Source: Amazon AWS
Friendly Fire
By this time, you’ve probably heard or read about the viral account of one anonymous lady’s date-gone-bad with comedian Aziz Ansari. For those unfamiliar or in need a reminder, a blogger on the feminist scroll babe.net interviewed a young woman who went on a date with Ansari. It goes into long detail of every stage of the evening and comes to the vague conclusion of this woman “believing” that she was sexually assaulted.
In the midst of the #MeToo trend, you can imagine how this sparked a firestorm of controversy, especially against a celebrity who was actively supportive of the movement to expose predatory employers and powerful figures. Aziz’s story was highly divisive because it pushed the concept of exposing suspect offenders to its very edge and ultimately exposed one of the major risks of participating in an ideological social endeavor.
I’m not typically one to report on recent news, especially if it isn’t culturally impactful in the context of Korea and Korean-America, but I believe this issue brings to light a paramount concern of character in the modern world. Regardless of culture and country, the dynamic of what is factual and what a sub-set of the population believes is increasingly strained, more so than it ever was.
The Rundown
Before we start to talk about the real issues here, let’s get some major facts out there straight. There is a great deal conversation about how this is “opening up an important conversation” or “questioning the norms of dating” and that’s all fine and productive, but the truth is that this is being dragged out at the expense of an individual’s entire livelihood. So here are the major points to keep in mind -
This is an anonymous, unconfirmed, and alleged account. No sources, no confirmations of truth, no one to hold accountable or even scrutinize. This story could be completely fabricated and we just don’t know. Which brings me to my next point-
This is not “news.” There’s a reason why 60 Minutes is 60 Minutes. Why the New Yorker is the New Yorker. Why Barbara Walters and Hugh Downs are who they are. They are professional journalists with oceans of experience and an explicit journalistic integrity. Babe.net cannot and will never be able to hold a candle to true, vetted, and unbiased journalism. Think I’m being too critical? Check out there latest ‘article’.
Regardless of the integrity of the article, the damage has been done. The insinuations made against Ansari are by far the weakest in the crowd of figures including Harvey Weinstein and Matt Lauer. There are no confirmed accounts. There is no proof of abuse. What essentially comes down to a “he said she said” situation, where most even agree what ‘she said’ doesn’t constitute illegal behavior, has already had a negative impact on Ansari’s career and professional standing.
For me and for many, these are the most important and only real truths about the story. I won’t go into what I believe the integrity of the blogger or website is, veteran CNN reporter Ashleigh Banfield does it beautifully -
A Cannibalistic Mob
Sexual assault, rape, and the culture of “toxic masculinity” have been at the forefront of media ever since the whole Weinstein reveal. The #MeToo movement has motivated many individuals to come out with personal experiences and even collectively take down a number of repeat offenders. The accused have ranged from “beyond a reasonable doubt” offenders with dozens of victims (like Weinstein) all the way to single accusations of “sexual misconduct” who claim a single uncomfortable instance. Soon after the initial mob pulldowns of high-profile media individuals, the movement has struggled with keeping its message pointed at verified offenders.
And that’s when this ridiculous fabricated diary piece came out against Ansari. Yes, there are actual offenders of rape and sexual assault at high positions and they should be subject to public scrutiny and outrage, but mob-mentality fueled by inaccurate narratives including the horribly misreported 1/5 rape statistic in the US lead people to actively looking for the enemy. An ideological trend must rest on a foundation where the perpetrators are there in large numbers and when suspects don’t naturally come to light, ones must be created.
Ansari equipped with a ‘Time’s Up’ pin to support victims of sexual assault in the workplace. Source: WBUR
Ansari was shot down in the crossfire by his own allies. Ansari was an ideological supporter. His award-winning Netflix show ‘Master of None’ is a progressive masterpiece that encapsulates some of the most purposefully marginalized issues of our time. He has no history nor character that would be objectively seen as threatening or oppressive. Yet when the ideological members of this social movement catch a whiff of any interpreted ‘misconduct,’ they are the first to eat him alive.
Don’t just take my word for it. This whole ordeal was met with huge backlash by major publications such as the New York Times.
The reason I wrote this post is because we live in a time where we a moving more towards a mentality of “guilty until proven innocent” and a trend away from facts and more towards belief. In the US, the population is shifting away from religion but more towards ideology. This is the underlying issue causing the Fake News war and with the firehose of content and opinion out there, its becoming almost impossible to know what is true or not. Thus, we have subgroups of people believing one thing and another believing the total opposite.
We can have these socially vital conversations. We can hold speculation up to the fire and see if it will stand on its own merit. But what happened with this babe.net journal entry was that conversation at the expense of a completely innocent - innocent in the eyes of the law - man. The prospect that this type of ‘journalism’ will continue as people with loud mouths and easy ears have access to Twitter, Facebook groups, etc. is deeply troubling for me.
I had another post in works that looked this Facts vs. Feelings culture square in the face but I’ve had to put that on a short hold to digest everything that has happened with Ansari. We’ll get back to that important subject soon.
Before we finish off here, I want to be completely frank about how I feel. I wanted to keep the article a bit neutral and take a less toned approach to the issue of modern ideological trends but in all honesty, the Ansari flare enraged me. There was absolutely nothing substantive or verifiable about anything that happened. And yet, the damage is all the same as a legal sentence. What’s worse, the tear down of possibly the most progressive comedian alive was done at the hands of those he thought he was supporting. Sometime a mob wants a witch and unfortunately the nice girl next door gets targeted for sorcery. Imagine if this happened to your father, brother, cousin, friend, or whoever you personally hold to esteem. Would you stand by your ideological comrades?
Curious what you think. As always, let me know your thoughts below.