JCC IMDb for Hollywood/Celebrity/Famous sexual predators

Finding an entire "race" of people unattractive isn't racist. It's prejudiced.

Racism is a combination of prejudice/bigotry and systemic power.

A person who prejudges their attraction or lack thereof for people based on an abstract definition like "White" or "Black" or "Asian", all of which are relatively meaningless distinctions given the spectrum of humanity that can safely reside in any of those arbitrary bins is absolutely making a value judgment on those distinctions. Of course, we can choose to soften the significance of that value judgment by calling it a "preference". In truth, it is. But the root of that preference is almost certainly mired in systemic racism, infused in us like the very air we breathe. From the moment we're born, we're bombarded by messages about who is acceptable and who is not as a mate. That's just a fact.

Now all that being said, that prejudice doesn't make one evil or a bad person. It just makes them human. We'd be hard-pressed to exist in this world without prejudice. But applying that prejudice in a systematic way to harm groups of people, intentionally or otherwise, is what racism really is about.

 

To me, physical attraction is so personal that I'm not going to use it to make assumptions about a person's worldview. A gay guy who would absolutely never date a woman isn't a secret misogynist.

 

While sexuality is linked to physical attraction, they are not the same thing.

And sex is a real thing while race is an entirely made up social construct with meaningless distinctions specifically created to enable white supremacy.

 

"Race", such as it is, is a social construct, but it's pretty clearly based on clusters of phenotypic traits. And those traits may just not be physically attractive to someone.

Edit: And maybe that person isn't attracted to those traits for some weird reason based on stereotypes and racist portrayals. Then what? To me, racism is not about what's in anyone's head but their discriminatory actions in the world. And I'm not willing to extend that to their sex lives

 

Beyond that point CT, I actually think that's somewhat a different thing. I tend to prefer black women, all else being equal or unknown. But that's as much about shared experience as physical features.

I expect they'll more easily commiserate if I become frustrated about racial issues, or be able to offer insights based on personal experience. Certain historical events might be a similar sort of cultural touchstone for us. Our families might have had some similar episodes in the past that are a basis for relatability.

These things are in fact experiential. It is the same desire as someone preferring a partner with similar hobbies, the same religion, or political orientation. The only difference is that because of the insane and brutal racial system implemented in the US, we can guess with fair certainty how someone might have that sort of experiential overlap simply by their appearance.

Even then, though, I recognize that these features are not exclusive to African-Americans. Many other minorities experience substantial discrimination, and their experiences are likely more than analogous enough considering that even the black experience with bigotry is not a monolith. There are whites who have invested serious time in trying to understand life experiences not their own, and are empathic enough to contribute meaningfully to a discussion. Or if none of these things match up, maybe other factors will override them in particular pairing. Ultimately any preference is just sort of a vague, probabilistic statement.

 

Umm...your edit is pretty much what I said in my first post in this thread. This attraction or lack thereof, based on someone's "race" is prejudice/bigotry. Doesn't make the person bad/evil. Just makes them human. We all experience it. This alone does not make one racist.

 

Yeah, and I'm not really disagreeing with you. Just thinking out loud.

 

Could this discussion maybe be a separate thread? It certainly deserves that much, and at the same time, I'm sure more revelations in the near future will probably call for posts that interrupt the current discussion. I also have a thought or two about the Takei situation, but it seems out of place right now.

 

Yeah, @KnightWriter. Agree. I came in here for Morgan Freeman and found a fascinating discussion going on instead.

 

@CT-867-5309 made it over here

 

itt people say dumb things as eloquently as possible

 

Three of Mario Batali's resturants in Vegas close.

 

Chris Hardwick, probably.

 

WTF.

 

C'mon, there's no proof she's writing about Chris Hardwick at all there! (says random white nerds on the interwebs)

PS - She's totally writing about Chris Hardwick...

And people have already started bailing...

 

Affable Chris Hardwick is a monster in private?

 

I'm kind of surprise that Hardwick ended up in this thread, but I suppose I shouldn't be.

I remember him being the host of Remote Control and then watching him on Attack of the Show, and crossing paths with him several times at SDCC.

I wonder when AMC will drop him from The Talking Dead and the other "talking" shows.

 

That sucks that he was so emotionally and sexually abusive. He's a best friend of a friend, and I never heard about any of this.. but then our mutual friend is a guy and might not have known to look for it.

Just wish I'd known sooner so I wouldn't have supported his work.

 

Ah, dammit. The ****? Always liked Hardwick a lot. Nerdist podcast was always fun. Well, whatever. I did hate his fake laughing on @midnight; basically made the show unwatchable to me, not that my opinion about his TV shows matters that much. Anyway, that's an extremely ugly story and a real disappointment to me. Very messed up and absolutely inexcusable. The "starfish" thing is absolutely sickening.

 

Hardwick responded

 

And so it begins. He/she said or corroboration comes about. Now we wait.

 

Well, she says she has recordings. The knee-jerk here is that she should release them but I would wonder if a lawyer would advise her to hold on to them if they exist.

 

I guess people kind of have to respond for legal reasons and such, but I've gotten to where I just really don't even want to hear it. I mean, if you stay quiet for a bit, just withdraw for a little while and nothing else comes out about you, I think you have a better chance of salvaging your career than if you come out and start attacking the person who made the claims. I just feel like your keeping yourself in the news cycle and the back and forth does no one any good. I get legally why celebrities probably can't just do that, but it kind of sets my teeth on edge when they "release a statement." The "starfish" allegation is interesting. I've never heard it before and it makes me tend to believe Dykstra (which I tend to believe victims anyway) just because it's such a strange detail to include. Would a person really think to make that up?

That said, I hope the old Nerdist archive doesn't get scrubbed from the web or anything. Not that I have plans to go back and listen, but I might want to at some point and some of those interviews really were great. Also, I wonder if Doug Loves Movies keeps the Hard & Phirm theme song? He probably kind of has to at this point it's such an icon among his fanbase, which for sure includes me, but it would be cool if he replaced it with a proper Garfunkel & Oates cover (he already uses a Christmas version they did for his episodes in December). You know, them being women and all; and, I suppose, them also probably being the comedy duo that Louis C.K. dropped trou in front of. But I mean, they're G&O is just great, I don't mean to imply that they should get special favors for being women; they're just absolutely brilliant and have always been funnier than Hardwick.

It's so weird to be talking about all this niche podcasting/comedy stuff in relation to a mainstream news story.

 

So he denies the sexual assault thing, and disputes the nature of the break up, but none of the controlling crap she said he did?

 

I never read or listened to Chris Hardwick's stuff, and I guess I never will now.