Debunking ridiculous Jonathan Pie
I wish I didn’t have to do this. Debunking a character that was clearly invented to peddle to racist sexist heteropatriarchy seems a waste of time. I thought I could ignore it away — but lately my friends and my family-friends have been sharing this absurd video by Jonathan Pie called “The trouble with Identity Politics” and it seems to be received by excited and uncritical friends of theirs (read: liberals who are looking for an excuse to finally say how they really feel about “too much” political correctness).
I am not going to share the video — it doesn’t need more exposure and it is not based in fact — just as the actor who plays Jonathan Pie is neither a trained reporter nor trained in any form of political or social science.
Instead let me debunk just 10 of the random facts Pie presents in the absurd video.
Because — while Jonathan Pie speaks fast and swears alot, which I am sure is alluring to people — most of what he says is designed to make you (yes, you!) mad at minorities and society’s most oppressed, rather than blaming the powerful structures at play. It is a lot easier, after all, to be mad at someone changing an emoji, than to be mad at the majority electing presidents like Trump — and it is a lot easier to punish them as well, or at least hurt them by spreading hate.
- “Stop sanitizing and denying the past to make yourself look good”: about the removal of Laura Ingalls Wilder from a writing reward.
Childrens-author (and child-author) Laura Ingalls Wilder had her name removed from a writing award, since it has become more clear that the book is racist and/or stereotypical. The book is still in production, circulation and widely celebrated. The problem is almost self explanatory from the quote juxtaposed with what Pie is talking about. In the first 1,5 minutes of the video-rant, Pie claims that someone is “sanitizing and denying the past” — an argument that peddles to the discourse of censorship and recalls our fear of Orwell’s “1984" — OH NO! someone is censoring something *gasps*!
But wait, actually — nothing is being censored — someone just stopped celebrating a book because they realized it had racist and stereotypical attitudes — something that, perhaps, isn’t great to be celebrating in the first place. So, even though it surely feels great to be afraid and angry about censorship — it is an unnecessary fear in this case. If someone wants to retract their award that is their prerogative — just like you can’t expect to keep your prize if you are caught cheating, you can sulk all you want — but getting a privilege taken away for your racism is not the same as being oppressed.
2. “We live in the most inclusive, progressive, diverse, prosperous society ever in human history yet we behave as if we have never had it so fucking bad”
I would very much like to know who Pie thinks is behaving as if “we have never had it so fucking bad”. Secondly, I would like to live a day in Pie’s shoes — it must be great to believe that all is well and good when:
- Globally “There are now twice as many people enslaved in the world as there were in the 350 years of the transatlantic slave trade.” — The Atlantic, 2012 (this is not to diminish transatlantic slavery, but to point out that history is not a simple progression from bad past to progressive and good present)
- In Pie’s homecountry, only some are prosperous, but I guess that doesn’t bother Pie “Compared to other developed countries the UK has a very unequal distribution of income. Out of the 30 OECD countries in the LIS data set, the UK is the seventh most unequal, and within this data set it is the fourth most unequal in Europe.” — The Equality Trust
- Oh, and most inclusive, progressive and diverse? Try looking at the hate-crime statistics (although impacted by better reporting — over the past few years— “The number of hate crimes in England and Wales has increased by 29%, according to Home Office statistics.”) — BBC
3. “We used to react to prejudice, now we actively seek it out”
It is interesting to me, that identifying prejudice is seen as “seeking it out” by Pie. This suggests to me that Pie, and his many supporters, fall well within what Eduardo Bonilla-Silva would deem Racism without Racists. Nobody believes that they are racist or wants to admit to adhering to racist beliefs, yet the resistance to uncovering racist structures suggests that people genuinely believe that if there are no racists, there can be no racism — an argument Bonilla-Silva has repeatedly shown to be not only a misrepresentation of facts but a misunderstanding of racism.
Or two other examples:
Just because we now know more about hearing impairment, for instance, does that mean we are “seeking out prejudice” when asking for an interpreter?
Just because we know more about neurodiversity now, does that mean we are “seeking out prejudice” when we ask people not to make fun of mental illness anymore?
The point is: who is the judge of which battles and which violences are legitimate and when? Who can decide when something is “reacting” and when something is “seeking it out”?
4. “What does this achieve, who does this help?”: when speaking about the eggs being removed from the salad emoji.
Pie spends most of his rant claiming that not celebrating racist books or removing eggs from a salad-emoji doesn’t help anyone (a fact he clearly has no evidence for — if it didn’t matter to someone, people would probably not have bothered to change these things).
But instead of asking who does it help, I wonder if we should ask: who does it hurt? Does it really hurt you if the salad emoji doesn’t have an egg? (Might it contribute to less pain from factory farming without stopping you, as an individual from having all of the eggs you’d like?) Does it hurt you that the racist children’s literature you will continue to buy for your kids is no longer as widely celebrated? If not, who is really the unnecessary whiner here?
5. “My generation we have never had to fight for much (…) we never had to fight for the vote we never had to fight a fucking war (…) my grandmother watched the battle of Britain take place above her house — Nazis in planes over her house (…) actual nazis I’m not talking Trump-voters”
This argument is based on (at least) three false presumptions (see if you can find more!):
- that because someone else had it worse at sometime in history, minorities and oppressed people cannot legitimately claim to have it bad now. This type of what-about-ism is not only poor, tasteless and transparent rhetorics — it makes absolutely no sense logically. Just because someone is or was suffering more at some time or some place, does not mean we need to continually oppress people near us as long as they are not “as oppressed”.
- That our generation is not as war-ridden as his grandmothers. Pie might sleep comfortably at night. But just like some 40.000 civilians lost their lives in the battle of Britain I am sure the some 66.000+ civilians recorded dead in the UK-supported Iraq-war would disagree with Pie’s assertion that our generation hasn’t fought for much (this might go for the casualties of UK’s involvement in Libya and Syria as well). Kind of rich coming from the comfort of his British roof-top.
- I don’t know how Pie defines “real nazis” — to me they look like this, and this and this and this. (Suggesting they very much still exist — and might be increasing in numbers).
6. “It is not impressive to be antifascist”
From Merriam-Webster:
Fascism, noun, fas·cism \ ˈfa-ˌshi-zəm also ˈfa-ˌsi- \
1: often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
2: a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control
Jonathan — when you are done forcibly suppressing the oppressed and the opposition, would you like to try being anti-fascist if it is really so unimpressive?
7. “This is what Identity politics does (…) you can’t see the world for what it actually is, you see racism and oppression where there is none.”
I think this is actually the core of Jonathan Pie’s argument, that really appeals to the masses. But the underlying assumption here is that Pie and his followers have a patent on truth, on “what the world actually is”. And I get it — believe it or not: If you are not a victim of the increasing hate-crimes, if you are not a victim of the widening economic inequalities, the gender pay-gap, the street-sexism, the rise in reported UK rapes, the subtle forms of every-day oppression, sexism, racism, ableism, ageism etc. — then maybe it is hard to believe that it impacts some people every day.
It might even be hard to believe that *gasp* you might not be an expert on their oppression! To them, they are not seeing racism and oppression where there is none — but your ignorance and belittling of their oppression is exactly what keeps the status quo — especially when you mask it as the logical or sensible stance without backing it with facts or research.
Is it perhaps ‘identity politics’ to claim (without qualifications — but only through the merit of your identity) that you are an expert on identity politics or struggles?
8. That films like Star Wars and Dunkirk are being ruined or limited by discussions about representation.
Aside from the fact that representation has proven to be something financially worth considering (just look at the reports suggesting diversity pays) — Dunkirk’s whitewashing is not, as Pie claims, historically accurate because it is white — its exclusive whiteness is precisely part of what makes it historically inaccurate!
If you want to learn more about the racial dynamics of star wars, my post on Sci-fi might be worth a read. Check it out here.
9. The white woman singing the N-word to Kendrick Lamar isn’t doing anything racist.
I wrote about this once. I don’t need to repeat myself, do I? Oh and by the way, Jonathan is right about one thing: intent doesn’t always matter — you can have good intentions and still do something racist — perhaps that is what scares him so much about minorities calling out racism to begin with.
10. “This is the politicization of art which of course is the end of art”
I don’t even know where to start with this — uhm. After 8 years studying art at University I have a news-flash for you Walter Cronkite: Art is political. Sorry to ruin your fantasy.
Final thoughts:
I understand why it might seem exciting when someone “says it like it is” — especially when they speak fast with a lot of swearing. But please — PLEASE — think about three things next time you enjoy Pie’s videos:
- Who is benefitting from these rants and who might they be hurting? Who is Jonathan Pie stepping on and who benefits from the spread of his opinions?
- Is Pie qualified (are you qualified) to determine whose struggles are worthy? Whose oppression is worth silencing?
- What are you gaining from sharing this? Could you be hurting someone around you by sharing them?
Side-note:
On a side-note — it is great that he mentions the corporate appropriation of struggles against oppression (he mentions his rainbow-pride coloured Costa coffee-cup) — but here’s a newsflash for Jonathan and followers: the “spoiled, pampered” minorities he bashed in his video have been fighting that type of pinkwashing since long before he came around, appropriated their arguments and profited off of them just like that Costa-cup. But unlike Costa who “hijacked the social movement” Jonathan Pie just succeeded in both hijacking, undermining and shaming a social movement at the same time. Good for him.
Notes:
If you want more information about how Jonathan Pie is not a real person, read these:
If you are wondering why you feel an inch of racist guilt for your love of Pie, read this:
