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April 17, 2016 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
23:21
This Week in Stupid (17⧸04⧸2016)
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Hello everyone, welcome to this week in Stupid for the 17th of April 2016.
If there's anything you'd like to see in this week in Stupid, please tweet using hashtag TWIS or post to our Sargon of a CAD and I'll find it.
So this week I'm a little bit under the weather, but I'm going to soldier through because I certainly would not like to be accused of dereliction of duty.
So to start with this week, we have a story from the town I live in.
Chef prepared curry after wiping bottom with his bare hands for cultural reasons.
Apparently Mabub Chowdhury from Swindon Wilts had an empty bottle in the kitchen, which inspectors discovered was covered in fecal matter.
Oh god, I hope I haven't eaten this restaurant.
So this curry house chef prepared food after wiping his bottom with his hands because he doesn't use toilet paper for cultural reasons, a court heard.
Now, I think this is a really great example of why cultural reasons are not a good excuse for anything.
Apparently he filled a bottle with water from the kitchen taps and used it to clean his bottom after visiting the toilet, and did not use paper for these cultural reasons, whatever they are, not given.
He then prepared dishes including meat and fish curries at Yahya Flavour of Asia in Swindon Wilts.
Thank God I've never even heard of this restaurant.
Thankfully, he was actually found guilty of breaching the food and hygiene regulations and will be sentenced at a later date, I'm sure.
Again, this is just like...
I really feel bad for the people who have recently eaten at this restaurant.
Anyway, that one wasn't really important or interesting, it was just...
I love featuring anything from Swindon, because God...
You know we have two streets called the street in Swindon.
That's the kind of place Swindon is.
In desperate need of an identity.
Anyway, talking about identities, let's have a look at why some black people are requesting segregation.
Everyone's favourite bar, Salon.com, posted this article.
I'm tired of suppressing myself to get along with white people.
I pocket my black rage and swap Hey Girl for Hello.
But in making others comfortable, I'm making myself sick.
Now you might think you could just say, well, don't do it.
Just be yourself, and people who like you for who you are will like you for who you are, and those people who don't will presumably leave you alone.
What's happening in Ferguson?
One of my white roommates asked.
I heard some kid got shot or something like that.
For anyone not informed, this is when a young man called Michael Brown decided to rob a convenience store and then attack a policeman who tried to intercept him given that him and a friend of his were the suspects reported.
And there was a struggle and Michael Brown attacked the police officer and the police officer shot him.
Michael Brown was apparently advancing on the police officer when he shot him after being pursued by the police officer and instead of being honest that Michael Brown had instigated almost all of this there was a meme that went around the black communities at the time that he was actually standing there with his hands up saying don't shoot which wasn't true.
The words clamoured in my ears.
How could he not know?
Weren't his Twitter, Instagram and Facebook feeds flooded with opinions and hashtags?
Well no.
He's probably not the sort of person who lives their life in a fucking echo chamber.
If you get your news from opinions and hashtags on social media, then you are undoubtedly going to have a narrative that has formed.
You're not going to be looking at all of the facts, which I'm sure this person isn't.
You're going to have a propagandized view of what's gone on.
So she says, I'm sure he meant nothing by his statement.
We're all ill-informed from time to time.
Yes, we are, aren't we?
But as I stood there, awkwardly not saying a word, while hundreds of words ran through my head, it was a reminder of how much I would have to suppress in order to get along with my white male roommates in our tiny four-bedroom apartment.
I love how this is so emotional.
Oh my god, this guy doesn't know about something, I'm going to freak out about it.
No, no, I'm gonna- I'm gonna suppress it.
I'm gonna keep it all down, I'm not going to spew propaganda at him that he can refute, because otherwise that's going to affect my emotional investment in what's gone on.
But look at this bit.
It hasn't always been like this for me.
I'm a girl with a fro, raised in the place once known as the Chocolate City.
I grew up as part of a black nuclear family, was homeschooled and then became part of the mini-historic black college experience at Temple University.
After arriving in New York, I became an intern at Essence, a magazine so safe I likened my boss to an aunt.
Those settings were as comfortable as my grandma's cooking on any given Sunday.
Presumably for the lack of white people she had to interact with.
But not only that, can you imagine being so coddled?
Can you imagine, like, other people's opinions?
Oh god, I'm gonna have to just endure them.
How could I not be in a safe space?
I longed to crawl back into my tiny black universe.
A place where I could create a sense of peace, identity, and acceptance.
A place where I could sit trying to untangle my fro and make sense of what it means to be an African-American woman in this country, rehashing our history while facing present pain.
But as life happens, most of us can't stay in our own utopias forever.
Jesus Christ.
She's literally saying that white people are making her life worse, and she would prefer just to be around black people.
There's just- she just wants segregation.
She doesn't want.
She doesn't want white people around.
They're the problem.
Now I faced a new reality.
Which is actual reality.
The brief conversation on that roof in that hop September night lasted much longer in my head.
I sent myself into a 200-year-old tizzy, reckoning with outdated ideas on race, tampering with prejudice and stereotypes.
I became enslaved by my emotions.
That's the sort of person who wants segregation.
That's the sort of black supremacist who wants to be away from whitey.
They have outdated ideas on race.
are constantly going on about prejudice and stereotypes, often projecting their own onto other people and I agree with her that she probably was entirely enslaved by her emotions.
This seems to be the case with many Black Lives Matter supporters who are just...
they don't care about reality.
In fact, reality is a hindrance to them.
I wanted my home to be a refuge, a place where I could be wretched when I wanted, walk around in my bonnet, fry chicken, and sing real loud to Aretha Franklin's RESPCT.
Suppressing my blackness every day was exhausting.
You mean not being a massive walking fucking stereotype?
Who the fuck has like programmed her to think this?
Honestly, I mean, A, there's nothing stopping you from doing these things.
Just because there are white people in the house, you can still walk around frying chicken and fucking singing to Aretha Franklin.
No one's stopping you from doing this, but for some reason she feels that she has to suppress her blackness, which, honestly, these people are fucking nuts.
And I'm really interested to know who's educating them to think this way, because I don't think they're coming to these conclusions on their own.
Look at this.
Trump effect stirring hatred and fear in schools, report says.
My students are terrified of Donald Trump, says a middle school teacher with a large student body of African-American Muslims.
They think that if he's elected, all black people will get sent back to Africa.
Well, where the fuck did they get that impression?
I don't recall Donald Trump saying anything about black people other than they love me, which is what he says about everyone.
Everywhere, all the time.
I don't ever recall hearing Donald Trump saying that he's going to deport black people back to Africa.
So where the fuck are they getting this?
Why aren't their teachers intervening and saying, look, this is just simply not factually accurate.
A, he's never going to have the power to do that.
B, that's not the platform he is running on.
And C, you're fucking insane.
So this report is from a survey of 2,000 teachers, where they blame much of Donald Trump's comments about undocumented immigrants banning Muslims from entering the US and building a wall between the United States and Mexico.
Okay, but none of that in any way implies deporting black people en masse from the United States.
Students are hearing more hate language than I've ever heard at our school before, said a high school teacher in Montana.
Another teacher who responded to the survey said a fifth grader told a Muslim student that he was supporting Donald Trump because he was going to kill all of the Muslims if he became president.
The survey asked five questions including, have you seen the rhetoric of this year's presidential campaign affect your students and your school?
If you have witnessed bullying or biased language at school from adults or students that mimics the rhetoric of the campaign, please tell us about it.
Now the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is my favourite word salad, admits that the survey is not scientific and the K-12 teachers who responded were likely to be those who are concerned about the topic.
However, they think it still offers a glimpse into how the presidential campaign is affecting students.
Well, I guess it kind of does.
In fact, what this does is demonstrate the power of an unchecked narrative.
If you block everyone who fucking disagrees with you, and you sit there going, Donald Trump is the new Hitler, you will have people who genuinely think Donald Trump is the new Hitler.
And no, this is not an endorsement or defense of Donald Trump.
This is setting the record straight.
But I really do think that Donald Trump has become an example of what happens when you let narratives run wild.
Anyway, let's have a change of subject and talk about the government intruding on your sex life.
UK government concerned too many people could be trying anal sex.
Well this doesn't surprise me at all since they literally banned a whole slew of sex acts from porn being made in the UK.
I'm not surprised now they're interested in what people are putting up their bums.
I guess we don't have any like real issues to be worrying about, but okay, let's have a look.
The government is concerned that increasing numbers of young people are trying anal sex, according to an official consultation.
Officials at the Department for Culture, Media and Sports are baffled at the increased popularity of the act, despite apparent research suggesting it is not pleasurable for women.
Well, I'm just going to say from my own research, there are some women who do find it pleasurable.
So what are you fucking talking about?
You can't just say anal sex is not pleasurable for women.
The warning is included in a consultation document issued by the department about plans to further restrict access to online pornography.
Of course it is.
It argues that young people are trying anal sex as a result of having viewed pornography and that this is an unwelcome development.
I haven't taken the time to read the document yet, so I'm just going to assume that that's true.
Maybe, maybe they are watching more porn and they're getting the idea for anal sex out of porn.
What negative effect is that actually having?
Many people worry that young people will come to expect their real-life sexual experiences to mirror what they or their peers see in pornography, which often features ambiguous depictions of consent, submissive female stereotypes and unrealistic scenarios.
The consultation reads.
Oh, well if many people are worrying, maybe we should ban everything.
Maybe we should just ban anal sex.
Maybe we should make buggery illegal again.
I mean surely this represents the will of the people.
A bunch of pseudo-moralists and government meddling in people's sex lives, dictating to them what they can and can't watch on the internet.
This is exactly what everyone wants.
And it's based on such firm foundations.
Some people worrying.
Oh my god, quick do something.
There is also the question of the effect on pornography on unwanted sex.
Do you mean rape?
For instance, more young people are engaging in anal intercourse than ever before, despite research which suggests it's often not seen as a pleasurable activity for young women.
Oh, it's not seen that way.
It can't possibly be that way.
Thank God for the authoritarian right, protecting women from getting buggered unnecessarily by their boyfriends.
God, what would we do without you?
Oh, but what's this?
While the increase in anal sex cannot be attributed directly to pornography consumption, it does feature in a large percentage of mainstream pornography.
Well, if it's not attributed to it, why are you trying to link the two?
Oh, I understand.
People are worrying.
Yeah, okay, worrying.
Yeah, worry.
Worry, worry, worry.
No, shut up and fuck off out of someone's bedroom.
No one wants you meddling, you fucking busybodies.
The consultation suggests that restricting access to pornography might reduce the numbers of people trying anal sex.
Well, you know what?
I'm not happy for you to restrict anything because you think it might do something.
Okay?
I'm not interested in reducing the amount of anal sex that's going on.
I don't think you should be wasting taxpayer money being interested in reducing the amount of anal sex going on.
Especially when you have officials supported their view by citing a 2014 British medical journal paper from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, which collated interviews about the practice with 130 16 to 18 year olds.
Oh, 130 triple digits!
Fucking go!
That study actually, however, concluded that the accounts revealed a complex context of people trying anal sex, with availability of pornography being only one element.
So, it's really not a big deal.
What you're going to be doing is ruining other people's fun because of your personal fucking hang-ups.
Because you don't like people putting stuff up their asses.
Well, tough.
And make no mistake, this is just one facet of a general governmental push to control the internet.
Online abuse law shake-up urgently needed, Tory Maria Miller says.
Of course she does.
A review of the laws surrounding the significantly increasing problem of online abuse is urgently needed, former culture secretary Maria Miller says.
Conservative MP Miss Miller, chair of the Commons Women and Equalities Committee, which sounds like something that probably existed in the Soviet Union, said police found it incredibly difficult to make current laws work.
She added, it was time to get tough on social media networks too, which treat online space as the wild west.
So you want to kill social media as well, because that's what's going to happen.
I mean, in an attempt to police a tiny minority of people who send nasty words on the internet, you're going to end up ruining it for everyone, aren't you?
Chief Constable Stephen Cavano of Essex Police said more officer training was needed across the board.
He said there have been an explosion of different types of online crime.
Trolling.
Is that a crime?
Racial homophobic abuse?
Okay, maybe.
Sexting?
That's not a crime either.
Revenge pornography, which, okay, fair enough.
Which were not even imaginable when he became a PC in 1985.
Okay, well, a lot of what you said here isn't a crime, and a lot of what you said here is just nasty words on the internet.
I mean, we have laws about nasty words on the internet already that I'm not very happy with.
I don't want to see these expanded to be even more fucking draconian.
Unbelievably, Facebook are actually in the right on this.
A spokesman for Facebook said that the company worked with safety experts and took feedback from users to combat the small minority of people intent on harassing others online.
Because that is what it is.
A small minority of people.
Because most people aren't like that.
And the people who are like that are always going to exist.
Facebook has said that no government, charity, parent, or company could make the internet a safe place, but they could work together to educate and empower people.
That's a fantastic idea.
I think people should be educated and empowered, especially when it comes to how they deal with people online.
Kira O'Connor from Twitter said content in violation of its rules would be removed, and offending counts could be permanently suspended, but she said tech companies cannot simply delete prejudicial views from society.
Exactly.
She says intolerance in all its forms is a deeply rooted societal problem.
And she is right.
You cannot expect to police the entire internet.
What you can do is allow people to protect their own accounts, to make them private, to only add friends and relatives and co-workers and whatnot, the people that they actually want to talk to, if they are incapable of dealing with the general public at large.
Charlotte Holloway, the head of policy at Tech UK, which represents 900 UK technology companies, said the industry took its responsibility to keep users safe and secure very seriously, and existing legislation was fit for purpose, and the focus should be on ensuring the police and prosecutors have the right skills and resources to bring perpetrators to justice.
That's fine.
We have legislation.
You do not need to shake it up.
You do not need to do anything because a bunch of whiny women on the internet decided to air their views in public and got nasty comments for it.
They've left a link to The Web We Want from the Guardian newspaper.
Let's have a look.
This is one of the articles from that link.
The women abandoned to their online abusers.
Oh, look at those sad, sad faces.
They face harassment, including death threats and racist abuse.
Why are social media sites and police unable or unwilling to tackle the problem?
I don't know, presumably institutionalised sexism and racism?
For the past 16 months, Suzanne Fernandez has been targeted online with racial abuse, pornography and death threats.
The two individuals she believes are responsible share many similarities.
An interest in far-right politics, an ability to create multiple anonymous fake social media accounts, and pass convictions for extreme internet harassment.
After making 126 crime reports to the British police and numerous reports to Twitter and Facebook, Fernandez feels both destroyed and defeated.
Well, I don't care how she feels, but the British police are clearly taking this seriously.
I mean, these men have previous convictions, and I'm sure you will be able to establish and achieve more convictions for them if they're actually breaking the law.
Both men, who can't be named for legal reasons, are known to law enforcement agencies and social media companies as convicted social media aggressors, a fact that she believes makes a mockery of the promises of the big tech companies to take such abuse and threats seriously.
She's a youth worker in London and says, It's been constant targeted harassment campaign.
There have been threats to kill and rape me.
Various accounts sent tweets saying I had 10 days to live and images of extreme pornography were sent to me.
This is the worst time of my life.
And yet you remain alive and unraped.
I mean is there any instance of a rape or death threat sent via Twitter that has ever borne any fruit?
Has there ever been anyone raped or killed because of it directly after a Twitter threat?
I don't think so, and maybe that's why they're not taking this seriously.
Don't get me wrong, I don't want to see her getting this kind of these messages.
And I know I sound really unsympathetic, but man, I am fucking sick of people crying wolf over this shit.
Just fucking protect your account.
You can do this.
They can't just tweet at you and you won't see it.
Oh, but what's this?
The sexualized and threatening abuse of Fernandez began when she challenged the racism of a member of the far right on social media, an attempt at so-called counter-speech, which tech companies are encouraging across the globe to create a grassroots movement against hate speech on their platforms.
Well, A, that's not a grassroots movement.
That's specifically something that's coming top-down.
but b she went and provoked them.
Fucking what do you expect?
Do you expect these people who are obviously not very nice people to be nice to you when you go and go, that's racist?
Fucking, just leave them alone.
Just fucking block them.
Protect your account and shut up and fucking stop being a busybody in other people's affairs.
Yes, what they are doing is wrong, which is why they have convictions for doing this.
Now you need to be sensible.
Reporting to the police has only led to more abuse.
Images of Fernandez and her children were posted on a website hosted by WordPress in early March.
The posting read, she baits people on Twitter to troll her so she can make reports to the police.
Well, suddenly this is beginning to make a lot more sense.
And I like this bit as well.
Fernandez believes that social media platforms need to be held legally accountable for the abuse they host.
Good luck.
Good luck with that.
Good luck maintaining a social network when you make them responsible for things other people post.
Just good fucking luck.
Finally this week, Tuesday was Women's Equal Pay Day or something like that, which was as vapid as one would expect with articles like this.
US wage gap costing women 500 billion per year.
New study fines.
And then they put this line underneath as if they don't understand the English language.
The study, which ranked all US states according to their wage gap, said on average women earn just 79 cents for every dollar made by working men.
Then they're not losing any money, are they?
This is what they are earning.
Oh my god, just it's so bizarre.
This is such a just consistent myth that is being perpetuated.
Yes, they earn less than men.
I mean, that's, this is literally like saying, this is, this may as well read, there is a wage gap between doctors and social workers, and this wage gap is costing social workers 500 billion per year as doctors out-earn them.
I mean, nobody thinks that money you didn't earn is not money you are losing.
You didn't earn this money, it wasn't yours.
Otherwise, I'm losing billions in comparison to Bill Gates.
Something needs to be done.
This earnings gap, this wage gap, needs to be closed between me and Bill Gates.
How dare he out-earn me?
And like I said, I'm not even going to go into this.
It's something that's been covered multiple times on this channel and on almost every other channel that is in any way concerned with reason.
I'm just going to leave it with this article.
Young women are asking for and getting more pay than men.
Women are likely to be paid less than men hired for the exact same role, unless that is their recent college graduates, a new study shows.
Really?
Is that the fact?
Is it someone who is more educated gets a higher starting salary at a job?
No way.
Women in technology, sales or marketing with two years or less experience actually got salary offers that were 7% higher than those received by equally inexperienced men according to Jobsite Hired.
Wow, fucking blow me down.
Women are now earning more than men.
Do you know what that means?
That means that we need to equalize that wage gap.
These young women need to have their pay reduced to be equal to the men.
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