By David Woundedbear
Democracy in America is not well. Though democrats are martialing their forces on many fronts from voting rights, to criminal justice reform, to equitable representation— we liberals are failing each other miserably and on a grand scale. The recent debacles with Joe Rogan, Awkwafina and Dave Chappelle, all liberals mind you, illuminate this toxicity within our ranks. As it is written, “a house divided against itself cannot stand.”
The Republican Party on the other hand is, with some notable exceptions, united behind the godless, lawless, white nationalism of Trumpism.
On the left, it seems many of us can’t rightly tell the difference between shite and Shinola. When the perfect becomes the enemy of the good, as they say, and given that humans are inherently imperfect, how will we ever find our path forward?
A recent opinion piece on CNN.com, about Joe Rogan, called his use of the N-word another January 6 moment. That was just the headline. The article goes on to imply that Rogan’s repeated use of the most forbidden word in our language was of the same spirit as the radio broadcasts which inspired the genocidal massacre in Rwanda of 1994 which claimed up to over a million lives in total.
Let me play Devil’s advocate here, with the Devil being CNN in this instance. A steelman defense could go something like this. Saying the N-word devalues and “others,” an entire population, even if mainly referencing the word as Rogan did. Comparing a movie theater in a Black neighborhood to “Planet of the Apes,” which Rogan also did, has the potential to strip those people of their humanity in the ears of impressionable and already bigoted listeners. In 1994 extremist Hutus used radio broadcasts to inspire a dehumanizing hatred toward their Tutsi and moderate Hutu neighbors. The extremist Hutus then proceeded to hack to death between 400,000 to 800,000 Tutsis, as well as moderate Hutus. Therefore, any use of racist language stands in unity with genocidal mass murders.
Was Rogan wrong to use those words? Most definitely. But was he truly speaking in the same spirit as those who encouraged the horrific massacre of their neighbors and kinsmen? Most definitely not. Of the N-word, he was mainly quoting and referencing the word as others had used it. As for the apes comparison, he was on his way to see “Planet of the Apes,” and happened to land in a Black neighborhood. He was speaking to other comedians on his podcast and made a cheap, terrible joke about the appearance of the people at the movie theater. To be sure, that was certainly wrong. He apologized profusely for it and many, including people of color have forgiven him.
Did you know that Rogan adopted his half-black step-daughter from a previous relationship of his wife’s? Did you know that Rogan is friends and regularly works with Black people and people of every ethnic and political affiliation? And that many of these people have come to his defense. To the leaders of the new school this matters little. You can be racist and have black friends, they say. While that may be true, who can possibly say with any certainty what is really going on in another person’s heart and mind? And if you find yourself disappointed to find out a supposed racist actually isn’t then maybe looking inward is a good idea.
Prejudice is prejudice. But prejudices are used by every human alive. Sometimes for good. Sometimes for evil.
“I didn’t want that shady, sketchy looking dude in my backyard mowing my lawn, cleaning my pool, baby-sitting my children, doing my taxes.” Our lived experiences inform our respective prejudices. Sketchy-looking to some may mean face tattoos and gunshot wound scars. To others it may mean wearing a suit and tie. And to others still, like myself, it means not fully trusting anyone wearing a badge, carrying a gun, pepper spray, and handcuffs. Are our prejudices sometimes wrong and sometimes employed un-righteously? Absolutely. Is it anyone’s prerogative to guess at the moral character of another person based on a few superficial and specious observations? Lord help us if that’s the case.
Take “On the Media,” for example, a show broadcast on NPR. In the episode entitled “I’m No Expert,” it addressed the Joe Rogan boycott. They had exactly one person defend him for a very short portion of the episode. The rest of the time they spent bashing him in very astute, authoritative, almost academic language.
At one point the show’s host asks a guest, “How do you solve a problem like Joe Rogan?,” begging the question that Rogan is in fact some sort of a problem which needs solving.
The guest, Jill Filipovic, an author, attorney, and de facto professional thinker responds, “That’s a good question. I would hope on an individual level that Rogan would take this moment for some self-reflection and consider how he selects those guests. Why over, and over, and over again he seems drawn to the people that are not actually representative of the consensus among experts in their fields.”
Forgive me for being less than charitable here but I infer that she means Rogan should mainly interview those who do represent a consensus perspective, and that if he doesn’t repent of this sin, of not doing that, he remains a problem.
Whether in the fields of science, governance, ethics or the media, the consensus view is often egregiously misguided. We make advances by questioning the present paradigm. Not blindly accepting it. Suggesting there is only one non-problematic worldview opens the door to totalitarianism. The expert consensus view used to be that Black people were three fifths human, that new human brain cells are never made after birth, that anthropogenic climate change isn’t a thing.
To those subscribing to the theories of far-left thought there is only one, all-encompassing, acceptable worldview. Heretics will be canceled. Even fellow liberals who do not hold, to the letter, the prescribed and approved progressive perspective.
From my own limited perspective, I see the American criminal justice system as perpetrating the most monstrous injustices on earth every day; and that it disproportionally harms people of color and low-income populations. If we Democrats lose in midterm elections, we could very well see catastrophic losses on every social justice front and beyond. But please, let’s do continue squabbling about the impure individuals on our own team.
Bad ideas are defeated by better ones. Not by trying to silence those with whom we disagree. Truth and goodness are real things that can be communicated and can overcome darkness. Trying to establish one approved worldview is an authoritarian concept and has no place in a healthy democracy. Forbearance, forgiveness, and mercy are essential to progress. They are ideals which have the power to add members to our ranks, not subtract them, paving a path forward, to a more just and equitable future for us all.
