Sorry, I didn’t mean to give the impression that I had formed an opinion on the yearbook distribution/non-distribution issue. I don’t even know yet if the people who paid in advance for their yearbooks are getting refunds.
I’ll confess that I didn’t make room for them, and that I don’t really think of their preference as being a thing that is achievable.
See? I’m not against the IDEA of things being unworthy of consideration, and therefore dismissable. :D:p
Anyway, wouldn’t they be more “white isolatonists?”
The idea of “SJW” as a pejorative is to make it such that framing things as issues of “social justice” becomes associated with that pejorative, to make fighting for social justice something mockable and a joke.
By responding to “SJW” as an insult you assist that effort. It is as unto responding to “gay” as if it was an insult. Just because they mean it as one does not mean I need to accept it, or more importantly, validate it as one.
To me the only answer to a charge of being a “Social Justice Warrior” is “well I would hope so, but I may not actually measure up … you fight for social injustice?”
Rolling over on the use of words and symbols, allowing those I think of as “the bad guys” to redefine my words and symbols, is how “liberal” became a negative for so long. I track it at least back to Dukakis accepting “card carrying member of the ACLU” as an insult when the right and best answer was “Damn straight, there is nothing more important to our values as Americans than defending free speech, and that means more than the right for me to say what I want to say, and to hear what I want to hear, it means the right of others to say what I do not want to hear as well, or it don’t mean squat.”
As a migrant, in Aus, I’m saddened to see you using a gesture made by a foreigner, in a foreign country, as a criteria for behavior in the USA. I know, social media, the internet, Marshall McLuhan, etc. And the Hawaii Hello is a gang symbol in NZ, so Hawaii should just say goodby to that gesture also. But as a migrant, I got pretty sad about being told that my culture was inferior, and as a corollary, I’ve never felt happy with the idea that my culture (or any ‘foreign’ culture) was superior or definitive.
Different gestures have always been rude or meaningless in different cultures. I want to just accept that, and let it go.
It’s being used in the US, too. I just used the examples already in this thread.
Do I know that the fan was a white supremacist or just a trolling fucking asshole? Well, I’m not a mind reader. I’ll go with both until I learn otherwise. It’s pretty nasty putting that sign behind a black announcer.
Here are some members of the Alabama police force doing it:
Probably just 4chan guys.
BTW, the 4chan post that claimed that the whole thing is a hoax to troll “SJWs” came out after the alt-right started using that symbol. I assume the people here saying it’s a 4chan hoax will be by shortly to apologize. Cite:
…as tangata whenua, I’m not saddened to say that with all due respect I don’t know what on earth you are talking about. White supremacy knows no borders. This isn’t about “criteria for behaviour.” The Christchurch shooter didn’t use that symbol by accident. He didn’t do it for an exclusively New Zealand audience. He knew exactly what he was doing.
I’ve reviewed what I wrote, and it seems to be fairly clear. I’m taking it that your inability to understand comes only from an unwillingness to engage with the ideas.
Clearly, if someone stands up and throws a roman salute in, say, Australia, that can’t mean anything. After all, that could mean something totally different there!
Oh wait, except in this case, we know the person who did so we a big fan of hitler, and definitely knew exactly what it meant, and wrote a whole screed about how great hitler was.
Nah, still could be an innocent cultural misunderstanding, right?
:rolleyes:
We have more than just wild guesses to go on here. This guy was not appealing to “NZ culture” or any shit like that. He was using a symbol common within internet white supremacist circles, and doing so intentionally. To claim otherwise, simply because of “cultural distance”, is nuts.
…I’ve reviewed what you wrote, and I passed it around the official SJW committee and they reviewed what you wrote, and they all agree with me that what I said was absolutely correct.
I am absolutely fucking willing to engage with ideas. I actually engaged with your ideas, I argued why I thought your ideas were wrong. That’s how engagement works. We know exactly what the Christchurch shooter was doing. And I know better than most. I’ve actually engaged with people from the alt-right. I’m tangata whenua. Unlike you I live here. Maori have been actively targeted by white supremacists. We know what is going on.
Your decision to snip what I wrote, to focus on a cherry picked snipped sentence demonstrates one things: an unwillingness to engage with ideas. You want to have a discussion? I’m right here. Have at it.
Point of reference: I just went through my high school yearbook (early 90s) and I didn’t see a single OK sign in any picture. It’s not a common thing to do when posing for a picture. If there are multiple instances of kids flashing OK, then I’d say there’s something going on…
(Of course the freedom to express any specific belief, or to use any specific gesture, in a student yearbook is not a protected right, whether the gesture is a political statement I agree with, find obscenely offensive, or completely benign but potentially misunderstood. And the right to express also includes the right to express condemnation of what is expressed.)
Monocracy - One, these are believed to have been candids of kids, not posing. Two, amazingly what kids do when goofing around candidly and what games they play with each may change over a decade plus.
I was photographer for my hs yearbook in 1976. A friend, Jeff B., flashed a middle finger in a large group shot. He told me he did it. I saw it right away, but it slipped by the editors and proofreaders.
…I’m a photographer: and yeah, I’ve had this happen to me more often than I’ve ever had someone flash an OK hand-signal. (Which is only once in 8 years of full time photography: I caught it and deleted it and used an alternate take)
Email update today. Plan is still to figure out some solution that allows for yearbooks to be distributed at some later date and meanwhile blank books will distributed for signatures. Meeting by the board with public invited tonight but on such short notice I don’t think I can make it.