After the #MeToo accusation train rolled on to Aziz Ansari, I wondered how long it would take a lefty to go to that defense.
Catlin Flanagan is usually reasonable. And 90% of the article is reasonable. And then the final paragraph drives into a racist ditch. For those who haven't been following this story (good for you), Aziz Ansari was accused of behavior on a date that teeters somewhere between boorish and an assault. There are different ways to parse it. And Flanagan parses it in Ansari's favor. I don't care enough to parse it myself. That's not really my topic. I don't care what happened on Ansari's date.
But then there's that final disgraceful paragraph.
I thought it would take a little longer for the hit squad of privileged young white women to open fire on brown-skinned men.
I haven't been following this story too closely, but there are no photos of Ansari's accuser. How does Catlin Flanagan know that she's white? Or privileged?
Aziz Ansari is an unfunny and annoying, but quite successful celebrity, so it's just possible that he's privileged too.
That's preceded by...
Twenty-four hours ago—this is the speed at which we are now operating—Aziz Ansari was a man whom many people admired and whose work, although very well paid, also performed a social good. He was the first exposure many young Americans had to a Muslim man who was aspirational, funny, immersed in the same culture that they are. Now he has been—in a professional sense—assassinated, on the basis of one woman’s anonymous account.
Ansari comes from a Muslim family. He's made a point of claiming to be irreligious. But what does the Muslim part have to do with anything? Would Aziz be any less guilty or innocent if he were white?
The old, bad liberal idea that Catlin Flanagan is really articulating is about giving model members of a minority a pass on misbehavior because they're meant to represent their race to white people. Does minority representation come ahead of the right of women not to be assaulted? That used to be the case. For her, it still is.
And that's a big problem.
Whatever happened on that date should be judged irrespective of Flanagan's racist beliefs about Ansari or white people. Her remarks closely echo Rep. Clyburn's defense of former Rep. Conyers.
The assistant leader of the House Democrats reportedly said Wednesday that the sexual-misconduct charges against Rep. John Conyers Jr. might be false because all the complaining women are white.
Rep. James E. Clyburn, South Carolina Democrat, made the purported remarks Wednesday at a meeting of the House Democratic Caucus, according to Robert Draper, a reporter for New York Times Magazine and National Geographic.
One of the women turned out to be white. Another was African-American. But Rep. Clyburn, like Flanagan, didn't actually care when playing the race card.