Okay that is a long unwieldy title.
But I have a few things to say.
I was on a small discussion board that has absolutely nothing to do with hate speech or politics, but was just a nice board on comics, specifically hardcovers and collected editions.
People just there to post on what they have bought or are thinking of buying. Nice little low key discussion board that I had been active in for a month or two.
In the last week a new poster had popped up.
And from a couple seemingly innocuous posts the topic was quickly brought to Captain America, and all of us were happy to suggest various story-lines to try. But the poster was not there to praise the good, they came to rant on Nick Spencer and ‘Black Hitler” and getting on an anti-SJW platform
They were going on about Ta-Nehisi Coates’ as yet unwritten run on Captain America, and his unfitness, because of his view-points, and calling him a ‘Black Hitler’.
At this point I responded with a post that shut the poster down. Leaving the poster not a leg to stand on, and the board to its credit also let the poster know in no uncertain terms, this far no further. And that was one troll/hate-monger disguised as a comic fan sent packing, and the good nature of the board restored.
Here is the thing, however.
Everyone has an opinion, that is fine. Where the issue comes in, is people have the belief they have a right to a platform to share that opinion. And that is blatantly incorrect.
You have a right to share an INFORMED opinion. If you are in a packed theater and have a hot flash and are of the opinion there could be a fire, you are not allowed to jump up and share that at the top of your lungs. If after looking around and informing your opinion with observations from those around you and actual facts, such as ‘hey there is smoke in the aisles’, and ‘your neighbors are also smelling something’, you have now INFORMED your opinion and it is worthy of sharing.
An uninformed opinion, also known as bs, will get you thrown in jail because it leads to anarchy and damage. An informed opinion, adds to this conversation we deem culture and is additive rather than destructive, enriches people, even when the viewpoints are opposing.
An uninformed opinion is completely destructive, it is consensus by fear and intimidation, it is the bloodthirsty howling of the mob. It is rule by the lowest common denominator.
Freedom is not mad dogs pissing and shitting where they may and broadcasting that for all, on Youtube or Facebook or twitter. Freedom is not consensus by this mob, is not policy being made by the loudest and lives being ruined by the vilest.
Freedom is being able to live your life not constrained by another man’s fear of his mediocrity being out-shined by your greatness.
Outrage and ignorance is no substitute for reason.
But is it often used, by those fearful of reason.
In the absence of a moderated platform, outrage and Ignorance has nothing better to do than waste time and waste words and create noise, and the signal, the measured, thoughtful, humanist, additive, cultured conversation is lost, drowned out by the baying of loons.
And that is what has happened to the state of conversation on and off line. A whole generation of people who have never learned how to reason, and think it is enough to speak without thinking, and attack instead of listen.
We are raising as a nation and a world, rabid dogs wallowing in their own stupidity, dogs meeting with derision any concept that aspires to something more than the mud. And a nation that has no perspective on history, or respect or decency, or measured response, lives perpetually in the mud, with those who are, like pigs, at home there.
I come back now to that poster’s attack on Coates, and their hope for a storyline he had not yet started to be canceled quickly. And attacking him using the appellation ‘Black Hitler’.
Again outrage and insults and ignorance, as i told that poster, are no substitute for reason.
First you want to call out a person you use their actual words, not what you think they have said, or have heard third or fourth hand they have said.
Second, a difference in politics or opinion is not a reason to viciously attack a person or call for their firing or loss of livelihood. Especially over a storyline they have NOT WRITTEN YET!!! If you do not want to read a storyline by this writer do not read it, but to openly go out of your way to try and stop the story from being written, by attacking a talented gifted writer with lies, and innuendo and hate, going so far as to call him ‘Black Hitler’ says incredibly more about the stupidity of this anti-sjw crowd than it could ever say about their targets.
Now , regarding the Youtube and blogosphere people who tend to go on endlessly about “sjw this is bad” and “sjw that is bad”.
Here’s the magic advice: try using the whole word and you will know what you are really arguing against.
Social Justice Warrior, acronyms only serve to try and denigrate a position you do not understand. If you do not like Social Justice Warriors, you should not be reading Superhero comics. The origins of Superhero comics is about Social justice Warriors sticking up for the little guy, against the fat cats and exploitative, evil regimes.
Superman in his beginnings is very much a Social Justice Warrior. So is Batman. They all are. And none more so than Captain America.
When Jack Kirby and Joe Simon decided to have Captain America punch Hitler, that was in the time very dangerous, as you were dealing with an America that had segments of the population that did not want to oppose Hitler, and other segments that actually supported Hitler. And the creators received Death Threats and name calling. Sound familiar? 🙂
This Anti SJW crowd, are comprised of people who if they were alive back then, would have called Kirby and Simon ‘Jewish Hitler’. Because that is the level of what they think passes for discourse. It is a tact racists have used of late, taking what they are, and labeling others with the failings of racism and bigotry that they posses. The jackal, trying to place himself as victim, while his teeth are at your neck.
And even to use the appellation of Hitler, a racist and mass murderer, responsible for the death of millions, who sought to slaughter marginalized people; to use that appellation to object to someone writing a comic book, shows a level of delusion and hostility and hate that is completely out of bounds with the relatively innocuous and unimportant world of comics.
It is also to insult the large population of people, Jews, Russians, Canadians, Islanders, and quite a few Americans, who lost lives in the real world, to a real person and movement. And for you to minimize all those murders by using it to try and win an argument over a comic book, marks you as particularly vile and immoral piece of work, with no sense of value or values.
So yeah it is this type of rhetoric of hate that people spew out at the least provocation of an opinion beyond the mob, that is the real comparison ground for talks of a Nazi Germany. And it is a self inflicted designation.
Another trick of racists, appropriating and coining acronyms for the sole point of, using that as a base to attack.
So you have channels like:
DIVERSITY & COMIXX (which is definitely not about diversity. This is using an innocuous title to spread anti-diversity rhetoric.)
JUST SOXX GUY
COMICARTISTPXX SECRETS
CAPN CUMMINXX
DOUGLXX ERNST
YELLXX FLASH
MICAH CURTXX
[And fun fact, any of the idiots saying they are boycotting CAPTAIN AMERICAÂ were not buying or reading the book in the first place. These racists don’t read comics, they regurgitate other racists half formed opinions about a medium, comics, and a character Captain America, that if he were alive, would be on the side of Mr. Coates, rather than on the side of these basement Red Skulls.]
It is funny, how ignorance perpetuates. These racists in 2018, are very similar to racists a hundred years ago in 1918. Back then the Minstrel show, White people performing in Black face, occurred because they were scared of a changing America, with changing roles for many, and the Minstrel show was created as a way to denigrate the startling advances occurring at the time for many, particularly people of color. Rather than seeing changing times as an opportunity for everyone to advance, rising waters lifting all ships, certain people wanted to concentrate on stopping advancement and turning back the clock.
That hundred year old mentality of lynchings and minstrel shows, and step n fetch its, field negroes who buy into their master’s racist dogma, is unfortunately alive and well in 2018 America, except our lynchings are more sophisticated, we do it courtesy of the 24 hour news cycle and Twitter, and our Minstrel shows are Youtube channels and bloggers, who can only denigrate the things they fear, rather than expend energy telling us of the things they love.
If you are subscribed to any of the above channels, you can do better,
Much, much better,
You can see with better eyes than that.
Check out some of the other channels I mention in previous posts.
As far as Ta-Nehisi Coates, I quite enjoyed what I read of his Black Panther run in singles, and intend to pick it all up in trade.The nature of Captain America is change, and is challenging the status quo, from Steve Englehart’s run, from his time giving up being Cap, to being Nomad, to being the Captain in Gruenwald’s run, to Dimension X in Remender’s run, to Falc Cap in Nick Spenser’s run, to Kirby’s Bicentennial run, to a resurrected Bucky in Brubaker’s run, there is no one Cap for all seasons.
There is a bunch of story-lines for this 80 year old character, some which work, some which may not, but all worth the trying. Ta-Nehisi Coates Cap seems like it will be much of Don Glut and Gerber in it (they did one off Cap stories, but were some of my favorite cap stories) so I am looking forward to it. Will he hit a home run or strike out? I don’t know, but like this country we should give people the opportunity to excel. To succeed or to fail on their own merits, not on our bigotry and our baggage.
I’ll probably make an exception to my Marvel pricing hate and pick up the first few issues of his run in singles and then switch over to cheaper trades or digital. But yeah, getting me to do that, is already a win in his column.
(Quick aside: At $4 a pop Marvel has priced themselves out of the Monthly Market for sequential books for me. I made the rare exceptions for Ta-Nehisi Coates BLACK PANTHER and David Walker’s POWER MAN AND IRON FIST. But yeah Marvel has definitely made itself a trade only company for me, As well as digital if the price is right, I just refuse these days to pay more than $2.99 for a comic from the big two. And damn you Bendis!!! You go over to DC and all of a sudden they are doing away with their $2.99 books???!!! I smell trojan horse! 🙂
I was buying quite a few books from DC, and DC was beating Marvel in terms of interest, and suddenly Bendis arrives, and no more ‘holding the line at $2.99. Man, if this is Marvel’s idea of a trojan horse, to stop DC’s comic momentum, it certainly succeeded with me. I’ll be a trade waiter for this company as well, since they are also ruining Priest’s run on DEATHSTROKE by putting the character in Snyder’s JLA.
And further swimming against the tide, when it comes to DC, I completely cannot stand any of what I’ve read of Tom King’s BATMAN. Loved his VISION. Really enjoyed his OMEGA MEN. Liked what i read of his MIRACLEMAN (waiting for it to be traded), absolutely do not like his take on BATMAN.
Now, Unlike the Coates haters I picked up the first four volumes of his Batman run, before coming to that decision. Tried it not for me. Some people love it, so not boycotting it, not hating it, not hoping it gets canceled, I’m just quietly not buying it. If you like it I’m happy for you. See, that’s how adults do it. 🙂 )
Okay, that was longer than i thought.
Hope you can make sense of all that, but long story short, stop subscribing to the haters. It is a sad indication of how poorly we relate to each other as a society, that the people who are sharing their hates, have larger subscriptions than the people who share their loves.
We are the things we obsess over, the things we devote time to.
Devote time to raising things up, and un-subscribe from those who wallow in tearing things down,
Here Endeth the Lesson!
Heroic Times 