I’m all for laughing at Melania Trump (or her speechwriters) plagiarizing Michelle Obama’s speech, but of course, there are a lot of awful people who have to ruin the fun with disgusting bigotry. Aaaargh.
GET OFF MY SIDE MISOGYNISTIC ASSHOLES!
Even if you don’t like Melania Trump, that’s no excuse. Attacks like these don’t just hurt the target; they hurt women, and immigrants, and sex workers. And mail order brides, for that matter. These people don’t deserve bigotry and free-floating contempt just because people don’t like Donald Trump.
I checked out a few of these accounts – some of these people have thousands of followers.
Most of these images I got from this Tumblr post compiling them. This tumblr user comments specifically on how many of the comments are insulting to sex workers. ((I originally used the word “whores,” following the practice of many sex workers I’ve read – which was not smart thinking on my part, since I am not a sex worker. After responses in the comments, and after reading this post, I’ve edited the post to use “sex workers” instead.)) And Funereal-Disease comments:
“Leaving everything you know and marrying a foreigner you’ve never met out of economic desperation is hilarious and you should be punished for it.” Jesus, this is gross.
CW, obviously.
Really, whores is the preferred word? Huh.
I’m relatively prepared to laugh this off (not the insults, the plagiarism). She’s not the candidate, and while it could be malicious, it could also just be sloppy. IMO, it points the finger at the Trump campaign being disorganized and incompetent more than anything else — and whether Republicans want to let an incompetent campaign be something they want to factor into their voting is up to them, not me.
One reason I am not that mad at the Trump campaign about it is that I have a lot of trouble believing they weren’t pranked. The Rickroll line is what does it for me. A prank like that can reveal incompetence, and did (if it was a prank), but I’m not going to get mad at them about the prank itself.
I’m 75% ok with just moving on after, say, a week or so of eye-rolling and reminding people it happened. The only reason I see to harp on it longer is the ridiculous defenses some people are coming up with. “Oops, that was stupid and unfortunate” is fine. “She… magic… Jews!” isn’t, but that’s David Duke, so I wont count that against actual Republicans. On the other hand, “No, these nearly word-for-word passages are an accident cuz platitudes” deserves scorn for A) lying, and B) lying stupidly. That the speech is full of platitudes is a reasonable criticism to make, but it’s also orthogonal to the issue.
I agree with you about laughing it off. (Also, honestly, I think that whoever put in the Rickrolling was brilliant.)
If I squint really hard, I can see that the plagiarism matters because it shows that Trump is a lazy and terrible manager. But even there, it only matters as one incident on top of many.
Ugh, well, that’s disgusting.
Just because some sex workers reclaim the wh@re slur doesn’t mean something as tin – eared as ” they call themselves that!” Should be your sticking point. Most sex worker activists I know who prefer to use the word for themselves do not believe its open season for non – sex – workers to use it. I would figure this blog, which I’ve been reading for years, would know a little about the politics of reclamation.
And yes, there is more “leeway” on non-sex-workers using the term “whorephobia” – that is different from directly referring to sex workers as wh&res when one is NOT A SEX WORKER.
I’ve been involved as an activist and ally in sex workers rights for almost a decade now: non-workers referring to workers by the w-slur is Not Done.
ETA – the fact that at least one person in comments has already reacted along the lines of “really? (Slur)is preferred?” Is,perhaps, not a good sign?
First I’ve ever heard it was the “preferred word.” The standard rule is a marginalized group can only recuperate a slur for itself. “They call each other that” is no more a defense in this case than it is in the case of a white person using the n-word.
Thanks to Zhinxy and to Kevin for their corrections; I screwed up, plainly. My apologies to all.
I’ve edited the post. (Maybe I overdid it; I did the edits before reading Zhinxy’s revision to their comment, in which Zhinxy talked about the word “whorephobia,” and so I edited out the word “whorephobia” too.)
Thanks!
Thanks for listening, Amp.
Well, that int explain why I’d never heard it before.