You Center White Redemption Over Black Personhood

At any given moment, somewhere on planet Earth, somebody is saying something stupid. And at some point, that person has probably been you.

It might be completely out of character, it might be habitual ignorance, it might be a poor attempt at a joke. But if that moment ever finds its way onto the internet, even if it took place years ago, you’d better be really good at apologising.

In my article, The Corrosive Cost of Cancel Culture, I questioned the punitive, spiteful way we react to these transgressions. I asked whether it would have been better to explore the nuance of Whoopi Goldberg’s Holocaust comments instead of suspending her for them. I asked whether it made more sense to treat Joe Rogan’s decade-old racist joke as a teachable moment instead of a defining one. I asked whether we could treat mistakes like these as an opportunity to learn instead of to fight.

Hal was clear about which option he preferred.

---

Hal:

This is silly and poorly argued. You center white redemption over Black personhood and agency. Goldberg was suspended for her comments while Rogan continues, of this writing, to have his nine-figure deal with Spotify. The root of cancel culture is accountability, not the learning and spiritual progress of oppressors.

---

Steve QJ:

You center white redemption over Black personhood and agency.

Now this is silly😅

I can't imagine (thank God) how psychologically toxic it must be to compulsively divide your worldview into black vs white. Viewing the world in this simplistic, zero-sum way absolutely forces you to obfuscate people's humanity. Do you really feel as if this benefits you, the fight against racism, or society in general?

And no, the root of cancel culture isn't accountability. It's the sheer hubris that allows people to believe they have a right to demand "accountability" from total strangers because they dare to have a different point of view or said something ignorant a decade ago. It's the intellectual cowardice that tempts people to rely on intimidation instead of reason to change people's minds. It's the emotional immaturity that allows people to dehumanise everybody who disagrees with them so they can justify their utterly disproportionate cruelty.

I agree, Goldberg shouldn't have been suspended. It's ridiculous that she was. That's actually the point I'm making in this silly little article. It would also have been ridiculous (and utterly meaningless, Rogan lost subscribers when he went exclusive with Spotify) if Rogan had been kicked off Spotify. Would you really have felt as if you'd won if he'd kept his millions, continued podcasting to an even bigger audience, and also became a martyr for the "never apologise" crowd? Especially as he did apologise? And has obviously evolved in the past 9 years. What’s the endgame here?

---

Hal:

Now this is silly😅

“I can't imagine (thank God) how psychologically toxic it must be to compulsively divide your worldview into black vs white. Viewing the world in this simplistic, zero-sum way absolutely forces you to obfuscate people's humanity. Do you really feel as if this benefits you, the fight against racism, or society in general?”

There is nothing zero-sum about accountability. Accountability is the flow of responsibility from your actions. To suggest it is “zero-sum” is to deny that the accused actions has had negative, deleterious impact on others.

“And no, the root of cancel culture isn't accountability. It's the sheer hubris that allows people to believe they have a right to demand ‘accountability’ from total strangers because they dare to have a different point of view or said something ignorant a decade ago.’ It's the intellectual cowardice that tempts people to rely on intimidation instead of reason to change people's minds. It's the emotional immaturity that allows people to dehumanise everybody who disagrees with them so they can justify their utterly disproportionate cruelty.”

Rogan is no stranger. He chose that for himself. He has broadcasted himself into American eyes and ears since he was the host of Fear Factor. He has worked to make himself and his views familiar. He thus can no longer lean on your argument of “total strangers” not demanding accountability since he is in the business of converting those strangers to listeners and subscribers. The only “sheer hubris” that can arise from his work is thinking he can invite racists, make racist statements, and misled people on COVID and not eventually be held to account. His words, and the words of the guests he allows, has real impact.

Your argument on intimidation and dehumanization also are silly. TIME reports as of 2/11/2022 that Spotify removed 70 of Rogan’s episodes due to offensive content. That is not an act of intellectual cowardice and intimidation as you believe, but of intellectual rigor on race in America and pandemic science finally catching up to the man. It is not “emotional immaturity” or “utterly disproportionate cruelty” to resist one’s attempts to dehumanize your people and to make sure they never get the opportunity to try again. In 2015, Rogan had a guest on his show who claimed Black people have a genetic predisposition to violence

Charles Johnson @Green_Footballs

Here's a small part of what they deleted. Chuck is explaining to Joe Rogan that black people have a gene that makes them "predisposed to violence."

It is not cruel to hold him accountable for giving such a guest a platform.

I agree, Goldberg shouldn't have been suspended. It's ridiculous that she was. That's actually the point I'm making in this silly little article. It would also have been ridiculous (and utterly meaningless, Rogan lost subscribers when he went exclusive with Spotify) if Rogan had been kicked off Spotify. Would you really have felt as if you'd won if he'd kept his millions, continued podcasting to an even bigger audience, and also became a martyr for the "never apologise" crowd? Especially as he did apologise? And has obviously evolved in the past 9 years. What’s the endgame here?

The TIME article I linked above says he still has 11 million subscribers, which shows the value of using recent evidence in formulating arguments. Furthermore, the NY Times reported yesterday the full value of Spotify’s deal with Rogan is closer to $200 million. If he is deplatformed, he still gets to keep that money and has thus profited from the racial and scientific muck he promoted. But the deplatforming—the canceling—shows to those who are coming after him that Black personhood won’t tolerate such views and that we have the right to defend our humanity.

Nobody care, or should care, if he becomes part of the “never apologize” crowd because cancel culture is not about moral suasion or transforming the moral universe of the aggressor. It is about power, and stripping them of their platforms that allow them to spread such views. The endgame is accountability—that the people who are coming up behind Rogan know they cannot build their brand the way he did and then when the jig is up, issue a soggy apologize and go away with their millions.

---

If you watched the clip of the guy claiming that black people have a genetic predisposition to violence, you might have noticed that the clip ends with Rogan saying:

“But God, is that really tr…”

I swear, I will never understand why somebody would hold this up as evidence of Rogan’s racism without at least finding out what he said in response.

In fact, in the replies to the very same tweet, there’s a clip that provides further context.

angak @andual88

@KnowS0mething This clip is deceptively edited. Here is the full context:

It was absolutely exhausting coming across as if I was defending Rogan in the comments of this article when, in fact, I was just defending a basic level of intellectual honesty.

---

Steve QJ:

There is nothing zero-sum about accountability.

You keep saying “accountability”. Let’s have the courage to call it what it is, shall we? We’re talking about retribution. Taking a “pound of flesh.” In this case, for a shi**y joke that Rogan made on his podcast nine years ago.

So what is a reasonable retribution for this mistake? Who gets to decide? How are you quantifying the "negative deleterious impact" he caused? Or is this just you projecting your personal feelings onto black people as a whole? Does his apology and the fact that he’s clearly grown up since then figure at all in this? And finally, of course, it goes without saying that if we delved nine years into your past we wouldn’t find a single impeachable comment for which you needed to be “held accountable.” Right?

Also, given that you claim to consider accountability to simply be "the flow of responsibility from your actions", why aren't you satisfied? Rogan apologised, he keeps his podcast and his millions, and everybody will move on to the next news cycle soon enough. This is the responsibility that flowed from his actions in this case. Do you feel satisfied with this? Or is there a particular type of "accountability" that you were hoping for? Is your definition perhaps not entirely honest?

Rogan got famous from working hard at something he wanted to do and turned out to be good at. Same goes for Rowling. Same for Chappelle. Same for Goldberg. This doesn't give members of the public any kind of entitlement to them. They still maintain their personhood and their rights to basic decency. It doesn't stop you from being a stranger to these people. It's a stalker mentality that would claim any differently.

I don't know what point you're trying to make about his subscribers. I wasn't suggesting that he somehow had a small audience now. He lost subscribers when he moved to Spotify originally, because some of his fans don't want to use Spotify and they removed his old episodes from YouTube as part of the exclusivity deal. If he went back to YouTube and just regular, all-platform podcasting, his audience would almost certainly increase. As for him profiting from "racist and scientific muck" I'll ask you if you've ever actually watched an episode of the show or if you're generating all of this hyperbole purely from your imagination.

And yes, framing it as centering “white redemption over black personhood and agency” is literally (in the good old-fashioned sense of the word) zero-sum thinking. Do you think there's any way we can consider people's feelings and allow for the possibility that those who harbour casually racist attitudes can learn and become better human beings? Do you allow for the possibility that you might still have room to become a better person?

Honestly, it’s like talking to a a modern-day puritan. Which I guess is what it is. You’re so star-spangled certain of your moral rectitude that you’re incapable of seeing the hypocrisy.

---

“I'll ask you if you've ever actually watched an episode of the show or if you're generating all of this hyperbole purely from your imagination.”

I asked this question of all the commenters who were especially critical of Rogan. Not those who simply don’t think he’s very bright or who don’t find him particularly interesting (I feel the same way), but those who were convinced his podcast is wall-to-wall “racial and scientific muck.”

In 100% of the cases, the answer was no. A few tactically edited clips were all the information they needed.

Cancel culture feeds on outrage and spite and the deep-seated unhappiness of those who practice it. But it also feeds on our eagerness to stand in moral judgement. Our willingness to point fingers at others before ourselves.

Just as we’ve all said something stupid, we’ve all written somebody off too quickly because they said something stupid. Working to overcome the former benefits us. But working to overcome the latter benefits everybody.