Michael Ejercito
2022-06-27 14:49:11 UTC
http://ethicsalarms.com/2022/06/27/collective-ethics-dunce-the-bet-awards/
JUNE 27, 2022 / JACK MARSHALL
As Ethics Alarms has stated many times, any individual, official,
politician, pundit, journalist, celebrity or organization that abuses
its public trust and engages in unethical and destructive conduct when
their statements make the public more ignorant than it already is, and
it already is too ignorant to competently participate in a democracy.
Welcome to the BET Awards!
The hostess of last night’s televised festivities (of a racially
exclusive awards show that makes pronouncements about equality and civil
rights), Taraj Henson, got things off to an irresponsible start by
saying, with the ‘I’m pissed off and certain I am right though I have no
clue what I’m ranting about’ expression on her face you see above by saying,
“It’s about damn time we talk about the fact that guns have more rights
than a woman. It’s a sad day in America. A weapon that can take lives
has more power than a woman who can give life, if she chooses to.”
This is being called a “powerful statement” this morning, on CNN’s HLN
among other places. Stupid statements are not powerful. It is not a fact
that guns have more rights than women: inanimate objects have no rights.
Henson is making declarations about rights when she doesn’t understand
what a right is. Weapons don’t take lives: they have no agency or
autonomy. People take lives. Unlike “guns,” abortion is an act performed
by people, and that act has taken far, far more lives in the U.S. since
Roe v. Wade was written than people firing guns have. No laws in any
states either require women to “give life” or prevents them from doing
so. The laws at issue do limit the extent to which a women, having
created human life, can unilaterally end it when she “chooses to.”
Misleading, inarticulate, hyperbolic and intellectually muddled
pronouncements like Henson’s do no good whatsoever, and a lot of harm by
making intelligent debate impossible.
Others were similarly adamant and destructive.
Rapper Janelle Monáe introduced the nominees for best female R&B/pop
artist thusly:
“To Black queer artists, to Black non-binary artists, these artists
making art on our own terms, owning our truths, and expressing ourselves
freely and unapologetically in a world that tries to control and police
our bodies, my body, our decisions, and my decisions. Fuck the Supreme
Court. I know we’re celebrating us right now, as we should. We
absolutely deserve to celebrate. Especially now, we must celebrate our
art by protecting our rights and our truths.”
Nobody gets to have their own “truths.” Personalized “truths” are better
known as delusions, fantasies, and rationalizations. Nor is any
citizen’s body free to do whatever it chooses: BET’s celebrities would
have served their community better by pointing out that they do not, for
example, have the freedom to kill each other, especially in the wildly
disproportionate numbers they do. Abortion may become illegal because
there are very strong arguments ( I would say irrefutable) that the
procedure also involves killing human beings, and if Janelle Monáe has a
persuasive counter-argument to offer, it had better consist of something
more substantial than “protecting our rights and our truths.”
Then singer Jazmine Sullivan appealed to the self-interest of the legion
of black men who depend upon facing no responsibilities for having
unprotected and promiscuous sex, leading to a black out-of-wedlock
pregnancy dwaring that of any other demographic:
“OK, fellas? Y’all got us? Cause we got y’all. This is everybody’s
issue. As always, I do this for the women, for my sisters especially.
It’s a hard time right now for us, and I want to speak directly to the
men. We need y’all. We need y’all to stand up — stand up for us, stand
up with us. If you’ve ever benefited from a woman making one of the
toughest decisions of her life, which is to terminate a pregnancy, you
need to be standing with us. This is not just a woman’s issue. This is
everybody’s issue, and we need your support more than ever.”
The same line of reasoning argues for men rallying to repeal laws
against drive-by shootings.
I’ll be collecting and periodically reporting on the notable celebrity
outbursts about the Dobbs decision, which none of the bloviating celebs
have read. If you encounter a fair, informed, well-reasoned and civil
critique of the decision by a celebrity, please let me know.
Also alert me if you see a passenger pigeon flying overhead…
JUNE 27, 2022 / JACK MARSHALL
As Ethics Alarms has stated many times, any individual, official,
politician, pundit, journalist, celebrity or organization that abuses
its public trust and engages in unethical and destructive conduct when
their statements make the public more ignorant than it already is, and
it already is too ignorant to competently participate in a democracy.
Welcome to the BET Awards!
The hostess of last night’s televised festivities (of a racially
exclusive awards show that makes pronouncements about equality and civil
rights), Taraj Henson, got things off to an irresponsible start by
saying, with the ‘I’m pissed off and certain I am right though I have no
clue what I’m ranting about’ expression on her face you see above by saying,
“It’s about damn time we talk about the fact that guns have more rights
than a woman. It’s a sad day in America. A weapon that can take lives
has more power than a woman who can give life, if she chooses to.”
This is being called a “powerful statement” this morning, on CNN’s HLN
among other places. Stupid statements are not powerful. It is not a fact
that guns have more rights than women: inanimate objects have no rights.
Henson is making declarations about rights when she doesn’t understand
what a right is. Weapons don’t take lives: they have no agency or
autonomy. People take lives. Unlike “guns,” abortion is an act performed
by people, and that act has taken far, far more lives in the U.S. since
Roe v. Wade was written than people firing guns have. No laws in any
states either require women to “give life” or prevents them from doing
so. The laws at issue do limit the extent to which a women, having
created human life, can unilaterally end it when she “chooses to.”
Misleading, inarticulate, hyperbolic and intellectually muddled
pronouncements like Henson’s do no good whatsoever, and a lot of harm by
making intelligent debate impossible.
Others were similarly adamant and destructive.
Rapper Janelle Monáe introduced the nominees for best female R&B/pop
artist thusly:
“To Black queer artists, to Black non-binary artists, these artists
making art on our own terms, owning our truths, and expressing ourselves
freely and unapologetically in a world that tries to control and police
our bodies, my body, our decisions, and my decisions. Fuck the Supreme
Court. I know we’re celebrating us right now, as we should. We
absolutely deserve to celebrate. Especially now, we must celebrate our
art by protecting our rights and our truths.”
Nobody gets to have their own “truths.” Personalized “truths” are better
known as delusions, fantasies, and rationalizations. Nor is any
citizen’s body free to do whatever it chooses: BET’s celebrities would
have served their community better by pointing out that they do not, for
example, have the freedom to kill each other, especially in the wildly
disproportionate numbers they do. Abortion may become illegal because
there are very strong arguments ( I would say irrefutable) that the
procedure also involves killing human beings, and if Janelle Monáe has a
persuasive counter-argument to offer, it had better consist of something
more substantial than “protecting our rights and our truths.”
Then singer Jazmine Sullivan appealed to the self-interest of the legion
of black men who depend upon facing no responsibilities for having
unprotected and promiscuous sex, leading to a black out-of-wedlock
pregnancy dwaring that of any other demographic:
“OK, fellas? Y’all got us? Cause we got y’all. This is everybody’s
issue. As always, I do this for the women, for my sisters especially.
It’s a hard time right now for us, and I want to speak directly to the
men. We need y’all. We need y’all to stand up — stand up for us, stand
up with us. If you’ve ever benefited from a woman making one of the
toughest decisions of her life, which is to terminate a pregnancy, you
need to be standing with us. This is not just a woman’s issue. This is
everybody’s issue, and we need your support more than ever.”
The same line of reasoning argues for men rallying to repeal laws
against drive-by shootings.
I’ll be collecting and periodically reporting on the notable celebrity
outbursts about the Dobbs decision, which none of the bloviating celebs
have read. If you encounter a fair, informed, well-reasoned and civil
critique of the decision by a celebrity, please let me know.
Also alert me if you see a passenger pigeon flying overhead…
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