There are plenty of conservatives unfairly bucketed with the extreme right and regularly called Nazis. Due to this, discussion between the left and the right has pretty much disappeared as conversation is always shut down by calling them fascists. Mind you I am a leftist, but also a strong proponent of free speech and open discussion so this trend is disturbing to me.
I keep hearing this, but every time I dig in to the details, I find that the person or group in question is actually intolerant by any reasonable definition of the word.
I've yet to see any example of a truly tolerant individual or group being unfairly labeled as intolerant as a pretext to discriminate against them.
It happens almost every day. The Catholic school boys vs the native American drummer for instance. Surely you saw the vitriol around that. If you watch the entire video of what transpired you'd find that it wasn't as clear cut as it was made out to be. See:
Very aware of this. A viral video looked bad, but on further research, the story is much more complicated.
It appears the people who jumped to conclusions admitted their mistakes and within one day they're falling all over themselves to admit, apologize and disseminate the truth.
Looks to me like the system is working, and these outlets are not using fake intolerance as a pretext to discriminate against this group.
Certainly many people have recanted and that's great, but many others haven't; lots of influential people (including celebrities) are doubling down on their demonization of these teenagers (in some cases, including calls for doxxing and physical violence) to the tune of tens of thousands of upvotes and likes per post/tweet/etc.
Worse, virtually every mainstream publication that wrote about the story led with misinformation, and many failed to publish a retraction or an apology of any kind. And the retractions that actually do get published will never be circulated as widely as the original sensationalist publication ("lies travel faster than the truth" and all that jazz). The entire journalism industry failed at its principle responsibilities--to defer knee-jerk reactions in pursuit of the truth and to see past stereo-types and identity to the individual and the nuanced context. And the consequence was that dozens of students, family, and school faculty were harassed, slandered, and threatened. The only relief in all of this is that no one has acted on their threats.
I don't know how any decent person can call this a passably-functioning system. This is the textbook example of a deeply broken system.
Yeah I noticed that this one is getting called out as well. It's good that the whole video was released; also as it was children getting the brunt of it, it was necessary to correct the misconceptions.
Unfortunately this sort of retraction doesn't occur in the thousands of daily online discussions where the same sort of pre-judgement and labeling occurs every day. The media in it's clickbait culture has successfully divided the two sides, and they believe the other side is the epitome of evil, which leaves no room for discussion.
Edit: there could be a filter bubble effect going on here too. We all see different slices of online life. Pretty much all my follows are extreme leftist, so I see a lot of the behavior I'm discussing
Black Israelites (weird sect) yelled racist stuff at the kids, which is not ok. Phillips moved in, drumming and chanting. The kids smugged up and started racist chants and dancing.
The black Israelites and the kids were the assholes.
The kid is obviously doing the whole "I'm not touching you" thing, but he is very much antagonizing Phillips in the (full) video.
I don't really want to get into a debate about the details around who was right and wrong during this conflagration, but to the point of this discussion, the teenager is not a fascist nazi for being quietly smug to someone who got up in his face with a drum.
People can be intolerant without being "fascist nazis" which is the entire point of this thread.
The initial assessment of the viral video were incorrect, and there's been an outpouring of mea culpas from media personalities.
But that error does NOT mean these kids are tolerant and accepting of differences in race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, etc. Indeed, the actions of these kids shows a high degree of intolerance.
The paradox of tolerance means that tolerant people should NOT tolerate the intolerant.
Why are the kids guilty until proven innocent? Why are so many people so desperate to rationalize intolerance toward children? They probably got their first dose of hostile, overt racism and, presumably having never been taught how to handle such a situation) thought this Native American guy was trying to antagonize them as well, and they responded in kind. Not the best way to handle it, but not the worst considering their age and the circumstances.
A charitable and likely interpretation is that Phillips and the kids mistook each other’s intentions. Neither the children nor the adult handled it perfectly.
They jumped around in mock tribal dance, doing mock chants, while laughing and jeering. They were quite obviously mocking his heritage, his culture and his religion, adding to a long history of oppression that includes literal genocide.
No matter what these kids heard from the black Hebrew israelites, there is no excuse for their behavior.
Add to this the videos that have surfaced of these kids (including many of the same kids from the first video) unprovokedly jeering at young women that "rape doesn't count if you like it" and similar misogynistic statements, it is abundantly clear that these kids are indeed bigots and should be strongly reprimanded for their behavior, not given speaking time on national TV.
His attitude and the actions of his schoolmates, while wearing MAGA hats (well-connected to white privilege and racism now) are evidence of enormous and smug privilege. He knows that he is pretty much untouchable, as a white male coming from a wealthy family with connections, the system has been rigged in his favor for centuries. His look is one of bemused contempt, "look at this silly man with his drum, doesn't he know that I can do whatever I want?"
There are centuries of racial and cultural tension at play, which must not be ignored.
True but honestly anyone with established views is not likely to change views in a debate on a march, or street. Family, life, things that happen etc can change views.
