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Well, that would be what I'd call "bending over backwards". I somehow doubt that the problem with what Hanania said was the lack of musical background, and the famous "it was just irony, bro" defense.
I also don't support anything Hanania said, not just under his edgy persona, but the "respectable" one as well, but that's neither here nor there. The question is whether or not something should happen to Hanianias respectability as a result of his old posts getting discovered, and in my opinion as long as stuff like this can be published in broad daylight, I see no reason why what he posted should result in any consequences.
It's always worth being accurate about the problem. "Person calls for genocide, and when questioned about it says 'yes, we really mean genocide' and the NYT defends them" is different to "People sing a song about killing another race of people, and when questioned say they are remembering the bad old days of their oppression and do not mean it literally, and the NYT frames the story in a way that deflects condemnation."
When discussing racism on this forum, I always have to be precise about exactly what happened and what did not. Sometimes this is bullshit (e.g. these quibbles about the exact definition of "ethnic cleansing.") However, the general principle of precision over outrage is a good one, and I am certainly not going to lower my standards just because white people are the target in this instance.
Would this still be true, for you, if he didn't even disavow it? Would you use statements with overtly denied meanings or non-explicit rhetoric with uncertain but potentially disturbing implications as an excuse for allowing overtly harmful explicit policy proposals?
The former would be an example of explicitly defending a call to violence, while the latter would be an example of "bending over backwards" which is what I originally called it. Anyone can come up with story for why their call to violence is not a call to violence (unless...? wink wink), and I don't see how these stories are in any way relevant to the point. Accuracy without relevancy is just a distraction.
Yes. As an example from the other side, back on reddit we discussed a case of a black progressive woman, who got into hot water, because someone dug out an old article she wrote for her university newspaper. It was an edgy, HBD uno-reverso where she claimed that since white people are slower to develop, they're genetically inferior. My position at the time was "this was 20 years ago, who gives a shit". One day our culture might change enough that I'll change my mind on this, but at the moment I consider people who want to dig through your past a far greater danger to society than people writing racist screeds for shits and giggles when they were young.
Me personally? Maybe? When I'm having a serious conversation with someone, I speak plainly, so in that case it would be a clear no. But I do like to joke around, and I enjoy dark humor, so it's not beyond the realm of possibility.
In the comment to which I was responding, your exact phrasing was "you can openly call for murdering people based on their race, and the "paper of record" will come to your defense." Like I said, precision matters.
You can, of course, say that the explicit denial of serious intent isn't relevant; that's a judgment you're allowed to make. Personally, while I still think that "wink wink" versions of such things are very bad, I would nevertheless make the distinction. I'm not a fan of dark humour on such subjects, for example, and I think it can give cover for more serious versions, but it's not the same as openly meaning it. I don't know enough about the South African context to judge actual intent, so the best I can do is to be as factual as I can.
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