Thoughts after PFLAG and Joy Reid

[struggle4progress]

We have just witnessed another peculiar American political moment: the rights organization PFLAG, which had earlier this month announced its intention to grace Joy Reid with a "Straight for Equality" award at its 45th anniversary event this May, suddenly decided (based on something she apparently wrote over a decade ago) that it was rescinding the award. PFLAG, of course, is free to offer whatever awards, or refuse to offer whatever awards, as it might choose, to whomsoever it considers appropriate

I add, however, that all the recent noise, regarding Reid, seems to me to cast a revealing light on the current political immaturity of our country

Most people have complicated and incompletely-formed views that gradually change with social conditions. We cannot win important political fight simply by amassing pure-hearted true believers against evil infidels: it is always necessary to shift the center of opinion by redefining issues and changing minds. The fact that people's views can change is critical to any intelligent activist agenda. Similarly, a recognition, that a person's past views do not necessarily reflect that person's current views, is necessary when we attempt to build enduring alliances

Back in 2012, Presidents Obama's public statements on gay marriage were evolving --- and as I knocked doors, I got earfuls from both sides. I met people who weren't going to vote for the Dems because they thought Obama was a homophobe, and I met people who weren't going to vote for the Dems because they thought Obama wasn't supporting their moral values. But the methods of analytic philosophy cannot be applied to political discourse: nothing there can be parsed with minute precision

My fellow Americans, get over your silly selves: allow people a fair opportunity to grope their way towards the light and a better world. If they are serious and thoughtful with good-will, forgive them when they have not always seen things or expressed themselves as you might prefer

In short, grow up --- and become more adult about your politics

[hlthe2b]

1. Apparently after all the successful attempts to divide us in 2016, WE progressives have learned NADA

Nothing... NOT A DAMNED thing.

[susanna]

20. You hit that nail on the head. n/t

[Historic NY]

2. Well said....

one has to wonder who is whipping this up.

[Spider Jerusalem]

3. Maybe she should've owned it and apologised for her past comments (again)

instead of coming up with a transparently false story about being "hacked"? Just a thought.

[peabody]

6. Well, you should start having better thoughts.

So far there's a lot of fishy problems with those posts.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

9. Joy DID apologize for past comments...no need to do so again.

As for the newly-discovered comments, not sure why you're saying her explanation of being hacked is "transparently false." There's at least circumstantial evidence to back up her claim from what I can tell. At the very least, she's entitled to a presumption of innocence, unless you know something we don't.

[Spider Jerusalem]

10. "Presumption of innocence"?

She's transparently lying, because many of the posts in question exist in multiple archives with archival timestamps of over a decade ago.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

11. Okay, so? Isn't it possible that multiple archives captured the same hacked blog posts?

[Spider Jerusalem]

12. Only if they were hacked in 2006. Because the capture date is timestamped.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

15. Okay then, so it IS possible. I think it's fair to question, but it's also only fair

to give Joy the benefit of the doubt, at least until the facts show otherwise.

[uponit7771]

25. YES !!! That's what scrapers do

[peabody]

13. Again. It matters less than

where she stood on the subject (whether those posts were hacked or not) than where she stands on the subject today. Get over your purity tests and see the bigger picture.

[Spider Jerusalem]

14. Then she should apologise instead of lying about being "hacked"

she should probably also stop making casual homophobic and transphobic comments on Twitter while she's at it.

[peabody]

16. Can you even point to

any homophobic or transphobic comments she's made on Twitter recently?

[uponit7771]

28. WTF ?!!? What comments did she make recently on Twitter? Tia

[pnwmom]

17. I don't think it is transparently false. I think it is very possible that some alterations

were made to her posts -- just as we know they were made to some of the hacked DNC emails.

But she loses either way, in any discussions of her posts. Because at least some of her unhacked posts won't meet the demands of the retroactive purity police.

If is so funny, in a not funny way, to see some of the people who are outraged by this now. 2006 was 12 years ago. Practically light years away, on LGBT issues.

[Spider Jerusalem]

19. It's transparently false

because there's a DU post from 2007 quoting one of the posts she claims was "hacked", there are archival snapshots of her blog taken between 2005 and 2007, with the relevant posts.

[uponit7771]

22. Link and quote her saying the DU post was one of them that were hacked, tia

[pnwmom]

29. She is saying that the archive was hacked. So what do the snapshots prove?

The network says the FBI is investigating, so why not let them investigate before immediately assuming the worst?

(She says the posts were a mixture of actual posts and altered posts, so the fact that there's a DU post quoting one means nothing. She's not specifying which ones were hacked -- any more than the DNC did, when it happened to them. She's saying that alterations were made.)

[uponit7771]

21. Reid actually apologized about ALL of her post (link)

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=10540888

[pnwmom]

30. That was in relation to the Crist posts. n/t

[uponit7771]

31. No it's not, she apologized for all of them

[pnwmom]

32. If you follow the link you will see this:

MSNBC host Joy Reid apologized Sunday for blog posts she made years ago that attacked then-Florida Gov. Charlie Crist’s sexuality, accusing him of harboring a hidden gay second life.

“This note is my apology to all who are disappointed by the content of blogs I wrote a decade ago, for which my choice of words and tone have legitimately been criticized,” Reid wrote in a statement. “As a writer, I pride myself on a facility with language — an economy of words or at least some wisdom in the selection. However, that clearly has not always been the case.”

Reid initially came under fire when a Twitter user found rants on her old blog that mocked Crist as a closeted gay man. Crist has been married twice, which Reid alleged were merely covers for his true sexual orientation, although he has never identified as homosexual.

[uponit7771]

33. "This note is my apology to all who are disappointed by the content of blogs I wrote a decade ago"

That sounds like an apology for ... BLOG[S]... not a single post somewhere

That's plural, don't know what point is being made here

[melman]

35. So because it's plural

That means it applies to every word she's ever written... and even words she denies writing. Okay.

[uponit7771]

36. Yeah, every single utterance ever said since she was born :rolleyes:. It was a comprohensive

... apology about her attitude regarding LGBTQ.

That's easy to see

What else is easy to see is Reid is not anti-gay and she did apologize comprehensively for words she's said in the past.

[LostOne4Ever]

23. +infinity nt

[uponit7771]

26. She apologized for post in the past, she's saying the ones Breitbart et al are pushing here...

... recently are not her's.

I don't see where the confusion is

[peabody]

4. I totally agree.

People's views can change and mature over time. It matters more where they are now and where they are headed than where they were a decade ago.

[backtoblue]

5. Kick and Rec

Great post

[dalton99a]

7. Democrats are not required to be perfectly pure and lead saintly lives.

[wasupaloopa]

8. Why do they see the speck of saw dust in someones eye and ignore the log in their eye

We have seen the enemy and they are us

[MrScorpio]

18. You get a Damn Skippy from me!

[Hugin]

24. This discussion has sure pushed Hannity off the DU radar. n/t

[uponit7771]

27. +1, bout it .. over 20 OP's on Reid so far

[dchill]

34. Evolving. It's a thing.