I don’t think life can be distilled down to such a simple rule, especially when emotions run high. That’s why protection against mob rule is a thing. The “audie

I don’t think life can be distilled down to such a simple rule, especially when emotions run high. That’s why protection against mob rule is a thing. The “audience” that burned the women at Salem were likely entirely in the wrong. The author’s remarks regarding cultural appropriation and blackface is an example. “The students felt that it was never, ever appropriate for any white person to adopt anything from another culture — not clothes, not music, not anything. I counter-argued that all cultures grow by adopting from others.” Emotions were already running high because he stupidly used the n-word (even if was used as a reference and not against somebody), and then he tried to cite some obscure fact that some black Africans also practiced blackface that they learned from some roadshow, but that only pissed off the students even more. I suspect a more academic audience would have been more receptive to that fact, but for everyone else, that’s kind of a “rest of the owl” moment. And now they’re saying he supports blackface.