How could anyone want to #freemilo?

Fox

Wed, Jul 27 2016, 12:45 am

fmt4 wrote:

but I will NEVER support a man who takes such obvious glee in exploiting women's insecurities and making them feel horrible about themselves - in his original review of the film, he singled Leslie out as "spectacularly unappealing," of course he could pretend that he's referring to her acting but it's a pretty obvious dig at her looks.

I don't want to beat a dead horse, but I'm wondering what review you read.

Quote:

Patty is a two dimensional racist stereotype by even the most forgiving measure.

Patty is the worst of the lot. The actress is spectacularly unappealing, even relative to the rest of the odious cast. But it’s her flat-as-a-pancake black stylings that ought to have irritated the SJWs. I don’t get offended by such things, but they should.

Ghostbusters, the film acting as standard bearer for the social justice left, is full of female characters that are simply stand-ins for men plus a black character worthy of a minstrel show.

Obviously it's open to interpretation, but I took "spectacularly unappealing" as a reference to the way the movie allegedly uses Leslie Jones as the "Sapphire" character of minstrel shows -- the overbearing, aggressive, domineering black woman. In other words, Leslie Jones was cast for her height and powerful physique -- and was deliberately made to seem unattractive -- in order to milk laughs (or not) from a characterization deeply rooted in the country's racist past.

Frankly, I find it odd that so many people care deeply that Leslie Jones was treated badly by random trolls but are perfectly okay with a director and major movie studio that green-lighted such obvious racism. Are people really okay with black women being characterized that way for laughs? Or are they just ignorant of history?

But read further:

Quote:

Compare the female Ghostbusters with my favorite female character of all time, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy’s feminine qualities are part of her strength. She saves the world using her female vulnerability, not in spite of it. In fact, her femininity is the only thing that makes her capable of heroic feats.

So the business about exploiting women's vulnerabilities isn't quite as clear-cut, either. When's the last time we talked about what femininity means or how it contributes to the world? I think those are ideas worthy of thought and discussion.

I fully understand that Milo isn't everyone's cup of tea. But neither is he facile. Lurking underneath the outrageous sound bytes are some interesting ideas that simply aren't being discussed elsewhere in the public sphere.

DrMom

Wed, Jul 27 2016, 1:46 am

allthingsblue wrote:

He violated the following rule:
"We believe in freedom of expression and in speaking truth to power, but that means little as an underlying philosophy if voices are silenced because people are afraid to speak up. In order to ensure that people feel safe expressing diverse opinions and beliefs, we do not tolerate behavior that crosses the line into abuse, including behavior that harasses, intimidates, or uses fear to silence another user’s voice.

Any accounts and related accounts engaging in the activities specified below may be temporarily locked and/or subject to permanent suspension.

....Harassment: You may not incite or engage in the targeted abuse or harassment of others. Some of the factors that we may consider when evaluating abusive behavior include:
if a primary purpose of the reported account is to harass or send abusive messages to others;
if the reported behavior is one-sided or includes threats;
if the reported account is inciting others to harass another account; and
if the reported account is sending harassing messages to an account from multiple accounts..."

He harassed her.

Twitter enforces its rules very selectively.

- Multiple ISIS accounts remain on Twitter and no action is taken.
- Twitter accounts actively advocating he killing of police are untouched.
- Twitter-hosted [filth] sites are allowed to remain operative.

But popular accounts controlled by conservatives are closed. Why? Because Twitter is systematically biased toward "progressiveness," and abuses its power as a huge social media platform to manipulate social media content.

Twitter also temporarily closed down the #DNCLeaks hashtag containing the juicy details of the Democratic Party's decidedly undemocratic and slimy actions, despite the fact that it was one of the top 10 trending hashtags. It replaced the hashtag only after thousands of angry complaints.

This is one of the dangers of corporate cronyism, esp when these corporations control huge communications platforms.

PinkFridge

Wed, Jul 27 2016, 8:28 am

debsey wrote:

It seems to me that there's an issue being played out here that is played out countless times on Imamother.

Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. In other words, there have to be reasonable limits to "free speech" (the "fire in a crowded movie theater" test for speech that should be curtailed argument.)

.

Imamother is different. Because all of us here understand the concept of ona'as devarim and are repulsed by it when we see it. (Disclaimer: I only know about the Milo phenom third hand.)
I think there is an innate drive in people for kindness and goodness, which is why we're seeing some of the bizarre stuff on campuses re safe rooms, speech, etc.
We understand the balance. Someone like Milo should, in a perfect world, have no voice. However, since he does, we here on Imamother who have an interest in this can have a reasoned, courteous conversation.

ETA: I spoke about our world here. In the world at large, part of this malchus shel chesed, which was founded on that great evolutionary principle of free speech and the reasonable limits (right to swing your fist, etc.), which the world at large had never seen before, will by necessity allow this kind of talk as part of free speech. Which is central to a healthy society, as Natan Sharansky explains so well.

Fox

Wed, Jul 27 2016, 11:13 am

FranticFrummie wrote:

The Kassy Dillon story: http://heatst.com/culture-wars.....ones/

And we haven't even touched on the relationship between Jack Dorsey and Deray Mckesson and how that's impacted enforcement of Twitter's ToS. Or all the threats against Hotep Twitter participants. Or Twitter's acquiescence to various countries' demands to censor speech those countries don't want broadcast.

Yes, AllThingsBlue, et. al., this story is way more complicated than it seems at first glance. Milo is just a canary in the mine shaft, and complaining about him is the equivalent of saying, "I really dislike yellow birds, so let's not send any down there to check out the air."

There is a popular joke going around right now:

"After Twitter's disappointing second quarter earnings were released, Jack Dorsey has announced a new strategy. Tweets will no longer be limited to 140 characters. Now you can have 1984."