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I don’t know if this is too post worthy, but many black activists have called the cancellation of Jason Arday and the resulting suicide a lynching. It makes me believe they don’t understand why many people found lynching to be bad.
The classic case is Emmet Till. He was accused of raping a white woman but didn’t. Less people would be worried about the irregular justice of lynch mobs if they accurately hung rapists and Till wouldn’t be martyr if he actually raped the white woman. It was his innocence that really made the lynching galling.
In the Arday context, no one argues he isn’t guilty of the charges. Instead, they claim accurately castigating Arday repeatedly for his crime is a modern day lynching. So either they believe any criticism of blacks is per se illegitimate and blacks are naturally innocent regardless of their actions or they are trying to use powerful iconography to prevent criticism of blacks. But that’s destroying their seed capital.
I'm no longer convinced the words "racism", "white supremacy", "sexism", "misogyny", "Islamophobia", "homophobia", "transphobia", "hate", "fascism", "far-right", "genocide" and "lynching" mean anything at all.
Progressives have as many words for "blasphemy" as Eskimo have for "snow".
It's kind of understandable considering their environments. Both groups have so many words that describe the same thing, because if they didn't, it would be much harder for them to extract resources from their respective environments and thus stay alive.
I've heard that eskimos don't actually have many words for snow, but then, it was a progressive who was insisting, so?
As a Canadian who regularly deals with snow, I can absolutely believe this.
First of all, there's powder snow, the kind that skiers love. But if you've ever tried to make a snowman with it, you realize that it doesn't stick together well - it's too 'dry', and doesn't clump.
Then there's your building snow, which is wet enough to clump but dry enough to handle, and feels kind of like rolling a very large cotton ball. You can actually make an igloo out of this stuff: it's solid enough to be worked with wooden tools and can be pulled away and shaped into cubes.
Then there's wet snow, which is soaked through and difficult to work with. It will freeze solid overnight and be unworkable, but you can walk on top of it.
Then there's the well-layered snow, which the accumulated and undisturbed pilings of at least a week. At the bottom is a layer that has been compressed by the weight above it, so it's safe to step on, but you'll leave a trail. Mice can live here.
Then there's compacted snow, run over by cars: it's almost as hard as ice, and often has rocks or pebbles or other detritus in it.
...and that's just off the top of my head, living as a sheltered urbanite. Inuit doubtlessly have far more fine distinctions, working with it as both building material and environmental obstacle.
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