"And they followed the deep partisan grooves of contemporary politics, in which liberals believed the absolute worst of a Trump supporter. But they also contained a thread of real conspiracy thinking — not just that racism is a source of Trumpian politics, but that apparently ordinary people are communicating through secret signals."
From "I’ll Take 'White Supremacist Hand Gestures' for $1,000/How hundreds of 'Jeopardy!' contestants talked themselves into a baseless conspiracy theory — and won’t be talked out of it" by Ben Smith (NYT).
Posts
5 comments:
Michael R. Arndorfer writes:
I laughed out loud from the hypocrisy of this paragraph:
"The letter’s main co-authors asked not to be named because they feared harassment on social media. One, a lawyer, said in a LinkedIn message that the letter’s “overarching point is that the production staff should have headed off this controversy” by editing out the gesture. That interpretation requires a pretty careful reading of the letter, which began with a focus on Mr. Donohue and included speculation about the significance of a photograph of Frank Sinatra on his personal Facebook page."
We want to ruin this contestant's life on an unfounded allegation that he is racist, but we don't want any blowback from our clearly reckless behavior.
I was also unaware of Frank Sinatra's link to obvious racism, but that's probably just my privilege.
That makes me want to look up what they actually said about Sinatra.
The Sinatra thing is just: "[Donahue's] public Facebook profile also featured a cover photo of Frank Sinatra making a similar gesture."
It must be the "Ring-a-ding-ding" album cover.
That predates the hoax that the OK gesture was a racist signal, but someone adopting the signal as a real signal could go back to Sinatra as a way to send out the signal.
Washington Blogger writes:
"No. These are not smart people. They are not nice people. These are people with an ability to retain facts and think fast on their feet. That is a mark of intelligence, but not the only marker. Smart people would look to gather real data and be sure of what they know. Nice people would not look to crucify a person on such flimsy data. What we have here are gullible people who buy into an unproven narrative against their family, friends, neighbors, associates and fellow citizens. They are rats following a pied piper whose song is: Everyone but you is a secret racist, Come, let's burn them at the stake. "
Not nice people??? But Ben Smith stressed and stressed *again* that they were nice people!!
Joe writes: "Regarding the quote "And they followed the deep partisan grooves of contemporary politics, in which liberals believed the absolute worst of a Trump supporter. But they also contained a thread of real conspiracy thinking — not just that racism is a source of Trumpian politics, but that apparently ordinary people are communicating through secret signals." [my emphasis]. What is the intended antecedent for 'they'? The liberals or the contestants? I read blame displacement: liberals promulgated this conspiracy theory, but it is the fault of the Jeopardy contestants that they internalized it. "
The contestants who wrote the letter are designated liberal — I think!
RigelDog writes:
"As further proof of their willful ignorance, they know nothing about racism and Frank Sinatra. He was very much ahead of his time in terms of speaking out against racism and then actually doing something about it.
"A brief example from his Wiki: “Sinatra played a major role in the desegregation of Nevada hotels and casinos in the 1950s and 1960s, often stepping in to demand apologies for a racist incident and abolishing of Jim Crow policies before he would fulfill his show contract."
Post a Comment