So appeal to authority when authority agrees and dismiss authority when it doesn’t. I’m not seeing the consistency.
Moreover, a lot of conservative complainers about “cancel culture” can’t seem to make up their minds what choices companies and consumers are allowed to make about their own market transactions, and what choices must be denounced as evil “cancel culture”.
That only shows that indeed, as a mollusk you do lack some reasoning capabilities 
, if you are insisting that people that do check evidence are corrupt, you are ignoring that the results are the things that one should look at, and realize too that then one can check if the reasoning of the courts were correct or not.
You are not doing that simple next step. You are only avoiding seeing why is that you are wrong in the first place.
By their fruits you should know them, the result of Citizens United has been to give the powerful a way to fund politicians and movements that do not represent most Americans. The justices who voted with the majority (it was a 5-4 decision) assumed that independent spending cannot be corrupt and that the spending would be transparent, but both assumptions have proven to be incorrect. So there is a lot to correct there. While in the case of the colleges the evidence is that no, racism is not the reason for their holistic ways to help some minorities when they are not being represented. So far the results have been that there is more diversity in their campuses. Something that even other Asians students and academics do agree with.
Well, yes. Just because they’re not scared of being cancelled right now doesn’t mean they’re not scared of it down the line. They’re all people who have said and done some pretty horrible things, and their jobs all depend on people supporting them. They are in a position where, if cancel culture is accepted by everyone, they would be prime targets.
I can get into specifics with at least a couple. Greene was actually cancelled to some degree–she lost her committee assignments. And while Carlson may have survived the attempt to cancel him, it still happened. And he didn’t come out unscathed. He has very few advertisers willing to air for his show. And he’s seen his colleagues like Bill O’Reilly or Lou Dobbs wind up “cancelled.” All it would take is one scandal to be too much, and he’d be gone.
Like I’ve said before, the attack on so-called “cancel culture” is actually a part of the culture wars. The term became popular in 2017, in the #MeToo era. And which side was it applied to? Was it to the people who had blacklisted actresses and otherwise punished people for not accepting their sexual advances? No, it was the people they were accusing who were supposedly being “cancelled” by the mobs. And it has primarily remained that way—it’s never the people who were victimized by the people in power who are considered to have been “cancelled.”
The concept has never been neutral. It’s never been about anyone who gets fired for things they say or do. It’s never been about anyone who gets public backlash for things they say or do. It’s specifically about those who receive backlash for bigotry, rape, pedophilia, or similar—things that are objectively horrible. It’s a defense of “yeah it’s horrible, but it’s wrong to do anything to me!”
Here’s one aspect that often gets ignored: people don’t tend to wind up “cancelled” if they make apologies and try to make amends. And I mean real apologies, not something that comes off like trying to cover their ass.
Lets consdiered your example: did the restaurant in question try to understand why what they were doing might be interpreted as cultural appropriation? Did they reach out to Thai people to try and understand how to handle things? Or were they like most targets, and stood firm treating anyone who might be offended as the obvious bad guys, out to harm them?
That latter is what I see in those who actually wind up cancelled. So, even if it were accidental at first, it clearly didn’t stay that way. And there were enough people who agreed it was not acceptable that they wind up cancelled. Or the people in power thought the people decrying them has a point, and fired them.
It’s not making a mistake and not understanding the changing culture that tends to result in cancellation. It’s almost always the doubling down.
I cannot agree with you that it’s mostly clueless people with no power who get cancelled. Sure, if you read those right wing anger-bait articles that constantly try to find examples and cherry pick what they tell you about them, you may think that it’s this happens a lot. But, as I’ve said before, every “SJW or PC run amok” story I’ve encountered always has more to it that makes it not nearly as outrageous as the claims.
That’s not to say there aren’t example of cyberbullying, harassment, and even death threats. But those are terms that are not used only in one direction. And the left was against them before the right started complaining about “cancel culture.”
I am against those things. But people being offended, pointing out why what you said is offended? People saying that people deserve to be fired? People saying they won’t buy your product or patronize your store if you don’t take it back? People saying you violated the rules and should be kicked off a platform? People putting their money where their mouth is?
That’s cancel culture, without the one-sided aspect, and it’s really hard for me to have too much of a problem with it. It’s been going on forever, and is kinda how our capitalist, free speech system works.
With regard to the bone broth incident, this could be a whole other thread but I think in 99% of cases, including this one, “cultural appropriation” is bullshit. As long as you’re not actually claiming to be a member of some group that you’re not, you should be able to cook whatever food and play whatever music you want to.
Would ANYONE have complained if a Vietnamese person had opened up a burger joint or pizzeria? If so, they would have been racist idiots. I’m not seeing why it’s different the other way around.
In most cases of alleged “racism against whites”, I can see how what is being objected to is actually some effort to address issues of structural racism. But I’m not seeing how putting this woman’s broth stand out of business contributes to that (not that I personally would ever set foot in such a place). I’m also not seeing how being served inauthentic versions of food from another culture is contributing to any negative stereotypes about people from that culture.
And this particular case seems just completely fucking bonkers. This woman is claiming that “bone broth” is a uniquely Asian thing. Like it never occurred to anyone on any other continent to boil some bones and see what happened.
I thought “bone broth” must be the name of some specifically Asian soup, but if so, Wikipedia is unaware of it; a search for the term just redirects to “Stock” (Food). The article mentions “bone broth” in the first sentence as a synonym for “stock”, and doesn’t mention the term specifically again until the last paragraph, which discusses the “bone broth” health food fad and the various unsupported health claims made for it. Likewise, all of the first page of Google results for “bone broth” are either wellness faddist sites or non-Asian cooking sites. So clearly the term is much more unique to the woo-woo superfoods white lady’s culture than to “Asian culture”.
Which is probably too much effort to put into a hijack of an already completely derailed 14 page Pit thread, but there it is.
WalterBishop has clarified that description in accordance with this link that he provided in post #689:
The “Ripe Nutrition” pop-up was selling bottles of sauce with labels saying “JERK ME” and “HOT PHO U”, and advertising its “superfood organic dumplings” etc. in what looks like a typical trendy “New-Age white women food” marketing pitch from what looks like an ur-trendy “New-Age white women food” company.
I don’t think that this company’s mini-Goop-style “holistic” New-Age-white-women-food blabber is all that big a deal. But I also don’t think that a few tweets from the Twitter account of someone from an actual Asian culture, mildly grumbling about their blabber, is all that big a deal either.
So I think WalterBishop was pretty far off base when he described this situation in post #676 as
Walter did subsequently in post #692 point out that he’d misremembered this pop-up in an athletic apparel store as a “family owned restaurant”. But I think he seems also quite far out of line in describing this Twitter grumbling as a “campaign” by Evy Kwong, and in claiming that she “really tried her level best to run them out on a rail”.
I’m not seeing anything here beyond an individual finding it kind of tasteless that this “New-Age white women food company” was “Goopifying” traditional items from Asian and other cuisines as “superfood organic” whatnot, mildly griping about it on social media, and suggesting “Hey folks, how about supporting your local Asian-run traditional Asian food places instead?”.
And geez folks, if that’s “cancel culture” then every pissed-off Yelp reviewer complaining that some pizza or barbecue place isn’t properly “authentic”, or is unfairly stealing market share from its traditional mom-and-pop competitor establishments, is an instrument of cancel culture too.
I think you’re misattributing to Evy Kwong, the Tweeter critiquing the “Ripe Nutrition” pop-up, a statement to that effect in the linked newspaper article. No, AFAICT Kwong never made any claim that “bone broth is a uniquely Asian thing”.
You are correct. The statement " Bone broth is a simple broth made from animal bones, that originated in ancient Chinese medicine as is now a staple of traditional Asian meals" (sic) was by the author of the article, not Ms. Kwong.
On the one hand, it seems clear that this person’s business was harmed by these tweets; the clothing store which had hosted their pop-up restaurant threw them out. On the other, it was only a pop-up, so it’s not like it was a crippling financial blow to her. Happily, in the end, it seems like it worked out well for everyone.
So it wasn’t really comparable to a family owned restaurant losing their lease; I would be much more alarmed if I heard a commercial landlord had reacted like that to a series of tweets. But it certainly wasn’t nothing.
And it should be noted that Ms. Kwong is not some random person with a Twitter account, but the editor of the “Toronto Star”. I have no idea what that is, but it might be intimidating.
Anyway, Walter, let me say again:
Your concerns about cyberbullying and online lynch mobs are legitimate. Imagine if everyone knew the worst thing you’d ever done or said; now, that can happen to some unfortunate people.
But you need to stop using the term “cancel culture”, because it has been completely co-opted for partisan purposes. Using that phrase is like walking around wearing a MAGA hat; most people will immediately write you off as an idiot.
Oh, golly. She’s not “the” editor of the Toronto Star newspaper, she’s one of several “team editors” who carry out writing, editing and production duties in their newsroom. Kwong’s particular journalistic beat includes Social Media, Social Media Trends, Breaking News, and Crime.
I don’t see any indication that Kwong used her editorial position to propagandize against the “Ripe Nutrition” pop-up or mount any kind of “campaign” against them. She criticized their business in a few tweets on her personal Twitter account, and I really don’t see what’s not okay about that.
I don’t believe that negative cultural appropriation is bullshit, but I believe that trying to punish people for negative cultural appropriation is bullshit. Really I just think it’s something worth discussing like civilized adults.
What constitutes punishment is pretty subjective though. Should an Asian person not bitch about it on her Twitter feed just in case the mob goes crazy? Should she not express her valid feelings about the apparent exploitation of her culture when she herself was shamed for the thing white people are profiting from? Where does self - expression end and the mob begin?
I’m thinking specifically of YA Twitter here, and if you aren’t familiar with YA Twitter just think of the hottest bullshit imaginable and you couldn’t pay me to write YA these days.
I just read the linked article, which named her as such, but thanks for digging deeper.
Also, I note that Ms. Kwong did complain that “a white owned trendy spot…is selling bone broth across from Golden Turtle Pho”. So I think she’s clearly implying that it’s inappropriate for white people to dabble in the mysteries of bone broth.
Those are extremely valid points. It’s unclear from this poorly written clickbait article about how it got from “someone tweeting” to “business being shut down”. But certainly it’s not clear that Ms. Kwong wanted or actively pushed for that outcome. And assuming she didn’t, it’s unreasonable to expect her not to express her opinions.
Yeah. I can also see how an Asian person would be worried about local Asian food businesses suffering from some anti-Asian discrimination in the trauma of the so-called “China Virus” pandemic.
And how such a person might find it especially aggravating that these traditional cuisine items are considered more “acceptable” in a spiffed-up higher-priced “woo-woo superfoods white-lady culture” version (a much better label than my outdated “New Age” reference, btw) sold in an “athleisure” outfitters store.
I mean, could you possibly get more hashtag-#spiritual-#cleanliving-#mindfulness faddy than that? Maybe by adding in a detoxifying Greek yogurt flaxseed smoothie, I suppose.
A very reasonable question, and about the only one that I think has significant merit in this whole foofaraw about so-called “cancel culture”.
Looking back over this thread, I think maybe we need an index so we can label the subject(s) we’re referring to:
A: Amazon, Asian Culture
B: Banning Books, Big Tech Monopolies
C: Cancel Culture/Censorship, Christian Bookstores, College Admissions, Conservatives, Cultural Appropriation
D: Dr. Seuss
F: Free Speech
L: Liberals
M: Media
P: Political Correctness, Potato Head
R: Racism
S: Semantics, Sexism, Social Media, Socialism
T: Transgender, Transphobia
W: WAP, Woke
This list is not complete.
O: octopus
(That’s a huge chunk of the thread, predictably.)
That’s bs. People get canceled over harmless tweets. You just like mob rule. Funny thing about mob rule is that the mob can’t be controlled and when mob rule is justified by your side what defense will you have when you are judged as impure?
And about so-called cultural appropriation? You do not need anyone’s permission to make a burrito or write a limerick.
Come on 8-legged one, surely you don’t doubt the ability of women to be equally as reprehensible scum as men, like Lynndie England for example? Biology means fuck-all in this case.