Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Fix up, young men, in reply to Danielle,
I don’t think “men not talking” is a particular problem in this thread.
No, it's not – and I do have the self-awareness to realise that with the best of intentions I was doing some particularly dudey haggling over detail there.
I've said enough for now and I'm busying myself elsewhere on the site, but I would observe that what makes a thread like this complicated is that we are all actually on the same side.
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The issue becomes even more acute when you consider how important Dr Walker’s Listener columns were. At first fiery and then more scholarly, they introduced The Listener’s mass readership to ideas it may not have had to consider before.
I’d unhesitatingly nominate Morgan as a writer who could fill that role now. It just seems a no-brainer.
But there are a lot of parts to this, including what’s become of print column-writing in general. It’s simply not valued any more, and where it is, it’s often the byline that’s valued and not what is actually written underneath. Hence, the worthless provocations of Hide’s column, the musings of any number of broadcast celebrities and the Star Times’ clinically uninteresting politician head-to-heads .(Jacinda Arden recently replaced Goff as Collins’ sparring partner. It’s no slight on either of them to say I can’t recall anything of either. It’s built right into the format.)
But as you say, the lack is particularly acute in the case of Maori voices in the mainstream. There is a distinct Maori worldview and we are all the poorer that it is so inaccessible.
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Hard News: Fix up, young men, in reply to linger,
posh kids
What they are is entitled brats. Belonging to the elite may reliably correlate and be causally connected with that outcome, but it’s not exactly the same thing.
Granted.
Anyway, I feel like I'm doing more than my part to make this a dude conversation, so I'll shut up for a while.
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Hard News: Fix up, young men, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Fair enough. Let's just say "posh kids".
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Hard News: Fix up, young men, in reply to nzlemming,
It’s *our* fault for not taking that stand and saying “It’s not OK” (deliberate allusion)
I honestly appreciate what you’re saying, but isn’t that exactly what the promoter you dismissed was doing? And not just making a speech about it, but undertaking to do something concrete – to literally reject abusers. That’s why I was surprised when you were so scornful of the idea of more music people taking that kind of stand. Isn’t that how things change?
The research on the It’s Not OK campaign is fascinating. It wasn’t just the extraordinary message recall, but the fact that so many of the people who were aware of the campaign took an action as a result – one in five!
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Hard News: Fix up, young men, in reply to Lilith __,
Education about consent should be a part of the NZ school curriculum. That’s an obvious, concrete goal we could all have.
One thing the Roastbusters business showed was that the schools involved failed badly to do that.
A friend’s daughter was caught up on the edges of that scene, and it was a real mess of distorted perceptions of what was right and wrong. She and others were bullied and intimidated by girls close to the perpetrators to stay silent. The abysmal police investigation and the attempts by the schools to brush it under the carpet further validated and locked that in. It was bad in so, so many ways.
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Hard News: Fix up, young men, in reply to nzlemming,
Sorry, folks. I should have put “Trigger Warning” on that vid. I do sincerely apologise. Russell, can you edit?
Done.
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Hard News: Fix up, young men, in reply to nzlemming,
I agree, which is what irked me about the “something has changed” approach.The only thing that has “changed” is the boldness and frequency.
That may well be what’s changed, yes. That doesn’t seem insignificant.
Saying “it’s breaking our music festivals and we should be allowed to grieve” is some mighty privileged nonsense, to me at least. Not the real issue at all.
Mark, I’d quote you what I actually wrote, but I’ve done so already. The main theme of the post was how offensive the very idea of declaring cultural events that are important to women off-limits for their own safety was. This one struck me particularly hard because I share the same cultural loves as Jean and her friends. I understand what it means to them, because it means that to me too. The idea of them not being able to be there breaks my heart.
This is what Jean said:
Music is one way to see beyond this and is why I love it so – moving and dancing to sound with masses of similar people can be so uplifting and so universal.
Caring about the safety of your own cultural space is not to the exclusion of the broader problem, and I said that in the post. I realise that we’re coming from different places, but declaring the post we’re discussing “privileged nonsense” isn’t really fair.
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Hard News: Fix up, young men, in reply to raena,
Yes, and some of us are trying to change things for the better, and some of us are sitting back on our heels and making out like it’s all some mysterious external force at work.
I'm not and I'd be grateful if you could credit me with a little good faith. I didn't understand your one-line answer and thought you were referring to parenting. I think it's all the things you listed.
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Hard News: Fix up, young men, in reply to raena,
You raised them.
That's a bit glib. I'm not sure "I blame the parents" is a very good explanation.
My older son is a gentle, serious and often vulnerable aspie. I'm really proud of him and his decency and courage.
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