Part 1: Jezebel Starts a Controversy

The SUNY philosophy department held a department colloquia, with Theodore Everett presenting. The title of the paper was "Against 'Sexual' 'Assault' 'Awareness.'" The title was intended to be controversial. You will not surprised to know that Jezebel took the bait. Based on just the title and hearsay (which turned out to be inaccurate), Everett was trashed. The article accuses him of being unwilling to listen to campus feminists, of not taking rape seriously, and of shoddy research. The comments are worse. Everett is called an "asshole," an "MRA" ("the bad kind"), a "toolbag," "creepy," a "rape apologist," "reprehensible." He was compared to Holocaust deniers. There are also calls for his firing. His email is posted. You know the drill.

As a result of the Jezebel article, a petition was started at change.org. As of this posting, the petition has nearly 1,700 signatures. A few local stations covered the outrage. The blog "Feminist Philosophers" linked uncritically to the Jezebel article. The first wave of comments called Everett, among other things, "a typical right-wing academic dickhead provocateur," "poison," pathological, and so forth. The fifth commenter seems to call for something just short of assault. As a result of all of this, the talk was pushed back two days.

Everett's commentator---Heidi Savage, who is Everett's colleague, and is also a feminist and a rape victim---tried to correct the score in the comments on the Feminist Philosophers post. Of course, the blog commenters, who have not read the paper nor seen anything but the title try to put the burden on her to prove that the talk is in-bounds (see comments 10, 12, 19, 21, 32). Frustrated, Heidi wrote (comment 18):

I have received little to no support from what I thought of as fellow feminists on campus (well, except tokens of support by email), and now they are using one of my students (PHIL/WMST minor) as a political pawn in all of this who is known to be attending to talk. I won’t go into the details. This is completely out of hand, and I have almost exhausted my own coping resources for dealing with this at all. I don’t care about myself. I walked in to this freely.

I am beginning to see with increased intensity and more frequently on the internet, in legitimate news organizations, radio broadcasts and MSM, the term "social justice" bandied about with little to no discretion.

I apologize if this is not the correct sub to place this in but the reality of this needs to be realized.

SJ is no longer some fringe Tumblr movement or Facebook status. I heard recently on NPR the question "should morality be legislated?" This is fucking dangerous and I beg you to take it seriously. As we begin to devolve as a species, "movements" like SJ tend to rip at the very few threads left holding us all together.

No longer is this just a cute back and forth game between some basement dweller on Tumblr and Reddit user's like you. No longer is this just a fun way to point out the ridiculousness of their extremism and have a laugh at the absurdity.

SJW's and the morality gestapo is a very, very dangerous concept. And, truthfully, it's not even a concept any more. It's a full on movement that is garnering actual attention. Please, I beg of you, do all the research you can on this topic. Get educated and well learned on this subject, as this is only the beginning. If you want to keep it fun and do your thing on Reddit, pointing and laughing at the turds that shitpost their inanity, fine, but I'm telling you this isn't a game anymore.

The jackbooted thuggery, the bullying brownshirts of Social "Justice" has only just begun. Strap up your laces, because shit is going to hit the fan.

I work a dead-end job at a shitty chain store selling crap nobody needs. It's alright, pays decent enough for me to save for school, and the customers are totally cool. I've never once disrespected a customer, nor made them feel uncomfortable.

Upon discussing racism with my gf, who has recently taken sociology 101 (oh jeez.), it appears she has learned from the internet that "treating people the same is racist."

Now I know MLK probably said... The exact opposite, considering the whole "I have a dream" speech. But, let's flow with what she said.

I informed her that, I was raised to give a certain degree of respect, and I would commonly follow a script such as "How are you doing today? Can I help you with anything?". I gave this same spiel to every customer, regardless of age, colour, orientation, height, whatever. Anything.

In her own words, I was racist because I "treated everyone like they were white."

She of course, wouldn't elaborate on what I was supposed to do when I had a person of colour (or as I like to call them: persons.) in the store. She said "Treat them the way they want to be treated." That's fucking impossible to predict when I'm supposed to initiate customer service 90% of the time. (I'm not pushy, I ask if they need help. If they don't, I fuck off and get something else done.)

Now I've grown up around immigrants. My best friend is from South Korea, and I've spoken often about how well I appreciate many cultures that are in my city.

So, according to her, I'm racist for treating people white. Apparently I may offend some imaginary culture that she can't name in some way that she refused to describe.

Though, we've made up with it, I think I spoke my mind clear enough that she's totally forgiven it. (She's not one to hold a grudge.)

Anyone have experience with this? What the fuck am I supposed to do?