Celebrities are taking sides against the intolerance that is sweeping the West. Bravo!
P!nk: “To any of you closet racists, homophobes, sexists… We are not friends.”
It is heartening to see that people in the public gaze are using their status to call for people of good conscience to stand fast against the wave of – what shall we call it? Hard-right attitudes? Fascism? Nazism? – sweeping the Western World.
It seems the election of Donald Trump as US President has sparked incidents in that country, and those who stand up against it are to be praised.
So here‘s the singer P!nk*: “To anyone reading this: if you think this is a time for misogynistic jokes, or for laughing about voting in a person that doesn’t believe in climate change, or humanity. To any of you closet racists, homophobes, sexists….. please block me. Please unfollow me. We do not respect each other. You do not have my respect, and I obviously don’t have yours. We are not friends.
“To everyone else, we shall overcome. Stay on the path of love and tolerance. Hug your kids. Teach them about diversity and about fighting for others, and sticking up for themselves. I will do my part.”
Will you do yours?
*A Facebook friend posted this on her page; I’m sure I could have used any number of other messages by celebrities… right?
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It’s real easy to complain about what you think is right when you have no worries about where the next slice of bread is coming from. I notice a lot of the rich celebs are actually dis-heartened because Hilary didn’t win, was this because she was not a male?
The US is now as big a joke as the UK, I’ll be teaching my great grandson that to succeed in this modern world all you need to do is, lie, cheat, steal, oh, and be born rich (kind of puts him into the back row then).
It’s real easy to complain about what you think is right when you’re dirt-poor, too. Believe me – I know.
Are you suggesting that homophobia, sexism, racism, fascism and whatnot are not wrong, because rich people complain about them?
Oh, and P!nk is the daughter of a nurse and an insurance salesman (who is also a Vietnam War veteran), and the product of a broken home. Her wealth is self-made – she wasn’t born rich – and because of that I think she just might have something worthwhile to say.
Clearly being a racist etc is wrong, but I don’t notice many of these people complaining about the rampant snobbery directed towards those who voted for Trump/Brexit. They pick and choose which makes me rather sceptical about their self-righteousness. Jumping on the identity politics bandwagon has become the chosen means of seizing the moral high-ground, however undeservedly. Meanwhile the West continues to profit from the endemic racism/sexism of sweatshop production/resource exploitation…but that doesn’t count, because it’s out of sight/out of mind. Gross hypocrisy as ever.
If a thing is out of sight, then you are complaining that people aren’t making a fuss about something they don’t know about – and that seems a little unrealistic to me.
Would you rather these people did not use the huge influence they undoubtedly have to raise awareness about the important issues they see? That seems just as hypocritical as the behaviour you are attacking.
And where would you draw the line? I can’t write about everything that’s wrong in the world – there simply aren’t enough hours in the day. I have to choose the subjects that I think are most likely to be useful, given what I know about This Blog’s reader base.
You seem to be both assuming and expecting too much.
Good for her. A glimmer of light in the otherwise gloomy outlook.
The only problem is that it seems to be a case of “you need to be against something”, “what have you got”. Does she really believe in these things, she was mislead by PETA for example, or is it just that it is PC to do so?
That’s not what I’m getting from this message. Are you sure you’re reading it right?
Thanks for posting my comment. I apologise for my post earlier today assuming that you were moderating on steroids!! Anyway, in reply to yours, I don’t doubt Pink’s good intentions as it is entirely possible that she is completely unaware of the structural racism/sexism endemic to global capitalism, but this supports my point. Firstly, we have a major problem when people feel free to moralise about others when they have really very little grasp of the complexity of the issues. We saw so much of this in the aftermath of the Brexit vote with the histrionic outpouring of grief over an institution that most people know absolutely nothing about, meaning that they were completely open to being manipulated by the most facile of analysis. She could easily have posted something that conveyed her general dislike of all forms of prejudice, including class prejudice, rather than a provocative and confrontational email which singles out those who are often the victims of prejudice themselves. She is in effect a ‘useful idiot’ for those who would rather the general public averted their eyes away from the much more serious issue of class inequalities. Class inequalities will always trump racism and sexism, as vastly more people are impacted on by the former. In any case, those who suffer from racial and sexual stereotyping are invariably victims of class prejudice also – if they manage to enter the global wealthy, they cease to be so negatively affected by race and gender. For evidence of this we only need look at South Africa, where the end of apartheid has done nothing to improve the lives of the vast majority of the black population, whilst simultaneously enriching a small black upper class who are more than happy to exploit their poorer brethren. Overall, we need to be suspicious of identity politics as a poor substitute for being genuinely progressive. People like Pink may be well intentioned, but they are playing right into the hands of those who strive hard to maintain the status quo, and the high-octave moral outrage they help to generate only makes it harder to question the structural hypocrisy.
Apology accepted – if I haven’t approved a comment, it’s generally best to assume I’ve been busy with other things and will get to it at some point in the future.
As for the rest of your comment, you raise some interesting points, so I’ll leave it open to readers to respond.