WEBVTT - Part One: The Online & Real Life Harassment of Marginalized Elected Officials 0:00:00.960 --> 0:00:03.560 Welcome to another episode of Internet Hate Machine. I am 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:07.080 your host, Bridget Todd. I am enjoined with my lovely producer, Sophie. Hey, Sophie, 0:00:07.080 --> 0:00:10.440 what's up, Hey, Bridget. How's it going? It is going well, 0:00:10.480 --> 0:00:13.840 and I'm so, so so excited to be joined by Francesco. 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:17.800 If you're in TV correspondent, funny Lady, host of the 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:21.640 Situation Pod, the Twitteration Room on the Young Turk's News 0:00:21.680 --> 0:00:24.800 broke on a J Plus, and New Mama Francesco. Thank 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:27.920 you so much for being here. I'm so excited. Anytime, 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:31.040 oh my god, talk to me about something else other 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:37.680 than nursing and sleep habits, just get me out of 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:40.320 that headspace. And I realized we might delve into something 0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:43.479 far worse, and I'll be rushing back to want to 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:47.600 talk about nursing and all and spit up habits and 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:50.720 all that crap, all the all the things that babies 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:54.360 do exactly. We might be talking maybe about babies I 0:00:54.400 --> 0:00:57.800 don't I don't know, or big babies. Yeah there there are, 0:00:57.520 --> 0:01:01.160 so there are some grown man babies and the story. Yeah, 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:03.920 I mean that's what the show is about, right, just 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:07.840 people being massive babies on the Internet and speaking of 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:10.160 people being massive babies on the Internet. I have to 0:01:10.240 --> 0:01:12.959 call out this tweet that you had that had me rolling, 0:01:13.560 --> 0:01:17.560 uh elon must tweeted Twitter feels increasingly alive and you've 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:22.319 replied increasingly alive now that death threats are back. Absolutely. 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:24.880 I mean the real joke, I think is that it's 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:28.680 alive because we're all dunking on him just endlessly and 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:31.720 he's just trying to tweet through his entire failure. But yeah, 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:34.160 it's like, you know, the actual truth of it, and 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:37.039 this is something you speak to is that we're just 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:41.400 it's alive. He's the equivalent of alive is because now 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:44.160 no one is censored when they're trying to docks people 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:49.040 or harass them. Yeah, now an open season for hate 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:51.760 speech docs saying death threats, all the stuff that you 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:55.560 want to see you when you log into Twitter dot com. 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:57.960 That actually was something that I was surprised at. You know, 0:01:58.240 --> 0:01:59.800 I know we're not going to necessarily go into the 0:01:59.840 --> 0:02:03.520 whole old debacle, but that in order to get people 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:05.280 to get on stay on your platform, you it has 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:07.640 to be a place people want to be. And I 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:09.639 was reading some analysis and I was like, oh, yeah, 0:02:10.160 --> 0:02:13.080 as much as I think something like Instagram makes me 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:15.880 obviously like it's a perpetual fomo and I feel terrible 0:02:15.919 --> 0:02:18.360 about myself in different ways. It is also still a 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:21.440 place I want to be, And Ellen's got to make 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:24.200 Twitter a place people want to be who aren't just 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:30.080 white nationalists. Yeah, and I was reading about how only 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:33.480 a small percentage of power users on the platform, like 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:36.799 people who tweet regularly, like those are the folks who 0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:40.080 really drive engagement, and so it does seem kind of 0:02:40.520 --> 0:02:43.840 like Ellen is kind of his his first order of 0:02:43.840 --> 0:02:46.200 business is kind of attacking those people and making sure 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:48.720 that they feel like Twitter is not a hospitable platform 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:50.280 for them to show up and like it's not like 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:52.640 any of us are getting paid to tweet. So after 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:54.440 a while, it's like, why am I going to continue 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:58.320 to show up here? Right? It's it's basically just too 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:02.600 again make fun of now the new owner. But that's it. 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:04.959 He needs to sweeten the pot for them and getting 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:07.160 folks to pay eight dollars a month for that, Like 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:12.120 that's not that's not it. It should be. Ah God, 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:14.640 my friend of mine suggested something, and I just have 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:19.160 to put this out there. But monetize Twitter by paying 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:26.080 to d m women paying Elan would be he would 0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:30.960 be making so much money off Twitter overnight, right or 0:03:31.120 --> 0:03:34.440 or even like lower lower the bar, not even, but 0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:36.280 like to get so that you can see if they 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:39.960 read it or not sure exactly these different tiers, I 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:42.839 mean even replying to anybody, you know, the whole thing. 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:45.680 But it's like, oh God, if you want to troll 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:48.840 this person in their d M, you gotta pay fifty 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:52.360 dollars if there's gonna be like, you know, if you're 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:54.760 gonna say something about the way they look, you know, 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:56.960 a hundred dollars if you're gonna throw in like a 0:03:57.040 --> 0:04:02.080 toots or a nobody says toots anymore. You know how 0:04:02.120 --> 0:04:04.520 the Internet and trolls are all just like you know, 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:09.280 men in their eighties. Yeah, I love you, I love 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:13.240 the tweet. That's the voice that I that I read 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:21.200 all m Andrew Dice, Clay voice, Hickory Dickory Duck. Yeah 0:04:21.240 --> 0:04:26.040 you look better without anyone under the age of thirty 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:28.479 is like, what are they saying, Andrew Dice? Who I 0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:32.680 don't These are not current, These are not topical references. 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:36.360 But you know your point about you know, paying to harass, 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:40.040 paying to bother people actually does fit really clearly into 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:42.560 what I want to talk about today, And so far 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:45.400 on the podcast, we've talked about some examples of black 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:47.679 women and women of color who have been the target 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:51.280 of not so fun things on social media platforms. We've 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:53.839 talked about dongle Gate with a fear Richards, the end 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:57.680 Father's Day campaign on Twitter, and then coordinated attacks on 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:02.080 SNL actor Leslie Jones, And as horrific as these things are, 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:04.440 it's kind of easy to think of them as sort 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:08.560 of isolated incidents or things just happening on Twitter with 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:11.200 no real context playing out in the you know, the 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:13.440 real the I r L world, like the real world, 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:15.200 And so I wanted to spend a little bit of 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:17.960 time kind of connecting those dots on why all this 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:21.520 matters and why it matters beyond the folks who are 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:23.640 being targeted. And since we just had mid term elections, 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:26.320 I think taking a look at some of recent elections 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:29.520 and the experiences of elected officials will provide a really 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:32.400 good example for the real world consequences of having a 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:36.480 social media landscape ready and willing to amplify racist, sexist 0:05:36.520 --> 0:05:39.040 attacks on black women and women of color. Is this 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:43.279 something that you've experienced as like a visible person on Twitter. Yes, 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:46.760 and no, I will say that. Um I what I 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:50.359 think that the online hate has done for me is 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:56.640 make me, um invisibilize myself deliberately, So say less, be 0:05:56.920 --> 0:05:59.240 very very careful. And again, I'm a comic, you know, 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:01.840 and I and I am a pundit. I like to speak. 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:04.640 I love doing podcasts, I love doing you know, my 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:07.720 live show, the Bituation Room, all that. But it's when 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:10.279 it comes to just the world of Twitter, I am 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:12.440 much more on my p's and q's, and not in 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:15.040 a good way. So it's so ironic. We are being 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:18.920 trolled by you know, generally dudes and white dudes and 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:22.840 whatever cis het you keep adding to it, who are 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:25.839 constantly saying that they are being silenced, when in fact, 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:31.760 what they the ecosystem they create, actually just silences women, 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:36.120 people of color, marginalized folks, anyone who feels like they 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:40.760 are already targeted by systemic oppression. That's just it's sort 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:43.440 of a self imposed censorship. So and I hate that 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:47.800 about so. So No, I have not been deliberately targeted. 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:50.520 But also I don't stick at my neck out that much. 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:54.000 And I think that's a that's not good, you know, 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:57.480 but but yeah, I've been, you know, in multiple I 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:00.440 think it's also because I'm not like I'm next and 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:03.160 people are like, I don't know how to troll you. 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:09.360 What epithode do I use? Are exactly? Are you Chinese? 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:12.320 Are you Italian? Are you Latina? I don't know, damn it, 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:15.640 I'm gonna google it. Uh my Wikipedia pages all fucked 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:17.320 up to It's like I don't know if we can swear, 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:20.880 but I am my bad um. So it's just like 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:23.720 they I think my Wikipedia page says that I'm like 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:26.360 from Argentina, but I'm not. The point is it's funny 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:30.640 when you're not discernibly something. So people don't know how 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:33.160 to troll. I will say this to Year and I 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:35.560 know you did a whole episode on Leslie Jones thing. 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:40.160 I was at the r n C in t St. Milo, Napolis, 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:44.040 was going live for Bright Bart and my producers. The 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:47.200 people at a J Plus were like, yo, this is 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:50.160 the day after that Leslie Leslie Jones was I think 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:54.200 left Twitter was being trolled. Milow started it. They go, yo, 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:56.760 you should like say something to him, do something. So 0:07:57.040 --> 0:08:01.360 on air we did our own little like rolling of him, 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:04.040 and I was like, you know, does it does all 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:05.960 this make you feel better that your mom never hugged 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:08.880 you as a child, you know, just like being raised 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:11.800 by the legends of Zelda like and I was something 0:08:11.840 --> 0:08:13.720 about like I said, I think the first thing I 0:08:13.720 --> 0:08:15.360 said to him was like, it's funny that you hate 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:18.280 black people because your heart is black, is what I said. 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:22.200 That's that's good. So yeah, so that was the man 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:26.320 stunned to speak. No he called me. He turns around, goes, 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:30.040 wouldn't mean nasty, you know, he goes, what a mean nasty, 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:33.160 skinny lesbian you are? And I was like, me's guinea things? 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:38.720 Oh my god. So I was also at that same 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:41.160 r n C. And I remember I was this is 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:43.840 a whole long story, but I was there as part 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:47.200 of a group who was meant to be getting like 0:08:47.120 --> 0:08:50.280 like writing a piece about Milo. And I remember him 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:54.559 walking around like the press area and what a like 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:56.559 you could just you ever see somebody who you can 0:08:56.600 --> 0:09:00.760 tell wants to have their presence be something that everybody 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:04.040 is talking about. And everybody was working, so nobody was like, 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:06.160 oh my god, there's Milo. Everybody was like, oh, what 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:09.160 is like this person just came in they clearly want 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:11.480 a scene, and everybody just went back to their their 0:09:11.559 --> 0:09:14.920 laptops and it was kind of this, like I remember 0:09:14.960 --> 0:09:17.560 just feeling like this is pathetic, Like this this is 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:19.560 like reminds me of when I was like when I 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:21.960 first got my driver's license and I would like get 0:09:22.000 --> 0:09:24.679 in my car and drive by the school playing music 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:26.520 loud with sunglasses on and be like, I hope they 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:31.600 see me. I just felt I just felt very sad. Yeah, exactly. No, Yeah, 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:36.240 he definitely like plays. He has a little boom box 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:38.040 next to him and like plays. You know, I have 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:40.720 some kind of trumpet entrance, like has a little smoke 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:44.319 machine he wants that's in his mind, Like it goes 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:46.240 off when he walks in a room. You know what 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:51.080 I'm saying. My brain is on new Mom. I'm sorry, um, 0:09:51.120 --> 0:09:53.600 but yeah, yeah, I know that he's a sad, sad 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:57.600 man and uh, I think got what he deserved. But 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:00.800 that's I know you went into that. Yeah, I mean 0:10:01.000 --> 0:10:03.199 he talking about him is actually a great segue into 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:05.320 the idea that I think in so many of the 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:08.240 incidents that we have discussed, particularly around like Milo and 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:13.520 Leslie Jones, it's this idea that It really shows, in 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:16.720 my opinion, the way that a sort of disregard and 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:19.720 distrust of women, particularly women of color and black women, 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:22.480 it's kind of baked into our experience of being on 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:24.680 social media platforms. And if you've ever seen a right 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:27.040 wing figure attack of black woman who was basically just 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:30.240 minding her business like Leslie Jones was, and thought what's 0:10:30.280 --> 0:10:32.280 going on? You know, when you see a right wing 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:35.800 figure randomly attack Lizzo or how like Trump would randomly 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:39.600 attack uh yeah, Signore April Ryan like right like women 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:41.959 of color, always you'd be thinking, like, why are they 0:10:41.960 --> 0:10:45.040 doing this? Well, I would argue it's because it is 0:10:45.080 --> 0:10:48.480 a tried and true engagement strategy. And when you apply 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:51.560 that to social media people who run platforms, they're not 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:54.800 really interested in sort of de incentivizing that because it's 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:58.280 a successful way to generate engagement, which means, you know, 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:00.880 more profit for them. And so basically I think that 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:04.080 attacking women of color is always going to be a 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:06.480 way to get to like fire up your base and 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:09.600 get engagement, and platforms are not interested in stopping this 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:13.559 or de incentivizing it because they are in on the grift. Yeah, 0:11:13.640 --> 0:11:17.680 well that's sure. I mean it's amazing. Once again, this 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:20.080 this is the right. It loves to accuse the Left 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:24.280 of being triggered by something, and they the people you're naming, 0:11:25.720 --> 0:11:28.280 the reason they triggered. They are the ones triggering the 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:33.840 right merely by their existence, the idea that black women 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:39.520 are excelling in journalism, in music, in something that otherwise 0:11:39.600 --> 0:11:41.640 they wouldn't give a shit about. They don't know who 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:45.560 Lizzo is. Ben Shapiro doesn't know Lizzo is. But then 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:50.240 suddenly she's playing you know whoever the fox flute Jefferson? 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:53.680 Was it Jefferson? It was Jefferson. Yeah, just like so 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:56.960 Jefferson's flute um, which of course we all know she 0:11:56.960 --> 0:12:00.360 should have smashed into a million pieces. Uh, and that's what. No, 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:03.480 she played it amazingly, And you're just like, this is 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:05.920 what I mean by identity politics still matter. I mean, 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:07.160 this is why I think a lot of us still 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:09.800 say it, because they's like, literally by their identity, by fote, 0:12:09.840 --> 0:12:14.840 by black women just doing them. Suddenly this entire yeah, 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:19.480 machinery of algorithms and grift and money making is actually 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:22.480 just triggered and is set off, you know, and just 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:26.199 keeps on spinning and spinning and spinning and victimizing, I 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:29.080 would say, but honestly, like, these are also badass people 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:31.120 who I think it takes a lot more to bring 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:33.679 them down. But yeah, victimizing usually women of color and 0:12:33.679 --> 0:12:37.160 black women specifically. Absolutely. My favorite tweet that I saw 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:40.960 about the Lizzo situation was when everybody was like, oh, 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:43.720 she played that flute. Lizzo should dig up the bones 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:49.760 of Jefferson and play his ribs like a xylophone. So 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:52.439 you're you're exactly right, And I've seen the exact same thing. 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:55.440 Disinformation researcher and the author of the great new book 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:58.280 Black Skinheads, and person who is a lot smarter than 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:00.760 me on these issues, Brandy dex Raclar. She explained it 0:13:00.840 --> 0:13:02.840 very well in an interview with Janet Burns. She says, 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:06.680 social media as a sphere, because of its theatrical nature, 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:08.880 is where you will see the most profound attacks, and 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:11.040 on Twitter some of the most vicious attacks that are 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:13.680 being directed at black women, black leaders, and black activists. 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:16.960 It ends up getting laughed about on the now defunctor 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:19.840 Riley Factor and other shows. There's this freedom to attacked 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:22.800 and repeated validation of it, and everywhere we go we 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:26.400 see corporate or government gatekeepers who declined to intervene. So 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:29.600 I completely agree with her point. We have a media 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:32.720 landscape where attacking women of color and black women isn't 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:35.680 just okay, it's incentivized, and I think this is key. 0:13:35.920 --> 0:13:39.680 When platforms allow racist, sexist attacks on black women and 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:43.280 women of color and do nothing, it normalizes this behavior 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:45.640 and it doesn't just say that it's okay, but it 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:47.800 says like this is just the cost of being a 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:50.760 visible black woman online. And even if it starts on 0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:53.040 platforms like Twitter, I think it creates the conditions that 0:13:53.160 --> 0:13:56.280 normalize the same kind of abuse to happen more broadly 0:13:56.320 --> 0:13:59.280 out into the world, and also create a pathway for escalation, 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:02.280 Like if people don't do anything when you harass a 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:04.520 black woman or a woman of color online, you know, 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:07.400 bad actors will watch that response and be like, Okay, well, 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:10.360 I will reasonably conclude that I could take that behavior 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:14.320 offline too, And that's kind of really sad, because you know, 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:16.520 when we're talking about women and black women and women 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:20.080 of color who don't always get the support that we should, 0:14:20.800 --> 0:14:23.680 people are not totally incorrect and assuming that they can 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:27.920 harass these women and escalate that harassment from the Internet 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:30.400 to the real world, and that people aren't going to 0:14:30.480 --> 0:14:32.400 do anything because they're kind of right, and a lot 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:36.560 of instances, not a lot is done. Yeah, I mean 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:41.600 it's it's seen as like I think black women specifically 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:45.480 because of white supremacy, um, and the ways that like 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:53.640 your your identities are immediately politicized not by your not 0:14:53.720 --> 0:14:57.160 by you, but by the by white supremacy and the 0:14:57.200 --> 0:14:59.360 function of it and how it works. And so it's 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:02.120 like like I'm saying, folks mining their own business, women 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:05.400 just doing themselves is suddenly seen as like how dare 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:07.960 you attack me? And you're like, what are you talking about? 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:10.960 No one's attacking you. But it's and again this is 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:13.200 like some folks can go through the world and their 0:15:13.240 --> 0:15:17.280 identities are not automatically politicized. They're not automatically seen as 0:15:17.360 --> 0:15:20.120 like oh, it's like, um, I can't remember her name, 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:23.960 but there was this Asian American reporter who got a 0:15:24.000 --> 0:15:26.560 phone call after she like talked about you know, what 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:30.200 she eats at Thanksgiving, right, and I think she's Korean, 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:33.440 and she was like someone called her and was like 0:15:33.800 --> 0:15:37.480 your reporter was very Asian, you know, like I was 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:41.440 offended by how Asian your reporter was even just because 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:44.720 they mentioned that they don't eat turkey on things. Remember 0:15:44.840 --> 0:15:50.200 that it would just the existence of her specific cultural thing. Yeah, 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:54.120 the mere existence your mirror. I am victimized by your 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:59.560 mere existence. Like God, white fragility is so so brittle 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:04.040 and exactly what it is, Michelle Lee. I believe, yes, 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:08.120 now selling very Asian merch and I love it. Um 0:16:08.840 --> 0:16:11.960 but but so yeah, and and of course anything that 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:16.280 makes folks money is gonna That's why, I mean, I 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:19.240 know that your whole show just is going to end 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:22.200 in we need to nationalize and break up big tech. 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:29.240 Oh yeah, I mean I think it's that's a whole yeah, yes, yes, um. 0:16:29.320 --> 0:16:30.800 But you know, when you're talking about sort of this 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:34.800 idea of women and people of color and black folks 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:37.520 just sort of being inherently politicized, this is something that 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:40.200 I really want to pull out because I talk a 0:16:40.240 --> 0:16:44.320 lot about things like misinformation, disinformation, malinformation, all of that. 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:47.000 It's like my day job is like researching that. And 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:49.640 I think that what often gets lost are the ways 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:53.520 that these kinds of things are so often identity based, right, 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:57.960 and so ideas about you know, someone who is Chinese 0:16:58.000 --> 0:17:01.880 American being foreign or you know not, you know not 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:05.000 doesn't belong here, or ideas about you know, black women 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:08.399 being angry or incompetent. I think that we so often 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:13.160 see identity based inaccurate information, and it's so much harder 0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:16.040 to pull out and talk about, as opposed to disinformation 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:20.159 and misinformation around things like COVID or vaccines, where it's like, yeah, 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:24.040 most reasonable people are like, like, there's a baseline understanding 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:26.840 of you know, oh, this is inaccurate information. But when 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:29.000 it comes to identity, I think it's a little bit 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:32.600 harder to actually pull out and identify and talk about 0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:35.600 because I don't know, talking about race and culture and 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:39.960 identity can be so fraught and difficult for our society. 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:42.439 I guess yeah, And you don't want to be overly 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:46.280 reductive in when you when you combat this, when you 0:17:46.320 --> 0:17:48.600 combat hate as well, it's the same thing, I think, 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:50.000 and where we don't have to get into it all 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:53.360 but around our conversations about Kanye's anti semitism and how 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:56.919 to like properly and how to adequately combat it in 0:17:57.000 --> 0:17:59.440 order to shut it down, But how much do you engage? 0:17:59.560 --> 0:18:03.320 And that it's sticky because again, I think it's super 0:18:03.320 --> 0:18:06.040 reductive to be like all black people are this, all 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:09.639 Jews are that, all Chinese Americans like just like it. 0:18:10.560 --> 0:18:13.880 You how do we push back against stereotypes while also 0:18:13.960 --> 0:18:19.120 understanding the like the heterogene when what's the word? Like 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:27.000 just how um not homogeneous? Heterogeneous? I don't have words anymore. Um, 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:29.600 I'm just gonna a SMR every time I don't know 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:32.840 my vote? Yeah, just how how like how much difference 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:36.119 there is in all of these communities exactly? And I 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:39.200 think it's one of the reasons why talking about it 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:43.200 is so difficult, because it's like, how do you make 0:18:43.280 --> 0:18:46.240 room for the fact that no no group as a monolith. 0:18:46.359 --> 0:18:50.560 You know, we there are nuances and like like we're 0:18:50.560 --> 0:18:53.439 a gradient, like there's nuances in our communities, but we 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:55.960 still need to I believe it's still like very important 0:18:55.960 --> 0:18:59.320 to have a clear united front against things like anti Semitism. 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:01.760 And I mean this is like a tangent, but like 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:05.080 with Kanye West, it troubles me that he can't see 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:08.359 that like when someone is being and this is my opinion, 0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:13.040 when someone is being anti Semitic or you know, anti Asian, whatever, 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:15.920 it is a hot skipping away from anti blackness. That 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:18.120 ship is all linked and that train is never late. 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:20.040 And so like, if you, as a black person, are 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:23.320 engaging explicitly an anti semitism, do you not realize that 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:25.040 you're creating the conditions for that ship to come back 0:19:25.040 --> 0:19:27.600 around on us. And like, all of our oppression is linked. 0:19:28.200 --> 0:19:31.200 I believe firmly that our liberation is linked. And you 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:33.720 just got like when I see him doing that, I'm like, 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:35.879 can you not see the way that you are setting 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:38.960 yourself up to later be knocked down? People are gonna 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:41.320 be like, oh, we love that he's being anti Semitic. Good, 0:19:41.359 --> 0:19:44.800 good good, And you know that's just giving folks more 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:47.080 thought or to slip in anti blackness. So like, what 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:49.639 the funk are you doing? Yes, oh my god, go 0:19:49.680 --> 0:19:52.399 off and and like final, just like last thing on this, 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:57.720 they're super linked. The whole Sorrows myth right Sorrows is 0:19:57.760 --> 0:20:01.760 a billionaire who is fill in the blank um helping 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:08.600 BLM defund the police, creating thugs out of inner city 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:12.280 black children. Like literally it's always linked. It's it's Jews 0:20:12.480 --> 0:20:17.600 run stuff. And the running stuff inherently means they're flooding 0:20:18.200 --> 0:20:22.120 our country with immigrants and they basically um help black 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:25.760 people vote and or like flooding our like voters electoral 0:20:25.760 --> 0:20:28.040 system with like black votes, like Google straight up that 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:31.320 they're the orchestrators of the people of color. So it's 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:37.240 like so layered. Yeah, but it's again, I feel like 0:20:38.080 --> 0:20:40.960 we have this, particularly on social media, we have this 0:20:41.040 --> 0:20:44.560 climate that loves to flatten things out and strip things 0:20:44.600 --> 0:20:47.600 of nuance and context. And I don't think that we 0:20:47.680 --> 0:20:50.240 have I don't think that our platforms have the range 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:53.679 to allow for discussing things in the way they actually 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:56.639 need to be discussed, right Like social media platforms are 0:20:57.520 --> 0:21:05.359 incentivize to amplify the most insidiary inflammatory nuance, lacking bs, 0:21:05.359 --> 0:21:08.600 extremist stuff, and so I don't think our platforms are 0:21:08.680 --> 0:21:11.479 largest communication platforms are really equipped for the level of 0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:14.280 like conversation that we need to be having right now, 0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:18.560 and not at all. It is like, say something reductive, 0:21:19.000 --> 0:21:24.240 say it unapologetically and take out any kind of maybe 0:21:24.400 --> 0:21:29.479 could be leading to perhaps you know, and just end 0:21:29.520 --> 0:21:32.760 it with the period and you're done, and then you'll 0:21:32.760 --> 0:21:36.679 get a million retweets and that's yeah, that's what wins. 0:21:36.800 --> 0:21:40.639 People make money off of that, People get deals, and 0:21:40.680 --> 0:21:42.359 I don't care which side of the spectrum you're on. 0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:46.800 Just no room for nuanced, forgive no one, take no prisoners, 0:21:46.880 --> 0:21:51.320 cancel everybody, and or troll everybody, and you will win 0:21:51.440 --> 0:21:54.080 as social media. It's so funny that you put it 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:56.560 this way. I miss, I might going off the rails here. 0:21:56.560 --> 0:21:59.080 I'm sorry. We can yeah, but you know we have 0:21:59.119 --> 0:22:03.359 to talk about women in elections, female candidates. Correct, But 0:22:03.520 --> 0:22:05.040 I just gonna say one thing like this is like 0:22:05.080 --> 0:22:07.159 one of the reasons why I find myself showing up 0:22:07.240 --> 0:22:10.359 less and less on social media platforms because I think 0:22:10.400 --> 0:22:14.040 that you're exactly right. It's not even definitely extremists. Right 0:22:14.080 --> 0:22:17.240 wing extremists are like the worst, are like the biggest 0:22:17.240 --> 0:22:19.360 bad actors, but it certainly they are not the only 0:22:19.400 --> 0:22:21.160