Speak of the Devil

I made a comment last night talking about how spurious claims of purity policing led to me getting shut down when discussions racism in media, specifically as regards to popular cop comedy Brooklyn 99. That all happened about 6 months ago.

And, as if summoned from the depths of hell by the mere mention of it, lo and be fucking hold, it's happening again as of this evening.

I don't understand why this is considered such a contentious subject. Brooklyn 99 is a fantastic show, and I love it. It's got superlative writing, exceptional acting, and a real sense of conscience about race dynamics.

But it's also a show where cops are sometimes the villains, but always the heroes. And that comes with baggage in a society that already considers the heroism of cops to be so ubiquitous and inherent that even when cops murder children in cold blood, most of them receive paid leave, and get hired by neighboring police precincts.

It's not that B99 doesn't try to talk about the nastiness of police and race. It's that it's a sitcom where police are the heroes. The genre restraints prevent a serious discussion from happening, save in the occasional Very Special Episode. And, often enough, that ommitment to acknowledging the complexity of race and policing is back-seated in favour of a good joke at the expect of an arrested person, of a defence lawyer, of internal affairs.

It's a good show.

It's also a flawed show.

I don't think that's really in question here... And yet, so many people insist that by pointing out and discussing these flaws, I am a monster calling for the end of QPOC on primetime TV.

What is, or isn't, a strike exactly?

A lot of people seem to have this notion that a strike is just any time people who make their money doing XYZ stop doing XYZ in an attempt to improve their living conditions.

And that's a really fair misconception to have, given how few strikes people in north America have really seen in the last few generations and the impacts of those strikes that they have seen.

But a strike is a very specific thing.

A strike is a way for the workers in a system to punish the controllers of that system, by grinding the system to a halt and reminding the people "in control" who actually makes the system work at all (it's the workers, that's why they're called that).

A protest and a strike are two very, VERY different things. They can resemble each other on a surface level, but the methodologies and margins are completely distinct.

For example, there's a reason the concept of a scab exists. A scab is someone who reaffirms to the controllers that they are in control, and enables the system to keep functioning even when the rest of the workers refuse.

If the system was always going to keep on functioning regardless of your actions, then you're organizing a protest, not a strike. And there are no scabs for a protest.

If I have to see one more person trying to claim that the "youtube strike" last week was ruined by "scabs" when it was in fact A) not a strike B) ruined by EXCEEDINGLY poor organization, up to and including not even telling your youtube viewers you were going to be walking out before it happened, then I will never stop screaming.

Words mean things, and in this case, using words like "scab" and "strike" where they do not and more importantly cannot apply just makes you sound like a petulant child who has no idea how direct action or community organization work. It's fucking shameful.