly, neighborhood twitter “expert” chiming in. Black twitter is absolutely a thing and glorious to behold in its ability to meme and be aware of every cultural touchstone. It also organizes for change and introduces cutting edge news.
Feminist and gay twitter are not things. Yes, these issues and groups get roundly discussed, but they are not the force of black twitter.
Sincerely,
Someone with way too many twitter accounts and followers
…cheers 
I’ve been following this topic with growing horror for days. He is wrong about so very many things, but this was one too many! Laughs and slinks back into obscurity to post links to Bossip and The Root.
Why would they have to be “the force of black twitter” to be “things”? There are a lot of feminists and gay people you are dismissing here. How is it that the Knight Foundation (which hopefully you’re less ignorant about) has a report on Feminist Twitter, with fancy graphics and scholarly reports, if it is “not a thing”? Jesus. Just because you are familiar with Black Twitter and apparently not familiar with the others, does not give you the right to dismiss them as not existing. FFS
Stonebow, there is certainly a real principle here, and not one that is conveniently formulated to get me or my friends off the hook, despite your unwarranted insinuations. Nor is the principle involved novel or “bizarre”. It is certainly your prerogative to disagree with it—and that might be an interesting debate. But you first need to acknowledge that it is a principle in Western thought of very long standing (and if you don’t know that, more’s the pity).
Nearly a thousand years ago, Maimomides put the principle this way: “It is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent one to death.”
Benjamin Franklin reduced the ratio but went beyond limiting it to capital punishment cases: “It is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer.”
Do you disagree with this principle? If so, you would be in, ah, interesting company. Per Wikipedia:
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:rolleyes: AFAICT, nobody is advocating any changes to the legal principle of innocent-until-proven-guilty. But that doesn’t mean that social mechanisms for dealing with certain types of shitty behavior can’t change.
In particular, you are flat-out wrong when you assert:
No, they don’t. They have the right to act shitty without being unjustly convicted of having committed a crime that they didn’t in fact commit. And if they do in fact get hit with legal penalties for a crime they didn’t in fact commit, then their rights are being violated.
But there doesn’t exist any legal right not to be suspected or accused by people around you of having committed a crime if your shitty behavior comes across as potentially or probably criminal.
If such accusations rise to the level of slander or libel, you can sue your accusers. But you don’t have any right to be guaranteed protection from suspicion or accusation just because you happen to be innocent of actually violating the law.
What’s happening now is that certain types of behavior that were formerly normalized as essentially just bad manners or social faux pas are now being condemned as outright intolerable. And the fact that the normalization of such behavior was often used in the past as a screen for actual crime means that a lot of intolerable behavior is now going to be suspected of being actually criminal.
As a longtime ACLU member, I completely agree that none of this should alter anybody’s actual constitutional rights. But there is no constitutional right to not have people suspect you of being a rapist, even if you don’t in fact happen to be a rapist.