Scumbag DeFranco

[amyvanhym]

Sargon has done a video, largely about PewDiePie, near the end of which he decries physically violent responses to racist cuss words. As a sane and reasonable individual, I agree with him. At 10:10 in the video (embedded below), after showing a violent clip, he said, "Did anyone feel good watching that? Did anyone feel good watching a black kid punching a white woman in the face because she said some words?"

It reminded me of a Philip DeFranco segment that I've been carrying with me since May. DeFranco tries to come off as a cool, chill, friendly, easygoing, conversational guy. That's the persona he projects to his 5.6 million YouTube subscribers. And I think that's what makes his open enjoyment of racially motivated violence so insidious and thus so memorable.

In May DeFranco featured a video of a black man and a white woman arguing heatedly on a bus which escalated to namecalling, which escalated to "nigger." The man waited for a chance to escape, slapped her extremely hard in the face, and ran away.

After showing the footage DeFranco said, "Violence is never an appropriate response to words, BUUUUUTT, I don't feel bad that it happened. Hitting that woman was wrong, it was illegal, it was technically assault, BUT, if I was that bus driver and that lady was like "Call 911! Call 911! Call the police!" I'd be like, "Okay... Oh no, I forgot how phones work! Oh no!"

Amateur Windowspaint infographic and video embeds incoming:

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Watch on YouTube

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Watch on YouTube

Oh and here's the Facebook link.

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tl;dr fuck that guy

Edit: Oh hey, and look what happened within five minutes of my submitting this entry to /r/DeFranco, Philip DeFranco's official subreddit:



No warning, no amendment request, no mere removal of offending content, just bam, banhammered on the first offense. Nice.

*rubs hands together*

The /r/DeFranco sidebar rules say that "criticism is allowed," but that it has to be "respectful." Did 'scumbag' go too far? I'm very sorry. Exactly how much respect is owed to someone who advocates for impeding justice in cases of racial violence?

*send*

Edit again, a few hours later: What a surprise. It was about the 'scumbag' and the 'fuck this guy' until I offered to amend and adhere, and then it was about the mod not liking my alleged indellible mental state and there being nothing I could possibly do to satisfy. Thought crime is an unforgivable offense. Once again, mods just can't let regular users work through the validity of one another's arguments on their own. Users need shepherds to dictate valid ideas for them without their knowledge or consent. That's the respectful thing to do.



I'd love to see this person try to demonstrate the meaningful difference between criticism that is allegedly "not solution oriented" and criticism that merely fails to offer solutions that lie within flattering paramaters personally desired by DeFranco and his moderators. In reality, all comprehensible criticism is inherently solution oriented. And I'd say that the irony of the "non-solution-oriented" party being the only one working to find a mutually acceptable solution to the conflict with the mod is delicious, but I truly and humorlessly hate such authoritarian bullshit.

Comments

[sravakavarn]

It amuses me that scumbug is that much of a trigger for people who complain about snowflakes.

[amyvanhym]

Is 'scumbag' taken at all seriously anymore after the scumbag-Steve meme beat the edge out of it? I suspect they'd have reacted similarly if I hadn't used the word scumbag. I mean, if it's the single word scumbag that's the problem (who knows - the mods still haven't replied), why ban? Why not just remove the submission and maybe require a civil edit in order to repost? (edit for what it's worth: had a conversation with the mod, added it to the post)

[metallherz]

I'm increasingly frustrated with how the current generation doesn't consider intent, or always assumes bad intent. Intent is everything.

[amyvanhym]

Oh yeah, the pervasive "intent doesn't matter" meme is a mountain of fun, enabling (among other witch-hunting tactics) ascriptions of blame for "microaggressions," which as far as I know are still being taught in post-secondary as existent and harmful. To commit a microaggression is to be guilty of being misinterpreted by others. This transforms instances of innocent misunderstanding, which have potential for constructive blameless clarification, into instances of ill intent requiring repentance from the party that didn't err. The West is currently infected with some hideously misanthropic authoritarian doctrines: the indoctrinated ascribe irrelevant intent and ill intent to opponents, reserving good intentions exclusively for themselves.

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[metallherz]

Wow that article is awful, such a dangerous and scary idea.