Guest blog: Why is Drake getting hounded by the cancel mob?

[BLueRibbon]

This article is written by members of PCMA, copy-edited and published by Mu.

Ordinarily, a rap beef would hardly merit comment in terms of its relevance to us, regardless of how high-profile it is, but given the nature and popularity of the Kendrick Lamar's anti-Drake diss-track Not Like Us, it is more than justified.

https://www.map-union.org/blog/guest-bl ... roblematic

[PorcelainLark]

I don't agree with trying to draw a connection between our position and that of MAGA republicans. MAGA republicans are a big part of why politics is about vibes rather than about policy in the first place. Their whole ideology is about people never having to look critically inward or modifying how you act in consideration of other people. We want people to change, not to stay the same and that's not going to happen if right-wing populism continues to be a dominant force in politics. Unless there's a massive growth in the spirit of introspection, society will continue to leave their attitudes towards MAPs unexamined.
Just because MAPs and MAGA republicans are both outsiders, that doesn't mean our practical interests align. Don't be conned into thinking they're on the side of MAPs.

What I find interesting is that Kendrick Lamar portrayed himself as a kind of moral authority, particularly in To Pimp a Butterfly, tackling difficult topics, but then he's willing to indulge it dehumanizing the socially accepted target. I feel like this undermines the significance of his previous work. Say that Drake was a MAP, is Lamar doing something praise-worthy by making it the focal point of a diss track? It feels like a sign of how morally lost people are today.
I feel like the broader problem is that we don't have a good way of dealing with (perceived) sexual impropriety in general. Obviously progressives don't want to castrate or kill sex offenders, since it's at odds with the goals of rehabilitative justice, but on the other hand they aren't comfortable biting the bullet of treating it as something socially acceptable (like smoking cannabis). In the long run, I feel like we will see a higher bar for ostracizing people over these things. Imagine there was a guy who would always grab women's breasts in a night-club, but didn't do anything else, aside from banning him, what is a fitting punishment?

[Fragment]

I don't agree with trying to draw a connection between our position and that of MAGA republicans. MAGA republicans are a big part of why politics is about vibes rather than about policy in the first place. Their whole ideology is about people never having to look critically inward or modifying how you act in consideration of other people. We want people to change, not to stay the same and that's not going to happen if right-wing populism continues to be a dominant force in politics. Unless there's a massive growth in the spirit of introspection, society will continue to leave their attitudes towards MAPs unexamined.
Just because MAPs and MAGA republicans are both outsiders, that doesn't mean our practical interests align. Don't be conned into thinking they're on the side of MAPs.

PCMA is a provocative group, so they're throwing out a provocative opinion.

I think it's less a question of whether MAGA is on our side, though, as it is whether the thought structures that demonize MAGA are similar to the thought structures that demonize MAPs.

[PorcelainLark]

PCMA is a provocative group, so they're throwing out a provocative opinion.

Aside from me, who are they provoking with this comparison?

I think it's less a question of whether MAGA is on our side, though, as it is whether the thought structures that demonize MAGA are similar to the thought structures that demonize MAPs.

OK, say a person wasn't sympathetic to Trump, you would say this focus is acting like all the legitimate criticisms of Trump don't exist. The comparison only works if you think people "demonizing" Trump is more important than all the valid criticisms. If I write a huge argument and end it with "f*ck you", acting like that's all I said is dishonest. This is how they're carrying water for Trump.
So there isn't any point of the comparison unless you're already sympathetic to Trump.

[Anonymous_Lover]

I don't agree with trying to draw a connection between our position and that of MAGA republicans. MAGA republicans are a big part of why politics is about vibes rather than about policy in the first place. Their whole ideology is about people never having to look critically inward or modifying how you act in consideration of other people. We want people to change, not to stay the same and that's not going to happen if right-wing populism continues to be a dominant force in politics. Unless there's a massive growth in the spirit of introspection, society will continue to leave their attitudes towards MAPs unexamined.
Just because MAPs and MAGA republicans are both outsiders, that doesn't mean our practical interests align. Don't be conned into thinking they're on the side of MAPs.

What I find interesting is that Kendrick Lamar portrayed himself as a kind of moral authority, particularly in To Pimp a Butterfly, tackling difficult topics, but then he's willing to indulge it dehumanizing the socially accepted target. I feel like this undermines the significance of his previous work. Say that Drake was a MAP, is Lamar doing something praise-worthy by making it the focal point of a diss track? It feels like a sign of how morally lost people are today.
I feel like the broader problem is that we don't have a good way of dealing with (perceived) sexual impropriety in general. Obviously progressives don't want to castrate or kill sex offenders, since it's at odds with the goals of rehabilitative justice, but on the other hand they aren't comfortable biting the bullet of treating it as something socially acceptable (like smoking cannabis). In the long run, I feel like we will see a higher bar for ostracizing people over these things. Imagine there was a guy who would always grab women's breasts in a night-club, but didn't do anything else, aside from banning him, what is a fitting punishment?

Just because MAPs and MAGA republicans are both outsiders, that doesn't mean our practical interests align. Don't be conned into thinking they're on the side of MAPs.

Where was this actually said? I never even implied MAGA republicans are outsiders but that the Democrats are using pedo panic to attack republicans.

What I find interesting is that Kendrick Lamar portrayed himself as a kind of moral authority, particularly in To Pimp a Butterfly, tackling difficult topics, but then he's willing to indulge it dehumanizing the socially accepted target. I feel like this undermines the significance of his previous work

Fuck K-Dot. There's nothing to undermine. He makes music for pseudo-intellectual Jews and White people who want to feel deep. Logo Daedalus hit the nail on the head when he said he's really one song "Swimming Pools" there's no real substance to him outside that. No one is believing Black Hebrew Israelite ideology while being some deep intellectual lmao

Obviously progressives don't want to castrate or kill sex offenders, since it's at odds with the goals of rehabilitative justice,

Just spend some time on twitter there were leftists saying that the Florida death penalty law for pedophiles would be fine "if it wasn't just a means to attack trans people" (LOL). One of my former comrades at cl.s said she got hundreds of death threats and along with reports to the FBI from leftists on twitter for being an open pro-C MAP left-communist.

MAGA republicans are a big part of why politics is about vibes

N-word acts like he's never seen an electoral dictatorship of the bourgeoisie before. The parties have pretty much been just vibes and relatively few substantial policy differences since the 90s if not longer.

is how they're carrying water for Trump.

If that's what you got out of it then you either have very low reading comprehension skills or you're carrying water for Genocide Joe and Holocaust Harris. Though truth be told I'd prob prefer Kamala to Trump but I don't think I'll vote for her

[PorcelainLark]

Just because MAPs and MAGA republicans are both outsiders, that doesn't mean our practical interests align. Don't be conned into thinking they're on the side of MAPs.

I never even implied MAGA republicans are outsiders but that the Democrats are using pedo panic to attack republicans.

How weasly. Yes you did.

N-word acts like he's never seen an electoral dictatorship of the bourgeoisie before. The parties have pretty much been just vibes and relatively few substantial policy differences since the 90s if not longer.

Oh, you're a tankie. That explains your inability to understand politics.

If that's what you got out of it then you either have very low reading comprehension skills or you're carrying water for Genocide Joe and Holocaust Harris.

And a Hamas supporter, how surprising.

Well, now I know everything you think is worthless. Never going to waste my time reading your garbage again.

[Fragment]

Is it beyond you both to make your points without being assholes?

[Artaxerxes II]

I agree on the need for civility, but we should wonder if perhaps Porc here isn't under his own confirmation bias via-a-vis Trump. I'm not going to comment on whether MAGApedes are right or not, but I don't think it cannot be denied that Trump was often treated by the US and European press as some kind of existential threat to not just the postwar neoliberal globalist order, but the planet as a whole. His potential impact was really overblown, especially what with the Trump-Hitler comparisons.

Here's the passage Lark seems to be having issues with:

Speaking of "freedom" and grand promises of reform and the amelioration of large-scale social/economic pain, the Harris-Walz campaign has taken to using Kendrick Lamar's Not Like Us at multiple campaign events and at the California roll call of the DNC itself. The campaign apparently intends to capitalize on Kendrick's music (with the apparent willing cooperation of Kendrick) as a form of radical chic to signal to supporters of the party, as well as those that are suffering and are oppressed, that the presidential campaign of Vice President Harris gets it. The use of the song by the Harris campaign and the Democrats has led some to refer to the 2024 US election as the Not Like Us election, as the democrats intend to signal to supporters that Donald Trump, JD Vance, and the remaining hardcore among MAGA republicans/supporters are Not Like Us. The campaign's use of the word "weird", pioneered by Walz but more in keeping with Harris's overall aesthetic, is a classic in-group/out-group signifier, which in meangirl fashion signals the lesser status through performative labelling without elaborating the actual substance or reasoning in denigrating the person being labelled. In other words, if the reader will excuse a turn of phrase that could be viewed as ageist, it is a classic schoolyard insult. The use of "Not Like Us" presents a classic left-wing conundrum: the use/propagation of stigma and even the active persecution of an oppressed group under the guise of a cause that appears to be seeking the betterment of all people, or at least all oppressed people. The intention here is not to moralize this, but to draw a contrast with who is being left out of the campaign of the woman variously referred to as "California's Top Cop", "Killer Harris", and "Cop Mama."

It is no apology for Trump to be disturbed by the campaign's dehumanizing in-group/out-group rhetoric, or to draw a parallel to the way that the Harris campaign appears to be attacking pedophiles and other sex offenders who constitute vulnerable groups whose constitutional and human rights have already come under tremendous assault. Kendrick, an apparent friend of Barrack Obama, allowed his music to be used in an official Instagram ad for the (now defunct) Biden-Harris 2024 campaign, and by some accounts is deliberately removing pro-Palestine comments from his Instagram posts. The irony of this is that is that Kendrick is a follower of Black Hebrew Israelite ideology which holds that black people are the real Jews whereas Ashkenazi Jews, aka White Jews, are fake Jews. Drake, by contrast, has Jewish blood through his Ashkenazi mother and appears to be a practicing Jew, yet Drake signed a letter publicly calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Like Drake, PCMA also called for a ceasefire and identified Israeli conduct as one of war crimes, genocidal intent, and ethnic cleansing well before that argument made its way into the mainstream or the spring protests that swept America's colleges. We are pleased that Drake's instincts and ours are aligned here, and by the fact that Kendrick's or K-Dot, who is sometimes called "the people's champ", is apart from us and appears to be failing a major test of history that could damage his legacy. He is, indeed, Not Like Us.

I personally see no actual sympathising with MAGA, merely compare the way Democrats' rhetoric with regards to socially-acceptable targets like MAPs contrasts with their platitudes towards uplifting "marginalised people", and the use of the same rhetorical name-calling by the Harris-Walz campaign towards Donald Trump and JD Vance. I think it's fair enough to be honest.