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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   Edited 1yr ago   34422 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022

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Well, I guess it was only a question of time before the ADL condemned Dave Chappelle and SNL more generally for "popularising" anti-Semitism.

Chappelle had a SNL monologue a few days ago where he walked a tightrope between supposedly condemning Kanye and Kyrie before slyly signal-boosting some of their talking points. Kanye comes across as crazy and Kyrie as plain dumb but Chappelle is neither, so this is arguably bigger news. Of course, Chappelle has been courting controversy before, such as his perceived anti-trans comments or complaining about college kids being too sensitive these days.

So I am not sure if this is some kind of cultural shift where black entertainment elites are more willing to criticise Jews or if it is simply Chappelle running towards controversy in order to stay relevant. Maybe it is both. Nevertheless, I think the ADL has by and large been enormously inefficient and self-defeating during these past 6 weeks. It seems even some Jewish publications agree.

The ADL sucks because it's perceived as self-serving and intolerant of criticism. Anything outside of a narrow worldview of acceptable discourse is considered hate speech. Criticizing Christianity, or white people in general? Perfectly tolerated. Criticism or jokes about Judaism or Jewish people? Off limits.

Yeah, I think this basically boils down what their issue is: inauthenticity. You can't claim to fight bigotry in all its forms when you do it selectively depending on which ethnic group we're talking about.

It makes them very unsympathetic and their previous role in constantly pushing social media to censor more hasn't exactly helped their reputation either.

You can't claim to fight bigotry in all its forms when you do it selectively depending on which ethnic group we're talking about.

But of course you can, so long as you have the power to shape the narrative. I think it's very unlikely the ADL pays any price at all for exactly this behavior.

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