Group Think Critically

I was struggling with a way to start this essay off in a manner that would be attention grabbing yet profoundly interesting. I hemmed and hawed about inflammatory language and incendiary rhetoric. I wiffle waffled on self disclosure and a gotcha moment. I even considered throwing in some celebrity nudes I bought from a Russian spy. Problem is, I realized that right there is the problem.

In the information age where everyone is a star and we can all vie for attention with our keyboard or go-pro, we have truly become William Gibson’s nightmare of a world that truly values style over substance. We are in fact living a cyberpunk lifestyle.

We have allowed the world to descend in to identity politics and criticism of the lowest order.

I have struggled to try and find a voice for my review of the Black Panther movie. In reality for me, it was just an ok movie. Looking around the internet, that is far from the normal review. In perusing the internet one can find it difficult to suss out a review that doesn’t mention identity politics. Of course, one can make the point that since the movie is steeped in identity and racial issues; the reviews must also include these aspects. The issue for me becomes one of, what was this movie? As a comic book movie, it was just alright. It didn’t really do anything new or exciting. The origin story of a super hero was nothing fresh and it followed the standard story arc. There was nothing special about the set dressing or the plot used in developing that arc.

This movie then rested on the uniqueness of the political message. In my opinion, that message was far too thin to leave an impact on me. It was a bit slogan centric without actually examining those depths.

But wait, can he say that? He’s white. He doesn’t know, doesn’t show, or doesn’t care about what is going on. That is something I have seen just a tiny bit on the internet when someone like me says ho hum to this movie. It is the immediate devaluing of someone’s opinion, not on the strengths of my arguments, or the merits of my experience, but rather on the colour of my skin.

Stick with me here for a second because I assure you this is not going to be anouther white boy complaining about poetic justice. I get the irony in complaining about this, it isn’t my actual issue with any of this.

One thing I can say about Black Panther is that the music was great. The way they blended traditional African styles with modern music was fantastic. Thinking about the music leads me in to wanting to discuss the criticism of the Prophets of Rage.

Sadly, all too recently, I have become aware that Public Enemy, Cypress Hill and Rage Against the Machine had a baby. That baby is the aforementioned Prophets of Rage. This is a super group that got together mostly as a protest to Donald Trump.

If you were going to list my top 10 musical favourites, all three of these acts would be on that list. I didn’t like them because I was trying to piss my parents off, or rebel. I listened to these acts because they spoke a little or a lot, depending on your point of view, to my experiences on the streets of Toronto.

As soon as I became aware of their existence I downloaded their album and cranked my stereo up. It was everything I expected it to be. I was grooving along to the sounds that reminded me so much of these acts. Then I noticed some information on meta critic. Apparently this was bad music.

I immediately checked with the rag of record on records, Rolling Stone. They were no help, as they have evidently mistaken summary for review. I guess you can’t write a long review of something unless it is Jack White, or a ridiculously long article on a porn star who, now get this, had sex with someone. That is me complaining about substance people.

I then noticed the A.V. Club had a particularly dim view of the new album. I read the thing through and rocketed my way around the universe of feelings on this issue. At first I wanted to rage against the club. Then I wanted to find a reason why this article was so off the mark in my opinion.

I looked at the artists picture and my first thought was, hipster too hip to get it. White man just trying to keep the resistence in check! That’s when I realised I was being a hypocritical dick.

Look, the author was not wrong in that there was nothing ground breaking, nothing deep about the music from Prophets of Rage. The album is in my opinion, good if you want to hear something new in the key of Chuck D. If you long for some sweet Tom Morello sounds, this is for you.

All of a sudden I had to admit I was being overly critical of Black Panther.

Worse, all of a sudden I had to admit that I was falling in to the style over substance trap. On the bright side, so was the author of that article. Not in his criticism, but in his writing of that criticism.

The internet has shrunk the world while simultaneously enlarging the market for entertainment, and infotainment. We as consumers must be vigilant that we separate out entertainment from information.

I want my entertainment to have style, to have pencahe and whatever else one adds to sound smart. Black Panther should be slick and somewhat surface level.

Critics and news people should not be. My reporters should be concerned about what they are saying and not how they are saying it.

News and documentaries should be about substance. We should demand more than quips and surface thoughts from those we turn to for criticism and information. Pundits and politicians should be telling us all about something, not just impacting on the surface of our emotions.

Far too often we see people throw around ists and isms with nothing in between. We can shut down the arguments and dismiss people before they get started by dog whistling to their bias, or a perceived bias without examining the content of those arguments.

I almost did it with the AV club dude. I was in fact being racist. Not new speak racist, cause in the new speak you can’t be racist against white peopole, even if they are hipsters. There is an attempt to redefine the words. It doesn’t always work that way.

I can redefine sexy to include me, but that doesn’t mean women are going to find me attractive. I can redefine wealthy, but that doesn’t get me a mansion and a Porche. That reminds me, hey MASH game, where is the promised mansion and Porche? And whatever happened to that cute girl I was going to marry from eighth grade?

Racism is prejudice against someone based on race, power or no.

I was racist against that author. I did it because I wanted to find a way to discount his opinion without having to actually counter his points. Mostly because I couldn’t counter his points, just his style and attitude. In the end, that attitude and style aside, he did what I was unable to do, but that which I want to do going forward:

Always judge a person or their argument on the content, and not on the style or the colour of it or them. We can’t always know a person’s history or experiences, but we can at least try and delve deeper.

When did we stop judging a person by the content of their character? Did we ever do what that one guy said and start? Or, did we just side step it for a decade or two and go back to burning everyone who didn’t look like us?