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Who’s canceling MLK?

by jjj123 6y ago

reaperducer 6y ago
It's been in the newspaper for the last year or so that the woke crowd is reevaluating his legacy. He had a number of writings that today are considered anti-gay. In one very public letter to a gay teen (published in a newspaper, IIRC) he told the teen that he needed mental health counseling to correct himself. It's a pretty famous letter. Should be an easy Google search.
- eesmith 6y ago
  So, "cancel" means "evaluate someone based on their entire person rather than just the things that person is most famous for"? Because I can't seriously think that woke people are saying that MLK's work must be banned, censored, and otherwise removed from history courses, national discourse, etc., which is how anti-cancel-culture people usually seem to characterize the matter.
  - ketamine__ 6y ago
    > So, "cancel" means "evaluate someone based on their entire person rather than just the things that person is most famous for"? Lots of people tried to cancel Brendan Eich because of something unrelated to the his professional career. There are still comments on HN that try to cancel him from time to time.
    - eesmith 6y ago
      What does "cancel" mean to you? Does it mean that people shouldn't face criticism and negative consequences for what they do in the public sphere? The argument was that LGBT people and their fellow travelers working for and supporting Mozilla would likely not want to continue if the head of the organization supported anti-LGBT laws. As such, that would diminish his leadership effectiveness. How is leadership effectiveness unrelated to his professional career in a leadership role? When I've looked into it, opposition to "cancel" seems more like the belief that rich, powerful, or famous people shouldn't suffer negative consequences for saying or doing something that liberals don't like.
      - ketamine__ 6y ago
        > Does it mean that people shouldn't face criticism and negative consequences for what they do in the public sphere? It's fine to criticize people. Do you believe that someone should never be able to hold a job again because they donated money to a politician that an employee finds unsavory? > The argument was that LGBT people and their fellow travelers working for and supporting Mozilla would likely not want to continue if the head of the organization supported anti-LGBT laws. As such, that would diminish his leadership effectiveness. There is no proof he acted against the interests of LGBT employees at Mozilla. I like the idea of due process and if you can't come up with something that actually hurts employees then I don't find it to be a substantial argument. There are millions of people that don't support LGBT laws. We can't force them all to be jobless homeless. That's totalitarian. What I get from your post is that an employees personal feelings are more important than facts and reality. Employees can always go somewhere else instead of launching campaigns to have someone fired.
        eesmith 6y ago
        > Do you believe that someone should never be able to hold a job again because they donated money to a politician that an employee finds unsavory? You have changed the goalposts, because 1) "someone" is a much broader category than CEO, and 2) "an employee" is much narrower than "many employees, a board member, and external supporters." > I like the idea of due process Due process has never applied to employment positions. Ever. > There is no proof he acted against the interests of LGBT employees at Mozilla You mean against their employment interest. He did help fund opposition to their personal interests. > We can't force them all to be jobless homeless. That's totalitarian. Funny thing is, Eich is neither jobless nor homeless, and people still hear about him. Wikipedia summarizes his few on masks, for example, and his work on Brave regularly appears on HN. John Stuart Mill described it much better than I in "On Liberty": """We have a right, also, in various ways, to act upon our unfavourable opinion of any one, not to the oppression of his individuality, but in the exercise of ours. We are not bound, for example, to seek his society; we have a right to avoid it (though not to parade the avoidance), for we have a right to choose the society most acceptable to us. We have a right, and it may be our duty, to caution others against him, if we think his example or conversation likely to have a pernicious effect on those with whom he associates. We may give others a preference over him in optional good offices, except those which tend to his improvement. In these various modes a person may suffer very severe penalties at the hands of others, for faults which directly concern only himself; but he suffers these penalties only in so far as they are the natural, and, as it were, the spontaneous consequences of the faults themselves, not because they are purposely inflicted on him for the sake of punishment. """ > an employees personal feelings Multiple employees, and volunteers. And at least one board member. Certainly personal feelings are important. People are turned down all the time for a position because of "bad culture fit" or "rubs me wrong" or any number of personal reasons. The fact and reality is that we are all emotional creatures. You cannot separate them. But now that we're well off track - what does "cancel" mean? Because I've looked and looked, and never found a definition which fits better than "rich, powerful, or famous people facing unwanted negative consequences of actions or expressions that liberals disagree with"?
  - reaperducer 6y ago
    I used the word "reevaluate" to be kind. Because I can't seriously think that woke people are saying that MLK's work must be banned You are welcome to think what you like. But the fact remains that there are people trying to cancel MLK for being anti-gay. A year ago, saying that woke people were trying to cancel Abraham Lincoln would have seemed crazy, too. Yet here we are.
    - eesmith 6y ago
      What does "cancel MLK for being anti-gay" mean? Who wants to ban, censor, or otherwise remove MLK from history courses, national discourse, etc., and is that viewpoint representative of "woke" people or some sort of extreme outlier? If cancel simply means that no one should be above criticism and that heroes aren't perfect, then ... what's wrong with that?
Spooky23 6y ago
MLK was a great man and champion of social justice, but a conservative Baptist pastor. That doesn’t jive with today’s activism, and the modern activists don’t really care about racial injustice.

Who’s canceling MLK?

by jjj123 6y ago

Who’s canceling MLK?

It's been in the newspaper for the last year or so that the woke crowd is reevaluating his legacy. He had a number of writings that today are considered anti-gay. In one very public letter to a gay teen (published in a newspaper, IIRC) he told the teen that he needed mental health counseling to correct himself. It's a pretty famous letter. Should be an easy Google search.

eesmith 6y ago
So, "cancel" means "evaluate someone based on their entire person rather than just the things that person is most famous for"? Because I can't seriously think that woke people are saying that MLK's work must be banned, censored, and otherwise removed from history courses, national discourse, etc., which is how anti-cancel-culture people usually seem to characterize the matter.
- ketamine__ 6y ago
  > So, "cancel" means "evaluate someone based on their entire person rather than just the things that person is most famous for"? Lots of people tried to cancel Brendan Eich because of something unrelated to the his professional career. There are still comments on HN that try to cancel him from time to time.
  - eesmith 6y ago
    What does "cancel" mean to you? Does it mean that people shouldn't face criticism and negative consequences for what they do in the public sphere? The argument was that LGBT people and their fellow travelers working for and supporting Mozilla would likely not want to continue if the head of the organization supported anti-LGBT laws. As such, that would diminish his leadership effectiveness. How is leadership effectiveness unrelated to his professional career in a leadership role? When I've looked into it, opposition to "cancel" seems more like the belief that rich, powerful, or famous people shouldn't suffer negative consequences for saying or doing something that liberals don't like.
    - ketamine__ 6y ago
      > Does it mean that people shouldn't face criticism and negative consequences for what they do in the public sphere? It's fine to criticize people. Do you believe that someone should never be able to hold a job again because they donated money to a politician that an employee finds unsavory? > The argument was that LGBT people and their fellow travelers working for and supporting Mozilla would likely not want to continue if the head of the organization supported anti-LGBT laws. As such, that would diminish his leadership effectiveness. There is no proof he acted against the interests of LGBT employees at Mozilla. I like the idea of due process and if you can't come up with something that actually hurts employees then I don't find it to be a substantial argument. There are millions of people that don't support LGBT laws. We can't force them all to be jobless homeless. That's totalitarian. What I get from your post is that an employees personal feelings are more important than facts and reality. Employees can always go somewhere else instead of launching campaigns to have someone fired.
      - eesmith 6y ago
        > Do you believe that someone should never be able to hold a job again because they donated money to a politician that an employee finds unsavory? You have changed the goalposts, because 1) "someone" is a much broader category than CEO, and 2) "an employee" is much narrower than "many employees, a board member, and external supporters." > I like the idea of due process Due process has never applied to employment positions. Ever. > There is no proof he acted against the interests of LGBT employees at Mozilla You mean against their employment interest. He did help fund opposition to their personal interests. > We can't force them all to be jobless homeless. That's totalitarian. Funny thing is, Eich is neither jobless nor homeless, and people still hear about him. Wikipedia summarizes his few on masks, for example, and his work on Brave regularly appears on HN. John Stuart Mill described it much better than I in "On Liberty": """We have a right, also, in various ways, to act upon our unfavourable opinion of any one, not to the oppression of his individuality, but in the exercise of ours. We are not bound, for example, to seek his society; we have a right to avoid it (though not to parade the avoidance), for we have a right to choose the society most acceptable to us. We have a right, and it may be our duty, to caution others against him, if we think his example or conversation likely to have a pernicious effect on those with whom he associates. We may give others a preference over him in optional good offices, except those which tend to his improvement. In these various modes a person may suffer very severe penalties at the hands of others, for faults which directly concern only himself; but he suffers these penalties only in so far as they are the natural, and, as it were, the spontaneous consequences of the faults themselves, not because they are purposely inflicted on him for the sake of punishment. """ > an employees personal feelings Multiple employees, and volunteers. And at least one board member. Certainly personal feelings are important. People are turned down all the time for a position because of "bad culture fit" or "rubs me wrong" or any number of personal reasons. The fact and reality is that we are all emotional creatures. You cannot separate them. But now that we're well off track - what does "cancel" mean? Because I've looked and looked, and never found a definition which fits better than "rich, powerful, or famous people facing unwanted negative consequences of actions or expressions that liberals disagree with"?
- reaperducer 6y ago
  I used the word "reevaluate" to be kind. Because I can't seriously think that woke people are saying that MLK's work must be banned You are welcome to think what you like. But the fact remains that there are people trying to cancel MLK for being anti-gay. A year ago, saying that woke people were trying to cancel Abraham Lincoln would have seemed crazy, too. Yet here we are.
  - eesmith 6y ago
    What does "cancel MLK for being anti-gay" mean? Who wants to ban, censor, or otherwise remove MLK from history courses, national discourse, etc., and is that viewpoint representative of "woke" people or some sort of extreme outlier? If cancel simply means that no one should be above criticism and that heroes aren't perfect, then ... what's wrong with that?

Spooky23 6y ago

MLK was a great man and champion of social justice, but a conservative Baptist pastor. That doesn’t jive with today’s activism, and the modern activists don’t really care about racial injustice.