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all right; people do seem interested in this, so I will try to finish it this morning. we stopped at about 22 minutes in. https://www.bullhorn.fm/blackwolffeedchapopremiumfeedb/posts/435-cancel-crisis-feat https://twitter.com/nberlat/status/1286506318321332224
I'm livetweeting the Chapo ep with Taibbi on the 1619 project and cancel culture. Will Menaker, Amber A'Lee Frost, and Matt Taibbi are talking.
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all right; we're underway. Taibbi is claiming that america rose up as one to stop Texas and KS from putting conservative bs in their textbooks, which is not what happened.
he's concern trolling about the 1619 project saying that it shoudln't be in schools because most americans don't look at their history in that way. total white identity dogwhistle.
That Taibbi speech there could have come without alteration from fox news. good, god fearing, white americans, protect your children from this insidious leftist threat!
Will dimly realizes that Matt is in fact speaking against the protests, and backs and fills by saying that it's too easy to paint this sort of critique as being against the protests.
Will rushes to mention Matt's book on Eric Garner, which, contrary to popular belief, is not in fact a blank check for him to spew racist nonsense.
Will sneering at protestors for tearing down statues of Cervantes or Grant. I don't think sneering at protestors in this way is good, but he's on much more solid ground than his colleagues just pissing on the 1619 project using right wing talking points.
He's obviously desperately trying to move the convo to safer ground.
Will's the only one who actually says cops are bad here.
annnd despite Will's best efforts, Matt launches into a defense of cops!
"all cops are white supremacist murderers; that's just unsupportable!"
"all cops are white supremacist murderers; that's just unsupportable!"
Amber goes right to "a lot of cops aren't white"
aren't these the fuckers who piss and moan about using diversity to defend evil systems?! that's the whole anti idpol critique!
aren't these the fuckers who piss and moan about using diversity to defend evil systems?! that's the whole anti idpol critique!
they need to read James Baldwin on black cops. Or! they could read literally anything. any fucking thing.
I guess Matt's read his own book but that doesn't seem to be doing it.
Matt insisting that morality of cops is complicated.
policing is "one of the few jobs available to working class, non college educated people." cops are the real working class!
policing is "one of the few jobs available to working class, non college educated people." cops are the real working class!
vast majority of cops need college degrees these days. wtf is he talking about.
also obviously cops are literally the enforcers of class hierarchy, as well as of racist hierarchy. and we're in the middle of a weeks long police riot. but Matt and Amber want to center solidarity with cops.
This is grotesque.
This is grotesque.
"it's a pretty typical middle class job for people of all races"
"they go into policing for good reasons"
"oneo f the problem is that the system is choked up with all these terrible incentives."
"they go into policing for good reasons"
"oneo f the problem is that the system is choked up with all these terrible incentives."
yes, the systemic incentives are bad, but that doesn't mean that cops are morally without stain, or that empathy for cops should be a central left approach or goal!
police unions aren't fighting for less violence against Black ppl, you know? They work to protect officers who shoot Black people.
this is breathtakingly reactionary and racist.
we're at like 26 minutes in, if you're keeping track.
I think Will is off there in the corner thinking, "Is this bad? This can't be that bad. He wrote about Eric Garner, right?"
Matt literally mentions The Wire to show how stats regimes are bad but cops are good.
what a farce.
what a farce.
if it's not clear, the Wire is good in many ways, but like most media it tends to glorify cops, and ideally socialists and journalists should not use it to defend the fucking police.
besdies racism there's also just "bad bureaucracy and bad strategy."
how is this different from Yglesias?
(it's different because Yglesias takes racism more seriously, I think.)
how is this different from Yglesias?
(it's different because Yglesias takes racism more seriously, I think.)
"the broken windows theory was an academic thing that got out of control"
this is...not an adequate account of the problems with broken windows policing, ffs.
this is...not an adequate account of the problems with broken windows policing, ffs.
a rabidly white supremacist violent justification for white supremacist violent policing is not just some sort of good faith academic accident. jesus fucking christ.
"it's complicated"
nobody says "kill all cops" what the fucking fuck, Matt.
nobody says "kill all cops" what the fucking fuck, Matt.
Amber all in on saying defunding police is bad because it's unpopular with the working class.
it's all on twitter! weeks of street protest, biggest uprising in 40years, but Amber dismisses it because she's got her fashy finger on the pulse of the WC.
it's all on twitter! weeks of street protest, biggest uprising in 40years, but Amber dismisses it because she's got her fashy finger on the pulse of the WC.
yes, poor communities have shitty clearance rates, and people want more cops, but also the radical critique of policing has gotten a lot of traction and look at the huge protests? which exist?
again, they sound like Matt Yglesias, but dumber and more racist.
Matt says Garner called cops on somebody the night before he was killed, and this is supposed to show that more cops are needed rather than that the entire system is completely fucked.
are they going to mention the whole discussion of diverting resrouces to things other than cops to help these neighborhoods? or what?
the fact that people in segregated, targeted Black neighborhoods debate whether more cops or less cops would be helpful doesn't mean you need to defend cops?
like, people in those communities will also defend capitalism, I'm pretty sure. would you say, "well, we can't criticize capitalism" then?
policing and capitalism are powerful, pervasive systems and thinking through alternatives is tough. but presumably the point of a radical left podcast is to propose left solutions, not just defend cops in the face of antiracist uprisings.
who the fuck do they think is leading the prison abolition movement, anyway? they sound like they think it's Matt Yglesias and not Mariame Kaba. that is not right.
"it's impossible to answer" Will says. it sure is if you refuse to read the work of Black activists and organizers.
Will scurries back to talking about Medicare for all.
it's more popular than abolishing the police! apparently. thanks for the insight.
it's more popular than abolishing the police! apparently. thanks for the insight.
there is no evidence that any of these folks have even minimally engaged with discussions around abolishing the police.
do some research for your millionaire podcast challenge 2020.
Amber; "why do you think liberals glom onto whatever the most trendy but unrealistic position is."
again, the people leading the police abolition movement are Black radicals. Biden won't endorse it.
again, the people leading the police abolition movement are Black radicals. Biden won't endorse it.
this brain genius take that centrists are endorsing police abolition and real radicals kiss police ass is so fucking ignorant, self serving, racist, and nonsensical.
Amber's politics are just based on knee jerk opposing racial liberation as detrimental to class struggle.
she's making the same argument against police abolition that centrists make against universal healthcare and Sander's other programs. It's impractical!
M4A is the real popular program; antiracist programs have no constituency, which is why weeks of street protests against racism have definitely not been happening.
what planet are they living on?
what planet are they living on?
shocker: lots of people who support m4a also think caping for cops is bad.
Taibbi" "there's something fake about it; it's hard to put your finger on what it is exactly."
maybe the issue is that you've got some racist presuppositions, Matt.
Taibbi" "there's something fake about it; it's hard to put your finger on what it is exactly."
maybe the issue is that you've got some racist presuppositions, Matt.
hmm; why does antiracist protest make me, Matt Taibbi, uncomfortable? hm?
Meanwhile Will is hiding under a desk, I guess.
Meanwhile Will is hiding under a desk, I guess.
Abolish police is like military groupthink in catch 22, I am Matt Taibbi, brilliant analyst.
amber says no one is explaining abolish police or trying to gain a critical mass of support?! there have been tons and tons of articles and WEEKS OF STREET DEMONSTRATIONS OH MY FUCKING GOD PEOPLE ARE DEMONSTRATING IN THE STREET AND GETTING BEATEN BY POLICE
Amber says no one offline knows what prison abolition is. who the fuck do you think is leading prisonabolition movements?! It's not Joe Biden, you dipshits.
the condescension and the ignorance combined is just amazing.
Holy shit, she goes after Mariame Kaba.
she says Mariame Kaba refusing to explain prison abolition means that Kaba doesn't care about these issues.
I am dumbstruck.
she says Mariame Kaba refusing to explain prison abolition means that Kaba doesn't care about these issues.
I am dumbstruck.
among other things, Mariame just wrote a fucking op ed in the NYT. She has spent her life explaining these issues. She does not have to write a personal tweet thread for Amber A'Lee frost to show she cares about these issues.
holy shit.
"people want to know what we're going to do with the murderers and rapists. that's a legitimate concern."
as Kaba points out, what we mostly do with them now is nothing. police famously don't care about catching rapists.
as Kaba points out, what we mostly do with them now is nothing. police famously don't care about catching rapists.
she is now saying Kaba must not have a lot of experience with murderers and rapists.
this whole section is just jaw-droppingly ignorant and insulting.
this whole section is just jaw-droppingly ignorant and insulting.
if you've heard this, and you're still supporting them, you are not meaningfully a leftist.
Menaker, giggling, "what do we do with the cops who kill people in the streets and cover it up, what do we do with them, ha ha"
like, no one has ever discussed this.
again, the question is, what do we do with them now?
like, no one has ever discussed this.
again, the question is, what do we do with them now?
maybe stop paying them to shoot people rather than putting htem in jail afterwards? would that be a program the left could support? Will? you smug shit?
Amber says she's not a prison abolitionist because she wants to put Hillary Clinton in jail.
that's a Trump argument, right there.
Amber's fash, if anyone doubted it.
that's a Trump argument, right there.
Amber's fash, if anyone doubted it.
Will's just a dipshit who presumably is happy making money and getting high. But Amber is actually fash.
mariame kaba is unserious and only cares about radical platitudes. meanwhile, amber a'lee frost, millionaire podcaster, is the real pragmatic organizer for change.
even Matt isn't wiling to go that far, "some of them are serious".
this is literally an entire "left" podcast trying to delegitimize Black antipolice organizers.
Amber: "you're agreeing with Reason magazine if you're leaving it at defund the police."
defund the police is literally a left program for increasing funding to marginalized communities. do you not know this? are you just lying?
defund the police is literally a left program for increasing funding to marginalized communities. do you not know this? are you just lying?
she's now called Mariame Kaba and policeabolitionists "childish". which seems racist to me.
the absolute refusal to engage with actual arguments around police abolition while calling others unserious...
will saying it's too easy to say that the current situation is evil and intolerable. if it's so easy why is your cohost unable to do that?
Menaker arguing that community based solutions would be worse than our current orgy of imprisonment and violence.
also whining that speaking this way gets you called a cop, and, dude...
"the smaller the social unit, the more conservative it tends to be", Amber says, just making shit up, because why the fuck not.
the best argumentfor the white fragility book is that people like Chapo are terrified of it.
there are absolutely reasonable critiques of DiAngelo's book (and perhaps more on point of the way she personally is focused on corporate training.) but like Andrew Sullivan and Amber A'Lee Frost just losing their shit about it is not displeasing.
nothing like dumping on Reason one second and fearmongering about hate speech laws the next.
framing the goal of the civil rights movement as "getting race out of the law" seems pretty reductive.
CRM was trying to codify antiracism in law. that's not a color blind approach, you dopes.
CRM was trying to codify antiracism in law. that's not a color blind approach, you dopes.
Matt Taibbi evoking MLK for his bullshit, drink.
Taibbi going after Ibram Kendi too.
presenting Kendi as the opposite of MLK is some reactionary white supremacist bullshit, imo.
presenting Kendi as the opposite of MLK is some reactionary white supremacist bullshit, imo.
Taibbi really as a stick up his ass about antiracists being too pessimistic.
white ppl don't get to tell Black ppl they are too pessimistic about racism. just don't do that shit.
white ppl don't get to tell Black ppl they are too pessimistic about racism. just don't do that shit.
also, Kaba, DiAngelo, Kendi, —they're not pessimistic. naming racism and insisting it can be confronted is a huge act of faith given US history.
Taibbi thinks they're too pessimistic, Amber thinks they're too optimistic. there are some disagreements here, but they won't talk about them, because they are all basically lazy cowards unwilling to actually confront each other.
"they've closed off the debate"; I'm pretty sure the debate about racism in this country still is ongoing.
what Matt means is that when he spouts his colorblind bullshit, some people tell him he's a reactionary dipshit and it hurts his feelings.
Will babbling about universalism.
Marx was pretty clear that social experience is not universal. Will isn't talking about socialism here though. He's insisting on his god given right as a white person not to have his bigotry called out.
Marx was pretty clear that social experience is not universal. Will isn't talking about socialism here though. He's insisting on his god given right as a white person not to have his bigotry called out.
nobody is opposing social programs because they're afrid of Trump voters getting money, Will,you butthead.
Black voters are the most reliable constituency for the universal expansion of the safety net. what are you even talking about?
Black voters are the most reliable constituency for the universal expansion of the safety net. what are you even talking about?
the main crit of sanders free college program was not that it helped white ppl, contra Matt. the main criticism was that it helped rich ppl.
This is a bullshit criticism, but that's what the criticism was. retrofitting it so you can dump on antiracism is gross.
This is a bullshit criticism, but that's what the criticism was. retrofitting it so you can dump on antiracism is gross.
I wrote about why children of rich parents also need free college here, btw. https://arcdigital.media/even-rich-kids-need-free-college-2423f65f949c
babbling about how antiracism is just the tool of liberals who want to get Sanders is again pretty amazingly tone deaf during the middle of a historic antiracist uprising directed in large part against Democratic mayors.
I have literally never hears anyone in any position of power say we shouldn't have social safety net that helps racists. they are just making this up entirely from whole cloth and bullshit.
Matt free speech for fascists, drink.
are they going to go after reparations here? that seems the logical next step, though they don't seem to quite have gone there.
Will whines about talking about free speech and cancel culture, even though that's what their podcast is about.
"epstein island"? wtf is he talking about?
love to be a left podcast both sidesing Bari Weiss.
I thought this sort of centrist triangulation was what ppl listened to chapo to get away from.
I thought this sort of centrist triangulation was what ppl listened to chapo to get away from.
"cancel culture denial" is the problem for our times.
Amber says no one is allowed to question whether she's being abused in a racist or sexist way.
which is of course completely untrue as you know if you've spent anytime on the internet at all.
which is of course completely untrue as you know if you've spent anytime on the internet at all.
is there going to be any discussion at all of like Rowling threateningpeople with legal action? Or Singal getting a trans journalist fired? or is it all the evil left is the only one who ever criticizes muh speech?
Amber is outraged that there was a campaign to get her fired for being a fascist dipshit. How dare you criticize me, an owner of chapo? I am a capitalist you peasants! who do you think you are?!
Taibbi mentions James Bennet getting fired. Do they think that's bad?
is firing James Bennet a "moral mania"?
Cancel culture is all about Bernie Sanders? wtf?
so now they're trying to cancel Clinton for racism.
Clinton's critique of Sanders on racism was frequently dumb and cynical, but I don't think that means James Bennet or that white supremacist Carlson writer should have kept their jobs, guys.
(Clinton's history on racism is bad and she should be criticized, if that's not clear.)
I'm never goign to finish this gah
20 minutes to go Iguess.
it's something to claim that all critiques of sanders' coalition's racism were cynical after an episode of attacking Mariame Kaba and defending cops though.
like, I like Sanders, and he would not agree with most of the garbage on this podcast, but people who were concerned that you folks seemed to have so much influence...you are not refuting them with this episode.
Taibbi is upset that antiracist activists convinced Sanders to stop bashing idpol.
like, first he says critiques of sanders were cynical, then he says that they worked to move him leftwards, which seems good, to me.
like, first he says critiques of sanders were cynical, then he says that they worked to move him leftwards, which seems good, to me.
but I'm not a reactionary asshole who thinks that it's bad when politicians are accountable to the left, so.
Sanders' movement was not torpedoed because he learned to speak more thoughtfully about Black Lives Matter, you conservative buttnozzle.
cancel culture was not how bernie sanders was defeated, ffs.
they really think that their movement lost because of too much antiracism.
they really think that their movement lost because of too much antiracism.
I guess I should have expected the discussion of cancel culture to be all about bernie sanders.
though of course no one wants to mention that he was defeated by overwhelmingly losing Black voters in SC.
if Taibbi was so sensitive to antiracist crit, why on earth didn't he do more to try to appeal to Black voters?
Taibbi whining about all the mental energy people have to expend not to be called racist. what about the mental energy of Black people expeirencing racism every day, you dipshit?
he's literally saying white people are too fragile to handle "cancel culture."
Sanders lost because of white fragility. He just coulnd't take being criticized by antiracist activists.
Sanders lost because of white fragility. He just coulnd't take being criticized by antiracist activists.
this is a stunningly unflattering portrait of Sanders (and one which has no basis in fact that I can see.)
this analysis of the Sanders campaign loss is completely divorced from reality.
Rowling is mentioned as someone who can withstand cancel culture. no discussion of her transphobia, no discussion of her use of legal threats to attack trans critics.
"even more effective against Corbyn"
many attacks on Corbyn were in bad faith, but his handing of them was not bad because it was an excess of self-flagellation. that isn't what happened.
many attacks on Corbyn were in bad faith, but his handing of them was not bad because it was an excess of self-flagellation. that isn't what happened.
this whole framing of cancel culture as mainly victimizing Corbyn and Sanders is crazy. Cancel culture is usually a term used to describe left attacks on free speech. It makes no sense in terms of politicians with national platforms.
they're literally just using the discussion to attack those who criticize their favs.
too much apologizing for bigotry in the public sphere! people should just double down on bigotry, says Taibbi.
Will says he would censor Malcolm Gladwell. but he's not asking state to do that. neither are people who criticized James Bennet.
the intellectual sloppiness is really impressive.
someone mention facists coopting free speech movement challenge 2020.
"I believe that whispers are more dangerous than shouts". What would Heather Heyer say about that? oh we can't find out because we platformed fascists and they killed her.
free speech laws aren't necessarily to protect minority points of view. it's not minority points of view who are most in danger. it's marginalized people like sex workers or prisoners.
just a really naive defense of free speech here.
10 minutes left thank god.
Will claims that the leeway for speech is narrower and narrower. is it though? cause, like, it seems to me that more Black people have platforms now. or does that not count?
trans people definitely have more space to be out now than 20 years ago (though maybe not more than 5 years ago.) is that important speech? or is the only important speech Matt Taibbi's right to say racist shit without contradiction?
Will talking about how brave he is even though he's been completely spineless in confronting his co hosts for over an hour.
Will says again he'd like to deprive Frum and Gladwell of their livelihood even as he obsequiously chats with Taibbi, whose politics as expressed here are virtually undistiguishable from theirs.
they are really leaning into the right wing campus wars discourse.
Taibbi argues that cultural appropriation in fiction is good
"what culture is being produced by the scolds and the witch hunters" asks Will, after recording probably the single worst episode of his shitty podcast ever.
total old man shaking fist at cloud windup here.
we can have no great art if people point out I'm a misogynist ass.
"I Matt Taibbi haven't been paying attention to any art for the last 30 years"
they think there's no good antiracist art now. unreal.
they think there's no good antiracist art now. unreal.
Beyoncé and ONO and Nnamdi would like a word.
what a despicable end to a despicable discussion.
"all of the funny people that are good at art". Will thinks he's a funny person who is good at art.
his name is pronounced Tie-ee-be. so there you go, I learned something.
