There is one thing that I can’t stand but have no choice but to begrudge the existence of the level of ignorance floating around on many social media platforms. In this day and age when information is at our finger tips; the amount of disinformation, distorted views and propaganda run prominent. I suppose the fractions of the Cabool, Government, religious organizations wouldn’t have it any other way; it keeps the majority of people in the dark.

Now the thing that got me shaking my head was an interaction with L.D one of my friends on social media. From time to time she posts a lot of stuff and the majority of it is from a distorted perspective. It makes her remarks on certain things obvious that she is ignorant when it comes to that particular subject she commenting on.  

This particular one is concerning an article (click here for article) that the site “TheGrio.com” posted. It was concerning the announcement that Actor Mike Henry is stepping down as the voice behind the character “Cleveland” from the cartoon show “The Simpsons” who was spun off into his own cartoon called “The Cleveland Show.”

L.D’s remark or should I say opinion on this announcement was:

 Well comedy is comedy and its sad that black people can play white people but white people are not allowed to play black people. Very boring now. I still think its funny back in the early days of acting women didnt act! Men played all female roles! Rats and nuts that we cant get a white person to spend time thinking how black people have to live!

L.D was citing the time period in England during the Renaissance when acting was an exclusively male profession; where female characters were played by male actors. L.D also speaks of the modern climate saying that black actors can play white characters; but white actors can’t play black characters. I find that to be utter nonsense.   

The brief discussion begins with True_George calling out L.D’s distorted fallacy:

TG: You go far as mentioning that men actors used to play woman roles in the early days of acting. But skip over that whites used to play black characters in the early days of film, perhaps right up to the 60’s. Black-faced white actors, and in variety shows… They even voiced black cartoon characters. It wasn’t because they lacked black actors it was racist practices..

L.D: You know I don’t think there were a lot of black actors to start and want to act back then. The few that did got stressed out over the jobs. So there was only white actors until more blacks were interested.

T.G: There were plenty of black actors; as well as singers and musicians. Blacks were segregated out of movies, Hollywood was racist from inception. Blacks had their own movie productions going on for a time period. If you don’t believe a little research will absolve me.

Well right now I’m still waiting for L.D to tell me what her research yielded. That’s if she takes up the challenge. I don’t believe she will; most people on social media just want to say what they think. Even if the expressed opinion is ignorance of the subject; nor an observation of what is actually taking place.

The problem with having a sensible debate on social media platforms is that many feel their opinions are iron clad and they take offense when information and facts implies otherwise. Arguments, flaming and even threats of violence take over.

Yeah, it is a natural response that a person will be defensive after what they believed actually has no merit. Resistance to the new information will be put up; this means that you may be getting through because he is comparing the new information with the old before the new information passes the critical factor; it has to be scrutinized.

If you get no feedback or pushback; it means your attempt to provide the new information or to correct the distorted ignorance has failed.

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