Captain Aby Sparklepants (@[email protected])

Black activists are extremely controversial. Native decolonizers are extremely controversial. Kanaka Maoli nationalists are extremely controversial. Anti-Zionists are extremely controversial. Queer radicals are extremely controversial. Marxists are extremely controversial. Corporate media pointedly ignore all of them. But those media love to cover Jordan Peterson and other reactionary hacks (including neo-Nazis). They don't provide that coverage because the subjects are controversial (see above). It happens because corporate media have an affinity for regressive ideas and a vested class interest in promoting them. By conditioning debate around spectacle, with a cast of smug and unlikable protagonists, reporters and pundits can ignore economic and racial injustice, even as they gesture at disapproval of the provocateurs they cover. (You disapprove of Peterson? Great! Maybe start ignoring him?) Don't let reporters and pundits absolve themselves of introducing awful people to wide audiences by hiding behind sensationalism. The world has tons of controversial thinkers who are also insightful and compassionate. Arbiters of the newsworthy don't want to cover them. And they wouldn't be allowed to, anyway. Pay attention to all that is missing from corporate media rather than assessing what they offer. The real story, as always, exists in the systematic absence of certain narratives. - Steven Salaita #anarchism #queer #racism #whiteness #WhiteSupremacy #activism