Popeye’s Quote:
“That’s all I can stands, cuz I can’t stands no more!”
Lindy’s Quote:
“[Megyn] Kelly happily trafficked in racist tropes for profit…asking repeatedly whether the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown were necessarily related to race..
Nope. I can’t let this pass, and will never let this pass again. The context doesn’t matter: Lindy West’s statement above is a lie, and deliberately perpetuate a falsehood to mislead Times readers, or perhaps to encourage them to mislead others. The New York Times editors should not allow lies the paper’s pages, not in news stories, and not from pundits. West can, if she chooses, state the factually untenable opinion that she believes the deaths of Garner and Brown were based on race. She cannot state that the position that their deaths were not based on race is a “racist trope,” which requires facts and evidence showing that either or both deaths were race-related.
There is no such evidence in either case. None, Not a shred, not an iota. Lindy West is calling Megyn Kelly a racist based on an assumption she holds because it is cant within her circles despite no evidence whatsoever. That is unethical punditry, and no responsible newspaper should allow such falsity in print.
Is there any evidence that the white police officers who gang-tackled Garner when he resisted arrest, causing his death, would not have tackled a 350 pound white man resisting arrest? Nope.
Is there any evidence that Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson would not have shot a very large white man who had tried to take his weapon from and was charging him? No. None at all.
Both false narratives are Black Lives Matter propaganda. The New York Times, as a professional news organization, should not allow false narratives in its pages without clarification and correction. I am particularly sick of these false narratives, because they form the foundation of the current unethical and dumb NFL Anthem protests.
I’m not letting them pass again without kicking them on the way by.
Popeye would want it that way.
Ethics Alarms 
Lindy West is calling Megyn Kelly a racist based on an assumption she holds because it is cant within her circles despite no evidence whatsoever.
This is misleading. West did not call Megyn Kelly “a racist,” as you claim. She said she used racist tropes. You’re also omitting the other, better examples of racist tropes West identifies in order to focus on her worst example. I agree with you that the statement you quoted does not imply anything racist. But the sentence of yours I quoted above is still wrong twice over.
He has a point, Jack.
“She said she used racist tropes.”
Odd…I thought she said “happily trafficked in”… a bit more loaded with innuendo and implication than the mere sterile term “used” that you characterize this as…
Wouldn’t you say?
“West did not call Megyn Kelly “a racist,” as you claim.”
Of course. Anytime a NY Times pundit says that Megyn Kelly “happily trafficked in racist tropes for profit…,” said pundit is NEVER even IMPLYING that Megyn Kelly is a racist. Oh, no – NEVER!
Lucky,
Get your brain straight! Language must ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS mean the best possible thing by reducing out all negative connotations and denotations and leaving us with the bare essential claim of a word when a Leftist uses it.
Language must ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS mean the worst possible thing by hanging as much additional meaning, present or not, to words and phrases when Right-winders use it.
Weird. Most people can tell the difference between “Person A did bad thing X,” and “Person A is an X.” For instance, if someone tells a white lie once, we do not typically call that person a liar.
But for some reason, when the subject of racism comes up, the ability to make this distinction completely vanishes. It’s like the capacity for critical thought completely shuts down.
Chris happily trafficks in alcohol consumption.
Chris happily trafficks in images of naked children.
Chris happily trafficks in Leftist spin.
But I’m not calling you an alcoholic, a child pornographer, or a Leftist spinner.
Ok, I am calling you that last one.
You really should have stopped at the first analogy and realized that it proved my point.
chuckle.
No, I’m quite serious.
Trafficking in alcohol consumption is not enough to make one an alcoholic. You know this, so I’m not sure why you’re pretending not to.
There are certain activities that, if committed even once, are enough to justify a negative label immediately. If someone murders a single person, then one is a murderer. If one traffics in child pornography, even once, then one is a child pornographer.
But trafficking in racism, much like drinking alcohol, is something that nearly every adult has done at least once in their lives. So there is nothing to be gained from labeling anyone who has ever uttered a slightly racist remark “a racist.” If one develops a strong pattern of racist remarks, then the label is fair…but we should still take pains to delineate the activity from the label.
Trafficking…
Chris.
Trafficking…
Quit playing dumb dumb games like “trafficking” doesn’t have wide implications about VOLUME of usage and KNOWLEDGE of usage.
Quit.
And *intent* of usage.
Happily Trafficking.
Good gosh, I can’t believe this is actually having to be explained.
Sometimes Chris, I think you KNOW precisely what you are doing to throw discussions off.
But I’d have to label you dishonest at that point.
But, but, Tex, trafficking in humans does not make one a trafficker in humans. You just schooled me! [chuckling]
I mean really, Chris sometimes doesn’t think things through before he spins.
Fine. “Trafficking” means a pattern. So she didn’t call Megyn Kelly a racist, but she did imply it.
Still ignores the second point: Jack omitted West’s other examples of racist behavior on the part of Kelly to focus on the worst and flimsiest examples. This is misleading.
The post was not about Kelly, as any fair reader could understand. It was about the false and persistent narratives about those police involved deaths.
The claim that Megyn Kelly is a racist, however, since you mention it, is completely unfair. Her insistence that Santa Claus is white, for example, which I wrote about at length here, is dumb and overly literal (the historical model for Santa Clause was white, and so the hell what?) but not remotely “racist.”
Chris is right about the meaning of the statement. A person who “traffics in X for profit” doesn’t necessarily use X themselves. A bootlegger doesn’t have to drink. Drug dealers are advised not to abuse their own products. Mercenaries usually don’t care about the causes they fight for. A person who traffics in racist tropes for profit doesn’t have to be a racist–just mercenary.
West is still wrong, but the fact that she used the phrase “for profit” implies to me that she doesn’t actually think Kelly is racist and wasn’t trying to say she was. I think she was just saying Kelly was mercenary.
Which is also wrong. If she were mercenary, she would have re-signed with Fox News, which offered her more money than NBC.
“Trafficking in alcohol consumption is not enough to make one an alcoholic.”
You mean like crafting a brand-spankin’ new demographic like, let’s say
White Hispanic, isn’t enough to make it easier to demonize a protected minority, like yer garden variety Hispanic?
Anywho, no, it doesn’t make you an alcoholic, but it’s enough to make the listener assume you’re a tippling sot, without the benefit of the doubt.
trafficking in racism
This phrase makes my head hurt. How much does racism go for on the open market? How is it denominated — I’d like to buy 15 gallons of racism fob Kalamazoo.
Is there a futures market too? Can I place an order for 500 bushels of January racism?
OK, back to your regularly scheduled squabbling…….