Charges of racism and sexism are a very serious
matter, and one should be very cautious about
throwing them around.
It is completely unacceptable in today's society
to be racist or sexist, and you don't come
by sexism and racism very often.
You'd certainly not expect to find them in
a big YouTube channel that has millions of
subscribers.
And yet, there is one big channel on YouTube
that has become notorious for what many perceive
as promoting racist and sexist attitudes.
I am referring of course to Buzzfeed, with
its more than ten million subscribers.
In this video we will set out to check whether
Buzzfeed is indeed as bigoted as its reputation
suggests, and if so, what generates this bigotry.
The main reason that prompted me to make this
video is that recently we got a rare glimpse
into the minds of the people behind the channel,
as Kenny Moffitt, one of its employees, decided
to leave the company and become an independent
YouTube creator.
In a video he posted on his own channel, Kenny
explained that he felt that Buzzfeed were
slaves to quantity above quality, and are
interested only in generating views.
What he got in response was a slew of comments
congratulating him for the move, but not so
much for the reasons he gave.
Rather, many have congratulated him for escaping
that shithole of racism and sexism, a response
that evidently surprised and baffled him quite
a bit.
Outside of the Buzzfeed bubble, Moffitt suddenly
encountered the real world and how a significant
chunk of it perceives his former company,
and that encounter was very upsetting.
His reaction was to upload a video in which
he defends Buzzfeed against its detractors,
and in so doing, he gave us the opportunity
to analyze the thought process of today's
Western bigot.
Moffitt begins his defense by trying to counter
the charges about sexism.
I am going to skip that part because his arguments
are generic and thus not very revealing, and
jump straight to the part where he defends
against the accusations of racism.
So, this is the charge: Buzzfeed is racist
against white people.
How does Moffitt respond?
By that I guess he means that it is owned
and run by mostly white people, and employs
mainly white creators like himself, so it
supposedly cannot be racist towards whites.
But that is not a valid argument, Kenny.
The charge is that Buzzfeed is promoting racist
attitudes towards whites.
You can participate in that foul practice
even if you are yourself white, so your argument
falls.
You'll have to do better than that.
Oh yeah?
Why not?
That is indeed the common definition, and
it is quite clear.
Or at least it is clear to people who have
not been buzzfed.
As we shall promptly see, Kenny is going to
completely twist it around, so I am compelled
to preempt him by interpreting it myself.
I apologize to all of you for making you sit
through this explanation as if you can't understand
the definition by yourselves.
As we can see, racism is defined here as a
certain form of prejudice, discrimination
or antagonism.
Now prejudice in itself is something that
we are all guilty of.
Since our knowledge is partial and based on
where we come from, it is inevitably biased.
We can rid our mind of a certain prejudice,
but we can never hope to become completely
free of prejudices.
So prejudice alone is not enough to make you
a racist.
The question is how you treat your prejudices.
As a decent person, you are expected to be
aware of the fact that you are prejudiced,
and when a certain prejudice that you have
is pointed out to you, do your best to rid
your mind of it.
A racist, however, is someone who embraces
his prejudice towards a certain race of people,
because he holds the belief that his race
is superior to theirs.
So a racist is someone who makes a conscious
choice to be prejudiced.
Similarly, discrimination is also something
that we can never hope to completely eradicate.
Every culture has certain biases that create
discriminations against certain groups of
people.
As a decent person, you will try to abolish
the discrimination when you encounter it.
A racist, on the other hand, will want to
preserve the discrimination, based on her
belief in her superiority.
And a racist will also maintain their antagonism
towards the allegedly inferior race, instead
of trying to overcome it.
So racism is a conscious mental state.
It is a belief in your own superiority above
another race, a belief that you consciously
choose to uphold and which determines your
attitude towards that other race.
That is what this definition says, and there's
really no credible way to interpret it otherwise.
That doesn't mean that Kenny isn’t going
to try to pull one over us.
So Kenny is basically taking the definition
of racism that he just read, and turns it
on its head.
According to him, racism is not prejudice
and discrimination that are the result of
the belief in one's racial superiority; it
is racial social superiority that is the result
of prejudice and discrimination.
It has nothing to do with one's personal choice
– for Kenny, if you belong to a race that
is socially better off, your prejudices automatically
become racist.
And if you're not white…
So if you belong to a group that is socially
inferior to another group, your prejudice
cannot be defined as racism, according to
the logic Kenny is buzzfeeding us.
Of course, we know from history that marginalized
groups often develop the most extreme forms
of racism and bigotry, trying to compensate
for their real world predicament.
We also know that this racism has often led
individuals to perform violent acts against
members of the hated dominant groups, or to
mass murder if these marginalized racist groups
eventually became the ones in power.
But I guess knowledge of history is a bit
too much to expect of Buzzfeed.
Anyway, that logic leads Kenny directly to
his other defense against the racism accusations.
The answer to some of these questions is the
United States of America, and to the rest
it is the entire human race.
But we already know what Kenny's gonna say,
don't we?
Really?
Let's take the last question you've posed:
who's targeting Muslim Americans as terrorists?
Here's a Pew poll from 2012, which examined
the views of certain groups in America about
other groups.
We see that black Americans have a slightly
more positive view about Muslims than white
Americans, and on the other hand whites have
a more positive view about Jews.
So it appears that whites contribute more
to bigotry against Muslims, whereas blacks
contribute more to bigotry against Jews.
But the differences aren't really that significant.
Prejudices are something that pervades all
of society, and everyone takes part in them,
no matter what race you are.
Kenny, however, seems to think that only white
people are responsible for the prejudices
and to the bad things that America has done
because of these prejudices.
Why does he believe that?
Well, I think it's quite obvious.
Since his view about racism is that only white
people can be racist, that leads him to see
everything as the fault of white people.
In other words, Kenny has a prejudice against
white people, and he consciously chooses to
defend that prejudice.
What do we call someone who is consciously
choosing to be prejudiced against a certain
race?
That's right, a racist.
And this is also the logic that we find in
Buzzfeed's videos, which means that the accusations
of racism levelled against them are 100% correct.
These videos make it seem as though white
people are the only ones responsible for prejudices
that everyone else is guilty of as well.
They usually feature members of a minority
group questioning certain stereotypes and
biases they encounter is society, and instead
of addressing these questions to all of society,
they are addressed specifically to white people.
Here are some examples:
As we can see, Buzzfeed is purposefully pushing a prejudice against white people,
and that makes it… wait, wait, wait, what did she say?
What was that?
What???
Come again?
Do I really need to explain how blatantly,
thoroughly and indefensibly racist that term
is?
Apparently I do, so here goes: when you refer
to non-whites as people of color, you are
suggesting that there is something different
between whites and everyone else.
In the past, it was a term that was associated
with white racism, signifying that white people
are the default of humanity.
We've managed to clean our language from this
prejudiced term, but now it has been brought
back as a term that signifies racism against
whites, basically suggesting that white is
not a color.
But, of course, it is a total own goal, because
it is even more racist towards non-whites,
grouping them all in one bunch and erasing
the differences between them.
In the not so far future, channels like Buzzfeed
will make videos about how racist that term
is, and naturally blame its creation on white
people.
See? It's already started.
And when you have such a racist mindset, it
leads you to many idiotic and regressive positions.
Here are just a couple of examples.
Indeed, it is important to recognize the diversity
in the world when we talk about things like
culture.
But that is not what we are talking about
when we talk about being color blind.
What it means is that you should be color
blind when you are judging a person.
A person should be judged by their character
and their actions, not by the color of their
skin.
This is a basic principle of enlightened thought,
and the fact that you at Buzzfeed don't understand
this principle shows just how far down the
rabbit hole of racism you are.
We actually do, Kenny, but you evidently don't.
Appropriation is the highest form of appreciation,
and white people, just like any other race,
do it all the time.
I've already made a video about this so I
won't get into it, but the gist of it is this:
every act of human creation involves appropriating
from other people, and if you're not appropriating
from someone just because they're from a different
race, then you are being racist.
Your tone here suggests that you wouldn't
appropriate from other races, so what does
that make you?
We haven't spoken about the sexism that is
displayed in Buzzfeed's videos, and I don't
think there's any need to.
It's the same thing: men are described as
the superior class, so they are blamed for
everything, and the videos promote bigotry
against them.
Here's just one example that I found particularly
infuriating.
Can you tell by the tone of my voice how annoyed
I am by this question?
No?
Well, that is because I am pretty good at
controlling my emotions.
It is a very important part of the masculine
code, to be able to control your emotions.
Why?
Because men who can't control their emotions
are dangerous.
As the weaker sex, women can afford to be
more emotional, because the amount of damage
they can do is tolerable.
When men lose control, the ramifications are
much more serious.
This is, once again, a very basic piece of common
sense, which you could have employed yourself
before insulting our intelligence with this
dumb question.
But you are not interested in common sense,
are you?
What you really want is to color everything
men do as bad.
Buzzfeed's defense against these accusations
might be that hey, you say potato and we say
potato.
We simply have a different definition from
yours to racism and sexism.
While you define a racist or a sexist as someone
who holds a prejudice based on a belief in
superiority, we define it as someone who holds
a prejudice while being a member of a socially
dominant race or gender.
But that line of defense is in itself immoral.
The fact is that society at large still adheres
to the traditional definition, and sees racists
and sexists as people who consciously choose
to uphold their prejudices.
Because of that, we regard racists and sexists
as bad people, and we exert all sorts of social
penalties on them.
According to your definition, every white
person is a racist and every male is a sexist,
and when you label people like that, society
might then come to see them as bad people.
You can destroy someone's life with this nonsense.
As a principle, you should never label someone
racist or sexist, unless they actually express
belief in their race or gender superiority.
We should call each other out on our prejudices,
but do it in a way that shows that we believe
they are not conscious prejudices.
What you can say to someone is that a certain
view that they hold is bigoted, or that they
are being bigoted in their attitude.
When I'm telling you that you are being racist,
that signifies that I actually believe that
you are not a racist, and therefore will be
willing to change when I point out your prejudice.
It is your response to my accusation that
will determine whether you're a racist or
not.
So, Kenny Moffitt and Buzzfeed, this is me
calling you out.
You are displaying an attitude that shows
a sexist prejudice against men and a racial
prejudice against whites.
Either change your attitude, or explain how
it is not racist and sexist.
The explanations we've heard from Kenny, as
I've shown, are insufficient.
If you can't defend your position, and yet
you choose to keep holding to your prejudices
– well, I hope you realize by now what that
says about you.
