"we're inclusive and accepting!" says #gamergate, before drawing racist caricatures of women they dislike. pic.twitter.com/zbFnWBOmdn
— Sarah Nyberg (@srhbutts) November 1, 2014
The other day, I posted a screenshot of an 8chan comment featuring the drawing above, a crude caricature of Anita Sarkeesian that’s a not-very-subtle variation on a racist and anti-Semitic cartoon that originally ran in a neo-Nazi newspaper.
Here’s the original, in all its crapitude:
Let’s face it! That is one fucking awful cartoon.
Now, if that picture — or at least the grinning fellow on the left — looks familiar, it’s because he’s been that’s turned into a meme (“Le Happy Merchant”) that’s proven popular with 4channers and Stormfronters alike.
Given that GamerGate itself has its origins on 4chan — and in an IRC channel populated mostly bey 4channers — it shouldn’t come as a complete shock that #GamerGaters, some of whom refer to Sarkeesian as “Jewkeesian,” have repurposed the image into a caricature of one of their most hated foes. Sarkeesian isn’t actually Jewish, but for whatever reason this doesn’t seem to faze her anti-Semitic non-admirers.
GamerGaters like to claim that this sort of bigotry “isn’t what GamerGate is really about,” and that anti-Semites and other bigots are fringe elements in their movement, if not “false flagging” feminazi shills trying to make GamerGate look bad. Here, one GamerGater makes that point with as much sarcasm as he can muster:
https://twitter.com/JakALope044/status/525839519161917440
This would be a much more convincing argument if GamerGaters weren’t so quick to excuse and/or explain away the anti-Semitic imagery every time it rears its ugly head.
Here’s one active GamerGater who wants everyone to know that, actually, it’s about ethics in game journalism.
https://twitter.com/SlushStuff/status/524266371069517824
But she has a pretty unusual notion of what “not hate” is, given that she posted this picture several days later:
This lovely little drawing combines the racist caricature of Sarkeesian with another bit of neo-Nazi propaganda that’s been floating around the internet for a while, and which had already been repurposed as an anti-Muslim comic. In other words, @SlushStuff has posted a mashup of a neo-Nazi cartoon that’s already been used in another bigoted mashup.
We can’t blame @SlushStuff’s glee in posting this on her ignorance of the sources of the cartoon in question; she’s well aware that the picture is based on anti-Semitic propaganda. She just thinks this isn’t a problem, because reasons.
https://twitter.com/SlushStuff/status/526342650375704576
https://twitter.com/SlushStuff/status/526396368609615872
Then again, @SlushStuff doesn’t seem to have a problem with straight-up racism either.
https://twitter.com/SlushStuff/status/521793824621088770
This is a common reaction amongst GamerGaters when confronted with this particular work of, er, art. When srh, who tracks GamerGate bigotry on Twitter, posted the tweet at the top of this post, here are some of the reactions she got, in a seemingly unending discussion that extended over hundreds of tweets. (These aren’t all successive tweets; see here for the whole thread.)
Yep. That’s right. A guy whose avatar is a white dude in an American Indian headdress (comedian Jim Norton, FWIW) is lecturing people about what is and what isn’t racism.
At this point I “noped” out of reading the rest of the thread before my head exploded from all the nonsense.
GamerGate claims to have an anti-harassment squad, but when someone posts caricatures of Anita Sarkeesian that are not just inspired by but probably literally traced from Nazi propaganda, these are the guys who show up.
To quote the robot bartender in The Fifth Element, do you want some more?
Here’s more.
After one anti-GamerGater posted a screenshot of Mary’s post featuring Sarkeesian painting fake threats on a wall, one #GamerGater had this response.
Here yet another GamerGater claims that the caricature is mocking Sarkeesian, so therefore it can’t be anti-Semitic:
https://twitter.com/NappalmSam/status/526385714968428544
Oh, wait, is this yet another GamerGater making the same terrible “argument?” Why yes, it is:
I ask #gamergate why they are condoning/reposting Ann anti Semitic cartoon. They respond: Jews Are Not A Race pic.twitter.com/Ef1mhYw6Dy
— Joshua Idehen (@joshuaidehen80) October 26, 2014
And, oh, it gets weirder. Here a GamerGater responding to a critic who was pointing out an instance of GamerGaters using “Le Happy Merchant” in an infographic … by suggesting he was “Jew-shaming.”
https://twitter.com/emvarez_dota/status/526379494580695041
And here’s a GamerGater who uses “Le Happy Merchant” as his fucking avatar … accusing Sarkeesian of anti-Semitism. And spelling it wrong.
I could keep going, but after this, is there any point?
Bottom of the barrel, consider yourself scraped.
EDIT: Added more info on the source of that second Sarkeesian cartoon.
@cassandrakitty:
*ding*
The argument (bad as it is) makes more sense when you realize that atheists have been forming communities based around atheism. They’ve mainly been concerned with critiquing religion (or just laughing at it and calling it stupid). So when someone tries to bring up any sort of SJ concepts that apply to the atheist community, they see it as an interruption. They want to control the conversation by saying it should only be about things directly related to atheism.
The irony of it all is that they then go on to criticize various religious groups for how they treat women and non-white folks. SJ concepts apparently can only be used as a weapon towards the religious, and must never become a microscope aimed at themselves.
It is funny how much they end up resembling the people they’re most against. But yeah, you can’t own atheism because it’s not a movement, no matter how much a few angry white boys want to make it into one, and if it was it would naturally end up reflecting the things that are important to the people involved, not all of whom are angry white boys.
@Anarchist:
All together now, to the tune of the Hallelujah Chorus!
Evolution!
Evolution!
Evolution! Evolution!
Evolution!
For the lord Darwin’s theory explaaains it!
Explains it! Explains it! Evolution! Evolution!
For the lord Darwin’s theory explaaains it!
Explains it! Explains it! Evolution! Evolution!
The mis’ries of this world
Are due to ancestry
And not culture, and not culture;
Genetics reign for ever and ever,
For ever, and ever, forever and ever,
Biotruths, and Evo-Psych,
Biotruths, and Evo-Psych, 😐
And Evo-Psych
Genetics reign
Genetics reign for ever and ever
Biotruths! (for ever, and ever)
And Evo-Psych (Explains it! Evolution!)
Genetics reign for ever and ever,
Biotruths! And Evo-Psych!
Genetics reign for ever and ever,
Biotruths! and Evo-Psych!
Explains it! Explains it! Evolution! Evolution
*deep breath*
Eeeeeevooooooooooollluuuuuutiooooooooooooon!
Onward atheist soldiers, marching as to war!
With the sign of Dawkins marching on before
Yeah, I’m keeping the label ‘atheist’ for myself. The assholes can’t have it. To me, they’re associated with movement atheism only. Not atheists as a whole. To me, refusing to call myself ‘atheist’ would also be a problem because it cedes ground to the theocrats who think not believing in a god is a bad thing and something to be ashamed of.
Man, I want a feather duster head chicken.
Oops, @Anarchonist. Sorry for messing up your nym.
@katz:
How does it see?
I’m always amazed at how a certain sect of atheists invoke pop Darwinism to explain behavior. Bill Maher had a woman politician on his HBO show last week and pointed out that she didn’t start arguments with her sexist co-workers. “Women can do that,” he said. “It’s a gene women have, right?”
Um, no, many women are socialized not to antagonize because of reprises. Why doesn’t he know that? They invoke genes to explain away socialized behavior all the time — it’s almost like their version of superstition or something.
I’m an atheist but I don’t have any interest in movement atheism. They do come off as boorish and rude. It’s not any skin off my nose if other people choose to believe in some deity, as long as they’re not forcing that belief onto me or my family. (which, clearly, is not necessarily a given, but two wrongs don’t make a right, etc.)
What is there really to for a bunch of atheists to talk about, once you are done talking about your shared agreement that all that god stuff is unsubstantiated nonsense? It’s like building a whole identity out of thinking astrology is gibberish.
On a day-to-day level, I’ve a lot more in common with my religious housewife friends than the wannabe Dawkinses on Twitter… despite their sometimes-tedious affections for the weekly horoscope.
Ugh…Bill Maher
I recommend the book Extraordinary Chickens
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Extraordinary-Chickens-Stephen-Green-Armytage/dp/0810990652/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_y
@ceebarks
There’s always literally every non-religious worldview.
I lament the fact that I can’t seriously discuss the notions of humanistic ethics with my peers. I lament the fact that I can’t examine the various materialist worldviews for examining facts. Someone who is sympathetic to not wanting religious encroachment into private life.
I get the need. People are social creatures. Surrounding yourself occasionally with those of a similar mind can be therapeutic.
No god, no god-given morals.
This is one inevitable consequence of atheism that dictionary atheism refuses to address. They can do it, but it’s still illogical and irrational to expect the edifice of their privilege not to crumble when they remove its sustaining pillar.
Right, I can understand that too. I just wouldn’t assume that another atheist would necessarily have an interest in any of those topics. Or that theists would not, you know? I went to a Unitarian church for awhile that had a lot of theists who were a whoooole lot more interested in and knowledgeable about humanism than your average apathetic atheist like myself, for instance. Granted, they were typically liberal theists, mystics, etc, but sincere believers all the same.
(Err, sorry, I didn’t mean to derail this thread into a religious debate, just couldn’t think of anywhere else to ask… o~o)
I still have moments of “I reeeeeally don’t want to identify as an atheist” because I don’t want to be associated with that really loud, prominent vein of “movement atheism” but, ultimately, it’s what I am. I don’t believe in god. The fact I’m not an assface doesn’t change that.
If I divorce myself from the name I feel like I let two different “bad guys” win; the asshole atheists get to represent atheism and the asshole atheist-haters get to continue characterising atheists as nasty persons.
While atheism needn’t imply anything about a person beyond a lack of belief in god, for some it does. It’s obvious the atheists who couldn’t give a rat’s ass about white women (they’re gold star women’s rights advocates when the misogyny’s perpetrated by people of non-Western cultures) are allowed to exist as they’re very, very noisy. I just want to be accepted as an atheist and for people to stop assuming horrible things about people based on their being atheists. It’s not their atheism that makes atheist assholes assholes. They just suck as people.
Lots of atheists manage to be perfectly ethical without obtaining their morals from god.
Also, most religious people don’t actually take their morals from god/their religion’s holy book. What most people actually do is cherrypick the parts of the book that support the morals they already hold and ignore the parts that don’t.
But back to the OP, does “Mary” actually know what racist means?
It appears not. In fact, she seems totally miffed at her critics.
What the fuck are these people thinking? How can you co-opt Nazi propaganda, edit it just a bit — but not so much that people can’t recognize the source, then cry, “It’s not racist! We’re just recycling an illustration of Nazi’s hating on the jews so we can prove our stance on ethics in game journalism!”
I mean, even the people who call themselves Biblical literalists cherrypick, and so do their Muslim equivalents. That’s the thing about most holy books, they contradict themselves so much that you can find something in the text to support almost anything that you want to advocate as morally righteous if you look hard enough.
A lot of that is splash from the skeptic crowd. They’re perfectly happy demolishing bigfoot, nessie, homeopathy and people who claim to have been abducted by aliens. Ask them to apply the exact same skeptical approaches to their own favoured economic/ political/ social/ sexual presumptions as they do to germ theory/relativity denialists, flat earthers and anti-vaxxers and you bring the ceiling down on your own head.
Suddenly you find they’re not really skeptical at all in their own thinking. They haven’t adopted a method of analysing and thinking issues through at all. They’ve just found a great big stick to beat other people with while bragging about being cleverer than all those sheeple who let themselves be fooled by others. They never worry about how much we can all fool ourselves if we’re not careful.
I was on another forum some years back, and a new member, when filling out his interests page, included what he called Esoteric Hitlerism.
Fast forward – it did not go well, he did not last long. At one point, he flatly denied to me that the NatSoc regime in Germany persecuted GLBT*. After all, it was simply against the law – you can’t hold THAT against them.
*A term he did not use.
That was the wall I ran into the day I left Skepchick the last time. It was a disappointment to me and probably more so because it was unexpected. I thought being skeptical meant just exactly that, Nope.
Skepchick was always one of those crowds I could agree with on a lot of matters superficially, which felt great, but then I’d get my paws in the ground, burrow a little deeper and go “Wait, what? No!”