Tag Archives: shame day

The Internet and Mob Justice

On January 16th, a pet supply worker was fired for a racist tirade on a blog. On the 13th of the same month, Iron Mountain Daily News blacklisted a freelance writer after she was revealed using racial slurs. On the 11th of this month, a juvenile justice employ in Kentucky was fired for racist and violent postings on his Facebook wall.

Nothing surprising at first glance.

With ever-increasing social consciousness and public focus on modern-day racism in the past year, it’s nothing shocking that a person would be fired for getting caught making bigoted claims. Only these folks weren’t caught– they were exposed.

Continue reading

Shame Day: Whitewashed Bible Movies and the Christians Who Watch Them

I think it only fair, given the current situation in the Gaza Strip, to shout-out the West’s general view of the Middle East today as having honorary Shame Day status [you can check out yesterday’s post for what that’s all about]. Cue my flawless segue into today’s actual topic, which is in regards to the West’s general view of the historical Middle East.

This retreads some pretty well-worn ground for me, because it’s about Hollywood and race. I’ve spotlit problems with the “one size fits all” approach to casting minorities, heavily criticized Hollywood’s attempts to whitewash their remakes of groundbreaking animated films, and outright condemned producers who cite the inevitable change in the industry while stolidly refusing to have any part of it. The difference here is that this time it’s heavily tied into Western Christianity.

It’s been almost 60 years since The Ten Commandments, and I want to say we’ve come a very long way since then. Again note that that’s something I want to say. To be truly and completely honest there is almost nothing I want more than to be able to write to you all and tell you that in six decades we are so, so far from the time when Charles Heston and Anne Baxter were cast as Moses and Nefertiti, respectively. You know what they say, though, you can’t always get what you want. Continue reading

Shame Day: The Post-Grad’s Job Search

This is pretty short as posts can get, but its length has directly to do with the topic at hand. See, I’ve been unemployed since last year, and that’s not for lack of trying to change that status. Given certain things going well there’s a chance that, instead of sitting here on the couch that doubles as my bed, I’d actually be in sunny Las Vegas with your favourite communist Culture War Reporter Gordon. Some things just aren’t meant to be, however.

I’m well aware that this isn’t going to be anything new for many of my peers out there, but just allow me this platform to vent a little. I am a college graduate. I am the child of a generation who believed that attaining a post-secondary degree more or less equated to a good job. Honestly, I wish that the piece of paper I have in a storage bin somewhere had some significant effect on my job search. See, and again, you probably already know this, what employers are really looking for is experience.

Most places are asking for three to five years with a particular task, and here I am having graduated in 2012, worked in 2013, and presently job-hunting full-time in 2014. This poorly-designed diagram really says it all:

Really, I don’t know what more to add to that. Surely Gordon, who has a job directly related to employment and has more of a finger on the pulse of current events regarding the economy, would have more to say, but I really don’t; I’m not even quite sure who to blame. It’s tough out there, and today’s just one of those days where I’m letting it get me down.

Normally I try not to let things on this blog get too personal, but honestly I think it’s a facet of post-grad culture, holding a diploma and wondering how on earth we’re going to use it. It’s frustrating to say the very least, and I just have to throw my two cents into what’s ostensibly a very large and very heavy bucket of copper-plated steel.

Shame Day: Your Fave Is Problematic

Writing “Shame Days” is harder than it looks. You gotta find a subject that’s extensive enough to merit an entire post of ranting without it being so reprehensible as to leave you speechless (Scott Lively, you satanic **********er, I’m looking at you). With that in mind, and as it’s rapidly approaching 9:00 PM as I write these words, we’re going to revisit an old subject that I personally don’t think got the lashing they deserve.

So who’s being drawn and quartered today?

It was in the title of this piece, so I guess the question’s pretty dang redundant.

“Your Fave is Problematic” is a Tumblr blog devoted, much like these Shame Day posts, to calling out celebrities and artists who the authors view as having committed bigotry in some form or another. Evan and I have both briefly touched on these guys, with us generally concluding that while noble in intent, they tend to be a bit extreme in their measures of what is and isn’t acceptable. Evan specifically stated that “I truly believe that Your Fave Is Problematic is doing a good thing”, however, after myself digging through their blog a bit more, I really just can’t say the same.

These guys are *******es.

Let me break it down here. Continue reading

Shame Day: Sexual Harassment, Corruption and Bullying in the RCMP

Before I begin this post, I want to be clear that I have the utmost respect for the individuals who put their lives on the line to protect their fellow Canadians. As we know from the recent Moncton shootings, working for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) can be dangerous and, sometimes, devastating work.

Unfortunately, the RCMP is also a fallible organization. No matter how great intentions may be, things are bound to go wrong when there isn’t enough accountability. Lately the media and the RCMP itself have been looking into just what can and has been going wrong. It’s pretty disconcerting, and I’ve outlined three of the major issues for you below. Continue reading

Will Blogging Now Come Back to Haunt Me Later?

The short answer is yes. In many ways I don’t mind putting my thoughts out on the no man’s land we call the internet. I’m sure Foucault would have all kinds of things to say about the kind of surveillance we submit ourselves to as bloggers, but as an aspiring writer it’s unrealistic for me to remain entirely private if I want to build up my writing experience.

Using social media isn’t really all that different from being in a panopticon.

That being said, everything we put online is going to follow us for the rest of our lives. Yes, most of the time people just don’t care what my (or your) opinions are, so we can slather them all over any social media site with little to no consequences, but, then again, sometimes those opinions may come back to haunt us. This past month I started several blog posts only to put them aside for a variety of reasons. I hope to come back to them again at some point, but for this post I thought I would share a few of those reasons and why they make me think twice about what I share. Continue reading