00:00:00.000classes in session hey everybody and welcome to unlearn 16 classes in session um so i've got
00:00:10.720myself in a little bit of trouble on twitter and on tick tock the only place that doesn't yell at
00:00:16.960me consistently is pretty much instagram but nonetheless the trouble's different okay so on
00:00:23.440TikTok, I usually respond to people's relatively, let's say, aggressive or discriminatory or rude
00:00:32.000comments. And I do it sarcastically. And then people get mad and they report it. And I don't
00:00:39.520get it taken down. I just have to deal with the whole process because I always cover their name
00:00:43.220because heaven forbid, nobody wants to be anybody's bully. So there's that going on on TikTok. But at
00:00:49.740the same time, interestingly enough, it's not a lot of hate on TikTok. Like, I don't find the
00:00:57.300vitriol the same that there is on Twitter, because then I roll over to Twitter, and I recently made
00:01:04.500a post about Next Benedict. It's hard. I always want to say with a T at the end. I just made a
00:01:13.600TikTok about their passing, about what led up to it. And in all fairness, assumptions, right?
00:01:22.660You make assumptions about what's going on in that school, what's going on in that district. I think
00:01:26.120relatively intelligent deductions, let's say, rather than assumptions. But that's not really
00:01:34.580the point. Because as I got on that three-minute Twitter or TikTok ramble, I made a very specific
00:01:45.420point to say this. I didn't get on there to blame Libs of TikTok. I didn't get on there to blame
00:01:51.580whatever her name is that just got appointed to the board in Oklahoma, even though she lives in1.00
00:01:57.360New York. I didn't blame individual, like the superintendent of the schools or the principal
00:02:03.340of the school or the politicians in Oklahoma or, you know, all of these very specific people
00:02:10.080about this specific incident. And I did that on purpose because the more that we just focus on
00:02:17.340one particular thing, it makes it sound like a lone attack. It makes it sound like it's just her
00:02:28.080or it's just him or it's just the two of them that caused the circumstances or the culture
00:02:33.600or the reality that enabled, that stoked, that brought forth whatever kind of violence that
00:02:42.340we're talking about. Forget the very specific instance because we can go back and forth all
00:02:51.060we want. None of us were there. Forget that for a second. Can we all just step back and accept
00:02:57.860there's a rising level of hate maybe i won't even lead with hate because i'm going to lead
00:03:07.560with something more insidious there is a rising level of dehumanization of people within the
00:03:16.380united states and yes it's seeping up into canada and in different parts of the world dehumanization
00:03:21.540of the trans community of the lgbtq community of the allied community there's this dehumanization
00:03:31.780that is going on and when i see this going on as somebody who has studied history this is the
00:03:38.660first step the dehumanization the vilification it's the first step to violence and and i don't
00:03:48.500need to prove instances of i'm i'm simply going to say this is how it all begins um and you can
00:03:57.500go back to you know carthage which is like the first documented case of genocide you can speak
00:04:04.780obviously about the holocaust you can speak about what's going on in different parts of the world
00:04:09.840in cambodia um you know when it comes to our indigenous part look you can go all over the
00:04:16.380place. And here's what you're going to have in common. You're going to have a dehumanization,
00:04:23.820a group or a culture that is going to be looking for a scapegoat, a scapegoat to say,
00:04:33.120your life is bad because of X, because of these people. Okay. That's the first step. The second
00:04:42.440step is when you point to those people, you figure out how to dehumanize them, how to make them less
00:04:50.180of a person, how to make their opinions, their voices, their sheer existence, either fraudulent
00:04:58.920or destructive to the actual culture that we exist in. And then you're going to go one step
00:05:07.780further because they always go one step further you're gonna say it's these
00:05:11.320people it's this group and their allies that are coming after your kids and as
00:05:17.860soon as you press that button as soon as you press the and they're gonna come
00:05:22.020after your kids button it creates a rise from the pit of your stomach as a parent
00:05:31.360as a, you know, anybody who wants to protect kids, it creates this rise of vitriol and sort
00:05:39.080of this instantaneous jump to defense. And this instantaneous jump to defense in all of these
00:05:47.920situations is always predicated on a lack of actual education, on a lack of actual awareness.
00:05:57.620that's the bottom line right you point to a group of people that is less than I think 0.01 percent
00:06:07.520like it's an ridiculous percentage and then you say it's them they're the problem and so most0.97
00:06:15.680people have no actual education they have no actual understanding they are ignorant to that1.00
00:06:23.440particular, the trans community, they're ignorant to them. They do not have friends. They are not1.00
00:06:27.880embedded in the community. They have never talked to anybody in a significant way, right? They've
00:06:32.920watched one Matt Walsh, horrifically contrived documentary. I can't even, using the word
00:06:42.180documentary when it comes to that gets stuck in my throat. They've watched Candace Owens break it1.00
00:06:47.320all down and come up with all of these stats about detransitioning. Because they are looking1.00
00:06:53.880for a villain. And of course they are. Because people, and again, I'm not just focused on one,
00:07:02.400but people are searching for a villain. They are searching for the bad guy, the lone gunman,
00:07:08.620to point their finger at and say, it's them. And if we tackle that, if we deconstruct that
00:07:18.960and bring them down and tear them from their whatever kind of thought process that we think
00:07:27.080is so incredibly destructive, everybody's going to be better for it. So when you dehumanize the
00:07:32.940trans community, you're not just dehumanizing their identity, which you are. They're literally
00:07:40.120looking these people in the face. And we're not just talking grown adults. Obviously, we're talking
00:07:45.240about teens and people coming into their adult status and saying, you aren't real. Your thoughts,
00:07:54.220your feelings, your identity, your everything about who you think you are is actually fraction
00:08:02.700They are now just writing it off to mental disorder after mental disorder that needs to be solved, that needs to be medicated, that needs to be institutionalized.
00:08:12.800Oh, what a great way to take the voice away from an entire community.0.97
00:08:25.320you call, you know, their family members abusers, you figure out a way to use language to manipulate,
00:08:39.640to sideline, to ignore actual evidence and actual conversations of the lives that all of these
00:08:52.140people are living. And why is that? You know, in my Twitter or my TikTok rant, I pointed to a lot
00:09:02.120of things. And so when I went through it, I pointed as this cumulative sort of end result that we are
00:09:09.440pushing from all of these different angles. As for example, we take women's right to control their0.97
00:09:17.300own body away. We talk about women's sports as we want to protect it, although we've never0.81
00:09:23.640spoken about it or funded it or supported it before. We talk about all of this washroom crime1.00
00:09:29.460that, let's be honest, hasn't happened from a single trans person. I haven't seen a single0.98
00:09:34.780documented case where this is an epidemic. I have seen a lot of sexual assault that has been
00:09:42.200perpetrated or that has been evidence-based research from cis straight men. I've seen that0.98
00:09:53.940evidence, but we want to push that away, right? Because if we really look at where the violence
00:09:59.080is coming from, it's the mainstream culture. If it's coming from the mainstream culture,
00:10:04.920how do we fix it? The mainstream isn't easy to oppress. The mainstream isn't easy to silence.
00:10:11.440The mainstream, unfortunately, has been the foundational creation of our society and culture. And the push against that is where we're starting to see this violent pushback.
00:10:26.340So we have things like taking women's rights away. And by the way, citing biblical references, which is the most asinine thing I've ever heard, which leads me to my second point. We then start seeing individuals weaponize faith and religion in order to reduce democratic institutions and applications.0.89
00:10:49.680I am in no way talking about taking away anybody's right to practice in their heart, in their homes, whatever faith that speaks to them.
00:10:59.000I am absolutely saying it has no place in policy.
00:21:43.380I am simply saying that when we point to one group as the sole cause and proprietor, as the, you know, without looking at the individual, that's when we start having and seeing and waging significant levels of violence.
00:22:05.280I would love to sit here and say that, you know, education's it.
00:22:10.080Well, what's happened in the last 20 years when it comes to education, when it comes to information, is it's all been really turned on its head.
00:22:19.660It's kind of interesting how we have the invention and the prolification of the Internet and all of this amazing access to all of this information and all of this education.
00:22:32.800And all of a sudden it was like Gutenberg printing press.
00:22:35.660You kind of uncorked the genie from the bottle.
00:22:38.140now, now go, go see all of this information. And then we're met with a lot of information
00:22:46.240that isn't supported, that is opinion, a lot of denial of information, just, just for simple
00:22:52.000denial. A lot of pretending on, you know, the mass population understands clinical and scientific
00:22:59.040studies, or they understand legal systems and mechanisms and, and they're discounting these
00:23:05.520and accepting those, it really is fascinating how the growth of knowledge on the internet
00:23:12.060has led to the questioning of all knowledge. That's no different than what would have happened
00:23:26.880invented. They start mass producing what? Number one book that was mass produced.
00:23:35.520the Bible. So the Bible gets mass-produced. And as the Bible gets mass-produced, you actually have
00:23:43.420the end of Roman Catholic control. Well, why? Because people could read it for themselves.
00:23:53.100They could read it for themselves and come up with their own determination.
00:23:56.460determination about what and again please do not take this as a as a attack on any religious
00:24:07.580principle but but now we're going to argue about the interpretation of a book and who is right and
00:24:17.220who is wrong and we're going to give somehow weight and evidence-based fact to talk about faith
00:24:25.620there's no knowledge there there's no there's no proving or disproving it's all belief but the
00:24:38.160first book that was ever mass printed and and the book and and it continues to be religion in general
00:24:44.140that we're going to fight about and we're going to use as actual fact to attempt in in history to
00:24:51.980run societies, and in this time to attempt to run societies, we are going to argue interpretation
00:24:57.280and fact based on a book that nobody can prove, that nobody can disprove. What are we doing?
00:25:08.720Is this what knowledge has become, my belief versus your belief?
00:25:13.820You know, Stephen Fry is probably one of the most impressive people to me, and I would absolutely,
00:25:18.900Maybe one day. One day I'll have the opportunity to speak to him because he's an empiricist. He's an empiricist. And what that means is he judges the outcome. Your intent doesn't really matter. Your belief doesn't really matter. What is the outcome?
00:25:40.680And if the outcome is bad, then we need to change the structure. We need to change what we've done. Our intent doesn't matter because the outcome is bad.
00:25:52.160And what I'm saying to you is the way that we're going about educating, the way we are going to about using the Internet and rising this level of division and hate and belief as a driving force about what is to be done and how it's to be done.
00:26:13.080How are you supposed to ever argue somebody out of their belief, even when it's causing harm?
00:26:17.900unless you're going to use the harm as proof of the failed belief
00:26:30.340if we just stand there and point fingers which is why i didn't i tried not to i can i can point
00:26:40.460fingers finger fingers towards certain people that have like has a really big microphone because
00:26:45.800guess what? That's a lot of power. That's a lot of power. And it's a lot of sort of focused
00:26:51.120lightning, right? So the more that you do that, and the more that you raise those kind of flags,
00:26:57.000and the more that you utilize the voice that you have in order to stoke those flames, because you
00:27:02.000know, it's going to gain you more power, you know, it's going to gain you more money. And heck,
00:27:07.940you might even believe it. But belief isn't fact, and it isn't truth.
00:27:15.020And unless we start dealing in what is, and what the ramifications are, and what we've seen
00:27:21.680happening, and what violence, and what bigotry, and what dehumanization is currently going on
00:27:28.980right now, until we can accept that as reality, that is truth, we are seeing it happen,
00:27:34.360we will never start to challenge those beliefs
00:27:39.540and we won't end or we won't calm or we won't figure out a way to exist to to
00:27:50.240galvanize education and intelligence and empathy and caring and community and all of those things
00:28:02.680If we don't learn how to galvanize that, if we don't learn how to focus on those things, we will destroy ourselves.
00:28:09.240It'll be very much a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it's not going to be happening because of that community.
00:28:13.520It's going to happen because a whole group of people decided that their lives were better yesterday.
00:28:21.200And they're looking to blame a group of people for why it's not as good today.
00:28:25.620And when somebody gives them a scapegoat, when somebody hands it to them on a silver platter and says, it's them, and you pick up your pitchforks and you go charging too, that's when we destroy ourselves.