normalization is a scary thing. ever-shifting lines and thresholds are scary. for some people the line is this: racial slurs and hate speech uttered knowingly and conscientiously. a career and a net worth of millions of dollars built off of a calculated, structured genre of humor that encourages dehumanizing language, trivialization of oppression, and jokes targeted at minority groups, that gives young white men a free pass to use the same sort of humor and language, that provides a haven for literal nazis and bigots to thrive and pat each other on the back and laugh at people that they consider weak and ‘triggered’ and overly sensitive.
and for others the line might be actions that condone or implicitly convey tolerance and acceptance of these realities. when a person is able to ‘look past’ someone’s conscientious bigotry and the profit they make from it, when they are able to put these realities aside for a weekend of fun spent in a luxury apartment, to pose for photos in front of a public audience, what they’re saying is that that person’s bigotry can be overlooked, condoned, and tolerated, all in the interest of personal enjoyment. after weeks and months of radio silence, if the only ‘statement’ someone can make on a clear and defined case of textbook racism on their platform and in their community is that they have plans to hang out with the racist in question and may perhaps ‘have a word’ about ‘recent occurrences,’ without even being able to out and out denounce those occurrences or call them what they are (uh, racism), then they don’t get a pass, at least not from me. this is my line: allowing internalized and implicit racism to go unchecked, condoning it because it doesn’t affect you personally. normalizing it.
a community of people who are more afraid to talk about the potential for racism amongst their favs than they are afraid of actual racism itself is terrifying to me. it’s unsettling. a community of people who would rather be angry, who would rather be defensive and class everything as ‘drama’ and ‘discourse’ rather than listening to people whose feelings are hurt, rather than exercising basic compassion and empathy … it’s scary. and this is the impact of dnp’s decisions. ‘racism’ isn’t just burning crosses or using the n word yourself or calling yourself a white supremacist. it’s a system that actively erases and silences the experiences of black people and other people of color, a system in which white people can do and say anything about nonwhites without material or lasting repercussions, because their network of other white people will always be able to put up with it, look past it, and protect them. dnp didn’t just make a personal choice, they made a public one that communicates that their weekend plans were more important to them than the people who may have been harmed by the person they were associating with. they made a choice to normalize this person and his career, to show that he’s someone they can still have fun with, and to communicate that message to thousands and thousands of young, impressionable, mostly white fans.
don’t get it twisted, by the way. the alternative here was as simple as a declined invitation, a mailed gift or greeting card instead of an in-person attendance. this is not about an eight year old relationship with a mutual friend whom dnp could see any other time, and with whom dnp could continue to maintain an isolated relationship. this is not about money or power or followers or a career, all of which dnp have in heaps. this is about privilege, about the ability to look past bigotry when it doesn’t affect you personally, when speaking out is too hard or inconvenient. and that would’ve been painful on its own, but what’s worse is the people who still care more about these rich, privileged individuals than their own peers and friends and fellow ‘fans.’ the hypocrisy is painful. i imagine a scenario where the sign had read ‘death to all gays’ or where the gamer rage had resulted in multiple instances of yelling the word ‘f*ggot.’ would all of you stay so silent? would dnp have gone to the party then? would it still be ‘everybody makes mistakes, everyone deserves second chances, nobody’s perfect?’
everyone’s lines fall at different places. i draw the line at tacit acceptance of bigotry and hate speech. it’s a serious choice and a starkly disappointing one. your line might be different, and that’s okay. but the least you can do is listen to the people who are hurt and try to understand what they’re feeling. interrogate your own comfort levels and boundaries, question where those boundaries lie, and whether you keep shifting them to accommodate a world that gets more and more casually bigoted every single day. think about who you stan and why, think about what it means, just be critical and aware, and kind to anyone who is hurting.
