All Episodes
Previous Next
March 26, 2017 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
22:49
This Week in Stupid (26⧸03⧸2017)
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Hello everyone, welcome to this week in Stupid for the 26th of March 2017.
Since it's Mother's Day here in the UK, I'll say congratulations to any mothers who happen to be watching.
Also, get a fucking job, because apparently being a stay-at-home mother is not good enough anymore.
These are of course not my rules, these are feminism's rules, as Sarah Lamarkand will dictate from on high to you.
So the outcry has been predictable in the wake of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's recent report, which had the audacity to suggest that stay-at-home mums would be better off putting their skills to use in paid employment.
Well yes, they will earn more money for the household, but that comes at the expense of other time spent in other areas, doesn't it?
I love the way that a report on this was necessary.
They know that they'll earn more money if they get a job.
They are choosing not to get a job and raise their children while their husbands work.
And if they can afford to do that, then good for them, because I think that's good for the child.
But you know what, I'm pro-personal choice.
If they do want to work and put their child in daycare and basically work to pay for the daycare, fine.
I literally don't care.
You report you so, but the idea of the state being able to command you to get a job when you are not dependent on the state is frankly a horrific state of affairs.
One of the areas of greatest untapped potential in the Australian labour force is inactive and or part-time working women, especially those with children, concluded the landmark study.
There are potentially large losses to the economy when women stay at home or work short part-time hours.
Well, I'm afraid the business owners will just have to deal with that.
That's just going to be life.
You are just going to have to deal with the fact that you are not making quite as much money as you could be making.
This is the corporatist position.
The people who are looking at the sum total of all of the numbers, taking out all of the human element and saying, well, we need to increase this total because then my bank balance gets bigger.
I very much doubt that the author of this piece is actually some kind of corporate fat cat, so I really wonder what they get out of it.
Right on queue, hysteria ensued, with commentators from coast to coast howling in indignation at the very idea that the upty OECD would insinuate Australia might have a, and get this, tiny bit of a problem with our female workforce participation rates.
This person's perspective is that your countries are not for you to live your lives in, as well as they can be lived.
Sarah has a top-down view of society, and she is looking at your country as if it is an engine for these corporations.
And so slices of the population who are not being productive are now problem slices of the population, because they are not being productive.
These aren't people that she's dealing with, these are numbers on a spreadsheet.
These are not people playing in the park with their children and making sure their children feel happy and fulfilled and educated.
No, these are just lazy wastrels to this woman.
She says, and then we wonder why Australia continues to languish in the bottom third of our OECD member states when it comes to female employment.
I don't give a damn.
And I don't see why you should either.
If you're talking to me about the Human Development Index or purchasing power per family or something like that, then I would care.
Because that is actually the quality of life of the people within the country that you're looking at.
That's the thing to me that matters because I'm one of these people in the country and I don't own a fucking international corporation.
Why?
It's not a competition.
In fact, if anything, I think it should be the other way.
The more people who don't have to be part of the corporate machine, the better.
But then it gets into full feminist oppress other women mode.
Rather than wail about the supposed liberation in a woman's right to choose to shun paid employment, we should make it a legal requirement that all parents of children of school age or older are gainfully employed.
Or what?
What do they get fined?
They go to jail?
Why the hell should we?
I swear to God, feminists always reveal themselves to be closet totalitarians, and they don't even understand why.
They don't even know that they're doing it.
Only when it becomes the norm for all families to have both parents in paid employment, and sharing the stress of the work home juggle, will we finally have a serious conversation about how to achieve a more balanced modern workplace?
Well, fuck me, I don't care about having a more balanced modern workplace.
Again, she's speaking as if they are just figures on a spreadsheet, units in boxes, rather than people living their fucking lives.
Of all of the things to give a shit about and to be tyrannical over, getting gender parity in corporate boardrooms and businesses all across the country is not something I think is nearly a good enough reason.
Only when the female half of the population is expected to hold down a job and earn money to pay the bills in the same way that men are routinely expected to do, will we see things change for the better for either gender?
Are you insane?
How is that making life better for women?
That's just forcing them to go out and work a job that will pay for daycare for the child they could otherwise stay at home and look after.
How does that make things better for women?
It makes things better for the people who own the workplace and feminists who give a damn about the gender parity in the workplace.
I mean, you've literally just said this.
But I do love it when they just come out and tell you that they are after your freedoms, right?
They will literally just say it.
Only when the tiresome and completely unfounded claim that feminism is about choice is dead and buried, it's not about choice, it's about equality, will we consign restrictive gender stereotypes to history?
Only when you do exactly as we say, to the letter of the law, will we be able to get rid of these restrictive gender stereotypes?
Oh yeah, yeah, they sound way worse than being forced by the government to work even though you're a parent and you can afford to stay at home.
Ladies, this is the future that feminism has planned for you.
You will have no freedom.
You will do as you are told because you were born female.
That is their plan.
Don't forget that.
So let's move to the race betas, shall we?
Denying your light skin privilege is harmful to the black community as a whole.
You know what that means.
If you're not very dark but you are still black, you've got privilege.
I'm so sorry to tell you this.
That means you're gonna have to shut your fucking mouth.
Stop dividing us.
We're all black at the end of the day.
There is no team light skin, dark skin.
Let's cut the crap.
Nothing is as simple as, well, we're all X.
It's nice to be reminded that we're all in this together.
Human solidarity and black solidarity, I assume that means, are beautiful things.
They're just not the only things.
And when we don't acknowledge the realities of the bad stuff, we let them fester and we leave others, the people we claim to be in solidarity with, more vulnerable.
people of color can never fully separate themselves from their race and what it signifies to others in quotes is that like is it's not like echo quotes for white people To others?
You just mean whitey, don't you?
But of course, let's not pretend that light-skinned blacks do not receive privileges that are at the expense of dark-skinned blacks.
How if I mean, let's assume that they do receive privileges for being black, but not that black, because the shade matters.
It's a spectrum after all.
How exactly is that at the expense of dark-skinned blacks?
How they were born light-skinned, what are they supposed to do?
Every hip-hop reference, every magazine cover, the ease of crossover success for the ambiguously brown, while darker-skinned folks, especially women, because it's always worse for women, somehow seem largely underrepresented and subsequently undervalued.
Well, if they see largely underrepresented, that must be fucking true.
Light-skinned women like Beyoncé and Hallie Berry are considered two of the most beautiful women in the world.
and while it thrills me as a black woman with similar complexion...
Why?
I don't...
Why do you care?
Well, I mean, they look, they've got the same skin as me.
Look at that, isn't that white?
Look at our hair.
Ooh, it's all the same.
Yes, that's what I like to see.
Mirror images of myself everywhere.
Imagine how narcissistic you have to be to think that way.
The universal acceptance of their beauty might just have something to do with their European facial features.
The fuck are you on about?
They're black.
I'M SO SORRY TO TELL YOU THIS!
OH FUCKING! OH MY GOD!
We've got one of those fucking weevils Kangs guys here.
Oh, actually, I actually had someone once tell me that Henry VIII was actually black.
The Vikings were black.
Everyone was black.
And I guess this is one of those people.
It's almost as if it makes them more agreeable to a wider range of people.
Could be just they're really good looking.
On the inverse, we have people like the Kardashians who benefit from their ambiguous complexions and elude the exotic and exploit the aesthetics of women of colour.
You mean they're attractive women.
That's what you're saying.
And these are just things about them that are attractive.
They do so with exponentially more success than actual black women because they're white.
Are they actually white?
Who gives a- God I just don't care.
Alright, they don't need the perception of a proximity to whiteness.
They are whiteness.
Society at large places a very high value on the perceived proximity to whiteness.
Oh, does it?
Where?
Society at large places a very high value on the perceived proximity to whiteness.
Sounds like a paranoid fever dream.
I knew this as soon as I began to understand what my race signified to other, read white, people.
See, I told you other was just white people.
I was eight.
Eight-year-old me thought it would be easier for people to see who I really was if I didn't overwhelm them with my blackness.
The fuck are you on about?
Light-skinned to me meant, hey, I'm sorta like you.
It's not a big deal.
Just a little extra brownness.
That is not a big deal.
It's only a big deal if you make it a big deal, and it seems to be your entire personality.
I knew I was black, and I knew it didn't or shouldn't matter.
But it did and it does.
That's the cold, hard reality of it.
Pretending otherwise, not other, not only do you mean, neglects the problem.
It fails to celebrate the positives of why it does matter.
Light-skinned people have a responsibility to call out colourism and be honest about the privileges they benefit from.
Now you're not even black enough.
I love it.
You are not even fucking black enough.
Just there is no end to where they keep going.
They will get down.
I mean, it will literally end with them holding a fucking swatch of colours and measuring your skin tone alongside it at the rate that they are going.
For example, I've never been racially profiled by the police.
I'm afraid of the police.
I've been pulled over by the police.
I mean, I was speeding, so this isn't not racist, is it?
But more importantly, that means your fear of the police is actually irrational, isn't it?
You've got no reason to be afraid of the police, since they don't seem to have mistreated you in any way.
In fact, but the police have not treated me in vicious ways that I know, and I have seen them treat darker folks.
Were they speeding?
Were they doing something more?
I can walk into a lingerie store and find nude undies that are actually nude on me.
Oh my god, can you not buy black underwear?
Or go into a makeup store and find foundation that is a shade that isn't hidden from the display or only available online.
It's not real, is it?
They don't really just hide the darker skin tones under the counter because they don't want the good white folks to see them, do they?
It's false, isn't it?
You've made this up.
You're lying to people.
This is you being paranoid and making up stories, isn't it?
I don't have the experience to feel what it's like to be totally invisible, and it's my responsibility to say something, to do something, to prevent others from being treated that way.
And if I we aren't willing to do that, then what's the point of black solidarity in the first place?
Doesn't sound like there is any black solidarity, it sounds like there's a lot of colourism in the black community.
But I tell you what, racism is no laughing matter, because if you say just one racist thing to a non-white person, you might cause them to convert to Islam and go on a killing spree, which is precisely apparently what happened to Khalid Masoud.
He apparently snapped because of racism in his village and then went to jail and became radicalized.
So basically, and this is the takeaway, it's all everyone else's fault.
Khalid Massoud, the Westminster attacker, snapped because of racism in his village and slashed the face of a cafe owner before being radicalised in jail.
This poor man, there was nothing he could do about this, at all.
Massoud was 35.
Crush, you can't even chalk this up to like youthful arrogance and stupid decisions made when you were young.
And living in the quiet Sussex village of Northiam when in 2000 he slashed cafe owner Piers Mott in the face with a knife after a row that had quote racial overtones.
Right, so we don't actually know if it was racist, it just had racial overtones, quote unquote.
Well, I mean let's just take it as read that he called him a nigger and said get back to the cotton fields or something.
The Crown Court have heard that after the attack it left Masood and his young family ostracized in the village.
Wow, how unfair.
He only slashed a guy in the face.
Why should he be ostracised for that?
He had been in conflict with the victim before.
After leaving the pub in which he argued with his victim, Masood lost his temper and slashed seat covers in Mott's car.
Yeah, and that should have been a warning to Mott, shouldn't it?
Never question this man.
He might well use his knife on you.
When Mott arrived at his car, Masood waved the knife at him and caught his face, presumably by accident, leaving him needing more than 20 stitches.
Right, I mean Mr. Masood seems like a very level-headed insane person, and he doesn't seem like he's prone to bouts of irrational psychotic anger or anything.
Thank goodness he found religion.
Which one?
Oh, it doesn't really matter.
They're basically all the same.
But Khaled Massoud was then, presumably unfairly, sentenced to two years in prison.
Three years later and now out of jail, Masood had learned his lesson.
Actually, he was accused of stabbing a man in the nose, leaving him needing cosmetic surgery.
And he was sent back to jail for another six months for possession of an offensive weapon.
It's quite likely he was radicalised during a spell in jail, but you know, breaking up these Islamic gangs that radicalize each other in jail would be Islamophobic.
By 2005 he was working in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, then teaching workers at the General Authority of Civil Aviation in Jeddah, according to The Sun, which said it had obtained a copy of Massoud's CV.
In a 20-year criminal career, he also received convictions for causing grievous bodily harm.
See, all of this because one man once said something with racial overtones.
If we could just end racism entirely, completely eradicate it from the face of the earth, there would be no more violence.
These people wouldn't be forced to do horrible, horrible things for 20 years and then end their lives by mowing people down on a fucking bridge.
Seriously though, the people who are obsessed with race and gender and sexuality and all this sort of thing are basically total cancer because they will excuse people's actions on that basis.
and they are inherently divisive.
They ruin everything they touch, such as the DC Science March organizers who find that their movement is racked by infighting over, you guessed it, diversity.
Tensions over the march's stance on diversity has caused some organizers to quit, and many scientists to pledge not to attend as the focus shifts from science to overtly left-wing causes.
According to an in-depth report by Stat, we're going to talk about that.
What a surprise.
People listen to them go on about their brief realist stuff, all of this nonsense about white people and black people and men and women and whatnot, and think, you know what?
Fuck this shit.
I don't want to be part of this.
I'm not going to associate with that.
And that's how social justice kills every goddamn movement it co-opts.
It's cancerous.
It is just awful.
And it always leads to infighting and backbiting and it spirals out of control into purity tests and mutual hatred.
This ideology destroys things.
Just listen to this statement.
I'm disappointed that out of the 24 minute interview on the importance of diversity in science, and specifically the March for Science, the reporters used two half quotes to misrepresent my views.
Diversity is central to our mission and our team, and we are invested deeply on working on these issues.
I in no way meant to suggest that discussions about diversity in and around science detract from discussion about science.
The discussion about the discussion is distracting from the discussion though, isn't it?
That fundamentally contradicts what I feel personally in my professional focus as well.
They're obviously intertwined, which I emphasized repeatedly in both the interview and the last six years of working as a social scientist in the field of diversity in science.
That is a fucking field.
The diversity of science is a fucking field.
Kill me.
I took the role as diversity lead to ensure that diversity was prioritised and embedded in every aspect of our platform, outreach and programming.
Yes, so the entire thing was entirely ideologically co-opted.
At no point could you say, hey, is there anything here that doesn't have social justice goo dripping off of it?
As a biracial black woman, presumably one with colourism privilege, light skin, who has experienced hardships and discrimination both in the field of science and in my everyday life due to my identity, and who has specifically sought training and research in diversity as it relates to science, this is a disappointed portrayal of my views, both for the organisation as well as for me personally.
I imagine it is.
When you've committed your life to doing nothing but studying the numbers of black people in a given area, I imagine them not focusing on that is rather disappointing.
I chose my focus on diversity in science after my experiences of sexism from male professors and advisors discouraged me from pursuing my original path towards becoming a biologist.
Maybe they just didn't think you were cut out for it.
I wonder if these people think in corporate speak, because everything I see from them sounds like corporate speak.
The March for Science started to gain traction in January, garnering hundreds of thousands of likes on Facebook, because people like science.
They like to promote science.
It sounds like a good idea.
It's inclusive.
Everyone likes science.
There's no one on the other side of that other than people who drive cars into crowds on bridges.
Or claim that biological sex doesn't exist.
Not that these things are moral equivalents, of course.
But as support for the march grew, so did concerns over its core message.
Yes, they're concerned that it's about science and not about them.
University of Maine biologist Jacqueline Gill recently left the march's organising committee over leaders' resistance to aggressively addressing inequalities, including race and gender.
We were really in the position where, because the march failed to actively address those structural inequalities within its own organisation, and then to effectively communicate those values outwards, we carried those inequalities forward.
Some of these problems stem from the march leadership failing early on in its messaging.
Yes, they were talking about science.
I imagine they weren't really concerned about the number of vaginas or negroes taking part.
As many as they wanted, just as long as they wanted to be there for the science.
Which, let's be fair, you people don't.
You want to be there for the diversity.
Jill was part of the Wing Conference organizers advocating for scientists and activists to take on broader issues in science, including issues of racial diversity in science, women's equality, and fucking communism.
Sorry, no, immigration policy, but this may as well be communism.
Fuck yourselves.
This is not the time of the place.
Why would you think this is appropriate?
On the other side, a web consultant, Shane Morris, left the March's organizing committee because they were appeasing diversity demands and not worried enough about their legacy.
And this is literally what they do every single time.
They change the focus of a community, of an organisation.
Changing the focus from whatever it is the organisation is actually designed to do onto their genitals and their skin colour, and presumably the skin colour of their genitals.
If you're wondering what this has to do with science, you're certainly not alone, said Alex Berezau, a senior fellow at the American Council on Science and Health.
And he wrote in a post why he's not attending the march.
The answer, of course, is nothing.
You're right, it's absolutely nothing.
This is pure ideology, as Zizig might say.
These issues are the primary concern of revisionist historians and social justice warriors.
I have to say, I love how that term has gone mainstream.
Not empirically minded scientists.
You're right.
They are absolutely not interested in being scientists.
I mean, as the lady said, she did diversity in science.
That's not about science, that's about diversity.
And that's why they drive people away.
They just change the focus of the organization or the activity onto themselves and away from what the purpose of it originally was.
That destroys any movement or activity or organization.
They're the kiss of death.
They are social cancer.
These people should not be listened to at all, ever.
They should just be told to go away.
If they come along and say, hey, can I talk to you about diversity and say, no thanks, not today.
We've already been speaking to the Mormons and we really don't need any more proselytizing.
Thanks very much though.
See you next time.
▲
Export Selection