If you repeat “mocked raped threats” or “minimized rape” or whatever on Twitter enough times, people on Twitter will believe it’s true. Because people are dumb. So: you must keep insisting on the truth. Here is what Amber A’Lee Frost actually wrote:
“And I just don’t think the diminutive label of ‘bro’ should be used to describe more insidious sexism, let alone violent aggression like rape threats.”
That is the opposite of minimizing rape; that is the opposite of mocking rape threats. It is literally the opposite.
Here’s what Amber A’Lee Frost actually wrote:
“And I just don’t think the diminutive label of ‘bro’ should be used to describe more insidious sexism, let alone violent aggression like rape threats.”
You can lie about what she said. You can lie about what she said, Christopher Carbone. You can lie about what she said, Adam Kotsko. You can lie about what she said, Josh Foust. You can all keep lying. What did Amber A’Lee Frost actually write?
Here’s what Amber A’Lee Frost actually wrote:
“And I just don’t think the diminutive label of ‘bro’ should be used to describe more insidious sexism, let alone violent aggression like rape threats.”
Does the dude from Newsweek who wrote this know that this is what Amber A’Lee Frost actually wrote? Does Robert Farley know that this is what is being represented as “mocking rape threats”? Why is the actual sentence nowhere to be found in this Twitter storm? Why are people not engaging with the actual sentence she actually wrote? Why are they dissembling and hiding from what she actually had to say, if not because they know that what she wrote does not constitute mocking or minimizing rape threats in any way, shape, or form?
Here’s what Amber A’Lee Frost actually wrote:
“And I just don’t think the diminutive label of ‘bro’ should be used to describe more insidious sexism, let alone violent aggression like rape threats.”
If you are fighting this battle, insist on dealing in reality. Force people to tell you how, exactly, saying that we should use serious language to discuss a serious topic like rape threats amounts to minimizing that topic. Point out that, in fact, what she wrote is the literal opposite of what she’s accused of writing. Put it to them directly: what does your conversation have to do with what she actually wrote?
Here’s what Amber A’Lee Frost actually wrote:
“And I just don’t think the diminutive label of ‘bro’ should be used to describe more insidious sexism, let alone violent aggression like rape threats.”
That’s the truth.
Update: Here’s Elizabeth Stoker:
unorthodox views can, especially for women in left academic feminism, result in precisely that form of discipline: withdrawal of community, overwhelming assassination of character, a very sudden onslaught of negative feedback and demands for apology. It strikes me that this method of disciplining members is another symptom of the problem Amber gets at in her article: the community is not so concerned with what is true or false as with who is good and who is bad
Unorthodox views are punished via phenomena like the Twitter storm, and that’s what’s happened to Frost, and Stoker thinks that’s unfortunate. OK? Cool. And here’s how Sarah Kendzior characterizes that:
Last RT is re: Elizabeth Stoker, who said that I had to be “disciplined” through “character assassination”, as I received rape threats
I do not have words. I simply do not have words to describe that.
Update II: Putting comments to bed on this one.
Not an honest interlocutor.
Who isn’t?
This is an absolutely horrible defense of Amber. Nobody took offense to what she actually wrote (thanks for repeating it a million times but I remembered exactly what she wrote the first time). People took offense that she included a link to another woman’s rape threats on twitter that led to even more rape threats when it was originally posted. That’s incredibly fucked up and offensive for lots of reasons even if done without bad intentions. Nobody would have ever criticized her actual words for these reasons without the link, which you fail to mention one time in the entire post. That’s the truth. I think Amber is more than capable of defending herself way better than this if she wants to.
People took offense that she included a link to another woman’s rape threats on twitter
No, that’s a lie. Frost linked to Kendzior talking about her own rape threats, on her public Twitter, a service which includes an option to make your tweets private, which Kendzior has declined to do. Public tweets are public. That is not a “should be” statement. That is an “is” statement.
Meanwhile: Kendzior has repeatedly stated that Frost “mocked” her rape threats. Does the statement that I quoted amount to mockery of rape threats? Is there any possible honest interpretation that suggests that’s the case? How can a statement explicitly calling rape threats very serious amount to mockery of rape threats? That’s the question that’s before you right now.
First, of course her tweets are public. That’s not the point. The point is that it’s fucked up to link to someone’s tweets about such a personal issue without their consent to a much wider audience, which is why I would imagine Jacobin took the link down and apologized.
Second, I don’t speak for Kendzior. She’s free to interpret her tweets being attached to that statement however she wants. It’s easy for me and apparently lots of others to see how linking her tweets to that statement could be considered as diminishing or mocking her rape threats but I don’t really feel like explaining that at length because that wasn’t the point of my original comment.
My point is still that this an absolutely horrible defense because it says nothing about the link, which is really what the controversy is about, not the original statement. If you’re going to emphatically urge people to tell the truth than at least be honest about the whole story in your own post.
Again: Kendzior is making that claim, that Frost was mocking her rape threats. She’s made it again and again and again. I am saying that such a claim is not defensible. And indeed, it’s so indefensible that you refuse to defend it– because, I imagine, you know that it isn’t true. But you feel compelled to complain anyway, because this is about teams.
Now: read that characterization of Stoker’s paragraph. Does that read like a remotely honest characterization? I mean you can’t honestly believe that it is, right? She’s literally taking something Stoker said was bad and saying Stoker is calling for it herself, and she’s taking something Stoker was saying about Frost and saying that it’s about Kendzior. Come on, man. A little honesty? Please?
First off, you have no idea what team I’m on. I don’t feel like defending Kendizor’s statements at length because she can defend herself, you’re boring and your Amber defense sucks. Here’s some honesty though, I actually love Jacobin and have supported them since day one and still do. I also think Amber is a good writer that made a really stupid mistake that I don’t think was intentional. But she still has to deal with the consequences. And having people like you write really bad posts that don’t tell the whole truth hurt her cause more than help it.
So in other words, you don’t, actually, think that Frost’s sentence constitutes mocking rape threats, but you’re unwilling to say so. So instead you dissemble. Well, enjoy, partner!
FYI, Freddie, your post was far from “bad” and you’re far from “boring.” Keep up the good work and ignore the Jims of the world. There’s about 60 of them, they congregate in the dark corners of the left twittersphere, and they’re irrelevant.
Which is why they’re so frothy, not to mention why they feel entitled to the unaccountability of their own opinions. This Jim fella pretty sums it all up.
You drop out of defending what she did to refocus on the mischaracterisation, here.
Mischaracterising someone is bad, but directing people to look about someone opening up about an extremely traumatic experience (resulting in them receiving further treatment of the kind they deserve) is clearly worse.
I have no doubt she wouldn’t have linked that way if she’d known it’d happen. But saying ‘It’s public!’ just won’t do. If I hear something in public, remove it from that context and then release it before a stadium audience, I’m not simply behaving as a gentle curator. Saying ‘a bar simply *is* a public venue! ‘ is not sufficient.
Fwiw I’m not any team, before this I knew who neither of the participants were.
*describe…definetely not ‘deserve’!
Woah, that update is chilling. I would point to historical precedents for such failures of rationality, but I’m sure that would be some sort of personal attack, so nothing much can be said at this point.
Kendzior response to being criticized for mischaracterizing Stolker was:
“LOL like I would ever read her blog. I’m talking about her tweet. Enjoy it before she deletes it! https://twitter.com/e_stoker/status/475828363127304193”
https://twitter.com/sarahkendzior/status/476192051902443523
I just don’t even get what this is about anymore. Maybe she has an axe to grind against Bruenig after raising an old feud, but like, what is the fucking point. Who responds to things by just laughably declining to read the person you are publicly shaming. I mean, what kind of perpetual motion signaling machine do you have to live in?
All this was ever about was one author’s careless or malicious use of someone else’s private pain. It doesn’t matter whether or not it was careless or malicious. There should not be any “two sides” to this. Amber drew public attention to another person’s RAPE THREATS. As a result, that person and her family received even more rape threats. Trying to focus this on some imaginary disagreement over the content of the article is distracts from what actually happened here, and what we all have a responsibility to fight against. Amber’s intentions in making the link are irrelevant. She did something that caused another human being to be subjected to terrible pain, and instead of taking responsibility for that and dealing with the true issue you treating this like it was some petty squabble over semantics. If that’s not minimizing rape threats, I don’t know what is.
Amber drew public attention to another person’s RAPE THREATS
Kendzior tweeted about them, on a public service on which she has 20,000 followers. She could make her Twitter account private; she didn’t. Kendzior herself made those threats private.
As a result, that person and her family received even more rape threats.
Source?
So now you’re saying she’s lying about getting threats? This is low. And it perpetuates rape culture even if you don’t want to believe you’d do that. So she releases an email? You guys will just say it’s a forgery. One thing is perfectly clear: you are doing damage to a person right now and you don’t care. And where’s your correction to your factually incorrect update. She was referencing a tweet that days exactly what she says it did. A commenter linked to it here, so you’ve seen it. Or is intellectual honesty only a bar your enemies must clear?
So now you’re saying she’s lying about getting threats?
I didn’t say anything remotely like that. At all. Like, not even a little bit. You’re simply lying.
“As a result, that person and her family received even more rape threats.
Source?”
I read this as you doubting her many tweets about getting more threats because of this. If not, what does this mean? And if you accept that she IS getting threats because of this, your insouciance and willingness to keep piling on is disturbing.
I read this as you doubting her many tweets about getting more threats because of this.
Then you’re simply making up a meaning that has literally nothing to do with what I said.
If not, what does this mean?
Please provide a link so that I can read more about this for myself.
And if you accept that she IS getting threats because of this, your insouciance and willingness to keep piling on is disturbing.
She has continued to write about it, at length. I continue to find her way of characterizing her opponents to be dishonest and unhelpful. This is not complicated.
Well, goodness forbid we ever get distracted by mere content.
Despite the explicit terms of this debate, it seems like we are having an additional debate over whether the key words here actually have precise meaning, and who decides what that meaning is, exactly. While so many people are fuming about what Amber wrote (which seemed clear enough to me), we’re really having a shadow-argument over how seriously we should take statements like “the left has a rape problem” and the real definition of the word “mock” and all of the consequent obligations we have to empathize with somebody who claims an offense. The thing that is really disappointing to me isn’t just the dishonest misreading. It’s the fact that those who’ve taken offense to Amber are making zero effort to explain how her point could ever be made without eliciting the same incoherent rage. It’s as if Amber’s critique and any empathy with a potential rape victim are mutually exclusive. There’s no path to honest criticism; only demands for apology. My question is this: how did we collectively consent to allow the language to be bent in this way? Am I accidentally helping the rage machine by commenting? Is it the case that something as serious as violence and rape is “too serious” for our language to handle in a logically self-consistent way?
Freddie, would you agree that even though it was not “mocking rape threats”, it is at least plausibly mocking her reaction to rape threats?
No. Not unless you believe that any and all criticism constitutes mockery.
No, your post really does suck. Amber’s piece attempted to make a good point about not relegating data driven writing to the sphere of masculine or “bro” culture, but she totally undermined it by tacking on the more generalized and contrarian “people over/misuse the word bro.” Which she then had to go and back up with a one off comment someone made about their rape threats on twitter, effectively putting that person on blast over an unimportant semantic argument. I also consider myself a comrade of Amber’s, and a big fan of Jacobin. But we should all be able to admit that they fucked up.
It’s interesting that the word “disciplined,” and the phrase “character assassination,” do not appear in Stoker’s piece.
Not only are they out of context, but they’re not even quotes.
It’s from a tweet, not the blog post. Link is in these very comments somewhere.
The tweet also did not remotely say what Kendzior says it did. Not at all. Not even a little bit.
It is a direct quote from the tweet.
No. No, it isn’t. Saying that Stoker said that Kendzior should be disciplined is an abject and total lie. Saying that Stoker said that Kendzior should be the subject of character assassination is an abject and total lie. Stop lying.
Has the tweet been deleted? Can you direct me to it? My attempt to search twitter reveals those phrases in Kendzior’s history but not Stoker’s. Stoker’s article does include similar language, so I assumed that was the source.
I admit not reading this closely and going off on what the LGM dudes characterized this as (never a winning strategy). In human terms, I’m not sure anyone comes off really well here. In real life, if someone has been subjected to rape threats, maybe you tread carefully about singling out their situation, and maybe criticizing their use of terms to characterize all that is, well, a bit tone-deaf about how people react. So I can see how Kendzior could rightly get pissed at what could have seemed like a “hey you’re using the wrong words to describe your traumatic experience” reaction to what was a pretty huge deal for her (or anyone in that situation). At the same time, as you, Breunig, and Stoker have pointed out, the characterizations of what Frost actually said are pretty far off the mark and not too responsible. Once again, in human terms, you cut Kendzior some slack because all this stuff was originally about some horrific attacks on her, but I don’t think anyone else making those characterizations gets the same defense. Perhaps my real job is talking here, but getting two people who have a dispute about how they’re coming across to each other in a room or on the phone is more productive than having a full-blown written dispute about what you imagine is in the other person’s head. Don’t imagine, ask, then talk, then sort it out. This seems like the polar opposite way of trying to resolve this kind of dispute in a way that ends without everyone hating each other.
The internet is basically just groundhog day for the perpetually outraged, at this stage.
It’s worth pointing out Kendzior’s history with federally-funded research on Central Asia, presumably undertaken in the wake of the occupation of Afghanistan and the American military presence in Uzbekistan, and her connection to Freedom House. Needless to say, gaslighting and lying on people is a common fed tactic.
This is what you should be engaging, this is the actual issue here: http://www.nancyleong.com/cyberharassment/editorial-discretion-and-private-lives/
Respond to that, explain why it’s fair or an act of good faith to do something that brings rape threats on someone and their family. After that, and when the rape threats stop, you can sort out whether or not the person receiving them correctly characterized the intentions of the people who caused it to happen.
Tweets are public, if your Twitter account is set to be public. That’s reality. There is an option to make your tweets not public. If you don’t choose to use that option, your tweets are public. Literally anyone with a web browser can see them. I don’t know why you can’t process this fact.
The neo-Victorianism implicit in this controversy is shocking (or, given the online leftist climate, not at all shocking). Kendzior is a perfectly competent adult, not a damsel in distress. She knows about Twitter’s public/private functions, and she knows how to use them. While I agree that it’s a good rule of thumb to be careful when linking to Twitter content, especially when that content involves rape threats, I find the performative outrage in certain corners downright nauseating… not because I’m a misogynist, but because I’m a feminist.
If you think that this is a performance, you clearly don’t know what it’s like to have to live with constant threats to you and your children from people who disagree with your opinions and think that terrorizing you is an acceptable form of rhetoric. This is not a game, it is not a performance, this is about people using methods that are inhuman, immoral, and illegal to score political points. And writing that off as “not legitimately scary” and calling yourself a feminist in the same breath is incredible. There is nothing “implicitly Victorian” in not wanting that to happen to another human being.
You’re still performing. If you really believe what you say you believe, you would have desisted already, because it would be self-evident that by persisting, you risk directing more rape threats in Kendzior’s direction. But of course you don’t really believe this, which is why you persist.
I don’t look at women as delicate little things. They are adults, like you and me. While I’ve already suggested that Jacobin should have been more careful about that hyperlink*, this in no way justifies the kind of outrage rituals we’re now seeing… unless, of course, you believe women are delicate little things and anyone who treats them otherwise should be deemed (in spotless Victorian style) as a villain. And just to preempt another deliberate misreading, I’m not talking about the people sending rape threats.
*I agree with you that the publicizing of rape threats often leads to more rape threats. I also agree, given this calculus, such publicizing should seek the consent of those concerned. In this context, I think Jacobin should have been more careful, and I’m glad they corrected accordingly. I disagree, however, that Jacobin committed some great sin by re-publicizing (via hyperlink) what was already made public (and remained public) by a consenting adult, and I think anyone who pretends otherwise is performing outrage on behalf of a neo-Victorian ideology I find repugnant. It’s also dishonest, btw, since it’s precisely folks like you that worked your darndest to make Kendzior’s rape threats as public as can be, to the point of the whole shebang ending up in Newsweek. But since I’m not you, I don’t consider you a villain. Just dishonest.
Yeah., there were droves of people yesterday literally saying it’s never okay to link to women blogging/tweeting without their permission. In other words: Don’t quote women, it’s too risky.
Cool feminist agenda, guys.
You know who else is a perfectly capable adult? Amber! So this “neo-Victorianism” (admit it, you wanted to say white knighting you brocialist scum) extends as well to your knee-jerk defense of Ms. Frost. She wrote an article with plenty of room for honest critique, and plenty of room for misunderstanding (honest or otherwise.) Why don’t we let her sort it out?
Letting her sort it out would require that she be judged on her actual positions and statements, not on the ones that are being dishonestly invented for her again and again.
I’ve already conceded that Amber et al. should have sought consent before re-publicizing (via hyperlink) a link that was already public. That said, I think said mistake pales in comparison to the rank dishonesty and bad faith demonstrated by SK and her mob of performative knights in shining armor.
As for the rest your unhinged rant, you have fun in left Twitter land buddy. Seems like it’s treating you well.
No, Freddie, letting her sort it out would require us to wait for clarification, defense, and perhaps apology from Amber herself.
I repeat the question: how is it a good faith act to do something that causes someone to receive more rape threats? It is irrelevant whether or not the twitter conversation was theoretically discoverable by someone. (Not by the general public, in fact, or anyone with a web browser, because as the article explains it was a mention, not a tweet, and therefore not in fact visible “to the public.”
This is no different than whining about it being a “first amendment issue.” You are crowing about the *right* to do something that brings rape threats on a person and their family, after they specifically asked you not to. That might make you within the law, but it makes you a terrible human being.
(Not by the general public, in fact, or anyone with a web browser, because as the article explains it was a mention, not a tweet, and therefore not in fact visible “to the public.”
That’s not true. Anyone with a web browser can find a mention. All you have to do is to navigate to that person’s Twitter profile. Again, that’s reality.
Since your argument is that literally any publicizing of a tweet in which rape threats are mentioned constitutes tacit support for those threats, how are you not guilty of that yourself? How are all the people tweeting and blogging and talking about this issue not guilty of the same thing? If the publicity is what causes the threats, then how are you not guilty of participating in the threats by talking about them yourself? If bringing attention to threats necessarily causes more threats, how are people talking endlessly about this issue not themselves guilty?
I agree with you that Kendzior has completly manufactured an outrage here, and is generally not worth engaging with. Id say that about the IR faction (Drezner, Foust et al) that she hangs with. In fact, Ive come to the conclusion that about 80% of the online American left aren’t worth engaging with any more. 95% of online conservative as well. So what is a boy to do ?
Just to add, not out of spite or trolling, but for full disclosure .. i would also assume at this stage Jacobin are putting out more muck than useful content (including that Frost article) and I generally dont agree with your comments and think you’re overly sensitive.
I just think I hate everyone ; 0
Are you saying she manufactured the rape threats she is receiving, or are you saying that she’s not allowed to be upset about them? Or are you saying that people have a right to make them?
I said none of those things; I suggested none of those things; I believe none of those things. And more to the point, you don’t actually believe I think any of those things. You don’t. You are just pinballing from one dishonest misrepresentation of what I’ve said to another. You don’t actually think that I believe the things you’re accusing me of believing.
This was a response to Ronan, not to you, Freddie. You have not claimed that she “manufactured outrage,” you just coldly stand by the right of anyone to do something that causes harm to someone else. The reason the link in Jacobin is different than talking about it right now is that as a result of the link in Jacobin THE ENTIRE INTERNET IS TALKING ABOUT ONE WOMAN JOURNALIST’S PRIVATE LIFE. It’s in Newsweek, for christsake. That happened because of the Jacobin article. And yes, the journalist in question received a shitstorm of new threats *because of that article* and because people continue to minimize the seriousness of this and claim that she has no right to be offended. People are threatening to rape her WITH SPECIFIC REFERENCE TO THE ARTICLE. People have threatened her WITH SPECIFIC REFERENCE to Matt Bruenig, who continued to mock her today and has now descended to calling her an “opportunistic moron.” And here you are, perpetuating this shitstorm and continuing to attack a person who is receiving active rape threats. Just keep piling on, this will really make people want to join the left.
I would argue that as a result of this woman’s direct and continuing actions, the Internet is talking about her life. But then I believe in the kind of feminism that treats women as adults responsible for their own actions.
How this could have gone:
Kendzior sees Lee has linked her tweet
Kendzior reaches out to Jacobin and asks for it to be removed
Jacobin removes tweet
Nobody knows or talks about it.
And yet….
Elizabeth – precisely
You just called yourself a feminist and then argued that it’s her own fault that some of Matt Bruenig’s supporters are threatening to rape her. In case you can’t see it, you just made the “she was asking for it” justification. About rape as a rhetorical tool.
That’s what adult feminism is these days? You people are disgusting. If this is the left, I’m done.
No. No, I didn’t. I did nothing of the kind. At all. I didn’t suggest, imply, or hint at that. Because I don’t believe that. I know that I don’t believe that because I’m me.
Why don’t you try again.
Appalled – the point here is obvious. Kendzior is not ‘responsible’ for her rape threats (whatever that means) as aren’t Jacobin, Frost or Bruenig. The people who are responsible are the people who threatened her.
Kendzior is responsible for making a story out of this non event (the Frost article)
Appalled – fitting handle.
But don’t you ever get exhausted from all the huffing and puffing? Don’t you ever feel the urge to stop the act, calm down, and contemplate the world like a thoughtful and generous human being?
One day you will. I’m guessing. Either that or you won’t last very long. There’s much surrounding us to be appalled about. The trick is in knowing how to conduct triage. The online left hasn’t learned the wisdom of triage quite yet, if ever they will…
When you blog/micro-blog about your private life it’s no longer private because you made it public.
The mock-outrage on this whole topic is making me want to leave the left. Or at least the internet left.
Me ? No, no and no.
And you’re perpetuating this for page views. Congrats, I guess it worked.
I have no ads on my blog and receive no revenue from it. I have literally no interest in page views and don’t even keep track of them.
Ok, a lot of your comrades appear to be hungry for attention.
And a lot of people are saying that publicity for women who receive threats inherently brings more threats– and yet they are themselves making the conversation more public and drawing more attention. Like you are here.
Me commenting on your blog? Or you writing multiple blog posts about it, and all the rest of you guys, with tweets and posts about something the subject felt FORCED to write about in the first place. You can disagree if you want, but don’t pretend there aren’t a bunch of people milking this for all it’s worth, and not a one of them seems to care about the threats all this attention is bringing in real time.
Once again, you’re dissembling: your claim is that attention brings more threats. You are bringing more attention to this issue. Kendzior’s defenders are bringing more attention to this issue. Far, far more people claiming to speak on behalf of Kendzior are perpetuating this conversation than people criticizing her. Why does your own basic logic not equally apply?
It’s perfectly clear what Kendzior was complaining about, because she states it several times: having her Twitter threats linked in the context of being “viciously mocked.”
No one mocked Kenzior. Freddie’s post is on point.
I guess at the end of the day I believe it’s possible to believe two things, that what Frost said might have been said better (or least a little less tone-deaf about an important issue) and that mischaracterizing what she actually said doesn’t do anyone any good.
Freddie, here’s the tweet: No, my argument is that character assassination is a technique to discipline leftist political positions.
It was taken by many as a description of what you guys are trying to do. But the words are not made up. You can disagree with the take, but your update implies that sk was responding to a blog post when she was really responding to this tweet. Setting it up the way you did is perhaps a mistake on your part, but gives the impression that sk is making up phrases, which she clearly is not. A failure to correct your update makes you guilty of the very misrepresentation you are saying you are against.
Stoker is talking about WHAT HAPPENED TO FROST. The argument she’s referencing when she says “my argument” is the argument in the blog post I quoted above! Read the tweets! That’s explicitly, unambigously, and directly what she’s saying! There is no remotely responsible, honest, or fair interpretation of Stoker’s tweet– which, again, references the argument in the blog post– that tracks with what you’re saying. And you don’t believe that that was what Stoker was saying. You don’t actually believe the words you’re writing down. Because you, and Kendzior, are deeply dishonest people.
“It was taken by many as a description of what you guys are trying to do.”
I don’t know which is more staggering: the tone-deafness, the contextual cluelessness, or the bad faith necessary for such a staggering misread.
For that comment to be referring to this situation, I would literally have to be a Bond villain, openly narrating my evil schemes in a public venue before I carried them out. Why on earth would anyone do that? I explained my argument that unorthodox (NOT dominant) views are subject to various techniques of discipline. This was to argue against claims that the threats SK was experiencing were part of the /same/ ill treatment Amber was experiencing. I argued it was not in fact the same, because SK’s left political position was not being disciplined, unlike Amber’s. If you read my post, it makes sense.
Yes, but you are not allowed to define what you yourself think, apparently. The mob has decided what you think.
Your update says she was responding to the blog post. She says she never read the post and was responding to this tweet. Your update is factually inaccurate. Failure to update would be, as you say, deeply dishonest.
The tweet references the blog post; the context of the tweet conversation makes it absolutely clear that she’s referencing the blogpost; there is no possible honest interpretation that Stoker was referring to what she wanted to happen to Kendzior instead of what she thought did happen to Frost. It’s dishonest, Kendzior is dishonest, your dishonest, and because you’ve been so serially dishonest, you’ve now been banned.
It’s unclear to me where I “lied” about what she said, nor even how I rise to the level of a major player in this particular debate.
Indeed: lying would imply that you knew that what you said was untrue. In fact, it appears very clear that you had no idea what you were talking about when you weighed in. Because there was outrage to be had! Which is exactly the kind of habitualized rush to judgment that makes it far harder for us to generate legitimate outrage about legitimately outrageous things.
Maybe next time, read and think before you pile on, huh?
So you’re admitting that the accusation of lying was inappropriate, but you’re still right? Remember my comments yesterday about Larry David-style non-apologies?
I’m not apologizing for anything. You weighed in on a controversy over an essay that you have given every appearance of not having read. You chummed the waters without bothering to get even basic facts correct. Maybe instead of crawling farther and farther into your own ass, you should think to yourself, “should I have started accusing people of stuff when I didn’t have even a basic idea of what the controversy was about?”
If I was correctly accused of participating in a frenzy without even minimal information, and my response was to say “well, according to a technical definition of the word ‘lie,’ I’m not guilty, because I was really just misleading by representing my ignorance as knowledge,” I would feel deep, deep shame. Please: try a little self-criticism. Think it over.
I don’t recall any accusations. I am well aware of the sequence of events that took place in public, as is basically everyone in the world at this point. My final position was that the ultimate stakes of this controversy were apparently personal and unknowable outside the immediate circle of combatants. That has nothing to do with lying about anyone. It was my considered judgment as someone with no real stake in this particular debate but a broader stake in the quality of leftist debate in general.
So basically, you’re completely mischaracterizing the nature of my intervention in the discussion and slandering me — and when I pointed it out, you doubled down. Awesome. Thanks. I’ll work on that shame thing you recommend.
Is it dishonest to represent yourself as understanding a controversy, as you undoubtedly did when you tweeted things like that socialists are alienating 51% of the population, when you in fact don’t understand that controversy? When you aren’t even aware of what one participant is labeling “mocking rape threats,” which is the source of this controversy? Yes or no. Is that dishonest?
There was a broad trend of misogyny in left-wing online forums long before this controversy erupted, and that is what I was referring to. No amount of rigorous parsing of the exact meaning and implications of a sentence from a blog post is going to change that larger fact.
lol “rigorous parsings of the exact meanings of a sentence” means “being an honest human being.”
But please: go ahead. Keep making up what Amber Frost said. Keep making up what Megan Kilpatrick said. Keep making up what Elizabeth Stoker said. Because the vicious invective that’s been hurled against them– that doesn’t count, right? And because it doesn’t matter if we’re honest, as long as we claim to be on the right team, right? And because it’s so, so good for social justice that our standards of honest and good faith are now so pathetically low. Keep it up, man. I’m sure we’ll get to social justice any day now, by mocking people for rigorously parsing exact meanings and implications. There’s no way this strategy can lose!
Again, you are completely misconstruing my position and the nature of my interventions into the debate. I have not taken anyone’s “side.” I have not directly addressed the specific statements of any of the people you mention. You are simply making shit up because you don’t want to admit you were wrong to take a swipe at me in your post. I shouldn’t have bothered talking to you at all, and I won’t make the same mistake again.
Hey man, advice is free. Mine is to read before you weigh in on stuff. Call me crazy!
I agree there’s always been misogyny in left forums. It’s just that it appears a little more evenly distributed in this case than anyone seems willing to recognize. SK, for example, called me ‘Bruenig girlfriend’ — she never titled him by his affiliation with me. I understand SK’s original complaint with Jacobin, but it seems unfair that I’m now the target of a very obvious smear campaign for doing nothing more than trying to explain a paragraph I thought was misunderstood.
https://twitter.com/sarahkendzior/status/476168676060581889
Again, a response that seems to presuppose I’ve taken a particular “side”! I hereby recognize the broad distribution of misogyny in this case, as was already implicit in my “pox on both your houses” position. I also promise to be preemptively ashamed of whatever deep personal flaw Freddie believes this response to reveal.
You can’t really just instantiate the specter of what’s happened in the past, with entirely different actors, as a means of judging what’s happening in the present, with this set of people. That’s pretty disingenuous, and it’s generally the tactic of people who start off with the presumption that the rapey reds must be the bad guys. (And, sadly, for some comrades who presume that anyone who says “rape culture” must be wrong.)
It’s also pretty disingenuous to insinuate, like a Daily Show correspondent, that both sides are equally wrong/misogynist/bad. “Pox on both your houses” and such. Measure what came out of Jacobin (and when), and stack that against what came out of Kendzior, including what she RT’d all along, for over 72 hours straight. It’s an obviously uneven distribution of intentional misdirection, lies, vitriol, endorsement of libel (e.g. Foust), and as Liz pointed out, occasionally misogyny.
That being said, it does seem clear to me, for what it’s worth, that you didn’t lie about anything. You’re just not helping when you and Gerry Canavan (for example) goof around like those two muppet critics. Both sides are extreme! Let’s meet at the National Mall and joke about that!
Ugh, please leave me out of this. The reason “both sides” are being described in negative terms here is because this thing has ballooned totally out of control. Everyone involved, as I understand it, agrees that including the link as a contextless aside was inappropriate and that it should have been removed (as it was, promptly) and an apology was in order (as was delivered, again promptly). What’s been happening since this is a huge, overblown, take-no-prisoners argument over who was spiking the football / who spiked it first / who spiked it harder / etc. We’re on second- or third-order parsing of manners at this point.
I’m a very big admirer of Jacobin and hate to see the damage that is being done to its brand here. And I don’t think Sarah is helping her own position at all either. *Everyone* would be served by a ceasefire and by moving on. Including me!
Your brother and I had a long talk last night where we tried to articulate our differing perspectives on this. I don’t know that we solved anything but we parted I think as friends.
Thinking of Jacobin as an institution the absolute best thing, I think, would have been to eat shit on the removal/apology and let the matter drop with further engagement. And that’s been true ever since then too. Continuing to litigate now this isn’t making things better and is hurting Jacobin worse; whether or not one thinks SK is a bad actor acting badly, there is just no upside for supporters magazine in continuing to dig this hole from here.
Agreed. I wish Doug et al. would cool it in SK’s replies (e.g. in thread about Melissa leaving the mag). No matter what happened up to this point, and no matter how irresponsible one team is, falling back to “my team vs. your team” doesn’t help the left. All in all, the left doesn’t need to care about the follies of the Twitter bourgeoisie. Lessons were learned, apologies were issued; move on.
Someone on Doug’s FB wrote this: “90% of the problem of ‘the left’ are encountered in discussion ABOUT the left, not in (say) actual work, social movements, unions, cultural production, etc. It’s about leftists, not politics.”
I agree people should move on from discussing the merits of one “side’s” claims vs. the other. However I think that’s separate from examining the dynamics of these things, which I think is mostly what Freddie and others are doing here.
I think some of us hope that by giving these toxic affairs a good, hard look, people that feed them will think twice about doing it again. That’s why it’s useful to point out, for instance, that people purporting to be standing above “both sides” in the midst of so much asymmetry — something you’re still doing — are really rather full of shit, especially when the record suggests they did no such thing.
If you want to be kept out of it, then stay out of it.
The case for both Kotsko’s honesty and above-the-frayness is very poor, as I show below, outside this thread. I think snarking at someone for insisting that Frost’s comment did not mock rape threats with “Strange how it could be so easily misconstrued” suffices as an endorsement of the mischaracterization. The cowardly, conformist appeal to the authority of the mob doesn’t mitigate that. It makes it worse.
I like how the whole mess was basically repeated here in miniature.
It’s been a depressing few days.
I dunno, Adam, I think you might want to delete some tweets before digging in your heels here. Your conduct in the thread you kicked off with this tweet is at the very least a train wreck of bad faith. I feel no hesitation to call you dishonest in this thread, if not a liar outright, and a creepy belittler of women who don’t agree with you. I encourage readers to look at the thread but I’ll summarize the important bits.
1. Adam scolds lefties for alienating 51% of all humanity
2. Lefty dude B asks why the targets of the crusade Adam is aligning with — Amber Lee, Megan Erickson and others — aren’t part of that 51% also.
3. Adam gives snarky non-response: ‘Some of my best friends are women, too.’ Har har.
4. Lefty dude Todd insists Amber Frost’s remark did not trivialize rape and quotes it.
5. Adam replies, ‘Strange how it could be so easily misconstrued.’
6. Lefty woman Emma points out to Adam that Sara K seems very much the opposite of a socialist solidarity-builder herself.
7. Adam snarks incomprehensibly.
8. Emma asks what he means.
9. Adam says “I don’t know, and I don’t want to continue.”
Elsewhere you derided Frost’s piece for its lack of rigor and substance — based on Tweets, can you believe it? — which is interesting, since your conduct entirely vindicates Frost’s pointed refusal to put much stock in elaborate performances of not-a-bro-ness. While taking a swing at one of Twitter’s most unethical micro-celebrities was definitely a bad idea, Frost sealed her Twitter fate by pointedly refusing to pat the heads of feminist allies like you. How could she be soooo wrong?
You’re right Adam, you are a minor figure in this, but of course everyone is a minor figure when the real star is a mob of unprincipled, social climbing creeps, beating on women, as Freddie said, ‘because feminism.’ You’re a perfect study in how this disgusting shit works and therefore it is entirely appropriate for Freddie to offer you as an example. Your appearance here to laughably demonstrate your complete lack of self-awareness is the icing on the cake.
Yup.
This is as heartbroken over a lefty fight online as I’ve been. Honestly, I’ve been to terrified to tweet or write about it as the viciousness flying in is just not something that I (and I assure you that I have a pretty thick skin on this sort of thing) feel I can subject myself to. So maybe I can write here, under the veil of more anonymity I can get elsewhere.
I feel that I have to pick a side and I simply don’t want to. I’m expected to be angry at Amber; I’m not, even though I’m not especially a fan of that specific piece. I’m expected to not like Aaron; I love reading Aaron’s stuff, even when I disagree with it. I’m expected to hate Jacobin; I don’t, at all, even as I think there’s no way that link should’ve made it by editing.
I don’t understand any of this. You’ll have to forgive me if this reads as emotional, but I just don’t get this. Maybe I’m too stupid to get it. Maybe I’m supposed to understand why the commies and social democrats at Jacobin are in one faction, the academics like Aaron are in another, and the twitter feminists are in yet another. I just don’t. I hate it.
I watched this unfold in real time, by pure chance, on Saturday morning. The link was up for minutes. Not even a half hour. Under twenty, almost certainly. It was absolutely a mistake. Besides all of the subsequent misrepresentation by Kendzior, she was absolutely right that it shouldn’t have made it past editing.
Jacobin isn’t a monolith. Like most lefty publications, they seem to bestow the title of “editor” to an awful lot of people. It’s probably a volunteer job on the part of regular contributors. That should be reigned in. The two people are are absolutely, 100% not volunteers, the most official voice Jacobin has, are Uetricht and Sunkara. They both apologized and removed the link as close to immediately as humanly possible early on a Saturday. That other “editors” were upset and defended Jacobin in a pointed way (and I pass no judgment here on the rightness of that approach, though I’ll note that Sunkara and Uetricht are taking drastically different tack) doesn’t make that the official voice of Jacobin, anymore than when one of the volunteer editors at New Inquiry saying something represents the opinion of its entire publication.
Yet here we are. I’m not inclined, at this point, to be charitable to Kendzior, even though, as stated, I recognize and agree that the inclusion of the link was a mistake. I imagine that she well knew that the editor in question’s disagreement with her after the fact was only important in the ability to use the title “editor” against the magazine. Compare with the real contrition on the part of Uetricht and Sunkara and you can see where things have gone.
And now Melissa Gira Grant has asked publicly that her name be removed from the masthead. Because the horse has bolted the stable. What was actually done, what actually happened, has disappeared. It doesn’t matter. We’re now at a point where it’s being publicly stated that writers for Jacobin and Salon are personally sending rape threats. Newsweek can mention the old rape threats to Kendzior, to several magnitudes more people than Jacobin could dream of, and she will link approvingly, because she’s being cast as the hero.
I’m watching people I admire more than I should and less than is healthy, across all corners of this sordid debate, tear each other apart. I’m watching people who magnified their voices a little more via Jacobin’s cooperation leave it behind. I’m watching Jacobin be diminished. I’m watching Kendzior actually lie, baldfaced lie, about what Elizabeth Stoker wrote, knowing that she can get away with it because the chance to reign this all in with fact (facts are for bros, after all) is two days past. I’m watching bored academics on twitter, unrelated to anything in this for four days now, suddenly swoop in to revive it, just as it’s dying down, for a laugh; maybe Jacobin loses a few subscribers over this, which would be just desserts.
And all for something which was apologized for and retracted so quickly it wouldn’t have been noticed otherwise. Jacobin were wrong. Dead wrong. And they fixed it and it was never, ever mentioned by Kendzior, save one early tweet which was “not good enough”. The ritual self-flagellation must continue. The show trials must take place. The humiliations must continue.
The initial piece was muddled, but at its heart I read it as a cry of frustration with the navelgazing on the part of the academic oriented left with those who are content to critique Orange is the New Black for the next 40 years while we all drown or bake. And that’s the fundamental tension, here. Myself, I don’t think they’re at odds, but I sure as hell think a growing number on the working class, labor left do. Amber can speak for herself, obviously, and I don’t know her personally or even well, in an online sense, but I do know that she’s part of that labor oriented left. Why shouldn’t people on that end of things be frustrated? All this energy, all this tarnishing of Jacobin’s name, for this? And all coming from the more academic (or pseudo-academic) end of the coalition.
Heartbroken. Absolutely heartbroken over this.
It’s why we lose; it’s why we’ll always lose. This entire controversy has been a statement of a broken, broken. Not just one that loses and will always lose, but one that deserves to lose.
The notion that we (if there were a concept of we which could stand close scrutiny) could take on a right which is absolutely rampant right now is farcical.
The Daily Beast, formerly(?) affiliated with the very Newsweek which ran the examination Kendzior approvingly cited, published an actual account BY A RAPIST of his deed. A blip. This? Four days and no end in sight.
Even if you agree that Jacobin are scum, this has to be overkill. It has to be. You can’t flog them like this and leave the right alone. Not with another school shooting today. Not with the open bribery in Virginia. Not with what happened today in Iraq.
The odd thing is that the text in the (now-removed) link doesn’t really support the argument in the text. Kendzior said that people she identified as brocialists had sent her rape threats. She didn’t identify rape threats as “bro” behavior.
So… the initial problem there is an editorial issue, which the editor of the piece acknowledged pretty quickly: if the piece had been read more closely that para would possibly have been clipped, as a diversion from the main argument of the piece (the left wing should not shun statistical and data-driven arguments as overly “bro”) further muddied by a link that doesn’t substantiate the claim that even one person is doing what it is saying people should not do, much less that it’s a general thing. Of course, in opinion pieces one cite is a trend, two is a craze, and none is an underground phenomenon, but…
There’s a second question, which is about standards and practices. “Do we treat equally a Rob Delaney or Cory Booker broadcast tweet – one that actively seeks propagation – a #yesallwomen tweet from a private citizen with 25 followers, and a tweet in an exchange between people in somewhat public roles on a sensitive issue that would normally be invisible to people not following them both” is an editorial S&P question.
“Yes, we do” is a potential response to that, but it’s a response that an editor should be able to point to and apply consistently. It looks like Jacobin decided that, actually, they don’t – and that an Editors’ Code-like injunction on harm avoidance kicks in in certain circumstances. Although it does mean that there is now this odd paragraph enjoining people not to do an unevidenced thing, which can’t be removed but doesn’t really fit…
Reading David Graeber’s tweets about this have given me some useful insight here. He tweets: “If a woman is threatened w sexual assault as a form of pol intimidation it is NOT OK to use this as occasion to attack her for other reasons. If you do so, you are essentially piling on, and participating in a pol culture that says it’s ok to use such threats as a political weapon”. I think this is the most honest description of the objective function that the mob is using. He suggests that (any) non-zero amount of criticism that started with (any) rape threats (from anyone) is unacceptable, no matter how valid the criticism might be. Ironically, Graeber is “participating” as well, and I’d be interested to know how he distinguishes piling on from honest criticism.
Still, I think this is the heart of the matter. The mob wants to ensure that a certain experience gives you full control over the language, and that Kendzior’s original comments, and any criticism of it, are invincible. It seems like deBoer/Stoker/Bruenig and obviously Frost take issue with this, since placing any kind of language above criticism allows us to conflate the “bro” culture with a more dangerous one. I would wholeheartedly agree, but at the very least I think Graeber has done the best job of explaining the root of the intentional misreadings.