So, there's two separate issues here in my mind. Remuneration for services being different for BIPOC and related groups, a seemingly current situation. AR's "brown face" photo, which was surfaced...
So, there's two separate issues here in my mind.
Remuneration for services being different for BIPOC and related groups, a seemingly current situation.
AR's "brown face" photo, which was taken surfaced in 2013.
I'll be honest and say, the first issue, I can understand. Financial inequity, especially when financial divisions are either implicitly or explicitly drawn between protected statuses (gender, race, sexuality) are egregious and harmful to society.
The "brown face" photo—I don't know if I can get behind this. That'll be the one that gets people raging the most though. Are we going to retroactively "cancel" anyone who did something in a previous iteration of society, even if it was culturally acceptable back then, if it's less acceptable now? I don't think that's fair to anyone, especially when society is changing so rapidly thanks to interconnectedness. I know you can apply to this argument to statues of racists/police officers who committed heinous crimes; and this logic doesn't and shouldn't follow in those circumstances.
However, in many modern justice systems, forgiveness and promoting positive outcomes are often the most desirable approach for minor crimes—whether that be using illicit drugs (it's own can of worms), driving offences, or petty theft. I can't help but feel like "cancelling" and societal shaming, a lot of the time, is taking an excessively punitive approach to resolving people's misdeeds.
Is a younger (probably dumber) AR in a photo from 2013, clearly at a party; deserving the scorn of the internet now, and potentially losing his job, for his misdeeds 7 years ago? I don't know that this necessarily follows for me.
Just FYI, it's not my intent to attempt to apologise for AR's "brown face" photo. I am amenable to being convinced otherwise of my view above, so feel free to try and sway me or provide alternative opinions.
"It was a different time" is a really tough argument to make even in really clear-cut cases where things changed later, but 2013 is nowhere near that. We knew this was bad then about as well as we...
Are we going to retroactively "cancel" anyone who did something in a previous iteration of society, even if it was culturally acceptable back then, if it's less acceptable now?
"It was a different time" is a really tough argument to make even in really clear-cut cases where things changed later, but 2013 is nowhere near that. We knew this was bad then about as well as we do now. Little has changed since then wrt public consciousness with racial issues.
Kind of don't feel this is addressing my argument appropriately—as you've quoted only a portion of what I'm saying. My argument isn't "it was a different time", but rather about whether punitive...
Kind of don't feel this is addressing my argument appropriately—as you've quoted only a portion of what I'm saying. My argument isn't "it was a different time", but rather about whether punitive responses to misdeeds over the internet are an appropriate mechanism for achieving justice.
Many justice systems aim for rehabilitation over punishment. I think internet cancel culture is unhealthily more of the latter than the former, and is usually the result of a lot of (justifiable!) anger at a particular societal issue.
That part hangs separately from the rest of your point, so I approached it on its own. The acceptability of things changing is irrelevant to this case, and I pointed that out. I mostly disagree...
That part hangs separately from the rest of your point, so I approached it on its own. The acceptability of things changing is irrelevant to this case, and I pointed that out.
I mostly disagree with the rest of what you're saying, but I only wanted to chime in on the part which seemed the most obviously wrong. There's at least a case to be made about the effectiveness of "cancel culture".
Think of it less as "hah, you're wrong because this part isn't true!" and more as "this part doesn't work, but the rest of what you're saying stands on its own, so the conversation can continue by focusing on the other points and leaving this stuff out".
I don't think @emdash is making the argument that it was a different time but rather than punishing someone for a minor offense, wherever racially motivated or not, that happened 7 years ago is...
I don't think @emdash is making the argument that it was a different time but rather than punishing someone for a minor offense, wherever racially motivated or not, that happened 7 years ago is justified or not. A lot of crimes have a statute of limitations because people should feel hunted for the rest of their lives if they do something wrong at some point. Rapoport does have to leave because of the difference in pay that BA has, but the argument made is a forgiveness, not about passage of time.
Also, Rapoport claims that the brown face happened 16 years ago, which would make it 2004, not 2013.
In his Instagram post, Rapoport referred to a photo posted Monday on social media showing him in brown face. Rapoport said that was an “ill-conceived Halloween costume 16 years ago.”
Born November 15, 1969, so Adam Rapoport is currently 50 years old. Which means even if the photo of him in brownface was taken 16 years ago, as he claims, he was still 34/35 years old and the...
Born November 15, 1969, so Adam Rapoport is currently 50 years old. Which means even if the photo of him in brownface was taken 16 years ago, as he claims, he was still 34/35 years old and the Style Editor of GQ Magazine at the time. So IMO he still should have damn well known better than to do that at the time, and there really is no justifiable excuses for his behavior, since it's not like he was a teen with a still developing brain who lacks experience and is understandably ignorant to the ways of the world as a result.
Given all that, should he be forgiven? Again, just IMO... but if he actually seemed to truly comprehend the error of his ways, and genuinely apologized for it, sure he could be forgiven. But forgiveness doesn't mean he should still keep his job, especially if the other allegations about racial pay disparity are true.
I'm not advocating for him to keep his job because he supposedly had racial bias in how he paid his employees. That's a strong and serious enough reason to resign (or more likely in this case; be...
I'm not advocating for him to keep his job because he supposedly had racial bias in how he paid his employees. That's a strong and serious enough reason to resign (or more likely in this case; be resigned). I'm saying that if the brown face incident from 2004 was the only thing currently wrong and Rapoport would apologize in a sincere fashion, I would not see a problem with it.
No one claimed that a "developing brain" was to blame here, but you bring a valid point: Rapoport was born in '69, a time where racism was even more widespread and normalized than today. Taking all that in in your years as a child, maybe getting it from your parents, that does a lot to you and your opinions, so it wouldn't have to matter wherever he was an adolescent or not when wearing a brownface.
I don't want to defend the guy, I'm just questioning if getting livid about it on the internet is achieving any sort of justice.
While not in those exact words, from @emdash's very first comment: If Adam was 15 years old in the photo then his actions may be at least somewhat understandable due to the reasons I listed (hence...
No one claimed that a "developing brain" was to blame here
While not in those exact words, from @emdash's very first comment:
Is a younger (probably dumber) AR in a photo from 2013, clearly at a party; deserving the scorn of the internet now, and potentially losing his job, for his misdeeds 7 years ago?
If Adam was 15 years old in the photo then his actions may be at least somewhat understandable due to the reasons I listed (hence my listing them), but Adam was 34 or 35 years old at the time, so there really is no excuse for it. IMO he should have known better, and the fact he didn't is a huge problem, and is honestly at the very core of a lot of the issues coming to the surface via the protests... which leads me to answering your next question of "if getting livid about it on the internet is achieving any sort of justice."
If nobody says anything, nobody gets angry, and racists acts (even committed out of ignorance) don't have any lasting, meaningful consequences for those who commit them, then what justice is there then? Without public shaming, and angry outcries making it absolutely 100% clear that sort of racist behavior is intolerable, people will remain ignorant, can keep claiming ignorance as a defense, and it will just keep happening.
I didn't argue that point, but I did generalize with no one so point taken. I'm not advocating for keeping the status quo, but the thing happened 16 years ago and it was a racist costume at a...
While not in those exact words, from emdash's [mention removed to avoid unnecessary pings] very first comment:
I didn't argue that point, but I did generalize with no one so point taken.
I'm not advocating for keeping the status quo, but the thing happened 16 years ago and it was a racist costume at a halloween party. With the other allegations I doubt the man has changed, but wouldn't it make sense to focus on the present and not the past? I've done some dumb fucking shit in the past, said some dumb fucking shit in the past and I've moved on. I don't want to live in a world where an internet flash mob runs around rabidly cancelling everyone because of 20 year old photos surfacing on the web. Judge a person from the actions in the present and you'll see if they've changed (and Rapoport probably didn't).
I agree with you in principle. We all have skeletons in our closets, and we have all made mistakes in the past that it would no doubt suck to have resurface X years/decades later. But I disagree...
I agree with you in principle. We all have skeletons in our closets, and we have all made mistakes in the past that it would no doubt suck to have resurface X years/decades later. But I disagree about ignoring those past mistakes and focusing entirely on the present. Yes, people can change, and yes we should forgive past mistakes if the person truly understands now why those actions/deeds/words were wrong, and is genuinely apologetic about them. People make mistakes but people can also change. However not everyone actually does understand why they were wrong, or are willing to apologize for their past transgretions, and until those past instances are brought to light we can't know which side that person will fall on.
Also, keep in mind that apparently what finally triggered Sohla and others to comment on the pay disparity issue was the photo of him in brownface surfacing, and that may not have happened had the photo stayed hidden in the past. Sometimes pointing out bad things people have done in the past gives others in the present the courage to speak out about current transgressions that same person is committing.
I agree with you on the photo, but I do think that a response is appropriate. In my mind, the photo is forgivable, but first Rappaport has to ask for forgiveness. If he comes out and says...
I agree with you on the photo, but I do think that a response is appropriate. In my mind, the photo is forgivable, but first Rappaport has to ask for forgiveness. If he comes out and says something like "I was younger and dumber and I wouldn't do something like that today" then fine, move on. But if he can't bring himself to do something that simple then he gets no sympathy from me.
Regardless of the photo, the pay differentials are totally inexcusable. Rappaport and anyone else who is responsible for that absolutely deserves to be crucified for it.
Agreed on every count. Given the pay differentials, combined with the photo, he probably does need to leave or otherwise be demoted—it's extremely disappointing BA doesn't pay Sohla for video content.
Agreed on every count. Given the pay differentials, combined with the photo, he probably does need to leave or otherwise be demoted—it's extremely disappointing BA doesn't pay Sohla for video content.
The missing context with the picture is that he was deliberately dressed up as a Puerto Rican person, and this situation blew up when someone was calling out BA, under Rapaport, not being...
The missing context with the picture is that he was deliberately dressed up as a Puerto Rican person, and this situation blew up when someone was calling out BA, under Rapaport, not being interested at all in Puerto Rican cuisine with various flimsy excuses while also sending a white contributor (and someone the fanbase has long suspected that Rapaport has some odd fascination with) to cover stereotypical Puerto Rican cuisine from a white perspective. It's not like a random reach back in time to find a totally irrelevant social faux-pas picture like Justin Trudeau's weird Aladdin costume again, the implication is that BA has (purposefully or not) been discriminatory to Puerto Ricans specifically and there are very specific grievances about it. This isn't just another "we found some dirt, let's draw some loose connections" sort of a response here.
That, combined with the fact that BIPOC people were not being paid like the white contributors were, really add up together.
I don't have any knowledge of their revenue either, but my overall impression is that the YouTube channel is the golden goose for them. Obviously the print magazine isn't driving their revenue,...
I don't have any knowledge of their revenue either, but my overall impression is that the YouTube channel is the golden goose for them. Obviously the print magazine isn't driving their revenue, and I just can't imagine that their website is either. I certainly only end up at BA's website looking for specific recipes I've seen or have been mentioned on the YouTube channel.
A couple of thoughts: As a fan of BA's web content, I wondered why Sohla wasn't featured in more videos ever since it became abundantly clear that she knows a lot about different techniques and...
A couple of thoughts: As a fan of BA's web content, I wondered why Sohla wasn't featured in more videos ever since it became abundantly clear that she knows a lot about different techniques and seems to be the only person in that entire kitchen that knows how to temper the god damn chocolate.
Second, and I know this is like walking across a minefield just to retrieve a stale doughnut, but is there more context to that photo that proves it was really bad? As someone that is constantly growing and cringing at the dumb shit I've done (especially as sensibilities continue to change), I'm terrified of having something I cringe at from 10-15 years ago brought up and scrutinized by a bunch of people. Just last night I was horrified thinking about an April Fools joke from 2008 that was laughed at and endorsed by about a dozen of my female friends, but by today's standards would be very insensitive and completely inappropriate. To be clear, that doesn't mean I ever have dressed up in black/brown face, and I wouldn't endorse someone that did. On the other hand, I certainly was one of the millions of Americans that came down with a serious case of Chingy fever. I've looked at the comments in this thread, reread the original article that shows the picture, and followed the tweets that brought up the picture, but I'm not seeing enough to show that the costume in the photo was bad in 2004. That was a very popular look in 04 and it very well could be a normal tan, or since it was 2004, a fresh spray-tan that wasn't related to the costume. If you look in the screenshot of the comments, there isn't any incriminating evidence, either. There does seem to be at least one person of color endorsing the photo, and while that person isn't Puerto Rican or Latinx, I can see why the poster came to the conclusion that nothing was wrong with the photo and left it up. Just to be clear, I'm not trying to defend the photo, nor would I ever defend the use of black or brown face, I'm just wondering where the evidence is that it's deliberately brown face, or even had anything to do with Puerto Rican. Was it because the caption said papi? Unless there was something done to deliberately darken their features for the costume, everything about that photo seems like it was socially acceptable in 2004 and possibly again in 2013. Am I totally off base?
The hashtag on that picture is #boricua. That's explicitly a Puerto Rican reference. Take a look at that picture, and then Adam Rapaport's natural complexion. His girlfriend in the pic also has a...
I'm just wondering where the evidence is that it's deliberately brown face, or even had anything to do with Puerto Rican.
Unless there was something done to deliberately darken their features for the costume
Take a look at that picture, and then Adam Rapaport's natural complexion. His girlfriend in the pic also has a temporary spray-tan on, you can see it between her neck and shoulder.
Your reasoning follows, but "How bad is this picture" isn't actually the question being posed by the circulation of this photo. It just doesn't matter to current discussion whether it was okay at...
Your reasoning follows, but "How bad is this picture" isn't actually the question being posed by the circulation of this photo. It just doesn't matter to current discussion whether it was okay at the time, bc taking time to characterize how norms have changed over time is a matter of perspective which appears digressive, distracting, privileged.
So, there's two separate issues here in my mind.
takensurfaced in 2013.I'll be honest and say, the first issue, I can understand. Financial inequity, especially when financial divisions are either implicitly or explicitly drawn between protected statuses (gender, race, sexuality) are egregious and harmful to society.
The "brown face" photo—I don't know if I can get behind this. That'll be the one that gets people raging the most though. Are we going to retroactively "cancel" anyone who did something in a previous iteration of society, even if it was culturally acceptable back then, if it's less acceptable now? I don't think that's fair to anyone, especially when society is changing so rapidly thanks to interconnectedness. I know you can apply to this argument to statues of racists/police officers who committed heinous crimes; and this logic doesn't and shouldn't follow in those circumstances.
However, in many modern justice systems, forgiveness and promoting positive outcomes are often the most desirable approach for minor crimes—whether that be using illicit drugs (it's own can of worms), driving offences, or petty theft. I can't help but feel like "cancelling" and societal shaming, a lot of the time, is taking an excessively punitive approach to resolving people's misdeeds.
Is a younger (probably dumber) AR in a photo from 2013, clearly at a party; deserving the scorn of the internet now, and potentially losing his job, for his misdeeds 7 years ago? I don't know that this necessarily follows for me.
Just FYI, it's not my intent to attempt to apologise for AR's "brown face" photo. I am amenable to being convinced otherwise of my view above, so feel free to try and sway me or provide alternative opinions.
"It was a different time" is a really tough argument to make even in really clear-cut cases where things changed later, but 2013 is nowhere near that. We knew this was bad then about as well as we do now. Little has changed since then wrt public consciousness with racial issues.
Kind of don't feel this is addressing my argument appropriately—as you've quoted only a portion of what I'm saying. My argument isn't "it was a different time", but rather about whether punitive responses to misdeeds over the internet are an appropriate mechanism for achieving justice.
Many justice systems aim for rehabilitation over punishment. I think internet cancel culture is unhealthily more of the latter than the former, and is usually the result of a lot of (justifiable!) anger at a particular societal issue.
That part hangs separately from the rest of your point, so I approached it on its own. The acceptability of things changing is irrelevant to this case, and I pointed that out.
I mostly disagree with the rest of what you're saying, but I only wanted to chime in on the part which seemed the most obviously wrong. There's at least a case to be made about the effectiveness of "cancel culture".
Think of it less as "hah, you're wrong because this part isn't true!" and more as "this part doesn't work, but the rest of what you're saying stands on its own, so the conversation can continue by focusing on the other points and leaving this stuff out".
I don't think @emdash is making the argument that it was a different time but rather than punishing someone for a minor offense, wherever racially motivated or not, that happened 7 years ago is justified or not. A lot of crimes have a statute of limitations because people should feel hunted for the rest of their lives if they do something wrong at some point. Rapoport does have to leave because of the difference in pay that BA has, but the argument made is a forgiveness, not about passage of time.
Also, Rapoport claims that the brown face happened 16 years ago, which would make it 2004, not 2013.
From the article, last paragraph.
Born November 15, 1969, so Adam Rapoport is currently 50 years old. Which means even if the photo of him in brownface was taken 16 years ago, as he claims, he was still 34/35 years old and the Style Editor of GQ Magazine at the time. So IMO he still should have damn well known better than to do that at the time, and there really is no justifiable excuses for his behavior, since it's not like he was a teen with a still developing brain who lacks experience and is understandably ignorant to the ways of the world as a result.
Given all that, should he be forgiven? Again, just IMO... but if he actually seemed to truly comprehend the error of his ways, and genuinely apologized for it, sure he could be forgiven. But forgiveness doesn't mean he should still keep his job, especially if the other allegations about racial pay disparity are true.
p.s. This whole situation very much reminds me of when pictures of Prime Minister Trudeau surfaced of him in blackface. His apology is worth watching: https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1605935171638
I'm not advocating for him to keep his job because he supposedly had racial bias in how he paid his employees. That's a strong and serious enough reason to resign (or more likely in this case; be resigned). I'm saying that if the brown face incident from 2004 was the only thing currently wrong and Rapoport would apologize in a sincere fashion, I would not see a problem with it.
No one claimed that a "developing brain" was to blame here, but you bring a valid point: Rapoport was born in '69, a time where racism was even more widespread and normalized than today. Taking all that in in your years as a child, maybe getting it from your parents, that does a lot to you and your opinions, so it wouldn't have to matter wherever he was an adolescent or not when wearing a brownface.
I don't want to defend the guy, I'm just questioning if getting livid about it on the internet is achieving any sort of justice.
While not in those exact words, from @emdash's very first comment:
If Adam was 15 years old in the photo then his actions may be at least somewhat understandable due to the reasons I listed (hence my listing them), but Adam was 34 or 35 years old at the time, so there really is no excuse for it. IMO he should have known better, and the fact he didn't is a huge problem, and is honestly at the very core of a lot of the issues coming to the surface via the protests... which leads me to answering your next question of "if getting livid about it on the internet is achieving any sort of justice."
If nobody says anything, nobody gets angry, and racists acts (even committed out of ignorance) don't have any lasting, meaningful consequences for those who commit them, then what justice is there then? Without public shaming, and angry outcries making it absolutely 100% clear that sort of racist behavior is intolerable, people will remain ignorant, can keep claiming ignorance as a defense, and it will just keep happening.
I didn't argue that point, but I did generalize with no one so point taken.
I'm not advocating for keeping the status quo, but the thing happened 16 years ago and it was a racist costume at a halloween party. With the other allegations I doubt the man has changed, but wouldn't it make sense to focus on the present and not the past? I've done some dumb fucking shit in the past, said some dumb fucking shit in the past and I've moved on. I don't want to live in a world where an internet flash mob runs around rabidly cancelling everyone because of 20 year old photos surfacing on the web. Judge a person from the actions in the present and you'll see if they've changed (and Rapoport probably didn't).
I agree with you in principle. We all have skeletons in our closets, and we have all made mistakes in the past that it would no doubt suck to have resurface X years/decades later. But I disagree about ignoring those past mistakes and focusing entirely on the present. Yes, people can change, and yes we should forgive past mistakes if the person truly understands now why those actions/deeds/words were wrong, and is genuinely apologetic about them. People make mistakes but people can also change. However not everyone actually does understand why they were wrong, or are willing to apologize for their past transgretions, and until those past instances are brought to light we can't know which side that person will fall on.
Also, keep in mind that apparently what finally triggered Sohla and others to comment on the pay disparity issue was the photo of him in brownface surfacing, and that may not have happened had the photo stayed hidden in the past. Sometimes pointing out bad things people have done in the past gives others in the present the courage to speak out about current transgressions that same person is committing.
I agree with you on the photo, but I do think that a response is appropriate. In my mind, the photo is forgivable, but first Rappaport has to ask for forgiveness. If he comes out and says something like "I was younger and dumber and I wouldn't do something like that today" then fine, move on. But if he can't bring himself to do something that simple then he gets no sympathy from me.
Regardless of the photo, the pay differentials are totally inexcusable. Rappaport and anyone else who is responsible for that absolutely deserves to be crucified for it.
Agreed on every count. Given the pay differentials, combined with the photo, he probably does need to leave or otherwise be demoted—it's extremely disappointing BA doesn't pay Sohla for video content.
Just a little addition, the photo was posted in 2013 as part of throwback Thursday, so it was probably taken years before that.
To be fair, he’s probably in his 40s or 50s, so no matter when it was taken, it was in appropriate and offensive.
The missing context with the picture is that he was deliberately dressed up as a Puerto Rican person, and this situation blew up when someone was calling out BA, under Rapaport, not being interested at all in Puerto Rican cuisine with various flimsy excuses while also sending a white contributor (and someone the fanbase has long suspected that Rapaport has some odd fascination with) to cover stereotypical Puerto Rican cuisine from a white perspective. It's not like a random reach back in time to find a totally irrelevant social faux-pas picture like Justin Trudeau's weird Aladdin costume again, the implication is that BA has (purposefully or not) been discriminatory to Puerto Ricans specifically and there are very specific grievances about it. This isn't just another "we found some dirt, let's draw some loose connections" sort of a response here.
That, combined with the fact that BIPOC people were not being paid like the white contributors were, really add up together.
I don't have any knowledge of their revenue either, but my overall impression is that the YouTube channel is the golden goose for them. Obviously the print magazine isn't driving their revenue, and I just can't imagine that their website is either. I certainly only end up at BA's website looking for specific recipes I've seen or have been mentioned on the YouTube channel.
Super quick turnaround: reports on twitter are that Adam Rapoport is stepping down. No news yet regarding pay equality.
Here's AR's Instagram post. There's a mix of good and bad comments in there.
Variety posted a second article about the resignation, I've updated the title/link to point to that one instead.
A couple of thoughts: As a fan of BA's web content, I wondered why Sohla wasn't featured in more videos ever since it became abundantly clear that she knows a lot about different techniques and seems to be the only person in that entire kitchen that knows how to temper the god damn chocolate.
Second, and I know this is like walking across a minefield just to retrieve a stale doughnut, but is there more context to that photo that proves it was really bad? As someone that is constantly growing and cringing at the dumb shit I've done (especially as sensibilities continue to change), I'm terrified of having something I cringe at from 10-15 years ago brought up and scrutinized by a bunch of people. Just last night I was horrified thinking about an April Fools joke from 2008 that was laughed at and endorsed by about a dozen of my female friends, but by today's standards would be very insensitive and completely inappropriate. To be clear, that doesn't mean I ever have dressed up in black/brown face, and I wouldn't endorse someone that did. On the other hand, I certainly was one of the millions of Americans that came down with a serious case of Chingy fever. I've looked at the comments in this thread, reread the original article that shows the picture, and followed the tweets that brought up the picture, but I'm not seeing enough to show that the costume in the photo was bad in 2004. That was a very popular look in 04 and it very well could be a normal tan, or since it was 2004, a fresh spray-tan that wasn't related to the costume. If you look in the screenshot of the comments, there isn't any incriminating evidence, either. There does seem to be at least one person of color endorsing the photo, and while that person isn't Puerto Rican or Latinx, I can see why the poster came to the conclusion that nothing was wrong with the photo and left it up. Just to be clear, I'm not trying to defend the photo, nor would I ever defend the use of black or brown face, I'm just wondering where the evidence is that it's deliberately brown face, or even had anything to do with Puerto Rican. Was it because the caption said papi? Unless there was something done to deliberately darken their features for the costume, everything about that photo seems like it was socially acceptable in 2004 and possibly again in 2013. Am I totally off base?
The hashtag on that picture is #boricua. That's explicitly a Puerto Rican reference.
Take a look at that picture, and then Adam Rapaport's natural complexion. His girlfriend in the pic also has a temporary spray-tan on, you can see it between her neck and shoulder.
Your reasoning follows, but "How bad is this picture" isn't actually the question being posed by the circulation of this photo. It just doesn't matter to current discussion whether it was okay at the time, bc taking time to characterize how norms have changed over time is a matter of perspective which appears digressive, distracting, privileged.