Trans Netflix employees will stage walkout to protest Chappelle special
latimes.com
latimes.com
It's ironically an incredibly culturally insensitive move wrapped in the veil of self congratulating cultural sensitivity.
Um, since when is American English (the language in which “Latinx”, as a neologism, has been introduced by that language’s speakers) “their” (Colombians’) language?
Or are Colombians upset that English-speaking Americans of Latin American descent are rewriting American English?
(That said, Latinx seems to be preferred as a self-label almost exclusively used by people who are part of the LGBTQ+ community, and used other than that almost exclusively by people to whom it does not apply as a label for others, so it is problematic as a general label linguistic and language ownership issues aside.)
That's not what happened, but ok. You believe what you like.
I dont think you understand what censorship means if you believe that its somehow not censorship when a big company does it to a famous person. Yes, it is censorship. That's what the word means.
I actually do understand what censorship means. Which is why it's so hilarious to hear people insist that Netflix chosing to not contract with Dave Chappelle is censorship. By your definition of censorship almost everyone is being censored.
The 2nd sentence is the important bit. A lot of people provably want to watch Chapelle as evidenced by his popularity and sales, but the employees demand the show be taken down despite that. You are implying that i believe any selection process at all is censorship which again seems disingenuous or misunderstands what the word is commonly understood to mean.
If you subscribe to the idea that Chappelle has the right to be paid by netflix, then so do I. Where's my money?
If you're OK with with protestors at Netflix doing it, then surely its OK for protestors at Youtube, Apple, a TV network or a comedy club to do the same. They can do it at a newspaper, a podcast, a radio station. Everything in a capitalist society is run for profit by some commercial entity. So what's the difference between whatever you call censorship and this? Suppressing distribution IS censorship.
And obviously I didn't say everyone has the right to be paid by Netflix. This is again just arguing in bad faith or woefully ignorant of how the world works. No, Netflix has the right to pay whomever they choose, which as a for-profit corporation, they will generally do based on how much of an audience you can pull to their platform. They pay Chapelle because he's funny and people like watching him.. not because he has "the right" to be paid. They pay him in exchange for something that Chapelle produces, not as a free handout. If you can convince a million people to pay to watch you get on a soapbox and cry about transphobia, then perhaps Netflix would sign a deal with you and pay you as well.
This is a naive take. Should every minority opinion be given the front page of netflix, regardless of the harm pushing it might leave in it's wake? Or just TERFs?
Anti-trans violence and suicidality is a major issue and speech around it needs to be cognizant of that. At best in his special Chappelle does a poor job of recognizing this be it because he is maligned, uninformed, or just unclear; Advocating that we should continue amplifying it's message as some insular censorship issue is utterly silly.
“Look at all the good we’ve done, surely we’ve racked up enough karma points to shit on some people?”
Does that sound right?
[1] yes, nonsense. The the vast Netflix library contains some dark stuff, but none of it was an issue last week because it doesn't attract attention the way Dave does
You spoke too soon: https://nypost.com/2021/10/12/netflix-reinstates-worker-terr...
> “This is not an argument with two sides. It is an argument with trans people who want to be alive and people who don’t want us to be,” Field added. “This all gets brushed off as offense though — because if we’re just ‘too sensitive’ then it is easy to ignore us.”
Went into the special before it hit the news because I like some of Chappelle's other work. I liked a few parts, and I didn't like others. I think it's totally super neato that Dave Chappelle has his personal opinions on trans people, but publicly playing the "just asking questions" game costs putting giving both sides on equal footing beforehand.
This is an irresponsible thing of Netflix to do, and silly to conflate with censorship. Yelling "I think there's a fire" in a crowded building causes as much harm as yelling "are we sure the building's really burning?" when it is. Absolutely think and say either if you want to, but know that when you amplify them it causes real social harm.
Someone can choose not to watch Chappelle. So you're implying anything indirect like changing someone's opinion negatively is doing 'social harm', which could legitimately be used to argue just about anything. Don't just think about what you're saying for your pet cause or whatever is trendy at the time, think it through at a societal level for all possible uses of such rhetoric.
When you "just ask questions" on a public platform you implicitly give credence the side with less acceptance. This is fine with issues that are undecided or harmless, but trans personhood is neither. If you agree that trans rights are human rights, and are aware of the trans suicidality rates alongside the latest push of anti-trans legislation in the States and Europe, then it should be apparent that Netflix did not use their large platform responsibly here.
I'm not worried about the trans kid who clicks off of a C-tier netflix special after 20 minutes. They'll be fine. I'm concerned about their uninformed schoolmates, or their school board, or their parents, who get the impression that the personhood of trans people is some disputed academic issue which they are fine to have a "trans-exclusionary" stance on.
Tech companies are poorly positioned to engage in responsible platforming, and pressuring them when they misstep is important.
"Never let a good controversy go to waste."
Because these companies have the highest status and social justice outrage is a form of intra-elite status competition. You'll find that this stuff becomes more intense in academia as you move up the university prestige ladder.
Peter Turchin has written a lot about the general dynamics of intra-elite competition and elite overproduction: see https://www.amazon.com/Secular-Cycles-Peter-Turchin/dp/06911... for example