Suey Park and one of her social justice sidekicks are at it again. This time, in an article on Time's website.
Much has been said about Suey Park's antics. Some of the best summaries have been written by Joslyn Stevens and Juliet Shen.
At this point, there is no point in trying to go further down the rabbit hole of putting a lot of thought into what Suey Park has to say. Intelligent people by now have hopefully had an opportunity to read Stevens' and Shen's perspectives and put them in context of Suey's own words. (123)
However there are a few things that stand out as weird about the TIME article.
First, the focus on the word mainstream and the desire to be treated like adults:
Suey & co seemingly want to be a play a part of the "mainstream" in terms of popularity, but view themselves as being distinct from it. Also, they are sick of being treated like children.
The bio is especially weird:
Wait, what does this mean?
"Currently living"?
"Mostly residing"?
If an editor at TIME wrote this bio, they should be ashamed. If the authors of the piece wrote this bio, then we should not be surprised.
The language is that of hipster activism.
For some reason the authors wish us to be certain that their existence in a city is completely tentative. Commitment to a place and community is so passé.
While they present pointless details like hyperactive teenagers that love to use every opportunity to mention they are in a relationship, these intrepid social justice warriors wish everyone to accept them as adults.
Luckily in the real world, no one gets extra points for being a nomadicwarrior of pointless "activism". A few hundred years ago, people like this would conceivably be regarded as wandering prophets offering forgiveness and a new moral philosophy.
The only difference is now the charlatans do not even bother expounding their values when given the chance. They are tired, they have anxiety problems and they do not feel like you deserve to have them enacting the labor that would allow you to hear the good word.
You were born a sinner, you may always be a sinner.
In "social justice activist" philosophy, as popularized by Twitter, Tumblr, and "Atheism+", nobody has a moral obligation to educate their neighbors.
Moreover, nobody has an obligation to be a neighbor.
You cannot fault the activists, however. You wouldn't want to be stuck in a patriarchal cisheteronormative colonialist home owners association, would you? They would hold discussions about landscaping without even as much as a trigger warning. The oppression would never end. So very mainstream.
And people may be married and conforming to traditional gender roles. How could one breathe?
Instead it is simpler to bathe in the privilege afforded only to young people in western nations, the privilege of not having to answer to anybody while somehow remaining able to pay the bills. The greatest privilege of all may be the ability to ignore most everyone in your "meatspace" life and never having start with someone as they are. You can simply let them find you if or when they happen to mind-meld with your political opinions online.
So repent, sinner.
How does one repent?
Look it up on Google, shitlord!
Much has been said about Suey Park's antics. Some of the best summaries have been written by Joslyn Stevens and Juliet Shen.
At this point, there is no point in trying to go further down the rabbit hole of putting a lot of thought into what Suey Park has to say. Intelligent people by now have hopefully had an opportunity to read Stevens' and Shen's perspectives and put them in context of Suey's own words. (123)
However there are a few things that stand out as weird about the TIME article.
First, the focus on the word mainstream and the desire to be treated like adults:
Young Asian American women, with little institutional power, are not supposed to be this loud. [...] Our age and appearance have led to us being infantilized
[...]
Our role in mainstream media is the perpetual race commentator — unable to exist in a way that isn’t reactionary and defensive to whiteness. We were only heard when we responded to a beloved white man.
[...]
The irony is that we want complexity, we want nuance, we want critical representations of race, gender, class, sexuality, disability, and more. But we reject the idea of representation being our end goal. We will not mute who we are in order to be accepted into the mainstream. If our liberation is dependent on getting our oppressors to humanize us, then we have already lost.
Suey & co seemingly want to be a play a part of the "mainstream" in terms of popularity, but view themselves as being distinct from it. Also, they are sick of being treated like children.
The bio is especially weird:
Suey Park (@suey_park) is a writer and activist currently living in Chicago. Eunsong Kim (@clepsydras) is a writer, researcher and educator mostly residing in San Diego.
Wait, what does this mean?
"Currently living"?
"Mostly residing"?
If an editor at TIME wrote this bio, they should be ashamed. If the authors of the piece wrote this bio, then we should not be surprised.
The language is that of hipster activism.
For some reason the authors wish us to be certain that their existence in a city is completely tentative. Commitment to a place and community is so passé.
While they present pointless details like hyperactive teenagers that love to use every opportunity to mention they are in a relationship, these intrepid social justice warriors wish everyone to accept them as adults.
Luckily in the real world, no one gets extra points for being a nomadicwarrior of pointless "activism". A few hundred years ago, people like this would conceivably be regarded as wandering prophets offering forgiveness and a new moral philosophy.
The only difference is now the charlatans do not even bother expounding their values when given the chance. They are tired, they have anxiety problems and they do not feel like you deserve to have them enacting the labor that would allow you to hear the good word.
You were born a sinner, you may always be a sinner.
In "social justice activist" philosophy, as popularized by Twitter, Tumblr, and "Atheism+", nobody has a moral obligation to educate their neighbors.
Moreover, nobody has an obligation to be a neighbor.
You cannot fault the activists, however. You wouldn't want to be stuck in a patriarchal cisheteronormative colonialist home owners association, would you? They would hold discussions about landscaping without even as much as a trigger warning. The oppression would never end. So very mainstream.
And people may be married and conforming to traditional gender roles. How could one breathe?
Instead it is simpler to bathe in the privilege afforded only to young people in western nations, the privilege of not having to answer to anybody while somehow remaining able to pay the bills. The greatest privilege of all may be the ability to ignore most everyone in your "meatspace" life and never having start with someone as they are. You can simply let them find you if or when they happen to mind-meld with your political opinions online.
So repent, sinner.
How does one repent?
Look it up on Google, shitlord!