"Whataboutisms" and the Media's Bait-and-Switch

Harvey Weinstein (left) R. Kelly (right).

Recently, I was on my Twitter page and I saw where someone who follows me retweeted a meme that someone else posted on his feed, commenting: "This is exactly what y'all sound like." The meme talked about something called "Whataboutisms."According to Wikipedia, a whataboutism (or whataboutery) is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument.

A perfect example of what I'm speaking of was the first line in the meme concerning (Harvey) Weinstein and R. Kelly-- which I also will speak on as well in this blog. It was something I considered writing about a couple of weeks ago, but I'll talk about it here. To paraphrase, it was saying if someone mentions the actions of R. Kelly, another will reply: "What about Weinstein?" Etc., etc. When I read this, my thought was, "Well, he's entitled to his opinion," and I still maintain that thought.

However, the more I thought about what I read in that meme, I shook my head and thought how asinine the logic was of whoever originally created it. I think I get what the person was trying to say, and I agree that you don’t want to make a “whataboutism” a one-trick or auto-pilot response. I can’t speak for everyone, but my thing is people need to call things down the middle. I think some people who may get accused of this simply just want things to be fair.

When Weinstein, Matt Lauer and others of the white or Jewish society were accused of sexual misconduct, rape, etc., the media temporarily had a magnifying glass on them, but they gradually went away from them to mostly black men, most recently R. Kelly when a documentary was made two weeks ago concerning his sexcapades with underage girls. One thing all of these guys have in common is the accusations stems from events that happened or allegedly happened years ago, and now these women have chosen to come forward. 

On a side note, with the exception of the young ladies who were underaged at the time when they were dealing with R. Kelly, personally, I think the accusers of Weinstein and the others was more of a hustle and a power move by them. I said this when this #MeToo mess really gained momentum and started targeting people like Weinstein.

My theory is that some of the #MeToo accusations were actually consensual. None of this was brought up from these women when they were in their prime, getting movie roles, recording contracts, TV/radio talk show appearances, etc. Now they're past their prime, they're no longer sought-after actresses or whatever profession they were in, the money started running low, and society favors them to where all they have to do is accuse a man of rape and the law automatically takes their word for it, unless the man is proven innocent, usually by the woman admitting that she lied-- and face no consequences for that, by the way-- accusing a man of sexual misconduct whether it was true or not was the perfect come up.

Anyway, before I go further, I am by no means defending R. Kelly. I think he’s a sexual deviant like the others, and his behind should’ve been locked up years ago. However, there were too many like Weinstein being called out, so they had to find someone like R. Kelly to publicly crucify. So, while the media has everyone (especially gullible black folks) so focused on R. Kelly— and while Bill Cosby is locked for similar accusations— meanwhile, people like Weinstein is slipping through the cracks, gradually getting his charges dropped. It was the old bait-and-switch at its finest, and people fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

So, what some would call a “whataboutism,” others would argue that what’s being done is biased, lop-sided and unfair, and that’s why they’re asking, “what about…?” Again, my thing is call a spade a spade. They’re publicly crucifying R. Kelly, while people like Weinstein is being forgotten about, as if nothing ever happened with them. They're trying to make R. Kelly look like the worst of them all when one is no different than the others.

It seems that this “whataboutism” term is to a degree, an attempt to shame or silence those who see things not being done fairly. To me, it is or at least it's a form of a deflection. It's another accusation or label people can put on you when they want to deflect. So, call it what you want to, my position is being fair and just.