How the Far Left Hijacked a Cat-Calling Debate And Started to Eat Itself
A video depicting a woman walking around New York City and, through no fault of her own, being intermittently approached or cat-called by strangers has become an Internet sensation this week, racking up hits and provoking outrage across the political spectrum. In the course of just a few days, millions upon millions of people have shared the piece, almost all of them appending to the link their own passionate disavowals and earnest calls to action. Initially, its progenitor, a group named “Hollaback,†expressed the hope that the piece “would make an impact.†Quietly, they must be thrilled with the result: In a single week, the spot has had 15 million views, an achievement that places it firmly in the viral hall of fame. Publicly, however, the outfit has been forced to apologize, its victory having turned somewhat sour. What could possibly have happened?
As it has grown in popularity, the video has been transformed into a blank canvas, onto which America’s brave advocates of hyphenated-justice have sought to project their favored social theories. Evidently unwilling to let the spot stand on its own, Purdue’s Roxanne Gay wrote sadly that “it’s difficult and uncomfortable to admit that we have to talk about race/class/gender/sexuality/ability/etc, all at once.†Alas, she was not alone. Soon, the claims of “sexism†had been joined by accusations of “racism†and of “classism,†Hollaback had been forced to acknowledge that it had upset the more delicate among us, and those who had celebrated the video had been denounced as unreconstructed bigots. By this process was its message diluted and appropriated, the country’s most prominent peddlers of grievance and discord electing to squabble and bicker over its meaning, and to strip it of its value in favor of their own, fringe fixations.
“The fact that the video chooses to showcase the experience of a white woman experiencing harassment almost exclusively at the hands of black and Latino men,†Brooklyn Magazine’s Kristin Iverson proposed earlier this week, “is a pretty clear indication of who the audience for this video is supposed to be, namely, those who seek to protect and defend innocent white women, aka the already existing societal power structure.†This theme was picked up in more explicit terms elsewhere, the less direct references to the “power structure†quickly giving way to overt accusations of white supremacy. “Thousands of satisfied racists are sharing that viral catcalling video,†griped Lindy West at the Daily Dot, lamenting that its creators had imposed “manipulative, specific, politicized constraints on the issue of street harassment†and thereby permitted “the bulk of the audience to divorce themselves from the problem.†Yesterday, the Root’s Dion Rabouin dispensed with euphemism entirely, confirming that “some of the video’s intentional choices seem to play on the Birth of a Nation trope that white women simply aren’t safe from sex-crazed black and brown men.†How that’s for a thumb in the eye for the millions who shared the spot on their Facebook pages?
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/391610/how-far-left-hijacked-cat-calling-debate-and-started-eat-itself-charles-c-w-cookeI'm reminded of the video, perhaps now a year old, of gays and transgenders on campus (all lily white) arguing over who had it worse and who deserved to have their cause seen as a priority.
