Tuesday 26 November 2013

12 Varieties of modern British Bullshit - #2 - "You can't be racist towards whites"

Part the second of our series, here is a quote from an interview with Jo Brand: 

"My personal opinion is that you can't be racist towards white people. ...I think the definition of racism also encompasses political power. So you can't be racist towards a race that’s politically more powerful than a minority. That to me is the correct definition of racism"

This thoroughly dishonest argument is unfortunately not something that originated with Jo Brand, and gets wheeled out every time someone like Diane Abbott makes a stupid remark about white people.

I think it's funny how Brand's personal opinion happens to tally with what some very leftist journalists want her to think; even funnier how she explains to us what the correct definition of a word is - as though it was up to her - a correct definition that depends on some nebulous, unspecified definition of power.

In reality, if a man is being beaten up for being white, do you think he'd be comforted to be told that a small number of others of the same colour as him have "political power"? Because I sure as hell don't have political power - and grouping me with them is another variety of identifying me by colour, which used to be technically called racism (1 or 2 political re-definitions ago)

What Brand says comes from a culture that values the political power to be gained by competitive victimhood. If you can claim to be more of a victim, and can persuade those in power to be act out of guilt, there is plenty of leverage to be got. In this culture, I know if I so much as mention that Brand is a somewhat overweight feminist, I will be accused of first degree 'hatred' - but these facts may go some way to explaining why her 'personal opinion' so closely tallies with the victimhood brigade 

It's #2 on our varieties of British bullshit. It's crap

Friday 1 November 2013

Things wrong with gender politics #34057

I can hear you asking, so what's number 764? ..and sniggering. Anyway here we go:

Recently, I was enjoying a Youtube video of a young woman playing a Bach piece on the guitar ... till I saw this comment underneath it:

"The guys complimenting? her looks are undoubtedly nice and well-intentioned but miss the fact that as a woman, it is frustrating to spend so much of your life being judged on your looks. Even here, her appearance is being used as a measure of her quality.

She's put so much love into her craft, and it shows in her sublime musicianship. Honour that dedication by talking about that"

Let's do a quick run-down of what the Youtube user has got wrong:
  1. she has taken offence on someone else's behalf. In point of fact the guitarist in question has agreed to to use her looks for publicity. ie: to gain an advantage
  2. she is telling men what to think and what to talk about. Does noone else think this is ridiculously bossy?
  3. she confuses commenting on the woman's looks with judging her on her looks
I'm not sure what "judging someone on their looks" actually means, but it seems to be an invention of modern feminists. I believe I am at liberty to comment on a woman's looks if I want to. Men like to do so, and if someone doesn't like that fact than why on earth should I or anyone else care?

There is this perpetual and entirely unjustified complaint that women have to work twice as hard to be judged on anything other than their looks - as though the same might not be equally true of men. Is it not distinctly possible that a woman may not only have the advantage of being able to use her looks to create a favourable impression, but also the advantage of countless imagined injustices like this swaying people's minds - a thousand reasons in her favour other than her ability?

If I comment that someone is pretty it doesn't mean I don't value any other part of her. It merely reflects my own instinctive thoughts and feelings, and I'm ..excuse me.. buggered if I'm going to be told what to think, feel and say by a feminist who is enjoying a whinge about totally imaginary unfairness.

This merely reflects the fact that feminists have got way way too confident about their right to tell men what to do based on the most spurious justification that they can dream up on the spot. You wonder if they do this at the office and in the home, in their social lives...


UPDATE: And Another Thing: note the feminist's words about the young woman's "sublime musicianship". It's likely that the reason she is gushing in such flowery terms about the (perfectly competent) performance on the video, is that the performer is a woman.

Because of the perceived and very dubious injustice in judgements of ability, she elects to give excessive praise to a woman - almost certainly more than she'd give to a man playing the same piece, no matter how well he played it.

She may be doing so not for the reasons I've outlined, but merely because of a kind of sisterly solidarity with another woman - whether the woman wants it or not. The justifications for this sort of thing tend to come thick and fast, but the ultimate result is discrimination, pure and simple - which is surely precisely what feminists claim to be angry about.