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Nah I’m with Felix that shit is hilarious for the same reason Mormons are funny despite all the fucked up racist theology and multitude of splinter cults
Of course it’s funny if you don’t imagine these people currently having kids who are subject to their beliefs and abuse.
Here’s some funny hijinks the NOI has been up to, like human trafficking and forced child labor! Those scamps!
Why don’t you have a fun laugh at the abuse stories on r/exmormon too bro!
For you it’s just about how wacky the ideology is on paper or how ridiculous it sounds being screamed by a believer, not how horrifically it’s being implemented on existing people those believers have active control over.
Also beyond treating the ideology as “amusing” Felix is just falsely writing their behaviors off as harmless, which implies he’s only had superficial interactions with believers.
or aren’t a black person at risk of being harassed or assaulted in the street by them for holding hands with someone non-black.
Where are you from where this is remotely an issue? Do you know any black people who went thru this? Has this happened to you or someone you know?
Why don’t you have a fun laugh at the abuse stories on r/exmormon too bro
Yes r/exmormon famous place where no one ever cracks jokes about mormonism
For you it’s just about how wacky the ideology is on paper or how ridiculous it sounds being screamed by a believer
lol there is no “on paper” for me I KNOW NOI members, and yes they have reactionary tendencies not to the extent of the cultists you’re describing, but no one ever called child services on them or accused them of child trafficking, sounds to me like this is a mostly on paper thing for you
At the risk of compromising my opsec: I once attended a sermon by a NOI preacher (wasn’t my idea) the dude spent the whole time railing against the Iraq war and extolling black people to “boycott” the US military and how the US hanging Saddam made them “no better than him”, the best sermon I ever went to, and it’s one of my best goofy stories to tell, it’s like people in real life are dynamic or something and don’t just fall into neat little moralistic categories, Idk maybe that’s just me
Yes the leadership are monsters and plenty of splinter cults have engaged in horrific shit, but that’s no different from any other hierarchical religion, and it doesn’t mean you’re out of touch for cracking jokes or finding the mythology fascinating
Things being traumatic and fucked up makes them funnier usually. It’s kinda how that works. Like cops, Nazis, etc are inherently silly and ridiculous. Funny doesn’t mean good or harmless. In fact, if something is harmless its hard to find any humor in it.
fwiw, as someone raised in a very different kind of fascist ideology, the details are remarkably similar to my own experiences - I totally get people thinking their experience with one religious fascist group translates into experience with another. as much as we need to be careful of generalizing our personal experiences too far, we should also be careful of pre-supposing that our experiences - or those of the people close to us - are exceedingly unique, awful in a way that transcends others abilities to understand without some kind of direct experience. this latter view, that only direct experience can possibly give any true knowledge of a struggle, is supremely isolating. it denies the human capacity for empathy towards others with experiences unlike our own.
in the end, we’re all remembering our own traumas, or those of the people closest to us. and to laugh at those experiences is to build a kind of power over them. we don’t laugh at the NOI or any other group of reactionaries to minimize the harm they cause but because they deserve to be laughed at. their behavior is ludicrous and ludicrously harmful to the people around them. humor provides that frame of mind and shields us from the dark memories that would otherwise leave us in tears.
and to remember the people around or just inside one of these groups as merely kooky isn’t minimizing the whole cult. most of the people inside these theocratic groups really are merely kinda weird. the danger these groups represent is that they hide and shield the truly dangerous people, make them out to be normal and upstanding members of society. the rest… they’re people caught up in something dangerous, that makes them toxic to others. but if we’re to dismantle these cults, those people have to be brought out and deprogrammed. ultimately, they are merely kind of kooky people, with an asterisk that if you get too close, they may be able to suck you into a dark and violent group.
The other day I was at a historical fort and pointed to a group of people and said “oh look they have reenactors.” They were in fact just Mormons on a day trip and they did not look happy with me
NOI is a black empowerment grift cult. It’s dangerous to its members but has little influence outside of the membership. It’s antisemitic, anti-science, and just plain batshit. There are a lot of survivalist/back-to-the-land/homestead/apocalypse elements. There are a lot of pyramid schemes like selling coloidial silver infused water… There’s a lot to it but all of it is intense and intensely weird
They also ran a forced child labor camp over the last decade:
Every Nation of Islam person I’ve seen online seems absolutely fucking insane, IDK how people miss the borderline Nazism levels of antisemetism from them
There is a reason why they are considered a hate group lol
But in this case, I think Felix misses the fact that Yakub in this case is a white nationalist dog whistle
But in this case, I think Felix misses the fact that Yakub in this case is a white nationalist dog whistle
How?
I mean I feel like with cults its kinda expected to be “out of touch” with them unless you have direct or indirect personal experiences with them?
The chapos are out of touch in a lotta ways but not being intimately familiar with how bad a semi-integrated cult in society is doesnt feel like one of the worst examples exactly.
Before you go too hard on “People get hurt by this so it’s not funny” thing, you made a joke about people dying from covid because they refuse to wear a mask. Leftists have family members who are anti-vaxx and anti-mask who die from covid. You’re just selectively choosing what to be mad about. You understand why laughing at destructive behavior is okay, you just don’t like it in this one instance because it allows you to dunk on something you dislike. Felix’s sense of humor is annoying but attributing this much moral baggage to it is out-of-touch.
This isn’t an argument that you can’t laugh at chuds hurting themselves, just that there is always a human element to this kind of stuff. You just don’t care about the human element when it’s not your side.
Neither did Felix about NOI. He said they were normal people who do normal people things. We already know the right can be racist scumbags with terrible opinions about everything but also help people change their flat tire. It’s not a defense of right wingers, it’s admitting they’re not caricatures. I believe you already understand that. However it’s chapo and they’re problematic so we have to read everything in the most uncharitable way because at the end of the day they’re cozy, white-passing media people. They have a history of saying slurs and making inappropriate jokes. People still cling to the idea that liking something problematic makes you a bad leftist because it’s causing harm to those who are insulted. Which is why this thread is trying to make the case that Felix’s post is causing harm. The idea that NOI couldn’t have gotten this far without brocialists treating them as an ironic joke is pretty silly. But we have to mystify what causes harm because posting is mystical.
I care about the human element but I don’t think posts are what determines the power of something. I think it’s a mystification to treat NOI as if it gets power from out-of-touch white people not taking it seriously. Just like it’s a mystification to think right wing ideas have a grip on US society because 4chan exists. It’s ahistorical and not really grounded in the cause of right wing ideology. Posts aren’t what drive the world. NOI isn’t bad because podcasters make it into a joke. NOI isn’t gaining followers because Felix isn’t condemning it using his platform. The idea that harm is happening because of these posts is mystification of why harm happens.
The choice isn’t being mad at Felix or you’re supporting harm to children, gay people, and women. Just because I’m disagreeing with the way you seem to be conceptualizing how posting fits into political reality, it doesn’t mean I support NOI or what harm they do.
