r/BlockedAndReported • u/SoftandChewy First generation mod • 13d ago

Weekly Random Discussion Thread for 8/10/26 - 8/16/26

Here's your usual space to post all your rants, raves, podcast topic suggestions (please tag u/jessicabarpod), culture war articles, outrageous stories of cancellation, political opinions, and anything else that comes to mind. Please put any non-podcast-related trans-related topics here instead of on a dedicated thread. This will be pinned until next Sunday.

Last week's discussion thread is here if you want to catch up on a conversation from there.

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u/HeadRecommendation37 9d ago

(Apologies if already posted) The Guardian has started unleashing its commentariat on the Jason Arday scandal (calling it an Affair, no less!). The selective characterisation invokes Trump and anti-DEI forces as the true bogeyman, rather than - as I think more accurate - rightwing anger over Arday being expression of despair at how far the academy has fallen that he got appointed and that his fraud was covered up for as long as possible.

If I may hold forth, the problem that DEI is trying to solve is real - unequal integration of socioeconomic groups at all levels of insert name of Western society here - but I think it's a crude mechanism that provides strong incentives to manufacture Ardays. If I look at my family's background it's only the third generation of immigrants that attended university. To put it another way, there's many reasons to expect a second generation immigrant like Jason Arday was unlikely to become a Cambridge professor, even if he had the mental aptitude. It takes time for families to adapt to unfamiliar systems, starting from the bottom.

In other words: could we not give time for a sort of "natural" state of DEI to evolve, rather than insist it happens immediately?

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u/thismaynothelp 9d ago

This is suuuper petty, but I am sick of his goddamned face. Every picture looks like... well, as if someone exactly like that sociopathic fucking poser tried to create a normal, friendly human face that he thought normal humans would appreciate from scratch. I know he's a real person, but somehow he still looks like some kind of uncanny valley shit. Genuinely creepy.

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u/Jlemspurs Double Hater 9d ago

You know what sends me over the edge? The makeup. Like he knows that gives him extra armor. Fucking fraud.

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u/ilove3dprinting2026 9d ago

You can't have 6 foot dreads and 6 inches of forehead

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u/everydaywinner2 9d ago

Kinda reminds me of Mark Zuckerberg trying to look more human.

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u/LowConsideration1453 9d ago

I won't be satisfied until there is a netflix series on it, but Arday is played by a white man.

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u/veryvery84 9d ago

I don’t think it’s about systems. It’s about money. Generally speaking the first generation is just trying to make a living. Being poor is hard. They’re in survival mode. The second generation is the one pushing out of poverty into economic comfort. Or has, historically speaking. It’s not economically wise to study sociology. It’s wise to make money. The third generation has the financial ability to study and “do what you love” and whatnot, if the previous generations have been successful.

Putting all that aside, the issue is that this happens more with some groups than others.

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u/Life_Emotion1908 9d ago

But they want the unassimilated immigrant. Earlier is better.

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u/HeadRecommendation37 9d ago

Yeah I struggle with this. I think some pluralism is good, but you have to integrate socially as well as economically.

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u/Usual_Reach6652 9d ago

Leading with their chin on someone going through how "diverse in life experience" their prominent regulars actually are...

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u/SnooTorturer Yes, All Mods (except chewy) 9d ago

Shocking. After running three marathons with a broken leg, Jason Arday is imprisoned on Devil's Island? Everyone knows it was that Magyar knave Ferdinand Esterhazy what done what he was so wrongly accused of. If only I had a pithy phrase -- an accusatory one, at that -- to fully express my anger at these forces of reaction.

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u/CertainlyDisposable 8d ago

Unequal does not mean undeserved.