This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Sunderland, UK, is on fire.
It appears a tipping point has been reached; protests are seemingly erupting all over the UK right now in response to the stabbing of three young children. Ordinarily a sadly unremarkable happening, this incident was exacerbated by the authorities refusing to release any details about the attacker other than being "from Cardiff", which did not placate the mob, as media sources routinely use this kind of languages to elide criminals' real origins (saying things like "Mahmood Suleiman of Bristol", later turns out that he's a boat migrant from Albania currently being housed in Bristol), leading certain corners to pattern-match to previous instances of such attacks and conclude the killer was a boat migrant and the media and authorities were covering it up.
This narrative spread quickly in the wake of no other information being released, for which the excuse was that the killer was under-age and so no detail could be released. Internet detectives soon managed to piece together the identity regardless, that being Axel Muganwa Rudakubana, son of two Rwandan parents but nonetheless actually born in Cardiff.
Left-wing sides of the argument immediately went into crowing mode, seemingly elated that the killer was "British", to which the pithy right-wing response came that "a dog born in a stable is not a horse" and that this crime was still preventable if his parents had simply not been allowed to migrate.
Regardless, the protests were now in full swing. A vigil was held, and things got out of hand, with one man being arrested for bringing a knife and balaclava. The simmering tensions of the backdrop of mass migration seem to have come to a head, as a group gathered to damage an unrelated mosque and a police building. This is possibly a response to the boat migrant theory being spread like wildfire as the authorities refused to release any correct information, and possibly in part just a release valve for long-pent up tensions.
Government response was immediate condemnation of the protesters from all and sundry, pledges to set up specialised task forces to deal with "far right extremism" and deployment of riot police to quell the unrest. This only sparked further anger as people contrasted the response to the very recent Harehills riots in which a Roma community revolted over the removal of children from the house of negligent parents. Response on that occasion was the police in full retreat and the later total capitulation of the state in handing back the children in question. Others still remember now-PM Kier Starmer's response to the BLM riots of 2020, in which he knelt in supplication to the rioters and pledged fealty to their cause.
This has earned him the moniker of "Two-Tier Kier", with many calling out that a two tier justice system exists in the country; when minorities riot over facing justice, the state bends over backwards to appease them, but when native whites riot over the stabbing of children, the full force of the state comes out to crush them. As such, more protests have erupted across the country over this double standard, the most notable of which is Sunderland, where people attempted to torch a police station.
Further protests have been stated to be planned all week. PM Starmer has scrambled all police manpower available to suppress them, it seems, with the Home Office issuing a stern warning in the media that "we're watching you". The usual ancillary conversations about "Russian disinformation" being the cause are happening, and the Muslim Council of Great Britain has stated "law and order isn't enough to deal with Islamophobic hate" in response to the mosque attack.
It is interesting to me that this murder, which does not appear to have been an Islamist attack, and not Rotherham or Manchester or whatever else, set off this wave of riots. There is footage online of Muslims and black people being beaten by mobs, pulled out of cars and busses, that kind of thing. Perhaps I had underestimated the low level anger in some of these communities, but it also begs the question of why their response to the grooming gangs was so very different.
There's much more footage of armed blacks and muslims marching around city centres and attacking whites; but predictably none of this footage has made it to the mainstream media or the headlines.
Link it? To be fair much of the press I’ve seen has been very vague about what is actually happening.
Even BAP and friends’ twitter seems to show some groups of Muslim men walking around with sticks / possibly bladed weapons (hardly something to condone but I suppose a relatively likely escalation) and one brawl by a bus stop between some south asians and some whites where the ‘victims’ appear hard to distinguish.
Andy Ngo has been posting videos of the 'Muslim Patrol': https://x.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1820207241095442708
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
It's the last straw that breaks the camel's back.
Yeah, people immediately assumed when details weren't forthcoming that it was Muslims and that this fact would be slow-rolled again by the media class.
The headline pointing out that he was a choirboy was more about absolving the Muslim community than the criminal imo but it came too late.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link