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Spitfire Abbey Road Teaser - Nov 11th

Larry Shelby

By Larry Shelby
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PavlovsCat

PavlovsCat

Posted
Posted (edited)
11 hours ago, Marc Cormier said:

He had an opinion.  Can't be doing that these days.

As for the library, maybe Abbey Road Studios: If These Floors Could Talk

I'm coming that this from an objective, communications point of view. The problem was not Christian having an opinion, the problem was hardened intolerance and, yes, it is anyone's right to have their own intolerant views, but when you express those views publicly and you represent a business/brand, of course you're going to alienate whatever group you are advocating intolerance against and people who oppose intolerance and it will have a negative impact on your brand and that, unsurprisingly, is exactly what happened (Christian made a tweet announcing his unity with two well known anti-trans celebrities, one who has made numerous very offensive anti-trans videos).  

For example, Christian could have communicated that he doesn't understand or agree with a group of people without taking a hard line siding with people who hold very extreme positions and he would not have ended up getting major news coverage and having hate group leaders that he would never want to associate with praising his thinking. Once Christian took that hard line, he drew a stand and chose to alienate people and the fallout is very unsurprising. So that's the difference between an opinion and holding an extreme view that stigmatizes and denies human rights for a group of people. 

BTW, I'm not in the group of people Christian lashed out against. I'm a pretty standard run of the mill married once straight dad with kids; but I am a fan of both human rights, respect, kindness and free speech. I also am a fan of accountability. Again, merely having an opinion isn't the problem, it was the anti-human rights, bigoted aspect of what Christian tweeted, which the company he founded has stated it does not agree with and Christian now regrets. Of course, Christian legally had a right to tweet whatever views he has, as long as he wasn't advocating violence (and he didn't). But there are consequences when you take hateful stands against specific groups of people. That's all it is.

Here's another musician's media outlet reporting on the incident: 

https://www.gearnews.com/spitfire-audio-transphobia-row-co-founder-christian-henson-steps-down/


[EDIT:  I'm adding this because there are some hyperpartisan members of the forum and I want to make clear that this isn't a political issue, as some have wrongly assumed believing Henson is a conservative. He is not. In fact, Henson has not a fan of the US' 45th president. Consequently, this issue really isn't about political ideologies, it's entirely about bigotry and intolerance and how we respond to it.

To those who call Christian leaving twitter for 4 weeks cancel culture -- and personally, I would have preferred that Chris stayed on Twitter and that there was a dialogue between him and members of the trans community established -- Henson temporarily turned off his Twitter account for a month and it's back on now. No one cancelled him and Spitfire's CEO responding to the controversy by saying that Henson was on leave is very stock crisis management that is nothing new. But Henson never left YouTube. In fact, just a week or two following the infamous tweet, Henson uploaded a YouTube video clearly made after the incident (because he references it) where he shares he was at AIR Studios working on a new sample library, which made it obvious he was still working for the company he co-founded.  So he absolutely wasn't "cancelled."  He lost a lot of Twitter followers and I'm sure there are some people who will not buy from the Spitfire brand following this matter, but I wouldn't consider that cancel culture, it's just consumers voting with their wallets. 

Once again, I wish there had been an open dialogue and an opportunity for understanding. Of course, the reality is that those events are often engineered by the public relations professionals, but I do believe there's still a societal benefit to such actions. While Henson can maintain any opinions he likes, publicly promoting anti-trans views with a hardcore anti-trans video is a very aggressively hard line attack against trans people. That's without question and that is why this became global news.  My hope is that the end result is that Chris and society comes out of all of this with greater understanding, greater empathy and greater acceptance of others.]

Also, IBTL. 

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Bapu

Bapu

Posted
Posted (edited)
8 minutes ago, Fleer said:

Nah, ‘t was an opinion. And as opinions go, they don’t define a person. Too much “je suis ce que je pense” instead of “je pense donc je suis” (Descartes) :)

Fleer said pense. <snickers>

Bapu is puerile and is not language fluid.

 

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PavlovsCat

PavlovsCat

Posted
Posted (edited)
38 minutes ago, Fleer said:

Nah, ‘t was an opinion. And as opinions go, they don’t define a person. Too much “je suis ce que je pense” instead of “je pense donc je suis” (Descartes) :)

As the grandson of Jewish WWII veteran, I disagree with your view that opinions don't define a person. History shows otherwise. Opinions represent peoples' thinking, and a person's thinking is literally the way we define ourselves, by what we believe. 

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PavlovsCat

PavlovsCat

Posted
Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, Fleer said:

And as the grandson of a WWI veteran, I know that opinions evolve through mutual understanding, yet only if we show empathy instead of enmity. 

I take your WWII grandfather and raise you a grandfather! I have two grandfathers that were WWII veterans! Haha, seriously.

But you clearly missed my point of sharing that one of my grandfathers was a Jewish WWII veteran. My other grandfather was a Christian. My underlying point is sharing that he was Jewish WWII veteran was because he was fighting a war against a group of people (the Nazis, specifically) who had an opinion that people of his ethnicity should be put to death -- that of course, didn't affect our non-Jewish/Gentile grandfathers. The opinions of the Nazis crossed a hard line into hate and intolerance. Now, I'm not equating Henson with Nazis, FTR. I am addressing your comment that peoples' opinions that reflect hate and intolerance are insignificant. Now, perhaps those opinions don't impact you and your family, so you don't find them very problematic, but to those they directly impact, they're incredibly significant. 

I certainly don't disagree with anyone's right to state an opinion and I would have preferred that Christian stayed on Twitter and that people could engage in a respectful civil dialogue. But, putting my communications pro hat on, when a business person uses a very public outlet to profess a hard line clearly bigoted view against any group, there's going to be consequences. So, the end result was unsurprising. Beyond Christian's bigotry, he showed incredibly poor judgment, and there's no doubt he would agree with me on that. So, in the idealist sense, yes, I do wish people could discuss things openly. But when someone starts out by putting out declarations opposing another group's fundamental existence and using hateful tropes to disparage that group, it's pretty clear that you're not interested in dialogue and in social media, I hope that you will agree that making declarations against an entire category of people is unlikely reflective of someone interested in engaging in fruitful discussions and the group that is the target of the hate is obviously not going to embrace it, but feel threatened, even more so when the person engaging in the hate holds power or influence. 

IBTL

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Fleer

Fleer

Posted
Posted

I was addressing the point that we put words in each other’s mouths and posts. As you just did with me. Which is not cricket.

Opinions are never insignificant. Actually, they are highly significant. But they’re not static. They evolve. That was my point. 

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Jesse Screed

Jesse Screed

Posted
Posted

I think it will be a deal where Ringo puts his foot down.

And Paul doesn't know what to do, so he asks John, "what should we do?"

John responds, "George ain't a backup singer anymore."

Ringo start tapping the cans

Paul slides down the bass

John laughs and plays some ethereal chord

George smiles and all is well in paradise

50% off!

 

I'll take two

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PavlovsCat

PavlovsCat

Posted
Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, Fleer said:

I was addressing the point that we put words in each other’s mouths and posts. As you just did with me. Which is not cricket.

Opinions are never insignificant. Actually, they are highly significant. But they’re not static. They evolve. That was my point. 

I didn't put words in your mouth and I certainly would never want to do that.  You started posting by disagreeing with me, countering what I wrote with, "And as opinions go, they don’t define a person. "  That is your exact statement. 

But you and I have always been friendly and I don't see any reason not to continue the tradition. And yes, I agree with the hope of your sentiment that opinions evolve,  but the reality is some evolve and some do not evolve. There are many people who agree with Christian's anti-trans views that have no interest in evolving. And I personally prefer to keep the dialogue open,  as I previously stated. 

My Jewish grandfather not only served in WWII,  he came back home to the incredibly antisemitic neighborhood where I grew up that remains incredibly antisemitic today. In my old neighborhood your family hides that it's Jewish. One of my neighbors is Jewish and his employees don't know and regularly say antisemitic slurs and remarks,  so he doesn't share that he's Jewish with his own employees. So yes, I do have a hope people that hold strong prejudices will evolve,  but we still have  the reality that in the current day, their currently held views do great harm to the groups they hate. Christian shared a transphobic video by an individual that uses hateful tropes of trans people as mentally deranged pedophiles. It's not a whole lot different than racists in Blackface or tropes of Jews with outrageously large noses.  One of my vendors came out as trans several years ago. Sadly, she became the target of hate online. She didn't have the option to have a civil dialogue with the person attacking her. But I empathize with groups that face attacked realizing that I'm not in their shoes and the onus should not be on them to have to dialogue with a hateful bigot. It's easy for those not in that situation. I don't think it's a realistic option for all targets of hate speech to just chill while people are attacking them, even though my desire is for everyone to be able to dialogue. I wish it was possible to have that dialogue, but that's certainly not reality.  Adults who have strongly held bigoted views are commonly not interested in changing those views and don't want to be told they're wrong. 

So,  my DESIRE is that society can listen to one another to dialogue and folks like Christian may come to a place of empathy,  that doesn't change that there is hurt and damage that he's caused that further hatred, hateful trope and intolerance and I think that must be addressed and there should be consequences for his actions. So yes to dialogue no to what some people call cancel culture (although I completely support people saying I'm not going to buy from a brand because they just stated something bigoted against others),  but it doesn't change that vicious acts have consequences and they should have consequences. My hope is that caring non transphobic people are in Christian's life that can show him the hurt he's caused people and that he can come to a place of empathy for the people he recently acted against. But there's no guarantee that he will ever change his views. He may continue to hold those views for the rest of his life, so opinions CAN sometimes change, but we don't know. All we can deal with is what people say and do.  

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Fleer

Fleer

Posted
Posted

Exactly, our opinions are significant, but they don’t define us. And as long as we profess that some opinions don’t evolve, we’re part of the problem. Hope is a strong motivator. By interacting with others (and their prejudices) we turn hope into reality. Which is why I like and embrace strong opinions, even if they go against my beliefs.

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PavlovsCat

PavlovsCat

Posted
Posted
3 minutes ago, Fleer said:

Exactly, our opinions are significant, but they don’t define us. And as long as we profess that some opinions don’t evolve, we’re part of the problem. Hope is a strong motivator. By interacting with others (and their prejudices) we turn hope into reality. Which is why I like and embrace strong opinions, even if they go against my beliefs.

Again,  I believe our opinions are exactly what define who we are. Most people believe it is what they believe is what defines them. People usually want that to be the case. 

I'll leave it at this. If you're in a group that's been targeted, what you're now defining as opinions are much more significance than you now give them.  If you're in a hated group, you don't have the luxury of embracing people's strong hatred of you. I can tell you personally. I've been literally physically brutalized for my ethnicity as a child and I've witnessed it done to others. You don't always have the option to embrace people's hatred and I certainly wouldn't agree with that idea. 

Let's just agree to disagree and get back to deals. I think there are some things we agree on, like the hope that people will evolve and that dialogue is the best course. 

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