kfwyre's recent activity
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Comment on Weekly coronavirus-related chat, questions, and minor updates - week of October 18 in ~health.coronavirus
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
kfwyre LinkThe Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee This is genuinely one of the best books I've read on racism in the US. I'd put it up there with The New...The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together
by Heather McGheeThis is genuinely one of the best books I've read on racism in the US. I'd put it up there with The New Jim Crow.
The focus of the book is that racist policies and mindsets that disproportionately target people of color also harm white people, often by denying them things they might otherwise have and getting them to believe in a zero-sum idea of advancement. The central metaphor the book comes back time and again is that of a swimming pool. McGhee highlights how, after pools were integrated in the US, many towns and cities chose to drain or pave over their community swimming pools. The racist intention behind this denied all residents -- not just black residents -- of a communal good.
McGhee traces this conceit through modern American issues and mindsets, and it's genuinely eye-opening and frustrating. The book is not a polemic, and she writes with an even temperament and a penchant for data analysis that will speak to the more rational and scientifically-minded out there. That said, the book doesn't shy away from highlighting the personal toll inflicted by these policies either. I feel like McGhee threads a very fine line through very difficult topics, and she does so in a thoughtful, considered manner — with expert finesse.
I highly recommend it to anyone interested in racism in America. I read it once, and it's already back on my to-read list, because I want to revisit it again in more detail.
What the Eyes Don't See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City
by Mona Hanna-AttishaThis is the story of the Flint, Michigan water crisis, told by the doctor who uncovered the cover-up. It reads like a cross of a memoir and a thriller, with Hanna-Attisha combining stories from the lives of her family and her investigation into the lead levels in Flint's water.
I knew little about the crisis going in. It was one of those news items I recognized but couldn’t really give you any details on if pressed for them. I now have a much clearer picture and understand why it was such a significant outrage and a flashpoint for racial justice in America. I recommend the book to anyone interested in the (mostly) full story (the book was published in 2018, when the crisis was still not fully resolved — despite starting in 2014 and being publicly identified by Hanna-Attisha in 2015).
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Comment on NETTA - Nana Banana (2019) in ~music
kfwyre Link ParentNo mixed feelings here! This song is a total bop.No mixed feelings here! This song is a total bop.
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Comment on I want to give psilocybin a try in ~health
kfwyre Link ParentYikes! That does sound like quite a story. In the interest of balance and TMI, I should also add that I've had about the world's worst anaesthetic experiences too. I'm resistant to certain local...Yikes! That does sound like quite a story.
In the interest of balance and TMI, I should also add that I've had about the world's worst anaesthetic experiences too.
I'm resistant to certain local anaesthetics, and when I was a kid, none of the doctors/dentists believed me when I said I could still feel what they were doing. I've had teeth drilled and my feet operated on with dulled but definitely present pain. It kinda fucked me up for a bit. I avoided going to the dentist for ~15 years, and did some major damage to my teeth in that time via neglect.
I also had a surgery as a child where I went all the way under, and after I woke up I experienced what's called "post operative nausea and vomiting" (PONV) where I threw up uncontrollably until there was nothing left and then proceeded to dry heave for hours. It was misery.
So, in some ways, getting the good stuff is a kind of karmic balance for what I've had to go through in other procedures.
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Comment on I want to give psilocybin a try in ~health
kfwyre Link ParentI love this post and your perspective (as usual)! The dissonance is bothersome partly for what you identified (me not wanting to accept two separate explanations at once) but also because it makes...I love this post and your perspective (as usual)!
The dissonance is bothersome partly for what you identified (me not wanting to accept two separate explanations at once) but also because it makes me question how to adequately "calibrate" my emotional self. Do I include in my feelings data set despite it being such an outlier? Or do I discard it, aware of the idea that I'm throwing a perfectly valid data point away? Neither feels right, and choosing either one over the other has follow-up implications that I don't like either.
I'll also add that I'm definitely overthinking this and that, in the grand scheme of things, it's not a huge deal. It was mostly just a really nice nap. :)
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Comment on I want to give psilocybin a try in ~health
kfwyre LinkYour anaesthesia experience was similar to mine, though mine progressed much more quickly. I had to go fully under for a procedure recently, and as they started me on whatever it was that was...Your anaesthesia experience was similar to mine, though mine progressed much more quickly. I had to go fully under for a procedure recently, and as they started me on whatever it was that was going to put me out, I experienced this warm, resonant, powerful sense of peace and comfort — like my soul was being hugged as I drifted off into the best and most relaxing nap anyone, anywhere had ever taken. There was a moment of concern — more mild than it should have been — where my brain thought about the prospect of not waking back up, but it was fleeting and was gone before it ever even really registered. Instead, my brain took stock of the room — the equipment, the monitors, the people — and I remember thinking “all of them are here to make sure I’ll be okay” and it just felt so unbelievably kind and so powerfully reassuring in that moment. I wasn’t worried at all. I was in fact delighted to fall asleep — more delighted than I can remember being about, well, anything.
When I woke up, a nurse asked me if I’d like anything to drink. I asked for water, and she brought me not just water, but crackers! I was still riding the euphoric, appreciative high, so this felt like the greatest gift ever given by the most caring human being in the world. I was touched that she brought me my own cup of water, much less the crackers, which I didn’t even ask for! What a treat! I think I actually started crying. Her support was so meaningful and profound to me.
I later talked with a co-worker who had the same procedure done, and she asked me “did they give you the good stuff?” She, it turns out, had almost the exact same experience as me, and we swapped stories, laughing together about how impactful those moments were even though, absent the mind-altering drugs we were on, we could see them for what they were. From an outside perspective it was absurd: I was approaching emotional transcendence because of… saltines? But from a lived perspective it felt so very real.
Even now, in talking down about it, it feels like I’m desecrating something sacred — that I’m not honoring something that deserves reverence — but admitting that also feels maudlin and overblown. I don’t know how to feel about it, because there are two extremes and neither of them feel like the correct way to process that experience.
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Comment on Weekly coronavirus-related chat, questions, and minor updates - week of October 18 in ~health.coronavirus
kfwyre LinkJust got news that an extended family member passed away from COVID after 3 weeks in the ICU. She was unvaccinated. Her daughter was a nurse. She told her daughter she “wasn’t going to let the...Just got news that an extended family member passed away from COVID after 3 weeks in the ICU. She was unvaccinated. Her daughter was a nurse. She told her daughter she “wasn’t going to let the government tell her what to do”.
I’d never met her, so we weren’t close at all. I asked my dad how he was feeling, since he was the one of us with the most connection to her. He just somberly and tersely said “this was preventable”.
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Comment on Weekly coronavirus-related chat, questions, and minor updates - week of October 18 in ~health.coronavirus
kfwyre LinkUnited States' Food and Drug Administration OKs mixing COVID vaccines; backs Moderna, J&J boostersUnited States' Food and Drug Administration OKs mixing COVID vaccines; backs Moderna, J&J boosters
U.S. regulators on Wednesday signed off on extending COVID-19 boosters to Americans who got the Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccine and said anyone eligible for an extra dose can get a brand different from the one they received initially.
The Food and Drug Administration’s decisions mark a big step toward expanding the U.S. booster campaign, which began with extra doses of the Pfizer vaccine last month. But before more people roll up their sleeves, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will consult an expert panel later this week before finalizing official recommendations for who should get boosters and when.
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Comment on Weekly coronavirus-related chat, questions, and minor updates - week of October 11 in ~health.coronavirus
kfwyre LinkFDA panel endorses booster shot for J&J COVID-19 vaccineFDA panel endorses booster shot for J&J COVID-19 vaccine
U.S. health advisers endorsed a booster of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine Friday, citing concern that Americans who got the single-dose shot aren’t as protected as those given two-dose brands.
J&J told the Food and Drug Administration that an extra dose adds important protection as early as two months after initial vaccination — but that it might work better if people wait until six months later. Unable to settle the best timing, the FDA’s advisory panel voted unanimously that the booster should be offered at least two months after people got their earlier shot.
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Comment on Netflix suspends trans employee who tweeted about Dave Chappelle special in ~lgbt
kfwyre (edited )Link ParentMeta note: This is response 2, regarding your question about teaching. If you ever by chance find that article again, please send it my way! It sounds fascinating, and I greatly appreciate the...- Exemplary
Meta note: This is response 2, regarding your question about teaching.
If you ever by chance find that article again, please send it my way! It sounds fascinating, and I greatly appreciate the perspective of people who've been in the field longer than I have -- especially those who taught before the onslaught of standardized testing.
My entire career has taken place under the shadow of NCLB, so I've never known an educational environment as a teacher that wasn't based in standardized testing. That's a much larger conversation, but the succinct version is that I believe that the greatest sin of "accountability culture" in education is a killing of the joy of learning. The best way I've learned to convey this to people outside of education is to talk about ice cream. Most people love eating it, but most people would also stop liking it as much if I started measuring them while they ate it, tracking their time spent on each bowl, limiting the flavors they had access to, and giving constant messaging about how their performance with ice cream compared to their peers and normed standards of eating. Much of my job as a teacher is about trying to find joy within a system that is set up to crush the spirits of students and teachers alike.
On this backdrop, it's easy to paint a lot of troubling trends about kids and their abilities. I don't know that I have the perspective to say anything definitively, but I'll also say that our concerns tend to be less about kids achieving high levels of literary criticism and more about kids even reading the book in the first place. You're probably sick of me quoting myself at this point, but I talked a bit about it here:
A majority of my students do not habitually read. I am not exaggerating for effect--I literally mean more than half. Many of my students are flat out non-readers, meaning that their skills are low enough that they are unable to read what they're supposed to. At this point they are several grade levels behind and will only fall further as they age. As such, most of them hate reading and do not do it even when it is incentivized or mandated, whether through family or school. By middle school, the books they can read are infantilizing, and the ones they want to read are too difficult for them. This gap only grows.
Having the patience and stamina to sit through a long, rich text is a prerequisite to being able to give rich, deep analysis. Many of my students will never arrive at the analysis destination because they are literally unable to board the bus to get there in the first place. It's heartbreaking.
The same goes for critical thinking -- it requires time, consideration, and a willingness to sit in a destination-less space for a while, not sure where you'll end up. I have definitely noticed, over time, a decreased appetite and ability for this. My students want immediate answers. Waiting is torturous.
I see it in myself too. If a website doesn't load immediately, I'm frustrated. If the video isn't engaging in the first seven seconds, I click away like I never even wanted to watch it in the first place. I've been struggling to get myself back into the habit of even finishing fiction books. It'll take me weeks to finish one -- my average reading session time will be just a few minutes. I can recall a time, not that long ago, when I used to devour books, reading them for hours without stopping, finishing several in the span of a single weekend.
I used to put up a "Riddle of the Week" on my board -- something that required clever, critical or lateral thinking. I'd leave it up all week and let students puzzle over it. I'd have students come up to me days later, excited to have finally figured it out. They'd talk about how they'd think about it while at home, discuss it with their parents, etc.
I stopped doing it because there came a point at which more and more students would just search the internet for the riddle in order to get the solution. Also, there came a point where students were eager to share the answer with one another, and I got frustrated that they were so content with this. The fun in the riddles was supposed to be in the thinking required to get the answer, but increasingly it felt like their fun was only in acquiring the answer. I think modern kids are being socialized to prioritize instant, effortless gratification. Reading, deep thinking, sustained analysis -- all of these are antithetical to that. It doesn't mean kids can't do these or even that they don't want to -- it just that they have much more of a hill to climb in order to get there. They have to fight against the impulses that have been so dutifully encouraged by modern tech, from such an early age.
With regards to media criticism, I think we probably share a similar bother. The drumbeat of the past decade has been on "representation", and the media landscape has undergone a truly impressive shift for which I'm incredibly grateful. I do believe that representation matters, and it warms my heart to know that kids of all stripes are growing up with access to media that they can both see themselves in and learn about others' experiences from. The first book I ever read that had a gay character was when I was in my 20s, and they weren't even the focus of the book. I can now walk down to my school library and find 20+ books with gay main characters, easily.
Where I take issue is that some people see representation as the endpoint, rather than a means. For a long time, I watched people praise books not because they were necessarily good books but simply because they had diverse representation in them. I'm certainly not against diverse representation, but I found the laudatory refrains some of them received to be frustrating because I felt like I was being asked to discard the lit-crit part of my brain that wanted to dive into the prose, the themes, the subtexts, etc. Furthermore, it felt patronizing to me to praise a book simply for who it's characters were rather than the entirety of the story itself. Again, I'm delighted that we have so many books with, for example, gay characters, but I still think a book with a gay character can be a bad book or a poorly told story.
I'll also add to this that there was a troubling trend in YA criticism for a while that treated any and all discriminatory content as wrong. I remember reading a book (which I can sadly no longer remember the name of) that had a homophobic secondary character. This was essential to the plot and the conflict and anchored the main character's experience in real-world prejudices. The novel didn't support the character's homophobia in the slightest, but I remember going on Goodreads and being surprised by the number of people who panned the novel simply for including homophobia.
I get where it comes from -- a lot of adults especially want to protect kids from discrimination, and that's something I share with them -- but I also feel that fiction is one of the safest spaces we have for kids to be able to confront and explore difficult topics. If we eliminate any books that even convey problematic content, we're not equipping students to be able to handle those difficult topics. I think we have a tendency to think of kids as fragile, when in reality, they're pretty resilient. I think fiction in particular can be a powerful tool for this, but I don't think it will happen in a walled garden where we police any and all transgressions.
There are, of course, texts that go so far in the opposite direction that I don't think kids should be reading them, but I also think that even the most problematic texts can still be valuable as teaching tools and jumping off points for reflection if considered properly and strategically. I ragged on Chappelle's standup in my other post as being problematic, but I'll admit that untangling why I felt that way about it and figuring out how best to articulate it was a valuable process for me. I want kids to be able to have that same opportunity, and I think we do them a disservice by assuming they can't handle or shouldn't be exposed to difficult things.
The last thing I'll say is that exploring "difficult things" in education is, well, difficult in today's world. Most teachers default to a sort of milquetoast neutrality on almost everything interesting about the world because of the potential for blowback. Parents are not shy about raising issues and blowing things up on social media, and we are long past the point where most parents assume good faith in their children's teachers. We do our jobs with a wall up, knowing we're always one mis-step away from a shitshow. Kids mostly read this as us being guarded, out of touch, or boring. Most kids genuinely want to dive into challenging, juicy, interesting, real-world issues, but attempting to navigate those in a classroom is often not worth the trouble. In thinking about this out loud right now, I'm also wondering if that doesn't play out in some of the criticism you're identifying as well? Perhaps some of the shallowness you're seeing is a result of the fact that we teachers are limiting our own depth out of safety as well.
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Comment on Netflix suspends trans employee who tweeted about Dave Chappelle special in ~lgbt
kfwyre (edited )Link ParentMeta note: I'm splitting my response here into two separate comments. This is the part about Chappelle, and I'll respond to your questions about teaching separately. Thanks for your thoughtful...- Exemplary
Meta note: I'm splitting my response here into two separate comments. This is the part about Chappelle, and I'll respond to your questions about teaching separately. Thanks for your thoughtful responses and question -- you've given me a lot to think about and share!
Most of the criticism I've seen seems to be snapshotting those specific offensive jokes without really highlighting the context they're being made in.
I get what you're saying, and my original post definitely looks like I'm just sniping him via a couple of choice quotes, but I was really just wanting to use those as concrete anchor points of what I saw as recurring issues in the whole set. I, like you, hate the cheap takedowns and shallow analysis that pervade much of modern media criticism, but I also think it's a mistake to assume that everybody is coming from that place, or that those are only happening in opposition to Chappelle instead of in support as well. I promise you that my dislike of his set is coming from a genuine, considered place and not the result of shallow scorekeeping, but I can also promise you there are a lot of people out there who support his set for vapid, score-keepy reasons as well.
The place I'm coming from is that I altogether stopped talking about comedy online after beating my head against a wall of the shittiest takes in support of provocative comedy for years on reddit. Fans of the genre tended to pivot between two stances, choosing whichever one let them deflect earnest discussion or criticism the best. If I were to critique the provocation, I'd get "lol triggered" and a paternalistic response that I didn't understand the deeper, more meaningful commentary behind the bombast. On the other hand, if I were to critique the commentary, I’d get a response that the point is merely the provocation. It was always an unwinnable situation, and the people doing this pivoting would hop back and forth between both stances fluidly, all while seemingly completely unaware that they were doing it. I was simultaneously a rube for failing to understand the deep, meaningful insights that only comedy can achieve and a sucker who fell for trying to find actual meaning in what was obvious trolling.
I don't have a problem with provocative comedy and in fact think it's often an incredibly powerful way to yield insights — something I believe Chapelle himself has done well elsewhere. But, for me, the strength of the comedy lives or dies by the nature of the insight produced and not the existence of the provocation alone. The people I used to argue with didn't ever make space for that in our conversations, however, because they couldn't ever conceive the idea that someone could simultaneously understand the joke and also find it unfunny or bothersome.
And I get it: I'm a humorless killjoy. Nobody likes someone raining on their parade. Of course, the people who so would rail against me for messing with their fun never seemed to care when I brought up that were messing with mine. It was all a one-way street that protected their feelings while disregarding mine. Part of the reason I am so humorless was because it became very clear to me early on that "humor" was the excuse so many people online were using to be shitty to others. Mike Birbiglia covers it well in his "I'm Joking" bit (it's only 45 seconds, and worth a watch for context).
I think the worst aspect of provocative comedy, even the stuff that's done well, is that people tend to see in it a tacit permission to emulate it, and emulate it poorly. You mentioned "context collapse" in another thread here, and I've watched a version of that happen countless times online, where people will take provocation from a comedy bit and apply it elsewhere as if it's both a universal truth and fundamentally funny on its own. Louis CK gave people the idea that it was both desirable and hilarious for people to tell me, a gay guy, to "quit being a faggot and suck that dick" regardless of the context. South Park gave them even more support. The most infuriating part of this wasn't that it happened, but that the people being dicks to me simultaneously claimed moral authority in doing so, granted to them by their Holy Fathers CK, Parker, and Stone. I'm much more forgiving of someone who's being shitty and knows it than someone who's being shitty but dresses it up as if they're also in the right. I suspect this is probably what bothers you about a lot of the people critiquing Chappelle, especially those who are dressing up abuse in the language of justice.
The reality of Chappelle's piece for me here is that I understand it, and I still don't think it's particularly funny or insightful. I get what he's going for rhetorically and could give a beat-by-beat rundown of how he constructs his argument and builds towards his thesis -- his "closer". Ultimately, I don't think he adequately supports his thesis though, and I don't think the commentary brought forth by most of his provocations is particularly valuable. I also believe much of it is outright regressive. Like the people gleefully calling me a faggot and telling me to suck a dick as if doing so were the height of comedy and insight, Chappelle spends much of his set punching down on trans people as an act of both humor and righteous truth while simultaneously trying to convey the genuine hurt he experienced from them punching down on him. His thesis -- that the harm he's faced is unfair -- is weakened to the point of uselessness because he cannot connect that harm with the harm he's actively doing to others within the set itself, much less outside of it. Whether this oversight comes from ignorance or a calculated duplicity doesn't matter. I think he's smart enough for it to be the latter, but I'm willing to be charitable and assume the former. Neither is a good look for him, however.
If I'm being really honest about what bothers me the most, however, it's less about Chappelle's words themselves and more about his reach. Many, many people out there will invariably take what he says in this special and run with it, seeking to effect those same provocations in their own life but with even less consideration and skill. For every person you're bothered by who's giving an unfounded, knee-jerk critique to Chappelle's piece without really considering it beyond a pull quote or two, there's another person delighted with the idea of ragging on trans women's "Impossible Pussies" with their friends or, more likely, strangers on the internet en masse. Chappelle, in failing to understand trans people yet deciding to speak definitively on them anyway, has essentially given his permission for others to treat trans people in dismissive and demeaning ways. Even if his stand up was hilarious (which I, even charitably, don't think it is), I would still find this inexcusable.
And I promise you, as best as my reputation here can count for, that I came to these conclusions as the result of genuine, earnest consideration and not dishonest, motivated reasoning.
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Comment on Is there any point in arguing with people? in ~science
kfwyre (edited )Link ParentI see some of myself in this. At my best here on Tildes, I try to put a lot of effort into comments that I hope others will find meaningful and beneficial. At my worst here on Tildes, I feel like...I see some of myself in this.
At my best here on Tildes, I try to put a lot of effort into comments that I hope others will find meaningful and beneficial. At my worst here on Tildes, I feel like I'm simply picking and choosing which unfortunate commenter will be the springboard for my self-important grandstanding. I can look at almost any comment I've ever made on this site and view them through both of those lenses, simultaneously. Am I commenting here for the sake of others, or for myself? Do I write what I write to try to be understood, or to simply be heard? If I tell myself my ego has nothing to do with it, then why do I still obsessively check the vote counts on my comments?
That said, I do think that this person is missing the mark bigtime in one particular place: not all interaction online takes place in the form of commenting. On any given day here I read far more comments than I make. Every day there are comments here that I think about, take in, ponder, reflect on, and come to conclusions about, despite the author of that comment never hearing from me directly. The discourse of others here has definitely changed my internal landscape, and some of that has happened simply from me being an observer -- not even a participant -- in the discussion. I think that's about as ego-less as one can get, as that process is functionally invisible to everybody except me.
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Comment on Netflix suspends trans employee who tweeted about Dave Chappelle special in ~lgbt
kfwyre Link ParentI agree that this is a huge problem with modern discourse. I wrote my thoughts more at length about it here if you're interested, but that's a much longer post and the relevant part to what you're...I agree that this is a huge problem with modern discourse. I wrote my thoughts more at length about it here if you're interested, but that's a much longer post and the relevant part to what you're saying is mostly this:
When one side alleges the criticisms are fair, and the other alleges that the outcry is harassment, it's very likely that both are right because so much discourse is happening that you can easily find examples of both valid and abusive posts. Furthermore, for the target of the discourse, the messaging skews heavily towards the perception of abuse, even if there is genuinely very little of it. Messages aimed at or about individuals don't arrive in neat little piles, sorted by whether or not they're abusive -- they come in a giant flow, all mixed together, but you can bet the abusive ones stand out more.
I think Chappelle's situation is a little different, as it seems to be not just a recent, modern development but a career-long issue. In the standup he references multiple different instances of people taking issue with him, including someone calling him out for being transphobic 16 years ago. He even acknowledges that he was using inappropriate slurs and going, in his own words, "too far". He tells us this story because that moment generated a community backlash and he uses that backlash as his grievance without acknowledging that he had a role in directly provoking that. He admits the wrongdoing but never connects it to its direct social consequence. He never has his moment of "oh, I can now see why they were so mad at me", even in hindsight.
The emotional locus of his show is the unfairness with which he's been treated, but it rings hollow for me when he so readily treats other people with the same unfairness. It's clear through the nature of his humor that he knows where the "lines" are, because he's quite skilled at transgressing them for a step before stepping right back into "fair" territory. Your question of how he's supposed to know is a fair one, but I also think he knows more than he's letting on, which is what gives his punchlines their, well, punch.
This is not to say that the people being abusive towards him are doing the right thing either. They absolutely are not, and I hate that this has become widely seen as the only correct response to people with difficult or discriminatory behaviors. I actually think the people who engage in this kind of thing are making things worse, because their abusive messages override the more measured and thoughtful advocacy that could get someone to change their mind or consider a different perspective. Like you identified, it is much easier for someone to discard all criticism wholesale when even just some of it reveals itself to be garbage.
Of course, there's also another side to this phenomenon where some people choose to interpret any and all pushback as abusive, even when it's not and is just plain, regular criticism.
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Comment on Netflix suspends trans employee who tweeted about Dave Chappelle special in ~lgbt
kfwyre (edited )LinkHere's the full transcript of his standup, for anyone not interested in watching it. My read of it is that Chappelle spends almost the entire special wanting to have his cake and eat it too. He'll...- Exemplary
Here's the full transcript of his standup, for anyone not interested in watching it.
My read of it is that Chappelle spends almost the entire special wanting to have his cake and eat it too. He'll make edgy jokes that he knows are inappropriate as sucker punches to women and trans people in particular, but then he'll walk it back with comments on how the people criticizing don't really understand who he is and what he stands for. He'll give a quoteable moment that paints him in a favorable light before diving right back into another shitty jab.
Example (cw: transphobia)
Now… I am not saying that to say, that trans women aren’t women. I’m just sayin, that those pussies that they got… You know what I mean?
[audience laughs]
[applause]
I’m not saying it is not pussy, but that’s like Beyond Pussy or Impossible Pussy. You know what I mean? It tastes like pussy but that’s not quite what it is, is it? It’s not blood, that is beet juice. [laughter] Oh buddy, I’m in trouble now.
Sure, he says trans women are women -- right before getting everyone to laugh at their genitalia.
There's a recurring subtext throughout the piece I don't think he's intending to convey, but it rings through loud and clear. He gives several anecdotes about times in which people criticized him for being misogynistic or transphobic, and each time, instead of doing any sort of introspection, he just tells himself that they don't know him and they're being unfair. He never considers that people repeatedly telling him he’s problematic might be doing so with cause but instead inverts their grievances, making himself look like the wronged party, even when he admits to the wrongdoing himself. In fact, he often doubles down on the issue in his retelling.
Example (cw: slurs, threats)
So, then after, I am shopping I go all the way to the back of the parking lot, I’m parked all the way in the back and as soon as I open my car door I hear a voice go, “David Chappelle.” Just like that. I didn’t even have to look, I knew it was her. And I looked back and sure enough there she was, that face. To be honest with you, she probably wasn’t even that old. She’s probably around my age. But she was a White woman, this bitch looked terrible. [laughter] I’m going all the way. I kept my cool, I was nice. I said, “Hello, miss.” And she didn’t say anything back, all she said was “I watch your comedy.” I said “Oh-oh.” And then she says, this is true, she goes, “Sounds to me… like you, hate women.” I said, “Well, you know what, miss? It’s art.” You are free to interpret this art however you like but I can tell you as the maker of this art that I don’t believe that I feel that way. And she said, “Well, I think…” And I said, “Shut up, bitch! Shut the fuck up!”
[laughter]
“Before I kill you and put you in the trunk. Ain’t nobody around here.”
[audience cheers]
I’m just kidding, I didn’t say that. I felt that way, but that’s not what I said.
He defends himself from accusations of hating women -- by joking about murdering one.
There was a user who used to post on Tildes who, after the JK Rowling controversy broke, said something to the effect of "she's a professional author; she knows how words work". It was something that really stuck with me, because so many people were trying to argue that Rowling didn't really mean what she said. That user succinctly pointed out that Rowling's entire career is built around knowing exactly how to convey exactly what it is that she wants to, using only the words that she chose for that purpose.
I feel like it applies here too: Chappelle knows how words work; they're his entire career. So when he tells us he doesn't hate trans people or women he obviously wants us to believe him, but I can't really square that with all the things he says that he knows willfully come at their expense. He might not hate them, but he also doesn’t show that he particularly understands or cares about them.
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Comment on Conflict resolution and de-esculation techniques? in ~health
kfwyre LinkI’d recommend looking into trainings aimed at teachers. De-escalation training is a fairly common offer. I’ve done a few different ones over the course of my career and maintain my CPI...I’d recommend looking into trainings aimed at teachers. De-escalation training is a fairly common offer. I’ve done a few different ones over the course of my career and maintain my CPI certification as a professional precaution.
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Comment on Weekly coronavirus-related chat, questions, and minor updates - week of October 4 in ~health.coronavirus
kfwyre Link ParentSorry to hear that. I know you don’t do Walmart (I don’t either, with the exception of these) but they are currently in stock on their website. Won’t help you out now since you’ll have to wait for...Sorry to hear that. I know you don’t do Walmart (I don’t either, with the exception of these) but they are currently in stock on their website. Won’t help you out now since you’ll have to wait for shipping, but it might be worth getting some to keep on hand for future concerns.
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Comment on Sexist and offensive vintage ads that would never fly today, 1940-1980 in ~design
kfwyre (edited )Link ParentI feel like that type of advertising was really common in games in the 90s. Lots of overt sexualization, often with misogynistic/objectifying overtones, and often depicting something with no...I feel like that type of advertising was really common in games in the 90s. Lots of overt sexualization, often with misogynistic/objectifying overtones, and often depicting something with no connection to the game/product being sold. I remember seeing these ads for Forsaken over and over again in my PC Gamer and Electronic Gaming Monthly magazines, and despite them triggering nothing in me (one of the early-in-life tells that I was definitely 100% gay), I still felt like I had to hide them from my parents lest I get in trouble.
EDIT: Found a collection. I definitely wasn't misremembering, and it's a sad comment on the staying power of advertising that I remember a lot of these.
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Comment on Black children were jailed for a crime that doesn’t exist. Almost nothing happened to the adults in charge. in ~life
kfwyre LinkIn Rutherford County, a juvenile court judge had been directing police on what she called “our process” for arresting children, and she appointed the jailer, who employed a “filter system” to determine which children to hold.
The judge was proud of what she had helped build, despite some alarming numbers buried in state reports.
Among cases referred to juvenile court, the statewide average for how often children were locked up was 5%.
In Rutherford County, it was 48%.
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Black children were jailed for a crime that doesn’t exist. Almost nothing happened to the adults in charge.
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Comment on Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - Remastered versions of GTA3, Vice City, and San Andreas releasing on consoles and PC later this year in ~games
kfwyre LinkIf anyone's interested in having access to the old versions outside of piracy, now is the time to pick them up.To prepare for launch, we will begin removing existing versions of the classic titles from digital retailers next week.
If anyone's interested in having access to the old versions outside of piracy, now is the time to pick them up.
CDC backs the rollout of COVID vaccine boosters from Moderna and J&J
I got the J&J vaccine back in March. I’ll be messaging my doctor tomorrow to ask what he believes my best course of action for a booster shot is. I’m currently not sure whether sticking with J&J is the right call or if Moderna/Pfizer would be preferable.